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Official M16: Warlock

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  • dominious12dominious12 Member Posts: 92 Arc User
    Experienced an issue in Master Expeditions on my Hellbringer Warlock. When fighting a crab boss my soul spark generation stopped completely. For most of the fight I generated no sparks at all, and even dying and being revived didn't fix it.
  • vorphiedvorphied Member Posts: 1,870 Arc User
    I have to admit that, in the end, Hellbringer turned out pretty well. There may be some opportunity to smooth things out (e.g. the Soul Investiture mechanic is still a pain to deal with, requires slotting specific powers to take advantage of, has a fairly small window for successful maintenance in a single-target rotation, and is still unable to be refreshed once at max stacks)...but overall I am happy to continue as a Hellbringer main.

    I don't have much to say about Soulweaver since I've played with it for maybe 20 minutes in total since launch.

    Across the board I think the game is too stingy with AP gain; if the original idea was truly for Dailies to represent equally vs. Encounters and At-Wills in terms of % of our total damage output, we're nowhere close. With the magnitude dialed down significantly, maybe we could take another pass on AP gain?


    Sacrilege - Warlock
    Contagion - Cleric
    Testament - Wizard
    Pestilence - Ranger
    Dominion - Paladin

    NIGHTSWATCH

  • lordtweety#3604 lordtweety Member Posts: 275 Arc User
    Hellbringer builds....

    I started running Hellfire Ring, HG and KF and it's a feeling of accomplishment when you see a hit for over 200k with KF. Even if it's a false feeling because the mob/boss was going to die with the next at will or encounter anyway. But at least I can say to my Cleric friends that I can also do 200K+ hits. It's pathetic really that after all of the changes and years of feedback, KF still has that stupid mechanic. As for effectiveness, this isn't a very effective build but it does ok in groups and in single target.

    HFR, FB and CB are probably better choices, at least on aoe. One of the guys in our alliance swears by BoVA but he specialises in quirky builds that no one else uses irrespective of performance so I haven't tried it. Single target, HG, HFR and KF are the only real options that I can see.

    Anyone else have any viable builds running atm?
    Main: Angels Scar
    Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
  • vorphiedvorphied Member Posts: 1,870 Arc User

    Hellbringer builds....

    I started running Hellfire Ring, HG and KF and it's a feeling of accomplishment when you see a hit for over 200k with KF. Even if it's a false feeling because the mob/boss was going to die with the next at will or encounter anyway. But at least I can say to my Cleric friends that I can also do 200K+ hits. It's pathetic really that after all of the changes and years of feedback, KF still has that stupid mechanic. As for effectiveness, this isn't a very effective build but it does ok in groups and in single target.

    HFR, FB and CB are probably better choices, at least on aoe. One of the guys in our alliance swears by BoVA but he specialises in quirky builds that no one else uses irrespective of performance so I haven't tried it. Single target, HG, HFR and KF are the only real options that I can see.

    Anyone else have any viable builds running atm?

    For AoE I've been running CB, HFR, FB; for single-target HG, CB, KF.

    The combined magnitude of the two charges of CB is decent, and it synergizes well with the Parting Blasphemy feat. HFR for single-target isn't practical for me because of the lack of burst and the need for the target to remain completely stationary for optimal damage.
    Sacrilege - Warlock
    Contagion - Cleric
    Testament - Wizard
    Pestilence - Ranger
    Dominion - Paladin

    NIGHTSWATCH

  • lordtweety#3604 lordtweety Member Posts: 275 Arc User
    vorphied said:


    The combined magnitude of the two charges of CB is decent, and it synergizes well with the Parting Blasphemy feat. HFR for single-target isn't practical for me because of the lack of burst and the need for the target to remain completely stationary for optimal damage.

    Fair enough. On a boss like Drufi or Strahd, yeah thy move a lot. But Orcus and the Arcolith tend to just stay there and it was with them in mind I chose HFR. I'll try CB though.

    After doing the campaign, playing a few solo and group Master Expeditions I can honestly say the class is very lacklustre. There just isn't the appeal there anymore. So I was kinda hoping someone had put together a build that would make me change my mind.
    Main: Angels Scar
    Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
  • dominious12dominious12 Member Posts: 92 Arc User
    Warlock's Bargain does not remove debuffs off the caster.

    I can understand why it doesn't heal the caster, that would make its HP cost meaningless, but it definitely needs to remove debuffs off the SW otherwise we have no way to cleanse ourselves.
  • rifter1969rifter1969 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 516 Arc User

    Hellbringer builds....

    I started running Hellfire Ring, HG and KF and it's a feeling of accomplishment when you see a hit for over 200k with KF. Even if it's a false feeling because the mob/boss was going to die with the next at will or encounter anyway. But at least I can say to my Cleric friends that I can also do 200K+ hits. It's pathetic really that after all of the changes and years of feedback, KF still has that stupid mechanic. As for effectiveness, this isn't a very effective build but it does ok in groups and in single target.

    HFR, FB and CB are probably better choices, at least on aoe. One of the guys in our alliance swears by BoVA but he specialises in quirky builds that no one else uses irrespective of performance so I haven't tried it. Single target, HG, HFR and KF are the only real options that I can see.

    Anyone else have any viable builds running atm?

    Thanks for the feedback.

    And I agree with @vorphied , I am a little pleasantly surprised, and a little gratified when my KF hits for over 200k.

    On my Hellbringer build, I'm using FB as my opening salvo, followed by some Eldtrich blast and Essence Defiler, then HG to spawn a puppet, a little more EB to reapply curses (running with ACC) and then KF.

    When I hit with KF I'm seeing big heals on the puppet. Allowing it to stay in the fight longer.

    I recently started using Acursed Souls Daily instead of TC... as per another post by @vorphied ;)
    And that seem to help greatly when mobs tend to surround me in MEs.
    But still using Brood of Hadar as my main single target daily.

    It would be nice if they fix Shadow Slip so we can use it quickly instead of waiting for out At-Wills to finish. :/
  • hawkeyelhawkeyel Member Posts: 389 Arc User
    John Snow knows more about are Warlock class than this current Dev. team. And he knows nothing.
  • hawkeyelhawkeyel Member Posts: 389 Arc User
    A few things I would like to see.
    1. Soulweaver needs the ability to cleanse them self.
    2. Soulweaver needs an ability to cast a direct heal on a party member . Why do you ask because you keep using enemy that are immune to damage. Making this healer class unable to heal at all during those times.
    3. General - With the removal of Life Steal from the game and that being the core defense for this class. Along with a direct offensive buff.You need to return Pillar of Power to its former Mod. 15 form and make it an universal encounter power that both Hellbringer and Soulweaver can both use. It was a far better all around power before it was changed into a heal buff. This will greatly benefit the ones leveling up this class as well.
    4. Shadow Slip. This power needs to have priority over all other powers. Making it delay just so even an At-Will can cast is silly at best. Causing far to many deaths in general.
    5. Cleaning up some game play with are on again off again curse mechanics. Just stop, make all powers apply a curse if one is not already on the target . Make it have a clear standard effect and remove all the other bonus adding and taking away that some powers get. Just a clear and direct effect, one will have when facing off against a Warlock.
    You can skip the last one if need be, but the other four need to be done tomorrow.
  • ramesh84ramesh84 Member Posts: 133 Arc User
    Hello there!
    Both healer and dps path needed improvement could come from tab mechanics. An additional tab choice on dps path (i.e. a spark generator tab with spark consuming encounters and curse spreading additional effect) could be interesting, but probably hard to implement. A possible fast and effective solution could come from t1 feats:
    - It's assumed soulweaver can get sparks in combat without a target, mainly because essence drain is dealing focused dmg. Reworking essence of time feat, making it remove the dmg from essence drain or changing it to an AoE, could be a solution to allow casting it without a target. An additional effect, like the chance to move at slower rate while channeling (same as cleric) or x% CC resistance, would be nice. Talking about Boreworm, HoT component is important there, and warlock's lackluster in it and have to add we miss the damage mitigation from warding curse. Some of above mentioned options could be incorporated to a reworked prince of hell too, and i don't speak about missed chance to self-cleanse, as it's clearly a bug. I don't mind how Devs choose to implement that solution, just want a reason to invest AD in building my healer loadout :)
    - after soul scorch nerf i feel like warlocks (situationally) miss a tab choice: clunky animation, low dmg, CD reduction skippable choosing other t5 feat. A possible easy solution could pass from reducing casting time and reworking double scorch, allowing it to restore SS pre-nerf single target functionality and magnitude.

    As a reminder, we still need tweaks/rework for some poor feat/spells (Creeping Death, Dreadtheft, Arms of Hadar, Gates of Hell, Flames of Phlegethos, Prince of Hell on top of all), some idea to add the previous ones i posted:
    - Hadar's Grasp is not providing sparks on crit DoTs anymore, so warlock needs a single target spark generator to replace Hellfire Ring during boss fights. Dreadtheft could take this place, with a significant CD reduction (I'd suggest same as Blade of Vanquished Armies), doubling spark gain as curse synergy effect and reducing target cap to 1-3 as a compensation.
    - replace Gates of Hell with Forcecage and move it to heal spec, swapping with Immolation Spirits spot: Forcecage should be a damage mitigation area, with an HoT effect and a spark generation additional bonus.

    Most of fixes had come, time to work for ingame improvements now :+1:
  • schietindebuxschietindebux Member Posts: 4,292 Arc User
    edited June 2019
    There is obviously the general agreement, that warlock has to inflict damage to heal or support the party, without compensation in terms of better healing over other classes but 4 times weaker power. I would like to question the concept.

    First of, if my warlock is paingiver, dealing 50% of dps by selfinflicted damage (the ammount can go higher, but yout end to die too much), I want at least some compensation for it.
    Oathkeeper shields for huge ammounts and has 2-3 more efective spells in terms of healing+ shielding.
    So warlock should have anything to compensate this gap.

    ->Shatter Spark should do 500mag heal and put a HOT on a teammember like: "Puts a HOT on a target equal to the ammount of hitpoints healed"

    ->Warocks Bargain deals more damage towards me than healing my teammember, in my last run I healed for 15% of the selfinflicted damage.
    The power was allways an annoyance in PVP same as PVE, but in times of endless selfheals there was no point to care about it. But actually you killed selfheal, the core ability of a warlock.
    Deal with it and come over with anything else than massive selfkilling abilities please. No matter how much HP you run, 20% is a lot, nothing to recover with a healing ability that tics for 5k heals in FBI and seems to either not work as intended (200mag heals?) or needs a complete overhaul.
    Warlock Bargain : " You make a Dark Bargain sacrificing a piece of your soul. You sacrifice 20% of your ACTUAL HP and heal allies withinin '80 for 5 seconds, 250mag over time (HOT->5 tics x 50mag).
    After 5 seconds you gain 5% temporary Hitpoint for each member healed in range to recover from efforts.

    ->Wraith Shadow
    That spell looks like underperfoming significant. At first, a 12 second lasting DOT/HOT ?
    Noone needs a 12 seconds lasting DOT, where trash drops dead in 3 seconds and you can refresh that DOT/HOT in 1 second, not stacking. Big Fail. Actually the ehaling is about the same an Insignia bonus does per character or even worse.
    If this is ment to be a DOT/HOT to use at boss encounter, improvements are needed desperately.
    In case you want to make this DOT/HOT working you need to:
    1. make it tick over 5 seconds. 1200-2000 heals are a laugh, where player get near oneshooted by 100-150 k hits
    Wraith Shadow should tick over 5 seconds and needs to be a strong HOT, I don´t care about that redicules ammount of damage.
    2. Wraith Shadow instatnly heals for 250 mag and ticks for at least 100mag/sec over 5 seconds, you spend 3 sparks.
    750 mag healing is nothing, where my Oathkeeper can spamm 500mag+500 barrier per second 20 times in a row on the group. Tbh it´s still underwhelming compared to that class because 750mag over 5 seconds <<< 1500-2500 mag + barrier,
    Reapplying that power on the same target does a burst heal for 500 mag and slows all foes. Make it a slow effect like before, that would at least be far more interesting, than giving my warlock a "lowy damage spell" with no heals from impact.

    -> Soul Pact
    This daily is bugged leeching 60-80% of you max HP over time, not to mitigate by anything and sometimes it breaks and simly drains your AP without doing anything.
    500 mag and 10% DR over 10 seconds.
    1. All my toons at lev 80 are DR capped, who needs a 10% DR buff? This needs to go and better be turned into a 20 % max HP buff for the group.
    2. 500mag per player, a daily?
    DC: Guardian of life: 800 mag burst+ 500 HOT and on top persistant ANgel heals for 5x 500 mag over 45 seconds for anyone who needs a helping hand (passive)
    That´s 1800 mag per player and a no brainer for the player
    Same does Annoited Army 1800mag on demand.
    This needs a fix and a buff honestly. 10% DR is wasted.
    Post edited by schietindebux on
  • isurk#9289 isurk Member Posts: 29 Arc User
    > @schietindebux said:
    > About Hellbringer, not much to say.

    Hellbringer good.
    If your the group is bad.
    Hellbringer bad.
    If your the group is good.

    HR is always better.
  • schietindebuxschietindebux Member Posts: 4,292 Arc User
    edited June 2019

    > @schietindebux said:

    > About Hellbringer, not much to say.



    Hellbringer good.

    If your the group is bad.

    Hellbringer bad.

    If your the group is good.



    HR is always better.

    CW and TR are allways better, Hunter also but not that much compared to those other classes imo, and there is no way to be competetive on a same level.
    Even though I think the gap can be closed easyly with smaller tweaks, but looking at Soulweaver it pretty much demonstrates that there is no will to fix or adjust urgent stuff at all. I mean, they should have recognized allready that there is not one demand for the third healer class in Lomm, noone even considers a warlock to be from any choice, wich displays the redicules state that path actually is in.

    TR 1.5-1.9 mio hit by Shocking warlock 1/2 damage with it´s focus daily.
    CD is a non issue, you can work arround with gear and several boons same as feature.

    All classes:
    Protege restoration shirt
    Quick trunarround
    Blessed Advantage from your healer
    Artificer persuation
    Post edited by schietindebux on
  • schietindebuxschietindebux Member Posts: 4,292 Arc User

    Now that the balance is in an overall better place the changes will come at a slower pace to allow fine tuning without overshooting one way or another."

    :) Good luck from my side,
    Soulweaver is a Constructionside and Hellbringer is still not exactly where it should be.
  • pyrosorcererpyrosorcerer Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 137 Arc User
    What I'd love to see is some more synergy between tab for instance on Hellbringer. You slotted old Soul Scorch into it, you keep wanting curse removing and re-applying to be a thing, but why did you then make new soul scorch NOT remove curses? This would be a great synergy with other current functions of the class.

    There could also imo be more options to summon a puppet than it is now. What if a fully charged tab (soul scorch) summoned a puppet?
  • schietindebuxschietindebux Member Posts: 4,292 Arc User
    edited June 2019
    the hate is much bigger than you think :)
    There is no point to run with a warlock into PVP, stick with Pladin (both path), GF or GWF, tank rules NWO PVP.
    The actual state of 2. path (Soulweaver) tells a lot about balance and about the time they spend on this class, embarrassing
    https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1249692/undermountain-preview-patch-notes-nw-110-20190519a-25
  • obsidiancran3obsidiancran3 Member Posts: 1,823 Arc User
    I thought I was done, but...

    Warlock is like playing NW in Hard Mode.

    If you get it to work for you, its fine, if you don't its terrible.

    That's not a good place for a class to be in.

    Warlock still needs a major rework, because that wasn't done during the beta when we were saying it did.
    Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin
    Obsidian Oath - Warlock
    A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
  • lordtweety#3604 lordtweety Member Posts: 275 Arc User
    @obsidiancran3 I have to agree with you on a couple of points.


    Warlock is like playing NW in Hard Mode.

    True.


    If you get it to work for you, its fine, if you don't its terrible.

    Mostly true. In solo content I can run powers I want to, in group content, I can't. The combat now almost feels turn based and there really are no choices if you want to be even remotely effective. That isn't fun even when you do get it working.


    That's not a good place for a class to be in.

    Warlock still needs a major rework, because that wasn't done during the beta when we were saying it did.

    This is very true. The class is not in a good state. Of my pre Mod 16 friends that play Warlock, only one still runs it as a main. The rest have either quit or main something else.

    I am pleased to see that at least someone on the beta team said something about the class. I always wondered if anyone even played it on beta.

    Meanwhile, BG3 is coming. And for all D&D fans, with the amazing array of choices BG has to offer, I think that will be the death knell for NW.
    Main: Angels Scar
    Guild: Ruathym Corsairs
  • hrakhhrakh Member Posts: 152 Arc User
    While I will certainly play BG3, its not an MMO. These days I play NW for the social aspect almost more than anything else, so BG3 wont change that, but the fact that Warlocks like Angels are leaving left and right.... That just might be a reason to leave..

    Sure, I still see enough Warlocks being played, but so few of them play it as their main, let alone play one well. And I cannot blame them, the play-style is clunky and getting decent (forget about good) DPS out of the class is a lot of work..

    We can wish , but I doubt the devs will ever let us know the reasons behind them deciding we as a class are fine so we could maybe figure out the problems, be they on our or their side. It would require communication and transparency and both of those seem to not be an important part of their process where the Warlock class is concerned.

    And yeah I am totally aware of the amount of passive aggressiveness I am projecting towards the mythical "devs" here. I would love for that to go away, but that too would require communication. Its frustrating to shout into the wind..
  • werdandi#8366 werdandi Member Posts: 335 Arc User
    edited June 2019
    If you press "o" in protector's enclave, you will see many beginner warlocks levelling up... Then they all vanish once they are going up to level 80. When they realize they can't be competitive (even if viable as dps), especially even more for the healer path in endgame.
    The other day, I was counting the number of warlocks in Lomm instances: 3 (with one of them soulweaver but with op in group); whereas I counted 20 wizards, 11 barbies, 10 HRs, 5 arbiters, 9 rogues (for this latter, I am not sure of recalling the exact number but it was significant) ..... Only GF was doing worse (there were not many even as tanks).
  • frogwalloper#6494 frogwalloper Member Posts: 821 Arc User
    The warlock did not turn out pretty well.
    Whoever is responsible for it needs to do a better job.

    You took a class that was a freewheeling delight to zip around with and turned it into a klutz in concrete boots.

    I'm not sure which one's worse, the paladin or the warlock, but the paladin at least has its core mechanic. Soul Scorch is so incredibly useless, I don't even bother using it. If I could reassign that button to use Invocation Blessings instead or chuck water balloons, it would be an improvement.

    - not happy -
  • frogwalloper#6494 frogwalloper Member Posts: 821 Arc User
    edited June 2019
    I wish the people responsible for the Rogue and Wizard would sit down with whoever's in charge of the Warlock and offer some pointers on creating a smooth flow. And whoever was responsible for the Arbiter could offer some advice on assigning appropriate magnitudes for each power.

    Also, more specifically, I'd like to see Hand of Blight get its melee bonus back to make it a decent alternative to Hellish Rebuke.
    Post edited by frogwalloper#6494 on
  • frogwalloper#6494 frogwalloper Member Posts: 821 Arc User
    edited July 2019
    Been spending a lot of time with the warlock over the past weeks.
    I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've kind of gotten a kick out of playing the healock in group content. Even though it's a bit drab. Sometimes I find myself basically holding down one button the majority of the time.

    The warlock just isn't enjoyable as is. The most annoying thing for me at this point is the reliance on Cursed Bite. There's really nothing about that encounter that I like - not the sound, not the impact. I'm missing the explosiveness of the class. Playing the Barbarian, some of those attacks really feel like they've got some weight to them, and some of the encounters the Rogue has make you feel like you're really sinking that dagger into the foe. That's what the warlock's missing. Everything feels like a hiss, a shrill, or a whish. It needs some BOOM, and something other than Cursed Bite to build upon.
  • obsidiancran3obsidiancran3 Member Posts: 1,823 Arc User
    To be honest I prefer the Fey theme for Warlocks, but sadly Cryptic went for the Infernal pact.
    Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin
    Obsidian Oath - Warlock
    A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
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