There’s no denying that the new Death Knight class is one of the major selling points of the upcoming World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion. And I guess as far as marketing goes, it worked pretty well, because the first thing I did upon getting into the beta was to create my own Death Knight and fool around. So here’s a brief overview of what’s in store for those of us who try out the Death Knight (referred to as a "DK" from now on) when the expansion comes out.

But first, there are a few non-DK related changes that pop out right away if you’re a long time WoW player. They’ve made some changes to the UI. The first one I noticed was that there was now a ‘pet’ tab at the bottom of my character sheet – despite not being a pet class. So what’s in there? It’s essentially a list of all your vanity pets and mounts, which you can then summon from this screen: no longer will they cause encumbrance issues. Blizzard said they’d do it, and this is a very elegant way to go about it. As an addendum, it’s actually pretty hilarious how many DKs were asking “How do I summon my mount?” upon completing their mount quest – I guess everybody was still looking for the reins in their bags.

While I was perusing these lists and oohing and aahing, something else in the upper-right corner of my map caught my eyes. It was a calendar. That's right Blizzard has added a calendar to the UI for us. It even has the daily or weekly game-sponsored events like the Darkmoon Faire and Fishing Contests already in there. No more wondering when you can try to get that cool fishing hat or where you need to go for those tickets. In fact, one can only assume that you might be able to use this to mark down guild raid and such, removing one layer of dependency on guild websites.

Now onto the DK himself! I’m not going to spend too much time or go into too much detail about his specific abilities and talent trees, (maybe in a future article, ;) ) since things are extremely volatile right now. There have been 2 patches since the last Beta invite push, and several changes to both the abilities and trees.

Regardless, you start off as a brand new level 55 DK in Ebon Hold. This is the starting area/capital for the DK and it is a floating necropolis that hovers over the plagueland. Your DK starts off with a good green items and quickly goes on his way in many quests fighting against the Scarlet Crusade, designed to teach you how to play the new class… Most quests reward you with Talent Points (You start with 0 and slowly build your way up,) and some quests reward you with blue quality items that are much better than any blue you could get in old world content. By the time you are ready to leave the DK newbie zone, you are a fully decked-out killing machine, who looks quite good slaughtering your enemies to boot.

Speaking of the newbie zone, it starts out pretty tame. Sure, Blizzard does a nice job of making the Necropolis look suitably creepy… but it’s nothing overly impressive either. The first few quests in the plaguelands are fun, but still your pretty standard ‘Kill and Collect’ quests. In fact, at first I was a bit underwhelmed. But don’t let that first impression get to you – The starter zone is actually instanced. Without giving too much away, let's just say that as you pursue your quests, the world around you changes to reflect what you have done. This is unlike anything else in the game and something many an old-time MMORPG fan has wished for – a world that reacts to your actions. As the conflict between good and evil escalates within your soul, so does the battle with the Scarlet Crusade, and eventually, it all comes down to a massive showdown.

I must say, that I personally didn’t feel quite satisfied with the reason the Ebon Hold DKs forsake the Lich King and start fighting against him. The way it plays out is nicely executed... but the actual dramatic impact they were going for fell short for me. Despite that, the starting experience for the Death Knight is hands down one of the best 3 hours of gameplay WoW has given me over the years and it is quite immersive.

Perhaps the biggest complaint that can be levied against it is that once you’re done, (You’ll be level 57-58, depending on how much mob killing you did,) you’re simply thrown out into the normal world...and all of a sudden, it all seems so pale and dreary compared to what you just left. Blizzard has increased the amount of xp gained while in Outland to speed up the levelling process, (something they say will be incorporated in the live game as well,) but it still feel like you’re being sent to your room to do your homework after your dad brought you to the ball game.

But hey, at least you’re playing a brand new class, with brand new abilities.

And oh my, are those abilities something. The DK is hands down the flashiest class in the game, even his basic abilities have more of an ‘oomph’ factor to their animations than most 41-point talents currently in the game.

And you are powerful.

Speaking to higher level DKs and visiting the beta forum, it is clear that the DK was balanced with the idea of being level 70-80 in mind… the class simply crushes outland content currently. You’re quite capable of pulling several mobs with no downtime, and solo pretty much any elite that stands in your way. A good example of this is the quest " Colossal Menace ," which is suggested for 2 players… but my level 61 DK had no problem whatsoever manhandling the elite colossi.

The DK doesn’t play like any other class in the game. Yes, there’s some element of Rogue, Warrior and I’d dare say even Hunter (if you’re playing Unholy spec and thus have control over your Ghoul) to it, but it feels distinct and different all the same. The class isn’t for those with a short attention span, as you need to keep track of 4 different energy types – Your 3 Runes which all have their own timer, and Runic Power, which goes up and down according to how many runes you use during the fight. It is a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get into the proper groove (http://wow.allakhazam.com/wiki/Death_Knight's_Basic_Gameplay ), it’s not that bad.

The talent trees (http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent ) themselves have a lot going on, most of them having so many good talents that it’s hard to pick and choose which one you’ll invest in. Playing as Blood, Frost or Unholy Death Knight greatly changes the way your character handles and interacts with the mobs. Blood is relentless and all about never stopping due to incredible self-healing, Frost is about being tough and having control over the opponent and unholy is just plain evil with massive shadow damage and advanced control over your ghoul.

The relation between the Death Knight and his pet ghoul is quite different than your typical pet class. The DK is not squishy – he can and will take hits. He is, in fact, much sturdier than his pet… in his case the pet is actually a dps helper. However unless you’re specced deep enough into unholy, the pet does nothing more than attack whoever you attack and you have no real control over it. Unholy DKs see their option open up, being able to use their pet for all the usual pet functions (draw aggro, use a decoy to escape, etc) on top of controlling their Ghoul’s Stun ability.

While the class is obviously going to change a lot and be balanced some more, it is apparent that Blizzard has put a lot of polish into the class already and that it will most likely be an awesome addition to World of Warcraft.