Born anew through the desecration brought by the Lich King, those with an affinity for hemomancy and vampirism have chosen the path of Blood, dedicating themselves to becoming unstoppable juggernauts. Such profane creatures sap the vital lifeforce of their foes, outlasting any enemy that crosses their path, healing themselves from even the most dire injuries.
Blood Death Knights are known as the most potent self-sustain specialization in the entire game, bringing a vast array of defensive tools in order to keep their enemies busy while their allies devastate them.
Blood Death Knight Tank in Cataclysm
Blood Death Knights in Cataclysm received a massive boost to their overall performance, raising all the way to the top of the Tanking specializations. Their overall survivability has been massively increased, with their main self-healing ability, Death Strike, receiving an overall massive boost in terms of importance and performance. They also gained an absorption effect, Blood Shield, which can infinitely stack based on the healing provided by Death Strike, adding an even more powerful defensive layer to their already overloaded defensive kit. Their rotation has been massively simplified, no longer needing to worry about disease upkeep with the new Outbreak spell, while also receiving an overall buff to their Blood Boil ability, which increases their overall AoE capabilities.
They maintain the same defensive cooldowns, with Vampiric Blood, Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell, and Will of the Necropolis remaining staples of their kit.
Blood Death Knight Tank Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
- Great Threat Generation
Does Icy Touch spam remind you of anything? Well, luckily, Blood Death Knight receives an overall boost to its Threat Generation in Cataclysm, being even better at holding aggroo!
- Powerful Defensive Tools
Blood Death Knights have a large variety of defensive-oriented active and passive effects in their toolkit, making them one of the most sturdy tanking specializations. Not only that they gain a new absorption effect, Blood Shield, but they also retain all of their previous defensive cooldowns such as Vampiric Blood, Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell, and Will of the Necropolis.
- Extremely Powerful Self-Healing Mechanics
Blood Death Knights retain most of their self-healing mechanics from WotLk, with all of them receiving slight improvements. Their self-healing is so strong that it is one of the reasons why they are classed as the most powerful specialization in terms of survivability.
- Simplified Playstyle
Compared to the previous iterration of Blood Death Knight, the Cataclysm version is much more simple, with many of the difficult to manage mechanics from WotLK being removed. The current version only needs to utilize Blood Presence, having a much easier way of upkeeping diseases while also benefiting from vastly empowered abilities.
Weaknesses
- Gear Dependent
Just like with the other tanking specializations, proper equipment is crucial for success. Blood Death Knight is rather weak without the appropriate gear, requiring a considerable amount of gear to showcase its true potential.
- Lacks Mobility
Compared to other Tanking specializations that have access to various mobility tools, Blood Death Knight seriously lacks in this department, making it one of the most immobile tanks.
- Weak Utility
While on paper Blood Death Knight seems to bring multiple utility tools, the main issue it faces is that it brings tools that share the same slot with other similar effects. This means that the unique effects brought by a Blood Death Knight such as Scarlet Fever and Abomination’s Might don’t stack with any other similar effects. Nonetheless, they bring a battle resurrection spell, Raise Ally, which is always an invaluable tool to any raid group.
Best Races
Horde
The Horde is typically known for stronger PvE racials than the Alliance, however, that is not the case when it comes to tanking. Most of their racial effects are much better for the role of a DPS, with only a few racial effects being good for tanking. The strongest available race for Blood Death Knight is Tauren as it has access to Endurance, followed by Troll with Berserking and Regeneration, and Orc with Blood Fury and Axe Specialization. The rest of the races don’t have any specific tanking racial effects aside from the situational ones such as Arcane Resistance or Shadow Resistance.
- Tauren: Endurance, Cultivation, Nature Resistance, War Stomp
- Troll: Berserking, Da Voodoo Shuffle, Regeneration, Beast Slaying, Bow Specialization, Throwing Specialization.
- Orc: Blood Fury, Axe Specialization, Hardiness, Command.
- Goblin: Time is Money, Rocket Barrage, Rocket Jump, Best Deals Anywhere, Better Living Through Chemistry.
- Blood Elf: Arcane Torrent, Arcane Resistance, Arcane Affinity.
- Undead: Will of the Forsaken, Cannibalize, Shadow Resistance, Underwater Breathing.
Alliance
While Alliance is typically known for its PvP-oriented racial effects, when it comes to tanking, Alliance has a surprisingly higher variety of viable racial effects in PvE than Horde. Dwarf and Night Elf are the strongest options for tanking since they have access to Stoneform, Frost Resistance, Mace Specialization, Quickness, and Nature Resistance but Human and Draenei are also decent picks. Humans are useful for their expertise racial effects while Draenei have access to Heroic Presence which provides Hit Rating, Shadow Resistance, and Gift of the Naaru which acts as a strong HoT effect.
- Dwarf: Stoneform, Explorer, Mace Specialization, Gun Specialization, Frost Resistance.
- Night Elf: Elusiveness, Quickness, Shadowmeld, Wisp Spirit, Nature Resistance.
- Human: Sword Specialization, Mace Specialization, Will to Survive, The Human Spirit, Diplomacy.
- Draenei: Gift of the Naaru, Heroic Presence, Shadow Resistance, Gemcutting.
- Worgen: Darkflight, Flayer, Viciousness, Abberation.
- Gnome: Shortblade Specialization, Engineering Specialization, Escape Artist, Expansive Mind, Arcane Resistance.
Conclusion
We hope this guide has been able to help you decide if PvE Blood Death Knight is the class/spec for you. Make sure to check out our other sections, such as talents, gear, gems, etc, to get more information on how to improve your performance as a Blood Death Knight in Cataclysm!
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