Warlock Balancing

[kanordog]

Ok, I had 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*

the class costs extra 400TP compared to Artificer or monk, it could have some extra power.
can p2p players get a refund then (esp. after monk and arti pass as they will be powerful like rogues (mechs) became (which is an f2p class)

Not always warlocks lead the kill count (who cares anyway?)*

BTW Kill count only represents who had the last hit = faster attack speed will have a better chance to score last (like my thrower vs my wife's fighter, she's got better dps but i still throw two extra shurikens after her attack)

I don't see too many locks nowadays anyway and I do not care if someone has a stronger toon.

*There are people who can outplay me with a naked cleric and I still don't think clerics needs to be nerfed.

[noble_pirate]

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...

well said, Jot!

and yeah, we lost A LOT of really good top players for reasons you described above ((( 2/3 accounts (or even more) in endgame guilds are inactive atm..

[Axeyu]

Druid wolf builds and Tree build have been broken for a long time and haven't been "fixed", yet the Devs have time to Nerf Warlock because the Melee players are upset that their OP Paladins and Barbarians aren't miles ahead of all the Casters anymore.

BooHoo!

Until they Nerf Paladin DPS and Barbarian self healing I say leave Warlock alone. At end game it's fine and that's the only measure that should count.

Welcome to 2016. Paladin DPS and Barbarian self heal is far from OP.

[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

[GroundhogDay]

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.

One more nerf (no matter to what -classes, races, items) and i will stop playing, i've had enough.

[Requiro]

Steel gave us a few hints, although I am sure nothing is final yet. He acknowledged dps is not the problem and he said the change will be small.

I always thought they should fix warlock by making more damage subject to a save so that you had to choose between offense and defense. Instead they will likely just nerf the defense. Think something like 10-15% hp bonus instead of 20% in the capstone.

That will be the most stupid nerf ever

Not only nerf pure warlocks, but only affect epic levels, where Warlocks are not even consider too powerful.

If you want balance Warlocks in Heroic, change static bonuses to dynamic one.
This is quite easy:

• Shining Through: (1/2 Warlock level +2) x Con Score instead 12 x Con Score

That will bring more balance in Heroic.

But in the same time Some other abilities in Warlock should be improved especially for Epic levels or for balance issue:

• Devour the Soul (Core 20 SE):Add Passive: Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 2d6.
• Eldritch Power (T5, TS): Add 3 levels, adding 1d6 damage to EB each

[ramzes7asit4]

So, lets vote about warlock nerf=)
http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p...b06f1c80002f0f

[morkahn82]

So, lets vote about warlock nerf=)
http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p...b06f1c80002f0f

Hacking that poll is as easy as making a new private window in firefox, going to this link and vote. Then repeat. Not worth discussing this result for a second.

[FranOhmsford]

That will be the most stupid nerf ever

Not only nerf pure warlocks, but only affect epic levels, where Warlocks are not even consider too powerful.

If you want balance Warlocks in Heroic, change static bonuses to dynamic one.
This is quite easy:

• Shining Through: (1/2 Warlock level +2) x Con Score instead 12 x Con Score

That will bring more balance in Heroic.

I've just TRd Franq on Sarlona for the 2nd time {1st Life Wizard, 2nd Life Cleric, 3rd Life Warlock} and got him to Lvl 13 - At which point I finally took Shining Through!

Yes you could get Shining Through much earlier on a Pure Lock but there's literally no point doing so as you're gimping your damage by a large amount by not putting points into TS and Strong Pact!

So with your change to Shining Through my 12x Con Score would become 8 {DDO Rounds down rather than up} x Con Score at Lvl 13, 9x at 14, 10x at 16 up to 12x at 20.

I find that acceptable.

But in the same time Some other abilities in Warlock should be improved especially for Epic levels or for balance issue:

• Devour the Soul (Core 20 SE):Add Passive: Your Consume damage over time is increased by 1d10. Your Stricken damage is increased by 2d6.
• Eldritch Power (T5, TS): Add 3 levels, adding 1d6 damage to EB each

Just have Eldritch Power give 3d6 for the Standard 2 AP.

People's perception of power of abilities is affected by cost - 3x 1 ap for 1d6 per doesn't seem all that powerful for a T5
1x 1d6 for 2ap seems blatantly underpowered for a T5 {For a T3 or 4 maybe but for a T5 no chance - T5's should be Special!}.
and 3x2AP would just be too expensive on top of everything else you've already spent.

[Eth]

While we are still in the nerf bat discussion, the new zombie MM spam bot is op.

They deal a lot of damage and can kite mobs, almost as op as ranged toons.

Nerf pretty pls. Thx.

So lets nerf wizards, fvs and sorcs? 3 classes, which all didn't even had their update yet?

[cdbd3rd]

... people buy high HP cars ...

I will not ever admit to how long I stared at that trying to figure out how many Hit Points that meant.

[ramzes7asit4]

So lets nerf wizards, fvs and sorcs? 3 classes, which all didn't even had their update yet?

Maybe, we should know the connection between classes and players with problem "my class x and I want more kill count than y class, no matter counts of different past life and equipment".
Select 3 classes with highest counts players with this problem and nerf all other classes.

[Duetotheseverity]

Or we could nerf the 3-4 cheese builds and improve the game.


Forums...

[FranOhmsford]

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

[LIST][*]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.

This is Elitism plain and simple!

Wolf/Tree Builds require major gaming skills and extreme Meta-Knowledge of DDO to play to anything like their potential!

ES Warlock can be played by just about anybody with a Laptop and a Mouse!

It's not that ES Lock is powerful that's annoying people it's that it allows anybody to be powerful!

I've said myself however that Shining Through in particular is far too strong {back when you nerfed Lock's DPS the first time I stated that you'd aimed the nerf at the wrong thing!}. So I've no particular beef if you're going to reduce Shining Through slightly - Just dont go too far.

HOWEVER:

Wolves and Trees have been around seemingly forever now with nothing done about what are BLATANT EXPLOITS!
The ONLY Build that I regularly see and run with that outright makes my ES Lock feel Useless is WOLF!
Wolf is so ludicrously powerful nothing keeps up with it!
So Nerfing Lock {or anything else!} PRIOR to FIXING/NEUTERING THOSE MANGY MUTTS is just wrong!

Oh and Buff Bears while you're at it!

[*]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.

Maybe but have you noticed there's also a lot less Paladins and Barbs around than a few months ago!

Rangers, Locks, Rogue Mechs and those mangy mutts are the most common builds seen in game right now!

[*]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.

Maybe not in your eyes but perception is everything and if the Players keep seeing you ignoring Wolves and Trees while nerfing Pallies and Locks {who are nothing like as powerful as those blatantly broken Builds} well those Players are going to perceive a bias on the Devs part!

[Loromir]

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

What I really don't understand is Devs reaction.

It's not envy or Jealous. I could easily make one of these ES Warlocks right now and crush EE content....it just too much cheese for my liking.

[JOTMON]

It's not envy or Jealous. I could easily make one of these ES Warlocks right now and crush EE content....it just too much cheese for my liking.

Yup, lots of people talking about how op these warlocks are but just stand in the crowd of torches and pitchforks on their FTP builds inciting the witch hunt against the pay to play classes instead of actually trying them for themselves..

[Loromir]

Yup, lots of people talking about how op these warlocks are but just stand in the crowd of torches and pitchforks on their FTP builds inciting the witch hunt against the pay to play classes instead of actually trying them for themselves..

For the record. I did try. So I know from experience.

[Wizza]

So lets nerf wizards, fvs and sorcs? 3 classes, which all didn't even had their update yet?

"Yet". Very optimistic there Eth

[Paleus]

Maybe not in your eyes but perception is everything and if the Players keep seeing you ignoring Wolves and Trees while nerfing Pallies and Locks {who are nothing like as powerful as those blatantly broken Builds} well those Players are going to perceive a bias on the Devs part!

You actually made a good point?

Why should devs have focused on Warlocks just because its easier? Aren't there numerous more serious issues?

But how long do we think it would be between updates if we had to wait for them to fix Wolves/Trees before making other changes, given they said they don't fully understand how to fix it? Would that also create a perception issue?

Is the impact of the perception of a nerf greater than the impact of the perception of no changes in the game? Wouldn't players perceive that as impending closure of the game?

Could the devs make any changes that someone wouldn't have a perception issue with?

Is the perception of over-emphasis in a post better than the perception of over-inquiry?

[Lerincho]

Why not, lets just bait and switch everything. Get the money, nerf it and move to the next bait and switch. Surely the small player base will enjoy this and reward it continuously instead of getting smaller and smaller....

Success!

I think you need to re-evaluate your definition of bait and switch.

Full Definition of bait and switch
1: a sales tactic in which a customer is attracted by the advertisement of a low-priced item but is then encouraged to buy a higher-priced one
2: the ploy of offering a person something desirable to gain favor (as political support) then thwarting expectations with something less desirable

Warlocks are available. They still will offer the same play ability. Warlocks will still look the same. They will still cost the same. Warlocks will be brought down "slightly" from being completely over powering to more streamlined with other classes.

If this "slight" adjustment causes you such mental anguish, it is because you were intentionally using the over powered aspect to overcome a different shortcoming.

Now, if you bought Warlock, and instead were giving Gnome, that would be Bait and Switch. As expectation did not meet outcome.