Blood Death Knight Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.0.5
Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits are the most important character customization options in Shadowlands. They have a substantial impact on your toolkit and performance as Blood Death Knight. This page's purpose is to help you pick the right options according to the content you intend to do in Shadowlands.
Introduction: Prerequisites
This page assumes that you are already familiar with Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits. If that is not the case, we have a number of pages that can help you get up to speed:
- Covenants Guide, which explains what Covenants are, what perks they bring, and how you can join one;
- Death Knight Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Death Knights gain by joining each Covenant;
- How To Change Covenant?, which tells you how you can switch Covenant (rejoining a former Covenant will require you to perform a number of tasks to regain their trusts);
- General Soulbind Guide, which explains what Soulbinds are and how you can pledge yourself to them to open up their Soulbind tree;
- Death Knight Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Death Knights.
There were changes to Necrolord just before the game went live. It has taken some time to simulate the impact of these changes and the guide has now been updated in accordance with those changes. With this change, all covenants are acceptable choices. You will have some minor gains between the choices so either pick what you prefer, or what has a higher level of throughput for your preferred content type.
Summary of the Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits
Blood Death Knights have no strictly superior covenant; instead, their strengths and the utility they provide varies based on the content, your strategy towards beating said content, and even in some cases the race of your character!
We have summarized some of the strengths and weaknesses of each one in the table below:
Covenant | Focus | Details | Grade |
---|---|---|---|
Kyrian | Raiding | Excels at priority damage and provides 8% Damage Reduction every minute
affecting any target with ![]() ![]() |
S |
M+ | Excels at priority damage, but ![]() ![]() ![]() |
A | |
Night Fae | Raiding | Very unwieldy and taxing rotationally, this covenant does not provide any additional mileage considering the complexity you incur when picking it. | C |
M+ | Even more unwieldy than in raid due to the inability to gain stacks on more
than 5 targets due to the innate target hard-capping of ![]() ![]() ![]() |
F | |
Necrolord | Raiding | Provides burst damage on a longer cooldown than Kyrian, the equivalent of
6 runes in ![]() ![]() |
B |
M+ | ![]() ![]() Just like in raids, you will need to be aware of cases where ![]() |
A | |
Venthyr | Raiding | The ability for this Covenant to scale well beyond 5 targets for damage, and up to
5 targets for the Runic Power gain, is largely a technical footnote for raiding, as the
type of content typically has smaller target counts than this. It is still valuable,
and ![]() |
B |
M+ | This is the only Covenant option that is not hardcapped, and the runic power it provides every minute is amazing to set up pulls. The dodge chance is the cherry on top, along with some good Soulbind choices, making up a very well-rounded Covenant for high keys. | S |
By default, We advise this all-purpose Pelagos (Kyrian) tree for Raiding, Mythic+, and Torghast as a Blood Death Knight, due to its versatility in all content types. For more in-depth information about Soulbinds and Covenants as Blood Death Knight, please continue to the Choosing the Right Covenant section below.
Best Conduits for Blood Death Knight
Conduits are very similar to Azerite Traits in that they are something that
you specifically target to enhance your character. They are also shared among
all covenants with the exception of one Potency Conduit, which is
Covenant-specific and interact with the Class ability from that Covenant. These
are Proliferation,
Impenetrable Gloom,
Brutal Grasp and
Withering Ground. You will always want one
of these as a Blood Death Knight.
Best Potency Conduits for Blood Death Knight
Best Endurance Conduits for Blood Death Knight
Best Finesse Conduits for Blood Death Knight
Conduits for Blood Death Knight
The Conduits mentioned under each sub-section are ranked from best to worst.
Blood Death Knight Potency Conduits
Proliferation (Kyrian) increases the duration of
Shackle the Unworthy by 3 seconds and increases the damage dealt quite significantly — a must have for any Kyrian Blood Death Knight.
Impenetrable Gloom (Venthyr) increases the dodge of
Swarming Mist by an additional 3% and increases the damage dealt by a sizable amount — must have for any Venthyr Blood Death Knight.
Withering Ground (Night Fae) increases the damage dealt by
Death's Due by a large amount — a must have for any Night Fae Blood Death Knight.
Brutal Grasp (Necrolord) simply makes
Abomination Limb deal increased damage — a must have for any Necrolord Blood Death Knight.
Withering Plague increases the damage done by
Heart Strike; nice and simple. At Rank 7 (Mythic Nathria) this is a 24% increase!
Debilitating Malady increases the damage done by
Blood Plague by a quite small margin. At Rank 7 (Mythic Nathria) this equates to a 1.8% increase (stacking 3 times) on a spell that deals 8% Attack Power on its own. Small increase to a small damage dealing spell.
As you can see from the list of conduits above, there is not really much to pick from, which is why it is not essential for a Blood Death Knight to use 2x Potency where available.
Blood Death Knight Endurance Conduits
Meat Shield increases the duration of
Dancing Rune Weapon by 3 seconds. This seems like a potency conduit, but it is classed as Endurance, so that is a free win for us! It will also increase your health by 2% each time you parry within the active time of
Dancing Rune Weapon for 15 seconds (stacking up to 2 times).
Reinforced Shell increases the size of
Anti-Magic Zone by 15% and the duration based on conduit rank. This conduit is great if you require it for a specific encounter.
Hardened Bones at high ranks this transforms
Lichborne into a minor defensive cooldown by reducing the damage you take scaling with conduit rank. At Rank 7 (Mythic Nathria), this will reduce your damage taken whilst
Lichborne is active by 9.6%.
Blood Bond adds a party wide heal when you use
Rune Tap. A nice bonus but you would never go out of your way to spend a rune to heal the group. The heal is not large enough to attract this kind of play, so it is simply a perk rather than anything special to drastically change the way the ability functions.
Insatiable Appetite. This conduit increases the MINIMUM healing of
Death Strike. This would be of value in scenarios where you have taken no damage in the last 5 seconds and in a majority of gameplay scenarios this is not going to be the case as when you need healing... you have taken damage. Such is the way of how the spec works. Avoid.
Blood Death Knight Finesse Conduits
Spirit Drain allows your interrupt to generate runic power. Embrace your inner demon hunter and generate resources when you interrupt! At Rank 7 (Mythic Nathria) this will generate 16 Runic Power (1 runic more than a standard
Heart Strike for free).
Chilled Resilience reduces the cooldown of
Icebound Fortitude. This is yet another conduit that should be Potency but is classed as something else. At Rank 7 (Mythic Nathria), it reduces the cooldown by 30 seconds!
Fleeting Wind gives a small speed boost to the start of your
Death's Advance. The power of the above Finesse Conduits mean that this one unfortunately will not see regular play.
Unending Grip adds a slow to your
Death Grip, a slow that using
Heart Strike does too as a standard interaction. Only useful at high ranks in PvP really, as you do not really grip something to you in PvE that is trying to escape. It is usually you trying to escape from them and bringing them to you is not the right move.
Choosing the right Covenant
Before going more in depth about Covenants it is important to understand that any of the 4 Covenants can be played as Blood Death Knight. There will definitely be better and worse options but the choice will not be hindering your daily activities.
While all of the Covenants have their place some simply perform better on a day to day basis than others. Kyrian and Venthyr are the two that stand out the most for Blood Death Knight due to their powerful class abilities and Soulbinds.
- Kyrian — Good for all content styles and highest single target DPS
- Venthyr — Strong AoE damage and on demand full runic bar in M+
- Night Fae — Strong single target damage reduction and generic covenant
- Necrolord — Strong damage in AoE + Generates
Bone Shield charges.
Kyrian For Blood Death Knight
Kyrian is a great option for Blood Death Knights.
Shackle the Unworthy deals a large amount of damage over time,
provides you with 5% damage reduction and has as a small chance to spread from
Rune Spending Attacks (
Heart Strike and
Marrowrend). It will
spread the debuff at the remaining duration and will spread to a target within
8 yards of you without a debuff.
Summon Steward summons an owlkin steward. You can speak with your
steward and he will offer you a range of services, the most important of which
are
Phial of Serenity. This potion restores 20% of your health and more
importantly removes all diseases, poisons, curses and bleeds on you. Being able
to remove any of these is a huge benefit of being a Kyrian.
Kyrian Soulbinds
While Pelagos, Kleia and Forgelite Prime Mikanikos all provide
their own strengths, Pelagos is your go to Soulbind. Combat Meditation
is a powerful throughput increase, and
Let Go of the Past is a consistent
piece of Magical Damage Reduction.
As an alternative you can also use Kleia. All of her benefits are tied to
group play. Valiant Strikes,
Mentorship and
Pointed Courage all tie into this.
Mikanikos unfortunately is a very weak Soulbind. Would avoid using until a rework happens.
Venthyr For Blood Death Knight
Kyrian's focus was single target Venthyr's focus is AoE. It really shines in high target situations such as Mythic+.
Swarming Mist functions very similarly to
Bonestorm where
you are surrounded by a mist that will deal damage and generate runic
power. The runic power generated is as follows: 10 for the Rune spent to
cast it, and each tick grants 3 Runic Power per enemy hit (up to 15 Runic Power
per hit). 9 ticks total. This means that it will generate 37-145 Runic Power
per cast. It also gives you the ability dodge when you use it!
Door of Shadows is a targeted teleport. If you have played
Overwatch before you know what to expect. Pick a location that is within
Line of Sight and after a 1.5-second cast you are teleported there. Typical
uses of this are to cover large distances of space, traverse vertically, skip
packs in M+, etc.; possibilities are endless!
Venthyr Soulbinds
Nadjia the Mistblade provides you with a mini bloodlust in the form of
Thrill Seeker and increases the effectiveness of consumables with
Exacting Preparation. Nadjia will be picked when you need more
DPS.
General Draven provides you with more personal defensive utility than the
others Service In Stone stacks with
Will of the Necropolis,
Enduring Gloom provides you with a health shield when you use
Door of Shadows and
Hold Your Ground provides you with
more stamina when stood still. Draven will be picked when you need more
Effective Health for Raid Progression.
Theotar the Mad Duke is a bit of a mix of Nadjia and Draven but focuses purely
on providing these benefits to others. Soothing Shade provides you
with a random chance to spawn a Parasol which grants you with Mastery and
Wasteland Propriety provides you and the group with Versatility when
Swarming Mist is used. Theotar will be picked when the group benefits
outweigh your own benefits.
Night Fae Blood Death Knight
Night Fae is the generic pick for Blood Death Knights, it works well in both single-target and AoE environments.
Death's Due replaces
Death and Decay and provides it with a
new benefit! When you use
Heart Strike on a target within your
Death's Due, it will gain a stacking debuff, which reduces the damage it
will deal to you by 1% per stack, and you will gain a stacking buff which will
increase your Strength by 1% per stack. Both the buff and debuff stack to 8 and
have a 12-second duration. Each additional stack applied refreshes the
duration back to 12 seconds, this means that you will need to cast
Heart Strike at the end of
Death's Due to make sure the
buff/debuff does not reset.
Soulshape is very similar to
Ghost Wolf but accessible to
all! Whilst you are in the travel form you are unable to cast spells, but if
you press
Soulshape again you will blink a short distance!
Night Fae Soulbinds
Dreamweaver was previously a good pick in previous iterations,
however you are unable to avoid Podtender now, which ultimately makes
it a less than ideal pick. When
Podtender triggers, you lose all
threat, are unable to be resurrected until the effect is over, and worst of all
you just have to sit there and watch whatever killed you kill others.
Korayn is similar to General Draven as it is a strictly
defensive option. The final trait, Face Your Foes, is very strong and up
all the time as you are always facing your foe.
Because of the issues above with Dreamweaver, we would recommend
Niya. Grove Invigoration provides you with additional
health/mastery whenever you cast
Death's Due, which is a nice bonus. The
last row is intentionally left blank as this choice is yours to
make.
Niya's Tools: Poison if you can reliably land interrupts is a very
potent DPS increase, this combined with
Spirit Drain gives you even
more reason to interrupt! Alternatively
Niya's Tools: Burrs can be used
for a very competitive amount of DPS when the target can be slowed.
Necrolord For Blood Death Knight
Necrolord is our last Covenant. Whilst it does not have the clear PvE benefits of the other Covenants, it can still be strong when used correctly.
Abomination Limb is the Necrolord Class Ability. When activated it
will deal damage to all targets to nearby targets and attempt to grip a target
that is 8-20 yards away from you. Each target can only be gripped once per 4
seconds. You will also generate 3
Bone Shield charges on cast, 6 seconds
after casting, and when the effect ends.
Abomination Limb is the
highest damaging covenant ability however it has a much longer cooldown
than the rest.
Fleshcraft is now a pretty appealing ability to press thanks to
the Patch 9.0.5 rework. It is now a 3-second channel granting you a
shield for 40% of your Maximum Health, with 20% damage reduction bolted on to it
for good measure. You are still able to dodge and parry during it, and its
cooldown is reduced by 1 second every time you walk past a corpse you helped
kill.
It is worth noting that each tick of the channel snapshots your maximum HP.
As such, it may be preferable to use it during Vampiric Blood, although
it is not worth using Vampiric Blood for this purpose.
Necrolord Soulbinds
Plague Deviser Marileth provides you with some interesting effects.
Volatile Solvent passively soaks up corpses and grants you buffs related
to the enemy type it came from: 120 Mastery for humanoids, 2% Primary Stat for
beasts, 5% Stamina for demons, and a 5% heal for undead. In Mythic+, this means
you will almost always have 120 Mastery, and get relatively frequent 5% max HP
heals at the end of packs.
Ooz's Frictionless Coating provides you with a 15% shield every 30
seconds (it triggers when below 50% health, but as part of normal play as a
Blood Death Knight it is every 30 seconds at least).
Ultimate Form is the
end Ability where you will regenerate Health during and after
Fleshcraft and be immune to Crowd Control.
Emeni will be your go to pick. Lead by Example provides you
and nearby allies with primary stat when you use
Abomination Limb.
Emeni's Magnificent Skin provides you with a max health buff for 30
seconds after using
Fleshcraft. The final Ability
Gnashing Chompers provides you with stacking haste when an enemy is
defeated, great in Mythic+, not so great in most
raiding scenarios.
Bonesmith Heirmir unlocks much later in the Covenant campaign and
provides you with more DPS purely from Serrated Spaulders.
For Mythic+ you would opt to have the end Ability of
Heirmir's Arsenal: Ravenous Pendant:
For everything else you would go down the route of having
Heirmir's Arsenal: Gorestompers as your end Ability.
Changelog
- 09 Mar. 2021: Updated for 9.0.5, with a reference to the upgraded Fleshcraft and changes to Marileth's description.
- 19 Dec. 2020: Added a table clarifying the value of each covenant.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Updated information for Necrolord as it changed just before the expansion launched.
- 21 Nov. 2020: Fixed broken Soulbind link.
- 20 Nov. 2020: Updated with latest changes.
- 17 Nov. 2020: Page created
More Death Knight Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Mandl and Panthea.
Mandl is one of Acherus' Useful Minions and Blood Death Knight theorycrafter.
Panthea raids in Catalyst and is the author of TankNotes. He plays all tanks and is a "Useful Minion" for the Acherus Death Knight Discord. You can follow him on Twitter.
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