While everyone is probably aware that warlocks have demonic pets, you may be hard pressed to find anyone who can name all six of them.  Of course everyone's familiar with the fireball-spewing Imp, many would recognize the bright blue Voidwalker (affectionately called "blueberry" by some), countless have learned to fear the dangerous Succubus, and there's not a casting class in the game that doesn't cringe at the sight of the silencing Felhunter.  But there are two more pets, and not even Blizzard seems to be certain of their purpose.

The final pets in the warlock's arsenal are the Infernal (obtained at level 50) and the Doomguard (obtained at level 60), and they function quite differently than the previous four.  While all of a warlock's lower level pets stay under the warlock's command until dead or dismissed, the Infernal and Doomguard are both considered enslaved demons (the Infernal is enslaved under the warlock's command upon summoning, whereas the Doomgaurd must be enslaved after summoning).  While this may sound like a matter of semantics, it's a crucial detail - and it's why you don't commonly see warlocks wrecking havoc across Azeroth with Infernals or Doomguards.  Enslave demon is on a five minute timer - after five minutes (at most), the demon breaks free from the enslave and attacks the warlock.  You can re-enslave it, but enslave is on diminishing returns, meaning that it becomes less effective each time you cast it, and that you eventually won't be able to re-enslave the demon at all. 

Because of this unreliability, few warlocks use these pets beyond novelty purposes, and many wonder why they're in the game at all.  This thread nicely summarizes warlock concerns on the issue, and community manager Tseric responds to the situation only to say that these pets are a "design pickle" and he'll continue to relay the community's feedback to the developers.  Not necessarily good news, but at least Blizzard's aware of the issues with these pets.

Tags: end game pets, EndGamePets

Filed under: Warlock