A
hero available to the
Undead Scourge in the 2002 hit computer game
Warcraft III.
Background: Like all heroes in WC3, the Death Knight (often contracted to DK) serves as the focus for any keen Scourge player's armies. A fairly good melee fighter, and a mid level spell caster, he is unfortunately quite large and can be difficult to control. However, with good micromanagement he does serve as one of the most versatile and popular heroes.
Updated: server time Friday, October 11, 2002 at 00:45:04
Physical Description: Sitting atop an emblazoned and barded bone steed, the white-haired Death Knight carries an eerily unearthly glowing sword, which he swings in graceful looping overhead slashes to decimate his opponents.
Spells and Abilities:
- Death Coil: A very popular spell, especially in the early game and for hero killing. This spell shoots out a green-flamed screaming skull over a long distance at the target - either a friendly undead unit, where it heals 200/400/600 HP, or a living enemy unit, dealing a massive 100/200/300 HP damage. Best used as an emergency heal for important units like other Undead heroes, abominations or frost wyrms, or at the beginning of the game to heal ghouls while creeping, or as a fabulous asassination technique.
- Death Pact: Rarely chosen, this spell sacrifices a friendly unit and returns some (33/66/100%) of it's life (HP) to the Death Knight. Pretty self explanatory, but rarely chosen because of the loss of a unit. However, it does serve its uses - the unit can be expendable (like a skeleton warrior or shade) AND it leaves it's corpse - a valuable teriary resource for necromancers, meat wagons, the Death Knight's Raise Dead ultimate and ghouls with cannibalize. With the same range as Death Coil, it's long reach can grab units out of the fray, or just not in the right place. Good as a third skill point pick. Updated: As of Patch 1.03, Death Pact can be cast twice as often (lower cooldown) and costs 50 mana rather than 75...
- Unholy Aura: Often the sole purpose for choosing the Death Knight, the Unholy Aura greatly increases the regeneration (50/100/150%) and speed of attack (10/20/30) for nearby friendly units. Generating a circular blue glow under affected units, and with a fairly good range, this passive skill makes any sizeable army that little bit more potent. Usually maxed ASAP, it is also usually the second choice behind a single point in Death Coil.
- Ultimate: Animate Dead. What a spell. Raises the strongest six dead units FROM EITHER SIDE OR NEUTRAL CORPSES. The units have full health and abilities, and are instantly under the Death Knights control. However, the units only last 2 minutes, but that is usually enough to turn the tide of a battle, or flatten a nearby expansion. More importantly, the units are NOT considered summoned units and are thus not susceptable to dispel magicks.
Gameplay: The Death Knight is my Undead Hero of choice, unless you play against another Undead player. If you do, you lose the damaging ability of Death Coil, a skill I max out for its assasination abilities ASAP. He soaks up damage, can heal at will and can heal other units. What's not to like? Just watch out for his size, avoid getting surrounded/slept/entangled. Best strategy is to get the DK, a handful of ghouls, a few necormancers with their
autocast Animate Dead, kill a few baddies, then TURN OFF AUTOCAST on the necromancers. Leave a few coprses, use the DK to raise the dead, then go smashy!
2002.09.10@07:12
Zerotime says Death Knight: And if you back up that list of units with a couple of
frost wyrms, it's pretty easy to take down a base, too. :)
2004.7.4@18:00
althorrat says re Death Knight : You probably know this already, but the Death Knight was also an Orc unit in Warcraft II. Its spells were Death Coil (sames as in WC3), Haste (Speeds up selected unit's movements), Unholy Armor (very temporary invulnerability for selected unit), Death and Deca (basically the same as the Human Blizzard spell), Whirlwind (creates a Whirlwind object which causes heavy damage to anything it comes in contact with) and Raise Dead (self-explanatory).
Warcraft III Undead Guide
Death Knight -- Dreadlord >>>
Information gleaned from:
- My own lovingly played copy of Warcraft III
- www.battle.net/war3
- www.warcraftiii.net
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