Affliction Warlock

Affliction Warlock is a cool class that no one wants to play


 * A guide by Dazthicco

THE GOOD
The Affliction Warlock class is a class that specialized on DoTs yadda yadda you can see it in the class desc already.

Here's what you really want to know!

Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction are the stuff you want to spit on your target, if you don't, well you aren't gonna achieve anything. You can outheal DKs and hold bosses even due to your Drain Life ability and its glyph and talent.

You are literally portal Jesus. With you the whole raid will benefit immensely due to reducing the time needed to do certain stuff (getting special world buffs, people being lost, some people swapping to other chars and all that type sort of thing). It is always useful to raid leaders to have warlocks in the party.

Your damage is alright on AOE, not too big, but not too small either and that's pretty cool. Your single target (ST) damage is S tier, your burst is FAT and pre-burst damage isn't too hard to maintain either (as long as you keep your debuffs up and that haunt buff up of course).

THE "GODDAMN IT I LOST MY HAUNT BUFF"
I hate the fact this class relies on having the level 100 talent buff "Soulburn: Haunt" up almost at all times, and since soul shards are an RNG pain in the ass to maintain that can go straight up fFKHJFHKLJFHSJKDF!!

You're not very mobile unless you can place your portals as if you could see the future, or you just know the encounters in and out. You will benefit from knowing what you're fighting and being able to predict how the tanks/boss will move. Having speed-boosted items is useful, just like any class.

The class is very gear dependent and it doesn't have big dick numbers, which won't appeal to everyone. Since this is a more "start low go high" type of DPS you must have the mindset that every bit of damage adds up and matters. A warrior will crit for 100k+ every 10s, but a warlock will deal 8k every 1s.

THE TALENTS AND THE RACE
Since Firestorm WoD is cross-faction I can only recommend Troll or Orc (Horde4Lyfe). Personally I like Troll more, simply cause they both have a damage racial that's really fitting for the Drain Soul phase.


 * Harvest Life is for extra healing from Drain Life
 * Shadowfury is AOE stun
 * Sacrificial Ppact is honestly the best oh shit button in the game
 * Grimoire of Sacrifice more damage but no pet (which is still more damage overall)
 * Archimonde Darkness is 2 dark souls
 * Soulburn: Haunt is the damage buff you need to keep up so you can have a CHANCE to flex on warriors

THE GLYPHS
I honestly think they're all useless besides these three, first being Glyph of Dark Soul but even this is optional... Survival ability, everytime Corruption ticks you get a bit of heal back and that's pretty cool. With all the dots Affliction has, leech in any form is really strong.

THE ROTATION
Always have Soulburn before a fight, time it so you can start with four shards! If you cant then don't do it, it takes time to learn


 * Doomguard > 1000 Intellect Potion > Unstable Affliction > Agony > Corruption on the target all times (especially Agony)

IF you're an ORC: Racial cd > Dark Soul > spam Haunt > Drain Soul > if Haunt procs you prioritize it over Drain soul.

IF you're a TROLL: spam Haunt > Dark Soul > Racial CD > Drain Soul > same deal with Haunt procs but try and get as many Drain Souls in it!

After that keep your debuffs and your Haunt buff up.

THE STAT PRIORITY
Choose either Haste > Mastery OR Haste > Multistrike. They are kind of the same to me in damage wise. Multistrike should theoretically raise your Agony stats faster and Mastery is raw damage that does a barely bigger difference.

Either way Haste > Mastery = Multistrike.

THE THINGS THAT TOOK ME A YEAR TO FIGURE

 * Everytime Drain Soul ticks, the other debuffs will also tick for like half damage or something (will also raise Agony stacks).
 * Portals are actualy really fucking strong to just not care about some boss mechanics so learn optimal placements asap.
 * Sacrificial Pact is bonkers.
 * You can survive Flamebender's firestorm very easily.
 * You have a Battle Resurrection!
 * Barely anyone plays Warlock which means they can gear up fast af.
 * Your dps might feel low but your overall damage says otherwise.
 * Seed of corruption spam in AOE is amazingly good.

THE END

Hope this was a fun read and that you'll play it. Because please if I have to wait for someone to swap to their warrior I will start to pop a blood vein from my eye. Love, Dazthicco ♥