I heard people say that the Wizard class has 10 times better spells than the Warlock class...Is this true? I have chosen warlock as my class because i havent even seen a warlock yet. The only reason why I chose it is because 99% of sorcerers seem to want to be a wizard. Warlocks spells are mostly dot spells right? Are there any damage spells or buffs that are of any use and compare to wizard spells? I hope the warlock class gets changed somehow in the future.
Greetings, This has been covered many times. However, I have way too much time on my hands at 4:00AM so let's go over it again. Let me point you here first: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=22&message.id=411 1) Wizards have 10 times better spells than Warlocks, is this true? A) Well, no, not really. That doesn't mean that Warlocks are better either, though. The Warlock has a lot of utility spells, out-of-combat bonuses as well as in-combat resistances, and some interesting side spells (like their steal power line) that allow them to be more unique than your average straight-up nuker. You will notice the largest difference between Wizards and Warlocks during the early 20s. Wizards come into power extremely quickly, and have a pretty insane nuke off the bat with Ball of Fire. It takes a bit longer for Warlocks to be situated, though following that it's difficult to be displeased with the results. 2) Warlock spells are mostly Damage Over Time, right? A) No, actually, Wizards have more Damage Over Time spells than Warlocks do. Warlocks have about 15 nukes versus a Wizard's 12, or something like that. Both have a decent amount of AoEs and auxiliary spells, and come out to be pretty even towards the end. A lot of Warlock spells have power steal or -noxious mitgation (lower poison resist) on them. Wizards also have secondary effects, but probably not as pronounced. This, like anything posted on these forums, can be argued though. 3) Are there any damage spells or buffs that are of any use and compare to Wizard spells? A) The intelligent answer is "I don't know." Play testing hasn't reached the point in Everquest 2 where I can safely tell you the damage over 30-50 Warlock spells versus the damage of 30-50 Wizard spells. Also, given that we're currently working with spell lists that are not necessarily the absolute definition of what spells each class has (there may be spells removed or added since beta from those lists) no one is really sure if one class absolutely dominates over the other. As for buffs, Warlocks have a really strong argument here, right off the get-go is Boon of the Void, which is an extremely useful spell. In addition, things like AoE power drains that return power to the entire party and +intelligence, +strength, and +lifetap procs are very useful buffs for the Warlock. The Warlock certainly excels in combat and out-of-combat buffs, if not dominates. I know it's been said before, but there needs to be a bit more faith in Sony to balance out these classes. You also should ultimately play what you have fun with. In City of Heroes, most people (myself included) followed the "Flavor of the Month (fotm)" archetype that Cryptic Studios decided would be incredibly powerful that month.. Nerfs abound, balancing was a problem, and we never really stuck with one character, we moved on and on as the archetypes changed because there were -gigantic- power differences when comparing some of them. That's not really how Everquest 2 is designed. Everquest 2 has a focus on archetypes, classes, and subclasses benefitting their party and themselves in different ways. You don't have to follow what is incredibly powerful and change every month, because honestly there aren't huge, game-breaking pronounced differences between any of the subclasses on their respective trees. In short: You can play what you want to play. The Wizard and Warlock are two different subclasses, but the developers stated their purpose is the same. I play a Warlock pretty religiously, and have never felt that I come up short next to a Wizard in the long run. In the end, a lot of any subclasses' power doesn't even come from their skillset, it comes from the amount of time they want to put into increasing their own power. I would say that 50% of my time on Everquest 2 has been levelling, while the other 50% has been meticulously powering spells, scribing, and working with the community to improve my skills and enhance my experience to give me tactical advantages in the game. It's time consuming, and all about how you want to delve the time you have to play Everquest. Bottom line, don't let these forums decide for you what you want to play. If you're unhappy with a class you can always reroll, but think about what you'd like to play. Follow the archetype, class, and subclass quests that actually explain to you Sony's representation of what the character you're playing should do. Pick one that appeals to you, and you may be surprised with the results. I have never met a person who did this, in any game, who was unhappy with their choice, even if they picked insanely underpowered characters. I've heard of them though, and those people picked something else that appealed to them maybe two or three times more and then settled down and were pleased. Play the game, don't let it play you. Have a good one.
Mylixia, what a great post ! I love playing my warlock even if so far it may seem to come short on some DD spels compared to a Wizzy. My group loves the combination of damage, buffs and debuffs that I have to offer. I cant wait to hit 30 in the next couple of days and will post here the damage from a lev 30 nuke . Phenom lev 29 Warlock (well 3% from 29 hehe) - Blackburrow server
There's one thing that Mylixia missed. As of now, we're hearing that warlock spells are rarer than wizard spells. But that is of the sub 25 level variants. We're not sure on the higher ups because no one is there yet. That might be the reports of 10x better spells that you're hearing.
Thank you very much for the feedback. It was my intention that the post enlighten some people to facts about Warlocks that are generally misunderstood. Ah..rarity of spells, let me point you here: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=21&message.id=902&highlight=#M902 I wrote out a list of suggestions for finding spells that are seemingly very rare. I've managed to find every Adept I spell from 20-29 for Warlocks (save curse of darkness) through some meticulous searching. It's really about how much time you want to commit to it. Most of my spells came from helpful guild members who found the drops, or the broker. A select few came from great groups in Thundering Steppes. I have not experienced anything indicating Wizard and Warlocks spells have any different drop rate, and honestly, because effectiveness of spells are supposed to equate to about the same damage-wise for Wizards and Warlocks, that wouldn't make sense. I have seen both Wizard and Warlock spells drop at a decent rate depending on where you're grouping - however Warlock spells may create the illusion of "dropping less" because of the higher demand for Wizard spells, which flows into... ...When I logged on Everquest last night, I did a /who all for Wizards and Warlocks. I found 94 Wizards and 36 Warlocks. I've been doing this since the game came out and people started reaching 20 regularly, and at least on Najena, the number of Wizards has always outnumbered the number of Warlocks, usually favored by a factor of three. It can be assumed, thus, that there is a much greater demand for Wizard spells than there is for Warlock spells, because there are more Wizards. If that is so, it may appear that Wizard spells are being traded openly on the markets quite a bit and advertised more, while Warlock spells are traded by the unseen hand, within guilds, friends, and groups. Also consider that it may actually be more difficult to find a Wizard spell than a Warlock spell (assuming my theory on drop rates is accurate) because of the higher demand. A Warlock spell would be less contested because there are less Warlocks, but a Wizard spell like Ball of Fire would be much more desired because there are 90 Wizards on at any given time checking brokers for a significant increase in their killing power. A counter-argument could be submitted that Sony anticipated there would be more Wizards and thus, lowered Warlock drop rate, but I think that would make about as much sense as modifying drop rates when both classes are supposed to do the same thing. Setswipe is correct in bringing up a great point: We really have no idea what's going on in the 30 and on game quite yet. As I stated in the aforementioned post, I think we need to give players some time to develop Wizards and Warlocks (I would like to see several level 50s of each) before we throw in the towel for either subclass. I would grant the same honor to any other comparison of the subclasses that are raging on in the forums currently.
Another thing that was briefly mentioned was resistances. As a level 25 Wizard I'm finding more and more mobs that are fire resistant. If I don't hit them up with a dot they will resist most of the time. Even with the dot, I'm only hitting for 85% of what it would normally hit for. It is possible that there are fewer mobs that resist poison, but I have no idea.
hehe Mylixia I got all of them includuing Curse of Darkness :smileyvery-happy:.....oh no Neg. Absolution is the only App2 :smileysad: In terms of resists - I'm 29 now and hunt in Runny (lev 33-39^^ mobs) and in Varsoons (lev 32-35^^ mobs). Most of them have some poison mitihation so without debuff I hit 180-210 with Distortion. Once I debuff their poison mitigation I start hitting for consistent 230-260 on mobs around lev 34 and 220-240 on 35+ mobs. The land rate of my poison debuff DoT is around 90%. - All spells Adept 1*
my main concern would be different damage type spells...it seems about 98% of the warlock spells are poison type...2 or 3 being cold...the wiz gets a decent mix of fire and magic...unless they changed the skills around since I last checked OGaming
Hello again ... yes this seems to be a very common topic to players who are choosing between the 2 nuker classes. As i sayed before i will keep on posting how i see things at this time..they are no absolute truths just opinions for now and ofc i have put some observation into it. Ok in my previous post on the wizard vs warlock i might have sounded too negative wich was not my intention though but still i feel that the warlock is not in his complete bloom yet or even really comareable with the wizard. Why ? Well first of all comes the question "why do i want to be a warlock" 1.To be a roleplayer 2.To be a good add to my Group and be a DAMAGE DEALER For number 1 the class is just right but for 2 it is still a good step behind the wizzy. Lets go through the up and downs then shall we and start with buffs where it seems the warlock has the upper hand (all this counts only to lvl 30) Common : 1.Magi shielding (lvl 4) 2.Gift of the magi (lvl7) 3.Vivid Shield (lvl 12) 4.Burning radiance 5.See invisibility 6.Accord Wizard : 1.Amplification (add to power,offensive skill + resistance to magic and elemental damage). -Group 2.Dazzling Seal (int + Str + hat dam output) - Group 3.Flametounge (add to heat dam) <- Dont know about effect for certain, comments plz ? Warlock 1.Boon of the Void (Out of combat regen + powerpool increase + magic and poison mitig) - Group 2.Dark Pact (int+str and bonus to poison dam) - Group 3.Venoumous runes (possible poison add wich has a VERY small effect on the poison dam output imho) ok so much for the buff advance, both are good in buffing groups ok! Then we come to the next thing. DEBUFFING ENEMIES! Wizard: 1.Icy Coil (DoT and lowers elemental resist) 2.Pyre (AE strike + decreases stamina of enemy) 3.Chilling wind (elemental mitigation debuff) Warlock: 1.Negative Abosultion (AE + debuffs arcane spells) wich i havent found on enemies yet really...tried it on teirdals warmages, skeletons in the ruins of warsoon, rumbling roots, aaand now i try to see if the bastards in runnyeye have any arcane buffs but so far no luck. 2.Curse of darkness (lowers poison resistance, and this is actually a must cast if u want to get over 250 damage with your main nuke spell) 3.Steal Breath (DoT + lowers poison/desease resist) 4.Curse of Null (reduces str + int) Go warlock go unless i forgot a wizzy spell here Ok whats next ah yea 1 important feature of the group CROWD CONTROL!! yep well the basic tangle,freeze,stiffle,frozen manacles Wizzy 1.Boreal wich takes out a mob but freezes the mage itself 2.Blazing Intimidation (some dam + stun) 3.Benumb (stiffle) Warlock 1.Putrid Cloud (AE + short Stun) 2.Suffocating breath (DD + ocasional stiffle) With the Boreal the MAge takes a huge step in being the savior of the day in a **ZOMG**ty situation wich the warlock can only dream of at this point. Ok then we get to the point where people say yea the warlock is supposed to be able to stay longer in combat yea well the maiin nuke spell dark disortion gives a little power back but tbh if me and a wizzy start nuking at the same time and use ocasional dots and swap health to power ocasionally it goes in the favour of the warlock but...the difference was not that huge (maybe in a Looong encounter you see a significant advance) but usually by then both are out of power a few times then we come to damage well as many have sayed on this board the warlock looks a bit silly with his avg of 250-280 dam and little power regen and 9 sec recasting time to insane 500 hits by the wizzy and 12 sec recasting time ... yea ofc warlocks have suffocatig breath wich does 100-170 dam wich is more or less an equal to Lighting Flash. the wizard then also has Plasmatic pulse for what the warlock has no equal spell at this level. Yup the damage side is very much in the favour of the wizzy. The warlock has a very cool concept and might become a very good character toward the endgame...who knows as i cant compare master lvl spells yet (btw the comparisons were made with ADEPT 1 spells). Out of context...a Coercer does 290ish with his nuke spell wich is ahrd for a WARLOCK to reach even if a coercer is a CC character.... There are some thoughts...sorry for the typos its allmost 5 am.
Personally I am very disappointed with the warlock class. I am only level 24 but I originally chose the warlock imagining it to be a necromancer without a pet and double the DOT spells. No I did not play in the beta and I did not research the spells by level for the warlock (I like being surprised). This "instant poison damage" **ZOMG** is rediculous. It is understandable with an AE spell but take putrid cloud for instance. A few seconds after the nuke hits the mobs swell up green and start coughing. Do they take any damage from this? no... they were just nuked and stunned for about 1 second. I did not choose the warlock to be a NUKER, as everyone is calling us. Had i wanted to NUKE I would have chose wizard in an instant. Instead I chose warlock, the class that gets nukes that do 1/2 the damage of wizards. Yes Ball of Fire has a delay of 12 seconds and does double damage. But Dark Distortion has a delay of 8 or 9 seconds, not half (6). I grouped with a wizard and a coercer today and BOTH were outdamaging me with app-1 spells. My dark distortion is only app1 but everything else, including suffocating breath, is adept 1 and I was being outdamaged by a crowd control class. Personally I do not feel like I am playing a "warlock". I feel like I am playing a wizard with a few **ZOMG**ty "instant poison damage" spells. I am supposed to be a "master of poison and disease". When in your lives have you been poisoned and INSTANTLY were hurt from it? I assume never. When you contract a cold do you INSTANTLY start coughing? I dont. Now I am hearing that wizards get MORE dots than warlocks. Thus, wizards get more dots, have better crowd control abilities, do DOUBLE damage with spells, and can find adept 1 spells easier. Today in a group I found 4 adept illusionist and 1 master illusionist spell spring from a chest, as well as 3 wizard spells. In my entire 24, nearly 25 level career I have found 0 warlock adept spells, and I have seen 0 people advertising to sell them. Also, from another thread, the armor quest is just sad. I spent 4 hours killing named mobs after a probable 20 hour AQ1-5 tour for a robe that grants agility and stamina? I almost would rather go naked. Finally, grouping... It is extremely hard for a warlock to find a group. Yes they are so acclaimed a "DPS" class but take this into account. We are outdamaged by any assassin, monk, bruiser, swashbuckler we come across. All of those classes can take at least double the damage we can (most bruiser/monks tank better than guardians due to evade). We also cannot crowd control, we cannot heal, we get buffs that aren't even noticeable, and we can't dish out much "damage per second" at all. Today the most sickening thing happened that forced me to call it quits for the night and log off. I was in TS advertising 24 warlock LFG for anything. After 35 minutes went by I got a tell saying "we can use you" while I was off in NF trying my luck there. Did they need me? No... they could use me. Moments later I read in ooc "23 wizard LFG" while I was heading towards the group that could use me. After getting slightly lost I found the group about 10 minutes later, was completely ignored, and the 23 wizard was in their group....FULL. I feel like I have gone too far in the game and need to keep moving, yet I am having no fun along the way, only frustration. -Weetdee Blackburrow
Simply check out the wizard forum. Every post on there is about how good they are and their DPS etc. Our forum is all about gimped and regret. I dont feel like playing much anymore because my class is so disappointing, and I don't feel like rerolling because of the time i have put into the character.
So then quit the game :smileyvery-happy: Not everyone is going to like the class. If you dont have enough stamina to reroll into what you like maybe the game is not for you. You started with wrong expectations for a new class and now you are disappointed in it - what can I say - go Wizzy like the rest of the sheep. Phenom 29 Warlock
I will finish my quest and become a wizard today, so I really don't have an iron in the warlock fire...but.... When I started EQ1, my classes were Wizard and Rogue. I played that Wizard to 50, then worked on my Rogue to 30 and kind of lost faith in it because at the time, rogues were highly gimped. I shelved the rogue and played my wizard primarily for a while...and then all of a sudden, Sony did some 'balancing' and the rogue became simply uber. Towards the end of my time in EQ1, I was playing my rogue 99% of the time and only using the wizard for teleporting or other travel duties. The moral of my story is: If Warlock is a class that you really want to play...and it 'fits' what you want to be...don't lose hope. If the class really needs some balancing, feel confident that it WILL be balanced in time. Good luck to all of you.
Grum, I can relate very well to your post. I'm a 26 Warlock and a group chosen a 24 Wizard over me in TS. Well, same as you, I had it. I decided to re-roll a charater and have been playing it since Sunday. Made it to 15 this morning. When you did it once, you know which quests are important and which ones are not and levelling come quite fast. My 26 Warlock is now the alt of my 15 character and I don't intent to play my Warlock anymore. I won't erase him however. If the ''rogue'' story from Stray happen in EQ2 with the Warlock class, then I might reconsider. But every new level I got in the Warlock class had been a disapointment (for spells), where my Wizzy friends had wonder spells one after the other. Good luck fellow Warlocks...
Ugh, reading the boards on warlocks is depressing. Assuming most of us chose to be sorcerors because we like to be masters of magical damage, I was under the impression that the only true difference between warlock/wizard was in the elemental vs poison/disease, spell graphic effects and a little lore. After reading this, I realize I was wrong and probably chose the wrong class. I want to be of equal dps as my fellow wizards, not the lowest dps mage in the game! If enchanters can outdamage us, surely conjurors can with ease! All this about utitility and maybe during a long fight after wizards go out of power we might catch up in dmg is silly (if wanted to be a conjuror or enchanter, I would have taken those paths). That's not what being a sorceror is about. I would have faith that SOE would balance this out, but from the looks of it, they'd have to rewrite most of our spells. We have a level 36warlock on our server, I hope he doesn't mind me asking him questions. Hopefully what I've read here is just wrong and he can dispell these myths. Otherwise I'd rather reroll now then continue to put time/energy into my character. Being that EQ2 is all about interdependency and grouping, being a class with no true specialty would make Warlocks a filler class that would be overlooked by either true dps or true utiltiy classes.
Just keep playing and they'll adjust the problem when they see it or hear it from us. Too early to start being disappointed now... They just increased damage for Dark Distortion so hopefully that will make our power in line with that of a wizard.
Looking at the wizard and warlock spell lists, there is a fundimental difference between the two classes. Wizards are about the big nukes. They get all the ooh's and aah's from the big damage. Warlocks aren't the same thing. They do OK for nukes, but, they are also about bolstering the parties power in ways Wizards can't touch. Wizards are higher profile damage dealers, while Warlocks are slightly understated, yet they also increase a groups potential.
Griffinhart is correct. The usage of Warlock spells is much less noticeable in practice. A Wizard generally utilizes their spells and does direct combat damage, while a Warlock does damage and other subtle effects through utility. The Warlock has other abilities that groups benefit from but are very subtle compared to Wizards. I'm kind of tired of these "doom and gloom" threads on the Warlock. Every forum has some amount of these, and it comes down to the fact that: If you're complaining about a subclass on the boards, you should just reroll as the band wagon you are advocating. Bottom line: Warlocks are fine, 50% of the people (at least) on these boards think they're fine, and that's 1-2% of Everquest 2's total population. In addition, Warlock spells that could even be contested are being updated by Sony as we speak. Freezing Whorl just got poison mitgation. Dark Distortion now does more damage and returns more power. If you don't like playing a Warlock, then don't play one, be one of the 90 to 30 Wizard/Warlocks on the server at any given time, I would care a lot less if people would just stop complaining here. Nothing is going to get accomplished. See my earlier posts for my support on the Warlock class if you're interested.
Mylixia, me and you should start a Warlock fan club because it seems we are the only ones that truily enjoy our class LOL
For now, I think Warlocks are ok. When Warlocks start reaching level 50 and comparisons are done between Wizards and themselves, maybe we'll have a lot more members to the Warlock fan club. One can hope. =) For now, we're having fun, so I'm not going to worry too much about the naysayers.
