Unholy Death Knight DPS Easy Mode — The War Within (11.2)

1. Use Festering Strike
2. Use Apocalypse
3. Use Raise Abomination + Potion
4. Use Vampiric Strike 2 times( Death Coil with any Sudden Doom procs)
5. Use Unholy Assault + Racial + Trinket

1. Use Raise Abomination
2. Use Unholy Assault + Racial + Trinket + Potion
3. Use Apocalypse

1. Cast Soul Reaper if the target is below 35%.
2. Cast Outbreak to maintain your Virulent Plague on the target if you are running a Disease build.
3. Use Death Coil when you have 80+ Runic Power or a Sudden Doom proc.
4. Use Festering Strike to apply Festering Wounds on the target. Do this if the target has 2 or fewer Festering Wounds.
5. Use Scourge Strike when there are at least 3 Festering Wounds on the target.
6. Use Death Coil.

1. Use all your Cooldowns as you initiate on the pack.
2. Maintain your Virulent Plague on all targets by using Apocalypse or Outbreak.
3. Use Defile/ Death and Decay to deal AoE damage and enable cleave.
4. Use your cooldowns as much as possible.
5. Spam Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows/ Vampiric Strike when standing in your Defile/ Death and Decay to burst all your Festering Wounds.
6. Spend your Runic Power and procs of Sudden Doom on Epidemic ( Death Coil when playing San'Layn).

Unholy Death Knights have potentially 7 cooldowns; they should be used as follows:

• Unholy Assault should be used on cooldown in combination with your other Cooldowns. Nice setup for Apocalypse.
• Legion of Souls should be used on cooldown. Always time it with your other Cooldowns like Unholy Assault and Dark Transformation/ Apocalypse. Remember that you do not need to use Defile/ Death and Decay in AoE when you press this ability.
• Army of the Dead/ Raise Abomination should be used on cooldown. They are generally the first ability you use after you reach the boss (slightly later with San'layn). Make sure to line it up with all your other Cooldowns every 3/1.5 minutes.
• Apocalypse should be used on Cooldown. Remember that you need at least 1 Festering Wound to use it. Ideally use it at 4 Festering Wounds.
• Dark Transformation should be used on cooldown. The effect gets baked into Apocalypse when you pick this talent.
• Summon Gargoyle should be used on cooldown. Once used, prioritize spending Runic Power via Death Coil above everything else.
• Defile/ Death and Decay should be used in AoE. Use it as much as possible to enable your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows/ Vampiric Strike cleave and deal AoE damage. If you pick up Desecrate, use this when the tank moves the mobs out of your pack to maintain cleave uptime!

Patch 11.1.7 introduced the Combat Assistant functionality for all specs in the game. This comes in the form of two tools that you can use to assist your rotation. The Assisted Highlight feature will light up the spell that you are supposed to use next, helping you determine what button you need to press. The Single-Button Assistant will provide you with a single button that automatically pressed the appropriate spell. The Single-Button Assistant has a GCD penalty of 0.2 seconds every time you press it, artifically slowing down your rotation. This penalty means that you always will do less DPS when using the Single-Button Assistant compared to what you could have done with a perfectly executed rotation.

One major aspect to consider here is the lack of major cooldowns in the Combat Assistant. The Assisted Highlight and Single-Button Assistant will not highlight/use your major offensive Cooldowns ( Raise Abomination). Instead it is on you to ensure that you use those appropriately.

One question you might ask yourself now is: how good is the rotation I can get from these assistants? If we assume that you handle your Cooldown usage perfectly, the Assisted Highlight is roughly 5-10% less DPS on Single Target (depending on build, it does worse on San'layn) and 11-25% worse in AoE. With the Single-Button Assistant, the numbers are 10-20% in Single Target and 20-30% in AoE. Do bear in mind that this is compared to absolutely optimal play. A player with less experience with the rotation might see a significantly smaller loss, or even a gain when using the assistants.