Carceri Storm pact warlock feedback, abilities, bugs

[Xoham]

I LR+0’d my character into a Carceri Storm pact warlock and have been enjoying it a lot! This has been my favourite update since getting a horse, and before that since Ravenloft. Carceri Storm pact warlock is cool. Pun intended. Below is: my feedback; my attempt to figure out some abilities; some bugs; and some fun screenshots at the end.

Save type

I think the switch to will save pact damage and save bonuses was a good idea. I was worried the pact wasn’t strong enough before release and gave some suggestions at https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...t=#post6326021; but I think the save change was a good alternative I didn’t think of. I also ended up choosing Force of Personality and Epic Will as feats to take advantage of the will save bonus.

Ice Storm

The new Carceri Storm fourth level spell, Ice Storm, is not an area-of-effect (AOE) spell, but instead a single-target, permanent, damage-over-time spell (perma-DOT). I’m not sure if this is intentional or a bug (since it has the same name as an existing AOE spell); I would recommend keeping it in any case (but possibly renaming it to, say, Precise Storm, which I think is both descriptive and punny). It’s a nice unique spell in any case. I had recommended Freeze Ground (as per Ice Flenser) as a unique spell, but am happy with the perma-DOT. It also fits with both the cold DOT theme (giving Carceri Storm pact warlocks a total of four cold DOT spells) and with the permanent ice theme of Absolute Zero. Seeing a lot of scrolling ice numbers above monsters from the four DOTs has been fun; even if I’ve also been learning some unexpected cold immunities (flameskulls!).

Absolute Zero

The main reason I wanted to try Carceri Storm pact was this ability, and it hasn’t disappointed. The fact it is permanent is what makes it so unique and fun. Absolute Zero causes two effects on monsters: first, it tries to freeze them (save negates); second, it tries to destroy them (currently save negates, but this is inconsistent with the tool-tip and so I think is a bug). Every monster I’ve found so far has been immune to at least one of these, and sometimes both. Examples of each are below (you can see the first/top message relates to the freeze; the second/bottom message relates to the destroy).

Saved vs freeze	Failed save vs freeze	Immune to freeze	Immune to freeze	Immune to freeze
Immune to destroy	Immune to destroy	Saved vs destroy	Failed save vs destroy	Immune to destroy

The table below is from experimenting with Absolute Zero on a bunch of likely and unlikely monsters.

	Freezable (will save)	Immune to Freeze
Destroyable (no save; though currently bugged and has save)	(none found so far)	Cinderspawn (Sins of Attrition) Efreeti Fire Elementals Fire Giants Fire Mephit Fire Reavers Riftborn Magma Brute
Immune to Destroy	Freezes rigid: (Most monsters) (Champion status that still freezes: Mark of Law; Shadow Marked) Constructs (most, including weird ones, e.g. Portal of Benediction) Doomsphere Dream creatures (Dream Crawler; Dream Reaver; Dream Stealer) Drow Soul Elementals (Air/Earth/Water) Firebrand Gnoll Flameskull (also immune to cold, like all “skeletons”) Flaming Sphere Ice Flenser Iron Defender Iron Golem Living Spells (Living Delayed Blast Fireball; Living Firestorm; Living Meteor Swarm) Medusa Undead (some, at least: Ghasts, Liches, Skeletons, Wheeps) Snapping Crab (i.e. it works underwater) Will-o’-Wisp Freezes, moves in place, but does not attack: Constructor (and does still rotate puzzle tiles) Lightning Guard Golem Magefire Cannon Subverted Titan Defender Quori Mindsunder	Cinderspawn (Inferno of the Damned) Dream Scourge Forge Wisp Wraith Forgewraith Reapers Undead (some, at least: Quells, Shadows, Spectres, Wraiths)

I’ve given my observations/hypotheses based on this below; let me know if you have any other thoughts! Or if you’re a developer reading this, feel free to tell me the real answer

Destroyable

I don’t have a good hypothesis for the destroyable (made of fire) monster list. The list of destroyable monsters is very similar to the list at https://ddowiki.com/page/Immunity_to_Fire. It’s clearly not just all monsters that are immune to fire though, e.g. iron golems are freezable not destroyable.

Freezable

My hypothesis is that all monsters are freezable, unless they are destroyable (made of fire) or incorporeal. The reason is that the immune/immune box in the table is very similar to the monsters listed at https://ddowiki.com/page/Incorporeal. Also, Shadow Marked champions (which are incorporeal) are still freezable; so it appears to only be based on the base monster.

I haven’t experimented with Alchemist or Druid spells that freeze monsters; but maybe it is a similar ability to those? It is definitely a different list of affected monsters to the Freezing Ice item ability.

Recommendations

Here are my unsolicited recommendations. I would do the following:

• keep the will save pact damage and save bonus;
• keep the Ice Storm perma-DOT, renamed to Precise Storm;
• remove the save from the destroy portion of Absolute Zero;
• switch these monsters from freezable to destroyable by Absolute Zero: Flameskull, Flaming Sphere, Living Spells (Living Delayed Blast Fireball; Living Firestorm; Living Meteor Swarm);
• switch these monsters from immune-to-everything to destroyable by Absolute Zero: Cinderspawn (Inferno of the Damned), Forge Wisp Wraith, Forgewraith;
• switch these monsters from immune-to-everything to freezable by Absolute Zero: Dream Scourge, Reapers, Undead, any others (any incorporeal if the above hypothesis is correct); and
• also make these changes: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...s-improvements.

My original feedback is also still available at https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...t=#post6326021.

Fun screenshots

Adding to Nessaleesa’s garden.


The frozen Eye Tyrant council.


The frozen Dreaming Dark council. Wait, I recognise that mortal, is that Spacetime?


The frozen warforged titan council.


Elemental mastery. Ironically, the fire elemental here is the only one immune to Absolute Zero, since it is immune to freeze, and deathwarded against being destroyed.


Trap the Xorian Render.



My cat isn’t frozen.

[Xoham]

Art

One additional point of feedback: I really like the focused eldritch blast look, particularly the impact explosion cloud. However, the eldritch chain shape art is currently bugged, as it is for all three pacts; this can be seen at https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...light=new+pact.

[Havocthedemon]

Art

One additional point of feedback: I really like the focused eldritch blast look, particularly the impact explosion cloud. However, the eldritch chain shape art is currently bugged, as it is for all three pacts; this can be seen at https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...light=new+pact.

I haven’t played a warlock in ages, they used to be my favorite class but they continued to nerf, this is making me want to play one again. On the freezing ability, I thought the tooltip said Absolute Zero was a single target, how are you freezing the mobs in the screenshots? Thanks

[Xoham]

I haven’t played a warlock in ages, they used to be my favorite class but they continued to nerf, this is making me want to play one again. On the freezing ability, I thought the tooltip said Absolute Zero was a single target, how are you freezing the mobs in the screenshots? Thanks

Absolute Zero is indeed single target; but it is permanent (unless the resulting ice statue is killed). For those screenshots, I would freeze one monster, then wait 25 seconds, then freeze another monster etc. I’d try to get each monster in the position I wanted it, and then freeze it.

For what it’s worth, this would be very difficult in a typical party - my ice statues typically survive no longer than 3 seconds in a party

[SorcererVictor]

Amazing topic. I would only increase one more suggestion. Briung CHILLING tentacles. Works like black tentacles, but with aditional cold damage. This was one of my favorite 3.5e invocations which doesn't exist in any D&D game except on nwn2 where it is so nerfed that is worthless.

[Infinitedrift]

The ice storm spell needs adjustment though. If you want to make it a single target dot, that's fine, but then it shouldn't have the same cost as the AOE spell.. and also metamagics do not seem to work on it. Personally, I'd rather it were the AOE so you can hit multiple mobs with it.. after all, this is the carceri STORM.

[SocratesBastardSon]

The ice storm spell needs adjustment though. If you want to make it a single target dot, that's fine, but then it shouldn't have the same cost as the AOE spell.. and also metamagics do not seem to work on it. Personally, I'd rather it were the AOE so you can hit multiple mobs with it.. after all, this is the carceri STORM.

I don't recall where, but Lynnabel said the devs are aware of the issue and promised a fix in an upcoming patch. She did not say what the fix will be, but if I had to make a guess I'd say it's turn it into the regular Ice Storm spell. The single target version we have now is missing visual effects, and doesn't have a duration - it keeps going until the target is dead. Or so I've read. Neither of those issues are WAI.

I agree with you, I prefer the regular AOE Ice Storm, at least for my current build, but some people are enjoying the "new" version as it stacks with Greater/Creeping Cold.