[WoW]Wotlk:Raid instances to have 10 and 25 man versions, Death Knight starts at 55

[Frax]

I doubt they'll let there be Tauren Deathknights. And this makes me sad.

[Deathwing]

You know, now that I think about it, the DK is treading on other tanks quite a lot. They have quite a list of impressive abilities, but most importantly, with a targetable consecrate and 45% more armor in tanking "pressence" and crushing blows possible being removed, what's the point of ferals and prot pallies?

[Staberinde]

So what will make the best raicals for DK's for each side?

On horde side i was thinking Orcs for PvE dps role, especially if they allow the Command racial to affect their ghouls/undead pets.

Undead will probably still be preferred for arena for wotf alone, though i always thought deathknights by their very nature would have significant resistance to fear effects but nothing has been mentioned so far.

Blood Elfs, the ae silence could be usfull when combined with the single target 5 sec silence ability. Would assume you would gain runic power instead as returned "mana", other option would be their runes being recharged slightly faster.

Troll racials as always are just subpar

For tanking i would say its a toss up between the Taurens extra health and the Orcs increase threat generation from axe spec.

[Rezz]

Considering the war with the Scourge is still going on the entire time, it's not out of the realm of possibility that since landing on Azeroth some of the draenei have been "turned."

They could easily spin it as part of the wreckage from the Exodar crashed near Icecrown and Arthas did whatever funkified magickz on em to make em Death Knights. I mean, his power is much stronger than the original Lich King's, so his ability to turn people to death knights is probably amplified. Would explain why the Lich King originally needed to corrupt people first, maybe Arthas just captures, mind-melds or something and then trains them in the evil ways.

Who knows, they better have awesome fucking armor though.

edit - as to them treading on other tanks, according to the interview with Kaplan and the other dude on Curse that probably won't be the case. They wield a 2hander, thus they have no block rating (has there been any word on them even being able to equip shields?) so 45% increased armor is probably to counterbalance the lack of a shield. They will most likely have slightly higher parry rates but still be physically weaker at taking blows than both druids and paladins, not to mention warriors. Druids will still be the kings of non-crushing slow dps, paladins the AE tankers and Warriors the single target tankers. They're just removing the necessity of warlock/mage tanks for any fights by adding in a class that deals more with the anti-caster role. Leothras the Blind and Solarian come to mind.

[Sharmai]

Originally Posted by Frax

I doubt they'll let there be Tauren Deathknights. And this makes me sad.

I don't see why Lore should be much of a problem. Any race is corruptable even Tauren. I think its more a question of how good can they make the story of the corruption for each race?

Originally Posted by rezz

has there been any word on them even being able to equip shields?

There has been word. They will not be allowed to use shields they will tank with a 2Hander.

That said tanking roles will probably be best optimised like such.

Warriors = Best tanks against physical damage that crushes. (I.E. end game physical DPS bosses) Best single target tanks
Paladins = Best tanks against multiple mobs/bosses. Best tanks for heroics/5mans when the tank is highly geared. Best aggro generating tanks.
Druids = Best flexible/hybrid tanks. Can DPs, emergency short term heal, emergency add/off tank pickup the best. Great emergency class. Fastest class to early tanking since early gear requirements aren't hard to get. (May be different in WOTLK)

From that I'd say Deathknights will be an anti magic tank class that probably has a hard if not impossible time pushing crushing blows off the table. They will like be similar to a druid in that they will be able to switch to emergency roles quickly as needed during a raid. Oh and I am guessing that their AoE aggro abilities will be a lesser version of the paladins consecrate abilities. I bet they will have more techniques to stop a caster and pull them into range and the such.

[Azrayne]

If BC taught us anything, it's that they can twist the lore enough to explain away absolutely whatever they need to. And that they probably won't bother to do a good job of it.

[Twobit Whore]

Yeah, umm they already said they cut the quests to become a DK out.. so what lore are you expecting? They'll be some storyline on the webpage, maybe one of those voiced flyovers you get with a new character and that's it. Some of the more plausible lines have already been stated here. Arthas captures and corrupts and trains and sets you loose. Some dragon in human form finds you and helps you break free of his control so that you can become an agent of whatever faction you gain while fighting his minions. Start at level 55, gogo level up.

[Rezz]

I believe the interview said that there would be a series of quests to explain the class, the lore and the abilities right out the gate. How well it does that is anyone's guess, though.

[Twobit Whore]

The two ways I can see it going is that you start off questing for Arthas himself and learn of your powers that way until the final quest when you break free somehow, maybe the aforementioned Dragonflight or similar powerful faction that you end up working for.. or you start off as just broken free and the powerful faction helps you master your abilities without the influence of Arthas.

First method would actually be sweet. You could do a chain of quests and then be sent to slay this person who turns out to be a dragon and obviously you get wtfpwned but 'salvaged' to be a force against Arthas.

[Miele]

Personally I think the DK will be a gimmick class, if the moon and jupiter are aligned under the 3rd ring of saturn, a DK will tank, other wise it'll be the same shit we had till today, aka warrior 95% of the times.
I have no char slots free, so I 'd have to go on a deleting mission to play one on my server, but every "knight" class can go die in a fire for what I care.

I'm really interested in these legacy items instead, it would be nice to PL some new class with overpowered items.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Rezz

Considering the war with the Scourge is still going on the entire time, it's not out of the realm of possibility that since landing on Azeroth some of the draenei have been "turned."

They could easily spin it as part of the wreckage from the Exodar crashed near Icecrown and Arthas did whatever funkified magickz on em to make em Death Knights. I mean, his power is much stronger than the original Lich King's, so his ability to turn people to death knights is probably amplified. Would explain why the Lich King originally needed to corrupt people first, maybe Arthas just captures, mind-melds or something and then trains them in the evil ways.

Also: Draenei make for powerful necromancers anyway (see Auchindoun) and have knights/vindicators already - it's not improbable that somewhere along the line someone said the Russian-demon equivalent of "Necro + knight = £££"

[Grizzlebeard]

End of the day, the DK six months after expac release will be a butt-raped shadow of the overpowered candy they'll push at launch to lure all the gullible god-class tards into buying WotLK.

[Modo Icecrown]

You're being silly and dramatic if you think Death Knights are going to make nobody want your class in a group anymore.

Just because Deathknights have a tanking tree doesn't mean everyone will take it. It will be similar to when TBC came out, a ton of tanks are going to go dps specs for leveling. You will still have better odds of getting a group than the dps will. It's really not worth bitching about, and anything is pure speculation at this point anyway.

I am overjoyed at the raid changes. I don't know how they are going to balance it, but I'll finally see Naxx (can only commit to raiding once a week as is) and will actually have tiered progression through 10 mans.

Overall, this expansion sounds like it's going to be dope. I can't wait.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Yeah, look what they did to Paladins. Soon as they had to actually balance them they got the shit kicked out of them. Same will happen to the DK over time. I don't see the tanking paradigm shifting too much. Tanks are hard enough to come by as is. I'm more afraid of not having enough healers unless they seriously change the way healing is done.

The forsaken architecture looks nice though. Unrest eat your heart out.

[MrGraham]

DK's remind me a lot of hearing about Beastlord's in EQ.

THEY HAVE PETS? AND THEY CAN USE MONK WEAPONS AND ARE MELEE DPS AND CAN SLOW?

Then it turned out that while they were really cool for soloing and grouping that they were pretty useless in raids except for MGB Paragon.

So what is a DK's MGB Paragon going to be? Unless they make them do more dps than a feral (unlikely), or they put in gimmick encounters that are tailored for a DK tank, they are going to need to have something that gives them a niche beside the ae agro+blessing of a paladin or the dps of a feral.