the only way to fix Warlocks and make them the mass-killing class they *should* be is to turn all these stupid green encounter based spells into either real blue AoEs or at least 180° frontals with a big enough radius (affecting the same max number of mobs as the greens do now). often enough you get the tank mass-pull several encounters of 2 each, so you may have 16 mobs in front of you but your stupid greens can maximally hit 2 mobs each time. this is just annoying and totally against what a Warlock should be! That's just one example in which other classes (swashie?) can just hack away with their AE autoattack and deal way more damage. PLEASE change all the warlock's green spells into BLUES!
Warlocks are the best dps class right now. While I agree that the amount of encounter based AEs is stupid giving them even more dps would be way over the top.
In my experience, my warlock does quite awesome on unlinked multiple mob encounters (encounters where BLUE AEs rule). Where my lock falls behind is on AE linked fights - 2-4 mobs. So if any issue exists, i don't think it's with our blues. Perhaps your problem is a result of you casting too many of your encounter-only spells when you have unlinked encounters instead of spamming the blues. I mean, you can cast cata like every 2nd spell and you have plenty of stuff to fill-in between casts.
some readers clearly did not understand my OP. I didn't say Warlocks suck in dps, or that my fix will make them any more powerful. You people should realize that Linked-Encounters are nothing but a bandaid fix for bad game design in the first place that was like many other ideas in 2004 a bad idea. It is a stupid artificial structure in game, and I don't think and at least hope that no other modern MMO used this nonsense. You shouldn't lift up bad game-design as an achievement and feature you want to keep, really. Changing the greens to blue wont give Warlocks better dps, just makes them more Warlocky in situations were the green spells are totally useless or at least annoying to use.
As i said i don't like them either but if you think changing them from green to blue doesn't increase dps then you're either lying to yourself or have no idea of mechanics. Having a spell hit 16 instead of 2 targets to stay with your example would increase the dps of that spell by 700%. Now sure this won't be applicable to dps in general but let's say it doubles dps in a third of all fights (which would be conservative) then it's still a huge increase.
linked-encounter spells all have a "max. targets" limit, the same applied to AoEs creates the same dps with more convenience to use them. You are right about better dps only in situations where the greens currently would not be used at all and warlock dps is sub-par anyway, like the situation i described in my op.
If you would have brought this up pre-tov I would have rallied with you. I don't feel bad for warlocks right now though. they can deal strong dps in any type of encounter. I have long wished the greens were blues though, but please no more frontals/cones.
right, with a max.targets limiter and a reasonable radius frontals are essentially pointless anyway because you will want to stay out of the mess anyway and deal frontal damage with your AoE stuff yourself if you can.
UHm... the title of your post is "Warlocks - worst AoE class". So yeah, you did say that. You're missing what's been said. As is, Warlocks can already chain-cast blue-AoEs in situations where there are multiple unlinked mobs. This is actually the exact scenario where warlocks parse best vs. other classes. The only time i consistently beat good people from my guild is when there are unlinked mobs, they just don't have enough blues to compete with my lock. It doesn't get any more "warlocky" than standing there and spamming blue AoEs - which is what we do now on unlinked encounters. You're saying that it would be great for your encounter spells to be blues in this situation, what i'm saying is that you ALREADY have plenty blues for this exact situation, so you should use those. One of the major skills in playing a warlock is knowing which spells to cast under what conditions. The casting priority changes drastically between single target, linked encounter and multiple unlinked mobs. Even the exact number of targets has impact. Knowing what NOT to cast is as important as what you're casting. If you're not familiar with it, you should check out the spell efficiency calculator (not sure if it's 100% up to date) - it's very handy for showing you how drastically the "best spell to cast" changes depending on target. (you can just input your number of targets and it calculates what's best to cast). Link
obviously you are not able to comprehend the meaning of language here. worst AOE does not equal saying worst damage. I bet an SK can kick your *** when you just use your blues on such fights easily, and other classes as well.
Warlocks are the best dps class in game. They should not be buffed in any way. No. You're just wrong. I'm sorry.
I won't argue. I am indeed having a hard time comprehending. Here is what i DO know: multiple Warlocks in this thread have told you that they have no trouble keeping up or ahead of other classes in terms of AoEs. Your warlock on the other hand has worse AoEs than 25 other classes. It very much sounds to me like the problem is not with the class, but with your ability to play it. I've provided you with some resources on how to improve on your own, i would also be happy to help you further - If you want to post your parse breakdown for the scenario you have described, I (and i'm sure other, better warlocks) would be happy to tell you what you can to do to stop being beaten at AoEs by the majority of other classes.
There aren't many better Warlocks than myself out there. Only a few with better gear. The suggestion I make is actually not one to increase the DPS of the Warlock class, it is meant to make the class more what it should be - cause devastation at an area, no matter who is there. The encounter spells are all really stupid. All classes should get rid of the green encounter spells imo.
SOE seems to disagree with you. Arieste gave good advice, post your parse, lets see the numbers. If it's worth starting a thread over, it's going to need numbers to back up the argument that the class has deficiency galore. In short, show your methodology for reaching your hypothesis.
