Wrath of the Lich King Beta Review

Mmkay. I'm going to add to this as I play more and more through the content as I can, but so far I have this to say:

Wrath of the Lich King will be GOOD. Seriously.

And if you have any questions or anything like that, please post them in this thread so I can answer them and everyone can see the fruits of my lucky wisdom!



So far I've only played with the Death Knight content, and as of right now, be prepared to do a lot of running around; now, Blizzard's helped us out with this. You get an ability that lets you run faster in the starting citadel and one of the first actual quest-quests yields you your 100% speed increase mount. You do start at level 55, however you have no talent points. As you progress through the content, quests will yield not only item and cash rewards but extra talent points, as well, to get you back up to par.

The environments are absolutely beautiful and the destroyed ones have that creepy sort of beauty going on. You can really feel the TLC that Blizzard's put into our new expansion.

Now, as I've said, I've only really played with the Death Knight class, and so far this is my experience with it: Think a Warlock. With a big fucking stick. That's how it plays and it's a load of fun. You're a plate-wearer so you're very durable, and you have more than a few ways to initiate pulls and spam lots of damage. The specs aren't entirely 100% clear-cut, either - for instance, I'm building my character, Vinaye the Awakened, as a dual-tree with Blood and Frost because those two have the most contribution to tanking ability - whether it be by spamming damage or increasing survivability. Each spec will allow for DPS of ridiculous amounts so it's going to be a little less cut-and-dry than most of the other melee classes out there. All-in-all, though, I really like the class. My only complaint is the fact that I have to earn my talent points, but I suppose I didn't have to earn my starting gear or starting level so it all comes out in the wash.



https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Nealith/WoWScrnShot_072308_170929.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Nealith/WoWScrnShot_072408_154211.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Nealith/WoWScrnShot_072408_154158.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Nealith/WoWScrnShot_072408_154137.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Nealith/WoWScrnShot_072408_154129.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Nealith/WoWScrnShot_072408_153849.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Nealith/WoWScrnShot_072408_153838.jpg

What kind of stats do you start out with? Mainly just curious about mana/health/intellect, but I'm curious as to how opted Death Knights will be towards endurance tanking.

I didn't pay too much to the starting gear but your strength is ridiculously high. And you have a pretty good crit rating right from the start. For endurance tanking, that's a bit out of my field but I've got Vinaye set up to have a really high parry rating which helps, I think, for endurance tanking. It really all depends on how you want to lay out your talents.

One thing to remember: Most of the Death Knight's abilities are affected by attack power and not +spell damage.

Nealith wrote:

One thing to remember: Most of the Death Knight's abilities are affected by attack power and now +spell damage.

Does strength or agility feed into +spell damage at all for death knights? In short, might they rely more on Warrior-type gear or on Paladin-type gear? (Curious since they don't seem to have any need at all for +int, and I doubt they'd create new Deathknight-specific stat distributions on non-tier gear)

I don't know if it changes your question at all, but I typo'd when it said "now +spell damage." "Now" was meant to be "not." Now, not being very familiar with melee clases I need you to tell me that. Does your strength have any impact on attack power? If yes, then yes it does have an effect on your abilities; if not then no it doesn't. As for Agility, I don't think so, since Agi is just crit, isn't it?

Saying that it's based on attack power instead of spell damage clarifies things pretty well, and is what I was hoping Blizzard would do.

To answer your question, attack power is 2AP/1Str for warriors, 1AP/1Str and 2AP/1Agi for rogues. I'm not sure what the ratio is for hunters, shaman, and paladins (I know hunters used to be 2 ranged attack power per agility, but I believe this was changed).

New screenshots. Enjoy!

They changed the way Runeblades look! About Effin' Time!

Typhron wrote:

They changed the way Runeblades look! About Effin' Time!

Damn you, now I wanna see! They're blocked at work (a lot of stuff is, which is why I'm always posting here).

Nealith - it seems that Frost is going to be the dual-wielding spec. Do you have any experience dual-wielding with a DK, or seen anybody doing it? What spec are you, and will you change it up frequently to try different specs?

(I'm still really, really hoping they remove the Blood rune requirement from Plague Strike, so I can play a Frost/Unholy spec wit 4 Frost runes and 2 Unholy runes - the way abilities and talents are set up, it seems difficult to make a DPS spec that is primarily Frost.)

Hey Asc, could you explain the rune system a little bit? Like, are there ways to effect the regen timers for them? Do they have effectable timers?

Typhron: Yes. And it looks freakin' amazing. You also have the Runeforging ability you gain as soon as you get your first Rune Blade (Which is about five minutes after the opening cinematic) which allows you to give it a slight enchantment of your own. It's pretty awesome, and that's why my blade glows red.

Zed: I haven't really seen anyone dual-wielding just yet. However, I just got out of the opening area and I haven't had a chance to explore the "world proper" yet with him. As far as what spec I'm playing, as of right now I'm Blood/Frost. I plan to have Vinaye be a tank when the game launches fully so I want to develop the spec now and test out the viability of his being a main tank or being an off tank. However, if they do wipe the servers and make us start over (they said it was possible in the Terms of Usage) then I'll probably go another spec. Frost, it seems, is more about CC and slowing/delaying the target; Unholy seems to be the DPS proper tree. Plague Strike likely isn't going to be changed but it's still possible it will. Considering I haven't seen a whole lot of diseases in Frost it's very likely that you'll do just fine without it if that's your spec of choice.

Sulgar: The rune system is actually pretty simple. As of right now I've seen three abilities: Ones that require nothing (the pull//taunt the Death Knight has that I've seen), ones that require Runic Energy which is gained through using abilities that require runes, and then rune abilities themselves. Now, I haven't been timing them (sorry) but how it works is once you've used an ability that requires a rune or runes the appropriate runes dim out and go into a recharge cycle. It's pretty short - maybe about 20s give or take? - and then they pop back to life and you can use abilities again. I haven't seen the option of adjusting my rune count yet but I also haven't really looked.

I'm pretty sure they've changed their mind on allowing you to alter your rune composition, 'cause balancing for it would take ages. That's what I've read on the Beta Forums at least.

Nealith wrote:

Typhron: Yes. And it looks freakin' amazing. You also have the Runeforging ability you gain as soon as you get your first Rune Blade (Which is about five minutes after the opening cinematic) which allows you to give it a slight enchantment of your own. It's pretty awesome, and that's why my blade glows red.

Zed: I haven't really seen anyone dual-wielding just yet. However, I just got out of the opening area and I haven't had a chance to explore the "world proper" yet with him. As far as what spec I'm playing, as of right now I'm Blood/Frost. I plan to have Vinaye be a tank when the game launches fully so I want to develop the spec now and test out the viability of his being a main tank or being an off tank. However, if they do wipe the servers and make us start over (they said it was possible in the Terms of Usage) then I'll probably go another spec. Frost, it seems, is more about CC and slowing/delaying the target; Unholy seems to be the DPS proper tree. Plague Strike likely isn't going to be changed but it's still possible it will. Considering I haven't seen a whole lot of diseases in Frost it's very likely that you'll do just fine without it if that's your spec of choice.

Sulgar: The rune system is actually pretty simple. As of right now I've seen three abilities: Ones that require nothing (the pull//taunt the Death Knight has that I've seen), ones that require Runic Energy which is gained through using abilities that require runes, and then rune abilities themselves. Now, I haven't been timing them (sorry) but how it works is once you've used an ability that requires a rune or runes the appropriate runes dim out and go into a recharge cycle. It's pretty short - maybe about 20s give or take? - and then they pop back to life and you can use abilities again. I haven't seen the option of adjusting my rune count yet but I also haven't really looked.

Typh: You suck! How dARE you answer questions and attempt to Hijack this thing!

Zarano: Frost is the Tanking spec, but is filled with so many things for combat as well. being able to help frost mages in killinating with added frost damage procs and thier own Frostbite talent. Unholy are for ubering diseases and making their tricks more trickier, adding Shadow damage to melee, anti-spell abilities, and better summons to the field, also helpign those that dabble in the use of Shadow Damage. Blood is Retribution, so that looks to be something more combat oriented. HOWEVER I believe Blizzard has made it so that Death Knights will, more often then not, spec into other trees to become really efficient rather then be somewhat pure like other classes. Things seemed to have changed alot since the Alpha...

Sulgarosh: Runes can be considered be thought of an eventful Energy. You can pic which ones to where, which will dictate which abilties to use, coming back after a few seconds. (Was 10 in the Alpha, might've changed). Using Runes charges a gauge similiar to the Warrior rage meter, being Runic power. When Runic power is at max the Death Knight strides more damage, making it hard to use for abilities such as Deathcoil and Dancing Rune Blade Weapon. However, like I said before this might've changed.

Eskanra: Rune Forging is different then applying runes to your weapon and character. Runeforging is, pretty much, placing an enchant on a rune selective only to a Death Knight, Like Rogue Poison. At least, I HOPE it's like that.

If not I already know a good Rune spec for a Death Knight. .

Asc: *old man voice* In MY day we didn't hAVE Rune forging, and most of OUR abilities didn't work! And the old Rune Blade didn't glow like it was some sort of prop in a light show!

I'm really hating losing those Screenshots I took in the Alpha to show you what I meant. On the plus, +25% Shadow damge to weapon=BIG improvement from what it was before.

Actually, Typhron, to be honest I don't see Frost as the major tanking spec anymore. I do have 15 poiints in it, but 5 are to get me to the second tier and because the third ability is badass. Frost does have Endurance or whatever it's called that increases your armor value, but beyond that not a whole lot. Blood seems to be more focused to it, helping you to generate Runic abilities and create life-restoring effects to help generate more and more aggro to keep the mobs on you.

That so? Cause you can't use your Runic power to heal yourself as far as I know. Blood Runes, yes. Runic power no :/

You're very correct. But there's a couple talents that allow you to regain certain amounts of health when you kill something, as well as gaining life drain from your attacks. Plus, yes, there's your Blood Rune Tap which allows you to convert your Blood Runes into health.

I always thought Blood Rune tap would be a waste since, while in Blood Pressence, you're killiniating the enemy with your attacks.

And those other moves I never took because I'm not too fond of "On death" moves.

Yeah, I can agree with you to a point there. I just need to figure out if it's an "if you get THE killing blow" or if it's just one that matters if I'm killing or not. I shall have to research.

Most of them are killing blow, while only two I can think of are dying under your diseases and not being the killing blow, both being in Blood. One's a useful PVP ability and the other is just fun on a bun.

I will be very sad if they remove being able to swap which runes you have.

Frost spec has a bottom-tier talent that increases frost damage for every disease on the target, or something like that. There is also a Frost thing that consumes diseases I believe - can't confirm this cuz I'm at work. They have these in the Frost tree, yet make it difficult to arrange Runes to be Frost-heavy and apply diseases (Plague Strike being the prime disease-stacking ability).

I do not believe that Frost is a tank spec - all the trees seem to have tanking abilities spread out fairly evenly among them. Obviously, no matter what, you will be in Frost Presence while tanking for the aggro buff, but the Presences really don't seem too specific to specs (other than the high-tier Improved Presence talent in each tree). I, too, do not like the 'on kill' talents, though these make Blood seem to be the solo leveling spec.

In my opinion, Blood is the 2h/leveling spec (talents/abilities based on weapon damage, small self-heals for continuous grinding), Frost is the dual wield/utility spec (talents that enhance spells based on melee crit or say in the tooltip they only work for dual wielding), and Unholy is the summoning/caster-heavy spec (likely the highest DPS, but I haven't done much analysis of Unholy). I don't know which will be best PvP spec - they may all be useful in PvP, just with slightly different play styles. They all seem capable of DPS and tanking, with different play styles and benefits with each.

Also, Frost seems to buff Runic Power abilities by increasing the Runic Power per Rune ability and making a Runic Power ability perform like it has 10% more Runic Power than you really do. Doesn't Deathcoil heal the Deathknight?

Whoever was asking about Rune timers, there is a talent in each tree that has a chance of reducing the refresh time of that type of Rune (50% chance Frost Runes will refresh in 2 sec, or something like that). I believe the standard refresh is ~6 sec, but it might be even shorter. This was the last time I checked many weeks ago - could have changed.

My spec will be 0/51/20 (about), with disease and ghoul buffs in Unholy and mostly damage abilities in Frost (as well as some that slow enemy's swing speed, but none that slow enemy's movement). 4 Frost/2 Unholy runes. From what I've seen, this isn't something commonly done (probably cuz Plague Strike, the staple Unholy ability that places a disease on the target; diseases = damage buffs with the right talents, but it takes a blood rune!), but it's what I wanted to try out. If I have to, I'll try this spec with 1 Blood/3 Frost/2 Unholy (need 2 unholy to summon ghoul), or modify it to not buff ghouls and have 1 Blood/4 Frost/1 Unholy.

Questions: Exactly what kind of weapon enchants do you get for Runifying your weapon? Can you find out if each weapon can be enchanted while dual wielding? Is Runification a temporary buff (if not, can you change the enchant later)? Does it take the same slot as an Enchanting weapon enchant or a temporary weapon enchant (poison, sharpening stones, current Shaman weapon buffs)?

Zed: As for Runeforging, I don't know what slot it takes. I haven't had the opportunity to try it out with an Enchanter just yet. I'll try to find out for you tomorrow, since that's when I'm putting s'more time in with the beta.

Don't want to make a new thread for this, but there is a new Beta patch, official and undocumented notes at www.mmo-champion.com

Big things:
- DK get a skeletal griphon flying mount which automatically goes faster when the DK gets a higher riding skill (don't have to spend money on a new mount). Personally, I think it's ugly and unless they coolify it for epic flying, I won't get one.

- Mounts and non-combat pets will now be spells instead of skills; the only difference is they will no longer take up bag room

- There is a 'tokens' tab in the character window. Not yet sure what this is - possibly tokens (PvE badges, BG badges, or both and more) will go here instead of into your bags in the same manner that keys have their own space. Check on this, Nealith!

- Dalaran sells rings (for near 8000g) that among epic stats act as seperate Dalaran-only Hearthstones

- Class changes (cept warrior), list of Druid inscriptions

With the addition of a Blood Strike talent into Frost (changes blood rune to a death rune) I may focus Frost/Blood instead of Frost/Unholy, particularly picking up the melee crit talent in Blood. Thinking of using this Death Rune mechanic as a way to use Plague Strike (putting points into the talents increasing damage if diseases are applied) but I'm wary of adding more abilities to my attack rotation (hard to see if this will work or not until I can try it myself). Still hoping to do a Frost DPS spec, (Frost Strike changed to instant instead of next swing - does weapon damage + x as Frost damage, means no armor mitigation), but we'll see what I'm able to come up with.

edit: I realize now that I can do Frost/Unholy with Degenerate instead of Plague Strike to apply diseases, but too many abilities (including Degenerate, Frost Strike, and Obliterate) are based on weapon damage, heavily favoring slow 2h weapons instead of dual wielding. Here is my tentative spec with 4 Frost, 1 Blood, 1 Unholy runes:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?deathknight=203320500000000000000000000533050513051000000130500100020035000500000000000000000000

I am considering moving points out of Frostbite and Killing Machine in Frost and moving them to Runic Power Mastery and Chill of the Grave (emphasizing runic power abilities, Killing Machine not as good with slow 2h weapon cuz less swings = less crits / time)

This:

Glyph of the Penguin - Empowers a Minor Glyph to cause your Polymorph: Sheep spell to turn the target into a baby penguin.

-makes me squeal with joy!

Aellynne wrote:

This:

Glyph of the Penguin - Empowers a Minor Glyph to cause your Polymorph: Sheep spell to turn the target into a baby penguin.

-makes me squeal with joy!

I figured some of you ladies would like that. I wonder what they can possibly do for aesthetic effects of warrior and rogue abilities... Those should be fun to see. I've heard this is how Warlocks will finally get their much-desired Green Fire. (if you haven't heard, each char has 2 major, 2 mid, 2 minor 'glyph' slots for inscribing - minor glyphs are purely visual and do not impact game mechanics).

*crosses fingers for character size increase*

I hope one of the Glyphs is the Tauren racial. ;D