... ideas for the upcoming balance pass re: warlocks

[Krishna Devi]

1) EB is clunky
a) Eldritch Blast is clunky and slow to start, and therefore also slow to interchange with spell casting and other abilities. Please make it quick, ez, & responsive
b) Switching between cone, chain, and enervating shapes is also unresponsive and clunky. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, or turns off all shapes with a few seconds cd. Please also make changing EB shapes quick, ez, and responsive.
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2) Warlocks are slow.
Enervating & Chain shapes are medium range, Cone shape is close range. But we're the slowest class. Kindly add a 1%/lvl mv speed somewhere in the enhancement trees. Or at least a 10%-15% perma-action-boost mv speed bonus somewhere in the enhancement trees.
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3) Warlock Eldritch Blast is low dps at endgame.
Can we give it a little boost in terms of pure eldritch blast damage at endgame.

 

[Tumideon]

Feeding Frenzy gives +% run speed per level, but only on Consume. That should just be a run speed per warlock level enhancement, to make up for the low range.

Blasting speed should be increased by Haste Action Boosts, Haste, and other Speed items as well - and enhancements to support it going faster.

Remove the pact die penalty for different blast shapes, scale Blasts to 1d10, pact to 1d8 and scale it 200% with SP would go a much longer way to bringing up the floor for sure. And adding a die alternating per level - so you get +10 Blast Die and +10 Pact Die by Level 20, with 1 of each during epics, 2 of each during legendary. Plus we'd need a Warlock/Blaster focused ED as well to go with - that are aligned to our pact as well as Alignment options for Utterdark or ES Light builds.

 

[rabidfox]

Blasting speed should be increased by Haste Action Boosts, Haste, and other Speed items as well - and enhancements to support it going faster.

They removed TS level 18 core's 10% faster blast speed in April of last year because it never worked. Blast stuff doesn't handle speed increases. I assume they'd have to do major code reworks on things to make it work and it'll never happen as there's easier ways to increase damage without massive code overhauls.

 

[Tumideon]

They removed TS level 18 core's 10% faster blast speed in April of last year because it never worked. Blast stuff doesn't handle speed increases. I assume they'd have to do major code reworks on things to make it work and it'll never happen as there's easier ways to increase damage without massive code overhauls.

Damn, placebo effect for me then. Warlock is one of my go-to heroic levelers for Racials. Never noticed it.

Even more reason to scale up Blast/Pact Die and adding better SP scaling then, if you they cannot get blast speed increased at least they can raise the damage floor since those are just constants in the code that can be swapped out. Foot speed too, wouldn't mind some wings or a leap of some sort lol, better to group the mobs and slime them out with some cones.

 

[rabidfox]

Damn, placebo effect for me then. Warlock is one of my go-to heroic levelers for Racials. Never noticed it.

Here's old test video from it.

Technically we should already have that with tainted scholar core 18 "Your eldritch Blast Shapes attack 10% faster." But it doesn't work, never has; so it'd be nice if we actually had it working (no need for a new feat, just fix the things that don't work currently).

Here's a fun video showing a side-by-side with and without the 10% faster blasts... I don't recall which side is which but it doesn't really matter as they're the same speed.

https://imgur.com/a/YUACQUm

Even more reason to scale up Blast/Pact Die and adding better SP scaling then, if you they cannot get blast speed increased at least they can raise the damage floor since those are just constants in the code that can be swapped out. Foot speed too, wouldn't mind some wings or a leap of some sort lol, better to group the mobs and slime them out with some cones.

They have increased damage numbers. Like single target blast scaling has increase a couple times now. They're getting closer on getting those numbers right.

 

[Tumideon]

Here's old test video from it.




They have increased damage numbers. Like single target blast scaling has increase a couple times now. They're getting closer on getting those numbers right.

Nice vid, thanks!

There was another thread where someone suggested merging Blast and Pact dice too, I think that could be a DB nightmare waiting to happen. For sure Warlock has slowly gotten some attention, but the base die is just too low in Epics with the big health bars and all of the utility shapes straight up losing damage potential (even if it's only -1 die) is still an annoying tax. Sure it's the only "infinite ammo" caster we have as far as blasts are concerned, but I struggle on R1 in Soul Survivor and Vecna Unleashed at cap even as a Feylock where hardly anything resists Force/Sonic.

An ED at the bare minimum will get me playing past 20 though.

 

[danzig138]

No

No

Yes

 

[Krishna Devi]

No

No

Yes

Warlocks are among the slowest class with no innate move speed benefit, no innate wings (except 15feylock), and only an awkward 20% action boost dependent upon consume. So we're slow to reach the enemy, our attacks like Evards & Eldritch Blast are short-mid range, and there's an additional "clunky pause" when we hit attack with eldritch blast; altogether its a problem.

So if fixing the "clunky pause" issue with Eldritch Blast isn't too hard coding-wise, I hope they do it. I also think adding a +1% move speed per wrlk level somewhere in the enhancement trees, perhaps as a replacement for "feeding frenzy", would help.

And of course the pure EB DPS at endgame tends to fall in the 20k-35k range, as compared with the meta martial builds generally landing in the 100k-150k range. So perhaps a little damage boost would balance EB in the late game.

I would also call for the end of the r7-r10 caster dps nerf. My preference would be to extend the r7-r10 dps penalty to all damage, both martial and caster.

 

[Ratatoskr_Mikew]

The only things I want changed for Warlocks is the ability to choose wisdom over charisma for spellcasting, and open availability for Dark Powers pact for the non-iconic Dhampir race.

 

[Smokewolf]

At this point Warlocks are so bad that few would notice if they were deleted from the game entirely.

 

[Justfungus]

well, our ideas are not relevant.
What the devs decide to do is relevant.
My best guess is, most players will hate it.

 

[Smokewolf]

My best guess is, most players will hate it.

One thing is for certain.... What ever comes will either be directly monetized or will create more inconvenience to help drive store sales.

 

[Krishna Devi]

I felt SSG did a great job minimizing lag last year.
And the DC initiative has also been a well-balanced, positive step imo.
They've also just put out a great expansion, among the best ever.

So based on those three recent victories, I suspect the "major balance pass" addressing "caster concerns" will also be good. I've listed 4 factors that could be improved re: warlocks:
1) Remove the clunky delay associated with starting EB or switching shapes.
2) Add a 1%/lvl move speed bonus into the enhancement trees (or at least a 10%-15% perma-action-boost move bonus)
3) Increase EB damage at endgame
4) Remove or balance the r7-r10 caster dps nerf

Hail to the Casters

 

[Theo]

Wait, how can this not be a nerf warlocks again .... I mean I have not played mine in years now, why change that .....

 

[Krishna Devi]

(5) currently no epic destiny provides "evil" damage. even exalted angel which says it provides light/alignment, doesn't actually boost alignment neither in the cores or tiers. as a warlock using predominantly evil damage (utterdark blast & dark pact) I'd like to have at least 1 destiny that supports "evil" damage.

 

[DBZ]

Flush em can't stand to watch em suffer