The Most Underpowered Class?

[surfarcher]

A quick question to those experienced with Starlocks (none of my players have ever gone in that direction).

Do the Dragon Magazine Annual enhancements in Wish Upon A Star (p47-56) help fix the Starlock problems at all?

-doug

 

[Spatula]

You could say that but I suspect you'd be wrong. Dual Implement makes up for iron armbands of power, and thats pretty much it. Weapon users still have plenty of other ways to boost damage that arcane users don't have. Area effect powers help implement users with this a bit, but keep in mind... its not like weapon classes have no area powers. They actually have some scarily good ones.

The Staff of Ruin makes up for Iron Armbands / Bracers of Archery.

 

[abyssaldeath]

The Staff of Ruin makes up for Iron Armbands / Bracers of Archery.

I have to agree. The 12th level Wizard I built has +15 to damage while my 12th level Barbarian only has +12. I also build a 12th level Warlock that get +14 to damage. That is not including any condition damage bonuses.

 

[Ryujin]

Feytouched is a brutal machine of teleporting doom in mid paragon. The sad part is that a Swordmage or Hybrid is better at it than a pure Warlock is.

A Long Night Scion is as much of a destroyer, with the added benefit of being able to take cold based feats to boost the damage. At mid-Paragon such a character is also capable of having an at will teleport 1, 3, 5, or 6 with which to spread all of that chilly goodness. I have to admit all of that auto damage was tempting.

Want to ruin a Feytouched's day? Blind him or stick him in magical darkness. Too much of a one trick pony.

 

[lukelightning]

The Staff of Ruin makes up for Iron Armbands / Bracers of Archery.

So a weapon user with bracers will get bonus damage and a variety of special abilities (high crit damage, etc.), depending on the weapon. But a staff of ruin user only gets some bonus damage.

 

[abyssaldeath]

So a weapon user with bracers will get bonus damage and a variety of special abilities (high crit damage, etc.), depending on the weapon. But a staff of ruin user only gets some bonus damage.

The staff of Ruin is not necessary to meet or exceed the damage bonus of a weapon user who has IAoP.

 

[surfarcher]

A quick question to those experienced with Starlocks (none of my players have ever gone in that direction).

Do the Dragon Magazine Annual enhancements in Wish Upon A Star (p47-56) help fix the Starlock problems at all?

-doug

Are you guys ignoring me? *sniff*

 

[Saagael]

A quick question to those experienced with Starlocks (none of my players have ever gone in that direction).

Do the Dragon Magazine Annual enhancements in Wish Upon A Star (p47-56) help fix the Starlock problems at all?

I've played starlock from level 1 to not level 10 (almost 11). Unfortunately, my DM doesn't allow any magazine rules in our game, even though a lot of the magazine stuff would make my character much more viable.

I can only answer your question by saying that I feel that the dragon magazine does add extra options that I wish I could use (but sadly, can't). On that same note, I'm going to add my vote that a star-lock is one of the hardest classes to build effectively. Their controller aspect is great, and if I could play a pure controller I'm sure I'd be happy. I'm forced to be a striker through party make-up, and consistently struggling to do any sort of decent damage. Of course, it might be that my DM never lets my Dire Radiance secondary trigger, which seriously gimps damage.

As a warlock player, the only thing that I really like about playing a warlock is having a second warlock on the party (a feylock who takes all the controller powers) and both of us having the Coordinated Curse feat. The feat gives a warlock combat advantage while the enemy is cursed by two warlocks. Because of that, I nearly always have CA against the target (makes up for always having to target fortitude).

That's just my experience though: it's fun to play a slightly evil madman, but no amount of interesting role-play (at least for me) makes up for my constant struggle during combats.

 

[surfarcher]

Interesting.

Does your DM allow the use of other official supplements (like Arcane Power)? I also don't normally allow magazine entries into my games but I am willing to consider Dragon Magazine Annual an official supplement simply based on it's official look and feel, hardcopy distribution and WotC backing.

I really like the look and feel of the Starlock's baground and the ideas in the DMA. It'd be a shame if that doesn't provide some kind of working and (pseudo-)official fix to the classe's problems.

Mind you player's haven't shown any interest in it yet but you never know...

-doug

 

[Ryujin]

A quick question to those experienced with Starlocks (none of my players have ever gone in that direction).

Do the Dragon Magazine Annual enhancements in Wish Upon A Star (p47-56) help fix the Starlock problems at all?

-doug

A couple of the powers are good enough that I took them for my Feylock. One is INT+2 to hit, which synergizes very well with my character's upside-down build.

The magazine powers and feats add some much needed CHA-based powers.