Warlock NERF Again

[Aelonwy]

As for end game content, you need to clarify.

Ah, yes, end game to me is defined as anything over level 30

Warlock under geared > under geared Fleshy kensei, bard, barb, acrobat, assassin, etc.

Warlock well geared > for a lot of content, still better than all of the above.

What we are debating here by now is whether balance should be attempted at all, and some people are arguing over whether warlock can compete with the power builds.

End game quests, I take an under geared warlock over anything else under geared any day. Literally anything else. People have shown how Slowly you can blast your way through epic and legendary quests even in a level 20 lock without past lives, and in one case, even without destiny.

If you refer to raids, for Lh the above statement would still hold for me. And I haven't seen any 1st life build do very well in LE raids.

Now is an optimized warlock the best of the best power gaming builds? Probably not. Does it pull ahead of many other classes, included revamped ones? Yes.

So it really is up to the reader to decide on which content to focus, and whether they care about balance at all or not.

This is the answer I was looking for thank you, especially the line:

Now is an optimized warlock the best of the best power gaming builds? Probably not. Does it pull ahead of many other classes, included revamped ones? Yes.

Heroic balance doesn't matter to me so much and it must not matter to very many because I rarely see anyone saying epic past lives should stay in epic content. In epics though I would like to see some semblance of balance but I doubt we'll ever have that because this is a very player-creativity driven game. By that I mean we are not as forced into recipe builds as many other RPG games that give you very little choice on how to build your character after you enter the game for the first time. We have multi-classing, a very friendly enhancement system (now), Epic Destinies (essentially a free-for-all enhancement system), twists that blur the lines even more and past life bonuses. At some point these characters (and the people that spend the time and often money to optimize and perfect them) approach an art form that often takes experience and lots of game mechanic knowledge to appreciate. Certainly it must be bitter to see either content made too easy or a new addition to the stable of choices (warlock) that either removes or tremendously ameliorates the need for character improvement/gearing/perfection. Lets be honest here this player driven creativity and investment in our characters is a large part of the reason we play this game over others.

[Phil7]

All heroics are "Autowin" on any class.

What makes Warlock easiest is cone shape, blast everything in front of you. Quests with hallways, most quests, its just walk through the quest holding M1. So I get your frustration and when I leveled mine just last month I lol'd walking through GH cabal and trial etc just blasting everything. All the necro 4's same story. But two years ago my barb ran everything faster. Warlock blaster is just so easy to play compared to the barb which required more micromanagement.

I don't think its such a bad thing to have a pay to play class that's easy to play and powerful at the same time, as long as its not as powerful as the top classes that require knowledge, gear and skill to play. We can only be talking about DPS warlocks though, as enchantment or necro warlock builds do require skill, knowledge and gear.

Oh really? any class is autowin!?
Then let me see a new player with his barbarian ''autowinning'' a HE, To Curse the Sky at level 17. You know for bravery and solo of course, because all heroics are easy, as you state.
Let us see how well he will perform with the almost non-existent MRR that the barbarian receives.
Here I had +18 MRR from Past Lives and +2 from tome and +18 from level 15 crafted sheltering item and got 1 shoted twice when entered a room full of abishais.

Is it possible to survive? Yes, very easily.
Cast fire shield scroll and get the occult slayer enhancment for an extra +15 mrr.
And equip a fire absorption/ins fire res item.

But still I'd like to see a new guy doing all of that and having all these past lives.

Auto win is for you and me who know how to overcome most difficulties in this game by now.
If you would have thought of all the above that is.

[nokowi]

Monk recently got a revamp, yet it cannot compete dps and efficiency wise with some of the over performing builds.

Wis to Damage is on its way in a separate tree (something like Harper).

In other words, there is not one monk pass, but a series of changes that will (hopefully) improve monks.

We don't know exactly what this means, but to declare monks inferior is silly at this point.

I would also expect some better wraps now that they are coded as weapons, and (I think) they can show up in the next loot system.

[Mr_Helmet]

Oh really? any class is autowin!?
Then let me see a new player with his barbarian ''autowinning'' a HE, To Curse the Sky at level 17. You know for bravery and solo of course, because all heroics are easy, as you state.
Let us see how well he will perform with the almost non-existent MRR that the barbarian receives.
Here I had +18 MRR from Past Lives and +2 from tome and +18 from level 15 crafted sheltering item and got 1 shoted twice when entered a room full of abishais.

Is it possible to survive? Yes, very easily.
Cast fire shield scroll and get the occult slayer enhancment for an extra +15 mrr.
And equip a fire absorption/ins fire res item.

But still I'd like to see a new guy doing all of that and having all these past lives.

Auto win is for you and me who know how to overcome most difficulties in this game by now.
If you would have thought of all the above that is.

That's the player failing, not the class.

Much of the power exists between the keyboard and the chair.

[Aelonwy]

Having never played a warlock I cannot join the ranks insisting warlock be torn down from whatever heights its achieved but if some small changes would bring it more inline with other casters classes perhaps that is a direction I can at least say I favor.

Some have pointed out what they believe are the biggest OP warlock abilities, and synergies with other classes and EDs.
Most notably spell crit from TS, and Warlock synergy with Divine EDs such as US is better than with Arcane EDs. Anyone can have better survivability in US, that is its purpose, but warlock is as far as I recall the only caster class with a real Con/HP based mechanic that can truly take advantage of that destiny and because most of Warlock damage isn't based on caster level or spell pen they aren't loosing anything much going with US over a caster ED (but its a playstyle choice). Much like Bard, warlock to me comes across more as a specialist (poor naming choice) class than a caster because its a tool that can fit a variety of playstyles. So I for one am not sussed about it having synergy with US and able to complete things slowly. US is serving its purpose.

Anything that can take advantage of Shiradi will be complained about... I would like to see reduced % chance of effects on spells with Shiradi and a slightly higher %chance of effects with ranged but no higher than 10% after all its about random. But that is of course my opinion of Shiradi and isn't really about warlock. What else is there? EA? Anyone have some constructive suggestion about EA?

As to Spell crit from TS... does any other caster get anything remotely that good for spell crit chance as a part of its class or enhancements? Anyone? If not why was this even allowed in? Is this in prep for the other caster enhancement passes? Clearly melee are not going to be happy with casters getting that large a bump in power. What is the greatest spell crit chance given in another caster tree? How much better should the warlock crit chance be to reflect its limited spell casting choices? These questions need to be answered before the conversation can go anywhere productive.

[slarden]

As to Spell crit from TS... does any other caster get anything remotely that good for spell crit chance as a part of its class or enhancements? Anyone?

Yes any caster with a /5 wizard splash can use master of knowledge which is fairly easy to charge up with arcane blast. The benefit of the /5 wizard splash is 60% spell crit damage, 90 spellpower, crit chance from archmage and of course arcane supremacy but it requires using the archmage tier 5 as arcane bolt is not a good way to charge it.

Master of Knowledge is generally better when fighting mobs but not as easy to keep fully charged against a single boss.

LGS provides a one piece 35% crit damage accessory for elements, positive, negative.

[Zoriaan]

If so, do you think it would have been as easy and as fast as the warlock completion?

- No, I mean no way. See the fvs time and my time. Nearly half the time and 0 pots. On a fleshy will be much longer unless some uber guy in the forum prove me wrong with a video and or screenshot.

.

Nice run Van

Do you honestly believe that certain members of your Guild on their Furyshotter hybrids cannot do the same? You know who I am talking about

I am 100% certain they can do the same possible even do it faster...lets be honest here...

Again don't get me wrong I don't care if they nerf lock or not I want what is best for DDO, but I do get the distinct feeling that 2pc2 etc have not even attempted solo runs and many others in this thread are just making blanket statements based on assumption and not actual gameplay and experience...

I might try log Zori and see how fast I can do it on him

[Tilomere]

A basic rotation can be:

- Use triple heart LGS to get ~5to8k acid DOT damage

Which of these do significant damage and scale with spell power? Because if all of these work, one could rotate through these 3 and vacuum as two different weapon sets and do good damage on any caster, using any spell they want, regardless of how good that spell is.

Legendary Earth Attacks and offensive spells deal stacking Acid damage over time. Half-second cooldown as of U29P1. ~250 damage at full stacks (van says this works with spell power)

Legendary Water Attacks and offensive spells have a [??%] chance to inflict ten stacks of cold damage over time, adding one stack at a time. This effect has an internal cooldown.

Legendary Magma Attacks and offensive spells deals fire damage over time on hit or spellcast, and slow enemy movement. A quarter-second cooldown as of Update 29 Patch 1.

[slarden]

Again don't get me wrong I don't care if they nerf lock or not I want what is best for DDO, but I do get the distinct feeling that 2pc2 etc have not even attempted solo runs

That seems to be the case. I made a fair offer since he insisted I run it on a fleshy melee, but he ducked and dodged that offer.

[Vanhooger]

That seems to be the case. I made a fair offer since he insisted I run it on a fleshy melee, but he ducked and dodged that offer.

Could you do that plese? Just to compare the 2, not asking anything else.

[Vanhooger]

Which of these do significant damage and scale with spell power? Because if all of these work, one could rotate through these 3 and vacuum as two different weapon sets and do good damage on any caster, using any spell they want, regardless of how good that spell is.

Legendary Earth Attacks and offensive spells deal stacking Acid damage over time. Half-second cooldown as of U29P1. ~250 damage at full stacks (this apparently works with spell power)

Legendary Water Attacks and offensive spells have a [??%] chance to inflict ten stacks of cold damage over time, adding one stack at a time. This effect has an internal cooldown.

Legendary Magma Attacks and offensive spells deals fire damage over time on hit or spellcast, and slow enemy movement. A quarter-second cooldown as of Update 29 Patch 1.

Legendary earth, a friend of mine told me that as he is using it, i don't have it yet. Only t2 for now.

[Vanhooger]

Nice run Van

Do you honestly believe that certain members of your Guild on their Furyshotter hybrids cannot do the same? You know who I am talking about

I am 100% certain they can do the same possible even do it faster...lets be honest here...

Again don't get me wrong I don't care if they nerf lock or not I want what is best for DDO, but I do get the distinct feeling that 2pc2 etc have not even attempted solo runs and many others in this thread are just making blanket statements based on assumption and not actual gameplay and experience...

I might try log Zori and see how fast I can do it on him

I am sure 100% they can't beat Warlock time, with a fleshy melee.
But you can prove me wrong Zor
As an example just did slavers part1 in 36 min with my fleshy monk killing everything, probably half or less time with a Warlock.

[Zoriaan]

I am sure 100% they can't beat Warlock time, with a fleshy melee.
But you can prove me wrong Zor
As an example just did slavers part1 in 36 min with my fleshy monk killing everything, probably half or less time with a Warlock.

Oh I agree with a fleshie melee they wont beat that time...I doubt they will come close...but take the best fury-shotters in your guild and I am sure they will beat that time or match it...

:O Ok I am going to start a nerf monk thread hehe just kidding nice job

[Tilomere]

A basic rotation can be:

- Use triple heart LGS to get ~5to8k acid DOT damage

Well, van says to stack a LGS acid dot to 5-8k, and your friend says it works, but this guy says it doesn't scale:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-Earth-(Again)

The video I found post nerf has it critting for 500 on a helpless target when applied by a warlock (assuming tons of spell power due to EA ED and double rainbow twists), indicating it doesn't really scale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQVbUOVUPRc

It used to scale (on lammania?) when it was first introduced, for a very short time until nerf:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwge5c-tnG4

Apparently LGS procs are all nerfed to be inconsequential. So you do need the base class and epic spell abilities.

[Aelonwy]

Yes any caster with a /5 wizard splash can use master of knowledge which is fairly easy to charge up with arcane blast. The benefit of the /5 wizard splash is 60% spell crit damage, 90 spellpower, crit chance from archmage and of course arcane supremacy but it requires using the archmage tier 5 as arcane bolt is not a good way to charge it.

Master of Knowledge is generally better when fighting mobs but not as easy to keep fully charged against a single boss.

LGS provides a one piece 35% crit damage accessory for elements, positive, negative.

Thank you for the information. I'm only seeing 30% crit chance in Archmage 5% from the stacking spell criticals and 25% from Arcane supremacy. So we are comparing a 60% spell crit chance that is always on and doesn't require any sort of charging mechanic but requires a pure class caster to a 25% chance (30% total) Tier 5 enhancement that is only active 12 seconds every 90 seconds and does have a random mechanic (10% chance to trigger) so you can't even absolutely control when it goes off. Doesn't seem apples to apples to me, but it also doesn't seem as enormously overpowered as before when I didn't realize any other class had at least an option. Maybe I don't understand how Master of Knowledge plays into it because it doesn't mention crit chance just crit damage.

I'm going to ignore the LGS as an item that anyone with enough time and effort can acquire therefor equal on both sides of the equation.

If I were a dev in charge of this situation I'd reduce TS capstone by about 15% (total 45% so still far and away better for an always active benefit) and make the Arcane Supremacy no longer have the 10% chance but be a clicky for at least 20 seconds every 90 like a lot of melee Tier 5 clickies. Now can my cleric please get a crit chance benefit on the level of one of these in her caster tree? Seriously, didn't we used to hug for buffs? Hug a cleric please, we need the hugs.

[slarden]

Thank you for the information. I'm only seeing 30% crit chance in Archmage 5% from the stacking spell criticals and 25% from Arcane supremacy. So we are comparing a 60% spell crit chance that is always on and doesn't require any sort of charging mechanic but requires a pure class caster to a 25% chance (30% total) Tier 5 enhancement that is only active 12 seconds every 90 seconds and does have a random mechanic (10% chance to trigger) so you can't even absolutely control when it goes off. Doesn't seem apples to apples to me, but it also doesn't seem as enormously overpowered as before when I didn't realize any other class had at least an option. Maybe I don't understand how Master of Knowledge plays into it because it doesn't mention crit chance just crit damage.

I'm going to ignore the LGS as an item that anyone with enough time and effort can acquire therefor equal on both sides of the equation.

If I were a dev in charge of this situation I'd reduce TS capstone by about 15% (total 45% so still far and away better for an always active benefit) and make the Arcane Supremacy no longer have the 10% chance but be a clicky for at least 20 seconds every 90 like a lot of melee Tier 5 clickies. Now can my cleric please get a crit chance benefit on the level of one of these in her caster tree? Seriously, didn't we used to hug for buffs? Hug a cleric please, we need the hugs.

The 60% crit damage and 90 spellpoewr bonus is just from Master of Knowledge. Any other benefit in archmage is additional.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Master_of_Knowledge

In my experience it's easy to charge up in quests like slavers because you get 1 stack for every enemy hit with arcane blast.

[Aelonwy]

The 60% crit damage and 90 spellpoewr bonus is just from Master of Knowledge. Any other benefit in archmage is additional.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Master_of_Knowledge

In my experience it's easy to charge up in quests like slavers because you get 1 stack for every enemy hit with arcane blast.

Still not apples to apples though is it? I mean its an epic feat your almost required to take apparently to get the most out of archmage? Whilst Warlock would have this feat open to take something else and still have better spell crit chance (because its always on) as early as level 12 and twice as good by level 20? Don't get me wrong its awesome that Archmage has this option, I'm just not sure that we can say these choices are equal all things considered. Even so, I'm glad to see there is a way for other casters to achieve something in the same strata it simply requires either being a wizard or having a heavy wiz splash and Tier 5 in the wiz tree for a 12 second every 90 second ability. Any opinion on my earlier suggestion?

[slarden]

Still not apples to apples though is it? I mean its an epic feat your almost required to take apparently to get the most out of archmage? Whilst Warlock would have this feat open to take something else and still have better spell crit chance (because its always on) as early as level 12 and twice as good by level 20? Don't get me wrong its awesome that Archmage has this option, I'm just not sure that we can say these choices are equal all things considered. Even so, I'm glad to see there is a way for other casters to achieve something in the same strata it simply requires either being a wizard or having a heavy wiz splash and Tier 5 in the wiz tree for a 12 second every 90 second ability. Any opinion on my earlier suggestion?

Everything in this game involves an opportunity cost. Taking the capstone in TS means giving up the other 2 entirely and not multiclassing which is the easiest way to increase crit chance. A level 24 feat is no different in that respect.

The 3 warlock TS cores give a total of 60% crit damage. Master of Knowledge gives 60% crit damage + 90 spellpower. It is balanced by needing to be charged up, but more powerful when it is. Because it's a feat a wizard can multiclass with fvs for 8% crit chance and just reward + 3 caster levels. If the ability was in the capstone of archmage I would think it make wizards less powerful not more powerful since favored soul splash is so good.

Both are really good in my opinion.

My opinion is it's fine to nerf warlock as part of a larger balance adjustment, but they need to stop the knee jerk reactions to threads like this.

[Aelonwy]

Everything in this game involves an opportunity cost. Taking the capstone in TS means giving up the other 2 entirely and not multiclassing which is the easiest way to increase crit chance. A level 24 feat is no different in that respect.

The 3 warlock TS cores give a total of 60% crit damage. Master of Knowledge gives 60% crit damage + 90 spellpower. It is balanced by needing to be charged up, but more powerful when it is. Because it's a feat a wizard can multiclass with fvs for 8% crit chance and just reward + 3 caster levels. If the ability was in the capstone of archmage I would think it make wizards less powerful not more powerful since favored soul splash is so good.

Both are really good in my opinion.

My opinion is it's fine to nerf warlock as part of a larger balance adjustment, but they need to stop the knee jerk reactions to threads like this.

I see what you are saying. I'm in favor of balance adjustments being done with meticulous tools and a jeweler's loupe, not whack-a-mole with mauls, myself.

[mr420247]

Nerfs are not ok

Either nerf all buffed classes or none of them

And casters have still not had any passes so there out

Fix the exploits first if u fix anything