Affliction Warlock DPS Mythic+ Tips — The War Within (Season 1)
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Affliction Warlock in World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1).
Mythic+ Introduction for Affliction Warlock
Mythic+ has become a large part of the World of Warcraft endgame. Still, the sheer number of different variables has overwhelmed many players. The group composition, weekly affixes, the item level of the group, the keystone level, and the group's experience and comfort level are just several factors that will influence how you approach each dungeon. The purpose of this page is to prepare you for the key differences that set Mythic+ apart from the typical World of Warcraft endgame experience, including talents and rotational anomalies that may not be obvious at first glance.
Affliction Warlocks are a solid ranged DPS spec, offering sustained damage with frequent burn cycles. While the spec lacks immunity, the sound mitigation and self-heal, coupled with the primary spender that works both in single-target and multi-target, make it a versatile choice with a unique toolkit comprised of Healthstones, Soulstones, skip-enabling Demonic Gateway, AoE crowd control abilities such as Shadowfury and Howl of Terror, and uncapped AoE spells.
Affliction Warlock Mythic+ Rotation
While both single- and multi-target rotations do not differ substantially from the standard priority outlined in Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page there are a few points worth noting:
- Due to the nature of pulls, with constantly dying targets, Affliction can use Soul Shard sniping using both Unstable Affliction and Drain Soul when talented at collecting additional Soul Shards and squeezing extra damage throughout a full run.
- Maximise cooldown efficiency, aiming for the highest number of casts while not wasting activation on pulls about to die. In that situation, getting to 5 shards and starting the next pull with max resources is better.
- Haunt when talented, is always worth casting in any situation and is better cast on targets affected by Unstable Affliction.
- Unstable Affliction is also worth casting in any situation. With few targets, the damage is relevant and is generally buffed by Haunt. With increasing targets, it still retains value by generating shards on dying targets, making it useful in any practical situation.
- Agony's shard generation has diminishing return past 4 targets, which means it is crucial to have it on up to 4 targets. Past that value, the damage gain is still worth the global cooldown. However, you should not prioritize it above spending shards or preparing/using cooldowns. You should not prioritize Shadow Embrace stacks past 1-2 targets. The 3rd and 4th targets are optional and should be considered a low-priority optimization whenever you can spend free globals with filler (ideally Drain Soul for easier upkeep).
Affliction Warlock Utility
While damage is the more significant reason to bring an Affliction Warlock, the class itself offers a noticeable amount of crowd control and various supporting abilities:
- Recently reintroduced, the Curses can offer some advantages against specific dangerous enemies: Curse of Tongues can reduce the group's interrupt requirements. At the same time, Curse of Weakness alleviates the incoming damage on the tank from auto attacks. Last but not least, Curse of Exhaustion can slow targets when kiting is required.
- Healthstones have a 1-minute cooldown and heal for 25% of max health, allowing for an emergency heal for each player.
- Soulstones offer a combat resurrection that you can use reactively and preemptively in the case of a death run.
- Demonic Gateway offers the unique ability to skip certain parts of the map, depending on the dungeon in question, avoiding specific pulls.
- Shadowfury helps alleviate pressure on the tank during big pulls as it is a 3-second AoE stun.
- Fear and Banish are both spammable crowd control abilities that can interrupt a cast in a pinch or temporarily remove a target from combat.
Best Mythic+ Talents for Affliction Warlock in The War Within Season 1
Below are the recommended talents for Mythic+. There is a certain degree of flexibility when progressing down the path to accommodate preferences or to meet specific requirements, as discussed further.
Dungeon Builds for Affliction Warlock
Mythic+ Talents for Affliction Warlock
The following build plays around Affliction strengths of very high AoE damage and funnel capabilities on priority targets.
To import the build directly ingame, click on the export button at the bottom of the calculator
Hellcaller Mythic+ Talents for Affliction Warlock
This variant opts for the Hellcaller tree in order to gain more overall damage at higher target count at the expense of single target and priority damage.
To import the build directly ingame, click on the export button at the bottom of the calculator
Flexible Talents
Utility / Defensive Flexible Talents
- Demonic Circle, Shadowfury, Banish and Amplify Curse should be considered flex slots in order to accommodate individual dungeon or affix mechanics;
- Ichor of Devils can be swapped with Frequent Donor if higher uptime on Dark Pact is desirable;
- Similarly, Dark Accord can be considered instead of Strength of Will
- Howl of Terror is another AoE crowd control that can be considered but is capped at 5 targets thus Mortal Coil is generally more beneficial
DPS Flexible Talents
- Withering Bolt can be swapped for Sacrolash's Dark Strike if higher Curse uptime is required or for more AoE instead of single target
- In order to talent into Oblivion, remove the 2 points from Malediction and path down to the third gate through Improved Haunt, then replace Death's Embrace with Oblivion.
Pet Choice for Affliction Warlock
The Felhunter offers comparable single-target damage and an interrupt or purge, but consider swapping to Imp if you need a dispel.
If you are using Grimoire of Sacrifice, we recommend sacrificing the Felhunter to provide your group with an extra interrupt. Suppose you need an extra cooldown to survive. In that case, you can also sacrifice a Voidwalker before a difficult boss to access the Shadow Bulwark cooldown.
Trinket Considerations for Affliction Warlock in Mythic+
When choosing your trinkets, we recommend simulating yourself on Raidbots using the Patchwerk option for raids and single-target. Patchwerk with 4-5 targets or Hectic Add Cleave for an educated guess on multi-target performance in Dungeons. Usually, trinkets that proc stats are more versatile and better performers than single-target spell damage procs unless overtuned.
You can also get a quick overview of suitable Mythic+ Trinkets on our Gearing page. Specifically the Simulation chart for multi-target scenarios.
Changelog
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated talent selection for Season 1 launch.
- 19 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2 and Season 3.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Restructured Talent section.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Talents updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Talents updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Talents updated for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Warlock Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Motoko, Warlock main since The Burning Crusade, co-admin in the Warlock Discord, and theorycrafter and contributor for LockOneStopShop.
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