Affliction Warlock Guide — Class Guides · WoW Wrath of the Lich King

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, Player versus player, Leveling
Top talent: Haunt
Popular builds: 3
Version: WoW Wrath of the Lich King

How to play

Affliction in Wrath is the damage-over-time warlock: Haunt makes the target take more damage over time and heals you, Pandemic lets Corruption and Unstable Affliction crit, Everlasting Affliction refreshes Corruption when you cast Shadow Bolt and other spells, and Death's Embrace boosts damage on low-health targets.

Keep Haunt, Unstable Affliction, Corruption and Curse of Agony (or the raid curse) up, Shadow Bolt to fill, and switch to Drain Soul once the target is below 25% health. Life Tap keeps your mana up.

Affliction is strong in arenas and the best leveling warlock.

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 Wrath of the Lich King.

Rotation and priorities

1Haunt whenever it is ready.
2Unstable Affliction and Corruption kept up.
3Curse of Agony or your raid curse kept up.
4Shadow Bolt to fill: it keeps Corruption rolling.
5Drain Soul once the target is below 25% health.
6Life Tap to keep your mana up.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

Strong, steady damage that works on the move.
Haunt heals you.
Great leveling.

Weaknesses

Slow to ramp up.
Weak on targets that die quickly.
Many effects to track.

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
Hitto 446 rating, less Suppression
2
Spell power
3
Haste
4
Critical strikePandemic lets your effects crit
5
SpiritFel Armor
6
Intellect

What to look for

Spell power and hit to the cap, then haste.
Spell power gems.
Resilience and Stamina for arenas.

Items worth chasing

Phylactery of the Nameless LichA trinket with a big spell power proc.
Muradin's SpyglassA trinket that stacks spell power.
Dislodged Foreign ObjectA trinket that stacks spell power.

Builds

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

Affliction
Demonology
Destruction

Affliction Raider
DamagePvE
5516
55/0/16
Raid damage with 55 points in Affliction, down to Haunt, and 16 in Destruction.
- Death's Embrace 3/3
- Unstable Affliction 1/1
- Pandemic 1/1
- Everlasting Affliction 5/5
- Haunt 1/1
Glyphs: Glyph of Quick Decay (major), Glyph of Life Tap (major), Glyph of Haunt (major), Glyph of Souls (minor), Glyph of Drain Soul (minor), Glyph of Subjugate Demon (minor)
Open in the talent calculator Theorycrafting
Affliction Gladiator
DamagePvP
5417
54/17/0
Arena and battleground damage with 54 points in Affliction, down to Haunt, and 17 in Demonology.
- Improved Howl of Terror 2/2
- Unstable Affliction 1/1
- Pandemic 1/1
- Everlasting Affliction 5/5
- Haunt 1/1
Open in the talent calculator Theorycrafting
Affliction Leveling
DamageLeveling
6011
60/11/0
Leveling with 60 points in Affliction, down to Haunt, and 11 in Demonology.
- Death's Embrace 3/3
- Unstable Affliction 1/1
- Pandemic 1/1
- Everlasting Affliction 5/5
- Haunt 1/1
Open in the talent calculator Theorycrafting Talent order by level

Key talents

Haunt · top talent, up to 1
You send a ghostly soul into the target, dealing 405 to 473 Shadow damage and increasing all damage done by your Shadow damage-over-time effects on the target by 20% for 12 sec. When the Haunt spell ends or is dispelled, the soul returns to you, healing you for 100% of the damage it did to the target.
Improved Felhunter · tier 6, up to 2
Your Felhunter regains 8% of its maximum mana each time it hits with its Shadow Bite ability and the cooldown on that ability is reduced by 4 sec. In addition, increases the effect of your Felhunter's Fel Intelligence by 10%.
Eradication · tier 7, up to 3
When you deal damage with Corruption, you have 6% chance to increase your spell casting speed by 20% for 10 sec.
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 helpful Affliction spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by an additional 30%.
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 your spell damage by 3%, and increases the periodic critical strike chance of your Corruption and Unstable Affliction spells by 9%.
Death's Embrace · tier 9, up to 3
Increases the amount drained by your Drain Life by 30% while your health is at or below 20% health, and increases the damage done by your Shadow spells by 12% when your target is at or below 35% health.
Unstable Affliction · tier 9, up to 1
Shadow energy slowly destroys the target, causing 550 damage over 15 sec. In addition, if the Unstable Affliction is dispelled it will cause 990 damage to the dispeller and silence them for 5 sec. Only one Unstable Affliction or Immolate per Warlock can be active on any one target.
Pandemic · tier 9, up to 1
Grants the periodic damage from your Corruption and Unstable Affliction spells the ability to critically hit for 100% increased damage, and increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Haunt spell by 100%.
Everlasting Affliction · tier 10, up to 5
Your Corruption and Unstable Affliction spells gain an additional 5% of your bonus spell damage, and your Drain Life, Drain Soul, Shadow Bolt, and Haunt spells have a 100% chance to reset the duration of your Corruption spell on the target.

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.