well, i like the little amount of aggro rift generates compared to fusion. I can actually open with it on trash mobs in lyceum, HoS & i use it loads in HoF and even places like Den, Nest & PoA, it never gets me aggro ever. Everytime i see a little macro like "fusion inc!!!" it may as well read "im bored of life!!" for me, id rather have rift and stay alive
After having played with both Rift and Fusion, i can easily say that Fusion is the better spell. As a warlock i almost never catsed rift unless it was an encounter of 6+ mobs, its just not a practical spell to cast unless your fighting a huge group. Fusion on the other hand, gets casted every time its up, single target or AE encounter, it is always casted, and is a large chunk of DPS. Using freehand and catalyst you can approach 30k dmg on a sigle target, which is basically assassins decapitate on a 3 min timer.
I suppose it comes down to personal playstyle, i have to say I use Rift loads because Im facing groups of 5-6+ very often thru adds, or sometimes its just quicker for the tank to pull two grps in certains instances. Something very satisfying about watching a huge grp of mobs getting bounced around and getting away with it.
While I must admit Fusion is a better spell that Rift from almost any point of view, i have to disagree with that angry poster from above who basically points out in yet another annoying fashion that warlocks suck compared to wizards. I used to be a high end raiding wizard myself until i betrayed to warlock 2 months ago and now i geared up again with raid stuff and got all my major spells m1. Whoever was the person who posted that irritating comparison between wizards and warlocks simply doesn't know how to play a warlock up to the full potential. On single targets a good wizard deals between 1.3-1.8K dps depending on the fights, raid setup and Fusion use. A good-geared (spells and dmg proc items, etc) and skilled warlock does 1.2-1.6K dps on a single target without much trouble, without relying on a single spell to boost his dps immensly. I know these numbers for sure because i see them every raid. On aoe fights with good agro control and some help from troub or pally warlocks do 2.2-2.5k dps in a steady 3-4 targets encounter. The wizard can get as close as 2k dps with taking huge agro risks since wizard has basically 3 aoes, and one of them - electrifying flash - is kinda useless. On aoe fights warlocks aren't dependant on rift at all to do their dps. Wizards have to rely on Fusion to get close to warlocks with immense risk to get smashed. Evac? I don't miss it so much as it's rarely needed nowadays as when i solo i'm almost sure to get the target done with and i only grp in guild grps where it's not needed. Int buff? No need as i'm at the cap with my current gear and no int line. Do wizards have Pillaging? Nihilistics? So what do wizards have that we don't nuke related... Ball of fire=Void distortion (with less mana cost), Incapacitate=Thwart, Forge of ro = Dark Infestation, Fiery Convulsions=Scourge of shadows, Fiery Surge = Corrupt gift, Firestorm=Chaostorm, Irradiate=War pyre... and a lot more... And what about warlock nukes? Apocalypse>>>>>>Ice Nova, Void Absolution - no wiz equivalent, Nebula - no wiz equivalent... There is one point about Rift though which makes it essentially a MUCH better spell than Fusion - target encounter stun and it's agro free, since it's now always critical, what more can you ask? I've died so many times from fusion back in wizards days i've lost count... Imho warlocks being inferior than wizards is a myth and you should better focus on your class rather than always think other classes might be better. Because they are not.
I have still yet to see any parse of a warlock doing 1600 dps on a single target fight. Yet you keep claiming you do it all the time.
I'd like to see them lower the amount of target to say 9? And increase the damage to the said 4.5k-6.5k range.. Also it would be nice to have the instacrit AA work with it. But that's just my 2 cents worth.
Since you decided to compare classes.. You may have capped int but those scouts in my groups LOVE the extra int and str buff... your just being shelfish saying you dont need the int. Ice shield vastly outperforms Nihilistics... Ice shield is a 1 sec cast spell that can do upwards to 4k dmg every 20 secs... Nihilistics cant come close to that. Ball of Lava is much better than the warlock Distortion... Lava has 3 secs less on its recast and does more damage. Forge of Ro, again much better than broodlings since they have been nerfed so much.... Forge even has a heat debuff it puts on mobs. Firestorm does so much more damage than chaostorm, i cant believe you are even compareing them. Again, Irradiate does far, far more damage than war pyre. Apocalypse is only better than Ice Nova when fighting 2+ mobs. On single target Ice Nova will always be better. Glacial Winds, hands down always outperforms Void Absolution. Theres just no contest, and of course Fusion > Rift. Message Edited by Victicus7 on 08-21-2006 09:42 AM
Hey, I have a new warlock coming up that just hit 34 yesterday, not close to 65/70 yet, but I level fast. I have a couple ideas to throw in the air on Rift. Reasoning: We all agree a little more damage could be had with Rift, and this keeps to our disease/poison, but keeps the DD edge attributed to Wizards which is more in-line with their capabilities as well. Reasoning: Keeps in-line with the class being as we have a couple power manipulating spells, but doesn't make anybody mad about doing too much DD. Slightly increase view as a utility class. Reasoning : Requires the Warlock to have skill and be aware of raid tactics to be able to utilize the bonus DD spell associated. This would be one of my favorite ideas because Fusion requires some coordination and skill to use, but rift is either great or POS. This makes idea would also make Rift a spell of opportunity instead of just plain **** on 80% of the content. Reasoning: Although this may not help raid setups with optimal de-aggro arts and spells, it will help others who are often left with even.. 0 hate reductions. Even for those with proper aggro management in raid, this may mean you can concoct an even more aggressive Rift routine/casting order. Please, tell me what you think, get the ball moving. Complaining does nothing, and leaves room for error upon an SOE perceived "fix". Thanks for your time guys.
Ball of Lava doing more damage than Distortion... lol And that coming from supposedly one of the better raiding guilds member worldwide ...LOL They have EXACTLY the same dmg amount, reason why it does for you is prob because you chose the brainstorm, which i haven't. Iseshield is actually wiz's equivalent of Aura of Nihility, not nihilistics. Those 2 spells are exactly the same only work differently - wiz casts iceshield on tank whereas warlock casts aura of nihility on mob and other casters in raid or myself trigger the 3 hits, the dmg amount are roughly the same at M1. Let's not forget how much forge of ro was nerfed as well, and i absolutely don't agree that it does more dps than dark infestation. Only when you've played both classes as i have at high level, and seen the numbers you can compare - 3 broodlings doing each one 150-200 dmg every 2 secs is way overpowering than forge. Irradiate and War Pyre do very close dmg - irradiate first tick is bigger than war pyre's initial dmg but war pyre than has a better dot. About dps - i've even seen parses from a warlock on our server's (runnyeye) top raiding guild doing as high as 1800 dps single target. How - tons of dmg proc items, troub in grp (who the hell puts a wizard and not a fury in scouts grp???) and skill. If you go scout grp then you're a wasted dps wizard as you have no deagro guy to prevent you from sprawling once you cast Fusion for example. Glacial wind is not necessarily a lot better than Absolution as it's a dot and on a longer recast timer than absolution, think it was 4 secs longer. I agree firestorm might look a bit better than chaostorm, but when you combine chaostorm + netherous realm is much much better dps wise as chaostorm is a dot and it triggers the netherous realm dmg proc every time it hits, useless to say in aoe encounter this does mad dps. The only spell i really miss from wizards arsenal and has no response to warlock's is surging tempest. Uber! Last point, and this is rather subjective - wizard is a much easier class to play than warlock, because there really isn't that much of different ways to play it, no challenge really to get better once you have the right spell selection and agro controll is tons easier than warlocks.
Absolutely, that idea i suppose comes from the last point in the intelligence AA line, which works pretty much the same as you state. Thats the reason why i don't see it become doable as it would cancel a whole option of AA choices, not that any raiding warlock would bother going intellince line as it's rather useless dps speaking. What seems the most interesting idea and the closest to the warlock spirit is the disease dot along with the rift slam.
After i betrayed, since i was a bit uncertain of what the best AA setup would be for raiding as a warlock, and i'm not bothering to measure the AA choices regarding grouping or soloing as this is much less important, i tried many different setups. Was with a 4-4-4-8 on str and 4-6-4-7-1 on wis until i got my claymore rewards. Then keeping an empty slot empty meant choosing to leave in inventory either of fitzpitzle protector or arm of mithaniel, which sucked, and i noticed i rarely had to dig in my cannibalizing spells or shards/hearts to keep my mana up, encounters dying very fast with our 15-18K average raid dps most of the time so switched wis line to agi with the setup - 4-4-4-8-1 and str 4-4-5-8, now in troub grp, with FT and some 25% crit chance from str line, items, troub buff and alchy potion, my dps has gained a lot. Sometimes, on the tougher and longer fights like tarinax, gorenaire and talendor i happen to get in mana trouble but the number of such encounters is too lmited to justify the last wis line ability.
Ty for your feedback Victicus, appreciate it:smileyhappy: A few words since i did some memory refreshing checkup concerning our spells yesterday. First War Pyre is actually superior than Irradiate as apart from a bit lower initial damage, the dot afterwards (dot is better than irradiate dot) ticks 5 times - yes 5 times as spell duration is 10 secs and dot is every 2 secs compared to 3 ticks from Irradiate - 9secs duration - tick every 3 secs, which makes it better dps. I can more or less agree the recast on Distortion being 3 secs longer than Lava - one of reasons i went agi all the way, to parry this inconvenience - but on the other hand the M1 version which i have returns 130 mana which gives a somewhat advantage in longer fights, though tbh i rather have the shorter recast timer as Distortion goes as high as 7K dmg on a debuffed mob and a crit hit. You can check the website of this RE guild, defiant.yourweb.de - i believe you'll find an extract of a parse on the first page of a warlock doing 1800-sth dps and it's a single target i believe. I didn't say i do 1.6K every fight, but i said as high as since i've done it a few times, commonly i parse in the 1.1-1.3K dps single target. Iceshield - 20 secs recast timer, Aura of Nihility - 20 secs recast. Both are 1 secs cast, 0.8 s for me bc of AGI line. I still have the ad3 version of this spell, it seems pretty rare on our server along with aspect of night, but i believe the M1 versions are pretty similar from what i recall. I agree though Iceshield works better than Aura as it buffs agro to tank. On the dps side - it's not mathematically possible for ANY class to beat a good-geared and skilled assassin - ours parses absolutely every fight 1.5-2k dps as he's in MT grp to transfer agro. Swashies and brigands do uber dps as well and they're hard to beat too, and wizards have naturally an upper hand in single targets, but not in aoe. Overall, and i return again to the subjectivity of the matter, i find warlocks a lot more fun class to play which demands tons of skill from the player, and it's dependant of other classes as well. A wizard can't do many things wrong to do good dps whereas a warlock needs to know exactly what to do to be good dps. I agree with you mate, we are somewhat unsufficient atm but that's not because we lack on firepower, again remember we are AOE specialists and if i go full out on aoe, not a single class can match me, NOT DD specialists but we do very much ok DD dps. I turned warlock because i'm sure devs will do sth about us soon to make us easier to manage agro, bc i was tired of my boring wizard and they are such a common class atm, warlocks are a restrained community. Final thing - dps is not everything, we're serious raiders not some noobs who believe a raid is a dps contest. Everyone who thinks so is useless for a raid imo and dangerous. I happen to get agro every now and then but that's only because i always search the agro-limit and do my best to exploit my class as good as i can.
Wizards have the exact same amount of aoe spells that we do. Granted our spells are slightly better, but given the number of AOE based spells that they do have and the impressive AOE damage they are capable of, you could just as easily call them AOE specialists. Not to mention, Berzerkers have a lot of AOE spells also, and in the right circumstances they can beat us in AOE damage, and they are a plate class tank. I raid with 2 conj's. On many AOE occasions at least one of them beat me. What I am saying is that we are not the undisputed AOE king. In our 5 aoe damage lines we don't have enough variety, quantity, or quality of aoe spells to be an effective enough AOE specialist to justify our single target issues. Which is fine with me I don't want that role anyhow.
I'm sorry Ehlana, you just don't know what your talking about. If in aoe encounters wizard and warlocks both relied on aoe only spells warlocks would outdps wizards by some 500-800 dps given the warlock is under amends or a zerker is tanking. Difference in DD targets is around 200-300 in favour of the wizard. I agree conjs and necros can do very good aoe damage but we still have an edge. Zerkers only beat us if he's uber geared and only when he opens fight with destruction+open wounds, which makes it once every 3 minutes. I'm only talking about raids and if you gonna continue moaning how much we suck just quit it because devs don't look too good on these posts where people suggest other classes are better than the ones supposed to be kings in certain areas and they just nerf the ones judged superior. Warlock community just needs to realise that we don't need any dps boosts, i'm perfectly happy with the numbers i post when my agro is under control one way or another. I just need to have it all the time under control, and only solution for that is to have a significant agro transfer, like assassins. It's not really convenient to have every time to rely on other classes.
It's great that you're perfectly happy but you're just one voice. Everyone's entitled to an opinion and there are many people with an opinion that's different from yours (most of those no longer post because they've moved to a different class or quit EQ2). I'm sick of the 'if you don't think we're great DPS then you don't know what you're doing posts'.
"unless your a moron)..." pot caling the ketle black ther? you may not understand the spining nature of casting fusion.. and the little prayer that the mobs dont move to far or to close... 1. mobs move. 2. take math,, 4890x 3 >11000 or wer you assuming that the warlock missed the other encounters,, with a non directional greater range spell? but they would be... well nm.. so rift can do more damage, and do it non directional, and a larger range. what the problem? now dont get me wrong i love the fusion spell.. it is fun,, it take some skill. and we may die from using it.. nothing like a crazy wiz with no armor runing up and slapin a mob.. hay just for the math ed.. .let us try some numbers rift 360 aoe is 6 times the range of fusion (60) Range of rift is 15 meters 3 times the range of fusion (5) max # of targets? 12? would be 4 times the number for fusion(3) aw. .the damage to one target for fusion 11k is like 2.25 times that of rift 4890 So i say bump up the fusion... it not doin enuf... ( ok kinda a joke)
I would never compare Rif to Fusion. Fusion out numbers BY far. Avg for our raid ...includes freehand and crit is like 27k..for 3 targets... Rift 6k if lucky on 5 targets ..30k ...almost beats just 27k on one target.. Lol as is ..I cast rift only when theres alot of mobs......usually never unless im soloing greys.. Id liek to compare Apoco and Rift beter Freehand and Cata... during raids...Apoc will tick for 4k-5k...4.5k well take as average.... If there was 5 mobs thats 135,000 damage in 6 secondsplus casting time etc etc...usually = death.. normally theres about 2-3 mobs in encoiunter well take 3 ...81,000 ... still meas death sometimes...depends when you cast it...i like casting at begining of a fight...so it depends if tank is on the ball BUT Rift 27k x 3 =81k every what 3 minutes plus casting time... Apoc 81,000 every 45 sec plus casting time LoL Im just wanting to post about something....and LoL Im soo tired this mornig that I ranted on ...GL but truthfully Rift and Fusion have omnly same recat and same casting time...everything else i would never compare
