This isn't groundbreaking new information, but over on the European forums, CM Vaneras has provided a summery of information on the new Death Knight hero class. However, while not groundbreaking, it does clarify a few things and drop tiny fragments of new information. First up, the Death Knight's 6-rune resource system:

Imagine it [the runes] being three different energy pools which you can change the size of before you get into combat.

These runes, we know, will be etched on to the Death Knight's weapons and can be changed at any time out of combat. But it sounds like the details on weapons etching are still up in the air:

There's no final decision or announcement on how multiple weapons would be etched, or how weapon switching may affect the etched runes. What has been discussed to some degree is that the main-hand weapon would be etched and that's it, but it's too early to say what would be allowed in the final game.

What level the Death Knight will start at is still unknown but what races may play them is up in the air. Though during our liveblog of the WotLK demo, we were told that Blizzard's plan was to have the class available for all races (to cheers of "Gnome Death Knights ftw!" from the crowd), Vaneras expresses less certainty... more quotes and info after the jump!


After talking to Chris [Metzen] he wasn't totally sold on the idea. Both are technically correct in that the current plan of some of the developers is to go ahead with all races, there's been no final decision made and no real work has progressed to force a decision just yet.... 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.

As a hero class, will Death Knights be more powerful than the rest? No, says Vaneras:

They are not planned to be more powerful, them being a hero class simply means they're introduced at a higher level, and in general will reference the more powerful hero types of Warcraft history. It's our intention to integrate them into the current classes, balance them appropriately, and have them provide an additional - but equal - role in groups and raids as compared to other classes.

If you have questions we haven't answered here, you can check out all of our posts on the Death Knight, but there's a lot about the class that we don't know.

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Tags: death knight, DeathKnight, eu, eu forums, EuForums, europe, vaneras, world of warcraft, WorldOfWarcraft, wotlk, wow, wrath of the lich king, WrathOfTheLichKing

Filed under: Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King