Tanking pets question

Hey, recently I’ve leveled a Shadow Priest from my Guardian Druid. This means that me and my buddy no longer have a tank while doing open world content.

He’s a Demo Lock and we’ve been messing around with having his pets tank… but they suck. What’s the deal?

I remember years ago when I was playing my lock, the Felguard could tank just fine unless you REALLY went ham. But then you could just stop dpsing for 2-3 seconds and he’d pick the aggro back up. But now a day’s it doesn’t even last 2 globals.

So we had him swap to his Voidwalker but it doesn’t fair any better. It loses aggro very quickly and dies very quickly. Not only do I pull aggro very easily (even using fade. When it ends I gain aggro very quickly) but it also cuts my buddy’s damage down since he’s not using his Felguard AND he constantly has to babysit the thing with health funnel.


Is this just the state of Warlock pets now? They’re just trash? If a hunter comes along his pet will take aggro and tank elites/rares just fine.

And don’t get me started on if we pull more than 2 mobs at a time. Dead.


Are we missing something? He sais the taunt spells are on auto so they’re being used, but they just don’t have any effect it seems.

We’re both around 420 item level. So it’s not like he’s way under geared compared to me.

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Both the Felguard and Voidwalker are tuned to the Warlock’s damage output. Anyone else is likely to pull aggro from them if they’re not careful.
I’m not sure (haven’t played Shadow Priest for a while) but think DF’s iteration of Shadow Priest pumps out a lot of damage that will easily outstrip any threat the Felguard and the VW can hold.

Yup, as far as pet classes go, hunter is pretty much the only one now and the Warlock is pretty much a mage with their own utility and defensives. So instead of comparing hunters and warlocks, its pretty much mage and warlock.

Seriously, we’re Warlocks, not Necromancers!

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Warlocks ARE necromancers though. You deal with souls and life energy. That’s literally necromancy.

If its Delves content you are doing, Warlock in Demonology with Felguard and you will be fine. Brians potions will heal the felguard too. And most of the time Felguard has aggro. I do this with my friends when no tank.

Voidwalker … useless. But I do remember seeing something about a post where its threat and health was increased recently but I might be wrong, not like the developers have any love or care about warlocks right now.

State of warlocks? Ya it’s pretty awful right now. But lets see how this coming tuning turns out.

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In 2023 when I made this thread, I was in fact not doing delves.

We summon demons, not raise the dead (as Dks do), so we’re not Necromancers.

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You literally manipulate souls. Thats necromancy.

Necromancy is manipulation of the dead through magic. Death Knights highlight the physical portion of necromancy while locks focus on the spiritual/souls of the dead.

Both leech life energy from their enemies to sustain themselves.

Warlocks are just as much necromancers as Death Knights are. They also happen to summon demons as well. But that doesn’t mean they still don’t have manipulation over the dead. (Which they do.)

Truth is, it hasn’t been explained what Soul Shards are and where they come from.
The only thing known about them, is that they don’t come from killing.

No?

The more accurate description is: warlocks don’t care where power comes from, as long as such power is ripe for their taking and disposal. This is shown in the original Green Fire questline, where different members of the council travel to different places to harvest power, from deathwing’s destructive fire to illidan’s secret of metamorphosis.

They do dabble into necromancy - there’s plenty of in-game references, the most iconic would be Hellfire Citadel, where Gul’dan necro-ed Mannorth back to life to fight us.

That being said, despite the similarities, there are still stark differences between warlocks and necromancers.

The controlled minions are a clear telling itself - which sadly players themselves keep confusing between demons and undead, despite the clear label, mechanics and graphics telling them apart.

If one can’t tell the difference between a demon and a undead - i assume they would also say a truck and a car is the same thing, since they both have 4 wheels?

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Drain Soul hasn’t existed in WoW for a long time!
Warlocks may have leached the life essence from the living at one time, but they never used it to re-animate the dead, which is what necromancer’s do.
Just ask Gunther Arcanus, who is a necromancer.

That’s just a gameplay thing not a lore thing. The gameplay was annoying too play around, so they adjusted it. Soulshards still come from killing the victim.

I think you should look up Gul’Dan and Mannoroth’s lore. As pointed out already, Gul’Dan literally reanimated the dead Pit Lord.

While you’re on the wiki, check out the first generation Death Knights (who have nothing to do with modern Death Knights) who were Warlocks who implanted their souls into reanimated dead Stormwind soldiers bodies.

Not to mention soulstones bring the dead back as well. Both from a gameplay perspective and a lore one. You can see this in game during the initial TTW campaign after Dalaran explodes. You have a quest to look for survivors. One of which is one of the Warlocks on the council who head been impaled on top of the portal that takes you to the order hall. When you pull him off of the portal his soulstone brings him back to life… Necromancy.

Dude you’re describing what a WARLOCK is.
We don’t raise the dead

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I think you have a very narrow view of what necromancy is.

Necromancy doesn’t just mean “make skeleton move”. Its any magic that deals with death, dying and the dead. In any way. Which includes souls, spirits and the manipulation of life energy, like Warlocks do.

Yes, necromancy CAN raise the dead, but that’s not all it can do.

Go do the Calia storyline where you take her to Maldraxxus and one of the Margarives tells her this exact same thing.

You can’t call all Warlocks Necromancers due to the actions just two.
To be Necromancers, Warlocks would have to consistently use death-magic, and they don’t.

Remember one comment ago where I recommend a quest chain that explains this exact thing?

Go do the retaking of the Undercity quest chain. They literally explain that necromancy comes in more forms than just magic originating from the death realm. That necromancy is any magic that deals with death and life energy. Like Warlocks.

The quest starts in Oribos in the main quest area with all the important NPC’s. Genn Greymane starts it for The Alliance.


Edit: Here, I’ll quote the wowpwdia section of the quest. But I still suggest you go do the quest and hear the full dialogue.

And here’s the actual link to Margraive Sin’dane’s page.

http s:// wowpedia.fandom. com/wiki/Margrave_Sin%27dane

You can use any magic for raising the dead - true. That’s what necromancy is: to commune, control or reanimate dead. Key words: death, dead, undead.

Stealing the life force, or part of someone’s soul is not necromancy. Neither is resurrecting them to the living as multiple classes also do this.
Witches and Warlocks deal in the dark arts (Shadow, Fel, Demons).

Lore/hero characters don’t fit into anyone one class. Player classes are distinct. DKs use necromancy. Warlocks don’t.

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