Affliction Warlock DPS Mythic+ Tips — Dragonflight 10.2
In this guide, you will find tips and advice to tackle Mythic+ dungeons with your Affliction Warlock in World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.2.
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.
If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our Dragonflight Mythic+ Season 3 page below.
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 might not have the best single target or burst. However, the aoe potential and the ability to funnel priority damage are still present.
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).
Opening Sequence with multiple targets with Tier Set
- Pre-cast
Seed of Corruption.
- Cast
Vile Taint to apply multiple
Agony.
- Apply
Unstable Affliction on the primary target.
- Cast
Siphon Life up to 5 targets.
- Cast
Haunt on the primary target if talented.
- Cast
Soul Rot.
- Cast
Summon Darkglare.
- Cast 3
Malefic Raptures.
- Cast as many
Seed of Corruption as possible.
- Cast
Malefic Rapture on
Tormented Crescendo procs.
- Proceed to refresh DoTs as they fall off.
Opening Sequence with multiple targets without Tier Set
- Pre-cast
Seed of Corruption.
- Cast
Vile Taint to apply multiple
Agony.
- Apply
Unstable Affliction on the primary target.
- Cast
Siphon Life only on the primary target.
- Cast
Haunt on the primary target if talented.
- Cast
Soul Rot if talented.
- Cast
Summon Darkglare.
- Cast as many
Seed of Corruption as possible.
- Proceed to refresh DoTs as they fall off.
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.
Mythic+ Talents for Affliction Warlock
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.
BiS Gear for Affliction Warlock
Fortified Week talents for Affliction Warlock
To import the build directly ingame, click on the export button in the top-right of the calculator
Tyrannical Week talents for Affliction Warlock
To import the build directly ingame, click on the export button in the top-right of the calculator
Class talent tree fundamental nodes
Generally, all output nodes are hard to give up. Still, fortunately, there are enough points to offer the choice of whichever utility options to pick instead.
Demonic Inspiration;
Wrathful Minion;
Socrethar's Guile;
Sargerei Technique;
Soul Conduit;
Grimoire of Synergy;
Summon Soulkeeper.
Some other utility nodes are also too good to pass up, especially in the context of dungeons:
Fel Domination;
Mortal Coil;
Dark Pact especially on 45s cooldown;
Demonic Gateway to skip areas of the dungeon;
Shadowfury as one of the few AoE stuns.
Affliction Warlock talent tree fundamental nodes
Due to a lot of AoE pulls throughout a dungeon run, leaning towards cleave and AoE is generally the safer choice, even in the case of a Tyrannical Week.
- Talents supporting
Seed of Corruption such as
Sow the Seeds and become very desirable;
- Similarly,
Vile Taint allows for multiple Agonies applications in a single gcd;
Drain Soul allows to gain easy shards off dying targets;
Siphon Life offers yet another damage multiplier for
Summon Darkglare, and helps scaling damage multi-target when talenting
Grim Reach;
Grim Reach offers incredible damage as it currently is a flat 50% damage increase on
Summon Darkglare based on the number of damage over time on the main target, while also affecting the main target;
Wrath of Consumption offers a passive damage increase with high uptime across a dungeon run.
Soul Rot is always taken since it is pivotal to the tier-set bonuses.
Affliction Warlock talent tree options
Soul Flame points can be swapped for
Pandemic Invocation in the need of more single target damage or on
Sacrolash's Dark Strike for a bit more AoE;
Doom Blossom should be swapped to
Dread Touch during Tyrannical weeks.
Stat Priority in AoE for Affliction Warlock
- Intellect;
- Haste to 30%;
- Critical Strike/Mastery;
- Versatility.
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
- 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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