Wrath of the Lich King Interview,Death Knight Info

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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is the upcoming second expansion for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, following The Burning Crusade. It is set in the land of Northrend, home of the Lich King, Arthas Menethil/Ner'zhul. It was confirmed on the first day of BlizzCon 2007, August 3, 2007.

The expansion began beta testing on July 17, 2008, while opt-in beta test keys were sent out starting on August 4, 2008. Wrath of the Lich King is due to be released on November 13, 2008.

Features

Some of the features announced at BlizzCon 2007 include:

  • Level cap raised to 80
  • Battle with the Lich King at the Frozen Throne
  • One new playable class: Death Knight
  • A new continent: Northrend
  • The creation of a new profession: Inscription
  • Profession level cap raised to 450
  • New items, quests, dungeons, creatures, spells and weapons
  • Siege weapons and destructible buildings (for PvP)
  • New character-customization options, including new hairstyles and dances
  • A non-instanced Battleground
  • Improved Graphics Engine (applied to shaders, flame effects, water appearance and detailed shadows)
  • New factions including the Speartusk and the Taunka, a racial cousin to the Tauren

Subsequent features announced or confirmed by Blizzard include:

  • Achievements for both the expansion and existing content
  • New non-inventory storage for Mounts, Vanity Pets, and battleground, arena, and raiding tokens.
  • Built-in threat meter
  • New Calendar feature
  • Ability to link professions via chat

Hero class

At BlizzCon 2007, Blizzard also announced the debut of Hero classes, a long awaited feature to World of Warcraft. Hero classes will consist of classes from Warcraft III that were too strong to play from level one or could not fit a primary class role. Currently, Blizzard has confirmed only one Hero class: the Death Knight. In an interview with one developer, he said that for the time being there is only one hero class, though more will be introduced in future expansions.

Death Knight

The Death Knight is the first announced Hero class for World of Warcraft. Death Knights, according to Blizzard developers, will be able to fulfill the tank and DPS roles sufficiently. Death Knights can use plate armor and new rune weapons like Runeswords and Runeaxes, but they cannot use shields. According to an interview, a Death Knight's summoned pets will be more similar to a Priest's Shadowfiend, a Mage's Water Elemental, or a Druid's Treants in that they are pets with a set duration. In the current beta stage death knights that have put a specific number of talent points into the Unholy Tree are granted full control over their ghoul like a hunter's or a warlock's pet (the ghoul is still set duration). The Death Knight will also be gaining the use of a new item called Sigil's which will be similar to a Shamans Totem slot, paladin's libram or a druids symbol.

This class will not be accessible using normal character creation. Instead, once a player has a level 55 character, they will be able to create one Death Knight character per realm, which will begin at level 55 with a full arsenal of spells] Both the Alliance and Horde factions will have access to the class.

Instead of relying on rage, energy, or mana, the Death Knight will use a new resource system: runes, which will be displayed under the player portrait. The Death Knight has 2 of each rune available for use and after they are used they enter a 10 second "cooldown" period before they can be used again. Currently each tree has talents that help speed up the cooldown on a certain set (blood, frost, unholy) of runes. With specific talents the Death Knight can also turn their runes into Death Runes which can be used as any of the 3 seperate runes.

The Death Knight will also require an additional resource called Runic Power to cast some of their more powerful spells. Runic Power works similar to a warriors Rage in that it slowly builds up during combat (unlike warriors the Death Knight must cast spells to gain runic power) and will decay over time when out of combat.

Instances

Several new instances will be included in the expansion pack. Another instance will appear in the Caverns of Time, set during the human campaign of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, in which Prince Arthas massacred the townspeople of Stratholme because they were infected by the plague. Many new 5-man, 10-man, and 25-man dungeons will be located in Northrend, including:

  • Utgarde Keep - An instance in the Howling Fjord filled with the Vrykul, a Viking-like race devoted to serving the Lich King. It has two wings - Utgarde Keep, and Utgarde Pinnacle.
  • Azjol-Nerub - The contested capital of the Nerubian race of spider-people.
  • Icecrown Citadel - Players will battle Arthas the Lich King, the ruler of the Undead Scourge.
  • Naxxramas - An updated version of the original Naxxramas, redesigned to cater for 10 and 25 man content.

Blizzard has also confirmed a new instance hub called the Nexus, home of the Blue Dragonflight, which will contain at least three instances. The first, a low 70s instance set in Ice Caverns, the second a high level instance seeing the player and their group face enemies on floating rings, and a final raid instance against the Blue Dragon Aspect Malygos, which takes place in a rift in the sky. It has also been confirmed that all raid instances included with the expansion will be both 10-man and 25-man versions. It has been stated that the quality of loot in 10 and 25 man versions will differ (i.e. 10 man version will be Tier 7 25 man would be Tier 8)


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