Death Knight Cataclysm Class Info (schedule & speculation)

[Gravity]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 0683&sid=1

Beginning Wednesday, April 7 we will begin releasing class previews containing an overview of some of the changes currently being planned for each of the 10 World of Warcraft classes. The type of information you can expect from these posts are a list of the new spells from 80-85, the new passive mastery bonuses for all talent trees, a brief outline of some of the talent changes we're currently planning, and in some cases new low level spells for select classes.

These changes will by no means be comprehensive, and are subject to change between now and the launch of the expansion. It's also important to understand that some classes are currently further along in the development process than others, and as a result the amount of information will vary from class to class. Please do not let this frustrate you should your class be amongst those which are on the "lighter" side of things, as all classes will receive the same level of design attention before the expansion is released. Additionally we'll be providing more information for all classes, especially as we move into the beta phase.

Below is the schedule for each class:

Shaman - April 7
Priest - April 7
Warlock - April 7

Warrior - April 8
Death Knight - April 8
Rogue - April 8

Hunter - April 9
Druid - April 9
Mage - April 9

Paladin - April 16*

These posts are being coordinated internationally so they'll be posted at different times throughout the day and night on the given dates to give players around the world the ability to see posts made at a convenient time. This thread will be updated with links directly to each class preview as they're posted.

*The paladin is still deep in development. Instead of giving a preview that would be potentially less comprehensive than the other classes we made the decision to post it when it's ready, in order to properly honor the paladin class and those that play them. The wait isn't too long however as we're expecting to be able to post it on April 16.

[Insolence]

Oh good now we get to QQ about Mastery before it even hits Beta

[Gravity]

Wow, this will be fascinating.

[Yllisa]

Apparently I'm not allowed to create a new thread yet, so here it is:

Ghotcrawler just dropped a bomb today:

Death Knights will tank as Blood in Cataclysm
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 1060&sid=1

[Gravity]

A new thread would have been wrong, this is the right place, thank you.
I really like the change, good work Blizzard.

[Insolence]

Rune Strike is getting totally bombed.... Hmmm I wonder if this means Imp Frost Presence, AMS/AMZ and all those other goodies are all going to be in Blood now! At least there won't be something like 8 Builds to look at when you're reading a Tanking Guide anymore. Hope they don't forget to buff AoE Threat on Blood a bit....

[DJTimeKiller]

I now, take the time, to tell all Frost and Unholy DK Tanks, that spat on Blood from the very beginning when Wrath came out, as I had stuck with Blood with Tanking, and for the most part, I still do (just taking a break from Blood Tanking). So to all that thought negatively as Blood being a Tank spec, I utter the words of Nelson Muntz from the Simpsons.

HA HA!

That out of the way, I am ABSOLUTELY FREAKING ECSTATIC about this change. I wasn't sure what changes were coming, but by god, Blood as THE tank tree? SQUEEEEEE!

I can only imagine the changes that are going to be coming for DKs for Cataclysm. Almost seems like Futhark was right....Rune Strike being phased out...

[Futhark]

I knew it. I saw this coming as soon as they had that teaser for druid's Feral Mastery.

Well, it's been a great run guys, but my favorite spec ever has literally been destroyed. I'll see you later.

[DJTimeKiller]

No Futhark . Don't leave us .

[Mortifer]

Loving it.

The only "issue" I have with it is that flavourwise it feels a bit wierd with Blood beeing the tanktree when we got frost presence for tanking (might hopefully change?) and also I personlly felt it might have been smoother to limit DW to tanking as there is where we find the tanking weapons.

Blood however mechanically has the best tanking "feeling" about it so I actually prefer this. Good for dps as well as they can have a greater disparity between the specs.

And I dont have to have 2+ 2handers and 6+ 1handers for tanking anymore. \o/

Best part is that we (probably) dont have to do stupid choices like Subversion VS extra point in SoB or Sudden Doom anymore

[Perditio]

Urgh, I'm not a fan actually, I know that it's been very tough for Blizz to constantly tweak the three trees to make sure they have a semblance of balance, but I believe that they've actually done a really good job. It seems like they have just given up while they're ahead. What really saddens me about this change is that it will bring the demise of all those interesting hybrid specs, which go 23/26 points into Frost/Blood to pick up some diversifying talents. Those sorts of specs were great, as they made you really think about what you were trading (I think Tiima in the GoD thread summarised this well) for those extra tank talents.

Sure the trees were a bit bloated, and it was often difficult to get everything that you wanted (i.e having to give up some in BI or KM in a IIT DW build), but I liked that about the class, it just felt so satisfying when all those talents clicked into place with none to spare.

I don't know what I'm really complaining about, maybe it's just that I've found my Frost legs once again, this change will probably be the best thing to happen to DK tanks (in regards to bringing their survivability/utility up to the other tanks) since their inception back in beta.

[Gravity]

Remember that Blood will not be the Blood spec as we know it today.
It will feel different, and you might quite possibly like it even if you're a Frost-afficianado.

[Perditio]

Yeah, that's the thing, if tomorrow they just ripped all the tank talents out of Frost and Unholy and then told us "go blood, noaw!" it would be a bit different. I do trust Blizz to make the tree interesting, and different. The thing that I'll really mourn (and which they can't fix by just making Blood cool) is those hybrid specs, the dreadplate or unbreakable abomination or the old unh-vot3w, that won't ever be considered anymore.

[Gravity]

Well, it's always possible a high-threat aoe/trash build will be possible (like a SoC spec for paladins, their 'cleave') by having a bigger invesment in unholy sub-tree, for example. But you're right, the really whacky stuff we've done before should stop.

Think about how much easier theory-craft will be ! Gawd, it'll be like a holiday for me.

[Kuren]

To be fair, they basically said Rune Strike was going to go away and Blood has always been the progression tank spec. While a few used Frost or maybe even Unholy, we've seen most progression tanks as Blood. This appears to be Blizzard's way of making balancing DKs easier.

I guess I didn't see any of this as a surprise since they've been telling us this for a while.

It does seem that the downside for us will be a lack of variety. On the plus side I guess we'll have a lot less testing to do to figure out all the different combinations.

Cataclysm will involve a lot of changes I'm sure. I think we should all wait until we at least get a complete view on what it will look like.

He did mention Blood getting a version of Demo. Shout so that should make some people happy.