Affliction Warlock Pre-Patch Guide for WotLK Classic

Warlocks receive a number of changes with the Wrath of the Lich King pre-patch and, for the most part, they have a very positive impact on the rotations of each specialisation.

Affliction in particular sees a more engaging playstyle emerge, with much higher DPS than they saw in TBC, mainly due to their independence as a "real" damage dealer now, rather than an off-DPS.

The talent tree listed above uses the points available at Level 70 to get as many of the desired talents as possible, but it still falls short. There are a few talents that, while strong, cannot be picked up at Level 70.

Depending on your gear level and the fights you are going to be doing during the pre-patch, there are also a number of changes you can make.

If you are already well geared, you likely are already hit capped and do not need the additional hit rating from Suppression in the Affliction tree. If you have boosted a character or your gear is not as far progressed, it can still be a very useful talent.

There is also the matter of spending more points in the Destruction tree, rather than taking 3 points in Death's Embrace. If you are spending more time in execute phases, the values of Death's Embrace increases, as it boosts your damage when the enemy has less than 35% HP, but if the fights are being cleared quickly (or if your raid is extremely execute-heavy already, such as by stacking Warriors), putting those points into Bane may be more beneficial.

At Level 70, you will only have access to 2 of your 3 major glyph slots. The minor Glyphs for Warlock are massively unimpactful at this point, hence why we have not chosen to recommend a full set of them. Simply choose as you wish.

The rotation as an Affliction Warlock is fairly simple, but it is important to ensure that you get a proper opener, to have a powerful Corruption set up on the boss ASAP.

The opener for Affliction is as follows:

1. Pre-cast Shadow Bolt
2. Haunt
3. Unstable Affliction
4. Corruption
5. Curse of Agony

Once you have the opener set, your rotation becomes fairly simple.

Your rotation post-opener is essentially just ensuring that your different debuffs and curses do not fall off the target, maintaining them and juggling the priority of which to refresh.

If all of your debuffs are up and do not need refreshing, you can simply cast one of two filler spells: Shadow Bolt above 25% HP and Drain Soul when the target falls below 25% HP.

The majority of the recommendations for gear in the pre-patch stay the same for Affliction, which you can read on our TBC Warlock gear guide, which is linked below.

For your tier set bonus, you should still aim to have your 4-set T6 bonus and can easily do so by taking the belt, bracers, and boots for 3 of the pieces, given that they are already very strong for Affliction.

For the final piece, you should use either the shoulders or helm, depending on the other piece of gear you have for the second slot.

For your enchants, you should use the following:

Slot	Enchantment
Head	Glyph of Power
Shoulders	Power of the Scourge, Greater Inscription of Discipline, Greater Inscription of the Orb, depending on whether you have PotS left over from Naxxramas, as well as your choice of Aldor or Scryers.
Back	Enchant Cloak - Subtlety
Chest	Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats
Bracers	Enchant Bracer - Spellpower
Gloves	Enchant Gloves - Major Spellpower or Enchant Gloves - Spell Strike, depending on if you need additional hit.
Legs	Runic Spellthread or Mystic Spellthread, depending on Gold.
Weapon	Enchant Weapon - Soulfrost (or the easier-to-obtain Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower)

Warlocks have a large number of consumables that are used in different situations and you can read all about the choices on our TBC Enchants page for Warlock below: