[Death Knight] Unholy 3.3 dps Guide.

[ChildeRoland]

Long time since I used the forums actively, and I think I'll restart a little now. I just found out it hasn't been a death knight dps guide here since 3.1, so that's what I'll create here.

ChildeRoland
Presents: Unholy DPS Death Knight Guide for 3.3.

Table of content:

1. Abbrevations
2. Talents
3. Gear and stats
4. Gems
5. Enchants
6. Rotations
7. Consumables

Abbrevations
PS: Plague Strike
IT: Icy Touch
SS: Scourge Strike
DC: Death Coil
HoW: Horn of Winter
BS: Blood Strike
DG: Death Grip
ArP: Armor Penetration
AP: Attack Power
DnD or D&D: Death and Decay
BB: Blood Boil

Talents & Glyphs:
This guide will only cover the current best dps spec for a deathknight, Unholy.

The most used spec for single target is: Unholy without Reaping.
With Reaping: With Reaping.

If you are one of those that don't have a tanking gear, <Link> is the best AoE spec.

UPDATE 17.04.2010
Should have said this a whiel ago, but been away. A new spec has also become viable, since 3.3.3 you can pick Frost subspec. one variety of this is this one that I use: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft. Keep in mind that the talents: Necrosis, Reaping and Dirge are optionable, in how many points you spend on each.
Do also remember that to use frost sub-spec you should have very good gear, and having a proc-weapon, like Bryntroll the dps is increased further.


Gear and Stats
You must have the 8% hitcap, and it's always good with a little expertise as well. You get 5 exp of your talents, which is a nice boost. Your pet also gets hit out of your own, so having hitcap will also increase your pet's dps, hence your own. You should also turn off your pets autocast on Gnaw in pve, as that is just a energy consumer, and do deal a really low amount of damage.
Tho unholy death knigths gets most of they're damage through diseases, and the talent Impurity increases spell damage, you are not under any circumstances supposed to get gear that gives any spellpower.
Your spells recieve bonus power through your attack power, so you should only get strength.
Items with agility+AP are also not good, as you recieve more bonuses from strength. This means that the iLevel 226 neck Insurmount Fervor from ulduar is way better than the iLevel 245 neck from Head of Onyxia.

Strength: The way to go. Stack as much strength as possible.
Agility: Do not get agility more than nessecary. It is not a good stat for a DK.
Stamina: Stamina comes with gear.
Intellect: Do not under any circumstances get any intellect, except for maybe a Nghtmare Tear.
Spirit: Same as intellect.
AP: Strength is prefereable, but if you get a agi item this is what you are looking for.
Hit: Not less than 8%, and as little as possible above. 7% if you have a draenei in your raid.
Expertise: 6.5% is the cap. A valuable stat, but very few people think it worth to gem/enchant for it.
Crit: This is a good stat for all classes.
Haste: This is a ok stat, but nothing to gem for.
ArP: This was bad before, but with the new Scourge Strike it's a valuable stat. This means Grim Toll or the new trinket from FoS are good.

Gems
Red: Strength. If you have a red gem, you should gem with a Bold cardinal Ruby or if you can't afford it a Bold Scarlet Ruby.
Blue: Nightmare Tear. Unless the socket bonus gives 8 strength, you should still gem red.
Orange: Here can can put 10str 10 crit, or a 20 strength.
All others: Same as red.

Enchants
I'll just give you the top enchants on each piece here..
Head: 50 AP 20 Crit (Ebon Blade)
Shoulders: 40 AP 15 Crit (Sons of Hodir) or 120 AP 15 Crit if you'r a scribe.
Cloak: 23 haste, or 22 agi. Haste is slightly better.
Chest: 10 stats.
Bracers: 50 AP
Weapon: Rune of the Fallen Crusader
Gloves: 44 AP
Legs: 75 AP 22 crit
Boots: 32 AP or Icewalker if you aren't hitcapped.

Rotations
Single Target:

PS, IT, BS, SS, BS, HoW, DC,
SS, SS, DC, DC, BS, BS

AoE:

D&D, PS, IT, Pestilence, HoW, DC,
BS, BB, SS, SS, DC, DC

Single Target with Reaping:

PS, IT, BS, BS, SS, HoW, DC
SS, SS, SS, DC, DC

Consumables
Food:

Dragonfin Filet is optimal (40 str 40 stam)
Fish Feast is good enough for raiding.

Pet food:

Spiced Mammoth Treats

Updates
[spoiler]

• 17.04.2010 - Added Frost subspec to the Talents page.

[/spoiler]

If you find any errors or want anything else added, feel free to PM me or post a reply. Also please tell me if you want a breakdown of all the talents.

[Warriar]

Nice guide, I prefer blood over unholy though

[smusen]

Nice guide, I prefer blood over unholy though

Try playing unholy... i was playing blood too in 3.2 but my gm told me i had to play unholy it will boost my dps alot, and it did. Just keep your blood spec as i do, use both. At last you will only be using the unholy

[ChildeRoland]

I will improve the guide if I see flaws or can think about things I didn't remember when I wrote it, but gonna take a good nights sleep now, so won't edit anything today.

[smusen]

Decent guide if you ask me, looks like alot the one ensidia has made :]
maybe you should add something about meta gems too

[crzyballr]

Bro this is basically the lazy version of the one from EJ.

[Vixxi]

Blood is better for single target. No one does dps meters for trash because mage always beats everyone.

[Slint]

No one does dps meters for trash because mage always beats everyone.

1) Trash killing takes up more raid time than a boss kill, so ignoring trash DPS meters (for whatever reason) is foolish.

2) Mages are not always top on trash at all

Quit farming Naxx, novice

*edit*
@OP
Nice copy/paste/edit of other sources

[Heftydogg]

Actually currently Unholy does more DPS on single target than Blood does...

And this guide is mostly common knowledge. Anyone that wanted to learn about Unholy in-depth would just use this 100% thorough guide on Elitist Jerks:

Unholy Dps | 3.3, When You Say Nothing At All - Elitist Jerks

[ChildeRoland]

I haven't read the EJ guide, and I have not copied anything. I know that not everyone knows about EJ and other forums, and I made my own guide, not CnP'd from any other sources.

[raitaki]

AoE:
D&D, PS, IT, Pestilence, HoW, DC,
BS, BB, SS, SS, DC, DC

i was under the impression that you wanted to DnD after PS,IT, Pest. something to do with the bonus damage multiplier if they were pre-diseased.
edit: here it is "it loses a lot of damage if your diseases aren’t on the target (15% from Rage of Rivendare, 13% from Ebon Plague, so on)"

[sOuLii]

oh guys cmon... you could go over to elitistjerks and read exactly the same stuff but with more indeepth info.
this just is a bad try to get some rep. seriously

[ChildeRoland]

@ SOuLii - I don't really care for rep, and if you'd care to read any of my replies here you would have seen that it isn't everyone that knows about the EJ forums.... Myself didn't go there untill looooooooooong after I created a MMOwned acc, and I've never used the EJ forums a lot... Also I do not really care for rep. I don't even know what's the difference between contributors and members except for the bøe name anymore, because it's such a long time since I've been here..
@ Raitaki - It depends on the spec. If you throw out DnD from range and before spreading diseases it will tick 4-5 times before pestilence is applied, and allows you to wait for the cooldown for the next DnD. But you have a point. Untill recently I've had specced 15 sec -CD on DnD for the DC dmg and was able to spam DnD to a much bigger degree, but I haven't been in ICC with the new spec yet, and I'll see what's the best choice.

[jpoplive]

AoE:
D&D, PS, IT, Pestilence, HoW, DC,
BS, BB, SS, SS, DC, DC

i was under the impression that you wanted to DnD after PS,IT, Pest. something to do with the bonus damage multiplier if they were pre-diseased.
edit: here it is "it loses a lot of damage if your diseases aren’t on the target (15% from Rage of Rivendare, 13% from Ebon Plague, so on)"

You want to cast you IT and PS before you cast DnD.

Quote form Elitistjerks.com:

"One common mistake players make is to Death and Decay before spreading their diseases. Doing so is a bad move (from a dps point of view. Tanking is another matter). Although it might seem like a dps gain to use Death and Decay initially so it is off cooldown sooner, it loses a lot of damage if your diseases aren’t on the target (15% from Rage of Rivendare, 13% from Ebon Plague, so on). As well, spreading your diseases sooner means more raid dps thanks to Ebon Plague."

[jpoplive]

@ Raitaki - It depends on the spec. If you throw out DnD from range and before spreading diseases it will tick 4-5 times before pestilence is applied, and allows you to wait for the cooldown for the next DnD. But you have a point. Untill recently I've had specced 15 sec -CD on DnD for the DC dmg and was able to spam DnD to a much bigger degree, but I haven't been in ICC with the new spec yet, and I'll see what's the best choice.

The rotation I use for AoE is : 'IT – PS – Pestilence – DnD – DC – HoW', then I start 'SS – BS – BB – SS – DC – DCSS – Pestilence – DnD – DC – HoW'. If you have the 2 point in Morbidity you should alway have DnD ready when you get to it in the rotation. So you will not ever get a gain in DPS by casting DnD before having you diseases are out.