Blood Death Knight 8.2

A Death Knight specialized in Blood protects their allies with crude power, dark magic and various manipulations with the enemy’s blood. Unlike that of many other tanks of different classes, Death Knight’s tanking model is more bound to receiving damage and instantly restoring it.

Introduction

Let’s take a closer look at the weakest and the strongest aspects of this specialization:

Advantages:

• High self-healing;
• Opportunity to grant the self-healing effect to their group;
• Nice continuous damage decrease;
• Opportunity to kite on a small area;

Disadvantages:

• Low mobility;
• Average surviving from frequent magic damage;

Basic information on the spec:

Like any other Death Knight spec, this one uses 2 resources: Runes and Runic Power (hereinafter, RP). Runes should always be ready before the combat. After being used, Runes start to restore. Only 3 Runes can be restoring at the same time. Rune’s restoring speed depends on Haste value. Runic Power is somewhat similar to Fury – you can store it and spend it.

Back to top

Glossary

Back to top

Main abilities

Back to top

Talents

General information. On achieving several new levels you’ll get access to new talent ‘Tiers’. Talents may have different effect on abilities: add new features, replace old ones, modify passively different effects and spells. Talents can be changed in Sanctuaries or any recreational zones. However, if you don’t have any of those places nearby you can use the Codex of the Tranquil Mind which allows you to switch channels within a minute. You can’t change talents in combat. You can’t change a talent if the talent you’ve picked in the last Tier is on Cooldown. You’ll have to wait until it’s restored first.

Tier 1. Lvl 56

• Heartbreaker. Heart Strike generates 2 RP per each hit on extra targets. A great talent for mythic + and also for bosses with 2+ enemies.
• Blooddrinker. This is a maintenance spell. For 3 secs (less given higher Haste value) you steal Health from your target for 1 Rune. You can relocate and employ defensive abilities during the cast.  Is a standard choice for raiding and situational choice for mythic +
• Runic strike. Deals physical damage, restores 1 rune and has 2 charges. Cooldown is 1 min but it reduces for 1 sec for every spent rune. It is used when there is not enough runes to keep up Bone shield

Tier 2. Lvl 57

• Rapid Decomposition. Death and Decay does damage 15% more often.

• Haemostasis. Blood boil increases the damage and healing done by your next Death strike by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times, you gain 1 charge for every target. It’s the best choice for mythic+ and raid for increased damage and healing effect from Death strike.
• Consumption. Strikes all enemies in front of you with physical damage. It heals you for 100% of that damage. Has 45 sec cd.

Tier 3. Lvl 58

• Foul Bulwark. Every Bone Shield charge increases max Health by 1%.
• Ossuary. With 5+ stacks of Bone Shield, Death Strike demands 5 RP less, and max RP increases by 10. The only good talent in this tier because of cost reduce of Death strike. when having low hp.
• Tombstone. Consume 5 charges of Bone Shield, and for each charge, you get 6 RP and a shield for 6% of your max HP for 8 secs. CD 1 min.

Tier 4. Lvl 60

• Will of the Necropolis. If your Health is below 30%, all the incoming damage is decreased by 30%. A standard choice in this tier that won’t allow you die from  a lot of damage at low hp.
• Anti-magic shell. Absorbs 30% more damage and reduces its cooldown by 15 sec. Could be useful against one-time magic damage with long intervals.
• Rune Tap. For 1 Rune, you get to decrease the incoming damage by 30% for 4 secs. 2 charges, CD 25 secs. A good talent if there is a lot of high damage you need to survive and there is not enough saves.

Tier 5. Lvl 75

• Grip of the dead. Death and decay reduces the movement speed of enemies within its area by 90%, decaying by 10% every sec. A good talent for mythic + or  raid where a boss fight requires movement reduce
• Tightening Grasp. Shortens your Gorefiend’s Grasp by 30 secs
• Wraith walk.  Removes all root effects increasing your movement by 70%. While active your speed cannot be reduced below 170%. Taking any action cancels the effect. Lasts 4 sec, has 60 sec cd. A standard choice that increases your mobility

Tier 6. Lvl 90

• Voracious. Death strike grants you 15 Leech for 6 sec.
• Mark of Blood. For 30 RP, it marks your enemy with a debuff that hits the target with auto-attacks causing it to restore you 2% of the target’s max HP.

• Bloodworms. Your auto attack has a chance to summon Bloodworms that will live for 15 sec dealing damage to your target for 15 sec, healing you for 15 % of your missing health after they die. The best choice in this tier. Worms restore you  a lot of health comparing to other talents and deal minor damage

Tier 7. Lvl 100

• Purgatory. Cheat Death. Allows you to survive a deadly hit. This situation enables a 3-sec buff that absorbs healing equal to damage prevented that way. The effect gets cancelled if you receive enough healing. Otherwise you die. The effect works no more than once every 4 min, tracked by the debuff. Death cancels the effect which enables Purgatory to act during the next attack fatal for you.

• Red Thirst. Every 10 RP spent restore Vampiric Blood for 1 sec.
• Bonestorm. Demands 10 to 100 RP. Effect duration depends on how much you spend. Each 10 RP = 1 sec. The effect itself deals dark magic damage to all the enemies around you. Each hit on an enemy restores 2% of your max HP which lands you a nice heal on AoE. CD 1 min.

* In progress, it’s really useful to have an opportunity to survive various things which makes Purgatory the obvious pick. If you do not intend to die, use the other 2 talents depending on the type of your encounter: Bonestorm for AoE, and Red Thirst for single target.

All in all, your basic universal build is like this: 2221331

1. Blooddrinker
2. Haemostasis
3. Ossuary
4. Will of the Necropolis
5. Wraith walk
6. Bloodworms
7. Purgatory

But tanking demands you to be very peculiar about every encounter. So remember your talents and their properties as well as of what use they can be in different situations.

Back to top

Azerite traits

Sets in BFA were removed and azerite armor took their place. Now any chest, shoulder and helm has a few rings to choose a talent.

• Bones of the damned. Marrowrend has a chance to grant an additional charge of Bone shield. Bone shield increases armor depending on azerite armor ilvl. It is the best choice among traits because it grants additional armor that reduces physical damage dealt to your character and also Marrowrend would grant  4 instead of 3 charges. It is better to have 2-3 of such trait.
• Bloody runeblade. When Crimson scourge activates you gain increased haste for 5 sec, and immediately gain 5 Runic Power. It is also a good trait  because of haste and runic power which is important for self healing.
• Eternal rune power. Dancing rune power increases your strength. Also every spent rune increases the duration of this effect for 0.5 sec up to 5 sec. This trait is better for damage dealing rather than self defense but it is good to have for an increased runic duration so parry and other bonuses last longer.
• Bonded souls. Your spells and abilities have a  chance to trigger A Soulbond for 15 sec. During Soulbond every  5 sec you and your nearest ally are both healed for 8769 and gain 229 haste for sec, A great trait that grants haste and heals you with an often proc. It would be a great choice if you don’t have a lot of options.

Back to top

Essences

Gameplay

Let’s view 2 key points: using your abilities for dps, maintaining your survival and ueing defensive CDs.

Dealing DPS is as important as pressing defensive CDs as all your rotation dials down to spending Runes to maintain your Bone Shield stacks and to collect RP. The latter is later spent on Death Strike to heal effectively.

General priorities:

1. Marrowrend to renew Bone Shield stacks, if they are about to be off per timer or just shortly, and you need to take a quick run somewhere; or in case they’re disappearing at all because of the incoming damage.
2. Blood Boil, if there are enemies still uninfected with Blood Plague.
3. Death and Decay per Crimson Scourge benefit. If you don’t have Rapid Decomposition, use it per benefit against 3 targets only, if it hits them.
4. Death Strike, to avoid Runic Power capping.
5. Marrowrend, if you’ve got less that 6 stacks of Bone Shield.
6. You should have at least 3 Runes in CD all the tine. For that, use:

• Blooddrinker
• Death and Decay with Rapid Decomposition talent, or against 3+ targets
• Heart Strike

* Use Death Strike in rotation when you need healing. It is best used immediately after you’ve received massive damage If you can use 2 Death Strike without overhealing – go ahead.

Pull:

1. Prepotion
2. Dark Command
3. Death and Decay wherever you’re intending to keep the boss
4. Blooddrinker on your way to the boss to kick up the aggro under taunt
5. Dancing Rune Weapon
6. Marrowrend
7. Blood Boil

Survivng:

• Anti-Magic Shell absorbs magic damage, for up to 30% of your max HP within 5 secs, and generates RP. Use it before receiving magic damage. Also keep in mind that it allows you to avoid the overlapping of malicious magic effects like Molten Armor in Gorgoth.
• Dancing Rune Weapon is used per CD, and in 90% cases it’s used for a dps up which eventually leads to stacking up Bone Shield. Dancing rune power could be used as a defensive cd when fighting a lot of enemies to reduce physical damage dealt to your character.
• Vampiric Blood together with the talent Red Thirst allows to use it frequently. Don’t let this CD chill much, unless you’re not planning on surviving some massive damage any time soon, of course.
• Keep in mind that due to Mastery, your Death Strike also gives you a shield protecting from physical damage which sometimes allows you to work with the part of the damage in a preventive mode. For example, during the phase when you’re tanking a boss. before taking it off your second tank you have a chance to stack a huge set of absorbs on those auto-attacks in advance.

Back to top

Stats

The characteristic stats look somewhat like this:

Haste > Strength > Versatility > Crit >= Mastery:

Haste is our all. It increases the Rune’s restoring speed which enables you to use them more frequently, hence receive RP quicker. And RP helps you heal by Death Strike.

Versatility just increases your healing and dps but reduces the incoming damage. It’s all simple and clear.

Crit is a pure dps stat giving the least defensive properties out of all; maybe just Blood Plague, the golden trait Skeletal Shattering and the critical damage by Consumption.

Mastery – from the defensive viewpoint this is, for sure, an interesting stat. But it does scale terribly, though. And it works against the physics. As a result, if you don’t rely on it, surviving grows a lot less efficiently as compared to Haste or Versatility. As a dps stat, it’s about the value of Versatility.

Based on the aforementioned characteristics and results of your character’s own simulation results, you can draw conclusions on Gems, Chants and Raid Chemicals.

Gems

• Leviathan’s Eye of Strength
• Versatile Dark Opal 50 vers

Enchantments

• Rings: Accord of Versatility
• Don’t forget to chant Rune of the fallen crusader on your weapon.

Food

• Bil’Tong Vers

Flasks and pots

• Greater Flask of the Undertow 360 strength
• For DPS:
  Superior Battle Potion of Strength – Most versatile for all situations, good for survive ability
  Potion of Unbridled Fury – Single Target encounters, pure dps
  Potion of Empowered Proximity – Consistent 4+ target AoE situations, good for survive ability
• For surviveability:Superior Battle Potion of Stamina helps to go through large hit, especialy against magical damage
  Superior Steelskin Potion same, but works against physical damage

Back to top

Macros

Kick with a modifier, with the Shift key held, the ability is applied on a remembered target, without – on the current one.

/cast [mod:shift,@focus][]Mind Freeze

Combat resurrection at cursor’s position

#showtooltip Raise Ally
/cast [target=mouseover] Raise Ally

Death’s Caress at cursor’s position:

/cast [target=mouseover] Death's Caress

Death Grip at the cursor’s position; if there’s no target under the cursor, the grip is applied to the current target:

#showtooltip Death Grip
/cast [target=mouseover, exists] Death Grip; Death Grip

Back to top

What’s next?

1. Leveling. If your character has been inactive since the previous expansions, the best  option to level up it is by Timewalking dungeons. You will gain a lot of experience, but there is one big disadvantage of leveling this way. Timewalks are available only for one week during a month, but Overgear is always here.
2. Equipment. At high level, the most important thing for you will become your gear. WoW is a multiplayer game, that’s why we recommend for you to play it with your friends, or to find a new friends for mythic+ runs. If you have any trouble with it – Overgear may help you to find not just friends for a run, but a complete well geared and experienced group that also will be glad to trade all the loot you need.
3. Raids. Raids are the top-tier PvE content in the game. That’s why the equipment’s base ilvl is higher than anywhere else. These dungeons require knowing all the tactics and have a good gear to kill the bosses. The possibilities of Overgear might let you skip those criteria.

Azerite. It is also not the best idea to forget about the Heart of Azeroth and not to feed it with more Azerite. Ignoring this won’t make your character stronger. The easiest way to do it – just complete all the world quests with Azerite rewards everyday. You can get extra azerite from Island Expeditions. Companions can be found at Overgear.