Wrath item checklist for Death Knights

So I'm sure that at least a couple of you out there are like me, preparing to start on a new Death Knight main on Thursday morning come hell or high water. If you've been planning to play a Death Knight for a while, maybe you've also been gathering items to make it easier to get through to 68 and head to Northrend. Of course, now we have less than 24 hours until it's time to take off, but regardless, it's never a bad time to do a little bit of last minute shopping. Here's a list of some of the stuff you might want to check the auction house or your alts' banks for.

Quest Items

There's some merit to be had in doing a little prequesting with your Death Knight. We've discussed this a bit in the past, but here's a quick and dirty guide to quest items you can get now. With all of these, it's a good idea to turn the quest items first, then start doing other quests. That way you maximize your rep gain. If nothing else, it'll make getting reputation accomplishments easier later.

Unidentified Plant Parts: You'll need 360 of these to hit Honored with the Cenarion Expedition. They seem to be staying pretty cheap on the AH even now, so you might want to check it out, or go farm them yourself: I prefer killing Mudfin Frenzies in Serpent Lake for them. Turning in the parts is good for two reasons: Each turn in of plant parts gives a chance at an Uncatalogued Species, which is some nice extra experience. In addition, it sets you well on the way to getting the reputation for an Arcanum of Ferocity. If nothing else, the Arcanum is a nice bonus for your first few Northrend helms.

Arakkoa Feathers: These are a little steeper, costing 1-2 gold a feather on my server, on average. Also, you'll need around 1080 feathers to cap out the quest at Honored with Lower City. Lower City's reputation vendor doesn't offer much of use, so you can always skip this one with little guilt. Of course, if you're lucky, you might get a Ravenguard's Baldric of the Battle or Ravenguard's Greaves of the Battle out of the caches, which might make it worth it.

Oshu'gun Crystal Fragments: 120 of these will let you hit Friendly with the Consortium. These are everywhere around Oshu'gun in Nagrand, so don't be afraid to go out and grab them yourself if you have some spare time this afternoon -- I'd bet it wouldn't take you much more than half an hour if you work at it. Now admittedly, there's not much of a reason to grab these or rep with the Consortium besides the fact that Ethereals are awesome, but hey, that may be reason enough.

Aldor and Scryer signets: Now, I honestly am skipping repping with the Aldor and Scryer for now, just because I like the idea of being able to move where I please in Shattrath. However, if you want to get reputation with one side or the other anyway, such as because you want a crack at the shoulder enchants for leveling purposes, it might be a good idea to lay up 240 Firewing Signets or 240 Marks of Kil'jaedan. These will allow you to hit Honored with your chosen faction straight away. Which reminds me, you'll then want to have 2 Arcane Tomes or 2 Fel Armaments for each shoulder enchantment you want.

You can also just skip it and go for Sunfury Signets or Marks of Sargeras if you're not too worried about grinding to exalted. Firewing Signets and Marks of Kil'jaedan cut off at Honored though. By the by, if I was going for a side, I'd go for the Scryers. They have a better stocked tier, and the shoulder enchants affect both melee and spell critical strikes, which is pretty sweet for Death Knights. Also, Sunfury Signets are also a lot easier to get thanks to the Blood Elves of Quel'danas. Heck, if you want to go Scryer, it's probably easier and cheaper to skip the Firewing Signets and go straight to the Sunfury.

Cloth: If you're looking to get the Ambassador title, a cross-racial mount, or just want better prices in Ironforge, you'll probably want to start in on the cloth quests. Turning them in in all the capitals should net you some pretty nice experience too. If you plan to turn in cloth for every race, that's 300 each of Linen, Wool, Silk, Mageweave, and Runecloth.

Argent Dawn Reputation: Now, the Argent Dawn quests right outside Ebon Hold seem like a no brainer, except for one problem: They require you have Honored Reputation first. That means you will likely have to go do a bit of Cauldron-work in Western Plaguelands before you can turn them in. Me, I'll be breezing on by to Outland once I get King Wrynn's blessing. But if you want to hang out on Azeroth a while longer, you can gather some stuff for some quick experience once you hit honored. Namely, you'll want 30 each of Bone Fragments, Crypt Fiend Parts, Cores of Elements, Dark Iron Scraps, and Savage Fronds.

Also, If you're headed to Outland, on your way down you could always stop by the two Blood Elves and grab yourselves some nice consumables. For those, you'll probably need to kill stuff in the Blasted Lands yourself until you get 14 Vulture Gizzards, 11 Basilisk Brains, 5 Snickerfang Jowls, 6 Blasted Boar Lungs, and 6 Scorpok Pincers.

Gear

Unfortunately, if you haven't bought any BoE gear by this point, it's probably been bought off the Auction House and either hoarded or put back up at an insane price by now. Beyond that, you don't technically need the gear. You'll get some good upgrades soon, and the base Death Knight quest gear will get you through Outland just fine. Still, if you want to look for one thing, see if you can find a cheap Blade of Misfortune. It's a nice upgrade over your base runeblade.

Consumables and Tradeskill stuff

Major and Super Healing Potions: So, if you gathered Arakkoa feathers we mentioned earlier, you'll probably get a bunch of these from the turn-ins, which is good. In addition, you can farm up some Noth's Special Brew in the starting area. If you aren't collecting feathers and don't plan to farm the brew, though, buying some health potions for emergencies isn't a bad idea.

Bandages and First Aid: Now honestly, I haven't pre-gathered cloth for leveling First Aid. I found that since I started with around 275 First Aid and got plenty of Runecloth and Netherweave while leveling, I was easily ready to churn out the frostweave at level 70. Still, If you have tons of extra Netherweave from dailies hoarded on a bank alt somewhere, it can't hurt to send it over.

Food: If you've been hoarding meat from the cooking dailies, now's the time to put it use. Death Knights do their damage, even their spell damage, off of AP, which they get from strength. So check your meat supplies, or check what's cheap on the AH, or just go on a killing spree in Nagrand, and bring on the meatfest. Ravager Dogs and Roasted Clefthoof are especially good for a growing Death Knight.

Elixirs: Here's another thing I'm not worried about. It'd probably take a lot of money to keep my Death Knight in Elixirs for his entire 55-70 grind. Still, if you have the extra herbs or money lying around, it can't hurt, and it will be an edge. Elixir of Major Strength and Elixir of Major Fortitude would probably be the best for Death Knighting

Adamantite Sharpening Stones: While they will go obsolete and be unappliable to level 71+ gear, until then, your gear can still use them. It's one more edge in the leveling process. They're also pretty simple to make: 2 Motes of Earth and 1 Adamantite Bar. I highlighted sharpening stones if only because my experience as a Death Knight in Beta was that every single good weapon upgrade I saw until level 71 was bladed. If your mileage varies, you may want to look for Weightstones.

Armor enchantments: The basic Clefthoof and Cobrahide leg armors are usable at 60, which could be worth it for a quick boost through Outland. If you can't afford or find the materials for those, you can also stick with the Heavy Knothide Armor Kit -- and you might want those for a quick and cheap enhancement on your other applicable armor slots anyway.

Glyphs: Which Glyphs you get for your Death Knight will probably depend largely on your spec and personal preferences, but here's a few suggestions. If you're Unholy, you'll most definitely want to get the Glyph of Bone Shield, and the Glyph of the Ghoul will likely be a good investment as well. For Blood and Frost, getting the glyphs of Obliterate and Death Strike will probably be a solid choice to start off.

Bags

If you haven't rounded up some bags for your Death Knight yet, don't worry, you don't need to panic too much. You'll get a nice set of 12-slot bags that should last you for at least the newbie quests. However, you do have a few options if you want larger bags. If you're really rich, you can just throw a few Gigantiques after your Death Knight and be done with it. If not, you can see if you can scrape together the material for an Imbued Netherweave Bag (You can grab the silk from Spiders in Terrokar Forest or CoT:Black Morass), or even just some plain old Netherweave Bags.

For the record, a bolt of Imbued Netherweave is made with 3 Bolts of Netherweave and 2 Arcane Dust. A Bolt of Netherweave is 5 Netherweave Cloth.

Get on your Marks!

So once you have this stuff, you can luckily mail it to your Death Knight right away. As soon as you're out of the Ebon Hold and getting ready to attack the Scarlet Crusade, you can head down the hill to a ruined village with a fully functioning mailbox. Now if only zombies had banks. I mean, besides the Forsaken. Who I guess aren't technically Zombies, per se.

Anyhow, good luck with your last minute shopping, and we will see you in Ebon Hold!