TBC Classic Affliction Warlock Guide

Warlocks are the masters of demonic energy, able to summon demons and use dark magic on their foes. Whether it is placing curses on your enemies or shooting powerful bursts of shadow or fire magic, Warlocks are exceptionally strong damage dealers with a large toolkit. Warlocks have a wide variety of unique spells that give a strong sense of class identity while giving you strong utility options. Spells like Ritual of Summoning and Create Soulstone allow you to do things that no one else can do, making you vital to any group composition. You also have your demons, each with their own set of abilities, many of which are incredibly powerful in both PvE and PvP.

Affliction Warlocks rot the very souls of their enemies, inflicting deadly curses and agonizing damage-over-time magic upon them. While all Warlocks have access to DoTs, an Affliction Warlocks specializing into them, boosting their power beyond what other specs are capable of. Affliction excels on encounters with multiple targets, where these devastating DoTs can be applied to multiple foes at once.

Strengths

• Never runs out of Mana due to Life Tap.
• Limited in competition of gear due to craftable gear during Tier 4 and Tier 5.
• Good self-sustain via Drain Life and Siphon Life.
• Tankier than the other ranged DPS.
• Brings utility with Curses, Healthstones, and Soulstones.
• Strong CC when using Fear and Banish.

Weaknesses

• Severe threat issues.
• No movement speed increases to help with moving around.
• Expensive to start gearing due to the high number of craftable pieces required.
• Soul Shards need to be farmed.
• Ramp up time for DoTs.
• Has to hard cast as much as possible.
• Gameplay can be boring due to low-button rotation.

On a single-target fight, Affliction falls behind Destruction, but it can pull ahead under the right circumstances, most notably when compared with a Warlock that is not in another Warlock's party. The main benefit of an Affliction Warlock is the improved curses it brings, as well as its' debilitating debuffs it applies to enemies. Unless a raid is heavily focused on Physical DPS, 1 Affliction Warlock is standard for most raid comps.

Warlocks can focus on a wide-variety of mostly Fel magic. Fel magic focuses on the forces of Life and Death itself, where the Warlock will often times draw power from the life-force of those nearby, often times including allies. Not all Warlocks focus entirely on Fel magic however, with some Warlocks delving into Demonic magics. These Warlocks will attempt to summon powerful demons to aid them in battle, if you can control them that is...

Warlocks can capture the very souls of their enemies by using Drain Soul as their enemy dies. Doing so will capture their soul into a Soul Shard in the Warlocks bags, assuming you have enough room available. Soul Shards are used as a resource for many commonly used spells, requiring a Warlock to frequently replinish their stock of Soul Shards in preparation for future fights.

Tailoring is a must-have profession as a Warlock as it offers you some massive gear, some of which can last you most of the entire expansion.

Enchanting will be your next-best profession, giving +24 Spell Damage total. Spell Damage being a Warlock's favored stat makes this a great stat boost.

If you would like to learn more about how your profession of choice can be used to supplement your goldmaking, along with a variety of other means to bolster your income, see our full goldmaking guide linked below: