Unholy Death Knight PvP Guide for Mists of Pandaria Classic

Unholy Death Knight remains an incredibly powerful damage dealer in Mists of Pandaria and consistently finds itself in the conversation for strongest Melee DPS. Utilizing abilities like Necrotic Strike makes up almost entirely for the lack of healing reduction and the ability to constantly disrupt and stick to targets with Death Grip will make Death Knight relevant in all forms of PvP content.

Strengths

• Sticks to targets easily thanks to abilities like Death Grip and Chains of Ice.
• Massive burst damage when using multiple cooldowns.
• Especially strong against Casters due to powerful defensives like Anti-Magic Shell and
• the ability to slow cast speeds with Necrotic Strike.

Weaknesses

• Incredibly susceptible to crowd control.
• Struggles against incoming damage without cooldowns available.
• Requires a considerable amount of set up to deal maximum damage.

• Glyph of Icy Touch — Causes your Icy Touch ability to now dispel a helpful Magic effect from your target, allowing you to dispel pesky abilities like Hand of Protection.
• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell — Increases the amount of Magic damage that is able to be absorbed by your Anti-Magic Shell.
• Glyph of Dark Simulacrum — Reduces the cooldown of your Dark Simulacrum ability by 30 seconds and increases its duration by 4 seconds, making it much easier to steal powerful spells from your enemies.

Make sure to check out our Spells Summary Page. This page breaks down the core abilities as an Unholy Death Knight giving you a better idea of how each of your tools function beyond what abilities to press to deal damage. Having a solid undertanding of your abilities as a Death Knight is crucial because you never know when a well timed Dark Simulacrum can turn the tide of battle or a clutch Death Grip could save a teammate.

1. Outbreak — to apply diseases to your target. It is crucial to keep your diseases active at all times so if Outbreak is not available use Plague Strike to apply your diseases.
2. Necrotic Strike — adds a stacking debuff to the target that absorbs incoming healing and slows the targets casting speed.
3. Chains of Ice — slows your target considerably, make sure to keep this active on any target you are trying to hit or to keep someone away from you or a teammate.
4. Death Grip — Use this to immediately close the gap on your enemy or as an impromptu interrupt.
5. Death Strike — heals you for a considerable amount of damage. This should really only be used in a situation where you are actively being targeted and your healer is either crowd controlled or unlikely to be able to keep up with your incoming damage as this does considerably less damage than our Scourge Strike ability.
6. Soul Reaper — applies a debuff to the target dealing massive damage if they are under 35% health when it expires. This acts as Death Knight's version of execute so if you are confident a target will be below 35% health make sure to use this ability as often as possible.
7. Death Coil — Acts as your primary spender of Runic Power. This can be used to deal damage to stack Shadow Infusion for Dark Transformation.
8. Mind Freeze — Interrupts your targets spell casting, use this early and often to mitigate incoming damage or stop your target from healing.

Unholy Death Knight cooldowns are a massive part of not only your damage but also incredibly valuable tools that can allow you to survive what otherwise may be deadly damage. Understanding how each of these works will help not only vanquish your foes but to keep yourself and your group healthy enough to keep the pressure up.

• Summon Gargoyle — 3-minute cooldown. With changes made in Mists of Pandaria this ability now updates dynamically with your stats, so if you end up with a Rune of the Fallen Crusader proc mid Gargoyle you will be able to see a considerable increase in its damage dealt.
• Dark Transformation — Instantly transforms your ghoul into an empowered version of itself greatly increasing the damage it deals. It is typically best to use this on cooldown but do not hesitate to save it and pair with Asphyxiate or crowd control from a teammate.
• Anti-Magic Shell — 45-second cooldown. Absorbs Magic damage up to 75% of your total health, this also renders you immune to Magic effects while it is active.
• Icebound Fortitude — 3-minute cooldown. This ability considerably reduces your damage taken so if you find yourself taking more damage than you are comfortable with or if your healer is crowd controlled consider popping this to mitigate some incoming damage.
• Dark Simulacrum — applies a debuff to an enemy that allows the Death Knight to duplicate the next spell cast by the enemy. This can copy nearly any spell a player casts so if you think your enemy is likely to cast a crowd controlling ability or a big defensive cooldown try your best to Dark Sim it!
• Empower Rune Weapon — is a five-minute cooldown that instantly resets the cooldown of all of your Runes and grants you 25 Runic Power. This is a great way to turn up the pressure and apply a ton of Necrotic Strikes to your target. If possible try to pair this with a crowd controlling effect to let the healing absorb stack even higher.

Presences have been greatly simplified in Mists of Pandaria. In PvP you will be using one of two presences as Unholy, either Blood Presence or Unholy Presence. If you are being actively targeted then consider using Blood Presence as it will reduce your damage taken, increase your stamina and increase the value of your armor. If you are focusing on dealing as much damage as possible then make sure to be in Unholy Presence which increases your Haste and movement speed allowing you to not only deal more damage but more easily stick to your target.

While trying to get the most out of your Unholy Death Knight in Mists of Pandaria PvP, these are the professions we recommend:

1. Blacksmithing — Gives you access to two additional gem sockets, one in your Gloves and one in your Writs. Even with the removal of Resilience sockets are incredibly value as Strength will be our most highly valued stat.
2. Engineering — gives you Synapse Springs which are a ton of on-demand Strength, try to pair this on-use with your other cooldowns like Summon Gargoyle or Empower Rune Weapon to add even more pressure.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for an Death Knight in PvP.

Unholy Death Knight is an incredibly versatile class that can synergize well with many other classes. Highlighted below are some of the strongest arena comps in the game to help you decide what best to pair with your Death Knight.