Affliction plays as upkeep around a filler. You keep one curse, one bane and two dots on the boss, cast Shadow Bolt in every gap, and Life Tap when your mana runs low. There is no burst window to save for.
Before the pull
- 1At -1.5 s: Cast
Life Tap
Have your Succubus out and Demon Armor on: the simulated fight starts with both, and 
Summon Succubus is a 10-second cast that takes a Soul Shard.
A Life Tap 1.5 seconds before the pull spends health you would lose anyway, but you start on a full mana bar, so it adds almost nothing (0.1 %).
On one-minute fights, press 
Amplify Curse at or just before the pull, so your first Bane of Agony takes its 50 %.
Priority
Whenever you are free to cast, the highest line whose condition is met is your next spell.
- 1Cast the potion if time remaining ≥ 15 s and mana % ≤ 75%1.0/min–
- 2Cast
Demonic Rune if time remaining ≥ 15 s and mana % ≤ 60%1.0/min– - 3Use the other cooldowns as they come up+39 DPS · 5.2 %
- 4Cast
Shadowburn if time remaining ≤ 1.53.9/min+12 DPS · 1.6 % - 5Cast
Searing Pain if time remaining ≤ 3.51.3/min+10 DPS · 1.4 % - 6Cast Life Tap if mana % < 10%1.0/min–
- 7Cast
Curse of the Elements if Curse of the Elements not active on the target1.1/min+48 DPS · 6.4 % - 8Cast
Bane of Agony if 
Bane of Doom not ticking and Bane of Agony remaining ≤ Bane of Agony cast time3.3/min+85 DPS · 11.2 % - 9Cast
Corruption if Corruption remaining ≤ Corruption cast time3.3/min+76 DPS · 10.0 % - 10Cast
Immolate if Immolate remaining ≤ Immolate cast time4.1/min+40 DPS · 5.3 % - 11Cast Shadowburn3.9/min+6.4 DPS · 0.9 %
- 12Cast
Shadow Bolt14/min+323 DPS · 42.8 %
What the widget can't show:
- Curse of the Elements whenever the boss lacks it. It shares the boss with your bane, so it costs only a global cooldown. In our fights yours is the raid's only copy, which is why the line is worth 6.4 %. One copy per boss is all the raid gets, so if another warlock's is up, leave it.
- Bane of Doom while a minute or more is left, so only on fights of two minutes or more. It deals 1,742 plus four times your spell power a minute after the cast, and Pandemic lets it crit for double. Doom and Bane of Agony share the bane slot, so on a three-minute fight Doom goes out at the pull and again a minute later, and Agony covers the last minute. On a three-minute single-boss fight the Doom line adds 2.5 %.
- Bane of Agony when no Doom is ticking. Its ticks ramp: the first four carry half the base damage, the last four one and a half, while the spell power part is the same on every tick. Let it run its 24 seconds rather than recasting it. The line is worth 11.2 %.
- Corruption and Immolate when they have less time left than their cast takes. The new one lands as the old one ends, so you lose no tick. Corruption's line is worth 10.0 %. Immolate does 10.9 % of your damage on a three-minute single-boss fight, yet its line is worth only 2.6 %, because the Shadow Bolt that would fill its cast time does nearly as much.
- Life Tap below 10 % mana (8 % on the two- and three-minute fights against three bosses). On fights of two minutes or more it is what keeps you casting, worth 24.9 % on three minutes. On one-minute fights you start with enough mana and barely tap.
- Shadow Bolt in every other gap. Its line is worth 42.8 %. When Nightfall makes one instant, cast it straight away.
- Fast spells at the end. In the last few seconds a Shadow Bolt won't land: it needs its 2.5-second cast plus its flight, 1.25 seconds from the 25 yards of our single-boss fights. Cast Searing Pain instead, which takes 1.5 seconds and has no flight. Builds with Shadowburn also use it in the final second and a half, and the one-minute single-boss build casts it on cooldown between bolts. On a real boss, start these when it is about to die.
More than one target
Against three bosses, every boss gets Bane of Agony, Corruption and Immolate before you cast a Shadow Bolt, and on fights of two minutes or more Bane of Doom still goes on the first boss. On a three-minute fight against three bosses Corruption does 28.3 % of your damage, Bane of Agony 24.2 % and Immolate 20.6 %, against 11.1 % for Shadow Bolt. The Agony on each extra boss is worth 5.6 %. You also tap more: 5.6 Life Taps a minute against 4.1 on one boss.
Cooldowns
Affliction brings no damage cooldown of its own. What you do press:
Talisman of Ascendance first thing in the fight, then each minute as it comes back. Forever's dots tick on your current spell power, so its stacks raise the ticks already running.- Racials on cooldown from the pull: Blood Fury for Orcs, Berserking for Trolls and Eureka! for Gnomes.
Major Mana Potion once you are at 75 % mana or less, and Demonic Rune at 60 % or less (45 % on the two- and three-minute fights against three bosses), neither in the last 15 seconds. Each has its own two-minute cooldown, so the sim uses both.
| Cooldown | Uses | At |
|---|---|---|
| Talisman of Ascendance | 1 | 0:00 |
| Amplify Curse | 1 | 0:00 |
| Major Mana Potion | 1 | 0:12 |
| Demonic Rune | 1 | 0:31 |
What your log should show
Open your Warcraft Logs report next to this table and compare it spell by spell.
| Ability | Casts per minute | Of damage | Crit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shadow Bolt | 14.5 | 41.5 % | 22.7 % |
| Bane of Agony | 3.3 | 15.0 % | 22.6 % |
| Corruption | 3.3 | 13.7 % | 22.7 % |
| Immolate | 4.1 | 10.7 % | 17.6 % |
| Succubus: Auto attackpet | 30.0 | 9.0 % | 18.3 % |
| Shadowburn | 3.9 | 7.7 % | 22.7 % |
| Searing Pain | 1.3 | 1.5 % | 28.1 % |
Succubus:  Lash of Painpet | 5.0 | 0.9 % | 17.8 % |
| Talisman of Ascendance | 1.0 | – | – |
| Life Tap | 1.0 | – | – |
| Amplify Curse | 1.0 | – | – |
| Major Mana Potion | 1.0 | – | – |
| Succubus: OtherActionManaGainpet | 17.3 | – | – |
| Curse of the Elements | 1.1 | – | – |
| Demonic Rune | 1.0 | – | – |
Look for about 14.5 Shadow Bolts a minute, Corruption up 89.7 % of the fight and Immolate 80.5 %.
Your Succubus should do about 9.9 % of your damage. If it does much less, it isn't attacking the boss you are.
Uptimes
| Buff or debuff | Uptime | Times per fight |
|---|---|---|
| Bane of Agonyon the boss | 92.7 % | 3.0 |
| Corruptionon the boss | 89.7 % | 3.0 |
| Immolateon the boss | 80.5 % | 3.8 |
| Shadow Vulnerabilityon the boss | 41.3 % | 3.0 |
| Ascendance | 33.4 % | 1.0 |
| Ascendance | 33.3 % | 1.0 |
| Amplify Curse | 2.9 % | 1.0 |
 Shadow Trance | 1.2 % | 0.4 |
On one boss, Shadow Vulnerability is the debuff to watch. It is up 41.3 % of the fight here, and since only your Shadow Bolt crits renew it, a low number means too few bolts.