Posts with tag doomguard

Are you sure you don't want green fire? Quite sure? Positively sure? Absolutely, one hundred percent sure?

Don't lie to me like that. You want it. You want to do the end of this questline, because it's so badass. I was spinning circles in my seat and giggling maniacally at how Kanrethad completely wiped the roof of the Black Temple with my body for two hours straight, because it was so much fun to be challenged not merely as a player, but as a whole warlock. You're going to use abilities you've almost never used before in this questline, and you're going to love all of it.

I hope I don't have to say it too much, but spoilers ahead.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill thinks about making an orc warlock just so she can put on a black robe transmog -- including pointed black hat -- and stand on top of Karazhan, waving her arms, while yelling "FLY, MY PRETTIES! FLY!" into Ventrilo.

Some time ago, I said minions were things we warlocks can't live without. I apologize. I was too enamored with the Supremacy demons to see that yes, you can live with demons just fine as a warlock in Mists of Pandaria.

This week, we'll visit all the demons. I do mean all the demons; I'm going to review even the most basic of pet mechanics all the way to Command Demon and the Grimoire talents. If you missed the minor glyphs for pets or the new voice emotes for the Supremacy pets, you should check those out.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. Today, Megan O'Neill is taking a break from beta, instead offering some Pointilism 102 advice.

My friends, Blizzard is trying to torture me. The large number of drastic changes to the warlock class makes for cool columns. I have no beta access yet (c'mon, late Burning Crusade wave!). The greater likelihood of people playing through beta on weekends rather than on weekdays means those with beta access update information threads on the weekends. I write most of my columns before the weekends. The timing of new information contrary to my writings has had me wanting to drain my own soul out for a couple of weeks here.

... OK, you got me. The real reason I don't want to talk about Mists this week is because Wryxian broke my heart with the no green fire trickery. Don't worry, though! I got my evil groove back by proving my preparedness and fast reactions to my guild. I gloriously dropped a QQ train during a heroic Ultraxion attempt when my raid leader jokingly called for it.

Sadly, the next night, many guildmates brought train-wreckers to raid. What are you saying? A Heroism filled with choo-choo yells and fist pumps isn't the best DPS buff ever? Blasphemy!

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. Today, Megan O'Neill is your host, and she's hopefully not an idiot, though as this post goes live with the Mists of Pandaria press release news, this could very well signify nothing.

You could argue that an affliction warlock is like a shadow priest with a demon. Or that a destruction 'lock is like a fire mage with a demon. But it's hard to argue demonology as anything but warlock, especially when a demo 'lock is often a demon with a demon.

And yet for a long time, demonology had been the lesser of the three specs. In Wrath, it was popular opinion that demo 'locks were only there for the raid buff, despite the fact that well-played demo could be competitive and even beat the then-reigning affliction spec. The other popular use of demo was to farm either old dungeon fun or honorable kills as the nigh-unkillable, hybrid affliction, SL/SL-specced drain tank.

In Cataclysm, demo took a change for the better in its DPS output. It rose every tier and finally overtook affliction and destruction in Dragon Soul. But its ascent wasn't -- and still isn't -- without problems.

Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. "Don't tell anyone this but Niby is daft." ~ Impsy <Niby's Minion>

This week, Blood Pact looks at the bad-boys of our demon companions. When you think through the various warlock minions it's common to consider their usefulness. This is especially true of non-warlocks and raid leaders. Everyone knows that imp for his ranged DPS, health bonus and constant grumbling, the felhunter for annoying casters, voidwalker for tanking, felguard for pure DPS and the succubus for, well, dying a lot in Black Temple. This week though we look at two minions that are best known for killing people and causing trouble in towns and villages: the infernal and the doomguard.

Anyone who has been playing the game for some time probably remembers at least one occasion where a bored warlock has decided that they have nothing better to do than annoy low-level members of their own faction by setting one of these guys loose. If not then you've almost certainly heard stories. It's these stories that, even though this chaos is no longer possible, make others look at locks with much suspicion and locks sigh for the old days.

I was perusing the Blood Pact archives this week, trying to think of a topic which would be a little less dry than my last topic, and I noticed that an in-depth look at a Warlock's minions is rather over-due!

I've long been of the opinion that Warlock minions are far more similar to a Warrior's stances than they are to a Hunter's pets. Hunter pets are very much a separate entity from the hunter them self. They have their own talent trees, different abilities they can train, and regardless of spec can account for 25% or more of the Hunter's total DPS in any given encounter -- closer to 50% if the Hunter is speced beast mastery! Warlock minions, on the other hand, have no customisability whatsoever, save the various talents which can be used to improve them. Often times a minion is used for no other reason than for the buff it provides -- or in the case of affliction Warlocks -- as a mana battery for Dark Pact.

I have a confession to make. I don't know the Ritual of Doom. I guess I'm just not hardcore that way. I wish I did the quest chain, although after this post, I might actually make my way to the Blasted Lands and start it. I've actually died to the Ritual of Doom, so I know what fun I'm missing.

Anyway, here we go. The Doomguard is the last demon we'll discuss on Demonology 101. Lazy Warlocks such as myself can luck out on a Doomguard with Curse of Doom, our favorite spell on Netherspite. It's a fairly low percentage to spawn one, and Curse of Doom needs to deliver the killing blow on the mob... which can be a long wait considering the curse only deals damage at the end of one minute.

[UPDATE: Curse of Doom has been revised to spawn a Doomguard 100% of the time if it delivers the killing blow! Ritual of Doom also no longer kills a player but damages them, apparently with a Curse of Doom-size damage spell. Doomguards remain enslaved for 15 minutes and disappear thereafter, eliminating the need to enslave.]

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, WoW Insider's newest weekly feature column. Have a question about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe? Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!

We have no reason to delay, so let's get right into the meat of things!

Jere asks: I might be wrong on location, but why is there a member of the Argent Dawn stationed in Dun Morogh just southeast of IF?

Answer: Unfortunately, we have no idea. Father Gavin might just be an emissary or representative from the Argent Dawn to Dun Morogh, but he has no quests or dialogue attached to him. It's possible he'll be used for something in the future, but it seems unlikely. He simply exists. Nothing more.

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.