Cataclysm Classic Blood Death Knight Rotation and Cooldowns

Death Knights have three different Presences though as an Blood Death Knight we will be using one presence and that is Blood Presence due to the multiple tanking-related multipliers on it increasing our Stamina, Armor, Threat Generation, and of course the flat damage reduction.

• Blood Presence — increases your Stamina by 8%, the contribution from Armor by 55% and reduces all incoming damage by 8%. It also increases threat generation considerably.
• Frost Presence — increases your damage dealt by 10% and increases Runic Power generated by 10%.
• Unholy Presence — increases Attack Speed and Rune regeneration by 10% and movement speed by 15% while also reducing your global cooldown on abilities by 0.5 seconds.

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

As a Blood Death Knight your focus is much more on self-sustaining with Death Strike than dealing maximum damage or generating the most threat possible but there are a number of abilities we will use to spend our other Runes in order to deal as much damage as possible while still prioritizing Death Strike above all.

1. Apply both Frost Fever and Blood Plague. Use Outbreak to apply these if possible otherwise Icy Touch and Plague Strike;
2. Cast Death Strike to spend your Frost and Unholy Runes, if you have a healthy threat lead you can consider delaying these casts to self-heal through incoming damage;
3. Cast Heart Strike to spend your Blood Runes, this should only be used to consume Blood Runes. Death Runes are better spent on Death Strike;
4. Cast Rune Strike to generate threat and spend Runic Power. This should only be used when at least one of your Frost or Unholy Runes are depleted;
5. Cast Blood Boil anytime you get a Crimson Scourge proc;
6. Cast Dark Command/ Death Grip if you need to Taunt.

Your AoE Rotation starts at two targets and emphasizes the damage dealt by your Diseases and sustained AoE damage that can be dealt with abilities like Death and Decay and Blood Boil. The addition of Outbreak to our toolkit also allows us to instantly apply both diseases to a target making it much quicker to establish them initially and then spread with Pestilence.

1. Cast Death and Decay on cooldown;
2. Apply both of your diseases Frost Fever and Blood Plague with Outbreak whenever possible, if Outbreak is on cooldown then use Icy Touch and Plague Strike cast Pestilence to spread these diseases to nearby enemies;
3. Cast Blood Boil if you are fighting four or more enemies. If not, cast Heart Strike to spend your Blood Runes. Cast Blood Boil anytime you get a Crimson Scourge proc;
4. Cast Blood Boil if both your Blood and Frost Runes are available;
5. Cast Rune Strike to generate threat and spend Runic Power. This should only be used when at least one of your Runes are depleted;
6. Cast Death Strike as you feel it is necessary to survive the incoming damage.

Blood Death Knight is the king of Defensive cooldowns and understanding how to properly utilize them will make a massive difference in your personal survivability and the demand you put on your healers so having a good idea of how each of them functions is incredibly important to maximize your effective HP and your survivability in general.

Anti-Magic Shell reduces all incoming Magic damage by 75% for 5 seconds or until 50% of your health is dealt to you in Magic damage. This is best used to mitigate a single large Magic based attack coming from a boss and you should be used proactively as opposed to re-actively as there are better suited cooldowns for responding to low health.

Bone Shield reduces incoming damage taken by 20% and should be used on cooldown. Paired with Glyph of Bone Shield it will also grant you some movement speed.

Vampiric Blood increases the healing you receive by 40% while glyphed. This is a great way to react to large, consistent amounts of damage as it lessens the amount of healing required from your Healers. Pairing this with Empower Rune Weapon can also help you survive a prolonged phase of heavy incoming damage as your self healing abilities like Death Strike, Death Pact, and Rune Tap also benefit from this.

Rune Tap converts a Blood Rune into 10% of your max health. This should be used often to keep yourself healthy or react to any large unexpected sources of incoming damage. Rune Tap has a relatively short cooldown and can be refreshed by Will of the Necropolis, so do not hesitate to use it.

Icebound Fortitude reduces all incoming damage by 50% for 12 seconds. This ability is best used proactively to mitigate a large amount of incoming damage.

Empower Rune Weapon instantly refreshes all of your Runes and grants you 25 Runic Power. This ability is ideally used when all of your Runes are on cooldown. Due to its long cooldown try to use it early as you are unlikely to get more than one or two casts of it per fight. If the encounter is unlikely to last longer than the 5 minutes it would take to come back off cooldown, use it whenever you feel you need the most burst damage.

Army of the Dead summons an army of ghouls to attack your primary target. While this ability is a channeled effect it reduces incoming damage by the sum of your Dodge and Parry chance combined making these two defensive stats even more powerful. The Ghouls this spawns will taunt any non-boss type mobs so if you find yourself overwhelmed by a large number of small enemies this can give you time to regain threat as well.

Dancing Rune Weapon grants 20% Parry rating while active. This can be paired with Army of the Dead should you find yourself expecting a massive amount of incoming damage. While this is a great mitigation tool do not hesitate to use it on the pull to establish an early threat lead and smooth the transition of initially positioning the boss.

Blood Tap turns one of your Blood Runes into an available Death Rune. This is best used when you find yourself in need of self-healing and can allow you to cast a Blood Tap or Death Strike you may otherwise not have been able to.