Blood Death Knight Tank Gems, Enchants, and Consumables — Dragonflight 10.1

Last updated on May 01, 2023 at 21:40 by Mandl and Panthea 32 comments
General Information

On this page, we list the best gems, enchants, flasks, potions, and food you can get for your Blood Death Knight, based on your stat priority. We also give budget alternatives. This page is updated for World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.1.

1.

Best Gems for Blood Death Knights

You should use a Resplendent Illimited Diamond Icon Resplendent Illimited Diamond in your first available gem socket, and fill every other with Radiant Malygite Icon Radiant Malygite.

2.

Best Enchants for Blood Death Knights

Slot Enchantment
Rings
Weapon
  • Rune of the Fallen Crusader Icon Rune of the Fallen Crusader in all content. It very strong defensively, despite being intended for use by Frost and Unholy. The heal from the proc will account for a significant amount of self-healing over an encounter, and the 15% Strength translates into both armor and parry chance.
Chest
Cloak
Bracer
Belt
Legs
Feet

In practice, these guidelines are largely down to how enchants do not compete over primary stats, merely secondaries. As a result, the gearing stat priority is applicable and can be simply followed: Versatility as a good default, or whatever sims the highest for you at the time for damage. You can find more information about this on the stats page of this guide.

3.

Best Primordial Stone Gems for Blood Death Knight

Patch 10.0.7 introduces a new customizable ring — Onyx Annulet Icon Onyx Annulet — and a plethora of socketable gems for it. Each gem provides unique effects, and this, in turn, allows you to customize the ring to what suits you.

Going into Patch 10.1, the following Onyx Annulet Primordial stones are the best for Blood Death Knights:

3.1.

Raid

For pure single-target encounters, we would generally recommend the following primordial stones:

  1. Freezing Ice Stone Icon Freezing Ice Stone
  2. Desirous Blood Stone Icon Desirous Blood Stone
  3. Prophetic Twilight Stone Icon Prophetic Twilight Stone

In anything but pure single target, and even possibly on single target depending on how high your Critical Strike chance is, Storm Infused Stone Icon Storm Infused Stone gains a significant amount of bonus value. As such, in those situations, we would instead recommend the following Primordial Stones:

  1. Storm Infused Stone Icon Storm Infused Stone
  2. Desirous Blood Stone Icon Desirous Blood Stone
  3. Prophetic Twilight Stone Icon Prophetic Twilight Stone

The Onyx Annulet Icon Onyx Annulet is a very strong ring for any raiding content, and you should be able to easily justify it for every encounter.

3.2.

Mythic+

Due to the significantly higher average target count in Mythic+, we only recommend the following setup:

  1. Storm Infused Stone Icon Storm Infused Stone
  2. Desirous Blood Stone Icon Desirous Blood Stone
  3. Prophetic Twilight Stone Icon Prophetic Twilight Stone

Your Onyx Annulet Icon Onyx Annulet's relative strength compared to a regular / crafted ring depends largely on target count, as the secondary stats of normal rings have gained a small amount of value for each additional enemy.

Nevertheless, the chance for you to gain a meaningful amount of bonus value from a regular ring over the Onyx Annulet Icon Onyx Annulet is low, even in extremely large target-count dungeons such as Brackenhide Hollow Icon Brackenhide Hollow, and the value the Onyx Annulet Icon Onyx Annulet brings in terms of priority damage, and single target damage is significantly more valuable. As such, we recommend just defaulting to it for all content.

For more information regarding the Onyx Annulet, the Primordial Gemstones, and how to obtain them, check out our dedicated guide for it below.

4.

Consumables for Blood Death Knights

4.1.

Best Phials for Blood

Use Phial of Tepid Versatility Icon Phial of Tepid Versatility as a general-use phial if you are unsure whether anything else would bring situationally better value. This phial is both cheap and mechanically simple - it increases all your damage done by 3.6% and reduces your damage taken by 1.8%.

Should you wish to gain more damage, or you find yourself in a situation where auto-attack damage is great; you can consider Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage Icon Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage. This gives you a significantly higher amount of stats than other phials (almost 25% more than Phial of Tepid Versatility Icon Phial of Tepid Versatility), but comes with brief periods where this effect is instead a small damage over time on you.

Don't let the tooltip scare you - the damage over time effect converts into bigger Blood Shield Icon Blood Shield as its effect counts in the calculation window for Death Strike Icon Death Strike. It is also small and predictable damage, making it ideal to just ignore. The damage calculation part of this effect also considers Mythic 0 damage - in other words, the uptime on the positive effect from this phial should be roughly consistent no matter what key level you are doing.

4.1.1.

Mythic+ Phial Swap Strategies

If you are actively pushing Mythic+ keys and gold is no issue to you, it is possible to gain a significant amount of value on specific encounters by swapping phials mid-run. If you intend to do so, you should plan your swaps ahead. You can leverage the following phials:

4.2.

Best Weapon Augments, and Potions for Blood Death Knight

Howling Rune Icon Howling Rune as a safe defensive and offensive option. Unfortunately, once you are relatively geared, it takes a very high number of targets for Primal Whetstone Icon Primal Whetstone to catch up offensively.

Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power Icon Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power should be your combat potion of choice on pure single target. For anything else, you should instead use a Potion of Shocking Disclosure Icon Potion of Shocking Disclosure.

You should use Refreshing Healing Potion Icon Refreshing Healing Potion for in-combat healing. Healing potions do not share a cooldown with Healthstone Icon Healthstones, so you can use both independently if you can access a Warlock.

You should also keep a stack of Potion of Withering Vitality Icon Potion of Withering Vitality in your bags for when a Refreshing Healing Potion Icon Refreshing Healing Potion just is not enough. If you have Anti-Magic Shell Icon Anti-Magic Shell active when consuming it, the Damage over Time effect from Potion of Withering Vitality Icon Potion of Withering Vitality is immuned.

4.3.

Best Food for Blood

Use Deviously Deviled Eggs Icon Deviously Deviled Eggs as your food buff of choice. This is equivalent to the Primary stat buff from Feasts. The recipe drops in the Zskera Vaults, should you wish to craft it yourself. You can also buy them at the Auction House.

If a Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak Icon Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak is available, use this instead.

4.4.

Augment Runes for Blood

In addition, if you can afford it, you should use Draconic Augment Rune Icon Draconic Augment Runes to increase your primary stat. Since there is a finite amount of the consumable runes available, you should make sure to use them wisely and to stock up on them for when you need them.

5.

Changelog

  • 01 May 2023: Updated and clarified Onyx annulet section, added 10.1 Belt enchant, clarified gems, clarified potions and phials. Ready for 10.1.
  • 20 Mar. 2023: Added Onyx Annulet and clarified info for 10.0.7.
  • 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
  • 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
  • 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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