Affliction Warlock Class Guide - MoP Classic

Welcome to our Mists of Pandaria Classic (MoP Classic) Affliction Warlock Class Guide for Phase 1, it focuses on getting you up to speed with the Spec for PvE content, Dungeons and Raiding. The guide includes key information for what has changed going into MoP, the best Talent builds, Major Glyphs, your Rotation, Gearing and Consumables for Affliction Warlock.

Table of Content:

• Changes from Cataclysm to MoP
• Talents
• Rotation & Abilities
• Gearing & Consumables

What’s New for Affliction Warlock in Mists of Pandaria Classic

Warlocks are a strange class. They changed a lot through the history of WoW, and Affliction had very high highs, and very low lows. But how will it go in Mist of Pandaria? Warlocks as a class will be receiving massive changes and every specialization are playing very differently. Here are the key changes for Affliction:

• Soul Shards are now a resource like Holy Power for Paladins. It’s an exclusive resource to Affliction and will now be spent on Haunt as your main spender.
• Pandemic has been changed and is now a passive for all Warlocks specializations. You can extend your DoT duration by casting them again early.
• You will no longer cast Shadow Bolt, and will be using a channeled ability, Malefic Grasp, as your main filler.
• Dark Soul: Misery is a new offensive cooldown. Demon Soul has been deleted.
• Doom, Shadowflame, Soul Fire, Fel Flame are no longer available to Affliction.
• Fel Armor is now passive.
• Unending Resolve is a new defensive cooldown.
• Demonic Gateway has been added.

Is Affliction Warlock Good?

Affliction Warlocks are Warlocks, so they are always wanted in every type of content for their amazing and unique utility. But for the first phase, Affliction will most likely be outperformed by Destruction. Don’t worry though, as Affliction Warlocks scale incredibly well into the later phases, becoming one of if not the best caster in the game in phase 4. And regarding play style, Mist of Pandaria Affliction feels better to play than its previous iterations.

Best Talents & Glyphs for Affliction Warlock in MoP Classic

With the new revamped talents, we will provide you with 2 talent builds, one for Dungeons and one for Raiding. Don’t forget that, with the new talents, a lot of utility options can change depending on fights.

Affliction Warlock Raiding Talent Build

When looking at Warlock’s talent tree, we can find a lot of powerful options. However, most of the time, one option or build is clearly stronger than the others. Soul Leech, Burning Rush and Grimoire of Supremacy are all amazing options and other talents in their respective rows tend to lack the power they need to compete. But there is a few things you can swap around:

Mortal coil / Shadowfury: Mortal coil is better by default because of the health regeneration it provides, but if you need AoE crowd control, swap to Shadowfury.

Soul link / Sacrificial Pact: Soul link is a strong passive Damage reduction you don’t really have to think about, with a built-in passive effect. But Sacrificial Pact is a very, very strong personal cooldown. The shield you get from this is insane. Swap around depending on fights with a lot of burst damage or more sustained damage.

Archimonde’s Darkness / Mannoroth's Fury: Having more Dark Soul: Misery is great, but in AoE situations with 6 targets or more Mannoroth’s Fury pulls ahead. You can also consider playing Kil'jaeden's Cunning if you need to move a lot.

Best Affliction Warlock Raid Glyphs

Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain Glyph of Unstable Affliction, Glyph of Siphon Life and Glyph of Healthstone.

Other Major Glyphs you can consider are Glyph of Eternal Resolve, Glyph of Soulstone and Glyph of Demonic Circle.

No Minor Glyphs are really worth considering, play what you like the most.

Affliction Warlock Dungeons & Challenge Mode Talent Build

The logic in the Dungeon Build is pretty much the same as the raiding build. Shadowfury is usually better because you will want to make big pulls and control adds to help your tank and your healer, there are usually less big damage spikes so Soul Link passive Damage reduction is better. In dungeons, you can justify taking Archimonde's Darkness, Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning or Mannoroth’s Fury. It all depends on the dungeon you do, the pulls you are doing and what your group needs.

Best Affliction Warlock Dungeon Glyphs

Regarding Major Glyphs, you will want to obtain Glyph of Unstable Affliction, Glyph of Siphon Life and Glyph of Healthstone.

Other Major Glyph you can consider are Glyph of Eternal Resolve, Glyph of Soulstone and Glyph of Demonic Circle.

No Minor Glyphs are really worth considering, play what you like the most.

Rotation for Affliction Warlock in MoP Classic

Single Target Rotation & Priority

1. Use Observer as your demon.
2. Maintain Curse of the Elements (only if you’re assigned to it).
3. Use Dark Soul: Misery on Cooldown.
4. Use Summon Terrorguard on Cooldown. Terrorguard is the improved Doomguard.
5. Maintain your DoTs: Corruption, Agony and Unstable Affliction. Refresh them with ~40% of the timer remaining.
6. Maintain Haunt during burst.
7. Outside of burst, cast Haunt with 4 Soul Shards.
8. Use Drain Soul in execute (target has 20% HP or less).
9. Use Malefic Grasp.
10. Use Life Tap if you need mana.

Regarding your opener, cast Haunt 1 second before pull, use Dark Soul: Misery, then place your DoTs with Soulburn: Soul Swap, use Summon Terrorguard, Haunt and proceed with normal rotation. If you want to optimize your opener, you can channel Malefic Grasp just after Soulburn: Soul Swap to fish for procs. Once something procs, you can Soulburn: Soul Swap again to snapshot the effects empowering your DoTs and continue with the opener.

AoE Rotation & Priority

In AoE, the rotation is pretty much the same. Maintain your DoTs and spread them with Soul Swap. In heavy AoE (more than 5 targets), use Soulburn on Seed of Corruption.

Best Gear & Stats for Affliction Warlock in MoP Classic

Best in Slot aren’t as big in Mist of Pandaria Classic. Reforging is the new hype, so you can tailor your gear better than before.

The gear you should aim for are: Trinkets, Tier Sets and Weapons.

The best weapons you can find pre-raid in the first phase are:

• Inscribed Crane Staff, from Inscription.
• Je’lyu, Spirit of the Serpent, from Sha of Doubt, Temple of the Jade Serpent.
• Headmaster’s Will, Darkmaster Gandling, Scholomance.

The best off-hands you can find pre-raid in the first phase are:

• Inscribed Red Fan, from Inscription.
• Bottle of potent potables, from Hoptallus in Stormstout Brewery.
• Scroll of Whispered Secrets, a BoE.

The best trinkets for Affliction Warlock are:

• Relic of Yu’lon, from Inscription.
• Vision of the Predator, from Striker Gad’ok, Gate of the Setting Sun.
• Ghost Iron Dragonling, from Engineering.
• Flashfrozen Resin Globule, from Vizier Jin’bak, Siege of Niuzao Temple.

MoP Classic Affliction Warlock Stat Priority

Your best stat is Intellect, which should be your first priority. Then, Hit Rating and Expertise to reach a 15% chance to hit.

After that, you want to reach specific Haste Caps to increase the number of ticks your DoTs can have. Usually, it means reaching 9778 haste if you can in phase 1. Until you reach this cap and after you’ve reached it, Mastery has more value than Haste. Critical Strike is by far the worse stat for Affliction Warlocks.

Best Consumables, Enchants & Gems for Affliction Warlock in MoP Classic

The following tables outline the recommended Consumables, Enchants and Gems for Affliction Warlock in Raiding and Dungeon content.

Consumables

Enchants

Gems

We hope this guide helped you improve your Affliction Warlock Gameplay and better understand the spec. To check out all of our MoP Classic content, such as Class Guides, Tier Lists and more, you can browse our full library of MoP Classic Guides.