Unholy Death Knight Talents Guide

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.

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The Death Knight Class Tree has a lot of choice, freedom and pathing options available, and is now mostly utility/defensive oriented with a few throughput options (which are always mandatory). Below is an illustration of the choices and pathing options you have:

Always Pick/Strong (Green): These are talents that you will use in 99% of all scenarios you encounter, mainly because they are either throughput talents, or absurdly strong defensive/pathing choices.

Stepping Stone (Pink): These talents are stepping stones to progress through the talent tree, which are flexible depending on your scenario/requirements.

Utility/Defense (Blue): These are options which a used for very specific scenarios/are more flexible than the Stepstone/Situational choices mentioned before.

Niche/Rarely Picked (Red): These talents are not useful in most scenarios, there can be exceptions but that is rarely the case. It is worth knowing what they do though, just in case you run into a scenario where they are actually useful! For Unholy you will never use Control Undead, ever.

Throughput Talents

Abomination Limb

Death Knight’s unique ability to grip enemies together is one of its core strengths that defines the class as a whole. Abomination Limb is picked in all scenarios, if not for gripping capabilities, then for its damage (which is negligible in single target, but still one of the few throughput options this tree has).

Soul Reaper

The Soul Reaper talent will be part of your core rotation during execute (=<35% boss health), and is also buffed with Reaping & Mastery: Dreadblade.

Cleaving Strikes

In order to burst multiple Festering Wounds in AoE/Cleave scenarios, you will need to use the Cleaving Strikes talent. Generally it’s always good to play this talent, unless you are in a purely single target encounter/scenario, then you can use the talent point elsewhere.

Death’s Echo

While Death’s Echo is not entirely a throughput talent, you do get 2 charges of Death and Decay which is very useful in AoE/Cleave scenarios, especially when the adds you are cleaving last a while. However, even if you are in a purely single target encounter, this talent is still a must have.

Death Knight typically always suffers with its motability, so having 2 charges of Death’s Advance is a massive gain (nevermind also having more knockback immunities), and finally Death Grip is one of Death Knight’s core strengths as mentioned before, so having an additional charge of this unique form of utility is really strong, not only for positioning enemies but also interrupting casts.

Defensive Talents

Anti-Magic Barrier

Anti-Magic Shell is a powerful ability that can be used to prevent a lot of negative aura effects and absorb a lot of magic damage, so increasing its duration, reducing its cooldown and increasing the absorb amount is very strong and you should use Anti-Magic Barrier in any encounter that involves magic damage (which is most encounters).

Anti-Magic Zone

Most of the time, you want to take Anti-Magic Zone as it is a raid cooldown; while it is not very strong for Unholy, it is still a helpful raid cooldown that can be utilized by your Raid or Mythic Plus team for magic damage encounters. If you are in a situation where no Magic damage mitigation is needed, you can save yourself a point and pick something else.

Assimilation

As mentioned before, Anti-Magic Zone is a key raid wide defensive ability that you will want to take in most encounters. Assimilation buffs it a little bit, but more importantly makes Anti-Magic Zone a 1.5 minute cooldown. This can be very effective depending on boss timers and when you will be taking a lot of raid damage, so keep this talent in mind for those circumstances.

Unholy Endurance

Normally Lichborne is mainly used to break out of a Fear, or provide a bit of self healing through its leech. However, Unholy Endurance makes it worth pressing as a small damage mitigation cooldown which can be really useful for mitigating damage that is not enough to commit an Icebound Fortitude cast to.

Osmosis

Osmosis can be a very strong choice when you are taking a lot of physical damage, and not much magic damage during an encounter. Anti-Magic Shell loses all of its value if you are not dealing with any magic damage/effects, however with this talent it becomes useful again by giving you a healing boost.

Utility Talents

Blinding Sleet

If you are in a scenario where you need to disable/interrupt a group of enemies simultaneously, you can use Blinding Sleet to blind them all. This only works on enemies that are susceptible to crowd control effects. This talent is helpful in Mythic Plus and boss encounters that require additional control.

Coldthirst

Coldthirst is a talent you can utilize if there is a cast that happens every 12 seconds (effectively giving you the ability to solo interrupt a specific cast throughout a pull, freeing up a kick from one of your team mates). It also gives you a bit of Runic Power, which is a nice bonus.

Wraith Walk

The Wraith Walk talent is very useful for getting out of root effects and being a nice movement ability if you need it. Although this talent is a bit out of the way and requires you to take Death Pact, Assimilation, or Asphyxiate to reach, it’s quite a commitment that will mean you will have to give up other forms of utility/defensives.

Unyielding Will

In some encounters there are debuffs you want to pre immune with Anti-Magic Shell, but sometimes the debuffs come so frequently that you won’t be able to pre immune every set so you end up coin flipping on whether you pre immune a debuff or not with Anti-Magic Shell. This is when Unyielding Will can be really strong as you don’t need to gamble anymore and wait for when you actually get the debuff you want to immune, then use Anti-Magic Shell to remove it.

Vestigial Shell

Some magic effects/dots on your raid can be brutal for healers to deal with, which makes Vestigial Shell very effective at mitigating a lot of those afflictions for your team mates.

Here I will be discussing specific talents in the spec tree, where you would want to use them and how they synergise with other talents. This should add some context to why certain talents are chosen in the builds above.

Unholy Blight

Unholy Blight is an excellent way to apply your diseases to multiple enemies around your Dark Transformation over 6 seconds, as it saves you a rune (instead of spending one to cast Outbreak to apply your diseases) as well as applying an additional disease. This talent also benefits Morbidity and Plaguebringer, due to Plaguebringer increasing the rate at which your Unholy Blight disease ramps up and does damage and also with Unholy Blight being a disease in and of itself, providing an additional 2% damage increase while it is applied.

Infected Claws

Not only does Infected Claws provide a steady flow of Festering Wounds in single target, but it’s also a vital part of your multi-target throughput. Dark Transformation causes your Ghoul to cleave with its attacks, so Infected Claws will cleave applications of Festering Wounds to multiple enemies. The more Festering Wounds you burst, the more Festermight stacks you produce which significantly buffs your throughput.

Plaguebringer / Clawing Shadows

The Plaguebringer / Clawing Shadows choice node offers two uniquely strong talents that will affect your Scourge Strike. Plaguebringer is focused around your diseases, and it’s a buff that you will want to maintain at all times. It pairs well with Ebon Fever, as well as Superstrain and Unholy Blight as it affects all diseases you inflict your target(s) with.

Clawing Shadows is mostly appealing due to the 30-yard range increase for Scourge Strike, and because it makes Scourge Strike deal 100% shadow damage instead of 50% physical and 50% shadow. So your Scourge Strikes will deal more damage, as magic damage ignores armor and scales better with your Mastery: Dreadblade. Clawing Shadows also gains a massive throughput gain from Rotten Touch, so you will often want to pair these two talents together.

Improved Death Coil

Improved Death Coil provides an effective way of dealing damage in two target cleave scenarios, as the additional Death Coil will also apply Coil of Devastation and Death Rot. With this talent, you will always prioritize Death Coil over Epidemic at <=3 targets as it does more damage.

Vile Contagion

When playing a wounds focused AoE build, you would normally have to wait for your Dark Transformation to apply wounds to your targets before you could use Death and Decay and pop them all with Scourge Strike. However, with Vile Contagion you can easily mass-spread the wounds applied from Unholy Assault across all your targets in a small area, greatly speeding up the setup of your burst window and guaranteeing a lot of Festermight stacks.

Army of the Dead

The Army of the Dead ability is your strongest cooldown and is required to use Raise Abomination (a talent used in most scenarios). You will always want this cooldown as it is a major source of your single target damage when you are benefitting from haste buffs such as Bloodlust and Power Infusion, and your own cooldowns/buffs like Commander of the Dead from Dark Transformation & Unholy Assault.

Raise Abomination

Army of the Dead has a 3 minute cooldown and not much cleave capability, which is it’s only real weakness as a cooldown. The Raise Abomination talent eliminates both of those weaknesses by halving the cooldown (which makes it align perfectly with Unholy Assault) and also gives it strong cleave capabilities. The Abomination itself does slightly less than your normal Army of the Dead ghouls (collectively), but it is able to be used twice as often, which will then trigger other talents/effects twice as often as well such as Magus of the Dead and Apocalypse Now.

Finally to top it all off, the Abomination applies Festering Wounds everytime it attacks, lowering the amount of Festering Strikes you will need to use during your cooldowns. This is a big gain as Festering Strike itself is very weak damage wise and is only used to apply Festering Wounds.

Doomed Bidding / Summon Gargoyle

This Doomed Bidding / Summon Gargoyle talent node you will want to utilize in most builds, containing two talents which provide a different damage profile to one another.

Doomed Bidding is more focused around a sustained damage profile, making Sudden Doom summon a Magus of the Dead. Sudden Doom is quite a common proc and becomes a very high priority when you are using this talent. Unlike Summon Gargoyle, it also scales in multi-target / cleave scenarios when used with Menacing Magus.

Summon Gargoyle is very different as it is a purely single target, burst oriented ability on a long 3 minute cooldown. Using Summon Gargoyle will change your cooldown setup sequence completely, and your rotation will completely revolve around using as many Death Coils as possible to empower your Summon Gargoyle while it’s active.

Commander of the Dead

Commander of the Dead is a major talent for minion focused builds. It shines best in single target, significantly buffing the minions from your cooldowns such as Army of the Dead / Raise Abomination, Apocalypse (including Magus of the Dead) and Summon Gargoyle.

When playing with Commander of the Dead, your Dark Transformation must be used so that your other minions/cooldowns gain the full 30 second duration of Commander of the Dead, this can affect your rotation and is something you want to keep in mind.

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, Unholy Ground 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 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 DK 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.

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. 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 7%, 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 10% chance to make your next Scourge Strike a Vampiric Strike, potentially extending the Essence of the Blood Queen haste buff.

Infliction of Sorrow

This talent is the key to San’Layn and will change your rotation and priorities during Dark Transformation windows completely. The goal is to extend your Virulent Plague and increase its damage while Dark Transformation is active by using Vampiric Strike, and then popping it at the end to deal a massive amount of damage.

San’Layn by design scales well in both single target and multi-target scenarios as it focuses on diseases, which can affect an unlimited amount of targets. However, Infliction of Sorrow can only be amplified & triggered on up to 8 targets, due to the limitations of Scourge Strike and Cleaving Strikes. This hero talent tree also has some additional throughput gains that seamlessly blend in with playing around Infliction of Sorrow, such as The Blood is Life (paired with Pact of the San’Layn), Visceral Strength and Frenzied Bloodthirst.

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.