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The soulweaver needs....
nerone
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 15 Arc User
Hello there!
I apologize if my English is not perfect, I am not very good with it and all I'm about to say is due to my experience on PC, I don't know how they are put on other platforms.
But let's move on to what I'm here for today:
A few days ago I read the news "Q&A with EP" and the part where we talked about the changes on some classes caught my attention. Nothing to say, those classes really needed some correction, but... why does no one ever think of poor Soulweaver?
I have been playing the Warlock from mod 4, ever since I came out together with the Tyranny of Dragons. I played it in all sorts of ways: Fury, Damnation and Temptation, with the Hellbringer and Soulbinder paths. For various reasons then I stopped playing for a while, but since I returned a little over a year ago I have played as main almost and only the Warlock Soulweaver. Even now I have tried various combinations of feats and skills and in the end I have realized that there is not much room for improvement, it is precisely the warlock who is limited in the heals.
Before continuing I open a little parenthesis: many (both Soulweaver themselves and not) think that the Soulweaver is easy to use and that it is enough to put the green circle (Soulstrorm) on the ground.
(In my opinion after having tried all 4 supports, the Soulweaver together with the Minstrel (Bard), are the most difficult to use but they are very fun to play.)
This thing I tried this on my skin by playing Palatank and Hellbringer in random queues and it is wrong, the Soulweaver is not just that. Don't just put the circle on the ground, please.
As I said before I play Soulweaver as a main class and I also enjoy it a lot, I like the mechanics it has but it has a basic problem: the magnitudes of the skills are too low.
Let's analyze for a moment the "strongest" skills compared with those of the current top healer: the Cleric.
Soulweaver's strongest healing skill is Revitalize which has 850 magnitude:
We can consider this skill as the Cleric's Bastion of Health, unlike that our skill can apply a cure over time or put a shield based on the last feat we chose.
Tell me what's strange? This skill is a little stronger than that of the Cleric DPS:
And it's just over half of the heal cleric's bastion:
With this magnitude and a 73k character having power, critical severity and 90% cure output you can make a maximum of 400k-600k by healing only one ally. Instead a Cleric even with the lowest IL and stats not at 90% can easily do between 800k-1kk.
Soulweaver's other strongest skill is Soulstorm, apply a circle to the ground and only heal if you stay inside it:
This skill has a magnitude of 500, costs 220 soulweave and lasts ONLY 6 sec. It is very useful if you are standing still in one place, but in more exciting dungeons or trials it is almost completely useless except on some occasions.
Now let's take a daily as an example, Soul Barrier:
We can compare this skill to the cleric's Hallowed Ground. Which have both paths, both dps and heal:
They have the same functions: they heal and decrease the damage taken. Unlike Soul Barrier, it applies a shield based on the cure done.
Since the heal is only 200 of magnitude (compared to 500 that the Cleric DPS also has), the shield it puts on us is almost useless.
Which then since when the spark is active it does nothing else, Inspirit is not activated (that it has only 120 magnitude) and we cannot use Lifepatch either. So the heals in those 12 sec are further limited.
It would be nice since the Lifespark is sacrificed, the spirit going around healing as the Cleric's Guardian of Life plus, like Soul Pact, it decreases the damage taken to allies.
I hope something will also be done for Soulweaver, because it is difficult to find a group in these conditions. It happened to me several times when in some chats they were looking for a healer for CoK, and at the beginning when VoS HC also came out, they refused me saying that they only wanted DC or at most Op.
The Soulweaver in that trial is already heavily penalized because we move too much and Soulstorm is useless most of the time, but the most problematic thing is the very, very low heals.
The magnitudes of the Soulweaver are like the Cleric DPS and because of these low magniduins the Soulweaver build shield is also affected, it puts some very low shields.
I would also like to read your opinion on this and also the opinion of @nitocris83 (sorry if I tag you) or some other Devs. I really love this class and have a lot of fun too, but it's a real shame it's not appreciated by many because of that.
I apologize if my English is not perfect, I am not very good with it and all I'm about to say is due to my experience on PC, I don't know how they are put on other platforms.
But let's move on to what I'm here for today:
A few days ago I read the news "Q&A with EP" and the part where we talked about the changes on some classes caught my attention. Nothing to say, those classes really needed some correction, but... why does no one ever think of poor Soulweaver?
I have been playing the Warlock from mod 4, ever since I came out together with the Tyranny of Dragons. I played it in all sorts of ways: Fury, Damnation and Temptation, with the Hellbringer and Soulbinder paths. For various reasons then I stopped playing for a while, but since I returned a little over a year ago I have played as main almost and only the Warlock Soulweaver. Even now I have tried various combinations of feats and skills and in the end I have realized that there is not much room for improvement, it is precisely the warlock who is limited in the heals.
Before continuing I open a little parenthesis: many (both Soulweaver themselves and not) think that the Soulweaver is easy to use and that it is enough to put the green circle (Soulstrorm) on the ground.
(In my opinion after having tried all 4 supports, the Soulweaver together with the Minstrel (Bard), are the most difficult to use but they are very fun to play.)
This thing I tried this on my skin by playing Palatank and Hellbringer in random queues and it is wrong, the Soulweaver is not just that. Don't just put the circle on the ground, please.
As I said before I play Soulweaver as a main class and I also enjoy it a lot, I like the mechanics it has but it has a basic problem: the magnitudes of the skills are too low.
Let's analyze for a moment the "strongest" skills compared with those of the current top healer: the Cleric.
Soulweaver's strongest healing skill is Revitalize which has 850 magnitude:
We can consider this skill as the Cleric's Bastion of Health, unlike that our skill can apply a cure over time or put a shield based on the last feat we chose.
Tell me what's strange? This skill is a little stronger than that of the Cleric DPS:
And it's just over half of the heal cleric's bastion:
With this magnitude and a 73k character having power, critical severity and 90% cure output you can make a maximum of 400k-600k by healing only one ally. Instead a Cleric even with the lowest IL and stats not at 90% can easily do between 800k-1kk.
Soulweaver's other strongest skill is Soulstorm, apply a circle to the ground and only heal if you stay inside it:
This skill has a magnitude of 500, costs 220 soulweave and lasts ONLY 6 sec. It is very useful if you are standing still in one place, but in more exciting dungeons or trials it is almost completely useless except on some occasions.
Now let's take a daily as an example, Soul Barrier:
We can compare this skill to the cleric's Hallowed Ground. Which have both paths, both dps and heal:
They have the same functions: they heal and decrease the damage taken. Unlike Soul Barrier, it applies a shield based on the cure done.
Since the heal is only 200 of magnitude (compared to 500 that the Cleric DPS also has), the shield it puts on us is almost useless.
Which then since when the spark is active it does nothing else, Inspirit is not activated (that it has only 120 magnitude) and we cannot use Lifepatch either. So the heals in those 12 sec are further limited.
It would be nice since the Lifespark is sacrificed, the spirit going around healing as the Cleric's Guardian of Life plus, like Soul Pact, it decreases the damage taken to allies.
I hope something will also be done for Soulweaver, because it is difficult to find a group in these conditions. It happened to me several times when in some chats they were looking for a healer for CoK, and at the beginning when VoS HC also came out, they refused me saying that they only wanted DC or at most Op.
The Soulweaver in that trial is already heavily penalized because we move too much and Soulstorm is useless most of the time, but the most problematic thing is the very, very low heals.
The magnitudes of the Soulweaver are like the Cleric DPS and because of these low magniduins the Soulweaver build shield is also affected, it puts some very low shields.
I would also like to read your opinion on this and also the opinion of @nitocris83 (sorry if I tag you) or some other Devs. I really love this class and have a lot of fun too, but it's a real shame it's not appreciated by many because of that.
1
Comments
- The primary issue with Soulweaver isn’t Soulweaver itself, rather game content and design mechanics that strip Soulweaver of its effectiveness. To put it simply, Soulweaver is highly ineffective when the team is not stacking together/is not able to stand in one place.
- I’ve seen Soulweavers solo heal Tower of the Mad Mage (where the party mostly stands still).
- I’ve seen Soulweavers become extreme liabilities in Crown of Keldegonn (where the party constantly spreads out).
- I’ve seen Soulweavers deplete their Soulweave because they’re running around trying to heal someone who did not/was not able to stand in the Soulstorm.
- Soulweaver is difficult to directly compare to Devout Cleric because there are abilities that are better which were not mentioned and you can stack at least two heal over time buffs with Revitalize and Soulstorm. The Tab heal on the tank being one of them.
- if Soulweaver’s abilities, specifically Soulstorm, behaved similarly to the other healers’ primary AoE heal, there may still be improvements people would want to make, but Soulweavers wouldn’t be ‘excluded’ from content as much as they are currently. For example, imagine if Soulstorm functioned the same way Healing Word does.
I have healed Crown of Keldegonn now with all the healing classes and its a bit ridiculous how much work the Soulweaver is compared to the Cleric. The HoT of the cleric lasts very long AND requires no aiming. The SWs healing requires aiming AND is very short (12sec vs 18sec).
Increasing the healing magnitudes on my SW will do absolutely nothing. If I have my heals on someone they don't die. The issue is not the pure output but the duration of both healers compared. Sure, you can get soulstorm to be longer from the casttime if people actually stay in the green but thats just not possible in a lot of dungeons and Crown of Keldegonn. We can use Revitalize to apply a secondary HoT but there we have the same issue: It needs to be applied constantly to everyone and the healing magnitude depends on how many people you heal. If there are few people you hit with it you need to spam it on more people and soulstorm is just too expensive to spam. Also we can't expect people to always move to the circles everywhere and Revitalize is enough in CoK too it just requires a LOT of work and is VERY stressful. The easiest fix in my opinion is:
1. Make Soulstorm apply a longer HoT so we can place it before support phase so its lasts until supports are (almost) killed). Sure, this will take some of the skill out of the Soulweaver but as long as content requires people spreading constantly or running around too much the SW just wont keep up.
2. Give the SW a good daily. For some reason the cleric not only has a better HoT for Crown of Keldegonn but a daily that heals also applies a huge HoT. Just make Soulpact raid wide and give it a decent HoT. This way the cleric wouldn't simply be a copy and paste of the cleric as @d4rkh0rs3 suggested, it would still be very difficult to pull of but have at least some viability. Then again the SWs AP gain would have to be increased a bit or we get the Alliance Battlehorn back...imo this would be the easiest fix for the SW (Disclaimer: I totally stole this from the SW discord, so ty Cold).
But there are way better Soulweavers out there with way better ideas. But once again just like @d4rkh0rs3 said, the pure healing from SW isnt compareable to the cleric. The SW can heal for a ton, it just requires so much more work and in most content the easier option is just "take a cleric" or now "take a Bard
It's a bit ridiculous that a dps's heal skills are stronger than a heal class.
As you say, a skill similar to a healing word would help, revitalize once functioned as a healing word. But then it was changed and made similar to the bastion of health.
As hard as Soulweaver is, I like it now that's why I play it. Is the cleric ridiculous? Yes and it is very easy to use, in fact what I had I abandoned for this reason.
Imagine that at CoK I almost and only use revitalize to heal, using the tab on the main tank and soul reconstruction to help me heal those in need and make inspirit give priority to heal those in need and soul siphon during the support phase.
As difficult as it may be, as you say, I can't keep up with the heals especially when the dps go in different directions.
But with this I will refuse to be a cleric, the bard maybe still yes, but the cleric not as long as it's so ridiculous.
With mod 16, legacy Templock( temptation warlock) build where removed from game. Templocks where using life steal as form of healing and Aura's for AoE buff/deuffs.
So all elements what made templock where gone. So how you create Soulweaver?
They simply took Cleric/Paladin powers/abitlies and send through proces.
copy>paste> nerf>rename.
The remained empty spots where filled with something, in some case inpractical and illogical stuffs.
As example, feat:
Healers build is opposite that of dps, so even if you add 10% dmg increase it won't make you strong as actuall dps build. Also this Feat burns your soulweave, your main source for healing.
With this feat you get healer which can't heal, and healer which dps is wastly inferior to actuall dps classes/builds. Totall nonsense.
Also lets not forget that from very start played can have two loadouts. So if warlock player decide go solo play, he can pick actuall dps ( Hellbringer) path as second loadout..
Other example, encounter, Wraith's Shadow.
Magnitude: 500
Added Effect: Decreases target's damage dealt by 5%.
Duration: 6s
Added Effect: Slow
Duration: 6s
.This 500 magnitude seems nice. But the problem is that, healers build is not focused on doing damage, so even 500 manitude gives little to nothing. Also it's 17s cool down..
The 5% dmg reduction effect also is a joke. I mean, BoVA gives 5% dmg reduction for targeted party member, and cool down is way shorter. Or in AoE case I use daily power like Soul Pact, which gives:
Soul Pact
Heal Magnitude: 500
Added Effect: Damage resistance of yourself and targets increased by 10%
Duration: 10s
Added Effect: Lose 1% of your maximum hitpoints every second
Duration: 10s
So I not just heal but also provide 10% dmg reduction.
Vampiric emrbace - it's only remains of old Templock, and what kind healing warlocks had in past..
While this is best Cleansing powers among Cleric/ Paladin/warlock. It's healing is not so great.
The mechanic of this encounter is taht, your healing comes from dealt dmg,
Deal necrotic damage to target enemy.
Magnitude: 275
Added Effect: Absorbs damage dealt as hit points.
or Heal self and nearby allies. (SW)
Heal Magnitude: 330 (SW)
Added Effect: Removes one negative condition from self and nearby allies. (SW)
Curse Consume: Doubles the amount of hit points absorbed. Curse is expended. (HB)
So 275 magnitue as dmg for healer which build is not about dps in first place.. And then outgoing healing is just 330 magnitude. So poor dps bound to also rather small healing magnitude. And it's cost 200 soulweave.
In understand it's risky to buff this powers cuz it's shared between Soulweaver and Hellbringer which is dps path. But I doub't that Vampiric emrbace would become one of main hiting powers for hellbringers or that buffing this encounter would make it same as what legacy Warlock's bargain encounter where..
Speaking about Warlock's Baragain - this encounter offers that you loose some of your HP and gain some of soulweave.
The mechanic is more less same of skill from Lienage 2 > Body to mind.
Sacrifices your own HP to regenerate MP with 123 Power.
But in Neverwitner we restore soulweave.. However, in Lienage 2 the cool down where not so long. Here it's 21s. Half a minute for some soulweave? Even this encounter gives 10% outgoing healing increase for 10s. The over all input in gameplay is little to none. I can wait few seconds and also lets not forget feat: Soultheft
Whenever you are struck, regain 25 soulweave.
This effect may only occur once every 10 seconds.
In most cases like non boss fights, some hits you take anyways, in various forms, either from poison as DoT or fire hit or mecahnic hit. So you gain 25 soulweave anyways.
So can warlock be viable. Ye to some degree, but a be competitive against Cleric, forget it. Cleric is overtuned, thats obivous, but the problem with warlock that most powers are simply nonsense.
Also there is other thing, the old Temptation warlock got attention only cuz it was offering different form of gameplay. Templocks where more aggresive healer. You could heal only through doing dmg, and also providing AoE supports via Auras.
Now Bard does similar thing, it's hybrid of heal/support. Whih brought Soulweaver in questionable position.
It can't provide shielding as Paladin does.
healing - can't do more than cleric, even in heal over time stuffs.
Supporting - bard does way better. Not mentioned Wraith's shadow single target 5% reduce and 15s cool down.. Meh.. Same as you would not even have it..
To fix issues, all is need for devs to come here, in this forum part. Sit down and lets talk about Soulweaver issues and possible solutions.
First talk, then work, not opposite.. Like do x changes, and latter find out that not only no one wanted it, also changes are unpractical.
“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.
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Warlock's Bargain is a double-bladed skill, it is not always convenient to use it. In fact, Cok (but not only there) is often more of a damage to use it, you have to be careful or you have half the healing skills.
Just with the arrival of the new changes to the bard that I decided to do this post. In the hope that, after gathering some varied opinions from other players, the developers decide to modify the Soulweaver.
For me it would also be okay that the warlock is no longer healer but only buff /debuff, the only important thing is that it becomes a "competitive" and appreciated class and not a pile of skills taken from other classes and moreover done badly.
I honestly don't care that the Cleric heals any more than the Soulweaver.
The thing that bothers me is that Soulweaver is being sidelined, which is increasing with the changes made to the Bards and I'm sure that as soon as they change the Paladins, it will be even worse.