Undead

Everyone loves gold

Few details were known about the Undead the last time we visited Blizzard. While many aspects still remain up in the air (they're the last race that Blizzard will work on), we were able to squeeze some juicy info about the Undead this time around. One new aspect is that the Undead will use gold as a resource much in the same way all the other races use gold to buy units. In earlier previews it was speculated that the Undead would utilize corpses almost entirely as a resource. The use of corpses remains in WarCraft III as an Undead trait, but not to the extent that was previously suggested.

Crusaders are no longer in the game, but the model is used for the Knight now

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?

So how will corpses be used? To answer that question, Pardo first explained that dead bodies on the ground will exist in two states - fleshy, and skeletal. WarCraft II veterans might remember that dead bodies on the ground decayed over time in a similar way. This time around, the state of the bodies makes a difference. Ghouls, the regular foot soldier of the Undead, will automatically eat any fleshy bodies lying on the ground for a gain in hitpoints. They'll leave skeletal remains behind. Always sticklers for efficiency, the Undead can still utilize those bones. Bring in a Necromancer, and it will automatically use its mana to raise the skeletons up from the ground as skeleton warriors and archers. Does that sound familiar to you Diablo II players? It gets better - Pardo mentioned the likelihood that the Corpse Explosion spell would make an appearance in WarCraft III.

Dreadlord wanders into an Orc camp

The auto ability to utilize corpses means that if an Undead army is still standing after a battle, it will recover and get stronger almost immediately. Just bring in a few half-spent Ghouls and a Necromancer or two to clean up the mess, and all of a sudden your battle weary army has doubled in effectiveness. Need more time to bring in your Ghouls and Necromancers from far away before the corpses decay? That's no problem at all - just get a Banshee to sing its Dirge song (all Banshee spells and abilities are songs), and the corpse decay timer will get stopped for a period of time. Aside from the interaction with Banshees, Necromancers, and Ghouls, Pardo mentioned that different Undead spells could affect each of the two corpse types differently.

Undead Heroes

We also pulled a couple more tidbits about a pair of Undead heroes - the Dreadlord and the Lich. The Dreadlord's attack is a life draining type that vampirically transfers hitpoints to himself. Pardo also shared with us the four spells of the Lich (each hero gets 3 regular spells and 1 "ultimate" spell). The first one is Disenchant, which is simply an area effect dispel magic. Next up, we have Frost Armor, very similar to the Chilling Armor of the Sorceress in Diablo II. Attackers take cold damage when they strike anything wearing Frost Armor. The Lich's third normal spell is Glacier, an area effect spell that calls a Glacier up out of the ground to strike and chill anything in its radius. Finally, we have the Lich's ultimate ability - summon Frost Wyrm. As a summonable creature, the Frost Wyrm will be redesigned to be large and fearsome indeed, just like the Arch-Druid's Force of Nature. The Lich's regular attack, Frost Shock, damages enemies and slows down their movement speeds.