Unholy Death Knight DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities (Legion 7.3)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 5. Strengths
  • 6. Weaknesses
  • 7. Contents
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation
  • 5. Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Main Resources
  • 3. Basic Abilities
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Tier 1 (Level 56) Talents
  • 3. Tier 2 (Level 57) Talents
  • 4. Tier 3 (Level 58) Talents
  • 5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 9. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression
  • 2. Relic Choice
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. General Optimization Advice
  • 2. Tier 2 Upgrade Priority
  • 3. Tier 3 Upgrade Priority
  • 4. ChangeLog
• ×Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single Target Rotation
  • 2. Multiple Target Rotation
  • 3. Cooldown Usage
    • 3.1. Apocalypse
    • 3.2. Summon Gargoyle
    • 3.3. Army of the Dead
  • 4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Unholy Death Knight
    • 4.1. Runes and Runic Power
      • 4.1.1. Runes
      • 4.1.2. Runic Power
    • 4.2. Virulent Plague
    • 4.3. Festering Wounds
    • 4.4. Anti-Magic Shell Usage
    • 4.5. Abilities and Cooldowns from Talents
      • 4.5.1. Tier 2 Talents
      • 4.5.2. Tier 6 Talents
      • 4.5.3. Tier 7 Talents
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
    • 2.1. Statistics Priority
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Death Knights
      • 1.1.1. Raise Ally
      • 1.1.2. Mind Freeze
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Unholy Death Knights
      • 1.2.1. Outbreak Mouseover Macro
      • 1.2.2. Corpse Shield
      • 1.2.3. Dismissing Pet
    • 1.3. Generic Addons for Death Knights
      • 1.3.1. ElvUI
      • 1.3.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 1.3.3. GTFO
      • 1.3.4. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 1.3.5. Weak Auras
      • 1.3.6. Recount / Skada / Details!
      • 1.3.7. mRunes
      • 1.3.8. Omen Threat Meter
      • 1.3.9. TellMeWhen
      • 1.3.10. Grid and GridClickSets (Optional)
    • 1.4. Specific Addons for Unholy Death Knights
  • 2. ChangeLog
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Tier 20 Set Bonuses
  • 2. Legendary Items
  • 3. Loot Competition
  • 4. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we list your Unholy Death Knight core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3. We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing an Unholy Death Knight.

The other pages of our Unholy Death Knight guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by JaceDK, long-time Death Knight theorycrafter and moderator on the Death Knight Discord. You can also catch him on his stream or on his YouTube channel. He also raids in WHATEVER WERE AWESOME, a top guild.

1. Single Target Rotation

1. Maintain Virulent Plague on the target, using Outbreak to refresh it when it is about to expire.
2. If you have the Cold Heart legendary item, use Chains of Ice.
3. Cast Dark Transformation.
4. Cast Festering Strike.
   • This applies 2-4 stacks of the Festering Wound debuff, which caps at 8 stacks. Do not use Festering Strike if you are at maximum stacks, and ideally avoid wasting any potential stacks unless Apocalypse is available or will be available shortly (so try not to cast it when you have 5 or more stacks).
5. Cast Apocalypse when you have 6 stacks of Festering Wounds.
6. Cast Scourge Strike (or Clawing Shadows, if you have taken this talent), if there are 3+ Festering Wounds on the target.
   • If there are fewer than 3 Festering Wounds on the target, use Festering Strike.
   • If you have the The Instructor's Fourth Lesson legendary, cast Festering Strike with 4 or fewer Festering Wounds, and Scourge Strike with 5+ Festering Wounds.
7. Cast Death Coil and avoid capping Runic Power.
   • If you are using the Shadow Infusion talent, you should pool some resources so once Dark Transformation expires, you can cast back to back Death Coils and reduce the cooldown of Dark Transformation.

If you have the Tak'theritrix's Shoulderpads legendary item, Dark Transformation should be used once your pets are active, so after you use Apocalypse and Summon Gargoyle, so that they can benefit from the buffs.

Note that if you have the The Instructor's Fourth Lesson legendary bracers, you should use Scourge Strike with as many Festering Wounds up as possible on the target. You should still be careful not to overcap Festering Wounds by using Festering Strike when you have too many active, though.

2. Multiple Target Rotation

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 Clawing Shadows as much as possible.

Stacking Festering Wound on a target should ideally be done before the additional adds start, so that you can benefit from the stacks during your AoE phase. In any case, you should only be casting Festering Strike during your AoE rotation if both Death and Decay/ Defile and Epidemic are on cooldown.

It is important to note that, when using Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows while you are standing on top of your own Death and Decay/ Defile, these abilities cleave everything in range of your primary target. 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.

3. Cooldown Usage

As an Unholy Death Knight, you have a total of 2 DPS cooldowns, and you gain another from your Artifact weapon. 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.

3.1. Apocalypse

Apocalypse is your Artifact ability. It summons a member of the Army of the Dead for each stack of Festering Wounds, up to 6. Those ghouls deal decent damage, and they also interact with other Artifact traits like Portal to the Underworld and Armies of the Damned, which causes them to explode when they die.

Apocalypse should be used when you have 6 stacks of Festering Wounds. It will only consume 6 stacks even when you have 7 or 8.

3.2. Summon Gargoyle

Summon Gargoyle is a very powerful cooldown that is free of cost. You generally want to use it whenever it is available, but you can save it for a period when you need to do extra damage. The gargoyle scales with spell haste, and using it together with Heroism/ Bloodlust/ Time Warp allows the gargoyle to get a few extra casts off, increasing its damage slightly.

3.3. Army of the Dead

Army of the Dead summons a number of ghouls to fight at your side for a short while. It has a high Rune cost, but it also deals a lot of damage. You can use it before the pull, but if you require high burst damage during the fight it is perfectly acceptable to channel it during combat.

4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Unholy Death Knight

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

4.1. Runes and Runic Power

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.

4.1.1. Runes

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.

4.1.2. Runic Power

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 Dark Arbiter is active, during which time you should try to maximise your Runic Power expenditure.

4.2. Virulent Plague

Virulent Plague is a Shadow damage DoT that is applied to targets using Outbreak. Outbreak places a 5-second debuff on the target that causes it and any nearby enemies to have Virulent Plague applied to them.

When the target affected by Virulent Plague dies, the plague explodes dealing Shadow damage split between all nearby enemies. It also has a 30% chance to explode each time it deals damage (this does not remove the DoT).

4.3. Festering Wounds

Each time you use Festering Strike, between 2 and 4 stacks of a debuff called Festering Wound is applied to the target. The debuff lasts for 23 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 3. If you have fewer than 3 stacks, you should instead generate some more using Festering Strike.

In Mythic+ if you are using the Soul of the Deathlord legendary ring, you can stack up Festering Wounds on a target about to die and they will all do their burst damage to surrounding targets. The same goes for Unholy Frenzy, where you will gain seconds to your frenzy if a target dies with Festering Wounds active.

4.4. Anti-Magic Shell Usage

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.

As an Unholy Death Knight, you can boost the power of Anti-Magic Shell using the Spell Eater talent. The Acherus Drapes legendary further boosts Anti-Magic Shell, increasing its potency and duration.

4.5. Abilities and Cooldowns from Talents

4.5.1. Tier 2 Talents

Epidemic could be used before the pull in order to generate Runic Power to feed Dark Arbiter, or while dealing AoE damage, in case the targets are spread out or while they are stacked but Death and Decay/ Defile is on cooldown.

Note that you cannot start a dungeon or raid boss encounter with more than 20 Runic Power.

4.5.2. Tier 6 Talents

If you are using Necrosis, optimising it boils down to getting as many uses out of it as possible, so not chaining Death Coils whenever possible, and instead using up the procs on Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows. That said, if you do not have any wounds on the target for you to use Clawing Shadows, it is acceptable to chain Death Coils. In the same vein, if you do not have enough Runic Power to use Death Coil, it is acceptable to use Clawing Shadows without having used Death Coil first.

4.5.3. Tier 7 Talents

Dark Arbiter requires preparation to use correctly. Before you activate it, you should have saved up 100 Runic Power (or very close to it), as well as 3 Runes. While Dark Arbiter is active, you should follow a priority system to optimise the damage of this talent.

If you are going to use Dark Arbiter on the pull (which you should do), you should follow these steps. At other points in the fight, simply start pooling resources for Dark Arbiter 10-15 seconds before it becomes available (and obviously exclude the pre-pull steps).

1. Use Army of the Dead 6 seconds before the pull.
2. Use a Strength potion slightly before the pull.
3. If you are using Ebon Fever, make sure to apply/refresh Virulent Plague before casting Dark Arbiter, otherwise it will drop during its duration.
4. Use Festering Strike (until you are about to reach maximum Runic Power).
5. Use Apocalypse to burst your Festering Wound stacks when you are at 6 stacks.
6. Use Dark Arbiter.
7. Use your racial ability (if it boosts damage) and any on-use trinkets.
8. Cast as many Death Coils as you can.
9. Use Arcane Torrent (if you are a Blood Elf).
10. Use Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows to consume Festering Wounds if Apocalypse is on cooldown, and use up Runes.
    • This consumes 1 stack of Festering Wound, so only use it if the target has at least 1 stack.
11. Use Anti-Magic Shell to absorb damage and generate Runic Power to allow for more Death Coils, if possible.
12. Use Death and Decay combined with Scourge Strike as many times as possible, while casting Death Coil during AoE.
    • If Death and Decay is on cooldown, use Epidemic for 3 or more targets.

Once Dark Arbiter ends, you should simply return to your regular rotation.

Regarding Dark Transformation, if you are using Convergence of Fates and Shadow Infusion, then you should use Dark Transformation only after Apocalypse and Dark Arbiter have been used, so that all pets are buffed by it. Once you have used it, you can use it freely while Dark Arbiter is on cooldown, but just make sure to save it in preparation for your next Dark Arbiter cast.

If you are not using Convergence of Fates (and therefore not Shadow Infusion either), you should just use Dark Transformation after Dark Arbiter, but you can use Apocalypse freely, as it is not worth trying to tie its timing to that of Dark Arbiter.

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 Dark Arbiter, so it is important to make sure to use these procs right away during Dark Arbiter and not have them wasted.

If you are pooling Runic Power pre-fight, make sure not to target the boss, and dismiss your pet and then summon it again so you do not accidentally pull.

You can use the following macro to bind your Dark Arbiter to your on-use trinkets.

• #showtooltip
• /cast Dark Arbiter
• /use 13
• /use 14

5. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 28 Aug. 2017: Updated/improved Dark Arbiter rotation.
• 25 Jul. 2017: Removed Soul Reaper from the rotation since it is no longer recommended as a talent choice.
• 12 Jun. 2017: Added a recommendation for using Necrosis.
• 24 Apr. 2017: Removed a redundant sentence.
• 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
• 11 Mar. 2017: Updated multiple target playstyle.
• 10 Jan. 2017: Made updates to the existing rotations to bring them in line with Patch 7.1.5 changes.
• 12 Dec. 2016: Updated the guide to reflect that Soul Reaper is now the only viable tier 7 talent.
• 16 Oct. 2016: Added a mention about how the The Instructor's Fourth Lesson legendary bracers affect the single target rotation.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 22 Jul. 2016: Made a clarification not to target the boss while building Runic Power before the pull for Dark Arbiter.
• 21 Jul. 2016: Removed mentions of a single target rotation using Defile (since this talent should never be taken), and added Death Coil to all the rotations.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.