Why this build
How the build works
This Affliction Warlock build puts your damage in DoTs and drains while your pet holds the target. Improved Corruption removes 2 seconds from Corruption’s cast, making it instant at five ranks, and adds 10% damage. Suppression gives 5% hit and 20% less threat, so your DoTs actually land on same-level mobs and you do not pull them off the pet. Improved Drains adds 20% to Drain Life, Drain Soul and Drain Mana; Drain Life is your filler and your healing.
The second half of the build is crit. Pandemic doubles the crit damage bonus on Corruption, Bane of Agony, Drain Life, Drain Soul and Siphon Life, and three points of Malevolence add 3% crit to Shadow spells. Improved Bane of Agony adds 10% to Bane of Agony. Together they make your DoTs hit harder over a pull without adding cast time.
Not everyone takes the crit talents at 30. One popular guide argues you have too little crit at this level and prefers a drain-tank setup with Fel Concentration (70% pushback protection on drains) and Improved Life Tap. Both are reasonable; the crit version kills a little faster, the drain-tank version is steadier.
Leveling tips
Levels 10 to 14 go into Improved Corruption, 15 to 19 into Suppression. Until your late twenties, the loop is simple: pet in, DoTs up, wand the target down. Around 30, switch to drain tanking: DoT, then Drain Life while your pet holds aggro, then Life Tap the health back into mana.
Keep the Voidwalker for safety while learning pulls. For two mobs, Fear one while you DoT and drain the other. In dungeons, put Curse of the Elements on caster-heavy groups or Curse of Recklessness for melee groups, and skip DoTs on trash that dies before they tick out.
Changes in WoW Forever
Affliction has several new talents. Pandemic and Malevolence give it crit scaling Classic never had, Soul Siphon now adds 12% drain damage per other Affliction effect on the target, and Wrack becomes the filler at 40. Curse of Agony is now Bane of Agony. On 15 Oct Grim Reach replaced Malediction, and on 30 Oct Improved Drains was changed to cover Drain Mana instead of Wrack.
Toward level 60
Provisional. The most planned leveling path ends around 35 points in Affliction (Malevolence 5, Nightfall, Siphon Life, Soul Siphon, Shadow Mastery and Wrack) with 11 in Demonology for Demonic Embrace, Fel Vitality and Demonic Sacrifice. One guide finishes leveling with Demonic Sacrifice at 41. Few players have tested any of this past 30.