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Once you have created your Death Knight you will see that you have no talent points yet. That can be quite weird for a level 55 character but you shouldn’t worry. The quests in and around the Ebon Hold will all give you talent points. But how exactly should you use these to level up your Death Knight really fast?

Well, that’s what this guide is about. I will explain which talent build is nice and for what reason.

To start with I must say that the Death Knight is a great class that has nice abilities like a pet, great damaging spells, plate armor and heavy normal attacks. The talent trees are Blood, Frost, and Unholy.

What you are looking for while leveling is a build that allows you to continue fighting and speed you up in any other way possible. That’s the reason why I say that a Blood/Unholy build would be the best for leveling. Assuming that you will level solo, I have made the following build and you will see that this build is great for solo leveling:

Death Knight Leveling Guide

Let’s start with the Blood talents. Butchery is just great for leveling and should be taken no matter which build you decide to make if you want to level fast. Then you got some nice talents that improve your damage and then you see Rune Tap and the Improved Rune Tap talent. This is one of those talents that will keep you going because it will restore your HP. Then you have Vendetta, Mark of Blood, Blood Worms, Blood Aura, and Vampiric Blood that will also help you to keep your hit points up. With all these talents you basically can’t die while leveling.

With Hysteria, Hearth Strike, Might of Mograine, Blood Gorged and Dancing Rune Weapon you will have great damaging abilities.

The reason you should focus on Unholy a bit as well is that you will become a bit more effective when it comes to AoE damage with Morbidity and Corpse Explosion. Then you have a 5% Dodge chance through Anticipation and some extra stats from Shadow of Death. The reduced cooldown on Death Grip is also very handy. Last but definitely not least is On a Pale Horse. This talent is great for leveling and will reduce your traveling time. A side effect of this nice leveling talent is that your stun and fear effects will be reduced by 20%.

Altogether you can say that this build will keep you going because of all the health gaining abilities the Blood tree has to offer. The Blood tree also has a few nice damaging abilities while the Unholy tree adds a bit of AoE damage and reduces your traveling time. Nice thing about this talent tree is that you are also capable to deal with opponents in PvP situations, which is especially nice on PvP realms.

With the release of the WoTLK in mid November 2008, a new class, The Death Knight, was introduced.
The Death Knights are WoW’s first Hero Class. What this ‘Hero Class’ exactly means is unknown because they have not proven to be very different then other classes except for the facts that you need to have a level 55 or higher level character to create a Death Knight, that the Death Knight will start as a level 55 upon being created and that the Death Knight uses Runic Power to be able to use his abilities.

Once you create a Death Knight you will enter the game as a level 55 character that is loyal to Arthas the Lich King. You will start fully equipped with green gear and 4, 12 slot bags and 20 silver in Acherus - The Ebon Hold which can be found in the Eastern Plaguelands. As you start questing near The Ebon Hold you will be rewarded talent points and blue item and once you reach level 57 or so you will have the regular amount of talent points for that level and full blue gear.

I will not take away the fun by explaining the quest chain but I can tell you that the quest chain is cool and rewarding. You can reach level 58 in just an hour or two by doing the quests around The Ebon Hold so even if you do not intend to play a Death Knight it is nice to at least pick up some cool lore. Once you hit 58 you are able to go to the Outlands though and you know that the leveling there isn’t time-consuming, so who knows; even if you didn’t plan to play a Death Knight, you might still get stuck playing one because it is a cool class.

A Death Knight is a melee class that can wear most of the melee weapons. One can equip two one-handed weapons or choose for one two-handed weapon. He can serve as a melee damage dealer or as a tank. A Death Knight however, cannot equip a Shield. They are able to wear plate armor and are able to get a very high parry chance.

The Death Knight is a melee fighter that uses Runic Power for his special abilities, like said before. He has 6 runes that he can use by using certain abilities. These runes have a cooldown but do give the Death Knight some Runic Power. This Runic Power can then be used to use other special abilities that only cost Runic Power and do not place a rune on cooldown.

One of the first quests you will come across is called “The Emblazoned Runeblade”. This quest will give you the ability called Runeforging. This ability can be used to forge a rune on the DK’s weapons.

The Death Knight has three talent trees like any other class namely Blood, Frost and Unholy. Each tree gives advantages and it’s up to the player’s preference which talent tree, or combination of talent trees he would like to use.

The advantages of a Death Knight are that he starts at level 55, is very easy to level and can continue fighting for longer periods of time, can both tank and dps, they can have a Ghoul and Gargoyle pet and that they look sort of cool. The disadvantage of playing a Death Knight is that almost everybody has decided to play a Death Knight, which makes it harder to find groups and raids etc.

A Druid is a great class to level no matter if you choose to level as a Feral Druid or as a Balance Druid. Reason for this is that you are still able to heal up after you get some damage. In this article I will describe a great Feral Leveling build and a great Balance leveling build. The Restoration tree can be partially taken as you will see but a full Restoration build will slow down your leveling.

Feral Druid

As a Feral Druid that wants to level up fast you should specialize in your Cat Form ability because the damage done in Cat Form is better than the Bear Forms available. There are some talents that are better for Bears then for Cats so these can be skipped. Please note that this is a solo leveling build that focuses on maximizing the damage of your Cat Form.

Feral leveling build

Instead of saying why the talents that are chosen are chosen, I will tell you why you can skip the ones that are not:

Feral Instinct: Swipe is a Bear’s ability so you can skip it. The reduced chance to become visible is not important while leveling.

Thick Hide: This talent supports the tanking kind of Druids, not adding anything to quicker leveling.

Brutal Impact: It is more of a Bear ability since it reduces the cooldown of Bash and makes Bash last 1 more second. While for a cat it only gives an additional 1 second to his Pounce stun duration. It’s not bad though so that’s why you can spend a point here.

Natural Reaction: Pure Bear talent.

Primal Tenacity: Not good for leveling purposes since you will remain in Cat Form and fear and Stun effects are not a killer while leveling.

You should add some Restoration talents to this build because of three reasons: Improved Mark of the Wild which is still one of the better buffs out there, Naturalist which increases your damage done by 10%, and finally Omen of Clarity which gives you a chance to use your abilities without spending Energy.

Balance Druid

As a Balance Druid you just try to get as much possible damage but also don’t want to run out of mana too often.

Balance leveling build

Genesis:  Isn’t really worth it since Moonfire and Wasp Swarm are the only Dot’s that can be used.

Brambles: Yes, a lot of Entangling Roots can be used while leveling + Thorns, Bark skin and Treants boosted.

Improved Faerie Fire: More something for raids, you don’t want to spend time casting this on a mob.

Both the Feral and Balance talent build focus on maximizing the damage output. Why? Well the answer is simple; you don’t need a lot of survivability because you can heal up from time to time anyway.

Druids are not regular nature-loving beings. They have great powers and use the power given to them in various ways. They are shape shifters that can fill in any role as a spell casting damage dealer or healer, a tank or a melee damage dealer. The Druid can only be chosen by Tauren and Night Elf players.

They are capable to transform into a Bear or Dire Bear form which increases both hit points and armor and gives them some nice tanking abilities which can be used with the use of Rage which on its turn can be gained by dealing and receiving damage. They will receive several abilities that create a high amount of threat. The nice thing about a Druid tank is that they are capable to still do great amounts of damage compared to in example a Warrior tank.

If needed the Druids can also transform into Cat form which makes a Tauren change into a Lion, and a Night Elf into a Panther. In this form their attacks can be used with the use of Energy. In Cat form they receive some nice damaging abilities and their way of fighting can be compared to the Rogue’s fighting system, including combo points and finishing moves. Both the Bear and Cat form are boosted if one spends talents in the Feral talent tree of the Druid.

Melee damage is not the only type of damage a Druid can do. He also can be a great spell caster using both Nature and Arcane based spells. The Balance talent tree should be followed if you want to be a powerful spell casting damage dealer. In this talent tree, you will also be able to place a talent into the Moonkin and Improved Moonkin form. When this talent is chosen, the Druid can transform into a Moonkin, a big creature of the night, famous for his Britney Spears’ dance J. This form not only looks nice but also gives the player some nice boosts like a Spell Critical Strike Bonus, Armor, Haste Rating and bonus Spellpower. Most of these bonuses also apply on party members which makes a Moonkin a great addition to each group and raid.

Then there are the Restoration Druids. The Restoration Druids are great healers and have the most Heal over Time (HoT) spells available of all healer classes. They also have several instant heals (panic buttons). The Resto Druid focuses on healing and should max out the Restoration Talent tree. At some point one will be able to choose a form called Tree of Life. In this Form he will give a bonus to all healing done on targets in a group or raid. All HoTs can be cast at reduced costs in this form and also the power of the healing spells will be increased. He will also receive some bonus armor.

Then there are the Traveling Form and Sea Lion Form that can be obtained at lower levels. These Forms increase the run and swim speed of the Druid which is very nice for leveling and even handy when the level cap is hit. Lastly there is the Flight Form which instantly transforms the Druid into a flying bird. Nice about this is that this form can be obtained at level 68.

The advantage of a playing a Druid is that you can change your build when you get bored with one and turn your tank into a healer and back etc. whenever you like. You will not get bored easily with this character. Even as a DPS Druid you can still switch forms to heal or resurrect somebody with your combat rez. The disadvantage of Druid might also be his advantage. Being capable to do so many things might be the reason that he doesn’t excel at something like tanking, like a Warrior does, or healing like a Priest.

Hunters are known to be one of the easiest, if not easiest class to level. Send in your pet, put autofire on, go for a coffee, come back and see that your pet didn’t only kill the mob you wanted him to attack but also 3 other mobs that attacked you while you were AFK. No but seriously, a Hunter is easy to level.

How do your maximize your efficiency though and reach the level cap as soon as possible? The answer is quite easy for this one; The Beast Mastery Tree.

The Beast Mastery talent build will make your pet a lot stronger and this will make it easier for your pet to keep the enemy NPC’s attacking him while you do steady damage with your ranged weapon.

Here you can see a nice leveling build for a Hunter:

Hunter Leveling Build

Choose Hawk Eye and Lethal Shots to boost your damage and range a bit.

From the Beast Mastery talent tree you can skip Imp Aspect of the Monkey because you will not be the one taking the hits. Imp Revive Pet isn’t necessary for leveling. I would choose to put only one point into Imp Mend Pet because of the Dispelling purpose.

Thick Hide isn’t bad at all but I would rather go with some damage abilities instead of some bonus armor.

When you choose this build your pet will receive:

+10% Health
+10% Crit
+100% Focus Regeneration
+9% Dodge
+10% Attack speed
+15% Damage
+10% Movement speed
+4 Additional Skill points

This all together with a lot of nice abilities that will be gained in this talent tree like Intimidation, which make the pet stun a target and creates a high amount of threat, Bestial Wrath, which causes the pet to do 50% (!) bonus damage for 18 seconds.

The Hunter himself will also receive quite a few nice boosts through this talent tree like 20% Attack Speed, 5% Health, Improved Aspects and other nice boosts given through the pets abilities.

Besides these abilities the Hunter and his pet will also move around the areas quicker because the Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Pack abilities will become more effective, a 10% mounted speed increase is given as well as a 10% bonus to their normal running speed.

Another nice thing of this talent tree is that the Hunter can Tame some creatures that otherwise could not be Tamed.

Al together, the Beast Mastery talent tree is the way to go. The Marksmanship talent tree looks nice and it definitely gives a great boost to the Hunters damage. However, you will notice that your pet can’t keep the mobs on him and that they will come for you, which makes it all a bit less nice. The Survival talent tree is nice at later levels, especially for PvP.

The Hunter is a pure damage dealing class and isn’t able to either tank or heal. Their main damage comes from their ranged attacks which they make with a Gun, Bow, or Crossbow. The Hunter is well known for his ability to tame pets which can fight for him. The Tame Beast ability becomes available after doing some Hunter quests at level 10. Once you tame a beast you will be able to summon him whenever you please. You can also leave your pet at a stable, which can usually be found outside the Inn and near Hunter trainers, and tame another one. You can have two pets in your stable and one at your side and can then change pets for different occasions, think about a PvP-pet, Tank-pet, Damage-pet etc. The pets have recently obtained their own talent tree which makes them even more powerful than they were before the WoTLK.

A Hunter isn’t only about the pets he can use though. The Hunter will, in most cases, do a lot more damage than his pet still and has great abilities. The Hunter mainly fires shots and stings from a distance. However, he has great slowing abilities to keep enemies away from him like traps, and slowing shots. The Hunter is a versatile damage dealer that should move around a lot. Even though it is not often needed in PvE and while leveling because there is either a Tank or the Pet to keep the mobs on him, ‘kiting’ is sometimes needed and no class can do that as good as the Hunter.

The Hunter can Feign Death. This will save the Hunter in a lot of scenarios from being killed which will save him a lot of gold in the long run. The Hunter does have some other expenses other classes don’t have like the need for ammunition and food for their pet.

The Hunter can be played by Night Elves, Dwarves and Draenei of the Alliance and Taurens, Orcs and Trolls of the Horde.  The tree talent trees are called Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, and Survival. A combination of these talent trees is usually best even if it was just because on the top of each talent tree some nice talent can be found. On the top of the Beast Mastery talent tree you can find Improved Aspect of the Hawk, in the Marksmanship tree you have Lethal Shots, and in the Survival tree you got Hawk Eye. All three of these are great talents.

From there on one can choose if he or she wants to follow one tree or still make sort of a hybrid build. The Beast Mastery talent tree will boost the power of a Hunters pet mainly, even though it also has some nice features that will strengthen the Hunter. The Marksmanships tree gives the Hunter’s shots and stings more power and also provides him with some new shots. Same goes for the Survival build but this tree also focuses on the survival capabilities off the Hunter as well which makes this tree great for PvP.

As a Mage you have some great advantages while leveling. Of course, many classes have their pros and cons but a Mage is great to level because he can make his own food and water, teleport to cities from one to another continent and is able to Blink which also reduces run-time. As for the best leveling build, the opinions are divided. Some would swear with the Frost build because it is more mana efficient. I however, would go for a Fire/Arcane build for the simple reason that you take down the enemies faster and the Arcane tree will provide you with mana regeneration and more stats.

Lets first have a look at the full Fire talent tree though.

Mage Leveling Build: Fire

As a Fire Mage you can start attacking with either a Fireball or a Pyroblast, shoot a 2^nd Fireball and then a Fire Blast. If the target isn’t dead yet you just Frost Nova, take a step back and make another Fireball+Fire Blast combo. Blast Wave and Dragon Breath will also become available at a later level and they can do the finishing touches as well.

Now why I didn’t take Improved Scorch is because you don’t use Scorch until you get the Hot Streak talent. Molten Shields, Fiery Payback and Blazing Speed are not necessary for leveling purposes. I did choose Impact (I know many Mages skip this one) because it’s nice for leveling. If you manage to use three or four Fire based spells before the mob reaches you, you have a 30-40% chance to stun the mob for two seconds before he even reaches you.

I took a bit of Frost because of the reduced mana cost of both Frost and Fire spells through the talent called Precision.

Another option, and my favorite, is to go Arcane+Fire which is a nice combination.

Mage Leveling Build: Fire/Arcane

This build has a mana preserving advantage because 60% of the regeneration continues while casting. You will also be surprised with the amount of critical hits you will get with this build which will also refund 30% of the spell’s costs. You will also have 10% more Spirit and 15% more Intellect. Arcane Concentration will allow about 10% of your spells to be cast free of costs.

This build will not give you AoE spells likes Blast Wave and Dragon Breath but will be mainly focused on Fireballs, Pyroblasts and Fire Blasts. Your Arcane Explosion will be boosted a bit so that is a good choice for AoE purposes. Presence of Mind and Arcane Power will give you two extra great abilities that will cause high burst damage when needed.

You can choose to go full Frost but especially in the first 30 levels you will be a lot worse of than the builds stated above. Shatter then becomes nice, and later you got Icy Veins, Water Elemental, Cold Snap etc. but the damage output of this build isn’t as high as compared to the ones above.

A Mage is a powerful casting class capable to do immense amounts of damage and control the enemies.
While using Arcane, Fire and Frost a Mage is definitely one of the best damage dealing classes in WoW. Mages are known to do great Area of Effect (AoE) damage with several great abilities and be able to control both enemy NPCs and players with Polymorph, Frost Nova and the like.

The downside of a Mage is that one usually has low hit points and his cloth armor doesn’t help with his survivability. He does have spells to keep enemies at bay though or to cast an Ice Block which makes the Mage immune to any damage for a period of time.

A mage is incapable to heal or tank so damage dealing is his main purpose. The Mage does have other abilities that make him wanted in many groups and PvP teams. Like said before, the Polymorph ability is great to control mobs because it turns a Humanoid or Beast enemy NPC or Player into a Sheep, Turtle, or Pig. A Mage can also teleport to other cities and even make portals so others can benefit from his ability. Another reason why a Mage is always welcome in a group is his ability to conjure food and water which is especially welcomed by healers that otherwise would have to buy their mana drinks.
These abilities also come in very handy while leveling. Being able to teleport will save a lot of time on the long run and making food and drinks whenever one pleases is also a time and money saver.

The Mage can also buff himself with Arcane Intellect and has several magical armors he can choose from. He can also cast Arcane Intellect on his party or even entire raids.

One nice thing that is nice to know is that Dalaran, the capital of Northrend, is a Mage city. The Kirin Tor is a faction of Mages and all the Mage players start with Friendly reputation towards this faction.

The Mage class can be played by Gnomes, Draenei, Humans, Trolls, Blood Elves, and Undead players.

Mages have three talent builds namely Arcane, Frost and Fire. You will run into mages that have specialized in any of these talent trees because they all have pros and cons. It is up to your own preferences to whatever build you would like. I would advise you, if you intend to make a Mage, to try out several builds to see what you like best and not just follow anybody else’s opinion.

I can tell you though that the Frost Build is quite nice to level because it doesn’t burn your mana away that fast and you have several nice abilities like the Water Elemental and Ice Barrier which absorbs damage. At 80 this build is still nice and can be seen quite often in PvP.

Then there is the Fire build which focuses mainly on single target damage, even though also two AoE spells become available in this tree.

It was never really worth it to go 100% Arcane until the WoTLK arrived. With some new talents and a bigger variety of damaging attacks this build has become a lot better and is now also a great build for PvE and PvP. Arcane is also often used for Hybrid builds (Frost/Arcane, Fire/Arcane).

A Paladin has received some great boosts with the WoTLK expansion. It is especially their damage tree that has gained a lot of improvements. In this guide I will explain which talents should be used and for what reason.

Let’s first have a look at the build:

Paladin Leveling Build

You basically take all the Retribution talents except for Deflection and Divine Purpose, except if you plan to play with somebody else often, then you can make a few changes and use Divine Purpose.

What makes the Retribution tree so powerful? To begin with you will improve your Blessing of Might which is the Blessing you will be using on yourself all the time to increase your attack power. Then you got your Improved Judgment which allows you to use Judgments more often which also results in a lot more damage output.

Heart of the Crusader is not only great for single playing and can also increase the damage of entire parties and even raids. Pursuit of Justice is really great because it improves both your movement speed as well as the mounted movement speed by 16%!

Then you have some other nice talents and you will end up being able to choose Sanctified Retribution which allows you to turn on your Retribution Aura which increases Holy damage done by 10% which is really nice. This one gets even better when you get the Improved and Swift retribution upgrades more down in the talent tree.

You will also be able to take Repentance which is a great crowd control ability. The Art of War allows you to instantly heal when some of your damaging abilities have a critical strike and that is just great because it keep you going. You will need some mana however but that is provided through Judgements of the Wise which gives a nice boost to your Judgement spells: you will receive 15% of your mana whenever you cast a Judgement spell and you will also get the replenishment effect which restores even more mana.

With Crusader Strike and Divine Storm you will gain two ace abilities when it comes down to dealing great damage. Together with your Seal of Command and your Retribution Aura you will be able to deal out massive damage. Righteous Vengeance is also really nice and adds to all the damage dealt in the form of a DoT (damage over time) talent.

Al together you can say that the Retribution tree is just great for leveling. While still being able to heal you can dish out massive amounts of damage and hit that level cap in no-time.

The Paladin is a hybrid class, capable to tank, heal and do damage. The Paladin can wear plate armor, shields and most melee weapons. The Paladin uses the Holy magic school and physical attacks for most of his abilities.

One of the most well known abilities of the Paladin is Divine Shield, often called ‘Bubble’. The Divine Shield is an instantly casted spell that protects the Paladin from any damage for 12 seconds. Divine Intervention is almost as good as Divine Shield and can even be casted on party or raid members. It protects the target from all physical attacks. The Paladin also has various auras that affect the entire party and several buffs that can also be cast on different players. The Paladins abilities cost mana, no matter what build one chooses.

The following races have Paladins in their ranks: Humans, Dwarves, Draenei, and Blood Elves.

A Paladin can be a very capable tank when the Protection talent tree is used. While using a shield and some abilities that create high amounts of threat, the Paladin can easily tank in dungeons. A Paladin tank is probably the best tank when it comes down to keeping aggro on multiple targets. This comes at a cost though meaning that he isn’t as good as a Warrior Tank in example when it comes to single target tanking. Some buffs also become available in this talent tree like Blessing of Sanctuary and Blessing of Kings, even though the last one doesn’t have to be chosen since it requires quite a few talent points.

A healing Paladin should use the Holy talent tree to maximize the effect of his healing spells and to obtain some other healing spells that will make him a great healer. A Holy Paladin is a very capable healer known for his fast heals. Known to be one of the best single target healers while his weak spot is the lack in heals that can heal an entire group. A Holy Paladin should focus on getting a lot of critical strike rating, because his heals will heal more and a lot of his heals will refund mana this way.

Finally there is the Retribution Paladin. While wielding a 2h weapon and being able to use several abilities that deal great amounts of damage, the Retribution Paladin is a great class for both PvE and PvP. This hasn’t always been the case; before the WoTLK,Retribution Paladins were almost never welcome in either raids or PvP teams. This is probably why they have received a great boost and are now one of the stronger PvP classes and builds out there.

A Paladin is a strong class, fighting one can be really annoying as it seems that they have multiple lives sometimes. Playing one is a great experience. A nice thing about a Paladin is that you can gather different types of gear and then change from a tank to a healer or DPS if you get a bit bored with your build.