Unholy Death Knight DPS Mythic+ Tips - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Last updated on May 07, 2024 at 11:20by Bicepspump69 comments

Unholy Death Knight brings solid damage to any Mythic+ dungeon! We haveinsane scaling for certain spells and a very satisfying rotation whenwe pull it off!

The guide will also touch on Unholy Death Knights andtheir damage mitigation tools, all the useful utilities provided by spec, andtheir ability to self-sustain in a critical situation, as well as some of thedisadvantages of havingan Unholy Death Knight in your M+ group.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, youcan read more about it on our dedicated Mythic+ page below.

The build below is already a really good, versatile build. The class portionof the tree picks up a ton of defensives that make us pretty much the tankiest classin the game. However, you can go even further. By sacrificing one point in Unholy Bond for a 1-2% DPS downgrade, you can also pick up Will of the Necropolis. This is a situationally very powerful defensiveability that will effectively increase your HP by 16%. Great if you feel likeyou're dying a bit too much in keys!

• Defensive Version: BwPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAiQSicgISEkIRIIJJRCAAAAAAAAAKkEhIJpBAQiUEJJJSSA

Mythic+ sees two primary builds being competitive, with the above onefocusing mainly on our Diseases. It is versatile, with both great AoE and solid singletarget. You can simply pick this up and run it in every dungeon.

There is an alternative with the Wound build. This picks up Bursting Soresto deal extremely high quadratic scaling AoE damage. It is important to understandthat this build is a significant loss in single target and is only worthwhile withreally large, short pulls. Even then, it is not strictly better.

• Defensive Version: BwPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAiQSicg0iEQiEhgkkEJAAAAAAAAAoQSEJSSKAAkINRSSiIB

The single-target and multi-target rotations change quite a lot in Mythic+content. For more information about the Unholy Death Knight rotation, refer tothe link below.

Unholy's Disease AoE rotation is all about high Plaguebringer uptimeand lots and lots of Epidemic spamming. The idea is toensure your DoTs are doing as much damage as possible and generatingas much Runic Power as possible to spend on Epidemic.

As we approach a given pack, we execute essentially the same opener every singletime, just skipping parts of it if we do not have the cooldowns ready. This iswhat it looks like:

1. Defile as we run towards the pack.
2. Scourge Strike as we reach the pack and stand in our Defile(Apply DoTs if your GCD frees up before you reach the pack).
3. Unholy Blight to apply Virulent Plague. Outbreak if Blight is not ready.
4. Dark Transformation + Empower Rune Weapon.
5. Unholy Assault or Festering Strike to build some wounds on a target.
6. Abomination Limb.
7. Apocalypse.
8. Epidemic until Plaguebringer needs to be refreshed. Scourge Strike to refresh.
9. Defile when your previous Defile buff falls off.
10. Scourge Strike.
11. Epidemic until low RP.
12. Refresh your Virulent Plague when it is about to expire.
13. Scourge Strike.
14. Epidemic until low RP.

The idea is to get your disease up and Plaguebringer quickly.We also make sure to use Defile early to get the mastery buff. We thenuse all our cooldowns and dump our Runic Power. Apocalypse is usedearly here to make sure we get good value from our Death Knight Unholy 10.2 Class Set 2pcand Death Knight Unholy 10.2 Class Set 4pc. As Plaguebringer isabout to run out, we use Scourge Strike to refresh it, ideally withina Defile window to get the benefit of the cleave. At this point, your pethas applied a ton of Festering Wounds on thepack, meaning we get lots of Runic Power every time we cleave with Scourge Strike.We use this to funnel our damage into Epidemic!

You might notice the lack of Festering Strike in this rotation! Asa general rule, we almost never press it in our Mythic+ rotation. It is onlyever if we need to set up a Festering Wound for Apocalypseor if Defile is not currently active. Since Defile uptime is sohigh, we just end up spamming Scourge Strike the majority of the time(ignoring the fact that there sometimes are no Festering Wounds activein the pack). Still, in a long pack, after our Defile sequence isfinished (after 40 seconds or so), we will revert back to building and bursting Festering Wounds, spending the Runic Power on Epidemic!Without Deadliest Coil, we do Epidemic at 2 targets. With it, weuse Epidemic at 4+ targets.

The Wound/ CS build deals the majority of its damage through Clawing Shadowscleaving in Defile. You will essentially aim to apply your Festering Woundspassively via Dark Transformation with Infected Claws and Defile with Pestilence. You then burst these wounds byspamming Clawing Shadows as you stand in your Defile. You willovercap on Runic Power with this build, but that is fine, it is all aboutgetting as many cleaving Clawing Shadows out as possible! Do try anddump your Runic Power in the short 2-3 seconds window between Defiles.The optimal way is to pop down your Defile just before the Masterybuff from the previous one is about to drop. Since the buff lasts for around 4seconds, you get this window of Runic Power dumping.

Outside our Defile windows, we pretty much play our normal singletarget rotation, swapping out Death Coil for Epidemic as ourRunic Power Spender. We do this at 3+ targets if we haven't picked up Deadliest Coil,otherwise we do it at 4+.

To make it hopefully easy to understand, this is a simplified version of whatyour multiple target opener should look like.

• Vile Contagion Talented

1. Defile.
2. Use Outbreak or Unholy Blight to apply Virulent Plague on alltargets.
3. Use Dark Transformation + Empower Rune Weapon.
4. Use Apocalypse.
5. Spam Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows until your first Defile runs out.
6. Spam Epidemic until your Defile mastery buff is about to drop.
7. Use Defile.
8. Spam Clawing Shadows
9. Use Epidemic if youhave no Runes for Clawing Shadows
10. Refresh your Virulent Plague when it is about to expire.
11. After you run out of Death and Decays/ Defiles to use, tab throughthe targets with Festering Strike to set up for your next window!

If any cooldown listed above is not available, simply skip that part ofthe opener and proceed to the next step. With Vile Contagion, you ideallyuse Festering Strike before your Apocalypse and then Unholy Assault + Festering Strike afterward to build maxwounds on your main target.

• Blinding Sleet is a 1-minute cooldown AoE stop interrupt that alsoslows the enemies when they are broken from its blind. Very useful to interruptcasts and help your tank to kite.
• Death Grip is an iconic Death Knight spell that pulls an enemy thatyou are targeting to you. Use this to stack enemies that are spread outto maximize cleave damage. This can also be used as an extra interrupt or tointerrupt casts that cannot be interrupted by Mind Freeze. Anothergreat application of this ability is to pull mobs out of Sanguine.
• Mind Freeze is a Death Knight's interrupt ability. This should beused to interrupt near the end of the target's cast time, as they do not attackwhile casting a spell, so it will minimize damage to the tanks. It isrecommended you communicate your interrupts with the rest of your group so youdo not end up wasting interrupts.
• Anti-Magic Shell is your magic-soaking ability. This ability canbe used to generate Runic Power by soaking magic damage. If you cast Anti-Magic Shell before a magical debuff would be applied to you, suchas bursting, the Anti-Magic Shell will prevent the application of thedebuff.
• Wraith Walk is a movement talent that increases yourmovement speed by 70% for 4 seconds and removes all root effects. This talentshould be taken if you are expecting to be slowed or rooted multiple times in ashort time.
• Dark Succor is a proc that occurs whenever you kill an enemy,granting you a free cast of Death Strike and increasing the healing byanadditional10% of your maximum health. This can be very useful if your group is takinghigh amounts of AoE damage.
• Death Pact is a utility talent that provides you with a heal for 50%of your maximum health. This is incredibly useful in Grievousor Bursting, where sometimes the damage your group is takingcan overwhelm your healer.
• Anti-Magic Zone is one of our most useful utility cooldowns. Itis very powerful against heavy group magic damage.
• Gnaw is an ability that your pet has. Gnaw is off theglobal cooldown and stuns the target for 2 seconds. It is recommended that youkeybind this ability so you have control over when your pet casts it.
• Asphyxiate is an optional 4 single-target stun that lasts for 4secondsand it has a 45-second cooldown. If your group composition lacks stuns, youmight want toconsider using that talent. In addition, it has a 20-yard range, which makes itgreatagainst targets that run out of melee.
• Death Knight is one of the few classes that canresurrect an ally while in combat with Raise Ally. In addition, theyare theonly class that has an instant BR (battle-res), which makes it extremelyvaluablefor any Mythic+ group.
• Lichborne is an extremely useful ability that provides you with 10%Leech andimmunity toward Charm, Fear, and Sleep effects for 10 seconds. The extra Leechallows you to havebetter self-sustain without relying on Death Strike once you dropcritically low. The immunitytoward the crowd-control effects can be useful in some of the dungeon bossfights.When Lichborne is active, you can heal by casting Death Coil onyourself.Importantly, this can be used to remove stacks of Grievous Wound from Grievous since the Death Coils count as direct heals. It alsoturns into a solid defensive ability via the Unholy Endurance talent.
• Death's Advance is another extremely useful utility of the DeathKnights, whichincreases your movement speed by 35% and gives you an immunity toward forcedmovementeffects and knockbacks for 10 seconds. You can use it for effectively dodgingmechanics or to neutralize an incoming knockback.Keep in mind any second that you do not spend in melee will decrease youroverall damage output,which can sometimes result in depleting the keystone. Make use of all of yourutilities toget an edge over any dungeon.
• Control Undead gives you the option to control an undead creaturefor5 minutes. While it is a useful ability, it is unlikely that you will ever useit as an Unholy DeathKnight because it disables your Ghoul, which is where a large part of yourdamage comes from. To conclude,do NOT ever use it unless necessary to prevent the party from acertain wipe.
• Icebound Fortitude is a powerful defensive ability that decreasesany incoming damageby 30% for 8 seconds. Moreover, during that 8-second window, the abilityprovides you withstun immunity, which can be useful for several dungeon boss fights.
• Dark Command is a single-target taunt ability that instantlygenerates threat on the targeted enemy unit. Useful in very niche situationswhere you need to soak a tank mechanic from a particularly difficult boss!Make sure to use a defensive beforehand so you do not die.
• Sacrificial Pact can be used both offensively and defensively,althoughit is not recommended to use it as a source of damage but rather as a lastresort for self-sustainability. Sacrificial Pact sacrifices your Ghoul to healyoufor 25% of yourmaximum health. You should only use it if it is a critical situation to preventcertain Death. Beconservative about this ability since most of your damage comes from your pet,sosacrificing it will result in a major damage loss.
• Chains of Ice is a powerful single-target slow that reduces themovementspeed on the target by 70%. It has a 30-yard range and can also be appliedto multiple enemies.