Unholy Death Knight DPS Easy Mode — 12.0.5

This is your go-to build in Raid encounters.

This is your go-to build in Delves or Mythic+.

Unholy Death Knight is a melee DPS specialization that provides strong single-target and AoE DPS.

Your main goal throughout a fight is applying the Lesser Ghoul stacks to yourself with Festering Strike (ensuring not to over-cap it by generating more than 8 of them) and then consuming these stacks with Scourge Strike / Vampiric Strike while also making sure to use Death Coil (Single Target) or Epidemic (AoE) to consume procs of Sudden Doom or not over-cap on Runic Power. Furthermore, you should aim to maintain uptime on your disease Virulent Plague by using Outbreak or Putrefy (with Blightburst). Finally, make sure to use Putrefy as much as possible during your Dark Transformation window.

Our Season 1 tier set increases our Virulent Plague and Dread Plague damage by 25%. Furthermore, Putrefy deals 20% increased damage and reduces the cost of your next Scourge Strike to 0 Runes. No rotational impact from the tier set, you just do your rotation like normal.

1. Cast Soul Reaper if the target is below 35% or if you have a free use from Dark Transformation.
2. Cast Outbreak/ Putrefy with Blightburst to maintain your Virulent Plague & Dread Plague on the target.
3. Use Festering Scythe to maintain the buff on yourself.
4. Use Putrefy during your Dark Transformation.
5. Use Scourge Strike when you have at least 2 stacks of Lesser Ghoul.
6. Use Death Coil when you have 80+ Runic Power or a Sudden Doom proc. Use Epidemic when fighting 3+ enemies (6+ during Forbidden Knowledge).
7. Use Festering Strike to apply Lesser Ghoul stacks. Do this if you have 2 or fewer stacks.
8. Use Death Coil. Use Epidemic when fighting 3+ enemies.

1. Use Outbreak if running Rider of the Apocalypse
2. Use Festering Strike 2 times.
3. Use Army of the Dead + Dark Transformation + Potion + Trinket + Racial
4. Use Soul Reaper
5. Use Putrefy

The only difference between Single Target and AoE is the use of Epidemic. Use this instead of Death Coil whenever you are fighting 3 or more targets. During Forbidden Knowledge, use at 6+ targets (transforms to the Graveyard ability).

Unholy Death Knights have access to three cooldowns.

• Army of the Dead should be used on cooldown. They are generally the first ability you use after you reach the boss. Make sure to line it up Dark Transformation every 1.5 minutes.
• Dark Transformation should be used on cooldown. Make sure to align it with Army of the Dead every 1.5 minutes.
• Death and Decay should only be used to help slow enemies with the Grip of the Dead talent or if you run Cycle of Death (at 3+ targets).

Currently, you will want to prioritize stats as follows. Do remember that item level will generally be best in most scenarios! For more information on what's presented on this page, check out our main Stat Priority page.

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

This can be different depending on your character's gear, so make sure you sim yourself, to find what your stat priority is. Generally, Mastery and Crit are a lot more valuable than Versatility and Haste and should be prioritised. However, do not drop a lot of item levels to chase these specific stats either!

Unholy Death Knight gets access to Forbidden Knowledge Apex Talents as you level up from 80 to 90 in Midnight. The first rank provides a 30 seconds buff once you cast Army of the Dead, transforming your Death Coil into Necrotic Coil and your Epidemic into Graveyard. These new abilities are powerful version of the baseline ones, notably adding an AoE component to Death Coil. The impact to the rotation is that Necrotic Coil is used at up to 4 targets in AoE, whereas Death Coil is only used at up to 2.

Rank 2 and 3 ( Forbidden Knowledge) gives Mastery when Putrefy is cast and adds a stack of Lesser Ghoul. Slightly less Festering Strike casts are needed in the rotation, but not much else.

Rank 4 ( Forbidden Knowledge) increases the damage of Necrotic Coil and Graveyard for each Magus of the Dead active, synergizing well with Magus of the Dead and Reanimation. Furthermore, Dread Plague has a 20% chance to trigger Putrefy at 60% effectiveness, significantly increasing the number of Putrefy triggered in the rotation overall.

Patch 11.1.7 in The War Within introduced the Combat Assistant functionality for all specs in the game. This comes in the form of two tools that you can use to assist your rotation. The Assisted Highlight feature will light up the spell that you are supposed to use next, helping you determine what button you need to press. The Single-Button Assistant will provide you with a single button that automatically pressed the appropriate spell. The Single-Button Assistant has a GCD penalty of 0.2 seconds every time you press it, artificially slowing down your rotation. This penalty means that you will always do less DPS when using the Single-Button Assistant compared to what you could have done with a perfectly executed rotation.

So how good is the rotation I can get from these assistants? If we assume that you handle your cooldown usage perfectly, the Assisted Highlight is roughly 5-10% less DPS. With the Single-Button Assistant, the number is about 15% Do bear in mind that this is compared to absolutely optimal play. A player with less experience with the rotation might see a significantly smaller loss, or even a gain when using the assistants.

Important to note is that the Single-Button Assistant will not use Breath of Sindragosa automatically, you have to press this manually still.