Mists of Pandaria Classic Unholy Death Knight Leveling

Unholy Death Knight remains one of the strongest specializations in Mists of Pandaria. Unholy Death Knight has a tremendous amount of passive cleave damage thanks to their diseases and the damage dealt by your ghoul and gargoyle can often make it feel as if you are leveling with an extra player.

Below is a rough breakdown of each choice available for each tier of Talents. Death Knight is a bit unique in that the first 4 tiers of talents come at level 56, 57, 58, and 60 and then follow the traditional route of a new tier of talents every 15 levels.

This tier of talents offers unique interactions with your Diseases, how they are spread and even how to gain back Runes from your Diseases.

• Roiling Blood causes your Blood Boil ability to trigger Pestilence. This is a great choice while leveling if you find yourself in dungeons or constantly fighting large groups of enemies.
• Unholy Blight grants you a buff that applies your Blood Plague debuff to any target within 10 yards for 10 seconds. This is another great way to spread Blood Plague but its longer cooldown makes it a very niche ability.
• Plague Leech removes your diseases from the target and activates two inactive Runes as Death Runes. This can be a bit difficult to use while leveling as the mobs you are fighting are dying quickly but if you you are able to use this consistently right before your target dies or your diseases expire this will yield a considerable increase in your kill speeds while leveling.

This tier of talents is focused on survivability.

• Purgatory causes otherwise deadly damage to send you into a state of purgatory which absorbs incoming healing until the healing taken equals the amount of fatal damage taken. Unless you are leveling with a Healer it can be quite difficult to get yourself out of Purgatory so this talent does not offer much value.
• Anti-Magic Zone summons a bubble that reduces all incoming Magic damage to anyone within it by 40% for 3 seconds. This is a great tool if you find yourself leveling in Dungeons, if leveling solo it can help when fighting groups of casters but generally speaking its uses can be limited.
• Lichborne causes you to become Undead, making you immune to Charm, Fear and Sleep effects. This also makes it so your Death Coil ability can now be used to heal yourself. While we do want to focus on dealing as much damage as possible do not be afraid to spend some of your Runic Power on Death Coiling yourself to keep yourself active, the single largest increase to your leveling speed is up time.

This tier of talents focuses on crowd controlling abilities, both your ability to crowd control and ways to reduce the effectiveness of crowd control on yourself.

• Chilblains causes targets of your Frost Fever disease to be slowed by 50% for 10 seconds after it is applied and your Chains of Ice ability to root your target for 3 seconds. This ability can be difficult to use as Unholy as our only real source of Frost Fever is Icy Touch so in a situation where you need to slow a group of enemies consider Glyph of Death and Decay.
• Asphyxiate turns your Strangulate ability into a stun. This can still be used as an interrupt on targets that are immune to stuns.
• Death's Advance passively increases your movement speed by 10% and movement impairing effects may not reduce your movement speed below 70% of normal movement speed. It can also be activated for 30% movement speed and movement impairing effects may not reduce your movement speed below 100% of normal movement speed for 6 seconds. This should be your choice while leveling as the passive movement speed as well on the on use will add up to tons of time saved throughout your leveling process especially if you are keeping the active portion of this on cooldown.

This tier of talents is all about ways to self-heal.

• Death Pact drains the vitality from an undead minion healing you for 50% of your maximum health while dealing 50% of your minions maximum health in damage to it. This is an incredibly strong personal cooldown that can help you survive what would otherwise be deadly incoming damage or just to help keep your healers ahead of the game.
• Death Siphon deals Shadowfrost damage to the target and heals you for 150% of the damage dealt. Its unlikely this ability will do enough damage while leveling to come even close to the healing provided by Death Pact.
• Conversion converts your Runic Power to health restoring of 3% of your maximum health back per second. It is rare we will find yourself in a long enough engagement for the healing to be needed and Runic Power can be quite scarce while leveling so we are unlikely to get much benefit from this talent.

This tier focuses entirely on maximizing your ability to regenerate Runes.

• Blood Tap each time you cast a Death Coil, Frost Strike, or Rune Strike you generate 2 stacks of Blood Tap. You can consume 5 stacks to refresh a random currently inactive Rune as a Death Rune. This stacks up to 12 times so you do not need to worry about pressing the button as soon as you are at 5 stacks. While leveling it can be difficult to maintain these stacks going from quest to quest or pack to pack but if you are diligent about using this as soon as you achieve 5 stacks it can greatly increase how many Runes you have available.
• Runic Corruption whenever you deal damage with a Death Coil, Frost Strike, or Rune Strike you have a 45% chance of activating Runic Corruption increasing your Rune regeneration rate by 100% for 3 seconds.
• Runic Empowerment whenever you deal damage with a Death Coil, Frost Strike, or Rune Strike you have a 45% chance to reactivate a currently inactive Rune.

Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria are a much smaller part of the leveling process than previous expansions but having an idea of what they do and how they can benefit your character can greatly increase the rate at which you level, highlighted below are some options that you should consider while leveling.

As a Death Knight most of your Glyphs become immediately available as you start at such a high level with a considerable amount of your abilities already learned. There two Glyphs that will massively increase your leveling speed: When you kill an enemy that yields experience while in Frost Presence or Unholy Presence Glyph of Dark Succor causes your next Death Strike to be free and restore at least 20% of your maximum health. This is a great way to stay active and greatly increases the benefit of your Death Strike ability. The second Glyph is Glyph of Unholy Command this resets the cooldown of your Death Grip ability anytime we kill an enemy that yields experience making it much easier to maximize your up time especially when fighting casters or ranged mobs. Your third Glyph slot there are quite a few options depending on your personal preference.

• Glyph of Death and Decay causes your Death and Decay ability to slow enemies inside of its radius by 50%. while leveling it is unlikely you will get much benefit out of Chilblains so this helps fill that gap if you decide to choose another talent.
• Glyph of Death Grip increases the range of your Death Grip ability by 5 yards. This makes it even easier to reposition enemies that are at range.
• Glyph of Pestilence increases the range of Pestilence by 5 yards. While leveling this makes it much easier to spread your diseases as it can at times be difficult to get all of the mobs you are fighting stacked.
• Glyph of Festering Blood causes your Blood Boil ability to behave as if all targets have Frost Fever and Blood Plague active on them.
• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell increases the amount of damage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell up to 100% from 75%. This can be a great way to mitigate incoming Magic damage but it is important to consider that it is still limited to 50% of your maximum health.
• Glyph of the Loud Horn causes your Horn of Winter to generate 10 additional Runic Power but doubles its cooldown. While leveling the time spent in combat will be rather short so its unlikely you will get deep enough into your rotation where you need to use Horn of Winter rotationally so this insures constant up time on the buff.
• Glyph of Icebound Fortitude reduces the cooldown of your Icebound Fortitude ability by 50% but also reduces its duration by 75%. Due to the nature of how short your engagements will likely be while leveling this can be a great way to keep yourself active if you are diligent about keeping Icebound Fortitude on cooldown.

Minor Glyphs as mentioned above are mostly cosmetic or quality of life changes but highlighted below are 3 Glyphs that will improve your leveling experience..

• Glyph of Death Gate considerably reduces the cast time of your Death Gate ability.
• Glyph of Tranquil Grip causes your Death Grip ability to no longer taunt the target.
• Glyph of Death's Embrace refunds 20 Runic Power when using Death Coil to heal an allied minion. This helps to keep your ghoul alive.

As an Unholy Death Knight you want to cast as many Scourge Strikes as possible while keeping your diseases active on as many targets as you can. Your ghoul also makes up a massive part of your damage while leveling so making sure it is always active and attacking something will greatly increase the rate at which you are able to kill your enemies and gain experience. If you ever find yourself at low health or expect you may be in danger of dying do not hesitate to cast Death Strike especially when you have a Glyph of Dark Succor proc active to keep yourself going. Highlighted below is a list of priorities to follow while leveling but keep in mind that these can change depending on how long your targets will be alive, how many targets you are currently in combat with and many other factors.

The priority order is as follows:

1. Make sure you are in Unholy Presence;
2. Make sure your Ghoul is active;
3. Keep Horn of Winter active;
4. Cast Unholy Frenzy, Summon Gargoyle and Empower Rune Weapon early and often, it is better to have them on cooldown than wait for the perfect moment to get an entirely optimal usage;
5. If you find yourself at low health consider using Death Strike.
6. Do not hesitate to use Icebound Fortitude and Anti-Magic Shell to mitigate incoming damage;
7. Cast Plague Strike to apply your diseases, Ebon Plaguebringer will cause this to also apply Frost Fever;
8. If you are fighting more than 2 enemies make sure to spread your diseases with Pestilence
9. When the target is below 35% health cast Soul Reaper;
10. If you are fighting 3 or more enemies keep Death and Decay down;
11. Cast Dark Transformation at 5 stacks of Shadow Infusion;
12. Cast Scourge Strike to spend your Unholy and Death Runes if your diseases are already active;
13. Cast Death Coil when you have 40 or more Runic Power or have a Sudden Doom proc;
14. Cast Festering Strike if the mob is going to survive the extended duration of the diseases;
15. Cast Blood Tap assuming a Rune is inactive;
16. Cast Horn of Winter to generate Runic Power if all the conditions mentioned above are met.