Daala
10-15-2006, 06:12 PM
Copy/pasting this in case the official site goes down. Author is Shadowbolt of Dark Iron. Extremely recommend the PvP video - not the most entertaining, but it showcases the Felguard in PvE and PvP. PvE is at about 8 minutes.
http://files.filefront.com/tbc_felguard_demozip/;6022147;;/fileinfo.html
(130 mb, 10 minutes long)
For the video, I specced 0/41/10 because I can live without instant Corruption. I can't live without Bane.
The Shadowfury demo can be found in its original thread here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=34165017
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Pet Scaling
Warlock pets scale in two ways:
Melee Attack Power: All warlock pets, including the Fel Guard, receive 57% of your +damage gear (probably specifically +shadow but unconfirmed). This means that if you have 463 +damage, your Felguard will receive (463 * .57) = 263 bonus attack power on top of the 238 base, which equals 501 attack power total.
At the moment all of our pets receive the same percentage bonus, and they all have the same base melee attack power (238), except for the imp who has 112 base. The imp doesn't melee at all though so at the moment the imp basically doesn't scale.
Resistances: Your pet receives roughly 40% of your spell resistances. So if you have 100 Shadow Resistance, he will get 40 SR. If you have 134 FR, he will get 53, etc.
Here's a screenshot of the Fel Guard's stats: http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/515/felguardstatszm8.jpg
Keep in mind that pet scaling is still probably being worked on since it was only introduced like two days ago.
New Original Pet Abilities
According to Deviousrift, new abilities were added to high ranks of existing spells for all original pets. Voidwalker's Suffering (rank 5 lvl 63) also decreases chance to hit, Imp's Fire Shield (rank 6 lvl 64) also gives 30 FR, Succubus' Soothing Kiss (rank 5 lvl 70) also lowers attack speed. It doesn't appear that the Fel Hunter got anything new. This is unconfirmed.
Pet Summoning
Pets no longer despawn as soon as you start summoning another pet. They now have a debuff called "Summoning Disorientation" where they're stunned while you summon. Screenshot here: http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3797/summondisorientgs0.jpg
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Fel Guard Summary
The voidwalker is the least used demon at level 60 due to his inability to hold aggro and low dps output, so it's fitting that its replacement is the Fel Guard, a melee demon that can taunt, cleave, intercept, and berserk. His abilities at level 60:
Anguish (Rank 2)
110 Mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 5 sec cooldown
Taunts the creature, increasing the chance it will attack the Felguard.
rank 3 lvl 70
Avoidance (Passive)
Increases your chance to avoid area of effect attacks by an additional 50%.
there are no additional ranks for this spell
Cleave (Rank 2)
151 Mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec cooldown
A sweeping attack that does your weapon damage plus 50 to the target and his nearest ally.
rank 3 lvl 68
Demonic Frenzy (Passive)
The Felguard's damaging melee attacks cause a demonic frenzy, increasing attack power by 5% for 10 sec. This effect can stack up to 10 times.
there are no additional ranks for this spell
Intercept (Rank 1)
145 Mana, 8-25 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown
Charge an enemy, causing 65 damage and stunning it for 3 sec.
rank 2 lvl 61, rank 3 lvl 69
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PvP:
The Fel Guard's main ability in PvP is intercept. Intercept can be used as a stun, a "catch up" spell, or a spell interrupt. Since intercept has a dead zone, it's important to keep the Fel Guard far enough away from the target before you're ready to use him. He hits for around 300-450, but he crits for 600+, and with cleave the hits come in rapid succession. Using a combination of fear, death coil, and intercept, you are able to keep some classes controlled for a good amount of time. You are also soul linked, and with the new stamina gear I imagine it will be very very difficult to take any Fel Guard specced warlock down. Unless you're fighting against another warlock and he banishes your Fel Guard. Then you're out of luck.
PvE:
The landscape of PvE in The Burning Crusade is changed. Since it will now focus on small to medium sized group, your Fel Guard might actually make a valid contribution either with crowd control or just pure dps. For five man instances, most pulls are a group of 3-5 mobs so cleave is the perfect ability for these situations. Cleave on top of your DoTs and nukes = a lot of dps. The Fel Guard tends to draw a lot of aggro even with taunt off (which I recommend, since it's a HUGE mana hog), and will die if he doesn't get healed. Avoidance ensures that the Fel Guard doesn't die in two seconds like our other pets.
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Overall, I believe demonology warlocks are very viable in the expansion. I had a ton of fun PvPing with it. Unlike the Succubus, you don't have to watch it and worry about it's crowd control spell breaking. Unlike the Felhunter, he has dps on top of utility.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-warlock/talents.html?0000000000000000000002350000133250100 541051505000000000000000000
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Btw, for those of you concerned about how much damage the Fel Guard does, in the first clip versus the mage and druid, the Fel Guard does:
3687 damage on the mage (compared to 2678 damage from me)
2158 damage on the druid (compared to 2664 damage from me)
This is 5845 damage total (compared to 5342 total from me) or 52% of the fight. This is because I was being counterspelled, stunned, crowd controlling, and resisted throughout a lot of the fight. Meanwhile the Fel Guard does his thing, wailing on the opponent while they can do nothing about it...interrupting spell casts and being annoying in general, and as you can see contributes more than you might think he does.
In the fight vs the Bestial Wrath Hunter, the Fel Guard does 2788 damage, while I do 1900 since I'm stunlocked by the pet. This is 60% of the fight.
http://files.filefront.com/tbc_felguard_demozip/;6022147;;/fileinfo.html
(130 mb, 10 minutes long)
For the video, I specced 0/41/10 because I can live without instant Corruption. I can't live without Bane.
The Shadowfury demo can be found in its original thread here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=34165017
-----
Pet Scaling
Warlock pets scale in two ways:
Melee Attack Power: All warlock pets, including the Fel Guard, receive 57% of your +damage gear (probably specifically +shadow but unconfirmed). This means that if you have 463 +damage, your Felguard will receive (463 * .57) = 263 bonus attack power on top of the 238 base, which equals 501 attack power total.
At the moment all of our pets receive the same percentage bonus, and they all have the same base melee attack power (238), except for the imp who has 112 base. The imp doesn't melee at all though so at the moment the imp basically doesn't scale.
Resistances: Your pet receives roughly 40% of your spell resistances. So if you have 100 Shadow Resistance, he will get 40 SR. If you have 134 FR, he will get 53, etc.
Here's a screenshot of the Fel Guard's stats: http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/515/felguardstatszm8.jpg
Keep in mind that pet scaling is still probably being worked on since it was only introduced like two days ago.
New Original Pet Abilities
According to Deviousrift, new abilities were added to high ranks of existing spells for all original pets. Voidwalker's Suffering (rank 5 lvl 63) also decreases chance to hit, Imp's Fire Shield (rank 6 lvl 64) also gives 30 FR, Succubus' Soothing Kiss (rank 5 lvl 70) also lowers attack speed. It doesn't appear that the Fel Hunter got anything new. This is unconfirmed.
Pet Summoning
Pets no longer despawn as soon as you start summoning another pet. They now have a debuff called "Summoning Disorientation" where they're stunned while you summon. Screenshot here: http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3797/summondisorientgs0.jpg
-----
Fel Guard Summary
The voidwalker is the least used demon at level 60 due to his inability to hold aggro and low dps output, so it's fitting that its replacement is the Fel Guard, a melee demon that can taunt, cleave, intercept, and berserk. His abilities at level 60:
Anguish (Rank 2)
110 Mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 5 sec cooldown
Taunts the creature, increasing the chance it will attack the Felguard.
rank 3 lvl 70
Avoidance (Passive)
Increases your chance to avoid area of effect attacks by an additional 50%.
there are no additional ranks for this spell
Cleave (Rank 2)
151 Mana, 5 yd range, Instant cast, 6 sec cooldown
A sweeping attack that does your weapon damage plus 50 to the target and his nearest ally.
rank 3 lvl 68
Demonic Frenzy (Passive)
The Felguard's damaging melee attacks cause a demonic frenzy, increasing attack power by 5% for 10 sec. This effect can stack up to 10 times.
there are no additional ranks for this spell
Intercept (Rank 1)
145 Mana, 8-25 yd range, Instant cast, 30 sec cooldown
Charge an enemy, causing 65 damage and stunning it for 3 sec.
rank 2 lvl 61, rank 3 lvl 69
-----
PvP:
The Fel Guard's main ability in PvP is intercept. Intercept can be used as a stun, a "catch up" spell, or a spell interrupt. Since intercept has a dead zone, it's important to keep the Fel Guard far enough away from the target before you're ready to use him. He hits for around 300-450, but he crits for 600+, and with cleave the hits come in rapid succession. Using a combination of fear, death coil, and intercept, you are able to keep some classes controlled for a good amount of time. You are also soul linked, and with the new stamina gear I imagine it will be very very difficult to take any Fel Guard specced warlock down. Unless you're fighting against another warlock and he banishes your Fel Guard. Then you're out of luck.
PvE:
The landscape of PvE in The Burning Crusade is changed. Since it will now focus on small to medium sized group, your Fel Guard might actually make a valid contribution either with crowd control or just pure dps. For five man instances, most pulls are a group of 3-5 mobs so cleave is the perfect ability for these situations. Cleave on top of your DoTs and nukes = a lot of dps. The Fel Guard tends to draw a lot of aggro even with taunt off (which I recommend, since it's a HUGE mana hog), and will die if he doesn't get healed. Avoidance ensures that the Fel Guard doesn't die in two seconds like our other pets.
-----
Overall, I believe demonology warlocks are very viable in the expansion. I had a ton of fun PvPing with it. Unlike the Succubus, you don't have to watch it and worry about it's crowd control spell breaking. Unlike the Felhunter, he has dps on top of utility.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-warlock/talents.html?0000000000000000000002350000133250100 541051505000000000000000000
-----
Btw, for those of you concerned about how much damage the Fel Guard does, in the first clip versus the mage and druid, the Fel Guard does:
3687 damage on the mage (compared to 2678 damage from me)
2158 damage on the druid (compared to 2664 damage from me)
This is 5845 damage total (compared to 5342 total from me) or 52% of the fight. This is because I was being counterspelled, stunned, crowd controlling, and resisted throughout a lot of the fight. Meanwhile the Fel Guard does his thing, wailing on the opponent while they can do nothing about it...interrupting spell casts and being annoying in general, and as you can see contributes more than you might think he does.
In the fight vs the Bestial Wrath Hunter, the Fel Guard does 2788 damage, while I do 1900 since I'm stunlocked by the pet. This is 60% of the fight.