Roleplaying a Death Knight (Part One)

As the new kids on the block, death knights don't have a lot of race-specific pre-scripted back story. Sure, everyone knows they were undead servants of the Lich King, bound to do his bidding and wreak destruction upon Azeroth, but what else is there beneath that pallid skin and those glowing blue eyes?

It doesn’t help that death knights come power-leveled to 58 but without any individual professions or gear. To a casual observer, the masses of leveling DKs wandering around Outland and Northrend may all seem alike. But if you’re looking to make a name for yourself by roleplaying a death knight, here are some things to consider from a racial lore perspective:

Blood Elves: Blood Elves became a unified race because of the Scourge, and the destruction of the Sunwell. Arthas' corruption of that font of all life for the high elves utterly and irrevocably remade the Sin'Dorei. And, as a long-lived race, all Blood Elves who now serve as death knights remember the destruction of the Sunwell, and the terrors of the Scourge. Hatred, therefore, is probably deeply-sown in the heart of the Blood Elf death knight. For not only is Arthas responsible for the destruction of life as you knew it, the Lich King set up his own knights as patsies in an ill-conceived plot to foil the Argent Dawn, as is revealed in the final quest in the DK starting area. It is probably very easy, therefore, for a Sin'Dorei death knight to feel nothing but lust for revenge, an unending, sleepless desire to see Arthas destroyed. Yet, like all death knights, the new emotions of undeath are probably tempered with memories of your homeland and life as an elf. As the golden forests of Eversong can never be touched by the likes of your kind again, regret, not unlike that of Sylvanas herself, is probably also held in your heart.

Draenei: Perhaps more than any other mortal race, the Draenei have an affinity with the Holy Light. Even Draenei shaman are still permitted to use their Light-given Gift of the Naaru racial ability. And as we all know, shaman were Draenei who once used the powers of Light to benefit their people, but, due to fel pollution were cut off from the source of their holy powers. Now, shaman call upon the elements, and are able to sustain and heal their people just as well, but through different sources. Velen himself has completely vindicated shamanism as a viable path within Draenei society, even though shaman don’t commune directly with the Light (except for that one racial ability).

So what about death knights? What about an undead Draenei who has returned to the service of their people after mercilessly slaughtering innocent living beings? If the Light teaches all Draenei to be merciful and benevolent, how have these tenets been twisted by a mind which was once chained to serve the all-consuming, merciless Lich King? In all likelihood, Draenei death knights live on the very fringes of their society, accepted by none, and tolerated by very few.

But, even though the Scourge are what many would call an abomination unto the Light, it must be remembered that the Lich King is no longer under control of the Burning Legion. It is therefore possible that an undead Draenei would find more acceptance among her birth race than one of the fel-corrupted Eredar, who have no place among them any more.

Dwarves: Stalwart, sturdy, steadfast. Since time immemorial, these traits have defined the Dwarvish people. And hey, what would you expect from a race created out of the earth itself, and forged as part of the Titans’ master plan? Dwarves are probably the most dependable race in the Alliance – they honor their friends and never fail to come to their defense, even against the most powerful of enemies.

So what happens when one of their number falls to the ranks of the Scourge? What happens when the integrity of the Dwarven people is besmirched by the admittance of death knights into their ranks? The answer: it probably depends on who you talk to. Most upstanding citizens of Ironforge look upon death knights as an evil, and a disgrace. Dwarves have long practiced the arts of a paladin society, and uphold the tenets of honor and the Light, much as their Human allies. But on the other hand, Dwarves seem to operate on such a strong sense of honor and tradition that perhaps the phrase “once a Dwarf, always a Dwarf” is a good fit here. In all likelihood, the question of whether a given death knight “fits in” with their old society is one for the player to answer: do you want to go back to your birthright and uphold the glory of your people? Or will you carve a new path for your kind, one which pays no heed to the calls of your ancient race?

Forsaken: Forsaken may be the most tortured race on the face of Azeroth. Turned against their will to serve the Lich King, forced to commit atrocities in the name of the Scourge, then liberated from the curse of mindless undeath by the Dark Lady Sylvanas, these days the Forsaken are regarded as cursed by many, their very existence heretical by some. Unlike the other living, breathing denizens of Azeroth, Forsaken are liberated undead - zombies with free will. They lived human lives, then were plunged into darkness.

And Forsaken death knights went over to the dark side twice - the Lich King destroyed them once with plague, then brought them back into his fold once more. This means that more than any other race, the Forsaken are uniquely positioned to have insight into Arthas' goals. And probably more than any other race, they are hell-bent on destroying the Lich King. As a "twice-dead," or at the very least, "twice-corrupted" death knight, you have a deep furrow for your character's back story, and a rich variety of memories and events to play upon in your character description. You have served many masters, including, once upon a time, serving yourself and your own human ambitions. You have stood at the side of some of the world's greatest military minds, including Arthas, Sylvanas, and Darion Mograine. And you have twice been called to the Lich King's service, committing more atrocities in his name than any other race of death knight. In fact, it might be said that Forsaken are the ultimate death knights, who know better than any other race what it is to serve the Scourge.

Gnomes: It is hard to believe that the intelligent, calculating mind and insatiable curiosity of the Gnome would be erased upon joining the forces of the Lich King. Indeed, it is likely that the more ingenious diseases, virulent plagues, and most uncanny methods of dealing out destruction among the Lich King’s forces are owed, at least in part, to Gnomish ingenuity. Yet it cannot be denied that the sheer destruction and appetite for taking life which the Scourge embodies would have not only permeated a mind so careful and inquisitive as that of a Gnome, but co-opted it to serve the Lich King’s ends. The liberated Gnome death knight, then, is probably a combination of the intelligence that is their birthright, and a complete understanding of destruction, despair, and obliteration. Quake in your boots, people. The small ones usually hit the hardest.

Join us next time as we tackle some DK racial backgrounds for Humans, Orcs, and more! Happy trails!

I May Be a Convert...

Both of my mages are in Northrend, enjoying the scenery. They’re casting Improved Blizzard (despite yesterday’s nerf) on Shoveltusk herds to farm meat, and venturing into the dark troll lairs in Zul’Drak to face the Lich King’s undead minions. They’re having a great time doing the daily cooking quests in Dalaran, and driving siege engines into battle for Wintergrasp.

Unfortunately, this means that on a night like the last, when Northrend is crippled by bugs and everyone on the entire continent freezes every time the Wintergrasp timer runs down, that I can’t play either of my mages.

So, like any good WoW player, with my two highest toons out of commission for the night, I delved into my back log of old, forgotten characters who hadn’t quite made it out of the starting ring. And I pulled out the death knight who had been sitting, ever so patiently, waiting for me to return to her after freeing her from the Lich King’s grasp.

Normally, I hate melee fighting, which is the biggest reason I stayed away from death knights to begin with. I rolled a mage for many reasons, one of the first being that I like to hit my enemies from afar, and to do so much damage to them that they haven’t even figured out where the hits are coming from before they’ve become a pile of loot and goo at my feet.

One of my partners in crime feels the same way. He rolls hunters and warlocks, I roll mages, and together we traipse through Azeroth taking every mob fight at a distance. But on this last fateful evening, we decided to see what all the fuss was about, and start getting serious with our death knights. And we both figured we’d hate it, but hey – what’s a WoW addict to do when they can’t access their main toon?

Well, I have to confess... I liked it. I liked slapping my opponents with diseases and crippling them with massive melee crits. I liked yanking retreating foes back towards me with Death Grip, and summoning ghouls from their corpses. I had originally rolled a DK just to see the opening quests and to try out the phasing technology in the Lich King’s starting area. Hey, who doesn’t like riding on a massive frost wyrm, stealing horses, or routing the Scarlet Crusade?

But when I turned my sights towards the “real world” of Azeroth, I discovered something else. Death Knights are a whole lot of fun to play, both in PvP and PvE.

Death Knights Rock in PvP. As a mage, I’ve noticed that while the overall damage I deal in battlegrounds is high, my actual killing blows in PvP are minimal. Perhaps this is because when you’re spamming Blizzard on the crowds in Alterac Valley there really isn’t time to focus in on individual targets. Perhaps it’s because mages stick at the back of the group, dealing massive damage but leaving the actual killing blows to the melee fighters, who are better positioned to bring down the enemy in one fell swoop. Perhaps I just suck at PvP.

Whatever the reason, this has never stopped me from enjoying BGs as a mage. I love dealing massive amounts of damage to my enemies, or snaring them in place with my frost spells. And I love stealing flags, capturing bases, or weaseling out of the enemy’s grasp with the power of my arcane abilities to help gain a win.

But I discovered that as a death knight, and for the first time in my WoW career, I can top the kill charts, too. My enemies can’t run from me – I have a host of abilities to keep them where I want them, from Death Grip to Chains of Ice to Desecrated Ground to siccing my ghoul on them from afar. And they cannot hide, either. Many DK attacks are damage over time spells, so even if my foe gets away, they won’t be alive for long. Death knights are also able to heal themselves by doing damage. Like warriors, the longer we fight, the more abilities we have to play with via Runic Power, meaning that even when overwhelmed, our chances of taking down attacking foes is still high. And should I fall in battle, I will rise again as a ghoul, with renewed strength to get that killing blow. Yes, of course I spec’d Unholy.

Death Knights Rock in PvE. In PvE, I discovered that while most of the death knight’s abilities are for close-up combat, we, unlike many other melee fighters, do have some options for ranged combat. Should my target run away from me, or vault into the air to start pelting me from the sky, I can use Icy Touch or Death Coil on them to slow their attacks and deal damage. And who needs a crossbow (or for that matter a water elemental?) when I can summon a gargoyle to fight for me from the air?

While death knights usually have to fight targets one-on-one, the ability to spread diseases from one target to the next gives us a bit of AoE capacity, and Blood Boil is perfect for inflicting a great deal of damage on grouped mobs.

Ease of Play. After filling my screen with macros and dedicating hotbar after hotbar to the plethora of abilities facing the modern mage, I have to say that it’s refreshing to play a character who is just as powerful and capable, but who uses less actual abilities to deal damage. Spell rotation on a death knight is easy to manage. And hey, even autohits on a DK deal substantial amounts of damage! For me, coming from the fireworks-filled world of playing a mage, it also seems that death knight abilities have enough lively animation and an eldritch, almost arcane, spell-like quality to them that keep playing a melee fighter interesting.

Rich RP Options. I’m no longer on a role-playing server, but if I were to visit my old stomping grounds again, my heritage as a death knight and former servant of the Lich King would provide a rich furrow for my character’s back story, allowing me to flesh out tales about how she was first enlisted into Arthas’ service, what she did on his campaigns, when she first remembered her former life (the fact that my character is a Forsaken DK makes her story even more varied) and how it was when she finally broke free from Arthas’ grasp and tried to return to the world which had for so long been her enemy.

Given the abundance of avenues open for me and my new death knight, I have certainly solved the riddle of what to do when the world server is down and I can’t reach my Northrend characters. But I wouldn’t be surprised if leveling a death knight becomes more than just a side activity, too. Sorry, my dear mages, but you just haven’t got those cool, glowing blue eyes.

Get Ready to Celebrate!

A new world holiday is almost upon us! The Lunar Festival begins this week, filled with fireworks and fun, its very own title (Elder, of course) and, for any low-level character who hasn't visited yet, a free trip to Moonglade!

As far as holidays go, the Lunar Festival is pretty low-key. Most of the celebrating occurs in Moonglade itself, so the Cenarion Circle druids have set up teleport circles in all capital cities (that's old-world capitals, not Silvermoon or Exodar) to bring characters of any level to Moonglade. To get your teleport, start by speaking with a Lunar Festival Herald at your city of choice. The Heralds will direct you to the Lunar Festival Harbingers, who'll give you a Moonglade teleport scroll... after you honor the goddess Elune by shooting off a few fireworks of your own, that is!

Once you've reached Moonglade, be sure to pick up the flight point if you haven't already, and get the practically-free achievement for exploring Moonglade! Then, as directed by the Harbingers, visit Valadar Starsong to get a quick preview of the delights the holiday has in store.

The currency of choice for all items sold during this holiday are the Coins of Ancestry given by the spirits of Azerothian Elders, who are scattered throughout the game world. The more coins you collect, the more items you can buy:

• Festive Lunar Dresses and Festive Lunar Pant Suits - made of bright, cheery silk, these outfits would look lovely on just about anyone. Each dress or suit costs 5 coins.
• Festival Dumplings - These are stackable up to 20 and restore 4% of your health and 3% of your mana per second when eaten. A single coin will buy you 8 dumplings. Best of all - the dumplings don't expire, so you can enjoy them all year long.
• Elune's Candle - These powerful artifacts are used by those brave enough to face off against the Lunar Festival's biggest baddie and raid boss - Omen.

Take a look at your world events achievement bar to plan where to go to get all the coins you'll need - many involve delving deep into dungeons or far into the wastes of Northrend, or even into the capital cities of opposing factions. Given how many coins there are to collect this year, interested players should start early, bring their friends, and even make a plan with their guild members to get them all.

And when you're not traipsing all over the globe trying to find those elusive Elders, grab some friends and down the holiday raid boss, Omen. This big baddie can be summoned by firing off cluster rockets from launchers located around Lake Elune'ara. The commotion from the rockets will attract Minions of Omen, and slaying these minions will cause Omen himself to appear. Players can use their Elune's Candles to damage Omen and his minions. And, like all raid bosses, bring your friends to help save the day.

Remember - any character of any level can participate in the Festival Fun! The Lunar Festival runs between January 24th and February 12th.

Tundra Stampede!

Perhaps the Sparksocket engineers should have thought things through more before placing a humungous minefield right beside the ancestral migration patterns of the Northrend mammoths. Still, there's not much a land mine can do to a rampaging herd of these tusked wanderers, and maybe the fact that even walking in the Storm Peaks is unsafe serves to dissuade the endless masses of crazed Nessingwary poachers, who are hell-bent on wiping out the natural ecology of the continent. So... natural engineering or simple technological gaffe - you be the judge!

Wings Required

It's a new year, filled with speculation about the surprises Blizzard has in store for us, from the release of StarCraft II to whether there will be a BlizzCon 2009. Given that Blizzard's rough pattern for WoW expansions has been set as one every 12-14 months, perhaps analysts are not jumping the gun too much in speculating about what new release the coming year has in store for us.

Some have put their money on the Emerald Dream, dragons, and druids. Others are voting for the Maelstrom, with Azshara and her naga crew. And when inquiring minds at BlizzCon asked about the new expansion, the powers that be told us it was underway, completely confidential, and something none of us were going to expect.

While the content may be a mystery to us, I am still willing to put my hard-earned gold down on a couple good wagers regarding the mechanics of the next expansion.

Wings Required. First, I think the next expansion will involve flight. A lot. The gameplay changed in Burning Crusade when you dinged level 70, emptied out your bank vaults and bought that flying mount. I still remember the feeling I had when taking off for the first time - the entire world had just opened up for me, with no limitations. I think the ease and flexibility of flying mounts was something everyone enjoyed in BC, and Blizzard even modified the game mechanics to incorporate flight in WoW, with bombing quests, special areas reachable only by flight, and high-end flying mounts.

Understandably, there was outcry when, upon reaching Northrend, players were asked to trade in their swift and versatile flying mounts for their land mounts again. I am part of the school which believes that making players walk through the new content and appreciate it from a ground perspective in all its glory before taking to the skies is actually a good thing. I'm personally glad that Dalaran is a no-fly zone, forcing players back to the ground to enjoy the intricacies of that magical city and to interact with one another again. But I can also understand that to take away what was for almost everyone the most expensive investment in the game so far - to make people walk on land again, was a stretch for many.

Cold-weather Flying is obtainable at level 77 and costs 1,000 gold, a sum which has been deemed a "flight tax" by some unwilling to pay it. While the idea behind making players wait to fly until the final levels before cap is clearly to better define where players can go in the world (you can't go streaking straight to Arthas when you land in Northrend at level 70) and to make them appreciate the varied and often intricate questlines in the first several leveling zones, I am convinced Blizzard can't pull off the same stunt in the next expansion with impunity.

Flight has to be a built-in part of the third expansion. After all, we'll all be at least to level 78 by then, and capable of flying everywhere but old-world Azeroth on our own.

To help take advantage of flight right off the bat in the next expansion, it's quite possible that the world presented to us will be "tiered" into various levels of related content, much as later parts of Outland were with floating islands in Shadowmoon and Netherstorm, and areas only reachable by flight, like some regions in Blade's Edge.

Quests, too, should be tailored to take advantage of flight - we've already seen bombing quests, delivery quests, even some passenger quests, and these should only be expanded as more and more of us start out on our jet-set (or perhaps wyvern-set?) lifestyles.

We've seen an absolute ton of flying mounts enter the game since those first gryphons and wyverns back in BC. Yet for two expansions, flight speeds (60% or 280%, respectively) have remained the same. Given the plethora of flying creatures on the airways now, it's certainly possible that we'd see a boost in flight speed, especially if flying became the chosen form of travel in the new expansion.

Healing a Go-Go, or: Buff-Based Healing. We've seen a new tanking/melee DPS class enter the arena in Wrath, and most rumor sources have their money set on a healer for the third expansion. Not to buck the trend, I can go along with that, but I've got a new twist on this old favorite.

We all like seeing Renew or Rejuvenation buffs on our characters, because they mean we're getting a little stream of health with every tick of the buff timer. However, for the most part, healing in WoW is still devoted mainly to channeled spells, non-buff instant-casts, or multi-second cast spells. But what if we had a class which was like the anti-warlock - a buff-based healer with a counter for every curse, and whose heals actually compounded based on the number of buffs currently on their target?

Such healers would be nimble, fast-acting, and able to move around even while casting their greatest heals, because if spec'd properly, their buffs would cause a chain-reaction in the amount of hit-points healed, and the time over which damage was repaired.

Also, for the most part, healing classes don't get to use pets - what if the "Go-go Healer" could pop out some creature which enabled them to heal even better over the course of a battle, actually cast its own healing spells on party members, or acted as an off-tank in case the healer got too much aggro?

Only time will tell as to the true identity WoW's third expansion, but for now, there's enough out there to keep the speculation going!

Darkmoon Faire

Are you going to Darkmoon Faire,
Peacebloom, Earthroot and Dreamfoil
Remember me to a troll I knew there
She was once a true love of mine...

Another Darkmoon Faire has arrived (in Mulgore this month) with lots to do - items to buy, cannons to fire, frogs to catch, and food and drink to sample.

The problem is, it's all old stuff. The same gems, leather and herbs which used to make a substantial profit on the AH have been devalued with the launch of Wrath, and nothing has been put in their place. Sure, for a leveling Scribe, the herbs you can get at a few silver apiece can help, but for someone who wants to collect some new Northrend-level gems, or some eternals, we're out of luck.

The Darkmoon items themselves are also in sore need of revamping. The Darkmoon Amulets purchased by Faire tickets are level 60 epic items.

We've had hints of new Darkmoon content, however: with Inscription, players can make their very own Darkmoon decks, available to characters levels 10-80. Like the original Darkmoon cards (Deck of Lunacy, Deck of Elementals, etc.), it takes a certain number of individual cards to make a full deck. However, once a deck has been completed, the Scribe can either use it herself or give it to a friend, and use the deck to summon a Darkmoon Faire carnie who will hand over necklaces, robes, shoulder pieces, or other bits and pieces of equipment. For the most part, these items are well worth the effort for leveling characters.

You make the call: is Darkmoon Faire outdated now that Wrath has launched?

[Edit as of January 7th]: Well, I guess we answered that question. Blue poster Wryxian notes on the new patch notes for 3.0.8, which should be hitting live servers soon, that: "The Darkmoon Faire vendors have new items now that trade routes into Northrend have been better established." Hooray! Now I can get some Crystallized Shadow.

Confessions of a WoW Addict

The most compelling games I've played have not been the ones with the best graphics, or the shiniest game features. No, they have been the ones which are immersive, the ones where I can devote hours, days, months, and in the best-case scenarios, years to unlocking their secrets, and experimenting with every aspect of play.

I spent years of high school and college playing the Baldur's Gate series, and Diablo II. And I still played them long after their interfaces had grown clunky and their graphics were out of date, simply because they had a great story to tell. I've often compared a good computer game to a good book, because it sets a great scene, has great characters, and draws you into the action. The best part of roleplaying (RP) games is that they let you become the protagonist. And when I find a game which lets me be a good protagonist, I'm hooked.

Most modern RP games allow a high level of interactivity. You choose your race, gender, class and appearance. Some games even allow for "alignment" based on your in-game decisions. Given all these factors, there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of permutations for game play.

But in most single-person RP games, there comes a time when the final monster has been vanquished and the ultimate treasure has been looted. A time, in short, when there is nothing left for your character to do. In the worst cases, your ability to play the avatar you've spent weeks of your life with is terminated with the final cut-scene and your name on the in-game high scores list - the ultimate authoritarian end to the world you've spent so much time exploring.

WoW to me is therefore the quintessential eternal game. There will never come a time when the game is "over," no matter how many times you slay Arthas. And no matter what level your character is, you can always come back and play them again.

Of course, from a financial standpoint, it's better to create a game which people will play for years, a game which is basically serialized, not to mention social, and possessed of a random number generator which makes you forever wondering what better treasures await you if you only fight that boss again. MMORPGs were made to allow near infinite interactivity, and for this same reason they have also been likened to addictive substances. And among many, WoW has been called the "gateway drug" to the world of MMOGs.

Does this mean I've become a slave to my monthly WoW fee, and another junkie geek waiting for my next "hit" of content? Maybe.

But it also means I've become a WoW addict with just cause: the game isn't over yet, not by a long shot. In fact, if we're to believe the powers that be who touched on this subject at BlizzCon, the work on the new expansion is already well underway, and will be nothing like any of us expect.

And just like the way serialized content was unlocked with each successive patch in the Burning Crusade, the "end-game" content in Wrath hasn't even hit us yet. No, we should be expecting that post patch 3.1.x.

So to those who decry Wrath for being to easy or too short, remember that there's more coming. And even if Arthas falls, there's more story for us all to unlock in the world of Azeroth. I for one will be happy to pony up to the next expansion when it comes.

Rekindling an Old Alliance?

Whether it’s just an oversight on Blizzard’s part, or a deliberate hint of things to come, I was shocked to see that some of this weekend’s Alliance emissaries for Strand of the Ancients are in fact High Elves!

It’s a known fact that High Elves were once staunch supporters of the Alliance. When their magical kingdom of Quel’Thalas was threatened by Amani trolls, the High Elves taught local humans how to use magic, forming a long-standing bond between the two races. When the humans of the Kirin’Tor founded Dalaran, they welcomed High Elves into their number, and many elves can still be seen in Dalaran today. When the Sunwell was destroyed, and the displaced citizens of Quel’Thalas formed a new order of Blood Elves and pledged themselves to the Horde, there were some High Elves who did not join their order, and who may have remained either neutral to the fight, or loyal to their old allies.

Despite all the lore, High Elves have never been more than background figures in WoW. They’re not a playable race (yet), and they show up only rarely in Azeroth, in a few camps in the Plaguelands. In Outland, High Elves help guard the Alliance post of Allerian Stronghold. So what does it mean that on a battleground weekend, High Elves show up as emissaries, when never before have non-playable races taken on this job? Does it hint at a new faction or race to come?