Unholy Death Knight raid bosses guide

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Bonesmith Heirmir

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes:

At the start of this fight, it is worth holding your cooldowns until about 10-15 seconds in. You want to do this to give you some time for the boss to finish its spawn animation and allow all of the adds to spawn and make their way toward you. By holding your cooldowns, you will not waste any uptime on them, get the maximum amount of damage and (if you are playing Necrolord) also help your raid by timing your Abomination Limb just in time to grip all of the adds into the boss.

You will always want to hold your Wraith Walk and Death’s Advance for Matter Dissolution and Deresolution. The reason why you want to hold them for these specific mechanics is because Death Knight’s main weakness is mobility and both of these mechanics require you to move away from your raid team. You also do not want to use both of them on the same mechanic, because if you are targeted by Deresolution, and you use Wraith Walk & Death’s Advance for it, then you will not have anything ready for Matter Dissolution, which will cause some issues/make it a lot harder for you and your raid team.If you can, you should try and use Anti-Magic Shell when you are detonating Spike of Creation bombs. You will immune the dot application and not take any damage. This is quite hard to do, though, if it is not being called by a raid member (usually, we have hunters detonate them and call when they are going to detonate them.)

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Diviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Dreamweaver

Notes: 

You will generally want to use all of your cooldowns whenever they are up. However, if you are about to stack for Ravening Burrow, you should hold them until the boss emerges, so you don’t lose uptime on your cooldowns. When the boss does emerge, you can also use Death’s Advance to immune the knockback, but be very wary of the Devouring Blood pools that will spawn shortly after he emerges. Sometimes, there is a delay, and sometimes it’s immediately after or during the animation.

If there are Devouring Blood pools on the floor (due to some unfortunate events for other melee players in your raid team), you can use Anti-Magic Shell and then walk over them, which will make you immune to the damage they do.

Another niche use of Anti-Magic Shell is to use it before the boss applies Dust Flail to avoid applications of Ephemera Dust. However, this is generally not worth it as you will be clearing your stacks with Ravening Burrow before they become a problem for your healers anyway.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes:

As an Unholy Death Knight, you will mainly want to be focused on the boss and not visit the platforms. You should hold your Abomination Limb until the intermission to get the most value out of it and burst down the adds fast (this will also make it a lot easier for your raid team to keep them grouped up and controlled).

Death Knights can also get around a lot of mechanics in this fight, which can be very useful to your raid team. The Continuum Stasis Traps are usually a pain point in the fight if baited incorrectly (next to Wormholes), but using Anti-Magic Shell or Icebound Fortitude will make you immune, allowing you to trigger the trap and deactivate it for 6 seconds while your raid team takes the Wormholes.

If you are caught out of position, you can also use Anti-Magic Shell to immune the DoT the Genesis Rings apply to you. This can be useful but be careful, as later on in the fight, the rings will often cross each other. Your Anti-Magic Shell will not last to cover all of the rings, which leads to death, so it is best to just play the mechanic properly and use Anti-Magic Shell as a backup just in case you have a tight squeeze to get to the Wormhole in time. 

Another thing to note is that Death’s Advance makes you immune to the grip from the tank mechanic Glyph of Relocation. So keep that in mind when using it as you can make yourself immune to the grip on the platforms, so you will not be able to get back to the boss, which would be very unfortunate.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Dreamweaver

Notes:

The main mechanic you want to play around with in this fight is the Disintegration Halo, which spawns throughout the encounter. You can use Anti-Magic Shell to immune 2 of these Halos when you are using the talent Spell Eater, so I thoroughly recommend taking this talent for Dausegne.

Death’s Advance is a useful ability to use when soaking Staggering Barrage, as it makes you immune to the pushback that can be problematic or cause some downtime. Make sure to use Lichborne during these barrages to mitigate some of the damage (10% damage reduction when using the Hardened Bones Conduit)

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Dreamweaver

Notes:

In this fight, you will always want to use your Army of the Dead on the pull, and then you will get one more use in the last phase of the fight. You always want to hold your Unholy Blight and Dark Transformation at the beginning of each and wait until you have all of the bosses stacked together. The first 2 phases will just be two bosses, and then for the third phase, you will have to deal with all 4.

In phase 1 and 3, the boss will also spawn Necrotic Ritualists, which you can proc your 4-set bonus Harvest Time on, which will give your Dark Transformation and Army of the Dead a significant boost in throughput.

If you need to cross a Stampede, you can with Death’s Advance and ignore the knockback part of the mechanic, which is very helpful when you’re in a bad position during Hand of Destruction. After the Hand of Destruction, you can also use Anti-Magic Shell to immune the application of additional Burden of Sin stacks when getting hit by Sinful Projection’s.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Dreamweaver

Notes:

Cooldown usage on this fight is very specific, and you will want to use them in this order:

1. All cooldowns except Army of the Dead and Abomination Limb
2. Army of the Dead and Abomination Limb on the first Synthesize add
3. Use Dark Transformation, Unholy Blight, and Apocalypse on cooldown, and use Leap to make your Army of the Dead Ghouls leap to the Defense Matrix Automa that you target after the first Synthesize.
4. Use Dark Transformation, Unholy Blight, and Apocalypse on cooldown
5. Hold all cooldowns until after Synthesize when all of the Degeneration Automa are stacked together with the boss and other Automa.

This should set you up for the rest of the fight. Ideally, you always want to align your Dark Transformation, Unholy Blight, Apocalypse, and Abomination Limb for after the Synthesize phases to maximize your AOE throughput on the adds that spawn. Using your Army of the Dead on cooldown should result in you being able to fit 3 Army of the Dead casts in the encounter (depending on kill times). If not, then hold your second Army of the Dead until after a Synthesize cast during execute (<35%), making sure it benefits from all of your cooldowns and the 4-set bonus Harvest Time.

You will also gain a debuff that will change every time the boss uses Alignment Shift. You want to have Death’s Advance ready for Cosmic Shift while you are debuffed with Harmonic Alignment (the knock). This will immune the knockback effect, which helps you get to your assigned position for the Mythic mechanic. One final note, if you are ever in the unfortunate position of having to run over Motes that have been popped, you can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell and then walk over the ground effect, completely immuning the damage it deals until Anti-Magic Shell expires.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Dreamweaver

Notes:

While this fight is relatively straightforward in terms of cooldown usage, it is essential to know that you will only be able to get two uses of Army of the Dead in this fight. It would be best if you held your second Army of the Dead until the last phase to take advantage of the 4 set bonus Harvest Time.

In this fight, you can use Anti-Magic Shell for a few things, but its primary use would be to either mitigate damage from Earthbreaker Missiles or immune the Planetcracker Beam. If you use Anti-Magic Shell before entering the Planetcracker Beam, you will completely immune the damage and slow effect for the remainder of Anti-Magic Shell.

Death’s Advance should always be used during the intermission where you can immune the knockback from Shatter. This is particularly important for the Shatter before Earthbreaker Missiles, so you are not caught out of position for when the Earthbreaker Missiles land. You can also immune the Shatter by using Fleshcraft (when using Plague Deviser Marileth) if Death’s Advance is on cooldown.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord (mandatory for Kingsmourne phase grips)

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes: 

Unlike Frost Death Knight, Unholy is a lot more flexible with cooldown usage in this fight; the main cooldowns you will need to hold are Abomination Limb and Army of the Dead - 

1. Hold Abomination Limb for the first Kingsmourne.
2. Hold your Army of the Dead for the first intermission and also use Abomination Limb here. 
3. Hold Abomination Limb for the first Kingsmourne in phase 2.
4. Hold your Army of the Dead for the next intermission and also use Abomination Limb here. 
5. In the last phase, use everything on cooldown.

As a Death Knight in this encounter, you have a significant role: grip adds using Death Grip and Abomination Limb into the correct position during Kingsmourne phases. This is important because the first group has a DPS check to make and to meet it, you need to get all of the adds stacked together as soon as possible. For this, you should watch the video below, which is an example of how you should do the Kingsmourne phase as a DPS Death Knight. This works the same way for both Frost and Unholy.

You should hold your Unholy Blight and Dark Transformation during the intermissions until most of the adds have spawned. You will then apply Virulent Plague to most of them (which heavily increases the damage Epidemic will do, as well as giving you Carver’s Eye stacks). You always want to make sure you apply Soul Reaper to adds that are low on HP so you can proc the 4 set bonus Harvest Time. This will give you significant uptime on the buff and will be a massive gain for your Army of the Dead damage.

You ideally want to hold Death’s Advance for crucial moments where you will need that extra burst of movement speed. It is best used inside the Kingsmourne phases, moving out of the group with a Wicked Star, dodging the March of the Damned to keep uptime on the Monstrous Soul, or getting into position to collect a Fragment of Hope during the last phase.

You should always try to use Anti-Magic Shell during the intermission, ideally when there are adds alive, so you can keep using Epidemic and keep funneling that cleave into the Remnant of the Fallen King and the Monstrous Soul.

This fight is very heavy on your healers, and you will often run into some trouble during Befouled Barrier and Hopebreaker combos. You should hold your Icebound Fortitude and Lichborne for moments like this. You should also use your Anti-Magic Shell on the Hopebreaker during the Kingsmourne phase to mitigate the damage and extend your Breath of Sindragosa.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord / Night Fae

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Dreamweaver

Notes:

Most of your damage will come during Unto Darkness, so with this in mind, you want to use Dark Transformation, Unholy Blight, and Apocalypse on the pull and hold Army of the Dead and Abomination Limb. Once you have gripped in the Inchoate Shadow, use Army of the Dead to start the spawn animation of the Ghouls, and then when the boss starts casting Swarm of Decay / Swarm of Darkness, you should use the rest of your cooldowns. Make sure to use Soul Reaper on the Inchoate Shadow when it is about to hit <35% health so you can proc your 4-set Harvest Time during Unto Darkness. Always make sure to hold your Army of the Dead and Abomination Limb for Unto Darkness casts. Your other cooldowns should naturally align for each Unto Darkness cast, so they require a lot less planning.

This is quite a straightforward fight, mechanics-wise. When running out to bait Slumber Cloud casts, you want to ideally have Death’s Advance ready, which makes it easier for you to deal with the mechanic and give you more uptime.

Make sure to keep track of the health of the Inchoate Shadow add. When it reaches max health, it will gain the buff Fully Formed, and you will want to grip this add into the boss right after, so then your raid can cleave the add down with the bosses. Death’s Reach is a very strong talent for this scenario and should always be taken due to the increased Death Grip range.

If you need to, you can use Lichborne and Anti-Magic Shell to walk over Slumber Cloud’s without getting put to sleep. This is helpful if you get a Fearful Trepidation debuff and don’t have enough room to move behind melee without walking into Slumber Cloud’s.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord / Night Fae

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes:

This is a pretty straightforward fight. You want to use your cooldowns as soon as they become available and not delay them. If you are using Night Fae, you may want to delay using Death’s Due until the Collapsing Quasars start spawning to cleave them down with the boss.

If you are using Abomination Limb on this fight, you want to make sure you have a cancel aura macro and use it as soon as the Collapsing Quasars are about to spawn. Abomination Limb will grip the Collapsing Quasars into the boss and cause a wipe, so make sure to cancel it as soon as they start spawning. I would typically not recommend Necrolord for this fight. However, Night Fae is awkward to play for Unholy, so Necrolord is still the best choice even when you need to cancel Abomination Limb prematurely.

Macro: 

A general rule on this fight is to make sure to proc Harvest Time as much as possible, as you get multiple opportunities to do so. You can keep a high uptime of Harvest Time by using Soul Reaper on Collapsing Quasars, Unstable Matter, and Unstable Cores before the boss reaches 35% health. Then you can just use Soul Reaper on the boss.

Before the Massive Bang cast, you can use Death’s Advance to become immune to the pull-in effect, making it a lot easier to get to your assigned Unstable Matter Field. Once you go into The Singularity phase, each Unstable Matter Field will create a harmful ground effect called Cosmic Radiation which expands over time. You do not want to move out of these immediately, though, as additional bombardments land just ahead of these zones, so you will want to take a couple of ticks from Cosmic Radiation before going to the middle of the room to soak the Unstable Cores. You should use Anti-Magic Shell before the Cosmic Radiation ground effect goes beneath your character, doing so will make you immune to all effects and the damage it deals while Anti-Magic Shell is active. 

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Covenant Recommendation: Necrolord

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Bonesmith Heirmir

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Dreamweaver

Notes:

Throughout this encounter, you will need to deal with the mechanic Torment, which you can immune by pre-using Anti-Magic Shell before the debuffs go out, giving your raid more room to spread as well as allowing you to stay underneath the boss, safe from other Torments. You will not be able to immune every Torment, so be prepared to still play this mechanic for when you don’t have Anti-Magic Shell.

Another mechanic you will be dealing with throughout this encounter is the knockback effect from Decimator, which can cause a lot of issues if you are in a bad spot (next to a hole). Death Knights can immune most of these knockbacks with either Death’s Advance or by using Fleshcraft during the end of the cast (when using Plague Deviser Marileth).

During phase 1, you should always make sure you have Death’s Advance off cooldown for Rune of Damnation so you can make it to a hole in time (Death’s Advance does NOT make you immune to the knock-up effect from Rune of Damnation). Cooldown usage for Phase 1 is pretty straightforward; use Army of the Dead on the pull with your other cooldowns. However, it is worthwhile to briefly hold one of your future uses of Dark Transformation, Unholy Blight, and Apocalypse if you are going to be soaking Surging Azerite soon so that they will benefit from Azerite Radiation.

In phase 2, you can only lose uptime if Rune of Compulsion targets you, so before using any of your cooldowns, wait until this mechanic has gone out so not only do you avoid wasting any of them, but you will also have solid cleave to burst down the players that do get affected by this mechanic. If you are afflicted with Rune of Compulsion, make sure to remove Death’s Advance (otherwise, you will sprint like Usain Bolt straight to the edge of the platform). You will generally have Army of the Dead off cooldown for the second set of Rune of Compulsion. Use it along with your other cooldowns once the debuffs have gone out.

For phase 3, you will want to align your cooldowns to be ready for the Torments, and you will want to hold your Abomination Limb until the first set of Torments. Each Torment will spawn a Tormenting Echo in this phase, so you want to have as much burst damage on them as possible as your raid will eventually run out of crowd control/interrupts to deal with them, so bursting them down is a big priority. Using your Abomination Limb at this time will make it available mid-way through the second set of Torments and for the final push to 10% before the boss starts walking towards Azeroth (soft enrage for this phase). You will also want to hold your third Army of the Dead until the final set of Torments, as you will not get another use of Army of the Dead anyway, and you want it to benefit from Harvest Time and the Abomination’s Frenzy debuff applied by Abomination Limb. If you have enough DPS to skip the second set of Torments, you should still use your cooldowns like this anyway to deal with the first set of Torments and have a stronger third use of Army of the Dead.

In the final phase, you want to hold your Death’s Advance for soaking the tank frontal Meteor Cleave to make you immune to the knockback, and Wraith Walk for Torment when you do not have Anti-Magic Shell (it’s very important to get out of the way of the Defiles Torment leaves after. Otherwise it will cause a wipe).

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Niya

Notes:

Make sure that your Death's Advance is ready for the intermission because this will help you avoid taking damage from Hungering Mist.

You can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell to avoid the Predator's Howl debuff.  Spell Eater will also make you immune to everybody else's debuffs for the 12-second duration of Anti-Magic Shell. You can also use Lichborne if you get feared by Predator's Howl, so keep this as a backup as the fight does very little damage. You should not need to use Lichborne for damage mitigation.

If you need an emergency soak for Chains of Eternity, you can use Icebound Fortitude and become immune to the mechanic and soak it.

When moving away from the boss to get to a safe zone during Hungering Mist, you should try and pre-bank some runic power so you can get some Death Coil casts off during your melee downtime.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Niya

Notes:

The most important tip for this fight is to make sure that you hold your Death’s Advance and Anti-Magic Shell for the Annihilating Glare. As a Death Knight, you can completely ignore this mechanic and use Death’s Advance with Anti-Magic Shell to walk straight through the beam, taking no damage and ignoring the knockback effect.

You can also use your Anti-Magic Shell to reset the stacks of Scorn and Ire.

Keep an eye out for the Stygian Abductor that comes after the Dragging Chains mechanic (which you can also immune with Death’s Advance, but you will want to hold it for the Annihilating Glare instead). When it reaches around 38.0% health, you want to start using Soul Reaper on it to get bonus damage, and when it dies, you will also get a Runic Corruption proc.

During the intermission, the boss will become immune to all damage, and two eyes will spawn on either end of the boss platform. Make sure to put your Ghoul on passive while you make your way to the Deathseeker Eye, when you use Demonic Gateway, or when you move over to the opposite Eye if you do that strat. Otherwise, your Minions will stand in the center of the platform trying to attack the Eye of the Jailer and will do nothing for the majority of the phase.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Niya

Notes:

You should try and use Anti-Magic Shell when Fragments of Destiny debuffs are about to go out onto the raid. This means you can avoid moving away from the boss to deal with the mechanic.

Depending on when you phase the boss (by bringing Signe or Kyra to 15% health) you may run into an overlap when Skyja will use Call of the Val’kyr, which will then spawn a large shield zone around the boss, this mechanic is called Annhylde’s Bright Aegis. Your cooldowns might be ready during this time, but it is better to hold them off until the boss is moved out of the shield. After she is moved, she will cast another shield zone with Word of Recall. At this point, you can use your Abomination Limb to summon Kevin’s Oozeling and use your Unholy Blight and Apocalypse while the boss is being moved out. This gives your Unholy Blight time to stack up and gives your Apocalypse Ghouls time to become active from their spawn animation. You can then use your Ghouls Leap ability to make your Apocalypse Ghouls jump from their spawn location to the boss. Then you can proceed to use Dark Transformation and continue the fight as usual.

During the Wings of Rage and Reverberating Refrain you can use Death’s Advance to negate the pull-in/pushback effect.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Niya

Notes:

Often in this fight, you will need to mitigate Shatter casts, especially towards the end, as they do a lot of damage. An excellent way to mitigate this cast is by using Anti-Magic Shell, which will give you a nice chunk of Runic Power to pump some more Death Coil casts. I would recommend saving Icebound Fortitude for the last Shatter when the boss reaches 30% health.

Death’s Advance is your best friend in this fight, and it enables you to completely negate the knockback caused by dispelling the Malevolence debuffs. If you receive the debuff, you want to use Death’s Advance if you are sent far out. This way, you will avoid all chances of getting knocked off of the platform; however, if you do this, you must make sure you use Anti-Magic Shell or some form of defensive cooldown as the dispels will leave a pool on the floor that does very heavy ticking damage.

On Mythic, in the last 30% of the fight, the boss will apply 3 Malevolence debuffs, 2 on players and 1 on the Rattlecage of Agony. Pay attention to when your raid's debuffs are going to be dispelled. If you use Death’s Advance a second or two before your Priest uses Mass Dispel on the two players, your Death’s Advance buff should last long enough to also ignore the Malevolence from the Rattlecage of Agony.

You can also try and apply Soul Reaper onto an Orb of Torment around 2 seconds before the Suffering cast goes off on Mythic. As long as your raid does not entirely ignore it, then it should reach <35% just as Soul Reaper ends, resulting in some extra damage. This is easier to pull off in Heroic as the Orb of Torment has much more health than it does on Mythic.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Bonesmith Heirmir

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes:

In this encounter, one of your main jobs will be to Death Grip the adds into the boss so your raid can cleave them down. Most of the time, you will probably play with a Blood Death Knight, so they will do most of the work for you; however, it is good to communicate with them and make sure you can help with any adds that the Blood Death Knight can't reach. That is why I have Death's Reach recommended for this fight. It just makes things a lot easier for you and means that you don't need to leave melee range to grip an add that would typically be too far away for a normal 30 yard Death Grip.

Along with this, it is also good to communicate with your Blood Death Knight and hold your first Abomination Limb for the first set of adds that will spawn around 25 seconds into the encounter. As you are playing with Bonesmith Heirmir in this fight, you don't need to worry too much about using Abomination Limb for boss damage as it doesn't do that much damage, and you are not benefitting from Kevin's Oozeling. This way, you still get the same amount of Abomination Limb casts for the duration of the fight, get more damage out of the cooldown, and make your tanks life a lot easier.

You may want to hold your Unholy Blight and Dark Transformation for a little bit (around 10-15 seconds total) so you can do some effective damage on the adds. However, midway through the fight the boss will stop everything he is doing and cast a sequence of multiple Tormented Eruptions. During this time, your cooldowns will come back, and you should just use them at this point, but remember to hold your Abomination Limb as you want to use that for the next set of adds to help your Blood Death Knight gather them all up

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Bonesmith Heirmir

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes:

You will be able to use Army of the Dead twice during this fight. You want to use it on the pull and at the beginning of phase 3. During the fight, multiple balls will spawn on one side of the room, you need to nuke down a Spiked Ball, and the best way to do this as an Unholy Death Knight is to use your Ghouls Leap ability to make all of your minions jump to the Spiked Ball your raid is attacking. That way, you will mitigate some of the downtime between target switching. After this, you want to use Festering Strike once, pop your wounds with Clawing Shadows and use Soul Reaper on it at around 60% health. Don’t worry about applying Virulent Plague to it unless your Unholy Blight is active, as the Spiked Ball will not last long enough to make the application worth it.

You can use Anti-Magic Shell before your raid pops a Flameclasp Trap to prevent any stacks of Flameclasp Eruption from being applied to you. This is very helpful for your healers. Additionally, if you fully channel a Fleshcraft before the start of the encounter, you will completely absorb the damage from the first 2 casts of Cruciform Axe. Another good use for Anti-Magic Shell is during the intermission as the raid will be taking regular fire damage ticks from Black Flames, and it can be pretty hard for your healers to heal while keeping up with the rest of the raid.

After both intermissions on Mythic, Painsmith Raznal will cast Summon Shadowsteel Horror, making multiple flame patches spawn underneath players. When they land, they will then spawn multiple Shadowsteel Horrors. Typically these will be stacked together if your raid is using a good strategy for this boss. They take around 2 seconds to spawn, so you can pre-use Dark Transformation and Death and Decay in that time. You can use Unholy Blight as they land, then spam Clawing Shadows to do some solid AOE burst. During your Death and Decay window, you should not worry about overcapping on Runic Power, the adds don’t live for very long, and you want to get the most damage out as you can in the short time frame that you have. On this many targets, just using Clawing Shadows does the most damage in that time frame. The boss will jump down shortly after, so you want to be standing near his landing spot so you can apply at least 2-3 Unholy Blight stacks to the boss as he arrives. In the last phase, you want to use Army of the Dead right after you take the Demonic Gateway, so all of your Ghouls will have a good 4 seconds to get through their spawn animation.

Last but not least, Death’s Advance and Wraith Walk are very important in this fight. Make sure to use them well and have them ready for the intermission; a lot can go wrong in the intermission, so having some short bursts of movement can save you from being Spiked.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Plague Deviser Marileth

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Niya

Notes:

Guardian is a very straightforward Patchwerk style encounter. The main thing I can recommend is making sure you save your Anti-Magic Shell and Death’s Advance for when you are targeted by Threat Neutralization, as you will need the movement speed to get out of the raid or to your assigned spot on the Energy Core on Mythic. Anti-Magic Shell will help your healers and make you less vulnerable to a common overlap of Threat Neutralization and Sentry Fire, which can be a lethal combo.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Bonesmith Heirmir

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes:

This fight can have a lot of nasty overlaps with Fated Conjunction and Call of Eternity. So, you want to save your Anti-Magic Shell specifically for situations where you may get hit by a beam. You can also use Anti-Magic Shell during the intermission for two mechanics, depending on which job you are assigned to do. If you are dealing with the runes, you can use Anti-Magic Shell to walk through the beams and ignore the debuff. However, if you are not assigned to a rune, you can use Anti-Magic Shell to ignore the debuff applied by the Fatespawn Monstrosities Despair cast, giving you more uptime on them.

You also want to use your Death’s Advance and Wraith Walk with caution as there are a lot of mechanics in this fight that requires you to cover medium/long distances in a short amount of time. If you need to deal with a rune for Grim Portent, you should assess where the rune is first. If it is nearby and you can comfortably make it without any additional mobility spells, hold them as you may need them afterward to deal with other mechanics.

You can immune the initial pushback from the boss with Death’s Advance as he is transitioning. However, even with Death’s Advance active, you will not be able to ignore the knockback at the very end of his transition cast, so make sure you are not going to be knocked into one of the moving damage pools that circulate round the edges of the boss room.

Throughout this fight, the tank will be kiting a Shade of Destiny after moving away from the raid with Invoke Destiny (you can help them kite by casting Chains of Ice on the Shade of Destiny to slow it). Your Unholy Blight and Dark Transformation will come off cooldown around 5-10 before the add is dead, so you want to hold them until it’s about to die. You want to do this because when the Shade of Destiny dies, it will then spawn 6 Fatespawn Anomalies. You want to instantly apply your Virulent Plague by pre casting Unholy Blight and have a Death and Decay down to cleave them all down with Clawing Shadows.

You will have two uses of Army of the Dead in this fight, and you should use it on pull and then save your second use for the last phase. You want to do this because you will only get 2 uses of Army of the Dead anyway, and the final phase is where most raid teams will use Bloodlust and nuke down the boss because it is the most challenging phase of the encounter.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Bonesmith Heirmir

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes:

You can pre-use Anti-Magic Shell to immune the stacks applied by a Glacial Spike. If you stand with the rest of your raid, so you are affected by the healer cooldowns, you will be able to completely ignore all of the stacks, which will really help your healers and significantly reduce your chances of dying. It's also a great way to generate some Runic Power so you can keep using Epidemic on all of the adds that spawn.

During the fight, the boss will spawn Soul Shards across the room after casting Soul Fracture on a tank, and these are a big priority for your raid team to kill quickly. You can go out and deal with some of the far away ones; however, only do so with Wraith Walk because shortly after, the Glacial Spike targets will need to stack them under the boss. If you are too far away, you will not make it in time, so it is good to save Death's Advance for this particular situation.

 If you are assigned to soak a Frost Blast, you can use Wraith Walk to get yourself out of the Frozen Binds root effect.

If you have Grip of the Dead talented, you can use Death and Decay on the Frostbound Devoted once they have finished channeling their fixate onto players. This will help keep them together and make it easier for you and your raid to cleave them down quickly. Suppose you are not targeted by a Frostbound Devoted. In that case, you can also use Abomination Limb and stand behind them, constantly gripping the adds back to their original spawn location, which is also very helpful and impacts their spawn location for the remainder of the fight.

During the intermission, you may be assigned to interrupt a Soul Reaver, and if your Dark Transformation is active, you can use your pet Leap ability on them, which will interrupt a cast for you. However, it is safer just to walk over and interrupt them normally with Mind Freeze.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Soulbinds:

Necrolord - Bonesmith Heirmir

Venthyr - Theotar the Mad Duke

Kyrian - Forgelight Prime Mechanikos

Night Fae - Korayn

Notes:

On Mythic, this is a long fight, so you can get 4 uses of Army of the Dead if you have good uptime to spend and generate Runic Power. These are your ideal timings for Army of the Dead in this encounter:

• Army 1: On the pull with the first Bloodlust - 0:00
• Army 2: 1st platform in Phase 2 (Goliath + Souljudge / Goliath + Summoner) - around 4:42 / 4:48
• Army 3: 2nd platform in Phase 3 after the Veil of Darkness - 9:30 - 9:36
• Army 4: Last platform in Phase 3 with the second Bloodlust - 13:31 / 13:40

Your Army of the Dead timings are crucial to your boss damage, so these timings are very important to keep in mind. When your team is more comfortable with the fight during farm raids, you will generally phase the boss much faster, and these timings may differ. However, you can still fit 4 Army of the Dead uses in; you just need to make sure you keep good uptime to keep reducing the cooldown on your Army of the Dead. It's much easier to make these windows if you are using Deadliest Coil. However, Frenzied Monstrosity is generally better as this fight has some tight damage check windows, and you end up wasting around 2-3 seconds of your additional Dark Transformation duration gained from Deadliest Coil every time Sylvanas jumps in the air during Veil of Darkness.

You can use Anti-Magic Shell on several mechanics in this fight. In the first phase, I like to save it for the Black Arrow casts as these will give you a nice boost in Runic Power and mitigate some of the damage. If targeted by a Black Arrow, you can also channel a Fleshcraft and stand close to the other Black Arrow casts. This means you won't take much damage and won't need to worry about not making it to the correct location in time due to a lack of mobility.

In Phase 2, it is good to use Anti-Magic Shell while running onto the platforms towards the adds. You can use Anti-Magic Shell and Death's Advance to ignore the Haunting Waves by becoming completely immune to the pushback and debuff that it leaves on you. You can utilize the same combo when she casts 3 Haunting Waves while she is attackable, giving yourself a bit more uptime on the boss. You can NOT use Anti-Magic Shell to become immune to the Veil of Darkness, so make sure you play this mechanic correctly.

Due to how pets and platforms interact, you want to make sure that while moving from platform to platform across the bridges, your pet is set to 'passive' so it will follow you. Otherwise, your Ghoul will continuously go back and forth on one platform and will never be in range to do any damage. Make sure also to utilize your pet's Leap ability while Dark Transformation is active, as you can interrupt the Terror Orb cast with it.

During the last phase, it is important to preserve your defensives as much as possible, especially Icebound Fortitude. You want to use Icebound Fortitude when you are marked with a Wailing Arrow, as you will be out of range of your healers and will take some pretty heavy damage. You also want to use your Fleshcraft during Veil of Darkness so you can absorb a large portion of the initial damage.

Sometimes a backup soak will be required for the Merciless mechanic, and it is good to have Death's Advance ready so you can be a backup when needed. If a zone is in a Banshee's Bane pool, you can use Anti-Magic Shell before walking on top of it to become immune to the Banshee's Bane debuff application.

Legendary: deadliest coil

Legendary: deadliest coil

Legendary: deadliest coil can be used here, but Frenzied monstrosity will likely be better. 

DoT the adds with unholy blight / outbreak and use epidemic on 3 or more targets.

Talenting Death’s reach here is really important to get the extra range on the death grip used to get the phoenixes as far away as possible. Depending on your setup, you might be the one handling the CC on them. If so, you're going to grip them as often as possible and make sure they always have chain of ice on them. When done correctly, they shouldn't reach the boss and the fire doesn't get out of control.

Legendary: deadliest coil

When Xy’mox deploys the Stasis traps you can use icebound fortitude to soak up traps in awkward spots and create more room for melee and ranged to stand on.

On Mythic difficulty, the boss gains a new ability called edge of annihilation, drawing in players and then deals damage to all players within 25 yards. With death’s advance you can pretty much just stand still while it's happening or use it as an escape if you do end up being pulled too close to the axe.

Legendary: deadliest coil would be the superior option for this fight.

You can use deaths advance to run out of the drag in (consume) and potentially get a few more seconds of DPS.

Legendary: deadliest coil can be used here, but Frenzied monstrosity is something you could consider.

This is, for the most part, a single target fight, but when the adds spawn make sure you have dark transformation ready and use epidemic on 3 or more targets.

When the boss casts lightly concentrated anima or Highly concentrated anima you can press anti-magic shell to pre-immune the add spawn.

Legendary: deadliest coil

This is a single target fight as you want to kill one boss at a time. Depending on the kill order, you might want to hold your cooldowns for the Fancy footwork buff. If you struggle with uptime on the boss then the clawing shadows talent would definitely be worth considering.

Legendary: Frenzied Monstrosity

Even though Sludgefist is a single target fight you would still want to play Frenzied Monstrosity since it provide more burst damage for the pillars.

Legendary: Deadliest Coil can be used here, but Frenzied Monstrosity will likely be better.

This boss has a lot of adds that need to be dealt with, so you want to cleave off the boss onto the adds with Epidemic and make sure to position yourself and your pet so the chain from Unholy Pact hits the adds and the boss.

Use Anti-Magic Shell whenever you get the Heart Rend / Heart Hemorrhage debuff.

In the first phase it’s a single target focus with 6 sets of adds spawning. Make sure to prioritise the adds whenever they spawn and use Epidemic on 3 or more targets.

You want to use Anti-Magic Shell on every single blood price in p1 you will have to pop it 3-4 seconds before else it won’t line up.