Welcome to Skill Capped’s Unholy Death Knight PvP Guide for Dragonflight 10.2.7
To make it easier to navigate, we’ve divided the guide into the corresponding sections, covering everything from race and talents to gear and macros. These will give you a good idea about what to expect from Unholy Death Knight in PvP in Dragonflight, its strengths and weaknesses, and how to get your character ready to conquer the arena.
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Table of Contents
In this section, we will cover the biggest changes to the design of Unholy Death Knight in Dragonflight and some of their playstyle implications. Obviously, the main driving force for all adjustments this expansion comes from talents, and we will dive deeper into them a bit later. For now, let’s focus on the bigger picture.
What’s New for Unholy Death Knight in Dragonflight?
The first noteworthy change is Summon Gargoyle. While a staple in Wrath of the Lich King, it wasn’t really the case in retail. With Dragonflight, it is back as a big part of our burst, and we will cover it in more detail later on.
While Magus of the Dead isn’t technically a new talent, it may as well be. In previous expansions, it was purely cosmetic, doing not even 1% of our damage. Now, however, it is actually going to be one of our top damaging abilities every game.
Another massive damage talent DKs gained is Commander of the Dead. When using Dark Transformation, your Gargoyle, Abomination and Army of the Dead ghouls will deal 35% more damage. It’s safe to say you will be playing around this talent if you want to be playing Unholy optimally.
But DKs gained more than just damage. As Unholy, you can now get Blinding Sleet, which was previously only available to Frost DK. When you factor in that you also have access to Strangulate and Asphyxiate, DKs have a lot of ways to lock their opponents down.
In terms of new defensives, we have Enfeeble and Will of the Necropolis. The best part about these talents is that they are passive, so there is no way to mess them up. For those skeptical because of the nerfs to the Unholy DK’s defensives, don’t panic. It’s not going to kill the spec and your offensive capabilities are going to still be insane.
Lastly, Proliferating Chill is a massive quality of life buff. It will allow Chains of Ice to hit two targets instead of one. It may not sound that great at first, but there is the reason for that excitement. Chains of Ice is the best slow in the game, and you will be using it a lot in arena. This talent allows you to simply make the lives of your opponents completely miserable.
Unholy Death Knight Playstyle in Dragonflight
The general playstyle hasn’t actually changed that much. You are still going to do the same things as before, spamming Chains of Ice, maintaining diseases and trying to set up big goes with your cooldowns.
Currently, even with the defensive nerfs, DKs are still in a great spot due to their offensive cooldowns and lockdown options. The way you deal damage hasn’t changed going from Shadowlands to Dragonflight, but you’ve gained a ton of new cooldowns and quality of life features.