Unholy Death Knight Mythic+ Guide (2024)

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Unholy Death Knight Mythic+ Guide

Last Updated: August 9th 2024

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11.0 - The War Within

Welcome to the Unholy Death KnightMythic+ guide for the World of Warcraft prepatch 11.0.1! Here, you can find tips and tricks to maximize your damage output and ensure your character is ready to top the damage charts.

Playing an Unholy Death Knight is a unique experience compared to any other DPS specialization in the game as you have 3 resources, Runes, Runic Power, and Festering Wounds. Mastering your understanding of how these resources interact and synergize with each other is pivotal for maintaining a smooth and optimal gameplay flow.

In this patch, Unholy Death Knight was changed to have an extremely smooth gameplay flow that makes it intuitive to learn and understand. If you enjoy constantly summoning minions that deal overwhelming damage or diseases that rot your enemies this is now the spec for you.

Whether you are new or looking to improve in your Mythic+ dungeons, this guide gives you the information needed to become a true juggernaut.

Overview

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Unholy Death KnightMythic+

Single Target

Strong

AoE

Strong

Utility

Weak

Survivability

Excellent

Mobility

Weak

Unholy Death Knights are known for their exceptional single target damage and being able to specialize in a massive AoE damage profile. As well as having a number of good damage profiles, they have some of the best survivability using their vast array of talents and abilities to stay alive and avoid mechanics.
Their toolkit includes powerful defensive abilities like Anti-Magic Shell and Icebound Fortitude, and powerful defensive talents like Anti-Magic Barrier and Will of the Necropolis which greatly enhance their survivability and allows them to stay in the fight longer than most other damage dealers.
However, like any specialization, Unholy Death Knightshave their weaknesses. One of them being a lack of mobility, only having Death's Advance to increase their movement speed while also immuning pushback effects. Another weakness is their utility, as they are less effective at using Death Grip to pull enemies in compared to a Blood Death Knight.

Talents

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Default Mythic+

Gameplay Altering Talents

Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation andDeep Divesections below.

Spec Tree

Bursting Sores
- When you pop your Festering Wounds, they now do increased damage and do damage in an area around them.
Defile
- Replaces Death and Decay making it deal increased damage and reducing the cooldown to 20 seconds.
Vile Contagion
- On a 45 second cooldown, this allows you to spread your current target's Festering Wounds to 7 nearby enemies.
Superstrain
- Outbreak and any other disease application spell now applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague at 80% effectiveness.
Morbidity
- Increases damage taken per disease applied meaning you always want your diseases up before hitting anything.
Ebon Fever
- Causes all diseases to deal 12% more damage in half the duration. This effectively increases all of your disease damage by 130%.
Infected Claws
- A major factor in why you don't constantly press Festering Strike as this gives roughly 8 Festering Wounds per minute.
- Every hit in multi-target situations from Sweeping Claws has a separate chance of applying a Festering Wound, meaning you don't have to constantly Festering Strike multiple targets.
Apocalypse
- Bursts up to 4 Festering Wounds on the target, summoning 4 ghouls that deal damage for 15 seconds.
Raise Abomination
- Replaces Army of the Dead, instead summoning an abomination that applies all diseases when it spawns in a small radius around it and applies a Festering Wound on each of its' auto attacks for 30 seconds.
Unholy Assault
- Puts 4 Festering Wounds on your target and Increases your damage by 20% for 20 seconds.

Class Tree

Soul Reaper
- Used rotationally when hitting single target enemies under 35% health.
Cleaving Strikes
- Cleaving Strikes allows your Scourge Strike to hit up to 7 additional enemies while you are standing in Death and Decay or when you have the buff from recently standing in your Death and Decay
Abomination Limb
- Grips enemies to you for 12 seconds with a minimum range of 8 yards and a max range of 20 yards as well as dealing a decent amount of damage over the duration.
Anti-Magic Zone and Assimilation
- Your group cooldown that lasts for either 8 seconds or until 150% of your maximum health has been absorbed in total by everyone standing in the zone.
- Talenting into Assimilation makes this absorb 10% stronger, 165% of your maximum health, and reduces the cooldown by 30 seconds.
Null Magic
- Reduces your magic damage taken by 10% and reduces the the duration of harmful magic effects by 35%. While the reduced magic damage portion of Null Magic works against all magic damage, the reduced duration of harmful magic effects does not work on the vast majority of amount debuffs in from bosses as that could simply break too many things but will work on the majority of magic debuffs applied from regular trash mobs.
Vestigial Shell
- Puts a Lesser Anti-Magic Shell on 2 nearby allies that absorbs a small amount of damage and reduces the duration of some harmful magic effects. This does not have any immune capabilities and just acts as a shield on your allies that can reduce the duration of some harmful magic effects.
Death's Echo
- Gives you 2 charges of Death and Decay, Death's Advance and Death Grip.
Will of the Necropolis
- Reduces all damage taken by 35% while below 30% health, including the portion of the hit that takes you below 30%. For example, if you take a hit that takes you from 60% to 10%, the portion of the hit below 30% of your health is reduced by 35%.
Unholy Endurance
- Transforms Lichborne into a defensive cooldown and increases the amount of Leech it grants.
Unyielding Will
- Anti-Magic Shell's cooldown is increased by 20 seconds but removes all harmful magic effects when cast. While this says all, it doesn't mean all as removing certain debuffs could potentially break certain boss encounters if some debuffs were removed early. This works on the vast majority of magic debuffs from regular trash mobs.

Rotation

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Tier Set

(2pc): Bursting a Festering Wound grants your ghoul Vile Infusion, increasing their damage by 25% and Haste by 10% for 5 seconds.
(4pc): Your primary ghoul's attacks have a 8% chance to increase your damage and Haste by 8% for 8 seconds. This chance is increased to 15% during Vile Infusion.

Single-Target

Opener Rotation

Your goal in the opener is to get your cooldowns going immediately and bursting as many Festering Wounds as possible so you can get into your normal rotation and begin taking advantage of your cooldowns. Below, you see an example of how your opener in Single Target looks like using the Mythic+ Build.

Apocalypse requires at least 1 Festering Wound to be usable, so whichever target your Raise Abomination hits will be your target for it.
After this opener, there is a lot of Scourge Strike and Death Coil spamming.

Priority List

Cast Dark Transformation and Apocalypse on 45 second cooldown windows, they should always be paired together. Raise Abomination and Unholy Assault should be used in combination with the others on 1m30s windows.
Cast Soul Reaper if the enemy is below 35% health or will be when this expires.
Cast Death Coil when you have more than 80 Runic Power or when Sudden Doom is active.
Cast Outbreak if any of your diseases are not active.
Cast Festering Strike when you have 2 or less Festering Wounds.
Cast Scourge Strike if Plaguebringer is not active.
Cast Defile if you have 2 charges available.
Cast Death Coil if Death Rot is about to fall off.
Cast Scourge Strike when you have 3 or more Festering Wounds.
Cast Death Coil.

Multi-Target

Opening Rotation

Your goal in the opener is to get your cooldowns going immediately and spread as many Festering Wounds as you can so you can start dealing devastating amounts of damage to all nearby enemies. Below, you see an example of how your opener looks like using the Mythic+ Build.

If your Raise Abomination is hitting a different target than you are, you will have to cast Festering Strike to get 6 Festering Wounds on your target so you can spread them with Vile Contagion.
- Ideally, this is not the case, however, it can and does happen so be sure to watch out for what your Raise Abomination is hitting as you can also swap to it immediately to take advantage of the Festering Wounds it is applying.

Burst Phase Priority

This phase is exclusively used while Death and Decay or Defile are placed.

Cast Scourge Strike if Plaguebringer will soon expire or is not up.
Cast Outbreak when any target is missing your diseases.
Cast Scourge Strike if any targets have Festering Wounds.
Cast Epidemic when Sudden Doom is procs or there are more than 7 targets.
Cast Scourge Strike if there are less than 7 targets.
Cast Epidemic if you have no Festering Wounds to burst.
Cast Scourge Strike.
Cast Epidemic.

Building Phase Priority

This phase is used while Death and Decay or Defile are either on cooldown or you are recovering from a non 45 second burst window.

Cast Raise Abomination.
Cast Abomination Limb.
Cast Apocalypse.
Cast Dark Transformation.
Cast Epidemic when Sudden Doom is active.
Cast Unholy Assault.
Cast Vile Contagion on the target with 6 Festering Wounds.
Cast Epidemic if you have 2 or less Runes.
Cast Defile once all of your Festering Wounds are spread.
Cast Epidemic.
Go to the Burst Phase rotation once Defile is placed.

Deep Dive

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Casting Death Coil vs Epidemic

When you are in an AoE situation, you should swap to using Epidemic when there are 3 or more stacked targets.

Build and Burst Phases

In the Mythic+ talent build, you have 2 distinct damage phases that you play in and they are dictated by when you use Death and Decay or Defile charges. The burst phase is where you are focused on bursting all Festering Wounds. Secondly, you have a different building phase when you have neither Death and Decay or Defile available that focuses on maintaining your important buffs and dealing damage with Epidemic while preparing to spread as many Festering Wounds as you can to all targets for the burst phase.
Wasting Runic Power is regular in this build, specifically during Burst Phases, so do not worry about it unless you are about to be running low on Festering Wounds. As long as you are bursting all of your Festering Wounds during the Defile window it never hurts to throw in an Epidemic to try and get Runic Corruption procs for more casts of Scourge Strike.
Dealing a lot of damage when you are not bursting is not really a thing in the Mythic+ Build but you still want to spread diseases with Outbreak, maintain Plaguebringer with Scourge Strike, spread Festering Wounds with Festering Strike and not overcap Runic Power with Epidemic.

Pet Positioning

When you empower your ghoul with Dark Transformation, it is essential to manage where your pet is at all times due to the interaction between Sweeping Claws and Infected Claws as this can put Festering Wounds on all targets hit by Sweeping Claws. This increases your power dramatically in any multi-target situation as you gain a ton of additional Festermight stacks from this interaction when you start bursting them with Death and Decay and Scourge Strike.

Anti-Magic Shell Runic Power

Anti-Magic Shell grants you up to 40 Runic Power based on the amount it absorbs. This is incredibly powerful as this build can get starved of Runic Power on single target so you want to use this to your advantage as often as possible on bosses where Anti-Magic Shell isn't needed for purely defensive purposes.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

Pandemic
Spell Queue Window
Stat Diminishing Returns

Dungeons

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Brackenhide Hollow

Neltharus

The Nokhud Offensive

Algeth'ar Academy

Halls of Infusion

The Azure Vault

Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr

Ruby Life Pools

Boss Tips

Hackclaw's War-Band

You can Anti-Magic Shell when the bosses cast Decayed Senses to prevent the disorientation.
Make sure you keep interrupting Earth Bolt.

Treemouth

The pull in effect of Grasping Vines can be negated by Death's Advance allowing you to leave at the last second.
Use Blinding Sleet to control the Decaying Slimes that spawn from Decay Spray before they complete their Gushing Ooze cast.

Gutshot

Master's Call is being cast when a Hyena is in a trap, be ready to interrupt it

Decatriarch Wratheye

If you need to run over Choking Rotcloud, you can use Anti-Magic Shell without receiving any negative effects.
Rotburst Totem always spawns in the furthest away position from the boss so be sure to start moving immediately as you are slow to get there.

Trash Tips

These notes are here to help guide you through the overall flow of the dungeon and highlight key things to watch out for. The War Within Guide will be a lot more detailed!

Use Blinding Sleet to stop Summon Lashers from Decayed Elders, this significantly reduces the damage your group takes.
Stop Vicious Clawmangle from Claw Fighters with any of your available stops.

Boss Tips

Magmatusk

Using Anti-Magic Shell to prevent damage and Death Strike to heal yourself back up after taking large amounts of damage to make your healer appreciate you very much.

Chargath, Bane of Scales

Fiery Focus deals a lot of damage to you and you should be ready to use Death Strike in this phase if you are struggling.
You can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell to not gain the debuff the Grounding Chains give you once they start breaking.

Forgemaster Gorek

Might of the Forge does a lot of damage to you and therefore you should be ready to use Death Strike and rotate defensives as this is the only damaging portion of the fight.

Warlord Sargha

You can cast Chains of Ice on the Burning Ember to slow it and help your group. If you want to kill it make sure to Death Grip it into melee.
Your main objective will be to pick up Piles of Gold to gain the weapons to break the Magma Shield.
- Make sure to cast Anti-Magic Shell before picking up the gold to avoid the curse on you.

Trash Tips

These notes are here to help guide you through the overall flow of the dungeon and highlight key things to watch out for. The War Within Guide will be a lot more detailed!

If you are fighting multiple Lava Flares you can cast Blinding Sleet or Death Grip to stop their casts as it makes them go on cooldown.
Keep an eye out for Qalashi Bonesplitter's Dragonbone Axe & Pierce Marrow and disrupt them.

Boss Tips

Granyth

Nokhud Saboteurs are the spawned add that needs to be killed during the fight.
- Make sure to use Chains of Ice if a slow is needed and Death Grip to keep them in melee so they can be cleaved down.

The Raging Tempest

Minmaxing Surge of Power stacks is very important since they don't only buff your damage but also healing making it easier to survive with Death Strike during the Electrical Storm phase and right after Lightning Strikes.
You can cast Anti-Magic Shell before the end of the initial Lightning Strike cast preventing the debuff from going on you at all if you need to conserve space or if it does more damage than you can otherwise live.

Teera and Maruuk

You have Anti-Magic Shell for every cast of Gale Arrow making it impossible to not live this ability.
You can get randomly Quick Shot multiple times in a row so be ready to Death Strike at all times.

Balakar Khan

In the intermission, make use of Death Grip and Abomination Limb to gather the adds and Blinding Sleet to stop their Storm Bolt.

Trash Tips

These notes are here to help guide you through the overall flow of the dungeon and highlight key things to watch out for. The War Within Guide will be a lot more detailed!

This Dungeon has a lot of mobs that require stops to prevent casts from happening. These can wipe the group so be sure to use Blinding Sleet and Death Grip to stop these enemies:
- Nokhud Hornsounder Rally the Clan.
- Nokhud Beastmaster Hunt Prey.
- Desecrated Ohuna Rotting Wind.
- Risen Mystic Swift Wind.

Boss Tips

Overgrown Ancient

This boss has 2 phases where your damage priorities are slightly different.
- During Phase 1 where the lashers have not yet spawned, you want to use Outbreak to DoT them and then use Defile 1-2 times on them while not using Epidemic. These should die to passive cleave.
- When the Ancient Branch spawns you want to target this and focus this as it is extremely dangerous.
- When the second set of lashers spawns and Burst Forth is cast, you want to be doing as much AoE damage as possible to kill the flowers before they kill your tank.
Having a target macro for the Ancient Branch to Death Grip it is recommended as it can spawn out of melee range and be quite hard to target on this fight with the amount of nameplates.

Crawth

Deafening Screech is the main magic damage mechanic happening every 25 seconds, use Anti-Magic Shell to immune every other stack to lower the damage you take from this mechanic.

Vexamus

Mana Bombs are extremely dangerous and you want to hold Anti-Magic Shell for the end of this spell. As this does ticking damage on top of a large burst at the end, you can use Death Strike to top yourself before the last hit.
Around 2 minutes into the fight there is a deadly overlap of Mana Bomb + Arcane Fissure, use Anti-Magic Zone if talanted to help the group as well as Icebound Fortitude and Lichborne for yourself.

Echo of Doragosa

Use Anti-Magic Shell on the Energy Bomb.

Trash Tips

These notes are here to help guide you through the overall flow of the dungeon and highlight key things to watch out for. The War Within Guide will be a lot more detailed!

The most dangerous parts of the dungeon are the casts on the group. Make sure to utilize your stops in Blinding Sleet and Death Grip to the best of your ability on these mobs:
- Corrupted Manafiend's Surge and Mana Void.
- Spellbound Scepter's Mystic Blast is a big AoE cast that must be stopped.
- Unruly Textbook's Monotonous Lecture.
  - If this is on you, you can Lichborne out of the sleep.
- Spectral Invoker's Arcane Missiles.

Pre Dungeon Start

You should always pick the Red Dragonflight Pledge Pin buff as it's numerically the highest value as it is not decreased by the stat diminishing returns and helps you survive in a deadly dungeon.

Boss Tips

Watcher Irideus

Utilize your Blinding Sleet to stop Nullification Devices from casting Purifying Blast on your group.
Use Anti-Magic Shell when you get Power Overload.
As Static Surge is a ticking cast, you can Death Strike yourself back up to nearly full health after every tick.

Gulping Goliath

Make sure to slow the Curious Swoglets with Chains of Ice if it is needed to help your group.
Anti-Magic Shell can be used to prevent Gulp Swog Toxin stacking on yourself.

Khajin the Unyielding

Death Strike is your best friend on this fight. Use it liberally to help out your healer if they are struggling.
Use Anti-Magic Shell when needed. This is an extremely high magic damage fight and you will want to get as many uses as you can. This can be used when you are hiding from Hailstorm or when running from Glacial Surge as you can not Death Strike during these casts.

Primal Tsunami

When starting the intermission, use Death Grip to stack up all 4 casters to make it easier to kill them. Ideally, you Mind Freeze one and Death Grip two close to the one you kicked and let your group handle bringing in the last one.
In the intermission be sure to stop Inundate with your Blinding Sleet if needed.

Trash Tips

These notes are here to help guide you through the overall flow of the dungeon and highlight key things to watch out for. The War Within Guide will be a lot more detailed!

To minimize the chance of your tank getting stunned by Cheap Shot from Skulking Zealots place a Defile on top of them to break their stealth if your tank can not do it themselves.
Here are some general stops/disrupts that are useful to use Death Grip and Blinding Sleet on:
- Refti Defender Demoralizing Shout.
- Primalist Shocktrooper Elemental Focus.
- Primalist Galesinger Thunderstrike.

Boss Tips

Leymor

Living on this boss as an Unholy Death Knight is extremely rough on higher keys so be sure to your rotate cooldowns on Explosive Brand and Consuming Stomp.

Azureblade

Summon Draconic Image spawns a Draconic Image that needs to be interrupted. Make sure to grip it close to the boss with Death Grip.

Telash Greywing

Do not pop cooldowns at the start of the fight as she flies away very quickly.
You can use Anti-Magic Shell to pre-immune the application of Frost Bomb.
When targeted by Icy Devastator be sure to use Death Strike if you get low as this is a channeled ticking cast.

Umbrelskul

Ensure you have as many damage cooldowns as possible for each add wave. They spawn at 75%, 50%, and 25% boss health.

Trash Tips

These notes are here to help guide you through the overall flow of the dungeon and highlight key things to watch out for. The War Within Guide will be a lot more detailed!

One of the important interrupts in this dungeon is Icy Bindings from the Rune Seal Keeper. If it is not interrupted it causes a groupwide root which likely wipes you since during these pulls there are many ground mechanics to dodge.
- This cast can be stopped by all of your AoE crowd control if necessary or kicks.
Crystal Fury casts Piercing Shards frequently and can be stopped by both Blinding Sleet and Death Grip.
If your tank needs help, Ice Cutter can be stopped by Blinding Sleet but the cast is quite fast.
Other noteworthy adds that can and should be disrupted or stopped with Blinding Sleet and Death Grip:
- Conjured Lasher Mystic Vapors.
- Arcane Elemental Waking Bane.
- Nullmagic Hornswog Null Stomp.

Boss Tips

The Lost Dwarves

When the dwarves cast Longboat Raid!, they frequently cast Fiery Surge. Be sure to Anti-Magic Shell this as it is the only magic damage on this fight.
PutOlafon focus to quickly interrupt him when he casts‍Defensive Bulwark.

Bromach

After the boss casts Call of the Deep, he will summon 4 adds into the fight, 3 melee adds, and 1 caster. Use Death Grip to bring the caster into melee.

Sentinel Talondras

This boss outputs purely physical damage. You struggle to survive this so be sure you rotate your defensive cooldowns once the boss gets to higher stacks of Unrelenting.
Use Death Strike constantly when you are affected by Earthen Shards.

Emberon

Searing Clap is the main frontal mechanic that also applies a debuff to the whole group. You can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell to immune the debuff and subsequently the damage of the ability.

Chrono-Lord Deios

Wing Buffet deals a significant amount of damage so be sure to use Anti-Magic Shell on as many as you can. You can also use Death's Advance to immune the knockback portion of this.

Trash Tips

These notes are here to help guide you through the overall flow of the dungeon and highlight key things to watch out for. The War Within Guide will be a lot more detailed!

Noteworthy adds that can and should be disrupted or stopped as much as possible with Blinding Sleet + Death Grip:
- Vicious Basilisk Spiked Carapace.
- Stonevault Geomancer Chain Lightning.
- Earthen Weaver Hail of Stone.
- Earthen Warder Curse of Stone.

Boss Tips

Melidrussa Chillworn

Chillstorm sucks you toward its drop-off location and when it expires it does a bigger hit of damage and a pushback. Make sure to use Death's Advance to immune the pushback and Anti-Magic Shell for the damage if it is needed. You can also Death Strike during this to help out your healer if they are struggling, they will appreciate it.
At 75% and 45% Melidrussa spawns a lot of Infused Whelps. You can use Outbreak to put up your disease and then proceed to ignore them as they do not particularly need to die quickly.

Kokia Blazehoof

When Inferno is cast, you can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell to immune the application of the debuff.
To ensure as much time as possible between Blazebound Firestorms Inferno casts you should interrupt the first 2 Roaring Blazes early and the 3rd one late.

Erkhart Stormvein / Kyrakka

In the first phase, you are randomly targeted by Flamespit. When you are being targeted you can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell to immune the application of the debuff.

Trash Tips

These notes are here to help guide you through the overall flow of the dungeon and highlight key things to watch out for. The War Within Guide will be a lot more detailed!

Flame Dance from Primalist Flamedancers kills your tank quickly and you should use Blinding Sleet and Death Grip to disrupt these quickly.
Other noteworthy adds that should be disrupted or stopped with Blinding Sleet + Death Grip.
- Flashfrost Earthshaper Tectonic Slam.
- Flashfrost Chillweaver Ice Shield.
Important interrupts in this dungeon:
- Primalist Cinderweaver Cinderbolt.
- Flame Channeler Flashfire.
- High Channeler Ryvati Shock Blast.
- Tempest Channeler Thunder Bolt.

Affixes

Learn how to effectively handle various Mythic+ Affixes as an Unholy Death Knight. Depending on the level of the Mythic+ Dungeon you face up to two additional Affixes alongside Fortified and Tyrannical.

Storming
- Death's Advance makes you immune to the Storming knock up but not the damage. If there is no other use for Anti-Magic Shell you can soak up a lot of these at once while not taking damage on high keystone levels as it is not needed to reduce the damage at lower levels.
Entangling
- You can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell on the application of Entangling or at the last second of the debuff to not get stunned.
- Use Icebound Fortitude to break the stun if you did not run out or Anti-Magic Shell it.
Incorporeal
- You can cast Control Undead on them to negate the mechanic however as an Unholy Death Knight you lose your ghoul (and any buffs it had) when you do this so it is really not possible to do anything to this affix.
- If a cast is about to go off you can use Anti-Magic Shell to not get the debuff.
Afflicted
- You should not do anything to this affix however you can cast Death Coil to heal them up but this is for major emergencies only and should just generally not be thought of.
- If a cast is about to go off you can use Anti-Magic Shell to not get the debuff.
Volcanic
- Death's Advance makes you immune to the Volcanic knockup but not the damage.
Bolstering
- The best to manage bolstering is to have the highest health target as your main target and try to even out the health pools in these packs.
Spiteful
- Slowing is your main job on this affix so make sure to use slows and disorients such as Blinding Sleet and Chains of Ice to help everyone including yourself kite these mobs.
Sanguine
- While Sanguine positioning is not your main job, it is still your entire group's job. You can help your tank out by using Death Grip to move out mobs with low health as they are about to die so the entire pack does not have to be repositioned.
- You can also Death Grip most mobs out of Sanguine if they are stuck in there.
Bursting
- Bursting is not too dangerous for an Unholy Death Knight as you can use Anti-Magic Shell before enemies die so you do not receive large amounts of stacks of Bursting.
- If you do not have Anti-Magic Shell to prevent stacks, you can also use Death Strike to heal yourself between ticks to help your healer out as you are close to immortal when spamming this.

Stat Priority

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Mythic+ dungeons as an Unholy Death Knight. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

Higher Item level items are better in most scenarios. For an accurate representation of what item to equip you should use Simcraft! A static "Stat Priority" is just a starting point and can easily shift depending on your individual gear.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
Leech - Unholy Death Knights currently can not take full advantage of this stat due to pets not contributing to this stat in any form. By no means is it bad, especially in AoE scenarios, but it is simply worth more for other classes.
Speed - While Unholy Death Knights are not the most mobile class, you are not slow but have no way to instantly relocate your character. This stat can greatly help you close that gap faster if you have a lot of it.

Gear

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Overall BiS

Farmable Alternatives

Slot	Item	Location
Head	Piercing Gaze of the Risen Nightmare	Tier / Catalyst
Neck	Torc of Passed Time	Crafted
Shoulder	Skewers of the Risen Nightmare	Tier / Catalyst
Cloak	Voice of the Silent Star	Sarkareth
Chest	Breastplate of Soaring Terror	Great Vault / Ruby Life Pools
Wrist	Primal Molten Vambraces	Crafting
Gloves	Thorns of the Risen Nightmare	Tier / Catalyst
Belt	Recycled Golemskin Waistguard	Zskarn
Legs	Greaves of the Risen Nightmare	Tier / Catalyst
Boots	Fused Obsidian Sabatons	Smolderon
Ring 1	Seal of Diurna's Chosen	Eranog
Ring 2	Seal of Filial Duty	Broodkeeper Diurna
Passive Trinket	Neltharion's Call to Suffering	Echo of Neltharion
Active Trinket	Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows	Dawn of the Infinites
Weapon	Fyr'alath the Dreamrender	Fyrakk

Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.

Slot	Item	Location
Head	Earthshaker's Steel Visor	Halls of Infusion
Neck	Bromach's Disentombed Locket	Uldaman
Shoulder	Mantle of Crushing Waves	Halls of Infusion
Cloak	Cloak of Lost Devotion	The Azure Vault
Chest	Breastplate of Soaring Terror	Ruby Life Pools
Wrist	Binders of the Moldering	Brackenhide Hollow
Gloves	Gauntlets of Incalculable Power	Halls of Infusion
Belt	Ravenous Omnivore's Girdle	Halls of Infusion
Legs	Fural's Blazing Faulds	Neltharus
Boots	Pristine Magma Stompers	Neltharus
Ring 1	Circle of Ascended Frost	Halls of Infusion
Ring 2	Unstable Arcane Loop	The Azure Vault
Passive Trinket	Accelerating Sandglass	Dawn of the Infinites
On-Use Trinket	Irideus Fragment	Ruby Life Pools
Weapon	Sargha's Smasher	Neltharus

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to the recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the scenario.

Active Trinket alternatives

Irideus Fragment
- A frontloaded 3 minute on-use trinket that you use with every other use of Raise Abomination to massively increase your burst.
Algeth'ar Puzzle Box
- While this is good, it has a 2 second cast time (reduced by Haste) making it slightly annoying to use. It is recommended to use the other alternatives listed here as they are both easier and nicer to use.
Ashes of the Embersoul
- An incredibly powerful active trinket but it has a 2 minute cooldown (that you hold for your 3 minute burst). The Haste penalty after the active effect is not ideal but the on use is strong enough to warrant using this if you do not have Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows.

Passive Trinket alternatives

Whispering Incarnate Icon
- Grants a bunch of Crit and when equipped and when tanks and healers equip this trinket it can proc Versatility and Haste respectively.
Pip's Emerald Friendship Badge
- Completely passive stats trinket that rotates between Mastery, Crit, and Versatility and does not rely on other group members to be good.
Ominous Chromatic Essence
- Grants secondary stats of your choice and gives you smaller buffs of other stats when grouped with other users of this trinket if they are using the other stat buffs.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

Embellishments

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

2x Blue Silken Lining
- With how sturdy you are as an Unholy Death Knight, this is your best option as you are able to keep a very high uptime on this buff with the amount of damage prevention tools you have.
- This is in your overall bis on Torc of Passed Time and Primal Molten Vambraces but you can also put this on Belt and Boots if you have good items in these slots already.

Remaining Sparks

Make sure to apply Alchemical Flavor Pocket if you have an additional crafted item equipped.
Crafted items are 525 item level and regular items are 528 on max item level, therefore, it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Enchantments

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Head	Incandescent Essence
Neck	Tiered Medallion Setting 3x
Cloak	Enchant Cloak - Homebound Speed
Chest	Enchant Chest - Waking Stats
Wrist	Enchant Bracer - Devotion of Speed
Belt	Shadowed Belt Clasp
Legs	Fierce Armor Kit
Boots	Enchant Boots - Plainsrunner's Breeze
Ring 1	Enchant Ring - Devotion of Mastery
Ring 2	Enchant Ring - Devotion of Mastery
Weapon	Rune of the Fallen Crusader

Consumables

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Phials

Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage -- Maximum DPS
Phial of Tepid Versatility -- Less DPS but more survivability

Food

Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
Deviously Deviled Eggs

Combat Potion

Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
Residual Neural Channeling Agent -- Can be used while being dead if your potion is ready

Health Potion

Potion of Withering Dreams -- A big burst of healing
Dreamwalker's Healing Potion -- Less healing upfront but an additional small heal over time

Weapon Rune

Howling Rune
Hissing Rune

Augment Rune

Dreambound Augment Rune -- Requires Reputation
Draconic Augment Rune

Sockets

Skillful Illimited Diamond -- Unique, made by work order
Regular gems depend on your current stats so make sure you sim yourself!
- Keen Ysemerald
- Keen Neltharite
- Zen Neltharite

Races

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Berserking -- Troll
- The best racial for an Unholy Death Knight in The War Within as this lines up perfectly with your highest points of burst during Army of the Dead or every other use of Raise Abomination.
- Reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 20%.
Stoneform -- Dwarf
- One of the most potent racials in Mythic+ currently and historically.
- Use-cases:
  - Bursting stacks.
  - Splinterbark on Overgrown Ancient (Algeth'ar Academy).
  - Deep Chillfrom Glacial Proto-Dragons (Halls of Infusion).
  - Withering from Fetid Rotsingers and Brackenhide Shapers (Brackenhide Hollow).
  - Earthen Shardsfrom Sentinel Talondras (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
  - Stolen Timefrom Infinite Timereavers (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
  - Dragon Strikefrom Chargath (Neltharus).
  - Bold Ambushfrom Qalashi Hunters (Neltharus).
Shadowmeld -- Night Elf
- Also one of the most potent racials in Mythic+ historically.
- Use-cases:
  - Cast‍Shadowmeldwhen Forgemaster Gorek (Neltharus) targets you with‍Blazing Aegis, this completely negates the mechanic for you and the rest of the group.
  - Run past basically any mob and then cast‍Shadowmeldto make them reset. Even works on mobs that have stealth detection if you get enough distance before you‍Shadowmeld.

Recommendation

In general, it's safe to say that if you care about min-maxing your DPS you should go with the highest DPS racial. Currently, this is Troll due to the incredible 3 minute synergy with your kit + on-use trinkets.

That being said the story is a bit different if you are doing high end Mythic+. Dwarf is incredibly strong in high Mythic+ keys due to its ability to delete incredibly powerful bleeds and other debuffs or large amounts of Bursting stacks. Since Dwarf is not that much worse damage wise, this is still a great choice if your main focus is not raiding.

Macros

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Discover recommended macros for Unholy Death Knights during Mythic+ dungeons and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

Cursor Macros

Anti-Magic Zone -CastsAnti-Magic Zone at your Cursor position.

/cast [@cursor] Anti-Magic Zone

Death and Decay - Casts Death and Decay at your cursor position.

/cast [@cursor] Death and Decay

If you do not like Death and Decay on your cursor you can replace [@cursor] with [@player] and it will instead put it at your feet. Having either of these is important as it removes the targeting reticle and allows you to get it out faster.

/cast [@player] Death and Decay

Mouseover Macros

Focus Macros

Pet Macros

Addons

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Unholy Death Knight, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.

Addons

WeakAuras

Changes this Patch

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Patch 11.0

FAQ

Patch 11.0 - The War Within

Unholy Death Knight

Q: How does the ramping proc chance of Sudden Doom work?

Credits

Written By: Miniaug

Reviewed By: Xerwo