WoW Death Knight Guide
December 25, 2009 by admin
The Death Knight is a hero class introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. A Death Knight is a hybrid class that mixes together both magic and melee to bring a devastating force to both the armies of the Horde and Alliance.
The death knight starts at level 55. The class is a DPS/tank class that uses a new resource system called cooldowns rather than the existing energy. In addition, Death Knights will also be able to carve runes outside of combat and recharge them within 10 seconds initially.
Death Knight Races
The new death knight hero class is the only class which can be created with any race. This will lend itself to a wide range of variablity in the class, particularly based upon your unique racial abilities and traits.
Best Horde Death Knight Race
Orc Racials: Overall just not that impressive. Hardcore tank death knights may opt for Tauren anyway as endurance does have the potential be significant. We won’t really know for sure until we see how it scales at level 80. The other racials are decent at best.
Tauren Racials: All in all orc receives solid bonuses which help augment the death knight’s natural abilities. A very solid choice for PvP and PvE.
Troll Racials: I really like the idea of the berserking as a tank death knight, and of course it’s going to be great in PvP. Certainly in the running for best PvE tank.
Undead Racials: Overall I feel undead will be better suited to PvP players who are very concerned about being fear.
Blood Elf Racials: Overall pretty solid here as well, a nice mix of PvP and PvE utility.
Best Alliance Death Knight Race
Dwarf Racials: Quite frankly not all that great. If you have a 2h mace and do nothing but PvP against frost mages you might could make a case, but I’m not impressed by the racials here.
Gnome Racials: Much like dwarves, pretty bad. With the exception of escape artist every racial ability is either “meh” or not used at all.
Human Racials: So far the best of any alliance race. Having the double weapon specialization at least gives you some leeway as to your weapon selection.
Night Elf Racials: No useable racials, quite frankly pretty bad. Quickness and Nature resistance are nice additions, but considering they are really more situational uses at best…these are pretty bad.
Draenei Racials: The gift of the naaru is pretty huge in my opinion, you toss some nice passive resistance and +hit on top of that you’ve got a pretty solid package.
Death Knight Strengths
- Starts at level 55 with a full set of gear and can earn a complete rare (blue) set of gear by the time they are 57.
- Level extremely fast through the first Death Knight zone and quest chain and are re-leased into the Outlands where they continue to level quickly until the mid-sixties.
- Very self reliant when soloing through Blood abilities that heal themselves as they deal damage.
- Runes and Runic energy recharge quickly, meaning that you can adventure almost non-stop.
- Death Knights are the best tank in the game when fighting casters with various spell-damage reduction and avoidance abilities.
- Can switch between tanking and damage dealing very easily, and can do both decently in a single talent build.
Death Knight Talent Building
Death Knight talents are split into 3 different trees:
- Blood: Talents in this tree focus on 2 handed weapons, healing, and strikes. A great tree to use initially for leveling because of healing/damage. Considered the best single target DPS tree.
- Frost: Talents in this tree focus on dual 1 handed weapons, armor, counters, and combos. Considered to be one of strongest trees for tanking but all trees can be used to tank. Frost also has some good AOE talents.
- Unholy: Talents in this tree focus on spells, summons, diseases, and AOE. One of the highest damage dealing trees and allows for a perma-ghoul pet. Can dual wield or 2 handed weapons can be used in this spec.
Death Knight Leveling
It is still important to remember that even when you are searching for a Death Knight guide that you are going to need to look for a leveling guide as well! Level 55 is barely more than halfway through the game, and with so much good development going into Outland and Northrend, there is a world of content out there for you to explore. If you want to know what zones are best going to suit your purposes and if you want to take your Death Knight to level 80, check out Dugi’s Ultimate Guide.
Death Knight PVP
Even though Death Knights are relatively new player characters, many of the best World of Warcraft PvP players have been quick to test out the Death Knight class, and have much information to share newly-updated PvP Guides. Choosing the top guide to playing a Death Knight in PvP combat can save you many hours of trial and error as you learn how to dominate the arena.
Learn how your Death Knight can come to dominate the PvP battlefield and score above a 2200 honor rating in just a few weeks with the PvP Bible.
Death Knight Gear
Your Death Knight will have gear stated as reasonably Decent for your level, ( Blues im assuming.)
Death Knights will be a plate wearing class. But they will not have the ability to use Shields.
You will get a Special Weapon either Two-Handed or one handed (Intended to dual wield)
This will be referred to as your “Runeblade(s)”
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