Blood Death Knight Leveling Guide From 55 to 80 for WotLK Classic

Last updated on Aug 27, 2022 at 10:30 by Sellin 12 comments

On this page, you will find our Level by Level Blood Death Knight leveling guide for WoW Wrath of the Lich King Classic.

For more general leveling information, please refer to our Death Knight leveling guide. We also have an Unholy Death Knight leveling guide and a Frost Death Knight leveling guide.

1.

Level by Level Rotation, Talents, and Trainer Skills

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

Level: 70
2.

Leveling Talent Tree & Build

Unlike other classes Death Knights start at level 55 so they have a considerable amount of talent points unlocked as soon as you create your character and progress through the Death Knight starting area. While you gain the points much faster than other classes it is important to have an idea of how you should spend them to avoid having to respec to take an important talent you may have missed because of how quickly you acquired the points.

  1. — 2 points in Butchery IconButchery
  2. — 3 points in Blade Barrier IconBlade Barrier
  3. — 2 points in Two-Handed Weapon Specialization IconTwo-Handed Weapon Specialization
  4. — 3 points in Bladed Armor IconBladed Armor
  5. — 1 point in Rune Tap IconRune Tap
  6. — 2 points in Bladed Armor IconBladed Armor
  7. — 2 points in Dark Conviction IconDark Conviction
  8. — 3 points in Vendetta IconVendetta
  9. — 2 points in Improved Rune Tap IconImproved Rune Tap
  10. — 3 points in Bloody Strikes IconBloody Strikes
  11. — 3 points in Veteran of the Third War IconVeteran of the Third War
  12. — 2 points in Abomination's Might IconAbomination's Might
  13. — 1 point in Improved Rune Tap IconImproved Rune Tap
  14. — 1 point in Dark Conviction IconDark Conviction
  15. — 1 point in Unholy Frenzy IconUnholy Frenzy
  16. — 2 points in Dark Conviction IconDark Conviction
  17. — 2 points in Blade Barrier IconBlade Barrier
  18. — 1 point in Vampiric Blood IconVampiric Blood
  19. — 2 points in Improved Death Strike IconImproved Death Strike
  20. — 2 points in Death Rune Mastery IconDeath Rune Mastery
  21. — 1 point in Heart Strike IconHeart Strike
  22. — 3 points in Might of Mograine IconMight of Mograine
  23. — 1 point in Death Rune Mastery IconDeath Rune Mastery
  24. — 5 points in Blood Gorged IconBlood Gorged

The majority of your talents taken here are passive increases such as Two-Handed Weapon Specialization IconTwo-Handed Weapon Specialization or Dark Conviction IconDark Conviction to maximize your ability to pull multiple mobs and sustain in combat while getting considerable benefits from killing enemies to keep you active and reduce downtime. Vendetta IconVendetta and Butchery IconButchery are great for this. The only active abilities you will be adding are Rune Tap IconRune Tap, which will act as a strong cooldown in a situation where you are taking a lot of damage and need a quick heal, Heart Strike IconHeart Strike, which will act as your primary spender of Blood Runes as it has a powerful cleave aspect built into it, Unholy Frenzy IconUnholy Frenzy, which is a powerful cooldown that greatly increases your damage and has its negative effect of dealing damage to you largely mitigated by the massive amount of self healing you will be doing as Blood, and lastly Vampiric Blood IconVampiric Blood, which is a massive personal defensive cooldown that will allow you to heal through situations you may not have otherwise been able to survive.

  1. Level 60 — 1 point in Dancing Rune Weapon IconDancing Rune Weapon
  2. Level 61 to 63 — 3 points in Improved Icy Touch IconImproved Icy Touch
  3. Level 64 to 65 — 2 points in Toughness IconToughness
  4. Level 66 to 69 — 4 points in Black Ice IconBlack Ice

While not a massive damage increase, Dancing Rune Weapon IconDancing Rune Weapon can oftentimes reduce kill time to the point where you may not have to wait for an additional set of Rune cooldowns, thus making it very worth the single point for the spell. Improved Icy Touch IconImproved Icy Touch helps as it both increases damage and slightly reduces your incoming damage as well. Black Ice IconBlack Ice is just a flat damage increase, though extremely powerful for each point spent as a considerable amount of your damage is Frost and Shadow.

  1. Level 70 — 1 point in Black Ice IconBlack Ice
  2. Level 71 to 75 — 5 points in Icy Talons IconIcy Talons/
  3. Level 76 to 77 — 2 points in Endless Winter IconEndless Winter
  4. Level 77 to 80 — 3 points in Toughness IconToughness

Finishing out the leveling tree you will pick up Icy Talons IconIcy Talons which is a massive personal DPS increase as well as grabbing Endless Winter IconEndless Winter which will make interrupting much easier in addition to giving you a considerable Strength bonus.

3.

Leveling Rotation

  1. Apply and maintain diseases using Icy Touch IconIcy Touch and Plague Strike IconPlague Strike
  2. Use Pestilence IconPestilence to spread your diseases in any situation you are fighting more than one target.
  3. Use Heart Strike IconHeart Strike as your primary spender of Blood runes against up to two targets. When fighting more than two targets you should be using Blood Boil IconBlood Boil as your primary spender of Blood Runes.
  4. Use Death Strike IconDeath Strike as your primary spender of Frost and Unholy runes. Make sure to constantly keep your Runes on cooldown to maximize your ability usage.
  5. cast Death and Decay IconDeath and Decay when fighting 3+ mobs and you are confident they will survive most of its duration.
  6. Make sure you are auto-attacking at all times.
4.

List of Trainer Skills to Buy

It is important to buy all abilities as you level as they are cheap and Death Knights have quite a few abilities that are extremely powerful in certain situations; you never know when you will need them.

5.

Blood Death Knight Macros and Addons

Setting up an user interface and macros early on you will greatly improve the quality of your leveling experience. Check out the Blood Death Knight Macros and Addons guides in the links below for the full list.

6.

How to Continue to Improve Your Blood Death Knight at Level 80

Once you achieve Level 80 we suggest you check out our Blood Death Knight Guide, which goes more in detail of how to play your Level 80 Blood Death Knight.

Some of the most relevant pages to dive deeper into are:

7.

Changelog

  • 27 Aug. 2022: Page added.
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