May 12, 2024

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide

Welcome to our Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE guide. This article provides detailed information on talents, glyphs, gearing, and other essential aspects of the game.

Table of Contents

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Abbreviations
Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Talents
Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Glyphs
Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Stats and Gearing
Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Professions
Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Consumables
Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Races
1. Alliance
2. Horde
Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Spell Rotations
Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Mechanics
1. Haste and DoTs
2. Other DoT Mechanics
  1. DoTs, Buff and Debuffs
  2. DoT Refreshing
Frequently Asked Questions
Conclusion

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Abbreviations

Abbreviation	Meaning
Afflic	Affliction
AoE	Area of Effect
BiS	Best in Slot
BoA	Bane of Agony
BoD	Bane of Doom
BoH	Bane of Havoc
CD	Cooldown
CoE	Curse of the Elements
Corr	Corruption
Crit	Critical Strike Rating
Demo	Demonology
Destro	Destruction
DPET	Damage per execute time
FG	Felguard
GCD	Global Cooldown
ICD	Internal Cooldown
Immo	Immolate
Imp SF	Improved Soul Fire
Incin	Incinerate
Int	Intellect
LT	Lifetap
Meta	Metamorphosis
RNG	Random Number Generator
SB	Shadow Bolt
SP	Spellpower
UA	Unstable Affliction

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Talents

Affliction

Tier	Talent	Notes	Recommendation
1	Doom and Gloom	Increase BoA and BoD damage	Required
1	Improved Life Tap	Increase mana awarded by Life Tap	Required
1	Improved Corruption	Increase Corruption Damage	Required
2	Jinx	CoE now effects nearby targets, and CoW effects enemy resource generation	Optional
2	Soul Siphon	Increases Drain Life and Drain Soul damage for each DoT on your target	Required
2	Siphon Life	Chance to heal yourself when Corruption ticks	Optional
3	Curse of Exhaustion	Slows the target	Optional
3	Improved Fear	Target is slowed when fear ends	Optional
3	Eradication	Chance to increase casting speed when Corruption ticks	Required
4	Improved Howl of Terror	Reduces the cast time on Howl of Terror	Optional
4	Soul Swap	Removes your DoTs from the target, which you can then transfer to another target	Required
4	Shadow Embrace	Stacking debuff, increasing your shadow DoT damage on the target	Required
5	Death’s Embrace	Increases shadow damage on targets below 25% HP	Required
5	Nightfall	Chance to make your next Shadow Bolt an instant cast when Corruption and Drain Life tick	Required
5	Soulburn: Seed of Corruption	Additional Soulburn effect – Spreads Corruption to nearby targets when Seed of Corruption detonates	Optional
6	Everlasting Affliction	Increase crit chance of some of your DoTs, and allows Drain Life, Drain Soul and Haunt to refresh Corruption	Required
6	Pandemic	Decreases the GCD of your Bane and Curse spells, and Drain Soul refreshes Unstable Affliction on targets below 25% HP	Required
7	Haunt	Does instant damage and leaves a debuff on your target, increasing shadow DoT damage	Required

Demonology

Tier	Talent	Notes	Recommendation
1	Demonic Embrace	Additional stamina	Optional
1	Dark Arts	Increases Felhunter damage	Required
1	Fel Synergy	Passively heals demon	Optional

Destruction

Tier	Talent	Notes	Recommendation
1	Bane	Reduces cast time on Shadow Bolt and Immolate	Shadow Bolt Filler Only
1	Shadow and Flame	Increases Shadow Bolt damage and allows you to inflict the 5% crit debuff	Required

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Glyphs

Prime Glyphs

Glyph of Corruption
Glyph of Unstable Affliction
Glyph of Haunt

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Life Tap
Glyph of Shadow Bolt
Glyph of Soul Swap

Minor Glyphs

Individual’s Choice
Individual’s Choice
Individual’s Choice

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Stats and Gearing

Stats

Intellect:

Intellect now converts to Spell Damage, which makes all spells stronger. Several factors determine how much benefit they receive, such as the spell coefficients and talents. However, all spells benefit in some way.

1 Intellect provides 1 spellpower (before bonuses) and 0.00154% crit, as well as 17.53 mana.

Hit Rating:

A 102.45 hit rating increases your chance to hit with spells by 1% until Hit Cap (17% or 1742 Rating). Once the cap has been reached, Hit becomes useless.

Haste Rating:

128.05 haste rating gives 1% spell haste. Haste rating scales multiplicatively with other sources of haste. Haste cannot reduce the duration of the global cooldown below 1.0 seconds.

To calculate the ‘new’ cast time of a spell, use the following formula:

New.Cast.Time = Normal.Cast.Time / ((1 + (Haste.Rating / 12805)) * 5%.Aura * Dark.Intent)

Where 5%.Aura = 1.05 and Dark.Intent = 1.03.

For example, if we take a 2.5 second Normal.Cast.Time and a 950 Haste.Rating, we will get the following:

New.Cast.Time = 2.5 / ((1 + (950 / 12805)) * 1.05 * 1.03) = 2.152 sec

Due to the changes to DoTs, and the way specific DoTs interact with particular talents and abilities (like Conflagrate), haste has become a much more advanced stat. See the Mechanics: Haste section for more information.

Critical Strike Rating:

179.28 crit rating gives 1% to crit. With a Burning Shadowspirit Diamond, crits will do 2.06 times the damage of normal hits. Due to changes made to DoTs, all DoTs can now crit innately.

Mastery Rating:

179.28 mastery provides a 1.63% increase to all periodic shadow damage we deal with. Our DoTs account for ~55-60% of our damage. However, due to the low increase per point of mastery, it is still our weakest stat.

Stat Priorities

It is recommended you download the Simulationcraft tool and base your decisions around your individual character. However, the below order should be correct in most situations.

Int > SP >> Hit (to cap) > Haste > Crit > Mastery

This should be true at all levels of gear.

Reforging

Reforging allows you to exchange 40% of a combat rating already on an item and convert it into a combat rating not already on an item. Example: If an item has Crit, you cannot add more Crit. If it has no Crit, then you could reforge 40% of another rating (Haste, Hit, or Mastery) into Crit. An item with 100 Hit and no Crit could be reforged to 60 Hit and 40 Crit.

Reforging is essentially following the stat priority rules above to reach specific caps and maximize the benefit we receive from secondary stats. For example, for the stat priorities in iLvl 401 – 416 gear, we do the following (in order):

1. Reforge mastery, then crit to hit until cap, getting as close to 1742 as possible.

2. Reforge mastery, then crit to haste.

3. Reforge leftover stats to crit, including any hit over the mentioned cap.

It is important to note that optimizing your reforging may involve reforging away from haste or hit on gear to get as close as possible to the cap (without going under). It is recommended you use a tool such as WoWReforge to assist you.

Gemming

Meta: Burning Shadowspirit Diamond

Red: Brilliant Inferno Ruby, Brilliant Queen’s Garnet

Yellow: Reckless Ember Topaz, Reckless Lava Coral

Blue: Veiled Demonseye, Veiled Shadow Spinel

When to Ignore the Socket Bonus

Generally, if the socket bonus is less than 20 Int or 30 of any rating stat, it would be better to ignore the bonus and gem Brilliant Inferno Ruby/Brilliant Queen’s Garnet. However, to be more accurate, you would need to find the relevant scale factors for your gear setup (Using Simulationcraft) and multiply those scale factors by the stats you would gain with either gem.

Set Bonuses

Bonus	Description
2pc	The duration of your Doomguard and Infernal summons is increased by 30 sec, and the cooldown of those spells is reduced by 4 min.
4pc	Soulburn grants a 10% increase to your spell power for 10 sec, and Soul Fire cast with Soulburn active now grants a Soul Shard.

2pc – The 2-piece bonus is a ~2% DPS increase, dependant on fight time.
4pc – The 4-piece bonus is a ~2.5% DPS increase if used on CD.

Best in Slot

Normal BiS without Legendary

Slot	Item	Gemming	Reforging
Head	Hood of the Faceless Shroud	1x Burning, 1x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Neck	Flowform Choker	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Shoulders	Mantle of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Back	Nanoprecise Cape	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Haste
Chest	Robes of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Haste	N/A
Wrists	Bracers of Unconquered Power	2x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Hands	Gloves of Liquid Smoke	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Waist	Cord of the Slain Champion	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Hit	Crit > Hit
Legs	Leggings of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Haste	Mastery > Hit
Feets	Janglespur Jackboots	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Ring 1	Ring of the Riven	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Ring 2	Seal of the Grand Architect	1x 40 Int	N/A
Trinket 1	Will of Unbinding	N/A	N/A
Trinket 2	Cunning of the Cruel	N/A	N/A
Wand	Hungermouth Wand	N/A	Mastery > Haste
Weapon	Lightning Rod	1x 40 Int	N/A

Normal BiS with Legendary

Slot	Item	Gemming	Reforging
Head	Hood of the Faceless Shroud	1x Burning, 1x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Neck	Flowform Choker	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Shoulders	Mantle of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Back	Nanoprecise Cape	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Haste
Chest	Robes of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Haste	N/A
Wrists	Bracers of Unconquered Power	2x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Hands	Gloves of Liquid Smoke	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Waist	Cord of the Slain Champion	3x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Legs	Leggings of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Haste	Mastery > Hit
Feets	Janglespur Jackboots	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Ring 1	Ring of the Riven	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Ring 2	Seal of the Grand Architect	1x 40 Int	N/A
Trinket 1	Will of Unbinding	N/A	N/A
Trinket 2	Cunning of the Cruel	N/A	N/A
Wand	Hungermouth Wand	N/A	Mastery > Haste
Weapon	Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest	3x 40 Int	N/A

Heroic BiS without Legendary

Slot	Item	Gemming	Reforging
Head	Hood of the Faceless Shroud	1x Burning, 1x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Neck	Flowform Choker	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Shoulders	Mantle of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Back	Nanoprecise Cape	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Haste
Chest	Robes of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Haste	Hit > Crit
Wrists	Bracers of the Banished	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Hands	Gloves of Liquid Smoke	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Waist	Cord of the Slain Champion	3x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Legs	Leggings of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Haste	Mastery > Hit
Feets	Janglespur Jackboots	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Ring 1	Ring of the Riven	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Ring 2	Infinite Loop	1x 40 Int	Crit > Haste
Trinket 1	Will of Unbinding	N/A	N/A
Trinket 2	Cunning of the Cruel	N/A	N/A
Wand	Finger of Zon’ozz	N/A	Mastery > Hit
Weapon	Lightning Rod	1x 40 Int	N/A

Heroic BiS with Legendary

Slot	Item	Gemming	Reforging
Head	Hood of the Faceless Shroud	1x Burning, 1x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Neck	Flowform Choker	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Shoulders	Mantle of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Back	Nanoprecise Cape	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Haste
Chest	Robes of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Haste	N/A
Wrists	Bracers of the Banished	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Hands	Gloves of Liquid Smoke	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Waist	Cord of the Slain Champion	3x 40 Int	N/A
Legs	Leggings of the Faceless Shroud	2x 40 Int, 1x 20 Int 20 Haste	Mastery > Hit
Feets	Janglespur Jackboots	2x 40 Int	Crit > Hit
Ring 1	Ring of the Riven	1x 40 Int	Mastery > Hit
Ring 2	Infinite Loop	1x 40 Int	Crit > Haste
Trinket 1	Will of Unbinding	N/A	N/A
Trinket 2	Cunning of the Cruel	N/A	N/A
Wand	Finger of Zon’ozz	N/A	Mastery > Hit
Weapon	Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest	3x 40 Int	N/A

Enchants

Slot	Enchant	Comments
Head	60 Int/35 crit	Arcanum of Hyjal – Guardians of Hyjal revered
Shoulders	50 Int/25 haste	Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone – Therazane exalted
Back	50 Int	Enchant Cloak – Greater Intellect
Chest	20 stats	Enchant Chest – Peerless Stats
Wrists	50 Int	Enchant Bracer – Mighty Intellect
Gloves	50 haste/65 mastery	Enchant Gloves – Haste
Legs	95 Int/80 Stam	Powerful Enchanted Spellthread
Boots	Run speed/35 mastery or 50 hit or 50 haste	Enchant Boots – Lavawalker / Enchant Boots – Precision / Enchant Boots – Haste
Belt	Extra socket	Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Weapon	500 Int Proc	Enchant Weapon – Power Torrent
Offhand	40 Int	Enchant Off-Hand – Superior Intellect

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Professions

Name	Benefit
Engineering	Tinkers now stack with normal enchants. Synapse Springs tinker to gloves provides 480 Int for 10 seconds with a 60 second CD. This averages to an 80 Int bonus. Engineering also provides further perks such as Flexweave Underlay. Nitro Boosts and Grounded Plasma Shield have a chance to fail and cause serious adverse effects, and are not reliable in a raid situation.
Leatherworking	130 Int to bracers in place of 50 Int, giving an 80 Int bonus.
Jewelcrafting	3 Brilliant Chimera’s Eye in place of 3 Brilliant Inferno Ruby or Brilliant Queen’s Garnet gives 81 Int (51 Int over Epic Gems).
Blacksmithing	Extra sockets into wrists and gloves provides 2 additional Brilliant Inferno Ruby’s or 2 Brilliant Queen’s Garnet’s, providing an 80/100 Int bonus.
Alchemy	Mixology, combined with Flask of the Draconic Mind provides an 80 Int bonus.
Enchanting	40 Int to each ring provides an 80 Int bonus.
Inscription	130 Int/25 haste shoulder enchant is an 80 Int bonus over the regular enchant.
Tailoring	Lightweave Embroidery gives 580 Int for 15 seconds on a 64 second ICD. This averages to 135.9 Int, which replaces the normal 50 Int enchant, providing only a 85.9 Int bonus. Tailoring currently gives the greatest DPS increase of all the professions.
Herbalism	Lifeblood is now a DPS cooldown providing 480 haste for 20 seconds on a 2 minute CD. This averages to an 80 haste bonus.
Skinning	80 crit.
Mining	Stam, useless from a DPS perspective.

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Consumables

Flask: Flask of the Draconic Mind or a Cauldron of Battle

Food: Severed Sagefish Head / Seafood Magnifique Feast

Potion: Volcanic Potion (Pre-pot and use during Bloodlust/Heroism

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Races

Alliance

Worgen

Viciousness – Passive 1% crit.
Darkflight – 40% speed sprint for 10 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

Gnome

Expansive Mind – Increase mana pool by 5%.
Escape Artist – Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect. 1.5 minute cooldown.

Human

Every Man for Himself – Removes all movement impairing effects and all effect which cause loss of control of your character. 2 minute cooldown.

Dwarf

Stoneform – Removes all poison, disease and bleed effects and reduces all damage taken by 10% for 8 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

Horde

Orc

Blood Fury – Increases spellpower by 584. Lasts 15 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.
Command – Damage done by pets increased by 5%.
Hardiness – Reduces duration of stun effects by 15%.

Goblin

Time is Money – Passive 1% spell haste.
Rocket Jump – Activates your rocket belt to jump forward. 2 minute cooldown. Shares cooldown with Rocket Barrage.
Rocket Barrage – Launches your belt rockets at an enemy. 2 minute cooldown. Shares cooldown with Rocket Jump.

Troll

Berserking – Increases your casting speed by 20% for 10 seconds. 3 minute cooldown.
Da Voodoo Shuffle – Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15%.

Blood Elf

Arcane Torrent – Silence all enemies within 8 yards for 2 seconds and restores 6% mana. 2 minute cooldown.

Forsaken

Will of the Forsaken – Removes any Charm, Fear and Sleep effect. 2 minute cooldown.

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Spell Rotations

Spell Priority

Basic

Spell	Condition
Soulburn	4pc T13
Demon Soul	–
Corruption	–
Unstable Affliction	–
Bane of Doom	–
Haunt	–
Drain Soul	Below 25%
Shadowflame	Melee Range
Shadow Bolt	–

Explained

If you have the T13 set bonus, Soulburn should be cast on cooldown, along with Soul Fire, to replenish the shard. Demon Soul should be used on cooldown, together with “On-Use” trinkets.

After that, it is simply a case of keeping up to 100% uptime on Unstable Affliction and Bane of Doom. Haunt should be used on cooldown to no downtime on the debuff and Corruption. After that, simply spam Shadow Bolt.

Once the boss reaches 25% HP, channel Drain Soul while continuing to cast Haunt on CD and refresh Bane of Doom when required. Drain Soul will automatically refresh Unstable Affliction and Corruption when ticks, so you should not worry about this.

If safe, Shadowflame should be used on cooldown while in melee range. However, it is not worth running a long distance into melee range.

Note: If you are constantly using glyphed Soul Swap in a fight, switch to Bane of Agony instead of Bane of Doom, as Bane of Doom can only be applied to 1 target.

Optimal Opener

During Wrath of the Lich King, DoTs did not update on a per-tick basis with boss debuffs, and it was much more beneficial to open a fight by applying these debuffs (Haunt, Shadow’s Embrace, etc) before applying DoTs.

However, it seems the Shadow and Flame (aka. Critical Mass from Mages) does not update like other boss debuffs and behaves in the same way as if it was a personal buff. Therefore, the optimal opener for Affliction is as follows:

Shadow Bolt -> Haunt -> Unstable Affliction -> Corruption -> Bane of Doom -> Shadow Bolt. Continue to follow the priority above.

Cooldowns

Demon Soul

Demon Soul: Felhunter increases periodic shadow damage dealt by 20% for 20 seconds. This cooldown effects all of out spells except Haunt, Shadowflame and Shadow Bolt.

Demon Soul: Felhunter’s buff will not begin to effect our DoTs until they have been reapplied. Therefore it is best used as DoTs are about to expire, and as Haunt comes off cooldown. Sub 25% Unstable Affliction and Corruption will automatically begin to benefit from this effect when Drain Soul refreshes them.

This spell should generally be used on cooldown, and should be lined up with “On-Use” trinkets, trinket procs, Bloodlust/Heroism, potions and execution phase as often as possible.

Doomguard

Summon Doomguard summons a Doomguard (guardian pet) to fight alongside you for 45 seconds on a 10-minute cooldown (75 seconds on a 6-minute cooldown with 2pc T13).

The Doomguard scales with some of your stats: spellpower, hit, and crit. Therefore, timing your Doomguard summon with trinket procs, enchant procs, and potions is essential for maximizing DPS. In most cases, the best way to achieve this is to simply summon your Doomguard ~10-12 seconds into the fight, as all procs are off cooldown and available before the pull.

The Doomguard does not scale with percentage-based damage increases, haste, or Afflictions’s mastery.

Dark Intent

First and foremost, you should gauge the needs of your group. They should always come first when learning raid fights or playing with undergeared healers. You should consider applying it to DPS classes when you hit enrage timers or wipe because the boss has a burn phase you didn’t complete. I’ll leave this up to you.

Healer Rankings

Rank	Class	Condition
1	Restoration Druid	–
2	Holy Priest	Raid Healing
3	Restoration Shaman	–
4	Holy Priest	Tank Healing
5	Discipline Priest	–
6	Holy Paladin	Glyph of the Long Word

DPS Rankings

Rank	Class
1	Shadow Priest
2	Fire Mage
3	Balance Druid
4	Elemental Shaman
5	Frost Mage
6	Arcane Mage
7	Feral Druid
8	Feral Druid (Hit Cap)
9	Survival Hunter
10	Retribution Paladin
11	Combat Rogue
12	Unholy DK (2H)
13	Assassination Rogue
14	Frost DK (2H)
15	Marksman Hunter
16	Beast Mastery Hunter
17	Enhancement Shaman
18	Frost DK (1H)
19	Unholy DK (1H)

Personal Rankings

Rank	Class	Uptime
1	Balance Druid	99%
2	Shadow Priest	98%
3	Survival Hunter	98%
4	Feral Druid	95%
5	Feral Druid (Hit Cap)	93%
6	Fire Mage	88%
7	Frost Mage	82%
8	Assassination Rogue	76%
9	Elemental Shaman	74%
10	Unholy DK (1H)	72%
11	Beast Mastery Hunter	69%
12	Combat Rogue	66%
13	Arcane Mage	62%
14	Unholy DK (2H)	60%
15	Marksman Hunter	57%
16	Enhancement Shaman	55%
17	Retribution Paladin	46%
18	Frost DK (2H)	41%
19	Frost DK (1H)	40%

Fel Flame

There is a common misconception within the warlock community that Fel Flame should be used to refresh Unstable Affliction. As a basic rule of thumb, there are only 2 reasons ever to cast Fel Flame, these are:

During unavoidable movement, and only when Corruption does not require refreshing, the boss is out of range of Shadowflame (or it’s on CD), and you do not require mana from Life Tap.
When the T11 4pc bonus procs.

Outside of these 2 reasons, there isn’t any other situation in which Fel Flame should be used. Using Fel Flame to refresh the duration of Unstable Affliction will result in a DPS loss due to the number of GCDs required to increase the DoT duration to its original duration. If we compare this to the time needed to simply re-apply the DoT over a 5-minute (300-second) fight:

Assuming a 1-second GCD over a 300-second fight, we will cast Unstable Affliction 20 times, requiring 20 GCDs. Achieving the same result will require 3 Fel Flames every 15 seconds. This is a total of 60 GCDs used throughout the fight, wasting 40 seconds during the battle to keep a 100% uptime on Unstable Affliction. This is almost 24 Shadow Bolts worth of time spent refreshing Unstable Affliction using our lowest DPET spell, which is not optimal.

AoE and Multiple Targets

Affliction has 2 main tools for multi-target damage – Soulburn: Seed of Corruption and Soul Swap. For any fight with more than 2 targets, provided that targets are within range of each other, then using Soulburn: Seed of Corruption to apply Corruption to all these targets would be beneficial. What you do next will depend on the number of targets.

Generally, provided all targets are in range, in situations where there are 6 or more targets, Seed of Corruption spam on a single target in the pack (so as not to override Corruption on any other target) should provide equal or greater results than applying DoTs to all targets separately. In situations with less than 6 targets, applying DoTs to each target individually should give a higher damage output than simple spamming Seed of Corruption.

This does, however, depend on several different factors. Factors such as how long the target will live must be considered when considering what to do in multi-target situations. For example, should an add spawn that will be burned and only live for ~6 seconds, then applying DoTs to this target would essentially be pointless. If the target needs to be burned quickly, simply casting Shadow Bolt would be more beneficial. If the target’s immediate death is not essential to the raid’s success, then you may be better off just leaving that target to be dealt with by classes with the most burst potential.

Approach each situation individually and do what works best for you. The right way to react is rarely set in stone. Use the above as a rough guide and test each situation yourself.

For fights with purely 2 main targets, use Soul Swap (Glyphed) on CD to transfer your DoTs from one target to another and manually refresh all DoTs on the secondary target. Using Nightfall procs and hard-casting Shadow Bolt to apply Shadow Embrace to the secondary target would also be beneficial, provided that your strategy allows for this and Shadow Embrace up time on the primary target doesn’t suffer.

Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE Guide: Mechanics

Haste and DoTs

In addition to all DoTs benefiting from haste innately, haste now reduces the time between ticks. Haste only reduces the DoTs duration until an extra tick is received. While affliction does not gain significant DPS by reaching any sort of haste “threshold,” these values and how to calculate them are still good to know.

This applies to all of our DoTs except BoD. However, the haste required to achieve this extra tick will differ between DoTs. To calculate the required haste to accomplish an additional tick, we need to calculate the time between ticks, specific to 3 decimal places.

Tick.Speed.Required = (Base.Frequency * Base.Tick.Speed) / (No.of.Ticks – 0.5)

Where No.Of.Ticks is the number of ticks you would like to achieve. For example, if we wanted to apply this to Unstable Affliction (5 sec Base Frequency, 3 sec Base Tick Speed), wishing to gain 2 additional ticks (7), we would do the following:

Tick.Speed.Required = (5 * 3) / (7 – 0.5) = 2.307 seconds

From here, we can calculate the percentage of haste required to achieve this tick speed using the following formula:

Haste.Percent = (Base.Tick.Speed / (Tick.Speed.Required + 0.00049999)) – 1

Therefore:

Haste.Percent = (3 / (2.307 + 0.00049999)) – 1 = 0.30010835

So what haste rating does that translate into? Unstable Affliction gains extra ticks at 9.99908%, 30.00108%, 49.9625% etc. So, to determine the haste required in a raid situation with all raid buffs, including Dark Intent, we will use this formula:

Haste.Rating = ((Haste.Percent / 5%.Aura / Dark.Intent) – 1) * 12805.716

For example, the haste required to gain 2 additional ticks (30% haste) is as follows:

Haste.Rating = ((1.300108 / 1.05 / 1.03) – 1) * 12805.716 = 2589

Therefore, the haste thresholds for Unstable Affliction are (raid-buffed):

Extra Ticks	%	Rating	Goblin
1	9.9%	218	90
2	30%	2589	2437
3	49.9%	4951	4776
4	70%	7326	7127

Our other DoTs also benefit from gaining extra ticks. The haste thresholds for our other DoTs are below:

Corruption:

Extra Ticks	%	Rating	Goblin
1	8.3%	21	0
2	25%	1993	1846
3	41.7%	3970	3804
4	58.4%	5945	5745

Shadowflame:

Extra Ticks	%	Rating	Goblin
1	16.7%	1007	870
2	50%	4954	4778
3	83.4%	8911	8696
4	116.6%	12838	12584

Other DoT Mechanics

DoTs, Buff and Debuffs

When a DoT is used, the following rules are applied:

All player stats are “snapshotted,” including all bonuses received through buffs and procs and any losses to stats from debuffs. This means the DoT will not benefit from any procs unless recast.
The DoTs damage will update with boss debuffs on a per tick basis. For example, if a DoT was applied to a boss before the 8% Spell Damage debuff was used, and the 8% Spell Damage debuff was applied between the 2nd and 3rd tick, the 3rd tick will benefit immediately.

The only known case where the above is not true is with the 5% Crit Debuff (Shadow and Flame/Critical Mass). This debuff follows rules similar to those of player buffs.

As a general rule of thumb, it is not recommended you recast a DoT early (i.e., clipping, except the information provided in the ‘DoT Refreshing’ section of this thread), even when you have additional procs that weren’t present on the original cast. This will effectively lower that DoTs overall DPET for that encounter despite the extra damage done due to the proc.

DoT Refreshing

Another change to DoTs is how DoTs behave when being reapplied or refreshed. If a DoT is refreshed between the 2nd last and last tick, the DoTs duration will be extended to include the previous tick. For example:

Unstable Affliction (unaffected by haste) has a 15-second duration, dealing damage every 3 seconds (5 ticks). If you refresh Unstable Affliction at 13 seconds (2 seconds till the last tick), the new Unstable Affliction applied to the target will have a duration of 20 seconds and will tick 6 times.

This means you can ‘clip’ a DoT without losing the last tick of that DoT (and the damage that the previous tick provides), making it much easier to have a 100% uptime on all DoTs. One thing to note is that if a DoT is refreshed using this method, the last tick inherits the stats of the new DoT.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is There a Haste Cap?

Technically, there are multiple. See the Mechanics: Haste section of this guide for more information.

Should I Use the Infernal or Doomguard?

Doomguard for Single Target, Infernal for AoE.

I Changed My Spec, and My New Spec Gives Me More Dps on a Training Dummy!

What you do on a training dummy is irrelevant; not only is your sample data far too small to rule out RNG, but you’re also missing lots of buffs/target debuffs that will change how specific talents perform.

Conclusion

We hope our Cataclysm Classic Affliction Warlock PvE guide has given you the necessary insights to play this class effectively in Cataclysm Classic. If you found this article helpful during your journey in Azeroth, please let us know by commenting below.