I’m using a voidwalker and I open combat with its torment ability which taunts and increases aggro. Then I set up my afflictions and start healing the summon.
But I have a problem with bosses where at some point they stop attacking the pet and focus on me. I will do things like stop using abilities and run away to reduce my threat, and give time for my summon to use its torment ability to increase its aggro.
However this never seems to work. It’s like a light bulb goes off in the bosses head: KILL THE WARLOCK. And then they proceed to rip my face off no matter how much my summon tries to increase its threat, and no matter how much I run away, heal, and avoid causing any further damage. At this point they are determined to bury me 6 feet under.
Is there a reason for this? I don’t think it should work like this. In my last fight I survived long enough for my summon to use torment 3 more times - the whole time I didn’t do 1 point more damage. Didn’t use any attack abilities. Didn’t renew my afflictions. I just ran in circles and used a potion, a bandage, jumped around and tried to dodge. It ignored my summon and killed me.
Why? Is this a bug? Or did Blizzard intend it to work like this? “Clearly the voidwalker is OP so its threat only works for the first 60 seconds of a fight then the monster always targets the Warlock”
Yeah once you pull aggro, your DoTs ticking are doing more threat than VW can manage. Torment isn’t a taunt, it only slightly increases the VW’s aggro.
To solo elites, what you can do is only put Siphon Life up on the enemy and spam health funnel on your pet. This should let VW keep aggro and keep him full HP. Once enemy is decently low HP, you can soul shatter to reduce your threat and start pumping with full DoTs. If you time it right, enemy should be about dead by the time you pull aggro
Get a threat meter so you can watch your threat. Torment isn’t guaranteed threat like retail, it is just a big threat ability and the higher level you go generally the worse it gets. Also make sure you are buying new grimoires to get new torment ranks which happens every 10 levels (I believe at X8 so 18, 28, 38, etc). But again even then you will pull threat off over your VW if you go hard into the mob with shadowbolts or full dots.
Most people opt to go with a drain spec that works with succubus, or with TBC go Demo with the felguard, but I was definitely in love with VW leveling and used it all the way to 60 in Vanilla, and even to 70 in TBC. The trick is to multitarget mobs because you’re a warlock and therefore tanky (specifically past level 30), especially so in the nerfed Classic world with a bit extra access to SP type weapons.
When I leveled I would pull a mob with either sending VW to a mob or just casting corruption, then I’d DoT up my own mob. After that I’d go back and put SL and Agony on my VW’s mob and go back to mine that I’d wand down. There’s really no threat or danger to having one or two mobs on you. I was regularly pulling 2-3 mobs, sometimes 4 if they were easier ones.
If you want to stay with the VW tanking I recommend going down to SL in Affliction before switching over to Demo to get Improved VW and I’d also recommend going for Fel Dom/Master Summoner. Two really get talents for oh snap moments. Not used all the time, but very useful when you do actually need it.
The best advice I can offer is to ditch the voidwalker for a succubus, dot the mob up and spam drain life while you tank it. As others have pointed out his threat is abysmal until wotlk where he can tank a raid boss with enough stamina and hunter misdirects.
If you want to use the void walker, you have to let him hit the mob once or twice then dot the mob and wand. Once to a lower hp, go to town. The mob should die before he gets to you.
This will also teach good party etiquette. Let the tank grab aggro, then go to town.
As you get better, you can let the Blueberry do it’s thing on one mob while you dot and fear another.
You also need to buy current ranks of grimoires from the vendor next to the trainer every 10 levels.
The void walker is only used as a pulling tool, and even then I’d only suggest using him to regen your resources (very so often having him tank a mob and only siphon life and drain health) keeping him out to dark pack his mana is viable if you are on a PvP server for and emergency Sac for shield. Otherwise use succ for more damage and “drain tank”
When you play optimally you will pretty much only have a net negative that has you needing to heal or drink every 5-7 mobs/ pulls. You can keep your Void on passive the whole time and have him pull for you and recall him to being the mob back as you are cycling 2-3 mobs at a time as a pulling tool but outside of that he is terrible.
Google TBC drain tank videos for more of a thorough break down.
Wow thats pretty rude tbh. One of my first gripes with the class when I first started was how easy it is to pull agro off voidy. No need to accuse them of being a “retail baby” they were just asking a simple question. Not like we have class boards for classic so I don’t know what you expect.
Every classic Warlock player has come across this issue… There is no need to hate on somone trying to play warlock and looking for insight. Even using drain tanking guides I would assume fighting an elite that I should use the void walker, I then looked for advice from other warlocks just like this
Voidwalker can’t hold aggro worth a damn past the low levels. He does no damage and will constantly be out of mana. Ideally, you’d dump him as soon as you get siphon life then tank enemies yourself. You need not care about threat if you’re tanking anyway, and this frees up the pet slot for the much nicer succubus. At 50+, respec to felguard. This one still suffers from mana problems, but at least he’s decent.
