WotLK Classic Blood Death Knight Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

If you have not already, please read the Spell Summary page. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

Blood Death Knights are extremely powerful tanks, but require you to be ready and know how to handle the various situations you will find yourself in as a tank in order to be able to maximize your threat and survivability. Due to the nature of Runes and Runic Power most of your decisions while tanking as a Blood Death Knight will be predetermined, but the class has some of the strongest cooldowns in the game and the functionalities of spells like Death Strike allow you to react to situations you may not have seen coming.

This guide assumes you are using the talent build that can be found at our talents page and are playing a max-level character. If you are looking for leveling-based help please refer to our leveling page for a leveling-specific rotation, or our Pre-Patch guide for advice at Level 70.

Death Knights have three presences they can be in at any given time: Frost, Blood, and Unholy. Each of these presences offers the Death Knight additional stats, be it increased damage, self-healing, more Armor, increased threat generation, or even movement speed and a faster global cooldown. However, you can only have one presence active at a time. As a Blood Death Knight you will be exclusively in Frost Presence as the threat multiplier is almost required to maintain threat. If you know there is considerable downtime where you will travel a long distance you can consider switching to Unholy Presence, but make sure you return to Frost Presence when actively tanking.

• Blood Presence — Increases damage dealt by 15% and causes 4% of non-periodic damage dealt to heal you.
• Frost Presence — Increases Stamina by 8%, the Armor contributions of your gear by 60%, reduces your damage taken by 8%, and you will generate additional threat while in this presence.
• Unholy Presence — Increases movement and attack speed by 15% and reduces your global cooldown by 0.5 seconds.

Death Knight is one of the strongest single-target tanks in the entire game thanks to their incredible self-sustain and high threat generation as well as countless cooldowns to handle almost any situation. Mobility is the only major weakness, but otherwise Death Knights are an extremely versatile tank that can easily take on any content or handle any assignment on a given encounter.

• Icy Touch is a crucial part of the Death Knight tank rotation, not only to apply Frost Fever but due to Icy Touch generating a MASSIVE amount of threat while in Frost Presence. Maximizing the number of uses of this ability is the best way to generate and maintain threat.
• Plague Strike applies Blood Plague, which is crucial to maintaining threat both because of the added damage but the amplification of other strikes that having another disease on the target causes.
• Death Strike is a crucial part of Death Knight tanking as it heals you for a massive amount when cast and should be your go-to ability in any situation where you are taking large amounts of incoming damage. While you do still need healers, Death Knights are extremely independent largely because of Death Strike.
• Blood Tap immediately activates a Blood Rune and converts it into a Death Rune in exchange for 6% of your base health. While this can sometimes be dangerous you will oftentimes be able to heal yourself for considerably more than the 6% base health with the use of this Death Rune.
• Blood Strike is your best single-target filler ability when you only have Blood Runes available to you.

While Blood does have an optimal threat rotation it is important to constantly be considering how you will use your Runes. Sometimes it is best to maximize your damage and thus threat, but most of the time the primary goal should be survival. As you become more familiar with the spec and the bosses you encounter you will have an easier time determining which abilities to use and when.

Your ideal threat rotation/on pull should be as follows:

1. Death Grip taunts the boss, allowing you a 3-second window to establish snap threat. Do not use this rotationally but as a Taunt or means to move a mob in the encounter.
2. Icy Touch;
3. Plague Strike;
4. Death Strike;
5. Blood Strike;
6. Blood Tap should be spent on an Icy Touch for early snap threat;
7. Blood Strike;
8. Icy Touch;
9. Empower Rune Weapon;
10. Pestilence to refresh your diseases;
11. Death Strike to spend your Unholy Runes;
12. Spam Icy Touch with your remaining Runes.

While it will be difficult to follow this rotation exactly during bosses, this is what your on-pull rotation should look like to ensure you have sufficient threat.

Death Knights are great multi-target tanks and offer some of the best AoE threat in the game, while having an incredible amount of self-sustain that easily allows for Death Knights to deal with a constant source of incoming damage, though they are the strongest against slower, larger attacks.

• Death and Decay is a staple at establishing AoE threat. This ability will summon a void zone that will constantly pulse for Shadow damage to any enemy inside of it; this AoE is uncapped and will continue to generate threat for you while using other abilities.
• Pestilence is absolutely crucial if you know that multiple mobs you are tanking will be alive for more than just a couple of seconds. You should apply your diseases using Icy Touch and Plague Strike and then cast Pestilence to spread those diseases to all nearby enemies.
• Blood Boil is your primary AoE ability as it is your only spammable (Runes permitting) ability that deals damage to all nearby targets, helping you sustain threat on everything that is attacking you.
• Death Strike, while a single-target ability, is crucial when you are tanking multiple mobs as it allows you to heal yourself for a massive amount. Make sure to use this ability any time you take a considerable amount of damage to quickly heal it back up, but do not spam it so you can mitigate any wasted overhealing as your Runes can feel quite limited in high-damage situations.

Going into an AoE pull your rotation should look something like this:

1. Death and Decay for initial threat;
2. Icy Touch to apply Frost Fever;
3. Plague Strike to apply Blood Plague;
4. Pestilence to spread your diseases to all nearby enemies;
5. Spam Blood Boil if your health is stable;
6. If you are in danger of dying, use Death Strike.

Death Knights have some of the strongest cooldowns in the game both from a buffing perspective and from a personal defensive ability point of view. Death Knight is the king of self-sustain and Blood is the strongest of the three available specs when it comes to keeping yourself alive. While these abilities are not used rotationally, it is crucial to understand each of them as you will be using them frequently to either maximize your damage or survive dangerous encounters.

• Anti-Magic Shell — Absorbs 75% of incoming Magic damage (up to 50% of your max health) and prevents the application of any harmful magic debuffs; any damage absorbed by this will also grant you Runic Power.
• Raise Dead — Summons a ghoul that will do a small amount of damage; this ghoul is also required to use Death Pact.
• Death Pact — sacrifices your ghoul to heal you for 40% of your max health.
• Blood Tap — Activates a Blood Rune and converts it into a Death Rune for the next 20 seconds. Death Runes count as any Rune type.
• Unholy Frenzy — Increases the Physical damage dealt by a friendly target by 20% for 30 seconds, but deals 1% of their maximum health as damage to them while the buff is active.
• Rune Tap — Heals you for 10% of your max health.
• Vampiric Blood — increases your maximum health by 15% and increases the amount of healing done to you by 35% for 15 seconds.
• Mark of Blood — Applies a debuff to an enemy; whenever the enemy attacks it will heal 4% of its target's maximum health. This debuff lasts for 20 seconds or 20 attacks, whichever happens first.
• Dancing Rune Weapon — Replicates your ability usage for 12 seconds at 50% of the damage dealt.
• Empower Rune Weapon — Immediately refreshes all of your Runes and grants you 25 Runic Power.
• Icebound Fortitude — Reduces damage taken by 30% and causes you to become immune to stuns for 12 seconds.