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

[zehnvhex]

Foreword: I would like to dedicate this build to the many posts on Reddit/Discord asking for a Warlock guide that doesn't assume you automatically start at level 30. I would also like to thank Strimtom for his acid ranger guide which was a major inspiration for this write-up as it shows you can in fact create a build guide that isn't geared towards machines.

Warning: Veteran players may see quite a few things they strongly disagree with. This guide is aimed at creating a low stress playstyle and is not at all intended to be played at level cap (though it can be done so). For new players, this does require unlocking the Warlock class which is not free. You will either need to subscribe to DDO for VIP status (which I strongly recommend for at least the first month) or buying DDO points to unlock.

This build is accurate as of U38

Chapter 1: In the beginning...

If you read the forums, which you probably shouldn't if you care about your health, you'll often find the much maligned joke that Warlocks are an ez button that requires no thought, no skill and is the easiest class in the game, etc...etc...

The simple fact of the matter is that...well...they're probably right. Warlocks come with a really powerful base kit which make them perfect for the low/mid level content in DDO and are a welcome addition to parties even in the late game. That being said, it's still possible to play them badly and I'm here to help you be the kind of Warlock that makes people cry about them being overpowered.

Let's get to it then.

Race:

Doesn't matter. For the most part. There are going to be minor stat pro's and con's to most of the races. Half-orc is probably the worst and half-elf is arguably the best but again, very minor levels of difference.

Stats:

Charisma is going to be the most important stat for our intrepid hero starting out. Regardless of the race we pick, we're going to want to max this out. That means 16 for the homely half-orc/warforged, 20 for drow/dragonborn or 18 for everyone else. While this is a critical stat, the differences aren't going to make/break us. This is where our 'levelup' stat points are going to go as well.

Intelligence is going to be our next required stat. We want this to be at least 12 so that we get 3 skill points per level (more on this later). More than 12 is not necessary for our purposes.

Constitution is our 3rd focus. Once you've maxed your Charisma and gotten your intelligence to 12, put the rest here. 14 is good. If for some reason you can't get to 14, 12 is okay too. Every 2 points of constitution gives you a bonus of 1 hp per character level (retroactively applied). We're a Warlock so our hitpoints aren't going to matter very soon.

Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom are not necessary. If you have bonus points to spare after getting max Cha, 12 int and 14 con, the rest can be spent on Wisdom as that raises our will saves a little bit and will-save spells suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck to get hit by.

Skills:

If you listened you have 12 int and will gain 3 skillpoints per level. Put them into the following:

Spellcraft: Increases your spell damage with force, acid and alignment spells (which is all we do).

Use Magic Device: Warlocks are really, really, really good at using scrolls. This allows us to do some awesome stuff.

Jump: Any veteran worth their salt did a double-take. It is generally not recommended to take jump because end game, casting, blah blah blah blah. Don't listen to them. Jump is incredible and you want to make it not annoying.

What if I have extra points?

You shouldn't, but if you're human or have tomes or past lives that give you more int and thus more points you can spend them on stuff like:

Concentration: Useful for when casting spells from scrolls so that you don't get interrupted. I don't get much value out of this since I rarely get hit. Some people swear by it though.

Heal: Post-20 you can get some healing spells. Garbage pre-20.

Bluff: There are two quests in the game where a high bluff skill comes in handy. Normally warlocks have so much charisma you only need a bluff item to hit the required skill level, but if I have a lot of extra points this lets me be even lazier.

Balance: Just kidding. You're a Warlock. Don't get hit by things that trip.

Feats:

Level 1 - Quicken spell
Level 1 - Warlock Pact - Great Old One
Level 1 - Racial - (Half Elf - Paladin Dillettante, Dragonborn - Blue dragonflight, Aasimar - Doesn't matter, Human - Least Dragonmark of Passage)

Warlocks (at least the way we will be playing) do not benefit from spelldamage metamagics like empower or maximize spell until level 10 so those can wait till later. Quicken allows us to quickly cast spells without the worry of interrupts.

Pact is going to be GOO. There's pro's and con's to each pact but for heroic levels, GOO is probably the best one. It's the least resisted one, there are only two mobs we will face in most standard quests that are immune or take healing from it (clay golems are pretty much it). The two pact spells we get are super awesome. Plus who doesn't love borrowing the ancient powers of a long forgotten menace to smite your foes?

Level 3 - Spell Focus: Enchantment (or wizard past life feat if you have it)
Level 6 - Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment (or spell focus if you picked wizard past life feat)

As a Warlock we're going to be casting spells that require 3 kinds of saves. Enchantment (charms), Conjuration (web and tentacles) and Evocation (our GOO pact damage). Fortunately with how these spells work out, the only one we really need major help with is going to be enchantment. So long as we keep our charisma up, web/tentacles will almost never be resisted against and with the way GOO pact damage resists work, it's not until epic levels that we have to worry about it.

Level 9 - Maximize Spell
Level 12 - Empower Spell

Starting at level 10 we are going to be getting our first actual honest to goodness spell that deals damage that can be boosted by metamagics and boy howdy is it a good one. At level 12 we're going to be switching our build up a little (more on that later) where we will gain even more benefit from them. As such, 9 and 12 is when we want to be grabbing these beauties.

Level 15 - Mental Toughness
Level 18 - Improved Mental Toughness

Around level 15 is when mana usage is going to become a little more tight and our lack of scaling damage against bloated boss HP numbers is going to start making you think about maybe playing a monk or artificer next life instead. The two mental toughness feats help a little with alleviating these concerns.

Spell:

We get one spell selection at level 1. Take False Life.

For those looking for a quick and dirty spell list this is what you'll end up with

Level 1 - False Life
Level 1 - Shield
Level 2 - Suggestion
Level 2 - Command Undead
Level 3 - Displacement
Level 3 - Dimension Door
Level 4 - Evard's Black Tentacles
Level 4 - Teleport
Level 5 - Literally anything you want they all suck
Level 5 - Same deal
Level 6 - Mass Charm Monster
Level 6 - Mass Hold (If going past level 20, otherwise it doesn't matter)

Appearance/Name/Alignment:

What am I your mother? Do whatever you want here. You'll be forced into a non-lawful alignment since we pact up with the Cthulhu. I recommend Chaotic Neutral so nobody questions you when you steal their car.

Chapter 2: Here we go!

Level 1 -

If you're a new player I recommend playing through the tutorial level. Chances are though if you have Warlock unlocked you probably have already played through this at least once.

While you can use your blasts at this level, you're going to notice they hit for very, very little. I strongly recommend getting a melee hireling and let them do all the heavy lifting for you while you blast away safely at range. Alternatively, pick up any simple weapon with an elemental proc and just go to town beating mobs down.

Follow the Korthos quest lines on whatever difficulty you feel comfortable with. As you go through, keep an eye out for any items that grant acid or force spell power (corrosion and kinetic) and/or spell crit chance.

Items that grant bonuses to charisma, enchant DC's, conjuration DC's (evocation DC's are not necessary at all), or any defensive stats are also nice, but spell power is all we really care about. Another thing you're going to want to farm if you're new are Boots of Expeditious Retreat which are a reward from one of the Korthos wilderness quests.

Warlock Super Secret Tip #1: As you progress through the first level your first enhancement points are going to be put into the Tainted Scholar tree getting Feigned Health. Feigned Health is -broken- levels of good. It gives you temp HP equal to your Charisma score which, at level 1, is going to be 16~20 hp. Combined with the False Life spell (which proc's feigned health) you're looking at 30+ temp hp and it only gets better as you go on.

Level 2 -

Pick Shield as your other level 1 spell. Shield is great for blocking magic missile, which every wizard mob and its mother seems to love spamming. It's also another spell you can spam for temp hp if false life is on cooldown if you're in trouble.

Finish up the Korthos quest line and you should be able to take level 3. As you rank up put your enhancement points into increased pact die, and finally, Eldritch Blast Shape: Chain!

Warlock Super Secret Tip #2: Remember how I said Feigned Health was really, really good? Here's a neat little trick you can do. Once you have a little spending cash you can head on over to the Marketplace and grab some potions of aid and scrolls of aid. All three of these sources of temp hp stack and, what's more, scrolls of aid when used trigger feigned health! That's a temp hp shield of 40~50 hp at level 2! It's a bit annoying to keep up so I wouldn't bother mid-quest, but it's a great way to prep when you first enter a dungeon.

Level 3 -

Hopefully by now you've gotten an item with acid spellpower and another with force spellpower. If not, try to find some on the Auction House. Activate chain blast and try to make sure that you're always fighting at least 3 mobs. If fighting only one mob it's worth swapping to single target blast as at this low of a level the dps difference between the two is noticeable on single targets.

Warlock Super Secret Tip #3: Now that you're using blasts, it's time you learned the -most- important trick in the Warlock arsenal. If you master this you're going to separate yourself from the baddies who thought they'd just faceroll heroics and the ones who make other people jealous. Ready? Watch this tutorial gif:



If you've played other MMO's or action RPG's before you recognize this as the "Bored and waiting for someone to get back from AFK" maneuver. Well, we've weaponized it. By strafing back and forth while jumping at each end while using your Warlock blasts, and I wish I was kidding, you will instantly be better than about 80% of warlocks out there.

Bouncing around like an idiot is nothing new, but for Warlocks this is especially handy. Not only does it make archers and ray-spell using casters unable to hit you, since Warlocks are really well suited for tanking on hordes of mobs this movement really messes with group mob AI. Bouncing back and forth like this amidst 10+ mobs means you'll only ever get hit by 1 or 2 every few seconds.

Learn it, love it, live it.

Level 4 -

We can finally get our first level 2 spell. Grab suggestion. You should by now also have the second warlock core enhancement in Tainted Scholar which will give you the web spell. These two spells will give you great CC options while in quests. You'll find "dismiss charm" in your list of feats. Make sure you hotkey that somewhere so you can un-charm mobs as necessary.

Web is great against packs of mobs and should be used early and often. Oozes, spectre's and fire elementals are immune to it, but pretty much every other mob in the game will be stuck fast and unable to attack back. Between web and feigned health spam you are basically unkillable now. Congrats.

Keep an eye out for better force/acid damage items. I try to upgrade my builds offensive equipment every 4 levels if possible (1-4-8-12-16) and defensive gear twice (1-4-12). Makes it really easy to organize for when you're doing back to back to back to back Warlock builds.

Supplies!

I like to pick up lesser restoration pots at level 4 as they remove exhaustion. Shaman type mobs around this level -love- to cast exhaustion and with our low strength that's a long time to be walking slowly. As a bonus, drinking a lesser resto pots procs feigned health! You can probably stop using aid potions and aid scrolls now unless you're finding yourself burning through your temp hp really fast.

Level 5 -

Another reason we go GOO lock is at this level you get the spell Knock. This comes in handy throughout the game for unlocking most doors/chests in the game. Very few exceptions. A nice perk. Fey and Fiend get blind and rage which are garbage. Advantage: GOO.

Continue putting enhancement points into stronger pact damage and eldritch focus. We're gonna be swapping our build once we hit level 6 so don't get too attached. Feel free to try out Stunning Blast and be completely underwhelmed.

Level 6 -

Level 6 is where we swap our build for a little bit. Mobs in quests are starting to come in larger packs and we're going to bask in the glory that is Cone attack. For 12 points in Warlock Soul Eater tree you can pick up 22 more spellpower (10 from cores, 12 from Hungry for Destruction) and cone shape. In TS you pick up feigned health, 1 point in eldritch focus and the second core.

This is all we're going to put into the Soul Eater tree for now. At later levels it becomes -much- more relevant and powerful but for now we're going to rely on Cone attack to do most of the heavy lifting for us. It also allows us to ignore the third Warlock spellpower that matters (alignment). Cone attack hits hard, has crazy long range, hits everything in front of you and has no travel time.

Warlock Super Secret Tip #4: Now that we have cone attack it's time for another master level movement tech. This is the backwards circle strafe. If you're familiar with circle strafing, you already know most of it. Thanks to latency, mob pathing and the joys of modern computing, mobs in DDO will always head to where you were about 1/10th of a second ago. So we just circle strafe while moving backwards to make sure we're pretty much never hit in melee ever again.

As you accumulate more run speed this becomes even more and more overpowered. If you need to cast a spell simply jump to avoid losing movement speed. As an added bonus, ranged/ray based NPC spells will also never hit you.

Witness:



Level 7 -

At level 7 we get to pick our first 3rd level spell. There's a lot of great picks but for now get displacement. It gives you 50% concealment chance which kicks our survivability into the stratosphere. Once you get better at the game you can take dimension door at this level instead. Dimension door allows you to complete a few quests a little bit faster and is a great get out of jail free card.

We also now have access to Stanch in the Tainted Scholar enhancement tree. Stanch is broken levels of hilariously good. We can get a temp hp shield equal to 50% of our max hp on a 10 second cooldown. It places a stacking debuff on you that reduces your max hp by 3%, but that's one hell of an amazing tradeoff. Between displacement, feigned health, stanch and circle strafing you should never, ever see your hp dip below max.

We're also going to want to start packing Raise Dead scrolls. These can be purchased at the House Jorasco in the House of Wizardry. It's always worth carrying a dozen of these, if not more if you can afford it. Thanks to Warlocks crazy high UMD scores we can use these with relative ease.

Level 8 -

We get another level 2 spell here. Get Command Undead. It's a necro spell, but it's a will save and undead typically have terrible will saves. Use it to take any annoying undead out of a fight.

Continue pumping points into the Tainted Scholar tree. Strong pact, more charisma. Don't bother with utterdark blast or chain attack. Scroll Mastery will come in handy starting at level 9 so we can grab that now too.

Level 9 -

At level 9 we get our 3rd pact spell, phantasmal killer. It's...not that great on a warlock. You'd think an insta-kill would be sexy but phantasmal killer is a spell you need to be able to brute force and as a first life warlock you won't be doing that any time soon.

More exciting however is we can now use heal scrolls. These can be picked up at the same place you got raise dead scrolls. Thanks to scroll mastery in the TS tree these can heal your friends (and yourself if for some reason you took damage, shame on you!) making Warlocks a semi-decent (if expensive) group healer.

For our feat we take maximize spell. We won't get much mileage out of it right now because it doesn't affect our basic attack. However...

Level 10 -

Ho boy. This is it. This is the moment we've been waiting for.

"What? WHAT!?"

Evard's Black Tentacles!

EBT is hands down possibly the -most- broken spell in the game. It does just about everything you could want in a spell and does it amazingly. It's a CC that affects about twice the size of web, hits most things web doesn't (floating monsters, fire monsters, oozes, np!), has no reflex save (just a straight up str check to resist and mobs have terribad strength), is a fortitude based save for half damage (so again, can't be negated by reflex), deals MASSIVE un-typed damage (boosted by force spell power which we've been keeping up on so practically nothing resists it).

It's just...hilarious. Round up as many mobs as you can, cast EBT and watch them all die. On normal, hard and elite you don't even have to meta it. On reaper+ it requires maximize to get the most mileage out of.

The only downside is as a level 4 spell and with warlocks low spell point pool it will chew through your mana super fast. The good news is that on most quests you only need to cast this spell like...4 times to kill everything in the dungeon.

EBT is life. EBT is love.

Level 11 -

Nothing much new here. Pick up dimension door as your 3rd level spell. For enhancements just make sure you don't take bewitching blast. A confused mob that gets charmed is a real pain in the tukis to deal with since you are unable to break charm on them and they can attack you while immune to your own attacks since they are charmed.

We're going to want to be on the lookout for equipment that has radiance affix/prefixes. This increases your light-typed spellpower. We don't need it just yet but it is very important to start looking for it now because at level 12...

Level 12 -

Time for another change of routine! First, pick up empower spell as your feat. We are now going to take the worst Warlock enhancements and make ourselves into the worst Warlock build.

"...."

Yeah. See here's the thing. Enlightend spirit scales poorly, is full of terrible trap talents, is pretty much regarded as garbage for anything but tanking (poorly) and we lose out on a lot of the really fun stuff we've been doing up to this point.

So why go ES?

Because of the insanely high baseline of the abilities mixed with the fact that mob creep hasn't kept up. Basically ES has access to a handful of abilities that do a large amount of up front AE damage and mobs simply don't have the HP to withstand more then one or two casts.

It also lets us be incredibly lazy for a few levels and after all that circle strafing we deserve a good break now don't we? Eventually you'll stop ever going ES simply because the TS/SE build is significantly better, but every Warlock should experience ES at least once in their lives.

We're going to want to find a place to put that radiance gear we picked up last level. If you have been unlucky and haven't found any, go hit up the auction house and get some. We still want force and acid damage so don't give those up.

Here's what your enhancements should look like:



You might need to swap some hotkeys around but for the next few levels all we're going to do is cast shining through on ourselves, gather up a ton of monsters and then AE them down with Eldritch Burst and Spirit Blast. Don't forget to turn on the three new aura's we get either. You only need 1 point in Resist Energies. Further points just reduce the spell point cost.

You'll notice that your ability to kill single targets is a bit slower if they survive both blasts but from levels 12-16 most mobs don't have enough hp to survive this. Eventually we'll need to go back to a slightly higher dps build but for now just enjoy a few levels of mindless slaughter.

This is a garbage spec and you should feel ashamed for playing it.

As soon as you can pick up displacement as an SLA (upper right corner of Enlightened Spirit). Why SLA displacement when we have it as a spell? Well, it's 6 sp and triggers feigned health on a 3 second cooldown. You can pretty much mash that all day for infinite health. Enjoy.

Level 13 -

Warlock 5th levels spells kinda blow. I take undeath to death. A nice AoE undead killer for when I want to look flashier then just using Evard's on everything.

Continue just obliterating everything with your dual AE bursts. Start working your way back up the Tainted Scholar tree (we now have everything useful in ES by the way).

Level 14 -

Bored of murdering everything with impunity yet?

Take teleport as your 4th level spell. The rest of the level 4 spells are meh.

Level 15 -

We get our next pact special ability here. For GOO warlocks this is Create Thrall, a kind of really good version of Charm Monster. It also affects undead. Great for party tricks.

Take mental toughness as your feat at this level. Gives you 1% more spell crit (nice) and more spell points (also nice). Both things we're going to start needing soon.

Level 16 -

We get our first level 6 spell now. Charm Monster Mass is really, really fun. Especially if you have the DC to only sort of reliably land the spell. It's kinda fun casting this on a pack of mobs and watching the half that failed the DC beat up the half that didn't. If you can get your DC's to the point of no-fail then you basically can skip any charmable pack of mobs. Fun!

More importantly we have a decision to make. We now have enough enhancement points to make a sort-of okay single target DPS build. Bosses are now going to actually start having health pools.

You can keep going ES which is full of all kinds of safety blankets OR you can switch to a more standard "SE/TS" build.



I recommend doing the swap. You're going to feel naked for a bit without the blanket that is brilliance and shining through giving you 200+ free hp every so often, but once you remember how to abuse stanch and feigned health, you're going to find the significantly higher damage potential of the SE/TS build to be pretty sexy.

Plus you're no longer running a garbage build so there's that.

Against AE packs we still rely mostly on Cone and our new T5 ability "Eldritch Wave" which does 3 cone attacks in one blast AND benefits from maximize/empower. That'll wipe out most AE packs right quick.

Against bosses we make sure to keep Consume and Stricken on cooldown as well. They can hit pretty hard, plus hitting a target with consume on it causes it to take bonus damage from everything else we do ('strickened form' applies vulnerable). An important note is that Consume/Stricken do -chaos- damage which is boosted by alignment spellpower, so all that 'light' or 'radiant' gear you got for your ES build is still useful here.

Level 17 -

Not much at this level. Mass Suggestion as your pact spell but you already have mass charm monster which is just as good/better. You get another 5th level spell but they all kinda suck. I usually take Globe of Invulnerability and keep trying to find new places it's useful.

Level 18 -

The last level we'll be taking. We get improved mental toughness for a little more spell crit and a little more spell points. If you've still been doing Enlightened Spirit (shame on you) now is the time to seriously consider switching to SE/TS as boss monsters will now have significant HP pools.

Another reason to have swapped by now is that Enlightened Spirit kinda requires you sit in the middle of mobs packs and, especially as you start to do harder and harder content, that's not a great place to be standing.

Level 20 and Beyond -

Warlocks do okay in epics. Our damage keeps up pretty well in Epic Normal and Epic Hard. In Epic Elite and Reaper+ you start to feel kinda stagnant. Warlock blaster builds are not exactly DPS power houses.

The Necro Warlock DC build does okay at end game for clearing trash packs but just about any caster build can do that these days and won't run out of spell points nearly as fast doing it. Warlock have an advantage in being able to hit more mobs types and don't have to be as picky though.

If you do go to cap with this build, I recommend sticking with the SE/TS build. The main advantage of a Warlock in group play is going to be in their ability to quickly and easily stack vulnerability (20% bonus damage, global) on boss monsters.

As far as epic destinies go Shiradi Champion is probably going to be the best DPS wise. Unyielding Sentinel offers really great survivability at the cost of damage. Draconic Incarnation also isn't bad for supplementing your AE damage abilities. Warlock is kinda nice for leveling ED's because they aren't really crippled by not having any specific one. On the other hand, they don't really benefit from many of them the same way other classes do.

[zehnvhex]

Chapter 3: Reaper mode oh my!

Warlocks do exceptionally well in lower Reaper difficulties and this build is no exception. The abundance of temporary HP (which isn't subject to self-healing penalties), crowd control, AE abilities and baseline defenses make Warlocks pretty well suited to low skull reaper. I've been able to do R1's on a no-tome, first life warlock and on my 'nearly'-completionist with tomes Warlock I can do R5's solo with this build (though I typically don't as kill speeds are god awful at anything past R2 on a blaster build).

Shield spell should be up at all times. As a very powerful scroll caster thanks to high UMD and scroll mastery be prepared to help out your group with healing post level 9. I know it's not the most glorious job out there but you can't take all the kills now can you?

One thing to be on the watch for however is that if you charm a mob that you have confused it can potentially attack your party and you might not be able to un-charm it. This can be exceptionally problematic if you charm a reaper.

Oh, also, don't charm fear reapers.

Chapter 4: Items! Items! Items!

By and large Warlocks can get away without needing much in the way of equipment which makes them ideally suited for newer players. Unlike an artificer which needs to fit in trapping skills or a melee which needs tons of defensive stats, a Warlock really only needs to focus on a handful of stats.

Priority 1 - Try not to let these get more than 4 levels behind

Acid damage
Force damage
Alignment (light) damage (levels 12 and beyond)
Charisma

Priority 2 - Good places to look to strengthen up if you're having trouble

Spell criticals
Spellsight
Saves
Constitution/False Life
Enchantment DC's
Fortification (GOO locks will end up with 50% baseline fort pretty early so don't need much here)

Priority 3 - Having any of this is a plus but not critical

Heal Amp
Physical/Magical Resist Rating
Dodge
Wizardry
Intelligence

Typically you can rely on just random loot or, eventually, Cannith Crafted. There are a handful of named items also worth specifically farming for:

Cannith Challenges (Vault of the Artificers pack)

Rock boots - These are a great way to get acid damage and acid crit. They receive specific mention because they're so easy to farm for.

Ravenloft (Requires...well...Ravenloft)

Burnscar Sash - Provides -enhancement- acid spellpower. This is not to be confused with the more common equipment bonus. Meaning this -stacks- with the normal sources of spellpower. Yeah. Hitting level 10 and equipping this baby skyrockets your pact damage. It's just a shame there's no force/alignment version.

----

Eventually you'll want an almost full Ravenloft kit. You can swap to it at level 10 and it'll carry you pretty much all the way to 28 honestly.

- Kindred Pendent
- Mantle of Fury
- Burnscar Sash
- Cursebane Ring
- Blurfingered Gloves
- Softsole Slippers
- Skulled Ring
- Barovian Nobles Regalia
- The Mistfallen Orb
- Barovian's Sceptre

This is honestly worth farming out even on a first life. Warlock is really good at most of these quests and you can do them on elite really, really fast. This setup is good for pretty much all casters as well, but doubly so charisma casters.

Chapter 5: To Splash or Not To Splash?

Short answer: Don't do it.

One of the biggest traps new players often fall into is they hear about trapping and how it adds more xp to quests. I'm going to tell you right now that splashing 2 rogue on this or any warlock build is a big no-no. If you absolutely positively want to, go right ahead it's your life.

But if you want to know objectively if it's better the answer is no.

4 simple reasons:

1 - Warlock has the means to ignore traps completely. Thanks to the gobs of temp hp Warlocks get you don't even have to skillfully avoid traps. Just hit False Life, Stanch or whatever and barrel right through completely ignoring they exist (with a handful of exceptions)

2 - While it's true you can get up to a 30% xp bonus, the number of quests where you can reliably get this bonus in a reliable amount of time is really, really low. It's really sexy in the harbor but once you get into more niche quests or post-MOTU quests (Evening Star and beyond) you will rarely, if ever, get a trapping bonus.

3 - On top of #2 is that the time you spend trapping is often not worth the offset for how much longer it takes you to finish the quest. There's a few rare exceptions but usually you -lose- XP/min doing trapping if solo.

4 - Lastly it really, really compromises your gearing. In order to reliably hit your trapping DC's you need good trapping gear and more focus on int. Which means either gear swapping (ew) or making sacrifices to your DPS elsewhere which slows you down even further.

In short, a rogue/trapping splash is not worth it.

What about Paladin or Monk for defenses?

Again, the answer is basically no. Any levels you take prior to level 10 just delay getting EBT and there is -no- defensive stats/abilities in the game that make that worth it for a heroic leveling build.

You could feasibly take them after level 10, but then you delay getting higher level spells, more damage for your blasts, etc...and it's often just simply not worth it. Most of the time the advantages in defense you'd get doing these splashes can be offset by simply doing a better job of CC'ing mobs with Evards/Web/Charms.

[erethizon]

I know it is not done yet (at least at the time I am posting this), but I really appreciate the level by level breakdown. You are right, the biggest problem with builds is that they all talk about how amazing they are at level 30 (which is the least important level because there is no reason to ever be level 30 for more than a few hours). Levels 1 through 29 are what matter and if it takes months to farm all the gear for the build it is a worthless build. A good build can be played by anyone, anywhere with gear you can find with next to no effort. Doing a great job so far!

[unbongwah]

For the GOO newbie, I would point out Rock Boots as gear which is relatively easy to acquire (as long as you don't mind farming Cannith Challenges), covers one of your primary Spellpowers (Corrosion), can be upgraded every four levels until 20 (unlike most DDO gear which has to be shelved after you outgrow it), and has defensive benefits at higher levels.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...enge-Tutorials

[saquibxerox20]

For the GOO newbie, I would point out Rock Boots as gear which is relatively easy to acquire (as long as you don't mind farming Cannith Challenges), covers one of your primary Spellpowers (Corrosion), can be upgraded every four levels until 20 (unlike most DDO gear which has to be shelved after you outgrow it), and has defensive benefits at higher levels.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...enge-Tutorials

When you are running a DC warlock caster(first life) is there any alternative to Slavers caster gear for heroics and what gear do I seek out during epics and heroics cause farming a whole caster slavers set seems like a massive grind

[QuantumFX]

For the GOO newbie, I would point out Rock Boots as gear which is relatively easy to acquire (as long as you don't mind farming Cannith Challenges), covers one of your primary Spellpowers (Corrosion), can be upgraded every four levels until 20 (unlike most DDO gear which has to be shelved after you outgrow it), and has defensive benefits at higher levels.

And… so long as this build winds up using cone shape, you will have a character that is the MVP of Cannith Challenges.

[Selvera]

Hey Zhen; nice to see you post the build. All I see you do is run warlock life after life; so I’m guessing you know your stuff! Certainly if you’d posted this before I did my warlock life I might not have to have looked to the half-guide from that guy from the other forums for inspiration. *shudder*.

Anyways:
Jump – Yes, I take this on all my characters if they have spare skillpoints. It is awesome; and I only expect to get approximately +25 from potions/airship/cannith boots; so you still need to make up the other +15 on most classes somehow.

GOO vs Fiend – I went fiend when I did my warlock. And after I was done I pretty much felt that GOO was probably better in most content. Fiend’s claim to fame is being better in some situations when it has hurl; but you only get the spell very late in heroics so GOO is better for most of 1-20.

Level 3/6 feats – If I’m not mistaken; the bard pastlife and completionist feats are 2 other options which are strictly better then spell focus: enchantment.
Chapter 2 – This is the part where I really understand you’re aiming this guide towards the newer folk, since with my gear/pastlives/ship buffs; 20 HP isn’t half my HP total. Also daily dice to level 2 is a thing for a reason.

Warlock super secret tip #3: That’s not even just for warlocks. I use it on archers unless I’m trying to IPS train enemies and heck, it can even be useful on Melee, although much harder to pull off correctly.

Anyways; looking forwards to you finishing the level breakdown and enhancements.

[Zretch]

When you are running a DC warlock caster(first life) is there any alternative to Slavers caster gear for heroics and what gear do I seek out during epics and heroics cause farming a whole caster slavers set seems like a massive grind

I've always been fine with Cannith Crafted gear for heroics. Unlike Legendary Slavers crafting, the stats you can craft on Heroic Slavers gear is the same as you can put on Cannith Crafted gear at the same level, and unlike Slavers, you can make a level 15 set with higher stats. Sure, you don't get Quality, but you can't put Quality Spell Pen or Quality Spell Focus on Slavers, so the best you can do is add a +1 to your casting stat which may or may not matter. You can also put insightful on Cannith Crafted gear. I never had much of a problem landing spells in Heroic Elite using Cannith Crafted gear, the problems all came in Epic Elite+ before I got some Wizard past lives under my belt and really started focusing on maxing my casting stat with end game gear.

Others who have done the past life thing more than I have can probably give better advise and heroic gearing, but I assume you're not looking to do high reaper difficulty on a first life character, which may change things.

[saquibxerox20]

I'm pretty sure he will mention it later but I'm confused on which trees should I focus on mainly

[Zretch]

I'm pretty sure he will mention it later but I'm confused on which trees should I focus on mainly

Tainted Scholar would be my guess.

He's giving you the priorities which all happen to be in Tainted: Tainted Scholar cores, Strong Pact, Feigned Health, Chain Shape, and Eldritch Focus.

[Jasparion]

For the GOO newbie, I would point out Rock Boots as gear which is relatively easy to acquire (as long as you don't mind farming Cannith Challenges), covers one of your primary Spellpowers (Corrosion), can be upgraded every four levels until 20 (unlike most DDO gear which has to be shelved after you outgrow it), and has defensive benefits at higher levels.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...enge-Tutorials

If you are going to get Rock Boots you should also get Bracers of Air. Only need the level 3 ones. All the way to level 20 and beyond. Unless you craft Greensteel Smoke bracers for Blur and the Displace clickies.

[unbongwah]

If you are going to get Rock Boots you should also get Bracers of Air. Only need the level 3 ones. All the way to level 20 and beyond. Unless you craft Greensteel Smoke bracers for Blur and the Displace clickies.

Unnecessary: Blur and Displacement are warlock spells.

[zehnvhex]

Hey Zhen; nice to see you post the build. All I see you do is run warlock life after life

Hey! <3

As much as it's a meme to joke about how OP they are, I really enjoy the play style. I tried a monk and it was just too much standing still for my likes. Same with most melee builds. I tried a bunch of ranged builds (ranger, chucker, arti, etc...) and just didn't enjoy that playstyle either.

I love the sorcerer / wizard CM / warlock playstyle. It's just...fun to dance around hurling magical destruction on everything.

Anyways...

I used to be on the fence about fiend vs. fey vs. goo, but Ravenloft changed that a bit. Fey is now right out because of the burnscar sash. Now that leaves fiend vs. goo and fiend is just too backloaded for my taste. Hurl is great, but it only really shines in a necro insta-kill build and you don't get it until 15.

In my standard leveling path the only mobs I run into that GOO sucks at are clay golems but they're a PITA for any warlock so it wasn't enough to sway me away from going GOO. Open lock allows me to shortcut a few quests, the 25% bonus fortification is nice for being crit immune even against rogue types at level 8 and green fire is sexy.

As for the level 3/6 feats, there are better ones for DC's, but not many new players are rocking completionist. I considered other feats. You don't really need defensive feats on a warlock unless you're going tank build but if you go tank build and are not also named "Bob" I want nothing to do with you. Extend/enlarge are kinda meh on a lock as well. Force of Personality or whatever may seem like it would be awesome but few things live long enough for me to worry about my will saves in heroic content.

I've played around with it and the extra DC's have worked out the best for me.

[zehnvhex]

Unnecessary: Blur and Displacement are warlock spells.

I tend to wear mine anyways until I get displacement at level 11. I'm not exactly hurting for space in my gear setup early on and it's nice to always just sort of have it there. It also frees me up to take command undead and suggestion for level 2 spells which are fun to play around with.

[zehnvhex]

I'm pretty sure he will mention it later but I'm confused on which trees should I focus on mainly

I swap around as I level. Fortunately it doesn't require any major gear/feat changes, just the addition (and subsequent removal) of light spellpower from 12 to 16.

Chain attack build from 1 to 6
Cone build from 6 to 12
ES (ugh) build from 12 to 16
SE/TS cone build from 16 to cap

[Jasparion]

Unnecessary: Blur and Displacement are warlock spells.

I would always prefer a permanent Blur over a cast Blur. And you get it at level 3. 90 second Displace clickies save you spell slots which are not exactly freely available on Warlocks.

[fmalfeas]

I'd agree that GOO is the way to go for newbies. Knock is a big deal when you're often soloing or running with just a hire because you're not strong enough to feel confident in Elite zergs or Reaper. The extra fort is excellent.

You kinda have to choose between Enchantment and Conj focus (not much can resist Tentacles, which is Conj, but things like Mass Suggestion and Create Thrall can change everything.)

GOO has another perk as well. Very, very few things are /healed/ by acid. There are a few things that are healed by fire, which is a giant bag of suck for Fiend Pact. Nothing I've ever seen is healed by sonic, but the fey pact bonuses don't compare against Knock + Thrall, or Chains + Hurl.

The best fiend builds I've come up with actually tend to lean towards full-bore ES, complete with using a melee weapon. GOO plays more easily into classic warlock blasting due to an element that is rarely immunity-plagued, and even more rarely healing-plagued. The ability to make your own tank out of some ridiculous champ is a bonus. Grab up a Light Bearer champ, and you get one that will self-heal to full once automatically. Nice little gibberingly insane thrall.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Just worth pointing out... the main EB shapes (blast, chain, cone, aura) can't have metamagics, but many other abilities can, and for free. So your bursts, Consume, & Stricken can all be greatly increased by turning the metas on for them.

[seldarth]

As a returning player (like haven't really played in 8 years!!!!)
This guide is a life saver. in the Pnp game, warlock is one of my fav classes, and i like how they have translated into this game. As a person that hasn't played in a while/has not true res lives, this guide is a life saver. It has really helped me out a lot, already hitting 7 with it, and it has been a joy. I just wanted to say thank you, and that i appreciate these guides that are targeted for heroics/ new or returning players. As my first character on a new server, this warlock build has really helped me get reacquainted with this game. Thanks, and keep up the great work.

[zehnvhex]

Glad to hear it. It was fun writing it up.