gnomeDK – Your Pink Haired Guide to All Things Death Knight

With death knight talents being one of the more unstable things during beta testing until recently there haven’t been a lot of postings about builds. Since things have settled down so I’ve compiled a list of good leveling builds you might want to consider for starting out with your own death knight. These are based on both my own experience leveling up on the beta servers and the very in depth, very long death knight thread on Elitist Jerks.

These talent builds are meant to be suggestions for those looking for a place to start. You may want to rearrange some talent points for abilities you like (or to avoid those you dislike). Feel free to play around with the available talent builders online before expansion hits. You can of course do something completely different, but please keep in mind these builds were designed to be the most efficient in terms of solo level play. Read more… »

Today is Election Day in the United States. If you are a citizen and 18 years old or over then go vote! Right now! Seriously, stop reading this unless you have one of those “I Voted” stickers on.

I know the presidential election has taken even more than its normal share of the coverage this time around, but be sure to vote on any state and local issues and candidates on your district’s ballot as well. The President of the United States get a lot of air time but in the end it is the state and local officials who have more of a direct impact in your day to day lives.

At the end of your death knight quests you’ll end up in Stormwind. I really hope you all enjoy the experience as much as I did my first time. Now it is time to turn in your gathered quest items, skill up First Aid, and head to Outland. I know, switching gears to a bunch of FedEx runs sucks, but trust me when I say the XP boost you’ll get is worth it. Plus it’ll let you unwind a bit before starting the quest grind in Outland.

Here’s the route I plan to take, to help make all of the turn-ins go as quickly as possible. This can be done even faster if you can enlist the help of a mage, but I know all of my guildies will be having too much fun in Northrend to leave so I’m not counting on having a personal teleporter available. For you Horde death knights out there you should be able to pull off a similar route with your own turn-in locations but this is gnomeDK, not taurenDK, so you’re on your own for figuring out the details. If anyone wants to post a detailed Horde route please feel free.

1. Complete Where Kings Walk, thus completing the death knight quest line.
2. Set your hearthstone to Stormwind.
3. Turn in Stormwind cloth with Clavicus Knavingham (ask a guard for the tailoring trainer).
4. Fly from Stormwind to Ironforge.
5. Turn in Ironforge/dwarf cloth with Mistina Steelshield (ask a guard for the tailoring trainer).
6. Turn in Ironforge/gnome cloth with Bubulo Acerbus (in Tinkertown next to the tram entrance).
7. Fly from Ironforge to Menethil Harbor, Wetlands.
8. Take a boat from Menethil Harbor to Theramore Isle, Dustwallow Marsh.
9. Visit Doctor Gustaf VanHowzen inside the keep. Do the quest Triage and learn [Heavy Runecloth Bandage].
10. Fly from Theramore to Rut’Theran Village. Take an AFK break on this flight, that way you are ready to start with Outland as soon as we’re done here.
11. Turn in Darnassus cloth with Raedon Duskstriker (ask a guard for the tailoring trainer).
12. Fly from Rut’Theran Village to Auberdine, Darkshore.
13. Take a boat from Auberdine to Azuremyst Isle.
14. Turn in Exodor cloth with Dugiru (ask a guard for the tailoring trainer).
15. Hearth to Stormwind.
16. Fly from Stormwind to Nethergarde Keep, Blasted Lands.
17. Buy a [Nethergarde Bitter] from Bernie Heisten, inside the keep (for a Hellfire Peninsula quest).
18. Turn in your animal parts and Draenethyst fragment and sphere (see Preparing For Your Death Knight – Quests for locations) in Blasted Lands.
19. Go through the Dark Portal to continue on to Outland.

Personally I’m planning on skilling up mining before I hit Outland. Partly to let some of the initial traffic go through the early Hellfire Peninsula quests, but mostly so I don’t have to come back to Azeroth to skill up and then go back to Outland again just to skill up. I want to do a straight line from Azeroth to Northrend as much as possible.