Wow – Death Knight Class – Early Experience

Once you level at least one character in your account to level 55, you can create Death Knight class characters of any Race on any Realm. Death Knights start at level 55, so all the drudgery of getting to level 55 is eliminated, but there are other problems to deal with. There are many notable experiences and problems for a Death Knight:

• While you start at level 55, you have only 20 silver in your bank.
• The starting quest chain is a tight story line, which is exciting and engaging. While it is not as rich with cinematics and dialog as the Undead quest chain in the Silverpine forest, it leads you through a story that places you in the world and fills in your back story.
• You will find yourself at level 58 with an updated weapon and some new armor pieces when the quest chain ends.
• The story ends differently for Horde and Alliance based on your race. But I’ll not spoil your experience by telling you the end.
• Your only starting profession is First Aid and it is leveled for you to about level 200, so you can built quite nice bandages should you need them.

The Coming of Transmogrification

You will want to carefully save your great looking armor which is updated with some nice pieces in the starting quest chain. In an upcoming update, you will be able to change the look of armor to look like armor you already have, so you will be able to take dungeon pieces that you get and keep your consistent Death Knight armor look.

Solo Leveling Experience

While I’m no expert here, having only played for a couple of months, I find that the Death Knight is a very powerful class to solo with. Working in the Blasted lands at my level of 58 – 60, I found that the quests were easy to accomplish and self healing was not a problem. Quite powerful mobs could be taken down quickly with only a few strokes of my powerful weapon and spells. I’m using the X-elerated guide and talent suggestions. The talents were set for PVE DPS [Player vs Environment, High Damage per Second ] and this achieves a character that levels as if it is a couple of levels above the mobs. In my limited experience, only a hunter has a similar experience when working at level.

Your Funds are Limited

Again, I’m no expert in Wow, so your mileage may vary. And you may know better.

In no time I was level 60 and could purchase a flying mount, but with a very limited lifetime, I didn’t have nearly enough gold to pay for the skills. As you end the starter quest chain, you have a mount and are a Journeyman Rider, so you can move at 200% walking ground speed. But of course, we all want to fly as well as ride. Flying is very expensive. Apparently, one has to buy Expert Riding and a Flight Master License, which are 225G each. In Orgrimmar I found the Flight Trainer and a Wind Rider NPC. The basic Wind Rider – in your choice of 3 colors – is only 45G. The skills however are very expensive. I started out with only about 40G after leveling to 60 doing quests.

To build up my funds, I’m taking two approaches:

• Gathering professions. I’m a skinner and a miner. I plan to mine and skin for loot to sell at Auction. My dwarf hunter working from level 40 – 55 has had quite good luck with auctions of loot from skinning and gathering. The various cloth items are in large supply and fetch reliable income in the auction house.
• Dungeons. Doing a series of dungeons I find that I’m quite effective and this gives funds and loot to sell at auction. The DK is very powerful. While Frost is not the right talent set for tanking, it is quite effective at Damage.

You need to get your mining up to level 200 or more to mine the minerals found in areas at level 60, so be prepared to work long hours in lower areas. Also skinning needs to be 300 or so to skin mobs in dungeons or while leveling, so again there is much work to do in lower level areas,.

Reputation from Dungeons

I want to upgrade my reputation to Revered with as many Cities as possible. This has the advantage of allowing me to purchase large bags with 16 slots for about 1G. Apparently you may purchase one bag from each city at this price once the Rep is Revered. Perhaps more bags at Exhalted, but I’ve not tested that. My Dwarf Hunter wore a tabard for Darnassas to get a Saber mount and was able to purchase large bags from both Darnassas and Ironforge while working dungeons to level to 55 to allow us to create a Death Knight.

However, watch out beyond level 55. The Random Dungeon option in the finder begins sending you into Burning Crusade dungeons where the cities are not available and regardless of your tabard, you will be gaining only Thrallmar, or another rep. This won’t help with your city rep. You need to choose “classic dungeons” from the finder rather than  Random.

Quite Impressive

I have been quite impressed by the Death Knight class. My experience with Warriors below level 20 indicates that they solo poorly, but the DK is an excellent solo leveler and is quite effective in Dungeon play. I look forward to many hours as I gather funds for my flying mount.

– Windy