So with new changes coming, anything good for Warlocks?

gomok72 · March 2019

This was one community that has always been truthful, rather a change was good or bad. I know you guys, if any of the "old schoolers" around won't lie or sugar coat anything, in regards to the mod 16 changes.

Is it worth coming back or should I stay gone for another 5 mods?

gomok72 · March 2019

Apparently, no old schoolers playing anymore, lol. I'm doing research and kinda impressed so far that they have took in consideration the input that we were asking and begging for in the past.

I have to thank Silv3ry for the awesome videos she put together for the various classes that are receiving changes ion mod 16.

Again, it looks promising, if good, I will be back to play.

P.S.

Devs, can you please get rid of that SOUL PUPPET and replace it out with a REAL DEMON (Not a LICH skin!)?

obsidiancran3 · March 2019

Hmm I’m old school.

The reality is most are probably testing and monitoring things.

The class works on preview right now, how well it works seems to be very subjective and depend on a range of choices people may or may not be making, all before we bring in play skill.

The other problem is, nothing is fixed yet, large changes are happening weekly on preview, so how the class is this week can be totally different to how it is next week.

tigross · April 2019

I hope they will reinstate old curse mechanics... this random cursing things is really bad. Sometimes you curse, sometimes you don`t....

bpstuart · April 2019

gomok72 said:
This was one community that has always been truthful, rather a change was good or bad. I know you guys, if any of the "old schoolers" around won't lie or sugar coat anything, in regards to the mod 16 changes.

Is it worth coming back or should I stay gone for another 5 mods?

It feels extremely different. Some people might like it, others may not. I personally am not a fan. Started a new character and at low level i feel far weaker than i did when i started my other warlock. It is a lot to adjust to so i would give it time, opinons will start coming in as people form opinions. My opinion is still developing but i am not happy with much of what was done system wise.

You no longer get to choose your powers on level up, powers are just unlocked at certain levels. You can still chose what is in your tray thank god. The powers also feel much weaker and cooldowns are rather long. It honestly feels like someone didn't like the class and how people played it and redefined its style to make it do thing it never did before. Warlock has a healing path now and there is a lot of healer stuff pasted into what used to be a DPS powerhouse.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

> @tigross said:
> I hope they will reinstate old curse mechanics... this random cursing things is really bad. Sometimes you curse, sometimes you don`t....

It’s not random for your powers, it’s random for enemies that attack you.

Read the tooltip for curse, it explains what criteria need to be met to apply curse. Then read each power to see how it works with that.

schietindebux · May 2019

I did not check PVP and did not run LOMM enddungeon as a healer.
From what I see and hear in PE, the go for in endcontent is:
Tank: both I´d say
Healer: Direct requests only for Paladin or DC, no request for lock so far

Dps: CW, Hunter, Barbie, TR, Warlock also, but I did not notice one request for a warlock as dps or heal, all I read is Hunter/CW, maybe barbie.

We can do ok in burst healing, but bad in shielding (no shields, except one daily) same as no HOT's like DC and low aoe for heals, when party is spread. We only got one "hart hitting" burst heal (mag 400 rad 50''), wich is 100% lower than DC's or Paladins tools, the aoe effect is medium. Pasive healing does not compensate since aoe /area-effect seems to low -> Arctuia, but I need to check.
I did not check ACT-logs , but in the sum, I assume some feats are pretty underwhelming and some from no interest for Soulweaver.

Dps is clumsy since core feature are not as they should be: Cursing without ACC is suboptimal, hole class setup is centured arround very few options, best selfbuffs Risky Investment is not to stack outside bossfights, but annyoing since drops off... a lot of stuff we mentioned in feedback threat about 100 times.
All in all it displays the general lack of interest our designated "class-dev" showed during preview testing, low to no interest. All he did was pushing some classfeature and classfeats arround, same as playing with some power for and back, attitude: misinformed and without any feedback or interest towards playerbase, and far away from being cooperative or insightfull like other devs showed in other classthreats

@gomok72 My advise, not many arguments actually to step back in this game. Content is buggy, same as scaling is a disaster. Classbalance, not sure in the end, but warlock is not favoured actually vs any other class, more disfavoured I´d say. Variety to play is melted down to small options.

vorphied · May 2019

Warlock is extremely strong as DPS in LOMM.

Some of the ongoing criticism remains warranted, but my opinion has become much more positive since early Preview.

schietindebux · May 2019

You can do average as striker, not better than others imo. Brood as best daily underperforms, where Shocking Execution deals >1mio damage our Daily deals half of it.
Soulweaver is no option at endcontent, same as other fights with high incoming damage, OP is far better.
No warlock has not that much to show up with imo.
TR is better, not sure about CW/Hunter, even a GF/striker-tank will do equal to better at bosses imo.
That´s what you also can read out of chat: "Lfm OP tank, GF striker/tank, Oathkeeper/DC heals, TR/CW as striker " so far from my observation.
No Soulweaver, no hdps lock are from any request actually at actual state of the game.

vorphied · May 2019

While this isn't a scientific observation, I have been out-damaging various DPS with similar equipment/ilvl by a significant margin since I started running my Warlock as DPS in LoMM, including a couple of TRs and a Barbie whom I know to be good representatives of their classes.

The TR closest to my damage is usually about -30% to my Warlock's total output, though the gap is smaller on bosses, where they can make good use of the Death Slaad power, which currently doesn't work properly for Warlock. With their weapons fully updated, the gap should close, and they could pull ahead on bosses, but I'm happy with Warlock's performance if TR turns out to be the bar against which they're compared.

The reason no one asks for HDPS Warlocks is because this is the same general public who thought you needed 18k groups to do Kessell's Retreat in M15 and who still hadn't caught up to the fact that Warlocks were viable DPS and not just Temptation healers.

werdandi · May 2019

vorphied said:
While this isn't a scientific observation, I have been out-damaging various DPS with similar equipment/ilvl by a significant margin since I started running my Warlock as DPS in LoMM, including a couple of TRs and a Barbie whom I know to be good representatives of their classes.

The TR closest to my damage is usually about -30% to my Warlock's total output, though the gap is smaller on bosses, where they can make good use of the Death Slaad power, which currently doesn't work properly for Warlock. With their weapons fully updated, the gap should close, and they could pull ahead on bosses, but I'm happy with Warlock's performance if TR turns out to be the bar against which they're compared.

The reason no one asks for HDPS Warlocks is because this is the same general public who thought you needed 18k groups to do Kessell's Retreat in M15 and who still hadn't caught up to the fact that Warlocks were viable DPS and not just Temptation healers.

It is not really the item level that you should compare but the weapon and the power of the differents dps players (other stats except maybe CA are already capped if you are more than 19K, and the only gear that can make a little bit of difference is the damage bonus gear).
I have begun this new module last week, and so far I am not impressed AT ALL by my warlock damage when I run Lomm with CWs or TRs that have about the same power as me (135 to 150k).
To be honest, my experience is quite limited with only 3 runs and I am sure I can have a smoother rotation, but I was outdps by a LARGE margin (50%) on both multi (mobs were melted in 3 sec) and boss situations. I was hoping that boss fights would be better because it is where warlocks used to shine in the past but even with soul investiture stacks, it was hopeless.
I already noticed my encounters damage was weak (mostly because of low magnitude, considering the poor choice of buffs in feats/class features) but it would not have been a problem if the classes balance had been done properly (people on an equal foot), which is not the case imo. Dailies are way better but nothing to brag about.
Some powers have a horrible activation time which force you to wait before pressing another button or dodge, otherwise you cancel completely the cast (accursed souls, hellfire ring), which lowers even more your dps.
The tab is not really interesting (it is not an extraordinary portion of your damage) except for reducing cooldowns (and only if you take the corresponding feat).

I was suspecting that something was wrong when I was running ACT during the master expeditions with guildies (I was comparing outputs of encounters and dailies), but now I feel even more pessimistic.
I will of course keep on trying to improve (warlocks still do ok dps), but again, I think warlocks have been as usual overlooked and nerfed too much before the module goes live.

vorphied · May 2019

werdandi#8366 said:

vorphied said:
While this isn't a scientific observation, I have been out-damaging various DPS with similar equipment/ilvl by a significant margin since I started running my Warlock as DPS in LoMM, including a couple of TRs and a Barbie whom I know to be good representatives of their classes.

The TR closest to my damage is usually about -30% to my Warlock's total output, though the gap is smaller on bosses, where they can make good use of the Death Slaad power, which currently doesn't work properly for Warlock. With their weapons fully updated, the gap should close, and they could pull ahead on bosses, but I'm happy with Warlock's performance if TR turns out to be the bar against which they're compared.

The reason no one asks for HDPS Warlocks is because this is the same general public who thought you needed 18k groups to do Kessell's Retreat in M15 and who still hadn't caught up to the fact that Warlocks were viable DPS and not just Temptation healers.
It is not really the item level that you should compare but the weapon and the power of the differents dps players (other stats except maybe CA are already capped if you are more than 19K, and the only gear that can make a little bit of difference is the damage bonus gear).
I have begun this new module last week, and so far I am not impressed AT ALL by my warlock damage when I run Lomm with CWs or TRs that have about the same power as me (135 to 150k).
To be honest, my experience is quite limited with only 3 runs and I am sure I can have a smoother rotation, but I was outdps by a LARGE margin (50%) on both multi (mobs were melted in 3 sec) and boss situations. I was hoping that boss fights would be better because it is where warlocks used to shine in the past but even with soul investiture stacks, it was hopeless.
I already noticed my encounters damage was weak (mostly because of low magnitude, considering the poor choice of buffs in feats/class features) but it would not have been a problem if the classes balance had been done properly (people on an equal foot), which is not the case imo. Dailies are way better but nothing to brag about.
Some powers have a horrible activation time which force you to wait before pressing another button or dodge, otherwise you cancel completely the cast (accursed souls, hellfire ring), which lowers even more your dps.
The tab is not really interesting (it is not an extraordinary portion of your damage) except for reducing cooldowns (and only if you take the corresponding feat).

I was suspecting that something was wrong when I was running ACT during the master expeditions with guildies (I was comparing outputs of encounters and dailies), but now I feel even more pessimistic.
I will of course keep on trying to improve (warlocks still do ok dps), but again, I think warlocks have been as usual overlooked and nerfed too much before the module goes live.

You can't directly compare Power, either. I've run with 125k Power characters who outperform 150k Power characters by wide margins. There is no perfect formula to analyze outside of the run itself; the best you can do is guesstimate as to the why.

I'm getting consistently good results against other good DPS in the 21-24k ilvl range, and my Wizard (who also outperforms other DPS) performs similarly, regularly being 30-50%+ in overall damage.

I've also ran with other Warlocks who do 1/3 or less of the damage of the top 2 DPS in the same run. All of the above makes me think that the biggest problem some Warlock players are experiencing is in their power selection, rotations, and positioning, not with the class itself.

werdandi · May 2019

vorphied said:

All of the above makes me think that the biggest problem some Warlock players are experiencing is in their power selection, rotations, and positioning, not with the class itself.

For information, how long do your runs last when you were on SW?
As for the powers I use, I think they are the right ones (acc dc; multi: hfr cb fb; boss: hfr hg kf ; I will test an alternative rotation though) but even if I have some margin to progress because I am still new to the revised warlock, I don't see how i can catch up this huge gap when I see the raw data of the output of an individual power (the maximum it can reach).

vorphied · May 2019

> @werdandi#8366 said:
> All of the above makes me think that the biggest problem some Warlock players are experiencing is in their power selection, rotations, and positioning, not with the class itself.
>
>
> For information, how long do your runs last when you were on SW?
> As for the powers I use, I think they are the right ones (acc dc; multi: hfr cb fb; boss: hfr hg kf ; I will test an alternative rotation though) but even if I have some margin to progress because I am still new to the revised warlock, I don't see how i can catch up this huge gap when I see the raw data of the output of an individual power (the maximum it can reach).

Depending on party comp and whether or not there are new players, around 26 min on the lower end and 35+ min on the upper end. Boss resets due to players not understanding mechanics are still pretty common.

For everything but Boreworm and Trobriand, you will do best with ACC and NPNM for class features. Boreworm CA by positioning works IIRC, and at Trobriand you can drop NPNM for DC if the tank can hold aggro and keep him steady enough for consistent CA. For everything else you lose too much DPS by dropping NPNM, essentially giving up your CA.

Curse Bite is for both ST and AoE.

HFR for AoE, but not for ST.

A few tweaks, particularly keeping up CA with NPNM during trash sections and for Arcturia, who moves frequently, drops AoE CC patches, and requires DPS on mimic adds, can make a huge difference.

werdandi · May 2019

Thanks, I will give a try to NPNM. For HFR, the logic behind was to generate more sparks, so more cooldowns.
And if possible, I would like you to run with my reference CW

If you can keep up, it will be a realistic goal for me to do the same. ^^

schietindebux · May 2019

I don´t think Hellbringer is weak actually, but not top, same thought in other class threats.

CW: "So i confirm, with right feats, spells and stats, thaumaturge is (by far) the best dps class in any situation. "
"Cw do best DMG now with right feats / powers. "
"If the Wizards don't want Directed Flames and Smolder, I'd gladly trade the potty squat for it. It's also not like Wizard has the most broken daily in the game on the Arcanist path that gives them free Mod 15 mode... I'll gladly trade Mow Down for Arcane Empowerment... "
"From what i have seen in LotMM CWs are at the Top when it comes to dps. "
"My opinion, HRs are either better aoe trash clearers, or just quicker with burst dps, but CWs are amazing on single target/boss."

Barbie: "I would like to know as well...from what I can tell the barbs are doing decent damage in M16 but are behind equally skilled/geared rogues wizards and rangers "

GF: "Yet, I find the DPS output underwhelmingly low vs other DPS classes, including Control Wizard, Barbarian, and CLERIC!"

DC: "We can consistently top Paingiver, and our heals are in demand because of the Cleanse.... not a bad deal, really... "

Actually noone matches his dps with equally geared warlocks, maybe due to the lack of capable dps-locks.
As it looks Barbies do miss some aoe and also got issues with focus dps a bit (not sure), at least you need a lot of gear to not "kiss the ground" repeatedly, since actual content favours pure range-classes a little bit.
You can run your lock as dps and can switch towards heal/dps in situation, where the group misses survivability, same as spending some utility using NPNM as @vorphied pointed at, valuable feat.
Like yesterday doing a pretty "slow-run", missing dps, tankability and healing. Solved by slotting a dps/heal loadout at 2.+3. boss, otherwise we would have failed in the end... painful to some degree.

I think warlock simply needs one more encouter with any impact on singel target, there is Killing flame and there is.... Vampric Embrance 200? Hadar grasp 175 mag? Hellfire ring 250mag?
At least VE should be capable to spawn a puppet imo. HG alone is near impossible grant 5 stacks of RI, now that it is fixed and doesn´t drop of, same as it takes ages to stack at all, no way to profit from RI effectively that way.
Animations should be faster and At Wills should apply Lesser Curse (or make it a feat to chose).
We are forced to run ACC most of the time, otherwise you miss your RI-buffs , same as you can´t run a Curse consuming build effectively.
This all is missing since start imo, no minimal improvements or changes took place on preview.
My opinion about the unlucky direction preview took and ignored class feedback is still the same.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

It’s like they don’t want RI builds to be the only viable option for Warlocks or something....

Just because the devs are not doing what you want doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are doing. (Don’t look at scaling though...)

Nearly every time I see someone having a cry in a zone and I go inspect their gear it’s a mess, more often than not they have 30-40k offence stats in a zone that needs 60-70k.

It’s not class specific.

Get the right gear, get to stat caps, learn the class mechanics, learn the enemy mechanics and have no trouble.

vorphied · May 2019

The difference in performance between characters running the “good” powers and feats and those who are running whatever can be massive. Warlock has too many bad choices, to the extent that one Warlock can do a fraction of another’s damage with similar stats and equipment just by running a rotation that isn’t even obviously bad but just doesn’t work.

Sometimes the difference is as obvious as lacking the right stats, but often it’s the above. The devs made a very workable and reasonably high-performing Hellbringer path, but the catch is that you get only a handful of viable choices if you want it to be decent, much less good.

obsidiancran3 · May 2019

It wasn’t for lack of feedback about the problems...

But, yes there are still optimal choices.

isurk · May 2019

vorphied said:
The devs made a very workable and reasonably high-performing Hellbringer

Broken brood of Hadar (debuff) + broken deadle curse (2 hits FB, HR, HB) +broken Soul Investiture (+66% each stack) . Very workable. Very.
Devs made?
Ok.

vorphied · May 2019

isurk#9289 said:

vorphied said:
The devs made a very workable and reasonably high-performing Hellbringer
Broken brood of Hadar (debuff) + broken deadle curse (2 hits FB, HR, HB) +broken Soul Investiture (+66% each stack) . Very workable. Very.
Devs made?
Ok.

*shrug* It works.

If there are overperforming bugs that get fixed and make the class non-viable, that's another issue.

isurk · May 2019

vorphied said:

*shrug* It works.

26 min LOMM - This does not work. 21 min pls.

vorphied · May 2019

isurk#9289 said:

vorphied said:

*shrug* It works.
26 min LOMM - This does not work. 21 min pls.

So....you think Warlock is too strong and needs beneficial bugs fixed, or you think it needs to be buffed further so that it can carry parties to 21 min runs...not sure which angle you're trying to work here.

isurk · May 2019

SW can 21 min. But good time = good DPS other class.
SW vs good HR, CW.
SW vs bad HR,CW- This is not serious.

vorphied · May 2019

isurk#9289 said:
SW can 21 min. But good time = good DPS other class.
SW vs good HR, CW.
SW vs bad HR,CW- This is not serious.

Yes, run time will vary. This is why it's very difficult to use run time as a metric to gauge how effective the class is.

If all of the DPS are strong and the tank and healer are handling mechanics, the run should be quite fast if no one causes delays.

If only one or two of the players are high-performing, the run can only go so quickly.

If people AFK, wait at campfires to reset artifacts, lack movement speed increases, etc., etc., there's another limiting factor on your completion time.

And bad anything will do no damage, no matter how strong their class is perceived to be.

feralgoddess · June 2019

isurk#9289 said:

vorphied said:
The devs made a very workable and reasonably high-performing Hellbringer
Broken brood of Hadar (debuff) + broken deadle curse (2 hits FB, HR, HB) +broken Soul Investiture (+66% each stack) . Very workable. Very.
Devs made?
Ok.

Could someone please explain this more? I'm thinking "broken" is more powerful in this case, right?

I see the references to Brood of Hadar, Deadly Curse, and Soul Investiture-- but the "(2 hits FB, HR, HB)" escapes me... what does that mean?

Sorry, new here!

isurk · June 2019

1 hit hellish rebuke/ hand of blight /Fiery bolt = 2 hit deadle curse.

schietindebux · June 2019

Problem is, you want NPNM allways slotted in every situation to get Combat advantage, wich spends about 60% + dps compared to no combat advantage, in other words a 300000 crit from Killing flame with CA and my actual stats will be 191700 without CA. A non-crit with KF of 200000 will be 100000 without Combat Advantage (minus 100%)
...wich leads you to the question: " What do I slot on top of NPNM? "
Taking Deadly Curse leads to maybe better outcome using Fiery Bolt -> 150+2x25 mag...that´s it. Your At Will won´t deal double procs since they only work if you used ACC on top.
Taking ACC, you get Curse on At Will but no Deadly Curse... you need to slot NPNM.
You can run Fiery Bolt + Hadar grasp + Cursed Bite or HFR on trash to stack Soul Investiture, runnnig a "No-Risky-Investment-build" and hope your Puppet will keep the pace with of your group, that wipes out the trash in few seconds in lomm.
Using Deadly Curse (+ACC) without NPNM will lower your dps in almost all situations SIGNIFICANT except you have CA all time.
-> and I did monitor the bossfights where you got the blue circle indicating "I got CA" . Without NPNM those situation are more or less rare, if you do not stay all time in melee opposit of the tank 24/7 and do 1xHR 4x HoB, wich is "maybe possible" ->you are free to do so, TR , Barby, Fighter, Warden are i the same boat, but somehow controversial running a range class.
An option might be the usage of a companion wich spends CA as a feature (Blink dog), but that buff is inconsistent as well uptime 50% at best).
Imo we run in circles, the options are more or less fix, not much to vary, you normally stick with ACC+NPNM, since running DC instead ACC will give you a hard time to apply Curses and keep them up to synergice with KF+HG+CB/VE with PB feated and by that having a 250 mag and a 225/275 mag encounter instead on bosses.
That´s why I voted for At Wills should apply LC and ACC shold be tweaked like... anything else from usage/utility
->LC slows targets/freeze targets, make them dance etc. or buffs Critseverity when LC is applied for 20% for 4 seconds, idk.

I really can´t tell what is ment by "broken debuff from Brood" tbh. Actually I did not see any extraordinary hits by that daily same as I did not see any debuffs applied that leed to an escalating slope of effectiveness like in former mods.
If you monitor the damage outcome from Brood you will recognize pretty fast that this is the worst daily from all classes actually. Where TR hits for >1 mio damage easily with Shocking, you will get much lower numbers in return
-> 1700 mag vs 1150 and that TR Daily also refills his 50% AP below 20% HP on top.
Hunter 1500mag, CW 1400mag, GF 1600, Barby 1600mag, DC 1500-2100 mag (at full pip)
The only good aspect is warlocks Accursed Souls being the most impactfull aoe-Daily ingame, but I am pretty sure this won´t last too long after watching so many bad decisions in the past.
Hellbringer actually has nothing else to spend than damage. No compareable cc like Hunter or CW, where Hunter has a bunch of pretty strong group-buffs (Boar Skin =20.000 DR buff, welcome in scaled content) and some other gimmicks, no stealth that applies CA for the group like TR.. I think Barbies are on an equal level with warlock spending nothing towards the group in the sum.
Taking only into account that warlock is a range-class and squishy (no dodge) he should deal top dps.
No matter what I read in forum from the perspective of others, there is not one indicator ingame that proves me wrong, reading "Lfm lomm, TR, CW, OP, DC" and after many lomms I am pretty convinced that warlock is neither on top same as at the bottom.
Actually I am ok with my focus damage, aoe still is a "construction side" and there was more than enough feedback allready to give devs a hint what to tweak in warlocks powers to improve the performance.

vorphied · June 2019

Side note: Tyrannical Curse is now partly fixed (the most important part is, anyway). The 15% increased damage taken debuff no longer disappears after 1 second.

The secondary proc damage on surrounding targets is still constantly deflected, unfortunately, but at least TC is now usable as a primary single-target daily with its relatively long-lasting 15% damage increase.

tom · June 2019

sw still needs buffs, but its not like anyone at criptc cares...

schietindebux · June 2019

TC same as RI drop-off got fixed at least, so there are small steps forward.
Not sure how other classes would perform, having constant CA. NPNM actually is the one and only reason why warlock can hold against other dps imo. If CA is applied constantly for all classes, warlock would simply be one of the worst dps at current state.

So with new changes coming, anything good for Warlocks?

Comments