Death Knight Hero Talents — The War Within (11.1.0)

This page is specifically about Hero Talents in The War Within. If you want to learn more about the best regular talents for Unholy Death Knight, check out our Talents page:

Rider of the Apocalypse is generally the best hero talent for us in a raiding environment. It has very little impact on our actual rotation and does tend to provide the most throughput. The horsemen themselves do great damage, and buff our burst windows. Furthermore, we get really solid mobility via Death Charge, which allows us to run around on a horse briefly and fight the raid boss.

San'layn lags behind Rider ever so slightly in pure Single Target. The main negative aspect of the spec is that it is quite random in how much damage it deals. You can get great procs and do tons of damage, or you can get really unlucky and do much less. It does have a strong niche in low-target cleave where the big Death Coil damage in combination with Improved Death Coil does really well. Finally, San'layn alters the gameplay, requiring high uptime during Dark Transformation windows and punishing any downtime that leads to a loss of the Essence of the Blood Queen buff.

Rider of the Apocalypse is your go-to Mythic+ Hero Talents. It is straight-forward to play and generally does not take too much setup to start dealing damage. It does have a weakness in low-target dungeons where San'Layn performs better. Fnally, Death Charge provides nice mobility ( On a Paler Horse unfortunately does not work in Mythic+ or Raid).

San'layn's damage throughput depends heavily on the type of dungeon as well as the key level. In lower keys where trash dies too quickly, San'Layn falls short since there is not sufficient time to trigger Infliction of Sorrow on the pack. However, in higher keys and especially keys with lower target counts, San'Layn does a lot better than rider. The tier set in combination with Death Coil cleave gives excellent cleave damage as well as great priority damage. The primary negative aspect here is the randomness of the spec, relying heavily on Blood Beast procs to deal good damage.

2.

Best Hero Talent Builds for Unholy Death Knight

Rider of the Apocalypse Universal Build San'layn Universal Build

3.

Best Rider of the Apocalypse Build for Unholy Death Knight

Rider of the Apocalypse is very straightforward to build, with the same setup being optimal for all scenarios (only having utility options being the real choices). The Horsemen you summon deal such a large amount of damage, making Fury of the Horsemen the best pick in all scenarios. On a Paler Horse is probably the most powerful leveling talent we have, but is not useful in any Raiding or Mythic+ content. Finally, Pact of the Apocalypse provides a useful amount of raw defensive power in all situations. Horsemen's Aid is a good pick if you expect lots of magic damage and debuffs coming out in a given encounter (which happens a lot).

3.

Best San'layn Build for Unholy Death Knight

San'layn has one build that is best DPS in all scenarios, picking up Pact of the San'layn to amp up all the damage you output. For the utility choices, Newly Turned is the go-to option to help any teammate you need to battle ress. However, Vampiric Speed is also solid, giving both you and your group better mobility. For Vampiric Aura versus Bloody Fortitude, we believe Bloody Fortitude provides the best direct benefit. Making Icebound Fortitude stronger the lower health you are empowers the cooldown significantly. Still, Vampiric Aura provides some nice passive healing and also helps your group slightly.

Rider of the Apocalypse most significantly changes your rotation by introducing the Chains of Ice proc from Trollbane. This should be tracked so that you can burst the Chains as quickly as possible when they are applied (giving Trollbane the opportunity to apply them again). Furthermore, Mograine will cast Death and Decay and enable your cleave. When he does this, you do not need to use Death and Decay yourself!

San'layn alters your rotation quite significantly due to the strong feedback loop with Infliction of Sorrow as well as the maintenance of your Essence of the Blood Queen buff. During Dark Transformation, you simply ignore Festering Strike altogether, instead spamming Scourge Strike and Death Coil. Scourge Strike turns into Vampiric Strike during Dark Transformation (adding damage) as well as gaining a ton of damage via the Infliction of Sorrow Disease aspect, making it worthwhile to spam. Death Coil helps us generate Runes, as well as prolong the window via Eternal Agony. Furthermore, Death Charge becomes a significantly stronger ability via the Frenzied Bloodthirst talent, pushing out the use of Epidemic in AoE. We only really use Epidemic on huge pulls outside of Dark Transformation.

Outside of your big Dark Transformation windows, you fish for procs of Vampiric Strike to extend your Essence of the Blood Queen buff. We use Death and Decay on Cooldown to leverage Blood-Soaked Ground as well as prioritising Death Coil to hopefully get a proc of Vampiric Strike and extend the Gift of the San'layn buff until our next Dark Transformation window.