Blood Death Knight Essences for the Heart of Azeroth - Shadowlands 9.0.2

By Mandl Updated: 2020/09/24

Heart of AzerothHeart of Azeroth Essence OverviewPatch 8.3

This page won't be updated for Shadowlands Pre-Patch and may be out of date.

What are Essences?Heart of Azeroth Essences Overview GuideTome of the Quiet MindEssence Calculator

Learn more about Essences in our Essence Overview Guide

Account-Wide Essences for Alts

Learn more about Echoes of Ny'alotha in our Guide

About Blood Death Knight EssencesAzerite Essences guideConcentrated FlameM+Stand Your GroundStrifeNull BarrierRaidingStrifeNull BarrierSymbiotic Presence

Essence

Major Power

Minor Power

Major: Aegis of the Deep
Minor: Stand Your Ground
Source: Nazjatar Reputation

The major is lackluster and will most likely not see use. Avoidance has been lackluster all expansion outside of niche situations, and the fixed damage reduction per auto does nothing for a large variety of damage sources.

The minor shows potential for M+. 9% versatility on large pulls and a pretty beefy HoT are always worthwhile.

Major: Memory of Lucid Dreams
Minor: Lucid Dreams
Source: Nazjatar Bodyguards

The major will yield, optimally, 90RP every 3min, although, in practice, you'll get much less, making it one of the worst majors for us outside of cases where the value of a single Death Strike is increased due to DTPS.

This minor is currently a trap. With a flat 15% proc chance per cast consuming a rune, you have two choices: you either proc it on heart strike and gain half a rune, or proc it on marrowrend and proc a rune at a 10RP cost (since you could've spent those two runes on heart strike). As the amount of runes you gain per minute is largely fixed, it turns out that the gain is worth less than 3 runes per minute, making it one of our weakest minors.

Major: Vision of Perfection
Minor: Strive for Perfection
Source: Operation: Mechagon

Avoid this major. This is a chance to trigger a 3.5s Vampiric Blood, which you will most likely not even have time to react on if it procs.

The minor version of this essence could see some play in certain situations where you need the cooldown reduction on Vampiric Blood but cannot sacrifice a talent point to pick red thirst.

Major: Concentrated Flame
Minor: Ancient Flame
Source: Questing

The major power of this essence will be undoubtedly the tool of the trade for single-target DPS. It does a very beefy amount of damage on a short cooldown.

The minor is effectively Apothecary's Concoctions but as fire damage. We cannot proc the heal on anything except bloodworm bursts and fallen crusader procs.

Major: Worldvein Resonance
Minor: Lifeblood
Source: Islands

The major power of this allows you to kickstart the minor faster on pull. It also amplifies the effect of the minor by 300% for its duration.

The minor power will undoubtedly be a mandatory pick. As all the shards are shared, you can keep 100% uptime on 4 stacks (the maximum) with two other people using it. This nets you more strength than a trinket on-use would provide you, with constant uptime.

Major: Ripple in Space
Minor: Reality Shift
Source: War mode rewards

The major power for us is used to proc the minor

As a blood death knight, you do not have the tools to cover 25yds in 4s reliably. This minor therefore requires the use of wraith walk or death's advance to trigger, making it very lackluster. In order to proc it reliably, you would need to rely on its major.

Major: Conflict and Strife
Minor: Strife
Source: PvP

The major will see de facto use on a fight like Mythrax or Mekkatorque and is something you need to set your mind to farming, just in case

This minor turns out to be pretty good; even though the stack gain from CC is abysmally low, the passive gain allows you to keep an average of 5+ stacks on most fights. This will be one of your go-to.

Major: Azeroth's Undying Gift
Minor: Hardened Azerite
Source: Raiding

This major will see some use as the de facto major essence for general defensive use, but only on rank 3. There is no downside to having a spell like Icebound Fortitude on a 45s cooldown

The minor is niche and very weak. Unless you know exactly what you are doing, avoid it.

Major: Anima of Death
Minor: Anima of Life
Source: M+

The major is interesting. With current health values, we're looking at a non-shared point-blank AoE in the range of 60-70k damage, and a potential heal of 300-400k in mythic+ or fights with five enemies nearby. This is also amplified by Vampiric Blood.

The minor effect is very similar to the effect provided by Tyrant's Decree, and comes with the same caveats - it is an unreliable source of extra HP and losing the stacks (deliberately or not) will put you at a massive disadvantage, particularly as it will take 50 sec to re-stack it.

Major: Empowered Null Barrier
Minor: Null Barrier
Source: Mechagon

This essence will be useful when a large burst of effective health is needed. Its long cooldown, however, makes it significantly less appealing.

The minor is a nice, free, no-strings-attached absorb with a small amount of damage on use.

Major: Suppressing Pulse
Minor: Sphere of Suppression
Source: BGs

This essence is effectively a void elf racial with sprint included on a 45s cooldown. Depending on the encounter, you may find a use for it, although we already provide an on-demand 90% snare.

The minor is pretty garbage except for cases of very, very large pulls (at which point, there are better minors), or when you need the permanent slow on enemies.

Major: Vigilant Protector
Minor: Endurance
Source: Horrific Visions

This essence is a burst AoE taunt and damage cooldown + damage reduction against anything you tag on a 2min cooldown, making it somewhat niche but useful in large pulls.

The minor of this essence would be ideal if it triggered on damage done as opposed to avoided hits. As it stands, it could be a competitive choice as third minor for high keys, but it is currently undertuned, and you should be monitoring its output between runs, to gauge how much you actually gained from it.

Major: Replica of Knowledge
Minor: Symbiotic Presence
Source: Ny'alotha

You'll use this if you want to steal beam or Blood of the Enemy; this does not come for free, however, as you'll incur a 30% cooldown increase over the "natural" essence.

With Concentrated Flame, you can guarantee yourself 66.6% uptime on the minor - a nice source of primary stat and haste

Major: Touch of the Everlasting
Minor: Will to Survive
Source: Reputation

You will typically consider this niche major if you would like the safety of a cheat death without sacrificing Bonestorm. This will typically occur in super high fortified keys, where an accidental death to trash isn't exactly impossible or avoidable.

This minor is lackluster and should be avoided. A 40% stronger single death strike isn't comparable to anything else in terms of uselessness.

Choosing your Blood DK Major EssencesTop-Tier Major Essences

For raw DPS, Concentrated Flame is undoubtedly the best essence. If you have no other use for anything else, your default should be this, assuming you are in no particular danger.

Azeroth's Undying Gift will be useful in cases where you need a strong, frequent source of damage reduction. It should be your default defensive essence, as it provides a significant defensive benefit if you know how to time its use.

Empowered Null Barrier provides a strong, frequent absorb, and is worth considering on bosses with primarily magic damage (ideally, the last two bosses of the MOTHERLODE).

Situational Choices

Conflict and Strife should be considered whenever you need two charges of Death Grip, in order to remove the need for multiple death knights.

In a fight with an infrequent, lethal, dispellable debuff, Empowered Null Barrier may prove to be wortwhile.

Suppressing Pulse may see some use in some m+ situations

Choosing your Blood DK Minor EssencesStand Your GroundSymbiotic PresenceStrifeNull BarrierFeedbackDiscord server

Tags: PvE

Comments

Comment by wicked3772

Thanks for the info!
Alittle disheartening that our best major essence is locked behind rng of an item we can only obtain one of per week though.

Comment by Gammageddeon

Can you add where each essences are from?

Comment by auronbabe

Good info and well explained! Only thing i would love to have added would've been where the essences are from.

But thx for the well formulated info!

Comment by Vorlin

Good job but ... you should use Rank 3 as link (rank4 don't show description)

Comment by kovu401

Ripple in Space is actually badass. I think the minor procs when you're riding, too, and even though you can't be dazed, that haste speeds you up significantly.

The MAJOR turns you into a human BOMB. Lay your retacle in a mob, throw an engineer bomb and/or first put Decay down where you'll appear -- set it up properly and you're their worst nightmare with this.

Comment by SargonStarblade

My main is a Goblin Blood DK, but most of the time (99%) I am solo. Since this guide focuses on tanking, I am not sure that it is optimal for soloing. I do not die in fights often (I mainly die from long falls because I mistimed my Rocket Jump), but I feel that I could be better. What is the possibility of getting a section dedicated to soloing?

Comment by SilianRail

This essence guide is not up to date. It's talking about Mythrax and saying worldvein is good. All incorrect information

Blood Death Knight Essences for the Heart of Azeroth - Shadowlands 9.0.2

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