3 days after they nerfed life steal as a stat I stopped logging my SW in for anything other than invoke and professions. I've gotten my SW to 63 doing that, but not from a single fight. During those 3 days I couldn't do stuff, I kept getting owned in areas I could previously either cake walk through or do with a tad of sweat.
Since the tree I took was all based of LS, and LS was nerfed, I was gimped to hell. Since they didn't give me a retrain token for breaking my class/tree, the SW is in the garage ever since. Why should we have to respec every time they break a class? It's simply sad and really unacceptable that there is only one feat tree that is viable for a SW to take using what is a slight "exploit" (not really, they designed it that way so it's not an exploit).
I even invested in the armor set that boosted heals to fellow group members, via leeching mobs through LS, the set is totally defunct now in it's effect because of RGN mechanics, further gimping me in not only my solo performance, but my group acceptability.
I don't know how they are going to retool the SW to factor in LS based feat tree, without bringing back LS to pre-nerf status, but I for one am not going to invest or develop my SW, or actually play it until they "fix" it. I certainly wouldn't buy a retrain token and re-feat before hand, given their past track record, I would retrain and take the puppet route to become re-viable, and they would "fix" the SW and make that tree the new gimp path.
SW lol .. i parked that character so fast after lvl 60.. i constantly felt like i was a fly , trying to charge a horde of elephants.
In that *other* mmo game Warlock was sooo d*mn good, fear, facemelt, demonform anyone? :XD
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santralafaxMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,896Arc User
The timing matters too. When were the suggestions made? Before or after our new community manager? Before staff changes at Cryptic?
Plus, this is a new mod. Certain things have changed yet again, especially with the boons and what not, and calculating mitigation, which applies more so in PvP.
I believe they are saying that problems stem back to Mod 6 and the nerfing of Lifesteal. At least that is the no. 1 problem for the warlock I've read about.
Nobody has boons for Mod 7 yet, and until we see how long it takes, I wouldn't throw them out as a "shiny".
Our Executive Producer has stated that we are indeed looking at the SW. I actually made a new one myself recently to see how underpowered it is. Can't be a good CM if I don't experience what you guys are experiencing.
Well Strum if you are looking for recommendations of paths to try for SW, I would recommend trying the following:
Hellbringer Fury,
Hellbringer Temptation,
Soulbinder Damnation,
Soulbinder Temptation.
For Hellbringer Fury, see how well it does in the paingiver chart when compared to GWF, CW, HR and TR who have similar item scores.
For Hellbringer Temptation, See how well this build works when joining the queue solo for a t1 or t2 dungeon (assuming you can find a party that doesn't kick you). Make sure to slot 'Vampiric Embrace' its healing abilities is lengendary.
For Soulbinder Damnation see how well this works when you reach the boss in a dungeon. You might have to put out an APB to find your soul puppet.
For Soulbinder Temptation this is almost viable, just remember to equip rank 12 dark enchantments in your all available defense slots, plus make sure all your artifact gear has life steal stats and is upgraded to legendary. Yep that's all you need to do so you can kind of heal people (sometimes).
Post edited by twoedge1 on
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treesclimberMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,161Arc User
Well, my main char is currently a temptation soulbinder with 3 sets of feats in fury, i wanna get tiamat set and really go on with it, my IL is not much just 2400, but i do beat in damage almost all the il bellow 1900, exept GWF stangely no matter what they use .
Appart from that, no, vampiric embrace is not good, in fact it is easly replaceable when i put healing set on:
Elemental duelist head and hands,
Thayan chest and feets
6100 ls, that and feats for ls and 3 loyal commanders can make me heal 50k in one shot of killing flammes ending lostmauth.
Is it bad? If you have a "pvp" DC as many call righteous DC's it's actually good, but over all....
Well, SWs did have it good for a while. Neverwinter: Epic Dread Vault Solo - Warlock - Youtube
Since LS is gone for good (I think it sucks compared to what it was, so save the correction), I guess the dev's will feed the SW some power/crit buffs to lower the discontent.
Like they did for GF's while breaking tanking ability and giving it to OPs.
Welcome to the bargain bin, dollar menu, NWO class list.
Well, SWs did have it good for a while. Neverwinter: Epic Dread Vault Solo - Warlock - Youtube
Since LS is gone for good (I think it sucks compared to what it was, so save the correction), I guess the dev's will feed the SW some power/crit buffs to lower the discontent.
Like they did for GF's while breaking tanking ability and giving it to OPs.
Welcome to the bargain bin, dollar menu, NWO class list.
One option could be to replace LS for the SW with another similar mechanic. It would be LS in all but name (call it Health Steal or something).
Warlock gear would also see a replacement of LS with this new Health Steal stat.
This would allow specific adjustments for the SW, without impacting the LS of any other classes or other classes gear.
Of course there's quite a few other things need sorting out with the SW as well.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
One option could be to replace LS for the SW with another similar mechanic. It would be LS in all but name (call it Health Steal or something).
Warlock gear would also see a replacement of LS with this new Health Steal stat.
This would allow specific adjustments for the SW, without impacting the LS of any other classes or other classes gear.
Of course there's quite a few other things need sorting out with the SW as well.
With the stat nerfs, potion duration increases, LF/Reg changes. This game has really stripped self-healing away from all non-healing classes--basically inventing a reason to need a paladin (or Cleric).
The Cleric board had a thread on how LS was putting them out of a job from a while back.
Giving SW back it's LS, renamed or not, would basically be a total 180% on the current trajectory.
But we all know Cryptic has zero problems with massive out-of-the-blue changes. So it might happen.
But then CW's are gonna want this back, and GWFs will want that back, and it could turn into a entitlement parade.
I'm putting my money on SW will get some DPS back, and that's it.
One option could be to replace LS for the SW with another similar mechanic. It would be LS in all but name (call it Health Steal or something).
Warlock gear would also see a replacement of LS with this new Health Steal stat.
This would allow specific adjustments for the SW, without impacting the LS of any other classes or other classes gear.
Of course there's quite a few other things need sorting out with the SW as well.
With the stat nerfs, potion duration increases, LF/Reg changes. This game has really stripped self-healing away from all non-healing classes--basically inventing a reason to need a paladin (or Cleric).
The Cleric board had a thread on how LS was putting them out of a job from a while back.
Giving SW back it's LS, renamed or not, would basically be a total 180% on the current trajectory.
But we all know Cryptic has zero problems with massive out-of-the-blue changes. So it might happen.
But then CW's are gonna want this back, and GWFs will want that back, and it could turn into a entitlement parade.
I'm putting my money on SW will get some DPS back, and that's it.
Giving back an effective LS mechanic to the SW wouldn't really be a turnaround. It would in fact be a correction, as they specifically stated the SW would be treated as a special case when they came to look at the LS adjustment.
They didn't, simple as that. They went back on what they said, ignored SW class feedback on Mod 6 preview, and wrecked the Temptation spec.
I don't know what more players could have done at the time. The preview feedback threw up this issue - repeatedly. It was as though we where speaking a foreign language.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
One option could be to replace LS for the SW with another similar mechanic. It would be LS in all but name (call it Health Steal or something).
Warlock gear would also see a replacement of LS with this new Health Steal stat.
This would allow specific adjustments for the SW, without impacting the LS of any other classes or other classes gear.
Of course there's quite a few other things need sorting out with the SW as well.
With the stat nerfs, potion duration increases, LF/Reg changes. This game has really stripped self-healing away from all non-healing classes--basically inventing a reason to need a paladin (or Cleric).
The Cleric board had a thread on how LS was putting them out of a job from a while back.
Giving SW back it's LS, renamed or not, would basically be a total 180% on the current trajectory.
But we all know Cryptic has zero problems with massive out-of-the-blue changes. So it might happen.
But then CW's are gonna want this back, and GWFs will want that back, and it could turn into a entitlement parade.
I'm putting my money on SW will get some DPS back, and that's it.
Giving back an effective LS mechanic to the SW wouldn't really be a turnaround. It would in fact be a correction, as they specifically stated the SW would be treated as a special case when they came to look at the LS adjustment.
They didn't, simple as that. They went back on what they said, ignored SW class feedback on Mod 6 preview, and wrecked the Temptation spec.
I don't know what more players could have done at the time. The preview feedback threw up this issue - repeatedly. It was as though we where speaking a foreign language.
I think giving SW's ls back would be a mistake. It was too strong mod5. That said without it, we are too weak, especially tempt. I think the solution is to let tempts capstone heal others every hit for a percentage of the damage done like old lifeseal, (but not the SW themselves) Perhaps make the % the same as the % for the SW's chance to heal themself.
The other changes are fixing the powers for better use an more damage. Most of the powers are very clunky. Then to give us true immunity frames with our shift. Shadowslip was a nice try but it just didn't work.
"Giving back an effective LS mechanic" is just saying that an effective one needs to be returned to the class, not necessarily a direct return to what it was before.
If they created a custom LS type mechanic for the SW it would be easier to carry out specific adjustments.
Anyway pretty sure we're not going to see anything soon, so mine will stay in the PE invoking area - commonly known as the SW parking lot.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
Just watch the latest dev stream that featured both the EP (executive producer) Rob, and Strongholds guy, Commander Ander.
EP states that the NCL numbers for the SW were underperforming, and that when they do a mass class balance(soon), SW is first on the agenda.
and we know how this will end up.
there wont be class balance fixes, they will make it OVERPOWRED so that people will play it, like it happend with TRs and DCs in module 5, not to mention they wont fix the problems, they will add more problems to the table.
Well, some warlocks that stomp people in pvp now will be called overpowered anyway.
I had a couple of people call me over powered on my SW yesterday, after several Domination and GG runs. What they don't realize is I am almost BIS SW and still get man handled by a blue geared smoke bomb champion/SE blue geared TR.
And usually if I run into a GWF that is = Item level as myself, I have to play mouse chases the cat in which after 1 stun I am usually one shotted by his IDS. Again, as someone who plays a SW, I agree players that are currently playing Warlocks and making it look easy have either played them since launch and geared them to the teeth in PvP (I have done both).
I will say this before leaving this thread to its' own, I'm too a point now where if by chance the druid, Monk or Shaman class launches in a better way than SW, for mod 7.5 or 8, I'm done with this class. I'll probably delete and move on.
I'm fed up with the stupidity of balancing this class in this game.
I may not be considered by most the BEST PVP Warlock on the server but, I am the most HATED amongst them.
"Giving back an effective LS mechanic" is just saying that an effective one needs to be returned to the class, not necessarily a direct return to what it was before.
If they created a custom LS type mechanic for the SW it would be easier to carry out specific adjustments.
Anyway pretty sure we're not going to see anything soon, so mine will stay in the PE invoking area - commonly known as the SW parking lot.
The mechanic can and should stay how it is, except that tempt needs a way to consistently heal others like it was designed to. If they try to give SW's some specialized life steal with any name it will be a mistake. Fix the encounters so that more are useful, give us immunity frames, and make the tempt capstone do something. Once we have immunity frames, and better encounter abilities everything else will fall in line. Back in mod5 there was nothing that could kill me unless I just stood still in the reds. That's not right. That's why lifesteal was nerfed. That's why it needed a nerf. Fixing our damage and giving us a way to avoid damage will fix the class. Trying to put us back to the broken state we were at before is just wrong.
Our Executive Producer has stated that we are indeed looking at the SW. I actually made a new one myself recently to see how underpowered it is. Can't be a good CM if I don't experience what you guys are experiencing.
Hey Strum, really glad to hear this mate. I'm pleased to see some good response and I know that you're doing a hell of a lot to work through the many issues that you've inherited. Kudos to you.
Just want to make sure that you know: SW doesn't feel underpowered at all until near endgame. So, make sure that you play AT LEAST to Spinward, if not up until the campaign areas. This is where you really hit a brick wall as a solo SW trying to just progress through the game--I couldn't even get INTO Sharandar because I got rolled by the first pack of trolls that came around the corner. I spent pretty much all of my gold constantly buying health pots just to stay alive through 1 or 2 packs of mobs, even in Drowned Shore.
Compare that to my GWF, with the same ilvl, who uses pretty much 0 healing pots and just tanks everything so far throughout the same areas, with ease.
I think there are three main areas that should be considered and addressed:
1. Life steal - Seems to me that the core component of the SW was to leach life as an alternative to defense. For solo content, this mechanic is not quite sufficient. My thought is that this could be fixed by a small increase to LS being added by ability scores to make it more balanced, but without making the SW invincible.
2. DPS - Warlocks with BiS gear can still dish out high DPS for dungeon runs. But, lower-geared warlocks don't have sufficient stats to keep up with other DPS classes. The outcome here is that SW becomes essentially worthless to a party unless they are BiS. There are many ways to address this, but I think looking at the way Creeping Death is stacked could be a good place to start, as the main damage of the Warlock is centered around necrotic DoT, but this capstone was nerfed pretty hard.
3. Shift mechanic - In dungeons and boss fights, lifesteal becomes irrelevant because SW is still so squishy that one big hit and we die instantly. We have no reliable way to dodge or avoid damage. I think this tab feature needs to be A.) Examined for bugs, as it is often unreliable; B.) Be given some immunity frame or better dodge ability, as at the moment it's sort of a fancy "run" feature that doesn't offer us any protection from big blasts.
I'm not meaning to pile on here, but just wanted to share my thoughts as well. Hopefully my organization of specific problem areas will provide some insight as to how the Warlock may be improved.
3. Tab mechanic - In dungeons and boss fights, lifesteal becomes irrelevant because SW is still so squishy that one big hit and we die instantly. We have no reliable way to dodge or avoid damage. I think this tab feature needs to be A.) Examined for bugs, as it is often unreliable; B.) Be given some immunity frame or better dodge ability, as at the moment it's sort of a fancy "run" feature that doesn't offer us any protection from big blasts.
Do you mean shift? Our tab is curse, and has nothing to do with what you are talking about. What you talk about seems like it's about shift.
3. Tab mechanic - In dungeons and boss fights, lifesteal becomes irrelevant because SW is still so squishy that one big hit and we die instantly. We have no reliable way to dodge or avoid damage. I think this tab feature needs to be A.) Examined for bugs, as it is often unreliable; B.) Be given some immunity frame or better dodge ability, as at the moment it's sort of a fancy "run" feature that doesn't offer us any protection from big blasts.
Do you mean shift? Our tab is curse, and has nothing to do with what you are talking about. What you talk about seems like it's about shift.
Yes - whoops. I fixed it. Thanks for pointing that out!
I am getting worried about Strumslinger. We haven't heard anything since he went off to level an SW.
I also started a new one at the same time to get an idea of the leveling timescale.
My new SW is now lvl 62 and in Drowned Shore, where it starts to show the poor state of the class.
Now I'm used to this, but for anyone (or in this case Strum) who is maybe experiencing this uphill turn for the first time - it might come as a bit of a shock.
So, a little guide Strum:
- It is perfectly normal for your attacks to show very little damage on mobs.
- When using Dreadtheft get close to the screen so you can actually see the health reduction of the target. You may want to compare this health drain to sand going through an hourglass if you have one handy.
- Do not be surprised when you crit the mob, only for it to show very little or no effect. And you may in fact see the mobs health rise considerably if it was in the middle of a health potion, as your attack will be ignored.
- It is normal to feel increasingly depressed when you see other classes carve through the mobs that you have taken ages to get to 80% health. You're best bet here is to stand at the side and cheer them on.
- Do not check your LS health feedback, it is insignificant. You'd be better off watching the tide come in - far more rewarding.
- Seeing most of your health disintegrate in the first second of combat is normal, this saves you from possible glare issues if you feel your health bar is too bright.
- When you rise from a struggling lvl 61 to the heights of lvl 62 - do not assume that this will make things better on the same mobs. Your struggles have only just commenced.
and that's about it for a quick guide.
Now, as we've not heard from Strum since he started an SW I will head back to Drowned Shore and search round for an SW corpse, hopefully identified by having Strum, or Slinger somewhere in their character name.
If that fails, I'll go for the back up plan of looking for him in the invoking area in PE.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
I've spend 100gp in a week to injury kits with sw. Thanks to botters AH is full of injury kits so i don't have to spend gold anymore. When i compare that to my level 60 OP who soloed cult prison item level under 1k, with no deaths....
One option could be to replace LS for the SW with another similar mechanic. It would be LS in all but name (call it Health Steal or something).
Warlock gear would also see a replacement of LS with this new Health Steal stat.
This would allow specific adjustments for the SW, without impacting the LS of any other classes or other classes gear.
Of course there's quite a few other things need sorting out with the SW as well.
With the stat nerfs, potion duration increases, LF/Reg changes. This game has really stripped self-healing away from all non-healing classes--basically inventing a reason to need a paladin (or Cleric).
The Cleric board had a thread on how LS was putting them out of a job from a while back.
Giving SW back it's LS, renamed or not, would basically be a total 180% on the current trajectory.
But we all know Cryptic has zero problems with massive out-of-the-blue changes. So it might happen.
But then CW's are gonna want this back, and GWFs will want that back, and it could turn into a entitlement parade.
I'm putting my money on SW will get some DPS back, and that's it.
Why should they?
Have they heard the phrase bing tank + heal to the party?
With my SW I just stay back don't rush fwd and doing lots of dmg in T2s.
2. DPS - Warlocks with BiS gear can still dish out high DPS for dungeon runs. But, lower-geared warlocks don't have sufficient stats to keep up with other DPS classes. The outcome here is that SW becomes essentially worthless to a party unless they are BiS. There are many ways to address this, but I think looking at the way Creeping Death is stacked could be a good place to start, as the main damage of the Warlock is centered around necrotic DoT, but this capstone was nerfed pretty hard.
How about gearing up?
Or joining to a guild for being helped to gear up?
Or having other characters to make AD to your SW?
I've spend 100gp in a week to injury kits with sw. Thanks to botters AH is full of injury kits so i don't have to spend gold anymore. When i compare that to my level 60 OP who soloed cult prison item level under 1k, with no deaths....
That's not from botting. At least it might not be.
Well, no luck finding an SW corpse with Strumslinger name - or any name similar. Even went to the PE parking lot to check the invokers there - no sign.
So either he hasn't made it to Drowned Shore yet (Blacklake can be tough I know), has leveled past it - or has not bothered yet with an SW.
So mine is now parked in PE - along with all my other characters - until something is done about the Scourge Warlock.
One thing I did learn from leveling another SW - areas are ghost towns now.
See you around - or maybe not.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
2. DPS - Warlocks with BiS gear can still dish out high DPS for dungeon runs. But, lower-geared warlocks don't have sufficient stats to keep up with other DPS classes. The outcome here is that SW becomes essentially worthless to a party unless they are BiS. There are many ways to address this, but I think looking at the way Creeping Death is stacked could be a good place to start, as the main damage of the Warlock is centered around necrotic DoT, but this capstone was nerfed pretty hard.
How about gearing up?
Or joining to a guild for being helped to gear up?
Or having other characters to make AD to your SW?
LOL, that is exactly my point.
So, my only solution is what? Park my SW until I can save up enough AD to get better gear by playing other toons, which, with similar ilvl, carve through the same areas that SW gets steamrolled?
Come on--not everyone has 3k ilvl. It's silly that the class is basically worthless from the time they hit lvl 70 until they can save up enough for 3k ilvl just to survive endgame content. And, by endgame, I am talking campaign content--WoD, Sharandar, Dread Ring, IWD are all a joke with SW unless you have massive gear.
BTW, saving AD does very little to gear up, considering all of the T1/2 gear is now account bound and you need seals (which you have to complete epic dungeons to receive) to buy them. Not like I can scoop up an Alliance Assault set from the AH.
2. DPS - Warlocks with BiS gear can still dish out high DPS for dungeon runs. But, lower-geared warlocks don't have sufficient stats to keep up with other DPS classes. The outcome here is that SW becomes essentially worthless to a party unless they are BiS. There are many ways to address this, but I think looking at the way Creeping Death is stacked could be a good place to start, as the main damage of the Warlock is centered around necrotic DoT, but this capstone was nerfed pretty hard.
How about gearing up?
Or joining to a guild for being helped to gear up?
Or having other characters to make AD to your SW?
LOL, that is exactly my point.
So, my only solution is what? Park my SW until I can save up enough AD to get better gear by playing other toons, which, with similar ilvl, carve through the same areas that SW gets steamrolled?
Come on--not everyone has 3k ilvl. It's silly that the class is basically worthless from the time they hit lvl 70 until they can save up enough for 3k ilvl just to survive endgame content. And, by endgame, I am talking campaign content--WoD, Sharandar, Dread Ring, IWD are all a joke with SW unless you have massive gear.
BTW, saving AD does very little to gear up, considering all of the T1/2 gear is now account bound and you need seals (which you have to complete epic dungeons to receive) to buy them. Not like I can scoop up an Alliance Assault set from the AH.
It would be a long journey for this game to fix this silly giant gap between players caused by gearelitism and exploits
How many players in this game exist that have time to grind legally to get there and how many want to spend 1000 of dollars for a weak , bad designed product?
This only serves very few ppl
And as you can see it takes ages to fix lttle small things for a class like warlock..only to mention Harrow storm
No, thats far to slow to have any trust in this game
Well, they broke Harrowstorm with a "bug fix" to some curse related skill in the first place.
And if i'm not mistaken, they also nerfed Harrowstorm damage with the patch, that got it working proper again...
I am getting worried about Strumslinger. We haven't heard anything since he went off to level an SW.
I also started a new one at the same time to get an idea of the leveling timescale.
My new SW is now lvl 62 and in Drowned Shore, where it starts to show the poor state of the class.
Now I'm used to this, but for anyone (or in this case Strum) who is maybe experiencing this uphill turn for the first time - it might come as a bit of a shock.
So, a little guide Strum:
- It is perfectly normal for your attacks to show very little damage on mobs.
- When using Dreadtheft get close to the screen so you can actually see the health reduction of the target. You may want to compare this health drain to sand going through an hourglass if you have one handy.
- Do not be surprised when you crit the mob, only for it to show very little or no effect. And you may in fact see the mobs health rise considerably if it was in the middle of a health potion, as your attack will be ignored.
- It is normal to feel increasingly depressed when you see other classes carve through the mobs that you have taken ages to get to 80% health. You're best bet here is to stand at the side and cheer them on.
- Do not check your LS health feedback, it is insignificant. You'd be better off watching the tide come in - far more rewarding.
- Seeing most of your health disintegrate in the first second of combat is normal, this saves you from possible glare issues if you feel your health bar is too bright.
- When you rise from a struggling lvl 61 to the heights of lvl 62 - do not assume that this will make things better on the same mobs. Your struggles have only just commenced.
and that's about it for a quick guide.
Now, as we've not heard from Strum since he started an SW I will head back to Drowned Shore and search round for an SW corpse, hopefully identified by having Strum, or Slinger somewhere in their character name.
If that fails, I'll go for the back up plan of looking for him in the invoking area in PE.
Comments
Since the tree I took was all based of LS, and LS was nerfed, I was gimped to hell. Since they didn't give me a retrain token for breaking my class/tree, the SW is in the garage ever since. Why should we have to respec every time they break a class? It's simply sad and really unacceptable that there is only one feat tree that is viable for a SW to take using what is a slight "exploit" (not really, they designed it that way so it's not an exploit).
I even invested in the armor set that boosted heals to fellow group members, via leeching mobs through LS, the set is totally defunct now in it's effect because of RGN mechanics, further gimping me in not only my solo performance, but my group acceptability.
I don't know how they are going to retool the SW to factor in LS based feat tree, without bringing back LS to pre-nerf status, but I for one am not going to invest or develop my SW, or actually play it until they "fix" it. I certainly wouldn't buy a retrain token and re-feat before hand, given their past track record, I would retrain and take the puppet route to become re-viable, and they would "fix" the SW and make that tree the new gimp path.
In that *other* mmo game Warlock was sooo d*mn good, fear, facemelt, demonform anyone? :XD
Nobody has boons for Mod 7 yet, and until we see how long it takes, I wouldn't throw them out as a "shiny".
Well Strum if you are looking for recommendations of paths to try for SW, I would recommend trying the following:
Hellbringer Fury,
Hellbringer Temptation,
Soulbinder Damnation,
Soulbinder Temptation.
For Hellbringer Fury, see how well it does in the paingiver chart when compared to GWF, CW, HR and TR who have similar item scores.
For Hellbringer Temptation, See how well this build works when joining the queue solo for a t1 or t2 dungeon (assuming you can find a party that doesn't kick you). Make sure to slot 'Vampiric Embrace' its healing abilities is lengendary.
For Soulbinder Damnation see how well this works when you reach the boss in a dungeon. You might have to put out an APB to find your soul puppet.
For Soulbinder Temptation this is almost viable, just remember to equip rank 12 dark enchantments in your all available defense slots, plus make sure all your artifact gear has life steal stats and is upgraded to legendary. Yep that's all you need to do so you can kind of heal people (sometimes).
Appart from that, no, vampiric embrace is not good, in fact it is easly replaceable when i put healing set on:
Elemental duelist head and hands,
Thayan chest and feets
6100 ls, that and feats for ls and 3 loyal commanders can make me heal 50k in one shot of killing flammes ending lostmauth.
Is it bad? If you have a "pvp" DC as many call righteous DC's it's actually good, but over all....
Neverwinter: Epic Dread Vault Solo - Warlock - Youtube
Since LS is gone for good (I think it sucks compared to what it was, so save the correction), I guess the dev's will feed the SW some power/crit buffs to lower the discontent.
Like they did for GF's while breaking tanking ability and giving it to OPs.
Welcome to the bargain bin, dollar menu, NWO class list.
One option could be to replace LS for the SW with another similar mechanic. It would be LS in all but name (call it Health Steal or something).
Warlock gear would also see a replacement of LS with this new Health Steal stat.
This would allow specific adjustments for the SW, without impacting the LS of any other classes or other classes gear.
Of course there's quite a few other things need sorting out with the SW as well.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
The Cleric board had a thread on how LS was putting them out of a job from a while back.
Giving SW back it's LS, renamed or not, would basically be a total 180% on the current trajectory.
But we all know Cryptic has zero problems with massive out-of-the-blue changes. So it might happen.
But then CW's are gonna want this back, and GWFs will want that back, and it could turn into a entitlement parade.
I'm putting my money on SW will get some DPS back, and that's it.
Giving back an effective LS mechanic to the SW wouldn't really be a turnaround. It would in fact be a correction, as they specifically stated the SW would be treated as a special case when they came to look at the LS adjustment.
They didn't, simple as that. They went back on what they said, ignored SW class feedback on Mod 6 preview, and wrecked the Temptation spec.
I don't know what more players could have done at the time. The preview feedback threw up this issue - repeatedly. It was as though we where speaking a foreign language.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
The other changes are fixing the powers for better use an more damage. Most of the powers are very clunky. Then to give us true immunity frames with our shift. Shadowslip was a nice try but it just didn't work.
If they created a custom LS type mechanic for the SW it would be easier to carry out specific adjustments.
Anyway pretty sure we're not going to see anything soon, so mine will stay in the PE invoking area - commonly known as the SW parking lot.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
-Kymos
The mechanic can and should stay how it is, except that tempt needs a way to consistently heal others like it was designed to. If they try to give SW's some specialized life steal with any name it will be a mistake. Fix the encounters so that more are useful, give us immunity frames, and make the tempt capstone do something. Once we have immunity frames, and better encounter abilities everything else will fall in line. Back in mod5 there was nothing that could kill me unless I just stood still in the reds. That's not right. That's why lifesteal was nerfed. That's why it needed a nerf. Fixing our damage and giving us a way to avoid damage will fix the class. Trying to put us back to the broken state we were at before is just wrong.
Hey Strum, really glad to hear this mate. I'm pleased to see some good response and I know that you're doing a hell of a lot to work through the many issues that you've inherited. Kudos to you.
Just want to make sure that you know: SW doesn't feel underpowered at all until near endgame. So, make sure that you play AT LEAST to Spinward, if not up until the campaign areas. This is where you really hit a brick wall as a solo SW trying to just progress through the game--I couldn't even get INTO Sharandar because I got rolled by the first pack of trolls that came around the corner. I spent pretty much all of my gold constantly buying health pots just to stay alive through 1 or 2 packs of mobs, even in Drowned Shore.
Compare that to my GWF, with the same ilvl, who uses pretty much 0 healing pots and just tanks everything so far throughout the same areas, with ease.
I think there are three main areas that should be considered and addressed:
1. Life steal - Seems to me that the core component of the SW was to leach life as an alternative to defense. For solo content, this mechanic is not quite sufficient. My thought is that this could be fixed by a small increase to LS being added by ability scores to make it more balanced, but without making the SW invincible.
2. DPS - Warlocks with BiS gear can still dish out high DPS for dungeon runs. But, lower-geared warlocks don't have sufficient stats to keep up with other DPS classes. The outcome here is that SW becomes essentially worthless to a party unless they are BiS. There are many ways to address this, but I think looking at the way Creeping Death is stacked could be a good place to start, as the main damage of the Warlock is centered around necrotic DoT, but this capstone was nerfed pretty hard.
3. Shift mechanic - In dungeons and boss fights, lifesteal becomes irrelevant because SW is still so squishy that one big hit and we die instantly. We have no reliable way to dodge or avoid damage. I think this tab feature needs to be A.) Examined for bugs, as it is often unreliable; B.) Be given some immunity frame or better dodge ability, as at the moment it's sort of a fancy "run" feature that doesn't offer us any protection from big blasts.
I'm not meaning to pile on here, but just wanted to share my thoughts as well. Hopefully my organization of specific problem areas will provide some insight as to how the Warlock may be improved.
Cheers,
Tyler
Do you mean shift? Our tab is curse, and has nothing to do with what you are talking about. What you talk about seems like it's about shift.
Yes - whoops. I fixed it. Thanks for pointing that out!
I also started a new one at the same time to get an idea of the leveling timescale.
My new SW is now lvl 62 and in Drowned Shore, where it starts to show the poor state of the class.
Now I'm used to this, but for anyone (or in this case Strum) who is maybe experiencing this uphill turn for the first time - it might come as a bit of a shock.
So, a little guide Strum:
- It is perfectly normal for your attacks to show very little damage on mobs.
- When using Dreadtheft get close to the screen so you can actually see the health reduction of the target. You may want to compare this health drain to sand going through an hourglass if you have one handy.
- Do not be surprised when you crit the mob, only for it to show very little or no effect. And you may in fact see the mobs health rise considerably if it was in the middle of a health potion, as your attack will be ignored.
- It is normal to feel increasingly depressed when you see other classes carve through the mobs that you have taken ages to get to 80% health. You're best bet here is to stand at the side and cheer them on.
- Do not check your LS health feedback, it is insignificant. You'd be better off watching the tide come in - far more rewarding.
- Seeing most of your health disintegrate in the first second of combat is normal, this saves you from possible glare issues if you feel your health bar is too bright.
- When you rise from a struggling lvl 61 to the heights of lvl 62 - do not assume that this will make things better on the same mobs. Your struggles have only just commenced.
and that's about it for a quick guide.
Now, as we've not heard from Strum since he started an SW I will head back to Drowned Shore and search round for an SW corpse, hopefully identified by having Strum, or Slinger somewhere in their character name.
If that fails, I'll go for the back up plan of looking for him in the invoking area in PE.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
Why should they?
Have they heard the phrase bing tank + heal to the party?
With my SW I just stay back don't rush fwd and doing lots of dmg in T2s.
How about gearing up?
Or joining to a guild for being helped to gear up?
Or having other characters to make AD to your SW?
That's not from botting. At least it might not be.
So either he hasn't made it to Drowned Shore yet (Blacklake can be tough I know), has leveled past it - or has not bothered yet with an SW.
So mine is now parked in PE - along with all my other characters - until something is done about the Scourge Warlock.
One thing I did learn from leveling another SW - areas are ghost towns now.
See you around - or maybe not.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
Agreed. TR can opt to provide pretty decent AOE CC. It is bonkers powerful in PvP as it even locks out at-wills.
LOL, that is exactly my point.
So, my only solution is what? Park my SW until I can save up enough AD to get better gear by playing other toons, which, with similar ilvl, carve through the same areas that SW gets steamrolled?
Come on--not everyone has 3k ilvl. It's silly that the class is basically worthless from the time they hit lvl 70 until they can save up enough for 3k ilvl just to survive endgame content. And, by endgame, I am talking campaign content--WoD, Sharandar, Dread Ring, IWD are all a joke with SW unless you have massive gear.
BTW, saving AD does very little to gear up, considering all of the T1/2 gear is now account bound and you need seals (which you have to complete epic dungeons to receive) to buy them. Not like I can scoop up an Alliance Assault set from the AH.
It would be a long journey for this game to fix this silly giant gap between players caused by gearelitism and exploits
How many players in this game exist that have time to grind legally to get there and how many want to spend 1000 of dollars for a weak , bad designed product?
This only serves very few ppl
And as you can see it takes ages to fix lttle small things for a class like warlock..only to mention Harrow storm
No, thats far to slow to have any trust in this game
And if i'm not mistaken, they also nerfed Harrowstorm damage with the patch, that got it working proper again...