Warlock Balancing

[morkahn82]

Ok, we all had our fun playing the new class and leading the kill count by large margin compared to any other class. Turbine you had the fun of collecting a lot of money by selling the class. Time to balance the class to other comparable classes. *drops mic*

[Nyata]

Uhm... no? on several things. I have not had fun playing warlock, actually think it's rather boring. have yet to complete a single life on any of my main characters, because the test run I did was underwhelming, fun wise. but probably that's just cause of my personal idea of fun.

Anyhow, I absolutely disagree that a class you bought and payed for should get nerfed. in fact, I think it's a shame that other classes you have to buy have been allowed to fall as far behind as they have. sure, there is still viable monk and druid multiclasses, but running them pure? meh. Artificer? heh. Not really counting FVS among them, as it's so easy to unlock, but still... hehe.

I am absolutely defending the p2w aspect with this, I know, but let's face it, it does make sense.

[Loromir]

Uhm... no? on several things. I have not had fun playing warlock, actually think it's rather boring. have yet to complete a single life on any of my main characters, because the test run I did was underwhelming, fun wise. but probably that's just cause of my personal idea of fun.

Anyhow, I absolutely disagree that a class you bought and payed for should get nerfed. in fact, I think it's a shame that other classes you have to buy have been allowed to fall as far behind as they have. sure, there is still viable monk and druid multiclasses, but running them pure? meh. Artificer? heh. Not really counting FVS among them, as it's so easy to unlock, but still... hehe.

I am absolutely defending the p2w aspect with this, I know, but let's face it, it does make sense.

I have to agree with Morkahn. Enlightened Spirit Warlocks with 3,000 HP and 300 PRR blasting everything to Smithereens is too much of an easy button. I hate even seeing them come into a group that I'm in. It turns into a Pike Fest even if you don't want to pike.

[JOTMON]

Ok, we all had our fun playing the new class and leading the kill count by large margin compared to any other class. Turbine you had the fun of collecting a lot of money by selling the class. Time to balance the class to other comparable classes. *drops mic*

nope.
Its a pay to win class not a pay to be mediocre...

Other classes need their passes and revamps to bring them up to playable standards long before any Warlock reworks.

[Forzah]

nope.
Its a pay to win class not a pay to be mediocre...

Other classes need their passes and revamps to bring them up to playable standards long before any Warlock reworks.

So other classes become as boring and easy to play as warlock? No thanks.

[patang01]

Ok, we all had our fun playing the new class and leading the kill count by large margin compared to any other class. Turbine you had the fun of collecting a lot of money by selling the class. Time to balance the class to other comparable classes. *drops mic*

Why not, lets just bait and switch everything. Get the money, nerf it and move to the next bait and switch. Surely the small player base will enjoy this and reward it continuously instead of getting smaller and smaller....

Personally I wish Turbine would nerf players whos entire repertoire is to complain about other peoples play style and fun. Because they don't lead the 'kill count' and such. You know the really important stuff in life. Meanwhile regular players leave and exploiters move onto the next shiny object to lead the kill count in and the 'nerf this' crowd finds a new objection to wag their finger about.

Success!

[JOTMON]

I have to agree with Morkahn. Enlightened Spirit Warlocks with 3,000 HP and 300 PRR blasting everything to Smithereens is too much of an easy button. I hate even seeing them come into a group that I'm in. It turns into a Pike Fest even if you don't want to pike.

No point blaming elitist players that have built their toons to be optimal, those same players would just migrate into other toons and then you would be crying about them there.

So other classes become as boring and easy to play as warlock? No thanks.

Warlocks are new to the realms and as such content was never designed to defend against warlocks.
Real focus should be spent on content that challenges all player types and placing strategic mobs that are resistant to various player types.. like the Arach's Knight at the end of VON5.. immune to all sources of magic.. a bane for warlocks..
add chance misc defenses to champions to let them be healed by light, or force, or evil damage, immune to will attacks(aka hurl)...
rework evil mobs so they do not take full damage from utterdark's conversion of force to evil damage... since when should evil damage do full damage to evil mobs..

Smart changes to the game go further than that player is op nerf him...

[Forzah]

No point blaming elitist players that have built their toons to be optimal, those same players would just migrate into other toons and then you would be crying about them there.
Warlocks are new to the realms and as such content was never designed to defend against warlocks.
Real focus should be spent on content that challenges all player types and placing strategic mobs that are resistant to various player types.. like the Arach's Knight at the end of VON5.. immune to all sources of magic.. a bane for warlocks..
a twist on champions to let tem be healed by light, or force, or evil damage... rework evil mobs so they do not take full damage from utterdark's conversion of force to evil damage...

Smart changes to the game go further than that player is op nerf him...

I'd love that, though I think it's rather time intensive to implement, especially for existing content. Nerfing is a lot more practical.

[JOTMON]

I'd love that, though I think it's rather time intensive to implement, especially for existing content. Nerfing is a lot more practical.

the quick and easy patches inevitably fails.. realistically they cant keep quick patching with easy fixes and temp patches without corroding away the core...
Those temporary short term solutions get you by.. sort of... but, real fixes need to be planned into the progression of development.

While it seems practical.. its not.. character/item nerf's annoy players who have ground out all the items and put the work into making the classes do what it is supposed to do.. be good...which drives some of them to say f.itt and quit.. cause if they have to start over.. may as well check out other games and start over somewhere else where they don't screw over players instead of fixing the game.

DDO has already annoyed a lot of historically dedicated players away from the game with the failure to deal with lag, slow fixes to broken classes, slaphappy nerfs without fix followups, loot revamps that screwed good hard ground player loot then a 2nd revamp that OP'd random loot all over the place.. doubly screwing over those originally hard earned items that were not retroactively fixed to be better but were retoactively fuxed to be worse.. while new randomges invalidated the hard ground items..

They have got to smarten up and do better fixes, .. these yoyo hammer slaps are catching up to them...


Now I am not saying warlocks don't need tweaking and adjustments.. but its not at end game where they need the fixes...
a starting warlock is 1d6 damage (force is currently undefendable by mobs in old content), right off the boat... that is a overly strong start.. then at level 2, scaling 1d4 elemental pact damage ..

I would have liked to have seen the starting eldritch start at 1d3 for levels 1&2 then go to 1d6 at level 3/4....and also have pact damage not start until about level 6.
This coupled with the game changes I think would stabilize the Warlock class across the levels. and give a target point for comparison when class passing and revamping the other classes.

[Steelstar]

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.

rework evil mobs so they do not take full damage from utterdark's conversion of force to evil damage... since when should evil damage do full damage to evil mobs..

It always has.

[HastyPudding]

nope.
Its a pay to win class not a pay to be mediocre...

Other classes need their passes and revamps to bring them up to playable standards long before any Warlock reworks.

I fully expect Druid, Artificer, FVS, and Monk to be just as broken, then, once their class passes come.

And why do we need pay to win classes, exactly? Classes like Monk or Warlock or Artificer are all very unique compared to the base classes and have dynamic playstyles, which is why they must be purchased or earned. Turbine will make their money just from having new classes, regardless.

Anyone who knows me knows I am adamantly against the 'three button wonder' Warlock builds with absurd amounts of HP and survivability, running in the EA or US destinies. I actually played one when Warlock first came out and I had to redo my enhancements after about 4 levels because it was so boring. Still, I view such builds as a crutch, because I run my Warlock with 0 points in the enlightened spirit tree (41 scholar/39 souleater) and he only has about 960ish HP (and very, very rarely dies, at that). Whenever I'm in the process of ETRing him, I almost always outkill, outlast, and outpace those 3k wonder builds. Having a bunch of HP is pretty to look at, but it doesn't do much for you in the long run.

I think somebody did some calculations a while back and found that those 3k builds actually lose a good portion of their damage potential compared to other builds.

[silinteresting]

Relatively small, targeted balance adjustments to Warlock (especially Enlightened Spirit) are in the works for sometime after U32.

oh god here we go, let the drama begin.

your friend sil

[Chilldude]

Time to balance the class to other comparable classes.

That's just nonsense though. What balance? There was no balance before warlocks. Are warlocks even that far out of whack compared to other classes? No, not at all. I'm seen and played many characters stronger than warlocks. Warlocks are great at AoE, but their single target DPS is very underwhelming. In heroics they can shred the place, but that's true of every single class. In epics I think people think they are so powerful because Warlocks tend to run in Exalted Angel, so the moment they step in the door they are winging off into the horizon. That was true of FVS back in the day too, do you not remember following Blade Barriers through an empty dungeon?

Rather than a gut reaction, come back with some data to back up your claim of imbalance. Show us maximum theoretical AoE DPS vs a cleaving barbarian or chain lightning. Show us maximum theoretical single target DPS vs fury shot. I think you'll find that while warlocks are certainly a strong class, they are by no means top dog at anything.

[UurlockYgmeov]

rework evil mobs so they do not take full damage from utterdark's conversion of force to evil damage... since when should evil damage do full damage to evil mobs..

Evil on Evil violence is a good thing - let evil kill evil and less evil there is, but at the same time less evil, but more concentrated....

and there has to be a downside to being evil.... and taking full damage from evil damage has to be one of them. :P

[Duetotheseverity]

[TacoStand]

+1

[UurlockYgmeov]

Umm... I thought that was what Warlocks did! Call them Tactical Nukers!

[Uska]

the quick and easy patches inevitably fails.. realistically they cant keep quick patching with easy fixes and temp patches without corroding away the core...
Those temporary short term solutions get you by.. sort of... but, real fixes need to be planned into the progression of development.

While it seems practical.. its not.. character/item nerf's annoy players who have ground out all the items and put the work into making the classes do what it is supposed to do.. be good...which drives some of them to say f.itt and quit.. cause if they have to start over.. may as well check out other games and start over somewhere else where they don't screw over players instead of fixing the game.

DDO has already annoyed a lot of historically dedicated players away from the game with the failure to deal with lag, slow fixes to broken classes, slaphappy nerfs without fix followups, loot revamps that screwed good hard ground player loot then a 2nd revamp that OP'd random loot all over the place.. doubly screwing over those originally hard earned items that were not retroactively fixed to be better but were retoactively fuxed to be worse.. while new randomges invalidated the hard ground items..

They have got to smarten up and do better fixes, .. these yoyo hammer slaps are catching up to them...


Now I am not saying warlocks don't need tweaking and adjustments.. but its not at end game where they need the fixes...
a starting warlock is 1d6 damage +1d4 pact damage without anything, right off the boat... that is a overly strong start..

I would have liked to have seen the starting eldritch start at 1d3 for levels 1&2 then go to 1d6 at level 3/4....and also have pact damage not start until about level 6.
This coupled with the game changes I think would stabilize the Warlock class across the levels. and give a target point for comparison when class passing and revamping the other classes.

Not bad

[Uska]

Make a few types of mobs for each pact that actually get stronger from that type of pact damage and make them agro on the source because they want to devour it

[Robbenklopper]

Ok, we all had our fun playing the new class and leading the kill count by large margin compared to any other class. Turbine you had the fun of collecting a lot of money by selling the class. Time to balance the class to other comparable classes. *drops mic*

Boy, am I glad that we have it back - the Warlock-Piñata! That bat of yours hit hard twice, but not hard enough so it´s still hanging. I´ll have and want to leave my bat in the bag, it´s already broken. And had already too much candy today. Just let me enjoy the Show.