Death Knight Class Overview

In Wrath of the Lich King, Death Knight can be played as every race! Death Knights are masters of all things shadowy and necrotic that can take on either the Tank or DPS roles.

Yes! Every Death Knight spec is viable and has a niche that almost no other spec or class in the game can fill. Death Knights are also very durable Tanks and can offer some of the highest DPS and strongest buffs in the entire game.

Yes! While all three specs are technically able to be played in a Tank role, Blood is considered to be the strongest due to its immense amount of self healing and its ability to scale better with gear than either of the other two specs. However it is not uncommon to see someone tanking as Frost. Though Unholy does not have as many benefits as the other two specs it is still technically able to tank, however it is not advised without an extensive amount of knowledge on the class and the spec and is oftentimes just worse than both Blood and Frost.

Both Frost and Unholy offer great and unique benefits and it is hard to say which is the better DPS spec. Frost will oftentimes offer more personal DPS and provides some buffs that, while not unique to only Death Knights, can be hard to get access to in a group without a Frost Death Knight; the same goes for Unholy as they offer a massive group debuff for all your spell casters in Ebon Plaguebringer. As such, it can be difficult to say which is the 'best' DPS spec, but both are strong and have a place in every raid. Try out both and see what you enjoy more as they both have fairly different playstyles.

It depends on your goals and faction choice. If you are Horde, Orc is the the best option as changes to Blood Fury have made it more viable for Tanks and it will allow you to better take advantage of snapshotting your debuffs early into encounters. As Alliance, you can choose from any of the races, though if you are looking to tank either Dwarf or Night Elf are the best choices as Stoneform offers a small personal cooldown while Night Elves' Elusiveness adds a considerable amount of dodge passively. If you are looking mostly for PvP, Human is your best option because of how powerful Will to Survive is, allowing you to have an entire extra trinket slot that would typically be dedicated to a CC-breaking PvP trinket.

Death Knights are able to choose from 3 specializations: Blood, Frost, and Unholy.

• Blood — Focuses on large, slow attacks that maximize the utilization of each Rune.
• Unholy — Focuses on maximizing the strength of their pets and spreading powerful diseases.
• Frost — Focuses on a flurry of quick attacks with a rotation that is constantly changing due to various procs.

Death Knights are able to wear Cloth, Leather, Mail, and even Plate armor right away due to starting at Level 55.

Death Knights are able to use both One-Handed and Two Handed Axes, Maces, and Swords, as well as Polearms.

All Death Knight trainers can be found in Acherus, the Death Knight starting area which you will always be able to teleport to using your Death Gate ability.

Addons and Macros can greatly improve your quality of life in Azeroth and Northrend. Listed below are some of our recomendations on Addons and Macros to help get the most out of your time playing the game.

Listed below are guides filled with information to help you play your Death Knight optimally in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for Classic WoW.

You might also want to check out our full class guides, which teach you how to play your class at the new Level 80 cap!