Warlock pets - Is it time for a change?

[Lucrece]

Personally I just wish our pets could hold/generate more threat than they currently do. Pulling off a void/infernal is usually just a single rotation at best.

If you wanna solo things, you'd be affliction anyways and with their sheer amount of self healing they can tank things themselves.

I always thought making voidwalkers the useless tank pet in group content sucks. It should also provide group utility in some way.

Hell, if the infernal gets an aoe stun, so should the voidwalker (the infernal would still be special by doing more aoe damage as an upgrade).

[Nevrex]

I think Warlocks should have pets, I'm just not convinced that they should be permanent. I think I'd rather see the pets be "at use" and designed to accomplish different things but still all be viable at their role. They kind of screwed the pooch with Demo, but I do think that they were on to something.

Something like the old shadowflame (Pit lord head)? So if for example you spell lock somone, your felhound will pop for a moment and cast it.

Or maybe a combination of call dreadstalkers + grimoire of service?

[Invisibelf]

If you wanna solo things, you'd be affliction anyways and with their sheer amount of self healing they can tank things themselves.

I always thought making voidwalkers the useless tank pet in group content sucks. It should also provide group utility in some way.

Hell, if the infernal gets an aoe stun, so should the voidwalker (the infernal would still be special by doing more aoe damage as an upgrade).

I am affliction. I'm meaning more in a raid sense. If I were to fight a raid boss then it's very, very hard for me to not over aggro on bosses vs my pets.

[Gohzerlock]

Would like to see at least one spec pet less.

[Thrif]

Yeah, I'd like a switch up, Warlock pets right now feels pretty dull and pointless. Remove the old pets nobody uses anyway, make Infernal and Doom Guard base line, and give us Inquisitors, small Pit Lords, those flying bat-like thingies and, uh, more stuff like that.

[derpkitteh]

i want them to bring back the sacrifice talent for at least destro. make it good again, make it give you the spell of the demon you sacrificed, and make it amp your damage up, not just a shitty little bit of shadow damage.

[Scooby Dooby Doo]

Na.. the current pets look great,offer both melee and ranged damage and provide outstanding utility like offensive dispel / defensive dispel / spell lock / slow / stun / knockback / blind / small mortal strike and aoe.

[Lucrece]

For people that don't like a pet taking up part of their damage, they could just make the pet companions provide mostly the utility of their key spell, and then just sink the vast majority of the damage on the warlock.

I'm sure they won't be happy to find out their damage will go down on any movement fight unless they revamp warlock tools to provide them damage on the move other than conflag and immolate ticks+ports.

I just want the visual of the pet companion next to my warlock. I don't want to be screwed over with my favorite spec being destro where I am forced to take sacrifice because it is the definitely superior talent, just as they have done with marksmanship.

Demo has no burst, affliction has no burst, and I want to have a pet class because otherwise I would have rolled one of the many burst specs who don't have pets. Pets need to be just as a competitive option for destro.

[Billy Idol]

I want a Fel Lord as a new, sometimes a enslaved one just to contemplate. I hope one day blizz gives us more demons.

[Kirroth]

While I agree that Afflic and Destro pets have almost no interaction with the specs, I feel that's a flaw to be corrected rather than a virtue to be embraced.

BM and Survival Hunters have abilities that interact with and enhance their pet. So do Unholy DKs. The most interaction I have is using Health Funnel on my Infernal when I'm soloing a particularly buff elite. So add "lack of pet interaction" to the list of Warlock flaws that need fixing in Battle.

[Raugnaut]

They need to revert the Legion changes, and go back to WoD, or maybe even MoP Warlock design.

Except for Demo, Destro and Affliction could use ANY pet, the main thing was utility (Imp for cleanse, Succy for CC, Void for tank, and Felhunter for interupt).

Whats more, you could go for improved demons. Or sacrifice your demon, and get a nice, big buff out of it, rather then a weaksauce AoE proc. At least service remains.

And the 3 warlock specs felt GOOD. Now? Sure, you may be able to preform numbers with Affliction, but the overall feel is TERRIBLE compared to MoP version.

Legion is !@#$ing shit in terms of class playstyle and talent design. Completely shit.

[Kithelle]

On he phone in bed sick. So destro auto correct to destroy also
Affliction is about soul magic. Felhunter about consuming souls and magic
Destroyed about fire magic and chaos. Imps about fire magic nf chaos.
But the doomguard/internal for all 3 specs is garbage

Yeah...I don't get why people are saying the pets don't fit...they fit rather well.

[Bullettime]

If we have to stay a pet class with no truly decent sacrifice option, then they need to make them more relevant and engaging in our gameplay. They'll probably fix that for Demo with the rework but Affliction and Destruction need to have actual engagement with the pet and have them serve a purpose outside of just "balance" reasons.

[Walrock]

Don't make pets a DPS choice, make them an utility choice. /fixed
Like it was in WoD.
I hate it being forced to use the imp as Destro or the doomguard/hound as Aff.
The best example for this would be facing Medivh on a high M+ key as Destro, not being able to switch to the hound without a solid dps loss.

And don't get me started on the succubus glyphs which are spec bound and we will never see, because no one plays with the succubus.

[Vitinariy]

Demo is a distinct pet spec and should stay one.

For both destro and affliction the pets sort of fit, but I don't feel that they really contribute to the the so called class fantasy.

They are nothing but a completely passive damage increase and I think they should have at least one active rotational ability, like water jet for frost mage or flanking strike/kill command for hunter. This is a really small thing, but this is what makes you interact with your pet and that, in turn, makes you feel like you need it.

Also, it's ok to completely forego the pet for Destro at this point and give us some cc spells to compensate in PVP. After all, destro was always sort of a marksmanship of warlocks and the spec is focused on the raw power of spells.
I would like to still love to keep Infernal, but maybe tone down the damage and make it more rotational? Like a 1 minute cooldown, that we can reliably use for AOE.

[Deleted]

Tbh Meta Demo was a better petspec warlock then current demo. Especially with the class trinket (3 imps on HoG).

As Meta is clearly out (I'd love to have it back though), make Demo more of a 5 man dungeon group with Voidwalker (or a new demon) Tank, Felguard melee dps, wild imps for ranged dps and the warlock useing fel and shadow magic from range. Maybe a big Sacrifice all pets cooldown to go blast mode for 20s then back to building army again or something like the artifact. But please stop making it the horserace spec with the carrot in front of your face (faster faster faster, need more haste to have more imps to deal more artifact blast dmg)....

[cafecito820]

All warlocks use demons. It's been there since the very beginning of the game. If you don't like pets, go play a shadow priest or mage. Shadow is supremely better designed than affliction anyways.

What they did wrong was forcing a specific pet to a spec. Pets should be chosen on utility.

He never suggested removing them entirely, just that they don't really align with what the specs do.

Also, I'm curious why you think that a spec with awful ramp-up time and that is forced to use its resource within a certain amount of time is somehow better than anything a warlock has...

[Lucrece]

He never suggested removing them entirely, just that they don't really align with what the specs do.

Also, I'm curious why you think that a spec with awful ramp-up time and that is forced to use its resource within a certain amount of time is somehow better than anything a warlock has...

The ramp up time comes from mass hysteria (an artifact talent, not void form itself), and affliction already has ridiculous ramp up via Agony, not to mention layers upon layers of RNG on top. Affliction is overtuned in numbers, but in mechanics it plays like shit whereas shadow priest gameplay has actual flow and feels totally unique from the other specs. Affliction is as simple as activating reap and renewing 3 dots that all they do is dilute the damage each individual dot does, unlike a sriest who sits at 2 dots and as a result there's far less ramp up time to the cleave, not to mention the sheer utility of their execute damage.

Same reason why I think enhancement shaman is miles better design than havoc demonhunter, which is a pure casino spec that has RNG on resource return via crit, RNG on top of that since a crit does increased crit damage (from the trait, which makes the difference between a noncrit CS and a crit CS massive), and then a third layer on top of that same chaos strike for the chaos strike to duplicate. It's a huge variance on a spec that otherwise rotationally adds nothing and feels completely empty compared to a spec with flow like enhancement or shadow priest. The former feel good to play well; the other you just throw the dice and hope the numbers turn out OK.

[Maleific]

Would like to see some interaction with pets in all 3 specs. But have viable sacrifice options.

In Cataclysm, destruction imp fire bolts had a chance to make soulfire instant. Something along those lines would be nice.

Also changing demonic empowerment into a cooldown which augmented pet abilities for its duration.

For example.
Empowered Imp: firebolt turns into felblast (an impish soulfire lol)

Empowered Succubus: Lash of pain turns into Shadow lash deals shadow damage and increases damage from shadow lash.

Empowered Felhunter: shadow bite turns into shadow frenzy increases attack speed and attacks deal shadow damage.

Empowered Felguard: Legion Strike now deals fire damage to everything around the felguard leaving a small dot behind.

[Coolthulhu]

I'd be more than ok with the current demons variety-wise if they were made fun (=useful) again. I fondly remember offtanking with the blueberry or popping it for the awesome shield, or having to pull the succubus out in dungeons.
That and I really hate being told to use one specific pet for one specific spec (felguard doesn't apply). The imp-boosting artifact trait... ugh. Horrible.