Edit: to elaborate, imagine having something in your Relic slot that had the power "increases defense rating by 25 per frost rune you have set, increases attack power by 50 per blood rune you have set, and increases spell penetration by 10 per shadow rune you have set".
That sounds kinda cool, except for one thing: You can change Relics in combat. Having a 'multi-functional' relic like that seems kind of pointless, when you can just switch between a tanking one and a dps one anyway.
Now, if it were, say, a *trinket* that was like that it would be kind of cool (but then, there's a difference between 'cool' and 'actually good' - how many druids would actually ever use the druid trinket from SSC?).
That's actually an easy concern to address: "20 dodge rating per blood rune, 150ac per frost rune, and 30 stamina per shadow rune." It's always a tanking relic, but you can swap between avoidance, soak, and mitigation. And then swap relics to go into DPS mode for phase II, with a different set of bonuses based on your setup.
And naturally they can be more imaginative, like 1% spell reflect per frost rune, 2% chance per unholy rune that any attack has lifedrain, etc.
Is "one-handed with nothing in the off-hand" another style that might work for DK tanking?
Some game systems have the concept that if you have a weapon in your main hand and keep your off-hand free, you have better balance, better ability to parry, et cetera. It's not a rare style for swashbucklers. Could DK have some buff to their avoidance stats when they have nothing at all, or maybe just an off-hand item, equipped in their off-hand?
I just had a picture in my head of a DK using a [Lamp of Peaceful Radiance] in their offhand. Unless they make all Wrath offhands really cool and deadly looking, I don't think they'll take that route. And having nothing in the offhand just doesn't seem very intuitive for players. Plus I don't think they'd want to introduce an entirely new stat set (melee dps or tanking) for an item type that up until now has been exclusively caster dps/healing ([Tome of Knowledge] notwithstanding).
And if we see the Scarlet Crusade, then there's a good chance we'll see more of the Argent Dawn!
It was actually revealed back at Blizzcon that the Argent Dawn (or some subsidiary thereof) will definitely be present in Northrend. There was even a bit of a playable demo in some camp, with the NPC Tirion Fordring wielding Ashbringer and yelling about how the good guys are gonna kick Arthas's arse. I trust it will be suitably awesome.
It was actually revealed back at Blizzcon that the Argent Dawn (or some subsidiary thereof) will definitely be present in Northrend. There was even a bit of a playable demo in some camp, with the NPC Tirion Fordring wielding Ashbringer and yelling about how the good guys are gonna kick Arthas's arse. I trust it will be suitably awesome.
Yeah right, awesome for everyone who didn't get a [Corrupted Ashbringer] a year ago in Naxx maybe.
I'm still up in arms about not getting a bloody questline.
And I'm wondering if Naxxramas will be Naxxramas 2.0, as in we cleared Naxx already and Kel'Thuzad has been resurrected, or just Naxxramas, and pretend we never took it on at 60.
I do hope Kel'Thuzad is back as a new boss (ie not just the boss of easy mode Nax, would prefer that to be a different lich). He is a major lore character and whilst I have nothing against killing these off in suitably epic fights, Liches are notoriously difficult to kill for good, and we already know the fella at LHC is likely to have either sold his Phlactery or working for the scourge and just passed it on. Would be nice if he had some follow up too.
Well we fought a corrupted red dragon and several corrupred green dragons but to my knowledge we aren't at war with the aspect, in fact their aspects would possibly be grateful (certainly Alexstraza would for ending Vael). I'm not against going to war with one of the dragonflights other than the black, I just think the story is flimsy surrounding this particular case so far.
Originally Posted by Shadowed
The best part is, not only were you late in linking it, that's an April fools topic from 6 months ago.
I do hope Kel'Thuzad is back as a new boss (ie not just the boss of easy mode Nax, would prefer that to be a different lich). He is a major lore character and whilst I have nothing against killing these off in suitably epic fights, Liches are notoriously difficult to kill for good...
What might be fun is, have him be in easy mode Nax but as (essentially) a summonable boss ala Nightbane.
Remember Scholomance? Remember Ras Frostwhisper? Remember the quest chain to actually kill Frostwhisper, where once you've done the chain, you have to in the middle of the fight turn him human and kill the human?
Some long involved quest chain, possibly extending into other raids, where you then go back into Naxxramas and have the real fight and really kill Kel'Thuzad, might be fun.
I don't see any reason why Kel won't be back for Naxx, seeing as the quest turnin for killing him in Vanilla basically stated, "Wow, you're not going to kill him eternally just for some gold? OK then."
We've sealed our own fate, as far as his resurrection is concerned; Kel'Thuzad is coming back. His phylactery no doubt got stolen back from the Scarlet Crusade, and he'll be back in full swing in Naxx80.
The thing I'm interested in seeing is which of the other bosses will also return. It shouldn't be hard to get at least half of them, since they were either dead or constructs to begin with. We might get a Repatchedwerk, and Thaddius v2, with a "rezzed" version of all the humanoids. Still, it should be more or less the same zone -- I just hope we get something to say, "oh cool, see how they redesigned his skin to make it seem even older and grubbier than before?"
The quest for killing Kel'Thuzad has an interesting end to it anyway. Argent Dawn never gets the Phylactery, so it would be easy for Blizzard to put in his resurrection in there someway.
Given that we have a fight with a corrupted Blue Dragon in the Sunwell, I wouldn't be too shocked if that's the explanation for Malygos' actions.
Kalecgos was corrupted due to the Dread Lord sent by Kil'jaeden though and it didn't have anything to do with Malygos. Now it helps explain why Malygos will have a problem with magic users though since its a magic user (Kael'thas and his elves) that was attempting to bring Kil'jaeden into Azeroth which resulted in Kalecgos being corrupted for a short time and the death of Madrigosa with her turning into Fel Myst. Though since Kalecgos is saved and aids in the final fight against Kil'jaeden he will likely play a role in WotLK also maybe as a ally against his own father or against us.
I do hope still that the fight against Malygos ends with Alexstrasza showing up and knocking sense into Maylgos though rather than a aspect dying (which lore wise could have unforeseen consequences).
I don't see any reason why Kel won't be back for Naxx, seeing as the quest turnin for killing him in Vanilla basically stated, "Wow, you're not going to kill him eternally just for some gold? OK then."
We've sealed our own fate, as far as his resurrection is concerned; Kel'Thuzad is coming back. His phylactery no doubt got stolen back from the Scarlet Crusade, and he'll be back in full swing in Naxx80.
The thing I'm interested in seeing is which of the other bosses will also return. It shouldn't be hard to get at least half of them, since they were either dead or constructs to begin with. We might get a Repatchedwerk, and Thaddius v2, with a "rezzed" version of all the humanoids. Still, it should be more or less the same zone -- I just hope we get something to say, "oh cool, see how they redesigned his skin to make it seem even older and grubbier than before?"
Imagine if there is just a short movie of Arthas using the Death Knight Ult from Warcraft 3. Bam, Naxxramas is back in action.
Kalecgos was corrupted due to the Dread Lord sent by Kil'jaeden though and it didn't have anything to do with Malygos. Now it helps explain why Malygos will have a problem with magic users though since its a magic user (Kael'thas and his elves) that was attempting to bring Kil'jaeden into Azeroth which resulted in Kalecgos being corrupted for a short time and the death of Madrigosa with her turning into Fel Myst. Though since Kalecgos is saved and aids in the final fight against Kil'jaeden he will likely play a role in WotLK also maybe as a ally against his own father or against us.
I do hope still that the fight against Malygos ends with Alexstrasza showing up and knocking sense into Maylgos though rather than a aspect dying (which lore wise could have unforeseen consequences).
I agree about that, I would much rather have Malygos being shown the right way rather than killing him.
There was a screenshot taken from an internal build, that appeared in a few gaming magazines and websites, showing the health + rune bar. It wasn't "official" in that blizzard didn't release the screencap themselves, but it was either taken off a released build at blizzcon or off an "official" interview/reveal.
That doesn't prove is INT actually useful for DKs thought, INT might increase their crit chance and rune regen rate. They are also saying that DK will be 3/1 melee/caster, might very well use the same gear as protection paladins.
Netherstorm's problem is the lack of allies. There they are, sitting in the inn.
One thing I don't understand with Blizzard is 2.4 is the last patch planned before WotLK, yet from the looks of it WotLK isn't very far into development. I have no idea how they are supposed to retain subscribers over the large gap between 2.4 and WotLK.
I wouldn't be surprised if 3.0 and WotLK came out separately as 2.0 and TBC did. At the very least, that'd encourage people to stay on, and also give Blizzard a chance to see how certain talents over the 41st perform ingame before it has a chance to affect normal WotLK leveling/raiding.
It's likely there'll be a 3.0 patch before the release of WotLK as well, which will give people the new, shiny talents to play with. Include some kind of world event people can have some fun with and it'll keep people busy.
The system they're using for releasing the latter Sunwell bosses is probably also part of this, Blizzard themselves pretty much decide when the new bosses become available, and it could very well be that the rate the new bosses become available is directly related to how well the development of WotLK is going.
I do expect some people to stop playing for a while though if it takes really long, but these people will probably keep an eye on the information being leaked from the WotLK beta.
buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of
One thing I don't understand with Blizzard is 2.4 is the last patch planned before WotLK, yet from the looks of it WotLK isn't very far into development. I have no idea how they are supposed to retain subscribers over the large gap between 2.4 and WotLK.
The hardest core ready to blow through Sunwell in a few days will be irritated, but for most of the playerbase its the right amount of time. Even for dedicated raiders a lot of people will need the gap to be able to finish things up and feel like they "beat" Burning Crusade. I don't think Blizzard wants a repeat of the Naxxramas situation where the gap was large enough that a number of the best guilds got through Kel'Thuzad, but the beta/imminent release of Burning Crusade filled the lower tier of raiding guilds with a feeling of "whats the point anyway, its all just useless" and kept them from progressing through a great instance.
Just to speculate even further about 3.0, but Blizz might even do a similar gathering phase like they did with AQ, where this time we're gathering supplies for the NPC's to: build more ships to go to northrend, gather more provisions for the voyage etc. Heh, and with the transmute timer gone on arcanite bars...