That rotting, gibbering mass of bandages is your friend and mine, the ghoul. Ghouls are, in many ways, a death knight’s best friend. Any death knight can summon one ghoul; any max-level death knight can summon an army of them. Some death knights even love theirs so much that they convince them to stick around. Fascinating, yes?
Well, Raise Dead has a secondary effect (soon to be separated into Raise Ally). In addition to raising the death knight’s best undead pal from a body (or, sometimes, nowhere at all), it can also raise a party or raid member! A lot of the time, this’ll happen by accident – a DK will be attempting to retrieve the NPC ghoul and instead will raise, well, you. Soon if it happens, it’ll be on purpose. If this happens during, say, a boss fight?
Don’t stand there like a ninny, go hit the boss! All DPS is good DPS – smack the boss around a little (from behind, please – your tank will thank you later). Not sure how to perform to your ghoulish best? Luckily for you, here’s a short guide.
A Ghoul Primer
Ghouls are simple creatures. You have but a few abilities, which should appear on your toolbar once you’re risen from the dead. They’re based on energy, so those of you who’ve played rogues or cats should be familiar with it, and those who aren’t… you’ll figure it out quick.
Leap: Leap is basically the movement component of Feral Charge (Cat) or Shadowstep, without anything else: it makes you, the ghoul, leap behind an enemy. If you were a caster who now finds yourself ghoulified, this is how you can leap into melee! And in case you’re not used to melee, hit the boss from behind!
Claw, Gnaw, and Thrash: These are your basic melee abilities. Use ‘em when you got ‘em. Thrash is the best one to use whenever it’s up, in my opinion; Gnaw is nice, but the stun doesn’t work on bosses, so you won’t get a lot of use out of it. Claw is pretty spammable.
Huddle: The odds of you needing to use a channeled ability where you take 50% less damage are low, but the ability’s there if you need it. You probably won’t ever hit Huddle, though.
Explode: This is your last-ditch attack, the one you use when you’re gonna die anyway. It’s got a short cast time (1.5 seconds), so make sure you’ll still manage to get it off! It’s not a ton of damage, but it’s appreciable, and doing more damage – even if it’s the last thing you do – is never a bad thing.
There – now you know how to be dead. Now use it!
Stop used to be a warlock, then he was a death knight; first he was Horde, then he was Alliance again, and now he's Horde again. For good this time. Lok'tar ogar! 
Are these basically the same as the zombie skills during the (in)famous scourge-zombification world event? I do remember explode, which was a hoot.
It’s similar, though not quite the same. Risen Allies can actually move at normal walking speed, so they don’t have “Lurch!”, and since they aren’t designed to spread the plague, they don’t have “Vomit!” or “Call Zombie.”
They’re actually more like the ghoul pets that the DK can raise with Raise Dead (go figure, eh?). Explosion works pretty much exactly the same, though.