gnomeDK – Your Pink Haired Guide to All Things Death Knight

Preparing For Your Death Knight is for those players planning to switch their mains to a death knight and are willing to go the extra mile before expansion to help speed up their death knight’s development after expansion launches. These steps are by no means required if you want to level a death knight, but they do help speed up the leveling process.

One of the few downsides to changing your main to a death knight is having to start over with professions. While not much will take away from the annoyance of dealing with low level profession grinding on a hero class character, Blizzard is at least helping on the other end. With the new Northrend recipes you only need to get your professions to around 350 before you can start learning all new ones. This will allow us to continue our professions easily once in Northrend without costing us an arm and a leg (easily obtainable for us undead, though it may be) grinding from 350 to 375 with just Outland recipes.

First Aid

Materials:

• [Runecloth] x260
• [Netherweave Cloth] x120

Death knights start with 270/300 skill in First Aid. It is the only profession we get a head start in, but at least that’s one less low mat grind for us to do. We’ll be going straight to 375 with Netherweave Cloth. We could stop at 350 and pick up the Frostweave Bandage skill in Northrend when we get there, but you’ll want the Heavy Netherweave Bandages while leveling in Outland so might as well make enough and get credit for them.

1. Make [Runecloth Bandage] until 290.

2. Head to Theramore, Dustwallow Marsh to see Doctor Gustaf VanHowzen (Alliance) or Hammerfall, Arathi Highlands to see Doctor Gregory Victor (Horde).

3. Do the Triage quest. NPCs with various degrees of injuries will appear and you must use special bandages given to you to heal 15 of them before 6 die. Focus on the critically injured ones first and work your way down, going back to critically injured as they reappear. If the critically injured ones are dying as you are healing them then try ignoring them and focusing on the others.

4. Learn [Heavy Runecloth Bandage] from the doctor NPC. Make [Heavy Runecloth Bandage] until 300.

5. Buy [Master First Aid ? Doctor in the House], [Manual: Netherweave Bandage], and [Manual: Heavy Netherweave Bandage] from Burko in the Temple of Telhamut, Hellfire Peninsula (Alliance) or Aresella in Falcon Watch, Hellfire Peninsula (Horde). Note you can buy these in advance and mail them to your death knight.

6. Make [Heavy Runecloth Bandage] until 330.

7. Make [Netherweave Bandage] until 360.

8. Make [Heavy Netherweave Bandage] until 375.

Cooking

See the cooking guides for 1-300 and 300-375 at WTBBlue. Stop skilling up cooking at 350. You’ll pick up easier and cheaper recipes in Northrend later. I strongly suggest gathering up the materials for cooking in advance, to save your death knight a lot of grinding. You’ll be surprised how cheap you can get most of them on the auction house, but supplies will run low after expansion hits.

Fishing

You can fish anywhere there are fish and skill up, no matter your skill level, so there’s isn’t much need for a guide. You can pick up some +fishing poles to help out, [Strong Fishing Pole] and [Big Iron Fishing Pole], as well as lures from fishing vendors.

At 225 head to Dustwallow Marsh and speak with Nat Pagle to get the quest Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme. You’ll need to fish up four special fish:

• [Feralas Ahi]: in Feralas (62,5)
• [Misty Reed Mahi Mahi]: in Swamp of Sorrows (90,72)
• [Sar'theris Striker]: in Desolace (25,77)
• [Savage Coast Blue Sailfin]: in Stranglethorn Vale(33,32)

Between 275 and 300 you’ll need to purchase and learn [Master Fishing ? The Art of Angling] from Juno Dufrain, just southwest of Cenarion Refuge, Zangermarsh.

A great resource in general for fishing is El’s Extreme Anglin’.

Primary Professions

I won’t go over every primary profession, the guides at WTBBlue can help you out with whatever pair of professions you choose. Outside of Leatherworking and Tailoring any of the professions could be useful, so it is mainly a matter of personal choice. Myself I’m going with Jewelcrafting and Mining, mainly because my guild doesn’t have any raid main jewelcrafters. On my short list was Blacksmithing for gear crafting, Engineering for the toys, and Inscription since it is new.

I would suggest going over the materials listed in the profession guides and try to gather what you can in advance. Even if you are taking a matching gathering profession you won’t gather everything you need just by maxing out skill ups, so buy before prices go up for expansion and save your death knight some grinding. Again don’t worry about getting past 350 skill as it’ll be easier and cheaper for you to pick up from there in Northrend than it will be to deal with high end Outland materials.