Lichborne: Death knight leveling 68-80
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Oct 5th 2009 at 5:00PM
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:
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.
Welcome to Lichborne, the new class column on the new WoW class, the Death Knight, where we discuss Patch 3.1 cookie cutter builds, basic defense gear and Heroic defense gear for the Death Knight tank, 5-man Crusader's Coliseum gear previews for tanks and DPS, and basic Death Knight statistics and mechanics. You might also want to check all the other articles in our Death Knight category.
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 the Argent 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.
Welcome to Lichborne, the new class column on the new WoW class, the Death Knight, where we discuss Patch 3.1 cookie cutter builds, basic defense gear and Heroic defense gear for the Death Knight tank, 5-man Crusader's Coliseum gear previews for tanks and DPS, and basic Death Knight statistics and mechanics. You might also want to check all the other articles in our Death Knight category.Filed under: Items, Battlegrounds, Death Knight, Guides, Leveling, PvP, Walkthroughs, Tricks, Tips, Analysis / Opinion, (Death Knight) Lichborne
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
JoeHelfrich Oct 5th 2009 6:00PM
I had my Death Knight in the Heirloom plate chest, the heirloom PVP plate shoulders (because I had those tokens available from Wintergrasp) and four pieces of Fel Iron (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23487) crafted by my blacksmithing main. The 4 set bonus of +20 strength let me use that gear will into Northrend. The only draw back was a DK that looked like a medieval Iron Man (particularly once I added the engineering goggles and flying machine.) Green and gold are not a Death Knight's colors.
Also, as soon as I hit 70, I spent 15 minutes picking up Winterfin clams (there's no competition for them any more, they're all over the place) and got http://www.wowwiki.com/Tidebreaker_Trident. Polearms aren't my first choice, but it's got better stats than anything craftable at that level or anything that I could find at the auction house. I'm still using it, and I just dinged 75.
Saelorn Oct 5th 2009 6:00PM
On a slightly more serious note, I just ground out from 68 to 69 on my death knight by sitting at the gate in howling fjord and killing everything that came my way. It took about 45 minutes, and I was never in any danger (blood spec / frost presence).
Not as entertaining as questing, but a decent background task while you're watching a movie or something.
t0xic Oct 5th 2009 6:04PM
I won't go so far as to feed the trolls, but I will say that a leveling guide for DKs is a stretch. If you need a leveling guide you're doing it wrong. It's like ret paladin dps -- spam all of your abilities when they come off cooldown and win (with maybe the exception of the art of war/exorcism proc).
Blizz could use a guide on how to stop changing key abilities in the various DK specs long enough for people to learn how they play. I gave up after the second or third talent reset.
JoeHelfrich Oct 5th 2009 6:06PM
I had my Death Knight in the Heirloom plate chest, the heirloom PVP plate shoulders (because I had those tokens available from Wintergrasp) and four pieces of Fel Iron (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23487) crafted by my blacksmithing main. The 4 set bonus of +20 strength let me use that gear will into Northrend. The only draw back was a DK that looked like a medieval Iron Man (particularly once I added the engineering goggles and flying machine.) Green and gold are not a Death Knight's colors.
Also, as soon as I hit 70, I spent 15 minutes picking up Winterfin clams (there's no competition for them any more, they're all over the place) and got http://www.wowwiki.com/Tidebreaker_Trident. Polearms aren't my first choice, but it's got better stats than anything craftable at that level or anything that I could find at the auction house. I'm still using it, and I just dinged 75.
JoeHelfrich Oct 5th 2009 6:07PM
Stupid comment system is stupid.
jbodar Oct 5th 2009 7:03PM
See my comment below for a better weapon at 75.
chipersoft Oct 5th 2009 6:12PM
This article could really use some links to leveling specs, both for PvE and PvP. I leveled my DK as Unholy from 60 to 74 and am now thinking about re-specing the character to blood for the final 6 levels.
Just grabbed dual spec last night so I could have both PvP and PvE specs. Does anyone have any recommendations? (Links to builds appreciated).
jbodar Oct 5th 2009 7:14PM
I don't have builds handy, but leveling as Blood was super-easy, and so was 70-79 PVP. It has really good health regen and several nice CDs. You're not unkillable but if you get enough Savage Saronite gear, you'll be pretty beefy.
Check out SJ: http://www.skeletonjack.com/category/specs/
Rob Oct 5th 2009 6:16PM
I'm surprised nobody mentioned dungeon drops. I can't speak for DKs specifically, but the Nexus has 3-4 quests that reward a series of blues. I make sure to have every toon grind through all of that area, get all the quests, and run nex once, and come out of it with several upgrades that last quite a few levels.
Generally speaking though, NR reg dungeons are about 2-3 x slower than straight quest grinding.
Evelinda Oct 7th 2009 3:50AM
amen to that... i always try and do the coldarra quests as soon as i can, then hit nexus once to get all four quest rewards, and then not go back until i'm running it on heroic (or i'm bored). Having said that though, of the quests in there, two of the ones that reward plate reward def plate, so its not necessarily worth your while if youre only going to dps... Though the 40k xp rewards are still pretty nice.
jbodar Oct 5th 2009 6:52PM
Pfeh, screw that poorly itemized Whalebone POS -- do "The Champion of Anguish" group quest at lvl 75 and pick up the De-Raged Waraxe. Better stats, free (actually you'll make money on the quest, not to mention XP), available sooner, and looks cooler, IMO. I'm pretty sure it's the best available pre-80, just slap Fallen Crusader on it and you're GTG. Mine lasted until I dinged 80 and immediately bought the Champion's Seal 2H-sword.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41816
http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=12948
Jewbanks Oct 5th 2009 7:13PM
except you can get the polearm at like 70 if not 68 and the war axe you have to be level 75
jbodar Oct 5th 2009 7:25PM
Read the article, where the author talks about the Kaluak's http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44053, which requires level 78. I'm not talking about the one from the Winterfin. That's not even really a comparison. Personally, I ended up getting the Axe of Frozen Death at 71 from Last Rites/Hellscream's Champion (super-easy for Horde), then upgraded to De-Raged Waraxe.
Daniel Whitcomb Oct 5th 2009 8:18PM
While the stats on the De-Raged Waraxe are technically more Death Knight oriented, the Whale-Stick Harpoon is still going to be better, simply because it has both a higher DPS and a higher high end damage. Yes, it's itemized for a Hunter, but it's definitely more than passable for a DPS Death Knight, and the extra DPS and damage, in my mind, make it superior to the De-Raged Waraxe.
See here for the wowhead comparison if you want to check it out yourself: http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=41816;44053
jbodar Oct 6th 2009 12:01AM
Mmm, you're right. I forgot that the damage & DPS are higher on the Harpoon. I think I was too cheap to drop 80+ gold on the Harpoon so close to 80, since I already had the axe and I started running Tournament dailies at 78 so I could have http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45205 the instant I dinged 80. It didn't seem worth it for those 2 levels.
The day is yours, Whitcomb. Omnomnom, tasty crow...
Daniel Whitcomb Oct 6th 2009 12:23AM
Haha. The gold saving point is a valid one, I'll give you that! If you want to save up, you can just quest for the De-Raged and pass up the Whale-stick and use a slightly inferior weapon until you have the Champ's seals for a sword. Of course, you should have plenty of money if you've been keeping up on your tourney dailies, too.
ash Oct 6th 2009 1:34AM
Or you can just get both and use the axe for dpsing and the spear for tanking
Cyrus Oct 5th 2009 7:22PM
No, it's really not true. In addition to a DK, I've leveled a druid to 80 and a paladin to 77 so far. They all are comparable to DKs - damage reduction might be a little lower on druids and paladins than on DKs, but they both have much better healing to balance that out, with, depending on spec, little or no downtime. And from everything I've read, leveling is also easy on warlocks and hunters - again, classes with little downtime, and pets instead of damage reduction.
He WAS trolling.
Goolie Oct 5th 2009 9:46PM
And please ... While it isn't absolutely necessary ... Get some defense gear if you intend to tank instances while leveling. The cobalt set is fairly cheap to buy or craft ... Makes things run a bit more smoothly for your 5 man compatriats.
tim Oct 5th 2009 11:32PM
Despite being severely nerfed from the release state, DKs still enjoy a very smooth leveling experience. I leveled up 3 to 80 so far (a very easy way to start up on a new server without paying for transfer). The quick and easy is that whenever you have a chance to pull more than 1 mob, you freaking do it:
Blood: Gather up a few mobs, spread disease, then death strike + heart strike till they die. You'll rarely, if ever, need to eat or bandage.
Frost: Glyph Howling Blast + Chil(l)blains. Gather up a bunch of melee mobs and melee/kite them with impunity. You can also glyph Hungering Cold... if things go bad, freeze them all, then Plague Strike one mob and spread it. Now all the mobs are frozen and taking damage while you Death Strike the one unfrozen mob back to high health.
Unholy: Gather up a bunch of melee mobs, put up Frost Presence, spread diseases, drop Death and Decay. The more mobs you pulled, the better your Wandering Plague will work. Now just Death Strike.
In terms of pure leveling speed, I think it's Unholy > Blood > Frost, but if you love Frost and hate Unholy, then, obviously, go with what you like because that'll be faster.