When Death Knights were first unveiled a year ago at BlizzCon 2007, one of the features Blizzard talked about was the ability to swap the six runes on the DKs rune-weapon to suit the character’s spec. For example, Frost spec DKs would use more Frost runes in their spells, so they might want to have three or four frost runes, and less of the other types.

However, players have noticed that as of yet, there doesn’t seem to be a way of changing the standard set runes on the weapons, two Blood, 2 Frost and 2 Unholy, and it turns out Blizzard has changed its mind about Rune swapping, as blue poster Ghostcrawler revealed recently. The Runeforge enchants were also discussed:

[blue=http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8202574912&pageNo=1&sid=2000#10]We like the way the death knight plays with 2 of each rune—BBFFUU. Letting players avoid certain runes plays against one of the greatest strengths of the class—that you have to vary your rotations and use different abilities. Although it was our original design, I think it is extremely unlikely you will be able to swap out runes. I know some people will be disappointed with this decision, but we have to do what we think makes the game the most fun.

I think you all can imagine situations in which a BBBBBU or BFUUUU configuration would be frighteningly overpowered or hideously underpowered. Theoretically that balances out in the end, but being at 200% effectiveness in some fights and 0% effectiveness in other fights just risks not being a lot of fun in a game where you control a single character.

I do want to stress that the spells and talents were designed assuming a 2/2/2 configuration. It was never our intent that you keep say Unbreakable Armor up 100% of the time by playing with 6 frost runes. No single talent choice should be the difference between a good or bad death knight tank. (And to be honest, it really isn’t for druids.) A death knight needs to be able to tank end-game content with their core set of abilities combined with reasonable player skill and gear. Any bonuses from talents should just be gravy.

You are welcome to argue that their current set of tools isn’t yet up to that task. Having those discussions is a great use of a beta. But in the end, we’ll make sure they are up to the task. And that goes for whether the task is tanking, Arenas, soloing, end-game dps or justifying a spot in a raid.

Short version: You may not be able to customize your runeweapon—aside from runeforging enchants, which isn’t a bad perk—but you should be able to customize your talents to a degree that other classes might find startling.

...Runeforge enchants do not stack with other weapon enchants. But in most cases the runeforge enchants are better, and they are certainly a lot cheaper.

If you find yourself in a situation where an enchant from an enchanter seems superior, you are still able to do that. Furthermore, enchanters can still provide you with enchants for all your other slots.

 

Frostfever doesn’t seem to proc very much.

We’ll look into that. The proc rate is the same as enchants like Crusader and Mongoose. It could be that death knights really feel the absence of things like Sweeping Strikes and Sword Specialization or even Hamstring. We might need higher proc rates to compensate. It could also just be a bug.

This thread has veered into a couple of different topics, but here is our stance on runeforging.

A weapon can only have a permanent enchant and a temporary enchant. This is a technical limitation, and honestly not one that is worth the cost to change (see below). The runeforge enchants simply cannot stack with Mongoose or other permanent enchants. They can stack with Frozen Rune Weapon or theoretically Windfury Weapon if there was a way to get that enchant on the weapon. (Windfury Totem is just a passive haste buff now, so it does stack.)

I think it’s fine if the runeforging enchants don’t stack with other permanent enchants because the runeforge enchants can be as powerful as they need to be. It’s okay if they are the best in their class—they are offered as a perk of the deathknight. The current ones already scale much better than current enchants. There are apparently some bugs with the runeforge enchants in your build—Crusader is supposed to be a 30% buff to Strength, and it could be much higher if that isn’t enough. We’ll look at getting something that fills the Mongoose niche too.

Characters with the Enchanting profession can still provide enchants for the various other pieces of death knight armor. And since Feral druid enchants will be much more meaningful, perhaps the enchanters won’t miss the death knight customers quite so much. [/blue]

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