Unholy Death Knight DPS Easy Mode — The War Within (11.1.7)

1. Use Festering Strike
2. Use Death and Decay
3. Use Apocalypse
4. Use Raise Abomination
5. Use Dark Transformation + Potion
6. Use Scourge Strike 3 times( Death Coil with any Sudden Doom procs)
7. Use Unholy Assault + Racial + Trinket

1. Cast Soul Reaper if the target is below 35%.
2. Cast Outbreak to maintain your Virulent Plague on the target if you are running a Disease build.
3. Use Death Coil when you have 80+ Runic Power or a Sudden Doom proc.
4. Use Festering Strike to apply Festering Wounds on the target. Do this if the target has 2 or fewer Festering Wounds.
5. Use Scourge Strike when there are at least 3 Festering Wounds on the target.
6. Use Death Coil.

1. Maintain your Virulent Plague on all targets by using Dark Transformation or Outbreak.
2. Use Defile to deal AoE damage and enable cleave.
3. Use your cooldowns as much as possible.
4. Spam Scourge Strike when standing in your Defile to burst all your Festering Wounds.
5. Spend your Runic Power and procs of Sudden Doom on Epidemic ( Death Coil when playing San'Layn).

Unholy Death Knights have potentially 10 cooldowns; they should be used as follows:

• Abomination Limb should generally be used on cooldown. Hold it for add waves that need grouping up.
• Unholy Assault should be used on cooldown. Especially strong in Mythic+ when paired with Vile Contagion. Used in Single Target with your other CDs.
• Vile Contagion should be used in AoE on a target that ideally has 6 Festering Wounds. This should then be followed by Death and Decay and Scourge Strike to pop all wounds.
• Army of the Dead/ Raise Abomination should be used on cooldown. Army is the first ability you press as you run toward the boss, Raise Abomination is used after a few GCDs once you reach the boss. Make sure to line it up with all your other Cooldowns every 3/1.5 minutes.
• Apocalypse should be used on Cooldown. Remember that you need at least 1 Festering Wound to use it. You can use it at any wound count, no need to burst 4!
• Dark Transformation should be used off cooldown and as an opener on packs of multiple mobs.
• Summon Gargoyle should be used on cooldown. Once used, prioritize spending Runic Power via Death Coil above everything else.
• Defile should be used in AoE. Use it as much as possible to enable your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows and deal AoE damage.

Patch 11.1.7 introduced the Combat Assistant functionality for all specs in the game. This comes in the form of two tools that you can use to assist your rotation. The Assisted Highlight feature will light up the spell that you are supposed to use next, helping you determine what button you need to press. The Single-Button Assistant will provide you with a single button that automatically pressed the appropriate spell. The Single-Button Assistant has a GCD penalty of 0.2 seconds every time you press it, artifically slowing down your rotation. This penalty means that you always will do less DPS when using the Single-Button Assistant compared to what you could have done with a perfectly executed rotation.

One major aspect to consider here is the lack of major cooldowns in the Combat Assistant. The Assisted Highlight and Single-Button Assistant will not highlight/use your major offensive Cooldowns ( Raise Abomination). Instead it is on you to ensure that you use those appropriately.

One question you might ask yourself now is: how good is the rotation I can get from these assistants? If we assume that you handle your Cooldown usage perfectly, the Assisted Highlight is roughly 5-10% less DPS on Single Target (depending on build, it does worse on San'layn) and 11-25% worse in AoE. With the Single-Button Assistant, the numbers are 10-20% in Single Target and 20-30% in AoE. Do bear in mind that this is compared to absolutely optimal play. A player with less experience with the rotation might see a significantly smaller loss, or even a gain when using the assistants.