Since Shadow of death have a 15minute cooldown, you'll want to inflict as much pain after you die and become a ghoul. This trick will let you do an additional 2-6k damage after you explode, using latency as your friend.
Here's how you do the trick:
1) Die and become a ghoul
2) (optional) Leap that bastard that killed you
3) (optional) Gnaw (3 second stun)
4) Cast explode
5) Make sure you are facing your target and spam Claw (instant attack) (You hit target with a sometimes dodgy white damage, and a yellow damage)
6) ????
7) Profit!
After you explode you will do massive extra damage to your target, my highest so far is ~10k (4k explode, 2.7k white crit, 3kish claw crit).
So 10k is basically enough to finish your foe, but i left out the part where you still have time to engage as a ghoul normally for a few seconds as a ghoul, add another 4-8k to that. Enjoy your new finishing move!