Unholy Death Knight DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within Pre-Patch

This build is optimal for the majority of raid encounters, providing the best balance between raw Single-target damage and flexibility. For the spec tree, the flex points to consider are Unholy Pact and Rotten Touch. Ghoulish Frenzy is on par with Unholy Pact and is just a personal preference. Both Pact and Rotten Touch are exchanged for Improved Death Coil and Menacing Magus in Cleave/ AoE. Improved Death Coil is only picked up at 2-3 targets however, as it starts losing value vs Epidemic at higher target counts. At 5+ targets, pick up Unholy Pact again (dropping Rotten Touch) in combination with Menacing Magus. Here's a summary:

• 1 Target - Rotten Touch + Unholy Pact/ Ghoulish Frenzy.
• 2-3 Targets - Menacing Magus + Improved Death Coil.
• 4+ Targets - Menacing Magus + Unholy Pact.

For the class tree, there's a lot more realistic choice. Above the 20 point delimiter, we don't have too many mandatory spells:

• Death Strike
• Icebound Fortitude
• Runic Attenuation
• Anti-Magic Barrier
• Permafrost
• Icy Talons
• Gloom Ward
• Veteran of the Third War
• Brittle
• Unholy Bond
• Soul Reaper
• Unholy Endurance
• Unholy Ground (pathing)

Picking these up leaves us with 5 points that we can allocate freely. Cleaving Strikes is mandatory on any cleave fight. Mind Freeze for any fight with interrupt being required. Blinding Sleet if you need AoE CC. Wraith Walk and/or March of Darkness for extra mobility. Anti-Magic Zone and potentially Assimilation to get a nice defensive raid Cooldown. Finally, Enfeeble for some nice passive defensive power. There is simply a lot of choice here and you can cater your utility to each encounter!

The general choice is to run Unholy Ground on AoE fights and swap it to Enfeeble in pure Single Target.

The bottom part of the tree has a lot less choice. Blood Draw can be exchanged for Runic Protection on fights with a lot of physical damage intake. Furthermore, where you simply do not take any magic damage at all, Null Magic can be allocated to Osmosis or someplace further up the tree. Finally, when you cannot gain particular value from Unyielding Will, this point can be put better to use at Osmosis or, again, further up the tree.

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!

The recommended talents do not account for specific raid encounters (but you can just run it everywhere and be completely fine), which can require a specific talent or build. For a boss-by-boss breakdown of the talent choices for specific encounters, you should check out our dedicated raid page.

This build puts a lot more focus on our pet damage by picking up both Unholy Aura and Commander of the Dead. It is generally inferior to the pure Disease build at all target counts so is primarily just a different style of play.

The spec tree has a couple of choices you make depending on fight style and preference. On pure Single Target, both Improved Death Coil and Ghoulish Frenzy are viable alternatives to Unholy Pact (within 0.1% DPS). As you go to 2-3 targets, you want to pick up both Improved Death Coil and Menacing Magus, sacrificing Unholy Pact and Rotten Touch to do so. On 4+ targets, you run Menacing Magus + Unholy Pact, giving up Improved Death Coil ( Epidemic devaules the Death Coil cleave at this point).

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!

For the class tree, there's a lot more realistic choice. Above the 20 point delimiter, we don't have too many mandatory spells:

• Death Strike
• Icebound Fortitude
• Runic Attenuation
• Anti-Magic Barrier
• Permafrost
• Icy Talons
• Gloom Ward
• Veteran of the Third War
• Brittle
• Unholy Bond
• Soul Reaper
• Unholy Endurance
• Unholy Ground (pathing)

Picking these up leaves us with 5 points that we can allocate freely. Cleaving Strikes is mandatory on any cleave fight. Mind Freeze for any fight with interrupt being required. Blinding Sleet if you need AoE CC. Wraith Walk and/or March of Darkness for extra mobility. Anti-Magic Zone and potentially Assimilation to get a nice defensive raid Cooldown. There is simply a lot of choice here and you can cater your utility to each encounter!

The bottom part of the tree has a lot less choice. Blood Draw can be exchanged for Runic Protection on fights with a lot of physical damage intake. Furthermore, where you simply do not take any magic damage at all, Null Magic can be allocated to Osmosis or someplace further up the tree. Finally, when you cannot gain particular value from Unyielding Will, this point can be put better to use at Osmosis or, again, further up the tree.

This is your go-to Mythic+ build for all dungeons and affixes. It leverages both disease damage via Superstrain, Ebon Fever, and Plaguebringer, as well as Wounds damage with Bursting Sores.

The primary choice in the spec tree revolves around Vile Contagion. The talent does generate a huge amount of Festering Wounds in AoE, but it takes up 3 GCDs to do so. You can opt to pick up Pestilence instead, or even Festering Scythe if you are keen for that ability. Pestilence is completely passive and enables quicker burst. Festering Scythe takes up GCDs and resources so has quite a lot of drawback.

For the class tree, we are pretty locked for the most part. Both Blinding Sleet and Mind Freeze are mandatory, along with Cleaving Strikes. Anti-Magic Zone and March of Darkness can be freed up. Coldthirst, Grip of the Dead and Wraith Walk are good options.

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!