Affliction Warlock DPS Spell Summary — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Affliction Warlock Spell Summary

If you are new to the Affliction Specialization, this is a great place to start reading and begin breaking down the key spells that hold together this specialization. On this page, we will discuss what abilities your specialization uses, how they influence gameplay and resource generation, and the ways they interact with each other and your cooldowns. If you have some experience with Affliction already, it is recommended you skip over this section and move on to the rest of the guide.

2. Main Resources for Affliction Warlock

Soul Shards are the main resource of Affliction Warlocks. Soul Shards are generated by your main damage over time spell, Agony, and can be spent on powerful new spells.

Mana is a secondary resource for Affliction Warlocks. Your main spells don't cost very much Mana to cast, and won't ever threaten your Mana pool. Utility spells, such as Demonic Gateway, and Crowd Control abilities, such as Fear, cost relatively more Mana than ever before, so be wary about using them too liberally.

3. Basic Abilities for Affliction Warlock

These abilities are available no matter what talents you chose, and form the bread and butter of this specialization.

3.1. Damage Over Time Spells (DoTs)

DoTs deal damage every few seconds, with the tick rate being determined by the player's Haste.

Agony is your main DoT spell, and it is the most important. Agony has a long ramp-up time, gaining damage with every tick, and it has the chance to generate Soul Shards. Maintaining this effect at all times is important, due to the resources it provides and its stacking nature.

Unstable Affliction is a DoT nuke that consumes a Soul Shard. It does high damage and has a short duration, but if the target dies while it is active the Soul Shard cost is refunded. Unstable Affliction also increases the damage you do to its targets by 10%. This bonus does not stack with additional applications on the same target, can be active on multiple targets at once. Each Unstable Affliction applied is a separate instance of the spell, and each will refund a Soul Shard if the target dies during the duration of Unstable Affliction. You can have a maximum of 5 Unstable Afflictions active on a single target at one time.

Corruption is a medium strength DoT. You should keep this applied to your targets at all times.

3.2. Direct Damage Spells

Shadow Bolt is your main filler spell. Shadow Bolt has a short cast time and deals moderate damage.

Seed of Corruption is an AoE ability that costs 1 Soul Shard, and embeds a seed in your target, which explodes after 12 seconds and spreads Corruption to all targets damaged. The seed is detonated early if the target takes enough damage from you. This ability is used for damage on large AoE packs, as it deals moderate damage and spreads your Corruption to every target without having to waste global cooldowns applying it.

4. Cooldowns for Affliction Warlock

4.1. Damage Cooldowns for Affliction Warlock

Summon Darkglare is our main damage cooldown. When summoned, it extends the duration of our DoT effects on all targets by 8.0 seconds. The Darkglare itself lasts 20 seconds and attacks your main target, and deals 10% increased damage per DoT effect active on the target. Darkglare has a 3 minute cooldown.

4.2. Defensive Cooldowns and Tools for Affliction Warlock

Unending Resolve reduces damage taken by 40% for 8 seconds. Additionally, you are also immune to interrupt and silence effects for the duration. Unending Resolve has a baseline cooldown of 3 minutes.

Soul Leech grants an absorption shield for 8% of all single target damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of maximum player health.

Demonic Gateway creates two points which players can travel between by interacting with. Players may only use the gateway once every 90 seconds.

5. Changelog