Jeeeezus, am I the only one who wants DW purely because it thins out the loot table and makes life easier for everyone, rather than having the 1h tank weapon drop when the DK, bear & tankadin is in the raid, or the 2h tank weapon drop when the tankadin, bear and warrior are in the raid, or the tanking staff when... you get the picture. There's already two types of tank weapon (this being especially relevant seeing as tanks are the smallest sub-group of the raid), mercifully, palas share tanking weapons with dps casters. Let's keep it down to two for everyone's loot-rot sake.
Sorry to dig up this arguement after we have moved on to talking about the new changes but I think it needs to be mentioned that Blizzard could easily provide more trade in style drops like sunwell to solve this problem without forcing DWing on DK tanks.
Sorry to dig up this arguement after we have moved on to talking about the new changes but I think it needs to be mentioned that Blizzard could easily provide more trade in style drops like sunwell to solve this problem without forcing DWing on DK tanks.
Or... just leave weapons agressive in stats (for threat) and armor for tanking the defensive stats. I mean, with CBs removed its not like you have to worry about every little point of avoidance now.
Can I see a source on this whole Runeforge concept? I am a bit incredulous, and that would change things quite a bit. The logistical overhead for randomly grouping in the field and wanting to switch roles could be aggravating.
Last patch:
51769 Emblazon Runeblade Forges the battle-worn sword into a runebladed sword. Must be used near a runeforge.
As I said earlier it is absurd that they would do this for a number of reasons, but the presence of a "runeforge" in the game would indicate that this is the way it might go. It is unlikely that every instance will have a runeforge handy, and it is unlikely to be an inventory object. There is a chance that it might just be a tool used in a first quest, or something to 'enable' a new weapon for the first time once you get it, but I think the other is the more likely assumption at this point.
I hope they do change it, it is very stupid as the DK rune system is incredibly limited unless you have a very generic setup, and that in turn is limited in other ways. All locking runes like this will do is seriously piss off anyone who needs to do more than one thing with their DK (OT, AOE Tank, DPS effectivly) while not limiting those who have a specific task from min-maxing their runes.
On the other hand if DK runes are changeable out of combat it still serves no purpose to talk about DKs tanking is builds like 6F or 5F 1U. They are so specific that they will only apply to specific boss fights where all the mechanics are known and you can ensure you have everything you need. When speaking of tanking gnerally we are much better served by talking about runesetups that will be far more realistic for general use, not a one off fight where you dont need to do x, y, or z.
That's a quest effect. There's no reason to believe that the Runeforge object will matter for anything unrelated to that quest.
Everyone can have opinions, but the presence of a thing called a "runeforge" in the game would, logically, be to forge runes on a weapon. To have runeforges in the game but to use them simply for a early quest and that along is a bit odd.
Combine this with the fact that Blizzard has stated that they intend to make changing runes something like changing talents and you have an indication that a runeforge will be a 'respec' place for runes on the DKs blade.
I'm happy to consider alternative views, I'd prefer them to be true, but they have to actually have some reasoning or evidence to support them.
There are plenty of quests that have you bring an item to a world object to interact with. Several of them are even impressive-sounding forges. Most of them have no ancillary uses beyond the quest (some can be used for cooking). There is absolutely nothing odd about having a runeforge only be used to create a runeblade for the one quest the one time, unless you presuppose that runes are something that need forging.
As far as evidence, I'm just holding your views to the same standard you're holding to me. As such, I would be quite interested in a source for that Blizzard statement. I've never heard of it before, and it would lay my arguements to rest (I'd still only give 50-50 odds that quest object is the rune-swap mechanism, but that would be immaterial).
The IGN interview is the only place I know that they've really mentioned how difficult it might be to do:
IGN: What about the rune resource system the Death Knight uses?
Jeffrey Kaplan: So you have six runes total and you’ll always have six runes. You’ll get to pick, and there’s actually a forging process where you put those in your blade, you’ll get to pick how many of those you have within six. So if you wanted four blood runes, one unholy, and one frost and that’s the six you’re going to run with, you can totally do that. We want there to be some customization in how a Death Knight manages his resources and let him choose. The runes have their own separate, independent cooldown as you consume them. Right now it’s feeling good at about 10 seconds per [rune]. And then there are also abilities and talents that can trigger an instant refresh or conversion that consumes your blood but puts it into frost. You get a lot of run resource gameplay that way.
IGN: You actually forge them into your sword?
Jeffrey Kaplan: It’s a process we haven’t completely defined yet but we’re thinking it won’t be as prohibitive as talent speccing or anything like that.
IGN: In terms of switching them around?
Jeffrey Kaplan: In terms of switching. But at the same time, it won’t be so fluid so that you’re doing it between fights. We’re going to hit some sweet spot between those two.
So, I would suspect that Garak is correct and the Rune Forge is a quest thing (and it makes sense with how I imagine the opening quest chain will fold out) but there's no guarantee either way.
Has anyone figured out what the "vulnerable to frost damage" effect that procs on Frozen Rune Weapon does?
From what I've heard and read of the latest patch, it increases Frost damage by 1%. Presumably it stacks (I hope), but no idea how high, if it does, or for how long.
As I said earlier it is absurd that they would do this for a number of reasons, but the presence of a "runeforge" in the game would indicate that this is the way it might go. It is unlikely that every instance will have a runeforge handy, and it is unlikely to be an inventory object. There is a chance that it might just be a tool used in a first quest, or something to 'enable' a new weapon for the first time once you get it, but I think the other is the more likely assumption at this point.
I hope they do change it, it is very stupid as the DK rune system is incredibly limited unless you have a very generic setup, and that in turn is limited in other ways. All locking runes like this will do is seriously piss off anyone who needs to do more than one thing with their DK (OT, AOE Tank, DPS effectivly) while not limiting those who have a specific task from min-maxing their runes.
On the other hand if DK runes are changeable out of combat it still serves no purpose to talk about DKs tanking is builds like 6F or 5F 1U. They are so specific that they will only apply to specific boss fights where all the mechanics are known and you can ensure you have everything you need. When speaking of tanking gnerally we are much better served by talking about runesetups that will be far more realistic for general use, not a one off fight where you dont need to do x, y, or z.
In a raid setting you will always have access to a mage and a warlock, wich mean that you can get to any city and back instantly. Its probably free but only at citites I would imagine, otherwise it would not be less prohibitive than a talent respec.(A 5 min quest would equal atleast 25g farming in wotlk).
In a normal dungeon run you know if you are the tank or not and you wont switch tanks, wich means that you can put tank/dps runes for the full run so to me atleast it seems like we will have tanking rune setups and so on. Just that you wont be able to taylor the runes for specifik pve fights or specifik pvp targets.
It's quite funny. You are forging the weapon but you can change weapons mid combat..So you are NOT forging the weapon? Ok, so we'll be changing runes out of combat as it's not as prohibitive as talents?
From reading the IGN interview, it seems that it will not be something that can be done between fights. I agree that it will probably require a trip to a city to make changes to your rune setup. It will either be free or cost very little.
I think they want the rune setup to be semi-permanent, so that there is some strategy behind the choices you make when leaving a city to go out adventuring for the day. Allowing them to be changed too easily would eseentially remove any sort of decision making about what setup to use as it would at most be changed for each fights. You might as well remove the different runes and just have 6 generic runes if you can do it between fights.
As far as the ability for raids to use a mage/warlock to allow the dk to go to a city and port back with new rune setup...that would imo also defeat the purpose. In this case, I think putting a timer on how often you can change you runes would be good, maybe the ability will have a cooldown of 1-3 hours.
Since you are not "respeccing" for each fight...I think the rune setup will be very similar anyhow. If you're deep frost for example, the majority of your skill will most likely be frost based wether you dps or tank.
I personally would be disapointed in it can be done between fights. If they allow it to be that simple, it would really defeat the purpose of having the rune setup that they implemented.
Has there been any insight if runesetups are bound to a weapon or if you use one setup to go with all weapons ?
The first option might make most of this discussion moot since you'd just use a weapon with the specific setup for a given fight while the later is probably the easier to implent. (Albeit contrary to my forging concept: "I forged this weapon with my 6 bloodrunes/whatever. Now i take this other weapon out of my bag, and behold, it magicaly has the same runes on it.")
Has there been any insight if runesetups are bound to a weapon or if you use one setup to go with all weapons ?
The first option might make most of this discussion moot since you'd just use a weapon with the specific setup for a given fight while the later is probably the easier to implent. (Albeit contrary to my forging concept: "I forged this weapon with my 6 bloodrunes/whatever. Now i take this other weapon out of my bag, and behold, it magicaly has the same runes on it.")
I doubt it will be weapon specific, again it would render the whole design moot since choosing runes would now mean nothing, it would even go further then in between fights since you can swap weapons while fighting(I think). I think the runes will not be weapon based but something global affecting all weapons. Or simply maybe you can only have 1 rune weapon at a time.
Imo it'll just be limited to out of combat. Would be a bit redundant to have to visit a town each time you'd need to change a rune. Then again, that's just my personal view.
One more thing - is it just me who's dissapointed that they're going to split the trees into 3 trees for the same job, just with different ways of doing it (blood = brute force, unholy = debuffs and minions, frost = magic). I suppose the DK will be more or less a feral druid - offtank with some support and a boss that favors them here and there.
One more thing - is it just me who's dissapointed that they're going to split the trees into 3 trees for the same job, just with different ways of doing it (blood = brute force, unholy = debuffs and minions, frost = magic). I suppose the DK will be more or less a feral druid - offtank with some support and a boss that favors them here and there.
I think it's great. Separating trees in such a way that you're limited to certain trees for certain types of content is frankly terrible RPG design. I find it excruciatingly boring that you can expect every raiding member of Class A to be using tree X, every PvPing member of Class B to be using tree y, and so forth. Every class should have been designed more like the DK in this respect, and it's pretty obvious from many of the new/changed talents for other classes that Blizzard realizes it and, within practical limits, is attempting to make corrections.
I personally would be disapointed in it can be done between fights. If they allow it to be that simple, it would really defeat the purpose of having the rune setup that they implemented.
No, it won't. Because the time when you are USING the runes is in combat, therefore it serves its purpose.
It's all well and good to want things for feeling, but the mechanics of the DK as I currently understand them (and I have spent more time than is sensible considering them) would mean that not being able to change runes easily out of combat would have significant adverse affects for the Death Knight.
Look at the abilities. Consider how they might be used to do the things you would be required to do in a fight. Consider how many you might need of each rune. Consider the variety of fights and so forth. A lot of these things dictate that a static rune setup would be limited if it was highly specific (ie: mostly frost/blood/unholy), while on the other hand any non-specific setup is going to be limited in doing any specific tank as well as it might otherwise. It serves no purpose except to frustrate players to not let players simply change runes out of combat; you already have talents specs to define your playstyle, runes don't need to do this also.
Runes should limit what you try to do at any given encounter, not over the course of 10 fights. Talents will limit how well you might do those things, but a frost spec might need to chuck some unholy/blood runes on and AOE tank from time to time, even if they're going to be in a frost heavy spec to optimise their talents most of the time.
Consider:
For single target dps in frost spec someone might go 4 frost, 1b, 1u: for frost strikes, icy touches, and a plague strike here or there. But you might have an AOE pack at some point in the dungeon and need to tank them. Then you change the runes to 2F, 2U 2B so you can throw down D&D, blood boil and some other stuff you can't normally use. Then you swap back afterwards. Why would you want a system that wouldn't let you do this? One that says "I know you could tank this if you had the runes setup that way, but you have them setup so you're not useless at DPS most of the time, therefore we're not going to let you do anything but that". It's silly.
Tl;dr: Talents are the heavy limiting factor, no need to make runes do it also. That just ruins the fun and creativity of the new system.
Runes should limit what you try to do at any given encounter, not over the course of 10 fights. Talents will limit how well you might do those things, but a frost spec might need to chuck some unholy/blood runes on and AOE tank from time to time, even if they're going to be in a frost heavy spec to optimise their talents most of the time.
Consider:
For single target dps in frost spec someone might go 4 frost, 1b, 1u: for frost strikes, icy touches, and a plague strike here or there. But you might have an AOE pack at some point in the dungeon and need to tank them. Then you change the runes to 2F, 2U 2B so you can throw down D&D, blood boil and some other stuff you can't normally use. Then you swap back afterwards. Why would you want a system that wouldn't let you do this? One that says "I know you could tank this if you had the runes setup that way, but you have them setup so you're not useless at DPS most of the time, therefore we're not going to let you do anything but that". It's silly.
Tl;dr: Talents are the heavy limiting factor, no need to make runes do it also. That just ruins the fun and creativity of the new system.
I understand what you mean...but again going by this from the IGN interview...
IGN: You actually forge them into your sword?
Jeffrey Kaplan: It’s a process we haven’t completely defined yet but we’re thinking it won’t be as prohibitive as talent speccing or anything like that.
IGN: In terms of switching them around?
Jeffrey Kaplan: In terms of switching. But at the same time, it won’t be so fluid so that you’re doing it between fights. We’re going to hit some sweet spot between those two
It seems quite clear that it won't be done between fights. You said that you think the talents should be the limiting factor...but DK are different then exisiting classes...talents will not be as limiting, every tree can tank and or dps. The presence will be what decide if you're tanking or dpsing...not the talent themselves. If the DK is allowed to change it's rune setup on a per fight basis...it means it will function essentially at peak efficiency all the time.
It seems to me that the design to allow all tree to be able to tank/dps is meant to be somewhat controlled by the rune setup that the DK chooses.
I honestly beleive that if the DK is allowed to change rune setup between fight that it will make it too versatile and overpowered.
I understand what you mean...but again going by this from the IGN interview...
It seems quite clear that it won't be done between fights. You said that you think the talents should be the limiting factor...but DK are different then exisiting classes...talents will not be as limiting, every tree can tank and or dps. The presence will be what decide if you're tanking or dpsing...not the talent themselves. If the DK is allowed to change it's rune setup on a per fight basis...it means it will function essentially at peak efficiency all the time.
It seems to me that the design to allow all tree to be able to tank/dps is meant to be somewhat controlled by the rune setup that the DK chooses.
I honestly beleive that if the DK is allowed to change rune setup between fight that it will make it too versatile and overpowered.
I wouldn't say that Death Knights would be operating at peak efficiency all the time just by swapping Presences, just like Feral Druids whose forms the Presences parallel you need to wear the right gear for the appropriate form to perform at your best. While being only to swap runes in cities won't be that much of a pain really in this age of Meeting Stones and summons directly into instances. It will hurt Frost DKs trying to AoE tank thanks to the rune requirements of Death and Decay, although hopefully this will change to one of each rune.
The choice of rune setup determines your character's ability more than a warrior's stances or a warlock's pet, and less than a druid's forms, except for allowing more fine-grained decisions than just three to five choices. Out of those, the warlock is probably the most comparable in changing your mind: a 10-second excessively-high-costed spell means that you wouldn't do it every fight, although you could if you felt you had to.
While I've argued against Warrior's fluidity of stance restrictions before, it's not inherently overpowering to be able to select spells beforehand. The rune system still limits the DK's ability to cast at 6 rune's worth of spells per 10 seconds, plus more restrictions by type. A DK that knows his class and the encounter very well can optimize his rune setup based on the spells that he predicts he will need. But. the rune system still restricts the available choices in a non-trivial way, in general sacrificing one optimized damage-spam ability per 10 seconds per utility ability you plan to use (allowing optional use of non-optimal spam ability in place of utility ability). Balancing against this flexibility is not any harder than normal class balance. Utility spells have a clearly defined opportunity cost. Saying that OOC-reruning inherently unbalances the class is a completely indefensible position.
My major concern with restricting DK re-runing is that I don't think there actually is any viable fluidity or permanence of character in between respecing and Out-Of-Combat. You have to be able to handle randomly grouping up in the field and switching roles, and switching runes out for a boss and then going back to trash, and so forth, so I would expect a 'soft' cap like warlock pet resummoning to be the only viable option. Like, 6-second cast per rune plus the new rune starts off empty. The problem being that, since it's so much more restrictive on their playstyle, there's a much higher desire to re-rune optimally. The result of such a situation is, generally, a player base that chooses to pay the soft cost to re-rune every fight, and complains about it being 'forced' to.
But regardless of how you set up your runes generally you should be using the same runes you would to DPS as you would to tank, there are no specifically high-threat abilities so your tanking rotation would be the same as your DPS one, the only difference is that you would want a Frost rune to activate your Frost Presence to tank if you don't use one and Blood Tap takes care of that by giving you a Death Rune.
My major concern with restricting DK re-runing is that I don't think there actually is any viable fluidity or permanence of character in between respecing and Out-Of-Combat. You have to be able to handle randomly grouping up in the field and switching roles, and switching runes out for a boss and then going back to trash, and so forth, so I would expect a 'soft' cap like warlock pet resummoning to be the only viable option. Like, 6-second cast per rune plus the new rune starts off empty. The problem being that, since it's so much more restrictive on their playstyle, there's a much higher desire to re-rune optimally. The result of such a situation is, generally, a player base that chooses to pay the soft cost to re-rune every fight, and complains about it being 'forced' to.
Well really it really comes down to for me is making a class so much a hybrid that every tree allows you to fill both roles to some degree, but then making it so you have to make a town run to be most effective. Exactly as described above, I picture things with a runeforge to be simply an annoyance to raiders and debilatating to random play.
The ONLY solution with a runeforge I would embrace besides summoning a runeforge on a moderate CD, is some sort of a translocation self-teleport ability which allows you to teleport yourself to perhaps a special runeforge area of the DK starting zone and teleport back to where you were as long as you remain in the area (so its not a bindable teleport spell).
That would make it too bulky to use between pulls but self-reliant and quick enough to not be a burden on a raid or group so much.
Well really it really comes down to for me is making a class so much a hybrid that every tree allows you to fill both roles to some degree, but then making it so you have to make a town run to be most effective. Exactly as described above, I picture things with a runeforge to be simply an annoyance to raiders and debilatating to random play.
The ONLY solution with a runeforge I would embrace besides summoning a runeforge on a moderate CD, is some sort of a translocation self-teleport ability which allows you to teleport yourself to perhaps a special runeforge area of the DK starting zone and teleport back to where you were as long as you remain in the area (so its not a bindable teleport spell).
That would make it too bulky to use between pulls but self-reliant and quick enough to not be a burden on a raid or group so much.
Deathknights should be getting a spell named "Death Gate" that teleports them to Ebon hold (starting area), where I'm sure there will be a Rune / talent / whatever changing NPC. It's not on players or trainers yet, but so far it's on a 15 minute cooldown, so the friendly Warlock or Summoning Stone will get DK's back in the raid fast enough coupled with this spell. So really, with assistance, you can change them every 15 minutes.
Deathknights should be getting a spell named "Death Gate" that teleports them to Ebon hold (starting area), where I'm sure there will be a Rune / talent / whatever changing NPC. It's not on players or trainers yet, but so far it's on a 15 minute cooldown, so the friendly Warlock or Summoning Stone will get DK's back in the raid fast enough coupled with this spell. So really, with assistance, you can change them every 15 minutes.
What about 10mans with no Warlock? Leveling? 5-mans?
If people are going to change them anyway then the whole point of trying to stop them changing them is stupid and should be removed (if it's the way they're currently planning to do it).
What about 10mans with no Warlock? Leveling? 5-mans?
If people are going to change them anyway then the whole point of trying to stop them changing them is stupid and should be removed (if it's the way they're currently planning to do it).
I doubt the time it takes for two raid members to run out to a summoning stone is greater than the time it'd take to run back yourself, so having two members (One a hunter with Pack on) run out isn't going to take more time than the DK flying/running back himself, so it'll always be a good idea to summon your DKs. A lock is just more convenient than the summoning stone.
The only problem is Solo play, but there may be something at Ebon Hold that kicks you to Outlands/Northrend. There's always the Hearthstone; set it to Dalaran/Shattrath and you're good. Chances are, by the time you reach Outland/Northrend, you'll have settled into a playstyle and a rune setup anyway, with all of your self experimenting done during 50-58.
What about 10mans with no Warlock? Leveling? 5-mans?
If people are going to change them anyway then the whole point of trying to stop them changing them is stupid and should be removed (if it's the way they're currently planning to do it).
The same argument can be made about druids & no out of combat rez--how in the world are they meant to heal 5-mans without it!? Just fine, thank you very much. It's an inconvenience at times but whatever--I, and most of the people I've been playing with for the last few years, can live with it.
This whole thing is getting blown way out of proportion and sounds quite fair to be completely honest; you can run around in your soloing 'spec', swap to a tanking 'spec' when you get invited by a 5-man group--unless you abuse the teleport for whatever reason--and put on your specific-role tanking 'spec' when (off)tanking in a raid. I really, really don't see the problem here; in fact, it really sounds like you're asking for the removal of a key, well 'advertised', and possibly slightly balancing shortcoming of the class. If someone really reallyREALLY needs to change their runes around more frequently than that, they probably have more serious issues than a simple rune swap can fix (changes in raid or party role nonwithstanding).
Last edited by Feorthas : 06/16/08 at 1:41 AM.
Reason: I failed at grammars.
06/14/08, 4:13 PM
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