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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Classes, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

We all know by now that Death Knights are the new class being added with Wrath of the Lich King. And, what's more, they're the only class being added with the new expansion. Skudo (Altar of Storms) doesn't like that much, and would rather see Shadow Hunters or Demon Hunters added.

Posts like these are common enough, but Nethaera showed up to add some clarifying candlelight. First, she reiterated that Blizzard isn't closed to the idea of adding more classes in the future. But what she really seems to strive to get across is that adding a class isn't easy.

There's a lot that goes into creating a new archetype for players to operate, play, defeat, vanquish, and exploit for every bit of Warcraft goodness. There's balance to consider, and the need to make each class play in unique ways. Heck, we all spend enough time arguing now about whether the existing classes are even balanced. Can you imagine what it's going to be like with a brand new class added?

So these things take time. Assuming that Blizzard's team pulls off Death Knights well, I'm pretty sure we'll see more new classes in later expansions. Let's see how the first new class goes, before we put our eggs in new baskets.

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Filed under: Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior, Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Talents

I only slightly mentioned this back on the podcast, I think, but there was a fairly interesting change that snuck in the patch notes on 2.4.2: lots of formerly main hand weapons have become one-hand weapons. There are a couple of theories poking around about why this could be -- dual wield is first and foremost, of course, as this change allows classes who dual wield, including Rogues and Enhancement Shammies, to have a little more choice as to what weapons they can use. Death Knights will also be able to dual wield in the expansion, and this will open things up for them a bit as well. And Blacksmithing weapons were apparently changed as well (in addition to losing their "unique" status), so Blacksmithers have a little more leeway, too.

But there is one thing that, according to Blizzard, will always keep weapons in one-hand status. Caster stats, according to both Drysc and Hortus, will mean that weapons will always stay one-hand. So feel free to do as much switching around as you want in terms of speed and melee damage, but there'll be no stacking of healing or spell damage bonuses (with Shamans or Death Knights).

Which isn't really a big loss -- it means that Blizzard has much more leeway in creating healing and spell damage weapons than they do while making melee weapons. But it does mean that if you want to play around with weapon combos, you have to go melee -- healers and casters get to choose one and stick with it.

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Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King, (Hunter) Scattered Shots

Scattered Shots is for hunters. 'Nuff said on that topic. The Freezing Trap David was stuck in last week also wore off a little bit, thanks to Daniel, permitting him to write once more without his fingers snapping off from the cold.

In the wake of the recent confusion regarding Scare Beast, once again some hunters have gotten to complaining a lot about the state of their class. While on one hand, there are certainly problematic issues hunters are having, it's really not fair to say that the class is broken. It isn't -- being a hunter is more fun than its ever been, and it looks like this class will only get better in the future.

Nonetheless, looking at the problems we do have might give us a clearer sense of where we're going in the future. With more and more information coming out about Wrath of the Lich King, and especially since Blizzard started asking for feedback from hunters, it's worthwhile to have a look at what holes do exist for our class, and how future changes might seek to plug them up.

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Hunter problems and predictions

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