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SW Damnation Path - Thoughts and Theories
ashfireburn
Member Posts: 32 Arc User
There just isn’t a lot of info out there for Damnation warlocks in general , particularly for Soulbinder paragon path. Personally I had to go through a lot of trial and error to find out what worked best for me, and a lot of it sometimes went contrary to what some guides and conventional wisdom stated. Following are some of my observations from a PvE Soulbinder Damnation perspective. I’d like to hear some of your tips/strategies/thoughts as well.
Feats and powers that deserved and got a second look
Sparkbinder Feat:
Sparkbinder extends the duration of your Immolation Spirits by an additional 5 seconds. Which may not seem like much, but it has significant benefits particularly for generating and maintain a full complement of sparks which sometimes can present a challenge. This feat alone can be the basis for an entire build .One of the fastest ways to get sparks is to use Immolation Spirits. At first glance it seems counter intuitive since summoning your Spirits initially consumes your sparks , however this is where the Sparkbinder Feat becomes very useful.If the first hit from your Spirts (Immolation Blast) crits, ALL subsequent hits will crit which means rapid spark generation. The key is watching closely to see when this happens. When it does make sure you are using Essence Defiler as your at-will to strike the target simultaneously. When done properly you will max out your sparks in…. 5 seconds. Sparkbinder essentially gives you a fairly good chance for five seconds to max your sparks completely with the remaining duration equivalent to what would be available for Fury or Temptation. At the worst you get 5 extra seconds of dps from arguably your strongest single target daily, more often than not you get 5 additional seconds of guaranteed crits. Maximizing this paragon feat tends to place more of an emphasis on recovery and AP gain more than critical strike chance due to the mechanics stated above. Using this strategy places a premium on being able to cast Immolation Spirits as often as possible.
Immolation Spirits:
A lot of guides and fellow well intentioned warlocks will swear by Tyrannical Threat as the only daily you should use in combat and if you aren’t using it constantly you are ‘doing it wrong’… Even going so far as to say Spirits isn’t worth slotting which couldn’t be further from the truth, especially if you are a Soulbinder Damnation warlock. Spirits can be cast on the move, is instant cast, and doesn’t need multi-targets to be effective. If you are a Damnation Soulbinder warlock and you aren’t taking advantage of the extended duration of Spirits as your primary daily, then you are missing out on some benefits available to your spec. Spirits can easily be over half your overall damage in any combat scenario because with its extended duration you can have nearly 100% uptime.
Dust to Dust:
One of the common knocks against Dust to Dust is that the AP gain you get from your sparks is given when combat ends rather than during combat but using the aforementioned strategy above you want to be as close to max AP as possible prior to the start of combat. The faster you get Immolation Spirits going at the start of combat, the faster you can max your sparks.. If you rely on using Immolation Spirits heavily then D2D is a good choice.
Soul Puppet and Combat Advantage:
As a Damnation warlock you essentially have this feature built into the spec. Position yourself properly relative to your puppet and have combat advantage all the time. Get used to the distances the AI gives you by default and where it tends to position your puppet relative to what you are targeting. Remember switching targets doesn’t necessarily mean your puppet will. More often than not, you should be attacking the same target. For Asmodeus’ sake Hellbringer Damnation locks…don't take up space on your bar using No Pity No Mercy when it's redundant.
Infernal Spheres:
Infernal Spheres is actually quite a good spell for the utility it offers. Like many, I initially wasn’t impressed especially at low level. Most early guides recommended skipping it, I did but now I am at the point where I would be hard pressed to substitute it for something else.
The tooltip damage is per sphere. It has a minimum of 5 targets, low cooldown, castable while moving, and most importantly a high proc rate on Lesser Curse. Spheres sets up your other abilities and feats, not to mention you can cast it out of combat to cycle any ability, or companion bonus that requires use of an Encounter, keeping maximum uptime. (Wild Rider companion for example). Plus it’s a ‘Fire and Forget’ ability. All these little things add value outside of the raw damage numbers.
Spheres works well when paired with curse consume abilities like Soul Scorch, Fiery Bolt, or Cursed Bite. Nothing works better than Spheres for setting up feats, that require cursed targets, (Parting Blasphemy,Syphoning Curse, etc, )that’s the inherent strength of the ability. Bear in mind theoretically with some really good luck you could curse up to 8 targets in just a few seconds using Spheres and tabbing Warlock’s Curse.
Mod 6 Thoughts and Theories
I’ll preface my remarks by saying I haven’t tested extensively on the preview server and with Mod 6 less than a week away nothing is guaranteed, but based on the initial information I've seen, I’m taking away a few things.
1. Damnation overall for both paragon paths will do better dps in mod 6 than it has in mod 5 based on 2 proposed changes. The buffing of our Soul Puppet’s damage (Wraith Claw) and providing for essentially an AoE splash damage feat via the Soul Puppet. (Spiritfire). Will it match Fury? No but it wasn't designed to.
2. Curse ‘builds ‘ which seemed lackluster in mod 5 may begin to see more use in mod 6, particularly for Hellbringer Damnation warlocks. One of the main issues I saw with curse builds in mod 5 seemed to be the limited options to generate enough curses..specifically Lesser Curses. The proposed class feature (All Consuming Curse) which would apply a LC on a critical hit, has potential depending on how the mechanic actually works live. (ie would a Lesser Curse crit proc another lesser Curse?) The potential synergy between ACC, Spheres,Cursed Bite, Scornful Curse, Relentless Curse and Daughter’s Promise could make for interesting possibilities (perma-cursing?).
3.The issue of managing sparks as a resource will still be an issue for many players. The additional element of managing sparks makes some paragon class features like Borrowed Time, and Dust to Dust virtually mandatory almost like a penalty ‘tax’ for choosing the Soulbinder Paragon Path. The core issue being retention of sparks outside of combat which like it or not is an issue with alot players including myself. If there was an armor set that had spark retention bonus, it would probably become permanent BIS for virtually every Soulbinder warlock regardless of stats or tier.
4. The dps gap between Fury and Damnation in DPS will narrow ever so slightly, but the utility/fun factor will widen. Self/party healing, damage mitigation, what amounts to a taunt/threat generation (Mocking Spirit Feat), overall survivability, and pet/spark management may provide more satisfying and an acceptable trade off for raw dps for some players creating a higher number Damnation locks than we are accustomed to seeing. (Though I personally think Mocking Spirits in its current iteration needs work.). The most common iteration of SW can get mind numbingly rote after awhile casting 3 spells and running in a circle no matter how amazing the numbers are. We all know 'that lock' in game when we see them and know exactly what they are doing.
Build Potential
In mod 6 I think the potential is there for at least 2 base builds for Hellbringer and 4 for Soulbinder. For Hellbringers the advent of All Consuming Curse affords the opportunity to try a build fully committed to curses. The second build is the standard build most of us have seen utilizing the Dreadtheft, Warlock’s Bargain, BoVa/Killing Flames setup.
Soulbinder gameplay seems to offer a few additional possible variants including one centered around survivability, and one around AP gain.
One key thing I would advise any new player but especially those looking to try Damnation as a spec is to remember the only difference between Damnation, Fury, or Temptation are nine boxes on your paragon path. What works for one spec, may not necessarily work for another. Abilities and feats some think are ‘trash’ may not necessarily hold true for you. Decide up front the theme of how you want your warlock to operate (curses, Puppet,Jack of all trades, high mobility, stationary cannon, whatever) and then build your character from there and integrate your skill/feats/boons along a common theme.
Heck I've rambled enough, just for kicks I threw in the basics of my own Damnation setup as it stands now.
Below are basics of my own 'Spritelock' setup.
Emphasis: AP Gain
At Wills: Dark Spirals, Essence Defiler
Encounters: Spheres,Cursed Bite, Killing Flames
Passives: Borrowed Time, Dust to Dust
Dailies: Tyrannical, Immolation Spirts
Companions: Sprite,Ice Sprite,Flame Sprite,Blink Dog, Angel of Protection
*Augment Companion, yeah, yeah I know, but Sprites and quick AP gain are essential, Combat Advantage Damage with high Charisma is great, and as for the Angel of Protection..well a flat 5% damage mitigation with 10% from the Warding Spirits feat is just too good for me to pass up. People say dead companions don’t help dps, well neither do dead players, besides you’re already dealing with a Soul Puppet, Lliira’s Bell is good, try it, you’ll like it. Chances are if a party is wiping to a boss because of a dead companion it wasn’t going to happen to start with.
Key artifact Items:
Imperial Dragon Cloak, Heart of Black and Blue Dragons, Lantern of Revelation, Sigil of the Devoted,
Rotation/Strategy/PlaystyleCast Spirits as quickly as possible, if Immolation Blast crits. Cast Essence Defiler until sparks are full. If Immolation doesn’t crit continue to use Dark Spirals Aura . This build doesn't have the powerhouse encounters slotted because in this version your daily (Spirits) doing most of your base damage anyway.
Cast Spheres, apply Warlock’s curse to targets not affected by LC, cast Cursed Bite, use Killing Flames on low health or high threat targets.
Stay mobile and keep Combat Advantage. move around to avoid the big hits/roots. Keep your eyes open and position properly. Immolation Spirits should do majority of damage by virtue of it always being up. Once your AP is high enough you will even develop a small window to overlap dailies where Immolation Spirits are summoned and your AP meter is full. Allowing you to activate your second daily before Immolation Spirits expires.
Again just my thoughts about being a Damnation warlock in a still relatively new class.
I’d like to hear about some of your strats/tactics/builds as well to see what works well for you. Dedicated Damnation locks SB or HB are few and far between.
Feats and powers that deserved and got a second look
Sparkbinder Feat:
Sparkbinder extends the duration of your Immolation Spirits by an additional 5 seconds. Which may not seem like much, but it has significant benefits particularly for generating and maintain a full complement of sparks which sometimes can present a challenge. This feat alone can be the basis for an entire build .One of the fastest ways to get sparks is to use Immolation Spirits. At first glance it seems counter intuitive since summoning your Spirits initially consumes your sparks , however this is where the Sparkbinder Feat becomes very useful.If the first hit from your Spirts (Immolation Blast) crits, ALL subsequent hits will crit which means rapid spark generation. The key is watching closely to see when this happens. When it does make sure you are using Essence Defiler as your at-will to strike the target simultaneously. When done properly you will max out your sparks in…. 5 seconds. Sparkbinder essentially gives you a fairly good chance for five seconds to max your sparks completely with the remaining duration equivalent to what would be available for Fury or Temptation. At the worst you get 5 extra seconds of dps from arguably your strongest single target daily, more often than not you get 5 additional seconds of guaranteed crits. Maximizing this paragon feat tends to place more of an emphasis on recovery and AP gain more than critical strike chance due to the mechanics stated above. Using this strategy places a premium on being able to cast Immolation Spirits as often as possible.
Immolation Spirits:
A lot of guides and fellow well intentioned warlocks will swear by Tyrannical Threat as the only daily you should use in combat and if you aren’t using it constantly you are ‘doing it wrong’… Even going so far as to say Spirits isn’t worth slotting which couldn’t be further from the truth, especially if you are a Soulbinder Damnation warlock. Spirits can be cast on the move, is instant cast, and doesn’t need multi-targets to be effective. If you are a Damnation Soulbinder warlock and you aren’t taking advantage of the extended duration of Spirits as your primary daily, then you are missing out on some benefits available to your spec. Spirits can easily be over half your overall damage in any combat scenario because with its extended duration you can have nearly 100% uptime.
Dust to Dust:
One of the common knocks against Dust to Dust is that the AP gain you get from your sparks is given when combat ends rather than during combat but using the aforementioned strategy above you want to be as close to max AP as possible prior to the start of combat. The faster you get Immolation Spirits going at the start of combat, the faster you can max your sparks.. If you rely on using Immolation Spirits heavily then D2D is a good choice.
Soul Puppet and Combat Advantage:
As a Damnation warlock you essentially have this feature built into the spec. Position yourself properly relative to your puppet and have combat advantage all the time. Get used to the distances the AI gives you by default and where it tends to position your puppet relative to what you are targeting. Remember switching targets doesn’t necessarily mean your puppet will. More often than not, you should be attacking the same target. For Asmodeus’ sake Hellbringer Damnation locks…don't take up space on your bar using No Pity No Mercy when it's redundant.
Infernal Spheres:
Infernal Spheres is actually quite a good spell for the utility it offers. Like many, I initially wasn’t impressed especially at low level. Most early guides recommended skipping it, I did but now I am at the point where I would be hard pressed to substitute it for something else.
The tooltip damage is per sphere. It has a minimum of 5 targets, low cooldown, castable while moving, and most importantly a high proc rate on Lesser Curse. Spheres sets up your other abilities and feats, not to mention you can cast it out of combat to cycle any ability, or companion bonus that requires use of an Encounter, keeping maximum uptime. (Wild Rider companion for example). Plus it’s a ‘Fire and Forget’ ability. All these little things add value outside of the raw damage numbers.
Spheres works well when paired with curse consume abilities like Soul Scorch, Fiery Bolt, or Cursed Bite. Nothing works better than Spheres for setting up feats, that require cursed targets, (Parting Blasphemy,Syphoning Curse, etc, )that’s the inherent strength of the ability. Bear in mind theoretically with some really good luck you could curse up to 8 targets in just a few seconds using Spheres and tabbing Warlock’s Curse.
Mod 6 Thoughts and Theories
I’ll preface my remarks by saying I haven’t tested extensively on the preview server and with Mod 6 less than a week away nothing is guaranteed, but based on the initial information I've seen, I’m taking away a few things.
1. Damnation overall for both paragon paths will do better dps in mod 6 than it has in mod 5 based on 2 proposed changes. The buffing of our Soul Puppet’s damage (Wraith Claw) and providing for essentially an AoE splash damage feat via the Soul Puppet. (Spiritfire). Will it match Fury? No but it wasn't designed to.
2. Curse ‘builds ‘ which seemed lackluster in mod 5 may begin to see more use in mod 6, particularly for Hellbringer Damnation warlocks. One of the main issues I saw with curse builds in mod 5 seemed to be the limited options to generate enough curses..specifically Lesser Curses. The proposed class feature (All Consuming Curse) which would apply a LC on a critical hit, has potential depending on how the mechanic actually works live. (ie would a Lesser Curse crit proc another lesser Curse?) The potential synergy between ACC, Spheres,Cursed Bite, Scornful Curse, Relentless Curse and Daughter’s Promise could make for interesting possibilities (perma-cursing?).
3.The issue of managing sparks as a resource will still be an issue for many players. The additional element of managing sparks makes some paragon class features like Borrowed Time, and Dust to Dust virtually mandatory almost like a penalty ‘tax’ for choosing the Soulbinder Paragon Path. The core issue being retention of sparks outside of combat which like it or not is an issue with alot players including myself. If there was an armor set that had spark retention bonus, it would probably become permanent BIS for virtually every Soulbinder warlock regardless of stats or tier.
4. The dps gap between Fury and Damnation in DPS will narrow ever so slightly, but the utility/fun factor will widen. Self/party healing, damage mitigation, what amounts to a taunt/threat generation (Mocking Spirit Feat), overall survivability, and pet/spark management may provide more satisfying and an acceptable trade off for raw dps for some players creating a higher number Damnation locks than we are accustomed to seeing. (Though I personally think Mocking Spirits in its current iteration needs work.). The most common iteration of SW can get mind numbingly rote after awhile casting 3 spells and running in a circle no matter how amazing the numbers are. We all know 'that lock' in game when we see them and know exactly what they are doing.
Build Potential
In mod 6 I think the potential is there for at least 2 base builds for Hellbringer and 4 for Soulbinder. For Hellbringers the advent of All Consuming Curse affords the opportunity to try a build fully committed to curses. The second build is the standard build most of us have seen utilizing the Dreadtheft, Warlock’s Bargain, BoVa/Killing Flames setup.
Soulbinder gameplay seems to offer a few additional possible variants including one centered around survivability, and one around AP gain.
One key thing I would advise any new player but especially those looking to try Damnation as a spec is to remember the only difference between Damnation, Fury, or Temptation are nine boxes on your paragon path. What works for one spec, may not necessarily work for another. Abilities and feats some think are ‘trash’ may not necessarily hold true for you. Decide up front the theme of how you want your warlock to operate (curses, Puppet,Jack of all trades, high mobility, stationary cannon, whatever) and then build your character from there and integrate your skill/feats/boons along a common theme.
Heck I've rambled enough, just for kicks I threw in the basics of my own Damnation setup as it stands now.
Below are basics of my own 'Spritelock' setup.
Emphasis: AP Gain
At Wills: Dark Spirals, Essence Defiler
Encounters: Spheres,Cursed Bite, Killing Flames
Passives: Borrowed Time, Dust to Dust
Dailies: Tyrannical, Immolation Spirts
Companions: Sprite,Ice Sprite,Flame Sprite,Blink Dog, Angel of Protection
*Augment Companion, yeah, yeah I know, but Sprites and quick AP gain are essential, Combat Advantage Damage with high Charisma is great, and as for the Angel of Protection..well a flat 5% damage mitigation with 10% from the Warding Spirits feat is just too good for me to pass up. People say dead companions don’t help dps, well neither do dead players, besides you’re already dealing with a Soul Puppet, Lliira’s Bell is good, try it, you’ll like it. Chances are if a party is wiping to a boss because of a dead companion it wasn’t going to happen to start with.
Key artifact Items:
Imperial Dragon Cloak, Heart of Black and Blue Dragons, Lantern of Revelation, Sigil of the Devoted,
Rotation/Strategy/PlaystyleCast Spirits as quickly as possible, if Immolation Blast crits. Cast Essence Defiler until sparks are full. If Immolation doesn’t crit continue to use Dark Spirals Aura . This build doesn't have the powerhouse encounters slotted because in this version your daily (Spirits) doing most of your base damage anyway.
Cast Spheres, apply Warlock’s curse to targets not affected by LC, cast Cursed Bite, use Killing Flames on low health or high threat targets.
Stay mobile and keep Combat Advantage. move around to avoid the big hits/roots. Keep your eyes open and position properly. Immolation Spirits should do majority of damage by virtue of it always being up. Once your AP is high enough you will even develop a small window to overlap dailies where Immolation Spirits are summoned and your AP meter is full. Allowing you to activate your second daily before Immolation Spirits expires.
Again just my thoughts about being a Damnation warlock in a still relatively new class.
I’d like to hear about some of your strats/tactics/builds as well to see what works well for you. Dedicated Damnation locks SB or HB are few and far between.
Post edited by ashfireburn on
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Comments
I for one think that Infernal Spheres are one of the most under-appreciated powers available to SWs. I love the power and have always used them.
I'm curious how much damage Immolation Spirits dish out and whether or not you can make them perma (or there abouts). Do they attack multiple targets? Will they help grant combat advantage?
How much recharge/recovery do you need to quickly fill up your AP meter to keep your IS going?
I had a **** SW, but I deleted it for a Binderlock when those came out. Looking at working up another **** SW and your thoughts about IS piqued my interest.
- Forge (GF)
- Apocalypse - (DC)
- Sadus (OP)
- Fireball (GWF)
- Ixian (CW)
Thank you Loadouts for allowing my toons to be all the things... they ever wanted to be....
So I did do some fun on preview and found that a "perma-curse" build is totally in the cards, but I didn't even think about going Damnation, just Fury and Templock (not so much cursing, but definitely buffing as a templock).
Lesser Curses will be popping up left and right with a cursing HB fury build. I think a good mix of HR, IS, and possibly FB or feated KF would help keep curses alive, and let's not forget the new feats in the fury tree. All of that coupled with the lesser curse on crit class feature (i forget what it's called) and feated gates of empowerment to keep the dps up.
With the much tougher mobs, I could see there being noticeable DPS from all the cursing, but if we were to go for more burst DPS, curses aren't going to cut it. PVP might be another story though.
I don't know Damnation tree very well, although at one time I was an SB damnlock and it was doing pretty well overall, but as a temptationlock I was outputting more damage while healing and off-tanking, so I'm curious what kind of cursing ability they have. A lot of the Paragon feats for the tree is really abysmal, so it's hard to drop points in that tree knowing I'm wasting points in it.
Side Note: I think Cursed Bite is probably the most worthless power that the SWs have, as I might be doing about 2-3k? dmg on mobs in Sharandar. There is absolutely no saving grace with CB and I feel it should be either totally reworked (like more dmg, affects stealthed mobs, even if that equates to more cooldown) or replaced. I would love to see arguments for CB, but it just isn't able to equate to enough damage for me.
GUILD: ~Myrmidons~
Would Love to party up with people for pretty much anything!
This.
I've played around with it even on Preview and it's just not living up to anything. As a target-less AoE, it loses its luster since the minion only attacks one mob and we'd have to manually curse 3 separate mobs just to blow this skill. The CD is nice but the damage is just too pitiful to make it work. I'd argue a possible rework is to give it charges similar to Impact Shot, just without the curse removal and without lower damage at lower charges.
As for Damnation, I've played a Damnation build since I first started my SW. I love it. However, testing on the preview shard leads me to believe that the least talked about build is going to become even more scarce for a simple reason: The minion is too **** squishy. Even just running dailies becomes troublesome because the **** thing keeps dying.
Aside from that, nice post.
Go Cryptic!
PS - I quit.
if spirits could deal that amount of damage you say it would be interesting in PVE, atm SB fury deals heavy damage on single mobs in PVE, can´t say if immolation spirits deal more than spamming SS every 3 seconds? if they do it will be by sure an intersting build to go for focus damage in case of beeing not too sqishy and die in a second standing in the "red sauce"
Well, with all of the different curses and other DoTs, if they were to crit, you could be looking at Soul Spark generation being an easy thing to come by, although that means your crit % has to be fairly high. at lvl 60 a high crit % is pretty easy, I got 40% as an SB fury; but come mod 6, after lvl 60, who knows how easy it will be to attain a 40+%?
I also think immolation spirits is a waste. Yeah, bunch of sparks fly off, but why would i lose my sparks to invoke mediocre dps for a few seconds to get sparks again? I think something like "Immolation Spirits also buffs your damage +X% while it is active" since the damage they invoke is laughable despite the decent spark generation.
Soul Scorch is a very awesome, yet situational skill. I tend to slot it on VT only if I have a good party that doesn't need healing from me. After getting the 30 spark max, I unleash hell on Valindra with Soul Scorch (obviously reapplying curses in between) and crit most of the time, so I'm looking at 30-40k a hit + the DoT effect. Spark generation during that time gives me an extra 1 or two scorches for a grand total of 140-160k. Pretty nice. But if I'm running with a weak group, I don't even think to slot SS because that's a lost of sustained DPS/healing. So what's the point of SS then? I think the biggest pain about SS is having to reapply the Warlock's curse even while WB is active. What's the point of WB then? DT and like one or two other curse-consuming powers are the only ones that don't affect the curse while WB. Dev's are jerks :P
GUILD: ~Myrmidons~
Would Love to party up with people for pretty much anything!
essence defiler grants a spark on every cursed target, the last blow grants 3 sparks, thats not gonna change in mod6? so sparkgeneration will not change a lot for me, since i use essencedefiler very frequently
are you a temp lock in case of saying the party needs heal from you?
Sopi SW Youtube channel pvp brickabrack
The salt is strong in this one.
Yeah about 95% of the time I am a healock. Right now i'm spec'd for damnation tree for funsies until mod 6, then i'll respec back to a healock. I have an ok dps output, matching that of a 17K CW. With the respec and wearing AD armor, I am only 15.5K atm. I probably won't see that much damage again until mod 6 though.
GUILD: ~Myrmidons~
Would Love to party up with people for pretty much anything!
WTB Class Reroll please
Sorry, would love for SW to be a viable class (in mod 6), and for damnation to be a viable class. But playing a damnation lock in mod 6 I think will be a lot like a midget in wheelchair playing major league basketball. People are like, "wtf is that midget in a wheelchair doing here? God bless him for tryn".
Immolation spirits is a nice pvp daily because I can pop it off before death [which happens often for SW] to spawn the greensnotcannons and they don't despawn on SW death but continue to fire, so its like a parting FU to your opponent. Yesterday after I have died they blast away a TR, forced him off node, then killed TR , it happens
Sopi SW Youtube channel pvp brickabrack
I'm apologizing myself for incorrect formulations. Usually, I'm speaking german.
There's a Feat in the Damnation tree that summons a Soul Puppet whenever you deal damage.
You can have the Soul Puppet out indefinitely with that Feat, it's less than 15s recharge or so.
Aside from that, I dunno, it's your choice. Damnation means you do less damage by yourself but your Soul Puppet is not only indefinitely summoned until killed but also applies curses, deals increased damage, and heals you for a portion of its damage. It's your choice.
Go Cryptic!
PS - I quit.