PvP Unholy Death Knight Best Professions

wotlk pvp unholy death knight best professions
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PvP Unholy Death Knight

Talents & Builds

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

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Stat Priority

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Best Races

Gems, Enchants, & Consumables

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

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Rotation & Cooldowns

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Best Professions

Gear & Best In Slot (bis)

Best in Slot (BiS) Gear

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Best Arena Comps

Professions are a crucial part of your World of Warcraft character, with a potential to give you a large boost to your damage, healing, or survivability, while also allowing you to generate some gold.

This section will cover some of your best options for professions as an Unholy Death Knight.

Best Professions

Like with most other classes & specs in the game, Engineering will be your strongest profession. For the second profession slot, we recommend Jewelcrafting.

There is no surprise that Engineering is the best profession when it comes to PvP when you think about all the cool gadgets that you gain access to.

Engineering gives you a multitude of powerful accessories, ranging from enhancing effects such as Hyperspeed Accelerators to offensive gadgets such as Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and even cool escape and maneuverability gadgets!

The standard most powerful PvP offensive tool for an Unholy Death Knight is Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket, however, you can choose to use Hyperspeed Accelerators instead. It all depends on your preferred playstyle and build, with Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket being better for burst builds while Hyperspeed Accelerators excel more in long-lasting fights.

Additionally, as an Engineer you have access to the Nitro Boosts boots enchant, passively giving +24 crit rating and coming with the on-use effect which massively increases your speed for 5 seconds, allowing you to chase your targets or create a powerful makeshift escape. Keep in mind that Nitro Boosts are not accessible in arenas!

Finally, just like in previous expansions, Engineers can use powerful explosives such as Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charges, which can be used to improve your burst!

Jewelcrafting is an extremely potent profession for most classes / specs, and that includes the Unholy Death Knight. Not only do you gain access to powerful, Jewelcrafter-unique gems, but you also get to sell gems to others, granting you a steady income, depending on your server’s economy.

The main benefit of Jewelcrafting is the Jewelcrafter-unique gems, Dragon’s Eye, which are more powerful than regular gems, but are limited to 3 equipped at a time. The main ones you’ll be crafting as a Death Knight are Bold Dragon’s Eye and Fractured Dragon’s Eye, resulting in +42 strength or +42 armor penetration rating compared to using regular epic gems.

As stats are one of the most important criteria in PvP, Jewelcrafting proves itself to be the best profession for raw stats.

Useful Professions

The following professions are considered viable, but offer a lesser benefit compared to the best professions, so they’re not recommended. If you’re not focused on making your character 100% optimal, you can use any of these professions just fine.

Blacksmiths can add 2 extra gem sockets to their gear — 1 on wrists, and 1 on hands. Socketing 2x Bold Cardinal Ruby or 2x Fractured Cardinal Ruby into them translates into a +40 strength or +40 armor penetration rating bonus.

Moreover, Blacksmithing allows you to craft some neat gear for yourself, which is especially useful early on in the expansion or when your character is freshly dinged level 80. You will gain access to some powerful early gear for PvP, however, it will become obsolete once the expansion progresses into the next phase and the new arena season starts.

Blacksmithing also gives you access to crafting trading good materials such as different types of rods for Enchanters or even tools such as keys that can be used to open lockboxes, chests, and doors.

Apart from raw stats bonuses and some early crafted gear, Blacksmithing does not give you any special PvP advantage!

As a Tailor, you gain access to the Swordguard Embroidery cloak enchant, a proc which gives you +400 attack power for 15 seconds with a 45 second internal cooldown. This translates into a possible +133 attack power bonus on average if it procs exactly every 45 seconds, or a +100 attack power bonus on average if it procs every 60 seconds, which is absolutely massive.

Apart from Swordguard Embroidery, Tailoring does not provide you with any real bonus when it comes to PvP, being an overall mediocre profession for a Death Knight. The gear you craft will not bring you any benefit, however, depending on your realm’s economy, it might provide you with hefty amounts of gold.

As an Alchemist, you gain access to the Mixology passive effect, which increases the effectiveness of flasks and elixirs you consume, but only if you can craft them yourself. This results in a +64 attack power increase when using Flask of Endless Rage, our preferred flask. This is sadly a smaller boost than what other professions can offer, but not by much.

For PvP, Alchemy can be extremely useful, having access to a large number of potions with varying effects that can give you an instant edge in combat.

Alchemy can be considered the best profession when it comes to gold generation, especially when you think about how many flasks, elixirs, and potions are in constant demand. Alchemists, just like in TBC, can acquire a sub-specialization, allowing them even more possibilities to acquire more gold.

As an Enchanter you gain access to the Enchant Ring – Assault enchant, which you can apply to both of your rings for a modest +80 attack power. This bonus ties Inscription and Leatherworking, but is strictly speaking worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

Apart from the special bonus that it provides, Enchanting can be considered one of the most useful professions, along with Alchemy, providing you with plenty of opportunities to generate materials that you can either sell in the auction house or trade your services to other players in the form of direct interaction or scrolls that you can create and place on the auction house.

As a Leatherworker you gain access to the Fur Lining – Attack Power bracer enchant, which proves a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Enchant Bracers – Greater Assault. This bonus ties Inscription and Enchanting, but is strictly speaking worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

There are, sadly, no other useful benefits gained from Leatherworking, apart from the crafting aspect of the profession, which will generate you medium amounts of gold, depending on your server economy.

As a Scribe, you gain access to the Master’s Inscription of the Axe shoulder enchant, which provides a +80 attack power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, the Inscription of Triumph. This bonus ties Enchanting and Leatherworking, but is, strictly speaking, worse than the +40 strength bonus that Blacksmithing offers.

Scribes also get to make Glyphs & scrolls, providing a nice source of income, but many will argue that the real benefit in Inscription comes in not having to grind The Sons of Hodir reputation for the shoulder enchants!

Sub-Par Professions

The following professions do not offer any DPS-increasing benefits and are thus not considered viable for Unholy Death Knights in PvP.

Herbalists gain the Lifeblood active skill, which heals you for 3600 over 5 seconds, with a 3-minute cooldown. This can occasionally come in handy, however, you already have many self-sustain tools in your kit which are stronger than Lifeblood.

On the flip side, Herbalism is one of the strongest professions for gold generation, as herbs are used in Alchemy and Inscription, and thus always in demand. This makes it a good profession to have on an alt, particularly a Druid!

Miners gain access to the Toughness passive, which offers a +60 stamina boost. The raw stamina buff can possibly help you with survivability, however, raw strength or armor penetration proves itself to be more powerful than stamina stacking.

On the other hand, Mining is an extremely good gold-generating profession, as you can either sell the materials at the Auction House or trade them to crafters!

Skinners gain access to the Master of Anatomy passive, which offers a +40 crit rating boost. This is weaker than all of the other professions mentioned in this list, but at least it’s something.

Skinning is generally not that good at gold generation either, so it’s overall not a great profession.

 

About the Author

Nevermore

Hey there folks, I am Nevermore and have been deeply passionate about WoW for more than a decade. Whether we talk about the hidden mysteries of Azeroth or the otherworldly Outland, my journey brought me here to share the things that I have experienced with you all.
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Jimdaggert
Jimdaggert
2 years ago

Nitro boosts will not be usable in arenas.

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Nevermore
Nevermore
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Reply to  Jimdaggert
2 years ago

Yes, they are not. I have mentioned this in the last part of the Engineering Section.

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gentledave
gentledave
2 years ago

Hello, do you know if Hyperspeed Accelerator will be available to use in arenas? If so, do you think this is a must for any unholy dk?

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Nevermore
Nevermore
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Reply to  gentledave
2 years ago

You should be able to use Hyperspeed Accelerators without any issues in the arenas! I do not believe that they will be a must-have but they sure are powerful.

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Profane
Profane
2 years ago

Regarding the Gem-Section: I was always under the impression that Spell pen is better than armor pen as a unholy DK (at least in wotlk, i never played any other expansions)
My playstile is kite and coil tho, so i might have a bias bc of that.

Thoughts?

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Nevermore
Nevermore
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Reply to  Profane
2 years ago

Spell Penetration is a must even, no matter what type of play style you have! In the context that you have presented, your question is actually very good! If you do not plan on ever getting close to your target and 90-95% of your damage comes from your pets, diseases, and Death Coil, you could say that Armor Penetration is entirely useless for you. As long as you play as a ranged class instead of a melee/ranged hybrid, you will never deal physical damage. Thus, Armor Penetration becomes irrelevant.

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