Affliction Warlock PvP Talents and Builds (BfA / Patch 8.3)

Level	Choices
15	✘ Nightfall	✘ Drain Soul	✔ Deathbolt
30	✔ Writhe in Agony	✔ Absolute Corruption	✘ Siphon Life
45	✔ Demon Skin	✘ Burning Rush	✘ Dark Pact
60	✘ Sow the Seeds	✔ Phantom Singularity	✘ Vile Taint
75	✘ Darkfury	✘ Mortal Coil	✔ Demonic Circle
90	✘ Shadow Embrace	✘ Haunt	✔ Grimoire of Sacrifice
100	✘ Soul Conduit	✘ Creeping Death	✔ Dark Soul: Misery

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

Deathbolt is the best choice in this tier. This gives you a strong, instant spell that is an overall increase to your sustained damage.

Writhe in Agony is the best choice in this tier. This talent will help increase your sustained and spread damage. This also pairs well with the Sudden Onset Azerite Trait.

If you are playing against a team that can dispell curses, Absolute Corruption is the best choice in this tier. This makes your Corruption significantly stronger and is an increase to your spread pressure.

Demon Skin is the best choice in this tier. This defensive talent allows you to passively heal throughout an arena match. This is crucial for your survivability against most teams.

Phantom Singularity is the best choice in this tier. This talent is the best choice because it deals a good amount of damage, as well as healing you for 25% of the damage done.

Demonic Circle is the best choice in this tier. This is a strong talent to have to help you get away from incoming damage, or to reposition with your team.

If you are playing against a team and will not have to kite damage often, Mortal Coil is a better choice. This allows you to crowd control an enemy and also heal for a large amount.

Grimoire of Sacrifice is the best choice in this tier. The abilities that this talent gives your pets makes it the best talent in this tier.

A quick note on pets: Against a team that has multiple magic crowd control for your healer ( Hammer of Justice, Polymorph, Fear), you should sacrifice your Imp for Singe Magic. Against any other composition, you should sacrifice your Felhunter for Spell Lock.

Dark Soul: Misery is the best choice in this tier. This is a very strong offensive burst cooldown.

The first PvP talent tier will give you a choice between Gladiator's Medallion, Relentless, and Adaptation. Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. It is great for removing crowd control on you that your healer cannot dispel. You will normally save your trinket for a stun, followed by Demonic Circle: Teleport.

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents, depending on your team's goal.

Demon Armor increases your health and armor by a significant amount. This is a crucial PvP talent because you will likely be the main target for most teams.

Gateway Mastery increases the range of your Demonic Gateway by 20 yards, and reduces the cast time by 30%. It also reduces the time between how often players can take your Demonic Gateway by 15 sec. This is a crucial talent no matter what team you are playing against. This allows your team to avoid incoming damage or reposition more often.

Nether Ward surrounds the caster with a shield that lasts 3 sec, reflecting all harmful spells cast on you. This is a strong talent against classes with magical spells. It is also important to note that this can also reflect interrupts from some melee classes (Demon Hunter, Death Knights or Enhancement Shaman).

Curse of Weakness reduces the target's Physical damage dealt by 25% for 10 sec. This is a talent that should be chosen when playing against melee DPS. If there is only 1 melee DPS on the team, you can replace Rot and Decay for this talent. If there are two, you can replace Nether Ward instead.

Curse of Tongues makes a player cast much slower. This is a great choice versus a team with a caster.

Endless Affliction increases the duration of your Unstable Affliction, but the damage remains the same. This talent is helpful versus teams with multiple interrupts, as it gives you more time to use Unstable Affliction. You can replace Nether Ward with this talent. Note: With the Conflict and Strife Azerite Essence, you get this as a baseline ability.