Affliction Warlock DPS Guide — Dragonflight 10.0.7

Affliction Warlocks excel at sustaining single-target and multiple-target damage. Most of your damage comes from applying harmful damage over time effects (DoTs). This allows them to effectively cleave on targets spread around an area, something many specializations struggle with or cannot do. Like the other Warlock specializations, Affliction Warlocks bring the Demonic Gateway ability to the raid, which can be an invaluable mobility cooldown.

Affliction Warlock was subject to another spec tree update with several changes:

• the removal of the rather unexciting Xavian Teachings and Harvester of Souls in favour of 2 more generic output nodes: Dark Virtuosity and Kindled Malice;
• Summon Darkglare slight redesign to increase the power in single target while lowering the multi target scaling (which now scales on the number of periodic effect on the main target);
• Dread Touch duration increased from 6 to 8 seconds.

Class tree also received an update aimed at introducing some output nodes, with a resulting shuffle of talent positions.

Last but not least both Summon Soulkeeper and Inquisitor's Gaze received a much needed buff.

For a full list of all Warlock changes in Dragonflight Patch 10.0.7, see our Patch 10.0.0 Warlock Changes page.

We have a dedicated leveling guide to help you get your Affliction Warlock to the max level, complete with many tips and suggestions.

While playing with the default UI for the leveling is entirely possible, transitioning to a max level rotation with a substantially different UI layout can feel overwhelming and ultimately disorient or frustrate the player. We recommend implementing Layout changes gradually to allow you to acclimate to a more effective and personal UI. The Addon page below offers some recommended options.

Affliction Warlock is a spec centered around Damage over Time effects, cooldown periods that require a setup to get the most out of them, and a relative amount of pet management. At its core, the gameplay is about generating and spending the Warlock's iconic resource: Soul Shards.

The fundamentals are simple: maintain Corruption and Agony on the target(s), spend your Soul Shards on Malefic Raptures or Seed of Corruption and cast Shadow Bolt in the downtime.

If you are a newcomer to the spec but would like to learn the basics start browsing the Spell Summary and head over to the page linked below

For those more familiar with Warlocks, we invite you to check out the Talents and Rotation pages for more detailed and in-depth information.

Due to the increased number of variables and different systems, picking gear has become a much less intuitive and immediate process. Nevertheless, you can find guidelines on the best way to equip your Affliction Warlock on our dedicated gearing page, including the current Best in Slot equipment for the current tier.

Equipping gear is not enough. You must also choose suitable consumables, and gear augments to maximize your character potential. Below is listed a page that can guide you through those choices as well as a page to better understand the implications each stat has on your Warlock.

With the release of the pre-Dragonflight Patch 10.0, all classes will have access to a fundamentally different talent system compared to the most recent iterations. For an overview of the best builds, we strongly suggest you check the talent page in the link below:

Being geared and well equipped is only half of the journey, as the end game activities require a different approach to the spec. To find more information on tackling these challenges, check the pages below.

Understanding your errors and refining your performance is a constant exercise, which can sometimes be frustrating or confounding. Below are some pages that offer tools and can point to and help correct those mistakes.

At the time of writing (Patch 10.0.7) the current situation is the following:

Affliction Warlock received flat buffs and small Quality of Life changes for the second patch in a row, tuning the specialisation into one of the strongest single target performers, while still retaining a good degree of flexibility, very strong multitarget, good AoE, mobility and funnel capabilities.

While it still does not have any meaningful AoE burst or strong single target cooldowns, the overall output easily offset those shortcomings, resulting in a Specialisation that may have been perhaps slightly overbuffed.

There has never been a better time to try Affliction Warlock in Dragonflight.