Affliction Warlock DPS Class Overview - Wrath of the Lich King Classic

By Zephan Updated: 2022/09/23

Class Overview for Affliction Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingCorruptionDrain SoulCorruptionEverlasting AfflictionCorruptionShadow BoltHauntDrain SoulCorruptionCorruptionEverlasting AfflictionCorruptionCorruptionDrain SoulSoul ShardDrain SoulCorruptionDrain SoulDrain SoulDrain SoulDrain SoulDrain SoulClass Changes for Affliction Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich King

Avoidance—Avoidance used to only affect the Felguard and had a 50% chance to completely avoid AoE damage. Now instead Avoidance is available for all demons, and instead of 50% complete avoidance it is 90% reduced damage taken from AoE abilities. Warlocks can use pets without any fear of losing them in the majority of encounters. This in turn increases your damage a fair bit.
Suppression—Suppression used to only increase your hit chance for Affliction spells only. However, that is only a fraction of warlocks' abilities. Now it affects all spells and on top of that reduces the mana cost of Affliction spells. Making this a way stronger talent, it also only takes 3 talent points to max out versus 5 in the past.
Improved Corruption—This talent was used to reduce the cast time of Corruption until it was instant cast, now Corruption is instant cast for all without the need for talents. Instead, this talent increases the damage by your Corruption and increases the critical strike chance of Seed of Corruption, our main area of effect damage spell.
Soul Siphon—Where Drain Soul got a big buff, this specific talent got a small nerf. Instead of being affected by every warlocks affliction spell, now it is only affected by your own spells. And the maximum increase decreased from 60% to 18%.
Amplify Curse—Gone are the days of buffing our Curse of Doom & Curse of Agony damage. Now it reduces the global cooldown of our curses from 1.5 seconds to 1 second instead. This technically is a slight DPS increase because it saves you 0.5 seconds. However, the better you are geared the less beneficial this is as you get closer to the 1-second hard cap global cooldown.
Shadow Embrace—Changes from a "defensive" debuff which decreased damage caused to damage increasing debuff for our shadow damage-over-time abilities.
Siphon Life—Where this used to be a relatively long damage-over-time ability that leeched life, it now is a passive talent that causes our Corruption to leech some health. On top of that it also increases the damage from our Corruption, Seed of Corruption, and Unstable Affliction by 5%.
Malediction—Affliction Warlocks used to be brought because they applied a 3% stronger version of Curse of the Elements thanks to this talent. Now instead multiple classes can bring a 13% magic damage debuff. This talent has been reworked to increase our spell damage and the critical strike chance of our Unstable Affliction and Corruption.
Improved Shadow Bolt—Gone are the days of mages and priests using shadow wands to grief the warlocks ISB debuff stacks. Instead, this talent no longer uses charges and applies the effect for a flat 30 seconds. The effect also changed from increasing all shadow damage to increasing all spell critical strike chance, plus a passive increasing the Shadow Bolt damage from the warlock itself.
& —Instead of going into the wand slot, these now work as weapon oils. Making them way more useful because you do not have to offer up an item slot. On top of that both now also have a unique bonus, either increasing your damage-over-time or your direct-damage.
Drain Soul—Going from the weakest DPS spell to the highest (once the target reaches quarter health). Sucking the soul of someone has never been as much fun as now.
Corruption—The biggest change here is that the spell no longer has a cast time from the get-go.

Shadow EmbraceMalediction

Glyphs—Glyphs have an obvious major impact on performance for every class in the game. The most impact ones for Affliction Warlocks are Glyph of Quick Decay, Glyph of Life Tap, and Glyph of Haunt.
Demonic Circle: Summon—Mobility has always been a big weakness of Warlocks in general. This helps us move around and out of tricky situations and mechanics. One of the most impactful additions to our spellbook.
Improved Felhunter—A big change is an actual possibility for every warlock specialization to actively use their pet in raids. The go-to demon for Affliction Warlocks is the Felhunter and this talent is a big boost to one of its primary damage sources being Shadow Bite. In also slightly increases Fel Intelligence but Divine Spirit and Arcane Brilliance are still better.
Eradication—Affliction resolves around Corruption. This proc resulting from Corruption increases your cast speed by a big chunk for a short duration. This has a big implication during long AoE fights where you can potentially cast Corruption on a couple of mobs to increase the amount of Seed of Corruption.
Death's Embrace—Even more damage during the execute phase. This might also indicate the only time you want to reapply a new Corruption after your initial strong one (if other stronger modifiers weren't active at the beginning).
Pandemic—Over are the times of only partially benefitting from crit rating. With this talent our Corruption and Unstable Affliction can crit. We all like to see the big shiny numbers, now there are even more of them.
Everlasting Affliction—Undoubtfully the talent with the biggest impact on Affliction Warlock gameplay. Whislt it might not seem significant not having to refresh Corruption, it also introduces a bunch of other shenanigans. It causes certain effects and modifiers to keep being active based on when it was applied. This makes it the goal to have as strong as possible Corruption ASAP and keep it going for the entire duration of the fight.
Haunt—Finally a new debuff to use for us Affliction Warlocks. It is not a damage-over-time ability in the strictest sense. It does not have a periodic damage component and deals direct damage (al be it small) on impact. However, what it does do is boost all the damage from your other damage-over-time abilities making it one of our highest damage per cast time abilities. You can only have one Haunt active at a time, so don't refresh it on another target if you still want to keep it up with your current one. On top of that it also helps refreshing Corruption via Everlasting Affliction
Shadowflame—A new area of effect spell. It does not warrant especially going into melee range to use this, but if you are already there it is nice to have.

Demonic Circle: SummonEverlasting AfflictionClass Viability for Affliction Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingHauntShadow EmbraceDrain SoulDeath's EmbraceCorruptionDrain SoulClass Mechanics for Affliction Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich King

Life Tap

Life TapLife TapLife TapLife TapLife TapLife TapGlyph of Life TapLife Tap

Soul Shards

Drain SoulSoul ShardSoulshatterSoul ShardRitual of SummoningDemonic SoulstoneRitual of SoulsGrand SpellstoneFel FirestoneSubjugate DemonImpGlyph of Drain SoulSoul ShardStrengths & Weaknesses for Affliction Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich King

Extreme execute damage thanks to Drain Soul and Death's Embrace.

High single target DPS.

Good cleave DPS thanks to multi-dotting.

Rewarding gameplay, being able to manage Corruption and Drain Soul well shows.

No burst damage.

Long ramp-up time.

No spec specific support.

Best Races for Affliction Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich King

Race

The Human SpiritFel ArmorGlyph of Life TapWill to SurviveAxe SpecializationHardinessCommandBlood FuryBest Professions for Affliction Warlock DPS in Wrath of the Lich KingLightweave EmbroideryLightweaveHyperspeed AcceleratorsGlobal Thermal Sapper ChargeSaronite BombLife TapNitro Boosts

Comments

Comment by morgaine2501

Is there a rotation section that I missed?

Affliction Warlock DPS Class Overview - Wrath of the Lich King Classic

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