Warlock Balancing

[morkahn82]

Ok, we all had our fun playing the new class and leading the kill count by large margin compared to any other class. Turbine you had the fun of collecting a lot of money by selling the class. Time to balance the class to other comparable classes. *drops mic*

[Nyata]

Uhm... no? on several things. I have not had fun playing warlock, actually think it's rather boring. have yet to complete a single life on any of my main characters, because the test run I did was underwhelming, fun wise. but probably that's just cause of my personal idea of fun.

Anyhow, I absolutely disagree that a class you bought and payed for should get nerfed. in fact, I think it's a shame that other classes you have to buy have been allowed to fall as far behind as they have. sure, there is still viable monk and druid multiclasses, but running them pure? meh. Artificer? heh. Not really counting FVS among them, as it's so easy to unlock, but still... hehe.

I am absolutely defending the p2w aspect with this, I know, but let's face it, it does make sense.

[Loromir]

Uhm... no? on several things. I have not had fun playing warlock, actually think it's rather boring. have yet to complete a single life on any of my main characters, because the test run I did was underwhelming, fun wise. but probably that's just cause of my personal idea of fun.

Anyhow, I absolutely disagree that a class you bought and payed for should get nerfed. in fact, I think it's a shame that other classes you have to buy have been allowed to fall as far behind as they have. sure, there is still viable monk and druid multiclasses, but running them pure? meh. Artificer? heh. Not really counting FVS among them, as it's so easy to unlock, but still... hehe.

I am absolutely defending the p2w aspect with this, I know, but let's face it, it does make sense.

I have to agree with Morkahn. Enlightened Spirit Warlocks with 3,000 HP and 300 PRR blasting everything to Smithereens is too much of an easy button. I hate even seeing them come into a group that I'm in. It turns into a Pike Fest even if you don't want to pike.

[JOTMON]

I have to agree with Morkahn. Enlightened Spirit Warlocks with 3,000 HP and 300 PRR blasting everything to Smithereens is too much of an easy button. I hate even seeing them come into a group that I'm in. It turns into a Pike Fest even if you don't want to pike.

No point blaming elitist players that have built their toons to be optimal, those same players would just migrate into other toons and then you would be crying about them there.

So other classes become as boring and easy to play as warlock? No thanks.

Warlocks are new to the realms and as such content was never designed to defend against warlocks.
Real focus should be spent on content that challenges all player types and placing strategic mobs that are resistant to various player types.. like the Arach's Knight at the end of VON5.. immune to all sources of magic.. a bane for warlocks..
add chance misc defenses to champions to let them be healed by light, or force, or evil damage, immune to will attacks(aka hurl)...
rework evil mobs so they do not take full damage from utterdark's conversion of force to evil damage... since when should evil damage do full damage to evil mobs..

Smart changes to the game go further than that player is op nerf him...

[Forzah]

No point blaming elitist players that have built their toons to be optimal, those same players would just migrate into other toons and then you would be crying about them there.
Warlocks are new to the realms and as such content was never designed to defend against warlocks.
Real focus should be spent on content that challenges all player types and placing strategic mobs that are resistant to various player types.. like the Arach's Knight at the end of VON5.. immune to all sources of magic.. a bane for warlocks..
a twist on champions to let tem be healed by light, or force, or evil damage... rework evil mobs so they do not take full damage from utterdark's conversion of force to evil damage...

Smart changes to the game go further than that player is op nerf him...

I'd love that, though I think it's rather time intensive to implement, especially for existing content. Nerfing is a lot more practical.

[JOTMON]

I'd love that, though I think it's rather time intensive to implement, especially for existing content. Nerfing is a lot more practical.

the quick and easy patches inevitably fails.. realistically they cant keep quick patching with easy fixes and temp patches without corroding away the core...
Those temporary short term solutions get you by.. sort of... but, real fixes need to be planned into the progression of development.

While it seems practical.. its not.. character/item nerf's annoy players who have ground out all the items and put the work into making the classes do what it is supposed to do.. be good...which drives some of them to say f.itt and quit.. cause if they have to start over.. may as well check out other games and start over somewhere else where they don't screw over players instead of fixing the game.

DDO has already annoyed a lot of historically dedicated players away from the game with the failure to deal with lag, slow fixes to broken classes, slaphappy nerfs without fix followups, loot revamps that screwed good hard ground player loot then a 2nd revamp that OP'd random loot all over the place.. doubly screwing over those originally hard earned items that were not retroactively fixed to be better but were retoactively fuxed to be worse.. while new randomges invalidated the hard ground items..

They have got to smarten up and do better fixes, .. these yoyo hammer slaps are catching up to them...


Now I am not saying warlocks don't need tweaking and adjustments.. but its not at end game where they need the fixes...
a starting warlock is 1d6 damage (force is currently undefendable by mobs in old content), right off the boat... that is a overly strong start.. then at level 2, scaling 1d4 elemental pact damage ..

I would have liked to have seen the starting eldritch start at 1d3 for levels 1&2 then go to 1d6 at level 3/4....and also have pact damage not start until about level 6.
This coupled with the game changes I think would stabilize the Warlock class across the levels. and give a target point for comparison when class passing and revamping the other classes.

[Steelstar]

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.

rework evil mobs so they do not take full damage from utterdark's conversion of force to evil damage... since when should evil damage do full damage to evil mobs..

It always has.

[silinteresting]

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.

oh god here we go, let the drama begin.

your friend sil

[JOTMON]

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.



It always has.

doesn't mean it should...
There are lots of evil creatures that could be.. resistant/immune to evil damage, or healed by it.. like those undead types..
Something that encourages Warlocks to consider toggling that stance on/off, or to consider alternatives...

[Requiro]

(...)
Now I am not saying warlocks don't need tweaking and adjustments.. but its not at end game where they need the fixes...
a starting warlock is 1d6 damage +1d4 pact damage without anything, right off the boat... that is a overly strong start..

I would have liked to have seen the starting eldritch start at 1d3 for levels 1&2 then go to 1d6 at level 3/4....and also have pact damage not start until about level 6.
(...)

Funny You could AT LEAST look to wiki...

Level 1: 1d6
Level 2: 1d6 + 1d4

(in the mean time Repeating Heavy Crossbow gets 3x1d10 with additional stuff on bolts… with 10% critical.. at level 1 !!)

Com'on guys. We have drama about OP Ranger with Ranger Pass, About Barb with Barb pass, with Paladin, Artificer, Rogue ect. ect. Now is time for Warlock? Devs, please, made pass another class, that this Warlock Drama ends.

Now is the best part:

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.

I hope that it means that summoner line will be replaced by something useful? Or some improvements to almost useless Spiritual Defense? Or maybe some improvements to Core 1/3/6 that are almost garbage before level 12? That will be something…

If not, that maybe you consider improvements to Tainted Scholar, that is not very well balanced as well? Especially SLAs animation time, that made them useless. Or buff other Essences Stance because of the cost, they are not better then Utterdark Blast, or T5 abilities, that are far the worst from the other 2.

You could also consider some improvements to Core 20 Soul Eater, that is completely garbage compare to other 2. Also T3 abilities are not very helpful.

And please remove that bug, where you shoot with Ranged Magical Attack, blast hit the target, but target did not take damage at all? That is very irritating…

[Jomee]

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.



It always has.

"Relatively small" but from a two handed uber nerf bat.

[Andrash]

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.



It always has.

Hey, save masterful craftsmanship for rune arms too while you are at it, thanks mate. :P

[jakeelala]

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.



It always has.

Please consider many other builds you are considering a nerf to can also lead kill counts over the Warlock and remember that smart building, multiclassing, and very active playstyle by enthusiastic players has always been the lifeblood of this game and it's creative character building appeal.

Warlocks are pretty much fine right now. What you need to do is buff a few remaining straggler classes (Druids, FvS, Monks, Clerics). More importnatly you don't just need to be nerfiing or buffing core classes, you need to be re-evaluating ED's

I'm sure your internal stats show that the VAST majority of level 30 characters not leveling ED's play either:
-LD
-FoTW
-Shiradi
-EA if and only if Warlock using ES
-Primal was only used for Tree Builds (which makes sense since that it's epic moment and they just are classes built to use the epic moment).

But you're nerfing Warlocks apparently, and nerfing tree builds which is sad.

You really need to work on making the other 8-9 ED's worth using, and slightly buff the weaker classes. If you made Eldritch Knight now horrible in every way, Improved FvS enhancements, and revamped Monk enhancements, you could ignore warlock entirely.

But whatever you do, please don't mess any more with Ranged combat, Manyshot, or my beloved Throwers. Just give some other people some love for their preferred classes.

[UurlockYgmeov]

rework evil mobs so they do not take full damage from utterdark's conversion of force to evil damage... since when should evil damage do full damage to evil mobs..

Evil on Evil violence is a good thing - let evil kill evil and less evil there is, but at the same time less evil, but more concentrated....

and there has to be a downside to being evil.... and taking full damage from evil damage has to be one of them. :P

[Duetotheseverity]

[Loromir]

Delete

[Chilldude]

You don't have to be elite to be OP in enlightened spirit. Case in point, a player in my guild crushed everything with an ES Warlock (He is a good player I will grant). While he was in that build...the rest of us did nothing more than just follow him around while he completed all EE content for us. Granted I got great XP while we followed...but it was boring. Then he TR's into a Mechanic (Still a powerful build in DDO) and guess what? He then actually needed our help. We all contributed. We all had fun. It was truly a team effort.

Well fast forward a couple of weeks, he TR's back into an ES Warlock, and we are back to being nothing more than luggage while he completes each quest.

I'm not crying about elitist players being powerful. I'm griping about slightly above average players playing a cheese build and making it boring for me.

...and before you say, "then stop running with him". No...I consider him a friend and part of the fun in this game is the social aspect. But that is just part of it.

Sounds like your friend needs to learn to play a mechanic. That was a joke (sort of).

Seriously though, there are dozens of builds you can follow through EE and watch them solo it. DDO has always been a game of run as fast as you can and see who can get the most kills as opposed to strategy based teamwork. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but warlock certainly didn't make it that way. Next time you run with your friend, try to keep up.

[redoubt]

I have to agree with Morkahn. Enlightened Spirit Warlocks with 3,000 HP and 300 PRR blasting everything to Smithereens is too much of an easy button. I hate even seeing them come into a group that I'm in. It turns into a Pike Fest even if you don't want to pike.

I've been running my main in Slavers on LH and LE a lot since it came out and with the loot weekend, I've stayed on my main and left the leveling alone.

On my slaver's runs I've had warlocks join that died a lot. I think seeing a repeater rogue/artie standing still and tanking several of the bosses got under their skin and made them get a little zerg-ier (is that a word) than normal.

On the flip side, I had a BF warlock join today who made me work for it. He was pretty good and he was fey using mostly cone shape. That made it fun. Yep, getting a really good warlock made it more fun for me.

Then we did an LE tempest spine. That was hard and fun. The warlocks were not the top (nor was I, I was 4th) and of all things a monk was high up. (Though he's always been really good.)

[morkahn82]

lol, you guys are still discussing in this thread?