Help Barty plan his PDK Warlock

[parowan]

I've come back to the game after two years and need to get a Warlock PL to regain completionist. I feel like a newb all over again and haven't really seen warlocks in action so thought I'd get advice on my plan.

PDK for the melee charisma
3 pally for the saves, free bastard sword feat, and additional tankiness from sacred defender
16 warlock

I figure the bastard sword will give me something to do while my aura kills stuff, but it will be secondary to the warlock stuff. My main question is sword and board (2HF) or sword and orb (SWF)? I'm leaning toward SWF because I've never tried those feats before.

Levels:
1: Ftr: SWF, precision, and maybe dodge? -or- 2HF, shield mastery, shield bashing
2: War
3: Pal: maximize
4: War
5: War
6: Pal: empower
7: War
8: War
9: War: iSWF -or- i2HF
10: War
11: War
12: Pal: IC slashing
13: War
14: War
15: War: gSWF -or- g2HF
16: War
17: War
18: War: quicken? mobility? SF evo? spell pen? -or- improved shield mastery
19: War
20: War

Enhancements:
I'll think go full Enlightened Spirit with plenty of Soul Eater. And a touch of Sacred Defender for even more survivability.

Abilities:
Max chr. 16 con. The rest mostly in dex if SWF, and str if 2HF. SWF and dex leaves a few extra points of flexibility.

Questions:
* Do Warlocks need to worry about spell pen much? If so I can take that in order to twist some in.
* Do Warlocks need to worry much about DCs? Should I bother with a spell focus feat?
* Thinking of a triple pos greensteel bastard sword for leveling. As undead beater, with First Blood and Twin Blade for other stuff. Are there better options? I'm bored with LitII. Is steam worthless?
* Any key gear I ought to look out for?
* And the main question: 2HF and shield or SWF and orb?
* Are there things I'm overlooking or not understanding?

If it matters I have +5 tomes, all past lives, and all destinies are capped. Plenty of end game gear, circa 2014... So that sucks. And I hate farming so I usually only stay at level cap for a couple weeks. Sometimes PUG, mostly solo.

[KoobTheProud]

Things to keep in mind:

Divine Grace has been nerfed to 2 + (3x Pally level) in overall adds to saves. So 3 levels of Pally means your Cha mod will give you a maximum of +11 to saves. Good but not the crazy numbers you used to see off of a 2+ Pally splash.

Warlock blasts, SLA's and spells have ASF as a modifying factor. Eldritch Aura is supposed to have it as a modifying factor but does not at this point in a publicly acknowledged not working as intended.

PDK's do not get a racial enhancement to lower ASF so it will be hard to work Heavy Armor into the mix although Medium Armor will be used without any ASF via an ES enhancement. Elves of all sorts can use Plate with just an effective 4% ASF at cap due to +15 Spell Agility Augments plus the Arcane Fluidity enhancement in the Elven racial trees. The difference between Heavy and Medium Armor is 13.5 PRR at cap -which is something like 2-3% damage at normal PRR ranges of 120 to 160 or so.

If you go S&B you'll find yourself getting a Skyvault Shield to have 0% ASF on a Tower Shield. It's the only game in town for the kind of thing you want to do. Medium Armor plus a crafted Large Shield can be run without ASF with a +15 Spell Agility Augment in the mix. An Elf can get a Skyvault Shield plus Heavy Armor and also have 4% ASF overall with the +15 Spell Agility and +15 Arcane Fluidity enhancement. The cost of 4 AP to get Arcane Fluidity is partially offset by the 2 AP cost to get Medium Armor Proficiency in ES, which a Heavy Armor wearer can skip.

On damage your mileage may vary however I've found melee damage to be such a small factor in the overall equation that I've added other spells that sequence better with the bursts for added damage. I usually have something to cast on the way in and then a 3rd AE that does not share a cooldown with the bursts for better ability to rotate damaging abilities.

Many people who play a Warlock for the first time overestimate how much damage Eldritch Aura actually does. It will not do the job for you alone in Elite/Epic Hard/Epic Elite, etc. You are only going to have the 4th ES capstone so the aura is only going to proc every 3 seconds. That's a long time to wait for AE to happen in a crowd on tougher difficulty levels, particularly a mixed crowd with a few ranged static mobs out of aura distance.

This is the main reason that melee hybrid Warlocks are less powerful than they'd seem at first glance. The AE damage is maybe effectively about a third of what it could be just bursting and blasting the 2 AE SLA's. Melee damage does not make up the difference and if you try to do the normal attack sequence it gets interrupted when you burst and blast, which you will want to do after seeing the difference in damage.

[boredman]

I've come back to the game after two years and need to get a Warlock PL to regain completionist. I feel like a newb all over again and haven't really seen warlocks in action so thought I'd get advice on my plan.

PDK for the melee charisma
3 pally for the saves, free bastard sword feat, and additional tankiness from sacred defender
16 warlock

I figure the bastard sword will give me something to do while my aura kills stuff, but it will be secondary to the warlock stuff. My main question is sword and board (2HF) or sword and orb (SWF)? I'm leaning toward SWF because I've never tried those feats before.

Levels:
1: Ftr: SWF, precision, and maybe dodge? -or- 2HF, shield mastery, shield bashing
2: War
3: Pal: maximize
4: War
5: War
6: Pal: empower
7: War
8: War
9: War: iSWF -or- i2HF
10: War
11: War
12: Pal: IC slashing
13: War
14: War
15: War: gSWF -or- g2HF
16: War
17: War
18: War: quicken? mobility? SF evo? spell pen? -or- improved shield mastery
19: War
20: War

Enhancements:
I'll think go full Enlightened Spirit with plenty of Soul Eater. And a touch of Sacred Defender for even more survivability.

Abilities:
Max chr. 16 con. The rest mostly in dex if SWF, and str if 2HF. SWF and dex leaves a few extra points of flexibility.

Questions:
* Do Warlocks need to worry about spell pen much? If so I can take that in order to twist some in.
* Do Warlocks need to worry much about DCs? Should I bother with a spell focus feat?
* Thinking of a triple pos greensteel bastard sword for leveling. As undead beater, with First Blood and Twin Blade for other stuff. Are there better options? I'm bored with LitII. Is steam worthless?
* Any key gear I ought to look out for?
* And the main question: 2HF and shield or SWF and orb?
* Are there things I'm overlooking or not understanding?

If it matters I have +5 tomes, all past lives, and all destinies are capped. Plenty of end game gear, circa 2014... So that sucks. And I hate farming so I usually only stay at level cap for a couple weeks. Sometimes PUG, mostly solo.

I was thinking in something similar, a kind of tankish dps warlock for reaper.

It seems you want to make a kind of tankish warlock with some dps from bastard sword to complement it. In that case I think getting a 4 paladin level for defender tier 4 enhancements would be good, so I would go Warlock 15/paladin 4/fighter 1 and also I would go constitution based and do something based in a Voodu Warlock https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5704456 switching some feats like force of personality and shield prof (you get free shield prof and a extra martial feat with the ftr lvl) and maybe toughness for Thf feats for glancing blow aoe dmg to complement the aura damage.

You still can use charisma as second stat for to hit, dmg, saves also using tenser spell for full bab, but in this case i think spells dc and spell penetration would not be worth the invest, since most of your damage would come from the eldritch aura, the blasts from ES tree and your bastard sword and you already are sacrificing a lot of spell dc and penetration by multiclassing, taking ES tree and taking meele feats.

For tanking can play in sentinel but also can play in destinies like divine crusader or exalted angel for more dps. can also take dire charge at level 29 for cc.
About enhancements mainly ES tree for the blasts and defenses, tier 4 defender for stance, hitpoints, ac, defenses, run speed, rest into tainted scholar for staunch, feigned health, utterdark blast for evil damage (light spellpower based) and chain shape (for when ranged aoe damage is needed). (maybe haste boost from kensei if enough ap or twist it at epics for single target dmg)

About gear would want defenses (ac, prr, mrr, hitpoints, heal amp, dodge, ghoistly, saves, intimidate), some meele damage (so deadly, speed, doublestrike) and light spellpower and light lore for the blasts and aura (radiance), corrosion or resonance or combustion spellpower depending your pact damage type. (maybe some universal spellpower and spell lore if using hellball at lvl 28 and for devotion for self heal so pansophic circlet could be useful) and cannith crafting or slaver craft for gear customization with legendary triple positive legendary affirmation weapon for defenses at epics? (Im assuming medium armor with heavy shield so no problem with ASF just using a sapphire augment)

Just my thoughts.

[boredman]

Oh just noticed is just for leveling to 20 for past life, pretty much anything would work with warlock so no worries, but in case you want to taste epics or even reaper when it goes live, the kind of warlocks can differ from the tree and feats you invest, there are ones that focus on spells dc and dmg with max cha and spell penetration, and there others focused on being tough with sustained dmg and maybe some epic spell dmg.

[parowan]

Thanks KoobTheProud and boredman for the thoughts.

Since this is a PDK I will be leveling to 30. But I'm just trying to get completionist back, so unless I'm really enjoying myself I'll TR soon after capping. For that reason I'm not too concerned about sacrificing some optimization in order to invest a bit in melee (as long as I'm still viable). Especially since my current life is a pure caster and I'd like a change this time. For my second warlock life I'll probably go pure.

It does make sense that DCs and spell pen are a lost cause. But I'm not sure I want to put level-ups into con instead of chr. More temp hp would be nice, but with the sacred defender stance I'm hoping to be ok. And I don't want the chr for melee to suffer. Maybe I'll split them between chr and con.

Skyvault Shield would be nice, but I won't spend too much time farming for it and will make do without if necessary. But it sounds like sword and board is the way to go rather than sword and orb. I'll just have to do a swashie life sometime to experience the SWF feats.

Maybe I'll do freezing ice for my heroic greensteel, then move to epic chimi's at 20. Although having a second triple pos in the bank as a raise clickie wouldn't be bad. And there's just so much undead in this game. And going to be more. Ugh, not a fan of undead.

Chain shape seems like an essential. But switching to evil rather than force damage? Radiance boosts evil damage? That would consolidate spell power needs. But not sure it fits the paladin flavor.

[boredman]

Thanks KoobTheProud and boredman for the thoughts.

Since this is a PDK I will be leveling to 30. But I'm just trying to get completionist back, so unless I'm really enjoying myself I'll TR soon after capping. For that reason I'm not too concerned about sacrificing some optimization in order to invest a bit in melee (as long as I'm still viable). Especially since my current life is a pure caster and I'd like a change this time. For my second warlock life I'll probably go pure.

It does make sense that DCs and spell pen are a lost cause. But I'm not sure I want to put level-ups into con instead of chr. More temp hp would be nice, but with the sacred defender stance I'm hoping to be ok. And I don't want the chr for melee to suffer. Maybe I'll split them between chr and con.

Skyvault Shield would be nice, but I won't spend too much time farming for it and will make do without if necessary. But it sounds like sword and board is the way to go rather than sword and orb. I'll just have to do a swashie life sometime to experience the SWF feats.

Maybe I'll do freezing ice for my heroic greensteel, then move to epic chimi's at 20. Although having a second triple pos in the bank as a raise clickie wouldn't be bad. And there's just so much undead in this game. And going to be more. Ugh, not a fan of undead.

Chain shape seems like an essential. But switching to evil rather than force damage? Radiance boosts evil damage? That would consolidate spell power needs. But not sure it fits the paladin flavor.

Sure, you can take more charisma if want, it gives you more meele dmg, spellpoints and some spell dc; the constitution is more if you are focusing more into a tanking role, which is also the reason of using a S&B style, since you can block with the shield and still do some dmg with the aura while tanking, you also get good intimidate with cha stat. But Swf style with orb is also viable and save you the shield feats so can take spell focus evocation or force of personality or other useful feats instead, at the cost of some defenses of the shield.

I believe radiance (light spell power) boost evil damage, that's why it could save you a spellpower and lore slot by going evil damage instead force, since also your ES aura and blasts are light dmg as well. (but there are items that give good universal spellpower like pansophic circlet so could use that if want to fit force spellpower as well).