Unholy Death Knight DPS Stat Priority — Shadowlands 9.1.5

The most common stat priority you will find in your sims for Unholy Death Knights is as follows:

1. Mastery
2. Haste
3. Critical Strike
4. Versatility

For AoE, it changes slightly with Critical Strike coming on top of Haste:

1. Mastery
2. Critical Strike
3. Haste
4. Versatility

Usually a higher item level piece of gear will be a bigger upgrade than a lower item level piece of gear even with better stats. We highly recommend you sim your character to find the stat weights that work best for you.

When you have the Inscrutable Quantum Device (IQD) equipped, your exact stat numbers become more important. Since the trinket's on-use effect gives you stats depending on your current raw numbers, you need to be careful to keep these numbers in the right places. Mastery should be your highest stat, followed by Haste. During Bloodlust IQD will choose your highest stat, which is why you want Mastery at the top. Outside of lust, IQD will choose 50/50 between your top two stats, which is why you want Haste as your second-highest stat.

These statistics have been obtained by combining common sense, in-game testing, and simulations using SimulationCraft.

Strength is your primary statistic. You should look for it in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Attack Power, which determines the damage your abilities do.

Mastery, through Mastery: Dreadblade, increases your Shadow and minion damage. Shadow and minion damage makes up a majority of your total damage. The first strict diminishing return starts at 68.4% Mastery.

Haste will increase your attack speed and Rune regeneration rate. It also reduces your Global Cooldown.

Critical Strike increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and abilities.

Versatility increases all your damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.

For Unholy, your pets and minions inherit your stats. Increasing your Haste will make them hit faster and regenerate Energy faster. Critical strike will increase their critical strike chance, etc.

The gems, enchants, and consumables that you choose are directly affected by your stat priority. In order to find the best mix of these, we do recommend that you simulate yourself using a program like Raidbots or Simulationcraft, however, we have a page linked below that will give you advice on this topic.