Unholy Death Knight Dragonflight Class Guide

General Information

Welcome to our Unholy Death Knight Guide for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. We will help you to learn and master Unholy Death Knight in either Raids or Mythic Keystone Dungeons.

Last Update: 16-03-2023

Easy Mode

Basics of Unholy Death Knight

Unholy Death Knights deal damage with diseases and control minions to their own will. While they have a very strong damage output, and extremly high burst damage potential, the playstyle of Unholy Death Knights can be very difficult, especially for new players.

Stat Choice for Unholy Death Knight

General Stat Priority for Unholy Death Knight with our Build is:

Strength
Haste
Mastery
Critical Strike
Versatility

Basic Rotation

Read the Rotation and Cooldowns section for more in-depth information.

Use Death and Decay
Use Outbreak
Use Festering Strike
Use Scourge Strike if your Festering Wounds are at 4+
Use Festering Strike if your Festering Wounds are below 4
Use Death Coil to spend Runic Power

Builds and Talents

General Talent Tree

Most Notable Talents

Abomination Limb, Empower Rune Weapon and Soul Reaper are our last row Talents. These have the biggest impact in playstyle

Other Damage Talents

Cleaving Strikes, Brittle, Unholy Ground grant you significant damage increase. Merciless Strikes and Might of Thassarian increase your Stats.

Crowd Control & Utility

Chains of Ice, Mind Freeze, Asphyxiate, Blinding Sleet and all allocated Talents are boosting your Crowd Control, including Slows, Stuns and Interrupts. Wraith Walk grants you more Mobility.

Defensive Talents

Anti-Magic Shell, Anti-Magic Zone, Death Pact and Icebound Fortitude, including all allocated Talents are granting the Death Knight more Survivability.

Specialization Talent Tree

Single Target Talents

Army of Dead is your strongest cooldown, summoning many ghouls attacking your target.
Superstrain applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague whenever you apply Virulent Plague.
Morbidity increases your damage by 2% per disease on the target.
Summon Gargoyle is a 3-minute cooldown, bombarding the target area.
Commander of the Dead causes your Dark Transformation to empower your Gargoyle and Army of the Dead.
Plaguebringer causes your diseases to occur 100% more quickly after Scourge Strike.
Apocalypse bursts 4 Festering Wounds and generates 2 Runes.

Multi Target Talents

Unholy Blight applies Virulent Plague to all nearby enemies.
Epidemic uses Runic Power to deal damage to all enemies affected by Virulent Plague.
Bursting Sores causes your bursted Festering Wounds to explode.
Vile Contagion applies the amount of Festering Wounds on your current target to 7 nearby enemies.
Pestilence grants your Death and Decay a chance to apply Festering Wound to the enemy.
Unholy Pact creates a bond between you and your pet, dealing damage to enemies between you.
Improved Death Coil causes your Death Coil to deal damage and hit an additional enemy.

Mythic+ Talents For Unholy Death Knight

Import:

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Aberrus, The Shadowed Crucible

Kazzara, the Hellforged

Molgoth

The Forgotten Experiments

Assault of the Zaqali

Rashok, the Elder

The Vigilant Steward, Zskarn

Magmorax

Echo of Neltharion

Scalecommander Sarkareth

Aberrus, The Shadowed Crucible

Kazzara, the Hellforged

Molgoth

The Forgotten Experiments

Assault of the Zaqali

Rashok, the Elder

The Vigilant Steward, Zskarn

Magmorax

Echo of Neltharion

Scalecommander Sarkareth

Rotation and Cooldowns

Basic Rotation for Unholy Death Knight in Single Target

Use Army of the Dead
Use Death and Decay
Use Outbreak
Use Unholy Assault (if skilled)
Use Festering Strike
Use Abomination Limb (if skilled)
Use Dark Transformation (if skilled)
Use Apocalypse (if skilled)
Use Scourge Strike if your Festering Wounds are at 4+
Use Festering Strike if your Festering Wounds are below 4
Use Summon Gargoyle (if skilled)
Use Death Coil to spend Runic Power
Use Death and Decay on cooldown
Use Soul Reaper (if skilled) whenever you can benefit of its second effect
Repeat

Basic Rotation for Unholy Death Knight in Multi Target

Use Army of the Dead
Use Death and Decay
Use Unholy Blight (if skilled)
Use Unholy Assault
Use Festering Strike
Use Vile Contagion (if skilled)
Use Abomination Limb (if skilled)
Use Dark Transformation (if skilled)
Use Apocalypse (if skilled)
Use Scourge Strike if your Festering Wounds are at 4+
Use Festering Strike if your Festering Wounds are below 4
Use Epidemic (if skilled) to spend Runic Power
Use Death and Decay on cooldown
Use Soul Reaper (if skilled) whenever you can benefit of its second effect
Repeat

Stat Priority

Stat Choice for Unholy Death Knight

General Stat Priority for Unholy Death Knight with our Build is:

Strength
Haste
Mastery
Critical Strike
Versatility

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Strength is your primary stat, meaning that Itemlevel is superior in most cases. Higher Itemlevel will also increase your Stamina and Armor that you gain.

Critical Strike increases the chance for your abilities and spells to deal double damage.

Haste reduces your global cooldown, your time to cast spells, and reduces the cooldown of many abilities.

Versatility grants you a flat damage and healing increase, but also a damage decrease for half of its value.

Mastery increases the damage of your pets and minions, and also your Shadow damage abilities.

The further we are getting into the expansion, the effects of diminishing returns start to limit your effective gain of your secondary stats. After reaching 30% (by rating) of any given stat, you will start to receive a penalty that reduces the gain from more of the same stat over this treshold.

Stat priority can differ on every character. Make sure to simulate yourself on Raidbots get the perfect results for you.

Gear and Trinkets

Best In Slot Gear for Unholy Death Knight

This List shows the current Best-In-Slot Gear for Dragonflight Season 1. Many Items can be potentially substituted with any Profession Gear, especially early on into the Season.

Additionally, there is the option for Profession Gear to be crafted with additional Buffs/Perks, which can benefit your character in certain situations.

Slot	Item
Head	Maw of the Haunted Frostbrood
Necklace	Eye of the Vengeful Hurricane
Shoulders	Jaws of the Haunted Frostbrood
Cloak	Acid-Proof Webbing
Chest	Breastplate of the Haunted Frostbrood
Wrists	Shackles of Titanic Failure
Hands	Grasps of the Haunted Frostbrood
Belt	Matriarch’s Opulent Girdle
Legs	Greaves of the Haunted Frostbrood
Boots	Kurog’s Thunderhooves
Ring 1	Seal of Diurna’s Chosen
Ring 2	Seal of Filial Duty
Weapon 1	Incarnate Sky-Splitter
Weapon 2	/