In this article, we present you with various talent trees for Affliction Warlocks (WoW 4.3) that you can use in specific situations. We also give you pointers for customising your talent tree and adapting it to a particular boss. The other articles of our Affliction Warlock guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the left.

1. Standard Talent Build↑top

The following build is the best talent build for Affliction Warlocks in PvE. It takes all the DPS increasing talents available. There is very little room for variation with this build, and we advise you to use it in every situation.

2. Customising Your Build↑top

The talent build that we provided above is currently the best Affliction talent build. Most of your talents are mandatory and there is very little room for variation. There are two talents that you may want to include in your build in exceptional circumstances (although we do not advise it). We briefly cover these talents in the section below.

2.1. Optional Talents

The two talents that you can choose to take, based on certain situations, are:

• Curse of Exhaustion, which provides you with Curse of Exhaustion. Curse of Exhaustion slows the target's movement speed by 30%. There should never be a time when you will have to provide this for your raid. To take this talent, you will only take 1/2 in Jinx.
• Fel Synergy, which gives you a 50% chance to automatically heal your minion when you deal damage. This may be useful if your minion is taking a lot of damage in the encounter, although it is not likely to be needed. To take this talent, you will only take 1/2 in Pandemic.

2.2. Glyphs

Choosing the correct glyphs as an Affliction Warlock is very straightforward.

2.2.1. Prime Glyphs

In all single target situations, you should use the following 3 Prime Glyphs:

• Glyph of Corruption, which gives your ticks from Corruption a 4% chance to make your next Shadow Bolt instant cast.
• Glyph of Haunt, which increases the damage bonus from Haunt by 3% (normally, using Haunt increases the damage of your Shadow damage DoTs on the target by 20% for 12 seconds).
• Glyph of Unstable Affliction, which reduces the cast time of your Unstable Affliction by 0.2 seconds.

In an encounter where you will use your DoTs on more than one target (and where you will, therefore, use Bane of Agony), you can consider replacing Glyph of Unstable Affliction with Glyph of Bane of Agony.

2.2.2. Major Glyphs

There are several viable choices for Major Glyphs, although we recommend the first three in most cases:

• Glyph of Life Tap, which reduces the global cooldown of Life Tap by 0.5 seconds.
• Glyph of Shadow Bolt, which reduces the mana cost of Shadow Bolt by 15%.
• Glyph of Soul Swap, which causes your Soul Swap to leave the DoTs on the target you are casting Soul Swap on, thus allowing you to essentially copy your DoTs and have them up on two targets, as opposed to simply transferring them. As a drawback, it gives Soul Swap a 30 second cooldown. This glyph is essential in multiple-target fights.
• Glyph of Healthstone, which increases the amount of healing you receive from healthstones by 30%. Note that this only applies to healing you receive, and not the healing other players receive when they use your healthstones.
• Glyph of Soulstone, which causes the target of your Create Soulstone to come back to life with an additional 40% health. Note that this health increase is only present when you use Soulstone as a combat resurrection, not when you cast it on someone before they have died.

2.2.3. Minor Glyphs

The benefit gained from Minor glyphs is very small. There are only two Minor glyphs that you should use in every situation. They are:

• Glyph of Drain Soul, which causes your Drain Soul to restore 10% of your maximum mana when you get a killing blow with it.
• Glyph of Health Funnel, which reduces the pushback you receive while channeling Health Funnel by 100%.

For the third glyph slot, your options are:

• Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion, which increases the range of your Curse of Exhaustion by 5 yards. You should only take this if you have taken Curse of Exhaustion in your build.
• Glyph of Unending Breath, which increases the swim speed of targets affected by Unending Breath by 20%. It may prove useful in some encounters, although there is no such situation in the current tier of raiding.