A quick description of some of the spells:
• Death Coil — Depletes all Runic Power, dealing 600 damage to a non-Undead target, or healing 900 damage on a friendly target.
• Death Grip — This is the Death Knight’s “taunt” ability. It also pulls the target to the Death Knight, forcing them to attack the Death Knight for a short amount of time. Yes, I said pulls the target; Blizzard is going to allow players to move mobs in the expansion both with Death Grip, and other knockback/pull abilities. This works on players too, so PvP balance ahoy!
• Chains of Ice — Roots the target in place. When the spell fades, it places a snare on the target that reduces in potency as the duration runs out.
• Raise Dead — Raises a nearby corpse to fight for the Death Knight for 2 minutes. If used on a player corpse, the player has the option to play as the ghoul for the duration — gaining access to the ghoul’s abilities.
- The ghoul has the ability to do the following:
– Leap to the target
– Rend for decent damage-over-time
– Stun target, and of course more
• Death Pact — Sacrifices the raised ghouls to heal the Death Knight.
• Death and Decay — Targeted, AoE Damage-over-time which pulses similar to the Paladin spell Consecration. Anyone affected by Death and Decay has a chance to be feared.
• Frost Presence — Increases Armor by 45% and allows the Death Knight to generate 25% more threat. Only one presence can be active at any time.
• Unholy Presence — Increases Attack Speed and Movement speed by 15%. Only one presence can be active at any time. This was described by Tom Chilton as the “PvP” presence.
• Anti-magic Shield — Reduces the damage of the next magical spell cast on the Death Knight by 75%. It also converts the damage reduced into Runic Power.
• Strangulate — Depletes all Runic Power, dealing minor damage and silencing the target for up to 5 seconds.
• Summon Deathcharger — Allows the Death Knight to summon a Deathcharger mount. This mount is acquired through quests, similar to the Paladin and Warlock land mounts.
General
• Players will unlock their flying mounts at level 77
• You can use your Outland flying mount, and Blizzard will have new flying mounts for players to get as well
• The Northrend in Wrath of the Lich King is considerably larger than Outland, the area explored by players in Burning Crusade. That means not only are there larger numbers of zones to explore, many of them are so large that they’ve been divided into “sub-zones,” much like Terrokar Forest and the Auchindon Waste in Outland.
• The new “vehicle” system will enable characters to “drive” an object around. One example Blizzard gave them: Players will fly over a human settlement being overrun with the Scourge, lowering a ladder down to pull up and rescue civilians. In one dungeon instance, players will be able to “liberate” some blue dragons that they can mount up and fly around, fighting their way up a massive tower.
Old Azeroth contents used in Northrend
• There are quests and content relating to the Worgen and the sons of Arugal (from Silverpine Forest) and everyone’s favorite religious fanatics, the Scarlet Crusade (called the Scarlet Onslaught in Northrend).
• They’re also advancing the Forsaken storyline, adding in uniquely Forsaken building architecture and giving the player more chances to help in their Wile E. Coyote-like quest to kill every living thing on Azeroth.
Factions
• The Argent Dawn faction returns in Zul’Drak.
• In Sholazar Basin, players will take part in a faction-reputation war between the Wolvar (sentient wolves) and Oracles (”the next evolution of the Murlocs”). A much lighter take on reputation gaming is promised here, with players actively encouraged to defect to the other side at will.
Professions
Inscription
• Inscribers will create glyphs that allow players to modify their spells and abilities.
• The first recipe is going to requires Peacebloom, thus they’ll rely on the herbalist gathering profession.
• Every player will get a new spell book page to which they can add six glyphs - currently, four major and two minor.
• Major glyphs will be effective in combat - adding damage over time or stun to a physical attack, for example - while minor glyphs will give convenient or cosmetic improvements, removing the need for some spell reagents.
• Glyphs can be sold on the auction house.
Dungeons & Raids
• Similar to World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, all 5-person dungeons will have a Heroic mode, and the loot tables for the 2 modes will be totally separate. Heroic dungeons will have their own “Tier” of armor completely unique to that level dungeon.
• The regular five-man instances take around one hour or less to beat (this probably won’t be the case for the heroic versions)
• Zero raid bosses have been designed at this point
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