Should Death Knights get one runeblade for life?
by David Bowers 
Sep 24th 2007 at 9:03AM
Drustai over on the European WoW forums has a good observation: death knights have always had a special relationship with their runeblades, using the same weapon for their whole life. Arthas is the classic example, since he and his sword, Frostmourne, are forever associated with one another. Could you imagine Arthas starting out as a level 55 death knight and then gradually replacing his low-level Frostmourne with something better? How then, could it work out with our player character death knights? Shouldn't they have their own sword for life too? Obviously though, working this out with the game's character progression would be difficult. You can't give an epic sword to a new character, nor can you keep an experienced character stuck with a non-upgradable, outdated weapon. There are many suggestions as to how to keep one blade throughout the character's life. Have a look at the original poster's favorite suggestion after the jump:
Death Knight loots weapons as normal. Upon looting the weapon, the Death Knight has some ability to "DE" [or disenchant] the weapon, granting them an essence of sorts that they then apply to their runeblade. Runes should probably still only work on the runeblade itself, preventing the DK from using the other weapons without first DEing and applying them to his own Runeblade. Essentially, the loot game and itemization is still in place, but the Death Knight is able to maintain a consistent runeblade. They simply absorb the powers of other weapons into their own blade. Each time the absorbing happens, the runeblade is 'wiped clean', just like gems... the new stats would replace the old stats, they don't add to them.Unfortunately, though, it looks like Blizzard doesn't have any plans to let death knights form such a relationship with one blade over their entire career (though perhaps they only read the post before that favorite suggestion was edited in). As Salthem says:
IE, you loot Lionheart Blade, DE Lionheart Blade, apply Lionheart Blade Essence to your Runeblade, your Runeblade maintains the looks you chose at the beginning of the game, but now has the stats of Lionheart Blade.
We haven't fully decided on this at this time, we will try things out in the beta, but at the moment we are thinking that death knights can probably inscribe any weapon with runes.Do you think death knights should be able to have one blade permanently bonded to them? How do you think a sensible character progression could work out if that were the case? Or, on the other hand, do you think it would get boring just using the same weapon graphic for ever without being able to mix it up with newer, bigger, better weapons over time?
Personally, I like this idea too, but taking weapon drops out of the equation for death knights removes a big chunk of the itemisation side of the game from them - it would have to be something pretty special to replace the feeling you get with your first epic weapon.
Not to mention the awkwardness this could cause in balancing loot tables as Ilsevele pointed out.
Filed under: Items, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
promakos Feb 7th 2008 2:51PM
i think that DK has to have only one balde for life time.
it woud be cool if DK coud use some sort of DE to take out essence fo other meele weapons and only meele weapuns to enhanc his own weapon .....
but cose drop rate for any meele weapon is hig it woud be too easy to lvl up the blade so it woud have to be some sort of difrent blades that can only be used for DK's DE.
ty for your time and sry for my eng .....
cya and dont let your self that wow become just a rutine to you all ; )
Junthuun Feb 6th 2008 6:50PM
noone is answering me, does this mean i won the argument?
mike Feb 12th 2008 1:29AM
what if they just have you keep the same weapon, but as you lvl up, you can make your weapon more powerful, like a normal character would lvl up after so much xp, well the runeblade would lvl up after so much damage, and at certain lvls it would change its look, like change colors or something, or get bigger, and then when you get certain weapons, you can break em down and add those reagents to your runeblade, to alter the stats on it
Junthuun Feb 12th 2008 6:09PM
well, part of that fits in with lore, but the part about other weapons breaking down into the rune blade will make some players curse you because the weapon would be a shell. and a runeblade is bonded to a deathknight for all of life untill death (or for the rest of eternity, as in the case of the undead.) also, lore says that a runeblade becomes stronger as the deathknight becomes stronger, which translates into a runeblade "levels up" as the deathknight levels up
Junthuun Mar 31st 2008 5:46PM
i won, didnt i
Archimande Apr 22nd 2008 12:21PM
@2 is actually the most realistic that the runeblade lvls up with you, remember, "frostmourne hungers" well when our runeblade upgrades its like that, its hungry and when we feed it the souls of our enemies it gains experience along with us. (i also i think it would be frikkin awsome to be able to name your own runeblade, if we will be able to, dibs on backbiter
Junthuun Apr 30th 2008 5:47PM
i agree with that for one reason, and one reason only. it supports me. allthough arthas didnt get to name his blade, his soul was absorbed into a blade that had a soul in it already. the sword already had a name for a long time. we should be able to name our blades one time only, and no more. also, the blade should look like what we want it to, but it has to fit in with the deathknight look. and the name should not be able to be renamed, like a hunter's pet. sure, a hunter can have more than one pet, but his pet doesnt have the hunters soul in it, like a runeblade holds a DK's soul. so my conclusion is: support me, lore agrees with my methods, and so does blizzard and some other people. what billzard will do, i dont know. but they cant go away from lore and say that any deathknight can have any sword or axe to be his runeblade, because they made the lore and they would be breaking the rules.
neofos Jun 7th 2008 8:38PM
making a lot of good ideas here, but first some concerns tho. having the sword like a hunter pet to lvl up has been used b4 and also forces the death knight into a certain role, unless there is a chance to reset it so to speak and if u arent able to change it, then the sword would need to be rather powerful, even at lvl 80 and it would have to be close to cataclysm's edge lvl at lv 70.
also the essence option is a very nice option, but the thing is, it will force u to either dps or tank spec, coz u wont be able to "store" more than 1 essence at the time.
the most logical way would simply be by having it all like it is now, but enabling the death knight to bond with his new weapon in some way, could be a quest, having to fight a spirit or something.
Cript_Lord Aug 6th 2008 2:33PM
Hmm well some ideas are great.....But i don't know...it would trash up the story of a DK to use for example The Hammer Of Naaru.I would rather go whith the idea of a unique weapon...Unchangeble...I mean c'mon..like the others said it's supose to be an extension of the Death Knight....And an automatic namer would be great for them,but the ability to write your own idea of a name for the sword would be AWESOME.I mean that would be like so cool.....
As for the weapon how about this(it's kinda of the ideas above:
The DK choses at the begining it's look,from like combinations of colours, a few bladeshapes,etc, and if u get tired of the look you can always gain a lvl and mod it again.....and let's say that at the lvl cap (80) you'll have to pay an amount of money if you want to customize it again.
It would be nice if they would let the plyers add theyr little own description of the sword....that would add some more rpg siprit :D
Junthuun Sep 9th 2008 7:15PM
thats exactly what i have been sayin, cept for the rpg thing........... WHO CARES ABOUT RPG IN WOW!!!!!!!................ neways, the runeblade grows as the DK grows, power at least, dont care about the shape. COME ON PEOPLE, DONT MAKE UR BLADE PINK, MAKE IT FIT WITH THE DEATH KNIGHT!!!!!!!!
Evan Mar 24th 2009 6:58PM
Death Knights should take 1 runeblade for life, without being able to reforge it. The Death Knight names it blade and creates it directly after creating his Death Knight model. Name should NOT be random. Neither should the model or name be edited. And as in history, the Runeblades are somewhat unique, in that they all had a type of ability (like how you can Forge Runes onto your blade, therefore making it an actual runeblade). I think it should work like that, you pick your enchant after you make the model, and the enchant will give it an art effect (or not i guess). The blade should not be enhancable or enchantable in anyway other then by the swords own means.
It should scale in power with the Death Knight (So that the runeblade is always in the top 10 percentile via DPS.) Plus it will have its own special ability, a chance on hit to do so much extra damage or to reduce attributes or whatever. So you pick that little talent your Runeblade gets forever, and that talent scales with levels.
Summary:
1 Runeblade
1 Model
1 Name
All customizable.
Then:
Select a talent (ex, chance on hit to paralyze the target with feel for .2 seconds)
Talent effect and DPS scale with the Runeblade.
Of course this means the DPS will be unfair, but I also think Dks should start at 80, and require a level 80 with full epic items equiped for it to work. (And the epic items must be related to your class, so Warriors can't just equip a bunch of epic cloth items, they would need to be epic plate items, that way its more difficult to get a Death Knight, and therefore the dk will be more deserving of the runeblade instead of having a bunch of OP heros.)
Also, I have always believed that if you created a Death Knight, you would only have around 30 days to play it. After 30 days you are presented with 2 choices, Retain your life (thereby deleting your only Death Knight) or retain your power (keeping your death knight but at the cost of all your other characters on that realm.)
This, again, keeps Death Knights limited so not everyone can have a rigged hero alt, you would either have to play the Death Knight forever, along with its runeblade (so you will have at least earned the dk in a way) or retain your diversity. I think this would make Death Knights much more credible.
This would also keep Death Knights at an epic level. (You'd have to be pretty good to get a hero fully decked out in corresponding epic armors and weaponry, if you're that good, then you will be able to play a Death Knight like a pro instead of all these level 55 noobs with no skill making gnome death knights.)
And furthermore, the Death Knight should be limited to the race that your level 80 character who is fully decked out in epics is. So you can't just pick Humans so you get all the easy leveling and easy epic items just so ucan then make a gnome ownage death knight. If yur level 80 is a tauren, then that taurenis killed and becomes a death knight. Theres no reasonfor a human to die and be reborn as a death night gnome -_-
Oh btw, think the epic items need to be level 80 as well, and or a reward from a lvel 80 req quest. (Otherwise you could just dawn level 30 epics :p)
Honestly there is a reason Death Knights were Arthas' Generals. They were powerful. So make them powerful, but hard to get.
And yes I know people will still cry that dks are too powerful, and everyone will just delete all their characters so they can attain epicly powerful Death Knights, So, Death Knights shouldn't be that much stronger then a warrior, just slightly better (no stronger, just the runeblade makes the death knight stronger then any other class, but only by 10%, and even then its not impossible to find a weapon stronger then a runeblade, runeblades aren't supposed to be godlike, but say at level 80, the blade would be able to say, have a chance on ht to inflict a 5 second stun or reduce all atribute by 50% for 5 seonds, or cut moment speed by 85% for 20 second. things like that, plus it would be in the top 10% most damage weapons, but it would never become the most powerul because it cant be enchnted :p.)
I realize no one will read this post, but if u think this is an idea worth looking into, or i you want me to clarify anything about these ideas ( i know some conflict with eachother), then email me Kugrox@yahoo.com and i'll be happy to talk about it :-D
Dipstick Sep 24th 2007 9:28AM
It'd be sweet if they could have one sword which they use throughout their career, and they choose the look of which from the character creation screen.
I also love the idea of adding the 'essence' of a weapon looted in order to give it the stats of said weapon.
Realistically this may not be an option though :
bnorman Sep 24th 2007 9:31AM
Simple:
Your blade gains levels with you. Exactly like a pet with a hunter.
Dru Nov 11th 2008 6:37PM
Exactly, In fact the Rune Blades should follow the Talent Tree of the wielder and have abilities that grow just like pets as the blade "levels". Rune Blades are supposed to be a living part of the Death Knight (Think of Stormbringer and Mourneblade from Michael Moorcock's novels)
Anon Sep 24th 2007 9:32AM
I actually rather like the single runeblade approach. The only problem comes with dual wielding (unless any weapon can be equipped in the offhand, with the Runeblade ONLY in the main...)
After all, isn't it the runeblade that makes them Death Knights in the first place? For a DK not to have a runeblade is like having a warrior missing an arm.
(Tis but a scratch)
Alenthor Sep 24th 2007 9:36AM
Well if I look at how annoying my current hair style is on my toon, not to mention how many times I'd like to change his face, I'm fairly certain I would get annoyed with how my runeblade looked after awhile.
So I'm going for no on keeping the same runeblade throughout my future death knight's life. I mean honestly who wants to keep the same graphic on something forever? Because honestly that is what is being suggested here.
Lios Sep 24th 2007 9:36AM
Boring, having the same sword for ever and ever :-(
Amagoi Sep 24th 2007 9:38AM
It'd be sweet if they stuck to the fucking lore.
levirbaker Sep 24th 2007 9:52AM
Two reasons why this is a good idea:
1) It abides by established lore.
2) It adds uniqueness to the class.
And i am sure they could devise a system, like the one suggested, that still allows for itemization
Abruzzi Sep 24th 2007 10:02AM
it can be done with quests to upgrade the swords for some epic ones. Or like the blacksmith or even the enchanting orbs... to make the new one you should use your old one. this way your first sword would be with you forever :)