World of Warcraft Death Knight Interview

Blizzard Entertainment has posted a new in-house interview with the design team responsible for implementing the Death Knight hero class in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

Q: How do you think adding another tanking class to the existing class lineup will affect the classes that are currently filling tanking spots in groups and raids?

A: When deciding which type of class we would add to World of Warcraft, we also took a very careful look at the current state of the game. The questions we asked ourselves were which kind of class roles are seeing the most use, which class roles are most desirable in groups right now, and what can we do to best meet this demand? Tanks play a critical role in any group, such that without a tank, you really don’t have a group. We think that adding another tanking class will make it easier for players to form viable groups for dungeons and raids, but that won’t be at the expense of existing tanks.

The design balance we’re aiming for is one where all the tank classes are equally good at tanking in general so that you can use whatever tank you happen to have for five-player content, but at the same time we want tanks to be clearly distinct so they excel in different ways in various raid encounters. So our goal is to make the death knight a viable, fun tank that coexists with the current tanking classes without replacing them. It’s also important to keep in mind that even though the death knight is a hero class, that doesn’t mean it is more powerful than the other classes, just that it will offer a very different playing experience.