Affliction Warlock TBC Classic PvP Talent Builds

This is the SL/SL (Soul Link / Siphon Life) build - the mandatory and undeniably best spec for Warlock arena. You put 36 points into Demonology down to Soul Link, and 25 points into Affliction up to Siphon Life.

Soul Link is what makes Warlock so durable. Without this, you won't be having much fun in arena. It shares 20% of damage taken with your pet.

Siphon Life gives you an extra DoT that also heals you, providing sustained damage and survivability.

Master Demonologist gives you resistances with your Felhunter out, further contributing to your durability.

Fel Domination allows you to quickly resummon your pet. This is crucial for getting Soul Link back up or resetting pet cooldowns.

Curse of Exhaustion gives you a reliable slow, essential for kiting melee and keeping targets in range.

This variant swaps points out of Demonic Resilience and puts them into Mana Feed. This is a trade-off between durability (Demonic Resilience is great for double DPS comps) versus mana sustain (Mana Feed gives your pet less chance of running out of mana in longer games).

This build goes deep into the Affliction tree to pick up Unstable Affliction, sacrificing some durability for significantly more damage. UA provides an extra powerful DoT that also punishes dispels - if an enemy dispels it, they take damage and are silenced for 5 seconds.

Without Soul Link, you are much squishier, so this build is better suited for later seasons when you have more resilience gear. It excels in compositions where you have strong peels from your teammates and can freecast.