(Wrath BETA)The WoW Medic: My Initial Review of the Death Knight! [Part 1, storyline]
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This will probably be my last blog for a week or so. I have plenty of things to talk about with my WoW'sters, but not enough time to type it all out. I do have just enough time though to give a solid review of the up and coming expansion HERO class, the DEATH KNIGHT! I was fortunate enough to participate in the alpha thanks to a solid friend of mine, and now that the beta is around, there's even more things to do. So, here's to the DK!
Unlike the alpha phase, where the DK was available to play but did not have any substance to his story or progression to learn his attacks, the beta has turned this all around. Upon creating the DK, you start out as "the bad guy". You begin working for Arthas, the Lich King, as you do his dirty deeds to corrupt the lands protected by the Scarlet Crusade (if you don't remember pre-BC, this was the faction that was similar to Argent Dawn's goal of cleansing the scourge, except they hated all factions).
The beginning starting zone is an "instance", and while it's hard to explain this concept, just imagine being on a progressing timeline with players who are on the same phase of the timeline as you. Each quest-phase has it's own timeline where you only play with the players who are on the same quest(s) as you are. For instance, the first quest-phase is to win 5 duels against other DK's. While you are on this phase, you are only exposed to other DK's who are also trying to win duels. Once you advance to the next quest-phase, you will no longer see new DK's who are just starting the dueling quest. The reason why it works this way is because the land will eventually turn corrupted as you complete more quests. However, if you were late in creating a DK, you certainly wouldn't want to join a starting area where the land was already corrupted and there were no quests for you to do since the Lich King's work had already been completed. So, this is why the starting zone is an "instance". If this doesn't make sense, it doesn't really matter, it's much more exciting to play through it when you get the chance!
Aside from the whole "instance" thing, when you start the DK you begin at the top of a sky-scraping necropolis, named Ebon Hold (EH from now on). EH itself contains 3-4 floor levels. Using portals around EH allows you to travel between each floor level. Anyway, when your character enters the world, you are at the very summit of EH. Standing no more than 5 yards from your character is the Lich King himself! When I first logged in, I was a bit confused because this is not how the alpha started the DK. In the alpha they just plopped you into a random part of EPL (eastern plaguelands). And while leveling my shaman in alpha, there is an encounter in one of the starting 70 zones where you encounter the Lich King and there's a big fight coming. So, I didn't know what to expect. However, to my surprise, the LK was standing with a golden-! above his head. He sends you out to find another NPC, who sends you to find more and more NPC's. The first few quests are actually just to get you familiar with the layout of EH since this is where the DK will do all his runeforging and talent training (eventually you learn a spell to teleport you back to EH on a 15 minute cooldown).
Once you are familiar with EH, it's rather simple to navigate around, especially once you complete the last EH-discovery quest, which gives all DK's a 75% increased run speed while in EH. Pretty cool huh? Ebon Hold is set up with different stuff on each level. One level has all the talent trainers. Taking a different turn from the normal class trainer, the DK talents are learned from three different trainers. Each trainer can train from a specific talent tree: Blood, Frost, and Unholy. The trainers are very unique also. A lich is the Frost trainer, who's surrounded by piles of snow in a blue-ish corner. The Blood trainer is a warrior-esque death knight, who's surrounded with other warrior-type DK's and dwells in a red-colored area. My favorite trainer is the Unholy trainer, who is surrounded by ghoul bodies that she rises from the ground and they eventually die. This trainer is using one of the many unique DK skills, Raise Dead. This skill allows a DK to raise a fallen humanoid to come back as the DK's ghoul minion. While I won't splurge too much info about this skill, I will say that it's very useful for leveling when skills are limited.
On another level of Ebon Hold, the great runeforges surround the walls. During one of your EH-discovery quests, you are asked to find a "battle-worn sword" from the piles of weapons laying around this level of EH. When you find the worn sword, you are asked to forge it with a runeforge. It then becomes a runebladed sword. You turn the sword into the quest giver and are immediately rewarded with your first DK-style sword, the Runed Soulblade! This sword has a unique design to it and is what gets you through the starter instance. Sadly, however, this sword does not last long, as at the end of the starter instance, you are rewarded with an upgraded sword or axe.
The last quest of the EH-discovery chain will ask you to report to a guy on the ground in a starting zone named Death's Reach. It's from here that you begin your slaughtering of the Scarlet lands. Without going into each quest, which each have great significance to the storyline, I'll just note that one of the quests gives you a 100% speed deathcharger mount. What a needed perk. Since the DK starts at level 55, it would take insane amounts of gold-grinding to obtain both a 60% and 100% mount before level 60. This is a very nice addition. I should also note that first aid is learned up to runecloth on all DK's.
The quest before the final act requires you to fly on a frost-wyrm, a flying skeletal dragon. You are tasked with killing 200 soldiers and a few siege weaponry. As you fly, you can shoot frost bolts from the dragon onto the soldiers. This is the first look we get at the new flying attack mounts that will be used heavily in Northrend. This was a pretty cool quest, however the soldiers often evaded so it did take a while to finish. You can actually make your dragon eat a soldier to regain health and mana, though again evading npc's was a problem.
The final battle is held at Light's Hope Chapel, a place that hasn't been visited since pre-BC for many of us. An army of DK's show up to follow Mograine into battle (yes, I should mention that all the Naxxramus bosses are involved with Ebon Hold) and they all march to LHC. After a minute of fighting, the paladin savior, Tirion Fordring appears and basically pwns up the attacking scourge. The Lich King then appears and everyone learns that we were all pawns in the LK's attempt to lure out Tirion. At this point, I believe it was Mograine who realizes the wrong that has happened here. He tosses the "corrupted ashbringer" (infamous sword of the scarlet crusade) to Tirion and he then appears to "cleanse" the sword into the Ashbringer (no longer corrupted). Tirion then leaps towards LK and slashes him. The LK is stunned and forced to retreat. The events of LHC then convince the remaining death knights that they should receed from the scourge side.
After receeding, the LK leaves Ebon Hold forever. Ebon Hold is now a place of sanctuary for the Death Knight. I am not sure if non-DK classes can reach Ebon Hold though, since it's not really a faction or major city. No auction house (from what I saw), no bank, no non-DK class trainers, etc. Basically, it offers nothing to non-DK's except the occasional "goods vendor" who you can buy supplies and sell junk to. It is an interesting city though, if you can call it a city. It's actually much too small to be considered a major capital.
Flip to part 2 for the Death Knight spells and attacks overview.
Unlike the alpha phase, where the DK was available to play but did not have any substance to his story or progression to learn his attacks, the beta has turned this all around. Upon creating the DK, you start out as "the bad guy". You begin working for Arthas, the Lich King, as you do his dirty deeds to corrupt the lands protected by the Scarlet Crusade (if you don't remember pre-BC, this was the faction that was similar to Argent Dawn's goal of cleansing the scourge, except they hated all factions).
The beginning starting zone is an "instance", and while it's hard to explain this concept, just imagine being on a progressing timeline with players who are on the same phase of the timeline as you. Each quest-phase has it's own timeline where you only play with the players who are on the same quest(s) as you are. For instance, the first quest-phase is to win 5 duels against other DK's. While you are on this phase, you are only exposed to other DK's who are also trying to win duels. Once you advance to the next quest-phase, you will no longer see new DK's who are just starting the dueling quest. The reason why it works this way is because the land will eventually turn corrupted as you complete more quests. However, if you were late in creating a DK, you certainly wouldn't want to join a starting area where the land was already corrupted and there were no quests for you to do since the Lich King's work had already been completed. So, this is why the starting zone is an "instance". If this doesn't make sense, it doesn't really matter, it's much more exciting to play through it when you get the chance!
Aside from the whole "instance" thing, when you start the DK you begin at the top of a sky-scraping necropolis, named Ebon Hold (EH from now on). EH itself contains 3-4 floor levels. Using portals around EH allows you to travel between each floor level. Anyway, when your character enters the world, you are at the very summit of EH. Standing no more than 5 yards from your character is the Lich King himself! When I first logged in, I was a bit confused because this is not how the alpha started the DK. In the alpha they just plopped you into a random part of EPL (eastern plaguelands). And while leveling my shaman in alpha, there is an encounter in one of the starting 70 zones where you encounter the Lich King and there's a big fight coming. So, I didn't know what to expect. However, to my surprise, the LK was standing with a golden-! above his head. He sends you out to find another NPC, who sends you to find more and more NPC's. The first few quests are actually just to get you familiar with the layout of EH since this is where the DK will do all his runeforging and talent training (eventually you learn a spell to teleport you back to EH on a 15 minute cooldown).
Once you are familiar with EH, it's rather simple to navigate around, especially once you complete the last EH-discovery quest, which gives all DK's a 75% increased run speed while in EH. Pretty cool huh? Ebon Hold is set up with different stuff on each level. One level has all the talent trainers. Taking a different turn from the normal class trainer, the DK talents are learned from three different trainers. Each trainer can train from a specific talent tree: Blood, Frost, and Unholy. The trainers are very unique also. A lich is the Frost trainer, who's surrounded by piles of snow in a blue-ish corner. The Blood trainer is a warrior-esque death knight, who's surrounded with other warrior-type DK's and dwells in a red-colored area. My favorite trainer is the Unholy trainer, who is surrounded by ghoul bodies that she rises from the ground and they eventually die. This trainer is using one of the many unique DK skills, Raise Dead. This skill allows a DK to raise a fallen humanoid to come back as the DK's ghoul minion. While I won't splurge too much info about this skill, I will say that it's very useful for leveling when skills are limited.
On another level of Ebon Hold, the great runeforges surround the walls. During one of your EH-discovery quests, you are asked to find a "battle-worn sword" from the piles of weapons laying around this level of EH. When you find the worn sword, you are asked to forge it with a runeforge. It then becomes a runebladed sword. You turn the sword into the quest giver and are immediately rewarded with your first DK-style sword, the Runed Soulblade! This sword has a unique design to it and is what gets you through the starter instance. Sadly, however, this sword does not last long, as at the end of the starter instance, you are rewarded with an upgraded sword or axe.
The last quest of the EH-discovery chain will ask you to report to a guy on the ground in a starting zone named Death's Reach. It's from here that you begin your slaughtering of the Scarlet lands. Without going into each quest, which each have great significance to the storyline, I'll just note that one of the quests gives you a 100% speed deathcharger mount. What a needed perk. Since the DK starts at level 55, it would take insane amounts of gold-grinding to obtain both a 60% and 100% mount before level 60. This is a very nice addition. I should also note that first aid is learned up to runecloth on all DK's.
The quest before the final act requires you to fly on a frost-wyrm, a flying skeletal dragon. You are tasked with killing 200 soldiers and a few siege weaponry. As you fly, you can shoot frost bolts from the dragon onto the soldiers. This is the first look we get at the new flying attack mounts that will be used heavily in Northrend. This was a pretty cool quest, however the soldiers often evaded so it did take a while to finish. You can actually make your dragon eat a soldier to regain health and mana, though again evading npc's was a problem.
The final battle is held at Light's Hope Chapel, a place that hasn't been visited since pre-BC for many of us. An army of DK's show up to follow Mograine into battle (yes, I should mention that all the Naxxramus bosses are involved with Ebon Hold) and they all march to LHC. After a minute of fighting, the paladin savior, Tirion Fordring appears and basically pwns up the attacking scourge. The Lich King then appears and everyone learns that we were all pawns in the LK's attempt to lure out Tirion. At this point, I believe it was Mograine who realizes the wrong that has happened here. He tosses the "corrupted ashbringer" (infamous sword of the scarlet crusade) to Tirion and he then appears to "cleanse" the sword into the Ashbringer (no longer corrupted). Tirion then leaps towards LK and slashes him. The LK is stunned and forced to retreat. The events of LHC then convince the remaining death knights that they should receed from the scourge side.
After receeding, the LK leaves Ebon Hold forever. Ebon Hold is now a place of sanctuary for the Death Knight. I am not sure if non-DK classes can reach Ebon Hold though, since it's not really a faction or major city. No auction house (from what I saw), no bank, no non-DK class trainers, etc. Basically, it offers nothing to non-DK's except the occasional "goods vendor" who you can buy supplies and sell junk to. It is an interesting city though, if you can call it a city. It's actually much too small to be considered a major capital.
Flip to part 2 for the Death Knight spells and attacks overview.
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