Help me grock the warlock

[Plane Sailing]

Half-elves make good warlocks, but "the best" is debatable.

Maybe he is thinking about the half elf +2 Con, +2 Cha bonus, thus boosting both of the important ability scores for warlocks.

Of course, the human opportunity to take an extra at-will isn't exactly slouchy!

Cheers

 

[Aservan]

Ok I posted a lot of this on RPG.net if you want to read the detailed discussion. If not here are the salient points. Though I will probably miss some.

Good things about Warlocks

• You have the best defense of any striker. (Shadow Walk, Temp HP, Teleport, At-Wills discouraging further enemy attacks)
• You have lots of ranged attacks
• Magic is cool
• You don't need a weapon to do what you do
• You get a bonus when the bad guys die
• You get to attack lots of defenses

Downsides of warlocks

• You have the best defense of any striker. (Shadow Walk, Temp HP, Teleport, At-Wills discouraging further enemy attacks)
• You have no effective melee attacks (exception if you have enough stat points to have a high strength, but the ranger and rogue will still win)
• Neither your damage nor your secondary effects are awesome
• Curse only works on the nearest enemy so you can have a hard time landing it on the monster you want to attack.
• The biggest Warlock downside: You suck as a team player. Few of your spells actually help the party. And you don't do enough damage to make up for it.

Having the best defenses of a striker sounds nifty on paper but it makes you suck at your assigned role of striker. Why? The monsters ignore you and focus fire on the defender. "But wait!" you say "Isn't that what we want?"

Answer: nope. Focus fire will take even a defender down in short order. Worse it drains the leader of heals faster so there are none left after he goes down. You want your striker to take a certain number of hits in each fight so that his healing surges can take some of the burden off the defender. At the end of the day your party was most efficient when all the people in it have only a few surges left. Remember to goal of 4th was to get rid of the 5 minute work day.

So when your warlock turns invisible, or says "if you hit me you will regret it," or makes the monsters not move closer to him he discourages them from attacking him which again sounds great. Ever heard of the Maginot line? A defense no one attacks is not doing its job and worse is a waste of resources that could be better used elsewhere. Like doing more pain to the monsters.

This is the biggest problem with the warlock. The DM is encouraged to ignore him. He doesn't hit hard enough to make mobs attack him, and his defenses discourage an attack. So write him off. Finish off the "better" characters and then get the warlock at your leisure. As long as the DM is attacking the warlock he seems pretty effective. Remember though the things that makes 4th fun for the DM is that he doesn't have to play the bad guys retarded anymore. He doesn't want to kill PCs either, but the DM versus us is what makes it fun.

Most of the feats in the game have to do with weapons. Worse many of the ones that don't are pretty bad. Take astral fire. It gives the same feat bonuses to damage that Weapon Focus does. So far they are even. Weapon Focus does not require Dex though (a dump stat for warlocks). Weapon focus works whenever you use the chosen weapon type. That's pretty close to a 100% for most PCs. Spells don't work like that. Diabolic grasp the most team friendly spell in the low level warlock's arsenal is untyped and thus can't get the bonus. Result Weapon Focus is three times the feat Astral fire is.

The warlock is supposed to make up for his lack of a proficiency bonus with attacking the defense he wants. That (sort of) works on paper but not in practice.

• You don't always know what defense to attack. Is that fig a bugbear lurker or soldier? It makes a big difference and the DM is not going to tell you.
• Encounter and Dailies work once a fight. Even attacking the lowest defense it is still possible to miss. Rolling anything below a 9 makes it probable even. If you miss with your one attack versus fort or will, now what? At low levels this is compounded by a small number of encounter and dailies available. Even if you hit only minions go down in one hit. Now what?
• You only have 2 at-wills (3 if your human). These are the only abilities you can rely on. Infernal warlocks can only attack Reflex. Fighting ghouls sucks BTW. The other two pacts still have the problem of what if you need the one you don't have?
• Attacking AC may not be as sexy but it is consistent. You know that an AC attack for a well built character will have a decent chance of success.

Warlock's are not team players. Every other class has abilities designed to help the party in some way. Fighters push people around or take out minions on the back swing. Paladins weaken and punish opponents who attack their pals. Clerics and Warlords well they are bloody easy, everything they do benefits another party member. Wizards hit large areas and can do damage constantly by virtue of a large number of attack rolls making one bad roll less catastrophic. Rogues stun enemies, knock them down, shove them around, and when part of good team lay down staggering amounts of damage. Ranger make lots of attack rolls practically guaranteeing some damage each round. This cuts enemies down faster and helps the team.

4th biggest strength as a game is the great team play and tactics it encourages. Sadly (as warlocks are my favorite class fluff-wise) they were largely ostracized from this form of fun. Making yourself invisible and dancing about the field is all well and good but it doesn't help with the actual goal of defeating the monsters. By their own criteria I find the warlock to be a failed design. He doesn't perform his role well. He wants to be the "I" in team.

 

[loisel]

I did get into the actual spreadsheet that led to those charts, and I am having a hard time trusting the conclusions given that the warlock involved starts with an 11 con and a 12 cha, and is firing 1d10 damage Hellish Rebukes.

Well apparently you didn't get into the spreadsheet very much, because both Hellish Rebuke Warlocks (rows 67 and 118) clearly deal 1d6 damage (damage is 11-16 and 14-19).

In addition, the Con score of Hellish Rebuke characters is clearly marked as being 23 (row 67) and 25 (row 118).

So, you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Mengu]

Why is the warlock not a team player?

Diabolic Grasp and Witchfire are both excellent team play powers at 1st level, so is Curse of the Dark Dream.

At 3rd level Frigid Darkness is a fantastic team play power for a Starpact Warlock.

Later on you get a bunch of immobilizing, blinding, sliding, pushing, confusing, weakening powers. How are any of these bad for team play?

Yes Pact Boons and Curse damage are selfish, but so are Hunter's Quarry, and Sneak Attack. A bit of selfishness is built into being a Striker. But Warlock is the most Controller-like Striker.

At heroic levels I don't see the problem with Warlocks. No they don't do much damage, but I feel they contribute to a fight as much as anyone else. Can't really say anything one way or the other for higher levels.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Warlock's are not team players. Every other class has abilities designed to help the party in some way.

Anecdote: In my campaign the other players don't really like the (fey) warlock PC, as they perceive him as "not really doing much damage, just waltzes around the battlefield" and wish he could be replaced by a wizard.

The party are currently at 2nd level and we are seeing this kind of issue - that they (fey warlocks at least) don't fit into the team as naturally as the others.

Cheers

 

[Aservan]

Why is the warlock not a team player?

Diabolic Grasp and Witchfire are both excellent team play powers at 1st level, so is Curse of the Dark Dream.

At 3rd level Frigid Darkness is a fantastic team play power for a Starpact Warlock.

Later on you get a bunch of immobilizing, blinding, sliding, pushing, confusing, weakening powers. How are any of these bad for team play?

Yes Pact Boons and Curse damage are selfish, but so are Hunter's Quarry, and Sneak Attack. A bit of selfishness is built into being a Striker. But Warlock is the most Controller-like Striker.

At heroic levels I don't see the problem with Warlocks. No they don't do much damage, but I feel they contribute to a fight as much as anyone else. Can't really say anything one way or the other for higher levels.

I can't argue with your feelings. I can say I feel differently as I am currently playing one.

I agree with you that the warlock is a controller-ish striker. So what? That doesn't help him be a striker. Controller is also the role most parties don't need two of and wizard is a pretty popular class (for a reason). The are also a lot of abilities out there that can hit more then one enemy. Rangers have one as an at-will.

The abilities you mention all support your point. It is not that warlock's can't ever play nice, but you have to work at it and it is a limited time kind of thing (one or two powers per encounter). No other class has at-wills (50%+ of all the attack you will ever make) that are so situational and so unhelpful to what the rest of the team is trying to do.

All of their at-wills that are designed to help warlock damage output mean nothing if the DM ignores you. He get's rewarded for his disdain of your effectiveness. He takes less damage and you do less.

You are invisible to me? Fine I will smack your wizard or better yet your Warlord!

I get hurt for hitting you? Fine I will just not attack you! You are standing next to me casting Hellish Rebuke? Fine if you hit I will forgo my OA if not you get smacked.

I can't move towards you? Then I will use a missile weapon or move laterally into one of your friends.

You don't do enough damage nor do you have crippling status effects like stun, immobilize, or weaken. So why should monsters care about you?

Heck look at eldritch blast versus long bow. They do the same damage. Due to Longbow's +2 to hit have the same overall chance to connect (reflex averages only two points behind AC). Long bow has better range and can further be enhanced via feats. Eldritch blast can't.

You may have a lucky warlock player or the players of your other strikers may not have discovered the good tactics yet, but by the numbers warlock is the worst striker and the worst class in the game.

At least he isn't a 1st edition wizard who died from a sneeze.

 

[theNater]

Well apparently you didn't get into the spreadsheet very much, because both Hellish Rebuke Warlocks (rows 67 and 118) clearly deal 1d6 damage (damage is 11-16 and 14-19).

In addition, the Con score of Hellish Rebuke characters is clearly marked as being 23 (row 67) and 25 (row 118).

So, you have no idea what you're talking about.

The spreadsheet I looked at is Splart's. The following pages have a row 67 and a row 118.

PCs: Row 67 is AC improvements acquired at level 5, 118 is to-hit improvements acquired at level 14.
Charts: Neither row has data entries, as they are both under the chart graphics.
ChartData: Row 67 is info on the Half Rog/Rang at level 28, 118 is comparative DPS and RPM at level 13.

And none of this, nor any spreadsheet misreading I may have done, changes the fact that your own chart for at-will damage by level 11 characters has the Hellish Rebuke warlock well ahead of the fighters and wizards when targeting ACs lower than 30.

 

[s-dub]

You may have a lucky warlock player or the players of your other strikers may not have discovered the good tactics yet, but by the numbers warlock is the worst striker and the worst class in the game.

Yet it all depends on what numbers you want to use.

Every DM is different, and every fight will look different.

You can't simply crunch numbers, you have to take those numbers in context.

Also, please remember that "X class sucks" comments are not kosher here.

 

[bardolph]

So, I'm finally getting a chance to play instead of run. My first character is a warlock and I'm trying to figure out what makes it good.

Before feats, the Warlock is doing the same damage as any other striker. The problem is that the other strikers can use feats to improve their damage, while warlocks can't really. Warlocks need to set up good combos in order to be effective in combat.

Here's an example:

Cast Armor of Agathys at the start of combat. Second Round, Cast Hellish Rebuke, then move adjacent to your cursed enemy. Every round thereafter, cast Hellish Rebuke from point blank range (provoking OAs from the enemy).

Benefits of this combo:

• Prime Shot gives you +1 Attack for being adjacent.
• Armor of Agathys + Hellish Rebuke + Warlock's Curse is doing 3d6+CON+CON damage per round, and the damage from Armor of Agathys is AUTOMATIC, meaning no attack roll is necessary.
• If an enemy marked by a Defender makes an attack against you, they take extra damage from Divine/Combat Challenge.
• If the enemy hits you with an OA, they take an additional 1d6+CON from Hellish Rebuke.
• If the enemy is too timid to make OAs against you, switch to Eldritch Blast for 1d10 damage instead of 1d6.

A rogue or ranger will have a hard time matching this kind of damage output, even if they use their dailies. Of course, the Warlock may end up taking serious damage going this route, but what good is temporary hit points and high CON if you don't put it to good use?

Another Example is the Star Warlock relying on Dire Radiance combined with a push power from another character like Tide of Iron or Thunderwave. This is really nice to use against a melee-only Brute. The idea is to land Dire Radiance, then push them away from the line, and if they try to re-engage, they take extra damage from Dire Radiance. Otherwise, they give up their attack, which is also a plus. Also, when you have a teammate pushing for you, it's much easier to get close enough for the +1 Prime Shot bonus.

=====

Warlocks do suffer from a lack of feat choices to improve damage output. That is, until you consider multiclassing. A Warlock/Paladin can use Divine Challenge combined with Eyebite to do terrific damage every round. A Warlock/Rogue can use invisibility (from Eyebite, for example) to set up a Sneak Attack. A Warlock/Ranger can combine Warlock's Curse with Hunter's Quarry. A Warlock/Wizard can set up Hellish Rebuke, then catch himself in an area attack next round (if doing so would mean hitting more enemies).

And feats like Defensive Mobility combined with point-blank Hellish Rebuke/Armor of Agathys strategies can also get some nice synergy going.

 

[Aservan]

Look I am not trying to offend anyone. I said "... by the numbers Warlock is the worst striker..."

I don't see how that is anything but an objective opinion. The same things that everyone posts here. I am not saying "Warlock's suck" they can help the party (sometimes) and they are certainly fun to play at times. For me those times are the out of combat times. I would just like to have more fun in the in-combat times as well.

I don't want to imply that other people can't have fun with a warlock. I am certain they can. I also don't think there is one way to play a game. I will say that I think some ways are bad though.

Playing like a jerk is bad in my book. Warlock is borderline in that area. When are you just playing your character and when are you playing a character that sucks the life out of the game? The warlock is not the equal choice tactically in the game (at least currently). So by playing one am I sucking the enjoyment out of things for my friends who like to play hard in all phases of the game? None of them have complained to me yet but if they did I would make a new character.

To some extent, I agree, numbers are open to interpretation. The numbers themselves do not lie. To say that on average reflex only lags 2 points behind AC is true (to the best of my knowledge). To say then that "Eldritch Blast has an equal chance to hit with a longbow" is also true given my understanding of things. I am not making things up when I say that weapon focus applies to a longbow but not to eldritch blast. You can use far shot on the bow as well but not with EB.

Tell me which numbers you want to use. I would love to hear that I am wrong (Really!! I want Warlocks to rock). I base my knowledge off the threads I have read here on EnWorld about monster defenses and the thread on DPR. To my knowledge the math of those posters is correct (I'm an engineer and assuming the base data is correct the math is as well). I am also relating my in game experience from 3 different Campaigns played in and and several one shots DMed.