Solo Blood Death Knight Rotation

See also:
Solo Blood Death Knight Spec
Solo Blood Death Knight Glyphs
Solo Blood Death Knight Gear

Following my previous post, here's a quick primer on the ideal rotation for Blood. This works for both solo-ing and raiding. Of course, a raider needs to keep other things in mind as well, which are not the scope of this article, but you can find more on the subject on such theorycrafting sites as the Elitist Jerks forums.

Now I'm sure that everyone who's played a Death Knight has at least a basic understanding of how the resource system works. I will attempt to give a short explanation for those who are just starting out as a Death Knight.

Basically there are 2 resources: Runes and Runic Power. Runes start out as "activated" i.e. ready to be used. Runic Power starts at zero and in a way is similar to a Warrior's Rage.

There are 6 Runes: 2 of each Blood, Frost and Unholy. As a general rule, special weapon strikes use one or more of these runes. A rune will "recharge" or activate in 10 seconds after being used. The weapon strikes that Blood uses are: Icy Touch (uses 1 Frost Rune), Plague Strike (uses 1 Unholy Rune), Heart Strike (or Blood Strike before you get access to Heart Strike) (uses 1 Blood Rune) and Death Strike (uses 1 Frost and 1 Unholy Rune).

You should always start your rotation with either Icy Touch or Plague Strike in order to apply their 2 diseases to the target. I always start with Icy Touch because it's a ranged ability and by the time the mob gets in melee range, my Global Cooldown (GCD) is over and I can Plague Strike immediately. The 2 diseases (Frost Fever and Blood Plague) are very important on a target because they allow your 2 most important strikes (Heart Strike and Death Strike to deal considerably more damage).

A special weapon strike will also generate Runic Power. You can have a maximum of 100 Runic Power (or 130 when talented). Every once in a while in your rotation you will need to dispose of this Runic Power (also called "dumping") by using an ability that's fueled by Runic Power. For my build, Death Coil is the main Runic Power dump. Dancing Rune Weapon is better than Death Coil whenever its cooldown is up, but personally I only use it on tougher mobs because regular mobs go down so fast that I don't feel it's necessary to use it on them. If you let your Runic Power build up to maximum, you will lose DPS if you don't use it, so make sure you do.

Here's the rotation. I will assume you are starting the fight with all Runes off cooldown.
BBFFUU (2 Blood, 2 Frost, 2 Unholy)

Icy Touch (1 Frost) -> BB_FUU
Plague Strike (1 Unholy) -> BB_F_U
Heart Strike (1 Blood) -> _B_F_U
Heart Strike (1 Blood) -> _ _ _F_U
Death Strike (1 Frost, 1 Unholy) -> ______ (this also causes our Frost and Unholy Runes to convert to Death Runes when they activate, thanks to Death Rune Mastery)
Death Coil

From here on it depends what you are fighting. For normal mobs, once I get to use my Runic Power Dump, they are dead, so I just start all over for the next mob.

For elites and/or tougher mobs, you can either choose to repeat the rotation from the beginning, so as to refresh your diseases on the mob (remember, Heart Strike and Death Strike both do more damage the more diseases you have on the target). Alternately, at this point you will also have enough resources (2 Blood Runes and 2 Death Runes) to spam 4x Heart Strikes like so:

Heart Strike
Heart Strike
Heart Strike
Heart Strike
Death Coil

So that's the basic rotation for Blood in a nutshell. Of course, there are other abilities at our disposal. For example, I will also use Rune Strike whenever it becomes available although truth be told, it's more of a tanking ability and now it strikes for less damage than before so I suspect that for my Blood build Death Coil still remains a better alternative. Don't quote me on that yet because I haven't tested extensively since Rune Strike's damage was nerfed but that's just my feeling. I would actually prefer I wouldn't use Rune Strike anymore because it would simplify my rotation and I could also remove another skill from the bar.

One other thing that you need to bear in mind is that Blood's rotation is very tight, meaning that if you miss a strike or you use the wrong one, you will mess up your entire rotation. I am guilty of that on a regular basis usually due to pressing the wrong button. On the other hand, if you get it right, everything runs like clockwork and killing becomes a beautiful dance of death.

Fighting multiple mobs (AoE)
Unfortunately Blood isn't the best Death Knight spec for AoE but we can manage. I admit that I tend to become rather chaotic in my rotation when I have to fight multiple mobs. I will usually throw out there any ability that has enough Runic Power or Runes. Which is not good. I really need to go out there with a target dummy and practice a good rotation. Essentially you will need to use something like this: Death and Decay, then Icy Touch, Plague Strike on one mob, then Pestilence to spread the diseases on all other mobs, Death Coil on the first mob and then Blood Boil to deal AoE damage to all mobs (if your Blood Rune has activated). I usually mess up this rotation badly and I'm all over the place with my abilities. Need... more... self... control...

As a final word, I will mention Obliterate. Before patch 3.1 (I believe), I was using Obliterate instead of Death Strike. Death Strike was used only for healing. Nowadays, I am very happy to completely remove Obliterate from my bar. If you are still thinking of using it as Blood, forget it. Death Strike is the way to go, especially when talented and glyphed.

See also:
Solo Blood Death Knight Spec
Solo Blood Death Knight Glyphs
Solo Blood Death Knight Gear