Unholy Death Knight DPS Spell List and Glossary — The War Within (11.2)

If you are new to Unholy, this is a great place to start to get an understanding of how the spec works. On this page we will discuss what abilities you have, what they are used for within the specialization, how they interact with each other and also with important cooldowns. If you already have experience with Unholy and are comfortable with it in the current expansion, it is recommended you skip this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

Runic Power and Runes are your two primary resources. We have 6 Runes in total that passively generate over time, taking 10 seconds to recharge (decreased by haste). Runes are the most common resource we use for our abilities, which include Festering Strike, Scourge Strike and Army of the Dead. Spending Runes generates 10 Runic Power per Rune used. We use Runic Power as our spender on abilities such as Death Coil and Epidemic

Spells and passive abilities are unlocked as you level up and spend talent points. This page will simply list every single ability you can obtain, not recommending any specific talent setups or rotations to use. If you want to understand which abilities are best to pick up when leveling, please follow the below link.

These are the abilities that you obtain without selecting anything in the talent trees.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Death Coil	DC	Costs 30 Runic Power to cast, dealing Shadow damage to the target. It can be cast on an Undead ally (including yourself) to heal it. This is your main Single Target Runic Power spender.
Epidemic	Epi	Costs 30 Runic Power, dealing damage to any target that currently has Virulent Plague on them. Also, splashes to nearby enemies, dealing damage to up to 8 targets.
Death and Decay	DnD	Costs 1 Rune and places a damaging area at the target location, which persists for 10 seconds. If you have selected Cleaving Strikes, also makes your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows cleave 7 additional targets.
Death's Advance	DA	Death's Advance when activated, increases your movement speed by 35% and prevents you from being slowed below 100% of your movement speed for 10 seconds. It also grants you immunity from knockbacks. It has a passive ability that prevents your movement speed from being reduced below 70%.
Rune Strike	-	Costs 1 Rune and deals moderate damage. Is replaced once we choose a specialisation ( Festering Strike for Unholy).
Outbreak	OB	Costs 1 Rune and applies Virulent Plague to all enemies near your target.
Virulent Plague	VP	A Shadow damage DoT that erupts when the target dies, dealing damage divided among all enemies. It is applied using Outbreak, Raise Abomination or Dark Transformation (with Unholy Blight).
Runic Corruption	RC	A passive that gives you a 1.6% chance per Runic Power spent to increase your Rune recharge rate by 100% for 3 seconds. The duration scales inversely with Haste, always granting you the same total amount of 0.9 Runes whenever it procs. Runic Power abilities that get a "free" proc, such as Dark Succor still proc this passive as if they consumed the Runic Power.
Dark Succor	-	A passive that grants you a free Death Strike whenever you kill an enemy that grants honor or experience. Also increases the healing of the Death Strike by 10%. Importantly, you need to land the killing blow to retrieve the buff, meaning you will not get that many procs in Raids and Mythic+.
On a Pale Horse	-	A passive that grants 20% mounted movement speed.
Anti-Magic Shell	AMS	Absorbs up to 30% of your maximum health in Magic damage over 5 seconds, generating Runic Power based on the damage absorbed (up to 30 Runic Power maximum). This should be used to mitigate Magic damage throughout the fight, while the added Runic Power will help increase your DPS. It also prevents any magical debuffs from being applied to you. This can be very useful to dodge mechanics!
Death Grip	-	Pulls your target towards you. It also has a shorter GCD compared to normal spells at 0.5 seconds. This means that you can quickly use another ability after gripping something.
Raise Ally	-	Costs 30 Runic Power and battle resses a targeted dead ally, bringing them back to life (even in combat).
Lichborne	-	Turns you undead for 10 seconds. This makes you immune to charm, fear, and sleep, and grants you 10% leech. You can also activate this ability to break any of these CCs, making it a useful tool if you are accidentally hit a mechanic that applies such a CC.
Dark Command	-	Taunts the targeted enemy, forcing them to attack you.
Runeforging	-	Allows you to apply a powerful Runeforge to your weapon, acting as a (usually) better enchant. You do this in the Acherus Hold at the Runeforges.
Death Gate	-	Summons a gate that will teleport you to Acherus. Here you can Runeforge your weapon, practice your rotation on target dummies, and change the appearance of your Summon Gargoyle to a Valkyr. Using the Death Gate again will bring you back to your original location.
Chains of Ice	Chains	Costs 1 Rune and slows your target by 70% for 8 seconds. This is generally your primary way of slowing any given target. Great for when you need to kite dangerous mobs in the open-world or kill a fleeing enemy.
Path of Frost	-	Costs 1 Rune and grants everyone in your group the ability to walk on water. Breaks on any damage taken.
Mastery: Dreadblade	-	Our Mastery, increasing our Shadow and Minion damage as well as the critical strike damage of Minions and Diseases.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Icebound Fortitude	IBF	Provides a 30% damage reduction for 8 seconds, additionally making you immune to stuns. It can be used when stunned as well to break out of the CC. Primary defensive cooldown for us with the added benefit of the stun break!
Death Strike	DS	Costs 45 Runic Power (35 with Improved Death Strike) and constitutes our primary mean of healing ourselves. The amount of healing increases with the damage we've taken in the last 5 seconds, making it excellent to use after you have taken a big hit. It heals for 25% of the damage taken with a minimum of 7% max hp healed every time (40% and 11.2% with Improved Death Strike).
Raise Dead	-	Summons our primary pet to help us fight our enemies. The pet has a main attack ability in the form of Claw but can also stun enemies with Gnaw and leap to its target with Leap (which is also an interrupt during Dark Transformation).
Mind Freeze	-	Interrupts your target. It has a 15 yards range, a benefit over other melee interrupts that often require melee range.
Blinding Sleet	Sleet	Blinds all targets in a cone in front of you for 5 seconds. When the enemies are broken out of sleep via damage or if the duration finishes, they are slowed by 50% for 6 seconds. Great ability to stop a group of enemies from casting, as well as controlling them efficiently. Your tank will love this ability whenever they need to kite.
Control Undead	-	Costs 1 Rune and controls the targeted Undead enemy for 5 minutes. This requires that the enemy is sufficiently low-level (it does not work on bosses and certain mobs in dungeons). Furthermore, it prevents you from having your primary ghoul active, resulting in a significant DPS decrease.
Sacrificial Pact	SacPact	Costs 30 Runic Power and sacrifices your primary ghoul, dealing AoE damage (linearly to 8 targets, square root afterward) and healing you for 25% of your maximum hp. Primarily used as an energy heal as the damage component is not worth the button press.
Death Pact	-	Heals you for 50% of your maximum health, as well as putting a healing absorption heal for 30% of your maximum health. A panic-button heal with a downside. The effective healing is only 20%, but you still find a lot of instances where this provides the required breathing room for your healers or you need to bring you back to health.
Anti-Magic Zone	AMZ	Places a zone on the ground that reduces magic damage taken by 15% for 6 seconds for everyone standing in it. The cooldown can be decreased to 3 minutes and the duration increased to 8 seconds via the Assimilation talent.
Asphyxiate	Asphyx	Stuns your target for 5 seconds. Simple single-target stun with a range of 20-yards.
Wraith Walk	WW	Provides 70% movement speed for 4 seconds. Any ability used during the channel will break the effect. Useful as a movement speed increase in instances when you need to move between A and B without doing anything else.
Soul Reaper	SR	Costs 1 Rune, deals low damage, and applies a debuff to your enemy. After 5 seconds, if the target is below 35% health, this debuff explodes, dealing heavy ShadowFrost damage. If the target dies while under the effect of Soul Reaper, you gain Runic Corruption.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Festering Strike	FS	Costs 2 Runes, dealing Physical damage to the target and infect them with 2-3 stacks of Festering Wound. Festering Wounds can be burst using Scourge Strike, dealing damage to the target.
Scourge Strike	SS	Costs 1 Rune and deals Physical and Shadow damage to the target, and bursting 1 Festering Wound stack.
Raise Dead	-	Converts your baseline Raise Dead into a 30 seconds cooldown, now summoning a permanent pet to fight for you. This permanent pet has controllable abilities that charge, silence, root, and stun your enemies.
Dark Transformation	DT	Has a 45 seconds cooldown and transforms your ghoul into a more powerful version of itself for 15 seconds while also granting them 100% Energy. The empowered ghoul that deals AoE damage has a longer stun and can interrupt by charging to a target. Apocalypse when talented replaces Dark Transformation but still provides the same effect.
Defile	-	Replaces your Death and Decay. This new ability still allows you to cleave with your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows with the Cleaving Strikes talent. In addition, every time a tick of Defile damages an enemy, its size and damage grow.
Desecrate	-	Death and Decay deals 100% more damage and has its cooldown reduced by 10 seconds. Furthermore, it is replaced with Desecrate when cast. Desecrate consumes the Death and Decay, dealing its remaining damage and providing the remaining duration of Cleaving Strikes (including the 4 seconds linger from Cleaving Strikes). It also applies 1-2 Festering Wounds if the target has none, or bursts 1-2 wounds if the target has wounds already. Allows us to keep the value of Death and Decay when the tank moves out of it which is really nice.
Apocalypse	Apoc	Bursts up to 4 Festering Wounds on your target, summoning 4 members of the Army of the Dead. The minions last for 20 seconds. It also generates 2 Runes on use. It replaces Dark Transformation while keeping all the effects of that talent.
Army of the Dead	AotDead	Costs 1 Rune and summons several ghouls to fight at your side for 30 seconds. I big Single Target cooldown.
Raise Abomination	Abomination	Summons an Abomination for 30 seconds that melees your target. It applies one Festering Wound with each Melee, and applies Virulent Plague to all targets around it. This cooldown replaces Army of the Dead.
Legion of Souls	-	Summons a legion of souls to assist you, dealing AoE damage around you and applying 6 Festering Wounds to all targets hit over the duration. Grants the benefit of standing in Death and Decay and scales with other spells and your Mastery that benefit minions. Big AoE cooldown that also avoids the Death and Decay button press when you use it.
Summon Gargoyle	Garg/Gary	Summons a gargoyle to attack your enemy for 25 seconds. Every 1 Runic Power used increases the damage of the gargoyle by 1%.
Unholy Assault	UA	Strikes the target and infects them with 4 Festering Wounds, while also increasing your Damage by 20% for 20 seconds.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Runic Attenuation	RA	Gives your auto attacks a chance to grant you 3 Runic Power. This provides around 30 Runic Power per minute, adding a good amount of resources to our rotation.
Improved Death Strike	-	Increases the healing of Death Strike by 60% and lowers its cost by 10 Runic Power. Effectively makes Death Strike a 35 Runic Power ability that heals for a minimum of 11% max health, or 40% of damage taken in the last 5 seconds, whichever is greatest.
Cleaving Strikes	-	Your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows/ Vampiric Strike cleave to 7 nearby enemies when you stand in your Death and Decay. Importantly, only you need to stand in your Death and Decay to gain the cleave buff, and it lingers for 4 seconds after you exit your Death and Decay.
Anti-Magic Barrier	-	Lowers the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell to 40 seconds and increases the amount absorbed by 40%. Useful for any situation with heavy magic damage or frequent magic debuff applications (that you can then ignore).
March of Darkness	-	Grants you an extra 25% movement speed during the first 3 seconds of activating Death's Advance.
Unholy Momentum	-	Provides 2% haste passively.
Enfeeble	-	Gives your ghoul a chance to apply a debuff to its target, reducing its movement speed by 30% and making it deal 15% less damage to you. A nice passive defensive gain for us.
Coldthirst	-	Grants you 10 Runic power and reduces the cooldown of Mind Freeze whenever you successfully interrupt using the ability. A nice additional to our resource generation, as well as providing overall more interrupt opportunities in any situation.
Proliferating Chill	PC	Increases the number of targets hit by your Chains of Ice from 1 to 2. It only affects additional enemies in close proximity of your primary target.
Permafrost	-	Provides a shield on yourself based on 30% of your auto attack damage. Provides a good deal of tankiness, both from passive healing but also as prevention to one-shot mechanics.
Veteran of the Third War	VoTW/ Veteran	Increases your stamina by 12%, making you significantly tankier overall.
Brittle	-	Grants your diseases a chance to apply a debuff to your enemy, increasing the damage you do against them by 6% for 5 seconds.
Death's Reach	-	Increases the range of Death Grip by 10 yards and resets its cooldown whenever you kill an enemy granting experience or honor. Useful in any situation where you need to grip adds as the extra range both helps with the distance, you can move them, as well as lowering how far you need to run yourself. The cooldown reset is mostly useful during leveling, as you need to land the killing blow to gain the effect.
Icy Talons	IT	Provides a 6% increase in attack speed for 10 seconds every time we spend Runic Power, stacking up to 3 times.
Unholy Bond	-	Increases the effectiveness of our Runeforges by 20%. This includes every aspect of the Runeforge, making Rune of the Fallen Crusader both increase its healing and strength gain, for instance.
Ice Prison	-	Chains of Ice now also roots enemies for 4 sec but its cooldown is increased to 12 sec.
Gloom Ward	GW	Increases the effectiveness of all absorbs on you by 15%. Big survivability increases both from empowering our abilities, such as Anti-Magic Shell, as well as any healing coming in the form of absorbs. Especially good with Disc Priests!
Assimilation	-	Reduces the cooldown of Anti-Magic Zone by 1 minute and increases its duration by 2 seconds.
Grip of the Dead	-	Adds a 90% slow to your Death and Decay, reducing by 10% for every second. A great tool to help your tank kite and manage any trash pack. Furthermore, it helps to keep any mobs in your AoE when your tank tries to pull them out of it!
Suppression	-	Passively increases your Avoidance by 3%. This is increased to 9% for 6 seconds when you suffer a loss of control effect.
Blood Scent	-	Passively increases your Leech by 3%.
Unholy Endurance	-	Converts your Lichborne into a proper defensive cooldown, granting it 2 extra seconds of duration as well as a 15% damage reduction for you. Adds to our already extensive kit of defensives!
Osmosis	-	Your Anti-Magic Shell also increases healing received by 15%.
Insidious Chill	-	Applies a stacking debuff with your auto attacks, reducing the enemy's attack speed by 5% per stack up to 20% at 4 stacks. Helps your tanks survive in a scenario (or yourself when doing open-world content). Stacks with similar effects such as Curse of Weakness.
Runic Protection	-	Reduces your chance to be critically struck by 3% and increases your armor by 6%. Small defensive boost.
Blood Draw	BD	Heals you for a moderate amount if you drop below 30% health. It can only occur once every 2 minutes. Also reduces damage taken by 10% and Runic Power cost of Death Strike by 10 for 8 seconds after it triggers.
Rune Mastery	-	Makes spending Runes give a chance to increase our strength by 3/6% for 8 seconds.
Subduing Grasp	-	When you pull an enemy with Death Grip, they deal 6% less damage to you for 6 seconds. Makes Death Grip a small defensive Cooldown against bosses.
Will of the Necropolis	WotN	Reduces the damage you take below 30% by 20/35%. Big boost to our survivability since the damage we take below 30% is by far the most useful to mitigate. Effectively increases max HP by 16% against one-shots.
Null Magic	-	Reduces magic damage taken by 5% and harmful debuff duration by 35%. A really nice defensive boost against magic damage.
Unyielding Will	-	Increase the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell by 20 seconds but makes it remove all negative debuffs on you when used. Can be incredibly powerful when dealing with various raid mechanics but requires a good use case to justify the 20 seconds cooldown increase.
Death's Echo	DE	Provides an extra charge to Death's Advance, Death and Decay and Death Grip. Nice increase in utility with the the extra mobility and the additional grip.
Vestigial Shell	-	Anti-Magic Shell also applies two shields to nearby allies. These shields absorb some Magic Damage (10% of your own AMS) and reduces the duration of Magic effects by 50%. Nice defensive boost to your party, especially in Mythic+.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Festering Wound	FW	A debuff applied by Festering Strike primarily. It can stack up to 6 on any given target. The Festering Wounds can be burst using Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows/ Vampiric Strike, dealing shadow damage to the target. Can be talented in dealing AoE damage as well with Bursting Sores. The wounds also burst on death.
Sudden Doom	SD	Grants your auto-attacks a chance to make your next Death Coil or Epidemic critically strike. Furthermore, Death Coil bursts a Festering Wound and costs 10 less Runic Power when consuming a proc of Sudden Doom. The proc is based on a bad-luck-protection system where each auto attack that doesn't generate a proc linearly increases the probability of the next to proc.
Foul Infections	-	Increases your Disease damage by 10% and their chance to critically strike by 5%.
Improved Festering Strike	-	Increases the damage of both our Festering Strike as well as our Festering Wounds by 10%. Only increases the primary portion of our Festering Wound damage, not the potential AoE portion we get from Bursting Sores.
Plague Mastery	-	Critical strike damage of your Diseases is increased by 25%. This is a choice node with Grave Mastery and essentially determines if you want to run a minion build or a disease build. Also makes us scale a bit better with Crit.
Grave Mastery	-	Critical strike damage of your Minions is increased by 15%. This is a choice node with Plague Mastery and essentially determines if you want to run a minion build or a disease build. Also makes us scale a bit better with Crit.
Eternal Agony	EA	Increases the duration of Dark Transformation by 1 second every time you cast Death Coil or Epidemic. Significantly increases the uptime of Dark Transformation and heightens the priority of spending Runic Power when the buff is active.
Unholy Blight	UB/Blight	Applies Virulent Plague and Unholy Blight to targets near your main pet each second over 6 seconds when you activate Dark Transformation. Unholy Blight lasts for 14 seconds and stacks up to 4 times, dealing increased damage with each stack. This makes Dark Transformation an even better Cooldown, conveniently applying DoTs to all targets around our pet when we press DT!
Plaguebringer	PB	Makes Scourge Strike increase the rate at which our diseases deal damage by 100% for 5 seconds. This acts as a buff on us, meaning all targets currently affected by disease will take more damage, regardless of whether or not we hit them with the Scourge Strike.
Clawing Shadows	CS	Replaces your Scourge Strike, increasing its range by 30 yards and making it deal shadow damage. It can be leveraged with Death and Decay to cleave from range (since the cleave hits everything around your target, not your character).
Reaping	-	Increases the damage of Scourge Strike, Clawing Shadows, Vampiric Strike, Soul Reaper, Festering Strike and Death Coil by 30% on any target below 35% health. Furthermore, triggering the execute effect of Soul Reaper increases the damage of your minions by 10% for 8 seconds. An extra execute mechanic that brings a significant amount of useful damage. Being good at execute is pretty much always a good thing, since the last 35% of any boss fight is the most important!
All Will Serve	AWS	Summons an archer with your Raise Dead ability. This small minion attacks your enemies at range with a cleave attack. Consuming Sudden Doom will cause the archer to fire an additional attack. Epidemic additionally causes the attack to deal AoE damage.
Ebon Fever	EF	Reduces the duration of Virulent Plague by half, makes it tick twice as fast and deal 12% more damage. This is an overall 124% increase in the raw DPS from the DoT but with lots more Runes being spent to keep it up.
Bursting Sores	BS	Makes your Festering Wounds deal AoE damage when burst. This is a large portion of our damage in Mythic+, as the ability scales quadratically with the number of enemies. Any target that dies with Festering Wounds will also explode, dealing the splash damage from every wound. The damaged is capped to 7 nearby targets.
Ghoulish Frenzy	GF	Provides a 5% attack speed and damage boost to you and your primary pet whenever you use Dark Transformation. The duration of this buff lasts for as long as Dark Transformation is up, synergizing well with Eternal Agony. Only the damage that originates from you and your main pet is buffed, not that from any of your other minions.
Magus of the Dead	Magus	Spawns a skeletal mage whenever you use Apocalypse and Army of the Dead. This minion casts Shadowbolts and Frostbolts at your target for 20 seconds. The Frostbolts slow the target.
Improved Death Coil	-	Increases the damage of Death Coil by 15% and makes it cleave to one additional target. Significantly buffs our cleave potential at 2 targets. It does not count as two Death Coils for buffing Summon Gargoyle, but does apply multiple debuffs with Death Rot, Coil of Devastation and Rotten Touch.
Harbinger of Doom	Harbinger	Makes your Sudden Doom trigger 30% more often and adds the ability to accumulate 2 charges. Also increases the damage of your Death Coil by 20% or Epidemic by 10% when they consume the proc. Good synergy with other talents such as Doomed Bidding that work off SD procs.
Unholy Pact	Pact	Makes our Dark Transformation form a chain between you and your primary ghoul for 15 seconds. This deals shadow damage to everyone nearby. The chain only lasts for 15 seconds, regardless of your actual Dark Transformation duration. The AoE of the chain is very forgiving, hitting everything 8 yards around you, your pet, as well as any point on the chain between you two.
Festering Scythe	Scythe	Every 20 Festering Wounds you burst empowers your next Festering Strike to become Festering Scythe for 12 seconds. Scythe deals Shadow damage to targets in front of you and infects each one with 2-3 Festering Wounds. It's very much like an AoE Festering Strike that generates a significant amount of Wounds on your targets.
Infected Claws	IC	Gives our primary ghoul's Claws attack a 30% chance of applying a Festering Wound. This also works on the Dark Transformation empowered version Sweeping Claws, which is an AoE ability. Each target hit will have an individual chance of receiving a Festering Wound. This is a major source of Festering Wound application in AoE scenarios.
Menacing Magus	-	Your Magus of the Dead now cleaves on a total of 4 targets. Really good cleave talent! This only applies to the Shadow version of your Magus' attacks, the Frost version is still only Single Target.
Coil of Devastation	-	Adds a DoT to any target hit with your Death Coil, dealing an additional 30% of its original damage. This DoT functions similarly to Mastery: Ignite where overlapping the DoT does not in any way decrease the total damage you gain from it. This is not something you need to track.
Rotten Touch	RT	Increases the damage of your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows by 60% against your target when you consume a proc of Sudden Doom with Death Coil. Good synergy with Harbinger of Doom which leads to 90%+ uptime on the debuff.
Death Rot	-	Applies a debuff to any target hit by Death Coil and Epidemic, increasing the shadow damage you do against them by 1% for 10 seconds, stacking up to 10 times. Stacks twice if a proc of Sudden Doom is consumed. Relatively easy to keep up and a significant boost to our damage. Makes Epidemic is very useful in AoE scenarios since the debuff can be applied easily to all targets.
Doomed Bidding	-	Consuming Sudden Doom summons a Magus of the Dead for 8 seconds. Adds even more value to Sudden Doom and gives a really good feeling when consuming the procs.
Morbidity	Morb	Increases the damage your enemies take from you by 1/2% for every disease you have active on them. Synergizes well with Unholy Blight and Superstrain that will provide an overall 4/8% damage buff whenever they are all active.
Festermight	FM	Increases your strength by 1% for 20 seconds every time you consume a Festering Wound, stacking up to 20 times. Each individual stack you generate will have its own 20-second duration. Really powerful in AoE with large numbers of Festering Wounds being generated and popped. Also brings value to Apocalypse to buff other Cooldowns.
Decomposition	-	Virulent Plague sometimes flares up, dealing 100% of the damage it dealt to the target over the last 4 seconds. This effect also increases the duration of your active minions by 1 second, up to 3 seconds. Good synergy with our diseases, but unfortunately, in a spot in the tree that makes it hard to pick up.
Unholy Aura	-	Increases the damage your nearby enemies take from your minions by 10/20%. Works in an 8-yard radius around you. Important to track on bosses as some of them have hitboxes that do not work well with this talent. You sometimes need to stand much closer to the boss than you might think for this to work.
Superstrain	-	Makes Outbreak and Unholy Blight also apply Frost Fever and Blood Plague at 75% effectiveness. They deal 75% of their full damage, as well as granting 75% of the Runic Power and 75% of the healing effect.
Commander of the Dead	-	Increases your Apocalypse, Army of the Dead and Summon Gargoyle damage by 45% for 30 seconds when you activate Dark Transformation. The minions do not need to be active when you use Dark Transformation and can gain the buff if summoned later.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Rider's Champion		Spending Runes have a chance to summon a Horsemen for 10 seconds. Randomly gets one out of four Horsemen: Mograine - Casts Death and Decay that follows his location around. Provides the benefit from Cleaving Strikes once you pick up Mograine's Might. Whitemane - Casts Undeath on your enemy, a stacking DoT that can also spread to nearby enemies, similar to Necrotic Plague of old times. Trollbane - Casts Chains of Ice on your target, slowing their movement speed and increasing the damage you deal to them. Trollbane's Icy Fury allows you to burst the chains, dealing heavy AoE damage. Nazgrim - Increases your strength by 3% when active. Nazgrim's Conquest can significantly increase this benefit.
On a Paler Horse		While outdoors, you are able to mount your Acherus Deathcharger in combat. Huge increase to the speed at which you can quest in outdoor content. Unfortunately does not worked in instanced content such as Raids, Dungeons, Battlegrounds and Arenas.
Death Charge		Replaces your Death's Advance, increasing the movement speed you gain to 100% and mounting you for its duration. Breaks you free of any movement impairment effects when used. Furthermore, allows you to keep fighting while on the mount. Immune to knockbacks when in effect.
Whitemane's Famine		When Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows damages a target affected by Undeath it gains 1 stack and infects another nearby enemy. Allows for you to quickly stack and spread the debuff in conjunction with Cleaving Strikes.
Hungering Thirst		The damage of your diseases and Death Coil are increased by 10%.
Mograine's Might		Your damage is increased by 5% and you gain the benefits of your Death and Decay while inside Mograines Death and Decay. Importantly, the 5% damage increase only comes from Mograine's Death and Decay, not your own!
Nazgrim's Conquest		Apocalyptic Conquest strength is increased by 3% every time an enemy dies. Furthermore, each Rune you spend increases the Strength by 1%. Very powerful for packs of mobs where weaker ones die quickly and early.
Fury of the Horsemen		Every 50 Runic Power you spend extends the duration of the Horsemen currently aiding you by 1 second, up to a maximum of 5 seconds. Solid way of improving overall uptime of the Horsemen!
A Feast of Souls		While you have 2 or more Horsemen aiding you, Runic Power spending abilities deal 20% increased damage. Good synergy with Apocalypse Now but also have good uptime outside of our main cooldown windows.
Horsemen's Aid		When active, your Horsemen will occasionally cast Anti-Magic Shell on you at 80% effectiveness. Great for extra Magic immunity and absorb.
Pact of the Apocalypse		When you take damage, 5% is redirected to each active Horseman. Solid passive damage reduction that increases significantly during your cooldowns.
Trollbane's Icy Fury		Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows shatters the Chains of Ice cast by Trollbane, dealing damage to all nearby enemies and slowing them.
Mawsworn Menace		Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows deals 15% more damage and the cooldown of your Death and Decay/ Defile is reduced by 5 seconds (from 30 to 25). Provides the option of leveraging your Death and Decay windows significantly more often.
Apocalypse Now		Army of the Dead calls upon all 4 Horsemen to aid you for 20 seconds. Great synergy with Raise Abomination since you then gain the burst every 90 seconds!

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Vampiric Strike		Your Death Coil, Epidemic and Death Strike has a 25% chance to make your next Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows turn into Vampiric Strike. Vampiric Strike heals you for 2% of your maximum health and grants you Essence of the Blood Queen, increasing you Haste by 1%, up to 5% for 20 sec. This ability is primarily used during your Dark Transformation window with the Gift of the San'layn talent, you can read about it further down! Significantly changes our priority during these windows, and introduces a fishing game where you try and extend your Gift of the San'layn buff between Dark Transformation windows.
Newly Turned		Raise Ally revives players at full health and grants you and your ally an absorb shield equal to 20% of your maximum health. Significantly improves Raise Ally which otherwise resses people at 60% health.
Vampiric Speed		Death's Advance and Wraith Walk movement speed bonuses are increased by 10%. Activating these abilities also increases 4 nearby allies movement speed by 20% for 5 sec. Useful group utility that helps your group movement.
Infliction of Sorrow		Vampiric Strike extends the duration of your Virulent Plague by 3 seconds, and deals 10% of the remaining damage to the enemy. After Gift of the San'layn ends (after your Dark Transformation), your next Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows consumes your Virulent Plague, dealing 100% of the remaining damage to the enemy. This ability makes it incredibly worthwhile to spam Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows during your Dark Transformation. You increase the duration of your DoT, making the "10% of remaining damage" add a significant chunk to each press. Furthermore, you get a huge explosion after the window ends as you burst your DoT. You also gain a charge of Death and Decay/ Defile after Dark Transformation.
Visceral Strength		When Sudden Doom is consumed, you gain 8% Strength for 5 seconds. When you consume your DoTs with Scourge Strike/ Vampiric Speed, your next Outbreak consumes no Runes and casts a Death Coil or Epidemic, whichever you most recently cast. Makes the ending of your Dark Transformation feel a bit nicer, so you are not just spending several GCDs consuming and then reapplying your DoTs.
Blood-Soaked Ground		While you are in your Death and Decay, your physical damage taken is reduced by 5% and your chance to gain Vampiric Strike is increased by 5%. Increases the value of using Death and Decay inbetween your Dark Transformation to increase the chance of getting the Vampiric Strike buff and extend your Essence of the Blood Queen buff.
Frenzied Bloodthirst		Essence of the Blood Queen stacks 2 additional times (up to 7) and increases the damage of your Death Coil and Death Strike by 8% per stack. Has an impact on your Death Coil vs Epidemic priority in AoE as it increases the value of Death Coil significantly (56% outside of Dark Transformation and 112% inside of Dark Transformation) at max stacks.
Incite Terror		Vampiric Strike and Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows cause your targets to take 1% increased Shadow damage, up to 5% for 15 sec. Vampiric Strike benefits from Incite Terror at 400% effectiveness. A maintenance buff that is generally kept up by us doing the normal rotation.
Vampiric Aura		Your leech is increased by 2%. While Lichborne is active, the Leech bonus of this effect is increased by 100%, and it affects 4 allies within 12 yards. Minor defensive buff as well as some group utility.
Bloody Fortitude		Icebound Fortitude reduces all damage you take by an additional 20% based on your missing health. Killing an enemy that yields experience or honor reduces the cooldown of Icebound Fortitude by 3 seconds. Solid defensive boost that is especially powerful during leveling.
The Blood is Life		Dark Transformation summons a Blood Beast to attack your enemies for 10 seconds. Every time it attacks, it stores a portion of the damage dealt, exploding for 15% of the stored damage when it despawns. This also heals you for the same amount.
Pact of the San'layn		You store 15% of all Shadow Damage into your Blood Beast when it is active, exploding for additional damage when it despawns. A big increase in our DPS during Dark Transformation and an effect that scales quadratically with number of targets.
Sanguine Scent		Your Death Coil, Epidemic and Death Strike have a 15% increased chance to trigger Vampiric Strike when damaing enemies below 35% health. Increases our execute as it makes maintaining Essence of the Blood Queen significantly easier when the target is at low health.
Gift of the San'layn		During Dark Transformation you gain Gift of the San'layn. This increases the effectiveness of Essence of the Blood Queen by 100%, giving you significantly more Haste. Furthermore, your Scourge Strike/ Clawing Shadows is replaced by Vampiric Strike for the duration. Significant synergy with Infliction of Sorrow as it allows you to stack up a huge Virulent Plague duration, gaining a ton of extra damage from Infliction of Sorrow. Also big increase to Death Coil due to Frenzied Bloodthirst.