Warlock Affliction Rotation & Opener

First ~12 casts of actual top-ranked kills. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Agony 2 Wither 3 Wither 4 Unstable Affliction 5 Dark Harvest 6 The King's Unyielding Wind 7 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 8 Summon DarkglareOff-GCD 9 Malevolence 10 Unstable Affliction 11 Unstable Affliction 12 Unstable Affliction 13 Unstable Affliction 14 Malefic Grasp 15 Agony

1 Haunt 2 Agony 3 Wither 4 Wither 5 Malevolence 6 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 7 Emberwing HeatwaveOff-GCD 8 Dark Harvest 9 Summon DarkglareOff-GCD 10 Unstable Affliction 11 Unstable Affliction 12 Unstable Affliction 13 Unstable Affliction 14 Unstable Affliction 15 Unstable Affliction

1 Haunt 2 Unstable Affliction 3 Agony 4 Wither 5 Agony 6 Wither 7 Malevolence 8 Empowering Venom 9 Summon DarkglareOff-GCD 10 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 11 Dark Harvest 12 Unstable Affliction 13 Unstable Affliction 14 Unstable Affliction 15 Unstable Affliction

#showtooltip Haunt
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Summon Darkglare
/cast Haunt

Ability	Top-player CPM
Unstable Affliction	15.7
Shadow Bolt	10.1
Agony	9.2
Haunt	3.2
Malefic Grasp	2.5
Wither	1.3
Dark Harvest	1.0
Malevolence	1.0
Dark PactOff-GCD	0.9
Burning Rush	0.9
Summon DarkglareOff-GCD	0.6
SoulburnOff-GCD	0.4
Mortal Coil	0.4

CPM = median casts per minute across the sampled top kills. If you're far below on a core ability, that's usually the first thing to fix.

First ~12 casts after the pull starts, taken from actual top key runs: the AoE opener is the first pack of the run, the single-target opener is the first boss. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Curse of Weakness 2 Agony 3 Agony 4 Burning Rush 5 Agony 6 Agony 7 Agony 8 Agony 9 Agony 10 Dark PactOff-GCD 11 Agony 12 Agony 13 Agony 14 Haunt 15 Seed of Corruption

1 Curse of Weakness 2 Agony 3 Agony 4 Agony 5 Agony 6 Agony 7 Agony 8 Agony 9 Agony 10 Agony 11 Dark PactOff-GCD 12 Haunt 13 Agony 14 Agony 15 Seed of Corruption

1 Curse of Tongues 2 Agony 3 Agony 4 Dark PactOff-GCD 5 Agony 6 Haunt 7 Seed of Corruption 8 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 9 Seed of Corruption 10 Dark Harvest 11 Empowering Venom 12 Summon DarkglareOff-GCD 13 Seed of Corruption 14 Seed of Corruption 15 Seed of Corruption

#showtooltip Curse of Weakness
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Curse of Weakness

Collected from public Patch 12.1 guides and checked for this patch. Spell names follow the language you selected on this site and must match your game client. If a macro does not work on your client, report it with the button on the card.

#showtooltip Corruption
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][harm] Corruption

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Agony

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Haunt

#showtooltip Banish
/use [mod:shift,@focus][] Banish

#showtooltip Soulstone
/target [@mouseover] Soulstone
/use Soulstone
/targetlasttarget

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/use [mod:shift] Demonic Circle(Summon); [nomod] Demonic Circle: Teleport(Teleport)

#showtooltip
/use [known:Shadowfury,@cursor] Shadowfury; [known:Howl of Terror] Howl of Terror

/petattack

Keybinds are personal — this is not a layout to copy wholesale. What it does say is which abilities you press most, measured from the same top parses above: the more often an ability is cast, the less effort its key should take. Interrupts, defensives and movement are deliberately left out; they barely register in cast data yet must always be within reach, so choose those yourself.

Rows marked Passive are not pressed at all — they fire on their own (auto-attacks, procs) and get no key, even though they top the casts-per-minute table.

Key	Ability	Top-player CPM
1	Unstable Affliction	15.7
2	Seed of Corruption	11.0
3	Shadow Bolt	10.2
4	Agony	9.2
5	Haunt	3.2
Z	Malefic Grasp	2.5
X	Wither	1.3
C	Dark Harvest	1.2
V	Malevolence	1.0
R	Dark PactOff-GCD	0.9
F	Burning Rush	0.9
T	Summon DarkglareOff-GCD	0.6
G	SoulburnOff-GCD	0.4
Shift+1	Mortal Coil	0.4
Shift+2	Corruption	0.4
Shift+3	Empowering Venom	0.4
Shift+4	Curse of Tongues	0.4