Succubus - Soothing Kiss

[nobbie]

I have a question regarding the Succubus' "Soothing Kiss" ability. The description says that, when used, there is a chance that the monster(s) attack "something else". I assume that this "something else" isn't a nearby standing tree but either me or someone of my party, right? :)

[playingtokrush]

I have a question regarding the Succubus' "Soothing Kiss" ability. The description says that, when used, there is a chance that the monster(s) attack "something else". I assume that this "something else" isn't a nearby standing tree but either me or someone of my party, right? :)

Right. Basically soothing kiss is a reverse Torment (Voidwalker spell). It just reduces the amount of hate built up on the Succubus' target, making it likely that it will attack the next highest thing on the mob's hate list.

[Zarathustra]

For that reason, my Warlock doesn't use his Succubus often unless there's a good tank in the party. The Voidwalker is just far better suited to solo play.

[nobbie]

Yes. The only disadvantage I see with the Voidwalker is its low damage output. The Succubus is much better in that regard, it just can't handle adds. I'm looking forward to the Felhunter which should combine the best of Voidwalker and Succubus.

Is the Felhunter quest (and Infernal quest) fully implemented yet?

[Icebird]

Don't know about European Beta, but I know the Felhunter is implemented in NA Retail and I think the Infernal is too.

From what I've heard the Felhunter is a great anti-caster pet but disappointing for general play. I think his life is similar to the Void Walker but he has less armour so he doesn't tank as well. For general use, VW, Succbus or even Imp (for the stamina boost) seem to be preferred.

Infernal is apparently very disappointing. Good for unleashing on opposing faction settlements, almost useless for general questing.

The Doomguard (created by the level 60 Curse of Doom spell) is apparently an absolutely awesome summon (super high-damage tank), but he's a real pain to summon, and you have to burn a soul shard every 5 minutes re-enslaving him.

Chris

[nobbie]

Thanks. Someone just confirmed the "Ritual of Doom" book which he got from a Doomguard Commander in the "Tainted Scar" ("Blasted Lands"). The post is here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...tmp=1#post58981

Can you point to me to screenshots of the Felhunter and Infernal?

[playingtokrush]

Yeah, outside of fighting caster mobs, the Felhunter isn't very useful.

[Artega]

Too bad you can't cast Curse of Doom on players. It'd be great to cast it on a person you're passing on the road and suddenly receive notification that they died one minute later ^_^

[redinter]

After having played the warlock for 36 levels, I must say the pet i mostly use is the Succubus. She may not tank as well as the voidwalker, but does a lot more damage, thus reducing the time spent on a mob and thus the tanking time.
I noticed my Voidwalker never taunted well enough, so I end having the mob attacking me instead, even if I control the aggro I build up. The succubus also handles adds better if they are humanoid (seduce). The only advantage I find in the voidwalker is sacrifice, which can buy you enough time to do something if the pet is likely to die.
I find her very good for solo and party play, as a warrior will usually tank, and what the party need is damage and control which she provides.
For solo playing, I learned to control my aggro, so that the succubus tanks a while and when the mobs life is halved, it change target to attack me. With drain life i can tank the last half of his life pretty well.
This tactic has served me well, my best triumph was a fight against a 2 level higher elite, which I soloed and won.
I'm very happy with my warlock and barely have downtime between fights, while fighting mobs my level.
Edit: I play on Final Beta EN 2, so I can only talk about the european server

[bonemage]

I have played Warlock in retail to level 37, and I would offer a different opinion on pets. That's been answered fairly well here, I'm just offering a different opinion on pet choices. I use the voidwalker almost exclusively. I do have 2 points in improved voidwalker, and I find he taunts quite well. While soloing, I can get my DPS over 200 (level 37) and only snag aggro as the monster dies. That DPS is no mage or rogue, but I can end the battle with most life (usually use life tap to not waste life regen from demon armor) and most mana so I'm fresh for next fight. In our group of 5, the voidwalker competes for aggro quite well with our warrior and paladin. I'm NOT saying that redinter is wrong by any means, just that I feel differently about pets and hope the discussion is educational. It's very possible that I'm just lousy with the succubus, but the voidwalker matches my play style better and I hate being without him.

[redinter]

Glad to see you have had good results with the Voidwalker at about my same level. I truly would like to know why my Voidwalker doesn't hold aggro. I am an Affliction specced Warlock.
My usually procedure on a standard mob is pulll with corruption, Curse of Agony. Wait for pet to build a bit of aggro while life tap once and then drain life. So far so good, the pet holds aggro, even the succubus with soothing kiss off. While draining life, nightfall usually procs, so that I send a shadow bolt in. This almost always is just too much damage for the mob and he comes after me, which usually isnt a problem as it is almost dead and I just drainlife him again.
I would love to know what I am doing wrong, the shadow bolt might be too much, as it is then that the mobs comes after me, but I hate to waste a nightfall. I try my best trying to be a better warlock player, any advice is welcomed.
I try to get the most out of my warlock, so I also use all skills that I have. All of them have a good use in certain situations and it is the same with pets. It truly bothers me that I dont seem to be able to use the Voidwalker effectively, all other pets I use sometimes. With the exception of the felhunter, because I haven't been able to buy him skills, so he isn't ready yet.

[nobbie]

My strategy with the Voidwalker is as follows: Pull the mob from the farest/safest possible distance with either my Wand (deals a smaller amount of Shadow damage and thus causes less Aggro and attention) or "Corruption" (causes more Aggro and attention, especially to nearby standing adds). The Voidwalker's basic attack mode is always set to "Defensive". When the mob is on the half way to me (and far enough away from any nearby standing adds), I press the Voidwalker's "Attack" icon (the left "claw" icon on the Voidwalker's icon bar) who then runs immediately towards the mob. At the same time, I cast the DOT spells "Corruption"/"Curse of Agony". The Voidwalker usually catches the mob at about 25-30% of the original distance from me. Note that the mob might have quite a movement "overshoot" towards your position (the original source of the initial attack on the mob) before it is caught by the Voidwalker. This "overshoot" (radius) seems to be dependent of the mob's level and Aggro level and, if you're too close, you might be attacked first, and not the Voidwalker. When the Voidwalker has the mob, it's time to apply the last DOT spell "Immolate". Then, while the DOT spells do their work, I finish off the mob with "Shadow Bolts" and the Wand, and use Drain spells/repeated DOT spells as required. If the Voidwalker "loses track" of the mob it should aggro, or the mob decides to attack you, I press his "Attack" icon again. If nothinhg helps to keep the mob away from me, I sacrifice the Voidwalker for some temporary invulnerability, run away and repeat the attack with a new Voidwalker. This, of course, is just a standard template for mobs you're attacking in wider spaces. The picture changes completely in (raid) instances with narrow spaces and mobs that are wildly running or even teleporting around you. Here, a good party with a sturdy tank is always your best friend :)

[playingtokrush]

Glad to see you have had good results with the Voidwalker at about my same level. I truly would like to know why my Voidwalker doesn't hold aggro. I am an Affliction specced Warlock.
My usually procedure on a standard mob is pulll with corruption, Curse of Agony. Wait for pet to build a bit of aggro while life tap once and then drain life. So far so good, the pet holds aggro, even the succubus with soothing kiss off. While draining life, nightfall usually procs, so that I send a shadow bolt in. This almost always is just too much damage for the mob and he comes after me, which usually isnt a problem as it is almost dead and I just drainlife him again.
I would love to know what I am doing wrong, the shadow bolt might be too much, as it is then that the mobs comes after me, but I hate to waste a nightfall. I try my best trying to be a better warlock player, any advice is welcomed.
I try to get the most out of my warlock, so I also use all skills that I have. All of them have a good use in certain situations and it is the same with pets. It truly bothers me that I dont seem to be able to use the Voidwalker effectively, all other pets I use sometimes. With the exception of the felhunter, because I haven't been able to buy him skills, so he isn't ready yet.

My experiences with the Voidwalker are very much like yours. Unless I play with a very lazy combat routine (Corruption + Curse of Agony, wait for the Voidwalker to land two successful Torments, then spam wand shots), I will usually pull aggro from the Voidwalker very easily.

If you can pull off a successful Succubus combat routine, then you're doing fine, as your kill rate with the Succubus will be noticeably higher.

[Zippyy]

Yes. The only disadvantage I see with the Voidwalker is its low damage output. The Succubus is much better in that regard, it just can't handle adds. I'm looking forward to the Felhunter which should combine the best of Voidwalker and Succubus.

Is the Felhunter quest (and Infernal quest) fully implemented yet?
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The felhunter doesn't really have the best of much at all. It has some nice resistances and spell lock, and tainted blood is sort of good, but it doesn't have any of the best attributes of the voidwalker and succubus (being taunting/tanking, and damage/mezzing respectively).

If you meant that the Felhunter should combine the best of the two but doesn't, then yes, you are very, very correct.

[bonemage]

My experiences with the Voidwalker are very much like yours.  Unless I play with a very lazy combat routine (Corruption + Curse of Agony, wait for the Voidwalker to land two successful Torments, then spam wand shots), I will usually pull aggro from the Voidwalker very easily.
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My tactics are similar to this. I do use the wand and watch for torment to go off prior to cutting loose with direct damage. The damage starts out slowly and then takes a sharp increase at the end of a fight. Here's a typical battle.

I start pulling with immolate, near the end of the casting time, I send the voidwalker out to attack. The monster is hit prior to his arrival and starts closing the distance between us. The voidwalker grabs aggro as I hit with my two instant cast DoTs, Curse of Agony and Corruption. Then I watch for suffering to go off, then wand 3 or 4 times, then cast immolate again, then either wand until he's dead or fire off shadow bolts/searing pain to finish him faster. I throw in a drain life or two if I'm a bit low or have used life tap. If things get a bit out of hand, I can spam searing pain if and shadowburn to bring them down quickly.

Granted, this method is slower than fighting with an imp or succubus when taken as just this one battle vs. just one battle with either of those two other pets (I can't comment on the felhunter as I have summoned him once). What I like about this method and using the voidwalker is that I can set the pace for the fight and finish with full life and mana if I care to and be ready for the next fight. There is no downtime between fights unless things go poorly and I have to expend a lot of mana to kill the mob quickly. Over a period of time, I think the kill rate may be faster than other pets as I control the tempo and go from one fight to the next without slowing. Also, I have a lot of options if there are adds with the voidwalker as he can hold and survive hits from a couple of targets while I juggle a couple, or have him use suffering to hold a few targets while I use an AoE. I rarely ever sacrifice him, saving that for fleeing or for last ditch effort to bring them down with Hellfire. I also watch carefully on when torment goes off and use that to time when i can have him switch between adds. Over time with this one pet, I've come to have a very good idea of what I can and can't do at any point in the battle as far as grabbing aggro.

It may be of some note that I am destruction based. I have 5 talent points in affliction to get corruption to instant cast, 7 in demonology spent on demonic embrace(3), improved healthstone(2), improved voidwalker(2). The rest are in the destruction tree. If I had shadowfall, I don't think I could pass it up either, but a shadow bolt almost always grabs aggro and I save it for the end of the fight. If I've grown impatient and don't plan on fighting right after (such as when you're jumped on the road to somewhere) I'll fire off a couple of shadowbolts, searing pain or two, then shadowburn to finish them off but I'll have grabbed aggro by first or second bolt. I fight at 20 yards so I'm within shadowburn and especially drain life/mana range. This gives me a second or two prior to them getting to me.

[playingtokrush]

improved voidwalker(2).

This must account for the differences in our experiences with the Voidwalker.

[bonemage]

This must account for the differences in our experiences with the Voidwalker.
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I was using the same tactics prior to spending those talent points on the voidwalker, so I would say tactics make or break a pet more than anything. My purpose in bringing up a differing opinion is that there isn't one BEST pet as some readers are looking for, not that I think that anyone here is wrong. If the voidwalker doesn't work for you, don't use it. It works very well for me, so I have talented for that. I didn't, however, take a broken pet and make it work by spending two talent points.

My point to all of this (I know, it's hard for me to make) is that playstyle should detemine pet and talent allocation. The voidwalker clearly doesn't work for some of you, and thankfully the warlock has choices in pets to find the best match for how one likes to play. The voidwalker's damage is nearly useless, his only purpose is to hold aggro. If he can't hold aggro for how you play, then it's best to use something else, as he becomes useless (beyond sacrificing) when he's lost aggro. I see a lot of voidwalkers still in use by higher level warlocks than myself, so it works for more than just me. Again, no one is wrong, just that we're different.

Realm choice makes a difference here as well. The voidwalker is only good for sacrificing in PvP (I'm on a normal server) and I would probably go with the succubus on a PvP server for seduce, but this is my opinion and pure speculation as I have not played PvP.

[playingtokrush]

No, it's not playstyle. My voidwalker simply doesn't work. If I put all three DoTs on a mob, I will pull aggro by the time all the damage "gets rolling." I don't even have to drain life or cast shadowbolt or do anything else. My voidwalker has the highest rank Torment available to him, but he simply can't hold aggro over my three DoTs.

I have no idea what the deal is. The only way I can work with him is if I let him land two successful Torments before casting more than one or two (depending on the combination used) DoTs.

[Malakar]

The only way I can work with him is if I let him land two successful Torments before casting more than one or two (depending on the combination used) DoTs.
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That would be playstyle. You have to accept the fact that you kill slower with the VW, in exchange for higher safety and less downtime between fights. However 3 points into Improved VW can make it 25% more effective, allowing you to do 25% more damage, which is relatively big.

Personally, I've found the Imp, VW, and Succubus all to be great pets, simply with different strengths/weaknesses and requiring of different tactics. I like to switch up the pets that I use occasionally to help break monotony.

[bonemage]

No, it's not playstyle.  My voidwalker simply doesn't work.  If I put all three DoTs on a mob, I will pull aggro by the time all the damage "gets rolling."  I don't even have to drain life or cast shadowbolt or do anything else.  My voidwalker has the highest rank Torment available to him, but he simply can't hold aggro over my three DoTs.

I have no idea what the deal is.  The only way I can work with him is if I let him land two successful Torments before casting more than one or two (depending on the combination used) DoTs.
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Hmmm... Well, the only thing I can figure is if you have improved curse of agony. That might just tip you over the top and grab aggro. I've been doing immolate/CoA/corruption since I had them and setting them off as quickly as I can cast them, and the last two are instant cast. The voidwalker casts first torment prior to 3rd DoT being applied, but usually just after immolate and before CoA. We're a well oiled machine, he and I. If I get all three DoTs on before he engages, I stand a good chance of keeping aggro. That, or, I've been smoking some purple lotus and my memory is serving me wrong. This may be more purple lotus speaking, but I also think that humanoids are more intelligent and seem to break aggro easier than beasts and seem to come for me more often. The level of the mob compared to yours makes a big difference as well. Equal and higher level mobs have a much greater chance of breaking aggro, and I usually wait for the 2nd torment to hit before using corruption on higher levels, and wait for 3rd torment before wanding. It's likely that, the difference in levels, I usually have a few on where I'm at (I've spent a long time dragging my feet due to slower progressing party members), and you're probably taking on areas at lower levels than I have been. (Read: I'm NOT normal.)