Death Knight Unholy PvP Guide Created by Heartless

Death Knight Unholy PvP Guide (This guide has been updating up to 4.2)

This guide is for Death Knight's looking for help on PvPing as Unholy. This guide was created by Heartless of the Death Knight forums on WoW's official website. All credit goes to him or her. If you would like to see the original post and most up to date post for this guide please follow this link.

Content Current to 4.2

Corrections & Updates
If you find any inaccurate, incomplete or omitted material, I would very much appreciate a polite reply so that I can make the necessary corrections. It's entirely possible for me to mistype or forget to include something. It would never be my intention to knowingly confuse or misinform people. I appreciate suggestions and hope this can be a springboard for better play, comprehension, and discusssion.

I will make updates and additions as is feasible and desired. If changes in between a patch affects the core material, I will make the necessary updates. Otherwise, I believe patch-to-patch should be sufficient.

Special Thanks
The information in this guide is gathered from a multitude of sources: personal experience (both the good & laughable), posts on the WoW forums, discussion at EJ, information from Simulation Craft, Kahorie's DK Simulator, Wikis, and other community sites. I have cited these helpful sources where specifics are lended.

Out of all the game and wide web, I would first like to thank Consider for his sagely and invaluable contribution in educating us all. Without his guides and blog I would have gone down dark and dangerous alleys or have been death gripped into a suspicious looking ice cream truck. He kept us on the path to good DPS and made me personally appreciate the value of research, testing, and thinking about this game critically.

Thanks to Verelyse for inspiration on making organized multi-posts. No other guide on the WoW forums uses her format, and it is easily the cleanest and most professional I've seen. Also, being a rogue, she pulled a quarter out of my ear which was very cool. I am, however, now missing my wallet.

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C O N T E N T S
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I. Introduction
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140270241?page=1#2

II. Talents
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140270241?page=1#3

Spec
Glyphs

III. Priority/Play
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140270241?page=1#5

Presence
Runeforge
Priority
- Single Target
- Aoe Targets
Ghoul
Survival
Interrupts
Buffs

IV. Gear Optimization
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140270241?page=1#8

Stat Priorities
Reforging
Gems
Enchants
BiS

V. Mods
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140270241?page=1#10

VI. Macros
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140270241?page=1#11

VII. Resources
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140270241?page=1#12

[Change Log]
3/1/2011 - Created
3/26/2011 - Added BiS, gems, and enchants tables
4/8/2011 - Added new macro
4/26/2011 - Updated for 4.1.0
4/29/2011 - Updated BiS lists for 4.1.0
6/23/2011 - Updated for 4.2.0
7/6/2011 - Updated BiS

Click Here

S p e c
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This build grabs all the key damage abilities to make you, your trusted 2H, and Timmy the Ghoul a force of (un)nature. You will have 1 point to spend in a pre-requisite talent early on and 3 points to spend at the build’s completion as you wish. Your final choices can have some marginal bearing on your DPS.

Your first choice comes at the cusp of tier 3 in Unholy to fulfill the base point requirement:

Unholy Command
Unholy Command can be useful if you frequently use Death Grip to reel-in mobs or want a pre-requisite talent that does not impose a snare. Unless you are speccing for add control, this talent would carry the most recommendation.
Desecration
Desecration is an AoE snare applied via Plague Strikes, Scourge Strikes and Necrotic Strikes to non-immune targets. Several encounters benefit from slowing effects and having a snare in melee can be a boon to keep the mobs localized. The downside of Desecration is that it can be a deterrant where mobility is required. There is no 'off' button for Desecrate so it can cause control issues where adds must be relocated quickly.
Resilient Infection
If there were bosses that dispelled themselves, this might actually be worthwhile in PvE. Pass.

From here, continue assigning the suggested points in the Unholy tree. 1/3 Magic Suppression is the bare minimum allocation (as suggested by the 32 point investment in the tree). 2/3 points is highly recommended for the purposes of survivability and as a DPS boost from added RP generation. If you want to max the effect or spec into Anti-Magic Zone for your party/raid, you can certainly return to this talent in a moment.

After the necessities in Unholy are taken care of, assign the 5 points as suggested in Blood talents.
Now we come to the final 3 points. These last talent points can be spent at your discretion amongst the following abilities:

Blood Options

Improved Blood Tap
Extra runes equal more DPS. The caveat associated with IBT is whether it will be available when you both need the runes and have the GCD to make use of them. Talents reduce its cooldown by 15s/point.
Scent of Blood
Boss AoE’s rarely qualify for Scent of Blood so this talent is lackluster if not masochistic.
Blade Barrier
If you really want to enhance the frugality of your healer, you can pick this talent up for some added damage reduction, but our standard cooldowns are sufficient.
Scarlet Fever
This provides an amazing debuff but it’s one that should already be supplied by your tanks. Also note that Scarlet Fever does not apply a disease that would synergize with Scourge Strike.
Hand of Doom
This talent reduces the cooldown of Strangulate to 1 min. This is more provisional for PvP but providing more reliable cast control, and a ranged one at that, can allow for the occasional 'clinch' interrupt.

Frost Options

Runic Power Mastery
Since Runic Corruption procs no longer override each other (they stack 3 second extensions to the buff) we can Death Coil without fear of wasting rune regeneration. RPM will allow you to collect more total RP and successively Death Coil to reach Dark Transformation faster. 1/3 Runic Power Mastery is definitely recommended and all that’s required. More investment in this talent provides diminished benefits. Your gains and expenditures of RP (besides sudden AMS pops) will have you below 100 for a majority of the time anyway.

Unholy Options

Desecration
If you didn’t choose it as your 1st utility, you could assign some points here now. See above to read the details on this talent. It is beneficial in many pre-raid encounters but has potential minuses you will also want to consider.
Resilient Infection
If you didn’t choose it as your 1st utility, you could assign some points here now but again this is very lackluster considering its lack of PvE application.
Death’s Advance
Not just for PVP, this talent would be nice for any fights that are snare heavy.
Magic Suppression
2/3 of Magic Suppression is an excellent choice based on the frequency of this spell’s use. You could also go back and finish 3/3 for even more survivability and healer friendliness. It provides situational enhancements to your RP generation which translates into some DPS.
- Optional: Anti-Magic Zone
  If you decided to finish 3/3 of the previous talent, you could take your magic protection a step further. AMZ has a 2 minute cooldown which can be of benefit for stationary phase events.
G l y p h s
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Prime

Glyph of Death Coil

Glyph of Scourge Strike

Glyph of Raise Dead

Major

Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell

Glyph of Pestilence

Glyph of Blood Boil

Minor

Glyph of Death's Embrace

Glyph of Blood Tap

Glyph of Horn of Winter

Diseases
From the start of combat, cast Outbreak to apply your diseases quickly. If Outbreak is unavailable for whatever reason, apply diseases individually via Icy Touch and Plague Strike. The ticking damage from our diseases is minor, but the synergy that they provide is paramount. When you cast Icy Touch/Plague Strike/Outbreak, Ebon Plague will also be applied. Ebon Plague weakens your target to all magical damage by an additional 8% and represents an important party/raid debuff. Also, for each disease you apply to a target, your Scourge Strike will deal an additional 18% of the physical damage done as shadow damage.

Dark Transformation
Your Death Coils, asides damaging your target, will apply a Shadow Infusion buff on your Ghoul which is capable of stacking up to 5 times. The player can consume the 5 charges of Shadow Infusions on the Ghoul to transform it into a powerful monstrosity for 30 seconds. A huge factor in your overall DPS is maximizing DT uptime (see the Mods section for suggestions about monitoring DT and Shadow Infusion). It is key that you super-size Timmy as often and as quickly as you can. If your runes are cooling down while you have 5 x Shadow Infusion, remember that Blood Tap is a Death Rune activator that may enable you to DT faster (read more on BT below). One can also reserve RP during an active Transformation for quick reapplication of Shadow Infusion stacks the moment Timmy returns to normal. As a general rule, you will want to 'throttle' your non-Sudden Doom Death Coils so that you approach the RP cap just as DT fades.

Death and Decay/Scourge Strike
Death and Decay is a solid tick that requires minor effort to place and it is *still* a DPS gain to use even on single target. Astute observation of the current fight's mechanics will be key to maximizing the damage. The most frustrating and unfortunate situation is when you have just cast Death and Decay and the mob moves or the dynamics of the fight shifts. Whenever possible, plan ahead to avoid losing potential DnD damage.

Scourge Strike is our hard hitter and is similarly high in priority. SS will replace DnD when it is on cooldown.

Festering Strike
Amidst utilizing our runes and managing cooldowns, supplement your priority with Festering Strike. With Reaping (from our Unholy specialization), the runes consumed by Festering Strike will become death runes when they reactivate. Also, Festering Strike serves the very important purpose of adding 6 seconds to your diseases. Mechanics allowing, our diseases should nearly always auto-renew themselves. It’s like watering a plant of doom.

Death Coil
Similar to rune efficiency, we want to capitalize on Sudden Doom procs. With Runic Corruption’s mechanic revamped in past patches, we no longer have to worry about overriding our rune regeneration. Death Coil may be done freely to make use of Sudden Doom procs, to build Shadow Infusion stacks quickly, and to avoid the RP cap.

Death and Decay/Scourge Strike and Festering Strike
This is your ‘rinse and repeat’ in order when you have runes (and cooldown) available.

Horn of Winter
When all else fails, you can toot your horn for RP and buffing. It’s a step above twiddling your thumbs if you have a vacant GCD that cannot be filled with Engineering bombs.

AoE Target Priority

Diseases + Pestilence
> Dark Transformation
> Death and Decay/Scourge Strike (Unholy|Unholy or Death Runes are up)
> Blood Boil (Blood|Blood and Frost|Frost are up)
> Death Coil (Sudden Doom, high RP)
> Icy Touch

AoE fight does not just mean multiple targets. For your standard dungeon pull, you would still use the ‘Single Target’ strategy. This AOE priority is written for the cultist packs in Bastion, minion patrols, and other mass pulls. In these cases, you will want to switch momentarily to Frost Presence.

Diseases
If any of the mobs will survive for more than a few seconds, use Pestilence. One caveat on this: do not Pestilence if it will pull an adjoining group or if there is a CC nearby. This is particularly noteworthy if you are glyphed for extended range on Pestilence. Mages get really frustrated when their sheep spasms with cooties and comes to cough in their face.

Dark Transformation
DT is still highly important, same as with single target priority.

Death and Decay/Scourge Strike
Same as with single target priority.

Blood Boil
Blood Boil is effective damage and results in a leftover Frost rune which can only be used offensively for Icy Touch.

Death Coil
Same as with single target priority.

Icy Touch
If no other attacks are available, make use of leftover Frost runes.

G H O U L ( T I M M Y )
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All pets have had their Aggressive pet stance removed and replaced with the Assist stance. Assist will cause the pet to attack the player's target and the pet will not change targets unless the master attacks a new target for a few seconds. Defensive stance, on the other hand, requires that the player or pet be attacked prior to the pet taking action. Assist will now be the standard command stance for Timmy.

For extra control, bind his Attack/Follow/Stay & Huddle commands to keys/buttons you can access quickly (I use Shift + letters, but whatever works for you). Timmy is also a pretty resilient pet. He has an unspoken 90% AoE damage reduction and can be healed by your Death Coil (discounted w/ Glyph of Death’s Embrace). Rather than putting your pet on cruise control, it's far better to have an awareness of him and his actions. It will greatly help survivability, group tactics, and your DPS.

Timmy's Claw has performed better in preliminary tests in 4.2, but more time is needed to say conclusively. If you still experience energy hoarding, the Claw command bind is still available in the Macros section.

S U R V I V A L
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Raise Ally
Raise Ally is instant cast, costs 50 Runic Power, and has a 10-minute cooldown. The requisite RP means you must be in the midst of combat and temporarily forgo your personal DPS to return a player to life. It shares the same global battle rez cap with other players, so like Druids and Warlocks, talking with the party/raid before and during an encounter is required. Only 1 manner of rez is allowed in a 5-man/10-man and 3 within a 25-man fight (excluding self-rez) so there is stressed value in using it wisely. Also be aware that Raise Ally brings the player back with just 20% health and mana so if another rezzer has a superior % benefit, defer to them. Rezzes have group saving potential so don't waste it by selecting the wrong person or watching someone accept prematurely. Macros/Ventrilo are both fine ways to warn the recipient to take their rez with discretion.

Anti-Magic Shell
Using Anti-Magic Shell wisely is one of the key aspects that separates the ‘good’ Death Knights from the ‘great’ ones. AMS provides a two-fold benefit and understanding it well will optimize your play.

Firstly, AMS is a powerful defensive ability that absorbs 75% (83%/91%/100% Magic Suppression) of the damage dealt by harmful spells up to 50% of your total health and prevents the application of harmful magical effects. In heavy damage situations, this is a lifesaver and aids on healing resources. For reoccurring damage, plan AMS to correlate with the boss timers. I.e., for Valiona where the damage is frequent, you can use AMS slightly before Blackout so that you have its protection and begin its cooldown timer.

Secondly, and often underutilized, is AMS’s DPS boon. Damage absorption (again via Magic Suppression) will cause you to become ‘energized’ and generate a substantial amount of Runic Power. When you can anticipate AMS a few seconds ahead of time, make sure to have very low RP so that you do not cap while energizing.

Other Resources
Don't forget that you have Icebound Fortitude (which now breaks stuns), Death Strike, Death Pact, and Army of the Dead (i.e. as aggro fodder) at your disposal. Death Strike consumes a valuable rune and Death Pact is a last resort, but these can sometimes make the difference between a dead boss and a dead you.

I N T E R R U P T S
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Since Death Knights don’t have any reliable form of CC other than beating a mob into a red smear, I think we should always look for additional ways to pull our weight. Interrupts, therefore, are a valuable utility we can readily provide to groups. Effectively used interrupts will reduce healer mana expenditure, player damage or death, and status effects. As they say, "Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver"...

Mind Freeze
This is our primary interrupt with just a 20RP cost and 10 second cool down.

Strangulate
The big daddy: both an interrupt and one of the strongest silences in the game. Its cool down is lengthy unless you spec Hand of Doom (reduces to 1 min in that case) but it’s a powerful tool in your DK box regardless.

Dark Simulacrum
I know it isn’t actually an interrupt, but I think it’s related enough to mention here. If you can’t outright stop the spell, Dark Simulacrum is an enticing option.

B U F F S
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Unholy Frenzy & Gargoyle
Unholy Frenzy is a potent enrage that will give you a serious boost to DPS in exchange for a small expenditure of health. Cast UF early in a fight to see it cooldown for repeat uses or save it specially for a 'burn' phase.

One final matter of discretion is that you would not want to cast Unholy Frenzy during Bloodlust (et. al) since you will become GCD capped anyway. Best to save UF for when you can utilize its full benefit.

That aside, if a situation permits you to cast Unholy Frenzy on yourself, you'll do well to summon your Gargoyle directly after (see Macros for helpful combos). The moment the Gargoyle enters the fight, he gets an inheritance of your stats (referred to commonly as a 'snapshot'). Summon him early and you may get to use him twice or more, time allowing. The only problem with the Gargoyle is his positioning AI. Since he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, you may have to readjust him so he attacks properly. The Gargoyle follows the basic commands along with Timmy, so you can tell him to move, start attack, stop attack, and so on.

Blood Tap
Blood Tap activates a Blood Rune and converts it to a Death Rune. The cost is a tithe of health (6%) or free if you glyph for it. Its relatively short cool down will allow you use it frequently provided you aren’t capped for GCD or ‘global cooldown’. Meaning: if you are in a GCD capped situation where your actions are limited, don’t bother activating runes you can’t use anyways.

Empower Rune Weapon
A potent reset button to activate all your runes and generate 25 runic power. With a 5 minute cool down this will generally equate to a 1/boss fight use. This is best paired when you have Unholy Frenzy, Bloodlust, or Time Warp up and have expended your runes. Absolutely great for burst DPS.

Army of the Dead
Bit of a long channel so it's best to cast either just before the pull, during a phase change, or when things go south. Army Ghouls will taunt adds and normal mobs in combat so have that in mind before using. You might be screaming "No, no, no!" and all they hear is "Who wants cake? Who wants cake!?". Let me tell you something: They all do. They all want cake.

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I V . G E A R - O P T I M I Z A T I O N
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Gearing, like your play choices, is also based upon a priority system.
Understanding the stat priority will help you make decisions on gear in general. Keep in mind that all these stats contribute to your DPS, but they become less and less desirable the further down the priority you go.

S T A T S
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Stat Priority

Strength > Hit to Cap > Haste > Mastery > Expertise to Cap > Crit > Agility
Hit
Hit to cap is still as important as ever. If you miss a lot, that’s 0 damage on a frequent basis. Meters don’t discriminate whether you lost damage because of low hit rating or because you were too busy watching Fresh Prince reruns to pay attention to the boss (the latter is slightly more acceptable). Also keep in mind that your Ghoul inherits your stats somewhat, so be a good influence on Timmy.

Standard Races Draenei
Hit Cap for Raid Bosses 961 841
Hit Cap for Heroic Bosses 721 601

At approximately 120.11 hit rating per 1% hit, it takes 961 hit rating to become hit soft-capped [1] for a raid boss (841 for Draenei). At the very least, become hit capped for lvl 87 mobs if you are still gearing in heroics (remember heroic bosses are NOT the ‘skull’ in your character’s worksheet). There is a certain leniency for being slightly over or slightly under, but you still want to negotiate this carefully. When in doubt, test yourself on a target dummy for extended lengths of time to get a general feel for your damage.

Note: Do NOT gem expressly for hit. Always accomplish this through reforging (discussed further down) because you never want to lose out on potential Strength.

Haste
There is no definite haste cap that we can enumerate and recommend to everyone. Your GCD is affected by various factors such as expertise, Heroism/Bloodlust effects, Runic Corruption, your connection speed and so forth. The best way to approach haste itemization is whether or not you personally experience GCD locks. If you have no trouble expending resources then haste remains highly favored, simple as that.

Mastery
As was with the previous patch, its DPS scaling is a bit shy of haste but it makes expertise and crit look less valuable. Gear with a mastery secondary is very worthy of interest.

Expertise
At approximately 30.0272 rating per point, expertise is preferred only over crit until you reach the 'soft cap' of 781 rating (i.e. 26 expertise). Ultimately however, expertise is of very low value to us and there will not be any concern with reaching the soft cap.

R E F O R G I N G
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In regards to reforging your gear, start with the hit cap and manage your DPS stat priority as above. Haste is top shelf with the others trailing sequentially in conversion to damage. I’d recommend taking a look at Wow Reforge [2] to help you make your reforging decisions outside of the game.

When using Wow Reforge, expertise does not need to be set but you will need to specify your hit rating for 'close to' 961 (or 841 Draenei). It may be that your optimum reforge puts you exactly at hit cap or it could put you a point over or under because the DPS is rated best for the minuscule miss/overage in hit. It will simply depend on your race and assortment of gear.

Reforge calculators require a lot of complicated math so always double check your results for accuracy. Report any anomalies to the site owner to improve the reliability of the tool.

Tips for Reforging:

Never reforge away haste.
Your first calculation for reforging should be for your hit rating. Sometimes you will want to reforge away hit on one item only to add it back on another. Ex: forging hit to haste on Item A and forging crit to hit on Item B where haste already exists.
Reforge unnecessary hit, crit, and expertise into haste at every available opportunity.
Where a reforge to haste is not possible, mastery is an excellent choice.

G E M S
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Red Bold Inferno Ruby

Yellow Fierce Ember Topaz

Blue Etched Demonseye

Always defer to the Red gem unless the socket bonus would provide 20+ Strength or a high value of an important secondary (i.e. 40 Haste).

Never gem expressly for hit, even if you are under the cap. Given the stat priority discussed earlier, it is a greater DPS sin to miss out on potential Strength. Reforging is the best and most flexible method to negotiate the proper hit rating.

Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond

Pretty much a no-brainer. The requirement is effortless to fulfill as your gear will have an abundance of Red gems.

Bold Chimera's Eye

The best and clear choice for those with Jewelcrafting as a tradeskill.

Head

Arcanum of the Wildhammer
Or Arcanum of the Dragonmaw Shoulders

Shoulders

Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone
Lionsmane Inscription (Inscription only)

Back

Enchant Cloak - Greater Critial Strike

Chest

Enchant Chest - Peerless Stas

Wrist

Enchant Bracer - Major Strength
Draconic Embossment - Strength (Leatherworking Only)

Hands

Enchant Gloves - Mighty Strength
Synapse Strings

Waist

Ebonsteel Belt Buckle

Legs

Dragonscale Leg Armor

Feet

Enchant Boots - Haste
Enchant Boots - Precision

Rings

Enchant Ring - Strength (Enchanters Only)

Weapon

Rune of the Fallen Crusader

B I S
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Rated by their DPS value, here are the BiS ('Best in Slot') items for Unholy Death Knights at T12.

Pre-Hardmode Best in Slot

Head - Elementium Deathplate Helmet

Neck - Caelestrasz's Will

Shoulders - Elementium Deathplate Pauldrons

Back - Bladed Flamewrath Cover

Chest- Breastplate of Shifting Vision

Wrist - Bracers of the Mat-redor

Hands - Elementium Deathplate Greaves

Feet - Archanaflame Treads

Ring 1 - Alysrazor's Band

Ring 2 - Obsidian Signet of the Avengers

Trinket 1 - Heart of Rage

Trinket 2 - Crushing Weight

Weapon - Sulfuras, The Extinguished Hand

Relic - Relic of the Elemental Lords

Hardmode Best in Slot

Head - Elementium Deathplate Helmet

Neck - Necklace of Fetishes

Shoulders - Elementium Deathplate Pauldrons

Back - Bladed Flamewrath Cover

Chest - Breastplate of Shifting Visions

Wrist - Wrathcrack Bracers

Hands - Elementium Deathplate Gunatlets

Waist - Cinch of the Flaming Ember

Legs - Elementium Deathplate Greaves

Feet Arachnaflame Treads

Ring 1 Alysrazor's Band

Ring 2 - Obsidian Signet of the Avengers

Trinket 1 - Heart of Rage

Trinket 2 - Vessel of Acceleration

Weapon - Sulfuras, The Extinguished Hand

Relic - Relic of the Elemental Lord

[1] Elitist Jerk Helpful Post
[2] WoWreforge

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V . M O D S
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Some people are content with the out-of-the-box game experience, but others feel like they can play and monitor their character better with additional tools.

DDR | Doc's Debug Runes Link

A combined rune, runic power, disease, proc, Dark Transformation, Runic Empowerment, Runic Corruption, Blood Shield and Death Strike heal display.

Visually simple but very effective, DDR uses short bars to display runes, diseases, power and specific procs.

CLCDK Link

Class HUD featuring Disease durations, GCD timer, ability timers, runic power, runes, optional suggestion box.

What this mod should do...
is show you Runic Power, special cool downs (Gargoyle/Army), Runes, and Disease Timers in 1 add on.

What this mod should NOT do...
is replace your brain. Blindly mimicking its suggestions will produce ignorant, lazy play. After all, we’re trying to break the negative stereotype of our class, not reinforce it.
Used properly, the suggestion box can serve as a friendly reminder for when diseases reach low time or a cool down is ready. That’s a fine and reasonable use of a tool, just don’t confuse what it says you CAN do with what you actually SHOULD. You can also completely turn off the suggestion box if you don't like it or if you'd prefer more space.

Magic Runes Link

Magic Runes is a graphical display for rune cool downs.

If you don't like CLCDK's features or want a more specific rune UI, Magic Runes also provides a really nice, customizable view of your runes with several chart type variations. It's very straightforward and graphically clean. It does not show your procs or special cool downs (for better or worse), so you will need to set up other mods if you prefer having those features.

Acherus Runes Link

Acherus is a Death Knight addon providing displays for runes, procs, runic power, and diseases. A great effort has been put in to make all features customizable. Animations are provided to make it very easy to see when things become available and unavailable.

NeedtoKnow Link

NeedToKnow lets you monitor specific buffs, debuffs, and totems as timer bars that always appear in a consistent place on your screen. You can track yourself, others, your target, your pet, and much more.

This mod is fantastic to let you watch your Shadow Infusion stacks, Dark Transformation timers, and Runic Corruption uptime. You can set colors, scaling, and different groups of bars. Very customizable and user friendly.

Deadly Boss Mods Link

Deadly Boss Mods is a boss alert mod. It consists of many individual "boss modules", mini addons that are designed to trigger alert messages and timer bars for one specific raid boss each. Instance modules will be loaded and enabled when you enter the corresponding instance.

If you don’t already have this, get it yesterday. I have glowing recommendations for all its included features.

Recount Link

Recount is a graphical combat log meter complete with damage, healing, and more.

This is the ‘How’s My Driving?’ equivalent of your DPS performance. Everyone has a job and ours is to put up big numbers. Hold yourself accountable by knowing your output and surpassing the expectations of others. I consider this mod another 'must have'.

Power Auras Link

This addon was created to provide visual cues (auras) when you gain buffs, debuffs and many more. Very useful for shorts buffs or debuffs, it allows you to draw in the center of the screen, or around your character, very customizable visual effects, rather than having to look at or mouseover buff/debuff icons/actionbars.

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V I . M A C R O S
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Macros expand your ability to customize and automate certain actions via sequences of slash commands. If you are unfamiliar with how to make macros, I recommend reading WoWWiki’s ‘Making a Macro’ guide [1]. Don’t let the involvement of code deter you from macros. They’re generally very simple to write or, even better, just copy and paste ones that have already been created (as below).

Revised Attacks Macro
If you lack the runes to use an ability, this mod will clear the red error text on the top of your screen and your auto-attack will still begin. I use this macro for each of my major melee abilties where ‘Name’ is the spell/ability.
#showtooltip Name
/startattack
/cast Name
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

Raise Ally Macro
Announce to the raid the mouseover/selected target of your Raise Ally spell.
#showtooltip Raise Ally
/run SendChatMessage("Rezzing "..UnitName(SecureCmdOptionParse("[@mouseover,help]mouseover;target")),"RAID")
/cast [@mouseover, help, dead, combat][help, dead, combat]Raise Ally

Unholy Frenzy + Gargoyle Macro (standard)*
In a burst DPS setting, it’s very time efficient to chain your Unholy Frenzy and Gargoyle summon together. Reducing the number of keys required to perform these actions will allow you to assert the rest of your priority ASAP.
#showtooltip Summon Gargoyle
/cast Unholy Frenzy
/cast Summon Gargoyle

Unholy Frenzy + Gargoyle Macro (extended version)*
This macro allows you to quickly cast UF+Gargoyle on yourself, or if you set a 'focus', it will cast it on them instead. [2]
#showtooltip Summon Gargoyle
/cast [@focus,help,nodead][@player] Unholy Frenzy
/cast Summon Gargoyle

Unholy Frenzy Macro with Whisper
This macro will whisper your Unholy Frenzy 'focus' at the beginning and conclusion of the enrage effect to assist with cooldown timing and awareness. Feel free to replace the flavor text as you wish. (source: Aermyst, EU-Trollbane)
#showtooltip Unholy Frenzy
/cast [Target=Focus]
/Run SendChatMessage ("Unholy Frenzy on you! Haste increased by 20%"."whisper".nil.Unitname("focus"))
/in 30 Run SendChatMessage ("Relax, frenzy ended!"."whisper".nil.Unitname("focus"))""

Ghoul Claw
If you still experience problems with Timmy hoarding energy, then this macro will prove of use.
#showtooltip Scourge Strike
/cast [target=pettarget,harm,nodead][] Claw
/cast Scourge Strike

Death Coil Pet Heal Toggle
By using modifier keys, you can toggle between a self heal, pet heal, or damage a target as normal.
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl, @pet][] Death Coil
*If you experience higher than average latency, you will want to use Unholy Frenzy and Gargoyle manually rather than with macros. It is possible, through lag with the server, for the Gargoyle to inherit the pre-enrage snapshot of your statistics by mistake.

Max Camera Distance
This isn't so much of a macro as it is a one-time slash command. The following script will increase the allowable threshold of your camera's distance. This is wonderful for fights like Al'Akir where there are large scale effects and far away enemies. Just type the script into your chat window and scroll your wheel to experience the amazing new birds-eye view. [3]
/script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax",30)

[1] WoW Wiki - How to make a macro
[2] Unholy Frenzy Macro
[3] ArenaJunkies - Camera Max Distance