Introduction to the Affliction Warlock

Affliction Warlocks excel at sustaining high single-target and multiple-target damage. Most of your damage comes from the application of harmful damage over time effects. This allows them to effectively cleave on targets that are spread around an area, something many specialisations struggle with or are flat out unable to do. 

Affliction is a well rounded specialisation, with more upsides than downsides. It offers good single target damage, extremely strong burst, unrivalled multi-target distant cleave, with a mobility matched only by Beast Mastery Hunters. The only downside Affliction suffers from in this expansion comes from its lack of burst AoE. While its sustained AoE can be actually strong, it requires specific talent choices at the cost of single-target performance.

Below you will find a beginners guide to the Affliction Warlock, you can click on highlighted abilities, for a more in depth description of them.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Affliction Warlock

Talents

Level	Choices
15	Nightfall	Drain Soul	Deathbolt ✅
30	Writhe in Agony	Absolute Corruption	Siphon Life ✅
45	Demon Skin	Burning Rush ✅	Dark Pact
60	Sow the Seeds	Phantom Singularity ✅	Vile Taint
75	Darkfury	Mortal Coil	Demonic Circle ✅
90	Shadow Embrace	Haunt ✅	Grimoire of Sacrifice
100	Soul Conduit	Creeping Death	Dark Soul: Misery ✅

Rotation of the Affliction Warlock

The basic rotation of the Affliction Warlock is as follows:

• Maintain your  Agony and  Corruption effects at all times

• Maintain your  Siphon Life effect at all times

• Activate  Dark Soul: Misery while dumping  Unstable Afflictions when preparing for  Summon Darkglare

• Apply  Unstable Affliction if you are at maximum Soul Shards

• Use  Haunt whenever available

• Cast  Phantom Singularity whenever available

• Cast  Deathbolt whenever available

• Maintain 1  Unstable Affliction as often as possible for the damage increase

• Cast  Shadow Bolt

Cooldowns

• Summon Darkglare is our main damage cooldown. When summoned, it extends the duration of our DoT effects on all targets by 8.0 seconds. The Darkglare itself lasts 20 seconds and attacks your main target, and deals 10% increased damage per DoT effect active on the target. Darkglare has a 3 minute cooldown

• Demonic Gateway creates two points which players can travel between by interacting with. Players may only use the gateway once every 90 seconds

• Unending Resolve reduces damage taken by 40% for 8 seconds. Additionally, you are also immune to interrupt and silence effects for the duration. Unending Resolve has a baseline cooldown of 3 minutes

Stat Priority

The stat priority for the Affliction Warlock is:

1. Haste = Mastery
2. Critical Strike
3. Versatility
4. Intellect

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