Mists of Pandaria Classic Unholy Death Knight Rotation and Cooldowns

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

Unholy Death Knight in Mists of Pandaria operates off of a priority system that aims to maximize your Scourge Strike casts while maintaining powerful diseases on the target and taking full advantage of your summoned minions and their various buffs. It is important to remember that the priority list mentioned is constantly updating based on things like your current amount of Shadow Infusion stacks or the availability of cooldowns like Summon Gargoyle.

This guide assumes you are using Blood Tap as it is often the most reliable way to regenerate Runes throughout the course of an encounter.

The priority order is as follows:

1. Make sure you are in Unholy Presence;
2. Make sure your Ghoul is active;
3. Cast Army of the Dead before the pull;
4. Make sure to prepot your Potion of Mogu Power;
5. Cast Unholy Frenzy on cooldown. Do not worry about pairing this with Summon Gargoyle as the increased attack speed will not benefit your Gargoyle;
6. Summon your Summon Gargoyle, when possible pair this with Bloodlust/ Heroism and any increases to your Attack Power like Rune of the Fallen Crusader;
7. Cast Plague Strike to apply your diseases, Ebon Plaguebringer will cause this to also apply Frost Fever;
8. If you have 11 or more stacks of Blood Tap and a Rune inactive, use it to refresh your Rune;
9. When the target is below 35% health cast Soul Reaper;
10. Cast Dark Transformation at 5 stacks of Shadow Infusion;
11. Cast Death and Decay to spend Unholy and Death Runes if you are confident your target will stay in it for the entire duration.
12. Cast Scourge Strike to spend your Unholy and Death Runes if Death and Decay is on cooldown or the target will move before you could get the full benefit of a Death and Decay;
13. Cast Death Coil when you have 40 or more Runic Power or have a Sudden Doom proc;
14. With any Attack Power or Strength proc, reapply your diseases with Outbreak to snapshot their benefit;
15. Cast Festering Strike to extend the duration of your diseases if they would otherwise expire;
16. Cast Blood Tap assuming a Rune is inactive.
17. Use Empower Rune Weapon to refresh all of your Runes and gain 25 Runic Power, this is ideally done after all of your Runes have been converted to Death Runes to cast more Scourge Strikes;
18. Cast Horn of Winter if all the conditions mentioned above have been met.

Summon Gargoyle is a massive part of your damage done as an Unholy Death Knight and fitting it into the priority list above can be a bit difficult due to the nature of the ability. Your goal with your Gargoyle is ideally to pair this with as many buffs as possible to make it as powerful as possible, so ideally this will be paired with Bloodlust/ Heroism and any sources of increased Strength or Attack Power you have available like trinkets or Rune of the Fallen Crusader. Keep in mind your Gargoyle does not snapshot your stats when it is cast it will dynamically update. While most buffs to your character will increase the damage dealt by your Gargoyle it is important to note that Unholy Frenzy does not impact it.

It is important to note that while Plague Leech will be our default talent choice but not something we will use as soon as it is off cooldown. Plague Leech will ideally be cast when there are only a few seconds left on the duration of your diseases or right before you refresh your diseases with Outbreak.

Similar to the single target section mentioned above, your AoE damage will be done by following a list of priorities:

1. Make sure you are in Unholy Presence;
2. Make sure your Ghoul is active;
3. Cast Plague Strike to apply your diseases, Ebon Plaguebringer will cause this to also apply Frost Fever;
4. Spread your diseases with Pestilence, if you are talented into Roiling Blood then cast Blood Boil to spread your diseases;
5. Keep Death and Decay on cooldown;
6. Use Blood Boil to spend any Blood and Death Runes;
7. Cast Death Coil when you have 40 or more Runic Power or have a Sudden Doom proc to proc Shadow Infusion and cast Dark Transformation;
8. Use Icy Touch to transform Frost Runes into Death Runes;
9. Cast Scourge Strike if Death and Decay is on cooldown to spend Unholy Runes;
10. Cast Blood Tap when you have no Runes available or risk going over the cap of stacks.

Unholy Death Knight deals a significant amount of its damage with its cooldowns like Summon Gargoyle. Understanding how to properly utilize each of these cooldowns is crucial to maximizing your personal DPS output.

Empower Rune Weapon instantly refreshes all of your Runes and grants you 25 Runic Power. The ability to instantly reset all of your Runes can be a make or break difference if you find yourself challenged with a tight DPS check. As an Unholy Death Knight this is ideally used when all of your Runes have been converted to Death Runes greatly increasing the amount of Scourge Strikes we are able to cast. Due to the 5 minute cooldown it can be difficult to get multiple uses in an encounter so making sure to utilize it when you will be able to benefit from its full effect is key.

Unholy Frenzy increases the targets melee and ranged Haste by 20% and causes them to lose 2% of their maximum health every 3 seconds for 30 seconds. This is a great way to increase the amount of attacks you are able to get off for its duration, increasingly the benefit of any sources of increased Attack Power like Rune of the Fallen Crusader.

Summon Gargoyle summons a Gargoyle to attack your current target. Your summoned Gargoyle will be a significant part of your overall damage as Unholy so optimizing its damage done is crucial. Your Gargoyle no longer snapshots but rather scales updates in real time scaling with your Haste and Attack Power, so unlike previous expansions it will optimally used right before any procs that would increase your Haste or Attack Power like Bloodlust/ Heroism or Rune of the Fallen Crusader to maximize the amount of time it spends under these increased stats. It is also important to note that your Gargoyle does not scale with your Unholy Frenzy ability so feel free to use them independent of each other.

Army of the Dead summons a large group of ghouls to help deal with your enemies. This should ideally be cast pre-pull or in any situation where you are unable to hit your current target. It is important to note that these ghouls update dynamically so you do not need to worry about waiting for a Rune of the Fallen Crusader proc or anything like that to cast this ability. This can also be used as a defensive cooldown in an emergency as it will grant you damage reduction equal to your Dodge + Parry chance.