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Welcome to our Blood Death Knight guide for tanks – updated for Battle For Azeroth (BFA) 8.3. This is a work in progress, and will be updated accordingly for Shadowlands. We will cover everything you need to know in order to play a Blood Death Knight in raids and Mythic+ dungeons. You will learn how to optimise your stats for survivability, as well as what to look out for in order to min-max your character to its fullest.
Table of Contents
Quick Overview
A Blood Death Knight’s most important ability is Death Strike. Rather than nullifying large portions of incoming damage, Blood DKs simply heal themselves back up, whilst simultaneously creating small shields. This results in a rewarding and engaging gameplay. In previous expansions there was usually only one or two viable tanks, but in recent years all tanks are fairly equal for the majority of players. It’s important that you pick a tank based on how you enjoy the mechanics, as being a master of a specific one will always provide better results over re-rolling every patch.
Blood dk Pros
- AoE grip
- Two taunts
- Engaging defensive cooldowns
- Massive amount of self-sustain
Blood DK Cons
- Worst mobility of all tanks
- Reactive mitigation model which results in high fluctuations of health
- Self-healing bonus from Death Strike does not take into account environmental damage
Best Races For Blood Death Knights
From a PvE standpoint, there is minimal reason to select one race over another. Play what you like.
Blood Death Knight Stat Priority
The following stat priority will increase your effectiveness in tanking PvE content, without having to run min-max sims. However, we do recommend running simulations with your exact stats if you want to be 100% efficient; especially useful for those who are in cutting edge guilds.
Stat priority
ilvl > Versatility >= Haste > Crit >= Mastery
Stat summaries
Stamina increases your health pool.
Strength increases your attack power and damage from abilities, as well as increasing parry.
Versatility increases damage, healing, and absorption, as well as decreasing damage received.
Haste increases attack speed, reduces GCD, and increases rune regeneration speed.
Critical Strike increases the chance of attacks to hit for additional damage or healing, as well as increasing parry chance.
Mastery increases attack power as well as allowing Death Strike to create a physical damage absorption barrier, based off of the amount of health healed.
Blood Death Knight Enchants, Gems & Consumables
Based off of the stat priority above, below we have listed the best enchants, gems and consumables that Blood Death Knights should utilise. These recommendations should be used for those who are not creating personalised sims for their specific character, as their results may vary. However, for the general population of Blood DK, these recommendations should be more than adequate.
Weapon Enchants
Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle
Ring Enchants
Enchant Ring – Accord of Versatility
Enchant Ring – Accord of Haste
Gems
Leviathan’s Eye of Strength (Jewelcrafting profession only)
Flasks
Potions
Superior Battle Potion of Strength
Food
Famine Evaluator And Snack Table
Runes
Blood Death Knight Talents & Build
The above setup is ideal for both raiding and mythic+ dungeons.
Grip of the Dead and Red Thirst is to be taken for raiding, whereas Wraith Walk and Bonestorm can be more useful for mythic+ dungeons.
Blood Death Knight Tank Rotation & Cooldowns
World of Warcraft has moved away from strict rotations, and now instead relies on a priority order to efficiently play your class. The below guide should help to give you a good understanding on what abilities to focus on, as well as how to combine them in specific situations. It’s important to note that dungeons and raids never go 100% smooth every time, so you’ll have to adapt constantly to work out which ability should be used, and when. Therefore, don’t worry too much about following the priority order strictly.
Single Target Tank Rotation
- Marrowrend (Avoid letting Bone Shield expire)
- Death Strike (If you’re about to hit Runic Power cap, or if Bone Shield is going to expire)
- Blood Boil (To apply Blood Plague, or if you have 2 charges to use)
- Marrowrend (If Bone Shield Stacks are low)
- Heart Strike (If more than 3 runes remaining)
- Death and Decay (Only if you get a free proc from Crimson Scourge)
- Blood Boil
AoE Tank Rotation
- Marrowrend (Avoid letting Bone Shield expire)
- Death Strike (If you’re about to hit Runic Power cap, or if Bone Shield is going to expire)
- Blood Boil (To apply Blood Plague, or if you have 2 charges to use)
- Marrowrend (If Bone Shield Stacks are low)
- Death and Decay
- Heart Strike (If more than 3 runes remaining)
- Blood Boil
Tank Cooldowns
Dark Command – Basic taunt, use to grab aggro.
Death Grip – Either use to bring mobs to you, or use as a secondary taunt.
Anti-Magic Shell – Use just before taking heavy magic damage or to remove debuffs.
Vampiric Blood – Use when taking heavy repeat damage.
Dancing Rune Weapon – Use either on boss pull or when taking lots of repeat hits.
