Affliction Warlock DPS Stat Priority — Dragonflight 10.2

The stat priority for a Affliction Warlock is as follows:

1. Intellect;
2. Haste to about 30%;
3. Mastery;
4. Versatility & Critical Strike.

This stat priority was determined using a SimulationCraft profile in standard BiS gear with normalized stats. It was meant to simulate a very "average" player gear, but you should refer to this information carefully. It is highly recommended you sim yourself to determine which stats your character gets maximum benefit out of, as this is subject to change depending on your ratios.

Most players will notice their stat priority shifts as they acquire higher item levels due to the variance in scaling.

These statistics have been obtained by combining common sense, in-game testing, and simulations using SimulationCraft.

At the Shadowlands release, Blizzard put a diminishing return system in place with different tiers that will incur an increased penalty in the overall stat amount.

• From 0 to 30%, there is no penalty.
• From 30% to 39%, there is a 10% penalty.
• From 39% to 47%, there is a 20% penalty.
• From 47% to 54%, there is a 30% penalty.
• From 54% to 66%, there is a 40% penalty.
• From 66% to 126%, there is a 50% penalty.
• You can get up to 126% from the gear rating.

In practical terms, it should not have much of an impact when using SimulationCraft/Raidbot, as the tools are already accounting for it.

Your stat priority directly impacts your gem, enchant, and consumable choices, and you can find recommendations for all 3 on our dedicated page below.

Intellect is your primary stat. You should look for this stat in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Spell Power, which increases the damage of your spells.

Mastery, through Mastery: Potent Afflictions increases the damage of your DoTs ( Agony, Corruption, Seed of Corruption, and Unstable Affliction) and Malefic Rapture. Mastery does not affect your pets or Soul Shard generation at all.

Haste influences the cast speed of your spells and increases the number of ticks from your DoTs. This decreases the ramp-up damage from Agony as well. Haste also reduces the global cooldown and scales with your pets. Since an increased number of DoT ticks also results in more Soul Shards, we can look at Haste as the stat that has the most effect on our resource generation.

Critical Strike increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and abilities.

Versatility is a flat-out damage done increase and damage taken reduction.

As the last tier of an expansion, players have access to gear with item level high enough to hit the first tier of Diminishing Return on multiple secondary stats. This situation is further amplified by the current itemisation, which has a prominence of spell damage effect which scale almost exclusively with Critical Hit Chance and especially Versatility, once used to be the least relevant stat but now is becoming more and more important, surpassing Critical Strike in value as the player approaches Best in Slot.