Welcome to the Affliction Warlock guide for World of Warcraft the Burning Crusade. In this guide, you will learn about playing an Affliction Warlock in dungeons and raids. The guide includes Talents, Gems, Enchantments, Gameplay & Skill rotation tips.

Table of Contents

• Talents
• Gems
• Enchants
• Professions
• Rotation
• Consumables
• Stat Priority
• Pre-Raid BiS
• Best in Slot

Talents

Affliction is the best way to start raiding as a Warlock. The gear requirements are lower because Suppression provides you with a 10% Spell Hit rating from the beginning. Other warlocks will need to find this stat through gearing up. Affliction Warlock brings a list of useful bonuses to the raid, such as Shadow Embrace, Malediction, and Improved Blood Pact.

Below is the build that is suggested for starting warlocks. It brings the above-mentioned utility into the raid. There are a few talents that can be changed, like the Improved Curse of Agony for Grim Reach or Improved Drain Soul to reduce the threat. Also Improved Healthstone or Improved Imp can be swapped for Destructive Reach if other Warlocks provide that utility.

There are also builds that go for Ruin, but they require a high Crit chance and high-end gear. Otherwise, it’s pointless.
Gems

• Meta: Chaotic Skyfire Diamond
• Red: Runed Crimson Spinel
• Yellow: Veiled Pyrestone, Great Lionseye for Hit rating
• Blue: Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst for the socket bonus / meta gem activation.

Cheaper alternatives:

• Red: Runed Living Ruby
• Yellow: Veiled Noble Topaz, Great Dawnstone
• Blue: Glowing Nightseye

Enchants

• Head – Glyph of Power
• Shoulder – Greater Inscription of the Orb or Greater Inscription of Discipline
• Cloak – Enchant Cloak – Subtlety
• Chest – Enchant Chest – Exceptional Health or Enchant Chest – Exceptional Stats
• Bracers – Enchant Bracer – Spellpower
• Gloves – Enchant Gloves – Major Spellpower
• Legs – Runic Spellthread or Mystic Spellthread
• Boots – Enchant Boots – Boar’s Speed
• Weapon – Enchant Weapon – Soulfrost with Enchant Weapon – Major Spellpower as a cheaper alternative while starting out

Enchanters can also benefit from Enchant Ring – Spellpower on both of the Rings

Professions

• As with every DPS class in a raid – Leatherworking gives your group the best bonus. Drums of Battle and Drums of War provide a noticeable DPS increase. This is the option for higher tier raiders.
• Tailoring is great for gearing up your new warlock. Look into crafting Shadoweave and Spellstrike sets as they would be with you until T4-T5 items. This option is great for fresh level 70 warlocks looking to improve their gear asap.
• You can pick up both Tailoring & Leatherworking while farming the required materials with an alt.
• Jewelcrafting would give you earlier access to epic gems, but you can unlock them without the profession later on. Note: epic gems bonus does not require the profession, so you can drop it after using the gems on BiS gear.
• As mentioned in the Enchants section, Enchanting grants you a unique ring enchant – Enchant Ring – Spellpower. You can use it on BiS rings and then drop the profession while keeping the bonus. Other than that – the ability to do your own armor & weapon enchants.

Rotation

You should be using Fel Armor. Maintain an assigned curse. It will be one of the following: Curse of the Elements, Curse of Recklessness or Curse of Doom. Your demon of choice should be Imp because it can provide Blood Pact (which is often improved in Demonology tree with Improved Imp).

Maintain Unstable Affliction, Corruption, Immolate and Siphon Life on the target. Rest of the time you use Shadow Bolt. Since we are using Improved Shadow Bolt, it is vital to maintain that debuff on the target.

It’s important to let your DoTs finish the last tick while trying to minimize the gap between the DoT ending and being re-applied. Learning this will increase your overall DPS. Also worth mentioning that Immolate is dropped out of the rotation later on, as Shadow Bolt becomes a better option with higher stats.

Use Life Tap and Dark Pact when needed, preferably while moving since you can’t cast your other spells at that time.

Consumables

• Elixir: Flask of Pure Death
• Potion: Super Mana Potion, Destruction Potion
• Healthstones
• Food: Blackened Basilisk, Crunchy Serpent, Poached Bluefish
• Oil: Brilliant Wizard Oil and Superior Wizard Oil
• Drums (LW): Drums of Battle and Drums of War

Stat Priority

Cap: 202 Spell Hit rating (16%). With 5/5 Suppression you only need 76 Hit rating. Note that it works only for Affliction spells, so Spell hit is still required for Shadow Bolt and Immolate.

• Spell Hit and Spell Power
• Spell Haste & Spell Crit
• Stamina
• Intellect

Pre-Raid Best in Slot

Slot	Item
Head	Spellstrike Hood
Neck	Pendant of Dominance
Shoulders	Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders
Back	Illidari Cloak of Shadow Wrath
Chest	Frozen Shadoweave Robe
Wrist	Elementalist Bracelets of Shadow Wrath
Hands	Gloves of the Deadwatcher
Waist	Girdle of Ruination
Legs	Spellstrike Pants
Feet	Frozen Shadoweave Boots
Main Hand	Gladiator's Spellblade
Ranged	Flawless Wand of Shadow Wrath
Off Hand	Orb of the Soul-Eater
Ring 1	Ashyen's Gift
Ring 2	Sparking Arcanite Ring
Trinket 1	Darkmoon Card: Crusade
Trinket 2	Icon of the Silver Crescent

Best in Slot