Warlocks are being so called the master of Area damage, however, I have failed to see my Warlock's capability in that category. Getting as high as to lvl 32 and filling up 3 entire rows of spells upon my screen, there is only ONE AoE spell that I may utilize (Cataclysm). Absolution and Dark Nebula seems to only damage multiple targets in few occasions (enemy must be in bundle). I am not having much fun with this character as of so far, yet I do not wish to start another character.
http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Warlock PBAOE Poison DOT + Interrupt: Cataclysm (2) Enc Poison + Stun: Dark Nebula ( Enc Disease : Absolution (20) Enc Poison DOT: Apocalypse (50) PBAOE Magic + Stun + Throwback: Rift (65) AoE poison damage persistent cloud homes in on enemy:Acid Storm (80) AoE Encounter Poison damage on hitting with poison spell (temp, burns power each proc): Gift of Bertoxxulous (32) poison/disease spell hit against enemy near caster causes poison damage (temp, recurrent power cost): Netherealm(5 There are also some good AAs for AE damage; Blast of Devastation, Dark Agrivation. There isn't a ton of AE abilities at your lower level, but in general the ones you have are better than just about any other class out there. A well played warlock should be able to beat out anyone on an AE/grouped encounter if they know what they are doing and the gear/AAs is roughly equal. So stick with it, you don't start to see a lot of the really good AEs and grouped encounters till the higher levels. Fendaria
Warlock is by far the best AOE class. I went down the explosive line to Aftershock and go looking for encounters to blow up.
Warlock has great AOE; it all starts at level 14 when you get your grandmaster in Cataclysm. I have 92 AA at 14 and can take around 12-20 mobs at once. two hits and they are on the ground. Faster than an SK could pull out his shield...
warlocks are ae damage not aoe. cata will give an edge over most classes on drawn out fights with multiple encounters as it has a good reuse but for the most part warlocks are group encounter based not multiple encounter based. btw at least get to lvl 50 before u start judging a class, lvl 34 isn't any idea of what a class is like.
For multiple encounters, wizards pwn the guts out of all classes in this game, mainlly due to their fission being teh pwn and having spell double advantage over warlocks in blast of devastation and their regular blue aoe. It must be said however that wizard's standard short-reuse blue aoe is generally better then cataclysm, even if you count cata with +2 UT in. Warlocks excel in AE damage, which is, encounter based.
I too was a little suprised at the AOE thing. I am at 28 right now, 52 AA's, adn first noticed this in a dungeon run. The tank was pulling the whole room and I was like...yeehaa..this is Warlock terratory!!!!! But, since they were not connected in an encouter, I was bummin. I still like the class, but indeed, we should have a couple more blue powerful spells. edit...I will say that I really love going upto a nice big encounter and blastin em down....makes me wet where I pee.
On a PR run, my 90 lock spiked up to 80k dps. This was my first time ever that high and it suprised me. Needless to say I was a happy camper. The next person down was doing about 20k per second. I too share the disdain of unlinked swathes of mobs. Imo, if a group of mobs run at you all at once, they should be linked but hey you can't really complain. With the myth giving those green AEs into single target spells with a 30% boost to damage that makes you still pretty potent on single mobs.
The class really could use another blue AE around the level 30 mark. I vote make absolution a blue AE. I love AE grinding on my lock, its quite effective... it'd be a whole lot more effective with another AE. Until rift, its just cataclysm
That may be so but don't play down Cataclysms damage. It's a spell you want to buff. It was definitely one of the first spells I got mastered at 80 before Sentinels Fate. In any group/raid setting it's also one of my highest damaging spells. That being said, a middle-high damaging blue AE nuke would be nice for that time before you get Rift but after you get Catacylsm. Something that recharges quicker and casts quicker than Rift but doesn't do as much damage would be nice.
I too was suprised we only got 2 blue AOE's, I love cata and rift but rift has such a long recast and cata doesn't quite get the job done if you have lots of single targets. It would be nice of we had an extra mid dmg blue AoE to fill the gaps when there's nothing you can really do except start single target nuking which is really inefficient. Afterall we are classified as an AOE class or AE whatever you want to call it but we should have enough in our arsenal to do both jobs effectively. What bout an AA or something that could turn dark nebula into a blue one? I don't use it much as it is but as a blue I would use it a lot more since its not very high dmging when you compare it to apoc or absolution, but as a blue It would be a lot more useful..
Acid storms an encounter aoe? Despite the fact that it's late game only, I could have sworn it was a dumb fire aoe pet and that it did at least halfway decent damage.
As a dumbfire pet, it by nature is worthless and not worth casting. Would be nice to see it get some rays style buffage.
