Soulweaver, How is it?

bewarned87 · April 2019

Since mod 16 has released, how is it? Ive been lookin to start a new character (i havent since before the incentive thing came out).

I have a 60SW, but it's a tiefling, and it has VERY low wisdom.

gomok72 · May 2019

It’s the better out of the two specs, in my opinion. I’m putting something together now, that will give people some ideas of what gear they need for solo and group play, “Mostly group play”.

kolatmaster · May 2019

I'd agree that it's the better of both specs, overall, as it should be an auto-include for all end game parties.

I see end game parties being:

2x DPS
1x DPS/Tank (Switching as necessary)
2x Heals (1x must be Warlock, other is Cleric or Paladin)

That way the HoTs/Buffs from Warlock can be supplemented by the emergency heals of Cleric or shields from Paladins.

The Soulweaver playstyle is very dynamic as the placement of your AoE HoTs dictate where the battle will be fought, and leads the Warlock player to have good knowledge of how fights/mechanics work.

gomok72 · May 2019

bewarned87 said:
Since mod 16 has released, how is it? Ive been lookin to start a new character (i havent since before the incentive thing came out).

I have a 60SW, but it's a tiefling, and it has VERY low wisdom.

My Warlock is an Tiefling as well and will remain so, I’m not finding any huge benefit with high Wisdom versus increasing my damage stats. I’m still playing around with it though.

eddiestorm · May 2019

ok I am unable to find much in the way of guides for playing soulweaver. However I am doing pretty well on my own. The general direction I am taking comes from watch Silv3ry (watch her youtube vids she is informative while being funny). So just a basic run down of what I am doing
At Wills: Essence defiler, Soul Reconstruction
Encounters: Warlocks bargain, PIllar of power, Harrowstorm
Daily: Brood of Hadar, Immolation spirits
Class feature: Prince of Hell, Warding Curse (don't think either of these are the best choices but that is what I am using)
Feats: Essence of Power, Transfusion Tactics, Life Bind, Theif of life, Consuming Action
Note: with the use of Warlocks Bargain high HP is quite helpful

Overall I feel I heal very good but tend to take a bit more dmg if I am not real careful. Need to run in drop pillar of power on the tank and run out ./ After that I light up the area in green heal numbers

vorphied · May 2019

Hellbringer is powerful; I wouldn't be quick to discount it, as I believe that it is one of the strongest DPS classes in the game currently.

Soulweaver is also a good design, but if it has a weakness, it's the lack of a single, on-demand, high-burst heal to handle intensive healing requirements. The new dungeon has some mechanics that are much easier for a Devout to handle simply because Bastion is so cheap and strong. Taking a Devout or an Oathkeeper would be an option, but only if the Soulweaver is building for a respectable DPS output, in the tradition of the old Temptation build. Even in that case, it's usually going to be more efficient to take three capable DPS, a Devout, and a good tank.

Anyway, I'll try to play Soulweaver in a Mad Mage run this weekend so I can get some first-hand experience and try a few things.

vorphied · May 2019

I swapped to Soulweaver for a couple of LoMM runs today just to get a feel of how things would go. Damage was extremely high compared to what I've seen from other healer roles, and strong Power and crit severity go a long way towards offsetting the lower magnitude of Soulweaver heals (although the majority of these powers aren't critting at the rate they should be).

Soulweaver + 1 more healer can compensate for lack of a viable tank at Arcturia, and Soulweaver DPS is enough to handle a mimic corner solo with only two damaging encounters slotted. I didn't get the chance to attempt as solo heals in that fight since we also had a Devout.

Boreworm would be an issue with Soulweaver as the only healer except possibly in the highest performing parties, where everyone has very high HP, capped defenses, and destroys all their boulders. Not being able to recover Sparks without attacking is a serious liability here and allows no room for error.

Trobriand is fine if the tank is controlling him and the party DPS is lower or otherwise restrained so as not to push add phases too rapidly. The feat that allows you to absorb party members' incoming damage can cause instant death when the arena is blasted following the Pillar phase, so it's best not to use it.

While the damage is exceptional for a supporting role, making it the most efficient choice for farming, I do have concerns about current and upcoming end-game content. Even though Soulweaver overall healing output is competitive with Devout, at least, fights that require sustained healing without being able to attack to regenerate sparks will relegate Soulweaver to a secondary healer spot that doesn't tend to exist when you can replace the extra healer with a full DPS or a dedicated tank instead.

schietindebux · May 2019

I tried Soulweaver at LotMM , the party was pretty weak, we ended up with tons of Golems, so maybe not that representive,but imo Soulweaver is in a pretty weak position compared to other healer.
I could not manage the high damageincome due to low stats from player I guess, there is no way to shield incoming damage except one daily that hardly will be up for every cocoon phase.
The reason why all ask for DC or OP in chat is pretty simple. DC can raise dead player with one encounter (2000 magnitude), so the party is allowed to fail every 20 seconds and OP shields a big bunch of incoming damage, wich prevents the party from dying at all. Esp. at Boreworm, OP could easily shield those incoming shockwaves, where the DC had trouble tbh.

My first impression: Oathkeeper N°1 (significant), followed by DC due to revive...warlock misses any active burst-heal without spending Sparks. Shatter Spark is the only viable healing ability and far below all DC's and OP's magnitude. All other encounter and passive heals are significantly weaker.
In other words Shatter spark deals about 70% or more of your outgoing heals, following ACT after substracting all those selheals that don`t heal party passively -> all selfhealboons, Bloodtheft (wasted tbh-from no impact) and more.

Soulweaver:
TAB only heals you not your party - should be chaged imo!
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Pillar_of_Power------- 20 magnitude..
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Shatter_Spark ------- 400 mag
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Harrowstorm-------- 200 mag but only at casted area
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Warlock's_Bargain --200 mag aoe, somehow killing yourself if bad luck
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Transfusion_Tactics (best passive healing ability but 5 times weaker than Shatter Spark)
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Soul_Pact (Daily, up every 2 min at best)

DC:
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Bastion_of_Health -----800 mag
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Hallowed_Ground -----250 mag as aoe over time+DR 10%
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Healing_Word ---------500 mag +200 HOT
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Anointed_Army------- 1800 mag Daily
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Exaltation------------+20% outgoing healing (not used that uch I guess)
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Cleansing_Light------- 400 mag aoe with cleans effect (not sure if fixed)
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Persistent_Guardian---- a feat that spawns a guardian wich heal ofer 45 second 5 times for 500 mag after using Guardian of life ! ONe daily doing 1300 mag heal+ 5x500 mag heals in 45 seconds
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Intercession 2000 mag revives the weakes member...also from permadeath
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Guardian_of_Life 800 mag instaheal+ 500 Hot on top

OP: the strongest class imo
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Divine_Shelter------350 mag heal+350mag shield, 700 heal with BoV plus 700 barrier with Emissary of warding = 1400 heal/barriereffect !
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Lay_on_Hands------ insta full heal + negative staus cleansed
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Cleansing_Touch----200mag+cleanse
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Bond_of_Virtue------ encounter doubles healeffect
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Emissary_of_Warding---feat that doubles barrier effect on crit 350-500 bariere for free
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Divine_Vessel--------- feat free heals for 12 seconds all 180 seconds
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Sanctuary------------10% DR increase and 600mag HOT
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Divine_Touch---------500mag heal+500mag barrier, 1000 heal with BoV plus 1000 barrier with Emissary of warding on crit=2000 heal/barriererffect !

So far from my pov the Soulweaver is not competetive in endcontent, it´s a balanceissue, but maybe there are others who made completely different experiences so far.
Just watching those numbers DC same as OP can cast heals/Hot´s or Heal/bariereffects (prevent you from dying) that more than double Soulweavers "1-encounter-loadout abilities" ... the situation is obvious.
Where other healer can slot 3 spells with 800 up to 2000mag (OP-1000heal-BoV/1000barrier-feated), casting dailies that do 1800mag(feated) average heal per player, the warlock only got one encounter at 400mg and one daily doing 500 mag per player, loosing HP on top by that !
Warlocks Bargain simply is a high selfinflicted damage with poor results (200mag) and a Pillar of Power can´t help nor heal any kind of incoming burstdamage with 20mag tics (more: Pillar of Doom ?), where devs implemented "partykiller mechanics" in LotMM.
Whoever thinks this is balanced should go back to school.

From what I see, Soulweaver needs a significant overhaul, adding mitigation tools compareable to Paladin or more than double the healeffects/HOT's, wich even might not be sufficient

We need a healing encounter with CD at no costs, a Daily from impact to counter those "oneshoot-mechanics" implemented in new content ... even devs said these mechanics are "the past".
We want a spell that resurrects partymember (from hell maybe), we want compareable tools other classes got, otherwise this class will stay a 2. or more 3. degree healer in content ... same as 2. degree striker actually, if I am not totally wrong.
Our best Daily does 500mag heal and hurts, DC´s does 1800 (AA) or 800+500 HOT mag and spawns a Guardian that does 5x500mag heals on top ->at best 5x1300+5x500 vs 5x500 -> 9000 mag heals vs 2500mag heals ...hmmm
It´s like getting a fork in the Hand contesting with a holy Knight with a big sword.
From all feats Transfusion tactics showed a bit of impact, Lingering Sustain is weak af, Life Bind a "selfkiller" not to use anywhere, Thief of Life a laugh since 2% instead 1% from a classabilty that spends about 3% healing is nothing.
From all classfeats only Borrowed time is somehow usefull (only for selfheal), all other are incredible bad but ... that feat does not translate any heals towards the party, no.
@mimicking#6533 @noworries#8859 @nitocris83 @devs - please patch that class to be competetive

PS: you also failed in balance concerning tank/striker. A tank doing endcontent should not be able to out-dps a pure striker class. In your game this is pretty common tbh.
This is how actual balance situation translates into your game:
"Lfm LotMM, need GF tank/dps or OP, need heal OP/DC, need hdps 22-23k+"
(no matter if wearing crappy "IL-pusher-gear"

)

mat44444 · May 2019

But, but, schietindebux – warlocks are over performing!

I know this because we were repeatedly told so by the Devs in preview

Seriously though you are correct – Warlocks are just bad at healing, way below the other healing classes. And to put it plainly – they are better at healing then they are at damaging.

The class is a joke

The limited time I now spend playing with friends – I opt for my Paladin alt, that with significantly lower gear/enchants whatever’s, significantly outperforms my Warlock with much less effort upon my part.

When on my Paladin I get constantly spammed asking if I want to play new dungeon, when I am on my Warlock the silence is deafening – which pretty much sums it up

Have fun in game guys

schietindebux · May 2019

mat44444 said:
But, but, schietindebux – warlocks are over performing!

That´s same category like : "Scaling is nearly at the point we want it to be, WAI"

PS: I did not see many devs in warlocks feetbackthreat, maybe I missed that comment, but I am sure that dev only monitored the preview recognizing high dps spikes whenever a Soulweaver and his 15 Immolation Spirits showed up

This happens when you only interpret some numbers without playing a class at all.
End of the line, a pretty sad and predictable situation, wich will stay for maybe 2 years, maybe 3, who knows.
Now tranfering my stones to Paladin I think, warlock= wasted effort -> striker same as healer

vorphied · May 2019

mat44444 said:
But, but, schietindebux – warlocks are over performing!

I know this because we were repeatedly told so by the Devs in preview

Seriously though you are correct – Warlocks are just bad at healing, way below the other healing classes. And to put it plainly – they are better at healing then they are at damaging.

The class is a joke

The limited time I now spend playing with friends – I opt for my Paladin alt, that with significantly lower gear/enchants whatever’s, significantly outperforms my Warlock with much less effort upon my part.

When on my Paladin I get constantly spammed asking if I want to play new dungeon, when I am on my Warlock the silence is deafening – which pretty much sums it up

Have fun in game guys

I'll say it again, because it's true and worth saying: DPS Warlock is very good.

Soulweaver is mainly good at one thing: DPS while healing "standard" damage. Sustained, incoming burst damage is difficult to handle due to the issues highlighted in this thread.

mat44444 · May 2019

vorphied said:

mat44444 said:
But, but, schietindebux – warlocks are over performing!

I know this because we were repeatedly told so by the Devs in preview

Seriously though you are correct – Warlocks are just bad at healing, way below the other healing classes. And to put it plainly – they are better at healing then they are at damaging.

The class is a joke

The limited time I now spend playing with friends – I opt for my Paladin alt, that with significantly lower gear/enchants whatever’s, significantly outperforms my Warlock with much less effort upon my part.

When on my Paladin I get constantly spammed asking if I want to play new dungeon, when I am on my Warlock the silence is deafening – which pretty much sums it up

Have fun in game guys
I'll say it again, because it's true and worth saying: DPS Warlock is very good.

Soulweaver is mainly good at one thing: DPS while healing "standard" damage. Sustained, incoming burst damage is difficult to handle due to the issues highlighted in this thread.

Yes that’s a fact – you do keep on and on and on telling me – and for some strange reason I am still not convinced.

But I am happy you are enjoying your class – sadly like many people I am not, and again sadly I feel that I am in the majority at the moment

vorphied · May 2019

mat44444 said:

vorphied said:

mat44444 said:
But, but, schietindebux – warlocks are over performing!

I know this because we were repeatedly told so by the Devs in preview

Seriously though you are correct – Warlocks are just bad at healing, way below the other healing classes. And to put it plainly – they are better at healing then they are at damaging.

The class is a joke

The limited time I now spend playing with friends – I opt for my Paladin alt, that with significantly lower gear/enchants whatever’s, significantly outperforms my Warlock with much less effort upon my part.

When on my Paladin I get constantly spammed asking if I want to play new dungeon, when I am on my Warlock the silence is deafening – which pretty much sums it up

Have fun in game guys
I'll say it again, because it's true and worth saying: DPS Warlock is very good.

Soulweaver is mainly good at one thing: DPS while healing "standard" damage. Sustained, incoming burst damage is difficult to handle due to the issues highlighted in this thread.

Yes that’s a fact – you do keep on and on and on telling me – and for some strange reason I am still not convinced.

But I am happy you are enjoying your class – sadly like many people I am not, and again sadly I feel that I am in the majority at the moment

Maybe consider that the majority may be missing something, which is often the case in this game.

If you listen to the majority, M16 is terrible in every single way and all of us should walk away from our keyboards this instant.

In the end, I suppose you have to judge by your own experience. The only thing I want to accomplish here is to clue people in to the fact that there is potential. Just because they see poorly-performing Warlocks or are themselves still working on their best Warlock loadout and strategy doesn't mean that the class is inherently underperforming.

schietindebux · May 2019

I´d agree to some point that Hellbringer is competetive at single bosses, the difference is not huge, but it stays under classes like TR and to my honest surprise also under a good performing GF dps-tank and I did switch loadouts varied strategy etc., I honeslty have to run more content, but taht´s my first impression, trying to be as objective as possible.
The class can absolve endcontent as striker but is not favoured against others imo, more in the midfield I think and setup is what it was on preview all time, clunky and you allways feel like standing between choices from wich none seems to be the optimal.

There also is no valid argument, why this class biggest impact is 1150 (no burst-little 6 horrors spawn) and other classes can deal 1700mag+AP refill, 1600mag+cc, same as there are not many arguments why the biggest heal this class can dish out is 400, where other can do 1500 up to 2000mag on crit.
It simply displays the fact that some devs did their homework, spend feedback and cared about player and other did not at all.

vorphied · May 2019

schietindebux said:
I´d agree to some point that Hellbringer is competetive at single bosses, the difference is not huge, but it stays under classes like TR and to my honest surprise also under a good performing GF dps-tank and I did switch loadouts varied strategy etc., I honeslty have to run more content, but taht´s my first impression, trying to be as objective as possible.
The class can absolve endcontent as striker but is not favoured against others imo, more in the midfield I think and setup is what is was on preview all time, clunky and you allways feel like standing between the choices wich are not good ones.

There also is no valid argument, why this class biggest impact is 1150 (no burst-little 6 horrors spawn) and other classes can deal 1700mag+AP refill, 1600mag+cc, same as there are not many arguments why the biggest heal this class can dish out is 400, where other can do 1500 up to 2000mag on crit.
It simply displays the fact that some devs did their homework, spend feedback and cared about player and other did not at all.

Which powers and feats did you go with for those runs as DPS?

schietindebux · May 2019

I tried KF+HG (RI)+VE paired with Parting Blasphemy and also KF+HG+CB, same as I went to Warlock Curse. I run Sniper x2 Shadowstalker +5, Undermountain-cap 5%, those 3% at 75% stamina paired with a ELven Battle enchant, wich I pretty much like in content, Vorpal enchant, 124k power 115k CA.
Maybe that GF used some "dirty tricks"

(wth is Doohickey, that pocketpet?). Idk, maybe my stats dropped infight, wich happens in Lomm until 2. boss pretty often..and is somehow annoying.
I am not saying Hellbringer sucks, but my aoe is not the best from all classes same as I know that TR seems to be stronger on focus target, only first impressions.
Warlock is a viable dps, not on top of all, but a nogo for the healerpart in LotMM compared to an Oathkeeper.
As I pointed at above, the tools from Soulweaver are comparetively weak, you even don´t need to play the class to get to the point, it´s pretty obviuos.
I checked ACT logs and came to the results above. We got one Healing-spell from impact, no strong HOT's and no strong mitigationtools and we need a target to even work in some Bossfight ->Tab
If classes can´t work in some fights (you mentioned it) they are useless. Either the mechanics or the content was written without thinking or taking care about this fact.
Not that we did not point at the fact, that Warlock is inabel to heal without having a target before (til mod 15)... the class was set in stone and no preview, no feedback and no comment changed anything about it. They were ignored and there never was one serious playrun or check about the viability of roles. It was decided inside some heads, that did not know exactly how a class works/is played.

PS: "[Pro PlaYeR LfG...] xy@yx: LF1 TR 1 SW DPS EXP FOR LOMM" some do think positive about warlock actually, first time I read something like this since ages.

vorphied · May 2019

schietindebux said:
I tried KF+HG (RI)+VE paired with Parting Blasphemy and also KF+HG+CB, same as I went to Warlock Curse. I run Sniper x2 Shadowstalker +5, those 3% at 75% stamina paired with a ELven Battle enchant, wich I pretty much like in content, Vorpal enchant, 124k power 115k CA.
Maybe that GF used some "dirty tricks" (wth is Doohickey, that pocketpet?). Idk, maybe my stats dropped infight, wich happens in Lomm until 2. boss pretty often..and is somehow annoying.
I am not saying Hellbringer sucks, but my aoe is not the best from all classes same as I know that TR seems to be stronger on focus target, only first impressions.
Warlock is a viable dps, not on top of all, but a nogo for the healerpart in LotMM compared to an Oathkeeper.
As I pointed at above, the tools from Soulweaver are comparetively weak, you even don´t need to play the class to get to the point, it´s pretty obviuos.
I checked ACT logs and came to the results above. We got one Healing-spell from impact, no strong HOT's and no strong mitigationtools and we need a target to even work in some Bossfight ->Tab
If classes can´t work in some fights (you mentioned it) they are useless. Either the mechanics or the content was written without thinking or taking care about this fact.
Not that we did not point at the fact, that Warlock is inabel to deal high ammounts of damage out of combat before... the class was set in stone and no preview, no feedback and no comment changed anything about it, they were ignored.

- Doohickey is a permanent consumable slot item that is basically like another AoE Encounter every 30 seconds.

- I think KF+HG+CB with Risky Investment and Parting Blasphemy is best for single-target, but that's partly based on my assumption that Warlock's Curse doesn't work enough of the time when you're constantly removing and reapplying it.

- If you relog after the Arcturia and Boreworm cutscenes, before anyone has engaged the boss, your stats will be fixed and should stay that way. Just can't have the entire party log out at once, or the fight resets.

- I also use Vorpal. ~157k Power, all offensive stats capped. The only difference I have in that department with the highest DPS players I run with is that I have 10-20k more Power than most of them, which isn't a statistically huge difference. The one who had more Power than my Warlock (I had 138 at the time, and he was at 146) was a DPS Barbie who did about 10% less overall damage by the end of the dungeon. I use Shadowstalker +5, one of the +3% sniper rings, and Hag's Rags along with the +3% damage stamina shirt.

- I also use Tenebrous enchantments, with the highest at 14 since 15 is still bugged unless I'm mistaken. They proc for me at the same frequency as my TR friends.

- I almost never remove No Pity No Mercy. Any significant downtime in Combat Advantage is a tremendous DPS loss, and even Trobriand has too much movement and too many targets for my taste (getting pushed around by the magnet mechanic, having to swap targets to kill adds, especially when we kill Trobriand too quickly and he zergs us with them all at once...).

- Like I mentioned before, other classes have an advantage in that they can use the Death Slaad's Poisonous Intent companion bonus, which is very good on single-target. If and when that gets fixed for Warlock, we'll probably do best to swap to it as well.

- Unlike most of the other DPS, I'm not even using the Demon Lord's Set anymore. I'm fairly certain Demon Lord's is overall better, but I got so sick of it that I threw it in my bank and replaced it with the Apprentice's Spoils. I should have waited until they fixed the AP gain on the neck piece, but I was impatient and am doing fine without it.

- The Envenomed Storyteller's Journal is an incredibly good active artifact. Very high AP gain grants an extra Daily (which grants an instant dump of 12 Soul Sparks with the associated feat), and its damage, especially for AoE is significant.

schietindebux · May 2019

Ah, yes i forgot that demonset, i run it and I do think it should be BIS, they should adjust other sets imo or rebalance it, it´s 3 years old. 7-8% +dps is like 14-20k power as I checked at Jeannes, powerstat get´s deminished obviously at 150k 1000 power is a 0,33% increase, at 100k power +1000 power is 0,5%.

Maybe that DeathSlaad is involved, some classes deal heavy aoe, at least I saw a lot of green fog on the floor, running beside several classes. TR looks strong though as far as I can tell, displays in those repetetive requests in chat actually.

When you get Cocooned your stats drop and you have no bondings for the rest of the fight at Arcturia -bugs-, it does not refresh. It only happens in there at the start and in between, not at boss 2 or 3 and stats drop also entering that room before 1. boss with the big Beholder and the Slime, simply gone

gonzakotwi · May 2019

From wiki:

The warlock is a spellcaster who draws power from a pact forged with an eldritch being. Warlocks weave curses and destructive magics and can even drain the life force of their foes
Tieflings are a race haunted by a dark and sinister bloodline. Their devilish appearance often leads to distrust from their human neighbors, forcing many tieflings to rely on cunning and guile to survive.

I wonder how they got the genius idea that we would be good as healers. We don't even like ourselves and they want us to heal other people… ugh

As for me i'm only focusing on my dps spec, i won't spend even half ad on the healer part

giz · May 2019

The class should be a pure DPS class.

laimcell · May 2019

giz#2086 said:
The class should be a pure DPS class.

I agree, in this MOD 16 we don't need anymore to have 4 buffers and 1 DPS. There is enough space for us to group in as DPS, also considering that our heals have really low Magnitude to be enough IMHO!
After many runs in LMM, I can say that our dmg is fine and in line with other classes; except CW that seems to me the best DPS class at the moment (if the player is good of course)

I would like to make a guide, but lack of will and the bad criticism from the last time are holding me back :P raise your Power, practice and smash

just don't bother too much with the healing until they fix it (?!)

schietindebux · May 2019

At least warlock can run dps spec and be assist-healer at 2. boss slotting KF+HG/WB and Shattersparks, it helps somehow to prevent party from spamming scrolls sometimes. Same does Paladin in that fight I witnessed, Oathkeeper instead tank.
Soulweaver at current state is more a utility-setup for specific situations imo, no real leaderrole, lacking in support from devs side since preview.

kolatmaster · May 2019

vorphied said:
true and worth saying: DPS Warlock is very good.

Soulweaver is mainly good at one thing: DPS while healing "standard" damage. Sustained, incoming burst damage is difficult to handle due to the issues highlighted in this thread.

Soulweaver, How is it?

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