Unholy Death Knight PvP Guide

Orc Death Knight in Season 11 GearUPDATED for Cataclysm 4.3, with Mists of Pandaria gems and enchants.

If you’re not yet level 85 then you won’t be able to use everything on this page. If are interested in getting your character to max level quickly, take a look at this leveling guide.

Mists of Pandaria is coming and here’s a preview of DKs in Mists.

Contents

 

Unholy Spec Death Knight PvP Build

Your core abilities are: 

  1. Scourge Strike - Primary strike
  2. Master of Ghouls - Permapet
  3. Reaping - More death runes
  4. Unholy Might - More Strength
  5. Mastery: Dreadblade - More shadow damage
Unholy Death Knight PvP Build

Unholy Death Knight PvP Build, view on WoWhead

 

Unholy (33 Points)

  1. Unholy Command – Rank 2/2 – Reduces the cooldown of your Death Grip ability by 10 sec, and gives you a 100% chance to refresh its cooldown when dealing a killing blow to a target that grants experience or honor.
  2. Virulence – Rank 3/3 – Increases the damage done by your diseases by 30%.
  3. Desecration – Rank 2/2 – Your Plague, Scourge, and Necrotic Strikes defile the ground within 7 yards of your target. Enemies in the area are slowed by 50% while standing on the unholy ground. Does not trigger against targets that are immune to movement-slowing effects. Lasts 20 sec.
  4. Morbidity – Rank 3/3 – Increases the damage and healing of Death Coil by 15% and Death and Decay by 30%.
  5. Runic Corruption – Rank 2/2 – Reduces the cost of your Death Coil by 6, and causes your Runic Empowerment ability to no longer refresh a depleted rune, but instead to increase your rune regeneration rate by 100% for 3 sec.
  6. Unholy Frenzy – Rank 1/1 – Incites a friendly party or raid member into a killing frenzy for 30 sec. The target is Enraged, increasing their melee and ranged haste by 20%, but causes them to lose health equal to 2% of their maximum health every 3 sec.
  7. Shadow Infusion – Rank 3/3 – Grants your successful Death Coils a 100% chance to empower your active Ghoul, increasing its damage dealt by 6% for 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
  8. Death’s Advance – Rank 2/2 – While your Unholy Runes are both depleted, movement-impairing effects may not reduce you below 75% of normal movement speed.
  9. Magic Suppression – Rank 3/3 – Increases the spell damage absorption of your Anti-Magic Shell by an additional 25%, and increases the Runic Power generated when damage is absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell.
  10. Rage of Rivendare – Rank 3/3 – Increases the damage of your Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, and Festering Strike abilities by 45%.
  11. Unholy Blight – Rank 1/1 – Causes the victims of your Death Coil to be surrounded by a vile swarm of unholy insects, taking 10% of the damage done by the Death Coil over 10 sec, and preventing any diseases on the victim from being dispelled.
  12. Anti-Magic Zone – Rank 1/1 – Places a large, stationary Anti-Magic Zone that reduces spell damage done to party or raid members inside it by 75%. The Anti-Magic Zone lasts for 10 sec or until it absorbs enough spell damage.
  13. Improved Unholy Presence – Rank 2/2 – Grants you an additional 5% haste while in Unholy Presence. In addition, while in Blood Presence or Frost Presence, you retain 15% increased movement speed from Unholy Presence.
  14. Dark Transformation – Rank 1/1 – Consume 5 charges of Shadow Infusion on your Ghoul to transform it into a powerful undead monstrosity for 30 sec. The Ghoul’s abilities are empowered and take on new functions while the transformation is active.
  15. Ebon Plaguebringer – Rank 1/2 – Your Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Chains of Ice, and Outbreak abilities also infect their target with Ebon Plague, which increases damage taken from your diseases by 15% and all magic damage taken by an additional 8%.
  16. Sudden Doom – Rank 2/3 – Your main-hand autoattacks have a chance (higher than rank 1) to make your next Death Coil cost no Runic Power.
  17. Summon Gargoyle – Rank 1/1 – A Gargoyle flies into the area and bombards the target with Nature damage modified by the Death Knight’s attack power. Persists for 30 sec.

Frost (8 Points)

  1. Runic Power Mastery – Rank 3/3 – Increases your maximum Runic Power by 30.
  2. Icy Reach – Rank 2/2 – Increases the range of your Icy Touch, Chains of Ice and Howling Blast by 10 yards.
  3. Lichborne – Rank 1/1 – Draw upon unholy energy to become undead for 10 sec. While undead, you are immune to Charm, Fear and Sleep effects.
  4. Endless Winter – Rank 2/2 – Your Mind Freeze no longer costs Runic Power.

Glyphs

While the listed glyphs are the most generally useful, others may be superior in specific situations.

Go ahead and buy all the glyphs you might think you need and swap them as necessary. You will need materials from the Inscription supply vendor in order to swap glyphs.

Prime Glyphs

  1. Glyph of Raise Dead – Your Ghoul receives an additional 40% of your Strength and 40% of your Stamina.
  2. Glyph of Death Coil – Increases the damage or healing done by Death Coil by 15%.
  3. Glyph of Scourge Strike – Increases the Shadow damage portion of your Scourge Strike by 30%.

Major Glyphs

  1. Glyph of Dark Succor – Your next Death Strike performed while in Frost or Unholy Presence, within 15 sec after killing an enemy that yields experience or honor, will restore at least 20% of your maximum health.
  2. Glyph of Strangulate – Increases the Silence duration of your Strangulate ability by 2 sec when used on a target who is casting a spell.
  3. Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell – Increases the duration of your Anti-Magic Shell by 2 sec.

Minor Glyphs

  1. Glyph of Horn of Winter – Increases the duration of your Horn of Winter ability by 1 min.
  2. Glyph of Resilient Grip – When your Death Grip ability fails because its target is immune, its cooldown is reset.
  3. Glyph of Death’s Embrace – Your Death Coil refunds 20 Runic Power when used to heal an allied minion.

Mists of Pandaria note:

Prime glyphs are going away, you will have only Major and Minor glyphs, six total glyphs at level 90.

Talents will be completely overhauled, as well. Many of the Cata talents will be rolled into the abilities list and some of these will be unique to each spec. All of the new talents will be available to any Death Knight spec.

You can see more details of upcoming changes on our DKs in Mists page.

 

Get Leveled Faster, even in MoP

Get Leveled Faster,
even in Mists of Pandaria

 

 

Unholy Stats, Reforging,  and Gearing

Single and Dual Wield have the same basic stats priorities, and neither seems to have a real advantage over the other. Go with whichever has the best weapons available or just feels best (weapons being equal.) See Enchants (below) for runeforging.

  • Primary Stats: Strength and Resilience
  • Secondary Stats: 5% Hit > 195 Spell Penetration > Haste > Crit
  • Weak Stats: Mastery, Expertise, Excess hit, Excess Spell Pen.

If Dual Weilding then Hit over 5% has a bit of value, if you’re using a 2-hander then it has none.

You can get Spell penetration from your neck piece, some gems, and reforging. The 195 rating makes sure that your spells will usually not be resisted.

Haste increases Rune Regeneration speed, among other things.

Reforge weak stats into your 5% Hit, then everything else into Haste.

As for the gear:

 

 

Gems for the Unholy Death Knight

Strength is your best stat, so unless a socket bonus offers an interesting Strength or Resilience bonus, it’s more effective to gem for pure Strength and ignore the bonus.

Note that Mists of Pandaria (MoP) gems will have much higher values than those from Cataclysm. Replace your Cata gems with comparable MoP gems as soon as you are able to do so. If you can’t afford to buy the best gems then dropping down one level is not a huge issue, unless you’re dropping from MoP to Cata. Get to work on earning more gold.

Some MoP items will have “PvP Power.” This stat increases damage only in PvP and is balanced by Resilience.

Unholy Enchants

Short on gold? Most of the enchants below have similar enchants available, of lesser value, for less cash. We’ve linked to a couple of these. Check with the rep vendor or the Auction House for others. If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.

As with gems, Mists of Pandaria enchants will be a lot more interesting that their Cataclysm counterparts. Most of them will require iLevel 372 gear, which you will have with any level 85 Cata PvP set, so upgrading as soon as you can is a pretty good idea.


Love PvP? Get Better!

 Pwn in the Arenas – Click here and get better!

 

Race Choice for the Unholy Death Knight

Gnome Death Knight in Season 11 gearUndead. What else fits Unholy so well?

Oh, you want real details? Ok, here:

Note that Pandarans cannot become Death Knights, they’re probably no Unholy enough, all other races can.

  • Blood Elf: Aside from their hair, Arcane Torrent silences opponents and restores some Runic Power.
  • Draenei: Useful heal, small Hit increase, good with Jewelcrafting (for those epic gems.)
  • Dwarf: Stone form washed bleeds and reduces damage, expertise with maces.
  • Human: Escape ability allows two DPS trinkets, expertise with swords and maces is useful.
  • Gnome: Small size counts, expertise is useful if you’re using one hand swords.
  • Goblin: Rocket jump is a great entry or escape, small Haste increase, good with Alchemy (lots of useful potions.)
  • Night Elf: A bit harder to hit, Shadowmeld has situation brilliance. Think ambushing or ‘melding right before a spell hits (which will break it.)
  • Orc: Blood Fury for the burst, stun resistance, increase ghoul damage, expertise with axes.
  • Tauren: War Stomp stuns opponents, a bit more health, good with Herbalism (adds Haste and a Heal.)
  • Troll: Berserking for the burst, reduction in duration of slowing effects.
  • Undead: Already Unholy, so what could be better? Was away fear, eat dead players, and in MoP they drain life (which heals them.)
  • Worgen: Nice Sprint ability, small Crit increase, good at Skinning (which adds crit.)

Unholy Professions

As with gems and enchants the profession bonuses will be much larger in Mists of Pandaria. If you’re working on  a profession the you should level it to 600 as quickly as you can. The crafting professions can be expensive to level and in MoP (esp at launch) they will very expensive if you’re buying your materials. Take a look at this addon to help with earning enough gold to afford to do what you want to do.

Best DK professions? Blacksmithing for the sockets and useful items, Engineering for the useful items. The gathering professions are great for cash grinding, but a little less so for the bonuses.

  • Alchemy – Increased effect and duration from your own potions.
  • Blacksmithing – Allows you to pop in two more of those nice MoP gems.
  • Enchanting – Enchant your own Rings
  • Engineering – Nifty gadgets and Synapse Springs, which is great for the burst.
  • Jewelcrafting – Make nicer gems, for yourself,  than are otherwise available.
  • Leatherworking – Nice bracer enchants
  • Inscription – Nice shoulder enchant.
  • Tailoring – Cloak enchant sometimes adds attack power, can make a flying carpet.
  • Herbalism – a useful heal that comes with a Haste effect (for 20 seconds.)
  • Mining – Increased stamina through rock smashing.
  • Skinning – a small amount of increased Crit.

How to: Unholy PvP

This video covers some of the Unholy basics and techniques, and some “how and why.”

 

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