Unholy Death Knight DPS Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible Raid Guide — Season 4

Below, you can find class and spec-specific advice for every fight in Aberrus. If you are looking for a general overview of the Raid that is not spec-specific, check out our dedicated Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible guides.

On this page, you will find Unholy Death Knight specific information to deal with each boss in the Aberrus raid. These are not complete encounter guides but specific tips for doing the bosses as a Unholy Death Knight.

This page assumes that you already understand most of the mechanics of each encounter. These can be found on the full raid guide, so what is contained here are details specifically tailored toward Unholy Death Knight and how you can deal with each fight as best as possible.

The Default Raid Build above is your generic single target talent tree. Each boss below will note if it uses this build or a different one and if you should tweak anything. The primary choice will be between the default build and the Defile build. The Defile build does sim slightly better (1% or so) but tends to be hard to pull off in practice. I therefore only recommend it where it find specifically good AoE value. You pick up this build on Assault for the added AoE!

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A pure single-target fight where our standard build works best.

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• Wings of Extinction pushback can be avoided using Death's Advance.
• Wings of Extinction DoT can be immuned by pre-using Anti-Magic Shell.
• You can use Anti-Magic Zone when Wings of Extinction comes in to help mitigate the damage and to generate Runic Power.
• Rays of Anguish is a relatively dangerous mechanic; make sure to use defensives if you do get targeted.

For more information, please refer to our Kazzara guide.

Even if this fight starts out as a spread two-cleave encounter (or stacked if your Guild does that), it is effectively a pure Single Target fight from the perspective of an Unholy Death Knight. The standard default build is the way here.

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• Fiery Meteor is a great opportunity to leverage Anti-Magic Zone to help mitigate the damage.
• Blazing Heat/ Corrupting Shadow leaves a DoT when cleared. You can use Anti-Magic Shell to avoid this DoT and help your healers manage.

For more information, please refer to our Amalgamation Chamber guide.

This fight is primarily a single-target fight on Heroic and easier difficulties. For Mythic, we do get extended periods of two-target cleave. The default build fits well into both scenarios since it does really well on both Single Target and two-target cleave!

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• Use Death and Decay to help cleave the Erratic Remnant adds.
• Use Death and Decay to increase your cleave when you fight two bosses on Mythic.
• Use Anti-Magic Shell when you start reaching high stacks on the dispellable debuff (the one that spawns adds).

For more information, please refer to our Forgotten Experiments guide.

This fight consists of periods of pure Single Target with intermittent heavy add cleave. The talent build leveraging Defile works well here since it adds quite a lot of AoE potential without sacrificing significant Single Target priority damage.

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• Use Death and Decay to cleave as much as possible on the adds.
• Use Anti-Magic Shell in the final phase when everyone gets the fire circles.

For more information, please refer to our Assault of the Zaqali guide.

A pure single target encounter where the default raid build is best.

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• Anti-Magic Zone works well for the Charged Smash soak.
• Anti-Magic Shell will be very useful in this fight due to the large amount of incoming magic damage. I recommend using it for the Searing Slams.
• In Mythic, use Anti-Magic Shell at the start of each Charged Smash cast. This immunes both the healing absorb effect as well as the debuff from the soak, saving your road from a ton of damage taken.

For more information, please refer to our Rashok the Elder guide.

Zskarn is primarily a Single Target encounter with some intermittent spread add cleave. I recommend the default raid build again.

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• Use Chains of Ice and Death Grip to control the adds that spawn.
• Make sure you have Death's Advance for when heavy movement is required during the big Breaths.
• Anti-Magic Shell can be used to immune the DoT from Blast Wave. Furthermore, Death's Advance can immune the knockback and Anti-Magic Zone is solid for helping the raid to mitigate the damage.

For more information, please refer to our Zskarn guide.

Pure Single Target fight -> default raid build is best.

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• Anti-Magic Zone is great to help mitigate the damage the raid takes when soaking the meteor. It also gives a solid amount of Runic Power.
• Use Death's Advance to prevent the knockback.

For more information, please refer to our Magmorax guide.

Primarily Single Target but with some opportunity for 2-target cleave and mass AoE. The default single target build is generally best, but the defile version can work as well!

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• Use Anti-Magic Shell when targeted by the silencing knockback ray.
• Use Death and Decay in the final phase to cleave down the adds as much as possible.

For more information, please refer to our Neltharion guide.

Sarkareth is effectively a Single Target encounter. Phase 2 and 3 see some burst add cleave which could increase the value of the Defile build. Still, the heavy movement during the fight devalues Defile and makes the default build best.

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• Use Death's Advance to avoid the knockback from the dispel in P2 and P3.
• Make sure to time your Army of the Dead and Summon Gargoyle after you've been downstairs and gathered 10 stacks of the haste buff!
• MythicUse Anti-Magic Shell ASAP on pull to line it up with heavy magic damage in P1. This also helps bring your Army of the Dead cooldown down to be used in P2.
• MythicGo down at 2:45 in P2 to get up at exactly 3 minutes and use your secondary burst window.
• MythicIn P3, either save your Unholy Assault for your 6 minute burst (if you Guild kills boss sub 7 minutes). In this scenario, go down alone at 05:50 to buff your burst window. If your Guild kills slower, use Unholy Assault with your second set of CDs in P3 and then send with your 3 minutes at around the 7-minute mark after you come up.

For more information, please refer to our Scalecommander Sarkareth guide.