Unholy Death Knight PvP Guide (4.3.2)

One thought about stat priorities in regards to the importance of mastery vs. crit

This might just be me going out on a limb but I think that the PvE stat priority does not necessarily apply in a PvP setting and the reason comes down to the fact that in pvp (for the most part) Necrotic Strike replaces Scourge Strike as the main damage dealing ability, and the absorb amount does not double when NS is a critical strike.

When looking in a pvp setting you should ask yourself where does the most of my damage come from? And from my experience in both battlegrounds and arena I find more of my damage coming from increased damage from shadow damage (diseases, death coil, garg damage) due to mastery than I would if I prioritized crit over mastery. I do not play with recount, but over the course of the next week I could have it running in some bgs and arenas and show what the percentage is of my damage comes from shadow damage vs. weapon strikes.

And you never should use Frenzy on a ghoul or Gargoyle. A ghoul always benefits from your stats at all times and if you frenzy yourself it will increase the haste of the ghoul as well. Gargoyle sort of works in an opposite fashion, when summoned the garg takes a 'snapshot' of your stats and takes them as its own. Meaning, if you pop gargoyle when you have an on-proc trinket affect up as well as Fallen crusader proc at the same time gargoyle will do more damage per strike than it would if you summoned it without those affects on your person.

That being said if I am in any sort of arena or bg setting unless a healer might need it to break CC I will always cast it on myself. It is important to remember that it does deal damage to you so if you are getting trained too without defensive cool downs running that it is equally important to cancel it afterwards as even if the buff is not on your person the gargoyle will still benefit from the haste due to the snapshot taken earlier which also applies to haste and mastery not just strength.