Ying's Reaper Warlock

[Spook]

If I was considering dropping EA I think I would respec DI to get poor mans wings and respec PA to pick up reborn in the fire

 

[DeathTitan]

Consider that now there is no more self healing penalty in R10 difficulty when you are not fighting, so a cocoon is more than enough to self heal.

With my druid at R10 difficulty when soloing I don't self heal while fighting, I only use temporary spell points.

When I used to play warlock (for 3 years) I was an abyss pact warlock for +2 charisma, +100% fortification and undead form and great self healing with death aura (self healing in r10 worked, about 50 hit points regenerated per tick without wellspring of power).

I don't know how much advantage has Acolyte of the skin at end game over the other warlock types: I didn't make the math but acolyte is better at heroic levels when there is a dice advantage that almost evens at level 32.

With abyss pact you could focus on force + an element at your choice for dragon breath (acid?) and get something for negative and self healing.

For acid/force/light/alignment/sonic there is a nice Legendary Feywild Dreamer set with robe or light armor.

so dragonborn abyss warlock DC/CC focused that instant kills everything with necro/conjuration spells and dps with acid dragon breath.

 

[PraetorPlato]

Thoughts on this gearset? Augments not slotted, they're extremely similar to OP build, but you can slot touch of power on ring+ring+goggles (which you free up slots for by slotting insightful CHA and CHA on the gearset and creating a new blue slot on the goggles).

Weapon: Attuned Bone Quarterstaff
Offhand: undefined
Armor: Legendary Blessed Vestments
Belt: Dinosaur Bone Belt
Cha 15
Fire Crit (10%)
Fire Crit (5%)
Sacred DC
Boots: Legendary Magma Waders
Fire Crit (20%)
Bracers: Legendary Hallowed Castigators
Cloak: Legendary Hallowed Trail
Gloves: Gorth's Mage Hand
Goggles: Legendary Dragon Eyes
Helm: Legendary Elder's Cap
Necklace: Legendary Pendant of the Earth
Force Critique (10%)
Ring1: Clouded Dreams
Ring2: Legendary Spinneret
Trinket: Gem of Many Facets
- Prefix: Fire Lore
- Suffix: Combustion
- Extra: Insightful Charisma
Elder's Knowledge

A few elements of this set look really dumb (Legendary Dragon Eyes?! Really?!) but you get maxed DCs, quality SP, full elder's+flamecleansed+dread sets, and full force crit, which actually justifies cutting the force crit damage before considering the benefits of quality SP (it's 44%*260+56%*100=170.4 vs 54%*235+46%*100=172.9%, and my gearset also gives 54 higher SP (25 quality+25 artifact+4 incidental for force) for another ~5% damage increase). Losing the radiance damage sucks, but like DeathTitan pointed out, 7% increase in force damage and 5% increase in fire damage goes a long way to compensate for a 9% (14% drop in critical profile, 5% increase in SP) decrease in radiance damage, because you do dramatically more force and fire damage than evil in the first place. With +1 DCs from better CHA, which are equivalent to +2.5% damage in the worst case unless you're no-fail already (probably closer to 3-4% depending on how often you wiff), I think it's a straight up damage rotation increase. (Technically, I lose insightful radiance for +1 charisma as well—to compare apples to apples, it's only +0.5 DC. I think the tradeoff is worth it for DC casting, but it's a separate tradeoff than the rest of the set, so I think considering them separately is correct) It's also a move towards a lower-risk rotation, which should reduce overkill and incoming damage spikes. You also get elusive target as a nice bonus.

Because we're both slotting clouded dreams, it might be worth considering not taking iridescent fang, and going for meltfang instead.

(EDIT—nvm, saw you took medium proficiency).

 

[Ying]

Overhauled the filigree and shifted enhancements around to go deep into Feydark Illusionist. Without using Reaper's Potency boost, DCs are now:

Evocation: 119 (125 self-debuffed)
Enchantment: 114 (Mass Hold Monster, Suggestion, Confusion, Mass Confusion)
Conjuration: 119 (Evard's Black Tentacles and Trap the Soul)
Necromancy: 114 (Finger of Death and Circle of Death)
Transmutation: 113 (Flesh to Stone)
Illusion: 113 (Greater Color Spray)

I tried poor man's wings (Draconic Incarnation T5) and its long cooldown just doesn't fit my playstyle. So I'm staying in Exalted Angel.

Thanks for pointing out the Feywild Dreamer set. I have a blindspot for anything involving Soul Survivor since I wrote it off a long time ago due to quest advancement bugs and crashing. Both of which I think have been fixed. I'll mess around with that set bonus as a Dragonborn Great Old One. Phantasmal Killer with a 112 DC is ok, and PW: Kill is a bonus. I haven't spent much time with the Entangle spell, so that might be useful with a 113 DC.

 

[Ying]

Thoughts on this gearset?

Super interesting. Your math makes sense. Getting 5 DC on dragonbreath is kinda cool too. I'm gonna chew on this.

 

[PraetorPlato]

One note-I haven’t tried them on a non-dragonborn, but the wiki claims that the goggles are race restricted dragonborn with no UMD. For non-dragonborn, I think swapping the goggles to attunement’s gaze and swapping clouded dreams to a slavers crafted ring with qual cha is probably best. You lose 15 sp, but gain metamagic efficiency, 5% spell point pool, and get spell focus mastery off the staff so you can go damage proc on the staff.

 

[Sarlona Raiding]

Fatesinger instead of Exalted Angel for 2 CHA is interesting. The most notable loss as a Warlock is Mass Cure Mod. It's such an awesome SLA with the amount of crit chance/dmg and positive spell power in this build. I lean on it heavily when I run high skulls without a healer.

Dropping 5% crit chance from Soul Eater to get Feydark Illusionist Greater Color Spray makes me pause. GCS is wonderful. But every time I don't crit with Ruin, it's a feelsbad moment. I'm going to play around with it.

Nice build. I think most of the small points are very subjective and based on what people run, who they run it with and how much flexibility they need. At the end of the day people just have to run with what works best for them and trying to rack and stack builds just isn't reasonable unless it's for a very specific raid role.

Running R10 with 2 people is very different than running with a full group. For 2-manning R10s I would always overweight survivability and flexibility. For a full party, even if not fully balanced, I would always overweight utility spells such as greater color spray, burst of glacial wrath, devour the soul, etc. Warlock dps contribution in a full party is low overall, but significant for burst dps situations such as fear and doom reapers (dragon breath, ruin, greater ruin, draconic dot) and I agree it's crucial and running without greater ruin it is sub-optimal for R10 regardless of how you are spec'd.

At least with my experience the dps increase by going Tainted Scholar capstone and SE T5 is barely noticeable on R10. On the other hand I really notice the loss of greater color spray, burst of glacial wrath and devour the soul. I find those things much more beneficial to the party.

While I generally try and max out my DC as much as possible, the more important thing is target and spell selection as warlock has a lower DC potential than some other builds, but a very good spell selection for targeting the weakest save with 2 fingers, trap the soul, devour the soul, hurl through hell or absolute zero. I definitely feel I can contribute fine in R10s on a warlock with minimal past lifes, reaper points and raid gear.

I personally think mass cure moderate is better than +2 Cha as the amount of times I need to throw some healing is far greater than the times I miss a save by one. For people soloing it's definitely better.

 

[Oliphant]

Trying this out. Leveled up Saturday/Monday. Leveled through epics like a breeze. At cap now. Missing Earth neck and ring, will have to farm those. Need to make the LGS goggles. I've loaded up the filigrees and slotted the dino ingredients (except for the +5% crit damage ones - waiting a bit).

Had to roll up a new Elders GMoF for crafting and rolled an Elders/Burning Sun on my first try!

I also pulled a Tinder staff from Zawabi raid while leveling, which is crazy luck because that Burning Sun staff is not available for Runes.

For now I am resisting temptation to throw out this gear set and start over chasing Elders/Burning Sun thing. Maybe in the future I'll try one out for comparison and report back. I crafted a Legendary Tinder but it's in the bank for now.

 

[Drachmor]

If I wanted a tanky character for reaper questing, I'd go back to playing Feydark Sorcerer for S Tier DCs and way more HP/defense. But after earning 25 million reaper XP with it I'm tired of it.

Oooh, I know this seems like I'm completely missing the point (and also, seriously thanks for the Warlock build; not only does it seem really capable, but the write-up itself is as readable as it is thorough) but anywhere I can find more info about that Feydark Sorcerer build? I'm sure you have posted on it before, but I'm not sure with the newer forums (and I can't seem to access your profile).

Edit: Oop, nvm, I'm seeing where you linked it in an earlier comment. Thanks!

 

[Oliphant]

Ok, I hit my first wall trying to finish this build at cap. I have all the Spell DC augments except Topaz of Evocative Power (+6). Either that thing is extremely rare to drop or its one I've given away multiple times. I guess +5 of the 6 is covered already with the Iridescent Fang so no big deal. I was worried

 

[Oliphant]

Cheers

 

[rish57]

Great write-up and comments...as new to a Warlock build with this HC season, it's valuable to have content such as this to refer to for future builds and TR action.

 

[Oliphant]

Very preliminary notes about the build at endgame versus say Sorc build at endgame. I usually get close to the DCs on builds like this but things like Yugo Pots and Rem Pots (especially Rem Pots), mean I'm falling a little short because I'm not constantly chugging pots for sustainable fun. Regarding Rem Pots, I've never even found it sustainable to supply those. In the case of this build, I'm missing the +14 CHA augment and no direct path to farm it. I'm using +12 CHA instead. All of this is kind of normal, falling a bit short but seems like Warlock is just tighter on DCs than Sorc, and I'm not sure yet if its actually going to work out reaching the R10 usefulness level I'd prefer. Going on vacation for two weeks but will play it for a few weeks after I get back and see if I can squeeze a little more out of it, but might just TR into something else. Think I have a Cleric life I could do and this gear set seems like it would fit a damage caster Cleric. Ended up making my first reaper helm to partly make up for DCs.

 

[rabidfox]

I'm knocking out some AotS lives now and using your setup; just curious about Enervating Shadow. Was your build before the scaling on blasts changed or did you just find using it for 150% scaling (on bosses/single targets) wasn't really ever needed?

 

[Ying]

It wasn't ever really needed. Also not a fan of the shape.

 

[rabidfox]

Also not a fan of the shape.

I grabbed it. It's okay (kinda, not really) for single target (under perfect conditions it's nice extra damage but otherwise it's really bad).
I wish enervating shadow on warlock wasn't so meh. With the changes to damage scaling on various blast types, they want us to use it for single target. But it moves slow, can't hit the side of a barn that moved a single inch, and it really needs to work like precise shot and pass thru any mob that isn't the target (trash between a warlock and a boss never happens, right?), and it probably could also use having the range doubled to make it more situationally useful beyond those other issues.

 

[I dont Like gimps]

Also other classes can do well in Legendary Droaam, not only Feydark Sorc:
- with 128 evocation DC spells that have fortitude saves almost always land;
- with 117 necromancy DC I was able to always instant kill archers (and also casters if I'm not wrong), but I was never able to instant kill melee orcs unless they rolled a 1;
- with 114 illusion I was often able to hold despair reapers.

Tests made in blockade buster solo R10:
Blockade buster

I really doubt your DC Statements tbh Based on personal experience : 130 necro Isnt even close to being enuf in r10 droam Its Just Not
134 doesnt work reliably (sub 75% success) 114 Illu working "often" on despairs is such a hard cap considering my 127 (+crushing) was More of a 40/60 chance to work (Imma interpretate often as 65%+ success) and it just seems really odd that a dc of 114 works "often" while one that is 127 is quiet dissapointing and im talking Not just the despair but the Mobs it buffes too

 

[DBZ]

Warlocks have the max caster level of 6 vs the sorc 9 so your down 3 dcs already then the no stripping then the inferior race to do the job

Great dcs but they lost there niche long ago too many nerfs and they took away Shiradi Again

If you had a working shiradi this build looks like it would be fun throw in some Magma procs n dragon armor sets too

If you went all out how many imbue dice do you think you could max can u hit the magic number 42

 

[DeathTitan]

I really doubt your DC Statements tbh Based on personal experience : 130 necro Isnt even close to being enuf in r10 droam Its Just Not
134 doesnt work reliably (sub 75% success) 114 Illu working "often" on despairs is such a hard cap considering my 127 (+crushing) was More of a 40/60 chance to work (Imma interpretate often as 65%+ success) and it just seems really odd that a dc of 114 works "often" while one that is 127 is quiet dissapointing and im talking Not just the despair but the Mobs it buffes too

I said Droaam archers: see my R10 blockade buster video if you don't believe me.

 

[I dont Like gimps]

I said Droaam archers: see my R10 blockade buster video if you don't believe me.

yes u said that Necro 117 works flawless vs archers.... but u also said that Fort based Evo at 128 (so basically 134 for Instakills ) allmost allways work... beside u capping hard about despair reapers