|
|
|
Sign Up to Submit Guides and Earn Credibility! |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Author: Thundarpants
1,280 Views
3 Comments
|
Warlock Guide to Pets - Succubus
This mini-guide is written by a Destruction Spec’d Human Warlock - Razadarkstar - GARONA server. It is meant for the general usage of the Succubus for PvE encounters, not specifics as a Demonology spec’d Warlock could utilize or PvP applications.
Reagents: Soul Shard
Cast Time: 10 Seconds
Spells and attacks:
Lash of Pain: A crack of the whip and Shadow damage is applied. Scales with the Warlocks bonus Shadow/Spell damage.
Lesser Invisibility: Gives the Succubus Lesser Invisibility for up to 5 min. This spell can only be used out of combat.
Soothing Kiss: Soothes the target, increasing the chance that it will attack something else. At level 70 and Rank 5: decreases melee attack speed by 10% for 10 sec.
Seduction:
24% of Succubus Base Mana
30 yd range
1.5 sec cast
Seduces the target, preventing all actions for up to 15 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Only works against Humanoids.
Welcome to the wonderful world of crowd control(CC). Bar far we have the weakest and shortest CC of them all, but it’s still quite effective once you get a little practice in. This guide took me a little longer because I’m more of a farmer than an instance runner due to an odd work schedule. And it does take a bit of practice to be any good using Seduce.
The first thing we need to talk about is the pet action bar setup. In most instance environments you will have your minion on passive so that you are in complete control of their activities. This is also the case here. The next step is to turn off the auto attack on Lash of Pain and Soothing Kiss. I leave Seduce and Lesser Invisibility on Auto. Move Seduce and Soothing Kiss to the most convenient location on the bar for you, or make macros if you like and put them on another action bar.
Having a marked target always makes me feel a little more comfortable on the initial pull, but you will have to wing it in many cases once the first kill target goes down. A lot of how you will use Seduce will depend upon your current team make up and whatever other CC attributes are in your team. In most cases a smart team make up will make your Seduce target the second kill priority, but you may have to maintain your CC through two kill targets, so be prepared for whatever situations you get into.
The Succubus is squishy as hell, and has a relatively limited mana pool. An important part of managing this CC will be to not waste her mana in a long fight. Once she’s outta gas, she might as well be dead, and probably will be shortly. You will want to keep her out of effects that cause damage and interrupt her, and keep your CC targets in the same state: away from damage. Each Seduce costs 24% of her base mana pool. So you can’t just keep re-applying it. She will run out of mana quickly if someone keeps breaking it before the group is ready to kill your target.
While you are on Seduce duty…….. NO DOTS! You can DoT up the main kill target, but any damage taken by your target will break the Seduce. So watch out for your insta cast DoTs like Corruption or Curse of Agony. If you accidentally DoT your own target, or someone else does, call it out in whatever VOIP you may be using and pick up another target. It will be hard to type it out during the fight, so I hope your team mates can hear you over their headsets.
Set up and the initial pull:
Because of the difficulty maintaining a Seduce, you have to have cooperation from your team and be a little prepared for them to break it on accident.
Very important: Have your Seduce responsibility targeted BEFORE the Tank Pulls. Trying to pick up your target in a tightly packed group of enemies is almost impossible sometimes. Even when they are properly marked. In a worst case scenario you can tab through the mobs until you get the appropriately marked target.
You need to know where the Tank wants to position the pull for the duration of the fight. And gauging that distance will help determine when you do your initial Seduce. If you are dragging them a long distance you can wait a little as the mobs trail towards the tank, but if you are only able to pull them back a short distance, as soon as you see the tank’s animation for their particular pull, hit your seduce and with any luck you will stop them away from the initial, preferred Tanking location. If the Tank does not have to move the mob a second time it will go smoother, but they may have to because by the time Seduce gets applied on a short distance pull, the mobs are still tightly grouped and an AoE Taunting attack will probably break the CC.
While we are here talking about Tanks, let’s get some specifics in about the Tanks you will encounter and the inherent problems trying to CC with them.
Warriors: By far the easiest to Seduce behind. They have multiple single target attacks and can usually avoid any AoE Taunting/Damage effects like Thunderclap.
Druids: They use Swipe that is bad about breaking CC. Most good Druids know to move the tanked mobs away from the CC targets. If they are having problems with that we’ll have solutions when I start taking about “pushing” your CC targets off of the tanking spot. (Possibly no longer a problem as of patch 2.4)
Paladins: Might as well put up the Succubus and break out the Imp and give him a Stamina buff. Their taunts and aggro management features are mostly AoE and have a wide range. You will either have to have a very long distance to be able to pull the mobs back, or be ready to do some serious pushing of your Seduce responsibility. If you have a long distance to pull the mobs, or a large area to fear your target(push) them off of the tanking area you can still use this method of CC. Even with the breaks from patch 2.4, they still use Consecrate to generate a lot of threat. That will still break your Seduce.
OK, we’ve gotten the initial pull covered, you’ve managed to get your target Seduced, now what?
Keep a close eye on your target, but once Seduced get on that main kill target and get them dotted up and fire off a Shadow Bolt. I still prefer a mod like Necrosis to give me a timer bar when I’m not directly targeting my CC responsibility, but you can just switch targets back and forth and watch the Seduce marker count down. With the standard Seduce timer of a non-Demonology spec’d Warlock I generally get this routine going:
Seduce applied
Change to main kill target and:
Curse of choice
Dot, dot, Shadow Bolt
Re-apply Seduce
Wash, rinse, repeat……..
Depending on whether or not you have the insta-Corruption and whom is on your team will dictate a lot of DPS application, but generally you have time for 2 effects with cast bars, and 2 insta-cast effects. I always put up the insta-cast stuff first in case the Seduce breaks early and I have to switch back.
Maintaining your Seduce means that you have to keep checking on your CC target constantly to keep making sure it’s up. In many cases you’ll simply see the hearts stop floating up from their heads and see movement. So as you get practice with this you will be able to better maintain your DPS while CC’ing in the fight. And that is the real detriment to Seduce. It’s really kills your DPS during the fight. But there are more important things than DPS. Team survival for one. But DPS is part of your job and you will be expected to keep both the CC and the DPS flowing through out the instance. In time you will be able to generate plenty of DPS while you keep a target locked down.
Like I mentioned before, the Succubus is squishy as hell. And if you have done your job well, the Succubus is the only thing that has drawn any aggro on the target. So it will probably start taking direct attacks from the controlled target. Be prepared to cast Soothing Kiss to make it attack something else quickly. I generally keep Seduce and Soothing Kiss right next to each other on the cast bar.
Sorry Healers……..
Sorry Mages……
Sorry, well….. everybody else. We can’t have our CC tool getting killed now can we!
Once you are done with CC duty, feel free to send her in with a direct attack. If the mobs are generating cone or PBAoE damage don’t bother, they’ll kill her pretty quick even if they do not target her directly. But feel free to liberally apply Soothing Kiss once you reach rank 5 to slow the melee attacks on the main tank. It will give the healer just a little more time to get a big heal with a cast bar off. Her mana will restore quite quickly after the battle is over. Make sure she’s full up before the next pull.
Working with other crowd controllers:
You will rarely be anyone’s favorite form of CC. So in many cases you will be working with Rogues, Hunters and Mages. But when you start getting up to 6-7 mobs per pull, every last drop of CC is needed.
Rogues love me, and I love them. Sap is awesome because it leaves the first CC’d target back at the original pull location. Distance is always helpful when working Seduce CC.
Generally the Rogue will Sap one target and you will be given another. The party should understand that kill order needs to be Primary kill target, then Seduce target first. What happens is that once the primary target has been slain, the Tank will move onto your Seduce target and about that time the Sap is going to break. Simply pick up the Sap target as your secondary CC objective. There are a lot of 4+ pulls in the instances where you’ll want to keep each target out of the fight as long as possible.
If there is more than just one CC capable player in the run, always consider the Rogue’s Sap target your primary CC assist target. The others can re-apply their CC. Rogues cannot.
Hunters and their Ice traps are great fun to play with in the team and unlike Rogues they can re-apply that Ice trap. But depending upon their build or the severity of the fight, they may be having a hard time getting the mob back into that Ice trap. I’ve run with enough Hunters to get an approximation on that Ice Trap timer, so if the Tank has moved on to my Seduce target for the next kill, I will assist the Hunter in keeping his target CC’d. Like I said earlier, since Seduce is so hard to maintain, ANY other CC is going to be better in the duration of the fight.
Once my CC target is under attack by the group I will immediately Seduce the Ice Trap target. Even if still in the Ice Trap. One great attribute of Seduce is that it generates no damage, therefore breaks no other CC abilities. In many cases I’ll see the Ice Trap expire and my Seduce will still be holding the target in place and out of the fight. This allows the Hunter time to get in a preferred position, set up another Ice Trap, and then break my Seduce and pull the target towards them and into that trap.
Mages have probably the best CC of all of the humanoid control measures. And in all reality, the most amusing. Once your Seduce responsibilities are over initially in the fight, Feel free to Seduce the Sheep’d target. There’s nothing like Sheep in love……… LMAO!
But seriously, even a Sheep can get broken or resisted when the Mage tries to re-apply it. Feel free to lock down a broken Sheep to help them get it back under control. It’s all about team effort to be successful in the instances.
Pushing, Pulling and Panic Attacks:
Well, sometimes conditions are just not perfect, you have some inexperienced Tank breaking your Seduce or things just go to Hell when someone dies during a fight. If you happen to be in a Humanoid instance, and you are actively using your Succubus for CC then this is where you get to save everybody’s ass!
As with all of my guides, I harp on awareness of your environment. Being a Warlock is more than just using each attribute individually; it’s all about how you use everything together.
One really useful attribute of Seduce is that it stops enemy movement. You have been constantly told not to use Fear effects because the mobs will run into other mobs and pull aggro. One way to get your seduce target away from a CC breaking Tank will be to either Push the enemy away from the main mob, or to pull it towards yourself. I know……. drawing aggro is that last thing that you want to do as a cloth wearer, but I can guarantee that you can take more abuse than the Succubus. And she will be your only chance of survival in some bad pulls.
If you refer to my Fear guide I cover things like the mini-kite where you can push the enemy off of you for a 3 count. That’s plenty of time to re-apply Seduce without anything taking damage. You can use this two different ways. Take advantage of the mob running away, or use that damage aggro and start backing away from the fight to a more open, previously cleared area.
This can also be handy if you happen to be Seducing a target that will continue to deal damage with a PBAoE damage spell whilst CC’d. Death Coil + Seduce will bounce the enemy out of the group and if you do them both very close together, then you should push them out and stop them in their tracks.
Then there is just straight up, hard core Fear on your target. As I mentioned, Seduce stops movement. If you fear your target you can stop them from running into the next room and pulling all of those mobs with a Seduce on that target. Be ready to do both quickly. I have lost my feared target before I could get my Succubus in range to Seduce them. I generally leave a straight up Fear for worst case scenarios, but when you get into some specific Fear kiting situations, you’ll find that you can maintain 4 targets all by yourself if the Succubus is helping, as opposed to the max 3 that I would feel comfortable trying to fear kite without it.
Howl of Terror should only be used if you are certain that fearing multiple targets is a safe maneuver. Remember, you can only lock one of them down.
Warlock’s Guide to Fear and Fear Kiting for PvE
If you find that you are in a group that is clearing minimal mobs to speed up the instance clearing, but you keep dying, recommend that they clear enough room for you to move around more while CC’ing.
Now if you’ve used one of these techniques, be prepared for the “pull”. If nothing has any aggro built on the target you are working over like this, they are coming for you. Be prepared for attention after the Seduce timer breaks. Affliction Locks can take advantage of Curse of Exhaustion to slow the target’s movement(Probably not a bad idea if you are doing any fear kiting as well to keep the Succubus from having to chase much). Destructo Locks can use Shadowfury for a stun that should give you plenty of time to re-apply a Seduce.
Note: In patch 2.4 we got a bit of a break on Crowd Control:
Druid
Swipe: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
Hunter
Multi-Shot: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
Paladin
Avenger’s Shield: This ability will no longer jump to secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. I.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
Warlock
Felguard Cleave: This ability will no longer strike any secondary target which is under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. ie. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
Warrior
Cleave: This ability will no longer strike any secondary target which is under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
Shaman
Chain Lightning: This ability will no longer jump to secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
| |
