Death Knight Leveling Guide

• Author: Luxrah
• Date: March 2, 2025
• Updated: March 3, 2025
• Expansion: Mists of Pandaria

The Death Knight was the first hero class introduced in World of Warcraft. Once champions of the Lich King, they broke away from his control to aid the Alliance and Horde in the war against the Scourge. Despite the addition of another new class in Mists of Pandaria, the DK retains all of its original heavy metal charm, including its unique starting experience and Deathcharger mount. As the only class that starts above level 1, you’ll have a solid head start in leveling. But even starting out at level 55, you still have 35 levels to go before you reach the endgame.

With the changes to classes and talent trees in Mists of Pandaria, there is less of a gradual introduction to your abilities than there was back in Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm. Where Death Knights previously acquired their abilities one by one as they cleared the starting zone, you’ll now start with several abilities, and you’ll have to choose 4 of your 6 talents within the first 5 levels. You can even apply glyphs to 4 of your 6 glyph slots right off the bat. That might make the class a bit overwhelming at first, but this guide should help!

Strengths

• Starts at level 55, which gives you a serious head start in the leveling process.
• Death Gate has a short 1-minute cooldown and provides access to class trainers, basic vendors, and a target dummy, with the ability to return to your point of origin at any time. It also gives you access to portals to Orgrimmar and Stormwind in Acherus, which means you can set your Hearthstone to your current questing zone and still have an easy way to get back to your faction capital.
• Death Knights are heavily armored with strong defensive cooldowns and self-healing capabilities.
• You can easily chain mobs with Death Grip and the Glyph of Unholy Command.
• Getting from place to place is a breeze with Death’s Advance, On a Pale Horse, and Path of Frost.
• The ghoul pet adds some extra utility, especially for Unholy builds.

Weaknesses

• You must level another character to at least 55 before you will be able to create a Death Knight, and you can only have one Death Knight per realm.
• You don’t get a head start in your professions outside of First Aid, so you’ll need to do some remedial leveling to catch them up.

Talent Builds

Death Knights are a hybrid class with two damage specializations as well as a tank spec. All three builds are perfectly viable for leveling. If you want to be able to quickly burst through enemies, we recommend Frost. You can also level very quickly by playing a Blood tank and either running lots of dungeons or chaining large packs of mobs. Unholy is perfectly fine too, but it doesn’t have Frost’s up-front damage or Blood’s survivability, both of which make leveling and other solo content a bit smoother.

Talents

With the changes to talent trees, all three specializations now share the same set of options. Our recommendations are the same regardless of spec:

• Level 56: Plague Leech
  Blood or Unholy may prefer Roiling Blood if you’re frequently pulling large packs of mobs. Unholy Blight is more of a niche option for specific boss encounters.
• Level 57: Lichborne
  You’ll have more control over this than if you take Purgatory. Anti-Magic Zone isn’t as useful outside of group content.
• Level 58: Death’s Advance
  Movement speed is king for fast questing and leveling. The other two options, Chilblains and Asphyxiate, are solid crowd control options, but you typically won’t want to give up Death’s Advance.
• Level 60: Death Pact
  This is a convenient healing cooldown to have on hand that doesn’t cost your Death Knight anything to use whereas Death Siphon and Conversion both require that you sacrifice damage dealing resources to use them.
• Level 75: Blood Tap
  The best of three resource generation options, although Runic Empowerment and Runic Corruption are also good.

Glyphs

Like talents, our choices for glyphs are the same regardless of your build. Glyphs generally have a more subtle impact than they did in previous expansions, so feel free to trade any of these for something that better suits your preferences or playstyle.

Major

• Level 55: Glyph of Dark Succor
  A little extra healing to help you chain pull mobs.
• Level 55: Glyph of Unholy Command
  Keeping with the theme of chain pulling, you can now Death Grip again every time you kill a mob.
• Level 75: Glyph of Regenerative Magic
  This will let you use your Anti-Magic Shell more often, which is also useful for chain pulling.

Minor

• Level 55: Glyph of Death Gate
  Because sometimes you need to peace out.
• Level 55: Glyph of Path of Frost
  The only thing worse than accidentally auto-running off a cliff is having to ghost run clear across the zone because you died from the damage.
• Level 75: Glyph of Resilient Grip
  More likely to be useful than the other options, which are mostly cosmetic.

Stat Priority

Always try to stack your main stat above all (Strength for Frost and Unholy, or Stamina for Blood).

Equipment

Death Knights are able to equip Axes, Maces, and Swords (both One-Handed and Two-Handed) as well as Polearms. You should always try to use whichever weapon gives you the best stats, with the best weapon usually being a Two-Handed weapon. Weapon upgrades will often be the biggest damage increase while leveling. Since most of your abilities scale off of Weapon Damage, every upgrade will be a big boost! If you’re using an Heirloom weapon, it will upgrade automatically each time you level.

Death Knights are able to equip any kind of armor, but you will always want to wear Plate Armor due to your Plate Specialization passive ability, which gives a 5% buff to your most important stat. Although they can tank, Death Knights cannot equip Shields.

Heirlooms

Heirlooms can considerably speed up the leveling process by granting you increased experience gains and making your character a lot stronger. They’re also a lot more convenient than having to replace your gear every few levels. To get heirloom equipment for your Death Knight, you’ll have to buy it on another character who has enough of an appropriate currency.

Any heirloom gear is better than nothing. If you happen to have some lying around after leveling another character, feel free to use them rather than buying new ones (as long as the stats are good for you). But these are the best pieces for each build if you’re looking to purchase some Heirlooms specifically for leveling your Death Knight:

Professions

Since you start at level 55, most professions will require you to trudge through lower level zones to get them caught up to your current level range. While it can be more efficient in the long run to level professions at the same time that you level your character, it will significantly slow down the leveling process for a Death Knight due to this backtracking. With that said, the three gathering professions – Herbalism, Mining, and Skinning – each offer useful passive bonuses that can help you in your journey, even if you don’t bother to level them.

Crafting professions require a bit more work (or a lot of gold to buy the materials on the Auction House), but they can provide powerful items to make leveling smoother. Blacksmithing and Engineering both offer some very useful gear and utility for Death Knights. You can also get a head start on whichever professions you wish to focus on in the endgame, or choose professions that will be useful to your other characters in the meantime.

You do get a head start in First Aid, where you start out at 270 skill level. You’ll acquire plenty of cloth in your starting zone to level this enough to train Master First Aid when you are able to get to a trainer. Bandages can come in handy, so it’s a good idea to keep up with this profession as you level.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that gathering with Archaeology, Herbalism, and Mining gives character experience as well as profession experience. (Skinning does not.) The amount of experience you gain doesn’t really make up for the extra time you need to spend leveling them, but at least it’s something.

Rotation

Now that you’re all set up, let’s talk about how to actually play!

Blood

• Be sure that you have Blood Presence up at all times.
• Apply your diseases:
  • Cast Outbreak if it’s available (level 81+).
  • Otherwise cast Icy Touch followed by Plague Strike.
• Cast Blood Boil if you are fighting 4 or more enemies that have your diseases on them.
• Cast Death and Decay on cooldown if you are fighting 2 or more enemies.
• Cast Death Strike if you have Runes available.
• Cast Heart Strike if you have Blood Runes available (level 60+).
• Cast Rune Strike if you have Runic Power available (level 65+).
• Cast Horn of Winter (level 65+).

Frost

• Be sure that you have Frost Presence up at all times.
• Apply your diseases:
  • Cast Outbreak if it’s available (level 81+).
  • Otherwise cast Howling Blast followed by Plague Strike.
• Cast Howling Blast if you have a Rime proc.
• Cast Obliterate if you have a Killing Machine proc (level 63+).
• Cast Frost Strike if you have enough Runic Power.
• Cast Horn of Winter (level 65+).
• Cast Obliterate to get Runic Power.

Unholy

• Be sure that you have Unholy Presence up at all times.
• Apply your diseases:
  • Cast Outbreak if it’s available (level 81+).
  • Otherwise cast Howling Blast followed by Plague Strike.
• Cast Dark Transformation if it’s available (level 70+).
• Cast Scourge Strike if you have Unholy Runes available.
• Cast Death Coil if you have enough Runic Power.
• Cast Horn of Winter (level 65+).
• Cast Festering Strike (level 62+).

Where To Level

Once you have your Death Knight’s talents, equipment, and rotation all figured out, it’s time to put them to use. The best places to level will always be zones and instances where the enemies are close to your level.

The Death Knight Starting Zone

You’ll spawn at level 55 inside Acherus: The Ebon Hold, a scourge necropolis that is positioned near the Eastern Plaguelands. This starting zone is exclusive to Death Knights, so you won’t see any other classes running around. You also won’t be able to leave and experience the rest of Azeroth until you complete the initial storyline.

Standing immediately in front of you is The Lich King, who offers your first quest. While some of the quests are optional, it’s highly recommended that you complete them all. Some offer significant rewards which will become unavailable when you progress past a certain point in the quest chain.

1. In Service Of The Lich King
2. The Emblazoned Runeblade
3. Runeforging: Preparation For Battle
4. The Endless Hunger
5. The Eye of Acherus
6. Death Comes From On High
7. The Might Of The Scourge
8. Report To Scourge Commander Thalanor
   • The Power Of Blood, Frost And Unholy
9. The Scarlet Harvest
10. If Chaos Drives, Let Suffering Hold The Reins
    • Tonight We Dine In Havenshore
    • Death’s Challenge
    • Abandoned Mail
    • Grand Theft Palomino
    • Into The Realm of Shadows
11. Gothik the Harvester
12. The Gift That Keeps On Giving
13. An Attack Of Opportunity
14. Massacre At Light’s Point
15. Victory At Death’s Breach!
16. The Will Of The Lich King
17. The Crypt of Remembrance
    • The Plaguebringer’s Request
    • Noth’s Special Brew
    • More Skulls For Brew (repeatable)
18. Nowhere To Run and Nowhere To Hide
    • Lambs to the Slaughter
19. How To Win Friends And Influence Enemies
20. Behind Scarlet Lines
21. The Path Of The Righteous Crusader + Brothers In Death
22. Bloody Breakout
23. A Cry For Vengeance!
24. A Special Surprise
25. A Sort Of Homecoming
26. Ambush At The Overlook
27. A Meeting With Fate
28. The Scarlet Onslaught Emerges
29. Scarlet Armies Approach
30. The Scarlet Apocalypse
31. An End To All Things…
32. The Lich King’s Command
33. The Light of Dawn
34. Taking Back Acherus
35. The Battle For The Ebon Hold
36. Where Kings Walk/Warchief’s Blessing

Beyond the Starting Zone

After completing the starting experience, your Death Knight will be sent to your faction’s capital city, where you can continue leveling like any other character. A good place to start is the Hero’s Call Board in the center of The Trade District in Stormwind City or the Warchief’s Command Board in front of Grommash Hold at The Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar.

Be sure to speak with an Innkeeper so you can pick up a Hearthstone, as you won’t have one when you start out. You might also want to hit up some profession trainers, or head to the Auction House to purchase some glyphs or upgrade your 12-slot bags.

As far as where you should go next, it’s always a good idea to start in the next expansion’s zones as soon as you’re able to. The experience will be better, and even random Uncommon loot will offer better stats than most of the gear you can get from the previous expansion’s content. Therefore you’ll want to head to Outland first, and then go to Northrend when you reach level 68, Cataclysm zones at 78, and Pandaria at level 85.

If you’re not worried about taking the fastest, most direct path to level 90, feel free to break up your leveling process by trying out different activities. There are plenty of things to do in World of Warcraft that grant experience besides questing and killing mobs. You can get a little bit of experience from gathering with Archaeology, Herbalism, or Mining. You can run dungeons with other players, or compete against them in PvP battlegrounds. The new pet battle system also gives experience.