World of Warcraft: Forever Affliction Warlock Guide

Playing Affliction means watching how long enemies are going to live as well as your DoT timers, since putting every spell onto a nearly dead target wastes casts and mana. On longer fights, you're keeping Corruption, Siphon Life, and your Bane running while casting Shadow Bolt between refreshes, with Nightfall giving you occasional instant Shadow Bolts to use between casts or while moving.

Affliction handles longer fights and spread targets well, since you can keep damage on several enemies without needing them to stand together. Your DoTs also continue dealing damage while you move, and Siphon Life and Drain Life let you recover health spent on Life Tap during a fight.

Affliction's raid performance still needs proper testing at Level 60, particularly for deeper builds that use Wrack as their main channel between DoT refreshes. Our recommended build takes Shadow Mastery and Ruin, using Shadow Bolt alongside its DoTs and a Succubus as we do not know the full strength of Wrack at this moment.

Mana pays for most of your spells, and Life Tap lets you trade health for more mana during a fight, with Spirit increasing both the health converted and mana gained. Movement or a break in incoming damage can be a useful time to tap, leaving you ready to cast when you can stand still again.

Drain Life deals damage while restoring your health, helping you recover what you've spent on Life Tap. You still need enough health to survive the next hit, particularly when the group is taking damage and your healer has other players to look after.

Soul Shards are a separate resource used for most demon summons, creating Healthstones and Soulstones, and Ritual of Summoning. Drain Soul can generate them while damaging nontrivial enemies, so keep a supply ready before a dungeon or raid.

Curses provide utility debuffs, such as Curse of the Elements to support magic damage or Curse of Recklessness to support physical damage. Banes such as Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom provide damage, and you can keep one Curse and one Bane of your own on the same enemy at the same time.

Coordinate your Curse with the group so the debuffs it needs are covered. Casting a different Curse replaces your previous one on that enemy, and the same restriction applies to your Banes, so switching between Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom removes the previous Bane.

Your demon adds damage or utility depending on which one you summon, with different choices suited to questing, group damage, and fighting casters.

• Imp provides ranged Fire damage and Stamina through Blood Pact.
• Voidwalker is the defensive option and can tank enemies while questing.
• Succubus is a melee damage pet with Seduction for controlling Humanoids.
• Felhunter provides caster utility through Spell Lock and Devour Magic.

Keep Pet Attack and Pet Follow on accessible keybinds so you can send your demon to a target or call it back as the group moves. Health Funnel lets you spend your own health to heal it, and watching its position helps you keep it attacking without pulling nearby enemies.

Our recommended Affliction build uses a Succubus for damage, with a Felhunter as an option when your group needs an interrupt or dispel.

Corruption and Siphon Life deal damage over their duration, while Bane of Agony deals more damage in its later ticks. Bane of Doom instead deals a delayed hit, making the target's remaining lifespan important when choosing a Bane. Refreshing a DoT early can throw away its remaining damage, especially the stronger final ticks of Agony.

Improved Corruption shortens the cast time of Corruption, making it instant with all five points. The recommended Shadow Mastery and Ruin build takes four points, so Corruption still has a short cast time in that build.

Nightfall can trigger from damage dealt by Corruption, Drain Life, Drain Soul, and Wrack, making your next Shadow Bolt instant. Your periodic damage can also critically strike, with Pandemic increasing the critical strike damage bonus of the Affliction spells it affects.

Wrack is available to builds that go deeper into Affliction, providing a channeled Shadow spell that also increases the damage of your other Shadow DoTs on that target while it's active. Like other drains, it requires you to stand still while channeling.

Create Healthstone makes an emergency healing item you can give to party members, while Create Soulstone lets you prepare yourself or an ally to resurrect after death. Ritual of Summoning brings a group member to your location with help from two other group members and a Soul Shard.

Fear can take an enemy out of the fight, but its movement can carry it into another pack. Banish controls Demons and Elementals without sending them running, though the target is immune to damage while banished. Death Coil gives you a short Horror effect and restores health, making it useful when an enemy reaches you.

Curse of Tongues slows enemy spellcasting, while a Felhunter's Spell Lock can interrupt a dangerous cast.