Blood Death Knight Gearing Guide

There are new Season 3 Blood Death Knight Tier Sets.

Deathbringer Season 3 Tier Set Bonus:

• 2pc - When you cast Reaper’s Mark you gain two charges of Exterminate. The single target scythe which is the first scythe is 50% more effective, while the AOE scythe which is the second scythe is 25% more effective.
• 4pc - Reaper’s Mark stacks up to 15 additional times (from 40 to 55 stacks), and when it detonates your critical strike chance is increased by 10% for 8 seconds.

The new tier set comes with change to our talents, The goal will always be to spend your Exterminate charges before Reaper’s Mark detonates, whilst trying to hit the 55stack cap on the Reaper’s Mark. This is more difficult to do when you are outside of your Dancing Rune Weapon, which will happen half of the time, due to us playing ‘Reaper’s Onslaught’

Due to the new tier set giving Exterminate upon a Reaper’s Mark cast, Deathbringer players will find it easier to set-up larger pulls, They will also find themselves pressing Exterminate way more frequently as a fun bonus-result, big scythe goes brr.

San’layn Season 3 Tier Set Bonus:

• 2pc - Infliction of Sorrow extends the duration of your diseases by 4 seconds on your main target and Essence of the Blood Queen increases your mastery by 0.88% per stack.
• 4pc - Infliction of Sorrow deals 50% increased damage, and Vampiric Strike increases the damage of your Dancing Rune Weapons by 20% for 8 sec, Multiple applications may overlap.

Going into Season 3, we should come to expect consistent burst DPS via Infliction of Sorrow because of both our 2pc and 4pc bonuses. Though Death Strike will still be our top damaging ability, Infliction of Sorrow becomes a strong contender and allows for some really strong burst windows and priority damage.

Nothing special changes priority-wise as a result of the new San’layn driven tier set.

You should still prioritise the gear you use by running a sim for your character, but the lists below will give you a good idea of what items are considered good for Blood Death Knight, and help you target the right content for each piece of loot.

Season 3 Dungeon rotation for The War Within:

• Ara-Kara, City of Echoes
• The Dawnbreaker
• Priory of the Sacred Flame
• Operation Floodgate
• Eco-Dome Al’dani
• Halls of Atonement
• Tazavesh the Veiled Market

Disclaimer - the tables below have been generated around damage output as this will serve the majority of the player base who read these guides. Sims can be a little funky prior to release and see large swings in results, these tables will be updated once the patch is live.

• Overall
• Raiding
• Mythic+

Dungeon Trinkets

S Tier - Tome of Lights Devotion

The trinket on equip gives a buff called Inner Resilience, this gives you armor and grants a magic absorb, that increases each time you are attacked. When you get attacked for the first time the buff will change to “The 50 Verses of Resilience” each time you’re hit, you’ll gain a stacking effect which is impacted by a small icd on the trinket, and this will stack to 50.

There is no duration on this buff either in or out of combat, you’ll also have a glowing light around you to see when it’s active. When the trinket hits 50 stacks, it changes from armor and the magic absorb, to critical strike and holy damage and this is the true value of this trinket. Once you hit 50 stacks in this phase it will cycle back to the armor and absorb for another 50 and so on.

The goal with this trinket is to remain in the crit/holy damage phase for as long as possible, which you do via the on use function of the trinket. When you activate the trinket, it’ll swap you from one phase to the other, whilst also giving you 20 seconds of double benefit via the buff Radiance. You’ll use the trinket on pull, to swap from armor/absorb to crit/holy, and then once you’ve hit your 50 stacks and cycle into the armor/asborb phase, you would use the on use again to swap back to the crit/holy damage and repeat.

Just prior to raid release we saw a trinket nerf come through which impacted Tome of LIghts Devotion. It’s unclear at the moment how much this impact is going to have on the M+ side of things regarding the ICD change but due to how far ahead it was in a raid style environment the trinket is likely going to remain BIS or very much near the top even with the 15% nerf.

A Tier - Cursed Stone Idol

A new trinket added into the Season 3 dungeon loot table with the return of Halls of Atonement, the Cursed Stone Idol is a quick on use channeled trinket (1 second) to massively increase your critical strike rating for 15 seconds. It also comes with an AOE which if optimized can deliver an extra 28972 crit rating which = large dups. Even not playing optimally with this trinket is still a hefty net damage gain.

A Tier - Ara-Kara Sacbrood

Static haste value with a strong primary stat buff. This trinket was a favoured choice in season 1 so it’ll be another popular choice when it comes back as an option in season 3. When the trinket procs you gain a stack of Egg Sac which can stack up to 99 times with each stack granting you a primary stat boost. There is also a damage component to the trinket as when the Egg hatches after 1 minute, a Spiderling spawns dealing nature damage.

A - Tier - So’leahs Secret Technique

B Tier - Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker

Static strength value on the trinket with a chance to proc a large crit buff for 15 seconds, every 60 seconds from your first ability. You then have the chance to proc 1 second extensions up to a max of 15 seconds with your critical strikes whilst exploding in the first 15 second window. So in an idea situation you could have a large crit buff rolling for 30 seconds every minute, however there are a lot of variables that go into that situation in M+ which would likely not lead to the trinket working out in this way, you also have the issue of effective uptime in a dungeon.

B Tier - Codex of the First Technique

Some will remember this trinket and everything that came along with it in Shadowlands, it’s a good trinket for content extremes we will call it. If you’re pushing world first keys and things of a like there is a chance this trinket will hold some decent value for you, but it’s still a random proc and for 99% of the playerbase there are better options.

B Tier - Signet of the Priory

Static strength with the ability to increase your highest secondary stat for 20 seconds. You’re able to trigger the effect at a lesser rate onto others in your party who are wearing a signet also.

B Tier - Void PactStone

B Tier - Ticking Sack of Terror

D Tier - Ringing Ritual Mud

Raid Trinkets

S Tier - Araz’s Ritual Forge

Stat crit trinket with an onus for a massive strength boost which decays over 30 seconds at the cost of 15% of your maximum health on a 2 minute cooldown. The 15% max health isn’t going to be an issue as EHP is generally not a real factor for most people in their line of content.

S Tier - Unyielding Netherprism

Your harmful abilities deal damage split amongst nearby enemies, and damage is increased by 30% per enemy struck up to 150%. The effect can occur every 10 seconds up to 15 times. You can then activate the trinkets on use, to consume the stacks gaining a massive amount of primary stat for 20 seconds. As san’layn use this during Dancing Rune Weapon, as Deathbringer use it in your Reaper’s Mark window.

A Tier - Brand of Ceaseless Ire

Tank only specialisation trinket loaded with static crit rating. The equip effect on this means when you get hit you absorb damage and deal shadow damage back. The damage is increased by 30% per additional enemy up to a cap of 150%. This is actually a pretty decent tank trinket in terms of providing some damaging smoothing and output.

A Tier - Eradicating Arcanocore

B Tier - All-Devouring Nucleus

Cheat Death trinket on a cap of 20.9 million damage which restores you to 20% health, you then need to be healed back above 65% health to stabilize and avoid death. Obviously there are a few caveats with this trinket that make it different from previous cheat death trinkets we have seen. In the end it will come down to if you require a cheat death or not, remember we do have Purg.

B Tier - Astral Antenna

Delve Trinkets

B Tier - Incorporeal Warpclaw

B Tier - Soulbreaker's Sigil

C Tier - Void-Touched Fragment

The recommended crafting order and items are as follows:

1. Craft Everforged Vambraces with Elemental Focusing Lens (Raid) or Dawnthread Lining (M+)
2. Craft Everforged Greatbelt with Elemental Focusing Lens (Raid) or Dawnthread Lining (M+)

It is always best to sim yourself when crafting a new item, these recommendations are based on the BIS profile and you may not have access to everything.

Due to crafting items having a slightly lower max item level you generally want to aim your crafted pieces at slots like bracers, belt or ring, I’ve recommended belt and bracers as long-term options since you can socket them.

Puzzling Cartel Chips

As of the week of October 21, the cap for Crests is lifted, and Valorstones become Warbound for the remainder of the season. Mythic+ drop rates for Warband until Equipped gear are also being doubled. Ethereal Voidsplinters may be earned in Mythic+ dungeons, Manaforge Omega, Delves, and rated PvP to fuel the Catalyst.

Puzzling Cartel chips are making a return and can be collected by quests in the similar format players have been familiar with in the past.

• Defeating 4 raid bosses in Normal difficulty or higher from Manaforge Omega
• Completing 4 Mythic 0 dungeons.
• Completing the one time only quest Turbo Boost: Trade Must Flow will reward players with 3 Puzzling Cartel Chips and
• the weekly quest Turbo Boost: Infinite Growth will reward 1 Puzzling Cartel Chip.

Players will be able to earn a maximum of 9 Puzzling Cartel Chips per character.

Gear Vendor

Fixer So’kir and Fixer So’tho will visit Dornogal to offer powerful weapons, trinkets, and cantrip items from Season 3 dungeons and Manaforge Omega in exchange for Puzzling Cartel Chips after adventurers have proved themselves worthy.

Purchasing Hero track dungeon trinkets or Hero track raid gear requires the currency and the associated boss to have been defeated at least once in Normal difficulty or higher to purchase that gear. Myth track gear will require the currency and have players to have beaten the timer in all Season 3 M+ dungeons at Mythic 12 or Higher (having unlocked the Resilient Keystone system.) To purchase Myth track raid gear will require the associated boss to have been defeated at least once in Mythic difficulty to purchase that gear.

This is an easy chance to fill item slots from the BIS list that you have been unable to attain throughout the season.

Recommended Purchases:

• Tome Of Light's Devotion
• Maw Of The Void
• Unyielding Netherprism

Reshii Wraps

Your cloak is being taken care of via the Reshii Wraps. This is a cloak that you’ll gain access to via a quest chain and completing chapter 3 of the main patch storyline will reward you with the Reshii Wraps. The Reshii Wraps are able to be upgraded via Ethereal Strands.

You can also add a secondary stat of your choosing to the Wrap via the Fiber Socket - as always Sim yourself as you can remove the Fibers at any point to slot another in.

But the result will most likely be:

• San’layn Haste thread - Pure Chronomantic Fiber
• Deathbringer Critical Strike thread - Pure Precise Fiber

Blizzard has also made a stunning move removing all cloaks from the dungeon pool and raid, meaning you don’t have to worry about cloaks popping up in your great vault for the season!