On this page, we present the viable talent and glyph choices forAffliction Warlocks in World of Warcraft MoP 5.4. We detail what each of the talents andglyphs do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Affliction Warlock guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.

1. Talent Choices↑top

• Performance-enhancing
• Survival
• Crowd Control
• Movement
• Utility
• Situational

There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents arenow viable. They can easily be changed, thanks to Dust of Disappearance(and Tomes of the Clear Mind from level 86 to 90).You will frequently find yourself changing talents and glyphs betweenencounters, in order to adapt your play style to different mechanics.Therefore, it is important to understand what each of your talents does andhow they affect your play style.

2. Tier 1 Talents↑top

Tier 1 talents give you the choice between self-healing talents.

• Dark Regeneration restores some of your life and increases healing received for 12 seconds. It also restores some of your pet's life. Ithas a 2-minute cooldown.
• Soul Leech is a passive ability that causes your important offensiveabilities to grant you a shield for 15 seconds. The shield's strength dependson the damage you deal with your abilities, but it cannot exceed 15% of yourmaximum health.
• Harvest Life is a passive ability that improves Drain Life, by increasingits damage done by 50% and its healing done by 150%.

You can consider Soul Leech to be the default talent of this tier, becauseit is entirely passive. If an encounterrequires you to heal yourself at specific times, then you will want to choose Dark Regeneration or Harvest Life, depending on how often you needto heal yourself. Harvest Life makes Drain Life very powerful, as a self-healingspell, but it comes at a DPS cost (this is especially true for Affliction Warlock who cancombine it with Soulburn).

3. Tier 2 Talents↑top

Tier 2 talents give you the choice between several crowd control abilities.

• Demonic Breath reduces the speed of all enemies in front of you,within 10 yards, or 6 seconds. It has a 20-second cooldown.
• Mortal Coil is both a crowd control and a survival ability. Itcauses the target to run in fear for 3 seconds and restores 15% of yourmaximum health. It has a 45-second cooldown.
• Shadowfury stuns all enemies within 8 yards for 3 seconds.

Mortal Coil will be the default choice as it also grants a bit ofhealing. If you need AoE crowd control, then you will go for Demonic Breath or Shadowfury depending on what yourraid will require.

4. Tier 3 Talents↑top

Tier 3 talents offer damage reduction mechanics. You have the choice betweenthe following talents.

• Soul Link causes 20% of the damage you take to be transfered to your demonand causes 3% of the damage you do to be healed back to you and your demon. This abilityis only active when you have a demon active. Fall damage is not transfered to your demon. If you choose Grimoire of Sacrificeas your Tier 5 talent, then Soul Link passively increases your maximumhealth by 20%.
• Sacrificial Pact causes your demon to sacrifice 25% of its current health to give you a 10-second shield that absorbs up to 400% of the sacrificed health. If you do not have a demon out, 25% of your health is sacrificed instead. Sacrificial Pact is on a 1-minute cooldown.
• Dark Bargain prevents all damage (except fall damage) for 8 seconds. After the 8 seconds are up, 50% of the damage prevented is dealt over 8 seconds. It has a 3-minute cooldown.

Soul Link is usually the best option if you use a demon Tier 5 talent( Grimoire of Service / Grimoire of Supremacy). With Grimoire of Sacrifice however, the 20% health increase is not very useful, compared tothe massive shield with short cooldown provided by Sacrificial Pact.

Note that when using a demon, the choice between Soul Link and Sacrificial Pactcan be affected by damage pattern. For example, in the encounter againstthe Kor'kron Dark Shaman, thereis a mechanic that does 100% of your life roughly every minute. In this case,Sacrificial Pact is a must have. On fights likeThok, where the damage isperiodic, Soul Link is definitely the best option.

Dark Bargain is also a strong talent. On a 3-minutecooldown, it enables you to bypass encounter mechanics or tosignificantly reduce the damage you take during periods of high raid damage.That said, it is mostly interesting on encounters with high damage-spikes orwhen you want to soften the damage that you take at critical times, so thatyour healers can focus on other raid members.

5. Tier 4 Talents↑top

Tier 4 talents offer crowd control and utility abilities that cost health to use.

• Blood Horror causes enemies to run in horror for up to 4 seconds, if theymelee you while Blood Horror is active. Activating Blood Horror costs 5% of yourmaximum health. Once activated, Blood Horror lasts 1 minute.
• Burning Rush is an ability that you can toggle on and off without restriction.While it is active, your movement speed is increased by 50% but you lose 4% of yourmaximum health every second. During Burning Rush, movement-impairing effects cannotreduce your movement speed below 100% (your regular running speed).
• Unbound Will removes all magic and movement-impairing effects, as wellas effects that cause loss of control of your character. It has a 1-minute cooldownand costs 20% of your maximum health.

Burning Rush is extremely useful on fights where you need tomove quickly (especially if there is no damage while you have to move).

Unbound Will can be useful to remove harmful debuffs,movement-impairing effects, and all effects that cause you to lose controlof your character. Note that if you are a Human Warlock, then you already have Every Man for Himself, which does almost the same thing, just that it doesnot remove harmful debuffs.

Blood Horror is not normally advised for raiding, although it may beuseful on fights where adds may attack you. It is very strong for solo content.

6. Tier 5 Talents↑top

Tier 5 talents provide various modifications to your demons.

• Grimoire of Supremacy replaces your minions with more powerful demons that deal 20% more damage.See the Demons section of our rotation page for more information.
• Grimoire of Service grants you new abilities that share a 2-minute cooldown and allow youto instantly summon a second demon for 20 seconds. The abilities are Grimoire: Felguard(Demonology-only), Grimoire: Felhunter, Grimoire: Imp, Grimoire: Succubus, and Grimoire: Voidwalker.The temporary demon cannot be controlled and will attack your current target. It is possible that thetemporary demon you summon be the same as your currently summoned demon. In this case,you will temporarily have two instances of the same demon fighting for you.
• Grimoire of Sacrifice sacrifices your demon to increase single-target spell damageby 15% to 25% (depending on the specialisation) and to regenerate 2% of maximumhealth every 5 seconds. Resummoning a demon cancels the effect. If you have chosen Soul Link as your Tier 3 talent, you will be passively granted +20% maximumhealth when you sacrifice your demon.Finally, you gainone of your demon's abilities, which you should choose based on the boss you are fighting:
  • Imp: Singe Magic (useful for removing 1 stack of most debuffs);
  • Felhunter: Spell Lock (useful on fights where interrupts are required);
  • Voidwalker: Shadow Bulwark (default choice);
  • Succubus: Whiplash (can be helpful on fights with adds).

Currently, the talents are tuned in such a way that Grimoire of Supremacy is the default talent choice forAffliction Warlocks.

7. Tier 6 Talents↑top

Tier 6 talents provide situational DPS increases.

• Archimonde's Darkness grants you two charges of your Dark Soulspell. This means that you can use Dark Soul one more time over the course of a fight, andthat you have more liberty regarding its timing.
• Kil'jaeden's Cunning allows you to cast Malefic Grasp (Affliction), Shadow Bolt (Demonology), and Incinerate (Destruction)while moving.
• Mannoroth's Fury increases the area of effect by 500% and damage by 100% for Hellfire, Immolation Aura, Rain of Fire, and Seed of Corruption.Increasing the area of effect by 500%, means that the radius of these AoE spells is increased by roughly125% (source).

Archimonde's Darkness is the default choice for low movement encounters. Kil'jaeden's Cunningshould be used in encounters with heavy movement, while Mannoroth's Fury shouldbe used when heavy AoE damage is required.

8. Major Glyphs↑top

• Glyph of Unstable Affliction reduces the cast time of Unstable Affliction by 25%.
• Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion improves the slowing effect of your Curse of Exhaustion, but it causes it to last half as long andto have a 10-second cooldown.
• Glyph of Demonic Circle reduces the cooldown of Demonic Circle: Teleport,which can be useful if you need to often use your Demonic Circle.
• Glyph of Eternal Resolve transforms Unending Resolve into a passiveability that reduces damage taken by 10%. This is extremely potent when used onfights where you constantly take damage (againstThok for example).
• Glyph of Healthstone causes your Healthstone to restoretwice more health, but it does so over 10 seconds (as opposed to instantly,without the glyph). This is a very strong glyph, as it essentially givesyou an additional defensive cooldown.
• Glyph of Siphon Life causes each tick of your Corruption toheal you for 0.5% of your maximum health.
• Glyph of Soulstone causes your Soulstone target toreturn to life with full health.

9. Minor Glyphs↑top

Minor Glyphs are cosmetic and none of them will improve your performance while raiding.Two of them will be useful while leveling or questing and might have very occasionaluses in dungeons or raids.

• Glyph of Nightmares grants you the ability to cross water whilemounting your Felsteed and Dreadsteed. Doing so will leave a trail of flames,which is a cosmetic effect.
• Glyph of Unending Breath causes targets affected by your Unending Breath to swim 20% faster.

10. Changelog↑top

• 20 Nov. 2013: More updates from Gahddo and Evrelia. Reworded advice for choosingtalents in Tier 3, 4, 5, and 6. Gave Glyph of Eternal Resolve more importance.
• 11 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
  • Reworded explanations for choosing your Tier 1 talent, following the changes to Soul Leech and Harvest Life.
  • Howl of Terror is now baseline and Demonic Breath has been added as a new Tier 2 talent.
  • Reworded explanations for Tier 3 talents, following the changes to Soul Link.
  • All Tier 6 talents have been changed, so all the explanations have been updated.
  • Glyph of Soul Swap has been removed from the game. Its effects are now baseline in Soul Swap.
  • Added Glyph of Eternal Resolve.
• 18 May 2013: Evrelia's review and Patch 5.3 update.
  • Soul Link grants +30% health (and not 25%, as the guide was previously saying).
  • Made Burning Rush the default Tier 4 talent.
  • Made Grimoire of Supremacy the default Tier 5 talent.
  • Slightly reworded opinions for Tier 6 talents.
  • Removed Glyph of Everlasting Affliction.
• 06 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Soul Leech now provides a shield instead of healing, which makes it a lot more interesting for raiding.
  • Blood Horror, which replaces the old Blood Fear, is useless for raiding.
  • The increased damage from Grimoire of Sacrifice has been reduced.
  • Kil'jaeden's Cunning no longer has an active component.
  • Glyph of Soul Shard is now baseline.
  • Removed Glyph of Dark Soul from the list of advised glyphs, as it is never a DPS gain.
  • Added a mention to insist on the importance of Glyph of Healthstone for survivability.

Introduction

Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities