Affliction Warlock DPS Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot (Legion 7.3.5)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Strengths
  • 5. Weaknesses
  • 6. Viability in the Current Patch
  • 7. Contents
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Spell Summary
  • 2. Main Resources
  • 3. Basic Abilities
    • 3.1. Damage Over Time Spells (DoTs)
    • 3.2. Direct Damage Spells
    • 3.3. Demonic Summons
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Talent Cheat Sheets
    • 2.1. Raid Encounters
      • 2.1.1. Single Target
      • 2.1.2. 2 Targets
      • 2.1.3. 3 Targets
    • 2.2. Mythic+
  • 3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
  • 4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
  • 5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
  • 6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 10. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression — First 35 Points
    • 1.1. Early Point Investment
    • 1.2. Second Golden Trait
    • 1.3. Third Golden Trait
    • 1.4. Final Point Investment
  • 2. Patch 7.2: 35+ Trait Path
  • 3. Relic Choice
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. General Optimization Advice
  • 2. Tier 2 Upgrade Priority
  • 3. Tier 3 Upgrade Priority
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Playstyle
    • 1.1. Single Target Rotation
    • 1.2. 2-Target Priority List
      • 1.2.1. 3-Target Priority List
    • 1.3. Mythic+
  • 2. Important Notes
    • 2.1. DoT Usage (7.2.5)
    • 2.2. Reap Usage
    • 2.3. Unstable Affliction Usage
      • 2.3.1. 2-3 Targets
    • 2.4. Soul Shard Sniping
    • 2.5. Pet Choice
    • 2.6. Agony
    • 2.7. "Nightfall" — Shard Generation Explained
    • 2.8. "Pandemic" — Learning to Efficiently Refresh DoTs
    • 2.9. Defensive Utility
    • 2.10. Doomguard and Infernal
  • 3. Core Concepts
    • 3.1. DoT Uptimes & Shard Expenditure
    • 3.2. Movement Management
      • 3.2.1. Quiet Movement
  • 4. Opening Sequence
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Mythic+ Tips
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Affix List
  • 3. Talents
    • 3.1. Standard Build — Low Level Keystones
    • 3.2. Standard Build — High Level Keystones
    • 3.3. Tyrannical Build — High Level Keystones
    • 3.4. Talent Explanations
      • 3.4.1. Tier 1/Level 15
      • 3.4.2. Tier 2/Level 30
      • 3.4.3. Tier 3/Level 45
      • 3.4.4. Tier 4/Level 60
      • 3.4.5. Tier 5/Level 75
      • 3.4.6. Tier 6/Level 90
      • 3.4.7. Tier 7/Level 100
  • 4. Stat Priority
  • 5. Legendary Items
    • 5.1. Mandatory Tier
    • 5.2. Top Tier
    • 5.3. Situational/Niche Choices
  • 6. Relics, Set Bonuses, and Trinkets
  • 7. Pet Choice
  • 8. Rotation
    • 8.1. Trash Packs
      • 8.1.1. Sow the Seeds
      • 8.1.2. Phantom Singularity/Soul Harvest
    • 8.2. Single Target/Bosses
  • 9. Instance Advice
    • 9.1. Black Rook Hold
    • 9.2. Cathedral of Eternal Night
    • 9.3. Court of Stars
    • 9.4. Darkheart Thicket
    • 9.5. Eye of Azshara
    • 9.6. Halls of Valor
    • 9.7. Maw of Souls
    • 9.8. Neltharion's Lair
    • 9.9. Return to Karazhan
      • 9.9.1. Lower Return to Karazhan
      • 9.9.2. Upper Return to Karazhan
    • 9.10. Seat of the Triumvirate
    • 9.11. The Arcway
    • 9.12. Vault of the Wardens
  • 10. ChangeLog
• +Boss by Boss Strategies
  • 1. Antorus, the Burning Throne
    • 1.1. Garothi Worldbreaker
      • 1.1.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.2. Felhounds of Sargeras
      • 1.2.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.3. Antoran High Command
      • 1.3.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.4. Eonar the Life-Binder
      • 1.4.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.5. Portal Keeper Hasabel
      • 1.5.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.6. Imonar the Soulhunter
      • 1.6.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.7. Kin'garoth
      • 1.7.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.8. Varimathras
      • 1.8.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.9. The Coven of Shivarra
      • 1.9.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.10. Aggramar
      • 1.10.1. Talents, Trinkets, and Legendaries
    • 1.11. Argus the Unmaker
  • 2. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
  • 2. Stat Weights
    • 2.1. Why is Mastery Good?
  • 3. Statistics Explanations
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Addons
    • 1.1. Generic Addons for Warlocks
    • 1.2. ElvUI
    • 1.3. Weak Auras
    • 1.4. Boss Mods
      • 1.4.1. BigWigs Bossmods
      • 1.4.2. Deadly Boss Mods
    • 1.5. Name Plates
      • 1.5.1. KUI Nameplates
      • 1.5.2. TidyPlates
    • 1.6. Damage Meters
      • 1.6.1. Skada
      • 1.6.2. Details
    • 1.7. Extra AddOns
      • 1.7.1. Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 1.7.2. DeathNote
      • 1.7.3. Doom CooldownPulse
      • 1.7.4. Angry Assignments
  • 2. Macros
    • 2.1. Warlock Macros
      • 2.1.1. Pet Macros
      • 2.1.2. Soulstone Mouseover
      • 2.1.3. Demonic Circle
  • 3. ChangeLog
• ×Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Tier 21 Set Bonuses
  • 2. Legendary Recommendations for Antorus Gear
  • 3. Tier 20 Set Bonuses
  • 4. Trinket List
  • 5. Best in Slot List
  • 6. Evaluating Upgrades Using Stat Weights
  • 7. Legendaries
    • 7.1. Legendary Quick Reference
  • 8. Loot Competition
  • 9. ChangeLog

General Information

This page is a gear reference for Affliction Warlocks. It lists your best items and Legendaries, gives you gearing advice, and shows you how you will be competing for loot with other classes.

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

About Our Author and Reviewer

This guide has been written by Furty, who has an illustrious history in the World of Warcraft raiding scene and race for World First. He has been a member of guilds such as Serenity, Midwinter, and many more, and is currently raiding in Future. He plays most classes at the highest level. You can follow him on Twitter and watch him play on Twitch.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Deepshades, a top raider who plays in Method; you can watch his stream on Twitch and follow him on Twitter.

1. Tier 21 Set Bonuses

The Tier 21 set bonuses focus on augmenting our primary DoT effects, Agony and Corruption, to provide further utility and damage.

• 2-piece bonus: When Agony deals damage, there is an 8% chance to increase the duration of Unstable Affliction on the target by 2.0 seconds.
• 4-piece bonus: When you cast Unstable Affliction or Seed of Corruption, all targets within 60 yards suffering from your Agony take 10% increased damage from your Corruption or Agony for 8 seconds.

While the bonuses this tier do not provide an increase of an incredible magnitude, they do grant a solid and steady damage increase and are well worth seeking out and obtaining. The bonuses gain strength on encounters where multi-dotting is a priortiy, for example, the Coven of Shivarra encounter.

2. Legendary Recommendations for Antorus Gear

1. Single Target/Maximum Damage: Power Cord of Lethtendris + Soul of the Netherlord
2. Single Target/Sustained Effectiveness: Power Cord of Lethtendris + Hood of Eternal Disdain
3. Sustained Cleave/Multidotting: Sacrolash's Dark Strike + Soul of the Netherlord

3. Tier 20 Set Bonuses

The Tier 20 set bonuses focus primarily on augmenting your Soul Shard generation and expenditure. Both the 2-set bonus and the 4-set bonus are valuable and worth putting effort into obtaining. The 4-set bonus, in particular, is very potent in Tomb of Sargeras, especially given the amount of multi-dotting that we will be doing.

• 2-piece bonus: Corruption has a chance to generate a Soul Shard whenever it deals damage.
• 4-piece bonus: Spending a Soul Shard has a 25% chance to grant you 15% Haste for 8 seconds.

Both the 2-piece bonus and the 4-piece bonus are very encouraging of multi-dotting, and they have strong synergy with each other. While the 2-piece bonus will provide more Soul Shard generation, the 4-piece bonus will reward you for spending more Soul Shards, resulting in very positive feedback on encounters where you are able to maintain several sets of DoT effects at all times.

These bonuses are so potent it is often worth investing in lower item level pieces over non-set items with higher item levels. The rough benchmark for whether or not a full 4-set is an upgrade over higher item level non-set pieces is one full tier of difficulty (e.g. it is worth using a Heroic 4-piece bonus over Mythic off-pieces).

4. Trinket List

Quick reference for trinkets, assuming close or equal item levels:/p>

1. Aman'Thul's Vision
2. Unstable Arcanocrystal
3. Acrid Catalyst Injector
4. Whispers in the Dark
5. Tarnished Sentinel Medallion
6. Titanforged World Quest Trinket (Mastery>Haste)
7. Erratic Metronome
8. Tome of Unraveling Sanity
9. Titanforged World Quest Trinket (Crit>Vers)
10. Dreadstone of Endless Shadows
11. Terror From Below
12. Charm of the Rising Tide

5. Best in Slot List

With the existence of Titanforged and Mythic+ dungeons, there is no such thing as a hard Best in Slot anymore. This is more of a guideline for the best pieces to keep an eye out for in your raid or dungeon (if applicable). Be smart, and if you find higher item level pieces with valuable stat combinations do not hesitate to upgrade to them.

Slot	Item	Source
Helm	Grim Inquisitor's Death Mask	Aggramar
Neck	Chain of the Unmaker	Argus the Unmaker
Shoulders	Grim Inquisitor's Shoulderguards	The Coven of Shivarra
Chest	Gambeson of Sargeras' Corruption	Argus the Unmaker
Cloak	Grim Inquisitor's Cloak	Antoran High Command
Wrists	Blood-Drenched Bindings	Varimathras
Gloves	Handwraps of Inevitable Doom	Argus the Unmaker
Belt	Cord of Surging Hysteria	Varimathras
Legs	Grim Inquisitor's Leggings	Imonar the Soulhunter
Boots	Sandals of the Reborn Colossus	Aggramar
Ring #1	Loop of the Life-Binder	Eonar
Ring #2	Zealous Tormentor's Ring	The Coven of Shivarra
Trinket #1	Aman'Thul's Vision	Argus the Unmaker
Trinket #2	Unstable Arcanocrystal	Withered J'im/ Relinquished Trinket

As Relics affect the item level of your weapons, it is recommended you always take the highest item level options as it will increase your weapon damage.

6. Evaluating Upgrades Using Stat Weights

You can evaluate upgrades side by side using a simple napkin math formula:

For example, using the stat weights from our Stats page, a pair of boots with 380 Mastery, 1150 Haste, and 976 Intellect, we can calculate a DPS value of:

This does not give an exact DPS value, but can be used to calculate the relative value versus another piece. For example, if we have a second pair of boots with 450 Haste, 970 Versatility, and 976 Intellect, we can compute the DPS value for that second item using the same formula, before comparing the results:

We can clearly see that 3278.5 > 2674.7, and therefore, the first pair of boots are the stronger upgrade. This is the quickest, best, and most reliable way of determining whether or not you should use one upgrade or another, despite the fact that stats weights are very approximate and change with respect to fight type, fight length, and the values of your other stats (synergetic scaling).

7. Legendaries

Hood of Eternal Disdain causes Agony to deal its full potential damage 10% faster. A great legendary for any situation.

Soul of the Netherlord grants you Death's Embrace passively. Extremely strong legendary for overall damage. It is a fantastic legendary for fights with difficult execute phases, however, consider using a different legendary for progression fights where execute is not the concern as it contributes nothing to the rest of the fight.

The Master Harvester grants a 9% chance to activate Soul Harvest for 8 seconds per Soul Shard spent. Very strong but can be RNG reliant.

Power Cord of Lethtendris causes Unstable Affliction to have a 25% chance to refund a Soul Shard if there is not already an Unstable Affliction on the target. Solid legendary, particularly if you are playing with Contagion and are spacing out your casts. Especially good when there are multiple targets of equal priority and you want to apply Unstable Affliction to each of them.

Sacrolash's Dark Strike causes Corruption to deal 15% increased damage and also slow enemies by 60%. Decent legendary for any situation, and Best-in-Slot for encounters where there are several targets active for long periods and you are talented into Absolute Corruption (the Desolate Host and Demonic Inquisition, for example).

Reap and Sow causes Reap Souls to last an additional 1.5 seconds per soul consumed. Not quite as good post 7.2, as Reap Souls, will have a relatively high uptime regardless.

Streten's Sleepless Shackles causes each enemy afflicted with Unstable Affliction to also grant 4% bonus damage. Not as useful as it sounds as Unstable Affliction does not last very long and is generally best invested into a single target. Not bad if there are multiple targets of equal priority and you want to put Unstable Affliction on each of them.

Sin'dorei Spite can currently also be used by Affliction, and grants 30% increased damage for 25 seconds after using Summon Doomguard or Summon Infernal. Exceptional for pushing damage checks, and can offer potent burst damage when paired with Reap Souls and Soul Harvest.

7.1. Legendary Quick Reference

This is a rough list, calculated for a single target. The value of the legendary items shifts often from fight to fight and certain passives (for example, Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus) can be extraordinarily useful on some fights while ineffectual on others.

1. Hood of Eternal Disdain
2. Soul of the Netherlord
3. The Master Harvester
4. Power Cord of Lethtendris
5. Reap and Sow
6. Streten's Sleepless Shackles
7. Sacrolash's Dark Strike
8. Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus
9. Norgannon's Foresight
10. Sephuz's Secret
11. Pillars of the Dark Portal
12. Celumbra, the Night's Dichotomy
13. Kil'jaeden's Burning Wish

8. Loot Competition

Regarding the loot you will get from raid or dungeon bosses, you will compete with other classes in the following cases:

Item Type	Competing Classes
Tier Tokens	Demon Hunters, Paladins, Priests, and Demonology/Destruction Warlocks
Cloth Armor	Mages, Priests, and Demonology/Destruction Warlocks
Amulets Cloaks Rings	Everyone
Trinkets	Balance Druids, Mages, Shadow Priests, Elemental Shamans, and Demonology/Destruction Warlocks

9. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 28 Nov. 2017: Updated best in slot for Antorus, added Tier 21 section, and updated legendaries.
• 13 Oct. 2017: Updated paragraph on Tarnished Sentinel Medallion.
• 28 Aug. 2017: Updated legendaries.
• 16 Jun. 2017: Updated example stat weight calculations to match new stat weights.
• 14 Jun. 2017: Added Tier 20 set bonus section, Tomb of Sargeras best in slot list, legendary quick reference list, and trinket discussion section.
• 13 Jun. 2017: Added Soul of the Netherlord and The Master Harvester.
• 29 Mar. 2017: Updates to legendary descriptions.
• 14 Jan. 2017: Nighthold BiS added.
• 12 Jan. 2017: Added new legendary items.
• 21 Oct. 2016: Long overdue change to Hood of Eternal Disdain assessment in single-target.
• 14 Oct. 2016: Updated BiS trinkets.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 20 Jul. 2016: Removed trinket rankings and added recommendations.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.