Warlock Enhancements: Souleater

[Severlin]

Souleater
Your pact makes you an extension of your patron's hunger. You body and mind become more inhuman, and your ability to consume the souls and life force of your enemies also feeds your patrons. Your attacks erode the life essence of your targets.

https://www.ddo.com/sites/default/files/Warlock%20-%20Souleater%20Tree.jpg


Core Abilities



Inhuman Deadliness: You gain +1 damage with melee and ranged attacks and +5 Universal Spell Power for each core ability you take in this tree.
Inhuman Nature: You gain +25% Fortification and +4 Saving Throws versus Poison and Disease.
No Worse Fate: You gain immunity to Fear. Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks also give the target the Shaken effect. Although this ability has no saving throw it can only occur once every second.
Inhuman Nature: You gain +25% Fortification and +4 Saving Throws versus Poison and Disease. Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 3d6. Your Greater Hunger on hit damage is increased by 1d6.
Eldritch Seeker: You gain +5% chance to critically hit with your spells and Eldritch Blast.
Devour the Soul: Passive: +4 Charisma. Active: Necromantic Spell. You consume the soul of your targeted enemy, killing them instantly unless they make a Will saving throw with a DC of 18 + Warlock level + Charisma bonus. This ability works on undead, but not constructs and other creatures with no lifeforce. Some bosses may be immune. If the target survives then it loses 20 PRR and MRR for 6 seconds. Cooldown: 15 seconds.


Tier One


Consume: (2 AP) Ranged magical attack. Your magics consume bits of your opponent's form, disintegrating bits of them for 1d10 untyped damage every 2 seconds for a duration of 16 seconds. The effect can stack up to 3 times. Consume damage is increased with Spellpower. Your enemy is also marked with the Consumed trait. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Subtle Spellcasting: (1/1/1 AP) Your attacks and spells generate 10%/20%/30% less hate than they normally would, making enemies less likely to attack you.
Taint the Blood: (2 AP) Your Eldritch Blast, Melee and Ranged attacks reduce the Fortitude saving throw of the target by -1. The effect stacks up to 4 times.
Daunting Presence: (1/1/1 AP) +1/+2/+3 Bluff, Haggle, and Diplomacy. Rank 3: +1 Will saves.
Hungry for Destruction: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +1/+2/+3 Melee Power and Ranged Power, and +2/+4/+6 Universal Spellpower.


Tier Two


Stricken: (1/1/1 AP) Ranged magical attack. You cause 3d6/6d6/9d6 bane damage and reduce the Healing Amplification of the opponent by 40/80/120 for 12 seconds. The reduction is negated by a Fortitude saving throw with a DC of 10/14/18 + Warlock level + the higher or Intelligence or Charisma Modifier. The damage scales with Spellpower. Your enemy is also marked with the Strickened trait. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Taint the Aura: (2 AP) Against targets marked by your Consume attack: Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks reduce the Spell Resistance, PRR and MRR of the target by -2 for 10 seconds. The effect stacks up to 5 times.
Feeding Frenzy: (1 AP) When you use Consume on an enemy the feeding increases your movement speed by 1% per Warlock level for 20 seconds.
Consume Sight: (2 AP) SLA Blindness.
Hungry for Destruction: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +1/+2/+3 Melee Power and Ranged Power, and +2/+4/+6 Universal Spellpower.


Tier Three


Dark Feeding: (2 AP) Multi-selector: Choose a magical attack with a cooldown of 16 seconds. Enemies can negate the ability score damage (but not your ability score gain) with a Will saving throw: DC of 14 + Character Level + Charisma Modifier. These effects do not stack with themselves.

Your Flesh is Weak: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Strength damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Strength for 20 seconds.
You Cannot Evade Me: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Dexterity damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Dexterity for 20 seconds.
Your Will is Mine: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Wisdom damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Wisdom for 20 seconds.
Food For Thought: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Intelligence damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Intelligence for 20 seconds.
Blood Feast: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Constitution damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Constitution for 20 seconds.


Strickened Soul: (1 AP) Against targets marked by your Stricken attack: Your Eldritch Blast, Melee and Ranged attacks reduce the target's Melee Power, Ranged Power and Spellpower by 10 + 1/2 Warlock level for 10 seconds.
Eldritch Projection: (2 AP) Toggle. Your Eldritch Blast now acts as a cone attack, but has Standard Cone AoE range.
SLA: Burning Blood. (1 AP) Cooldown 10 seconds.
Charisma/Intelligence (2 AP)


Tier Four


Greater Hunger: (2 AP) Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 3d6. Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks do 2d6 untyped damage when striking an opponent marked by your Consume attack.
Strickened Form: (2 AP) Against targets marked by your Stricken attack: Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks cause 1 Vulnerability for 10 seconds. (Vulnerability: You take 1% more damage for 3 seconds. This effect stacks up to 20 times, and loses one stack on expiration.)
Steal Lifeforce: (1/1/1 AP) Multiselector:

Activated Attack: You cause 3d6/6d6/9d6 damage to your target and heal with positive energy for the same amount. This damage and healing scales with Spellpower. Cooldown 20 seconds.
Activated Attack: You cause 3d6/6d6/9d6 damage to your target and heal with negative energy the same amount. This damage and healing scales with Spellpower. Cooldown 20 seconds.


Immortal Will: +1 to the DC of Enchantment, Illusion and Necromancy spells.
Charisma/Intelligence



Tier Five


Supreme Hunger: (2 AP) Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 3d6. Your Greater Hunger on hit damage is increased by 1d6.
Eldritch Wave: (2 AP) Activated Attack. Your create a cone of eldritch energy that strikes all opponents in the area with three consecutive Eldritch Blasts. Cooldown 8 seconds.
Feed on Magic: (2 AP) When you strike an opponent with your melee attacks, ranged attacks or Eldritch Blast there is a chance equal to half Warlock level for you to gain 30 temporary spell points. This can occur no more than once per 6 seconds.
Spell Tearing: (2 AP) You gain +3% chance to critically hit with your spells and Eldritch Blast.
SLA: Finger of Death. (2 AP) Cooldown 15 seconds


Note the Souleater is not planned for the first Lamannia release. Players will likely see it in action for the second Lamannia release.

Sev~

[Gratch]

So um.... Wiz17/Warlock3? Though then you lose lich form :(
Food For Thought: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Intelligence damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Intelligence for 20 seconds.

Devour the Soul: Needs to be updated with: "You 'produce' an associated soul gem on successful devouring".
*Singing* This is where your soul gem comes out.

Not much "repair/reconstruct" in any part of warlock base, spells or enhancements for warforged warlocks is there.... :( Or did I miss something? Do they have Warforged Warlocks in Eberron at all and if so how do they stay alivewood?

Sev, lots of stuff in here for ranged, melee and eldritch blast attacks. How do you see the interplay of that working with the toggle between activating eldritch blast versus using the weapons in hand? At a minimum is that a 2-click switch over (one to put not-spell power/spell-damage items in hand and one to disable eldritch blast toggle from main attack)? Any chance of a new key(bind) for eldritch-attack for when it is toggled off?

[Severlin]

Sev, lots of stuff in here for ranged, melee and eldritch blast attacks. How do you see the interplay of that working with the toggle between activating eldritch blast versus using the weapons in hand? At a minimum is that a 2-click switch over (one to put not-spell power/spell-damage items in hand and one to disable eldritch blast toggle from main attack)? Any chance of a new key(bind) for eldritch-attack for when it is toggled off?

I am not sure what you are asking? The activated magical attacks like Consume and Stricken don't require Eldritch Blast to be toggled on so it should work just fine for Souleaters who prefer weapon attacks.

Sev~

[Maelodic]

Just to clarify, it seems like soul eaters are designed primarily to be nasty boss killers, with eldritch blast/waves for aoe clear when needed?

It's a little odd seeing how you implemented melee/ranged in this tree with just power. I'm not sure if I could give a suggestion for something otherwise, though.

I also hope you realize that this capstone because of it's will save will be the best ranged insta-kill in the game, given that it'll have the same DC as most of the epic spells.

[Jetrule]

No Spell power modification difference between standard single target eldricth blast and cone shaped blast? What is the modifier for eldricth blast tentatively set at to begin testing? Straight modifier per damage type as a normal spell, or is there a +spellpower modifier to help epic scaling?

Will the capstone consume the soul be blocked by deathward?

[Severlin]

No Spell power modification difference between standard single target eldricth blast and cone shaped blast? What is the modifier for eldricth blast tentatively set at to begin testing? Straight modifier per damage type as a normal spell, or is there a +spellpower modifier to help epic scaling?

There will likely be a scaling difference for the cone toggle, but the value isn't finalized for testing yet.

Sev~

[Gratch]

I am not sure what you are asking? The activated magical attacks like Consume and Stricken don't require Eldritch Blast to be toggled on so it should work just fine for Souleaters who prefer weapon attacks.

Sev~

This tree gives a plethora of bumps to both weapon attacks and Eldritch Blast attacks as well as having specialized cone Eldritch Blast attacks (which I'm guessing requires the toggle to be set to Eldritch Blast), but the example given of in game switching between your weapons and your Eldritch Blast attack seems UI intensive/onerous in that you need at least a toggle hit and for efficiency probably a weapon swap... so you're talking a 2 second downtime for those two actions if say you wanted to swap between melee and an eldritch t5 cone attack. Where-as if you had a single key to kick out Eldritch Blasts while the toggle is off, you could make use of both sides of this trees' benefits with less UI downtime (and take the loss of having to find other equipment slots for your spell damage bumps).

[Severlin]

This tree gives a plethora of bumps to both weapon attacks and Eldritch Blast attacks as well as having specialized cone Eldritch Blast attacks (which I'm guessing requires the toggle to be set to Eldritch Blast), but the example given of in game switching between your weapons and your Eldritch Blast attack seems UI intensive/onerous in that you need at least a toggle hit and for efficiency probably a weapon swap... so you're talking a 2 second downtime for those two actions if say you wanted to swap between melee and an eldritch t5 cone attack. Where-as if you had a single key to kick out Eldritch Blasts while the toggle is off, you could make use of both sides of this trees' benefits with less UI downtime.

The activated cone attack doesn't require Eldritch Blast to be toggled on. It will just fire. The cone toggle will indeed require you to toggle Eldritch Blast on and off if you intend to interweave it with weapon or ranged attacks. Toggling Eldritch Blast on and off shouldn't affect the state of the cone toggle, however, so you don't have to double toggle to go back using the normal cone shaped Eldritch Blast.

Sev~

[HatsuharuZ]

I like this, though I wonder if Steal Life Force might be too powerful. You really went for high power on this proposal, too....

On the other hand... I see the stat damage attacks, and remember how enemies in epic elite get a 50% chance to nullify stat damage. I think they also regenerate it, too.

Concerning the SLAs (I assume these will have an SP cost):

1) Blindness is fine, assuming it can be Heightened. Perhaps something that benefits weapon attacks could be an option in this space, for those of us who do melee? Something similar to that enhancement in Swashbuckler that causes Destruction/Improved Destruction on-hit.

2) Burning Blood is a versatile and appropriate DoT effect, but it should be noted that undead are specifically immune to this effect.

[Jetrule]

There are synergies to be had in this tree but on first glance this tree looks like a pure warlock caster tree. I think this class will be the strongest casterish class available. Prepare for the onslaught of requests to buff other casters. If you can fill us in a bit more on the tree details as you progress. For example is the steal life force sla subject to a save? is it neg damage? for the option designed to heal undead shrouded characters is it also negative or untyped ect.. I love the Steal life force by the way. is it touch or ranged? (I suggest short ranged) subject to meta magics like maximize empower heal ect? I am now very excited for the class release. Thanks guys!

[MrWindupBird]

This looks extremely cool.

[HatsuharuZ]

Actually, please ignore my previous comments about any overpoweredness in this tree. I just went back and realized how little spellpower warlocks are actually getting amongst all of their enhancement trees!

[Robai]

The name Souleater to me sounds like undead and thus should be healed by death aura. Am I wrong?

[HatsuharuZ]

The name Souleater to me sounds like undead and thus should be healed by death aura. Am I wrong?

No, there are some fey who eat souls. According to the source material I read, it mentions having to learn how to eat souls from some fey creature. Not sure if that's homebrew or not, though.

[btolson]

Inhuman Deadliness: You gain +1 damage with melee and ranged attacks and +5 Universal Spell Power for each core ability you take in this tree.
Inhuman Nature: You gain +25% Fortification and +4 Saving Throws versus Poison and Disease.



What are the bonus types for these affects? It's peculiar to see 50% nonstacking fortification, but 50% stacking fortification seems too strong.




Dark Feeding: (2 AP) Multi-selector: Choose a magical attack with a cooldown of 16 seconds. Enemies can negate the ability score damage (but not your ability score gain) with a Will saving throw: DC of 14 + Character Level + Charisma Modifier. These effects do not stack with themselves.

Your Flesh is Weak: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Strength damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Strength for 20 seconds.
You Cannot Evade Me: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Dexterity damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Dexterity for 20 seconds.
Your Will is Mine: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Wisdom damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Wisdom for 20 seconds.
Food For Thought: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Intelligence damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Intelligence for 20 seconds.
Blood Feast: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Constitution damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Constitution for 20 seconds.



I see a problem here. Say you use this ability twice, the second time immediately after it comes off cd. The first time you gain +10 insightful stat. The second time you gain +5 insightful stat... or at least you would if the game allow weaker effects to overwrite stronger ones. In practice you wouldn't gain the buff the second time at all (which will happen about half the time).

Solutions:
1. Set the cooldown equal to the buff duration, to make it impossible to try and overwite a stronger buff with a weaker one.
2. Give the buff a static value (e.g. +6 instead of 1d8+2) to make it impossible for the second buff to be weaker than the first one.




Strickened Form: (2 AP) Against targets marked by your Stricken attack: Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks cause 1 Vulnerability for 10 seconds. (Vulnerability: You take 1% more damage for 3 seconds. This effect stacks up to 20 times, and loses one stack on expiration.)


Clarify: this means that "for the next 10 seconds, all your melee/ranged/EB attacks cause a stack of vulnerability?" Any per-second limitation?

[Severlin]

What are the bonus types for these affects? It's peculiar to see 50% nonstacking fortification, but 50% stacking fortification seems too strong.


It stacks. We will watch for other feedback from Lamannia about whether this is too strong.



I see a problem here. Say you use this ability twice, the second time immediately after it comes off cd. The first time you gain +10 insightful stat. The second time you gain +5 insightful stat... or at least you would if the game allow weaker effects to overwrite stronger ones. In practice you wouldn't gain the buff the second time at all (which will happen about half the time).

Solutions:
1. Set the cooldown equal to the buff duration, to make it impossible to try and overwite a stronger buff with a weaker one.
2. Give the buff a static value (e.g. +6 instead of 1d8+2) to make it impossible for the second buff to be weaker than the first one.


Good points.



Clarify: this means that "for the next 10 seconds, all your melee/ranged/EB attacks cause a stack of vulnerability?" Any per-second limitation?

Vulnerability is an existing effect used by several enhancements so I'd have to check what that is for consistency.

Sev~

[fmalfeas]

The name Souleater to me sounds like undead and thus should be healed by death aura. Am I wrong?

All fiends are capable of it (and most do it), many powerful Outsider Abberations (Old Ones...THINGS THAT MUST NOT BE), some fey, some very powerful undead, and some Alhoon that have tampered with themselves to 'change diet'. (Alhoon are Illithid Liches...they still eat brains normally, which they do to recharge their psionic and magical energies at an accelerated rate. Some switch to souls, since they can do that with spells instead of having to get close and use their undead tentacles, end up with something sitting in their dead stomach.)

[Robai]

No, there are some fey who eat souls. According to the source material I read, it mentions having to learn how to eat souls from some fey creature. Not sure if that's homebrew or not, though.


All fiends are capable of it (and most do it), many powerful Outsider Abberations (Old Ones...THINGS THAT MUST NOT BE), some fey, some very powerful undead, and some Alhoon that have tampered with themselves to 'change diet'. (Alhoon are Illithid Liches...they still eat brains normally, which they do to recharge their psionic and magical energies at an accelerated rate. Some switch to souls, since they can do that with spells instead of having to get close and use their undead tentacles, end up with something sitting in their dead stomach.)

Thanks!

[dlsidhe]

1) Needs an Eldritch Essence; maybe reduce the damage on Consume and have it apply on Blast, or have a stat damage/waves of exhaustion on Blast, or a chance to apply Consume on Blast? I see essences as one of the defining characteristics of a warlock, and the Soul Eager tree is lacking any EB modification other than the cone shape.

2) I see some compatibility with the other two trees.The casting bonuses will help Tainted Scholars, and the melee bonuses will work for Enlightened Spirits. I can see the 17Wiz/3War build someone mentioned working.

3) Bottom line, for me, is this needs to apply some of its debuffs and damage via Blast rather than a separate mechanic. Consume can stay separate as a DoT, but Stricken as an Eldritch Essence would be potent.

[Augon]

SLA: Finger of Death. (2 AP) Cooldown 15 seconds



How will the DC of the FOD be determined?

[HastyPudding]

I'm liking this tree, although not quite as much as the tainted scholar or enlightened spirit. It looks like a good tree if you're multiclassing or as a secondary tree for tainted scholar. A few questions and comments, though:

- This tree seems rather heavily dependent on having enemies stay alive to work off your consume and strickened abilities (ironic, in a tree focused on instant death spells). I don't think most enemies stay alive long enough to warrant their full usefulness, unless you intend them to work on red and purple monsters, as well. For example, you use consume on an enemy, increasing your movement speed and debuffing the target when you attack it (probably kiting it around). The vast majority of trash mobs are going to die rather quickly with this sort of situation, and they die rather quickly, regardless. I like these abilities because they play on the warlock's unrivaled debuffing capabilities (like in PnP), but their usefulness seems very short-lived. It also seems like a ton of micromanagement and keeping track of what mobs are affected by what debuffs. Perhaps an 'aura' around said mobs, like you see on sickened or diseased players?

- You said the damage from consume and stricken scales with sellpower. What type is used?

- Just to clarify: eldritch projection is a blast SHAPE and would be exclusive, just like eldritch blast/chain/aura/shadow and not an activated attack?

- What is the range on 'Steal Lifeforce'? When you say it's affected by spellpower, does that mean either positive or negative, depending on the type you have chosen? Universal spellpower? Force/impulse spellpower?

- I think somebody said so above, but it needs mentioning, again: be careful that Dark Feeding has the same cooldown as the duration of the buff to prevent overlapping issues and possible exploits. Also, 1d8+2 seems pretty strong for a tier three ability that only costs 2 AP. I'd scale it back to a straight up bonus, like always being +6 constitution or +6 intelligence, etc.

- I would have liked to see the iconic 'Devour Magic' invocation warlocks get in PnP in this tree, maybe as a single target ranged magical attack. Warlock was pretty much the tops when it came to dispelling enemy buffs. Perhaps a 'renamed' mordenkainen's disjunction SLA in tier 4 or 5 with a balanced cooldown to match. If it works, you can maybe gain 20/30/40 temporary HP. It fits perfectly in the souleater's theme.

[Severlin]

How will the DC of the FOD be determined?

Same as the level 7 wiz/sor spell.

Sev~

[Severlin]

- This tree seems rather heavily dependent on having enemies stay alive to work off your consume and strickened abilities (ironic, in a tree focused on instant death spells). I don't think most enemies stay alive long enough to warrant their full usefulness, unless you intend them to work on red and purple monsters, as well. For example, you use consume on an enemy, increasing your movement speed and debuffing the target when you attack it (probably kiting it around). The vast majority of trash mobs are going to die rather quickly with this sort of situation, and they die rather quickly, regardless. I like these abilities because they play on the warlock's unrivaled debuffing capabilities (like in PnP), but their usefulness seems very short-lived. It also seems like a ton of micromanagement and keeping track of what mobs are affected by what debuffs. Perhaps an 'aura' around said mobs, like you see on sickened or diseased players?


The abilities of the tree you are focused on are designed for killing bosses. Against trash you use two cones (or weapons) and just use death effects on problematic enemies.



- You said the damage from consume and stricken scales with sellpower. What type is used?


Universal.



- Just to clarify: eldritch projection is a blast SHAPE and would be exclusive, just like eldritch blast/chain/aura/shadow and not an activated attack?


Correct.



- What is the range on 'Steal Lifeforce'? When you say it's affected by spellpower, does that mean either positive or negative, depending on the type you have chosen? Universal spellpower? Force/impulse spellpower?


Standard spell range.
Universal spell power for the damage, although positive and negative spellpower should affect the heal.



- I think somebody said so above, but it needs mentioning, again: be careful that Dark Feeding has the same cooldown as the duration of the buff to prevent overlapping issues and possible exploits. Also, 1d8+2 seems pretty strong for a tier three ability that only costs 2 AP. I'd scale it back to a straight up bonus, like always being +6 constitution or +6 intelligence, etc.


It will likely end up with the a cooldown and duration that match.



- I would have liked to see the iconic 'Devour Magic' invocation warlocks get in PnP in this tree, maybe as a single target ranged magical attack. Warlock was pretty much the tops when it came to dispelling enemy buffs. Perhaps a 'renamed' mordenkainen's disjunction SLA in tier 4 or 5 with a balanced cooldown to match. If it works, you can maybe gain 20/30/40 temporary HP. It fits perfectly in the souleater's theme.

Player feedback on the usefulness of dispel effects has not been stellar.

(I know what you are thinking... sadly we don't have the time and resources atm to revamp the dispel system just to use a dispel in warlock.)

Sev~

[HatsuharuZ]

Instead of +1 damage per core, how about +1 profane enhancement bonus to equipped main-hand weapon? This would give a little more spell power if the weapon is a spell casting implement, and also give some additional accuracy for weapons. Considering the warlocks' need for charisma, to-hit bonuses of some kind will be a necessity for melee builds.

In the past, I and other players have said that to-hit is not particularly important, but we tend to be well-geared and have stat tomes. Not all warlocks, especially new players, will have these advantages.

[maddong]

I like how the spell power benefits are twice the mp/rp.... Consider this for Harper as well. I tried to focus a sorcerer on Harper for more general spell power and just switched him back to double savant when I found his top 3 element focuses (3rd was force) were inferior with Harper.

The capstone looks possibly better than everything everyone else gets (except bards) if you can get a 68 dc will save insta kill just by focusing on charisma (ignoring spell focus feats, enh, items, twists, etc).

[BananaHat]

Is Eldritch Wave faster than the standard cone casting? Is it basically for burst DPS? Is this essentially the cleave for cone attacks (being a low cooldown, small damage burst)?

Seems like Steal Lifeforce might be a little weak with a 20 second cooldown, even if somehow it was able to heal you to full. I'd be in favor of having the extra 1d10 on Consume from Supreme Hunger also being able to heal you or just having Supreme Hunger apply a vigor-like healing-over-time when you use Consume. Then, you'd have some smaller ticks incoming over time with a big boost from Steal Lifeforce as needed.

Alternatively, the Greater Hunger, Supreme Hunger, and Feed on Magic seem like prime places to possibly put chances for temporary hitpoints. You are feeding on life force, you should get a false life effect. Have Greater Hunger and Supreme Hunger allow for chances to gain temporary hitpoints when using Consume/Stricken and Feed on Magic could give temporary hitpoints similarly along with the temporary spellpoints.

As for Taint the Blood, what would be nice here would be a multi-selector for an option called Taint the Mind where it is -1 to Will saves instead of Fort. That would allow for some nice synergy with builds focused more on enchantment and sync nicely with the core capstone at the expense of syncing with standard death effects. Maybe even Taint the Body for a similar effect with Reflex saves. Then each pact could have a debuff associated with their pact damage save but obviously you have to choose which save you are targeting.

Don't get me wrong, so far this is my favorite of the trees and I'll likely try playing a Soul Eater prime/Tainted Scholar secondary Warlock. I fear I may not have enough action points to get everything I want in Soul Eater while still trying to grab useful things from Tainted Scholar, which is a fantastic problem to have.

[redoubt]

Player feedback on the usefulness of dispel effects has not been stellar.

(I know what you are thinking... sadly we don't have the time and resources atm to revamp the dispel system just to use a dispel in warlock.)

Sev~

Why is this difficult?

Every one of the dispel type spells uses DC11+ spell's caster level. This is why it doesn't work in DDO. CR (thus caster level) is roughly double the quest level on elite (up to 2.5ish times the quest level.) Use the quest level instead and allow epic levels to override the limiters and then we will have a chance to dispel their effects.

Example:
Level 30 quest, level 28 caster (20 wiz/8epic).
1d20 +20 vs 11 + 60. this is 40 max on the player side and 71 minimum on the mob side. It is impossible. Now adjust it.
1d20 + 28 vs 11 + 30. This is now 48 max on player side and 41 minimum on the mob side. It is now possible, but only at 35% chance.

I'd say use the same coming back at us, but at least there are maximum caster levels or are the mobs not playing by the rules there?

Or someone please explain how mob CR/CL works if I have that incorrect.

Thank you.

Dispel:
Removes ongoing spells that have been cast on a target, on a successful caster level check 1d20+caster level (Maximum caster level 10.) of DC 11+spell's caster level. This check is made per spell, for every ongoing spell on a target.

Greater Dispel:
Removes ongoing spell effects that are on a target. You must make a caster level check of 1d20+your caster level (Maximum caster level 20.) of DC 11+spell's caster level to remove an effect.

Break enchantment:
This spell frees victims from harmful enchantments, transmutations, and curses. Break enchantment can reverse even an instantaneous effect. For each such effect, you make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level, maximum +15) against a DC of 11 + caster level of the effect. Success means that the creature is free of the spell, curse, or effect.

Disjunction:
A powerful force disrupts magical effects on the target, removing ongoing spells that have been cast on a target. You must make a caster level check of 1d20+your caster level (No maximum) versus 11+the spell's caster level to remove a spell effect, and your target must make a Will save for each equipped item or all magical properties on them are temporarily disabled for 2 minutes.

[Silverleafeon]

A lot to read all at once, hope to read thru and post here in a few days.

[FlaviusMaximus]

A lot to read all at once, hope to read thru and post here in a few days.

K, thanks.

[Failedlegend]

As was confirmed for me in another thread you cannot use you equipped weapons whe using eldritch h blast so why does this tree have a bunch melee and ranged stuff...maybe add an "Eldritch Weapon" to Tier 5 which shapes your EB around your weapon (or projectile) of your choice. (Obviously exclusive to other shapes)

[janave]

1) Capstone:

The DC on it is probably too much:

A new character with almost no investment, just arriving to cap will have EE ready DCs, thats without utilizing any of the debuffs!.

Very minimal CHA:
18 Starting
+5 levelups
+4 capstone
+6 item
+1 from tree
*********** 34 // +12DC

Base 18 + Wlock 20 + 12 = 50DC, at level 20 that kills almost everything thats not immune.

A veteran character will have significantly higher DCs, especially if Spell Focus effects also stack up.

Sum: I would personally drop the base DC to 14, and add a bit of cooldown. ~/15->18s. (in contrast PWK is on a 3minute cooldown for a Sorc, with less DCs and it has to pass SR)

Same thing i also noted on other wlock trees, the +2 CHA in capstone is enough, it is also in-line with what the other classes get. Passives just promote pushforward bruteforce playing, vs cleverly applied tactics. Why CC and Debuff when you dont need to ?

2) FoD SLA: I find the cooldown too short, 18-24 seconds is where i find it more balanced.

3) Dark feeding seems very powerful for a T3 ability.

4) Steal life force: i dont think the healing needs to be equal with the damage done, 25-30% of that is plenty to stay alive (for a mostly ranged guy anyway) with little investment, or is this an melee range clicky?

5) Feed on Magic: (2 AP)

That is a lot of spell points, if people use it with aoe hits. I guess it would work with aoes? +20 Temp Sp, per 9 seconds is also plenty, and really easy to keep it up if it works on a pack of mobs.

6) Compared to the other 2 trees, this one seems the least party friendly, or the most solo friendly, depending on your preferences. :p

[GeoffWatson]

Universal.


Universal spell power for the damage,

Sev~

Do you mean that only Potency items (and enhancements that boost Universal SP) count for spell power, or do you mean Impulse (which currently boosts untyped damage)?

Geoff

[Jetrule]

As was confirmed for me in another thread you cannot use you equipped weapons whe using eldritch h blast so why does this tree have a bunch melee and ranged stuff...maybe add an "Eldritch Weapon" to Tier 5 which shapes your EB around your weapon (or projectile) of your choice. (Obviously exclusive to other shapes)

I only see the +1 damage for weapons per core level. Seems like it will be a bit of help for using the blast aura from Enlightened spirit. Or switching to weapon attack if something is immune to your force/element. Doesn't it seem to you and others asking for a weapon shape blast that it would massively outperform the other blast options? You can melee attack so much faster have double strike/shot, cleaves and weapon style fighting feats, and get strength or other stat bonuses to damage, stack up crit multipliers and crit range... To me it would make any other E.B. shape or any other weapon obsolete.

[Lanadazia]

Universal spell power for the damage, although positive and negative spellpower should affect the heal.


consume is also universal spellpower. i don't get that, caster warlocks will be quite inefficent dps-wise, cause you only get universal spell power via implement bonuses from weapons and spellcraft ?
compared to the combustion/impulse etc weapons this seems to be a major disadvantage. or am i not seeing something?

[Augon]

Same as the level 7 wiz/sor spell.

Sev~

Interesting.

So would that mean it would be cast as a 7th lvl spell, even though Warlocks can only cast up to 6th lvl spells?
Would it be cast as a lvl 7 spell regardless of how many spell levels the warlock was able to cast at the time? (At 12th lvl, when a Warlock would get this enhancement, even as pure he would only be able to cast lvl 4 spells)

If both of the above are correct (and I understand the DC formula correctly), then a Fighter 7 / Warlock 5 with an CHA of 28 could cast FOD with a DC of 10 + 7 + 14 = 31

Pop in a focus item and feat (if available to warlocks) and that's a pretty nice DC for a character whose primary class is fighter. Ironically, he would get FOD before a pure wizard, Sorc, or Druid.

Personally, I'm not against this idea, i'm just trying to clarify.

[Failedlegend]

consume is also universal spellpower. i don't get that, caster warlocks will be quite inefficent dps-wise, cause you only get universal spell power via implement bonuses from weapons and spellcraft ?
compared to the combustion/impulse etc weapons this seems to be a major disadvantage. or am i not seeing something?

Unless the wiki is wrong (entirely possible) Spellcraft Adds 1 point of Spell Power per point of skill with following damage types: Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, Force and Light.

That doesn't include Universal Spell Power, In fact none of the skills boost USP...personally I think that feature should be added to UMD, as a skill it's lost alot of it's lustre and since Warlocks are great UMDers and they have SO MANY elements to boost this would really help them (even if ONLY Warlocks can gain USP from UMD)


Doesn't it seem to you and others asking for a weapon shape blast that it would massively outperform the other blast options? You can melee attack so much faster have double strike/shot, cleaves and weapon style fighting feats, and get strength or other stat bonuses to damage, stack up crit multipliers and crit range... To me it would make any other E.B. shape or any other weapon obsolete.

1. Were (well I'm not at least) not asking it to proc on every hit just like every other shape it would have its own proc time and spellpower effectiveness and it's an "Auto-attack" it definitely wouldn't proc on cleaves or DS.

2. You can already use Melee attacks with the "Aura" EB shape

Personally I'd like to see a option that works with ranged weapons, seriously I want it so I can make a Warlock/Arty, that's not exactly a power build I just think it would be cool. (I like the idea of a Cannith Researcher that is willing to do anything for knowledge including making a pact with a less than "Good" patron like Xoriat)

That said I can't think of a reason why "Eldritch Shape: Weapon" would only work with ranged weapons so may as well include melee weapons.

Oh and here's just some of the abilities that affect melee and ranged attacks in Soul Eater



Inhuman Deadliness: You gain +1 damage with melee and ranged attacks for each core ability you take in this tree.

No Worse Fate: Your melee and ranged attacks also give the target the Shaken effect.

Taint the Blood: (2 AP) Your Melee and Ranged attacks reduce the Fortitude saving throw of the target by -1. The effect stacks up to 4 times.

Hungry for Destruction: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +1/+2/+3 Melee Power and Ranged Power.

Taint the Aura: (2 AP) Against targets marked by your Consume attack: Your melee & ranged attacks reduce the Spell Resistance, PRR and MRR of the target by -2 for 10 seconds. The effect stacks up to 5 times.

Strickened Soul: (1 AP) Against targets marked by your Stricken attack: Your Melee and Ranged attacks reduce the target's Melee Power, Ranged Power and Spellpower by 10 + 1/2 Warlock level for 10 seconds.

Greater Hunger: (2 AP) Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 3d6. Your melee & ranged attacks do 2d6 untyped damage when striking an opponent marked by your Consume attack.

Strickened Form: (2 AP) Against targets marked by your Stricken attack: Your melee & ranged attacks cause 1 Vulnerability for 10 seconds. (Vulnerability: You take 1% more damage for 3 seconds. This effect stacks up to 20 times, and loses one stack on expiration.).

Feed on Magic: (2 AP) When you strike an opponent with your melee attacks & ranged attacks there is a chance equal to half Warlock level for you to gain 30 temporary spell points. This can occur no more than once per 6 seconds.


Note: Yes I know most of these abilities also affect your EB but that's not really the point.

[HatsuharuZ]

Crazy idea: Make the Blindness SLA an "Eldritch Essence" or an eldritch blast attack.

[HastyPudding]

Do you mean that only Potency items (and enhancements that boost Universal SP) count for spell power, or do you mean Impulse (which currently boosts untyped damage)?

Geoff


consume is also universal spellpower. i don't get that, caster warlocks will be quite inefficent dps-wise, cause you only get universal spell power via implement bonuses from weapons and spellcraft ?
compared to the combustion/impulse etc weapons this seems to be a major disadvantage. or am i not seeing something?

From what I'm seeing, it might be more beneficial for warlocks to obtain and use actual potency items -- along with an impulse/kinetic lore item -- rather than a straight up, say, combustion, corrosion, or nullification item. You also notice that a lot of the spellpower bonuses in the warlock trees are universal bonuses, not specific spellpower types.

This also correlates to the fact that, in PnP, while warlocks had nearly unlimited power, that power wasn't particularly...powerful. The warlock isn't a super spellcaster compared to, say, an air savant sorcerer spamming ball lightning, chain lightning, and lightning bolt in rapid succession. Nor should it be. I'm content that warlock isn't going to be top DPS, but that it comes paired with A LOT more utility and variety than your standard arcane nuker. Warlocks look to be more focused on sustained damage through eldritch blast, with debuffing and crowd control abilities for more menacing trash, than other offensive casters.


Crazy idea: Make the Blindness SLA an "Eldritch Essence" or an eldritch blast attack.

Why? No other essence is going to compete with penetrating blast. Few players are going to spend AP in something they would deem to be marginally situational. I think it works great as an SLA, because you can use it on specific targets and still blast away with your basic attacks.

[Severlin]

Crazy idea: Make the Blindness SLA an "Eldritch Essence" or an eldritch blast attack.

Having an effect that procs blindness randomly while throwing Eldritch Blasts is not really the effect we are looking for in this particular tree. Not only does it take away tactical decision making in favor of random procs, but it is also less useful for Souleater multi-classes that want to use weapons.

Sev~

[edrein]

Having an effect that procs blindness randomly while throwing Eldritch Blasts is not really the effect we are looking for in this particular tree. Not only does it take away tactical decision making in favor of random procs, but it is also less useful for Souleater multi-classes that want to use weapons.

Sev~

How about you make blindness on EB as a part of the capstone for Enlightened Spirit then? That's certainly a powerful level 20 ability that would help a melee ranged warlock greatly in combination with blur effects.

[BananaHat]

4) Steal life force: i dont think the healing needs to be equal with the damage done, 25-30% of that is plenty to stay alive (for a mostly ranged guy anyway) with little investment, or is this an melee range clicky?


So....
9d6, assuming DDO weighted die of 1d3+3 is 45. 31.5 for unweighted.
Toss in a positive spellpower of say... 300, which I think would be decent for a Warlock who tries, makes this 180 weighted, 126 unweighted.
You probably get double that from healing amp with realistic effort, so call it 360 weighted, 252 unweighted.

Is this decent? Yeah, it is worth using. Assuming the cooldown stays at 20 seconds, I think this is reasonable considering you need to hit a mob to heal with it. A lot of abilities (Heal, reconstruct, negative energy burst, maybe cure or repair crit) achieve these numbers with a much smaller cooldown. The reconstruct is available to anyone with bladeforged.

So please explain why 90/63 healing every 20 seconds is plenty to stay alive at hitting epics/end game. That is worse than chugging potions.

[Janitorman]

Souleater
Your pact makes you an extension of your patron's hunger. You body and mind become more inhuman, and your ability to consume the souls and life force of your enemies also feeds your patrons. Your attacks erode the life essence of your targets.

Devour the Soul: Passive: +4 Charisma. Active: Necromantic Spell. You consume the soul of your targeted enemy, killing them instantly unless they make a Will saving throw with a DC of 18 + Warlock level + Charisma bonus. This ability works on undead, but not constructs and other creatures with no lifeforce. Some bosses may be immune. If the target survives then it loses 20 PRR and MRR for 6 seconds. Cooldown: 15 seconds.
[/LIST]



Sev~

Just want some clarification on the Some bosses part... meaning some bosses (red or purple named) can now be instakilled with a failed will save?

[dunklezhan]

How about you make blindness on EB as a part of the capstone for Enlightened Spirit then? That's certainly a powerful level 20 ability that would help a melee ranged warlock greatly in combination with blur effects.

It sounds hilarious and fun - but will it be worth it at that point without much by way of spell pen? I suppose with enough past lives and the feats it would work pretty nicely but what about a 1st lifer? I dont' mean in EE particularly, I'm just thinking Level 20+ in general.

[Seikojin]

Crazy idea: Make the Blindness SLA an "Eldritch Essence" or an eldritch blast attack.

Or use a celestia while being a warlock. :)

[Severlin]

Just want some clarification on the Some bosses part... meaning some bosses (red or purple named) can now be instakilled with a failed will save?

It works like all other Death type effects where some creatures are immune.

Sev~

[LordTigerDawn]

Dark Feeding: (2 AP) Multi-selector: Choose a magical attack with a cooldown of 16 seconds. Enemies can negate the ability score damage (but not your ability score gain) with a Will saving throw: DC of 14 + Character Level + Charisma Modifier. These effects do not stack with themselves.

Your Flesh is Weak: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Strength damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Strength for 20 seconds.
You Cannot Evade Me: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Dexterity damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Dexterity for 20 seconds.
Your Will is Mine: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Wisdom damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Wisdom for 20 seconds.
Food For Thought: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Intelligence damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Intelligence for 20 seconds.
Blood Feast: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Constitution damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Constitution for 20 seconds.

**********

I have a concern with this:
I remember a while ago, there was a serious lag concern with abilities that would turn off and force the recalculation of skills based on certain stats. I believe this was change to only update the relevant skills on a time period 15 sec or a minute etc. Something anyways...

This changing a primary stat every 20 secs then reapplying it might create a large lag issue especially at the end time, which will be every 20 secs. Making this ability very unplayable.

I would suggest changing this to be something like Shadow Dodge in Rogue, that gives a profane bonus to a stat (very unique, and very warlock) with some other minor tweek (perma: see invis for instance, or maybe perma something depending on stat chosen (focusing chant, remove fear, detect secret doors,rage (as spell),jump, longstrider,pass without a trace etc.).

This will avoid the skill recalculate and any other timing associated issues with increasing and decreasing a stat every 20 seconds. Something that is really just better off avoided.

*****

Did you ever notice how many lvl 1-2 spells that are barely used, but would be used all the time if they were a perma toggle of some sort??

[Failedlegend]

Having an effect that procs blindness randomly while throwing Eldritch Blasts is not really the effect we are looking for in this particular tree. Not only does it take away tactical decision making in favor of random procs, but it is also less useful for Souleater multi-classes that want to use weapons.

Sev~


How about you make blindness on EB as a part of the capstone for Enlightened Spirit then? That's certainly a powerful level 20 ability that would help a melee ranged warlock greatly in combination with blur effects.

ummm....aside from switching it to Enlightened Spirit that still causes the same issue Sev mentioned and I agree with him, randomly proccing blindness would be annoying.

[HastyPudding]

ummm....aside from switching it to Enlightened Spirit that still causes the same issue Sev mentioned and I agree with him, randomly proccing blindness would be annoying.

100% agreed. Blindness is a spell best used on troublesome mobs like champion fighters/barbarians or hard-hitting backstabbers like the ones in detour/high road. A nonstop aoe chance of blindness would be beyond infuriating for most melee classes.

[HatsuharuZ]

100% agreed. Blindness is a spell best used on troublesome mobs like champion fighters/barbarians or hard-hitting backstabbers like the ones in detour/high road. A nonstop aoe chance of blindness would be beyond infuriating for most melee classes.

Oh, that makes sense. Crazy suggestion retracted.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

I have a concern with this:
I remember a while ago, there was a serious lag concern with abilities that would turn off and force the recalculation of skills based on certain stats. I believe this was change to only update the relevant skills on a time period 15 sec or a minute etc. Something anyways...

This changing a primary stat every 20 secs then reapplying it might create a large lag issue especially at the end time, which will be every 20 secs. Making this ability very unplayable.

AFAIK, this has to do with CHA and, specifically, UMD (IIRC, it had something to do with recalculating whether or not you could use *every* restricted item in your backpack). Note the one stat that *can't* be affected by this *g*

(This is why Fatesinger's Glitter of Fame was changed to give CHA permanently - A Fatesinger would take enough damage to get below 10% and then lag while everything UMD'able recalculated and be unable to heal up. (The CON part was added when it was pointed out that "Hey, you just got knocked down to 10% damage, and now are maybe taking another 28 HP hit because you lost a point of CON..."))

[Lonnbeimnech]

If you want to randomly proc blindness go fey pact (it still does sonic damage, right?) and wear the nightsinger's mantle

[dlsidhe]

...after thinking about it (and inspecting the tree more), this is a nice tree. My initial suggestions would have been really OP, especially with the projected rate of fire on eldritch blasts..

That said, things I like, and how they can be improved.


I like the +1 melee/ranged damage per core, but with Charisma being the focus stat a bonus to hit would also be nice. As stated by someone else, +1 Profane bonus to enhancement value for weapons would add spellpower and melee effectiveness.
Consume is a sweet DoT - if I'm adding it up correctly, you can end up with 12d10 of raw damage, increased by spellpower, every 3 seconds, plus it adding debuffs.
Similarly, Stricken comes out to 18d6 of bane damage with crazy debuffs. Sweet.
Flavor-wise, I feel like Consume should have a slight healing/temp HP buff for the caster. If you're magically eating your enemies, it should give you something back. Or, even better (and slightly crazy), the capstone could make Consume restore 6d6 SP every time an enemy dies while marked as consumed, tying into the Souleating AND the Warlock's infinite casting.
On a similar note, Stricken's debuffs should benefit the entire party - when the Stricken line is maxed out, a Stricken enemy should get a stack of vulnerable on damage, full-stop, not just when you damage the enemy personally.
I dig that the Souleater is becoming more inhuman as they get more powerful; I think it's missing out on an opportunity to bring Pact into play. Eldritch Seeker is cool, but multiselectoring it with Pact flavor? Even better. I'll detail those below.


Okay, Eldritch Seeker. +5% chance to crit with any spell or your EB. That's awesome. That's like a +1 to crit range for melee. Melee characters get this and other bonuses in one enhancement, frequently (Swashbuckling, Knife Master, etc.). So, add a selector, just as an example. Nothing OP, just drawing on lore a bit and looking at other enhancement trees:

Fey Pact - Good Neighbor: Some neighbors bring cookies to the party, some bring wine. You know that an archfey party starts with the souls of your screaming enemies. You gain immunity to sleep, exhaustion, dancing, and despair.

Fiend Pact - Black Butler: When the pit fiend demanded the souls of the condemned, you didn't ask questions. The witnesses only said that the butler did it. You gain +15 Resistance to Fire and Acid and +6 spell resistance.

Great Old Ones Pact - Enthralled Chef: When they come back, you'll be eaten first because you brought good appetizers. You gain immunity to confusion and blindness, and +4 to saves against stuns.

[Lanadazia]

this tree looks interessting, but i fear it will be not as efficient as the other 2 trees in heroic content, since most stuff dies before you can build up your dots.
i don't think its an issue tho, its just a little slower play-pattern then. the time you wait while your dots are ramping up makes this a good dps toon in EEs and raids, since you'll be able to get out your full potential there on high hp monsters/bosses

[nnocturne]

A very interesting tree. I'll definitely be creating a souleater. One small thing though: Inhuman assumes that the character is human. Perhaps unnatural, beastial or aberrant would be more appropriate?

[Rinnaldo]

- I would have liked to see the iconic 'Devour Magic' invocation warlocks get in PnP in this tree, maybe as a single target ranged magical attack. Warlock was pretty much the tops when it came to dispelling enemy buffs. Perhaps a 'renamed' mordenkainen's disjunction SLA in tier 4 or 5 with a balanced cooldown to match. If it works, you can maybe gain 20/30/40 temporary HP. It fits perfectly in the souleater's theme.

I really like this tree, and this suggestion, too. I never use dispels because they seem like a waste of time. HOWEVER, it would feel worthwhile of I were siphoning off buffs from npcs to give myself spell points. Or, even better, to TRANSFER a given buff from the npc to me. Now THAT would be a thematic Souleater power.

[Silverleafeon]

Souleater
Your pact makes you an extension of your patron's hunger. You body and mind become more inhuman, and your ability to consume the souls and life force of your enemies also feeds your patrons. Your attacks erode the life essence of your targets.

First read thru, pardon typing, having to partly hunt and peck.
Nice theme, balances out the light theme with darkness.

https://www.ddo.com/sites/default/files/Warlock%20-%20Souleater%20Tree.jpg

ty for the picture

Core Abilities



Inhuman Deadliness: You gain +1 damage with melee and ranged attacks and +5 Universal Spell Power for each core ability you take in this tree.
Inhuman Nature: You gain +25% Fortification and +4 Saving Throws versus Poison and Disease.
No Worse Fate: You gain immunity to Fear. Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks also give the target the Shaken effect. Although this ability has no saving throw it can only occur once every second.
Inhuman Nature: You gain +25% Fortification and +4 Saving Throws versus Poison and Disease. Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 3d6. Your Greater Hunger on hit damage is increased by 1d6.
Eldritch Seeker: You gain +5% chance to critically hit with your spells and Eldritch Blast.
Devour the Soul: Passive: +4 Charisma. Active: Necromantic Spell. You consume the soul of your targeted enemy, killing them instantly unless they make a Will saving throw with a DC of 18 + Warlock level + Charisma bonus. This ability works on undead, but not constructs and other creatures with no lifeforce. Some bosses may be immune. If the target survives then it loses 20 PRR and MRR for 6 seconds. Cooldown: 15 seconds.


Spell power in cores yielding +30 is nice. compares well with typical gains.

+50 fort is very welcome, will make a difference sometimes, I know druid waterform +100 fort is extremely good at times

Immunity to fear is something I augment now a days on purpose, so its welcome.

Shaken is a nice debuff for DCs will include in the total goal of +4 DCs for a typical Warlock tree due to heighten only reaching lvl 6.

I like the scaling of your 3 free attacks.

+8 spell crit is huge, so +5 as core 18 is nice, maybe a bit light, but ill take it as acceptable.

+4 cha counts as +1 DC above normal
A few cooldown 15 sec instant kill for a capstone, i like alot.
I assume its zero sp cost, if not, please make it thus.
Not sure about the DC math, but since Sev posted it, ill assume you have already worked that out.
It looks decent.
Overall, great capstone.
Overall, good to great cores.


Tier One


Consume: (2 AP) Ranged magical attack. Your magics consume bits of your opponent's form, disintegrating bits of them for 1d10 untyped damage every 2 seconds for a duration of 16 seconds. The effect can stack up to 3 times. Consume damage is increased with Spellpower. Your enemy is also marked with the Consumed trait. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Subtle Spellcasting: (1/1/1 AP) Your attacks and spells generate 10%/20%/30% less hate than they normally would, making enemies less likely to attack you.
Taint the Blood: (2 AP) Your Eldritch Blast, Melee and Ranged attacks reduce the Fortitude saving throw of the target by -1. The effect stacks up to 4 times.
Daunting Presence: (1/1/1 AP) +1/+2/+3 Bluff, Haggle, and Diplomacy. Rank 3: +1 Will saves.
Hungry for Destruction: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +1/+2/+3 Melee Power and Ranged Power, and +2/+4/+6 Universal Spellpower.


I assume Consume is zero sp cost.
If not, please make it zero sp, and consider the feedback on this tree to be null and void if it will cost sp.
Looks interesting.

Subtle Spellcasting is always welcome.

Taint the blood provides an additional debuff working towards that +4 dc gap already mentioned.
It also helps party members.

Daunting presence is a typical tier 1 skill set. Not exciting but very acceptable.

Hungry for is a great dps boost for melee and spell casting I like.

Overall, excellent tier.
Consume looks good but needs to scale as we build in the tree.
Not sure if it will scale enough but zero sp cost is very attractive.



Tier Two


Stricken: (1/1/1 AP) Ranged magical attack. You cause 3d6/6d6/9d6 bane damage and reduce the Healing Amplification of the opponent by 40/80/120 for 12 seconds. The reduction is negated by a Fortitude saving throw with a DC of 10/14/18 + Warlock level + the higher or Intelligence or Charisma Modifier. The damage scales with Spellpower. Your enemy is also marked with the Strickened trait. Cooldown 10 seconds.
Taint the Aura: (2 AP) Against targets marked by your Consume attack: Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks reduce the Spell Resistance, PRR and MRR of the target by -2 for 10 seconds. The effect stacks up to 5 times.
Feeding Frenzy: (1 AP) When you use Consume on an enemy the feeding increases your movement speed by 1% per Warlock level for 20 seconds.
Consume Sight: (2 AP) SLA Blindness.
Hungry for Destruction: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +1/+2/+3 Melee Power and Ranged Power, and +2/+4/+6 Universal Spellpower.


Second I assume zero cost attack.
9d6 every 10 seconds seems quality to me.

Great themes going here with foe debuffs and marking foes with conditions; very warlock like imho

Taint is a great debuff for party members to works on the difficult Spell pen checks situations faced by non completionist toons.

Frenzy is great, movement boosts are always a big treat for players. ty

Another DPS boost for melee, ranged, and usp.

{It looks like you are rating Melee Power = 2X USP.
If so, then we can rate changes to Epic Power as +6 USP which is on the light side for me, as I rated it more like +10 USP; however I could accept a 2X at heroic levels easily. The rate of exchange for Epic levels might be 3X?}

Overall, nice tier.


Tier Three


Dark Feeding: (2 AP) Multi-selector: Choose a magical attack with a cooldown of 16 seconds. Enemies can negate the ability score damage (but not your ability score gain) with a Will saving throw: DC of 14 + Character Level + Charisma Modifier. These effects do not stack with themselves.

Your Flesh is Weak: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Strength damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Strength for 20 seconds.
You Cannot Evade Me: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Dexterity damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Dexterity for 20 seconds.
Your Will is Mine: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Wisdom damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Wisdom for 20 seconds.
Food For Thought: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Intelligence damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Intelligence for 20 seconds.
Blood Feast: Activate this ability to cause 1d8+2 Constitution damage to your opponent for 20 seconds. You gain an Insight bonus of 1d8+2 Constitution for 20 seconds.

Strickened Soul: (1 AP) Against targets marked by your Stricken attack: Your Eldritch Blast, Melee and Ranged attacks reduce the target's Melee Power, Ranged Power and Spellpower by 10 + 1/2 Warlock level for 10 seconds.
Eldritch Projection: (2 AP) Toggle. Your Eldritch Blast now acts as a cone attack, but has Standard Cone AoE range.
SLA: Burning Blood. (1 AP) Cooldown 10 seconds.
Charisma/Intelligence (2 AP)


Very interesting, an ability score drain along with a very welcome ability score boost. Duration exceeds cooldown and it looks very warlock and very interesting. Definately something different.

More foe debuffs which is very warlock.
I assume that epic foes will not recover these debuffs super quick.
If they do, then consider that you are simply wasting my and your time with this tree.

Love the cone attack.

I assume burning blood is zero sp cost.
Its a great warlock type sla. I assume one can apply metamagics to it for free.

Cha or Int seems good for this tree.
I have not seen a conversion for EB to Int anywhere, have you considered thus?
Otherwise, Int options seem mostly pointed at Warlock 2~7ish levels with Wizard 18~13?
Options are good anyway.


Tier Four


Greater Hunger: (2 AP) Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 3d6. Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks do 2d6 untyped damage when striking an opponent marked by your Consume attack.
Strickened Form: (2 AP) Against targets marked by your Stricken attack: Your melee, ranged and Eldritch Blast attacks cause 1 Vulnerability for 10 seconds. (Vulnerability: You take 1% more damage for 3 seconds. This effect stacks up to 20 times, and loses one stack on expiration.)
Steal Lifeforce: (1/1/1 AP) Multiselector:

Activated Attack: You cause 3d6/6d6/9d6 damage to your target and heal with positive energy for the same amount. This damage and healing scales with Spellpower. Cooldown 20 seconds.
Activated Attack: You cause 3d6/6d6/9d6 damage to your target and heal with negative energy the same amount. This damage and healing scales with Spellpower. Cooldown 20 seconds.


Immortal Will: +1 to the DC of Enchantment, Illusion and Necromancy spells.
Charisma/Intelligence


Great hunger looks good with continued scalling of consume.
Great theme and thoughts in the tree.
Will be interested to see how it works on the battlefield.

Striken Form looks good.
Is there is limit (per second) on vunerability?
Since it maxs at 20, I don't a problem with no limit.
Nice debuff and very warlock.

I love the steal lifeforce, brings theme forward and provides much needed self healing.
20 seconds is good enough for support without being overpowered.
Cocoon and potions can fill in.
If needed Exalted Angel / Unyielding / Crusader can provide additional self healing as desired.
Also Bladeforged will do their reconstruct SLA.

Oh, a tier 4 +1 DC.
Ok that is 2 of 4 DC boosts desired, plus multiple debuff options.
Proofreading, and the ability bonus provided by Darkfeeding should more than take care of the DC gaps. Well done.

Overall, nice tier, I like it.
Need to see it on the battlefield, but its a nice theme.



Tier Five


Supreme Hunger: (2 AP) Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 3d6. Your Greater Hunger on hit damage is increased by 1d6.
Eldritch Wave: (2 AP) Activated Attack. Your create a cone of eldritch energy that strikes all opponents in the area with three consecutive Eldritch Blasts. Cooldown 8 seconds.
Feed on Magic: (2 AP) When you strike an opponent with your melee attacks, ranged attacks or Eldritch Blast there is a chance equal to half Warlock level for you to gain 30 temporary spell points. This can occur no more than once per 6 seconds.
Spell Tearing: (2 AP) You gain +3% chance to critically hit with your spells and Eldritch Blast.
SLA: Finger of Death. (2 AP) Cooldown 15 seconds



Tier 5 which should be uber.

I like the increasing scaling of you free attacks.

Eldritch Wave looks very good with a low cooldown. Five stars for it.

Feed on magic is a great tier 5. Does this include levels added by epic destinies?

Ok, here is the other 3% crit bonus. Nicely done.

I assume the finger of death is zero sp cost.
I assume the finger of death sla will not place the finger of death spell on cooldown.
And if so, I like thus.

I am a bit surprised to not see another +1 DC, however previous debuffs mentioned will imho make up for the 2 DC gap we have present here and possibly exceed it (except maybe for red/purple named). I do like moving the +1 DC to tier 4 leaving it open for other trees.

Note the Souleater is not planned for the first Lamannia release. Players will likely see it in action for the second Lamannia release.

np

Sev~

Overall, I like this alot, very warlock and seem to theme well.
Obviously the issues with EB are critical.


I highly recommend changing Epic Power to add:
+10 universal Spell power
+15% spell crit damage

I also recommend putting all ED inates on review for 0~5 universal spell power.
This can be considered a balancing function.

This will allow you to better scale the epic design problems.

If you feel this is too strong, then how about trying:

Epic Power additions
+6 universal Spell power
+10% spell crit damage

Epic Destiny Innates:
+2 universal Spell Power
+2% spell crit damage.

I do feel this is more important and much easier to do than the mention Epic Dot.
Although I will welcome an Epic Dot.


Also, I would like to recommend:

Epic Empower add +75 spell power, there is no sp cost.
Anti requisite Empower min level 24

Epic Maximize add +150 spell power, there is no sp cost.
Anti requisite Maximize min level 27

Epic Combat Casting your spells cannot be interrupted
requirement mobile spellcasting min level 30

Obviously, if you went this route, spellcaster would be ok with the second more moderate epic power addition,
and you would have much more variety of spell casting along with less SLA problems.

If free sp is considered too powerful, perhaps consider greatly reduced sp costs such as

Epic Empower add +75 spell power, there is 5 sp cost.
Anti requisite Empower min level 21

Epic Maximize add +150 spell power, there is 10 sp cost.
Anti requisite Maximize min level 24

Please realize that so many spell casting options simply dissapear due to HUGE hit point increases, thereby making metamagic use in epics impossible, thereby reducing spellcasting DPS in epics.

Another alternative is:
Epic Metamagics: the total sp cost of your metamatics is reduced by X% {half?} before {after?} applying other modifiers.
requirement have taken a metamagic feat min level 24~27

Obviously, I am trying to provide various solutions for you to pick and choose from, also to evolve as you please.

Thanks for reading.

Keep up the good work, and I am overall very pleased with Warlock and the current 2015 plans.

[Drathsiddh]

I'm not seeing how this tree works. It seems a little odd that Consume and Stricken are Ranged magical attacks. As it is Warlocks get almost no outright damage dealing spells, and added to that, you give the tree which is supposed to support their spell-casting ability Ranged Magical attacks, which can't be Meta'd, how exactly ARE they supposed to deal damage if the bulk of the points are in this tree? Change Consume and Stricken to SLAs please.

[HastyPudding]

I'm not seeing how this tree works. It seems a little odd that Consume and Stricken are Ranged magical attacks. As it is Warlocks get almost no outright damage dealing spells, and added to that, you give the tree which is supposed to support their spell-casting ability Ranged Magical attacks, which can't be Meta'd, how exactly ARE they supposed to deal damage if the bulk of the points are in this tree? Change Consume and Stricken to SLAs please.

Consume and Stricken aren't supposed to be high damage abilities. They're debuffs. If they killed enemies too quickly the debuff and their added effects would be pointless. They're really meant for orange/red/purple names, anyway (so say the devs). I can see them becoming very useful in high level EH and any EE quest where bosses can sometimes be problematic.

[Drathsiddh]

Consume and Stricken aren't supposed to be high damage abilities. They're debuffs. If they killed enemies too quickly the debuff and their added effects would be pointless. They're really meant for orange/red/purple names, anyway (so say the devs). I can see them becoming very useful in high level EH and any EE quest where bosses can sometimes be problematic.

So how is a Soul Eater supposed to deal damage via spells? The way I understand these trees is Enlightend Spirit: Melee, Tainted Scholar: EB, Soul Eater:Spells. But looking at the tree, it looks like Soul Eater doesn't deal much damage in anyway. They don't get any direct damage dealing SLAs or even spells for that matter. Yeah, they can use insta-kills in the higher levels, if they can land it (hmm.... I don't recall any spell-pen in these trees). So Devs: when are the new spells (if any) coming out? If not change the Lock spell list and add a few damage dealing spells, (Neg Eng Ray at lvl 3?) but don't go crazy on it. Keep things in perspective. Spells like burning hands are no-goes.

[HastyPudding]

So how is a Soul Eater supposed to deal damage via spells? The way I understand these trees is Enlightend Spirit: Melee, Tainted Scholar: EB, Soul Eater:Spells. But looking at the tree, it looks like Soul Eater doesn't deal much damage in anyway. They don't get any direct damage dealing SLAs or even spells for that matter. Yeah, they can use insta-kills in the higher levels, if they can land it (hmm.... I don't recall any spell-pen in these trees). So Devs: when are the new spells (if any) coming out? If not change the Lock spell list and add a few damage dealing spells, (Neg Eng Ray at lvl 3?) but don't go crazy on it. Keep things in perspective. Spells like burning hands are no-goes.

Souleater isn't a spell damage tree. Think of souleater as the more traditional warlock role you'll find in most games; debuffing, damage over time, and death effects, it's why they have 2 hard debuffs, vulnerability on attacks, a spell resistance debuff, stat and HP stealing, blindness and finger SLA's, and things like that. Tainted scholar has all the eldritch blast effects, extra spells, crowd control, and the most direct damage abilities (souleater has a couple, but not as much as the scholar). Both souleater and scholar share the magical aspect of warlocks, but scholar is more about spells and damage and souleater is more about debuffing. Scholar is more damage-friendly and souleater is more party-friendly. If you want a damage-dealer, go with the scholar, and if you want somebody that can weaken red named bosses and heavily debuffing anything they look at, go with the souleater.

[Requiro]

As general note: We wait for Lamannia. The main problem is that we don’t know speed of Eldritch Blast. Overall this tree is nice and cheap. So there is no much to improve or change before Lamannia.

Some suggestions

Core abilities:

Level 1 – 5 USP per Core and Multi-selector: +1 dmg melee + ranged per Core ability OR +1% critical chance for Eldritch Blast per Core ability (stacks with Eldritch Seeker and Spell Tearing) – This is option for Warlocks that want stay Pure, and don’t want use any kind of weapon, but Eldritch Blast.

Tier 1 abilities
Hungry for Destruction – Multi-selector: +1/2/3 Melee + Ranged Power and 2/4/6 USP OR 3/6/9 USP

Tier 2 abilities
Hungry for Destruction – Multi-selector: +1/2/3 Melee + Ranged Power and 2/4/6 USP OR 3/6/9 USP

Tier 5 abilities
Feed on Magic – Add, that when Echoes of Power is active, chance to gain 30 temporally SP is flat 50% (more thematic minor improvement)

The main reason for Core 1 and Hungry for Destruction changes is for players who want play with Eldritch Blast ONLY. For them ranged or melee improvements is useless. And +6% critical from Core 1 changes (for Pure Souleaters Warlocks only) is almost like Improve Critical Feat for normal x20 weapon. I don't see this OP, even with other source of Critical Spell.

[Failedlegend]

ranged or melee improvements are useless for people who only want to play with EB

I'd argue that unless the devs add a "ranged EB shape" similar to Enlightened Spirits "Melee Aura" the ranged improvements are 100% useless, if you rolling a Warlock your going to use EB it's a HUGE part of the classes power I don't see why you would ever turn it off unless your healing the enemies in which case your picking anyways.

That said users of the "Melee Aura" will probably either dip heavily into Soul Eater or main Soul Eater and dip into Enlightened Spirit for the aura so the melee boosts aren't a waste..although I'm surprised their in this tree instead of enlightened spirit...if I could control this id shift the melee boosts to ES and add an aoe EB centered around whoever you hitting by "shaping" your EB around your projectile every X seconds or X shots/throws/volleys.

[Requiro]

I'd argue that unless the devs add a "ranged EB shape" similar to Enlightened Spirits "Melee Aura" the ranged improvements are 100% useless, if you rolling a Warlock your going to use EB it's a HUGE part of the classes power I don't see why you would ever turn it off unless your healing the enemies in which case your picking anyways.

That said users of the "Melee Aura" will probably either dip heavily into Soul Eater or main Soul Eater and dip into Enlightened Spirit for the aura so the melee boosts aren't a waste..although I'm surprised there in this tree instead of soul eater.

I think that you don't understand me (I’m not English native speaker).
I suggest that changes because Eldritch Blast damage is scale only with Spellpower (not ranged or melee power), thus for Warlocks who use only Eldritch Blast as main DPS, abilities that improve melee or ranged are useless.
Of course for Warlocks that want use Eldritch Aura from Enlightened Spirit tree, abilities that improve melee or ranged ARE useful, because they can use weapons AND Eldritch Aura simultaneously.

That’s why I suggest option (Multi-selector) to choice something useful for any Warlock. Because right now, main benefit from Souleater are users of Eldritch Aura from Enlightened Spirit tree.

[Failedlegend]

I think that you don't understand me (I’m not English native speaker).
I suggest that changes because Eldritch Blast damage is scale only with Spellpower (not ranged or melee power), thus for Warlocks who use only Eldritch Blast as main DPS, abilities that improve melee or ranged are useless.
Of course for Warlocks that want use Eldritch Aura from Enlightened Spirit tree, abilities that improve melee or ranged ARE useful, because they can use weapons AND Eldritch Aura simultaneously.

That’s why I suggest option (Multi-selector) to choice something useful for any Warlock. Because right now, main benefit from Souleater are users of Eldritch Aura from Enlightened Spirit tree.

Unless the aura is at least as big as PBS (and gets bigger with PBS boosts) Its not useful at all to ranged Warlocks.

IOW were agreeing melee boosts are only useful to enlightened spirit locks and ranged boosts are entirely useless...where we differ is that I think soul eater should gain a EB aura that works with ranged weapons.