Pets: A Proposal

[Zilthy 36]

Please pardon my rambling, just some thoughts I have had over the last few days or so....

 

It occured to me today, that perhaps a sticky guide to pets might be in order, this is just a thought, and although it will not solve the repeated question of "Which pet has best DPS" very much like how should I reforge to increase my dps, at least there could be a reference point.

 

So, along these lines, the question often comes up, is "What pet is best?" and usually in the context of which pet does the most DPS.  Of course, the most appropriate response is "Choose pet for utility, not for DPS".  So, what is the utility then?

 

First of all, as a warlock, we need to think of our demon pets not as something we summon willy nilly, as extra dps or something we summon willy nilly, or even worse, something we summon for bonus life or other passives.

 

Pets are an extremely important part of our available toolkit, and should be chosen with as much thought and foresight in to the role we are playing as any talent or glyph is chosen (and sometimes, perhaps more).

 

Whether you choose to have your demonic minion fight by your side, or sacrifice the minion and gain the power from it, remember: You are the Warlock and summoner, you are in control.  By this same extension, if you summon a pet and let it go willy nilly (all abilities on auto cast) or sacrifice (just for the passive health and other passive bonuses) you are doing a great disservice to not only yourself, but the team you are playing with.

 

All of our demon's abilities are controlable, so we do not need to just put them on auto cast, and hope they serve us for the best.  But, we do not need to program individual macros for each, Blizzard gave us command demon, which controls the primary ability of each pet via one simple command.

 

These 'command demon' abilities should be immediatly unset from auto cast.  If the ability is not important enough to cast on commmand, then it is likely the wrong minion for the task at hand.

 

===

 

Command Demon (Grimoire of Supremecy, Grimoire of Service, Grimioire of Sacrifice [pet alive, not sacrificed]):

Imp/Fel Imp: Cauterize Master (Heal for you, the warlock) A nice little heal, but not overly useful raiding.  If you really need this, it likely means something else is wrong.  Although mentioned above that a minion should not be chosen for DPS, an imp can be a good choice for lower ilvls when doing a lot of target switching.  Since the imp is ranged, it will not have to move to the next target to attack, which can be beneficial at times.

Voidwalker/Voidlord: Disarm A fairly useless talent in PVE, although can be useful in PVP.  Bosses will not be disarmed by this in raids, and if the group is wiping on trash, a disarm will not help, there is something better to look for.

Succubus/Shivera: Whiplash Another talent more suited for PVP over PVE.  Does a bit of damage and a knockback.

Felhunter/Observer: Spell Lock Very useful ability, both in PVP *and* PVE.  PVP should be quite obvious.  Against casters, shut them down.  PVE, this is the *ONLY* way for a Warlock to stop and interrupt an MC'd teamate in the later phases of Garrosh.  Also useful for Sha of Pride, interrupting Mocking Blast.

Felguard/Wrathguard: Felstorm (Demonology only) DPS burst available on a 45 second cooldown.  Although more beneficial with AOE, also a single target DPS increase.
 

===

 

Command Demon (Grimoire of Sacrifice [pet sacrificed]):

 

Imp: Singe Magic   A targetable dispell.  Yes, our primary job is DPS, but we have other abilities we can and do contribute, overlooked or not.  This is one of those.  Put it in your toolkit, bring it to the table.

Succubus: Seduction Great for PVP, not much use PVE.

Felhunter: Spell Lock See above for usefulness of this one.  Same ability as GoSac compared to GSup or GServ.

 

Voidwalker: Shadow Bulwark I've seen a lot of locks use this one, getting away from it myself.  A very nice 300k or so life buffer, available once every 2 min, but in reality, ends up being rather useless.  In reality, that will stop one hit.  If you need this, things have gone horribly wrong already, and this is not going to save the day.  Only prolong the demise, by a few seconds or so.

 

Felguard: Pursuit Sadly, this is my most favorite, but yet most useless 'talent'.  A warlock charging?  Pretty much worthless.  Value of watching?  Comically priceless.

 

===

 

So, now we have covered the "command demon" skills.  Any other skills of our pets can be controlled also, and not just left to RNG.  How?  Let us take Felguard/Wrathguard for example:

 

Axe Toss: A ranged stun (not interrupt).  It is on our Felguard's bar, we can drag and drop it from the spellbook even.  We can even assign it to a macro, and it ends up looking like:

 

    /cast Axe Toss (Special Ability)

 

Granted, I will admit, this section is short, and likely deserves a bit more attention, or even explanation, but it comes down to: Use your pet the way you need it.  You are the Warlock, you are commanding the Demon.  Don't let it do it's own thing, have it do what you want and need.

 

===

 

So, you might be asking, at this point in time, what does this mean for me?

 

Well, it means perhaps viewing pets a bit differently, and viewing them more akin to the way you choose talents or glyphs.

 

For example, I was in a PuG Heroic Immersius group.  My job was to take out adds.  Ignore boss, just deal with adds.  NOTE: I admit, there are probably better ways to approach these situations, I hope this becomes a conversation on those also. :)

 

I run GoSac.  I ended up sacrificing a voidwalker, for the shadow bulwark, to survive during the times I pulled too much aggro and get the adds back to the off tank.

 

If I had been on the role of do as much damage to the boss (Immerseus) as possible, I might have chosen an imp, which would allow me to drop 1 stack, and dps on him a bit longer (granted, not a lot, but a bit)

 

===

 

Okay, this is about the last of my ramblings on this topic. If you are truly not bored, here was the impetus:

 

1) The continued "What pet is best DPS" posts

 

2) Being in a Garrosh PuG earlier today, with 3 other locks, who had no interrupts because they sac'd voidwalkers, and could and did nothing in phase 3 on mc.  *shrug*

 

So, the bottom line on "What pet is the best DPS?" is the pet that gives you the capability to keep the party alive to continue to DPS. :D

 

-- Zilthy

[Zagam 1,982]

The DPS between pets is inconsequential.  The variance is so low that you don't pick a pet for damage.  You pick it for utility.  If you need interrupts, you take the Felhunter.  Want a dispel?  Take the Imp.  That's really all there is to it.

[Belicosa 11]

And never raid with doomwalker. The tanks will hate you.

[Lockybalboa 618]

And never raid with doomwalker. The tanks will hate you.

 

 

Doomwalker is an old NPC from Outlands. Do you mean VOIDwalker? If so, there are a few cases where you would use a voidwalker. Personally I used it during heroic Thok progression, I was taking SL/SL and the damage that was being split with my pet was killing my imp mid phase everytime, pulled out the VW and never had the issue again.

 

Just remember to turn the taunt off. Or not, the VW taunt doesnt work on bosses anyways.

[mediocregatsby 18]

remember when we were required to run with the imp out for blood pact? yea.... good times

[Omaric 246]

remember when we were required to run with the imp out for blood pact? yea.... good times

 

Lol almost forgot about that.  So glad they combined it into Dark Intent.

[Lockybalboa 618]

remember when we were required to run with the imp out for blood pact? yea.... good times

 

 

I miss voidshift. It would make CMs so much nicer.

[Zilthy 36]

I miss voidshift. It would make CMs so much nicer.

 

I'm so new, don't even know what that was.  Swap places with Voidwalker?

 

Although, my favorite is GoSaccing Felguard as Demo.  Warlock charging = win! :D

[Lockybalboa 618]

I'm so new, don't even know what that was.  Swap places with Voidwalker?

 

Although, my favorite is GoSaccing Felguard as Demo.  Warlock charging = win!

 

 

It was a spell for the imp that made them so that they could not be targeted. Very annoying when trying to buff and your stupid pet had to have the spell clicked off and back on, but so very nice when you jumped down a ramp and your moron pet took the long way. Hunter pets would pull adds, Imp would walk right past.

 

 

EDIT: My bad, it was called PHASE shift.

 

http://www.wowwiki.com/Phase_Shift

Edited January 14, 2014 by Lockybalboa