Wrath of the Lich King Classic Launch: Death Knights, Northrend and Level 80

The pre-expansion update went live on August 30, 2022. It let every account create a Death Knight, the first hero class, which starts at level 55 in Acherus, the Ebon Hold, above the Eastern Plaguelands and plays through its own quest line before joining the rest of the world. In Wrath Classic the first Death Knight on an account needs no other character, except on the Fresh Start realms that opened the same day; every further one needs a level-55 character on its realm, and a realm holds only one.

The same update brought Inscription, the profession that mills herbs into inks and writes the glyphs every class now uses, and the achievement system, which counted many things players had already done in Classic and Burning Crusade Classic. The remaining achievements unlocked at launch.

Between the pre-patch and launch, the zombie plague spread through the capital cities from September 6, followed by the Scourge Invasion on September 13.

The expansion went live on September 26 at 3:00 p.m. PDT. Both factions start in Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord, level through Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak and Sholazar Basin, and finish in The Storm Peaks and Icecrown. The cap rose from 70 to 80, and the talent trees gained a deeper tier ending in 51-point talents.

Until 77, Northrend is a ground expansion: mounts work, but only on the ground, so routes through the continent follow roads, ships and flight paths.

Blizzard rebuilt the Battle for Wintergrasp as an instanced epic battleground, because the original outdoor battle could not work across Wrath Classic's realm layers. Every three hours, players in Wintergrasp get a queue prompt and players in Dalaran can queue at their faction's NPC. The battle can start with uneven sides; the stacking Tenacity buff strengthens the outnumbered faction.

When a faction wins, every member of it receives Essence of Wintergrasp until the next battle. The buff opens the Vault of Archavon raid and the zone's Stone Keeper's Shard rewards, which is why even players who never queue keep an eye on the timer.

Level-80 builds have 20 more points than TBC's, and each class gained new abilities between 71 and 80. The talent calculator covers all ten classes at any level up to 80, and What's New compares Wrath with The Burning Crusade class by class. The pre-patch notes list the update's changes in full.