So sad, Warlocks = Gimped Class - Causing people to leave.

Seems like every game I play, I always end up picking the gimped classes because they always sound so interesting.

I met a 27 Warlock today on Neriak server and asked him how he liked the class.

"It sucks" he said.
I asked him: "Does it really? How so?"
He explained that his lower level Wizard friend out damages him by about 4x. He can't solo greys for city quests without getting killed more often than not and his adept Warlock spells are so rare he can't upgrade hardly at all thus resulting in even less damage.

I asked him if maybe it was just a late blooming class and he said at this point he is so heartbroken over the class he may just leave the game instead of continuing on.

I am a level 19 Sorceror who recently completed my Warlock quest. I feel like I am going to be in for a rude awakening when I hit 20 and find myself unable to play because for one, the server is brand new with very little population for me to group with and two, I won't start a whole new character after having been mislead into believing Wizards and Warlocks were equals with variable spell types thus wasting all this time.

I at this point have no choice any long but I am posting this in the hopes that some of you considering the class be forewarned, you may not enjoy your class if you go Warlock...and I have a gut feeling it will be a looooooong time before SOE even thinks about fixing it.

I'm really quite saddened by this.

rofl

I'm not a Warlock yet (16 sorc), but I have been hearing some of these reports too. I'm not sure things are really so bad, though. There are a few things to take into consideration.

Crafters: Very, very few artisans have hit Tier 3. This means that it is very hard to find the ingredients and resources to craft any sort of upgrades post lvl 20. An apprentice 3 spell will do significantly more damage than your standard app1. As long as the adventurers are vastly higher level than the artisans, there will be some skewing for upgrades, etc. For reference, look back at the pre-suspension era. Many, many tanks were finding they were unable to hold aggro. Once they started getting app3s, you could hear many of them sigh in relief.

Adepts: There does seem to be some serious issues here. The drop rates for Sorc adepts are terrible. If Wizards are getting a little more lucky and finding more Adept 1s, their damage output will outstrip a Warlock immeasurably. With no opportunity to even upgrade to app3, the poor Warlock will feel very gimped.

Economy: Many people are just now learning how to place things on vendors and figuring out what drops are worth selling. I've heard numerous stories of people selling artisan scrolls and adept books to vendors. Vendors! People will slowly come around, learn how to use brokers, and start assessing the values of items. Once they do so, perhaps we will see a few more of these Adept1s.

As I was leveling my Sorc, I noticed I could not find any upgrades. I stopped leveling adventurer and started working up on my tradeskills more (lvl 15 scholar). Up until about two days ago, it was virtually impossible for me to find the quills & paper I needed to make upgrades. I am just now able to upgrade my spells to app3. I have seen one Adept. Even with a great bulk of the server near my level, things are hard to find. I can not imagine what it is like for those closing in on 30!

I'm not trying to say that the Warlock issues are purely growing pains -- it is very hard to tell right now. I don't advocate any particular gameplay style, but individuals who enjoy leveling fast need to remember they are frontiersman, to a degree. They are exploring areas no one else has gotten to yet. It makes their input very valuable, but it does make things harder.

As an aspiring Warlock, I hope and pray that most of these issues are a messed up loot table and growing pains. EQ2 is supposed to have a heavy reliance on tradeskill goods, and crafters are struggling with interdependencies, bugged recipes, extremely scarse resources, and a market where components are sometimes 50s to 1 gold.

-- With crossed fingers,
Hexi D'Cymal

i dont know who youve been talking to but .... if they cant solo greys then they either: 1. dont know how to play the class .. or 2. still have the App1 versions of all their spells and have very bad luck.

all the reports ive seen and people ive seen in game can out damage a wizzard durring combat just because of the fact that half of the warlock damage spells return mana to the caster allowing greater longevity then a wizzard .... warlock was not ment to nuke harder ... just longer.

i recently hit 20 and i already like my new spells ... with boon of the void and others soon to come i dont see a grim future for warlocks out there.

plus .... you can turn ppl into frogs ... how great is that =P jk
(i found this useful only once ... when the tank was an ogre and it was hard to see over him)
Message Edited by TheRealDude on 11-22-2004 11:47 AM

well I am a 25 warlock on Blackburrow and IMO the class is great. I have adept 1's for 90% of the spells from lev10 to 28 and mainly all my nukes are adept 1. My DPS are very close to 25 brigand in my group - so I cant complain about being weak. I can solo blues solo mobs (crabs, bears and cadavers) in Nektulos fairly easily and overall think the class is fun to play. I never played with a wizard and never compared the two classes but to be honest I dont event care if they do more damage. Right now to give you an ezample I stack my 2 dots for 40-50 a tick combined, hit for 180-225 with my big nuke 10 sec recast, hit 100-140 with my second nuke and 70-100 with the small nuke. All the spells are adept 1. In addition to that I buff my scouts to proc 13-20 with heat damage Burning Radiance (Adept 1) and Poison Runes (Adept 1) consistently places a 35 per tick dot on the mobs. So tell the 27 warlock to stop crying LOL

Phenom 25 Warlock - Blackburrow

All those Adepts?!? Wow! Would you care to give us a few hints as to where they are dropping?

I think everyone is going to have problems with one class or another. Perhaps Warlock is simply not for that person.

You have to consider that the first decade of levels for Warlocks do not involve very heavy DDs.
AoE Poison DD / Dispel Arcane - Negative Absolution (20)
AoE Poison DD / Single Stun - Putrid Cloud (22)
Poison DD / Return Power - Dark Distortion (23)
Poison DD / Stifle - Suffocating Breath (24)
AoE Poison DD - Suffocating Cloud (26)
Cold DD / Stun - Flashfreeze (29)

Total: Three DDs, three AoEs.

And check out wizards:

AoE Cold DoT / Elemental Mitgation - Chilling Wind (20)
Heat DD - Breath of the Tyrant (21)
AoE Magic DD / Heat DoT - Lightning Flash (22)
Heat DD - Ball of Fire (23)
Heat DD / Stun - Blazing Intimidation (27)
Heat DD / Magic DoT - Plasmatic Pulse (27)
AoE Heat DD / -Stamina - Pyre (28)

Total: 4 DDs, three AoEs.

Wizards get one more direct damage spell. Where Warlocks excel is in their secondary abilities. One of the Warlock's nukes actually is returned as power, another dispels *ALL* buffs from an enemy encounter, entirely. You're using these effects as you nuke, and gaining their benefits while you deal your damage.

Meanwhile, Warlock's get an awesome +power, +non-combat power, and + magic and poison buff while Wizards get a +power, + magic / elemental, + offensive skills buff. Warlocks basically get clarity at level 21, and I consider that a huge boon to the class. They receive numerous abilities to get power and deal constant damage, as well as debuff their enemies and steal power. They have a lot of fun and special abilities I'm not disappointed with either.

Wizards and Warlocks both have benefits towards their class. I really enjoy playing my Warlock and I feel he is balanced. Your friend's Warlock maybe isn't for him, but I don't see that as a problem with the class. The class has several interesting powers and if you keep your spells up to date, Warlock is just fine.

I have seen Wizards do as well as Warlocks in some situations and Warlocks and Wizards doing better depending on others. They are both balanced, both have cool powers, and by no means is one really that much more powerful than others. It's just situational. Learn your strength and play it.
Message Edited by Mylixia on 11-22-2004 01:06 PM

Edited: Double Post, sorry
Message Edited by Mylixia on 11-22-2004 01:03 PM

To be honest I buy most of them. I bought a lot form a Inquisitor I know and I think she farmed a lot in Nektulos and Thunderring Steppes. I got 1 from Rumbleroots in Nek and 1 dropped from contaminated rat in Edgewater. therwise I frequent FP broker as well as blackmarket and buy every warlock spell I find. So far I have most Sorc and Warlock 20-30 adepts.

Phenom

Edited: Double Post
Message Edited by Mylixia on 11-22-2004 01:02 PM

You mean at the same level you are dealing the same damage as the mid level DPS scout? Umm I was expecting to deal alot more damage then that..

Its at least the same and probably more. Honestly I dont pay attention because I'm not competing> I have a static group and I do my job in it. To give you an Idea of my damage on a white ^^ con mob at level 25 (fom memory):

dot 20, dot 25, nuke 185, nuke 110, dot 23, dot 25, nuke 80, stun 60.......cycle repeats itself - this is non stop casting within every 10-13 seconds so roughly you are looking at 523/10 = 50+ dps. Plus factor in occasional heat proc of 15ish and poison dot of 35 done by scout off my buffs. I dont know if above calculation is accurate but the numbers are. So make your own conclusions. If this is low then so be it I still love the class and I never cared about doing more/less damage compared to others.

Well to me it's not if I can out-damage some other class but when you are suppose to be a high front end damage dealer and its just not the case that kind of worries me.. I've never played a pure caster before..
EQ - Bard (main) Beastlord (Alt)
Shadowbane - Bezerker, Theif
DAoC - Champion, Nightshade

I figured this time I would try out a pure caster but I knew I wanted to be a high damage dealer.. If thats not the case I'll admit I'll be a little bummed about it..

It's very difficult to have a thorough analysis done with very little data. We simply don't have the numbers yet to come to any conclusion. Something like the following:

Comprable Character Levels: 50 Wizard, 50 Warlock
Comprable Spells compared: Fiery Pulse (49 wiz spell), Dark Nebula (50 war spell)
Cast times for each.
Recast times for each.
Resist types for each.
Log consecutive battles with mobs of the same type/level.
Note max damage, min damage, average damage, median damage.
Mob resists will have an effect ... either make sure mobs have neutral resists to each damage type, or try multiple mob types weak/resistant to each type of damage.
Note all stats for each player, note special equipment, focii, etc

And of course the big one:
Damage results for each spell level, App 1 - Master 3

Has *any* of this been documented before calling one class or the other gimped? Or is it just what the class "feels" like?

Evidence counts for a lot more than speculation.

If the spells are still like they were in Beta then the mana return from the Warlocks distortion only brought the mana cost of the spell down to equal the cost of Wizard nukes. Also Warlocks appeared to run out of mana faster than any other class.

This is hilarious. Just because Warlocks can't out-nuke wizards in terms of spell A doing more than spell B...people are going to cry over this? Is being Mr. Uber really that important to you?

I grouped with a wizard at level 20 and our nuke, blaze, did the same general damage. At 21 I got boon of the void that stacks with the other buffs I have that adds to power pool and power replenishment outside of battle. I'm more of a DoTer so I can't wait to get involved with this more. I am waiting to see what the big deal about the frog form is, other than to annoy everyone with ribbit ribbit constantly, but I'm having fun. The spells I have are much more group friendly than the wizzies I've seen. Negative absolution is a great spell. Boon of the void is a great buff. Gimme a couple bigger nukes and I'll be more than happy...but I'm not going to worry about who has bigger nukes because as long as the player can play, you shouldn't die. I grouped with a wizard who chain casted until he was out of power constantly, so when there are adds...he just sits there. Maybe he can whine for even bigger nukes?

When the dust clears, all that matters to me is to be a close second. I enjoy that we have more variety in our spells and we are a more unique class than the wizards. I will give up a "little" nuking strength for these additional affects. Of course we are supposed to be the top DD class (with wizards) so no matter what, we should be able to hold this rank. Only if it is discovered in the top ranks that we are not doing close to the damage of the wizard, then there will be a problem.

Here is the bottom line. We are a DPS class. If we cannot deal out the damage, then we are not doing our job. It doesn't matter if we have debuffs or other "tricks", our job is damage. We didn't sign up as an enchanter without crowd control or a summoner without a pet, right? If it is perceived by others that the warlock is a poor substitute for a wizard, we are dead. Regardless, I have faith in the class and see it as a slower maturing class than the wizard. Again, time will tell and as for now, I love my class.

Moonshadow
Message Edited by Sparrow_Xythereal on 11-23-2004 05:01 PM

Don´t think the warlock are so weak agains solo mobs!!!

I have a level 21 Warlock, and I can solo orange antilopes with some trouble. Most of my spells are app3 or adept 1. My blaze was still app1 to I uppgrade it to app3.

My fighting strategi is
Starting fight with direkt Damage root
When the mob are rooted I start max dot him.
Also begin nuke it.
Root it as when the root break. Trying to NOT become hited.
When dots break a dot it again.
To the target die. Remamber do not become hited, The mobs can interupt very good. I escape if the bad become to bad.

I was grouped with a Wizard in a full group to. And he nuked the mob so he got aggro and died. Thats not so god.
The group got dept because of that. I guess the Warlock have less chance to die because of aggro in groups.
The Warlock what I have feel and heard he is more dps than only nuker.

I like my class its fun and strong in dps.

Thanks
Luccon
Permafrost
Message Edited by Luccon on 11-24-2004 02:30 AM

Well so far I'm a level 21 warlock and I think its great. I've had no problems soloing in Nektulos(yellow and orange cons). I'm not really sure what all the complaining is about, but I can do plenty of damage. Although to be perfectly honest, my strongest spell is still my Blaze spell, which thankfully does around 150 to 200 damage. The AoE DD at level 20 has proven very useful so far, very good damage output when fighting a large group of mobs. Adept III spells are also a good thing to have . I suggest investing in them if you don't have them already, heh heh. For those of you struggling with warlock, go get a couple Adept III spells, I think you'll be a lot happier.

Where do you get Adept III spells from?