Your friendly neighborhood Scourge Warlock is here (with special guest star Fernuu Stormborn!) to give ya’ll the 411 on what’s up! So The Storm King’s Thunder has arrived, and we’re all curious what to do with our Scourge Warlock’s now that Mod 10 is live…
Well, the good news is that in PvE I believe we actually have a few builds that are viable! The bad news is for PvP, from what I’ve seen/heard, we may be dead in the water. However, this thread is about PvE Builds for SWs, so let’s dive right in!
Prior to Mod 10 the go to, end all/be all, of PvE DPS/Survivability was Soulbinder/Fury. Really, there wasn’t much else going on… Sure you could be a Damnation SW with the goofy puppet, but really the fact you couldn’t get it into boss fights w/o silly workarounds was dumb and really pointless IMO. Now w/Mod 10 now, I believe there may be a usurper to that throne, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
We all know there was a slew of changes to the SW with the grand Class Balancing, and a number of things changed/were fixed. Overall, I believe we lost a bit of DPS at the top end, but the playstyle of SWs in PvE is much better now IMO. Notable changes mechanics wise:
Tyrannical Threat went the way of the dodo…
The new Tryannical Curse is still a solid Daily, but it certainly won’t clear packs of bad guys fast like before. Which leaves room for a number of other Dailies to see the light of day such as… Brood of Hadar, Immolation Spirits, Flames of Phlegethos, Gates of Hell, etc. Fernuu Fun Fact: Just keep in mind you can’t cast more than one Tyrannical Curse at time. You can’t recast it when the original target is dead and if you’ll have full AP and cast it again – first one will be gone. Damage buff and damage link are working mostly like before so just select best target for it – which will last long enough to make it work.
Shadow Slip now offers a 1 second frame of Immunity. That means no damage, and no negative status effects. You can tell those Green Bubbles of Doom from CN to go eff themselves! Nothing to worry about anymore.
Soul Sparks now fade after combat slowly, 1 per second, and you can have some ready for the next group of bad guys.
Aside from that many, if not everything, was looked at and reviewed/revamped/redesigned. Knowing that we won’t dive into each nitty gritty detail of every change, and just focus on the ones that are key to the discussion in this post.
What I will say about Soulbinder Fury is that it still has great survivability, and Soul Scorch now providing AP is a big bonus to keeping AP gain going. Infact you can almost have permanent dailies going between Encounters, Sigil of the Devoted and Snail, if you have all that decked out. Only thing that would really change from pre-Mod 10 builds of SB Fury, in my mind, would rotation. For adds/questing, I’d recommend a high AoE dependent rotation: Fiery Bolt / Blades of Vanquished Armies / Killing Flames (w/MF Feated).
Fernuu Fun Fact: Even better! With Sigil, Snail and Soul Scorch you can have two dailies active at once! Imagine – casting Tyrannical Curse and 5 seconds later – Immolation Spirits – you can feel real Power of Nine Hells!
Honestly, you should absolutely tear through adds that way. Single target, for bosses would look much like before: Killing Flames / Hadar’s Grasp or Warlock’s Bargain / Soul Scorch
Fernuu Fun Fact: In my opinion also good option here is to use Blades of Vanquished Armies (with Killing Flames / Soul Scorch) – it will make your sparks generation a lot faster and (if you will use All Consuming Curse and Fury path) will pop Lesser Curse a lot, which means debuff from Infernal Wrath.
Honorable mention goes to Cursed Bite, try it out w/All Consuming Curse slotted, etc. Speaking of passives, I’d honestly drop Borrowed Time for Shadow Walk as the Speed increase/deflect bonus from it is nice. If you have a decent life steal stat, 20% + and you’re using the Insignia bonus Vampire’s Craving, you honestly should be all set with healing and the new 25k Potion’s of Grand Healing.
Fernuu Fun Fact: Sticking with Blades and All Consuming Curse, you will make your targets affected with Lesser Curse now. So everyone of them will get hit from Curse Bite (which does really nice damage). You can skip BoVA/ACC combo with casting Accursed Souls first – they grant Lesser Curse now.
Now, ya’ll might be chomping at the bit to see what the new hawtness is, and w/my steady friends of mad research skillz y0, @fernuu and @thefabricant, we’ve found something nice and spicy for ya’ll…
Fernuu Fun Fact:
Hellbringer Fury is back in effect people!
I know, I know… The much maligned paragon path may be the best option for SWs, particularly at the higher Item Levels. Now, what could possibly make HB comparable, or even arguably better, to SB? Well, it was the change to the Encounter Power – PILLAR OF POWER!!!
Along w/the Feat in the Damnation Tree – Power of the Nine Hells. So let’s review…
Pillar of Power: This power has had a slight rework. Now always casts under your feet, instead of needing to be placed. Recharge time now starts as soon as you cast it instead of when the effect ends, and has been reduced to 10s, down from 15s. You may only have 1 Pillar of Power active at a time, so recasting it while it is still active will move it to your current location. The effects of the Pillar have changed, as well. In addition to increasing your damage, it now also grants you damage resistance while you stand within it. The Pillar no longer builds up and explodes when an enemy enters it. Instead, it lowers the enemies damage and damage resistance, and deals damage to them.
Fernuu Fun Fact: On top of that, while enemy enters you Pillar their damage reduction is decreased (more debuff!) and they deal less damage (more survivability).
Pillar of Power: Radius increased to 13′, up from 10′. Power of the Nine: Now extends to the new Damage Resistance buff, in addition to the Damage buff. Also allows you to retain the buff for 5 seconds outside the circle.
The general concept is as follows… You are a buff/debuff MACHINE (and that’s not even counting a Temptation SW w/Power of the Nine Hells! though significantly less DPS) when you combine Pillar of Power w/Dreadtheft’s new buff/debuff update.
Dreadtheft ---No longer consumes Curses. Instead, now has a similar effect as a Curse Synergy. While you are using Dreadtheft, affected Cursed targets take increased damage from all sources, and you gain damage resistance based on the number of Cursed targets hit. Both of these effects stop occurring when you stop maintaining Dreadtheft. ---The stacks generated by Curse Synergy with Dreadtheft now cap at 3, down from 5. However, the amount of Damage Resistance granted by each stack has been increased. ---Updated the rank up information to properly state that it increases the Damage Resistance Debuff by 5% per rank, not 3% as previously stated. ---Will now properly grant its Curse Synergy effects if a curse is applied after Dreadtheft has started.”
So for add clearing the suggested rotation is: Fiery Bolt / Pillar of Power / Dreadtheft. The key is Pillar + Dread, so if you like something else for the 3rd, feel free to utilize it.
Fernuu Fun Fact: Nothing to add here folks. Feats, Pillar, Dreadtheft, Dread enchantment – it keep you buffing and debuffing like a monster.
For single target / bosses the recommendation goes: Pillar of Power / Dreadtheft / Killing Flames or Warlock’s Bargain.
Being able to keep Big Poppa, aka. Pillar of Power, up 24/7, and being able to move in and out of PoP w/Power of the Nine Hells offers you all the mobility you need to avoid CC. The other bonus of this entire shebang is that you get to buff the Party also! Any group who doesn’t want 20-25% more Damage/Damage Resistance 24/7, along w/Dreadtheft’s Damage Increase, should follow this advice…
Here are a few screen shots from my toon including feat tree selection, Mount Insignia choices and general stats, so you can see how I personally went w/my Human SW:
With the above, I skipped the HP increase because my Lifesteal is almost 35%, but if yours is below 20ish, you may want to take it. I just really like the AP gain from spamming At-Wills such as Essence Defiler or Hellish Rebuke. Also, I think the new Mount Insignia Bonus ‘Assassin’s Convenant’ is pretty snazzy, you should try it out!
Well…
Fernuu Fun Fact: Thanks all for reading and effort you done while testing Scourge Warlock rebalance changes! Hope you like our insights!
And with that, we did thee adieu and hope all your enemies cower in fear at the mention of your name!
PS - I'll be filling in the following posts, eventually, with some screen shots of more aspects of the character (Boons/Companions/etc.) so stay tuned!
Those videos of Fernuu running HB are very painful to watch. Hopefully some other BiS SW can make a better showing against comparably geared strikers to ignite some hope.
I'm happy to change roles up a little bit. Nuking everything was getting boring, and I'm really really happy HB is back. For at wills, would you recommend Hellish Rebuke and HoB, then for passives ACC and NPNM? Xbox player so just prepping for changes now.
3.5k HB Temptation -- Dread Legion Xbox GT -- Mr Shabok My Guide
Those videos of Fernuu running HB are very painful to watch. Hopefully some other BiS SW can make a better showing against comparably geared strikers to ignite some hope.
I don't think the striker aspect is lost at all, SWs do decent AoE damage and superb single target DPS. Just because someone wins the 'Paingiver' 1st place, doesn't make them the best... lol
Were those the HB runs in CN? Cause that's just a CW paradise...
Still, seriously, it's all good for PvE IMO, we have options and bring more to the team then a GWF!
I'm happy to change roles up a little bit. Nuking everything was getting boring, and I'm really really happy HB is back. For at wills, would you recommend Hellish Rebuke and HoB, then for passives ACC and NPNM? Xbox player so just prepping for changes now.
Hellish Rebuke and Hand of Blight for sure, and passives I'd suggest All Consuming Curse and Flames of Empowerment / No Pity No Mercy. Currently running FoE, but I can see the appeal of NPNM. However w/NPNM you can, with good positioning, have CBA and in many party comps CBA will be given to you anyways.
So, some of the follow-up questions one must ask...
If PoP is the new Meta; how does that impact weapon enchant choice? One would think Dread is now less desirable, since one of our encounters is now spent on buff / debuff. But, Dread also has it's debuff component? The crit severity on KF still seems like a big add; but with Hellish Rebuke being buffed a bit, does it make up enough damage to justify losing the encounter crit severity in place of another enchant?
I'm happy to change roles up a little bit. Nuking everything was getting boring, and I'm really really happy HB is back. For at wills, would you recommend Hellish Rebuke and HoB, then for passives ACC and NPNM? Xbox player so just prepping for changes now.
Hellish Rebuke and Hand of Blight for sure, and passives I'd suggest All Consuming Curse and Flames of Empowerment / No Pity No Mercy. Currently running FoE, but I can see the appeal of NPNM. However w/NPNM you can, with good positioning, have CBA and in many party comps CBA will be given to you anyways.
Gotcha, makes sense. I was only iffy on FoE because i figured I's be casting dailes as often as possible, which would make it useless. Maybe Shadow walk would be a useful 4th option? Sprint to and from PoP more easily
3.5k HB Temptation -- Dread Legion Xbox GT -- Mr Shabok My Guide
Choosing class powers is very situational. Also NPNM and FOE were both updated along with the awesome change to Creeping death, which can now proc off lesser curse.
FoE increases your damage against a target hit by an at will by 5% and stacks 3x for 15% total, which is very good for bosses, but maybe hard to use vs trash. It also means you may want to use eldritch blast for your secondary as it has an aoe in the third hit if you use FoE vs trash.
NPNM gives you CA when you crit a target, which is situational depending on group and playstyle. HR CW and marks can also give CA plus you can get it from being on the opposite side of an enemy as a team mate, but positional CA doesn't work past a short distance (I.e. playstyle is important).
NPNM also increases the damage of hellish rebuke via 50%, but removes the dot, but also increases the damage of the being hit effect too. So it's very complicated if you use hellish rebuke, and less complicated if you don't. (Can you afford to be hit or will you be spamming hellish rebuke are you running abilities that are channeled abilities).
All consuming curse is huge now for fury since it allows you to get CD on a ton of mobs. It is not that useful if you only need to handle one mob as you can easily curse them and the damage of one lesser curse running isn't phenomenal.
So my general recommendation
FoE/NPNM for orcus lostmauth and bosses without adds
ACC/NPNM for trash or boss fights with lots of adds.
Slot in shadow walk if you have trouble staying up it adds lifesteal and deflect now ( its wonderful ) or if you're a speed addict.
Hellish Rebuke and Hand of Blight for sure, and passives I'd suggest All Consuming Curse and Flames of Empowerment / No Pity No Mercy. Currently running FoE, but I can see the appeal of NPNM. However w/NPNM you can, with good positioning, have CBA and in many party comps CBA will be given to you anyways.
NPNM changes how Hellish Rebuke functions; and interestingly *takes away* part of the benefit you'd get from gatekeeper's empowerment. An odd exception of two powers not giving synergy, but actually taking it away. I'll have to test to see if HR really gets no benefit from gatekeeper's empowerment while NPNM is slotted.
Granted; Kolat's posted feat image doesn't take that... but with how much AP we seem to be generating spamming Gates of Hell with 25% more damage / 50% more AP seems like a fun thing to try.
Edit: I personally love the new shadowwalk; plus it adds to lifesteal and deflect! Good utility, but no added damage. Prince of Hell is disappointing since maxing-out Resistance Ignored is trivial in PvE.
Also worth noting; the direct damage from PoP can't crit...
hi, I also have some questions since I did not check the new mod since today Comparing HB and SB on singel target , assuming SB get´s buffed correctly, SB will deal much more damage I guess? Anyone tried to compare both trees? And last one is about offhandfeat HB, FoE or NPNM? And did anyone check if they work atm?
@whyrat - My answer is stick with Dread, because you want ALL the Debuffs bro!
@mrshabok - Shadow Walk is definitely viable, and that speed increase is super sweet!
@schietindebux - Soul Scorch is really good, though I think with the 40% DPS increase from Pillar of Power for every damage source, I think it would be comparable. Needs 100% hard testing, but my opinion is HB is better overall...
Soul Scorch is really good, though I think with the 40% DPS increase from Pillar of Power for every damage source, I think it would be comparable. Needs 100% hard testing, but my opinion is HB is better overall...
My testing is only seeing about 30% increase in damage. Not counting any damage done by PoP itself. Also not adjusting for the fact I could be using an additional encounter power. With this being the case for solo DPS one would expect to be able to easily make up 30% by adding a 3rd strong encounter power... in solo play at least; groups PoP would still be the way to go! Let's see some data:
Testing methodology: Stand in PoP; spam the same rotation of encounters / at-wills. In this case Fiery Bolt and Curse Bite; casting HR to refresh after every FB / EB otherwise. Spammed those rotations for about a minute (around 10 casts of FB). So sample size is a little low but gives us a general sense. Had ACC on; so lesser curse is there (because I'm testing a build with ACC feat + FB lead in dmg + lesser curse, followed by Curse Bite... as a trash clear rotation). You could obviously recreate with any other powers, and I guess I should at some point.
Comparing these two is a bit problematic due to randomness; specifcally sudden precision ring going on/off (I should have removed that) / natural randomness; etc... so look at the at-wills (because the number of casts is highest). With PoP ON we see average hits of EB at ~7889 (@70% crit); HR at ~6262 (@77% crit rate). With PoP OFF we see average hits of EB at ~5781 (@76% crit rate); HR at ~~5015 (@88% crit rate?)
36% increase in average damage for EB; 24% increase in damage for HR.
PoP ON =
PoP OFF =
Other powers worth noting: Avg FB = 55,641 / 45,937 = ~21% (crit rate of 79 vs 92) we can try to take out crit rate by looking at min / max differences: Max FB = 82,457 / 64,467 = ~28% Min FB = 18,312 / 12,335 = ~48%
Avg Curse Bite = 39,494 / 30,359 = ~30% (crit rate of 79 versus 88) Max Curse bite = 49,570 / 41,092 = ~21% Min curse bite = 16,190 / 12,658 = ~28%
I included the DPS over time... the start has a lag; I hit a dummy to make sure ACT was recording (this likely also threw off crit rates some...). And there does seem to be some irregularity in both (likely from when FB didn't crit).
I guess one of my follow-ups would be to do this on a longer timeframe (20 FB cast rotations? oh god, that sounds boring though).
Eh, its actually uncommon for a single encounter to be 30% of one's overall dps for a striker. From my experience, an encounter would parse more often in the 5-15% range individually.
Ofc, one notable exception to this is Soul Scorch, but SS is not like a typical encounter power in being cd-based either.
edit2: and yea should clarify, that its also, say, 30% vs. the 3rd best option, since its assumed that you slot the 1st and 2nd best options as HB (outside of SS, ofc). Making HB prob what I've suspected all along: the better AoE path w/ a bit of extra buff/debuff potential, vs. SB still being the single-target path w/ more potential self-healing options (assuming BT's behavior isn't intended atm).
@kolatmaster , thank you for your post on Mod edit: please do not link to or discuss banned websites.. However my SB/Fury was still doing fine I got tempted to switch to HB to check it out. So I went to (the) Hell. Based on your guidelines I did a respec and after some experimenting I think it's not bad at all. I miss some of the features of SB, but I have started to used to HB as well. First thing I noticed when soloing mob can be dealt with more efficiently. Running dungeons I found Pillar/Dreadtheft/Warlock's Bargain with TT (or TC nowdays) to be the best with Hands of Blight and Hellish Rebuke. For cleaning trash Fiery Bolt can do pretty good hits as you already said. Thanks again for all of you who keep testing different setups to make our life easier.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
duckonplate is a 24% buff assuming its max rank from my testing.
I checked NPNM offhandfeat on PTR and it works, it´s a 5% debuff leading to an increase of effectiveness to your spells and to your allies I guess. So there is no other offhand feat from interest for Hellbringer than NPNM, because nothing else will multiplie damage with x1.05 i guess. Except you run ACC and FoE having 5% critseverity, but in the end FoE+NPNM single and NPNM+ACC for trash, like someone posted, would work well, since ACC is not needed that much on single target. What do you think ?
For those trying out curse bite, is it supposed to hit all cursed targets? To me it either hits only 1 target or doesnt hit at all most of the time. Very rarely hits all cursed targets, whether lesser or warlocks curse. I only have 1 point on it so I'm not sure if thats the reason or if its bugged.
For those trying out curse bite, is it supposed to hit all cursed targets? To me it either hits only 1 target or doesnt hit at all most of the time. Very rarely hits all cursed targets, whether lesser or warlocks curse. I only have 1 point on it so I'm not sure if thats the reason or if its bugged.
I see it hit all targets with either warlock's curse or lesser curse.
Test using ACC; or fire off a power that causes lesser curse on targets. The target dummies in Dread Ring are close enough that fiery bolt with ACC will hit both adjacent targets and cause lesser curse. If you're testing with ACC you could also just spam an at-will until you see the lesser curse appear. Try putting warlock's curse on one dummy, then casting at-wills at another until you get the lesser curse. If you have bad luck with it; re-apply warlock's curse.
I will say curse bite absent ACC & high crit rate is likely sub-optimal. If you're not running ACC or have lower crit, try BoVA or some other encounter.
Tested and curse bite is working. What I was experiencing seems to be an error with warlocks curse itself. Sometimes WC remains for an extended period and curse interactions dont take effect. Can anyone confirm this?
Comments
Your friendly neighborhood Scourge Warlock is here (with special guest star Fernuu Stormborn!) to give ya’ll the 411 on what’s up! So The Storm King’s Thunder has arrived, and we’re all curious what to do with our Scourge Warlock’s now that Mod 10 is live…
Well, the good news is that in PvE I believe we actually have a few builds that are viable! The bad news is for PvP, from what I’ve seen/heard, we may be dead in the water. However, this thread is about PvE Builds for SWs, so let’s dive right in!
Prior to Mod 10 the go to, end all/be all, of PvE DPS/Survivability was Soulbinder/Fury. Really, there wasn’t much else going on… Sure you could be a Damnation SW with the goofy puppet, but really the fact you couldn’t get it into boss fights w/o silly workarounds was dumb and really pointless IMO. Now w/Mod 10 now, I believe there may be a usurper to that throne, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
We all know there was a slew of changes to the SW with the grand Class Balancing, and a number of things changed/were fixed. Overall, I believe we lost a bit of DPS at the top end, but the playstyle of SWs in PvE is much better now IMO. Notable changes mechanics wise:
Tyrannical Threat went the way of the dodo…
The new Tryannical Curse is still a solid Daily, but it certainly won’t clear packs of bad guys fast like before. Which leaves room for a number of other Dailies to see the light of day such as… Brood of Hadar, Immolation Spirits, Flames of Phlegethos, Gates of Hell, etc.
Fernuu Fun Fact:
Just keep in mind you can’t cast more than one Tyrannical Curse at time. You can’t recast it when the original target is dead and if you’ll have full AP and cast it again – first one will be gone. Damage buff and damage link are working mostly like before so just select best target for it – which will last long enough to make it work.
Shadow Slip now offers a 1 second frame of Immunity. That means no damage, and no negative status effects. You can tell those Green Bubbles of Doom from CN to go eff themselves! Nothing to worry about anymore.
Soul Sparks now fade after combat slowly, 1 per second, and you can have some ready for the next group of bad guys.
Aside from that many, if not everything, was looked at and reviewed/revamped/redesigned. Knowing that we won’t dive into each nitty gritty detail of every change, and just focus on the ones that are key to the discussion in this post.
What I will say about Soulbinder Fury is that it still has great survivability, and Soul Scorch now providing AP is a big bonus to keeping AP gain going. Infact you can almost have permanent dailies going between Encounters, Sigil of the Devoted and Snail, if you have all that decked out. Only thing that would really change from pre-Mod 10 builds of SB Fury, in my mind, would rotation. For adds/questing, I’d recommend a high AoE dependent rotation: Fiery Bolt / Blades of Vanquished Armies / Killing Flames (w/MF Feated).
Fernuu Fun Fact:
Even better! With Sigil, Snail and Soul Scorch you can have two dailies active at once! Imagine – casting Tyrannical Curse and 5 seconds later – Immolation Spirits – you can feel real Power of Nine Hells!
Honestly, you should absolutely tear through adds that way. Single target, for bosses would look much like before: Killing Flames / Hadar’s Grasp or Warlock’s Bargain / Soul Scorch
Fernuu Fun Fact:
In my opinion also good option here is to use Blades of Vanquished Armies (with Killing Flames / Soul Scorch) – it will make your sparks generation a lot faster and (if you will use All Consuming Curse and Fury path) will pop Lesser Curse a lot, which means debuff from Infernal Wrath.
Honorable mention goes to Cursed Bite, try it out w/All Consuming Curse slotted, etc. Speaking of passives, I’d honestly drop Borrowed Time for Shadow Walk as the Speed increase/deflect bonus from it is nice. If you have a decent life steal stat, 20% + and you’re using the Insignia bonus Vampire’s Craving, you honestly should be all set with healing and the new 25k Potion’s of Grand Healing.
Fernuu Fun Fact:
Sticking with Blades and All Consuming Curse, you will make your targets affected with Lesser Curse now. So everyone of them will get hit from Curse Bite (which does really nice damage). You can skip BoVA/ACC combo with casting Accursed Souls first – they grant Lesser Curse now.
Now, ya’ll might be chomping at the bit to see what the new hawtness is, and w/my steady friends of mad research skillz y0, @fernuu and @thefabricant, we’ve found something nice and spicy for ya’ll…
Fernuu Fun Fact:
I know, I know… The much maligned paragon path may be the best option for SWs, particularly at the higher Item Levels. Now, what could possibly make HB comparable, or even arguably better, to SB? Well, it was the change to the Encounter Power – PILLAR OF POWER!!!
Along w/the Feat in the Damnation Tree – Power of the Nine Hells. So let’s review…
Pillar of Power: This power has had a slight rework. Now always casts under your feet, instead of needing to be placed. Recharge time now starts as soon as you cast it instead of when the effect ends, and has been reduced to 10s, down from 15s. You may only have 1 Pillar of Power active at a time, so recasting it while it is still active will move it to your current location. The effects of the Pillar have changed, as well. In addition to increasing your damage, it now also grants you damage resistance while you stand within it. The Pillar no longer builds up and explodes when an enemy enters it. Instead, it lowers the enemies damage and damage resistance, and deals damage to them.
Fernuu Fun Fact:
On top of that, while enemy enters you Pillar their damage reduction is decreased (more debuff!) and they deal less damage (more survivability).
Pillar of Power: Radius increased to 13′, up from 10′.
Power of the Nine: Now extends to the new Damage Resistance buff, in addition to the Damage buff. Also allows you to retain the buff for 5 seconds outside the circle.
The general concept is as follows… You are a buff/debuff MACHINE (and that’s not even counting a Temptation SW w/Power of the Nine Hells! though significantly less DPS) when you combine Pillar of Power w/Dreadtheft’s new buff/debuff update.
Dreadtheft
---No longer consumes Curses. Instead, now has a similar effect as a Curse Synergy. While you are using Dreadtheft, affected Cursed targets take increased damage from all sources, and you gain damage resistance based on the number of Cursed targets hit. Both of these effects stop occurring when you stop maintaining Dreadtheft.
---The stacks generated by Curse Synergy with Dreadtheft now cap at 3, down from 5. However, the amount of Damage Resistance granted by each stack has been increased.
---Updated the rank up information to properly state that it increases the Damage Resistance Debuff by 5% per rank, not 3% as previously stated.
---Will now properly grant its Curse Synergy effects if a curse is applied after Dreadtheft has started.”
So for add clearing the suggested rotation is: Fiery Bolt / Pillar of Power / Dreadtheft. The key is Pillar + Dread, so if you like something else for the 3rd, feel free to utilize it.
Fernuu Fun Fact:
Nothing to add here folks. Feats, Pillar, Dreadtheft, Dread enchantment – it keep you buffing and debuffing like a monster.
For single target / bosses the recommendation goes: Pillar of Power / Dreadtheft / Killing Flames or Warlock’s Bargain.
Being able to keep Big Poppa, aka. Pillar of Power, up 24/7, and being able to move in and out of PoP w/Power of the Nine Hells offers you all the mobility you need to avoid CC. The other bonus of this entire shebang is that you get to buff the Party also! Any group who doesn’t want 20-25% more Damage/Damage Resistance 24/7, along w/Dreadtheft’s Damage Increase, should follow this advice…
With the above, I skipped the HP increase because my Lifesteal is almost 35%, but if yours is below 20ish, you may want to take it. I just really like the AP gain from spamming At-Wills such as Essence Defiler or Hellish Rebuke. Also, I think the new Mount Insignia Bonus ‘Assassin’s Convenant’ is pretty snazzy, you should try it out!
Well…
Fernuu Fun Fact:
Thanks all for reading and effort you done while testing Scourge Warlock rebalance changes! Hope you like our insights!
And with that, we did thee adieu and hope all your enemies cower in fear at the mention of your name!
PS - I'll be filling in the following posts, eventually, with some screen shots of more aspects of the character (Boons/Companions/etc.) so stay tuned!
To bad the striker aspect is now lost.
Those videos of Fernuu running HB are very painful to watch. Hopefully some other BiS SW can make a better showing against comparably geared strikers to ignite some hope.
Xbox GT -- Mr Shabok
My Guide
Were those the HB runs in CN? Cause that's just a CW paradise...
Still, seriously, it's all good for PvE IMO, we have options and bring more to the team then a GWF!
If PoP is the new Meta; how does that impact weapon enchant choice? One would think Dread is now less desirable, since one of our encounters is now spent on buff / debuff. But, Dread also has it's debuff component? The crit severity on KF still seems like a big add; but with Hellish Rebuke being buffed a bit, does it make up enough damage to justify losing the encounter crit severity in place of another enchant?
Hmm...
Xbox GT -- Mr Shabok
My Guide
Choosing class powers is very situational. Also NPNM and FOE were both updated along with the awesome change to Creeping death, which can now proc off lesser curse.
FoE increases your damage against a target hit by an at will by 5% and stacks 3x for 15% total, which is very good for bosses, but maybe hard to use vs trash. It also means you may want to use eldritch blast for your secondary as it has an aoe in the third hit if you use FoE vs trash.
NPNM gives you CA when you crit a target, which is situational depending on group and playstyle. HR CW and marks can also give CA plus you can get it from being on the opposite side of an enemy as a team mate, but positional CA doesn't work past a short distance (I.e. playstyle is important).
NPNM also increases the damage of hellish rebuke via 50%, but removes the dot, but also increases the damage of the being hit effect too. So it's very complicated if you use hellish rebuke, and less complicated if you don't. (Can you afford to be hit or will you be spamming hellish rebuke are you running abilities that are channeled abilities).
All consuming curse is huge now for fury since it allows you to get CD on a ton of mobs. It is not that useful if you only need to handle one mob as you can easily curse them and the damage of one lesser curse running isn't phenomenal.
So my general recommendation
FoE/NPNM for orcus lostmauth and bosses without adds
ACC/NPNM for trash or boss fights with lots of adds.
Slot in shadow walk if you have trouble staying up it adds lifesteal and deflect now ( its wonderful ) or if you're a speed addict.
Granted; Kolat's posted feat image doesn't take that... but with how much AP we seem to be generating spamming Gates of Hell with 25% more damage / 50% more AP seems like a fun thing to try.
Edit: I personally love the new shadowwalk; plus it adds to lifesteal and deflect! Good utility, but no added damage. Prince of Hell is disappointing since maxing-out Resistance Ignored is trivial in PvE.
Also worth noting; the direct damage from PoP can't crit...
Comparing HB and SB on singel target , assuming SB get´s buffed correctly, SB will deal much more damage I guess? Anyone tried to compare both trees?
And last one is about offhandfeat HB, FoE or NPNM? And did anyone check if they work atm?
@mrshabok - Shadow Walk is definitely viable, and that speed increase is super sweet!
@schietindebux - Soul Scorch is really good, though I think with the 40% DPS increase from Pillar of Power for every damage source, I think it would be comparable. Needs 100% hard testing, but my opinion is HB is better overall...
Testing methodology: Stand in PoP; spam the same rotation of encounters / at-wills. In this case Fiery Bolt and Curse Bite; casting HR to refresh after every FB / EB otherwise. Spammed those rotations for about a minute (around 10 casts of FB). So sample size is a little low but gives us a general sense. Had ACC on; so lesser curse is there (because I'm testing a build with ACC feat + FB lead in dmg + lesser curse, followed by Curse Bite... as a trash clear rotation). You could obviously recreate with any other powers, and I guess I should at some point.
Comparing these two is a bit problematic due to randomness; specifcally sudden precision ring going on/off (I should have removed that) / natural randomness; etc... so look at the at-wills (because the number of casts is highest).
With PoP ON we see average hits of EB at ~7889 (@70% crit); HR at ~6262 (@77% crit rate). With PoP OFF we see average hits of EB at ~5781 (@76% crit rate); HR at ~~5015 (@88% crit rate?)
36% increase in average damage for EB; 24% increase in damage for HR.
PoP ON =
PoP OFF =
Other powers worth noting:
Avg FB = 55,641 / 45,937 = ~21% (crit rate of 79 vs 92)
we can try to take out crit rate by looking at min / max differences:
Max FB = 82,457 / 64,467 = ~28%
Min FB = 18,312 / 12,335 = ~48%
Avg Curse Bite = 39,494 / 30,359 = ~30% (crit rate of 79 versus 88)
Max Curse bite = 49,570 / 41,092 = ~21%
Min curse bite = 16,190 / 12,658 = ~28%
I included the DPS over time... the start has a lag; I hit a dummy to make sure ACT was recording (this likely also threw off crit rates some...). And there does seem to be some irregularity in both (likely from when FB didn't crit).
I guess one of my follow-ups would be to do this on a longer timeframe (20 FB cast rotations? oh god, that sounds boring though).
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This was on the 2 dummies at the pier in Caer Konig.
Ofc, one notable exception to this is Soul Scorch, but SS is not like a typical encounter power in being cd-based either.
edit2: and yea should clarify, that its also, say, 30% vs. the 3rd best option, since its assumed that you slot the 1st and 2nd best options as HB (outside of SS, ofc). Making HB prob what I've suspected all along: the better AoE path w/ a bit of extra buff/debuff potential, vs. SB still being the single-target path w/ more potential self-healing options (assuming BT's behavior isn't intended atm).
<CO docs> .: Petco :. // Base DPS Sheet (needs revision) // PSA on Power Activation Delay
- Themed Tanks // Misc Build Dump // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (stat data)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
TT is still good for clearing adds during bosses. I was trying different encounters for each boss; mostly feeling things out.
Based on your guidelines I did a respec and after some experimenting I think it's not bad at all. I miss some of the features of SB, but I have started to used to HB as well.
First thing I noticed when soloing mob can be dealt with more efficiently.
Running dungeons I found Pillar/Dreadtheft/Warlock's Bargain with TT (or TC nowdays) to be the best with Hands of Blight and Hellish Rebuke. For cleaning trash Fiery Bolt can do pretty good hits as you already said.
Thanks again for all of you who keep testing different setups to make our life easier.
Have any of you tested how big the damage increase from all sources from Dreadtheft Curse synergy is?
So there is no other offhand feat from interest for Hellbringer than NPNM, because nothing else will multiplie damage with x1.05 i guess.
Except you run ACC and FoE having 5% critseverity, but in the end FoE+NPNM single and NPNM+ACC for trash, like someone posted, would work well, since ACC is not needed that much on single target. What do you think ?
Test using ACC; or fire off a power that causes lesser curse on targets. The target dummies in Dread Ring are close enough that fiery bolt with ACC will hit both adjacent targets and cause lesser curse. If you're testing with ACC you could also just spam an at-will until you see the lesser curse appear. Try putting warlock's curse on one dummy, then casting at-wills at another until you get the lesser curse. If you have bad luck with it; re-apply warlock's curse.
I will say curse bite absent ACC & high crit rate is likely sub-optimal. If you're not running ACC or have lower crit, try BoVA or some other encounter.
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