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.




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~

[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!

[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.

[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~

[Augon]

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

How will the DC of the FOD be determined?

[Severlin]

How will the DC of the FOD be determined?

Same as the level 7 wiz/sor spell.

Sev~

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.