Forum Post of the Day: Scaling warlock pets
by Amanda Rivera 
Oct 31st 2007 at 6:15PM
This is largely a PvP concern, although I would love to be able to bring my Felguard into a raid instance and have him last more than 3.5 seconds. Every piece of armor my lock adds to her kit should buff her pet as well as her own locky self, it only makes sense. Well, that's the way it should be, but it's not working properly, and the locks are looking for some love. And before you go there, no this isn't a call for a buff, this is an example of a bug that needs to be addressed, and has nothing to do with whether or not locks are overpowered.
The good news is that the devs are interested in hearing what you locks have to say on this issue. This is one case where they are asking for feedback and suggestions on how to improve the situation. Of course we're talking about constructive feedback, so Neth asks that you keep the complaining to a minimum if you want to have your voice heard.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Replex Oct 31st 2007 6:19PM
Replace the word "Warlock" for "Hunter" and you have the same exact topic!
Nati Oct 31st 2007 6:19PM
What? Of course it's a call for a buff. Stronger pets = stronger warlock. That's a buff!
Personally I feel as though the felhunter, at least, needs a nerf. The rest might or might not need buffage, but the felhunter is a really fricking powerful pvp tool. :O
Abdul Oct 31st 2007 6:28PM
Locks need this like Britney Spears needs another 8 ball.
Mike Oct 31st 2007 6:34PM
Ok, while i agree that does make sense (and for hunters as well), this is still considered a type of "buff" even though its labeled as a fix. Nerf some of the lock abilities first then make the change. Thats fair.
exit stencil Oct 31st 2007 6:33PM
Felhunters would be powerful if they weren't being 2-shot, which any team worth their rating will do. They don't scale with resilience and they don't scale well enough with stamina.
As much as I love rolling teams who don't know better, if you're not killing the felhunter, you're not doing it right.
Warlocks are a pet class, they're balanced around having the extra utility of their pets.
bennet Oct 31st 2007 6:35PM
@1: Actually, I think Blizzard has done a lot to improve hunter pets without giving the same love to warlocks. I have a level 70 of each, and once upon a time they were Beast Mastery and Demonology spec (our guild is cloth-heavy, and our MT would take any offtank he could get). I was just getting ready to dump Beast Mastery because my pet was too squishy for places like Shadow Labs and Shattered Halls when along came Avoidance. I have to keep an eye on Grimalkin, sure, but he hardly ever dies anymore, and our healers don't need to touch him, which is a good thing.
My warlock, on the other hand, gave up on her felguard, respec'd Demo/Ruin, and spends instances with guildies crying over her felhunter's body every half hour when she sacrifices him for near-infinite mana (they don't cry nearly as much over a dead succubus, they think the moaning is annoying). A top-tier talent you have to throw away to instance effectively does seem a little broken to me...
Diaz Oct 31st 2007 6:51PM
Should lock's pets get some love? Perhaps.
Although you will find it had to get many nonlocks to agree as the majority of players will argue that the lock is the only 'complete' class (thus the cries of OP!).
Should lock's pets receive the same love as Hunter pets deserve? No.
Locks don't feed their pets.
Locks do not have to maintain pet loyalty or have the pet leave never to return.
Locks do not have to grind out pet levels which is exceedingly slow.
No hunter pet has anywhere near the viability of a felpuppy.
Hunters choose pets, true, but the choices are slim given not all pets can train the same abilities-- its cat, boar, ravenger, or scorpid by lvl 70.
Drew Oct 31st 2007 6:53PM
"very piece of armor my lock adds to her kit should buff her pet as well as her own locky self, it only makes sense"
Are you kidding me? That makes no sense at all. Your gear should have nothing to do with your pets stats. The only thing that should make the pet stronger is its lvl/abilities. QQ, the last class blizz needs to be looking at is the warlock
Tim Small Oct 31st 2007 6:52PM
I would love to see the warlock pets able to equip items like armor, weapons, trinkets and the like. Would make for a wide diversity.
Fireflash38 Oct 31st 2007 6:52PM
Personally, the only thing that they should "fix" (read buff) with warlocks pets is the HP/armor of their tanking pets. Felhunters are squishie, as they are supposed to be used against caster types, where melee damage is not an issue.
I do think that it is mostly bullshit that warlocks can have equal to/greater nuking DPS than a mage, yet at the same time have a decent pet. They should redesign a little bit so that Demo locks depend most on their pet (buffing the pets hp/armor, the dps they put out is appr 200), while the other trees depend most on what they deal with (dots and nuking).
bennet Oct 31st 2007 7:03PM
A fully spec'd Demo lock doesn't have the same DPS as one with a different spec - a fact which my guild tanks, who had to change their aggro generation tactics when I switched from Demonology to Demo/Ruin, will attest to.
And it's true that warlocks don't feed their pets (and feeding and pet loyalty go together, so you're inflating your list of differences), go train talents, or level them up. But you do need soul shards to summon them - and since locks have potentially four different pets, presumably the intent is to switch between them as the situation requires. And you have to do quests to get most of them. More importantly, you need to put talent points into buffing pet capabilities. If I stick nine talent points into making my pets better, I expect them to be...well...better.
Karl Oct 31st 2007 7:03PM
Touchy topic, but here we go...
Warlock pets scaling with armor/hp in accordance to Warlock stats would be a bonus for all pets (although the imp is not as big a concern). Spell power should go to pet AP or pet spell power stats; spell crit to crit, etc... These should scale at a percentage of the warlocks stats. This makes sense due to the fact that if I am running Kara or SSC and get gear from there, my pet should be able to walk in there with me too. Although my guild does have one lock who remained demo for raiding, they are low on the DPS chart because they spend too much time with a dead pet. As affliction, I pull out my imp (who remains phased to avoid hits), use the imp as a mana battery only and give the stam buff to a tank. Beyond that, my pet has no function in a raid.
Imp scaling - Give more mana for higher Lock int.
Succy - Stamina and Mana increase.
Felhunter - Armor and Stamina increase
Void - Dear god, make him a viable solo pet again with more threat/stamina/armor with Warlock Int/Stam. His "tanking" starts to decline after around level 20 due to Warlock DoT threat.
Felguard - Hardest one to balance PvP and PvE, but he needs more Stamina and defense. Attack power increase with spell power would be nice as well, but that may be asking too much.
Pattmyn Oct 31st 2007 7:05PM
As a Lock myself, I find that in the high level content any of my pets get stomped on pretty fast. I don't think they should become the walking death squads that Hunters have at their disposal, but they could use to be more than just a mana battery. After all, Hunters have mail to fall back on for defense whereas Lock's have that thin layer of spooky cloth.
Hagrin Oct 31st 2007 7:13PM
Are you serious? As if they arent hard enought to beat as it is... This idea will only make them more powerfull, pets are a utility not another win button...
Basic Oct 31st 2007 7:13PM
My solution to "omg my pet is dead QQ" problems in pvp: make Fel Domination a 10 min cooldown, and usable in arenas.
Rich Oct 31st 2007 7:15PM
There should be some better scaling, not alot just a little more.
Some of the higher ranked pet abilities didn't scale right. The voidwalker's threat generation takes a dive in the mid 50's. At level 70, CoA and Corruption get maybe 3 ticks before the mob comes after me and thats after 2 torments and a suffering.
The scaling from attributes could be jacked about about 20% and still not be too bad. It would make a level 70 minion almost on par with a level 70 hunter pet. Heck you wouldn't even have to do all of the stats just stamina and resiliance. You could take them both to .5 per point in the stat.
Actually, I'd rather see more minions. There needs to be a level 60 or 70 demon that is actually useful unlike the infernal or doomguard and doesn't require 41 points in demonology.
Diaz Oct 31st 2007 7:15PM
@ 11. Hunter Pet loyalty is not based solely on feeding a pet. I wish it was. Check out petopia for the time requirement on gaining pet loyalty and you may be surprised.
bennet Oct 31st 2007 7:48PM
@17: I meant that if you don't feed your pet, it certainly won't gain loyalty, and once you've gained it, you need to keep feeding the pet to keep it - so in that sense, feeding and loyalty are linked. I've only ever had two pets in my career as a hunter precisely because it's such a pain to start a new one.
I guess some of the debate here falls on the PVP/PVE line - I don't PVP with my warlock, so I can't speak to that, but I do know that my lock pets are far too weak to withstand a high-level instance, and my hunter pets aren't, and since they are both in theory pet-capable classes I wouldn't mind seeing that addressed. And I wouldn't cry over making a personal DPS/pet longevity tradeoff to have at least a few of my pets be viable offtanks again.
klink-o Oct 31st 2007 7:48PM
Changing our pet's stats and keeping them balanced would be a difficult undertaking. I think a better place to start would be simply updating their AI a bit. 9 times outta 10 when one of my pets dies its from it standing in AOE or a cleave or some shit even a modest player knows not to do.
PhyerFly Oct 31st 2007 8:12PM
Despite agreeing with you completely, non-warlocks will expectedly cry a river about warlocks getting ANY buffs or fixes. Despite their new-found fanfare in PvP, the warlock class still has a LOT of rough edges, useless spells and even useless pets.
It's easy to hate when your always on the receiving end - but I suggest people try and level a warlock before you complain with ignorant bias. I rolled a 70 Shaman and it changed my perspective and perception of how to play my warlock significantly.