The Abriged Necronomicon: Death Knight Basics CompendiumFollow

Seeing that we start having lots of recurring questions, and short of writing a complete FAQ, here's a short compilation of useful material available on the boards.

Note that this is just a compilation of the posts and research done by smarter, more experienced and more informed people, until someone has the time to write a proper DK FAQ.

How can I roll a DK?
You will need a level 55 or higher character on the same realm as well as one free character slot. Note that on PvP realms, you cannot roll a DK of the opposite faction to the rest of your characters (as usual).

I'm lost. I have no Hearthstone, where are the trainers, where is the inn?
You will have to finish the starter quests before you get access to profession trainers, an inn, a mailbox. There's also a fully functional mailbox available in one of the first stages of the starter storyline. There is however little reason to use it a that stage, as you are geared on starting and will be geared better than anything available on the AH for many levels.

But I need to log off before having completed the starter quests! Where can I rest?
Fortunately, the Ebon Hold is your capital city, and you can rest there anytime you like. This is also handy if you're out in the middle of nowhere, need to log off fast and your HS is on cooldown.

But how do I get back to the Ebon Hold?
During the starter quests, using the flight path at the Scourge camp. Afterwards, use your Death Gate ability (in your spell book, under Unholy school).

How long does the starting area take? I want to go to Outlands!
Roughly three hours. No, there are no shortcuts, but the story is worth experiencing at least once.

OK, I'm fully finished with all the starter quests. Where do I go next?
While the lure to head to Outlands at 58 immediately can appear tempting, you might also want to consider sticking to the Plaguelands till 60-61. With your new set you will seriously outgear anything there and just fly through the levels. Plus, you won't end up with being too low for any quests and won't have to backtrack in HFP. That being said, pick what works best for you.

What is the best race for DKs?
Pick what you like best. Seriously.
If you can't do that:
For Alliance, Draenei, humans and dwarves are all solid choices for PvE DPS. Night Elfes have a slight edge in tanking. For PvP, Gnomes and Humans have handy escape racials worth a second look.
For Horde: Orcs are a solid choice for DPS and OK for tanking, trolls are a good second choice. Tauren, blood elves and undead are good PvP choices, Tauren and Blood elves have also a slight edge in tanking.
Pick what you like best, though. In my subjective opinion, Humans, Orcs, Draenei and Belves look best in the blue starter plate.

Should I Dual Wield or use a 2H?
Short answer: 2H, it's meant to have an edge by design.
Detailed answer: Dilbrt explains it all here

How do I DPS with a DK? What are the cookie-cutter builds?
Theophany has an extremely extensive thread in progress, which you should read here.

Way too long, just tell me what the best spell rotations are?
Short answer: Due to the complexity of the class' mechanics, there's no simple rotations you can use (and build into a castsequence macro). You should start aquiring some notion of priorities:

• Keep your diseases up, as many other spells' damage get a sizeable bonus from running diseases
• Generate Death Runes for flexibility, learn to time your build's high damage strike
• Learn when to use your build's Runic Power spells when appropriate
• Weave in Death Strike for self-healing when appropriate

Detailed answer: Read Dilbrt's detailed exposé here.

What are Death Runes and why should I want these?
Each Talent tree has a talent which converts Blood, Unholy or Frost runes into Death Runes under certain specific conditions. The talent is in T3 in blood, T6 in Unholy and T8 in Frost. While your rune abilities consume a combination of Blood, Frost and Unholy runes, Death Runes are "universal runes" which can be used if none of the normal runes are available.

Example: You cast Icy Touch and Plague Strike, using one Frost and one Unholy Rune. You follow up with a Death Strike, which uses both runes. At this stage, if you want to hit hard with eg. Obliterate, you have to wait for the cooldown to finish on the Frost and Unholy runes consumed by Icy Touch and Plague strike - 8 seconds later. If you have two blood runes available, you can hit Obliterate right away.

Where can I familiarize myself with the class' mechanics?
Many places once you've finished the starter quests. My personal pick is Valley of Bones in HFP, killing the buzzards. You can normally pick and kill one, then have the surrounding buzzards aggro one after another right after a kill. This should give you a good feel for how to build up RP, and timing your rune usage. The buzzards also drop quest items used by a chain started at the nearby Zepellin Crash site (the third in a row), and there's plenty of Zeppelin parts on the ground to complete a second Zep Crash site quest.

Which is the tanking tree?
There's no proper tanking tree. All three trees hold some key tanking talents and these are low enough that they can be picked up no matter which tree you specialize in.

Does DK benefit from SpellPower on gear?
Not at all. All DK spells are built around AP.

What Stats should I prioritize on my gear?
Short answer: That depends and whether you're still leveling or starting to raid, and what role you will be taking. As a very rough guideline, Strength is going to be most desirable for builds. Hit rating will be important for raiding, and expertise of value for tanks and blood in particular.
As expected, stamina, avoidance and mitigation will be important to tanks.
Crit is not too important for unholy, more for blood and frost. Haste doesn't really benefit DKs as such but for the shortened global cooldown which may give more room to prioritize.
Detailed answers: check out this in-depth EJ thread.
Or here, courtesy of Theophany

What is the best leveling build?
Pick what sounds most fun. In terms of pure efficiency, Blood and Unholy tend to win out as Frost needs AoE-friendly zones to really shine, but it's a new class. Try out stuff and enjoy yourself.

Where can I find more DK resources?
Check out the stickied thread by Tyrandor here

What addons should I use?
Some form of DoT / Buff timer for tracking disease duration may be advisable. ClassTimer, Elkano's Buff Bars, Yatba do the trick nicely, or whatever you use on your warlock.
Some rune timer addons are also quite valuable, like RuneWatch, RuneHero and Magic Runes. The latter is what I use myself.

Aldor or Scryer?
While it is doubtful you'd stick around long enough to get the rep for it to matter (instead of getting better stuff in Northrend), I'd say Aldor is marginally better for tanking with the Vindicator's Hauberk than Scryers with Gauntlets of the Chosen.

Oracles or Frenzyheart Tribe?
Oracles will offer you Gold Star Spaulders, which may be marginally interesting to blood or frost DPS builds. The Frenzyheart has two pieces of healadin plate, but also the Giant-Sized Gauntlets which look decent for any tanking builds.


Additional Information, key threads
In-depth Frost compendium by Moongosexcore
PvP Build discussion
Blood PvE DPS builds discussion


Corrections, complements, additions, retractions, modifications, feedback? Fire away.


Edited, Dec 1st 2008 10:31am by Alastaironsiren

Added a couple of questions pertaining to the starter quests. Seems to puzzle some people and many more ask on /1 where they can log off and rest.

Great job Ala. Maybe this is somewhere and I just didn't see it, but I looked a few pages back. Somewhere if anyone knows someone should cover whether you go Aldor or Scryer, and what the benefits are.

I apologize in advance if it somewhere I just didn't notice it. Also, I am just focused on my Death Knight so I am not sure if it even matters anymore.

Beyond the question whether you'd actually do Outlands instances enough to reach rep levels where you could reap the benefits (while staying at level 70, without any Northrend gear), I'd say Aldor by a tiny margin for tanking DKs - Vindicator's Hauberk is marginally better than Gauntlets of the Chosen, the rest should be dictated by your professions.

Added Aldor / Scryer and Oracles / Frenzyheaert comparisons.

I checked out whether the mailbox in the first ground missions is fully functional, and it appears to be. Looks like the Azerothan Postal Service will find you anywhere, even if you're dead.

Added a question about Outlands vs Plaguelands at 58, and linked a couple of spec threads.

I hit Hellfire Peninsula the minute I was 58 and done with the introductory quests. With the starting gear available plus the right talents, I just flew through it.

Thanks for the heads-up, added.


No doubt, however you can blow through 2 levels in Plaguelands and then blow through Outlands all the same, without risking that some of the quests may not be available to you on your first pass in HFP and forcing you, in the long run, to revisit the same areas more often. Both approaches work, of course. I find Plaguelands is more efficient though.

My answer to that is to get your professions leveled so when you DO get to outlands, you can level those while you grind to 70. That is unless your DK's main/alts are providing you with all of the gold you need to buy your DK flyer, make gear repairs and other assorted costs. Then, head on over!

Unfortunately for me, my DK's main is not that wealthy. Therefore, I delayed my start to Outlands and leveled up mining/engineering as well as cooking and fishing (the most painful of all). The food buffs for DK's in Northrend are very nice, especially from some of the fish, so IMO I am finding it worthwhile to slow down a bit.

I don't know, I think it would be tough and expensive to get to Northrend with NO professions leveled and then go back to Azeroth to powerlevel two up to Northrend standards.

Happy Haunting!

______________________________________

Eupharis - Lvl 66 Death Knight - Duskwood
Hulkababy - Lvl 72 Orc Hunter - Maelstrom

If u plan on getting ur DK to 80 with epic flying, ur best of taking a dive into the starting zones for professions, imo ur best off taking mining + leatherworking or Herbalism + leatherworking depending on what u plan on taking in the end...
Sell anything that is worth money (except mithril + thorium if ull be blacksmith or engineer) and ull make hundreds of gold on leveling tru outlands, let alone northrend... :P

Also i find it strange u tell people to do plaguelands :P
plaguelands is by far slower lvling than HFP.. if u complete all of the quests in the first city (for alliance its easier, Honor hold is more concentrated than thrallmar) u should be lvl 70~71.. which means u can do anything else (xcept overlord) solo.
if u do all quests in HFP (advisable except some grind ravager quests if theres to many people, both grind ravager quests have a stupid long respawn) u should hit 72 easily, which means u can be picky in zangarmarsh, which greatly benefits you..
Hit 74 in zangar before going terrokar, dont be to picky there, all quests can be done pretty easily, also make sure your scryer if u dont care, their quest is better exp since you actually have to kill stuff your allready killing, and those few mobs add extra add to ur exp bar.. also scryer tier means u wont have elevator deaths :p

Hit 76 in terrokar, than head over to nagrind and be VERY picky... hit 77 there atleast, 78 if u like the zone, else do 77-78 in BEM

There u go, ur in northrend :P
Go Borean first, cause the plate rewards are easier to get there from my experience, you'll be geared quicker and theres less walking from a to b involved.
Make sure you do the questline to end up with Axe o Frozen Death, check the questline :P
You can have it end of lvl 69, start of 70 depending on ur lvl-order in borean, and itll last you a few levels, being the only blue 2 hander you can get thru quests :)

Guides are often personal preference. I've leveled the fastest (granted, I've been playing for four years and thus know a lot of little things most people don't pick up on) going to Outlands at 58 and Northrend at 68.

The zones are designed to be picked up at those levels. If you enter HFP at 58 and do all the quests (even if you don't do the dungeon quests), you will be able to take every quest in the order it was meant to be done.

The same applies to Borean Tundra/Howling Fjord.

And so is everyone's decision on whether to change content at 58 or 60. Which is the point I've been making for a while.




I've been playing for just six months less longer than you and my own experience does tell me differently. I can make 58-61 in Plaguelands in roughly 3 hours and a half. I can't make it as fast in HFP. You may be able to, but you're not playing my toons.

None of all this is dogma in either direction, though. Pick what works best for you because it does indeed work best, not because Common Knowledge says it must be. Common Knowledge used to believe the Earth was flat and the center of the universe. And take that statement as a simple observation about the accuracy of Common Knowledge, not as a way of implying that going to the next continent at cap-2 is the equivalent of flat earth, please.

I again suggest we agree to disagree on the matter, and move on.

I completely disagree Tyr, and I've used every build at some point in leveling.

Blood has been by far the fastest for me, as I can take on just as many mobs (record is 11 even-level mobs on me at once) and still put out more damage and keep myself healed better.

Knowing how to play as Blood makes the spec better.