I also tone down my damage in lesser groups by dropping in a 2handed staff. It gives me a nice INT boost over the 1hander, removes Freehand Sorcery and allows me to cast a little more regularly instead of once per fight. The Prismatic 2.0 is nice for that
I always always always Freehand+catalyst Apocolypse.. follow that with chaostorm and your crankin off the bat. On the very low chance there is a ton of mobs I have also been known to freehand+catalyst Rift which is nice as well
Pretty sure Cata doesnt effect rift unless they have recently changed it and as well freehand not work ..do to the fact that Rift is a Duo Spell Combo 1st Spell throws them up and stuns second spell ..well tech not is falling damage ..lol
Str and Agi on Sorcerer tree and Focusted casting and Aftershock in this order on the warlock tree. The general conception is wis/str is best but its only the case for wizards, warlocks dont have such huge nukes as wizs and FHS and Brainstorm not only create spikes on some crit apocalypse and get u killed for sure but get you slack on single targets because of the slow casting timers and this is even more valid on raids with high average dps where most of the trash fights will be short and until u get Infestation, Maelstorm, Netherous realm and Gift up, mob is half dead. Agi line + hastenings gives awesome single target dps, that way i can go very close to uber wizard on single target, meaning consistent 1.7-2.2K dps raid dps with troub+fury+synergism. On aoe agi/str and str/wis are pretty close with a slight advantage to agi/str. In the end the skill makes the whole difference. Velizar, warlock on Splitpaw, Fable Message Edited by drajev on 12-28-2006 02:23 AM
i respecced last night (again) to the following: str 4/4/5/8 Agi 4/4/4/8/1 so far i have 21 in hastenings, 5 each in Scourge, war pyre, soul blister, void distortion & 1 in FC. plan to have 21 in Explosives, 5 in suffocating cloud, devastion, void absolution, rift and 1 in aftershock will then throw 8 into the magi shield as i really like the ward (have previously maxed this and it was useful.) first impressions: Well, having had the str/wis option i was a bit nervous as my spell damage dropped quite a lot despite being able to now equip the secondary slot. Before my void distortion hit for about 4085 at about 635 int but now was showing max damage at 3800 ish, Also apocalypse at adept III dropped from about 1383 max per tick to about 1230. Still, based on advice given in this post, i thought I would give it a go.... I equipped Cloak of Zet and a dagger to help reuse on timers even further. I have to say,i was really REALLY impressed. Soul Blister & aura of Nihilty are almost instant cast, Cooldowns are incredibly fast, able to sneak in 2 void distortions on a single blue ^^^ in MM catacombs before the fight was over, still have a great chance to crit meaning lots of nice big numbers. Apocalypse, Void abosution were available so fast and war pyre and scourge was just constantly running. Also, Concussive and vulian are so quick to throw in. Ive never burned down grps so fast. Yes, i was noticing i was working a lot harder and burning through power more but still, was definately worth the respec and think ill see how my parse looks when i raid next. Message Edited by Pilgrim Divine on 12-29-2006 01:48 AM
I got to focused casting and have catalyst. I dueled a raid equipped SK two nights ago. Burned her down with 98% life left. Took 6 seconds to burn through 7k+ hp. I still have trouble with brigands and assassins but can get them into the red. On Edit. I put the minimum in scourge. The spell has never impressed me. Message Edited by MarquisDesade on 12-29-2006 02:24 AM
Would you say this is also the preferred setup for a warlock (mid 60s) that likes to solo (although still wishes to be useful in groups) ? Or do any of you have any particular suggestions for setups for soloing warlocks?
Soubringer wrote: Pretty sure Cata doesnt effect rift unless they have recently changed it and as well freehand not work ..do to the fact that Rift is a Duo Spell Combo 1st Spell throws them up and stuns second spell ..well tech not is falling damage ..lol The dmg numbers on Rift increase when you have FHS up. Just examine spell with that little buff on you. But youre right about catalyst. It doesnt crit rift every time. Daenarys 70 Warlock Mob Squad Kithicor Message Edited by Melseb on 12-29-2006 10:10 AM
The way I see it, free dmg owns all, that is STR, and WIS str 4/4/4/8 WIS 4/5/4/8/8. With AGI line you get *slightly faster cast time and reuse* but in the big picture you are just running yourself out of power casting less effective spells than you would normally otherwise be if you had STR and WIS line. As a warlock it is probably not worth taking catalyst, for the simple reason that in the long run, criting apocolypse everytime (if you dont cast it right away and wait for the full 1 min reuse of catalyst) isnt going to add enough dps to a zonewide parse to make up for the additional dmg you would get from taking the 8% base dmg from the WIS line and the 12%(edited: extra 6%) Crit you get from STR. Besides I crit it a ton without catalyst anyways... (on a side note , even if you freehand(WIS), equip a 2 hander and summon the 3% crit book familiar) And.. the 12% less power cost is a no brainer from WIS line. Im pretty sure most warlocks that raid a lot would agree with a spec'ing that is almost identical to the one I am reccomending. Again AGI line and Catalyst unfortunately arent the best route to take. For EOF, there is all different kinds of stuff you can take, and I wont argue it because I havent tested everything out extensively yet. I only have 94 AA at the moment too so its not maxed, to me Focused Casting and Aftershocks seem like nobrainers. I also added 3 points to broodlings, the 9% trigger and 3 seconds are nice (the other 2 ranks are insanely [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] by SoE, 2 more seconds, wow 1 second short of more dmg.....) EoF AAs are interesting, gonna be a lot of varied specs out there. Monster 70 Warlock Nektulos Message Edited by Andromax1 on 12-31-2006 08:12 AM Message Edited by Andromax1 on 12-31-2006 08:12 AM
Hmmm im not so sure i agree. Catalyst before apocalypse will definately add a lot to dps, especially when burning down a mob is called for. When it is time to burn adds Focused Casting, followed by critted apocalypse and all your nukes is definately amazing dps. Power is not much of an issue when you have 8k or more power although im sure it is nice on those long fights/power drain mobs. I really cannot just give up catalyst i like it too much and it pretty much guarantees 15k or more per mob dmg every time when used with FHS. Giot
I guess that if your gear is such that you never have power problems in long fights, I can see taking catalyst. Dont think there is anything that could convince me that taking AGI over STR or WIS would be better, however. Maybe someone that uses it can post some data? Message Edited by Andromax1 on 12-31-2006 10:16 AM
I am balls out dps from the word go. Burned another sk, collectively 12k hp with heals and wards, down in about 15 seconds and that was with resists.
While I don't have any hard numbers on me, I am top 3 on every raid parse 7 nights a week (or as many of them as I can make these days). The other two top parsers are a Necro and a Ranger. I have Str 4/4/4/8, Agi 4/4/5/8/1, Full Explosives Line, and going down removals next. Agility makes our horribly long casting aoes less painful. I was originally Str/Wis, but out parse that setup significantly and have been Str/Agi for months before EoF. I tried Vacuous before Aftershock, and when I lived through a fight with it, I would have anyway, and it wasn't enough to let me go all out without the usual deaggro buffs. Hastenings seems decent, but a lot of points are wasted with little benefit to get to the final spell in the line. If you're worried about power, do the manastone hq, vessel quest in DoF, and go on some pickup Labs runs for Dracomancer Gloves. Theres also the Necromantic Orb of the Death Reveler from the x2 in Forsaken City that procs power, an easy fight for one group. And the robe form Nest.
Wasted points in hastenings? Lol what are you smoking those points improve all those spells cast time and reuse and even damage. The end result is actually raising our single target dps and the final ability is godlike. giot
Ok, by wasting, I'm comparing it to the explosives line. Every point there increases the damage and range of an aoe. Very Nice. Hastenings speeds up 2 spells (the dots) that we can already cast faster than their reuse, and 1 spell (soul blister) that is used maybe once every fight or three. 9 points wasted there. The next 2 are nice, thwart and distortion. Infestation isn't great as the pets don't nuke every second as far as I've seen, so you may get 1-2 more nukes from them when you put all 5 points into it. The final ability is nice, but passive beats active buffs in general, and for every 15 seconds it's up, its down for 2 minutes 41 seconds. Removals is nice. The addition to dispel magic especially as I can debuff the SK vampires in the Inner Sanctum without pulling aggro. The SK on the raid can do it on a longer refresh timer and it tends to pull aggro. Add to that Str, Int, PR/DR debuffs of increased potency and everyone on the raid is getting more bang for the buck. The Final spell in the line will help keep everyone out of aoes, and its a fast cast 50m pull with little aggro if you need to grab an eyeball in DT from a distance. Protection is just that. Works good on a raid lacking threat decrease in your group. A proper raid force make it a waste of aa's. Propagation line seems least useful of all. Theres my reasoning for wasting points in hastenings. 3 points in each of the first 3 spells down the line are useless.
What some folks seem to forget when they run their numbers is that all that extra damage is useless if you can't get your spells in. If things die, or wipe the raid, before you can get a fraction of your damage done then that bonus damage and such is only fractionally beneficial. When I fire off Hastenings, I can toss in all my group damage spells within those 15 seconds, including the detaunts. For 21 points, speeding up all my single target DPS spells and having the ability to once per raid fight (or two if fast kills) burn through my spells on the burn call, before anything dies and maximising my DPS... DEFINATELY worth it.
Now, I'll be respecing tonight to try Hastenings to see the dps compared to the data I now have for Explosives. I don't expect my overall numbers at the end of the night to be higher, rather lower if anything, but I do expect to parse higher on some fights that I had trouble on. I also expect to pull aggro in situations that I never did in the past. I'm open to it, and hope it will be a worthy addition to Explosives, but I'm still leaning toward Removals at this point.
