WotLK Classic Unholy Death Knight Spell Summary

Death Knights have some of the strongest utility in the game thanks to unique abilities such as Death Grip, Raise Ally, and Army of the Dead. They also have some of the most unique buffs in the game that are able to be talented into or come baseline, with Unholy Frenzy offering a massive increase in Physical damage while Icy Talons increases your attack speed.

Death Knights offer some utility in the game for melee DPS. Death Grip allows you to pull a mob from its current location into melee range of the Death Knight who casts it, allowing for quick and easy movement of either mobs or unfriendly players.

Raise Ally allows you to revive a dead friendly player as a ghoul that they will have control of for five minutes, allowing them to deal a bit more damage even after they have died.

Army of the Dead summons a massive amount of ghouls that will deal a considerable amount of damage but also taunt anything they attack, making this not so useful for certain encounters. However, in a situation where the main aggro target does not matter this can help to allow the group to catch up with healing or just add some damage dealt.

Death Knights have three presences they can be in at any given time: Frost, Blood, and Unholy. Each of these presences offers the Death Knight additional stats, be it increased damage, self-healing, more Armor, increased threat generation, or even movement speed and a faster global cooldown. However, you can only have one presence active at a time.

• Blood Presence — Increases damage dealt by 15% and causes 4% of non-periodic damage dealt to heal you.
• Frost Presence — Increases Stamina by 8%, the Armor contributions of your gear by 60%, reduces your damage taken by 8%, and you will generate additional threat while in this presence.
• Unholy Presence — Increases movement and attack speed by 15% and reduces your global cooldown by 0.5 seconds.

There are two diseases Death Knights will apply: Frost Fever, which is applied by casting Icy Touch, and Blood Plague, which is applied by casting Plague Strike. Both of these cause a considerable amount of damage-over-time and depending on your specialization can have different benefits. As Unholy your diseases will increase the Magic damage taken by enemies afflicted by them thanks to Ebon Plaguebringer.

Death Knights have some of the strongest cooldowns in the game both from a buffing perspective and from a personal defensive ability point of view.

• Anti-Magic Shell — Absorbs 75% of incoming Magic damage (up to 50% of your max health) and prevents the application of any harmful magic debuffs; any damage absorbed by this will also grant you Runic Power.
• Raise Dead — Summons a ghoul that will do a small amount of damage; this ghoul is also required to use Death Pact.
• Death Pact — sacrifices your ghoul to heal you for 40% of your max health.
• Blood Tap — Activates a Blood Rune and converts it into a Death Rune for the next 20 seconds. Death Runes count as any Rune type.
• Summon Gargoyle — Summons a Gargoyle pet that will attack your target dealing a massive amount of Nature damage and benefiting from any buffs you have active when the Gargoyle is summoned.
• Anti-Magic Zone — Summons a small protective barrier that absorbs Magic damage dealt to any players inside of the barrier.
• Empower Rune Weapon — Immediately refreshes all of your Runes and grants you 25 Runic Power.
• Icebound Fortitude — reduces damage taken by 30% and causes you to become immune to stuns for 12 seconds.

Death Knights have a ton of damaging abilities but as an Unholy Death Knight you will focus on maximizing the amount of casts of Scourge Strike and Runic Power generation.

• Blood Strike — deals 46% of weapon damage plus a scaling amount of damage based on your Attack Power and an additional 12.5% for each disease active on the target.
• Scourge Strike — Deals 70% weapon damage and a scaling amount of damage based on your Attack Power. It will also deal 12% more damage for each disease present on your target.
• Icy Touch — Deals Frost damage and applies Frost Fever. This also reduces the targets attack speed by 20% for 21 seconds and deals a massive amount of threat if you are in Frost Presence.
• Obliterate — Deals 80% of weapon damage plus a scaling amount of damage based on your Attack Power and an additional 12.5% for each disease active on the target, but will consume all diseases on that target.
• Rune Strike — Deals 150% weapon damage plus a scaling amount based off your Attack Power. This can only be used after dodging or parrying.
• Death and Decay — Summons a massive void zone dealing Shadow damage to any enemy inside of it for 10 seconds.
• Death Coil — A ranged attack that deals Shadow damage to enemy targets, but can also be used to heal friendly Undead targets; 20 of the Runic Power spent is refunded if used as a heal.
• Death Strike — deals 98% of weapon damage and a scaling amount of damage based off of your Attack Power. It will also heal you for 5% of your max health for each disease active on the target it is used on.
• Plague Strike — Deals 50% of weapon damage plus a scaling amount of damage based on your Attack Power while also applying Blood Plague.

• Dark Command — taunts the target, forcing it to attack you.
• Strangulate — Stops spell casting, silencing the caster for 5 seconds on players, or 3 seconds on NPCs.
• Chains of Ice — applies Frost Fever and slows the target by 95%. This debuff loses 10% of its effectiveness each second it is active.
• Horn of Winter — generates 10 Runic Power and increases the Strength and Agility of your party members by 155 for 3 minutes.