Affliction Warlocks live and die by their Damage-over-Time spells. You'll juggle multiple DoTs on your target while weaving Shadow Bolts between applications. Out of all three Warlock specs, Affliction demands the most attention. You're constantly watching timers, refreshing debuffs, and managing your pet on top of everything else.

Your job is simple on paper: deal as much damage as you can without ripping threat from the tank and getting yourself killed. Worse, you could wipe the raid. That balance between pushing your damage and staying alive is what separates good Affliction players from great ones.

This guide covers everything you need to squeeze the most damage out of your Affliction Warlock in dungeons and raids. We'll go through single-target rotations, AoE strategies, curse priorities, mana management, and all the utility tricks you should know.

Affliction Warlock Class Crest — The Affliction Warlock specializes in damage-over-time effects and curses

Pre-Combat Preparation

Before you pull anything, there's setup work to do. Skip this and you're leaving damage on the table.

Pet Selection

You're running an Imp. Always. The Imp buffs your party and chips in extra damage throughout the fight. Make sure it's summoned before combat starts and that it's actually attacking your target once the pull happens.

Buff Maintenance

Keep Fel Armor up at all times. It boosts all healing you receive, which plays nicely with Life Tap, and it gives you free spell damage. Some players wonder about Demon Armor for the resistances, but the healing amp from Fel Armor wins out in PvE.

Raid Responsibilities

You've got jobs beyond just doing damage:

Soulstone Assignment: Someone in the raid gets your Soulstone. Track the duration, reapply before it drops, and refresh it immediately if your target dies and uses the rez.
Healthstone Distribution: Help with Ritual of Souls so everyone has a Master Healthstone. One Soul Shard gets you ten Healthstones.
Summoning Duties: Pitch in with Ritual of Summoning when people need to get to the instance.

DoT Management

DoT management is the heart of Affliction gameplay. Your DoTs need to stay on the target as close to 100% of the time as possible.

The DoT Refresh Principle

When you refresh your DoTs matters. You want to minimize downtime between the old DoT falling off and the new one landing, but you also can't overwrite a DoT that still has ticks left.

Pro Tip

Start casting your replacement DoT before the current one expires, timing it so the new application hits right after the last tick.

Example: Your Immolate has 1 second left and you start casting a new one. With talents, Immolate takes 1.5 seconds to cast, so your new Immolate lands 0.5 seconds after the old one expires. That's a small gap, and that's fine.

Warning

If your Immolate has 2 seconds left and you start that same 1.5 second cast, your new Immolate lands while the old one still has 0.5 seconds remaining. You just overwrote that final tick. That's lost damage.

Tracking Your DoTs

Affliction has too many DoTs to track manually with any consistency. Grab an addon or set up a WeakAura to display your DoT timers. This alone will improve your uptime more than almost anything else you can do.

Single-Target Rotation

The Affliction rotation is priority-based, not a strict sequence. Apply abilities in order of importance, then fill with Shadow Bolt while keeping an eye on your DoT timers.

Shadow Bolt Warlock Spell — Shadow Bolt serves as your primary filler between DoT applications

Rotation Priority

Priority	Ability	Notes
1	Curse of the Elements	Keep this up unless another Affliction Warlock has it covered. If they do, use Curse of Doom instead.
2	Unstable Affliction	Maintain if talented. Once you get enough crit, you might respec into Ruin and drop UA entirely.
3	Corruption	Keep this up at all times. Affliction talents make Corruption instant cast.
4	Siphon Life	Maintain on target. Returns more mana via Life Tap than it costs to cast.
5	Immolate	Only use if a Fire Mage is keeping Improved Scorch on the target.
6	Shadow Bolt	Your filler. Cast whenever all DoTs are ticking and nothing needs refreshing.

Rotation Flow

Once your DoTs are up, you're mostly casting Shadow Bolt and watching timers. When something's about to expire, refresh it using the timing principles above, then go back to Shadow Bolt. You'll fall into a rhythm of maintenance and filler.

Critical Note

Let your DoTs run their full duration before refreshing. Early refreshes waste ticks.

Curse System and Priority

Curses make up a big chunk of Affliction utility and damage. You can only have one curse on a target at a time, so picking the right one matters.

Primary Curse: Curse of the Elements

In group content, you're almost always running Curse of the Elements. It cuts enemy resistance to Arcane, Fire, Frost, and Shadow while boosting damage from those schools. Your Malediction talent makes your version stronger than what other Warlock specs can provide, so you're the natural choice to maintain it.

Use a different curse only when another Affliction Warlock is already handling Elements, or when an encounter specifically demands something else.

Curse Priority for Damage

When someone else has Elements covered, you can shift to personal damage:

Curse of Doom: Highest personal DPS of any curse, but the target has to live for the full 1-minute duration. Use this on long boss fights when you're not on Elements duty.
Curse of Agony: Use this when Doom is on cooldown or when the target will die in under a minute. It's also your go-to curse for solo content.

Situational Curses

Curse of Recklessness: Helps your melee. It also has a useful trick: casting it on a Feared target breaks the Fear immediately, giving you controlled CC removal.
Curse of Tongues: Slows enemy casting. Only matters on specific encounters with dangerous casts, but when it's needed, it's valuable.
Curse of Weakness: Reduces physical damage from the target. Warriors usually cover this with Demoralizing Shout, so you'll rarely need it.
Curse of Exhaustion: Slows movement. Requires a talent point and isn't worth it for PvE. This one's for PvP.

AoE Rotation

When you're dealing with packs of enemies, you shift away from DoT juggling and into area damage.

AoE Priority

Seed of Corruption: Your main AoE tool. Throw Seeds on every target you can. It hits hard and you can cast it from a safe distance.
Hellfire: If you're in melee range and the situation is safe, spam Hellfire for extra damage. Just remember that Hellfire hurts you while you channel it. Only use this when healers can handle the self-damage and you're not about to eat a mechanic.

Note

Seed of Corruption from range is always the safer play. Hellfire is for when you know you can get away with it.

Movement and Situational Play

Sometimes you have to move. Affliction has options for keeping damage going while repositioning.

Instant-Cast Options During Movement

When you can't stand still for Shadow Bolt, use these in order of efficiency:

Refresh DoTs: If anything is close to expiring, refresh it. Corruption is instant with Affliction talents. Keep your damage rolling.
Life Tap: If you'll need mana soon, convert health while you're moving anyway.
Shadowburn: If you're willing to spend a Soul Shard, this gives you instant direct damage. Be aware that Shadowburn eats Improved Shadow Bolt charges from other Warlocks, which can hurt raid DPS. Save it for when movement would otherwise shut down your damage completely.

Human Warlock in TBC — Mastering movement while maintaining DoT uptime separates good Affliction players from great ones

Mana Management

Warlocks have unique tools for mana regeneration. Used correctly, you can cast almost indefinitely.

Life Tap

Life Tap turns your health into mana. It's your main regeneration method, but you have to be smart about when you use it.

Good times to Life Tap:

During forced movement when you can't cast damage spells anyway
When your mana is low and healers aren't stressed
When there's a clear window before unavoidable raid damage

Bad times to Life Tap:

Right before a big hit is coming
When healers are already struggling
During your damage cooldown windows

Pro Tip

You don't need to fill your mana bar all the way. Ideally, you'd end the fight with zero mana and zero downtime. If you know movement is coming up, hold your tap until then.

Alternative Mana Sources

Dark Pact: Pulls mana from your pet instead of your health. Great when Life Tapping would put you in danger.
Demonic Rune, Dark Rune, Mana Potions: These restore mana without touching your health. Use them before Life Tap when you can, since they cost you less in survivability and DPS.

Threat Management

Big damage means big threat. Managing it keeps you alive.

Soulshatter

Soulshatter drops your threat when you activate it.

Use it correctly: Pop Soulshatter mid-fight when you see your threat creeping up toward the tank. This is most important during burn phases or when tanks are having trouble holding aggro.

Warning

Don't hit Soulshatter at the pull. Your total threat is tiny at that point, and reducing tiny threat does nothing. Save it for when your accumulated threat actually becomes a problem.

Utility Toolkit

Affliction brings more than just damage. You've got a solid toolkit for survival and group utility.

Self-Healing and Survival

Major Healthstone: Always have one ready before any fight. It's free emergency healing.
Drain Life: You can use this instead of Shadow Bolt when you need health and healers can't help. It's a DPS loss, so only use it when survival demands it.
Shadow Ward: Absorbs Shadow damage. Useful on any fight with Shadow mechanics, both for staying alive and avoiding spell pushback.

Crowd Control

Banish: Locks down a demon or elemental, making them immune and immobile. Pick your rank based on how long you need the CC. Doesn't work on bosses.
Fear: Standard CC that sends the target running. Be careful, since feared mobs can pull other packs. You can break Fear instantly by hitting the target with Curse of Recklessness.
Death Coil: Instant short-duration fear. Mostly used for damage on the move or as a quick self-heal.
Howl of Terror: AoE fear centered on you. Occasionally useful for emergency add control, but watch out for mobs scattering in bad directions.

Additional Utility

Eye of Kilrogg: Creates a movable eye for scouting. Can pull packs from long range, especially if you buff it with a HoT first.
Detect Invisibility: Reveals invisible enemies. Situationally useful in specific encounters or dungeon areas.

Warlock Curse Icon — Warlocks bring valuable utility through curses, crowd control, and group support abilities

Cooldown Usage

Affliction has a few abilities that give you an edge when timed right.

Amplify Curse

Amplify Curse buffs the damage of your next Curse of Doom or Curse of Agony. Since you're usually stuck on Curse of the Elements duty in group content, chances to use Amplify effectively are limited to when another Warlock handles Elements.

Fel Domination

Combined with Master Summoner, Fel Domination lets you instantly summon a new pet. Helpful when your Imp dies mid-fight or you need a quick pet swap.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Knowing what goes wrong helps you keep it from happening.

Critical Note

Overwriting DoT Ticks: Refreshing a DoT early wastes the remaining ticks. Wait for the DoT to drop, then reapply immediately.
Life Tapping at Bad Times: Tapping right before unavoidable damage can kill you. Plan around mechanics.
Using Soulshatter Too Early: Threat reduction at the start of a fight does nothing. Save it for when your threat actually matters.
Ignoring Your Imp: Make sure your Imp is attacking. An idle pet is wasted damage.
Burning Shadowburn Carelessly: Shadowburn eats Improved Shadow Bolt charges, which can hurt raid damage. Use it for movement, not as a regular part of your rotation.
Skipping Siphon Life: This DoT returns more mana through Life Tap than it costs to cast. It's a damage increase and a mana gain.

Summary

Affliction Warlock gameplay in TBC Classic comes down to keeping your DoTs up and managing your resources. Your rotation prioritizes Curse of the Elements, Unstable Affliction (if talented), Corruption, Siphon Life, and Immolate (with Improved Scorch), with Shadow Bolt filling the gaps.

Good performance requires attention to your DoT timers, awareness of your raid responsibilities, and smart Life Tap usage. With practice and a solid addon for tracking debuffs, you'll deliver consistent damage while bringing valuable curses and utility to your raid.