AFFLI WARLOCK ADVANCED TIPS

MALEFIC RAPTURE AND SOUL ROT

In this next part of the course, we're going to be going through the fundamental abilities of Affliction one by one, allowing you to fully understand how each ability works and how the pros use them to win games. First, we're going to be starting with Malefic Rapture and Soul Rot.

Dealing damage to every dotted target within line of sight of us, Malefic Rapture is our 100-yard range shard dump, enabling us to spend Soul Shards to send out massive AoE damage to the entire enemy team, dealing more damage to targets that have more dots.

The fact is drilled down further in the Affliction tree with talents such as Focused Malignancy, making our primary kill target take more damage from Malefic Rapture due to them having Unstable Affliction on them.

As well as the Cull of the Weak talent, further incentivizing us to keep those agonies and corruptions on pets by increasing our Malefic Rapture damage on everyone when we have Malignancy on all of our enemies. More targets dotted.

Because of this scaling dot damage and the fact that Malefic Rapture AoEs, we're going to be using it a ton throughout our games to destroy multiple targets at once, but especially when we've generated the Soul Harvester Succulent Shards buff, further increasing our Malefic Rapture's damage by another 20%.

It's a good idea to get a tracker for this so you don't end up wasting this potent damage amplifier throughout your games. Now, speaking of frocks, another buff that you really should be taking note of is Tornado.

Tornado is a buff that allows us to get a free-of-charge Rapture occasionally when we Shadowbolt targets with UA, Agony, and Corruption, so make sure you're always spending those when you get them as it only stacks twice.

Due to this buff and the amount of damage that Nightfall actually deals, we want to be using Nightfall procs in our Rapture window whenever they proc, as the instant free Raptures can chunk down the enemy team rapidly.

Okay, now we know what Malefic Rapture does, let's get into how we can actually use it, and how we can use it properly. Now, as mentioned earlier in the course, Malefic Rapture has been altered to be on the Shadowflame school, which is absolutely massive for us going into the War Within.

This is because it will allow us to simply soak kicks without needing to fake cast, as we can still generate huge pressure while we're locked on our other high-value spells. This spell school change alone is the biggest buff Affliction has received in years.

We also briefly mentioned that it has a whole lot of value, and it's a great way to get a full 100-yard range, which is actually absurd when you consider every other spell caps out at about half of that. Now for the elephant in the room.

We need to talk about Solroth, which is the window where we're going to be using our Rapture the most. Now, this is for several reasons, one being the Call of the Weak talent, as we said earlier, amplifying our damage as Solroth will hit multiple targets.

Another is due to Dark Harvest, giving us a massive haste and crit boost, depending on how many players and pets we manage to hit.

But the biggest one is thanks to a combination of Malign Omen and Soul Harvester's Shadow of Death talent, giving us two 20% damage amplifiers each, as well as it granting us three soul shards and increasing our dot duration.

All this combined makes Malefic Rapture hit like a truck, even going as far to be equally as strong as Shadowbolt on single target. Now, because of this, we don't need to build up soul shards for our setup like in Dragonfly.

We can simply just get our dots up and then burst with Raptures. The only thing you need to make sure of is that you can actually cast Malefic Rapture after you put Solroth up, or you shouldn't bother Solrothing at all.

It's all about buffing the Malefic Rapture afterwards. Alright, that about sums it up for Malefic Rapture and Solroth.

Join us in our next video, all about Dark Glare.

DARKGLARE TIPS

All right, leading on from our Malefic Rapture and Solrath video, we're now going to be covering Dark Glare, the biggest offensive tool in our entire kit.

Coming in at a two-minute cooldown, Summon Dark Glare will extend all of our damage over time effects on anyone in the arena by eight seconds, regardless of if they're in line of sight or not.

Other than this, our Dark Glare will also deal a ton of damage to its main target per each dot active on them, which is further increased due to Malevolent Visionary, so you really want to make sure you're extending as many dots at one time as possible.

Because of these reasons, we're always going to be using Dark Glare after we've applied Solrath and Phantom Singularity as to make sure we're squeezing out the most damage possible.

Other than getting all those dots up before using it, it's also a pretty good idea to get your in a position that will allow you to smash out Malefic Raptures after Dark Glaring.

This is really strong, as due to the extended dot duration, we won't have to focus on maintaining for a while, allowing us to just send Raptures over and over and over.

And while we're on the subject of positioning here, we're also going to make sure that when we use Dark Glare, we're using it on a target in the open, as otherwise, it can really tend to bug out.

As for when to use Dark Glare, generally, we're going to want to use it as soon as you're in a position where you can get a lot of damage. We're going to want to use Dark Glare as soon as we can get a lot of damage.

We're going to want to use Dark Glare as soon as we can get a lot of damage.

SHADOWBOLT AND HAUNT

In this video, we're going to be going over our two highest hitting single target abilities, Shadow Bolt and Haunt.

Now, both of these abilities are exceptionally powerful in The War Within, as they both hit very hard and apply our Shadow's Embrace debuff to the target, increasing their shadow damage taken by 4%, stacking two times.

When you're playing Soul Harvester, Shadow Bolt is an even bigger part of our rotation, as we're going to be getting tons of Nightfall procs throughout the game, which not only make them instant, but also increase their damage a ton, especially because of the Necrolite Teachings talent.

The damage of Nightfall is so significant, in fact, that we don't really want to bother hardcasting Shadow Bolt that often, as it just doesn't deal enough damage without a Nightfall proc to back it up.

And realistically, if you're doing your rotation correctly, there's not a lot of time to hardcast a Shadow Bolt anyway, as there's just so much maintenance to do as Affliction with all our dots and procs. Okay, so now we know that we generally only want to use Shadow Bolt with Nightfall, but when do we do this?

Well, the answer is that we must always be using Nightfall procs into targets with three dots on them for Withering Bolt to increase its damage.

And ideally, we also want to make sure that when we do this, we're hitting into Unstable Affliction, Corruption, and Agony as to proc our Tormented Crescendo, giving us a chance at a free instant Rapture afterwards. Doing this in quick succession can result in some ridiculous damage.

If you can't meet the check of having three dots on the target, then really don't worry about it, as you should have time to get them up before you use them, since Nightfall stacks up to two times and has a fairly long 12 second duration, so it's unlikely they're going to run out.

But if you really can't help it, just chuck it out with the Jinx, as you're going to be buffing your Shadow's Embrace either way, and the damage is still pretty strong. Now, as for Haunt, we're going to want to use this on cooldown every 15 seconds.

Its damage is huge, the debuff makes the target take more damage, and the Nightfall procs is too good to miss out on.

The only thing you really need to worry about with Haunt is the travel time, which can be a blessing when we're following up with our immediate instant Shadow Bolt for some crazy burst, or a curse when you're looking to Soul Swap its debuff, as you're going to need to wait a second for it to land before hitting that swap button, or risk not carrying over the debuff at all.

Want to know how to get the best Soul Swaps though? Then stay tuned, as we cover it all in our next video.

Thanks for watching!

SOULSWAP TIPS

In this video we're going to be going over one of the most iconic abilities in the Affliction Warlock kit, Soul Swap. Now Soul Swap as you may know has been nerfed going into the War Within as it's no longer a regular class talent and now takes up an entire PvP talent slot.

And unfortunately it still does the same exact thing, cloning our damage over time effects and slapping them onto another enemy of our choosing. And unlike Cataclysm, these dots won't have a new fresh duration, instead they just have the same length that they were copied at.

And because we're generally always playing with single target Unstable Affliction, Soul Swap can be a bit of a double edged sword, as we're going to be ripping our UA off our kill target when we use Soul Swap and there's really no work around this other than either swapping targets or reapplying it to our main target after swapping.

And although you may be thinking to yourself, but why don't we just use it? Why don't we just use an off target and then Soul Swap our main target?

And the answer to this is simple. We almost always want to be Soul Swapping to the healer as they are the target least likely to be in our line in the future.

So getting damage on them with Soul Swap allows us to easily whittle them down and force them to heal themselves instead of their DPS, reducing their offensive potential. It's also far more likely that the healer isn't stacking with their teammate, thus is not being hit by the Soul Rot that you're going to be using.

So that's why we're going to be using Soul Swap to heal our main target and then Soul Swap our main target. And seeing as this is one of the three major debuffs we care about Soul Swapping, we're going to really want to be making sure we have Soul Rot on as many people as possible.

Now you may have noticed we said debuffs instead of dots just there. Well that's because one of the other high priority abilities we're going to be looking to be swapping is Haunt which will apply a 10% damage increase to our Soul Swap target.

As well as Phantom Singularity which also applies a similar debuff to the target due to infirmity while also dealing decent ticking damage and being undispellable.

The perfect Soul Swap has all three of these spells transferred along with Agony and Corruption as it will simply deal the most dot damage while also making our following Malefic Raptors destroy two targets at once. We all know life isn't perfect though, so what happens with those Soul Swaps between Soul Rot?

I mean Soul Swaps is only a 30 second cooldown compared to Soul Rot's one minute. Well, you can either go the route of ignoring it or by using Soul Swap to simply transfer high stacks on Agony and Haunt's damage increase to another target.

It's not much, but there's really no downside as you're going to get your Soul Rot and Phantom Singularity back for the next one anyway. Having trouble with your Soul Shards?

Then join us in our next video as we're going to go over how to manage your resources properly.

MANAGING RESOURCES

Alright, now we are going to talk about our number one resource, Soul Shards. We're going to be covering how to generate them, how to spin them, and when to hold onto them.

Let's get into it. So first things first, how do we get Soul Shards?

We're going to be harvesting them from our Agony Ticks, as each tick has a chance to give us a Soul Shard. This means that it's imperative to try and pop an Agony on every enemy player in the arena, as you'll be able to keep those Shards flowing as you go through your rotation.

Other than Agony, if you're playing Soul Harvester, we'll also generate Shards through our Feast of Souls talent if you choose to play it, which will allow us to occasionally get a Shard when we use a Nightfall proc.

Which honestly, it's best not to worry about overcapping here, as if you're using a Nightfall proc, you're most likely in your burst phase and shouldn't care about maintenance in, and after all, it is RNG. Finally, we also gain three Soul Shards whenever we use Soul Rot, thanks to the Shadow of Death talent.

Which is awesome, as it guarantees... a strong Malefic Rapture window without having to fish for Shards before going into it. So what exactly should we use our Shards for other than Raptures?

Well, Soul Shards are incredibly important, not just for our Rapture burst, but also for our maintenance and survival. This is because we need to have Soul Shards for Jinx, which allows us to apply Agony, Corruption, and our Cursed debuff with the press of one button, saving us a ton of Globals.

At the start of the game, you should be looking to spend two Shards instantly, At the start of the game, you should be looking to spend two Shards instantly, on Jinx on two players to get the ball rolling, and generate your Nightfall procs, as well as more Shards.

However, it's important to hold onto one Shard, as it allows you to use it for your other important Shard-using ability, Soul Burn. Now, as the game plays on, you don't need to worry about Shards as often, as you should be generating them as fast as you spin them.

However, it's still a very good rule of thumb to hold onto one Shard, in case you need to use Soul Burn in a pinch to buff Health Stone or benefit from that Teleport Sprint. Finally, as a last note on Shards, let's talk a little bit more about Malefic Rapture, as it's not just for Soul Ride.

You can actually deal pretty good damage with it, like you see here, you just need to stack a few Shards in advance. And it's not just great at dealing damage, though.

It's also excellent to dual-school with. So just keep some Shards in the tank, so that you can cast Rapture when you're gonna get kicked, meaning that you're not completely useless when you get locked on that Shadow spell.

Now, Shards aren't the only thing we need to manage for offense. Now, Shards aren't the only thing we need to manage for offense.

Now, Shards aren't the only thing we need to manage for offense as a Warlock, though. So stay tuned as we dive into the world of Offensive Affliction Mobility.

AFFLI MOBILITY TIPS

Welcome back! Now it's time for us to take a look at using our mobility for offense, which will allow us to deal more damage and set up far more kills.

Now, when you think of using mobility for offense, you may be a little bit confused. Warlocks are generally playing that goalkeeper in the back, right?

Defending their team and dealing damage from afar. Well, my friend, yes, this is true.

However, this doesn't mean that we can't use our mobility tools for offense as well. Take this teleport FaZe does here, for instance.

Yes, it does get him away from the Rett and the Hunter pets, making him take less damage. But on the flip side, he's now out of range of interrupts, meaning that he's able to free cast and deal more damage from this play than on the surface seems like solely a defensive maneuver.

We can also use Gateway with the same mindset here, especially because our Malefic Raptors have that massive 100-yard range.

Additionally, we can use our Soul Burn with our teleport to help us connect to our Torch, which makes our targets easier due to its sprint effect, as it allows us to easily cross the map much faster than we usually would have.

As a last note on increasing our damage, we can also increase our output with our teleport by manipulating space. The further you pull back when facing a melee, the further they have to push away from their healer, resulting in them eventually having to back off or trade defensives to stay on you.

Now, other than using our mobility for extra damage, we can also use it to enable crowd control, especially now we're more reliant on setups and burst damage.

SURVIVING VS. MELEE

Surviving melee pressure is one of the biggest challenges for an Affliction Warlock, so let's break down how to stay alive longer. Now, some players are going to claim Warlocks are incredibly squishy, dying as soon as the gates open.

Then you're going to hear other people see them as tanky casters that take forever to bring down. So which one of these is going to be true?

Well, the answer lies in decision making. With proper cooldown management, Affliction Warlocks can survive efficiently.

Trading a defensive every 30 seconds means there's always something available to counter incoming burst. Now, the first key to survival is knowing how to use your defensives effectively.

Dark Pact should be your opening tool, since it absorbs more damage when used at high health. This means it'll be significantly stronger at the start of a match, making it the best first layer defense.

However, against melee cooldowns, Dark Pact alone won't always be the best. So, if you're going to be using Dark Pact, you should be using it as a enough.

That's where Demonic Gateway comes in. Using these two together early in the game is completely fine.

You need to stay alive while applying pressure. If you hold them for too long, you're going to take overwhelming damage and you're going to die before getting any real value from them.

Now, as a top tip here, remember that Gateway can be used with Soul Burn, allowing us to quickly escape sticky situations like Death Knight setups or Warrior Spear Ghosts. So, if you've burned through Gateways, you can use it as a way to survive.

But if you're going to be using it as a gateway and Pact, Demonic Circle Teleport becomes your next escape tool, forcing melee to burn their mobility cooldowns just to keep up.

After teleporting, you're going to gain precious time to chain cast and get dots out, while also grabbing that 8% damage reduction from Abyss Walker. One of the biggest mistakes Warlocks make is overlapping Dark Pact and Teleport at the same time.

Doing this often results in running out of cooldowns way too quickly, which almost guarantees death in the game. So, if you're going to be using Dark Pact, you should be using it as a way to keep up your health.

Following this, we then have our Health Stone, which we should absolutely use with Soul Burn every time to get as much healing as possible.

While it may seem backwards to use this cooldown after Teleport and Pact due to its longer 1 minute cooldown, by using mobility first, we can be more offensive, which is much better than just standing still and trying to Health Stone through the pain.

Next, if the situation calls for it, Unending Resolve is our last strong option, ensuring your survival. So, if you're going to be using it as a way to keep up your survival during the biggest of cooldowns.

Even though it might seem like a lot of cooldowns are being used here, the key thing to remember is that because you're trading them early, they're going to come back sooner, keeping you in the fight for much, much longer.

Now, at the end of it all, in the absolute most dire situations, we then have our recently buffed Drain Life. Now, this isn't going to do much healing, but by combining it with Soul Burn, we can sometimes pick ourselves up enough to escape near death.

Just make sure not to, rely on it as an actual defensive, as it is pretty weak.