Unholy Death Knight in the War Within Reviewed - Guide Writer Feedback

Posted 2025/01/20 at 10:30 PM by Taeznak

Our Class Writers share their expert opinions based on rigorous testing and theorycrafting in hopes of contextualizing the changes coming in future patches of the War Within. Check out all of our released articles in our Editorial Section.

Wowhead Editorials

With the release of the 11.1 Patch notes, many specializations saw a ton of changes, lots of notes, and design iterations to be had almost all around. Unholy was one of the unlucky few that saw very few changes, though I do believe it is a specialization deserving of the attention many other specializations are seeing. So, where does the current iteration of Unholy fall short, what iteration do I believe Unholy needs? I'd like to talk about those here.

What's New in 11.1?

Unholy received 5 lines in the patch notes,

Unholy

Veteran of the Third War now increases Stamina by 12% (was 20%), and 6% in PvP combat (was 10%).
Null Magic now reduces the magical damage you take by 5% (was 8%), and 3% in PvP combat (was 4%).
Permafrost now generates an absorb shield at 30% of your auto attack damage (was 40%).
Apocalypse and Raise Dead now summon ghouls instantly.
Apocalypse and Raise Dead visuals have been updated.

ApocalypseRaise DeadArmy of the DeadRisen Ghoul Self StunApocalypse22.5% of their entire duration stunned.ApocalypseSacrificial PactApocalypseRaise DeadArmy of the DeadApocalypseArmy of the DeadThe Core Design from a Bygone EraDeath Coil8 and a half yearsA Talent Tree without an Identity

Purple nodes that are themed around diseases
Green nodes are themed around our undead minions
Orange nodes are based on s
Everything else is non-themed nodes

Power Disparity and Nodes without a purposenewly introduced talent in The War WithinDecompositionDecompositionless than 1% overall dps more than a 1000% buffAncient PowerDecompositionAll Will ServeRuptured VisceraUnholy PactMenacing MagusRuptured VisceraSummon GargoyleDoomed BiddingSummon Gargoyle

White nodes are required
Green nodes are great, and always chosen in their niche
Yellow nodes are flexible picks that can be chosen but are frequently skipped over
Orange nodes are nodes that are generally the last choice, even in their respective niche
Red nodes are nodes that should never, under any circumstances be picked due to the sheer lack of power they provide

Magus of the Deadsingle targetUnholy AuraCommander of the DeadMorbiditySuperstrainHereMagus of the DeadGhoulish FrenzyHero talents - Player Favorite

Secondary Stat ImbalanceSudden DoomFoul InfectionssomethingHere Do note, that stat scaling sims aren't the end-all-be-all, and should only be utilized as a single data point for secondary stat balance.THIS IS A CHART DEMONSTRATING THE SCALING OF THAT SINGULAR STAT ALONE AND DOES NOT HIGHLIGHT INTERACTIONS BETWEEN STATS WHERE INCREASING ONE STAT CHANGES THE VALUE OF ALL THE OTHERSConclusions

Comment by MehvCouldn't agree more. Well said, wish and hope the Devs would read these.Comment by ArkthugalA fair assessment, though I'd hate to lose my very straightforward rotation for some overly complicated nonsense like some specs have.Comment by MiascI literally only play Unholy right now because of San'layn. If they scrapped it or significantly changed the gameplay, there is a very high chance I would just drop the spec and have to find a new home again. I don't really care for the base gameplay of Unholy and the San'layn rotation is significantly more fun. It's not horribly underpowered compared to Riders too, so it doesn't amount to griefing.Comment by AsherrTheRedWell saidComment by VarusEUWell said and very much reflected my feelings around the technical aspects of the spec.
Consistency in the talent tree and UH themes would be awesome.
Having actual buttons to do things with pets would be great (other than once in a blue moon Jump-interrupt).

I'd just like to add that Riders is fantastically well themed DK hero talent, I love my horsemen.
But San'layn is the direct opposite. I don't want to be a vampire or a TEMU Denathrius. Please redesign this.Comment by ZordiakWhile I do generally agree with Taeznak more often than not, I will offer what I think is Festering Wounds one and only defense. It is fun to pop wounds, in my opinion, when and only when you are in AoE, after using Vile Contagion and standing in D&D/Defile, and are just spam popping them and a group just rolls over, outside of that, and especially in any Single Target situation, it's just unremarkable chaff, that's just part of your regular to-do list. However, that being said, I think it would be far worse if all of our damage just came from diseases with our biggest interaction being to reapply them and maintain Plaguebringer. I do want Unholy to still have tools that actively contributes to damage rather than only maintaining summons and diseases, much more so than we currently do, whether that takes the form of actual damage coming from our character or adding in something more interesting to interact with our active pets/diseases that aren't just buffs.Comment by dreamwalkkerI switched to DK this expansion, unholy was always some enigma to me before that. Now that I've played it for a season both in mythic keys and heroic/mythic raids and I can see why most people say it's a love/hate relationship with the spec.
Wounds either feel amazing or absolutely terrible depending on the situation. I dislike how many globals and resources I have to spend on switching targets, which makes it much worse in lower 10s keys..
Maybe the spec needs a shake up in the dot fantasy playstyle, something like the plaguebringer from PoE that accumulates damage from the dots as a buff to themselves, and then unleash it on other targets or like an aura that burns around us like Jade Wind. That would solve the target switching issue, Scourge strike and Festering strike could directly buff up duration, dot multiplier or flare up damage. In Aoe or ST there might be the option of transfering those dots to your minions and they damage things around them while burning their hp pool .. ? Who knows but it might make both dot and minion style weave into each other.Comment by AveignisI think both of the hero talents are fine thematically. San'layn being the "vampire"/ blood magic hero talent is fine for BDK and Unholy. Since it's half a disease oriented spec and there are bloodborne type diseases idk why it shouldn't be fitting for these 2 specs. The reason why nobody plays san'layn unholy is because Riders just does more dmg. In season 2 it looks like san'layn will do better with the new tier set so probably that >3% playrate will go up a lot.Comment by DasronI miss unholy very bursty single targetComment by AdoreMeWhile I do enjoy San'layn from time to time, my biggest problem is the current iteration of the blood beast.
A chance of a chance to procc the beast, often at bad times, is just frustrating!
Had a lot of runs where blood beast either triggered when the trash pack was already at < 40%, most were already dead or outright not triggering for multiple packs at all.Comment by ArexithYou forgot to mention GCD and CD button overload.

Again we can't build a strong single target with good AoE.

We don't have any burst - especially for single target.

Our Gargoyle costs 3 min CD and huge amounts of RP to do small damage. This should be buffed and have 2 min CD.

Army of the Dead should also see the same changes as Apocalypse.

San'layn should be redesigned to make Infliciotn of Sorrow smoother and hit targets, and The Blood is Life should do massive damage more often and be equivalent to Reaper's Mark but for AoE situations. Currently we have almost no control over the damage from this ability - it's one big RNG.
Vampiric Strike should be the baseline after choosing a vampire.
Vampiric Strike should not consume Virulent Plague. Dark Transformation should be cast for the duration of the ability, and The Blood is Life should be summoned - or be summoned from Apocalypse.
Vampiric Aura should act like Death and Decay for DK and increase all allies' Avoidance and Leech.
Apocalypse should replace Dark Transformation or be merged with Vile Contagion.

Raider of the Apocalypse champions should be improved primarily in their behavior and always attack the target chosen by DK.
Undeath should be reduced from 15 to 10 stacks, and Mograine should be permanently available.
Raise Abomination should be given faster running and the Cleav ability - like a warrior.
Raise Abomination should cost 1 talent point instead of 2.
When will Epidemic burst Festering Wound again like in beta?

Soul Reaper is a joke.

DT should always summon a pet and buff it after use, even if for some reason it was dead or gone.
Our pet should always be available even when we get off the mount.

And finally - where is the raid buff?Comment by MoorningwoodWell said mate, it's crazy to think Unholy has had the exact same gameplay with Festering Wounds for nearly a decade now.Comment by runicpoweryeah unholy been the same for years now friends ... i like the festering wound system but i guess that makes me crazy :*(Comment by MuzguMaybe some passively Wound generation (from our dots, for example) would solve a problem with festering strike being basicly useless. Generate one wound every x seconds. Make Death coil generate Wounds too, so our single target generation is quicker, and so can focus on spending them with SS, Apoc, maybe new cool button?

How about Soul Reaper? Why it doesn't pop Wounds? Make it pop one wound on hit, another one when its dot hit.

Or maybe even bring Necrotic Plague back 🙏Comment by FlowerhornI find it funny that in WoD, I boosted a DK because I wanted to play the melee plaguebringer fantasy, and then like 3 months later, Legion came out and remade the spec into a pet class with wounds as the main mechanic.
I liked the concept of Legion Unholy because I like Horsemen of the Apocalypse themes, so I love Rider hero tree, but I just can NOT bring myself to play Unholy simply because I don't want to deal with:

Wound tracking

Rune tracking

Runic Power

Being Melee

Comment by polksc33Not going to play if the legacy DnD & wound system not changing...Comment by BenedictogrOn the topic of flavor and thematic consistency, a huge point of disappointment for me that drove me away from DK this expansion was that neither of the hero talent trees really interacts with anything that it should obviously synergize with.

San'layn is supposed to be the disease tree, yet does not interact with THE disease talent, Superstrain. NONE of the disease talents bring anything to San'layn, as it benefits from one thing and one thing only: the remaining damage of your Virulent Plague. The initial iteration of it in beta felt great; Infliction of Sorrow scaled from all your diseases and hit hard each time. Then they made the bafflingly atrocious decision to make each individual hit of it pretty much irrelevant and backload all the damage on a final hit at the end of your cooldowns.

Riders of the Apocalypse is supposed to be the pinnacle of minion summoning builds, and yet they benefit from nothing that increases your minions throughput in any way, most notably Commander of the Dead.

Both hero trees seem to be thematically the ultimate step in the two "paths" that the admittedly jumbled spec tree has to offer: Diseases and Minions. Yet they opted to make them both generic, omni-compatible crap that feels completely ineffective instead of giving them the synergy and identity they deserve. And that ties into the problem of lack of build options as well. Two viable builds in one DPS spec would sadly have been more than the overwhelming majority of specs have right now.Comment by turtlelordI literally only play Unholy right now because of San'layn. If they scrapped it or significantly changed the gameplay, there is a very high chance I would just drop the spec and have to find a new home again. I don't really care for the base gameplay of Unholy and the San'layn rotation is significantly more fun. It's not horribly underpowered compared to Riders too, so it doesn't amount to griefing.Comment by ArcichanJust look at the mandatory breath of sindragosa gameplay frost has to deal with for years. Why should unholy be happy?

Most annoying things are:
-cleaving only inside D&D (at least now 4sec grace timer)
-to do effective AoE, trash has to live for quite some time
-dmg outside of CDs is nonexistent - below tank dps --> hope there is a 3min CD trinket that gives a massive amount of mastery/str in every season and bring your personal PI priest
-way to much stuff to keep track on, if you really want to min/max
- rider subclass doesn't impact gameplayComment by AsherrTheRedi just dnt understand Sanlayn, what does summoning blood beats, and whatever infliction of sorrow is, hav to do with being a vampire? I didnt even kno sanlayn had anything to do with vampires until i read this. Why not a bite? or some kind of blood drain? idk whole tree feels bad both thematically and gameplaywise imo.