Affliction Warlocks hold a unique and valuable spot in TBC Classic raiding. Warlocks as a class are arguably the best damage dealers in the game, but Affliction specifically brings irreplaceable raid utility that guarantees at least one spot in every serious raid composition.
TBC introduced several changes that pushed Affliction out of its Classic-era niche. The debuff slot limit jumped from 16 to 40, so Warlocks can now freely use their full toolkit of Damage over Time effects. New talents like Empowered Corruption and Contagion give your DoTs a massive damage boost, and the capstone ability Unstable Affliction adds another powerful DoT to your rotation.
Raids bring Affliction Warlocks for three key utilities: Malediction (which pushes Curse of the Elements to 13% increased damage), Shadow Embrace (a physical damage reduction debuff that helps tanks survive), and Blood Pact from your Imp. Your main job is keeping 100% uptime on Curse of the Elements while dealing solid damage through your DoTs and Shadow Bolt filler.
Core Build Decision
Affliction Warlocks face one fundamental choice that defines their build: reaching the capstone ability Unstable Affliction, or skipping it to grab Ruin from the Destruction tree. You can't have both, so understanding when each option shines is critical.
The Two Main Builds
Unstable Affliction Build (41/0/20): This build goes all the way down the Affliction tree to pick up Unstable Affliction, adding another DoT to your damage profile. It starts strong and works best when you first hit Level 70.
Ruin Build (40/0/21): This build skips the Affliction capstone to put that final point into Ruin in the Destruction tree. You lose the Unstable Affliction DoT, but your crits hit much harder. Once you've stacked enough Spell Crit from gear, this build pulls ahead.
When to Use Each Build
- Suppression makes up for the severe lack of Spell Hit on early gear
- Unstable Affliction deals strong damage even with low Spell Power
- DoT-heavy gameplay relies less on secondary stats
- Full DoT application keeps Shadow Embrace active more consistently
- You start getting your Tailoring gear together
- Your Crit Rating has gone up significantly
- You have enough Hit Rating from gear to drop some or all of your Suppression points
The typical progression is running Unstable Affliction through early gearing, then swapping to Ruin once your stats support it. Some Warlocks pick Ruin immediately at 70, which works but isn't recommended for most players.
Unstable Affliction Build (41/0/20)
This build maxes out your DoT damage and works best on fresh Level 70 characters or when your secondary stats are still low.
Affliction Tree (41 Points)
Tier 1 Talents
Suppression (3/5): Gives 3% hit chance for Affliction spells. This helps your DoTs, channeled spells, and Seed of Corruption land consistently. It doesn't affect Shadow Bolt, Soul Shatter, Banish, or Hellfire though. Getting Hit from gear is better long-term, but this talent doesn't cost you anything important while you're still gearing up. Each point equals roughly 12.62 Hit Rating.
Improved Corruption (5/5): Cuts down Corruption's 2-second cast time. At 5 points, Corruption becomes instant cast, which dramatically improves your mobility and lets you apply it while moving.
Tier 2 Talents
Improved Drain Soul (2/2): You're mostly taking this for the threat reduction, which matters a lot since Warlock threat is notoriously high. The mana return on killing blows is a nice bonus.
Improved Life Tap (2/2): Means fewer Life Tap casts throughout a fight, giving you more time to actually deal damage instead of managing resources.
Soul Siphon (2/2): Buffs your self-healing from Drain Life. Shadow Embrace counts as an additional Affliction effect for this talent. You can swap these points out if you need more in Suppression, but the survivability is useful.
Tier 3 Talents
Amplify Curse (1/1): A utility cooldown that boosts your next curse.
Tier 4 Talents
Nightfall (2/2): Gives you a small but steady DPS increase through instant Shadow Bolt procs when Corruption deals damage.
Empowered Corruption (3/3): Improves Corruption's Spell Power scaling by a significant amount. This is a must-have talent that makes your primary DoT scale much better with gear.
Tier 5 Talents
Shadow Embrace (5/5): A core raid utility talent. This physical damage reduction debuff on targets you hit with Shadow damage helps tanks survive, letting them focus more on generating threat. Raids bring Affliction Warlocks specifically for this.
Siphon Life (1/1): Opens up access to Shadow Mastery while giving you another DoT that generates self-healing to offset Life Tap costs.
Tier 6 Talents
Shadow Mastery (5/5): A straight 10% damage boost for all Shadow spells. This affects everything you do and is mandatory for any Affliction build.
Tier 7 Talents
Contagion (5/5): Increases damage of Curse of Agony, Corruption, and Seed of Corruption. The dispel resistance also affects all Affliction spells, which comes in handy for PvP.
Tier 8 Talents
Dark Pact (1/1): Gives you mana from your pet when Life Tap would be too risky due to health concerns. Optional but useful for sustain.
Tier 9 Talents
Malediction (3/3): Pushes Curse of the Elements from 10% to 13% damage taken. This is one of the main reasons raids want an Affliction Warlock. Only skip this if another Affliction Warlock in your raid already has it covered.
Unstable Affliction (1/1): Your capstone ability adds another DoT to your rotation. It's particularly strong in early phases when Spell Crit is low. The silence and damage on dispel also make it powerful in PvP.
Destruction Tree (20 Points)
Tier 1
Improved Shadow Bolt (5/5): When your Shadow Bolt crits, it applies a debuff that increases Shadow damage taken by the target. This benefits your entire raid. The debuff charges only get consumed by direct non-periodic damage, so your DoTs won't eat through them. Every Warlock spec takes this talent, even if Shadow Bolt isn't their main filler.
Tier 2
Bane (5/5): Reduces cast time of Shadow Bolt and Immolate. Every Warlock spec needs this since all of them cast Shadow Bolt at some point.
Tier 3
Devastation (5/5): Increases crit chance for all your filler spells. Mandatory for all specs including Affliction, because a good chunk of your damage still comes from Shadow Bolt even in a DoT-focused build.
Tier 4
Shadowburn (1/1): An instant finisher that's useful when you can't fit in another Shadow Bolt cast or need to deal damage while moving. Don't use it on cooldown though, since it consumes Improved Shadow Bolt charges and actually costs you DPS overall.
Intensity (2/2): Reduces pushback on Shadow Bolt when you take damage. Helpful for mechanics that deal unavoidable damage.
Destructive Reach (2/2): Increases range of Destruction spells. Useful but not mandatory, so you can move these points around based on preference.
Ruin Build (40/0/21)
This build drops Unstable Affliction to pick up Ruin, giving you massive crit damage bonuses. Switch to this once your gear supports it.
Affliction Tree (40 Points)
The Affliction portion is almost identical to the UA build with a few key differences:
- You still grab all the same core talents through Tier 8
- Dark Pact (1/1) gets dropped along with Unstable Affliction
- Malediction (3/3) stays because it's too valuable to skip
- Total: 40 points ending at Malediction
You keep all the same raid utility (Shadow Embrace, Malediction, Blood Pact) and damage foundations (Shadow Mastery, Empowered Corruption, Contagion). The only things you lose are Dark Pact's mana utility and Unstable Affliction's DoT damage.
Destruction Tree (21 Points)
Tiers 1-4: Same as the UA build (Improved Shadow Bolt, Bane, Devastation, Shadowburn, Intensity, Destructive Reach)
Tier 5
Ruin (1/1): Increases the crit damage bonus of your Destruction spells. The more Crit you stack, the more value you squeeze out of this talent. Your DoTs can't crit, but Shadow Bolt (your filler between DoT applications) hits much harder on crits. This is why Affliction Warlocks transition from Unstable Affliction to Ruin as their gear improves.
Talent Analysis
High Priority Talents
Malediction: The main reason groups want an Affliction Warlock. The raid-wide benefit from boosted Curse of the Elements is too good to pass up. Only skip if another Affliction Warlock is covering it.
Shadow Mastery: A flat 10% damage increase to all your Shadow spells is too big to ignore.
Improved Shadow Bolt: Raid-wide Shadow damage increase that every Warlock spec takes.
Empowered Corruption: Dramatically improves how well your primary DoT scales with Spell Power.
Shadow Embrace: Core raid utility that cuts physical damage taken, directly helping your tanks stay alive.
Flexible Talent Points
Suppression: Valuable while gearing, but you can move these points elsewhere once you have enough Hit Rating from gear. Remember it doesn't affect Shadow Bolt, so Affliction Warlocks get less out of +hit after reaching the 6% cap compared to other specs.
Soul Siphon: Good for self-healing but can be dropped if you need Suppression points. Shadow Embrace counts as an additional Affliction effect for this talent.
Dark Pact: Nice extra mana on top of Life Tap, but entirely optional.
Intensity: Reduces pushback on Shadow Bolt. Can be traded for other talents if you don't need points to reach Ruin.
Destructive Reach: Extra range helps but isn't mandatory. Move these points around based on preference.
Alternative Talent Choices
Improved Curse of Agony: Strong for solo play or if you aren't casting Curse of the Elements for some reason. But Affliction Warlocks usually get brought for Malediction, which means you'll be on Curse of the Elements duty rather than Curse of Agony.
Grim Reach: Gives extra range for Affliction spells but doesn't increase Shadow Bolt range, which is your main filler after DoTs are up. Worth considering if you don't need those points elsewhere.
Improved Imp / Improved Firebolt: If you want to max out your Imp's damage contribution, you can swap points from Intensity, Destructive Reach, and Shadowburn into these. Only worth considering for specific situations.
Talents to Avoid in PvE
Improved Curse of Weakness: Most boss abilities scale poorly with Attack Power, so the returns here are minimal.
Fel Concentration: Great for drain tanking while leveling or in PvP, but you won't be draining much in raids.
Curse of Exhaustion: Useful for kiting melee in PvP but has almost no PvE applications.
Improved Howl of Terror: Handy for handling groups of mobs while leveling but rarely matters in raid content.
Your Role in Raids
As an Affliction Warlock, your responsibilities go beyond personal DPS:
Utility Contributions
- Shadow Embrace debuff for tank damage reduction
- Blood Pact from your Imp for group stamina
- Malediction's boosted Curse of the Elements helping all magic damage dealers
Damage Rotation
After making sure Curse of the Elements is active, apply your full DoT suite (which keeps Shadow Embrace up in the process), then fill with Shadow Bolt casts. The UA build adds Unstable Affliction to this DoT rotation while the Ruin build compensates with harder-hitting Shadow Bolt crits.
Progression Path Summary
Run the Unstable Affliction (41/0/20) build with 3-5 points in Suppression to make up for missing Hit Rating.
Stick with the UA build while collecting gear. Start pulling points out of Suppression as you pick up Hit Rating (roughly 12.62 Hit Rating replaces each talent point).
Once you're working on your Tailoring set and have decent Crit Rating, switch to the Ruin (40/0/21) build.
Keep tweaking Suppression points based on Hit Rating from gear. Put freed points into utility talents like Grim Reach or damage talents depending on what you need.
Additional Considerations
Threat Management: Warlock threat is notoriously high. Improved Drain Soul's threat reduction is always recommended regardless of which build you're running.
Pet Choice: Affliction Warlocks use the Imp for Blood Pact. The Imp deals less passive damage than other pets and needs more attention to keep alive, but the utility makes it worthwhile.
Build Flexibility: You can shuffle points between Destructive Reach, Shadowburn, Intensity, and Improved Corruption based on your preferences and what encounters you're facing. Keep at least one point in Improved Corruption to bring the cast time close to the global cooldown.