Mists of Pandaria Classic Unholy Death Knight Spell Summary

Unholy only gains a few new spells in Mists of Pandaria but understanding how they work and some of the changes made to your existing abilities is crucial to mastering your Unholy Death Knight.

Unholy is consistently one of the highest DPS melee damage dealers in the game. In order to deal maximum DPS you will need a solid understanding of how your abilities function and how to best utilize them to maximize your DPS.

• Scourge Strike — an instant cast melee attack that deals damage based off of your weapon damage, attack power, and the amount of active diseases on the target. This ability will act as your primary spender of Unholy/Death Runes.
• Soul Reaper — is an instant cast attack that deals damage to the target based off of your weapon damage and attack power. It also applies a debuff that after 5 seconds if the target is below 35% deals massive damage to the target. If the target dies before this debuff is able to expire it grants the Death Knight 50% Haste for 5 seconds.
• Festering Strike — an instant cast meelee attack that deals damage based on your weapon damage and attack power. It also adds 6 seconds to the duration of your Blood Plague and Frost Fever diseases. This is a great way to extend the duration of your diseases especially in a situation where you have snapshotted an especially strong set.
• Icy Touch — an instant cast ranged attack that deals Frost damage based off of your Attack Power and applies the Frost Fever debuff to the target. With changes made to Ebon Plaguebringer your Plague Strike ability will also apply the Frost Fever debuff making this ability a bit of a niche use.
• Plague Strike — an instant cast melee attack deals damage based off of your Attack Power and weapon damage. This also applies the Blood Plague debuff to the target. In Mists of Pandaria this will now also apply Frost Fever thanks to Ebon Plaguebringer.
• Outbreak — instantly applies Blood Plague and Frost Fever to your current target. Keeping your diseases active on the target are a huge part of Unholy, this ability is best used when you have some kind of Attack Power or Strength proc like Rune of the Fallen Crusader to increase the potency of your diseases as they will snapshot the increased stats at the time of casting.
• Death Coil — an instant cast, ranged attack that deals Shadow damage based off of your Attack Power. As Unholy this builds Shadow Infusion stacks which are necessary to cast your Dark Transformation cooldown.
• Death and Decay — summons a patch of corrupted ground dealing Shadow damage based off of your Attack Power.
• Blood Boil — an instant cast AoE in a small range around the Death Knight that deals Shadow damage. This ability deals extra damage to targets effected by diseases. When paired with the Roiling Blood talent this also causes it to spread the diseases of any target hit similarly to Pestilence.
• Pestilence — is an instant attack that spreads the diseases on your current target to any nearby enemies.
• Plague Leech — is an instant cast ability that removes your active diseases from the target and activates two random depleted Runes as Death Runes. This is ideally used at the very end of your diseases duration to ensure you have dealt as much damage as possible with the Runes spent on those diseases.

Unholy Death Knight has a wide array of cooldowns that will both greatly increase your DPS output but also help mitigate incoming damage. Proper utilization of these cooldowns will be the largest difference in your DPS.

• Summon Gargoyle — is a three-minute cooldown that summons a gargoyle that will attack the target for 30 seconds. This gargoyle's damage is based off of your Attack Power so always try to pair this with your potion cooldown if possible. Your gargoyle does not snapshot buffs when cast but dynamically updates so trying to cast it with effects like Rune of the Fallen Crusader or Potion of Mogu Power will often yield a greater result.
• Unholy Frenzy. — is a three-minute cooldown that enrages a friendly target increasing their melee attack speed and ranged Haste by 20% for 30 seconds. It is important to note that this does not impact your Gargoyle as it increases your melee attack speed, not your melee haste.
• Dark Transformation — is an instant cast that consumes 5 charges of Shadow Infusion to transform your Ghoul into a much more powerful version of itself.
• Anti-Magic Shell — is a 45 second cooldown buff that absorbs 75% of the damage dealt by harmful Magic spells and makes you immune to Magic effects for its five second duration or until 50% of the Death Knights health is taken in Magic damage. This can also make you entirely immune to the application of specific Magic abilities.
• Anti-Magic Zone — summons a bubble at a targeted area that reduces incoming Magic damage to those inside of the bubble by 40% for 3 seconds.
• Army of the Dead — summons a horde of ghouls to attack any nearby enemies. These ghouls will attempt to taunt any nearby non-boss mob so be careful when using it. These ghouls stats update dynamically so if you find yourself in a situation where you are not casting it pre-pull try to wait for a Rune of the Fallen Crusader proc for maximum effect.
• Dark Simulacrum — applies a debuff to an enemy that allows the Death Knight to duplicate the next spell cast by the enemy. This ability has some very powerful situational uses in PvE so always try to be aware of what spells can be Dark Simulacrum'd.
• Blood Tap — is a stacking buff that when used at 5 charges activates a random depleted Rune as a Death Rune. This can be activated at 5 stacks but you can have up to 12 stacks maximum.
• Icebound Fortitude — is a reduces all incoming damage by 50% for 12 seconds and prevents you from being stunned during its duration.
• Asphyxiate — replaces your Strangulate ability and now causes it to Stun the target for 5 seconds instead of silencing. This can be used as an interrupt on targets that are immune to stuns.
• Raise Ally — instantly resurrects a dead party/raid member. This will return them to life at 60% health and 20% mana so make sure to use this during a period of low incoming damage.
• Death Grip — is a 35-second cooldown that instantly pulls the target to the Death Knight. This can be used as an impromptu interrupt as well just make sure you get far enough away to move the mob.
• Strangulate — is a two-minute cooldown that silences the target for five seconds. This can also be used as an interrupt for targets that are immune to silencing effects.
• Empower Rune Weapon — is a 5-minute cooldown that instantly resets the cooldown of all of your Runes and grants you 25 Runic Power. As Unholy this is best used when all of your Runes have been converted to Death Runes and you have no Runes active.
• Gorefiend's Grasp — pulls all enemies within 20 yards to the Death Knight's location. This ability effectively acts as an AoE Death Grip.
• Remorseless Winter — enemies within 8 yards of the Death Knight will start to gain a stacking debuff slowing their movement speed by 15% per stack for 3 seconds, up to 5 stacks. Upon reaching 5 stacks the target will be stunned for 6 seconds.
• Desecrated Ground — summons a corrupted patch of ground that causes the Death Knight to become immune to all crowd controlling effects for 10 seconds. This can be used to free yourself from an already existing crowd control.

In addition to the many rotational abilities and cooldowns you find yourself using Death Knight has been given a number of utility based tools that you will find yourself using including the iconic Death Grip.

• Chains of Ice — slows the target by 60% for 8 seconds.
• Mind Freeze — is a 15-second cooldown short ranged interrupt that allows you to disrupt spell casting.
• Death's Advance — is a 30-second cooldown that when active increases your movement speed by 30%. It also includes a passive effect that increases your movement speed by 10% at all times.
• Death Pact — instantly heals you for 50% of your maximum health in exchange for dealing 50% of your ghouls maximum health.
• Horn of Winter — is an instant cast spell that generates 10 Runic Power and increases the Attack Power of your group by 10%.
• Raise Dead — summons a ghoul that will fight by your side. As Unholy the ghoul this is a huge part of your damage and will have a pet bar that allows you to utilize a number of abilities as well as letting you better direct who it will be attacking.
• Death Gate — opens a gate that allows the Death Knight to teleport back to Ebon Hold.

In Mists of Pandaria Presences have been greatly simplified, its rare if ever that you will ever be in anything but Unholy Presence as an Unholy Death Knight.

As an Unholy Death knight you will exclusively be using Rune of the Fallen Crusader.

• Rune of Lichbane — your weapons deal 2% extra weapon damage as Fire damage or 4% against Undead enemies.
• Rune of Razorice — your weapons deal 2% extra weapon damage as Frost damage and increase the targets vulnerability to Frost Damage.
• Rune of Spellshattering — your two-handed weapons reducing incoming Spell damage by 4% and reduce the duration of silencing effects by 50%.
• Rune of Swordshattering — your two-handed weapons increase your parry rating by 4% and reduce the duration of disarming effects by 60%.
• Rune of the Fallen Crusader — your weapon has a chance to heal you for 3% of your total health and increase your Strength by 15% for fifteen seconds. This will be your default Rune as Unholy.
• Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle — your two-handed weapons increase your armor by 4% and your total Stamina by 2%.
• Rune of Cinderglacier — causes your attacks to have a chance to increase the Shadow damage done of your next 2 attacks that deal Shadow or Frost damage by 20%.