Warlock racial PL - thoughts & tips

[goldgolem]

I have now done 8 racial lives as a warlock in a row. This is what I have evolved to for fast, mostly solo low reaper leveling

Pact
GOO for acid. I tried the others, acid is better

Feats
Extend is good early for blur, haste. Swap it out later if you need, I generally keep it
Heighten rocks your web and later tentacles
Forum builds say take Max + Emp as first two feats - but all it works on is tentacles at lvl 10. Better to take those later and have more useful feats earlier - extend and heighten
Force of personality turns out to be a must have

Current feat setup
Lvl 1: Extend
Lvl 3: Force of personality
Lvl 6: Heighten
Lvl 9: Maximise
Lvl 12: Empower
Lvl 15: Completionist
Lvl 18: Wizard PL

Some alternate feat discussions here https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ura-and-Blasts

Enhancements
Go acid and force. force helps your tentacles damage. keeps gearing simple

At lvl 7 I swap from chain to cone
At lvl 16 I swap from conjuration items to necro items and swap from TS to SE and go all out necro. Could swap earlier but 16 is the sweet spot.

Reaper
I just go all HP and fill in spell stuff as I can

Gear
Boots for acid damage, cannith crafted rings for force damage. This means I can keep heal scrolls equipped and have them hot barred. In my other hand I use a healing stick until lvl 10 where I swap in the Acidic Sphere for +38 insightful corrosion
mask of comedy is a great item until you can cast GH

Stats
Max CHA
I start with 12 INT that gives me 4 lvl ups in what I care about - UMD, Spellcraft, Heal and Concentration. I take more UMD than I need so I can still do scrolls with death penalties.
Rest in CON


Spells
lvl 1 spells - I want resist energy and shield spell. means I give up jump. I use jump pots for a few levels, then I swap out shield for jump
I tried charm, cant really see the need. On low reaper it just slows you down
I gave up Displacement for DD...

Scrolls
lvl 3 invis
lvl 7 teleport, raise dead
lvl 9 GH, heal


Items:
My early game is evoc focused, then I swap to conjuration for web. At around 14 I add in necro, going more necro the later it gets
Otherwise -> HP, Spellcraft, Deathblock, CHA, CON


To try
lvl 15 use earthen mantle - 101 force and +4 evoc
and insight on items
lvl 11 add insightful to force rings
pump spellcraft

[KoobTheProud]

It's just hard for me to imagine that a bursting fiend isn't the best possible build in heroics from 12 to 20. Stuff just melts in front of you and the defenses are so strong. I just go ES and TS and 20 is a breeze. HtH is like icing on the cake.

[goldgolem]

It's just hard for me to imagine that a bursting fiend isn't the best possible build in heroics from 12 to 20. Stuff just melts in front of you and the defenses are so strong. I just go ES and TS and 20 is a breeze. HtH is like icing on the cake.

Im not so keen on bursting in reaper... chain rocks - lets you kill stuff around corners, never have to worry about trying to target reapers in packs of mobs etc. Its actually a very defensive play style if you need it to be, using geometry an doorways

ES gives you some nice extra spell power, maybe I could fit in spiritual retribution for light damage, but I probably wont have the points for it

rockboots give you acid and there is a fire cloak from the vendors that has the same fire stats

Just TR with 4 pairs of rock boots and you are golden - I think!

[KoobTheProud]

Im not so keen on bursting in reaper... chain rocks - lets you kill stuff around corners, never have to worry about trying to target reapers in packs of mobs etc. Its actually a very defensive play style if you need it to be, using geometry an doorways

Whoops, I apologize. Context is important and you're right, I don't play Reaper. Bursting probably is more problematic there.

In Elite the stacking defensive buffs of ES and TS are just overwhelming against content, making a Warlock virtually unkillable. Blur, Shield, Displacement, Fireshield, etc.

[Morroiel]

I was going to make a post detailing optimization for warlock reaper. Instead I'll post some stuff here:

This is for r3-r5.

1) Chain (up till lvl 6/7) then swap to cone. Keep cone all the way to 20.

2) GOO or Fiend or gtfo. Only go fiend if you have someone else in static group going GOO. Create thrall, knock, pk, dom person, and mass suggestion. Also major versatility to will based acid pact damage.

3) Prioritize dcs:

• Web and Stunning blast (conjuration / evocation) are the best for low levels. (prior to 6/7)
• Evards, suggestion, stunning blast, fear, pk (spell focus mastery is a must) prior to level 12.
• Evards + Necro (spell focus mastery, prioritize necro) till 20. Create thrall / hurl at 15 make a big difference.

4) Never put ANY points in ES. All points should pretty much be spent like this:

• Always have stanch
• Always have cone shape once you can.
• Prioritize pact die in TS
• T5 souleater at level 12. Spell point efficiency, finger sla, and eldritch wave.
• Wand/scroll amplification and feigned health are absolutely worth 3/3 points each.

5) Cannith craft gear at level 1, 5, 10, 15 - placing in rock boots if you feel like grinding challenges. Otherwise just make caster sticks they are good enough. (Worth the investment if you are doing more than 2 lives - it takes roughly 4ish hours to make all the gear if you farm correctly)

6) Some nice things to pick up

• Spellpoint trinket 20 major pot clicky - 3 medium eberron dragonshard fragments. (Always have 1 on you)
• Ioun stone spell absorption and archmage / spell pen
• gh pots
• flesh to stone runestones different tiers - cannith crafting
• dw clickies or dw pots
• yugo pots

7) Fear is often overlooked. It is beyond broken.

[goldgolem]

I[*]T5 souleater at level 12. Spell point efficiency, finger sla, and eldritch wave.
.

Thanks, thats some good points. I rejigged my enhancements and I can get to it at 12. Doesnt look like too bad a swap from the TS tree - I can get the must haves out of TS by 12 as well. Lets see how that goes

It does mean I miss out on 7% spell critical until about lvl 15. Losing 10 and gaining 3


EDIT: OK, after trying that a bit it is too many spells for me. I just never hit the fods or wave - it means taking my finger off the blast button. I think I need a very simple setup which is max blast damage with acid and force, force powers tentacles and I use web. thats about it I think. The only thing I spend spell points on is tentacles and the occasional web, so its no worries on SP

I am going to go back to T5 in TS, and just do enough in SE for cone and grab shield from ES


Spell focus will be evoc for max damage. My DCs will be good enough for web/tentacles without spell focus there

Aslo made 3 sets of rock boots tonight. Will do more tomorrow to upgrade them. Im looking forward to the next life now!

[goldgolem]

Life 3: GOO warlock
ok 2 fire and now an acid life down. Rock boots helped a lot, extend first up helped a lot.

GOO is much better than fiend given how many fire resistant mobs and oozes you find 1-20. Since I am soloing mostly, I dont have party members to leave them to. I feel GOO works better solo

I didnt miss FOD, Wail or Hurl at all. Just keep the blast button pushed down from start to finish :P

Eldritch burst
The feat progression in the OP worked out well for Goo, but I played with some good Eldritch Burst warlocks this life so I am going to give that a try for life 4. Means I will have to swap feats a bit to have max 2nd + empower 3rd

I avoided Eldritch Burst builds because I thought it would be too hard to use above reaper 3, but I think it will be OK. Mostly I am just solo running R1 anyway..

Spell wise, some nice things happen if you go EB - you can take shield in the tree, opening lvl 1 spells to jump and resistance. I can swap in speed boots and also dump DD, adding displacement and stoneskin this lief, which is a big defence boost

Some changes for life 4
*I went DD last life to finish grabbing ings, but I'm gong to skip it this life and go with the extra protection of displacement
*Also Im going all in on conjuration over evocation. Super Web + Tentacles wins over a bit of extra damage
*Trying eldritch burst + light damage (taking at lvl 3, might be a bit early..)

Life 4: Eldritch Burst light
Doh, dont go EB at lvl 3! It doesn't cast fast enough and you dont have much defense from being right next to mobs yet

[Dalmathus]

[QUOTE=goldgolem;5965245]...
Feats
Extend is good early for blur, rage, haste, displace. Swap it out later.
Heighten rocks your web and later tentacles, once you get web you are a CC monster
Forum builds say take Max + Emp as first two feats - but all it works on is tentacles at lvl 10. Better to take those later and have more useful feats earlier - extend and heighten
I havent needed quicken or force of personality at all. will drop them
...

I just want to make sure you are aware you can Max + Emp your bursts.

[cru121]

I went DD last life to finish grabbing ings, but I'm gong to skip it this life and go with the extra protection of displacement

Another good thing about tier 5 ES is the displacement SLA. Frees a third level slot for other good options.

[Zoriaan]

5) Cannith craft gear at level 1, 5, 10, 15 - placing in rock boots if you feel like grinding challenges. Otherwise just make caster sticks they are good enough. (Worth the investment if you are doing more than 2 lives - it takes roughly 4ish hours to make all the gear if you farm correctly)

is that 4 hours farming to get enough mats to craft ALL the twink gear for lvl 1,5,10 and 15?

If so I would LOVE to know your farming strategy, as I might hop on the racial TR train soon.

cheers

[Morroiel]

is that 4 hours farming to get enough mats to craft ALL the twink gear for lvl 1,5,10 and 15?

If so I would LOVE to know your farming strategy, as I might hop on the racial TR train soon.

cheers

All cannith crafting gear for levels 5,10,15 - only weapons, armor, and a ring for level 1 (i use rando loot for the rest of the slots as 1-5 takes barely any time at all). I opt not to use rock boots even though I probably should - I hate cannith challenges.

Farming strategy is the following:
1) Deconstruct everything while you are leveling / playing endgame (cannith essences aren't included in time - worst case buy them off ah)
2) Pick up ings in endgame content (T6 shouldn't be any trouble at all - or if it is should be limited to a few ings)
3) Prioritize farming cultural ings first -> from adventure packs
4) Farm rest of ings (doing quests / farms that you know well -> dont do wheeloon prison unless you know where all the ings are, etc)
5) In addition to doing quests you know, follow the farming guides on the forums to pick high collection/run areas/quests (opt for things where you can stay and do different difficulties and get multiple tiers)
6) Do 3-5 on a high speed toon, preferably a monk with perma haste. Also umd teleport and g teleport to shorten time spent outside of quests
7) Do something to dull the pain of farming 3.5-5 hours straight. (I'd say 4 hours is my average - though the first time doing it I was spending 5-6 hours). I get sick of playing the same thing (when doing heroic trs) so I've changed up gear a couple times.

If you have trouble or want more details, I can give them but I'm going to be away from game for a bit (end of the semester wrap up).

[goldgolem]

Updated with what I have learned in 4 more slogging warlock lives... mostly that the dragonborne toons seem to run so slow

[MaeveTuohy]

I was going to make a post detailing optimization for warlock reaper. Instead I'll post some stuff here:

This is for r3-r5.

1) Chain (up till lvl 6/7) then swap to cone. Keep cone all the way to 20.

2) GOO or Fiend or gtfo. Only go fiend if you have someone else in static group going GOO. Create thrall, knock, pk, dom person, and mass suggestion. Also major versatility to will based acid pact damage.

3) Prioritize dcs:

• Web and Stunning blast (conjuration / evocation) are the best for low levels. (prior to 6/7)
• Evards, suggestion, stunning blast, fear, pk (spell focus mastery is a must) prior to level 12.
• Evards + Necro (spell focus mastery, prioritize necro) till 20. Create thrall / hurl at 15 make a big difference.

4) Never put ANY points in ES. All points should pretty much be spent like this:

• Always have stanch
• Always have cone shape once you can.
• Prioritize pact die in TS
• T5 souleater at level 12. Spell point efficiency, finger sla, and eldritch wave.
• Wand/scroll amplification and feigned health are absolutely worth 3/3 points each.

5) Cannith craft gear at level 1, 5, 10, 15 - placing in rock boots if you feel like grinding challenges. Otherwise just make caster sticks they are good enough. (Worth the investment if you are doing more than 2 lives - it takes roughly 4ish hours to make all the gear if you farm correctly)

6) Some nice things to pick up

• Spellpoint trinket 20 major pot clicky - 3 medium eberron dragonshard fragments. (Always have 1 on you)
• Ioun stone spell absorption and archmage / spell pen
• gh pots
• flesh to stone runestones different tiers - cannith crafting
• dw clickies or dw pots
• yugo pots

7) Fear is often overlooked. It is beyond broken.

Can you explain the value of wand and scroll mastery? Never bothered with it and I am intrigued.

[cru121]

Can you explain the value of wand and scroll mastery? Never bothered with it and I am intrigued.

so that your heal scrolls overcome portion of the reaper self-healing penalty

[MaeveTuohy]

so that your heal scrolls overcome portion of the reaper self-healing penalty

Thanks!

[goldgolem]

I also just tried out eldritch wave this last life. its amazing, basically an isnta kill spell. I cant believe I missed it so long