Affliction Warlock Gearing Guide

Season 3 Hellcaller Affliction Warlock Tier Set:

• (2) Mark of Xavius increases Blackened Soul damage by an additional 6% per stack. Malevolence increases the stack count of Wither by an additional 2 stacks
• (4) Casting Malevolence grants 2 stacks of Tormented Crescendo and prevents Blackened soul from consuming stacks while dealing damage 25% faster for 8 seconds

The Hellcaller tier set enhances Affliction’s burst and passive damage through stronger raptures and more agency over Wither. The 2-piece that increases Blackened Soul’s damage and increases wither stacks (when malevolence is used) allows for higher stacks and more impactful collapses. The 4-piece, which on Malevolence press gives us both 2 free Crescendo procs and prevents Blackened Soul from consuming Wither stacks for 8 seconds while making it tick faster, gives us an opener with strong instant raptures in tandem with the guarantee that wither will stack high. Overall, this set smooths out our burst window and boosts our sustained pressure in single target and spread cleave.

Season 3 Soul Harvester Affliction Warlock Tier Set:

• (2) Shadow of Death unleashes your demonic soul to assault your current target for 9 seconds, dealing heavy shadow damage to them and moderate shadow damage to nearby enemies with each swipe
• (4) Demonic Soul damage increased by 45% and Wicked Reaping damage increased by 45%. Your demonic soul generates 1 Shard every 3 seconds while assaulting enemies

The Soul Harvester tier set is all about burst and shard generation by empowering your demonic soul. The 2-piece makes it so that when you cast soulrot your demonic soul will attack the target dealing shadow damage to it and cleaving nearby enemies. The 4-piece amplifies this by increasing both demonic soul and wicked reaping damage while also generating 1 shard every 3 seconds’ of the soul’s assault. This shard income during our burst windows fuels more raptures. Together, these bonuses give strong funnel and priority damage especially when combined with our other talents like Dark Harvest.

You should still prioritise the gear you use by running a sim for your character, but the lists below will give you a good idea of what items are considered good for Affliction Warlock, and help you target the right content for each piece of loot.

The following is a list and discussion of trinkets that are recommended.

Passive:

• Astral Antenna - One of our top passive choices. Antenna provides baseline intellect with a strong crit proc, these scales well with Affliction’s constant rot damage and can do massive damage if proc lines up with our CD’s.
• Azhiccaran Paraphodia - Tied with Antenna in single target for BIS passive. This trinket procs raw damage over 5 seconds that scales with our dam modifiers as well as giving main stat
• Ara-Kara Sacbrood - A viable option if you don’t have the top two. It brings raw haste with an intellect proc as well as a timed bleed.

On Use:

• Araz’s Ritual Forge - Undisputed best on-use trinket. Provides a huge burst of intellect on the same cooldown as Affliction’s strongest damage windows. Ritual Forge is simple, reliable and the highest performing trinket we have for all content.
• Signet of the Priory - Our best on-use from dungeons, Signet offers raw intellect with high crit on use, in tandem with a party wide sharing mechanic makes it good in coordinated groups, a solid backup.

Best combo ST: Araz’s Ritual Forge + either Astral Antenna or Azhiccaran Paraphodia.

Antenna provides more burst where’s Paraphodia for more consistent damage, in AoE Paraphodia scales much better than Antenna and should be used in M+.

Crafting Priority

1. Main-Hand Weapon such as Everforged Dagger, 2 handed weapon like Vagabond’s Bounding Baton or Off-Hand such as Vagabond’s Torch with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension embellishment
2. Any low armor piece with Writhing Armor Banding embellishment to pair with Darkmoon: Ascension
3. Any low armor piece with Elemental Focusing Lens or Dawnthread Lining embellishments

Use sparks with caution

A weapon generally provides the best raw DPS followed by any Consecrated armor piece. While it may seem a no-brainer to craft a staff with Darkmoon: Ascension for maximum DPS - 2 handed weapons cost 2 sparks while main / off-hand’s only cost 1. By virtue of max level crafting gear being lower than that of maximum myth track gear it is only used for their Embellishment effects but can be used as temporary gear until better loot drops. Due to their lower item level we want to craft our second embellishment in slots that have the lowest number of total stats, these slots being Wrists, Feet and Waists since fully upgraded myth gear will overtake it in ilvl.

I personally wouldn’t craft anything until at least the second week of the season, while a weapon may be the biggest DPS in week 1, your vault could contain a high level staff and would result in your very limited craft being wasted. Thus, you’ll want to hold off crafting for as long as possible in order for you to maximise the value you will get from the craft, you can spam mythic+ indefinitely for a piece of loot, the same can’t be said for crafting. If such a situation did arise wherein a myth track staff was in your vault (buy a lottery ticket) then you would be looking to go down a different route of embellishments since Darkmoon: Ascension can only be put on crafted weapons. Then you would likely go for double Elemental Focusing Lens or Dawnthread Lining, Elemental Focusing Lens is a raw damage proc similiar to shadowflame in Dragonflame where as Dawnthread Lining is a permanent Crit Strike increase when health is above 80%.

Despite it looking like a big DPS upgrade it is not wise to craft an embellishment in a tier slot, due to higher item level pieces being available from the Great Vault and Mythic raid.

Elemental Focusing Lens is a flexible embellishment and can go on any crafting piece while both Writhing Armor Banding and Dawnthread Lining can go on any armor piece.

The best way to see which items are the most beneficial to spend your spark craft on would be to sim your character.

Reshii Wraps (Legendary Cloak)

This back item is mandatory for raid access but its impact is more passive when compared to previous legendaries. For DPS, the cloak passively deals arcane damage to your target and nearby enemies, with its damage increased by 20% against enemies below 35% health. Like other damage procs, it scales with Affliction’s modifiers such as Haunt and Shadow’s Embrace, synergising more with Affliction than with some other specs.

When picking a Fiber, I strongly recommend simming your character for the best stat for you. If you just want a quick recommendation for which Reshii Fiber to use, then use Pure Precise Fiber (Crit).

Best D.I.S.C Belt & Miniature Titan Disc Effects

Patch 11.1.7 introduced “Durable Information Securing Container", a unique belt similar to Cyrce’s Circlet. Like the ring this item increases in item level starting at 684 and going up to 701 Much like the aforementioned ring, this belt has special effects that you can customise depending on the scenario; however unlike the circlet, DISC can only have 1 effect active at a time, though these can be easily swapped out between encounters.

The strongest effects for Affliction warlocks are:

Single Target - Lightning Rod

Cleave / M+ / AoE - Static Charge

• Lightning Rod - Your spells and abilities have a chance to turn you into a Lightning Rod striking a random enemy target within 40yds for nature damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds
• Static charge - Your spells and abilities have a chance to grant you Static Charge, increasing your versatility by 220 for 30 sec. Each of your next spells and abilities reduce the Versatility bonus by 5%

Lighting rod is the pick for single target. The dot it applies gets boosted with affliction’s damage modifiers such as haunt and shadow’s embrace. Lightning rod amplifies what affliction is already good at, sustained DoT’s and is just a ‘plug and play’ ability.

In Mythic+ and AoE, static charge takes the lead. The raw versatility benefits all your DoTs across multiple targets and the stat is valuable for both offensive and defensive scaling. In dungeons, where targets are plentiful and spell cast damage is front loaded, the decay mechanic is less punishing.

For more information about unlocking the DISC belt and the different Miniature Titan Disc effects available, check out Method's D.I.S.C Belt Guide.