Blood Death Knight Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents - The War Within Pre-Patch (2024)

Target Talents (Soul Reaper)AoE/Cleave Raid Talents (Abomination Limb)AoE/Mythic+ TalentsTalents Explained

This build leverages all of the tools available at our disposalwhile trading no survivability in the process. Thanks to Soul Reaper and the rest of theusual trademark tools brought by Blood as a specialization, youcan deal a significant chunk of damage while not falling over.

Bonestorm might look like a mistake in this build, but -it now provides 50 seconds of cooldown reduction on Dancing Rune Weapon every time it is used. Its value in any buildcannot be overstated.

Due to a pre-patch specific bug, we picked Consumption here aswell. In The War Within, this will be swapped to Blooddrinker, butas long as Consumption incorrectly increases Blood Plague'stick rate by 100% instead of 30%, Consumption is by far bettereven on single-target.

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button toimport these talents directly into your game!

This build simply trades Blooddrinker for Consumption, while all other talents remain exactlythe same. Thanks to the relative flexibility in utility points,you can decide to spend the points in Enfeeble and March of Darkness (and technically Soul Reaper ifyour content is so trivial you do not get a proper execute phase)on more situational utility, such as Asphyxiate or Wraith Walk.

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button toimport these talents directly into your game!

Mythic+ relies a lot more on group utility and, specifically,the ability to soft-interrupt targets. To that extent, we sacrificed Hemostasis to pick up Gorefiend's Grasp, while leveragingthe full strength of the rest of the kit.

Unfortunately, there are not enough points below the second gate to pickup Carnage now that Bonestorm was buffed to providecooldown reduction on Dancing Rune Weapon. As a result, you will haveto make do without it in all situations.

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button toimport these talents directly into your game!

The advent of The War Within has consolidated andstreamlined the Blood talent tree, on both the class and specializationsides. While a lot of the talent choices before were a matter of pathing oroppressive strength, the new talent tree has pushed some of the worst-tuned contenders out of the way of the main path.

As such, we will cover some of the more favored talents that you will want toprioritize most of the time from the top of each tree on down,followed by mentioning some of the bigger niche talents that arelikely only rarely useful. If you would like to see a list of everysingle talent's effect, as well as the abbreviations they areoften known by in the community, please consult ourSpell List and Glossary section instead.

These talents give you the core identity of being a Death Knight. You willfinda good mix of Utility, Offensive, and Defensive options here.

Talent	Description/Effect
Death Strike	Your main Runic Power spender and does not cost anytalent points for Blood Death Knights. When cast, you will heal for 25% ofall of the damage taken in the past 5 seconds, or whenever you last used Death Strike, whichever time is shorter.
Raise Dead	Summon a pet ghoul for 1 minute. It deals damage to your current target, butcan be enhanced with Enfeeble to reduce the damage the target deals toyou.
Heart Strike	Your main Runic Power builder. Additionally Heart Strike generates15 Runic Power for a single rune spent (other spells generate 10 Runic Power perRune spent). The amount of Runic Power generated can be increased more with Heartbreaker.
Mind Freeze	Mind Freeze is your interrupt; as a melee interrupt with a 15yard range, it is particularly strong. You can grab Coldthirstto reduce its cooldown to 12 seconds and grant you 10 Runic Powerwhen you successfully interrupt a target.
Anti-Magic Shell	Can prevent magic debuffs from being applied and also acts as a magic damageabsorb shield.
Blood Boil	Mainly used as your AoE threat generation tool, it also applies Blood Plagueto all targets hit. This talent can be enhanced further with Hemostasistoincrease the power of your Death Strike.
Runic Attenuation	For a single talent point, this gives you a large amount of Runic Power.It works out to a neat 50RP (+ haste) per minutein completely free, no-strings-attached, bonus Runic Power.
Anti-Magic Barrier	This both increases the amount of damage that Anti-Magic Shell canabsorb and reduces the cooldown of it by 20 seconds. If you do not need the size orfrequency increases, then skip this talent.
Vampiric Blood	When used, this will increase your maximum health by 30% and increaseall of your healing and absorbs received by 30%. This will start as a 1.5-minutecooldown, but it can be reduced with Red Thirst.
Veteran of the Third War	What was once a Death Knight passive effect is now a talent. This increasesyour stamina by 20% and should not be skipped.
Icebound Fortitude	30% damage reduction on use as well as a stun immunity. It can alsobe used to remove stuns after you have been stunned.
Ossuary	This talent makes Bone Shield management important as whilst youare above 5 stacks of Bone Shield the cost of your Death Strikewill be reduced.
Death's Caress	One of very few ranged spells for Blood Death Knights. It costs 1 Rune,generates 2 charges of Bone Shield. This will be used quite rarely butit is your only efficient spell option to use when you are not in melee range.

Talent	When to Consider
Blinding Sleet	This spell was previously only available for Frost Death Knights, butnow, it's available for all 3 specs. It disorients and soft-interruptsall targets in a 12-yard cone in front of you for up to 5 seconds. As oneof three such disorients in the game ( Dragon's Breath and Blinding Light being the other two), its usefulness cannot beunderstated.
Control Undead	Unfortunately, this talent may not see much play in Dragonflight asthere are fewer Undead enemies present. However, when there are Undead enemiesit can prove to be useful as you can make them your temporary pet and usetheir abilities.

This area of the tree is where you will find most of the core cooldowns andstrong passives.

Talent	Description/Effect
Icy Talons	This increases your auto-attack speed. We take itprimarily to get access to Empower Rune Weapon, but it has valueon its own, it is a 9% buff to Permafrost and additional statisticalchances to get Runic Attenuation procs.
Anti-Magic Zone	Your big raid cooldown. You will likely only pick this in raiding scenarios,but it is a very powerful defensive cooldown for the Raid.
Soul Reaper	This is a powerful single-target execute ability. This should only beusedon targets below 35% HP, and when it expires, it will deal a large amount ofdamageto the target. If the target dies with Soul Reaper, you will be giventhe Runic Corruption buff (However, this buff is heavily reduced forBlood).
Dancing Rune Weapon	This gives you 40% Parry and spawns an additional weapon which copiesyour attacks. The copied attacks also provide you with benefits. Marrowrendand Death's Caress generate Bone Shield charges for you, Heart Strikegenerates Runic Power for you, and Blood Boil applies additional Blood Plague'sto the target.
Hemostasis	When you cast Blood Boil, each target hit will give you 1 stack ofthis buff. Each stack will increase the damage and healing of your next Death Strikeby 8% (up to 40%).
Gloom Ward	This buffs all absorbs you generate and receive by 15%. Thisworks out to an effective 15% buff to Mastery: Blood Shield, Tombstone, Anti-Magic Shell, Anti-Magic Zone and Permafrost. It isprobably the strongest talent point in our entire tree.
Unholy Endurance	This modifies Lichborne to significantlyextend its duration, and also turns it into a damage reduction cooldown. It isnoweven more worth pressing than before!
Improved Bone Shield	10% Haste whilst you have Bone Shield active.
Unholy Ground	This modifies Death and Decay. While you are inyour own Death and Decay, you gain 5% haste. It is one of the threeindividual multipliers that cause us to hardcast Death and Decay even onsingle-target in Dragonflight.
Insatiable Blade	This makes Dancing Rune Weapon both more frequent and morerotationallypowerful. 5 Bone Shield charges are generated when you cast Dancing Rune Weaponand when a Bone Shield charge is consumed, the cooldown of Dancing Rune Weaponis reduced by 5 seconds. This talent has great synergy with Tombstone.
Everlasting Bond	This summons a second Rune Weapon and increases the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon to a total of 14 seconds. As with the main rune \weapon, this will also replicate your attacks and give you the benefits.
Coagulopathy	One of two new buffs to manage as a Blood Death Knight. Every time you Death Strike, you gain a stack of Coagulopathy, which lasts for8 seconds. Each stack increases the damage of your Blood Plague by 30%.

Talent	When to Consider
Gorefiend's Grasp	If you need additional grip utility.
Asphyxiate	If you are interested in Mythic+ and need the specific utility, you cangrab Asphyxiate to gain a stun on a short cooldown. Itsvalue is significantly reduced compared to Shadowlands, as you will have twocharges of Death Grip baseline.
Grip of the Dead	If you are looking for a potent snare, Grip of the Dead is available.Much like the Shadowlands version, any enemy that steps into Death and Decayis snared by 90%, decaying by 10% every second.
Acclimation	60s cooldown reduction on Icebound Fortitude.
Blood Tap	This gives you the ability to generate 1 Rune on demand. The biggestissue with this talent is its placement on the spec tree.

This area of the talent tree rounds off your character and makes the specfeel more complete.

Talent	Description/Effect
Insidious Chill	This slows the auto-attack speed of enemies that you auto-attack. Insidious Chill will stack and total a 20% attack speed reductionon whatever you auto-attack, which, if they are a melee, implies a 20%statistical damage taken reduction for you and whoever else happensto be tanking!
Will of the Necropolis	Will of the Necropolis is returning in a slightly buffed version forDragonflight. At rank 2, it is a 35% pseudo-damage reduction, up from 20%.
Tombstone	This allows you to gain a massive amountof cooldown reduction on Dancing Rune Weapon. It also provides asurprisingly large amount of damage through Shattering Bone.
Sanguine Ground	5% healing and damage isjust too good to pass up, and it also is the only way towards Iron Heart and Red Thirst.
Unholy Bond	This amplifies the effect of your runeforges.
Shattering Bone	This passive effect will do 10-15% of your damage in all content,and the main condition of it (being in Death and Decay is alreadyfulfilled rotationally!)
Iron Heart	This increases the duration of your Blood Shield by 2 seconds and increasesthe amount it absorbs by 20%. Very powerful talent and it only costs 1 point!
Red Thirst	You essentially always take this, unless the content you are doing is so trivialthat Vampiric Blood uptime can be traded for even more raw damage. This effectivelyreduces Vampiric Blood's cooldown to 30-35 seconds under proper play.
Abomination Limb	This will deal AoE damage, grip targets towards you, and generate Bone Shield chargesper tick. In total, you will get one Bone Shield charge every time it attemptsto grip a target. Abomination Limb should be used as close to on cooldown as possible.
Bloodshot	This will provide you with a boost to your Physical damage whilst youhaveBlood Shield active (Mastery).
Bonestorm	This has been changed to consume all your current Bone Shield charges instead ofall your Runic Power. Every second thereafter, it refunds a bone to you. This deals a large amount of periodic damage, does a decent amount of healing in AoE, triggers Shattering Bone and grants cooldown reduction on Dancing Rune Weapon as ifall Bone Shield charges were properly consumed, making it a 60 second cooldownreduction on Dancing Rune Weapon every minute when played properly.

Talent	When to Consider
Death's Echo	Death's Echo has lost a significant chunk of its value afterthe changes to Cleaving Strikes. As it is now possible togain 14 seconds of uptime on Death and Decay from a single cast,and you can proc Crimson Scourge during the last 4 seconds of that,chaining Death and Decay using the 2-charge rolling system thatthis talent provided is no longer that valuable. Instead, the bulk of itsvalue is now for Mythic+, where the second charge on Death Gripis extremely valuable to soft-lock enemies.
Purgatory	If you need a Cheat Death for safety on Progression Raid Encounters orhigh end Mythic+ Key Pushing.
Umbilicus Eternus	On high target count scenarios where you need additional survival.
Vestigial Shell	A pretty good talent point, but by far not a core or necessary one. Everytime you use Anti-Magic Shell, your two nearest allies get a Lesser Anti-Magic Shell that absorbs 425% of your AP in damage. While itholds, any magic debuff applied to them has its maximum duration halved.
Unyielding Will	This talent is, to put it simply, bait of the highest order. In anytheoretical case where the debuff cleanse would be worthwhile, theadded 20-second cooldown on Anti-Magic Shell means that you couldhave just used Anti-Magic Shell instead. It also does not applyto any Lesser Anti-Magic Shell applied by Vestigial Shell
Carnage	This talent provides ~1.4 resets per minute on either Consumptionor Blooddrinker, and all of the damage dealt by both of these spellscounts for Mastery: Blood Shield. It is the victim of talent point scarcity pastthe third gate. If you decide to still pick this, do not play this with Blooddrinker!