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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Exocist" data-source="post: 9850366" data-attributes="member: 7044810">It's not a refusal to use it as much as the incapability of using it in the first place by the time it has sufficient stacks on it to do any meaningful damage. Yes you might be able to throw out 1 or 2 charge darkspiral auras, but those aren't going to be impactful.It does good damage in low heroic, and even then only with a few charges. Yes when the enemy has 32 health (average at level 1), 2d6 or 3d6 will look good. When the enemy has 80 health (average at level 7), 2d6 or 3d6 is really not that much. When the enemy has 144 health (average at level 15), 2d8 or 3d8 is barely anything.Darkspiral Aura cannot be used with Elemental Pact boon. Elemental pact can only convert damage that you deal on your turn, and necrotic/psychic are not among the list of elemental types it can apply weakness to.Which is still only useful if you can actually use it. With the number of area/close attacks going up as you level, that becomes less likely. Most of the high damage attacks on enemies - encounter and recharge powers - will be area or close, further reducing the efficacy of the weaken on it.DMG says this but practically most people who run 4e these days will budget minions as nothing, or just not include them at all. 4e has too many ways to instantly kill minions in a large area to justify their XP budget. Never mind cases where the inclusion of minions is advantageous to players.The power was never nerfed from immediate action to free action, they just removed the unnecessary textThe original printing in FRPG says this "Once per round as a free action when an enemy makes a melee attack or a ranged attack against you, you can use your Darkspiral Aura as an immediate interrupt, dealing 1d6 necrotic and psychic damage to that enemy for each point of your Darkspiral Aura’s current value. "Of course, that first bit "once per round, as a free action" is almost completely redundant if it's already an immediate interrupt so they just removed it.Giving an enemy the choice to make an OA which you then punish them for is worse than not giving them that choice at all, which is something that warlock can do fairly easily. Most classes can by heroic.This is not practically how 4e ends up working. Simply sitting next to an enemy won't force an OA. Shift+Charge is mentioned because it's a universal option that all monsters have access to right from level 1, which normal characters can already struggle to punish unless their party is lined up perfectly behind them such that there is no way for the monster to charge without provoking, which is a rarity. Usually, even if the monster is directly N of you, they can shift NE or NW, then charge, making the first space SE (from NE) or SW (from NW) and avoid your OA entirely. Or they could shift away with a power. Or they could teleport away. Or you could get dazed or blinded by something else which prevents you making that OA. Or they could go invisible. Or you could get pushed. Or they could shift and use a ranged or area attack. Or they could use a close attack. Or, or, or...There are so many options that monsters get access to which stuff your OAs by Paragon that simply standing next to them is not sufficient.You can have all the features you want that make you want to be attacked. It's still up to the enemies to actually attack you, which they can avoid doing. Warlocks can trivially have very high defenses that will make enemies not attack them in the first place, and lowering your defenses just makes you worse without making the "enemies avoiding you" situation better.It's not an implement power so you can rule out the +6 enhancement bonus. It can't get that.You can sure add the +8 damage from int if you are insubstantial and have darkwalker, which makes the enemy want to avoid attacking you even more. Yogrix's Brutality needs to be turned on, which warlocks can't do easily. Maybe if you powerswap to wizard and take Fire Shroud or something like that, but it's a feat with a conditional that isn't easy. Rod of Ulban is a 25th level item that you shouldn't be planning around to make it work, realistically you're stuck with Rod of Mindbending which is 2-3. Elemental pact boon doesn't work. Unless you have a friendly artificer or warlord giving you a +4-6 general damage bonus, 1d8+6ish is where your paragon damage is at with one charge, which is terrible.</blockquote>

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