The NEW Warlock Issues and Concerns Thread

Discussion in 'Warlock' started by ARCHIVED-Windowlicker, Jul 9, 2008.

  1. ARCHIVED-Windowlicker Guest

    LightCC, I'll fully admit I need to spend a little more time reading your post. (Ninja-post at work ftw!)

    Out of curiosity, what AA spec are you using on your Warlock? Are you playing on a PVP or PVE server?
  2. ARCHIVED-LightCC Guest

    Ilucide wrote:
    Yes, and that took way too long to write. Ah for the love of my class and the numbers behind how things work...

    One thing to correct. I checked some recent parses and Armageddon for me comes in at 8%-12% of my parse (SoH 8%, PR 9%, KorSha 12%). The 8% was from SoH where I believe it was 100% single target mobs, so on single target mobs at 8% or a little higher, the 30% boost to Armageddon would add a total of about 2.4% damage, not 1.5% as I guessed.

    I think if you changed Absolution to add 100% more damage (+30% overall) as a dot, and Radition to add 200% more (+30% overall) it might add another 3-5% between the both of them on single targets... (they would become dots with about the dps efficiency that acid has right now, so they would replace DDs that have about 30-40% less efficiency in the rotation). this would be something to test to find out exactly, so these changes would add about 7 or 8% total damage on single targets is my guess. Now, I'm not sure what the devs thought it would add total, but I'm thinking that's probably more in line with what they were aiming for (considering most other class effects are either 10% across the board or 30% of a subset of CAs which probably adds up to around 8-10% total damage.

    -----

    Windowlicker (Interesting name... ):

    I'm PvE
    My solo/group spec is AGI, STA, STR with FC, Protection, Removals (and 3-3-5 into aoes)
    My raid spec is the standard AGI, WIS, STR with FC, Prop, Aftershock

    I used the solo spec in SoH to test the benefit of the +48 spell skills on resists this week and it helped a lot - I may stick with that AA spec for that zone, even though I lose about 5% total damage and a few individual spell dps mods with it.

    I find that with a troub and an Illy the prop final is still well worth it, though it would be nice if the mythical gave us perhaps a 2% item proc rate boost to go along with the spell proc boost I can always dream.


    -----

    For the record, my spell efficiency spreadsheet calculates dps and power efficiency with max'd AA for each spell.

    It's a little bit tricky because changes in INT and spell mod I haven't been able to have it calculate, so I have to actually log in and copy all the damage numbers based on a particular INT/Spell mod that my warlock currently has. The cast time, reuse, and crits can all be changed on the sheet however, and calculate through everything.

    It basically matched an efficiency chart that I believe I found linked here somewhere, so I'm pretty confident in the calculations (it also essentially has proven itself out in fixing my spell rotations, etc., though it doesn't account for buffs like PoM, etc. - any that are percent based will be better off with shorter cast times, etc.
  3. ARCHIVED-Xedex Guest

    Fix the resist rate and IMO warlocks are just fine

    I'm getting 5k+ single target easily without a brigand but our Assassin is getting 10k+...hrmmm

    Once i get resisted its a PITA because that lowers my DPS...without a fully debuffed mob and even with a fully debuffed raid mob i still seem to get resists like crazy. I have 482 Disruption solo and if our troub decides to run Dove's Song it its even higher yet im getting resisted like crazy. I understand every once in awhile but 5 or 6 times in a row is pathetic. If resist rates are back to how they were before the change everything would be gravy and scouts and mages would be competing for the top spot.
  4. ARCHIVED-LightCC Guest

    Xedex wrote:
    Xedex,

    The biggest resists I'm getting are from Aura and my debuffs, all of which are subjugation. Is this your experience as well? What is your subjugation?

    I might get 3 or 4 resists on aura in a row, but almost never that many on all my other dps spells, which are indeed disruption. As I suggest in my post above, I believe Aura ought to be changed to disruption with this recent change of spell resists.
  5. ARCHIVED-Xedex Guest

    in raid my subj is at 475

    disruption is 512...but still im getting resisted on my broodlings, armageddon etc just as much as aura.
  6. ARCHIVED-Burnout Guest

    resists, spellskills
    change the way spellresits are working.

    spellskills: they should be THE values which determine if a spell lands or not. casters shouldn't be enforced to rely on a brigand just to land the spells. spellskills are reflecting our skill in casting - what else should be used as basevalue for the question resist or not?
    resistance/wis: debuffing those should result into dealing more dmg - having a debuffer in raid on the mob should be a bonus, not a need.
  7. ARCHIVED-Windowlicker Guest

    n/m - mistaken in this post.

    /removed
  8. ARCHIVED-Windowlicker Guest

    LightCC wrote:
    Windowlicker was my nick in basicly every MMO but this one. Name filter hates it. Here, I'm Zahne ;)

    I'd be interested in checking out this spreadsheet you created, and seeing what formula's you used for the calculations.
  9. ARCHIVED-inshiningarmor Guest

    Ilucide wrote:
    I do not mean to question what is planned, but for casters they are EXTREEMLY group dependent. If you throw together a group to run RE2 you can grab 2 assassins and run the zone easily as there DPS does not go down much. If you grab to Wizzards or Warlocks, the zone is not near as easy because the DPS is SO MUCH lower then in a raid setting. Outside of raids Scout DPS stays about the same. Caster DPS and SURVIVABILITY takes a nose dive. As a Warlock I have a damage spec for raiding ... and a group spec based on the INT line to reduce hate. Even with that line I have to start off ALOT slower to avoid pushing up daisies. Total DPS is normally 1/2 or lower compared to raids. On my Swashie and Assassin I do not have to change AA's casting order ect at all. My DPS drops by maybe 10%.
    In raids Caster DPS can come close to Scout DPS. I can personally get close enough to the assassin that he cannot coast, and only die 5 to 10 times in the zone in doing so.
    In groups we are not even close to scout DPS and we die alot more often. I group with the same raid assassin and tank and the assassin often triples my parse in groups and I die ALOT more times.
  10. ARCHIVED-Kiara Guest

    Stickied this for you all so that it'll be easier to access!
  11. ARCHIVED-Frank Sojourner Guest

    It has been brought up before, but I'd like to reiterate. Sorcerers, in general, should be able to generate more dps independently.

    In order to come close to competing with scouts on the parse. I need to have a troubadour, illusionist (with TC on me) and wizard in group, a monk and brigand in raid and hate management classes in the mt group. I did a little figuring, I don't have the exact numbers so these are guestimations.

    A troubadour, with mythical, alone accounts for 20-25% of dps attributed to me on a raid. With a +10% to spell dmg, Dissonant Note, Precise Note, (DN and PN generally account for 8-12% of my dps total), spell hast, +spell crit, dehate and regen. An illusionist with TC provides another 10-15% of my dps with just the spell haste and reuse buff of TC and the procs of Tandem. Add in the 13% spell haste of the monk and assorted other buffs, debuffs and regen provided by other classes. I'd guesstimate around 35-45% of my total dps in a raid comes from sources outside of my character abilities, AA and gear. I believe those numbers are on the low side as I don't want to exaggerate our dependence on other classes to perform our primary role in a raid.

    And that buff stacked group will only let me compete with the top parsing scouts in our raid group on a handful of fights throughout a raid. The bottom line is that I have a raid geared warlock that has 3 expansions worth of raid experience all with the same VP clearing raid crew and an alt brigand that is poorly geared and that I'm still learning how to play effectively in a raid environment.

    For a vast majority of RoK instanced raid encounters. It would be more efficient for the raid to bring a poorly geared and played second brig than it would be to bring a pretty good warlock. As the loss of my personal dps would easily be surpassed by the increase in raid dps enabled by the second brig and the other sorcerer in the group could get TC.

    Let's face it Grasp of Bert, Shroud of Bert, Boon of Solitude, Curse of Humility, Curse of Luclin, Vacuum Field, Mana Trickle, and Pillaging, may seem like a long list of abilities that would be useful to a raid, but the reality is that they aren't missed if a warlock isn't there or even noticeable when the warlock is there.
  12. ARCHIVED-Windowlicker Guest

    Frank Sojourner wrote:
    This is true, people will always use these as examples of all the "Utility" we have. Yet we can raid full time in a hardcore guild, and nobody will ever notice if they're running.
    The only reason I'd even notice, would be the fact my main is a Warlock. Otherwise, nobody really cares if any of these abilities are even upgraded.
    Although Pillaging, Mana Trickle, and Vacuume Field are very useful. The hate transfer on Boon is useless, however the power feed is a nice-to-have for *one* sorcerer on the raid.
    Boon Suggestion: Change it from a % chance to proc on the tank being hit, to a % chance to proc on the melee completing a successful swing.
    This would at least make the line useful for all the sorcerers in the raid.
  13. ARCHIVED-LightCC Guest

    Zahne@Mistmoore wrote:
    Still working on it.

    I've now got it working so that you can input INT, spell crit%, cast time, reuse, recovery, +SD, and base dmg mod and it spits out all the dps eff and average damages for each spell.

    It currently matches the tooltip damages correctly, although I understand there is an error with the tooltip damage that is shown. It apparently allows base dmg mods to increase the SD cap but in reality out in the field, confirmed by parser, base dmg mods don't increase the SD cap. I intend to test this out myself, using more than just the popular flames of velious.

    I also need to parse the swarm pet spells (Acid storm, broodlings, and netherbeast) to get those damages.

    The only things that changed significantly as I fixed my spreadsheet is that aura of void dropped down a lot on the list because the SD is cut to 1/3 for it (the cap is based on just 1 trigger, and the amount calculated for that trigger is then spread out over all 3 triggers), and netherrealm and gift of bert get no benefit at all from SD, which makes them a lot less attractive. Also, the big error I found in my calculations - I was reducing the recovery time by the cast time mod. Fixing this made short cast time spells drop down on the list - mainly that's Aura and Gift of Bertoxxulous. This made aura drop from a 'must cast all the time' spell to a spell with similar dps to our other DDs and now you *must* get all three triggers to make it worth it. Acid also dropped a bunch, but it's still on par with distortion if you get in all ticks.

    This isn't right, by the way - Aura is a tricky spell, not even just a dot - you need to LAND three more spells in time to make it worth it. Dots should have significantly higher damage if you manage to get all the ticks in. Acid is just marginally better than most DDs and Vacuum Chamber only matches the low end DDs (other than the crappy dissolve).

    Of course, I need to test this still in the field, this is all based on tooltips across various different INT, crits, SD levels, etc. Dissolve is still very bad, Absolution only pulls up equal with encase and flames in the DD category with the epic clicky., Radition is still not worth it except 3-4+ mobs, etc. etc.

    Currently I'm adding procs to the spreadsheet as well. I need to corner one of our troubs and an illy and get some values one of these days.
  14. ARCHIVED-Windowlicker Guest

    LightCC wrote:
    I have actually been following your SD post on Flames, and would be interested in seeing a "high level" summary of your findings.

    Have you looked at our broodlings or netherlord? I can almost bet neither of those will be effected by SD either. I'm sure the DOT/Debuff component of the broodlings would, but the broodlings themselves likely aren't.


    Edit: I know Pinski has been working on some calculations with damage scaling as it relates to base damage, crit and spell dam. He might be a good person to chat with.
  15. ARCHIVED-Efrath Guest

    Hope ya wont mind if I make a post without reading trough the entire thread, Ii think you're mostly talking about PVE tho. I personally want to bring up the issue sorcerers have in PVP in the higher levels.

    I do think sorcerers are a tad bit overpowered in low tiers if they manage to get a high enough AA to get Manashield but in higher levels it's all too common that everyone simply runs away as soon as either us warlocks or wizards turn on manashield. Sadly, we depend far too much in my opinion on manashield but as long as SOE doesn't change resists as well as survivability against melee classes, we are usually forced to rely on it.

    Personally, I think the main problem is this:

    in that mages only wears clothes which means we have a low physical mitigation but can at least get a high elemental mitigation plus we do really high damage over the course of several seconds. We can get interrupted easily by knockbacks, stuns and etc. and even normal attacks unless Focused casting is turned on.

    In the meanwhile, scouts can have quite a decent physical mitigation AND elemental mitigation as they wear chain, they can stun, root, stifle, slow and some can mess as well and troubs can charm. Ontop of that, the most common scout classes played (Assasins, Rangers, Brigands, Swashbucklers) can do almost as high damage as wizards and warlocks in a much shorter timespan, some take a bit longer o'course depending on the class but I think you know what I'm trying to point out here. Manashield is truly the only reason we can survive against these classes.

    Now, if SOE isn't going to help us make it easier for warlocks and wizards to survive against melee classes, I would suggest to at least make Manashield more or less a permanent spell that can be turned on or off.

    No timer at all.

    That way, we wont at least have to be frustrated over that pesky ranger or assasin rooting and slowing you down before running away as soon as you turn on MS, only to come back 30 seconds to own you because you don't have it left plus they''ve recovered some of their stronger combatarts as well.

    O'course, if they would make Manashield like I suggested, they should also lower the Power/Health ratio, or this is what Ithink because we don't want it to be too overpowered right? Anyone else that has any ideas or thoughts? I personally think that wizards and warlocks needs perhaps something else they can do beside only damage? Another thing that would be nice would be to have our DOTS actually worth using in PVP, but that is hard to implent I think.

    EDIT: I do hope it's alright to discuss PVP matters when it comes to Warlocks here right?
  16. ARCHIVED-Windowlicker Guest

    Efrath@Nagafen wrote:
    Absolutely, but if you could toss down some suggested changes into bullet-form it would make it a bit easier for me to update the first post.
  17. ARCHIVED-Efrath Guest

    Zahne@Mistmoore wrote:
    Sure thing

    Make Manashield a clickable permanent spell that you can turn on and off as you please to avoid people running away at the sight of a warlock (Or wizard) using Manashield.

    Make DOTs usable in PVP, as of now they're useless due to the fact that fights lasts 4 seconds most of the time and 10 second tops.

    I should mention that I'm speaking from a 1 vs 1 point of view as I personally solo alot in PVP so someone who is more experienced with group PVP should put some inputs too about my suggestions.



    Also

    Increase the survivability of sorcerers in PVP against scouts. Why should scouts be able to have high resists in both physical and elemental attacks while all mages can only have high elemental? Perhaps a change in armor would be in order, IE Leather armour has quite decent phys and elemental resists, chain has higher phys resist but lower elemtal resists.

    In short:

    Either increase the damage of sorcerer and summoner spells or change resists on armors so that leather and chain has less elemental resists than clothes. Plat should o'course keep having high resists in both physical land elemental resists.
  18. ARCHIVED-toolzen2 Guest

    Forgive me if I'm over-simplifying the issue, but in ANY and EVERY multi-mob encounter, under any and all circumstances, a Warlock should have THE HIGHEST DPS ALWAYS. Period.

    Why? Because that's what we're supposed to do - different classes are designed for different purposes - our purpose is to create death and destruction. Our nukes our designed to do around the same or more damage than that of a wizard, but distributed within the encounter, whereas a wizard in a single-target instance should have the highest damage, because their damage is designed to do massive amounts of hurt to one target. The main purpose of a Wizard or a Warlock is to do Massive Amounts of damage - that defines us as a class - the trade-of being we get killed easier than a bug on a busy highway. The other cloth wearers have trade-offs too - some argue coercers are the best soloers in the higher levels. Summoners get their pets. In a role playing sense powerful mages summoning creatures to do their bidding, taking control of the minds of others and casting deadly spells is what the game mechanics should be built on, and I assume based on the descriptions of all the mage classes, and the fact that this is a fantasy-base role-playing game - they were meant to be. We trade off survivability for immense power. Yin for Yang.

    We're supposed to be group dependent - this game was designed for that. If we went out by ourselves and picked a fight with a big baddy that we could easily plow through if they just stood there - well they're not gonna just stand there after I just cast a big giant poison cloud on them - they're going to make me into a pie for their baby monster to eat later. That's why I need a "tank." The very term implies something armor-plated and in your face. Somebody who can, assuming I don't go crazy spamming damage spells while auto-attacking and insulting the mob's mamma, keep me from dying. A group need scouts to soften things up, reduce resists, stifle etc. We need a priest to heal us in case "Tankage McPwnU" falls asleep at the wheel for a few seconds or we're fighting a really tough mob/mobs. And we need Wizards and Warlocks to makes things die.

    With this in mind, what is a scout in the game currently? A scout archtype should be someone who has a little more survivability and utility, at the cost of a little less damage - or so you would think. This is a ~Fantasy~ based ~role-playing~ game after all. A scout should never ~ever~ under any circumstances do more damage than a sorcerer with a big solid ~period~ If a scout based class has slightly more survivability, but can do as much or more damage than a wizard or warlock ~under any circumstance~ - we're not role-playing in this role-playing game. We're not keeping in the spirit of a fantasy in this fantasy-based game. We're not balanced.

    I'm not saying we should be able to sit there and spam damage - there should be some skill involved as far as knowing what to cast, when to cast it, and how much dps you can do before you start being clawed to death - but assuming you're in a well-rounded group with players of around the same skill, a sorcerer should be the top of the parse as in #1. Think of it as a big line on a piece of paper. On one end of the line write the word power(as in damage, utility, etc.) - on the other write survivability. The more towards one end you move, the further from the other you get - each archetype, I believe, was meant to fall in different places on that line. Priest cannot begin to compare in DPS to sorcerers, but they are not near as squishy. This makes since. If my job is to sit around in chain, leather, or plate armor and heal people, it would be unfair if I also could do massive damage. In the same token, if I can't do the massive damage, then if makes since that I can wear better armor. I would need it - things get mad when you heal what they're trying to eat - but being that the point of any encounter is to kill the mobs, If a class can do that better than any other, that class should pay the most in survivability.

    If a scout is:

    a) more survivable
    b) does more damage
    c) has many more useful utilities

    Then I really need to know: What is the point of a sorcerer who:

    a) is in theory suppose to do the most damage but doesn't (or should if we're role playing - which I'll reiterate this is a MMORPG)
    b) is only supposed to do damage, thus giving no utility
    c) dies in in one or two swacks - supposedly the trade off for doing the most damage - which s/he doesn't do

    ?????????????

    Explain to me why that's fair? Explain the balance in that please.
    I'll go ahead and point out myself (since I'm sure somebody else would anyway) that I'm a new player (returning player actually) and that I play on a pvp server.
    As far as PVP goes - the game wasn't originally designed for it, so I'm not going to make PVP specific points - just please fix the PVE aspect. And as far as being new goes - the fact that my character is level 27 doesn't take away my right to voice an opinion - I paid the same amount of money everyone else did, and the issues are, or will someday affect me just as much as a lvl 80 - just in case anyone wants to pull the "noobs just don't know enough to do anything but keep their mouth shut" card. Just because my character hasn't kissed a Dark Elf lass on the cheak yet or stood around killing sableflame watchers in one hit just to impress the newbs (that actually happend to me the other day - is there a /rolleyes emote?) doesn't mean I don't understand the concept of game mechanics and balance.

    I really mean for this to be a constructive post, so I apologize if when reading it sounds more of a vent - I really don't mean it to be. But as a previous poster said - I signed up to do damage. If I wanted useful utility spells or buffs/debuffs, I would have stuck with the defiler I made or made a brigand - some people enjoy that more. I, on the other hand, prefer destruction and chaos. Make sorcers the best at this - that's a niche we're supposed to fill - we're not supposed to be well-rounded or middle of the road.
  19. ARCHIVED-SageGaspar Guest

    The thing is most multimob encounters also have one harder mob. So you're going to spike DPS when the adds come in and then struggle to keep up against the big bad guy. You may not win the overall parse but you definitely rocked the adds faster than everyone else. That does count for something in the long run, especially if the adds are bad mofos. The idea that ext means everything is sorta wrong in my thinking. Or at least it should be. Adds should be hard enough that you want them down ASAP even at the cost of a guy that might not be #1 in the end after he blows them up.

    Also in encounters with like two mobs or really weak adds if a single target DPS gets on one of them and blows it down fast, basically it almost might as well have been a single mob encounter.

    Where you really notice lock AE on EXT DPS are encounters with 3+ mobs of similar difficulty (PR group), or encounters with constant streams of adds (slamhammer), or encounters where they die instantly to an absolution or upheaval (RE2 big goblin groups), or encounters where adds take a lil' beating and the last guy doesn't take forever (Druushk books).
  20. ARCHIVED-Efrath Guest

    toolzen2 wrote:
    Sadly, we have the same exact problem in PVP. even if we can do good damage in PVP, scouts does nearly the same damage to us in a short timespan while at the same time being able to root, slow, stifle and stun. Plus they can track, evac and they can get as high or higher resists against elements and spells like any other mage and yet have a fairly high physical mitigation. Either us warlocks and wizards needs to both have our damage and resists fixed or we need to change how armours are like so there's some equality (IE LEatherarmour and chain has more miti but less resists than a cloth armour).

    Ontop of that, I hear sometimes that even *Coercers* do more damage than us warlocks PVE wise in t8, I'm not fully sure but this wouldn't surprise me much. Our debuffs both PVE and PVP wise sucks as only the one lowering disease damage is good. The one lowering strength and intelligence can be nice but the one lowering health and power is truly useless and I do hope we get it replaced with some form of spell that helps us in PVP better. Even though roots helps alot in both PVE and PVP, there are potions and in PVP in high tiers, we have a really difficult time surviving at all unless they have no potions or we use focused casting to multiply or damage.

    While we are supposed to be pure damage... The way that PVP works now, we are in serious need of something that helps us stopping scouts from killing us under 3 seconds or 6 if we get off Manashield. Lorewise, wouldn't it be logical for a mage that uses disease and poison to be able to disable the enemy somehow?