For those newer warlocks wondering about Demonic Servitude

[Zargul]

In response to some posts I've seen lately saying that doomguards and infernals as guardians are questionable in utility, thus a new talent making them "permanent" would also be fairly useless:

Before Doomguard and Inferno were 10-minute DPS cooldown "guardians" that lasted 1 minute, they were on an hour-long cooldown and spawned permanent(ish) mobs that could act as pets.

Initially, both the Doomguard and Inferno were hostile to the caster, but Enslave Demon would allow a warlock to keep it as a pet for either ~10 minutes or indefinitely (depending on the resist/diminished returns mechanics of the current game patch). Some time after that, Inferno started spawning an already-enslaved Infernal pet, which could still be further controlled after the initial spell ended.

Both pets replaced your active demon, because they used the Enslave Demon mechanics. They both had a pet bar and could be controlled like any other pet. Infernals had no active abilities, just their fire damage aura.

Doomguards originally were melee pets with 4 abilities:

Rain of Fire (same mechanics as the warlock spell)
War Stomp (similar to the tauren racial)
Cripple (a super powerful single-target version of thunderclap/thunderfury's old haste debuff)
Dispel Magic (no cooldown)

So, for periods of time in the past, it was possible to have a permanent infernal or doomguard pet. They were controlled just like other pets and in the case of the doomguard had a full suite of demon abilities.

I think it's safe to assume that Demonic Servitude will, at the very least, offer the same level of control to the "new" pets and probably a set of new abilities to use as well.

[Azutael]

Those where the times.

I am just curios how the grimoire talents will work with this one. Wish we could get more info already.

[Deleted]

I'm curious if it replaces the regular demon, and then if we can sacrifice it for even more damage...

I rather dislike the Doomguard because we have no control over him, and there are times when he's attacking the wrong target. So I would love to just transfer his damage over to me.

[torment3d]

I suspect that we will be able to sac the permanent doomguard and infernal. What I'm curious about is what their command pet abilities will be since they no longer have any abilities except for Doombolt and the infernal aura (don't know the name lol I never ever use it).

Edit: I'm certain it replaces the regular demon fully... The wording of the spell shows that these pets will be fully controllable and there is no way to have two pets under full control. Thus, GoSac will have no choice but to function for them. I plan on using that talent when I hit lvl 100 since I really dislike the other two choices. About GoSac though.... the damage buff we get from it is a flat increase no matter what pet we use to sac, so the command pet ability would have to be pretty awesome to justify taking both talents in tandem. Otherwise it would clearly be a case of having to use GoSup which is what I plan to do anyhow.

[Deleted]

I suspect you won't be able to sac them, since I'm guessing they won't replace your regular demons.

[Devildeer]

I miss the day when you sacrificed a party member to be able to summon the doomguard :3 I loved the ritual

[Grubjuice]

Those where the times.

I am just curios how the grimoire talents will work with this one. Wish we could get more info already.

me too!
i would guess that the Grimoires will all interact as one would expect:
* GoSup might give us a permanent Terrorguard or permanent Abyssal
* GoServ might give us a short doomguard or Infernal cooldown in addition to the perm-pet (but no 5min cooldown)
* GoSac will give us a +dmg Buff but it will be stronger than the one we get from sacrificing a baseline pet.

(these are just my speculations)

- - - Updated - - -

@the OP, thanks for the great history lesson!!

[Last Starfighter]

The best was when your curse of doom would spawn a hostile Doomguard. Many lulz were had.

[Nymfomania]

I miss the day when you sacrificed a party member to be able to summon the doomguard :3 I loved the ritual

You sir, are my hero.

I also liked the stones, fire stone and the one that looked like ice.

[Zargul]

I'm curious if it replaces the regular demon, and then if we can sacrifice it for even more damage...

I rather dislike the Doomguard because we have no control over him, and there are times when he's attacking the wrong target. So I would love to just transfer his damage over to me.

In addition to spreading some nostalgia, the point of my OP was to state with pretty high certainty that the Doomguard and Infernal will be treated like any other pet with Demonic Servitude.

i.e.: They will replace current pets, use a pet bar for full control, and have abilities to cast from their pet bar or "Command Demon."

The original doomguard didn't have doombolt, but he had 4 other spells and a melee attack. I'm pretty confident that this means the "servitude" doomguard will also have some pet abilities.

The infernal never had any spells, so I could see him going either way- being re-tooled with ~4 new spells or just being a generic pet with a fire damage AOE aura and no command ability. (We are already getting two new pet options, after all- so maybe they both don't need a full set of demon abilities).


-------------------------------------

As far as other talent interactions go, these are my guesses:

Grimoires:
Sacrifice - I think the stat buffs will be the same as with all other pets. Possible power increase can come from a cool new command demon power like war stomp or cripple.

Service - I -hope- it grants a second doomguard/infernal on a short cooldown, but my gut feeling is that this talent will have no interaction with Demonic Servitude (e.g.: You can have a permanent Doomguard pet and then spawn a succubus guardian on a cooldown).

Supremacy - Seems pretty intuitive to me that you would get a Terrorguard or Abyssal permanent pet, with the increased hp, damage, and possibly a twist on one of their abilities.

[Lordcrimmeh]

The best was when your curse of doom would spawn a hostile Doomguard. Many lulz were had.

Nothing like that feeling when your raid downs the boss with only 1 person left alive...and then your curse of doom spawns the hostile Doomguard.

The vent hate hurt so good.

[deviantcultist]

I believe it goes like this. Felguard will be made baseline and Pit Lord will be added as a guardian. Therefore, you get your full set of summons and 3 addition in the case you pick servitude along with their supremacy form. The addition of Pit Lord serves the need for various roles for summons.

- Pit Lord melee
- Doomguard ranged
- Infernal AoE

As for Felguard going baseline, I believe it will serve the purpose of having more control over your minions' roles. Demo, on the other hand, might revolve around Meta rather than summons.

[Werst]

If the DG/infernal are going to be perma pets each will need at least one ability. I could see the doomguard getting cripple back (one can hope) and the infernal maybe getting its aoe stun as an on use (like a shadowfury). A fulltime aura on the infernal could be iffy for dungeons/CC'd targets/etc but it could do the "ignores CC'd targets" thing. Could also see a small aoe burst from the infernal as an on use but then its rotational sort of like felstorm.

I agree with supremacy grimoire being a terrorguard/abyssal. Service we would likely get a similar version of what we have now on long CD. Sac would require some nifty pilfering of the toolkit though I'd love to see an instant cripple as long as it isn't nerfed to piss. Overall I'd be kind of happy if we lost the DG/infernal guardian 10m thing and were balanced without it. Since we can now have them as a perma pet it wouldn't be like they were gone just redundant with the new changes and they have always been a wonky thing to balance or even debug vs encounters.

[Kudos]

The best was when your curse of doom would spawn a hostile Doomguard. Many lulz were had.

I remember doing Molten Core, back in Vanilla on the MajorDomo fight. My Curse of Doom killed one of the advisers and spawned a Doomguard. It just added to the chaos.

I would also occasionally grief low level players around The Crossroads. Soulstone myself. Summon infernal. Hellfire to death and watch my infernal run around on a killing spree.

[darkminaz]

don't forgett the amazing russian roulett, 1,2,3,4,5 one of you is gona die .. MUAHAHA BOOM doomguard /cast enslave .. HEY STOP RESISTING ! EY! ...

nowadays i never even hat the though of using enslave demon .. because there are no deamons in this fluffy happy kitty online pandaria :<

[k4sh1m]

From my point of view if they leave us with the choice of a perma pet from what we currently have + doomguard or infernal, would mean a slight nerf. Because if the doomguard or infernal don't do a hell a of dmg to compensate for loosing (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=18540/), then we would waste an important a CD that does a fair dmg.

Would really love to have a pet from the current pool + one of the current guardians as that would feel more like a warlock since they should be surrounded by demons. (at least demonology)

[Jessicka]

Infernal melee swings stunned as I recall.

[Traveler Voltin]

as long as i finally get permanent infernal i dont really care. i have been wanted it since classic.

[vian]

Infernal melee swings stunned as I recall.

No, they did not.5

[Gohzerlock]

It'd be nice if perma infernal had an aoe stun on cd and doomguard put out an aoe curse of the elements.

Or/and infernal had a crit buff and doomguard had a haste buff in case a raid didn't have those buffs.