This weekend saw me take my first epic steps into the new WotLK content, and touch down in Northrend for the first time in Howling Fjord.

I got my Death Knight to lv69 in Blades Edge Mountain and Netherstorm, then got on the zeppelin and was greeted with the site you see in the little banner above. I enjoyed the first batch of quests here greatly. Doing bombing runs, boarding ships and killing sailors, feeding plaguehounds, all the fun stuff. I also stumbled upon a couple of fine examples of new marine life, which I had not previously seen in WoW:

That’s right, WoW now has killer whales and hammerhead sharks, what more could you ask for?

The next few batches of quests seem a little… disjointed. You’re sent running from one area to another, only having a couple of quests to do at a time. You then end up running back to the place you were just at to do a follow-up, but without any others to go with it. It doesn’t feel like you’re doing things very efficiently, but I’ve managed to get from 69 to halfway through 70, so I guess it’s working anyway.

The quests themselves and the mobs you fight are great though. Sure there’s still elementals and what-not, but there’s a whole ream of new mobs that are all cool, and really really big. I especially like the giant Viking guys, much fun.

Yes, that is a picture of a big crit, so what?

• Path of Frost - This skill is simply awesome. Places like Zangamarsh, and getting to that altar in Nagrand are infinitely less painful when you can just ride over large bodies of water on your mount. You don’t even have to dismount to activate it!

• Zombie Names - When specced deep enough into the Unholy tree, your summoned ghoul becomes a semi-permanent pet. They have randomly generated names like the warlock ones, except you get a different name each time you summon one. These are entertaining, if slightly predictable. It just makes the class feel cool anyway. I like to make up little back stories for each one, and hope that I see them again at some point. I’ve yet to encounter one called Bub yet though, I hope that name is a possibility…

• Pestilence - Once you’ve applied all your diseases/debuffs to a mob, you can use this skill to spread the love around. Then maybe a quick Blood Boil to add a little damage. So far the main benefit of this to me is just to slow all the mobs attack speeds and slap a dot onto them, saves tabbing between targets. I suspect that when combined with Death and Decay it helps tanking Death Knights generate some AOE threat.

• Agro in general - I had a lv80 Shadow Priest friend come help me with a few group quests in hellfire the other day (having said that, he wouldn’t have been 80 at the time, but somewhere in the 70s anyway). Slapping on Frost Presence meant I got agro most of the time without even trying. I don’t think Death Knight will have many problems generating threat.

• Zombie Vaulting - When you send your ghoul to attack it has a move similar to a boar charge or whatever. However he basically flings himself in an arc towards the mob. I’m not entirely sure why, but this tickles me in ways the undead are not usually able to, and the undead tickle me in many ways.

• Zombie of Redemption - i forget what the actual talent is called, but part-way down the Unholy line you have a talent which is somewhat skin to the priests Spirit of Redemption Holy talent. It basically allows you to come back as a ghoul for a while after you die. I took this talent and completely forgot about it (as DK is imba and you never die) and finally got my comeuppance a few levels later when trying to kill 6 orcs at once. I was rather surprised when I appeared as a zombie, but more than a little pleased. I finished off the remaining orcs, and eventually collapsed to the floor myself, but it was awesome.

Current Progress

Schoz is currently 60% of the way through level 68, less than 2 levels until 70 and I can experience the new WotLK areas for the first time! I promised myself I wouldn’t go either before 70, or on any other character. Once I start playing with other characters that’s it for me, so I’m trying my best to stick to my Death Knight for now. 70 will be attained this weekend, and then the leveling will probably slow down as I spend my time pootling (that’s a technical term) around the new areas.

Spec

As far as specs go, I’ve switched back to Blood as I’ve found that the most fun so far. I’m currently specced 45/13/0 picking up the talents for increased attack speed and the one that stops Obliterate from consuming my diseases in Frost. I’m currently finishing off the last few talents in Blood, I imagine I’ll respec again soon once I can get a more complete build. I’ve taken slightly less of the regen talents than I had before, focusing primarily on the Rune Tap And Bloodworm talents for regen, and put everything else into DPS (and the Frost tree). This is serving me well so far, I still don’t need to eat or bandage when questing, unless maybe I fight 3 mobs at once. I haven’t taken Hysteria in this build, as it drains HP, and also I’ve tried to focus more on the “always on” type skills while questing. I don’t like having to think.

I have to say, I love the Blood Tree. My Rune Strikes are critting for around 2500 at the moment, which I can then follow up with an Obliterate and then a Heart Strike in quick succession, quest mobs die fast. I still haven’t tried the Frost tree properly. It looks nice and all, but there doesn’t seem to be anything that cool looking in it that actually tempts me into trying it. I’m sure I will at some point though.

Skills

Speaking of Rune Strike I must say I love this skill. It costs like 20 Runic Power, which you always have as blood spec, activates off dodges or parries (mobs dodge me a lot) and does a metric tonne of damage. The only downside is that it activates on the next melee attack. This does allow you to chain some of your moves together nicely though.

Oh. My. God!

Everyone logging in today will get a pet Blizzard Bear, to celebrate WoW’s 4th anniversary. He’s adorable, I call him Dumbles.

Awesome. I love fluff.

The most recent spec I’ve tried, albeit for only a short time, is Unholy with Frost. I started off dropping 18 points into the Frost tree, to pick up Icy Talons for the attack speed, general increases in frost damage, and the improved dual wield talent. I think put the rest of my points into Unholy, giving me a starting build of 0/18/37. My main objectives in the Unholy tree were; desecration (+5% damage), Master of Ghouls (constant pet), Necrosis (extra 10% shadow damage), Bone Shield (damage reduction), Crypt Fever (increase in disease damage) and Blood-Caked Blade (damage proc off auto attacks). The rest of the talents went into general DPS/stat increases, rather than anything that gave me specific skills.

So, I equipped my two trusty Grunt’s Waraxes and off I went. My fights generally seemed to follow this order:

Icy Touch > Plague Strike >Blood Strike > Blood Strike > *Death Strike / Obliterate

* Death Strike is used if HP is needed, which is a lot more regularly than when I was specced Blood

My first thought when trying this was that it was a little less satisfying than when I was specced into Blood. You dont get the big crits, or the bursty feel. However, after a few fights, I’m pretty sure the mobs were dropping just that little bit quicker. With the constant DPS of your little pet, the +5% damage from desecration, and the general DPS of dual wield and the procs from Unholy, the mobs were dropping in seconds.

The only real downside I found was that I had to manage my health levels a bit more closely. I had to use Death Strike significantly more, due to the lack of regen from general DPS, and without Rune Tap it was necessary to use it more just to make sure my HP didn’t slowly creep in the wrong direction. If you remember to keep Bone Shield up as often as possible though I found that it worked just fine. Your HP still pings up and down way more than when you’re blood specced, but you can still carry on grinding indefinitely without having to rest.

On the whole, Unholy somehow seems a little less distinctive in it’s playstyle than Blood, even though in theory it gives you more variety. I’m really enjoying it though, and will probably stick with it for at least a level or two. I’m then planning on trying some sort of tri spec; aiming to get some regen talents from Blood, 20 or so crit/damage talents from Frost, and the rest from Unholy. Whether this will be effective or not I’m unsure, but there’s only one way to find out!