Managing Your Minions - the Succubus

Previous articles were on the Imp and the Voidwalker if you need to catch up.

At level 20, your class trainer will offer you one of two quests, depending upon which one you visit. If you drop by the Undercity, Carendin gives you "Devourer of Souls." If you're closer to Orgrimmar - or even if you're not - you may prefer the chain that comes out of that capital city's trainers. It involves a little more work, but doesn't take you through a level 30 zone to kill a PvP target like the UC chain will.

Regardless, either chain is completed with a quest titled, "The Binding." Congratulations! It's a girl! Chances are that her "come-hither" moaning and tail-slapping will get on your nerves within the first hour or so. If that's the case, you can turn off pet-emotes. The "esc" key on your keyboard brings up the game's option list. Choose "Interface," and then "Sound and Voice." On the Voice tab is an option for "enable pet sounds" - un-check that and you're golden. Yay! Now you don't have to kill her yourself!

You will likely notice some big differences between your Succy and your Void. For one, the Succubus can't take the hits like Big Blue can. She makes up for though, with superior dps. For this reason, she normally gets the most exercise in dungeons and PvP. Let's take a look at what our Mistress of Lashes brings to the Warlock table.

Lash of Pain is the only real ability Miss Thang will have at her disposal. While her dps is mainly melee, this spell counts as additional Shadow damage. You can leave it set to auto-cast for all situations where additional dps is the Succubus's purpose.

Soothing Kiss - At your training session, level 22, this ability becomes available. Your Succy's kiss lowers her threat by a small degree. Keep in mind that if you're using her while soloing, you'll need to either keep your mob controlled with Fear or be prepared to spend a lot of time funneling health to your minion. Also note that Kiss will not have any effect in PvP, since players aren't bound by the AI's aggro mechanics. This ability isn't enough to keep her from taking some heat, but in party situations it will help her stay below the tank's threat.

Seduction becomes available at level 26. Although it's probably the most difficult form of crowd-control to master, Seducing a target can help you out quite a bit in both PvE and PvP. Take a moment to fully review the tooltip for this spell. While it has a 1.5 second cast time, it's also channeled. However, because the spell is cast by the minion, and not the Warlock, you can turn your attention to dpsing other targets while you have a mob Seduced. When the Seduce breaks you can count on its target heading straight for your minion - in most dungeons, this will mean almost instant death. For that reason, it's helpful to toss a Searing Pain just before the Seduce lands. That will raise you above your minion on the threat table.

Once you've gotten the handle of using Seduction to take a mob out of play, you can get fancy with some advanced techniques. Every 'Lock needs to have at least 3 of her pet abilities macroed and hot keyed. While the other two belong to a later pet, the first is of course, Seduction. Your macro will look like this:

#showtooltip
/clearfocus [modifier:shift]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,help]
/petstay
/petfollow
/cast [pet:succubus,target=focus,exists,harm] Seduction; Seduction

What this does: First, it checks to see whether or not you have a target, if that target is a mob, and if it's still alive. If all of those conditions are true, it sets the mob as your focus target and then sends your Succubus into range to start channeling her Seduction spell. Here's the cool part - if you already have a focus target, and if that target is still alive, the macro sends the Succy to focus target for Seduction. Why is that important? Because it allows you to

- Send in the Succy to seduce her target, Mob #1
- Switch targets and start dpsing whatever is being tanked at the moment, Mob #2
- Re-Seduce Mob #1 without moving off of Mob #2!!

Holding the Shift key while hitting his macro will clear any pre-existing focus target and set the currently targetted mob as your focus. Too cool, right?

Lesser Invisibility is yours at level 32. I have found no use for this outside of PvP, although it can be fun for that purpose. Turn on your Succubus's Invisibility and park her on the flag in a battleground. Imagine that enemy player's surprise when she pops out and immediately seduces him!
So is she worth it?

Without picking up talents specific to increasing your Imp's damage, the Succubus is currently providing the highest dps of the standard Warlock minions. She is also the only minion with crowd control. It is definitely worth your while to learn to master her for when you need her, but don't be too bummed if pass her over for most situations. She's used to being ever the bridesmaid.

Next in this series: Get the most from your Felhunter!