I decided to start playing my warlock again recently and I came to a realization after doing some looking around various places. Why are people fine basically being pigeon-holed into 3 pets (1 if you play demo) when there are 5 total and 2 you don’t use except in PvP.
From what I keep seeing the main arguments for it are “uniqueness (every demon does something different)” or “its always been this way.” Those are both extremely nonsensical. There is nothing unique about basically running imp if you’re destro, felhunter if you’re affliction or need an interupt and purge, or felguard if you’re demo. You don’t use anything else for any spec unless you want to be a special or you’re PvPing. In no world would you use voidwalker for anything other to sac (you could literally just replace the void walker button with a shield icon and it would serve the same purpose,) and never use an incubus except for PvP.
What is the point in having “unique” demons if you basically only ever use 3 of them (imp, felhunter, and felguard.) The fact that I read the one time the devs tried to implement a baseline interrupt to warlocks and the community lashed out is insane to me. Instead of someone choosing the demon they think is cool or interesting, they have to play a specific demon for a specific spec to not be a hindrance to the group. I wouldn’t be caught dead using a void walker with no taunt or succubus in any kind of raid, m+, or group activity besides PvP. Make me understand why a large part of a class playerbase is fine handicapping their choices without an actual good logical reason.
Blizzard tried to do this to hunters making each pet family do a specific thing and almost no one besides classic people hated it because it removed choice from them, yet warlocks are fine not having the choice at all really.
The VW is for solo content, Succubus (or whatever it’s now called) is for PvP, Felhunter is for interrupt and Imp is for when you don’t need one. Easy to understand really.
Felguard/Wrathguard does pretty much anything a Demo Warlock needs them to do, so they don’t need to use another permanent demon.
As for the reason why Warlocks didn’t want the baseline interrupt, it’s because they’d be trading a flexible one for a standard LoS one.
That’s the thing though, I want to use a void walker in dungeons or raid sometimes cause I just like the way it looks more than my felhunter. But, if I do that I am letting the team down by handicapping myself if I want to use one of the other options accessible to me. Also having a non LoS interrupt is dumb to begin with, no other class has that and they all work perfectly fine, not to mention that is so rare to be needed if you need to interrupt something you can’t see your tank is doing something wrong.
Pretty sure PvP players were the main ones who really didn’t want to lose their non-LoS interrupt.
As for using VW in Raids and/or Dungeons, ask your Raid or M+ group leader if they need your spell interrupt. If you’re in LFR or Heroic or TW Dungeons, your spell interrupt won’t be needed anyway.
The way I see it is that the pet restrictions are a remnant of old game design dating back to vanilla WoW. Back in the day:
You’d have many more reasons to bring out each of the pets. Seduction was a useful ability for 5-man dungeons when CC was more desirable (BC heroics come to mind). Felhunter in some cases might be used specifically for the offensive purge (devour magic) rather than its interrupt. Voidwalker was always useful solo, and still is for overworld leveling. Imp having range (a strong perk in itself) + party wide stam buff + singe magic were useful for certain fights.
Blizzard’s philosophy used to be that it was important not to let a class have access to all utility. Giving warlocks the option to select their utility via the pet could be considered a perk of sorts, much like selecting between mutually exclusive talents. They didn’t want you to have seduction AND felhunter interrupt because (presumably) the class was balanced around that choice.
Pets were implemented when the game was balanced very differently… and have been hardly updated since then.
For the first point, it seems like 99.9% of PvE in the game has been reduced to “interrupt key ability; don’t stand in swirly.” Giving you strong incentives to purge or cleanse might seem “unfair” to other classes lacking those abilities, even if it improves class distinction and class fantasy at the same time. Crowd control’s utility has gone out of the window in favor of timed speedruns. This all started around the time of “bring the player, not the class” when Blizzard sought to ensure there wasn’t much variety in kits (and therefore certain aspects of PvE encounters), which killed a lot of the reason to use certain demons.
As for the second point, well, it’s symptomatic of a lack of attention to warlock’s core systems which is an unfortunate consistent theme across the class. It’s even more disappointing when you realize that, e.g., shamans can do essentially what every one of our pets does at the same time (tank/purge/cleanse/stun/interrupt/hex/etc.).
Anyway, long rant almost over – to answer the title: I begrudgingly accept this oversight on Blizzard’s part (like I do for ritual of summoning, hard casting everything, horrible DoT gameplay, and many other deficiencies)… but only begrudgingly! I still want to see these aspects updated, enhanced, and aligned with modern gameplay, including greater demon variety and compelling reasons to use those demons.
This isn’t the only benefit of having the interrupt on the demon. Being able to interrupt without breaking your cast is very good qol.
In an ideal world, Spell Lock in it’s current form is learned by all of our summons, and our choice comes down to the secondary utility (purge, dispel, etc).
Honestly I just want them to make Enslave Demon viable again. I cannot believe we went through all of Legion without neat Demons to enslave since they do not want those NPCs comparing to our pets.
In RPGs most of the enslave spells are pretty damn powerful. Another thing that enslave spells should also be applicable to more things. So we can have more usage for it and added utility.
This is wrong, VW can be also used on raid fights when you need an additional defensive (not that you should because youre a warlock… but if you’re struggling to live through additional damage use your voidwalker.
Also Wrong, Succubus is readily used on Raid fights where there isnt a lot of boss movement so the pet can just hit the boss
Go to for M+ or fights where an interrupt is needed
Again wrong, Imp is highest uptime on Switch bosses or heavy movement as it doesnt need to travel to cast.
To be fair, as a Demo Warlock, I don’t use any of them.
Perhaps I should have clarified more by using the word ‘primarily’ when describing the roles of the summoned demons.
Lastly my opinion, I think some of us have gotten to the point of apathy in regards to the dev working our class.
When they introduced the demon transmog system, which had a lot of ideas in the test forums for, we thought they were going to introduce a whole set of models for each spec, double wielding for wrathguard and it was going to be an evergreen system and the devs were going to maintain it
What we ended getting was a system that downsized some of the models, and introduced some recolors and about 4 different models and it looks like it was abandoned after that, being that it was introduced back in DF and not even a mention of future plans for it.
Unfortunately it seems it was just to say we did something and cut lose since we should have seen each patch introducing new models/ collectibles tomes to get new stuff, like the way hunters get new beast models, didn’t have to be as many but at least different models of named high demon demons with effects and such.
What’s disappointing that not one dev in this blizzard groups could think of a way to make grimoire of supremacy work in the general class tree as a way to support the different models that could also buff the warlock with buffs/utilities, or how if the named demon form supremacy could alter curses which is a big warlock fantasy, they could enhance curses with the supremacy demons.
Like when the demons comes into play on the field curses become chaotic or so idk anything a DND/ RPG theorizer an come up for a warlock with demons.
It is because they have a very antiquated vision for warlocks that no longer fits the modern playstyle for wow. Second, it is because the 1% and streamers HATE changes that dont benefit their agenda. So if a change makes their path towards 3kio, mythic raider, or pvp rank harder, they fight tooth and nail to stop it.