Blood Death Knight Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3.5)

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Last updated on Nov 28, 2017 at 08:50 by Vlad 262 comments

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Blood Death Knights in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3.5. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Blood Death Knight guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Volstatsz, a Blood Death Knight theorycrafter and moderator for the Acherus Death Knight community. You can follow him on Twitter.

1. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
56	✘ Bloodworms	✘ Heartbreaker	✔ Blooddrinker
57	✔ Rapid Decomposition	✘ Heart of Ice	? Spectral Deflection
58	✔ Ossuary	✘ Blood Tap	✘ Anti-Magic Barrier
60	? Mark of Blood	✔ Red Thirst	? Tombstone
75	✔ Tightening Grasp	✘ Tremble Before Me	✔ March of the Damned
90	✘ Will of the Necropolis	? Rune Tap	✔ Foul Bulwark
100	? Bonestorm	? Blood Mirror	✔ Purgatory

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind Icon Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind Icon Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Tier 1 (Level 56) Talents for Blood Death Knights

✘ Bloodworms

✘ Heartbreaker

✔ Blooddrinker

Bloodworms is a passive ability which gives your auto attacks a chance to summon a Bloodworm. Bloodworms persist for 15 seconds, during which time they deal damage to your target, and at the end of their duration they burst, healing you for 15% of your missing health. If at any point you drop below 50% health, your existing Bloodworms burst immediately and heal you.
Heartbreaker causes your Heart Strike to generate 2 additional Runic Power for each target it hits.
Blooddrinker is an active, channeled ability with a 3-second duration and a 30-second cooldown. While channeling Blooddrinker, you drain health from the target (it loses it and you receive it as healing). While channeling Blooddrinker, you can still parry, dodge, and use defensive abilities (notably, Death Strike does not count as a defensive ability).

In this tier, we recommend Blooddrinker Icon Blooddrinker in most situations. Even though Heartbreaker Icon Heartbreaker could theoretically be better when facing many targets, such situations do not happen often enough to justify taking this talent.

Bloodworms Icon Bloodworms is not currently worth taking (due to, in part, its uncontrollable nature).

3. Tier 2 (Level 57) Talents for Blood Death Knights

✔ Rapid Decomposition

✘ Heart of Ice

? Spectral Deflection

Rapid Decomposition causes your Death and Decay to tick 15% faster (while retaining its total duration, leading to more damage). Also, while standing inside your own Death and Decay, you generate 1 Runic Power per second.
Heart of Ice causes each Death Strike to extend the duration of your current Icebound Fortitude by 2 seconds.
Spectral Deflection passively causes attacks that deal more than 25% of your maximum health in damage to automatically consume an additional Bone Shield charge (further reducing damage taken).

The best talent in this tier is currently Rapid Decomposition Icon Rapid Decomposition, as it provides increased Runic Power generation which results in more Death Strike Icon Death Strikes and therefore in better overall damage mitigation.

Heart of Ice Icon Heart of Ice is not currently suitable in any situation, even though theoretically it could be taken for prolonged periods of high damage, particularly if the damage taken increases over time.

Without the 2-piece Tier 21 Set Bonus, Spectral Deflection Icon Spectral Deflection is not a viable talent in practically any situation, and we do not recommend it. With the Set Bonus, the downside of this talent is partially offset by the increase to your Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon uptime. As long as regular melee hits are not triggering the effect, and the fight has a regular stream of boss abilities that will, this can be an effective defensive talent choice.

4. Tier 3 (Level 58) Talents for Blood Death Knights

✔ Ossuary

✘ Blood Tap

✘ Anti-Magic Barrier

Ossuary causes your Death Strike to cost 5 less Runic Power when you have 5 or more Bone Shield charges. Additionally, Ossuary passively increases your maximum Runic Power by 10.
Blood Tap is an active ability with 2 charges and 1-minute recharge time, which generates 1 Rune when used. Blood Tap's recharge time is reduced by 2 seconds whenever a Bone Shield charge is consumed.
Anti-Magic Barrier causes Anti-Magic Shell to also increase your maximum health by 25% for 10 seconds.

Ossuary Icon Ossuary is a great talent, and the best choice in this tier. Not only does it provide you with more Runic Power (by reducing the cost of Death Strike Icon Death Strike), but the increase in maximum Runic Power capacity makes the playstyle easier and more relaxed (the most notable benefit being that you can save up enough Runic Power for 3 Death Strikes).

Anti-Magic Barrier Icon Anti-Magic Barrier and Blood Tap Icon Blood Tap are simply not worth taking at the moment.

5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Blood Death Knights

? Mark of Blood

✔ Red Thirst

? Tombstone

Mark of Blood is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown that marks a target for 25 seconds. During this time, the target's auto attacks cause its target to be healed for 3% of their maximum health.
Red Thirst causes the cooldown of Vampiric Blood to be reduced by 1 second for each 6 Runic Power spent.
Tombstone is an active ability with a 1-minute cooldown which consumes up to 5 Bone Shield charges. This grants you an 8-second damage absorption shield, the size of which is based on the amount of Bone Shield charges consumed (6% of your maximum health per charge), and it also grants you 6 Runic Power for each charge consumed.

Red Thirst Icon Red Thirst is the best talent in this tier. It further improves your already-best defensive cooldown, making it an excellent choice.

Mark of Blood Icon Mark of Blood could be useful if your raid's other tank is undergeared for the fight, while you yourself are overgeared (and do not need another one of the talents in this tier to survive).

Tombstone Icon Tombstone is not currently competitive without the 2-piece Tier 21 Set Bonus. With this bonus, Tombstone will also reduce the cooldown of Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon by up to 15 seconds when used. This increases your uptime on Dancing Rune Weapon by a moderate amount, in addition to the (still lackluster) defensive benefit of Tombstone itself. Overall, this will result in a loss of survivability in most situations, for a relatively minor gain to damage. Only take this if the specific encounter will not benefit from the reduction to Vampiric Blood Icon Vampiric Blood's cooldown.

6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Blood Death Knights

✔ Tightening Grasp

✘ Tremble Before Me

✔ March of the Damned

Tightening Grasp passively reduces the cooldown of your Gorefiend's Grasp by 60 seconds, and also causes your Death and Decay to slow the movement speed of enemies inside of it by 70%.
Tremble Before Me grants your Death and Decay a chance on each tick to cause enemies affected by it to cower in place for 3 seconds. The chance to fear increases progressively with each tick. An enemy cannot be affected by this more often than once every 10 seconds, and damage taken may cancel the effect.
March of the Damned increases the duration of Wraith Walk by 50%, and causes it to break stun, snare, and root effects when used.

The choice in this tier comes down to either Tightening Grasp Icon Tightening Grasp or March of the Damned Icon March of the Damned. Tightening Grasp is recommended if the fight requires you to make use of Gorefiend's Grasp Icon Gorefiend's Grasp, whereas otherwise you should use March of the Damned.

Tremble Before Me Icon Tremble Before Me should currently never be taken.

7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Blood Death Knights

✘ Will of the Necropolis

? Rune Tap

✔ Foul Bulwark

Will of the Necropolis causes any damage you take when you are below 35% health to be reduced by 35%.
Rune Tap is an active ability with 2 charges and a 25-second recharge time. When activated, it consumes a Rune to grant you 40% damage taken reduction for 3 seconds.
Foul Bulwark causes your maximum health to be increased by 2% for each charge of Bone Shield you have.

The default choice in this tier should be Foul Bulwark Icon Foul Bulwark, which provides excellent synergy with Ossuary Icon Ossuary and increases your survivability by buffing the healing of your Death Strike Icon Death Strike (due to your increased maximum health).

Rune Tap Icon Rune Tap is great for strong, on-demand damage reduction against abilities that deal their damage over a short period of time. That said, if you feel you need to use this talent, you should also try to use the Soul of the Deathlord Icon Soul of the Deathlord legendary item if at all possible so that you also gain the benefit of the Foul Bulwark Icon Foul Bulwark talent.

Will of the Necropolis Icon Will of the Necropolis should never be taken.

8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Blood Death Knights

? Bonestorm

? Blood Mirror

✔ Purgatory

Bonestorm is an active ability with a 1-minute cooldown, which consumes all of your Runic Power. It lasts 1 second for each 10 Runic Power it consumes, and while active, it deals Shadow damage every 1 second to enemies around you, and also heals you for 2% of your maximum health each time it deals damage.
Blood Mirror is an active ability with a 2-minute cooldown, which applies a 10-second debuff to an enemy. While the debuff is active, 20% of the damage that is dealt to you is redirected to the target affected by Blood Mirror.
Purgatory passively allows you to survive a killing blow, once every 4 minutes. The attack that would otherwise kill you places a 3-second healing absorption debuff on you instead. The debuff absorbs healing equal to the amount of damage that the killing blow would have done to you. While the debuff is active, you cannot be killed, and any damage taken is added to the healing absorption effect. If the effect is still present when the 3 seconds run out (meaning, if you have not been healed for the entire amount by then), you will die.

The best talent and the default choice in this tier should be Purgatory Icon Purgatory, which provides an amazing boost to your survivability. In the event that the encounter poses no risk of dying at all, then you should choose a different talent.

Blood Mirror Icon Blood Mirror is a single target DPS increase, which you can also use to mitigate damage in the event of predictable, high damage periods.

Alternatively, you can use Bonestorm Icon Bonestorm, which is an AoE DPS increase and which can also be used to gain some survivability against many enemies.

⋘Spell Summary

Artifact Traits and Relics⋙

9. ChangeLog

28 Nov. 2017: Updated 1 and 4 talents to reference Tier 21 Set Bonuses.
28 Aug. 2017: Updated tier 1, 2, and 6 talent sections slightly.
12 Jun. 2017: Updated tier 2 talents to account for the new Heart of Ice talent.
27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
07 Feb. 2017: Updated 2, 3, and 6 talent discussions slightly.
10 Jan. 2017: Updated tier 1 talent discussion (recommendations changed).
09 Jan. 2017: Updated talent descriptions for Patch 7.1.5 and changed the evaluations of tier 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.
04 Oct. 2016: Tweaked and improved the descriptions and discussions of several talents, although no recommendations have changed (except for Tremble Before Me being viable in Mythic+ dungeons).
29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
21 Aug. 2016: Updated the descriptions of Tremble Before Me and Red Thirst to account for a recent hotfix.
22 Jul. 2016: Fixed a small issue in the description of Tombstone.
18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.