Death Knight Blood Rotation & Opener

First ~12 casts of actual top-ranked kills. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Death's Caress 2 Voracious Heart of Ula'tek 3 Raise DeadOff-GCD 4 Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD 5 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 6 Vampiric Strike 7 Vampiric Strike 8 Vampiric Strike 9 Vampiric Strike 10 Death Strike 11 Death Strike 12 Blood Boil 13 Vampiric Strike 14 Vampiric Strike 15 Vampiric Strike

1 Death's Caress 2 Death and Decay 3 Voracious Heart of Ula'tek 4 Raise DeadOff-GCD 5 Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD 6 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 7 Blood Boil 8 Vampiric Strike 9 Vampiric Strike 10 Vampiric Strike 11 Vampiric Strike 12 Death Strike 13 Vampiric Strike 14 Vampiric Strike 15 Death Strike

1 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 2 Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD 3 Blood Boil 4 Blood Boil 5 Vampiric Strike 6 Vampiric Strike 7 Vampiric Strike 8 Vampiric Strike 9 Vampiric Strike 10 Death and Decay 11 Death Strike 12 Death Strike 13 Blood Boil 14 Vampiric Strike 15 Vampiric Strike

#showtooltip Death's Caress
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Raise Dead
/cast Dancing Rune Weapon
/cast Death's Caress

Ability	Top-player CPM
Death Strike	17.5
Heart Strike	15.0
Vampiric Strike	9.5
Blood Boil	8.0
Death and Decay	3.0
Marrowrend	2.0
Vampiric BloodOff-GCD	1.3
Death's Caress	1.2
Death's AdvanceOff-GCD	1.1
Anti-Magic ShellOff-GCD	0.9
Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD	0.7
Raise DeadOff-GCD	0.6

CPM = median casts per minute across the sampled top kills. If you're far below on a core ability, that's usually the first thing to fix.

First ~12 casts after the pull starts, taken from actual top key runs: the AoE opener is the first pack of the run, the single-target opener is the first boss. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Blood Boil 2 Heart Strike 3 Heart Strike 4 Death Strike 5 Blood Boil 6 Heart Strike 7 Death and Decay 8 Death Grip 9 Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD 10 Raise DeadOff-GCD 11 Voracious Heart of Ula'tek 12 Alliance FireworkOff-GCD 13 Play PipesOff-GCD 14 Vampiric Strike

1 Blood Boil 2 Marrowrend 3 Raise DeadOff-GCD 4 Heart Strike 5 Vampiric BloodOff-GCD 6 Death Strike 7 Blood Boil 8 Anti-Magic ShellOff-GCD 9 Heart Strike 10 Death Strike 11 Blood Boil 12 Death and Decay 13 Heart Strike 14 Death Grip 15 Death Strike

1 Death Grip 2 Death's AdvanceOff-GCD 3 Death and Decay 4 Vampiric BloodOff-GCD 5 Blood Boil 6 Vampiric Strike 7 Death Strike 8 Heart Strike 9 Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD 10 Voracious Heart of Ula'tek 11 Raise DeadOff-GCD 12 Blood Boil 13 Vampiric Strike

#showtooltip Blood Boil
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Raise Dead
/cast Blood Boil

The Patch 12.1 Omnium Folio has five rune rows. This is what the sampled top logs actually run in each row, read from the runes' own damage, healing and buff traces. Bold = most picked. Rows 1 and 5 are procs, so their share is inferred from the traces they leave.

Row	Raid	Mythic+
Row 1	Rune of Unleashed Fire 100%	Rune of Unleashed Fire 100%
Row 2	Rune of Self-Mending 53% Rune of Lynxlike Reflexes 22% Rune of Void-Tainted Shell 19%	Rune of Lynxlike Reflexes 49% Rune of Self-Mending 41% Rune of Void-Tainted Shell 10%
Row 3	Rune of Lingering 100%	Rune of Lingering 100%
Row 4	Rune of Critical Power 67% Rune of Burning Haste 25% Rune of Masterful Cunning 6% Rune of the Versatile Warrior 3%	Rune of Burning Haste 49% Rune of Critical Power 33% Rune of the Versatile Warrior 15% Rune of Masterful Cunning 3%
Row 5	Rune of Overload 97% Rune of Echoes 3%	Rune of Overload 100%

The GearInsight addon shows the same table next to your own current runes and can switch every row to the recommended one in one click.

Collected from public Patch 12.1 guides and checked for this patch. Spell names follow the language you selected on this site and must match your game client. If a macro does not work on your client, report it with the button on the card.

#showtooltip Raise Ally
/cast [@mouseover,help][@target]Raise Ally

#showtooltip Mind Freeze
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][] Mind Freeze

#showtooltip Gorefiend's Grasp
/cast [mod:shift,@focus,exists][@mouseover,exists,nodead][@player] Gorefiend's Grasp

#showtooltip Death and Decay
/cast [@cursor] Death and Decay; [mod:ctrl, @player] Death and Decay

/cancelaura Blessing of Protection

/target pet
/run PetDismiss()
/use Control Undead
/petassist

Keybinds are personal — this is not a layout to copy wholesale. What it does say is which abilities you press most, measured from the same top parses above: the more often an ability is cast, the less effort its key should take. Interrupts, defensives and movement are deliberately left out; they barely register in cast data yet must always be within reach, so choose those yourself.

Rows marked Passive are not pressed at all — they fire on their own (auto-attacks, procs) and get no key, even though they top the casts-per-minute table.

Key	Ability	Top-player CPM
1	Death Strike	17.5
2	Heart Strike	15.0
3	Vampiric Strike	9.5
4	Blood Boil	8.5
5	Death and Decay	3.9
Z	Marrowrend	2.1
X	Vampiric BloodOff-GCD	1.8
C	Death's Caress	1.2
V	Death Grip	1.2
R	Death's AdvanceOff-GCD	1.1
F	Anti-Magic ShellOff-GCD	1.0
T	Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD	0.7
G	Raise DeadOff-GCD	0.6
Shift+1	LichborneOff-GCD	0.5