Yesterday, a player posted on the official WoW forum asking about the current state of the Doomguard and Infernal Warlock pets. It's a hassle to learn how to summon these demons, requiring the completion of multiple quests for each, and summoning them requires reagents, including the death of one of your party members (for the Doomguard at least). With all these requirements, one would think the pets would be worthwhile, but their cost and unpredictability (they have to be continually enslaved, which is on diminishing returns and may break at any time) make them worse than the normal Warlock pets.
Eyonix answers the original poster, saying that the devs are concerned about these pets and will buff them sometime in the future. That "future" may be the next expansion, but this is a better answer than the class has received on the subject in a long time. To the best of my knowledge, previous answers were something along the line of "These spells may have situational uses and will not be changed from that role". Now there is once again hope that these cool and iconic (watch the original WoW cinematic, if you don't recall) Warlock pets will become more than simple novelties.
When I begin to consider the possibilities of changes to the Doomguard and Infernal, my mind boggles. There is such a large range of buffs that could occur, it is difficult to focus and speculate in one direction. At minimum, one would hope that these demons would see some inclusion in the Warlock Demonology talent tree, which currently benefits all their other pets. At most, we could be looking at the new ultimate raiding or PvP pets. What are your thoughts on this subject? Are there any gaps in the Warlocks arsenal that could be filled by changing these pets? How would you change them?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
12-06-2007 @ 1:09PM
Merklyn said...
One note is that these pets do not cancel out the sacrificed buff from the demon line talent.... Although not a dependable or strong pet, it is handy in outdoor situations when things are looking grim and you have the sacrifice buff in place and want some extra help...
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12-06-2007 @ 1:35PM
nativebrown said...
its about time warlocks got some love
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12-06-2007 @ 8:17PM
Ryan said...
Surprised this one is getting downmodded, locks have seen nothing but nerfs since 2.0.
12-06-2007 @ 1:36PM
Houston Dragon said...
"It's a hassle to learn how to summon these demons, requiring the completion of multiple quests for each, and summoning them requires reagents, including the death of one of your party members (for the Doomguard at least)."
Actually, this is already a non-issue that Blizzard has addressed pretty well, having just rolled a new 'lock up to 70 myself.
The Infernal quest is laughably easy now, as all of the demons to kill have been rendered non-elite for the Fel Essences, and the summoned boss is again non-elite and soloable even for a lower level by the time they can obtain the quest.
As for the Doomguard, you can either farm the book drop from the demons in the Blasted Lands until you die of boredom... or walk over to your handy warlock trainer, and just buy the Curse of Doom spell. Boom, instant Doomguard, and a handy raiding spell for instances.
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12-06-2007 @ 1:40PM
Eddie said...
It's more of a hassle to learn how to summon these useless demons than it is to learn to summon the useful minions.
12-06-2007 @ 1:41PM
Atilim said...
Ok, don't know how those felguards atm but before the patch 2.3 they where too strong to solo, and you need a good tank with a healer otherwise they will kill you.
Also using COD for summening doomguard only helps when you go outside and kill lvl 1 mobs with that, becasue you can only summen Doomguard by killing with COD and lets face it, a boss opener like COD doesn't kill the boss.
12-07-2007 @ 4:13AM
Ian said...
Rather than grinding for the book you could do the very quick "The Prison's Bindings" and "The Prison's Casing" quests in Blasted Lands which just require you to kill a few Satyrs in DM East (easy with the Crescent Key as you go in via the pavilion) and a few Hederine demons in Darkwhisper Gorge in Winterspring. The final part of the quest involving capturing a Doomguard is a piece of cake. No painful grinding required as when I did the Satyrs and Hederines I got my 15 blood drops and 5 tear drops very quickly indeed.
12-06-2007 @ 1:37PM
bloodlight said...
Just what warlocks need, more buff up. how wonderful for the rest of us.
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12-06-2007 @ 1:41PM
Verit said...
Care to name any buffs us warlocks have recieved in the last 7-8 patches?
12-06-2007 @ 3:00PM
Paw said...
Umm...yes...right....well.....hmm...They got t..no...ummmm...Oh! They were given a...no that was everyone else....hmmm....Ooo! I know! New spell animations for a couple of spells!
How dare they! I still won't hold my breath. This doesn't smell like it is coming up any time soon. More like the excerpts of a conversation a couple of devs had at lunch one day when they were casually discussing the complaints on the warlock forums.
12-06-2007 @ 1:42PM
Steve_S said...
Currently the infernal and doomguard (especially the doomguard) are worthless. The infernal might be semi-useful in a BG like AV. Doomguard? You have to be kidding me. I never even bothered doing the quest for DG, completely worthless.
The DG should come pre-enslaved like an infernal and just need several people to summon like ritual of Souls. Even then it’s still very situational, not like you could use it during a boss fight. Make it a 10minute pet that would have to be re-summoned each time or something (maybe even do a set amount of damage or % to the lock on despawn). Or add as a permanent pet at level 80 or whatever. As of now it serves no purpose except being a novelty.
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12-06-2007 @ 1:58PM
Alch said...
I would be happier with a little more aggro control from Ol Blue. The guy cant hold aggro with 3 dots ticking at all let alone a shadow bolt past level 25.
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12-06-2007 @ 6:55PM
Aaron said...
That's why you "drain tank" 25 onwards, and it works ;)
12-06-2007 @ 2:00PM
aradoc said...
Houston Dragon said "or walk over to your handy warlock trainer, and just buy the Curse of Doom spell. Boom, instant Doomguard...."
WOWWIKI says: "The chance of summoning a Doomguard if the mob dies is 10%."
Thats hardly "BOOM, Instant Doomguard!"
Thats also not the Ritual of Doom spell (which can be learned from a [Grimoire of Doom] or the Quest [60] Suppression.
Why don't you know these things if you've leveled your lock to 70...sounds more like Ebay to me. Yay for spreading bad information.
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12-06-2007 @ 4:33PM
Merklyn said...
Heh - On a Kael fight we spawned a Doomguard from my CoD... Didn't really impact us much as it was awash in aoe (it occurred when aoeing down the weapons)...
All I remember from the tanks in the aoe was, "what the hell is that????"
=)
12-06-2007 @ 2:07PM
Lori said...
Anyone think that instead of a Doomguard replaceing a group member the group member is transformed into a Doomguard would be interesting?
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12-06-2007 @ 2:44PM
Urthona said...
/win
I adore this idea. More please.
12-06-2007 @ 2:10PM
DWRoelands said...
I'd be happy with:
Infernal: 45 minute duration, 60 minute cooldown on summoning, arrives enslaved, enslave only breaks after 45 minutes.
Doomguard: 30 minute duration, 60 minute cooldown on summoning, arrives enslaved, enslave breaks only after 30 minutes.
This would maintain the not-always-available factor while making them much more useful in raiding
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12-06-2007 @ 2:35PM
Al in SoCal said...
I like this idea....nothing more to say.
12-07-2007 @ 12:35AM
Auralez said...
It would also be nice to have a 100% chance to summon the Doomguard when CoD triggers