Felhunter

The fourth pet available to a warlock after a succubus. With the advent of The Burning Crusade, warlocks gained access to one further minion: the felguard.

Given many anti-caster abilities, the Felhunter can be a feared pet to those casting. Modelled after the larger Fel Stalker, it is available at level 30.

Background

This article contains information from the Warcraft RPG which is considered non-canon.

The most intelligent of fel stalkers are selected and trained specially to hunt spellcasters. They look much like a normal fel stalker, except for a golden band placed around one of their horns marking them as hunters. Normal fel stalkers prefer spellcasters, but fel hunters are so well trained that they ignore melee opponents entirely in favor of spellcasters, especially arcane casters. A fel hunter has the same abilities as a fel stalker. It also manifests demonic spell-like abilities - brought out due to its higher intelligence, coupled with the intense training it undergoes to become an elite spellcaster killing machine.Template:Cite

Abilities

The felhunter possesses four abilities, each handy in specific scenarios:

Spell	Min Level	Description
[Devour Magic]	30	Purges 1 harmful magic effect from a friend or 1 beneficial magic effect from an enemy. If an effect is devoured, the Felhunter will be healed for X.
[Fel Intelligence]	32	Increases party and raid members Intellect by X and Spirit by X.
[Spell Lock]	36	Silences the enemy for 3 sec. If used on a casting target, it will counter the enemy's spellcast, preventing any spell from that school of magic from being cast for X sec.
[Shadow Bite]	42	Bite the enemy, causing X Shadow damage plus an additional 15% damage for each of your damage over time effects on the target.
Avoidance	60	Reduces the damage your summoned demon takes from area of effect attacks by an additional 80%.

Its [Master Demonologist] effect is to reduce all spell damage taken by 10%. Its [Demonic Empowerment] effect - Dispels all magical effects from the Felhunter.

Acquiring a Felhunter

The felhunter is a pet available to the warlock at level 30 after completing a series of quests. One of the warlock NPCs in any warlock trainer area in a major city can give the player the "Seeking Strahad" quest (although this quest isn't required, it acts as a signpost for where to begin), which directs the warlock to Ratchet to speak to another warlock named Strahad Farsan. Strahad then starts the player on the "Tome of the Cabal" quest sequence, during which he/she must find two parts of an ancient book, one of which is in Hillsbrad Foothills and the other of which is in Thousand Needles, then acquire three summoning rods in Wetlands, before returning to Ratchet, summoning and subduing the felhunter, and acquiring the new spell.

Quest Chain

Talk to warlock trainer Strahad Farsan to obtain these quests

[30] Seeking Strahad
- [30] Tome of the Cabal
  - [30] Tome of the Cabal
    - [30] Tome of the Cabal
      - [30] The Binding

Felhunter Tips

Take [Spell Lock] off auto-cast. If you have auto-cast on, the AI will cast this at an enemy caster as soon as possible; it won't wait until it's casting a spell, wasting the [Spell Lock] for the next 24 seconds. Until this is fixed, hit the button yourself or get a UI add-on (such as Servitude, although this mod is no longer being developed).

Don't forget about [Devour Magic]. For one thing, it can be used on you, a party member, a nearby ally who isn't in your party, or the felhunter itself, and each time it's used it heals the felhunter. Even if it's set to expire in 1 second, a debuff can still be worth devouring for the healing. In Useful macros for warlocks you will find a great macro that will cast it on your enemy on a left-click, or on yourself with a right-click.

[Devour Magic] works just like a priest's [Dispel Magic] in terms of what it can remove.

If a warlock has the [Dark Pact] talent, the felhunter is a great pet to have around, as it has a lot of mana and uses much less of it than the fire-happy imp. An imp set to Passive makes a great mana battery, but an talented felhunter makes the best. However, the Felhunter still deals damage when you absorb all of its mana, although not as much as the Succubus. The talent Improved Felhunter makes the best mana battery, since it gives the felhunter better mana regen than the imp, and can use all its abilities, as compared to an imp who has to be on passive.

The felhunter also has the second highest health (third if you include the felguard) of all four(/five) pets, making it a great candidate for Soul Link as well.

In PvP, the felhunter is highly useful against caster classes, but it's much less effective against melee classes. Few melee classes will try to kill off your felhunter if you have soul link; most of the time, they will probably ignore it.

The felhunter's Master Demonologist benefit (reduced spell damage taken) can be quite worthwhile in some situations, if the Warlock has that talent.

Strengths

Useful when fighting casters, particularly those that rely on magic based buffs and debuffs, which the felhunter can devour.
Make excellent Soul Link candidates, as they can use Devour Magic to heal the damage they take from Soul Link.
Highly resistant to magical damage which helps it tank caster mobs and resist damage in pvp situations while still being an annoying presence on the field of battle.
Fel Intelligence is a great buff in a caster-heavy group.

Weaknesses

Relatively low base damage output, boosted by [Shadow Bite] but still inferior to that of the Succubus or Felguard. With the [Improved Felhunter] talent the Felhunter will do more DPS than the Succubus.
No taunt ability means it can only be used to off-tank a mob when there is nothing else present to draw aggro away (e.g., healers).
Risky to use in PvP, since the only utility against melee opponents is limited DPS output.
Long cooldown timer for Spell Lock.
Spell Lock "auto-cast" functionality is suboptimal. It will auto-cast against any opponent as soon as possible without regard for whether the target is actually casting a spell (it will also Spell Lock non-casters!). Consequently, Spell Lock should be manually operated.
[Fel Intelligence] can be overwritten by other class buffs such as [Power Word: Fortitude], at least in 3.0.3.

Felhunter Stats

Felhunters have innate magic resistance, equal to twice its master's level.

Most of the felhunter stats through its levels taken using a human warlock player. Level 80 stats taken from naked untalented Undead Warlock

Level	Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit	Power	Damage	Armor
30	57	46	118	69	51	94	31 - 42	834
31	59	47	123	71	52	98	32 - 43	857
32	60	47	127	73	53	100	33 - 45	882
33	62	49	131	74	54	104	34 - 46	905
34	63	50	135	76	56	106	35 - 47	929
35	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
36	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
37	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
38	70	55	139	?	91	120	?	?
39	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
40	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
41	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
42	81	59	156	70	67	142	48-64	1484
43	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
44	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
45	96	25	169	67	72	172	66-87	2159
46	98	65	173	77	73	176	?	1817
47	100	66	177	78	75	180	?	1853
48	102	68	181	80	76	184	?	1888
49	104	69	186	82	78	188	?	1925
50	107	71	190	84	80	194	65-86	1959
51	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
52	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
53	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
54	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
55	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
56	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
57	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
58	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
59	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
60	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
57	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
58	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
59	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
60	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
61	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
62	133	36	279	124	102	246	175-243	3479
63	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
64	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
65	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
66	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
67	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
68	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
69	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
70	153	108	280	133	122	286	92-123	4400
71	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
72	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
73	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
74	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
75	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
76	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
77	236	72	314	144	200	452	293-415	7056
78	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
79	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
80	314	90	328	150	209	608	333-466	7782
Level	Strength	Agility	Stamina	Intellect	Spirit	Power	Damage	Armor

(List not complete. If you're interested in updating, (as of Patch 2.0.1) all Buffs and take off all items have to be turned off, because now pets stats get bonuses from player stats. Patch 2.0.5 pets don't have Weapon Skill and Defense.)

Felhunter Trivia

When in water, the felhunter swims similarly to a shark using its tail.
The felhunter unmistakably resembles a Zergling from Starcraft, Warcraft's sister series.
The felhunter is often called a "fel puppy" by some players.

Patch Changes

Patch 3 replaced [Paranoia] with [Fel Intelligence] and Tainted Blood with [Shadow Bite]

Notes

As with all minions (Except the Imp), this minion requires a Soul Shard to summon.

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