Blood and Unholy DPS

[Lockon]

Updated December 14th, 2008

This guide is just to inform people how to maximize their dps with either of these two trees (from my experience and EJ forums).
Feel free to post or ask any questions.

Death Knight Runes / Runic Power

I tend to use Runes > Runic Power when both are availible. I look at the balance between runes and runic power like this. Runes are a DK's
hardest hitting attacks/skills so use them as much as possible but when all your runes are on cooldown then its time to spend runic power.

Important Death Knight Stats

The general rule of gemming for DKs are:

Hit (to cap 8%) > Expertise (to cap 25 skill) > Strength > 2 Attack Power > Crit > Agility > Haste > Armor Penetration

Blood Tree

Talents: 51/13/7
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMqh0IsbRxzAoG0x0hZfM

Rotation:
PS -> IT -> HS -> HS -> OB -> Runic Power Dump (DRW/DC/HOW)
OB -> HS -> HS -> HS -> HS -> Runic Power Dump (DRW/DC/HOW)

PS = Plaguestrike
IT = Icy Touch
HS = Heartstrike
OB = Obliterate
DRW = Dancing Rune Weapon
DC = Death Coil
HOW = Horn of Winter (only if you dont have a Shaman)

Unholy Tree

Talents: 17/0/54
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfVMVZZfMbhxckgcoMfsut

Rotation:
IT -> PS -> BS -> BS -> SS -> UB
SS -> SS -> SS -> DC -> DC (or Gargoyle/HoW)

SS = Scourge Strike
UB = Unholy Blight
HOW = Horn of Winter (only if you dont have a Shaman)

with Glyph of Scourge Strike Proc (x infinite as long as diseases are still proc'd)
SS -> SS -> SS ->Runic Power Dump (UB/DC/Gargoyle)
SS -> BS -> BS -> Runic Power Dump (UB/DC/Gargoyle)

Glyphs
Glyph of Scourge Strike has recently been considered the largest DPS upgrade out of all the glyphs for Unholy.
It gives SS a 25% chance to refresh all diseases on your target. This can eliminate the need to reapply diseases
and into a high dps rotation known as "SSx5 BSx2".

Glyph of Bone Shield gives you an extra charge of Bone Sheld which makes it last longer. This is pretty good because
it keep your 2% bonus damage up longer.

Glyph of Ghoul is a descent choice and some I have seen use Glyph of Icy Touch. I prefer Ghoul only because
I havent used Icy Touch yet.

Summon Gargoyle
I made the mistake of thinking that Summon Gargoyle was like Dancing Rune Weapon in the sense that you cast it at 100 Runic Power
and it will stay for its maximum duration. However this is not the cast, you still want to summon a Gargoyle at 100 Runic Power but after
it will DRAIN 8 RP per second. Therefore use your Runic Power sparingly when your Gargoyle is up. Usually I will cast Blood Tap and
Empowered Rune Weapon to boost my runic power enough to land a couple UB's with my Gargoyle.

Mods:
I strongly recommend DeathKnight.Info Runes(DKI) which is an easy rune tracker mod
and any other disease tracking mod (Quartz works for me).

DPS Spreadsheet
http://www.magegraf.com/deathknight/...4918ba5ecbf69c

It loads your armory and you change buffs/talents/etc to match your own and calculate your dps with any piece of you like.
Great for figuring out what pieces of gear increase your maximum dps.

[Epix]

Has anyone tried the DW frost/unholy build? im thinking of switchingto it now that i have an angry dead and hatestrike.

[♦ Euller]

I used this DW spec for pve and it worked well. I think this tri spec has a lot of advantages over the unholy/frost spec. But here's both Dw specs I found useful.

Tri spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfV0VZG0ex0xdRhoZfMhhxck
frost/unholy
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZG0e...ZfMhIxckt0oMco