Cataclysm Classic Unholy Death Knight Rotation and Cooldowns

Death Knights have three different Presences though as an Unholy Death Knight we will only really be using two of them, mostly Unholy Presence and Frost Presence in a situation where you are AoEing consistently over a period of time.

• Blood Presence — increases your Stamina by 8%, the contribution from Armor by 55% and reduces all incoming damage by 8%. It also increases threat generation considerably.
• Frost Presence — increases your damage dealt by 10% and increases Runic Power generated by 10%.
• Unholy Presence — increases Attack Speed and Rune regeneration by 10% and movement speed by 15% while also reducing your global cooldown on abilities by 0.5 seconds.

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

Unholy Death Knight has a unique single target rotation that acts much more as a list of priorities than a true rotation as it is constantly updating based off of your Runic Power and Runes available, your current buffs and what cooldown is coming up when. The goal with our rotation is to cast as many Scourge Strikes as possible while utilizing Dark Transformation and Death and Decay on cooldown while maintaining all of our diseases on the target.

1. Apply both your diseases Frost Fever and Blood Plague and keep them active active. For your initial application on a boss try to use Icy Touch and Plague Strike to get your rune cooldowns started and save Outbreak for when you have procs to be able to snapshot strong dots that you can refresh with Festering Strike;
2. Cast Dark Transformation. Stacks are generated by casting Death Coil;
3. Cast Death and Decay if both your Unholy and Death runes are available;
4. Cast Scourge Strike if your target is moving or Death and Decay is already on cooldown;
5. Cast Festering Strike if both your Blood and Frost Runes are available;
6. Cast Death Coil if you have a Sudden Doom proc or will reach maximum Runic Power from casting another ability;
7. Cast Horn of Winter.

You will typically follow the Single-Target rotation highlighted above but it is important to understand how to initiate combat with the boss as it will be rare you find yourself with all of your Runes and cooldowns available beyond the start of a pull.

1. Use your Golemblood Potion pre-pull;
2. Apply both your diseases Frost Fever and Blood Plague and keep them active active. For your initial application on a boss try to use Icy Touch and Plague Strike to get your rune cooldowns started and save Outbreak for when you have procs to be able to snapshot strong dots that you can refresh with Festering Strike
3. Cast Festering Strike once to start converting your Frost and Blood Runes to Death Runes.;
4. Cast Death and Decay to spend your final available Unholy Rune and then Blood Tap to immediately reactive your Death Runes;
5. If you have proc trinkets, once they have procced use your racial ability if you have one and any other Strength or Attack Power on uses before casting your Summon Gargoyle, also make sure to snapshot your diseases with these buffs active by casting Outbreak;
6. If you have casted enough Death Coils make sure to use your Dark Transformation, ideally paired with Unholy Frenzy.
7. Spend your remaining Runes on Scourge Strike if Death and Decay is on cooldown.

Your AoE Rotation acts somewhat similarly as your single-target rotation where we put a large emphasis on maintaining diseases which is made much quicker thanks to the addition of Outbreak and will focus more on spreading them with Pestilence. Remember to swap into Frost Presence if you will be AoEing for a prolonged period of time.

When attacking two enemies stick to your single target rotation, but make sure to spread diseases to the secondary target with Pestilence.

1. Apply both of your diseases Frost Fever and Blood Plague with Outbreak use Pestilence to spread these diseases to nearby enemies;
2. Cast Dark Transformation. Stacks are generated by casting Death Coil;
3. Cast Death and Decay if both your Unholy and Death runes are available;
4. Cast Scourge Strike if your target is moving or Death and Decay is already on cooldown;
5. Cast Blood Boil if both your Blood and Frost Runes are available;
6. Cast Death Coil if you have a Sudden Doom proc or will reach maximum Runic Power from casting another ability;
7. Cast Icy Touch.

Unholy Death Knights have a ton of DPS cooldowns and while the standard DPS rotation is relatively simple, the hard part when it comes to doing maximum DPS as an Unholy Death Knight is properly utilizing your cooldowns.

Summon Gargoyle is your single largest DPS cooldown and should used on cooldown, try your best to always pair this with any Trinket procs or other cooldowns such as Unholy Frenzy. Your gargoyles stats are based off of your current stats when you summon it, so effects such as Unholy Frenzy can greatly increase the amount of damage your Gargoyle deals. In a situation where you are soon to have a trinket proc, a DPS potion come off cooldown or Unholy Frenzy is not ready yet, do not hestiate to delay your Summon Gargoyle cast to ensure you have as many of these buffs active for when you cast your Summon Gargoyle.

Unholy Frenzy increases your melee and ranged haste by 20% for 30 seconds. While this ability can be cast on other classes, they will rarely benefit as much as the Death Knight will when you are actively pairing this with Summon Gargoyle. Even though this does stack with Heroism/ Bloodlust it is rarely worth using while one of these effects are active as your Gargoyle will likely already be global cooldown capped. While we will typically want to use this ability on cooldown, always be aware of your Summon Gargoyle cooldown and if the boss has any phase that will cause them to take increased damage.

Empower Rune Weapon instantly refreshes all of your Runes and grants you 25 Runic Power. This ability is ideally used when all of your Runes are on cooldown. Due to its long cooldown, try to use it early as you are unlikely to get more than one or two casts of it per fight. If the encounter is unlikely to last longer than the 5 minutes it would take to come back off cooldown, use it whenever you feel you need the most burst damage.

Army of the Dead summons an army of ghouls to attack your primary target. This is best used right before combat starts, before casting your pre-pot, or during an intermission where you are otherwise not able to attack.

Blood Tap turns one of your Blood Runes into an available Death Rune. This should be used on cooldown assuming one of your Blood Runes is already on cooldown.