Lichborne: Death knight leveling 68-80

Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's column for all things deathly, knightly, and death knightly.

So, death knight. You're through with Outland. You just dinged 68 in Nagrand and want to move on to whiter, snow covered pastures. Maybe those pastures are in Northrend. Maybe those pastures are in Alterac Valley. Either way, let's discuss getting through those final levels and pushing you through to the end game.

Gear

So if you've read our previous Death Knight leveling guide, you may have picked up an upgrade or two. Then again, you may have decided to keep your starting gear because it looks so awesome, which is cool. However, once you hit Northrend, that gear's going to start looking pretty weak. Luckily, you'll have a wealth of quest gear to grab. 

You can starting by checking out our Northrend Starting Zone Gear Guide from a while back. If you need a sum up of that, the basics are that Borean Tundra has a great blue 2-handed axe reward, so you should probably quest for that first. After that, Borean Tundra has more straight strength and critical strike rating on its gear, while Howling Fjord has more haste and armor penetration. You can probably level up in either pretty safely, though I went with Howling Fjord simply because I enjoyed the story lines there more. Haste turns out to be good for Unholy, and Armor Penetration for Blood, so the gear there is actually a bit better than it might first appear to the untrained eye.

Once you've kitted yourself out in the basic gear, you should be able to get to level 80 relatively easy, grabbing minor upgrades you go. We'd be here all day if I went over every zone, but there are a few things I can recommend you focus on: 

• First, do the Wrathgate quest line in Dragonblight. By the time it's over, you'll have a few new blue upgrades a nice trinket in addition to having experienced the best quest line in all of Warcraft.
• Secondly, do all of the Kalu'ak reputation quests in Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, and Dragonblight. Once you complete those and do a couple rounds of dailies, you'll be at revered, meaning you have a nice new breastplate or two waiting at 76 and a new 2-handed weapon waiting at 78.
• Thirdly, once you hit level 77, head to Krasus' Landing and take the free taxi to theArgent Tournament. The sooner you start on the dailies, the sooner you can start earning Champion's Seals, which should provide you with some nice weapon and armor upgrades once you hit 80.

Leveling the PvP Way

I thought I should make mention of PvP leveling possibilities since it is the new hotness. While the Patch 3.2.2 adjustments did cool down the gain a bit, you can still get 10-12k experience per a tower burning in Alterac Valley (before heirloom adjustments), so it's at least a good break from questing.

The main thing to remember about leveling as PvP is that unless you're twinked out, you're going to be sort of squishy from around levels 70-75. This means that if possible, you may want to find other ways of helping the offensive than charging headlong into the onrushing Horde. You can keep an eagle eye on flags and interrupt any Horde capturers until the more powerful members of your team can defeat them - one point of damage prevents a flag capture. Also, don't be afraid to use Chains of Ice, Strangulate, and other crowd control and interruption skills to help shut down casters. 

Also, you may want to review my PvP tips for death knights. While the specs mentioned are a little outdated, and the tips still refer primarily to level 80s, you should find something in there you can adapt to the situation.

Skill Check: Old Skills

As far as talent trees go, all three can be used successfully for leveling, but a Blood/Unholy build is probably going to be the quickest and easiest to level, with great damage and self-healing. That said, I leveled as Unholy and found the experience enjoyable, and even Frost should be able to muddle through.

Your best bet for leveling quickly is to get a good rotation down. Essentially, you want to get both your diseases up. Then, you want to hit your Frost/Unholy strike (Death Strike for Blood,Scourge Strike for Unholy, Obliterate for Frost), then hit a couple Blood Strikes (or Heart Strikes if you're Blood), followed by your runic power dump. Then, you can start over again. Always make sure your diseases are up, since they will increase the damage of your strikes, and if you use Death Runes in your build, use those to unleash your most powerful runic strike (Heart Strike for Blood, Obliterate for Frost. This used to be Scourge Strike for Unholy, but end game Unholy builds currently eschew Death Runes and just start the whole disease cycle over again).

If you're AEing, the basic idea should be to get down your diseases, use Pestilence to spread them, and then use the remaining three runes for a Death and Decay. This will change a bit depending on your spec and role (for example, if you're DPSing in a group, be careful not to pull aggro off the tank with that DnD), but this method should be fine for solo DPSing up to 80.

Both of the above are very much the basics of rotation, and in the raid and heroic game somethings will change, but these basic methods will get you to 80, at least. Now, let's check on some of the other skills you'll getting as you head toward 80.

New Skills

Rune Strike: While you technically get this at level 67, I feel it's important enough to point out -- you need this skill.

Anti-Magic Shell: This level 68 skill is often overlooked, but it can be very useful both for tanking and DPS. Not only does it take the brunt of magical damage, but it provides extra runic power. If you're fighting magic using enemies and you have the runic power, put this up just before they send a spell your way or cast an AoE that you'll get caught in. Not only will you take a lot less damage, but you'll find yourself with a bit of extra runic power. Good death knights learn to use this well.

Rune of the Fallen Crusader: This comes along at level 70. You should probably head straight back to Ebon Hold, learn it, and apply it to your weapon. It's the undisputed king of enchantments for Blood and Unholy DPS, and even Frost builds will generally use this on their main hand, with Razorice for the offhand. 

Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: This one's pretty simple. If you're tanking and having trouble hitting the defense cap, using this enchant (or the one-handed version coming with Patch 3.3). If not, the parry enchant will probably serve you better. 

Unholy Presence: If you're an Unholy Death Knight with low haste, you may find this presence useful for fitting in a proper rotation. It's also a easy way to get a quick burst of speed if, say, you're running deep into a dungeon after wiping. For the most part, though, Blood Presence will be the superior DPS presence.

Raise Ally: This is a nice little bonus if you're in the middle of a big battle, an ally has fallen, and the Druid's battle rez is on cooldown. That said, the Ghoul raised with this ability will probably be a bit weak. Still, it's better than nothing.

Empower Rune Weapon: This ability comes along at level 75. It will put all your runes off cooldown and grab you a chunk of runic power. In short, it's the perfect burst ability. In PvP or PvE, if something needs to go down fast, get off your first set of abilities, and while most of your runes are on cooldown and your runic power near depleted, hit this cooldown and lay into your target with a fresh set of strikes. Never underestimate this ability.

Army of the Dead: This level 80 ability can be both a help and hindrance. It's a great emergency button because it not only grants you extra protection while you summon, but the Ghouls taunt, peeling mobs off you and giving you time to bandage or Death Strike. They're also a surprisingly good amount of damage. Of course, they also have a downside. Since they taunt, they can peel off the tank if you're in a group. If a monster is tauntable and needs to be positioned a certain way (such as if he has a frontal cleave or cone AE spell), your ghouls can make life hell for the group, dragging the target all over the place. Take a little time to study your prey, though, and you should be able to determine if Army of the Dead is safe to cast.

Once You Hit 80

Once you hit 80, you know what time it is: Time to gear up again. Luckily, we already have a few good articles for you. 

• To get an idea of basic tank gear for heroic tanking, check out this article.
• To get an idea of basic tank gear to start in on Naxxramas, check out this article
• To get an idea of basic DPS gear to start in on Naxxramas, check out this article.
• Then understand that all three of the above articles were written before the advent of the 5-man coliseum, and read up on our Coliseum loot articles for tanks and DPS. Your best loot will always come out of the coliseum, at least until Patch 3.3 comes out.

Once you have some gear under your belt (and don't forget to enchant it!), a lot of different options will open up to you. You can choose a tradeskill if you haven't already, or decide on your dual specs. Then it's off to raid, PvP, run dungeons, and do all that other good stuff, and that's when it's time to start hitting the rest of the Lichborne articles. We'll see you at the end game!

Lichborne: Leveling through Outland (Levels 58-68)

Welcome to Lichborne Entertainment, your weekly look at the mechanics, issues, and zen of the Death Knight class.

With 3.1 sort of leveling out for now, It's probably a good time to switch our views to leveling. It's a good a time as any to welcome any new Death Knights into the fold and give them a few tips for getting through that silly old Outland content and into Northrend.

Preparing to Launch

So the first thing a lot of new Death Knights might ask is, how do I spec? I'd say that you should level as 2-hand DPS (Dual wielding isn't very good at all as of patch 3.1, and even on a good patch, needs some high class gear). As to which tree you should go for, all three are really completely viable and likely to serve you well. If you'd like a more specific recommendation, I'd say go Blood if you prefer survivability, Unholy if you prefer to take down large amounts of things at once. Look at an Unholy build that looks something like this at 60, or a Blood that looks something like this at 60. In both cases, you can work from there until your build looks something like the cookie cutter specs posted in our patch 3.1 cookie cutter spec article.

If you've dual specced or are looking for a secondary tank build, check that patch 3.1 cookie cutter spec article as well. In essence, you can get through normal Outland and normal pre-80 Northrend dungeons as a tank by getting the 1st tier defensive talent in each tree, then working up to the major defensive talent in that tree: That is, Bone Shield, Vampiric Blood, or Unbreakable Armor. Now mind you, for Heroics or Raids, you are going to need to spec a little tighter, which is when you check the patch 3.1 cookie cutter article.

Now that you have your talent path decided, the next question is also pretty intuitive: How do I play? At it's most basic, Death Knight gameplay involves getting rid of your runes, then getting rid of the runic power that is generated by using the runes. A very basic rotation is something like this:

• Cast Plague Strike and Icy Touch on your target. This will apply your diseases, which will add extra damage as well as strengthen your weapon strikes.
• Use your Blood Runes. Use Pestilence if you have multiple targets who need diseases spread to them, Blood Boil if you have multiple targets who are already diseased, or Blood or Heart Strike if you only have one or two targets.
• Use your Frost/Unholy ability. Obliterate is the basic one you'll get, and the one Frost uses. Unholy will use Scourge Strike once they have the talents to use it, while Blood uses Death Strike. Of course, if you're low on health while soloing, you may want to use Death Strike regardless.
• By this time, you should have enough runic power to unleash one of your rune dumps. For Blood, that'll be Death Coil or Dancing Rune Weapon. For Unholy, that's Unholy Blight, Death Coil, or Gargoyle. For Frost, that's Frost Strike. Drain your runic power while you wait for your runes to refresh
• When your runes begin to refresh, repeat everything.

Now this is a very basic rotation, and it will change depending on your glyphs and talents. For example, as an Unholy Death Knight, your Reaping talent will turn your blood runes to death runes when they refresh, meaning you'll just use your Scourge Strike twice on the next rotation. In addition, if you have the Glyph of Scourge Strike and it procs, you'll be able to use Scourge Strike three times, since you won't need to recast Plague Strike and Icy Touch. There's other emergency or tank-based abilities that may switch this up as well. But for basic straight up leveling, focusing on the bullet points above and working for there should get you through. WOW

How much preparing should I do? 

So to start a Death Knight, you need a character that's already at least level 55. This puts you in the position of being able to give your Death Knight a leg up relatively easily regardless of who you are. You can find a list of things to pre-gather here. 

The big thing to pre-gather are those things that give you reputation and experience. If you have all the argent dawn turn-in items, and do a quick set of Cauldron runs in Western Plaguelands, you should find yourself at least 59 in almost no time. I'm a big fan of gettingUnidentified Plant Parts out of the way too. They don't provide experience on their own, but you do have a chance for an experience giving drop, and the reputation boost at least helps out if you want to get The Exalted later.

But again, for a full list of what you might want to get ahead of time, check the list at this link. Also worth adding to that list are Heirloom items. Hierloom weapons cannot be runeforged, and therefore are less desirable than they might be, but you may want to consider grabbing Polished Spaulders of Valor or Strengthened Stockade Pauldrons to expedite your experience gain if you have enough of the proper currency lying around on your main.

Now, this said, if you want to start from scratch, either because your "main" is poor or you just don't feel like spending extra money, you can do that too. Death Knights start with a full set of 12-slot bags and get an epic mount from an early quest, which will really be all you need to get through Outland.

Outland Leveling

By the time you finish the Death Knight starting questline, you should easily be level 58, especially if you did a few extra turn-ins for Noth's Special Brew. This means that, even if you did no preparing, you can go straight to Hellfire Peninsula. We already have a roundup ofsome quest loot to watch out for at this link, but we'll give a quick run-through of the leveling process here. 

Both sides will have essentially similar quests with similar rewards heading through Thrallmar and Honor Hold, then over to the other side of the zone between Falcon Watch and Temple of Telhamat. You'll be able to solo most things, though you will still probably want some help with Overlord or its Horde equivalent, as well as the giant-killing quests for the Cenarion Post. If you're collecting Unidentified Plant Parts, be sure to turn those in before you start on the Cenarion post quests. 

By the time you clear Hellfire Peninsula, you should be at level 60 and have the basics of your build fleshed out. You'll have your "tree-defining" runic power dumps, strikes, and nukes. As you head into Zangarmarsh, take the time to get to know your specific rotation. Note how your tree converts Death Runes and use those Death Runes for your most devestating rune-using attack, be it Scourge Strike, Obliterate, or Heart Strike.

In Zangarmarsh, you'll have the Cenarion Outpost quests, and you'll find you can probably solo the 2-man quests, especially with the help of a flare. Moving on to the Horde and Alliance quest hubs, once again you'll find some decent overlap between the two, and not many item upgrades in sight. It's fine, your armor's pretty uber. Alliance will want to make sure they finish the quests at Orebor Harborage so they can quest in Nagrand later, of course.

After you clean out Zangarmarsh, you'll want to head down to Terrokar Forest. If you're lucky, you can grab the Bone Wastes for your side here and get a nice little experience gain buff. Be sure to hit the Lost Caravan in the Bone Wastes, the Sha'tar outpost in the Southeastern quarter of the Bone Wastes, the Cenarion Thicket, and your side's city. Again, you won't find any mind-blowing upgrades among the stuff here, but the game experience should flow pretty quickly. 

By the time you clear out here, you should hopefully be at least 65, which is a perfect time to head to Nagrand. Nagrand's another nice place for getting a bunch of quests bunched together. You'll find your major quest hubs at your side's village, at Nesingwary's Camp in the Northeast, and the Throne of Elements to the North. 

What's a good idea here is to try to gather as many quests for a specific area as you can. For example, if you start in on the quest line that leads you to Lantresor, you can grab some quests that you can combine with other quests up at the Laughing Skull Ruins or Kil'Sorrow fortress easily. Also, there's one quest for Sunspring Village up at the Throne of Elements that you get from killing Air Elementals, which need to kill anyway for gasses for a certain goblin. Combine that with the small handful of Sunspring Village quests from your home village, 

Once you're through with Nagrand, you should hopefully have a Honed Voidaxe or Halanni Claymore, and more importantly, level 68. Once you have level 68, even if it means leaving Nagrand half done, your best bet is to head straight to Northrend. Check out our Northrend starting zone gear guide, make your choice, and hop a boat. Once you set foot on the shore there, you should find it pretty simple to power through to 70, get a bunch of really awesome gear upgrades, and from there begin the push to 80 in earnest. WOW