Death Knight - Blood DPS (as of 3.3)

Most of the information here was taken from Elitist Jerks Blood DK thread. Its simply been condensed into a quick beginner intro.

Purpose

A (mainly) physical DPS class.

Raid buffs via Horn of Winter.
Hysteria is good for dps classes, especially DPS Warriors, feral Kitties.

Templates Updated

As of 3.3 there are two viable raiding builds for blood Death Knights. They differ slightly with spec and glyph choice.

Glyph of Dark Death Build-51/0/20∞

Glyph of Disease Build-51/0/20∞

Obviously depending on which build you choose, you would need to get the corresponding glyph. More information about how the build differ is available here∞.

Ability Rotation Updated

Dark Death Build

This is the easier of the two rotation, easier meaning less complicated.

Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Heart Strike x2, Death Strike, Runic Dump(Death Coil x2), Death Strike, Heart Strike x4, Runic Dump (Death Coil)

During the dump phase, you'll have extra GCDs, which you can use to raise your Ghoul or put up Horn of Winter.

Disease Build

The disease build rotation is slightly different, mainly because it has an "opener" and a "maintain" phase.

Opener:
Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Heart Strike x2, Death Strike, Runic Dump(Death Coil x2), Death Strike, Heart Strike x3, Pestilence, Runic Dump( Death Coil)

Maintain:
Heart Strike x4, Death Strike, Runic Dump(Death Coil), Death Strike, Heart Strike, Pestilence

With the Glyph of Disease, Pestilence will now also refresh Icy Touch and Plague Strike on the target. If ever either of the diseases falls off the target then you'll have to start with the Opener again.

AOE Rotation

Blood DPS isn't really built towards AOE, but we're not terrible at it either. For mobs of 1-4 targets, spread your diseases around and use Heart Strike. Once you get past 5 targets, use Blood Boil.

Key Cooldowns

Hysteria - Boosts your physical damage by 20% (3 Min CD). You can put it on yourself or on others. Works especially well on a feral druid dps. Be carefull that it takes life !
Dancing Rune Weapon - A Rune weapon that does damage equal to 1/2 of your damage on strikes. Cannot be killed.
Horn of Winter - The Death Knight blows the Horn of Winter, increasing total Strength and Agility of all party or raid members within 30 yards by 155. Lasts 2 min. 20seconds CD. no rune cost. This should be up 100% of the time unless another class is in charge of putting it up.

Stats (In Order of Importance) Updated

This is a basic guideline of what stats you should be aiming for. To know exactly how much weight to give to each stat when comparing gear, you would need to use a sim. Having said that, if you follow this guide you should be decently close to how good you could be.

Contrary to what most other classes tend to do, Strength/Armor Penetration is a better stat for us than Hit/Expertise even below the 8% melee hit cap. This means that even when you're under-hit you should always gem for STR the only exception being to fulfill your meta gem requirement.

Stat APE
Attack Power 1
Weapon DPS 9.89
Strength 2.89
Armor Penetration 2.75
Hit Rating (to cap) 2.51
Expertise Rating 2.47
Crit Rating 1.56
Haste Rating 1.5
Agility 1.37
Hit Rating (to spell hit cap) .52
Armor .03

Recommended Glyphs Updated

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon
Glyph of Death Strike
Glypf of Dark Death or Glyph of Disease (see above)

Minor Glyphs

Glyph of Pestilence
Glyph of Horn of Winter
Glyph of Raise Dead

Enchants / Gems Updated

Enchants

Weapon enchant : Fallen Crusader - Increases Strength by 30% on proc. This is by far the best scaling enchant in WoTLK.

Boots Enchant : It as been shown that minor speed increase can be good in many situations. It mainly depends on your tastes.

Gems

Gem for Strength, which means Bold Cardinal Ruby/Bold Scarlet Ruby depending on your bankroll.

Recommended Consumables Updated

Flask: Flask of Endless Rage
DPS Potions: Potion of Speed, or Indistructable Potion ( With Bladed Armor you get about 97 AP). If you use either potion 5 seconds before the pull then you won't be locked out of the potion during the fight. Also if you're running low on health and the healers look busy, take a Health potion instead. When you're dead you do 0dps.

Sources and Other Resources

Blood Simple - A Blood DK DPS Guide - Updated for 3.3∞

Death Knight - PVE DPS - Elitist Jerks∞