Blood Death Knight Tank Spell List and Glossary — Dragonflight 10.2

If you are new to Blood, this is a great place to start to get an understanding of how the spec works. On this page we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialization, how they interact with each other and also with important cooldowns. If you already have experience with Blood and are comfortable with it in the current expansion, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

Runes and Runic Power are your main resources. You have 6 Runes, which are used for several of your abilities. Runes regenerate passively over 10 seconds, with the regeneration time reduced by haste. You can have 3 Runes regenerating simultaneously, so you should be spending runes fast enough to always keep 3 Runes on cooldown. Each Rune spent generates 10 Runic Power, which is used primarily to power Death Strike, your main source of mitigation. Additionally, Heart Strike generates 5 bonus Runic Power.

These are your abilities that you obtain without selecting anything in the talent trees.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Death Coil	Coil	Death Coil exists in your spellbook and should remain there, as it is more inefficient than Death Strike at everything Death Strike does. It has very situational uses where you need to burn Runic Power while standing at range for a large amount of time, but this is extremely rare (and, in most cases, a sign of misplay).
Death and Decay	DnD	Death and Decay costs 1 Rune and places a damaging area at the target location, which persists for 10 seconds. A lot of the Blood Death Knights toolkit in Dragonflight centres around staying inside of Death and Decay.
Death's Advance	DA	Provides you with a small speed boost and prevents you from being slowed below 100% of your movement speed for 10 seconds. It also grants you immunity from knockbacks and pushbacks. Additionally, it has a passive effect that prevents your movement speed from being reduced below 70%
Rune Strike	-	Rune Strike costs 1 Rune and deals moderate damage. Is replaced once we choose a specialisation ( Heart Strike for Blood).
On a Pale Horse	-	A passive that increases your mounted movement speed by 20%. This does not stack with other movement speed abilities, such as Crusader Aura.
Death Grip	Grip	Death Grip allows you to grip an enemy to you, and also taunts it. Just like Dark Command, this taunt comes with a 3s fixate and 300% threat boost.
Raise Ally	Combat Res/CR	Raise Ally costs 30 Runic Power and battle resses a targeted dead ally, bringing them back to life (even in combat).
Lichborne	LB	Lichborne turns you undead for 10 seconds. This makes you immune to charm, fear and sleep, and grants you 10% leech. You can also activate this ability to break any of these CCs, making it a useful tool if you are accidentally hit a mechanic that applies such a CC.
Dark Command	Taunt	Dark Command is your taunt; this puts you at the top of an enemy's threat table and forces it to fixate on you for 3 seconds. During those three seconds, you generate 300% bonus threat - the ideal time to hit it with Death Strike for a guaranteed threat lead!
Runeforging	-	Runeforging allows you to apply a powerful Runeforge to your weapon, acting as (usually) better enchant. You do this in the Acherus Hold at the Runeforges.
Death Gate	-	Death Gate summons a gate that will teleport you to Acherus. Here you can Runeforge your weapon and practice your rotation on target dummies. Using the Death Gate again will bring you back to your original location.
Path of Frost	-	Path of Frost costs 1 Rune and grants everyone in your group the ability to walk on water. Breaks on any damage taken.
Mastery: Blood Shield	-	Mastery: Blood Shield is our mastery; every time you use Death Strike, a percentage of the raw healing done by Death Strike is duplicated as an absorption shield on yourself. It also increases your attack power, which in turn feeds into all offensive abilities.
Riposte	-	Riposte, a passive ability currently invisible in your spellbook, automatically grants you 100% of your critical strike rating as parry rating. This is designed to make critical strike rating appealing defensively, and hits the mark pretty well.

As part of the Dragonflight overhaul to the talent system, every specialization has received numerous new passive effects and active abilities. To attempt to break the list of every possible effect down into manageable chunks, we have grouped these abilities into active and passive effects, organized by the rows you will come across them from top to bottom in each tree.

If you would like to know more about which of these talents to select for your own Blood Death Knight, please see the builds and talents section of our guide.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Chains of Ice	Chains	Chains of Ice functions as a costly but very potent ranged snare on your target. At the cost of one rune, you can apply a 70% slow for 8 seconds.
Death Strike	DS	Death Strike deals damage to the target and heals you for 25% of the damage taken in the previous 5 seconds. Moreover, due to your Mastery ( Mastery: Blood Shield), a percentage of the healing is also applied to you as a physical damage absorption shield. Death Strike costs Runic Power to use, and is almost the only use of Runic Power for Blood Death Knights.
Raise Dead	Ghoul	Raise Dead allows you to summon a Ghoul for one minute. This ghoul will auto-attack your current target and frequently cast Gnaw, a 1-second stun.
Heart Strike	HS	Heart Strike damages the target as well as another nearby target and costs 1 Rune to cast. When standing in your Death and Decay, if Cleaving Strikes is talented, it will strike up to 5 targets. It is the most efficient Runic Power generator in your toolkit due to the bonus 5 Runic Power it generates and should be your Rune spender of choice when you do not need charges of Bone Shield. This is copied by Dancing Rune Weapon if it is active, and grants you 5 bonus Runic Power per Dancing Rune Weapon active through Blood Strike. It also applies a 20% snare to affected targets, though this does not have a meaningful impact on your gameplay decisions.
Mind Freeze	Interrupt	Mind Freeze interrupts your target if they are casting. This also causes them to be locked out of that school of magic for three seconds.
Anti-Magic Shell	AMS	Anti-Magic Shell grants you a magic absorption shield equal to 40% of your maximum health for 5 seconds. While it holds, you are immune to most magical debuffs, and each 1% of the shield consumed grants you 0.873 Runic Power.
Marrowrend	MR	Marrowrend hits the target for a light amount of physical damage and grants you 3 charges of Bone Shield. This spell is copied by Dancing Rune Weapon if it is active, and grants you 3 additional Bone Shield charges per Dancing Rune Weapon when cast.
Blood Boil	BB	Blood Boil deals damage to all enemies within 10 yards and applies Blood Plague to them. Beyond applying your disease, it is generally used as a filler in your rotation when you do not need to spend Runes or Runic Power.
Blinding Sleet	Sleet	Blinding Sleet disorients all targets in a 12yd cone in front of you for up to 5 seconds. When they take damage, the disorient fades, and they instead are slowed by 50% for 6 seconds.
Sacrificial Pact	Sac	Sacrificial Pact allows you to explode your ghoul for a small amount of shadow damage to all enemies near it. This explosion also heals you for 25% of your maximum health. This comes at a heavy Runic Power cost and does very little damage or healing, so we recommend skipping it.
Control Undead	MC	Control Undead allows you to take control over any non-CC-immune undead enemy. This turns this enemy into your pet and may grant you access to some of their abilities.
Vampiric Blood	VB	Vampiric Blood increases your maximum health and healing received by 30% for 10 seconds.
Icebound Fortitude	IBF	Icebound Fortitude is available on the class tree for all Death Knights. When used, for the next 8 seconds, you take 30% less damage and are completely immune to Stun effects. It can also be used whilst you are stunned to remove the Stun effect.
Death's Caress	DC/Caress	Death's Caress has received changes in Dragonflight and now grants 2 Bone Shield charges when used. It also picked up a 6-second cooldown to compensate.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Cleaving Strikes	-	Increases the maximum amount of targets Heart Strike will hit from 2 to 5 targets whilst you are standing in your Death and Decay.
Coldthirst	-	Reduces the cooldown of Mind Freeze by 3 seconds and if you successfully manage to interrupt a spell you gain 10 Runic Power.
Permafrost	-	Permafrost grants you a shield equal to 40% of all auto-attack damage you deal. This stacks and refreshes on each auto-attack.
Improved Death Strike	Improved DS	Improved Death Strike reduces the cost of Death Strike by 5 Runic Power and increases its healing done by 10%.
Anti-Magic Barrier	AMB	Anti-Magic Barrier reduces the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell to 40 seconds, increases its duration to 7 seconds, and its size by 40%.
March of Darkness	-	March of Darkness grants you an additional 25% movement speed (60% total) for the first three seconds of Death's Advance.
Enfeeble	-	Enfeeble grants a chance for your ghoul's auto-attacks to reduce the damage the target deals to you by 15% for 6 seconds, and to snare them by 30%.
Crimson Scourge	-	This allows each auto-attack hit on a plagued target a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of Death and Decay. This can only happen if Death and Decay is not active (i.e. not on the floor)!
Blood Scent	-	Increases your leech by 3%.
Veteran of the Third War	Veteran	Increases your stamina by 10% per point.
Suppression	-	Increases your avoidance by 3%.
Brittle	-	Brittle causes your ticks of Blood Plague to have a chance to weaken them, increasing all your damage dealt to them by 6% for 5 seconds.
Ossuary	-	Passively increases your maximum Runic Power by 10 at all times. Additionally, it rewards you for staying at or above 5 Bone Shield charges. When this is the case, the cost of Death Strike is reduced by 5 Runic Power.
Improved Vampiric Blood	Improved VB	Increases the duration of Vampiric Blood by 2 seconds and its healing amplification and maximum HP increase by 5% per rank.
Improved Heart Strike	Improved HS	Increases the damage dealt by Heart Strike by up to 15% per rank.

The abilities below are available as talents on the Class tree for Death Knights. Where possible, we have also highlighted related passive talents (they will be described in detail in the Passive sections of this page as well).

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Anti-Magic Zone	AMZ	Anti-Magic Zone places a shadowy zone on the floor for 8 seconds; this zone absorbs 20% of the magic damage taken by any friendly target within it, until it has reached its cap of 150% of your maximum health.
Rune Tap	RTap	Consumes a Rune to reduce all damage you take by 20% for 4 seconds.
Dancing Rune Weapon	DRW	Dancing Rune Weapon spawns a non-targetable entity to fight by your side for 8 seconds. While it is active, you gain 40% additional parry, and some of your spells are copied, with additional effects: Each active Dancing Rune Weapon causes any Heart Strike cast by you to be replicated at 33% effectiveness and to grant you 5 bonus Runic Power per active Dancing Rune Weapon through Blood Strike. Each active Dancing Rune Weapon mirrors your casts of Blood Boil, applying their own Blood Plague on a target. These deal damage at 33% effectiveness. As of 2022-10-16, a bug exists where only one of the two Dancing Rune Weapon will copy Blood Boil twice, thus robbing you of one Blood Plague. Each active Dancing Rune Weapon duplicates your casts of Marrowrend at 33% effectiveness. This also grants you 3 bonus Bone Shield charges for each active Dancing Rune Weapon. Finally, each active Dancing Rune Weapon casts its own copy of the following spells at 33% effectiveness: Death Strike (does not heal you), Death's Caress, Consumption
Asphyxiate	-	Stuns your target for 5 seconds.
Death Pact	Pact	Death Pact heals you for 50% and applies a 30% healing absorption effect; while this effect holds, all of your received healing are absorbed by it. Both effects (the healing, and healing absorption) snapshot your maximum HP at the time of cast.
Wraith Walk	WW	Wraith Walk breaks all roots currently on you, renders you immune to any subsequent root effects while channelling Wraith Walk, and increases your movement speed by up to 4 seconds. Casting any other ability during this will cancel Wraith Walk.
Blood Tap	BTap	Blood Tap allows you to recover one Rune when cast. This will prioritize fully depleted runes. Each time you lose a Bone Shield charge, the cooldown of Blood Tap is reduced by 2 seconds. This works out, in practice, to roughly 1.5 bonus Runes per minute.
Consumption	-	Consumption deals moderate physical damage to all targets in front of you and heals you for 150% of the damage. This healing does not trigger Mastery: Blood Shield, and unfortunately, means you will likely massively overheal with it when used. The AoE damage dealt by this ability is barely higher than a Blood Boil, making it a very dubious pick.
Blooddrinker	-	Blooddrinker drains your target's health over 3 seconds, dealing high shadow damage to them. While channeling, you can dodge, parry and use defensive abilities. For legacy reasons, Dancing Rune Weapon counts as a defensive ability and does not break Blooddrinker.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Acclimation	-	Reduces the cooldown of Icebound Fortitude to 2 minutes.
Merciless Strikes	-	Increases your critical strike chance by 2%. This does not grant you 2% parry.
Might of Thassarian	-	This talent gives you 2% bonus strength.
Clenching Grasp	-	Reduces the movement speed of any target you grip by 50% for 6 seconds.
Heartbreaker	HB	Causes each hit of Heart Strike from you (the copies cast by Dancing Rune Weapon do not count) to grant you an additional 1 Runic Power (per point).
Foul Bulwark	FB	Increases your maximum HP by 1% for each charge of Bone Shield you currently have.
Hemostasis	Hemo	Causes each target hit by Blood Boil to grant you a buff, up to 5 stacks. Casting Death Strike consumes all stacks of this buff to increase the damage and healing done by Death Strike (but not the blood shield generated through Mastery: Blood Shield)
Perseverance of the Ebon Blade	-	Grants you 4% versatility (per talent point) for 6 seconds when you consume a Crimson Scourge proc.
Relish in Blood	RiB	Grants you a small heal and 10 Runic Power when you consume a Crimson Scourge proc.
Proliferating Chill	-	Causes Chains of Ice to cleave to the nearest enemy target
Gloom Ward	GW	This increases all absorption effects cast on you by 15%. This includes effects cast by you, as well as other effects (for example, it increases Life Cocoon as well as Anti-Magic Shell).
Assimilation	-	Increases the maximum HP coefficient on Anti-Magic Zone to 165% and causes each 1% absorbed by it to grant you 1 Runic Power.
Death's Reach	-	Increases the range of Death Grip to 35 yards, and causes its cooldown to reset each time you deal a killing blow to a target that yields experience or honor.
Grip of the Dead	GotD	Snares enemies by 90% when they enter Death and Decay. Every second from the time they first take damage from Death and Decay, this snare is reduced by 10%.
Unholy Endurance	-	Causes Lichborne to last 2 seconds longer and reduces all damage taken by 15% while it is active.
Leeching Strike	-	Causes each Heart Strike damage event to heal you for 0.5% of your max HP.
Improved Bone Shield	Improved BS	Increases your Haste by 10% while at least one charge of Bone Shield is active.
Insatiable Blade	-	Causes Dancing Rune Weapon to instantly grant 5 Bone Shield charges. Additionally, whenever a Bone Shield charge is consumed, the cooldown of Dancing Rune Weapon is reduced by 5 seconds.
Rapid Decomposition	-	Causes Blood Plague and Death and Decay to tick 15% faster. Additionally, Blood Plague leeches 50% more health from enemies.
Runic Attenuation	RA	Runic Attenuation grants a very high chance to generate 5 Runic Power each time you successfully auto-attack a target. In practice, this works out to an average of 50 RP per minute, increased by your haste.
Unholy Ground	UG	Grants you 5% additional haste while you stand in your Death and Decay.
Blood Feast	BF	Each point of damage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell will also heal you.
Reinforced Bones	-	Increases the amount of armor provided by Bone Shield by an additional 7% of your strength.
Everlasting Bond	-	Causes Dancing Rune Weapon to summon a second Dancing Rune Weapon to mirror all your abilities, and increases its duration by 8 seconds.
Voracious	Vora	Increases the healing done by Death Strike by 20%, increases its minimum healing to 10.5% of your max HP, and grants you 15% leech for 8 seconds after using Death Strike.
Bloodworms	BW	Bloodworms grant you a chance to spawn Bloodworms. These deal light physical damage to their target, and burst after 15 seconds or when you drop below 50% HP. When they burst, they heal you for 15% of your missing HP.5
Coagulopathy	Coag	Coagulopathy increases all your damage to targets affected by Blood Plague by 5% at all times. Additionally, using Death Strike grants you a buff that increases all damage by all your Blood Plague by 25% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 5.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Mark of Blood	MoB	Mark of Blood debuffs your target for 15 seconds, causing each auto-attack to heal their target for 3% of their maximum health. This has very little value, and due to it being a choice node with Tombstone instead of a mostly free choice as it was in Shadowlands, there is very little chance that this ability will ever see play.
Tombstone	Tomb	Tombstone consumes up to 5 Bone Shield charges. For each Bone Shield charge consumed, you gain 6 Runic Power and 6% of your maximum HP as an absorption shield. It also has the following interactions: Insatiable Blade causes Tombstone to grant up to 25 seconds of cooldown reduction on Dancing Rune Weapon. Tombstone grants up to 10 seconds of cooldown reduction on Blood Tap Shattering Bone allows you to predictably detonate for 180% AP in shadow damage to all nearby targets by casting Death and Decay followed by Tombstone. This is, by far, the most damaging ability combination in your spellbook and a great source of burst threat.
Gorefiend's Grasp	GG/Mass Grip	Gorefiend's Grasp grips all enemies within 15 yards to your target. The target of this spell can be you, an ally, an enemy, or any other entity that can be attacked by anything.
Empower Rune Weapon	ERW	Empower Rune Weapon grants you 1 rune and 5 RP on use, along with every 5 seconds thereafter for 20 seconds. While active, this effect also grants you 15% haste.
Abomination Limb	Abom	Abomination Limb deals heavy damage to use and every second for 12 seconds. Every time it deals damage, it attempts to grip the furthest target within 20 yards of your current location to you. On use, 6 seconds in, and when Abomination Limb fades, you gain 3 charges of Bone Shield.
Soul Reaper	SR	Soul Reaper deals light shadowfrost damage to your target and afflicts them with a 5-second debuff. When it fades, if the target is below 35%, you deal a large amount of shadowfrost damage to them. If the target dies while afflicted by this debuff, you gain (a heavily nerfed version of) Runic Corruption.
Bonestorm	BS	Bonestorm allows you to spend up to 100 Runic Power to deal periodic damage for up to 10 seconds to all targets near you; every time this ability deals damage, you are healed by up to 15% of your maximum health (3% per target hit).

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Insidious Chill	Chill	This is our new raid utility debuff. Each auto-attack you deal applies a debuff that lasts 30 seconds and stacks to 4 times on your target. For each stack, their auto-attack speed is reduced by 5%. You are strongly recommended to tab-target to all available targets and keep these stacks rolling.
Blood Draw	-	Blood Draw drains a small amount of damage from nearby enemies when you drop below 30% health. This amount is small, and the 3-minute internal cooldown on this passive effect makes it 2 talent points best spent elsewhere.
Will of the Necropolis	WotN	Will of the Necropolis causes a portion of all damage taken while below 30%, or that would bring you below 30%, to be reduced by a percentage. The behavior of this ability is non-trivial, and as a result, its specific nuances are explained on a separate page.
Death's Echo	Echo	Death's Echo grants you a second charge of Death's Advance, Death Grip, and Death and Decay. Additionally, it causes all effects that would reset the cooldown of those abilities (such as Crimson Scourge) to grant you a full charge instead.
Sanguine Ground	SG	Sanguine Ground causes you to deal 5% more damage and receive 5% more healing and absorption effects from all sources while you are in your Death and Decay.
Icy Talons	Talons	Icy Talons grants you 3% melee auto-attack speed for 6 seconds each time you spend Runic Power (no matter how much you spent or what you spent it with). This stacks up to 3 times.
Rune Mastery	-	Rune Mastery can occasionally cause you to gain 3% strength for 8 seconds when you spend a rune. The number of runes you spent per ability does not affect this; the chance to trigger this is the same whether you have used Heart Strike or Marrowrend, for example.
Unholy Bond	-	Unholy Bond modifies your Runeforges in the following way: Rune of the Fallen Crusader: Strength gain increases to 16.5% (rank 1) / 18% (rank 2). Healing amount granted when Rune of the Fallen Crusader procs increased to 6.6% (rank 1) / 7.2% (rank 2). Rune of Hysteria: Runic Power Generation while Rune of Hysteria is active increased to 22% (rank 1) / 24% (rank 2). Maximum RP increases by 22 (rank 1) / 23 (rank 2). Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: Stamina, Armor and Strength gained increased to 5.5% (rank 1) / 6% (rank 2)
Shattering Bone	Shatter	Shattering Bone causes each Bone Shield charge consumed by taking auto-attacks or through Tombstone to deal 12% of your AP in damage to all nearby targets. This damage is tripled if you currently are in your Death and Decay.
Heartrend	Rend	Heartrend causes all your Heart Strike to have a 12% chance to increase the damage of your next Death Strike by 20%.
Tightening Grasp	TG	Tightening Grasp reduces the cooldown of Gorefiend's Grasp to 90 seconds, and debuffs all enemies in range of Gorefiend's Grasp (even immovable enemies!), causing them to take 5% more damage from you for 15 seconds.
Iron Heart	IH	Iron Heart increases the duration of Mastery: Blood Shield and its amount by 20%
Red Thirst	RT	Red Thirst reduces the cooldown of Vampiric Blood by 1 second (per point) for every 10 Runic Power you spend..
Purgatory	Purg	Purgatory causes any damage that would kill you (while it is not on cooldown) to afflict you with two debuffs: Shroud of Purgatory indicates the remaining cooldown of Purgatory. Perdition is a healing absorb with a 3s duration whose value is the damage that you would otherwise have been killed by. While it holds, all healing done to you is absorbed to "pay off" this debuff, and any additional damage taken is added to it. If, 3 seconds after Perdition is applied, Perdition is still on you, you die. For real this time.
Bloodshot	-	Bloodshot increases all physical damage you deal while Mastery: Blood Shield is active on you by 25%.
Umbilicus Eternus	UE	Umbilicus Eternus tallies up all damage dealt by Blood Plague while Vampiric Blood is active. When Vampiric Blood fades or Umbilicus Eternus is cancelled, the total is quintupled and applies to you as a shield, capped at your maximum HP before any additional amplification effect.