Theorycrafing: Abysslock

[Maelodic]

Goal: R3 solo at cap without the need for tomes or pastlives

Race is w/e. If running shield human for extra feat might be appealing.

AP split - 11 TS for Staunch, 41 ES for HP/T5s/Medium armor, 28 in Feydark for illusion fan knives (third aoe nuke)/tons of force crit/CHA/tons of spell power

Feats:
Necro or Conj or illusion focus, metas, extend. Shield stuff also appealing. Shadowfell is nice. Master of Shadowblades makes the illusion nuke viable, propping up damage.

Gear: Dreadkeepers, winter set, stygian wrath or alch shield or crystalline shield, deep promise onyx (ins neg heal amp, quality neg heal amp), cold/force ring, queen scepter and salt swap

Run in magister to prop up damage with the no-save arcane tempest and extra DCs

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Running Slavers and Sharn on R3 was a pretty smooth experience with the above build on Lama. Conjuration focus might be best here as evards damage doubles if things get entangled and this is mostly a force damage build.
Laying down Evards and Tempest and using dark discorporation is incredible for tanking whatever. Your aura procs won't throw you out and the 50% damage reduction is super good. You can also use staunch and shining through during discorp. I did die every now and then but a parked hireling for res was really good enough to get me through stuff. Spamming staunch during bosses is incredibly powerful.

People's complaint with the durability of this method was the lack of a burst heal but shining through, brilliance, and staunch are basically the heals here and are arguably more effective since they don't scale down with reaper.

Boss kill time is pretty bad, but knowing how to disengage and when to pop cooldowns allows you to get through bosses alright.

I wanted to open a dialog based on the discussions had in this thread - https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...k-pact-goes-to
I think with reaper points and TRs and what not this build can be incredibly effective in the endgame as a soloer. It's a lot worse in groups than your standard SE/TS warlock unless you adjust the build to be main tank, which has problems in its own right. If I wasn't already actively playing and enjoying feylock I think this style of play would be really appealing to me and I might flesh it out more.

[SocratesBastardSon]

Thanks for posting this! It brought a lot of questions to mind, which you may or may not be able to answer.

This is very similar to what I had in mind, although you went deeper into FI than I intended. That's not because I think it's a bad idea, it's because I just haven't taken FI beyond t2. Fan of Shadowblades is that good? I was really impressed by Vistani's Fan of Knives, but that's only t3, and so is much less expensive. How do they compare, do you think? In other words, is it worth going to t4 to secure it?

Awhile ago I had speculated about going force spec'd instead of light spec'd for an ES/FI build, but the consensus seemed to be that was a bad idea given how much light power is available through ES. But since you're skipping SE entirely, that seems like a pretty good argument for the force approach.

I expect that the build is still sub-optimal for offense relative to other Warlocks. Is that your experience? My thought was that it has to be the most defensive Warlock build there is with Death Aura self-healing, double damage light attacks notwithstanding. Do you have an opinion on the self-healing capabilities using DA?

As I mentioned in the other thread, my interest was a highly survivable (= far more defense than normal on live server) HC build that I can take into Epic. This looks like it might work. Thoughts?

[Maelodic]

This is very similar to what I had in mind, although you went deeper into FI than I intended. That's not because I think it's a bad idea, it's because I just haven't taken FI beyond t2. Fan of Shadowblades is that good? I was really impressed by Vistani's Fan of Knives, but that's only t3, and so is much less expensive. How do they compare, do you think? In other words, is it worth going to t4 to secure it?

Because Stricken reduces your negative damage I decided not to go into Soul Eater. Staunch is not optional- but I wanted a third nuke ability and that was the option. Since Force is already a main focus here, it made a lot of sense- color spray being as good as it is as well makes it synergistic. I think the other option is getting at least 21 in TS for the extra crit (which also applies to death aura and makes it stronger) - I just found that there wasn't a lot to do during burst cooldowns and wanted to be able to add damage.

On my R3 tests the crits were doing 3kish. It's just extra damage.

Awhile ago I had speculated about going force spec'd instead of light spec'd for an ES/FI build, but the consensus seemed to be that was a bad idea given how much light power is available through ES. But since you're skipping SE entirely, that seems like a pretty good argument for the force approach.

The damage added in ES pales significantly compared to the damage available in Evards and added by arcane tempest. It doesn't scale well into epics - and since this is an epics-focused build, it makes sense to run force as a main focus. You could add radiance in and try it, but neglecting force leaves way too much damage on the table especially if you take ruin/arcane pulse/etc.

I expect that the build is still sub-optimal for offense relative to other Warlocks. Is that your experience?

Pretty much, but not as much as you'd expect. There are things that elevate Carceri Storm and Fey pacts above the others in terms of damage, but for Carceri it's gear and Fey it's Harmonic Resonance and raid gear. I was clearing things faster on my feylock on R3 but it wasn't a huge amount more until I got to bosses- but if you take Ruin/Greater Ruin/Arcane Pulse this would be just fine if you SP dump on bosses. Both Feylock and Carceri Storm have backloaded damage so much of the missing damage is noticeable more on bosses than mobs.

My thought was that it has to be the most defensive Warlock build there is with Death Aura self-healing, double damage light attacks notwithstanding. Do you have an opinion on the self-healing capabilities using DA

They're nice- like the Warlock's damage it's more about controlling and making sure there's a steady flow of damage coming in because that's where you're strongest. Burst defensive options like meld, staunch, and shining through help contain the spikes and temp HP blends super well with death aura because you can pop the temp HP and your health is still slowly ticking up. It's very different defensively than other options which is why people

As I mentioned in the other thread, my interest was a highly survivable (= far more defense than normal on live server) HC build that I can take into Epic. This looks like it might work. Thoughts?

I found this a lot more survivable than any other warlock I've tested including bladeforged - a lot of it is because a good amount of your temp HP and abilities still work if you're being controlled, and none of your abilities (other than DA which is always up regardless) require a cast so you can weave your defensive abilities in while you damage and move around. You also have a fairly steady stream of healing and temp HP.

That being said, don't do this on hardcore. Abysslock is only good in epics and with dreadkeeper set/negative heal amp. You don't get the goodies until 15 and before then it's not so great.

[SocratesBastardSon]

That being said, don't do this on hardcore. Abysslock is only good in epics and with dreadkeeper set/negative heal amp. You don't get the goodies until 15 and before then it's not so great.

LOL, actually I was thinking of taking a different pact until level 15 or so, then doing a lesser reincarnation (I have a free lesser heart) into Abyss. And I would hold at 19 to farm the dreadkeeper set, only continuing into Epic once that was successful.

By the way, did you decide on orb or shield?

[Maelodic]

LOL, actually I was thinking of taking a different pact until level 15 or so, then doing a lesser reincarnation (I have a free lesser heart) into Abyss. And I would hold at 19 to farm the dreadkeeper set, only continuing into Epic once that was successful.

By the way, did you decide on orb or shield?

I'm not running this on live, but in my testing I was tanky enough to get away with the orb.