Warlock Enhancements: Tainted Scholar

[losian2]

I've updated the main post with our current thinking based on feedback, some testing, filling in unnamed costs that weren't listed before, etc.

Changes:

• Stanch gives 33% of max health and dings you for -3% max HP
• Unholy Blast changed to Poison damage (name change TBD)
• Penetrating Blast: Changed to Pierce instead of untyped.
• Updated tentative Depravity costs for Confusion, Mass Confusion, Eldritch Ball.

I think *some* ability or portion of damage being untyped would be especially cool, to be honest. There's something interesting about an ability just doing no-type damage.

[John_Rove]

What does poison damage scale with? Potency items only? Aren't you guaranteed to be around -50 spellpower from gear at cap using poison compared to force? And -10% crit chance?

Poison Damage is considered in the same area as Physical/Untyped Damage. Therefore, it is boosted by Force Spellpower.

[John_Rove]

So is magical piercing damage still subject to piercing DR? Also what boosts magical physical damage? Actually what spellpower boosts poison damage?

Honestly Warlocks have to deal with ALOT of damage types, which is on one hand FANTASTIC as it makes them incredibly versatile but at the same time it means their limited to Universal Spellpower (especially since thats what their caster tree grants) which not only has far less sources item wise (and is always behind the same at level of specific elements), it also doesn't have a skill backing it up.

Magical Pierce Damage is not Subject to Any DR (except Druid Splinterbolt Spell), is boosted by Force Spell Power (as is poison) and therefore also by Spellcraft.

[HastyPudding]

Poison Damage is considered in the same area as Physical/Untyped Damage. Therefore, it is boosted by Force Spellpower.

Magical Pierce Damage is not Subject to Any DR (except Druid Splinterbolt Spell), is boosted by Force Spell Power (as is poison) and therefore also by Spellcraft.

Where do you get this information from? As far as I can tell, we've never had an actual poison 'damage' spell or magic attack to base off of any spellpower. If anything, it's probably based off of plain universal/potency, like some of the other abilities in the warlock trees.

[Ambitious]

My two cents:

I've updated the main post with our current thinking based on feedback, some testing, filling in unnamed costs that weren't listed before, etc.

Changes:

• Stanch gives 33% of max health and dings you for -3% max HP
  While Souleater and Enlightened Spirit have means to actually heal themselves, Tainted Scholars have only this ability. And pls don't say Healscroll and Cocoon, because that is no way to heal in EE, when you have mobs chasing you. So pls make Stanch meaningful.
  I see the problem with the initial design, when someone just splashes in a few lvl of warlock, and has a huge hp pool. But if you are a pure lock, even with all hp giving pastlifes and full endgame gear, you are unlikely to get much more than 1k hp at lvl 28. The avarage guy will be probably more around 600-800hp. So I would strongly recommend to add the actual warlock classlevels into the equation. Something like classlevel*4*maxhp/100. So a lvl 20 lock can get up to 80%, and the FOTM build with only 3 levels of lock would get 12%, which is still alot, if you are a barb or pala/fighter in defensive stance. Make the cost of this 2% and I think it should balance out.
• Unholy Blast changed to Poison damage (name change TBD)
  As someone already pointed out, the mobs that are immune to force, are immune to poison as well. This makes that shape without any use.
• Penetrating Blast: Changed to Pierce instead of untyped.
  This change confused alot of people here. Why was it made? Is there a benefit for the players, that it is now magical piercing damage? To me, it reads more like it is less effective and might be resisted by damage reduction buffs of mobs (necromancers and drow priestesses for example).
• Updated tentative Depravity costs for Confusion, Mass Confusion, Eldritch Ball.
  At first glimpse I think the costs might be a bit high, considering how slowly you gain stacks. But I will come back and report, once the locks are on Lamannia.

[John_Rove]

Where do you get this information from? As far as I can tell, we've never had an actual poison 'damage' spell or magic attack to base off of any spellpower. If anything, it's probably based off of plain universal/potency, like some of the other abilities in the warlock trees.

Creeping Doom From Druid and Insidious spores from Primal Avatar both deal poison damage.

[FestusHood]

There aren't many things that resist force damage, but you should make sure that those things don't also resist the available alternatives.

[PermaBanned]

Stanch gives 33% of max health and dings you for -3% max HP

From potentially too much, to not enough. Also, not generally a fan of cocain effects where the more you use them, the more you need to use them; and with every use the consequences increase while the benefits decrease. On the plus side: this change frees up a spot on the hot bar.

Unholy Blast changed to Poison damage (name change TBD)

Doesn't this change increase the number of mobs resistant/immune to our damage dealt? And specifically, what Spellpower & Skill (ie Spellcraft?) effect Poison damage?

Penetrating Blast: Changed to Pierce instead of untyped.

I'd love to know what feedback/testing led to this change, and what the design goal/intention/benefit is of doing away with Untyped.

Updated tentative Depravity costs for Confusion, Mass Confusion, Eldritch Ball.

Will have to just see how this plays out with generating vs using Depravity.

[btolson]

Poison Damage is considered in the same area as Physical/Untyped Damage. Therefore, it is boosted by Force Spellpower.

After doing some bit of testing on my L16 druid, I don't think Creeping Doom is affected by any kind of spellpower except Metamagic.

First I tested its damage naked, mostly seeing numbers in the 50's-70's range (max 83).

Then I tested it with empower on (so +75 spell power compared to naked), mostly seeing numbers in the 80's-90's (max 112).

Then I tested it with empower off, and using a +4 impulse +78 item (so +90 total impulse power compared to naked), again mostly seeing numbers in the 50's-70's range (max 88). Very sure it does not scale with impulse/force.

Then I tested it with empower off, and using a +4 potency +48 item (so +60 total universal power compared to naked), still seeing numbers mostly in the 50's-70's range (max 86). Feel pretty certain it does not scale with potency either.


I also noted infrequent crits with the spell (presumably off the 5% from magical training), but always for the same damage as non-crits. Either the victim made its save every time I critted, or this spell has +0% crit damage instead of +100%.


In any event, if Unholy Blast/TBD works the same as Creeping Doom, then it won't be affected by much and may not be able to crit for extra damage.


EDIT: ah, I'm not the only one that's noticed this https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...eeping-Doom?s=

[CelticTrojan]

Hi Vargouille,
Many thanks for this preview and feedback opportunity. I really like the ways you have decided to implement Warlock. Definitely a future purchase for me.
Having said that I do have some concerns with the recent changes you made :

I've updated the main post with our current thinking based on feedback, some testing, filling in unnamed costs that weren't listed before, etc.

Changes:

Stanch gives 33% of max health and dings you for -3% max HP
Unholy Blast changed to Poison damage (name change TBD)
Penetrating Blast: Changed to Pierce instead of untyped.

Unholy Blast (name pending) changing to Poison and Penetrating Blast to pierce.

I know you have a definite aim in mind for all aspects of this tree, however in this case I am not able to see what you intend.
As the blast is normally Force, you can get a spellpower improvement of nearly 400% for the base damage according to a build elsewhere.
By changing to Poison which does not have a specific boost (that I am aware), you are back to universal spell power which is about a third less ?
Why would someone wish to change from force which is usable on most mobs to poison which constructs and undead ignore and reduced damage?
What am I missing here? aside from some multiclass build with assassin I don't see a reason to use it.

Now if it was Bane damage this would be useful as it would allow the blast to affect the few mobs force does not , and the decrease in overall damage is an
acceptable trade off for this ability. And you could still keep the original name.

Likewise with Pierce, I see you stated later that it was Magical Pierce like the Magical Slashing from blade barrier. Does this mean that like untyped in
BB Force spellpower will boost it? If so then damage wise it will at least be the same, however I see no reason to do Pierce damage? Rakshasas perhaps? (or similar)
Maybe if you added to this that the Magical Piercing blast also reduced mob Spell Resistance that would be appropriate and would also be a very thematic way to
give needed spell penetration to the class for its other spells? Just a thought.

On a final note, what will the range of the blast be? Is it extended? Or can it be extended? The increased range blast (Spear?) was always my first one in PnP and very useful for open area's.
I would hope that this version would be similarly useful and not something I put away and use a bow instead.

Your respectfully,

CelticTrojan

[Silverleafeon]

At best, this is an argument for us delaying sharing designs with the public. We change the numbers all the time. Enhancement abilities and other Warlock numbers have changed dozens of times before we posted them live to you guys, and usually before it even makes it to the Council, because we find all kinds of wrong things on our own. 5 becomes 10 or Will becomes Reflex or Fortification becomes PRR; often the abilities are very similar looking overall but the details need to honed in. That iteration doesn't stop just because you guys have seen them. The process continues, only hopefully it's faster because there are many players looking at things. We want the best shot at every opportunity. The only reason iteration dramatically slows eventually is because a feature is actually on live and players have made characters with those features, and we actually don't like to mess with existing characters.

We are human, and make mistakes, and sometimes they are obvious mistakes. Negative Energy was a terrible, awful idea (of mine), and was one of the abilities that came in very late to the design, replacing another (worse) enhancement. In some ideal, time-filled world we'd have more time to vet these before showing them to you. Yet nearly all feedback from players has been "show sooner, you can fix it after that". This is the route we've taken right now.

Stop communicating and you will really hear an uproar...imho...keep up the current perspective!

Ever watched an animator work?
Know you are in good company, nuff said.



Are these drawings finished?
No, they are work in progress.
Artist do thus all the time, refining as they go.
Yet no one question their value.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Stop communicating and you will really hear an uproar...imho...keep up the current perspective!

Ever watched an animator work?
Know you are in good company, nuff said.

[img]

Are these drawings finished?
No, they are work in progress.
Artist do thus all the time, refining as they go.
Yet no one question their value.

Well Spoken Silverleafeon.

One suggestion for future - maybe post these in Lamannia forums?

[Angelic-council]

I like the design.. but, I'm little bit disappointed. I understand that turbine has limited time and limited resources. Most of the things are can't be changed. Only minor changes.. I understand. But.. deep down inside my heart.. I was really, really hoping that tainted scholar could use "Forbidden spell". Sort of like... an AoE eldritch tempest move, which based on a will save. Wide AoE stun for a very short time, yet, giving you the opportunity to escape from the critical situation.

SLA: Release arcana (Core 5): forbidden art of sealing. It was mainly used by arcane gods, sealing their most hated enemies for the eternity. But.. this art was long lost and nearly forgotten. Nobody has ever seen its true potential. This ability requires intensive focus (you have to build dep).
- effect: Caster centered wide AoE stun: DC 12 + caster level + charisma modifier or stunned for 2 - 3 seconds (will save negate the effect). Deal half of your eldritch blast damage to all enemies. 2 minutes CD.

[Ambitious]

Stanch gives 33% of max health and dings you for -3% max HP
While Souleater and Enlightened Spirit have means to actually heal themselves, Tainted Scholars have only this ability. And pls don't say Healscroll and Cocoon, because that is no way to heal in EE, when you have mobs chasing you. So pls make Stanch meaningful.
I see the problem with the initial design, when someone just splashes in a few lvl of warlock, and has a huge hp pool. But if you are a pure lock, even with all hp giving pastlifes and full endgame gear, you are unlikely to get much more than 1k hp at lvl 28. The avarage guy will be probably more around 600-800hp. So I would strongly recommend to add the actual warlock classlevels into the equation. Something like classlevel*4*maxhp/100. So a lvl 20 lock can get up to 80%, and the FOTM build with only 3 levels of lock would get 12%, which is still alot, if you are a barb or pala/fighter in defensive stance. Make the cost of this 2% and I think it should balance out.

I got another/additional idea for stanch:

I am not a huge fan of increased debuffs for using an ability. As PermaBanned put it nicely: cocaine effects. Since the duration for the temporary hitpoints is 1 minute, make the cooldown of this ability 1 minute as well. Make the penalty 10%-20%, that lasts only as long as the cooldown of this ability. So they have the means for an 'emergency heal', but have to be really careful for one minute.

[GeoffWatson]

What does poison damage scale with? Potency items only? Aren't you guaranteed to be around -50 spellpower from gear at cap using poison compared to force? And -10% crit chance?

Nothing.
Poison spell damage is bugged and doesn't scale with anything, not even potency (as potency is implemented as each of the other spell powers.)

Geoff.

[Lanadazia]

Negative Energy was a terrible choice. Yet nearly all feedback from players has been "show sooner, you can fix it after that". This is the route we've taken right now.

well, fluff-wise i think fluff-wise it'd be a good choice, but with friendly-undead-healing in the way it seems a little odd. like this isn't intended to be a healing skill, but an offensive one, right?
i think it would be good if we had options to chose from, what kind of damage the blast will become, or make this a toggle-thing, that you can switch different damage types on and off

also i really appreciate this early state of construction release. i love seeing content evolving, reading different opinions and be able to take part in the process.
this is something pretty much no game allows its community and i think its awesome and connects the people to the game really well

There aren't many things that resist force damage, but you should make sure that those things don't also resist the available alternatives.

hence a toggle-thing would be cool, so you may switch between damage-types.
i think its ok if mobs have resistances vs your blast. untyped damage is pretty strong and i think this type of damage should be available only in some exclusive spells/builds etc.
the question is, if its a good idea to 'upgrade' from force to something else since force is a damage type itself, that is hardly resisted.

are there actual poison damage immunities/resistances? undead maybe or constructs?
if so i think this order is, how one should prefer their damage types:

untyped > force > poison

[FuryFlash]

Negative Energy was a terrible choice. Half the questions about it involved asking if it healed friendly undead. That was not intended and almost certainly wouldn't have worked (without remaking everything that had been started and changing the designs around it), so it would have been incredibly confusing with little benefit.

Precisely the opposite, which is why it needed to change. No actual testing needed to be involved once it was pointed out. That would also be a wildly different ability than what was intended, and this is exactly the right time to fix errors like that.

Although I am sad to hear that this ability will no longer be negative energy, if it wasn't going to heal undead anyway, it doesn't matter. In terms of this current plan for poison damage, why poison? I would personally always use force over poison. Will this come with an additional effect? Since it becomes obsolete at tier 4 when you get Penetrating Blast, why even have it in there at all? I mean, I understood the negative energy when I thought it would heal undead, because that gave it cool multiclass potential. But now, it becomes an unnecessary requirement for an ability that almost everyone wants.

Maybe this ability should just be changed to something completely new and different than the other Eldritch Essences? Maybe something along the lines of Faltering Blast for more crowd control? I only say this because I don't understand the current use of this ability. Maybe I am missing something? Thanks in advance.

[HatsuharuZ]

It occurs to me that the few enemies who resist Force damage are all constructs of some kind. So, how about a toggle that turns EB damage into the same damage type as "Deconstruct" and similar spells?

On another note, I'm a bit concerned about how "Depravity" is going to be displayed. The buff bar on the top of the screen tends to be a bit crowded, and the buff icons like to move around. Please make it so that "Depravity" is displayed as a counter on the hotbar abilities that require "Depravity" to function, if you haven't already.

[Artagon]

On another note, I'm a bit concerned about how "Depravity" is going to be displayed. The buff bar on the top of the screen tends to be a bit crowded, and the buff icons like to move around. Please make it so that "Depravity" is displayed as a counter on the hotbar abilities that require "Depravity" to function, if you haven't already.

Good feedback. I second this request.

As for different damage types than Poison, what about an alignment type, similar to the alignment spells that clerics get? Perhaps make it a multi-selector that allows choice between chaotic or Lawful based upon your alignment (neutral could pick either)? I can't think of too many creatures that are specifically vulnerable to these damage types (unlike good/light), so those might be strong contenders.

[Grace_ana]

I, too, am not understanding the logic behind changing penetrating blast. I was definitely planning on taking it for untyped, but I don't understand the benefits to pierce. Untyped has no resistance; pierce does; therefore untyped is far more valuable. Unless you are thinking IC: Pierce will apply? Then the crits would be nice, but it's also a feat tax. I'm not really convinced that would be an improvement. I'd really like to know the thinking on this.