At the Worldwide Invitational last weekend we finally got to try out World of Warcraft’s new class, and the game’s first Hero class - the Death Knight. Unfortunately, we still weren’t allowed to take pictures, but I dutifully jotted down everything for your convenience.
This is the first time anyone has been allowed to officially report on what playing a Death Knight is like, and although I didn’t get very long to play, I did get some nice info, such as the talent trees.
Rebirth
The accounts we had on which to try out Lich King were already set up with premade characters. There was one Death Knight to choose from, so I selected it, a female Blood Elf wouldn’t have been my personal choice but meh, she did the job. I logged in near Light’s Hope Chapel, surrounded by a handful of NPCs. Confused about my starting location (we’d been led to believe we were starting in a new area east of here) I looked on the map. There was indeed a new area on the map, but I couldn’t to it. However, looking to the sky I could see a huge necropolis floating over it.
More after the jump…
I spoke to a nearby NPC with the yellow ! over it’s head, and by handing in the subsequent quest with another nearby NPC, i received 46 talent points to spend as I wished, and a bag of 10 gold. I was also rewarded with a mini [item type=“preload”]Ashbringer[/item] that didn’t do much damage, it was just there for novelty value. All this certainly isn’t what’s going to happen when the game goes live, I’m sure Blizzard are holding back with the real Death Knight starting quests and storyline, but that’s fine by me, I like surprises.
I looked through the Spellbook and noticed the following spell:
Death Gate
Requires level 55
Costs 1 Unholy Rune
10 second cast, 15 minute cooldown
Description: Returns you to Ebon Hold.
Interested about Ebon Hold, I clicked the spell. Like using a Hearthstone, I was zapped to another location. Strangely, I ended up with Tirion Fordring, at the top of the river on the border of Western and Eastern Plaguelands. There were many of us Death Knights there, so it appeared I wasn’t the only one who had been curious about this Ebon Hold. I can only assume Ebon Hold is the name of the floating necropolis, the Death Knight’s origin. Perhaps DKs have to return there to perform tasks such as change the runes on their weapons.
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First Blood
I thought now would be a good time to try out some combat. I eventually found a mob (all the assembled DKs were practically fighting over nearby mobs on which to practice their newfound skills) and began the ‘training’. The runes I had arrived in-game with were 2 Unholy, 2 Blood and 2 Frost, but I couldn’t find anywhere to change that configuration, so I just went along with that.
Like Retribution Paladins, the DK’s combat is mainly based on melee, with a few spells thrown in every now and then for good measure. Spells use up the runes on your weapon, and the runes those spells use up depends on which spell you use. The runes slowly regenerate over a few seconds, so unlike a mana user, as a DK you’ll probably never find yourself unable to cast for a long period of time.
The new ability in WoW to apply a disease to targets is pretty important to the DK, with many skills that involve diseases, such as these, to name a few:
Blood Strike - Instantly strike the enemy, causing 60% weapon damage plus 55+ for each disease on the target.
Blood Boil - Causes all disease effects on targets within 30 yards to painfully erupt, consuming the diseases, dealing 53 damage, and forcing the target to attack the Death Knight for 3 sec.
Degeneration - Instantly attack the target, dealing 60% weapon damage and inflicted a disease dealing 91 over 21 sec. This disease will corrupt an existing heal over time spell, removing it and dramatically increasing the damage dealt. While afflicted by this disease, other heal over time effects on the target will have no effect.
Obliterate - A brutal instant attack that deals 100% of weapon damage plus 330 and 122 additional damage for each of your diseases on the target, but consumes the diseases.
Death by Death Knight isn’t a pretty sight. Many of the combat skills involve your foe erupting, being strangled, becoming fatally diseased or plagued, being swarmed by insects and many other nasty tricks.
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Exploration
After killing plague hounds for 20 minutes, I decided to see if there was anything new for Death Knights in the main cities, so I headed for the nearby Silvermoon City. By looking through to options for directions from the first guard I came to, there were no changes, but I thought I’d take a look anyway. I spoke to Champion Bachi, the Paladin Trainer in Silvermoon. No rude remarks directed at Death Knights like Blizzard previously indicated, but maybe they just haven’t been put in yet.
I did notice that I had the Inscription talent. Whether DKs will all have this on creation, I don’t know, but I only had 2 spells; Ivory Ink, and Silver Ink. Neither of them could be applied to anything, and there was no description with them to let me know what they did.
At that point, my PC crashed, and the gentleman who had been camping out at my feet for the past 2 hours with all his gear, eager for his turn, shuffled uncomfortably, so I moved and let him have his turn.
I did record all the Talents and Skills, which I will add soon so stay tuned!
