Affliction Warlock is a sustained Shadow-damage specialization built around maintaining several damage-over-time effects and preserving a strong Corruption for as long as possible. Its single-target gameplay revolves around Corruption, Unstable Affliction, Curse of Agony, Haunt and Shadow Embrace, with Shadow Bolt used as filler until Drain Soul takes over during the execute phase.
1. Talents
Warlock Talents (WotLK)Affliction55 points
Demonology0 points
Destruction16 points
2. Glyphs
Major Glyphs
Minor Glyphs
3. Stats
Hit: With 3/3 Suppression you need 11%(289)
Haste: ~1377
Spellpower: as many as possible, 3000+
Crit: ~35%
4. Enchants
- Head: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries
- Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Storm
- Back: Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed
- Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats
- Wrists: Enchant Bracers - Superior Spellpower
- Hands: Hyperspeed Accelerators
- Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle
- Legs: Brilliant Spellthread
- Feet: Nitro Boosts
- Main hand: Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower
5. Gems
Meta gem: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond
Red gems: Runed Cardinal Ruby
Yellow gems: Quick King's Amber / Reckless Ametrine / Veiled Ametrine
Blue gems: Purified Dreadstone
6. BIS
Affliction PVE
7. Macros
8. Food and flasks
Food: Fish Feast
Pet food: Spiced Mammoth Treats
Flask: Flask of the Frost Wyrm
Potion: Potion of Wild Magic / Potion of Speed (1–2 seconds before the pull, second potions use with a trinket proc)
9. Professions
Priority list:
10. Pet
Stats and gearing
Spell Hit is the first requirement. A level-83 raid boss requires 17% total spell Hit. With 3/3 Suppression and the 3% spell-Hit debuff from Misery or Improved Faerie Fire, 11% Hit from gear is required, equal to approximately 289 Hit Rating. A Draenei in the party reduces the gear requirement by another 1%.
Spell Power is the strongest general throughput stat after Hit and should be increased as much as possible. 3000+ Spell Power provides a useful high-end reference for ICC-level gearing.
Haste is extremely valuable because it reduces Shadow Bolt, Haunt, Unstable Affliction and Drain Soul cast or channel times. With Glyph of Quick Decay, Haste also reduces the interval between Corruption ticks. Around 1377 Haste represents a high-end gearing target rather than a hard cap.
Around 35% Critical Strike provides strong late-game scaling. Pandemic allows Corruption and Unstable Affliction periodic damage to critically strike, while the Critical Strike chance present when Corruption is manually applied has special importance because it can continue rolling through Everlasting Affliction.
Spirit also contributes damage through Fel Armor and Glyph of Life Tap, but Hit, Spell Power and Haste remain the primary gearing concerns.
Single-target priority
Affliction uses a priority system rather than a fixed repeating rotation.
Keep Haunt active on the primary target, maintain three stacks of Shadow Embrace, keep Unstable Affliction and Curse of Agony active, preserve Corruption through Everlasting Affliction and use Shadow Bolt whenever no higher-priority spell needs attention.
A practical priority is:
Haunt → Unstable Affliction → Curse of Agony → Corruption maintenance → Shadow Bolt.
Once the target reaches 25% health, Drain Soul replaces Shadow Bolt as the main filler.
Do not refresh ordinary DoTs significantly before they expire. Unstable Affliction and Curse of Agony should be allowed to complete as much of their duration as possible before being reapplied.
Haunt
Haunt deals direct Shadow damage and increases the damage of your Shadow damage-over-time effects by 20% for 12 seconds.
With Glyph of Haunt, this bonus increases by another 3%, making Haunt one of the most important effects to maintain.
Haunt has an 8-second cooldown but also has travel time, so do not wait until the existing debuff has already disappeared before beginning the next cast.
Haunt also applies Shadow Embrace and refreshes Corruption through Everlasting Affliction.
Because maintaining Haunt has such a large effect on Corruption, Unstable Affliction and Curse of Agony, allowing the debuff to fall off during sustained boss uptime causes considerably more damage loss than simply missing Haunt's direct hit.
Shadow Embrace
Shadow Bolt and Haunt apply Shadow Embrace.
With the full talent, each stack increases your Shadow periodic damage against the target by 5%, stacking up to three times for a total 15% increase.
Build three stacks quickly during the opener and maintain them throughout the fight through normal Haunt and Shadow Bolt usage.
During the Drain Soul execute phase, Shadow Bolt is no longer being cast continuously, so Haunt becomes especially important for maintaining the debuff.
On encounters with a small number of durable secondary targets, maintaining Shadow Embrace on more than one enemy can increase multi-DoT damage, but the primary boss target should always remain fully covered.
Corruption and Everlasting Affliction
Corruption is the central spell of Affliction gameplay.
With 5/5 Everlasting Affliction, Drain Life, Drain Soul, Shadow Bolt and Haunt refresh Corruption automatically. After the initial application, Corruption should therefore normally remain active without being manually recast.
This automatic refreshing creates an important snapshot mechanic.
Critical Strike chance and certain internal percentage-damage buffs present when Corruption is manually applied can continue rolling forward when Everlasting Affliction refreshes it. Spell Power and Haste, however, are recalculated when Everlasting Affliction refreshes Corruption rather than remaining permanently locked to the initial cast.
Damage modifiers applied externally to the target, such as Haunt and Shadow Embrace, update dynamically and therefore do not need a new manual Corruption cast simply because they were applied later.
The goal is to begin the fight with a strong Corruption and then avoid overwriting it unnecessarily.
Opening sequence and Corruption snapshot
Before combat, activate Fel Armor and use Life Tap to trigger Glyph of Life Tap.
Use Potion of Wild Magic immediately before the pull so its Critical Strike bonus can be included in the opening Corruption.
Pre-cast Shadow Bolt so it lands as combat begins. This helps establish the spell-critical-strike debuff before Corruption is applied.
Then establish Haunt, Unstable Affliction and Curse of Agony before applying Corruption under the strongest useful opening modifiers.
A practical opener without special Tier 10 manipulation is:
Life Tap → Potion of Wild Magic → pre-cast Shadow Bolt → Haunt → Unstable Affliction → Curse of Agony → Corruption → Shadow Bolt filler.
The exact sequence can move slightly according to raid debuffs and proc timing, but the important goal is to avoid applying a weak Corruption before the relevant Critical Strike modifiers are available.
Tier 10 four-piece and Corruption
The four-piece Tier 10 bonus can trigger Devious Minds from Unstable Affliction, increasing damage by 10%.
This modifier can roll forward on Corruption through Everlasting Affliction, so Tier 10 changes the ideal opening sequence.
With the four-piece bonus, opening with Unstable Affliction before applying Corruption gives Devious Minds an opportunity to activate. If it procs, apply Corruption while the bonus is active and preserve that version through Everlasting Affliction.
If the proc does not appear immediately, continue establishing the normal Affliction effects rather than leaving the boss without Corruption for an excessive amount of time.
A Corruption carrying Devious Minds is particularly valuable, so avoid manually overwriting it with a weaker version later in the fight.
Death's Embrace and the 35% phase
Death's Embrace increases Shadow damage when the target reaches 35% health.
This creates one of the few situations where manually recasting Corruption can be worthwhile, because the new internal damage modifier can then roll through future Everlasting Affliction refreshes.
Before replacing Corruption, consider what the existing version already contains. With Tier 10 four-piece, a Corruption carrying Devious Minds should not casually be overwritten merely to gain Death's Embrace while losing the stronger rolled modifier.
The ideal situation is to reapply Corruption while both important effects are active, preserving the strongest possible version into the remainder of the encounter.
Drain Soul execute phase
At 25% target health, Drain Soul replaces Shadow Bolt as the primary filler.
Drain Soul deals four times its normal damage against targets at or below 25% health, while Death's Embrace is already increasing Shadow damage from the 35% threshold. This makes Affliction exceptionally strong during the final part of a boss fight.
Continue maintaining Haunt, Unstable Affliction and Curse of Agony when they have enough time remaining in the fight to provide meaningful damage.
Corruption continues being refreshed automatically by Drain Soul through Everlasting Affliction.
Drain Soul deals damage in ticks. When another spell needs to be refreshed, interrupt the channel immediately after a tick rather than at a random point between ticks.
Drain Soul also snapshots relevant stats when the channel begins. If a major offensive proc appears during an existing channel, restarting Drain Soul immediately after a tick can allow the new channel to benefit from the stronger modifiers.
Unstable Affliction
Keep Unstable Affliction active throughout sustained combat.
Pandemic allows its periodic damage to critically strike, making both Spell Power and Critical Strike useful to the spell.
Do not clip Unstable Affliction significantly before expiration. Recasting it too early sacrifices remaining periodic damage and wastes casting time that could have been spent on Shadow Bolt or Drain Soul.
With four-piece Tier 10, Unstable Affliction gains additional importance because its ticks can trigger Devious Minds.
During execute range, continue refreshing it when enough encounter duration remains for the DoT to produce worthwhile damage.
Curse of Agony
Curse of Agony is the normal personal-damage curse for Affliction.
Its damage increases toward the later portion of its duration, so refreshing it early is particularly inefficient.
Allow Curse of Agony to complete before reapplying it whenever possible.
Glyph of Curse of Agony extends its duration by 4 seconds. This reduces the number of refresh globals required over a long encounter and allows additional late-duration damage ticks.
If Curse of the Elements is required because no other raid member provides the equivalent magic-damage debuff, raid utility takes priority over personal Curse of Agony damage.
Shadow Bolt and Nightfall
Shadow Bolt is the normal filler above 25% target health.
It also refreshes Corruption through Everlasting Affliction and maintains Shadow Embrace.
Nightfall can trigger Shadow Trance from Corruption ticks, making the next Shadow Bolt instant.
Use these instant Shadow Bolts quickly so another Nightfall proc is not wasted. They are also particularly useful while moving, when normal Shadow Bolt casting would otherwise stop completely.
Glyph of Corruption adds another 4% chance for Corruption damage to trigger Shadow Trance, making it an alternative glyph when additional instant Shadow Bolt procs are desired.
Life Tap
Glyph of Life Tap converts 20% of Spirit into Spell Power for 40 seconds after Life Tap or Dark Pact.
Trigger the buff before combat and keep it active throughout the encounter.
Refresh Life Tap during movement whenever possible so the global cooldown replaces time that would otherwise have been lost.
Do not wait until both Mana and the glyph buff are nearly empty at the same time. Planned Life Tap usage prevents several consecutive taps from interrupting an important damage window.
Avoid reducing health with Life Tap immediately before dangerous raid damage when the Mana or glyph duration does not require it.
Felhunter
Felhunter is the primary Affliction pet.
Improved Felhunter reduces the cooldown of Shadow Bite and restores the pet's Mana when Shadow Bite lands, helping the Felhunter maintain sustained damage.
Shadow Bite also benefits from Affliction effects present on the target, making the pet fit naturally with the multi-DoT gameplay of the specialization.
Keep the Felhunter attacking whenever encounter mechanics allow it. Pet downtime is direct DPS loss.
Fel Intelligence also provides Intellect and Spirit to the raid when an equivalent buff is not already present.
Multi-target damage
Affliction performs extremely well when several enemies live long enough for DoTs to complete significant portions of their duration.
Apply Corruption, Unstable Affliction and Curse of Agony to durable secondary targets while preserving Haunt and full Shadow Embrace on the primary target.
Do not blindly DoT every enemy. Short-lived adds may die before Unstable Affliction or Curse of Agony can repay the global cooldown and casting time spent applying them.
Corruption is especially attractive for secondary targets because it is instant and can trigger Eradication and Nightfall.
Against only a few long-lived targets, multi-DoTing can produce extremely high sustained damage. Against large packs, Seed of Corruption becomes more efficient.
AoE
Seed of Corruption is the primary large-pack AoE spell.
Cast Seed on enemies that will receive enough incoming damage to detonate it quickly. Against a large group, alternate targets rather than repeatedly overwriting a Seed that has not yet exploded.
Siphon Life and Contagion increase Seed of Corruption damage through the Affliction talent setup.
Do not spend many globals applying full single-target DoTs when a trash pack will die rapidly to repeated Seed explosions.
For encounters containing one priority target surrounded by adds, continue maintaining important effects on the main target while using Seed of Corruption when the additional enemies justify the AoE investment.
Movement
Affliction has several instant spells that make movement less punishing than it is for many hard-casting specializations.
Use movement to refresh Life Tap, apply Corruption to an appropriate new target or use an instant Nightfall Shadow Bolt.
Demonic Circle should be positioned before predictable movement mechanics. Teleporting back to a prepared location allows Shadow Bolt or Drain Soul casting to resume much sooner.
Nitro Boosts provide another powerful repositioning tool.
Planning movement is especially important during the Drain Soul phase because unnecessary movement interrupts the specialization's strongest execute damage.
Glyph choices
Glyph of Life Tap grants Spell Power equal to 20% of Spirit for 40 seconds after Life Tap or Dark Pact and should be maintained throughout combat.
Glyph of Quick Decay allows Haste to reduce the interval between Corruption ticks. Faster ticks increase Corruption damage frequency and also create more opportunities for effects such as Eradication and Nightfall to trigger.
Glyph of Haunt increases Haunt's periodic-damage bonus by an additional 3%, strengthening Corruption, Unstable Affliction and Curse of Agony on the primary target.
Glyph of Curse of Agony extends Curse of Agony by 4 seconds and reduces the frequency with which the curse must be refreshed.
Glyph of Corruption gives Corruption an additional 4% chance to trigger Shadow Trance, producing more instant Shadow Bolts.
Life Tap and Quick Decay form the core pair, while the third glyph can emphasize stronger primary-target DoT damage, longer Curse of Agony uptime or additional Nightfall-style procs.
Consumables and cooldown timing
Flask of the Frost Wyrm provides consistent Spell Power throughout the encounter.
Potion of Wild Magic is particularly valuable before the pull because its Critical Strike bonus can be included in the opening Corruption and preserved through Everlasting Affliction.
Potion of Speed is especially useful later in the encounter, including during the Drain Soul execute phase where additional Haste significantly improves channel throughput.
Using the first potion immediately before combat allows a second potion later in the fight.
Hyperspeed Accelerators provide another controllable Haste window. Use them during uninterrupted casting periods and especially when the additional Haste can be fully converted into Shadow Bolt casts or stronger Drain Soul channels.
