Playstyle & Rotation
General Rotation
Blood Death Knight is heavily dependent on resource and buff management and as a result you should be optimizing your resource-spending as much as possible.
What does it mean to optimize resources?
- You should aim to never cap your Blood Boil charges.
- You should never overcap Runic Power.
- You should aim to have 3 Runes recharging as often as possible.
- Use your cooldowns as frequently and effectively as you can.
Currently Deathbringer is recommended for both Mythic+ and Raid.
Deathbringer Raid Opener
- Pre-cast Death And Decay at the location you will move the boss to.
- Cast Death's Caress as your opening ability to pull the boss.
- Cast Reaper's Mark alongside Raise Dead (Macro).
- Cast Dancing Rune Weapon alongside Combat Potion (Macro).
- Cast Marrowrend Twice to consume Exterminate(2).
- Until Reaper's Mark explodes, you will:
1. Cast Blood Boil to prevent stacks from overcapping.
2. Cast Death Strike when above 35RP.
3. Cast Heart Strike when below 35RP. - Cast Marrowrend Twice to consume Exterminate(2).
- Until Dancing Rune Weapon expires, follow steps 6.1-6.3.
- Cast Death And Decay.
- Cast Consumption at Rank III.
Move to the General Rotation list from here.
Deathbringer Mythic+ Opener
This can vary from pull-to-pull, presented below is a cookie-cutter example, it is using the suggested Mythic+ build from this guide.
- Cast Death's Caress on a distanced target to generate initial Bone Shield stacks,
- Heart Strike for RP as needed
2a. You can also spend a Death And Decay charge to help generate more RP if the pull should require it. - Death Strike to survive the gather, you can use Vampiric Blood to help with this.
- Cast Blood Boil to gain threat of new mobs.
- Cast Reaper's Mark as you are reaching your ‘Plant Point’
5a. You can use the damage from Reaper's Mark and Wave Of Souls to generate more threat on certain mobs. - Cast Death And Decay at the ‘Plant Point’*
- Cast Dancing Rune Weapon and return to ‘Raid Opener - Deathbringer’.
*A plant point is where your gather should finish and most movement stops.
San'layn Raid Opener
- Pre-cast Death And Decay at the location you will move the boss to.
- Cast Death's Caress as your opening ability to pull the boss.
- Cast Dancing Rune Weapon, with Combat Potion (Macro)
- Cast Blood Boil, with Raise Dead (Macro)
- Cast Vampiric Strike if below 75 RP
- Cast Death Strike if above 75 RP
- Cast Blood Boil within the last 3-4 seconds of Dancing Rune Weapon if you have a pending Boiling Point proc.
- Empower Consumption to Rank III.
Move to the General Rotation list from here.
San'layn Mythic+ Opener
This can vary from pull-to-pull, presented below is a cookie-cutter example, it is using the suggested Mythic+ build from this guide.
- Cast Death's Caress on a distanced target to generate initial Bone Shield stacks,
- Heart Strike for RP as needed
2a. You can also spend a Death And Decay charge to help generate more RP if the pull should require it. - Death Strike to survive the gather, you can use Vampiric Blood to help with this.
- Cast Blood Boil to gain threat of new mobs.
- Cast Death And Decay at the ‘Plant Point’*
- Cast Dancing Rune Weapon and return to ‘Raid Opener - San'layn’.
*A plant point is where your gather should finish and most movement stops.
Gameplay Goals
Make sure to maintain Bone Shield via Marrowrend (Or Exterminate as Deathbringer). The goal is to stay above 5 Stacks, because of Ossuary.
Cast Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown, providing you will have uptime for the full duration.
Cast Death And Decay, this should be considered a maintenance buff.
Use Death Strike if it will prevent death, or to prevent yourself from overcapping RP. Casting it at 75 RP or above usually accomplishes both tasks. Casting it at the end of a pull can be beneficial, this is to maintain Coagulopathy and Icy Talons.
Always try to cast Consumption at Rank III, this ensures that you get maximum benefits from both an Offensive and Defensive viewpoint.
Cast Blood Boil to prevent overcapping charges, or to consume Boiling Point.
Use Heart Strike to consume Runes, generating RP as a result. You should always aim to have 3 runes recharging at all times.
Defensives
Vampiric Blood is our most frequent defensive CD, providing that we have uptime. This also makes it one of our strongest, it should be used as a priority.
Dancing Rune Weapon is our main offensive cooldown, luckily for us it doubles as a defensive cooldown and we should avoid using other defensive cooldowns alongside it.
Consumption is now both an offensive and defensive cooldown, making it a high-priority in both regards. You should always aim to cast it at Rank III, though the cast can be finished sooner for variable amounts of damage reduction and durations.
Anti-Magic Shell takes priority whenever there is a dangerous magical effect, it has a very short cooldown and provides bonus RP whenever it absorbs damage.
Icebound Fortitude is our cookie cutter defensive cooldown, don’t overlap it with other cooldowns, but you should avoid leaving it off-cooldown for long periods of time, it is there to be used.
Lichborne no longer has Damage Reduction attached to it, it can still be used as a strong throughput cooldown when tied with high damage output events.
Cooldown Usage
Generally I recommend that people should use Vampiric Blood as frequently as possible, such is its strength. It also proves itself as a valuable tool when setting up pulls in Mythic+.
Dancing Rune Weapon has less defensive applications in a Raid environment, and will usually be sent on cooldown for damage, but in Mythic+ it is one of our strongest defensives while tanking multiple packs at a time, so strong in fact that it doesn’t need other cooldowns to be paired with it.
Consumption should help to bridge the gap between the end of Dancing Rune Weapon and the next Vampiric Blood in most cases. It can also be held, for no longer than 10 seconds at a time, to line up with significant tank busters that Vampiric Blood or Icebound Fortitude cannot handle alone.