Blood Death Knight Tank Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot (Legion 7.3.5)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 5. Contents
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation
  • 5. Active Mitigation and Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Main Resource
  • 3. Basic Abilities
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. Active Mitigation
  • 6. Defensive Cooldowns
  • 7. Offensive Cooldown
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Tier 1 (Level 56) Talents
  • 3. Tier 2 (Level 57) Talents
  • 4. Tier 3 (Level 58) Talents
  • 5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 9. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression
  • 2. Relic Choice
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. General Optimization Advice
  • 2. Path Choices
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Rotation
  • 2. Taunting
  • 3. Survival Cooldowns
  • 4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Blood Death Knight
    • 4.1. Runes and Runic Power
      • 4.1.1. Runes
      • 4.1.2. Runic Power
    • 4.2. Artifact Ability
    • 4.3. Detailed Cooldown Usage
      • 4.3.1. Anti-Magic Shell
      • 4.3.2. Dancing Rune Weapon
      • 4.3.3. Vampiric Blood
      • 4.3.4. Icebound Fortitude
      • 4.3.5. Tier 6 Talents
    • 4.4. Death Strike and Blood Shield
    • 4.5. Bone Shield
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
    • 1.1. Survivability
    • 1.2. DPS-oriented
    • 1.3. Balanced (Recommended)
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Death Knights
      • 1.1.1. Raise Ally
      • 1.1.2. Mind Freeze
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Blood Death Knights
      • 1.2.1. Gorefiend's Grasp
      • 1.2.2. Death and Decay
      • 1.2.3. Blessing of Protection Cancelaura Macro
      • 1.2.4. Gorefiend's Grasp Self-Grip Macro
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Death Knights
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 2.1.3. GTFO
      • 2.1.4. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 2.1.5. Weak Auras
      • 2.1.6. Recount / Skada / Details!
      • 2.1.7. mRunes
      • 2.1.8. Omen Threat Meter
      • 2.1.9. Grid and GridClickSets (Optional)
      • 2.1.10. Compact Runes
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Blood Death Knights
  • 3. ChangeLog
• ×Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot List
  • 2. Tier 21 Set Bonuses
  • 3. Legendary Items
    • 3.1. Tier 1 Legendaries
    • 3.2. Tier 2 Legendaries
    • 3.3. Tier 3 Legendaries
  • 4. Loot Competition
  • 5. ChangeLog

General Information

This page is a gear reference for Blood Death Knights. It lists your best items and Legendaries, gives you gearing advice, and shows you how you will be competing for loot with other classes.

The other pages of our Blood Death Knight guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Volstatsz, a Blood Death Knight theorycrafter and moderator for the Acherus Death Knight community. You can follow him on Twitter.

1. Best in Slot List

We do not currently provide a Best in Slot list, but we do provide advice for set bonus and legendary item choices below.

2. Tier 21 Set Bonuses

The 2-piece Tier 21 Set Bonus is very good, and you should try to obtain it as quickly as possible. At equal item levels, it is best to keep a combination of 2-piece Tier 20 and 2-piece Tier 21 Set Bonuses, but once your Tier 21 gear has an advantage of 10-15 item levels (per item) over your Tier 20 items, moving to the 4-piece Tier 21 Set Bonus is advised.

3. Legendary Items

Legendary items have a high item level of 1000, which makes them extremely strong. They are so strong, in fact, that a legendary item is always going to be worth equipping over any other item you might have in that slot.

However, there is a limitation on the number of legendary items you can have equipped at any one time (by default 1, but by now most players should be able to equip 2). Since some legendary items are better than others, if you have more items than the limit, you will have to choose which ones to equip.

Below, we will do our best to guide you through this process, as well as provide any other relevant information.

3.1. Tier 1 Legendaries

1. Skullflower's Haemostasis: this works out to be a direct copy of our old Scent of Blood ability. It is impossible to get more than 2 stacks of the effect without wasting either Runes or Runic Power (the only exception being through use of Blood Boil during Dancing Rune Weapon, when you can gain 3), but it is overall still your best legendary item.
2. Shackles of Bryndaor: this is also very powerful, and is useful on every fight. When tanking, almost every Death Strike should heal for more than 10% of maximum health (due to your Versatility), resulting in an effective 15% decrease in the cost of this ability.
3. Soulflayer's Corruption: this provides +100% damage and healing to Blood Plague. This is a solid throughput legendary, though not as good as Skullflower's Haemostasis or Shackles of Bryndaor against a single target. It shines on multi-target encounters, and against 3 or more targets it becomes the best throughput legendary we have; the bonus healing does affect your gold trait Umbilicus Eternus.
4. Soul of the Deathlord: this grants Foul Bulwark for free. Effectively, this means you would run both Foul Bulwark and Rune Tap, making this the best cooldown-focused legendary you have.

3.2. Tier 2 Legendaries

1. Sephuz's Secret: this is the best choice for Mythic+ dungeons. It also works quite well for raid encounters where you can consistently interrupt spellcasting. It is triggered by Mind Freeze, Asphyxiate, Death Grip, and racial abilities like Arcane Torrent and War Stomp.
2. Service of Gorefiend: this is very powerful on fights where the cooldown reduction to Vampiric Blood can be used effectively, allowing for an effective cooldown on Vampiric Blood of 45 seconds or less when paired with Red Thirst. In practice, you have so many cooldowns already that using a Tier 1 legendary will be better in most encounters.
3. Archimonde's Hatred Reborn: is a good legendary for increasing damage output, but defensively it is not very desirable.
4. Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus: this is a very strong item, and while ranking it precisely is difficult, it is definitely among your best legendaries.
5. Acherus Drapes: this is a very weak legendary item, except for Mythic+ situations where it can be used to reset the Necrotic affix.
6. Insignia of the Grand Army: the value of this legendary depends greatly on your Tier 2 Netherlight Crucible Traits. With optimal traits ( Shadowbind, Chaotic Darkness, Master of Shadows) in all three relics, this is competitive with other legendaries on this tier. Otherwise, consider it a Tier 3 legendary.

3.3. Tier 3 Legendaries

1. Lana'thel's Lament: this legendary requires that you use Death and Decay as often as possible in order to maximize its benefits.
2. Rattlegore Bone Legplates: these have interesting potential, as they allows you to save more Runic Power to Death Strike only when needed. While powerful, they are not as strong as the previous legendaries, though they should still be worn if they are the only ones acquired.
3. Rethu's Incessant Courage: this is an underwhelming item that has to compete for a slot with Service of Gorefiend; the heal is pretty weak, and it is overall not an item to pursue, but using it is better than using an off-spec or a situational legendary.
4. Aggramar's Stride: this provides a movement speed bonus, which can be useful for quality of life, but overall it provides no benefit from a tanking standpoint.

4. Loot Competition

Blood Death Knights use Plate Armor with Strength and Stamina as their main stats. Apart from other Blood Death Knights, they will also be competing for items with the classes listed below:

Item Type	Competing Classes
Tier Tokens	Frost/Unholy Death Knights, Druids, Mages, and Rogues
Plate Armor	Frost/Unholy Death Knights, Paladins, and Warriors
Amulets Cloaks Rings	Everyone
Trinkets	Demon Hunters, Guardian Druids, Brewmaster Monks, Protection Paladins, and Protection Warriors

5. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 21 Jan. 2018: Fixed an issue regarding the description of Shackles of Bryandor.
• 28 Nov. 2017: Updated the Set Bonus recommendations and legendary rankings slightly.
• 28 Aug. 2017: Updated the legendary ranking.
• 13 Jun. 2017: Updated the wording on Skullflower's Haemostasis to mention the interaction with Dancing Rune Weapon, and also rephrased the evaluation of Soulflayer's Corruption.
• 12 Jun. 2017: Added Tier 20 Set Bonus recommendations and updated the legendary item ranking (including adding the new Patch 7.2.5 legendaries).
• 17 Apr. 2017: Removed an outdated mention about Blood Death Knights preferring Mastery.
• 28 Mar. 2017: Updated the legendary ranking slightly.
• 27 Mar. 2017: Added Rethu's Incessant Courage to the list of legendary items and reviewed the ranking.
• 09 Jan. 2017: Updated the legendary item ranking.
• 10 Nov. 2016: Added some Return to Karazhan and Trial of Valor items to the BiS list.
• 16 Oct. 2016: Revamped the BiS list.
• 21 Sep. 2016: Added BiS recommendations.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 20 Jul. 2016: Updated tier set bonus recommendations.
• 19 Jul. 2016: Updated trinket recommendations, to fix a miscalculation regarding the value of Unending Hunger.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.