The current features of this should just be passive, maybe added into Hellfire expertise. Encounters that do not have a curse consume/synergy summon a soul puppet.
And instead Power of the Nine Hells should be:
Fiery Bolt no longer does AoE damage, But instead does 500 Magnitude as single target Flames of Phlegethos No longer does AoE damage, but Deals 2000 magnitude to the main target
I would like to see armor and spells based on the four seasons, ie; Fire, Lightning, Freeze, and poison I guess. Specialization would mean potentially 4 load outs per toon, if they wished to try them all. With specific element immune monsters, that require swapping or different tactics. I propose all armor is equal but some are better complimented by different augmentations. Example: (Poison=Bilethorn, Lightning=lightning enchant etc.). If you refuse to make a new character, (druids, Necros, bards...) then this option is a type of diversity to cookie builds (That's no slam on cookies, they work perfectly.).
Fiery Bolt - As @tempus86 has stated please remove the half penalty as this is one of the few viable AOE options we have.
Arms of Hadar - Please look into reworking this one
Dreadtheft - Please consider reworking.. The damage done just not justify the 6 second channeling.
Killing Flames - Remove target's missing hit points mechanic and set at 700 or 750. Currently clerics, wizard, and rouges are hitting in the millions with some of their encounters. This will be a step in the right direction.
Flames of Empowerment - Please consider reworking as this feature is not viable at all. Why take flames when I can take dust to dust ? 3% < 5%
Executioner's Gift - Again, do away with the target's missing hit points mechanic.
Hellfire Ring - Agree w/ @tempus86, would be nice if radius was larger.
I would still prefer that they would seperate si stacks from relying on soul puppet being alive. Its already risky to rely on it at all ie. falling off ledges, targeting random adds, many times its just sitting idly by, dying or disappear between every single phase or prolonged cc in a majority of boss fights.
It feels like warlocks are dragging fragile dead weight that has mediocre damage and praying that you can actually keep it alive to maintain stacks, but pointless in any boss fight with phases, stuns, ice, etc.
After marking a player, holding down the TAB mechanic causes the spark pet to randomly switch from healing the target to healing the warlock itself.
Are you using the Swift Command Class Feature? There's currently a known issue on this on internal builds.
I can't seem to be able to reproduce anymore unless I use the "Swift Command" Class Feature. I will be back with more details on how to reproduce this if I can figure out how...
Viperion - DragonTribe guild. Playing Ranger/Paladin/Bard/Fighter.
First of all I wanna say thank you that u take the time and trying to get Warlocks into a better place with fixes. Special thanks for all the fellow Warlocks out there who keeps posting feedback(s) since mod 16.
A bit thank you for allowing creeping death to crit.
Warlocks main problem - as I see - is still in the core mechanic (casting mechanics and base feat + class feature synergie is where it needs rework and love), magnitudes are mostly in an Okay state. We are a DoT class which needs min. 20-25 secs to gain all the self buffs (with these latest mod 19 changes, in mod 18 even more). Other classes just straight burst with many hundred magnitudes from the very first second with fast animations. 90% of the content doesnt favorize our mechanic (except TIC, and TOMM), cuz things doesnt live long enough to make an encounter rotation. Phases, when you stand still also breaks the rotation, cuz you have to build up again curse, creeping death, soul investitures stacks.
I find the Soul Puppet builds totally underperfoming in every way of the gameplay on the Hellbringer path. Im thinking, still cant find out what change would/could make it tempting and viable even in end game dungeons/trials ( ??? make it to use ranged attacks maybe and follow summoner if hes 10-20' farther, reduce incomming damage by 5%)... so from now I personally would delete every feat and class feature related to that and goin forward with the following changes:
Feedbacks (sorry, cant make it to shown as colored): - Arms of Hadar - barely anyone uses that, low magnitude - should applay curse minimum besides gettin Magnitude increase. (but since the best controll is killing things as fast as possible this wont be sloted for a long time... ) - I dont like 50% of the mod 19 BOVA change. More damage vs cursed targets is nice for sure (who would be the foul to say "No thank you" for that? ) and the cooldown fix is awesome (it was pain that u couldnt reduce while its 1st phase of cooldown was back counting), but the way its doin damage in mod 19 is not nice, leave the original damaging mechanic please. - Dreadtheft needs a total rework - maybe it should be a vs one target spell and get a fast visual design like wizards Ray of enfeeblement or disintegrate (barely anyone slots or will it use with these movement binded mechanic, when u need to react to phases in less then 0.5 secs) - Fire bolt - oh please, let it damage all the minions around main target for full damage, not just 50% .. and 25-50 magnitude increase would be the extra butter on that. - Infernal spheres - I dont know what to say.. I used it the last time when the Dreadtheft .. years ago.. not gettin sloted for sure until a rework or replace... - Killing flames - still dont like that splited magnitude, let it do flat 750 magnitude as our strongest encounter (oh and the effect of spawning a soul puppet should be on hit a target, not on kill) - Hellfire ring - yes.. well.. one of my favorite AOE spell, but the visual casting is so clumsy, clunky .. if u wanna push the Moon over your head or donno how to say.. its just slow and no fluidity at all, needs a casting time reduce (for its animation the best would be to use the handed animation u do when sitting on the Throne of the Gamemaster, raising one hand and closing fist when summoning the Hellfire ring) - Tyrannical curse splited damage should be fixed - as others stated above - its like that for a long time now - Flames of Empowerment is a big NO, Dust to Dust beats it in every circumstances (thou barely any of those are sloted) - with the new Power of the Nine Hells change Dark Prayers is just a placeholder (good for nothing now?) - All consuming curse - I still think it should be back to its original - not just At will powers, but encounter powers (which doesnt have curse consume: Vampiric's embrace, Hadar's grasp and Curse bite) should apply curse when hitting target enemy - Curse should be stack up to x2, that way you could use Curse Bite for a "burst build" twice fast in a row - Soul Scorch should also get a casting time reduce - in the time we cast this mobs very often die and we dont get the cooldown reduce, plus it generates no AP - Dark Helix - you should be able to gain addition dark spiral after u used a damaging encounter spell (on boss fights there arent minions to kill to get additional spirals, so its pretty much useles, thou its our strongest at-will)
Thats all I wanted to share atm.
Thank you for takint the time to read it. Hope some/most/all of them will be tempting and will be used for further changes!
moved to latest post, after aditional runs in preview.
Post edited by hadestemplar#9918 on
======================================================================== “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. ==================================================
Im going to tackle this from two angles and keep it very brief.
A. Are we balanced with rogues now?(which is the base class for other classes to be balanced around).
- Yes @joebot#9387 did an amazing job on the actual "balance" portion of the warlocks and from extensive testing on dummy and in real content warlocks have found a home within the 5% of a rogue from a endgame top 1% players perspective.
B. Have warlocks taken any changes that might spice the class up and make it different/more fun?
For me personally(again from an endgame 1% perspective) im HAPPY that we have found some balance at least with the base class(of course others like barb and arbiter are a little overperforming )so comparing to them would not be fair.
Unfortunately my rotation for AOE and SINGLE TARGET has not changed from mod 18 - mod 19. This was an oversight as there were changes to the warlock that can give you other options but again from a top 1% perspective you would NOT change your build(except for the first feats which your forced to change one way or another. I ended up keeping power of nine hells for ST and ill use double for AOE(That will be the ONLY) change i will make)
To Sum up point B the answer leans more towards NO, the class has not changed much at all in terms of playstyle or the actual encounters you will use as a top dps warlock.
If your looking for actual suggestions on fixes on top of whats obvious/been said i would refer to my stream--- twitch.tv/malebot OR email me directly like has been done in the past by others! Goodluck with the changes and fyi i am HAPPY with the overall changes thanks @joebot#9387
Well, the Warlock seems to be shaping up very nicely. Thank you for listening to the communtiy and implementing some of the changes we've been suggesting. You may not be very vocal on the forums sometimes, but it's re-assuring nonetheless to know that you are paying attention.
I agree predominantly with @tempus86#1158 and think he/she makes some very solid suggestions to bear in mind in the future. You have solidified the current rotation somewhat, and although others would like to see some diversity in builds (I do echo this sentiment myself), it does make sense to at least get one strong build for AoE and ST locked down first, before bringing in any other changes with other powers, feats etc which can then be used as a baseline for the class.
So for the time being the only powers I'd like to see potentially altered are Hadar's Grasp and/or Killing Flames for our ST, and Fiery Bolt for our AoE. I believe plenty of others in this thread have already made some reasonable suggestions for these so I'll say no further on the subject.
The changes to both of our first feats are great. Double Scorch damage is very nice, and works well for an AoE loadout seeing as Dark Prayers still seems to stack SI better than PotNH in AoE. Meanwhile, Power of the Nine Hells works nicely to get those stacks ramped up nice and quickly in a fight with phases like ToMM, Zariel etc. I also think it's good that our feats are not tied to particular powers, which I feel is an issue with other classes, as you really are forced into using those powers at that point. Please keep it this way as it will allow us to be more flexible with builds down the line.
The new BoVA is very nice as well, works great on ST, although it has lost a bit of its AOE "spark". As exciting as seeing lots of numbers poping up on the screen may be, I'm just as happy seeing fewer, but larger numbers.
A potential bug:
BoVA is not proccing weapon enchants at all on preview.
Thanks sam, im mostly looking ahead for how to break the 1 spec meta, we don't have many feats or abilities anymore, so there shouldn't be totally useless options with so few choices as it is. Its sad when there is 1 spec that is a good 15-20% above any other alternatives. Just take deadly curse. That alone is worth 8-10% damage by itself, but it pigeon holes you into using very specific stuff.
So using the same build as before, we are definitely in a better spot, theres no doubt about that, so if nothing else gets changed, we still got a good update...…
Devoted Cleric @asterdahl bug: or nerf of "Blessing of Light", it do'nt fill Action point now
Any action you perform in combat should still be increasing action points to some extent, thanks for the report!
This is a quote pulled from the official healing changes thread.
Soul scorch, does not give any action points. As far as I know, it never has since the M16 changes 18 months ago.
Soul Scorch is an action, and we cast it more than probably any other "encounter", 6-8 times a minute, It has a 1 second cast time, so this should be generating 16-17ap per cast since im pretty sure the AP gain calculation is 1000/60xcast time. So this is a good 10% towards a daily each minute we have not been getting since M16.
As far as I know, this has not even been acknowledged at all by the Devs, and it has been reported plenty of times since M16. so Im a little salty the same type of bug gets a response within hours on the healing post.
This, if nothing else has to be fixed. 18months is way too long
@tempus86#1158 that is a very good point that I completely overlooked. Soul Scorch absolutely does need to be generating AP for the Warlock being a combat action, which would most definitely aid us with a dps increase without being particularly over-powered. @joebot#9387 is there any clarification as to why this is an issue for the Warlock?
So you are new Dev assinged to handle warlock class.. Welcome and I wish luck you. And lets hope you will avoid warlocks curse.. ( all who worked with warlock class and it's balance either departed or ended in no so well).
Anyways,, before everything, I would like to ask you, how much you are familiar with warlock class and it's history?. I mean what it where before and what it is now..
Now few question about few warlock powers
Dust to Dust & Flames of Empowerment.
Pre Mod 16.
Hellbringer path
Flames of Empowerment -When you attack a target with your At-Will powers, they are affected by Flames of Empowerment for 6 seconds. Flames of Empowerment increases the damage you deal to that target by 2% and stacks 3 times.
SoulBinder( now Soulweaver)
Dust to Dust -When your Soul Sparks heal you at the end of combat they also generate 1% of your Maximum AP per Spark.
Current Live server( mod 18)
Both part of Hellbringer path
Dust To Dust - Your damage dealt is increased by 5%.
Flames of Empowerment - When you attack a target with your At-Will powers, they are affected by Flames of Empowerment for 10 seconds. Flames of Empowerment Increases your damage against the target by 1% and stacks 3 times.
Now question,, is there any thoughts about reworking them?? I mean, at this curent situation to use Flames of empowerment is obviously nonsense. Not only you have firstly hit your enemy x3 times with your at wills, but also you get only up to 3% dmg increase to debuff affected targets. In comparison to Dust To Dust which grant 5% and no requirements..
Feat: Soul Desecration -
Your Soul Puppet no longer dissipates after 20 seconds, deals 10% more damage, and you will automatically summon a Soul Puppet if one is not active.
is there any thoughts ( someday in distance future) to rework it,, cuz now it's awkward feat. I pick it, get soul puppet who attack randomly, and in the end mos time before he even land hit, enemies are blasted away. Only in boss fight seems Ok, unless there ok ( untill boss start AoE madness).
For now enough..
P,s my english is not great, also this post is low priority, more like want to hear your opinion/throughts..
======================================================================== “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. ==================================================
First of all I wanna say thank you that u take the time and trying to get Warlocks into a better place with fixes. Special thanks for all the fellow Warlocks out there who keeps posting feedback(s) since mod 16.
A bit thank you for allowing creeping death to crit.
Warlocks main problem - as I see - is still in the core mechanic (casting mechanics and base feat + class feature synergie is where it needs rework and love), magnitudes are mostly in an Okay state. We are a DoT class which needs min. 20-25 secs to gain all the self buffs (with these latest mod 19 changes, in mod 18 even more). Other classes just straight burst with many hundred magnitudes from the very first second with fast animations. 90% of the content doesnt favorize our mechanic (except TIC, and TOMM), cuz things doesnt live long enough to make an encounter rotation. Phases, when you stand still also breaks the rotation, cuz you have to build up again curse, creeping death, soul investitures stacks.
I find the Soul Puppet builds totally underperfoming in every way of the gameplay on the Hellbringer path. Im thinking, still cant find out what change would/could make it tempting and viable even in end game dungeons/trials ( ??? make it to use ranged attacks maybe and follow summoner if hes 10-20' farther, reduce incomming damage by 5%)... so from now I personally would delete every feat and class feature related to that and goin forward with the following changes:
Feedbacks (sorry, cant make it to shown as colored): - Arms of Hadar - barely anyone uses that, low magnitude - should applay curse minimum besides gettin Magnitude increase. (but since the best controll is killing things as fast as possible this wont be sloted for a long time... ) - I dont like 50% of the mod 19 BOVA change. More damage vs cursed targets is nice for sure (who would be the foul to say "No thank you" for that? ) and the cooldown fix is awesome (it was pain that u couldnt reduce while its 1st phase of cooldown was back counting), but the way its doin damage in mod 19 is not nice, leave the original damaging mechanic please. - Dreadtheft needs a total rework - maybe it should be a vs one target spell and get a fast visual design like wizards Ray of enfeeblement or disintegrate (barely anyone slots or will it use with these movement binded mechanic, when u need to react to phases in less then 0.5 secs) - Fire bolt - oh please, let it damage all the minions around main target for full damage, not just 50% .. and 25-50 magnitude increase would be the extra butter on that. - Infernal spheres - I dont know what to say.. I used it the last time when the Dreadtheft .. years ago.. not gettin sloted for sure until a rework or replace... - Killing flames - still dont like that splited magnitude, let it do flat 750 magnitude as our strongest encounter (oh and the effect of spawning a soul puppet should be on hit a target, not on kill) - Hellfire ring - yes.. well.. one of my favorite AOE spell, but the visual casting is so clumsy, clunky .. if u wanna push the Moon over your head or donno how to say.. its just slow and no fluidity at all, needs a casting time reduce (for its animation the best would be to use the handed animation u do when sitting on the Throne of the Gamemaster, raising one hand and closing fist when summoning the Hellfire ring) - Tyrannical curse splited damage should be fixed - as others stated above - its like that for a long time now - Flames of Empowerment is a big NO, Dust to Dust beats it in every circumstances (thou barely any of those are sloted) - with the new Power of the Nine Hells change Dark Prayers is just a placeholder (good for nothing now?) - All consuming curse - I still think it should be back to its original - not just At will powers, but encounter powers (which doesnt have curse consume: Vampiric's embrace, Hadar's grasp and Curse bite) should apply curse when hitting target enemy - Curse should be stack up to x2, that way you could use Curse Bite for a "burst build" twice fast in a row - Soul Scorch should also get a casting time reduce - in the time we cast this mobs very often die and we dont get the cooldown reduce, plus it generates no AP - Dark Helix - you should be able to gain addition dark spiral after u used a damaging encounter spell (on boss fights there arent minions to kill to get additional spirals, so its pretty much useles, thou its our strongest at-will)
Thats all I wanted to share atm.
Thank you for takint the time to read it. Hope some/most/all of them will be tempting and will be used for further changes!
Please listen to this guy,he is going to make warlock great again,without making it overperform other classes,just do it please if you want the community to love you
EDIT FEEDBACK: A very god addition to this list woulld be to make soul investiture stacks go down 1 by 1 and not be affected by puppet death which happens aLOT,this would be biggest addition ever
@joebot#9387 Encounter: Flying Bananas Formerly known as Blades of Vanquished Armies.
Question who's idea where to change this power, I can't see anything bad with current live version.
So can we get back back to preview.. ? Cuz the new version to call it bad would be understatment.
First of all, Hellbringer warlock is dps path, not support. So this dmg reduction factor should not be shared with group members.
Other thing, encounter had strong and weak sides. But with new version you guys nailed it down.. No offense, but are you guys even try use it before changes??
Old BoVA mechanic:
You cast your power( BoVA) , summon blades which fyling arround you and damaging enemies whos get in it's effect area.
Pros - you could use this power and walk/dodge incoming hits and use other powers while BoVa where active. Also if any new enemy step in it's effect area even afer power got casted, it's still receive hits.
Dowside - if enemy gets out of effect area it receive no damage anymore.
Conclusion: Skilled player could have close range build dps warlock. Arm of Hadar + BoVA + Hellfire ring + Hands of blight at wills and Creeping death feat. Thats what takes to have decent close range warlocks build. BoVa where keystone of it. you guys nailed it down..
New Flying bananas mechanic
You cast your power and apply DoT effect to enemies who where in that area of effect during intitial hit. Also power now grant 5% dmg reduction factor.
Pros - good luck to find any use of it.
Downside:
If any new enemy get in "area of effect" after power got casted they will receive no damage. More less power work as close range Fiery bolt with DoT effect. Hellfire ring is better at DoT, Dreadtheft beter as DoT. Heck by usefulness even Infernal spheres dmg bosot + at wills is better option than this encounter.
For boss fights > give me a break, Killing flames + hadar grasp to proc Risky Ivestment + Hellfire ring for DoT.
This new Bova now is in middle of nowhere
Post edited by hadestemplar#9918 on
======================================================================== “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. ==================================================
First of all, thank you for the rework, it goes in the right direction. I will comment only on warlock dps with power of nine hells feat. -Infernal spheres: doesn't spawn any sould puppet : it should as there is no curse consume nor curse synergy for this power. Also I am not sure the 5% damage buff is working but maybe I use this power incorrectly ? -Curse Bite: this has never been addressed but could you please finally give a proper cooldown that can be reduced with soul scorchs. All the other encounters cooldown of warlocks can be reduced except this one. -Vampiric embrace: I don't see any temp hit points../font>
-Hellfire Ring : please reduce the casting time, it takes forever.... -Fiery Bolt: please enlarge a bit the radius, especially for the targets that are behind the front targets. And think about reducing the penalty of hitting multiple targets. -BOVA needs a bit more ticks (there are only 3), retaining the same general magnitude: it would allow more spark generation -Arms of Hadar is pretty much useless because of it ultrabad magnitude , especially when you use it several times: 65magnitude for a 12 seconds cooldown. It is not viable. One solution could be to increase the magnitude the more you use this power, until the reset. -HG needs a buff -Overall, I have nothing against some more buffs on unused class features, and on soul scorch mechanic
For the "new" powers back to dps tree: -Dreadtheft: it has a nice magnitude but it has the second longest cooldown of warlock powers and we cannot do other attacks during the channeling.... This is a no-go power unless we can at least use at-wills during the channelling. Also it needs an additional effect: I suggest to put the 10% damage buff for magic and melee powers for 10 sec: this way, this power would have an utility and would be the equivalent of the Ranger "thorn ward" or of the wizard "Ray of Enfeeblement". This change could appeal to the nostalgic players of this power. /font>
Not sure if you have actually even tried the new blades, but that entire rant is just wrong.
Blades is still damage over time, it just ticks slower, once straight away. 2nd tick at 3 seconds, last tick at 6 seconds. So you can still move around with it on and deal damage to new enemies.
The new blades is overall much better than the old one. it deals 50% more damage against curse targets for a start. Gives 5% damage reduction instead of 5000 deflection which is a much better stat, and the CD starts immediately so it can be reduced much better with Soulspark recovery/wrathful souls. The only downsides to the new blades is you can mistakenly put it on the wrong party member, and that it does less ticks, which means less weapon procs and less soul sparks.
As for boss rotation, blades does significantly more than hellfire ring, and if the boss moves, hellfire ring is useless, where at least you can chase after the boss with blades, or even stick it on the tank who is next to the boss anyway.
At least do some proper testing before making posts that spread misinformation
Alright,, then do me favour and test out one thing.. Use BoVA againts training dummy.. But once you cast, move to dummy who where outside of encounters effect area during initial hit..
And check out do training dummy receive hit from this encounter and do even proc Creeping Death..
Post edited by hadestemplar#9918 on
======================================================================== “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. ==================================================
@hadestemplar#9918 Tested against three dummies that are spread out. Moved from one to the other, allowing one tick to hit each dummy. Bova hit each one separately, dealing damage to each target and procced Creeping Death every time. Repeated process multiple times, no issues. BoVA (aside from not proccing weapon enchants) is working well.
It also seems intriguing you can call new BoVA "middle of nowhere", whilst in the same post suggest using Arms of Hadar on a dps loadout. I don't think there's a player alive that can make that power work for our dps.
@joebot#9387 ...close range build dps warlock. Arm of Hadar + BoVA + Hellfire ring + Hands of blight at wills and Creeping death feat. Thats what takes to have decent close range warlocks build. BoVa where keystone of it. you guys nailed it down...
That's my go-to build. I'm not sure the specific companion powers I use with this will work without Blade's rapid ticks.
Anyone else noticed that Risky investment doesn't effect Soulscorch? All this time I have assumed it was classed as an encounter since it triggers bloodlust, and that is supposed to be encounters only, but that would explain why soul scorch doesn't trigger curse or summon a puppet with Power of the Nine Hells.
It also means Risky Investment is nowhere near as strong as I assumed, sure its still miles better than Soul Desecration but its more like 6-7% increase at 5 stacks, rather than 9-10%
So some clarification from one of the Devs as to what exactly Soul Scorch is would be nice. Is it an Encounter? and if it is, why does it not trigger warlock specific encounter mechanics? If its not an encounter. Why does it trigger bloodlust?
Bit annoyed at myself for never having really tested this, least I wont be making assumptions anymore
Warlock mechanics are still self defeating choices. Why can't warlocks have synergetic mechanics.
Ri/si and spark mechanic is still just a bad choose your own suffering mechanic. Save sparks for a small amount of additional damage or loose damage to increase cooldown reduction. But, if you use it for cdr then you also reduce overall ap gain since ss generates no ap. You choose to increase ss damage and extremely slow si stacks. Choose faster si stacking and every mechanic is against you ie. lack of burst damage, phases, dead soul puppet, ice, stuns, etc. while Si direct impact on puppet is negligible to overall damage.
Wizards can benefit from mechanics with no negative effect to damage, ap gain, arcane stacks, chill stacks, additional damage proc from crits, which gives burst damage overall. Thier feats, mechanics, and overall synergy of self buffs work to increase damage.
Warlocks have a slow ramp up requiring sacrifice to either overall damge, ap gain, cdr, burst potential, etc. Nothing feels fluid. Still just feels like bad overall class mechanics. As base damage and power go up, performance goes down in comparrison to other classes. Overall limiters to damage potential.
Good day, Thank you all for the great feedback! I collected a ton of notes and am currently working on implementation. We were able to fix a few bugs which you will hopefully see soon:
Fixed the typo for Soul Spark to correctly state 0.25%.
Soul Scorch now generates action points.
Both activations for Infernal Spheres can spawn a soul puppet with Power of the Nine Hells active. Curse Bite counts as a curse consume and will no longer spawn a soul puppet with Power of the Nine Hells.
We are also working to have the damage for Tyrannical Curse fixed. But it is a complex power requiring a complex fix, and therefore may take some time.
Additionally, we are working to remove the penalty to the AoE for Fiery Bolt. However, with such a short cooldown, we would need to reduce the magnitude to 135 for all targets. If this is something the community supports, we are glad to make the change.
We are still investigating other changes to be made so stay tuned.
Good day, Thank you all for the great feedback! I collected a ton of notes and am currently working on implementation. We were able to fix a few bugs which you will hopefully see soon:
Fixed the typo for Soul Spark to correctly state 0.25%.
Soul Scorch now generates action points.
Both activations for Infernal Spheres can spawn a soul puppet with Power of the Nine Hells active. Curse Bite counts as a curse consume and will no longer spawn a soul puppet with Power of the Nine Hells.
We are also working to have the damage for Tyrannical Curse fixed. But it is a complex power requiring a complex fix, and therefore may take some time.
Additionally, we are working to remove the penalty to the AoE for Fiery Bolt. However, with such a short cooldown, we would need to reduce the magnitude to 135 for all targets. If this is something the community supports, we are glad to make the change.
We are still investigating other changes to be made so stay tuned.
Great, nice to have some fixes in the works.
My issue with fiery bolt is that 135 is still very low as an AoE. it doesn't really solve the problem. Killing flames is 500-750 magnitude, so even with this change, Killing flames is still a better option to use unless there are 5+ targets. and even then not by much. 5x 135 is 675 which is less than the top end killing flames damage.
If the Cooldown is the problem. maybe increase it by 4 seconds? and keep the 200magnitude damage? I think it would be better to have a longer CD and hit harder, than a fast CD and hit weakly. This would also Line up better with our other CDs too and with CD reduction Via soul scorch recovery.
Also any word on a fix for Deadly curse? its over performing for hand of blight only, which locks in to a very specific playstyle. As much as I don't want damage to be reduced, I also don't want to be getting extra damage from a bug, which makes warlocks seem in a better spot than they really are.
@joebot#9387 Oh and some clarification on what is soulscorch? Is it an encounter or not? why does it proc Bloodlust, but none of the encounter mechanics such as risky investment, stacking curse, or adding a stack of soul investiture via POTNH ?
Comments
The current features of this should just be passive, maybe added into Hellfire expertise. Encounters that do not have a curse consume/synergy summon a soul puppet.
And instead Power of the Nine Hells should be:
Fiery Bolt no longer does AoE damage, But instead does 500 Magnitude as single target
Flames of Phlegethos No longer does AoE damage, but Deals 2000 magnitude to the main target
With specific element immune monsters, that require swapping or different tactics.
I propose all armor is equal but some are better complimented by different augmentations.
Example: (Poison=Bilethorn, Lightning=lightning enchant etc.).
If you refuse to make a new character, (druids, Necros, bards...) then this option is a type of diversity to cookie builds (That's no slam on cookies, they work perfectly.).
Fiery Bolt - As @tempus86 has stated please remove the half penalty as this is one of the few viable AOE options we have.
Arms of Hadar - Please look into reworking this one
Dreadtheft - Please consider reworking.. The damage done just not justify the 6 second channeling.
Killing Flames - Remove target's missing hit points mechanic and set at 700 or 750. Currently clerics, wizard, and rouges are hitting in the millions with some of their encounters. This will be a step in the right direction.
Flames of Empowerment - Please consider reworking as this feature is not viable at all. Why take flames when I can take dust to dust ? 3% < 5%
Executioner's Gift - Again, do away with the target's missing hit points mechanic.
Hellfire Ring - Agree w/ @tempus86, would be nice if radius was larger.
BOV - Faster Ticks please
It feels like warlocks are dragging fragile dead weight that has mediocre damage and praying that you can actually keep it alive to maintain stacks, but pointless in any boss fight with phases, stuns, ice, etc.
Viperion - DragonTribe guild.
Playing Ranger/Paladin/Bard/Fighter.
First of all I wanna say thank you that u take the time and trying to get Warlocks into a better place with fixes. Special thanks for all the fellow Warlocks out there who keeps posting feedback(s) since mod 16.
A bit thank you for allowing creeping death to crit.
Warlocks main problem - as I see - is still in the core mechanic (casting mechanics and base feat + class feature synergie is where it needs rework and love), magnitudes are mostly in an Okay state. We are a DoT class which needs min. 20-25 secs to gain all the self buffs (with these latest mod 19 changes, in mod 18 even more). Other classes just straight burst with many hundred magnitudes from the very first second with fast animations. 90% of the content doesnt favorize our mechanic (except TIC, and TOMM), cuz things doesnt live long enough to make an encounter rotation. Phases, when you stand still also breaks the rotation, cuz you have to build up again curse, creeping death, soul investitures stacks.
I find the Soul Puppet builds totally underperfoming in every way of the gameplay on the Hellbringer path. Im thinking, still cant find out what change would/could make it tempting and viable even in end game dungeons/trials ( ??? make it to use ranged attacks maybe and follow summoner if hes 10-20' farther, reduce incomming damage by 5%)... so from now I personally would delete every feat and class feature related to that and goin forward with the following changes:
Feedbacks (sorry, cant make it to shown as colored):
- Arms of Hadar - barely anyone uses that, low magnitude - should applay curse minimum besides gettin Magnitude increase. (but since the best controll is killing things as fast as possible this wont be sloted for a long time... )
- I dont like 50% of the mod 19 BOVA change. More damage vs cursed targets is nice for sure (who would be the foul to say "No thank you" for that?
- Dreadtheft needs a total rework - maybe it should be a vs one target spell and get a fast visual design like wizards Ray of enfeeblement or disintegrate (barely anyone slots or will it use with these movement binded mechanic, when u need to react to phases in less then 0.5 secs)
- Fire bolt - oh please, let it damage all the minions around main target for full damage, not just 50% .. and 25-50 magnitude increase would be the extra butter on that.
- Infernal spheres - I dont know what to say.. I used it the last time when the Dreadtheft .. years ago.. not gettin sloted for sure until a rework or replace...
- Killing flames - still dont like that splited magnitude, let it do flat 750 magnitude as our strongest encounter (oh and the effect of spawning a soul puppet should be on hit a target, not on kill)
- Hellfire ring - yes.. well.. one of my favorite AOE spell, but the visual casting is so clumsy, clunky .. if u wanna push the Moon over your head or donno how to say.. its just slow and no fluidity at all, needs a casting time reduce (for its animation the best would be to use the handed animation u do when sitting on the Throne of the Gamemaster, raising one hand and closing fist when summoning the Hellfire ring)
- Tyrannical curse splited damage should be fixed - as others stated above - its like that for a long time now
- Flames of Empowerment is a big NO, Dust to Dust beats it in every circumstances (thou barely any of those are sloted)
- with the new Power of the Nine Hells change Dark Prayers is just a placeholder (good for nothing now?)
- All consuming curse - I still think it should be back to its original - not just At will powers, but encounter powers (which doesnt have curse consume: Vampiric's embrace, Hadar's grasp and Curse bite) should apply curse when hitting target enemy
- Curse should be stack up to x2, that way you could use Curse Bite for a "burst build" twice fast in a row
- Soul Scorch should also get a casting time reduce - in the time we cast this mobs very often die and we dont get the cooldown reduce, plus it generates no AP
- Dark Helix - you should be able to gain addition dark spiral after u used a damaging encounter spell (on boss fights there arent minions to kill to get additional spirals, so its pretty much useles, thou its our strongest at-will)
Thats all I wanted to share atm.
Thank you for takint the time to read it. Hope some/most/all of them will be tempting and will be used for further changes!
Its in the Curse mechanics tool tip
“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.
==================================================
A. Are we balanced with rogues now?(which is the base class for other classes to be balanced around).
- Yes @joebot#9387 did an amazing job on the actual "balance" portion of the warlocks and from extensive testing on dummy and in real content warlocks have found a home within the 5% of a rogue from a endgame top 1% players perspective.
B. Have warlocks taken any changes that might spice the class up and make it different/more fun?
For me personally(again from an endgame 1% perspective) im HAPPY that we have found some balance at least with the base class(of course others like barb and arbiter are a little overperforming )so comparing to them would not be fair.
Unfortunately my rotation for AOE and SINGLE TARGET has not changed from mod 18 - mod 19. This was an oversight as there were changes to the warlock that can give you other options but again from a top 1% perspective you would NOT change your build(except for the first feats which your forced to change one way or another. I ended up keeping power of nine hells for ST and ill use double for AOE(That will be the ONLY) change i will make)
To Sum up point B the answer leans more towards NO, the class has not changed much at all in terms of playstyle or the actual encounters you will use as a top dps warlock.
If your looking for actual suggestions on fixes on top of whats obvious/been said i would refer to my stream--- twitch.tv/malebot OR email me directly like has been done in the past by others! Goodluck with the changes and fyi i am HAPPY with the overall changes thanks @joebot#9387
I agree predominantly with @tempus86#1158 and think he/she makes some very solid suggestions to bear in mind in the future. You have solidified the current rotation somewhat, and although others would like to see some diversity in builds (I do echo this sentiment myself), it does make sense to at least get one strong build for AoE and ST locked down first, before bringing in any other changes with other powers, feats etc which can then be used as a baseline for the class.
So for the time being the only powers I'd like to see potentially altered are Hadar's Grasp and/or Killing Flames for our ST, and Fiery Bolt for our AoE. I believe plenty of others in this thread have already made some reasonable suggestions for these so I'll say no further on the subject.
The changes to both of our first feats are great. Double Scorch damage is very nice, and works well for an AoE loadout seeing as Dark Prayers still seems to stack SI better than PotNH in AoE. Meanwhile, Power of the Nine Hells works nicely to get those stacks ramped up nice and quickly in a fight with phases like ToMM, Zariel etc. I also think it's good that our feats are not tied to particular powers, which I feel is an issue with other classes, as you really are forced into using those powers at that point. Please keep it this way as it will allow us to be more flexible with builds down the line.
The new BoVA is very nice as well, works great on ST, although it has lost a bit of its AOE "spark". As exciting as seeing lots of numbers poping up on the screen may be, I'm just as happy seeing fewer, but larger numbers.
A potential bug:
BoVA is not proccing weapon enchants at all on preview.
Just take deadly curse. That alone is worth 8-10% damage by itself, but it pigeon holes you into using very specific stuff.
So using the same build as before, we are definitely in a better spot, theres no doubt about that, so if nothing else gets changed, we still got a good update...…
HOWEVER
There has to be at least 1 more fix for M19 This is a quote pulled from the official healing changes thread.
Soul scorch, does not give any action points. As far as I know, it never has since the M16 changes 18 months ago.
Soul Scorch is an action, and we cast it more than probably any other "encounter", 6-8 times a minute, It has a 1 second cast time, so this should be generating 16-17ap per cast since im pretty sure the AP gain calculation is 1000/60xcast time. So this is a good 10% towards a daily each minute we have not been getting since M16.
As far as I know, this has not even been acknowledged at all by the Devs, and it has been reported plenty of times since M16. so Im a little salty the same type of bug gets a response within hours on the healing post.
This, if nothing else has to be fixed. 18months is way too long
BUG
Hand of blight is double proccing deadly curse still,
1 full hand of blight cycle, 4 hits, 12 curse hits, 8 from deadly, 4 from the dot ticking
https://imgur.com/a/mPwycv4
So you are new Dev assinged to handle warlock class.. Welcome and I wish luck you. And lets hope you will avoid warlocks curse.. ( all who worked with warlock class and it's balance either departed or ended in no so well).
Anyways,, before everything, I would like to ask you, how much you are familiar with warlock class and it's history?. I mean what it where before and what it is now..
Now few question about few warlock powers
Dust to Dust & Flames of Empowerment.
SoulBinder( now Soulweaver)
Both part of Hellbringer path
Now question,, is there any thoughts about reworking them?? I mean, at this curent situation to use Flames of empowerment is obviously nonsense.
Not only you have firstly hit your enemy x3 times with your at wills, but also you get only up to 3% dmg increase to debuff affected targets. In comparison to Dust To Dust which grant 5% and no requirements..
Feat: Soul Desecration -
is there any thoughts ( someday in distance future) to rework it,, cuz now it's awkward feat. I pick it, get soul puppet who attack randomly, and in the end mos time before he even land hit, enemies are blasted away. Only in boss fight seems Ok, unless there ok ( untill boss start AoE madness).
For now enough..
P,s my english is not great, also this post is low priority, more like want to hear your opinion/throughts..
“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.
==================================================
EDIT FEEDBACK: A very god addition to this list woulld be to make soul investiture stacks go down 1 by 1 and not be affected by puppet death which happens aLOT,this would be biggest addition ever
Encounter: Flying Bananas Formerly known as Blades of Vanquished Armies.
Question who's idea where to change this power, I can't see anything bad with current live version.
So can we get back back to preview.. ? Cuz the new version to call it bad would be understatment.
First of all, Hellbringer warlock is dps path, not support. So this dmg reduction factor should not be shared with group members.
Other thing, encounter had strong and weak sides. But with new version you guys nailed it down.. No offense, but are you guys even try use it before changes??
Old BoVA mechanic:
You cast your power( BoVA) , summon blades which fyling arround you and damaging enemies whos get in it's effect area.
Pros - you could use this power and walk/dodge incoming hits and use other powers while BoVa where active.
Also if any new enemy step in it's effect area even afer power got casted, it's still receive hits.
Dowside - if enemy gets out of effect area it receive no damage anymore.
Conclusion: Skilled player could have close range build dps warlock.
Arm of Hadar + BoVA + Hellfire ring + Hands of blight at wills and Creeping death feat. Thats what takes to have decent close range warlocks build.
BoVa where keystone of it. you guys nailed it down..
New Flying bananas mechanic
You cast your power and apply DoT effect to enemies who where in that area of effect during intitial hit.
Also power now grant 5% dmg reduction factor.
Pros - good luck to find any use of it.
Downside:
If any new enemy get in "area of effect" after power got casted they will receive no damage.
More less power work as close range Fiery bolt with DoT effect.
Hellfire ring is better at DoT, Dreadtheft beter as DoT.
Heck by usefulness even Infernal spheres dmg bosot + at wills is better option than this encounter.
For boss fights > give me a break, Killing flames + hadar grasp to proc Risky Ivestment + Hellfire ring for DoT.
This new Bova now is in middle of nowhere
“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.
==================================================
I will comment only on warlock dps with power of nine hells feat.
-Infernal spheres: doesn't spawn any sould puppet : it should as there is no curse consume nor curse synergy for this power. Also I am not sure the 5% damage buff is working but maybe I use this power incorrectly ?
-Curse Bite: this has never been addressed but could you please finally give a proper cooldown that can be reduced with soul scorchs. All the other encounters cooldown of warlocks can be reduced except this one.
-Vampiric embrace: I don't see any temp hit points../font>
-Hellfire Ring : please reduce the casting time, it takes forever....
-Fiery Bolt: please enlarge a bit the radius, especially for the targets that are behind the front targets. And think about reducing the penalty of hitting multiple targets.
-BOVA needs a bit more ticks (there are only 3), retaining the same general magnitude: it would allow more spark generation
-Arms of Hadar is pretty much useless because of it ultrabad magnitude , especially when you use it several times: 65magnitude for a 12 seconds cooldown. It is not viable. One solution could be to increase the magnitude the more you use this power, until the reset.
-HG needs a buff
-Overall, I have nothing against some more buffs on unused class features, and on soul scorch mechanic
For the "new" powers back to dps tree:
-Dreadtheft: it has a nice magnitude but it has the second longest cooldown of warlock powers and we cannot do other attacks during the channeling.... This is a no-go power unless we can at least use at-wills during the channelling. Also it needs an additional effect: I suggest to put the 10% damage buff for magic and melee powers for 10 sec: this way, this power would have an utility and would be the equivalent of the Ranger "thorn ward" or of the wizard "Ray of Enfeeblement". This change could appeal to the nostalgic players of this power.
/font>
Blades is still damage over time, it just ticks slower, once straight away. 2nd tick at 3 seconds, last tick at 6 seconds. So you can still move around with it on and deal damage to new enemies.
The new blades is overall much better than the old one. it deals 50% more damage against curse targets for a start. Gives 5% damage reduction instead of 5000 deflection which is a much better stat, and the CD starts immediately so it can be reduced much better with Soulspark recovery/wrathful souls.
The only downsides to the new blades is you can mistakenly put it on the wrong party member, and that it does less ticks, which means less weapon procs and less soul sparks.
As for boss rotation, blades does significantly more than hellfire ring, and if the boss moves, hellfire ring is useless, where at least you can chase after the boss with blades, or even stick it on the tank who is next to the boss anyway.
At least do some proper testing before making posts that spread misinformation
Alright,, then do me favour and test out one thing..
Use BoVA againts training dummy..
But once you cast, move to dummy who where outside of encounters effect area during initial hit..
And check out do training dummy receive hit from this encounter and do even proc Creeping Death..
“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.
==================================================
It also seems intriguing you can call new BoVA "middle of nowhere", whilst in the same post suggest using Arms of Hadar on a dps loadout. I don't think there's a player alive that can make that power work for our dps.
All this time I have assumed it was classed as an encounter since it triggers bloodlust, and that is supposed to be encounters only, but that would explain why soul scorch doesn't trigger curse or summon a puppet with Power of the Nine Hells.
It also means Risky Investment is nowhere near as strong as I assumed, sure its still miles better than Soul Desecration but its more like 6-7% increase at 5 stacks, rather than 9-10%
So some clarification from one of the Devs as to what exactly Soul Scorch is would be nice.
Is it an Encounter? and if it is, why does it not trigger warlock specific encounter mechanics?
If its not an encounter. Why does it trigger bloodlust?
Bit annoyed at myself for never having really tested this, least I wont be making assumptions anymore
Ri/si and spark mechanic is still just a bad choose your own suffering mechanic. Save sparks for a small amount of additional damage or loose damage to increase cooldown reduction. But, if you use it for cdr then you also reduce overall ap gain since ss generates no ap. You choose to increase ss damage and extremely slow si stacks. Choose faster si stacking and every mechanic is against you ie. lack of burst damage, phases, dead soul puppet, ice, stuns, etc. while Si direct impact on puppet is negligible to overall damage.
Wizards can benefit from mechanics with no negative effect to damage, ap gain, arcane stacks, chill stacks, additional damage proc from crits, which gives burst damage overall. Thier feats, mechanics, and overall synergy of self buffs work to increase damage.
Warlocks have a slow ramp up requiring sacrifice to either overall damge, ap gain, cdr, burst potential, etc. Nothing feels fluid. Still just feels like bad overall class mechanics. As base damage and power go up, performance goes down in comparrison to other classes. Overall limiters to damage potential.
Thank you all for the great feedback! I collected a ton of notes and am currently working on implementation. We were able to fix a few bugs which you will hopefully see soon:
- Fixed the typo for Soul Spark to correctly state 0.25%.
- Soul Scorch now generates action points.
- Both activations for Infernal Spheres can spawn a soul puppet with Power of the Nine Hells active. Curse Bite counts as a curse consume and will no longer spawn a soul puppet with Power of the Nine Hells.
We are also working to have the damage for Tyrannical Curse fixed. But it is a complex power requiring a complex fix, and therefore may take some time.Additionally, we are working to remove the penalty to the AoE for Fiery Bolt. However, with such a short cooldown, we would need to reduce the magnitude to 135 for all targets. If this is something the community supports, we are glad to make the change.
We are still investigating other changes to be made so stay tuned.
Great, nice to have some fixes in the works.
My issue with fiery bolt is that 135 is still very low as an AoE. it doesn't really solve the problem. Killing flames is 500-750 magnitude, so even with this change, Killing flames is still a better option to use unless there are 5+ targets. and even then not by much. 5x 135 is 675 which is less than the top end killing flames damage.
If the Cooldown is the problem. maybe increase it by 4 seconds? and keep the 200magnitude damage? I think it would be better to have a longer CD and hit harder, than a fast CD and hit weakly. This would also Line up better with our other CDs too and with CD reduction Via soul scorch recovery.
Also any word on a fix for Deadly curse? its over performing for hand of blight only, which locks in to a very specific playstyle.
As much as I don't want damage to be reduced, I also don't want to be getting extra damage from a bug, which makes warlocks seem in a better spot than they really are.
Oh and some clarification on what is soulscorch? Is it an encounter or not? why does it proc Bloodlust, but none of the encounter mechanics such as risky investment, stacking curse, or adding a stack of soul investiture via POTNH ?