Unholy Death Knight DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within (11.2)

Note that these builds are generic recommendations for various content. For more specific recommendations for Mythic+, check out the dedicated page below.

The Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talents focus on minion damage, summoning Horsemen to deal heavy damage to your enemies. You have minor rotational updates with Trollbane's Chains of Ice, where you want to burst them ASAP and you want to stay in Mograine's Death and Decay to get 5% damage boost. Otherwise, the main benefit comes from Death Charge which is an amazing mobility ability for Death Knights!

The San'layn Hero Talents focus heavily on DoT and Death Coil damage. Furthermore, your rotation is completely different in Dark Transformation windows where you drop Festering Strike and Soul Reaper entirely. Its strength lies in two-target cleave where the Death Coil damage boost from Frenzied Bloodthirst in conjunction with Improved Death Coil works really well.

For more information on Hero Talents, please visit the dedicated page below:

Talents can and usually do change your rotation or add new abilities to your priority. For a more detailed breakdown of how your rotation will look with optimal talents, check out our rotation page, which is linked below.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents that are best for leveling and doing open-world content.

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended enabling the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

1. Doomburst causes your Death Coils that consume Sudden Doom to burst up to two Festering Wounds on the target, slowing them by 45% per wound burst for 3 seconds. Solid DPS gain in PvE.
2. Bloodforged Armor provides 3 seconds of 20% physical damage reduction whenever you press Death Strike. Solid defensive gain!
3. Spellwarden lowers the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell by 10 seconds and allows you to use it on allies. It's just a nice defensive gain because it allows more AMS usage.
4. Reanimation reanimates a nearby corpse, summoning a zombie with 5 health for 20 seconds, which slowly moves towards the target. If it reaches your target, it explodes, stunning all enemies within 6 yards for 3 seconds and dealing 10% of the enemy's health in Shadow damage. This ability costs 1 Rune. This can be a powerful talent for both open-world questing and leveling; however, it is difficult to use in World PvP.
5. Dark Simulacrum places a debuff on your enemy, activating when they cast a spell that uses mana. It allows you to use that same spell for some time. Not useful in PvE content.
6. Necromancer's Bargain reduces the cooldown of your of your Apocalypse by 15 seconds; however, your Apocalypse does not summon ghouls but instead applies Crypt Fever to the target. Crypt fever deals up to 8% of the target's maximum health as Shadow damage over 4 seconds. Healing spells cast on the target refresh the duration of Crypt Fever. This is a strong choice for World PvP.
7. Rot and Wither adds an absorption shield to any target hit by Death and Decay for 100% of the damage amount. Useless pretty much.
8. Necrotic Wounds your Festering Wounds now apply a healing absorption when they burst, absorbing a stacking 5% of healing for 15 seconds. Good for PvP but not usable in PvE content.
9. Strangulate silences your target for 4 seconds. Inferior to just running Asphyxiate (it replaces the talent) and a pretty useless talent.

Doomburst is a solid choice due to its nice DPS gain, helping you to consume Festering Wounds. No other talent does much for us in PvE, and are primarily PvP choices. For a second and third option, we don't have much to choose from. Bloodforged Armor is generally best due to providing a good defensive gain, and Spellwarden is a small defensive gain!