This post is a summary of recently given information about the Death Knight in World of Warcraft as posted in the official WoW Forums:
“There are a lot of things still being worked out with the Death Knight class such as specific spell abilities. Unlike a traditional caster type however, a Death Knight’s spell power comes from runes that are etched into their blade. Think Warcraft III when you think about the possibilities of abilities for the Death Knight. I say possibilities because things are still in process for the development of the class and there will be (of course) a lot of testing for balance done. Given that this is our first Hero class we’re unveiling, you can be sure we’re going for the coolest of the cool for this class.”
Runes and Mana pool
Is the Death Knight going to have a mana pool? The pictures from BlizzCon show spells using mana.
The runes they inscribe on their weapons are their mana pool (of a sort). As they use their abilities, the runes will be exhausted. After a period of time the runes will refresh. So, they don’t have a traditional type of mana pool. You’ll most likely see some screenshots of it, but the Death Knight (at current) has three different types of runes that they can inscribe on their weapon: Blood, Frost, and Unholy. Runes can only be inscribed out of combat ( all of this is subject to change as development continues.)
The rune types don’t dictate a new damage type, they’re simply a resource that spells and abilities will use when you activate them. The spells and abilities won’t necessarily be “blood, unholy, or frost” damage.
Imagine it being three different energy pools which you can change the size of before you get into combat.
About weapons
There’s no final decision or announcement on how multiple weapons would be etched, or how weapon switching may affect 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.
Which level?
Also, we haven’t decided on what level you will start as your Death Knight, but it seems that it should be easy enough for someone who has levelled a character to level 80 and done the quest to be able to adapt to a Death Knight fairly well. It’s not quite the same as handing it over to someone who is still learning the game. There are lots of opportunities for someone to solo and group to learn how to play the class.
Which race?
It’s true that the current plan has been heavily discussed to go ahead with all races, but no final decision has been made. After talking to Chris he wasn’t totally sold on the idea. Both are technically correct in that the current plan of some of the developers is to go ahead with all races, there’s been no final decision made and no real work has progressed to force a decision just yet. The FAQ is more accurate at this time, in my opinion.
Lore-wise there’s really no reason why a specific race couldn’t become a Death Knight.
All races can be challenged mentally and physically, their will dulled, and be cast down into madness … and darkness. Their souls drawn into the runeblade they wield.
Which classes?
You will not be transforming or converting one class into a Death Knight, you will instead be able to unlock the class for play. The current thinking behind this design decision is that it is important for players to feel like that they don’t have to give up a long term character for the chance to play the new heroic class.
Many people had the perception that what you would be doing was to choose a class to specialize into the hero class that would then be an extension of your current class, but that’s not how we’re doing it. We felt that if we did that for all of the classes, we would be adding too many classes into the game at once and as a result making continuing efforts toward class balance very difficult.
Compared to other classes
They are not planned to be more powerful, them being a hero class simply means they’re introduced at a higher level, and in general will reference the more powerful hero types of Warcraft history.
It’s our intention to integrate them into the current classes, balance them appropriately, and have them provide an additional – but equal – role in groups and raids as compared to other classes.
Will there be other hero classes?
Yeah, well that kind figures in to the new definition of what a hero class is. It allows us to add new classes that start at higher levels, keeping players relatively kept up as we continue to release expansions and raise the level cap, and ultimately it really fits to use the heroes from past Warcraft games as inspiration. Some other hero classes could definitely be things like Demon Hunter, Blademaster, etc.
source: Vaneras over the WoW Euro Forums
Now I’ve Done A Bit Of Research On The Death Knight Class. So Far No Sites Are Able To Tell What Level The Death Knights Will Start Out As, Or If You Must Have A Certain Level Character To Create The Hero Class. In My Own Opinion I Think Mana Pools And Runes Of That Type Would Begin To Be A Bother And What If The Runes Cost Money To Buy Or If THe Are Learned Passive Skills. Who Knows, I Know I Would Like To.The Also Since The Wrath of the Lich King Will Set Level Cap To 80 Which I Think Is A Bit High, The Amount Of Experience You Would Have To Get Would Be Insane. Those Of Us Who Are 70 Have Found This To Be Not In Our Intrest Since Many If Us Have Spent Large Sums Of Gold On Our 70 Characters As For Myself I Have Spent Well Over 2,000 Gold On Enchants Alone. Will We Be Able To Use Our Fying Mounts In Northrend? After Speding Thousands Of Gold On Them.
-Zylon-
The fact that you will have a new character to play as just seems dumb. I wouldnt want to just stop playing my character to be a death knight. You would be leveling for hours getting to 80 leaving him to play a death knight at a lower level. Also raising the level cap to 80 is going to make aalot of played quit. We raid non-stop to get epic gear, and well go to our first quest in the new area and replace it with a green. They should just make a transformation state for all the different classes that have their own talent tree. Like a warrior using an instant spell making him an avatar for an amount of time with spells he could only use in that form.
lots of interesting ideas; can’t wait to see the product of blizzard’s hard work.
It appears that Blizzard wants us to continue to better our characters so that we may not replace our items until we are level 75 or so, but perhaps not. Many of us have wasted much money on enchants and such. Our mounts, the most expensive perhaps. Maybe it is just me, but if unable to use our flying mounts in the new lands, then I would find myself unable to buy the expansion after having wasted so much time to have gotten the mounts and enchants. Many people have spent a lot of time raiding to get epic gear and go on to the next raid instance. This is exactly the same as it was when the Burning Crusade came out for the people who had been raiding for months, had the best gear possible, then to find their epics being replaced by mere green items. It would have been depressing for all of those who had done that, it is the same now to many more people. I believe it is just something we will have to live with or we will just have to forget about the expansion and stop playing our characters…. not something I would do seeing as I do not want to stop playing my first-ever character. The better gear we have, the better we will be prepared for the new lands.
…i was about to quit WoW until they announced this expansion :( now i have to play more!!!!
ive tried to quit wow 4 times..and now they’re going to release all this new stuff…
I think it would be cool if you could get a hero class that is not unlcocked based on what class you are. Im a hunter right now and I dont feel like lvling another class to unlock a death knight.
if they’re really following the DK lore then shouldn’t pallies be the only class that can unlock a death knight??? Or only races that can be pally, be allowed to choose DK???
The point in playing wow is to be entertained so to all those people who have had the chance to experience the thrill of a high level raid instance boss kill that is what wow is about. A reward for this indeed is increasing your characters power by getting new gear, but new gear is not the be all and end all of wow, it is the joy of playing with other people. The new zone will bring new things to wow that the majority of people will like. The Death Knight is being built so that you dont have to destroy your old character only to find that you dont like the death knight and want your old char back. To the people who expect blizzard to make hero classes that branch from a particular classes as they are just think for one second longer than you have and imagine how difficult it would be to implement that sort of thing. There would be chaos to start with thus impossible to do.
Bottom line:
Blizzard know what they are doing better than you do so trust in them. But if you can’t, then know that your ideas and suggestions probably won’t make a difference anyway :P
Well your know, ppl tend to work on thier caped chars alot as u know right? Well most ppl i have talked to are so excited about being able to play that char and having the thrill of lvling with the spells of a 70. They look forward to new spells upgrades new armour and new pets/areas! This is a big thing, you can think of it as bad, but its actually a great thing! ^^
I can see why some ppl can be annoyed with the whole replacement with their epics with greens items in the last expansion luckily for me now that i read all these replies i’m not bothering spending the vast amount of honor on items… gonna wait till the expansion, feel bad for ppl that already did though
PEOPLE!!! In the new exspansion you CAN use your flying mount when you reach the lvl of 78+. When your lvl 80 you do a quest to unlock the death knight no matter what class/race you are……The death knight must be a human,dwarf,undead or a blood elf….when you create a death knight after you finish the quest they will b lvl 55…there are 3 talent trees to the death knight, Blood(melee dmg), Unholy(spell dmg) and frost ( tanking)…. the death knight cannot use shields there fore they tank with a 2h wep…. your welcome
~~~Theodor~~~ Bleeding Hollow server
Thanks Marcus Brown, if you could reply where we could read thea info that would be great. if what you say is true about which races can be Death Knights and the talent trees then i really look forward to it.
The Death Knight bussiness is attractive, but i DONT LIKE THE FACT THAT BOTH SIDES will be able to be the death knight. Blizzard has been far too hasty, they should have thought of two hero characters and brought them both in simultaneously, such as Death Knight for the hordes and the Deamon Hunter for the allies with horde priests, warlocks, and warriors being able to be Death Knight and Allie warriors, Paladins, and rouges being able to be the Deamon Hunter. To make other classes happy certain attributes could be afforeded to them, nothing too special tho.
Blizzard play’s more WoW than anyone… Have faith… it WILL come together, these people might know what they are doing.
and if you wont reason to that^
then you should know that you dont have any effect on wut blizz does : (
I heard from numerous sites that Death Knight’s can only eat poop.
Okay, a lot of you have misconceptions on the DeathKnight. This should clarify some rumors.
1.) A level 80 quest chain on your main character will explain what has happened to Arthas and how normal people on the Horde and the Alliance will be able to become a deathknight without turning into an undead that is commanded by the Lich King (atm inside of Arthas’ mind).
2.) Horde AND Alliance can become a DeathKnight because, oh look, Arthas, a paladin of the light had his soul sucked into Frostmourne. Anyone, gnome, human, tauren, or orc could have their soul sucked out. You think unholy weapons care what race you are? As of right now they aren’t 100% sure you can make a Death Knight of every class, but all signs show proof of this.
3.) The level range of starting a Death Knight is 55-65. Also, they won’t be naked like a level 1 character. As Blizzard said, this is a hero class, they’re not going to make them weak. Expect decent gear to start in, and quest chains for the different sword runes (ei. similar to the shaman totem quests).
4.) Yes, you level a character to 80, then you unlock Death Knight. So you then have to go back through possibly 55-80, that’s 25 levels! Wrong. Your old character isn’t deleted or ‘turned into’ a Death Knight. You unlocked the ability to make one just like when you make a new character. All that work wasn’t wasted because you still have that level 80 character that you can play. Blizzard doesn’t want every single person to switch to Death Knight upon unlocking it. Most people also won’t want to switch.
5.) Marcus Brown was very very wrong with the quoted material below:
–“PEOPLE!!! In the new exspansion you CAN use your flying mount when you reach the lvl of 78+.”– Actually, you can use your flying mount in Outlands…at any point after you get it. A new, blizzard resistant flying mount for Northrend will be introduced because your old mount supposedly can’t fly there due to the immense cold. Sorry, new mount to buy. Don’t think of it as money wasted on your Outlands mount, think of it your epic land mount, you’ll still use it when you’re there.
–“The death knight must be a human,dwarf,undead or a blood elf”– it can be any race.
–“….when you create a death knight after you finish the quest they will b lvl 55”– 55-65 is the range, not concluded yet in beta.
–“…there are 3 talent trees to the death knight, Blood(melee dmg), Unholy(spell dmg) and frost ( tanking)”– wrong in every way possible. These are only his theories and they are very naive. Your skills are based on runes of blood, unholy, and frost types (more may be added later) and the combinations of these runes give different spells and abilities. They DO NOT, however relate to melee, spell, or tank trees. Yes, it is likely they will have talent trees relating to these runes, but putting 3 frost runes in your sword will not make you a tank or ‘better’ tank than someone with 1 frost and 2 blood.
–“…. the death knight cannot use shields there fore they tank with a 2h wep”– also wrong. Death Knights should be able to use shields. Blizzard announced they COULD two-handed tank, but never said that is what they are limited to as far as tanking.
All you guys that right about having to lvl all the way up to 80 and having spent all your dumb gold on stuff and mounts,is crap suck it up, the Death knight introduces an all new class that opens up a hole new expirience. If you cant deal with the fact that you have to work for it than quit, because nobody cares if you spent all your money and work on your old character. And im sure for the people that don’t use their brains(most of you) that the gold you will earn in the expansion will be more than what you get anywhere else in the game ,so you can get back all the money you spent. Or maybe you can’t just deal with the fact that you aren’t the best in the game anymore.
Ok so cheers to Nock on posting almost 100% correct. This is direct from wowwiki in ref to Death Knights, “Can tank without a shield, using two-handed weapons or dual-wielding. Death Knights cannot use shields.” So GJ on the post as a whole I found it very informative. Just wanted to put this out there to be helpful.
I’m very excited to see what blizzard does with this. I’m also glad that Nock corrected him so I didn’t have to do it myself. DKs sound like they are able to do multiple things in raids and seem like they are going to be fun to play, BUT if their runes become costly, I will be dissapointed. I’m wondering how long the CDs on the runes will be and if they will be unique. There are many questions to be answered, and I’m hoping to find them sometime in the near future.. GL blizz
i wish that you could play it even if you didnt have a alt char
i have a few lvl 70s and i am tired of the same old quests and the same lvl over and over. i think this hero class is going to be great! i need to do diff quest because it is the same old same old every month is a lil better and i like all the new instanses but i think this death night is going to be good. the hero class is going to be sweet cuz i did not want to make any of my 70s a death night i work hard on each of my classes to get 70. so starting out at at least 50 would be the bomb.
i have an update sotra i found out that you must be level 55 to have a deathknight and i dont know what level they will start at yet i will keep looking and there are many new enemies that are gonna be very difficult, alot harder than the normal heroic dungeons ok everyone
u have to be lvl 55 and the death knight starts out at lvl 55 and u get a lvl 40 mount
I was reading a few of these and that Marcus Brown person was right about a few things but wrong about some others, at level 55 you get the Death Knight quest if you choose to do it, thus 70s and higher leveld characters will be able to do it easily, also you can use your flying mounts in northeren regardless of your level. The Death Knight would probably also start off at 55, I’ve done real research, but nice try at winging it Mr.Brown.
is there going to be any honor BG armor and weapons for the death knight and arena and is there going to be gear for them 55 to 80 or will they be warrior gear for them
June 19th, 2008
4:22 pm
injection, blizzard has not talked about that yet.
i like the idea of a new class but i dont think that the base lore of the game should be changed. why give dk runes or whatever all other casters have to deal with mana thats just part of the game! i do like the idea of being able to skip the low lvls that will be very nice i would recomend making the lvl cap at either 60 but no higher then that after all by the time a player lvls a class to 60 he / she will know the game well enough there just inst that much more to learn sre there are higher lvl instances and raids but thats just new areas the base skill involved has already been learned
ps sorry about the spelling errors
just let low or high level classes be able to transform into a death night because i dont want to make another class after leveling my warrior to lv 17 so please do this for u
s all
So let me get this straight, you can level up your current character to level 80 then unlock the death Knight class and you can create a whole new character. Ive also heard that you start out on level 55 when you create the death knight. Is this true?
Guys.. really, why the hell are lvl70’s whining about their epix…
I raid a lot, but getting to grow even more powerful..even when wearing greens, is a dream come true, i will buy the expansion!
as for spent golds.. i spent over 10K gold on my char so far.. all earned by professions, yet i don’t think it’s that hard for lvl70’s to get golds.
SSO dailies alone can get you around 250G a day.. come on..
i think death knight are real cool but i wounder what t9 looks like i was just looking at pictures .finally i get to buy t6 that is if you can .I think that the dragon should be the last boss .I wonder if world of warcraft is gonna get a new season after the lich king .Im really happy that it is coming out soon .Its gonna be really hard to get lvl80 once your lvl1 because i’ts hard to lvl
I was just looking at other coments and i think death knight get lots of good talent but other ppl say you have to unlock it .K im wondering what percent the new dragon goes I adleast think faster that a phionox of corse .But since i play wowscape more than real wow so there saying that they might not put it on.xD
U dont have to be lvl 80 to get a Death Knight, u dont have to be a certain race or class, u just need to be lvl 55 at least and then u can make new char. Death knight.
When u start the Death knight it will start from lvl 55.
And it will start with some nice gear and nice questes.