The week has rolled around, the planets have aligned, and it's time again for Blood Pact! Here to keep you up to date with all the unspeakable horrors perpetrated by WarlocksPresiding over this week's dark ritual is Nick Deathcaller -- I mean Whelan.

I was perusing the Blood Pact archives this week, trying to think of a topic which would be a little less dry than my last topic, and I noticed that an in-depth look at a Warlock's minions is rather over-due!

I've long been of the opinion that Warlock minions are far more similar to a Warrior's stances than they are to a Hunter's petsHunter pets are very much a separate entity from the hunter them selfThey have their own talent trees, different abilities they can train, and regardless of spec can account for 25% or more of the Hunter's total DPS in any given encounter -- closer to 50% if the Hunter is speced beast mastery! Warlock minions, on the other hand, have no customisability whatsoever, save the various talents which can be used to improve themOften times a minion is used for no other reason than for the buff it provides -- or in the case of affliction Warlocks -- as a mana battery for Dark Pact.

The recent exploits of the voidwalker have garnered him some attention as of late, but the day-to-day uses of this minion tend to be less glamorousFor Warlocks who haven't spent points improving him -- and most agree that it's generally a poor idea to do so -- the voidwalker is only useful now and again when attempting to solo an eliteFor any content that is intended to be soloed, there are faster and more efficient methods; and most group content is beyond the voidwalker's ability to be be helpful in without, well, a groupI've actually had a great deal of time to compare the voidwalker to Hunter tanking pets, since my girlfriend plays oneFrequent changes have made this comparison rather variable, but what it boils down to is that the voidwalker has a great deal of damage mitigating ability compared to a hunter pet, but the Warlock's inability to Feign Death, and the somewhat high threat generation of Health Funnel makes it a very precarious balance to avoid pulling aggro off of the voidwalker even when Health Funnel is the only spell being cast.

I think Ghostcrawler summed up the succubus best when he mentioned that out of all the minions, she's doing the worst job of pulling her weightConsidering she can't weigh more than 90 pounds, this is a pretty serious issueThe main draw of the succubus is the crowd control she lends to the classI remember dozens of times back in Shadow Labs when my Mage-less guild needed me to seduce one mob and Banish another in some of the more difficult pullsProblem is, seduction is insanely difficult to wield effectively, and while three points in Improved Succubus can make it a little less unwieldy, most Warlocks avoid that otherwise useless talent altogetherThose three points are much better spent elsewhere, particularly considering how very infrequently Seduction is actually needed in a modern instance, and how very unreliable it is compared to other forms of crowd controlI sincerely hope that the talent will eventually be removed and, its affects integrated into the base skill -- much like what they're doing with Curse of Elements and Enslave Demon.

The felhunter is my minion of choice as an affliction Warlock, though that is a somewhat controversial choiceMany people prefer the imp as a dark pact battery, because it has faster mana regeneration, can Phase Shift, and Blood Pact allows for more life-tappingAnd while these are all good reasons, I feel the benefits of using the felhunter as a mana battery outweigh themThe felhunter's mana pool regenerates slower, but it's also larger than the imp's, so you can Dark Pact several times before needing to wait, instead of just once or twiceAs for phase shifting, I've used my fel puppy almost exclusively since level 75, and have yet to see him pull something I didn't want him to pullAnd best of all, the buff he provides turns into 720 mana, 20 spell power, and 0.29% crit chanceNot a bad tradeoff for an HP buff that works out to about one-third of a life tapI should add, however, that I don't feel Improved Felhunter is worth the two pointsThe improvements to Fel Intelligence are neglidgable, and the faster mana regeneration only works if the felhunter is attacking at melee range, which very quickly results in a dead minion on most bosses, even with the recent HP boost

Even if they're not my favorite affliction minion anymore, imps still have an important role to playWith the numerous buffs available in talents and glyphs, and the passive bonuses to fire spells attainable through Master Demonologist, the imp is like a miniature Godzilla in destructive abilityAnd, with the ever growing population of Warlocks who are dividing their talent points almost evenly between demonology and destruction with the intent of maximizing their fire damage, we're sure to see plenty of them aroundI've seen reports which show an imp's contribution as a whopping 20% of a Warlock's overall damageAnd Blood Pact serves as a nice little bonus on the side that the whole raid can enjoy!

I'm not going to try and pretend I can speak about the felguard with any sort of real authorityThe only time any one of my Warlocks has ever even had the ability to summon him was on the PTR for patch 2.3 when I speced demonology on a larkSomeday soon I really must spend the 100 gold to spec demo for a day, so I can get some real experience with this minionAll I can say with certainty for now is that a lot of people love them for leveling, a lot of people love them for PVP, and too many people bring them to raids, only to perform abysmally on the DPS meter

Infernals are actually quite a bit more useful these days than they were in days of yorWith their massive amount of HP, quick summon time, and high damage output, I've occasionally used them to tank the last few seconds of a boss fight after the tank was slainEven if the tank doesn't die, the infernal's massive DPS can be handy for affliction or destruction Warlocks looking to eek out some extra damage in the last seconds of an intense boss fight