Death knight
Blizzard's original death knight concept was that of an undead spellcaster unit which made its initial appearance in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. This death knight could be more accurately described as a horseback-mounted lich rather than the traditional death knight commonly depicted in other fantasy games. Years later, Blizzard introduced a new death knight hero-class unit in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and this second rendition was revised to reflect the general characteristics of the more traditional death knight design. To understand the key differences between these two different generations of death knight, see the 'Types of Death Knights' section located further down this page. . The death knight was later adapted as a prestige class within the Warcraft RPG.A&HC 24 It is the first hero class in World of Warcraft and was introduced in the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
Talents
Death knight talents are split into 3 trees, each of which is fully capable of supporting either a tanking or DPS melee role:
* Blood: This tree primarily amplifies the death knight's melee spells, weapons, and abilities; and has a prominent health-regeneration theme.
* Frost: This tree has many control elements, with a strong critical-strike/bonus-damage theme, as well as several talents that improve physical-damage mitigation.
* Unholy: This tree has a heavy focus on diseases and related abilities, as well as improving summoned minions. Also has AoE, spell damage shielding, and mobility-improvement sub-themes.
Lore
Death knight is the name of a class shared by two separate organizations of powerful necromancers. These orders share a few things in common, including riding horses with horned skulls and many of the same abilities.
Shadows of Justice
Orgrim Doomhammer's first act as the new Warchief of the Horde was to crush the orc warlocks of the Shadow Council. He grudgingly spared the council's former master, Gul'dan, in exchange for the warlock's servitude; in turn Gul'dan promised to create a host of powerful new warriors to serve the Horde. After experimenting at length with the souls of the recently slain council members, Gul'dan successfully instilled the spirit of the necrolyte Teron Gorefiend into the corpse of a fallen knight of Stormwind. Thus, the first terrifying death knight was born. Gul'dan transformed his other council members as well, creating a vast legion of unholy warriors whom sowed chaos and fear throughout the land of Azeroth during the Second War.
Following Gul'dan's desertion and death, part of the Horde, including the death knights, retreated through the Dark Portal to Draenor. Most of the surviving death knights disappeared after Draenor's destruction, though some of these death knights, along with Ner'zhul's other prominant spell casters, were later captured by the Burning Legion and transformed into liches. These liches were stripped of their free will by the Demon Lord, Kil'jaeden and were reappointed into the service of his new pet, The Lich King, in order to better assist him with his task. These liches served as Scourge spell casting hero-class units in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
Blizzard eventually unveiled the whereabouts of a powerful death knight who had escaped the fate of his kin, Teron Gorefiend, a malevolent abomination whose restless and embittered form now resides in the Black Temple of Outland. In a quest chain beginning with: ‘Teron Gorefiend, I am..’, he deceives players with a fabricated account of history that tricks them into assisting him, and thus the deception ultimately results in his release from eternal imprisonment. Based on the logic that his entire story was a nothing more then a ruse, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that there may be numerous first generation death knights, like Gorefiend, who escaped the legion's capture and still exist in their original form.
Champions of the Lich King
Years after the destruction of Draenor, the immensely powerful Lich King created a new breed of death knights: malevolent, rune-wielding warriors of the Scourge. The first and greatest of these was the Lich King's chosen champion, Prince Arthas Menethil, once a mighty paladin of the Silver Hand, who sacrificed his soul to claim the runeblade Frostmourne in a desperate bid to save his people.
Unlike Gul'dan's Death Knights, these dark champions do not possess free will and their minds are inexorably entwined with and dominated by the Lich King's vast consciousness. Despite the heavy costs of free will, some powerful mortals are intrigued by the promise of immortality and pledge their souls freely into the Lich King's service to achieve it. (Baron Rivendare is an example of this).
In the years since Arthas shattered the Frozen Throne and merged with the Lich King, the power and fury of the death knights has only grown. Now these unrelenting crusaders of the damned eagerly await the Lich King's command to unleash their fury on Azeroth once again.
The Ebon Blade
The Knights of the Ebon Blade is a faction consisting of the renegade death knights that broke free of the Lich King's control after the battle of Light's Hope Chapel (in other words, player-created death knights). Led by Highlord Darion Mograine, the Knights of the Ebon Blade have allied themselves with the Alliance and the Horde with the help of Highlord Tirion Fordring of the Knights of the Silver Hand, and have pledged to do their part in defeating their former master, the Lich King. Their main base is Acherus: The Ebon Hold, a former scourge necropolis in the Eastern Plaguelands. (It should be noted that the Knights of the Ebon Blade are not a separate player faction such as the Alliance and Horde. For the purposes of gameplay, player-created death knights still belong to either the Alliance or the Horde depending on their race.)
Notable death knights in lore
- Arthas Menethil (Now the Lich King)
- Darion Mograine
-Alexandros Mograine (Current whereabouts unknown)
- Teron Gorefiend (1st generation death knight)
- Baron Rivendar
Types of death knights
1st Generation: Death knights of the Old Horde
A first generation death knight was essentially the soul, knowledge, memory, and personality of an orc warlock that was imbued into the reanimated corpse of a fallen knight of Azeroth. Unlike modern death knights of the Scourge, these ghoulish fiends were not battle hardened warriors; they were insidious necromancers who possessed superior intellect and tremendous magical power. They often favored the use of terror tactics and reanimated the corpses of enemy soldiers who fell in battle to serve them as mindless undead minions. These skeletal soldiers served to shield the death knight from enemy attacks, allowing them to unleash their deadly eldritch sorcery from range.
2nd Generation: Death knights of the Scourge
A second generation death knight is essentially the body, soul, knowledge, memory, and personality of a fallen hero who was reanimated into a preternatural state of eternal undeath by the Lich King. Unlike death knights of the Old Horde, modern death knights are not limited to their use of ranged spell casting abilities. Modern death knights are exceptionally skilled in the arts of physical combat and further augment their formidable melee abilities with the use of powerful blood, frost, and unholy disciplines. In terms of relative strengths, modern Death Knights are more versatile than their first generation predecessors due to their ability to effectively engage enemies in the physical rigors of close quarters combat. However, both generations are equally destructive and terrifying to engage in the field of battle.
The will to fight against all odds
In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, player-created death knights revolt against the Lich King and ally themselves with their former factions. A player's free will is restored to them during a death-knight-specific quest event involving an epic battle against the legendary paladin, Tirion Fordring, the cleansed Ashbringer, and the forces of the Argent Dawn. The specific details of this event will be left undiscussed as spoilers would surely spoil the fun for many.
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