Oct 9th: patch 3.3 will change unholy again, back to a spec with reaping, epidemic and a traditional deep unholy build. For Unholy in patch 3.3: read my full analysis.

The below is accurate for patch 3.22

If you’ve been reading Elitist Jerks unholy dps thread, you’ll know this, but many people can’t bear reading those threads so this will be important news. In either case, what I’m bringing is a tank build based on the changes in unholy.

What’s changed is that a few talents which used to be sacrosanct in all unholy builds are no longer:

• epidemic (longer diseases) and reaping (death runes) are not used
  • for tanks, epidemic is optional, but reaping is definitely out
• the new rotation is only 10 seconds long.

I have found that a tank build based on this new model generates higher threat than the best I could get out of a traditional unholy build. The analysis of a no-epidemic build has been done by those clever chaps at EJ, and I do not take credit for it, I just offer my adaption for tanking. Probably, for tanks it’ll be no-reaping and deeps will also drop epidemic, but both will do this new short rotation.

Another factor is that in the current endgame, many DK tanks do not value AMS or AMZ. Personally I like to have them for flexibility in all situations, but if you drop them that gives another 4 points you can put into threat talents. The guys at EJ have mixed opinions on it but the weight tends toward dropping them for endgame tanking in return for more threat.

So what is the highest threat 3.22 unholy tank build?

» continue reading