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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsDoomguard & Infernal getting buffed
by John Himes 
Dec 6th 2007 at 1:00PM
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?
Filed under: Warlock, Buffs, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Naix Dec 6th 2007 2:29PM
How about the warlock himself can turn into a big scary melee demon. That would be cool.
Felknight Dec 6th 2007 2:47PM
I would enjoy that
Mayo Dec 6th 2007 2:57PM
@ Verit - One would take a look at the fact that Warlocks are the least changed class since BC came out and surmise that Blizzard feels they are balanced enough to not need too many buffs or nerfs. As I went and looked at the patch notes from patch 1.12 to 2.3, I'm not seeing any major nerfs, nor major buffs, to the Warlock class.
I don't like to toss around the word "balance" alot when it comes to classes, but Warlocks have been and continue to be consistent heavy damage dealers, with good control and support features.
If I were to say there was one class in WoW that really doesn't need to be touched, it's Warlocks.
Dusters Dec 6th 2007 3:07PM
No major nerfs eh? Maybe not in PVE but the drain life being affected by MS was a HUGE nerf, and lets not forget the resilience affecting DoTs nerf. I played (leveling a druid now) a destruction lock since wow started and they are in need of some love.
Mats Dec 6th 2007 4:21PM
This comment is for PvE reasons alone, not PVP, but lets talk somewhat about balance.
Currently, the pre TK/SSC raid spec is affliction all the way. And this is also the defacto raid tree, as it holds several raid buff/creature nerf talents like malediction and Shadow Embrace. A well balanced raid should have 2 warlocks with a deep Affliction spec to be optimized for debuffing/buffing.
However, in SSC and TK, Blizzard sees the need for a warlock tank in two encounters, something that forces at least 1 warlock to spec into Soul Link, a worthless talent for raiding, expect for those 2 encounters.
As if this forced respec for a warlock was not bad, we have the problem of itemization after Karazhan.
Zul'Aman, Tempest Keep, SSC and Black Temple all focus on Crit and Hast along with Spelldamage. For a affliction lock (remember, the blizzard designed "raid tree") crit and hast does not buff damage at all. Shadowbolt is around 30% of the damage done by a affliction lock, so hast and crit is not a good investment to up damage.
So, if a warlock wants to spec for raiding after Karazhan, you need to spec deep Destro, but Destro is not raid friendly, as it has no Hit talents, and no raid buffing talents. However, it's the only tree you can go if you want to benefit from anything that drops.
So there is a need to look at warlocks and how they work in PvE, as it's currently not working as it should.
Verit Dec 6th 2007 4:37PM
@mayo
A lot of the nerfs that warlocks get aren't even mentioned in the patch notes. For instance the last 3-4 fear nerfs - I think only one has been mentioned.
The only buff I've gotten since I've played the game is they removed the damage cap on seed of corruption.
Not all of the specs are raid worthy either - which is a shame. Dots don't scale nearly as well with spell damage as other classes (shadow word pain for instance scales better than most warlock dots).
Mayo Dec 6th 2007 3:12PM
In all fairness, DoT's being affected by resilience can't honestly qualify as a nerf, because just about everything is, and rightfully should be, affected by resilience. That was it's purpose.
No matter how you want to spin it, Warlocks still spit out the most caster DPS, and any Warlock who puts a little time and effort into learning how best to gear and play their spec already has overcome those "nerfs", just like I as a holy paladin have found good ways to compensate for "big" nerfs like the change of Illumination from 100% mana return to 60% return - which was a big PvE AND PvP nerf for those of us who are primarily healers.
Corrodias Dec 6th 2007 3:26PM
The infernals and doomguards are little more than pointless spellbook entries at this point. It'll be good to see them acquire some kind of purpose.
Khallah Dec 6th 2007 3:27PM
It would be neat if they gave these demons some new abilities that they could design a PvE encounter around. As it stands our pets don't get much use in raids other than providing bloodpact, or a sac for dps.
bloodlight Dec 6th 2007 4:22PM
Verit said...
Care to name any buffs us warlocks have recieved in the last 7-8 patches?
Don't need to they already are well enough over powered, , fear (the only long duration CC not broken by damage) , dot dot dot, fear, dot dot dot, fear , dot dot dot, game over. only hope is to grab special anti warlock trinkets and gimp your self vs any other class you might face.
when to PVP with any hope all you must arm vs one class to the serious expense of arming against other class's that class is over powered.
In PVE i see no problem with warlocks , They area nice baleneced part of a good team. But eventhe Blizzard developers have admitted that fear is not balenced in PvP.
Mort Dec 6th 2007 4:25PM
"(the only long duration CC not broken by damage)"
Are you sure you aren't thinking of Hammer of Justice or Cheapshot? Last I checked fear has a chance to break while those don't. Hit them feared target with heavy damage and it breaks.
Blizz has specifically said that periodic damage has a lower chance to break fear. However an immo landing breaks it quite often. The "developer" comment you refer to was many patches ago and has been changed to shorter duration, 8 second max, diminishing returns, and breaks on channeled or direct damage more often.
Verit Dec 6th 2007 4:50PM
While you may have been feared and dotted for the whole duration - as a warlock in pvp that rarely happens for me. There are so many mechanics out there for interrupting my cast timer, being immune to fear (warriors and beastmaster hunters come to mind), racial abilitys (wotf), trinkets etc etc - that honestly - its not as useful as it once was.
bloodlight Dec 6th 2007 11:54PM
yes i am am sure, Warlocks keep claiming that fear is breakable by damage, yet in my experience it has never happened. Fear = long slow death while being able to do nothing about it. especialy since unlike hammer (never played rouge can't comment on cheap shot) it has almost no recharge time and can just be reapplied as soon as the first one wear off. fear = dead the may as well make it a 10,000 health kill strike so people can get on with playing the game, instead of being a totally passive observer.
And no the dots should not have a lower chance of breaking it. they should break it just like every thing else does.
Mort Dec 6th 2007 3:35PM
How about give them both party hats, replace their abilities with ones like "Create Balloon Animal" and "Throw Pie," because that is all they are good for right now. Entertainment at parties. Oh oh oh! Give them bright red noses and horns! So they can honk at your enemy and call it a taunt!
Give them longer enslaves, actual amounts of damage and defense. They go down like fat kids on smarties and hit like they were using limp noodles.
70lock Dec 6th 2007 3:56PM
I have toyed with the curse of doom just kiting mobs till they die to see how long it takes to actually summon one. I would say that it took between 15-20 mobs to get one summon and the damn thing broke enslave after 2 mobs. Even though there were 5 more to kill...bottom line, summoned a felguard quickly and mopped the dirt with the mobs..the fel has a ton more hitting power than the DG period..
only for wiping noobs in goldshire..lol
Zechleton Dec 6th 2007 4:03PM
Make them gamebreakers like in WC3. Getting an Infernal for your DL (yea i know, nobody goes DL but still...) guarantees you a win 99% of the time. In WoW erm... well... the stun is kinda handy? It was a massive disappointment for me when i first summoned one.
jtrain Dec 6th 2007 4:30PM
These are 2 of the coolest looking minions available, and you NEVER see them. As most already pointed out, they just aren't worth it from a cost/utility perspective.
I don't care what Blizz does, as long as it means I'll actually have a reason to pull these guys out every once in a while.
Slayblaze Dec 6th 2007 4:41PM
The summonable demon mechanic is really screwed up in so many ways...this would be one way Blizz could address one of several issues which have need attention for a long time. Then again, I would much rather have a questable new demon at level 60 and another at level 70. As it is now the last new demon can be aquired at level 50. Not that the comparison is exactly equal, but imagine for a moment if Hunters could never ever get a different pet after having reached level 50? Hunters can get a new pet at almost every level, and some of the really cool ones are between level 60-70. Locks get stuck using the same crappy imp we've had since level 4 about 90% of the time.
Felbane Dec 6th 2007 4:52PM
Infernal: 15m duration, 30m cooldown. Give it decent melee damage (on or slightly above the early felguards), with the immolate effect for nearby mobs (say, 20 base damage/tick, scalable by lock's +dmg). Remove the "must be outdoors to summon" requirement.
Doomguard: 30m duration, 60m cooldown. Buff armor, defense, and give him a powerful AoE taunt (perhaps replace Rain of Fire with 'Demonic Shout'). Replace Dispel with a heavy threat single-target taunt, leave cripple and war stomp. Put melee damage on par with infernal, but without the scaling. Instead make his armor and HP scale with the Lock's armor (much like Dire bear with druids).
Both demons would not cancel any Demonic Sacrifice buffs active on the warlock. Also, both would never break enslavement before the initial duration was up, but after breaking the normal rules apply (enslave for 5m duration, diminishing returns).
This'd help alleviate the lack of tanks... Doomguard would theoretically be able to take on most 5-man bosses, when aided by a decent group. Hell, even make him immune to Health Funnel so you don't get people QQing about locks soloing group content. But, he's just weak enough that he's useless against heroic and raid bosses.
Just a thought. Pick it apart as I know you will.
Jackie Dec 6th 2007 5:16PM
The only thing I ever use these pets for is to lay waste to Goldshire when it hosts the Darkmoon Faire. These pets are a severe waste of time and reagents otherwise. Why on earth would I ever want to summon a pet that needs to be constantly re-enslaved with diminishing returns? I just end up dead when the enslavement randomly fails and I get attacked.
The Ritual of Doom is only good as a Russian Roulette type game. Curse of Doom finds ways to time out or get resisted. The hour cooldown on the infernal and ritual is excessive.
Those pets needs an intensive revision so they can be of use to a player.