Unholy Death Knight DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Shadowlands 9.0.2

Welcome to our Rotation page for Unholy Death Knights. Here, we will go over everything you will need to know in order to optimally play your spec for Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

Unholy is a very interesting Mythic+ spec because it has fantastic single-target and AoE burst potential. For more information about Mythic+ as an Unholy Death Knight, please check out our Mythic+ guide linked below.

Unholy can be a very complicated spec. If these rotations seem fairly complicated, then you may want to check out our Easy Mode page, which gives you a much more simplistic build and rotation to play.

The guides on this page are for PvE content, so if you are looking for a PvP rotation guide, then please visit our PvP page linked below.

1. Use Army of the Dead.
2. Use Festering Strike.
3. Use Unholy Blight.
4. Use Dark Transformation.
5. Use Abomination Limb (If Necrolord + Emeni soulbind).
6. Use Festering Strike.
7. Use Apocalypse.
8. Use Blood Fury (if Orc), Berserking (if Troll).

1. Maintain Virulent Plague on the target, using Outbreak or Unholy Blight to refresh it when it is about to expire.
2. Cast Death Coil to avoid capping Runic Power (80+ Runic Power) OR if you have a proc of Sudden Doom.
3. Cast Scourge Strike (or Clawing Shadows, if you have taken this talent), if there are 1+ Festering Wounds on the target.
4. If there are 0 Festering Wounds on the target, use Festering Strike.
5. Cast Death Coil.

For Dark Transformation usage, pair it with Unholy Blight even if you have to hold one for the other.

This single target rotation assumes you have taken the tier 7 talent Army of the Damned.

The multiple target rotation is essentially the same as the single target rotation, with one important change. When facing 3 or more targets, you should use Death and Decay, and while Death and Decay is active, you should use Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows as much as possible, while also spending Runic Power and Sudden Doom procs on Epidemic.

For multi-target on packs that will last fairly long, you may have the option to use Festering Strike once on a few of the targets before using Death and Decay and Scourge Strike, since you will then have more wounds to pop on the targets. You will have to decide when it is worth doing this based on the number of enemies you are facing.

Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows cleave while you are standing in your own Death and Decay. If you are using Clawing Shadows (which has a 30-yard range), you can drop Death and Decay/ Defile at your feet and cleave adds that are within 30 yards of your position, as long as you are standing on top of Death and Decay/ Defile.

To make it easier to understand, this is a simplified version of what your multiple target rotation should look like.

• Use Outbreak to apply Virulent Plague to all targets that are not currently infected ( Unholy Blight if talented instead).
• Use Epidemic if you are about to cap Runic Power (80+) or have a Sudden Doom proc.
• Use Death and Decay ( Defile if you have taken this talent).
• Use Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows (while standing in Death and Decay, so Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows will hit all nearby targets; if using the Bursting Sores talent, make sure the target you are using Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows on has Festering Wounds for extra cleave).
• Use Epidemic (if using the legendary Deadliest Coil then use Death Coil at 3 or less targets).
• Use Scourge Strike ( Clawing Shadows if you have taken this talent) with at least 1 Festering Wound.
• Use Festering Strike with 0 Festering Wounds on the target.

Since Death Knights have multiple resources that they need to track, it is very helpful to customize your UI, in order to easily track your resources. Unholy Death Knights have a very clunky opener, so being able to easily focus on your rotation and resources can really help you maximize your damage and positioning.

As an Unholy Death Knight, you have a total of 4 baseline DPS cooldowns. Below, we explain how they are best used. Your talents can provide you with a few other important abilities. We cover them in a subsequent section.

Apocalypse summons a member of the Army of the Dead for each stack of Festering Wounds, up to 4. At Level 58, Apocalypse Rank 3 makes it so your Apocalypse generates 2 Runes.

Apocalypse should be used when you have at least 4 stacks of Festering Wounds. It will only consume 4 stacks, even when you have 5 or 6.

Apocalypse gains a lot of value when paired with Unholy Blight, but it is not worth wasting a cast to line them up.

When you have Convocation of the Dead and the talent Army of the Damned, you will want to start syncing Apocalypse with Dark Transformation and Unholy Blight. Since Eternal Hunger is such a strong conduit, this will only become an issue when you unlock your second potency conduit.

Army of the Dead summons a number of ghouls to fight at your side for a short while. It costs 1 Rune and also deals a lot of damage. You can use it before the pull, however since it now only costs 1 Rune, it is better used during combat to maximize the duration of the ghouls. It has an 8-minute cooldown. With Army of the Damned and Deadliest Coil, it gets reduced to approximately a 4-minute cooldown.

Dark Transformation transforms your ghoul for 15 seconds, causing its Claw to cleave all enemies near your pet. This cooldown is reduced by 1 second each time you cast Death Coil. The conduit Eternal Hunger extends this duration to 18 seconds. Deadliest Coil causes your Death Coil to extend the duration of Dark Transformation by 1 second each time it is casted.

Sacrificial Pact sacrifices your ghoul to deal Shadow damage to 8 nearby enemies while also healing you for 25% of your maximum health. Never use this ability while Dark Transformation is up, since it will waste the remaining duration of Dark Transformation. This ability is not used in single-target situations.

To help you better understand how to play the Unholy specialization, we will explain some concepts in more detail below.

Death Knights use a dual resource system of runes and Runic Power. While it is quite straightforward in how it works, we will explain it here for the sake of completion.

You have a total of 6 Runes, which are available by default. Some of your abilities have Rune costs, and whenever you use an ability that consumes one or more Runes, those Runes will immediately begin recharging. The exact amount of time it takes a Rune to recharge depends on how much Haste you have.

Whenever a Rune is consumed, you gain 10 Runic Power (more on that below).

At most, 3 of your runes can be charging up at the same time. It is therefore optimal to keep at least 3 runes on cooldown in order to maximise the recharge rate over the course of the fight.

Runic Power is a resource that resembles Rage, in the sense that it decays when out of combat, but does not decay during combat. As mentioned above, consuming Runes generates 10 Runic Power per Rune spent, and this is the primary means of generating Runic Power, although some abilities also help with this. You can have a maximum of 100 Runic Power.

In general, spending Runic Power should only be done when 3 Runes or more are charging up, or when you are about to cap Runic Power. This is not the case when Summon Gargoyle is active (when using this talent), during which time you should try to maximize your Runic Power expenditure.

Virulent Plague is a Shadow damage DoT that is applied to targets using Outbreak or Unholy Blight. If the target dies while afflicted with Virulent Plague, it erupts for Shadow damage to all nearby enemies. If you are talented into Unholy Blight, this will be the only method of applying Virulent Plague in a single-target encounter.

Each time you use Festering Strike, between 2 and 3 stacks of a debuff called Festering Wound is applied to the target. The debuff lasts for 30 seconds (and each added stack refreshes its duration), and does nothing if left alone. However, using Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows on a target that has Festering Wounds on them consumes a stack, causing the target to take Shadow damage, and also granting you 3 Runic Power. All of the stacks are consumed if the target dies.

The ideal number of stacks at which to spend Festering Wounds is 1. If you have 0 stacks, you should instead generate some more using Festering Strike.

Anti-Magic Shell absorbs 100% of all magic damage taken, up to 30% of your maximum health, for 5 seconds and grants you Runic Power based on the amount of damage that it absorbs.

While this ability has amazing survivability benefits, allowing you to often taken practically no damage from various raid-damaging mechanics, it also has great benefits for your DPS.

Indeed, the amount of Runic Power you gain if you absorb a lot of magic damage is far from negligible. Therefore, you should always try to make use of Anti-Magic Shell to boost your Runic Power generation throughout the fight. The best way to do it is to know when a raid-damaging attack is coming, and to have Anti Magic Shell up for that time. Then, simply enjoy the extra Runic Power (and do not forget to spend it).

That said, for progression content, we fully recommend first and foremost saving Anti-Magic Shell to mitigate magic damage, before you consider how to use it to increase your DPS.

Soul Reaper should be used off cooldown when the target is below 35% and can be applied above 35% as long as the target will be 35% or lower when the debuff expires.

Summon Gargoyle requires preparation to use correctly. Before you activate it, you should have saved up to at least 65 Runic Power. While the Gargoyle is active, you should follow a priority system to optimize the damage of this talent.

Your priority during Summon Gargoyle is as follows.

1. Use Death Coil (spending Runic Power during Summon Gargoyle increases its damage, and Death Coil is the best ability to spend Runic Power on in order to buff the Gargoyle).
2. Use Death Strike with the Dark Succor proc.
3. Use Outbreak to maintain Virulent Plague, if it is about to fall off ( Unholy Blight if talented).
4. Use Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows (with at least 1 Festering Wound on the target).
5. Use Festering Strike with 0 Festering Wounds on the target.

Your priority outside of Summon Gargoyle is as follows.

1. Use Outbreak to maintain Virulent Plague, if it is about to fall off ( Unholy Blight if talented).
2. Use Death Coil with 80+ Runic Power or a proc of Sudden Doom (this will keep you from over-capping and wasting your Runic Power).
3. Use Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows with at least 1 Festering Wound.
4. Use Festering Strike with 0 Festering Wounds on the target.
5. Use Death Coil.

It is very important to note that even Death Coils that benefit from Sudden Doom procs (and which, therefore, do not consume Runic Power) increase the damage of the Gargoyle, so it is important to make sure to use these procs right away during Summon Gargoyle and not have them wasted.