Affliction Warlock Best Legendaries in Shadowlands — Dragonflight 10.2.5

Last updated on Jan 15, 2024 at 15:00 by Motoko 40 comments
General Information

Legendary Powers are targetable, unique effects that you can imbue certain base items with through the Runecarving system. In Shadowlands, these enable you to customize your Affliction Warlock, drastically improving your performance, and are arguably the most important aspect of your gear.

The purpose of this page is to help you pick the right legendary powers (and item slots for them) for your character, depending on the content you are interested in.

1.

Introduction: Legendaries in Shadowlands

Located within the Torghast tower lies the ability to craft unique gear of higher item level featuring specific Legendary powers. This guide will help the player to choose the most suited option, as currently only 1 Legendary item can be equipped at a time. Rankings and an extensive explanation can be found below.

2.

Unity Legendary

With 9.2 the Unity Icon Unity Legendary effect will be added, granting your Covenant Legendary effect alongside your primary choice. You must wear Unity Icon Unity to be able to use two Legendaries.

Being tied to the Covenants currently used the effects will be the following:

  • Kyrian Languishing Soul Detritus Icon Languishing Soul Detritus: When Scouring Tithe Icon Scouring Tithe generates Soul Shards, gain 100% increased movement speed and 100% increased critical strike chance for 8 sec.
  • Necrolord Shard of Annihilation Icon Shard of Annihilation: Decimating Bolt Icon Decimating Bolt also increases the critical strike chance and critical strike damage of Demonbolt Icon Demonbolt / Incinerate Icon Incinerate / Shadow Bolt Icon Shadow Bolt (or Drain Soul Icon Drain Soul if talented) by 15%.
  • Night Fae Decaying Soul Satchel Icon Decaying Soul Satchel: Each target affected by Soul Rot Icon Soul Rot increases your Haste and Critical strike chance by 5% for the duration.
  • Venthyr Contained Perpetual Explosion Icon Contained Perpetual Explosion: Impending Catastrophe Icon Impending Catastrophe damage over time is increased by 125% plus 15% for each enemy target hit on the way to its final target.
3.

Best Legendaries for Affliction Warlock

Bolded slots are the preferred choice, as these are the slots that have the highest stat budget for a given power or offer the better itemisation within raid and dungeons bis lists.

Focus Legendary Slots Source
Raiding Malefic Wrath Icon Malefic Wrath Handsor Shoulder Castle Nathria (Sire Denathrius)
Mythic+ Wrath of Consumption Icon Wrath of Consumption Back, or Feet Spires of Ascension (Ventunax)
Torghast Stable Phantasma Lure Icon Stable Phantasma Lure Neck, Wrist, or Back Torghast (Layer 6+)

Malefic Wrath Icon Malefic Wrath is the preferred choice for raiding, as it is the only relevant single target damage increase option for Affliction.

Wrath of Consumption Icon Wrath of Consumption is the choice for dungeons where targets are frequently dying, allowing extremely high uptime on a potent buff. Perpetual Agony of Azj'Aqir Icon Perpetual Agony of Azj'Aqir can be considered as an alternative when targets are dying slowly.

Stable Phantasma Lure Icon Stable Phantasma Lure is a natural choice for Torghast, as the added Phantasma gains should allow you to complete your Anima Power setup quicker and more reliably.

For PvP, the most impactful choice is by far Sacrolash's Dark Strike Icon Sacrolash's Dark Strike, especially paired with Absolute Corruption Icon Absolute Corruption.

4.

Best Raiding Legendaries for Affliction Warlock

In this section, we look at the best Raiding Legendaries for Affliction Warlock.

  1. Relic of Demonic Synergy Icon Relic of Demonic Synergy is a generic option, outclassed in any situation.
  2. Malefic Wrath Icon Malefic Wrath, after being buffed in Patch 9.0.5, is technically higher than Relic of Demonic Synergy Icon Relic of Demonic Synergy for single-target performance at the expense of a weaker burst cycles, and higher emphasis on uptime on target.
  3. Perpetual Agony of Azj'Aqir Icon Perpetual Agony of Azj'Aqir should be considered in council fights with no possibility for Wrath of Consumption Icon Wrath of Consumption uptime.
  4. Wrath of Consumption Icon Wrath of Consumption thrives in situations where targets are dying frequently enough to maintain high uptime on the buff.
5.

Best Mythic+ Legendaries for Affliction Warlock

In this section, we look at the best Mythic+ Legendaries for Affliction Warlock.

  1. Wrath of Consumption Icon Wrath of Consumption has the highest damage potential in dungeons.
  2. Relic of Demonic Synergy Icon Relic of Demonic Synergy is a generic option, outclassed in any situation.
  3. Perpetual Agony of Azj'Aqir Icon Perpetual Agony of Azj'Aqir remains the best option whenever there are at least 3 targets to be cleaved and no opportunities to snipe shards.
6.

Best Torghast Legendaries for Affliction Warlock

In this section, we look at the best Torghast Legendaries for Affliction Warlock.

  1. Stable Phantasma Lure Icon Stable Phantasma Lure is a special Legendary that increases the Torghast-only currency you get by a significant amount. While the value of this currency can vary wildly between runs, depending on your build and what is available from the vendors, buying powers is still one of the best ways to complete a synergistic build on a Torghast run, and this Legendary will help you get there faster.
  2. Relic of Demonic Synergy Icon Relic of Demonic Synergy offers the most reliable damage increase, without being diminished or nullified by specific Anima Powers.
  3. Claw of Endereth Icon Claw of Endereth can offer increased sustain through faster Drain Life Icon Drain Life.
7.

What Slot Should Legendaries by Crafted For?

There are few elements to take into consideration when deciding what slot to dedicate for a legendary craft:

  1. First and foremost there is the stat budget of individual slots which favour the likes of Head, Chest and Legs for their higher amount of stats overall.
  2. Secondly, people actively clearing Raiding have access to the last bosses' loot table, which present higher item level, thus crafting a Legendary in these slots is relatively less appealing.
  3. In the same vein, in Patch 9.2 the introduction of Tier Sets further restricts the slot choice since you need any 4 of the following slots reserved: Head, Shoulder, Chest, Hands and Legs.
  4. Last but not least, crafting multiple legendaries that share a similar slot makes swapping less inconvenient and does not require carrying spare gear.

Because the ultimate goal is to have both tier set active and double legendaries equipped the better distribution would be:

  1. Unity Icon Unity: Feet
  2. Malefic Wrath Icon Malefic Wrath: Hands
  3. Wrath of Consumption Icon Wrath of Consumption: Back
  4. Relic of Demonic Synergy Icon Relic of Demonic Synergy: Back
8.

Changelog

  • 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
  • 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
Show more
Show less