PvE Affliction Warlock Talents, Builds, & Glyphs

Mists of Pandaria Classic brings a talent overhaul for every class and removes Prime Glyphs from the game, leaving a more streamlined set of options for building your character. Affliction Warlocks will have a few significant choices to make in order to maximize their damage and utility in endgame PvE content.

Talents

In Mists of Pandaria, talents can be changed out of combat as long as you have some Tome of the Clear Mind in your inventory. That gives you greater flexibility to swap out talents on a fight-by-fight basis, allowing you to take advantage of niche talents when the situation calls for it.

The build pictured below is a good starting point and can be used for the majority of content. We’ll cover every talent in detail below to help you know when you may want to swap in something else.

Level 15 Talents (Tier 1)

• Dark Regeneration
  This is a solid personal defensive for you and your pet, granting you both 30% health plus a buff to healing you receive. The best option for any situation where you need a strong cooldown rather than a steady stream of healing or absorption.
• Soul Leech
  This talent causes several of your spells to give you and your pet an absorption shield when cast. It’s the best choice for dealing with consistent damage since you will have good uptime on the shield and it’s passive, so you don’t have to interrupt your rotation to trigger it. Recommended for most content unless you need Dark Regeneration for a particular mechanic.
• Harvest Life
  This talent makes Drain Life stronger, but you would need to interrupt your normal rotation to cast it, resulting in a DPS loss. Soul Leech is better for steady incoming damage as it is entirely passive and mitigates damage up front rather than healing it after the fact, which can be life saving. Besides, you can already buff your Drain Life with Soulburn when you need to.

Level 30 Talents (Tier 2)

• Demonic Breath
  Slows enemies in a cone in front of you. Can be good for kiting, but you already have other tools for that. It has a relatively short range that requires you to be in melee to use it, which is not ideal for you as a ranged DPS.
• Mortal Coil
  You already have Fear and Howl of Terror, so this ability may feel a bit redundant. But this ability also heals you when you use it. You’ll typically take this talent in any content where you don’t need the stun from Shadowfury so you can use it as a personal defensive.
• Shadowfury
  An instant AoE stun on a short 30-second cooldown is going to provide you with the best crowd control of the three options in most situations. If you are going to be responsible for CCing anything in a fight, this should be your go-to.

Level 45 Talents (Tier 3)

• Soul Link
  This talent effectively reduces the damage you take by 20% by redirecting it to your demon. You will also heal yourself and your demon for 3% of any damage you deal. The damage reduction can allow you to tank hits that would otherwise kill you, making this the best default option when you don’t have a need for one of the other two. Note however that if you use Grimoire of Sacrifice, this talent is basically useless.
• Sacrificial Pact
  Like Soul Link, this ability uses your demon’s health to improve your own survivability, but it does so in a more up-front manner. The demon loses 25% of its health and gives you the equivalent of its entire health bar as an absorption shield. This is a very strong defensive cooldown, but you have to know the damage is coming and use the ability, whereas Soul Link is passive. It’s not quite as strong as Dark Bargain but it’s on a much shorter cooldown, so if a fight has predictable damage spikes that are less than 3 minutes apart, this is the best choice.
• Dark Bargain
  This ability gives you total immunity to all damage for 8 seconds, similar to a Paladin’s Divine Shield. The downside is that you’ll take half of that damage over the next 8 seconds once it fades, so you won’t be getting away scot-free. This talent has the potential to be the most powerful of the three, but with a long cooldown and the ticking damage that follows, it requires the most planning to use.

Level 60 Talents (Tier 4)

• Blood Horror
  You will almost never have a need for this in group content. Save it for solo play and PvP. Your Tier 2 talents should cover any crowd control you need.
• Burning Rush
  At long last, Warlocks have a sprint! Not only that, but a 50% movement speed increase that lasts until you turn it off! But of course, like many Warlock abilities, it comes at a cost. Your health will steadily tick down by 4% per second while you have this up, so you’ll need to be mindful of that when you use it. The extra speed can be invaluable in movement-heavy fights and also just really nice for convenience, so you’ll find this to be the most useful option unless you have a particular need for Unbound Will.
• Unbound Will
  This talent allows you to dispel many debuffs from yourself and your demon on a 1-minute cooldown. It’s invaluable in any fight where such a dispel is useful. Otherwise you can stick with Burning Rush.

Level 75 Talents (Tier 5)

• Grimoire of Supremacy
  This talent replaces your demon pets with more powerful versions. In most situations, you’ll want to use this talent so you can summon an Observer demon, which replaces your Felhunter. Your other demons will be stronger too. This option will provide you with the most consistent boost to your DPS.
• Grimoire of Service
  With this talent, you’ll be able to summon a second demon for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. It will use one of its abilities immediately when summoned, making this both a DPS cooldown and a utility spell. You can use it to summon a copy of the same demon you already have active if you choose. This talent may have niche uses for burst damage or utility, but typically you’ll be better off with Grimoire of Supremacy. The abilities each demon will use when summoned are: Grimoire: Felhunter, Grimoire: Imp, Grimoire: Succubus, or Grimoire: Voidwalker.
• Grimoire of Sacrifice
  If you use this, you’ll be giving up your pet to gain a buff to your own damage, health, and regen. You’ll also get one of that pet’s abilities. If you summon your pet again, you lose the benefits. Like Grimoire of Service, this talent will have niche usefulness at best and doesn’t compare to the steady DPS increase of Grimoire of Supremacy. Abilities your character will gain depending on the demon you sacrifice: Singe Magic ( Imp), Spell Lock ( Felhunter), Whiplash ( Succubus), or Shadow Bulwark ( Voidwalker).

Level 90 Talents (Tier 6)

• Archimonde’s Darkness
  This talent gives your Dark Soul: Misery cooldown two charges, allowing you to use it twice as often. This is a strong default choice when you don’t need the movement from Kil’jaeden’s Cunning or AoE from Mannoroth’s Fury.
• Kil’jaeden’s Cunning
  Being able to channel Malefic Grasp while moving makes this talent a must-have for any movement-heavy fight where you would otherwise be interrupting your rotation in order to move.
• Mannoroth’s Fury
  With this talent, your AoE abilities will affect a larger area and deal twice as much damage. The obvious choice for fights where you’ll be doing a lot of AoE, but weigh whether it’s worth losing the single-target damage from Archimonde’s Darkness.

Glyphs

Prime Glyphs are gone in Mists of Pandaria. You will still choose 3 Major Glyphs and 3 Minor Glyphs.

Major Glyphs

There are a few Major Glyphs for Affliction Warlocks that will be useful in the majority of content, and several alternatives that can be even more useful in the right circumstances.

Default Options

If you’re just looking to grab the 3 most straightforward glyphs for Affliction, here are your picks.

• Glyph of Unstable Affliction
  Casting Unstable Affliction faster is a boost to your DPS, allowing you to get this important DoT up faster and start casting something else sooner.
• Glyph of Eternal Resolve
  This glyph makes your Unending Resolve ability passive, giving you a consistent 10% damage reduction instead of a 40% reduction on a cooldown. Powerful on fights with constant ticking damage, but you should trade it out for something else if you think you will need the bigger cooldown to deal with a specific mechanic.
• Glyph of Siphon Life
  A steady stream of healing from your Corruption DoT, which you’ll always want to have up anyway. A nice default option for survivability, but not mandatory if something else seems more useful for a particular encounter.

Situational Options

These can offer strong alternatives to the glyphs above depending on the content and your approach.

• Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion
  This makes your Curse of Exhaustion into the most powerful slow in the game, which can be very useful for fights where adds need to be kited. You will have to refresh it twice as often, however, and it will have a 10-second cooldown on it.
• Glyph of Curse of the Elements
  This glyph will cause your Curse of the Elements to hit 3 targets instead of 1, making it great for any fight with multiple targets. It’s worth noting that you can already do this with Soulburn, but it will cost you a Soul Shard.
• Glyph of Demonic Circle
  Reduces the cooldown on your Demonic Circle: Teleport. Its usefulness depends entirely on whether you wish to use your circle more than once every 30 seconds. This can be nice to have in fights with a lot of movement.
• Glyph of Healthstone
  Your Healthstone will give you twice as much healing, but as a 10-second HoT instead of all at once. This is a major boost to its overall effect, but sometimes the instant healing will be a lot more useful, so consider the mechanics at hand before you use this.
• Glyph of Life Tap
  Causing your Life Tap to absorb healing instead of consuming your health makes a lot of sense if you’re not getting healed anyway, because then it just becomes free mana. So if there’s a point in the fight where you won’t be getting healed and you can safely stack this absorb on yourself, go for it. Otherwise, making yourself unhealable is usually not a great idea in group content.
• Glyph of Soulstone
  By default, Soulstone brings players back to life with 60% of their health, which isn’t terrible. But there are times when the extra 40% added by this glyph will make the difference between a wasted rez and a clutch save.
• Glyph of Unending Resolve
  Lets you use Unending Resolve more often, but at reduced effect. Not useful if you’re already using Glyph of Eternal Resolve. Good for damage spikes that occur more than once every 3 minutes.

Options to Avoid

These glyphs are typically not worth taking up a glyph slot.

• Glyph of Drain Life
  You can already buff your Drain Life with Soulburn when you need to.
• Glyph of Demon Training
  You’ll be using your Observer pet, so this is effectively a survivability boost, and you have better options for that.
• Glyph of Soul Consumption
  You won’t be killing enemies that yield experience or honor often or reliably enough in boss encounters for this ability to trigger when you need it. Again, there are better options for survivability.

Minor Glyphs

Minor Glyphs are usually cosmetic, but Warlocks have a surprising number of them that also have useful effects.

• Glyph of Crimson Banish
  This cosmetic glyph can have a niche practical use if more than one mob is being Banished and you want to be able to quickly spot which one is yours.
• Glyph of Gateway Attunement
  This can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on your situational awareness, since you will automatically use your Demonic Gateway if you get close enough. Saves you having to click it, but makes it so you can’t hang around too close for risk of using it accidentally.
• Glyph of Health Funnel
  With this, you can use Health Funnel as an instant heal for your pet on a short cooldown instead of having to channel it. You shouldn’t need to heal your pet much in group content, but this can be useful in certain situations.
• Glyph of Subjugate Demon
  You’re not likely to use Subjugate Demon much in group content, but if you ever find yourself needing to, this will reduce its relatively long cast time. (This ability and glyph were previously called “Enslave Demon,” in case you are wondering what happened to that.)