pets of choice for each raiding spec

[dekkon]

it seems to me that Blizzard decided to make the warlock a bit more raid (or instance group) friendly. Admittedly, we lost a fair amount of dps and even GW admits that it was a bit too much and he seems to be making amends (but not much).

but it is the change in pet abilities/specs that seem to be interesting and that can be very helpful to increase your group's, or raid's overall damage output.

please remember that these are just my opinions and all feedback is helpful...


affliction build.

traditionally, the imp was the choice of pet due to having Dark Pact as well as giving everyone in the group a stamina buff. as of now, that buff is raidwise. having ranged pet dps is also helpful in many fights.

but changes have been made to the felpuppy that might make it a better choice of pet (group or raidwise) for the affliction build. Fel intelligence along with the new Shadowbite ability makes the pup more attractive. Fel intelligence gives everyone in the group/raid an increase in Intelligence and a nice spirit buff. You may find that this will help you (and the others) generate enough mana that Dark Pact is no longer necessary and that you can use those talent points elsewhere.
The shadowbite talent gives the pup greater dps and can help you increase your dot damage by 5% (and there is nothing wrong with the pup's other abilities either)


Demonology.

my pet of choice here is the felguard because of it's ability to crit... and it does a lot along with it's dps.
the demonology tree changed in some ways (lower dps individually) to help increase overall group/raid dps. The demonology tree still increases your spell damage (along with fel armor of course) and this increase in spell damage can be very beneficial to the rest of your group or raid because of the Demonic Pact ability.

Every time your pet crits you can provide up to 10% of your spell damage to all other members of your group/raid. for some members that means nothing but for others it can mean a lot specially during boss fights. Fully raid buffed, my spell damage hits 1700+. combined with the fact that it seems my pet is constantly critting on the boss means that demonic pact is working a large majority of the time and i dont know any caster who wouldnt mind seeing an addtional 170 spell damage during the fight (including my own). keep an eye on your demonic empowerment skill and increase your felguard's attack too.


destruction.

My choice of pet here is the imp (although felpuppy is still being looked at here because of the mana pump). The imp provides that stamina buff raidwise and can also be specced to increase the lock's crit rate from it's spell crits.


thoughts?

[Infekted]

I'm loving my felhunter at the moment, as an affliction lock. Improved felhunter + 2piece t5 bonus means he is at full health/mana virtually all the time, regardless of whether the healers show him love or not. Not to mention the raid wide buff, the decent dps and his devour in certain boss fights (RoS for example).
Plus I just love how he looks.. /pets

Pre 3.0 it used to to really annoy me that the 2piece bonus from T5, raiding gear was useless to a raider because you sac'd your pet anyways...

[Derzerfetzer]

felguard raiding was fun though...

[SINisterW]

I've been rolling with the felhunter. I put the points into Improve him too and I really don't have any issue with dark pact on him with shadowbite doing it's job. He survives quite well too. (except aggro resets sometimes, haha)
You kind of have to pro-actively dark pact though. Do it as you start using mana so he has time to gain his back for later use.

I love not having to be forced into phased out imp.

[dirsan]

I was using the felhunter while leveling for Dark Pact. Now that we are about to start Naxx, I dumped Dark Pact and am thinking of using the imp. All the tests I've ran on dummies has the imp beating the puppy in DPS. What pet are you guys using for affliction raiding?

[Barclande]

Fel Intellegence sucks. Mage's overwrite it. Remember that 2 buffs that do the same thing do not stack anymore. So Felpup brings nothing if you have a mage, which honestly, who doesn't bring a mage for sheeps.

Demonic Pact sucks too. Any shaman can overwrite it if you have less than 1480 Spell Power, and an Ele Shaman can overwrite it plus give 3% crit unless you have 2800+ Spell Power. Good luck with that. Yet another worthless talent for us.

The Imps buff is overwritten by warriors shout. So again, pointless.


Seems all we have left is damage. Which is great, as I outdamage just about everyone I run with as Meta/Ruin, about to switch to Felguard/Emberstorm though and give that a shot.

[Tragik]

I am demonology and am using a Succubus she hits decently hard now, but more importantly, her Master Demonology buff is outstanding.

With that being said, though, she's pretty boring.

Nothing is more entertaining than the Empowered Destruction Imp......that's entertaining.