Warlock Hero Talents — The War Within (Season 1)

This page is specifically about Hero Talents in The War Within. If you want to learn more about the best regular talents for Affliction Warlock, check out our Talents page:

The Current recommendation for Hero Talents is Soul Harvester.

Soul Harvester's current tuning and overall talent design make it the preferred single target and small target count cleave option, unless an encounter design makes the 1-minute burst windows disproportionally important over sustained output.

Hellcaller provides stronger burst around 1-minute marks and generally better AoE at higher target count at the expense of noticeably lower single target overall.

The Current recommendation for Hero Talents is Soul Harvester.

Soul Harvester offers better priority damage and slightly better funnel capabilities, making an apt choice for groups that already have specialised AoE DPS and are looking towards key target damage.

Hellcaller with a damage profile that accentuates burst windows and mass AoE is suited for Mythic+ scenarios while also being somewhat easier to pilot, but does not offer in practice a substantially higher AoE output.

3.

Best Hero Talent Builds for Affliction Warlock

Hellcaller Universal Build Soul Harvester Universal Build

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Hellcaller Universal Build for Affliction Warlock

Hatefury Rituals is now the default choice regardless of the target count; as for the other choice nodes centered around utility, Aura of Enfeeblement has too little uptime to warrant its usage over Curse of the Satyr and Illhoof's Design has too big of a downside to consider over the already minimal value provided by Zevrim's Resilience.

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Soul Harvester Universal Build for Affliction Warlock

Shared Fate is universally better than Feast of Souls, Gorefiend's Resolve is the more appealing option. The choice between Gorebound Fortitude and Friends In Dark Places is not universal, with the former offering improved Healthstones without the Shard tax, while the latter gives extra active mitigation with a bigger Dark Pact shield.

Hellcaller focus is on Wither uptime, which is technically trivialised by Absolute Corruption, making the Hero tree simple to play, with the main goal of hitting burst windows with Soul Rot and Malevolence with as many Wither active.

Soul Harvester brings an emphasis on Nightfall procs, various sources of passive damage and Malefic Rapture burst windows during Soul Rot. While it does not drastically alter the default playstyle of Affliction, it does create a more dynamic and reactive gameplay.