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: Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0.0).

Single Target

Ensure Bone Shield is active before engaging.

• Death StrikeView detailsUse if healing is needed or Runic Power > 75.
• MarrowrendView detailsMaintain at least 5 stacks of Bone Shield.
• Death And DecayView detailsStand in it if buff is not active.
• Reapers MarkView detailsUse on cooldown.
• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsUse on cooldown.
• Blood BoilView detailsApply Blood Plague or prevent charge capping.
• Heart StrikeView detailsUse as filler to generate Runic Power.

Maintain Bone Shield stacks and use Death Strike for healing or excess Runic Power. Keep Reapers Mark and Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown while standing in Death And Decay. Use Blood Boil to apply Blood Plague and Heart Strike as filler.

AoE

Ensure Bone Shield is active before engaging.

• Death And DecayView detailsStand in it for AoE buff.
• Blood BoilView detailsApply Blood Plague or prevent charge capping.
• Reapers MarkView detailsUse on cooldown.
• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsUse on cooldown.
• ConsumptionView detailsEmpower to rank 3 if possible.
• Heart StrikeView detailsUse as filler to generate Runic Power.

For AoE, prioritize Death And Decay and Blood Boil to maintain AoE damage and Blood Plague. Use Reapers Mark and Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown, and Consumption when empowered. Fill with Heart Strike.

Cooldowns

• Dancing Rune WeaponView detailsUse for parry and ability replication.
• Vampiric BloodView detailsBoosts healing received and max health.
• Icebound FortitudeView detailsReduces damage taken and prevents stuns.
• Anti Magic ShellView detailsAbsorbs magic damage and generates Runic Power.

Use Dancing Rune Weapon offensively for parry and ability replication. Activate Vampiric Blood for healing boosts, Icebound Fortitude for damage reduction, and Anti Magic Shell to mitigate 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.