Season of Discovery Affliction Warlock DPS Talents and Runes

The level cap right now in Season of Discovery is level 50, meaning we still don't have all of our talent points, but we're only missing 10. While it seems to make sense to go down the Affliction tree to get Shadow Mastery, it actually ends up being more beneficial to split up your talents into all three trees.

Start by going into Affliction and pick up Improved Corruption to get your instant cast Corruption, then Suppression to get some Hit Rating. This will help you get down to Nightfall for the chance at instant Shadow Bolts and there's not really another solid option to choose from. On the way down pick up Improved Drain Life to make you gain more health when Drain Life, which you will be a lot since you'll be using the Master Channeler Rune. The two points in Improved Life Tap will help you gain more Mana whenever you Life Tap. After that you can put three points into Improved Imp as this will make your Imp do 30% more damage, while also giving your party 30% more stamina from Blood Pact.

The rest of your points will be placed into Destruction in order to get Improved Shadow Bolt to make you do more Shadow damage after your Shadow Bolt crits. Place five points into Bane to reduce the cast time of both your Shadow Bolt and Immolate, then put a point into Shadowburn so you can use it as a finisher or when you need to move during the encounter.

From here, put two points into Improved Firebolt to make your Imp do more damage, and two points into Destructive Reach to give you some more range on your Shadow Bolts. Finish off your last point into Ruin, increasing the crit damage of your Shadow Bolt by 100%.

• Head — Pandemic
• Bracers — Unstable Affliction or Immolation Aura
• Gloves — Haunt
• Pants — Demonic Pact
• Chest — Master Channeler
• Belt — Grimoire of Synergy
• Boot — Demonic Knowledge

There are a handful of different options for which Runes you can use as Affliction and none of them are terrible, however these are the best options for doing the most damage. Haunt is mandatory as this will not only significantly increase the damage done by all of your other DoT's besides Immolate, but will also heal you at the end.

Master Channeler is another mandatory Rune, as this will convert Drain Life into a DoT and remove the channel effect. Drain Life does insanely high damage and will often be your top two damage abilities, making this Rune a must-take.

Demonic Knowledge is another mandatory Rune for Affliction as this simply increases your spell damage by 10% of your current demons total Stamina and Intellect. For example, if your pet has 50 Stamina and 50 Intellect, that equates to a total of 100, therefore you would gain 10 spell damage. This is also buffed by Blessing of Kings. The other options in this Rune slot are quite weak and won't really ever be used. Shadow Flame is an AoE ability and Dance of the Wicked is a tanking Rune.

The leg Rune you want to use is Demonic Pact. This increase you and your parties spell power by 10% of your Spell Damage. This is a massive buff to you and your party and pulls far ahead of the other Runes in this slot.

All of the belt Runes are good options to use, but Grimoire of Synergy comes out ahead. This gives both you and your demon a 5% chance to buff the other by 25% damage whenever they deal damage. This was recently buffed and is now the best option. Shadow and Flame is a solid option that falls shortly behind Grimoire of Synergy and makes it so whenever you crit with your Shadow spells, you will get a 10% buff to your Shadow damage for 10 seconds. It also can buff your Fire if you crit with Fire, but you won't be using too many Fire spells. Invocation is a unique Rune that makes it so whenever you refresh Corruption, Immolate, Curse of Agony, and Siphon Life when there is at most 6 seconds left on the DoT, it will instantly deal whatever damage was remaining from the DoT. For example, Immolate is a 15 second DoT. Refreshing this at 9 seconds will give you the last two ticks that were remaining on the Immolate. This allows you to get the full damage of the 15 second DoT after 9 seconds.

The Bracer rune is a choice between Unstable Affliction or Immolation Aura. Unstable Affliction damage over time ability that is buffed by all of your Shadow Talents, while also having a short cast. Immolation Aura is for all AoE situations.

Pandemic is a phenomenal rune that allows all of your DoT's to crit. This is also mandatory for Affliction if you can get it while leveling. Vengeance is a tanking Rune and Backdraft is for Destruction Warlocks.

More Engravings are likely to come out as we reach higher level caps, so make sure to checkout our general Runes guide to get a better understanding of what all tools you have available to your Warlock.