Affliction Warlock Guide — Class Guides · WoW Burning Crusade

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: Unstable Affliction
Popular builds: 2
Version: WoW Burning Crusade

How to play

Affliction keeps its damage-over-time core and adds Unstable Affliction (whoever dispels it is silenced and damaged), Contagion (stronger Corruption and Curse of Agony that resist dispels), Malediction (a stronger Curse of the Elements) and Shadow Embrace.

Spread Corruption, Curse of Agony (or your raid curse), Unstable Affliction and Siphon Life, refresh them as they run out, and fill with Shadow Bolt; Nightfall procs give instant Shadow Bolts. Life Tap keeps the mana up.

Affliction is strongest in arenas and on fights with moving or several targets.

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 Burning Crusade.

Rotation and priorities

1Your raid curse or Curse of Agony.
2Corruption, Unstable Affliction and Siphon Life kept up.
3Shadow Bolt as filler; take Nightfall procs at once.
4Life Tap when mana runs low.
5Seed of Corruption on packs.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

Strong damage on the move.
Unstable Affliction punishes dispels.
Very hard to kill in arenas with Siphon Life and Drain Life.

Weaknesses

Slow to ramp up.
Wasted on short-lived targets.
Many effects to keep up.

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
Spell haste
4
StaminaLife Tap
5
Intellect
6
Critical strike

What to look for

Shadow or spell damage gear and hit.
Stamina is worth more than for other casters: Life Tap turns it into mana.
Resilience for arenas.

Items worth chasing

Icon of the Silver CrescentSpell damage, and more on use.
Quagmirran's EyeA spell haste proc.
Frozen Shadoweave RobeCrafted robe with shadow and frost damage.

Builds

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

Affliction
Demonology
Destruction

Unstable Affliction Plaguebringer
DamagePvE
4120
41/0/20
Affliction for raids: Unstable Affliction and Siphon Life stack damage over time, Contagion strengthens Corruption, and Shadow Embrace weakens the target.
- Siphon Life 1/1
- Contagion 5/5
- Dark Pact 1/1
- Malediction 3/3
- Unstable Affliction 1/1
Open in the talent calculator Theorycrafting Talent order by level
Drain Tank Wanderer
DamageLeveling
4417
44/17/0
Affliction leveling to 70: Unstable Affliction and Siphon Life wear mobs down while Dark Pact and drains keep you going, with Demonology for the pet.
- Siphon Life 1/1
- Contagion 5/5
- Dark Pact 1/1
- Improved Howl of Terror 2/2
- Unstable Affliction 1/1
Open in the talent calculator Theorycrafting Talent order by level

Key talents

Unstable Affliction · top talent, up to 1
Shadow energy slowly destroys the target, causing 660 damage over 18 sec. In addition, if the Unstable Affliction is dispelled it will cause 990 damage to the dispeller and silence them for 5 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%.
Shadow Embrace · tier 5, up to 5
Your Corruption, Curse of Agony, Siphon Life and Seed of Corruption spells also cause the Shadow Embrace effect, which reduces physical damage caused by 5%.
Siphon Life · tier 5, up to 1
Transfers 15 health from the target to the caster every 3 sec. Lasts 30 sec.
Shadow Mastery · tier 6, up to 5
Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 10%.
Contagion · tier 7, up to 5
Increases the damage of Curse of Agony, Corruption and Seed of Corruption by 5% and reduces the chance your Affliction spells will be dispelled by an additional 30%.
Dark Pact · tier 7, up to 1
Drains 305 of your pet's Mana, returning 100% to you.
Improved Howl of Terror · tier 8, up to 2
Reduces the casting time of your Howl of Terror spell by 1.5 sec.
Malediction · tier 8, up to 3
Increases the damage bonus effect of your Curse of the Elements spell by an additional 3%.

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.