Forked Thread: Twilight of the Warlocks

[Minigiant]

A stong "anti-mark" is not a bad thing nor counterproductive. Not every enemy will go after the defnder. Lurkers and skrimshers are based around avoiding the defender and and attacking the back. If you ave a DM that will attack someone else when marked, it becomes better.

I kill overaggressive strikers when I DM and the same happens when I play. Our twin-strike-crazy ranger always gets bloodied when an elite gets mad and beats him down for a turn or two. The defender can't stop everyone and the other strikers get creamed and waste our heals. I end up taking damage trying to save their behinds when this happens.

 

[fissionessence]

On the flavour side of things, I've been disappointed that there hasn't been a good article on Pacts and the entities that you have pacts with. I'm sure there could be interesting additional mechanical elements that could come from having a pact with Yog-Sothoth or Cthulhu.

You should check out the Aberrant Blood sorcerer from Silent7Seven Games. Not a warlock, but eh

More on topic . . . a level 4 rogue in my campaign regularly does 20-30 damage. The barbarian does around 20, but did 60+ with an avalanche strike crit. My level 3 warlock in a different campaign can't get anywhere close to hitting for those numbers. His ability to defend himself or do tiny rider effects might be slightly higher, but it hardly seems worth it.

~

 

[CapnZapp]

I believe you should proceed with caution. The situation seems far from clear-cut.

First off, the fact Arcane Power didn't contain any ridiculous Warlock powers means WotC did not feel the need for stealth errataing the class. Ergo, the class is probably fine, because the obvious place to add a "Warlock Expertise" feat did not have one.

Second, it seems more and more likely you shouldn't play a Warlock unless you like a difficult and intricate challenge. In other words, boosting the average Warlock might well make the optimized Warlock too good.

If you have a player struggling with his Warlock it might be correct and even appropriate to suggest to him to switch classes, perhaps to Sorcerer.

That does not mean the class itself is too weak. Too hard to play well perhaps; but "too hard" and "too weak" are different things, and the first one requires much more elaborate redesign to fix than the other.

Sure, you could boost the class in your home game, but arguing for an official slapping on extra damage might just be inappropriate after all.

 

[Tilenas]

Pretty bizarre for a typical combat. Seems that even without Dire Radiance, an enemy has a large incentive to simply approach one opponent and work him over, not bounce around taking constant oppies. And claiming that Prime Shot bonus seems hasty, especially if he charged somebody last round. How is a ranged combatant in a melee-heavy game going to routinely be the closest to his target?

I'm under the impression that strikers were originally designed to weasel around the enemy, sometimes even ahead of the defenders. That's what prime shot is for. Having said that, it's of course doubtful to give an ability like this to a class that operates on ranged attacks and gets thrown a ton of OAs after it whenever it tries to use that ability.

"What's your main ability?" "I deflect damage to more vulnerable targets!"

Hah. I'll make sure to point that out in our next session. The guys will fall over laughing :-D

I believe you should proceed with caution. The situation seems far from clear-cut.

First off, the fact Arcane Power didn't contain any ridiculous Warlock powers means WotC did not feel the need for stealth errataing the class. Ergo, the class is probably fine, because the obvious place to add a "Warlock Expertise" feat did not have one.

...because Wizards is reknown for its incredibly sound judgement concerning game balance, I presume?

 

[jasin]

First off, the fact Arcane Power didn't contain any ridiculous Warlock powers means WotC did not feel the need for stealth errataing the class. Ergo, the class is probably fine, because the obvious place to add a "Warlock Expertise" feat did not have one.

It did. You can find it under "sorcerer".

 

[Victim]

A stong "anti-mark" is not a bad thing nor counterproductive. Not every enemy will go after the defnder. Lurkers and skrimshers are based around avoiding the defender and and attacking the back. If you ave a DM that will attack someone else when marked, it becomes better.

I kill overaggressive strikers when I DM and the same happens when I play. Our twin-strike-crazy ranger always gets bloodied when an elite gets mad and beats him down for a turn or two. The defender can't stop everyone and the other strikers get creamed and waste our heals. I end up taking damage trying to save their behinds when this happens.

Yeah, thanks for making my point.

There's a monster not engaged by a defender; it can move around and attack anyone else in the party. Which target would the party prefer for him to attack?

A) the melee ranger or rogue, who tend to have lowish Con and are generally in melee so our new attacker can get CA easily.
B) the healer
C) the wizard
D) the warlock, who often has a high Con for his attack stat providing HP and surges and concealment on top of his normal defenses.

Hmm, D looks pretty good here. So why are you telling the enemies NOT to pick D?! (with powers like Hellish Rebuke). The damage your warlock avoids often isn't disappearing into the void; it's getting aimed at other people in the group.

 

[Stalker0]

I will say however you feel about the warlock is probably influenced by what pact your looking at.

For example, I feel the starpact is the weakest of the pacts. You have incentive to split your stats between con, int, and cha, making your AC even lower than the other pacts (I have watched a starpact warlock in our game get brutalized again and again). Your pact bonus tend to also be the most conditional, temp hitpoints can last the fight, teleporting can put you in a good position for offense or defense, the attack bonus sometimes comes up, but often not at all.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have only played a feylock, and found them to be a blast to play. With a nice eladrin chain armor, and improved misty step, they could teleport a massive 7 squares. He was a lot of fun, and I never found him to be a weak sister to all the other classes, striker or not.

I just do not see the problem here.

 

[Felon]

Honestly, the more I look at their powers the less I see the sorcerer's damage actually exceeding the warlocks. If I had to list, I'd say these are the strengths of the warlock at this point:

1. Defense
2. Mobility
3. Better control (warlock at wills that set restrictions tend to inflict secondary stat damage on you if you violate those restrictions. Meanwhile warlock at wills that do the same deal 1d6+primary stat.)

While the sorcerer has

1. Area of effect attacks
2. Better randomized or uncontrolled effects.
3. Doesn't have to take Eldritch Blast.

I can see how you would find the sorcerer a better class if you think that defense is stupid for a striker. I just don't think that.

I just don't see the mobility being there for the warlock. The fey pact gives free movement, but if you don't have that pact, the warlock's mobility comes from what? A utility power here and there?

In terms of AC, I acknowledge that the warlock comes out ahead a little. But it's still not very good, so it's not worth noting as an asset. In rounds where shadow walk kicks in and AC will be equal to 10+1/2 lvl+6 at the heroic tier, putting it in the same league with the rogue and ranger. In the rounds where it doesn't kick in, you'll be 2 points shorter. So the best case scenario is mediocre AC.

 

[Felon]

I believe you should proceed with caution. The situation seems far from clear-cut.

First off, the fact Arcane Power didn't contain any ridiculous Warlock powers means WotC did not feel the need for stealth errataing the class. Ergo, the class is probably fine, because the obvious place to add a "Warlock Expertise" feat did not have one.

Honestly, unless you're being completely facetious, carrying a "WotC knows best" banner pretty much amounts to an immediate disconnect. There are many things that need fixing in 4e which WotC turns a blind eye to. In some cases, they take something broken and exacerbate the issue (q.v. giving rangers the greatbow, or erraticizing Solar Wrath to give it the implement keyword).

Second, it seems more and more likely you shouldn't play a Warlock unless you like a difficult and intricate challenge. In other words, boosting the average Warlock might well make the optimized Warlock too good.

If you have a player struggling with his Warlock it might be correct and even appropriate to suggest to him to switch classes, perhaps to Sorcerer.

That does not mean the class itself is too weak. Too hard to play well perhaps; but "too hard" and "too weak" are different things, and the first one requires much more elaborate redesign to fix than the other.

Sure, you could boost the class in your home game, but arguing for an official slapping on extra damage might just be inappropriate after all.

You seem to be trying to make some arguement for emergent complexity--that there's somet difficult-to-quantify strength beneath the surface that's just waiting to emerge through gameplay. I think that's pretty much a canard with 4e. It is not a game that's designed to give players classes that are "easy to learn, hard to master". Classes are easy to learn, and mastered through simple repetition.