Blood Death Knight

The priority

1. Vampiric Blood — before a big hit
2. Icebound Fortitude — before a big hit, if vampiric blood is down
3. Death Strike — when you’re low
4. Dancing Rune Weapon — when it is ready
5. Death Strike — before runic power caps
6. Death and Decay — when it’s not down
7. Death’s Caress — when bone shield is low and runes are short
8. Marrowrend — when bone shield is under 6 stacks or ending
9. Death Strike — with runic power to spare
10. Blood Boil — when it has a charge
11. Heart Strike — as your rune spender

Common mistakes

• Letting Bone Shield drop or run low.
• Capping Runic Power instead of spending it on Death Strike.
• Using Marrowrend at 8+ stacks of Bone Shield instead of Heart Strike.
• Pressing Vampiric Blood after the big hit.

What’s simplified

• Each turn is one decision (about one global cooldown). Cooldowns and buff durations are converted to turns, so timing is approximate.
• Priority order follows SimulationCraft’s default priority list for this build, simplified to the abilities modeled here. Costs, cooldowns and effects come from Blizzard’s spell data. Rule wording is our own.
• Runes: you have 6 and get 1 back each turn. Heart Strike and Death and Decay cost 1, Marrowrend 2.
• Runic Power: Heart Strike +15, Marrowrend +20, Death’s Caress and Death and Decay +10. Death Strike costs 45.
• Bone Shield: Marrowrend gives 3 stacks, Death’s Caress 1, up to 10. Getting hit removes a stack about one turn in three. It lasts 20 turns.
• Big hits and low health are scripted moments in each lesson, not a full damage model.
• Cooldowns in turns: Blood Boil 2 charges every 5, Death and Decay 20 (lasts 7), Death’s Caress 4, Dancing Rune Weapon 80, Vampiric Blood 60, Icebound Fortitude 80.

Sources

• SimulationCraft: Default action priority list (Oct 20, 2026)
• SimulationCraft: Spell data dump, build 12.1.5.70391 (Oct 16, 2026)
• Blizzard Entertainment: Spell tooltips and Game Data API (spells) (Oct 13, 2026)
• Warcraft Secrets: Patch 12.1.5 content update notes (class changes) (Oct 13, 2026)

Deathbringer, following SimulationCraft’s Deathbringer priority. Reaper’s Mark, Exterminate and San’layn are not modeled. Reviewed Oct 20, 2026. A training aid, not a damage simulator.