Hello,
IÔÇÖm Ceiron, a Merciless Gladiator death knight from Neltharion and I will be making this guide in order to help the Death Knight community and stop you from spamming threads that unholy is doing low damage. Please read carefully.
- All the information in this thread is legit, no copy paste from other guides.
- Be aware, this guide is for moderate players not newbs, it requires basic knowledge about the death knight class

Table of contents:
1. Introduction
2. Talents and Glyphs
3. Presence
4. Ability sequence
5. Stats and Gearing
6. MacroÔÇÖs and add-ons
7. PvP Mechanics
8. Tips and Tricks

1. Introduction:
The unholy death knight, master of the pressure, destroyer of healers. We are well known of our mobility and sustain on our enemies. No other class can peel and have the same uptime as us. The unholy death knights speciality is to put insane amount of pressure while doing a fair amount of damage. Lately , it was fairly easy for us to destroy our enemies by ÔÇ£abusingÔÇØ bugs. However, now itÔÇÖs fixed, how will we be doing any damage while putting high pressure? How do can we stay up in the ladders and show the whole pvp community that we are not just bug abusers. But we also have the potential to become the best in each bracket. Not by bugs, but by plain skill and class knowledge. ItÔÇÖs time to show our true strength towards those scared cats. So letÔÇÖs get started!


2. Talents and Glyphs:
As unholy death knights we have different types of builds, each having its own strength and its own weakness. Now, the only thing we have to do is to find a good synergy in our comp and our build.
a) For shadow cleave: http://wowtal.com/#k=qWIwLwNk.bqj.deathknight.
b) For PHDk: http://wowtal.com/#k=S_42L5hY.bqj.deathknight.
c) For Vanguard you can take either one of the two listed above.
d) For Ebola Cleave: http://wowtal.com/#k=qWIwLwNk.bqj.deathknight.

Now that weÔÇÖve summed up the best comps for our spec/class. HereÔÇÖs the explanation:

Spoiler: Show
a) First of all, shadow cleave, why do we go with this spec? The reason for that is because this comp lacks burst damage. Which can be fixed with scourge strikes enormous high burst. When you pop your offensive trinket, gargoyle, dark transform and unholy frenzy your burst damage will be superb. 10k solely from the gargoyle on each strike + another 5k from the ghoulÔÇÖs claw + another 10-15k from your scourge strike. ThatÔÇÖs immense burst.
This also gives your lock the opportunity to play more laid back as youÔÇÖll be the one doing the insane burst and the enemy will try to avoid it by kiting you. Thus leaving the lock completely alone and destroying the enemy team.

b) As for PHDk, In this comp, we as unholy death knights have only one job. Put as much pressure on the enemy as we can. No burst is necessary for us, since the hunter will be doing insane burst we only have to do our best to put as much slows on the enemy team via desecration. So thatÔÇÖs why I took off the 3 points from Rage of Rivendare.
CAUTION: DO NOT CHAINS OF ICE THE ENEMY TEAM MEMBERS WHO YOU ARE NOT ATTACKING! FROST FEVER BREAKS FREEZING TRAP! In before you do that always communicate with your hunter.

c) Vanguard is very depending on the situation/enemy team. Also on your teamÔÇÖs play style. Choose one from the two I mentioned above. If you want more burst RoR build is pretty nice, if you need more survivability Blade Barrier is the way to go. Also since the ret does really nice burst at the moment I believe itÔÇÖs better to go for sudden doom.


d) Ebola cleave is a real fun to play comp. You have very nice cc while doing insane pressure and burst. I prefer playing this comp as a pressure comp. Thus the feral spreading bleeds instead of one target burst. Making you to take over the burst part. Spread all your diseases and watch the enemy team burn by mana loss. In comps such as this, changing from target is necessary so necrotic strike will be less useful due to its low duration ( this doesnÔÇÖt mean you wonÔÇÖt use necrotic strike). So I suggest you to take RoR for this comp.




3. Presence:
Spoiler: Show
Unholy presence is our main presence, you can switch to blood presence when fighting versus kitty cleave/ TSG/KFC/... so versus burst teams with a lot of physical damage. Just start with blood presence to survive the first burst and you are fine.

Caution: Never switch to frost presence, NEVER.




4. Ability sequence

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Our primary goal is to never ever have to wait for our runes. If you have to wait a couple seconds for your runes then you are doing something wrong. So, how do we always have enough runes and keep our sustain.
First of all, you never use 2x festering strike. This is the primary rule for unholy death knights. You only use 1x MAX. The best way to play unholy is to always have a chains of ice on your target. Just keep refreshing it. Since Chains of Ice generates twice as much runic power than Necrotic strike/scourge strike while using only 1 frost rune. And use the other blood rune as a blood strike. Thus giving you 30rp almost a Death Coil which has a chance to increase your rune regeneration by 100%.

Rule 2?? Never start with ams off. Unless it is really necessary.
Rule 3?? Never use 2 Death Coils in a row, unless going for the kill and getting kited. Always try to wait 3 seconds before you cast another one.
Rule 4?? DonÔÇÖt pop all your offensives in the start. I see a lot of players doing this mistake. Try to keep your cdÔÇÖs for a good healing wave with your lichborne and follow it with a well-timed burst to get the kill. Changing the tide of the game within a couple seconds. The enemy usually never expects a 50k heal on each lichborne so you can surprise them and get a kill.

As for Scourge Strike/Necrotic strike: If you havenÔÇÖt specced into RoR scourge strike is useless. If you did spec into RoR, SS becomes viable and you will use it to get a kill. While keeping necrotic strike on your target for pressure. When the target is 30% and has 30k+ necrotic absorb on him you are free to spam SS.


5. Stats and Gearing:
Spoiler: Show
Stat Priority is Strength>Resilience>Haste>Mastery> Crit
As for gearing, take the haste off-parts and get the Hit necklace. You can take a pve trinket. However keep in mind to be able to survive versus comps such as RMP you need a lot of resilience.


6. Macros and Add-ons:
I will give you the macros I use, but if you have others keep using those. Just get used to it. It isn't that much of a deal. Also I have my whole pet bar keybound so I do have less macros.
a) Macros:
Spoiler: Show
Dark Simulacrum:
/cast [@arena1] Dark Simulacrum
/cast [@arena2] Dark Simulacrum
/cast [@arena3] Dark Simulacrum

Targeting macros:
/focus [@arena1]
/focus [@arena3]
/focus [@arena2]

Unholy Frenzy:
#showtooltip Unholy Frenzy
/cast [target=Partner1,2,3] Unholy Frenzy

Against Disarm effects(change between fallen crusader and spellshattering):
/equip Cataclysmic Gladiator's Decapitator
/equip Cataclysmic Gladiator's Greatsword

Cancel all auras from yourself:
/cancelaura Hand of Protection
/cancelaura Unholy Frenzy
/cancelaura Lichborne
/cancelaura Hand of freedom
/cancelaura Hand of Sacrifice

Chains of Ice(Same for death grip, strangulate, pet stun, pet leap and so on):
#showtooltip Chains of Ice
/cast [mod:shift, target=focus][target=mouseover, hard, exists][nomod] Chains of Ice

Target Spirit Link Totem
/target Spirit Link Totem


b) Add-ons:
Spoiler: Show
Gladiatorlossa(must have)
Necrotictrack(awesome for necrotic absorb awareness)
Gladius(must have)
Dominos(very good for mod macros)
Moveanything(Rune bars)
Mick's scrolling bar text(clean damage ui, shows scourge strikes total damage)/Nice damage




7. General pvp tactics:
Spoiler: Show

As IÔÇÖve mentioned before unholy is all about sustain and only little depending on burst. We do have a great burst, but we rely more on our pressure and mobility. Talents such as DeathÔÇÖs Advance makes/desecration give us the advantage versus many ranged teams. Death knights can give casters/hunters a really hard time. While helping out your team with peels and crowd control effects at the same time. Our chains of ice doesnÔÇÖt require to face the target so we can get it off on every enemy member in a very fluent way. Easy to control, also our 24/7 uptime of desecration also works in our advantage. Giving the enemy melee the disadvantage when chasing you. Thus, when playing versus comps such as KFC/Thug Cleave we can slow both our main target the ranged dps and the melee whoÔÇÖs trying to chase you. So if you are getting focussed by a melee dps try swapping on the ranged dps if there is one. This will make him swap and/or lose a lot of time during the swap or if he keeps chasing you.

Use Dark Simulacrum to steal enemy crowd control effect such as cyclone/hex/poly. This is very essential. It can easily lead to a kill on the dps or it might make the enemy healer have to use his/her trinket. Also this is really easy to do, the only thing you have to do is watch your Gladius bars and time a good DS.

Another very essential thing is, complete pet management. What do I mean with this?
No, itÔÇÖs not a well usage of pet leap/ Gnaw macro. That is only the first stage of having a complete pet management. The second stage is the usage of pet walk to. This ability which has been implemented in 4.3.4 gives us Unholy Death Knights the ability to place our ghoul in a way that our enemies wonÔÇÖt be able to get your pet into aoe crowd control effects such as mage Ring of Frost or mage nova. But not only that, in a way that OUR PET CAN EAT TRAPS FOR US OR OUR HEALER! This is very very useful, learning this will improve your gameplay in high bracket. Eating traps, from your healer when you are ccÔÇÖd might be the reason why unholy is superior to frost. In addition you will also have more mobility, by being able to use pet leap in a better way. You can leap and immobilize enemies behind walls/pillars. You Gnaw a priest behind a wall and follow it up by a immobilize. ThatÔÇÖs a 7 seconds cc on that healer while you can destroy the enemy dps because heÔÇÖs out of LoS from the healer. These are all little elements which might change the tide of the game. These elements decide who wins and who loses that match.


8. In depth PvP tactics:

-Versus Warrior/Healer:
Spoiler: Show
If you are up against a team which as a lot of peels and physical damage than you have to do 2 things.
First of all, Counter peeling:

-Chains of Ice is your best friend versus such comps, try to get off as many chains as possible keep in mind if you have a cc such as repentance/fear/traps to communicate with your partner in order to not disturb his cc. That said, peeling warrior behind pillars is very effective since the enemy healer wonÔÇÖt be able to dispel him nor will he be able to charge you through LoS. So, tell your healer to pillar hug in order to stop the warriorÔÇÖs burst damage. If he pops offensive cdÔÇÖs and makes a hard swap on your healer youÔÇÖll have to do two things: Chain of Ice and desecration all around the pillar. Doing this will waste the warriorÔÇÖs burst and you can train him or his healer.

-Try swapping weapons in the fight, usually when you or the enemy is low, the war will disarm you to prevent death strike or to prevent a kill on his teammate. Play with Sword shattering before the disarm and after the disarm you have 1 minute time to play with Fallen Crusader(you can swap weapons during stuns to not lose any time).

-What if the warrior keeps peeling you? Than just switch to the warrior, and try to land cc chains on the enemy healer. These hard swaps can make it very annoying for the enemy team. Maybe youÔÇÖll end up taking a defensive knockdown or a defensive charge.

-You can use pet leap to immobilize the warrior behind pillars in critical situations. Or you can use it as a cc versus the healer.

-When you drop low or your healer is in a cc and the warrior has popped offensives, try 5 yard kiting. This is very important, 5 yard kiting makes the warrior unable to use melee attacks and unable to charge you.

ThatÔÇÖs pretty much it, try to practise a lot, since warrior healer comps can get nasty.

-Versus Enhance/ret:
Spoiler: Show
This comp is a very nasty set up versus death knight teams. They have very high survivability, both can play as support, both have heals and both do very high burst. However, these comps lack mobility. Easily kited, and ccÔÇÖd. First of all, you canÔÇÖt stun the shaman, thatÔÇÖs just a waste heÔÇÖll just pop shamantastic rage and get out of that stun. So what youÔÇÖll be doing is to save your Gnaw for the Ret, and strangulate for the Enhance.
Try to start on the ret, spam necrotic strike and howling blast in order to make him pop his offensive as his defensive. Right after the big heal when sacred shield procs he will go on the offense. You will see a hex/repentance incoming. Your first job is to put a Dark Simulacrum asap on the shaman. And if your healer to LoS or get ready for a SW:D if heÔÇÖs a priest. If your healer gets hexÔÇÖd try to hex the paladin while being fully buffed, heÔÇÖll trinket for sure and put a full stun on him. This is when you go very offensive to counter his offensive abilities and force his bubble. The shaman will start support healing his teammate and end up wasting mana and his time. While youÔÇÖll be destroying the paladin. If you play with a priest a mass dispel can bring you the kill there.
Those 10 seconds are very harsh, try to practise this a lot. Whenever you get the use of it, it will become a piece of cake to beat such comps. Also Coordination is very important here.
If this doesnÔÇÖt bring the kill you will be swapping on the enhance and keep your necrotic strike on him and repeat it. Whenever you swap on the enhance his damage will drop and heÔÇÖll have to kite you.

-Versus Death knight/ret:
Spoiler: Show
Versus such comps with high burst and mobility and a great cc chain. You want to start defensive while still playing aggressive on the ret. Trust me, if you sit on that retribution paladin, while still applying chains of ice on the death knight to peel him off your healer or you. The paladin will use his freedom on the death knight and youll be completely free to fully control the ret while doing enormous pressure, with necrotic strike. When you play versus such a high burst comps, never, I repeat, never use an offensive AMS unless you are 100% sure you will get a kill. If not, dont even hesitate, one hard swap on you will kill you within a couple seconds if you have no AMS. If you see the ret and the death knight triggering their cool downs, dont just pop AMS either. First youll use AMZ, anti-magic zone. This will stop the first burst, and give your healer time to actually sit a HoJ or sit a Strangulate. If your healer is HoJd and you are In AMZ with like 60% HP, I can guarantee you that you will survive. Thats when your healer will use an instant heal or a defensive ability such as HoP, HoS, HoF, Or any priest Shield/damage reduction such as pain suppression. This will make him able to sit another cd while you being perfectly safe. Now you can slowly play more offensive, pop unholy might (if not yet used on your healer to break Repentance), to increase your damage and start stacking a couple necrotic strikes, If you see a WoG. Than now is your chance to get a kill in there. Pop Gargoyle, pop offensive trinket, stun the paladin and start destroying the death knight. The paladin might even bubble here, or trinket the pet stun, if he doesnt make your healer use another cc. Which will leave him defenceless if he trinkets go back on the pally and drain him. You still got 2 minutes(1min40sec actually) before he can do any sort of big burst heal or big burst damage. So youll taking over in those +/- 2 mins. The death knight will try to peel you off, try to make your healer. As we all know, unholy has very high pressure, if your healer supports you well, you can trigger a bubble from the ret. After the bubble, its over. Because you can mass dispel if you have a disc and or follow it up with a strang+ pet leap+Pet stun+Healer cc.

If you also play ret/dk, itÔÇÖs pretty much the same except you wonÔÇÖt have much time to think. You have to put higher pressure as the death knight in order to make the enemy ret pop his cool downs faster than you. There isnÔÇÖt much to say.

So thatÔÇÖs pretty much it. Of course in real combat itÔÇÖs a lot harder than this. But if you practice enough, even the strongest comp will become easy.

-Versus Hunter/ret:
Spoiler: Show
This comp is literally a pain in the black hole, so much crowd control and one of the best burst comps. Beating a Hunter & Retribution in a 2v2 or 3v3 situation will require a lot of map awareness, and very good coordination. You have to counter the rets burst, by bursting on his burst. This way, the ret will use his burst more defensively . Also try to get a pet stun on that ret during that burst, I can assure you that he will trinket that stun. This way you can already guarantee a bubble after the rets burst. DonÔÇÖt forget retribution paladins have a shield which procs on 30% Hp every one minute, they are almost immortal when that shield triggers, because they gain increased healing in addition.
To beat them, you have to eat at least 75% of the enemy traps, to stop their crowd control. If you canÔÇÖt sit on those traps, you and your healer will get trained. If it tends to happen, the only way to survive that burst is to LoS/lichborne. But since anti-magic shield is bugged at the moment you will probably get silenced during lichborne. ThatÔÇÖs why LoS is so important and handy, because you mitigate a lot of the damage and crowd control. Whenever the enemy burst ends, you can start putting pressure on the ret, keep stacking those necrotic strikes to completely absorb the rets heals. Without his cdÔÇÖs, the wogs wonÔÇÖt be able to overheal the necrotic strikes. This way the ret will be drained to death and die eventually. When the ret uses bubble then itÔÇÖs time to swap on the hunter and you will take him down asap. If that doesnÔÇÖt work you will swap back on the ret and keep doing the same. Defensive on their crowd control, offensive on their burst and fully offensive after that burst.
In the end, this comp will become one of the hardest to beat for you as a dk, so try to play more defensive and mitigate as much damage as you can.

-Versus Hunter/rogue or feral:
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Coming soon!

-Versus Mage/rogue:
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Coming soon!

-Versus Disc rogue:
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Coming soon!

-Versus Feral/disc or shaman:
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Coming soon!

-Versus Mage/priest:
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Coming soon!

-Versus Elemental/healer or rogue:
Spoiler: Show
Coming soon!

-Versus Balance/other:
Spoiler: Show
Coming soon!





8. Tips and Tricks: Coming soon!