Blood Death Knight Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Shadowlands 9.0.5

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	Ritual Bone Band	Theater of Pain
Ring #2	Ritual Commander's Ring or Entwined Gorger Tendril	The Necrotic Wake or Sanguine Depths
Weapon	Rimebinder's Runeblade	The Necrotic Wake

Below is a guideline of items to seek and the Bosses in Castle Nathria they drop from:

Slot	Item	Source
Head	Diadem of Imperious Desire	Sire Denathrius
Neck	Charm of Eternal Winter	Huntsman Altimor
Shoulders	Epaulettes of Overwhelming Force	Hungering Destroyer
Cloak	Crest of the Legionnaire General	Stone Legion Generals
Chest	Rampaging Giant's Chestplate	Sludgefist
Wrists	Hellhound Cuffs	Huntsman Altimor
Gloves	Colossal Plate Gauntlets	Sludgefist
Belt	Stoic Guardsman's Belt	Sun King's Salvation
Legs	Ceremonial Parade Legguards	Stone Legion Generals
Boots	Errant Crusader's Greaves	Shriekwing
Ring #1	Most Regal Signet of Sire Denathrius	Sire Denathrius
Ring #2	Hyperlight Band	Artificer Xy'Mox

Weapons:

• Guarding Cudgel of the Goliath — This is purchased from the vendor in your covenant sanctum with Abominable Anima Spherule which drops from Sun King's Salvation.
• Polemarch's Scepter of Faith — This is the highest item level weapon that drops in Castle Nathria. It is obtained from the Abominable Anima Spherule that drops from Sire Denathrius.

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 item level 233 Weapons from 2400 Rating, and item level 226 Gear in all slots from 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.

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.

Sanguine Vintage from Sire Denathrius in Castle Nathria is a weaker version of Blood-Spattered Scale, however it is on a 1-minute cooldown. It will also provide you with a heal should any absorb remain and not require multiple targets to have the maximum benefit.

Stone Legion Heraldry from Stone Legion Generals in Castle Nathria is a good defensive choice that provides more value the more people use it.

Splintered Heart of Al'ar from Sun King's Salvation in Castle Nathria is a good trinket to pick up for progression raiding and key pushing as it will provide you with a relatively good cheat death. If you do not need the cheat death and you know it, this trinket will be a strict throughput loss.

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.

Valor is a new currency in Patch 9.0.5 that allows you to upgrade items.

Blood-Spattered Scale — If you do not obtain this at item level 226 from the Great Vault, it is recommended to upgrade this to 220 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 an item level 226 Weapon, then upgrading this to 220 will be valuable.

Drustlord's Greataxe — As with Rimebinder's Runeblade, if you do not have an item level 226 weapon, upgrading this to 220 will be valuable. The differences between these two weapons is really minor.