Wrath of the Lich King Preview Round Up

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Wrath of the Lich King Preview Round Up

Fri, May 9, 2008

The folks at MMO Champion have done all of the World of Warcraft nerds of the world a great service. They have gathered together all the delicious little factoids about Wrath of the Lich King and put it together in one convenient location. For those of you who are not currently enthrall to that wicked demon lord known as Blizzard, you may wish to avert your gaze, but for those who love to wallow in the details of the Northrend expansion, read on!

The most exciting details for me, personally, concern the Death Knight. Now, I know that pretty much everybody and their mom will roll a Death Knight as soon as the expansion comes out, but I just can't stop the winds of exhilaration that fills the sails of my tattered soul when I imagine a brand new hybrid tanking class. As a Holy Priest, I have long coveted the power and beauty of the Prot Paladin. And now, I'll be able to enjoy some of that power but with new, insideously corrupt abilities! And without having to level up to level 55 too. Have a look:

Death Knights

All players with a level 55 character will be able to create one Death Knight per realm, per account. (Gamespy.com)

Blizzard's designers decided to start the class with a full complement of abilities right off the bat, figuring that any player that has advanced a character to level 55 would be able to learn to handle the new class with minimal difficulty. (Gamespy.com)

Death Knights will have a summonable Skeletal Deatcharger Mount. (Gamespy.com)

Death Knights aren't using Mana or Energy, the runes are their primary source of power and are slotted into their "blade," which lies underneath their health bar as a visual indicator of what resources are available to the player at any given moment. (Gamespy.com)

Spent runes automatically refresh after a set period of time, much like a Rogue's energy bar. (Gamespy.com)

There are six slots in the blade, and the player is free to fill those slots with any given number of Blood, Unholy or Frost runes. (Gamespy.com)

Death Knights also have a secondary resource called Runic Power generated by using your rune abilities. It will use the same mechanics as rage and increase when you deal damage, or slowly decrease if you're not using it. (Gamespy.com)

Death Knights will have a lot of abilities that cost all available Runic Power with varying levels of effectiveness based on total Runic Power spent. (Same mechanics as Execute for warriors, or finishing moves for Rogues) (Gamespy.com)

Death Knights will have spells equivalent to auras called "Presence", providing them with powerful self-buffs depending on their role in the group. (One for tanking, one for damage dealing, etc ...) (Gamespy.com)

An instant lifedrain spell (described as death coil without the fear component) will be available. (Gamespy.com)

Death Knights will be the first class to use diseases as a source of damage, with abilities that become strong depending on how many diseases are already applied to the target. (Gamespy.com)

"Army of the Dead" will spawn numerous undead minions to attack nearby hostiles targets. (Gamespy.com)

Death Knights will also revive an enemy (or ally) as a ghoul to use it as a pet with its own special abilities like a disease-inflicting strike and a stun. (Gamespy.com)

When an ally is risen as a ghoul, a pop-up will appear and this ally will have the choice to control the ghoul if he wants to. (Gamespy.com)

The Death Knight's particular niche will be in tanking magic-damage-dealing bosses. They will have an ability much like a banshee's anti-magic shell, greatly diminishing the amount of incoming magic damage they'll receive in combat (Gamespy.com)

Honestly, who doesn't want to be able to revive enemies as ghouls and use them as temporary meat shields? This class is some divine combination of the Death Knight and Frost Lich hero classes from Warcraft III. Absolutely amazing. I'm not entirely sure how all of the Runic Power stuff is going to work out, but I trust Blizzard to make it all kinds of awesome. I'm sure there will be all sorts of balancing issues. All I know is that I'll be able to have a toon for healing and a toon for tanking in short order.

Another great chunk of details comes from the information gathered by GameSpy about raids in the expansion:

Raids & Dungeons

All raid dungeons in Wrath of the Lich King will have both 10-person and 25-person versions. So at level 80, every major encounter and every big boss fight can be experienced with a group of 10. (Gamespy.com)

25-person raiding progression is not dependent on 10-person raiding progression. (Gamespy.com)

There will be no attunements or keys to obtain, and you won't be locked out of a 25-person instance if you decide to attempt the 10-person version, and vice-versa. (Gamespy.com)

25-person raids will earn more, higher-level rewards, in what should be the equivalent of one "tier" of loot quality. (Gamespy.com)

A new instance focused on the different dragonflights "The Chamber of Aspects" might be added to the game, but this isn't confirmed yet. (Gamespy.com)

Zero raid bosses have been designed at this point. (Gamespy.com)

As someone with a small guild of just about 15 players, the ability to go through all of the encounters without resorting to PUGs. It's rather irrelevant for a semi-casual player like me that the 25-person raids have better gear. I just want to be able to kill Arthas, which supposedly will not happen until the final patch of WotLK.
And for you inscription enthusiasts, a few details to get your heart a-fluttering:

Inscription

Inscribers will create glyphs that allow players to modify their spells and abilities. (Eurogamer.net)

Going by the first recipe, which requires Peacebloom, they'll rely on the herbalist gathering profession. (Eurogamer.net)

Every player will get a new spell book page to which they can add six glyphs - currently, four major and two minor. (Eurogamer.net)

Major glyphs will be effective in combat - adding damage over time or stun to a physical attack, for example - while minor glyphs will give convenient or cosmetic improvements, removing the need for some spell reagents. (Eurogamer.net)

Glyphs can be sold at the Auction House (Eurogamer.net)