Death Knight Report

During the hour-long presentation by Blizzard, Tom Chilton showed us a Death Knight in action for the very first time. We saw on the character selection screen as the PC operator scrolled through a few random races, that Taurens, Orcs and Dwarves were available as Death Knights. I later saw a Gnome Death Knight on another machine, which backs up the statement Blizzard have made in the past that all races will likely have access to being a Death Knight.

Right at the start of Chilton's presentation, he confirmed that the only thing players will need to be eligible for a Death Knight on their account, is a level 55+ character. Players will be limited to one Death Knight per realm. Death Knights will start at level 55, they will have a regular land mount called a Death Charger, which will be upgraded to an epic mount through a quest chain quite soon afterwards, and we found out later in interviews with Chilton, Kaplan and Brack that the Death Knights will start off in a floating necropolis in the Eastern Plaguelands, much like Naxxramas in its current location. They will then go on to level in a dedicated area East of Tyr's Hand and the Noxious Glade, where they will learn more about the background of Death Knights.

Chilton explained that the DK will be given a series of quests that teach the player how to play the character, why the character became a DK and how it came to escape Arthas' grasp and gain free will. These quests will also provide the character with better, Death Knight specific, gear. We were then shown a demonstration of the Death Knight in action.

Death Knights have a unique resource system. They have runes inscribed on their weapons, which are used up as players use spells. This particular DK had 2 Blood runes, 2 Unholy Runes and 2 Frost Runes. The runes are used up in combat, but they regain power over the space of a few seconds. Which runes are used, and how many get used up depends on the spell, some spells only require one frost Rune, others may need 2 Blood runes.

In addition to the rune system, DKs have a secondary resource, which is similar to the Rogues' system of combo points. Every time the DK uses a rune in combat, Runic Power is generated. After a while, enough Runic Power builds up to allow the DK to use an ability that requires that resource. Whenever a DK uses one of these special abilities, however, all Runic Power that has been stored is used up, but the more Runic Power there is, the more powerful the spell will be. Therefore, playing a DK will rely on making the most of the Runes, Runic Power and their cooldown times.

When a DK is created, they will begin with more spell mechanics and abilities than a regular level 1 character starts with. This is justified by the fact that the player has to have had a level 55+ character to be able to create the DK anyway.

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