The WoW Death Knight Guide

The Death Knight is a very powerful class in WoW. The Death Knight is a mix of magic and melee style attacks and is currently the only class to use Runic Power instead of mana, rage, or energy. The DK is a very effective tank and damage dealer, of course not both at the same time, it will be one or the other depending on which talent specialization you choose to go with which we will discuss later.

There are many positive attributes of the Death Knight, the first is that they do wear Plate armor which allows them to take more damage before they die. They also start out at level 55 and get a full set of blue (rare) gear after completing the quests in their starting zone which makes them ideal for starting a new character on a friends server where you don’t want to go through the azeroth leveling again. Death Knights are also very easy to level, they have many abilities that allow them to take on multiple enemies at a time which will be discussed later. They are also able to tank without having to use a shield thanks to the Runeforging ability which allows them to gain free weapon enchants. DKs are also able to be any race they like which opens the door for any racial ability which we will also discuss later.

Although there are so many positive attributes, there are some negative. You are required to have a character of a different class up to level 55 before you are able to make a Death Knight, there is no starting at level one as a DK either. Another thing is that a large amount of the population are Death Knights for this reason, since it’s such a nice option to start out at level 55 on any sever many people do it leaving guild places for Death Knights hard to find. You also are forced to complete a long chain of quests before you can begin playing your Death Knight which can be annoying but when you take it into prespective you’re skipping a whole lot of quests you already did from 1-55.

What Racial Abilites are good for DKs?

As I said before DKs are open to any race that you want to choose but racial abillities can play an important role with your character so it is important you choose one that will benefit your class, however it isn’t the biggest decision you will make and you’re welcome to choose any race you want just because you think it looks the best. If you do choose to pick your race in accordance to a racial ability you should first choose whether you wish to be a tank, DPS, or strictly PvP. This of course can change down the line but it is helpful.

If you choose to take the route of an alliance and would prefer a tanking spec you may want to consider the Dwarf race, their stone form gives you a bonus to your armor which is very helpful while tanking. The Night Elf is a good choice to go if you aren’t quite sure whether you want to tank or go PvP, their shadow meld ability is very useful in PvP and also the dodge chance increase is useful as a tank. The Gnome is able to remove movement impairing efffects which is useful in PvP and tanking if you use it correctly.The Draenei is nice for tanking if you want to throw that extra Heal over Time on yourself. The last choice as an Alliance is the Human which has an increased expertise with swords and an ability to remove some movement impairing effects, the sword expertise makes the Human a good DPS choice.

Now as for the Horde races the Tauren is a very nice choice for PvE and PvP because of the War Stomp attribute, it will stun mobs and players for a short amount of time, however, the cooldown is not very short. The undead do not have very good racial abilities, mainly the only thing that they have going for them is Will of the Forsaken which will remove any Charm, Fear, or Sleep effect. Orcs and Trolls both have abilities that will increase your damage for a short period of time making them great choices for DPS Death Knights and the Blood Elf allows you to silence nearby enemies and regain some of your runic power every two minutes which is nice for any spec, PvE, tanking, or DPS.

Which talent spec should I choose?

As a DK (Acronym for Death Knight) you will have three different talent specializations to chose from. The frost talent spec is mainly used as the tanking spec for DKs. The reason behind this is that the frost spec will increase the threat that you put out and will also reduce the damage you take. The DK has a pretty easy job while tanking, they just need to keep Death and Decay down while building threat on the mobs and thats pretty much it. DKs can be very good tanks if the player knows what they are doing, most people say DKs can’t tank because most people start one with no tanking experience whatsoever and go right into the frost spec and try to tank instances without knowing what to do.

The next spec is Unholy which is a DPS spec. One reason many people go this route is because you will be able to summon a ghoul as your pet, well it is true you can do this with other specs as well but with others the pet will die after 60 seconds. As unholy, your pet will stay intact until it dies and you need to raise another one. Unholy DKs also have a Bone Shield where the DK is surrounded by 4 whirling bones. While at least 1 bone remains, he/she takes 40% less damage from all sources and deals 2% more damage with all attacks, spells and abilities. Each spell or attack that would normally do full damage will remove one of the bones. This effect will last up to 5 minutes or until all the bones have been removed. Another ability the Unholy DK has is Summon Gargoyle which will summon a Gargoyle to come in and do nature damage to the target based on the DKs Attack Power. It will continue for 10 seconds and an additional one second per 8 runic power lasting up to one minute.

The final spec for the DK is blood. This spec is known for it’s health regeneration and increased damage done. Whereas unholy focuses more of spells and diseases, blood focuses on weapons and strikes for it’s attacks. An early talent learned in the blood tree is 2h Weapon Specialization which increases damage done by 2h weapons by 2%/4%. Another one is rune tap which will convert 1 Blood Rune into 10% of your maximum health with a one minute cooldown. Some other talents would include Bloodworms where your weapons have a 3%/6%/9% to cause 2-4 bloodworms to spawn and attack enemies healing you as they do damage to the enemies for 20 seconds or until they are killed. The final talent learned in blood is Dancing Rune Weapon which uses all available runic power to bring a dancing rune weapon to fight with you for 5 seconds plus 1 second per 10 additional runic power but does 50% reduced damage. This talent was nerfed since it first came out, it used to do 100% damage and was very powerful.

What stats are important for a Death Knight?

When selecting gear for your Death Knight first you will want to look at what spec you are and what role you are doing during raids and such. If you are mainly just DPS you will want to focus on Agility, Strength, and some Stamina. Also you are going to want a lot of Attack Power and Crit Strike Rating as well as some Haste. Also making sure you are hit capped is essential for any DPS class. Another thing to keep in mind if you choose the DPS route is that if an item is mail and not plate, but has better stats than your current plate item you should use that instead, armor is not that big of a deal unless you are doing PvP or tanking. If you choose to be a tanking Death Knight you should focus a lot on Stamina for the health bonus and Agility for the dodge bonuses, in addition you will want items that add to your dodge and defense ratings, never choose items with attack power or haste over an item with defense and dodge if you choose to be a a tank. For PvP you are going to want items with resillience of course as well as Attack Power, Haste, Stamina, and Agility.

Death Knights will gain an additional 2 AP for every point of strength. They will recquire 45.91 Crit Rating to gain 1% crit chance and 62.5 agility points to gain 1% crit chance. However, Agility does NOT give you a spell crit whereas Crit Rating will so if you come accross two items differing in agility and crit rating you should go with the one with more crit rating as DPS. They require 15.39 Armor Pen. Rating to penetrate 1% armor on a target and 32.79 Haste Rating for 1% Haste. Never get Spell Power as a Death Knight, nothing will benefit from it.

What Professions should I chosse as a Death Knight

The Professions you choose are mainly based on personal preference. There are a few things you should keep in mind though, the DK as well as Paladins and Warriors do wear plate which means the repair bills are going to be higher which will provide a good reason to pick up a gathering type profession that will provide quick money making options for when you really need it for repair bills. These would include Skinning, Mining, or Herbalism. You can also choose to go a route such as Enchanting to enchant your own armor and get some enchants you can only get if you have the profession. There is also engineering which provides some very nice gear for all classes.

Hopefully this has helped you in making decisions such as what race, talent spec, stats, professions, and some other things when creating a Death Knight.