How to Play a Blood Death Knight in the Shadowlands Pre-Patch

By Mandl Updated: 2020/11/05

How to Play a Blood Death Knight in Shadowlands Pre-PatchreactivelyDeath StrikeRunesRunic PowerHeart StrikeDeath Strike8beginner's guiderotation guideHow Different Does Blood Death Knight Feel in the Shadowlands Pre-Patch?veryDeath's DueSwarming MistSacrificial Pact

Go to Acherus, and affix a weapon with Rune of Hysteria if you would like to play with the runeforge we'll likely use early in Shadowlands

Get used to pressing Rune Tap before engaging enemies

New Abilities for Blood Death Knights in Shadowlands Pre-Patch

Rune of Hysteria, a more defense/healing throughput oriented rune than Rune of the Fallen Crusader

Rune of Sanguination, a deep execute-style DPS rune masquerading as a survival option

Rune of Unending Thirst, which you can safely ignore as the effect requires the killing blow to proc

Rune Tap is now baseline. There's a whole section about how to use it further down, but the quick take is: there's a reason to bind it. It is a niche ability, but it is something you'll use.

Ossuary is now also baseline. This is a huge change because it completely opens up the talent row for competitive choices, based on tuning. For now, you'll be picking Relish in Blood on the row, although there will be cases where Blood Tap will shine, particularly depending on your requirements and ability to anticipate and manage an extra resource. Whatever happens, since it will become a Level 58 ability, you will be losing Ossuary during the pre-patch. Do not worry! It's for the better.

We are gaining (for now) a minor DPS cooldown in the form of Raise Dead.

Finally, we gained two defensive cooldowns: Anti-Magic Zone, to grant our entire group a 20% magic damage reduction zone, and Lichborne, a minor defensive cooldown that also allows us to negate fears. The second part of this spell will see tremendous use in King's Rest if M+ remains open, as it will allow us to negate all fear overlaps on Dazar instead of just half of them!

Blood TapRelish in BloodDeath PactDeath PactVoraciousBloodwormsBlood TapRelish in BloodBlood TapRelish in BloodVoraciouslot

Causes your Death Strike to heal for 20% more

Increases the minimum Death Strike threshold by 3%, to 10% (this is not currently reflected in the tooltip)

BloodwormsHow Do AoE Target Caps Affect Blood Death Knights in Shadowlands Pre-Patch

Heart Strike still cleaves 1 extra, 4 extra in Death and Decay

Blood Boil is still uncapped

Bonestorm is now capped at 8 enemies for damage (cap of 5 for healing is still in effect)

Consumption is also capped at 8 targets

How Do the GCD Changes Affect Blood Death Knights in Shadowlands Pre-PatchDancing Rune WeaponHow Strong is Blood Death Knight in Shadowlands Pre-Patch?What are the Big Gameplay Changes for Blood Death Knights? Rune Tapsurvival lossHeart StrikeHeartbreakerHeart Strike

King Dazar's Blade Combo (particularly with a fear overlap for which you don't have Anti-Magic Shell or Lichborne) - Rune Tap can cover 3 of the 4 hits of the combo, although realistically, it will be safer to cover the last two hits

HK-8 Aerial Oppression Unit's Tank Buster MK1's third Wreck hit, in case you didn't parry any of the first two. You should ideally bank a rune and reactively hit Rune Tap if you see that you will take a 300%-buffed hit

Mchimba the Embalmer if you bugged him, in order to reduce the wild melee damage he does

Hadal Darkfathom during his AoE cast (Break Water). The melee that comes after is perfectly synced with the detonation.

Rune Tap

A weapon with Rune of the Fallen Crusader (or Rune of Hysteria if you know you will need the extra RP)

A weapon with Rune of Sanguination, to swap in during execute phases. The ideal example of this would be the last boss of Underrot

How does the Loss of Corruption Affect Blood Death Knights in the Shadowlands Pre-Patch?Best Talent Builds for Blood Death Knight in Pre-patch

Level 40: If you need to apply a strong snare to enemies for an encounter, pick Grip of the Dead. Otherwise, default to Wraith Walk, or Tightening Grasp if the encounter requires more frequent use of Gorefiend's Grasp

Level 50: If you are likely to trigger Purgatory due to encounter-specific constraints, pick it. Otherwise, Red Thirst is a safe pick.

BonestormGrip of the DeadDeath PactBloodwormsBloodwormsBest Rotation for Blood Death Knight in Pre-Patch

Never overcap Runic Power. Overcapping is a net loss of resources, and there is no way to get those back

Aim to always be at or above 5 Bone Shield (this is because of Ossuary granting you a 5RP refund on Death Strike). Marrowrend gives you 3 Bone Shield (6 if Dancing Rune Weapon is active at the time)

Death Strike when you need it. It is also your most damaging offensive ability, so if you don't need the healing, don't hesitate to use it for damage!

Never cap on Blood Boil charges. This is your main Blood Plague application tool, along with providing Hemostasis stacks

Use Death and Decay when you get a Crimson Scourge proc. This also causes Heart Strike to cleave up to 5 targets.

Spend all your remaining runes on Heart Strike

need it

1 second before getting melee'd for the first time in the encounter, press Rune Tap

Use Blooddrinker, if talented, while closing with the boss.

Use Dancing Rune Weapon before the boss reaches melee range to ensure your abilities are off the global cooldown as you start taking damage. This is usable during the Blooddrinker channel without cancelling it.

Use Marrowrend to build 6 stacks of Bone Shield.

Use Blood Boil to apply Blood Plague.

Rotation guideBest Stats for Blood Death Knight in Pre-Patch

Item level

Versatility

Haste

Critical Strike / Mastery

the stats guideBest Azerite Traits for Blood Death Knights in Pre-PatchHeart of Darkness

Either Impassive Visage or Resounding Protection on the innermost ring (Impassive Visage is ~1.5x better)

Overwhelming Power, Unstable Flames, Elemental Whirl, Gutripper or Heed My Call on the second innermost ring

A decent generic on the generic ring. You will never pick a Blood trait there. The list on the Azerite page is a good guideline to follow.

Either Eternal Rune Weapon or Bloody Runeblade on the class ring.

Best Essences for Blood Death Knights in Pre-PatchEssences pageMythic+

Major: Concentrated Flame or Vigilant Protector (with the removal of Twilight Devastation, along with fire mage getting gutted, the second one is less appealing than it used to be ;-) )

Minors: Stand Your Ground, Strife, Null Barrier

Raiding

Major: Concentrated Flame

Minors: Symbiotic Presence, Strife, Null Barrier

All Shadowlands Blood Death Knight Changes

Comments

Comment by Grymauch

This is a helpful update. Thanks!

Talents are showing Mark of Blood as selected though you are clear that Bloodworms is the one to pick.

Suggest adding a section for Leveling Tips, since that's looming in our future. Perhaps Rune of Unending Thirst? Different Talents, Essences, etc...

Comment by trog

You currently have Red Thirst selected for M+ talents despite stating, "This build leverages the strength of Bonestorm to set up large pulls, coupled with the kiting strength provided by Grip of the Dead."

Comment by GrimHood

At what percent HP do you switch to Rune of Sanguination?

Comment by Daluur

The rotation guide says to stay above 5 stacks of bone shield because of ossuary, but we do not have that in the pre-patch. Is it an error? Or to keep people in practice for when shadowlands comes?

Comment by Kman4225

Heart of Darkness section needs updating. The trait will not require corruption to give secondary stats in the pre-patch and beyond.

Comment by Mag1tek

I think you're underestimating the effectiveness of Rune Tap. 20% damage reduction for 4 seconds is significant, and in a single-target situation you're only losing 5 or 7 RP compared to a Heart Strike. That's around 15% of a Death Strike, which itself is probably healing around 40% of incoming damage when you factor in Mastery. So the choice is like... 6% damage recovery vs. 20% damage reduction? I understand that Heart Strike is doing damage, but from a defensive perspective Rune Tap is absolutely a worthwhile button. If you save your healer even one GCD then it's a net gain.

The bottom line is: If you're going to be taking a lot of damage from a boss in the next 4 seconds, just hit Rune Tap. Don't overthink it.

Comment by Blazethesage

Regarding that Weapon Swap bit, you may want to adjust for the addition of the "Off-balance" debuff that was added specifically to prevent frequent weapon-swapping for runeforge min-maxing.

Comment by Kotvos

Hey, nice guide, the only thing missing (or I am just blind) is the fact that while Lichborne is active, you can use Death coil on yourself to get healed, with vampiric blood is actually a good chunk of HP. Feels like I'm back in wotlk during this prepatch lol :D

How to Play a Blood Death Knight in the Shadowlands Pre-Patch

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