Unholy Death Knight DPS Easy Mode — The War Within (11.0.5)

This page is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous subtleties and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

For those who are new to Unholy Death Knight and are not sure what each ability does or how they interact with the Unholy toolkit, we recommend checking out our Spell Summary guide is linked below.

Unholy Death Knight is a melee DPS specialization that provides strong single-target and AoE DPS. Its play style is somewhat complex (considering the large number of cooldowns). However, it is incredibly rewarding to master.

Your main goal throughout a fight is applying the Festering Wound debuff with Festering Strike (ensuring not to over-cap it) and then consuming these stacks with Scourge Strike while also making sure to use Death Coil or Epidemic to consume procs of Sudden Doom or not over-cap on Runic Power. Furthermore, you should aim to maintain uptime on your disease Virulent Plague by using Outbreak or Dark Transformation (with Unholy Blight).

Both talent builds above use the Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talents. If you would rather play San'layn, swap Improved Death Coil for Ebon Fever and Clawing Shadows for Plaguebringer.

The talents above are your go-to options that will be generically best in the two situations presented. For raiding, remember to pick up Mind Freeze on any encounter where you might need an interrupt! You can give up Blood Scent in these scenarios. For a more in-depth page, please follow the link below.

Currently, you will want to prioritize stats as follows. Do remember that ilvl will generally be best in most scenarios!

1. Haste,
2. Mastery,
3. Critical Strike,
4. Versatility.

This can be different depending on your character's gear, so make sure you sim yourself, to find what your stat priority is. Generally, Haste and Mastery are a lot more valuable than the other two stats and should be prioritised. However, do not drop a lot of ilvls to chase these specific stats either! For more info, please visit the Stats Page:

1. Use Raise Abomination.
2. Use Abomination Limb.
3. Use Dark Transformation + Potion.
4. Use Unholy Assault + Trinket + Racial
5. Use Apocalypse.

1. Cast Soul Reaper if the target is below 35%.
2. Cast Outbreak to maintain your Virulent Plague on the target if you are playing San'layn.
3. Use Death Coil when you have 80+ Runic Power or a Sudden Doom proc.
4. Use Festering Strike to apply Festering Wounds on the target. Do this if the target has 2 or fewer Festering Wounds.
5. Use Scourge Strike when there are at least 3 Festering Wounds on the target.
6. Use Death Coil.

Please find below a rotation on a dungeon trash pack.

1. Raise Abomination.
2. Defile to deal AoE damage and enable cleave.
3. Scourge Strike to initiate Plaguebringer.
4. Dark Transformation (applies Virulent Plague via Unholy Blight. Outbreak if neither Raise Abomination or Dark Transformation was used.
5. Use Abomination Limb.
6. Use Unholy Assault + Festering Strike (2x Festering Strike if you do not have Unholy Assault ready).
7. Use Vile Contagion
8. Use Apocalypse.
9. Spam Scourge Strike to burst your Festering Wounds.
10. Use Defile when your Cleaving Strikes buff runs out.
11. Use Epidemic if you get a proc of Sudden Doom, or if you cannot use more Scourge Strike to burst Wounds.
12. Continue with Scourge Strike spam, Epidemic spam, maintain Cleaving Strikes with Defile/ Death and Decay and maintain your DoTs with Outbreak.
13. After you run out of Defile/ Death and Decays to use, go to single target rotation with Epidemic at 2+ (without Improved Death Coil, 4+ with) targets. This is the only time you use Festering Strike outside the initial GCDs in the opener on the pack.

Make sure to stand in your Defile once you have used it. The cleave from your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows depends on you standing in the circle, not if the enemies do so.

For a more in-depth rotation, please consider checking out our rotation page linked below.

Unholy Death Knights have potentially 10 cooldowns; they should be used as follows:

• Abomination Limb should generally be used on cooldown. Hold it for add waves that need grouping up.
• Unholy Assault should be used on cooldown. Especially strong in Mythic+ when paired with Vile Contagion. Used in Single Target with your other CDs.
• Vile Contagion should be used in AoE on a target that ideally has 6 Festering Wounds. This should then be followed by Death and Decay and Scourge Strike to pop all wounds.
• Army of the Dead/ Raise Abomination should be used on cooldown. This is the first ability you press as you run toward the boss. Make sure to line it up with all your other Cooldowns every 3/1.5 minutes.
• Apocalypse should ideally be used when you have 4 stacks of Festering Wounds but it is fine to use on a target with at least 1 stack.
• Dark Transformation should be used off cooldown and as an opener on packs of multiple mobs.
• Sacrificial Pact should only be used to save yourself from death.
• Summon Gargoyle should be used on cooldown. Once used, prioritize spending Runic Power via Death Coil above everything else.
• Defile should be used in AoE. Use it as much as possible to enable your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows and deal AoE damage.