The first WoW Hero Class was unveiled at Blizzcon and it will be the Death Knight class. Unlike normal WoW Classes, the Death Knight is accessed by completeing a very high level quest and “unlocking” the class for use!

The Death Knight is the most interesting feature of Wrath of the Lich King as far as I’m concerned and, according to them, here’s how it’ll work:

* Plate-wearing tank/DPS hybrid

* Upon reaching level 80 and embarking on a quest “similar in difficulty to the Warlock epic mount quest,” the ability to create a new Death Knight character will be unlocked.

* Starts around level 60 or 70, “intended as an alternative, advanced class for end-game use only”

Rather than using rage, energy, or mana, Death Knights have a special “rune sword” displayed beneath their health bar, onto which the player can etch six different runes (choose between Frost, Blood, and Unholy). Different abilities require different mixes of runes, and using abilities consumes the requisite runes until a cooldown timer causes them to be available again.

Abilities
The following abilities have been confirmed at BlizzCon:

* Army of the Dead - Spell summons undead minions to fight for Death Knight. These creatures run around and attack things at random.

* Unholy Embrace - Target is embraced by a silhouette of darkness for 6 seconds, corrupting any healing spells and effects cast upon or currently affecting the target to cause damage for 50% of their healing potential instead of restoring health. Any damage shields cast upon or currently affecting the target will also be instantly consumed, dealing 50% of their absorption potential in damage. Once afflicted with Unholy Embrace, the target cannot be afflicted with Unholy Embrace again for 1 minute.

Death Knight Rune System
The Rune system will work around the Death Knight etching runes into their weapon before battle and then consuming or regenerating those runes as they cast certain spells or use certain abilities. It has been revealed that there will be a total of 6 rune slots with three possible rune types: Blood, Frost, Unholy. The runes may be placed in any combination (but order will most likely not be a consideration). More than likely, the three rune types each correspond to a type of spell and a branch in the Knight’s talent tree.

Developers at BlizzCon 2007 said they didn’t want the new Death Knight to use the traditional resource systems because they wanted the death knight to have a different mode of play. They stated their intention was for the Death Knight to use a mixture of spells and melee in close combat. Because of this, a system that didn’t specifically rely on either Mana or rage was more appropriate.