I have been playing in Classic and decided to check out Retail again after a long absence. I took my my level 20 warlock out and fought a beastie and it ripped Blobby Blue up pretty badly. I am used to it tanking pretty well in the past but after fighting one even level foe mine was down to about 20% HP, which seems a bit off from the old days.
In addition, with Consume Shadows seemingly changed to combat only it took a long time for the voidwalker to heal up after combat.
Was the class nerfed?
No, our voidwalkers and felguards are just squishy until you have access to the demon skin talent. Once you have that, it’ll be very rare for your minion to outright die.
So the voidwalker is a punching bag until level 45? They used to be able to tank right away.
Voidwalkers have historically been terrible tanks for Warlocks. It’s so easy to peel aggro off them. All we can do is dps mobs down quick and hope our VW’s can occasionally distract them.
Hot Tip in Classic: at around Lv40 - 44, spec into the drain tanking build. Not only is it far more effective but you actually get to use your Succubus as a Warlock, huzzah!
Well I mean, they can tank the moment you learn to summon one. They just become better at it at 45.
You also gain Soul Leech at 34, which gives you and your pet an absorb shield based off of your single-target damage.
Voidwalker is way too squishy in retail. I would love to have my sacrifice ability back for my voidwalker so he had some actual utility like my other pets.
He also scales off your gear so that might be part of the problem. You have quite a few empty slots and grey shoulders still.
Health funnel has been drastically improved from the old days and will heal him up pretty fast if need be.