Unholy Death Knight DPS Talents & Build Guide - Battle for Azeroth 8.3

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I'm Bicepspump, a semi-hardcore player currently playing on Kazzak. You can often find me on the Death Knight discord discussing rotations and builds, on my stream (B1cepspump), running some juicy Mythic +, or on my youtube channel where I've started doing video guides. Big shoutout to everyone on the Acherus discord that have given me valuable insight through numerous discussions. I take part in writing and optimizing the action priority list for SimulationCraft and continuously test different hypotheses using the SimulationCraft program. Furthermore, I work with the WoWAnalyzer website where I develop modules for the Death Knight specs. Please feel free to contact me on Discord as Bicepspump#6318, I'm always happy to have a healthy discussion! Outside of playing WoW, I work as a quantitative analyst and enjoy playing other games such as Dota 2!

IntroductionHerodamage.comBloodmallet.comUnholy DK TalentsTalent RowsTier 1 (Level 56) for Unholy DK

感染之爪 gives your ghoul a 30% chance of applying a 溃烂之伤 when using the 爪击 ability. This also works when you've transformed your ghoul with 黑暗突变 with the added effect of AoE application. It's a great tool for applying 溃烂之伤 to a number of targets in a trash pack.

万物臣服 makes your 亡者复生 spell raise an additional undead warrior to fight by your side. This little fellow is a skeleton that shoots 鬼灵射击 at your target. It also deals AoE damage through an undocumented cleave portion of its 鬼灵射击. This cleave deals 50% of the initial damage to all targets close to the main target.

暗影之爪 transforms your 天灾打击 ability into a ranged ability usable at up to 30 yards away from your target. It also converts the damage from being 50/50 physical and shadow to being 100% shadow. This brings great utility to any encounter as well as a good scaling with our 精通：恐惧之刃.

Tier 2 (Level 57) for Unholy DK溃烂之伤恶性瘟疫邪恶虫群

爆裂之疡 makes your 溃烂之伤 deal more damage when burst, as well as dealing damage to all enemies in an 8-yard radius. This is a great tool for AoE since it passively makes your regular rotation cleave. Furthermore, it has synergy with 枯萎凋零 since you can apply 溃烂之伤 to multiple targets and then pop them all at the same time, causing havoc in AoE.

黑死病 causes your 恶性瘟疫 to deal 15% more damage in half of the duration. This is actually better than it sounds because of how 爆发 applies 恶性瘟疫, you can read more about this in the rotation section. Since 恶性瘟疫 is such a large portion for us in both AoE and Single Target, this talents boosts our damage a lot.

邪恶虫群 causes you to apply 邪恶虫群 to all targets around you for 6 seconds. This is a disease that deals damage over 14 seconds but the effective duration is actually longer than this (24.2 seconds) due to how the application works. Read more about it in the rotation section. This ability provides a great deal of burst and is useful for sporadic adds that fit the 45-sec Cooldown.

Tier 3 (Level 58) for Unholy DK

亡者之握 causes your 枯萎凋零 to slow all targets within it by 90%, decaying by 10% per second. A great tool for AoE Crowd Control and extremely useful in Mythic + for instance.

死亡延伸 allows you to reset the Cooldown of 死亡之握 by either killing a mob or a player. Also increases the range by 10 yards. This talent is great for leveling since you'll be able to continuously grip your new targets to you. Also has some usefulness in PvP but the requirement of Killing Blow makes it a bit hard to trigger. The extra range is always useful.

窒息 is a 4 seconds Single Target stun. A good Crowd Control tool and something that will make it slightly easier to level since you can stun your enemies!

Tier 4 (Level 60 for Unholy DK脓疮传染末日突降末日使者灵魂收割

脓疮传染 gives your 溃烂之伤 a 10% chance to activate 符文腐蚀 when burst. This has good synergy with talents that causes you to burst more wounds throughout a fight: 感染之爪 and 疫病.

末日突降 passively gives you an increased chance of proccing 末日突降 as well as allowing it to stack up to two times. This synergizes well with abilities that demand a high number of 凋零缠绕: 召唤石像鬼.

灵魂收割 is an active ability that instantly generates two Runes when used. It also applies a hard-hitting dot to the target. If the target dies within the duration of the dot, you gain 10% haste for 8 seconds. The combination of resource generation and damage dealing helps your DPS on two fronts. Furthermore, the haste buff is great for situations where your targets die frequently, Mythic + specifically.

Tier 5 (Level 75) for Unholy DK

噬法者 causes your 反魔法护罩 to absorb 30% more magic damage, as well as lasting 5 seconds longer. Great for increasing your survivability against magic damage, as well as allowing you to potentially gaining more Runic Power with the larger shield.

幻影步 is just the old baseline ability now made into a talent. Good for fights with heavy movement requirements, but not as useful overall since we now have 死亡脚步.

天灾契约 gives us our own personal Lay of Hands. A great defensive Cooldown that can save you when the healers don't have time to react!

Tier 6 (Level 90) for Unholy DK

疫病 gives your ticks from 枯萎凋零 a 10% chance of applying a 溃烂之伤. This is good for both Single Target (where it makes 枯萎凋零 a DPS upgrade) as well as in AoE since you can pop all the applied wounds with the cleave mechanic of 枯萎凋零. It specifically synergizes well with 爆裂之疡 since you effectively pop much more 溃烂之伤 in both Single Target and AoE. However, the spell itself is capped at generating a total of 10 wounds. You also generate roughly 1 wound per tick, regardless of number of targets. This greatly limits the power of the spell!

亵渎 replaces your 枯萎凋零 and works in a similar way. The only difference is that 亵渎 grows in size when enemies are within it!

传染 is something many Unholy DKs have wanted for a long time. It's an active ability that makes all targets affected by 恶性瘟疫 deal damage to both themselves and everyone around them. Most importantly, this ability costs 30 Runic Power, which allows us to spend Runic power in AoE! This increases both the feel of the rotation (using Single Target spells in AoE isn't too much fun), as well as our AoE sustain.

Tier 7 (Level 100) for Unholy DK

诅咒大军 causes your 凋零缠绕 to reduce the Cooldown of 天启 by 1 second and 亡者大军 by 5 seconds. This is similar to the T20 4-set bonus and effectively allows you to use 亡者大军 more than once per fight. This is great since the Cooldown deals a massive amount of damage. The extra casts of Apocalypse are also a good dps addition! This talent is for the players that prefer a more passive playstyle.

邪恶狂乱 is a dps Cooldown that works similarly to the now removed 凋零符文武器. It grants you 20% haste and causes your auto attacks to apply a stack of 溃烂之伤. The cooldown synergizes well with the rest of our kit since it helps us apply stacks of 溃烂之伤! It's also great for AoE since we can spam 天灾打击/ 暗影之爪 during 枯萎凋零 without having to worry too much about the target losing all the stacks of 溃烂之伤.

召唤石像鬼 is the old 黑暗仲裁者 in disguise. It works in a very similar manner being a Single Target Cooldown that is buffed by the usage of 凋零缠绕 (it works even though you have a proc of 末日突降). This ability is all about maximizing the number of 凋零缠绕 you cast when it's active! It, therefore, has good synergy with 末日使者 (this doesn't mean that the combination is an automatic pick though, the other talents might bring other strengths that outvalue the synergy value).

Best Unholy DK Talent Builds

Level 56: 万物臣服

Level 57: 黑死病

Level 58: 窒息

Level 60: 灵魂收割

Level 75: 幻影步

Level 90: 传染

Level 100: 邪恶狂乱

Single Target Unholy DK BuildTier 1 (Level 56)万物臣服暗影之爪感染之爪Tier 2 (Level 57)黑死病邪恶虫群爆裂之疡Tier 4 (Level 60)灵魂收割脓疮传染末日使者Tier 6 (Level 90)传染Tier 7 (Level 100)邪恶狂乱诅咒大军召唤石像鬼邪恶狂乱亡者魔导师诅咒大军AoE and Cleave/ LevelingMythic +感染之爪Herodamage.comTier 1 (Level 56)感染之爪溃烂之力万物臣服暗影之爪暗影之爪枯萎凋零暗影之爪天灾打击Mythic +Tier 2 (Level 57)爆裂之疡感染之爪黑死病邪恶虫群Mythic +Tier 4 (Level 60)灵魂收割脓疮传染末日使者脓疮传染Mythic +Tier 6 (Level 90)传染亵渎疫病Tier 7 (Level 100)邪恶狂乱诅咒大军亡者大军溃烂之力邪恶狂乱Utility TalentsMythic +亡者之握窒息亡者之握窒息天灾契约噬法者Raiding窒息天灾契约噬法者幻影步RaceshereWar Mode for Unholy Death KnightWar Mode

适者生存 allows you to negative nasty Crowd Control that various mobs can cast on you.

腐烂光环 a small dps gain since your enemies will lose hp over time!

死灵光环 increases the magic damage mobs around you take. Great talent since it increases your damage output!

鲜血灌注 a convenient resource gain as well as an increase in survivability.

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评论来自 Booshh

For tier 1 talents - you have some inconsistencies. For single target - you've selected bursting sores and AoE is Ebon Plague.

But in your detailed talent section - you say Ebon Plague is best in every situation and Sores is no good.

I'd imagine the talent trees are correct and the blurb just needs adjusted?

评论来自 Random0111

It's very hard to decide what to pick because we can only change talent in resting area. So rolling a talent in a raid, dungeon or battleground have to be very wise. I don't completely agree some of the explanations. What really made me think is why would we need an extra grip in pve situation. I only know a few fights where it's necessary as the ghoul/adomination do same damage only the effect is different should not be called mandatory.
Currently Shadow infusion is only good if you have 4 sets of tier 18 for the increased damage for you and your pet. If you lose that benefit you will definitely roll with necrosis in pve situation.

评论来自 Joejr82

In Teir 75 You say "Corpse Shield is without a doubt one of the best non-immunity defensive cooldowns in the game. At that expense, we have a chance to lose our ghoul if we take too much damage during the duration of the buff. With this in mind, this talent has great synergy with All Will Serve. If you are taking high sustained damage, you can constantly resummon your pet to keep the 90% damage reduction up for as long as possible. This talent has a lot of niche uses and can be used and cheesed in many different ways."

But with Corpse Shield, if your ghoul dies you get a debuff that prevents you from summoning another Ghoul regardless of All Will Serve. So once your Ghoul is dead you can't re-summon again to keep up the 90% DR on that same CD use.

评论来自 Tygett

So would I be safe in assuming that Soul Reaper would be viable if one does not have the legendary ring?

评论来自 Pweetoo

nice guide, some really interesting ideas, anyway
i disagree strongly with you on Infected claws talent, first of all, having relatively steady source of FW on target is good thing, especially when FS has tendecy of apllyin just 2 wounds -_- (nasty rng). so that one FW that just procced, can mean the difference between using SS and FS and we WANT to use more SS, they can proc runes with artifact and also with some gear and talents, i dont think we are ever going to have FW overcaping problem (take into account that Castigator Scourge Strike double crits, are bursting 3 wounds, so with some extreme rng, we can burst 8 wounds with one single SS).

also secondly, with Sludge belcher transformed he is procing wounds on all targets, all these wounds can be bursted by combo SS + Dnd for some crazy insane aoe dmg, too bad that DnD lasts only 10 seconds, makes me think about it like "Yo dawg i herd you like to aoe, so we put aoe into aoe so you can cleave while you cleave" :)

评论来自 BerettaNEWarrior

Quick note: I run a "Fake Paladin" (complete with appropriate tranmogs) pet-less build with Bursting Sores, Epidemic, Unholy Frenzy, Asphyxiate, Lingering Apparition, Necrosis, and Dark Arbiter for a kind of Anti-Paladin swordstyle.

This is not necessarily a good idea, but it seems to work decently (no complaints about DPS though not amazing anyone either) in both single and multi-target combat. Epidemic in particular is solid for when necessary footwork puts me outside melee range and in that it can be paid for with Runes or Runic Power.

Just a thought for anyone who finds managing the Ghoul annoying as I do. There are ways to work without it.

Plus no "Paladin" would have a ghoul following them around, right? ;-]

评论来自 illestmofo

illêstMofoka-Tichondrius-Unholy Death Knight iLvl 851, iLvl 879 Artifact weapon at Rank 21" Clawing Shadows Build"

Hello everyone, great guide btw, i learned alot since launch of legion from revisiting this guide to learn the spec inside and out any way i can. This is legit my first post on WOWhead. The Unholy spec Ladies and Gentlemen, has finally spread its wings into something beautiful that just shines brightly this expansion. It stands out easily from flashy swordplay to striking from range, impressing anyone just watching this particular talent build/rotation go HAM!. I feel like this build i am using now just deserves to be shared with other fellow Dk brethren or anyone curious. Its a build thats makes it Melee and now even range oriented. Unholy spec is way more unique and fresh with potential to be top notch in every situation literally! It takes a careful ramp up, which requires more focus instead of a purely mindless melee Builder/spender stale spec. This Talent build works around CAREFULLY planned Soul Reapers and the Artifact ability Apocalypse also pet micromanagement being used off cooldown. The main key parts to this talent build is to incorporate TONS of Shadow Damage into the major rotation. Most of the Core Unholy Dk abilities have Shadow damage already: Outbreak/Virulent Plague/ Virulent Eruptions, Festering Strike/Festering Wound, Death Coils, and Scourge Strikes. Choosing the Talents Bursting Spores, Clawing Shadows, and Soul Reaper essentially is the significant increase to Shadow Damage usage. When getting comfortable with this setup of talents and rotations, you'll soon realize and respect the well-established Fantasy of playing Death Knight :D

FIRST OF ALL! <Talents>
T1 - Bursting Spores - Adds 50% increased Damage on a single Burst of Festering wounds which spreads to every hostile within 8 yards, causing them to suffer (90% of attack power) Shadow Damage. The higher the stacks of Festering Wound, the higher the aoe burst upon enemy death! Does not spread or apply more Festering wounds upon burst tho. That would just be broken haha!
T2 - Blightened Rune Weapon - TOP NOTCH Festering Wound builder for this tier hands down. Enabling the next 4 auto attacks to apply 2 Fw's
T3 - Clawing Shadows - Deals 130% Shadow Damage, bursting 1 FW. This is where gearing for Mastery is acceptable and helps scale Shadow Damage abilities. Clawing shadows has the highest range in the game. Who needs mobilty?
T4 - Sludge Belcher - Outstanding Pet usage when Transformed into Abomination doing Aoe for the full duration. Surprises literally everyone when using DK Pull and then a second pull from pets Hook(when Macro'd) Pet Hook can still be used when transformed into Abomination. When running dungeon and grouping Mobs, its highly valued for smoother runs, now that only Blood dks have Gorefiends Grasp.
T5 - Corpse Shield - This is your Life-saving talent! Use it for hard hitting long sustained damage. Main Defensive CD that runs the risk of killing your pet. Should mainly be used usually after the usage of Anti-magic shell. Its better that your pet Soaks the fatal Damage like a champ! Pet can always be re summoned with minimal loss of dps
T6 - Necrosis - This talent is heavenly when used correctly. Necrosis is an awesome active buff, applied after dealing damage with Death Coils granting 30% increased damage to the next use of Clawing shadows. . Additionally thanks to theGolden Artifact Trait Scourge of the Worlds dealing damage with Death Coils also grant chance to Death Coils for another 30% increase Clawing shadow damage for up to 6 seconds. Only use Clawing shadows when at least 3 FW stacks are on target. Very much effective when cleaving as well so dont forget! Hands down the reason why this is such a solid rotation where youre not Spamming away your Runic power and Runes. Its carefully set up and execution that this is the bread and butter damage when it comes to the filling rotations in between blowing major CDs iff Cooldown. This method really smooths out Runes and Runic Power management.
T7 - Soul Reaper - Initially this ability alone when activated can crit just as high as Festering strikes and Clawing Shadows. Its main value is that once activated, 3 successful bursted Festering Wounds while Soul Reaper is active will grant that 21% haste buff for a solid 15 sec. Also Popping Apocalypse with 8 FW stacks will grant you the Full haste buff from Soul Reaper. No doubt outranks both Dark Arbiter which is just the quicker limited opening burst for single target and Trash Defiles ground aoe.

Unholy spec, incredibly can now utilize Higghhhhh sustained damage. Providing constant damage ranging from Dot uptime, High Burst/cleaves/aoes, in addition to Pet management. The stat priority for this build is High Crit>Haste >Shadow Damage scaling with Mastery. Shadow damage might be confusing to some, but when you got it down Unholy is sought to be very valuable and easier to join groups in party finder at times. Ive stayed committed to maining Unholy Death Knight purely because of the amount of fun the spec offers. Its been a breeze soloing all zones on The Broken isles which has felt the wrath of this build.Incredibly satisfying playstyle and just happy to construct a well rounded build for both single target and Aoe situations now, thus earning my spot even in Guild Raids.

I hope you are at least curious to try out my guide. Its a very satisfying Spec that i found to be perfectly to be aggressive enough to my playstyle and hopefully yours too without neglecting any of the core Unholy DK abilites.

评论来自 Wisely

This guide seems rather strange to me. With Legion's trend of having trash way more challenging than bosses, heavy cleave seems the way to go, which is why I don't understand why would you pick Soul Reaper over Defile. I do not like Soul Reaper at all and while I see its benefit, I cannot see how it would outclass Defile's basic damage, Scourge strike cleave and 2000 mastery in 5+ mob situations. Perhaps it would be suitable to add some logs or at least go into detail about the synergy of Soul Reaper's haste and our disease ticks/rune generation.

Further speaking about the dungeon build, I also do not understand the aggressive stance on sludge belcher. While again, yes, hook is useful, it's very situational and it works like death grip, i.e. on a single mob. While asphyxiate isn't an aoe stun like the monk's leg sweep, the warrior's shockwave or the DH's chaos nova, it still provides CC where needed. There are arguments that the abomination's cleave attack has a larger range than the ghoul's; an interesting point that would support your stance if you backed it with logs. Saying the sludge belcher is mandatory seems like a rather wild claim without such.

Lastly, you discard Bursting Sores in tier 1 as a strictly AoE talent. However, it not only adds the AoE functionality to pustule bursting, it also boosts their damage all in itself. You say logs favor All Will Serve, but where can we find those logs? And furthermore, does the Instructor's fourth lesson (Wrist Legendary) change the situation, with added bursting?

Edit: Missed tier 90. Infected claws overcapping you on Wounds? ...What? I have played with it since the prepatch and I haven't seen that happen a single time, FS will rarely give you 3+ wounds and trust me, you absolutely want this talent especially if you have the legendary wrists. Saying that the talent is not viable based on something that's pure misinformation really pushes this guide further down.

评论来自 opcSn97WZA

Добрый вечер. У меня в Легионе у анхоли ДК не срабатывает талант под названием Изрыгатель слизи, с чем это связанно ?

评论来自 Slothcat

Mobility is critical in Legion making Lingering Apparition the most practical choice in Tier 75 in my opinion.

评论来自 Anturio

Hey there,

Thanks for the guide.

could you edit the: " Ebon Fever is the best talent for all number of targets, being followed by Pestilent Pustules, The difference ranges from 2% for 2 targets to 1% for 6 targets. Harbinger of Doom is sitting in the back seat with a 2.5% difference for all targets."

to actually show the "Soul Reaper" talent instead of the "Ebon Fever" talent

Thanks!

Ant.

评论来自 Otnot

hey there

评论来自 stygiusmalganis

Hey there! I'm here to update that Clawing Shadows is actually a viable talent for many encounters, it's actually parsing higher than All Will Serve for ST (depending on the gear), also I see some parsers with reaping flame as major, specially in Drest'agath's encounter. Last but not least many Dks are going for 90/100 corruption which means they are going above 40 corruption for raid encounters. would be nice to update about these! love your guide by the way. Glad that UH is doing better than Frost!

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/24#class=DeathKnight&spec=Unholy

Unholy Death Knight DPS Talents & Build Guide - Battle for Azeroth 8.3

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