Death Knight Hero Class Information

This information came from this video:

So far to date, the following is what information we have about the Death Knight Hero class from Blizzard forum posts (BOLD text is player questions):

There are a lot of details about Death Knights that are going to be worked out in time. It seems unlikely that the first thing you are going to want to do with your Death Knight is sell off all of their gear, though like any sort of character progression, you're going to eventually replace it as you progress. What sort of monetary value the starting gear will have if it has one, will be decided further down the road. Let's try to not put the cart before the horse just yet. :)

There are a lot of things still being worked out with the Death Knight class such as specific spell abilities. Unlike a traditional caster type however, a Death Knight's spell power comes from runes that are etched into their blade. Think Warcraft III when you think about the possibilities of abilities for the Death Knight. I say possibilities because things are still in process for the development of the class and there will be (of course) a lot of testing for balance done. Given that this is our first Hero class we're unveiling, you can be sure we're going for the coolest of the cool for this class.

Hey neth lots are still wondering about this. is the death knight going to have a mana pool? the pictures from blizzcon show spells using mana.

The runes they inscribe on their weapons are their mana pool (of a sort). As they use their abilities, the runes will be exhausted. After a period of time the runes will refresh. So, they don't have a traditional type of mana pool. You'll most likely see some screenshots of it, but the Death Knight (at current) has three different types of runes that they can inscribe on their weapon: Blood, Frost, and Unholy. Runes can only be inscribed out of combat ( all of this is subject to change as development continues.)

I was just wondering if I unlocked the Death Knight class with this character will I be able to choose if I want them to be alliance or horde? Also will I only be able to use the Death Knight class for this realm so If I want to change servers (have already 3 times), will I need to start a new character and level them to 80 do the quest again for that server?

We don't have any details about how the unlocking of a Death Knight will go as of yet or the specific limitations that may go with it. It's still a work in progress. When we actually do have more information on this, we'll let everyone know.

I still think there should be more information on the Wrath website about Death Knights, a lot of people still think only Paladins can be Death Knights.

We'll be adding on to it as we go. While we don't say anything specific about classes we do say the following about races and given that not all races have Paladins, it would hopefully clear up that aspect a bit though more specifics will still need to be worked out.

What races will be allowed to play death knights?

We haven't yet made a final determination about which races can be death knights. However, the class will be available to both the Alliance and the Horde.

Will unlocking the Deathknight count against the max number of characters you have in the server? The reason i ask this is because I'm capped at my server and I would HATE having to delete a character to make space for a Deathknight.

At current, our answer is that we are not expanding the amount of character slots that are available. Strategic deletion may be your solution though I know it's not a popular one. Should this change though, we'll be letting everyone know.

The new hero class will take a character slot. We have no plans to add more character slots. So, much like with the addition of Draenei and Blood Elves, my suggestion would be strategic deletion if you want to add the new Death Knight to your repertoire.

Neth, is PVP balance with the DK (and other classes) a high priority for level 80 gaming?

We'll be doing balancing on all classes for the expansion since we will be adding on not only levels, but spells and abilities as well.

Starting death knight gear = no sell price?

There are a lot of details about Death Knights that are going to be worked out in time. It seems unlikely that the first thing you are going to want to do with your Death Knight is sell off all of their gear, though like any sort of character progression, you're going to eventually replace it as you progress. What sort of monetary value the starting gear will have if it has one, will be decided further down the road. Let's try to not put the cart before the horse just yet. :)

Ok I have to lore lol on this. Death Knights are corrupted Paladins. That means a death knight class should only be:

Dwarf
Human
Blood Elf
????

Death Knights are not all corrupted Paladins. This is something that people assume because Arthas was one. Death Knights are those that make a choice to become so either through coersion of good intentions going badly or even conscientious choice.

We have a lot of ideas of how we can better help people make that transition to Death Knight meaningful enough that people not only understand how it's possible, but how to play the Death Knight. Once we've fleshed those out more, we'll let people know about them. Right now they are mostly just possibilities and "wouldn't it be cool if".

I thought the Death Knight class was something you unlocked like, "Complete a quest and you can create a Death Knight character", and not something your character becomes. Me is confuzzled.

No, you have it right. You unlock it. You won't be exchanging a character for a character or morphing into a Death Knight.

People however still have been expressing their want for there to be lore restrictions on who can unlock the Death Knight. We feel at current that it could be unfair to those that have a character that would be excluded from being able to unlock it. Whether this changes or not will be seen.

Why doesn't the DK start at level 1?

Being that it's a Heroic class, it seems a bit un-heroic to start at level one. At least that is our thinking. Don't get married to the idea of starting at a low level for this class.

Is there any plans on looking at the 1-60 grind in the future due to the expac coming next year?

It was mentioned at one of the panels that we do want to look at the leveling time for 1-60 and make it a bit easier. We shall see how this plays out however.

Also, we haven't decided on what level you will start as your Death Knight, but it seems that it should be easy enough for someone who has leveled a character to level 80 and done the quest to be able to adapt to a Death Knight fairly well. It's not quite the same as handing it over to someone who is still learning the game. There are lots of opportunities for someone to solo and group to learn how to play the class.

All races can be Deathknights translates?

Lore-wise there's really no reason why a specific race couldn't become a Death Knight.

All races can be challenged mentally and physically, their will dulled, and be cast down into madness ... and darkness. Their souls drawn into the runeblade they wield.

If you unlock the Deathknight class on one server, do you unlock it for all other servers too?

A lot of the questions surrounding how the Death Knight will be unlocked, how it becomes available, what the 'unlocking' actually accounts for (is it one time per unlock, the entire realm, the entire account, etc.), are all still questions we're asking ourselves.

Why not add more than just the deathknight for the next expansion?

Death Knights are something we are very excited about implementing. A lot of people have built up thoughts on how they want the system to work, but if we add a bunch of Hero classes at once, it would greatly skew the balance that we have and on top of this lead to too much complexity in designing and balancing dungeons. We have to think very carefully about what will be the most fun for our players before we can make any final decisions on this.

We will provide more information on Death Knights when details have been finalized.

Sure, every character should get the opportunity to unlock the class. But I think every race being able to *play* the class just totally destroys the "cool-ness" (for lack of a better term) of the class. I mean, Humans, Dwarves, Undead, and either (or both, I suppose) Orcs or Blood Elves, are understandable. But Night Elves and Tauren? Maybe it's just me, but that totally destroys the sense of Lore behind the class. I think 2 races on each side should be the limit.

We're very aware of the lore considerations. We are also aware of how it could be very unfair for those that would love to have a Death Knight to not be able to unlock it or have to level up fresh in order to get it.

As you know, we currently are allowing everyone to become one. There will be a method to the madness that will be evident for such corruption to have occurred as people progress through the questline to become one. I'm quite sure that Human Paladins aren't the only ones that can be so tempted and corrupted by their own good intentions that they can end up becoming a Death Knight. We shall see however.

Yes, we have ideas of how we want things to work, but we are still working toward refining a lot of those ideas. I love seeing the discussion that is going on, but would caution everyone not to get too wrapped up in any one idea as a 'must be or else' type of thing. The Lich King is a seductive force to be reckonned with no matter who you are.

A lot of quests have a gold component packed in...in other words the player pays gold. I was wondering how much we will have to pay in the DK "quest" so we can start saving now.

I don't know what quests you're doing, but I generally receive gold for completing quests.

It's too early to say how the Death Knight will be unlocked exactly, but as stated in a recent interview with Jeff, we're looking at the possibility of not requiring a quest be completed at 80 at all, but just having a higher level character on the account or realm. It's still too early in development to lock anything down, a lot is going to change, even if we have a good enough idea about something to have talked about it at BlizzCon.

We still have a lot of content coming for the game now, and while Wrath is definitely on the horizon, I wouldn't put too much thought into preparing for it just yet.

The main thing is, people want to play something new. They feel that the Death Knight is their only choice. Never mind that they don't have to play a Death Knight at all if they don't wish to. There will be a need for their priests, paladins, warriors etc still. There will be new spells and abilities, new items, a new profession and more. There are more things that will be there to do than do the quest to become a Death Knight and then level one to 80. No one is forcing anyone to play one, but we'd like to make the choice to play one readily available and intriguing for those that would love to play one.

This article will be updated as more information arises.