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Biggest change to SW you'd like
subnocte
Member Posts: 341 Arc User
We know there are no changes to SWs in the new mod, but the devs have said they're going to balance the class soon. Obviously there are things like 'less squishy' that everyone wants for the class, but what's the *main* thing you'd like to see?
For me it's probably casting times / animations reduced massively.
For a class that can take very little damage and has next to no controlling abilities, it should be super fast. A warlock should dart around casting spells. Right now you're fixed in place very slowly casting your spells while anything can come along and kill you. Shadow walk suggests some kind of extra dimensional ability to move, yet it offers no immunity to most stuff and barely any damage resistance, and uses a ton of stamina. The only class that feels slower to me is the paladin, but of course they've got a ton of resilience to make up for it.
For me it's probably casting times / animations reduced massively.
For a class that can take very little damage and has next to no controlling abilities, it should be super fast. A warlock should dart around casting spells. Right now you're fixed in place very slowly casting your spells while anything can come along and kill you. Shadow walk suggests some kind of extra dimensional ability to move, yet it offers no immunity to most stuff and barely any damage resistance, and uses a ton of stamina. The only class that feels slower to me is the paladin, but of course they've got a ton of resilience to make up for it.
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I would like this:
1. fix Temptation capstone
2. fix/nerf soulpuppet 1mio hits , broken sinth month, and give her 150k HP to be viable going solo
3. fix/nerf TT broken since launch
4. buff encounterpowers who deal near no damage, except SS, give us aoe like firy bolt but more effective, take arms of hadar and put it where the sun never shines
5. rebalance paragons, hellbringer should deal most damage in PVE ..... and no conduit of power with an aoe effect as big as a plate is not the answer in fights that afford a continoues positionchange
6. faster animations
7. give us a dodge ability, can´t find any alternative against this piercing madness in PVP
8. fix most class feature or make them viable
9. fix internal spheres -->not critting since mod 6 or doing spark refill by that, useless
10. delete vampiric embrance or buff it, its redicules, like you deleted curse bites (just figured out its gone loooool), it was that crappy that I never took a look at it
11. 100 more to tell
Their animations are horribel at best, as I can get off a lot more stuff and kill most of them in PvP due to the animations and lack of defenses as most have complained about. Also, I see most of the SW in PvP use the same exact abilities with no differentiation or change in technique, becoming predictable.
SWs are built on damage over time, with encounters needing to be actively cast the entire time (e.g. dreadtheft). Add on top that they all need a pretty long time to cast to get going in the first time. Most tougher mobs can interrupt these encounter skills without warning, wasting the cooldown; and even when you do get red area warnings, you very often cannot get out of the area in time without using shadow walk, which will also waste the cooldown. Other classes generally just use the encounter, and it's done. On the whole, the game is set up for burst damage (be it single target or aoe), and SWs are thrown in without much consideration.
Similarly, for PVP, a lot of the boon benefits are based on gaining stacks. That hasn't been balanced for SWs. The obvious example was Avalanche, which due to having no time restriction, was procing constantly when you did damage, but even with the recent change, you fill a stack almost instantly. It also means people gain stacks of negation when attacked by SWs too quickly.
Highest PvE and PvP burst should come from "Fury" where as the survival tree should be Damnation (Soul puppet should be a nuisance and danger to all the enemies around, like "BLACK DRAGON's soul puppets in SH debuffing, hard to kill, less powerful mind you.)
Temptation tree should be healing/damage hybrid, with some sort of power/Life steal synergy dynamic.
-Kymos
Many new lvl 70 players complain about things that are *trivial* to other classes at low item level. The Prowlies in Sharandar for example are a complete PitA for our class to fight. For TR / GWF /HR / CW they're maybe two or three button presses to clear a whole spawn or three of them at low item level / new to level 70 character states.
So we give up a large majority of the game's playtime, for the possibility to be better in the top end of a long fight. But it's HARD to reach that top. Placing curses and targeting encounter powers accurately to get curse consume to trigger on the right target (not easy when there's 5-8 mobs piled on the tank and I'm trying to pick ONE out), setting things up right for TT (which has the earlier mentioned LONG cast time... so it needs to be triggered almost in anticipation of other an opportunity to use it in a big fight).
The payoff for going through such rigorous setup should be larger... OR the baseline should be higher (my recommendation). A poor SW is pitiful... it shouldn't be that way (new players should at least be able to do decent damage while they learn to optimize the class and collect the gear they'll need for the end-game content). Someone who's a decent player should be able to do okay in the game with a sub-optimal. Not great; not easy; it's understandable there are still bad ways to build... but as it stands now SW is too much on point. Either things go as planned, and I'm *on par* with other DPS classes; or they go bad, and it's un-salvageable.
With other classes, the occasional "add" or aggro of a second spawn, makes for a tough fight, but there are ways to still win. With SW if the quicklings in Sharandar run into you just at the start of a fight (before soul sparks are built up) it can be a sure death even for a skilled player. There's no knockback / escape; there's no *good* daily to save you (sure some extra damage, but not a sure kill on 2-3 mobs to give you enough breathing room to recover). This is especially bad since there are SO MANY ways an SW can accidentally aggro another group of mobs: puppet / companion pathing poorly; or the target for dreadtheft moving and swinging that damage around into other mobs spawns.
There are so many points where playing solo becomes an assured death with no way to save it. E.G. In IWD, the dire bears hit you for a TON. If the puppet dies and 2 of those are on you... sure you can TRY to run, but odds are you won't get out of range before you die. This goes towards the survive-ability others have broached, so I'll stop belaboring it.
All of this goes away with better gear; to the point that these fights then become laughable (redcaps start to drop quickly around ilvl 2400, and you can then chain-farm them; but this is at a far higher ilvl than for other classes).
What doesn't go away is the fact that even played well much of the SW's effort is wasted. When a mob dies it may have 3-4 DoTs on it that would still be ticking. Creeping death on trash mobs is the biggest case of this. Where killing a mob with a big hit *would* have procced CD, but instead the mob just dies; CD never triggers; effectively robbing the SW of another 80% of damage. The mob might as well have had 20% more HP and it'd have died with the same effort. But there are no good places in the game for this potential to be realized. It won't make or break a boss fight; and every other mob dies fast enough already in group. In solo play what the SW needs is more survive-ability not unrealized damage potential. When almost EVERY guide recommends running borrowed time to stay alive (and almost every SW does) it's obvious what's missing. Can warding curse *ever* match BT in effectiveness? Not that I've seen... Not when the worry is 8 mobs hitting you for small damage amounts while you try to kill 1 at a time (or if you're damnation, while you wait for your puppet to do half your total damage to what is probably not the optimal target...).
In short it seems the class is balanced around peak synergy specs; but in reality the base should be brought up and the peak should be brought down because the vast majority of the game is fast-paced to the point that you don't have time to chain together 3 to 4 synergy skills to maximize your damage. Because while it may be great *when* it goes off; every other DPS class has since finished the fight and moved on. Unless it's a T2 boss fight; then the difference in our potential *maybe* reduces the total time of the fight by 10% over any other DPS... big whoop
The gathering of sparks does take a very long time. This is a major issue, made far worse because they disappear instantly. Take these HEs that are now considered major content - pretty much every phase (be it only 2 mobs at a time), when you've just managed to build your sparks up, combat stops for a second and you lose them all instantly. Since most of the other classes can clear trash quickly, there's no time to build up curses and so on.
When soloing you're spending most of your time running around trying to get sparks up and trying to avoid getting hit for 50% of your HP (not just the bears, also the dwarves in IWD and the trolls; and half the mobs in WoD). At the same, when you try to set off a DoT, a mob will randomly interrupt you. I don't know how many times I've finally managed to cast TT, cast something like dreadtheft and instantly I'm hit without any warning and the spell is cancelled.
Spirits deal even more than SS sometimes or similar damage on singel targets
Any other class ingame that only deals damage with broken dailies or puppets?
1 million thread do exist about class balance, fixes and improvements.
One WMS from GWF deals more damage than any encounter warlock has got, its an At-will !
by HAMSTER DC can burst mobgroups better than my warlock
we perform in long lasting fights where our DOTS can run and our broken encounter can shine.
Buff encounter fix the rest...
Things are way out of balance at higher item levels.
Before mo6 Sw where more less OK. Only TT dailly power make this myth about overpowered dps.
Mod 6 just show up all SW weakness, and this mod just make big downfall.
So overall sw desing need rebuild from scratch. Only TT and DT is good from SW at this moment... Take them away and SW gone.. and TT still bugged, in Dwarf valley When I use I do only ~5 dmg. Even in tiamat fight I do more......
Games pvp where skills vs skill... now gear vs gear
games pve where skills + gear. now CreditCard + glitch abusing.
“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.
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All this class is made arround are bugged Dailies and artifacts
You only do good wearing broken lolset wich triggers lots if Sparks for you using HG
The Rest is broken TT damagepingpong and /or broken puppet
Another lol .....Temptations in PVE