Unholy Death Knight DPS Guide — The War Within (Season 1)

The Unholy Death Knight has received significant changes in their class tree. There are new talents, reworked talents, and removed talents! Some talents have also been moved around to facilitate better build variety.

• New Talent: Ice Prison — Chains of Ice now also roots enemies for 4 sec, but its cooldown is increased to 12 sec.
• New Talent: Osmosis — Anti-Magic Shell increases healing received by 15%.
• New Talent: Null Magic — Magic damage taken is reduced by 10% and the duration of harmful Magic effects against you is reduced by 35%.
• New Talent: Unyielding Will — Anti-Magic Shell's cooldown is increased by 20 seconds, and it now also removes all harmful magic effects when activated.
• New Talent: Vestigial Shell — Casting Anti-Magic Shell grants 2 nearby allies a Lesser Anti-Magic Shell that Absorbs magic damage and reduces the duration of harmful Magic effects against them by 50%.
• The following talents/spells have been removed:
• The following talents/spells have been changed:
  • Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle can now be used on one-handed weapons.
  • Cleaving Strikes cleave effect now lingers for 4 seconds after exiting your Death and Decay. This effectively increases the max buff duration from 10 seconds to 14 seconds.
  • Icebound Fortitude cooldown reduced by 60 seconds.
  • The following talents now only cost one point (maintain same max value): Veteran of the Third War, Icy Talons and Unholy Bond.
  • Assimilation now reduces the cooldown of Anti-Magic Zone by 30 seconds. No longer provides Runic Power when absorbing damage.
  • Suppression now grants an additional 6% damage reduction to area of effects when suffering a loss of control effect. Moved to gate 3.
  • Blood Draw now also grants a buff reducing damage taken by 10% and reducing Death Strike cost by 10 for 8 seconds when falling below 30% health. Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes). Now a 1-point talent (was 2).

Unholy's Talent Tree has been reworked. New talents, removed talents, changed talents, and moved talents have quite a large impact on our talent builds and gameplay.

• New Talent: Foul Infections — Your diseases deal 10% more damage and have a 5% increased chance to critically strike.
• New Talent: Festering Scythe — Every 20 Festering Wound you burst empowers your next Festering Strike to become Festering Scythe for 12 sec. Festering Scythe sweep through all enemies within 15 yds in front of you, dealing Shadow damage and infecting them with 2-3 Festering Wounds.
• New Talent: Menacing Magus — Your Magus of the Dead Shadow Bolt now fires a volley of Shadow Bolts at up to 4 nearby enemies.
• New Talent: Doomed Bidding — Consuming Sudden Doom calls upon a Magus of the Dead to assist you for 8 sec.
• New Talent: Raise Abomination — Replaces Army of the Dead. Raises an Abomination for 30 seconds, which wanders and attacks enemies, applying Festering Wound when it melees targets and affecting all those nearby with Virulent Plague.
• New Talent: Decomposition — Virulent Plague has a chance to abruptly flare up, dealing 50% of the damage it dealt to target in the last 4 sec. When this effect triggers, the duration of your active minions are increased by 1 sec, up to 3 sec.
• The following talents have been changed:
  • Army of the Dead cooldown is now 3 minutes (was 8 minutes with cooldown reduction baked into Army of the Damned talent)
  • Apocalypse cooldown is now 45 seconds.
  • Dark Transformation cooldown is now 45 seconds.
  • Vile Contagion cooldown is now 45 seconds.
  • Apocalypse now summons 4 ghouls regardless of Festering Wounds burst.
  • Improved Death Coil and Ghoulish Frenzy are now 1-point talents with the original 1-point value left unchanged.
  • Ebon Fever now also affects Frost Fever and Blood Plague if Superstrain is talented.
  • Defile damage increased by 200% and no longer increases Mastery when dealing damage to enemies.
  • Unholy Blight is now passive, activating around your pet when your press Dark Transformation.
  • Epidemic and Outbreak are now learned at levels 18 and 13 by default.
  • Sudden Doom has been reworked. It procs more often based off a bad-luck-protection system (each unsuccessful proc increased the probability of the next auto proccing). It now only reduces the cost of Death Coil and Epidemic by 10 Runic Power (previously made them free) as well as making them a guaranteed critical strike. Finally, Death Coil consumes a Festering Wound when empowered by Sudden Doom.
  • Festermight stacks now function like Ironfur where each stack has its own individual 20-second duration.