Warlocks in heroics

[Sanader]

Hello, I finally decided to start my own thread about warlocks

So first of all, I will state my reasons why I think warlocks are OP in heroics and some ideas how to balance them out. I'm talking about heroics not epics. So the proposed "nerfs" won't effect warlocks performance in epics.

Warlocks get spells to early.
- wail of banshee/mass hold on lvl 16? Before the wizards get it??
- finger of death and circle of death same time as wizzy?
I always though that arcane spells should be aquired in the following order:
1) wizards
2) sorcerer
3) warlock and bard
Fix: modify spell progression table (e.g. levl 6 spells on lvl 19 instead of 16, after wizard and sorcerer)

Spirit blasts to much damage
Not much to add here. Insane damage on heroics with metas on.
Fix: Remove metamagics but increase spellower to 150%. Result: lower damage on heroics, and higher damage on epics (600 light spellower -> 900 light spellower, so increase of 300, more than maximize + empower).

Eldritch blast to much damage.
Fix:Increase casting time by 50%. This will affect epics to, so to counter that, continue the Eldritch Blast damage increase to epic levels as well ("deals 1d6 damage at level 1, and increases by +1d6 at Warlock level 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 17, and 20; for a total of 9d6 at level 20". Change to: 3,5,7,9,11,14,17,20,22,24,26,28,30 which is 13d6 by lvl 30, 50% more than it is at this moment.

Shining through
Fix: Increase HP gain (even 20xcon is OK), but increase cooldown to atleast 2 minutes.


So how do you like the ideas? Do you think some of those things aren't to strong in heroics? Have more things to add?

[FranOhmsford]

No, Just NO!

Stop Nerfing - First it was Paladins {who are now significantly behind both Fighters and Barbarians btw}, now it's Warlocks - There's been multiple nerfs already - No more! Other Classes that still need Updating should be Updated to Warlock Levels.

The Devs need to set a target level and STICK to it!

That has been the problem since Bard got updated - Each time a new class gets updated it gets made stronger than the last rather than beefed up to the SAME level as the last as they should have been!

[Hutoth]

So how do you like the ideas? Do you think some of those things aren't to strong in heroics? Have more things to add?

I like the approach - there's a fair consensus on 'locks power issue being a heroics thing, and the suggested approach definitely works for that.

[Sanader]

Each time a new class gets updated it gets made stronger than the last rather than beefed up to the SAME level as the last as they should have been!

Okay to sum up, warlocks state in heroics:
Most HP - 30 sec cooldown skill that lasts 10 minute is NOT a temporary buff
Most damage - evil damage so nothing in the game resists it + no cost. Spam blasts all day while your brain is on standby mode. And no saving throw (well only pact damage gets it)
Most usefull buffs - from displecment, invisabilty, deathward, GH, DD, haste. Only usefull buff that i don't see is FOM.
Most usefull (and earliest) CC - holds, wail, circle of death, suggestions, finger of death etc.
Best spell like abilities

I can't really recall, but you are saying no class was updated since warlocks were released? I mean, if what you wrote is true, than warlock wouldnt be on top of everything still.


I will took your advice and have a look on how to tune all classs up to warlock:
1) all classes get additional 1k HP (for melee's) and 300-400 hp on other classes so that they have more or same HP as a warlock?
2) we remove SP bar, remove saving throws on damaging spells and remove elemental resistance from mobs? It will be like a warlock blast than.
3) all classes get all buffs. Like give wizzies ability to cast deathward and tentacles? And let paladin use displecment?
4) remove saving throws from spell like abilities, give them more damage, and make them no save abilities (maybe a necro will be able to use metas on it's abilities to one day....)
5) add a permanent multishot ability for ranged weapons at level 4 (IPS is to hard to use, hard to get more that few targets, you need to like position yourself, and you have to wait level.....11? And +50 ranged power.
6) add permanent multistrike for melee weapons at level 4. And +50 melee power.

I'm sure that with those 6 steps all classes could be similar to warlocks.
Please say if you have your own ideas how to "put one of the classes on warlock level". I'm really interested how would that be done.

[Arctigis]

Okay to sum up, warlocks state in heroics:
Most HP - 30 sec cooldown skill that lasts 10 minute is NOT a temporary buff
Most damage - evil damage so nothing in the game resists it + no cost. Spam blasts all day while your brain is on standby mode. And no saving throw (well only pact damage gets it)
Most usefull buffs - from displecment, invisabilty, deathward, GH, DD, haste. Only usefull buff that i don't see is FOM.
Most usefull (and earliest) CC - holds, wail, circle of death, suggestions, finger of death etc.
Best spell like abilities

The butthurt is strong in this one...

Most HP - presumably you mean temporary HP? - you don't get Shining Through until L12
at the earliest. Taking T5 ES locks you out of T5 SE/TS.

Most damage?. Not even close. If you mean most damage by mashing two buttons and
not thinking - yeah, maybe. EB and SB are cleave equivalents - how many SP do Cleave
and Greater Cleave cost again? What's the save against Cleave attacks?

Spell choices is offset by limited spell slots. All classes have access to UMD.

ES are are easy to play, have few weaknesses and are strong in the current meta
where borked aggro and good AOE (if you can stay alive) is king. Temp HP in Reaper
are also great. Single target DPS is relatively poor and burst DPS is non-existent - this
gets worse with level.

[FranOhmsford]

Okay to sum up, warlocks state in heroics:
Most HP - 30 sec cooldown skill that lasts 10 minute is NOT a temporary buff
Most damage - evil damage so nothing in the game resists it + no cost. Spam blasts all day while your brain is on standby mode. And no saving throw (well only pact damage gets it)
Most usefull buffs - from displecment, invisabilty, deathward, GH, DD, haste. Only usefull buff that i don't see is FOM.
Most usefull (and earliest) CC - holds, wail, circle of death, suggestions, finger of death etc.
Best spell like abilities

Yes, Warlocks are strong in Heroics but seriously - IT'S HEROICS! Warlocks are not the strongest class in Reaper Difficulty {And I fully agree that the Temp HPs not suffering from Heal Amp Penalties is wrong and a bug that needs fixing} so we're talking Heroic Elite here!

Warlock helps newer players, Casuals AND altoholics play Catch-up - It should NOT be nerfed just because some Elitists want to pull the road up behind them!

I can't really recall, but you are saying no class was updated since warlocks were released? I mean, if what you wrote is true, than warlock wouldnt be on top of everything still.

I think we've had Fighter and a partway FavSoul update since Warlocks - FavSoul is not fully done yet and is requiring a lot of work. You can't really compare Fighter to Warlock as one is a Melee and the other is a Caster but the Kensai Update did make Fighters much much stronger.

I will took your advice and have a look on how to tune all classs up to warlock:
1) all classes get additional 1k HP (for melee's) and 300-400 hp on other classes so that they have more or same HP as a warlock?
2) we remove SP bar, remove saving throws on damaging spells and remove elemental resistance from mobs? It will be like a warlock blast than.
3) all classes get all buffs. Like give wizzies ability to cast deathward and tentacles? And let paladin use displecment?
4) remove saving throws from spell like abilities, give them more damage, and make them no save abilities (maybe a necro will be able to use metas on it's abilities to one day....)
5) add a permanent multishot ability for ranged weapons at level 4 (IPS is to hard to use, hard to get more that few targets, you need to like position yourself, and you have to wait level.....11? And +50 ranged power.
6) add permanent multistrike for melee weapons at level 4. And +50 melee power.

I'm sure that with those 6 steps all classes could be similar to warlocks.
Please say if you have your own ideas how to "put one of the classes on warlock level". I'm really interested how would that be done.

Warlocks get a lot but they're not the BEST at anything even in Heroics and at 20+ they start to fall away as other classes catch up.

They're jack of all trades characters - Good enough at everything - Again this allows newer players, casuals and altoholics a high baseline character so they can keep up at least to some extent with vets on maxed out toons.

Let's be fair here - Some classes {and especially once we get into multi-classing} perform better at different levels - With some builds you can be great in one quest and terrible in another - Warlock succeeds here as well because Warlock is made to be good everywhere.
And yes Warlock is still good in Epics, It's just not Great in Epics - Other classes and builds {some of them exploits} overtake it.

Warlock is not that overpowered in Heroics anymore either - Shining Through did get nerfed a little too heavily - The cooldown is already plenty high enough actually, Your suggested "buff" to Shinining Through is completely overpowered by your suggested nerf of it's already long enough cooldown.

Yes a strong player can still build an overpowered Warlock but that strong player can also build an overpowered anything FOR HEROICS {and probably for Epics too} because Gear plays a HUGE roll in the power of characters in DDO now and Past Lives ADD UP!

A Strong Sorc or Rogue Mech will put any Warlock to shame in Heroics! {And Sorc hasn't even been Updated yet! It does need an Update if only to make it easier to reach that power level NOT to bring the power level up!}.

An 18 Barb/2 Fighter can also blast through Heroics - The issue here is NOT that the Warlock is stronger but that the Warlock does damage at a larger Range therefore when playing together the Warlock will generally have a much higher Kill Count!
The Warlock has also probably died 3x more than the Barb/Ftr!

[korgzz_bloodaxe]

To be honest I believe the last 2 warlock nerfs have already been sufficient and I have never even played warlock. Warlocks are very strong in heroics but they are no longer supremely overpowered like they used to be. I think it is better if some of the weaker classes get buffed a little bit i.e. Druid and FVS. Pally is strong in certain multi-class combinations but needs to be more attractive as a pure option. Barbarians need a bit of tweaking (read: fixing some weirdness in their enhancement trees - cross dependencies between Frenzied berserker and ravager which force people into a 41/39 split). Wizard needs a bit of love for those that aren't uber DC casters i.e. more raw damage, SLA's etc.

Gradual small buffs in areas were certain classes are weak is the best approach i feel.

[Arch-Necromancer]

Hello, I finally decided to start my own thread about warlocks

So first of all, I will state my reasons why I think warlocks are OP in heroics and some ideas how to balance them out. I'm talking about heroics not epics. So the proposed "nerfs" won't effect warlocks performance in epics.

Warlocks get spells to early.
- wail of banshee/mass hold on lvl 16? Before the wizards get it??
- finger of death and circle of death same time as wizzy?
I always though that arcane spells should be aquired in the following order:
1) wizards
2) sorcerer
3) warlock and bard
Fix: modify spell progression table (e.g. levl 6 spells on lvl 19 instead of 16, after wizard and sorcerer)

Spirit blasts to much damage
Not much to add here. Insane damage on heroics with metas on.
Fix: Remove metamagics but increase spellower to 150%. Result: lower damage on heroics, and higher damage on epics (600 light spellower -> 900 light spellower, so increase of 300, more than maximize + empower).

Eldritch blast to much damage.
Fix:Increase casting time by 50%. This will affect epics to, so to counter that, continue the Eldritch Blast damage increase to epic levels as well ("deals 1d6 damage at level 1, and increases by +1d6 at Warlock level 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 17, and 20; for a total of 9d6 at level 20". Change to: 3,5,7,9,11,14,17,20,22,24,26,28,30 which is 13d6 by lvl 30, 50% more than it is at this moment.

Shining through
Fix: Increase HP gain (even 20xcon is OK), but increase cooldown to atleast 2 minutes.


So how do you like the ideas? Do you think some of those things aren't to strong in heroics? Have more things to add?

I like the ideas.

Warlocks shouldn't get their last level spells before wizards and sorcerers. But level 19 is a bit too harsh. I would rather give them first level 6 spell slot on level 18 and second on level 20. So they can have at least one level 6 spell on level 18 if they take 2 levels of other class.

Many people complain about too many insta-kill spells that make warlocks better choice then wizards and sorcerers for that purpose.

We currently have inbalance in insta-kill spells between pacts. Great Old One warlocks get 2 insta-kill spells as a pact bonus (Power Word: Kill and Phantasmal Killer), Fiend warlocks get one, but special insta-kill spell (Hurl through Hell can kill undead and other enemies immune to other insta-kill spells), while Fey warlocks don't get any insta-kill spell as a bonus.

This could be fixed by switching Fey pact's level 6 bonus spell (Otto's Irresistible Dance) with Wail of the Banshee (which actually fits very nice with a sonic based warlock). Otto's Irresistible Dance would be available to all warlocks, while Wail of the Banshee would be Fey pact's bonus spell. That way every pact would have insta-kill bonus spells, but no one would have too many insta-kills as to make them better then wizards and sorcerers in insta-killing. So that's more of a matter of balancing between pacts then nerfing or taking something away from warlocks.

I would also make Knock spell available to all warlocks so that solo players don't have to take Great Old One pact to be able to open locks. They can add some other bonus spell to Great Old one in Knock's place.

Evard's Black Tentacles need to have their damage reduced. Their primary role is to stop mobs based on a Conjuration DC, not drain most of their HP when amplified with metamegic. The simplest solution would be to give it a penaly to amplification from spellpower (maybe 50% like pale master SLAs), but every other damage reduction would be welcome. And it's not fair to not give this spell to wizards and sorcerers. They should also get this spell!

While I am talking about SLAs, warlock's SLAs like Eldritch Ball should at least get the same penalty to spellpower bonus as Pale Master's SLAs. Why should Eldritch Ball have 100% spellpower bonus from impulse spellpower and metamagic enhancements, while Pale Master's Necrotic Blast has a 50% penalty to nullification spellpower bonus and does not get metamagic amplification? Things like these are the primary cause of class imbalance.

Warlocks definitely need their damage reduced in heroics, while getting an increase in damage through epic levels to even it out. Any suggestion that does that is welcome.

[FranOhmsford]

I like the ideas.

Warlocks shouldn't get their last level spells before wizards and sorcerers. But level 19 is a bit too harsh. I would rather give them first level 6 spell slot on level 18 and second on level 20. So they can have at least one level 6 spell on level 18 if they take 2 levels of other class.

How about waiting till Wizards actually get Updated!

Chances are Wizards will get access to some of these spells and others much earlier too at that point!

You're basing your opinion of a new class against a class that hasn't been buffed since the Enhancement Respec to Trees and all Wizards got access to Zombie Form! {Which I personally consider a NERF as I do NOT want to HAVE to be Undead to play a Wizard!}.


Wizard needs Updating AND Buffing heavily to catch up with the current meta - Warlock has already been nerfed multiple times, it does not need any more nerfs and tbf we could roll back the last one!

[Arch-Necromancer]

How about waiting till Wizards actually get Updated!

Chances are Wizards will get access to some of these spells and others much earlier too at that point!

You're basing your opinion of a new class against a class that hasn't been buffed since the Enhancement Respec to Trees and all Wizards got access to Zombie Form! {Which I personally consider a NERF as I do NOT want to HAVE to be Undead to play a Wizard!}.


Wizard needs Updating AND Buffing heavily to catch up with the current meta - Warlock has already been nerfed multiple times, it does not need any more nerfs and tbf we could roll back the last one!

There's no reason to change the levels on which wizards and sorcerers get their spells.

If you look at the warlock's level 6 spells, and compare them with level 9 wizard and level 6 bard you can make a few observations.

Bard's level 6 spells include mostly level 6 wizard and cleric spells and few level 8 wizard sonic-based spells. They get first level 6 spell on level 16 (just like warlock).

On the other hand, warlock's level 6 spells include level 8 and level 9 wizard spells.

One thing that really catches the eye is that bards have Summon Monster 6 as a level 6 spell while warlocks have Summon Monster 9 (!!!) as a level 6 spell.

Don't you think that it was a bit too much to give them the best version of this spell? They could have lived with a Summon Monster 8 spell and that would be one less reason to consider raising the level at which they get level 6 spells.

And for the Wail of the Banshee issue. If you'd get Otto's Irresistible Dance (level 8 wizard spell) for all warlocks, and Wail of the Banshee as one insta-kill bonus spell for Fey pact there would be absolutely no need to talk about raising level in which warlocks get level 6 spells, because most of their level 6 spells (without pact bonus spells) would be level 8 wizard spells.

[psykopeta]

nice changes, well proposed and well argumented

it's true warlocks aren't op, but they aren't in a fair position and... well, if they stay at that point i guess it would be fair to balance caster classes to that lvl when their time for enhancement pass

and that wouldn't be fair, so i guess some tuning is needed, increasing cd is a good way to balance, and as some already said... 10 min is not a temporary buff

i would say 30 secs duration on a 1 or 2 mins cd would be fair

that wouldn't reduce warlock strong points but would reduce the low lvl abused stuff

[Arctigis]

Hello, I finally decided to start my own thread about warlocks

So first of all, I will state my reasons why I think warlocks are OP in heroics and some ideas how to balance them out. I'm talking about heroics not epics. So the proposed "nerfs" won't effect warlocks performance in epics.

Warlocks get spells to early.
- wail of banshee/mass hold on lvl 16? Before the wizards get it??
- finger of death and circle of death same time as wizzy?
I always though that arcane spells should be aquired in the following order:
1) wizards
2) sorcerer
3) warlock and bard
Fix: modify spell progression table (e.g. levl 6 spells on lvl 19 instead of 16, after wizard and sorcerer)

Don't mind this tbf.

Spirit blasts to much damage
Not much to add here. Insane damage on heroics with metas on.
Fix: Remove metamagics but increase spellower to 150%. Result: lower damage on heroics, and higher damage on epics (600 light spellower -> 900 light spellower, so increase of 300, more than maximize + empower).

This would be the equivalent of emp+max+intensify though hence the net effect would be the same
in late Epic - and actually much weaker in early Epic. I reckon you need Slaver's gear (+185 Radiance)
and Scion of Celestia (sans 3x ML PL) to crack 600 light spell power on a pure Warlock, no?

Eldritch blast to much damage.
Fix:Increase casting time by 50%. This will affect epics to, so to counter that, continue the Eldritch Blast damage increase to epic levels as well ("deals 1d6 damage at level 1, and increases by +1d6 at Warlock level 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14, 17, and 20; for a total of 9d6 at level 20". Change to: 3,5,7,9,11,14,17,20,22,24,26,28,30 which is 13d6 by lvl 30, 50% more than it is at this moment.

Eldritch Blast doesn't do enough damage IMO. I'd rather this was scaled up with level
over what it is presently. I felt I had to play in Shiradi to get sufficient DPS. The balance needs
to be struck between the standard blast and Cone/Chain shapes. In isolation it feels a bit stronger
than a Ranger/Thrower plinking away - until you consider RP boosts, Adrenaline, 10k Stars, Manyshot
etc. A L20 first life Ranger with the first tier of FotW (essentially no Epic XP at all) can use RP
boost + Manyshot + Adrenaline + Sniper's/Head/AoS and do Red Named DPS that a L30 Warlock
would be jealous of. Sure a Ranger, even with IPS, can't do the AOE of a Warlock, doesn't have
the defences of an ES Warlock or the utility - they do massively more Red Name DPS though. This
is the balancing point of Warlocks IMO. You really notice this in the newer quests where HP are
massively inflated.

Shining through
Fix: Increase HP gain (even 20xcon is OK), but increase cooldown to atleast 2 minutes.


So how do you like the ideas? Do you think some of those things aren't to strong in heroics? Have more things to add?

Don't see how this changes anything - might as well reduce it to 5xCON every 30 seconds? It's already been nerfed
twice. Perhaps it should scale more with level like Brilliance?

[Phoenicis]

i would say 30 secs duration on a 1 or 2 mins cd would be fair

As a defensive ability that would be a T5 ability I never take.

[FranOhmsford]

One thing that really catches the eye is that bards have Summon Monster 6 as a level 6 spell while warlocks have Summon Monster 9 (!!!) as a level 6 spell.

Summon Monster VI
Summon Monster IX

Who cares? Both spells are useless anyway!

Bards got Summon Monster VI more than 7 years ago - I'd have no problem with the Devs changing that to Summon Monster IX because frankly it makes no difference!

[Arctigis]

As a defensive ability that would be a T5 ability I never take.

Absolutely. ES would be even more of a trap if this were the case...

[Arctigis]

One thing that really catches the eye is that bards have Summon Monster 6 as a level 6 spell while warlocks have Summon Monster 9 (!!!) as a level 6 spell.

Warlocks get two level six spell slots. One of them is not going to be Summon Monster.

[Arch-Necromancer]

Summon Monster VI
Summon Monster IX

Who cares? Both spells are useless anyway!

Bards got Summon Monster VI more than 7 years ago - I'd have no problem with the Devs changing that to Summon Monster IX because frankly it makes no difference!

It does not matter whether it is useful or not (maybe one day summons will become useful and then this matter will come up again). What matters is that warlock gets this spell before wizard and there is no reason why it should be that way.

And it's not just Summon Monster IX.

Wizards get level 7 spells on level 13, and Summon Monster VII. Warlocks get level 5 spells on the same level and Summon Monster VIII (which is a level 8 wizard spell).

Wizards have level 5 spells on level 10 and Summon Monster V. Warlocks get level 4 spells on the same level and Summon Monster VI (which is a level 6 wizard spell).

Wizards have level 4 spells on level 7 and Summon Monster IV which is the same as warlock gets on the same level, so that's OK.

Wizards have level 2 spells on level 4 and Summon Monster II. Warlocks get level 2 spells on the same level and Summon Monster II (which is a level 3 wizard spell).

So to make warlock the same as wizard he should get one level lower version of Summon Monster spell on spell levels 2, 4, 5 and 6.

It doesn't matter if it is currently useless or not. It should be fixed to at least match wizard and not outperform him in power of this spell.

[SirValentine]

The Devs need to set a target level and STICK to it!

Agreed! They did set the target level. They said Bard would be the standard. Now they need to stick to it.

That has been the problem since Bard got updated - Each time a new class gets updated it gets made stronger than the last rather than beefed up to the SAME level as the last as they should have been!

Yes, that is the problem.

Stop Nerfing

You're contradicting yourself. We need some nerfs of updated-post-Bard-update and introduced-post-Bard-update classes, in order to get back down to the dev-set target level.

Other Classes that still need Updating should be Updated to Warlock Levels.

You really want to set Warlocks as the standard? What, because most content in the game is so hard we really need even more power bloat?

[ShinobiKitten]

i love the people who try to debate whether or not warlocks in heroics are OP or not. like guys...its not a debate lol its a discussion on how to make them less OP because the VAST majority of people are on the same page in the fact that they are op and NEEEEED a nerf lol

[FranOhmsford]

because the VAST majority of people

Nope!

Not in game they're not!

The forums don't account for much of a minority never mind any sort of majority!