Affliction Warlock Guide

📊 Stat Priority

Priority: Intellect > Critical Strike > Haste > Mastery > Versatility. Item level wins over a same-slot sidegrade in nearly every case — take the higher ilvl piece.

• Intellect - your primary stat; always the largest throughput gain. Never sim against it.
• Critical Strike - top secondary in Season 1, scaling your DoT ticks and spenders evenly. If you somehow blow past ~35% Crit while neglecting Mastery, swap to a Mastery-leaning rune.
• Haste - close behind Crit; more ticks and faster casts/channels (Drain Soul, Dark Harvest). Warlocks always want some Haste — Cascading Calamity gives a near-permanent ~5% Haste buff that feeds the rotation.
• Mastery - amplifies your DoT/periodic damage; solid but ranks behind Crit/Haste at current tuning.
• Versatility - the dump stat (small DPS + minor DR). Take it only when ilvl is equal.

🎁 Tier Set, Trinkets & Consumables

Tier set (4 pieces — Helm, Chest, Hands, Legs; fill via Catalyst): 2pc increases Unstable Affliction and Seed of Corruption damage by ~10%. 4pc starts Agony at 2 extra stacks and increases its damage by ~20% — a strong bonus that front-loads your ramp and rewards multi-dotting. Getting all four bonuses is worth taking slightly off-ideal slots in the short term.

Top trinkets (raid): Gaze of the Alnseer and Emberwing Feather are the standout S-tier picks; Shadow of the Empyrean Requiem is a strong A-tier alternative. M+ alts: Emberwing Feather and Heart of Wind.

Consumables (Midnight Season 1): Flask of the Shattered Sun · combat potion (Intellect) · Silvermoon Health Potion · best-stat Silvermoon feast/food · Void-Touched Augment Rune · weapon oil for casters. Gems: Intellect prime gem + Flawless Quick (Haste) / Crit garnets to match the stat priority. Enchants: enchant every available slot — caster ring/weapon/chest/boots enchants; note cloak and bracer have no enchant this expansion.

🚀 Opener

Pre-cast Haunt ~2s before the pull so it lands as the timer hits 0, then race to apply all three core DoTs before pooling shards for the Darkglare amplify window. Soul Harvester shown.

1. Pre-cast Haunt (~2s before pull) and a Shadow Bolt into it
2. Apply Agony
3. Apply Corruption (or Wither if Hellcaller)
4. Cast Malevolence (Hellcaller) — skip on Soul Harvester
5. Unstable Affliction until you are at 2 Soul Shards
6. Dark Harvest (Soul Harvester) — it regenerates 3 shards while channeling
7. Summon Darkglare to amplify your active DoTs
8. Trinkets + racial here
9. Spend all remaining shards on Unstable Affliction
10. Nightfall-proc Drain Soul / Shadow Bolt, then fillers
11. Follow the single-target priority below

⚔️ Single-Target Priority

Affliction has no hard rotation — it is a maintain-and-spend priority. Keep all three DoTs rolling, never overcap shards, and feed Dark Harvest / Darkglare windows.

1. Keep Agony up (refresh in the pandemic window — it ramps stacks, never let it drop)
2. Keep Corruption / Wither up
3. Haunt on cooldown
4. Malevolence on cooldown (Hellcaller)
5. Unstable Affliction at or near max Soul Shards (don't overcap)
6. Get to 2 or fewer shards before Dark Harvest, then Dark Harvest on cooldown with active DoTs
7. Spend a free Unstable Affliction inside a Shard Instability proc window
8. Drain Soul as filler (single-target)
9. Shadow Bolt as the fallback filler

💥 AoE / Multi-Target Priority

In Midnight, Seed of Corruption is your main AoE spender (it replaced Malefic Rapture as the shard dump and spreads Corruption/Wither quickly). Spread Agony manually onto priority targets, then convert shards into Seeds.

1. Maintain Agony on up to ~5 targets (highest-value DoT to multi-dot)
2. Seed of Corruption on 3+ stacked targets to seed Corruption/Wither across the pack
3. Haunt on the primary / priority target
4. Dark Harvest on cooldown while targets have active DoTs (cleaves the whole pack)
5. Pool shards during Summon Darkglare so the amplify hits a full DoT board
6. Unstable Affliction on the priority target to avoid capping shards
7. Shadow Bolt as filler (preferred over Drain Soul in multi-target)

⏱️ Cooldowns

Your burst is a DoT-amplify combo: set the board, then press Darkglare + Dark Harvest together. Pre-extend Agony with a pandemic refresh just before Darkglare so the longest, fattest DoTs get amplified.

Summon Darkglare~3 min

Main throughput cooldown. Summons the Darkglare, which amplifies all of your active DoTs while it's out. Always have Agony (pandemic-extended), Corruption/Wither, Unstable Affliction and Haunt live before pressing it. Line up trinkets and racials with it.

Dark Harvest~1 min

Soul Harvester's signature button and a burst window. Cast on cooldown with active DoTs; it regenerates 3 Soul Shards while channeling, so get to 2 or fewer shards first and dump the regen afterward. Sync with Darkglare when both are up.

Malevolence~1 min

Hellcaller's burst window — a channeled empower for your DoTs. Cast on cooldown and pair it with Darkglare and Dark Harvest. (Not taken on Soul Harvester builds.)

Haunt~15s

Short-CD damage amplifier on a single target — keep it on the boss as close to 100% uptime as possible. Pre-cast it ~2s before pull so it lands at timer 0. Apex talents push extra Haunt damage and meteor procs.

Soul Rot~1 min

Hard-hitting DoT/leech cooldown that also spreads to nearby targets and empowers your next shard spenders — a key part of the burst board on builds that take it; press it into your amplify window.

💚 Defensive Toolkit

Warlock is one of the tankiest casters thanks to Soul Leech absorb plus on-demand shields and self-heals. Layer these proactively before known damage rather than reacting late.

Unending Resolve~3 min

40% damage reduction for 8s and prevents your casts from being interrupted/silenced. Your big planned cooldown for boss hits and dangerous M+ casts.

Dark Pact~1 min

Sacrifices a chunk of current health for a large absorb shield. Strongest when you're topped — press it before the hit, not after, so the shield is full size.

Healthstone1 use / combat

Instant heal off the GCD. With Soulburn + Pact of Gluttony it becomes a repeatable ~1-min defensive — one of the spec's best survival tools on long fights.

Soul Leechpassive

Damage dealt builds a rolling absorb shield up to a cap. Your DoTs keep it topped, so just doing your rotation keeps a baseline buffer up at all times.

Mortal Coil~45s

Horrifies (fears) one target AND heals you for a percentage of max health — doubles as a panic heal plus a single-target peel/CC.

Demonic Circle / Demonic Gatewaypreplaced

Set a circle (or gate) before the pull to teleport out of a mechanic or skip ground. Frequent Traveler gives the Gateway 2 charges. Mobility-as-survival — your main way out of a bad spot.

🧰 Utility & Crowd Control

🗝️ Mythic+ Tips

• Pre-ramp before the pull — multi-dot Agony onto the pack and pre-cast Haunt so DoTs are already ticking when the tank gathers; your weakness is slow ramp on short-lived trash.
• Seed of Corruption is your AoE shard dump in Midnight — fire it at 3+ stacked targets to blanket Corruption/Wither, then let DoTs + Dark Harvest do the work.
• Hold Dark Harvest / Darkglare for the big, longer-living pulls (mini-bosses, named trash) where the DoT board pays off — don't waste them on a pack that dies in 10 seconds.
• Shadowfury is unlimited-target AoE stun — own a stun rotation slot with it; Howl of Terror is your emergency 'get a pack off me' button.
• Spell Lock / Axe Toss is on the pet — keep the pet on the caster and use a pet-interrupt macro; losing the pet loses your kick.
• Drop Healthstones every pull and place a Demonic Circle / Gateway before known mechanics — your group utility and your own escape both come from pre-planning.
• Run Soul Harvester for weekly/most keys; only consider Hellcaller on very high target-count, longer-pull routes — and even then it's a marginal call in Season 1.

⌨️ Macros & Addons

WeakAuras is not supported in Midnight (12.0) — use Blizzard's built-in Cooldown Manager (importable configs on Wago.io). Addons: ElvUI, DBM/BigWigs, Plater (DoT/nameplate tracking), Details!.

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][@mouseover,harm,nodead][harm,nodead] Spell Lock

#showtooltip Summon Darkglare
/cast Summon Darkglare
/use 13
/use 14

#showtooltip Healthstone
/cast Soulburn
/use Healthstone

#showtooltip Curse of Tongues
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Curse of Tongues

🚫 Common Mistakes

• Letting Agony drop — it ramps stacks over time, so a re-applied Agony does far less than a maintained one. Refresh it in the pandemic window, never let it fall off.
• Pressing Summon Darkglare with a thin DoT board — always have Agony (pandemic-extended), Corruption/Wither, UA and Haunt live first, or you amplify nothing.
• Overcapping Soul Shards — wasted resource and wasted Unstable Afflictions; spend before you cap.
• Forgetting to drop to ≤2 shards before Dark Harvest — it regenerates 3 shards, so a full pool means you cap and waste the regen.
• Reacting late with defensives — Dark Pact shields off current health and Unending Resolve is a hard 40% DR, so press them before the hit, not after.
• Using Hellcaller because it 'looks better for AoE' — it's undertuned in Season 1; Soul Harvester is correct in almost every pull.
• Ignoring pet management — your interrupt is on the pet, so a dead or out-of-range pet means no kick when the group needs it.