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On Death Knights
Toyed around with Death Knights a bit more today...
Here's how it works. When you create a Death Knight, you're starting at level 55, not level 1. The storyline behind Death Knights is that you fell in battle fighting the Lich King, and were raised back to life (sorta) into his service. (If you're playing a Forsaken Death Knight, basically, it means that you broke free of his control, got re-snared into his service, and by the end of it, you break free again.)
Death Knights have two sources of power. While caster classes have Mana, Rogues have Energy, and Warriors have Rage, Death Knights have Runes (please note the capital letter. I'll be using small letter "rune" below.) and Runic Power. All Death Knights have 6 Runes. 2 Blood Runes (B), 2 Frost Runes (F), and 2 Unholy Runes (U). You cannot change this. Yes, yes, Blizzard said that they were planning on letting Death Knights customize this, but they changed their mind, because someone going around with their six Runes of of UUUUUB would be very powerful in certain circumstances, and very weak in others.
These Runes are used to activate certain abilities. For example, the ability of Blood Strike requires one Blood Rune. (Wow, pretty simple, huh?) When you use Blood Strike, it uses a Blood Rune, which regenerates over the next 10 seconds. (I timed it.) There are certain talents that can reduce the regeneration time of certain Runes. (I.e. a Blood tree talent can affect the regen time of Blood Runes, a Frost tree talent does the same for Frost Runes. You get the idea.) Certain powers require more then one Rune, and yes, there are powers that require Runes of different types. A power called Plague Strike requires one Unholy Rune and one Blood Rune, for example. Using these powers which require Runes gives you Runic Power.
Runic Power can be used for certain other abilities. Now, to date, I only have one ability that uses Runic Power. It is called Deathcoil. It is NOT the same thing as the Warlock spell. This either does a decent bit of damage to an enemy, or heals a friendly undead. (Yes, friendly undead. Death Knights can learn to summon Ghouls. They don't last very long.) Deathcoil costs 40 Runic Power. (The Runic Power bar goes up to 100, and operates in a similar manner to Rage. When you're not in combat, you lose Runic Power at the rate of 1 pt/second. There is a talent that helps build Runic Power while in combat. It is probably going to be a staple of most Death Knight talent builds.)
There is also one power (so far) that doesn't require Runic Power or Runes. It's called Death Grip (and yes, it has a cooldown. There's not a lot of point to spamming it anyway.) What it does is pull an enemy that is within range to you (and if they're a mob, it makes them focus attacks on you... it's basically a ranged auto-pull/taunt). 35 second cooldown, and yes, talents can reduce that.
Not quite finally on the mechanics side of things, Death Knights also have Presences. These are like a Warrior's Stance. There is Blood Presence, Frost Presence, and Unholy Presence. Blood Presence (which you start with) simultaneously increase your DPS and heals you for a small portion of the damage you do. It is the DPS Presence. Frost Presence (learned at level 57) adds armor, magic resistance, and threat generated. It is the tanking Presence. Unholy Presence (learned at level 70) increases attack speed and reduces global cooldown. I'm pretty sure it's going to be the PvP Presence.
Now, there's a lengthy chain quest to go through before you can visit the rest of Azeroth (or Outland), and you pretty much need to do every part of it. If you don't, you miss out on things like getting your starting mount (epic land mount and riding training for free) or talent points. Actually, I'm not sure if you can skip anything... I wouldn't put it past Blizzard to make it so you can't progress through the stages of the Death Knight quests until you've done them all. By the time you finish all of them, you have a complete set of Rare quality armor, your choice of a two-handed runesword or a two-handed rune axe, and a handy portal ability back to your "home", the starting area of the Ebon Blade (the Death Knight organization).
As for the talent trees....
Blood is DPS and staying alive. There are talents that give you bonus attack power based on how much armor you have, bonuses to damage, bonuses to parrying, spell deflecting, and healing yourself. Later talents in the tree can do things like heal everyone in your party (who are in range) for 50/100% of the healing you receive.
Frost is heavily focused on tanking, but there are talents which help your DPS, and it seems more inclined to dual-wielding Death Knights. There are also a few talents which do more to "frozen" targets, so there's going to be some synergy with Frost Mages there.
Unholy is sort of a PvP flavored tree, but also sort of a utility tree. This is the tree which directly affects how often you can Raise Dead (summon ghouls), and how long they stay around (not long - 2 minutes, although talents can increase that to 3 min, 30 sec). There is also a talent that gives Ghouls a pet bar for their duration (like Hunter/Warlock pets). If you spec deep enough in Unholy you can create a stationary Anti-Magic field. (Reduces magic damage by 75% and lasts 30 seconds or until it absorbs 10,000 damage.)
Any questions?
Here's how it works. When you create a Death Knight, you're starting at level 55, not level 1. The storyline behind Death Knights is that you fell in battle fighting the Lich King, and were raised back to life (sorta) into his service. (If you're playing a Forsaken Death Knight, basically, it means that you broke free of his control, got re-snared into his service, and by the end of it, you break free again.)
Death Knights have two sources of power. While caster classes have Mana, Rogues have Energy, and Warriors have Rage, Death Knights have Runes (please note the capital letter. I'll be using small letter "rune" below.) and Runic Power. All Death Knights have 6 Runes. 2 Blood Runes (B), 2 Frost Runes (F), and 2 Unholy Runes (U). You cannot change this. Yes, yes, Blizzard said that they were planning on letting Death Knights customize this, but they changed their mind, because someone going around with their six Runes of of UUUUUB would be very powerful in certain circumstances, and very weak in others.
These Runes are used to activate certain abilities. For example, the ability of Blood Strike requires one Blood Rune. (Wow, pretty simple, huh?) When you use Blood Strike, it uses a Blood Rune, which regenerates over the next 10 seconds. (I timed it.) There are certain talents that can reduce the regeneration time of certain Runes. (I.e. a Blood tree talent can affect the regen time of Blood Runes, a Frost tree talent does the same for Frost Runes. You get the idea.) Certain powers require more then one Rune, and yes, there are powers that require Runes of different types. A power called Plague Strike requires one Unholy Rune and one Blood Rune, for example. Using these powers which require Runes gives you Runic Power.
Runic Power can be used for certain other abilities. Now, to date, I only have one ability that uses Runic Power. It is called Deathcoil. It is NOT the same thing as the Warlock spell. This either does a decent bit of damage to an enemy, or heals a friendly undead. (Yes, friendly undead. Death Knights can learn to summon Ghouls. They don't last very long.) Deathcoil costs 40 Runic Power. (The Runic Power bar goes up to 100, and operates in a similar manner to Rage. When you're not in combat, you lose Runic Power at the rate of 1 pt/second. There is a talent that helps build Runic Power while in combat. It is probably going to be a staple of most Death Knight talent builds.)
There is also one power (so far) that doesn't require Runic Power or Runes. It's called Death Grip (and yes, it has a cooldown. There's not a lot of point to spamming it anyway.) What it does is pull an enemy that is within range to you (and if they're a mob, it makes them focus attacks on you... it's basically a ranged auto-pull/taunt). 35 second cooldown, and yes, talents can reduce that.
Not quite finally on the mechanics side of things, Death Knights also have Presences. These are like a Warrior's Stance. There is Blood Presence, Frost Presence, and Unholy Presence. Blood Presence (which you start with) simultaneously increase your DPS and heals you for a small portion of the damage you do. It is the DPS Presence. Frost Presence (learned at level 57) adds armor, magic resistance, and threat generated. It is the tanking Presence. Unholy Presence (learned at level 70) increases attack speed and reduces global cooldown. I'm pretty sure it's going to be the PvP Presence.
Now, there's a lengthy chain quest to go through before you can visit the rest of Azeroth (or Outland), and you pretty much need to do every part of it. If you don't, you miss out on things like getting your starting mount (epic land mount and riding training for free) or talent points. Actually, I'm not sure if you can skip anything... I wouldn't put it past Blizzard to make it so you can't progress through the stages of the Death Knight quests until you've done them all. By the time you finish all of them, you have a complete set of Rare quality armor, your choice of a two-handed runesword or a two-handed rune axe, and a handy portal ability back to your "home", the starting area of the Ebon Blade (the Death Knight organization).
As for the talent trees....
Blood is DPS and staying alive. There are talents that give you bonus attack power based on how much armor you have, bonuses to damage, bonuses to parrying, spell deflecting, and healing yourself. Later talents in the tree can do things like heal everyone in your party (who are in range) for 50/100% of the healing you receive.
Frost is heavily focused on tanking, but there are talents which help your DPS, and it seems more inclined to dual-wielding Death Knights. There are also a few talents which do more to "frozen" targets, so there's going to be some synergy with Frost Mages there.
Unholy is sort of a PvP flavored tree, but also sort of a utility tree. This is the tree which directly affects how often you can Raise Dead (summon ghouls), and how long they stay around (not long - 2 minutes, although talents can increase that to 3 min, 30 sec). There is also a talent that gives Ghouls a pet bar for their duration (like Hunter/Warlock pets). If you spec deep enough in Unholy you can create a stationary Anti-Magic field. (Reduces magic damage by 75% and lasts 30 seconds or until it absorbs 10,000 damage.)
Any questions?
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If they were level 1, they would be a Death Page. Around level 10-15, they would become a Death Squire. Maybe 30, when they get their mount, they become a Death Knight (but only a bachelor knight, not landed or anything).
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My initial draft on this was about twice as long, but I cut most things about their quest chain because I wanted to remove the spoilers.
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