Our Final Stand - Death Knights in BFA

[deviantcultist]

When did that happen? Because of that one singular talent?

Blighted Rune Weapon has a new animation with purple aura and purple runes.
Applying diseases is also purple now.
Clawing Shadows is a shadowy energy slash.
New Apocalypse is soul/shadow based instead of the greenish animation from Legion.

All these things are new and if you add them up, it eliminated the green part of the kit in favor of a full purple/shadowy set of auras/abilities.

As for the Lich King retcon I mentioned. It basically implies that Lich King had a plan against the Void that was comparable to Illidan's "plan" against the Legion.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Blighted Rune Weapon has a new animation with purple aura and purple runes.
Applying diseases is also purple now.
Clawing Shadows is a shadowy energy slash.
New Apocalypse is soul/shadow based instead of the greenish animation from Legion.

All these things are new and if you add them up, it eliminated the green part of the kit in favor of a full purple/shadowy set of auras/abilities.

As for the Lich King retcon I mentioned. It basically implies that Lich King had a plan against the Void that was comparable to Illidan's "plan" against the Legion.

The outbreak animation is so tiny, I didn't even notice it.
Same for the Clawing Shadow animation, its bit of purple glow around your weapon.

Apo does have green lightning and green runes & smoke for me in beta. AotD does purple lightning, but that has always been the case.

While there might be a tiny amount more purple, I think you exaggerate quite a bit here, even if wounds are now purple mist, they are still themed as infected wounds. Overall not very shadowy imho.

[deviantcultist]

While there might be a tiny amount more purple, I think you exaggerate quite a bit here, even if wounds are now purple mist, they are still themed as infected wounds. Overall not very shadowy imho.

I think you might be right, we need to wait and see if there is more. However, keep in mind that the whole point I made was a bit of a personal/subjective thing of mine.

[Ophenia]

About every 2H frost post - Why do you want to go back to share weapons with the largest weapon group? The 1handed market is quite smaller, seeing as you got WW, Enhancement and Outlaw in there as your only competition, compared to Unholy, Arms, Fury (Who need two weapons), Retribution, and Feral/Survival to an extent with polearms.

I don't know what the itemization looks like in Beta, but if they go on with "everything has all stats !", then one-handed swords are also shared with Mages and Warlocks (and HPal ? I think), one-handed maces with literally the whole planet...

[Reydan]

No, it really does fit. Calm down though, no one is going to take 2h away from you, Blizzard fucked this one up for the ages and it won't change any time soon. But if we go back and look at the specs, nothing about unholy screams using powerfull 2h weapons. Heck even arthas technically used a bastard sword and not an actual 2h sword. The spec is fast paced, most of the damage comes from minions, dots or magic attacks. Even the artifact weapon is more a magic slab of metal than an actual sword. The spec is closer to a diablo3 necromancer than arthas ever was. Even back in Wotlk DW unholy was a popular thing, because the dw talents were easy to grab and DW has the problem that it almost always overshadows 2h gameplay (warrior, shaman w/o windfury, dk) because of the terrible systems blizzard has in place.

I wouldn't mind if Blizzard make a range spec for Death Knight's. Having a Tank/RangeDPS/MeleeDPS as options would be nice, don't know how balancing will take place tho. People seem to be wanting a necromancers class, which in a way Death Knight's are. I wouldn't mind if they revamp unholy for a range/summoner DPS spec with diseases and summoning ghouls/skeletons capable of enhancing them. Thus making frost a 2handed melee dps spec.

[therealbowser]

Okay, couple things:

The Kul'Tirans were active participants in the Third War on the Alliance side. There is no reason atall that they couldn't be added into the existing DK intro story the same way Goblins and Worgen were added in Cataclysm.

Why, though? In order for this to happen, they would be rejoining the Alliance that they had left, they would literally be the only Kul Tirans in the Alliance, where as the Worgen and Goblins could at least join during the later end of the war as they just started joining the factions... in theory.

Dark Iron Dwarves and Zandalari are somewhat more nebulous, but certainly justifiable - at least as much so as Goblins and far more than Worgen. Both races were most definitely around and active in Scourge-affected areas, even if they weren't marshaling armies.

Zandalari could be death knights. Just like that single pandaren death knight that was technically possible. The question is, are there enough to justify a race? Why would a Zandalari death knight join the Horde that they are currently aggressive against? Why would Dark Irons join the Alliance that, until the forming of the council of Three Hammer, were hostile to them?

As for Void Elves, it is the literal biggest plot hole introduced so far in BFA that they can't be every class that Blood Elves can be. Void Elves are Blood Elf exiles who dabbled in the void and were kicked out of Silvermoon by Rommath very, very recently by the way the story is framed. It's a new development worth mentioning to Alleria Windrunner after she returns to Azeroth from the Argus campaign. There is absolutely no plot reason whatsoever that some of those exiles couldn't have been Death Knights or Demon Hunters. It's 100% because of the heritage armor grind.

You may be right, but Blizzard could easily fix that by making it so death knights and demon hunters don't give access to heritage armor. Easy solution. No, the problem is they can't fit them into the death knight/demon hunter story. Fortunately, there's a simple solution to that, as well... make them skip the starting zones entirely. Blizzard doesn't want to do this, and likely already considered it. They may still be considering it for future content.

See, a void elf death knight would be a void elf that was a death knight while they were a blood elf, not that the void elf became a death knight. Same for demon hunters. Nightborne would not be a huge stretch of being taught to be demon hunters. However, the customization to do this -- especially for nightborne -- would be significant, but no worse than, say, Kul Tiran or Zandalari druids.

As for void elves being every race blood elves can, this is wrong. They shouldn't be able to be paladins, no matter how badly you think it could fit, there is no reason why paladins would be studying void magic. Blood elves deserve to have something that separates them, and this class does that just fine. They could have excluded monks, too, but I'm okay with their inclusion.

The bloviating about faction-class balance being unfair to the Horde is nothing short of ridiculous. The horde has, currently, a 3-2 advantage on Druids, which will be 4-3 after Zandalari and Kul'Tirans are added, and a 6-3 advantage on Shaman, which will be 8-4 after Mag'har, Zandalari, and Dark Irons are added. That more than compensates for the Alliance having class advantage on exactly one hybrid, Paladins, which of the three is the one that gets the least racial customization.

The druid advantage and whatever else really doesn't matter that much. Class totals should probably be balanced if possible, but it's more important that variety be available. Unless/until Zandalari get paladins, as it is right now they literally have only two options for paladins, and one of those options is the only race that can be demon hunters, meaning that if we do indeed see 12 total races (including allied races), and a player wants to have 1 of every race and 1 of every class, their paladin must be tauren and their demon hunter must be blood elf. Alliance by comparison, thanks to kul tiran druids, can pick either kul tirans or worgen for their druid under this same pretense (instead of being forced to have worgen druids in addition to night elf demon hunters).

In short, I think hero classes could benefit these allied races but I think they are being removed because, for instance, Alliance races make far more sense than Horde races for death knights and it would be unfair to give more to one side than the other, especially when they are a stretch even for that faction. They could make heritage armor not apply to these classes, so that's not why they didn't choose them. It would require special work and special exceptions for them to be playable, and they likely feel it's not worth it.

I'd like to see demon hunters more than death knights (as there is only one option per faction for demon hunters right now, and as we add more allied races choices become more limited if you want to play anything without extra characters per faction), so I'd support that over death knights in a heartbeat, especially when void elves and nightborne are practically begging to be added. But it is what it is, I guess.

As far as fairness goes, my limited math shows the Alliance having more classes and more options than the Horde does, but we'll see how it all plays out.

[Letdown]

Well, I am going to take a tonal shift here. I think the Death Knight restrictions are somewhat arbitrary. Blizzard seems pretty damn inconsistent about what our player character is in terms of significance of population, for starters. Secondly, I don't like the timelocked starting zone argument because the constant "Deathwing" mentions (and sometimes mentions to Warchief Garrosh, etc.) in the vanilla leveling zones (you know, the leveling zones you HAVE to do) already break the timeline immersion. Orgrimmar exists in a post-Legion state, but Durotar is in Cataclysm, etc.

The whole thing is a mess.

I think, truthfully, Blizzard needs to go back and re-write some of those quests and dialogue. Give each zone its own narrative to satisfy without being tied into the immediacy of the latest expansion. Let any immediate expansion tie ins come in the form of phased/instanced content.

This includes Death Knights. Re-do their starting experience -- you really don't have to change a ton, honestly.

At least some of the allied races should get to be Death Knights. Goblin/Worgen monks should be a thing. At least slightly open up DHs too -- make it a new generation of DHs, that's fine -- because I don't want to be a damn blood elf.

Same thing with Horde paladins, we get the grand choices of Blood Elf (blech!) or Tauren (who have VERY few good looking plate mogs, particularly paladin themed).

[The Stormbringer]

Let me just highlight something from my post so it maybe goes through your fucking head, lol

A VE DK does not make sense, lol.
Not until there's a new generation of DKs trained by Bolvar's Scourge (A new starting zone for DKs)

That was my suggestion. Which went totally over your head. Essentially, I said we'd need a new starting zone first, rather than shoehorning in races that were never around for the lore-heavy end event at the end of the DK starting zone.

Skipping a hero class's starting zone is a bit redundant, no? Especially since they'll have all those abilities right off the bat without any sort of introduction to them? As well as removing the whole epic feel to, you know, a hero class?
Remove the DH intro and what are you? Just some blind bozo who mumbles about demons. No epic build up to what your character is.

- - - Updated - - -

Agreed. I hate using these dinky little letter openers.

I disagree, I don't think we need a new starting zone, we just leave the starting zone as it is for the races that were there before. I would preface that you have to have a max level DK in order to make a DK with an Allied Race, and that DK's of an Allied Race are ineligible to earn Heritage Armor. That's why I think skipping the intro zone is fine, because most of us have done it already, and some of us have done it dozens of times.

Oh, and I guess this would qualify for non-Allied Race races like Pandaren as well.

[Alextros]

I don't know what the itemization looks like in Beta, but if they go on with "everything has all stats !", then one-handed swords are also shared with Mages and Warlocks (and HPal ? I think), one-handed maces with literally the whole planet...

Wouldn't work all too much, since the caster weapons has a shitton more intellect. The stat sharing was there in WoD, and they still didn't share.

[Stardrift]

I disagree, I don't think we need a new starting zone, we just leave the starting zone as it is for the races that were there before. I would preface that you have to have a max level DK in order to make a DK with an Allied Race, and that DK's of an Allied Race are ineligible to earn Heritage Armor. That's why I think skipping the intro zone is fine, because most of us have done it already, and some of us have done it dozens of times.

Oh, and I guess this would qualify for non-Allied Race races like Pandaren as well.

Only reason why we want it skipped is because it's genuinely a bad experience now compared to today's standards. The experience is older than the cata revamp quests.
A new starting zone for DKs would provide a new experience for people to check out, as well as new lore, and a way to properly give DKs allied races. Would it not make sense especially if implemented in the eventual expansion where Bolvar plays another role?

[The Stormbringer]

Only reason why we want it skipped is because it's genuinely a bad experience now compared to today's standards. The experience is older than the cata revamp quests.
A new starting zone for DKs would provide a new experience for people to check out, as well as new lore, and a way to properly give DKs allied races. Would it not make sense especially if implemented in the eventual expansion where Bolvar plays another role?

If Bolvar is going to play a big part in a new expansion, I can see it happening. Otherwise, I can't. Blizzard has shown time and time again they don't like revamping old content and consider the time and effort spent on Cata to be less than a success.

Hell, the Exodar and Silvermoon have been around long enough to deserve revamps, but they've already said they don't intend on doing so.

[Cosmic Janitor]

death knights are not giving diseases by spitting on their blade and hoping for blood infection to kick in, wtf i dont even.

do you even read what you wrote?

This might be the bizzarest thing i read to justify "class fantasy"

That was how the shadow disease worked though, only the frost one was ranged. They changed that when they took away the 2nd disease and gave both dps specs the outbreak talent baseline.

[Saverem]

Dear World of Warcraft Development team,

Being a long time Death Knight and WoW player in general myself and other fellow DKs have a variety of concerns going into BFA that have yet to be addressed. These aren't new issues that have recently surfaced but ones that have been discussed time and time with to no avail, despite our constant communication and various posts via MMO-Champ, Reddit, and these official forums.
---

Shafted on New Races Every Expansion
We are no longer the 'new' flavor of the month class, we have been in this game going on over a decade now but still it seems whenever there are new races added to the game Death Knights are always forgotten.

No one is asking for every race to be able to roll every class but there are certainly good cases to be made for some of the Allied Races especially Void Elves, Dark Iron Dwarfs, and Zandalari Trolls. Truth be told there is absolutely nothing from a LORE perspective that is stopping any of these new races from being raised as Death Knights or even Pandaren. Before you could argue that the Pandaren were hidden away on Pandaria during Arthas' terror, but what about now since we have been raising new armies of DKs for the entirety of Legion? What is stopping us from taking one of these new dead Void Elvs and turning them into a DK knight before our Artifacts are stripped? You can even find a Pandaren DK follower that was added in during Warlords of Draenor.

http://www.wowhead.com/follower=239.2/gravewalker-gie

Yes, Death Knights have a unique starting zone that requires them to start at level 55 thus giving them a huge head start on earning heritage armor; however the most simple solution is just to make them eneligible to obtain them and most earn them on another class. For example I've already taken the liberty of earning the Void Elf HA so in theory if they ever allowed VE to be DK's I could then use that on my DK.

Blizzard please, I beg you. Please do the right thing and just allow us Death Knights to roll new Allied Races. I want to be a Void Elf DK so bad, it make sense, and as a loyal DK for 10 years I've earned it.

2H Frost
I can't even begin to explain the overwhelming amount of support I've seen on various sites begging you guys to bring back two handed frost. This is one of the most iconic specs in all of World of Warcraft and it just doesn't feel right making it restricted to DW only. For me personally I have absolutely zero interest in playing unholy, that specialization is not fun and doesn't fulfill my fantasy choice.

Arthas wielded a '2H' weapon called 'Frost'mourne. We are his raised forces made in his image, and last time I checked Arthas did not dual wield. Now that artifact weapons are going away, why do we still have to be pigeon held into use 1-handers...no wants like it!

If properly balancing 2H frost vs 1H frost is the main concern then at least for goodness sake then at least give us a Glyph or something that allows us to change the appearance into a 2H weapon. All of Legion I had to transmogg my stupid artifact weapon because these giant lame swords wouldn't sheathe on the back and it looked awful. We want the giant 2H badass axe!
---

Thank you for your time.

You know a class is OP in an expansion when the only crying involves flavor/aesthetic changes to the class...

I WISH I could complain about lack of race and weapon choices for my Monk, but I have actual grievances to cry about like how BrM is literally garbage in BfA right now compared to every other tank.

[Ophenia]

Wouldn't work all too much, since the caster weapons has a shitton more intellect. The stat sharing was there in WoD, and they still didn't share.

Argus' weapons (blues currently lvl 880, 180 in BfA) do

http://bfa.wowhead.com/item=153294/s...blade?ilvl=180
http://bfa.wowhead.com/item=153298/m...sword?ilvl=180

[Evilfish]

It's actually not that bad. I mean in Legion I got to feel like a DK again, something that hasn't happened since WOTLK and not only that but we got, arguably, the best class hall story in Legion.

Now I agree that they could just add a damned glyph to make DW look like 2H and that would probably please everyone.

[Stardrift]

If Bolvar is going to play a big part in a new expansion, I can see it happening. Otherwise, I can't. Blizzard has shown time and time again they don't like revamping old content and consider the time and effort spent on Cata to be less than a success.

Hell, the Exodar and Silvermoon have been around long enough to deserve revamps, but they've already said they don't intend on doing so.

Who's to say Bolvar's full return would require a revamp?

[The Stormbringer]

Who's to say Bolvar's full return would require a revamp?

Of the starting zone? Or even giving them a new one? I thought that's what you were saying they should do.

[Baroclinic]

Sheewsh, we spent 10 years of Death Knights devoid of any lore short of Thrassian running off after the Banshee Queen... getting maybe the best Class Hall quest line, the most badass class mount, and some of the best artifacts... and we still have this thread crying DKs didn't get enough.

I'm just pissed still at the loss of corpse explosion. Sure it was a waste of a point, but it was fun af. And my spell copy for PvE bosses...

[denisgsv]

has Ion almost hinted that its a "No" now but "in future maybe" this with bolvar sister and other undead business going on its easy to speculate next expansion will be focused on undead ... and we might get new dk race combos ?

[8bithamster]

"I've been playing a game for 10 years, I earned this"

The summary of the average player nowadays. "I have earned this! So blizzard you shall bend to my will!"