So let me get this straight, sac is going to be useless for affliction come 5.4?

[Deleted]

that tier is supposed to optional, meaning no talent is optimal. they didn't like Sac being the best option, so they've made it the worst. seems short sighted to me, they clearly dropped the ball designing the talent because of scaling issues. it would make much more sense to me to make GrimSac function like a pet but without a pet. you sac the pet to choose the utility, and then you gain an ability like Cunning of the Cruel that does passive shadow damage to your current target equivalent to what a pet would do, scaling with haste.

[Deleted]

All the people claiming "oh lock is a pet class" Helu succu sac in classic + tbc.
And pets/minions are never fun, because the AI + pathing for them used to be horrible and quite frankly is not that great still. The only thing i miss about the pets are felhunters shadow bite combine with like shadowflame / drain soul sub 20%

[Deleted]

that tier is supposed to optional, meaning no talent is optimal. they didn't like Sac being the best option, so they've made it the worst. seems short sighted to me, they clearly dropped the ball designing the talent because of scaling issues. it would make much more sense to me to make GrimSac function like a pet but without a pet. you sac the pet to choose the utility, and then you gain an ability like Cunning of the Cruel that does passive shadow damage to your current target equivalent to what a pet would do, scaling with haste.

Very much this! (except that cunning of the cruel was doing aoe dmg). It should work similar to the passive wild imps buff (affected by haste), and whenever u get the buff you shoot it at whoever you cast your next spell.

It shouldn't be affected by mastery for destro/aff, and in demo's case it could be affected by demon form, given that mastery is supposed to increase pet dmg for demo.

GoSac being a flat % increase of all dmg can't really be balanced, not even within the same patch.

[Deleted]

They like removing options and choice from their players.

Only reason i rolled a lock was because of Kiljaedens cunning and GoSac. I wanted to play a dark caster type with no pets and good movement.

[Deleted]

Playing with pets is great.

Warlocks, as we are now, don't play with pets though. As we are now, they're just there. We don't really care about them, get no real benefits out of them, have no actual interaction with them except for the occasional dispel, counterspell or Sacrificial pact, none of which feel like interacting with the pets anyway and are used to rarely too really form a bond from masterwarlock to slavepet.

In my opinion, the 3 specs should be completely overhauled again. They did a reasonably good job of it going into 5.0, but they forgot key concepts. Demonology should have more pet interaction, the damage should come from there. Affliction should have interesting dot management (Like Hand of Gul'dan, which is in Demonology, what the hell??) and destruction should have so much burst that we'd care about threat management in the first 10 seconds (Wait what? Destructive burst as destruction? You mean build embers for 50 seconds and then throw a wet noodle at the target).

What's the point of having a pet if it's just there, for the sake of being there... Hunters have interaction with their pets through abilities such as Kill Command, demonology should get something like that. That would give pets a purpose.

[Supernex]

Playing with pets is great.

Warlocks, as we are now, don't play with pets though. As we are now, they're just there. We don't really care about them, get no real benefits out of them, have no actual interaction with them except for the occasional dispel, counterspell or Sacrificial pact, none of which feel like interacting with the pets anyway and are used to rarely too really form a bond from masterwarlock to slavepet.

In my opinion, the 3 specs should be completely overhauled again. They did a reasonably good job of it going into 5.0, but they forgot key concepts. Demonology should have more pet interaction, the damage should come from there. Affliction should have interesting dot management (Like Hand of Gul'dan, which is in Demonology, what the hell??) and destruction should have so much burst that we'd care about threat management in the first 10 seconds (Wait what? Destructive burst as destruction? You mean build embers for 50 seconds and then throw a wet noodle at the target).

What's the point of having a pet if it's just there, for the sake of being there... Hunters have interaction with their pets through abilities such as Kill Command, demonology should get something like that. That would give pets a purpose.

In PvP, I actually prefer to play with G:Service, as I like to run with the Succubus out for her spammable CC (Seduce), and the Knockback (while kinda buggy) also gets used quite frequently, that plus I also get the Felhunter's silence (though on a longer CD) with some additional "burst" while it's out.

Nice thing about having pets out, (especially the Succubus), is that you still have options when CC'ed, whereas with G:Sacrifice you don't.

Now with that being said, I prefer to ditch the pet in PvE, as it doesn't feel so interactive there, IMO. Just my $0.02.

[schmearcampain]

You know what would be cool? If they allowed warlocks to infuse the soul of our minions into the bodies of our pets.. And by that I mean our battle pets. I'd love to have my orange tabby shooting fireballs, or my skeletal dinosaur tanking for me.

It'll never happen, but I bet blizzard would hear a lot less complaining from us if they allowed it.

[Brusalk]

that tier is supposed to optional, meaning no talent is optimal. they didn't like Sac being the best option, so they've made it the worst. seems short sighted to me, they clearly dropped the ball designing the talent because of scaling issues. it would make much more sense to me to make GrimSac function like a pet but without a pet. you sac the pet to choose the utility, and then you gain an ability like Cunning of the Cruel that does passive shadow damage to your current target equivalent to what a pet would do, scaling with haste.

Simple fix (theoretically) would be to have GoSac cause the player to do all that the pet normally does, but with 40 yard restrictions/centered on the player.

Imagine having a pet always exactly where you are at all times, (even in the air) and attacking your current target with a 40-yard range, with the abilities off the GCD and usable while casting.

Could think of it as infusing the warlock with all the abilities of the pet: Auto-attacks; Special moves; Fel Energy spells; etc.


There'd be nothing to balance as the warlock would always do the same as a pet could, except that the pet would be tied to the players location rather than free-roming.

[Moruff]

Right now, that tier of talents is working well I think, and Blizzard probably intends to continue that trend. For PVE, you can play Sac for single target & Sup for multitarget for Affl, the opposite for Destro, and all three have its places for demo. If you care more about optimizing your performance than controlling a pet, then what difference does it make? Even in the current state, if you want to min/max your damage, you'll choose sup on occasion. For example, let's say you're assigned to kill oozes on Primordius. Do you play Affl Sac still even though only a tiny % of your output is going to be haunt/ds/mg? In this case, Sac is already useless, but certainly you're entitled to play it if you prefer that playstyle.

I think towards the end of T16, sac will be competitive in terms of dmg still, and players will switch that talent arond depending on the encounter. Sure at the beginning of the tier, locks that use sac religiously will suffer the nerf. So, players who love sac and hate having a pet just have to be "weak" for a couple months. It just comes down to what you care about more? A petless playstyle or helping progression. Unfortunately it's one of those cases where you can't have your cake and eat it too.

- - - Updated - - -

Playing with pets is great.

Warlocks, as we are now, don't play with pets though. As we are now, they're just there. We don't really care about them, get no real benefits out of them, have no actual interaction with them except for the occasional dispel, counterspell or Sacrificial pact, none of which feel like interacting with the pets anyway and are used to rarely too really form a bond from masterwarlock to slavepet.

In my opinion, the 3 specs should be completely overhauled again. They did a reasonably good job of it going into 5.0, but they forgot key concepts. Demonology should have more pet interaction, the damage should come from there. Affliction should have interesting dot management (Like Hand of Gul'dan, which is in Demonology, what the hell??) and destruction should have so much burst that we'd care about threat management in the first 10 seconds (Wait what? Destructive burst as destruction? You mean build embers for 50 seconds and then throw a wet noodle at the target).

What's the point of having a pet if it's just there, for the sake of being there... Hunters have interaction with their pets through abilities such as Kill Command, demonology should get something like that. That would give pets a purpose.

I'm not sure how Kill Command works, but seems like it's in line with Felstorm? I guess Kill Command uses the Hunter's resources which is different. I think there is already a lot of choices to be made regarding pets. You get stuns, ccs, knockback, taunts, interrupts, purges, heals, dispels... This is coming from just a PVE perspective, but I use my pet for most of those things, or at least know I have the option w/ them. There's also Soul Link, which provides an invaluable tool for lock survivability. If you're looking to "get more" out of your pet, you can min/max its positioning and targeting for multitarget encounters. I'm not sure if that's what your looking for though?

[Brusalk]

In PvP, I actually prefer to play with G:Service, as I like to run with the Succubus out for her spammable CC (Seduce), and the Knockback (while kinda buggy) also gets used quite frequently, that plus I also get the Felhunter's silence (though on a longer CD) with some additional "burst" while it's out.

Nice thing about having pets out, (especially the Succubus), is that you still have options when CC'ed, whereas with G:Sacrifice you don't.

Now with that being said, I prefer to ditch the pet in PvE, as it doesn't feel so interactive there, IMO. Just my $0.02.

In PvE they can have some nice utility, but they don't really interact with your rotations whatsoever. A middle ground between Cata pet-specific-synergy-per-spec and now would be much better in my opinion.

I think it'd be cool to have specific caster-buffs for different pets that only affect the warlock.

Felhunter/Observer: Increases Haste Rating by x%
Fel Guard/Wrathguard: Increases Critical Strike Rating, Haste Rating, Mastery Rating by (x/4)% Also reduces Damage Taken by (x/4)%.
Voidwalker/Voidlord: Reduces Damage Taken by x%
Imp/Fel Imp: Increases Critical Strike Rating by x%
Succubus/Shivvara: Increases Mastery Rating by x%

On a pets special attack there would also be a spec specific % chance of generating a chunk of the spec's secondary resource; 1 Shard, 50 Fury, 5 Emberbits.

The intent is that there's a noticeable effect when the pets give you resource. The spec specific chance can be adjusted to make the DPS gain roughly the same for all 3 specs. In addition you can choose your pet based off of what passive stat you want. If you wanted more Haste you could use the Obs. More Mastery? Shivvara. More Crit? Imp. Demo has the advantage that it can use the Fel Guard to get all of them.


I dunno. Wishful thinking, but I think that'd make pets more interesting to actually use. It may be best off that the caster buff is left out and we just gain resource from special attacks.

[Jetjaguar]

Playing with pets is great.

Warlocks, as we are now, don't play with pets though. As we are now, they're just there. We don't really care about them, get no real benefits out of them, have no actual interaction with them except for the occasional dispel, counterspell or Sacrificial pact, none of which feel like interacting with the pets anyway and are used to rarely too really form a bond from masterwarlock to slavepet.

In my opinion, the 3 specs should be completely overhauled again. They did a reasonably good job of it going into 5.0, but they forgot key concepts. Demonology should have more pet interaction, the damage should come from there. Affliction should have interesting dot management (Like Hand of Gul'dan, which is in Demonology, what the hell??) and destruction should have so much burst that we'd care about threat management in the first 10 seconds (Wait what? Destructive burst as destruction? You mean build embers for 50 seconds and then throw a wet noodle at the target).

What's the point of having a pet if it's just there, for the sake of being there... Hunters have interaction with their pets through abilities such as Kill Command, demonology should get something like that. That would give pets a purpose.

Not sure how long you've been playing warlock but pets have always been totally irrelevant aside from some minor annoyances in pve. They've always just been a damage machine. The only pet interaction that's ever existed for locks has been on the pvp side. I don't know if you want to use Kill Command, an ability of a class that really needs a serious overhaul to give each spec an identity, as your shining example of pet interaction. Warlock pets are actually pretty great. The only one that really seems pointless is the Succubus but all the other pets have strengths and the fact that 4 out of the 5 pets have been used this raiding tier is a pretty great sign.

[sasofrass]

In PvE they can have some nice utility, but they don't really interact with your rotations whatsoever. A middle ground between Cata pet-specific-synergy-per-spec and now would be much better in my opinion.

I think it'd be cool to have specific caster-buffs for different pets that only affect the warlock.

Felhunter/Observer: Increases Haste Rating by x%
Fel Guard/Wrathguard: Increases Critical Strike Rating, Haste Rating, Mastery Rating by (x/4)% Also reduces Damage Taken by (x/4)%.
Voidwalker/Voidlord: Reduces Damage Taken by x%
Imp/Fel Imp: Increases Critical Strike Rating by x%
Succubus/Shivvara: Increases Mastery Rating by x%

On a pets special attack there would also be a spec specific % chance of generating a chunk of the spec's secondary resource; 1 Shard, 50 Fury, 5 Emberbits.

The intent is that there's a noticeable effect when the pets give you resource. The spec specific chance can be adjusted to make the DPS gain roughly the same for all 3 specs. In addition you can choose your pet based off of what passive stat you want. If you wanted more Haste you could use the Obs. More Mastery? Shivvara. More Crit? Imp. Demo has the advantage that it can use the Fel Guard to get all of them.


I dunno. Wishful thinking, but I think that'd make pets more interesting to actually use. It may be best off that the caster buff is left out and we just gain resource from special attacks.

i really like the sound of this. leave sac strong but by taking sac you lose out on resource gen and some stats. ya

[Deleted]

In PvE they can have some nice utility, but they don't really interact with your rotations whatsoever. A middle ground between Cata pet-specific-synergy-per-spec and now would be much better in my opinion.

I think it'd be cool to have specific caster-buffs for different pets that only affect the warlock.

Felhunter/Observer: Increases Haste Rating by x%
Fel Guard/Wrathguard: Increases Critical Strike Rating, Haste Rating, Mastery Rating by (x/4)% Also reduces Damage Taken by (x/4)%.
Voidwalker/Voidlord: Reduces Damage Taken by x%
Imp/Fel Imp: Increases Critical Strike Rating by x%
Succubus/Shivvara: Increases Mastery Rating by x%

On a pets special attack there would also be a spec specific % chance of generating a chunk of the spec's secondary resource; 1 Shard, 50 Fury, 5 Emberbits.

The intent is that there's a noticeable effect when the pets give you resource. The spec specific chance can be adjusted to make the DPS gain roughly the same for all 3 specs. In addition you can choose your pet based off of what passive stat you want. If you wanted more Haste you could use the Obs. More Mastery? Shivvara. More Crit? Imp. Demo has the advantage that it can use the Fel Guard to get all of them.


I dunno. Wishful thinking, but I think that'd make pets more interesting to actually use. It may be best off that the caster buff is left out and we just gain resource from special attacks.

they could make a new version of gosac into that, saccing your pet would get you those stats based on your pet, ofc it would need to be in the 15-20% range or atleast the equivalent of what a pet would do. i think it will be easier to balance too.

[lunchbox2042]

This whole talent tree where every talent should be optional is just a headache. And I'm not just talking about for warlocks, but for all classes. The moment one talent becomes useful, you can assure yourself that Blizzard will nerf it. I really hope they just scrap this iteration in the next expansion because it's just a pain in the ass as it is now.

[Deleted]

I would like to see that warlock pets could bring some buffs to a raid like hunter pets. It happened very often that I was in a raid or alt-raid where still some buffs were missing.

[DenniZ]

I would like to see that warlock pets could bring some buffs to a raid like hunter pets. It happened very often that I was in a raid or alt-raid where still some buffs were missing.

You mean like the Imp bringing the stamina buff? They only just fixed that.

[m2geek]

Sigh, i hate the observer pet but im forced to use it outside demo
I FUCKING HATE THAT MASS OF BLUE TENTACLES!
Give me back my fel puppy!

^^ Agreed - I love my Fel Puppy!

[Deleted]

Yet what about people who want to play the Dark Caster without being summoners?

You playing the wrong class and probably wrong game

So every time someone used GoSac (including you) was playing the wrong class and game? Stop being selfish and accept that some people liked petless play.

[Deleted]

They'll nerf it to uselessness then remove it from the game citing a lack of players using it...

[Deleted]

Fel puppy revolution!