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Feedback on Balance - a Warlocks perspective:
lordtweety
Member Posts: 275 Arc User
And this is why the warlock isn't fun.
Frankly I never signed up to be a healer so don't bother even suggesting that as an alternative. 'Pure damage' I believe was the phrase when first creating the warlock.
To get a comparison on balance between a Ranger and Warlock I ran ACT while running 3 consecutive 5 man MEs, 3 runes each run. Ranger and Warlock hitting the same caps, similar power (within 1500k of each other) and similar weapons - one Alabaster weapon each, Warlock had main, Ranger had Offhand. I thought this would give a good picture of balance. Over the three expeditions we had an even mix of boss vs dungeon crawls, so it seemed like a pretty good basis for a comparison.
Looking at ACT after the 3 runs I was at 44 mil total damage, the ranger was at 73 mil total. A rogue 2k item level below us did almost the same amount of damage as the warlock - while being afk on a phone call for 5 minutes.
Balance huh?
At that point I stopped playing the warlock, then shortly after that just stopped playing.
@nitocris83 You mentioned having a warlock, good luck and I'm not being sarcastic. The dev's had finally made some changes to the warlock allowing it to reach top tier DPS - not the best - but high enough to be the main DPS in any of the end game dungeons. Now it's back to the rubbish levels it used to be when I first started playing at the end of Mod 11 and I'm not going back that. Feel free to pass this feedback onto the rest of the team. If they do something effective about it I'll go back to playing my warlock more regularly. Until then, my warlock is taking up space and gathering virtual dust on a shelf.
Cheers,
Angels Scar
Warlock (Retired)
Frankly I never signed up to be a healer so don't bother even suggesting that as an alternative. 'Pure damage' I believe was the phrase when first creating the warlock.
To get a comparison on balance between a Ranger and Warlock I ran ACT while running 3 consecutive 5 man MEs, 3 runes each run. Ranger and Warlock hitting the same caps, similar power (within 1500k of each other) and similar weapons - one Alabaster weapon each, Warlock had main, Ranger had Offhand. I thought this would give a good picture of balance. Over the three expeditions we had an even mix of boss vs dungeon crawls, so it seemed like a pretty good basis for a comparison.
Looking at ACT after the 3 runs I was at 44 mil total damage, the ranger was at 73 mil total. A rogue 2k item level below us did almost the same amount of damage as the warlock - while being afk on a phone call for 5 minutes.
Balance huh?
At that point I stopped playing the warlock, then shortly after that just stopped playing.
@nitocris83 You mentioned having a warlock, good luck and I'm not being sarcastic. The dev's had finally made some changes to the warlock allowing it to reach top tier DPS - not the best - but high enough to be the main DPS in any of the end game dungeons. Now it's back to the rubbish levels it used to be when I first started playing at the end of Mod 11 and I'm not going back that. Feel free to pass this feedback onto the rest of the team. If they do something effective about it I'll go back to playing my warlock more regularly. Until then, my warlock is taking up space and gathering virtual dust on a shelf.
Cheers,
Angels Scar
Warlock (Retired)
Main: Angels Scar
Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
1
Comments
As for the healing path I will say its heals are weak and should see a boost and the cleanse encounter should cleanse the warlock as well but it is what it is.
I would try and use FB,CB,HFR encounters. basically toss out a fire bolt then curse bite then hellfire ring and curse bite again. Doing that most adds are either dead or at least almost dead.
Anyways I my self have not seen any issue with my lock dps path but then again i have sat around respecing it alot just to find what works best.
A bit of extra info since I found the note I wrote at the time. Using two load outs, I can hit harder on the bosses, my highest hit with KF on one of the bosses was more than 30k higher than his. In fact the top 5 highest hits were mine, but that is meaningless when the boss has to be near dead for KF to hit that hard.
My 5447 hits had an average of 8143 per hit which is a lot less than the rangers 8663 hits with an average of 8856 each hit. Perhaps that will give a better understanding of where the 'balance' needs addressing.
Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
From a raw heal amount standpoint, Soulweaver healing is pretty good (Shatter Spark routinely heals for >100k per person in range for my 19.3k SW that geared specifically to be a healer). What it lacks, however, are self cleanse (making it worthless in TONG and a few other places), large single-target heals that the other two healers have, and "oh HAMSTER" buttons that the other two healers have, as well as any proactive defenses like temp shielding or temp health that the other two classes have. I consider it a niche healer in that it has the highest dps potential of any of the healer specs, which make it a great choice for speed runs in lower tier dungeons or things like MEs.
> cleric doesn't have any shield or temp hp powers.....hallowed ground? 10% dmg mitigation????
> the warlock dmg link power absorbs 25% of the teams incoming dmg.
> paladin is the one with temp hp and shields
Hmm that's right, sorry. I have a cleric, she's at 80, but what I have done is DPS. Still, 10% is 10% and when you have a whole party getting blasted (Strahd opener, a few others that are unavoidable) the warlocks health link is pretty worthless in comparison.
...which makes me sad that it’s unfortunately not designed very well.
IMO it needs something like the following changes:
-Exchange the useless Defense stat bonus (already capped, and very ineffectual even if not capped) for a meaty mitigation bonus.
-Raise the threshold for the feat to be deactivated and do whatever else might be necessary to prevent the Soulweaver from being destroyed by absorbing the initial hit from big boss AoE mechanics. It’s okay to assume added risk from using this feat, but there needs to be a window for recovery to make it fair.
What if the soaked damage were doled our over time, something like with the old Creeping Death in the Fury tree?
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
However if you take more time and get the stats up that are required to be up then your find things become easier and things will die faster.
I will admit that the way its done sucks because when in a party with 2 dps warlocks or 2 of any class the same encounters will be used so your never different.
I my self have not found any real issue in killing anything. However I have put time into ranking enchants up and getting stats where they need to be to make my dps go up.
Perhaps that is 1 thing that you should look into.
Armor Pen, Accuracy, Critical Strike Combat Advantage and Power. see where those stats stand in a level 80 area and see what you can do to improve them.
Pets also come into play as well. Knowing that a aug pet will provide you more stats its best to say go with one regardless how you feel about it.
In this mod its all about using what you have to improve your self unlike how it was in other mods where you could use anything and still come out on top.
> Why at all using an actually "self kill guaranty", where other mechanics shield hard hits. Life Bind =dead warlock in a game where one shots are pretty common. Paladin got block plus barrier. DC if played correctly a Neverending Hot and double the amount of magnitude on top. If I cast one encounter I cut myself for 20% HP, next what happens my HP get's soaked away by popping a daily and on top I get oneshot when tank is hit hard for 600k since he dropped his shield me running a self destroying class feat. Stupid at best, noone asks for Soulbinder as first degree healer, noone want's to play lomm as first degree healer and all this is a result of simply ignoring the class on preview.
>
> LOMM may be fun...... for everyone but the healer....just like any content.....there is nothing enjoyable about having to constantly aim heals and being relegated to a utility role instead of combat. healers cannot buff or debuff anymore (5% debuff with less than 50% uptime in combat doesn't count) and unless you are a paladin healer who provides that awesome blue HP bar, then all you are doing is topping off your teammates and waiting for them to do all the fun fighting as you try not to get hit while healing them. for a cleric its even worse, because while paladin and warlock can get away with using some dps powers, because of the abysmal way divinity works and the fact there are no auto heals anymore its almost expected that the cleric only uses healing powers. I truly hate what they have done to this formerly wonderful game
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I also think, after many lomms, that the healer part is the most challenging and the less rewarding part. You get all that aggro in case your group fails, you got pretty hard times at all bosses due to massive incoming damage. Noone cares that much about perfect defense stats, so it.'s on you to compensate the lack of performance and bad build characters. I am pretty sure I met not one tank with accurate awareness stats til now.
But actually I don' t run a healer in endcontent, since warlock affords a ton of gear to compensate the lack of performance same as you need to run two different loadouts to build up for a tank with max HP power etc.
If I'd decide to go for a healer I would stuff my paladin wich actually is build for tank>heal... My DC needs too much work to get him on an acceptable level atm
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
All my offensive stats are at cap, running an augment etc etc etc etc etc etc etc. And like I said I can kill stuff, the volume of damage output compared to other classes that are similarly specced and played well is what the issue was.
Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Any other dps class I play can easy outperform my warlock even with much worse stats. Even a op tank can do more damage...
In regards of heal, well... I'm queing several times daily for req. Most times there are people in these queues not having a clue or the right gear to do it. If I see a warlock as healer, I really feel regret for him. If it's not an overpowered or experienced party he never has a chance no matter how good he is.
A warlock healer cant dodge damage or shield it like the other two and he cannot cleanse himself while the other can.
If you are not in role playing or like gathering things, I suggest dont play a warlock anymore. It is not worth the amount you have to put in.
I should probably be thanking the devs.
Guild: Ruathym Corsairs