Unholy Death Knight PvP Guide (2024)

Last updated on May 30, 2024 at 00:00by Sellin

Welcome to our PvP Unholy Death Knight guide for Cataclysm. Hereyou will learn all you need to know to properly play Unholy Death Knight in PvPscenarios.

Unholy Death Knight is an incrediblyhigh single target damage class in PvP and master of utility due to countless tools like Death Grip, Lichborne, Anti-Magic Shell, Desecrationand Necrotic Strike.

• Glyph of Raise Dead — Increases the Stamina and Strength your ghoul gainsfrom your stats by 40% making it deal considerably more damage and be considerably tankier.
• Glyph of Death Coil — Increases the damage and healing done by your Death Coilby 15%. This is your primary spender of Runic Power and when paired with Lichborne can be usedto self-heal in an emergency.
• Glyph of Scourge Strike — Scourge Strike is your primary damagedealing ability so any increase of damage is quite useful.

• Glyph of Strangulate — Causes your Strangulate abilityto last two seconds longer when interrupting an enemy, making the silencing effecteven more potent.
• Glyph of Death Grip — Allows you to cast Death Gripfrom 5 yards further, allowing you to more easily close the gap and disrupt enemies.
• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell — Increases the duration of your Anti-Magic Shellallowing you to avoid more incoming Magic effects.

• Glyph of Blood Tap — Removes the self-damaging portion of your Blood Tapability.
• Glyph of Death's Embrace — Causes your Death Coil abilityto refund 20 Runic Power when used to heal, making self-healing or healing your ghoul a bit more efficient.
• Glyph of Resilient Grip — Instantly refreshes your Death Grip cooldown if the target isimmune to the effect.

Make sure to check out ourSpells Summary Page first. Having a good understandingof not only what your abilities do but how to optimally use them can often timesbe the difference between winning or losing in PvP. PvP will require you to constantlychange your priorities from dealing damage, to surviving or having to peel to keep one ofyour teammates alive so knowing how to best use your spells will give you the bestchance at victory!

1. Outbreak — to apply diseases to your target, if Outbreak isn't availablesure Icy Touch and Plague Strike.
2. Necrotic Strike — Can be used to reduce the healing your target takes, it is oftentimes better to deal damage with Scourge Strike but always consider using this especiallywhen attacking a Healer.
3. Chains of Ice — Use this to slow your enemy so you can stick toyour target.
4. Death Grip — Use this to immediately close the gap on your enemy or asan impromptu interrupt.
5. Festering Strike — While not typically used in PvP this can beused to maintain your diseases.
6. Death Strike — Use this to help survive large incoming damage, itis rare that you will want to use this over a higher damaging ability like Scourge Strike,but sometimes you will need to make the decision to self-heal to survive.
7. Death Coil — Acts as your primary spender of Runic Power. This can beused to deal damage to stack Shadow Infusion for Dark Transformation, but canalso be used on yourself with Lichborne active to heal yourself or on your ghoulto keep it alive.
8. Mind Freeze — Interrupts your targets spell casting, use this early and oftento mitigate incoming damage or stop your target from healing.

Unholy Death Knight deals most ofits damage via cooldowns like Summon Gargoyle and Dark Transformation.

• Summon Gargoyle — 3-minute cooldown. Use this to summon agargoyle that will deal massive damage to your target over 30 seconds, this scalesdirectly with your current buffs so if possible pair with any Strength or Attack Powerprocs.
• Dark Transformation — Instantly transforms your ghoul into an empowered versionof itself greatly increasing the damage it deals. This should be used as often as Shadow Infusionstacks allow.
• Anti-Magic Shell — 45-second cooldown. Absorbs Magic damage up to 75% of yourtotal health, this also renders you immune to Magic effects while it is active.
• Icebound Fortitude — 3-minute cooldown. Reduces your damage taken.
• Dark Simulacrum — applies a debuff to an enemy that allows the Death Knightto duplicate the next spell cast by the enemy. In PvP this can be incredibly powerful if you are ableto predict a big cooldown like Divine Shield from a Paladin.
• Empower Rune Weapon — is a five-minute cooldown that instantly resets the cooldown of all of yourRunes and grants you twenty five Runic Power. This ability is best used when you have depleted most if not all of yourRunes.
• Death Pact — instantly sacrifices your ghoul healing you for 25% of your maximum health. Whileour ghoul is a massive part of our damage you will deal no damage while dead so it is important to keep this cooldownin mind when taking large incoming damage.

Death Knight has three different presences to choose from, Blood Presence, Unholy Presenceand Frost Presence. In PvP we will primarily be using Unholy Presence but there arerare situations where we will be using Blood Presence in an effort to survive incoming damagebut the damage reduction is rarely worth the damage loss as you will often times be too far behindto regain control of the situation.

• Blood Presence — increases your Stamina by 8%, the armor contributionof your gear by 55%, and all incoming damage taken is reduced by 8%.
• Unholy Presence — increases your attack speed and Rune regeneration rate by 10% andmovement speed by 15% as well as reducing the global cooldown on your abilities by 0.5 seconds.
• Frost Presence — damage and Runic Power generation by 10%.

While trying to get the most out of your Unholy Death Knight inCataclysm PvP, these are the professions we recommend:

1. Blacksmithing —Gives you access to two additional gem sockets in your Gloves and Writs allowing you to add Strength orResilience depending on if you feel like you need to become tankier or you need to deal more damage.
2. Engineering —allows you access to the Engineering Helmet Reinforced Bio-Optic Killshades which can be socketedwith Cogwheels increasing your Resilience and another secondary stat of your choosing by 208 as well as Synapse Springs which pairs incredibly with your Summon Gargoyle cooldown.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for anDeath Knight in PvP.

Unholy Death Knight is an incrediblyversatile class that can synergize well with many other classes. Highlighted below are some of thestrongest arena comps in the game to help you decide what best to pair with your Death Knight.

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