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Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talents

With the opening of The War Within Beta, most players now have the opportunity to try out the brand-new Hero Talents system. The Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talents concept strongly captures the essence of being a champion of the Four Horsemen. While the talent tree currently focuses on summoning minions, it lacks in making us feel like true riders. Periodically, we will summon a Horseman, each with a unique ability they will use upon being summoned. From a flavor standpoint, Rider of the Apocalypse excels at embracing the Death Knight class fantasy, harking back to the Legion class campaign where players raised the new Four Horsemen as Death Knights and created steeds for each of them.

In this guide, we will discuss how the new Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talent tree plays, what gameplay innovations it brings to Unholy and Frost Death Knights, and how significantly it enhances their power. All the information provided in this guide is based on the Beta version of the game, and much may change before the final release.

Rider of the Apocalypse Death Knight Talents

The Rider of the Apocalypse concept is now available and popular for allowing players to mount an undead steed in combat and summon powerful minions. Summoning various Horsemen with unique abilities significantly enhances your gameplay and makes it distinct from how you played before. Now, let's take a closer look at the new talents

Rider of the Apocalypse Death Knight Talents
Talent	Description
Rider’s Champion	Spending Runes has a chance to call forth the aid of a Horseman for 10 seconds. Mograine: Casts Death and Decay at his location that follows his position. Whitemane: Casts Undeath on your target, dealing Shadowfrost damage per stack every 3 seconds for 24 seconds. Each time Undeath deals damage, it gains a stack. Cannot be refreshed. Trollbane: Casts Chains of Ice on your target, slowing their movement speed by 70% and increasing the damage they take from you by 5% for 8 seconds. Nazgrim: While Nazgrim is active, you gain Apocalyptic Conquest, increasing your Strength by 5%.
On a Paler Horse or Death Charge	On a Paler Horse: While outdoors, you are able to mount your Acherus Deathcharger in combat. Death Charge: Call upon your Death Charger to break free of movement impairment effects for 10 seconds. While upon your Death Charger, your movement speed is increased by 100%, you cannot be slowed, and you are immune to forced movement effects and knockbacks.
Mograine’s Might	Your damage is increased by 5%, and you gain the benefits of your Death and Decay while inside Mograine’s Death and Decay.
Horsemen's Aid or Pact of the Apocalypse	Horsemen's Aid: While at your aid, the Horsemen will occasionally cast Anti-Magic Shell on you and themselves at 80% effectiveness. Pact of the Apocalypse: When you take damage, 5% of the damage is redirected to each active Horseman.
Whitemane's Famine	When your diseases deal damage to an enemy affected by Undeath, it gains another stack. Additionally, when Undeath deals damage, it infects another nearby enemy.
Nazgrim's Conquest	If an enemy dies while Nazgrim is active, the strength of Apocalyptic Conquest is increased by 3%. Additionally, each Rune you spend increases its value by 1%.
Trollbane's Icy Fury	When you Obliterate, or Scourge Strike a target affected by Trollbane's Chains of Ice, it shatters, dealing Shadowfrost damage to nearby enemies and slowing them by 40% for 4 seconds.
Hungering Thirst	The damage of your diseases, Frost Strike, and Death Coil are increased by 15%.
Fury of the Horsemen or A Feast of Souls	Fury of the Horsemen: Every 50 Runic Power you spend extends the duration of the Horsemen's aid in combat by 1 second, up to 5 seconds. A Feast of Souls: While you have 2 or more Horsemen aiding you, your Runic Power spending abilities deal 20% increased damage and have a 10% chance to refund a Rune
Mawsworn Menace	The cooldown of your Horn of Winter and Unholy Blight is reduced by 15 seconds, and Death and Decay is reduced by 10 seconds..
Apocalypse Now	Army of the Dead and Frostwyrm's Fury call upon all 4 Horsemen to aid you for 20 seconds.

The keystone talent (Apocalypse Now) allows you to spend your runes to summon one of four random horsemen, who will assist you in battle for the next 10 seconds. Each horseman brings unique effects, likely requiring you to adjust your rotation or target to maximize their benefit during this time.

Even more impressive, the capstone talent lets you summon all four horsemen simultaneously for 20 seconds, which is incredibly powerful! As for the other talents, they offer a variety of utilities, enhancing your gameplay as either Frost or Unholy Death Knight.

At its core, selecting this Hero Talent tree could range from having minimal impact on gameplay to having a significant impact, depending on the final tuning. The random chance to summon a random rider introduces multiple layers of RNG, affecting your overall damage output. With the noticeable differences in power levels among the Riders of the Apocalypse currently available, we could see RNG swings in our overall DPS similar to those from Summon Gargoyle. For example, if you randomly summon Whitemane 9 out of 10 times in a fight, you'll deal significantly more damage than if you summoned Mograine.

Best Rider of the Apocalypse Talents

Choosing the optimal Rider of the Apocalypse Death Knight talents requires considering your specialization. This hero talent tree is designed for both Frost and Unholy specs, offering distinct bonuses tailored to each. We have highlighted the most useful talents for both specializations.

Death Charge: It will provide us with a great deal of freedom to explore world content more easily. However, it might also make us overly mobile in outdoor raids or dungeons.
Nazgrim’s Conquest: This talent grants a substantial strength buff that grows with your combat performance, giving additional strength when an enemy is defeated during its duration. It promotes aggressive gameplay and efficient rune spending. The cumulative strength boost can lead to considerable damage increases, making it an essential talent for maintaining high damage output.
A Feast of Souls: This talent boosts your damage output when multiple Horsemen are active, significantly enhancing abilities that spend Runic Power. The additional chance to refund a Rune further improves your rotation efficiency, optimizing your resource management and maximizing your damage potential.
Mograine's Might: This talent increases overall damage and lets you take full advantage of Mograine’s Death and Decay, boosting your AoE damage and making it easier to sustain high damage output in multi-target situations.
Whitemane's Famine: This talent boosts the effectiveness and spread of Whitemane’s Undeath, increasing your disease damage. It enhances your ability to deliver sustained damage over time to multiple targets.

These talents together significantly boost the Death Knight's overall performance by enhancing damage output, mobility, and utility. They provide a comprehensive and powerful set of abilities, allowing the Death Knight to excel in a variety of combat situations. Whether facing multiple targets or a single formidable opponent, these talents ensure that the Death Knight remains versatile and effective, adapting to the demands of any encounter.

Rider of the Apocalypse Frost Death Knight

The Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talent tree primarily features passive abilities that have minimal interaction with our existing kit. Horsemen are randomly summoned to assist in battle, each using their unique abilities. For instance, Mograine casts Death and Decay, adding extra cleave damage when active. Additionally, every 3 or 1.5 minutes, depending on your spec, you summon all four horsemen simultaneously using Frostwyrm's Fury, which synergizes well with Breath of Sindragosa through A Feast of Souls, enhancing Breath uptime.

The talent On a Paler Horse stands out as particularly interesting, especially for non-instanced content. It allows you to stay mounted in combat, fighting enemies from horseback, which significantly speeds up questing and leveling while adding a cool new dynamic to the game. Unfortunately, this ability isn't usable in dungeons and raids, likely because it would be too overpowered in those settings.

Regarding tuning, the rider tree heavily depends on the raw damage output of the horsemen themselves. While there is some synergy with your overall kit via A Feast of Souls, the effectiveness of these hero talents will largely hinge on the raw damage provided by the summoned riders.

Rider of the Apocalypse Unholy Death Knight

The Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talent tree primarily consists of passive abilities that don't heavily interact with the rest of our kit. We randomly summon Horsemen to assist us in battle, each using their unique abilities. For example, Mograine casts Death and Decay, adding extra cleave damage when active. Additionally, every 3 or 1.5 minutes, depending on your abilities, you summon all four horsemen with Army of the Dead or Raise Abomination, greatly expanding your army of minions and adding to the epic feel of your character.

Trollbane and Nazgrim have the potential to alter rotations with their extension abilities, Trollbane's Icy Fury and Nazgrim's Conquest. These abilities suggest taking Clawing Shadows to spend Runes from a distance and maximize their effect. Whitemane, on the other hand, encourages the Plaguebringer choice node to double Disease tick rates and stack Undeath faster through Whitemane's Famine. While this presents an interesting option for Unholy Death Knights, the rest of the tree encourages the Defile mechanic to have 100% uptime, making 3-minute cycles more confusing for players to prioritize. The desynchronization of Unholy Blight from other cooldowns suggests that this tree may not feel fluid or intuitive unless the impact is minimal. In such a case, the cool factor of this talent tree is almost entirely lost.

Overall Conclusion

This talent tree is highly thematic and conceptually impressive, but it requires further refinement to truly excel. It boasts numerous talents with incredible potential, and with minor adjustments, they could stand out, including Rider's Champion, Apocalypse Now, Whitemane's Famine, Horsemen's Aid, and Mawsworn Menace. Conversely, it also contains talents that hinder its effectiveness, such as A Feast of Souls and Mograine's Might. These contribute to existing issues faced by both Death Knight specializations, like resource overflow and strict positional requirements.

Despite its minor weaknesses, this Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talent tree offers a lot of fun by altering your gameplay. Each Horseman requires slight adjustments to your rotation, and your burst abilities are completely redefined with the final talent. This aligns perfectly with the goal of hero talents, enhancing the class fantasy and reinforcing the image of Death Knights as unstoppable. Selecting Rider of the Apocalypse truly makes you feel like a Rider, not just someone who summons the Four Horsemen.

Final Thoughts

Rider of the Apocalypse Hero Talents is an excellent addition for Death Knights, bringing variety to the familiar rotations of Unholy and Frost Death Knights. The slight randomness adds a unique twist to the new gameplay, making it distinctive and allowing players to showcase their adaptability in the upcoming The War Within expansion.

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