CLASS: Death Knight

The Death Knight is a hero class Blizzard are adding in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. In order to play a Death Knight, you will need to complete a high-level quest chain ("similar in difficulty to the Warlock epic mount quest") which will allow you to create a new Death Knight character (your existing character will remain). You will be able to make a Death Knight of any race and your Death Knight will start at level 55.

Death Knights will be a tanking and damage dealing class capable of dishing out the hurt with a mix of heavy melee weapons and magical spells. They wear plate armor and can wield a variety of weapons -- though they cannot wear shields. Instead of mana, rage, or energy, Death Knights have a runic resource system. Each ability they use consumes certain runes in certain quantities. (Instead of a mana bar, a Death Knight has a bar filled with a number of rune icons. Think of the number of runes you have as three little energy bars -- which you can change the size of when out of combat.)

Looking forward to creating a Death Knight of your own? Read on for all the details!

	Skill Mastery: Mark of Blood While Blood is not quite as as powerful as it once was, it remains, at the least, a solid DPS tree and one quite a few Death Knights will probably choose to level with. The wide array of self healing abilities means that a Blood Death Knight has a very hard time dying, and nothing interrupts a good grinding session quite like a death.
	Tips for new Death Knights from a fellow melee, part 1 Dear reanimated angst-puppy hero corpses, Love what you've done with the smell, really. The little air freshener attached to the runeblade is a nice touch. Now that I'm in the beta, I've had the opportunity group with -- conservatively -- billions of you. I've healed a lot of Death Knight tanks, and tanked for a lot of Death Knight DPS. Most of you seem like cool people, so I say this with sincere love in my little Druid heart and a touch of worry over what will happen in November: Most of you are awful.
	Tips for new Death Knights from a fellow tank, part 2 Dear corpsified bundles of beautifully-armored joy (but more particularly those who tank Azjol Nerub while wearing Expedition Bracers of the Bandit), We had a little bit of controversy in the first installment, so I'm just going to state this as baldly as possible; if you hated what I wrote last time, there's a good chance you'll walk away from this one thinking I eat babies. Delicious, delicious babies. While I never mean to offend people, I reserve the right to tell them the truth, or at the very least a highly entertaining and plausible lie.
	Blizz posts DK creation FAQ If you've been following the news for months, there is little new here, but it's good as a recap, because these questions are, indeed, very frequently asked. So go on and brush up if you have questions about what races can be DKs (all of them), or whether you can make it the opposite faction of your existing characters (yes, unless you're on a PvP server).
	Lichborne: Guys and Ghouls Ghouls have been one of my most beloved features of the Death Knight for some now. I like having an undead squire by my side, and they can be pretty useful for some extra dps and even some lifesaving interference in a pinch. However, they also felt like one of the least firmed up aspects of a Death Knight for some time now, with abilities coming and going on a patchly basis, and bugs that kept the ghoul from being summoned or allowed to summon a massive army of ghouls in no time flat.
	Skill Mastery: Horn of Winter Horn of Winter is a Death Knight skill that was added in a recent build. Much like the Shaman's Strength of Earth Totem, this skill will give a strength and agility buff to nearby party or raid members -- 155 at the highest rank, to be exact.
	Death Knight Ghouls' baby name book If you spec your Death Knight as Unholy, 30 points into the talent tree you get the Master of Ghouls ability which lets you control your ghoul like a pet. On the PvE beta realms, your ghoul doesn't have a name yet; it comes up "RandomPetName," as pictured to the right.
	Lichborne: Death Knight glyphs Inscription seems to be coming on to the beta server in bits and pieces, especially when it comes to the much looked for glyphs. One or two classes seem to trickle in each build, and in the latest build, it is the Death Knight's turn. Today, we'll take a quick look at the new Death Knight glyphs, and figure out how useful they'll be to the various playstyles and specs of the Death Knight.
	Know Your Lore: Arthas Arthas Menethil is a relatively new addition to the Warcraft Series -- he only appeared in Warcraft III and its expansion. Nevertheless, Arthas's impact on Azeroth is so profound that he remains one of the biggest names in WoW, even though he's never appeared in the game itself ... yet.
	Lichborne: Gearing up in Outland and beyond Itemization, or at least the way Death Knights use stats, is pretty solid, and worth discussing so that you have an idea of what gear upgrades to look for you as you exit the Ebon Hold and head out into the wider world.
	The Death Knight starting experience It is a fair certainty that every player who upgrades to the Wrath of the Lich King will create one. In fact, after playing the class for just a short time, I have to say that every single player should. The Death Knight starting experience is the single most immersive role-playing experience in the game.
	A look at the Death Knight's 'dungeon set' and other goodies In Wrath of the Lich King, Death Knights won't be hoping for drops from bosses. They won't need to. If Wrath breaks as planned, Death Knights will be getting upgrades in every slot before they even reach Level 60 -- through quests.
	Breakfast Topic: Where will you level your Death Knight? While Death Knights start at 55, by the time they get out of the Ebon Hold, which is the instanced newbie zone that delivers the epic story of how a Death Knight becomes a Death Knight, they should be level 57 with a few bubbles in.
	Taking a look at Runeforging Death Knights certainly feel like a Hero class in every sense of the word. Aside from their impressive abilities, they also have a brand new resource system called Runes and Runic Power. These coupled with the fact that they jumpstart to Level 55 ensure that Death Knights feel epic.

Videos

• Death Knights receive unique voices
  Death Knights don't have an entirely new set of voice emotes (at least not yet), they took a slightly different route. There's actually a sound filter over the voices, making them sound echoey and spooky. The females have been described as sounding like banshees, which is pretty accurate I think. If you're not a fan of the voice effects, you're allowed to turn them off in your Sound control panel so you won't have to hear it. Other people still will, unless they do the same.
• Skill Mastery: Army of the Dead
  Ever since we first heard about the spell, I have been without a doubt drooling over Army of the Dead. This level 80 Death Knight spell allows you to summon an army to your beck and call. In specific, it's a 6 second channel spell that summons several weak undead to taunt and fight your enemies.
• Death Knight solos Onyxia
  With how fascinated players are with using Onyxia as a benchmark, it was only a matter of time before our new legions of Death Knights tried their hand at it. Scarblade, a poster from the MMO-Champion forums, seems to hold the prize for world first solo Onyxia kill by a Death Knight.
• Death Knight Gameplay Movies: Unholy and Blood trees
  Jadefury, also known as Leiah, writer of the World of Feedback blog, has fast become one of the most recognizable names in Deathknighting of those following the Wrath Beta. Among his contributions have been 2 videos that showcase the leveling playstyle of Unholy and Blood trees.
• Death Knight Gameplay Movies: Frost and more Blood leveling
  We bought you Jadefury's Unholy and Blood Death Knight game play videos yesterday, and now he's released another batch. This time, his Death Knight is a bit higher level, and he puts two new talent builds through their paces.

More Information

If you want to create a Death Knight, you might like to have a look through our Lichborne column archives - or perhaps take a wander through the back-catalogue of Skill Mastery, both dedicated to the new class and the updates that are planned for the Lich King launch.