Mists of Pandaria Classic Unholy Death Knight Guide

Unholy Death Knight remains one of the strongest melee dps in the game for the Mists of Pandaria Expansion and is widely considered the king of AoE Damage for all melee specializations. Unholy not only brings consistent damage in both AoE and Single target situations it also provides a ton of utility in the form of abilities like Gorefiend's Grasp, Raise Ally, and Anti-Magic Zone as well as bringing the highly sought-after Ebon Plaguebringer debuff that applies Physical Vulnerability.

Yes! Unholy is consistently one of the highest performing melee specializations in the game and will bring a ton of DPS to any kind of content. Unholy has a unique play style focused heavily around maximizing the damage dealt by your diseases while keeping your pets active and casting as many Scourge Strikes as possible. If you enjoy having a minion by your side and dealing tons of damage than Unholy Death Knight is a great choice.

Strengths

• Powerful defensive cooldowns, both for personal use and the group like Anti-Magic Zone.
• Great utility in the form of abilities like Gorefiend's Grasp.
• Brings the highly sought-after Ebon Plaguebringer debuff.
• Consistently performs as one of the highest Melee DPS in Single Target and AoE.

Weaknesses

• Very limited mobility.
• Proper understanding of how to best utilize pets is important.
• Very susceptible to crowd control outside of cooldowns.

As Horde, you can be any race but Pandaren as a Death Knight. The two races that will consistently perform the best are Orcs and Trolls with Orc having a slight advantage. The Orc buff Blood Fury is incredible for Unholy as your minions like your Ghoul and Gargoyle both update on your stats dynamically so you can see the effect this buff will have on them in real time. Blood Fury also allows you to snapshot the bonus Attack Power in your diseases with your Outbreak ability. Orc also provides Command which is just a flat 2% increase to the damage dealt by your Ghoul and Gargoyle. Troll is another great choice thanks to Berserking which increases our Melee Haste by 20% for 10 seconds, This can be a bit more difficult to utilize as Unholy but the massive increase in Attack Speed is a solid option. Troll also provides Beast Slaying, there are a number of Beast bosses throughout Mists of Pandaria so this flat damage increase should be something to consider.

As Alliance, you can also be any race but Pandaren for your Death Knight. There is one clear winner when it comes to racials on Alliance and that is Worgen. Even with changes to Death's Advance Death Knight can struggle with mobility so having access to Darkflight helps considerably. Worgen also offers Viciousness and as Unholy we want as much Critical Strike as we can get.

1. Engineering — Engineering will is a default choice as a Death Knight largely thanks to Nitro Boosts. As mentioned above one of your single largest limiting factors as a Death Knight of any spec is your mobility so an extra button to get to where you want to be quicker is a great choice. Synapse Springs are also a massive increase to our damage and pairs incredibly with any of our DPS cooldowns and allows you to snapshot even stronger diseases with Outbreak.
2. Blacksmithing — allows us to add extra sockets to our bracers and gloves, these extra sockets provide a considerable amount of extra stats. As a Unholy Death Knight these static stat increases are great as the benefit not only your character but all of your minions like your Ghoul and Gargoyle.

Addons and Macros can greatly improve your quality of life during Mists of Pandaria. Listed below are some of our recommendations on Addons and Macros to help get the most out of your time playing the game.