Unholy Death Knight Dragonflight Leveling Guide From 8 to 70 (Dragonflight 10.1)

When you get the option to Runeforge, make sure you apply Rune of Unending Thirst, as it speeds up the leveling process the most! Before you gain access to this runeforge at level 20, use Rune of the Fallen Crusader.

When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.

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Until level 10, if you are not an allied race, your Festering Strike will be replaced by Rune Strike.

Your first talent row unlocks at Level 10.

Your talent set up should be as follows.

Starting, you will only have one main attack ability: Rune Strike.

1. Rune Strike is your main damaging ability.
2. Army of the Dead should be saved for elites and very strong mobs since it is an extremely long cooldown that does a large amount of single-target burst damage.
3. Use Unholy Blight off cooldown to apply Virulent Plague.
4. Outbreak should be used to apply Virulent Plague to all targets when Unholy Blight is on cooldown.
5. Dark Transformation can be used off cooldown, however, you should also make sure you have it available for larger packs of mobs or more difficult packs.
6. Use Epidemic when there are 3+ targets.
7. Use Death and Decay to Scourge Strike cleave packs of 2+ mobs.
8. Use Death Coil when you have 80+ Runic Power or no available Runes.
9. Use Scourge Strike when there is at least 1 Festering Wound on your target.
10. Use Scourge Strike when there is at least 1 Festering Wound on your target or to keep up your Plaguebringer DoT.
11. Use Festering Strike when there are 0 Festering Wounds on your target.

There are several passive abilities that you unlock through the leveling process that can change your play style and rotation.

• Sudden Doom affects both Death Coil and Epidemic. These procs should be used fairly quickly to ensure that you do not override your current proc.
• Dark Succor is incredible for leveling, allowing you to easily heal and stay high health while chain-pulling packs and mobs.

• Anti-Magic Shell is a very strong magic shield that also generates Runic Power. This should be used whenever magic damage is present to take advantage of the Runic Power generation.
• Lichborne is an extremely powerful ability for leveling, as it provides you with a good chunk of Leech. Use this cooldown to take advantage of the healing and try to pair it with high AoE or burst combinations.
• Control Undead costs 1 Rune but allows you to take control of an undead target for 5 minutes; use this whenever available to help you in future pulls.
• Icebound Fortitude is an amazing defensive cooldown that should be used whenever necessary to order to keep you moving from pack to pack.
• Raise Ally cannot be used when solo leveling, however, it is fantastic in dungeon groups if you decide to level that way.
• Death's Advance is one of your only movement speed cooldowns making it incredibly useful when leveling. The secondary effects of this are not too useful in leveling scenarios, except for the passive that prevents you from being slowed past a certain point.
• Anti-Magic Zone is a group/raid cooldown however, it can easily be used when solo leveling to minimize magic damage taken in a large pull or against an elite that deals magic damage.

This section will go over the PvP talents for leveling content for Unholy Death Knights.

1. Raise Abomination provides you with a replacement to Army of the Dead that also applies Festering Wounds and Virulent Plague to all targets, making it incredibly powerful while leveling.
2. Necrotic Aura is a solid DPS boost since a large portion of our AoE is magical damage
3. Doomburst is the only third PvP talent that provides extra DPS throughput.

Congratulations on reaching Level 70! Now that you have hit Level 60 we recommend looking at our Easy mode page and Talents section to learn how to play at max level.