POLL: Felguard not all it's cracked up to be???Follow

If you enjoy the demonologist play style, by all means spec demonology.

If you prefer a different style, don't expect a felguard to make you fall in love with demonology.

um yea i been using felguard and it tanks a whole lot better than my voidwalker and damage wize seems to be more then my succubus but thats just me i love the felguard i hardly use the other pets inless i need to. hell dont even want to use my inferno anymore and well its hard to get a doom guard. i like him think he is well worth the points but would love it if he was lower so i could get other fun abilities

Felguard is awsome, imo it completely replaces the voidwalker. I only use other pets when im doing instances, imp for stam buff, succy for seduce, felhunter to help against casters...that kind of thing. If found that the felguard holds aggro better then the vw and it has the dps to drop mobs fast...ive regularly gone up against 3 mobs my level before with no issues at all. Now that im lvl 58 i have my felguard and my 2 instant dots so life is good! =P

i had gone demo and put 46 points into it. I found that demo was very nice. I had respected out of it and played around with a few other different talents and later respected back into it with 41 points. I found that those 5 points made a HUGE difference. without those 5 points, i found he was taking alot more damage and i had to rest more.

it is a nice pet for 41 points, but really shines when you put 46 points into it. that i have issues with.

(I have since gone to a sm/ruin build. dark pack is just so much of a nice ability.)

Edited, Mar 26th 2007 8:51pm by Jebadia

The Felguard is a good tank. Definetely better than the Voidwalker at holding aggro and dealing damage.

Though it's good it should not replace the Felhunter for killing casters. No matter what. Well, only if you have experience in Spell Locking and Devour Magic. Otherwise you might as well go with your Felguard.

If your Felguard replaces your Nuke. Then theres something wrong with you. First your not Destruction. Two the Felguard only intercepts stunning for 3seconds and causing 100 or so damage.

Each pet has their own personal uses and it's your job to make sure you use them to the best of your ability.

VW can only hold agro, in my experience, if you feather damage in lightly.

Felg hold agro quite well, though as I level there are times when he doesn't (if something stuns, like a clefthoof, the Felg might lose agro - I guess because the Felg has stopped taunting and damaging for a while).

If the Felg really gets as wimpy as some are saying by 70, that will be a shame. In mid 60s he's still great. I can do way, way, WAY more than I could w/ the VW. Tackling elites was a pain and a half w/ the VW. W/ the Felg it's much easier and doable.

Back at lvl 62 I was soloing those Colossus guys in Western Hellfire w/ the Felg - soloing them, and all their little chip-offs. They were 63 elites.

Felg off-tanks fine in instances. We just had him offtank a boss, and he did great.

Yes, I have to life tap, but I'm used to that - I do that all the time, anyway. Yeah, I drain a lot. Yeah, every two to four fights I Health Funnel. I'd still rather play this way than go back to hunting behind the VW or drain tanking!

He's a great pet, of course with certain limitations. I love his dps. I love how he holds agro. I don't mind tapping and health funneling. He adds to my kill time and saves me other down time - I don't think the health funneling hurts my exp/hr at all - also I can health funnel in fights instead of wanding or doing a second drain. He's worth a try, if you're curious. He's not the only game in town, but I'm sticking w/ the Felg til 70. Then I may mess around w/ other builds.

Edited, Mar 27th 2007 5:17am by IponemaGirl

I personally did not care to go 41 points into the demonology tree to get him, doing PVP quite a bit I found that I prefer to have the felhunter out for his silence and devour magic.

Plus to me it seemed worthless that I would spend so many points only to keep having him banished...

Good replies so far guys, your all starting to paint me a picture here. Just from what I've gathered:

* High maintenance, If your willing to LT/HF shouldn't be too bad.

* Not the most effective pet in PvP whereas a Succy's or Felhunter's utility would be preferred.

* An entertaining yet effective solo'ing pet at lvls 55-60 but scales badly afterwards.

I tried the felguard briefly. When it turned out that I was becoming a heal-bot for the minion, I respecced back to a afflic/destro build. I stopped playing my priest because I couldn't stand being a healbot.

That doesn't look bad for instances but it won't scale as well for soloing elites on group quests. You could drop one point from Mana Feed and possibly some from Demonic Tactics to get Soul Siphon and Improved Health Funnel.

I don't know if those talents are good in destruction since I haven't tried it yet. I really don't know the net DPS for Demonic Tactics since the nerf or how much each point there gives you.

Thanks for all the good points, All in All im kind of a "Lone Wolf" atm so the Felg'y is looking better & better the more I hear about it.

Soloing with my Warrior in the outland was such a PITA for the most part because of the lack of variety, thats why im looking for a decent pet with a Lock, to mix things up a bit.

I know the Felg is not "perfect," but to be brutally honest I'm sensing a lot of "I gave up on my Felg" here rather than "I used creativity and finesse to max out my Felg's potential." I say that not meaning to insult - I don't mean to single anyone out in particular - I say this meaning actually to HELP. I'm going to follow up now with some of the so-called "creative" steps I've taken (or learned from others) to get around the Felg's problems and to max out his usefulness.

Also, some of the Felg's problems are, imho, overstated; i.e. in practice, in my experience, they aren't as bad as some people are stating.

"The Felg is useless in pvp because of Banish."

I'm seeing this quoted as fact, as carved in stone. This is hardly the case.

Dueling another non-demon lock, okay - that can be pretty hard. But in normal pvp and BGs, the Felg is not spending the whole fight banished! For one thing, locks often are not there. Even if a lock is there, he's often too busy doing other things to banish.

And even if he is banished, it's not always that bad!

Case in point: WSG. You and your team are chasing down a flag stealer. Enemy lock comes up and banishes your Felg. Things are happening fast and furious. As good as your Felg is, other players on your side are for the most part better to much better (at dps, say). If your Felg wasn't there, the lock would have feared a player instead of banishing. He has to spend time targeting your pet, banishing it, then switchign to another target. When the action is fast and furious, that's not always a smart thing to do - he should have feared the rogue or cat druid or hunter on your side that was knocking the stuffing out of his flag runner (your pet was doing way less dps than them). The 3 to 6 seconds he wastes targeting your pet, casting banish, reacting to see if it was resisted or not, looking for and getting a new target - (and yes, this can take 6 seconds if the player is not focused or not very well set up to pvp) - often means his FC is dead and the flag recovered by your side. I've seen this very sort of thing happen.

I spent many evenings in BG trying to get GM armor before BC opened, with my Felg. I never got the feeling "he was banished so often as to be useless." He was almost never banished in wsg. He was rarely banished in AB. It was zergs in AV where he mostly got banished, which was a pain - but I continued to dart up and back from our line, casting dots - and it wasn't that big a deal.

I'll give you a great example from an AV I fought where banishing wasn't such a good idea. I entered a building, and zzzzzooom - Felg was on aggressive and automatically attacked an enemy lock. She has a succubus out and proceeded to seduce me, but not before I got CoA and imp Cor on her. And the Felg has already gotten to work on her (she was stunned from intercept and was slow getting to work herself). She attempted to banish him, but his melee slowed her casting - and Felg RESISTED! She attempted to banish him again (bad move, at that point she was getting HURT and should have death coiled) - and his melee again slowed down her casting of banish, while my two dots and his dps chipped her down. She finally landed Banish. I came out of seduce at that point and cast a fast-caster - SP or DC - and the next dot tick killed her. We seemed equally geared - mixed set of deathmist (tier 0) and other blues.

(edit - to be honest, I lost a few fights doing the same thing - trying to banish a Felg and dying - I had one resist THREE banishes in a row - I could have been putting out dps and helping team, etc. - instead I died doing little dps to the enemy and not helping my team much - it's often much better to die having put the hurt to the enemy first!!)

Other fights in AV did not go so well, I'll admit. Like I ride over a hill and WHAM - there are three enemies. One's a lock. Pet is banished. I'm concussed by the hunter. The priest is dotting and melting my face. I'm dead. But I would have died no matter what...

...except, I was making the same mistake many of use still make re the new demon build: overfocusing on the Felg! I'd never been demon and was not thinking like a demon lock. Heck, the build was powerful before the felg! Most new demonlocks too often forget to use all the other stuff we get.

Say I ride over a hill in AV and - too late - three badguys are on me! But three of my friends are not that far away. I see that the enemy lock is banishing my Felg - but i can sac or dismiss him right before the banish lands - and pop out a VW and sac it. Now I have a damage shield. As I turn to run I death coil the rogue coming up to melee me - and now I have a chance to make it over to my friends. There are so many other uses for demon tricks - and the above isn't even the best case example.

Over a year ago it was common to come here and see people saying "The VW is junk, it's so STUPID - it won't hold agro and SUXXXX!"

If I had a dime for every time I answered that.... Finally we came up with the "drain hunter" description for how you effective grind behind a VW (with ANY build).

Sic vw, coa, cor. Wait for VW to land SECOND taunt. Immo, tap, drain, wand.

Pet holds agro in most fights this way - fight goes surprisingly fast - and you end fight virutally full on mana and health - you loot and go to next fight with no downtime drinking and FA'ing or eating. There is a pause sometimes to get VW to heal himself, but that's nothing compared to doing it w/out this method - and overall, it provides relatively seamless, fast grinding.

The other night in Zangarmarsh I had a dest/aff hybrid lock ask me some questions. He said his VW didn't hold agro well, and he was always drinking cuz every fight he had to nuke down his target when it agro'd on him! "Getting expenseive and tiresome, isn't it?" I asked. "YES!" he admitted.

I told him to try the drain hunt method - especially to wait for the vw to land second taunt before doing immo or anything heavy. A few seconds passed. "I'll be damned," he whispered. "It worked!"

Another satisfied customer.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because I'm seeing the same sort of "anti-VW" talk now in the form of "Felg trashing" - and I just want to encourage people to work around this instead of giving up.

The method for drain hunting requires finesse - it's that waiting for the second taunt - but overall it's VERY MUCH WORTH IT. "But why," someone might ask, "if the object is fast grinding, do I have to wait for second taunt? I don't LIKE that!" Well, that tiny wait is paid back by the pet keeping agro and having an overall, smooth system where you take less damage - and have less to no downtime between fights. Overall that tiny little "wait for second taunt" = a time savings and a working system!

With the Felg, you do need 3/3 in Mana Feed. To grind you do need to "drain hunt" - although we modify it for the Felg. It's not the same as the VW system.

W/ Felg you turn all his abilities on. You sic Felg, CoA, Cor and Immo (no waiting - don't use immo if fighting weak mobs - but yellow up I use it to speed up fight and decrease damage done to Felg). I tap, drain and either wand or incinerate. You could shadowbolt at end. It's good if you pull agro off the felg at end of fight - it keeps him healthier.

Now, fight is over. Felg is 10% to 30% damaged depending on how hard the target hit him (I have the talent that lowers Felg's damage by 15% - get it to grind). You don't need to heal him.

Find next target and do the same thing.

Even if Felg is half dead, don't worry. Find another fight and do the same thing. This time instead of draining, start healing the Felg. As he runs back to you, heal him more, to near full.

Now you have somewhat low health but pet is pretty full. Tap if needed to fill you and pet up.

Go to next fight, and do a "filling routine". Pick a somewhat weak target if you can. Sic Felg, CoA and Cor. Don't immo. Drain Life. Tap. Drain Life. When you are near full, finish off target w/ wand or whatever.

The point is to create subroutines w/ your Felg to fulfill needs. Even though one fight out of 3 or 4 is slower than others, you're still fighting - you're not sitting there drinking - and it's not all that slow a fight. I can grind grind grind w/out stopping this way. It gets hairy at times, but I have tricks for that. I'm often fighting w/ a damaged pet - and w/ myself damaged - but I keep an eye out and do great. I see the speed other people grind around me, and I know I'm doing a good job.

BUT YOU SAY I SHOULD FIGHT WITH A FELG AT 50% HEALTH - WHAT IF I GET AN ADD?!

What if you do? That's what the OTHER demon skills are for. Let Felg die and do the skill that lets you pop out a new one in half a second! Ta dah! The main target will be coming on you, so put the Felg on him - and his Cleave will pull agro from the add. You need to put the smack down on the main target, cuz new Felg may not be able to pull agro - but old Feld and dots should have damaged it so much that a death coil and incinerate should put it down. Now Felg has agro on the add - drain health if you got hurt, dot, tap and drain more. No problemo.

BUT THIS SOUNDS LIKE A WHOLE LOT OF FOOLING AROUND - AND FOR WHAT?

For a pet that holds agro VERY well and does some really good DPS! For all the fooling around, the Felg is his own TWO DOTS - and two powerful DoTs. It's like you cast CoA, Cor, Immo - and Felg1 and Felg2! His dps makes up for all the fooling around. It's purely psychological, btw. If the fooling around grates on you, try another lock build - the other ones work and are great. I don't mind maintaining the Felg - but don't tell me I'm a fool for it. I have very little time to play him, yet I'm doing great.

BUT AREN'T OTHER PETS BETTER?

Succubus dps is not as good, and she CAN NOT hold agro. I get tired of drain tanking for some reason - I just like hunting behind an agro-holding pet. For me, the Felg is a dream come true.

Further, I was unable, before Felg, to kill elites - unless I was willing to have an exhausting fight and dicey fight. Before Felg I could sic VW, feather in dots, and play the "don't pull agro off the vw" game... and then get agro anyway - and then pull the elite back to where I could fear him - but I had to be able to fear him to win, almost every time. W/ the Felg I can kill, in Outland, Elites above my level and win w/out losing the pet and w/out needing to fear (iow I can hunt elites in tight quarters). They are still tough fights, and I usually have to drink and even eat between them - but they are much MUCH easier than before.

If you learn and work out systems, the Felg is GREAT for pve/grinding.

Back to pvp, he's actually great for that, too. I wince when I read people saying he's "no good for pvp/bg." Again, in my experience, that's simply untrue. There are times that my Felg steamrolled, STEAMROLLED a rogue that would have diced me to bits. All I had to do was dot the rogue and move in unexpected directions, making it hard for him to keep me in his melee range - and the Felg just cut him down! There are so many times the Felg and my dots just dominated other players in Bg it was silly - even big warriors in purple gear!

I'm getting tired now and can't... well look, there are ways to get around the Felg's weakness in pvp and to max his strengths. Yes, banish is a problem - but if you think you spent 41 tp's ONLY to have a Felg - well, you're closing your eyes to the rest of the demonlock's toychest. I'll just humbly submit that this is a silly thing to do and leave it at that. Good luck! Hope I haven't offended anyone, but I did want to try to offer a challenge to the nay-sayers and to inspire anyone curious about the Felg/demon build to give it a go. I have tons of fun w/ my Felg! I doubt I'd be grinding my lock to 70 if it weren't for the Felg! GL!



EDIT - the felg might be weak at 70, like some people are saying. I'm going to see what it's like when I get there. But I'm definitely using my Felg to get to 70 - in fact, I would not be going to 70 w/out this build! Plus, I'm using it for fast and efficient farming to get things I want, like $ for a flying mount! Further, I'm not saying you HAVE to try a Felg - it's not perfect! I'm just saying if you think it might be cool, if you're tempted, give it a whirl. But don't do so lightly and casually. Give it a "good college try" - and try to make it work. And if it doesn't, try another build. Switching is not that big a deal. GL!


More edit - I'm not the best lock in the world. I don't have enough time to play to truly master anything in WoW. I'm hoping someone else can come along and help me out. Also, I didn't even begin to get into finesse moves. Like telling Felg to stay, keeping him back - and using intercept to stun - used right this is deadly! Three seconds is a world of time in WoW. It can turn many a fight. Anyway, there's a lot more to playing demon/felg than siccing the pet! Remember the othe demon skills, too!

Edited, Mar 27th 2007 3:08pm by IponemaGirl

Nice post, Dreadkin.

To others, please note - I don't think we're saying other builds are "bad." I think we're saying not to trash the Demon/Felg build out of hand -- it is NOT a bad build -- far from it!

But you do have to undestand what it's good for and how to use it, how to max it out.

I think it was ... well, I won't say who it was. But a few weeks ago one of our solid, loyal posters was complaining how he was all ticked off with his lock, how it wasn't any fun any more - how he had to constantly heal his Felg - every fight - fights were tedious and long - and worse! And Felg would lose agro!!

But he was only doing CoA and Cor. I'm trying to remember, but this poster had no mana feed, um... no -15% to pet damage, and - was missing one other key talent, I think. Anyway, he had the Felg's taunting skill OFF so that it wouldn't "waste mana" - this was why he was only doing two DoTs!

Well of course it wasn't working! Fights were running too long, and Felg was getting chewed up by the length of the battle.

You MUST have his taunt ON! Sorry for caps, but hey - it's kind of a "rule!"

The beauty of the Felg is that he CAN HOLD AGRO even if you pile on the dots and drains!!! So you keep him from getting damaged too fast by piling on CoA, Cor and Immo -- then you tap and drain -- to speed up fight and lower damage he takes! Then, end fight Health Funneling a tad if nec. Btw you don't have to let HF run full course.

W/ no mana feed his Felg was having trouble w/ his dps. He was taking too much damage lacking the -15% to damage talent. Sorry I forgot the last one.

Played right, the Felg is a pve MONSTER! He kills fast and lets me take on stuff I could not handle w/ other builds! I love him in instances, too. Raids? Maybe not. But I'm back into 5-man Outland instances, and so far the Felg off-tanks beautifully. No probs at all. This may change in the top instances and raids - but so far, fine.

Just last night I had a mage tell me "man, that demon has a lot of dps!" He does on long fights, esp. boss fights - when his stackable passive builds up to its max. Yes, then he's a dps machine!

Okay, maybe I'm overselling a little. Just don't be led astray by people who... well look, I don't want to insult anyone. This game doesn't come w/ very good instruction manuals. Parts of it are easy, but parts are not so easy - hidden - counter-intuitive - you need to either get help or sit back and think it through a little. What I'm saying is that not all locks who post here "get" the felg and demon build. Some of them, imho, seem to have tried it assuming it was "easy mode" - and missed some of the more subtle or finesse-oriented points needed to make it shine! And it's easy to do this! I'm not saying anyone is stupid - not at all. If you get told "wow, Felg is SO SO SO awesome - he's a warrior on steroids and he ROCKS!" --- you're going to approach the build w/ "gee, all I do is set him loose and watch him kill things" attitude. No, it's harder than that - but for me and others it's still worth doing!

Give demon/Felg a chance if it speaks to you - if it makes you curious.

But again, affliction - deep destruction - or various hybrid builds - they can be extremely good, too! We're not trashing those, far from it! Find out what makes you happy - what you have fun doing! And learn as much as you can from it and make your build shine! GL!!!

Edited, Mar 27th 2007 7:33pm by IponemaGirl