Blood Death Knight Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents — Shadowlands 9.2.5
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Blood Death Knight in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2.5. We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
On this page, we cover all of the talents you have access to, explaining how each one of them is to be used. Some of these talents, active or passive, can make a huge difference in how Blood Death Knights are played, all of which is explained on our rotation page.
There are also some talents that are good in certain environments, while lacking in others. For more information regarding talents that are good in Mythic+, you can take a look at our Mythic+ guide.
Talent Choices for Blood Death Knight
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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25 |
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30 |
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35 |
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40 |
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45 |
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50 |
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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 Still Mind and
Codex of the Still Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change
talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.
Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Blood Death Knights
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Heartbreaker causes your
Heart Strike to generate 2 additional Runic Power for each target it hits, up to 10 extra.
Blooddrinker is an active, channeled ability with a 3-second hasted 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, while
Dancing Rune Weapon does).
Tombstone allows you to convert up to 5
Bone Shield charges into 6% maximum health as an absorb and 6 Runic Power each, every minute. This "costs" you 4 Runes not spent on
Heart Strike to return this value, before you include duplicate charges acquired by casting
Marrowrend during
Dancing Rune Weapon.
In this tier, we recommend Blooddrinker for purely single-target
DPS, and
Heartbreaker for other circumstances. Even with only
occasional opportunities to cleave, Heartbreaker will quickly pull ahead. It
is also worth noting that mismanagement of
Blooddrinker, even slight
mistakes like clipping the last tick, will cause it to be inferior to
Heartbreaker.
With our 2-piece set bonus ( Blood DK 2-Piece) and
Crimson Rune Weapon equipped,
Tombstone is a net gain over the
other options on the row, and with
Blood DK 4-Piece this gap increases
even further.
Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents for Blood Death Knights
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Rapid Decomposition causes your
Death and Decay and
Blood Plague to tick 15% faster (while retaining its total duration, leading to more damage and healing), and
Blood Plague to do 50% more damage.
Hemostasis increases the damage and healing of your next
Death Strike by 8% for each target hit by
Blood Boil. This effect stacks up to 5 times for a maximum of 40% damage and healing possible.
Consumption is a melee attack that hits up to 8 enemies in front of you for a moderate amount of damage and heals you the total damage dealt. Consumption has no cost and a 30-second cooldown.
Hemostasis is currently the only talent worth considering in this
tier. The defensive and offensive benefits of
Rapid Decomposition
Consumption are negligible.
Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents for Blood Death Knights
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Foul Bulwark causes your maximum health to be increased by 1% for each charge of
Bone Shield you have.
Relish in Blood causes you to gain 10 Runic Power and a minimal heal when consuming
Crimson Scourge.
Blood Tap is an active ability on a set of two charges, off the global cooldown, that allows you to regain a Rune when used. The cooldown of this ability is reduced by 2 seconds whenever you lose a charge of
Bone Shield.
This row has two independent, valid choices:
- In most situations, when played optimally,
Blood Tap provides the biggest bang for the buck. All of the Runes it generates will end up being spent on
Heart Strike, our most efficient Rune spender. However, just like every active effect, proper management of it is necessary: do not use it to regain a Rune that would cause you to cap on recharging another Rune, essentially. In the hands of a skilled player, it is the better option on the row as long as you are not tanking a 50% uptime boss.
- As a completely passive option,
Relish in Blood causes the use of a
Crimson Scourge proc to grant you 10 Runic Power. The heal is negligible; the important part is the Runic Power. Due to how
Crimson Scourge works, and more importantly, how it is not possible to gain a proc when
Death and Decay is on the ground, you have a very strong incentive to consume those procs as quickly as possible.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents for Blood Death Knights
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Will of the Necropolis absorbs 30% of all damage taken below 30% health. The absorb is pro-rated on damage taken that brings you below 30%; for example, if you were at 40% health, and took damage that would bring you to 20%, then half of the damage taken would get the 30% damage aborption effect. Because of this, it is fundamentally accurate to think of Will of the Necropolis as equivalent to an approximately 13% increase in maximum health. This also affects damage that would bring you below 1 HP, thus providing a linear increase to effective health.
Anti-Magic Barrier reduces the cooldown of
Anti-Magic Shell 15 seconds, increases the duration by 1.5 seconds, and increases the amount absorbed by 30%.
Mark of Blood marks your target with a debuff for 15 seconds. Whenever they melee something in that time, they will heal them for 3% of their maximum health.
In most content, Will of the Necropolis will be the best choice. The
passive benefit is useful in nearly any tanking scenario. It is also worth noting
that it is modelled in-game as an absorb and, therefore, unlike other damage
reduction sources in the game, the damage it reduces still counts in
Death Strike healing calculations.
Anti-Magic Barrier can be valuable when the cooldown reduction
allows you to fit
Anti-Magic Shell into your cooldown plan more
effectively, or when the increased duration or size allows you to avoid the
application of a debuff.
Mark of Blood had its cost removed this expansion. However, it is
niche at best, and very questionable overall.
Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents for Blood Death Knights
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Grip of the Dead applies a 90% snare to enemies in your
Death and Decay. This snare decays over time by 10% every second.
Tightening Grasp reduces the cooldown of
Gorefiend's Grasp by 30 seconds, to 90 seconds.
Wraith Walk is an active ability that increases movement speed by 70% for 4 seconds, on a 1-minute cooldown. Taking actions during Wraith Walk immediately cancels the effect.
The correct talent on this row depends on the encounter. Take
Tightening Grasp any time the reduced cooldown to
Gorefiend's Grasp is mandatory to execute a strategy.
Grip of the Dead should be your default choice in Mythic+, along
with any fight where there is a requirement for what is arguably the
strongest snare in the game. It is worth noting that, if you manage to
make an enemy walk into your
Death and Decay at the second it
expires, it will be affected with a full 10 seconds of 90% speed reduction.
Any time the other two talents will not provide benefit during the
encounter, you should use Wraith Walk, as having two separate
mobility cooldowns gives you a much stronger mobility profile, which has several
benefits for any tank.
Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents for Blood Death Knights
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Voracious amplifies the healing provided by
Death Strike by 20%, raises the minimum healing value to 10.5%, and grants you 15% Leech for 8 seconds after using it.
Death Pact is a trap talent. Unless you absolutely need to survive an ungodly large oneshot mechanic, do not even look at it.
Bloodworms gives your auto-attacks a chance to summon a guardian pet that will auto-attack your target for 15 seconds. When the 15 seconds expires, or when you fall below 50% Health, the bloodworm will be killed and heal you for 15% of your missing Health. Multiple bloodworms can be active at the same time; you will summon approximately 5 bloodworms per minute.
Bloodworms is the go-to generic talent on this tier. The
auto-attack damage dealt by the bloodworms is significant, and the defensive
bonus, while weak, is passive and is more valuable when tanking more difficult
content.
Voracious has increased in value by a lot, and is now the go-to
defensive/healing throughput on the row. Its only drawback is that it provides no offensive benefit.
A simple rule to consider is that if you are going to go below 50% Health
regularly, then Bloodworms loses value and you should use
Voracious.
Tier 7 (Level 60) Talents for Blood Death Knights
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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.
Red Thirst reduces the cooldown of
Vampiric Blood by 1 second for every 10 Runic Power spent.
Bonestorm is an active ability with a 1-minute cooldown, which consumes up to 100 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. It also heals you for 3% of your Maximum Health each time it deals damage. The heal is capped at 15%, or 5 targets hit.
In most encounters, the cooldown reduction provided by Red Thirst
will allow you to plan your defensive cooldowns more effectively, making it the
default talent choice in this tier.
Purgatory is a powerful tool for learning encounters and
recovering from mistakes. While there is a meaningful possibility you may die,
and the cooldown reduction of
Red Thirst will not provide benefit to
your cooldown plan, it should be your talent choice in this tier. It is
important to recognize that as your skill level goes up, the value of Purgatory
falls significantly — experienced Blood Death Knights on well-practiced
content will rarely need a cheat death, and often in such circumstances the
benefits of
Red Thirst could have been more effective in saving their
lives.
Bonestorm is a powerful AoE ability on a relatively short
cooldown. It is especially valuable in Mythic+, and on encounters where burst
AoE damage is important. The heal has the potential to be very large as well,
scaling with the number of enemies hit (up to 5 enemies). Do not let this limit
fool you — a 15% healing per second HoT is more than consequent. As such, this
talent is the default pick for Mythic+.
PvP Talents (War Mode)
Since Battle for Azeroth, there is the option to go into "War Mode". Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:
- PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
- 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
- 10% more experience gained while leveling.
- Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.
Blood Death Knight PvP Talents
Death Chain is a nice damage increase when pulling 3 or more enemies, though the 30-second cooldown prevents it from being used on every pull.
Necrotic Aura and
Murderous Intent can be very strong when completing open world content in a group, but have very limited value in solo play.
Dark Simulacrum,
Decomposing Aura,
Strangulate,
and
Walking Dead all have limited value in PvE content.
Last Dance is a trap talent and should never be picked. You gain
no additional uptime on
Dancing Rune Weapon at the cost of one more
global cooldown every minute, due to the reduced cooldown.
While PvPing as Blood Death Knight can certainly be fun, you might also want to try out PvPing as either Frost or Unholy. Both of these specs will deal a lot more damage while being squishier.
Changelog
- 31 May 2022: Page reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 10 Apr. 2022: Added info about Tombstone's impact on DRW, added hints related to 2pc, and clarified a couple of explanations.
- 20 Feb. 2022: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 29 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Added notes on how to decide what Tier 6 talent to pick.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Updated information surrounding the Consumption talent.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Death Knight Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Mandl and Panthea.
Mandl is one of Acherus' Useful Minions and Blood Death Knight theorycrafter.
Panthea raids in Catalyst and is the author of TankNotes. He plays all tanks and is a "Useful Minion" for the Acherus Death Knight Discord. You can follow him on Twitter.
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