With the introduction of the Wrath of the Lichking expansion, a tenth playable class has been introduced into the world of World of Warcraft: The Death Knight is said to offer, for the first time, the ability to perform the duties of a Tank or a Damage Dealer with any of the three talent trees.

With the introduction of the Wrath of the Lichking expansion, a tenth playable class has been introduced to the world of World of Warcraft: The Death Knight is said to offer, for the first time, the ability to perform the tasks of a tank or a damage dealer with each of the three talent trees. In the current guide of our WoW class guide series, we focus on the Death Knight in the role of a tank and show you which advantages and disadvantages the three talent trees Blood, Frost, and Unholy offer for the frontline fighter. In addition to various tips for the tanking fighter in raids and groups, this guide provides Death Knight newcomers with important basics for a good start to their upcoming career as a well-armed closer.

The Death Knight in Raids
Blood, Blood, Death Knights Drink Blood: The Blood Death Knight in Raids

The Blood Death Knight is unique in the tanking world. With few passive damage avoidance options available to him, he takes more damage than his tank counterparts. At the same time, he has surprisingly good self-healing abilities – an advantage that should not be underestimated. On the one hand, he lacks the ability to tank multiple enemies at once compared to the other Death Knight kills, but on the other hand, he has great strengths in building up threats against a single target due to his strong physical attacks. He also has powerful tools for building threat from a distance thanks to Icy Touch, Death Spiral, Blood Boil, and Death and Decay.

At the same time, the Death Knight is generally considered to be one of the most independent tanking classes, because unlike Warriors or Druids, he doesn’t rely on Rage thanks to the Rune System, and unlike Paladins, he doesn’t rely on mana regeneration through healing. This makes it the best second tank on the market. In the role of the second tank, the Death Knight only has to do without the threat of the Runic Strike attack. Another unique selling point is that every Death Knight alignment tanks without a shield and is armed with a two-handed sword. The only exception is the Frost Death Knight, who can also strike enemies well with two one-handed weapons. In the following, we will go into detail about the advantages and disadvantages of the Blood Death Knight and finally show you

Self is the death knight

In times when most tanks – whether it makes sense or not – rely on the largest possible health supply, it is hardly noticeable that the blood death knight’s talent tree is designed for a high maximum health. Many survival skills are positively influenced by high health values. Damage avoidance and high armor still play a very important role, of course, but these factors don’t gain the same importance in the Blood Death Knight as they do in the other tanking styles. The reason for this is the strong self-healing of the blood disciple. It does n’t matter whether it’s a deathblow , rune healing , vampire blood , will of the necropolis or mark of blood- the effect of each ability increases with your maximum health. Of course, you also have to use the skills wisely. Resourceful tanks use the deathblow shortly after an opponent’s foreseeable attack in order to use the ability’s healing as efficiently as possible and thus make the healers’ work a little easier. Improved rune healing allows you to heal for 20 percent of your maximum health every 30 seconds. Because this ability doesn’t trigger a global cooldown, it’s the perfect tool to throw into combat over and over again. In conjunction with the deathblow, you can achieve high five-digit healing.

Depending on the situation, the talent Mark of Blood makes sense. A debuff with 20 charges is cast on the target. When this target deals damage, its victim is healed for 4% of the victim’s maximum health. Each healing consumes one of the charges. Healing occurs immediately after incoming damage, so it shouldn’t end up in overheal at any time – at least when the damage value is greater than 4% of the victim’s health. This debuff lasts 20 seconds, or until all charges on the target are depleted. This ability is particularly valuable if an opponent hits very often in a short time or hits several other players at the same time with one attack. An example of this is targeting the faction champions in Trial of the Crusader. A mark of blood on the warlock when he’s casting Hellfire, or on the warrior while he’s using Blade Storm — and potential group damage is mitigated a bit. Unfortunately, Mark of Blood’s cooldown is very high at three minutes, which is why the talent is avoided by most tanks. The emergency ability Vampire Blood can be used every minute and directly improves your survivability on two fronts at the same time. For one, your maximum health is noticeably increased, giving your healers a little more time to cast life-saving heals. On the other hand, you increase the efficiency of skills that are affected by maximum health. A mark of blood on the warlock when he’s casting Hellfire, or on the warrior while he’s using Blade Storm — and potential group damage is mitigated a bit. Unfortunately, Mark of Blood’s cooldown is very high at three minutes, which is why the talent is avoided by most tanks. The emergency ability Vampire Blood can be used every minute and directly improves your survivability on two fronts at the same time. For one, your maximum health is noticeably increased, giving your healers a little more time to cast life-saving heals. On the other hand, you increase the efficiency of skills that are affected by maximum health. A mark of blood on the warlock when he’s casting Hellfire, or on the warrior while he’s using Blade Storm — and potential group damage is mitigated a bit. Unfortunately, Mark of Blood’s cooldown is very high at three minutes, which is why the talent is avoided by most tanks. The emergency ability Vampire Blood can be used every minute and directly improves your survivability on two fronts at the same time. For one, your maximum health is noticeably increased, giving your healers a little more time to cast life-saving heals. On the other hand, you increase the efficiency of skills that are affected by maximum health. while using Blade Storm — and already possible group damage is mitigated a bit. Unfortunately, Mark of Blood’s cooldown is very high at three minutes, which is why the talent is avoided by most tanks. The emergency ability Vampire Blood can be used every minute and directly improves your survivability on two fronts at the same time. For one, your maximum health is noticeably increased, giving your healers a little more time to cast life-saving heals. On the other hand, you increase the efficiency of skills that are affected by maximum health. while using Blade Storm — and already possible group damage is mitigated a bit. Unfortunately, Mark of Blood’s cooldown is very high at three minutes, which is why the talent is avoided by most tanks. The emergency ability Vampire Blood can be used every minute and directly improves your survivability on two fronts at the same time. For one, your maximum health is noticeably increased, giving your healers a little more time to cast life-saving heals. On the other hand, you increase the efficiency of skills that are affected by maximum health. The emergency ability Vampire Blood can be used every minute and directly improves your survivability on two fronts at the same time. For one, your maximum health is noticeably increased, giving your healers a little more time to cast life-saving heals. On the other hand, you increase the efficiency of skills that are affected by maximum health. The emergency ability Vampire Blood can be used every minute and directly improves your survivability on two fronts at the same time. For one, your maximum health is noticeably increased, giving your healers a little more time to cast life-saving heals. On the other hand, you increase the efficiency of skills that are affected by maximum health.

On the other hand, the effect of Blood Worms and Improved Blood Presence is not quite as great. The small worms have very few hit points and no defense. Since you are usually in front of the enemy as a tank, they are often wiped out by the enemy splitting or breathing, or simply get lost in the group damage. At the same time, they can trigger the “Haste to Parry” effect from this position. (The Hurry to Parry effect is explained in more detail in the Theory Building section). Improved Blood Presence also provides constant healing to your Frost Presence life supply, but this value usually ends up in Overheal and is therefore rarely relevant.

In addition to self-healing, you can reduce incoming damage with the Spell Defense and Necropolis Will talents. Not blood-specific are the skills Icy Valor and Antimagic Shell, which can save you for a short time. As a last resort, you can also use the combination of Raise the Dead and Death Pact, as well as summon Army of the Dead, which deals significantly less damage when channeling.

Are you threatening me?

As a Blood Death Knight, you generate your threat primarily through strong physical attacks. The talent tree supports threat generation by passively increasing physical damage – through the Blood Saturation and Bloody Vengeance talents – and by specifically increasing critical hit chance. This is achieved through the talents Subversion, Dark Persuasion, and Improved Deathblow. Thanks to Mograine’s Might, the threat effect of critical hits is even increased. Of course, you can also use the Evil ability, which grants you a greatly increased threat build for the next 30 seconds. However, as a tank, you must never forget that you lose health equal to one percent of your maximum health every second. Therefore, only use Malice as a threat boost in situations that your healer can handle. The talent is certainly even more useful as a support for your strongest damage dealer in the raid. You can find a macro for Malice in the Macro section. You also get a threat boost from self-cast healing. Thanks to Frost Presence, the threat generation from the heals is noticeably high.

Skill Value 54/8/9

As a Blood Death Knight in raids and in groups, you can’t avoid a base skill of 54/8/9:

We intentionally avoid the smell of blood because it is not as strong as it reads at first glance. The Blood Death Knight uses Runic Strike with a macro when ready, primarily to drain Runic Power. Therefore, you should always make sure you have at least 20 rune power. So, Death Spiral should only be cast when you have 60 Rune Power or more. So in practice, blood scent only helps you to use the death ring more often. However, the Death Ring has a very low threat priority in the Blood Disciple’s rotation. Both the application/renewal of the diseases and the use of the abilities Heartbeat and Deathblast have a higher priority – even with talent points in Morbidity, this priority order will not change. The Death Cloak is only used by Blood Death Knights when all runes have a cooldown – which, thanks to the many one rune abilities, doesn’t happen as often as it does with Frost or Unholy Death Knights. We can also happily do without Sign of Blood – the long cooldown doesn’t make the talent efficient enough.

An alternative can be the talent Spell Defense, if it is mainly against opponents who deal direct spell damage. However, this talent is also not very popular with many death knights. Tanks are reluctant to rely on randomly triggered effects to ensure their survivability. If you decide to use this talent, you should refrain from self-healing with Runic Healing – especially if your healers are fit and the extra healing simply isn’t necessary. You can then put the remaining point into Doomblast or Dancing Rune Weapon to further increase your threat. If, contrary to expectations, you don’t have enough runic power to sell your runic attacks efficiently, you can also invest a point in Blood Scent.

Glyph Me Baby

As a trio of glyphs, Glyph of Vampire Blood , Glyph of Runic Strike, and Glyph of Death Strike will serve you well. If you’re mainly dealing with swarms of enemies, Glyph of Death and Decay is a good alternative. Especially at the beginning of your tanking career, the glyph ‘Dark Command’ can also be useful if your equipment has too low a hit chance. Even in the later high-end content, this glyph comes in handy every now and then when you encounter enemies in the raid where any missed taunt will result in the immediate death of the party. However, you must remember that you have a second taunt available with Death Grip. It is very unlikely that both spells will fail. Mandatory glyph for the smaller glyph slots is Glyph of Pestilence. Glyph Raise the Dead, Glyph Bloodwalk, and Glyph Horn of Winter also provide useful effects.

Prioritize or rotate – that’s the question here?

Death knights develop their rotation based on their own priorities and adapt it to the situation at hand. Therefore, it is not possible to create a single perfect rotation. The top priority should be to stay alive while attracting the attention of all enemies. For your Heart Strike and Deathblow abilities, it is important to have both Icy Touch and Plague Strike active on the enemy at all times. Macro ties Runic Strike to your abilities to automatically cast the attack when ready. For the Blade Barrier talent, your Blood Runes should be permanently on cooldown so that you can use the talent’s effect as efficiently as possible. As the battle progresses, use the Heart Strike and Deathblow skills against individual targets. Looking only at the damage of these two attacks, Heart Strike creates slightly more threat than Deathblow. However, Deathblow’s threat is higher than Heartstrike’s threat if you fully account for the healing generated by Deathblow. So rather use Heart Strike when you have full health and use Death Strike when you can benefit from the healing.

In addition to this rotation, you’ll also need to accommodate the various abilities with high cooldowns to ensure your survival or master rune management – for example, through Blood Transformation. The best death knights can be recognized by the fact that they have as few unused global cooldowns as possible – only practice, practice and more practice will help.

In his current buffed forum thread Ruby’s (Video)DK-Tankguide for Dummies, buffed user Captain Kitsu goes into all the important information about the Blood Tank in a very entertaining way. Besides the videos, pay attention to the descriptions in the thread and on youtube.

What is WoW Classic?

World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.

Getting Started

All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.

1. Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
2. Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
3. Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
4. Click the Play button when the installation is complete.

You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!

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