Affliction Warlock Guide — Class Guides · WoW Classic

Curses, damage over time and drains: the tree for long fights and leveling alone.

A cloth-wearing caster who curses enemies, drains their life and summons demons to fight beside them. Warlocks use Soul Shards, Life Tap and Healthstones. More about the warlock

Class: Warlock
Roles: Damage
Used for: Raids and dungeons, Leveling
Top talent: Dark Pact
Popular builds: 2
Version: WoW Classic

How to play

Affliction is the damage-over-time tree: Improved Corruption makes Corruption instant, Siphon Life adds a draining effect, Shadow Mastery raises all Shadow damage, Nightfall can make your next Shadow Bolt instant, and Dark Pact takes mana from your pet.

Spread Corruption, Curse of Agony and Siphon Life, then Shadow Bolt or Drain Life while they tick. Affliction is the strongest leveling and player-versus-player tree in Classic: you can put your effects on several enemies at once and drain your health back.

In raids Affliction usually pairs with Destruction's Ruin for Shadow Bolt crits, and someone keeps Curse of Shadow or Curse of the Elements on the boss.

At a glance

Single-target damage
Damage to groups
Survivability
Utility for the group
Solo play and leveling
Ease of play

Rated 1 to 5 against the other specs in WoW Classic.

Rotation and priorities

1Corruption, Curse of Agony (or your raid curse) and Siphon Life on the target.
2Shadow Bolt as filler; take a Nightfall proc at once.
3Life Tap whenever you are low on mana and healthy.
4Drain Life when you need health; Drain Soul on dying targets for Soul Shards.
5Fear or Death Coil to stop an attacker; Howl of Terror for packs.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

Strong damage on the move with instant Corruption and curses.
Very little downtime while leveling.
Siphon Life and Drain Life keep you alive against players.

Weaknesses

Damage over time is wasted on targets that die quickly.
Low burst.
Raid curses are assigned, so your own options shrink.

Stats and gear

Stat priority

Most valuable first. Bars compare each stat with the best one; a cap in the note means the stat drops off once you reach it.

1
Spell damageshadow damage counts
2
Hitto 16%; Suppression covers 10% for Affliction spells
3
StaminaLife Tap and survival
4
Critical strikeShadow Bolt with Ruin
5
Intellect
6
Spirit

What to look for

Spell damage and hit, then Stamina: Life Tap turns health into mana.
Shadow damage items are as good as spell damage for you.
A wand for finishing targets while leveling.

Items worth chasing

Talisman of Ephemeral PowerA burst of spell damage on use.
Neltharion's TearA trinket of spell damage and spell hit.
Briarwood ReedSpell damage and healing in a trinket.

Builds

Each bar splits the build's talent points by tree.

Affliction
Demonology
Destruction

Shadow Mastery Ruin
DamagePvE
3021
30/0/21
The most common raid warlock: Shadow Mastery boosts every Shadow Bolt, Ruin raises their crit damage and Improved Shadow Bolt helps every shadow caster.
- Siphon Life 1/1
- Curse of Exhaustion 1/1
- Improved Curse of Exhaustion 1/4
- Shadow Mastery 5/5
- Ruin 1/1
Open in the talent calculator Theorycrafting Talent order by level
Siphon Life Drainer
DamageLeveling
3120
31/20/0
Affliction leveling with almost no downtime: Siphon Life, Improved Drain Life and Dark Pact keep health and mana up, then Demonology makes the Voidwalker sturdier.
- Amplify Curse 1/1
- Siphon Life 1/1
- Curse of Exhaustion 1/1
- Shadow Mastery 5/5
- Dark Pact 1/1
Open in the talent calculator Theorycrafting Talent order by level

Key talents

Dark Pact · top talent, up to 1
Drains 150 of your pet's Mana, returning 100% to you.
Improved Life Tap · tier 2, up to 2
Increases the amount of Mana awarded by your Life Tap spell by 20%.
Fel Concentration · tier 3, up to 5
Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling the Drain Life, Drain Mana, or Drain Soul spell.
Amplify Curse · tier 3, up to 1
Increases the effect of your next Curse of Weakness or Curse of Agony by 50%, or your next Curse of Exhaustion by 20%. Lasts 30 sec.
Grim Reach · tier 4, up to 2
Increases the range of your Affliction spells by 20%.
Nightfall · tier 4, up to 2
Gives your Corruption and Drain Life spells a 4% chance to cause you to enter a Shadow Trance state after damaging the opponent. The Shadow Trance state reduces the casting time of your next Shadow Bolt spell by 100%.
Siphon Life · tier 5, up to 1
Transfers 15 health from the target to the caster every 3 sec. Lasts 30 sec.
Curse of Exhaustion · tier 5, up to 1
Reduces the target's movement speed by 10% for 12 sec. Only one Curse per Warlock can be active on any one target.
Improved Curse of Exhaustion · tier 5, up to 4
Increases the speed reduction of your Curse of Exhaustion by 20%.
Shadow Mastery · tier 6, up to 5
Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 10%.

Affliction abilities by level

When each ability arrives: trained abilities at the level a trainer first teaches them, talent abilities (gold frame) at the first level the talent can be taken.