Blood Death Knight Leveling Guide from 8 to 80 — The War Within (11.0.7)

Last updated on Dec 15, 2024 at 16:00 by Mandl and Panthea 43 comments

On this page, you will find our Level by Level Blood Death Knight leveling guide for The War Within. Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Death Knight leveling guide.

1.

Gear Options

When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.

Your goal is, evidently, to go as quickly as possible throughout the zones and levels, and the best way to do this is to get the best possible gear without getting out of your way while doing so.

2.

Level by Level Rotation and Talents

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

Level: 8

Until level 10, if you are an old-school race, your Heart Strike Icon Heart Strike will be replaced by its generic alternative, Rune Strike Icon Rune Strike.

Depending on which race you picked, you will start at a different level, and have a slightly different intro:

  • If you picked an Allied Race, you start at level 10, and start with the new Bolvar experience.
  • On the other hand, if you started with one of the old races, you start at level 8 and get to re-live the Scarlet Enclave original starting zone!
2.1.

Talents to Level Up as a Blood Death Knight

Your talent build is the following:

Most of these talent points will be gradually available as you level; we will only note down the active abilities in the guide below, along with the most important talents to pick up. Throughout the levelling process, you will also pick up a variety of passive damage increases to other abilities.

2.2.

Rotation to Level Up as a Blood Death Knight

The basic rotation as a Blood Death Knight is based on this priority. We have shown/hidden elements based on the level at which you acquire them; please use the slider at the very top of the page to select what level you are at.

  1. Use Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay where you intend to fight; your goal is to keep both you and your enemies in it for as long as possible. Cast it on cooldown, but do not overlap them!
  2. If Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark is not on your target, apply it in the following priority order:
    • Casting Marrowrend Icon Marrowrend if Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark has recently detonated to try and get a free proc from Exterminate Icon Exterminate.
    • Casting Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark on the target directly.
  3. Use Abomination Limb Icon Abomination Limb as close to on cooldown as possible. This will attempt to grab your enemy on use, and grant you a Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charge thanks to Bone Collector Icon Bone Collector.
  4. Use Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown as long. You should aim to be below 7 Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charges when you cast this, but it is better to just send it.
  5. Use Tombstone Icon Tombstone when you have at least 6 Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charges, you are within your own Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay and Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon still is on cooldown.
  6. Use Bonestorm Icon Bonestorm when you have at least 6 Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charges, you are within your own Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay and Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon still is on cooldown.
  7. Use Consumption Icon Consumption. If Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon is about to become available, wait until it is available and use it as your first GCD in Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon instead.
  8. Use Marrowrend Icon Marrowrend (or Death's Caress Icon Death's Caress if you are out of melee range) if your Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield is about to expire.
  9. Use Death Strike Icon Death Strike if your health is low or if you are above 75 Runic Power.
  10. Use Soul Reaper Icon Soul Reaper if your target is below 35% and will live for 5 seconds.
  11. Use Blood Boil Icon Blood Boil if any nearby enemies do not have your Blood Plague Icon Blood Plague disease, or you are close to having 2 charges of Blood Boil Icon Blood Boil.
  12. Use Marrowrend Icon Marrowrend if you have 6 or fewer stacks of Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield.
  13. Use Heart Strike Icon Heart Strike if you have 2 or more Runes.
  14. Use Blood Boil Icon Blood Boil.
2.3.

Talent-by-Talent Explanation While Levelling Up as a Blood Death Knight

  1. You start with access to Rune Strike Icon Rune Strike, acting as your main Rune spender, and Death Coil Icon Death Coil acting as your main Runic Power spender. Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay is also available for large groups of enemies, although Rune Strike Icon Rune Strike does not cleave while inside it. Simply burn Runes with Rune Strike Icon Rune Strike and Runic Power with Death Coil Icon Death Coil.
  2. Pick Blood! This provides three different bonuses:
    • You also gain access to Death Strike Icon Death Strike, a very powerful Runic Power spender that also heals you for 25% of all the damage you took over the past 5 seconds. A portion of this healing is also duplicated as an absorption effect through your mastery Mastery: Blood Shield Icon Mastery: Blood Shield.
    • Finally, you also gain a hidden effect called your "spec aura", which buffs a number of things — the most important one to know about is a 140% damage increase to Death Strike Icon Death Strike. From this point on, you will no longer use Death Coil Icon Death Coil.
  3. Pick Improved Death Strike Icon Improved Death Strike. This is a modest increase to the healing of Death Strike Icon Death Strike and is needed to path further down the tree.
  4. Pick Heart Strike Icon Heart Strike on your specialization tree; this turns Rune Strike Icon Rune Strike into Heart Strike Icon Heart Strike, a more efficient Rune spender.
  5. Use Heart Strike Icon Heart Strike as your filler, and Death Strike Icon Death Strike as your RP spender. Along with the spec-specific increase to its damage, you also get the benefit of Mastery: Blood Shield Icon Mastery: Blood Shield!
  6. Pick Icebound Fortitude Icon Icebound Fortitude. This is one of your most powerful defensive cooldowns: it reduces all damage taken by 30% for 8 seconds on a 2-minute cooldown.
  7. Pick Marrowrend Icon Marrowrend on your specialization tree; is your Active Mitigation ability. It is not very active, but that is down to terminology. Pressing it grants you 3 Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield stacks; you lose a charge per melee hit taken at a maximum of once per 2.5 seconds. You should ideally never cap those and aim to be around 5-7 stacks instead.
  8. Pick Raise Dead Icon Raise Dead on the class talent tree. This grants you access to your ghoul — it functions as a damage cooldown, and you can simply press it when it is available.
  9. Pick Blood Boil Icon Blood Boil on your specialization tree; this is your main AoE damage ability. It also applies Blood Plague Icon Blood Plague on all targets hit by it.
  10. Pick Cleaving Strikes Icon Cleaving Strikes on the class talent tree. This allows Heart Strike Icon Heart Strike to cleave to 5 targets when you are standing inside your own Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay. This greatly increases your damage when fighting a large number of enemies
  11. Pick Vampiric Blood Icon Vampiric Blood - this functions as your second major defensive cooldown and increases your maximum Health and all healing received by 30%.
  12. Pick Runic Attenuation Icon Runic Attenuation - a completely free and completely passive source of bonus Runic Power.
  13. Pick Bone Collector Icon Bone Collector. This is mostly necessary to path down, but it does allow you to gain Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charges when gripping enemies with Death Grip Icon Death Grip, Gorefiend's Grasp Icon Gorefiend's Grasp or Abomination Limb Icon Abomination Limb
  14. Pick Mind Freeze Icon Mind Freeze. The reason we put your interrupt this late in the levelling tree is that very few casts specifically need an interrupt while below level 20.
  15. Pick Ossuary Icon Ossuary on the specialization tree. This further reduces Death Strike Icon Death Strike's cost by 5 Runic Power - a 12.5% throughput increase! It also allows you to progress further down the tree
  16. Pick Anti-Magic Barrier Icon Anti-Magic Barrier, a modest increase to Anti-Magic Shell Icon Anti-Magic Shell
  17. Put the first of two points into Improved Heart Strike Icon Improved Heart Strike. Our goal here is to get Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon as quickly as possible.
  18. Pick Veteran of the Third War Icon Veteran of the Third War. This is a bonus 20% stamina.
  19. Put the second point into Improved Heart Strike Icon Improved Heart Strike.
  20. On the class tree, pick Permafrost Icon Permafrost - a noticeable and completely passive source of mitigation.
  21. Pick Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon. This is your first offensive cooldown, but it also has major defensive benefits. While it is up, you gain 40% parry; it also doubles the number of Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charges generated by Marrowrend Icon Marrowrend and grants you 5 bonus Runic Power every time you cast Heart Strike Icon Heart Strike. This should be cast as close to on cooldown as possible, as it is a major DPS and survival increase.
  22. Pick Unholy Ground Icon Unholy Ground. As you will see from the rest of the tree, standing in your Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay is a major staple of the current rotation. This is the first of five talents that encourages this.
  23. Pick Insatiable Blade Icon Insatiable Blade. This causes Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon to instantly grant you 5 Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charges and reduce the remaining cooldown of Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon whenever you lose or consume a Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charge.
  24. Pick Icy Talons Icon Icy Talons. Bonus melee haste!
  25. On the spec tree, pick Everlasting Bond Icon Everlasting Bond. This adds a second Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon copy whenever you cast Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon and increases the duration of both to 14 seconds.
  26. Pick Gloom Ward Icon Gloom Ward. 15% more to all absorbs, both yours and third-party absorbs cast on you!
  27. Pick Heartbreaker Icon Heartbreaker. This grants you up to 10 bonus Runic Power per heart strike, depending on how many enemies were hit by it.
  28. Pick Suppression Icon Suppression. 3% free avoidance.
  29. Pick Improved Bone Shield Icon Improved Bone Shield. 10% free multiplicative haste just to have at least one Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charge. You do not get more for every Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charge.
  30. Pick Brittle Icon Brittle. Some passive bonus damage.
  31. Pick Reinforced Bones Icon Reinforced Bones. This increases the number of Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charges you can have to 12, and causes it to grant 10% more armor.
  32. Pick Unholy Bond Icon Unholy Bond. This buffs Rune of the Fallen Crusader Icon Rune of the Fallen Crusader.
  33. Pick Hemostasis Icon Hemostasis - a modest buff to Death Strike Icon Death Strike and yet another reason to keep cycling Blood Boil Icon Blood Boil charges!
  34. Pick Soul Reaper Icon Soul Reaper. It is not that useful in solo content, as enemies tend to not stay in execute range, but if you happen to do dungeons while levelling, you will get a chance to see its actual power on bosses.
  35. Pick Ossified Vitriol Icon Ossified Vitriol. We delayed this for as long as possible as it is laughably bad, but it is necessary to path down.
  36. Pick Unholy Endurance Icon Unholy Endurance. This turns Lichborne Icon Lichborne into a true defensive cooldown by making it grant you a 15% damage reduction and increasing its duration to 12 seconds.
  37. Pick Perseverance of the Ebon Blade Icon Perseverance of the Ebon Blade. This will be a very small amount of bonus versatility throughout a fight, but again - pathing. Our prizes on this are Coagulopathy Icon Coagulopathy and Rapid Decomposition Icon Rapid Decomposition.
  38. Pick Grip of the Dead Icon Grip of the Dead. A 90% snare tied to Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay is nice.
  39. On the spec tree, pick Rapid Decomposition Icon Rapid Decomposition. This turbocharges Blood Plague Icon Blood Plague's healing done.
  40. As a leveling-specific tree, we've opted here for March of Darkness Icon March of Darkness in order to get you faster from one place to another.
  41. Pick Coagulopathy Icon Coagulopathy. 5% free damage and another massive multiplier on Blood Plague Icon Blood Plague's damage and healing.
  42. Pick Blinding Sleet Icon Blinding Sleet - an AoE stop
  43. Pick Voracious Icon Voracious. This point is not strictly necessary, but we opted for it out of convenience and a modicum of safety while levelling. This buffs your self-healing significantly.
  44. Pick Blood Draw Icon Blood Draw. This was buffed significantly in The War Within, in addition to having its cost reduced to a single point. When you drop below its threshold, you instantly pulse a large amount of damage to all enemies within 8 yards and heal for every single point of damage dealt. In addition to this, for 8 seconds after it procs, Death Strike Icon Death Strike only costs 25 Runic Power.
  45. Pick Tombstone Icon Tombstone on the specialization tree. This allows you to consume 5 Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charges to reduce the cooldown on Dancing Rune Weapon Icon Dancing Rune Weapon by 25 seconds (because we picked Insatiable Blade Icon Insatiable Blade).
  46. Put the first of two points in Will of the Necropolis Icon Will of the Necropolis, a completely passive damage reduction effect against large hits or when you are already low. You do not need to be below its threshold for it to apply.
  47. Pick Shattering Bone Icon Shattering Bone. You now pulse a significant amount of damage to everything near you whenever you lose a Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield, either directly from auto-attacks or by consuming them using Tombstone Icon Tombstone or Bonestorm Icon Bonestorm!
  48. Put the second point in Will of the Necropolis Icon Will of the Necropolis.
  49. Pick Bonestorm Icon Bonestorm. This sounds weird until you realize that in addition to its damage and healing, it triggers Shattering Bone Icon Shattering Bone and grants 50 seconds of cooldown reduction on Insatiable Blade Icon Insatiable Blade.
  50. Pick Insidious Chill Icon Insidious Chill. An attack speed slow on anything you auto-attack.
  51. Pick Sanguine Ground Icon Sanguine Ground. The third Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay talent, this is a bit more healing and damage dealt.
  52. Pick Subduing Grasp Icon Subduing Grasp. This is a filler/pathing talent and largely does nothing.
  53. Pick Consumption Icon Consumption. This is a small amount of upfront damage, 2 runes immediately refunded to you, and another significant multiplier on Blood Plague Icon Blood Plague, usable every 30 seconds.
  54. Pick Abomination Limb Icon Abomination Limb. This has lost its Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield charge ticks, but thanks to Bone Collector Icon Bone Collector, you can recover some of it.
  55. Pick Heartrend Icon Heartrend. We take it purely to path to Purgatory Icon Purgatory.
  56. Pick Death's Echo Icon Death's Echo - a bonus charge on Death and Decay Icon Death and Decay, Death Grip Icon Death Grip and Death's Advance Icon Death's Advance.
  57. Pick Purgatory Icon Purgatory, a very potent cheat death.
  58. Put the first of two points in Rune Mastery Icon Rune Mastery.
  59. Pick Red Thirst Icon Red Thirst - a very significant cooldown reduction on Vampiric Blood Icon Vampiric Blood.
  60. Put the second point in Rune Mastery Icon Rune Mastery. Boring filler talent, but necessary.
  61. Pick Iron Heart Icon Iron Heart - 20% more blood shield!
  62. Pick Null Magic Icon Null Magic - 8% magic damage reduction and a significant duration reduction on all magic debuffs.
  63. Pick Bloodshot Icon Bloodshot.
  64. As the last levelling point, we opted to pick Vestigial Shell Icon Vestigial Shell. In the open world, you'll passively help others with it; in dungeons and raids, you'll instead protect your allies.
  65. At Level 71, you will unlock access to Hero Talents. We will be picking Deathbringer, which gives us access to a new ability Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark. Use this on cooldown for additional damage. It will jump to a nearby target once it expires or explode and deal AoE damage if there are no other targets nearby or if the target is below 35% HP. We will be pathing down the left side of the tree to get to Exterminate Icon Exterminate as fast as possible!
  66. aPick Wave of Souls Icon Wave of Souls. This will deal damage to all targets between you and your target when you apply Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark to them, and increases all Shadowfrost damage you deal to them for a short duration.
  67. Pick Soul Rupture Icon Soul Rupture. When Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark explodes, this will deal a portion of the damage from it to targets nearby and make enemies hit by the explosion deal less physical damage to you.
  68. Pick Swift and Painful Icon Swift and Painful; this gives you a very potent Strength buff if Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark detonates and there are no enemies nearby. It also doubles the upfront damage of Wave of Souls Icon Wave of Souls and doubles the shadowfrost damage increase on the target that you Marked.
  69. Pick Exterminate Icon Exterminate. You've now unlocked the core gameplay loop of Deathbringer. When Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark explodes, you will gain 2 stacks of Exterminate Icon Exterminate; these will give your next 2 Marrowrend Icon Marrowrend trigger 2 scythes to attack enemies. The first scythe deals a large amount of damage to your target and has a 30% chance to apply Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark. The second scythe deals AoE damage.
  70. Pick Bind in Darkness Icon Bind in Darkness. This will allow you to explode your Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark before it expires by fitting 2 Blood Boil Icon Blood Boil's in the Reapers Mark window.
  71. Pick Wither Away Icon Wither Away. This will make your second scythe from Exterminate Icon Exterminate apply Blood Plague Icon Blood Plague, additionally Blood Plague Icon Blood Plague will deal its damage in half of its duration.
  72. Pick Grim Reaper Icon Grim Reaper. Reaper's Mark Icon Reaper's Mark will now deal up to 30% increased damage based on the missing Health of the target. The three Bone Shield Icon Bone Shield stacks it also provides are nice, but not really noteworthy or worth caring about.
  73. Pick Dark Talons Icon Dark Talons. This grants you a chance to gain three additional stacks of Icy Talons Icon Icy Talons, and causes Death Strike Icon Death Strike to grant 2 stacks when cast on a Marked target, with a bonus 2 stacks if it crits. This does not change the damage school of Death Strike Icon Death Strike.
  74. Pick Rune Carved Plates Icon Rune Carved Plates. This will give you rotational damage reduction based on your Runes. Each Rune spent will reduce magic taken by 1.5% for 5 seconds and can stack up to 5 times. Each Rune generated will reduce physical damage by 1.5% for 5 seconds and can stack up to 5 times. With good rotational management, you can maintain high stacks for prolonged periods.
  75. Pick Death's Messenger Icon Death's Messenger as your final talent point. This will reduce the cooldown of Lichborne Icon Lichborne and Raise Dead Icon Raise Dead by 30 seconds. Congratulations on reaching level 80!
2.4.

Blood Death Knight War Mode Talents for Leveling

While levelling with War Mode enabled, you gain access to three additional PvP talents. Their effects also work on enemies in the open-world, and while most of them are lackluster, a couple of them can significantly speed up your levelling process. We have highlighted them below:

  • Death Chain Icon Death Chain allows you to frequently (50% uptime) chain an enemy with two nearby hostile targets. While chained, damage done to one enemy is partially copied over to the other two. This effectively rewards you for pulling more than one target (which you should do, anyway. You are a tank) by allowing you to increase your effective damage by 30%.
  • Decomposing Aura Icon Decomposing Aura causes enemies to have their maximum Health reduced by 3% every 2 seconds, up to a maximum of 15%.
  • Murderous Intent Icon Murderous Intent is a 3-15% damage increase on a target, refreshed by your auto-attacks. This is the least bad option we have access to after picking the other two.
3.

Congratulations!

Congratulations on reaching Level 80! Now that you have hit Level 80, we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level.

4.

Changelog

  • 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
  • 30 Oct. 2024: Added the rotation section.
  • 21 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5.
  • 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
  • 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within Launch with new additions for Hero Talents on your journey to level 80.
  • 23 Jul. 2024: Reworked for TWW prepatch.
  • 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
  • 22 Apr. 2024: Updating talents slightly. Blood tap is probably a bit too complicated for starters.
  • 18 Mar. 2024: Removed outdated reference to talents unlocking at level 15.
  • 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
  • 09 Nov. 2023: Removed outdated reference to Blood for Blood.
  • 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.2
  • 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
  • 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
  • 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
  • 20 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
  • 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Adding max level brackets to all options.
  • 11 Dec. 2022: Fixes for Talent Tree displaying wrong order to pick talents.
  • 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
  • 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
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