pyrosorcererMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 137Arc User
Idea for a change to Fiery Bolt: I understand the conflict with people wanting this as their go-to AoE and also the lack of a single target encounter, so why not make it both? The idea was given to me by a friend today that it could work like the old Murderous Flames. What if it keeps its single target property with 700 magnitude (as I think it was during its time as single target spell) if there is only one target, and if there are multiple enemies it has the function as it is now on current patch? A problem with this would obviously be that you can't go all in single target if there are adds next to the boss, but could still work.
Another option is to have lower single target magnitude than 700, and bump Killing Flames magnitude to 400-700 magnitude
Parting Blasphemy: seems to be bugged and does not proc any more.
Risky Investment: does nowork, I can't activate that feat at all.
Soul Investiture: stacks up to five and buffs Wraith Claw but drops to zero after 15 seconds from 5 stacks (Soul desecration chosen or not), a copy paste bug from mod 15 we asked many times to address.
If this stays as now there is no reason to pick Soul Desecration at all. Simply pick Risky Investment (when working) and run Vampiric embrance in your rotation, stack SI up to five-repeat. VE and HG now proc a Puppet, never recognized VE doing so.
Hellfire ring only applies curses on cast Harrowstorm only applies curses on cast Vampiric Embrace healing is almost non existent Hadar's Grasp fails to refresh and stack Soul Investiture Arms of Hadar has a cumulative cooldown Creeping Death does almost no damage Fiery Bolt damage is so low that its only purpose now is putting curses and the using Curse Bite, that means we are forced to use 2 of our 3 encounters together for them to be useful Infernal Spheres damage is so low that is almost useless Does Hellfire Expertise really work? Which powers are considered Fire or Necrotic? It seems to neither increase damage nor increase recharge speed Prince of Hell giving 2500 Armor Penetration is of no use. Soul Defiler effect is almost negligible Vengeful Curse chance is so low that is of no real use
<font color=cyan>Gates of Hell needs a magnitude increase.
Accursed Souls is more than 50% stronger and is PBAoE while Gates of Hell has to be positioned for optimal damage with its activation delay and corridor-shaped danger zone, and its CC keeps mobs prone for maybe a second or so?
This is one of my favorite dailies, but I don’t understand why it’s so much weaker even than many other AoE dailies when we can no longer spam it.</font>
Accursed Souls is more than 50% stronger and is PBAoE while Gates of Hell has to be positioned for optimal damage with its activation delay and corridor-shaped danger zone, and its CC keeps mobs prone for maybe a second or so?
This is one of my favorite dailies, but I don’t understand why it’s so much weaker even than many other AoE dailies when we can no longer spam it.
I never used GoH in mod 15 and before, too slow running content and targets are limited, same as mobs are allready killed when GoH animation is done Actually Accurse Souls is my favourite "aoe trash-daily" -applies Curse, deals solid damage and has a pretty huge aoe same as you can animation cancel that spell even being cc'd it procs.
Tbh I did not try GoH once on preview since it looks sooo sadly underpowered
Does Hellfire Expertise really work? Which powers are considered Fire or Necrotic? It seems to neither increase damage nor increase recharge speed
Hellfire Expertise seems to work on the Recharge bit at least. If you check your Recharge speed on Char sheet as Soulweaver, then look at it on Hellbringer, Recharge Speed increases by the amount in Hellfire Expertise's tooltip. I'd assume that means ALL the powers for Hellbringer are benefitting, but Cryptic has taught me far too many times what assume really means... (and I've really just been too lazy to verify if Hellfire Expertise is working by testing the shared powers between the paragons)
Warlock: Don't want to let you down but I am hell bound. - Imagine Dragons Cleric: You can be an angel of mercy or give in to hate. - Shinedown Wizard: The more the dark consumes me, I pretend I'm burning bright. - Shinedown Barbarian: Am I beautiful... as I tear you to pieces? - In This Moment
Accursed Souls is more than 50% stronger and is PBAoE while Gates of Hell has to be positioned for optimal damage with its activation delay and corridor-shaped danger zone, and its CC keeps mobs prone for maybe a second or so?
This is one of my favorite dailies, but I don’t understand why it’s so much weaker even than many other AoE dailies when we can no longer spam it.
I never used GoH in mod 15 and before, too slow running content and targets are limited, same as mobs are allready killed when GoH animation is done Actually Accurse Souls is my favourite "aoe trash-daily" -applies Curse, deals solid damage and has a pretty huge aoe same as you can animation cancel that spell even being cc'd it procs.
Tbh I did not try GoH once on preview since it looks sooo sadly underpowered
On live I find Accursed Souls to be too weak damage-wise. GoH works wonderfully if you're in a situation where you can anticipate mob spawns or you are the primary source of AoE damage, and it synergizes with the Crown of the Undead since the pull procs on the initial casting, dragging mobs well within the line of fire.. IIRC GoH on live has a very high damage coefficient as well.
The situation is strangely reversed in M16 where Accursed Souls goes from being poor damage for an AoE daily to being the go-to damaging AoE daily.
Just a thought: as we have two "twin" feats (creeping death and executioner gifts) and I read some concern about fiery bolt role/range and curse bite "removing" (not "consuming") curse, why don't kill two birds with a stone and replace the currently bugged feat (CD) with something like: "Devil's bite: Curse bite deals 250 (?) magnitude and no longer siphons away curse from target. Fiery bolt deals full range damage to cursed target" Too strong feat? We trading an average 10% damage buff so not in my eyes
Risky Investment: does nowork, I can't activate that feat at all.
I just checked again and can confirm feat is working now. Try on a naked char with ACC slotted to cast EB-CB-EB-VE-EB-HG-EB-CB and check log from first and last curse bite: difference is 5,something%, while the "something" is buff from sparks gained. If not working for you is probably related to some interaction, so further infos are needed. What's tricky on testing is you need to curse consume x2 to get SIx1 as first consume is needed to summon puppet..
PS. is WAI that HG procs a spark only on crit? Should give a spark on each crit proc?
Just a thought: as we have two "twin" feats (creeping death and executioner gifts) and I read some concern about fiery bolt role/range and curse bite "removing" (not "consuming")
To be clear, consuming is the same thing as removing in this context. Curse Bite does exactly the same thing that "curse consume" powers do, minus some added proc. IOW, you cast the spell and the curse is gone.
Semantics aside, I do hope these curse issues get resolved, because I feel as if we have more tedious curse management now than we did before. I'm actually wishing for old Warlock's Curse on Tab to come back.
As far as I understand, everyone has been simplified, but in order to play your SW, you need a professor's degree?
El sol negro brilla, en la frente de la locura el firmar, Kelemvor tomó mi trono de la muerte, pero soy eterno en la oscuridar... https://www.youtube.com/c/cyric
Just a thought: as we have two "twin" feats (creeping death and executioner gifts) and I read some concern about fiery bolt role/range and curse bite "removing" (not "consuming")
To be clear, consuming is the same thing as removing in this context. Curse Bite does exactly the same thing that "curse consume" powers do, minus some added proc. IOW, you cast the spell and the curse is gone.
Semantics aside, I do hope these curse issues get resolved, because I feel as if we have more tedious curse management now than we did before. I'm actually wishing for old Warlock's Curse on Tab to come back.
Sorry being pedantic: I wrote "removing" instead of "consume" as if so I was expecting curse bite to proc soul investiture, and it's not, because there's no on tooltip.
@noworries#8859 Having been a "champion" of the idea of turning FB into an encounter that spreads LC for earlry/mid/endgame (whether that be unpopular with some endgamers based on their belief of how FB should be because of how they have used it in the past), I'd like to say thank you. This move (admittedly this sentiment is based on the fact you didn't have this change planned already) goes to show that whether or not you respond on this thread, to be evidence that you pay attention to it nonetheless. Furthermore, that despite beliefs that "the devs don't listen", you actually did and went on to implement the suggestion of a player. I hope that other people commenting in this thread will take notice of that fact. However, I do feel that what D Obferpeck says is correct. Due to the loss of the Curse Synergy damage in AoE, FB could do with a slight magnitude buff. Nothing huge, perhaps 40 magnitude (making it a round 200 to all nearby). FB has a relatively short cooldown, so for a magnitude increase I could easily make do with a slight increase in CD time to compensate (especially bearing in mind my next point regarding Soul Scorch).
Now, to follow that up. As you previously mentioned, Soul Spark buff was reduced to 0.15% per spark from 0.25%. Now that may have some Warlocks up in arms. However the buff to Warlock's Curse (up to 10% from 5%) nicely counteracts this. Okay, we have an overall buff increase of 2% flat damage (not huge) but still noticeable. I'd say that it was a fair trade off, which will further increase players desire to use Soul Scorch to reduce encounter cooldowns via Soul Spark Recovery. I believe this may have been the intention all along. Soul Scorch will be more of a cooldown effect in endgame than a damaging one. Bearing in mind recharge speed is limited in this mod, that should be welcome.
As for the switching aorund of the feats, I haven't played with those yet. I believe @ramesh84 has highlighted a possible way forward. Once I get stuck into using them, I'll give feedback based on possible limitations.
I previously mentioned that the trouble with our class at the moment is being able to find the same rotation ability of say a "pure dps" class. I outlined two possible ways of generating AoE rotations (which would mean less punishment for either choice in keeping with the devs intentions). However nothing has yet been proposed for such utility with single target HB damage. I appreciate the buffs to both Killing Flames and to Executioner's Gift, these both work intuitively to increasing our single target damage. However, I still see our single target damage being limited to Brood of Hadar, Hadar's Grasp and Killing Flames. In keeping with the devs wishes (where there shouldn't be wrong choices or trap feats) I'd recommend some of the lesser used powers (Dreadtheft, Infernal Spheres, Flames of Phlegothos) to be turned into harder hitting single target encounters. they would be able to offer manouevurability whilst putting out single target damage. Can anyone think of a reasonable trade off to make this happen, or ideas of how we could turn these powers (or a similarly lacklustre power into a good single target, thus providing options?). Long story short, we need options within a single paragon or else we end up with the "BiS power/feat/ability/rotation" that you are directly trying to avoid.
Some people have mentioned a clunkiness between CB and other encounters in order to maximise this synergy. This isn't an issue with powers though. It actually falls down to the responsiveness of the curse function. No matter what encounter/at will you lay LC with, there seems to be a delay of 1 second. This curse ability needs to respond faster. We're already thinking (in action) the best way to maximise curse synergy. Adding unnecessary time to this is flawed and works against us, as we have to guarantee that curse is placed in order to make sure we hit as hard as we can. Cursing outright needs to be smoother if that is the key to our true dps abilities. No-one wants it to be mindless, but we don't want to have to sacrifice hit points just to look to see if we have successfully landed a curse or not.
Arm's of Hadar seems to be another problematic power. It is weak on single target. In AoE, it has such a limited arc and cast time that it just isn't worth it. As mentioned before, even a small increase in arc would expand our rotation ability.
I understand that the dev's job at this time is hard, there is still so much to fix, bugs to be addressed before any kind of solid definitive feedback can be given. Therefore I never demand that we and our class issues are inherently above another's, nor make comparisons between classes. I just feel that a once a week: "no that isn't happening" or a "this could be possible with an exchange for x versus y" might be useful for the group in terms of feedback.
Personally, in terms of this patch for preview I feel we have taken a second step in the right direction from week 1. Thank you for monitoring this thread and paying attention to it's feedback
What STILL needs to be discussed is our class features, along with many other classes features; however, we must take one issue at a time and so I will focus my attention on my main class and Hellbringer specifically.
I apologize for the longer post and I hope I do not sway away too many the weary forum travelers, however, I find it is often important to be meticulous in situations such as this and given that I enjoy this game a great deal, I fear that as we come upon a new era in Neverwinter (Cue winter is coming GoT Season 8 Hype) jokes aside, this is something that needs to be scrutinized heavily. I have been a gamer for most of my life. Spending time with friends, guild mates, and even with random folks while being thrust into strange adventures can be an amazing experience; however, I am also passionate about performing at the top-end of any game I have participated in. From engaging competitively to sport the title of biggest nerd for World-First Raid completions to fighting way too seriously against other grown adults (or kids) in heavily organized Arena Player-to-Player matches. From quickly rinsing sweaty hands while needlessly Speed-Running Platformers, dodging inanimate rocks nonsensically in Hardcore Deathless Modes, and First Phasing Orcus in early Tong; I have played many of the main game titles that have crossed the industry since I was entranced by the discovery of my "addiction".
I say this information not out of hubris, but to give a brief understanding of my mindset and mentality in gaming. I certainly strive to be the best, I hope everyone does (Gaming or in Life); however, there is a lot to learn and I am quite open to others who are as heavily engaged in min/maxing as I am. It is currently no secret that First Phasing Orcus on Live is not a challenge. This can easily be accomplished while having a cleric as the main damage dealer as long as you have good buffers (Just about anyone can with the right buff group). Regardless, I say this information only to inform you and introduce myself. You of course, are the ultimate decider in judging my capabilities and character as a player.
With that being said, something is seriously wrong with the balance and impact of our available class features and it needs to be addressed quite immediately. Luckily it's the PTR...so uh, we're in luck? Let’s just get started.
As a quick forefront, in a general sense, abilities typically have three forms of criteria in terms of power. These three criteria come together to form a "Trinity" of sorts that helps to keep a check and balance across abilities. The criteria are as follows:
Any given ability should have a blend between these three criteria in a way so that its particular function is not overtly unbalanced or skewed in usefulness when compared to other abilities. This would mean that if an ability gives Offensive Potential while providing Utility, its Defensive Potential should be somewhat lacking in order to compensate. Likewise, if an ability is meant to be defensive while still providing some utility, it should not be too offensive in order to maintain balance. Lastly, if an ability is dedicating its power purely into one particular aspect of the criteria (IE, focusing on offensive or defensive or utility) then the resulting ability should have limited power into either of the other two roles of potentials available.
The following posts are a continuation of Slayertrg's Warlock Compilation. After attempting to edit posts due to formatting errors, forum problems have caused his account to lock out. He would like to keep the Compilation together and so I volunteered to share his posts.
Now, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the initial class feature for Warlocks (Formally known as Scourge Warlocks, R.I.P), WITHOUT taking into consideration any other abilities. What I mean by this is as such:
Let's assume we are diving into the class for the first time and we start by reading this ability. We are also given the knowledge that we are allowed to have TWO (2) of the possible Eight (8) Class Features to be active and benefiting us in-game at any given time.
1. "Shadow Walk - Increase your Run Speed by 10%, Deflection by 2500, and Critical Strike by 2500"
OK, now let’s take our Formula and break this down, if we look at what we are provided it looks something like this:
This feature seems to be a very balanced blend of all three branches, Offensive, Defensive, and Utility. Neither branch in the trinity is focused on and as this is the baseline ability for us to compare others to, all things considered, this is not a bad looking feature. I do, however, have a qualm with the flat stat increases. This is something I have seen in a lot of cases on the PTR such as Mount Insignia Bonuses no longer scaling by % Power. These flat stat increases are extremely bland, have poor scaling, and should be fixed quite abruptly before long-term problems begin to develop; but we will get into that briefly. This feature would also appear to fit into a category of abilities known as a "Jack-of-all-Trades". Such an ability is one that offers light potential in all categories of combat without purely focusing on a specific aspect. This allows the user to gain a decent competence in a general sense, but never excelling at any particular role.
Keeping Shadow Walk's perks in mind with regards to the trinity of balance (offensive/defensive/utility) we now have a good baseline for our class features and how their potential may be evaluated depending on whether or not they will focus on a particular aspect of the trinity or perhaps a combination of the three such as Shadow Walk.
For this next part, I will be breaking down each feature briefly. I will be spending a considerable amount of time on ones that are, and I mean this in the most dead-pan, serious sense that I can possibly and conceivably express to any and all who read this, absolutely WORTHLESS features at the moment. I am going to try and format this section similar to Shadow Walk's distribution with an added section for some possible (Very Rough) ideas for fixes to Class Features in dire need of updates.
So without further ado, let’s try to get this through quickly and thank you for staying with me so far!
2. "Dark One's Blessing - Whenever a target affected by your Lesser Curse dies you generate a Soul Spark and heal for 1% of your Maximum Hit points"
Soul Spark on Kill (A very light blend of Utility/Defense/Offense) Heal for 1% of Max Hit Points on Kill (Defense) This feature is quite a niche feature that relies on killing enemies to help you gain Soul Sparks to use on various aspects of combat while providing what should be some heals; however, the healing portion of this feature is clunky and dull in reality, providing its heal only after you have defeated the enemy as well as generally being at the end of combat when healing potions, out-of-combat regeneration, ally heals, etc., already make this point mute. While I think that the Soul Spark generation is useful, I feel the heal can still be helpful and provide a unique game play design if done tastefully.
Proposed Change to Healing Portion of Dark One's Blessing: The souls of the fallen are siphoned with your dark arts, when a target affected by lesser curse dies, gain a stack of Life Essence, regenerating .5% of your maximum life per second for each stack active, lasts 10 sec. (Max 10 stacks). This option allows for a light regeneration (5% of your Max hp/s at max proposed stacks, 10 sec Duration) that can help sustain you into the next group of mobs. This class feature then becomes meaningful enough, even after you have cleared your mobs by providing extra strength and incentive into your next fight; so long as you continue to push through. (The Scaling of the Heal and Duration is Debatable, Should Stacks Refresh?)
3. "Dark Prayers - When your Hit Points are below 30% you gain 2500 defense"
While below 30% hit points gain 2500 defense (Defense)
I am unsure if have to say much as to why the scaling of this ability is terrible, especially with regards to its required conditions, low stats given, and extremely low potential compared to just Shadow Walk alone; however, it is the PTR and this portion of the ability can be easily solved so we can mostly ignore the numbers presented and move on. Regardless, this does bring me to a point about flat stats in general.
FLAT STAT INCREASES SHOULD NOT BE IN CLASS FEATURES...PERIOD.
We are now in a stage of Neverwinter in which many stats across the board are beginning to reach an upwards of Forty-Thousand (40,000). A few of just the offensive stats included in these bloated numbers are Critical Strike/Armor Penetration/Accuraccy/Etc. Some stats such as power can even far exceed these numbers, drastically deflating the significance of these additive stats. I cannot stress this enough, flat stat increases are boring, dull, do nothing for gameplay, and most certainly should not count as class-themed features. We already have stats on top of stats with Armor Kits, Enchants, Insignia, Equipment, Companions, etc...the list literally goes on, do not, PLEASE, DO NOT, give us stats in these sections. It is not hard to give meaningful features, even simple ones that can improve gameplay without giving a flat boring increase unrelated to our own classes.
On my Warlock in the PTR, without focusing on defense and fully end-game geared at level 80, I am sitting pretty at around Twenty-One Thousand (21,000) Defense; not completely optimized, but you get the picture. Meaning if I drop below 30% health, I will now have Twenty-Three Thousand and Five Hundred (23,500) Defense, hardly a change worth bragging about; watch out bosses here I come! A band-aid fix to this feature in its current state is to unimaginatively increase the amount of raw defense stat it gives dramatically. This, however, does not prevent it from remaining a boring feature that does not affect gameplay thematically.
Proposed Change to Dark Prayers: Your own Suffering Fuels your Thirst for Power, when dropped below 30% health, gain 10% Lifesteal chance for 10 seconds (May occur once every 60 Seconds). This change is simple while still providing a good interaction and serving the purpose of the slotted ability's potential. It also is a neat addition and Warlock-Themed, especially considering the removal of life steal from most aspects of gameplay. (Duration, Cool-Down, and Life steal chance/Severity % Debatable)
4. "All-Consuming Curse - At-will powers now apply Lesser Curse to enemies hit"
Lesser Curse Applied on At-will use (Jack-of-all-Trades)
So here we have another "Jack-of-all-Trades" style of a feature as having lesser curse on targets is a core portion of class mechanics because of its synergy with various encounters. I've gone back and forth on whether this should just be baked into the baseline abilities of warlocks, but while reviewing all of our mechanics and features I feel I have a decent solution to creating some identity as well as a unique style of applying lesser curse. This reigns especially true as long as fiery bolt remains able to apply curses (still needs more damage than 160 magnitude). With that change, curse application shouldn't be too hard along with Hellfire Ring providing a majority of said applications once the ability has been acquired at level 77. This feature can then be used to its full potential and provide a different gameplay option for curse application and function to those who wish to mix it up a bit instead of being almost mandatory to have for curse application.
Proposed Change to All-Consuming Curse: Whenever you consume a Lesser Curse on an enemy their soul corrupts and shatters, dealing 50 necrotic damage to surrounding allies within 15' while spreading lesser curse to those effected. (Damage, Area of Effect for Radius Debatable).
This change gives lesser curse interaction a more uniquely satisfying experience and spreading the corruption feels much more thematic as a Warlock than holding down my left click to make sure enemies are cursed before proceeding to use my encounters.
5. "Deadly Curse - Your Lesser Curse deals 25 magnitude damage whenever it is applied to an enemy"
25 Magnitude Damage on Lesser Curse Application (Purely Offensive)
Yet another curse related feature and so I decided to match them side by side. I don't necessarily have too many problems with the concept of this feature; however, its damage at 25 magnitude doesn't seem to scale well in practice at the moment. I also still feel its thematic as a "Deadly" curse can be slightly improved so to reflect its potency and impact.
Proposed "Addition" to Deadly Curse: Targets effected by Lesser Curse take 2% more damage from all sources. (Damage % Increase Debatable)
6. "No Pity, No Mercy - Your Hellish Rebuke no longer deals Damage over Time . Instead the damage of the initial hit and the damage dealt back to the attacks affected by Hellish Rebuke are increased by 25% and 2 Soul Sparks are generated on each hit Critical hits now grant you combat advantage"
No DoT Component/25% increased Damage Hellish Rebuke Initial and Reactive Damage (Offensive/Penalty) 2 Soul Spark Generation on Hit (Light Jack-of-all-Trades) Combat Advantage on Crit (Offensive/Utility)
The biggest functional problem I have with this feature along with any other feature that fits under this category of abilities is how narrow their "conditional" requirements are. This feature, much like on live, does not allow for any alternative gameplay. If this feature is slotted, hellish rebuke is slotted; end of story. This is a fundamental problem that goes against the core concept of D&D and class building, especially when in-game mechanics already offer a multitude of options that serve to diversify builds with your choice of encounters/features/insignia/enchants to carve your own build, a class-feature that limits your available abilities you can use only hinders an experience.
Proposed Change to No Pity, No Mercy - Your unwavering discipline and cruelty provides savage returns, critical hits now have a 10% chance to generate 1 soul spark. Critical hits now grant you combat advantage.
It seems evident that Warlocks are forever bound to critical strike with critical severity increases even after the reduction of maximum critical strike being driven down to 50%. With this in mind, I feel such a change enhances this particular style of combat while still providing a more diverse option for building a character. (% Chance to Generate Soul Spark on Critical Hit, Number of Soul Sparks Generated Debatable).
7. "Flames of Empowerment - When you attack a target with you At-Will powers, they are affected by Flames of Empowerment for 10 seconds. Flames of Empowerment Increases your damage against the target by 1% and stacks 3 times"
Increased Damage Against Target by 1% per stack; max 3 stacks. (Purely Offensive)
This ability has potential to be a simple and neat way to increase our overall power; however, because you must apply the stacks to a target along with each additional target causing more headaches, the ability begins to fall short of expectations. Add in the extra effect of it being a target specific debuff rather than the all-important self-buff and good luck getting people enjoying having it on their bars.
Proposed Change to Flames of Empowerment -Ignites your attacks in eldritch flame, casting three fire-based spells consecutively causes you to erupt in a hellish visage, increasing fire damage dealt by 5% for 10 seconds.
This change allows the player to have more meaningful dictation over their rotation and provides a strong buff to those that like to combo abilities or seek a truly hellish style of Warlock.
(Damage increase %, Duration, Mechanism Activation Debatable, What other ways besides three fire-based spells consecutively?)
This post is the climactic ending for Slayertrg’s (AKA Grim, Yes GrimWrath) Warlock Posting Compilation Saga. If cryptic is reading and has made it this far, give me astral diamonds… also, please excuse me for how many requests have been made to edit these posts. You may ignore such requests. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the Finale to this ordeal. 8. "Dust to Dust - Your damage dealt is increased by 5%"
Damage Dealt Increased by 5% (Purely Offensive)
Where to start with this one? I mean, it is a flat percent increase instead of a raw stat so it does have that going for it. It's unfortunately boring and bland though, a decent increase in damage, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't have any Warlock feel added to it. I think this one can be fixed very easily while still providing its basic function.
Proposed Changes to Dust to Dust - Bargain Your Own Soul For More Power to Your Dark Patrons. Doubles the damage bonus provided by Soul Sparks and Maximum Soul Sparks are increased from 30 to 40 (That's enough Soul Sparks for a little over one extra minimum damage Soul Scorch currently on the PTR, it costs 6 to 18, damage scales proportionately).
Currently on the PTR, each Soul Spark provides .15% damage increase, or a 4.5% total damage increase at the maximum stacks of 30. It is, however far more likely that your Soul Sparks would hover around 10 or so during a normal rotation, sometimes less and sometimes more depending on Soul Scorch usage and Soul Spark generating mechanics, drastically changing how effective this damage increase is in true practice. Some of my proposed changes would increase Soul Spark generation slightly helping to shape out the rotation and with the added changes doubling the damage bonus provided by Soul Spark along with the proposed maximum Soul Spark increase to 40, the total new maximum increase would be 12% damage.
.3% (New Damage Buff Provided by each Soul Spark) 40 (New Maximum Soul Spark) .3 X 40= 12% Total Damage Increase
It must be understood; however, that this is not simply a flat 12% damage increase. Instead, over the course of any particular fight, you will have momentum shifts and opportunities for large damage increases, but you may also perform poorly and therefore remain at a low Soul Spark count (Having 10 is equivalent to a 3% damage increase, much worse than before if you are low on Soul Sparks) and thus hindering your performance. It is also important to understand that when comparing how high this 12% increase is, we must take into account that the current iteration in the PTR still gives 4.5% damage on top of the 5% flat given by Dust to Dust. What this DOES mean is that your new potential damage has the possibility of being slightly higher than the combined total of Dust to Dust and maximum Soul Spark benefit, but only in the right situations.
Example 1: Current PTR Iteration of Dust to Dust: 5% Flat buff + .15% Damage increase per Spark with Maximum Sparks set to 30= 9.5% Damage Increase Total Possible Damage Increase 9.5%
Pros: More Reliable Con: Boring, Lame, Trash, Button Smasher, Who cares, Meaningless Increase
Example 2: Proposed changes for Dust to Dust Doubling effectiveness of Damage per Spark and Maximum Sparks set to 40=12% Total Possible Damage Increase 12%
Pros: Impactful Gameplay, More Flexibility, Thematically Pleasing, All the Cool Kids are Doing it, Feels Smooth, Defined Rotation Con: Not as Reliable, Possibility of Dropping below 6.5% flat Current Iteration provides during normal rotation if Sparks reach below 21/40. (.3 X 21=6.3%) I will explain briefly below.
Average Soul Sparks during Rotation in PTR = 10 10 Soul Sparks at .15% damage increase = 1.5% average damage increase provided by Soul Sparks on current PTR Current Dust to Dust = 5% increase flat 1.5+5 = 6.5% Average Damage increase
OK! THATS IT! THATS ALL I GOT FOR NOW....WHEW!
Hard to believe right? Hopefully you guys and gals didn't have as much pain reading it as I felt while writing parts of it. Overall, I am immensely excited for a lot of the new changes coming to Neverwinter in Mod 16, but we have to make sure to keep a positive outlook and have keep our eyes peeled for any way we can to help our developers in the game that we enjoy. I am 100% full-for any suggestions, changes, criticisms and so forth anyone has to the information I have provided in this post. I look forward to generating real thoughts and ideas about these kinds of game defining parts we get a role in helping to shape! I hope everyone is having a great night and lets all make mod 16 great!
P.S I apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors made, I attempted to check for most, but I may have missed much in my exhausted state.
P.P.S Something I wanted to add, but got lost within edits is about abilities and an outlook on them as a whole. It shouldn't be easy to say no to an ability. Each of them have their own unique benefit that is equal in its own way when compared to other abilities and this important when creating build diversity and opportunity for game growth.
I did notice the change to FB as was discussed in the thread.
I did also suggest a set of powers a few days ago to deal with the problems as I’ve seen them reported or experienced.
Shared: Killing Flames (single target) Vampiric Embrace (single target, heal) Arms of Hadar (AoE - fix targeting using Daring Shout, or Frontline Surge's targeting so it finally mostly works) Hadar's Grasp (single target) Curse Bite (AoE)
This array gives the heal spec some solid dps and synergy for solo play, and also solves some of the problems the class experiences in the low end of the game dealing with groups.
Paragon: Firey Bolt (Single Target) Blades of Vanquished Armies (AoE, Buff) Dreadtheft (make it a single target power that spreads curse to other targets hit, and buff its damage.) New Power: Hunger of Hadar (AoE, Zone, Added Effect: Slow, Summon Soul Puppet) Hellfire Ring (AoE, Zone, DoT)
Hunger of Hadar is a 3rd level spell in the 5E PHB that is available to Warlocks.
This array gives the DPS 5 single target options and 5 AoE options.
Clearly if FB stays AoE, then we need a new single target power to replace it in this list instead of the Hungar of Hadar suggestion (which would be Firey Bolt (AoE)).
Post edited by obsidiancran3 on
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I haven't done much testing on my HB yet, but the initial pass felt good on AoE and Single Target. I'd very much like to see Infernal Spheres replaced with a new Single Target now (ie the restructure in my last post but with "New Power" being single target).
It seems Parting Blasphemy is not procing or is not showing in the log.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@noworries#8859 I tried every power yesterday, and I discovered many interesting things and bugs. I put a table with all the details at the bottom of this post.
First of all: in many powers the real magnitude does not match with the one described in the tooltip. Obviously I can't know if it is a tooltip error or the other way around, but I’ll just assume the tooltip is the right one.
The Hand of Blight (melee and ranged) works in a strange way: The first hit cause 35(melee 25) magnitude, second hit 25(melee 15), third hit 35(melee 20), forth hit 30(melee 30), and then start again from the first hit. -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------ Second: many powers do not count magnitude in the same way, for example: Dreadtheft: 350 magnitude representing the total damage it will do on a single target. Blades of Vanquished Armies: 18 magnitude per blade, the damage it inflicts in a single hit on a single target.
Personally I find the first example much more comfortable, therefore with the total damage it will do all the time. In the case of Blades of Vanquished Armies I’d rather see it as 198 magnitude instead of 18 per blade. In the table I reported this under the "My Magnitude" column.
Chosing Risky Investment leads to Executioners GIft beeing greyed out, you can´t take that feat only Creeping Death is viable, same as SoulDesecration stays active. You now can activate both RI+SD at once, looks bugged
I want to point again at the fact, that if Deadly Curse and ACC slotted, you equalize or even out-dps the usage of FoE+ACC on a singel target. ACC applies LC on At Will use and you buff your damage more by proccing high numbers of LC (with 25mag from DC), than slotting a feature that actually is doing more than it should (buffs for 10% on 10 stacks), wich in my opinion is a reasonable number for a feat that has to be reapplied and runs of quickly. ACC is obligatory in any setup on singel targets (and also running content), except you ignore every power that does Curse Consume like Vampiric Embrance and Cursed Bites and HG. The class feature ACC and Deadly Curse needs a rework somehow and I do think warlocks need the ability to apply LC on AT will use.
Something else I have noticed is the Wraith Claw doesn’t use your Armour Pen etc., so even if you are getting 100% Damage the Wraith Claw rarely does (or perhaps never does). This makes it undesirable as well.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@noworries#8859 I tried every power yesterday, and I discovered many interesting things and bugs. I put a table with all the details at the bottom of this post.
First of all: in many powers the real magnitude does not match with the one described in the tooltip. Obviously I can't know if it is a tooltip error or the other way around, but I’ll just assume the tooltip is the right one.
The Hand of Blight (melee and ranged) works in a strange way: The first hit cause 35(melee 25) magnitude, second hit 25(melee 15), third hit 35(melee 20), forth hit 30(melee 30), and then start again from the first hit. -------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------ Second: many powers do not count magnitude in the same way, for example: Dreadtheft: 350 magnitude representing the total damage it will do on a single target. Blades of Vanquished Armies: 18 magnitude per blade, the damage it inflicts in a single hit on a single target.
Personally I find the first example much more comfortable, therefore with the total damage it will do all the time. In the case of Blades of Vanquished Armies I’d rather see it as 198 magnitude instead of 18 per blade. In the table I reported this under the "My Magnitude" column.
I'm on PS4 and just looking at this chart something seems off. Where is single target powers? please don't say KF with that tiny Magnitude. Second why is the new Hellfire Ring magnitude so close in comparison to BoVA? Yes I've read all 12 pages this far did not see an answer. Saw that FB "had" a higher magnitude as single target but was reverted smh on that one. Revert but keep the magnitude was the correct answer for that.
@geekoxxiii Nice shard, thx for sharing. I think Brood is ment to deal 2200 in the sum 1000 initial hit and 6x200 from Bites, 2200 in the sum. The bats seem to underperform, maybe they deal more in the night
Actual buffs that improve damage are: Warlocks Curse 10%, Execut Gift 10% (average), FoE 10% (single), Sparks 30x0.15=4.5%, 5x5% from stacking Risky Investment on encounter. Plus a higher recharge speed (30%) and encounter reset on top from feats. That´s assumingly the reason why magnitude is lower compared to some other classes.
The reality shows that buffs are inconsistent since: Curse Consum (you first have to "Curse", actually a core-problem) deletes Lesser Curse and deletes Warlocks Curse function for any followup power. Exec. Gift does not impact in terms of Burst damage. Risky Investment runs off after 5 stacks, and takes it´s time to stack. FoE is only viable on single targets. Sparks need to be spend all time. In the sum Selfbuffs are far lower, since your mechanics demand to delete them or they just disappear, same as the class needs to stack them at first to even work. The only flat buff is 5% from DtD, beside that warlock is pretty much naked and needs some time to buff up. I think buffs in the sum look a bit complicated, somehow slow and have suicidal tendencies on top. Not that I dislike a class being challenging. Anyway looking at other classes they have similar numbers for aoe (except GWF Axestorm 1000!) but in the sum significant higher mag on focus encounter having at least 3 to chose, Hunter can buff those encounter with one feat up to 150% (passive).
Actual buffs that improve damage are: Warlocks Curse 10%, Execut Gift 10% (average), FoE 10% (single), Sparks 30x0.15=4.5%, 5x5% from stacking Risky Investment on encounter. Plus a higher recharge speed (30%) and encounter reset on top from feats. That´s assumingly the reason why magnitude is lower compared to some other classes.
The reality shows that buffs are inconsistent since: Curse Consum (you first have to "Curse", actually a core-problem) deletes Lesser Curse and deletes Warlocks Curse function for any followup power. Exec. Gift does not impact in terms of Burst damage. Risky Investment runs off after 5 stacks, and takes it´s time to stack. FoE is only viable on single targets. Sparks need to be spend all time. In the sum Selfbuffs are far lower, since your mechanics demand to delete them or they just disappear, same as the class needs to stack them at first to even work. The only flat buff is 5% from DtD, beside that warlock is pretty much naked and needs some time to buff up. I think buffs in the sum look a bit complicated, somehow slow and have suicidal tendencies on top. Not that I dislike a class being challenging. Anyway looking at other classes they have similar numbers for aoe (except GWF Axestorm 1000!) but in the sum significant higher mag on focus encounter having at least 3 to chose, Hunter can buff those encounter with one feat up to 150% (passive).
You would think with the keep it simple mind set, they seem to have going forward that they would remove all that background buffs and just go with a clear and direct approach. This way, what you see is what you get. Then they could give us clear boon and feat buffs and we would be good to go right out of the gate.Rather than needing to do a math quiz and step A,B,C, before an encounter is even worth using.I am sure it looks fine in a Dev. test world but in real game play not so much.
That´s assumingly the reason why magnitude is lower compared to some other classes.
This would be relevant if all classes had the same spells with the same recharges. And so you can draw a magnitude from the air and come up with any recharge and then justify it with passive mechanics SW. This is a manipulation to blur our brain. In fact, everyone who wants to be DD - will go play tank-barbie
El sol negro brilla, en la frente de la locura el firmar, Kelemvor tomó mi trono de la muerte, pero soy eterno en la oscuridar... https://www.youtube.com/c/cyric
Comments
I understand the conflict with people wanting this as their go-to AoE and also the lack of a single target encounter, so why not make it both? The idea was given to me by a friend today that it could work like the old Murderous Flames. What if it keeps its single target property with 700 magnitude (as I think it was during its time as single target spell) if there is only one target, and if there are multiple enemies it has the function as it is now on current patch? A problem with this would obviously be that you can't go all in single target if there are adds next to the boss, but could still work.
Another option is to have lower single target magnitude than 700, and bump Killing Flames magnitude to 400-700 magnitude
Parting Blasphemy: seems to be bugged and does not proc any more.
Risky Investment: does nowork, I can't activate that feat at all.
Soul Investiture: stacks up to five and buffs Wraith Claw but drops to zero after 15 seconds from 5 stacks (Soul desecration chosen or not), a copy paste bug from mod 15 we asked many times to address.
If this stays as now there is no reason to pick Soul Desecration at all. Simply pick Risky Investment (when working) and run Vampiric embrance in your rotation, stack SI up to five-repeat. VE and HG now proc a Puppet, never recognized VE doing so.
Creeping death is still bugged.
Harrowstorm only applies curses on cast
Vampiric Embrace healing is almost non existent
Hadar's Grasp fails to refresh and stack Soul Investiture
Arms of Hadar has a cumulative cooldown
Creeping Death does almost no damage
Fiery Bolt damage is so low that its only purpose now is putting curses and the using Curse Bite, that means we are forced to use 2 of our 3 encounters together for them to be useful
Infernal Spheres damage is so low that is almost useless
Does Hellfire Expertise really work? Which powers are considered Fire or Necrotic? It seems to neither increase damage nor increase recharge speed
Prince of Hell giving 2500 Armor Penetration is of no use.
Soul Defiler effect is almost negligible
Vengeful Curse chance is so low that is of no real use
Accursed Souls is more than 50% stronger and is PBAoE while Gates of Hell has to be positioned for optimal damage with its activation delay and corridor-shaped danger zone, and its CC keeps mobs prone for maybe a second or so?
This is one of my favorite dailies, but I don’t understand why it’s so much weaker even than many other AoE dailies when we can no longer spam it.</font>
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Actually Accurse Souls is my favourite "aoe trash-daily" -applies Curse, deals solid damage and has a pretty huge aoe same as you can animation cancel that spell even being cc'd it procs.
Tbh I did not try GoH once on preview since it looks sooo sadly underpowered
If you check your Recharge speed on Char sheet as Soulweaver, then look at it on Hellbringer, Recharge Speed increases by the amount in Hellfire Expertise's tooltip.
I'd assume that means ALL the powers for Hellbringer are benefitting, but Cryptic has taught me far too many times what assume really means... (and I've really just been too lazy to verify if Hellfire Expertise is working by testing the shared powers between the paragons)
Cleric: You can be an angel of mercy or give in to hate. - Shinedown
Wizard: The more the dark consumes me, I pretend I'm burning bright. - Shinedown
Barbarian: Am I beautiful... as I tear you to pieces? - In This Moment
The situation is strangely reversed in M16 where Accursed Souls goes from being poor damage for an AoE daily to being the go-to damaging AoE daily.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
"Devil's bite: Curse bite deals 250 (?) magnitude and no longer siphons away curse from target. Fiery bolt deals full range damage to cursed target"
Too strong feat? We trading an average 10% damage buff so not in my eyes
Try on a naked char with ACC slotted to cast EB-CB-EB-VE-EB-HG-EB-CB and check log from first and last curse bite: difference is 5,something%, while the "something" is buff from sparks gained. If not working for you is probably related to some interaction, so further infos are needed. What's tricky on testing is you need to curse consume x2 to get SIx1 as first consume is needed to summon puppet..
PS. is WAI that HG procs a spark only on crit? Should give a spark on each crit proc?
Semantics aside, I do hope these curse issues get resolved, because I feel as if we have more tedious curse management now than we did before. I'm actually wishing for old Warlock's Curse on Tab to come back.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Kelemvor tomó mi trono de la muerte, pero soy eterno en la oscuridar...
https://www.youtube.com/c/cyric
Now, to follow that up. As you previously mentioned, Soul Spark buff was reduced to 0.15% per spark from 0.25%. Now that may have some Warlocks up in arms. However the buff to Warlock's Curse (up to 10% from 5%) nicely counteracts this. Okay, we have an overall buff increase of 2% flat damage (not huge) but still noticeable. I'd say that it was a fair trade off, which will further increase players desire to use Soul Scorch to reduce encounter cooldowns via Soul Spark Recovery. I believe this may have been the intention all along. Soul Scorch will be more of a cooldown effect in endgame than a damaging one. Bearing in mind recharge speed is limited in this mod, that should be welcome.
As for the switching aorund of the feats, I haven't played with those yet. I believe @ramesh84 has highlighted a possible way forward. Once I get stuck into using them, I'll give feedback based on possible limitations.
I previously mentioned that the trouble with our class at the moment is being able to find the same rotation ability of say a "pure dps" class. I outlined two possible ways of generating AoE rotations (which would mean less punishment for either choice in keeping with the devs intentions). However nothing has yet been proposed for such utility with single target HB damage. I appreciate the buffs to both Killing Flames and to Executioner's Gift, these both work intuitively to increasing our single target damage. However, I still see our single target damage being limited to Brood of Hadar, Hadar's Grasp and Killing Flames. In keeping with the devs wishes (where there shouldn't be wrong choices or trap feats) I'd recommend some of the lesser used powers (Dreadtheft, Infernal Spheres, Flames of Phlegothos) to be turned into harder hitting single target encounters. they would be able to offer manouevurability whilst putting out single target damage. Can anyone think of a reasonable trade off to make this happen, or ideas of how we could turn these powers (or a similarly lacklustre power into a good single target, thus providing options?). Long story short, we need options within a single paragon or else we end up with the "BiS power/feat/ability/rotation" that you are directly trying to avoid.
Some people have mentioned a clunkiness between CB and other encounters in order to maximise this synergy. This isn't an issue with powers though. It actually falls down to the responsiveness of the curse function. No matter what encounter/at will you lay LC with, there seems to be a delay of 1 second. This curse ability needs to respond faster. We're already thinking (in action) the best way to maximise curse synergy. Adding unnecessary time to this is flawed and works against us, as we have to guarantee that curse is placed in order to make sure we hit as hard as we can. Cursing outright needs to be smoother if that is the key to our true dps abilities. No-one wants it to be mindless, but we don't want to have to sacrifice hit points just to look to see if we have successfully landed a curse or not.
Arm's of Hadar seems to be another problematic power. It is weak on single target. In AoE, it has such a limited arc and cast time that it just isn't worth it. As mentioned before, even a small increase in arc would expand our rotation ability.
I understand that the dev's job at this time is hard, there is still so much to fix, bugs to be addressed before any kind of solid definitive feedback can be given. Therefore I never demand that we and our class issues are inherently above another's, nor make comparisons between classes. I just feel that a once a week: "no that isn't happening" or a "this could be possible with an exchange for x versus y" might be useful for the group in terms of feedback.
Personally, in terms of this patch for preview I feel we have taken a second step in the right direction from week 1. Thank you for monitoring this thread and paying attention to it's feedback
I apologize for the longer post and I hope I do not sway away too many the weary forum travelers, however, I find it is often important to be meticulous in situations such as this and given that I enjoy this game a great deal, I fear that as we come upon a new era in Neverwinter (Cue winter is coming GoT Season 8 Hype) jokes aside, this is something that needs to be scrutinized heavily. I have been a gamer for most of my life. Spending time with friends, guild mates, and even with random folks while being thrust into strange adventures can be an amazing experience; however, I am also passionate about performing at the top-end of any game I have participated in. From engaging competitively to sport the title of biggest nerd for World-First Raid completions to fighting way too seriously against other grown adults (or kids) in heavily organized Arena Player-to-Player matches. From quickly rinsing sweaty hands while needlessly Speed-Running Platformers, dodging inanimate rocks nonsensically in Hardcore Deathless Modes, and First Phasing Orcus in early Tong; I have played many of the main game titles that have crossed the industry since I was entranced by the discovery of my "addiction".
I say this information not out of hubris, but to give a brief understanding of my mindset and mentality in gaming. I certainly strive to be the best, I hope everyone does (Gaming or in Life); however, there is a lot to learn and I am quite open to others who are as heavily engaged in min/maxing as I am. It is currently no secret that First Phasing Orcus on Live is not a challenge. This can easily be accomplished while having a cleric as the main damage dealer as long as you have good buffers (Just about anyone can with the right buff group). Regardless, I say this information only to inform you and introduce myself. You of course, are the ultimate decider in judging my capabilities and character as a player.
With that being said, something is seriously wrong with the balance and impact of our available class features and it needs to be addressed quite immediately. Luckily it's the PTR...so uh, we're in luck? Let’s just get started.
As a quick forefront, in a general sense, abilities typically have three forms of criteria in terms of power. These three criteria come together to form a "Trinity" of sorts that helps to keep a check and balance across abilities. The criteria are as follows:
Offensive Potential
Defensive Potential
Utility Potential
Any given ability should have a blend between these three criteria in a way so that its particular function is not overtly unbalanced or skewed in usefulness when compared to other abilities. This would mean that if an ability gives Offensive Potential while providing Utility, its Defensive Potential should be somewhat lacking in order to compensate. Likewise, if an ability is meant to be defensive while still providing some utility, it should not be too offensive in order to maintain balance. Lastly, if an ability is dedicating its power purely into one particular aspect of the criteria (IE, focusing on offensive or defensive or utility) then the resulting ability should have limited power into either of the other two roles of potentials available.
Now, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the initial class feature for Warlocks (Formally known as Scourge Warlocks, R.I.P), WITHOUT taking into consideration any other abilities. What I mean by this is as such:
Let's assume we are diving into the class for the first time and we start by reading this ability. We are also given the knowledge that we are allowed to have TWO (2) of the possible Eight (8) Class Features to be active and benefiting us in-game at any given time.
1. "Shadow Walk - Increase your Run Speed by 10%, Deflection by 2500, and Critical Strike by 2500"
OK, now let’s take our Formula and break this down, if we look at what we are provided it looks something like this:
Run speed 10 % (Utility)
Deflect 2500 (Defense)
Critical Strike 2500 (Offensive)
This feature seems to be a very balanced blend of all three branches, Offensive, Defensive, and Utility. Neither branch in the
trinity is focused on and as this is the baseline ability for us to compare others to, all things considered, this is not a bad looking feature. I do, however, have a qualm with the flat stat increases. This is something I have seen in a lot of cases on the PTR such as Mount Insignia Bonuses no longer scaling by % Power. These flat stat increases are extremely bland, have poor scaling, and should be fixed quite abruptly before long-term problems begin to develop; but we will get into that briefly. This feature would also appear to fit into a category of abilities known as a "Jack-of-all-Trades". Such an ability is one that offers light potential in all categories of combat without purely focusing on a specific aspect. This allows the user to gain a decent competence in a general sense, but never excelling at any particular role.
Keeping Shadow Walk's perks in mind with regards to the trinity of balance (offensive/defensive/utility) we now have a good baseline for our class features and how their potential may be evaluated depending on whether or not they will focus on a particular aspect of the trinity or perhaps a combination of the three such as Shadow Walk.
For this next part, I will be breaking down each feature briefly. I will be spending a considerable amount of time on ones that are, and I mean this in the most dead-pan, serious sense that I can possibly and conceivably express to any and all who read this, absolutely WORTHLESS features at the moment. I am going to try and format this section similar to Shadow Walk's distribution with an added section for some possible (Very Rough) ideas for fixes to Class Features in dire need of updates.
So without further ado, let’s try to get this through quickly and thank you for staying with me so far!
Soul Spark on Kill (A very light blend of Utility/Defense/Offense)
Heal for 1% of Max Hit Points on Kill (Defense)
This feature is quite a niche feature that relies on killing enemies to help you gain Soul Sparks to use on various aspects of combat while providing what should be some heals; however, the healing portion of this feature is clunky and dull in reality, providing its heal only after you have defeated the enemy as well as generally being at the end of combat when healing potions, out-of-combat regeneration, ally heals, etc., already make this point mute. While I think that the Soul Spark generation is useful, I feel the heal can still be helpful and provide a unique game play design if done tastefully.
Proposed Change to Healing Portion of Dark One's Blessing: The souls of the fallen are siphoned with your dark arts, when a target affected by lesser curse dies, gain a stack of Life Essence, regenerating .5% of your maximum life per second for each stack active, lasts 10 sec. (Max 10 stacks). This option allows for a light regeneration (5% of your Max hp/s at max proposed stacks, 10 sec Duration) that can help sustain you into the next group of mobs. This class feature then becomes meaningful enough, even after you have cleared your mobs by providing extra strength and incentive into your next fight; so long as you continue to push through. (The Scaling of the Heal and Duration is Debatable, Should Stacks Refresh?)
3. "Dark Prayers - When your Hit Points are below 30% you gain 2500 defense"
While below 30% hit points gain 2500 defense (Defense)
I am unsure if have to say much as to why the scaling of this ability is terrible, especially with regards to its required conditions, low stats given, and extremely low potential compared to just Shadow Walk alone; however, it is the PTR and this portion of the ability can be easily solved so we can mostly ignore the numbers presented and move on. Regardless, this does bring me to a point about flat stats in general.
We are now in a stage of Neverwinter in which many stats across the board are beginning to reach an upwards of Forty-Thousand (40,000). A few of just the offensive stats included in these bloated numbers are Critical Strike/Armor Penetration/Accuraccy/Etc. Some stats such as power can even far exceed these numbers, drastically deflating the significance of these additive stats. I cannot stress this enough, flat stat increases are boring, dull, do nothing for gameplay, and most certainly should not count as class-themed features. We already have stats on top of stats with Armor Kits, Enchants, Insignia, Equipment, Companions, etc...the list literally goes on, do not, PLEASE, DO NOT, give us stats in these sections. It is not hard to give meaningful features, even simple ones that can improve gameplay without giving a flat boring increase unrelated to our own classes.
On my Warlock in the PTR, without focusing on defense and fully end-game geared at level 80, I am sitting pretty at around Twenty-One Thousand (21,000) Defense; not completely optimized, but you get the picture. Meaning if I drop below 30% health, I will now have Twenty-Three Thousand and Five Hundred (23,500) Defense, hardly a change worth bragging about; watch out bosses here I come! A band-aid fix to this feature in its current state is to unimaginatively increase the amount of raw defense stat it gives dramatically. This, however, does not prevent it from remaining a boring feature that does not affect gameplay thematically.
Proposed Change to Dark Prayers: Your own Suffering Fuels your Thirst for Power, when dropped below 30% health, gain 10% Lifesteal chance for 10 seconds (May occur once every 60 Seconds).
This change is simple while still providing a good interaction and serving the purpose of the slotted ability's potential. It also is a neat addition and Warlock-Themed, especially considering the removal of life steal from most aspects of gameplay. (Duration, Cool-Down, and Life steal chance/Severity % Debatable)
4. "All-Consuming Curse - At-will powers now apply Lesser Curse to enemies hit"
Lesser Curse Applied on At-will use (Jack-of-all-Trades)
So here we have another "Jack-of-all-Trades" style of a feature as having lesser curse on targets is a core portion of class mechanics because of its synergy with various encounters. I've gone back and forth on whether this should just be baked into the baseline abilities of warlocks, but while reviewing all of our mechanics and features I feel I have a decent solution to creating some identity as well as a unique style of applying lesser curse. This reigns especially true as long as fiery bolt remains able to apply curses (still needs more damage than 160 magnitude). With that change, curse application shouldn't be too hard along with Hellfire Ring providing a majority of said applications once the ability has been acquired at level 77. This feature can then be used to its full potential and provide a different gameplay option for curse application and function to those who wish to mix it up a bit instead of being almost mandatory to have for curse application.
Proposed Change to All-Consuming Curse: Whenever you consume a Lesser Curse on an enemy their soul corrupts and shatters, dealing 50 necrotic damage to surrounding allies within 15' while spreading lesser curse to those effected. (Damage, Area of Effect for Radius Debatable).
This change gives lesser curse interaction a more uniquely satisfying experience and spreading the corruption feels much more thematic as a Warlock than holding down my left click to make sure enemies are cursed before proceeding to use my encounters.
25 Magnitude Damage on Lesser Curse Application (Purely Offensive)
Yet another curse related feature and so I decided to match them side by side. I don't necessarily have too many problems with the concept of this feature; however, its damage at 25 magnitude doesn't seem to scale well in practice at the moment. I also still feel its thematic as a "Deadly" curse can be slightly improved so to reflect its potency and impact.
Proposed "Addition" to Deadly Curse: Targets effected by Lesser Curse take 2% more damage from all sources. (Damage % Increase Debatable)
6. "No Pity, No Mercy - Your Hellish Rebuke no longer deals Damage over Time . Instead the damage of the initial hit and the damage dealt back to the attacks affected by Hellish Rebuke are increased by 25% and 2 Soul Sparks are generated on each hit Critical hits now grant you combat advantage"
No DoT Component/25% increased Damage Hellish Rebuke Initial and Reactive Damage (Offensive/Penalty)
2 Soul Spark Generation on Hit (Light Jack-of-all-Trades)
Combat Advantage on Crit (Offensive/Utility)
The biggest functional problem I have with this feature along with any other feature that fits under this category of abilities is how narrow their "conditional" requirements are. This feature, much like on live, does not allow for any alternative gameplay. If this feature is slotted, hellish rebuke is slotted; end of story. This is a fundamental problem that goes against the core concept of D&D and class building, especially when in-game mechanics already offer a multitude of options that serve to diversify builds with your choice of encounters/features/insignia/enchants to carve your own build, a class-feature that limits your available abilities you can use only hinders an experience.
Proposed Change to No Pity, No Mercy - Your unwavering discipline and cruelty provides savage returns, critical hits now have a 10% chance to generate 1 soul spark. Critical hits now grant you combat advantage.
It seems evident that Warlocks are forever bound to critical strike with critical severity increases even after the reduction of maximum critical strike being driven down to 50%. With this in mind, I feel such a change enhances this particular style of combat while still providing a more diverse option for building a character. (% Chance to Generate Soul Spark on Critical Hit, Number of Soul Sparks Generated Debatable).
Increased Damage Against Target by 1% per stack; max 3 stacks. (Purely Offensive)
This ability has potential to be a simple and neat way to increase our overall power; however, because you must apply the stacks to a target along with each additional target causing more headaches, the ability begins to fall short of expectations. Add in the extra effect of it being a target specific debuff rather than the all-important self-buff and good luck getting people enjoying having it on their bars.
Proposed Change to Flames of Empowerment -Ignites your attacks in eldritch flame, casting three fire-based spells consecutively causes you to erupt in a hellish visage, increasing fire damage dealt by 5% for 10 seconds.
This change allows the player to have more meaningful dictation over their rotation and provides a strong buff to those that like to combo abilities or seek a truly hellish style of Warlock.
(Damage increase %, Duration, Mechanism Activation Debatable, What other ways besides three fire-based spells consecutively?)
8. "Dust to Dust - Your damage dealt is increased by 5%"
Damage Dealt Increased by 5% (Purely Offensive)
Where to start with this one? I mean, it is a flat percent increase instead of a raw stat so it does have that going for it. It's unfortunately boring and bland though, a decent increase in damage, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't have any Warlock feel added to it. I think this one can be fixed very easily while still providing its basic function.
Proposed Changes to Dust to Dust - Bargain Your Own Soul For More Power to Your Dark Patrons. Doubles the damage bonus provided by Soul Sparks and Maximum Soul Sparks are increased from 30 to 40 (That's enough Soul Sparks for a little over one extra minimum damage Soul Scorch currently on the PTR, it costs 6 to 18, damage scales proportionately).
Currently on the PTR, each Soul Spark provides .15% damage increase, or a 4.5% total damage increase at the maximum stacks of 30. It is, however far more likely that your Soul Sparks would hover around 10 or so during a normal rotation, sometimes less and sometimes more depending on Soul Scorch usage and Soul Spark generating mechanics, drastically changing how effective this damage increase is in true practice. Some of my proposed changes would increase Soul Spark generation slightly helping to shape out the rotation and with the added changes doubling the damage bonus provided by Soul Spark along with the proposed maximum Soul Spark increase to 40, the total new maximum increase would be 12% damage.
.3% (New Damage Buff Provided by each Soul Spark)
40 (New Maximum Soul Spark)
.3 X 40= 12% Total Damage Increase
It must be understood; however, that this is not simply a flat 12% damage increase. Instead, over the course of any particular fight, you will have momentum shifts and opportunities for large damage increases, but you may also perform poorly and therefore remain at a low Soul Spark count (Having 10 is equivalent to a 3% damage increase, much worse than before if you are low on Soul Sparks) and thus hindering your performance. It is also important to understand that when comparing how high this 12% increase is, we must take into account that the current iteration in the PTR still gives 4.5% damage on top of the 5% flat given by Dust to Dust. What this DOES mean is that your new potential damage has the possibility of being slightly higher than the combined total of Dust to Dust and maximum Soul Spark benefit, but only in the right situations.
Example 1:
Current PTR Iteration of Dust to Dust:
5% Flat buff + .15% Damage increase per Spark with Maximum Sparks set to 30= 9.5% Damage Increase
Total Possible Damage Increase 9.5%
Pros: More Reliable
Con: Boring, Lame, Trash, Button Smasher, Who cares, Meaningless Increase
Example 2:
Proposed changes for Dust to Dust Doubling effectiveness of Damage per Spark and Maximum Sparks set to 40=12%
Total Possible Damage Increase 12%
Pros: Impactful Gameplay, More Flexibility, Thematically Pleasing, All the Cool Kids are Doing it, Feels Smooth, Defined Rotation
Con: Not as Reliable, Possibility of Dropping below 6.5% flat Current Iteration provides during normal rotation if Sparks reach below 21/40. (.3 X 21=6.3%) I will explain briefly below.
Average Soul Sparks during Rotation in PTR = 10
10 Soul Sparks at .15% damage increase = 1.5% average damage increase provided by Soul Sparks on current PTR
Current Dust to Dust = 5% increase flat
1.5+5 = 6.5% Average Damage increase
OK! THATS IT! THATS ALL I GOT FOR NOW....WHEW!
Hard to believe right? Hopefully you guys and gals didn't have as much pain reading it as I felt while writing parts of it. Overall, I am immensely excited for a lot of the new changes coming to Neverwinter in Mod 16, but we have to make sure to keep a positive outlook and have keep our eyes peeled for any way we can to help our developers in the game that we enjoy. I am 100% full-for any suggestions, changes, criticisms and so forth anyone has to the information I have provided in this post. I look forward to generating real thoughts and ideas about these kinds of game defining parts we get a role in helping to shape! I hope everyone is having a great night and lets all make mod 16 great!
P.S I apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors made, I attempted to check for most, but I may have missed much in my exhausted state.
P.P.S Something I wanted to add, but got lost within edits is about abilities and an outlook on them as a whole. It shouldn't be easy to say no to an ability. Each of them have their own unique benefit that is equal in its own way when compared to other abilities and this important when creating build diversity and opportunity for game growth.
I did notice the change to FB as was discussed in the thread.
I did also suggest a set of powers a few days ago to deal with the problems as I’ve seen them reported or experienced.
Shared:
Killing Flames (single target)
Vampiric Embrace (single target, heal)
Arms of Hadar (AoE - fix targeting using Daring Shout, or Frontline Surge's targeting so it finally mostly works)
Hadar's Grasp (single target)
Curse Bite (AoE)
This array gives the heal spec some solid dps and synergy for solo play, and also solves some of the problems the class experiences in the low end of the game dealing with groups.
Paragon:
Firey Bolt (Single Target)
Blades of Vanquished Armies (AoE, Buff)
Dreadtheft (make it a single target power that spreads curse to other targets hit, and buff its damage.)
New Power: Hunger of Hadar (AoE, Zone, Added Effect: Slow, Summon Soul Puppet)
Hellfire Ring (AoE, Zone, DoT)
Hunger of Hadar is a 3rd level spell in the 5E PHB that is available to Warlocks.
This array gives the DPS 5 single target options and 5 AoE options.
Clearly if FB stays AoE, then we need a new single target power to replace it in this list instead of the Hungar of Hadar suggestion (which would be Firey Bolt (AoE)).
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
It seems Parting Blasphemy is not procing or is not showing in the log.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I put a table with all the details at the bottom of this post.
First of all: in many powers the real magnitude does not match with the one described in the tooltip. Obviously I can't know if it is a tooltip error or the other way around, but I’ll just assume the tooltip is the right one.
The Hand of Blight (melee and ranged) works in a strange way:
The first hit cause 35(melee 25) magnitude, second hit 25(melee 15), third hit 35(melee 20), forth hit 30(melee 30), and then start again from the first hit.
-------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- ------
Second: many powers do not count magnitude in the same way, for example:
Dreadtheft: 350 magnitude representing the total damage it will do on a single target.
Blades of Vanquished Armies: 18 magnitude per blade, the damage it inflicts in a single hit on a single target.
Personally I find the first example much more comfortable, therefore with the total damage it will do all the time. In the case of Blades of Vanquished Armies I’d rather see it as 198 magnitude instead of 18 per blade.
In the table I reported this under the "My Magnitude" column.
You now can activate both RI+SD at once, looks bugged
I want to point again at the fact, that if Deadly Curse and ACC slotted, you equalize or even out-dps the usage of FoE+ACC on a singel target. ACC applies LC on At Will use and you buff your damage more by proccing high numbers of LC (with 25mag from DC), than slotting a feature that actually is doing more than it should (buffs for 10% on 10 stacks), wich in my opinion is a reasonable number for a feat that has to be reapplied and runs of quickly.
ACC is obligatory in any setup on singel targets (and also running content), except you ignore every power that does Curse Consume like Vampiric Embrance and Cursed Bites and HG.
The class feature ACC and Deadly Curse needs a rework somehow and I do think warlocks need the ability to apply LC on AT will use.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Yes I've read all 12 pages this far did not see an answer. Saw that FB "had" a higher magnitude as single target but was reverted smh on that one.
Revert but keep the magnitude was the correct answer for that.
Nice shard, thx for sharing.
I think Brood is ment to deal 2200 in the sum 1000 initial hit and 6x200 from Bites, 2200 in the sum. The bats seem to underperform, maybe they deal more in the night
Plus a higher recharge speed (30%) and encounter reset on top from feats.
That´s assumingly the reason why magnitude is lower compared to some other classes.
The reality shows that buffs are inconsistent since:
Curse Consum (you first have to "Curse", actually a core-problem) deletes Lesser Curse and deletes Warlocks Curse function for any followup power.
Exec. Gift does not impact in terms of Burst damage.
Risky Investment runs off after 5 stacks, and takes it´s time to stack.
FoE is only viable on single targets.
Sparks need to be spend all time.
In the sum Selfbuffs are far lower, since your mechanics demand to delete them or they just disappear, same as the class needs to stack them at first to even work. The only flat buff is 5% from DtD, beside that warlock is pretty much naked and needs some time to buff up.
I think buffs in the sum look a bit complicated, somehow slow and have suicidal tendencies on top. Not that I dislike a class being challenging.
Anyway looking at other classes they have similar numbers for aoe (except GWF Axestorm 1000!) but in the sum significant higher mag on focus encounter having at least 3 to chose, Hunter can buff those encounter with one feat up to 150% (passive).
Magnitude isn’t damage, it’s the multiplier (as a percentage) of your weapon damage.
Magnitude 18 means about 1/5 of your weapon damage.
Magnitude 200 means about 2x your weapon damage.
So there is no shortage of damage.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Kelemvor tomó mi trono de la muerte, pero soy eterno en la oscuridar...
https://www.youtube.com/c/cyric