A change to damage type for Warlocks.

[Winterburn]

Hi.

Now this is going to ruffle some feathers, of that I'm sure.

There are monsters that get healed by certain elemental damage (Iron golems gets healed by fire, the acis stone elementals in acid wit gets healed from acid and then there are some that gets buffed by some, like the flesh golems that gets hasted by electric and there might be more that I just can't think of on top of my head).

Then there is also monsters that are immune to certain elemental damage. Now both the sorcerer and alchemist have a bypass skill for this which I for one are all for (saw another post a few days ago about someone not liking that, something about no more "silverbullets" or something like that if you want to read that guys post).

Now for my suggestion:

Since the pact damage is really the key damage output on a warlock I don't think it should count as elemental as in like a fire spell or an acid spell. For me it's more like a deity damage that just happends to be elemental in it's "shape". I would like it to be counted as untyped damage and it could either be boosted by the element it's supposed to represent aka fiend pact although the damage type is "untyped" it gets boosted by fire spellpower and fire lore for crits or all warlock pacts could be boosted by impulse and kinetic lore spellpower which would make gearing easier since the other part of the damage is force (unless you use the skill that makes it evil).

I would be ok with either of those options but if that makes it too easy then make it boost by the element that it's representing, aka Fiend - fire spellpower, Great Old One - acid spellpower etc, just make the damage type untyped.

This way you don't have to turn off your pact every time you run into monsters that are healed or buffed by your main damage type. Or be secerly crippled when fighting mobs that are immune to your pact damage.

I don't want to change the look af the blasts or anything and I kind of still want them to be representative of the elements since it makes it cool, I just don't want it to be treated as for fiend as example as normal fire, but a demons fire that nothing is immune to or gets healed/buffed from and the easiest way to make that change i think would be to make the damage untyped but still look like fire.

Edit: I kind of take back where I want it to be boosted by impulse/kinetic lore. Even if I would be ok with that change I would rather it's boosted by the element it's supposed to represent.

 

[Lazuli]

Right now ranged and melee are doing 2x at least the damage. Not even counting the high reaper additional penalty. It is not at all balanced.

Ranged also do range damage and now AOE.

SDK chains + WWA with something like DL destroy packs of mobs on R10.

This. Currently the game grossly favors weapon users over spellcasting. The dps difference is abysmal. And that's not to mention that weapon users don't have mana limitation problems.

 

[droid327]

Right now ranged and melee are doing 2x at least the burst damage. Not even counting the high reaper additional penalty. It is not at all balanced.

Ranged also do range damage and now AOE.

SDK chains + WWA with something like DL destroy packs of mobs on R10.

R10 isn't the balance point for the game. Though I agree caster reaper penalty is excessive.

Ranged aoe still isn't as good as caster - the radius is far smaller and it isn't sustainable as casting aoe

Same for chains...the cd is 4x longer than a sorcs cds. And it's more dependant on landing crits to leverage the big mult, though people only remember the big numbers

 

[EinarMal]

R10 isn't the balance point for the game. Though I agree caster reaper penalty is excessive.

Ranged aoe still isn't as good as caster - the radius is far smaller and it isn't sustainable as casting aoe

Same for chains...the cd is 4x longer than a sorcs cds. And it's more dependant on landing crits to leverage the big mult, though people only remember the big numbers

I don't agree I just ran a chains build, most quests chains are up for each pack, there is almost always running in between. They were also always helpless from DL roar. You also have WWA as well for a third AOE.

Have you actually ran these builds? Again with repeaters you have 2x AOE that are up for nearly every pack of mobs.

There are also a lot of other AOE melee attacks that you can use as well besides the ones I mention.

Not to mention single target burst damage of ranged/melee is 2-6x of a caster.

 

[droid327]

I don't agree I just ran a chains build, most quests chains are up for each pack, there is almost always running in between. They were also always helpless from DL roar. You also have WWA as well for a third AOE.

Have you actually ran these builds? Again with repeaters you have 2x AOE that are up for nearly every pack of mobs.

There are also a lot of other AOE melee attacks that you can use as well besides the ones I mention.

Not to mention single target burst damage of ranged/melee is 2-6x of a caster.

Yes, I have a SWF SF that's nearly entirely AOE melees. I have a 15/5 Pal/DL too. Its great fun but its not instantly killing every encounter before it starts. I average about 6 seconds between encounters (ie from when I kill the last one to when I get to the next one), so if your Chains are OHKOing everything, they're not going to be up for the next one unless you're deliberately slowing down and waiting for them. Meteor Swarm and Mass Hold Monster would be (also compare MHM at 3.5 sec for Sorcs vs Dragon Roar at 13 secs (iirc, w/ T5))

Also, packs dont come all neatly assembled in tight little balls for your Arti AOEs. That AOE is half the area of a standard caster AOE, and what do you about all the mobs your AOE didnt hit? Geometry is a factor in comparing AOEs, just like damage and cooldown and cost and range.

 

[EinarMal]

Yes, I have a SWF SF that's nearly entirely AOE melees. I have a 15/5 Pal/DL too. Its great fun but its not instantly killing every encounter before it starts. I average about 6 seconds between encounters (ie from when I kill the last one to when I get to the next one), so if your Chains are OHKOing everything, they're not going to be up for the next one unless you're deliberately slowing down and waiting for them. Meteor Swarm and Mass Hold Monster would be (also compare MHM at 3.5 sec for Sorcs vs Dragon Roar at 13 secs (iirc, w/ T5))

Also, packs dont come all neatly assembled in tight little balls for your Arti AOEs. That AOE is half the area of a standard caster AOE, and what do you about all the mobs your AOE didnt hit? Geometry is a factor in comparing AOEs, just like damage and cooldown and cost and range.

Artificer is just burning the rest down with Fusilade. Its night and day DPS difference between caster and physical damage. To claim anything else is disingenuous.

 

[droid327]

Artificer is just burning the rest down with Fusilade. Its night and day DPS difference between caster and physical damage. To claim anything else is disingenuous.

You get, what, 8 of those with Extra Action Boost enhancements? Yes they're great, but that just kinda validates the paradigm of "more powerful skills are more limited". Casters are SP-limited, action boosts are even more charge-limited.

Now if you want to argue the game isnt designed to cater to what casters do best, or doesnt reward caster-optimal gameplay, you could try to lay out some arguments for that. I think you could definitely design some hypothetical quests where martials are more disadvantaged and casters suit it better. But to say that casters dont do anything better than martials, I think, is an overstatement...or at most, is only coming from a very narrow point of view about what gameplay modes should be considered in balance.

 

[EinarMal]

You get, what, 8 of those with Extra Action Boost enhancements? Yes they're great, but that just kinda validates the paradigm of "more powerful skills are more limited". Casters are SP-limited, action boosts are even more charge-limited.

Now if you want to argue the game isnt designed to cater to what casters do best, or doesnt reward caster-optimal gameplay, you could try to lay out some arguments for that. But to say that casters dont do anything better than martials, I think, is an overstatement...or at most, is only coming from a very narrow point of view about what gameplay modes should be considered in balance.

I had 15 charges, never ran out in any normal quest.

Certainly for raids/R10 melee and ranged are better other than healing at end game. I barely see any top players using anything other than melee and a few ranged at cap.

I guess if you consider end game and raids narrow then sure.

 

[Lazuli]

You just have to walk through the end game to see that the casters are not well represented there and that the powergamers have moved towards a playsyle melee.

In raids, yet worse. Raids are not really designed for casters. They are dps feasts where weapon users shine, but casters are fourth-class citizens.

 

[droid327]

I guess if you consider end game and raids narrow then sure.

Well...yeah, it kinda is. If you looked at what % of people online at a given time are doing, or what % of time a given character has been doing its entire existence, then leveling is a significant part of gameplay too, thats the whole point of the TR mechanic. And casters make fantastic levelers.

Also "endgame" is itself a broad box. You mentioned R10, but there's more to endgame than just R10 and raiding too. R1-4 soloing, farming, etc. is just as valid but has different priorities.

If some builds arent as suitable for those two specific applications...I'm OK with that, as long as they have a purpose somewhere in the overall scope of gameplay progression. Not every build needs to be totally equal at doing everything. Casters sensu largo shouldnt be completely excluded from them, though...but I dont think they are

 

[EinarMal]

If some builds arent as suitable for those two specific applications...I'm OK with that, as long as they have a purpose somewhere in the overall scope of gameplay progression. Not every build needs to be totally equal at doing everything. Casters sensu largo shouldnt be completely excluded from them, though...but I dont think they are

Got to be honest don't really know why you think anyone would care what you are ok with.

 

[droid327]

Got to be honest don't really know why you think anyone would care what you are ok with.

Same reason anyone would care what you think, when you posted your opinions?

 

[Lazuli]

Same reason anyone would care what you think, when you posted your opinions?

Many caster players are currently dissatisfied. What is not good is creating great inequalities, causing players to get tired and look for other games.

 

[Buddha5440]

After seeing many 'Wall of Text" posts: I will just say this.

One of the BEST things about D&D is that no one class (or multi-class), can do everything. In DDO Warlocks are basically a 'press one button repeatedly' and win class without mobs being able to resist their damage. If you don't like that...consider joining an LFM (It is supposedly an MMORPG, and I'm fairly certain on of those M's stands for Multiplayer (although the RP of that is almost non-existent here)).

Warlocks have a damage type based on their Patron Deity/Fiend. You can also use weapons/friends/hirelings/summons/etc.

Warlocks are fine. Simply learn how to play them.

If something is immune to your blast, etc. , simply have someone else with you able to kill them.

 

[rabidfox]

I'm level 13 at the moment, here's my ratio of blast to pact dice. If I have to toggle off pact damage, I lose 2/3 of my damage, not 1/2.

As a fiend warlock I can mostly live with the few mobs that are a problem (while leveling, I have whole other issues with the design if I wanted to do certain raids). If I was on a negative pact warlock it would be painful how many quests I'd be brokenly bad at.

 

[Winterburn]

After seeing many 'Wall of Text" posts: I will just say this.

One of the BEST things about D&D is that no on class (or multi-class), can do everything. In DDO Warlocks are basically a 'press one button repeatedly' and win class without mobs being able to resist their damage. If you don't like that...consider joining an LFM (It is supposedly an MMORPG, and I'm fairly certain on of those M's stands for Multiplayer (although the RP of that is almost non-existent here)).

Warlocks have a damage type based on their Patron Deity/Fiend. You can also use weapons/friends/hirelings/summons/etc.

Warlocks are fine. Simply learn how to play them.

If something is immune to your blast, etc. , simply have someone else with you able to kill them.

Well the reason I started this post was to adress the very fact that today this game is less of a MMORPG and more of a MSORPG with a Multiplayer function for those that want to play with others and for the raid aspect of the game.

Not everyone have the time (or patients) to sit around and wait for a lfm to fill up. Some people don't like other peoples playstyle or approach to the game, like zerging. I'm one of them with the exception where I don't get xp (as in if I'm at level cap or start a iconic character and do low level wuests for favor).

The game is no longer a game where you "need" to group up because the quests can't be soloed as it where back in the day before Epics where introduced. Back then you could effectively solo up until about level 10 and after that you more or less needed to group up or you were not going anywhere. Offcourse this depended to some degree which quests you ran (there were some you could solo and some that were near or completely impossible).

With these "facts" in mind the game need to evolve a little with how the gameplay is adressed today. Having some classes/builds underperforming to the extent that I have adressed in several of my posts here is not in line with how I want it to be for me to have fun which is at least my aim of playing the game.

Now off course people are going to have different opinions then me where some wants these kind of obsticles for certain builds/classes. One of the most sad things to see is people saying they want things as is because they never play those classes and BS like that. I also don't feel that posts with the sentiment that if you don't like it then don't play it is appropriate either because they don't add anything but discource to the discussion.

I do appriciate everone that have given constructive adds and critisism to this post and any further ideas that how we could adress this "issue" is appricated.

Love to you all.

 

[Buddha5440]

Well the reason I started this post was to adress the very fact that today this game is less of a MMORPG and more of a MSORPG with a Multiplayer function for those that want to play with others and for the raid aspect of the game.

Not everyone have the time (or patients) to sit around and wait for a lfm to fill up. Some people don't like other peoples playstyle or approach to the game, like zerging. I'm one of them with the exception where I don't get xp (as in if I'm at level cap or start a iconic character and do low level wuests for favor).

The game is no longer a game where you "need" to group up because the quests can't be soloed as it where back in the day before Epics where introduced. Back then you could effectively solo up until about level 10 and after that you more or less needed to group up or you were not going anywhere. Offcourse this depended to some degree which quests you ran (there were some you could solo and some that were near or completely impossible).

With these "facts" in mind the game need to evolve a little with how the gameplay is adressed today. Having some classes/builds underperforming to the extent that I have adressed in several of my posts here is not in line with how I want it to be for me to have fun which is at least my aim of playing the game.

Now off course people are going to have different opinions then me where some wants these kind of obsticles for certain builds/classes. One of the most sad things to see is people saying they want things as is because they never play those classes and BS like that. I also don't feel that posts with the sentiment that if you don't like it then don't play it is appropriate either because they don't add anything but discource to the discussion.

I do appriciate everone that have given constructive adds and critisism to this post and any further ideas that how we could adress this "issue" is appricated.

Love to you all.

So every class/build should be able to do everything in every quest?

As far as the statements preceding the "facts" paragraph, I have a toon that has never run in a group since I created it (~2010) and soloed all quests (that didn't require multiple people/hires/pets/etc).

Your issue seems to be that a Warlock, who makes a choice when they choose their Patron, has limitations on dealing damage to some mobs/monsters in the game. Adapt. Bring people with you who CAN damage those things or find some other way to defeat them. Asking to make an 'I can kill everything because nothing is immune to my damage' build makes no sense.

 

[EinarMal]

Asking to make an 'I can kill everything because nothing is immune to my damage' build makes no sense.

So all melee builds make no sense?

 

[woq]

So all melee builds make no sense?

To be fair, all it takes to make something immune to melees' damage is place the target outside their reach... Which is done in several raids.

 

[Winterburn]

To be fair, all it takes to make something immune to melees' damage is place the target outside their reach... Which is done in several raids.

And this is why you always carry some ranged weapon with you.

As to your statement/question Buddha5440: So every class/build should be able to do everything in every quest?

Imo yes.

With some obvious exceptions like traps or to be able to solo raids (and I'm aware that soloing some raids can be done, usually not at level but if you are way above level you can solo some raids. Some people that are realy good and have the "right" kind of build might even be able to solo raids at level).

Heck with the implement of gold hirelings you can even do the quests that require a certain number of people like Xorian Chiper and Tomb of the Burning Heart for example.

As I stated before since the playstyle in this and many other games that used to be more group play focused have shifted today to be more solo play then group play (heck imo grouping is more of an optional at this point the the rule), at least for many of us a lot of the time. You should be able to do everything and it should be levelled out so that you don't get massive penalties to certain classes/builds.

Some penalties is to be expected like if you are a melee and focused on "slashing" weapons and you do a quest with lots of skeletons you can either use your slashing weapons and get the extended crit profile of said weapon (assuming you have the improved crit feat) or you can switch to a bludgeon weapon and get less crit strikes.

Same should be for casters that no enemy should be immune or be healed from your damage but there could be resistance to your specific element that lowers your damage slightly but not rendering it useless or even worse makes you heal your apponent. It's like if they made the Pale Masters aura heal undead for example, that would make a Pale Master unable to truly do and enjoy any quest that had undead in it.

 

[Buddha5440]

And this is why you always carry some ranged weapon with you.

As to your statement/question Buddha5440: So every class/build should be able to do everything in every quest?

Imo yes.

With some obvious exceptions like traps or to be able to solo raids (and I'm aware that soloing some raids can be done, usually not at level but if you are way above level you can solo some raids. Some people that are realy good and have the "right" kind of build might even be able to solo raids at level).

Heck with the implement of gold hirelings you can even do the quests that require a certain number of people like Xorian Chiper and Tomb of the Burning Heart for example.

As I stated before since the playstyle in this and many other games that used to be more group play focused have shifted today to be more solo play then group play (heck imo grouping is more of an optional at this point the the rule), at least for many of us a lot of the time. You should be able to do everything and it should be levelled out so that you don't get massive penalties to certain classes/builds.

Some penalties is to be expected like if you are a melee and focused on "slashing" weapons and you do a quest with lots of skeletons you can either use your slashing weapons and get the extended crit profile of said weapon (assuming you have the improved crit feat) or you can switch to a bludgeon weapon and get less crit strikes.

Same should be for casters that no enemy should be immune or be healed from your damage but there could be resistance to your specific element that lowers your damage slightly but not rendering it useless or even worse makes you heal your apponent. It's like if they made the Pale Masters aura heal undead for example, that would make a Pale Master unable to truly do and enjoy any quest that had undead in it.

Then why even have a Warlock class...or any class for that matter?

Simply give everyone access to every feat/skill/enhancement and go from there.

If you choose a Warlock, you choose the inherent weakness they get from their pact choice. Live (or die) with it. If you can't figure out that you are healing the thing you think you are attacking...the problem may well be you and not the game.

- Hmmm, this dragon just spit acid at us...maybe I should shoot an acid bolt at it... (Seems like a bad idea)