Tank Rotation & Cooldowns

This rotation offers a general priority list for Blood Death Knight abilities, along with key cooldowns at the bottom. It's based on a standard build and is here to help while we work on a smarter, build-aware system. If you are very new to the game or this class, we added info on the new assisted rotation features at the bottom of this guide. Updated for the latest patch in World of Warcraft: The War Within (11.2).

Single Target

Pre-place Death And Decay and pull with Deaths Caress before combat.

• BlooddrinkerView detailsUse before Dancing Rune Weapon.
• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsActivate during the last second of Blooddrinker.
• Blood BoilView detailsPandemic Blood Plague to max value.
• BonestormView detailsUse if conditions are met.
• Death StrikeView detailsUse if >35 Runic Power.
• Vampiric StrikeView detailsUse if <35 Runic Power.
• ConsumptionView detailsUse with 4 seconds left on Dancing Rune Weapon.
• Heart StrikeView detailsUse as filler.

Start with Blooddrinker and activate Dancing Rune Weapon during its channel. Maintain Blood Plague with Blood Boil, and use Death Strike or Vampiric Strike based on Runic Power. Use Bonestorm and Consumption strategically.

AoE

Ensure Death And Decay is active for AoE scenarios.

• Death And DecayView detailsUse when 4+ targets are present.
• Blood BoilView detailsApply Blood Plague to all targets.
• BonestormView detailsUse if conditions are met.
• ConsumptionView detailsUse for AoE damage and resource refund.
• Heart StrikeView detailsUse as filler for AoE.

For AoE, prioritize Death And Decay and Blood Boil to spread Blood Plague. Use Bonestorm and Consumption for burst damage, and fill with Heart Strike.

Cooldowns

• Anti Magic ShellView detailsUse to absorb magic damage and prevent debuffs.
• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsUse for parry, damage, and resource generation.
• Vampiric BloodView detailsUse proactively for high damage or reactively when low health.
• Icebound FortitudeView detailsUse to reduce damage or counter stuns.
• LichborneView detailsUse for leech and immunity to Charm, Fear, and Sleep.

Use Anti Magic Shell for magic damage, Dancing Rune Weapon for parry and resources, and Vampiric Blood for health boosts. Icebound Fortitude is ideal for damage reduction or stuns, while Lichborne provides situational utility.

New to Class? Try Assisted Rotation

Patch 11.1.7 introduced new features that make it eaiser to pick and play new characters. These new settings can be enabled from settings » gameplay enhancements:

• Single-Button Assistant
• Assisted Highlight
• Cooldown Manager

If you are new to World of Warcraft or a certain class, enabling Assisted Highlight and Cooldown Manager can help you learn which abilities to prioritize and use.

While the Single-Button Assistant can be a much easier and more accessible way to play the game, it does come with a slight performance hit due to a small GCD penalty, as you will have to wait 25% longer in between spells and abilities.

To see which specs are best with the Single-Button Assistant feature, you can check out our DPS Rankings which uses SimC to sim every class using this feature.