Tank Rotation & Cooldowns

A general priority guide for Blood Death Knight abilities and cooldowns. Helpful for understanding the spec's fundamentals and getting comfortable with core synergies. Updated for the latest patch in World of Warcraft: Midnight (12.0.1).

Single Target

Ensure Bone Shield is active before the encounter begins.

• Death StrikeView detailsUse if healing is needed or Runic Power > 75
• Bone ShieldView detailsMaintain at least 5 charges; use Marrowrend if needed
• Death And DecayView detailsStand in it if buff is not active
• Reapers MarkView detailsUse on cooldown
• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsUse on cooldown
• Blood BoilView detailsUse if Dancing Rune Weapon is active and Blood Plague is missing, or to avoid capping charges
• ConsumptionView detailsUse if Dancing Rune Weapon is inactive
• Heart StrikeView detailsUse as filler; avoid running out of Runes

Maintain Bone Shield and use Death Strike for healing or excess Runic Power. Keep Death And Decay active, and prioritize Reapers Mark and Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown. Use Blood Boil to maintain Blood Plague or prevent capping.

AoE

Ensure Bone Shield is active before engaging multiple enemies.

• Death StrikeView detailsUse if healing is needed or Runic Power > 75
• Bone ShieldView detailsMaintain at least 5 charges; use Marrowrend if needed
• Death And DecayView detailsStand in it if buff is not active
• Reapers MarkView detailsUse on cooldown
• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsUse on cooldown
• Blood BoilView detailsUse if Dancing Rune Weapon is active and Blood Plague is missing, or to avoid capping charges
• ConsumptionView detailsUse if Dancing Rune Weapon is inactive
• Heart StrikeView detailsUse as filler; avoid running out of Runes

For AoE, maintain Bone Shield and use Death Strike for healing or excess Runic Power. Keep Death And Decay active, and prioritize Reapers Mark and Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown. Use Blood Boil to maintain Blood Plague or prevent capping.

Cooldowns

• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsUse for parry and ability replication
• Vampiric BloodView detailsUse to increase healing received
• Icebound FortitudeView detailsUse to reduce damage taken and avoid stuns
• Anti Magic ShellView detailsUse to absorb magic damage

Use Dancing Rune Weapon for parry and ability replication. Activate Vampiric Blood for increased healing, Icebound Fortitude for damage reduction and stun immunity, and Anti Magic Shell to absorb magic damage.

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.