Any interest in a Vanillfied Death Knight?

[Ivanturtle]

This is more of a thought experiment than an earnest suggestion, because I expect it would be a pretty big undertaking, not to be suggested very lightly. Not to mention quite controversial among more traditional vanilla fans, I'm sure. I for one would be really interested in it though. I think the DK was always on the docket in some form, ever since Vanilla, and it would be a good addition to the game- a plate wearing, spellcasting hybrid.

What makes it interesting for me to consider is what it would look like in a vanilla context, by reverse-engineering changes made to other classes like Warlock in retail. Soul Shards went from inventory items to a special resource bar, so perhaps a vanilla DK would do the opposite- Runes are no longer a special resource under your hp bar, they're inventory reagents that you have to manage like ranged ammo or soul shards. I like the idea of crafting them with the Runecrafting profession, and at higher levels you get to craft, for instance, an 'Eternal Blood Rune' that refills automatically when you kill mobs for some flavorful progression.

It probably wouldn't be a special hero class, it would just start at level 1 like everyone else, being locked to human and undead just like Druids are locked to Tauren and NE. I've seen people saying they'd prefer a necromancer or something, but obviously DK is theoretically easier to port over, as opposed to building a new class from the ground up. And another plate wearer is more appealing to me than another clothie.

I'm curious what other people think of this idea, whether they'd like it or if they hate it

[Gantulga]

Nope. I'd rather have the current classes and specs balanced and improved some more.

[Sinrek]

DK class shouldn't be playable. Otherwise we'd end up with another WotLK era.
-1 for it.

[Kairion]

Nope. I'd rather have the current classes and specs balanced and improved some more.

Agreed. The existing specs should get priority over adding new ones

[Mativh]

Northrend incorporated as horizontal 1-60 content would be amazing.
Death Knights were originally created by Ner'zhul as a gift to the Horde when they first clashed with the Alliance, as a weapon against their Paladins. They were made by Ner'zhuls most loyal warlocks spirit possessing the corpses of defeated Alliance Paladins.
Later the Lich King created a different kind of Death Knight; corrupting directly a Paladin, turning it to an undead in the process.
Death Knights could be added, but not as a heroic class for all races, but fallen paladins (as they were supposed to be before Activision retconned everything).
As a Paladin, at a certain level, the player could take on the path of becoming a Death Knight, fighting for the Scourge first, and eventually desert and rejoin Alliance/Horde (on Horde side for this the Forsaken could be able to be Paladins, as they were while alive, just like they were priests/hunters/warriors etc.).

Although it never made a lot of sense to me that the Alliance would accept Death Knights but has rejected the undead humans of Lordaeron, then again they also have Warlocks who live somewhat marginalized, so they could tolerate individuals but not an entire undead society. Point is, I don't think they would accept Ebon Blade as an organization that is also having members in the Horde, but perhaps only individual Death Knights that were Alliance in the past.
Historically Death Knights were a Horde unit used against the Alliance, or a Scourge unit attacking the Alliance.

On a side note, as new races I think Vrykuls are a great candidate for the Alliance (and Ogres for the Horde).

[Aeliren]

I don't think Death Knight would be possible within the system. Since Second War-era death knights are orc warlock souls in human bodies they likely wouldn't be available to the Alliance, and Third War-era death knights would be exclusively affiliated with the Scourge due to their nature. Even when they added them to WoW, they were initially Scourge-aligned and it took a literal act of divinity to break them away from the Lich King's control to make them playable in the factions.

Even looking to the Warcraft RPG death knight prestige class, it specifies that their alignment is "Any evil" and their affiliation is specifically only the Scourge.

Making a death knight would require effectively breaking away from both main factions into a "Scourge" branch for questing and levelling, which would be a massive undertaking and probably not particularly worth undertaking.

[Mac]

What would differentiate a vanilla+ death knight from, say, a wotlk death knight?

[Zeyla]

I would say... perhaps one day, well after they finish working on and release their version of outland, and we progress to potentially a TWoW version of Northrend in the distant future? For now though, if I could see a new class, I'd love to see TWoW's rendition of a Goblin/Gnomish Tinker class.

[Kairion]

Adding new classes later to an existing online game outside of requiring a massive amount of effort to pull of always has the problem of drawing the playerbase to this one new thing.

And this is exceptionally troublesome if the new class cant fill all the roles. For a few weeks/months after release it would make it that much harder to find healers for dungeons or find a group where not 4 players need plate gear.

I think if new classes should be released, i think one should do so in sets of 3 to give a bit of variety to choose from, so this peoblem is dampened down.

But that being said, id much rather not see DK in classic.

[Raukodor]

Id love have the classic true Dk. The w2 Dk. More a spellcaster/necromancer than a warrior

[Kerenis]

That would pose a class population issue that would blow up pve guilds IMO

[Gladeshadow]

-1

People join this server to have a vanilla experience with a few changes. Adding an entire class isn’t a vanilla experience. There would be big balance issues to address as well.
This might be something the Vanilla Plus server would do.

[Breidr]

This server would most likely be against the idea in any form. I wouldn't mind more options. Whatever the team adds, I have confidence that it will fit with the vanilla feel. I can't distinguish between custom quests and what was here originally.

I'd love the option, especially if it encouraged PvP, and I am well aware that this is a RP-PvE server. I've been playing a lot of LOTRO lately, and I could see this fitting into a sort of PvMP thing. Make Northrend, or something else a special zone. It's just a spitball of an idea, but if it could be done, would be cool.

[Bruhh]

Ehh I've never fully played as a Death Knight but I heard that DKs started the whole "go go go" kind of meta you see in retail these days and I'd rather keep that away from this server.

[Breidr]

Ehh I've never fully played as a Death Knight but I heard that DKs started the whole "go go go" kind of meta you see in retail these days and I'd rather keep that away from this server.

I feel like the design changes in WotLK are more responsible for this, as opposed to Death Knights. Could be wrong though.

[Mac]

People join this server to have a vanilla experience with a few changes.

Can't speak for everyone. Personally, I joined because it's Vanilla+, meaning a continuation of vanilla rather than expansions replacing it, in addition to returning scrapped ideas to the game like Disguises and Holy Strike. This could include new classes, as hero classes was an idea that they were toying around with as far back as 2005, and adding new classes is a logical continuation of the game.

[Kairion]

I'd love the option, especially if it encouraged PvP, and I am well aware that this is a RP-PvE server. I've been playing a lot of LOTRO lately, and I could see this fitting into a sort of PvMP thing. Make Northrend, or something else a special zone. It's just a spitball of an idea, but if it could be done, would be cool.

Ye another broken op plate class surely incentivises these damn clothies to start playing pvp ^^

DKs core skillset is feast or famine all the way. Deathgrip is a massively powercrept version of charge and skills like deathstrike with selfheal are massively frustrating to play aginst. See Shadowpriests for comparison.
Either you nerf the numbers and the class is instantly irrelevant or you have to take massive parts of his toolkit out to be balanced to the point where he may as well be a ret pally with different flavor

[Balake]

the death knight identity in warcraft and vanilla is mostly based on increased attack speed, movement speed, and health regeneration.
http://classic.battle.net/war2/units/deathknight.shtml
https://liquipedia.net/warcraft/Unholy_Aura
https://www.wowhead.com/classic/item=13 ... -rivendare

A vanillafied death knight is simply a warrior or paladin wearing an armor set with death knight set bonuses (convert holy damage to shadow, increase health regen in combat, increase movement speed, etc)

[Mac]

the death knight identity in warcraft and vanilla is mostly based on increased attack speed, movement speed, and health regeneration.

Also the ability to raise the dead as undead skeletal minions to serve you, which is a lot more iconic than the other things mentioned. But I believe that can also be replicated with in-game itemization, so I suppose if you're willing to assemble all the pieces of Exodia, you can play a kind of death knight.

[Akarui]

-1. This class - one of the reason why i hate Wotlk.

[Raukodor]

I prefer w2 classic Dk (casters one. More necromancers than warriors)

Could have 3 talent trees

-path of summoner (bunch of skeletons and mage skeletons, and 1 strong Bone golem)

-path of unholy (curses and dots)

-path of lich (pure dps with Frost and shadow spells. Last talent could be temporary turn into a powerful lich, or have a phylacterie talent that works like a placeable soulstone)

[Seltsamuel]

So in other words, a reflavoured warlock. Personally, I really hoped to get a necromancer class that has multiple minions. But balancing that would probably be a nightmare.

[Gladeshadow]

The Warcraft 2 death knights are literally warlocks, just reanimated. A reflavored warlock wouldn't do much aside from dilute the class, which is already the second least played class and only outpaces shamans, which are faction exclusive.
The client can't handle giving the player character direct control of more than one pet, like hunters and warlocks do. Any extra minions would be AI controlled, like the scarlet hound, mechanical yeti, mechanical dragonling, etc. These are all very problematic to use when leveling (barring scenarios such as fighting a boss) since they like to pull monsters and put or keep the player in combat.

[Mrkrissatan]

I posted my idea for the DK class a while ago, my idea hasn't changed and I'd still like to see it implemented as an optional class expansion to the additional classes

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2550

[Trymv1]

The Warcraft 2 death knights are literally warlocks, just reanimated.

They ARE reanimated bodies, but its not a dead warlock reanimated.

They're orc warlocks that are soul transferred into dead human knights. They're borderline liches.

But yes the WoW version is more of an anti-paladin by comparison and has very little to do with the WC2 versions beyond name and some attempted theme carryover within the Unholy tree.

Amusingly, as far as people saying 'itd be fun to see Vanilla attempts at old classes' the Death Knight wasnt even the early idea.

Those were RUNEMASTERS.

Which apparently were split into Druid and Warlock stuff, then later merged with Necromancer into the WoW Death Knight, and then equally sprinkled into Monk.

[Mac]

Amusingly, as far as people saying 'itd be fun to see Vanilla attempts at old classes' the Death Knight wasnt even the early idea.

No, Death Knights were also an early class idea they kicked around during WoW's development along with Runemasters and a bunch of other ones. The idea was that it was going to be a hero class that undead warriors could unlock. Here's WoW developer Kevin Jordan talking about the idea. The idea got far enough along that it was announced as on the horizon (along with siege weapons for PVP battleground and high level raids) at one point but then was never fully endorsed and got scrapped.

[Gladeshadow]

Nice to get corrected by the guy below your post, huh?

Death knights are warlocks reanimated, as I said. Yeah, reanimated in human bodies, but does that somehow negate the first part? The Warcraft 2 manual is online and many of us here, me included, played the game and know it. Then you go on to say incorrect things about death knight development.

You could add something that addresses the original poster's question rather than trying to be right.

The Warcraft 2 death knights are literally warlocks, just reanimated.

They ARE reanimated bodies, but its not a dead warlock reanimated.

They're orc warlocks that are soul transferred into dead human knights. They're borderline liches.

But yes the WoW version is more of an anti-paladin by comparison and has very little to do with the WC2 versions beyond name and some attempted theme carryover within the Unholy tree.

Amusingly, as far as people saying 'itd be fun to see Vanilla attempts at old classes' the Death Knight wasnt even the early idea.

Those were RUNEMASTERS.

Which apparently were split into Druid and Warlock stuff, then later merged with Necromancer into the WoW Death Knight, and then equally sprinkled into Monk.

[Trymv1]

You could add something that addresses the original poster's question rather than trying to be right.

Considering I pointed out the Runemaster in comparison to the Death Knight as a retro class Im pretty sure I did discuss the original topic.

Didnt even correct you, just expanded upon the notion that it wasnt just simply a resurrected warlock but instead a whole ass process behind it compared to what the Wrath DK was before then moving into the full topic.

Miss me with the weird angsty bullshit.

The idea got far enough along that it was announced

This was after base game had come out. Runemaster was discussed as a base class before the game ever came out but ended up scrapped (albeit it had ideas pushed into several classes along the way).