Posts with tag succubus

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. This week, Megan O'Neill totally cast a soulstone on her old computer minion, but it's refusing to take the battle res. Maybe it disconnected. Maybe it'll be ported to the Dwarven District when she comes back next week.

Minions -- can't live with them, and can't live without them. Faithful friend, loquacious lackey, silent scapegoat -- like any typical villainous class, we've got cannon fodder for our plans. It's an important step in a warlock's proper training to know about your minions and what they do so that you can steer clear of any typical villain muck-ups in the future.

Blood Pact is your weekly warlock digest brought to you by Dominic Hobbs. "A succubus is a devourer of souls, destroyer of hearts, tempter of men. A creature of profound evil and of singular mind. It cannot be brought into our world without a stimulus." ~ Gan'rul Bloodeye

Previously in 'Meet the minions' we have looked at the imp and the voidwalker as well as how to manage your minions and your threat. In this installment our demon of choice is the succubus and the game mechanic is crowd control; fear, seduce, howl, banish and a svelte demon with wings. But before I delve in I need to clarify something to Blood Pact readers.

For a while now I've had a demon trying to whisper words of doubt into my ear. He's been telling me that Blood Pact readers want PvP info in the column, that they cry out for it, they yearn for it, they need it; and that I can't deliver any. It's true that my knowledge and experience of PvP pretty much extends as far as being able to smell it early enough to avoid it. Don't get me wrong, I love researching for Blood Pact but in this case I'm not going to try, and for two reasons. First, nobody who cares about warlock PvP wants to have me school them on it, and second we have some first rate PvP experts at WoW.com who can do it better.

So I've sent the demon packing (literally; don't be surprised if you find more than the normal number of broken biscuits in future packets) and have started a campaign to convince our arena and battleground columnists to get with some lock love. So enough with the preamble, lets get on with the show.

WoW.com readers, it's up to you to decide the fate of Turpen the Gnome Warlock with Choose My Adventure. Casting your vote toward the many aspects of Turpen and make him your own! Well, not literally. He belongs to Alex, but you know what we mean.

Well, it took longer than I had hoped, but Turpen has finally dinged level 45 and he did it in the wet, muddy wastes of Dustwallow Marsh. It wasn't particularly hard, but between all of the patch 3.2 preparation I've been doing, it was sort of a scatterbrained trip. Do a few quests here, a few quests there... all in all, it wasn't particularly memorable!

Throwing fuel on the 'not very memorable' fire was the completely anticlimactic ding of level 40. I remember that level being something of a landmark, but for Turpen the level came and went without much celebration. Mounts are at level 30 now, and the level 40 talent for Affliction Warlocks is pretty useful, but not much to get excited about. Oh boy, Dark Pact! Mana regen is so exciting! Don't get me wrong, I love me some mana, but could there be anything less exciting to someone who's leveling, questing and exploring? I want toys! I want explosions! I want excitement! This was none of those things. Maybe I would've been more excited if I run around with my Imp or Succubus out, but I've been getting pretty good mileage out of my Voidwalker still. I didn't have mana problems before Dark Pact, so I rarely use it now that I have it.

Warlock writer Nick Whelan has been quoted as saying that the new WoW.com layout is ''trippin.' Stormwind City Guards later found Infinite Dust in the saddle bags of his Dreadsteed. While he was being held for further questioning, he wrote this week's Blood Pact.

On a whim, I pulled out some of my Dungeons and Dragons books a couple weeks back, and convinced a buddy of mine that we should pick up where we left off in one of our old games. Since then my head has been wrapped around Zalekios Gromar, Vasharan Warlock on a mission to kill the gods that spited his people in millennia past. And while the Eldritch Blast of D&D isn't exactly the same as WoW's Shadow Bolt, it certainly got me in the mood for role playing.

There was a time between my adventures near Northshire Abbey, and my discovery that I had a passion for group content while I was fighting a torrential updraft of trolls in Zul'Farrak, when RP was my primary reason for playing the game. And while you don't usually see me walking through Stormwind these days, there was a time when I was Lord Sentai Grehsk, The Corpseseeker. A Warlock driven by the horrors of war to seek world peace at any cost, regardless of how many people he needed to quietly murder to achieve it.

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.

There are a few interesting things in the Demonology tree in Wrath of the Lich King, but this 31-point talent was what jumped out at me the most. Replacing Soul Link, which was moved down to 11 points, Demonic Empowerment is the long-needed uh-oh button for our demons. Kind of like their own version of the PvP trinket. The cool thing is that, depending on the demon you have out, you get different effects.

Demonic Empowerment
Requires 30 points in Demonology
Grants the Warlock's summoned demon Empowerment.

• Succubus - Instantly vanishes, causing the Succubus to go into an improved Invisibility state. The vanish effect removes all stuns, snares and movement impairing effects from the Succubus.
• Voidwalker - Increases the Voidwalker's health by 20%, and it's threat generated from spells and attacks by 20% for 20 sec.
• Imp - Increases the Imp's spell critical strike chance by 20% for 30 sec.
• Felhunter - Dispels all magical effects from the Felhunter.
• Fel Guard - Increases the Fel Guard's attack speed by 20% and breaks all stun, snare and movement impairing effects and makes your Fel Guard immune to them. Lasts 15 sec.

With a cooldown of 1 minute, this spell will come in very handy for a variety of situations. In fact, I've key bound it in the Beta simply because I've found it to be incredibly useful. Let's take a look at the various uses after the jump.

Today on Demonology 101, we'll take a quick look at the Succubus, which won't really change much in Wrath of the Lich King. It's good to note that Succubi have had their health and armor increased by 20% and 22% respectively. It probably won't stop them from getting rinsed in PvP, but a buff is a buff. Unlike the Felhunter, which is the best pet for an Affliction Warlock, the Succubus isn't specialized for any particular tree. However, there are talents in Demonology that make her more useful.

The first one, obviously, is Improved Succubus, which has been modified in the Wrath Beta to confer up to a 100% resistance to interruption caused by damage while channeling Seduction. Succubi have four basic abilities, although they are famous this one alone. If a Succubus is ever brought out for PvP, it is purely for Seduction. They are the easiest demon to kill next to an Imp out of Phase Shift and thus almost never see Arena or even Battleground play. However, Succubi provide invaluable crowd control for humanoid-heavy instances. It helps to use an AddOn like FocusFrame to keep an eye on the Succubus' target because learning to reapply Seduction -- try to key bind it -- is crucial to keeping her alive.

As Inscription is slowly built into a viable trade skill, Blizzard sneaks more and more glyph data onto the Beta server, even if none of it is directly available thus far. This build, MMO Champion discovered a nice selection of Warlock glyphs, and I have to say that most of them look pretty sweet. Of course, it's hard to say for sure on how good some of them are until we know for sure if PvE damage rotations besides Shadow Bolt spam will be viable in Wrath's endgame, but I'll assume they will be, for the most part.

Let's check them out after the break.

Mike Schramm showed us the first hint of DC Unlimited's Series 4 WoW figures back during ComicCon, but now the DC Direct website gives us a view of the new statues.

The first female "deluxe" collector's figure is being released as part of the new series: Lady Vashj. "Deluxe" mostly means that she's bigger -- she's being hailed as standing as tall as Illidan's sculpt. But, yeah. She looks cool.

Your lineup for Series 4 inclues:

• Succubus Demon: Amberlash • 8.5"
• Tuskarr: Tavru Akua • 7"
• Gnoll Warlord: Gangris Riverpaw • 7.75"
• Murloc 2-pack: Fish-eye and Gibbergill • 6.5"

Uh huh. It's got a Murloc 2-pack. I suspect that's going to become my premier Christmas gift for friends and foes alike. The Tuskarr also looks pretty cool, and confirms this Series lives in the world of Wrath.

You've still got a little while to wait on these new figures, though. The advance solicits advertise that they won't go on sale until April 2009. That's about eight months out. So maybe they'll be the premiere Christmas gift next time around.

Empire magazine is already posting pictures from this weekend's ComicCon out in San Diego (WoW Insider also has correspondents there on site), and though they have no idea what they've stumbled across, it sure looks to us like what might be DC Unlimited's Series 4 WoW figurines. And rather than just the standard player characters, Blizzard and DC are going a little NPC for this series -- as you can see above, they've included everyone's favorite elite gnoll, Hogger himself. Also included in the series are a Succubus of some sort (with what looks like a Tauren with a polearm in the back there), and a gun-wielding Tauren Hunter.

The figures all have signs that say "Worldwide Debut Friday 4pm" on them, so it looks like we're getting to see them a little early. And Blizzard is excited, too -- Slorkuz has even written a poetic ode to Hogger in honor of his likeness being immortalized.

We'll keep an eye out for more info -- looks like DC is expanding their action figure line to include a few more less traditional character types. Who else should they honor with a figure in the future?

So, the world (and WoW Insider) is alive with the sound of the Wrath of the Lich King beta, and it's high time that we take a look at our favorite commander of evil... the Warlock. We'll want to be sure we understand what's coming for us, so as not to let anyone think those other evil guys are horning in on our territory. And, yeah, there's definitely some things changing.

A lot of the changes are a little hard to noggin out -- are they meant to be buffs? Nerfs? Inexplicably different, but not really better or worse? Demonology is certainly getting a thorough shuffle, but it's hard to say whether it's good or bad. We'll chat more about it after the cut. Let's start with what the first beta patch notes obviously say, and consider what each item means. Then, in Part II, we'll start looking at each tree individually, with each of its new spells.

It never really gets old speculating about what Blizzard has hidden away for the future, whether it be for the Sunwell Plateau, Wrath of the Lich King or something else entirely. The topic of Warlock pets comes up every now and then on the Wrath forums and while I don't play a Warlock, its an intriguing topic. Warlocks currently have six baseline demons, two of which have a slightly different summoning process. They can get another through being specced deep Demonology. If you count the Felguard as their level 70 addition in the Burning Crusade, they get one roughly every ten levels, so its safe to assume they have something coming in Wrath.

First thing to consider is what role the pet would play. Everything but healer has been done already, and I don't want to even think about a Warlock with a pet healer. The Felguard is essentially a direct upgrade to the Voidwalker, so something like that is more likely. Personally, I think a Shivarra would fit the next demon well, and act as a direct upgrade to the Succubus.

Second thing to consider is whether it would make sense from a lore point of view. As fun as it would be to summon a pet Pit Lord whenever you want, that seems unlikely. Same with the Nathrezim or the Eredar. Shivan or something we haven't seen yet seems the most likely choice.