Welcome to the Unholy Death Knight MoP PvP Guide!
Mists of Pandaria Classic • Patch 5.4.8
All sections for Unholy Death Knight PvP have been divided into corresponding sections for the most optimal talents, glyphs, races, gear, macros, professions, and arena compositions. This will help you have a good understanding of how to play Unholy Death Knight in Mists of Pandaria Classic PvP.
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Unholy Death Knight
If you were wanting to play a spec with unrivaled pressure, then look no further than Unholy DK. This iteration of the spec is DEFINITELY strong, with tons of damage potential. The way Unholy DK works in MoP is fairly interesting - Icy Touch, Blood Boil, AND Festering Strike can give you Death Runes, creating a builder-spender system for Necrotic Strike spam.
Current Meta Position
Strengths
- ✓Unrivaled pressure with Necrotic Strike healing absorb
- ✓Multiple ways to generate Death Runes (Icy Touch, Blood Boil, Festering Strike)
- ✓Devastating burst when lining up procs, CC, and cooldowns
- ✓Desecrated Ground provides CC break AND immunity for unpeelable pressure
- ✓Lichborne gives Fear break, immunity, AND self-healing with Death Coil
- ✓Glyph of Icy Touch adds a dispel to your rotation
Weaknesses
- ✗Learning to manage burst windows is a huge learning curve
- ✗Fumbling all-ins means failing to reach true potential
- ✗Pet maintenance required alongside dot management
- ✗Susceptible to kiting without proper cooldown usage
Key Abilities
Human is the BEST race in the entire game for many DPS specs. Thanks to Will to Survive, Humans can wear two damage trinkets - which is a REALLY big deal since trinket procs represent a MASSIVE power spike.
Orc is definitely your best Horde option. Hardiness is arguably the best racial passive in the game, offering 15% stun reduction which even STACKS with similar effects. Blood Fury is also a huge power spike, acting as a pseudo on-use trinket.
Strength is the most important stat overall, as it has a direct impact on ALL of your damage. Then we will want to reach the 3% Hit cap and the baseline 3% Expertise soft cap.
As far as secondaries go, Mastery is the most consistent, giving us a flat Shadow Damage increase. Crit is also good - you CAN afford to drop a bit of Mastery if playing with another spec that provides a Mastery buff (like Shaman).
Haste is our least desirable stat and we will be reforging out of it.