Death Knight - Unholy DPS

Purpose

Unholy Death Knights excel at dealing damage via magic, thus ignoring armor, and are the strongest AoE Death Knights. They provide a buff to magic damage for the raid.

Talents

Scourge Strike∞ - Your primary double-rune ability
Epidemic∞ - Makes your diseases last longer
Unholy Blight∞ - Primary AoE runic power dump
Summon Gargoyle∞ - Primary single-target runic power dump
Master of Ghouls∞ - Allow your raised ghoul to count as a pet

Spec:

12/0/59∞

0/10/61∞ is also strong with good gear, but loses the threat reduction from Subversion.

A note on talents: avoid the talent Dark Conviction in the Blood tree. It looks appealing, but the crit gives less DPS than the points in Unholy in the example spec (such as Necrosis, Blood-Caked Blade, and Morbidity). Improved Unholy Presence is also recommended for the run speed, though you should dps in Blood Presence.

Master of Ghouls

Master of Ghouls is one of the common draws to the unholy tree for DPS. The pet is fully controllable, and contributes a good amount of DPS and some utility.

Ghoul Frenzy should be used to heal your pet if its health starts to get low. If it dies, it will lose its raid buffs and hurt your dps even if you immediately summon a new one.

Ability Rotation

Single target:
With this rotation, your main goal is to maximize the number of times you use Scourge Strike (SS) while all of your diseases are up. Start the fight with Icy Touch (IT) and Plague Strike (PS) to get diseases going.

SS1->Blood Strike (BS)->BS->SS2
SS3->SS4->SS5

If you have the Scourge Strike Glyph, hopefully one of the SS's will refresh your diseases. If not, throw in a PS and IT in place of one of the SS's just after your diseases wear off.

You put another SS in place of the two BS's in the second half of the rotation because the talent Reaping∞causes the blood runes to refresh as death runes, which can stand in for any type of rune.

Use your runic power when your runes are on cooldown or you are about to max out on RP. Put up Unholy Blight if it is not already up. If it is up, use Death Coil. The exception to this is when you have the gargoyle active (he is very good at single target dps, and should be used for his full duration on all bosses).

AoE:
PS->IT->Pestilence->Death & Decay->Unholy Blight

Use of Blood Tap
Blood Tap will refresh a Blood Rune as a Death Rune once every 30 seconds. Use it right after you've used both Blood Runes. Use it to refresh Bone Shield. If Bone Shield still has 3 or more charges, use the Death Rune on Ghoul Frenzy instead.

Key Cooldowns

Gargoyle (3 mins): With the gargoyle up, you have to be very careful to keep your RP full or near full at all times. At first, don't use any other runic power abilities while the gargoyle is up. Once you get more adept at the class, you can experiment with keeping Unholy Blight up in tandem with the gargoyle.

Bone Shield∞ (2 mins): Keep this up at all times if possible, as it gives you 2% extra dps and a ton of survivability.

Empower Rune Weapon∞ (5 mins): Use early and often, at a point when all runes are on cooldown and you have less than 50 RP. It's also a good tool to help you keep the gargoyle up if you RP gets a little low.

Stats (In Order of Importance)

1. Strength
2. Hit rating (aim for 8%, then start favoring AP and crit instead)
3. Expertise rating (stop at 6.5%)
4. Attack Power (2 points of Attack Power is comparable to 1 point of another stat)
5. Critical Strike rating
6. Haste rating
<--[Hit rating drops to here once you pass 8% hit]
7. Agility
8. Armor Penetration rating

Recommended Glyphs

Glyph of Scourge Strike∞
Glyph of the Ghoul∞
Glyph of Dark Death∞

Recommended Enchants

Helm: Ebon Blade reputation
Shoulders: Sons of Hodir Reputation: "of the Axe"
Cape: 23 Haste rating
Chest: +10 or +8 to all stats
Bracers: +40 Attack Power
Gloves: Crusher (Attack Power)
Belt: Belt Buckle with a Strength gem
Pants: Icescale (or Nerubian Leg) Armor
Boots: Icewalker
Weapon: Rune of the Fallen Crusader

Recommended Consumables

Flask of Endless Rage
Dragonfin Fillet (+40 Strength and Stamina)

Additional Tips

It is currently believed that the 4-piece Tier 7 bonus (+10 RP to Scourge Strike) is so good that 4-piece tier 7.25 is still best-in-slot, even over full tier 8.25. Hold on to your Valorous Scourgeborne set!