wowszene.de isn't really a reliable source of information. It's very much of tabloid thing and it wouldn't surprise me if it was a traffic boosting fake.

Yeah, I don't see why they would make this class any more powerful than the rest, just different.

It still smells awfully fishy. Because like you said, everyone will have one just because its new and shiny. And I can truly see hundreds of them running around making the rest of us sick.

Also of note is that a DPS/Offtank based class would push rogues out of usefulness.

In order to make it work, they'd have to limit the dps and off tanking abilities of the class because without this it pushes out either rogues (too much melee dps), warriors (too much tanking power), or paladins (too much magic dps) out of raid slots, and if they don't then the class is useless. Frankly, I can't see how the class fits in without removing the need for one of the 'core' classes completely.

Personally, I would hope they didn't go for a level increase up to 80, if they kept it at 70 or went for a smaller increase up to 75 then it wouldn't kill off the existing content since bt/hyjal gear would still be worth getting.

Aye, the buzz machine is working its magic right now. I read your edited post and I have to agree that the mechanics of "unlocking" this new class as explained in the article posted seem terribly clumsy. Unless they do something like the quests in SMV to assist Teron and require you to embark on an epic quest to gather the artifacts of a fallen knight and, once gathered, they magically coalesce into a high level character ready to do your bidding in gratitude or through servitude. If that's the case, it seems so strange to go through a tremendous amount of effort for a glorified pet.

If they do it differently, how could they justify it through lore (not a challenge as I'm sure they could, just curious how)?

Class roles are already tight. The DPS/tanking descriptor is already filled by fury warrior and feral druid. Mana-using physical DPS roles in the raid are filled with enh shaman and ret paladin. The mana-using tanking role is filled by prot paladin. Adding a new plate DPS/tank hybrid into the game seems like mindless duplication to me. It's either going to be a new offspec that's always having to justify its existence, or it's going to make some other class an offspec.

That's why I think that the Death Knight, if it goes in, is going to be added as a permanent adversary on Scourge faction that can't take part in "ordinary" raiding.

Its bound to happen though, if they add any new classes now. And I'm sure even if they don't add one now, they will in the future. And honestly, unless truly min-maxing, why would you kick your buddy Joe, which you have been raiding with for some time, from the raid, over some DK with a few extra DPS? You wouldn't, unless it was a truly overpowering class or had some tricky overpowering gimmick. And Im sure this DK, with the ability to offtank, do DPS, and cast spells, will be just like other hybrids not really excelling at any of those like the pure classes do.

Would YOU bring a rogue if you could click a button and get a 68 death knight that could dps as much as a rogue, but off tank things if needed?

It's not so much as kicking a buddy out of a raid, but more of a 'why am I still playing this class when this one is so much better' kind of situation.

I'm assuming that by doing this quest you're unlocking the option in your character creation screen to pick this class (no matter what race/class you are currently doing the quest). I'm also assuming that this character already pops up at max level or close to it.

This could also be a solution to people having to respec for farming reasons. With all the complaints from Holy Priests and Prot warriors etc that they can't farm when they arn't raiding, this might be the solution that would allow them to have a separate character for this purpose. Only bump in the road to that reasoning would be faction gains and BOP drops.

There's a WWS, on this very board of a rogue sustaining 2.3k dps, and you're still that insecure? No one even mentioned roguelike dps, you're just getting paranoid from pre-tbc with fury Warriors.

Not if it meant kicking Joey from the raid. But maybe if Joey wanted to roll up a DK instead, I would welcome him with open arms. But thats up to him, really.

Well, or they could choose to spite everyone and have the "requirement" be obtaining Frostmourne from Arthas (an ultra rare drop naturally) which thus enables that corruption. Who knows. I think a lot of the speculation is just random crazy talk building on itself, but still, this is one of only three plausible options and there has been the most info and hints out there towards a Frozen Throne themed one.

Otherwise, I'd still lean towards the Emerald Nightmare or the Maelstrom/South Seas. But one of those three will be shown and most likely from the info stream, it'll be Northrend. Unless of course if someone at Blizzard is "leaking" this to divert attention from the real expansion.

That interview thing seems terribly fake to me. The whole Deathknight scenario looks very out of place with how the rest of the game is played. "Unlocking" classes that start at high level and changing up character model costumization? C'mon. Almost every aspect of this game has an element of "levelling up", be it your character, your reputation, your tradeskills, hell even the PVE content follows linear progression.

This is all sounding less and less like jedi, and more and more like Kheldians. CoH did the optional hero style class right. Hopefully they're taking a page out of their book.

The more I think about it, the more I think monster play may be the answer. There *is* no room for a new class in the existing game. With 27 different talent trees, the holy trinity are covered in every possible combination. A new class would either be redundant or it would put existing players out of a job. Redundant would be cool on a "choice" level, but jibes oddly with it being a hero class.

If it's monster play, then obviously you don't need to worry about putting your rogues or pallies out of business. Lorewise it would make sense too. You could have a long quest line which at the end of it sees some big event that unlocks your "dark side" or somehow magically twins you with one of Arthas' minions.

Another interesting question, if I'm right, is whether it will be monster play a la LOTRO, where you'll be competing with the PCs? Or will you be some kind of turncoat/saboteur, working against Arthas from the inside?

As for future "hero classes", there would the potential to add them at all levels of the game. If you complete the right questline at level 30, you unlock the ability to play a murloc character and start picking up quests in the coastal villages of the Wetlands. Complete the right questline at level 50 and unlock the ability to play as a Dark Iron Dwarf. And so on. It could even make old instances meaningful again. Say Dark Irons are capped at level 60 - immediately you have a potential constituency that might go and raid MC. You'd want to have some method of funnelling gains on your "Hero Classes" back to your main character, of course, to give people an incentive to use them. You could earn "Hero Points" by performing quests or other tasks while logged on as your Hero Class alt, which your main could then spend on nifty goodies. Defeat Ragnaros as a Dark Iron Dwarf, earn 5000 Hero Points, which you can then spend on a new mount for your main, or something. Or on raiding consumables, or whatever.

With 2 hugely pvp focused mmo's coming out within the next year, I would expect to see them leaning towards more pvp content. Perhaps with faction controlled dungeons and such like DAoC's Darkness Falls. This would also tie-in with what they've said about escalating the war between the Horde and Alliance, and perhaps the addition of pvp faction leaders.
It could also provide an alternate advancement system so they wouldn't need to raise the lvl cap.

Well since its plausible this is fake there is no harm in speculating right? How interesting would it be if the attunement for [Citadel of the Lich King] or whatever instance Arthas is placed in was to go into the remaining CoT instance (the one with the sunken ship in front of it) to help Arthas obtain Frostmourne. From here you could plausibly become a Death Knight yourself (or unlock it as a playable class).

Obviously the possibilities are wide ranging and practically infinite even if you don't shoe-horn CoT into the picture. But at the very least it could (should) be made difficult but not so tough that only .5% of the population gets to run around and pretend to be a pet of the Lich King.

The only odd thing about becoming a 'monster' type char, why would they be 'tank and dps'? are you going to tank players or...?

Yeah, hence the thought that you might be some kind of agent provocateur, attacking Arthas from within his own team. After all, there's precedent for it with the Netherwing quest lines, even though in that case you're just disguised.

Separating it out as a "game within the game" is the only way I can think of for them to insert a new class with a new combination of tank/dps/heal/cc abilities without obsoleting at least one of the existing classes.

Considering how Blizzard has tried to open things up to more casual players I find it difficult to believe that killing Arthas will be a requirement. Imagine the uproar that will happen if this marketed "new class" is only available if you're in the top 1% of raiders. It just won't work.

I am suprised that there has not been much discussion on the following idea:

Players have to "die" to become a Death Knight. In fact, most likely, you should have to be a paladin (possibly more than one class I suppose) to meet the requirement to go on the quest chain where you die to become Death Knight. It would fit perfectly with how Death Knights were created in the first place.

"XXLightbringer has fallen and was ressurected as XXDeathbringer by the *really bad guy* to do his bidding, but has betrayed *really bad guy* by joining forces with *good guys.*"

Now, since the current factions are opposed to Death Knights, perhaps you may not be allowed in cities or some such, and that is a price you pay for following that path. However, since "choice" is an element of thoughtful nature, this would not preclude you from grouping with your friends.

This could be done for other classes as well (archmage mentioned earlier). The idea would be that you have a choice whether you wish to keep flexibility. For a paladin -> death knight loses healing abilities -> Pure tankadins/Ret pallies rejoice by becoming Death Knights. Some stay as paladins so they can heal or tank or dps depending on the spec they choose for that day.

Just think, if you are a retnoob (not the same as ret pally ) now, I bet you would give up the ability to heal to never be asked to do so again.


1.) It eliminates the need for a new character slot.
2.) People don't have to wait for the new class to catch up through levelling.
3.) It makes a lot more sense lore wise than "Hey, we now offer Death Knight babies at your local starting area, pick one up today!"

You're damn right it's a sacrilege. I've been waiting since TFT to the chance to take an army and smash his undead face in, and tear down his citadel around him. To reduce him to a stationary item-dispensing puzzle like they did Vashj, Kael'thas, and Illidan is a damn shame. MMOs are way too static of a world to end a storyline as good as his; I realize that many are disdainful of lore in general, and Warcraft's in specific, but dammit - one of Blizzard's main (pre-WoW) strengths has been the ability to tell a good story.

It's like someone writing an epic series of fantasy novels, and putting out the last book as a Choose Your Own Adventure book. It's damn unsatisfying; but even that won't be as bad as the day a guild proclaims that they have Arthas on farm.