Blood Pact: Meet the minions, part 4 - the felhunter and mage-hate
by Dominic Hobbs 
Dec 14th 2009 at 6:00PM
When Wrath first came along I wrote a piece about how warlock utility in 25 man raids had all but disappeared. I had many dissenters to that statement, using examples such as Soul Stones and the like. One that came up a few times was the Felhound and how useful he is. I have to agree, he's a regular bag of tricks, but when it comes to 25 man raiding he's been (rightly) left in the kennel for quite some time. This is about to change.
"But Dominic, you seething pot of demonic mage-hating bile..." I hear you cry "...where is all the mage-hate?" Well, yes, I can imagine the title did lead you to expect an article so vitriolic and anti-arcane as to leave nothing more in its wake than quivering lumps of nerdy arcanists, armpit-deep in tears; and maybe a lost looking sheep. I'm not sure I can do that though, as I don't really hate mages -- that point is really going to need clarifying.
The thing is, hating mages (or anything) takes effort, and frankly I can't be bothered to muster that much effort to spend on mages. Disdain, derision and contempt are all free, and I feel I have more than enough of that to spare. You see, while mages may be nasty and irritating like cockroaches or sand in your swimsuit, they have their place. You don't necessarily want them around you or making their presence felt, but you have to accept that sand and bugs have their uses. Mage players
are also pretty special, though I refer to the great Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw for his definition of 'special':That said, I'm not opposed to having the odd dig at mages, and in particular one extra-special mage, whom I'm very pleased to see is even referred to as Archmage Pants by his own commenters and the WoW.com staff. I've also noted that a certain former WoW.com columnist has launched a 'war' on warlocks. It seems that hunters have declared an open season for locks, even going so far as to have a particular talent build for the task. It tickles me greatly that so many hunters are investing so much time effort into trying to annoy warlocks. I found it especially amusing to imagine the hunter that, despite making it his goal to hunt locks, was having such a hard time of it he put together (and paid gold to get) a talent build to give him a better chance."I'm sorry my son ate your shoes, he's a little bit special."
Anyway, all that aside, lets talk about the Felhunter. As with the Succubus quests, there is an awful lot of running about required to get these quests complete, so be very thankful you can now ride about the place. The chains are almost exactly the same for Horde and Alliance. First you go speak to someone in the Barrens who sends you to Undercity or Ironforge (respectively). Then you head out to grab a book and a piece of paper (see map).
Once you have those it's off to the Wetlands to fetch a few sticks (how appropriate) and back to Strahad Farsan in the Barrens for the hand-in. You also receive a soul bag but as I mentioned in a previous article, these aren't overly handy while questing. It might be worth keeping, but probably not.
If you get all through that and summon your Felhunter at level 30 then he'll only know the one trick, that's Devour Magic. This is a cool little trick that will either remove a magic debuff from a friendly character or a buff from an enemy. When soloing a nice macro to target the ability is:
This will try and take a debuff from you, failing that from himself, failing that it'll try and take a buff from your target. As an extra bonus, every magic effect he devours will heal him up a bit. This can come in pretty handy when questing alone and you come up against a caster./use [target=player][target=pet][]Devour Magic
The only time I have actively used this ability in a raid situation was in Karazhan (Maiden of Virtue), mostly having the ability on auto-cast is sufficient.
At level 32 your Felhunter will learn Fel Intelligence. This is where a lot of the 'lock utility' that was mentioned in the first paragraph was coming from. It's true, this is a nice party buff if your party doesn't include a priest or a mage, but does include several other casters. I don't find myself in that situation very often and to be honest this buff is just a little extra love from the puppy when you have him out for some other reason.
Level 36 sees him learn Spell Lock. This is a hugely valuable ability in PvP (so I'm told) and in PvE it's kinda nice too. When you're fighting a caster you can use this to shut them up completely. Often this means that they come up to you and hit you with laughably puny mage-fists. All the while you are tearing their body and soul asunder with shadow and flame. Nice.
Again though, in a raid this ability is pretty useless. I have only had it manually cast once, again back in Kara on Aran. Since then I've used the puppy on Faction Champions where he's great for pestering the healers (especially the one-school paladin), but that was just a case of using auto-cast once more.
The Felhunter's final ability to learn comes in at level 42. This is Shadow Bite, a nice little direct damage ability. The puppy does have a melee attack as well so he's not just been humping your opponent's leg between snacks until now, but the ability can double the damage this little 'goggie' can do. Remember that it increases in damage for each DoT you have on the target.
The Felhunter is (seemingly) intended to be the minion associated with the affliction talent tree. As far as end-game raiding was concerned, this hasn't really been the case so far; the Succubus and Imp have had the job. Now that patch 3.3 has landed there's been a change. Mostly due to the buffs that Shadow Bite has received, more damage can be gained from the Felhunter. Affliction is pulling the biggest raid numbers on paper but we're yet to see if there's going to be much of a conversion from Destruction and a flood of puppies in raids.
Before I end this article I did want to congratulate Archmage Pants on something. That might be a bit of a surprise but you see it appears he's also not one to put too much effort into his hate. You are probably aware of the IHATEWARLOCKS book-club he founded. I had a quick look back to the naming of this group and found that the acronym apparently stands for "Interracial Humanitarian Association of Tauren and Everyone in WoW Against Race Limits On Choosing Kinship with Sorcerers,"...
What? Oh, so it was all about getting cows to become casters. I see.
Well, after a few minutes thought I offer this alternative: "Insipid Half-baked Arcanists Throwing Emo-fits at Warlocks Although Really Lamenting their Own Character's Known Sadness" Maybe it will catch on or perhaps you have your own version.
Filed under: Warlock, Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Guilds, Quests, (Warlock) Blood Pact
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Mognet T Dec 14th 2009 6:09PM
Ahem. A message from the Mages, "Whatever, we're awesome."
ryck Dec 14th 2009 6:14PM
Ahem. A reply from the warlocks, "As Warlocks, (as so wonderfully described in the article) are equal to or greater than mages, thus, we must be even more awsome than described above."
Peacebone Dec 14th 2009 6:18PM
ahem, a reply from the mages to the reply from the warlocks to the relpy from the mages:
"nah bro, you're like bondage pants wearing, badly dyed black hair with a single pink/beach blond stripe, Jack Skellington drawn-on tattoo goth kids of Warcraft."
but it's okay! because mages are the nerds who eat lunch in the library to catch up on their studies.
Christian Belt Dec 14th 2009 8:53PM
Let me tell you a story.
There once was a young man named Billy Madison. His father ran a powerful hotel chain, and wanted his son to run it after he retired. His father's evil partner, Eric, was a douchebag, and wanted to run the company for himself.
The problem was, Billy had never gotten an education. He'd skated by in school on his father's wealth and reputation, and in order to prove him self worthy to run Madison Hotels, he struck a crazy bargain with his father. He would go back to school and pass 1st grade through 12th, graduate on his own merit, and demonstrate that he was just as capable of running the company as Eric.
Wacky hijinks ensued. Norm Macdonald and Chris Farley were prominently involved. Steve Buscemi wore lipstick. Veronica Vaughn was, as we all are aware, a fine piece of ass. Everything culminated in a final academic contest between Eric and Billy in the high school auditorium.
At the climax of this contest, Billy delivered a rousing speech comparing a puppy to the industrial revolution. The high school principal then stood and said the following, which I will of course adapt slightly and direct at our fearless, if slightly misguided warlock columnist:
"Mr. Hobbs, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
Ahem.
Warlocks suck.
Sincerely,
Archmage Pants
Anathemys Dec 14th 2009 9:53PM
You know the best part of warlocks?
We can steal your soul.
If only we could use mage-tears instead... Much easier to get.
Aykwa Dec 14th 2009 10:43PM
I believe Mr. Archmage Pants conveniently forgets the rest of the Billy Madison story, as is so often the case with mages. You see, in the end it is Billy Madison who gets the company, gets the girl, and gets the job of his choosing. Meanwhile, the High School principal who did nothing but QQ Billy Madison ended up just that, a High School principal that nobody liked. Just today. In this column.
Buh Bye
(QQ is a Mage's most-used spell, placed in at least 3 spots in their cast bar, and is forcing me to consider calling them Maqqes).
lenafoens Dec 14th 2009 11:13PM
All hail the awesome Mage that is mr. Christian Belt a..ka. Archmage Pants!
(awesome, simply awesome)
travis Dec 14th 2009 11:49PM
Oh, and by the way, "Insipid Half-baked Arcanists Throwing Emo-fits at Warlocks Although Really Lamenting their Own Character's Known Sadness" still spells IHATEWARLOCKS.
You've been counterspelled.
edgehead Dec 15th 2009 1:31AM
im afraid you've mistaken Mr Hobbs' intent my good mage
it is suposed to still say IHATEWARLOCKS, but it shows that mages hate warlocks because in reality they know that they themselves arre what they clam warlocks to be.... emo crybabies.
if you check your combat log you will see that Hobbs has resisted your counterspell and just used his felpuppy to devour all your buffs
duffry Dec 15th 2009 2:59AM
"It was like some kind of idiot convention, and I was the keynote speaker."
~ Archmage Pants
http://www.wow.com/2009/12/12/arcane-brilliance-how-to-be-a-good-pug-mage/
Sunsinger Dec 15th 2009 7:10AM
Ahem,
Yes, mages are purely awesome, one of their specs includes as many as 2(sic!) buttons in their rotation. "Here, Johnny, press this button four times, then press that other one over there once, then repeat. Good boy. Now nobody's gonna ROFL on you like when you were a ret pally".
/salute to Mr. Hobbs and all of our brothers in shadow from semi-transparent purple priests. =)
K Dec 15th 2009 10:33AM
I would like to propose marriage to Christian Belt aka Archmage Pants for the best comment ever written in the history of WoW.com.
Christian Jan 31st 2010 3:42PM
Let us all examine the kinship of thy twirly-fingered, spell flinging brethren.
Warlocks- Seeing we're all in the land of warlocks, let us start with them as not to forget by the end of this post. Our evil, demonic brothers and sisters of shadow and flame all require the assistance of their little pets that they chauffeur around. They can utilize their famous DoT's, turn into a demon themselves, or can pose to be their superiors: The mage.
Priests- The wielders of holy light, and shadow. They have a little minion of shadow that they obviously were blessed with from their encounters with their evil kin. They tend to be healers, yet have a bit of warlock in them for some choose to wear black, use shadowy stuff, and do other wierd things. Whatever.
Mages- Aha, finally. We are true to ourselves; Arcane, Fire, and Frost all origional, and nothing taken from the shadow (lol). Although we posess the most overpowered heal created (we should be able to cast it on allys), and mana shield which would also be overpowered if cast on an enemy. However, we mages like to freeze stuff , set everything on fire and blow everything all to hell, or manipulate people through arcane and send a trainwreck your way when the cd's and procs are up.
I could just be partial to mages or something...
"Insipid Half-baked Arcanists Throwing Emo-fits at Warlocks Although Really Lamenting their Own Character's Known Sadness."
- /lifetap and sit in emo corner
Mage for life.
James Dec 14th 2009 6:14PM
Dominic I usually learn a lot from your columns but I can't believe you have not been using Decursive with Devour Magic. It works almost as well as a priest's Dispel (you just can't use it as often). My noob lock made himself very popular in Sunken Temple today using Devour Magic to dispel sleep..
Felipe Dec 14th 2009 6:22PM
You can also use /use [@player][@pet][]Devour Magic now
Nooneneo Dec 14th 2009 6:22PM
*Pom pyro on the felhunter* im sorry what was that?
muffin_of_chaos Dec 14th 2009 7:05PM
Mages are sort of like Warlocks, just kinda worse and much, much less interesting.
muffin_of_chaos Dec 14th 2009 7:08PM
"Arcane Blast until Missile Barrage procs, then cast Arcane Missiles. Repeat.
"If there's need to aoe, spam Blizzard.
"From time to time, you may find the need to use one of your four 2-minute cooldowns. Figuring out when exactly to do this so as to maximize your already-ridiculous dps may be the steepest part of your learning curve."
Metatron Dec 14th 2009 6:29PM
ahahahahaha good shit :)
Tyr Dec 14th 2009 6:28PM
Us Cockroaches will never die!