WotLK Info

If you’ve played World of Warcraft for any stretch of time then you probably could have seen this coming, and though it hasn’t officially been announced yet the rumors have been flying for months now on the details of a new expansion. And as in all things Blizzard related the first major leak sprang forth today.

Major Points:
-Northrend added to Azeroth world
-Level cap raised to 80
-New “Hero” Class, Death Knight (the class will have to unlocked via a set of criteria, though you will start at a high level)
-New battleground
-Destroyable objects in battlegrounds and siege weapons
-New Quests, Items, Skills, Etc.
-New Profession, Inscription (allows you to permanently buff abilities / skills / spells and create items of power to trade / sell / use / etc.)

Those familiar with the warcraft story already have a good idea of what we can expect out of the death knight. In warcraft 3 the death knight combined the powers of necromancy and magic with a heavy onslaught of melee attacks, and I fully expect to see a similar model produced for the new expansion. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the death knight in direct opposition to all things paladin (Arthas was a paladin before he was corrupted and became a death knight). Instead of a primary healer and secondary tank / dps, I believe we’ll see a primary tank / dps with some very limited secondary magic abilities and / or heals. It’s unclear yet how players will acquire the ability to play the death knight, simply stated they’ll have to meet a “set of criteria”, perhaps another server wide war effort, or a server boss kill, quest series, who knows, in any regard I’m excited about the introduction of the first hero class in WoW.

In addition the leak states that the 25-man raiding scheme will be continued in the next expansion, and that the level grind from 70 to 80 will take approximately the same time it took players to level from 60 to 70. Which is somewhat of a disappointment as the majority of hardcore players completed the grind in under a week, I had hoped they would extend the leveling process a bit. All in all the new expansion is looking great and I can’t wait to see the official announcement at Blizzcon.