Wrath Classic (WotLK) Blood Death Knight DK Leveling Guide

Death Knights are the newest class edition to Wrath Classic. Blood DK’s have incredibly strong self-healing, making them one of the easiest specs in the game to level. It might not be the fastest, but is practically immortal, so can easily solo things that many classes cannot touch.

We also have a Wrath Classic (WotLK) Unholy Death Knight DK leveling guide.

Guide Contents

Best Blood DK Talent Build for Leveling

Here are some great leveling specs for Blood DK. Keep in mind that they’re fully focused on leveling / open-world content and are not really ideal for raiding or PvP.

Blood/Unholy Leveling Build

This is a relatively standard Blood DK build that picks up Heart Strike and Corpse Explosion.

Major Glyphs:

You can also use Glyph of Death Grip instead for chain-pulling mobs.

Minor Glyphs:

Blood/Frost Leveling Build

This is a Blood DK build that utilizes Dancing Rune Weapon for leveling.

Major Glyphs:

Glyph of Death Strike
Glyph of Disease
Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon is the best for this build, but requires Northrend Ink.

Others:

You can also use Glyph of Death Grip instead for chain-pulling mobs.
Glyph of Death and Decay is also very good but requires Northrend Ink.

Minor Glyphs:

Best Blood DK Glyphs for Leveling

These are the notable glyphs to use for Blood Death Knights while leveling.

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Death Grip
Glyph of Death Strike
Glyph of Disease
Glyph of Death and Decay (Requires Northrend Ink)
Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon (If specced into it, requires Northrend Ink)

Minor Glyphs

Glyph of Pestilence – The only minor glyph that can slightly increase your DPS.
Glyph of Horn of Winter – Allows for some slack for buffing.
Glyph of Raise Dead – Removed the Corpse Dust requirement to summon your ghoul.
Glyph of Corpse Explosion

Blood DK Leveling Rotation

Keep in mind that this full priority rotation will generally not be used while fighting normal mobs.

Single-Target Skill Priority:

Use Icy Touch & Plague Strike to keep diseases up on the target(s).
Use Pestilence to refresh diseases and spread them to additional targets. (If using Disease Glyph)
Use Heart Strike to spend your Blood Runes on 1 or 2 targets. Use Blood Boil if there are 3 more targets.
Use Death Strike to spend your Frost and Unholy runes.
Use Rune Strike when you’re about to cap Runic Power.
Use Blood Strike to spend any Blood Runes, which will ctivate and maintain Blade Barrier.
Cast Death and Decay.

AoE Skill Priority:

Cast Death and Decay.
Use Icy Touch & Plague Strike to apply diseases.
Use Pestilence to spread diseases to additional targets.
Spam Blood Boil
Use Death Strike when needed.

DPS Cooldowns:

Unholy Frenzy
Empower Rune Weapon (Trainable at Level 75)
Blood Tap

Survivability:

Additional Skills:

Raise Dead – Don’t forget about your ghoul friend!
Horn of Winter – This is your “Battle Shout.” Keep the buff up at all times.

Unholy DK Presences

As an Blood DK, you’ll generally want to be in Blood Presence for the extra damage while leveling. If you’re going to do a dungeon or an elite mob, then you can switch to Frost Presence.

New Skills While Leveling

Level 72

Raise Ally (NEW) – This is a mini-battle res. Not really useful for leveling unless in a group.
Blood Boil (Rank 3)

Level 73

Icy Touch (Rank 4)
Death and Decay (Rank 3)

Level 75

Empower Rune Weapon (NEW) New DPS cooldown.
Horn of Winter (Rank 2)
Plague Strike (Rank 5)
Death Strike (Rank 4)

Level 78

Blood Boil (Rank 4)
Icy Touch (Rank 5)

Best Addons for Leveling

Questie

Questie has become an essential component of WoW Classic. It will show every single quest, quest mob, and quest item on the map for you. It also has some extra features, such as announcing to the party when a quest has been completed, which is really useful when leveling with other people.

RestedXP

Without a doubt, this is the best leveling addon out right now. It’s a complete leveling guide for all classes and both factions. It now also includes 1-80 for Wrath Classic.

Just having an in-game addon to follow while leveling is already pretty useful, but having one that contains a fully tested and optimized route is on another level.

What makes RestedXP the best is that’s been made by the fastest leveling speedrunners in WoW Classic. These guys speed-level on Twitch for fun. They’ve regularly leveled in record time while on fresh servers, all while only following the in-game guide. The proof is in the pudding.

With that said, it’s a paid guide. Whether or not it’s worth your money is up to you.

Best Leveling Professions for Blood DK

The absolute best professions to use while leveling any character are Mining and Herbalism. You’ll be able to mine nodes and gather herbs while questing, making a ton of extra gold in the process. This is especially true on the release of an expansion as the prices for ore and herbs will be very high.

Once you get to level 80, or if you don’t really need gold, then I recommend picking up Jewelcrafting and Engineering. These are the two likely BiS professions for DPS classes in Wrath Classic.

Jewelcrafting + Blacksmithing is also a great combo because you can socket the exclusive epic gems from Jewelcrafting into the extra socket provided by Blacksmithing.

Looking for more Wrath Classic guides? Check out these:

WotLK Classic Dual Spec Guide – Cost and Level Requirement

Profession Leveling Guides: