Blood Death Knight Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents — Midnight Season 1

Numerous haphazard buffs to the base kit along with the addition of Apex talents have propelled San'layn back to the fore. Though Apex talents do not grant Gift of the San'layn, the copied damage from base abilities in the kit (particularly Death Strike) is enough to make a significant difference.

On single target, Bloody Reflection is technically, on paper and with lofty assumptions, a DPS gain compared to Sanguinary Burst. The problem is that it has severe limitations:

1. Any enemy large enough to be counted as out of 15-yard range from the center of your hit box takes no damage
2. Any enemy with an auto-attack replacement spell does not trigger this
3. AoE non-periodic spells are very often flagged not to trigger this.
4. Uptime while tanking makes a huge difference in performance on this, as do any auto-attack slows on the target

We have included it in all builds as relatively few bosses have these problems, but we strongly recommend verifying this on a case-by-case basis.

Another important note is on Consumption in progression content. While Consumption is an awkward addition to the kit, and the recent buffs to other baseline abilities have caused it to be only worth empowering to rank 1, a case can be made on progression to pick it in order to have an additional 15% damage reduction cooldown available. This comes at a cost, and as a result, we opted not to include it by default.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import these talents directly into your game!

Continued buffs to the base kit with no corresponding changes to Hero Talent abilities relegated Deathbringer back to an "easy to play, lower throughput" choice. Even with this, it is not far enough behind to dismiss outright, and its 45-second burst window (instead of a strict 90 second with a requirement to game procs in between) does allow it to shine for new players and on specific situations.

On single target, Bloody Reflection is technically, on paper and with lofty assumptions, a DPS gain compared to Sanguinary Burst. The problem is that it has severe limitations:

1. Any enemy large enough to be counted as out of 15-yard range from the center of your hit box takes no damage
2. Any enemy with an auto-attack replacement spell does not trigger this
3. AoE non-periodic spells are very often flagged not to trigger this.
4. Uptime while tanking makes a huge difference in performance on this, as do any auto-attack slows on the target

We have included it in all builds as relatively few bosses have these problems, but we strongly recommend verifying this on a case-by-case basis.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import these talents directly into your game!

Numerous haphazard buffs to the base kit along with the addition of Apex talents have propelled San'layn back to the fore. Though Apex talents do not grant Gift of the San'layn, the copied damage from base abilities in the kit (particularly Death Strike) is enough to make a significant difference.

Our Mythic+ build eschews Bloody Reflection and its mandatory investment in Lifeblood to pick Deadly Reach and Bloodied Blade, while preserving Sanguinary Burst.

The point in Sanguinary Burst is pure DPS throughput and can be freely moved to Umbilicus Eternus.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import these talents directly into your game!

Fundamentally, Deathbringer suffers the same fate in AoE: while San'layn is able to fully capitalize due to its kit amplifying Death Strike and Heart Strike, Blood Plague was left untouched for all of beta, along with Exterminate's AoE damage component.

It is not all doom and gloom, however; while the AoE damage difference is very significant, and San'layn once again provides significantly more priority damage, Deathbringer retains its ease of use and damage reduction advantage.

For this specific build, we have already moved Sanguinary Burst to Umbilicus Eternus. You are already taking a throughput hit - why not default to putting a minor pad point into something that provides more value than as San'layn?

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import these talents directly into your game!

The entry-level talent build we have opted for is a simplified version of Deathbringer that eschews all of the active abilities it can avoid.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import these talents directly into your game!