PvE Affliction Warlock Gems, Enchants & Consumables

pve lich king affliction warlock glyphs, gems, enchants, & consumables
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Affliction Warlock Overview

Talents & Builds

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

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Stat Priority

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Best Races

Gems, Enchants, & Consumables

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

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Rotation & Cooldowns

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Best Professions

Gear & Best In Slot (bis)

Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

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Addons & Macros

Besides your gear and talents, there are 3 additional ways you as a player can increase your character’s power: gems, enchants, and consumables, which make your character significantly more powerful when combined correctly.

Many guilds and raid groups may not invite you at all if you don’t have the correct gems, enchants, and consumables — but worry not, this guide will help you avoid that problem!

Gems

This gem will be your strongest option for the meta slot by a long shot. In combination with 5/5 Ruin this causes our critical hits to deal 209% damage instead of 200% (or 150% without ruin and CSD).

Spell power is your most vital stat, as explained in the Stat Priority section (right after Hit Rating). The only time you would not be using Red gems is when there is a socket bonus available that requires other gems (or to reach your meta bonus) and in total is of higher value than using only Red gems.

You will be using these gems in every other socket color if you don’t care about the item’s socket bonus or need to activate your meta gem.

These gems are decent, but pure spell power gems are better. Therefore, you should only socket these if the item has a powerful socket bonus which in total outweighs socketing pure spell power.

If you’re close to the hit cap (explained in the Stat Priority section) but haven’t quite reached it, you can also choose to use a couple of Veiled Monarch Topaz (9sp 8hit) | Veiled Ametrine (12sp 10hit). This is the last resort however, avoid deliberately socketing these for hit, odds are you can make better gear choices or use Snapper Extreme.

We need at least 2 blue gems to activate your meta gem, Spirit and Spell Power are our best options for this — Blue socket slots are the best option for this as long as they are part of an exemplary socket bonus (<= +5 spell power). Some more info about this later.

What to Socket When?

We always want to use Red Pure Spell Power gems unless;

  1. Socket bonus + other gems outweigh the total value of the socket slots x pure spell sower gems.
  2. We still need blue gems for our meta requirement, in which case we want to put them in items with good sockets bonuses.

Let’s say we use epic gems, and use the following stat weights (which will obviously depend on your gear level):

Stat
DPS Value
Spell Power
1.72
Haste Rating
1.62
Spirit
0.88
rough early T9 / high end T8 statweights
  • Dying Light
    Pure red gems: 2 x 23 sp = 79.12 DPS
    Yellow & blue: 24 sp, 10 haste, 10 spirit = 66.28 DPS + 7 DPS = 73.28 DPS
    Or 5.85 DPS less, not a gain but also not a bad option if we still need Blue gems for our meta bonus.
  • Lingering Illness
    Pure red gems: 2 x 23 sp = 79.12 DPS
    Red + orange = 35 sp, 10 haste = 76.4 DPS + 7 = 83.4 DPS
    Or 4.28 DPS gain.

Luckily we don’t always have to do these calculations manually and can rely on simulation tools (the same place we get stat weights).

Enchants

This is your only viable option for this slot.

If you don’t quite have the Kirin Tor reputation necessary to buy it yet, you can temporarily use Arcanum of Dominance (purchased with 40 Stone Keeper’s Shard from Wintergrasp).

Players with the Inscription profession should use their profession-exclusive Master’s Inscription of the Storm enchant here, while everyone else uses Greater Inscription of the Storm.

If you don’t quite have The Sons of Hodir reputation necessary to buy it yet, you can temporarily use Inscription of Dominance (purchased with 30 Stone Keeper’s Shard from Wintergrasp).

Players with the Tailoring profession should use their profession-exclusive Lightweave Embroidery enchant here, while everyone else uses Scroll of Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed.

Players with the Engineering profession can use Springy Arachnoweave instead, for the fun slow fall effect.

This is your only viable option for this slot. Scroll of Enchant Chest – Major Spirit is the biggest DPS gain.

Players with the Leatherworking profession should use their profession-exclusive Fur Lining – Spell Power enchant here, while everyone else uses Scroll of Enchant Bracer – Superior Spellpower.

Additionally, players with the Blacksmithing profession should use Socket Bracer to add an extra socket to their bracers. It stacks with enchants.

Players with the Engineering profession should use their profession-exclusive Hyperspeed Accelerators enchant here, while everyone else uses Scroll of Enchant Gloves – Exceptional Spellpower.

Additionally, players with the Blacksmithing profession should use Socket Gloves to add an extra socket to their gloves. It stacks with enchants.

This is your only option for this slot.

This is your best option for this slot.

If you’re strapped for cash, you could use the more budget-friendly Shining Spellthread instead.

Players with the Engineering profession should use their profession-exclusive Nitro Boosts enchant here, while everyone else uses Scroll of Enchant Boots – Tuskarr’s Vitality.

If you’re strapped for cash, you could use the more budget-friendly Enchant Boots – Icewalker instead, making sure it doesn’t push you past the hit cap.

Players with the Enchanting profession should use their profession-exclusive Enchant Ring – Greater Spellpower enchant here. There are no other options.

Blackmagic is another close option that you could use.

Consumables

The Flask of the Frost Wyrm is the strongest option for the flask/elixir slot.

Like with your gems, you’ll want to prioritize spell power food (Fish Feast).

In a pinch, you can also use hit rating (Snapper Extreme) food, in order to hit your hit cap. This is only a last resort, however — do not rely on it for your cap.

Using potions in combat applies Potion Sickness in WotLK, which prevents using another potion as long as you are in combat. You can technically use two potions by consuming your first right before entering combat, this still puts your potions on a normal 1-minute cooldown but allows for the use of a second once it wears off. There are two potions of interest to us:

Demons just like hunter pets deserve a treat from time to time. Spiced Mammoth Treats increase the stats of our demons by +30 strength and stamina making them a tad bit stronger and sturdier. It should be noted that this can also be used to buff our Infernal.

Engineering provides us with a buttload of goodies. The most important consumables of these that we can use in combat are Saronite Bomb and Global Thermal Sapper Charge (requires goblin engineering). These provide a solid amount of damage and can be used during global cooldowns, for example when you cast Life Tap.

Flame Cap increases our fire damage, we don’t use any actual fire damage pell as Affliction. However, if we don’t have any shadow-specific damage, our highest spell school is fire. In practice, this extra fire damage will be carried over to spell power and attack power for our pet.

Grand Spellstone increases our haste rating but also makes it so that our periodic damage is increased by 1%, which is a bigger source of our damage than our direct damage.

 

About the Author

Zephan

I am a Classic Warlock enthusiast and in general like theorycrafting. I am the owner and admin of the best community in the whole wide world, being the Classic Warlock Discord. This is the home of some of the best Warlocks in this game and the basis for theorycrafting and figuring out the optimal plays for us warlocks. My aim is to make sure this up-to-date information is out there everywhere to be found and to give back to the community.
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Ferran
Ferran
2 years ago

The enchant Icewalker for the boots is better than the tuskarr’s vitality enchant (in my opinion, 12 hit and 12 crit is by far a lot better)

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Frank41
Frank41
Reply to  Ferran
1 year ago

funny how you get voted down but no one is saying why you are wrong lol pahtetic

Last edited 1 year ago by Frank41
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Passion
Passion
Reply to  Frank41
1 year ago

Well, the Icewalker enchant is suggested as well under the boot tab, but also it generally is not better, because Warlocks have no other source of 8% movement speed, and being slower than everyone else in your raid is generally frowned upon.

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Willow
Willow
2 years ago

Use all red sp gems? Might be my problem then. I tried to use sp/haste gems and use all correct matching sockets. So you recommend this except the blue gems to keep the meta gem active?

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wutaang
wutaang
2 years ago

the enchant for the meta gem requires 2 blue gems. and the valor set doesnt give any 2 blue gem sockets, all red n yellow

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