World of Warcraft

Quite a number of players are foaming at the mouth to receive the latest information on the expansion’s hero class: The Death Knight. We’ve seen tidbits here and there that give examples of the class’s abilities, but nothing of too much substance. Well wait no longer, some of the mechanics and spells of the death knight have now been officially released.

So how will our fallen heroes play out? It appears that they’ll be a hybrid similar to a paladin, though more offensively oriented. They’ll be able to wear plate, have a tree dedicated to tanking, raid dps, and a more pvp-focused damage tree as well. This is broken down into 3 schools:

* Blood: Talents in this tree focus on damage-dealing abilities. Blood Presence increases damage output by a percentage.
* Frost: Talents in this tree focus on tanking abilities. Frost Presence increases threat and lowers damage taken by a percentage.
* Unholy: Talents in this tree have a variety of functions including summons, diseases, and PvP-focused abilities. Unholy Presence increases attack speed and reduces the global cooldown on death knight abilities.

Death knights will also have the ability to utilize runes in these trees as well. They gather up runic power for various spells and abilities that they will unleash upon their enemies (some are said to consume all of a death knight’s runic power).

In addition we have some spell details available:

* Raise Dead: The death knight can raise a ghoul companion from the corpses of fallen creatures, as well as those of both friendly and enemy players. If cast on a friendly player, that player will have the opportunity to actually play as the ghoul, controlling its movements and actions.
* Army of the Dead: This channeled spell raises a group of undead followers who will attack the death knight’s enemies but only exist very briefly before disintegrating.
* Summon Deathcharger: Every death knight can summon the level-40 version of a deathcharger land mount. At higher levels, they can complete a quest to learn the epic version.

Everyone with a level 55 character or above will be able to create a death knight of ANY race. I’m not sure if I’ll play one myself, as they are bound to be quite numerous when the expansion hits. A free level 55 with a mount does sound rather tempting, though…