Welcome to our Mists of Pandaria Classic (MoP Classic) Blood Death Knight Class Guide for Phase 1, it focuses on getting you up to speed with the Spec for PvE content, Dungeons and Raiding. The guide includes key information for what has changed going into MoP, the best Talent builds, Major Glyphs, your Rotation, Gearing and Consumables for Blood Death Knight.
Table of Content
What’s New for Blood Death Knights in Mists of Pandaria Classic
Being a Death Knight in World of Warcraft has always been good since its release. Always strong, with a lot of build options, and a unique play style loved by a lot of players. Will that change in Mists of Pandaria? No. Death Knights in MoP go through a few changes, but unlike other classes and specialization that get a full rework, most of the change made to Death Knights are quality of life changes, especially for the Blood specialization:
- Anti-Magic Zone has been reworked: you can now place it wherever you want, but it lasts 3 seconds.
- Global Cooldown is set to 1 second.
- Icebound Fortitude, Dancing Rune Weapon, Mind freeze, Bone Shield have no resource cost anymore.
- Plagues will now last 30 seconds.
- Horn of Winter now increases attack power.
- Unholy Presence increases haste but no longer increase attack speed.
- Scent of Blood has been reworked.
Is Blood Death Knight Good?
Yes, they are good. Blood Death Knights are incredible tanks, especially at the start of Mists of Pandaria Classic. They aren’t scaling as well as other tank on the damage side of things, but you are nearly unkillable, especially with the added survivability from the new talent tree. Your raid utility is unique, and you might be BiS for precise encounters. If you liked Blood Death Knights in the older expansion, you will love it in Mists of Pandaria.
Best Talents & Glyphs for Blood Death Knight in MoP Classic
With the new talent system, you have a lot more utility choices that would change based on each encounter. This guide will provide you with both a raid and a dungeon build, but always consider changing options depending on what you are about to face in the raid, not just the type of content you are playing.
Blood Death Knight Raiding Talent Build
Blood Death Knights have a lot of powerful talent choices, but you will find yourself taking the same ones most of the time. Here are the different changes you could make:
- Plague Leech can be swapped with Roiling Blood if you need a bit more AoE threat.
- Purgatory is very strong, but if you don’t have any problems surviving a fight, you can take Anti-Magic Zone to help your friends.
- And finally, you can swap Gorefiends Grasp for Remorseless Winter if you need to control massive amounts of adds.
Best Blood Death Knight Raid Glyphs
Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain Glyph of Outbreak, Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, Glyph of Regenerative Magic.
Other choices might be Glyph of Loud Horn, Glyph of Pestilence for AoE, Glyph of Festering Blood for AoE Damage and Glyph of Dark Simulacrum.
Minor Glyphs aren’t that great, so take whatever you want.
Blood Death Knight Dungeons & Challenge Mode Talent Build
In a dungeon build, you mostly want the same talents. You can change some talents depending on the dungeon for more niche situations. However, Gorefiends Grasp is even better in dungeons, so you will most likely never change that.
Best Blood Death Knight Dungeon Glyphs
Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain Glyph of Pestilence, Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, Glyph of Regenerative Magic.
Other choices might be Glyph of Loud Horn for AoE, Glyph of Outbreak if you want to play with Plague Leech, Glyph of Festering Blood for AoE Damage and Glyph of Dark Simulacrum.
Minor Glyphs aren’t that great, so take whatever you want.
Rotation for Blood Death Knight in MoP Classic
Blood Death Knights use two resources: Runes and Runic Power. Depending on what resource you have available, your rotation will change a lot.
Single Target Rotation & Priority
- Stay in Blood Presence during the whole fight.
- Maintain Horn of Winter if assigned.
- Maintain Blood Plague and Frost Fever.
- Whenever you have no runes, use Empower Rune Weapon.
- Use Dancing Rune Weapon on cooldown.
- Use Bone Shield when you don’t have any charges left.
- Use Blood Boil when you get a free cast through Crimson Scourge.
- Use Death strike.
- Use Death and Decay on cooldown.
- Use Heart Strike.
- Use Rune Strike to spend runic power.
Regarding your mitigation tools, you will mostly heal through Death Strike. You can use Dancing Rune Weapon as a defensive cooldown, as well as Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell, Rune Tap, Vampiric Blood and finally sacrificing your ghoul through Death Pact.
Regarding openers, you mostly want to get the ball rolling with Bone shield, Horn of Winter, Army of the Dead, Dancing Rune Weapon, Outbreak, etc.
AoE Rotation & Priority
The AoE Rotation is pretty much the same, spreading diseases through Pestilence, and replace Heart strike in the priority with Blood Boil.
Best Gear & Stats for Blood Death Knight in MoP Classic
Best in Slot (BiS Gear) aren’t as big in Mists of Pandaria Classic. Reforging is the new hype, so you can tailor your gear better than before.
The gear you should aim for are: Trinkets, Tier Sets and Weapons.
The best weapons you can find pre-raid in the first phase are:
- Mogu’Dar, Blade of Thousand Slaves, Xin the Weaponmaster, from Mogu’shan Palace.
- Gravetouch Greatsword, Instructor Chillheart, from Scholomance.
- Lightbreaker Greatsword, High Inquisitor Whitemane, from Scarlet Monastery.
The best pre-raid trinkets for Blood Death Knight are:
- Relic of Niuzao, from Inscription.
- Relic of Xuen from Inscription.
- Lessons of the Darkmaster, from Darkmaster Gandling, Scholomance.
- Heart of Fire, from Master Snowdrift, in Shado-Pan Monastery.
MoP Classic Blood Death Knight Stat Priority
Reach your Hit cap, so 7.5% and then your Expertise cap, so around 15%. Then, Strength is your best stat.
Regarding the other stats, you want to get as many defensive stats as possible with Parry and Dodge, and then Mastery, Haste and Crit in this order.
Consumables, Enchants & Gems for Blood Death Knight in MoP Classic
The following tables outline the recommended Consumables, Enchants and Gems for Blood Death Knight in Raiding and Dungeon content.
Consumables
| Type | Consumable |
| Food | Chun Tian Spring Rolls - Stuffed Lushrooms |
| Flask | Flask of Spring Blossoms (DPS) - Flask of the Earth (Tanking) |
| Potion | Virmen’s Bite (DPS) - Potion of the Mountains (Tanking) |
Enchants
| Gear | Enchant |
| Shoulder | Greater Ox Horn Inscription |
| Back | Enchant Cloak - Greater Protection or Accuracy |
| Chest | Enchant Chest - Superior Stamina |
| Wrists | Enchant Bracers - Exceptional Strength |
| Hands | Enchant Gloves - Greater Haste or Superior Expertise |
| Legs | Ironscale Leg Armor |
| Feet | Enchant Boots - Pandaren’s Step |
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon - Dancing Steel |
| Enchant Shield - Greater Parry |
Gems
| Type | Gems |
| White | Reverberating Primal Diamond |
| Yellow | Stalwart Vermilion Onyx |
| Red | Stalwart Vermilion Onyx |
| Blue | Retaliating Imperial Amethyst |
| Prismatic | Stalwart Vermilion Onyx |
We hope this guide helped you improve your Blood Death Knight Gameplay and better understand the spec. To check out all of our MoP Classic content, such as Class Guides, Tier Lists and more, you can browse our full library of MoP Classic Guides.
