Blood Death Knight Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Shadowlands 9.2.5

We do not currently provide a Best in Slot list. You should aim to prioritize item level above everything else, as anything 10 item levels or more is virtually guaranteed to be an upgrade.

If you have a choice on the same item level, the alternative will likely, in generic circumstances, not make a difference defensively. As such, we recommend just simming the choice and going with whatever helps you do more damage.

There are some exceptions to this rule and encounter-specific situations where a stat is massively devalued. You should keep an eye on the raid encounter guides to be aware of this. Similarly, certain Mythic+ key levels and dungeons will require a slightly different gearing path. We linked the related guides below, but generally, we will also add a note on here as well:

Below is a guideline of items to seek and the Dungeons they drop from:

Slot	Item	Dungeon
Helm	Darkfrost Helmet	The Necrotic Wake
Neck	Sin Stained Pendant	Halls of Atonement
Shoulder	Vile Butcher's Pauldrons or Pauldrons of Unleashed Pride	The Necrotic Wake or Halls of Atonement
Cloak	Blighted Margrave's Cloak	Plaguefall
Chest	Abdominal Securing Chestguard	Theater of Pain
Bracers	Pit Fighter's Wristguards	Theater of Pain
Gloves	Fleshfused Crushers	Plaguefall
Belt	Scarred Bloodbound Girdle	Plaguefall
Legs	Halkias's Towering Pillars	Halls of Atonement
Boots	Sabatons of the Rushing Juggernaut	Sanguine Depths
Ring #1	Bloodoath Signet	Theater of Pain
Ring #2	Quick Oxxein Ring	Crafted (262), with optional Erratic Genesis Matrix
Weapon	Rimebinder's Runeblade	The Necrotic Wake

Below is a guideline of items to seek and the Bosses in Sepulcher of the First Ones they drop from:

Slot	Item	Source
Head	Visage of the First Eidolon	Anduin Wrynn
Neck	Worldkiller Iris	The Jailer
Shoulders	Shoulderplates of the First Eidolon	Lords of Dread
Cloak	Shroud of the Sire's Chosen	Lords of Dread
Chest	Carapace of the First Eidolon	Rygelon
Wrists	Bracers of the Inscrutable Inventor	Lihuvim, Principal Architect
Gloves	Handguards of Hidden Realms *	Lihuvim, Principal Architect
Belt	Remnant's Blasphemous Scourgebelt	Anduin Wrynn
Legs	Legguards of the Ultimate Threat *	The Jailer
Boots	Song-Mad Sabatons	Dausegne, the Fallen Oracle
Ring #1	Loquacious Keeper's Peridot	Lihuvim, Principal Architect
Ring #2	Soulwarped Seal of Menethil	Anduin Wrynn
Weapon	Gavel of the First Arbiter	The Jailer

Pieces marked with a * are higher item level pieces that you can convert into higher item level tier pieces using the Creation Catalyst, allowing you to also craft Memory of Unity in the one free, lower item level tier slot: your Helm. Evidently, until you have two Creation Catalyst charges and the respective pieces at Mythic item level, you really should just aim to acquire Gauntlets of the First Eidolon or Chausses of the First Eidolon to activate the 4-piece part of your set.

Some raid items from Sanctum of Domination featured Domination Sockets, allowing the player to socket in Shards of Domination to gain a noticeable performance boost. Previously, during Patch 9.1, these effects were available everywhere; in Patch 9.2, these effects are now constrained to The Maw, Korthia and Torghast.

Patch 9.2 also features a new Boss Rush mode in Torghast, with brand new cosmetics and rewards, and as a result, if you have some Sanctum gear, do not disenchant it — the effect of the 3-Shard Rune Words far outweigh a small loss in item level for Torghast specifically.

We have kept the Shards of Domination guide up to date, and it is linked below. In short, if you are particularly interested in the new Torghast mode, make sure you have 3 Blood Shards equipped — and if you favor regular Torghast instead, the Unholy set bonus is a much more fitting choice!

It is important to know that the items available from PvP are the best items available for Blood Death Knights if you are able to achieve high PvP rating.

Notably, you are able to obtain end of Heroic-quality items (item level 246) at 2100 Rating.

All of these items have Versatility on them.

If you are wanting to obtain PvP gear, we would advise doing Rated Battlegrounds as Frost.

Unfortunately, the only notable trinket for Blood Death Knights in Sepulcher of the First Ones is Elegy of the Eternals. You can also make a case for Earthbreaker's Impact from a pure numbers perspective, but in most cases, these are likely to get beaten by Sanctum of Domination trinkets.

Weave of Warped Fates was changed between Patch 9.1 and Patch 9.2 to function as a true cheat death, featuring a very generous overkill cap and lower cooldown than Splintered Heart of Al'ar. It is so appealing that, should you need a cheat death for a specific encounter, it may be worth a trip or two back to Sanctum of Domination in order to acquire one. Just like all other cheat deaths, it is a strict throughput loss, and functions as an insurance policy of sorts.

Shard of Annhylde's Aegis is a must-have trinket from Sanctum of Domination as the shield will absorb damage from every hit received during the 8 seconds it is active with no maximum cap.

Codex of the First Technique is one to watch out for from Tazavesh, the Veiled Market as it will provide a consistent defensive benefit and provide a moderate amount of damage. It is quite similar to Reactive Defense Matrix, although its benefit scales with key level (the cap on the effect is unreachable in normal circumstances).

Blood-Spattered Scale is the main trinket you will be after and drops from De Other Side. It is a good defensive trinket and also has a good damaging component behind it too. It scales very well with item level, too.

Reactive Defense Matrix can provide a good amount of damage in a multi-target scenario (such as Mythic+), however on single-target encounters it may not be a worthwhile choice if you have other options available.

Generally you will not be using two defensive trinket choices at all times. When this is the case your other trinket slot will generally be whatever you have that has a benefit that you are needing whether this be more DPS, stats, or utility.

Unfortunately, Legion timewalking offers very few appealing trinkets for us, as most of them were abused by players during Battle for Azeroth and promptly nerfed as a result. For example, things like Writhing Heart of Darkness saw its use change from a really strong defensive trinket to an effect that is barely worth talking about.

As a result, you will not be looking for anything other than a potential Jeweled Signet of Melandrus, maybe. The effect is not a part of the item's stat budget, so it is technically "free" bonus damage, but it is very little additional damage.

Blood-Spattered Scale — If you do not obtain this at the maximum item level from the Great Vault, it is recommended to upgrade this as the value of this item is not available anywhere else in-game.

Phial of Putrefaction — This is a very strong damaging trinket and as you will typically not be using two defensive trinkets at a time this is a very good choice for your 2nd trinket slot.

Rimebinder's Runeblade — If you do not have a Weapon from the raid, then upgrading this will be valuable.

Drustlord's Greataxe — As with Rimebinder's Runeblade, if you do not have a Weapon from the raid then upgrading this will be valuable. The differences between these two weapons is really minor.