T's Death Knight Guide 4.2: Blood Rotation

DISCLAIMER: This guide is not updated to 3.1 yet. Please be patient.

If you have not done so already, PLEASE read the Basic Combat chapter.

**From this point forward, all calculations are not including Butchery, which almost every talent build, regardless of spec, will include. Honestly, that math is just too complicated, I'll leave that to EJ.

Here's my basic Blood build.

Phase 1

B B F F U U
RP: 0

Apply Diseases, as always.

B B F F U U
RP: 20

Next, with a Blood build, we can replace our Blood Strikes with the much more devastating Heart Strike. Use this twice to burn both Blood Runes.

B B F F U U
RP: 40

Finally, use Obliterate with those last 2 Runes.

B B F D U D
RP: 55

See those "Ds" instead of the usual "F" and "U?" Those are Death Runes from the Death Rune Mastery talent. We'll get to those later.

Don't burn that Runic Power just yet. We want to save our RP for a full-charge Dancing Rune Weapon. If you have a Sudden Doom proc, by all means, use it.

For a shorter fight, go ahead and use Death Coil. However, this rotation will assume a longer engagement.

By now, our Runes from the initial casts are coming off cooldown. For simplicity's sake, and because timing may vary, I'm going to list all Runes as active for now. Time to begin the second half of our rotation.

Phase 2

B B F D U D
RP: 55

With the Annihilation and Epidemic talents, our diseases should still be active and have plenty of life left in them. What to do with those Frost and Unholy Runes, though? Obliterate!

B B D D D D
RP: 70

Once again, the Frost and Unholy Runes become Death Runes.

Now we can use those two Blood Runes for more Heart Strikes.

B B D D D D
RP: 90

What about those Death Runes? They are treated as wild cards, and will be used as ANY Rune. So, two more Heart Strikes!

B B D F D U
RP: 100

Now, bust out that Rune Weapon. With 100 RP, it will last 30 full seconds. DRW matches all of your attacks, and will gain any buffs you do, so feel free to burn trinkets and use Hysteria.

With the 3 minute cooldown, use Death Coils until DRW is almost off cooldown, then start saving RP again.

Granted, there are more complicated rotations out here that maximize the potential of DRW, but this is just a basic guide. Feel free to search around for more in-depth rotations.

At this point, there are several more phases to the rotation. Just be sure to reapply diseases when necessary, use Obliterate when the Runes are available to create Death Runes and always use Death Runes for Heart Strike.