Warlock Affliction Grinding to 60 Build

This is the best grinding build up to level 60. Put all 41 of your first points in Affliction, then decide what to do from there. Make sure you get Dark Pact as soon as possible; this talent is what makes drain tanking truly effective. Finally, make sure you have a significant amount of +dmg gear before you put any points into Empowered Corruption.

The last ten points after getting Unstable Affliction are debatable; some would prefer to put them in Suppression and/or Demonic Embrace. Getting Bane like in the build shown will greatly improve single target DPS in instances, and at 61 you can get Shadowburn, which is nifty.

Before 56, Affliction is chosen over Demonology and Destruction for many reasons. Affliction uses instant casts and channeled spells that are given protection with Fel Concentration. This reduces the amount of time wasted attempting to cast on an enemy beating on you and also makes it so you are not reliant on pet mana/agro to grind. The DoT's are very mana efficient, and with +dmg gear, Drain Life is extremely powerful. On top of this, you have Life Tap and Dark Pact to keep your health/mana pools consistently high; you shouldn't have any downtime. Also, Affliction does well against multiple opponents.

Destruction isn't taken because it has a lot of downtime and does not deal with multiple mobs as well as Affliction does. It kills single targets faster and is probably better for instancing, but soloing is a pain. Demonology isn't taken at the early levels because it lacks DPS talents lower in the tree. Demonology's powerful DPS talents aren't found until you are deep inside the tree, and even then they are not worth getting until you have some points left over for Affliction.