Your help needed: Felguard Profile Page

[Akasha]

With the Felhunter receiving some changes, a temporary page has been put in place until Wrath of the Lich King is released. So, we'll move onto another pet - the Felguard.

To see what kind of information I am looking for, please have a look at the Imp, Voidwalker or Succubus profile pages.

Felguard Info
I'm looking for a general 'about the Felguard' section. Who is the Felguard? Where does he come from? What is his general role?

Tips & Tricks:
I'm wanting to list any neat little tricks you can do with the Felguard... are there any?

The Instance Felguard:
Information about the Felguard's role in instances.

The PvP Felguard:
Information about the Felguard's role in PvP. Both Battlegrounds and Arenas

Talents that will affect / improve the Felguard:
A list of all the talents that affect/improve the Felguard


Anything else that you think should be included, please let me know.

The idea behind the profile pages is to help Warlocks learn more about their pets, and to learn how best to use their pets. Sorry, minions. So for example, I'm not after "Don't use the Felguard in PvP, he sucks". I'm after why you wouldn't use it in PvP, what are the disadvantages etc. Could there be any situations it might come in handy.

I want it so that someone who is looking for the information, can walk away going "oooh, I get it now, I understand why ... "

[Meridani]

Tips & Tricks

In the Naj'entus fight, when the tidal shield is up, to avoid getting your Felguard killed by the 8500 burst damage, quickly switch to casting the Eye of Kilrogg while waiting for everyone to get healed up, or simply a few seconds before Tidal Shield goes up. That way the burst damage will kill your eye and your Felguard will return unscathed and ready to be sent back into the fight. Minimum down time. The only downside is that you won't be able to throw the spine to burst the shield. You probably could use this trick in the ZA thunderhawk boss fight when the fire globes are around and there isn't enough space for you and your Felguard. Kind of depends on you finding a safe spot fast enough to then be able to cast the Eye before the globes explode.

In certain fights with adds like Morogrim, depending on how your guild positions him, if he is positioned directly between the pally tank and the spawning murlocs, make sure you turn off Auto-cleave when the murlocs are running by or you may accidently hit some of them and screw things up.

In ZA, through the gauntlet to the Thunderhawk boss, your Felguard's Intercept can be very handy at catching the scouts after a druid's entangle wears off or the warrior's charge stun finishes. It's more efficient than casting a SB/Soulfire and waiting for it to fly through the air to hit the scout. His Intercept can also be used to help hit the Tainted Spawns if you are on elemental duty for Vashj.

Last but not least, if your fully buffed Felguard is about to inevitably die from a ticking DoT effect or an AoE occurance, simply dismiss your FG then Fel dom -> Summon him again. He will spawn with full health AND all the buffs he started out with. It's important to learn how to time this trick cause if the FG dies and you summon him, he'll be fully unbuffed like how a newly summoned pet would normally be. Not to mention your spell damage bonus will be slightly lower due to less buffs on him.

Probably falls under the instance/raiding section too. This is all I can think of at the moment.

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Typical Talents will be,

• Fel Intellect and Fel Stamina (Demonology) increases its maximum mana/health respectively by 5/10/15%.

• Fel Domination combined with Master Summoner (Demonology) can reduce summoning time to 2/4seconds and 20/40% reduced mana; another 5.5 seconds and 50% reduced mana when Fel Domination is active (0.5 second cast).

• Unholy Power (Demonology) increases damage done by your Felguard by 4/8/12/16/20%.

• Demonic Sacrifice (Demonology) will sacrifice your Felguard to give you an increase in Shadow damage by 10% and restores 2% of total mana every 4 seconds for 30min. A compromise between the Felhunter and Succubus.

• Mana Feed (Demonology) allows your pet to regenerate 33/66/100% of the mana you gain from Drain Mana or Life Tap.

• Demonic Resilience (Demonology) reduces the damage your summoned demon takes by 5/10/15%.

• Soul Link (Demonology) your summoned demon absorbs 20% of the damage the caster takes and increases the damage done by both by 5%.

• Demonic Knowledge (Demonology) increases your spell damage by an amount equal to 5/10/15% of the total of your active demon's Stamina plus Intellect.

• Demonic Tactics (Demonology) increases critical strike chance of your Felguard by 1/2/3/4/5%.

• Master Demonologist (Demonology) increases all damage caused by the warlock and Felguard by 5% and all resistances by 0.5 per level. So at level 70 you would get 35 to all resistance if your FG is out.

• Summon Felguard (Demonology). 80% of base mana, 10 second cast, uses a soulshard. Need I say more?

[Lockofday]

I know that most of the members will have a more in-depth knowledge when it comes to stats and specs for the felguard. I can however tell you why I use nothing anymore but my felguard. Despite not being able to use his cleave when in instances (it has a tendency to break stun effects on mobs) he is extremely handy all around. Typically mine is on defensive...only in PvP do I keep him on offensive where he saves my hide constantly. The second someone targets me he's off with a several second stun that lets me get a spell out or at least helps me get away from a rogue. His follow abilities in PvP are awesome as well. While someone tries to slip away from me, my felguard is all over him, I follow his dot and finish off the player (unless rogue or warrior and typically I die).

I've also noticed that when he's against other casters (mobs) with minions; he stuns the caster and goes for the minion which is very helpful leaving me with only one stunned mob to deal with.

I wish I could give more info when it comes to how his inner mechanics work for us locks but I can tell you that I use nothing but him. I've tried Destro and Afflic and always come back around to Demon. The other neat thing I've noticed is that I often get asked to tank instances instead of standing in the wings casting spells. My felguard does some serious DPS and can hold mobs busy while I cast and help out the other players.

Okay that's it from me. I'm new to the forum so just testing out my warlock knowledge...which compared to some of you guys is just....sad.

[Anij]

I know I've given my 2 coppers worth on other demon guides in the past that you've used Akasha, but with my limited experience with the fel guard I'll pass on this one. Typically though when people ask me whats the best grinding spec I say go affliction. Or if they're not into getting beaten on then I tell them to go fel guard as he's the perfect combo dps/tanking pet.

[Koltra]

Currently, all warlock pets have 80% avoidance, which was changed from '50% chance to avoid aoe' to '80% reduction in aoe damage', thereby making them practically ignore most raid aoe damage (other effects from aoe still apply, ie debuffs) - for example my Felguard attacked Aran during the arcane explosion and got little over 1.2k damage, and he got more damage from my SL than Malacrass Spirit Bolts.

Felguard is comparable to a DPS warrior: Melee DPS with medium armour and high health.

Compared to Voidwalker he is squishier and against elites he will need more health funneling, but unlike voidwalker, you can afford to funnel cause he actually does damage.

One problem in instances is his cleave: it is a big part of his damage, but it tends to break any nearby cc. Although if there are 3 mobs on the tank, he is probably using Cleave, TC, Swipe or Consecration, so it is safe to turn cleave on.

While soloing, threat generation is ok: he can't keep aggro when you shadowbolt till later (about 2-3 anguishes), but standard dotting is safe. My usual strategy is to keep him on a mob till his second Anguish (and cast Curse of Agony, Corr and Immolate) and then switch him to second mob for one anguish (and again 3 dots), repeating it till all mobs are dotted. By the time first one turns to me, it is most likely already dead from the dots, melee and cleaves. And I still have his intercept, deathcoil or drain life if it is really necessarry.

Although after a 4+ mob fight he is usually out of mana and I am low on health due to lifetap and funnels. I don't advise keeping 5 or more mobs on him cause you will need to heath funnel earlier and cleaves won't be enough to hold all the mobs.
Most efficient is still to fight one or two mobs at a time, looting and skinnining one corpse after you dotted second fight.

2/3 Mana feed is essential for solo (cleave and anguish) while 1/3 is enough for raids/instances (cleave only).

PS: When fighting big elites, it sometimes helps to use Health Funnel rank 1: mana is the same, 30% damage reduction from talents is same, but it does a LOT less threat.