Sarmlery
Drugs
Introduction
Hello everyone I'm hear to deliver a F2P Unholy Guide. Now I'm no wear near the best DK out there, but I think I've played it enough to give a good grasp on the spec. This guide will be broken down into different categories. Race, Talents, Gear, and Gameplay. This guide was written for PvP. I hope someone learns something useful here.
Race
Race doesn't really matter to be honest, some racial's are better than others, of course. However play what you wanna play. I will NOT be including Allied Races within this category. With that being said Horde's best race's are Tauren. The racials are simply very strong, War Stomp being the bread and butter. War Stomp will allow you to AoE CC for 2 seconds. With the Unholy DK already have so much CC (Which we will cover later) can lead to great set ups in fights, often forcing a trinket or bubble. On top of using it offensively, you can also use it defensively. If you or someone on your team is being trained it can provide excellence peel. Besides War Stomp, Endurance, and Brawn also isn't bad. The extra stamina isn't bad if you wanna play around with character stats. Maybe mastery or haste on a certain gem instead of stam. Brawn also giving an extra 2% healing, which will increase healing of Death Strike, Death Coil (under the effects of Lichborne), etc. Orc is probably the second best race for horde. Blood Fury, is an excellent racial for amping one's burst. The increased attack power is really nice and pairs well with other burst trinkets. Hardiness also is wonderful as you will receive a 20% stun reduction. Command giving your pets an exta 1% dmg, was better in recent xpacs when we had Apocalypse which summoned a ghoul for each Festering Wound you would pop ( Max of 4). Giving those 4 ghouls plus the one we could summon all an extra 1% damage. How ever since we no longer have access to Appoc, Command really isn't that important anymore, beside the 1% damage boost from your ghoul. The last race the I will mention for Horde is Panada. Panda isn't bad but Tauren does a better job with War Stomp over Quaking Palm. Quaking Palm isn't bad by any means, a 4 second incap is massive, and can give you an advantage if used right. However I find War stomp to be more impactful in a lot of situations, However I think for Duels, or even some 2's Quaking Palm might be more impactful.
Races for Alliance I think may be better are Human. Human is great as Will to Survive gives you a trinket without using a slot. This is great as it allows you to focus on certain stats (haste, mastery etc.), if you feel you are lacking in any stat, or simply wanna run a certain build. It defiantly is a "higher risk, higher reward " build though, as Will to Survive will only remove stuns. Human's are also blessed with The Human Spirit allowing you to gain 2% more of ALL secondary stats from all sources. This racial alone is a really nice quality of life perk more haste, more crit, more mastery, you really cannot complain. Gnome is truly a top kek race providing Escape Artist . Escape Artist provides the player with escape of any immobilizing effect ( Freezing Trap,) and any other movement speed reduction effect. Making you really hard to kite/catch. Along side this powerful racial is Expansive Mind, this gives you an extra 5 runic power which is really nice, As more runic power, more abilities. The last race I would like to mention is again Panada.
Talents
Talents are pretty simple, and straight forward for the most part.
Festering Strike 1/1. Strike a target dealing % physical dmg and infecting them with 2-3 Festering Wounds. Which leads us into the next talent Scourge Strike 1/1, an attack the deals a % of physical damage and shadow damage, causing one festering wound to pop. Popping a festering wounds leads to dealing shadow damage and generating runic power. The third talent you wanna go will be Raise Dead. This will give you permanent ghoul that will fight by your side. This is huge as a perma ghoul gives you access to Gnaw, which will cause your ghoul to stun a target for 1 second and do damage. Along with Gnaw will be Leap, Leap causes the ghoul to jump on to a target. Pairing a Leap and Gnaw together is deadly as it gives you a quick stun. Its gets better though with the next talent. Dark Transformation 1/1. Dark Transformation will cause your ghoul to be empowered dealing 44.73% of attack power AoE to up to 5 targets, and enhances both Leap and Gnaw. Leap now will cause your ghoul to charge an enemy interrupting spell casting and embolizing them for 2 seconds. While Gnaw will now stun the target for an additional second. The last talent point to discus will be Sudden Doom, which gives you a 25% chance when you auto to make your next death coil cost less runic power, and crit. The proc will also allow a festering wound to burst.
For Death Knight Points, its also very Straight Forward. 99% of the time this is what you will be taking. Talents to mention are Blinding Sleet. Essentially a DK's Dragons Breath. Shoot out ice in a cone shape that slows for 50% and disorientates for 5 seconds, dmg will break the cc. Huge for setting up big damage on targets or forcing the kill. Blinding Sleet can also stop a warrior mid charge. Mind Freeze is absolutely a must have when PVPing, cannot stress how important it is to have a kick that's ranged! Another talent that is very useful is Improved Death Strike. Reduce the cost of Runic power by 10 and increase healing by 60%. Into cleave comps this can be very big, a lot of healing quick. The third talent I wanna discuss is Anti-Magic Barrier, beautiful for playing into heavy hitting casters. I really slept on this choice for a long time. The last talent I want to go over is Cleaving Strikes while your Death and Decay is on the ground your Scourge strike hits 7 additional targets great for cleaving and bursting wounds on multiple targets at once!
PvP Talents, give us two solid choices. Reanimation, which for 1 rune will summon a slow zombie which on impact will deal 10% of the targets max hp as shadow damage and stun them for 3 seconds. The stun of course does DR. Solid talent for setting up, and also AOE stunning if the zombie hits both targets. The Zombie can be manipulated to where it can spawn, causing the zombie to insta spawn on the target in some cases. Ill have a video explaining that linked somewhere in this mess of a guide. The other choice here is Dark Simulacrum, which places a ward on a target allowing you to cast the same spell they just casted. (Poly,fear, frost nova, etc) really awesome ability here with an extremely high skill ceiling to use. If you get a poly/fear out of this it can be absolutely game changing. You can only steal spells that use mana, for example you could not steal a Chaos Bolt, as it uses soul shards. Both choices are very fun to use.
Gear
Before we get into BIS gear. Your stat prio should be str,stam,mast,haste,verse,and crit. Typically, however if you see an opportunity to play and have fun with another build by all means giver the onion. The only thing I wanna mention is to at least keep your haste anywhere from 15-20%, for optimal rune regen. I also wouldn't recommend skipping out on strg attributes on any piece of gear. What I mean by this, is if you get a cloak for example that doesn't give strength but gives a lot of mastery/haste. I wouldn't use it.
Now in terms of gear, there's a fucking lot of it. I'm not gonna sit here and type you a BIS list. However in certain slots I want to recommend certain pieces.
Before we get to that though for slots I don't mention, stick to TBC Dungeon Blues/ or Green world drops from legion, etc for a almost all of this. Any tert will be beneficial (speed,leech). If you do get a socket, strength/stam is solid, But really Strength with anything will be good. Now first slot I wanna mention is the Helm, besides a tbc blue helm, there is a horde only helm. Horned Viking Helmet is very good as you charge far a fuck to a target and knock them down for a full 10 seconds. Dmg will break, but this will always force a trink, or a bubble. This is really great for getting off Reanimation's for an even longer stun with a lot of dmg. All around this is a really fucking OP Helm in PvP. Next slot I wanna talk about is a Heirloom/BoA neck. Great stats, plus while you're in instanced PvP the neck heal scales to your level. Next slot is the weapon in my opinion there's really only one choice Crow Wing Reaper the stats on it are alright but the three socket slot really what makes it shine. For wrists, and back WOD dungs are still great as you can easily obtain socketed pieces as long as you have patience. The last slot I wanna talk about is trinkets. Now of course have an Insignia of Horde/Alliance. But the other two options are Enforcer's Stun Grenade, and Armored Elekk Tusk. Both Really great trinkets, both provide a lot of verse, and the on uses are great way to amp your damage. Armored Elekk Tusk is still completely viable if you did not have it proc to epic.
Enchants... There won't be a lot to talk about here as this is intended for FTP, however If you are using a BOA neck I recommend suffering through Legion Enchanting and grabbing Mark of the Hidden Satyr. Can proc a lot off not only Ghoul attacks but also all the dots DK can apply. Cannot go wrong with this enchant. Weapon Enchants we luck out in with Runeforging, DK only ability that allows us to enchant our weapons for free. I would only recommend using Rune of The Fallen Crusader, which when it procs heal for 6% and increase your total strength by 15%. For Rings I'd recommend Word of Haste and Word of Mastery. For bracers id go with Mastery. Cloak Id go with Speed. and chest Id go with super stats which gives +3 stats. Gloves id go with haste which gives +3 haste. For boots Id go with Earthen Vitality, which gives 10% speed and 4 stam.
Gameplay
DK functions off a system that uses Runes to cast some abilities. It's always really important to keep track of your runes so you don't starves yourself. They also use runic power to cast certain abilities, you should never be at 100 runic power. The moment you're capped you're losing damage. Be spamming Death Coil/Death strike in cases of high runic power. DK's should always open with Outbreak, Chains of Ice,(Chains of Ice CANNOT be DISPELLED) Festering Strike for wounds. Then one Scourge strike. Death coil or death strike after. DK has a weird rotation and not a lot of Burst anymore. You're main goal is to be utility/ support to your team. A lot of Peel. Chains the melee's on your healer, grip them off your healer. Sleet them off the healer. Your main goal to either apply pressure on targets through all the above cc's I've mentioned ( don't forget ghoul) or to simply peel for your teammates. DK may be weak in damage but I think for 2's/3's this class can be very impactful.
Other Content you will find useful
The War Within F2P Baseline Guide by @DoByG
Lists of Quests than can proc epic by @Dragpz
The War Within- Change's to Gear, gems, enchants, and pots by @Bakedaflol
Here are some Macro's I find useful.
Normal PvP/PvE
#showtooltip death grip
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] death grip
/cast [nomodifier:shift] death grip
#showtooltip Mind Freeze
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] mind freeze
/cast [nomodifier:shift] mind freeze
#showtooltip chains of ice
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] chains of ice
/cast [nomodifier:shift] chains of ice
#showtooltip Reanimation
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] Reanimation
/cast [nomodifier:shift] Reanimation
#showtooltip Dark Simulacrum
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] Dark Simulacrum
/cast [nomodifier:shift] Dark Simulacrum
Pet Macros
/cast [@pet] Death Coil
For those that didn't know you can heal your pet. Doesn't get used much for PvP. Maybe more for PvE?
/cast [target=focus] Leap
/cast [target=focus] Gnaw
Self-target Macro's
/cast [target=player] Death coil
This is a very important macro, as under the effect of Lichborne you can heal yourself by casting Death Coil.
#showtooltip Sacrificial Pact
/cast Sacrificial Pact
/use Eternal Emberfury Talisman
Really big heal here using both Sacrificial Pact (Talent) and Ember Fury Talisman.
Reanimation Manipulation Video
I hope someone finds this useful! Sorry for any shit grammar, and punctuation.
Shoutout to @Bop for helping me find new talent choices, while dueling on various classes!
Hello everyone I'm hear to deliver a F2P Unholy Guide. Now I'm no wear near the best DK out there, but I think I've played it enough to give a good grasp on the spec. This guide will be broken down into different categories. Race, Talents, Gear, and Gameplay. This guide was written for PvP. I hope someone learns something useful here.
Race
Race doesn't really matter to be honest, some racial's are better than others, of course. However play what you wanna play. I will NOT be including Allied Races within this category. With that being said Horde's best race's are Tauren. The racials are simply very strong, War Stomp being the bread and butter. War Stomp will allow you to AoE CC for 2 seconds. With the Unholy DK already have so much CC (Which we will cover later) can lead to great set ups in fights, often forcing a trinket or bubble. On top of using it offensively, you can also use it defensively. If you or someone on your team is being trained it can provide excellence peel. Besides War Stomp, Endurance, and Brawn also isn't bad. The extra stamina isn't bad if you wanna play around with character stats. Maybe mastery or haste on a certain gem instead of stam. Brawn also giving an extra 2% healing, which will increase healing of Death Strike, Death Coil (under the effects of Lichborne), etc. Orc is probably the second best race for horde. Blood Fury, is an excellent racial for amping one's burst. The increased attack power is really nice and pairs well with other burst trinkets. Hardiness also is wonderful as you will receive a 20% stun reduction. Command giving your pets an exta 1% dmg, was better in recent xpacs when we had Apocalypse which summoned a ghoul for each Festering Wound you would pop ( Max of 4). Giving those 4 ghouls plus the one we could summon all an extra 1% damage. How ever since we no longer have access to Appoc, Command really isn't that important anymore, beside the 1% damage boost from your ghoul. The last race the I will mention for Horde is Panada. Panda isn't bad but Tauren does a better job with War Stomp over Quaking Palm. Quaking Palm isn't bad by any means, a 4 second incap is massive, and can give you an advantage if used right. However I find War stomp to be more impactful in a lot of situations, However I think for Duels, or even some 2's Quaking Palm might be more impactful.
Races for Alliance I think may be better are Human. Human is great as Will to Survive gives you a trinket without using a slot. This is great as it allows you to focus on certain stats (haste, mastery etc.), if you feel you are lacking in any stat, or simply wanna run a certain build. It defiantly is a "higher risk, higher reward " build though, as Will to Survive will only remove stuns. Human's are also blessed with The Human Spirit allowing you to gain 2% more of ALL secondary stats from all sources. This racial alone is a really nice quality of life perk more haste, more crit, more mastery, you really cannot complain. Gnome is truly a top kek race providing Escape Artist . Escape Artist provides the player with escape of any immobilizing effect ( Freezing Trap,) and any other movement speed reduction effect. Making you really hard to kite/catch. Along side this powerful racial is Expansive Mind, this gives you an extra 5 runic power which is really nice, As more runic power, more abilities. The last race I would like to mention is again Panada.
Talents
Talents are pretty simple, and straight forward for the most part.
Festering Strike 1/1. Strike a target dealing % physical dmg and infecting them with 2-3 Festering Wounds. Which leads us into the next talent Scourge Strike 1/1, an attack the deals a % of physical damage and shadow damage, causing one festering wound to pop. Popping a festering wounds leads to dealing shadow damage and generating runic power. The third talent you wanna go will be Raise Dead. This will give you permanent ghoul that will fight by your side. This is huge as a perma ghoul gives you access to Gnaw, which will cause your ghoul to stun a target for 1 second and do damage. Along with Gnaw will be Leap, Leap causes the ghoul to jump on to a target. Pairing a Leap and Gnaw together is deadly as it gives you a quick stun. Its gets better though with the next talent. Dark Transformation 1/1. Dark Transformation will cause your ghoul to be empowered dealing 44.73% of attack power AoE to up to 5 targets, and enhances both Leap and Gnaw. Leap now will cause your ghoul to charge an enemy interrupting spell casting and embolizing them for 2 seconds. While Gnaw will now stun the target for an additional second. The last talent point to discus will be Sudden Doom, which gives you a 25% chance when you auto to make your next death coil cost less runic power, and crit. The proc will also allow a festering wound to burst.
For Death Knight Points, its also very Straight Forward. 99% of the time this is what you will be taking. Talents to mention are Blinding Sleet. Essentially a DK's Dragons Breath. Shoot out ice in a cone shape that slows for 50% and disorientates for 5 seconds, dmg will break the cc. Huge for setting up big damage on targets or forcing the kill. Blinding Sleet can also stop a warrior mid charge. Mind Freeze is absolutely a must have when PVPing, cannot stress how important it is to have a kick that's ranged! Another talent that is very useful is Improved Death Strike. Reduce the cost of Runic power by 10 and increase healing by 60%. Into cleave comps this can be very big, a lot of healing quick. The third talent I wanna discuss is Anti-Magic Barrier, beautiful for playing into heavy hitting casters. I really slept on this choice for a long time. The last talent I want to go over is Cleaving Strikes while your Death and Decay is on the ground your Scourge strike hits 7 additional targets great for cleaving and bursting wounds on multiple targets at once!
PvP Talents, give us two solid choices. Reanimation, which for 1 rune will summon a slow zombie which on impact will deal 10% of the targets max hp as shadow damage and stun them for 3 seconds. The stun of course does DR. Solid talent for setting up, and also AOE stunning if the zombie hits both targets. The Zombie can be manipulated to where it can spawn, causing the zombie to insta spawn on the target in some cases. Ill have a video explaining that linked somewhere in this mess of a guide. The other choice here is Dark Simulacrum, which places a ward on a target allowing you to cast the same spell they just casted. (Poly,fear, frost nova, etc) really awesome ability here with an extremely high skill ceiling to use. If you get a poly/fear out of this it can be absolutely game changing. You can only steal spells that use mana, for example you could not steal a Chaos Bolt, as it uses soul shards. Both choices are very fun to use.
Gear
Before we get into BIS gear. Your stat prio should be str,stam,mast,haste,verse,and crit. Typically, however if you see an opportunity to play and have fun with another build by all means giver the onion. The only thing I wanna mention is to at least keep your haste anywhere from 15-20%, for optimal rune regen. I also wouldn't recommend skipping out on strg attributes on any piece of gear. What I mean by this, is if you get a cloak for example that doesn't give strength but gives a lot of mastery/haste. I wouldn't use it.
Now in terms of gear, there's a fucking lot of it. I'm not gonna sit here and type you a BIS list. However in certain slots I want to recommend certain pieces.
Before we get to that though for slots I don't mention, stick to TBC Dungeon Blues/ or Green world drops from legion, etc for a almost all of this. Any tert will be beneficial (speed,leech). If you do get a socket, strength/stam is solid, But really Strength with anything will be good. Now first slot I wanna mention is the Helm, besides a tbc blue helm, there is a horde only helm. Horned Viking Helmet is very good as you charge far a fuck to a target and knock them down for a full 10 seconds. Dmg will break, but this will always force a trink, or a bubble. This is really great for getting off Reanimation's for an even longer stun with a lot of dmg. All around this is a really fucking OP Helm in PvP. Next slot I wanna talk about is a Heirloom/BoA neck. Great stats, plus while you're in instanced PvP the neck heal scales to your level. Next slot is the weapon in my opinion there's really only one choice Crow Wing Reaper the stats on it are alright but the three socket slot really what makes it shine. For wrists, and back WOD dungs are still great as you can easily obtain socketed pieces as long as you have patience. The last slot I wanna talk about is trinkets. Now of course have an Insignia of Horde/Alliance. But the other two options are Enforcer's Stun Grenade, and Armored Elekk Tusk. Both Really great trinkets, both provide a lot of verse, and the on uses are great way to amp your damage. Armored Elekk Tusk is still completely viable if you did not have it proc to epic.
Enchants... There won't be a lot to talk about here as this is intended for FTP, however If you are using a BOA neck I recommend suffering through Legion Enchanting and grabbing Mark of the Hidden Satyr. Can proc a lot off not only Ghoul attacks but also all the dots DK can apply. Cannot go wrong with this enchant. Weapon Enchants we luck out in with Runeforging, DK only ability that allows us to enchant our weapons for free. I would only recommend using Rune of The Fallen Crusader, which when it procs heal for 6% and increase your total strength by 15%. For Rings I'd recommend Word of Haste and Word of Mastery. For bracers id go with Mastery. Cloak Id go with Speed. and chest Id go with super stats which gives +3 stats. Gloves id go with haste which gives +3 haste. For boots Id go with Earthen Vitality, which gives 10% speed and 4 stam.
Gameplay
DK functions off a system that uses Runes to cast some abilities. It's always really important to keep track of your runes so you don't starves yourself. They also use runic power to cast certain abilities, you should never be at 100 runic power. The moment you're capped you're losing damage. Be spamming Death Coil/Death strike in cases of high runic power. DK's should always open with Outbreak, Chains of Ice,(Chains of Ice CANNOT be DISPELLED) Festering Strike for wounds. Then one Scourge strike. Death coil or death strike after. DK has a weird rotation and not a lot of Burst anymore. You're main goal is to be utility/ support to your team. A lot of Peel. Chains the melee's on your healer, grip them off your healer. Sleet them off the healer. Your main goal to either apply pressure on targets through all the above cc's I've mentioned ( don't forget ghoul) or to simply peel for your teammates. DK may be weak in damage but I think for 2's/3's this class can be very impactful.
Other Content you will find useful
The War Within F2P Baseline Guide by @DoByG
Lists of Quests than can proc epic by @Dragpz
The War Within- Change's to Gear, gems, enchants, and pots by @Bakedaflol
Here are some Macro's I find useful.
Normal PvP/PvE
#showtooltip death grip
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] death grip
/cast [nomodifier:shift] death grip
#showtooltip Mind Freeze
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] mind freeze
/cast [nomodifier:shift] mind freeze
#showtooltip chains of ice
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] chains of ice
/cast [nomodifier:shift] chains of ice
#showtooltip Reanimation
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] Reanimation
/cast [nomodifier:shift] Reanimation
#showtooltip Dark Simulacrum
/cast [modifier:shift, target=focus] Dark Simulacrum
/cast [nomodifier:shift] Dark Simulacrum
Pet Macros
/cast [@pet] Death Coil
For those that didn't know you can heal your pet. Doesn't get used much for PvP. Maybe more for PvE?
/cast [target=focus] Leap
/cast [target=focus] Gnaw
Self-target Macro's
/cast [target=player] Death coil
This is a very important macro, as under the effect of Lichborne you can heal yourself by casting Death Coil.
#showtooltip Sacrificial Pact
/cast Sacrificial Pact
/use Eternal Emberfury Talisman
Really big heal here using both Sacrificial Pact (Talent) and Ember Fury Talisman.
Reanimation Manipulation Video
I hope someone finds this useful! Sorry for any shit grammar, and punctuation.
Shoutout to @Bop for helping me find new talent choices, while dueling on various classes!
Last edited:
