WoW: In-Depth Look at WotLK Warlock Talents – Affliction

In this in-depth look at the World of Warcraft Warlock Talents, we're going to be going over all the changes and new talents done for each talent tree of those published at Blizzard's site.

We will finish with the Affliction tree, a tree popular for those who like burst damage and those who like high DPS in raids at the cost of more mana. Destruction was highly viable in end-game raids by the end of the Burning Crusade, so let's see what new changes have come for Wrath of the Lich King.

As of writing this the talents are in no way finalized so things may change as Blizzard continues to balance before launch.

Affliction

Tier 1

Improved Curse of Agony has been moved up to Tier 1 from Tier 3 - still retains the same 5/10% more damage for your CoA, making it not worthwhile for now.

Tier 2

No changes here

Tier 3

New Talent - Improved Fear. When your fear is resisted, you have a 50%/100% chance of your next Fear being instant cast. Awesome new talent for those who PvP a lot, we all know that fear resists can make or break a battle, and an instance chance to refear is a great thing to have!

Tier 4

No changes here

Tier 5

No changes here either

Tier 6

New Talent - Improved Fel Hunter. Your FelHunter's shadow bite ability returns 50/100% of the damage done to his target as mana, and increases his intellect by 1%/2%. Great Talent, again, for the PvP crowd as your FelHunter will be attacking people at the same time you are. Since it 'is' mostly a PvP pet, having his mana full lets him spell lock and devour magic more.

Tier 7

No changes here

Tier 8

No changes

Tier 9

New Talent - Eradication. Your corruption ticks have a 4/8/12% chance to increase your spell casting speed by 20% for 12 seconds. A nice plus for raiding Warlocks who like to upkeep their DoTs, spamming shadowbolts/shadowflame will be made easier with this talent.

New Talent - Death's Embrace. Increases the amount of life drained by drain life by 10/20/30% when your health is at or below 20%, and increases your spell critical chance of your shadow spells by 5/10/15 when your target is at or below 20% health.

Great Talent here for those who love lifetapping or those who wanted a little extra to finish mobs off - raiders with affliction spec will surely appreciate this talent for the dual nature of it.

Tier 10

New Talent - Everlasting Affliction. Your Corruption, Siphon Life and Unstable Affliction spells gain an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus spell damage effects, and your Drain Life and Shadow Bolt spells have a 100% chance to reset the duration of your Corruption spell on the target.

Another great talent to have as a raider, refreshing corruption through your other DoTs is more mana saved, and more possibilities of triggering eradication, which will allow you in turn to keep up on the DPS charts while having your DoTs ticking!

Tier 11

New Talent - Haunt. You send a ghostly soul into the target, dealing 645 to 754 Shadow damage and increasing all damage done by your damage-over-time effects on the target by 20% for 12 sec. When the Haunt spell ends or is dispelled, the soul returns to you, healing you for 20% of all damage done to the target.

A decent final talent, could see use both in PvP and PvE equally as it increases damage dealt and heals you at the end. It's got a 2 second cast time and a 10 second cooldown, so it won't be on cooldown when you need it, and it could prove useful. We'll need to wait and see to gauge how good or bad this talent will be during instances or pvp.

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