Can't grasp Unholy rotation like other melee characters of mine

[Zorachus]

I typically play the Plate melee classes, big fan of Ret Paladin, and Fury / Arms Warrior. Both those classes and specs are pretty straightforward to play, and have fairly simple "rotations" or priorities as they call it since Cat.

Ret is just making sure you have enough Holy Power for Temp's Verdict, or in M+ runs using Divine Storm, I like Ret it's fun and quick. And my Warrior both Fury and Arms are like 3 or 4 spells to keep going, rinse and repeat, and the play style is very fast.

Now my Death Knight, he's an alt, not my main, I was a Frost player, but it became very boring, and just not a fan anymore. I love the concept idea with Unholy, spreading diseases and the creepy pet, seems like a Necromancer or unique class for WoW, almost like a plate Warlock. But for the life of me, I just can't comfortable with the rotation or priority play style. I typically play Mythic +, lower keys 10's and under, but seems Unholy almost needs more time to ramp up and get rolling, and M+ runs can be so fast, some enemies go down so too quick, maybe not enough time to really allow Unholy spec to get going?

Or I seem to run out of runes not enough energy and long cool downs on spells, making it a frustrating spec to play, compared to my Ret Paladin, and Fury Warrior, which are easier to manage and always have power to cast spells.

I have read up guides on wowhead and method sites, but playing it feels different, like not an easy smooth rotation. Any tips?

I usually start off casting Outbreak, then Festering Strike, then a couple Scourge Strikes, and then Outbreak, and after that I start running low on runes or have long cool downs on either FS or SS. I also always keep Dark Transformation up Unholy Frenzy.

What am I missing here?

Character;
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ch...ljin/dethdingo

[Lucrece]

I typically play the Plate melee classes, big fan of Ret Paladin, and Fury / Arms Warrior. Both those classes and specs are pretty straightforward to play, and have fairly simple "rotations" or priorities as they call it since Cat.

Ret is just making sure you have enough Holy Power for Temp's Verdict, or in M+ runs using Divine Storm, I like Ret it's fun and quick. And my Warrior both Fury and Arms are like 3 or 4 spells to keep going, rinse and repeat, and the play style is very fast.

Now my Death Knight, he's an alt, not my main, I was a Frost player, but it became very boring, and just not a fan anymore. I love the concept idea with Unholy, spreading diseases and the creepy pet, seems like a Necromancer or unique class for WoW, almost like a plate Warlock. But for the life of me, I just can't comfortable with the rotation or priority play style. I typically play Mythic +, lower keys 10's and under, but seems Unholy almost needs more time to ramp up and get rolling, and M+ runs can be so fast, some enemies go down so too quick, maybe not enough time to really allow Unholy spec to get going?

Or I seem to run out of runes not enough energy and long cool downs on spells, making it a frustrating spec to play, compared to my Ret Paladin, and Fury Warrior, which are easier to manage and always have power to cast spells.

I have read up guides on wowhead and method sites, but playing it feels different, like not an easy smooth rotation. Any tips?

I usually start off casting Outbreak, then Festering Strike, then a couple Scourge Strikes, and then Outbreak, and after that I start running low on runes or have long cool downs on either FS or SS. I also always keep Dark Transformation up Unholy Frenzy.

What am I missing here?

Character;
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ch...ljin/dethdingo

Unholy has greater downtime than other melee specs when you've used up all your cooldowns.

Unholy Frenzy+Soul Reaper are your greatest moment of business, especially if you get multiple sudden doom procs that make you risk overflowing RP or overcapping runes, but you can use apocalypse+army of the dead for this, and try to activate unholy frenzy at 2-3 festering wounds with soul reaper up so you can go to town spamming scourge strike while never having to cast festering strike during unholy frenzy's duration since autos are applying festering wounds for you.

Honestly, I don't mind it, it's one of the specs that doesn't give me Carpal Tunnel Syndrome when playing for more than 2 hours.

The one thing I really dislike about unholy is the aoe interaction with scourge strike. Seems counterproductive that you don't want to combine festering wound bursts and instead just spam scourge strike in defile/dnd regardless of how many wounds you have because it's more damage. I would prefer if dnd/defile simply boosted our plague damage.

They should also make epidemic baseline and make it work with sudden doom as well so we get an option of RP spender. In the case of frost, fros scythe should be baselined as well and made an RP spender.

[gd8]

it definitely has a strange feel to it, you just kind of have to accept that it doesnt have the same feel as the typical button smashing melee classes. I see it as more of a melee-caster almost

[javierdsv]

I don't really enjoy having downtime, so I've never been a fan of Unholy either.... I've always seen it as a good PvP spec though, since long cooldown "dotting" in world PvE is not really practical.

[Sinzaram]

I usually start off casting Outbreak, then Festering Strike, then a couple Scourge Strikes, and then Outbreak, and after that I start running low on runes or have long cool downs on either FS or SS. I also always keep Dark Transformation up Unholy Frenzy.

What am I missing here?

Well you haven't mentioned Runic Power Spending abilities at all.

DeathKnight resource system is a loop.

Spending 1 Rune on anything = 10 Runic Power
Spending 40 Runic Power on Deathcoil = 56% chance to Trigger Runic Corruption
Spending a Sudden Doom proc on Deathcoil = 56% chance to Trigger Runic Corruption

Spending 30 Runic Power on Epidemic = 42% chance to Trigger Runic Corruption

Spending 35 Runic Power on Death Strike = 49% chance to Trigger Runic Corruption
Spending a Dark Succor proc on Death Strike = 49% chance to Trigger Runic Corruption

Spending Runes makes Runic Power, Spending Runic Power makes Runes.
If you are ignoring your Runic Power bar and letting it sit at 100 constantly, you are missing your Runic Corruption procs which massively refill your Runes.


Haste gearing speeds up Rune regen and GCD baseline by the same amount(so rotation doesn't actually change), and Lucid Dreams Essence adds more Runes to play with, so there is a degree of gearing affecting it.
But mostly just make sure you aren't sitting at 100 RP or sitting with Sudden Dooms up.

[pinglong]

DK Rotations can be surprisingly tricky despite their mediocre DPS, you might as well switch to DH, easy rotation & much better DPS.

[Th3Scourge]

Well you have to manage three resources to start with : Runes, Runic Power and Festering Wounds. Also if you manage your resources correctly you shouldn't run into downtime issues very often, provided you have adequate levels of haste. The spec needs haste (at least 20%)

You want to:

DT on cooldown
Apocalypse on cooldown
Unholy Frenzy on cooldown
AotD with lust or if the encounter will go long enough to use on pull + lust
Festering Strike at 1 or fewer wounds
Death Coil on sudden doom procs or if you will cap RP
Scourge Strike at 1 or more wounds or if you won't cap RP or if you are going to have fewer than 3 runes on cooldown
Soul Reaper at 1 or fewer runes to generate 2 runes

The rotation generally ends up being death coil every 2-3 scourge strikes, Festering Strike to build wounds and using cooldowns correctly. If you're running Festermight traits you want to make sure you're operating within FM windows for Apocalypse (not casting when your stack is about to expire). This is more important in AoE/M+ settings with IC/BS

[Malkiah]

I have read up guides on wowhead and method sites, but playing it feels different, like not an easy smooth rotation. Any tips?

What am I missing here?

so your issue is that things like wowhead and method and icyveins (which are all the same thing since they just copy/paste their guides off each other) present a guide that is modeled after MDI style play at what MDI players consider to be the correct way to play the game optimally.
now, this is fine if you're looking for a conceptual idea of how the spec is to be played at the highest levels, to get an idea of what a rotation or a spell priority system should be, but a MASSIVE problem with the wow community is they think that whatever the guide on wowhead says is the One True Way to Play The Class without realizing the context behind those guides.

so anyways, there's my little soapbox BS out of the way. let me give you my personal tips on how you could improve your dps and fun running lower M+ keys
(i main an unholy DK, i'm a filthy casual, i pug raids occasionally, i pug M+ runs on basically every class every week doing 10-15s, this is purely my opinion based my experience playing at that level):

1. do not attempt to go for the "spread wounds on multiple targets, run with Infected Claws, drop DnD, pop exponential wounds for aoe damage" rotation because this will flat out never work on low M+ keys and lead directly to the frustration you're feeling. there is a vastly quicker alternate rotation for burst AOE:
Talents: change infected claws out for either All will Serve (for passive damage you don't have to think about) or Clawing Shadows (if you want better AOE damage during DnD and respectable single target)
Rotation going into a pack of mobs: hit outbreak, hit dark transformation, drop DnD, then basically just do your single target rotation - FS, then SS to pop the wounds. then, you just dump all the RP you generate into Epidemic. you basically never cast death coil unless you have the proc for a free one or it's a single target.
the 'quick aoe' for unholy is to build RP as fast as possible and get off Epidemic casts.

also for your level 60 talent you a passive rune generation, which is fine, but you might want to consider teaching yourself to play using Soul Reaper - the CD is kind of long, but being able to generate 2 runes on demand can really make those pack-to-pack pulls feel better when you find yourself just sitting there waiting for runes to refresh.

also also, you have vision of perfection as your main neck trait which... it's not like "omg it's so terrible" but unless you have 1-2 Magus of the Dead azerite traits and rank 2 of the essence, it's not good at all in terms of throughput. even though you have a last surprise trait, due to the fact that often enough your ghouls won't be dying during packs anyways so you're not getting much damage out of it.
you want to really focus on getting rk2 and rk3 of lens of the iris, i've found on M+ that this is the perfect way to put out huge bursts of damage while your runes are on CD.

while these tips are not conventional, i've found this method very effective for more bursty AOE on lower M+.

[arandomuser]

unholy is basically a dead rotation, for it to be viable you need atleast 2 magus of the dead azerites
rank 2 vision that summon mages.

if you dont have those its unviable and your better off playing frost

[Zorachus]

Thanks to all who chimed in, I really appreciate it.

I agree that Unholy sort of feels like a caster class. I just started playing casters at end of Legion, as alt's of alt's part-part-time testing out a Mage and Warlock, and after decade+ of plate melee classes, it was a shock to the system how they played. So different, not worse, just a whole nother mind set. One thing that immediately jumped out to me, was some spells having casting time, like I had to actually wait to get the spell going and wait for it to get ready t then hit the target. Was like a baseball picture winding up, doing the motions before actually throwing the ball. Whereas melee is like the 3rd baseman, gets the ball and immediate throws it lightning fast.

Anyways, I am not a fan of casters because of that, I only like the instant cast spells they have, not the long 4 second long wind up spells.

But I did learn with those type of classes you need to have some patience, and wait, and I'm ok with that to a point, so if Unholy is sort of like that, I suppose I can deal with it.

[Kaleredar]

Honestly, I feel Unholy flows quite well. Very rarely do I ever just sit staring at greyed out buttons. It's all about managing your resources.

Make sure you have your disease up, make sure you have festering wounds on the target before you scourge strike, and make sure you don't cap your runic power by using death coil to vent it. If you keep on top of those things, you should flow quite well through your rotation.

[Zorachus]

Maybe I worded my first post wrong, I can't say I have long cool downs, waiting with nothing to do, like some caster classes may have issues with, no that doesn't happen much with my Unholy DK, maybe one in awhile.

But, maybe it's the jumping around of spells to cast, or not a straightforward rotation like Ret Paladin or Fury Warrior, these classes you only watch or worry about 3 to 4 spells mostly. But seems Unholy you need to watch out for like 6 to 8 spells, and if you hit them out of order or the wrong timing you F'd, whereas as Warrior or Paladin DPS, you almost can't fuck them up.

[Th3Scourge]

1. do not attempt to go for the "spread wounds on multiple targets, run with Infected Claws, drop DnD, pop exponential wounds for aoe damage" rotation because this will flat out never work on low M+ keys and lead directly to the frustration you're feeling. there is a vastly quicker alternate rotation for burst AOE:
Talents: change infected claws out for either All will Serve (for passive damage you don't have to think about) or Clawing Shadows (if you want better AOE damage during DnD and respectable single target)
Rotation going into a pack of mobs: hit outbreak, hit dark transformation, drop DnD, then basically just do your single target rotation - FS, then SS to pop the wounds. then, you just dump all the RP you generate into Epidemic. you basically never cast death coil unless you have the proc for a free one or it's a single target.
the 'quick aoe' for unholy is to build RP as fast as possible and get off Epidemic casts.

Disagree, you're still better off spreading wounds on multiple targets, because the more you spread the more you stack festermight into the next pack. Since packs die pretty quick in low keys, you're going to a bit more time using festering strike to set up 'wound bombs' on low-health adds. Run your stacks up high and then go into the next pack with a DnD/DT/UF cooldown rotation and melt the rest with epidemic. The value you get out of IC is still better than running AWS

[Malkiah]

Disagree, you're still better off spreading wounds on multiple targets, because the more you spread the more you stack festermight into the next pack. Since packs die pretty quick in low keys, you're going to a bit more time using festering strike to set up 'wound bombs' on low-health adds. Run your stacks up high and then go into the next pack with a DnD/DT/UF cooldown rotation and melt the rest with epidemic. The value you get out of IC is still better than running AWS

oh in general yes and for a lower key on fortified that's the best practice, but the OP was talking about lower keys that are going to be killing packs quite quickly.
if you're not used to rune management (and using soul reaper) this setup can take long enough it's rather ineffective in the situation the OP is referring to.
my suggestion was only in terms of the specific instance asked about, not the general best practice for the rotation.

[Zorachus]

so your issue is that things like wowhead and method and icyveins (which are all the same thing since they just copy/paste their guides off each other) present a guide that is modeled after MDI style play at what MDI players consider to be the correct way to play the game optimally.
now, this is fine if you're looking for a conceptual idea of how the spec is to be played at the highest levels, to get an idea of what a rotation or a spell priority system should be, but a MASSIVE problem with the wow community is they think that whatever the guide on wowhead says is the One True Way to Play The Class without realizing the context behind those guides.

so anyways, there's my little soapbox BS out of the way. let me give you my personal tips on how you could improve your dps and fun running lower M+ keys
(i main an unholy DK, i'm a filthy casual, i pug raids occasionally, i pug M+ runs on basically every class every week doing 10-15s, this is purely my opinion based my experience playing at that level):

1. do not attempt to go for the "spread wounds on multiple targets, run with Infected Claws, drop DnD, pop exponential wounds for aoe damage" rotation because this will flat out never work on low M+ keys and lead directly to the frustration you're feeling. there is a vastly quicker alternate rotation for burst AOE:
Talents: change infected claws out for either All will Serve (for passive damage you don't have to think about) or Clawing Shadows (if you want better AOE damage during DnD and respectable single target)
Rotation going into a pack of mobs: hit outbreak, hit dark transformation, drop DnD, then basically just do your single target rotation - FS, then SS to pop the wounds. then, you just dump all the RP you generate into Epidemic. you basically never cast death coil unless you have the proc for a free one or it's a single target.
the 'quick aoe' for unholy is to build RP as fast as possible and get off Epidemic casts.

also for your level 60 talent you a passive rune generation, which is fine, but you might want to consider teaching yourself to play using Soul Reaper - the CD is kind of long, but being able to generate 2 runes on demand can really make those pack-to-pack pulls feel better when you find yourself just sitting there waiting for runes to refresh.

also also, you have vision of perfection as your main neck trait which... it's not like "omg it's so terrible" but unless you have 1-2 Magus of the Dead azerite traits and rank 2 of the essence, it's not good at all in terms of throughput. even though you have a last surprise trait, due to the fact that often enough your ghouls won't be dying during packs anyways so you're not getting much damage out of it.
you want to really focus on getting rk2 and rk3 of lens of the iris, i've found on M+ that this is the perfect way to put out huge bursts of damage while your runes are on CD.

while these tips are not conventional, i've found this method very effective for more bursty AOE on lower M+.

Thanks for the tips, I will try this out.

I changed a talent around, and some Azerite traits, check my character;

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ch...ljin/dethdingo

So to KISS ( keep this simple stupid ) I start with Outbreak + Dark Trans + DnD, then the main three of FS + SS, EP, and rinse and repeat those final three? With Festering Strike being the first one, just hit that once, then SS being second, and hit that muliple times, like 2 to 3 or 4 times until it goes on cool down, and then finally hit Epidemic? Then rinse and repeat, starting back up with Festering? And in the meantime hit Death Coil only if it procs? And of course making sure that Dark Trans, and DnD and Unholy F are always up.

My essences sort of suck, I don't have any of the good ones, only these five;
The Crucible of Flame
Vision of Protection
Essence of the Focusing Iris
Breath of the Dying
Spark of Inspiration

Which should I use for main, and which for minor?

- - - Updated - - -

Just ran a +5 and a +7, and noticed that SS + Ep were the two main spells, and then FS third, that popped up in my HeroRotation add on, which shows which spells to hit. Besides the main long cool downs of Dark Tran, Unholy F, etc...

[Kyphael]

Really? With GCD I just press what's available then press what procs/shines. Rotations have never been easier! I can DPS a dungeon while watching TV.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Clunky and uninspired specs will feel like this. Remember WoD arms warrior?

[Malkiah]

So to KISS ( keep this simple stupid ) I start with Outbreak + Dark Trans + DnD, then the main three of FS + SS, EP, and rinse and repeat those final three? With Festering Strike being the first one, just hit that once, then SS being second, and hit that muliple times, like 2 to 3 or 4 times until it goes on cool down, and then finally hit Epidemic? Then rinse and repeat, starting back up with Festering? And in the meantime hit Death Coil only if it procs? And of course making sure that Dark Trans, and DnD and Unholy F are always up.

i'd recommend this change:
outbreak + dark trans > then FS to get wounds on the target > then DnD > then SS only for as many wounds as are on the target > at which point you should have enough for at least 2 epidemics > then repeat FS and SS followed by epidemic.
(note: you basically NEVER want to cast SS on a target with no wounds)
note that this is good for quick AOE burst, on lower keys. the strat where you FS multiple targets, then DnD and SS in order to pop multiple wounds on multiple targets at once will be better dps, IF you get good at doing it and IF the pack lives long enough for the setup.

you'll also find it extremely helpful to get an addon that tracks wounds on the target so you're not eyeballing a small debuff window, i personally use tellmewhen because i find weakauras a bit too busy.

My essences sort of suck, I don't have any of the good ones, only these five;
The Crucible of Flame
Vision of Protection
Essence of the Focusing Iris
Breath of the Dying
Spark of Inspiration

Which should I use for main, and which for minor?

none of that is very optimal. again, purely personally if we're talking about M+, i'd say for now focusing iris main, breath of the dying minor.

if you want to advance this toon your best route is to to upgrade your lens (via the item you get from the weekly cache), and then work on the nazjatar questline and reputation to get yourself at least a rank 2 memory of lucid dreams, and use that as your minor.
the purification protocol from mechagon is also very powerful, these should be what you're working towards.
lense major, lucid dreams and purification minor.

ALSO, your armory link shows no enchant on your weapon. you want to correct that immediately.
take the death gate to archerus, the starting area. take the pink teleporter thing to the second level, and go over to the big skull shaped runeforge on the right side of the room.
in your abilities page is a button for runeforge, put rune of the fallen crusader on your weapon.

[Zorachus]

i'd recommend this change:
outbreak + dark trans > then FS to get wounds on the target > then DnD > then SS only for as many wounds as are on the target > at which point you should have enough for at least 2 epidemics > then repeat FS and SS followed by epidemic.
(note: you basically NEVER want to cast SS on a target with no wounds)
note that this is good for quick AOE burst, on lower keys. the strat where you FS multiple targets, then DnD and SS in order to pop multiple wounds on multiple targets at once will be better dps, IF you get good at doing it and IF the pack lives long enough for the setup.

you'll also find it extremely helpful to get an addon that tracks wounds on the target so you're not eyeballing a small debuff window, i personally use tellmewhen because i find weakauras a bit too busy.


none of that is very optimal. again, purely personally if we're talking about M+, i'd say for now focusing iris main, breath of the dying minor.

if you want to advance this toon your best route is to to upgrade your lens (via the item you get from the weekly cache), and then work on the nazjatar questline and reputation to get yourself at least a rank 2 memory of lucid dreams, and use that as your minor.
the purification protocol from mechagon is also very powerful, these should be what you're working towards.
lense major, lucid dreams and purification minor.

ALSO, your armory link shows no enchant on your weapon. you want to correct that immediately.
take the death gate to archerus, the starting area. take the pink teleporter thing to the second level, and go over to the big skull shaped runeforge on the right side of the room.
in your abilities page is a button for runeforge, put rune of the fallen crusader on your weapon.

Ok thanks will give this a try. How are my talents?

If this doesn't work well after a week, I may just hang this character up until Shadowlands, go back to my tried and trusted Ret Paladin and Fury Warrior.

[Zorachus]

Clunky and uninspired specs will feel like this. Remember WoD arms warrior?

I would have to agree a little bit. Compared to my Ret Paladin, or Arms / Fury Warrior, the Unholy DK does feel clunky, with a rotation that seems weird and not straightforward or smooth. And there can be some minor cool down waiting periods, not long, maybe for 1 second for FS or SS to get off cd, sometimes I have no runes left for FS, SS, EP or DC, and I just sit and wait for a second, and will just cast Death Strike.

Where my Ret Paladin I never have that issue, there's always spells up and ready to go while 2 or 3 may be on cool down, or no Holy Power to use, but there's always something good to cast. Same with Fury Warrior, LOL, that class and spec never has downtime, it's almost too fast in a way, never waiting on Fury, it's just warp speed attacking machine.

So I guess I'm just used to those two classes and spec's, that's what I have been playing the most in Legion and BfA, so Unholy does feel a bit slow or wonky to me now.

But I am very interested in the Unholy DK class, to me it seems like the ultimate Death Knight, the diseases, the undead minions, is pure DK. And at this point in BfA I have the time to learn it, but man it plays so frustrating to me, just trying to find that smooth fast flowing rotation.