There are still a lot of damnation players, especially those gearing for end-game. 14k+ Damnlocks are rare but they're also still around and kicking, fact is despite everything the general state of the Damnlock is that it's functional at least. It's not quite on the same boat as say the Instigator.
exelent news i always like playstyle damnation path, seem will be good choice for every ocasión actually use one loadout damnation and one fury but the final feat that say increase damage 20% of your soul puppet evrithing summon one and have alredy one active. This is a problema if all dps depend of this feat and in the bosses not can summon soul puppet so not stacks this feat not good option for bosses lost a lot dps in this case im forced switch to fury and I say forced because not like me but in some cases is only away do DPS
There are already feats that increase the survivability of the Soul Puppet, the problem at the moment is that taking them seems pointless when the puppet does relatively poor DPS (especially in a group setting) and you can just resummon a new one with little DPS loss because of the low Soul Investiture stack limit. The puppet also already scales with your HP and deflection so you can work on those to increase puppet survivability. Abilities like Wraith's Shadow (assuming they are fixed) also already help keep the Soul Puppet alive by decreasing the amount of damage enemy mobs do. Finally there's player input. There are many other options available to you that help increase the survivability of your soul puppet, from companions to artifacts.
Besides answering this post, the reason I'm bringing this up is because if you look at the setup of the Damnation tree from an objective standpoint it seems that all the tools Damnation really needs setup up are already in the game - the problem is that the puppet (the focus of those abilities) is severely underperforming. The devs need to take note of this.
PS - Don't bash on powers like Hadar's Grasp. It's one of the few multiproc powers SWs have left (when used with Warlock's Curse). Cooldown is not really an issue because of the current meta - unless they plan on nerfing OPs/DCs, the casting/animation time on SW powers is a much more serious issue than the cooldowns.
Post edited by tyrtallow on
You there. New to the game? Feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you think getting to end-game is impossible for a casual player like yourself, or maybe you just need to be around a community that helps each other stay sane and competitive with the latest news, current trends, random chitchat and most of all LEGIT (that is, we try to keep things fair) gameplay. If you don't mind being around quirky people and the rare occasional drama (one of our prominent TR members is apparently a mafia godfather) join nw_legit_community at http://www.nwlegitcommunity.shivtr.com/forum_threads/2330542.
I would suggest just turning this into a full blown "full SW rework" event.
I know that the intention of this thread was to announce some small tweaks to SW, noting that it was not intended to be a full rework.
However, given the large volume of hopeful feedback and the rather... pitiful... state SW is in, I think the dev teams could finally make SW not suck again and address the core SW issues (the primary issue of which is, I believe, "being a slow to set up DoT class in a burst damage metagame").
Weapon % damage weapons (terror, ligthning etc...): -let creeping death deal half of CD damage on the first tick (so 50% of 75%) -this first tick will proc this kind of weapon.
Thus It could make weapon base damage weapons somewhat viable because they would proc twice on most of the powers, and it would give a burst effect to CD (if creeping death is not changed to a self-buff capstone).
Lesser curse: When you run ACT, you can see the damage dealt by lesser curse is VERY small and pityful. suggestion: there should be a mini damage link between tab-cursed targets and targets affected by lesser curses. Or buff/scale the the damage dealt by lesser curse, at least by 30%.
0
pyrosorcererMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 137Arc User
Also think this has been mentioned somewhere, but I think it would be a very neat change so I'll propose it again :P Make the stacks from Flames of Empowerment work as a self-buff that stacks every time you use an at-will. Instead of having to stack the debuffs on every individual enemy, which in AoE situations is hopeless without any decent AoE at-will, this would significantly improve at least AoE.
Would also like to state that @werdandi#8366 has an important point in the post above. Lesser curses deals very little damage compared to being a class mechanic. I know the lesser curses are probably mostly intended as an curse synergy option, but having an entire class feature and a feat focusing around the lesser curses themselves it would make more sense if they actually did damage. All-Consuming Curse increases their damage and Scornful Curse feat increases their damage. These damage increases are quite useless when overall damage from lesser curses drop below 1% of the damage. Actually they only contributed to 0.33% of the damage in my last ACT log.
Second thing about lesser curse is, do they proc creeping death? They are not dailies, at-wills nor encounters per say, they are a class mechanic. If they are not proccing it now, tweaking it so they will would be a nice help along with some damage increase to their damage output.
I am a firm believer that SWs (should) rely on dailies.
If the cooldowns and animation times of the encounters powers are not reduced , what about increasing the base damage of the dailies ? I know that some of them will be corrected soon (October bugfix) but it is not enough.
In fact, I am worried for the SW fury path: even with the increase by 15% of the damage dealt by creeping death and the few other minors buffs to some feats, I am afraid that SWs will still be largely behind other DPS classes with these bitter feeling of being useless.
There are no self-buffs, so we cannot achieve any >10M damage in one hit (unlike GWF or GF for example). When I hit for >3M (excluding the DoT from CD), it is Christmas lol. And we cannot hit frequently, so we cannot compensate the lack of big damage (in addition to the lack of burst damage),
So devs, please keep that in mind , and consider all the precious feedback given so far. We know that a full rework is unlikely to happen soon, so you can add some other buffs/changes now, while you still have time for us.
I don't think SW should rely on dailies. We already have TR for that. But, like the CW's ones, they are a great addition and worth equipping a Flail Snail. Problem is : right now, they are too weak.
Brood of Hadar is more control oriented and damage is nice, nothing to change here
Flames of Phlegetos are ok but not handy. You can cancel it too easily (like Harrowstorm or the Tab)
Accursed Souls is nice for burst but damage is too small. Should be doubled and healing part halved
Tyrannical Curse is too slow and only works on big targets in aoe
Gates of Hell is too slow
Immolation Spirits are nice for me, nothing to change here
SW has always been a class that didn't have to buff itself but dealt a gazillion of little damages from dots or linked damages. This is why i love this class. If someday it had to buff himself, i'd prefer to play GF / GWF or just my CW.
Problem is : they basically killed those two aspects of the class when they nerfed Tyrannical Threat into Tyrannical Curse. As it is now, the spell is too slow and except in some situations when you face only big mobs (FBI / MSVA), you don't have time to cast it and then deal all the damage you want. For me, this daily was as much part of the SW identity as the Tab which means they killed the character by nerfing this spell (even if the buff of Creeping Death is a really nice step in this way).
So, after reading all of the feedback posted here, here are my suggestions :
Revert Tyrannical Curse into Tyrannical Threat (yes, let me dream ) with all the effets it had before (20% bonus damage, impossible to be placed alongside the Warlock's Curse and prevents you from getting Brutal Curse buff) this way, it will be a super strong aoe daily but useless in single target.
If you don't want to give us Tyrannical Threat back, allow Tyrannical Curse to give 100% AP if the target dies within 3 seconds after casting it and halve Tyrannical Curse cast time.
Double the damage of Accursed Souls and halve its healing component
Reduce Gates of Hell cast time to 1.1 seconds (as an Oppressive Force)
If it is someway possible, make Gates of Hell a targetable area (as an Arcane Singularity) which will really take the mobs to the hell and so knocking them down.
Change every Curse consume effect to a Curse Synergy
Make Warlock's Curse, Harrowstorm and Flames of Phlegetos less likely to be interrupted just by casting other spells
Make Murderous Flames able to work with any fire damaging power but dealing only 20% of the damage and change Gates of Hell and Hellish Rebuke to necrotic damage (it would be completely op otherwise). I think we REALLY need this to be competitive in aoe !
Rework Parting Blasphemy to deal damage when a Curse Synergy is activated
Rework Deadly curse to apply a dot when you apply a Curse on a target (any of them)
I know i ask lots if things here and nearly none will be selected for mod 13 but think about it, even if it is for mod 13.5 or even 14.
Also think this has been mentioned somewhere, but I think it would be a very neat change so I'll propose it again :P Make the stacks from Flames of Empowerment work as a self-buff that stacks every time you use an at-will. Instead of having to stack the debuffs on every individual enemy, which in AoE situations is hopeless without any decent AoE at-will, this would significantly improve at least AoE.
Would also like to state that @werdandi#8366 has an important point in the post above. Lesser curses deals very little damage compared to being a class mechanic. I know the lesser curses are probably mostly intended as an curse synergy option, but having an entire class feature and a feat focusing around the lesser curses themselves it would make more sense if they actually did damage. All-Consuming Curse increases their damage and Scornful Curse feat increases their damage. These damage increases are quite useless when overall damage from lesser curses drop below 1% of the damage. Actually they only contributed to 0.33% of the damage in my last ACT log.
Second thing about lesser curse is, do they proc creeping death? They are not dailies, at-wills nor encounters per say, they are a class mechanic. If they are not proccing it now, tweaking it so they will would be a nice help along with some damage increase to their damage output.
Lesser curses do proc creeping death (it is counted as a curse, deals very little damage, but it does not increase the damage received by the target), but as you said, you currently get 60% x 0.33% of your overall damage, so nothing As a class mechanic, it is a shame.
Boosting its damage or change its effect could help us in AoE situations.
Reading latest posts/suggestions It's feels like dejavu. Not so long ago(2 mods ago) I posted similar suggestions. They where ignored(naturally).
@rjc9000, in my posts here I already wrote that for sw need revise core mechanics. For fury case I wrote that creeping death need to be changed.
Also in warlocks forum I mentioned that warlock need more selfbuffing elements. All because
1) debuffs/selfbuffs debuff - oriented class Strong side - In fight with 1 or 2 targets or boss in generally such classes perform well. Thats apply in any other mmorpg games.
Weakness - in fight with multiple targets, or quick fights/wiping trashes, you have to apply/build up debuffs so you could deal you best damage.. But thats require time.
Selfbuffing
Either single target or multi target fight case, long or quick whatever. YOu hit, build up/stack selfbuff and extend/boost own damage. Thats mean you have same high damage regardless if you engage new or old target..
And Neverwinter is in favor for selfbuffs..
2) burst/DoT
Dot - damage over time, Strong side - for single or couple tough foes or boss fight case, you deal damage regardless if you moving/dodging or not..
Weakness - Damage over time means you need time. In quick fights = you always will lag behind. In any my known mmorpg games, DoT based class never beat burst/splash based classes in quick fights.. ANd major problem - you need apply/build up stacks with each new target you engage in fight....
And now neverwinter warlock contain both, DoT + debuff as main source of damage.. Even if devs provide 40% base damage increase, it will not help to compete against other classes. BEcause in quick fights dot and selfbuffs are not viable. When you build up main debuffs = enemies already standing with ~2% HP. Same goes with DoT - you apply them, but before they deal sufficient damage, targets/foes already are dead..
And now also apply one major factor.. Weapon enchantments -(lightning enchantment example) You deal an additional 44% of weapon damage as Lightning damage with your powers. So debuffing and DoT based class have 0 benefits.. Because selfbuffing boost up own stats/values and thus increasing dealt damage by enchantments.
======================================================================== “The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. Gustave Le Bon. ==================================================
I have rolled out templock again. And I discovered that Burning Guidance does not work with templock (I had seen no notification, but with OP heal I see them plenty). As I understand Burning Guidance is already nerfed because of paladins (who also had some heal/damage cycles), so I think it is safe to enable it for SW, and SKT damage on heal boon too if does not work for SW (my SW had not unlocked it yet).
Im agreed actually parting blasphemy not have sense only one power have effect curse cunsume wrath of shadow and not do more damge its more debuff and need rework path of damnation for example syphoning curse should be moved temlock path and make new feat that increase damage or buff your soulpuppet or yourself and relentless curse its confuse say when a curse is removed from a target meaning when end curse or cunsume and what curse lesser or warlock curse not have sense anyway because warlock curse too long time for dimish and if case meaning cunsume actually only power have effect cunsume and not its power for do damge its debuff
Damnation is obviously a tree that combines supportive skills with damage skills, but on a much lesser scale than both Fury and Temptlock.
The way this works is that the Damnlock relies heavily on the presence of the Soul Puppet to significantly boost its damage potential and survivability, since it is a persistent effect target-able unit that deals damage even while the warlock does something else and which benefits from powers like Dreadtheft. Damnlocks are able to provide limited party support simply because their skillset/loadout favors damage/supportive powers (because the puppet doesn't really scale with anything else). This includes Wraith's Shadow (debuff, Soul Puppet summon/Soul Investiture stack generation), Hadar's Grasp (nuke, debuff, puppet damage boost), Pillar of Power (buff, debuff) and Dreadtheft (damage, debuff).
For the record, the puppet is basically Damnation's Creeping Death (and an oh-so-gimped Creeping Death it is, atm). A dead puppet means that Damnation is basically Temptation minus the party buffs. I'm not sure what the point is with all the proposed buffs to the warlock while the puppet - the thing that makes Damnation what it is - is ignored.
First off, before anything else, PLEASE move the Soul Investiture stack buff ICON to the warlock. It is just about impossible to track that thing on the Soul Puppet even though it IS one of the more important effects a Damnlock player should be tracking.
Secondly, if you want to buff Damnation then you should simply raise the Soul Investiture stack limit and possibly modify the Soul Investiture stack buff value. That's it. Forget those other buffs unless you want Damnation to become just another Fury in the general sense (seriously - what would be the point in having two warlock trees that do the same thing? It boggles the mind, if we wanted to play Fury we have a loadout for that). However, Damnation SHOULD be rewarded for being able to keep its puppet alive (which is already kind of the point for the reason given above) long enough to reach the higher Soul Investiture stack limit, especially since stacks fall off easily out of combat - not to mention the puppet tends to die in a lot in some encounters. An increased stack limit of 15, for example, would translate to a +200% damage increase. Obviously feats like Burning Puppets would need to be readjusted. The idea is that in longer fights a well played Damnation would rival Fury in the single target damage front, while maintaining a diverse damage/supportive power loadout. I suppose if you go pure damage you can even beat Fury, but you'd be risking Soul Investiture de-generation and the possible destruction of your Soul Puppet.
If it helps you guys can introduce this change gradually - start with 10 stacks, increase later depending on feedback. Is it really so hard to do just this? As it currently stands "nice" would be a severe overstatement for your proposed Damnation changes. Come on guys, wouldn't it be easier to keep track of changes when you only have the Soul Puppet to worry about? It practically already doesn't scale with anything so you have a LOT less to worry about in terms of possible interactions between powers. Wouldn't this change work out best for everyone involved? Also in a perfect world Soul Investiture generation would be added to more powers/increased on powers like dailies, but that can wait.
Finally, you guys REALLY need to fix broken (and I mean literally barely-working) warlock powers. Wraith's Shadow is still broken (and have you guys actually tried using the power with an allied unit in the way of the targeting circle? It's been several mods and this still hasn't been fixed) and seriously warlock powers are supposed to go off faster than the powers of other casters. Isn't that supposed to be one of the things that makes D&D warlocks what they are? Faster casting times would be a massive buff to SW quality of life.
Funny, today I was just thinking about damnation and some changes related to soul investiture. I thought of something a little different, but I like the direction you went as well.
My suggestion was that the capstone would make investiture stacks permanent and increase the cap on them. I was thinking maybe ten, or maybe more, don't know how much would be necessary. Certainly more than 5
It could also go your way, with a very big cap that you could only reach at very long boss fights, but made the puppet contribution close to a gwf at that point. Though I think this would require more work and thought to work fine.
As for making the investiture stacks showing up on your own status bars, I would go even further and make each stack of investiture make the puppet bigger, or darker, or brighter, or all of them, or some visual effect which could be very indicative and really cool at the same time.
Also, make it more teleportable and less stuckable.
Tong run yesterday with my gwf buddy. IBS hits of around 50m and one major one for 61m. Guess which enchant he was using? Lightning. I wish I had remembered to lend him my dread. Would like to see how much it would have been. Lightning was really effective though, as soon as spirits spawned they were dead and the GWF didn't even have to chase them.
Same gwf today FBI. Guess where most of his damage came from. Aura of courage. 21% of his damage, with some hits of about 1m damage.
My warlock has slightly more HP than him, barely reaches 8% of aura of courage damage tops, all the while the overall damage is much lower. Top AoC hit maybe 500k. I was with my paladin this run so I can't directly compare, but I find this interaction that warlocks have with aura of courage somewhat weird. We don't get it to buff or proc as much as other classes. Might be a similar issue of weapon enchants. Does anyone know the exact mechanic of AoC? It's one hell of a buff we are missing.
Weapon % damage weapons (terror, ligthning etc...): -let creeping death deal half of CD damage on the first tick (so 50% of 75%) -this first tick will proc this kind of weapon.
Thus It could make weapon base damage weapons somewhat viable because they would proc twice on most of the powers, and it would give
Many SW powers are already amazing at multiprocing weapon enchants. Do you know that Eldritch Blast procs enchants once per target on the third hit, which the devs have left as is? Compare to the CW version (Chilling Cloud) which only ever procs weapon enchants three times, regardless of the number of targets hit. The problem, of course, is the casting animation of many of these powers. If Eldritch Blast had a faster casting time it would be a lot more useful on builds that use %weapon damage weapon enchantments.
%weapon damage-focused Weapon Enchantments is really moot point for Fury because it already gets Creeping Death and %damage buffs. Ultimately the tree favors crit (or just flat+%) damage, especially considering how its feats work, and there's nothing really wrong with that since there ARE two other warlock trees that rely on a different setup.
A buff to Lesser Curse damage would certainly be a great thing, however. It's a core SW mechanic that has been "meh" for too long.
The SW is NOT a DoT class (a term that doesn't make sense in a game where virtually everyone has some powerful DoT) and I find it highly doubtful that it matters if the SW actually was a DoT class in a burst damage metagame. So what? If enemies are extremely squishy why does it matter if your name is lower on the damage done bar? Do you think every other non-burst AoE damage class enjoys not having their name on paingiver? But they deal with it because what matters more is average dungeon run time, and average non-epic dungeon completion run time is already crazy stupid.
The problem is that EVEN WHEN enemies aren't squishy the SW lacks the ease with which other striker classes can generate massive damage when ideally it should be one of the higher DPS strikers (especially against a small number of targets) because although it has some neat survivability tools it lacks the tankiness/escape tools of any other striker class except perhaps the CW (which I understand has its own issues atm). It would be easier to accept the current state of SW survivability if the class actually had the damage to go with it.
Of course this last part is mostly relevant to Fury/Damnation, since apparently Temptation is being converted from striker to leader.
You there. New to the game? Feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you think getting to end-game is impossible for a casual player like yourself, or maybe you just need to be around a community that helps each other stay sane and competitive with the latest news, current trends, random chitchat and most of all LEGIT (that is, we try to keep things fair) gameplay. If you don't mind being around quirky people and the rare occasional drama (one of our prominent TR members is apparently a mafia godfather) join nw_legit_community at http://www.nwlegitcommunity.shivtr.com/forum_threads/2330542.
Tong run yesterday with my gwf buddy. IBS hits of around 50m and one major one for 61m. Guess which enchant he was using? Lightning. I wish I had remembered to lend him my dread. Would like to see how much it would have been. Lightning was really effective though, as soon as spirits spawned they were dead and the GWF didn't even have to chase them.
Same gwf today FBI. Guess where most of his damage came from. Aura of courage. 21% of his damage, with some hits of about 1m damage.
My warlock has slightly more HP than him, barely reaches 8% of aura of courage damage tops, all the while the overall damage is much lower. Top AoC hit maybe 500k. I was with my paladin this run so I can't directly compare, but I find this interaction that warlocks have with aura of courage somewhat weird. We don't get it to buff or proc as much as other classes. Might be a similar issue of weapon enchants. Does anyone know the exact mechanic of AoC? It's one hell of a buff we are missing.
It's because GWFs are AoE at-will spammers. More hits = more AoC bonus damage. In contrast, SWs (specfically Fury) scale better with straight +%damage like from cleric buffs/debuffs.
Frankly, this is really more of "pally buffs are stupid powerful" issue than a SW vs GWF issue IMO, since the point is more that AoC is abusable. If they introduce a class that does 20 hits per second, for example, that would the new AoC abuser of the day-class.
You there. New to the game? Feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you think getting to end-game is impossible for a casual player like yourself, or maybe you just need to be around a community that helps each other stay sane and competitive with the latest news, current trends, random chitchat and most of all LEGIT (that is, we try to keep things fair) gameplay. If you don't mind being around quirky people and the rare occasional drama (one of our prominent TR members is apparently a mafia godfather) join nw_legit_community at http://www.nwlegitcommunity.shivtr.com/forum_threads/2330542.
Damnation: Power of the Nine Hells: No longer grants 10/20/30/40/50% of Pillar of Power's buff amount to allies Pillar of Power: Now grants 75% of its buff effect to allies standing in it
Temptation: Eldritch Momentum: This feat has been reworked and now triggers when a daily power is used Eldritch Momentum: Now gives you, and nearby allies, 3/6/9/12/15% of your stamina when a daily is used Eldritch Momentum: Now gives you, and nearby allies, Combat Advantage for 4/5/6/7/8 seconds
For damnation, unless you make PoP area as big as Circle of Power (would love it be Hallowed ground size), Po9H is still going to be mandatory for any Hellbringer. Would suggest to give PoP all of current Po9H functionality and make Po9H more HB damnation oriented. Random suggestions would be increasing puppet damage for targets on pillar or maybe making Gates of Hell summon 1/2/3/4/5 extra temporary hellish puppets to aid you in battle. That would be quite cool.
For temptation, you are going to kill the best use of temptation warlock in pvp by changing eldritch momentum. The pvp healing is barely noticeable, so the fast moving you can get in some situations is one of the best ways to help your team. And during combat it is not nearly as defensive as the infinite immunity frame cw's or tr's can get. Giving everyone around 15% stamina when using a daily is really pointless. If it was when using any encounter, then that would be a little more noticeable. I don't even notice when a GWF uses battle fury around me most of the time and that is 25% stamina. But that's on pvp, where warlocks go to die anyway. For PVE it will be even more pointless, and I can see no situation where a warlock would have a hard choice between this and anything else. If you are set on making it work with dailies, make that instead of its current bonus it adds 4/5/6/7/8% move speed, def chance, def severity and CA Damage (with the same mechanic of the underdark boon) for 4/5/6/7/8 seconds.
Tong run yesterday with my gwf buddy. IBS hits of around 50m and one major one for 61m. Guess which enchant he was using? Lightning. I wish I had remembered to lend him my dread. Would like to see how much it would have been. Lightning was really effective though, as soon as spirits spawned they were dead and the GWF didn't even have to chase them.
Same gwf today FBI. Guess where most of his damage came from. Aura of courage. 21% of his damage, with some hits of about 1m damage.
My warlock has slightly more HP than him, barely reaches 8% of aura of courage damage tops, all the while the overall damage is much lower. Top AoC hit maybe 500k. I was with my paladin this run so I can't directly compare, but I find this interaction that warlocks have with aura of courage somewhat weird. We don't get it to buff or proc as much as other classes. Might be a similar issue of weapon enchants. Does anyone know the exact mechanic of AoC? It's one hell of a buff we are missing.
It's because GWFs are AoE at-will spammers. More hits = more AoC bonus damage. In contrast, SWs (specfically Fury) scale better with straight +%damage like from cleric buffs/debuffs.
Frankly, this is really more of "pally buffs are stupid powerful" issue than a SW vs GWF issue IMO, since the point is more that AoC is abusable. If they introduce a class that does 20 hits per second, for example, that would the new AoC abuser of the day-class.
Yeah, they may be doing more hits, but even then, the per hit damage is way higher on the same party even with lower HP. Average damage is twice as high when we run together, and he had slightly less HP. (That was back when my damage was able to compete with his, now I just run temptation if at all).
The thing is that it also scales with debuffs on the target, and the thing about GWFs specifically is that many of their "buffs" are actually debuffs that increase the damage they do to the target. This is a double-edged sword (pun unintended) that can work for and against the GWF, however.
Overall GWFs, among other builds like combat hunters, just have really, really high AoC proc rate. And it's not a question of "may". You should really just try playing a GWF character some time to understand how one works, they're very different from SWs.
You there. New to the game? Feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you think getting to end-game is impossible for a casual player like yourself, or maybe you just need to be around a community that helps each other stay sane and competitive with the latest news, current trends, random chitchat and most of all LEGIT (that is, we try to keep things fair) gameplay. If you don't mind being around quirky people and the rare occasional drama (one of our prominent TR members is apparently a mafia godfather) join nw_legit_community at http://www.nwlegitcommunity.shivtr.com/forum_threads/2330542.
Tong run yesterday with my gwf buddy. IBS hits of around 50m and one major one for 61m. Guess which enchant he was using? Lightning. I wish I had remembered to lend him my dread. Would like to see how much it would have been. Lightning was really effective though, as soon as spirits spawned they were dead and the GWF didn't even have to chase them.
Same gwf today FBI. Guess where most of his damage came from. Aura of courage. 21% of his damage, with some hits of about 1m damage.
My warlock has slightly more HP than him, barely reaches 8% of aura of courage damage tops, all the while the overall damage is much lower. Top AoC hit maybe 500k. I was with my paladin this run so I can't directly compare, but I find this interaction that warlocks have with aura of courage somewhat weird. We don't get it to buff or proc as much as other classes. Might be a similar issue of weapon enchants. Does anyone know the exact mechanic of AoC? It's one hell of a buff we are missing.
It's because GWFs are AoE at-will spammers. More hits = more AoC bonus damage. In contrast, SWs (specfically Fury) scale better with straight +%damage like from cleric buffs/debuffs.
Frankly, this is really more of "pally buffs are stupid powerful" issue than a SW vs GWF issue IMO, since the point is more that AoC is abusable. If they introduce a class that does 20 hits per second, for example, that would the new AoC abuser of the day-class.
Yeah, they may be doing more hits, but even then, the per hit damage is way higher on the same party even with lower HP. Average damage is twice as high when we run together, and he had slightly less HP. (That was back when my damage was able to compete with his, now I just run temptation if at all).
First of idk if AoC only scales with base HP or also with GWF´s temp HP buff from Unstoppable, no clue. Same what you describe happens with TR, 16%+ damage from AoC in a run, warlock 5%. Since 25% from warlock dps is dealt by CD prccoing from cursed targets, the direct ammount is a bit higher. I guess it´s like Tyrtallow said, AoC procs far more frequent from At Wills like WMS and on top that damage is buffed obviously. F.e. Feytouched procs 24% of weapondamage as psychic, if you stand inside Hollowed ground it tells you 35%, if ITF on top even more. And that damage, like other weapondamage procs also benefit from debuffs. Daring shout 20%+8% mark+ 1xWMS 30% + Student of the Sword 10% + Staying Power 5%. With one DS and one crit of WMS the GWF debuffs his targets arround himself for 73% in no time. If you slam an IBS inside it get´s high ammounts. ONly selfdebuffs from warlock, not sharing towards the group, are FoE 3x5 stacks and offhandfeat from NPNM 5%, and 20% TC itself. "Meh-debuffs" compared and FoE takes it´s time and can only focus dps PoP 10%, DT 25%, infernal wrath 5%, 40% are shared with the group, from wich only PoP is permanent on the small aoe and DT only up 1/3 at best... Not compareable with DO-DC´s 55% (+15% if ePoD) on focus target and if you want eDevine Glow combined with ByS and Condemning Gaze up to 42,5% as aoe debuff, guess nothing beats CW in aoe debuff, no clue. So if someone posts, like I read a lot atm. Warlock 16k+ lfg Tong, dps or heal/buff/debuff... that debuff is a lie to some degree imo. Really sad anyway, how that class has to prostitute itself to get a step in that dungeon, if someone shows mercy.
Even with the damage bonus increased to 75% Creeping Death there is still the problem it needs way too much time to deal full damage which is one of the reasons fury SW (not that the other specs are good in that regard) underperforms in trash killing and even in boss fights with an endgame group as there just not enough time for our not so good DoT damage to do much vs the dps of other (and better) damage dealers.
Please consider either reducing the number of ticks of CD to 2 or even 1 (less ticks and more damage each so the 75% bonus from CD still holds true) so it actually has time to do something and/or reduce the delay between ticks to 0.1 secs each, this fast and easy to do change would be a significant QoL change that would address to some extent our mediocre aoe dps and would make us better in boss fights as well.
While you are at it, you consider giving Hellish Rebuke and other DoT powers the same treatment, reduce the amount of ticks and make each one more powerful + consider increasing base damage some.
For a rework then you could address:
- Casting times - Long cooldowns - Class features: For the love of The Nine Hells, our class features are in most casses those of tanks, they need to be changed completely so they actually give dps bonuses and for those that do already they need to be tweaked so they actually give a proper dps boost. GWF, CW and GF (major/massive raw damage bonus of fighters or great feat-power synergy of the wizard) are examples of what dps class features should be like, SW ones are laughable. - Damantion feats and puppet are underperforming, feats need huge changes and puppet either a large damage increase or given great synergy with powers and new feats. - Templock needs much more dps buffing capacity and its heals issue addressed in pvp + a way to heal allies when not in combat, Hati poison and Nostura Rampant Curse are a problem templock is almost completely helpless about when those and other enemies can't be attacked.
Tong run yesterday with my gwf buddy. IBS hits of around 50m and one major one for 61m. Guess which enchant he was using? Lightning. I wish I had remembered to lend him my dread. Would like to see how much it would have been. Lightning was really effective though, as soon as spirits spawned they were dead and the GWF didn't even have to chase them.
Same gwf today FBI. Guess where most of his damage came from. Aura of courage. 21% of his damage, with some hits of about 1m damage.
My warlock has slightly more HP than him, barely reaches 8% of aura of courage damage tops, all the while the overall damage is much lower. Top AoC hit maybe 500k. I was with my paladin this run so I can't directly compare, but I find this interaction that warlocks have with aura of courage somewhat weird. We don't get it to buff or proc as much as other classes. Might be a similar issue of weapon enchants. Does anyone know the exact mechanic of AoC? It's one hell of a buff we are missing.
It's because GWFs are AoE at-will spammers. More hits = more AoC bonus damage. In contrast, SWs (specfically Fury) scale better with straight +%damage like from cleric buffs/debuffs.
Frankly, this is really more of "pally buffs are stupid powerful" issue than a SW vs GWF issue IMO, since the point is more that AoC is abusable. If they introduce a class that does 20 hits per second, for example, that would the new AoC abuser of the day-class.
Yeah, they may be doing more hits, but even then, the per hit damage is way higher on the same party even with lower HP. Average damage is twice as high when we run together, and he had slightly less HP. (That was back when my damage was able to compete with his, now I just run temptation if at all).
First of idk if AoC only scales with base HP or also with GWF´s temp HP buff from Unstoppable, no clue. Same what you describe happens with TR, 16%+ damage from AoC in a run, warlock 5%. Since 25% from warlock dps is dealt by CD prccoing from cursed targets, the direct ammount is a bit higher. I guess it´s like Tyrtallow said, AoC procs far more frequent from At Wills like WMS and on top that damage is buffed obviously. F.e. Feytouched procs 24% of weapondamage as psychic, if you stand inside Hollowed ground it tells you 35%, if ITF on top even more. And that damage, like other weapondamage procs also benefit from debuffs. Daring shout 20%+8% mark+ 1xWMS 30% + Student of the Sword 10% + Staying Power 5%. With one DS and one crit of WMS the GWF debuffs his targets arround himself for 73% in no time. If you slam an IBS inside it get´s high ammounts. ONly selfdebuffs from warlock, not sharing towards the group, are FoE 3x5 stacks and offhandfeat from NPNM 5%, and 20% TC itself. "Meh-debuffs" compared and FoE takes it´s time and can only focus dps PoP 10%, DT 25%, infernal wrath 5%, 40% are shared with the group, from wich only PoP is permanent on the small aoe and DT only up 1/3 at best... Not compareable with DO-DC´s 55% (+15% if ePoD) on focus target and if you want eDevine Glow combined with ByS and Condemning Gaze up to 42,5% as aoe debuff, guess nothing beats CW in aoe debuff, no clue. So if someone posts, like I read a lot atm. Warlock 16k+ lfg Tong, dps or heal/buff/debuff... that debuff is a lie to some degree imo. Really sad anyway, how that class has to prostitute itself to get a step in that dungeon, if someone shows mercy.
It's basically all the same reason why other DPS classes aren't using holy avenger or terror, even though they scale really well with power - their skills just don't proc it. That's basically why SWs still usually use a non-scaling enchant, and why they benefit more from ITF type buffs than AoC. ITF is a straight damage buff, while AoC does additional hit for damage, like LM set did, just less stupidly overpowered.
Also, it's just as @jaime4312#3760 says, SWs could potentially do a lot of DPS on bosses because they've got time to set everything up, but in trash fights, against loads of weaker enemies, they just simply don't scale up. Out of combat healing, maybe you passively get a % of their power every x amount of time? That way it scales well - you get a lot of healing when in combat, and when outside of combat, you can take it slow and relax. And it will still give you plenty of heals directly after combat while you've got the bondings buff. After it goes out, it's up to the SW, and how much power or whatever he has.
i would like love if for example curse bite got a boost like it would instantly procc all dots on cursed targets. the warlock is based on curses, but they are slow and clumsy and there is few synergy with other powers, although it should be the central element for sws.
i would like love if for example curse bite got a boost like it would instantly procc all dots on cursed targets. the warlock is based on curses, but they are slow and clumsy and there is few synergy with other powers, although it should be the central element for sws.
You know, I would like if curse bite was something cooler than it is now. Making it instantly proc all CD damage on cursed targets would be interesting. I would make it a bit more powerful by making it deal some damage around the targets too.
But thinking about creeping death, it could have some synergy with curse consume effects. Could be something like instantly dealing one extra tick of all the CD currently on target. Think that might actually turn out to be a little too OP on soulbinder, but I wouldn't mind having to test that on preview.
By the way, is there any changes already on preview?
I would suggest just turning this into a full blown "full SW rework" event.
I know that the intention of this thread was to announce some small tweaks to SW, noting that it was not intended to be a full rework.
However, given the large volume of hopeful feedback and the rather... pitiful... state SW is in, I think the dev teams could finally make SW not suck again and address the core SW issues (the primary issue of which is, I believe, "being a slow to set up DoT class in a burst damage metagame").
Please no. Because once this happens, in the far off future you will get a revamp and than all the SW will want there class to be modify once again back to a DoT build.
Rather than that, modify a useless feat that reduces DoT damage for higher initial burst damage.
I'm honestly surprised people keep going on about doing better in content that you are overqualified for anyway (because apparently squeezing an extra 10 or so seconds out of the lower dungeons is a priority), cooldowns (because apparently that's a big deal despite the fact that the current meta effectively reduces cooldowns to 5 or so seconds or less in a competitive group - ie, has a paladin or cleric with Aura of Wisdom/Hastening Light) and issues that have little to do with the warlock (if Aura of Courage is overperforming then it's a paladin issue, and they can only fix that by either nerfing AoC or buffing the rogue/caster counterpart, Aura of Wisdom, to do something like remove 30% of encounter CD whenever you use 4 non at-will powers in succession).
It doesn't help that a lot of people don't seem to know as much about the SW class as they think, like how many SW powers do actually multi-proc weapon enchantments. Now if only casting them was faster (like if you reduce Eldritch Blast casting time by 1 second) and perhaps had higher base damage/better damage modifiers to go with it.
There should really be more focus on issues like how Lesser Curse, another core SW mechanic, scales badly in current content, broken powers, the fact that warlock animations are long and seem to have trouble "firing off" (ie, you have wait a few seconds after the animation is done for the power to actually fire - this issue becomes more apparent if you "cancel" casting animations using Shadow Slip) and the previously mentioned path-specific problems like how there should be more native +%damage buffs/debuffs to Fury (or to specific low-target high damage powers that Fury favors, like Killing Flames) because in an ideal world Fury should be outdamaging GWFs in longer fights against a low number of targets - it's already nowhere near as survivable as a GWF and even lacks the GWF's AoE.
You there. New to the game? Feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you think getting to end-game is impossible for a casual player like yourself, or maybe you just need to be around a community that helps each other stay sane and competitive with the latest news, current trends, random chitchat and most of all LEGIT (that is, we try to keep things fair) gameplay. If you don't mind being around quirky people and the rare occasional drama (one of our prominent TR members is apparently a mafia godfather) join nw_legit_community at http://www.nwlegitcommunity.shivtr.com/forum_threads/2330542.
So you compared SW to CW at multiproccing enchantments Eldritch blast? It's damage is so bad it doesn't matter if the third hit procs weapon enchantments depending on x amounts of targets hit. Apparently you forgot CW is a multiproccing beast that has a few powers that don't even have a target cap. Eldritch blast xD CW powers that multiproc enchantments actually are good/great Eldritch blast
Now an actual decent rework for EB would be increasing its damage some and making it so every single hit has splash damage and decent area of effect, this would make it decent for at least applying Creeping Death. This change would esentially make EB a miny fiery bolt, as for how good that would be, not sure but certainly better than the parody of at will it is now.
Of course cooldowns are a problem, other classes have powers with lower cds and higher damage potential, if you don't see an issue there simply because 2 classes have powers that shorten them then I don't know what to tell you man, perhaps that classes with shorter cooldowns and overal superior dps benefit from Aura of Wisdom/Hastening light as well?
I don't think you are aware of the state SW is in now and perhaps that's the reason you write such posts.
So you compared SW to CW at multiproccing enchantments Eldritch blast? It's damage is so bad it doesn't matter if the third hit procs weapon enchantments depending on x amounts of targets hit. Apparently you forgot CW is a multiproccing beast that has a few powers that don't even have a target cap. Eldritch blast xD CW powers that multiproc enchantments actually are good/great Eldritch blast
Now an actual decent rework for EB would be increasing its damage some and making it so every single hit has a splash damage and decent area of effect, this would make it decent for at least applying Creeping Death.
Oh course cooldowns are a problem, other classes have powers with lower cds and higher damage potential, if you don't see an issue there simply because 2 classes have powers that shorten them then I don't know what to tell you man, perhaps that classes with shorter cooldowns and overal superior dps benefit from Aura of Wisdom/Hastening light as well?
I don't think you are aware of the state SW is in now and perhaps that's the reason you write such posts.
Agree, even if you use that AT will, you will penalty HB by not using HR and Soulbinder by not using Essence defiler... Sure you can run a build made to proc weapondamage... but what will it look like? EB+HoB+BoVA+HG+xy...ending up nowhere Hadar grasp might be acceptable, never run a build with Lightning to check. But from what I tested that enchant was underperforming on SW compared to Fey or Vorp. They exclusively "fixed" most multiprocs on warlock class except the ones I do not use as a dps: BoVA, Harrow Storm (6x), HoB 4x etc, but there is not ons usefull build wich can benefit from those procs as a dps spec so far. They pretty much invested some time to prevent warlock and DOT´s from overperforming in any way, by that they made the class underpreforming, pointing also at procs from passives, wich synergize very bad with Dot´s and AoE. As far as I remember they made other classes multiproc those enchants pretty well like WMS from GWF , CW etc. Discussing the WE on preview, only few classes were heared imo, I followed all along that thread. But why bothering, I play my DC as Cryptic wants me to do, run 4xbuffer groups till I get that bored, that I make a big giveaway party.
Agree, the powers that multiproc enchantments aren't good enough (quite bad actually) to justify giving up vorpal and dread (and a proper rotation) as it would end up a pretty serious dps loss. I for one raised an eyebrow when saw SW and CW being compared at multiproccing enchantments and even more so when the knowledge of some posters on this thread (like you and Natsu) on SW is very good yet it got questioned, talk about irony.
Waiting for mod 13 until get those changes is rather discouraging. @balanced#2849 any chance PoP able to crit and Creeping Death at 75% damage bonus can get released in mod 12b? Us console players will have to wait a good 5 months or so to get those tweaks and that's quite an excessive amount of time considering we will be underperforming even further due to OBC cooldown.
So you compared SW to CW at multiproccing enchantments Eldritch blast? It's damage is so bad it doesn't matter if the third hit procs weapon enchantments depending on x amounts of targets hit. Apparently you forgot CW is a multiproccing beast that has a few powers that don't even have a target cap. Eldritch blast xD CW powers that multiproc enchantments actually are good/great Eldritch blast
Now an actual decent rework for EB would be increasing its damage some and making it so every single hit has splash damage and decent area of effect, this would make it decent for at least applying Creeping Death. This change would esentially make EB a miny fiery bolt, as for how good that would be, not sure but certainly better than the parody of at will it is now.
Of course cooldowns are a problem, other classes have powers with lower cds and higher damage potential, if you don't see an issue there simply because 2 classes have powers that shorten them then I don't know what to tell you man, perhaps that classes with shorter cooldowns and overal superior dps benefit from Aura of Wisdom/Hastening light as well?
I don't think you are aware of the state SW is in now and perhaps that's the reason you write such posts.
I've been playing my SWs (plural) on and off, in both PvE and PvP, ever since they were released so while I don't claim to know everything about SWs I DO know what I'm talking about, but let's go over the basics since you obviously don't.
Do you know that the point of proc enchantments is quantity over quality, because these scale with weapon damage and straight up +%damage buffs and debuffs (and not by much, unless you have a ton of them like a GWF) so the actual DPS of the skill doesn't matter? Why did you conveniently fail to mention that those multiproc CW powers you are referring to often have poor DPS themselves? Why are you bringing up the DAMAGE of Eldritch Blast, a CASTER at-will - that means an at-will that supposed to play a supportive role as compared to a warrior at-will like a GWF's which is a primary damage source - in an argument about multiprocs? I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you simply don't know these things, because the alternative is that you are basically proposing a self-defeating stupid argument.
For obvious reasons, a faster Eldritch Blast cast time would be a better solution. A damage boost would be nice, but that's beside the point and I've already mentioned it, regardless. You might want to read better next time if you missed that part. And FYI, Eldritch Blast's animation is a little over 2 seconds so a 1 second reduction (like I suggested) is pretty significant. You might want to think about what that means, not just for multiprocs but for core mechanics like Flames of Empowerment and Soul Spark generation.
As for cooldowns, do you know that the higher the cooldown the higher the effect of %cooldown reduction skills like Aura of Wisdom and stats like recovery? Do you know that all SWs are going to end up with roughly 2k recovery (around10% RSI) just from artifact weapons, whether they want to or not? That's on top of your INT score minus 10, of course. Do you know that the SW's longest CD power is Hadar's Grasp, at around 18 seconds? Do you know that with just a Perfect Lightning Enchant + Melee Hand of Blight spam (and that 2K recovery) and Hadar's Grasp own proc rate (around 14 procs per cast with Warlock's Curse) you can bring its effective cooldown down to around 14 seconds? You can bring that even lower using a full rotation instead of just an at-will, but that's assuming you actually use the power though, since it's Damnlock/PvP power. I have three different damnlocks and all of them have an effective Hadar's grasp cooldown of around 8 seconds in a group with a cleric and it's even less when it's an endgame cleric + an OP with Aura of Wisdom.
Arguably, in fact, the new meta is so skewed towards cooldown reduction that it's surprising how most DPS players don't just stack power and crit. Oh wait-- THEY DO. Did you never bother to wonder why this is?
I'm not sure why I have to explain warlock basics to people bold enough to claim that I may not know what I'm talking about, but meh.
As for general damage increase on powers, I already mentioned several times that I feel many warlock encounters deserve it - and LOTS of it. I've even pointed out how Warlock's Curse really needs to stack with Tyrannical Curse in many other threads. I see no reason why cooldowns need to be reduced when the current meta is going to reduce the impact of such a change and when people already agree that the damage of warlock powers need a boost - and THAT is going to make a much more significant impact given the current meta. You might want to think about why that is: "Gee, a change which (in part, because of mechanics) gets mitigated by the current meta versus a change which gets amplified by the current meta (because math)." Which to choose... Tick tock, and the devs have limited resources.
You can imagine that as an SW player myself I'd be all for the option that gives SWs the most gain. The irony here is that I personally don't stack recovery on most of my endgame SW builds, and yet most other SWs I know (including more than a few posters here) have a significant amount of recovery. A cooldown reduction on powers would devalue their extra recovery stat from items.
Oh and at the post above, Harrowstorm has a proc rate of 1, BoVA has a proc rate of around 6 (per target + blade flings for each Warlock's Curse), Hand of Blight is around 9 per full rotation and Hadar's Grasp with Warlock's Curse has around 14. For obvious reasons this info is not very useful on Fury, a path that favors increasing damage per strike rather than proc rate, so I'm not sure why you seem to be arguing that it should be (what would be point of Creeping Death, then?). It is, however, relevant for paths like Damnation (which, gimped as the puppet is, is not as particularly dependent on +%damage buffs because of compartmentalized damage sources) and Temptation (which is apparently going a new direction).
Post edited by tyrtallow on
You there. New to the game? Feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you think getting to end-game is impossible for a casual player like yourself, or maybe you just need to be around a community that helps each other stay sane and competitive with the latest news, current trends, random chitchat and most of all LEGIT (that is, we try to keep things fair) gameplay. If you don't mind being around quirky people and the rare occasional drama (one of our prominent TR members is apparently a mafia godfather) join nw_legit_community at http://www.nwlegitcommunity.shivtr.com/forum_threads/2330542.
1
pyrosorcererMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 137Arc User
I realy like the idea of having Eldritch Blast being an AoE at-will, which SW really needs, both for proccing enchantments and for using Flames of Empowerment in an AoE situation. This would make Flames of Empowerment actually be nice in AoE situations, as proccing 3 stacks on many targets with only single target at-wills takes longer than the mobs survive nowadays.
If not reworking the Eldritch Blast into an AoE, at least devs should consider making Flames of Empowerment stronger than it is now. Its main effect is active in single target situations, and present on some mobs in AoE situations, making it 10% damage per stack would be a nice buff.
Maybe EB might be an option for trash to debuff. Most of the time I spam encounter like AoH+FB+PoP on trash mixed with Dailies, hard to get an AT Will working in that short period, only exception maybe FBI trash. I do not think that spamming an AT Will 3-4 times to get a buff or proc in the end will help my performance, it just takes too long. If this should be from interest I need an immidiate debuff/buff followed by encounter like above, FoE might be an option like that I also don´t think anyone will restart a WE-rework for the sake of more multiprocs for this class, so we have to stick with Vorp/Fey/Dread.
@balanced#2849 The class misses aoe and focus damage. If achieved by better debuffs or selfbuffs or by raising basedamage or buffing capstone, i don´t care that much if only the result leads to a better performance as striker.
Templock needs more utility to fit his leader role. Atm the tree is miles away to be a striker or be a leader. Either he slows down the party by poor dps, or poor debuffs/buffs and got no effective mitigation buffs except some poor damagedebuffs, useless tbh. I really would focus on stuff like powerbuffs as mentioned allready, Dark revelry as a tier4 powerbuff: 20% from your basepower towards allies/companions. Same as I would focus on some debuff options, like Darkness becoming a lasting or spreading aoe-debuff using necrotic damage (any) for 10%. As a counterpart for a buff in fury tree from Morderous flames towards firepower 15%. Maybe Templock will get out of hand/overbuffed a bit compared to the other trees, finetuning needed by sure.
That´s actual chat, that´s actual state of the game, and there is not one exception, all like this: [Pve_Dungeon] LF2M Tong need DC DO and OP 15,5k+ [Pve_Dungeon] lfg tong cw mof/rene 14k+ [Pve_Dungeon] LF4M ToNG, x2 DC, OP, GF 15k exp [Tong_14k] Last boss 1 gwf 16k+ ! [Tong_14k] LF2M TONG need 2 DC 15k+ exp/equip [Pve_Dungeon] lf2m ac/dc+hdps tong pm [Pve_Dungeon] lf3m TONG, need ACDC // DODC // DPS
I think alot (not all) of the Aoe problems could be solved by simply increasing the dmg of encounter powers and reverting Tyrannical curse back to Tyrannical threat. Also mentioned earlier increasing self buffs and party buffs such as the way soul bonding will work in the future and dark revelry as well. We will need more buffs to go ahead. PoP shouldve gotten a base increase as well as hellish rebuke and given a longer duration, I dont mind the Potnh change but let not act like PoP critting is some major game changing deal as far as our dps are concerned. also since hallowed ground works like PoP just with a larger radius, why not give PoP the same radius or AOE as hallowed for DC. I think somone metioon that as well. That way, you wouldnt even have to worry about the 5 sec timer for the group and in raids everybody gets the buff? that was just an idea dont look at me like that ...
So far, I think the proposed changes will help Sw more than hurt us, and its a step in right direction, but like @rjc9000 said, You should take it a bit further and make it a full SW rework.
Comments
Finally there's player input. There are many other options available to you that help increase the survivability of your soul puppet, from companions to artifacts.
Besides answering this post, the reason I'm bringing this up is because if you look at the setup of the Damnation tree from an objective standpoint it seems that all the tools Damnation really needs setup up are already in the game - the problem is that the puppet (the focus of those abilities) is severely underperforming. The devs need to take note of this.
PS - Don't bash on powers like Hadar's Grasp. It's one of the few multiproc powers SWs have left (when used with Warlock's Curse). Cooldown is not really an issue because of the current meta - unless they plan on nerfing OPs/DCs, the casting/animation time on SW powers is a much more serious issue than the cooldowns.
I would suggest just turning this into a full blown "full SW rework" event.
I know that the intention of this thread was to announce some small tweaks to SW, noting that it was not intended to be a full rework.
However, given the large volume of hopeful feedback and the rather... pitiful... state SW is in, I think the dev teams could finally make SW not suck again and address the core SW issues (the primary issue of which is, I believe, "being a slow to set up DoT class in a burst damage metagame").
-let creeping death deal half of CD damage on the first tick (so 50% of 75%)
-this first tick will proc this kind of weapon.
Thus It could make weapon base damage weapons somewhat viable because they would proc twice on most of the powers, and it would give a burst effect to CD (if creeping death is not changed to a self-buff capstone).
Lesser curse:
When you run ACT, you can see the damage dealt by lesser curse is VERY small and pityful.
suggestion: there should be a mini damage link between tab-cursed targets and targets affected by lesser curses. Or buff/scale the the damage dealt by lesser curse, at least by 30%.
Make the stacks from Flames of Empowerment work as a self-buff that stacks every time you use an at-will. Instead of having to stack the debuffs on every individual enemy, which in AoE situations is hopeless without any decent AoE at-will, this would significantly improve at least AoE.
Would also like to state that @werdandi#8366 has an important point in the post above. Lesser curses deals very little damage compared to being a class mechanic. I know the lesser curses are probably mostly intended as an curse synergy option, but having an entire class feature and a feat focusing around the lesser curses themselves it would make more sense if they actually did damage. All-Consuming Curse increases their damage and Scornful Curse feat increases their damage. These damage increases are quite useless when overall damage from lesser curses drop below 1% of the damage. Actually they only contributed to 0.33% of the damage in my last ACT log.
Second thing about lesser curse is, do they proc creeping death? They are not dailies, at-wills nor encounters per say, they are a class mechanic. If they are not proccing it now, tweaking it so they will would be a nice help along with some damage increase to their damage output.
But, like the CW's ones, they are a great addition and worth equipping a Flail Snail.
Problem is : right now, they are too weak.
- Brood of Hadar is more control oriented and damage is nice, nothing to change here
- Flames of Phlegetos are ok but not handy. You can cancel it too easily (like Harrowstorm or the Tab)
- Accursed Souls is nice for burst but damage is too small. Should be doubled and healing part halved
- Tyrannical Curse is too slow and only works on big targets in aoe
- Gates of Hell is too slow
- Immolation Spirits are nice for me, nothing to change here
SW has always been a class that didn't have to buff itself but dealt a gazillion of little damages from dots or linked damages.This is why i love this class. If someday it had to buff himself, i'd prefer to play GF / GWF or just my CW.
Problem is : they basically killed those two aspects of the class when they nerfed Tyrannical Threat into Tyrannical Curse.
As it is now, the spell is too slow and except in some situations when you face only big mobs (FBI / MSVA), you don't have time to cast it and then deal all the damage you want.
For me, this daily was as much part of the SW identity as the Tab which means they killed the character by nerfing this spell (even if the buff of Creeping Death is a really nice step in this way).
So, after reading all of the feedback posted here, here are my suggestions :
- Revert Tyrannical Curse into Tyrannical Threat (yes, let me dream
) with all the effets it had before (20% bonus damage, impossible to be placed alongside the Warlock's Curse and prevents you from getting Brutal Curse buff) this way, it will be a super strong aoe daily but useless in single target.
- If you don't want to give us Tyrannical Threat back, allow Tyrannical Curse to give 100% AP if the target dies within 3 seconds after casting it and halve Tyrannical Curse cast time.
- Double the damage of Accursed Souls and halve its healing component
- Reduce Gates of Hell cast time to 1.1 seconds (as an Oppressive Force)
- If it is someway possible, make Gates of Hell a targetable area (as an Arcane Singularity) which will really take the mobs to the hell and so knocking them down.
- Change every Curse consume effect to a Curse Synergy
- Make Warlock's Curse, Harrowstorm and Flames of Phlegetos less likely to be interrupted just by casting other spells
- Make Murderous Flames able to work with any fire damaging power but dealing only 20% of the damage and change Gates of Hell and Hellish Rebuke to necrotic damage (it would be completely op otherwise).
- Rework Parting Blasphemy to deal damage when a Curse Synergy is activated
- Rework Deadly curse to apply a dot when you apply a Curse on a target (any of them)
I know i ask lots if things here and nearly none will be selected for mod 13 but think about it, even if it is for mod 13.5 or even 14.I think we REALLY need this to be competitive in aoe !
Thank you for reading !
As a class mechanic, it is a shame.
Boosting its damage or change its effect could help us in AoE situations.
@rjc9000, in my posts here I already wrote that for sw need revise core mechanics. For fury case I wrote that creeping death need to be changed.
Also in warlocks forum I mentioned that warlock need more selfbuffing elements. All because
1) debuffs/selfbuffs
debuff - oriented class
Strong side - In fight with 1 or 2 targets or boss in generally such classes perform well. Thats apply in any other mmorpg games.
Weakness - in fight with multiple targets, or quick fights/wiping trashes, you have to apply/build up debuffs so you could deal you best damage.. But thats require time.
Selfbuffing
Either single target or multi target fight case, long or quick whatever. YOu hit, build up/stack selfbuff and extend/boost own damage. Thats mean you have same high damage regardless if you engage new or old target..
And Neverwinter is in favor for selfbuffs..
2) burst/DoT
Dot - damage over time,
Strong side - for single or couple tough foes or boss fight case, you deal damage regardless if you moving/dodging or not..
Weakness - Damage over time means you need time. In quick fights = you always will lag behind. In any my known mmorpg games, DoT based class never beat burst/splash based classes in quick fights..
ANd major problem - you need apply/build up stacks with each new target you engage in fight....
And now neverwinter warlock contain both, DoT + debuff as main source of damage.. Even if devs provide 40% base damage increase, it will not help to compete against other classes. BEcause in quick fights dot and selfbuffs are not viable. When you build up main debuffs = enemies already standing with ~2% HP.
Same goes with DoT - you apply them, but before they deal sufficient damage, targets/foes already are dead..
And now also apply one major factor.. Weapon enchantments -(lightning enchantment example) You deal an additional 44% of weapon damage as Lightning damage with your powers.
So debuffing and DoT based class have 0 benefits.. Because selfbuffing boost up own stats/values and thus increasing dealt damage by enchantments.
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
==================================================
My suggestion was that the capstone would make investiture stacks permanent and increase the cap on them. I was thinking maybe ten, or maybe more, don't know how much would be necessary. Certainly more than 5
It could also go your way, with a very big cap that you could only reach at very long boss fights, but made the puppet contribution close to a gwf at that point. Though I think this would require more work and thought to work fine.
As for making the investiture stacks showing up on your own status bars, I would go even further and make each stack of investiture make the puppet bigger, or darker, or brighter, or all of them, or some visual effect which could be very indicative and really cool at the same time.
Also, make it more teleportable and less stuckable.
Same gwf today FBI. Guess where most of his damage came from. Aura of courage. 21% of his damage, with some hits of about 1m damage.
My warlock has slightly more HP than him, barely reaches 8% of aura of courage damage tops, all the while the overall damage is much lower. Top AoC hit maybe 500k. I was with my paladin this run so I can't directly compare, but I find this interaction that warlocks have with aura of courage somewhat weird. We don't get it to buff or proc as much as other classes. Might be a similar issue of weapon enchants.
Does anyone know the exact mechanic of AoC? It's one hell of a buff we are missing.
The problem, of course, is the casting animation of many of these powers. If Eldritch Blast had a faster casting time it would be a lot more useful on builds that use %weapon damage weapon enchantments.
%weapon damage-focused Weapon Enchantments is really moot point for Fury because it already gets Creeping Death and %damage buffs. Ultimately the tree favors crit (or just flat+%) damage, especially considering how its feats work, and there's nothing really wrong with that since there ARE two other warlock trees that rely on a different setup.
A buff to Lesser Curse damage would certainly be a great thing, however. It's a core SW mechanic that has been "meh" for too long.
The SW is NOT a DoT class (a term that doesn't make sense in a game where virtually everyone has some powerful DoT) and I find it highly doubtful that it matters if the SW actually was a DoT class in a burst damage metagame. So what? If enemies are extremely squishy why does it matter if your name is lower on the damage done bar? Do you think every other non-burst AoE damage class enjoys not having their name on paingiver? But they deal with it because what matters more is average dungeon run time, and average non-epic dungeon completion run time is already crazy stupid.
The problem is that EVEN WHEN enemies aren't squishy the SW lacks the ease with which other striker classes can generate massive damage when ideally it should be one of the higher DPS strikers (especially against a small number of targets) because although it has some neat survivability tools it lacks the tankiness/escape tools of any other striker class except perhaps the CW (which I understand has its own issues atm).
It would be easier to accept the current state of SW survivability if the class actually had the damage to go with it.
Of course this last part is mostly relevant to Fury/Damnation, since apparently Temptation is being converted from striker to leader.
Frankly, this is really more of "pally buffs are stupid powerful" issue than a SW vs GWF issue IMO, since the point is more that AoC is abusable. If they introduce a class that does 20 hits per second, for example, that would the new AoC abuser of the day-class.
Random suggestions would be increasing puppet damage for targets on pillar or maybe making Gates of Hell summon 1/2/3/4/5 extra temporary hellish puppets to aid you in battle. That would be quite cool.
For temptation, you are going to kill the best use of temptation warlock in pvp by changing eldritch momentum. The pvp healing is barely noticeable, so the fast moving you can get in some situations is one of the best ways to help your team. And during combat it is not nearly as defensive as the infinite immunity frame cw's or tr's can get. Giving everyone around 15% stamina when using a daily is really pointless. If it was when using any encounter, then that would be a little more noticeable. I don't even notice when a GWF uses battle fury around me most of the time and that is 25% stamina. But that's on pvp, where warlocks go to die anyway. For PVE it will be even more pointless, and I can see no situation where a warlock would have a hard choice between this and anything else.
If you are set on making it work with dailies, make that instead of its current bonus it adds 4/5/6/7/8% move speed, def chance, def severity and CA Damage (with the same mechanic of the underdark boon) for 4/5/6/7/8 seconds.
Overall GWFs, among other builds like combat hunters, just have really, really high AoC proc rate.
And it's not a question of "may". You should really just try playing a GWF character some time to understand how one works, they're very different from SWs.
Same what you describe happens with TR, 16%+ damage from AoC in a run, warlock 5%.
Since 25% from warlock dps is dealt by CD prccoing from cursed targets, the direct ammount is a bit higher.
I guess it´s like Tyrtallow said, AoC procs far more frequent from At Wills like WMS and on top that damage is buffed obviously.
F.e. Feytouched procs 24% of weapondamage as psychic, if you stand inside Hollowed ground it tells you 35%, if ITF on top even more.
And that damage, like other weapondamage procs also benefit from debuffs. Daring shout 20%+8% mark+ 1xWMS 30% + Student of the Sword 10% + Staying Power 5%.
With one DS and one crit of WMS the GWF debuffs his targets arround himself for 73% in no time. If you slam an IBS inside it get´s high ammounts.
ONly selfdebuffs from warlock, not sharing towards the group, are FoE 3x5 stacks and offhandfeat from NPNM 5%, and 20% TC itself.
"Meh-debuffs" compared and FoE takes it´s time and can only focus dps
PoP 10%, DT 25%, infernal wrath 5%, 40% are shared with the group, from wich only PoP is permanent on the small aoe and DT only up 1/3 at best...
Not compareable with DO-DC´s 55% (+15% if ePoD) on focus target and if you want eDevine Glow combined with ByS and Condemning Gaze up to 42,5% as aoe debuff, guess nothing beats CW in aoe debuff, no clue.
So if someone posts, like I read a lot atm. Warlock 16k+ lfg Tong, dps or heal/buff/debuff... that debuff is a lie to some degree imo.
Really sad anyway, how that class has to prostitute itself to get a step in that dungeon, if someone shows mercy.
Even with the damage bonus increased to 75% Creeping Death there is still the problem it needs way too much time to deal full damage which is one of the reasons fury SW (not that the other specs are good in that regard) underperforms in trash killing and even in boss fights with an endgame group as there just not enough time for our not so good DoT damage to do much vs the dps of other (and better) damage dealers.
Please consider either reducing the number of ticks of CD to 2 or even 1 (less ticks and more damage each so the 75% bonus from CD still holds true) so it actually has time to do something and/or reduce the delay between ticks to 0.1 secs each, this fast and easy to do change would be a significant QoL change that would address to some extent our mediocre aoe dps and would make us better in boss fights as well.
While you are at it, you consider giving Hellish Rebuke and other DoT powers the same treatment, reduce the amount of ticks and make each one more powerful + consider increasing base damage some.
For a rework then you could address:
- Casting times
- Long cooldowns
- Class features: For the love of The Nine Hells, our class features are in most casses those of tanks, they need to be changed completely so they actually give dps bonuses and for those that do already they need to be tweaked so they actually give a proper dps boost. GWF, CW and GF (major/massive raw damage bonus of fighters or great feat-power synergy of the wizard) are examples of what dps class features should be like, SW ones are laughable.
- Damantion feats and puppet are underperforming, feats need huge changes and puppet either a large damage increase or given great synergy with powers and new feats.
- Templock needs much more dps buffing capacity and its heals issue addressed in pvp + a way to heal allies when not in combat, Hati poison and Nostura Rampant Curse are a problem templock is almost completely helpless about when those and other enemies can't be attacked.
That's basically why SWs still usually use a non-scaling enchant, and why they benefit more from ITF type buffs than AoC. ITF is a straight damage buff, while AoC does additional hit for damage, like LM set did, just less stupidly overpowered.
Also, it's just as @jaime4312#3760 says, SWs could potentially do a lot of DPS on bosses because they've got time to set everything up, but in trash fights, against loads of weaker enemies, they just simply don't scale up.
Out of combat healing, maybe you passively get a % of their power every x amount of time? That way it scales well - you get a lot of healing when in combat, and when outside of combat, you can take it slow and relax. And it will still give you plenty of heals directly after combat while you've got the bondings buff. After it goes out, it's up to the SW, and how much power or whatever he has.
But thinking about creeping death, it could have some synergy with curse consume effects. Could be something like instantly dealing one extra tick of all the CD currently on target. Think that might actually turn out to be a little too OP on soulbinder, but I wouldn't mind having to test that on preview.
By the way, is there any changes already on preview?
Rather than that, modify a useless feat that reduces DoT damage for higher initial burst damage.
It doesn't help that a lot of people don't seem to know as much about the SW class as they think, like how many SW powers do actually multi-proc weapon enchantments. Now if only casting them was faster (like if you reduce Eldritch Blast casting time by 1 second) and perhaps had higher base damage/better damage modifiers to go with it.
There should really be more focus on issues like how Lesser Curse, another core SW mechanic, scales badly in current content, broken powers, the fact that warlock animations are long and seem to have trouble "firing off" (ie, you have wait a few seconds after the animation is done for the power to actually fire - this issue becomes more apparent if you "cancel" casting animations using Shadow Slip) and the previously mentioned path-specific problems like how there should be more native +%damage buffs/debuffs to Fury (or to specific low-target high damage powers that Fury favors, like Killing Flames) because in an ideal world Fury should be outdamaging GWFs in longer fights against a low number of targets - it's already nowhere near as survivable as a GWF and even lacks the GWF's AoE.
So you compared SW to CW at multiproccing enchantments
Now an actual decent rework for EB would be increasing its damage some and making it so every single hit has splash damage and decent area of effect, this would make it decent for at least applying Creeping Death. This change would esentially make EB a miny fiery bolt, as for how good that would be, not sure but certainly better than the parody of at will it is now.
Of course cooldowns are a problem, other classes have powers with lower cds and higher damage potential, if you don't see an issue there simply because 2 classes have powers that shorten them then I don't know what to tell you man, perhaps that classes with shorter cooldowns and overal superior dps benefit from Aura of Wisdom/Hastening light as well?
I don't think you are aware of the state SW is in now and perhaps that's the reason you write such posts.
Sure you can run a build made to proc weapondamage... but what will it look like?
EB+HoB+BoVA+HG+xy...ending up nowhere
Hadar grasp might be acceptable, never run a build with Lightning to check. But from what I tested that enchant was underperforming on SW compared to Fey or Vorp.
They exclusively "fixed" most multiprocs on warlock class except the ones I do not use as a dps: BoVA, Harrow Storm (6x), HoB 4x etc, but there is not ons usefull build wich can benefit from those procs as a dps spec so far.
They pretty much invested some time to prevent warlock and DOT´s from overperforming in any way, by that they made the class underpreforming, pointing also at procs from passives, wich synergize very bad with Dot´s and AoE.
As far as I remember they made other classes multiproc those enchants pretty well like WMS from GWF , CW etc.
Discussing the WE on preview, only few classes were heared imo, I followed all along that thread.
But why bothering, I play my DC as Cryptic wants me to do, run 4xbuffer groups till I get that bored, that I make a big giveaway party.
Agree, the powers that multiproc enchantments aren't good enough (quite bad actually) to justify giving up vorpal and dread (and a proper rotation) as it would end up a pretty serious dps loss. I for one raised an eyebrow when saw SW and CW being compared at multiproccing enchantments and even more so when the knowledge of some posters on this thread (like you and Natsu) on SW is very good yet it got questioned, talk about irony.
Waiting for mod 13 until get those changes is rather discouraging. @balanced#2849 any chance PoP able to crit and Creeping Death at 75% damage bonus can get released in mod 12b? Us console players will have to wait a good 5 months or so to get those tweaks and that's quite an excessive amount of time considering we will be underperforming even further due to OBC cooldown.
Do you know that the point of proc enchantments is quantity over quality, because these scale with weapon damage and straight up +%damage buffs and debuffs (and not by much, unless you have a ton of them like a GWF) so the actual DPS of the skill doesn't matter? Why did you conveniently fail to mention that those multiproc CW powers you are referring to often have poor DPS themselves? Why are you bringing up the DAMAGE of Eldritch Blast, a CASTER at-will - that means an at-will that supposed to play a supportive role as compared to a warrior at-will like a GWF's which is a primary damage source - in an argument about multiprocs?
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you simply don't know these things, because the alternative is that you are basically proposing a self-defeating stupid argument.
For obvious reasons, a faster Eldritch Blast cast time would be a better solution. A damage boost would be nice, but that's beside the point and I've already mentioned it, regardless. You might want to read better next time if you missed that part.
And FYI, Eldritch Blast's animation is a little over 2 seconds so a 1 second reduction (like I suggested) is pretty significant. You might want to think about what that means, not just for multiprocs but for core mechanics like Flames of Empowerment and Soul Spark generation.
As for cooldowns, do you know that the higher the cooldown the higher the effect of %cooldown reduction skills like Aura of Wisdom and stats like recovery? Do you know that all SWs are going to end up with roughly 2k recovery (around10% RSI) just from artifact weapons, whether they want to or not? That's on top of your INT score minus 10, of course. Do you know that the SW's longest CD power is Hadar's Grasp, at around 18 seconds? Do you know that with just a Perfect Lightning Enchant + Melee Hand of Blight spam (and that 2K recovery) and Hadar's Grasp own proc rate (around 14 procs per cast with Warlock's Curse) you can bring its effective cooldown down to around 14 seconds? You can bring that even lower using a full rotation instead of just an at-will, but that's assuming you actually use the power though, since it's Damnlock/PvP power.
I have three different damnlocks and all of them have an effective Hadar's grasp cooldown of around 8 seconds in a group with a cleric and it's even less when it's an endgame cleric + an OP with Aura of Wisdom.
Arguably, in fact, the new meta is so skewed towards cooldown reduction that it's surprising how most DPS players don't just stack power and crit. Oh wait-- THEY DO.
Did you never bother to wonder why this is?
I'm not sure why I have to explain warlock basics to people bold enough to claim that I may not know what I'm talking about, but meh.
As for general damage increase on powers, I already mentioned several times that I feel many warlock encounters deserve it - and LOTS of it. I've even pointed out how Warlock's Curse really needs to stack with Tyrannical Curse in many other threads.
I see no reason why cooldowns need to be reduced when the current meta is going to reduce the impact of such a change and when people already agree that the damage of warlock powers need a boost - and THAT is going to make a much more significant impact given the current meta.
You might want to think about why that is: "Gee, a change which (in part, because of mechanics) gets mitigated by the current meta versus a change which gets amplified by the current meta (because math)."
Which to choose... Tick tock, and the devs have limited resources.
You can imagine that as an SW player myself I'd be all for the option that gives SWs the most gain. The irony here is that I personally don't stack recovery on most of my endgame SW builds, and yet most other SWs I know (including more than a few posters here) have a significant amount of recovery. A cooldown reduction on powers would devalue their extra recovery stat from items.
Oh and at the post above, Harrowstorm has a proc rate of 1, BoVA has a proc rate of around 6 (per target + blade flings for each Warlock's Curse), Hand of Blight is around 9 per full rotation and Hadar's Grasp with Warlock's Curse has around 14.
For obvious reasons this info is not very useful on Fury, a path that favors increasing damage per strike rather than proc rate, so I'm not sure why you seem to be arguing that it should be (what would be point of Creeping Death, then?).
It is, however, relevant for paths like Damnation (which, gimped as the puppet is, is not as particularly dependent on +%damage buffs because of compartmentalized damage sources) and Temptation (which is apparently going a new direction).
I realy like the idea of having Eldritch Blast being an AoE at-will, which SW really needs, both for proccing enchantments and for using Flames of Empowerment in an AoE situation. This would make Flames of Empowerment actually be nice in AoE situations, as proccing 3 stacks on many targets with only single target at-wills takes longer than the mobs survive nowadays.
If not reworking the Eldritch Blast into an AoE, at least devs should consider making Flames of Empowerment stronger than it is now. Its main effect is active in single target situations, and present on some mobs in AoE situations, making it 10% damage per stack would be a nice buff.
I do not think that spamming an AT Will 3-4 times to get a buff or proc in the end will help my performance, it just takes too long. If this should be from interest I need an immidiate debuff/buff followed by encounter like above, FoE might be an option like that
I also don´t think anyone will restart a WE-rework for the sake of more multiprocs for this class, so we have to stick with Vorp/Fey/Dread.
@balanced#2849
The class misses aoe and focus damage. If achieved by better debuffs or selfbuffs or by raising basedamage or buffing capstone, i don´t care that much if only the result leads to a better performance as striker.
Templock needs more utility to fit his leader role. Atm the tree is miles away to be a striker or be a leader. Either he slows down the party by poor dps, or poor debuffs/buffs and got no effective mitigation buffs except some poor damagedebuffs, useless tbh.
I really would focus on stuff like powerbuffs as mentioned allready, Dark revelry as a tier4 powerbuff: 20% from your basepower towards allies/companions.
Same as I would focus on some debuff options, like Darkness becoming a lasting or spreading aoe-debuff using necrotic damage (any) for 10%. As a counterpart for a buff in fury tree from Morderous flames towards firepower 15%.
Maybe Templock will get out of hand/overbuffed a bit compared to the other trees, finetuning needed by sure.
That´s actual chat, that´s actual state of the game, and there is not one exception, all like this:
[Pve_Dungeon] LF2M Tong need DC DO and OP 15,5k+
[Pve_Dungeon] lfg tong cw mof/rene 14k+
[Pve_Dungeon] LF4M ToNG, x2 DC, OP, GF 15k exp
[Tong_14k] Last boss 1 gwf 16k+ !
[Tong_14k] LF2M TONG need 2 DC 15k+ exp/equip
[Pve_Dungeon] lf2m ac/dc+hdps tong pm
[Pve_Dungeon] lf3m TONG, need ACDC // DODC // DPS
So far, I think the proposed changes will help Sw more than hurt us, and its a step in right direction, but like @rjc9000 said, You should take it a bit further and make it a full SW rework.