Blood Death Knight Tank Gear and Best in Slot — 12.1

Welcome to our Blood Death Knight Gear Page for Midnight Season 2. Check this page to learn everything you need to know about gearing a Blood Death Knight, including the BiS Gear from all sources, Raiding, and Mythic+, information on the best Trinkets, Tier Sets, and much more.

Upgrading gear in Midnight continues to use the Crest system which lets you increase the item level of gear along tracks that relate to where you obtained the item, which harder content dropping gear that can be upgraded to higher Item Levels. For more information, read up on our dedicated page on how the gearing system works and what has changed in the Midnight expansion.

OverallMythic+Raid

This list contains the Best in Slot Gear from any source for Midnight raids. It is there as a reference to what is currently the highest performing gear available to players.

This list is by no means a replacement for simming yourself. What is BiS right now may not be the same as the below as this would be an example of an end game setup, and serve as guidance of what items to target.

FAQWhich Tier Set Pieces Do I Want?

If you raid, at least two pieces will be locked: your chest and boots will come from Venomous Abyss, as they come with a 10 ilvl advantage on the competition and a cantrip effect on the legs.

The rest of the pieces will be up to itemization; unlike prior seasons, Catalyzing a piece of gear causes it to retain its stats, making potentially any combination of tier pieces possible. One of the higher-performing combinations is as follows:

• Helm: Helm of the Raptor King from King's Rest
• Shoulders: C'thraxxi Binders Pauldrons from Temple of Sethraliss
• Chest: Reckless Spirit Breastplate from Coiled Altar
• Legs: Chausses of Unbound Rancor from Ula'tek

FAQWhich Items Should I Prioritise?

Venomous Abyss features a number of items dropping at an increased item level or with very appealing cantrip effects. You will want to prioritise taking them from your Great Vault or spending Voidcores when you kill their respective bosses:

• Maze-roa, Warlord's Fury from Coiled Altar: Cantrip weapon
• Aqirbane Reliquary from Ula'tek: Cantrip neck with a bonus socket and a very interesting cantrip effect.
• Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique from Coiled Altar: The pair for the weapon, an increased item level trinket with an effect strong enough to justify being equipped on its own. The set just makes it better on 2+ targets.
• Voracious Heart of Ula'tek from Ula'tek: BiS on-use trinket with a higher ilvl.
• Chausses of Unbound Rancor from Ula'tek: Cantrip legs with 10 bonus item levels.

Four new embellishments were added in 12.1, but only one of them was testable. The other three have already seen heavy nerfs, but because we do not know their exact behavior, and the level of power they provide is roughly within what you would expect of an embellishment, take this list with a pinch of salt.

Blood Death Knight

1.1.

Overall Best in Slot

Baleful Grave-Knight's Casque Helm

Catalyst from King's Rest Empowered Blessing of Speed

Baleful Grave-Knight's Deathgrips Hands

Entombed Sentinels in Venomous Abyss

Aqirbane Reliquary Neck

Ula'tek in Venomous Abyss

Girdle of Toxic Regret Waist

Coiled Altar in Venomous Abyss

Baleful Grave-Knight's Gibbets Shoulders

The Lost Explorers in Venomous Abyss Akil'zon's Swiftness

Chausses of Unbound Rancor Legs

Ula'tek in Venomous Abyss Forest Hunter's

Silken Voodoo Drape Cloak

Coiled Altar in Venomous Abyss

Poison-Proof Stompers Feet

Altar of Fangs Farstrider's Hunt

Baleful Grave-Knight's Breastplate Chest

Catalyst from Coiled Altar Mark of the Worldsoul

Ritual Binder's Ring Ring

King's Rest Silvermoon's Tenacity

Shirt

Masterwork Sin'dorei Band Ring

Crafted by Jewelcrafting Eyes of the Eagle

Tabard

Voracious Heart of Ula'tek Trinket

Ula'tek in Venomous Abyss

Spellbreaker's Bracers Bracers

Crafted by Blacksmithing

Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique Trinket

Coiled Altar in Venomous Abyss

Maze-roa, Warlord's Fury Main Hand

Coiled Altar in Venomous Abyss Rune of Sanguination

Off Hand

This list contains the best items available per slot from Mythic+. It is there to provide you with a quick list of easily farmable gear if you need something in a specific slot.

This list is by no means a replacement for simming yourself. What is BiS right now may not be the same as the below as this would be an example of an end game setup, and serve as guidance of what items to target.

FAQWhich Tier Set Pieces Do I Want?

If you are strictly gearing through Mythic+, the following pieces are one of the strongest current combinations to achieve your 4-piece set bonus by using the Catalyst:

• Helm: Helm of the Raptor King from King's Rest
• Shoulders: C'thraxxi Binders Pauldrons from Temple of Sethraliss
• Chest: Desert Guardian's Breastplate from Temple of Sethraliss
• Legs: Ancient General's Obsidian Pillars from Altar of Fangs

We recommend getting the 4-piece set bonus as soon as possible. Unlocking it also makes it possible to randomly gain additional catalyst charges from all seasonal content. Don't wait for an ideal piece!

TipsWhich Dungeons Should I Farm?

If you have limited time to play the game, we recommend to farm the following dungeons:

• Temple of Sethraliss: Drops a wide variety of loot, including three possible tier pieces, two decent rings, and Merektha's Fang. If you do not raid, this will likely be your go-to on-use trinket.
• Blinding Vale: Drops a number of off-pieces and two valuable trinkets.

Blood Death Knight

1.2.

Best Mythic+ Gear

Helm of the Raptor King Helm

King's Rest Empowered Blessing of Speed

Thornspike Gauntlets Hands

Blinding Vale

Yoke of the Charging Bear Neck

Den of Nalorakk

Sand-Scoured Greatbelt Waist

Temple of Sethraliss

C'thraxxi Binders Pauldrons Shoulders

Temple of Sethraliss Akil'zon's Swiftness

Ancient General's Obsidian Pillars Legs

Altar of Fangs Forest Hunter's

Bloodthorn Burnous Cloak

Blinding Vale

Poison-Proof Stompers Feet

Altar of Fangs Farstrider's Hunt

Desert Guardian's Breastplate Chest

Temple of Sethraliss Mark of the Worldsoul

Charged Sandstone Band Ring

King's Rest Eyes of the Eagle

Shirt

Ritual Binder's Ring Ring

King's Rest Eyes of the Eagle

Tabard

Merektha's Fang Trinket

Temple of Sethraliss

Embalmer's Steadying Bracers Bracers

King's Rest

Sapling of the Dawnroot Trinket

Blinding Vale

Pruning Lance Main Hand

Blinding Vale Rune of Sanguination

Off Hand

This list serves as a "My raid leader needs me to provide a wishlist, here is the wishlist" item list. If you were to assemble the best gear set from Venomous Abyss specifically, and no other source, this is what you would wear.

This list is by no means a replacement for simming yourself. What is BiS right now may not be the same as the below as this would be an example of an end game setup, and serve as guidance of what items to target.

In practice, a large number of these items are locked in due to their cantrip effects or drastically increased item level. We recommend verifying that you can get these at 9/6 Myth (by getting them from the vault or bonus rolling these bosses), and planning accordingly.

FAQWhich Tier Set Pieces Do I Want?

If you raid, at least two pieces will be locked: your chest and boots will come from Venomous Abyss, as they come with a 10 ilvl advantage on the competition and a cantrip effect on the legs.

The rest of the pieces will be up to itemization; unlike prior seasons, Catalyzing a piece of gear causes it to retain its stats, making potentially any combination of tier pieces possible. One of the higher-performing combinations is as follows:

• Helm: Catalyst Skullguard of the Risen Sacrifice from Nek'zali
• Shoulders: Tier token from The Lost Explorers
• Chest: Catalyst Reckless Spirit Breastplate from Coiled Altar
• Gloves: Tier token from Entombed Sentinels

FAQWhich Items Should I Prioritise?

Venomous Abyss features a number of items dropping at an increased item level or with very appealing cantrip effects. You will want to prioritise taking them from your Great Vault or spending Voidcores when you kill their respective bosses:

• Maze-roa, Warlord's Fury from Coiled Altar: Cantrip weapon
• Aqirbane Reliquary from Ula'tek: Cantrip neck with a bonus socket and a very interesting cantrip effect.
• Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique from Coiled Altar: The pair for the weapon, an increased item level trinket with an effect strong enough to justify being equipped on its own. The set just makes it better on 2+ targets.
• Voracious Heart of Ula'tek from Ula'tek: BiS on-use trinket with a higher ilvl.
• Chausses of Unbound Rancor from Ula'tek: Cantrip legs with 10 bonus item levels.

Blood Death Knight

1.3.

Best Raid Gear

Baleful Grave-Knight's Casque Helm

Catalyst from Nek'zali Empowered Blessing of Speed

Baleful Grave-Knight's Deathgrips Hands

Entombed Sentinels

Aqirbane Reliquary Neck

Ula'tek in Venomous Abyss

Girdle of Toxic Regret Waist

Coiled Altar in Venomous Abyss

Baleful Grave-Knight's Gibbets Shoulders

The Lost Explorers Akil'zon's Swiftness

Chausses of Unbound Rancor Legs

Ula'tek in Venomous Abyss Forest Hunter's

Silken Voodoo Drape Cloak

Coiled Altar in Venomous Abyss

Scaled Fiend's Warboots Feet

Vashnik the Malignant in Venomous Abyss Farstrider's Hunt

Baleful Grave-Knight's Breastplate Chest

Catalyst from Coiled Altar Mark of the Worldsoul

Amulet of the Twin Fangs Ring

Twin Fangs in Venomous Abyss Eyes of the Eagle

Shirt

Vile Alchemist's Band Ring

Vashnik the Malignant in Venomous Abyss Eyes of the Eagle

Tabard

Voracious Heart of Ula'tek Trinket

Ula'tek in Venomous Abyss

Shellbound Bracers Bracers

The Lost Explorers in Venomous Abyss

Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique Trinket

Coiled Altar in Venomous Abyss

Maze-roa, Warlord's Fury Main Hand

Coiled Altar in Venomous Abyss Rune of Sanguination

Off Hand

Itemization

Enchants and Stat Priority

Looking to optimize your character? Check out our Enchant and Stat Priority guides for more information!

EnchantsStats

As a general rule of thumb, we recommend the following:

Blood Death Knight Trinkets

• San'layn: Voracious Heart of Ula'tek + Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique (with Maze-roa, Warlord's Fury)/ Gebbo's Bottomless Bag (without)/ Merektha's Fang (AoE pad outside of CDs)
• Deathbringer: Voracious Heart of Ula'tek + Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique (with Maze-roa, Warlord's Fury)/ Gebbo's Bottomless Bag (without)/ Merektha's Fang (AoE pad outside of CDs)

Click for Blood Death Knight Trinket Rankings

Ranking	Raid	Mythic+
S Tier	Voracious Heart of Ula'tek - Click for Details Drops at a 10 item level bonus and lines up perfectly with Reaper's Mark and Gift of the San'layn. Merektha's Fang - Click for Details You can walk during the channel thanks to Death's Advance, making it a lot less dangerous to use than for other classes. Deals very competitive damage even on single-target, and its damage is not split at all.	Voracious Heart of Ula'tek - Click for Details Drops at a 10 item level bonus and lines up perfectly with Reaper's Mark and Gift of the San'layn. Merektha's Fang - Click for Details You can walk during the channel thanks to Death's Advance, making it a lot less dangerous to use than for other classes. Deals very competitive damage even on single-target, and its damage is not split at all.
A Tier	Keeper's Seething Core Gebbo's Bottomless Bag Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique	Keeper's Seething Core Gebbo's Bottomless Bag Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique Sszorak's Ferocity
B Tier	Effigy of Ula'tek's Faithful Tumor of the Swarm Sapling of the Dawnroot Seed of the Devouring Wild Vile Vial of Volatile Venom Ruby Whelp Shell (when trained) Latch's Crooked Hook	Effigy of Ula'tek's Faithful Tumor of the Swarm Sapling of the Dawnroot Seed of the Devouring Wild Vile Vial of Volatile Venom Ruby Whelp Shell (when trained) Latch's Crooked Hook
C Tier	Everything else	Everything else

2.1.

Defensive Trinkets

You can theoretically justify a lot of direct absorb trinkets this season, depending on your need for a cooldown to fit your cooldown plan and fight profile Here are a few of the noteworthy ones.

• 90s: First Mate's Shellward (40% partial, 80% while below 40% HP)
• 60s: Mchimba's Ritual Bandages

We strongly recommend treating these as emergency solutions, particularly Mchimba's Ritual Bandages. They should not be used by default.

Midnight's patch 12.1 formalizes Nebulous Voidcore. These can now be acquired through the great vault and can be used to Bonus Roll a boss of your choice, and the possible drops from it are visible before you commit to this choice. The item you receive is random, but each item can only be acquired once from these bonus rolls. Subsequent bonus rolls on the same target will yield one of the remaining items from the pool, until none are available.

These Bonus Rolls are usable in Mythic+ and in raids, and yield items that have an item level equivalent to receiving them from the great vault at the given difficulty.

Due to the number of extremely strong cantrips and items with increased item level from Venomous Abyss, we strongly recommend spending bonus rolls there. Mythic+ bonus rolls should be treated as a last resort, particularly as no item from Mythic+ is uniquely desirable this tier.

The following targets should be your priority on Heroic (for Myth 1/6 items) or Mythic (for Myth 9/6 items):

Voidcore (Bonus Roll) Priority

1. Coiled Altar for Maze-roa, Warlord's Fury, Zul'jin's Guillotine Technique, Girdle of Toxic Regret and Silken Voodoo Drape
2. Ula'tek for Voracious Heart of Ula'tek, Aqirbane Reliquary, Chausses of Unbound Rancor

If you do not raid in a competitive Mythic raid team, we recommend bonus rolling the exact same bosses on Heroic.

Midnight Season 2 brings four new embellishments, and even in the worst possible reading of the tooltips, they are wildly stronger than the previous set. Sadly, none of them were testable on PTR as the recipes dropped from content inaccessible on PTR, and there was no way to learn them in any other way.

As a result, you should take the following list with a huge grain of salt, and expect the embellishments to get nerfed the moment somebody acquires the recipe on live realms.

We recommend the following early crafting choices:

Blood Early Crafting Order

Masterwork Sin'dorei Band → Spellbreaker's Bracers → Optional Crafts

If you are not a Mythic or Heroic raider and have no other option to defeat Coiled Altar for its cantrip weapon, we recommend crafting a 2H weapon with Hunter's Ritual Stone, but this should be treated as a last resort/alt-only perspective.

For more information about crafting gear you can visit our Professions page.

You can add sockets to Helmets, Belts, and Bracers with the Miasmic Jewelbinder consumable that you can get if you do not select any of the choices in your Great Vault. Not picking a choice will grant you tokens, six of which can be traded in for the Miasmic Jewelbinder item that allows you to add a socket to the above piece of gear, if you acquired them in Season 2.

We recommend not upgrading pieces using Myth crests in the first few weeks of Midnight. The reason for this is due to the crest upgrade system requiring significantly more crests per upgrade level. Due to the partial overlap between Hero and Myth tracks, you can also save a handful of Myth crests by upgrading Hero pieces first.

As a result, if at all possible, you have an incentive to strategically game your upgrades, and craft Myth-track embellishment items first.

If you intend on playing more than one character, you can also strategically play and upgrade items on your alt to gain the crest discount effect on your main by reaching item level thresholds on it first.

Use the following priority list to target your upgrades. These denote the item slot priority by its relative power:

Blood Death Knight Crest Upgrade Priority

Weapon → Trinkets → Helmet/Chest/Legs → Shoulders/Gloves/Belt/Boots

Once you have upgraded a slot to a certain item level, irrespective of the item track the original item was on, upgrading other items of that slot to that item level is free. This includes crafted items; these restrictions, and more, are detailed here: Gear Upgrade System.

Throughout this page and elsewhere in our guide, we regularly refer to the importance of simming yourself on Raidbots. This is because every character is unique, and each gear piece you have access to can change what is best right now for you.

While we do offer recommendations for gear and trinkets, these are not complete replacements for simming yourself. The only way to truly optimize your character to that degree is by making use of the tools available!

Optimization

Simulations and Tools

For further reading on how to truly maximize your character's potential, check out our guide on Raidbots!

Go to Guide

Mandl and Panthea

Guide Authors

Follow Mandl,Panthea

This guide has been written by Mandl and Panthea.

Mandl is one of Acherus' Useful Minions and an avid Blood Death Knight theorycrafter.

Panthea raids in the Hall of Fame guild Catalyst. He plays all tanks and is a "Useful Minion" for the Acherus Death Knight Discord. You can follow him on Twitter.

In The Same Category

Blood Death Knight Spell List and GlossaryBlood Death Knight Mythic+Blood Death Knight MacrosBlood Death Knight Easy ModeBlood Death Knight RotationBlood Death Knight Enchants