Here it is: The final part of our Meet the Death Knight series. This one is actual more than just a look into what it means to create an Unholy build, but also a build that I consider superior to all others.
Let's start at the top of the Unholy Talent Tree. Vicious Strikes is a great ability for the improved crit chance on Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, and even Death Strike if you are picking this talent up as an off-spec. Morbidity also sits up there at the top, improving the healing and the damage of Death Coil, an important ability for dumping Runic Power into a damage source.
In the second tier of the Unholy tree you'll find Epidemic, a talent that lengthens the time of your diseases by 6 seconds. This is much more useful than it sounds, because it frees you up from spending precious runes on Icy Touch or Plague Strike but instead Scourge Strike. Ravenous Dead also accompanies tier 2, which buffs up your Ghoul pet by a huge margin.
Though its utility is a little awkward, Corpse Explosion is a nice AOE ability for when you are out griding. Outbreak can be found to the left of Corpse Explosion on the talent tree. Outbreak boost the damage of Plague Strike, Pestilence, and Blood Boil all by 30%, which is nice considering none of them deal much damage in the first place.
Blood-Caked Strike is a quirky ability, like a mini-Obliterate that can proc off of your auto-attacks. As weird as it is, it made up for more of my damage than Plague Strike (sans Blood Plague and Desecration of course).
Shadow of Death is just a fun way to take some of the sting out of dying. Who wouldn't want to keep fighting as a zombie after they die?
Summon Gargoyle takes some getting used to. You need to keep a reserve of Runic Power going in order for the Gargoyle to stick around for any decent duration. If you do manage that, he'll deal a ton of damage while he sticks around.
Impurity is better than it already sounds. Getting an extra 25% contribution to your spells from attack power means that they will scale even more at higher levels.
Reaping is about the same as Blood of the North except for the fact that it only costs 3 talent points and procs off of Blood Boil as well as Blood Strike. Really handy for those AOE situations.
Master of Ghouls is the most attractive talent in the entire Unholy tree. These guys can end up dealing quite a bit of extra damage, around 20% of what you would be dealing by yourself.
Magic Suppresion is of course wonderful for the 5% damage reduction against magic, but it also makes your Anti-Magic Shell absorb 100% spell damage while it is active. Linked to this ability is Anti-Magic Zone, which lets your buddy in on all of the great magic supressing qualties of a Death Knight for a short period of time.
Desecration turns Plague Strike into an ability that is more than just there to apply Blood Plague. Now it will also desecrate the ground, slowing the targets within its area by 50% and increasing all damage you deal while standing upon it by 5%. Very nifty.
Unholy Aura is that ability that helps your friends move around during the raid if they haven't specced to be more mobile already. I personally found this to be the weakest of the auras because of how much it won't stack.
Bone Shield: Damage reduction and a Damage bonus while active. 'Nuff Said.
Night of the Dead is really great because of what it does to Army of the Dead (it also basically makes Raise Dead an instant cast) by cutting its cooldown in half. If you manage to summon all 7 minions, your DPS will more than double for the 20 seconds they get to attack.
Crypt Fever (which becomes Ebon Plague) is an awesome debuff, but it is also so much more. Every effect grants a bonus per disease will be boosted by the existance of Crypt Fever/Ebon Plague as well.
Wandering Plague gives each tick of your damage over time effects from your diseases a chance to deal an extra tick of damage to its primary target and all enemies surrounding it. Warlocks and Shadow Priests get talents similar to this, making critical hit chance important again. In this case, it just make critical hit chance even more important for the Death Knight.
Scourge Strike is a tricky version of Obliterate that doesn't consume diseases. In fact there's a glyph that gives it a 25% chance to inflict Blood Plague and Frost Fever simultaneously. It deals less damage than Obliterate at base, but because it deals shadow damage it will benefit from the Ebon Plague's 13% spell damage bonus.
Rage of Rivendare is very cookie-cutter, just like Tundra Stalker.
Unholy Blight is in a category all its own. At first this seems like a replacement for Death Coil, but its not. Unholy Blight lasts for 20 seconds and deals a TON of damage in an area of effect. This just adds to how Runic Power hungry the Unholy Death Knight already was.
Now I know you think it is going to end there, but let me show you...the hybrids.
FROST + UNHOLY
BLOOD + UNHOLY
I tried out both of these builds. This first chart is from The Frost / Unholy build.
There is a perfect synergy between Chill of the Grave and Dirge. This makes it to where Obliterate (which no longer consumes diseases because of Annihilation) generates 25 Runic Power instead of the usual 15. This is great considering Frost Strike is your primary source of damage.
This build does have the draw back of having a really stressful rotation of 6 abilities that you have to pay attention to. Considering how your attention is divided amongst your Runic Power, Runes active, and diseases applied, this rotation is a bit much. Some might find it more entertaining that way, so it is up to you. The problem is if you have a laspe in your attention span, you'll have a signifigant decrease in your damage output
Now take a look at The Blood / Unholy build.
What's this? It deals more damage that any of the other builds? Not only that, it has a simpler rotation because of one less attack to worry about and the massive number of Death runes that the build produces because of the constant use of Death Strike. This allows you to spam Heart Stike even more than you could Frost Strike, even out-damaging your auto-attacks! I also find that there is something satisfying using your best ability over and over. It feels like the big payoff for your rotation.
I found this build to be the most fun, deal the most damage, and heal just as effectively as a pure Blood Death Knight. Notice that this build still grabs every healing ability found on the Blood tree. That's no coincidence, I hope you know.
Both builds use the same build for the Unholy portion. I did some thorough testing and I wouldn't shift around the points one bit. You don't want to take the points out of Dirge to put into Necrosis. Necrosis is not as much damage as you might think and the extra energy is useful for throwing out either Death Coil (which is improved by Morbidity) or Frost Strike. The big goal of going into Unholy is to make your Ghoul as permanent pet. They make a huge difference in your DPS, especially depending on your go into Blood or Frost. Abominations Might (seemed to be a10% damage boost to your ghoul) and Stolen Warmth (seemed to be a massive 30% damage boost to your ghoul!) both make your Ghoul more powerful than it would be otherwise if you were just pure Unholy.
So there you have it. The Death Knight. Soon, you'll have a Death Knight of your own and when you do, what will you choose? Will you temper the Rage of Rivendare? Travel down the Path of the Tundra Stalker? Tread across the Crimson Horizons? Or will you delve through the Twilight just like I have?
What's it going to be?
