Warlocks are powerful, and damn cool to boot. For a few months, I’ve had my sorry Holy backside handed to me by Fear control teams in arena, being caught out by Unstable Affliction’s backlash silence and damage, and roaring with rage as that Felhunter sucked the last of my buffs away and silenced my vital heal. More recently, I watched our own Guild’s excellent warlock, Corenstoffel, put out staggering DPS in ICC10, even before he touched on any drops from the place. I watched with interest as their huge arsenal of curses and magic effects were buffed and nerfed. I saw the new teleport spell they got at 80, that could be used to masterful effect in PVP, duels and on certain raiding encounters. I danced with glee as they changed all the Drain spells (and SPriest mindflay) to have unique animations, rather than just the coloured beams they had previously been using. Since I left my Warlocks behind a rough year and a half ago, I’ve watched the class shift around. I got on with my imp (Nogtip, for my Gnome) a lot better that time around, and never swapped him out whilst I played that character. Maybe that I saw it up close for the first time, and identified with it as more than just a glowy dot that threw spells, but more a tiny, hairy, ear-ringed punk. Maybe it was something to do with being nearly the same size as the imp. On my Gnome warlock, also very far back in the days where I took to leveling alts off server to get some space from guild drama, I felt differently. At the appropriate place, I dropped the point I needed into Summon Felguard, and never used him again.

The damage was great, but I hated the little shrivelled pest. Halfway through leveling, and when my Voidy wasn’t doing the damage I needed, I swapped back to my imp.

That was back in the days of buying grimoires to give your demons new abilities, an utter pain in the backside. My first warlock was an Orc called Toxigar, and as soon as I could lose that imp, I did. * I had mixed relationships with my own imps, across the two warlocks I leveled. If you haven’t seen it before, I sketched one out on the right.

It’s rather unlikely you’ve not seen a warlock using one, as they are the premier raiding pet for the popular destruction spec, providing the Blood pact health buff and a machinegun spray of fireballs. I’ve known lots of warlocks who absolutely hate their imp.

What is imp blood pact