Warlock Questions

[Annex]

Tis the season for warlock questions.

My Celestial Warlock has some points in Tainted Scholar for the extra Zap Zap damage dice. Her buff bar shows a Tainted Scholar icon that reads, "-1 Pact Die; -1 Pact Die". What causes this to happen? Warlock damage is not that great in the first place.

In order to utilize Celestial defensive enhancements, I need to turn off Zap Zap and Dancing Zap. Am I supposed to become a melee fighter?

[Phoenicis]

Tis the season for warlock questions.

My Celestial Warlock has some points in Tainted Scholar for the extra Zap Zap damage dice. Her buff bar shows a Tainted Scholar icon that reads, "-1 Pact Die; -1 Pact Die". What causes this to happen? Warlock damage is not that great in the first place.

In order to utilize Celestial defensive enhancements, I need to turn off Zap Zap and Dancing Zap. Am I supposed to become a melee fighter?

The -1 pact die is caused by chain (Dancing zap? *chuckle) you lose 1 pact die when bouncing the bolt around.

Ideally if you turn on the aura you are also using the consume and stricken attacks along with the burst AOEs in Enlightened Spirit. ES is a balancing act, don't put to much into it until you are ready to go all in.

Back in the day I was able to take an ES warlock into Devil Assault, park in the middle, the temp HP kept me alive and the auto AOE killed everything while I went and made a sammich. I don't think that will still work, but between Shining Thru, Brilliance, and the two bursts in ES, going melee shouldn't really be necessary. Since you say celestial, you also have soundburst, an offensive spell most other pacts have zero of. With Tentacles you should be fairly well protected.

[Discpsycho]

Tis the season for warlock questions.

My Celestial Warlock has some points in Tainted Scholar for the extra Zap Zap damage dice. Her buff bar shows a Tainted Scholar icon that reads, "-1 Pact Die; -1 Pact Die". What causes this to happen? Warlock damage is not that great in the first place.

Eldritch Blast Shape: Chain says "While active you have -1 Eldritch Blast Pact damage die, and this spell scales with 95% Spell power." The former shows up on your buff bar, and AFAIK this is the only Tainted Scholar enhancement that removes pact dice. I can't find the link, but folks have commented on a recent bug in which buffs/debuffs appear on the buff bar twice rather than once.

In order to utilize Celestial defensive enhancements, I need to turn off Zap Zap and Dancing Zap. Am I supposed to become a melee fighter?

It's meant to use the aura blast shape, which lends itself well to other activities. Those could be spellcasting (necro spells, cc, consume/stricken, various ED effects), tanking (shield blocking + temp HP + self-heals through EDs), or melee. Of the three, melee has the least support; blasting scales with warlock level, and the only non-cross-classed crit profile improvements available to Warlocks are through VKF. So your melee options for viability in late epics are:
- SWF or TWF with VKF; TWF will (probably?) be more boss damage, SWF will be easier to level because of Offhand Versatility
- Multiclass bard for the smallest possible splash that improves crit profile (to minimize damage loss of blasts); stuck with SWF +/- SM, light armor, non-ideal weapons
- Do a larger dip to get T5 or C3 crit profile buffs, in which case you're in flavor build territory because frankly ES C5 and C6 are what make your aura damage worthwhile

For a heroic leveling build, an easy answer is something like 3 Bard / 6 Fighter / 11 Warlock. Tons of temp HP and burst damage (offhand versatility) from ES T5, Stalwart Defense, +2/+1 crit profile on handaxes, and some leftover AP to boost your pact damage in TS

[Annex]

Thank you for answering my questions, Phoenicis and Discpsycho.

Celestial Warlock includes some nice abilities but makes no sense to me. I will limp to 20 then try something else.

[Saaluta]

Fiendish and GOO are usually the best pacts for people new to warlock, once you get fairly well versed, you can try the other pacts out after trs. I personally love fiend pact 90% of the time, but every once in awhile, I will change it up just for the diversity

Saal

[mr420247]

Or sonic nothing resists that and if you have points can get some more sonic vuln out of fatesinger tree

And can use a doj resonation necklace for more sonic procs that scale with spell power