Death Knight FAQs

What is the Death Knight?

Death Knights are the first hero class to be introduced in World of Warcraft. While they are a hero class, they are still on the same playing field as normal characters.

What type of a class is the Death Knight?

Death Knight’s are a hybrid melee DPS / tank class. While the class is primarily centered around it’s melee attacks, death knight’s also have a variety of spells designed to be augment melee abilities and function as direct nuke / debuff / buffs spells.

How do I make a Death Knight?

You must have a current level 55+ character on your account. This will unlock your accounts ability to create a death knight class.  You may only create one death knight per server.

Where do I begin begin?

Death Knight’s start at level 55 in The Ebon Hold. This is a floating city above Eastern Plaguelands (just like Naxxaramas).

What about Death Knight starting gear?

Death Knights start with a full set of uncommon quality armor and a rare quality sword. In addition to the starting armor and weapons you also will get a 100% epic mount for free. Just complete the short quest chain to unlock the epic mount.

• Acherus Knight’s Hood
• Choker of Damnation
• Acherus Knight’s Pauldrons
• Acherus Knight’s Shroud
• Acherus Knight’s Tunic
• Acherus Knight’s Wristguard
• Acherus Knight’s Gauntlets
• Acherus Knight’s Gridle
• Acherus Knight’s Cover
• Acherus Knight’s Greaves
• Plague Band
• Corrupted Band
• Runed Soulblade (requires completion of early quest)

What types of weapons can Death Knights use?

Death Knights can use any of the following weapons.

• polearms
• one-handed swords
• two-handed swords
• one-handed maces
• two-handed maces
• one-handed axes
• two-handed axes
• relics

What about the Death Knight Rune System?

Unlike other classes that use mana, rage or energy, Death Knights use a completly new “rune system” for their power.

• There are 6 runes, 2 blood runes, 2 frost runes, and 2 unholy runes
• When a rune is used it takes 10 seconds to be recovered
• When a rune is used you also power up another bar called your “runic power”. This runic power can then be used for other abilities.

WotLK Death Knight Changes

Lots of interesting changes here, more than anything it just looks like buffs across the board. All in all the class is really coming together nicely. Most of the talents synergize well with each other making for a very dynamic and well designed class. The only issue I can see with Death Knights, especially after this most recent round of buffs…well, where does it end?

Death Knights have more utility than any other class on top of great damage…oh, and they can function as a tank! I understand it’s a hero class, so it should be distinctly different, but with a class as jammed packed full of amazing talents, skills and utility, where does it end and can the class truly be balance for both PvP and PvE?

I’m not so sure, but knowing there is still many changes in the coming weeks prior to patch 3.0.2’s release I think many of these issues will be thoroughly addressed.

DPS changes

– Death Coil, Frost Strike, Death and Decay damage increased.
– Strikes that scale with diseases changed so that the weapon damage, not just the flat damage, scales with the disease.
– Double rune abilities damage increased: Obliterate, Howling Blast, Scourge Strike, Death Strike.
– Unholy Blight no longer causes Blood Plague, but had its cooldown removed.
– Several attack power coefficients increased.
– Bloody Strikes and Scent of Blood swapped places.
– Bladed Armor now turns armor into Strength (which then is turned into Parry).
– Master of Ghouls’ Ghoul now lasts until killed or similarly dismissed.
– Ravenous Dead no longer affects Ghoul duration, but grants your rotting little buddy 60% more of your Str and Sta. (Stam goes from 30% of yours to ~50% of yours. Strength goes from 100% to 160%.)

Tanking changes

– Frost Presence now grants 10% total health in addition to its current bonuses.
– Blood Gorged, Rage of Rivendare and Tundra Stalker all grant 1/2/3/4/5 expertise.
– Veteran of the Third War increased to 6/6/6 Str / Sta / Exp to match warriors.
– Will of the Necropolis no longer grants expertise and now lowers Anti-Magic Shell cooldown.
– Pestilence has no target limit. (It still has a radius limit.) Pesilence glyph now increases area.
– Death and Decay no longer has a cower component, but a glyph can add that back.
– Frigid Dreadplate now has a 100% chance for 2/4/6% miss but only on the DK.

Rewards for the selfless buffer

– Abom’s Might now grants 2% Strength at all times.
– Improved Icy Talons now grants 2% haste at all times.
– Ebon Plaguebringer now grants 3% crit at all times.

Runeforge changes

– Lichbane now does 2% weapon damage as Fire, and double damage to undead.
– Swordbreaking and Swordshattering add disarm duration reduction.
– Spellbreaking and Spellshattering add silence duration reduction.
– Cinderglacier reduced to 2 charges.

WotLK Info

If you’ve played World of Warcraft for any stretch of time then you probably could have seen this coming, and though it hasn’t officially been announced yet the rumors have been flying for months now on the details of a new expansion. And as in all things Blizzard related the first major leak sprang forth today.

Major Points:
-Northrend added to Azeroth world
-Level cap raised to 80
-New “Hero” Class, Death Knight (the class will have to unlocked via a set of criteria, though you will start at a high level)
-New battleground
-Destroyable objects in battlegrounds and siege weapons
-New Quests, Items, Skills, Etc.
-New Profession, Inscription (allows you to permanently buff abilities / skills / spells and create items of power to trade / sell / use / etc.)

Those familiar with the warcraft story already have a good idea of what we can expect out of the death knight. In warcraft 3 the death knight combined the powers of necromancy and magic with a heavy onslaught of melee attacks, and I fully expect to see a similar model produced for the new expansion. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the death knight in direct opposition to all things paladin (Arthas was a paladin before he was corrupted and became a death knight). Instead of a primary healer and secondary tank / dps, I believe we’ll see a primary tank / dps with some very limited secondary magic abilities and / or heals. It’s unclear yet how players will acquire the ability to play the death knight, simply stated they’ll have to meet a “set of criteria”, perhaps another server wide war effort, or a server boss kill, quest series, who knows, in any regard I’m excited about the introduction of the first hero class in WoW.

In addition the leak states that the 25-man raiding scheme will be continued in the next expansion, and that the level grind from 70 to 80 will take approximately the same time it took players to level from 60 to 70. Which is somewhat of a disappointment as the majority of hardcore players completed the grind in under a week, I had hoped they would extend the leveling process a bit. All in all the new expansion is looking great and I can’t wait to see the official announcement at Blizzcon.