How To Improve As Unholy Death Knight — Shadowlands 9.1

Because you can have 3 Runes recharging at the same time, any time you are holding 4 or more Runes, you are effectively capped on runes and wasting potential Rune regeneration. There is never a point in your play where it would be valuable to not cast anything (unless you are pooling Runic Power and, even then, try to minimize downtime), or where you need more than 3 Runes saved up; always keep 3 Runes on cooldown.

Similarly, every point of Runic Power you generate when already at maximum Runic Power is a fraction of a lost Death Coil. There are no situations where it would be better to spend a Rune than it would be to avoid capping Runic Power.

In fights that have burst AoE, you want to plan out your AoE for when adds spawn. One very important thing to incorporate into your rotation is a pooling phase, where you save 60+ Runic Power to immediately cast Epidemic before you use abilities like Death and Decay. An example of a fight where this is incredibly useful is Sire Denathrius Phase 1 on the adds that spawn from Cleansing Pain. These adds do not last very long, so having the Runic Power pooled can lead to a lot more damage.

Soul Reaper should be cast off cooldown when the target is below 35% health. It does a significant amount of damage, so do not forget to use it very often in execute phase.

Your pet Ghoul has 3 attacks called Claw, Gnaw, and Leap. You want to make sure all of these are set to auto-cast by right clicking the ability on your pet action bar. These abilities do add a significant amount of damage, so having them turned off will lower your damage. The only ability that you may want to turn off in certain fights is Gnaw because, when your Ghoul is under the effects of Dark Transformation, casting Gnaw will interrupt and stun the target for 2 seconds.

When you are talented into Unholy Blight, you do not need to cast Outbreak in single-target. It may seem bad to have downtime on Virulent Plague, but it just is not worth the extra Rune and you should instead just wait for Unholy Blight to be up. In 2+ targets, you can use Outbreak to apply Virulent Plague for the downtime between Unholy Blights.

The defensive cooldown Anti-Magic Shell only absorbs magical damage, therefore making it useless when it comes to physical damage. A common mistake is people casting it to protect against physical damage and not gaining the benefit of a defensive absorb or the Runic Power generation. Make sure you know if an ability from a boss is a physical or magical ability.

Especially for Mythic+, it is easy to hold cooldowns in anticipation of larger and more difficult packs. It is generally a mistake to do so though. Try and use your cooldowns as soon as they come up! It sounds easy but it is a major improvement for many people.

In raiding scenarios, it is crucial to properly align your cooldowns. Always use Unholy Blight with Dark Transformation. Ensure your second Army of the Dead is used a couple of seconds before a Unholy Blight and Dark Transformation combo. Make sure to use your Apocalypse with Unholy Blight with Dark Transformation when appropriate. Holding cooldowns when the cooldown difference is less than 10 seconds.