Blood Death Knight Tank Easy Mode — Dragonflight 10.0.7

This page is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous subtleties and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

Blood Death Knights are highly reliant on self-healing. They take more damage than other tanks, but heal more to make up for this.

Your main goal throughout fights will be to maximize your Runic Power generation, and then use this Runic Power on Death Strike to heal yourself (as well to apply the damage absorption shield it provides thanks to your Mastery: Blood Shield).

The following build has been designed to provide as simple a rotation as possible; it brings convenience choices at the loss of some throughput, all with the goal of making starting out as a Blood Death Knight more seamless.

Use the 'Copy Export String' on the calculator to easily copy the build in-game.

You can find more detailed information to why these talents are taken, along with alternatives, on the talents page:

Other than trinkets and jewelry, prioritize item level over second stat itemization. Prioritize stats as follows:

1. Item Level;
2. Mastery;
3. Haste;
4. Critical Strike;
5. Versatility

There are situations where this gearing advice falls short. However, for the overwhelming majority of content, you will not notice such problems. Just in case, there is a primer available on the stats page to the reasoning behind this priority list:

The basic rotation as a Blood Death Knight is based on this priority. It includes both single-target and AoE recommendations. As usual, more information is available on the in-depth rotation page!

1. Use Death and Decay where you intend to fight; your goal is to keep both you and your enemies in it for as long as possible. Cast it on cooldown.
2. Use Abomination Limb and Empower Rune Weapon when you have at least one Rune empty and three Bone Shield charges missing.
3. Use Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown as long as you have less than 7 Bone Shield charges when you do
4. Use Tombstone when you have at least 6 Bone Shield charges, and Dancing Rune Weapon still has at least 20 seconds of cooldown remaining.
5. Use Marrowrend (during Dancing Rune Weapon) or Death's Caress (outside Dancing Rune Weapon) if your Bone Shield is about to expire.
6. Use Death Strike if your health is low, or to avoid capping Runic Power.
7. Use Blood Boil if any nearby enemies do not have your Blood Plague disease, or you have 2 charges of Blood Boil.
8. Use Marrowrend if you have 6 or fewer stacks of Bone Shield.
9. Use Heart Strike if you have 3 or more Runes.
10. Use Blood Boil.

You have 2 active mitigation abilities that you need to use to keep yourself alive, although simply making use of the above priority will ensure you are doing this to a great degree.

Death Strike is your primary means of keeping yourself alive, and you should use it whenever you can benefit from the healing it provides, particularly after you have sustained high damage (since its healing is based on the amount of damage taken in the preceding 5 seconds).

Bone Shield (applied by your Marrowrend) should be kept above 5 stacks at all times.

In addition to the active mitigation abilities, you must also use your defensive cooldowns as necessary.

• Anti-Magic Shell absorbs up to 30% of your maximum health in magic damage over 5 seconds, and should be used to mitigate magic damage and generate Runic Power.
• Vampiric Blood increases your maximum health and the amount of healing you receive by 30% for 10 seconds. It should be used either proactively in anticipation for high amounts of damage, or reactively when low on health and in danger of dying.
• Icebound Fortitude reduces all damage taken by 30% for 8 seconds. It should mostly be used proactively when you anticipate taking high damage, such as from specific boss abilities.
• Lichborne reduces all damage taken by 15% for 10 seconds. It should mostly be used proactively when you anticipate taking high damage, such as from specific boss abilities.
• Dancing Rune Weapon increases your Parry chance by 40%, and also increases your damage dealt and resource generation significantly. You should use it on the pull, and then generally as soon as its available, as it doubles up as a resource-generation cooldown and also provides 5 Bone Shield charges

To get a better understanding of how the abilities mentioned above, as well as many more, work you can look into the Spells Summary guide linked below.