Blood Death Knight Tank Mythic+ Tips — The War Within (11.2)

Mind Freeze is your kick; it is a talented ability, has a 15-yard range and is on a standard melee cooldown. You can choose to spec into Coldthirst to reduce this to 12 seconds if you manage to successfully interrupt a spec, but we generally recommend against it unless you specifically need this to reduce the number of kick assignments on an enemy.

You should use a macro similar to the one below in order to be able to easily transition between kicking your focus or your current target if you do not have a focus target set. This generally allows you to pre-identify what you will kick, even if it is not your current target:

• /cast [@focus,exists,nodead] [] Mind Freeze

Make sure that your UI shows your Focus Target's casts clearly so that you are always able to kick it on cooldown or in coordination with the rest of your group.

Asphyxiate is available on the class tree; it is a relatively long cooldown (45s), ranged stun, and costs an entire GCD to cast. When used, your target is stunned for 5 seconds.

Blinding Sleet disorients all targets in front of you until they take a small amount of damage, or for 5 seconds. When the disorient breaks, they are slowed by 50% for 6 seconds.

Death Grip's primary utility is as a soft stop on casts; with two charges on a rolling 15-second recharge timer with Death's Echo, and only costing 1/3 of a GCD, it is very useful to force certain enemies to restart their cast. Unfortunately for us, in The War Within, the default behavior of most spells is to just attempt to recast if stopped, and as a result, this only buys you a short amount of time.

Finally, Gorefiend's Grasp can be picked on the spec tree; it functions as a targeted AoE displacement tool. It requires a target to cast, and when used, all hostile targets within 15 yards of the target are pulled to the center of that target's hitbox. This is incredibly dangerous to cast on yourself; you should always cast on somebody (or something) else. It is also worth noting that the target you cast it on is not moved, and thus, no cast is stopped if they were casting.

You can augment Gorefiend's Grasp with a 3-second silence on anything it gripped, including its main target, by talenting into Tightening Grasp.

Death and Decay, when paired with the Grip of the Dead talent becomes a highly effective tool to snare and control enemies' movement. It is both useful in cases where enemies run away at low health (such as in Gambit or Halls), as it is to control the flow of encounters (such as snaring enemies about to be devoured on Azhiccar), and also allows you to use it to desync melee auto-attacks. While it is a rotational priority in your default rotation, an extra charge of it can be kept for these purposes.

Raise Ally is the Death Knight combat resurrection spell. While in a raid environment, you would not normally want to rely on the tank for combat resurrection, in a Mythic+ dungeon, you may be the only player to bring this utility. Additionally, the instant-cast nature of Raise Ally will make it preferable to other combat resurrections in some circumstances, even considering its steep Runic Power cost. If you need to resurrect an ally, be sure to consider both timing and positioning — avoid placing the newly resurrected player in the path of a dangerous boss cleave or immediately before a dungeon-wide damage event.

Anti-Magic Zone provides Death Knights with a way to help the group survive large bursts of magic damage. Its range and duration are limited, but mostly sufficient in Mythic+. Its cooldown can be brought down to 3 minutes seconds with Assimilation, but much like Coldthirst, we recommend evaluating whether this is a concrete gain for you instead of just blindly picking it and never leveraging it.

Control Undead can potentially see play in Priory of the Sacred Flame with the removal of Abomination Limb and the freedom that one extra utility point provides. It allows you to remove a Risen Mage at your convenience from any pull after the second boss. As these are the main source of bother (their Fireball cast easily combos people if cast when paladins cast Sacred Toll), and they additionally explode for a large amount of group damage on death, permanently removing one from each pull is useful. You can then release it it when the bulk of the danger is over.

Add spawns during the intermission are not random, and can only spawn on one of the four cardinal spots around the boss. Save one Death and Decay charge (and talent into Grip of the Dead if you have not already) and drop it under the spawn point furthest away from the entire group. This slows the adds down and significantly reduces the odds of them getting eaten.

Rift Claws is the only source of danger on this fight. It is cast twice in the first phase, then three times every other time, 25 seconds apart.

Whilst you cannot immune the DoT left by Rift Claws, its upfront damage is Arcane. You should use Anti-Magic Shell as part of your cooldown plan. A potential cooldown plan for this assuming you have Tombstone at the start of the fight is as follows:

1. First: Tombstone + Vampiric Blood (3 seconds into the pull)
2. Second: Anti-Magic Shell
3. Intermission (variable length, typically 30 seconds)
4. Third: Tombstone
5. Fourth: Anti-Magic Shell
6. Fifth: Vampiric Blood + Lichborne

You should verify with Not Even Close whether this is enough for your key level and current gear. Icebound Fortitude and Anti-Magic Zone are left as spare cooldowns and can safely be woven in.

There are no mechanics of note as a Blood Death Knight on this boss, other than making sure you soak your soul up before it gets hit by a mechanic.

This dungeon is very light on mechanics affecting tanks. The overwhelming part of your ability to help boils down to planning a route that is safe for your group; as a general rule of thumb, we would cautiously recommend not pulling more than one Overcharged Sentinel at a time, since they pulse very heavy AoE damage on the group when their absorb shield is broken.

Primary kicks and stops to watch out for:

• Overgorged Mite: Engorge - no cooldown on recast, buffs the mob and causes it to leave a very large DoT on the group when it dies. This can stack.
• Voracious Gorger: Gorging Smash - only stoppable via stuns
• Tamed Ruinstalker: Warp - only stoppable via displacements, disorients and stuns, making it a prime candidate for Death Grip.
• Wastelander Farstalker: Arcing Zap - kickable and stoppable, deals heavy damage to the party if let through.
• Wastelander Ritualist: Arcing Energy - You can reset this mid-channel with Death Grip.

Other notable tips:

• Overgorged Mite continuously attempt to Engorge. You can reset this cast with Death Grip; while it does not put it on cooldown like an interrupt would, it does allow some breathing space.
• You can immune Arcane Slash's DoT with Anti-Magic Shell. This is cast by Overcharged Sentinel.

You should always track the position of the cluster of eggs that Avanoxx spawns before Alerting Shrill, and position the boss so that there is a somewhat clear path - but lots of distance - between the boss and the adds. An add being devoured by the boss on Mythic+ is very often a wipe irrespective of key level, as the damage amplification affects both Alerting Shrill and Gossamer Onslaught.

The only source of danger for you here is Voracious Bite; it is a three-part tankbuster hitting over 0.4s, and it leaves a damage amplification debuff on you. It alternates between 15s and 25s effective cooldown due to Gossamer Onslaught delaying its cast.

Your cooldown plan is Vampiric Blood for every cast overlapping with Alerting Shrill, and either Lichborne or Icebound Fortitude for those that do not; make sure you can Death Strike mid-channel, as this trivializes the entire ability.

Anti-Magic Zone is best used for your group during Gossamer Onslaught, as it is the only magic source of damage on the encounter.

Positioning is everything on this boss. You should aim to position Anub'zekt to avoid being too far on the edges of the encounter area, as adds can spawn from any of the four corners. The adds can be relocated and their cast can be stopped with Death Grip. Don't forget to kick Silken Restraints or grip it mid-channel.

You should pull with Anti-Magic Shell already active; this causes the first Infestation to be immuned, and saves some encounter space in the process.

When Eye of the Swarm is happening, park the boss on one edge of the circle and position yourself on the fading edge of the circle. This causes all Impale casts to be non-threatening to anybody in the group, as they will always aim at a space that is deadly to stand in already.

In a pinch, if you pre- Anti-Magic Shell, you can step out of Eye of the Swarm without taking any damage.

You can completely ignore Cosmic Singularity with Death's Advance. You should help your allies break themselves out of Black Blood puddles after it - either by kicking the adds restraining them, or casting Death Grip on them to break the channel.

You can reset a single Sentry Stagshell by yourself with Death Grip, if cast near the end of Alarm Shrill. We recommend going left at the fork after Avanoxx, as this path is much easier on the group for this reason.

Primary stops in the dungeon

• Web Bolt - cast by various mobs with no recast time throughout the dungeon.
• Resonant Barrage - Death Grip this early into the channel instead of kicking it.
• Horrifying Shrill - cast by Ixin, requires one melee kick (15s recast). You are the best person to do this one.
• Revolting Volley - requires one melee kick each, leaves a very heavy DoT on the entire party if it goes through.
• Venom Volley - requires one melee kick each (15s recast) per Overseer in a pull; pre-mark them and assign yourself one Overseer, and kick it essentially on cooldown.

Positioning is everything, and unfortunately, this is both entirely dependent on your teammates and fraught with bugs. This boss likes to just not move for large periods of time due to the geometry of the ship.

Collapsing Night is cast on non-tank players and favors ranged; if you have any choice on party composition, we recommend bringing either two ranged or none at all, as having only one makes the encounter absurdly difficult due to puddles spawning both close to the boss and in melee.

Your goal as a tank is to position the boss so that there is enough space on all sides of her when Obsidian Beam is cast. Only the most recent Collapsing Night matter, as the previous (and largest) ones will despawn before Obsidian Beam is cast.

In a pinch, you can walk right through a Collapsing Night puddle by having Anti-Magic Shell active.

One very important change was made in Season 3 - you can now be targeted by Dark Orb as a tank. This complicates matters as it means you can no longer just position yourself against the lamppost/fountain at the start of the fight and sit there forever, and actively need to move when targeted. While it is possible to immune it with Anti-Magic Shell, we recommend against it as it is much more valuable as part of your cooldown plan for Terrifying Slam.

Terrifying Slam is your primary danger on this fight; it is a two-hit tankbuster (one physical, one magical) with a heavy knockback attached to it. You should plan your cooldown plan and either know the no-knockback spots, use Death's Advance or position yourself in the center of the boss's hitbox; be aware that doing this denies all melee access to the boss, but it does allow you to Death Strike while in the air. It is cast every 35 seconds.

A potential cooldown plan is as follows:

1. Tombstone + Vampiric Blood
2. Anti-Magic Shell + Lichborne
3. Tombstone + Vampiric Blood
4. Anti-Magic Shell
5. Repeat

You should use Anti-Magic Zone for the overlap between the third Shadowy Decay cast and the Dark Orb detonation that occurs during it.

Animate Shadows causes adds to spawn near a player; if they know the fight, they will come to you so the adds drop on top of you. If not, you'll need to go and fetch them. Kick Congealed Darkness cast by them, and be especially aware that the third Terrifying Slam occurs within seconds of Animate Shadows being cast.

Don't get out of melee!

The best time to use Anti-Magic Zone is on the very first Erosive Spray on the ship; it then comes off cooldown for one of the last Erosive Spray downstairs.

By far the most surprising pulls for tanks are the second ship pull and the pull featuring Ascendant Vis'coxria; both have unexpected, large sources of tank damage that just lead to being caught out.

The bleed from Tainted Slash is very potent, and this is cast when the accompanying curseblade has maximum stacks of Intensifying Aggression, causing it to deal 50% more damage 50% faster. You should plan cooldowns around this and especially kick Web Bolt during it; it can only target you.

Her two accompanying Nightfall Tacticians buff themselves with 100% bonus damage almost immediately.

Primary stops:

• Night Bolt, and Shadow Bolt - stop as often as possible, no recast time.
• Tormenting Beam - Death Grip after the channel starts.
• Umbral Barrier - puts a shield on nearby enemies, kick if possible.

We strongly recommend going right after Shalamayne, and will recommend tips accordingly. This is because of the nerfs that Forge Master Damian has received, and the two new and unfortunate overlaps that Captain Dailcry's encounter feature if Elaena Emberlanz is alive when the boss is pulled.

The focus kick macro we talked about at the start of this page is especially handy here. You will need to kick Taener Duelmal's Fireball casts as often as possible, but there are two specific cases where you absolutely must have Mind Freeze available:

1. If Taener Duelmal is inside a voidzone created by Earthshattering Spear, since stepping into it essentially kills anybody, including you. This means the only way to get him out is a ranged interrupt
2. If Taener Duelmal starts casting on a player affected by Savage Mauling

All other kicks should be filled by other members of your party, as they are much less risky.

Positioning on this boss is by far the most important duty as a tank. The cycle of abilities is always the same:

1. Position boss to one of the edges of the room; Hammer of Purity is cast - move boss to opposite quadrant
2. Boss spawns a Sacrificial Pyre at one of the four cardinals. Do not take this yet
3. Boss targets players with Castigator's Shield and spawns AoE zones below the players hit. Move out, and let the healer stabilize the group a bit after this.
4. Soak the Sacrificial Pyre. Boss attempts to cast Burning Light during this, kick it.
5. Cycle repeats

You can soak an entire Sacrificial Pyre on your own by combining Death's Advance and Anti-Magic Shell. Just cast both, then rapidly step in and out to consume all charges. Be aware that this deals damage to the entire party - you may need to stop for a second, particularly for the 5-stacks.

We recommend solo-soaking every single 5-soak (when the boss is buffed by Vindictive Wrath), as they are the most dangerous for the party. You have Death's Advance and Anti-Magic Shell available on all of them, as the boss' full ability cycle is longer than the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell.

Save both Death and Decay charges and Dancing Rune Weapon so they are available when the boss hits 50% and steps at the balcony to channel. You can use Death and Decay to severely slow the waves of adds that come up the stairs.

You can immune Blinding Light with Anti-Magic Shell, and there are no better use of it for anything else.

A good route in Priory is everything; you should aim to never pull more than one Arathi Knight at a time. Lightspawns occasionally cast Purification on a random target, leading to them taking extremely heavy damage over 6 seconds.

Forge Master Damian's Seal of Flame can be significantly eased with Dancing Rune Weapon and Anti-Magic Shell.

Priority kicks:

• Fireball, Holy Smite - no effective cooldown, spams heavy damage at random targets. This should be stopped if it overlaps with any other dangerous ability.
• Greater Heal - heals a friendly target by 50%. Must be stopped.
• Fireball Volley - cast by Risen Mages in the last segment of the instance, one melee kick each (15s recast). Deals extremely heavy damage to the entire party if it goes through. You can bring Control Undead and remove these mobs out of play to make things slightly easier.
• Defend - only stoppable with disorients, stuns and Death Grip

We will recommend an inverted route on this dungeon, starting with the Demolition Duo and going to Big M.O.M.M.A. second. This is primarily because the route is both easier, and causes Bloodlust to be available for Big M.O.M.M.A.

Keep the bosses together. Check Not Even Close to see what you need to survive Wallop, and save everything else for when Bront enrages at the end of the fight.

You are always the third target of Barreling Charge; plan position so that it hits as many of the remaining bombs as possible ahead of time.

The primary danger to you on this fight is Electrocrush. Plan cooldowns accordingly; Anti-Magic Shell immunes the DoT it leaves behind and is enough until very high keys on its own thanks to its interaction with Will of the Necropolis. You should still check Not Even Close to make sure.

Help kick Maximum Distortion on the flying adds; only one of them will cast a time, and there is a 8 second exclusion period on casts, meaning that two melee kicks need to be used to stop all casts.

Move the boss out of the electrifying puddle Jumpstart leaves behind; these fade after two cycles of the boss's abilities.

Anti-Magic Shell and Vampiric Blood are available for every single cast of Sludge Claws and form your entire cooldown plan. Anti-Magic Shell also completely immunes the healing absorb.

You can use Anti-Magic Shell in two ways on this boss:

• You can immune your own spark with it, but Icebound Fortitude can also accomplish this. This saves a puddle and causes the boss not to move during sparks.
• You can use it to fully immune Thunder Punch's DoT. You should still use Death's Advance as the knockback still happens.

Use Anti-Magic Zone either on the very first Turbo Charge or on the second one; the first is more dangerous if the healer did not prep for it (it happens 3 seconds into the fight), while the second comes off the back of two Gigazap casts.

Positioning is everything on this boss. Make sure there is plenty of free space around Halkias when he is about to reach 100 energy, as your teammates will need to walk around him.

Crumbling Slam is the main tankbuster of this fight, tracks your positioning during the cast and deals AoE damage. Don't step on other people with this! You can overlap the puddle these leave with other puddles

In a pinch, you can use Anti-Magic Shell to cross beams or exit the circle around the encounter area.

Use Death Grip and Mind Freeze to gather and control the adds. We recommend only using Death and Decay when they are gathered.

There is no unavoidable group-wide damage on this encounter. Anti-Magic Zone is best used on a target affected by Blood Torrent, but even that is slim value.

Position the boss slightly away from any of the open anima containers; this make it possible for somebody to immediately beeline to them without doing heavy proximity damage to anybody standing near the boss.

Help kick Anima Bolt. It deals a surprisingly large amount of damage, and can very easily kill people.

Dodge the statues, frontals and circles. With the removal of the only tank mechanic on this boss, there is, once again, very little to do.

During the intermission, you can position yourself near the center of the boss's hitbox to soak 2 to 4 beams. Press Anti-Magic Shell after they start, or they will count you as not being in them. Anti-Magic Zone is also ideal to use there.

Primary kicks and stops:

• Wicked Bolt - cast by a very large number of mobs. Should be stopped, particularly if other mechanics are happening
• Siphon Life - Death Grip this.
• Loyal Beasts - cast sub 50% by Depraved Houndmasters and buffs Vicious Gargons if it goes through. Kick this at any cost.

This dungeon is extremely light on boss tips as virtually no mechanic targets tanks. By far the biggest danger is a single spell cast by trash - Proxy Strike. Make a sound alert for this, as it hurts.

You cannot help the group beyond positioning the boss smartly; leave a large amount of space between the boss and at least one place for players to drop their Interrogation prison. The easiest way to do this is to tank the boss close to a wall.

Gather everything, and tank stuff. There is no real tip on this; if you picked the trumpet, you can stand in during the AoE suck-in and use it at the very last moment to soak the three buff signs around the boss and dodge the damage.

You can immune the DoT left from soaking Hazardous Liquids with Anti-Magic Shell.

Fan Mail (the AoE) and Money Order (the group soak) are physical damage. Do not waste Anti-Magic Zone on them - use it to buffer DoT damage from Hazardous Liquids stacks instead!

Positioning of bosses as they die is important here. Achillites needs to die in a corner of the room, so that the anima orbs it continuously expels can be safely soaked by other players while Venza is active.

You can completely ignore the suck-in from Venza with Death's Advance.

You can pass through Shuri unharmed with Anti-Magic Shell.

Primary stops:

• Hyperlight Bolt, Spam Filter - no cooldown, kick on cooldown.
• Hard Light Barrier - 15s recast time, attempts to shield another enemy for a large amount of health.
• Empowered Glyph of Restraint - 15s recast time, must be kicked.
• Ancient Dread - cast by the corehounds if you go left, 15s recast time; needs to be kicked. If you let one through, you can Lichborne the fear.

The only important source of damage on this fight is Shearing Swings; it hits twice, 0.5s apart; simply Death Strike between the hits and use a cooldown on it. The second hit is larger than the first, and both can be parried.

You are the best player to use the console during the intermission. Just keep channelling it.

Adds' Empowered Defense can be reset mid-channel with Death Grip. You should assist in kicking Valorous Bolt as it can very easily kill somebody.

Position the boss so that the breath hits the adds and that it is safe for players to stand near it. You can move out of Infinite Breath after it has picked its direction and the boss's animation changes.

Position the boss so that it is safe for players to dodge the numerous AoEs this boss throws at you.

You can stop So' Cartel Assassins's Shuriken Blitz with Death Grip. This has the added advantage of instantly bringing them back in cleave range.

In the murloc area, aim to not pull too many Fishmancers together, and fight all pulls safely away from other groups of enemies. All of the murloc enemies flee when they reach 20%.

Primary kicks:

• Waterbolt, Brackish Bolt, Hyperlight Bolt - no cooldown, kick on cooldown.
• Cry of Mrrggllrrgg - 15s recast, causes all murlocs to enrage. This has the unfortunate effect of causing Waterbolt to become a near-oneshot.
• Super Saison - enrages Burly Deckhands, can only be stopped or displaced. Use Death Grip or Asphyxiate.
• Unstable Rift - must be kicked, letting it through deals absurd amounts of damage to the party. Can be stunned and displaced with Death Grip, but these only delay the cast.

Our default builds already include Blinding Sleet and Mind Freeze. Be aware of the orb spawn timer, and position yourself so you can stop multiple with sleet!

Periodically, a large blue orb will spawn around all players and slowly orbit them. Another player needs to come in contact with it to remove it, granting 4% mastery and 2% leech per stack.

Failure to do this within 15 seconds buffs all mobs within 100 yards, granting them 10% damage and 20% damage reduction per stack.

There is nothing to do about this from a talent or spec perspective - just help soak the orbs!

Voidbound emissaries are a straightforward DPS check. If you are playing Deathbringer, we recommend trying to save either an Exterminate stack or two to assist in dealing with it.

They have 1% health and a large shield, making them ideal targets for Soul Reaper.

You can pre-emptively Anti-Magic Shell this affix, but this costs your entire team damage. Instead, you should simply Death Strike it away!