The Death Knight Blood tree is known for doing one thing well and that’s melee damage. A lot of the talents affect the Death Knight’s melee capabilities (along with a lot of the abilities found in the Blood line). If you spec heavily into this line you can expect to deal some massive melee damage but still keep the utility that the Death Knight offers. It is important to note that Death Knights can still tank no matter what tree they are spec’d in, so do not be put off if you’re planning on doing some tanking in the near future.

Below is a list of all of the talents along with some recommendations about each for PvE, PvP, and in general. These guides differ from out and out talent builds as they explain what each ability does in real terms. No fake language, no copying/pasting what Blizzard tells you in the game, but instead actual helpful advice along with some tips & tricks on each talent.

In reading this guide you’ll often find the maximum value of a talent listed (you should rarely consider not taking a talent to its max level). To find out each ranks value on a given statistic you can usually use a simple formula of 2/4/6/8/10 20/40/60/80/100 for 5 ranks and 3/6/9 and 25/50/75 for 3 ranks. If there is a time where the maximum rank might not be suggested then each rank will be listed.

To help from repeating get it or don't, we use a color coding system on the names. The colors are as follows:

- By all means, getting this talent will be a good idea most of the time. These will be your passive damage/stat boosters and active abilities that really rock.

- These are "talents". They're ok to get under most circumstances and can be avoided, usually.

- These are talents that you should only get in certian situations. Before there were talents like Wand Specialization that made no sense to get at all, but with the Death Knight most talents are useful for one thing or another. Look at the description before getting a red talent.

Whenever you kill an enemy that gives you XP or honor you’ll get 10/20 Runic Power and you’ll also just regenerate 1 or 2 (depending on the rank) Runic Power while in combat. It’s a two point talent that is good if you use a lot of Runic Power and do a lot of PvP/PvE where killing comes into play. You’re going to want to get Subversion for sure, so you need to put two points elsewhere and this is perfect. If you do a lot of tanking Blade Barrier may be the better choice.

Increases the critical strike chance of Blood Strike, Heart Strike, and Obliterate while decreasing your threat while in Blood and Unholy Presence. Get it. Seriously. Are we going to argue this talent anyway? You need this talent. Just get it. Not going far into Blood? Who cares, pick this up. For three points the DPS you’ll get from this is well worth it.

It can increase your Parry chance by up to 10% for 10 seconds when both Blood Runes are down. Are you a tank? Then this is a good talent. Are you not a tank? You might still want to get it. 10% to ignore damage is pretty high and your Blood Runes will be down A LOT.

This is a weird talent. You’ll get 1-5 (depending on the ranks) attack power for every 180 armor value you have. Having 10k armor will give you 55 to 275 attack power so it’s worth it to get for DPS.

Gives you a chance after getting struck by ranged or melee to generate 5 runic power on the next 1/2/3 melee hits. It’s ok, nothing special. If you use a lot of runic power (for tanking or the such) it’s pretty good. The effect can’t happen more than once every 20 seconds making it like a free 15 runic power every 20-30 seconds of combat. I wouldn’t get it, unless you needed Runic Power badly.

Increases damage with two-handed weapons by 2/4%. Simple, to the point. Get it for DPS.

Turns a Blood Rune into a 10% heal. GET IT. 10% of your health at level 80 is a lot of health and if you tank this is like a free potion. It may mess up your rotation a bit (plan for an ability to replace with if you need to use it) but it’s awesome.

Increases your chance to crit with everything by up to 5%. Again, this is an amazing talent that will really push your DPS up there.

Gives you an up to 100% (and you’re going to want that) chance when using Death Strike or Obliterate to turn your Frost and Unholy Runes into Death Runes. This means that those Runes can be used as anything. Get this talent! It’s amazing and can really open up a ton of possibilities.

Increases the health you’re healed up to 100% and lowers the cooldown all the way to 30 seconds at rank three. It's ok if you want to use Rune Tap more often, but Rune Tap also activates the Global Cooldown making using it a lot less desirable than it sounds. Keep your one point in Blood Tap unless you really need the healing.

Your parry chances equals taking 10-30% less damage with spells. Well, this is great for PvP and for tanking but general PvE not so much. Take it for PvP if you want, but you can leave this one behind.

Heals you whenever you kill a target worth XP or honor you'll ge healed up to 6% of your maximum health. Good for leveling up, but can otherwise be easily forgotten.

Increases the damage by 30% (and bonus damage from disease by 60%) for Blood and Heart Strike. Get this one for the damage increase to two common abilities.

Increases your Strength and Stamina by 6% and Expertise by 6. Get this ability because it’s going to give you DPS, health, and Expertise. Three things that you’re going to need.

Place a Mark of Blood on the enemy that makes the enemy heal its target by 4% of its health every hit for 20 seconds. Great raiding ability.

Requires five in Dark Conviction (which you should have) and gives you at 3% bonus to physical damage you deal for 30 seconds after dealing a critical strike and can stack up to 3 times. So basically if you crit a lot then you’ll be doing 9% bonus damage. Well worth it.

Your Blood Strikes and Hearth Strikes get a 50% while Obilterate gets a 100% chance to increase the raids attack power by 10% for 10 seconds and increases your strength by 2%. This is wonderful if you’re in groups or raids often.

This is a fun one. You’ll have a 3/6/9% chance to spawn 2-4 Bloodworms that will attack your enemies healing you for their damage for 20 seconds (or whenever they’re killed). They don't heal a lot. So it's kinda meh.

Hysteria will take a friendly unit and send it into a killing frenzy for 30 seconds which makes it deal 20% more physical damage but cause 1% of its health to be lost every second. In situations where the unit affected by this can be healed it's amazing. Get it for sure.

Heals up to 2% of the damage dealt by raid members and is probably not worth your time. If you hit for 1,000 damage then this will heal for (dun dun dun) 20 health. If you hit for 10,000 damage it will heal 200 health. If you hit for 100,000 health (over a period of time obviously) then you’ll get 2,000 health back. It can add up to a lot with a ton of raid members all healing themselves from it, or your group, or your battleground players. Get it for non-solo player for sure.

Your Blood Strikes and Heart Strikes have up to a 20% chance to make your next Death Coil consume no runic power and critical strike if you use it within 15 seconds. It’s an okay talent to have if you use Death Coil in your rotation a lot and can let you do a lot with Runic Power,.

A It’s an active talent that gives 50% more health from spells and effects for 20 seconds. 1 minute cooldown. Get this even if you’re not a tank. Why? Using this can really boost the amount that healers can heal you for. It's just "ok", though. Great if you're going to tank a lot, otherwise you can avoid.

Reduces your Anti-Magic Shells cooldown by 12 seconds and gives you 30% more armor when your health is below 35%. This is a pretty decent talent to have if you’re a tank, but the points can be spent elsewhere.

First of all, this is a melee attack so this will be added to your rotation. It only uses one Blood Rune, does 60% weapon damage plus 220 (when you first get it) plus 110 bous damage per disease and prevents the target from using haste effects for 10 seconds. So basically it does a good deal of damage, synergizes with diseases, but may not stop someone from running away, and only costs one Blood Rune? There is no reason not to get this.

Increases your critical strike damage in Blood Boil, Blood Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, and Obilterate by 35% at rank three. A very standard DPS talent and there is no reason not to get this for DPS.

When you are above 75% health you will deal 10% more damage and as an added boost it’ll increase your Expertise by 5. Get it.

Requires 50 Runic Power and will summon a Rune weapon to fight along side of you matching your attacks for 10 seconds plus 1 second per 5 additional Runic Power. Use this whenever you have FULL Runic Power and not a second before. It’ll really help boost your DPS and is a wonderful skill no matter what. I suggest getting this ability if you’re going to go that deep into Blood.

Return to the Talent Guide main page.