Unholy Death Knight DPS Spell Summary — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Introduction

If you are new to Unholy, this is a great place to start to get an understanding of how the spec works. On this page we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialisation, how they interact with each other and also with important cooldowns. If you already have experience with Unholy and are comfortable with it in Legion, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

2. Main Resources of Unholy Death Knights

Runic Power and Runes are your two resources. Throughout the fight, you will look to spend as many Runes as possible and generate as much Runic Power as you can, which you will then use to help you deal more damage.

3. Unholy Death Knight Basic Abilities

These are your core skills that are available regardless of talents, and form the core gameplay of the specialisation.

Virulent Plague is a Shadow damage DoT that erupts when the target dies, dealing damage divided among all enemies, and which also has a 30% chance to erupt each time it deals damage. It is applied using Outbreak and you should always have this active on the target at all times.

Outbreak costs 1 Rune and applies a 6-second debuff to the target which, for that time, causes it and any nearby enemies to become affected by Virulent Plague.

Festering Strike costs 2 Runes, dealing Physical damage to the target and infecting them with 2-3 stacks of Festering Wound. Each Festering Wound stack deals damage to the target and grants you 3 Runic Power when the target dies, or when the stack is burst by using Scourge Strike.

Scourge Strike costs 1 Rune and deals Physical and Shadow damage to the target, also bursting 1 Festering Wound stack.

Death Coil costs 40 Runic Power to cast dealing Shadow damage to the target, reduces the cooldown of your Dark Transformation by 1 second, and restores 10 Energy to your ghoul.

Death and Decay costs 1 Rune and places a damaging area at the target location, which persists for 10 seconds. While you are inside your own Death and Decay, Scourge Strike will damage all enemies near to your target.

Dark Transformation has a 1-minute cooldown and transforms your ghoul into a more powerful version of itself for 15 seconds.

Death's Advance when activated increases your movement speed by 30% and prevents you from being slowed below 100% of your movement speed for 8 seconds. It also grants you immunity from knockbacks. It has a passive ability that prevents your movement speed from being reduced below 70%

Anti-Magic Shell absorbs up to 30% of your maximum health in magic damage over 5 seconds, and generates Runic Power based on the damage absorbed. This should be used to mitigate magic damage throughout the fight, while the added Runic Power will help increase your DPS.

4. Important Procs for Unholy Death Knights

Sudden Doom grants your auto-attacks a chance to make your next Death Coil cost no Runic Power.

5. Cooldowns for Unholy Death Knights

Unholy Death Knights have 3 DPS cooldowns.

• 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.
• Apocalypse summons a member of the Army of the Dead for each stack of Festering Wounds, up to 4.
• Dark Transformation empowers your ghoul for 15 seconds. Your empowered ghoul attacks in a frontal cone providing a single target DPS boost as well as an AoE mechanic for your pet.

6. Changelog