I think it is the same topic with Critical Promise. Killing Curse profits from all buffs and is far beyond, CP and obviously Spirit Fire do not scale the same way KC does.
MAybe @balanced#2849 can help to investigate that issue, the dps buff really is needed to close the gap wich still is not to deny.
I'll take a look at both of these tomorrow, when I get back to my desk. It would be weird if they didn't scale the same way, but it's totally plausible that something isn't working correctly. It could be that Killing Curse procs on every attack that you do, so powers like "Dreadtheft" will proc it a ton, whereas Spirit Fire prcos at a steady rate of once a second. If the damage numbers themselves are completely off - then something is probably wrong.
No , that´s not the issue, the value from CP is much smaller, procrate is approximately 1/3 more for KC that´s true, but the value is about more than the double for KC compared to CP in my setup, even though it´s 20% vs 25% weapondamage. Maybe powerscaling is not working? Could you please take a look into that procrate from DT too? It procs Feytouched once same as CP, not sure about KC and other weaponenchants, I will test it soon. DT is a nice debuff and dps, but I think it could be a real alternative, if weapon enchants would proc on top, even for a furylock in terms of buffing. Thx in advance.
DoT damage is something that really fits the theme of Scourge Warlock and curses, and I think that's okay for gameplay. The real problem here is that bosses can be killed in a couple of seconds because power creep has come a long way and buff/debuff stacking has become the meta. I could see changing the DoT timer of Creeping Death to once a second instead of once every 1.5 seconds, but I don't think changing the capstone to just be direct damage is a good solution. That said, I would like to see SW get a direct damage option in the future and that might be where Damnation steps in (we'll see).
Actually, i don't think Damnation can ever be good at dps since the Soul Puppet is really slow and only attacks on single target. (I think Damnation would be awesome on a tank role. See some suggestions on page 16 ) Moreover, every fury feat goes in favor of direct damage, except Creeping Death so no need to change the dps path.
And as we're talking about a major rework, what i would like to see is a tab that can be useful in the middle of a battle so why not making the fury capstone transform your tab in a reserve where stacks a % of your damages (75% as Creeping Death or maybe lower this back to 60%) that you could reactivate to inflict these damages to a previously cursed enemy ? (1 cursed target max)
It wouldn't be a dot mechanic anymore but it would respect the idea of a curse dealing damage after some time.
This could be the opportunity to make Cursed Bite relevant by making the capstone transforming it too to deal the damage you stacked on every target 30 feets around the Cursed target.
This game is in favor for burst powers and selfbuffs stacks with minor debuffs.
SW relay on debuffs + DoT.. You can increase values, and it will not fix problems.. The mechanic is problem... When you have broken cars engine you fix engine not tires or painting.
Classes with burst heck even DoT + selfbuffs hit foes and build up buffs and empower own outgoing damage. They deal buffed damage regardless if they do engage same or new foe..
While SW have to spent time to apply debuffs so it could deal it's true damage. But there is no time for that.. And thats why SW lags behind..
I have suggestion,
Rework Brutal curse - current version is that it increase dealt damage toward curse affected foes by x value..
MY proposal is that Brutal curse should work as selfbuff, when you hit cursed target, you receive buff, which would buff damage by current values, and lasting up to 10s(no stacking).
So after killing cursed target, even if you hit other non cursed one, you still will deal increased damage for certain time duration.
And next idea,, well if you would have time for it.. Executioner's Gift I wonder why it not work as orcus artifact set? Less HP foe have, more damage you deal,, and thats up to 30% damage increase... At start you would deal less dmg,, but in longer fight, you will deal more.. .
======================================================================== “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. ==================================================
@tenetomb damnation have great potencial for make dps because the damage dealt its compartament thats mean you can attack for one side and your puppet can attack other side just change parting blasphemy aply on curse synergy and if you want full dps with Blades of vanquished will destroy if even i think can more damage than fury. And yes on bosess need something help stak more soul investures and yes the movement not its ideal but just litle problems for make a thank so play other clasess like a OP or GF
Please consider taking a look a SW specific problems: - Very long casting times. - Dot damage (both from powers and procs like Creeping Death) needs far too much time to deal full damage and in endgame teams are able to 1 rotate bosses even in t9g (not exaggerating and there's evidence about it), SW is helpless there. - Lower proc rates than other strikers (like Aura of Courage or some class feats) - Lower damage potential than other classes. - Killing Flames min damage value is hardcore low and reaches max damage potential (that's not even that good) when enemies are almost dead, it literary is (out of the "hard hitting" encounters from all classes) the most limited and inconsistent encounter power. On top of that, casting speed is very slow. - Passive powers are horribly underpowerd or flat out worthless, a few of them look like are they aren't of a dps class.
I appreciate the feedback and I think this hits a lot of the core problems with SW at the moment.
Long cast times have been a problem for the SW since launch, from what I've seen. Something that has always bugged me with SW powers is the long follow-through at the end of a power. (Ex. The final 0.5 seconds of killing flames where you're locked in place). I think making those a bit shorter and adjusting some of the really long anims, such as Gates of Hell, will definitely make the class feel a lot smoother. That said, animation times are something that require a bit more time than simple numeric changes - so changes on this won't be making it into M13, but it is on my radar for the future.
DoT damage is something that really fits the theme of Scourge Warlock and curses, and I think that's okay for gameplay. The real problem here is that bosses can be killed in a couple of seconds because power creep has come a long way and buff/debuff stacking has become the meta. I could see changing the DoT timer of Creeping Death to once a second instead of once every 1.5 seconds, but I don't think changing the capstone to just be direct damage is a good solution. That said, I would like to see SW get a direct damage option in the future and that might be where Damnation steps in (we'll see).
For the lower proc rate, I believe this is just due to the slow cast times of SW. In theory, all of their powers should proc things like Aura of Courage just as much as another class. If I'm mistaken, an example would really help here as it could be a problem with a specific power.
Killing flames gets up to 2.5x the damage, maybe the variance on that is too high? It's something I can investigate, but comparing it to a target that is at ~66% life - it should still hit pretty hard in comparison to other powers.
Passive powers, especially ones that relate to Soul Sparks, are pretty weak for SW. It's definitely something I can see looking at in future modules - Giving SW a couple of damage buffs through these would help them a lot.
I do want to re-iterate that M13 is close enough to release that large, sweeping, changes won't be making it into the launch patch, but I will be using this feedback for future changes and will try to get in any crucial tweaks that I can.
Thanks for your quick response, it is good to know PoP will buff allies by the intented 75% of its capacity on the caster.
As for the core problems, indeed, they do need to be addressed and until that doesn't happen SW will continue to be at the bottom of the dps potential. Like it was said in older posts, we thank you for the tweaks you designed for mod 13 as they definitely help, but, if SW is to be back at competitive, top tier dps (that formerly was possible due to bugs) but this time with legit perfomance, it is necessary to take care of all.
- Casting speed
It is far too low and that's why one of the reasons we can't keep up with players from other damage dealer classes that are built and played correctly, while we are mid casting, teammates have already hit the enemy (with more powerful attacks, too) so are hitting more, faster and harder which helps to take advantage of buffs and debuffs when they are all up. It isn't like only Killing Flames takes a while to actually work, more powers suffer from that as well: Fiery Bolt, Hadar's Grasp, Warlock's Bargain, Soulscorch , Gates of Hell, Tyrannical Curse, Flames of Plegethos, Harrowstorm (this one is horribly slow and hardcore weak)... eh, at this point it would be better too name the powers that don't have very long casting times as they're just a few.
- DoT damage: too long,too slow and too underpowered
It is not that much of SW being a DoT class that hurts perfomance so much, it is that the amount of ticks our powers and procs have is generally far too high, far too weak and far too slow. For example, take a look at Hunter Ranger encounter power Plant Growth, it is a DoT but actually a good one, it has few ticks but each one, when built properly and in a good group, can hit incredibly hard. Following that comparison is why I once suggested here something like this: Increase the base damage of our powers by a decent % and, for DoT ones, substantially reduce the amount of ticks they have but make each one far more powerful.
You mentioned you'd consider reducing the delay of Creeping Death ticks to 1 seconds which definitely is better thanw e have now and I say what about if you could do this as well:
- Reduce the amount of ticks to 3, down from 4. Increase damage done by each one so Creeping Death deals the intented 75%
or even better
- Keep the 4 ticks and further reduce the delay between them to around 0.8 seconds, make each one deal 25% of the damage of the power that procced them (this would buff Creeping Death to 100%, up from 75%) so, if Killing Flames hits a boss for 1m damage, each CD tick would deal 250k.
Take a meta group x2 DC, OP, hdps GF and have any striker you want here, make that party composition attack the same boss(es) with the 5th player (a "pure striker" class being the difference) and it will be noticeable SW performs the worst and a lot of it has to do with the core problems.
Horrible passive powers grant a miserable dps boost > SW attacks when buffs and debuffs are up > casting time is far too low and damage of powers is mediocre, Dot damage is far too long, far too slow and far too weak, burst powers aren't that good (like Killing Flames with its inconsistency) > Killing Flames will have a very low damage values as enemy is at high hp so damage dealt by it will be low > Creeping Death procs of all that, it needs a lot of time to deal full damage and it doesn't do that much as the powers that triggered it are slow and weak.
In that situation replace SW with a good CW, HR, TR or GWF and they will perfom better every single time.
- Proc Rates:
I had seen ACT logs of a few SWs and things such as feats and Aura of Courage are a lower portion of our dps than it is for other classes. @schietindebux could give me a few examples and perhaps proof about procs in general, @pyrosorcerer could help with Aura of Courage as he tested that on FBI runs (as far as I remember) with GWF, CW and I think TR and AoC was a lower portion of dps for the warlock than it was for the others.
I have always wondered with this encounter is the only one in the game being limited and penalised so incredibly hard. You mentioned mentioned Killing Flames gets up to x2.5 the damage and here's the issue, it sounds like a lot ("wow x2.5 times more damage at max potential!") but then you consider that that's because the minimum damage is very slow, it truly is hardcore weak. Context: Generally speaking, with the hardest hitting encounters of "pure striker" classes, the difference between min and max values is around 25% and they are not hp-penalised/limited so, in and endgame group, with the very first rotation, they can hit the boss with full damage capacity with those powers and potentially 1 rotate it or at the very least deal a massive amount of damage in just a few seconds... with this in mind, let's look back at Killing Flames: the disparity between min and max damage values is nothing short of insane and/or extreme, there simply is no other way to say it and, if it that wasn't bad enough, the power requires enemies to be at 24.99% hp or less to reach full damage potential (could also be said... "full base damage"? if so, wow) that's not that good and has a long casting time. If you have characters of comparable gear and stats, please compare the minimum damage of their hardest hitting encounters with that of Killing Flames and you'll see what I meant. Context: current state of the game at endgame is all about hitting as hard as possible in a few seconds and we are at a notoceable disadvantage in that regard, Killing Flames very low min damage is part of the problem.
The aforementioned situation leads to the problem of being pretty much helpless vs other strikers especially in endgame groups, our "hardest" hitting power will be at a serious disadvantage vs other strikers' as most of the fight it will have worse median damage. For teams that are able to 1 rotate the boss or still deal a massive amount of damage in a few seconds, SW simply stands no chance.
You perhaps were not the one that designed Killing Flames but I'd like to ask you anyway, does that look balanced and "fair" to you? Literary being the one and only class in the game whose hardest hitting encounter is so limited and penalised? Needless to say, Killing Flames problem is one of the reasons why we are are behind in dps.
Suggestions to fix Killing Flames:
In accordance to how the min and max values of the encounters of other strikers work, increase Killing Flames min damage so it is 25% lower than max damage.
Remove the hp-based penalty so, much like the other strikers do, let SW have a chance to hit enemies at full potential early in the fight. We literary are the only ones with such a limitation, it is not balanced and needs to be addressed.
- Passive powers:
Considering damage boost given by them + synergy with feats, powers etc that can assist to increase personal damage, SW has the absolute worst passive powers of any striker class by a very long shot, you could actually argue it is the only dps class with such laughable Class Features. It is not only SB that suffers from that, HB does too.
What are Flames of Empowerment/No Pity No Mercy/Prince of Hell and SB passive powers compared to those of the other strikers? Barely anything. Aspect of the Serpent, Seeker's Vengeance, Chilling Presence, Combat Superiority + Shield Warrior's Wrath, and those from GWF and TR simply synergize better therefore make for a higher dps increase.
Reworking SW passives to flat damage increases (buffs preferably, just like other strikers) that also synergise well with powers and feats would increase damage potential noticeably.
When I was building my SW, before I even knew this webpage existed, I remember reading all passive powers as soulbinder and being like "wow nothing special to choose from to increase damage and a few of them would be better on a GF tank for lifesteal"
After reading here, doing a bit of testing myself and speaking to other sws in the game the consensus is that the changes we have wont quite cut it.
Seeing that u dont have alot of time to work with i have a proposal for an easy short term fix for the warlocks lacking dps.
Change 1 of the devensiv/useless class features to the following:
The Warlock curses himself leading to him/her dealing 30% more dmg but also reducing his dmg Resistance by the same amount.
This would imo be enough to push the SW back to cw/hr/tr lvl of dps, + i think it wont be too hard to code into the game. And if, after all the changes which are to come in the future (like shorter animations), u come to the conclusion that sw is to strong, this classfeature is an easy place where u can tune dps down by lowering the %.
13k I level here with companion. tested as follows. Solo vs L60 dummy at the stronghold. No companion used for 1st test. 2nd test onwards is using my con artist. 4th test using Pillar of power. Note that killing curse can crit and max hit is actually higher. I listed Lesser curse as well. Not I do have 3 points into Scornful Curse and i'm using All consuming curse. This was to max out Lesser Curse so it can be used to compare vs other curses. Also note that I am using Flames of Empowerment. No boons were used except test 3 and 4 uses 8k power from stronghold.
Test 1 18,578 power with warlocks curse on target. max non crits. ability-----------min-----max creeping death---689-----2595 lesser curse-----2307----2688 killing curse-----1284----1624 critical promise---587----829
Test 2 28,282 power with warlocks curse on target. Using con artist. max non crits. ability-----------min-----max creeping death---795-----3456 lesser curse-----2697----3372 killing curse-----1286----2052 critical promise---602----1063
Test 3 37,130 power with warlocks curse on target. Using con artist. max non crits. ability-----------min-----max creeping death---1001----3915 lesser curse------3197----3815 killing curse------1915----2314 critical promise---773-----1196
Test 4 37,354 power with warlocks curse on target. Using con artist. Using Pillar of Power on me and target. max non crits. ability-----------min-----max creeping death---967----5184 lesser curse-----4288----5105 killing curse-----2046----3118 critical promise---962----1547
Critical promise is still extremely bad. Besides it not hitting for enough it also doesn't hit very often. Tooltip says on next attack after a crit. So at the absolute MAX it can possibly do is hit every other at will or encounter use. Assuming our GCD is 0.5 sec the max is then once every 1.0 seconds. I was spamming Hellish Rebuke during these tests. Here's how many times critical promise hit on each test.
Test 1 continued 31 seconds Hellish rebuked 52 times of which 16 were crits critical promised 11 times, dps was 233
Test 2 continued 72 seconds Hellish rebuked 104 times of which 58 were crits critical promised 37 times, dps was 414
Test 3 continued 60 seconds Hellish rebuked 101 times of which 56 were crits critical promised 32 times, dps was 477
Test 4 continued 55 seconds Hellish rebuked 71 times of which 36 were crits critical promised 22 times, dps was 463
Yes critical promise needs to be seriously looked into. If it can still only do 0.5% of my overall damage then it's still broke. It needs to do 10x this amount to even be considered not completely useless. Killing Curse did 12.6 times more damage overall on Test 4 with 5,830 dps vs 463 dps.
testing again but more boons vs only stronghold power boon previously. I don't have them all from campaigns. however I do have the majority of them.
Test 5 40,257-44,257 power with warlocks curse on target. Using con artist. Using Pillar of Power on me and target. max non crits. Most campaign dps boons. ability-----------min-----max creeping death---874----19,800 dps=21,376 lesser curse-----3,340---6,495 dps=6,491 killing curse-----1,372---3,471 dps=5,574 critical promise---938----1,960 dps=770
Difference between 40,257 and 44,257 when madness boon procs on another test I saw lesser curse crit for 12,143. I don't understand why there is such a big difference between having campaign boons and not having them. But anyways you still can see Critical promise is still quite low.
The Warlock curses himself leading to him/her dealing 30% more dmg but also reducing his dmg Resistance by the same amount.
The warlocks DR or the target ones I hope for targets DR in terms of a debuff. I think that´s a good idea since working with all paragons and trees simultaneously. Giving warlock compareable debuffs some classes allready got. One GWF can selfdebuff his targets for >70% by using encounter like Daring shout, feats like staying power, mark and ... forgot the last one but did that math ones, CW can debuff for high ammounts too, not sure about Hunter.
For a critbuild (think that´s what meta is atm) I would say the changes are something like maybe 25%+ dps for fury tree, due to 15% more CD, and procs from KC, CP, LC and crits from PoP. Concerning focus dps (that´s what counts) my lock has issues to hold against a good GWF, same as Hunter or Stormspell-CW, even dealing near double dps from bugs. If fixes come (and they allways come), my lock will deal like 62% damage (up from 50%) from that Hunter or GWF on focus target, not to talk about a good GF. A 30% debuff and an improved Killing Flame should help to head up.
Beside that I think a lot of stuff is disbalanced due to actual meta and feats like Aura of Courage. Aura of courage is actually the same like Lolset once was.
DoT damage is something that really fits the theme of Scourge Warlock and curses, and I think that's okay for gameplay. The real problem here is that bosses can be killed in a couple of seconds because power creep has come a long way and buff/debuff stacking has become the meta. I could see changing the DoT timer of Creeping Death to once a second instead of once every 1.5 seconds, but I don't think changing the capstone to just be direct damage is a good solution. That said, I would like to see SW get a direct damage option in the future and that might be where Damnation steps in (we'll see).
Actually, i don't think Damnation can ever be good at dps since the Soul Puppet is really slow and only attacks on single target. (I think Damnation would be awesome on a tank role. See some suggestions on page 16 ) Moreover, every fury feat goes in favor of direct damage, except Creeping Death so no need to change the dps path.
Much as I love my Damnation spec I agree with tenetomb, Damnation is not going to be a good direct damage spec. As others have pointed out already Fury is much better suited to doing that from where the builds already stand.
Damnation's strength is the Puppet as a secondary source of damage, so it can apply more dots essentially. In fact this is what the feat Spiritfire does. The problem with Spiritfire is the same as all other SW DoT's though, its too small too slowly to matter.
Other than the problems I outline below the Damnation spec suffers from all the same problems with the base class features that all the other specs do.
Damnation Specific Problems:
Feats:
Parting Blasphemy and Relentless Curse are both horrible feats, they impose a 5 point tax on anyone wanting to take Damnation. This is because only 3 powers trigger them in the whole class, otherwise they only trigger when the target dies, at which point they do nothing.
Syphoning Curse: One of the good feats in the tree. (As long as "Cursed" includes all the curse types and not just Warlock's Curse.)
Power of the Nine Hells - This feat would be much better if it increased the AoE of PoP, however doubling the numbers would also make it worth taking. With the general changes to PoP there is no point to taking this feat now.
Mocking Spirit - this feat is mostly useful because the 15s resummon time on Soul Puppets set by the capstone locks out the powers that summon the Puppet (ie if you trigger them in that 15s window nothing happens until the 15s is up, either that or the summon is so slow that the 15s elapses first anyway).
Spirit Fire: Should go to at least 100% of the weapon and should proc every 0.5s to be viable. This then combined with Mocking Spirit makes the Puppet a more viable off-tank for parties as it seems that Mocking Spirit intends the Puppet to be. (Incidentally on live this tics for 132% of my Weapon Damage before RI, so it seems to be getting my Power buff and benefiting from my Con Artist, which is good, but still too small too slowly to matter in dungeons.)
Warding Spirits: So pointless I don't take it. You are either taking a lot less damage due to Mocking Spirit anyway, or you don't have a Puppet so this does nothing.
Burning Puppets: If it was a 100% chance and the damage bonus was to Cursed targets (and probably 2x its current effect) it would be worth considering.
Ghastly Commander: This feat is solid. Its problems are tied to the whole issue of using the Puppet instead of using Fury or Temptation to get more damage or more durability as appropriate (and right now on Preview Temptation does more damage in my testing, so that makes the Puppet more of a problem).
Wrathful Souls: So I have this 5/5. The Puppet attacks about 1 per 6 seconds (it might be 5s) and with this feet maxed I get 9-10k per hit from this (before RI). So that means without this feat the Puppet is hitting for 5k?
Soul Discretion: Basically you have to have this feat, otherwise you absolutely wasted the 25 points you have to invest to unlock it. This is the reason you take it. Not because it does anything to make you or the Puppet better, no, you take it because you have already invested at least 15 points into making use of the Puppet. The Puppet: As already mentioned the Puppet has a number of problems with its base damage and the rate of its attacks. Soul Discretion would be a lot more useful if it increased the rate of attack for Puppets and had a faster respawn rate.
The Puppet is also greatly hindered because if it survives a fight with just a few HP when the next fight starts it will probably die immediately, then take 15s to respawn, by which time the next fight is probably over. It would also be much improved if at the end of a fight it fully healed itself or even healed over the next 15s or so, just like companions do.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
To all the SW players in this thread, and @balanced#2849 Pretty much everyone complaining 'it's not enough' has a bad build and should feel bad. Ignore them until after the mod drops, or you'll have to redo the balance pass to make up for those of us who actually did learn to play the class instead of bitching on the forums. Yes, we MAY need some love in addition to these changes, but nowhere NEAR as heavy-handed as prescribed here. My preliminary testing is EXTREMELY promising. You may have hit the sweet spot here!
@balanced#2849 I tested weapon enchants with BoVA, Dreadtheft, Pillar of Power, Brood, Flames of Phlegethos :
Flaming: Bova 25 procs on 13 ticks, DT 17 prcs on 12 ticks, PoP, 4 procs on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 4 procs on 30/21 ticks Plaguefire: Bova 25 procs on 13 ticks, DT 9 procs on 12 ticks, PoP 4 procs on 17 Ticks, Brood/FoP 4 procs on 30/21 ticks Terror: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks Lifedrinker: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks Bilethorn: BoVA 10 procs on 13 ticks, DT 2 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 2 procs on 30/21 ticks Holy Avenger: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 0 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks Frost: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks Lightning: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks (arc only procs >1 from Bova, Hg, DT) Feytouched: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks
Only few enchants that proc weapondamage, multiproc on encounter. Actually only Flaming or Plaguefire do so to some degree-guess the dot counts in, good at least for a templock running a debuffing enchant like plaguefire. Hadar grasp being an exception, proccing all enchants multiple time due to being consindered as single hit maybe.
But at no constellation, those weaponenchants will compensate a Vorpal or a Feytouched or Dread, buffing my overall dps or critseverity. To make enchants like Avenger, Bilethorn, Lifedringer, Lightning etc. at least "considerable", we need a better procrate for those enchants. I read in the patchnode DT should proc on every tick? Somehow it doesn´t. https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/comment/13011160 "Dreadtheft now procs weapon enchantments on every tick" Anyway, I think other encounter should have a better procrate too like WB DoT, Firy Bolt and some more.
I'm just running a support warlock. His heals are deadly and his damage burst is quite nice for a support. Not to mention how much defense reduction he has, that works for the whole team and his mighty vampiric burst of sheer power .
To all the SW players in this thread, and @balanced#2849 Pretty much everyone complaining 'it's not enough' has a bad build and should feel bad. Ignore them until after the mod drops, or you'll have to redo the balance pass to make up for those of us who actually did learn to play the class instead of bitching on the forums. Yes, we MAY need some love in addition to these changes, but nowhere NEAR as heavy-handed as prescribed here. My preliminary testing is EXTREMELY promising. You may have hit the sweet spot here!
Could you please hand over some numbers and details that underline your argument for dealing far more dps than in mod 12b. And by that tell us where that dps comes from. If not, simply lol. Btw, please tell all warlocks how to build up correct and tell all player how you stand against other striker without buggy bugs. @bellkazi might help you to remember what the meta actually looks like.
@arakk00 There is not much needed to do the math (focus dps) for actual improvements. +15% Creeping Death is at best a 8% dps increase overall. The proc of Killing curse is at best a 6%-7% (+5), Critical Promise is a 2% (+1) atm. Lesser curse deals like 4-5% (+3%) Flames of empowerment is working, but you drop 5% critseverity in exchange , a bit more than 1%+ (if you can hold up those 3 stacks) In the sum you will gain 8+5+1+3+1% dps by that =18-20% (at best). Dreadtheft is no primary dps source and misses multiprocs atm. Soulbinder is an unknow number atm to me, but hey SoulScorch-DoT is 100% from 80, but the DoT doesn´t proc CP, KC, LC, weaponenchants etc. That´s like 9%+dps overall (at best). If you could not deal silly ammounts by spamming buggy BoH you will have issues to get obove that 25%+dps and pelase don´t tell me your dps relies on a buffed PoP... that´s at best a small number on a bossencounter/single target. If you ever run beside a good GWF, Hunter, spellstorm CW or TR, not to talk about dpsGF (I doubt you ever did) you would know where the class actually stands. I run with my DC beside a fury HB and a GWF lately in Tong, from what that fury claimed to be "one of the best warlocks on PC" actually. Don´t ask for numbers ... watching "Bug-Lock" vs "Hulksmash Hogan" the difference was more than significant. If you substract the "Not-Wai-dps" and take into account that the GWF was not "one of the best", the result would have been more than depremising.
And if you might want to get another hint. Templock will do much better in mod 13 but will stay inferior to every DO-DC (even being nerfed) in terms of group buffs/debuffs also in actual double DC setup, that´s a fact. I can enlighten you giving you the needed numbers. Actual meta (double DC buffruns) will stay like now in most cases, templock might be more welcome than before (right after thet mofCW)... but still inferior in terms of buffs, not to talk about mitigation tools, some of them are even not working as should.
I'm just running a support warlock. His heals are deadly and his damage burst is quite nice for a support. Not to mention how much defense reduction he has, that works for the whole team and his mighty vampiric burst of sheer power .
Can´t tell if this is simply irony? The tools mentioned (Wraith Shadow) are not working as should and Vampiric Embrance's temp buff is capped. I know a class that runs with up to 7mio temp HP using Templars Wrath, wich sounds funny comparing it with a 55k HP buff. @balanced#2849 At no given time Wraith shadow was working in WoD not vs elite mobs same as low level, incoming dmage 85% effect. all numbers the same, if "Wraith´d" or not, "Wraith´d" + immobilized, no matter, the damagereduction did not work? I know this might be a bit offtopic, but if the only tools the class actuall has to mitigate damage is bugged since years, I need to point at it once again. And please ignore trolls, if those fixes will leave the class underperforming for another mod this all was a waste of time.
Lesser Curse is not doing the indicated amount of damage (at least per target).
I wanted to test some stuff around an idea using Lesser Curse.
I have the character built with all boons in place and all powers, but no powers slotted that affect damage. I used Accursed Souls to apply Lesser Curse to the 4 dummies in SH.
Lesser Curse's tooltip says it does 5986-7202 damage.
This is what 1 set of ticks looks like: [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 1153 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 1082 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 1082 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lesser Curse deals 2147 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. (Yay it crits!)
These tic 3 times.
So the non-Crit ones do 3246 or 3459 damage. Which is significantly less than the indicated damage range.
Adding 1 point to Scornful Curse then changes the range to 6578-7915
Repeating Accursed Souls with 1/3 Scornful Curse gave: [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lesser Curse deals 2206 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lesser Curse deals 2450 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 1274 (1158) Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lesser Curse deals 2643 (2403) Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
Gives 3474 damage on the non-Crit attack, which is barely over half the expected minimum. (Which suggests that all 4 of the non-crit procs are closer to minimum for the tics anyway.)
Accursed Souls applies damage 2x, but only the first application triggers Feytouched enchant damage. (This may be WAI, otherwise its a bug.)
At this point I will note that there was enough time lag between casting Accursed Souls and the Lesser Curse being applied that the Con Artist had a chance to hit the targets and apply its debuff. Making Accursed Souls slow on several fronts.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
So after some discussion with a Guild member I went back and did some more investigating.
Firstly I respec'd so that I had no feats/boons except SH (Power max), and enough powers filled so that I could have 4/4 in Accursed Souls.
The tooltip for Lesser Curse then says 3462-3462 damage.
This is the log from hitting Accursed Souls so it hits all 4 dummies in SH:
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
As you can see clearly there are 2 procs from Accursed Souls, then Lesser Curse tics 3 times on each of the 4 dummies, doing 1734 total damage to each target.
The total damage is 2x the listed amount, but each target only takes 50% of the listed amount.
Then I went to Trade of Blades and the Lesser Curse tooltip now reads 3409 (???).
This is what it looks like when only 1 target is hit, a dummy in Trade of Blades: [15:01] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6432 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8373 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
Which is 1707 damage from the curse or 50% of the Tooltip damage.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
So after some discussion with a Guild member I went back and did some more investigating.
Firstly I respec'd so that I had no feats/boons except SH (Power max), and enough powers filled so that I could have 4/4 in Accursed Souls.
The tooltip for Lesser Curse then says 3462-3462 damage.
This is the log from hitting Accursed Souls so it hits all 4 dummies in SH:
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. [14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
As you can see clearly there are 2 procs from Accursed Souls, then Lesser Curse tics 3 times on each of the 4 dummies, doing 1734 total damage to each target.
The total damage is 2x the listed amount, but each target only takes 50% of the listed amount.
Then I went to Trade of Blades and the Lesser Curse tooltip now reads 3409 (???).
This is what it looks like when only 1 target is hit, a dummy in Trade of Blades: [15:01] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6432 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy. [15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8373 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
Which is 1707 damage from the curse or 50% of the Tooltip damage.
That´s what Accursed Soul did for years, proc two times and the damage is ok by that exactly what tooltip tells, and it´s also nice because you can animation cancel it (the animation is long enough) and because you get 2xhealed from my observation, like a pretty good "O HAMSTER-butten" with a huge aoe. Another good thing about that daily is the fact that you apply Lesser Curse at once and by using NPNM you get CA at once on every crit, wich means CA+LC+curse synergy on all targets at once for a 100% crit build. I run it at 3. boss in Tong and have no issues to reach the souls like that, TC has only 30' and misses SOuls like that, ACC doesn´t. An underestimated Daily, situational though. Scornfull Curse allways was a bad pick, never spend one point into it. Looks like LC suffers from the same fate Critical Promise does. Same here , not the damage tooltip displays , interestingly it´s 3 ticks exactly 75%. Tooltip 3176, proc 3x794,2 (Icewinde Dale) Trade of Blades 3xprocs and 75%, once 4xproc 100% @balanced#2849 looks like LC bugs out to some degree, most of the time missing the fourth proc, testing it, the procrate was 75% (3x) near all of the time.
On a sidenote about testing CP proc with Hellishrebuke. "Test 1 continued 31 seconds Hellish rebuked 52 times of which 16 were crits critical promised 11 times, dps was 233"
HR is a DOT, if you do not slot NPNM the DOT tics and counts into those 52 times, so I would say 5 out of that 16 tics are crits from that dot.
I didn't notice Lesser Curse critting. However going over my logs I see it actually did crit on test 5 as I was using Tyranical Curse. However so far only Tyranical Curse will make Lesser curse crit. Hellish Rebuke doesn't make it crit. nor does Hand of Blight. Just tried Dreadtheft and that caused lesser curse to crit. The only ones tested so far. Very odd behavior. Does this mean encounter powers and daily powers can cause Lesser curse to crit But At Will powers can NOT cause lesser curse to crit? If so where does it say this. And why is it working this way.
Dreadtheft
Here's listing total hits per dreadtheft casts, in which there are 4 casts per test, vs 1 dummy
test 1 9,6,11,11
test 2 12,12,12,12
test 3 10,11,7,11
test 4 12,12,11,11
test 5 11,11,7,7
test 6 11,10,12,9
This should have been 12 hits per cast as per test 2. However the other 5 tests had inconsistent results. I didn't use any other abilities btw. Why is Dreadtheft not consistently hitting the correct amount of times per cast?
I also noticed that Killing Curse was hitting for 0 damage a LOT during dreadtheft. And I mean a HAMSTER load. Can see it spamming on the as a damage floater and can also see it while watching the combat log in game. Does not show up in ACT. Pretty annoying seeing a but load of;
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Curse gives 0 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
Please fix the damage floaters and the combat log that displays these results and or better yet fix the underlying problem please.
I didn't notice Lesser Curse critting. However going over my logs I see it actually did crit on test 5 as I was using Tyranical Curse. However so far only Tyranical Curse will make Lesser curse crit. Hellish Rebuke doesn't make it crit. nor does Hand of Blight. Just tried Dreadtheft and that caused lesser curse to crit. The only ones tested so far. Very odd behavior. Does this mean encounter powers and daily powers can cause Lesser curse to crit But At Will powers can NOT cause lesser curse to crit? If so where does it say this. And why is it working this way.
Dreadtheft
Here's listing total hits per dreadtheft casts, in which there are 4 casts per test, vs 1 dummy
test 1 9,6,11,11
test 2 12,12,12,12
test 3 10,11,7,11
test 4 12,12,11,11
test 5 11,11,7,7
test 6 11,10,12,9
This should have been 12 hits per cast as per test 2. However the other 5 tests had inconsistent results. I didn't use any other abilities btw. Why is Dreadtheft not consistently hitting the correct amount of times per cast?
I also noticed that Killing Curse was hitting for 0 damage a LOT during dreadtheft. And I mean a HAMSTER load. Can see it spamming on the as a damage floater and can also see it while watching the combat log in game. Does not show up in ACT. Pretty annoying seeing a but load of;
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Curse gives 0 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
Please fix the damage floaters and the combat log that displays these results and or better yet fix the underlying problem please.
That´s what i also witnessed. It also occured with Killing flame, MF procs but KF deals zero. I think it has to do with the dummy and maybe the area it stands in...I hope so.
I saw LC critting from Accursed, aside from the few I posted above, I skipped a number of data sets due to crits because I wanted to see the base damage, so it definitely crits (and I don't have 100% Crit).
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
On a sidenote about testing CP proc with Hellishrebuke. "Test 1 continued 31 seconds Hellish rebuked 52 times of which 16 were crits critical promised 11 times, dps was 233"
HR is a DOT, if you do not slot NPNM the DOT tics and counts into those 52 times, so I would say 5 out of that 16 tics are crits from that dot.
I was using the DOT hellish Rebuke. However looking thru the logs Critical promise appears to only cast on initial cast of hellish Rebuke as you said. However not all the time. A quick snippet of a test I just ran.
Note that initial cast after the Power line was a crit yet Critical promise did not work. After that the DOT crit 2 times and still no Critical Promise. Going thru more of the log it looks like only the inial cast can proc Critical promise. Yet it's inconsistent in doing so.
Testing Hellish Rebuke with "No Pity No Mercy" to eliminate the DOT component here's what I got.
Hellish Rebuked 111 times in which 81 were crits.
Critical Promised a total of 76 times
Not bad but it's still missing 5 critical promises.
Its useful as it is now (LC that is), it just needs to do 4 ticks at either a higher rate or a higher amount of damage. The damage it does also has to be 100% of what it should be (not 50-75).
Scornful Curse is in a tough spot, it requires one of the means of reliably having LC out or using a horrid passive. Assuming those conditions are met it still isn't a large enough boost compared to the other options in its tier of feats. Which is part of the problem, it could easily double the values it provides and would still be in a tough spot; but at least then 100% Crit + All Consuming would make it much more worthwhile to be 2/3 (but then it might be too good....arrghhh).
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Maybe stack to like ~5 would be ok, but infinite stack like creeping death could potentially be too powerful.
Edit: Though I suppose making sure it works correctly an maybe just increase its base damage would be an easier and probably equally well working solution.
Maybe stack to like ~5 would be ok, but infinite stack like creeping death could potentially be too powerful.
Edit: Though I suppose making sure it works correctly an maybe just increase its base damage would be an easier and probably equally well working solution.
Well, might not be so hard to estimate how much damage that would mean. I was gonna take an ACT log and see how many things could have procced a lesser curse and multiply that by the average lesser curse damage x3, but just found out that I didn't save my newest sw log and the old ones I have don't load correctly on the new ACT. It would possibly make ACC too overpowered I guess, with LC becoming a major source of damage for any build. So probably requires more work than they are planning for in this mod.
I been playing sw for almost a year, I've just hitted 14k il, and need to get my chult boons to finish the storyline content. I prefer to play templock because I'm the highest il from my group of friends, so this build makes playing with them more enjoyable as a group. I also played fury when I started as a striker. For the sake of context, I think that the problem with in-game balance goes beyond the actual balance of the class, and has a lot to do with the imbalance of the dungeons and drop rates. Drop rates of most things in game are low, so you need to farm a million times for whatever you need (skt weapons for example), you may have better luck if you run with a group, and someone else get something you need (and has the luck to be unbound like orcus shard from cn). Endgame dungeons on the other hand, range from unplayable to awfully long (runs from 40 to 60 minutes if you are able to finish it) if you don't have an optimized group (the reason of the actual meta) nobody wants to spend that amount of time in a dungeon that you have to run several times a day, to profit from the drops (selling, upgrading, seals, etc). Scoreboards are not that useful because they do not reflect things as supposued, a good tank will not always be the number 1 on damage taken, they are supposed to have tools to mitigate damage, that for example squishy dps do not have, and so in game players thinking that because they took more damage did a better job than a tank. Regarding the sw, the biggest problem is that everything we do, we do it poorly. As a dps, we clearly perform poorly. Takes to long to prepare to do actual damage, for low end content, WC and FoE are useless (to name a few), because the time it takes to put it makes no difference what so ever. On higher end content is relevant only if you are playing solo, if there is someone else, things will be dead before you finished your setup. As a support class the tools we have are not that many, if someone dies is hard to revive them, because if we stop making damage, we stop healing the party, and we can't make a useful shield for party members in order to give us the time to save someone. We can't do anything off combat, because heals are tied to combat, and buff/debuff also.
Regarding things we can do to improve this:
- Compounded Soul should give on 1/5 feats at least 50% of sw hp, taking into account that there are not to many instances that your life is lowered and you are still alive (millage may vary according to class/il). This also gives us tools to do something else than hitting in order to try to keep alive the ones that still are. This needs a cap at around 100 to 200 tops, in order to be a rewarding mechanic and not something that you can use to make the party inmortal.
- Hand of blight needs to make more damage, and preferably give a different buff/debuff, because if not, hellish rebuke is a way better option, even more if you take hellish condemnation.
- Soul breaker should give AP to all not to a random ally.
- Dreadtheft needs to be able to target manually or auto (as it is now), if a target an area to maximize damage and debuff, but the "selected target" moves or teleports, the power gets is effectiveness reduced. The way is now is only useful to hit a single target like Ras Nsi that moves around a lot, and that helps you out.
- Feats should not be tied to specific attacks, but to a mechanic (for example healing/aoe/dot attacks) or a type ( fire/necrotic) in order to give the players more choices when they are choosing how to build the character.
- Pilar of power needs a bigger radius, around doble, to be useful. Because at lower level, an sw does not have the tankiness needed to approach a mob, put PoP and live to tell it (neither does enough damage to kill the mob quickly enough), and on endgame lacks of the mobility a party may need. This could also include an off combat feature, for example to heal or remove wounds while off combat. A higher cooldown to balance things out if the damage/buff/debuff are improved.
- Flames of empowerment should stack on us and not the mob, or spread when the target get hit with aoe, dies, or something that makes the stack usable. For example, FoE should stack when we hit cursed targets. This als makes the curse more relevant.
- Ticks for dot damage need to be less or quicker or a combination of both, most of the damage output gets lost currently. Another option is that dot damage ticks get triggered by time or other player hitting the target, that way solo content gets the ticks as intended, and on group content we don't lose the damage. This should have an ICD of 0.5 sec aprox.
- We need to be able to fulfill the roles we use (support for temptation, dps for fury) at a level where even if a gwf or dc can do better, the difference is not that big that we get left out of content.
As for things that could be considered for the future:
- Soul puppet should be more relevant, for example, according to the chosen path, for example you could get a puppet that could buff you or output dps as fury, or heal/revive allies in temptation.
- Curse consume needs to be present in more attacks, tied to the capstones, and giving a benefit that outweighs the lost of the curse. Or needs to be completely removed. Because currently is useless and present in only a few things, and the effect of the consume doesn't do anything worthwhile.
- The way curses are applied is not good and does not help to buff ourselves or the party. An option could be that we can curse an area, wc get on up to 3 targets (stronger ones), lc on a few more (trash mobs, probably 5). In this way reapplying curse because is effect is ending, or mob is dying is more rewarding and you don't need to make curses creep. Could be applied as dc powers like chains of blazing light. Changing the curse location removes the curse from the targets previously affected, this could trigger curse consume effect and make it interesting.
P.S: english is not my native language so I hope that I was clear enough.
Comments
Maybe powerscaling is not working?
Could you please take a look into that procrate from DT too? It procs Feytouched once same as CP, not sure about KC and other weaponenchants, I will test it soon.
DT is a nice debuff and dps, but I think it could be a real alternative, if weapon enchants would proc on top, even for a furylock in terms of buffing.
Thx in advance.
(I think Damnation would be awesome on a tank role. See some suggestions on page 16
Moreover, every fury feat goes in favor of direct damage, except Creeping Death so no need to change the dps path.
And as we're talking about a major rework, what i would like to see is a tab that can be useful in the middle of a battle so why not making the fury capstone transform your tab in a reserve where stacks a % of your damages (75% as Creeping Death or maybe lower this back to 60%) that you could reactivate to inflict these damages to a previously cursed enemy ? (1 cursed target max)
It wouldn't be a dot mechanic anymore but it would respect the idea of a curse dealing damage after some time.
This could be the opportunity to make Cursed Bite relevant by making the capstone transforming it too to deal the damage you stacked on every target 30 feets around the Cursed target.
Just an idea out of my sick mind ahahah !
This game is in favor for burst powers and selfbuffs stacks with minor debuffs.
SW relay on debuffs + DoT.. You can increase values, and it will not fix problems.. The mechanic is problem... When you have broken cars engine you fix engine not tires or painting.
Classes with burst heck even DoT + selfbuffs hit foes and build up buffs and empower own outgoing damage. They deal buffed damage regardless if they do engage same or new foe..
While SW have to spent time to apply debuffs so it could deal it's true damage. But there is no time for that.. And thats why SW lags behind..
I have suggestion,
Rework Brutal curse - current version is that it increase dealt damage toward curse affected foes by x value..
MY proposal is that Brutal curse should work as selfbuff, when you hit cursed target, you receive buff, which would buff damage by current values, and lasting up to 10s(no stacking).
So after killing cursed target, even if you hit other non cursed one, you still will deal increased damage for certain time duration.
And next idea,, well if you would have time for it..
Executioner's Gift I wonder why it not work as orcus artifact set? Less HP foe have, more damage you deal,, and thats up to 30% damage increase... At start you would deal less dmg,, but in longer fight, you will deal more.. .
“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.
==================================================
Thanks for your quick response, it is good to know PoP will buff allies by the intented 75% of its capacity on the caster.
As for the core problems, indeed, they do need to be addressed and until that doesn't happen SW will continue to be at the bottom of the dps potential. Like it was said in older posts, we thank you for the tweaks you designed for mod 13 as they definitely help, but, if SW is to be back at competitive, top tier dps (that formerly was possible due to bugs) but this time with legit perfomance, it is necessary to take care of all.
- Casting speed
It is far too low and that's why one of the reasons we can't keep up with players from other damage dealer classes that are built and played correctly, while we are mid casting, teammates have already hit the enemy (with more powerful attacks, too) so are hitting more, faster and harder which helps to take advantage of buffs and debuffs when they are all up. It isn't like only Killing Flames takes a while to actually work, more powers suffer from that as well: Fiery Bolt, Hadar's Grasp, Warlock's Bargain, Soulscorch , Gates of Hell, Tyrannical Curse, Flames of Plegethos, Harrowstorm (this one is horribly slow and hardcore weak)... eh, at this point it would be better too name the powers that don't have very long casting times as they're just a few.
- DoT damage: too long,too slow and too underpowered
It is not that much of SW being a DoT class that hurts perfomance so much, it is that the amount of ticks our powers and procs have is generally far too high, far too weak and far too slow. For example, take a look at Hunter Ranger encounter power Plant Growth, it is a DoT but actually a good one, it has few ticks but each one, when built properly and in a good group, can hit incredibly hard. Following that comparison is why I once suggested here something like this: Increase the base damage of our powers by a decent % and, for DoT ones, substantially reduce the amount of ticks they have but make each one far more powerful.
You mentioned you'd consider reducing the delay of Creeping Death ticks to 1 seconds which definitely is better thanw e have now and I say what about if you could do this as well:
- Reduce the amount of ticks to 3, down from 4. Increase damage done by each one so Creeping Death deals the intented 75%
or even better
- Keep the 4 ticks and further reduce the delay between them to around 0.8 seconds, make each one deal 25% of the damage of the power that procced them (this would buff Creeping Death to 100%, up from 75%) so, if Killing Flames hits a boss for 1m damage, each CD tick would deal 250k.
Take a meta group x2 DC, OP, hdps GF and have any striker you want here, make that party composition attack the same boss(es) with the 5th player (a "pure striker" class being the difference) and it will be noticeable SW performs the worst and a lot of it has to do with the core problems.
Horrible passive powers grant a miserable dps boost > SW attacks when buffs and debuffs are up > casting time is far too low and damage of powers is mediocre, Dot damage is far too long, far too slow and far too weak, burst powers aren't that good (like Killing Flames with its inconsistency) > Killing Flames will have a very low damage values as enemy is at high hp so damage dealt by it will be low > Creeping Death procs of all that, it needs a lot of time to deal full damage and it doesn't do that much as the powers that triggered it are slow and weak.
In that situation replace SW with a good CW, HR, TR or GWF and they will perfom better every single time.
- Proc Rates:
I had seen ACT logs of a few SWs and things such as feats and Aura of Courage are a lower portion of our dps than it is for other classes. @schietindebux could give me a few examples and perhaps proof about procs in general, @pyrosorcerer could help with Aura of Courage as he tested that on FBI runs (as far as I remember) with GWF, CW and I think TR and AoC was a lower portion of dps for the warlock than it was for the others.
- Killing Flames min and max damage values
I have always wondered with this encounter is the only one in the game being limited and penalised so incredibly hard. You mentioned mentioned Killing Flames gets up to x2.5 the damage and here's the issue, it sounds like a lot ("wow x2.5 times more damage at max potential!") but then you consider that that's because the minimum damage is very slow, it truly is hardcore weak. Context: Generally speaking, with the hardest hitting encounters of "pure striker" classes, the difference between min and max values is around 25% and they are not hp-penalised/limited so, in and endgame group, with the very first rotation, they can hit the boss with full damage capacity with those powers and potentially 1 rotate it or at the very least deal a massive amount of damage in just a few seconds... with this in mind, let's look back at Killing Flames: the disparity between min and max damage values is nothing short of insane and/or extreme, there simply is no other way to say it and, if it that wasn't bad enough, the power requires enemies to be at 24.99% hp or less to reach full damage potential (could also be said... "full base damage"? if so, wow) that's not that good and has a long casting time. If you have characters of comparable gear and stats, please compare the minimum damage of their hardest hitting encounters with that of Killing Flames and you'll see what I meant. Context: current state of the game at endgame is all about hitting as hard as possible in a few seconds and we are at a notoceable disadvantage in that regard, Killing Flames very low min damage is part of the problem.
The aforementioned situation leads to the problem of being pretty much helpless vs other strikers especially in endgame groups, our "hardest" hitting power will be at a serious disadvantage vs other strikers' as most of the fight it will have worse median damage. For teams that are able to 1 rotate the boss or still deal a massive amount of damage in a few seconds, SW simply stands no chance.
You perhaps were not the one that designed Killing Flames but I'd like to ask you anyway, does that look balanced and "fair" to you? Literary being the one and only class in the game whose hardest hitting encounter is so limited and penalised? Needless to say, Killing Flames problem is one of the reasons why we are are behind in dps.
Suggestions to fix Killing Flames:
In accordance to how the min and max values of the encounters of other strikers work, increase Killing Flames min damage so it is 25% lower than max damage.
Remove the hp-based penalty so, much like the other strikers do, let SW have a chance to hit enemies at full potential early in the fight. We literary are the only ones with such a limitation, it is not balanced and needs to be addressed.
- Passive powers:
Considering damage boost given by them + synergy with feats, powers etc that can assist to increase personal damage, SW has the absolute worst passive powers of any striker class by a very long shot, you could actually argue it is the only dps class with such laughable Class Features. It is not only SB that suffers from that, HB does too.
What are Flames of Empowerment/No Pity No Mercy/Prince of Hell and SB passive powers compared to those of the other strikers? Barely anything. Aspect of the Serpent, Seeker's Vengeance, Chilling Presence, Combat Superiority + Shield Warrior's Wrath, and those from GWF and TR simply synergize better therefore make for a higher dps increase.
Reworking SW passives to flat damage increases (buffs preferably, just like other strikers) that also synergise well with powers and feats would increase damage potential noticeably.
When I was building my SW, before I even knew this webpage existed, I remember reading all passive powers as soulbinder and being like "wow nothing special to choose from to increase damage and a few of them would be better on a GF tank for lifesteal"
After reading here, doing a bit of testing myself and speaking to other sws in the game the consensus is that the changes we have wont quite cut it.
Seeing that u dont have alot of time to work with i have a proposal for an easy short term fix for the warlocks lacking dps.
Change 1 of the devensiv/useless class features to the following:
The Warlock curses himself leading to him/her dealing 30% more dmg but also reducing his dmg Resistance by the same amount.
This would imo be enough to push the SW back to cw/hr/tr lvl of dps, + i think it wont be too hard to code into the game.
And if, after all the changes which are to come in the future (like shorter animations), u come to the conclusion that sw is to strong, this classfeature is an easy place where u can tune dps down by lowering the %.
13k I level here with companion. tested as follows. Solo vs L60 dummy at the stronghold. No companion used for 1st test. 2nd test onwards is using my con artist. 4th test using Pillar of power. Note that killing curse can crit and max hit is actually higher. I listed Lesser curse as well. Not I do have 3 points into Scornful Curse and i'm using All consuming curse. This was to max out Lesser Curse so it can be used to compare vs other curses. Also note that I am using Flames of Empowerment. No boons were used except test 3 and 4 uses 8k power from stronghold.
Test 1
18,578 power with warlocks curse on target. max non crits.
ability-----------min-----max
creeping death---689-----2595
lesser curse-----2307----2688
killing curse-----1284----1624
critical promise---587----829
Test 2
28,282 power with warlocks curse on target. Using con artist. max non crits.
ability-----------min-----max
creeping death---795-----3456
lesser curse-----2697----3372
killing curse-----1286----2052
critical promise---602----1063
Test 3
37,130 power with warlocks curse on target. Using con artist. max non crits.
ability-----------min-----max
creeping death---1001----3915
lesser curse------3197----3815
killing curse------1915----2314
critical promise---773-----1196
Test 4
37,354 power with warlocks curse on target. Using con artist. Using Pillar of Power on me and target. max non crits.
ability-----------min-----max
creeping death---967----5184
lesser curse-----4288----5105
killing curse-----2046----3118
critical promise---962----1547
Critical promise is still extremely bad. Besides it not hitting for enough it also doesn't hit very often. Tooltip says on next attack after a crit. So at the absolute MAX it can possibly do is hit every other at will or encounter use. Assuming our GCD is 0.5 sec the max is then once every 1.0 seconds. I was spamming Hellish Rebuke during these tests. Here's how many times critical promise hit on each test.
Test 1 continued
31 seconds
Hellish rebuked 52 times of which 16 were crits
critical promised 11 times, dps was 233
Test 2 continued
72 seconds
Hellish rebuked 104 times of which 58 were crits
critical promised 37 times, dps was 414
Test 3 continued
60 seconds
Hellish rebuked 101 times of which 56 were crits
critical promised 32 times, dps was 477
Test 4 continued
55 seconds
Hellish rebuked 71 times of which 36 were crits
critical promised 22 times, dps was 463
Yes critical promise needs to be seriously looked into. If it can still only do 0.5% of my overall damage then it's still broke. It needs to do 10x this amount to even be considered not completely useless. Killing Curse did 12.6 times more damage overall on Test 4 with 5,830 dps vs 463 dps.
testing again but more boons vs only stronghold power boon previously. I don't have them all from campaigns. however I do have the majority of them.
Test 5
40,257-44,257 power with warlocks curse on target. Using con artist. Using Pillar of Power on me and target. max non crits. Most campaign dps boons.
ability-----------min-----max
creeping death---874----19,800 dps=21,376
lesser curse-----3,340---6,495 dps=6,491
killing curse-----1,372---3,471 dps=5,574
critical promise---938----1,960 dps=770
Difference between 40,257 and 44,257 when madness boon procs on another test I saw lesser curse crit for 12,143. I don't understand why there is such a big difference between having campaign boons and not having them. But anyways you still can see Critical promise is still quite low.
I hope for targets DR in terms of a debuff. I think that´s a good idea since working with all paragons and trees simultaneously.
Giving warlock compareable debuffs some classes allready got.
One GWF can selfdebuff his targets for >70% by using encounter like Daring shout, feats like staying power, mark and ... forgot the last one but did that math ones, CW can debuff for high ammounts too, not sure about Hunter.
For a critbuild (think that´s what meta is atm) I would say the changes are something like maybe 25%+ dps for fury tree, due to 15% more CD, and procs from KC, CP, LC and crits from PoP.
Concerning focus dps (that´s what counts) my lock has issues to hold against a good GWF, same as Hunter or Stormspell-CW, even dealing near double dps from bugs.
If fixes come (and they allways come), my lock will deal like 62% damage (up from 50%) from that Hunter or GWF on focus target, not to talk about a good GF.
A 30% debuff and an improved Killing Flame should help to head up.
Beside that I think a lot of stuff is disbalanced due to actual meta and feats like Aura of Courage. Aura of courage is actually the same like Lolset once was.
Damnation's strength is the Puppet as a secondary source of damage, so it can apply more dots essentially. In fact this is what the feat Spiritfire does. The problem with Spiritfire is the same as all other SW DoT's though, its too small too slowly to matter.
Other than the problems I outline below the Damnation spec suffers from all the same problems with the base class features that all the other specs do.
Damnation Specific Problems:
Feats:
Parting Blasphemy and Relentless Curse are both horrible feats, they impose a 5 point tax on anyone wanting to take Damnation. This is because only 3 powers trigger them in the whole class, otherwise they only trigger when the target dies, at which point they do nothing.
Syphoning Curse: One of the good feats in the tree. (As long as "Cursed" includes all the curse types and not just Warlock's Curse.)
Power of the Nine Hells - This feat would be much better if it increased the AoE of PoP, however doubling the numbers would also make it worth taking. With the general changes to PoP there is no point to taking this feat now.
Mocking Spirit - this feat is mostly useful because the 15s resummon time on Soul Puppets set by the capstone locks out the powers that summon the Puppet (ie if you trigger them in that 15s window nothing happens until the 15s is up, either that or the summon is so slow that the 15s elapses first anyway).
Spirit Fire: Should go to at least 100% of the weapon and should proc every 0.5s to be viable. This then combined with Mocking Spirit makes the Puppet a more viable off-tank for parties as it seems that Mocking Spirit intends the Puppet to be. (Incidentally on live this tics for 132% of my Weapon Damage before RI, so it seems to be getting my Power buff and benefiting from my Con Artist, which is good, but still too small too slowly to matter in dungeons.)
Warding Spirits: So pointless I don't take it. You are either taking a lot less damage due to Mocking Spirit anyway, or you don't have a Puppet so this does nothing.
Burning Puppets: If it was a 100% chance and the damage bonus was to Cursed targets (and probably 2x its current effect) it would be worth considering.
Ghastly Commander: This feat is solid. Its problems are tied to the whole issue of using the Puppet instead of using Fury or Temptation to get more damage or more durability as appropriate (and right now on Preview Temptation does more damage in my testing, so that makes the Puppet more of a problem).
Wrathful Souls: So I have this 5/5. The Puppet attacks about 1 per 6 seconds (it might be 5s) and with this feet maxed I get 9-10k per hit from this (before RI). So that means without this feat the Puppet is hitting for 5k?
Soul Discretion: Basically you have to have this feat, otherwise you absolutely wasted the 25 points you have to invest to unlock it. This is the reason you take it. Not because it does anything to make you or the Puppet better, no, you take it because you have already invested at least 15 points into making use of the Puppet.
The Puppet:
As already mentioned the Puppet has a number of problems with its base damage and the rate of its attacks. Soul Discretion would be a lot more useful if it increased the rate of attack for Puppets and had a faster respawn rate.
The Puppet is also greatly hindered because if it survives a fight with just a few HP when the next fight starts it will probably die immediately, then take 15s to respawn, by which time the next fight is probably over. It would also be much improved if at the end of a fight it fully healed itself or even healed over the next 15s or so, just like companions do.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I tested weapon enchants with BoVA, Dreadtheft, Pillar of Power, Brood, Flames of Phlegethos :
Flaming: Bova 25 procs on 13 ticks, DT 17 prcs on 12 ticks, PoP, 4 procs on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 4 procs on 30/21 ticks
Plaguefire: Bova 25 procs on 13 ticks, DT 9 procs on 12 ticks, PoP 4 procs on 17 Ticks, Brood/FoP 4 procs on 30/21 ticks
Terror: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks
Lifedrinker: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks
Bilethorn: BoVA 10 procs on 13 ticks, DT 2 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 2 procs on 30/21 ticks
Holy Avenger: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 0 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks
Frost: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks
Lightning: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks
(arc only procs >1 from Bova, Hg, DT)
Feytouched: BoVA 5 procs on 13 ticks, DT 1 proc on 12 ticks, PoP 1 proc on 17 ticks, Brood/FoP 1 procs on 30/21 ticks
Only few enchants that proc weapondamage, multiproc on encounter. Actually only Flaming or Plaguefire do so to some degree-guess the dot counts in, good at least for a templock running a debuffing enchant like plaguefire. Hadar grasp being an exception, proccing all enchants multiple time due to being consindered as single hit maybe.
But at no constellation, those weaponenchants will compensate a Vorpal or a Feytouched or Dread, buffing my overall dps or critseverity.
To make enchants like Avenger, Bilethorn, Lifedringer, Lightning etc. at least "considerable", we need a better procrate for those enchants.
I read in the patchnode DT should proc on every tick? Somehow it doesn´t.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/comment/13011160
"Dreadtheft now procs weapon enchantments on every tick"
Anyway, I think other encounter should have a better procrate too like WB DoT, Firy Bolt and some more.
@arakk00 There is not much needed to do the math (focus dps) for actual improvements.
+15% Creeping Death is at best a 8% dps increase overall.
The proc of Killing curse is at best a 6%-7% (+5), Critical Promise is a 2% (+1) atm.
Lesser curse deals like 4-5% (+3%)
Flames of empowerment is working, but you drop 5% critseverity in exchange , a bit more than 1%+ (if you can hold up those 3 stacks)
In the sum you will gain 8+5+1+3+1% dps by that =18-20% (at best).
Dreadtheft is no primary dps source and misses multiprocs atm.
Soulbinder is an unknow number atm to me, but hey SoulScorch-DoT is 100% from 80, but the DoT doesn´t proc CP, KC, LC, weaponenchants etc. That´s like 9%+dps overall (at best).
If you could not deal silly ammounts by spamming buggy BoH you will have issues to get obove that 25%+dps and pelase don´t tell me your dps relies on a buffed PoP... that´s at best a small number on a bossencounter/single target.
If you ever run beside a good GWF, Hunter, spellstorm CW or TR, not to talk about dpsGF (I doubt you ever did) you would know where the class actually stands.
I run with my DC beside a fury HB and a GWF lately in Tong, from what that fury claimed to be "one of the best warlocks on PC" actually. Don´t ask for numbers ... watching "Bug-Lock" vs "Hulksmash Hogan" the difference was more than significant. If you substract the "Not-Wai-dps" and take into account that the GWF was not "one of the best", the result would have been more than depremising.
And if you might want to get another hint. Templock will do much better in mod 13 but will stay inferior to every DO-DC (even being nerfed) in terms of group buffs/debuffs also in actual double DC setup, that´s a fact. I can enlighten you giving you the needed numbers. Actual meta (double DC buffruns) will stay like now in most cases, templock might be more welcome than before (right after thet mofCW)... but still inferior in terms of buffs, not to talk about mitigation tools, some of them are even not working as should. Can´t tell if this is simply irony? The tools mentioned (Wraith Shadow) are not working as should and Vampiric Embrance's temp buff is capped. I know a class that runs with up to 7mio temp HP using Templars Wrath, wich sounds funny comparing it with a 55k HP buff.
@balanced#2849
At no given time Wraith shadow was working in WoD not vs elite mobs same as low level, incoming dmage 85% effect. all numbers the same, if "Wraith´d" or not, "Wraith´d" + immobilized, no matter, the damagereduction did not work?
I know this might be a bit offtopic, but if the only tools the class actuall has to mitigate damage is bugged since years, I need to point at it once again.
And please ignore trolls, if those fixes will leave the class underperforming for another mod this all was a waste of time.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I wanted to test some stuff around an idea using Lesser Curse.
I have the character built with all boons in place and all powers, but no powers slotted that affect damage. I used Accursed Souls to apply Lesser Curse to the 4 dummies in SH.
Lesser Curse's tooltip says it does 5986-7202 damage.
This is what 1 set of ticks looks like:
[Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 1153 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 1082 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 1082 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lesser Curse deals 2147 Fire Damage to Target Dummy. (Yay it crits!)
These tic 3 times.
So the non-Crit ones do 3246 or 3459 damage. Which is significantly less than the indicated damage range.
Adding 1 point to Scornful Curse then changes the range to 6578-7915
Repeating Accursed Souls with 1/3 Scornful Curse gave:
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lesser Curse deals 2206 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lesser Curse deals 2450 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 1274 (1158) Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Lesser Curse deals 2643 (2403) Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
Gives 3474 damage on the non-Crit attack, which is barely over half the expected minimum. (Which suggests that all 4 of the non-crit procs are closer to minimum for the tics anyway.)
Accursed Souls applies damage 2x, but only the first application triggers Feytouched enchant damage. (This may be WAI, otherwise its a bug.)
At this point I will note that there was enough time lag between casting Accursed Souls and the Lesser Curse being applied that the Con Artist had a chance to hit the targets and apply its debuff. Making Accursed Souls slow on several fronts.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Firstly I respec'd so that I had no feats/boons except SH (Power max), and enough powers filled so that I could have 4/4 in Accursed Souls.
The tooltip for Lesser Curse then says 3462-3462 damage.
This is the log from hitting Accursed Souls so it hits all 4 dummies in SH:
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6532 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8502 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[14:46] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 578 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
As you can see clearly there are 2 procs from Accursed Souls, then Lesser Curse tics 3 times on each of the 4 dummies, doing 1734 total damage to each target.
The total damage is 2x the listed amount, but each target only takes 50% of the listed amount.
Then I went to Trade of Blades and the Lesser Curse tooltip now reads 3409 (???).
This is what it looks like when only 1 target is hit, a dummy in Trade of Blades:
[15:01] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 6432 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Accursed Souls deals 8373 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
[15:02] [Combat (Self)] Your Lesser Curse deals 569 Fire Damage to Target Dummy.
Which is 1707 damage from the curse or 50% of the Tooltip damage.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Another good thing about that daily is the fact that you apply Lesser Curse at once and by using NPNM you get CA at once on every crit, wich means CA+LC+curse synergy on all targets at once for a 100% crit build.
I run it at 3. boss in Tong and have no issues to reach the souls like that, TC has only 30' and misses SOuls like that, ACC doesn´t.
An underestimated Daily, situational though.
Scornfull Curse allways was a bad pick, never spend one point into it.
Looks like LC suffers from the same fate Critical Promise does. Same here , not the damage tooltip displays , interestingly it´s 3 ticks exactly 75%. Tooltip 3176, proc 3x794,2 (Icewinde Dale)
Trade of Blades 3xprocs and 75%, once 4xproc 100%
@balanced#2849 looks like LC bugs out to some degree, most of the time missing the fourth proc, testing it, the procrate was 75% (3x) near all of the time.
On a sidenote about testing CP proc with Hellishrebuke.
"Test 1 continued
31 seconds
Hellish rebuked 52 times of which 16 were crits
critical promised 11 times, dps was 233"
HR is a DOT, if you do not slot NPNM the DOT tics and counts into those 52 times, so I would say 5 out of that 16 tics are crits from that dot.
I didn't notice Lesser Curse critting. However going over my logs I see it actually did crit on test 5 as I was using Tyranical Curse. However so far only Tyranical Curse will make Lesser curse crit. Hellish Rebuke doesn't make it crit. nor does Hand of Blight. Just tried Dreadtheft and that caused lesser curse to crit. The only ones tested so far. Very odd behavior. Does this mean encounter powers and daily powers can cause Lesser curse to crit But At Will powers can NOT cause lesser curse to crit? If so where does it say this. And why is it working this way.
Dreadtheft
Here's listing total hits per dreadtheft casts, in which there are 4 casts per test, vs 1 dummy
test 1
9,6,11,11
test 2
12,12,12,12
test 3
10,11,7,11
test 4
12,12,11,11
test 5
11,11,7,7
test 6
11,10,12,9
This should have been 12 hits per cast as per test 2. However the other 5 tests had inconsistent results. I didn't use any other abilities btw. Why is Dreadtheft not consistently hitting the correct amount of times per cast?
I also noticed that Killing Curse was hitting for 0 damage a LOT during dreadtheft. And I mean a HAMSTER load. Can see it spamming on the as a damage floater and can also see it while watching the combat log in game. Does not show up in ACT. Pretty annoying seeing a but load of;
[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Killing Curse gives 0 Necrotic Damage to Target Dummy.
Please fix the damage floaters and the combat log that displays these results and or better yet fix the underlying problem please.
I think it has to do with the dummy and maybe the area it stands in...I hope so.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
18:01:17:13:14:42.0::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,,*,Hellish Rebuke,Pn.C328io1,Power,,-18.9102,0
18:01:17:13:14:42.0::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Hellish Rebuke,Pn.C328io1,Physical,Critical,20105,15157.1
18:01:17:13:14:42.0::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Killing Curse,Pn.Qqypxx1,Physical,Critical,4645.59,3502.3
18:01:17:13:14:42.1::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,1263.06,952.219
18:01:17:13:14:42.1::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,2437.86,1837.9
18:01:17:13:14:42.1::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,1198.08,903.229
18:01:17:13:14:42.1::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Hellish Rebuke,Pn.C328io1,Physical,Critical,14172,10684.3
18:01:17:13:14:42.5::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],Tricky Dicky,C[1296 Pet_Conartist],Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Wicked Strike,Pn.X9fcy6,Physical,,17180.7,14944.4
18:01:17:13:14:42.6::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,3953.38,2980.44
18:01:17:13:14:42.7::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,4211.46,3175.01
18:01:17:13:14:43.1::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,1855.47,1398.83
18:01:17:13:14:43.2::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,3913.86,2950.64
18:01:17:13:14:43.2::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Magistrate's Consideration,Pn.Hlstbu1,Physical,,1798.14,1355.61
18:01:17:13:14:43.4::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],Tricky Dicky,C[1296 Pet_Conartist],Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Wicked Strike3,Pn.Tu0c87,Physical,,3910.1,3401.14
18:01:17:13:14:43.5::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,3769.69,2841.96
18:01:17:13:14:43.6::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,1263.06,952.219
18:01:17:13:14:43.6::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,2437.86,1837.9
18:01:17:13:14:43.6::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,2496.53,1882.13
18:01:17:13:14:43.6::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,2657.26,2003.3
18:01:17:13:14:43.6::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Hellish Rebuke,Pn.C328io1,Physical,Critical,14172,10684.3
18:01:17:13:14:43.7::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Creeping Death,Pn.Kkbsma1,Physical,,2048.91,1544.67
18:01:17:13:14:43.9::Thom Manshoon 1,P[100848839@5568836 Thom Manshoon 1@dragonsbite],,*,Target Dummy,C[1308 Entity_Targetdummy],Lesser Curse,Pn.73q9w8,Physical,,3807.89,2870.75
Note that initial cast after the Power line was a crit yet Critical promise did not work. After that the DOT crit 2 times and still no Critical Promise. Going thru more of the log it looks like only the inial cast can proc Critical promise. Yet it's inconsistent in doing so.
Testing Hellish Rebuke with "No Pity No Mercy" to eliminate the DOT component here's what I got.
Hellish Rebuked 111 times in which 81 were crits.
Critical Promised a total of 76 times
Not bad but it's still missing 5 critical promises.
Scornful Curse is in a tough spot, it requires one of the means of reliably having LC out or using a horrid passive. Assuming those conditions are met it still isn't a large enough boost compared to the other options in its tier of feats. Which is part of the problem, it could easily double the values it provides and would still be in a tough spot; but at least then 100% Crit + All Consuming would make it much more worthwhile to be 2/3 (but then it might be too good....arrghhh).
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@balanced#2849 would that be too much?
Edit: Though I suppose making sure it works correctly an maybe just increase its base damage would be an easier and probably equally well working solution.
It would possibly make ACC too overpowered I guess, with LC becoming a major source of damage for any build. So probably requires more work than they are planning for in this mod.
For the sake of context, I think that the problem with in-game balance goes beyond the actual balance of the class, and has a lot to do with the imbalance of the dungeons and drop rates. Drop rates of most things in game are low, so you need to farm a million times for whatever you need (skt weapons for example), you may have better luck if you run with a group, and someone else get something you need (and has the luck to be unbound like orcus shard from cn). Endgame dungeons on the other hand, range from unplayable to awfully long (runs from 40 to 60 minutes if you are able to finish it) if you don't have an optimized group (the reason of the actual meta) nobody wants to spend that amount of time in a dungeon that you have to run several times a day, to profit from the drops (selling, upgrading, seals, etc). Scoreboards are not that useful because they do not reflect things as supposued, a good tank will not always be the number 1 on damage taken, they are supposed to have tools to mitigate damage, that for example squishy dps do not have, and so in game players thinking that because they took more damage did a better job than a tank.
Regarding the sw, the biggest problem is that everything we do, we do it poorly. As a dps, we clearly perform poorly. Takes to long to prepare to do actual damage, for low end content, WC and FoE are useless (to name a few), because the time it takes to put it makes no difference what so ever. On higher end content is relevant only if you are playing solo, if there is someone else, things will be dead before you finished your setup. As a support class the tools we have are not that many, if someone dies is hard to revive them, because if we stop making damage, we stop healing the party, and we can't make a useful shield for party members in order to give us the time to save someone. We can't do anything off combat, because heals are tied to combat, and buff/debuff also.
Regarding things we can do to improve this:
- Compounded Soul should give on 1/5 feats at least 50% of sw hp, taking into account that there are not to many instances that your life is lowered and you are still alive (millage may vary according to class/il). This also gives us tools to do something else than hitting in order to try to keep alive the ones that still are. This needs a cap at around 100 to 200 tops, in order to be a rewarding mechanic and not something that you can use to make the party inmortal.
- Hand of blight needs to make more damage, and preferably give a different buff/debuff, because if not, hellish rebuke is a way better option, even more if you take hellish condemnation.
- Soul breaker should give AP to all not to a random ally.
- Dreadtheft needs to be able to target manually or auto (as it is now), if a target an area to maximize damage and debuff, but the "selected target" moves or teleports, the power gets is effectiveness reduced. The way is now is only useful to hit a single target like Ras Nsi that moves around a lot, and that helps you out.
- Feats should not be tied to specific attacks, but to a mechanic (for example healing/aoe/dot attacks) or a type ( fire/necrotic) in order to give the players more choices when they are choosing how to build the character.
- Pilar of power needs a bigger radius, around doble, to be useful. Because at lower level, an sw does not have the tankiness needed to approach a mob, put PoP and live to tell it (neither does enough damage to kill the mob quickly enough), and on endgame lacks of the mobility a party may need. This could also include an off combat feature, for example to heal or remove wounds while off combat. A higher cooldown to balance things out if the damage/buff/debuff are improved.
- Flames of empowerment should stack on us and not the mob, or spread when the target get hit with aoe, dies, or something that makes the stack usable. For example, FoE should stack when we hit cursed targets. This als makes the curse more relevant.
- Ticks for dot damage need to be less or quicker or a combination of both, most of the damage output gets lost currently. Another option is that dot damage ticks get triggered by time or other player hitting the target, that way solo content gets the ticks as intended, and on group content we don't lose the damage. This should have an ICD of 0.5 sec aprox.
- We need to be able to fulfill the roles we use (support for temptation, dps for fury) at a level where even if a gwf or dc can do better, the difference is not that big that we get left out of content.
As for things that could be considered for the future:
- Soul puppet should be more relevant, for example, according to the chosen path, for example you could get a puppet that could buff you or output dps as fury, or heal/revive allies in temptation.
- Curse consume needs to be present in more attacks, tied to the capstones, and giving a benefit that outweighs the lost of the curse. Or needs to be completely removed. Because currently is useless and present in only a few things, and the effect of the consume doesn't do anything worthwhile.
- The way curses are applied is not good and does not help to buff ourselves or the party. An option could be that we can curse an area, wc get on up to 3 targets (stronger ones), lc on a few more (trash mobs, probably 5). In this way reapplying curse because is effect is ending, or mob is dying is more rewarding and you don't need to make curses creep. Could be applied as dc powers like chains of blazing light. Changing the curse location removes the curse from the targets previously affected, this could trigger curse consume effect and make it interesting.
P.S: english is not my native language so I hope that I was clear enough.