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Blood Death Knight Raid Guide
Last Updated: August 6th 2024
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11.0 - The War Within
Welcome to theBlood Death Knight Raid guide for World of Warcraft patch 11.0! Here you are going to find tips and tricks for your survivability and damage so you are ready to rock the raid. Below you find a quick overview of what the class is about.
Blood Death Knights' resources are Runes and Runic Power. Managing these two as best as you can is your main job. Using Runic Power for Death Strike to heal yourself, while spending your Runes effectively is a nice challenge but also feels super rewarding when done correctly which makes it such a fun class to optimize and learn the little things step by step.
In this patch, both the class and spec tree received a huge rework, giving the class tree new talents and moving a lot of nodes around, sadly not changing any of the talents you pick. On the other hand, the spec tree is a lot more flexible now, making it possible to pick Gorefiend's Grasp without a huge loss. While also reworking Consumption, Blooddrinker, and Bonestorm to be very useful talents now.
Whether you are new to the Blood Death Knight or are looking for tips and tricks, this guide provides you with the basics and also includes a specially tailored Raid section with talent builds and a phase-by-phase description.
Overview
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Blood Death KnightRaid
Single-Target
Strong
AoE
Average
Utility
Excellent
Survivability
Excellent
Mobility
Weak
- Blood Death Knights are currently the best tank at self-sustain during any scenario. Death Strike healing is incredibly strong and if used properly will almost always bring you back to full HP.
- In Raid environments, Blood Death Knights often have a way to outplay mechanics using Anti-Magic Shell and Death's Advance, making them very strong, when those are usable on important mechanics.
- Blood Death Knights ST damage is pretty good, sadly trinkets make up a big part of the total damage done. Blood Boil being your main AoE damage ability is really nice to pick up aggro, sadly the overall damage is not super high.
- Blood Death Knights biggest weakness is the lack of mobility. When you run out of Death's Advance charges the only other option is to walk, which is as you might know not the fastest.
- Anti-Magic Zone is one of the best raid cooldowns for magic damage reduction in the entire game.
Talents
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Standard Build
Massgrip Build
Improved Vamp Blood
When to use this spec
This is the default loadout going into any boss unless specified otherwise. You have to adjust the class talent tree based on the utility needed for the encounter. To make your life easier, boss-specific talent loadouts are available in theRaidssection.
Gameplay Altering Talents
Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation andDeep Divesections below.
Spec Tree
- Bone Collector
- Gain 1 charge of Bone Shield when pulling an enemy.
- Ossuary
- While above 5 charges of Bone Shield your Death Strike costs less Runic Power.
- Improved Vampiric Blood
- Improves all aspects of your Vampiric Blood.
- Heartbreaker
- This provides a nice bonus to your Runic Power generation.
- Hemostasis
- Blood Boil gives you stacks to improve your Death Strike. The more enemies you hit the more beneficial this is.
- Insatiable Blade
- This is crucial for reducing your Dancing Rune Weapon cooldown. See the Deep Dive for a more detailed explanation!
- Everlasting Bond
- Duplicating Dancing Rune Weapon magnifies this cooldown's potency.
- Reinforced Bones
- With this, you now can have a maximum of 12 charges of Bone Shield.
- Red Thirst
- This provides a huge cooldown reduction for your Vampiric Blood.
- Shattering Bone
- Makes it so that losing stacks of Bone Shield deals a lot of damage to nearby enemies.
- Purgatory
- A Cheat Death every 4 minutes.
Class Tree
- Improved Death Strike
- Very important talent to make your Death Strike much stronger.
- Cleaving Strikes
- EnablesDeath and Decayto cleave more targets and extend yourDeath and Decayduration. Details in the Deep Dive.
- Anti-Magic Barrier
- Lowers the cooldown of your Anti-Magic Shell and makes it stronger.
- Enfeeble
- Gives a defensive proc to your Raise Dead pet.
- Icy Talons
- With this, you obtain a new buff to upkeep.
- Unholy Endurance
- Lichborne now becomes a potent defensive ability.
- Insidious Chill
- This reduces the enemy's attack speed and is more or less your Raid buff.
- Unyielding Will
- This increases your cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell by 20 seconds.
- But also makes it so that you can use Anti-Magic Shell to remove magical debuffs when activated.
- Death's Echo
- This grants you an additional charge of Death and DecayDeath Grip and Death's Advance making them easier to use and juggle correctly.
When to use this spec
This Talent build is sacrificing around 3% damage to get Massgrip and get some more utility going, this is nice for some Bosses.
Talent Adjustments
Listing all the changes within the Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.
Spec Tree
- Added
- Gorefiend's Grasp
- Your mass-grip ability is very useful for getting any adds stacks together.
- Gorefiend's Grasp
- Removed
- Hemostasis
- This talent provides a nice bonus to damage on your Death Strike.
- Hemostasis
When to use this spec
This loadout is dropping extra Heart Strike for extra Vampiric Blood uptime and healing. This is a ~2% DPS loss.
Talent Adjustments
Listing all the changes within the Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.
Spec Tree
- Added
- Improved Vampiric Blood
- +4 sec uptime and 10% healing during Vampiric Blood.
- Improved Vampiric Blood
- Removed
- Improved Heart Strike
- 30% Heart Strike damage.
- Improved Heart Strike
Rotation
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Tier Set
Currently, Blood Death Knights want to use a combination of Season 4 (2pc) and Season 3 (2pc) since the current Season 4 set Bonus is just weaker both damage-wise and defensively, making it worth dropping your item level on Shoulders and Gloves.
If you can't get your hands on the Season 3 Mythic Tier set anymore, or your copy is below Ilevel 489 sim your character, Simcraft doesn’t account for the damage reduction, but you can use the damage difference as a guideline.
- Season 4 (2pc): Heart Strike and Blood Boil deal 20% increased damage and have a 10% chance to grant Vampiric Blood for 5 sec.
- Season 4 (4pc): Whenever you gain Vampiric Blood, you also gain Vampiric Strength for 5 seconds. While it's active, Heart Strike and Blood Boil casts extend the duration of Vampiric Strength by 0.5s.
- Season 3 (2pc): Consuming Runic Power has a chance to cause your next Heart Strike to apply Ashen Decay, reducing damage dealt to you by 10% and increasing your damage dealt to afflicted targets by 20% for 8 sec.
Opener
- The Goal of your opener is to make sure you have all the benefits of your Death and Decay active while min maxing the Bone Shield stacks with Dancing Rune Weapon and Tombstone + Bonestorm to gain fast CDR through Insatiable Blade while also getting all your offensive cooldowns rolling.
- Death's Caress has a travel time and should be cast while running in for the pull.
- When casting Tombstone and Bonestorm make sure to stand in your Death and Decay to gain the maximum benefit from Shattering Bone.
Priority List
This is the standard priority list, follow this unless a Boss or scenario requires you to hold some abilities listed here. You can learn more about when to hold cooldowns in the Raids section.
- Never drop your Bone Shield! Use Marrowrend or Death's Caress to keep it active.
- Maintain 5+ Stacks of Bone Shield to make use of Ossuary, dropping below 5 is ok if Dancing Rune Weapon is coming up soon.
- Cast Abomination Limb + Raise Dead on cooldown unless a fight requires you to hold it.
- Keep up your Death and Decay buff, this means you might have to recast if the buff fades. Cleaving Strikes grants you a 4sec window after it fades or you leave it.
- Use Fyr'alath the Dreamrender as long as it doesn't let your Coagulopathy stacks drop.
- Cast Soul Reaper if the Target is below 35% HP.
- Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown.
- Tombstone on cooldown under the following conditions:
- You are standing in Death and Decay for Shattering Bone.
- You have 5+ Stacks of Bone Shield.
- Your Insatiable Blade talent provides you with 20/25 seconds of cooldown reduction for Dancing Rune Weapon.
- Bonestorm on cooldown under the following conditions:
- You are standing in Death and Decay for Shattering Bone.
- You have 10+ Stacks of Bone Shield.
- Your Insatiable Blade talent provides you with 45/50 seconds of cooldown reduction for Dancing Rune Weapon.
- Spend Runic Power on Death Strike when you are about to overcap or Coagulopathy is about to fade.
- Blood Boil to avoid overcapping on stacks.
- Heart Strike to consume runes as a filler.
Defensive Cooldowns
- Vampiric Blood, most of the time you want to use Vamp Blood as much as possible when you take any form of damage. Holding it is only really required if you need to survive a big hit or are about to have downtime on the Boss, and it can't get full value.
- Dancing Rune Weapon, generally use this on cooldown unless you need the parry for some special situation, more detailed info is in the Deep Dive below.
- Anti-Magic Shell, is one of the strongest defensives when it comes to magic damage. In general, it can always be used when taking magic damage, in a lot of scenarios though delaying it or using it to immune mechanics is the best usage this ability can have. Make sure to keep an eye out during the specific sections on what to immune and how to make the most out of Anti-Magic Shell.
- Icebound Fortitude is an amazing defensive for general damage reduction, use this as much as possible in a fight without overlapping it with other cooldowns unless it's needed. It can also be held to immune a stun mechanic, but this is rather rare.
- Lichborne is nice and small defensives when specced into Unholy Endurance providing you with 10% Leech and 15% DR which makes it a good button to press when you just need a little bit of help, in an AoE scenario it becomes more worthwhile since leech is really strong in AoE. Also, if you get feared for some reason, press it!
Offensive Cooldowns
- Abomination Limb on cooldown, every time it tries to grip an enemy you get 1 stack of Bone Shield because of Bone Collector.
- Tombstone on cooldown under the following conditions:
- 1. You are standing in Death and Decay for Shattering Bone.
- 2. You have 5+ Stacks of Bone Shield.
- 3. Your Insatiable Blade provides you with 25 seconds of cooldown reduction for Dancing Rune Weapon.
- Bonestorm on cooldown under the following conditions:
- You are standing in Death and Decay for Shattering Bone.
- You have 10+ Stacks of Bone Shield.
- Your Insatiable Blade talent provides you with 45/50 seconds of cooldown reduction for Dancing Rune Weapon.
Deep Dive
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Death Strike Healing and Absorb
Death Strike is what makes a Blood Death Knight a Blood Death Knight. This ability is the core of your class! Understanding how it works and how to properly use it is crucial for maximizing your damage, staying alive, and being the best tank out there through your incredible self-sustain.
- Death Strike heals you for a % of your maximum HP and increases this healing based on your damage taken in the last 5 seconds. This makes Death Strike an ineffective source of healing when you haven’t taken a meaningful amount of damage in the last 5 seconds.
- Environmental damage and friendly fire damage are not counted in the damage taken formula, which is the main cause of self-healing issues. Environmental damage can come from a lot of sources such as Boss room AoE damage, and affix damage like Storming.
- Your healing from Death Strike is now multiplied by a lot of different abilities and stats:
- Versatility is a multiplier for Death Strike healing.
- Voracious also increases your Death Strike healing including your Mastery: Blood Shield value.
- Hemostasis only multiplies your Death Strike healing, but does not increase the size of your Mastery: Blood Shield.
- Mastery: Blood Shield is next most import mechanic of Death Strike:
- The generated Shield from Mastery: Blood Shield is based on the full healing value, this does include overhealing.
- The absorb is purely physical and does not work on magic damage at all.
- The absorb is increased by your mastery stat value.
- Voracious does increase the Healing and value of your Shield, whereas Hemostasis does not.
- The maximum value that Mastery: Blood Shield can have is your max HP. This does dynamically update with HP buffs such as Vampiric Blood and Rallying Cry for example.
Managing Death Strike
Now that you learned how Death Strike works, let's talk about how to use it to gain the most damage and survivability out of it.
- For damage, you want to use Death Strike when you are getting close to overcapping your Runic Power or when you can afford to spend all your Runic Power to just do damage to a target.
- If you want to use Death Strike properly to heal up or counter certain mechanics, it all comes down to a good gameplay flow:
- Take your damage taken in the last 5 seconds into account when Death Strike is being used. Most of the time you want to Death Strike after tank mechanics or taking a lot of damage. This benefits you with both a big heal and big absorb shield right after using Death Strike.
- Most of the time, using 2 Death Strikes back to back is not a good idea since using 1 already tops you and gives you a big absorb. There are scenarios where you would want to use more Death Strikes back to back, but they are rarer than just using 1 with precise timing.
- Timing Death Strike correctly against magic damage is very important, since your Mastery: Blood Shield does not help you at all against this type of damage.
- Stacking up the absorb to be ready for tank mechanics can be quite handy but often comes at a great cost since generating big shields takes a long time if you don't take enough damage to feed into your Death Strike healing.
With all this info you are ready to fully understand and utilize Death Strike to the max. Always keep in mind tanking is not set on a rotation or rigid flow of abilities, getting a good gameplay flow going and having proper Death Strike usage comes with experience and practice.
Death and Decay Optimization
- Maintaining high uptime on your Death and Decay is important for both your damage and healing done as a Blood Death Knight because of these effects:
- Unholy Ground and Sanguine Ground.
- Because of Shattering Bone, whenever you use Bonestorm or Tombstone stepping out of your Death and Decay effect costs you a lot of damage.
- The main idea is to always use Death and Decay whenever it's not active, and you have it off cooldown. Cleaving Strikes grants you a lot of extra duration and quality of life benefits from your Death and Decay.
- Here are the advantages provided by Cleaving Strikes:
- You walk out of Death and Decay and retain the benefits for 4 seconds.
- Death and Decay duration runs out and this buff appears afterwards.
- Walking in and out of Death and Decay always refreshes the buff regardless of Death and Decay duration.
- Due to Cleaving Strikes giving you another 4 extra seconds of Death and Decay the rotation to upkeep this effect is very nice and smooth even without Death's Echo.
- The average uptime without Death's Echo is around 93% which is already very good.
- With Death's Echo you never drop the Death and Decay buff when playing correctly.
- Death's Echo is now not fully needed anymore to keep the buff active so picking it is mainly a nice benefit to utility with Death's Advance and Death Grip.
- Here is a timeline of how a good Death and Decay usage with Cleaving Strikes looks. Just pressing it off cooldown.
Dancing Rune Weapon
Dancing Rune Weapon is one of the most important spells in the Blood Death Knight's arsenal and has a lot of things that are not that obvious at first!
It is essential for both damage and defensive value when playing the class, and these are the key features you should know about the ability.
- The Weapon more or less counts as an untargetable "guardian" and always follows the target you used the ability on. This means when that target dies it follows you and attacks your current target.
- Dancing Rune Weapon spawns behind the target so it can pull more enemies or even despawn when used too close to other enemies or against a wall or corner.
- Each weapon you summon duplicates certain spells and gives you the benefits, so let's talk about them:
- Marrowrend grants you 9 Stacks of Bone Shield (3 Stacks per weapon).
- Death's Caress grants you 6 Stacks of Bone Shield (2 Stacks per weapon).
- Heart Strike grants you 15 Runic Power instead of 5 (each weapon casts Heart Strike generating 5 Runic Power).
- Blood Boil now applies 3 individual debuffs of Blood Plague (1 Debuff per weapon extra) the health transfer does not increase you still only benefit from your own Blood Plague.
- The same goes for Blood Plague from Death's Caress.
- Death Strike does more damage as the ability is copied by the weapon but the heal is not increased.
All these great benefits in addition to getting a 40% parry chance buff makes gaining Cooldown Reduction on Dancing Rune Weapon one of the most important things you can do. Keep that in mind when playing and make the most out of your CDR and your Dancing Rune Weapon.
Understanding Mechanics
Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.
- Pandemic
- Spell Queue Window
- Stat Diminishing Returns
Raids
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Vault, Aberrus & Amidrassil
The current focus is on the relevant bosses from Season 4, covering important aspects such as talent specs, cooldown management, and other crucial details. For the upcoming Raid in "The War Within," you receive a comprehensive look at all the bosses in the next update.
← Scroll for more Bosses →
Broodkeeper
Raszageth
Neltharion
Sarkareth
Smolderon
Tindral
Fyrakk
Phase 1
Add Tank
- When tanking the adds in P1, it is worth holding your Cooldowns on the pull. That way you have them to keep aggro off your DPS players when the adds spawn.
- Holding Dancing Rune Weapon is especially big for aggro.
- When your team has an Evoker call for Cauterizing Flame to cleanse Rending Bite after you reach too many stacks. Oftentimes you dodge them so when you are unlucky, cleanse them.
- Stoneform also works and is amazing as a personal defensive tool!
- You can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell to immune the stun from Static Jolt cast by the add.
- Icebound Fortitude should be used to break the stun from Static Jolt if the cast went off.
- Since Boss mechanics don't hit you while you are tanking the adds 50 yards away, using defensives when tanking Earthweavers with their Burrowing Strike is a good thing to do. This stacks up quite fast and increases your damage taken a lot. Use defensives late into tanking these adds unless they die really fast.
- Having Vampiric Blood at the end of the casts is really nice and can help you survive.
- Make sure to always aim Tremors away from the ranged and melee players (preferably into the wall). Keep in mind the cast time, and dodge it yourself at the last second so you have a higher chance of stacking up multiple casts in the same position to create more space.
- Lastly, make sure to keep dragging the 2 spawning packs together and assign kicks or other stops while dragging when fighting the caster packs.
- Use Death Grip to grip caster adds when needed.
Boss Tank
- The most important thing to know is how you are breaking the eggs on this fight. Make sure to learn the tactic your guild is running!
- Mechanics like Wildfire and Icy Shroud can be quite annoying when tanking the boss since they oftentimes overlap with Mortal Wounds. For this use defensives during the overlaps.
- Making use of externals when tanking the boss Mortal Stoneclaws. It is super important since you want to stay healthy during the Mortal Wounds debuff.
- Dropping low and trying to heal up with a -% Healing debuff is really difficult. Make sure to pre-use defensives.
- Pre-using Anti-Magic Shell to immune Crushing Stoneclaws from the tank mechanic, Wildfire and Icy Shroud is very strong.
- If Anti-Magic Shell is not available use Vampiric Blood.
Phase 2
- During P2 both tanks are now on the boss and the damage the boss does ramps up every 30 seconds due to Broodkeeper's Fury.
- The key to this phase is alternating both tanks' defensives properly to deal with the newly added tank explosion mechanic of Stoneslam Detonation which is applied after Mortal Stoneslam.
- In this phase Death Knight has it really easy since you can use Anti-Magic Shell every time right before Mortal Stoneslam hits and immune both Crushing Stoneclaws and the new explosion Stoneslam Detonation negating the mechanic fully.
Below is a timeline of P2, with you tanking the first Tank mechanic.
- If for some reason you do not have Anti-Magic Shell ready make sure to pre-use at least 1 or 2 Death Strikes to top yourself and generate a big shield. Pair this with other defensives such as Icebound Fortitude or Vampiric Blood.
- The important part about the tank mechanic is that after taking it, you have a 90% healing reduction for 12 seconds from Mortal Suffering while exploding for a lot of magic damage after with Stoneslam Detonation.
- Most of the time, this kills you if don't go into this mechanic with lots of defensives up to stay at high HP after the initial hit.
- Lastly Frozen Shroud and Wildfire do a decent amount of magic damage to you. Overall it's not too bad, but keep this in mind if you can't Anti-Magic Shell the tank mechanic.
Special Tips and Tricks
- A DPS/healer player with an immunity can taunt right before Mortal Stoneslam takes all the deadly debuffs and just immunes them outside the raid group giving you and your tank partner more time to regenerate defensives.
- Using Blessing of Sacrifice can be quite dangerous for the paladin in this fight so make sure he is ready when you call for it.
- Dwarf Stoneform is a really strong defensive in this fight both for its bleed removal and the 10% physical damage reduction.
Phase 1
- Electrified Jaws is the only tank mechanic in P1 and this is easy to handle. The initial damage is quite low because the important part is the debuff after which Increases your physical damage taken by 100% and gives you a magic DoT.
- When taunting this debuff from the other tank it still lasts for the next melee swing meaning you take 1 swing with +100% damage taken. Be ready for this and press a defensive such as Vampiric Blood or Icebound Fortitude.
- Hurricane Wing can be immuned with Death's Advance.
- When tanking the boss, face her away from the raid to make it easier for them.
- Volatile Current spawns Sparks that need to be dealt with, as a Blood Death Knight your toolkit has the following:
- Use Mind Freeze to kick 1 spark and remove 1 stack.
- On the other hand Blinding Sleet removes 1 stack from all Sparks in front of you and should be used every 2 waves.
- Death Grip removes 1 stack from 1 Spark, it's best used on far away Sparks since it is single target.
- Gorefiend's Grasp if talented also removes 1 stack from all Sparks in range of the grip.
Intermission 1
- In the first Intermission, your main struggle is going to be picking up aggro from all the adds which spawn when breaking the Shield of the Ruiners.
- For this be ready to have Death and Decay down and hold at least 1 charge of Blood Boil so you can generate initial threat.
- Apart from that, make use of Death Grip to move Acolyte (caster adds) with you or out of Lightning Devastation.
Phase 2
- Electrified Jaws still exists with the same rules as P1.
- Hurricane Wing is now Tempest Wing this does not how easy it is to handle with Death's Advance.
- Just press it and stand still, avoid nearby players, and still actively move through the wave to take as little damage as possible.
- Fulminating Charge is a non-tank mechanic but it can be quite nice to help out when possible, meaning if a DPS player is struggling to move out of the Raid step into his circle (closest to him) take the debuff and "free" him.
- Since the debuff is not meant for tanks the damage is quite low and easy to tank.
- Volatile Current still exists, and using all CC on this is the best thing you can do to help out your Raid team.
- It is important to not use Gorefiend's Grasp on the last 2 waves before the next intermission so Gorefiend's Grasp is ready to be used there.
Intermission 2
- Agree on which tank takes which Stormfiend. One important note is that they don't melee swing but use a ranged magical attack instead. This means that even if you are not in range of them but you have aggro you get hit by their attack.
- During this Intermission the whole raid is busy and generally, there won't be much healing going towards the tanks so whenever you are tanking the Stormfiend and they are not casting anything consider pressing a defensive.
- Storm Break spawns adds from every Stormfiend, here you can make use of Gorefiend's Grasp when the small adds meet in the middle of the room to grip them together and slow/stun them.
Phase 3
- P3 is the most interesting phase for tanking since the boss casts Raging Storm and starts spawning Storm's Spite.
- The main goal is to soak as many of these as possible when tanking to lessen the stacks on the whole Raid group.
- While not tanking the boss you should be walking around the boss soaking them.
- You are the best tank against this mechanic so soak as much as possible.
- Thunderous Blast is the new tank mechanic, it's different from the other Phases. Now it is a frontal cone during which you need to use defensives to lessen the impact of the debuff damage on the raid after Thunderous Energy.
- Make use of Anti-Magic Shell and Vampiric Blood every single time you take this mechanic. Pre-use them to negate as much damage as possible.
- Asking for Absorb Externals or Normal Externals and making use of any Absorb trinket in the game is powerful here and recommended.
- Aiming it away from the raid or any other players is important since if anyone but the tanks gets hit they blow up and probably cause a wipe.
- Thunderstruck Armor is the debuff after taking the explosion, similar to P1 and P2 you have this up for a few melee swings when taunting off your tank partner so be ready to use defensives such as Icebound Fortitude and Lichborne when taunting and pool some runic power to cast Death Strike.
- Magnetic Charge is a new mechanic for non-tank players, it grips you to their position when the debuff runs out.
- Use Death's Advance to not get pulled so you can keep the boss facing in a good position and help the raid.
- On top of that, you can soak Storm's Spites that are now far away from the relocated raid.
- Fulminating Charge + Tempest Wing are same as P2.
Special Tips and Tricks
- Blood Elves Arcane Torrent removes stacks from the Sparks and can be a really strong racial on this fight.
- Playing higher Versatility on this fight can be quite nice since a lot of the damage taken in this fight is magical.
Phase 1
- In this Phase it's important to position the boss correctly for Echoing Fissure, most of the time you want to it into a corner far away from the broken wall you want to pass.
- Use Calamitous Strike to break walls, it is important to note that this ability knockbacks into the wall and far behind it so aim yourself correctly before it goes off.
- On top of that your tank partner can taunt during the cast and the target does not swap.
- Don't use Death's Advance before this hits you. This prevents you from being knocked back which means not breaking any walls, therefore you wipe.
- Getting gripped back after you break a wall works well.
Phase 2
- In this phase, you have to drag the boss depending on your guild's strategy, same with which wall to break with Sunder Shadow.
- Sunder Shadow knocks you back a small amount and leaves an image of you behind while you can pass through walls. It is important to note here that you always need to leave melee range to break walls. Oftentimes this causes you to take quite a lot of damage while being unable to generate Runic Power and Death Strike.
- So with this just run behind the wall you desire to break and use Vampiric Blood + Anti-Magic Shell
- Should there be a Volcanic Heart in the way, also use Icebound Fortitude or Lichborne right before it goes off so you keep the damage reduction for the most amount of time.
- Don't underestimate the damage you can take walking away from the boss with Sunder Shadow especially when he follows it up with a Umbral Annihilation. It's all magic damage after all!
- When Corruption is cast avoid pressing Blood Boil and Heart Strike to not cleave the mind controlled players.
Phase 3
- In P3 the boss positioning is relevant to which portals become available when Sunder Reality is cast, so position the boss properly.
- After Sunder Reality is cast, portals open and adds spawn close to them. The problem here is aggro especially since the adds are gonna be spread out here. Make sure to have Blood Boil charges ready and look out for any potential Death Grip on distant mobs.
- During this, one of the 2 tanks also gets Calamitous Strike from the boss make sure to outplay the knockback with Death's Advance to not break any walls.
- On top of that, you now have a huge damage taken increase which can be quite dangerous while tanking the adds. Make sure to use defensives here or get a Blessing of Protection from a Paladin to cleanse the debuff.
Special Tips and Tricks
- In P3, position the boss close to the portals so the melee players can have full uptime while also being safe from Ebon Destruction.
Phase 1
- Burning Claws is the main mechanic for tanks in P1, Blazing Blast triggers at the end of the debuff making it crucial to keep defensives and absorbs through the entire duration.
- While having this debuff make sure to useAnti-Magic ShellwhenScorching Bombgoes off to get value from both magic damage absorb towards the explosion and immuning the stacks ofScorching Bomb.
- Moving the boss while Drifting Embers is going on is nice and can lead to melee players dodging the mechanic better.
- Always make sure to bait Searing Breath away from the ranged players unless your guild's strat says otherwise. What this means is don't stand with your back towards the range camp.
Phase 2
- After playing the Intermission reposition the boss for Abyssal Breath. Don't keep him too close to the edge but more towards the inner circle of the room.
- Abyssal Breath spawns a lot of adds, one of them is going to be a tank add, make sure to to pick it up. It casts Empty Strike increasing your damage taken.
- As a Death Knight you have a ranged kick with Mind Freeze so make sure to keep an eye on Cosmic Volley and help kick it.
- With Blinding Sleet you can AoE Stop Blasting Scream whenever needed.
- Void Claws is the new main tank mechanic in this phase, it does a good amount of damage to you so make sure to have Vampiric Blood for it when you get it and cast a Death Strike to stay healthy.
- With this mechanic opposed to P1 you don't need to use defensives throughout the duration but toward the end when it explodes.
- When the debuff expires it explodes, run this out of the raid, and don't hit anyone with this mechanic.
- Infinite Duress is a debuff on a non tank-player. This when dispelled triggers Dread a decent knockback that can sometimes be quite problematic. To counter this just cast Death's Advance right after the dispel and you won't be knocked back.
Solo Intermission
- If you are handling the solo outside phase make sure to have Death's Advance and Anti-Magic Shell ready before going into Intermission:
- Before all players go in together make sure to request a Blessing of Protection to immune Destabilize. If you do not have a Blessing of Protection ask for externals and at a minimum use both Icebound Fortitude and Lichborne.
- After that, you want to press Death's Advance to stay in the middle of the room and taunt the boss towards. NOW press Anti-Magic Shell to immune the application of Infinite Duress.
- Meet the Boss in the middle he casts Cosmic Ascension run towards where he came from all the way to the edge waiting for the cast to finish and the crystal Astral Formation to spawn under you.
- The Boss re-appears and walks towards you be ready with a Vampiric Blood since he is about to cast Void Slash.
Here is a Timeline of how it should look if everything goes right:
Phase 3
- In P3 tanks have a unique job, the new Void Slash mechanic is a frontal cone that can't hit anyone but the current tank.
- Most of the time 1 tank is taking 2 stacks of it and then going down into the Emptiness Between Stars since the explosion would kill the raid-team.
- Stand inside either Astral Formation or in one of the falling Motes of Oblivion to gain stacks of Oblivion.
- Every Cosmic Ascension is quite dangerous since the boss flies up and you have to break uptime run to out and meet the boss who is ready to swing at you. Here it is recommended to have Vampiric Blood up.
- Scouring Eternity make sure to pre-position the Boss behind a crystal so you are safe from this mechanic.
- Embrace of Nothingness is the big soak mechanic on non-tank players if your tactic is to help and soak this make sure to press strong defensives such as Icebound Fortitude and Anti-Magic Shell
- Infinite Duress again is present, you can immune this by using Death's Advance.
Special Tips and Tricks
- Dwarf Stoneform is a really strong utility in this fight when you want to do the solo Intermission on a non-immunity class or Anti-Magic Shell is not ready. Since you can self-dispel Infinite Duress.
Phase 1
Smolderon as a fight is very scripted and there is only 1 random factor that determines how the fight plays out.
After each World In Flames Intermission it is random which tank gets the first debuff.
Depending on if you get the first or second debuff the fight and how you play it changes a tiny bit so the following section is split to cover both scenarios.
First Overheated
- Getting the first Overheated debuff means you want to step away from the tanking position and your tank partner wants to taunt the boss to get Brand of Damnation on him.
- While your tanking partner is getting hit by the mechanic you have to look for a nice position to stand in and be ready to taunt the boss.
- During the cast of Brand of Damnation taunt the boss and don't be in the circle of the mechanic. Defensives are not needed here at all since you are just tanking the boss with his normal melee swings.
- After this, you are going to be taking on the 2 Brands of Damnation for the Phase.
SecondOverheated
- When your tank partner gets Overheated first you need to act fast since you need to have aggro of the boss. This means taunting the boss and getting ready to take Brand of Damnation.
- Follow to steps below on how to handle Brand of Damnation.
- After coming back to the boss you have to get ready to receive the second Overheated of the fight. With this debuff, position yourself well and wait for your tank partner to take Brand of Damnation taunt the boss, and play it out until intermission starts.
Managing Brand of Damnation
- It's time to talk about Brand of Damnation how to use your defensives and prepare for the hard part of the fight.
- Ideally, you want to pool some Runic Power and have either Lichborne or Icebound Fortitude ready to use.
- Right before the cast finishes you want to use any defensives lasting longer than 8 seconds since after the hit you receive 2 new debuffs Cauterizing Wound and Searing Aftermath.
- Cauterizing Wound is a big healing absorb and when removed it drops an exploding zone under you. To clear this after the mechanic hits you, walk away from the stack of players a bit and press 1 or 2 Death Strikes.
- After that Searing Aftermath is your next concern, so you took the mechanic cleared your healing absorb, and topped your HP. With that base while running out press Death's Advance and bring this debuff either behind or in front of the Raid team with the most possible distance between you and the players since there is a drop off to the damage.
- Right before Searing Aftermath explodes make sure to press Anti-Magic Shell or press it right before entering Smoldering Ground since you immune getting the debuff meaning you are not gonna take any dot damage while standing in fire aslong as Anti-Magic Shell is active.
- After Searing Aftermath exploded get ready to walk back to the Raid you want to pay attention to the Lava Geysers timer. Since this can be baited by tanks too, make your way back either close to Lava Pool or wait out the timer (usually a few seconds) and then walk back to the boss.
Intermission
- Intermission is the easiest part for tanks, the boss goes AFK and nothing really happens, make sure to pick up your 5 Ignited Essence to min max your damage.
- Watch out when using Death's Advance since the knockback of the intermission cast World In Flames gets immuned and the orbs might spawn too close to the boss to be soaked by you.
- Lingering Burn of the fire rings can be avoided by pressing Anti-Magic Shell before the ring explodes.
- Keep in mind using it late in the Intermission causes it to maybe not be ready when you have to play the first Brand of Damnation.
Managing Wild Mushrooms
- Wild Mushrooms are the main mechanic throughout the whole fight, they are fairly easy when executed correctly.
- Basically the Boss casts Wild Mushrooms and summon 2 type of mushrooms 1 Poisonous Mushroom and 1 Blazing Mushroom
- Both of them need to be soaked by 1 tank each, otherwise they explode and wipe the raid.
- When soaked you receive a debuff making you take 500% more damage from the next mushroom of the same color for the next set.
- With that in mind, it's quite simple what the goal is, soak 1 color -> soak the other color and repeat
- At the start of the fight, you and your tank partner should decide who does which color first and from then on the rotation just flows naturally.
- Tips for the mushrooms
- Cutting it too close to the edge of the mushroom might not work properly and make it explode on the Raid so make sure to take an extra step inside just to be safe.
- The mushrooms are spawning quite fast after another so be ready to walk quickly to the next one. With Death's Advance you should have no problem getting from 1 to the other.
- The damage of the mushrooms is not too high but soaking them plus some raid damage can be quite dangerous at times. Make sure to also use Vampiric Blood and Death Strike the boss while running between mushrooms.
Phase 1
- When players break Mass Entanglement small treants spawn, make sure to pick them up using Blood Boil.
- While sometimes treants can spawn further away from melee when players break their root, use Death Grip to grip them under the boss so they can be cleaved down.
- After Fire Beam make sure to move the boss to a further away position making it easy to dodge for the Raid.
Phase 2
- The only added mechanic in P2 is Flaming Germination which spawns Seed of Flame Here 2 things are important for tanks:
- First, make sure to always keep the boss close to the dispel fire zones caused by Fiery Growth since the seeds can not spawn in the fire and so you can control the area where they spawn in a better way.
- Try to always soak a seed right behind you when tanking the boss in the middle-ish so the boss stays in range for every player in the raid when the seeds are happening.
Phase 3
- In P3 all mechanics mentioned above are happening together, but the way to handle them stays the same.
- For the Boss movement consult with your guild and check what tactic you are running.
Special Tips and Tricks
- Death's Advance can be used to not get pushed back by Typhoon.
- This makes it easier for you to dodge Fire Beam.
Phase 1
- Same as Tindral a lot of specifics come down to the tactic your guild/Raid picks on this Boss so I am going to give more overall tips and tricks for the fight.
- Predator is a special tank mechanic that makes the boss leap after you and hit you with a melee swing. Nothing special, just keep in mind that if you run far away from him he leaps to you same when the boss goes away during certain boss abilities.
- Fyr'alath's Bite is the tank mechanic in P1 + 2 always make sure to aim it in a set direction and don't change this last second because in P2 you can't hit any Souls with it.
- P1 make sure to position the boss nicely for your melee players to still swing when placing the Dream Rend.
- Make use of Anti-Magic Shell before walking into the fire patch on the ground to immune the ticking debuff.
- The direction the Boss faces is important for the placement of Dream Rend since the boss keeps turning while he is casting and the direction he faces when the cast finishes determines the position.
- The Dream Rend suck in can be prevented by pressing Death's Advance
- Blaze during this mechanic since you are a tank, don't move around too much just tank it, and if anything move inside your line so you don't shift the position.
Intermission
- Everything here comes down to the tactic your guild uses and what WeakAura you follow. Generally, you can soak a ball of the opposite color once when pressing Vampiric Blood + Anti-Magic Shell + Icebound Fortitude.
- This consumes all of your defensives so only do it when strictly necessary.
Phase 2
- Greater Firestorm spawns the 2 Colossus adds during the Shadowflame Devastation phase. Normally both tank's circles stack on top of each other so make sure to use Anti-Magic Shell for this mechanic.
- In P2 Death Grip and Gorefiend's Grasp shine.
- Make sure to grip far away Screaming Souls in with Death Grip and when pushed close enough together cast Gorefiend's Grasp to stack them up.
Phase 3
- In P3 the tanking is changing a bit making it a bit harder since you take more damage over time from the new tank buster Infernal Maw with the stacking debuff.
- Normally tanks hold aCorrupted SeedorSeed of Amirdrassil during P3.
- Important to note is that Infernal Maw counts towards a mechanic that will explode the seed and wipe the raid so if you ever hold the seed and the tank mechanic is about to hit you drop it before.
- For cooldowns for every single Infernal Maw combo, you can have Vampiric Blood ready
- Have enough runic power saved up to Death Strike after each hit.
Special Tips and Tricks
- Playing higher Versatility on this fight can be quite nice since a lot of the damage taken in this fight is magical.
Stat Priority
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as a Blood Death Knight. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.
Higher Item level items are better in most scenarios. For an accurate representation of what item to equip you should use Simcraft! A static "Stat Priority" is just a starting point and can easily shift depending on your individual gear.
All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!
Tertiary
- Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
- Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing. The damage of your pets does not heal you thus Leech is a great tertiary for us since most of our damage is coming from our spells not our pets.
- Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. This makes managing certain mechanics a lot easier.
In general, Leech is really strong for tanks, especially in AoE scenarios it can be by far the best stat you can have.
Avoidance is great but most of the time tanks are not struggling to survive the typical Area of Effect abilities.
Gear
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Overall BiS
Farmable Alternatives
Slot | Item | Location |
---|---|---|
Head | Piercing Gaze of the Risen Nightmare | Tier / Catalyst |
Neck | Ouroboreal Necklet | Volcoross |
Shoulder | Skewers of the Risen Nightmare | Season 3 Tier Set |
Cloak | Vibrant Wildercloth Shawl | Crafting |
Chest | Casket of the Risen Nightmare | Tier / Catalyst |
Wrist | Primal Molten Vambraces | Crafting |
Gloves | Thorns of the Risen Nightmare | Season 3 Tier Set |
Belt | Trapmaster's Utility Belt | M+ |
Legs | Obsidian Guard's Chausses | Assault of the Zaqali |
Boots | Spittle-Resistant Sollerets | Magmorax |
Ring 1 | Seal of Diurna's Chosen | Eranog |
Ring 2 | Seal of Filial Duty | Broodkeeper Diurna |
Trinket 1 | Manic Grieftorch | Broodkeeper Diurna |
Trinket 2 | Augury of the Primal Flame | Broodkeeper Fyrakk |
Weapon | Fyr'alath the Dreamrender | Fyrakk |
Below you are presented a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.
Slot | Item | Location |
---|---|---|
Head | Decay Mother's Wrathful Gaze | Brackenhide Hollow |
Neck | Bromach's Disentombed Locket | Uldaman |
Shoulder | Pauldrons of Immutable Truth | Uldaman |
Cloak | Fireproof Drape | Ruby Life Pools |
Chest | Breastplate of Proven Knowledge | Algeth'ar Academy |
Wrist | Excavated Earthen Wristslabs | Uldaman |
Gloves | Forgemaster's Grips | Neltharus |
Belt | Trapmaster's Utility Belt | Brackenhide Hollow |
Legs | Venerated Professor's Greaves | Algeth'ar Academy |
Boots | Pristine Magma Stompers | Neltharus |
Ring 1 | Circle of Ascended Frost | Halls of Infusion |
Ring 2 | Thunderous Downburst Ring | The Nokhud Offensive |
Trinket 1 | Blazebinder's Hoof | Ruby Life Pools |
Trinket 2 | Idol of Trampling Hooves | The Nokhud Offensive |
Weapon | Ley-Line Tracer | The Azure Vault |
Trinkets
Trinkets come in two varieties: active and passive. Active trinkets require manual activation and inherit a cooldown providing a temporary boost to your output or survivability. On the other hand, passive trinkets provide a more consistent boost to your stats and abilities without requiring any actions.
Active Trinket alternatives
- Elementium Pocket Anvil
- Good on long fights, since it takes time to stack up.
- Enduring Dreadplate
- Very strong defensive trinket that also does big AoE damage.
- Fyrakk's Tainted Rageheart
- The best absorb trinket, does some passive damage and has a high value absorb.
- Storm-Eater's Boon
- A very strong trinket for big AoE. Watch out because it roots you for its duration.
Passive Trinket alternatives
- Cataclysmic Signet Brand
- Very strong trinket for long fights, but currently not that useful if you have already full gear and bosses die quickly.
- All-Totem of the Master
- This is a decent passive trinket if you want to have a bit of everything. It procs damage, stats, and armor at random every 30 seconds.
- Prophetic Stonescales
- Cheat Death Trinket, very very good trinket for safety.
Simcraft
To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.
Embellishments
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
- 2x Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch
- Really good since it just does damage to the target and procs your fire rings
- On Wrists, Boots, Waist, or Cloak depending on your available gear.
Remaining Sparks
- Make sure to apply Alchemical Flavor Pocket if you have an additional crafted item equipped.
- Crafted items are 525 item level and regular items are 528 on max item level, therefore, it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.
Enchantments
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Head | Incandescent Essence |
Neck | Tiered Medallion Setting 3x |
Cloak | Enchant Cloak - Graceful Avoidance |
Chest | Enchant Chest - Waking Stats |
Wrist | Enchant Bracer - Devotion of Leech |
Belt | Shadowed Belt Clasp |
Legs | Fierce Armor Kit |
Boots | Enchant Boots - Plainsrunner's Breeze |
Ring 1 | Enchant Ring - Devotion of Haste |
Ring 2 | Enchant Ring - Devotion of Haste |
Weapon | Rune of the Fallen Crusader |
Consumables
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Phials
- Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage -- For maximum DPS.
- Phial of Tepid Versatility -- For less DPS but more survivability.
Food
- Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
- Deviously Deviled Eggs
Combat Potion
- Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
- Residual Neural Channeling Agent
- Can be used while being dead if your potion is ready.
Health Potion
- Potion of Withering Dreams -- Since this potion is the only potion able to make a bigger change in hp for tanks it's recommended to use if you need that emergency big heal.
- Dreamwalker's Healing Potion -- for a small heal over time but in return no rotting damage.
Weapon Rune
- Howling Rune -- Haste
- Buzzing Rune -- Crit
Augment Rune
- Dreambound Augment Rune -- Requires Reputation
- Draconic Augment Rune
Sockets
- Fierce Illimited Diamond -- Unique, made by work order
- Energized Ysemerald
Races
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
For min-maxing a Blood Death Knight in Raids, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.
- Stoneform -- Dwarf
- Is very valuable because you can dispel yourself or remove dangerous bleed effects.
- On top of that using Stoneform gives you 10% physical DR which can be used as a small extra 8 second personal when tanking.
- Use-cases:
- Rending Bite, Broodkeeper
- Infinite Duress, Sarkareth
- Aflame, Fyrakk
- Arcane Torrent -- Blood Elf
- Strong racial to dispel or purge enemies, the value is very limited but sometimes can come in handy.
- Rocket Jump -- Goblin
- Do a small jump in the direction your character is facing.
- While you're in the Rocket Jump animation you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.
- Spatial Rift -- Void Elf
- Spawn a shadow traveling into your facing direction, and activate again to teleport to the rift.
- Maximum range of 100 yards.
Recommendation
As a tank picking a racial for damage is a small gain that it's not worth it most of the time. If you care about min-maxing your DPS go with the highest DPS racial.
That being said the recommended race for raid tanks is for sure Dwarf for the on-use physical damage reduction and the ability to self-dispel when needed. These features are insanely strong and should not be undervalued!
Macros
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Discover recommended macros for Blood Death Knight for Raids and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.
Macro Import Guide Video
Taunt Macros
Taunt Macro --- This macro either casts Dark Command at your target or your mouseover (very handy to pick up mobs)
#showtooltip Dark Command/cast [@mouseover,exists,harm][@target,exists,harm] Dark Command
Boss 1 Taunt --- Casts Dark Command on Boss1
/cast [@boss1] Dark Command
Boss 2 Taunt --- Casts Dark Command on Boss2
/cast [@boss2] Dark Command
Mouseover Macros
Focus Macros
Utility Macros
Addons
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Blood Death Knight, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.
Addons
Weakauras
Changes this Patch
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Patch 11.0
FAQ
Patch 11.0 - The War Within
Blood Death Knight
Q: Why do I keep dying?
Credits
Written By: Meeres
Reviewed By: Rycn