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Introduction
Hi, my name is Ross, and I’m currently one of the warlock players for Method. I’ve been maining warlock since the start of Shadowlands in high level guilds through many different iterations of affliction, and that puts me in a good position to discuss the large changes that are in place going into midnight.
Affliction excels in situations where you can hit multiple targets that are not stacked up; you do this by utilising cleave from Corruption, which lasts forever using Absolute Corruption, and maintaining Agony on all targets for extra Soul Shards.
Affliction is now also very powerful for bursting priority targets, with its new spell Dark Harvest.
What has changed
May 5th Hotfix Changes for Affliction Warlock
The recent hotfixes to affliction, while not changing the playstyle or talents at all were actually very impactful for the spec, especially in single target.
Hotfix Changes:
- Unstable Affliction damage increased by 20%
- Seed Of Corruption damage increased by 10%
- Corruption damage increased by 20%
- Agony damage increased by 10%
- Fixed an issue where sometimes Wither would not replace Corruption
- Soul Harvester: Fixed an issue where Sataiel's Volition would sometimes stop providing its Corruption modifier
These changes are as big as they look, affliction is now very competitive with other warlock specs in the raid, potentially becoming the best single target warlock spec in the game on fights like Vorasius.
Midnight Expansion Changes for Affliction Warlock
Moving into Midnight, Warlock has received a pretty substantial rework.
With the removal of Malefic Rapture, warlock now spends their shards on Unstable Affliction for single target, and Seed Of Corruption in stacked multi target scenarios.
The spec tree has also been modified to reflect these changes.
New Unstable Affliction based talents:
New Seed Of Corruption based talents:
Your main cooldown as affliction, Summon Darkglare, has also changed, as it now no longer extends your damage over time effects on targets, and instead deals substantial damage even in single target and multi target situations because of its new talents:
Dark Harvest also comes with its own talent, Cull The Weak, allowing you to cast it more often, which, as one of your highest damage spells, is incredibly powerful.