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'tekOff-GCD 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

1 Death's Caress 2 Death and Decay 3 Voracious Heart of Ula'tekOff-GCD 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

1 Marrowrend 2 Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD 3 Raise DeadOff-GCD 4 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 5 Coiled FangstoneOff-GCD 6 Vampiric Strike 7 Vampiric Strike 8 Blood Boil 9 Death Strike 10 Vampiric Strike 11 Vampiric Strike 12 Death Strike 13 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	17.3
Heart Strike	15.0
Vampiric Strike	9.3
Blood Boil	8.0
Death and Decay	3.2
Marrowrend	2.0
Death's AdvanceOff-GCD	1.3
Vampiric BloodOff-GCD	1.3
Death's Caress	1.2
Anti-Magic ShellOff-GCD	0.9
Voracious Heart of Ula'tekOff-GCD	0.8
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 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 Blood Boil 2 Vampiric Strike 3 Heart Strike 4 Blood Boil 5 Death Strike 6 Death's AdvanceOff-GCD 7 Death and Decay 8 Death Grip 9 Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD 10 Raise DeadOff-GCD 11 Voracious Heart of Ula'tekOff-GCD 12 Alliance FireworkOff-GCD 13 Play Pipes

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

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

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	17.3
2	Heart Strike	15.0
3	Vampiric Strike	9.5
4	Blood Boil	8.5
5	Death and Decay	3.8
Z	Marrowrend	2.1
X	Vampiric BloodOff-GCD	1.8
C	Death's AdvanceOff-GCD	1.3
V	Death's Caress	1.2
R	Death Grip	1.1
F	Anti-Magic ShellOff-GCD	0.9
T	Voracious Heart of Ula'tekOff-GCD	0.8
G	Dancing Rune WeaponOff-GCD	0.7
Shift+1	Raise DeadOff-GCD	0.6
Shift+2	LichborneOff-GCD	0.5