Death Knight

Death Knight
Image of a typical Death Knight
Basic Information
Type(s)	Class
Featured in...
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King World of Warcraft: Cataclysm World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor World of Warcraft: Legion World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth

The Death Knight was introduced as a playable class in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, specifically in Patch 3.0.2 as a hero class, although the class was known since Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne; initially, this class was only accessible to players who had levelled a character already to Level 55 on that realm. In Patch 6.1.0, this limitation was removed. Players could also initially only have one Death Knight per realm; this limitation was removed in Patch 5.3.0.

When players select this class for play initially, the newly-formed character already starts at Level 55, and by the end of the introduction quests, will be at least Level 58, with gear suitable to immediately start questing in Outland.

Specs

Death Knights have three class specializations to choose from: Blood, Frost and Unholy. When the class originally launched, all three could serve as viable tank specs. However, with the launch of the pre-expansion 4.0.1 patch for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the specs were re-tuned; Blood was now the dedicated tanking spec, with Frost and Unholy positioned as dedicated damage-dealing specs.