When you first enter the world with your Death Knight you have no talent points to spend and a very limited array of skills, but thankfully this is rather rapidly corrected as you reach Light's Hope Chapel and meet the Death Knight trainer—the aptly named Siouxsie the Banshee—along with a few other associated NPCs. You won't have to walk all the way, though: as a Death Knight you start life with a summonable epic mount. Tooled up with 45 talent points to spend you can take advantage of the three skill trees, though there aren't many additional skills available until you clock up a few more levels.

At level 55 the play mechanic for all three trees is fundamentally the same; you will still do most of your damage at melee range, with a small number new skills available from each talent tree. We found the Frost route to be the most effective at level 55, with talents to increase your critical strike chance and attack speed in abundance letting you tear through enemies at and just above your level with relative ease. Frost Strike will become your weapon of choice, as it converts your next melee swing into a powerful frost blow. The area-of-effect Howling Blast is rather useful when in a tight spot, as it deals treble damage to frozen targets, and deals frost damage to all hostile targets in a large radius.