Can you play a solo ranged Warlock?

[Failedlegend]

Pretty much the title, I've been away from the game for a VERY long time so I don't want to inflict my rustiness on others but I also want to try the newly free Warlock class but the Solo Warlock builds I've seen are melee focused.

[magaiti]

Ranged playstyle is the least synergystic with Warlock class.
Choose between melee or caster (DPS or DC-based).
If you are dead set on playing ranged and want a warlock past life, probably consider some sort of 6/6/8 class split with warlock being basically a dead weight.

[Failedlegend]

Ranged playstyle is the least synergystic with Warlock class.
Choose between melee or caster (DPS or DC-based).
If you are dead set on playing ranged and want a warlock past life, probably consider some sort of 6/6/8 class split with warlock being basically a dead weight.

By ranged I mean the Blast not like a bow

[Enoach]

Yes, but you will also want to look at the different blast shapes - Cone is a nice kill it all in front of me style, and Chain is a nice reach around corners style - Different people have different preferences.

Main issue is make sure you keep your DCs up as well as spell power for both parts of the Blast pact and whatever you use for eldritch (force/alignment/etc)

[Failedlegend]

Yes, but you will also want to look at the different blast shapes - Cone is a nice kill it all in front of me style, and Chain is a nice reach around corners style - Different people have different preferences.

Main issue is make sure you keep your DCs up as well as spell power for both parts of the Blast pact and whatever you use for eldritch (force/alignment/etc)

I was definitely thinking chain might be cool.

[unbongwah]

Warlock survivability comes from UMDing wands and scrolls, temp HPs in the Enlightened Spirit tree (EDIT: also from Tainted Scholar's Feigned Health and Stanch), and Soul Eater's Steal Life Force. In epics you can use ED healing abilities, of course, same as everyone else. So I would say it's easier to solo than a sorcerer but less so than Pale Master.

Blast Shapes: Cone is the best AoE largely because it scales with 130% Spellpower. Chain is longer range and jumps between targets but only scales with 95% Spellpower. Aura's main benefit is it's a passive effect, meaning you can cycle thru your spells / SLAs (or melee) while it's ticking away; with Cone and Chain, you're either Eldritch Blasting or spellcasting, but not both simultaneously.

Strimtom has a first-life Tiefling Fiend warlock in this thread and an endgame warlock (from last summer) here.

[Failedlegend]

Warlock survivability comes from UMDing wands and scrolls, temp HPs in the Enlightened Spirit tree, and Soul Eater's Steal Life Force. In epics you can use ED healing abilities, of course, same as everyone else. So I would say it's easier to solo than a sorcerer but less so than Pale Master.

Blast Shapes: Cone is the best AoE largely because it scales with 130% Spellpower. Chain is longer range and jumps between targets but only scales with 95% Spellpower. Aura's main benefit is it's a passive effect, meaning you can cycle thru your spells / SLAs (or melee) while it's ticking away; with Cone and Chain, you're either Eldritch Blasting or spellcasting, but not both simultaneously.

Strimtom has a first-life Tiefling Fiend warlock in this thread and an endgame warlock (from last summer) here.

Easier than Sorc, Harder than a Pale Master that helped me conceptualize its capabilities

I'll check out the build /video thanks

As for element I assume reflex is useless against enemies with reflex, are undead,etc. immune to the fort save ones?, are mindless things immune to the will ones? Is there a to-hit roll or only a save DC?

Element Pros/Cons?

[unbongwah]

My summary of the six Pacts:

Fey
Pros: Sonic damage is rarely resisted, Misty Escape is an useful tool (as are all Leap-of-Faith-alikes), bonus spells have good synergy with Tainted Scholar's Enchantment focus
Cons: Sonic Spellpower is tied to Perform (meaning an extra skill to invest in), Pact damage targets Reflex saves (putting you at a disadvantage vs mobs with Evasion if your DCs ain't up to snuff)

Fiend
Pros: WE'RE ON FIRE BABY! Also Binding Chain and Hurl Through Hell are useful.
Cons: a lot of mobs have fire resist/immunity, Pact damage targets Fortitude saves which tend to be higher than Will saves

Great Old One
Pros: Acid damage is second-least resisted after Sonic, Pact damage targets Will saves which tend to be lower than Fortitude saves
Cons: fighting acid-immune mobs will be a PITA

Celestial
Pros: Sonic Burst causes helplessness, Bless+Prayer are useful buffs for melee warlocks
Cons: a lot of mobs have electric resist/immunity, Pact damage targets Reflex saves

Abyss
Pros: bonus spells are good for Necro-focused Soul Eater build, would be a fun duo with Pale Master
Cons: Negative Spellpower is tied to Heal skill, Pact damage targets Fortitude saves, fighting anything healed by Negative Energy will be a PITA

Carceri Storm
Pros: goes all-in on cold damage with bonus spells, Pact damage targets Will saves
Cons: fighting cold-immune mobs will be a PITA

Among the newly F2P races, probably the top picks would be:

• Tiefling for Fiend warlock so you can grab Improved Scorch for the fire-vulnerability proc (even though 16 APs is a high sunk cost)
• Dragonborn for Dragon Breath / caster bonuses to synergize with your chosen element like GOO or Carceri
• drow for Arcane Fluidity if you decide to pick up medium armor proficiency manually rather than via Enlightened Spirit tree thus saving APs for moar DPS in the other two trees. [Darkfire SLA used to be good but isn't really worth the AP cost now unless you already decided to spend 10 APs into racial tree: e.g., Arcane Fluidity + cores]

Super-niche option: Celestial half-elf with Greater Dragonmark (Call Lightning Storm). Because someone's gotta find a use for half-elves so it might as well be me.

[Failedlegend]

Oh great breakdown, thanks (First thought based on your notes might go GOO but ill obv. be putting more thought into that)

I also found a video by Strimtom called "Guide to Eldritch Blast" and thats helping too

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Fey is in my personal experience vastly overpowered in the early levels (under under level 10, I assume); I haven't played my Fey Pact Warlock higher than level 6 because of that. It really has no challenge and therefore not much fun for me (part of a quest's story is for me to overcome the enemies - not to farm them).

[Failedlegend]

Hmmm...once I get the feel for Warlock with some test chars I might have to convince myself to force my old Wizard/Fighter to finish leveling so I can get access to the Arcane Initiate Past Life Feat. (He's lvl 26 or 27 iirc?)

Edit: Confirmed Lvl 27 almost 28

[Dendrix]

Stats: go all in on Con and Cha. level up into one of those, Con for tankiness and survival, CHA for DC casting. Both are great choices. Get items to maximize those stats at all time.

level 1 Feat: Take Rapid Reload and use a heavy crossbow. First few enhancement points into inquisitive for dual shooter. Summoned fire bolts which can be passed to you from a 2ndary account are awesome. murder mobs until level 3 by shooting them in the face.
@ level 3 swap it with lockania or fred to maximise.

Other Feats: Empower/Enlarge early. Force of Personality. Quicken.
Skills: UMD, Spellcraft, Concentration, Jump.

Get Stricken and Consume - they are great hard hitting damage.
At level 3 go for Chain (when you junk the repeating crossbow and swap to maximize)
Web Spell from your enhancements
Feigned health enhancement, and casting a buff (false life) on yourself is awesome
At level 6 drop Chain and go for Cone
Staunch enhancement, use it proactivly. See a reaper or a bunch of champions, pop staunch before you engage. Shrine to get HP back.
Optimise for Light damage and go to Utterdark blast.
Tentacles Spell. Live it and Love it. Now you have a way to spend spell points.
At level 12 go all in on Enlightened Spirit and Utterdark Blast. Light damage > Force Damage. Shining through and Brilliance make everything easy.


Items:
Coalesced Coinage/Celestial Beacon
Barovian Scepter
Max out your elemental type boost, if you have tier 3 Cannith Challenge items for your element they are best in slot.


Later Edit:
from another posters comment I changed the level 1 feat recommendation from Repeating Crossbow to Rapid Reload. That's what I look on hardcore for my warlock, but I misremebered it, typing this all out as stream of conciousness. That 70% speedup is awesome.

[Failedlegend]

Max out your elemental type boost

Am I remembering correctly that Universal Spell Power Stacks w/ Specific Spellpower (ie. Acid 100 + Uni 50 = 150 Spellpower)

[AlcoArgo]

Hmmm...once I get the feel for Warlock with some test chars I might have to convince myself to force my old Wizard/Fighter to finish leveling so I can get access to the Arcane Initiate Past Life Feat. (He's lvl 26 or 27 iirc?)

If all you are looking for is the heroic wiz past life (and you have wiz as the dominant class) then there is no need to wait to get to cap - you just need to be lvl 20 or better.

However, I would strongly recommend finishing to cap and ETRing to 20 to grab an epic past life and THEN heroic TR to get your wizard past life. The easiest way to do that is slap a +50 XP pot (persists through reincarnation), get a slayer boost pot and then run slayers to cap. Orchard, Thunderholme, Ravenloft, Feywild... that will be more than enough if you have the needed packs.

[unbongwah]

level 1 Feat: Take Repeating crossbow use that to murder mobs until level 3.

Exotic proficiency feat requires BAB 1 which a warlock doesn't have at level 1.

[Failedlegend]

If all you are looking for is the heroic wiz past life (and you have wiz as the dominant class) then there is no need to wait to get to cap - you just need to be lvl 20 or better.

However, I would strongly recommend finishing to cap and ETRing to 20 to grab an epic past life and THEN heroic TR to get your wizard past life. The easiest way to do that is slap a +50 XP pot (persists through reincarnation), get a slayer boost pot and then run slayers to cap. Orchard, Thunderholme, Ravenloft, Feywild... that will be more than enough if you have the needed packs.

I'd like to do the Epic TR, I think i might even have a free heart or six from previous giveaways etc. slayers is prob a good idea, i doubt my wiz fighter is still functional since its been so long so finishing quests might be problematic lol.

As for whether I'll get Wiz Past life, my guys a Wizard12/Fighter6/Rogue2 (Primarily Palemaster, E-Knight and Stalwart Defender) definitely not how I'd build him today but grinding slightly more than two levels can't be that bad even for an old fogey like him.

EDIT: WOW!! Epic destiny stuff is different now

[Carpone]

Fire (Fiend Pact) with Eldritch Blast: Cone is the way to go. With both epic destinies and gear, fire has more synergy than other elements. Hurl Through Hell is an amazing pact spell.

This is the build I've put together for a future Warlock blaster I'll be playing on a second life toon with no racial or universal tomes:

Enhancements:
41 Tainted Scholar
23 Soul Eater
16 Tiefling
–
80

Epic Destinies:
34 Draconic Incarnation
08 Shiradi Champion
11 Exalted Angel
–
53

Fire Spell Power: 868 (+150 with Wellspring of Power)
Light/Alignment Spell Power: 824 (+150 with Wellspring of Power)

Fire Spell Crit Chance: 53%
Light/Alignment Spell Crit Chance: 49%

Fire Spell Crit Damage: 135%
Light/Alignment Spell Crit Damage: 120%

Past lives are not required, but make the build better:
Morninglord for 30 Light/Alignment spell power
Energy Critical for 9% fire spell crit chance
Racial past life AP for 4% fire spell crit chance

[Dendrix]

Exotic proficiency feat requires BAB 1 which a warlock doesn't have at level 1.

Very good point Unbongwah. When I was doing this on hardcore I misremebered what I did. I took Rapid Reload which worked great, 70% reduction in reload time or something like that. fricking light and day change to the power of a heavy crossbow at level 1. Then spent first enhancements on inquisitive dual shooter.

I was typing stream of conciousness memory.

[Failedlegend]

I'm going to make my Warlock neutral so I can swap to any other pact if necessary (w/ feat swap), Side benefit to that is unless something changed True Neutral is the "strongest" alignment. Just got grind my Wiz/Fighter to 30 so i can Epic TR than normal TR.

[Seph1roth5]

I love my GOO aura warlock. A lot of enemies have evasion and that gets really annoying, think that puts it ahead of sonic. Aura may not be the highest dps but it's definitely the most survivable and easiest to solo.

You constantly refresh your temp hp with your aura, displacement as a cheap SLA, and another big chunk of temp HP on demand. Can pretty easily solo elite/low reaper. How easy depends on your gear and the quest. But I use my lv 30 warlock to hunt on r1 all the time and barely pay attention. Just move around and occasionally throw out the 2 blasts from enlightened spirit. Can totally play a mobile game or eat a sandwich at the same time.