Death Knights
Unholy Rotation
Single Target
In order to be able to play effectively as an unholy Death Knight you have to become comfortable with priority based ability use, rather than static rotations.
Diseases > Dark Transformation > Scourge Strike when both Unholy or all Death runes are available > Festering Strike when both Blood and Frost runes are available > Death Coil when Sudden Doom or 100 Runic Power or if using any other ability will exceed 100 Runic Power or when Runic Corruption is not active > Scourge Strike > Festering Strike > Death Coil > Horn of Winter
At first glance this will look more than just a little overwhelming. However, there is actually not that much to it as you will normally only be taking one decision at a time.
The highest priority at all times is keeping up your diseases as not only does it cause a very decent amount of damage, it also boosts many of your abilities. It is now pretty easy to keep up diseases. You will never need to Icy Touch nor Plague Strike to do it however. Rather, you will be relying on Outbreak to do it. This will put up your diseases for 33 seconds. Though the cooldown on Outbreak is 60 seconds, it will not be a problem as Festering Strike will extend your diseases enough to keep you covered for the full cooldown of Outbreak.
After keeping up your diseases, you'll need to focus on your ghoul with Dark Transformation. You need to maximize the time Dark Transformation is active as it contributes a very large amount of damage that you do via your ghoul. As soon as you can Dark Transformation, you do it immediately (as long as your diseases are up).
When you are sitting on a resource that is maxed out, that is to say that both runes of one type are full and available, you are throwing away valuable amounts of that finite resource that could otherwise be recharging, which is why you never want to have any of the maxed out. If both Unholy runes are available (or about to be available) then Scourge Strike; if all Blood and Frost runes are available you need to Festering Strike so you are not wasting a rune that could otherwise be recharging.
If your diseases are fine and you don't need to/can't Dark Transformation and your runes aren't maxed out, you will need to check that you are not wasting anything associated with Death Coil. If there is a Sudden Doom proc up, you need to use it straight away (if it procs again while a Sudden Doom is already up, it will overwrite the one that is already up which results in you losing it), if your Runic Power is full or nearly full then you need to burn some of it off with a Death Coil; if Runic Corruption is not up you should Death Coil.
After that it is really rather simple. You simply run through your abilities in the following order, using any ability which is able to be used: Scourge Strike then Festering Strike then Death Coil then Horn of Winter.
An easy way to look at your priority system is to break it in to two halves with Death Coil (Sudden Doom etc) in the middle. The first half is simply checking that diseases are up, check if you can do Dark Transformation and check that none of your runes are sitting on full. Then check if you need to Death Coil straight away; if not, then you just look through your abilities to see what you are able to use.
The rate at which you use abilities per minute is very high as Unholy. It will be impossible to keep up with it with the global cooldown, so Unholy Presence is what you will need to be in for the entire time.
Multiple Target
The AoE rotation isn't that hard either once you have practiced it a little:
Diseases > Dark Transformation > Death and Decay > Scourge Strike if both Unholy runes are available > Blood Boil & Icy Touch if both all Blood and Frost runes are available > Death Coil when Sudden Doom or 100 Runic Power or if using any other ability will exceed 100 Runic Power or when Runic Corruption is not active > Scourge Strike > Blood Boil & Icy Touch > Death Coil > Horn of Winter
First up are your diseases. Don't forget that since this is AoE, this part of your rotation will include both Outbreak as well as Pestilence.
Dark Transformation is your next priority, mainly due to your ghoul gaining a cleave, which makes him a damage dealing machine on multiple mob fights.
Death and Decay is up next. After Death and Decay you will want to Blood Boil. The problem you will encounter at this point is one left over Frost rune. The solution to this is to cast Icy Touch rather than letting it sit unused. In terms of runes, Blood Boil + Icy Touch = Festering Strike. The general rule is to follow is that if there are three or more targets, then you go for Blood Boil + Icy Touch. If there are only two, stick to Festering Strike (Death and Decay is still effective on only two targets, thus preserving the rest of the rotation).
When it is time to AoE and you are in the AoE priority system, make sure your jump in to Frost Presence.
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