One pet to rule them all?

[~Thalia~]

I’ll try to be as concise as possible. This post isn’t meant to be a QQ post, but a compilation of my thoughts on the subject. I do think there are some serious balance issues between pets right now, and I find it hard to believe that all of them are intended.

Before Cataclysm release, Blizzard stated that they were trying to get out of the “one pet per spec” design. From a PvE perspective, right now we reached the extreme opposite, with a situation that could be labelled: “one pet for every spec”.

The Sims recently showed the Succubus to be the best single target pet for both Demonology and Affliction. And wouldn’t it be for Burning Embers and Empowered Imp, Destruction would have probably been using the Succubus too. As it turned out that Lash of Pain critical hit chance was being overestimated, EJ was proven wrong.
Yet, everyone has to realize that this is the result of awkward in game scaling: LoP being a spell but not benefiting from the spell crit debuffs or spell crit rating from the Warlock. If the succubus was benefiting from crit, as she should be via pet scaling, we would still be using her.
Now, as 4.0.6 is getting closer, the buff to the Imp’s Demon Soul effect and the fact that Firebolt is correctly scaling with debuffs and the warlock’s ratings, are pushing the little green thing as the go-to pet for the three specs.

Why is that?

1. “Basic attacks” and their interactions with Mana Feed

Mana feed only procs off basic attacks. But Firebolt and LoP are spammable whereas Legion Strike and Shadowbite both share a 6 sec cooldown. Which means that even if the Felguard and Felhunter dps was higher than the Imp’s (it’s not), they’d still have to make up for the dps loss of a three times smaller mana supply, forcing the Warlock to Life Tap more often.

2. Unbalanced glyphs

Glyph of LoP increases LoP damage by 25%. Glyph of Imp increases Firebolt damage by 20%. Glyph of Felguard increases Legion Strike damage by 5%.
As the Succubus and the Imp have no other attack than LoP and Firebolt, both glyphs effectively increase their dps by 25 and 20%. Glyph of Felguard increases its dps by 1%. Glyph of Felhunter actually increases nothing.

Because of the aforementioned reasons, Affliction is pigeonholed with a pet whose Demon Soul effect benefits to a magic school it doesn’t use.
The Felhunter, despite having an obvious synergy with Affliction via Shadowbite and Demon Soul, cannot compete with the Imp or the Succubus, because of its abysmal dps and poor interaction with Mana feed.

While being a signature ability of the Demonology tree (comparable to Conflagration for destro, and Unstable Affliction for Affliction), the Felguard is a dps loss on single target, and has to use AoE abilities on every cooldown (to the point where Felstorm is being macro’ed into most spells) to remain slightly competitive. Yet it is getting a 30% reduction on Felstorm, which will hurt its single target dps as well and is having the same issues than the Felhunter when it comes down to Mana feed.
It wouldn’t sound logical if Conflagrate or UA were a dps loss on single target fights and only worth it on fights with lots of adds, so why is it that Demonology cannot use its signature spell at its fullest?

I understand that the intent may have been to allow Warlocks to switch more conveniently between pets to adapt to boss fights, but right now it just isn’t the case.
I do think we reached the point where we need a clarification from Blizzard if this situation is intended or not.


Note : I posted this on the EU forums, feel free to copy\paste it on the US forums if you think it deserves it. Maybe we can get a blue answer from there.

[grimdok]

I am no expert, but remember that the nerf to felstorm is coming at the same time as a buff to the mastery stat, so overal damage for felstorm should not be going down that much.

[~Thalia~]

Well, the point is the Felguard needs to use Felstorm to remain competitive in single target dps. Yet it already is lagging behind the Imp (and supposedly the succubus if scaling worked as intended).
The buff to mastery will affect all pet equally, so it won't make up for any nerfs that hurt the Felguard specifically.

The nerf to felstorm was needed, but in conjunction with the state of the felguard atm, it only makes things worse.

[Shadowsedict]

i really agree with this. i absolutely love demonology right now. ive played afflictions since i started wow.of course ive given the other specs a whirl during raids but they just werent fun to me. Cata came and revamped demo and i love it. BUT, its lacking and the felgaurd situation needs to be fixed fast. its basic melee attack needs to be increased alot which would help with pvp as well.

[gherkin]

Initial tests suggest that if the Felguard properly scaled from crit the Demo lock would never have to life tap. This "bug" might be a bandaid solution.

The glyphs are not too powerful. They provide a sizeable increase yes but it's not so much more than others. Basically they take a pet that was doing less damage than another and make it do more damage than the other, at a fairly equal gap. You cannot compare the total gain the glyph has on the pet, but the net gain difference from the old pet to the new one (because without the glyph we'd still use the old pet).

The fact that Demonology can now use a different pet in two different fights is a boon to me. Affliction uses one because it has no alternative pet buffs to speak of, so it picks the highest dps pet (which is Imp due to Succubus crit scaling issues). Destro uses Imp because of specific talents.

It is not intended that we all suddenly use one pet, it just ended up this way.

[~Thalia~]

If you want Blizzard to fix it, tell warlocks everywhere to use Imp all the time and blizzard will knee-jerk nerf the imp to prevent this. Or go complain on the official forums, but since this bug has been reported in several places it does not look like it will be fixed before 4.1

I did. But as a EU player I'm only allowed to post on the EU forums where nothing is ever read.
Thought I might as well share my views with people here, this is what forums are about aren't they?

Edit: at that point, I just want to have some clarification on the game design about pets. I'll use my imp if I'm forced to do so, that doesn't prevent me from thinking things are not the way they should be. Nor does it prevent you from thinking it's fine.

[gherkin]

I realize my last sentences were not written in the vein I intended them. I've removed them.

[grimdok]

So is imp highest DPS pet even for demo warlocks currently?

Veddy interestink.

[Demonologist]

So is imp highest DPS pet even for demo warlocks currently?

Not currently. After the patch, assuming no more changes crop up, yes.

I feel like a buff to either the Felhunter or its associated glyph would be a very nice compensation to Affliction for the loss of ISF. I miss the little bugger and his associated Demon Soul, and it would be cool to have him back as a competitive option again. As for the Felguard, I imagine he's still going to be a superior choice for Demo on any heavy AoE fight even with the nerf to win spin, so its not like he's going to be completely supplanted by the Imp. Though it may not be an immediate priority, I'm sure Blizz will get around to giving each spec additional incentive to use its primary pet, the design of Demon Soul clearly shows they were working in that direction and at some point they'll probably finish the job.

[crazyness]

i just added it to the US forums in the hope that it does get some attention as i don't agree with using the imp as demo or affliction.

[SektheGnome]

Yes lets make all the pet glyphs a straight 20% damage bonus

Bring on the homogenization, sign me up

[SilverHeimdall]

Succubus doing higher damage was an error in the Simulator. Read EJ, they corrected this.

[Skiarxon]

The whole pet situation is becoming kinda boring for me. I have started thinking it is not that fun to play my lock anymore...

[lancore89]

Succubus doing higher damage was an error in the Simulator. Read EJ, they corrected this.

Yes, the OP stated it in his post. Read it...

But yeah, I agree with it. As long as there's math, there always will be a pet that does a little bit more DPS as others, they won't prevent that. All they can do is to make that gap a little bit smaller (kinda succeeded in that imo) and use at least different pets in different speccs. I think the problems would be solved if we have a better felhunter/felguard glyphs.

[Jessicka]

Succubus doing higher damage was an error in the Simulator. Read EJ, they corrected this.

It was doing higher damage because it was simmed out how the Succubus is intended to scale - i.e. Simcraft technically should have been right, however, the Succubus is currently bugged and scaling neither with Haste nor Crit - contrary to the idea that's been put about that she is or should be scaling with melee stats. Test it - her Crit without debuffs on a target will be ~4% regardless of the stats on your gear.

Furthermore, intended or not, your pets' regular melee swings do not benefit from Hand of Gul'dan - this is another reason Succubus should work out better for Demo.

[clyne]

I remember the good 'ol days when we used to sacrifice pet. <3

[gherkin]

For Demo EJ was wrong.
For Affliction, EJ was right, regardless of the bug.

For 4.0.6 w/ Imp, this has been tested in the PTR (to ensure scaling is correct) and assuming the imp procs mana feed correctly (he does) then Imp is highest single target for all 3 specs, glyphed.

[Jessicka]

What are the actual DPS differences between the pets? And does it account for any possible bug fix with the Succubus?

[gherkin]

Demonology w/ PTR settings and my gear. Note does not include personal dps gains from Demon Soul or improved DPS from more Mana Feed procs and thus fewer Life Tap uses.

Felguard: 3225 DPS Glyphed, 3174 Unglyphed --- 14.4% Melee Crit, 23% Special Crit (this is correct)
Imp: 3739 DPS Glyphed, 3115 Unglyphed --- 32.2% Crit (also correct)
Succubus: 3826 DPS Glyphed, 3061 Unglyphed --- 17% Crit listed, may not be correct
Succubus with proper crit scaling: 4397 DPS (Glyphed) (Projected)

(Felhunter not modelled because Glyphed Succubus is better, and she's technically the lowest.)

Personal dps rankings:
16271 - Imp Glyphed
16007 - Felguard Glyphed
15999 - Succubus Glyphed
15953 - Felguard Unglyphed
15646 - Imp Unglyphed
15233 - Succubus Unglyphed

Personal dps rankings with pet dps removed:
12782 Felguard Glyphed
12779 Felguard Unglyphed
12532 Imp Glyphed
12531 Imp Unglyphed
12173 Succubus Glyphed
12172 Succubus Unglyphed

[Jahrastafari]

I did. But as a EU player I'm only allowed to post on the EU forums where nothing is ever read.
Thought I might as well share my views with people here, this is what forums are about aren't they?

Edit: at that point, I just want to have some clarification on the game design about pets. I'll use my imp if I'm forced to do so, that doesn't prevent me from thinking things are not the way they should be. Nor does it prevent you from thinking it's fine.

Look at the Blue tracker on the main page. You've got much better reps and a much better chance to get a good answer on the EU forums. The US CMs usually only respond to 'lewlz what do you do for a living' or 'how much good fun is cutie pie moonkin mini pet' fluff-type posts.