"How to solo", a Death Knight dungeonning guide.

CroyeTchor · Sep 25, 2024

Hello and welcome to this How to solo series of guides where I’ll give some explanations as to soloing dungeons for that sweet, sweet loot.

I’ve seen some comments recently that seem to underestimate the capacities of some classes and, as an altoholic, I felt like I needed to shed some light on the potential of those classes.

I’ll be going over every class over several threads and I’ll start by the Death Knight (alphabetical order ftw).

I’ll explain the following :

The basics of the class and what kind of playstyle you can adopt be they safer ones if you’re new to the class or more damage-focused builds once you get better gear and more experience, the pros and cons of the available specs and the viability of the class/specs
Interesting starter gear pre-dungeons
Which dungeons you will want to do for you BIS or other good pieces of gear
Where will the danger come from in said dungeons.

This guide is a PvE focused guide although the gear component of it can serve for PvP purposes.

I will generally not be considering broken elements of the game like https://www.wowhead.com/item=178769/infinitely-divisible-ooze unless the class needs it for soloing (looking at you Rogue, looking at you…)

With that out of the way let’s focus on Death Knights.

Part I : What does the class do ?
So for the purpose of soloing Death Knights have a clear superior specialization : Blood.

I’m not saying you cannot solo as Frost or Unholy, but since the TWW stat nerfs, you will have a tougher time doing so. I will go over those later though but for now let’s stick with the better of the three.

So Blood’s toolkit is very well rounded and only really lack a strong self-healing option outside of https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49998/death-strike which can only be used in combat since it requires Runic Power.

Blood uses two ressources : the aforementionned Runic Power and Runes.

Runes take 10 seconds to recharge upon use (affected by haste, for instance with 10% haste they only take 9.09/9.10 seconds) and up to three runes can recharge at once. You are capped at 6 runes and the abilities that use this ressource consume up to two and generate ruic power.

Runic power is your blue bar. It can go up to 100 baseline or 115 for Blood (up to 125 when talented). It kind of works like Warrior’s rage ressource except it is not generated by auto-attacks unless you pick https://www.wowhead.com/spell=221322/runic-attenuation (which seems to have around 50% chance to proc so around 30 runic power per minute) but only by abilities that consume runes.

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=206930/heart-strike is a damaging ability that requires 1 rune to be used and generates 15 runic power. It deals damage to two targets (affected by the talent https://www.wowhead.com/spell=316916/cleaving-strikes, see more below). This is the best damaging ability at your disposal since it does more damage per rune than https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195182/marrowrend while not having a cooldown like https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay. It also is a great AoE tool.
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195182/marrowrend is an ability that costs two runes and generate 20 runic power. It also grants you three charges of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=195181/bone-shield which increases your armor, stack up to 10 charges and loses a charge every time you are hit with a few seconds delay between each loss (this way you don’t go from 10 to 0 in 2 seconds when several mobs attack you). Extra charges does not increase the armor granted, it is always a flat percentage of your strength (100% as of writing this).
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay is a 10 seconds AoE DoT on a 15 seconds cooldown which costs 1 rune and grants 10 runic power. Even in single target situations you should use that spell despite it granting less runic power. The damage it deals is superior to https://www.wowhead.com/spell=206930/heart-strike and it is shadow damage thus ignoring armor. It won’t be up 100% of the time and bosses with a lot of movement can get out of it but it still is a nice damaging tool that truly shines in AoE scenarios.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil is another great AoE spell. It does a very solid amount of shadow damage (more than the full duration of https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay) while infecting enemies with a DoT (https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=55078/blood-plague ) which heals you for the damage it deals. This spell costs nothing, grants no runic power and has a 7.5 seconds colldown affected by haste. This is a very solid spell, use it on cooldown unless you have more than three runes. This is also not target capped making it an extremely powerful tool.
If Blood DK was Laurel, https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike would be Hardy. This spell will be your main runic power spender and your main way of healing. This ablity is your hardest hitting one and activates your mastery (https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=77513/mastery-blood-shield) but we’ll get on that later. There are several talents that increases its effectiveness either via extra healing or cost reduction (https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=374277/improved-death-strike and https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=219786/ossuary but we’ll talk more about these later). I consider both talents to be mandatory so your average https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike should cost 35 runic power and heal you for 26.25% of the damage you took in the last 5 seconds or a minimum of 7.4% of your maximum health. Generally speaking that 7.4% minimum will be what you get. To be healed any more than that would mean you took over 28.19% of your health over the last 5 seconds and let me tell you right away : if you are taking over 5.64% of your maximum health as damage every second, the extra healing will not matter that much unless the mob(s) is (are) almost dead already. On an ilvl 84 DK, 5.64% means around 160 health per second so yeah, that hurts and you are not keeping up with this damage for 2 minutes without cooldowns.

Those 5 abilities are the ones you will be using the most often during a fight. There are other abilities with a longer cooldown that are a requirement to get yourself out of sticky situations or just general DPS. I’ll ignore the niche talents here and will explain them later quickly since putting them here would simply add confusion.

I’ll start with the tamest one : https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=46584/raise-dead will summon a pet ghoul for 1 minute on a 2 minutes cooldown. Very solid DPS spell, use it against bosses as it will lower the amount of time you have to stay alive (which you will soon come to realize is not that easy to do for long fights on DKs) but also don’t forget it on trash. This thing can be a life saver -the irony is not lost on me- so use it. It is a talent but https://www.wowhead.com/spell=316916/cleaving-strikes is locked behind it so you will have acces to a ghoul a lot of the time.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=55233/vampiric-blood is one of your main defensives. It increases your maximum health by 30% (https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike heals you based on a percentage of your maximum health so this is also a straight 30% boost to it) and your healing and absorbs (https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike, https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil, https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell and the shield from your mastery, more on that later). This spell has a 1.5 minute cooldown so you generally will not be able to use it twice in a battle. A solid oh shit button.
On the topic of oh shit buttons : https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49039/lichborne is perhaps the best one at your disposal. It removes charm, fear and sleep effects (like https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=7744/will-of-the-forsaken ) for a duration of 10 seconds and increases your Leech by 6%. What’s that ? Not very impressive you say ? Well the thing is, this spell transforms you into an undead. What that means is that you, as an entity, are now considered as an undead and thus are affected by abilities mentionning special effects on Undead creatures (no physical transformation though, sorry fellas). And that is a big deal because of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=47541/death-coil which is otherwise a bad spell for Blood since it does barely more than https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil without an added DoT and while costing 30 runic power. That said, when targeting a friendly undead target, it heals said target for a big amount. So this spell is a great combo with https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49039/lichborne since you can cast it and use https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=47541/death-coil on yourself for enormous amounts of healing. (I’m not gonna cover https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=47541/death-coil later since its only use is this interaction -or the occasionnal kill on a fleeing humanoid since it has a 30 meters range-). I will put a macro that helps for the self-targeting part a bit later and you should use it since it takes away some pressure (which you will have if you need to use that spell).
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48792/icebound-fortitude is your last oh shit button. This one is a talent but I highly reccomend it. It makes you immune to stuns and reduces the damage you take by 30% both for 8 seconds. Not much to say on this one, stun immunity is invaluable in TBC dungeons and the damage reduction is quite good too.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell is a magic damage absorbing spell that lasts 5 seconds and has a 1 minute cooldown. https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=205727/anti-magic-barrier is a talent that reduces its cooldown by 20 seconds, increases its duration by 2 seconds and the damage it absorbs by 40%. This talent doesn’t have too much of an opportunity cost since it is one of two talent to access https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48263/veteran-of-the-third-war , more on that later. https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell is best used against hard hitting abilities of certain bosses or in some other cases like the mages from https://www.wowhead.com/beta/zone=2367/old-hillsbrad-foothills . A good spell overall, keep it in mind and it might save you from a death.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=45524/chains-of-ice is a slow. It reduces the target’s speed by 70% for 8 seconds which is excellent. It does cost a rune but it also grants 10 runic power. Most bosses are immune to slows though so be mindful of that. While the spell is quite good, DKs don’t benefit from it nearly as much as a class like Mage of Warrior could. Our self-healing comes from hitting stuff and unless you are a veteran with https://www.wowhead.com/beta/item=173125/revitalizing-jewel-doublet there are no ability with a mid-range cooldown that you can reliably stall for (like a mage barrier). That said you can use the slow on a mob in a pack, LoS the mobs and have one less mob for a few seconds. This can take some pressure away from you and allow you to get some good damage on the other mobs meaning you will artificially stagger the damage (Brewmaster Monks been real quiet since they learned that). If used skillfully this is a solid damage reduction ability. It also prevent mobs from running away too quickly so it might avoid you having to fight two packs at once.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48265/deaths-advance is a movement speed increase. It grants you a extra 35% running speed, makes you unable to go below 100% speed (rarely comes into play since https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=38767/daze doesn’t affect you as a tank) on a 45 seconds cooldown. Honestly in combat this is not that good of a mobility tool and getting some https://www.wowhead.com/beta/item=173126/straddling-jewel-doublet will do the same for 100% of the time. It is nice and it allows to run dungeons faster but it’s nothing miraculous.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49576/death-grip pulls a target to you with a 30 meters range. Nice for pulling since it allows you to start DPSing the first mob while the others run to you, allowing for staggered damage as explained earlier. Pair with https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=45524/chains-of-ice for maximum effect.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=56222/dark-command is your taunt. Useful for pulling from far but https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49576/death-grip outclasses it since it will rarely (never) be on cooldown when you pull a pack.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=47528/mind-freeze is a ranged intterupt (15 meters) on a short 15 seconds cooldown. It is a talent and it requires two other talents to get but certain situations allow for you to have those two extra points and it can be excellent. The https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=378848/coldthirst talent is not worth it though.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=61999/raise-ally will not be useful for soloing by definiton. It is a battle rez, can find use if you do https://www.wowhead.com/beta/zone=3790/auchenai-crypts once in group finder for https://www.wowhead.com/beta/item=29337/the-exarchs-protector but other than that it’s an useless button.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50977/death-gate summons a portal to https://www.wowhead.com/beta/zone=7679/acherus-the-ebon-hold on a 1 minute cooldown. This will either take you to Legion Acherus if you’ve done the questline or to the old one in https://www.wowhead.com/beta/zone=139/eastern-plaguelands . Using the spell again in Acherus will make the portal teleport you to your previous location. A great use of this spell is to reset instances. You do this by casting it, going to Acherus, resestting the instance(s), casting the spell again and being teleported back to your now-resetted instance. The spell costs one rune which won’t come into play (unless you want to cast it right after a fight) and funnily enough also grants 10 runic power. This teleport is generally useful for going around but becomes a necessity for the next spell.
https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=53428/runeforging allows the Death Knight to put special enchants on his weapons. It can only be done at a Runeforge which can be found in Acherus (I believe there are other runeforges in the game but I’m not sure we can access them and I’m 100% sure Acherus’ ones are easier to access).
So said enchants are : https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=62158/rune-of-the-stoneskin-gargoyle which increases Strenght, Stamina and Armor by 5% ; https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=326977/rune-of-unending-thirst which increases your movement speed by 5% and grants you 5% of your health as healing and 10% extra haste/movement speed for 10 seconds when you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor ; https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=53344/rune-of-the-fallen-crusader which grants you a chance to get a proc that heals you for 4% of your max health and get a 15% strenght increase for 15 seconds. From my experience, you can generally manage to keep the buff up around 50% of the time depending on haste and RNG ; finally, https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=53343/rune-of-razorice makes your physical attacks deal 2% extra damage as frost damage and increases the vulnerabilty to frost of the target by up to 15%.
As to which rune is the better one, I’d say https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=53343/rune-of-razorice is the clear worst since we have basically no frost damage and the 2% extra just doesn’t cut it, https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=326977/rune-of-unending-thirst is quite fun although almost useless against bosses and not that good on packs (it does scales quite decently with gear though but it’s still situationnal). https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=53344/rune-of-the-fallen-crusader suffers from a recent nerf from 6% heal to 4% and to be fair you don’t get that much value out of it. I already wasn’t the biggest fan of it on Blood before and while I’ll admit the damage part of it is the best available at our level, it just isn’t that consistent and the defensive part of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=62158/rune-of-the-stoneskin-gargoyle is just too valuable. On the topic of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=62158/rune-of-the-stoneskin-gargoyle , This is the best rune at level 20 since we basically get a 5% extra damage (not exactly true with attack power enchants but close enough) 100% of the time, the 5% armor is nice but the 5% stamina means, well, more health, but also more effective https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike. The damage being more reliable is a nice bonus and while you may lose around 2% DPS on average you’ll make up on it big time by the added survivability.
Finally the most important ability of a Death Knight has to be by far https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=127344/corpse-exploder . Making the corpse of any given boss explode when he does not drop the piece of loot you want brings a sweet revenge. Get this ability if you are serious about playing a DK. No need to say more.

Now for the passives I haven’t mentionned and optionnal/useful talents :

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=219786/ossuary increases your maximum runic power by 10 and most importantly reduces the cost of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike by 5 when you have at least 5 charges of https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195181/bone-shield up. On the Blood tree it is the best talent that isn’t 100% required (being https://www.wowhead.com/spell=206930/heart-strike, https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195182/marrowrend, https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=55233/vampiric-blood ). I would advise to pick this talent since no other gives you as much in terms of both DPS and survivability. It also makes Blood’s gameplay more interesting which is a plus. Try to not wait too much between pulls so as to keep your https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195181/bone-shield stacks high enough. It will increase both your DPS and survivability greatly.
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=374721/blood-fortification is a Blood specific passive that increases Stamina by 30%. You get it baseline so no worries.
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=316916/cleaving-strikes make your https://www.wowhead.com/spell=206930/heart-strike hit up to 5 targets when you’re in the area of your https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay and said effect lasts 4 seconds after you left it. That means you can get close to 100% uptime on this making this talent absolutely incredible in AoE situations.
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48263/veteran-of-the-third-war is mandatory. It increases you Stamina by a further 20%. That makes https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike more effective and more HP is always good.
To get https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48263/veteran-of-the-third-war you have to pick either https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=205727/anti-magic-barrier or https://www.wowhead.com/spell=374265/unholy-ground which are both useful talents. https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=205727/anti-magic-barrier reduces the cooldown of https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell by 20 seconds, increases its duration by 2 seconds and the damage it absorbs by 40%. Ths talent is amazing in https://www.wowhead.com/zone=2367/old-hillsbrad-foothills when donig the escort part since there is a lot of magic-using mobs and you don’t have much downtime. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=374265/unholy-ground increases your haste by 5% when in https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay which, while decent in itself since haste is so useful to Blood DKs, might not be your first choice if it wasn’t for https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48263/veteran-of-the-third-war. That said, the 5% haste is up when https://www.wowhead.com/spell=316916/cleaving-strikes thus making it a good pick in AoE scenarios where there isn’t a lot of magic damage or not that much damage to begin with.
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=221322/runic-attenuation grants your auto-attacks a chance to give you 3 runic power when they hit. You will get roughly 30 runic power per minute with this talent (depending on haste or RNG) so just below one extra https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike per minute which is not that good. You will only get this talent in niche situations where https://www.wowhead.com/spell=316916/cleaving-strikes is not needed and you want https://www.wowhead.com/spell=47528/mind-freeze for some boss mechanic.

Outside of these talents there is generally no real use for most other talents. I’ll give bonus points to https://www.wowhead.com/spell=111673/control-undead for being a flavourful and enjoyable ability and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=327574/sacrificial-pact which can sometimes be useful on damage-heavy fights but has to compete with https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48263/veteran-of-the-third-war and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48792/icebound-fortitude which is tough competiton to beat.

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=207167/blinding-sleet is a sort of AoE https://www.wowhead.com/spell=2094/blind combined with an AoE slow. Good to get out of sticky situations in the open world but and honestly decent AoE crowd control but it generally isn’t worth the two talent points especially since https://www.wowhead.com/spell=316916/cleaving-strikes has more value in AoE.

Now for the mastery. (https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=77513/mastery-blood-shield increases your attack power and grants a shield that protects you from physical attacks when you use https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike. For a more in-depth analysis I’ll link this mastery guide https://xpoff.com/threads/wow-tww-a-mastery-breakdown.100333/ , it’s quite conveniently the first mastery in the list so you wont have to search.

Well your rotation will look something like this :

For bosses you want to engage with https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195182/marrowrend or https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay if it is a duo of bosses (for instance https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17826/swamplord-muselek )

Then you will spam https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195182/marrowrend until you have 10 charges of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=195181/bone-shield, it is important you try to not use this ability when you are at 8-10 charges as it is a loss os DPS and runic power, thus a loss of self healing as well. I would advise using it whenever you are at 7 charges (unless the fight is almost over and you need a break before next pull) since you always want https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=219786/ossuary to be active and there is a lot of CC in TBC dungeons so you might enjoy the safety of those charges.

You can cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay as an opener if you want extra DPS, as a matter of fact it is the best opener if you have remaining charges of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=195181/bone-shield from the previous pull.

You always want to be at 3 runes or less since being at any more means you pass out on valuable rune recovery so don’t be afraid to be rune-straved. That said you do not want to spend your runic power as you get it. https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike is your most reliable source of healing so you want to be careful when using it since you cannot generate that much runic ower at level 20. This ability will take priority over any other when you need healing or to burst down a low HP target. Do not waste runic power though, you should never reach the 125 cap unless you are at both an high runic power and have close to max runes (which shouldn’t happen that often).

After pull, your next priority will be to cast https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil since it is your hardest hitting ability when taking the DoT in consideration and it brings a nice extra self healing. This spell has no drawback so use it on cooldown unless you are over 3 runes or near runic power cap. It even has two charges so you should almost never be in a situation where you wasted some recharge time due to needing some healing.

So to put it simply :

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195182/marrowrend (and sometimes https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay) on pull. Spam https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195182/marrowrend until you have at least 7-8 charges of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=195181/bone-shield.
Use https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil on cooldown
Use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=206930/heart-strike to spend runes unless you have below 7 charges of https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=195181/bone-shield.
Use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay on cooldown if you can afford it since it deals a bit more than https://www.wowhead.com/spell=206930/heart-strike.

And you got a basic Blood rotation at level 20.

That said, this rotation will often not be enough to keep you alive at least during early gearing.

If you have to use a big cooldown, I would advise using https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=55233/vampiric-blood since, having only a 1.5 minute cooldown (as opposed to the other 2’s 2 minutes CD) you may have a chance at using it another time if the fight drags on and you need it again. It alos doesn’t have any CC-breaking component to it so it is less generally useful. Keeping an high enough runic power is invaluable for this ability since you will get more value out of it if you can use more https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike.

Using https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48792/icebound-fortitude will be in most cases to prevent big damage from an ability you can predict or to get out of a poorly timed stun stun (like against https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17862/captain-skarloc ). Using it when you already are at 20% health will rarely save you. Use this spell proactively or in reaction to a long stun. As a side note, https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell has more or less the same uses since it doesn’t last that long.

Finally the https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49039/lichborne and https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=47541/death-coil combo will be your biggest healing and has uses against fear effects mostly (charm and sleep being generally less common in TBC dungeons). You need to have some ruic power (or at least some runes) before using it because the 6% Leech by itself won’t save you. You need to be able to cast at least two https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=47541/death-coil (f the first one crits, nice) and I would advise using another one just before https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49039/lichborne ends even if you are at 80% health. This way you’ll save a lot of runic power on https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike later on.

A good Blood DK will know how to play with these cooldowns. The class relies on them so often for soloing that they are almost a part of our rotation so don’t just ignore them.

For trash/AoE the rotation is similar except you start with https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay and use as many https://www.wowhead.com/spell=206930/heart-strike as you can. As always use https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil on cooldown, it’s crazy good in AoE.

Honestly we have so much going for AoE with Blood that your DPS will almost increase by 100% per target since almost all our abilities functon in AoE. This number is not quite true, your auto-attacks, https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49998/death-strike and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195182/marrowrend are single-target but you do see a crazy damage increase.

Finally, we’ll have a quick look at secondaries. In my opinion, haste/versatility is the way to go. You want some crit and some mastery for sure but they bring less compared to the first two. Haste allows for more runes, thus more runic power thus more damage and survivability. In terms of damage mitigation/damage increase versatility is overall superior to mastery since mastery doesn’t reduce magic damage but as I said you can get some mastery since it doesn’t just add-up to versa but both multiply each other’s effect. Crit is good but don’t worry about it since TBC socketed gear has a bunch of it baseline. If you want to stack a stat, do so with haste, you’ll find you gameplay much easier.

Part II : Pre-dungeon gearing
So first of all you can grab some ilvl 84 gear from https://www.wowhead.com/npc=28512/quartermaster-ozorg in Acherus. Then I would advise to do all the BFA rares you can following https://xpoff.com/threads/level-84-starter-gear-from-bfa-rares.99155/ by @Stim since all of this gear can proc sockets. Special mention to https://www.wowhead.com/item=161113/incessantly-ticking-clock which is a very good trinket that procs often and grants a decent amount of secondaries when it does.

To be fair some slots like the pants will not be worth using over https://www.wowhead.com/item=30536/greaves-of-the-martyr so you can ignore a few slots since you already have ilvl 84 from Ozorg : pants, 2H weapons, hands, waist and feet.

I would still advise getting them since they may become BIS with another weird ilvl scaling but you can ignore those slots.

You can start grinding for the WoD rares drops that can proc sockets for slots that usually don’t if you haven’t gotten those already by killing the BFA rares : https://www.wowhead.com/item=119400/rugged-crystal-cudgel (1H mace for Frost). There isn’t a really useful item for Blood and Unholy so only useful if you play Frost. (Credit to @CigNus for https://xpoff.com/threads/apexis-rares-spreadsheet.97407/ ).

For your neck you should grab https://www.wowhead.com/item=200210/amnesia and use https://www.wowhead.com/item=192992/tiered-medallion-setting on it. This is your BIS necklace, it’s easy to get so don’t go without it. Remember to https://www.wowhead.com/spell=439568/runeforge your weapon and you’re all set for dungeons.

You can also get some enchants (especially easy with warbank now) like https://www.wowhead.com/item=38989/enchant-chest-super-stats if you feel too weak or even to get dungeons done quicker. Those are optionnal though, you can get started without them.

Part III : The dungeons
As a Death Knight you need to run 6 different instances. All of the testing done below was under TBC Chromie Time.

https://www.wowhead.com/beta/zone=3790/auchenai-crypts is the first dungeon I would advise you to do. You can get https://www.wowhead.com/beta/item=29337/the-exarchs-protector from https://www.wowhead.com/quest=29596/the-end-of-the-exarch which is the best chest piece you can get (can proc epic but doesn’t change much). While https://www.wowhead.com/item=28337/breastplate-of-righteous-fury (drop from https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17942/quagmirran ) is slightly better for pure DPS the extra Stamina and Dodge is generally superior for soloing.

https://www.wowhead.com/item=27408/hope-bearer-helm drops from the first boss https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18371/shirrak-the-dead-watcher and is your best helmet. Make sure your loot spec is Blood as it takes away a possible drop from Shirrak.

So for your first run you can use the dungeon finder to have less trouble since you only need to run the second half once. If you do it solo though I’ll give you a quick guide :

All mobs can summon an Unliving mob : https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18501/unliving-stalker , https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18499/unliving-sorcerer , https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18498/unliving-soldier , https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18500/unliving-cleric and https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18503/phantasmal-possessor are all the possible summons. These mobs are generally a bit frailer and use abilities that slow, put a DoT, a root, interrupts (not a big deal for Blood DK) or heal their allies. None of these mobs are really all that tough but they become a nuisance since they can spawn further away and attack you from afar. If that happens use https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49576/death-grip and you should be good. Don’t make them your priority, your AoE will take care of them without having to focus them. That said keep in mind these mobs and don’t overpull.

For the part up to Shirrak which you will have to run several times (unless you had a lucky first run in which case gratz) you can skip some trash pretty easily with https://www.wowhead.com/item=113082/precious-bloodthorn-loop and reset by killing yourself from the bridge. The way you do it is by running past mobs, activating https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48265/deaths-advance when you start aggroing some mobs as to get maximum value out of both, then activating the invisibility ring when you reach the spiral stairs that lead to the upper floor if you took too much damage or activate it when you reach the corridor right after said stairs or even after if you have health to spare (generally less safe). You’ll want to eat up to heal before continuing since you will have taken a bunch of hits. You can mitigate those hits by popping https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48792/icebound-fortitude which is honestly generally worth it. Depending on how far you went you will have 2 to 4 packs of mobs, maybe 5 if you went invisible early. Those packs may be of 2-3 mobs but for each mob there is, another one will spawn so don’t pull two packs at once or you’ll have a bit more trouble. Don’t rush it since the time you need to kill the boss and reset the instance is pretty synchronized with the recharge of the ring once you got the hang of it so going too fast mean you’ll have downtime anyways.

The mobs you wll fight in the instance are the following :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18493/auchenai-soulpriest is a spellcaster mob with around 2.4k health. This mob casts a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32860/shadow-bolt that increases the shadow damage you take and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32858/touch-of-the-forgotten that reduces the healing you get.

Pull this mob with https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49576/death-grip if it is the only one of the group. This should be your priority as the debuffs from both spells can be annoying and the bolts do hit hard.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18495/auchenai-vindicator has the same health pool, a few damaging abilities but nothing crazy. Doesn’t hit that hard so burst them last.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18497/auchenai-monk which has around 150 more HP than the previous two, an interrupt (again, no big deal for our purposes) a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32849/cyclone-strike which knocks you back but seems to no nothing sometimes (maybe I missed something) and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=38168/spiritual-sight which has no interaction besides being stolen by a mage to see the spirits on the bridge. Maybe kill this one second since the knockback can be a bit annoying but to be fair it doesn’t hit that hard neither. Be mindful of the knockback on the bridge though as it can lead to a pretty surprising and quick death.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18521/raging-skeleton and https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18524/angered-skeleton are found a pack after the first boss and come in three packs of 5. They have no real ability, don’t hit that hard and you can ignore the right pack by going near the left wall.

The last mob is https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18702/auchenai-necromancer and those are surrounded by https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18700/reanimated-bones which should fold to two https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil so no worries about those. The necromancers have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=27243/seed-of-corruption spell, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=198590/drain-soul spell and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33325/shadow-mend spell. Nothing too problematic since you can face them one at a time with the skeletons being melted by you non-capped AoE.

When it comes to bosses https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18371/shirrak-the-dead-watcher is a pain in the ass. The reason ? https://www.wowhead.com/spell=36383/carnivorous-bite why ? This spell is a bleed that stacks up and does ungodly amounts of damage (400 damage every 3 seconds). The irony of a Blook DK losing to, well, a bleed effect is quite amusing or would be if this damned helmet was to drop.

To defeat this boss I advise to log out and in so that it loses a level (don’t know why it does that) and this way it seems to deal about 10% less damage and has around 2500 less HP. Then you should pick the following talent choices : https://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/death-knight/blood/DAGREAEAFACVRAAA .

This build makes use of the generally less useful https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48743/death-pact . How you use this build is by making your standard rotation, use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=55233/vampiric-blood when your health dips below 50%, then the bleed stacks should be at 4 or 5 which will quickly put you back to 50% and below. At that point you use both https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48743/death-pact and https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48792/icebound-fortitude to heal up and get the full benefit of the damage reduction. Then you will eed to heal up again which is why we kept the most powerful heal for last : the https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49039/lichborne and https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=47541/death-coil combo heals for so much that the healing debuff from https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48743/death-pact won’t even matter. After that I noticed the stacks stop being applied, 5 being seemingly the cap for it. The boss will reapply the bleed afterwards though but you should have done enough damage for it to not go above 2-3 stacks.

Bonus points to dwarves since, on top of being absolute chads (Dwarf DK is just that) they can remove bleeds via https://www.wowhead.com/spell=20594/stoneform (so can Dark Iron with https://www.wowhead.com/spell=265221/fireblood for vets). Use the ability when the stacks reach 5 and you’re golden.

Shirrak’s other abilities are not problematic but he does hit kinda hard so be ready for a tough battle if you have never done it before.

Now for the final boss which you should realistically only do once. https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18373/exarch-maladaar is not too hard but has mechanics you need to be aware of. I find this bos to be one of the most balanced ones at our level considering the wanky scaling and the fact that we are alone.

The most important abilty is gonna be https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32346/stolen-soul?dd=2 which summons a small copy of you and reduces your damage and healing by 50% as long as ths copy is alive. You need to kill this add fast and even if he doesn’t have that much health the reduced damage means you can’t allow yourself to not burst it down as your main target.

He has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32422/ribbon-of-souls?dd=2 ability that is honestly not that hard hitting.

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32421/soul-scream?dd=2 is a 2 seconds fear. It is generally not a big issue either but be mindful of the position you end up in so as to turn back to the boss quickly. If the timing is really unfortunate you can pop https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=49039/lichborne to dispel it.

Finally at 25% health, Maladaar will summon an https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18478/avatar-of-the-martyred which has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=192224/mortal-strike?dd=2 and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=65936/sunder-armor?dd=2 ability. You should burst down Maladaar first as an unfortunate https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32346/stolen-soul?dd=2 and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32421/soul-scream?dd=2 combo when this mob spawns could mean a death.

Tldr : pay attention to https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32346/stolen-soul?dd=2 and burst the boss when https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18478/avatar-of-the-martyred spawns. You can keep your ghoul for this part if you want to play extra safe.

That’s all for Auchenai Crypts, overall a fairly easy dungeon with the only real problem being the second boss. You may not get it first try but as soon as you get the rotation it’s fairly simple (as simple as such a boss gets).

For your hands slots, you will head to https://www.wowhead.com/zone=3792/mana-tombs to get https://www.wowhead.com/item=25942/faith-bearers-gauntlets from https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18341/pandemonius which is, conveniently enough, the first boss of the instance.

The mobs you will need to fight are the following :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18311/ethereal-crypt-raider which has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32315/soul-strike ability that reduces your healing, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31403/battle-shout and an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=8599/enrage ability. They also have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=100/charge that stuns. They do quite a bit of damage and the healing debuff can be a pain so they are your priority.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18309/ethereal-scavenger has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33865/singe that does pitiful damage (around 30 damage total over 15 seconds) and they hit about as hard as the crypt raiders.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18313/ethereal-sorcerer have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=25603/slow and while they hit a bit less hard than the previous mobs, they also have an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15791/arcane-missiles spell. This is perhaps the less threatening of the bunch while being the frailest so kill them last.

All of these mobs hit hard on a poorly geared DK, be careful.

Before engaging the boss, make sure the room is cleared because every mob will aggro when you pull. This will lead to a death so make sure to take care of that.

Now for https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18341/pandemonius.

This boss doesn’t have that much health (around 15K HP) but boy does it hurts. His auto-attacks deal shadow damage which ignore your armor and Pandemonius hits fast.

The boss has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32325/void-blast?dd=24 ability that deal weak shadow damage and knocks you back. Not a big deal here. It also has https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32358/dark-shell?dd=24 that is supposed to reflect spells and deal damage to melee but doesn’t do any damage nor reflects https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil so unless I missed something or this is a bug the only difficulty comes from tanking his auto-attacks which should not be an issue with your big cooldowns.

No real shortcut there, you need to kill the mobs anyways. Once again a fairly easy dungeon to do, be careful at all times since the damage is quite high and all should be good.

https://www.wowhead.com/zone=3791/sethekk-halls is perhaps the most important dungeon as it is the one where https://www.wowhead.com/item=27986/crow-wing-reaper drops. This is your best weapon. Make sure your loot spec is Blood (or Unholy) as it takes away a possible drop.

This time you need to get to the last boss so you’ll have to run the whole instance again if the weapon does not drop.

You can skip a lot of packs by hugging walls in this instance.

The mobs to fight are gonna be the following :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18323/sethekk-guard has around 2.4K HP. They don’t hit that hard but do have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33967/thunderclap ability that increases the time between auto-attacks by 33% and reduces your movement speed by 40%.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18318/sethekk-initiate has the same HP as above, deal little damage and have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33961/spell-reflection ability which does nothing to DKs and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=16145/sunder-armor that does nothing as well.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=19429/avian-darkhawk can be found alongside them and they have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32901/carnivorous-bite ability (Shirrak flashbacks incoming). Kill them before their masters.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18327/time-lost-controller will be the first annoying mob you’ll face. It casts https://www.wowhead.com/spell=35013/shrink which reduces you strength and stamina by 35% for 2 minutes so kill them quickly and perhaps you’ll prevent that from happening (you can https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49576/death-grip them to save yourself 2 seconds). It also summons a charming Totem via https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32764/summon-charming-totem but every time they use dit it broke right away so I’m not sure if I missed something but this seems like it’s not an issue.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18328/sethekk-oracle casts https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32129/faerie-fire and deal weak damage. Not a priority but something to keep in mind if you want to skip with the invisibility ring since the spell will make you unable to go invisible. They also have https://www.wowhead.com/spell=38146/arcane-lightning which deals very little damage and silences for 4 seconds. This is barely noticeable though so don’t be afraid of this mob.

The following mobs will spawn after the first boss (you will still find the previous mobs after that point though so don’t forget them) :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18322/sethekk-ravenguard is a melee mob with two 1H that hits not too hard but really fast, can https://www.wowhead.com/spell=34970/frenzy and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33964/bloodthirst while having the https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32651/howling-screech spell that reduces the damage you deal by 10% and your movement speed by 25% for 5 seconds. This effect stacks and can be annoying especially on bigger pulls with other annoying mobs. The ravenguards hit hard so keep that in mind.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=19428/cobalt-serpent wanders around. Be careful not to aggro it while fighting. It is very tanky for a trash mob (around 5K HP). His auto-attacks deal average damage but his spells are the problem. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=38238/frostbolt hits for around 300 damage and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=38193/lightning-breath for over 400. Try to tank this mob by itself or it will mess you up. He also has a knockback named https://www.wowhead.com/spell=38110/wing-buffet that deals some damage.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=21891/avian-ripper is a non-elite mob that come in packs of 5-6. They do have a bleed but you won’t notice it since two https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=50842/blood-boil will more or less bring them down depending on your gear.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18319/time-lost-scryer has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12160/rejuvenation and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=42420/flash-heal while casting https://www.wowhead.com/spell=164304/arcane-missiles for damage. Both this spell and its auto-attacks do not deal much damage and the heals are rather weak so you can ignore that mob until the end of the battle.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=21904/avian-warhawk is basically https://www.wowhead.com/npc=19429/avian-darkhawk on steroids. Same https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32901/carnivorous-bite but with an added stun in the form of https://www.wowhead.com/spell=18144/swoop.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18325/sethekk-prophet is perhaps the most annoying mob so far. It has a 6 seconds fear and if you kill it it spawns a https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18703/sethekk-spirit that hits hard is invulnerable but despawns fairly quickly. To be fair as long as you keep this fact in mind you can avoid it fairly easily as it is very slow but the problem is that the other mobs can slow you down like the previously mentionned warhawk and his stun. The spirit hit for around 350-450 damage so with only two hits a tough situation can become a lost one. Try to kill it last or at least after the warhawks and if the fear finds you at a poor timing you always have https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49039/lichborne to get out of it.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18321/sethekk-talon-lord has a daze in https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32674/avengers-shield that you are somehow not immune to as a tank and a 5 seconds stun in https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32654/talon-of-justice but does not do that much damage. This mob is a pain when in a pack of prophets since you will quckly be caught in a loop of fear => stun => fear => slow. This becomes especially anoying when a spirit is punching you in the balls as that happens. Kill this mob before killing the prophets and I would advise to use https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=45524/chains-of-ice on the prophets and LoS them so as to burst the talon lord down. This way, even if you get feared you prolly won’t aggro more mobs.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18320/time-lost-shadowmage has https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32682/curse-of-the-dark-talon which reduces your stamina and increases the physical damage you take. Not a very problematic mob, does not hit hard so you can save it for last. Has a shadow version of arcane missiles which is amusing.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18326/sethekk-shaman summons a https://www.wowhead.com/?npc=18701 which you can kill fairly easily via your AoE. Doesn’t do that much damage. Has an interrupt but that is not a big issue for a Death Knight.

The first boss is https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18472/darkweaver-syth . This boss hits like a wet noodle and has around 19K HP.

Its auto-attacks are weaker than some of the adds.

It has a lot of « shock » spells : https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33534/arcane-shock?dd=6 , https://www.wowhead.com/spell=188389/flame-shock?dd=6 , https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33620/shadow-shock?dd=6 and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=404437/frost-shock?dd=6. All those are DoTs besides the frost one but their damage is pitiful (around 5 per 3 seconds)

Syth also has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=188443/chain-lightning?dd=6 but it deals around 120 damage so it’s not a threat.

At 90%, 55% and 15% health Syth will summon 4 elementals that will make you take increased damage from their respective school of magic (fire, frost, shadow, arcane) but they are frail so make sure you have at least one https://www.wowhead.com/spell=50842/blood-boil available since two of these will melt those small adds before they can do anything. That said you should kill them because their debuff stacks and all of a sudden those DoTs can start hurting.

So yeah overall no difficulty here.

And finally, https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18473/talon-king-ikiss has around 16K HP which is kinda misleadeaing as we’ll see and several spells. 1000

His auto-attacks hits for around 150 which is fairly high by itself but thankfully he does not hit as fast as https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18341/pandemonius.

He has an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=62810/arcane-volley?dd=6 that deal around 200-250 damage and he will cast it fairly often (around every 10-15 seconds in my experience).

The big damage comes from https://www.wowhead.com/spell=1449/arcane-explosion?dd=6 though. At 80%, 50% and 25% health he will cast this ability which takes him a few seconds. As a DK you have two options : first one is to hide from him which will make you avoid the damage with LoS but the second is to use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell with the https://www.wowhead.com/spell=205727/anti-magic-barrier talent which will absorb the damage of the spell, making you able to DPS the boss down instead of hiding. You will only be able to use it on the first and last casts since the ability will be on cooldown for the second so you should hide for this one since it deals around 1000 damage.

Lastly, after this last cast, Ikiss will cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=146788/mana-shield?dd=6 which makes all damage he takes drain mana instead of HP for 1 minute up to 10000 damage. You should keep attacking since our survivability depends on it but this spell virtually adds 10K HP to the boss. Not a huge deal, just means you’ll take a bit longer on it.

And voilà you’re all set on how to deal with these Halls. You may get https://www.wowhead.com/item=27985/deathforge-girdle which is a very strong belt with a +1 strenght socket bonus that you can use over https://www.wowhead.com/item=24458/studded-girdle-of-virtue although the extra versatility on the second one makes it better in my opinion.

So as a quick recap : first half is easy, second one is a pain. Be very carfeul of the https://www.wowhead.com/npc=19428/cobalt-serpent and the https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18325/sethekk-prophet (you can pick https://www.wowhead.com/spell=47528/mind-freeze if you need).

The only safe skip you can do with the invisibility ring is the room just before the last boss which I would advise you to do. You can hide behind the wall so as to not aggro anyone when healing before the boss. I do have to warn that I haven’t tried to pull the final boss without killing the last pack so I am not sure it won’t aggro if left alive on the pull. You can always kill them, the ring will have let you skip the worst room in the instance anyways.

Now onto https://www.wowhead.com/zone=3789/shadow-labyrinth.

So this dungeon does not drop any BIS loot at least when it comes to bosses. That said you can get https://www.wowhead.com/item=28176/shatari-wrought-greaves from the quest https://www.wowhead.com/quest=29644/into-the-heart-of-the-labyrinth which is BIS or at least arguably so. The only boots I would consider over them are https://www.wowhead.com/item=43402/the-obliterator-greaves which drops from https://www.wowhead.com/zone=4415/the-violet-hold in Northrend Dalaran but this is extremely annoying to grind for since you have no guarantee to get the boss that drops them and no guarantee that it will drop the boots when it does spawn either.

While you do lose on some haste (which is very good though) you do get an extra socket so the tradeoff is very decent overall (unless you wanted to farm a speed procced https://www.wowhead.com/item=43402/the-obliterator-greaves in which case the extra speed may save you an SL gem spot but do you really wanna farm for that ?)

Back to the dungeon. You will have to the whole instance since the quest requires you to kill the last boss. You cannot queue for it in the dungeon finder so you’ll have to solo.

You do have a few skips possible with the invisibility ring. First one is from the start to the first boss’ room. It is safe but only saves you a couple of fights. That said the ring will have enough time to recharge until the next use which will be from the second boss to the third boss’ room (even there you can avoid the packs by hugging the walls). You need to kill all the mobs in the bosses’ rooms so the invisibility ring doesn’t do much here but can save you a couple of packs.

Even if you were to not have the ring the aforementioned packs are quite easy, being small without any real threatening mob so you shouldn’t struggle here.

You will face packs of three https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18794/cabal-ritualist in the first boss’ room. There are six packs to kill. They will cast a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15497/frostbolt that deals around 120 damage, some https://www.wowhead.com/spell=387975/arcane-missiles which don’t do much more, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=9574/flame-buffet that deals fire damage and increases the damage fire you take, but also some more annoying spells like https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15532/frost-nova which is an 8 seconds root, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12540/gouge or even a 6 seconds channeled stun that is thankfully interrupted by damage. There are casters and melee in these mobs (either a staff or sword). The caster have the frostbolt, arcane missiles and stun while the melee have flame buffet and gouge. While https://www.wowhead.com/spell=9574/flame-buffet may seem underwhelming, the debuff stacks and the spell can quickly deal over 500 damage. Focus down the casters if there are two of them or the melee if there are two of those.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18796/fel-overseer are very tanky (around 10K HP) and patrol the room. There are three of them and they do not hit very hard. They do have an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=30471/uppercut that knocks you up and deals around 200 damage and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=20615/intercept that is a charge with a stun. Do not summon your ghoul however. If you do that this mob will start casting https://www.wowhead.com/spell=29544/frightening-shout which is a 6 seconds fear.

You will then immediately reach the second boss’ room. There is quite a lot of mobs there that will aggro if you pull the boss so you need to kill them first. The packs are of 4-6 mobs with the occasionnal patrolling mob.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18848/malicious-instructor patrol the room. They also have around 10K HP. They use fast but weak auto-attacks with the occasionnal https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33493/mark-of-malice that seems to slightly increase the damage of 4 of her hits and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33501/shadow-nova that deal around 60 damage. This mob doesn’t hit that hard but if you pull it with a pack of mobs the sheer nulber of hits can become a problem.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18637/cabal-shadow-priest have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=14032/shadow-word-pain but it doesn’t do much, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15407/mind-flay that does quite a bunch of damage (around 250 on full duration) and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=16592/shadowform that makes them tankier. This mob does some auto-attacks as well but they are kinda weak.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18631/cabal-cultist auto-attacks. That’s all. Hits for 60/30 (MH/PH) and has https://www.wowhead.com/spell=3391/thrash. Not a priority.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18633/cabal-acolyte have https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12039/heal and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=25058/renew, but they barely do any damage. The heals are not that high either.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18635/cabal-deathsworn have a small DoT https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33480/black-cleave that does very little and his auto-attacks don’t hit that hard. However they have an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=8599/enrage but most importantly https://www.wowhead.com/spell=11428/knockdown which is a 2 seconds stun. They are not that much of an issue by themselves but the stun can prove problematic so focus them first.

You might get attacked by https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18636/cabal-assassin. This mob has a three second stun he will use when coming out of stealth which is the only threatening thing he can do. His damage isn’t that high so he should not be too much of an issue.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18640/cabal-warlock will have a https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18642/fel-guardhound or https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18663/maiden-of-discipline to their side (sometimes an imp but this one insta-dies). The warlock will cast a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12471/shadow-bolt that deals around 200-250 damage, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=196208/seed-of-corruption that deals around 60 damage per tick and has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=13787/demon-armor to make them tankier. These mobs are perhaps the hardest hitting sot hey should be your first kill (even before the deathsworn). The felhound does almost no damage and will die to your AoE anyways so don’t worry about it. The succubus supposedly has a charm but dies too quickly to use it. You can burst her down if you want to feel safe.

Gonig to the third boss you will summon some https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18797/tortured-skeleton. https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18797/tortured-skeleton them down.

You will then face a bunch of those skeletons, some cultists and 2 new mobs :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18638/cabal-zealot which will cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12471/shadow-bolt and transform into a cat via https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33499/shape-of-the-beast at what seems to be below 50% health. The bolts hit for 150-200 and the cat form hits very fast for around 75-80 damage. This mob hits kinda hard so kill it quickly. The zealot will start by casting so you can use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49576/death-grip to pull it.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18830/cabal-fanatic auto-attacks. Its a cultist that deals a fair bit more damage but nothing you can’t handle. Beware though as two of those with a zealot can burn you down fast.

Now onto Marmon :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18632/cabal-executioner has an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=30485/enrage, an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=77720/execute (which almost never comes into play so I’m not sure how hard it hits although following wowhead’s numbers I’d assume around 200 damage) and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15578/whirlwind while having average (at best) auto-attack damage. Doesn’t hit that hard. Not a priority.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18634/cabal-summoner is your top priority here. She casts https://www.wowhead.com/spell=14034/fireball (150-200 damage) but most importantly can summon more adds : https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33507/summon-cabal-acolyte and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33506/summon-cabal-deathsworn. You won’t need an interrupt since you can burst her down fast enough or use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49576/death-grip to delay the cast enough to kill her.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18639/cabal-spellbinder has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33335/shadow-bolt and weak auto-attacks. Kill last.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18731/ambassador-hellmaw is the first boss here. Killing the last three https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18794/cabal-ritualist will summon the boss instantly and he will start to patrol the area. Kill the pack at your right since the boss starts to the left meaning you won’t aggro instantly.

His auto-attacks deal average damage but he casts a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33551/corrosive-acid?dd=2 spell that reduces your armor by over 1500 (meaning you’ll have 0 armor since how are you supposed to reach that number anyways. This spell also deal a ton of nature damage (around 200 every 3 seconds). The debuff lasts 15 seconds.

The boss also has a 6 seconds https://www.wowhead.com/spell=65809/fear?dd=2.

You should use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell as it will prevent a good amount of damage while making you immune to his fear for a short amount of time.

When you get the acid debuff, his auto-attacks do massive damage (200-250) so you will have to pop a few CD. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49039/lichborne is very good here.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18667/blackheart-the-inciter is the second boss. He has around 22K HP and his auto-attacks deal average damage.

His abilities are https://www.wowhead.com/spell=24375/war-stomp?dd=2 which is a knockback that deal around 200 damage and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=138796/charge?dd=2 that stuns for 2 seconds. He will cast both several tmes during the fight so https://www.wowhead.com/spell=43265/death-and-decay is less valuable here.

Do not summon your ghoul or he will use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33676/incite-chaos?dd=2 which will cause you and your ghoul to hit random targets for 30 seconds. While this will most likely not kill you it is a plain loss of time so don’t use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=46585/raise-dead (you don’t need to change talents for this encounter, the boss is pretty easy).

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18732/grandmaster-vorpil has around 22K HP. His auto-attacks hit for fairly weak damage.

He will cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=184721/shadow-bolt-volley?dd=6 which deals around 180 damage and quickly adds up to the auto-attacks.

He summons https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33783/empowering-shadows?dd=6 which you should kill. They heal Vorpil and grant him a shadow damage buff for 45 seconds that stacks while dealing some damage to you. I advise not using https://www.wowhead.com/spell=50842/blood-boil on cooldown to keep it for those adds as it is the fastest and safest way to burn them down and, trust me, you will need to kill a lot of them.

He will also cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33563/draw-shadows?dd=6 which teleports you to his platform where he’ll cast a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33617/rain-of-fire that deals around 160 damage per tick for 6 ticks over 6 seconds. You should keep https://www.wowhead.com/beta/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell for these casts. I was lucky enough for it to recharge before another cast but I cannot guarantee it happens all the time.

He also is supposed to have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=710/banish?dd=6 ability but he did not cast it despite me summoning my ghoul twice.

So tldr : kill the shadows before they reach the boss, protect from the https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33617/rain-of-fire and you should be good.

And for our final victim : https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18708/murmur

Murmur hits hard and has a large HP pool. His auto-attacks hit for around 180-200 damage which does hurt by itself but the mechanics are the big deal here.

https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33657/resonance?dd=6 and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33689/magnetic-pull shouldn’t be an issue as you are melee.

The main issue is gonna be https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33666/sonic-boom which he will cast several times durng the fight. You can avoid the damage and DoT the spell puts on you by casting https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell when Murmur casts. I’d strongly advise to pick https://www.wowhead.com/spell=205727/anti-magic-barrier as it will allow for a more consistent damage mitigation. The number I got on this ability were honestly messy at best. I got hit for 100 damage up to 800. Overall keep this ability in mind, do not waste your runic power and Murmur should go down relatively easily. It kind of is a tank-and-spank boss.

And that concludes Shadow Labs.

The next dungeon is gonna be https://www.wowhead.com/zone=2367/old-hillsbrad-foothills for https://www.wowhead.com/item=30536/greaves-of-the-martyr which is our best option for legs.

This is a drop from the last boss and this dungeon is fairly long with no skips available so hopefully you will get those pants dropping quickly (ah I should stop phrazing things that way).

Bring some food. The fights are gonna be happening one after the other without much time to rest so bring some food that heals you quickly like https://www.wowhead.com/item=8953/deep-fried-plantains so as to not die during the escort parts of the dungeon. This is especially important since a death means you’ll have to do the fights all over again so be mindful of that.

Now for the NPC’s

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17819/durnholde-sentry has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15496/cleave which wont matter here and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=9080/hamstring which can prevent you from killing this mob when it flees so make sure to use your https://www.wowhead.com/spell=45524/chains-of-ice or https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49576/death-grip if that were to happen. His auto-attacks deal around 70-80 damage so these are not your priority since they barely deal any damage and have no annoying abilities.

Now https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17820/durnholde-rifleman do hit a bit harder. Try to stay in melee range since they hit for around 65-75 damage as opposed to their 200-220 hits with a ranged weapon. They have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31942/multi-shot that hits for around the same damage and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=115199/scatter-shot that disorients you for 4 seconds but breaks on damage. These are a bit more annoying but still very manageable as long as you don’t let them shoot at you.

Both these mobs can partol solo with a pet at their side : https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17840/durnholde-tracking-hound which can see through invisibility although that is not relevant for our purposes. They hit for around 40 damage but do hit a bit faster than other mobs and they have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=8269/frenzy but to be fair they don’t hit that hard, only have around 1500 HP and don’t run away at low health so don’t worry about them.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17833/durnholde-warden are basically priest NPCs. They cast an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15586/heal that heal for around 1000-1100 HP which can be an issue if casted on a fleeing target, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15654/shadow-word-pain that hits 5 times over 15 seconds for around 15 damage per hit which is not a big deal and most importantly a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=22884/psychic-scream that is a 4 seconds fear effect. This mob’s auto-attacks deal around 75 damage sot hey don’t do much damage but their support spells are a nuisance. Make them your priority.

These are the only mobs you’ll meet up to the first boss. Their damage output is quite low so unless you get an unfortunate timing on a CC (a fleeing mob pulling another pack as you are CCed or pulling yourself in a Fear) and pull extra mobs you should be fine. Be mindful of the patrolling mobs since you don’t want a rifleman shooting you from behind. You even have the luxury of time here which makes this part of the dungeon the easiest by far.

When going to meet Thrall you will also meet https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17860/durnholde-veteran which have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15582/backstab and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15581/sinister-strike. The sinister strike hits for around 240 damage and the auto-attacks for 35-40 (off-hand) and 70-80 (main hand). These mobs hit hard so try to kill them quickly.

After you’ve freed Thrall the escort will begin. As said before, use any break you have to eat, it will save you a lot of time since even a fairly well-geared DK can struggle to go through all those fights without a break.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18934/durnholde-mage will spawn in every of the four packs leading up to the next boss. These are your number one priority. They cast a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12466/fireball that deals around 250-300 damage, an instant cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15244/cone-of-cold that hit for around 80 damage and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=13323/polymorph on Thrall (which is kind of helpful as it can allow you to gain a few seconds to eat since Thrall will be a sheep anyways). On top of that their auto-attacks are just as strong as the other mobs (around 80 per hit). Make sure to use your https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell if there is two of these mobs. Use a big defensive cooldown if needed as well.

After the second boss you will escort Thrall in three parts to the final boss.

In the first part Thrall may aggro a few normal spiders or bears which I’m pretty sure he could solo anyways but hem ay also aggro some patrolling elites. Said elites will appear neutral to you but will attack Thrall on sight so you might as well take the lead and kill them as soon as you can.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17815/lordaeron-sentry and https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17814/lordaeron-watchman are more or less the same mobs, average HP, average damage, no real abilities and you will fight 3 of them per pack. No danger there. They flee at low health but since they can’t aggro more mobs it’s not an issue.

The second part will require you to fight 3 packs of 4 of the following mobs :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18094/tarren-mill-lookout has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=35511/serpent-sting that deal 20 damage per tick for 5 ticks over 15 seconds (100 damage total so not too hard hitting), a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=17174/concussive-shot and auto-attacks for around 60 damage.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18093/tarren-mill-protector has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=56919/flash-heal (heals for around 500 health), hits for around 100 damage on his auto-attacks and most importantly has a 5 seconds stun. When this stun is used, all other mobs will step away. These are your priority.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18092/tarren-mill-guardsman has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=16856/mortal-strike that reduces healing by 25% for 5 seconds and auto-attacks for around 65 damage. These are the lowest priority.

After these fights you will have some time to rest and then start the final escort which will be three packs of 3-4 infinite dragons :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18170/infinite-slayer has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=16856/mortal-strike that deals around 200 damage and reduces your healing by 25% which is a pain when combined with https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31977/curse-of-infinity (see below) and auto-attacks for around 100-110 damage.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18171/infinite-defiler casts a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15232/shadow-bolt that hits for around 400-500 damage which is huge to say the least. He will also cast a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31977/curse-of-infinity which increases both your healing recieved and damage taken by 50 percent. This is a pain to deal with and you realistically cannot avoid it unless you have some luck. Ths mob also auto-attacks but this is negilgible damage. These are an absoulte priority to kill as fast as you can.

Finally, https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18172/infinite-saboteur auto-attacks for around 120 damage. He has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=17234/shadow-shock that deals around 120 damage, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15496/cleave that deals about as much damage as the auto-attacks. He also has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31976/shadow-shield but you won’t notice it.

These are tough packs to face seeing as their damage output is perhaps the highest of the dungeon (thanks a lot defilers). Use every few seconds of break you can get to eat.

The first boss is https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17848/lieutenant-drake. He will only spawn after you used all five bombs. He has around 15K HP and his auto-attacks deal around 160 damage.

He uses an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=329310/hamstring?dd=2 and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=192224/mortal-strike?dd=2 that deals around 190-200 damage and reduces your healing for 5 seconds. Be careful not to use your https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49998/death-strike during the debuff if you can help it.

He also has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=190411/whirlwind?dd=2 which hits for around 200 damage per hit and you should try to run away when he uses it. Drake has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=19134/frightening-shout?dd=2 which is a 6 seconds fear so fleeing may not always be possible.

The whirlwind/shout combo can lead to a situation where Drake can cast his last ability : https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33792/exploding-shot?dd=2. He can only use this when you are far away which should only happen when you get feared and he stops moving for hiw whirlwind. This ability hits hard (around 1000-1100 damage) and stuns you for 6 seconds. Keep your https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48792/icebound-fortitude intact for the eventual case where this situation happens.

All in all a fairly easy boss as long as you manage your heals.

The second boss is https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17862/captain-skarloc. He has around 15K HP as well and his auto attacks hit for around 120-135 damage but since he uses a 1H the hits are a bit faster paced.

He will start the fight with two adds which you should burst down first as they do have heals or other annoying spells if left alive.

He casts https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32400/cleanse?dd=6 which cancels the DoT of your https://www.wowhead.com/spell=50842/blood-boil (the spell still is very much worth using though). He also has an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=343151/holy-light?dd=6 spell which heals for around 1200 HP.

Skarloc has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=17232/devotion-aura?dd=6 which increases his armor and an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=348467/holy-shield?dd=6 spell that increases his block chance and deals around 50 damage every time he blocks.

His most annoying spell is https://www.wowhead.com/spell=66863/hammer-of-justice?dd=6 which is a 5 seconds stun he should cast around 4-5 times in the encounter. This stun does take into consideration diminishing returns and will end up stunning you for less and less time.

For some reason this guy hangs for a few seconds when he should die which, while of minimal importance since he is quite easy, is interesting to note.

The third and final boss is https://www.wowhead.com/npc=20398/reanimated-critter, hem, no I meant https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18096/epoch-hunter. You might come out of the three previous encounters with the https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31977/curse-of-infinity debuff so be mindful of that.

This boss auto-attacks for around 120 damage and can proc extra auto-attacks with https://www.wowhead.com/spell=19818/double-attack?dd=2 (aptly named ability dare I say).

He will cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=80380/sand-breath?dd=2 several times. This deal a little bit of arcane damage and reduces your auto-attack and movement speed for 10 seconds.

He also has https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31475/wing-buffet?dd=2 which is a knockback that deals a little damage.

Adecdotally, he casts https://www.wowhead.com/spell=33834/magic-disruption-aura?dd=2 which doesn’t really do much to Blood DKs.

Finally he has https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31916/impending-death?dd=2 which is a fairly hard hitting DoT that you can deal with easily by using https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell so not a big deal (this spell can be a nuisance for non-healing classes since it can kill them after the fight ended but DK are not affected as much).

And that concludes this dungeon. I do hope he dropped his pants for you (oh not again) since this place can be annoying to farm (as much as I enjoy doing it once it is a long instance to be running over and over).

Finally the final slots left to get from dungeons (besides socketed rings/bracers) will be the shoulders and belt. I’d like to mention https://www.wowhead.com/item=37627/snake-den-spaulders which are a possibility since they grant some haste over crit. You do lose a socket slot which I cannot tell you in good faith is 100% worth it but you can find some use for it and it has the benefit to be easy to farm.

The only shoulder piece with secondary stats and 2 socket slots is https://www.wowhead.com/item=24457/truth-bearer-shoulderguards that drops from https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17826/swamplord-muselek in https://www.wowhead.com/zone=3716/the-underbog. You should make sure your loot spec is Blood or Unholy as it will eliminate a potential drop from this boss. You can also get https://www.wowhead.com/item=24458/studded-girdle-of-virtue from the second boss which I consider to be BIS.

You will meet the following mobs :

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17724/underbat (name goes hard af) auto-attacks for around 100 damage and has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=34171/tentacle-lash that deals around 150 damage.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17725/underbog-lurker have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=34161/wild-growth that increases their physical damage by 50%. This ability makes their auto-attacks deal a ton of damage bit they cancel it after a few seconds.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17871/underbog-shambler auto-attack for around 100-110 damage. They cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=34163/fungal-regrowth which heals for around 450-500 HP instantly and 31 HP every 3 seconds for 21 seconds afterwards. They also cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31427/allergies which periodically stuns you or at least is supposed to. I never actually got stunned from this ability and I’m not sure if it was luck or a bug so please do tell me if you know. Finally they have https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32329/itchy-spores which puts a DoT on you after 10 seconds but once again the DoT seems bugged and don’t do anything.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17723/bog-giant hit for around 170 damage with their auto-attacks. They have an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=8599/enrage and cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32065/fungal-decay which is a DoT that deals less damage over time and slows you down (effect weakening over time too) starting at 5 stacks and gradually going to 0. This DoT goes from 80 to 20 damage so it does a very solid amount of damage. Overall I’d say pull this mob by itself, you’ll have an easier time.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17726/wrathfin-myrmidon deals around 90-100 per auto-attack and has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31410/coral-cut spell that inflicts a DoT (100 damage over 15 seconds) Easy mobs there.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17727/wrathfin-sentry are the same mobs without the DoT but an interrupt which is not relevant to Blood DKs. They do have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=11976/strike ability but it is really weak.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17735/wrathfin-warrior is the sentry plus an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=8599/enrage.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17728/murkblood-tribesman (not to be confused with a Mudblood of any kind) dual wields and deal around 60-30 (MH-OH) with his auto-attacks, has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=11976/strike that deals around 130-140 damage and an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=8599/enrage. As a general rule, kill the Broken before the Nagas.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17771/murkblood-oracle has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=172/corruption spell that deals 100 damage over 15 seconds, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12471/shadow-bolt that deals around 280 to 300 damage, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=34881/demon-armor, a five seconds root in https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32192/frost-nova or a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15497/frostbolt or a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=14034/fireball that deal about the same damage. Some of them also have https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12248/amplify-damage which increases the damage you take by 30% for 6 seconds. They auto-attack for 90 damage. Kill them fast as those bolts will hurt.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17729/murkblood-spearman auto-attack for 100-110 damage, have a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31407/viper-sting (not relevant here), an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31407/viper-sting and can attack from far away.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17730/murkblood-healer has a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=34423/renew that heals for 49 every 3 seconds for 15 seconds (245 HP heal), an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=29427/holy-light that heals for 1100-1200 HP and a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=15585/prayer-of-healing that heals for slightly less. They auto-attack for a range of 50-80 damage and aren’t much of a danger. They are a nuisance at best since they heal quite often and you can kill them after the oracles.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17731/fen-ray hit for around 90 damage. They have a 3 seconds fear in https://www.wowhead.com/spell=34984/psychic-horror. Not that big a deal.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=19632/lykul-stinger hit for around 80-100 damage. They use https://www.wowhead.com/spell=34392/stinger-rage that increases their attack speed.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17732/lykul-wasp cast https://www.wowhead.com/spell=32330/poison-spit which inflicts around 135 damage and leaves a small DoT on you.

Those last three mobs are fairly easy so you shouldn’t struggle too much on your way to Musel’ek. The packs are fairly dens with some patrols so be careful to not overpull.

The first boss is https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17770/hungarfen. He is quite frail (around 13K HP) and his auto-attacks hit for around 200-220 with his auto-attacks. The thing is, he hits fast. Honestly his abilities are https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17990/underbog-mushroom and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31673/foul-spores?dd=24 which litteralty only requires you to walk away from them (the second one being used once in the fight).

This is a tank-and-spank. Plain and simple. You only need to walk around a little bit to be away from the menacing malevolent mushrooms meaning to maul you.

The only issue is that the hits are difficult to withstand and may require a cooldown. To be honest though, you will have more trouble with the two giants just before so if you got them then you can handle the boss.

So you can do that or just walk on the side of the platform and skip this boss entierly. He only drops some crappy pants (hehe) so unless you wanna farm Sporeggar rep anyways you should just ignore him.

The second boss is https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18105/ghazan. This happy hydra hits horrificly hard however having hilariously humble health. He has around 12K HP which is quite fortunate because his abilities are quite tough to tank.

He has an https://www.wowhead.com/spell=263446/acid-spit?dd=24 which he only seems to cast if you are far away, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=243410/tail-sweep?dd=24 which I never got hit by, a https://www.wowhead.com/spell=158176/thrash?dd=24 that can grant it an extra attack (said attacks hit for around 140 damage and they hit quite fast).

The issue is https://www.wowhead.com/spell=12533/acid-breath?dd=24 which is a DoT that stacks over time. Once again dwarves are amazing with their racials here. This is a https://www.wowhead.com/npc=18371/shirrak-the-dead-watcher situation except this time the stacking DoT does not cap at 5 but you can slow it down with https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48707/anti-magic-shell.

I would advise you to use this spell quite early so that you can delay the stacks of poison. You should also use the https://www.wowhead.com/spell=48743/death-pact talent setup from Shirrak since the damage is so high a fourth defensive will help immensly just forget https://www.wowhead.com/spell=46584/raise-dead for the much more useful https://www.wowhead.com/spell=205727/anti-magic-barrier. You can also log out and back in as it will lower the boss’ level to 21 (again, not sure why).

Honestly this is another thougher fight but once you got the gist of it you shouldn’t have too much of an issue and the low health pool will make this fight a quick one. Timing your defensive cooldowns is the key to success here. If you get the belt before the shoulders, you can skip this boss. I’d say it’s worth dong it if you don’t struggle on it since you could get a tert and/or socket proc on the belt.

Finally for our purposes, https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17826/swamplord-muselek will drop our shoulders slot. I’m not gonna put it two ways : this guy is overtuned. He has a low HP pool of 14K but also has https://www.wowhead.com/npc=17827/claw that has 11K HP.

The problem does not lie here though. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=16572/shoot?dd=6 and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=31566/raptor-strike?dd=6 both deal obscene amounts of damage (700 and 850 on average respectively). You are not tanking this as a DK, trust me.

Switching timelines to Dragonflight did not do anything. I’m not sure about how no Chromie Time affects this boss’ scaling but as far as I know, I’m not farming this boss solo.

You can settle for the quest reward from the Caverns of Time dungeon or farm the previously mentionned https://www.wowhead.com/item=37627/snake-den-spaulders that drop from the first boss in Gun’Drak. You can also queue for this dungeon but I’m not sure you’ll find the time spent on this worth it.

Now for the other socket slots (wrists and rings), go for whatever boss drops the secondaries you need, aim for easier farms (try to kill 1st bosses if you can) and for wrists give a shot at https://www.wowhead.com/npc=74787/slave-watcher-crushto since he drops a piece of loot guaranteed (50% wrists) so you can get a socket faster here but you can’t control the secondaries.

All of the testing for the dungeons was done in Outlands Chromie Time using the gear on the picture (basic ilvl 84 gear without any sockets, enchants or consumables besides some non-buff provding food so as to prove all those dungeons are perfectly soloable by f2p and vet alike -besides of course Musel’ek-).

Part IV : Closing Tips and Viability
So for some closing tips.

I’d highly suggest you to keep food around. This will allow for so much less downtime between pulls which is highly important for runic power and https://www.wowhead.com/spell=195181/bone-shield charges.

For vets, using https://www.wowhead.com/item=173125/revitalizing-jewel-doublet is a great help for our lackluster heals.

Getting some enchants on non-BIS gear can be very helpful on such a class.

Blood is hard to master early on. This is a very unforgiving class that isn’t that strong even when you’ve mastered it. That said it has all the tools it needs to get the job done so if you can do it, it just means you can’t do it yet

For Frost/Unholy soloing, you will struggle on harder bosses. The DPS loss from needing to spam https://www.wowhead.com/spell=49998/death-strike rather than your main spenders and the generally lower survivabilty will make it tougher. That said you have a much higher rune regeneration than Blood and you Death Strikes heal for an higher portion of your HP (neutered by the lower HP that said). Toy around, find the bossed you can down with those specs and have fun. Blood will always be there when needed.

You can track the damage you took with the https://www.wowhead.com/spell=463730/coagulating-blood effect on your buff/debuff bar.

Is there any race that is more valuable than others ?

My first pick for a DK would be Dwarf (Dark Iron Dwarf works too for vets). The obvious duo of bosses Shirrak and Ghaz’an will be much easier but removing bleeds or other negative effects is amazing for our survivability. Also if you play Alliance you should play a Dwarf. Why the hell would you play another race on this faction anyways ? Dwarf DKs are absolute chads.

Taurens are always awesome because of https://www.wowhead.com/spell=20549/war-stomp which grants us much needed AoE. This racial is perhaps the best n the game in my opinion and while I may be biased I assure you this ability has saved my ass more times than I could count (which is admitedly a very low bar to hit but hey).

Night Elf gets a mention for https://www.wowhead.com/spell=58984/shadowmeld.

Other than that I don’t see any noteworthy mention. To be fair any race will work and the three races I mentionned are -in my humble opinion- the best ones for PvE at level 20 anyways. Draeneï have a nice useful heal, Goblins some mobility, Orcs a free damage boost so really pick whatever you want (but pick Dwarf though, they’re so damned cool).

And finally how viable is the class ?

To be completely fair, even a good Blood player will struggle if he don’t know what mechanics will hit him. You need to not only know what you’re doing but also what your opponent will. Unlike a class like paladin that has the tools to handle most unexpected situatons, Death Knights will very quickly get killed. While we do have a lot of strong defensive options we kinda need them for our basic rotation anyways so prepare yourself for a few runs back for the time you need to understand the mobs.

That said, Blood gets the job done. It’s not as sturdy as a Paladin or a Warrior, it doesn’t do as much damage as them but damn does it feel good to play when you get some haste.

This a very solid class, I wouldn’t reccomend it to someone that just started to solo dungeons but it sure as hell is a fun challenge to pick up for any non-DK mains (myself very much included).

Well that was long. Hope that helped anyone wanting to give a shot at the class. I apologize for the numerous typos or other errors that I'm sure I've missed.
I kinda want to do the other classe but those guides take some time so don't expect another guide anytime soon. If anyone wants a class to be done first I don't really care about the order I do them in so by all means please tell me and thanks for taking the time to read.

stickyo · Sep 25, 2024

very nice writeup, mate, gz and thanks! one tiny note: i don’t think dk’s can use fist weapons

DoByG · Sep 26, 2024

Cool! I like the idea, keep it up! <3

CroyeTchor · Sep 26, 2024

stickyo said:
very nice writeup, mate, gz and thanks! one tiny note: i don’t think dk’s can use fist weapons

Oh yeah you are absolutely right haha. I just saw a fist weapon with Strenght and assumed they could, I should have checked. I'll modifiy that thanks a lot mate.

Paroag · Sep 26, 2024

Awesome work. Very hyped to hear your insights on class I do play !

Leek · Sep 26, 2024

Essence of Gossamer as a trinket is also pretty insane on this class and bm monk. It procs fairly often and blocks a good amount of damage PER hit during it's duration, if not completely mitigates damage for it's duration.

CroyeTchor · Sep 26, 2024

Leek said:
Essence of Gossamer as a trinket is also pretty insane on this class and bm monk. It procs fairly often and blocks a good amount of damage PER hit during it's duration, if not completely mitigates damage for it's duration.

Tbh I did not dive into trinkets on this guide. Perhaps I should have, I just thought it was already information-heavy enough as is though I guess I could test some obviously good trinkets haha.
I don't know the exact scaling of this trinket (is is the same as mentionned on the tooltip ?) but if you say you virtually take no damage when it procs then it is a very strong effect to be sure.

Now the issue I have with this trinket is that it is a very convenient one to have as you start paying the class but you will soon come to realize the tools Blood have makes this trinket fairly useless. Unlike a class like Paladin or Druid, DK heal by doing their basic rotation so you don't lose out on much for healing (besides the Lichborne/Death Coil combo that will drain some Runic Power and GCDs). I'm not sure this trinket outweighs the DPS loss on a DK with good gear that you've learned to play. By that I mean is saving a potential GCD or two and perhaps an extra Death Strike worth another trinket with Strenght and perhaps an on-use effect or just the reliable secondary stat proc of an https://www.wowhead.com/item=161113/incessantly-ticking-clock.

I will say though that this trinket may be the secret to make Frost/Unholy soloing viable. I'll give it a shot when I can and update the guide if the results are interesting, thanks a lot for the info ^^

Leek · Sep 26, 2024

CroyeTchor said:
Tbh I did not dive into trinkets on this guide. Perhaps I should have, I just thought it was already information-heavy enough as is though I guess I could test some obviously good trinkets haha.
I don't know the exact scaling of this trinket (is is the same as mentionned on the tooltip ?) but if you say you virtually take no damage when it procs then it is a very strong effect to be sure.

Now the issue I have with this trinket is that it is a very convenient one to have as you start paying the class but you will soon come to realize the tools Blood have makes this trinket fairly useless. Unlike a class like Paladin or Druid, DK heal by doing their basic rotation so you don't lose out on much for healing (besides the Lichborne/Death Coil combo that will drain some Runic Power and GCDs). I'm not sure this trinket outweighs the DPS loss on a DK with good gear that you've learned to play. By that I mean is saving a potential GCD or two and perhaps an extra Death Strike worth another trinket with Strenght and perhaps an on-use effect or just the reliable secondary stat proc of an https://www.wowhead.com/item=161113/incessantly-ticking-clock.

I will say though that this trinket may be the secret to make Frost/Unholy soloing viable. I'll give it a shot when I can and update the guide if the results are interesting, thanks a lot for the info ^^

Yup it's a DPS loss overall but using it on my not well geared dk, it's a lifesaver plenty of times, it absorbs about 130 damage from each hit, which is higher than most dungeon mob damage, and effectively makes you invulnerable for 10 seconds, definitely worth looking into if you like to pull big. Kinda annoying to farm tho

FiveSpice · Sep 26, 2024

Awesome guide with incredible amount of detail & a great help for amateurs like me. Thank you.

Boii · Sep 27, 2024

I didn’t realize until a couple weeks ago that frost dk’s are not required to use 1h weapons anymore, you do miss out on an extra runeforge but ive been having a blast using crow wing with my dk. Ill have him geared next week once i sub and get to the AH then conzil will let me poast him, i think.

CroyeTchor · Sep 27, 2024

Boii said:
I didn’t realize until a couple weeks ago that frost dk’s are not required to use 1h weapons anymore, you do miss out on an extra runeforge but ive been having a blast using crow wing with my dk. Ill have him geared next week once i sub and get to the AH then conzil will let me poast him, i think.

To be fair dual-wielding is still superior. That said if you have no socketed 1H then go nuts with your reaper. Also 2H make for such cool transmogs ^^

Boii · Sep 27, 2024

CroyeTchor said:
To be fair dual-wielding is still superior. That said if you have no socketed 1H then go nuts with your reaper. Also 2H make for such cool transmogs ^^

I wish i could dual wield as blood, i think the extra enchant would be gucci for it. But i hate that lore-wise they made the frost dual wield instead of a 2h which is so dumb cause ARTHAS (even tho he is a different gen DK but still) and i do love my shadowmourne mog on it

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