Ok, so we all know by now Death Knights inscribe runes on their blades in order to use abilities and that there are a max of six on a blade.

Does that mean Dual Wielding Death Knights can use up to 12 runes?

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Q u o t e:
There's no final decision or announcement on how multiple weapons would be etched, or how weapon switching may effect the etched runes. What has been discussed to some degree is that the main-hand weapon would be etched and that's it, but it's too early to say what would be allowed in the final game.

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Thanks for the quick reply Drysc.

Also the obligatory, OMGBLUEREPLIEDTOMYPOST

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Q u o t e:
There's no final decision or announcement on how multiple weapons would be etched, or how weapon switching may effect the etched runes. What has been discussed to some degree is that the main-hand weapon would be etched and that's it, but it's too early to say what would be allowed in the final game.

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Hmm I hadn't considered weapon swapping in combat. This could be a real headache to balance. You could just swap in different weapons depending on what you need. Probably the main counter to this having none of your runes active when you switch weapons and you'd be vulnerable for quite a few seconds til they activate. Similar to how a warlock can't quickly swap pets (unless you spec for it). But the ability to counter any class just by a weapon swap might be OP.

The potential downside is if a tank goes down and you want the death knight to pick something up, he might have to switch weapons for tanking and he'd be left vulnerable in that situation too.

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Q u o t e:


Hmm I hadn't considered weapon swapping in combat. This could be a real headache to balance. You could just swap in different weapons depending on what you need. Probably the main counter to this having none of your runes active when you switch weapons and you'd be vulnerable for quite a few seconds til they activate. Similar to how a warlock can't quickly swap pets (unless you spec for it). But the ability to counter any class just by a weapon swap might be OP.

The potential downside is if a tank goes down and you want the death knight to pick something up, he might have to switch weapons for tanking and he'd be left vulnerable in that situation too.

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I mean technically the same could be said for Druids being able to change forms on the fly.

I have a feeling if you swap weapons the runes won't be activated at first, with a chance to decrease the initial cooldowns via talents.

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Q u o t e:
Hmm I hadn't considered weapon swapping in combat. This could be a real headache to balance. You could just swap in different weapons depending on what you need. Probably the main counter to this having none of your runes active when you switch weapons and you'd be vulnerable for quite a few seconds til they activate. Similar to how a warlock can't quickly swap pets (unless you spec for it). But the ability to counter any class just by a weapon swap might be OP.

The potential downside is if a tank goes down and you want the death knight to pick something up, he might have to switch weapons for tanking and he'd be left vulnerable in that situation too.

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Just give all the runes a 5 second cooldown when you switch. It would give you enough time to notice the MT is going down and switch, but not enough to swap back and forth at will while tanking in order to use runes not on CD.

I know that the lore currently says the runes are etched on the weapon, but there's not actual game reason to have them tied to the weapon, unless they take up the imbue slot on the MH weapon, ei no DK WF =(. It's their resource bar. It would have to be quite explicitly coded to have a weapon switch affect the resource bar, since the only way it does as of now is switching in a weapon with a dfferent amount of int on it.
Perhaps an analogous situation: shared runes retain the same cooldown, any new runes (replacing runes of a different type) start off needing a complete cooldown.

They could always make it so that switching weapons put all your runes on a cooldown, similar to how it puts your abilities on a cooldown.

The only question I have is when a death knight levels, does his blade level too? I mean they are supposed to be connected, aren't they?, or does the death knight throw his/her original blade away for a new one?

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Q u o t e:
The potential downside is if a tank goes down and you want the death knight to pick something up, he might have to switch weapons for tanking and he'd be left vulnerable in that situation too.

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And other tanks aren't? If I'm dpsing (ie: soaker on curator) and the MT goes down, I'm gonna be tanking him. Shattered Hand Epaulets of Arcane Protection aren't tanking gear, but that's all I've got.

Sure, by switching to their tanking weaponset they gain about as much as I do putting on a shield, but (I imagine) we're still both heavily disadvantaged. Druids and Paladins suffer the same problems.

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Q u o t e:
Ok, so we all know by now Death Knights inscribe runes on their blades in order to use abilities and that there are a max of six on a blade.

Does that mean Dual Wielding Death Knights can use up to 12 runes?

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Or maybe, 6 runes for 2handers and 3 runes for 1handers (each). Makes sense to me.

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Q u o t e:


Or maybe, 6 runes for 2handers and 3 runes for 1handers (each). Makes sense to me.

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bingo