Warlock Balancing

[Forzah]

Some interesting opinions there! Let's break that down:

• Wolf/Tree build fixes are coming.
  
  • The timing has less to do with the severity or priority and more to do with the complexity.
  • Yes, there is time to fix Warlock before broken Druid abilities. It takes less time to repair a crack than rebuild an entire wall.
  
  
• Planned Warlock changes are based primarily on data collection and testing.
  
  • Warlocks aren't the most powerful damage-dealers in the game right now, but neither are Paladins or Barbarians.
  • For that matter, we really haven't been hearing that "Melee players are upset that their OP Paladins and Barbarians aren't miles ahead of all the Casters anymore" at all. Even if we had, it would not be the sole deciding factor.
  
  
• Endgame is not the only measure that counts.
• The fact that some changes are necessary is not diminished by the fact that other necessary changes have not happened yet.

Anyway!

Hope everyone is having a fine morning.

Great news and awesome post!

I was going to put

The fact that some changes are necessary is not diminished by the fact that other necessary changes have not happened yet.

in my sig, but then I saw you already did that yourself and I'd only be copying you . Heck, I'll do it anyway

[JOTMON]

You're right, there were so many things wrong with your statement he should have gone into further detail about how wrong you were, oh well.

[Six_Gun]

Some interesting opinions there! Let's break that down:

• Wolf/Tree build fixes are coming.
  
  • The timing has less to do with the severity or priority and more to do with the complexity.
  • Yes, there is time to fix Warlock before broken Druid abilities. It takes less time to repair a crack than rebuild an entire wall.
  
  
• Planned Warlock changes are based primarily on data collection and testing.
  
  • Warlocks aren't the most powerful damage-dealers in the game right now, but neither are Paladins or Barbarians.
  • For that matter, we really haven't been hearing that "Melee players are upset that their OP Paladins and Barbarians aren't miles ahead of all the Casters anymore" at all. Even if we had, it would not be the sole deciding factor.
  
  
• Endgame is not the only measure that counts.
• The fact that some changes are necessary is not diminished by the fact that other necessary changes have not happened yet.

Anyway!

Hope everyone is having a fine morning.

So fixing Druid is too hard, but acquiescing to cry baby melee and ranged players is easy? Haven't melee classes and ranged classes received enough advantages and buffs already without having to nerf the only decent Caster option players have?

What does your Dev team have against Casters? Isn't it enough that Sorc, Wiz, Cleric, and FvS are all sub-par classes?

Your game population is already declining, the only thing you'll accomplish by Nerfing the one decent Caster class is to accelerate that decline.

Great business strategy.

[LT218]

I don't understand people who try to make themselves look good by trying to drag everyone else down to their level when other people do things differently, better or more efficiently. It doesn't make things better overall. It just lowers the bar as a whole. If these particular things were so terrible for DDO, the game would already be a ghost town given how long things have been this way, but it's not. Anyone who was going to leave the game over those things likely left long ago.

In the past week or two, we've had the devs confirm that they will be fixing/nerfing multiple things that have been working the way they work for a year or in some cases many years. Nerfing/fixing/changing these things that people are now used to will most assuredly cause some people to leave the game and not return though. Not good for DDO in the end. DDO may not be a ghost town but the active population is definitely lower than it was before the lagapocalypse. There are multiple people on my friends list that left during that and have not returned. As the population shrinks, people leaving even in small numbers will have a more noticeable impact on the remaining players and guilds. Given the distinct lack of marketing initiatives and apparently bugdget, DDO can ill afford to drive away players with nerfs to classes and builds that have existed for years.

People have spent real money for the Warlock class as it was originally advertised and released. It has since been nerfed two or three times and is apparently due for another. Classic case of bait and switch. Not sure about anyone else, but it definitely makes me think twice before buying any new races/classes that seem good/strong/shiny. If the class were so overpowered, every other toon would be a warlock, yet the public groups and raids I run and join consistently just have 1 or 2. I see as many Shiradi sorcerers, Tempest rangers, and Mechanic rogues as I do warlocks these days.

The beauty of DDO is in it's near endless variety of builds and play styles that can be customized to each person's needs and preferences. If no class/build is supposed to be noticeably stronger than any other, why not just remove all the trees, classes and specialties? Go back to fighter, thief, mage, and priest. Balance them to all to the exact same DPS and healilng potential. Then all the people clamoring for nerfs could be happy because everything would be the same. It would also make designing and balancing new content easy since there would be minimal variety and abilities to account for.

Set the bar to the lowest common denominator and be done with it! DDO can call it the "No player left behind!" initiative.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Some interesting opinions there! Let's break that down:

• Wolf/Tree build fixes are coming.
  
  • The timing has less to do with the severity or priority and more to do with the complexity.
  • Yes, there is time to fix Warlock before broken Druid abilities. It takes less time to repair a crack than rebuild an entire wall.
  
  
• Planned Warlock changes are based primarily on data collection and testing.
  
  • Warlocks aren't the most powerful damage-dealers in the game right now, but neither are Paladins or Barbarians.
  • For that matter, we really haven't been hearing that "Melee players are upset that their OP Paladins and Barbarians aren't miles ahead of all the Casters anymore" at all. Even if we had, it would not be the sole deciding factor.
  
  
• Endgame is not the only measure that counts.
• The fact that some changes are necessary is not diminished by the fact that other necessary changes have not happened yet.

Anyway!

Hope everyone is having a fine morning.

But Arties need loving too!

(and I am - just heard where I am going for re-certification training .... )

[Tagros_Beta]

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...

My last life - which was the very first one that I managed to get close to 5k favour (close, but never made it) - was a warlock, great old pact, so pact damage was acid based.

Running the epic chrono raid, the final fight was a PITA because of exactly this. At least two of the various forms the conjoined Abashai takes were healing damage from acid, and healing a LOT of damage (massive acid healing amp I guess), usually more than the other forms of damage were hitting for. So I was stood there with my aura healing it, and its massive regen going off at regular intervals. The only way I could take it down was to switch off the pact damage and hope that the double rainbow and Favour of the Queen wouldn't deal acid damage too often; if they had, I would have switched them off as well.
Similarly with the arcane oozes, they heal from acid damage, so the Creeping Death involves a lot of switching the pact on and off...

It took a very long time on EH for that one encounter - so much so that I tended to just run EN just for time and RSI issues. (I was trying to get to my very first 20th completions with both chrono and ADQ).

[Duetotheseverity]

Don't forgot to add to your list the many ranged exploits, specially furyshot.

Thx in advance.

[Elfishski]

People have spent real money for the Warlock class as it was originally advertised and released. It has since been nerfed two or three times and is apparently due for another. Classic case of bait and switch. Not sure about anyone else, but it definitely makes me think twice before buying any new races/classes that seem good/strong/shiny. If the class were so overpowered, every other toon would be a warlock, yet the public groups and raids I run and join consistently just have 1 or 2. I see as many Shiradi sorcerers, Tempest rangers, and Mechanic rogues as I do warlocks these days.

The beauty of DDO is in it's near endless variety of builds and play styles that can be customized to each person's needs and preferences. If no class/build is supposed to be noticeably stronger than any other, why not just remove all the trees, classes and specialties? Go back to fighter, thief, mage, and priest. Balance them to all to the exact same DPS and healilng potential. Then all the people clamoring for nerfs could be happy because everything would be the same. It would also make designing and balancing new content easy since there would be minimal variety and abilities to account for.

Set the bar to the lowest common denominator and be done with it! DDO can call it the "No player left behind!" initiative.

So... you claim you only play warlocks because they're overpowered, why else would anyone spend money on them...

and... warlocks aren't overpowered or everyone would play them. (I think people don't play them because they are more boring than playing any other class, from limited personal experience)

Honestly I don't understand the attitude that people pay for a class because it's the best. The devs should be trying to balance all classes in a manner that makes them all equally relevant to content overall (but ideally where they are strong in different content, not just all the same everywhere!), while you should buy a class because it has a different playstyle to other classes, because you like the flavor, because it looks cool, because it gives you more different choices and builds to play around with. Those are reasons that make sense to me personally.


In terms of balancing - they seem balanced at level 1 and as balanced as anything at level 30 (which is to say grossly overpowered, but no more than all the other classes that got a pass). The problem as I see it is that:
- Most classes have power on an exponential curve - starting slow but really ramping up in the later levels as gear fills out and EDs kick in etc.
- Warlocks have power on a logarithmic curve or straight line between the same start and end point. Their eldritch blast/pact damage is very much a straight line. They don't get as much out of EDs compared to other classes. They don't get as much out of equipment as other classes. That puts them absurdly ahead of every other class in mid levels, and it's both boring to play and super super boring to be in a group with a warlock.

So the mid-levels are where I'd be trying to target warlock nerfs. Maybe reduce those damage dice so they don't come as easily, but give the epic feats back more dice to compensate, and reduce shining through again so it isn't functional immunity to all heroic damage.

[Requiro]

I don't understand people who try to make themselves look good by trying to drag everyone else down to their level when other people do things differently, better or more efficiently. It doesn't make things better overall. It just lowers the bar as a whole. <snip>

I do understand that kind of people. This is (probably) their nature: enviousness and jealousness.

What I really don't understand is Devs reaction.

[patang01]

I fully expect Druid, Artificer, FVS, and Monk to be just as broken, then, once their class passes come.

And why do we need pay to win classes, exactly? Classes like Monk or Warlock or Artificer are all very unique compared to the base classes and have dynamic playstyles, which is why they must be purchased or earned. Turbine will make their money just from having new classes, regardless.

Anyone who knows me knows I am adamantly against the 'three button wonder' Warlock builds with absurd amounts of HP and survivability, running in the EA or US destinies. I actually played one when Warlock first came out and I had to redo my enhancements after about 4 levels because it was so boring. Still, I view such builds as a crutch, because I run my Warlock with 0 points in the enlightened spirit tree (41 scholar/39 souleater) and he only has about 960ish HP (and very, very rarely dies, at that). Whenever I'm in the process of ETRing him, I almost always outkill, outlast, and outpace those 3k wonder builds. Having a bunch of HP is pretty to look at, but it doesn't do much for you in the long run.

I think somebody did some calculations a while back and found that those 3k builds actually lose a good portion of their damage potential compared to other builds.

Sounds like my Warlock build. I ran it in ES when I did the defiler raid. Just to have lots of temp HP to survive the initial blades. Now I run it as scholar and souleater with a token in ES (for the all resist clicky). I seldom just sit there and pew pew. I combine the play with other abilities, web and insta kill spells. I think I'm more active with that build than I am with a lot of other arcane casters. Personally I was getting carpal tunnel syndrome from the constant bursting. That was boring.

[ramzes7asit4]

Warlock is ok. There is no need to nerf it, but old enhancements trees must be updated (reason: new difficulty, No more Mortal Fear, New random/craft).
So, maybe we also need to make Adrenaline only for melee (bye bye furyshoters), make all mobs immune to all death/negative effect (sarcasm)
Want highest kill count in some raid/quest? Make good build and play well, upgrade your skills and knowledge.
Finally, I see a lot (more than a 2/3) of warlock in actual content with the really low kill count.

About balancing: As I know, there were some warlock nerf. There is no need to nerf it again.
IMHO: Warlock single target dps really low and they only useful for killing trash. I really want to see some epic feats from this article (http://archive.wizards.com/default.a...d/ei/20061027a )

[patang01]

My last life - which was the very first one that I managed to get close to 5k favour (close, but never made it) - was a warlock, great old pact, so pact damage was acid based.

Running the epic chrono raid, the final fight was a PITA because of exactly this. At least two of the various forms the conjoined Abashai takes were healing damage from acid, and healing a LOT of damage (massive acid healing amp I guess), usually more than the other forms of damage were hitting for. So I was stood there with my aura healing it, and its massive regen going off at regular intervals. The only way I could take it down was to switch off the pact damage and hope that the double rainbow and Favour of the Queen wouldn't deal acid damage too often; if they had, I would have switched them off as well.
Similarly with the arcane oozes, they heal from acid damage, so the Creeping Death involves a lot of switching the pact on and off...

It took a very long time on EH for that one encounter - so much so that I tended to just run EN just for time and RSI issues. (I was trying to get to my very first 20th completions with both chrono and ADQ).

You'll find this running one of the legendary quests out of Vale (the sewer one). The arcane oozes heal on acid. So I just turn off the pact damage. Sure, you do less, but it beats healing the one you're trying to kill

It is a similar problem when I run fleshmakers on my air savant.

[Forzah]

Don't forgot to add to your list the many ranged exploits, specially furyshot.

Thx in advance.

And after furyshot, do the following:

-Delete cocoon and most selfhealing skills.
-Improve the AI against kiting/perching
-Reduce all melee damage (at least of the best performing builds).
-With less healing option and better AI, mob damage can be reduced (no more one-shotting).
-Change fortification so that complete immunity to crits is no longer possible. The critical multiplier of mobs should be lower to offset this (this makes incoming damage more volatile and creates more excitement from having to save yourself).

[Duetotheseverity]

Some healbots are really lonely and needy....

[Thar]

I never understood people who get worked up about classes in a PVE game. If you don't like warlocks, don't play them and don't group with them.

I'd rather see Devs working on new content than class balance, since you'll never please everyone when you balance, and new content can be enjoyed by all.

if you're concerned about kill counts, go play call of duty.

I agree to a point, that point being that some classes are almost unplayable. ie clerics, fvs, druids due to minimal need for heals/rez and not good offense in most cases and to some extent melee monks with the prr changes long ago.

[patang01]

Warlock is ok. There is no need to nerf it, but old enhancements trees must be updated (reason: new difficulty, No more Mortal Fear, New random/craft).
So, maybe we also need to make Adrenaline only for melee (bye bye furyshoters), make all mobs immune to all death/negative effect (sarcasm)
Want highest kill count in some raid/quest? Make good build and play well, upgrade your skills and knowledge.
Finally, I see a lot (more than a 2/3) of warlock in actual content with the really low kill count.

About balancing: As I know, there were some warlock nerf. There is no need to nerf it again.
IMHO: Warlock single target dps really low and they only useful for killing trash. I really want to see some epic feats from this article (http://archive.wizards.com/default.a...d/ei/20061027a )

True story, most of my damage against mobs comes from the combo of burst of glacial wrath and energyburst/eldritch wave. Excellent mob killer. I even do this with my Arti and my sorc and did it when I ran it as a wiz. At best I do 1k crits on my bolts but most of them are in the 600 range. My sorc can hit with 5k lighting bolts.

People that are upset about Warlocks see them for what they're not - some kind of universal killing machines. I've seen cleaving barbs killing mobs quicker than my Warlock can kill one guy.

[Altamedes]

Good god....another nerf thread....how predictable. Why don't we just necro one of the million other threads that have already been made about this?

In the immortal words of Murtaugh...."I'm too old for this #&$@"

[Vorthian]

Don't forgot to add to your list the many ranged exploits, specially furyshot.

Thx in advance.

Except furyshot is not an exploit.

You're welcome for the correction.

[Duetotheseverity]

Read the description, ding exploit.

[Darkrok]

And after furyshot, do the following:

-Delete cocoon and most selfhealing skills.
-Improve the AI against kiting/perching
-Reduce all melee damage (at least of the best performing builds).
-With less healing option and better AI, mob damage can be reduced (no more one-shotting).
-Change fortification so that complete immunity to crits is no longer possible. The critical multiplier of mobs should be lower to offset this (this makes incoming damage more volatile and creates more excitement from having to save yourself).

Don't forget to make sure that AC, Dodge, and all other mitigation tools get reduced...you don't want people that are able to survive without a dedicated healbot or three. Then take all auras out of the game (Pale Master, Warlock, Cleric) - they're too easy button. Group heals should really go too. And remove mana pots and heal scrolls. Potions too...can't have potions!