The Unholy Death Knight Guide: Updated for 6.1

[Raikh]

Currently using

Heroic Warforged Tectus' Beating Heart
Normal Horn of Screaming Spirits with Socket (50 Multi)

Should I replace beating heart with a scabbard or stone of fire?
Or neither?

Stone of fire. Stone has the same budget as a BRF HC trinket which is way higher than HM trinket budgets or the scabbard. The proc alone beats the scabbard considerably on average and that should be similar for tectus as tectus hc wf is not really better than sabbard.

[Bloodyintent]

thanks for the guide

[Deleted]

So is the PL/BoS and UB/NP playstyles now both better than Defile?

[Nangz]

It really depends on the fight more than anything. Defile is still close enough to breath of sindragosa on a patchwerk fight that you may win out with defile depending on fight length and ams soakability.

In general, I follow this set of rules personally.

NP - I take this when there are multi targets that I am assigned to kill and it will actually last a reasonable amount of time on them.
Breath of Sindragosa - I take this on single target
Defile - I take this one of the other two aren't true.

For me, that means I take Breath of Sindragosa on Oregorger, Gruul, and Blackhand. I take Defile on Operator ( because while I do dps the adds, they die too fast for NP to do very much) and finally I take NP on all of the rest. This is only on mythic however, I used to take NP on heroic flamebender as well because it is significantly less multi target.

[theostrichsays]

So this maybe a really silly question, but I figure to ask and see if someone can answer for sure (and if it is stupid I'm sorry.)
Okay I don't play my DK much, but if you're doing something like Challenge Modes, Outbreak >Blood Boil to spread dots ------ at that point, should I hit a single icy touch per blood boil used, otherwise I've got a lonesome Frost Rune sitting there unable to do anything else, and it will come back up as a Death Rune.
This maybe silly but I read this:

1. Defile should be cast on cooldown.
2. Cast Dark Transformation when at 5 stacks of shadow infusion
3. Blood Boil should be cast on death runes/blood runes
4. Soul Reaper if a target is below 45% on unholy runes.
5. Scourge Strike on unholy runes
6. Death Coil as normal with runic power and sudden doom procs.

And it doesn't mentioned it, but it seems smart to get the rune back, roughly the same time (at least semi close.)

Edited to put the correct copy and paste in the quotes.

[Nangz]

In a situation where you can't pre generate death runes on frost runes it can change depending on the situation (number of adds and duration). In most cases i'd recommend you icy touch just to keep runes in sync. However in something like challenge modes, I would likely spend my BU runes on festering strike on an opener, and use Blood Tap, Plague Leech or ERW to regenerate runes as death to blood boil asap.

[lagunablade]

For UH, is it better to run BoS or NP on blackhand?

[parkerlewis]

For UH, is it better to run BoS or NP on blackhand?

Skullflower says BoS for Blackhand, explained in the Unholy DK boss guides on Summon Stone.

[Nangz]

It probably depends on what you are doing. Dks aren't particularly bad in the balcony and with a well timed and properly extended NP down below, you can UB many targets in the balcony. Though most groups don't have DKs do this, NP would likely be ideal in this situation.

[Deadwhisper]

I have to post to be able to post i guess!

[Twix]

I have a question regarding death coil and sudden boom procs. I see you have it as one of lowest priority. I'm assuming this is only when you have dark transformation up correct? When it's not down, you should be casting death coil in order to empower your pet so priority is higher than ss and fs. Let me know what you think.

[Nangz]

There is no set priority to "death coil to quicker stack up SI". This is because Dark Transformation as an ability is actually fairly lackluster overall. Its reasonable damage for only 1 global spent with no resource cost, but prioritizing Death Coil to stack it up and gain marginal percentage uptimes is not worth it. One thing I intend to adjust in this is better showing of when specific abilities overtake others in the priority. For instance, its is worthwhile to death coil over a rune ability if you will cap on runic power. Something pretty obvious that isn't as clear in the priority that I wrote.

I choose not to make my priority a copy paste of the simcraft one because, well, the simcraft one is a bit annoying to read, even in plain English. Mastering a rotation is all about understanding the little priorities that makeup the big one.


In short, no DC to get SI up faster is not more important than SS or FeS, however using Death Coil when near cap of resources is more important than general SS and FeS, though this isn't perfectly by my priority.

[Deleted]

I'm currently leveling my DK, which I found that I actually like Unholy more than frost. I'm not really a good player and I'm really dependant on addons that suggest me how to play, like Hekili, or a TellMeWhen meta icon with over a dozen other icons beneath it based on Simcraft priorities. Is there an addon that can tell me what to use when as unholy? I'm not talking about "Here's your current runes, your current buffs and debuffs, decide based on that", I'm talking about "Based on your current runes, buffs and debuffs situation and the recommended action list from source X, I'll show you that the best button to press is Y". I know that such addons aren't recommended, but for a player like me, they're the only way I can manage.

[Deleted]

I'm currently leveling my DK, which I found that I actually like Unholy more than frost. I'm not really a good player and I'm really dependant on addons that suggest me how to play, like Hekili, or a TellMeWhen meta icon with over a dozen other icons beneath it based on Simcraft priorities. Is there an addon that can tell me what to use when as unholy? I'm not talking about "Here's your current runes, your current buffs and debuffs, decide based on that", I'm talking about "Based on your current runes, buffs and debuffs situation and the recommended action list from source X, I'll show you that the best button to press is Y". I know that such addons aren't recommended, but for a player like me, they're the only way I can manage.

Ovale with LunaEclipse Scripts
CLCDK
DKOne

[Deleted]

I really don't like using ground targeted skills during single target, and would prefer to just use Necrotic Plague without relying on Unholy Blight (because I'm already struggling with keybinds). Can I just use Necrotic plague without bothering with unholy blight? or is that not competitive compared to other DPS?

[Apanonar]

For #2, I usually exhaust the 6 starting runes ( having used army 6 sec before pull) which puts you at ~80 runic, Plague Leech and start BoS immediately after.

[lagunablade]

So I got a 741 socketed shoulders off arch. Should I use that now because of the ilvl instead of the tyrant gauntlet as my off piece?

[Nangz]

Gonna unstick this as its more out of date than I had realized. For a more accurate and updated guide, please look here: http://sonofalich.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=78