Zehnpai's Acid Warlock - [First life friendly] [Heroic leveling] [VIP/Premium]

[Sproutecus]

Wave shouldn't be clipping at all. It's great damage and single-handedly makes T5 SE the best warlock T5. The rest is just gravy.

Consume once fully stacked does about the same DPS as just blasting. It's uh...132 average every 2 seconds while blasting is what, 88ish I think every 1.3 seconds or so? In terms of click economy consume + arcane pulse is just insane for a warlock. Blasting is probably the lowest dps option you have. Stricken is technically worse dps, but it allows you to apply vulnerability and -prr/mrr which more and more mobs have these days.

Acid is nice but it's like, 1/8th of your damage. Worth getting, but not worth prioritizing.

Noted. So I should focus on force/untyped? I am doing both but obviously there is no enhanced force damage options (that I know of)

As for the clip[ping, maybe I am doing something wrong. I am blasting by holding down the left mouse button, just as if I was melee attacking. When I cast Consume/stricken/a spell it seems to either want to finish the blast sequence or if I time it just right at the end of the 3 blast sequence it seems to cast immediately. But then there is a delay before the blasting starts up again. Like 1-2 second delay. Which seems to defeat the purpose of Wave altogether.

If it just that I need to learn to time the casting better?

[zehnvhex]

Force, alignment (light) and pact (acid).

Force affects base blast damage, ruin/gruin, arcane pulse and EBT.
Alignment affects stricken/consume and 2d6 of your blast damage when you have consume on something.
Acid for your pact obviously and probably acid blast from the draconic ED.

The only enhancement bonus to damage is from RL belt and LGS weapons, neither of which have a force/alignment version. Sucks but it is what it is. Even considering that, your force and alignment damage is going to be more than your pact damage, even on trash pulls where you don't typically bother with stricken/consume.

The delay after casting wave is roughly the same as the wind up delay when casting a new blast chain. It feels like a greater delay because EW you cast and then have animation delay while with blast you have animation delay and then cast. So when you EW you see two animation delays before damage resumes and that feels like a long time.

Another way to think of it is let's consider two attack chains.

Blast-Blast-Blast, EW, Blast-Blast-Blast

Blast-Blast-Blast, Blast-Blast-Blast, Blast-Blast-Blast

The first one will do more damage in less time than the second. You just have that awkward post-EW/windup period that makes it feel clunky.

In short, EW is really really good, even standalone. It's a lot of fun to grab like 30 trash mobs, EBT them, step back, then cast EW and watch their HP just vanish.

[Sproutecus]

Force, alignment (light) and pact (acid).

Force affects base blast damage, ruin/gruin, arcane pulse and EBT.
Alignment affects stricken/consume and 2d6 of your blast damage when you have consume on something.
Acid for your pact obviously and probably acid blast from the draconic ED.

The only enhancement bonus to damage is from RL belt and LGS weapons, neither of which have a force/alignment version. Sucks but it is what it is. Even considering that, your force and alignment damage is going to be more than your pact damage, even on trash pulls where you don't typically bother with stricken/consume.

The delay after casting wave is roughly the same as the wind up delay when casting a new blast chain. It feels like a greater delay because EW you cast and then have animation delay while with blast you have animation delay and then cast. So when you EW you see two animation delays before damage resumes and that feels like a long time.

Another way to think of it is let's consider two attack chains.

Blast-Blast-Blast, EW, Blast-Blast-Blast

Blast-Blast-Blast, Blast-Blast-Blast, Blast-Blast-Blast

The first one will do more damage in less time than the second. You just have that awkward post-EW/windup period that makes it feel clunky.

In short, EW is really really good, even standalone. It's a lot of fun to grab like 30 trash mobs, EBT them, step back, then cast EW and watch their HP just vanish.

Wait, consume/Striken are alignment? I thought they were untyped/Force? No wonder my damage with them has been so crappy. All I need to sdo now is fit in a light SP set in my gear (I have the Lantern ring, but need Ins light SP now....)....

[zehnvhex]

Updated the post a bit.

Notable changes

- I no longer bother with masters touch/axe at level 1 and 2. I pick up false life instead and just rely on a melee hireling to do all the heavy lifting for me. False life + Feigned Health is a pretty fun combo. At level 1 that's 30~ish temp hp for 15 spell points. By level 12 it's doing 50+. Not exactly make/break but a nice buffer to have for basically next to nothing.

- Updated item list a little bit to give the Ravenloft gear set. It's really worth farming out and has made my life significantly easier. Don't even bother updating gear after that anymore all the way to level 28 when I upgrade it all to basically the same thing but Legendary Ravenloft.

- Clarified that alignment spellpower is useful for Chaos damage abilities (Stricken/Consume).

- Added a chapter 5 for responses to questions about splashing other classes in.

[mr420247]

Acid ariti 1 def worth it or 2 rogue myb but youll rxp per min trappin

[zehnvhex]

Only real reason to go trapper splash is if

A) You can't survive/avoid traps (which Warlocks easily can)

or

B) You're in a static and you can trap while everyone else moves on (in which case Warlock is very, very low on the totem pole for good rogue splash builds)

I mean you can do it, obviously, but you're gimping yourself considerably. You delay getting stanch, delay getting EBT, delay getting pretty much every spell, lower your dps, lock yourself out of 10% alacrity, have to fit in the gear or do swaps, have to put more points into int, etc...etc...

That's a lot to give up for something you'll maybe get on 1/4th of the quests you do, if that.

Shoe horning trap splash on Warlock is not worth it. I mean if you really, really enjoy trapping then by all means. It's a game, have fun.

[Rhysem]

I'm looking at doing a warlock next life. I've done some ES'in in the past and I do like the play style, it reminds me of my fire tank in CoH back in the day (or SM/ElA brute, fairly similar style). The cone blast version looks interesting. The kicker is my static group is going to do an iconic run next life, so I'm either burning a +1 or doing a splash. Our plan is to spend some time doing ETRs for one of the guys who just got back to the game and is behind on that boat.

Thoughts on how bad that is? Is it worth spending a +n heart to fix it? The capstones look nice but not amazing. I might do morninglord because of the tasty past life stance.

I'd been thinking of doing fey instead of goo just to pick up some extra cc utility in disco ball. We're looking at undermanning some raids with three of us to see if we can score some sweet gear (pinion), so the utility might be nice. Or between EBT and Web are things covered well enough that I shouldn't feel compelled by fey?

Does the Lantern Ring modify EB wave damage? Has that become sub-par slotting?

[SilentRunning]

I didn't notice if anyone said it or not, but if you feel like using a feat slot you can dump wisdom altogether and use Force of Personality for your will saves and put the points into something a bit more important, whatever you consider as important of course.

[zehnvhex]

I'm looking at doing a warlock next life.

If you're dead set on playing a warlock in epics (I would recommend against it, Sorc is superior in every way), then the following could work:

2 cleric/18 warlock is not an awful build. It's not good, but not awful. Pump the heal skill, go chaos domain and grab divine healing. Since you can't grab the capstone in TS you might as well accept that your already crummy damage is going to be even crummier and play psuedo-support. Grab healsecrate and a bunch of ED healing.

If you want to do damage then you should strongly consider dropping the +1 heart. 30% bonus crit is no joke and then you get 4 cha (so 2 DC's), 1 spell pen, 1d6 more base damage and energy drain is kinda fun for what it is. It's probably one of the best caster capstones.

If going epics then go fiend. Hurl is a no brainer post 20. It's just not worth it pre-20 because you only get it for a few levels and you lose more time with the loss of fire pact damage on fire immune mobs from 1-15 then you save one-shotting champions that don't live long anyways from 15-20.

Fey is garbage. Otto's is more expensive, smaller AoE, works on less stuff, doesn't do damage version of Tentacles. Basically you EBT and if anything lives through it, blame your melee for sucking.

Lantern Ring and an LGS radiance weapon are pretty much mandatory for lock post 26 still I believe.

[zehnvhex]

I didn't notice if anyone said it or not, but if you feel like using a feat slot you can dump wisdom altogether and use Force of Personality for your will saves and put the points into something a bit more important, whatever you consider as important of course.

It's a consideration, and you can probably afford to drop one of the crit bonus feats for it. I just don't typically bother because most things that cast will based spells are dead before they land.

That and I have my anti-fear/hold boots. Flightfoot greaves slotted with fear immunity gem takes care of 99% of will based spells mobs cast. There's like, 3 heroic mobs in the game that cast Otto's and they're all easy to kill.

[Rhysem]

If you're dead set on playing a warlock in epics (I would recommend against it, Sorc is superior in every way), then the following could work:

2 cleric/18 warlock is not an awful build. It's not good, but not awful. Pump the heal skill, go chaos domain and grab divine healing. Since you can't grab the capstone in TS you might as well accept that your already crummy damage is going to be even crummier and play psuedo-support. Grab healsecrate and a bunch of ED healing.

If you want to do damage then you should strongly consider dropping the +1 heart. 30% bonus crit is no joke and then you get 4 cha (so 2 DC's), 1 spell pen, 1d6 more base damage and energy drain is kinda fun for what it is. It's probably one of the best caster capstones.

If going epics then go fiend. Hurl is a no brainer post 20. It's just not worth it pre-20 because you only get it for a few levels and you lose more time with the loss of fire pact damage on fire immune mobs from 1-15 then you save one-shotting champions that don't live long anyways from 15-20.

Fey is garbage. Otto's is more expensive, smaller AoE, works on less stuff, doesn't do damage version of Tentacles. Basically you EBT and if anything lives through it, blame your melee for sucking.

Lantern Ring and an LGS radiance weapon are pretty much mandatory for lock post 26 still I believe.

I did air savant sorc a few lives ago. It was okay. I wasn't enamored of the playstyle. I'd roll up another AA ranger first.

I'm also not looking at running deep EE/reaper, which at some level means I can play anything I want, but for undermanning raids in a reasonable time frame, I'd like something reasonably capable.

[zehnvhex]

Then just about anything will suffice. If you're not doing bleeding edge content then Warlock will do just fine. 18 lock / 2 whatever floats your boat is fine (1 cleric, 1 barbarian is okay, the 10% always on runspeed is nice). / 2 cleric is okay as well if you want to be on ED heal duty.

Last time I bothered to crunch the numbers the lack of capstone on pure blaster build worked out to be something like a 10~15% net DPS loss. Whether or not that's worth popping a heart is up to you.

[Rhysem]

Twelve bucks to remove the level they force on you feels like highway robbery to me.

[Trig_of_Cowtown]

Great write up!

I just paid for a three month sub today. Think I'll roll a gnome and see how your GOO build feels.

[Trig_of_Cowtown]

Great write up!

I just paid for a three month sub today. Think I'll roll a gnome and see how your GOO build feels.

Well, today I rolled a gnome GOO warlock based on the warlock in my webcomic, Helayne. She's is ridiculously fun. I found I enjoyed playing warlocks as much as I enjoy mechanic rogues. This is a good fit for me.

I followed your build, Zehnpai, with one exception. I did not take Quicken Spell. I took Mark of Scribing for the three free Shield spells. It seemed a better choice since the metamagic feats do not affect my eldritch blasts.

Looking forward to what happens next!

[zehnvhex]

Quicken I like for consume, stricken, wave, etc...from the SE tree. Plus EBT/Web/False Life/Mass charm.

Early on it may not feel like you get much use out of it, but post 10 and definitely post 16 you're going to feel the burn from not having it. I like getting it early for faster cast false life.

I mean obviously if it works for you then by all means, but it's not something I would ever suggest.

[Trig_of_Cowtown]

Quicken I like for consume, stricken, wave, etc...from the SE tree. Plus EBT/Web/False Life/Mass charm.

Early on it may not feel like you get much use out of it, but post 10 and definitely post 16 you're going to feel the burn from not having it. I like getting it early for faster cast false life.

I mean obviously if it works for you then by all means, but it's not something I would ever suggest.

*Sigh* You're right. Going to visit Fred and get my feats back on track.

[Rogue_Trapper]

Since GOO gets PK as an auto feat, I made a Flavor Illusion version of this build. Feats are just thrown in there, as It is an Iconic as well. Deep Gnome because PK SLA, starts with low CHA I know.
ETRing this Build will get you +6 MRR (Up to 3x), not a bad feature...

Do know, DG start with equipment to boost Illusion and Acid Spellpower.

Character name: I want it my way
Classes: 19 Warlock, 1 Wizard
Race: Deep Gnome           
Alignment: Neutral

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Skill  Start Tome    LVLup
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Str:     6    6      All Cha
Dex:     8    6        
Con:    18    6      
Int:    14    6      
Wis:    10    6   
Cha:    16    6   


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level Class            Feats
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1   Wizard(1)        Standard: Quicken Spell
                       Metamagic: Spell Focus: Illusion
  2   Warlock(1)       Pact: Warlock: Pact: Great Old One
  3   Warlock(2)       Standard: Greater Spell Focus: Illusion
  6   Warlock(5)       Standard: Spell Penetration
  9   Warlock(8)       Standard: Greater Spell Penetration
 12   Warlock(11)      Standard: Empower Spell
 15   Warlock(14)      Standard: Maximize Spell
 18   Warlock(17)      Standard: Force of Personality

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Skill Name       01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Balance                                                     1  1  1  1  1  1    
Concentration     4  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1   
Jump                       1  1  1  2  2  2  2  2  2  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1   
Spell Craft       4  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1   
Spot              2  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½  ½   
Use Magic Device  2  2  2  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1   

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enhancements: 80 APs
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deep Gnome - Points spent: 23
 1 Core  (1) Wariness I
 2 Tier1 (1) Underdark Experience
 3 Tier1 (1) Underdark Experience
 4 Tier1 (1) Underdark Experience
 5 Tier1 (1) Illusory Escape
 6 Tier2 (1) Permanent Blur
 7 Tier2 (1) Color Spray
 8 Tier2 (1) Color Spray
 9 Tier2 (1) Color Spray
10 Core  (2) Wisdom I: Wisdom
11 Tier3 (1) Spellcraft
12 Tier3 (1) Spellcraft
13 Tier3 (1) Spellcraft
14 Tier3 (1) Illusion
15 Tier3 (1) Illusion
16 Tier3 (1) Illusion
17 Tier4 (1) Phantasmal Killer
18 Tier4 (1) Phantasmal Killer
19 Tier1 (1) Wand and Scroll Mastery
20 Tier1 (1) Wand and Scroll Mastery
21 Tier1 (1) Wand and Scroll Mastery
22 Tier4 (1) Phantasmal Killer
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soul Eater - Points spent: 39
 1 Core  (1) Inhuman Understanding
 2 Tier1 (1) Hungry for Destruction I
 3 Tier1 (1) Hungry for Destruction I
 4 Tier1 (1) Hungry for Destruction I
 5 Tier1 (2) Consume
 6 Tier2 (1) Hungry for Destruction II
 7 Tier2 (1) Hungry for Destruction II
 8 Tier2 (1) Hungry for Destruction II
 9 Core  (1) Inhuman Nature
10 Tier3 (2) Eldritch Blast Shape: Cone
11 Tier3 (2) Ability I: +1 Charisma
12 Core  (1) No Worse Fate
13 Tier2 (1) Stricken
14 Tier2 (1) Stricken
15 Tier2 (1) Stricken
16 Tier3 (2) Strickened Soul
17 Tier4 (2) Ability II: +1 Charisma
18 Tier4 (2) Strickened Form
19 Core  (1) Inhuman Nature
20 Tier4 (2) Immortal Will
21 Tier4 (2) Greater Hunger
22 Tier2 (2) Feeding Frenzy
23 Tier5 (2) Eldritch Wave
24 Tier5 (2) Supreme Hunger
25 Tier5 (2) Feed On Magic
26 Tier5 (2) Spell Tearing
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tainted Scholar - Points spent: 18
 1 Core  (1) Tainted Spellcasting
 2 Tier1 (1) Feigned Health
 3 Tier1 (1) Feigned Health
 4 Tier1 (1) Feigned Health
 5 Tier1 (2) Strong Pact I
 6 Tier2 (2) Utterdark Blast
 7 Tier2 (2) Strong Pact II
 8 Core  (1) Tainted Lore
 9 Core  (1) Stanch
10 Tier1 (1) Eldritch Focus
11 Tier1 (1) Eldritch Focus
12 Tier1 (1) Eldritch Focus
13 Tier3 (2) Strong Pact III
14 Tier1 (1) Planar Power
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S Edit: Going to roll a toon, to see what it can/can't do...

Enhancements at 15:


Okay, Okay...
Have to take in account, I was running Solo Elite LoD on a lvl 15 first life. It is 18 on elite.
No Hire and just the DG starting items.
So, PK from DG uses INT mod for save rolls. Not the best, but was still able to land it abit.
The GOO PK hit more reliable, but wasn't 100%. This could be better with optimal gear.
Adding better Illusion focus gear, and some Spell Pen gear.
The end fight was a bit scuff. At Gnomon, I jumped around. I did safe spot the boss.
The Cone Blasts did well, with just the Acid Spellpower Hammer. A Radiance item would have helped.

All in all, not as bad as I thought. Gear improvements would be great.
The build code did take in effect the PLs/Tomes/ETC, from my main character.
I lowered CON to 16 and Raised INT to 16.
Could take INT to 18 and 16 CON if you wanted to try for better DCs on DG PK.
The +6 tomes would really help with it too.

Would I roll this on my main toon?
For some flavor, and to see a PK warlock, Yeah!!

Would I keep playing it as a first life?
No, the main build of this thread is way more FL friendly.

[Lovecrafts]

Very interesting build but I have a pair of questions after starting a new Drow Warlock last night. After researching through various forums and YouTube, this build was the only one that didn't take Concentration. Is it game breaking not having Concentration for a spell caster? While playing last night, I quickly missed not having any points allocated to Spot. I don't like mobs sneaking up to me to get the first hit. Is it a waste of points raising Spot to 2? Will a Spot of 2 just be enough to help out in low levels and be useless mid to end game? My new Warlock feels so starved for skill points.

[zehnvhex]

Very interesting build but I have a pair of questions after starting a new Drow Warlock last night. After researching through various forums and YouTube, this build was the only one that didn't take Concentration. Is it game breaking not having Concentration for a spell caster? While playing last night, I quickly missed not having any points allocated to Spot. I don't like mobs sneaking up to me to get the first hit. Is it a waste of points raising Spot to 2? Will a Spot of 2 just be enough to help out in low levels and be useless mid to end game? My new Warlock feels so starved for skill points.

Concentration, if you have quicken, is only useful for scroll casting. It's 'nice to have' but not absolutely necessary. Warlock typically has more than enough resources available to not be sitting there getting beat on casting scrolls. I really only take concentration when playing a sorc (since you don't take quicken on a sorc) or monk (since concentration is needed for ki anyways).

I do miss spot as well at times when I'm not playing my artificer, but on the other hand, once you get used to where mobs ~should~ be in most dungeons, it becomes far less of an issue. The number of mobs that actually hide in DDO decreases considerably as you get into newer content. A spot of 2 will not really be helpful.

The only skills for warlock I find to be essential are spellcraft (more damage), UMD (scroll casting) and jump (because I'm lazy and hate recasting jump all the time). If you have extra left over and want to get spot, go for it.