Still Have Death Knight Questions?
Of course you do, but with the plethora of new information released those questions will only intensify. All this information should renew our nearly year long debate on release dates, talent trees, skill sets and renew deeper conversation on DK starting zones, races and levels. Hit up our forums, feel free to start new conversations and discussions, we have a lot more information to go on now instead of 100% specualtion like in August of 2007.
With that said, the following clip from IGN’s interview of Jeff Kaplan may answer some lingering questions about weapons, runes and presences:
IGN: Can you talk a bit about the Death Knight’s abilities.
Jeffrey Kaplan: Yeah so he has three presences which are similar to Paladin auras in that it’s an activated ability that is always up on him. The difference between a Death Knight presence and a Paladin aura is a presence only affects the Death Knight. Some of them are tailored more towards DPS, like the blood presence and the unholy presence, whereas the frost presence is really tailored around the Death Knight tanking. The Death Knight gets some super-cool abilities; I think army of the dead is my favorite, where it’s an area of effect, moderate cooldown, rain down ghouls on everything around you. They really overwhelm the scene. I love the raise dead ability. And that one he can cast on a number of different targets, so if I’m out there fighting in Northrend and kill something, I can cast raise dead and bring a summoned ghoul out of the corpse to fight alongside with me. But if I’m out there adventuring with you I can cast raise dead on your corpse and then you don’t get to come back as you but you do get to come back as this very fun ghoul who has a whole action bar of abilities.
IGN: What about the rune resource system the Death Knight uses?
Jeffrey Kaplan: So you have six runes total and you’ll always have six runes. You’ll get to pick, and there’s actually a forging process where you put those in your blade, you’ll get to pick how many of those you have within six. So if you wanted four blood runes, one unholy, and one frost and that’s the six you’re going to run with, you can totally do that. We want there to be some customization in how a Death Knight manages his resources and let him choose. The runes have their own separate, independent cooldown as you consume them. Right now it’s feeling good at about 10 seconds per [rune]. And then there are also abilities and talents that can trigger an instant refresh or conversion that consumes your blood but puts it into frost. You get a lot of run resource gameplay that way.
IGN: You actually forge them into your sword?
Jeffrey Kaplan: It’s a process we haven’t completely defined yet but we’re thinking it won’t be as prohibitive as talent speccing or anything like that.
IGN: In terms of switching them around?
Jeffrey Kaplan: In terms of switching. But at the same time, it won’t be so fluid so that you’re doing it between fights. We’re going to hit some sweet spot between those two.
IGN: Can Death Knights only use swords then?
Jeffrey Kaplan: No they can dual-wield, they can use axes, maces, just not a shield. That’s the big thing. We really wanted this guy to feel like a different kind of tank, so no shield.
IGN: If you dual-wield do you get more rune slots?
Jeffrey Kaplan: No, it’s six across the blades. Early on we were thinking the rune slots according to specific weapons, but in terms of balance it created some weird scenarios where dual-wielding was always better or always worse.
IGN: And that’s set? It never expands through any special ability or armor piece?
Jeffrey Kaplan: No. What does expand is his runic power which is that blue bar by the portrait.
IGN: Which fills up as you use rune abilities, right?
Jeffrey Kaplan: Yeah as you use rune abilities you’re runic power is building up and then you can just unleash that.
IGN: Where does the Death Knight actually start off at 55?
Jeffrey Kaplan: He starts off in a brand new area that people haven’t seen yet. And what’s really cool about it is that it ties right into the old world and helps further the story of the old world as well, but we’re constructing a brand new starting area for the Death Knight.
IGN: And that builds to what, 60? And then you go to Outland and do the rest of the leveling content until you get to the expansion?
Jeffrey Kaplan: Exactly.
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Ok Thanks for this. I have few questions… wanna Know does the Death Knight get a normal mount and then the epic mount. Or does it just get the Epic mount. When does the death knight get his flying mount…lvl 70? or does he have to wait till 77, when you can use it in North.? Do you have to lvl up the death knight professions from 0 or do you start with them high?
Thank you, but one thing i realy want to find out is, does Death Knight start out with any gold or you start out like all level 1’s and have 0g 0s 0c? i have 2 70’s my self money doesn’t bug me just a thought because ive seen some vidoes and they always start out with 50g-1000g.
i was looking at some death knights and saw some videos say ‘death knight blood with frost presence’ but what exacly does that mean ? does that mean you can use frost non talented spells and blood ? im kinda confused.
And again about this. If the search engines learn to understand the meaning, the bloggers have poizgolyatsya to be readable and do not like the others.
Wait, I have a Question that this didn’t answer. Do you HAVE to have a level 55+ to start a Death Knight, or can you just start one if you don’t have any characters that are 55+.
I just wanted to know because my friend said that he bought WotLK and started a Death Knight and he just started about 10 days ago, I think his highest level is 29 or something, but can someone PLEASE answer this?
I want to know the exact same thing that “Arahon” asks for.
Waiting for an reply
um my brother has a lvl 70 orc shaman and a lvl 70 blood elf mage
i have a lvl 39 night elf im not game freak but how many lvls do u think i could get up if i played for 9 days about 5 to 6 hours a day or more could i get to lvl 55 cuse i want to be a death knight so bad!!! oh and can i be a death night if im a NE warrior
u gotta be lvl 55 to be a death knight your friends a big shot liar once u get to 55 u get a death knight so u have two lvl 55 its so cool
hey and dont any of u frikin power lvl or buy gold or by how to make gold guides the easyiest way to lvl up is to grow a pair and do quests in the places u hate to go because ive been in stranglethornvale for like 3 months and i really need find somewere else, yea just get like 5 or 10 quests do em all no matter what and turn em in u get at least a lvl or two or three depending on how hard they are and what lvl u are
oh yea ally sucks nuts so be hord cuse hords better for stv pluse ally has gnomes and dwarves and there just awful im ashamed to be ally, even kno ally is easyier to lvl up i think hord and dont private servers cuse ifu spend like a month on one u coulda gotten like 20 or 10 lvls on wow up, so dont fret about beeing low lvl just do it cuse deathknight totallys worth its there pallies priest dps tank range dps they summon like warlock or shaman, and tauren cant be rogues because u can still see them when they stealth there so fat i hate there dance and they always try to pick up on a blood elf and there JERKS !! LEEROY JENKINS!!!
Arahon and Piinmu if u have seen your friends death knight let me kno because my uncle works for blizzard and u have to have a 55+ to be a death knight, he probably lieing but u have seen it its probably a private setver.