4e Warlocks - How Would You Fix Them?

[tuxgeo]

More pacts!

...maybe...

Djinni Pact
Machine Pact

Wolf Pact -- You made a deal with Lobo. Your Pact Boon is a constant "scent" bonus to Perception.
GreenBay Pact -- You made a deal with the ghost of the late Vince. Your Pact Boon is the Lamebo Lurch (shift as an Immediate Interrupt once per Encounter).
Comm Pact -- You made a deal with the Hyperdish. You now possess the ability to clearly hear everything each of your allies within 10 squares says, no matter how faintly any of them might whisper it. This is a constant effect, and you cannot turn it off, even at night.

 

[Neuroglyph]

The Vestige Pact seems pretty solid and the Warlock in my game hasn't had any real problems being very effective using his powers - once we tuned his character a bit.

The biggest problem we saw was the Warlock's lack of being able to hit. The powers are just fine, but landing the blow was the problem. Warlocks have to max out their main "to hit" stat at 20 or they are gonna never hurt anything.

Classes with weapons get a real advantage in "to hit" - all weapons have a built in +2 or +3 bonus for Proficiency. Warlocks don't get anything to make them hit better except an implement and you're not going to buy one of those at 1st level.

I added a Masterwork Implements to my campaign - they are +1 to hit but no extra damage and priced it at 50gp just to give my Warlock and other casters a better chance in combat.

I think the Warlock is a fine addition to the party otherwise.

 

[Minigiant]

The Vestige Pact seems pretty solid and the Warlock in my game hasn't had any real problems being very effective using his powers - once we tuned his character a bit.

The biggest problem we saw was the Warlock's lack of being able to hit. The powers are just fine, but landing the blow was the problem. Warlocks have to max out their main "to hit" stat at 20 or they are gonna never hurt anything.

Classes with weapons get a real advantage in "to hit" - all weapons have a built in +2 or +3 bonus for Proficiency. Warlocks don't get anything to make them hit better except an implement and you're not going to buy one of those at 1st level.

I added a Masterwork Implements to my campaign - they are +1 to hit but no extra damage and priced it at 50gp just to give my Warlock and other casters a better chance in combat.

I think the Warlock is a fine addition to the party otherwise.

But warlock target Reflex, Will, and Fortitude which are anywhere from 2-4 points lower than AC on many enemies. Waeapon users target AC often the highest defence. My warlock doesn't miss often at all.

 

[Shroomy]

While I don't think their is anything inherently wrong with the warlock, I do think that the class would benefit from a "Warlock Essentials" article in the vein of the fighter or cleric articles.

 

[Cadfan]

I see only three problems with the Warlock.

1. The fey pact warlock is lousy at low levels. It gets better by paragon tier, but at low levels its damage is boring. 1d6+cha +1d6 is functionally the same as 2d6+stat, ie, the same as fighter with a hammer. And its pact boon is difficult to use at low levels because being able to teleport outside of your turn when an unpredictable event randomly takes place is not that strong of a benefit. At higher levels you can get feats and items to store your pact boon for later use, to share your pact boon with allies, and you can even get a second pact boon for when you don't want to teleport anyone. But at early levels they have low damage and a rarely useful pact boon.

2. Star pact warlocks are obnoxious. If you go charisma/intelligence, you have half as many pact powers to choose from as compared to a warlock of a different pact, and even worse you can't use your pact at will. So that's right out. If you go constitution/intelligence, you can't access as many pact powers as another pact. If you go constitution/charisma, you end up with AC problems that have to be fixed with a feat and points in strength, and you end up having lousy pact bonuses on your encounter powers because you can't afford much intelligence, meaning that even though you can use a wider variety of pact powers, they suck.

3. Requiring that all warlocks take Eldritch Blast was dumb. What they should have done was require all warlocks to take their pact at will, and then to take at least one at will that is not specific to any particular path. This would make Eldritch Strike usable, and would allow them to design more warlock at wills without them only being available to humans and multiclassed characters.

 

[WalterKovacs]

3. Requiring that all warlocks take Eldritch Blast was dumb. What they should have done was require all warlocks to take their pact at will, and then to take at least one at will that is not specific to any particular path. This would make Eldritch Strike usable, and would allow them to design more warlock at wills without them only being available to humans and multiclassed characters.

The easier thing to have done would have just put a line on Eldritch Strike saying "You may choose this power in place of Eldritch Blast" or something to that effect. With exception based design, they wouldn't need to put something in initially to allow them to create a different option later on.

Still, it was pretty silly to make a new at-will without giving the majority of people that would use that power the ability to use it.

 

[CapnZapp]

The warlock isn't as bad as some make it out to be, but really, that's not saying very much: a class doesn't need to have huge issues before people abandon it for greener pastures elsewhere. (4E class design is that solid!)

Generally, I agree much would be accomplished by simply relabeling it a Controller. Then people would go "Wow! This controller really does some awesome damage!" instead of comparing its damage output with Rangers and Rogues (which is completely natural to do: the main job of a Striker is to deal out damage. Nothing else)

But the class does have issues no simple fix will ever patch:
1) the core issue is probably that the class design is overreaching, trying to add in too much. The class is lacking focus. Feylocks and Hellocks have very little in common.
2) Some of its choices are definite newbie traps. Starlocks have very cool fluff, but the idea to have two attack stats suck.
3) The class is extraordinarily gear-dependant. When other classes reach their potential right out the gate, or are offered feats that allow them to reach that potential, a Warlock needs a highly specialized set of rods to reach its potential. The difference between a Warlock that gets a rod that assist in spreading the Curse as the first magic item, and one that does not is much larger an effect than one item has any right to have on a PC.
4) Specialized gear. This is not a deal-breaker, given the official guidelines on wishlists. But if you run an adventure with the traditional way of handing out treasure (i.e. you get what is logical to find) there will be many more holy symbols and staffs than rods. (An issue the Warlock shares with the totem-wielders of PHB2)

All in all, it's not surprising at all why the Warlock hovers near the top of peoples lists of "most failed 4E class".

This doesn't mean it's utterly broken. In fact, it's very playable.

It's just not as care-free as most other classes (and particularly strikers): why bother play a high-maintenance class when you can get the performance out of a Sorcerer with less effort?

It's become an acquired taste, which I'm sure wasn't the intention (or they'd hold it back for PHB2).

 

[Mr. Wilson]

Wish upon a Star corrected most of the problems with Starlocks, IMO. Sure, I bought double 18s to start with (Half-Elf, +2 in each primary stat is sexy), so that means I get the pick of the litter when it comes to powers.

That said, I'm hardly targeted. I wander around the battlefield, cursing enemies, setting up combos, and generally be left alone to wreck people while my defenders, melee strikers, and leaders pin down foes. And if I happen to miss an encounter power, there's nothing like offering up a little more of my soul to Caiphon that doesn't make things all better.

Seriously, I've done more damage to myself by 6th level than monsters have done to me.

Warlocks are a much more controller-striker than pure striker. It will not win the DPR war, but it can add enough debuffs to ramp up other striker damage as well. I don't think there's a way to measure that yet.

 

[Nymrohd]

I have been wondering, how could you change the warlock from a striker to a control in just a few steps? Till now my best idea was to change eldritch blast to an area attack and change warlock's curse to give vulnerability to damage. Would that be enough coupled with the warlock's natural predilection for controllery powers to make him a controller? This done while keeping in mind that the sorcerer is an excellent arcane striker so a single target arcane controller may be an interesting role (maybe parallel to the more single target control nature of the seeker).

 

[im_robertb]

I would do something along the lines of what someone around here did for the Paladin.

• All powers which used to use Constitution for their attacks now use Charisma.
• All secondary effects of powers used to be based on Intelligence. Now, for powers which used to attack with Constitution, it will be Constitution. For those that used to attack with Charisma, it will remain Intelligence.
• Star pact powers attack with Charisma and use the better of Intelligence or Constitution for their secondary effects.
• Change class features similarly.