The Gaming Lizard

Welcome to Unliving, the Deathknight part of my blog where I talk about DKs and their OP----awesomeness in the World...of Warcraft. Since some have asked for my opinion on DPSing as a DK, I shall start with one of the most popular spec for DK: Unholy

In 3.2, Unholy faces a more dramatic overhaul of talents than any other tree. Since 3.2 is possibly months away, this post shall be on current Unholy DK in 3.1

There are somethings that make Unholy a unique tree:

1. It is Shadow damage based and the least Physical based
2. It is a pet class, Ghoul contributes up to 20% of your damage
3. Most number of buttons to push
4. 3 diseases instead of 2

So, what makes an Unholy DK stand out from a Blood and Frost DK?

• A unique pet Ghoul to call your own. It can be buffed to deal higher damage so always feed it Kibler's Bits and have your pallies throw up Kings and Might on it.
  Ghoul inherits Hit Rating and Strength from the master and that's why Str is important to a Unholy DK.
  
  
• Night of the Dead reduces the CD of your Raise Dead to 30 seconds for a handy new pet, and Army of the Dead to 10 mins. Feel free to use it on boss fights!
  
  
• Ghoul Frenzy buffs your ghoul and increases it's longevity so you don't waste a Death Coil on healing it.
  
  
• Summon Gargoyle, the Ultimate of the Unholy talent tree, gives the Unholy DK another temporary pet. It copies from your CURRENT stats so use it when all your procs have appeared. It is best to use it in conjunction with Heroism although many shammies I met love to hit it at 20% of Boss health [yay for looting the boss as a giant!]

• Necrosis and Blood-Caked Blade provides many passive damage.
  
  
• Unholy Blight acts as a passive Aoe DoT for a low cost.
  
  
• Desecration has been improved since 3.0, providing a good 5% damage increase as long as the fight is stationary. How many points to put in it depends on the DK. If he thinks he has to keep running about, Desecration provides a lower amount of DPS
  
  
• Improved Unholy Presence gives the DK a 15% movement speed increase regardless of Presence. Value of this talent depends if the DK feels that he has to keep movming during a fight.
  
  
• Bone Shield gives another 2% damage increase to the DK and a 20% damage mitigation. It can be tough to keep it up during fights where boss deals AoE damage. Use it before the tank pulls to minimise the number of runes needed to keep it up.
  
  
• Ebon Plaguebringer provides a raid damage buff to spellcasters, excellent if your raid has many caster dps.
  
  
• Wandering Plague gives your diseases the ability to "crit", a must-have talent
  
  
• Scourge Strike is the main Strike of the Unholy DK. It ignores armor and thus, has the potential to do higher damage than other strikes w/o considering ArPen
  
  
• Rage of Rivendare gives a 10% damage increase to spells and abilities as long as Blood Plague is up.

12/0/59 -

1. A good starter talent tree, it dips into the Blood tree as a subspec.
   
2. Provides another 4% damage increase as long as you use a 2H.
   
3. Gives extra AP base on your armor value [so technically, a Pally's Devo Aura is another source of AP for you].
4. Reduces threat by 25%
5. Points in ImpUP can be moved to Necrosis

0/10/61 -

1. For the better geared as you lose some AP and damage by having Frost as your subspec
2. Increases your RP pool
3. Increases your Frost and Shadow damage by 10%

Using the Glyph of Scourge Strike:

Scourge Strike > Scourge Strike > Blood Strike > Blood Strike > Unholy Blight [or DC]
Scourge Strike > Scourge Strike > Scourge Strike > Death Coil

Replace Scourge Strike with Plague Strike > Icy Touch if A) Your target don't have any diseases, usually at start of fight. B) Your diseases have less than 5 seconds left. Always keep UB up!

• #showtooltip Ghoul Frenzy
  /cast Blood Tap
  /cast Ghoul Frenzy
  Allows you to use Ghoul Frenzy when you use up your Unholy Rune. Use it before you Blood Strike or your runes will mess up. This macro needs to press 2 times, first for blood tap, 2nd for ghoul frenzy
• If your diseases have 5 seconds or so left, refresh it. Dont count on the Glyph of SS.
• If your Bone Shield's falling off, you can use it with a DEATH RUNE follow by Ghoul Frenzy. That way you dont waste a Unholy rune on it.