Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb really needs a bigger boat. And maybe a more imposing minion to steer it.

So by now, I assume a good chunk of us are managing to get through Outland again and are hitting the 68-70 level range, ready to jump onto a boat or zeppelin and head to Northrend. Now, up til now, I'm sure a lot of you have been sticking with your Death Knight quest gear, hoping to avoid the clown look of Northrend, or have been leveling so fast through Outland that you haven't had time to replace most of it anyway.

But we're in Northrend now, guys. The difficulty is ramped up a bit, and you're really going to have to start replacing stuff pretty quickly. No worries though, Blizzard's art team has done a pretty decent job of making most of the Northrend quest rewards look like something you'd be willing to be caught dead wearing, so to speak, especially if you're into Norse mythology and imagery like I am.

Today, we'll be discussing some of the best quest upgrades for a Death Knight in the first few zones of Northrend, but before we do that, I'd like to mention one more gear-related thing from our tanking column last week: The Cobalt "set."

Back to Part II
Bracers

If you're the Horde, you'll want to grab an Utgarde Keep group to get your best possible bracers. The Vambraces of the Vengeance Bringer are gained from the Horde-only quest A Score To Settle, and are tailor made for a plate DPSer. Both sides can also get the Shaleground Bracers by clearing out the Vykrul settlement of Skorn via Westguard Keep or Camp Winterhoof.

Once again, you'll find the better non-dungeon option in Borean Tundra. The Freed Shackles are from the Tuskarr quest Leading the Ancestors Home, and provide a very nice chunk of strength and some hit rating.

Gloves

Early quest glove upgrades in Northrend for a Death Knight DPSer seem to be sparser than other slots for some reason, but there's still a few options. In Borean Tundra, you'll be able to get the Bogstrok Plate Gloves by helping a guy in a Murloc suit, which provide a good chunk of strength and some expertise. Less desirable but still a solid upgrade over Outland gear are the Onyx Grips from Howling Fjord, obtained by Stopping the Ascension of the Thane at Skorn.

If you're tanking on your Death Knight, you'll once again want to consider some dungeon diving in The Nexus. The quest Postponing the Inevitable will get you the Gauntlets of the Disturbed Giant, a clear upgrade over the cobalt gauntlets, making up what they lack in strength with hit rating -- and as everyone knows, you can't gain threat if you can't hit your target.

Belt

Belts are actually about as sparse as gloves, and for once, the Howling Fjord option might slightly edge out the Borean Tundra option. The Gold-Plated Coldsteel Girdle offers a sizable amount of critical strike rating, with some strength and hit rating to sweeten the deal, making it a solid DPS choice. You get it by getting the quest to slay Necrolord Mehzen at Westguard Keep or Camp Winterhoof.

In Borean Tundra, consider grabbing the Girdle of Ripped Space from Monitoring the Rift: Winterfin Cavern. It doesn't have any hit rating, and it has less strength and critical strike rating that the coldsteel girdle, but it does have 58 Stamina, at the least making it decent for tanking if you decided not to spring for some Cobalt.

Leggings

For leggings, Howling Fjord once again probably wins out for pure DPS. You'll actually get the Antique Reinforced Legguards rather soon after you get off the boat or zeppelin, either from the Anguish of Nifflevar for Alliance or The New Plague for Horde. They have the most strength of the plate leg quest rewards.

In the Borean Tundra, look for the Cold-Forged Bronze Legplates, which make up for having less than half the strength of the Antique Reinforced Legguards with a whopping 53 critical strike rating and 45 stamina. You can get them from Hasty Preparations for the Horde or Down to the Wire for the Alliance.

Boots

Howling Fjord completes its dominance of lower body DPS options with the Master Artilleryman's Boots, which provide a very sizable amount of critical strike rating and strength, and are probably the best of the normal quest rewards for DK DPS. Horde get them from Brains! Brains! Brains!, while the Alliance gets them from Preying on the Weak.

You do still have a few options in Borean Tundra. The Chilled Greaves have a small amount of strength and critical strike rating, but no stamina and some haste rating. Still, they're a solid choice for DPS. The Moral Sabatons gained from helping the DHETA are good in their own right as well, but they have raw attack power, which means you won't get the usual parry benefits from them. Still, 76 attack power is nothing to sneeze at, and it comes with stamina and critical strike rating as well.

Once again, Tanks are going to want to get a Nexus group. The quest Quickening gives the reward of the Boots of the Unbowed Protector, which provide a bunch of defense, dodge rating, and stamina, a clear upgrade over Cobalt Boots for tanking.

Gearing up and Rolling out

As you might have guessed by now, Borean Tundra is probably a slightly better choice for a Death Knight to begin their Northrend career in terms of quest gear, but Howling Fjord has some strong choices, and you probably won't go wrong leveling through either zone. Myself, I'm still leveling in Howling Fjord for now because I enjoy the lore, the scenery, and the music more than Borean Tundra, but even even I'm nipping over there to grab that axe.

Either way you choose, welcome to Northrend, Death Knight. Now's when the real fun begins. We'll see you in Icecrown Glacier.

Back to Part I

Weapon

In the Borean Tundra, you'll find The Axe of Frozen Death. It's a very nice blue with the perfect stats for a Death Knight, and it's pretty straightforward to get: Just follow the basic recruitment quest for your side in either Valiance Keep or Warsong Hold. Eventually, you'll be sent out into the field to do a bunch of stuff, eventually ending in a group quest on either side that will get you the axe as one of your quest rewards. Alliance will get it from Last Rites, while the Horde will get it from Hellscream's Champion, a fedex type quest you'll get after finishing everything else Garrosh has for you to do.

If you'd like to stick to the Howling Fjord, you can pick up the Cragthumper, which is arguably a slight bit better than the axe for Death Knight tanking, since it has a good amount of stamina, as well strength to convert into parry rating. It's also much easier to get, requiring only a very basic starting quest on either side. Rescuing the Rescuers is the Alliance Quest, while Landing the Killing Blow is the Horde quest. If you're giving dual wielding a try here, you can pick up the Coldstone Cutlass from this quest instead, which should make a passable main hand weapon.

If you're looking for the best possible one-handed weapons, though, consider the Edge of the Tuskarr from Borean Tundra. This one has a slower speed, making it much better for dishing out the strikes and Blood Caked Blade procs. This you'll get from the Tuskarr themselves, namely the quest The Tides Turn. For a one-handed offhand, you want speed for triggering Killing Machine procs and the like. Luckily, you can also pick up a good off hand in Borean Tundra too, the Lobstrok Striker, which comes from rescuing tadpoles.

Helm

In the Borean Tundra, you'll be able to quest for the Mightstone Helm, which is a very nice Death Knight helm with plenty of our two main DPS stats, critical strike rating and strength. Alliance get it from The Hunt Is On, and Horde get it from the Trophies of Gammoth.

If you're in the Howling Fjord, you can grab the Runeplate Helm, but, as we said earlier, haste isn't our best stat by a long shot, and this helm has a good amount of it. Still, it'll do in a pinch, and is probably better than whatever you picked up in Outland. If nothing else, it does outdo the Mightstone Helm in pure strength. Alliance get it from Mission: Eternal Flame, while Horde get it from Adding Injury to Insult.

Shoulders

In the Borean Tundra, you have a few choices as far as shoulder armor goes. Chilled Pauldrons are completely devoid of Stamina, but do have a good amount of strength and critical strike rating. You can get them from Re-Cursive for the Alliance, or Neutralizing the Cauldrons for the Horde. Chilled Shoulderpads have a bit less strength, but a good chunk of stamina, which many levelers overlook to their own peril, and a bit more critical strike rating. They can be gained from Stop the Plague for the Horde, or There's Something Going On In Those Caves for the Alliance.

In Howling Fjord, Alliance will probably wanted to consider picking up the Feather-Lined shoulderpads, which offer as much strength as the Chilled Pauldrons and some hit rating, which many levelers also overlook. 5% hit or so while leveling works wonders on making sure your hits connect. The other Howling Fjord plate shoulder option is the Ramshorn-Inlaid Shoulders, but they suffer from the problem of haste rating. If you're Horde, you'll probably want to go to Borean Tundra for the best shoulders you can get.

In the meantime, I should also mention that tanks might want to do a little dungeon diving for some new shoulders some time in their early 70s. The quest Have They No Shame sends you into The Nexus, off Borean Tundra, to recover some lost research, with one of the rewards being Tundra Pauldrons. While said Pauldrons have slightly less defense rating than Cobalt Shoulders, and some shield block value, which is useless to us, they also have much more stamina and armor and a bit of dodge rating, which should make them a pretty clear tanking upgrade regardless.

Chest

In the Howling Fjord, you can pick up the Worgblood Berserker's Hauberk by assisting Ulfang via your faction's questgivers at the Steel Gate, which balances a good bit of strength with a good bit of stamina. Once again, though, your better options are going to be in the Borean Tundra.

The Battle Leader's Breastplate out of the Tundra is a DPSer's dream come true, with strength, agility, and critical strike rating in abundance. The Alliance gets it from Surrounded!, while the Horde gets it from What the Cold Wind Brings.... If you find yourself a bit low on stamina though, you might want to go after the Mightstone Breastplate, which has no agility, but almost as much strength and critical strike rating and a good bit of stamina. It's gained from Enemies of the Light for the Alliance and Bury Those Cockroaches! for the Horde.

Welcome to the first post-Wrath installment of Lichborne, the weekly Death Knight column. Join Daniel Whitcomb on the bleeding edge of a new and untried class.

So Wrath is upon us, and we can finally start leveling our Death Knights on the live servers. That's right, this time it's for keeps. I'm pretty excited about that. One thing, though, that I haven't gotten to do yet on live servers is tank a dungeon. It's not that I don't want to, it's that 98% of the people leveling through Outland right now are Death Knights, so finding a healer is a bit difficult. Still, I did my fair share of tanking on Beta servers, and I played a Druid tank for years, and I'm figuring I'll do my fair share of tanking again at 80. Thus, I decided that this week is the perfect time to start getting ready to tank, even if Utgarde may be the first instance most Death Knights will get a group for.

Let's get down to the basics:

Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb is doing some last minute agonizing over what face to give his Death Knight on Thursday.

So there are quite a few of us, I imagine, who are still on track to switch to a Death Knight, or at least play one quite extensively, immediately when Wrath of the Lich King hits the live servers. But the fact remains that you'll be 15 levels behind everyone to start, and if you have friends to catch up to, you're going to want to get up there pretty quickly, most likely. Even if you plan to take it slow, you'll still want a good effective leveling build, most likely. So today, we'll look at three solid solo DPS builds from each tree, and discuss how to use them most effectively for grinding and leveling.

Welcome to this week's edition of Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb is totally bumming out that he won't be getting a sweet axe on his Death Knight.

I know a few of you have been asking for some good solid builds for powerleveling your Death Knight through Outland and through to Northrend, and I'm hoping to deliver soon enough, but unfortunately, it's hard for me to recommend something when it could very well change another couple times before release.

We're getting down to the wire, though, so it's likely the trees will solidify soon, and I'm hoping to have some recommendations on good Death Knight builds in the next week or two. For now, I've decided to take a look at one of the 51-point Death Knight talents to give you a taste of how things change in Beta. Specifically, I'm talking about Unholy Blight.

Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb wishes he could be doing Hallow's End achievements for his Death Knight on the live servers, where they count.

It's a fact of life. Burning Crusade is about to become obsolete. All those rep grinds, all those exalted purples, all those dungeon keys are just so much pretty little bank space wasters. Sure, gear lasts a little longer into Wrath, but for the most part, we're still going to be leaving it all behind for the new environs of Northrend, while Outland becomes a bump in the road to 80.

For Death Knights, this is probably still true. We're going to want to rush to get through Outland so we aren't desperately trying to find groups for Utgarde Keep while everyone else is getting Kel'thuzad on farm mode. But that means we'll have only the bare minimum of faction, no grind, no turn-ins, no purples. On the whole this is probably pretty much OK, since we'll be able to get good gear right out the gate in Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra. But is there still a reason to grind some of the Burning Crusade factions, or even to pay attention to them while leveling up?

Let's look at some of the factions you'll probably come across while speeding through Outland and what benefits they can offer the leveling knight.

Welcome to Lichborne, where each weekend, Daniel Whitcomb helps you keep pace with the ever-changing Death Knight class.

This week, While Death Knight tweaks continue, there's no big piece of news that really stands out. We got a nice bump in damage to our base weapon strikes, Death Coil, and the abilities that mimic them in the talent trees in the latest build. Unfortunately, poor Plague Strike still sits at a sort of dismal 30% weapon damage, meaning it still doesn't feel like it scales as well as it should. But preliminary reports are still that it's a noticeable DPS increase.

At the same time, our PvP utility and survivability was nerfed, but not in completely unexpected ways. Chains of Ice is dispellable again, as the devs felt that between it and Death Grip, it was far too hard to get away from a Death Knight. Again, this nerf is somewhat expected, if not needed, although some argue the nerf is unfair in the face of other classes that have similar abilities to ensnare and entrap opponents. I have to admit that I'm hoping we see, at the least, Chains of Ice getting put on Virulence. If nothing else, that Glyph of Blood Boil is looking a lot nicer.

Still, none of the news really jumps out and grabs me, and with the beta patches coming fast and furious, it's hard to write with any authority on something that may be changed next week. With that in mind, I've decided this week to post on a potpourri of odds and ends from around the World of Warcraft as they relate to Death Knights, both stuff that refers back to previous columns and new observations. Read on:

Welcome to Lichborne, where we ask the tough questions: Will Death Knights be ready for launch? Will they really have 3 trees that can tank and DPS? And what kind of a ghoul name is Eyeslobber?

Ghouls have been one of my most beloved features of the Death Knight for some now. I like having an undead squire by my side, and they can be pretty useful for some extra dps and even some lifesaving interference in a pinch. However, they also felt like one of the least firmed up aspects of a Death Knight for some time now, with abilities coming and going on a patchly basis, and bugs that kept the ghoul from being summoned or allowed to summon a massive army of ghouls in no time flat.

Still, they have their uses, and despite still being incredibly flimsy healthwise, do offer a decent amount of extra damage when they're up. The drawback is that 50 silver is a lot for a pet that lasts less than 5 minutes, and without points in the Unholy tree, the Ghoul is completely uncontrollable, and may have a tendency to run into suicidal situations without listening to a word you say.

As far as perfecting the Ghoul and deciding on its place in the class, there seems to be two schools of thought. The first, mostly made of Unholy specced Death Knights, sees the Ghoul as a fun and useful part of the class, and wants to see it tweaked to have good survivability, good dps, and generally be worth keeping out. The other class see Ghouls as mostly a novelty, a thing to be bought out occasionally, and such a pain to upkeep that they don't really want to have to deal with it as a pillar of the class. They'd rather be able to forget it exists when they want to.

Both positions have their passionate supporters, but Blizzard seems to have found a rather ingenious way to give both sides what they want: Talents. Recent talent changes provide a lot of buffs, and if you collect them all, you should have a much easier time using your ghoul to your hearts content.

Welcome to Lichborne, your (slighty late this week) weekly window into the zen of being a Death Knight.

As the dev team works to firm up Death Knights and get them ready for release, there is a debate that rages on among beta testers and the Death Knight community at large. I don't mean whether the recent huge nerf to Death Knight damage was justified. Rather, the argument I'm talking about is over the clash of 2-handers and dual wielding.

2-handers have been the Death Knight weapon of choice in the modern era of the game up until recently. Frostmourne, the ultimate Death Knight weapon, is a massive two-handed claymore. In the early to middle part of the classic end game, Baron Rivendare was the Death Knight that loomed large in everyone's thoughts, and he too wielded a much coveted two-handed runeblade.

Because of this, many Death Knights have no plans to ever pick up 2 weapons. The massive bloody two-handed runeblade is the classic Death Knight emblem. It's part of the lore and the feel of the class and, they say, there's no reason to change it.. At the same time, many other Death Knights say that dual wielding is here to stay. New prominent Death Knights such as Lord Darion Morgraine dual wield. It's now part of the lore, and 2-handed lovers should just suck it up.

Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly weekend look at the first hero class, the Death Knight. Daniel Whitcomb is back after dealing with some light administrative work back at the Ebon Hold.

Inscription seems to be coming on to the beta server in bits and pieces, especially when it comes to the much looked for glyphs. One or two classes seem to trickle in each build, and in the latest build, it is the Death Knight's turn. Today, we'll take a quick look at the new Death Knight glyphs, and figure out how useful they'll be to the various playstyles and specs of the Death Knight. As always, it's worth noting that these are beta numbers, so things could change by the time Inscription and Death Knights see the light of day on live servers.

Typically, every week, Lichborne has Daniel pontificating about the important aspects of the upcoming Death Knight class. This week, however, Zach takes over as Daniel is stuck in Ebon Hold on official Death Knight business.

This week on Lichborne, we'll set aside looking at talents and abilities which seem very much in flux but instead focus on the potential problem of having to catch up with other classes. While the World of Warcraft's first Heroic class gets the advantage of jump-starting at Level 55, the reality is that a vast portion of the playing community will be trudging their way to Northrend while your Death Knight is just about to set foot in Hellfire Peninsula.

The trouble with this is that Outland and all its instances will no longer be the endgame. For the Death Knight, Outland is merely transitionary to the new endgame and there are no real upgrades worth pursuing -- even in the Level 70 instances. Most blues and even the epics from Heroics will be quickly replaced within a few hours of questing in Northrend. Similar to how The Burning Crusade effectively killed instances like Stratholme, Scholomance, and Upper Blackrock Spire, most Death Knights will skip the high level instances in Outland. Lichborne regular columnist Daniel put up a great guide for Outlands gear, and those be... serviceable until you hit the new continent.