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Official Feedback Thread: Scourge Warlock changes

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  • flowcytoflowcyto Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 196 Arc User
    Eld Blast was already sped up a bit. I guess ya guys are referring to DT use causing FoE to not work well? Can always use a diff passive if ur relying on DT for AoE. Or just use a diff AoE, now that most of them are more competitive..

    Pillar of Power is now going to be more key for HB, I imagine. It'll come down to what the slot for SS for SB gives you vs. PoP for HB. Its basically making HB less active, but more reliant on passive dmg boosts on everything you do (PoP and feated FoE), and vs. SB's SS and using stuff that gens sparks quickly (which is not most powers). SB is more about selecting good powers for sparks and SS, whereas HB's restrictions would be more tied to keeping up PoP and FoE's dmg boosts for as many attacks as possible. SB may still end up better when optimized, just cause spark gen can differ so wildly between setups and it is hard to balance occasional (or no) SS use vs. SS spam, and it is a more active playstyle. But that doesn't mean HB can't be competitive either- just that it won't have as much variance w/ the power types selected, since its unique dmg boosts are generalized.

    The new PoP does need to be good, though, so if ur interested in making HB better then let's make sure its a power worthy of replacing SS.

    flowcyto said:


    Curious if ya guys could at least give some small dps benefit to Tempt's capstone or latter feats in the meantime. I know ya have larger plans for it, but it'd still be nice to have something to bump it up in the interlude, and even if we know its not going to stay.

    Problem with something like that is that when the time comes for the real rework, newer players and people with short memories will meet anything being removed with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I get your intent, but think interim changes are a bad idea in this environment.

    yea, that's fair I suppose.
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  • ghoulz66ghoulz66 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,748 Arc User
    The PoP change and hellish rebuke have a little better synergy with each other. Not sure if rebuke or PoP's DR buff is going be powerful enough to warrant you standing there to take all the hits.
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  • fernuufernuu Member Posts: 453 Arc User
    macjae said:

    fernuu said:

    After patch Pillar of Power will be on (reduced) cooldown immediately after you cast it, while buff will be still pending. I don't know how long it lasts but I believe it will be nearly perma buff (area bounded).

    Yes, but the idea would be to have the cooldowns of *other* encounters tick down faster while standing in Pillar of Power. That would be an additional damage boost and make it feel a little less passive. But the whether that's necessary or not obviously depends on the additional boosts they're giving Pillar of Power in the first place. I think the base damage boost still feels a bit lackluster, but if the other components are good and work well, that may more than make up for it.
    Oh, I missread then, sorry mate
    https://youtube.com/c/FernuStormborn

    Mod 10:
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  • lihin23nihillihin23nihil Member Posts: 229 Arc User


    Problem with something like that is that when the time comes for the real rework, newer players and people with short memories will meet anything being removed with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I get your intent, but think interim changes are a bad idea in this environment.

    Any real rework for Templocks is likely to be somewhere between 6 months from now and never, the current SW changes suggest we shouldn't expect anymore dev eyes looking our way for a very long time now. I wouldn't ask for any major changes to mechanics right now but the numbers can at least be tweaked.

    If nothing else a parse of Temp feats should be done to make sure they fit in with the current cost/benefits of other feats.
    e.g. Vampiric Sparks needs boosting by 4-5 times it's current value.

  • d4rkh0rs3d4rkh0rs3 Member Posts: 382 Arc User
    @lihin23nihil I thought about Vampiric Embrace for awhile and the truth is, the way the combat system is designed leaves no room for Vampiric Embrace in anyone's rotation, even if it is drastically buffed. You will get better healing out of the Temptation tree from Soul Scorch, Warlock's Bargain, and either Killing Flames or any Soul Spark generating encounter.

    Even if you were to rock Hellbringer, Pillar of Power or some other encounter would ultimately supersede Vampiric Embrace. It would be better to provide yourself and allies with non-stackable (through repeated used of Vampiric Embrace) temp HP equal to x% of your max HP as a capstone for the Temptation tree. Temp HP would be way better than Vampiric Embrace healing allies for x%.
  • tomiotartomiotar Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 227 Arc User
    If you want to make HB viable the only option is giving a 50% CD reduction and 100%AP increase stading inside Pillar of Power, that the only way to compensate the advantages of SBs. Meanwhile a SB can spam their encounters and and dailys much faster than a HB then the hellbringer path is always going to be worse.
  • lihin23nihillihin23nihil Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    d4rkh0rs3 said:

    @lihin23nihil I thought about Vampiric Embrace for awhile and the truth is, the way the combat system is designed leaves no room for Vampiric Embrace in .

    Not Vamp Embrace, Vamp Sparks - 2nd tier temp feat that gives Life steal on Sparks held. Currently it is way under-tuned.

    Vamp Embrace is indeed a trap in it's current state.

  • ghoulz66ghoulz66 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,748 Arc User

    d4rkh0rs3 said:

    @lihin23nihil I thought about Vampiric Embrace for awhile and the truth is, the way the combat system is designed leaves no room for Vampiric Embrace in .

    Not Vamp Embrace, Vamp Sparks - 2nd tier temp feat that gives Life steal on Sparks held. Currently it is way under-tuned.

    Vamp Embrace is indeed a trap in it's current state.

    It can't compete with chain spamming bastions of health of cure wound/shift spam of devotion OPs. It can't even heal the party to full on top on the insult to injury.

  • d4rkh0rs3d4rkh0rs3 Member Posts: 382 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    @lihin23nihil ahh, thanks, I misread that while multitasking at work. I thought Vampiric Sparks was buffed, no?

    Edit: I use compounded soul anyhow :smiley:
  • lihin23nihillihin23nihil Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    d4rkh0rs3 said:

    @lihin23nihil I thought Vampiric Sparks was buffed, no?

    No.
    Hope Stealer the Life Steal feat in Tier 1 was fixed, Vamp Sparks hasn't been touched.
    d4rkh0rs3 said:

    Edit: I use compounded soul anyhow

    Whose numbers could use a buff too of course...

  • d4rkh0rs3d4rkh0rs3 Member Posts: 382 Arc User
    @lihin23nihil I dont know if Compounded Soul will be buffed as I am not sure how often it procs with the new curse consume / curse synergy mechanics. Currently, the temp HP visual effect on the HP bar is inaccurate as far as I can tell, but the temp HPs are there if you quickly inspect. So that part could be made more accurate I suppose.

    I can tell you Compounded Soul procs (and reprocs) constantly on cursed targets, especially with Blades of Vanquished Armies, on xbox. Do you have means of further evaluating on the preview server?

    While surely not a life saver, 5% temp HP is fair if it constantly procs IMO.
  • pyrosorcererpyrosorcerer Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 137 Arc User
    Just and idea to give some AoE At-Will effect for the SW, this idea being for both paragons. (This also work out nice with the HB Flames tweak)

    Change the melee Hand of Blight to function somewhat like the GF's Cleave. It can put a defensive debuff on multiple targets and do some nice AoE damage. To make it both work well in Single Target and AoE it can be tweaked like some GWF powers that the damage is decreased for every x target hit. Then it can deal nice single target damage, yet also deal nice AoE, but not be too powerful.
  • candinho2candinho2 Member Posts: 550 Arc User
    @amenar Scourge Warlock: Feat: Creeping Death: Updated tooltip to match the new changes.
    Are those changes the old ones? proc form all damage sources or a new one(s)
  • candinho2candinho2 Member Posts: 550 Arc User
    @amenar BTW nice changes, might get us close in the dps race. Can you explain a little more about the new shadow slip? will it resist shocking execution? and on a fast reactivation of shadow slip, will it keep the 100%DR and it will keep counting the timer? I.e first activation used 0,5 secs, the next one would have 0,5sec of immunity, or the timer reset?
  • hadestemplar#9918 hadestemplar Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,184 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    amenar said:

    Hey guys -

    Another round of changes incoming with another preview patch... soon. Here's the list

    Thanks, for changes. Now before its gets in preview server, we sit back, take something to drink and check what kind benefits we will get by changes in theory.

    Once thing obvious, HB templock with combo:
    Encounters > BoVa + Pillar of Power
    At will: hands of blight
    Class features: Shadow walk + Flames of Empowerment.
    Will be kinda good in melee fights.
    amenar said:


    For furry tree, Feat Feat: Gatekeeper's Empowerment: No longer affects Flames of Empowerment. Instead, now increases the DoT damage of Hellish Rebuke by 5/10/15/20/25%.

    ouch. :'( plus thats mean gate of hell don't get any benefits from it too? thats sad. And i was started to love hell gate, this feat + flames of empowerment combo. :'(
    amenar said:


    Scourge Warlock: Fiery Bolt: Damage increased ~33%.
    Scourge Warlock: Fiery Bolt: Reduced base recharge time to 12s, down from 14s. (This overrides the previous CD change)
    Nice. :)
    amenar said:

    Scourge Warlock: Flames of Empowerment: No longer increases your damage when your AP is full. Instead, applies a debuff to your target when you hit them with an At-Will power. This debuff increases the damage you deal to the target by 2% (+1% per rank, to a max of 5%), and stacks up to 3 times.

    In order to utilize this changes in pve, well, firstly u try to hit all possible monsters with at wills in order trigger this effect(mark), then hit with heavy artilery(encounters).

    Wait didn't we had similar stuff with curse mechanic, which where cursing/marking targets become 70% of game content?
    Or as some suggested we back to Tyrannical Curse,> curse victim then cast at will bang all marked then use all remaining powers..
    Over all great single target dmg boost.
    amenar said:

    Scourge Warlock: Lesser Curse: Should no longer fall off immediately after applying in certain circumstances. This was most noticeable with the new version of Accursed Souls, and should no longer occur.

    Finally I will be able to do combo Accursed soul + Curse bite. :)

    amenar said:


    Scourge Warlock: Prince of Hell: No longer increases your Armor Penetration stat by 10%. Instead, directly increases your Resistance Ignored and Life Steal Chance by 5%, plus 1% per rank.
    Thats a big boost, Flames of Empowerment become at will focused feature, Prince of hell will be the ones who goes with aoe build, in epic dungeons or if he plans to more stay away from close range fight.
    amenar said:


    Scourge Warlock: Pillar of Power: This power has had a slight rework. Now always casts under your feet, instead of needing to be placed. Recharge time now starts as soon as you cast it instead of when the effect ends, and has been reduced to 10s, down from 15s. You may only have 1 Pillar of Power active at a time, so recasting it while it is still active will move it to your current location. The effects of the Pillar have changed, as well. In addition to increasing your damage, it now also grants you damage resistance while you stand within it. The Pillar no longer builds up and explodes when an enemy enters it. Instead, it lowers the enemies damage and damage resistance, and deals damage to them.

    With this changes I want ask for clarification.
    Current Pillar of power provide benefits not for yourself, but for anyone who step inside its effect area.
    So question does it still provide benefits for anyone else or its only self buffing?

    Plus also since warlock release it was old suggestion. To widen its effect area,
    Even with current change which allow more to survive, it takes away mobility, the area of effect kinda small.

    Here is picture of current Pillar of power area effect and on top I hold gate of hell invocation circle.
    I suggest to widen Pillar of power Area of effect to match gate of hell invocation circle size,
    So if Pillar of power If its for self benefits it large area of effect will provide mobility even in this small area.
    If its affect party members too. Then more players could get benefits from it..


    amenar said:

    We'd like to get Hellbringer into a much better place with this module. It's one of the least use Paragon Paths in the game, and hopefully some of the most recent changes can help fix that.

    I hope u will do that. Even in current guild some guys keep asking why I do not change to soulbinder. similar stuffs happens during epic dungeons. And party member keep telling me> respect to SB.. And as always I say >hell no<
    amenar said:



    I read through your concerns and suggestions about Shadow Slip - they're interesting, though we've been discussing how difficult it is for classes without any damage immunity from there Shift powers to survive in our splat heavy end-game, so we still want to see how this plays. That doesn't mean it will make it live - and even if it does, if it ends up causing problems we can't foresee, we will reevaluate.

    Correct me if I am wrong.
    Cw when use teleport get ~1 second immunity? Plus get u in any direction u look by 25 feet
    DC moves you 8 feet in any direction, since I played with DC and most of time when i used it I avoided incoming hits with no fail even by casting in red/danger zone received 0 dmg. So I assume its also grant ~1 s immunity,
    Hr by nwo wiki >
    Quickly shift out of the way of incoming attacks, moving you 8 feet in any direction.
    This power and all other Tactical dodge powers grant invulnerability frames during and for ~1 second after use. During this time, you cannot be CCed or damaged.
    So when warlock will try use shadow slip and move 8 feet, obvious that he lose ~1 immunity. By trying tapping every ~1s and try get 100% immunity u will not get far away either. And lets say u click and spent all stamina away, which I don't think someone gona do it in pvp. Cw and HR have biggest chance to catch u anyways + u could not hit them.
    So by theory it not like shadow slip will bring radical change.. But provide some chances to survive..

    however everything will be clear during practical testings.. :)
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  • lihin23nihillihin23nihil Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    d4rkh0rs3 said:

    @lihin23nihil I dont know if Compounded Soul will be buffed as I am not sure how often it procs with the new curse consume / curse synergy mechanics.
    ...
    I can tell you Compounded Soul procs (and reprocs) constantly on cursed targets, especially with Blades of Vanquished Armies, on xbox. Do you have means of further evaluating on the preview server?

    I did some tests this morning and looked through the logs - sadly ACT doesn't separate out Compounded Soul from other shield effects, so it's not too easy to extract much analysis. But yes, I can confirm that you can get Compounded Soul to proc frequently. It appears to have an internal ICD of 1 second but I can't be sure and my feeling is it has about a 10% chance to proc on cursed targets*.

    It works consistently with both Warlocks Curses and Lesser Curses and generates the correct amount of Temp HP.

    * I slotted BotVA, HarrowS, DT and Accursed Souls with All-Consuming Curse and churned through groups of 5-15 trolls or hammerers at a time in IWD for 30 minutes. Naturally there was some downtime in-between fights and changing loadouts but I self-procced CS about 500 times in that period.

  • candinho2candinho2 Member Posts: 550 Arc User
    @fernuu is recovery a good option now? how much ap gain would be recommended?
  • candinho2candinho2 Member Posts: 550 Arc User
    @fernuu PVP wise BoVa with 25% deflect is an awesome skill, but the new updated passives are giving me a very hard time to choose, dark one blessing and shadow walk both add deflect, but borrowed time also do with sparks, and heals, I have only 45% critical chance, and i realy can't get more($$$$ problem) and i still need axe beak, got 2m only, 5m more to go, got 80+ keys, but tested it on preview, and it would give me 300~400 k ad only, and no axe beak xD any advice on boosting my critical chance?
  • lihin23nihillihin23nihil Member Posts: 229 Arc User
    Some insight into how Accursed Souls works - apologies if this was already common knowledge but I've been going through some logs this morning.

    AS has a target cap of 5 and does its tool-tip damage in 2 parts - a first hit for about 40% immediately and a second hit 1.5 seconds later for the remaining 60%.
    It appears that the 2 hits actually have separate damage rolls (the ratio isn't consistent but appears to be around 2:3) but they do share the same Critical Hit roll - i.e. if the first part crits the second does too and the second only crits when the first does.

    The heal is generated off of the first hit and is based on 50% of the damage done by it with your heal bonuses applied after.

    The Soul Puppet appears after the second hit.

    In the version currently on preview the Lesser Curse appears to be applied with the second damage hit - expect this to be different in the upcoming changes.

    It's hard to tell exactly but it looks like the second hit doesn't generate Soul Sparks but does proc weapon enchantments.

    What does this mean?
    You are safe to ani-cancel after the first hit goes off and can expect to heal for about 20% of the total damage done.

  • edited July 2016
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  • d4rkh0rs3d4rkh0rs3 Member Posts: 382 Arc User
    @etelgrin I gave up stacking armor pen / resistance ignored in PvP, especially against tanky classes. It is an issue with current meta PvP combat mechanics primarily. It just happens to be much, much worse for SWs.

    At one point, I had up to 170% RI with only 4k from the Stronghold armor pen boon. Want to know where it got me in PvP? Nowhere.

    The majority of the time, against an equally geared opponent, I was still hitting for only 20% of my base attack (GWF, GF, DC, and generally anyone wearing a negation). The DoTs from Creeping Death / SW encounters have the following issues:

    1) They needle (rather than burst) the opponent, stacking their negation.
    2) DoTs proc the opponent's deflect healing insignia, basically giving it 100% uptime.
    3) Such minor damage is dealt that the encounters / DoTs cannot keep up with the opponent's self healing capabilities.

    Consider an endgame PvP opponent has:

    1) A cumulative ~100% DR from tenacity score (DR and ArP resistance)
    2) ~30% DR from defense on squishy classes and up to ~60% on GFs.
    3) 30% DR from negation
    4) x% from you-name-it. Shield, unstoppable, feats, encounters, class features, etc. etc. etc.

    Add all these up and you can see why stacking armor pen has become borderline irrelevant against a solid opponent. Sure, you can nuke a lesser geared player if your RI exceeds their aggregate mitigation, I understand that... But its much better to stack power and crit with a dread enchant if you want to deal damage as a SW in PvP IMO.

    I'd like some feedback from those on preview testing the SW's survivability when the Shadow Slip immunity frame is loaded. If it works how I think it will, its a major needed upgrade. We may not be able to be the DPS dealers we're supposed to be, but perhaps the survivability will be there.
  • fernuufernuu Member Posts: 453 Arc User
    candinho2 said:

    @fernuu PVP wise BoVa with 25% deflect is an awesome skill, but the new updated passives are giving me a very hard time to choose, dark one blessing and shadow walk both add deflect, but borrowed time also do with sparks, and heals, I have only 45% critical chance, and i realy can't get more($$$$ problem) and i still need axe beak, got 2m only, 5m more to go, got 80+ keys, but tested it on preview, and it would give me 300~400 k ad only, and no axe beak xD any advice on boosting my critical chance?

    I thought dark one blessing adds life steal and life steal severity, not a deflection.

    But yeah, shadow walk now looks even better for pvp. Movement speed is reduced but you benefit from deflection and life steal. And yet there is nice warding curse for reducing incoming damage and dark prayers aren't that bad. Yet, you can focus on offensive end with all consuming curse - variety of class features increased a little for pvp.

    About recovery - well it's reduce cooldowns (pretty nice on killing flames). With 2600 recovery, 630 action point gain and a snail I didn't have to use sigil of devoted to keep my daily perma up.
    https://youtube.com/c/FernuStormborn

    Mod 10:
    [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.

    Mod 9:
    [Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.
  • demoniceinsteindemoniceinstein Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    I feel obligated to voice some opinions and facts. (SINGOOD)
  • fernuufernuu Member Posts: 453 Arc User
    Two runs from yesterday, eGWD (why there is no CN on preview? :()

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVxlftx_vnw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrtYVzUZUG4
    https://youtube.com/c/FernuStormborn

    Mod 10:
    [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Flames deals 16636893 (1009292) Fire Damage to Ethraniev Marrowslake.

    Mod 9:
    [Combat (Self)] Your Murderous Flames deals 376274433 (18876929) Fire Damage to Red Tiamat Head.
  • d4rkh0rs3d4rkh0rs3 Member Posts: 382 Arc User
    @fernuu I am at work and cant watch videos :(

    I'm going to watch them when I get home as I'd like to see the new gameplay.

    Is there anything you can say about the SW changes from the eGWD runs?
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  • thefabricantthefabricant Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 5,248 Arc User

    It is nice to see dungeons requiring a bit of skill again.

    Its not that they require skill so much as that I suck at DC :p
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