Affliction Warlock Leveling Guide From 1 to 70 for TBC Classic

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Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.

Improved Corruption makes your Corruption have no cast time, providing great value. Suppression will help you gain the most important stat, Spell Hit, for a modest talent point investment. It is suggested to put at least 2-3 points into Suppression and no more, as fighting enemies at your level or lower requires very little Spell Hit. Improved Life Tap is very helpful while leveling, as it provides you with more Mana return from your Life Tap, resulting in less downtime sitting and drinking to regen your health and Mana.

With the changes to Improved Drain Soul, this talent is actually really good for leveling and we dare say is a must have. It provides you with some much needed Mana return, while at the same time Soul Siphon is bringing you really good Health returns on your Drain Life. Amplify Curse is a strong spell that you should use on cooldown partnered with Curse of Agony, making your next Curse of Agony extremely strong. Lastly, putting five points into Fel Concentration gives you a 70% chance to avoid any pushback on your Drain Life, allowing you to drain tank successfully.

Putting two points into Improved Curse of Agony increases your Curse of Agony damage by 10%. Mix that with Empowered Corruption and your DoTs will be hitting very hard. Nightfall is important as it will give you many chances at free Shadow Bolts since it procs off of Corruption and Drain Life, which are constantly on the target. At Level 39, Siphon Life becomes available and with it comes even more damage and decent heath return, leading to your targets dying faster and you needing to sit less and less. Destructive Reach extends the range of your Affliction spells by 6 yards. This gives your enemies 6 more yards to reach you.

This is where Affliction starts to really take off. Shadow Mastery and Contagion both provide you with a massive damage boost to your most important DoTs, meanwhile Dark Pact gives you an insane boost to your Mana regen, allowing you to take your pets Mana.

The new Warlock spell Unstable Affliction will provide you with a massive power boost, giving you a new and quite powerful DoT to keep up on your target. Next, we suggest that you put one point into Shadow Embrace. While at first glance this looks like it would not help much, and you are right, the bonus from the talent does not help you much, however it counts as an Affliction effect, meaning you get 4% more healing from your Soul Siphon talent. If you are playing on a PvP Server and expect to see some PvP action, then it is also suggested that you put a point into Curse of Exhaustion, as it can really help with slowing enemies down. After that, put both points into Improved Howl of Terror, which will make your Howl of Terror instant cast, making you much harder to kill. Lastly, it is time to put the rest of your points into Demonology, picking up Demonic Embrace, which will provide you with a huge boost to your Stamina.

As you imagined, it is suggested to put the remainder of your points into Demonology for the utility. Improved Healthstone helps when you need that instant health return from your Create Healthstone. Both Fel Stamina and Fel Intellect will provide you with 3% more maximum Mana and health, leading to even less downtime to recover both resources. Demonic Aegis is a very powerful talent that is a must with pretty much any build. This greatly buffs your Fel Armor, resulting in 26% increased healing(rather than 20%) and 130 Spell Power(rather than 100). Lastly, to round it all up, Fel Domination allows to summon a new demon in pretty much half the time and it costs half the Mana. This is very good if you ever need to quickly get another pet out.

There are two suggested builds for Affliction Warlocks to choose from. Which you choose will depend largely on your playstyle, as well as your current Gear. The first build is the Unstable Affliction build. The second build is the SM/DS build, which utilizes Demonic Sacrifice to sacriice your demon for Health regen or more damage. It is widely suggested for those with weaker gear to go with the Unstable Affiction build to allow Unstable Affliction to help carry your damage and other talents like Contagion to boost your Corruption and Curse of Agony, while your demon feeds you Mana with Dark Pact.

1. Send your demon to attack your target.
2. Immolate is only used if you can afford the Mana and also only until you get Unstable Affliction at level 50.
3. Corruption
4. Curse of Agony
5. Siphon Life
6. Howl of Terror and Fear if you are in danger. It is easy for these fears to get out of hand and they can pull many more mobs. Be careful and be ready to use Curse of Recklessness on any enemies that look like they are going to pull more.
7. Drain Life if you need any Health and, if you do not need health, then Shoot your wand.
8. Drain Soul for the killing blow ONLY if you need a Soul Shard or if you need the Mana back from Improved Drain Soul.

Nothing drastic changes in your rotation once you hit level 50, you just get to add the new and very powerful DoT Unstable Affliction. Unlike most of your other DoTs, Unstable Affliction has a cast time, so you must hold still to cast it. Due to that, it is suggested that you use it as your first cast on the target(s), then continue to put your DoTs up as you have been thus far. Once you get to Level 64, it is suggested that you use Incinerate instead of Shadow Bolt. Incinerate has less of a cast time, less Mana, and goes well with Immolate.

1. Send your demon to attack your target.
2. Unstable Affliction as many targets that you are trying to kill. Do this to eliminate pushback once they reach you
3. Corruption
4. Curse of Agony
5. Siphon Life
6. Howl of Terror and Fear if you are in danger. It is easy for these fears to get out of hand and they can pull many more mobs. Be careful and be ready to use Curse of Recklessness on any enemies that look like they are going to pull more.
7. Drain Life if you need any Health and, if you do not need health, then Shoot your wand.
8. Drain Soul for the killing blow ONLY if you need a Soul Shard or if you need the Mana back from Improved Drain Soul.

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This alternative Affliction build is another very powerful Affliction build that is suggested for anyone who has a some gear to back them up. This build is rather slow starting out at the lower levels, so it is suggested that you respec at or around 60 to the build linked above and then use your extra points while leveling to continue down the Affliction tree, starting at Fel Concentration. This build utilizes Shadow Mastery, which exceptionally increases your DoT damage, and then using Demonic Sacrifice to sacrifice either your Summon Voidwalker for some insanse health regen, or Summon Succubus for the massive increase to your overall damage. As always, base your Suppression points on your current gear. If you are running this build, it generally means that you have some gear and if there is hit on that gear, do not worry about Suppression. This build is less focused on drain tanking, and more on sustainability, with the goal to go as long as you can without stopping to regen. This build is also less focused on single-targetting enemies down and more about mass pulling as many as you feel comfortable, while easily surviving due to the massive health regen from Demonic Sacrificeing your Summon Voidwalker, the tankiness you get from Demonic Embrace, and of course all the incoming healing from talents like Soul Siphon, Siphon Life, and Demonic Aegis.

1. Send your demon to attack your target.
2. Immolate is only used if you can afford the Mana.
3. Siphon Life
4. Corruption
5. Curse of Agony to keep Amplify Curse on cooldown.
6. Howl of Terror and Fear if you are in danger. It is easy for these fears to get out of hand and they can pull many more mobs. Be careful and be ready to use Curse of Recklessness on any enemies that look like they are going to pull more.
7. Drain Life if you need any Health and, if you do not need health, then Shoot your wand.
8. Drain Soul for the killing blow ONLY if you need a Soul Shard or if you need the Mana back from Improved Drain Soul.

Nothing really at all changes with your rotation, besides the fact that you get to finally Demonic Sacrifice one of your demons. As said above, which you choose will depend largely on your playstyle. You can sacrifice either your Summon Voidwalker for some insanse health regen or Summon Succubus for the massive increase to your overall damage. Once you get to Level 64, it is suggested that you use Incinerate instead of Shadow Bolt if you are looking to burst an enemy down. Incinerate has a shorter cast time, consumes less Mana and goes well with Immolate.

1. Demonic Sacrifice either your Summon Voidwalker or your Summon Succubus. Make sure one is always sacrificed.
2. Immolate is only used if you can afford the Mana.
3. Siphon Life
4. Corruption
5. Curse of Agony to keep Amplify Curse on cooldown.
6. Howl of Terror and Fear if you are in danger. It is easy for these fears to get out of hand and they can pull many more mobs. Be careful and be ready to use Curse of Recklessness on any enemies that look like they are going to pull more.
7. Drain Life if you need any Health and, if you do not need health, then Shoot your wand.
8. Drain Soul for the killing blow ONLY if you need a Soul Shard or if you need the Mana from Improved Drain Soul.

Warlocks do not just have spells to buy, but we also have grimoires. Grimoires are special books that containt certain spell ranks for your demon. For example, to teach your Summon Voidwalker to Taunt, you must buy the Taunt grimoire that will then teach your Summon Voidwalker how to do it. At first glance, it might seem like there is an endless amount of skills and grimoires to buy. It is only important that you keep the spells and abilites that you use in your rotation at max rank, as well as any utility abilites that you find yourself using. As for the demon grimoires, you do not have to buy them all. Instead, if you are short on Gold, just only keep your leveling demon fully ranked and do not worry about the other demons until your leveling journey is complete. For example, if you decide to go with your Summon Succubus, then only purchase her grimoires as you will not be using the other demons much while leveling.