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Scourge Warlocks needs a bit of love in PvP
denvald
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 702 Arc User
Ever wondered why there's never any SW on your team when you do domination?
Have you ever played a SW end game and wondered why everyone sees like you a free kill?
And no this is NOT another thread that goes like ''oh em gee im getting 1 hit by shocking execution NERF PLEASE!''
Then wonder no more, SW is underwhelming in pvp. In PvE SW are beast but here's a few things that could really do with improvement for PvP. I play a high GS end game warlock and here's my input on why and what would return some balance.
Temptation SW.
Soul Bonding: Your life steal now also heals allies for 125% of it's value.
So what's the problem here? In PvP there's healing depression, which means you get only 50% of your own life steal, while that isn't a bad thing in itself, it also means that your healing potential is halved, and since that same number is healing on others, it's halved again by their own healing depression
So you're getting a double hit by healing depression. That doesn't sound right. I understand clerics are good healers but they have abilities that restore x% of said person's life and much more overall healing potential in pvp. While all you do is raising life steal (which is halved let's remember) and give a bit of temp HP and roughly 1/4 of your life steal (assuming a high GS warlock can hit 20% LS, you actually heal your allies for 6%) 20k killing flame equates to roughly 1k hp healed. Way to go, that's even lower than the first hit of a DoT cleric heal. If at the very least Soul bonding wouldn't be affected by healing depression that would work out already 4 times better than in live. Currently, you could be running no spec tree in pvp or being temptation and the only apparent difference is eldritch momentum, which is 5% stamina restored on each damage hit taken. That's the only thing temptation will do for you in pvp right now.
Next up, Encouters and Casting times.
Most of the warlock spells are too slow casting, the biggest loser in that category being Harrowstorm at first place, then soul scorch, curse bite, Blades of vanquished armies, wraith shadow (the animation is fast but if you move or cancel with shift anytime before the spell moves to the target, it cancels and you didn't cast it, so if your target wasnt next to you when you casted and you moved after the animation was over, you didn't actually cast since the spell didn't reach the ennemy.) So all in all, warlocks get some very slow spells and the rest are medium-slow, there really is no fast casting warlock spell.
I could definitly see Curse bite being an instant cast spell. Harrowstorm casting 50% faster is already a big improvement, removing the wraith shadow component that you must wait for the small energy orb to hit your enemy to finish casting and instead make it in line with its casting animation, and slightly improving the casting speed of several spells such as soul scorch and blades of vanquished armies.
Warlock's bargain, this spell sacrifices HP for life steal, usually a good choice in PvE, since it's considered life steal in PvP you get half the benefits, and in reality when you use this spell you barely break even in terms how much hp restored/sacrificed with it, and that's if your opponent doesn't deflect/dodge/block it, in which case you pretty much take 5k of your HP and throw it in the garbage can. I get the idea of some spells are better for PvE and some for PvP but I think it could do with some improvements for PvP. However if you are a DPS build, you will get more returns from this spell because it is one of the only high damage instant cast necrotic spells available.
Next on the list, Soulbinders
The speed at which you lose your soul sparks is overwhelming, you stop combat for a second and you're out, all your buffs and stacks are gone. As a Soulbinder's strength compared to a Hellbringer is the added survival, if you remove our stacks of soul sparks instantly as soon as combat ends that means that 95% of the time there's no benefit to not running an hellbringer in PvP.
What I suggest is the once combat ends, you lose soul sparks based of a rate of x per second. For example, if you managed to get all your sparks up in combat, once it ends you would lose 1 spark per seconds, or 1 spark per two seconds. That gives you 30seconds/1 minute to re enter combat before it's gone and you have to build up again. I don't mind the aspect of building stacks up, what I don't like is how fast you lose those stacks.
Or if anything, give Soulbinders the potential to reach 30 stacks quickly via daily uses or some other method. Like a wizard have feats to get instantly 5 stacks of arcane mastery when casting the lightning daily, I don't see why we couldn't get something similar too.
Those are some of my own ideas from playing SW endlessly in PvP, I think there's more improvements that could be made to Temptation warlocks further than what I've suggested but no ideas comes to mind that could work in PvP without <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up PvE balance, so if you got some input let me know.
EDIT: So i was reading that previously on the test server (before I started messing with it myself I guess) 1spark was actually equivalent to one bar of sparks aka 6 soul sparks. So When I look at snuff out, which is let's be honest lacking too much to even consider be put on my feats bar. Was Snuff out orginally designed to grant 6 sparks aka 1 bar of sparks? If yes, that would make the feat REALLY much more interesting...
EDIT 2: I came to post later on the thread about the strategy I find the most effective to use in pvp as a SW. You are still the worst pvp class right now, but IMO this is your best option if you want to do something.
Thanks for reading.
Have you ever played a SW end game and wondered why everyone sees like you a free kill?
And no this is NOT another thread that goes like ''oh em gee im getting 1 hit by shocking execution NERF PLEASE!''
Then wonder no more, SW is underwhelming in pvp. In PvE SW are beast but here's a few things that could really do with improvement for PvP. I play a high GS end game warlock and here's my input on why and what would return some balance.
Temptation SW.
Soul Bonding: Your life steal now also heals allies for 125% of it's value.
So what's the problem here? In PvP there's healing depression, which means you get only 50% of your own life steal, while that isn't a bad thing in itself, it also means that your healing potential is halved, and since that same number is healing on others, it's halved again by their own healing depression
So you're getting a double hit by healing depression. That doesn't sound right. I understand clerics are good healers but they have abilities that restore x% of said person's life and much more overall healing potential in pvp. While all you do is raising life steal (which is halved let's remember) and give a bit of temp HP and roughly 1/4 of your life steal (assuming a high GS warlock can hit 20% LS, you actually heal your allies for 6%) 20k killing flame equates to roughly 1k hp healed. Way to go, that's even lower than the first hit of a DoT cleric heal. If at the very least Soul bonding wouldn't be affected by healing depression that would work out already 4 times better than in live. Currently, you could be running no spec tree in pvp or being temptation and the only apparent difference is eldritch momentum, which is 5% stamina restored on each damage hit taken. That's the only thing temptation will do for you in pvp right now.
Next up, Encouters and Casting times.
Most of the warlock spells are too slow casting, the biggest loser in that category being Harrowstorm at first place, then soul scorch, curse bite, Blades of vanquished armies, wraith shadow (the animation is fast but if you move or cancel with shift anytime before the spell moves to the target, it cancels and you didn't cast it, so if your target wasnt next to you when you casted and you moved after the animation was over, you didn't actually cast since the spell didn't reach the ennemy.) So all in all, warlocks get some very slow spells and the rest are medium-slow, there really is no fast casting warlock spell.
I could definitly see Curse bite being an instant cast spell. Harrowstorm casting 50% faster is already a big improvement, removing the wraith shadow component that you must wait for the small energy orb to hit your enemy to finish casting and instead make it in line with its casting animation, and slightly improving the casting speed of several spells such as soul scorch and blades of vanquished armies.
Warlock's bargain, this spell sacrifices HP for life steal, usually a good choice in PvE, since it's considered life steal in PvP you get half the benefits, and in reality when you use this spell you barely break even in terms how much hp restored/sacrificed with it, and that's if your opponent doesn't deflect/dodge/block it, in which case you pretty much take 5k of your HP and throw it in the garbage can. I get the idea of some spells are better for PvE and some for PvP but I think it could do with some improvements for PvP. However if you are a DPS build, you will get more returns from this spell because it is one of the only high damage instant cast necrotic spells available.
Next on the list, Soulbinders
The speed at which you lose your soul sparks is overwhelming, you stop combat for a second and you're out, all your buffs and stacks are gone. As a Soulbinder's strength compared to a Hellbringer is the added survival, if you remove our stacks of soul sparks instantly as soon as combat ends that means that 95% of the time there's no benefit to not running an hellbringer in PvP.
What I suggest is the once combat ends, you lose soul sparks based of a rate of x per second. For example, if you managed to get all your sparks up in combat, once it ends you would lose 1 spark per seconds, or 1 spark per two seconds. That gives you 30seconds/1 minute to re enter combat before it's gone and you have to build up again. I don't mind the aspect of building stacks up, what I don't like is how fast you lose those stacks.
Or if anything, give Soulbinders the potential to reach 30 stacks quickly via daily uses or some other method. Like a wizard have feats to get instantly 5 stacks of arcane mastery when casting the lightning daily, I don't see why we couldn't get something similar too.
Those are some of my own ideas from playing SW endlessly in PvP, I think there's more improvements that could be made to Temptation warlocks further than what I've suggested but no ideas comes to mind that could work in PvP without <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up PvE balance, so if you got some input let me know.
EDIT: So i was reading that previously on the test server (before I started messing with it myself I guess) 1spark was actually equivalent to one bar of sparks aka 6 soul sparks. So When I look at snuff out, which is let's be honest lacking too much to even consider be put on my feats bar. Was Snuff out orginally designed to grant 6 sparks aka 1 bar of sparks? If yes, that would make the feat REALLY much more interesting...
EDIT 2: I came to post later on the thread about the strategy I find the most effective to use in pvp as a SW. You are still the worst pvp class right now, but IMO this is your best option if you want to do something.
So if some of you are still intent on playing pvp despite SW being the worst pvp class right now, this is what I would recommend, it is truely the most effective pvp setup IMO, I was able to rip trough most enemies before they realize they were dead. The only good tree in pvp is Fury. I tried every tree even damnation toroughly, and the only one that works is fury.
I played Soulbinder a long time and in pvp, it just doesn't cut it, you don't benefit from soul sparks if your fight is over in 5 seconds (you're dead) or in most cases the match lasts 1 rotation so you get such little benefits from them. It doesn't offset the gains, as soon as you leave combat for a split second (rogue went to stealth... GG soul sparks). But when I was soulbinder the most effective setup I used was a High DPS corrupt black ice with overloads using soul scorch, warlock's bargain and dreadtheft.
Soul Scorch has high damage, you can chain it, and procs creeping death. Warlock's bargain has a risk factor in it, but it's one of the best casts available regardless, high damage, instant cast and necrotic damage. Dreadtheft you may ask? I keep this slotted for as long as rogues will be OP, it follows them in stealth, and I cannot tell you how pissed off it makes some rogues to lose half their hp while my dreadtheft is hitting them in stealth. Quite hilarious really. Also, don't be afraid to cancel your dreadtheft if you're anticipating a stun, you can go back to building sparks or w/e. Although I'm no fan of soulbinders sparks because of the rate you lose them, I would still say hellbringer beats soulbinders in pvp. PvP is about burst damage and quick fights 95% of the time, soulbinder will be useful over hellbringer the other 5%.
My current and favorite build, No pity no mercy, flames of empowerment + dc artifact. Only pop your daily brood of hadar if you need a really big burst dps to take down someone really tough like a DC (wait what, not GF?...) anyways. The goal is to abuse your combat advantage damage, so run high crit (40% if you are geared up is completely do able even with constitution belt). And then do your rotation. I use vampiric embrace, dreadtheft and warlock's bargain. Curse -> Hellish Rebuke, if you crit start your rotation otherwise use a couple hand of blights to proc it. Then roll bargain's and vampiric embrace, VE will make up for the hp you sacrificed, and on High DPS builds this power will deal decent damage +100% more damage from necrotic damage not to mention temp hp and a bit of healing. Then finish off with dreatheft, at this point you will have so much creeping death stacked on them the player will simply melt up like chocolate in the sun. I've had a rogue try to finish me at 15% hp with throwing knives. He wasn't able to, I had healed from life steal and VE + bargain enough to make up for his knives damage and his HP was simply evaporating in the meanwhile, he burned down in one rotation after going to stealth my dreadtheft was already his death sentence.
This is in my opinion, the MOST effective pvp build for a SW. Fury hellbringer with high dps using VE/Life steal/bargain as defensive hp restoration options (instead of sparks) due to the short nature of fights, I find this works much more reliably than sparks. You're still going to get burned by good players because it's easy to dodge the first two casts and cancel my dreadtheft then I dont have much left. But most of the SW abilities are so easily gimped that we don't have much choice.
Thanks for reading.
I am the monk, martial skill transcends the battlefield
It is my my life style, my doctrine and my state of mind,
You fight well, but without focus and discipline, you will fall.
More threads by me / Click on it
My Support Warlock/Temptation Thread
It is my my life style, my doctrine and my state of mind,
You fight well, but without focus and discipline, you will fall.
More threads by me / Click on it
My Support Warlock/Temptation Thread
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Tabatha
Tabatha@rotters // Scourge Warlock // Co Leader // Civil Anarchy
We are looking for non elitist guilds to join our alliance.
WB helps a lot to tanking , the problem is that many sw not know how to build . We need VERY HP , we need more HP than power.
Asha-DC(Faithful-Anointed Champion)
Vilgefortz-CW(Thaumaturge-balance)
Yeah the problem isn't gear, it's PvE vs PvP class utility. Temptation is pro in PvE but beyond useless in PvP for example.
It's understandable you feel under performing next to clerics in PvP, and I think it comes down from the points I mentioned earlier about 1/4 of healing.
In PvE they have very high damage, but in PvP they're not that amazing. They have close to the same DPS power as wizards but without stuns/control and overall much slower casting spells IMO.
It is my my life style, my doctrine and my state of mind,
You fight well, but without focus and discipline, you will fall.
More threads by me / Click on it
My Support Warlock/Temptation Thread
WTB Class Reroll please
Even if the only buff would be lifting the healing depression, it'd be much better for SWs. Faster casting would be awesome, no two ways about it.
As for now, the only way SW play in PvP is as a support. And it's Fury path. Temptation ones indeed do worse there.
They can never be worst when they basically fight 2v1. Hard to see how a SW would have any problem against, say, a CW. Even more so when the said CW would like to target the SW instead of the puppet but in NWO you cannot target.
- The shift ability is good, but compared to other classes is just too poor. In particular against mage-TR-ranger, their shift ability is our nightmare, because they just can evade EVERYTHING, damage and effect. Is so annoying. Already been said that we have a casting time for our skill, and we must STAND STILL to cast (we cant just jump-cast as a mage do). Even our at will powers have casting time and need us to Stay in place without moving. This is a major unbalance compared to all other classes that can run-cast-evade.
It happens so many time now that i see my spells evaded 1-2 times in a row, then my thought "ok this must be a very well dressed char".. but then i check the equipment and find that is not different from my values. The big difference is the shift ability and the casting time
- Warlock mechanics, we are permanently binded to the aim-lock key. We cant' relay on the auto aim system because of (once again) the casting time, you do the animation and all of a sudden you find yourself aiming another enermy around. Our encounter skills are on medium-long timer (with good restoration values and all points spent in lowering the spells timer) once the rotation ends you just can't do nothing then run and take distance to prepare next rotation.. but of course.. nobody let you run away and you simply get charged and killed before you can do another skill rotation.
Basically, after playing and enjoyng a lot my ranger and my rogue i have to say that my warlock has born with some good potential, but as it is now is still not comparable to other classes pvp wise. While I get some really funny match when groups are equilibrated and I get some covers from my team-mates, if i get to stand in the back and just operate in second line I can stack up a lot of kills. But this rarely happen. Usually in everymatch there are 2 rogues per parties, and you can bet on this: they will just go for you as primary fast kill.
I see what you're up to there. While the shift mechanic doesnt have to be changed i see how it can be considered a disadvantage. However a CW can't zip the **** out of the battlefield in a split second with shadow walk, nor can he fast kite by doing hit and run by going behind an obstacle like a pillar or other object after every encounter cast. So it has it's benfits, on the other hand being completely unable to avoid ice knives and Shocking Executions hurt. But its a good for a bad.
I agree with casting times, they should be improved IMO simply because they're all sluggish/slower then the other classes and speed casting is important in pvp, where as less effect on PvE. And yes, since as you cannot avoid shocking execution, you can definitly expect for them to come at you first for a 'free kill'.
Upgrading the 3 things I mentionned would definitly put the SW back into competitive scene in pvp, cause it isn't right now.
It is my my life style, my doctrine and my state of mind,
You fight well, but without focus and discipline, you will fall.
More threads by me / Click on it
My Support Warlock/Temptation Thread
1 more CC effect (like Bergain stuns target for 2 seconds).
On dodge side ,either CW dodge style
OR Same dodge style but : Less stamina consumation./faster stamina regeneration and Immunity while dodge.
As our casts slow to be launched, always have available dates. I believe that you should review your encounter and try to balance with the little cooldown.
Why WB break reflect when I am hit by a stun?
Basically we can choose one CC skills between prone or immobilize (I go for prone as immobilizer has little CC effect like 1 second or something and only effect the movement, not the ability to cast skills, on the other hand prone give you like 3 seconds time to cast other skills while dealing some damage).
As normal damage skills after a lot of experiment i choose the fireball (sorry don't know the english name of skills). it's on a 10 sec. timer +/- but the casting time is fast. It has a mechanic to work as intended, first you must put a mark on the target.
Even with almost 3K armor penetration I find all the DoT skills too poor damage wise, i choose to remove Dreadheaft (the "Laser" skill). It has some good point: good damage-AoE effect-you can run/jump cast-Fast cast-It's a Rogue revelator when he goes in stealth.
But you'll be binded to the skill for several seconds and you find yourself most of the time to cancel the skill and evade/run.
Our "big number" burst skills even comes with a downside. Assassin's flame work on enemy with less then 30% life. If you use it on char with half or more HP left you only get a normal damage most of the time. If it's not evaded/deflected. Buit is my choice as final skill because faster cast and chance to "final shot" people. If you hear stories about people been "one shotted" by warlocks is a big lie. We can oneshot nobody. They only see a 20k damage coming but they were already with less then 30% life.
Once again, I like Warlock, but I think for now we are a second line glass cannon. In Dominion we can't fight on platform to be effective, we have to take at least 40-50 ft of distance. As main thread say, we only need some love to be as funny as other classes.
LOL, really? Any CW with half the gear score can own a SW. SW's are underpowered and have litterly only 1 control power. Against a CONTROL wizard. Special effects like knockdown, stun, etc are just about everything in PvP.
I was hoping the new class would help SW's, but no. They still are worse then useless in PvP
In the end I'm not contributing much to pvp as a SW.
No healing capabilities even as a 'healer' feat tree, and if you cant build up sparks you're getting killed too fast to contribute at all. And Tbh I'm running temptation and people can't tell I'm temptation, they don't even NOTICE it because they mistake my heals for their regen or their lifesteal which both perform BETTER than my healer feat tree.
Clerics heal better, deal more damage, and are tankier than me. If the devs don't see a problem here I don't know what to say about game balance anymore
It is my my life style, my doctrine and my state of mind,
You fight well, but without focus and discipline, you will fall.
More threads by me / Click on it
My Support Warlock/Temptation Thread
Lets also give them a nuclear bomb with no CD. Oh and a pizza.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
GO NINJA! GO NINJA!! GO!!! GO!!!! GO!!!!!
:cool:
I want an extra large with mushrooms, onions, pepperoni, ham, sausage, bacon, and extra cheese.
Would you like Trickster Rogue or DPS Cleric pizza?
in mod 4 i was able to dot the TR and put DT on him so the Warlock was not to bad against TR´s, nower days i dot them i track them with DT, they evade/roll, what ever they don´t seem take alot damage or just recover during stealth
18k heals from dc are normally the faithfull capstone feature, and its the reason why these DC are hard to kill and their teammates too if they stay nearby... except a TR comes by and perma dazes and smokes-bombs in a row, the only class that can be dangerous, don´t know the tree-- scoundrel?
not to mention the enhenced astral shield, staying inside DC, fully dottet by Warlock, only procs small numbers like 0 0 0 1 1 0 , very funny especially when he is 12k geared...
so in bad moments , when beeing 20times oneshottet as Warlock in domination I play the DC ... until i meet these 20k premade horror teams again who just evaporades you in seconds
Temptation needs to be relooked for pvp definitly
we're mostly talking about equally geared and skilled players, in which case the SW is far behind the other classes DC and CW but im sure you noticed that already :P
It is my my life style, my doctrine and my state of mind,
You fight well, but without focus and discipline, you will fall.
More threads by me / Click on it
My Support Warlock/Temptation Thread
The immunity frames on the SW shift need to be fixed to be more responsive upon activation as well and should be changed to grant 100% deflect while slipping instead of 30% DR.
I would like to see BoVA changed to be a persistent effect that doesn't get cancelled out when stunned. A shame the final encounter achievable is so easily negated really.
I've been suggesting soul sparks drain out of combat slowly like determination does for awhile now.
So to summarize; fix shadow slip immunity latency, change shadow slip to 100% deflect instead of DR, WB shares control effects as well as damage, BoVA becomes persistent, soul sparks leak out instead of cancelling after combat. Do this and SW may just begin to start being viable.
Oh and to those who are saying SW does good damage in PvP, lol. Our two hardest hitting burst attacks are soulbscorch and killing flames. One requires you to build sparks in order to cast and the other requires the target to have low health already in order to do good damage so gtfo with that. I have a 20k SW in PvP mode P Corp and I have yet to see a soul scorch one shot someone like an icy rays or lashing blade. I have yet to see a killing flames do over 10k damage on a target with over half HP. SW is a walking target at the moment which requires too many conditions to be effective
Gloom level 60 Control Wizard
Dusk level 60 Trickster Rogue
Dawn level 60 Devoted Cleric
Eclipse level 60 Hunter Ranger
Wrath level 60 Great Weapon Fighter
Jinx level 60 Scourge Warlock
sure i noticed, performance is bad, especially going temptation skilled into pvp since mod 5--> senseless,
going random specced as fury is most of the time anoying, my WL is about 15k full purified gear, incl black-Ice weapon and the grimoire , inclusive the rings +450 temptation, so only with this kind of best defensive setup i can get atm, its bearable in 2 cases out of 10, thats not much
so i know the bad performance very well, you don´t have to remember me at all
but...most of the player are no pro players 20k upwards, most of the time you go there you are thrown into a pott with these top-geared players
what is your GS? how often does it happen to you that both teams are balanced? In my opinion not very often- thats reality thats why i mentioned "equal equipped teams"
or do you prefer the premade imbalanced setup, if so you can not take part in this discussion
I have no problems playing SW except absolutely lame, unresponsive unsuitable shift mechanics.
Is this game focused on class balancing? Yes/No then the warlock class must be revamped
Is this game focused on groups balancing? Yes/No then the warlock class is OK, but the groups making system must be revamped.
But is this by design or ignorance?
That said, I've seen SWs do some awesome damage in PvP. It just may be a matter of timing or power loadouts so I don't think that's incredibly wrong. Additionally, don't forget about the amazing CC immunity during your Shadow Sprint (that seems to go on forever). CC immunity in PvP is huge.
Although, if what you're saying about healing depression double dinging templocks is true (ACT anyone?), I agree that it should be looked at as it seems unreasonable and unlikely the intended result.
Happy Holidays! Peace.
P.S. A shout out to the Turtle Power fanboys in the prior posts.
I see where you're coming from, I always Q solo, so my teams are always random (sometimes I bring on a friend but rarely anyways)
I'm sitting at 16.5k purified BI and stuffs, sadly i don't think there's any system that could balance out teams as you can't predict player skill in pvp. (I've seen some terrible 20k players and some awesome 10-12k players contributing 10 times more than the 20k guys) so even a system that allows to have a sum of total GS on both teams would be flawed IMO.
But anyways, SW as 'class potential' is way behind the others' class potential, especially temptation SWs
It is my my life style, my doctrine and my state of mind,
You fight well, but without focus and discipline, you will fall.
More threads by me / Click on it
My Support Warlock/Temptation Thread