First of all it is important that you understand a few facts about the deathknight before you can start gathering stuff...
- The three talent trees consist of Blood (Single target DPS), Frost (Tanking), and Unholy (PvP/lvling spec).
- Death Knights will be a tanking dps melee hybird.
- They will have Dual wield and two hand weapons available, cannot use a shield.
- Dks wear plate.
- Use a new resource system called runes.
- Starts with First aid at skill lvl 270
So, since we know this, we know we need things for our deathknight that give strength and stamina as primary, some agi and AP is a nice extra.
So, the things we can collect are divided amongst a few categories:
First AidLvling First aid won't be so hard since the DK starts at 270 allready anyway. Let's say that to get to 300 we will make heavy runecloth bandages. These bandages require 2 runecloth to make, and we will count in a bit of fails (where we don't get a skillpoint for the craft).
The next step is lvling first aid 300-330 wich is easy too... Just make heavy runecloth bandages till you reach 330.
The next step is 330-360 where you will make netherweave bandages and at last 360-375 where you make heavy netherweave bandages.
270-290Make Runecloth Bandages. You will need make about 30 to get to 300
291-300Make Heavy Runecloth Bandages. You'll need make about 80-90 to get to 330.
300 to 330Make Heavy Runecloth Bandages. You'll need make about 80-90 to get to 330.
330 to 360 Make Netherweave bandages to 360. You'll need to make about 60-70 to get to 360.
360 to 375 Make Heavy Netherweave bandages to 375. You need to make about 20.
Temporary Weapon EnhancementsThere are different sharpeningstones that can be applied to your DK’s weapon. I myself, I crafted 2 kinds of them, one for the lvls pre60, others for the 60-70 grind.
The lvl 50-60 stones are called
elemental sharpening stones and are pretty hard to get, cause they use elemental eart as mats wich is almost never at AH, and if it is, its overpriced. Still these stones are worth it!
These apply a one hour buff that increases the critical strike rating on a melee weapon by 28 for 1 hour.
The lvl 60-70 stones are called
adamantite sharpening stones ( Adamantite Sharpening Stone - Item - World of Warcraft )and are pretty easy to get, especially since the mats use to make these went down in price a lot lately.
These stones are definitely worth the bit of trouble and money you put into them cause they give a buff that increases sharp weapon damage by 12 and give 14 melee crit strike rating for one hour.
Armor enhancementsSince enchanting your gear, while you keep it only a lvl or 2-3 is kinda pointless (unless you really don’t care bout money) so I would advise the next two items for your lvling:.
Runes of warding These are by far the easiest and least expensive to get.
Upon use: Enchant a piece of chest armor so it has a 25% chance per hit of giving you 400 points of physical damage absorption. 90 sec cooldwon. Lasts for one hour
Knothide Armor These are not so expensive either, and can be applied to other parts then the chest (like the rune of warding described above).
Upon use they Permananetly increase the stamina of an item worn on the chest; legs, hand or feet by 8. Usable from lvl 55
Heavy Knothide Armor Kits A bit more expensive then the regular knothide armor kits, but still not extrememly expensive, and a good help for the deatknight when lvling. Every bit of stamina you can get your hands on will help you anyway.
These kits permanently increase your stamina of an item worn on head, chest, shoulders, leg or hands by 10. Usable from lvl 60
Clefthide Leg ArmorThese are pretty expensive if you aren’t a skinner yourself, but the price has already dropped a lot too compared to a few moths ago. These legarmors can only be used by lvls 60, but if you get your hands on a good lvl 58 pants for example, you can give the pants and the armor to a lvl 60+ and et him put it on. Big help, worth the money if you have enough anyway.
These legarmors permanently enhance your legs with 30 stamina an 10 agility.
If you want, you can go for the epic version of these 2, but the difference in price does not justify the gain in stats, or you could go for the cobra leg armors, wich I find inferior however.
EnchantingThis depends on your cashflow… If you can afford them its a big advantage, but sometimes they happen to be quite expensive.
Imo the best way to get prepared for enchants is to gather arcane dusts, greater planar essences and large prismatic shards. Prices on those bumped up a lot already, so the best way to gather them is to buy lvl 66+ gear, and let an enchanter diss them for you.
GlyphsThese also depend on the money you are willing to spend. Some of these glyphs give a big boost on your fightingstyle, and since inscriptors are not so rare anymore they aren’t that expensive anymore (at least the majors aint).
The ones that you can use depend on your spec and your playstyle.
Glyph of Dark Command - Increases the chance for your Dark Command ability to work successfully by 8% - When you're tanking, there's very little worse than a failed taunt at a crucial moment. If you plan to tank often on your Death Knight, this is probably a very good glyph to consider, especially if you're low on hit rating in your tank gear.
Glyph of Blood Boil - Lowers the damage of your Blood Boil by 20% but causes it to slow affected targets for 5 sec. (Movement speed reduced by 30%.) - While this glyph offers some intriguing functionality, I personally cannot see it being used much if Death Knights stay the way they do. Blood Boil, as a functional ability, is probably primarily for AE tanking. Unfortunately, with the taunt portion of the skill recently removed, the damage is the only thing Blood Boil has to gain aggro. The movement speed reduction doesn't really feel like it's going to make up for the lost threat from that damage. As it is, Unholy and Frost specced Death Knights already have Desecration or Chilblains to apply a movement slowing effect with even more ease, and without sacrificing diseases.
Glyph of Strangulate - Increases the range of your Strangulate by 20 yards - This one is going to see a lot of use by PvP focused Death Knights. Really, it means that you'll be able to shut down pretty much any long range magical attacker as long as they're within line of sight. It should give you enough time to close distance or get into Death Grip range or allow yourself or a teammate to escape from a barrage.
Glyph of Chains of Ice - Your Chains of Ice causes 240 to 260 Frost damage in addition to its normal effect - This glyph honestly doesn't seem incredibly hot at first glance. The Frost damage doesn't really seem to be worth enough to bother, unless it scales.If the damage scales with AP, then this may actually see quite a bit of use by PvP specced Death Knights, who use Chains of Ice quite often to keep their prey in melee range.
Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell - Increases the duration of your Anti-Magic Shell by 5 sec but increases the cooldown by 15 sec - Anti-Magic Shell as it currently stands is very much a "reactive" power: Wait for the Spell to cast, throw up Anti-Magic Shell as soon as it has less than 5 seconds to cast, and by the time it finishes casting, you should be able to absorb the brunt of it. Will adding 5 seconds to the duration really make it much better? I'm not sure.
Glyph of Icebound Fortitude - Your Icebound Fortitude costs no runic power - If there's one consistent complaint when it comes to Death Knights, it's that its very hard to have a truly reactive tanking ability as a Death Knight. In theory, you should be using your rune cooldowns and runic power as fast as your global cooldowns allow so that you can pump out damage (and thereby threat) as quickly as possible. This is especially true for tanking, since Blade Barrier, which almost every tanking build will probably grab, does require that your runes be on cooldown.
Glyph of Death Grip - Increases the cooldown of Death Grip by 10 sec but stuns targets for 1 sec - I honestly do not expect to see this get much use. It is true that, in PvP, one of Death Grip's biggest weaknesses is that once you draw a person in, they can simply run back out again, but 1 second is barely a global cooldown, even with Unholy Presence. I'm just not sure this adds enough value. It seems better to me to have 10 seconds less to cast Death Grip again, and just count on Chains of Ice or the aforementioned Chilblains or Desecration to keep your target in range.
Glyph of Death and Decay - Your Death and Decay spell deals 10% additional damage but the cooldown is increased by 10 sec - Death and Decay is hurting right now, and no doubt. Once again, it got the nerf bat, and it's not really doing near the damage it needs to be doing. But what about this rune? If we assume that Death and Decay will be rebuffed to a more reasonable damage total, this rune might be worth playing around with for AE tanking. Death and Decay is certainly useful for establishing initial aggro on a large group, and 10% damage will only mean more threat.
Glyph of Icy Touch - Your Icy Touch does 10% less damage but generate 10 additional runic power - This rune might be useful if you're having trouble staying in runic power. The main question to ask yourself is if you can turn that 10 runic power into more damage or utility than you otherwise would have.
Glyph of Unbreakable Armor - Unbreakable Armor grants an additional 5% parry chance but no longer increases your Strength - Frost tanks may find some use for this primarily if they find they can put out enough threat but need to be able to take a bit more damage. It really will come down to a choice of threat vs. avoidance here.
Glyph of Blood Tap - Your Blood Tap no longer causes damage to you - Blood Tap causes damage? Yeah, I know, I barely noticed either. Honestly, I've never really found much of a use for Blood Tap. I almost always have a much better use to put that Blood Rune to, and any Death Runes I need I get from talents. Even if I did use Blood Tap, I'm not sure the health loss is enough to justify using this rune.
Glyph of Scourge Strike - Your Scourge Strike has a 25% chance to cause Blood Plague and Frost Fever - The problem with this glyph is figuring out what to do with the extra runes. A Death Knight lives by spending runes as quickly as global cooldowns let him spend them. If you can't find a quick use for those extra runes that doesn't throw off your rotation, it'd be better not take this skill.
Glyph of Frost Strike - Your Frost Strikes have a 10% chance to Freeze the target for 8 sec - The problem with this attack is that it's mostly chance based. Do you happen to have no diseases on your target? Are your cooldowns and rotations in such a place that you can take advantage of the freeze? Or does it disappear suddenly as you continue to whack on the mob unawares?
Glyph of Plague Strike - Your Plague Strike does additional damage for each disease on the target - Plague Strike is one of the workhorses of the Death Knight. It's the quickest and easiest way to get Blood Plague up and does a decent bit of damage to boot. The concern with this rune is whether a "perfect" rotation really needs it. If you time your rotation right, you should, in theory, be obliterating away your diseases before reusing Plague Strike.
This is a glyph whose usefulness largely will depend on the individual Death Knight and their rotation. If you find yourself recasting Plague Strike while your Blood Plague is still up, this might be useful. It will likely be used primarily if you have Annihilation or Scourge Strike.
Glyph of Rune Strike - Increases the critical strike chance of your Rune Strike by 5% but increases cost by 5 runic power - The critical strike chance increase on this glyph is pretty sweet, but is it worth the Runic Power? It depends. As an Unholy Death Knight, one has to save all their Runic Power for Unholy Blight and Summon Gargoyle, so probably not so much.
Glyph of Obliterate - Your Obliterate strikes for 20% additional weapon damage, but does 50% less bonus damage per disease - This will likely be useful for Frost and Blood Death Knights with their sole 2 diseases, especially if they have a nice high damage weapon. It's going to depend on scaling, primarily. Does the extra bonus damage on the diseases outweigh the weapon damage, or the other way around? In the long run, the weapon damage will probably win out.
Glyph of Bone Shield - Adds 1 additional charge to your Bone Shield - If you're an Unholy tank, there's probably no reason not to get this Glyph. More time on Bone Shield equals more damage dealt and less damage taken. I can't imagine not making room for it.
Glyph of Vampiric Blood - Your Vampiric Blood also heals you for 3% of your total health - 3% health is a little low. It does scale, but is it really enough to sacrifice a glyph slot? I'm not sure about that, but I tend to guess no. There's probably going to be better things a Blood tank can grab.
Glyph of Death's Embrace - Your Death Coil refunds 20 runic power when used to heal - Using Death Coil to heal is a bit of a science. You either need to be using your Ghoul as a tank (or sending him into AE damage), or timing LichborneSudden Doom has procced right when you or your Ghoul need a heal). I'm not sure it's useful in enough situations to justify taking this glyph. to be activated when you have enough runic power to target yourself and blast off a heal. Even then, all this does is gives you a slightly lower cost Death Coil (Unless you're deep Blood specced and the stars have aligned and
Glyph of Horn of Winter - Horn of Winter costs 10 less runic power - It all depends on whether you're a Horn of Winter Buff bot, or whether you find yourself using it a lot. If you use Horn of Winter a lot, and could find a better use for that 10 runic power (such as Unholy Blight or Dancing Rune Weapon or another Rune Strike), I'd say go for it. Just make sure you aren't simply overwriting a Shaman's totem.
Glyph of Raise Dead - Increases your Ghoul's total Strength by 10% - Ghouls have long felt like one of the more unfinished portions of the Death Knight's arsenal. They are fun, but they're also incredibly unpolished. They cost a whole hell of a lot to upkeep if you aren't fighting humanoids. They're also impossible to control unless you sink quite a few points into the Unholy Tree, and even then abilities seem to appear and disappear with each new build. If you have Master of Ghouls, there's a bug that's persisted for almost half a dozen builds that makes them permanent anyway.
ConsumablesMake sure to test first wich buff replaces another, so you don’t end up buying 3 things that give an equal buff and where one replaces the other.
PotionsThis list is very easy to build up. A DK uses health and runic power, so only healing pots are needed.
Since the
Super healing potions work starting from lvl 55, it are the best to get. These give 1500-2500 health.
Elixirs and FlasksThis depends on your own taste again. I find flasks to expensive to use for my DK, maybe you don’t… I stick with
Elixer of Major defense wich increases armor by 550 for 1 hour
Elixir of Major Strength wich increases your strength by 35 for 1 hour
Food:I chose to go with
roasted clefthoof These give you 20 strength and 30 spirit for 30 minutes and can be used from the start (lvl 55)
They tend to go for quite a bit of money, but search the uncooked ones at AH wich go a lot cheaper and let a friend cook em if you cant, or just go and grind the clefthoofs for the leather (for legarmors) and you wil probably get enough of em to last you for a bit.
Scrolls:Scrolls again are easily overlooked but quite helpful. These items can be created by inscriptors now, and they aren’t even that expensive.
Go for the level V ranks for lvl 55 to 60, and buy level VI rank scrolls for 60+.
The scrolls available are
Agility, Protection, Stamina, Strength, Intellect, Spirit. You just pick what you believe is needed, but I go for the agi, strength and stamina ones.
Gems:Lots of people tend to wait to buy gems till WotLK comes out since those will be a lot better. I totally agree with this, but you need to think of the fact that these new stones will be more rare and expensive, and that the current stones (even the blue ones) are pretty cheap. Don’t stock to much of them since gear you can socket without doing instances is not so comman in the 60-70 bracket.
Personally I go for
Bold Living Ruby +8 strength
Balanced Nighteye (Balanced Nightseye - Item - World of Warcraft) +8 attack power / +6 Stamina
I also stacked up on some uncut gems, greens and blues, to let em be crafted when needed
Questitems:This is a must-check J
A few quests require questitems that you can farm already and then send to your DK. These quests are maybe not the best, but every boost of exp is nice.
I personally, once I did the DK quests, will go to EPL, do cauldronquests, gain friendly argent dawn status, and then I will do these
Name of quest: Crypt Fiend Parts
Picked up at: Eastern Plaguelands - Lights hope Chapel
Picked up from: Huntsman Leopold
Lvl needed: LvL55
Items needed: 30 x Crypt Fiend Parts
Name of quest: Bone Fragments
Picked up at: Eastern Plaguelands - Lights hope Chapel
Picked up from: Rohan the Assassin
Lvl needed: LvL55
Items needed: 30 x Bone Fragments
Name of quest: Core of elements
Picked up at: Eastern Plaguelands - Lights hope Chapel
Picked up from: Archmage Angela Dosantos
Lvl needed: LvL55
Items needed: 30x Core of Elements
Name of quest: Dark Iron scraps
Picked up at: Eastern Plaguelands - Lights hope Chapel
Picked up from: Korfax, Champion of the Light
Lvl needed: LvL55
Items needed: 30 x Dark Iron Scraps
Name of quest: Savage Frond
Picked up at: Eastern Plaguelands - Lights hope Chapel
Picked up from: Rayne
Lvl needed: LvL55
Items needed: 30 x Savage Frond
When you have these mats you can go farm aldor and scryer rep stuff (marks and armaments/tomes), cenarion rep stuff (the unidentified plantparts, coilfang armament), Sporegar rep (sanguine hibiscus), Buy a Nethergarde bitter in blasted lands to use in hellfire, buy some fertile spores, bog lord tendrils, spore caps,…
If you think of all those gatheringquests you have done, there are quite a few that give easy rep/exp.
BagsA DK starts with backpack + 4 12slotbags.
Although new bags will come in WotLK I bought 4
Imbued Netherweave Bags for the extra bagspace.
Although most in this guide is basic knowledge, stuff all should know, it can give some less well prepared or unknowing people a bit of hints on what to buy for their DK levelling.
My bank by the way, just to give you an impression on how much you can actually save up:
More
Death Knight guide !
subscribe to our RSS feed! 
