Death Knight Starter Quests Improve With Age

(Warning: Possible spoilers ahead. Those of you who haven’t done the Death Knight starter quests, or haven’t done them in a long time, and would like to be surprised when you do them, feel free to skip this entry.)

Like most everyone else, I rolled a Death Knight the day after Wrath of the Lich King came out.

Like most everyone else, I finished the whole starter questchain because it was a rather captivating experience.

…and like a lot of people, my first Death Knight sits at level 58 because at the time, the Hellfire Peninsula quests were being camped so badly that it was like a foreshadowing of Noblegarden egg-hunting or something.

I always intended on making a second Death Knight sometime later, when all the initial hype and “PRESS 1 FOR HORSE” General Chat spam had died down, but I also wanted to do it when I knew I would have time to do it all in one sitting or close to it. So when I had a few hours to myself last night, I rolled up a shiny new Tauren Death Knight. Because I am an RP-geek, I wanted a name that was both Taureny and DeathKnighty, so I named her Bryonia, after an herb that causes “a profuse and uncontrollable diarrhoea, vomiting, vertigo, reduction of temperature, dilatation of the pupils, cold perspiration, extremely small pulse, colic, collapse, and death”. Sounds good, no?

Anyways the Death Knight starting quests were as wonderful the second time as they were the first, and I’d argue even more so. Ya know why? Cause now that I’ve played a good deal of Wrath of the Lich King, a lot of the references that I hadn’t noticed the first time are very potent and, in many cases, absolutely hilarious. Observe:

wow_thassarian

Oh my gosh! It’s Thassarian! You know, the guy who has a whole super long and awesome questline dedicated to him in Borean Tundra and who now flies around Icecrown! *gasp*

wow_razuvious

Show him what you’ve got!

wow_gothik

Poor Gothik. He finally gets a vacation and he’s still got work on the brain. For the record, and The Boyfriend can probably confirm– this made me laugh harder than anything else in WoW ever has, ever. Oh, and Gothik is also responsible for coining the phrase “Vacuum Cleaner of Souls” later on in this particular questline. Snaps for you, Gothik… snaps for you.

“Noth, where is Heigan?”

wow_noth1

wow_noth2

I’m thinking Noth is just bitter because he can’t dance. (In other news, I’d pay good money to see Heigan hosting an episode of Mousercise).

wow_mograine

ZOMG! Corrupted Ashbringer!

patchwerk

Aww, poor guy. /sniff. I gotta say though, what I wouldn’t give for a sound bite of “Loan make Patchwerk ANGRY!” to play over the phone to telemarketers.

wow_fightingpatchwerk2

Even in the DK starter zone he’s a tough cookie; enrages at the end and everything. Thanks, temporary invincibility buff!

Baron Rivendare was there too although I didn’t snag a screenshot, perhaps because it seems like he’s everywhere (Naxx, Stratholme, et al.) I did notice he’s actually pretty good looking though. I think it’s the hair. But yeah, good times, good times. DK quests are definitely worth a do-over if you’re someone who hasn’t visited Acherus since November; it’s better the second time.

My spec? Unholy, of course. Ghoul Frenzy is hot-keyed to my Bestial Wrath button. /grin

17 thoughts on “Death Knight Starter Quests Improve With Age”

  1. Henceforth I will be calling you Profuse Diarrhoea, or perhaps Admiral Diarrhoea. Hope you don’t mind ^_^

    Also yeah prolly worth me going back and making a new DK to check this all out again, and see things I missed first time around because homg lol they’re begging me to stop but I won’t stop ever until they’re all dead.

    As an aside, reading the books about the Lich King’s philosophy, I’m struck by two things: One, why does he need to proselytize to the brainwashed minions? Two, what if I actually… you know… agree with him?

  2. “Patchwerk want to play!”

    I love those quests. I keep rerolling my death knight on my main realm just so I can do those quests over and over again.

  3. mooohahaha (couldn’t resist the evil cow chuckle)

    Seriously, the DK starting area is my favorite new player start, followed by the space goats and the blood elves (tie for second). but whatever may come.. you can’t pay me enough to do westfall again.

    I started a second one (different server obviously) to act as my erm.. cash cow. to help me with my lowbies. (lvl 10 belf mage, lvl 10 belf pally, lvl 17 tauren druid)

    money for training is never a problem when you have someone in outland or beyond.

    I found the quests more meaningful the second time around, after going through northrend, you hit it right on pike. and soloing patchwerk is a real pain.. unless you pull him away from the other aboms, then it’s merely challenging.

  4. Hehe, yeah, that was a fun few hours.

    ‘Siouxsie the Banshee’ made me laugh – old goth band from the 80s in case you’re a youngster!

    Got bored of DK play style quite quickly though, and also the fact that *everyone* seems to play one (badly!) on my server, so the loot-rolling competition is horrible.

    I just use the poor guy as another bank mule these days. And I make him wear a pink dress. For some reason this makes a lot of other DK players rather angry;)

  5. I’ve always said Death Knights are the new hunter. Everyone and their mother will have one and true to the hunter dogma, the vast majority of them will be extremely bad at it. I’ve had friends and guildies talk about death knights at level 80 doing like 1100 dps. My level 70 shaman can do that. A well-played death knight is like a well-played hunter. You will notice, and fast.

  6. I did enjoy the quests the second or third time around much better. I loved all the catty remarks and interesting little quotes. Having clever and fun quest notes is a present to all of us who actually -read- their quests.

    I play on more than one server and had two death knights back when you couldn’t have one without having someone over 50 on the server first. I tried blood with one but it just couldn’t compare to unholy for me probably for the same reason that nothing really compares to Beast master in the hunter line.

    “Loan make patchwork angry!” Its great to catch those timely funny screenshots. I am sure all those with loans out there wish they could tell their bank that.

  7. I think I have at least 7 or 8 DK’s that have finished the starter zones in their respective realms. I might be burned out now on those quests, but I will admit that they are the most brilliantly designed quests, both mechanically and lore-wise.

  8. I’ve never actually made a DK, my account remains free of Death Knights. However I have been toying with making one to go through the quests and then retire to the quiet life of finance as a banker.
    And really, it’s not that big a step from spreading plague, death, misery, pain and anguish while gathering souls, shattering families and pressing the downtrodden and defeated into hapless servitude to banking.

  9. The Baron. Ah, THE Baron. He’s gotta be my favorite. I think The Lich King liked him enough to raise him a **second** time after Stratholme….almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

  10. I finally got WotLK in January, so I never got to experience the ‘OMG BRAND NEW EXPANSION TIS IS AWESOME!! WOTLK FTW!!!’ of the first day. Damn.

  11. 🙂 at the Tauren Death Knight. I just wish I had time to level mine. He is stuck at 61 not 58 though. Every once in awhile I’ll let him venture out of Thrallmar for a couple minutes to Death Grip some helboars. The other thing I regret is that I made him before those cool extra “icy” skins (“plague” too) came out. And I really like the icy skin to go with my frost DK (never could get into blood or unholy). I’d reroll just for the new skin but I had started leveling herbalism and inscription by hand (as opposed to by AH) and I’m really too far into it to want to start that over. I still need to do one more round of herb gathering in STV before I can level either profession any more. Plus I’m stingy with my RL money, don’t want to pay to revisit the character creation screen. :p

  12. Lol, DKs are funny, I have one, A Female human DK, named “Salamanta” (salamanta is a endemic snake of my country), ans she´s in 76 now. And yes all my playing chars have a Snake-inspired name.

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