Death Knight PvE Guides

Blood Death Knights in the original release of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King were some of the most versatile tanks ever. There is a wide variety of builds that they can choose from as either the Main Tank or Off-Tank and by choosing to focus on Single-Target, Multi-Target, and how much mitigation they'll need.

Many of the talent builds for Blood DK's don't go all the way down the Blood talent tree and instead spread their points out into the Frost and Unholy talent trees. While a full Blood build can DPS, a Frost or Unholy DPS Build would be better for that purpose; in fact, they are Top-Tier DPS for the entire expansion.

This guide is intended for level 80 content primarily focusing on PvE group content such as 10 or 25 Player Raids and/or 5 Player Dungeons.

Best Talent Builds For Blood Death Knight

The image below shows the most common build for main-tanking as a Blood Death Knight. It is a Single-Target build focusing primarily on damage mitigation.

The 2 most common variations in talent selection are highlighted in Pink and Green in the image above.

Improved Icy Talons (Highlighted in Pink)

• If the group does not have a Frost Death Knight with Improved Icy Talons or Enhancement Shaman with Improved Windfury Totem remove 3 points from Anticipation and place 2 into Glacier Rot and 1 into Improved Icy Talons

Multi-Target AoE Blood Death Knight Talent Build

• The talents highlighted in Green, Morbidity in the Unholy tree, and Bloody Strikes in the Blood tree, are for players that want to focus on AoE tanking.
• To achieve this, players should remove 3 points from Frigid Dreadplate, 1 point from Bloody Vengeance, and 2 points from Two-Handed Weapon Specialization. These are highlighted in white in the image above.

Best Glyphs For Blood Death Knight

There are a lot of Glyphs that players can choose depending on the content they face when tanking as a Blood Death Knight. The three most common glyphs are Glyph of Disease to maintain disease uptime, Glyph of Dark Command to guarantee Dark Command will successfully taunt (this is crucial in early phases when lacking Hit Rating), and Glyph of Vampiric Blood to improve Vampiric Blood for times when more healing is needed.

Other Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Icebound Fortitude can be used to improve Icebound Fortitude to mitigate more damage.
• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell can be used to aid in the timing of Anti-Magic Shell for certain spell mechanics.
• Glyph of Rune Tap to aid with self and party healing when using Rune Tap.
• Glyph of Death and Decay for AoE tanking.

Minor Glyphs

All Death Knights generally take these Minor Glyphs as they all offer a non-insignificant improvement to gameplay.

• Glyph of Blood Tap is necessary when tanking to help reduce taking damage when using Blood Tap.
• Glyph of Pestilence for a significant range increase to Pestilence to help with Multi-Target fights.
• Glyph of Raise Dead for a minor improvement in inventory management.

Many players make the mistake of taking Glyph of Horn of Winter. It is generally useless as Horn of Winter is used to generate Runic Power whenever there is a break from casting other abilities. Being a "stronger" buff means that Death Knights who do not have the glyph can't use Horn of Winter to generate Runic Power unless using the following macro:

• #showtooltip Horn of Winter
• /cancelaura Horn of Winter
• /cast Horn of Winter

Stat Priority For Blood Death Knight

Death Knight Tanks have 2 main priorities when it comes to Tanking: Survivability, Threat Generation.

Threat Generation

Generating Threat as a Blood Death Knight relies heavily on Hit Rating, as the majority of the damage comes from Spells. It is necessary to reach 263 Hit Rating for Special Attacks to always land. Early usage of the Glyph of Dark Command will guarantee that it will always land until more Hit Rating is obtained from better gear. Past this threshold lies the Spell Hit Cap at 446 Hit Rating. If there is a Balance Druid or Shadow Priest present they can provide an extra 3% chance to hit with Improved Faerie Fire and Misery and Draenei for an additional 1% with Heroic Presence.

Virulence in the first row of the Unholy talent tree can also lower the Hit Rating required.

Expertise is another stat that has multiple thresholds to guarantee that enemies do not Dodge or Parry a player's attacks. For a level 80 player facing a Level 83 target, the two thresholds are:

• Dodge Cap: 26 Expertise (213 Expertise Rating) for 6.5% Dodge
• Parry Cap: 56 Expertise (459Expertise Rating) for 14% Parry

The Blood Talent Veteran of the Third War can be chosen to reduce the amount of expertise needed. Some Racial traits reduce the amount of Expertise needed as well when wielding the corresponding weapon:

• Humans: Sword Specialization and Mace Specialization,
• Dwarves: Mace Specialization, and
• Orcs: Axe Specialization

Blood Tank Survivability Stats

Defense Rating is the most important stat to reduce damage taken. The minimum threshold to guarantee that an enemy will not land a Critical Hit against you is 689Defense Rating or 540 Defense. 400 Defense is obtained through the Defense Skill that is passively leveled up when taking hits, the remaining 140 comes from gear.

Stamina not only increases the total health pool but also increases the effectiveness of cooldowns such as Rune Tap, Death Pact, and Vampiric Blood.

Armor is important due to the fact that Blood Death Knights cannot wield Shields to Block attacks. Dodge, and Parry are other ways to improve survivability too.

When in doubt, when deciding between two pieces of gear, the item with a higher item level will provide more overall stats. When comparing 2 items of the same item level, follow this Stat Priority:

Skill Rotation For Blood Death Knight

To start, players should be in Frost Presence for all encounters to increase survivability and threat generation. There are 2 important buffs to maintain throughout the fight: Horn of Winter (and to generate Runic Power) and Blade Barrier. Players will typically have this activated at all times with a normal skill rotation but can be easily applied by using Blood Boil before a fight or if no targets are available to hit.

Additionally, it is important to maintain diseases on all targets as it will increase threat generation with Blood Strike and affect the amount of healing received from Death Strike.

Most of the time players will be activating Death Rune Mastery to use the death runes to generate as much threat as possible with Icy Touch. Apart from actual taunts like Dark Command and Death Grip, Icy Touch generates the most threat out of all other abilities.

Finally, players can use Rune Strike to spend excess Runic Power and generate Threat precisely or macro it to all other abilities to generate more Threat in general. Rune Strike is activated after the player dodges or parries and can be used separately from the Global Cooldown of other skills.

Single-Target Rotation

Before combat, cast ​​​​​​Blood Boil twice at least 5 seconds before combat to obtain Blade Barrier. Alternatively, you can cast Death and Decay about 10 seconds before combat to generate more Runic Power.

1. Horn of Winter
2. Death Grip
3. Icy Touch
4. Plague Strike
5. Death Strike
6. Blood Tap
7. Icy Touch
8. Blood Strike
9. Empower Rune Weapon
10. Pestilence
11. Icy Touchx 3
12. Death Strike

Multi-Target AoE Rotation

1. Horn of Winter
2. Death and Decay
3. Icy Touch
4. Plague Strike
5. Pestilence
6. Blood Boil

Consumables For Raids

Players hoping to maximize their potential for success would be wise to utilize the following buffs from consumables.

Flask:

1. Flask of Stoneblood
2. Alternatives: Elixir of Protection, Elixir of Mighty Defense, Elixir of Accuracy, Elixir of Expertise

Food Buff:

1. Blackened Dragonfin
2. Alternatives: Dragonfin Filet, Snapper Extreme, Worg Tartare, Rhinolicious Wormsteak, Fish Feast

Potions:

1. Indestructible Potion

Scrolls:

1. Scroll of Protection VIII, Scroll of Strength VIII

Best Gems For Blood Death Knight

Blood Death Knights that have Jewelcrafting (350) should use 3 Solid Dragon's Eye when possible.

Blacksmithing (400) provides 2 extra sockets with Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves

Best Enchants For Blood Death Knight

Death Knights are unique in that they have the profession-like ability Runeforging which offers them specific weapon enchants tailored to their needs. It doesn't require skill points or training and new recipes are learned every few levels for free. To change the runeforging enchant players must go to a Rune Forge in Acherus: The Ebon Hold and Shadow Vault in Icecrown. Runeforging enchants do not stack with other enchants.

Notably, for Tanks, the only professions that have enchants that have stats that compete with enchants available to anyone are the Leatherworking Bracer enchant and the Engineering Glove Enchant. Engineering does also provide some other useful effects apart from stats too!

Best In Slot Pre-Raid BiS Gear For Blood Death Knight

Blood has some flexibility with their weapons, ideally a slow 2 handed weapon to avoid being hit by enemies that parry your attacks. But you can also have a couple 1 handed weapons in cases when not tanking. Keep in mind any expertise bonuses from racial traits too.

Main Hand Slot

Off Hand Slot

If Off-Tanking these are the best options for One Handed Weapons to wield in the Off-Hand Slot. If you are only using 1 handers to dps take a loot at the DPS BiS weapons list for Unholy and Frost.

Relic Slot

Unlike the other specializations, Blood has some decent options for Sigils in the Reilc Slot. Since Icy Touch is used very often, both of these options are excellent!

Head Slot

The main difference here in the top two epic helm choices is that there is more stamina on the Blacksmithing helmet vs the defense rating on the Engineering Helmet.

Neck Slot

Both epic items here are great options, the Jewelcrafting neck has a socket and stamina bonus that makes up for the lower base stamina value.

Shoulders Slot

There are 2 BoE World Drop shoulders that would be great options. The epic shoulders will be very hard to find or will be an expensive purchase if you can find them in the Auction House.

Back Slot

The Stratholme cloak is the best option with its high armor and value. There's also the option to get the PvP cloak, Hateful Gladiator's Cloak of Victory, it costs 38000 Honor Points

Chest Slot

Unfortunately, the 2-set bonus for Tier 7 Blood Death Knights is lackluster, and the base stats are also not spectacular in comparison to some of the other more easily obtained items.

Wrists Slot

The best bracer armor comes from Heroic Old Kingdom. The Horde has another good option from a quest reward and there are also the PvP Bracers, Hateful Gladiator's Bracers of Triumph, as another option well that cost 31,600 Honor Points.

Hands Slot

The tier 7 gloves are also available before Phase 2 comes out, but there are other options out there that compete for the top slot here. Blacksmithing also provides a solid budget option

Waist Slot

Not a lot of options here, but the ones that you can purchase with emblems are a good option if your parry rating isn't too high.

Legs Slot

The Legs slot are a great place to get Defense Rating and Hit Rating.

Feet Slot

Blacksmithing leading the charge for a lot of armor pieces for Blood Death Knights in this Phase. These legs have a lot of stamina on them which will be a very high priority for most players.

Rings

For once the Dalaran Teleport ring is not on a BiS list! Jewelcrafters will be happy to know their services will again be in demand for rings and necklaces.

Trinkets

Jewelcrafters stand out above the rest when it comes to the profession only items and trinkets are a key highlight in this phase. The last two options are great to increase the health pool.

Conclusion

Death Knights will certainly be a popular class to play during Wrath of the Lich King. Tanking as a Death Knight has a number of builds beyond what we've covered here for niche uses. We'll cover these in a future post should they become relevant. The class is truly a hero class that provides a number of viable, strong, and flexible ways to play.