Unholy Death Knight has one of the highest AOE potential, with a nice single target damage and [Ebon Plaguebringuer] to buff the raid, this increases the damage of magical spells by 13% and disease damage.
Stats for Unholy Death Knight Wotlk
Stat priority
11% hit cap > Strength > Haste > Armor Pen > Crit > 26 Expertise
Note: Races with weapon expertise increase require 5 less expertise and the itemization is different for BIS.
Unholy Death Knight Stats Overview
Hit Cap
Melee hit cap is 8%, for a caster the hit cap is 17% plus 3% with [Virulence] and 3% from other classes debuffs, so 11% is the hit rating necessary to hit with spells.
Strength
Strength increases the attack power, and it’s far beneficial to an Unholy Death Knight than armor pen, mostly because of [Impurity] which increases the spell power by 20% of the attack power.
Haste
Haste increases the speed of the attacks, after all of the above stats it’s the best secondary stat, it gains a 20% increase with [Icy Talons].
Armor penetration (ARP)
Armor penetration is valuable to an Unholy Death Knight, however not has valuable has it is for a Frost Death Knight because most of the damage comes from spells. Armor Pen increases single-target damage by a small amount compared to Strength, however, in high mobility and AOE fights it falls short.
Critical Strike
Death Knight abilities can do from 200% to 250% increased damage with critical strikes and [Wandering Plague] chance is based on critical strike chance, 40%+ crit rate while raid buffed is advised.
Expertise
Expertise lowers the chance of getting dodged or parried, 26 expertise is the soft cap, however since Unholy Death Knights need 11% hit chance, the value of expertise is lowered, however with bad RNG the total lack of expertise can lower the DPS.
Stats Breakdown without increasing effects
33 hit rating ≈ 1% to hit
5 Attack Power ≈ 1 Spell Power
33 expertise rating ≈ 1 expertise
33 haste rating ≈ 1% haste
45 critical chance ≈ 1% critical
1 stamina ≈ 10 Health
1 intellect ≈ 15 mana
1 agility ≈ 1 attack power
1 strength ≈ 2 attack power
1 critical chance ≈ 84 agility
14 Armor Penetration ≈ 1% Armor ignore
