Warlocks & pet customization [Suggestion]

[Ozimov-area-52]

Ok hear me out.

What if they revamped the entire warlock pet system to make it customizable?

Similar to how deathknights have runeforging, we would get a similar window, like a codex or something (picture the necro in D4 and their minion customization).

In this window you can choose up to two passives and 3 active abilities.

These abilities would be trainable by any demon, though not all abilities and passives are shareable.

This would result in more freedom of choice when it comes to pet versatility.

For example, felhunter’s spell lock? You can take it and apply it to any other demon, but there are limited slots so you would have to choose what to replace it with.

Likewise you would gain a unique ability called sacrificial pact, which allows you to sacrifice a single active ability from the entire list, making it no longer applicable for any demon, the tradeoff being you would gain it as a default ability (think GoSac), but you only get to sac one ability only.

Furthermore, instead of grimoire of sac being a talent, it would be an option in this codex, sacrificing the demon would give you stats (tunable so it isn’t broken).

Furthermore, the felguard is now baseline and available to all specs. Axe toss is only a stun (no interrupt) since you can now swap spell lock to any pet or even sacrifice it to gain it.

The felguard would then be the aoe/cleave pet,usable by any spec and untied to demonology (the spec), which frees us of the pigeonhole of only running a single demon as the “master of demons” spec.

In doing so, any felguard specific talents would simply become “primary demon” which allows you to run anything you want based on the situation.

Even allowing you to sacrifice your demon as demonology since the gameplay itself would not be about the primary demon anymore and the choice of customization affects the playstyle, offering the most versatile version of the class, where spell lock is no longer bound to felhunter and players have the choice to either keep it attached to the desired pet or sac it for personal use.

This version would allow you to sac the VW’s bulwark for a defensive while keeping the interrupt on an imp for example. Or sac the dispel or purge while having spell lock on the felguard, trading the taunt for the interrupt.

The versatility is endless, would finally justify teaching of the black harvest existing and would create a unique feature which is thematically appealing for the class.

What are you thoughts on this?

[Zalkiden-chogall]

I think if we were to go with a “build-a-demon” approach that I’d really want to make sure that each type of demon doesn’t lose its individuality.

I’d like to see a break down of something like… Ranged (ST), Melee (AoE), Tank, and Utility.

Then sort the types of demons into those categories and the abilities associated with each type. Then we could pick the abilities we wanted for the type and the appearance we preferred for that slot. Would give us a reason to swap around between different demon types as well.

[Ozimov-area-52]

That’s basically why i mentioned not all abilities and passives are swappable.

The archetypes remain in some loose form. For example you cannot share firebolt or cleave. These remain tied to the specific demon. What is shareable are active utilities. Purge, dispel, axe toss, taunt, seduce, charge, bulwark etc.

What isn’t shareable is a specific identity trait, for example voidwalker’s shadow damage and higher threat /hp .felguard’s cleave and melee strike abilities, though you can customize which ones you want the felguard to keep, so you can basically remove a core ability like felstorm or legion strike for a utility spell but you cannot share felstorm or legion strike to other demons, nor can you sacrifice the ability for yourself.

Which basically means you can go low utility higher damage pet builds or higher utility lower damage build, the choice is yours.

You can customize the pet for the specific encounter. Felguard dying in delves? Slap on bulwark instead of axe toss for example. The options are endless.

This simultaneously solves the pet vs player interrupt problem tied to felhunter while opening an entire array of potential that is highly fun and not overpowered.

[Zalkiden-chogall]

That would be a really cool system honestly.

Despite demons being thematic to Warlocks they never really seemed to find the right way to implement them for us. They didn’t want us enslaving demons because that’s too much like a Hunter, I guess. I honestly think the best point was when Fel Hunter was the “Affliction” demon and Imp was the “Destruction” demon but even then it made Blue berry and Succ not have a spot.

I wouldn’t mind if each spec had its own demon and the talent tree and abilities let us play off that demon in some way. That way we get a really fleshed out demon for each spec and not just a couple of demons that don’t really have much of an identity. Just need to make spell lock a baseline ability for us. Our interrupt has been the bane of demon variety forever. I don’t know why they’re so stubborn.

I’d choose either extreme honestly. Hyper customizable demons or hyper specialized to each spec. Either way is better than the situation they’re in now.

Maybe one day. I keep coping saying that The Last Titan will be our time to shine with Sargaeras likely making a huge come back. Meaning loads to demon/Fel stuff but probably not the case. Demon Hunters will get a forth spec

[Araxana-zuljin]

As long as we get a lot more customization options for our demons including the new voidwalkers. The fel looking voidwalkers, new imps, inquisitors, observers, and other new to us demons, to name a few options. We desperately need some new life breathed into our demons.