Death Knight Leveling Guide from 8 to 90

Welcome to our Death Knight leveling guide! Here you will find all you need to about leveling a Death Knight efficiently. In addition, you may wish to check out our General Leveling Guide, complete with detailed information on XP, mounts, addons, consumables, tips, and more.

Death Knights embody the fantasy of slow, feared harbingers, with absolute control over the undead, the possibility to unleash devastating frost attacks, or to sustain themselves on the life-force of enemies. Three radically different specializations await you, with very unique play styles.

In Midnight, all Death Knights have access to multiple shared spells and talents. For example, all specializations have access to Death Strike, and DPS specializations are able to further increase its healing done by 60% - enough to outmatch any outdoor content!

As one of the two available hero classes, Death Knights start with a level advantage over most other specs: instead of starting at level 1 (while not being an allied race), we start at level 8. If you picked an allied race (such as Dark Iron Dwarf, Highmountain Tauren or Vulpera), you instead start at level 10 and can instantly pick your specialization, right before you even talk to Bolvar!

Death Knight has access to two DPS specializations (Frost and Unholy) as well as a tank specialization (Blood). Solo players will typically find Blood better as a leveling spec due its ability to consistently pull many mobs and survive through long durations of combat with self sustain.

Whatever route you take, we strongly encourage you to select your favorite time period through Chromie Time. This will allow you to live (or re-live) some of Azeroth's best questing moments while also allowing you to queue for the dungeons present in that expansion. If you pick Classic, Burning Crusade, Wrath, or Cataclysm, a large number of quests are present in the dungeon themselves. This allows you to double-dip on experience and level even faster!

If you are unsure of where and how to level, we strongly recommend checking out our leveling guide.

Should you happen to be more of a dungeoneer, or prefer to pull very large number of mobs while leveling, Blood will be your best option. As a tank specialization, they trade some of their damage for self-sustain, and this is something you can definitely take advantage of while grinding.

Unholy Death Knight is all about setup — pull a large amount of enemies, and then rain death upon them as you summon a horde of lesser ghouls with Putrefy. The spec rewards large, frequent pulls while cooldowns are up, allowing you to deal very large amounts of burst damage to everything around you with ease.

Frost Death Knights excel at leveling by gathering a large amount of enemies and bursting them down with massive bursts of damage. It is the more up-front and personal of the two DPS specs Death Knight is able to choose from, utilizing large, sweeping bursts of icy death through Frostscythe.

Generally, heirloom choice is very dependent on the maximum possible level you have upgraded them for. Neither of the three specs particularly loves or hates a stat in particular. If in doubt, pick heirlooms with Haste, as this stat reduces your GCD, granting a feeling of speed and efficiency.

Due to your level advantage over other classes, you will realistically spend very little time (and use very few abilities!) without a specialization. We have highlighted the abilities you will spend your three levels as a specialization-less death knight below.

Your journey in Azeroth starts with three main damage abilities:

• Rune Strike is your main way to spend Runes. This deals a small amount of damage to your target, and generates 10 Runic Power
• Death and Decay allows you to place a zone on the floor that deals light damage to all enemies inside it. This also costs one Rune and generates 10 Runic Power.
• Finally, you can spend all the Runic Power you generate with Death Coil. This deals a significant amount of shadow damage to your target at the cost of 30 Runic Power

Until level 10, these skills will be your bread and butter - spend your runes, then spend the Runic Power you acquired without wasting either. You also start with access to Death Grip, a way to forcefully grab enemies to you from afar.

At level 9, you unlock a minor defensive ( Lichborne) and an ability granting you a major movement speed bonus ( Death's Advance). You will keep those all the way to 90 and they will be an integral part of your kit.

When you pick your specialization, you gain access to one of three signature abilities from the class tree, along with your very first talent point. If you picked Unholy, we recommend spending this talent point into Death Strike. Alternatively, start down the Raise Dead route to quickly pick up Cleaving Strikes, significantly increasing your cleave capability!

Once you reach level 11, you will be able to spend your first specialization talent point. This first point will invariably be spent on your very first signature specialization ability:

• If you picked Blood, you will unlock Heart Strike. This replaces Rune Strike and deals a much larger amount of damage to your target along with another nearby enemy. It also generates 5 bonus Runic Power
• If you picked Frost, you will unlock Frost Strike. You should stop using Death Coil at this point, and instead switch to using Frost Strike as your main Runic Power spender.
• Finally, if you picked Unholy, you will unlock Outbreak. This applies your two Plagues Virulent Plague and Dread Plague. It is important to always have these active to rot down your enemies. You also unlock Festering Strike which is a main ability, replacing Rune Strike. Using it provides 2-3 stacks of Lesser Ghoul which you burst with Scourge Strike (once you pick it up at level 13) to summon Lesser Ghouls to attack your enemies!

When you get the option to Runeforge, and every time you acquire a new weapon, make sure you affix your weapon with Rune of the Fallen Crusader. This Runeforge has a very high chance to grant you 15% bonus strength, and every time it does, you also get healed for 6% of your maximum health. It is very strong offensively and defensively, and is significantly stronger than any other weapon enchant in the game. It is also completely free! Rune of Unending Thirst is a great alternative, healing you and proving a speed boost whenever you kill an enemy.

If you are running a dual wield setup, make sure to apply Rune of Unending Thirst to your offhand weapon. This will allow you to gain a noticeable speed boost whenever you defeat an enemy. There are better throughput and damage Runeforge options, but Rune of Unending Thirst's benefits outweigh raw damage when leveling.

Do not forget! When you use Death Gate, using it again while inside Acherus teleports you to the nearest graveyard or instance portal from which you used Death Gate. There is rarely an excuse to wait, just go and affix whatever new weapon you get.