f13.net

Just wanted to help some people out since I've done some research into this in the last few days and I have all the info in my head right now.

Guide to Leveling 58-60 as a DK (http://www.wow-pro.com/class_guides/level_58-60_death_knight_speed_leveling_guide)

Cool guide tog et you from 58-60 the quickest.  Awesome guide.  Also gives you a laundry list of stuff you can do now to prepare.


There are a few glyphs you might want to pick up:
Major: Death Strike or Goul and Boneshield
Minor: Pestilence

Other than your starter weapon you could try to grab a Blade of Misfortune (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31134) which should get you from 60 to 65 where you can get the Voidaxe from the Blood Ring quest line in Nagrand.  The next axe is a blue from a simple quest in Borean at 70 which is the Axe of Frozen Death (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=38237).

Apparently the races to be (if you care about racial traits and not the looks) are Human/Orc for DPS and Night Elf/Tauren for Tanking.  Blood Elf may be a good selection due to magic resistance I believe.

Right now specs for leveling are close between Unholy and Blood with most leaning to Unholy.

There is a lot of discussion over at Elitist Jerks about leveling practices.  Just ignore a few posts on theorycrafting and spreadsheet wankery, but it starts here: (Link (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t26113-death_knight_wotlk_discussion_-_talents_abilities/p134/)) 

I've personally farmed Wool and Silk cloth last night and bought the 30-turn-ins.  Going to have to farm mageweave and runecloth sometime soon.

The only thing that's irritating is going to be leveling up professions.  If you're really insane you can go ahead a start stocking for that too right now.  I think the best route to go apparently is Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting.

Looking forward to the 13th.  I'm not sure if I'm going to be insane and get the game at midnight.  Most likely I'm not.

So this is really a list of things to farm and put on the AH in a couple of weeks to get incredibly rich, since 50% of the entire userbase of World of Warcraft will be rerolling a Death Knight.

Eh not really.  I mean the hand ins really save you some time.  This only help people that want to speed level as quick as possible in the first few hours of play.  Most people playing a DK as an alt won't mind taking their time or don't feel like bothering buying up everything.

(He's noticed that I'm on to his plan)

 :oh_i_see:

If you want to make cash, buy up all the Blades of Misfortune.  I can see them going for a pretty penny.  I bought one for 140g last night.

I just want to know where they spawn in, since I have 70s on PvP servers.  EPL right?

My own death knight will be bank mules because of the sweet bags they get from the start.

It isn't going to be a baby sea turtles heading for the sea predator free PVP kill scenario, they level 56-58 in instanced safety land, and they can fly from their PVP guard protected ziggurat down to PVP guard protected Light's Hope Chapel. And they have full flight points to start off with, so they can really go anywhere they want.

Whats the best place to farm up Wool? That's the one that always kills me, i can never remember where I used to get it.

Theres a debate going on over at EJ and some other places regarding whether to level from 58-60 in WPL/doing turn-ins or just hitting Outland and HFP at 58.  On beta I did it the Outland way, just jammed out there at 58 and went at it. With the sped up leveling curve I was level 62.5 once I finished with HFP, Did only CE and Swamprat in ZM and hit 65. If your fear is that you may fall behind the leveling curve because you are in outland so early fear not. If your fear is that HFP will be overcrowded then leveling in WPL is likely to be the best way to go. Either way you should be able to hit 68 by the end of nagrand (Assuming HFP-ZM-Terokkar-Nagrand). There is NO debate as to what to do at 68. You go to Northrend. The quests there are amazingly easy and fast, you cant possibly level faster in Outland. Not to mention the sheer volume of quest rewards.

Also, if you are leveling a DK don't forget to farm up consumables now. +20 str food you can use right away plus Str elixirs. They actually help out a fair bit. Fiddled around in Nagrand last night on my 'lock for about 30min and came away with over 40 clefthoof meats. Additionally you may want to consider farming up some scryer (or Aldor, but scryer stuff seems the easiest to find) stuff for the initial turn ins, decent XP there as well.

I farmed wool last night.  The best spot is the Stockades.  Since I'm horde and I didn't feel like dieing a bunch I ran Deadmines over and over.  I'm a prot paladin so it went by quickly.

Blade of Misfortune is already up to 1.5k on my server. This is why I always laugh when people say you can play the AH for mass money. Our AH is so heavily camped by resellers that you'd have to get up very early and be lucky in order to turn a good profit.

So if you have a 55+ character on any server, you can make a level 55 death knight on any server you want, right? So what's to stop a griefing plan like this?

1) Make death knights on several PVP servers.
2) Do the starter quests on each so you have some nice gear and an epic mount.
3) Park each one in a lowbie zone.
4) Frag newbs willy-nilly.
5) Get killed by someone's 70 after a while.
6) Switch to a different death knight on a different PVP server.
7) Repeat from 4.

Besides boredom? 

Unless it's changed, the initial roll-out of death knights will be limited to making one on a server you have a 55 on.  The any server thing is something they've had an issue with or some such, and will come later.  Anyone inclined to roflstomp lowbies would have an easier, and quicker time, doing it with their already level-capped character on the server. 

I wouldn't be surprised if the "Hey make level 55 death knights all over any fucking server!" thing quietly goes away. We all know damn well people have done FAR stranger things in order to have endless newbs to pwn and grief pointlessly.

I just bought 4 of them all for 90 gold each, or under. That's all my server's AH had.

They'll go to my DK, my wife's one, and the other 2 for a pair of our friends we game with.

No, they changed it a few weeks ago so that you can only make the DK on the server your 55 character is on.  They said it's only for launch (Probably so people aren't going to other servers and fucking around when theirs is down/ has a queue) but we'll see if they change it back.

Thinking ahead, what other items are people expecting to spike or crash in price.

I'm pretty sure all BC gems, except perhaps uncut uncommon and rare (needed to level JC) will tank heavily, as will all level-70 crafted gear.

On the other hand I'd guess all cloths and copper, mithril and thorium ores will shoot up.

I wouldn't bet on cloth.  The only reason the cost is so high now are tailoring alts.  There's no reason to believe DKs will take up tailoring en masse.  No, the big money will be in professions DKs take - Leatherworking, Jewelcrafting (blue gems will not be of value post-wotlk for grinding the skill up), blacksmithing, maybe mining (ie smelting mats).

There will probably be a spike of level 70 crafted gear/world drop prices as DKs enter that range and rich folk splurge on twink gear for them.

So what stats are valuable for DKs?

Str? Sta? Agi? Spellpower?

Supposedly:

1 point of stamina = 10 health (10.5 for Tauren)
1 point of strength = 2 attack power, Increases parry rating by a % of strength.
1 point of agility = 2 armor, and increased Dodge and crit

I believe all DK 'spell' abilities scale off of attack power, so no spellpower weapons need apply.  Basically, you'll want warrior type gear, unless it has shield block type ratings on it.

FYI, Tauren HP Racial was changed. It scales Base Health now, not Total. (IE: Unmodified by gear, only levels)

Int not useful at all then? Just buying some gear in advance.

Int is useless for DKs, you'll want either DPS plate (Str+Stam+Hit+Crit) or tanking plate itemised with Stam, Str, Dodge and Parry. Parry is the big tank stat for DKs. Avoid Shield Block like the plague. Agility isn't going to be a key stat, and following the plate reitemisation you're not going to see a lot on 70+ plate. Int and Spirit are completely out. I'm not sure on the AP <-> Str value, Warriors and Pallies have been changed to prefer Str in almost all cases, so again I'm not sure how much AP you'll see on gear anyway.

I think haste is a good stat, but from what I'm reading armour penetration rating is now a really bad stat, so I'd avoid that.

Don't spend too much.  Most gear off this list is quested. 

http://www.wow-pro.com/class_guides/death_knight_shopping_list_55-70

On a side note, I finished my collection list from the OP.  Got 300 of each cloth and the 30 each of the 5 turnins, along with a Blade of Misfortune that some tool put up for 75g when all the others were 500g.  All set now.

I finished my collections last night too.

As far as stats, think Warrior/Rogue.  You want Str then Def/Dodge (Or crit) then parry (or haste) then agi.  It depends on where you are capped as far as defense ratings etc.

Quick question on the cloth turn-ins as I haven't done them in a long time. Can you do it all in one capital city? And you get XP for every turnin up to 300 cloth of each kind (as well as rep, but that is a lesser concern)? I just don't want to have to run from UC to Org to wherever..

Also, as stated above the key stat for a DK is str, over all else. Str = Parry rating (Forceful deflection, 25% of your str converts to that number in parry rating so, 100 str = 25 parry rating), Str = AP (AP is a DK's spellpower, all damaging abilities scale of AP). Also, if you have to choose between an item with AP and an item with Str 99.99% of the time the str item is better mainly due to straight AP getting no benefit from BoK.

About Blade of Misfortune: I bought one a while back when they were cheap on my server but I am rolling a Orc DK. Would I be better off just using the starter axe until I can get the Honed Voidaxe due to the expertise/axe racial or will the dps boost on the blade outstrip the 6 expertise at the lower levels? On the beta i leveled using the starter sword (Rolled BE) until the Honed Voidaxe and that lasted until Northrend. I only ask b/c i can flip the blade for about 5x what I paid for it.

Turn a profit on the blade and use whatever. It's just leveling.

This.  Quest weapons work fine, only min/maxing goofballs flush with gold waste cash on blues that will be replaced in less than a day's /played time.

The Cloth Turn-ins have to be done in each individual city.  You can only repeat runecloth (for rep, not xp) after the first set of turn-ins for a city.  At least you start off with all the old world flight points, so no running around trying to deal with all THAT bullshit.   You have to do your own mapfilling, however.

I've got a blade of Misfortune myself, and I plan on being an Orc.  However if I see the Blade start going for some obscene amount I'll sell it real quick.  Won't take me long to go from 60-65.

However I'm alone on a big server so I'm not sure if I'll have friends to give me a hand with the bloodring quest.

Anyone play on Mal Ganis?

There's a no-drop two-handed sword sold in Halaa which suits DKs well, just as a tip.

Level 67 to use is the only issue there and the Honed Voidaxe is available at 65 and is better.

As for Ring of Blood, any decent pop server should have enough people milling about nagrand on DK's to do it. On beta we did it with 4 DK's and someones alt Druid healer and mowed it down. Just did a 'lfm' in the Nagrand general chat and got like 7 tells and this was relatively early in beta (before instability forced everyone to play DK's in Outland b/c Northrend was so awful) when the DK population was still kind of low.

Good advice on the Blade. I got mine for 50g and they are going for 250+ right now. Its one market that hasn't tanked recently..   :ye_gods:

Anyone got any thoughts on dual-boxing a pair of DKs? Normally I have a healer as one of my duo but since DKs don't heal that ain't gonna work here.

Think 2 frost-spec DKs with keycloning would work or would I just be better off leveling one at a time with a healer in tow?

Blood Knights heal their group for 2% of damage they deal with talents.  When my knight was Blood it was about impossible to lose health on one to two mobs, so there's your healing.  :grin:

I bought up a whole stack back in june (and other leveling stuff, 1hers armor, etc) for massive profits. But I'm not subbed and doubt I'll be fucked to resub for wotlk in the end.

Hurrah \o/

Operation Double Whoppa w. Cheese is on! :D

Unholy is the king of AOE though.

Honestly I see no reason to go out of your way to collect anything for leveling. Doing the DK area will get you to 58. Once you are 58 head to hellfire the xp gain in the outlands is 30% faster than it was before. I went in to hellfire at 58 and left at 64. To get to northrend you just need to get to 68 you can do that by the time you are done with nagrand it does not take long folks no need to spend time grinding up lots of random bits.


I also forgot to add there is ZERO reason to buy any gear. The starting area quest gear will last till you are around 65 or 66 and then will be replaced by some outland stuff and then you hit northrend and you will catch up to raiders from tbc fast. The starting weapons you get are fine for leveling and then the ring of blood or weapon from halaa will bring you the rest of the way to northrend.

Also please note you MUST finish all the DK area quests so there is no reason at all to try to level up via other means from 55 to 58.

The Idea, I believe, is that all these quest turn-ins are easily farmable on one's own and get you to 60 without doing time-consuming quests.  If you hit Outlands at 60 you're even better equipped (from a level and ability standpoint) to take on the content there, and will get done with Hellfire at 65 or even 66.

It's just Min/Maxing the leveling.  :grin:

The problem is you HAVE to do the quests in the DK area you cannot skip them. And since that gets you to 58 and outlands xp is super fast now the time and or cash you give up gathering the mats up is not worth the effort.

To give you an idea from beta I finished up DK quests got 58 went to hellfire got to 64 doing just hell fire went right to nagrand got to 68 and then went to northrend. The leveling jump up in outlands is silly now for rapid leveling.

As for leveling, while Blood does do alot of self healing I found that my dps was much higher with unholy as well as the fact that you decimate with aoe. Add to that "On a Pale Horse" and "Unholy Aura" talents and you cant really beat Unholy for speed leveling. Faster mount, faster movement, aoe, tons of self healing (Deathstrike with 3 diseases is pretty potent + Blood presence). For leveling I personally ranked the different trees as such: Unholy > Blood > Frost.

See, YOU think the time/ cash spent gathering isn't worth the effort.  I, on the other hand, am doing nothing but cranking out old dunegons for achievements on my main right now.  I've got 7k gold and nothing to do with it either, since all my current chars have their epic flyers.  Spending a night or two right now will push me into 60 with about an hour's running-around time is worth it to me.  Nobody's saying run around and do this gathering after next week.  That'd be silly, but there's a week until Thursday to spend time gathering it all up.

   I know how fast outlands xp is right now from beta.  I also know it was a lot less of a pain in the ass running around Hellfire at 60 instead of 58, because the aggro radius on those orcs and boars suck.

I would agree that Unholy is about as fast or faster leveling than blood now. The changes to deathstrike allows unholy to self heal very easily.

As for running around grabbing resources prior to each their own but even if you can do the turn ins to get you to 60 in an hour you will first have to do about 4 to 5 hours in the deathknight area first anyway so if you have the time and money to blow go for it but you won't be saving yourself much if any time once you start your DK.

From what I've read you actually don't have to do ALL of the quests in the starting area.  There are talks of people RAFing two DKs for super super min/max leveling.

The current RAF plan is to tandem two DK's (triple XP bonus) and finish up the whole shebang at about 60.8, then do the cloth turn ins and a couple of other basic quests you can collect for now and hit 61 which would allow you to skip HFP and head to straight to ZM where there will be NO crowd.

Another option is if you have levels available to gift apparently you can abstain from turning in the final quest, thus being at 57.9 but able to leave Ebon Hold. Then get gifted 3 levels to 60.9, turn in the final quest to hit 61. The 'trainer' quest that people talk about skipping doesn't even exist in the final version of the DK starter, it was replaced with the final quest (when you can train through Mograine), but you can skip that final, or at least delay the turn in. The quests leading up to that are all tied together. I tested by skipping one quest and turning in all others available to me at that time, this prevented the next '!' from appearing.

Seems like alot of money (two accounts, etc) and effort to me, but on high pop servers it'll probably get you ahead of the crush. Im on a med-pop server, I doubt I'll struggle much in HFP, especially considering how many DK's will be fumbling around just learning to play while i just breeze by them having had the benefit of learning the ropes in beta.

This is convincing me more and more that what I want to do first is level a non-DK duo to 80, get them some semi-decent 80 gear and then roll my DKs. I want to take my time and enjoy all of the new content, not rush through it to get to the crappy endgame.

Plus I'll then have a pair of 80s to help out on group quests etc and hopefully a chance to have collected some gear for the DKs along the way.

Think I'll be levelling to 80 first and then trying DK. The only reason I never made it to 70 before this week (apart from not playing the game for nearly a year) is because I went straight in to level a couple of Blood Elves. So my main is still in Terrokar and has only seen as much of Outland as is necessary to get the FPs. This time, I'm going to go and see Northrend first and then think about levelling a DK.

We bled some guildies over the past six months, didn't realize it till last night.  At the moment, only one other person is considering a DK main along with me. 

As of a month ago I was going to go DK main but then blizzard went around and totally fixed my issues with prot warriors and now I am torn. Prot warriors went from being eye gougingly slow in pve solo and non existent in pvp to good at both. I still want to make a DK as well but probably wind up being a primary alt until I can compare them at level 80.

I have 9 characters I want to get closer to 80 before I even think about starting DK.

Ok ok, I'll start one, but it will be way low on my priority list, especially if I find it too annoying that I'm packed in with 1,000 other DK's in the same areas.  I'll certainly have plenty of things to bounce my attention off of for a long while.

It's Death Knights as far as the eye can see. I rolled an unholy and it just kicks so much ass. Zombie pet + heal on attack + several AoEs = almost too easy. Not to mention the free mount and all the bag space. It feels like a hero class, so they definitely succeeded. Had a ?? dwarf Frost DK attacking the Crossroads and I decided to give him a go with my 60 undead Unholy. I actually got him down to about a 1/4 health before I kicked the bucket. Pet + Zombie form after death helped a lot.

Rolled my DK over this last weekend. Wasn't going to, but a friend harrassed me into it. Pretty clueless at first, but a little research goes a long way. It's not a class that will make life easy for idiots.

Honor Hold was like DK class reunion weekend when I arrived at 58. The general consensus is that blood is the "leveling spec", but the general population of WoW is dumber than a bag of hammers. Blood is probably the most similar to paladin retribution in mechanics (not that that is saying all that much). I went unholy, however, and it just mows through stuff in HFP, even at 58. Unholy has the higheset magical damage output and all that orc armor means diddly-squat to an unholy DK. Ice is also tempting me. It looks interesting. Then there's the so-called tri-spec, but I do want to tank on my DK and that's contra-indicated with that build.

Anyway, I'm actually having a lot of fun with my unholy DK. Not going to be my primary focus, but might supplant my prot pally as my fun-to-level character when I don't feel like playing my shaman or fiddling about with my tradeskill focused hunter.

Unholy is the best leveling spec due to their speed run/ride speed enhancements.  Other than that Blood is the best for single target dps and their healing, and unholy is good for aoe.

I still can't get the hang of AOE with unholy.  I had a much easier time of it as Blood since Pestilence/ BB were easier to get off with your unholy and frost runes turning into death runes 100% of the time.  With pestilence losing that one UH rune really fucks up your damage rotation for the Unholy spec.

I got my DK duo (both Unholy) up to the end of the DK quest chain then parked them to get some rested XP while I level my Shaman & Paladin for a bit. And omg there's a lot of DK's around. Wall to wall indeed :drill:

Playing 2 at once means that fights just don't last long enough for me to really get the hang of the rotations. I'll get 'em to 60 next week then go beat up Araj the Summoner a few times  :awesome_for_real:

Blood looks great for a soloer, but unholy just looks like a lot of fun plus you get a perma ghoul pet.  Still, not sure I'd want to give up blood. I like playing something that feels like it's impossible to kill.

Death knight starter area was worth playing even if I don't plan on taking this class any further.  Might wait for them to thin out some.  On my podunk server, it feels like they're half the population.

I've found it REALLY thins out on the DKs around level 64.  The tedium of doing Outlands yet again begins to sink in, folks see their guildies hitting 72 to 74 and they say Fuck it and go back to their old 70s.     There were only 4 DKs in Howling Fjord and an equal number in Borean last night, while the pages were filled with other classes.

It's also funny to see folks just stop to watch a DK going at it for a bit, since the class is still so new.

I was Blood all beta but went Unholy this time around.  I miss blood a lot, but the pet is very nice for working up those level 1 harvesting skills, since the pet kills the mob while you harvest.  You do die a LOT more as UH, but hey at least you get to rezz and kill whatever killed you.

I have been leveling an Unholy DK, having a blast, as for AEing.

Start with PS, IT, then Pestilance to spread the diseases to the other mobs, drop a death and decay if its ready, and also Unholy Blight. You can then use the Blood Boil and just go to town single target. You should have the talent that makes it so you have a chance equil to your crit chance for your single target abilities to trigger a AE effect.

I can take around 5 equal level mobs no problem, and have gone as high as 8.

Assuming you have Wandering Plague then, like said:

PS-IT-Pestilence to start. Then you have to choose. If you have reaping drop a blood strike so that you come up with two death runes then you next ability is a UF (runes used) ability. AE'ing as a DK is all about choosing when to BB, when to SS, and when to DS.

So, for me:

PS-IT-Pest-BS-Unholy Blight-SS, then I switch to the target with the most hp and DC off my last 40 RP or just wait. My next runes that come up are Unholy-Frost so i can SS or DS (depending on HP), My next runes to come up are Death runes, if my HP are fine I'll Blood Boil twice, then DS on the last rune refresh, then its about finishing off the last little bit (most mobs will be low HP by then). The most mobs i took at one was 9-10 bone lashers in The Bone Wastes + A couple of scorpids (it was a bad pull). I came out with 90% hp and I think recount had me at just under 1100 dps. 

I think alot of it will come down to practice for most people. I was fortunate in that I leveled a DK up in beta so I kind of knew going in how to do it. And donut forget Unholy Blight, on paper it looks so-so but the bigger the pack the more awesome it is. I will say this: I have a warlock built for farming that I previously thought was the best possible class for mass farming with little to no downtime. This DK makes my lock seem slow and weak by comparison.

Pretty much all the info you need to know. The spec section is good, because it gives rotations for each spec, and even if you dont have rune management down pat, just knowing the rotation will help you a LOT.

Death Knight Compendium on EJ.com (http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t36303-dps_compendium/)

Actually the biggest block now are all the deathknights trying to quest in Outland.

Here's my current spec at 61 (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVGozczZ0xZ0xMhxrox0o). You don't need a lot of investment in Unholy to get the omgfast ride speed and the permapet. I am basically unkillable. I soloed the Drillmaster (a 62 or 63 elite) at 60.

I was going to level my paladin to 80 before really digging into the deathkngiht, but my paladin fills me with despair, so I'm doing the deathknight instead. Someone else is going to have to heal the guild's instance groups for a while. Nyah!

I took my DK to 58 on the starter quests just to see what it was like. Now I'm running around the first part of Northrend with my ret pally. I'll probably mess with my DK some more once the ret runs out of rest XP.

DKs are just fun as hell, I definitely plan on levelling one to 80.  I've gone mostly blood, and I'm basically an unstoppable killing machine.  The rune system worked a lot better than I thought it would going into it, having never played the beta. 

Yeah, I thought I was going to level my resto shammy to 80 first, but it's still sitting at 70 (and that's after 3 instance runs + some quests). My DK, on the other hand, might hit Northrend this week. DKs are overpowered as heck (for now, at least), and I'm loving it. Plus there's the inherent awesomeness in a gnome laying down the smack with a 2-hander, especially on the random tauren/undead/bloodelf DKs that tried to gank me while leveling (I just got the "know your enemy" achievement yesterday after having killed a DK of every possible race). :drill:

I'm considering going frost after 70 (that's the spec I had my eye on ever since the talent trees were released), but right now unholy aura and pale horse are indispensable.


-- Z.

You think there is but there really isn't.

A gnomes purpose is merely to be roadkill for the rest of us.

Awesome link, thanks. Made my head hurt but managed to understand enough to be less useless with my DKs now  :awesome_for_real:

So. True.

I don't think I like my new blood DK that much. He feels limited compared to my ret pally. On my pally I can buff, cleanse, heal, and turn myself and other people invincible, all while stomping a respectable amount of ass now that the spec has been buffed, and it's not until someone/something gets me down below 50% or so health the second time in the fight that I even begin to worry. Meanwhile on my new DK I'm just mashing a bunch of seemingly interchangable "(scary word)+Strike" abilities all over the place.

Blood is like the melee version of a affliction lock. You can regain so much health while killing at a good speed, it's hard to beat for 1 mob at a time killing.

Unholy is the most fun from my point of view though. It has all the bizarre toys and stuff  :grin:

Not surprising. Right now DKs are strong. Ret is just insane though.

Having said that, you might wanna try unholy or frost. I found blood to be the least fun as you're basically spamming one button.

Unholy gets a surprisingly good pet, does mostly shadow damage--avoiding mobs armor--and has damn good AOE killing with wandering plague, corpse explosion, unholy blight and so on.

Frost is the CRIT spec. And turns you into a mini ice mage as someone else here had mentioned. Probably the best damage out of the three specs too. I can almost outdo my S4 warrior.

But honestly right now Paladins are where it's at. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Hit 68 last night on my DK and hopped the zep to Borean Tundra. This is definitely the way to go. I think it took me 3 hours of /played to go from 68-70 and was almost laughably easy. Did all the WSH quests (up through the quest reward blue item deal, nice axe), then Amber Ledge -> Coldarra and completed all the Coldarra quests. On my server most of these zones are DK's only and some stragglers but there was very little competition for mobs. DK's mow through Northrend mobs about as easily as Outland mobs. Still spec'd unholy, its just awesome for leveling.

I'm really loving my DK even more now than I was on beta. Now I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of Northrend!

For Reference: Took me about 28 hours of played time to reach 70. No rested experience to speak of and no grinding, just questing.

I have to disagree with this. DKs are every bit as "insanely overpowered" as retadins right now. If you're not finding them to be so, you're probably making common mistakes. Spamming one button would be one of those common mistakes. DKs are all about ability rotations. As you use abilities you use runes. Spam one ability and you are doing white damage while waiting out a 10 second cooldown. Once you get a decent rotation for any of the major talent builds, you'll be doing huge damage while healing yourself - and its not this nonsense 'stop killing and heal thyself' nonsense that pallies are forced into, but a constant income of fairly serious healing while you're still knocking the crap out of everything in your path. Any elite within three levels of you that doesn't have some instagib DPS trick and a shitton of health can be farmed solo without any break from your usual routine.

I'm still getting used to it. I frequently glance up and notice I have a full runic bar going to waste. And I was questing in Hellfire for about an hour before I realized I had totally forgotten about Bone Shield.

I just miss the shit out of my bubble anytime I'm on a character that doesn't have it. Having to wait for elevators instead of just bubbling and diving off a cliff is such a pain.  :awesome_for_real:

Levitate ftw.

Reincarnation ftw.

I fixed it!

Levitating gently to the ground or self-rezzing after going splat are not nearly as awesome as plummeting from as high as your flying mount can take you, watching the ground slowly close in, then bubbling and landing lightly on your feet like you just hopped down off the curb.

Pretty sure I found a bug w/ the DK and the talent that lets you rise as ghoul when you die.

Go into an instance, fight some mobs, die, rise as a ghoul.  Zone as a ghoul.  When you leave the instance, you have full health and are back to your regular DK self.

Personally I always imagine I would leave a crater when I do that.  Or at least cracks in the pavement.

Levitating ALL THE TIME now that the spell doesn't require a reagent, with the minor glyph, is awesome.

This.  I found out last night I totally forgot to put point into Wandering Plague.  :ye_gods:  I got 1 point in it now at 67.  I found that once you gather all your mobs, popping D&D first then PS>IT>Pestilence>UB is the best way to go.

"Stop killing and heal thyself"

lol

I spent the better part of an hour last night ripping through equal level mobs as fast as I could run to them, with virtually zero downtime except for throwing an insta-cast flash heal on myself after the mob dropped. The last time I had to bother bubble/healing was while soloing a "suggested players: 3" quest boss plus a couple of random adds.

Hit 70 on my DK and borrowed some money from the guild bank, I now have my flyer with epic flying speed. The DK flyer looks like an undead armored chicken, and runs like a weird dog.

After looking around I think I'm going to respec my Unholy DK and put a few points in different spots.

I'll be going with something like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMVZZfMhhxckgcoMcsut

Also right now I have the Ghoul and Boneshield glyphs.  I think I'll be swapping out the Boneshield for the Deathstrike one.  I always forget to keep putting up boneshield.  I should macro it to one of my attacks like Plague Strike.

After hitting 67 I get Rune Strike I think.  Anyone have any good macro's for it?  I'm thinking about putting it on Blood Strike or Scourge Strike since I spam those the most. 

Rune Strike seems not very good. It seems to be tired to auto attack not an instant so it constantly slows down my rotation. Then again, I could be doing it wrong.

Yeah it's next melee, but I *think* you can tag it and then continue the rotation.  I have been, and I haven't noticed it going away without going off.

Yeah, it's like Heroic Strike and not on a GCD so I think it's spamable.

Humm. It didnt seem to be to me. Maybe it was just timing, but I hit Rune strike, and then right after Blood Strike to test if that was the case, and the second I hit BS, it unhighlighted RS.

It has some weird display issues, but it'll still go off. At least it does for me.

I'm only going by what I've read, I hit 67 last night before logging off so I havn't seen it yet.  I'll be testing some macros later.

Rune Strike is really good.  It think you could make arguments it too good.  It had it critting for 3k+ at 67 in crappy quest greens.  Running Utgarde Keep at 70 with a shaman and an arms warrior for buffs, I saw it crit once for over 6k. Its queable and does not use the GCD.  I found the tooltip to be a bit unclear, but it triggers when you parry or dodge.  So, when you are not the tank, it will not light up.  Since it does not tie up the GCD, the conventional wisdom is to macro it to every strike so you won't have to worry about hitting yet another hot key. 

IE:

#showtooltip Heart Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Heart Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");

Thats what I was thinking of doing.

What does the /script thing do?

Removes the you don't have enough whatever error message before you fire the skill and then turns it back on.

Oh thats nifty.

Note about macro'ing Rune Strike:  I was reading on one of the EJ DK threads that tanking can be situationally difficult using the macros as you may not have the RP to use some of the AoE or other high threat abilities in a timely fashion.  You might want to set a second page/bar to have non macro'd versions for tanking situations

Good point.

Unholy Blight (51pt unholy) uses rp for aoe abilities.  If you spec frost, you don't use rp for anything while tanking.  Supposedly, Rune Strike can be macrod without issue.  So I hear. 

Those macros work amazingly well, except I can't see the cooldown anymore in numbers on my toolbar.  However Runic Strike is OP.

About the cool down numbers, that I am unsure.  I use the mod cooldown count for larger numbers.  Are you using the right #showtooltip for the underlying strike?  You want to nest Blood/Heart Strike under RS because RS does not trigger the GCD.  That means you need to use the #showtooltip if you want a different associated icon, etc, because by default macros show the tooltips for the first listed skill.

Last night was my first experience with the macros and they are indeed pretty sweet.

On the no RP for Frost, I thought it was Howling Blast, which is apparently some very hot stuff for the tanking, was RP based, but I see its actually the talented strike, Frost Strike, that is RP based strangely enough.  Not sure how I'd use Rune Strike considering that.

Hmmmm You know what I may have some typos in there now that I think about it.

If you are tanking for frost you will most certainly be using Frost Strike (40rp) as your main RP burn. However, Rune Strike spam will usually take precedent, but its certainly untrue that you have no RP burn as a frost tank without macro'ing Rune Strike. The only tank that shouldnt macro RS is a Unholy tank, for the reason stated above, UB > RS, especially in any AE tank situation.

Finally decided to roll a Death Knight and see what the fuss is about.  Haven't got anywhere yet but did find a book called "Guide to the Side Effects of Reanimation" in the starting quest hall which was very amusing.  Worth spending 60secs of your life reading.

Pasted off wowwiki.  :grin:

Somehow while theorycrafting I missed the whole 'frost strike has 40 rp' thing.  So yeah, I'm smoking crack.  Thanks for straightening me out.

Good find. Should've known they'd have it on there.  After reading that, I spent a little while finding all the other books in Archerus. Some very amusing ones to find.  I especially liked the following trilogy:

On Scholomance

On Stratholme

On Naxxramas

Plenty more to find and most of them are very amusing.

DK's just tear up Outlands, it's pretty fun. Especially with the quicker leveling, it's like a high speed tour. I solo'd three of the elite quests in the bone wastes in terrokar yesterday without breaking a sweat - last time I attempted to solo one of these was on my Pallie at the same level and I was spanked hard. Rounding up 4-6 mobs and taking them all down at once also really never gets old. I'm sure this power won't last through Northrend but for now it's fun to just power through these quests even though I've done them all like 5 times.

If you pay attention to your gear and are making sure you keep it updated you'll continue to be able to kill at least 3 mobs at once in Northrend.  I've also managed to solo a few (2) person elites, but the 3& ups have all needed at least one other.  (I'm Unholy atm.)

Keeping your gear updated isn't hard, either.  The quest rewards almost always give a piece of DPS plate armor. Spellpower bits for pallies are few and far between this time around. Just keep in mind that the diminishing returns penalties of defense and armor pen seem to have flip-flopped.  I was tanking The Old Kingom at 74 andhad 408 def, but it only reduced my to-be-crit chance by 1.28%  Meanwhile, the single piece of armor pen gear I had with a 55 rating gave me a ~4% armor reduction. Ob. you don't need to stack a lot of it.

There's a shitload of haste and crit on all on the items, too. I was able to hit a 30% crit rate and something like 2.5 swing speed with my 3.5speed axe using just quest greens at one point, but noticed that I was killing shit so slowly it was sad.   Then I read and discovered  thse stats are "meh" for DKs, since we really prefer a lot of STR and the haste doesn't to a lot for us.  It's all about raw AP, since our dots and other effects are the majority of our damage, scale with AP and haste only helps your white damage.  (Which is only like 25% of my total output according to recount.)

As for weapons, run Utgarde Keep and see if you can get the axe that drops. That was better than any quest reward until I hit Storm Peaks, where I got a 131dps sword.   (There was one early blue reward that had more weapon damage, but the 75 to-hit on that axe was fucking awesome.)

Yeah, it's sparse.  There's the Brilliant Saronite crafted set starting around lvl 74, but it's an odd mix of stats.  I'm using mostly the tempered Saronite myself until 78 when I can whip up a set of the Ret PVP armor to solo in, since I'm starting to get hit by random fly-by ganker attacks again.

Here's the Stat to DPS weight you should consider for yourself.  Pre-cap you should really go for Str > Hit > Exp > Crit > AP.  Crit and haste are pretty useless for DK's.  The percentage of our damage from white attacks (auto attack) is around 12-18% depending on buffs and gear.

Using Unholy stat weights, you can do this in wowhead:
Stat Weighted List with Epics and Rares (http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=3:4;ty=4;ub=6;wt=20:95:117:84:37;wtv=2.484:2.4748:1.3914:1.124:1)

You can adjust the search parameters for just Rares or whatever.

Crit isnt worthless..  Its in the right spot in terms of value, you want to stack str and get hit capped (9%) and have 6.5% worth of expertise but dont forget that for unholy wandering plague, which as of now accounts for 10% of my dps in 5 mans, is based on crit and scouge strike, if you are following an optimized rotation, will generally be #1 dmg dealer and it scales with crit a rediculous amount (230% crit).

Dont get me wrong, I totally agree with the stat weighting, I just disagree with you saying crit is useless and then using white dmg as an argument as if SS, Wandering Plague, BS, and IT dont account for much dmg.

Crit also gains more traction in Blood and Frost builds but is still behind str, hit, expertise in valuation.

And yeah, Haste + ArP is pretty much a wasted stat on us. No appreciable benefit.

I meant to say Armor Pene not Crit.  So I agree with you.

I agree with your breakdown, but I believe that white damage is still higher than 18%. Most of the WWS posted on EJ show White Damage to be accounting for around 35%, which is still lower than just about any other melee DPS.

So the moment I land in Chillwind on the Blightcaller quest series, I completely lose interest :-) At 58 should I hit Hellfire Peninsula or should I tough it out EP/WP until I hit 60?

Just go to Hellfire if that sounds like more fun. There's much more content in Outland than you'll need to level into the Northrend range anyway.

The quests in Old World are shitty xp and too far between with an assload of "get on a bird and fly over here for this step!" quests.  If you assembled the list of items in the starter post, do that.  If not, go to Outland and get on board the speed train.

Silithus is sorta worth doing, cause you get some faction and the exp isn't that bad since the entire zone was designed primarily for 60's.  But if you don't care about the faction, don't bother.

On a faction-related sidenote, 77 is the highest level you can be and get most all the kill rep from level 70 instances.  At 78, all the 69's in those instances go grey and stop giving full reputation.  At 79, everything goes grey.  If you want any Burning Crusade dungeon reputations, either for the achievements or because of the tabard or because of a cool thing you want, try to get them to exalted before you hit 79.

The same applies to level 66-68 for old world stuff, except a lot of the 60 dungeons have level 58 mobs as well as 59, so drop it down a level.

I went straight to Outlands. My zone to level went like this.

58 - 68 Outlands. I hit 68 about the time I finished Nagrand. Completely solo except for random groupings with people on the same quest as me to share quest mobs. No instances.

68 - 71 Howling Fjord.

71 - 73 - Borean Tundra.

73 to current (74.7) Drangonblight.

I did 58-60 in WPL since I followed the guide I linked in the OP.  Then Outlands to 70, then Borean and I hit 72 last night after finishing all the quests except the 3 man quest in the NE section of the map.  Also did a Nexus run as well.

I followed a similar pattern to Morfiend except I didn't get far into Nagrand before hitting 68 and my starting zone was different.

58-68 Outland (HFP, ZM, Terokar + The first couple rounds of Garadar quests in Nagrand)

68-71.5 Borean Tundra (started here to get the quest reward axe, takes 90min) - Got the achievement for quests completed

71.5-73.5 Howling Fjord - Achievement as well

73.5-76 Dragonblight (had a few 5 mans to help with XP so i was able to stretch this out) - All quests in the zone through the whole 'Retaking UC' deal, which by the way was FUCKING AWESOME. If there was ever a "Must Do" questline its that. Of course it requires you to basically do every single quest in Dragonblight.

Currently 76 and tooling away in Zul'Drak which, so far, is a pretty awesome zone.

Ninja-Edit: By finishing off DB and getting all the 5 man quests done from UK, Nexus, AzjolNerub and AhnKahet + group quests and such Im in all blue gear now. I have one 'drop' from a 5 man. Every single thing Im wearing is quest reward of some sort + the DPS Plate BP from Kalu'ak honored rep (which you should have no problem, im revered just from doing quests in HF, BT, DB). I must say its pretty nice. Im easily T6 equivalent geared and my stats are pretty rediculous, as is DPS. Im pissing off level 80's in my guild who I've done 5 mans with. Either they really suck, or DK's are just that powerful. Also the set doesnt look like a clownsuit, its actually pretty awesome looking.

On a side note: My wife is level 78.5 and maybe, at most, 1/2 way through Dragonblight. She has gotten more than 1/2 her XP from 5 mans (Healy Priest, damn good one). Im expecting she'll hit 80 around the time she finishes Dragonblight and have All of ZD, Grizzly, Sholazar, Storm Peaks, and Icecrown for cash-cow quests. Should be an insane amount of gold laying there for her to take.

I think I'm going to start HF tonight after I finish up one or two quests in BT.

Story question. After all of the talk about needing to finish the DK startup storyline, I was expecting some crazy CGI cutscene that clearly laid things out. I didn't get either.

I'm not spoilering this. If you're in the thread this long you've already past this point.

As I understand it, we attack Light's Hope with far superior numbers but somehow lose anyway. Big bad Paladin guy comes out with Ashbringer, converts the DK squad leader guy (Firion?), Lich King shows up, casts aside DK squad leader, prods Big bad Paladin guy to attack him, somehow his Apocolypse spell doesn't work, he's all shocked and teleports out.

So, the Lich King sent us there to get something that was buried underneath the Chapel. I guess that something somehow makes him weaker?

Or is there more to it than that?

The Lich King sensed Tirion's presence, and wanted to draw him out so he could kill him, and basically sent in all the Acherus Death Knights as sacrificial lambs to draw him out.  He couldn't just stroll in and kill him inside the chapel because of what was in there.  Ashbringer being redeemed wasn't something he'd counted on, which is why he ended up running away wounded. 

There's -something- somewhat unspecified (Tirion calls it the souls of whatever number of people) in the area around Light's Hope that supposedly keeps it safe.  That's the glowy shit you see coming out of the ground as the battle for Light's Hope proceeds, and why Darion winds up having to fight with his sword.  Perhaps it's the spirit of Alexandros Mograine himself that's the focal point of all this light energy.  Either way, Light's Hope is a very powerful bastion of the Light.

Once Alexandros Mograine's spirit appears, the Lich King comes in and does something to Mograine.  This seems rather unspecified, he could be banishing him away, destroying him or worse.  It's difficult to say.  By this point, Alexandros had freed Darion of the Lich King's iron will, making it possible for him to attack the Lich King at all, not that it did him any good.  But when Darion tosses Ashbringer to Tirion Fordring, and the sword is redeemed by this act, and being wielded by one of the three greatest Paladins that ever lived, this, along with being at Light's Hope Chapel, allows Tirion to soundly thrash the Lich King and force him into retreat.

The entire attack, bringing Acherus, fighting the Scarlet Crusade, and the Battle for Light's Hope had but one true purpose - to bring forth Tirion Fordring so he could be defeated.  It basically backfired completely, accomplishing squat for the Lich King, freeing some of his forces, and worst of all, putting Ashbringer in Tirion Fordring's hands.  The only way this could possibly have gone worse for the Lich King would have been if Alexandros Mograine himself had been resurrected.

Ah ok that makes much sense. I had forgotten the backstory of the Ashbringer. And that explains the shadowy form of a sword flying from Darion to Tirion.

In all I appreciate they tried this. Reminds me of the WC3 in-engine cutscenes. I just feel like there was a bit missing in the explanation part. Maybe it was supposed to prompt this type of discussion, but I'm forced to wonder how much the average player is going to understand just from watching the pretty.

I got around to finishing the DK starting area last night and yeah, overall, it was pretty cool.  That being said, I didn't like the last mission - retaking the Ebon Hold.  Admittedly I had to solo Patchwerk (with the aid of the NPCs obviously) but it was a tediously dull fight.  Especially off the back of the epic scene at LHC before hand. I don't know how it would have done but it just felt like not much was made of the revolt against Arthas and I would have preferred perhaps a few more quests or subquests to really make it feel like we had to retake the Ebon Hold.  That's just me though.

Also how come I have to leave the Scourge too?  His will is my will and all that. I serve and suffer for his glory. My life/un-death is his to do with as he desires.  He is my master, not that fucking traitorous cur Morgraine?  There's a world full of life and I can't wait to see it burn. Why can't I go back to Icecrown with the Lich King and continue to be part of the Scourge.  Especially as there's a position open at the top now...

But I did like having to walk through Orgrimmar with all the jeering and rotten fruit though.  It finally explains why some of my characters could hear the Grunts having a go at someone but why I couldn't see anything. That was cool.

This. WTB third faction plz.

I hated leaving the scourge too!  Bah.  I'm not in a guild so PUGing with NPC zombies would be the same thing as PUGing normally anyway.

Bit late for most people but I cocked up my talent choice while levelling in Archerus and decided to respec.  Turns out I could do it for free.  I'm guessing once I'm back in the normal world it won't be but it was nice to know that if I had wanted to try a different spec, I could have done.

Either that or I never realised that first talent respec was free across the board.

Any word on whether cryptfever+ebonplaguebringer+wandering plague has an incoming nerf?

The ridiculous thing is that, as I'm also following the guide from OP, I got to see Tirion soon afterwards in his true form. He is a pathetic L61 elite who can't even kill a few plaquebats without help. I would've killed him there and then if I could have attacked.

Pretty certain that your first respec is always free, then 1g then 5g etc. Could just be that it's always just been 1g and that was so small that I considered it effectively free  :awesome_for_real:

I would suspect that DKs in general will get a nerf at some point in the future but it will be a while coming. This is their first hero class and Blizzard will be perfectly happy with them being overpowered for a while yet, to maintain the special feeling of the class. I would be very surprised if the next arena season isn't completely dominated by DKs.

There's a bit of a timeline discrepancy there (and a bit of retconning), which WOW doesn't handle well.

The Tirion you meet in EPL (who asks you to kill plaguebats etc) is just living a hermit's life and not particularly interested in fighting the scourge. After you do that long questline for him (omitting various spoilery things here), he eventually storms off to recreate the Silver Hand, which eventually turns into the Argent Crusade... of course this questline was created waaaay before WOTLK, or even BC.


-- Z.

All I know is I roll into shit with that combo and roll out a second later, wondering if I'm the warcraft version of a demi-god.  I get five or six adds and shrug it off as an interesting scenario and nothing more.  Lovin' it.

Yeah, the Timeline stuff goes kind of wonky there.  The general flow of the game seems to be making the assumption that your level = time passed.  Since the quests in EPL are level 50ish, and you're a 58 DK, that version of Tirion is 'in the past' even though you can still interact with him.  Similar problems occour with your ability to see Stoutmantle and Old Blanchy in Grizzly Hills who mentions that the Defias have been defeated, but you can still go to Sentinel hill in Westfall and run the quets.

You can do the same as a Warlock, Prot Warrior, Prot Paladin as well.  My level 70 Prot Paladin AOE grinded quests/mobs all the way from 60 to 70.  With the new stuff, hunters with a gorilla pet can do the same as well.  A buddy of mine who never played WOW before is doing just that.

DK's arn't gods.  They have good dps, and can tank decently as well if you know what you're doing.  There will be a huge difference between a good and bad DK.  Also in PVP paladins and mages eat me for breakfast most of the time.

I concur. I respecced my 'lock into God mode and find I can take on multiples constantly with little to no downtime beside the odd having to go to single mobs so I can bandage.  I just need to sort out some targetting macros so that I don't keep tabbing to the mobs that are nearly dead.

Ahh, okay.  It's been, literally, at least two years since I played my warlock(Down with Alliance!), and since then the only thing's I've played are my current main, an assasination rogue, and my horde alts, of which none of which are above 30 apart from my DK now.

Not gods but they're quite strong since they're basically ret pallys with a limitless resource pool thanks to the healing they can generate with blood aura, rune tap, and death strike.  I know it isn't worth the points if your purely leveling spec but Anti-Magic Zone will make paladins and every other caster despise you in pvp.  With that, bone shield, and mark of blood DK's can be nearly unkillable in any 1v1 situation.

If they get nerfed I suspect it will just be a slight reduction in how much they can heal themselves.

I need to read some pointers on Unholy DK pvp, anyone got some links?  I keep getting rolled by Rogues 2-3 levels below me and that just shouldn't happen.  Then again, said rogues also had ~16k hps because they were in full S3 crap as I mucked about with as many hps in just greens/ quest crap. Hooray.

Yeah. Whenever my 'overpowered' unholy DK got ganked in the tundra, I ended up losing because the attackers are always in at least full s2, and I'm in half BC and half-northrend greens gear. Before going to northrend, everyone who tried to gank my cuddly gnome death machine ended up dying either before or after me (shadow of death is an awesome "haha no" world pvp ability :drill:).

On the other hand, my holy [not even disc!] priest in full greens hasn't died to horde yet... blessed resilience + lightwell (overpowered!) is too much for them to dps through and they end up running. I'm sure this will change at 80. :P


-- Z.

No, I think my version is correct, Tirion has a funny hat with "Equip: makes wearer appear as ?? Boss" and he huffs and puffs a lot. If it isn't like it happens in the game then it's not canon.

I'm doing pretty much the same with my enhance (plus a bit of ele) Shaman in Howling Fjord at the moment. Several times I've gone for a cobalt node and realised I've pulled 5-6 mobs in the process but come out of it with no need to do anything more than straighten my tie  :awesome_for_real:

Ghoul stun them if they're unholy long enough to get any instant and Icebound Fort off (you just want to throw off a stun rotation) and then lay into them.

Well it's all about timing your fight vs. his cloaking and removing the diseases.  Also his timing cloak with your icebound fortitude.

Frost Mages own DKs due to snaring and blinking out of Death Grip.

Paladins can cleanse themselves and just bubble kill you.

DK's are supposed to be the rock to a Druid's Scissor with Plague Strike though.

If you keep dieing it's because you have zero resilience and your opponent has a lot of pvp gear with a shit load of resilience and stam.

I saw a Death Knight video a few days ago where a 80 DK was dueling people (beta footage) and absolutely humiliating rogues/warlocks and even beating a ret pally with only 1-2 close calls.  I can't find the video again for the life of me but I found this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk7jpPGXPEs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk7jpPGXPEs).  Similar spec and playstyle to the one I saw the other day but doesn't use Anti-Magic Zone as much/aggresively as he  probably should.  Couldn't tell if he had/used mark of blood in the video either which I know the DK in the duel video had.

Edit: A thing to note in lvl 80 beta pvp videos is that I understand everyone was given lvl 80 pvp gear so they are all running around in 800+ resil gear.

Mostly right, but left a bit out.  The Argent Dawn was created when Highlord Alexandros Mograine of the Scarlet Crusade, the Ashbringer, was first killed by his son, Renault Mograine (the one from Scarlet Monastery).  After that happened, High Inquisitor Fairbanks managed to make it back to the monastery, and despite being plagued, he got the word out of what had happened, to some degree.  The Argent Dawn was formed from the people who listened to Fairbanks' story.

Fast forward a year or two, and you come to WoW's opening timeline four years ago.  At this point Tirion Fordring is living as a hermit as he's lost most of his hope.  The actions of the player, while following his quest line, restore his confidence and hope, and he goes off to reform the Knights of the Silver Hand.

Go forward another year and a half or so to the release of the Naxxramas patch, and the Corrupted Ashbringer is recovered.  It gets brought to Scarlet Monastery and Alexandros Mograine kills Renault in the famous cutscene there.  

After this, probably after another year (sometime during Burning Crusade), Ashbringer finds its way somehow to the hands of Darion Mograine, the son that was presumed to be in Outland.  I'm guessing they originally had planned a quest for this, but they skipped it.  The story is told in some comic, I understand.  Darion Mograine somehow determines that killing himself with Ashbringer will redeem and release his father's spirit, and does so.  He becomes a Death Knight of the Lich King in the process (I'm unsure of the details).

Another year or so passes, bringing us to present time, where the events of the Death Knight intro sequence happen.  During the intervening years, Tirion Fordring has recreated the Knights of the Silver Hand, and allied them with the Argent Dawn.  Curiously we never actually see any Silver Hand NPC's in game (or are there some at the battle?  I didn't really notice the names of random NPC's), but basically there's supposed to be Knights of the Silver Hand somewhere, under Tirion Fordring's command.

It's at that point that the Argent Crusade is created, when Tirion Fordring unites the Knights of the Silver Hand with the Argent Dawn.