Unholy Death Knight DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Shadowlands 9.0.2
On this page, you will find the best gear and best in slot items for your Unholy Death Knight in World of Warcraft Shadowlands 9.0.2.
Gearing a Unholy Death Knight
Welcome to our Gearing Page for Unholy Death Knight. This section will cover everything you need to know about gearing your character correctly.
The Importance of "Simming Yourself" as a Unholy Death Knight
At this stage in the game, there are so many variables and so many layers of optimization that you can apply to your character, that there is no way for a guide or anything else to tell you exactly what gear you should wear. This is why we always recommend simulating your own character using Raidbots. The website can help you choose set bonuses, trinkets and combinations thereof in a way that is tailored completely to your specific character. Learning to use this tool is essential to maximizing your potential, as there is simply no other way to take all the variables into account.
As you find new gear upgrades, you will want to make sure that they are kept enchanted and gemmed according to your sim results. In order to do so efficiently, make sure to check out our Enchants and Stats pages below.
Simulations
Simulations are usually character specific, but there are simulations available for the best gear setup obtainable. Below, you can find some of these more general simulations on our dedicated page, but it is important to note that the outcome of these simulations heavily depends on the builds chosen.
Stats
Remember that it can be better to have more (quantitatively) secondary stats of different kinds, than simply focusing on one secondary stat, due to the secondary stat diminishing returns. This can mean that a higher item level piece of gear with worse stats can be an upgrade simply because of the amount of stats on that piece of gear. For more information on stats, please refer to our dedicated page.
Early Gearing in Shadowlands
Once you reach max level and finish the Shadowlands campaign you will start to look for upgrades to your gear. Our recommendation for this is to start with World Quests and Heroic Dungeons. For Mythic dungeons, at 0 level, it is most efficient to find a group of people to clear all the dungeons in one go, during the first lockout. Make sure to check the auction house for any BoE gear that fits your budget.
Adding Sockets to Your Gear
There is an NPC in The Maw that allows you to obtain a consumable that adds a socket to an item that did not already have one. For more information on how to obtain it, please visit our Ve'nari page.
Trinket Simulation for Unholy Death Knight
Single-Target
Cleave/AoE
Legendary Powers for Unholy Death Knight
In Shadowlands, you have a choice as to which legendary power your character will use. You will eventually get all of the powers, however this will take a long time so you should focus on the powers that best fit what you want to do in the game.
Deadliest Coil is the strongest single-target option and sees play on most bosses in Castle Nathria.
Frenzied Monstrosity is the strongest AoE legendary while also providing competitive single-target damage. It is commonly used on AoE fights and Mythic+.
Best in Slot Items for Unholy Death Knight in Castle Nathria
If you have read the previous section, you should now understand that static Best in Slot lists are always misleading, and it is best to use the tools at your disposal, notably Raidbots Top Gear and its new Droptimizer options.
Changelog
- 19 Jan. 2021: Guide reviewed and completely updated.
- 14 Dec. 2020: Page updated for Castle Nathria BiS.
- 02 Dec. 2020: Fixed skill typo.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Page updated for Shadowlands release, added a section on early Shadowlands gearing and one on Legendary Powers, removed a lot of BfA-specific information.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Death Knight Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Abyssalwave, a top level Death Knight player. He is a former US #2 hardcore raider who currently raids with didnt ask. You can also check out his YouTube channel.
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