I have had a chance to run through the Death Knight starting campaign a few times now and have to say that it is one of the most interesting and enjoyable questing experiences in World of Warcraft. While the content may be too dark for some people, the quests have unique objectives, the quest path is very linear and easy to follow and the rewards and humor make it well worth the time to play through it.
That said, the Death Knight does not really have an option when it comes to the initial quest line. Your initial 49 talent points (48 if you don’t quite make level 58) and the ability to leave the starting area depends on the completion of the quest line. In total there are a little over 40 quests and it takes around 2 hours to complete once you are familiar with the quests. My first run through the area took around 3 hours as I spent the time to read over the quest log, find my objectives and on a couple occasions needed to repeat a portion of a quest a couple time in order to figure out exactly what needed done.
After completing the starting area, I proceeded to Western Plaguelands where I ran through the typical quest grind and got myself just shy of 59 (you leave the starting area at or very close to 58). After this I decided to make my way to the Outland and run some Hellfire Penisula quests. I was supprised at how powerful the Death Night class was when I started killing boars and orcs right outside of Thrallmar. I was easily able to handle double and triple pulls and would typically come out of the fight at or near full health, ready to pull the next group. My character is Blood spec’d and the self healing capabilities are incredible. This lead me to the next adventure - 5 man, all Death Knight parties.
My first group headed into Ramparts with 4 Blood spec and 1 Unholy spec character. We had 2 level 59’s, 2 level 60’s and a 63. The 63 was our Unholy spec char and dropped into Frost stance for the addition armor and to play as the tank. I’m not sure the instance knew what hit it!
The Blood auras of the Blood spec Death Knight cause any self healing to apply to the other party members around you as well. With 4 Blood specs, we were doing an amazing amount of cross-healing. As long as everyone keeps swinging and using the appropriate health-generating spells, the 5 man/all Death Knight party is a viable 5 man instance group. It actually provides for a very exciting and fast-paced style of running instances. In order for everyone to survive, everyone needs to be fighting to at 100% - if anyone slacks off, characters start dying. This, of course, means that you have to have a decent group - but that isn’t that much different than what you normally require to run instances.
All in all, the Death Kight is a load of fun to play and I look forward to writing up several more blog entries about my exploits on the beta realm. Next time I’ll get the screenshots and game play videos up for everyone to take a look at.
-Spug
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I wouldn’t say that they’re OP. Look at the youtube videos of 5 elemental shaman clearing heroics. It is pretty impressive though. Still waiting for my beta invites.
Yeah, I can see that (5 shaman). Only difference is that the shaman, like the druid, is capable of direct healing, excellent damage and you are talking about end-game leveled chars.
Assuming they haven’t tweaked it into submission, you’ll see what I mean. I was in Tyr’s Hand in EPL yesterday solo’ing 2-3 elites just slightly below my level and ending the fight ready to pull the next pack. At level 59, I don’t think there are too many other chars capable of dealing with 2 melee and 1 caster/healer elite that are within a couple levels of them.
But again, it is a blast to play with