Pure Casting Warlock DC Eld Blast Build

[slarden]

Thanks a lot for the help! Ill go with fiend and see how things work out

What do you mean with ' the cone first priority' ?

In soul eater there is an option for eldritch blast shape cone. I would start there as that will be your go-to dps in heroics. I don't use the aura until epics when energy burst and divine wrath are also available.

so I would suggest that your first ap spend is to get the cone shape which allows you to hit all enemies in the cone range.

[Sam123654]

In soul eater there is an option for eldritch blast shape cone. I would start there as that will be your go-to dps in heroics. I don't use the aura until epics when energy burst and divine wrath are also available.

so I would suggest that your first ap spend is to get the cone shape which allows you to hit all enemies in the cone range.

Thanks a lot Slarden!

Ill go with Fiend pact and first get Cone asap!

Will switching to your build work when i am a bit higher level with Fiend pact as well? It looks like tons of fun!

Or are more points needed in SE to lower the fort saves of the mobs with Fiend pact (for example with Taint the Blood and No worse Fate for consume (do these even stack?)) and is your build specifically aimed at GOO? sorry for all the questions

[slarden]

Thanks a lot Slarden!

Ill go with Fiend pact and first get Cone asap!

Will switching to your build work when i am a bit higher level with Fiend pact as well? It looks like tons of fun!

Or are more points needed in SE to lower the fort saves of the mobs with Fiend pact (for example with Taint the Blood and No worse Fate for consume (do these even stack?)) and is your build specifically aimed at GOO? sorry for all the questions

If you have your epic destinies maxed out you can switch right at level 20. All pacts work with the build - fiend is great because of the bonus hurl kills, it works against orange name and is super useful to take out the crystal in shroud. If you need to work on destinies I would stick with basic cone eldritch blast until you max out all your destinies as you will want to have the ability to twist in energy burst, empyrean magic and cocoon. Once you max all your destinies you can get these 3 twists at level 30. If you max all your destinies plus find or buy a +1 tome of fate you can have energy burst, empyrean magic, cocoon and another tier 1 twist at level 30. If you don't want to buy the +1 tome of fate it would take 4 Epic TR to get the extra point. I would recommend ETR'ing as part of maxing out your destinies. You might as well get the past life if you are going to run for xp anyhow.

Maxing out the destinies looks like a grind but isn't so bad, warlock works well to max out your destinies. Just keep joining raids or etr until the destinies are filled - whatever you prefer.

I would definitely take taint the blood if you want to use death spells while leveling and filling out destinies. This helps with finger of death and wail of the banshee. If you find it's not landing enough you can always drop it and focus more on blasting. The key thing is if you focus your necro spells on enemy casters they generally have lower fort saves so it will almost always land even if you don't have perfect gear. Hurl goes against will save so you can use that on melees - just about anything but clerics/divines.

If you don't have 3x wiz/3x fvs past lifes you will want to use more of a blasting build at end game and you can still use hurl since it doesn't require any investment in necromancy or spell penetration to work. It goes off just your charisma stat and if you invest 12 AP in soul eater you can take dark feeding / your will is mine to lower the enemy wisdom if you need debuffing since hurl goes against will save rather than fortitude save. If there is a cc caster in the party using mind fog and/or crushing despair that also helps you land hurl through hell. So if you aren't sure if your dc is enough cast your will is mine followed by hurl.

Also a quick note about spell resistance. Mostly drow and fiendish/devil/demons have it, but hurl doesn't have a spell pen check so it will work on anything without any spell pen investment. Your other death spells including devour the soul and dark feeding (your will is mine) do have a spell pen check. For leveling I wouldn't worry about spell pen - just know your spells might not land on drow, devils, fiendish, demons for this reason and use your blast to take care of them.

[Vanhooger]

I have a necro warlock, but even if you go for hold and stuff I don't get how you make a DC build work without investing anything on spell pen.

I have 3 feat and the need to give up glove slot & orb for spell pen & 2 t3 twist to reach 59 (all pl included) that is not even enough for elite TS but ok for Elite shroud. Not to mention 3bc drow or search & rescue drow. They've got 70+ so something that on a warlock is impossible to reach.

[slarden]

I have a necro warlock, but even if you go for hold and stuff I don't get how you make a DC build work without investing anything on spell pen.

I have 3 feat and the need to give up glove slot & orb for spell pen & 2 t3 twist to reach 59 (all pl included) that is not even enough for elite TS but ok for Elite shroud. Not to mention 3bc drow or search & rescue drow. They've got 70+ so something that on a warlock is impossible to reach.

There is a definite difference between running an endgame necro warlock build and splashing a little necro during heroic leveling. Since he wants to use hurl adding in the finger of death SLA during heroic leveling may not be so bad to get the feel of insta-kill.

My point was that you get some utility out of it with no spell pen and necro investment at all during heroic levels. The side benefit is you learn which enemies have spell resistance and who has the low fort saves. I am sure a charisma warlock will land finger of death on casters in heroic quite regularly with no investment in spell pen and necro.

It sounds like he wants to be a blasting build, but heroic is a good time to test out those things that won't work so well at end game.

Hurl doesn't have a spell pen check and no need for necromancy spell focus. It will likely will be the only instakill he uses at end game if he goes with blasting.

[Vanhooger]

There is a definite difference between running an endgame necro warlock build and splashing a little necro during heroic leveling. Since he wants to use hurl adding in the finger of death SLA during heroic leveling may not be so bad to get the feel of insta-kill.

My point was that you get some utility out of it with no spell pen and necro investment at all during heroic levels. The side benefit is you learn which enemies have spell resistance and who has the low fort saves. I am sure a charisma warlock will land finger of death on casters in heroic quite regularly with no investment in spell pen and necro.

It sounds like he wants to be a blasting build, but heroic is a good time to test out those things that won't work so well at end game.

Hurl doesn't have a spell pen check and no need for necromancy spell focus. It will likely will be the only instakill he uses at end game if he goes with blasting.

that's cool, but I mean the title of the thread misled me to this build as the way I think DC caster for endgame.

[slarden]

that's cool, but I mean the title of the thread misled me to this build as the way I think DC caster for endgame.

Eld blast does require a dc for the pact damage and some of the Ed slas. I put dc in the title because I created this build while warlock was in beta and there was a lot talk about dc dumping. I think there is too much lost dps lost by dumping dc so I wanted to emphasize that at the time.

[Phil7]

Ok I found the armor with the Insight spell focus +2
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Leather...Celestial_Sage

I was trying to compare it to the medium armor for warlocks
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Breastp...Celestial_Sage

with Light you lose 15PRR, 5 MRR, 10 HP, your MRR caps at 100, you are forced to slot an ASF sapphire, you lose 2 quality Reflex Saves and Angelic Grace
but you get a dodge cap of 20% (24% with ship buffs & augment) instead of 6% (10% ship buffs & augment), you get a flat +15% dodge chance, propably some more AC if you have DEX and the Insight +2 to DCs

That means you could free your goggles and get the Earthen Mantle for +7 to evocation and extra Force sp
Angelic Grace is nice with low cooldown, but 5% proc chance? in LE where 3-4 hits will kill you. You don't even want to be hit in there.

[slarden]

Ok I found the armor with the Insight spell focus +2
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Leather...Celestial_Sage

I was trying to compare it to the medium armor for warlocks
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Breastp...Celestial_Sage

with Light you lose 15PRR, 5 MRR, 10 HP, your MRR caps at 100, you are forced to slot an ASF sapphire, you lose 2 quality Reflex Saves and Angelic Grace
but you get a dodge cap of 20% (22% w/ ship buffs) instead of 6% (8% ship buffs), you get a flat +15% dodge chance, propably some more AC if you have DEX and the Insight +2 to DCs

That means you could free your goggles and get the Earthen Mantle for +7 to evocation
Angelic Grace is nice with low cooldown, but 5% proc chance? in LE where 3-4 hits will kill you. You don't even want to be hit in there.

Everyone on the forums doubts me when I say this, but every sage armor (robe and light only) I have has a +3 ins bonus to all spells. Here is a picture of my necromancer warlock that uses the light armor:



I am comfortable with the DC on my blaster (currently great old one)- increasing DC at this point gives tiny returns if any although if I was in fey I would try to get it a bit higher.

The goggles I currently have can be crafted via cannith crafting and thanks to Livmo I now have a pair of craftable goggles with 2 augment slots. I do swap on the mantle for boss fights primarily for the force damage to buff up arcane pulse ruin and greater ruin, but I like the healing amp and mrr from my cloak for mob fights.

I don't see anything in U32 that will cause me to change gear on my blaster. There are 2 pieces that inspired me to build a necromancer warlock variant which I will be posting here soon. It's the character in the picture (randomall), but I think my blaster (randowl) will remain unchanged.

While the bounty on the armor isn't frequent or huge, it plays nicely with the other temp hp and passive regen I have. It's minor but I view it as a positive.

As always I appreciate your insights and ideas.

[Blastyswa]

[B]

Twists: Piercing Spellcraft (Draconic), Echoes of the Ancestor, Necromancy Specialist, Charisma, Rejuvenation Cocoon

Was just wondering on the Piercing Spellcraft since you specified you twisted it from draconic, does draconic have an additional benefit I don't know about or does it not matter if you take it from magister or draconic?

[Tlorrd]

Was just wondering on the Piercing Spellcraft since you specified you twisted it from draconic, does draconic have an additional benefit I don't know about or does it not matter if you take it from magister or draconic?

It doesn't matter which one you take it from. They are both tier 3 and same up to +3 spell pen. The other benefit of draconic is tier 4 acid augmentation that gives -5 to fort saves (15% chance). Also Necro augmentation from Magister, tier 3, also give -5 to fort saves (15% chance). If you had both of those twisted ... you Burning Blood SLA can proc both (I've done it before just to test) since it has acid component and is a necro spell. I did test to see if acid pact damage would proc the draconic augmentation, but it did not. If one solo's a lot, then having something like symbol of pain (which warlocks do not) is a good way to not only proc the necro aug, but also the spell itself gives -4 to saves in an AOE if mobs fail their save. And it's only 15 spell points with the shortest cooldown of any of the symbols.

[slarden]

Was just wondering on the Piercing Spellcraft since you specified you twisted it from draconic, does draconic have an additional benefit I don't know about or does it not matter if you take it from magister or draconic?

I only mention it in case people don't realize it's there. I am unable to take piercing spellcraft in magister because I already took it in exalted angel. I know at other times I've been able to twist in both piercing spellcraft (possibly due to some bug I innocently encountered), but at the moment it won't let me take piercing spellcraft in both the EA and magister destinies and if you hit a glitch that allowed you to - I am skeptical it would stack.

It doesn't matter which one you take it from. They are both tier 3 and same up to +3 spell pen. The other benefit of draconic is tier 4 acid augmentation that gives -5 to fort saves (15% chance). Also Necro augmentation from Magister, tier 3, also give -5 to fort saves (15% chance). If you had both of those twisted ... you Burning Blood SLA can proc both (I've done it before just to test) since it has acid component and is a necro spell. I did test to see if acid pact damage would proc the draconic augmentation, but it did not. If one solo's a lot, then having something like symbol of pain (which warlocks do not) is a good way to not only proc the necro aug, but also the spell itself gives -4 to saves in an AOE if mobs fail their save. And it's only 15 spell points with the shortest cooldown of any of the symbols.

I opted for the permanent 4 DC bonus in EA over the debuffing and 5 spell pen bonus in magister/draconic. Although in a coordinated group I can see magister possibly being a more optimal setup where you can use both debuffs which would help out other party members as well. Generally I think a PM is better suited for this debuffing role than a warlock.

If I could twist in necromany augmentation (although not nearly as nice as on a PM) I would, but with 2 spell pen twists, 3 necro DC twist (3/3/2 it leaves little room for other twists and no room for a tier 4). In magister I could get by with 1 spell pen twist (or possibly 0), but would be at -4 DC.

[ZeebaNeighba]

I just reached cap earlier this week so any ideas / suggestions on things I might be overlooking are welcomed - esp with regards to cha, dc, and debuffing.

I don't think you need Heighten on a necro warlock. Finger and circle of death are both lv 5 spells so heighten only adds +1 DC, and you have to pay 5 spell points for that DC too. Wail and devour don't get any benefit. Even on crowd control it's not really helping, mass hold and howl are already lv 6, tentacles just can't be heightened, only thing that benefits is web. So it seems like taking wizard PL, another necro spell focus, great charisma if it's odd, any of those would be better.

Also for debuffing, you can take hypnotism as a lv 1 spell for easy -3 will saves.

[slarden]

I don't think you need Heighten on a necro warlock. Finger and circle of death are both lv 5 spells so heighten only adds +1 DC, and you have to pay 5 spell points for that DC too. Wail and devour don't get any benefit. Even on crowd control it's not really helping, mass hold and howl are already lv 6, tentacles just can't be heightened, only thing that benefits is web. So it seems like taking wizard PL, another necro spell focus, great charisma if it's odd, any of those would be better.

Also for debuffing, you can take hypnotism as a lv 1 spell for easy -3 will saves.

This is something I actually considered myself and it's a good suggestion. Web is a nice utility spell when something nasty is coming to me, but ultimately 1 more DC is better than heighten I think. I will take a look at hypnotism, I don't currently have it.

I appreciate the suggestions.

[Tlorrd]

I opted for the permanent 4 DC bonus in EA

Don't forget, EA actually gives you +5 DC bonus. +3 from core. +1 from angelic presence (+2 to cha) ... and +1 from ascendance and/or reborn in light (because this starts ascendance even if on cool down. Ascendance gives +2 to wis and cha ... thus you can really get +10 to cha from EA. +6 from tree, +2 from core, and additional +2 from last core clicky and epic moment.

Thus for DC people, taking reborn in light is important because that and last core ascendance give 2 min buff of +2 to cha. One has a 10 min cooldown and one has a 5 min cooldown.

If you started with ascendance, and then after 2 mins (when you built your epic moment stacks) you do reborn in light, you should be able to do ascendance again shortly after, unless the timer resets for both (I haven't tested that far).

But in the end, the main point is you get +5 to DCs when you use the ascendance or epic moment (which restarts ascendance regardless of cooldown).

[Relenthe]

Hey slarden this isn't a direct question to your build, but would you be able to break down what went into each tier of your greensteel items? I'm trying to see if it is possible to get some %hp bonus and the spell crit damage without all tiers being matieral/opposition which is fairly useless., or if I can use other tier 1 and 2 abilities without losing the set bonus.

[slarden]

Hey slarden this isn't a direct question to your build, but would you be able to break down what went into each tier of your greensteel items? I'm trying to see if it is possible to get some %hp bonus and the spell crit damage without all tiers being matieral/opposition which is fairly useless., or if I can use other tier 1 and 2 abilities without losing the set bonus.

Hi, here is the current set:

Necklace: Material/Opposition/Fire: Fire Resist 50 (enh), Fire Resist 25 (insight), Fire Resist 17 (competence)

Belt: Material/Opposition/Negative: Blindness Immunity, Save against disease +4 (insight), Fear Immunity, Save against Poison +4 (Insight), Deathblock, Negative Resistance 25 (enhancement)

Gloves: Material/Opposition/Earth: Acid Resist 50 (enh), Acid Resist 25 (insight), Acid Resist 17 (competence)

Boots: Material/Opposition/Water: Cold Resist 50 (enh), Cold Resist 25 (insight), Cold Resist 17 (competence)

Bracers: Material/Opposition/Positive: Unconscious Range (128 enhancement), Positive Healing per 10s (16 enhancement), Unconscious Range (64 Insight), Positive Healing per 10s (8 insight), Unconscious Range (32 Quality), Positive Healing per 10s (4 Quality)

I went for the 5th piece because I heard alot of good things about ender and the vulnerability procs. My actual experience is that the 5th piece isn't all that big of a deal. It adds 6% hp, 6% crit damage and the ender/vulnerability procs are highly overrated. I wouldn't hesitate to drop down to a 4-piece set if another piece of gear give looked really useful. I replaced resonation and I do think the 5th piece gives more than that - so it was an easy choice.

My LGS weapon is triple positive giving 1000 temp hp every minute. I also have a vacuum weapon I switch to for just bosses.

Any material will work for the 4-piece bonus. It's basically guards, dex/con/str skills or resists.

[Relenthe]

Thanks a lot for the breakdown. If you wouldn't mind would you also be able to share your total %hp and spell crit damage? My first impression after seeing how much you are devoting to elemental resits is that it is not really worth it.

[Phil7]

So I played a bit with the Soul Eater stuff and a coulpe of feats and some Shiradi abilities, as a bard/warlock iconic at level 26 just to try them out.

First of all Eldritch Cone seems to be very good in Shiradi, if u don't use Energy Burst or Hellball.
Shiradi has no bursting skills and with only 2 cleaves from ES I had no follow-up to quickly clear out groups of mobs.
It seems that in Shiradi sustained damage (cone) is actually better.
In EA or Draconic with its bursting, cleaves and aura are obviously the way to go.

Eldritch Wave sometimes dealt tons of damage, sometimes felt absolutely useless.
With the random shiradi effects it did some nice procs and was also useful at the start of a fight. Due to the 3 hits it does, it can quickly render a group of mobs helpless.
Imo definetly not worth losing ES T5, Shining Through and Spirit Blast even if playing in Shiradi. I had to heal so many times without Shining Through
Outside of Shiradi just forget it.

Steal Life Force with 102 hamp it healed me for 300-400 HP.
Not bad, but not worth investing 20 points in Soul Eater.

Burning Blood SLA hits for around 200 to 500 (crit) with zero investment in acid/fire. Pansophic only
No idea how it is with high fire/acid SP and crit

Blood Feast is unfortunately subject to Spell Resistance. And with +6/+7 insightfull CON items at level 30 it will be even more worthless as it doesn't stack. And having an extra button to click every 20 seconds is not fun.


Primal Scream 30d20 sonic damage
Interesting aoe damage for bursting plus the CON buff
only 5 charges tho so I wouldn't choose it for the damage

Wild Shots now this showed some nice numbers (from 2 to 5k, with a 9k crit using Wellspring of Power)
Unfortunately it hits each foe only once, but it is very nice for aoe damage.
It is strange that this skill is actually in the Shiradi destiny, cause I used it mostly for bursting down mob groups and it worked quite well.
I really liked this one and it seems promising with high force SP/crit.
It might actually be worth twisting in aswell (it's Tier 1 only!), if playing in EA/Draconic for more bursting

Rain of Arrows ok this is very random. 10% chance to hit per second for 30 seconds is not that great. There were too many numbers on the screen to notice anything.
I had to drop Stand And Deliver to get it, but Stand is also not that great imo.
+10 SP if u stand still
No one stands still while zerging the quest. And I imagine Rain of Arrows>10 SP during boss fights in which you might stand still.


Burst of Glacial Wrath used it with empower/maximize turned off.
Just to render the mobs helpless at the start of the fight. And it worked quite well.
If you are zerg/TRing and playing with cleaves and burst then it's definetly good for speed runs.
Maybe even faster than playing with Intensify Spell.
If you play in Shiradi and do raids/LE and stuff then nope.
-75 SP for boss fights is not worth it.

Forced Escape max 20d20 sonic damage vs Fortitude save with lame DC (20 + WIS mod)
don't really care about the panic button, just for the damage.
I still don't know how much the damage is tho (am still level 26)
I'm pretty sure it's not worth losing Hellball or Arcane Pulse tho

Spirit Blades instead of Arcane Pulse?
They are veeeeery slow and can be dodged if the mobs move.
I don't know how much damage they deal with high force SP/crit, cause I'm still level 26 and can't try them out yet.
But I've been hearing that they really suck and A. Pulse wins.


This has been so far my experience and It was very fun. I actually tried them while soloing the LoD chain on EE and it was way harder without Shining Through
Note that my goal is fast TRs and not raids/LE atm, so opinions may vary on each ability.
I am curious to see what you think about Eldritch Cone, the 2 Shiradi spells and Burst of G. Wrath

[slarden]

Thanks a lot for the breakdown. If you wouldn't mind would you also be able to share your total %hp and spell crit damage? My first impression after seeing how much you are devoting to elemental resits is that it is not really worth it.

Total HP bonus is 36%. Total crit damage multipler is +36% and the ender proc adds a stack of vulnerability frequently and I see a fair # of death procs (shows up as a giant finger of death animation). But if the enemy is < 5000 hp they are going down quick so I don't value the ender proc extremely high.

If I go down to 4 pieces it's 30% hp bonus, 30% crit damage and no procs.

A blasting warlock doesn't need much in the way of gear compared to a necro DC warlock for example. Evocation +7/Insightful Evocation +4 goggles and legendary pansophic circlet cover alot of needs in 2 pieces of gear. I use 17% lore TF weapon and triple positive charisma stick (or Con, Cha, Cha and char 15+ on cloak). Throw on a lantern ring, a 25% radiance lore ring and breastplate of the celestial sage and you still have 7 slots left with 4 augment slots (not counting what you put in for the other 7 slots).

As goo I only need to target 82 or so for my evocation DC which gives alot of flexibility (can live without quality cha and quality evocation dc for example). In fey my gearing requirements are a bit tighter since quality cha + quality evoc and maybe even evocation augmentation are needed to hit LE reflex saves.

So with those 7 remaining slots what can you put on to increase dps more than 36% from LGS set? A little more radiance sure. Maybe crit damage for acid with one LGS piece (worth doing if not going for 5-piece set for sure). Maybe resonation necklace. That might all equal to the 36% universal crit multiplier when added up, but then you still have 36% hp which is more than you get from US. The problem becomes you get such marginal returns with the last 5 pieces of gear on a blasting warlock that the 5-piece set seems ok. Now add more spellcasting like enchant+conjuration+max spell pen and there is no way to fit in the 5-piece set.