Wrath of the Lich King

New Class

Death Knight

WOW first Hero class

 

from : Games for windows Magazine, WOWWIKI

Death Knight posts start here.

 

Death Knight as seen in WotLK trailer

 

How to unlock :

You unlock the ability to create a Death Knight by finishing a quest chain - comparable in difficulty to Warlock's epic mount quest - with any of your existing level 80 toons, at which point you can make an entirely new. wholly separate hero class toon starting somewhere close to level 60 ( exact level is undecided yet). Some ideas that are under consideration is that you start in Stratholme and you break your way out of there.

Abilities :

the plate-wearing death Knight fills a hybrid DPS / tanking role. They have no mana, rage, or energy bars; instead DK have a "rune sword" interface element beneath their health that displays six different runes of three different types : Blood, frost, and Unholy that you can mix and match whenever you are not in combat.

Different DK spells and abilities require different numbers of runes, and using a spell darkens the required runes for a set cool down time.

An ability called Army of Dead, for example, summons a small army of undead to pull aggro, and that may require one Unholy rune. Death and Decay, an AOE spell, may require one Unholy and one Blood runes.

In general, Blood anilities are damage oriented, Frost is control-oriented, and Unholy is damage over time (DOT) but that is not a hard and fast rule. According to one Blizzard designer :" We don't want to pigeonhole it to the point were when your tanking you use all Frost runes, or when your DPSing you use Blood runes...There are inherently good reasons to use a mix, and even if you have at least one rune type on the bar, you will have access to all your abilities should it become necessary."

  • Army of the Dead - Spell summons undead minions (ghouls) to fight for Death Knight. These creatures run around and attack things at random.
  • Unholy Embrace - Target is embraced by a silhouette of darkness for 6 seconds, corrupting any healing spells and effects cast upon or currently affecting the target to cause damage for 50% of their healing potential instead of restoring health. Any damage shields cast upon or currently affecting the target will also be instantly consumed, dealing 50% of their absorption potential in damage. Once afflicted with Unholy Embrace, the target cannot be afflicted with Unholy Embrace again for 1 minute.
  • Death and Decay - An area-of-effect damage spell.
  • Blood Boil - A damage-over-time ability that after the duration refreshes two of your blood runes.
  • Death Coil ?

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    Races :

    According to a panel at BlizzCon 2007, the Death Knight is planned to be available to every race at this time, though the list may change further on in development. This has been confirmed at the Leipzig Games Convention 2007, reasoning that is possible for all races can be tempted by a darker path and led to despair.

     

    Miscellanous info :

    • The death knight combines martial prowess with dark, necromantic energies.
    • Designed to fulfill both tanking and DPS roles.
    • Can tank without a shield, using two-handed weapons or dual-wielding. Death Knights cannot use shields.
    • May only use bladed weapons, currently 1H and 2H swords and axes.
    • The term, "Hero Class", may be misleading, causing some players to believe Death Knights will be overpowered. Blizzard has stated on announcing the Death Knight that they will be of similar strength and value to existing classes.

     

    Posted by: Author
    1:00PM 01/02/07