yknow i was expecting 8 levels of dread necromancer and the lich template in there somewhere... that being said the lich king should really be an epic character considering what his abilities are..
Na he is just a high lvl character with some very bad ass artifact armor and weapon. You take away Frostmourne and the Lich King Armor and he is just a fallen paladin with daddy issues.
That's not true. The Lich King is actually composed of two seperate entities, both of which were probably level 20. Arthas was the Fallen Paladin/Death Knight and he eventually shattered the Frozen Throne with Frostmourne and took the Helm of Domination, which contained the essense of Ner'Zhul, an Orc Warlock who was turned into the original Lich King by demons. Going by what is written, Ner'Zhul as the Lich King was probably an epic character after his demonic empowerment. When Arthas put on the Helm it fused him and Ner'Zhul into a single being, the guy everyone refers to now as The Lich King.
In short, Arthas was most likely a level 20 Death Knight build and Ner'Zhul was at least a level 20 caster of some sort (I like the idea of a Winterhaunt of Iborighu build) separately. Combined they would almost certainly be an epic build as a single entity.