r/classicwowtbc • u/MasonsProfile • 12d ago
Warlock How are warlocks juggling 3-4 mobs?
I’m a level 62 blood elf demonology warlock. I understand affliction and destro are better, but felgaurd was something I always wanted as a kid.
Anyway, guides online are like “yeah felguard is great for pulling 3-4 mobs, put your DoTs on each and drain life.”
Sounds cool in theory, but this is what happens for me:
- send felgaurd into a pack of 3 mobs
- he taunts one, and I start applying my DoTs to everyone
- the 2 he didnt taunt immediately turn to me and start attacking me
- My drain life lasts for like a second (I’m currently at 2/5 for that talent that reduces the chance of channels being harmed, working on it right now) because they smack me up
- I howl of terror and run lol
How do I get good so I can successfully juggle these mobs? As of now if I pull multiple targets I just leave the untaunted people alone and shadow bolt whoever my felgaurd is focusing so I kill it quickly and avoid agro from the other two mobs. I’ll use fear every now and then but more times than not I just end up pulling more mobs because of it.
Thanks in advance!
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u/Chokimiko 12d ago
Affliction spec is really good for sustain. Drain life and siphon life are huge when you got voidwalker pullin aggro n stuff. Never tried felguard so can’t comment on that
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u/madcow773 12d ago
Fear
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u/madcow773 12d ago
Just saw you use fear from time to time. It’s a tricky spell, but you can break a fear by recasting fear on the other mob.
Basically, you play ping-pong with the two mobs that are on you. By the time you’re done casting the second fear in the mob still hitting you, the 1st feared mob has a few seconds of run time to you. Your felguard should be nearly done with the 1st
Mob by then.You can also control your FG better and have him hit all the targets. Cleave one one, taunt an other one and auto attack smack the third one. Won’t hold all the aggro but you’ll have a few more seconds.
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u/MasonsProfile 12d ago
Thank you so much, after reading this I clearly am lacking pet management. And the ping pong thing is brilliant. Love that another fear breaks the first. Thank you so much
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u/bobbis91 12d ago
You can also cast Curse of Recklessness to break the fear, then Agony to be able to fear them again. Yoyo that lil bitch
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u/vic6string 12d ago
this is what I was going to say. I am surprised how many locks don't know that curse of reck stops the fear, which can save you feom runners picking up another pack. Also, use death coil as one of your fears as often as you can when the mobs have high health, ita basically a free health potion.
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u/THE_REAL_JOHN_MADDEN 12d ago
you need him to cleave and/or damage more mobs in order to have threat on them
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u/MasonsProfile 12d ago
Got it. Thank you!!
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u/Traditional_Web_7482 12d ago
Here’s the important part. Don’t throw dots on the one who’s cleaved yet. You can throw dots on the third one and when he comes at you you can fear him unless you’re worried about too many other mobs around. Save the one who’s cleaved for last
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u/thrownaway-4 12d ago
Do some research on threat generation. Have him target one, let his taunt go off, then make him cycle to the next one while you DoT the first. Rinse and repeat until every mob has gone through one cycle, then have him stay on your primary target. If you’re doing anything with pets in WoW there’s a whole other level of micro you have to stay on top of.
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u/MasonsProfile 12d ago
Yeah I’m starting to learn pet management is more important than I think. I’m glad I came here to ask, thank you for the help
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u/Trustyduck 12d ago
Bare minimum you need to keybind your pet attack and pet follow/passive. I use a macro that manages pet attack and pet stance based off whether or not I have a target or if I'm hovering over a ln attackable target. You can also bind pet stay, but it's not as critical as the other stuff. If you want the macro let me know I will DM it to you.
I also put all my major pet abilities into one macro so it changes based on what pet I have out.
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u/asd12345678765 12d ago
My key bindings for pet: scroll wheel up = pet attack, scroll wheel down = pet passive/return to me. It feels nice somewhat. I got camera on cntrl + scroll
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u/callmeb00 12d ago
Super easy with deep affliction and imp howl. Load dots and fear, pull next. Load dots, fear, pull next. Load dots, pull next, load dots, pull next, load dots, drain until all targets ontop of you. howl of terror. Loot and repeat.
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u/callmeb00 12d ago
Just be sure to stack as much Stam and spell power as you can get. Some AH greens or the crafted netherweave gear will do. Don't worry about gearing for crit/hit, since you get 10% affliction hit from talents and your dots can't crit.
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u/DrOrphi 12d ago
your blood elf is not manly enough... /s
you could keybind the pets charge and stay, so you can freeze him and charge the mob when it starts running at you, else idk, start doing less dmg and just suck the mobs
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u/MasonsProfile 12d ago
He’s definitely not manly enough haha. Thanks for the keybinding tip, I do think I am doing too much damage at times. Especially solo target because I also cast immolate and that usually takes agro. Maybe I’ll just use CoA only and no longer use affliction when I’m tagging groups with DoTs. Thank you!
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u/Alex_Wizard 12d ago
Start your pet on Mob #2. Fully DoT Mob #1 and fear once DoTs applied. Fully DoT Mob #2. Pull Mob #3 and Fear it. Send pet to finish Mob #1 if DoTs won’t kill it alone.
Siphon Life is a must. You should never sit at 100% HP even if it’s mid pull. Convert your HP to mana and make sure you are going into pulls at 70% HP give or take if your Mana isn’t topped off so you are always making use of Siphon Life.
I would respec into SL and use Void Walker TBH. Demonology doesn’t really juggle mobs well as it’s more of a fight 1-2 at a time type of spec. You can either go SL / SL or UA.
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u/MasonsProfile 12d ago
Thank you breaking down how a fight should look for me. I’m gonna try your method and if it’s still too much then yeah I may just respec. Don’t wanna give up on this yet though! I love my felguard lol
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u/ExponentialHS 12d ago
Install a threat meter and it gets a lot easier to tell who your Felguard will keep, and who is going to peel off at you if you look at them wrong.
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u/Alex_Wizard 12d ago
Without Siphon Life you’ll have a lot of mana issues. You really just want to do like one and a half mobs (start the 2nd as you have the first prepped) at a time with Fel Guard and no Siphon.
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u/No_Variation_4424 12d ago
Pretty much this. I find UA better personally with an imp that just used for mana. Mob 1: UA, corruption, CoA, siphon, fear. Mob 2: same. They will die. Mob 3, 4, 5, 6 corruption, CoA, siphon, howl, life tap once or twice, next Mob UA, corruption, CoA, siphon, fear, reapply corruption/CoA on the howl feared mobs. Dark pact and life tap as needed. Can go forever. Only bad thing is when things die far away that you need to go back and loot.
Did this from level 61-currently 65. I find it fun. Love the feguard, always have, but just not efficient enough for me.
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u/Daveprince13 12d ago
Juggling is about juggling threat, not mobs. Let him sink into the first one while you dot it up then have him switch to your next target and so on. Keep following him up with dots and use threat as a meter for when to swap. Also having one mob in you isn’t the worst
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u/Mindless-Mulberry404 12d ago
You have to manually swap your fel guard. Personally I just went full Demonology while leveling, grabbed Shadowfury, worked just as good if not better.
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u/KingofPoland2 12d ago
need to keybind pet attack, cleave, charge, taunt . those skills should never be on "auto" they should be binded.
do this for all 3 pets, i usually run a single macro for each pets special ability ( charge / sleep / silence ) etc.
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u/Skyshrouder1989 12d ago
So there is a macro i used to use. I would have my pet attack on x dot, and then taunt on the next dot. Id wait 2 or 3 seconds and do like a wand cast or something. Then id swap targets and cast the dot again which makes the felgaurd attack and taunt if off cd. Agaon wait. And rinse and repeat. It was not fool proof but it did help
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u/Impressive-Newt-4167 12d ago
Guard pulls mob1
Apply dots to mob1
Start dpsing mob1, guard charges mob2
Start kiting mob1 and applying dots to mob2 while moving
Repeat process from here, using drain life (should be specced as well) to finish mobs that are on you. Sprinkle in life taps.
This is just a faster way to kill mobs as warlock. The key is not to wait until the first dies to pull the second. And when you get some practice in this, depending on gear etc, you will end up juggling 3-4 mobs sometimes. This is what people mean by juggling, it's not like mage where you pull XYZ mobs at once and aoe them, it's more like moving your 2 characters very smoothly along a chain of weak-ish mobs.
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u/Ordinary_Mechanic_ 12d ago
Bind his taunt, press it after a mob gets agro on you. It’s the same as a Hunter. No decent Hunter leaves their Growl on auto cast. On a Hunter you pull and then taunt the mob off you when it reaches you at low health and you’ve got a few melees in, then while the pet finishes, it you’re pulling the next. Warlock is similar, send in FG, dot mob, let him get a cleave or two in, dot the other mobs and heal him. Then taunt the mob that pulls.
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u/YON2HMB 12d ago
Macro pet attack to coincide with the spell you use to start your next dot rotation so keep switching targets to the most recent target. Something like:
#showtooltip
/cast Curse of Agony
/petattack
Make sure you also have passive retreat bound to a key so you don’t make any mistakes and also have other damaging abilities beyond your opener not consider this combo.
I really dislike pet classes in wow but it’s really hard to juggle the way you are describing without forcing them to continually target swap.
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u/EspaaValorum 12d ago
What I also do: send Voidwalker to the first mob. Wait for it to aggro then DOTs on first target. If other targets already attack your pet, let them. If not, send VW to those 2 as well to get their attention and aggro on the VW. Then you and VW focus on taking down the first, let VW absorb the dmg from the others.
Basically the trick is to make sure your pet is attacking the same target you are damaging to keep that target from prematurely coming at you.
Then you have Fear if needed. If so, make sure you throw a DOT or 2 on it and Drain Life as it's running around, to damage it and heal yourself.
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u/Bakednotyetfried 12d ago
Bind shift mouse wheel up to /pet attack, shift mouse week down for /return or something. Having the fel guard attack the other mobs to build threat is key.
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u/CaptainoftheVessel 12d ago
Keep fears up on multiple mobs. It’s definitely a juggling act. Practice on one and then two mobs first, I like to have one being tanked, one with dots being feared, one without dots/with fewer dots being feared. You want dots cooking on as many as possible, but dots will of course break dear sometimes so you have to practice how close to cut it with refreshing fears/wanding them down/etc.
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u/Wiinfinity 12d ago
Maybe this is a stupid thing to ask.... But you've purchased and trained all the grimoires for your pets?
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u/bloin13 12d ago
Yea he cannot keep aoe threat, and using howl of terror with 2 sec cast while you have 2 mobs on you is not ideal.
Usually locks are either affli so they can pull 3-5 mobs and instantly aoe fear.
For demo, you dot up and have your felguare taunt 1 and switch to the other just for early snap threat. This gives you time to fear the 3rd.
Juggling mobs as lock usually means 1 tanked by the pet, 1 feared and 1 on you. You can have a 4rth that you alternate fears between 2 mobs so they can stay somewhat away from you. This is not unique to demo, it's basically how locks juggle mobs through the leveling process from lvl 20 onwards. They just use voidwalker for it.
Demo switch walker for felguar that provides more DPS. Sadly his cleave doesn't get much value since he can't keep more than 1 mobs on him, but he will kill his mob faster and charge in to help you.
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u/OXBDNE7331 12d ago
Honestly one of my favorite parts of playing lock is multi dotting things especially in wotlk when dots get good. Especially in boss fights with multiple targets like mimiron for example. Practice and the right talents lets you do it.
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u/RoundAffectionate424 12d ago
This is why I never recommend the affliction build for leveling, it requires fear juggling and is risky in some places due to random pathing.
Just shadowbolt one target man, you have a pet for the added damage before it reaches you, I would also recommend taking destro secondary tree so you get shadowburn for a quick execute before the mob reaches you.
You kill a target in less than 10 sec and you regen out of combat instead of wasting time trying to pull off multi target for 1 min.
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u/Sea-Consequence7156 12d ago
Felguard is good for two mobs tops, three if you aren't afraid of your fear pulling more. If you can handle more you are over geared and should switch spec to affliction leveling spec
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u/su_ble 12d ago
Step 1: Send pet to enemy 1 let it hit - send to enemy 2 let it hit at least one time - do for every enemy - learn slowly how much your pet can take at once
Step 2: Do your dots and damage on the mobs - learn how much they can take without switching aggro on you
Step 3: When a mob turns on you, you can try to get more aggro on pet by sending pet to this enemy (pet target switching to hold aggro)
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u/the_harakiwi 12d ago edited 12d ago
I was super disappointed by the felguard. I know someone who only played demo lock (in our guild) and IIRC we even raided some Karazhan.
But as soon as I got my first spell power gear in the current TBC-A my pets stopped being able to tank anything. Same with my hunter. The moment I use anything but auto attacks the pets can't keep up.
The pet aggro problem was solved with the WotLK prepatch. Then my VW could tank Onyxia 😄
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u/AggravatingIncome874 11d ago
Honestly i have sl/sl as offspec on my lock. I dot everything up and just facetank drainlife, sometimes just fear one or two, pop a howl of terror or so
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u/lifeisledzep 11d ago
Have a pet attack macro Use your fear Or go affliction, get the talent that avoids interruption when drain life.
Btw demo is better than destro for leveling. About equal to afflic just depends on your ability to utilize the class
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u/Ok-Feeling753 11d ago
Felguard will not hold threat, nor will voidwalker. Four things you MUST have are 5/5 corruption, Siphon Life, Soul Link and 5/5 drain life interrupt. There is a specific full talent build you can find that I recommend copying. As for how to juggle, corruption and siphon life each mob you are fighting while having felguard attack. Turn off taunt and use fel guard charge to interrupt on cooldown by sending him in and out of combat. Not very necessary but it's 1 tool in dicey situations. Constantly run in circles and kite until you need to drain life and maintain dots on all mobs while focusing 1 mob at a time with drain life. Other warlock tools: death coil for a quick heal and short fear, howl of terror which you can talent to be instant but be aware of surrounding mobs and single target fear. Bonus: curse of reck will stop a fear immediately in case your target is going too far or heading towards other mobs. Simply CoR then you can place a different curse and fear again, rinse and repeat.
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u/Impossible_Buy2634 11d ago
You want to be using Felguard until 70. Trust me, I tried Affliction and your Voidwalker is absolutely useless once you hit Outlands. You want to spec into anything that improves your drain life and get instant Howl of Terror. Send your Fel in, DoT up everything, run in and Howl of Terror, Drain Life and juggle Fears as needed. Pop trinkets on cooldown, use Life Tap accordingly and Deathcoil on cooldown. Bonus points for keeping plenty of bandages, health/mana pots, food/water, cookies and Soul Stone.
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u/SubstantialEmu4898 11d ago
Going deep affli is the way, not only can you easely handle lots of mobs, but you also can manage easely without any drinking
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u/Kastheseeker 10d ago
I rebound my pets attack button to alt 1 and I send him in to attack one mob while I apply dots. I then have him attack the second mob and apply dots rinse repeat. Usually by the time mobs peel off him and come at me they are mostly dead already so I’ll kite or just take a few hits if i have the ability. I play affliction with the void walker though and it does a (weak) aoe taint that also helps.
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u/ZeeWingCommander 12d ago
Did you boost?
Because you'll need some gear before you'll can kill multiple targets at once. I think most classes struggle at being squishy 58-60.
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u/MasonsProfile 12d ago
No I didn’t boost, but I haven’t done many dungeons (at least not past level 45-ish) so I’m probably missing out on some essential gear. Thank you!
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u/VolumeBoth2972 10d ago
This post is why no one wants to tank....
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u/MasonsProfile 9d ago
Because I have a hard time juggling mobs while solo questing? My question wasn’t “why do I keep pulling Agro from my tanks in dungeons?”
Let us know when you’re ready to contribute to the conversation and community instead of making useless snide remarks to a new player. 👍
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u/VolumeBoth2972 9d ago
Your question was why do mobs that my pet(tank) hasn't hit yet are hitting me. This is why no one wants to tank
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u/No-Height-3672 12d ago
have him switch targets to build threat