Death Knight talent trees at level 90
Death Knight has 3 specializations: Blood, Frost, Unholy. This build uses Unholy. Its hero choices are Rider of the Apocalypse and San'layn. The hero selector changes only the hero branch. Your class and specialization picks stay in place.
Unholy points and unlocks
| Specialization | Tree | Talents | Points at level 90 | First point | Point gates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unholy | Class | 44 | 34 | Level 10 | 8, 23 |
| Unholy | Unholy | 37 | 34 | Level 11 | 8, 20 |
| Unholy | San'layn | 14 | 13 | Level 71 | None |
| Unholy | Rider of the Apocalypse | 14 | 13 | Level 71 | None |
Available points are the sum of points earned at or below your chosen level. Each purchased rank costs one point in its own tree. Automatically learned talents cost no points. Points in your class tree cannot pay for talents in Unholy or either hero branch.
A unholy leveling example
At level 24, death knight unholy has8 class points and 7specialization points. Spending 8 class points above the first gate opens its next section, provided you complete the connected talents. Spending those points in Unholydoes not open the class gate. Your first San'layn point arrives at level71.
Reaching the deeper unholy talents
Commander of the Dead, Unholy Aura, Ancient Powerrequire 20 points above the last Unholy gate. Complete the connected path as well. To move points out of that path, refund these deeper talents first. A refund that leaves fewer than 20 points above the gate is blocked while a talent below it remains learned.
Comparing Raise Abomination and Summon Gargoyle
These Unholy options share an octagonal node with 1 rank. Choose the effect you need, then learn the rank. Replacing one option keeps the same point cost.
| Talent | Effect at its first rank |
|---|---|
| Raise Abomination | Army of the Dead now raises an Abomination for 30 seconds to attack enemies while emitting a disease cloud, dealing (35% attack power) Plague damage to nearby enemies every 2 sec. |
| Summon Gargoyle | Army of the Dead now summons a Gargoyle into the battlefield to bombard your enemies for 25 seconds. The Gargoyle gains 1% increased damage for every 1 Runic Power you spend and always critically strikes. |
Importing, exporting and sharing death knight builds
Paste a death knight loadout into the loadout box and choose Import loadout. It opens the matching specialization, including Blood, Frost, Unholy. For this Unholy plan, Export loadout includes your class picks, specialization picks and chosen Rider of the Apocalypse or San'layn branch. Copy build link also keeps your level. Hover or focus a node to read it, click to learn, and right click to refund. On a phone, tap the node and use Learn rank or Remove rank.
Retail uses separate class, specialization and hero point pools. The older talent calculators linked above use three trees that share one pool, so their build strings are not interchangeable. Game updates can change talents and invalidate older loadouts. Check the build and data date before reusing a saved plan.
Talent updates
| Build | Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| 12.1.5.70688 | 2026-11-03 | Talent trees added for 3 specializations. |