Unholy Death Knight PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.1.5)

The Unholy Death Knight provides both powerful rot pressure in the form of diseases and pets that deal damage regardless of crowd control done to you, as well as high burst damage from the powerful cooldowns at its disposal. It also comes equipped with a great deal of utility from Death Grip, Mind Freeze, Leap, Asphyxiate and Gnaw. All of these tools can be very disruptive to the enemy team, specifically casters, so while they are difficult to use, mastering them will be extremely beneficial. Furthermore, once you are very familiar with the rotation and using all your tools properly, the vast amount of ways you have to deal damage will make enemy teams unable to properly deal with it.

Make sure to communicate with your teammates the kill target and the grip target. You will be pulling one player to another in order to set up AoE burst on the two stacked targets. Generally, the grip target is the healer, but sometimes it has to be the other DPS, namely against caster cleaves.

What makes Unholy Death Knights so unique is that they have access to a ghoul by using Raise Dead (you also get a skeleton minion if you are using the All Will Serve talent).

Your normal ghoul has the following abilities:

• Claw — deals physical damage. Your ghoul should always be attacking your main target.
• Gnaw — a 1-second stun. This is great to use on a healer or caster as a pseudo-interrupt or a way to deal with impactful casts that are not kickable.
• Leap — leap behind an enemy target. This makes it faster for your pet to swap targets if you are switching your main target.
• Huddle — reduces all damage taken by 50%, but prevents all other actions for 10 seconds. This should be used when the enemy team is focusing your pet.

These are your ghoul's normal abilities. However, Unholy Death Knights have an ability called Dark Transformation that is normally used during their burst rotation. This empowers your ghoul's damage and abilities dramatically.

Here is what Dark Transformation does to your ghoul's abilities.

• Claw — Deals Shadow damage to all enemies near the monstrosity. This gives you cleave damage if the enemy team is stacked.
• Gnaw — a 2-second stun. This is great to use on a healer or caster as a pseudo-interrupt or a way to deal with impactful casts that are not kickable. The extra second makes it significantly more threatening, as you will generally use it when the enemy team is in a tough spot.
• Leap — Interrupts and roots your target for 2 seconds. This will primarily be used on the enemy healer if they are in range. You should also use it to interrupt crowd control, such as Polymorph or Cyclone.
• Huddle — reduces all damage taken to your ghoul by 50% for 10 seconds. This just makes it so you can use other abilities while Putrid Bulwark is active. Putrid Bulwark is the buff that is placed on your ghoul. It is recommended that you use this ability immediately after transforming your pet to minimize the possibility of your pet dying during your burst.

The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns and/or trinket. To do this, Unholy Death Knights will set up an AoE burst window for them and their partner with Death Grip.

This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game if you are playing the Rider of the Apocalyse hero tree.

1. Use Army of the Dead or Raise Abomination when you get to your target.
2. Use Chains of Ice to keep your primary target slowed.
3. Use Dark Transformation to buff your pet and apply Virulent Plague.
4. Use Summon Gargoyle to summon your main offensive pet if talented.
5. Use Abomination Limb, if talented, to pull in nearby enemies.
6. Use Unholy Assault to set up your burst.
7. Use Apocalypse to burst your wounds and deal massive damage to the target.

It is important to note that there can only be 6 stacks of Festering Wound on a target at one time. Once you are at 4-5 Wounds, you should not waste additional Runes on Festering Strike. This will severely hamper your burst window, as you will not have the resources you need during it.

If you are playing San'layn our burst rotation changes slightly and is a bit more involved.

1. Use Army of the Dead or Raise Abomination as you are moving to initiate.
2. Use Chains of Ice to keep your primary target slowed.
3. Use Summon Gargoyle to summon your main offensive pet if talented.
4. Use Abomination Limb, if talented, to gain increased rune regeneration and pull in nearby enemies.
5. Use Unholy Assault to set up your burst.
6. Use Apocalypse to burst your wounds and deal massive damage to the target.
7. Use Defile for the damage and Cleaving Strikes.
8. Use Dark Transformation to buff your pet and apply Virulent Plague.
9. Use Vampiric Strike until your Gift of the San'layn buff expires.

When bursting with San'layn you do NOT want to use any other abilities other than Vampiric Strike as the benefit you gain from Infliction of Sorrow and Incite Terror overshadows the lost wounds and Sudden Doom procs. If you have no runes then you can use Death Coil, but this should the only circumstance you deviate from Vampiric Strike.

Unholy has strong single-target burst windows that can also cleave and rot nearby enemies. Making good use of these windows both by having the enemy team in CC and also by making sure your setup globals (shown above) are active prior to this window is extremely important. This will allow you to focus your global cooldowns and your Runes on burst damage.

1. Use Dark Transformation.
2. Use Apocalypse. This will spend 4 of your Wounds on the target. Make sure to use Dark Transformation first if you are playing Ghoulish Frenzy for the bonus damage.
3. Use Scourge Strike or Clawing Shadows to spend Wounds.
4. Use Death Coil if you have a high amount of Runic Power or if you get a Sudden Doom proc with at least 3 wounds on the target.
5. Use Festering Strike to reapply Wounds to your target only once you have 1-2 wounds remaining on the target.

Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.

1. Maintain Chains of Ice on all targets to hinder their movement.
2. Use Outbreak to maintain Virulent Plague on as many targets as possible.
3. Use Festering Strike to generate and refresh Festering Wound.
4. Use Scourge Strike or Clawing Shadows to spend Wounds and maintain plaguebringer if talented.
5. Use Death Coil if you have a high amount of Runic Power or if you get a Sudden Doom proc.
6. Use Death Strike if you are about to cap on Runic Power and you are being attacked.

Anti-Magic Shell is your primary defensive. This is very strong against caster classes. With a relatively short cooldown, use this if you are being focused and need to negate incoming spell damage.

Icebound Fortitude is another strong defensive. This will give you immunity to all stuns and reduce all damage to you. Use this when you are in a stun and being focused.

Lichborne allows you to use Death Coil on yourself to provide solid healing. This can be done even when you do not have a target nearby and increases in value with Strength procs, unlike Death Strike. Therefore, it has great situational uses. It also gives you 10% leech, which provides additional healing when damage is done.

Death Strike is another primary defensive. If you are the primary target for the enemy team and have Runic Power, use Death Strike to heal yourself for a percentage of the damage that was dealt to you.

Death's Advance, although not exactly a defensive ability, should be used when you need to get to an enemy or to avoid incoming crowd control.

Wraith Walk, similar to Death's Advance, is not exactly a defensive ability and should be used when you need to get to an enemy or to avoid incoming crowd control.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.