Death Knight = Uber-Retribution PaladinFollow

Once Wrath of the Lich King is released, every retribution paladin will be hurriedly leveling to 80 and unlocking a Death Knight. Why? Because that is exactly the kind of playstyle they envisioned when they specced Ret; an offensive, plate wearing, spell casting, damage dealer.

Blizzard should simply replace or get rid of the Retribution tree altogether because it is going to be made obsolete by the introduction of the Death Knight.

Agree or Disagree? Why or why not?

I can agree that lots of ret pallies will be unlocking death knight, so will all the druids, and locks, and mages, and just about everyone else in this whole damn game. I can say with about 99% confidence that the death knight population after WotLK will massively surpass the combined total of BE Pallies and Draenei shamans after TBC came out.

I'll personally be unlocking it myself, mainly because when I played FFXI my main was a Dark Knight (I do miss it from time to time) and I was annoyed that WoW didn't have one, the BE pallies at least have a wicked reason for wielding their powers, that made me feel marginally better. Besides, WoW was the only medieval-esque MMO I know without some pseudo evil heavilly armed and armored warrior. I mean, they gave Priest a shadow spec, seems like they should have done that for pallie also.

Yeah yeah... bite me. XD

But hey, accuracy isn't that big of an issue in WoW at least and I will personally be sticking with Death Knight as long as the class is appealing, I am sure it will be. After playing Paladin for so long I really only feel comfortable playing as the hybrid classes, I been leveling a tauren shaman recently and I have to say, I am loving Enhancement spec, Windfury is orgasmic and when I get dual wield in a few levels I imagine it will be more so.

I just don't get why I see people posting stuff about Death Knight on the paladin boards, like its a paladin only thing. At least it wasn't another post about zomg ret dmg pew pew.

I think, now I may be going out on a limb, but I think Death Knight = Death Knight.

That's equally dumb. It's a perfectly valid point he's making. What if Blizzard announced that the Demon Hunter would be a stealth-focussed lightly armoured DPS'er with the ability to dual-wield, designed to hunt casters? Rogues would chuck a fit the size of Everest.



And that's just irrelevant.

Anyway. I think, in theory, the Death Knight is very similar to a Retribution paladin, and a lot of people to whom the retadin appealed will make the change to DK. But frankly, those people equate to all the bad retadins. The good retadins know that their class isn't expected to be a badass plate-clad DPS'er, but a hybrid support class that can do a bunch of things. Namely heal. In 5-mans, having a second guy who can heal in a pinch is valuable. Death Knights won't be able to do that.

It's not going to "replace" retadins. It may draw some players from paladins to Death Knights, but DK's are supposed to do that, they're basically fallen paladins. Frankly, I agree with Jack. All judgment on the Death Knight should be withheld until the Death Knight is actually available to be judged.

Reasons why this was a dumb post:



Every Retribution Paladin? Every single one is dissatisfied with their current class and talent setup that they are just looking for something similar yet different enough? I doubt that. Also, you only single out Retribution paladins, I think there will be lots of different class and talent combos that will be hurriedly trying to get a DK.



Again, every Ret wants to be an offensive, plate wearing, spell casting, damage dealer. Again, as has been pointed out, only most of the stubborn "I don't heal" Paladins would fit in this mindset. These are horrible paladins who probably should have rerolled a Warrior a long time ago, but may find their home in the DK. I don't see this as being an issue so much as an inevitability. And honestly, it'll be weeding out those unfit retadins that give them a bad name. Getting rid of those may remove some of the stigma that Ret paladins shouldn't even be invited into 5-mans.



The solution to your problem is not to further diversify or make Ret more versatile for the player. Just get rid of the tree because "no one" is going to use it. This is just ridiculous, may have been an exaggeration, I dunno, but it seems to serious to be an exaggeration. Ret won't be obsolete, it will be refined. It will have washed away the impurities and paladins who want to play the spec for what it is will finally get the chance to shine.


When making an argument, it's so much easier to make your case without talking in ultimates. Words like Every and Obsolete and things like that, just sound ridiculous when read and makes your post seem, as Dilbrt said, dumb.

That is true, TBC Ret was very different from pre-TBC. CS alone made a pretty big difference.

Is this true? I thought you need a level 80 to unlock it, yet the Death Knight you create at that point will be level 50+ to start instead of level 1. Might be I read that wrong...

I hope you are right though because we can see what DK's are like a bit sooner then. For the game I hope you are wrong, because with level 80 required they will pour in slower in numbers instead of the "quick everybody! let's all roll a leetz DK on day one of the WotLK!" scene.

Probably a spell casting damage dealing tree, a melee damage dealing tree and a tanking tree.

Well this post is a lot better than the first one. People with first posts usually are asking questions that have already been asked, or are making arguments that have already been argued. Or wild claims. Your post fell in that third category and that's the we responded.

I gave up trying to cling on to some semblence of lore in the game and just go with the flow. The Draenei even being around is weird enough, let alone millions of them on the servers. Death Knights should not be able to rebel against the Lich King, it would take an incredible will that not even Mograine posesses, and I doubt that 12 yr-old down the street possesses that will.

And in terms of which class the DK is most like, it's only associated with Paladins because they wear plate and traditionally most of them are fallen Paladins. If they had the same abilities and had more closer ties with Shamans lore-wise and wore mail then they would be more associated with Shamans.

The fact is, they are just different. The way they are being presented associates them with being closer to Paladins, but their ability set and their playstyle will and should be much different.

Well from what I've read lore-wise, it seems that the forsaken will have come up with a way to break the psychic hold that the lich-king has on the DKs while letting them retain the abilities.

Kinda like you are evil, then the spell is broken and you can fight for good.... kinda like the green ranger. OH yeah... I went there.

It's just gonna be a ShadowKnight/Dark Knight from any other game... Blizzard just perfects what other's have done, doesn't do too many "new" things.

Dark Knight entails LifeDrains, DoTs (presumably with an obnoxious side effect such as a Blind or Snare), a crappy fear, some stat-steals (probobly str and agi), and perhaps some form of weapon imbuing/proccing.

Sounds like a cross between Warrior/Warlock moreso than anything else, just like in the other games.

Oh also Death Knight has an ability to play a song and make a giant lizard robot come out of a harbor and smash the same exact building over and over again.