Affliction Warlock Mythic+ Guide (2024)

When to use this Spec

This is a default loadout going into any dungeon as it specializes in balancing ST and AoE damage. You have to adjust the class talent tree based on the utility required for the affix and dungeon combo.

Gameplay Altering Talents

Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look, check out the Rotation and Deep Dive sections below.

Spec Tree

• Seed of Corruption
  • Allows you to spread your Corruption on a large number of targets quickly. Costs 1 Soul Shard.
• Vile Taint
  • Strong AoE DoT that also applies Agony on up to 8 targets, another tool to spread your DoTs faster.
• Soul Rot
  • Strong AoE DoT on up to 5 targets.
  • Malign Omen and Dark Harvest allow you to have a short damage burst every minute both on ST and AoE.
• Nightfall
  • Makes your Shadow Bolt an instant cast and does more damage when procs that helps with your mobility in downtimes.
• Tormented Crescendo
  • Helps you with Soul Shard drought on ST or when there are a low number of targets.
• Haunt
  • Flat 10% damage increase debuff on your main target.
• Summon Darkglare
  • Main cooldown for burst windows. Extends the duration of all your DoTs on every enemy.
  • Malevolent Visionary also grants the ability to do instant AoE burst damage on demand.
• Cunning Cruelty and Volatile Agony
  • Boost your filler windows with passive AoE during your Shadow Bolt spam and refreshing Agony with less than 10 seconds remaining.

Class Tree

• Fel Domination
  • Helps you recover quickly in the event of death by allowing you to resummon a pet rapidly without cost.
• Burning Rush
  • Your main movement spell aside from Demonic Circle and Demonic Gateway, however, both of which require preplanning.
• Curses of Enfeeblement
  • Gives you access to Curse of Exhaustion and Curse of Tongues.
  • Remember that you can only have one curse active per target.
  • Curse of Tongues can be very useful in pug groups to make it easier to deal with dangerous enemy casts.
• Soulburn
  • Empowers a multitude of utility spells for the cost of 1 Soul Shard.
  • Mainly used for Demonic Circle: Teleport, Demonic Gateway and Healthstone.
• Shadowfury
  • Your only AoE CC that can affect an unlimited amount of targets.
• Mortal Coil
  • A Single Target CC that can also be used as a defensive spell if you need to heal on demand.
  • Keep in mind that coiled and feared targets generally run away from you, so position yourself properly before casting it if needed.
• Dark Pact
  • A defensive spell that grants you a big absorb shield depending on your current health plus a certain amount on top of it.
• Sweet Souls
  • Passive heal whenever your teammates use a Healthstone from you.
  • Can be considered a fairly big defensive, especially coming from a tank, and shouldn't be overlapped with your own Healthstone to avoid overhealing in high keys.
• Pact of Gluttony
  • Combining Healthstone with Soulburn becomes a strong 1 minute defensive CD on long boss fights.

Boss Tips

Hackclaw's War-Band

• Use Curse of Tongues on Tricktotem to slow down his Earth Bolt and Greater Healing Rapids casts.
• Preuse Dark Pact whenever Gash Frenzy by Gashtooth is being cast to get a headstart on its Bleed effect.
• You can help dispel Decayed Senses with Singe Magic.
• Be aware of the timing of Gash Frenzy by Gashtooth so you don't miss your Vile Taint and Soul Rot on it.

Gutshot

• Don't forget to put Agony on hyenas for extra Soul Shards generation but don't waste globals on Corruption for them since they are passively dying in traps anyway.
• Time your Soul Rot to hit hyenas as well as the boss so you can benefit more from Dark Harvest.

Treemouth

• Place your Demonic Circle before the fight starts to counter the drag in easily.
• Shadowfury stuns the slimes that spawn from Decay Spray before they complete their Gushing Ooze cast.
• Make sure to time Soul Rot to hit slimes together with the boss to benefit more from Dark Harvest.

Decatriarch Wratheye

• Make sure to pool Soul Shards for each Rotburst Totem.
• Remember that you can precast Vile Taint before Rotburst Totem spawns to start damaging it faster.
• Make sure to rotate defensives on Withered Eruption depending on available Gear and key level.

Trash Tips

• Curse of Tongues is very valuable in this dungeon due to the high amount of dangerous casters.
• Make sure to stop Vicious Clawmangle from Claw Fighter's with any of your available stops.

Pre Dungeon Start

• Use Fel Domination shortly before starting the dungeon. Starting a dungeon despawns your pet but doesn't remove your Fel Domination buff, and this enables you to rapidly summon your pet without spending a Soul Shard while still having Fel Domination off cooldown in case your pet dies later.

Boss Tips

The Lost Dwarves

• Put Olaf on focus to quickly interrupt his Defensive Bulwark when cast.

Bromach

• Make sure to have Soul Rot and Vile Taint for every Quaking Totem spawn.
• Pool Soul Shards for Quaking Totem spawns.

Talondras

• Use defensives while you're affected by Earthen Shards, especially if Crushing Stomp is coming up.
• You can remove Inexorable with Shadowfury if you want to stop Crushing Stomp early.

Emberon

• You can dispel Burning Heat with your Imp's Singe Magic to help out your healer.

Deios

• Time Sink can be removed by Singe Magic from your Imp and Demonic Circle: Teleport.
• Use Dark Pact on Wing Buffet.
  • Since Dark Pact has a 20 second duration you're able to preuse Dark Pact to have it up for more Wing Buffet casts throughout the fight if the spell sequence matches up.

Trash Tips

• Stunning Refti Custodian's applies a 100% damage increase to them. Make sure to utilize your Shadowfury for that purpose.
• Curse of Tongues is very valuable in this dungeon due to the high amount of dangerous casters.

Pre Dungeon Start

• Use Fel Domination shortly before starting the dungeon. Starting a dungeon despawns your pet but doesn't remove your Fel Domination buff, and this enables you to rapidly summon your pet without spending a Soul Shard while still having Fel Domination off cooldown in case your pet dies later.

Boss Tips

Granyth

• Use Curse of Exhaustion on the Nokhud Saboteur to give your group more time to kill it.
  • You can also use Fear and not touch them afterward if you only need to use the affected Dragonkiller Lance once.
• Make use of Dark Pact when Shards of Stone is being cast.

Raging Tempest

• Minmaxing Surge of Power stacks is crucial to have an easy time since it doesn't only buff damage but also healing absorbs. Using Dark Pact with a lot of stacks guarantees that you survive with ease especially if you time it correctly with the bosses Electrical Storm.
• Instantly purge Energy Surge with Devour Magic of your Felhunter or Observer pet.

Teera & Maruuk.

Make sure to use Dark Pact on each Gale Arrow. Use Unending Resolve, Healthstone & Potion of Withering Dreams whenever you get targeted multiple times in a row by Quick Shot.

Balakar Khan

• You can place Demonic Circle before Static Spear goes off and teleport right as the grip happens. This negates the effect and leaves you in a comfortable place to continue to deal damage.
• Dark Pact is best used on Upheaval and Crackling Upheaval, covering both with proper usage. Your Dark Pact uses should look like this:

Trash Tips

• Curse of Tongues is very valuable in this dungeon due to the high amount of dangerous casters.
• You're able to purge Stormshield with Devour Magic of your Felhunter or Observer.
• Make sure to stop Rally the Clan with Shadowfury, Mortal Coil or Fear.
• Cast Banish on the Unstable Squall to prevent the Stormspeaker from summoning more and reduce tank damage. Remove the Banish at the end of the pull by casting it again on the affected target.

Pre Dungeon Start

• Use Fel Domination shortly before starting the dungeon. Starting a dungeon despawns your pet but doesn't remove your Fel Domination buff, and this enables you to rapidly summon your pet without spending a Soul Shard while still having Fel Domination off cooldown in case your pet dies later.

Boss Tips

Overgrown Ancient

• Use Dark Pact on every Burst Forth cast that happens at 100 energy of the boss.

Crawth

Since Deafening Screech is happening every ~23 seconds you should use Dark Pact for every second Deafening Screech. Your defensive usage could look like the following:

Vexamus

• Place your Demonic Circle before the fight starts to quickly teleport out of the void zones from Mana Bomb when needed.
• On this Boss, you should use defensives more reactive than preplanned. In general, you want to use Unending Resolve on the overlap of Mana Bomb and Arcane Fissure.
• If you're only affected by Mana Bomb a late use of Mortal Coil or early use of Dark Pact should be enough.

Echo of Doragosa

• Place your Demonic Circle before the fight starts to counter the pull in from Power Vacuum.
• Burning Rush may save you if you don't see Astral Breath early enough. In general, you should stay a little closer to the boss to make it easier to dodge.

Trash Tips

• You can line of sight the Vicious Ambush cast from the Arcane Ravager. The cast always targets the furthest player and running out of line of sight causes the Arcane Ravager to not charge to you and immediately start its Riftbreath cast instead.
• You can purge the Celestial Shield of Ethereal Restorer's with Devour Magic.

Pre Dungeon Start

• Use Fel Domination shortly before starting the dungeon. Starting a dungeon despawns your pet but doesn't remove your Fel Domination buff, and this enables you to rapidly summon your pet without spending a Soul Shard while still having Fel Domination off cooldown in case your pet dies later.

• In high Mythic+ keys you should get the Red Dragonflight Pledge Pin, in lower keys you can easily get Bronze Dragonflight Pledge Pin.

Boss Tips

Irideus

• Place down a Demonic Gateway and Demonic Circle to get out fast with the Power Overload debuff.
  • You can also dispel Power Overload with your Imp's Singe Magic.
• Save up a few Soul Shards for the intermission to kill 3 Nullification Devices quickly.

Gulping Goliath

• Make sure to stun the Curious Swoglets with Shadowfury.
• Boss is casting Overpowering Croak every 40 seconds so make sure to have Soul Rot for each spawn of frogs to benefit more from Dark Harvest.

Khajin

• Use Dark Pact, Unending Resolve and Mortal Coil whenever your healer does not have healing CDs rolling. The rot damage stays the same throughout the fight meaning any damage being prevented is good.

Primal Tsunami

• Always use Dark Pact for Tempest's Fury.
• You can use Fear on 1 of the 4 Primalist Infusers to interrupt them without them starting to cast Inundate and also prevent the boss from gaining stacks early on.

Trash Tips

• Helping out your tank by using Shadowfury on packs with stealthed Skulking Zealots prevents them from stunning the tank with Cheap Shot.
• Use Demonic Circle: Teleport to quickly cleanse yourself from Deep Chill while fighting any Proto-Dragon.
  • It's also possible to use Soulburn into Demonic Circle: Teleport before Deep Chill is applied to prevent the application entirely.
• You can outrange the Inundate cast of Infuser Sariya by walking over 40 yards away.
• In general, you can help out your tank and healer massively by applying Curse of Tongues to relevant targets.

Pre Dungeon Start

• Use Fel Domination shortly before starting the dungeon. Starting a dungeon despawns your pet but doesn't remove your Fel Domination buff, and this enables you to rapidly summon your pet without spending a Soul Shard while still having Fel Domination off cooldown in case your pet dies later.

Boss Tips

Leymor

• Always use a defensive for Consuming Stomp.
• Depending on your group comp and how long Bubbling Sappling live, you may want to DoT a few of them with Agony.
• Make sure that every cast of your Soul Rot hits the maximum amount of targets to benefit more from Dark Harvest.

Azureblade

• Use Curse of Tongues on the Draconic Images to make interrupting them a lot easier.

Telash Greywing

• Make sure to use Dark Pact when targeted by Icy Devastator, sadly you don't have a way to cancel this cast except if you're a Night Elf and have access to Shadowmeld.

Umbrelskul

• You should always pool resources for each crystal phase. These start at 75%, 50% and 25%.
  • You can precast Seed of Corruption to speed up killing crystals.
• Defensives should be used during the Detonating Crystals phases as well as for Unleashed Destruction.

Trash Tips

• Make sure to purge Brilliant Scales off of the Vaul Guards with Devour Magic.
• One of the important interrupts in this dungeon is Icy Bindings from the Rune Seal Keepers since it's usually paired with other adds that spawn void zones under your feet that you obviously can't dodge if you're rooted.
  • Using Soulburn together with Demonic Circle: Teleport before Icy Bindings makes you immune to the root effect. Very neat if you don't have access to an interrupt at that time.

Pre Dungeon Start

• Use Fel Domination shortly before starting the dungeon. Starting a dungeon despawns your pet but doesn't remove your Fel Domination buff, and this enables you to rapidly summon your pet without spending a Soul Shard while still having Fel Domination off cooldown in case your pet dies later.

Boss Tips

Magmatusk

• Use Demonic Circle to quickly dodge either Liquid Hot Magma projectiles or Lava Wave.
  • Don't use Demonic Gateway to cross over Lava Wave, they still hit you.
• Use defensives for Volatile Mutation and Lava Spray depending on the situation.

Chargath, Bane of Scales

• Start the fight by preplacing Demonic Circle and Demonic Gateway across the room because you can negate a lot of damage by instantly teleporting right after Grounding Spear lands.
• If you're a Dwarf you can remove the bleed from Dragon Strike with Stoneform if necessary.
  • You can bait Dragon Strike on the furthest player from the target which means that your tank should probably take most of them anyway.

Forgemaster Gorek

• Might of the Forge happening close to Blazing Aegis is very deadly thus you should use your defensives pre-emptively during Might of the Forge.

Warlord Sargha

• You're able to Crowd Control the Burning Ember with Banish and Fear. You can also delay killing it and use it as a funnel throughout the fight.
• Remember that you can pick up multiple Piles of Gold to stack up more than 1 usable item. It should only be done with a group that has access to a decurse.

Trash Tips

• Keep an eye out for Qalashi Bonesplitter's Dragonbone Axe ability and disrupt it with your available toolkit.

Pre Dungeon Start

• Use Fel Domination shortly before starting the dungeon. Starting a dungeon despawns your pet but doesn't remove your Fel Domination buff, and this enables you to rapidly summon your pet without spending a Soul Shard while still having Fel Domination off cooldown in case your pet dies later.

Boss Tips

Melidrussa Chillworn

• You can utilize Demonic Circle and Demonic Gateway to quickly get out of the Chillstorm that you drop when debuffed.
• At 75% and 45%, Melidrussa spawns numerous Infused Whelps that can be used for funnel damage onto the boss.
• Defensives should generally be used for Chillstorm.

Kokia Blazehoof

• Use defensives like Dark Pact and Unending Resolve for Inferno.

Erkhart Stormvein / Kyrakka

• Make sure to keep DoTs on both the boss and dragon.
• Winds of Change rotates counter clockwise from its starting point. Consider placing Demonic Circle in a favorable position to get out of trouble quickly if you're getting boxed in.
• Personals are generally not needed in Phase 1. In Phase 2 consider a personal every time you get hit by Flamespit.

Trash Tips

• Ice Shield is purgeable by your Devour Magic of your Felhunter or Observer.
• Make sure to stop Tectonic Slam with abilities like Shadowfury.
• You can help out your healer while fighting Thunderhead by playing an Imp and dispelling Rolling Thunder if your healer wants to focus on other things. DON'T DISPEL IF YOUR HEALER IS ALREADY DISPELLING!
• When the Primalist Flamedancers die you can purge their Blaze of Glory cast and kill them off that way.

Pre Dungeon Start

• Use Fel Domination shortly before starting the dungeon. Starting a dungeon despawns your pet but doesn't remove your Fel Domination buff, and this enables you to rapidly summon your pet without spending a Soul Shard while still having Fel Domination off cooldown in case your pet dies later.

Below you are presented with good farmable alternatives that are not locked behind WoW's weekly system. While you replace them in time, this list is for you if you want to power up immediately!