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 (11.1.7).

Single Target

Pre-place Death And Decay before the pull.

• Deaths CaressView detailsUse to pull from range.
• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsActivate during the last 0.75 seconds of Blooddrinker or after Raise Dead.
• MarrowrendView detailsCast twice to prime Bone Shield charges.
• Blood BoilView detailsApply or extend Blood Plague.
• Death StrikeView detailsUse to spend Runic Power or after taking high damage.
• Heart StrikeView detailsUse as a filler to consume Runes.

Start with Deaths Caress to pull, then activate Dancing Rune Weapon and prime Bone Shield with Marrowrend. Maintain Blood Plague with Blood Boil and spend Runic Power with Death Strike. Use Heart Strike to consume Runes.

AoE

Ensure Death And Decay is active in the area.

• Blood BoilView detailsApply or extend Blood Plague to all enemies.
• Death And DecayView detailsUse to enable cleaving strikes.
• Heart StrikeView detailsUse within Death And Decay for cleave.
• BonestormView detailsUse if at 5+ Bone Shield charges.
• ConsumptionView detailsUse to deal AoE damage and heal.

For AoE, maintain Blood Plague with Blood Boil and use Death And Decay for cleaving. Follow with Heart Strike and Bonestorm when available. Use Consumption for additional AoE damage and healing.

Cooldowns

• Anti Magic ShellView detailsUse to absorb magic damage and prevent debuffs.
• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsUse for increased parry, damage, and resource generation.
• Vampiric BloodView detailsUse proactively for increased health and healing.
• Icebound FortitudeView detailsUse to reduce damage taken or avoid stuns.
• LichborneView detailsUse for leech and immunity to charm, fear, and sleep effects.

Use Anti Magic Shell for magic damage, Dancing Rune Weapon for parry and resource generation, and Vampiric Blood for health and healing boosts. Icebound Fortitude is ideal for damage reduction or stun immunity, while Lichborne provides leech and crowd control immunity.

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.