Lots of information coming out from Blizzard on the upcoming Death Knight class that will be making its appearance with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, World of Warcraft. This class is the first “Hero Class” which have have been part of Warcraft lore since the real-time strategy game days.

Over at GameSpy, they posted:

The Death Knights serve as powerful mounted necromancers who could command the armies of the Undead or engage in hand-to-hand combat behind the strength of their powerful vampiric runeblades. While the lore and reasoning behind playable Death Knights are still being finalized, we do know that Death Knight players are former servants of the Lich King who have broken away from the Scourge in order to join ranks with the Alliance or the Horde.

All players with a level 55 character will be able to create one Death Knight per realm, per account. There was no mention of the rumored character sacrifice or of a lengthy quest chain to unlock this character slot, so it should be as simple as that. You’ll also be able to create a Death Knight belonging to any of the game’s playable races. We expect pink-haired gnomish Death Knights with pigtails to be a particularly popular option.

From what I am reading, this new class has peaked my interest. I am very happy to hear that the class starts at level 55 (I am so done with grinding for levels). As a devote of the Gnome race, I like that Blizzard still plans to allow all races to be Death Knights.

Other items of note:

• You must have an existing character of level 55 or higher to create a Death Knight.
• You can create one Death Knight per realm per account
• The Death Knight will start with a 60% speed summoned Death Charger as a land mount, which be upgradeable via quest much like Warlock and Paladin mounts.
• Much like Paladin Auras or Warrior stances, Presences will be powerful one-at-a-time self-buffs that will probably determine whether the Death Knight is taking on a Tank or DPS role in the group.

As expected, Death Knights will be DPS/Tank Hybrids which I personally enjoy. As DPS, they will not do as much damage as a pure DPS class, but will bring extra flavor and utility to the table in the form of some minor crowd control, ghoul pets, and the use of diseases to deal extra damage and cause debuffs.

I can not wait for my Death Knight Gnome. I think he shall be named BananaDeath!