Aside from some very specific situations where I’ll bring out the VW, I’ve pretty much embraced the DPS pets for leveling. The succubus is my personal favorite as she does the most damage, can CC, and is great if I get ganked. The imp gives that stam buff which is great for groups, plus fireshield.
The voidwalker, unfortunately, just feels like I’m slowing down. If I want to dot up 2 targets, with my pet tanking 1, the succubus won’t die before she kills her target with her raw damage.
Points in Imp VW are necessary if you’re leveling/grinding with the blueberry. Without them, you can pull threat off it with just like two dots. It become worse and worse as you’re gearing up with more SP/shadow damage at mid-late 30s and beyond.
I however did not ditch VW in favor of Succubus until I got 5/5 Fel Concentration and start drain tanking. Succubus is also the best pet for Dark Pact (good mana regen and the best pet DPS without using her Mana).
Even now at 60 as SM/Ruin, I still have 5/5 Fel Concentration for grinding with my Succubus.
For leveling, drain tanking (Dark Pact + Succubus) is probably the best there is for warlock regarding kill speed and uptime. I’m not counting SM/DS since it’s a lvl 60 build.
Improved voidwalker is still better. Your sac will give you your health 2x’s over, plus if you get overwhelmed, you can also sac him.
Negligable, really.
I still just chose voidwalker. I could dot stuff up with minimal damage taken and for mana I could just life tap and drain life and essentially never have to even drink until much later (50+) even then it wasn’t bad.
It may feel slow, but I was the first 60 lock in our guild by a long shot.
Yup, the hardest is when you’re putting points into demo from affliction. Some people actually suggest re-speccing, but eff that. 18-22 are pretty obnoxious.
Never went fel concentration, kept VW forever. Hell even at max level he’s amazing for stomping rogues. I got half life, sac’d and the rogue just vanished and ran away just today.
The voidwalker is a low level crutch. Once you get siphon life, you’re better off tanking your own mobs. Once you can get siphon+sacrifice at 51, you don’t have a reason to even use pets anymore. It makes more sense to eat the thing for hp regen. This combo is uncontested for 51-60, and farming after 60. It even excels at fighting players. The only thing it can’t do is raid, due to debuff slots. This is when the otherwise most dominate and flexible build is forced to retire.
I mean, he’s okay, but I wouldn’t use him as the primary in my PVP build. He can be quicksummoned out to pop a shield sometimes since I’m going SL/Nightfall anyway.
I still like the Voidwalker for leveling most of the time. If I pull more, the VW distracts the 2nd mob until I’m ready for him. If I get into PvP, the enemy is never expecting my VW shield, which allows me enough time to do what I need to do. I don’t find the DPS of the other pets valuable enough to sacrifice that potential lifesaver. If I have ally help then I’ll use the Succubus or w/e, but if I’m on my own, I can’t risk getting bursted down.
Different strokes for different folks. I prefer Succubus against rogues. They’ll get seduced the moment they pop. I’ll just create some distance and do a curse of shadow > shadowbolt > corruption (prevent vanish) > shadowbolt/deathcoil > shadowbolt > shadowburn. That’s 3k + damage non-crit without the rogue able to do anything.
Funniest is when fighting against a warrior if he doesn’t get an AoE fear off on the pet. Seduce > shadowbolt > death coil intercept > Seduce > shadowbolt > amped CoX > shadowbolt spam til he’s dead.
It gives less room for errors but way more satisfying when you pull some amazing plays.
I used the succubus from 24 onwards. Before that i used the imp. The voidwalkers reduced damage compared to private servers really hurts its ability to hold agro.
The succubus is better than imp for 2 reasons, no mana issues and it doesn’t get 2 shot lol
The VW can work fine but the problem is that you have to always be careful of ripping threat off because it’s so easy to do. Even with talents for VW, it just means they will hold threat off ONE more wand attack.
It’s easier to just drain tank, use a succubus and never look back.
Voidwalker worked fine until my lock was getting points in shadow mastery. At that point i was pulling off it early in the pulls so i switched to succubus at that point. And since i got dark pact right after that, i could use her as a mana battery.
I used the Voidwalker till 28. From 10 to about 20, it handled tanking somewhat alright. The mob pulled would get to about 50% before agroing on me.
At around 28, it was on the first tick of damage from dots (Corruption and Curse of Agony) that I would pull agro and VW would only get it back if I used Suffering. So I started ditching the VW for the Succubus.
Here’s what I found out.
Succubus with Soothing Kiss turned off will hold agro better than the VW. In some cases she will hold agro through a whole Siphon Health and Corruption duration. Her armor is enough to take one target if you do damage too before she gets killed. Her damage without any demonology talents is about 20-30% of my total damage.
She’s very much worth using because of her damage, ability to cc, and ability to give you breathing room with tanking ability. She can’t do elites. You’ll want to fear kite those.
IMO, for the voidwalker to be worth it, it needs about 50% more damage, and double the health. Without both of those its simply inferior to the Succubus in most situations. Its outtanked and outdamaged by even most Hunter pets. I don’t mind it being outdamaged. But it should be on par for tanking. But sadly it isn’t.
I’ve been toying around with the idea of using a Felhunter to tank. Couple Curse of Agony with Tainted Blood could make some mobs hit like wet noodles. Especially fast attacking large cat mobs and rogue type dual wielding mobs.
Already Curse of Weakness lowers their damage by 30-50% per hit. Tainted Blood on top of that may lower it even further to pinpricks at best. I don’t think the FH’s damage will be enough to be worth it. But it might be a fun test to see a 2+ level mob hitting you for 1-2 dmg a hit theoretically.
The voidwalker is great for staying alive in hairy situations. He can aoe taunt and survive a lot longer than the succubus. You can also shield up and get out of dodge if the battle goes south. If I’m doing content that is green to me then I use the succubus to burn it down faster.
I hate the voidwalker, I spent years playing my warlock and when Felgaurds came about I was in complete glee. Back when you could play Affliction with a Felguard pet
Felhunter is my choice against caster mobs and can tank exceptionally well against magical damage due to its high resistance. An example would be the pack of 3 blue whelps in the cave in Winterspring when I was grinding for Robe of Winter Night pattern. Send FH in and rotating it’s attack on all 3 to keep threat while I will focus single target/drain tank down one of them.