What’s the best situation or advantage to using a succubus?
Is she mostly for pvp?
I get she’s good to sacrifice for the 15% shadow damage, but is that her main role. Just trying to figure things out.
While we’re at it maybe some veteran warlocks out there could briefly list the best times in-game to use each of the summonable demons.
Any tips appreciated. I send virtual thumbs ups.
Sacrificing Succy was more a thing in TBC when we were Shadowbolt cannons.
But the main use to have her out would be crowd control:
(Seduction) Level 20 - Seduces the target, preventing all actions for up to 30 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Only works against [Humanoids]
I remember using this in a couple dungeons in TBC I believe, to help when there was a large pack of mobs.
I mainly used my Succubus in PVP during Vanilla.
She is usable for CC in dungeons with humanoids as well, and although I didn’t use her ability as much in Vanilla as I could or should have. I did use Seduce CC quite extensively in TBC though and I intend to use it more this time around in Classic.
The biggest issue I had with seduce as a CC was convincing groups that I could use it competently because most Dungeon groups in Vanilla would only advertise in Trade for Mage/Rogue/Hunter for CC purposes. I’m pretty sure some groups that I did get to take me would have kicked me had a screwed up using it on the first few trash pulls. After that we were usually good to go and I got added to a number of friends lists in TBC because they did trust me with Seduce CC.
I wrote the synopsis below in response to a similar question a month or so back.
By and large Seduce in a Dungeon can be best thought of similarly to sap in that while it was best used on the initial pull, although unlike Sap it would pull when used so it had to be used in conjunction with the pull not ahead of time.
Best method for use that I can remember is that the Seduce MoB would be marked, usually with Moon, and on the pull i’d trigger seduce to hold the MoB in place as the group was pulled back. The biggest issue was that after it wore off the MoB would run to the group where I couldn’t easily be re-applied due to getting hit with AoE. Usually it would hold though until at least one of the MoBs was dealt with.
It can be re-applied however and if I wanted/needed to re-apply I found that Death-coil invaluable as it would fear the MoB for 3 sec which would make the MoB run just far enough to get out of AoE/attacks on the other MoBs but not far enough to pull other groups.
A Fear/Re-Seduce combo was also viable but slightly more chance of long runners, fear to get them away from the group, seduce to keep them from going far
If you drain tank while lvling, she has great dps. But you usually prefer imp for fire shield.
At endgame were definitely shadowbolt cannons in vanilla (at least on “unofficial” servers). But often times warlocks need to go SM/Ruin instead of DS/Ruin so we can give tanks that smexy stam buff from our imp. Its a DPS loss but makes fights a lot easier. Its kinda the flavor of locks, were support DPS in classic.
Succubus does good damage as lock pets go so if you can use her and not get her killed, she is preferable. If you’re leveling and doing drain tanking succy is good. Also good in 5 man for damage and seduce. PVP has obvious uses with seduce.
For raiding you won’t really have a succy out. You’ll either run a phased imp (and maybe try to sneak a few attacks with him if you think he won’t get killed) in an SM ruin build, or you’ll be DS/ruin which means you sac’d the succy already anyway.
Just leash feared potential long runners with CoR and then re-apply Seduce.
True, I’m so far out of practice, It’s sad.
Heh, that goes for a lot of us. I haven’t played since 2011 (nor touched p-servers)
New terminology to me. What’s drain tank? Is that using Life Drain to sustain while a mob punches you in the face?
Pretty much. With occasional fears intermixed.
Imp is superior with the drain play style though.
Anybody get improved VW while leveling? That’s always what I did and mix dotting, lifetaps, drains, and wanding. Very low downtime.
Must have found to be slower since nobody is talking about it.
In Vanilla I hardly ever used the succubus under any conditions. Mob CC at best (but often its better to off-tank the mob with the VW instead). PVP almost never (imp for stamina, VW for shield, FelHunter for resists… generally all better). The succubus is very easily killed in PVP. And she is too weak for PVE.
Sacrificing works but if you do that regularly then SM/Ruin is a better spec because you can still have a pet. The greatest flexibility in the Demo tree comes from FelDom+MasterSummoner for things like the VW shield + quick-resummon, and not so much about sacrifice. Also, in PVP, while you might dig into MD for the Fel Hunter resists and thus get DS for free, you will still hardly ever use DS.
-Matt
That was my strategy for levelling as well. I’ve never levelled a warlock high enough to get a demon beyond the succubus so I don’t even know what the fel hunter, doom guard or infernal are all about.
Always. For all specs that include Demo points. Improved Health Funnel + Improved VW is better than Fel Intellect by a mile. For PVE you can take down elites with it. For Dungeons you can off-tank with the VW. For everything else you spend less time keeping your pets alive.
-Matt
Before the overhaul in Legion it was generally like this…
Imp for groups.
Voidwalker for solo.
Succubus vs melee pvp.
Felhunter vs caster pvp.
Always Felguard for Demonology. (replaces all of the above in dps, tanking, stuns)
But there was no Felguard until The Burning Crusade so your stuck with the first 4.
Then they changed it in Legion with the new pet bonuses to always Imp for Destruction, always Felhunter for Affliction and still always Felguard for Demonology. Idk if they are still doing that in BfA…
I haven’t played much lately, waiting for Classic WoW.
Pvp seduce. That really it. It’s nice for conflagration build. Since you’re glass cannon in that build, you can seduce and 2-3 shot if geared well. Keep in mind, if you’re ally, WoTF breaks seduce. Also, succ is VERY squishy. Pets don’t have AoE defense so if in heavy AoE situation she is dead. If you’re puging BGs some chucklehead will break your seduce anyway. Better off using VW imo for the sac shield if going against heavy melee. Felhunter is my fav pvp pet any day. It’s just too strong in pvp to not use. It does almost as much damage as succ anyway with second best survivability.
If you aren’t as skilled maybe. There are numerous work arounds for not using Improved VW.
For example:
Improved VW is literally a waste unless you for whatever reason you just can not deal without it. It is a purely solo play talent and numerous other leveling playstyles are faster, even the pure dot, drain tank, dark pact with imp playstyle has less down time past level 40.
When warlocks were shadowbolt cannons? You mean like in vanilla?