Talent Builds
In this section I will give a comprehensive overview of talent builds for Raiding and Mythic Plus, as well as highlighting specific talents and their strengths/synergies.
These talent builds can be altered depending on your scenario, primarily being adapted based on what utility/defensive talents you may need/require to get the most out of the class.
[Raid] Riders Single Target
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The Riders Single Target build mostly focuses on summoning, and buffing all of our undead minions. The main talents for this build are Reanimation, which lets us summon an army of Magus’, Outnumber which significantly buffs both our main ghoul, and lesser ghouls, and Commander of the Dead which buffs almost every minion we summon (the exceptions are Risen Skulker, Riders of the Apocalypse, and our main ghoul.)
Rotationally, this build will spend most of its time summoning Lesser Ghouls with Scourge Strike, spending Runic Power and Sudden Doom procs with Death Coil, and maintaining buff stacks, and debuffs with Festering Strike and Festering Scythe. It is vital for you to never use Scourge Strike without any stacks of Lesser Ghoul (the buff provided by Festering Strike, and Festering Scythe.) So if you do not have Runes available to press Festering Strike, and have no Lesser Ghoul stacks, default to pressing Death Coil instead.
The cooldown sequence in this build tends to be quite simple with Dark Transformation being off the global cooldown this means you can macro it in with Army of the Dead to ensure that they are always used together, and consistently overlap the Commander of the Dead buffs with all of our summons. Aside from this, we need to spend our first Putrefy quickly after pull, so we arent wasting cooldown time, and apply our Diseases with Outbreak. That's all there really is to the opener priority, a far cry from previous iterations of Unholy requiring nuclear launch sequences.
[Raid/Mythic+] Riders AoE/Cleave
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The Riders AoE build mostly focuses on summoning, and buffing all of our undead minions. The main talents for this build are Reanimation, which lets us summon an army of Magus’ synergizing with Menacing Magus to allow them to cleave, Outnumber which significantly buffs both our main ghoul, and lesser ghouls while also allowing them to cast Sweeping Claws to AoE, and Commander of the Dead which buffs almost every minion we summon (the exceptions are Risen Skulker, Riders of the Apocalypse, and our main ghoul).
Rotationally, this build will spend most of its time summoning Lesser Ghouls with Scourge Strike, spending Runic Power and Sudden Doom procs with Epidemic, and maintaining buff stacks, and debuffs with Festering Strike and Festering Scythe. It is vital for you to never use Scourge Strike without any stacks of Lesser Ghoul (the buff provided by Festering Strike, and Festering Scythe.) So if you do not have Runes available to press Festering Strike, and have no Lesser Ghoul stacks, default to pressing Epidemic instead.
There is a short ramp up time to be able to do any respectable AoE damage due to Clawing Shadows needing to stack before Scourge Strike can do AoE damage. As such, you should aim to try to maintain these buff stacks between packs of enemies in Mythic+.
The target counts required to swap between Death Coil and Epidemic in Midnight prepatch have been simplified pretty massively, leading to a recommendation to use Death Coil at 3 or fewer targets, and Epidemic at 4 or more targets.
The cooldown sequence in this build tends to be quite simple with Dark Transformation being off the global cooldown this means you can macro it in with Army of the Dead to ensure that they are always used together, and consistently overlap the Commander of the Dead buffs with all of our summons. Aside from this, we need to spend our first Putrefy quickly after pull, so we arent wasting cooldown time, and apply our Diseases with Outbreak. That's all there really is to the opener priority, a far cry from previous iterations of Unholy requiring nuclear launch sequences.
Situational Adjustments
Mythic Plus often requires different forms of utility depending on your comp and which key you are doing, so you can give up talents such as Wraith Walk, Grip of the Dead, Coldthirst, etc for others such as Anti-Magic Zone, Asphyxiate, Vestigial Shell, Control Undead, etc.
Hero Talents
Hero talents are a new system in The War Within which gives you additional talents, specializing and enhancing specific themes/aspects of the class. Unholy has a choice between Rider of the Apocalypse or San’Layn.
Rider of the Apocalypse
This hero talent tree is themed around the 4 horsemen, giving you a chance to summon a horseman to assist you for 10 seconds. Each horseman has unique abilities which they will use to deal damage and also increase your damage.
Mograine
When summoned he will have a Death and Decay around him, this will always follow him wherever he goes. While standing inside it, you gain all of the effects you would get in your own Death and Decay, such as Cleaving Strikes and Mograine’s Might.
Nazgrim
While active he will give you a 3% strength buff which is increased by either nearby enemies dying (3%) or spending a rune (1%).
Whitemane
She will cast a DoT called Undeath onto her target which deals damage over 24 seconds (this cannot be extended). Undeath applies an additional stack every 3 seconds, and can be stacked up further by using Scourge Strike on the afflicted target (up to 15 stacks total). Scourge Strike will also spread Undeath to nearby enemies.
Trollbane
When summoned Trollbane will cast Chains of Ice on the target which slows and increases the damage you deal to them by 5% for 8 seconds. He will keep applying this debuff to the target while he is active. This talent scales in both aoe and single target because of Trollbane’s Icy Fury, so you will want to Scourge Strike the target affected by Trollbane’s Chains of Ice for some additional cleave/aoe damage.
Apocalypse Now
This hero talent tree is very burst oriented with Apocalypse Now, which makes Army of the Dead and Raise Abomination even stronger. This particularly favors Raise Abomination as it allows you to trigger Apocalypse Now twice as often as you can with Army of the Dead due to its 1.5min cooldown.
Rider of the Apocalypse excels best in single target, but also has some strong cases for being used in aoe/cleave encounters, mainly due to Trollbane’s Icy Fury, Mawsworn Menace and A Feast of Souls. Most talent points in this tree give a benefit to both multi-target and single target, but these are the big hitters.
Defense/Utility Talents:
Defense and mobility capabilities are also greatly enhanced with this hero tree, with Death Charge being one of the most powerful movement talents in the game. Death’s Advance is already a very strong ability when used properly, and Death Charge makes Death Knight super fast and immune to displacement effects. You can also get a 5% damage reduction for each Rider that is active (which is a 20% damage reduction during Apocalypse Now) via Pact of the Apocalypse, or a lot of additional magic damage prevention/mitigation with Horsemen’s Aid.
What does Rider of the Apocalypse do for Unholy’s rotation/gameplay?
This hero talent specialization does alter the way which you play based on which rider is currently active. The most noticeable gameplay changes come when you summon Trollbane or Mograine. Trollbane applies Trollbane’s Icy Fury to your target and this debuff is a high priority to consume, as he cannot apply another one if the target is already afflicted.
The other is Mograine, which has a Death and Decay around him which will save you a charge of your own Death and Decay if you need to cleave with Cleaving Strikes. You will also want to stand in his Death and Decay to benefit from the buff Mograine’s Might.
Lastly, to trigger Apocalypse Now, you need to have the talent Army of the Dead, and as it is such a strong hero talent, it also encourages taking Raise Abomination or Legion of Souls so you can trigger Apocalypse Now twice as often.
San’layn
San’layn focuses more around diseases and your gameplay will completely revolve around extending, ramping your diseases during Dark Transformation, and then popping them right after (if you have Pestilence talented.) It also has a lot of self healing capabilities and changes your rotation/priorities quite a bit.
Vampiric Strike
When you use Dark Transformation your Scourge Strike will become Vampiric Strike. Each use of Vampiric Strike will increase your haste by 1% (up to a total of 5%, this haste bonus is doubled during Dark Transformation), and extend/amplify Virulent Plague via Infliction of Sorrow. Outside of Dark Transformation, your runic power spending abilities (Death Coil, Epidemic & Death Strike) will have a 25% chance to make your next Scourge Strike a Vampiric Strike, potentially extending the Essence of the Blood Queen haste buff.
Defense/Utility Talents:
As mentioned before Vampiric Strike provides a lot of self healing, and San’layn has some additional talents which benefit you in mitigation, utility and mobility. Two of these talents are party wide effects which can be utilized in group content like Mythic+ and Delves, increasing your party's movement speed with Vampiric Speed and giving your party 4% leech during Lichborne with Vampiric Aura. For Raiding, you have two other talents instead which make your Raise Ally restore your allies to max health and also give you both a shield for 20% of your max health with Newly Turned, or increased Icebound Fortitude mitigation based on your missing health with Bloody Fortitude.
What does San’layn do for Unholy’s rotation/gameplay?
San’layn does not significantly alter Unholy’s gameplay loop currently. The only major benefit San’layn can bring synergistically with the base talent tree is when using Infliction of Sorrow in conjunction with Pestilence in order to get incredibly long disease durations to consume with Pestilence.