Death Knight (Hero Class)

- Official site

Death knights (introduced in Wrath of the Lich King) boast powerful melee abilities, as well as plate armor. These warriors supplement their strength with dark magic. Calling upon a rune system of magic, the death knight may summon unholy, blood, and frost spells. The criterion for creating a death knight is the existence of a level 55+ character on the player's account on any realm.

The death knight is the first hero class in *World of Warcraft*. Death knights start at level 55 in Acherus: The Ebon Hold over the Eastern Plaguelands, with multiple spells and abilities ready to use, and a set of uncommon gear. When departing Ebon Hold, they have a full set of rare gear ready for Outland. Through the death knight-specific quests in this necropolis and the surrounding areas, they learn to master the power of the death knight and learn to use this new power for the will of the Lich King. Quests take them outside the necropolis and into an area within the Scarlet Enclave.

Before patch 5.3, players could only create one death knight per realm, so long as they have a level 55 character already and *Wrath of the Lich King* on their account. Now players are able to create multiple death knights on one realm. Currently, the Pandaren are the only race that cannot become death knights.

## Lore

Death knight is a name shared by several organizations of powerful necromancers. These orders share a few things in common, including riding horses with horned skulls and many of the same abilities. Playable death knights, however, are specifically death knights of the Scourge.

### Immortal Soldiers

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The original death knights were created for Orgrim Doomhammer by Gul'dan as powerful soldiers of the Horde. These death knights were created by placing the souls of the slain warlocks of the Shadow Council into the corpses of fallen Stormwind knights, the first of whom was Teron Gorefiend. Unlike modern death knights of the Scourge, these ghoulish fiends were not battle hardened warriors; they were insidious necromancers who possessed superior intellect and tremendous magical power. They often favored the use of terror tactics and reanimated the corpses of enemy soldiers who fell in battle to serve them as mindless undead minions.

Most of these death knights were destroyed during and after the Second War, either killed by the Alliance or transformed into liches by Kil'jaeden.

### Champions of the Lich King

Years after the destruction of Draenor, the immensely powerful Lich King created a new breed of death knights: malevolent, rune-wielding warriors of the Scourge. The first and greatest of these was the Lich King's chosen champion, Prince Arthas Menethil, once a mighty paladin of the Silver Hand who sacrificed his soul to claim the runeblade Frostmourne in a desperate bid to save his people. The rest are primarily made up of other fallen paladins whose souls were twisted and bound to the will of the Frozen Throne .

Unlike Gul'dan's death knights, these dark champions possess unholy strength; however, they do not possess free will and their minds are inexorably entwined with and dominated by the Lich King's vast consciousness. Despite the potential loss of free will, some powerful mortals are intrigued by the promise of immortality and pledge their souls freely into the Lich King's service to achieve it. Baron Rivendare is an example of this.

In the years since Arthas shattered the Frozen Throne and merged with the Lich King, the power and fury of the death knights has only grown. Now these unrelenting crusaders of the damned eagerly await the Lich King's command to unleash their fury on Azeroth once again. Unlike death knights of the Old Horde, the Scourge's death knights are not limited to their use of ranged spell casting abilities. In addition, these tireless death knights are considerably stronger, faster, and more agile than they were in life. However, both generations are equally destructive and terrifying to engage in the field of battle.

### The Ebon Blade

A new group of death knights, the Death knights of Acherus, was later created by the Lich King to garrison the necropolis of Acherus: The Ebon Hold for the ultimate purpose of assaulting Light's Hope Chapel and destroying the Argent Dawn. In the *Wrath of the Lich King* expansion, these death knights are freed from the will of the Lich King and ally themselves with their former factions. Working closely under the guiding blade of Highlord Darion Mograine and the bolstered Argent Crusade, the newly-freed death knights have begun their march to Northrend.

The Knights of the Ebon Blade is a faction consisting of the renegade death knights that broke free of the Lich King's control after the battle of Light's Hope Chapel (in other words, player-created death knights). Led by Highlord Darion Mograine, the Knights of the Ebon Blade have allied themselves with the Alliance and the Horde with the help of Highlord Tirion Fordring of the Knights of the Silver Hand, and have pledged to do their part in defeating their former master, the Lich King. Their main base is Acherus: The Ebon Hold, taken from the Scourge after breaking free. It should be noted that the Knights of the Ebon Blade are not a separate player faction such as the Alliance and Horde. For the purposes of gameplay, player-created death knights still belong to either the Alliance or Horde depending on their race/faction.

## Notable death knights

 File:IconSmall Teron.gif Teron Gorefiend
 File:IconSmall UndeadDeathKnight.gif Ragnok Bloodreaver
 File:IconSmall UndeadDeathKnight.gif Gaz Soulripper
 File:IconSmall ArthasDK.gif Arthas Menethil
 File:IconSmall Mograine.gif Alexandros Mograine
 File:IconSmall DeathKnight.gif Baron Rivendare
 File:IconSmall Cultist Male.gif Lord Alexei Barov
 File:IconSmall Trag.gif Trag Highmountain
 File:IconSmall Dranosh.gif Deathbringer Saurfang
 File:IconSmall Darion.gif Darion Mograine
 File:IconSmall BloodElfDeathKnight Male.gif Koltira Deathweaver
 File:IconSmall HumanDeathKnight Male.gif Thassarian
 File:IconSmall HumanDeathKnight Male.gif Commander Springvale

## Races

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* Races
* TCG images

The death knight class can be played by the following races, with the following stats:

Death knight races

AhkaraDeathKnightTCG.jpgDraeneiAnsem, Timewalker DeathbladeDKTCG.jpgHuman
## Role

In general, the death knight can be considered a hybrid melee class that combines damage dealing and tanking, somewhat akin to warriors. They wear plate armor and are able to dual-wield or use two-handed blade weapons (and maces, as revealed later). Like druids and monks, they tank without shields. Their tanking mechanics involve high armor and a high chance to parry. Death knight tanks depend on a combination of high damage abilities, in addition to high threat abilities.

Like every other class, the death knight has three different specializations; the differences between them are not as clear-cut as those of other classes, both for PvP and PvE environments. Notably, death knights can tank or deal damage regardless of specialization, although a careful selection is still required to bolster their preferred role. In patch 4.0.1, the roles became more defined, with Blood becoming the Tank specialization tree, and the others being DPS.

**Blood** enhances the death knight's melee abilities and damage and vastly improves the ability to heal itself. As the name suggests, the special abilities it grants through talents are based on the Blood Runes. Blood also provides healing utility to party and raids and has some very useful buffs and debuffs that the death knight can cast on others. Blood is considered the tree for soloing and should be given a thought when it comes time to level your Death Knight.

**Frost** enhances melee abilities and focuses on increasing both AoE and single target damage. It provides some very powerful direct damage abilities.

**Unholy** enhances the death knight's diseases and damage over time spells, making them effective at AoE DPS. It also provides the death knight with a ghoul who is a permanent pet, a gargoyle guardian he or she can summon, and stronger diseases.

### The Rune System

Runes1.jpgBlizzCon 2007Betaframe.jpgEarly betaDeath Knight portrait with runes.pngFinal version
Death knights use a unique rune-based resource system to govern their spells and abilities. Three rune types exist: blood, frost, and unholy, each with an attached color and symbol. Using certain abilities exhausts one or more runes, starting a cooldown of 10 seconds. After the cooldown, the runes refresh. The haste stat reduces the cooldown of runes. Death knights can use spells to turn a rune into a Death Rune, which can be used as a blood, frost, or unholy rune.

In addition, whenever they use a rune ability against a foe, it builds up a certain amount of Runic Power. Runic Power is consumed by certain abilities, which the death knight can use while his/her runes are on cooldown. All abilities that use Runic Power use a set amount. Death knights cannot reallocate the number and type of runes - they are fixed to two runes of each type.

The original player frame for death knights shown at BlizzCon was changed as feedback showed it was not ideal for displaying rune power for players.

## Suggested professions

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* Template:Prof and Template:Prof are logical choices for any Plate armor wearing class. This allows crafting decent armor as one levels and sometimes good weapons also. Death knights need to play catch up usually, since they start leveling from the mid 50s. So, they have to visit several low level zones to build up their Mining skill.
* Template:Prof and Template:Prof can be useful for death knights with non-Template:Spec specialization who need quick potion heals and various buffs from elixirs and flasks. These professions are also good all around for making money and supplying guild runs.
* Template:Prof is good for any non-healing class for non-combat health regeneration and provides good buff foods.
* Template:Prof is good for any non-healing class for in-combat health regeneration and low downtime regeneration.
* Template:Prof is good for leveling cooking.

## Notes

* Blizzard's original **death knight** concept was that of an undead spellcaster unit that made its initial appearance in *Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness*. This death knight could be more accurately described as a horseback-mounted lich rather than the traditional undead warrior. Years later, Blizzard introduced a new death knight hero unit in *Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos*, and this second rendition was revised to reflect the general characteristics of the more traditional death knight design. The death knight was later adapted as a prestige class within the *Warcraft RPG* and they were former paladin warriors.Template:Cite It is the Warcraft III version of the death knight that became the first hero class in *World of Warcraft* and was introduced in the *World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King* expansion.

## Media

### Art

Death Knight06.jpgDeath knight concept artDeath Knight02.jpgDeath knight concept artDeathKnightRaneman2.jpgDeath knight art by RanemanDeathKnightRaneman.jpgDeath knight art by RanemanElf svanka wow copy.jpgNight elf DK
### Videos

World of Warcraft - Death Knight intro (Directx 11)Death knight introWoW Pro Lore The Scourge of LordaeronArthas, the first of the Lich King's Death KnightsCrash Course - Death KnightCrash Course
## See also

* Death knight organizations
* List of death knights
* Death Knoob

## Patch changes

* Template:Patch 4.0.1
* Template:Patch 3.0.8

## External links

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1. ↑ http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/deathknight/gameplay.xml
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Template:Ref web
3. ↑ Template:Ref web
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6. ↑ http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=8202574912&pageNo=1&sid=2000#10
7. ↑ Template:Ref web