Talent Builds
Single Target
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With Soulrot being a 1 minute CD, in ST Affliction builds play phantom singularity and holds it for every Soulrot. This is our main burst window every minute.
A common theme with all Warlock specs even in The War Within is picking up AoE spells even in Single Target builds, this is by virtue of how the spec talent trees are laid out and what talents are locked behind picking such AoE spells. In Afflictions case we are pathing through Seed of Corruption in order to pickup Kindled Malice as it is an overall net gain in dps, despite never casting Seed of Corruption in ST.
Before deciding what hero talent to use you should consider some of the intricacies of the given encounter: Is heavy movement required, is there an invulnerable phase / damage amp, fight duration and / or are you getting power infusion?
With regards to hero talents in ST environment, Hellcaller is the preferred choice. Its playstyle is more DoT and GCD based compared to the more active, cast and channel focused Soul Harvester.
Siphon Life, which no longer functions as a DoT itself, but instead is a flat increase to Wither damage (30%). This matter significantly in 11.2, where wither has become even more of a contributor to Affliction’s overall output, further amplified by shadow damage bonuses from the buffed Xalan’s Cruelty as well as free Wither stacks granted by Malevolence.
The core difference between the two hero talent trees lies in their playstyles and damage profiles. Hellcaller focuses on passive DoT scaling and sustained rot pressure. While, soul harvester revolves around nightfall stacks and spending them to deal quick burst damage to a single target.
Talents to Watch
Our capstone Oblivion is a chunk of our ST damage. However, with current tuning the talent point we have to spend to acquire it is better placed elsewhere.
Class Talents
The Warlock class talent tree has remained largely the same with a few changes. Our capstones are still generally weak in terms of providing raw dps but allow for strong utility and survivability.
Our new capstone Pact of Gluttony provides the warlock with their own Demonic Healthstones, which still provides the regular kind for the rest of the group (even other warlocks). These are the exact same as regular healthstones but instead of a once per combat consumption these Demonic Healthstones can be consumed as many times as needed, though coming with a 60 second cooldown between snacks.
Another new talent near the bottom of the tree is Swift Artifice which reduces the cooldown of both Soulstone and Create Healthstone by 50%. This is mainly taken for the reduction in cast time for Soulstone, our combat resurrection, which can be handy if you find yourself the only person able to CR within a group. Just remember to soulstone yourself first because if you die, who’s going to rez you?
Some talent changes that are worth noting is Fiendish Stride reducing burning rush damage by 10% instead of 25% / 50% per point, up to 2 points. The damage from burning rush can now really be felt so if you’re used to having it on for the added mobility just beware it’s now going to be ticking a lot harder.
As such I would say Fiendish Stride isn’t a nailed on talent pick and would consider the point from it to be the “utility” point, depending on what content you’re doing and what that group needs. This point can be put in the aforementioned Swift Artifice for faster CR or if the group lacks CC it can be put in Shadowfury for AoE CC or Banish for further ST CC.
As always warlock have their own 40yd teleport in Demonic Circle which is useful for traversing large boss rooms though it requires prior knowledge of encounter. As Well as having Demonic Gateway for the group which can be placed in a pinch (providing you have a soulshard) by casting Soulburn and then Demonic Gateway resulting in it being able to be placed while moving.
The other Soulburn effects each have their uses but are more niche, though with Demonic Healthstones + Soulburn - we have access to a 1 minute lay on hands (full heal) but only usable on themselves and provided at least 1 soul shard.
Other than these most of the warlock class tree is survivability whether it be pre-emptive to absorb big damage in Dark Pact or passive absorbs through Soul Leech.
Demonic Tactics is one of our only damage increases within our class tree. This talent increases our critical strike gained from all sources by 10% and is a passive throughput boost that scales well with gear progression.
Spec Talents
The Affliction Warlock spec tree has been redesigned in TWW. As mentioned in the talents section we currently path through AoE spells like Seed of Corruption even when the encounter is entirely single target based. This is due to the talent that lays behind Seed, Kindled Malice being a significant enough dps increase to warrant “wasting” a talent point in Seed in order to pick up. While this is not ideal, this problem isn’t unique to the Affliction warlock spec tree but other warlock spec’s tree also.
An interesting new talent we have in TWW is Volatile Agony, which deals AoE damage to the target and surrounding enemies whenever Agony is refreshed with 10 seconds or less remaining. This shifts our refresh of said DoT from the pandemic window to as close to 10 seconds as possible. Vile Taint also applies and thus it can refresh Agony’s duration, meaning in stacked AoE scenarios casting Vile Taint on 8 targets when their Agony duration is 10 or less seconds simultaneously triggers 8 Volatile Agony applications.
One of our previous tier sets has been turned into a talent in TWW by the name of Infirmity, this ability will mainly be taken with Phantom Singularity as its Vile Taint effect isn’t as useful. When opting for Phantom Singularity: Enemies damaged by Phantom Singularity take 10% increased damage from the warlock for its duration. This ability is pretty strong and gives us a damage amplification every 45 seconds, though we hold it 1 minute to pair with soul rot (another one of our dots).
There is a strange interaction between our haste stat and Phantom Singularity though when looking at through the lens of Infirmity. The higher our haste stat, the lower the duration that Phantom Singularity is meaning we gain the 10% damage amp for a less amount of time as our haste increases. These two talents (Phantom Singularity and Infirmity) seem at odds with each other, a more logical solution would be to make Phantom Singularity like a regular DoT with a set duration with haste increasing its tick rate.
In our spec tree we have the option for improved shadow bolt or drain soul. Generally shadow bolt is better when there is an absence of adds to snipe, in this add-filled scenario drain soul gains more value as draining a dying mob provides the warlock with a soul shard, though hero talents do break this generality (see below in Hero Talents Discussion).
Summon Darkglare is in the middle of our tree and is our big cooldown. This extends the duration of all our DoTs while also dealing damage to a primary target based on the number of our DoTs on said target. By picking up Malevolent Visionary while also buffing Darkglare’s damage it adds a cleave element. By virtue of Aff’s damage being mainly DoT based Darkglare is one of our most important spells.
Tormented Crescendo provides us with free, instant cast malefic raptures which can be useful for casting on the move or for adding more damage into our burst windows.
Another one of our old tier sets makes it as a talent in TWW, Malign Omen makes it so that after casting Soul Rot our next 3 raptures deal increased damage but also those 3 raptures each extend the duration of all our DoT’s by 2 seconds.
Our last notable talent is the return of Death’s Embrace (from legion) this provides Affliction with an execute effect: Increasing the damage of our main DoT’s and Malefic Rapture by 10% when a target is at or below 35% health. While not as strong as the actual spell Execute this talent can help close out tough boss fights wherein the last phase is normally the hardest. It is also important to note any bosses that start at reduced health percentages as Death’s Embrace will have more uptime on these.
Overall, the Affliction warlock spec tree is fair albeit some of the capstones and 2nd last row talents are a little lacking.
Hero Talents
Hellcaller
The Hellcaller hero path replaces Corruption with a beefed up version by the name of Wither, we share this hero path with the Destruction Warlock spec (they have Wither instead of Immolate). Wither is Shadowflame damage and thus gets bonus damage from both shadow and fire modifiers. Our hero talent capstone, Malevolence works well with Affliction’s cyclical nature: ramping damage every minute with the combination of Phantom Singularity and Soul Rot, Malevolence provides us with a 20 second haste buff every minute to enhance our burst window. Wither counts up in stacks similar to how Agony works but instead of the stacks increasing purely by duration (see Agony) it is whenever we spend a shard that the stack count increases by 1.
Malevolence also gives us a 20 second buff that each time we spend shards wither gains 1 stack, further consolidating that burst window every minute. Interestingly though with each shard spent Wither has a chance to “collapse” consuming its own stacks and dealing damage per stack consumed (1 stack per second) until 1 stack remains. The highest Wither will go to will be 8 due to Seeds of Their Demise though, Stacks can also be gained through critical strikes of Wither.
Wither like the spell it replaces is a largely passive effect and doesn’t affect gameplay too much - you’ll still want to prevent capping your shards outside of burst windows.
Soul Harvester
Soul Harvester is a bit more active in its playstyle when compared to Hellcaller. Where’s Hellcaller revolves around burst windows every minute with Malevolence and passive damage via Wither, Soul Harvester is a lot more proc based, while also peaking every minute. The damage profiles of the two hero talents are quite similar.
Soul Harvester is a lot more active than Hellcaller, in the sense that you are generating and spending considerably more shards. This is done by more abilities proccing Nightfall, giving us reduced cast time on Drain Soul (or instant shadow bolt) in turn these faster casts give us more chance to proc Tormented Crescendo which gives us free raptures.
In the Soul Harvester tree, Soul Rot also gives us 3 guaranteed Succulent Soul Shards on cast which aids in contributing to a more active playstyle.
Nightfall is essential to the playstyle of Soul Harvester as consuming Nightfall’s deals flat damage and also activates our middle Hero talent options in Shared Fate, an AoE effect but strong in single target too and Feast of Souls, a chance at a Soul Shard which is guaranteed to be a Succulent Soul. Succulent Souls empower the Warlock’s next Malefic Rapture by 20% and it also deals raw damage. These Succulent Souls are generated randomly whenever a regular Soul Shard would be.
Thus, Soul Harvester is about trying to get Succulent Souls and Nightfall procs in order to trigger our other synergistic talents for massive damage.