If you reading this then it is assumed you are unfamiliar or confused about the Runic System that Death Knights utilize for thier resource management.  IF that is the case then keep reading.  If not, then hopefully this is not my last post and you can skip it and read further along when we get to the meat and potatoes.

The Death Knight uses a two Resource management system consisting of Runes and Runic Power.  The Rune are the little symbols near your character portrait with the pretty colors and Runic Power is the Blue Bar that fills up below them.  Every ability that the Death Knight has utilizes one of the other resource but never both.  A fresh battle state for the Death Knight is to have 6 Runes ready to be activated and zero Runic Power.

Runes

There are two runes of three different types; Blood, Frost, and Unholy.  They go from left to right in that order or if you want to go by color, Blood is well red, Frost blue, and unholy green.  An ability might require one, two, or even a few rare ones will need three differnet rune types.  No ability requires two of the same type of Rune like for example 2 BLood.  Once activated a Rune goes on a 10 second cool down timer.  This may seem like a long time but the majority of your abilities will only require 1 Rune at a time and you will also have built up some Runic Power to use other abilities so there you will find that they will reset and be available in seemingly no time.  There is a fourth type of Rune and that is the Death Rune (Purple Scull).  There is a chance that when a Rune reactivates that it will turn into a Death Rune.  A Death Rune is a wildcard Rune and can satisfy the Ruen type requirement of any other Rune.  There are also some talents that increase this frequency when using certain abilities.

 

Runic Power

In a fashion not dissimilar to how a warrior build rage, a Death Knight will build Runic Power with his Runic Abilities.  You start with Zero Runic Power and the can build it up to 100 (130 if Frost Specced properly).  Offensive abilities will generate 10 Runic Power of if they are a multi-rune ability it will be 15 Runic Power.  Again Talents in the various trees can increase this accumulation so that you will find you can build Runic Power fairly quickly.  It is usually considered a wise idea to go ahead and “dump” Runic Power when it fills up so that you are not “wasting” the Runic Power.

 

Well that’s All for now See ya next time.

Well I am a big listener to the Podcast, The Instance, and the recent show mentioned that for the Official WoW guides there’s exactly ZERO guides to the Death Knight Class.  Well I had toyed with the idea of doing this earlier this year but thought surely more qualified individuals would take over this task.  But nope, not one, so you get me.  You lucky lucky sods!

I began playing a Death Knight right when Wrath came out and enjoyed the class and have sufferred it’s recent string of nerfs.  Some I thought were justfied others I objected to as being too harsh for PvE play but what do I know.   Since Wrath has been out I have played four Death Knights, two of them I have gotten to 80.  Currently right now I only have three, I deleted one and started over.  Each of my Death Knights has pursued a different Talent spec so I have tried to get a feel for each of them but my true love will always be Unholy.   Gee  I miss turning into a ghoul….but I digest.

I also felt that Death Knight get a bad reputation out there in the community.  Disliked due to their numbers, the tendency to annoy low level characters while farming for materials for early profession leveling, and well Gnome Death Knights is just the manifestation of pure evil.  I have also herd how Death Knights can’t tank.  I feel this is a gross mischaracterization of the class, and a failure to understand that it is the player who is failing at tanking.  To be fair to those players it may be that they do not know how to tank as a Death Knight, perhaps do not have talent points in the right areas to really shine as a tank.  From personal experience the best Death Knight tanks were those who had been great tanks as Warriors, Paladins, and Druids.  Considering the number of Rogues and Warlocks that became Death Knights, they can’t be expected to turn into Tanking players overnight.  Hopefully this site can be the begining of clearing up those nasty misconceptions.  Except the Gnome Death Knights…as a said…PURE EVIL