In this article, we present you with various talent trees for Unholy Death Knights (WoW 4.3) that you can use in specific situations. We also give you pointers for customising your talent tree and adapting it to a particular boss. The other articles of our Unholy Death Knight guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the left.

1. Common Talent Builds↑top

As an Unholy Death Knight, there is not very much room for customisation of your talent build. We recommend one of the options below.

This is a fairly standard build. It takes 3 points in Magic Suppression, unlocking Anti-Magic Zone, a useful raid cooldown. This build is recommended in most situations.

This talent build takes points in Desecration (at the expense of Anti-Magic Zone), granting you an automatic AoE slow. It can be useful on encounters where adds must be slowed. Keep in mind that the slow cannot be turned off and might have adverse effects on your raid's strategy.

This talent build takes points in Improved Blood Tap, providing you with a lower cooldown for Blood Tap, thus granting you more runes over the course of the fight. The worth of this talent is decided by your ability to use Blood Tap on cooldown (and also at a time when you can benefit from it), so it may be difficult to gain benefits from it.

2. Customising Your Build↑top

First, we present you the talents that you can play with to build your own talent tree before explaining what each of the interesting glyphs does.

2.1. Optional Talents

You do not have a great deal of optional talents to choose from, and none of them provide a reliable DPS increase. Your only choices are:

• Taking 1 point in Unholy Command. This will lower the cooldown of Death Grip by 5 seconds, and it is not a DPS increase. Entirely optional.
• Taking 2 points in Desecration. This provides you with the afore-mentioned slow, but it is not a DPS increase either. Highly situational.
• Taking more than 1 point (the minimum mandatory) in Magic Suppression. This provides you with more runic power when you absorb damage with Anti-Magic Shell (also buffing its absorption). It can prove to be a minor DPS gain. 3 points are required to unlock Anti-Magic Zone.
• Anti-Magic Zone. This is a very useful raid cooldown that can come in handy in a variety of boss encounters. It is highly recommended.
• Taking 2 points in Improved Blood Tap. Lowers the cooldown of Blood Tap and, if played correctly, results in a minor DPS gain.

2.2. Glyphs

2.2.1. Prime Glyphs

You should use the following 3 glyphs in all single target situations:

• Glyph of Death Coil, which increases the damage and healing of Death Coil by 15%.
• Glyph of Scourge Strike, which is a simple increase to the damage done by Scourge Strike, one of your most damaging abilities.
• Glyph of Raise Dead, which significantly buffs your ghoul.

In AoE situations, you should make the following replacements:

• Glyph of Icy Touch instead of Glyph of Death Coil. This will buff the damage done by your Frost Fever (which should be spread on all targets).
• Glyph of Death and Decay instead of Glyph of Scourge Strike. This increases the duration of Death and Decay by 50%, causing it to deal much more damage.

2.2.2. Major Glyphs

Major Glyphs do not provide any DPS increases. The most useful glyphs that you can use are:

• Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell, which increases the duration of your Anti-Magic Shell by 2 seconds, making it easier to time it in order to avoid boss mechanics.
• Glyph of Blood Boil, which increases the area of effect of Blood Boil by 50%, allowing to more easily hit all targets.
• Glyph of Pestilence, which increases the area of effect of Pestilence by 5 yards, making it easier to spread your diseases to all targets.

2.2.3. Minor Glyphs

Minor Glyphs generally provide you with small benefits that make your life easier, but do not increase the strength of your character or your raid. The best glyphs to use are:

• Glyph of Blood Tap, which causes your Blood Tap to no longer deal damage to you (normally, it costs 6% of your base health).
• Glyph of Death's Embrace, which causes your Death Coil to refund 20 runic power (out of its total cost of 34) when you use it to heal your ghoul.
• Glyph of Horn of Winter, which increases the duration of your Horn of Winter by 1 minute.