D&D (2024) The new warlock (Packet 7)

[mellored]

He assumes that Blade Pact lets you qualify for feats with "Proficiency with a martial weapon" requirements like GWM. I strongly disagree with this interpretation. Temporary spell granted proficiencies do not count for feat requirements.

Agreed.

Subtract about 4.7 DPR. Which is still 3 points higher than the Berserker barbarian.

Or take a 1 level dip into paladin for proficiency, and just to keep people complaining about pally-locks.

Also, I don't recall if any race gives proficiency. But it doesn't stike me as a hard thing to overcome.

His math assumes 100% uptime on Spirit Shroud. Between limited spell slots and the need to make Concentration checks from being in melee, that's an over optimistic assumption. Also it's bringing pre-revision material into a post-revision environment, which I strongly suspect a lot of DMs are going to put limits on.

With warcaster, 14 Con, and Resilience Con, you can have a 97.75% chance to pass a DC 10 check.

Seems reasonable to assume you will have it. All the other DPR analysis assumes you don't get stunned and lose rage, or get dropped to 0, or immobilized and can't reach the target...

His math assumes you will Eldritch Smith on every crit. This is literally impossible when you have as few spell slots as the Warlock and are already devoting at least one per combat to Spirit Shroud. This is particularly egregious.

Assuming 4 rounds * 3 attacks per round is about a 54% chance to crit in an encounter.
Assuming 2 battles per short rest, and that's about 1 crit per short rest.

You have 3 slots. And if you use 2 per short rest for spirit shroud, leaves 1 left for a crit. Plus you can regain slots in between fights if you got lucky.

So yea, that seems ok too.

 

[mellored]

Averaging out crit Smites also assumes that the crit is always useful. Sometimes you're attacking a minion, not a boss, and a crit Smite is complete overkill. This is the sort of combat sim math that works for a MMO raid boss but doesn't translate well to a D&D environment.

That's an issue for all crits. And an assumption he made for all smites.

I mean, fighting a room full of 4hp goblins and barbarians rage bonus and brutal critical are not do anything.

You have to make some assumptions or you will never make a calculation. And that the end result is an estimate.

 

[Mistwell]

Agreed.

Subtract about 4.7 DPR. Which is still 3 points higher than the Berserker barbarian.

Or take a 1 level dip into paladin for proficiency, and just to keep people complaining about pally-locks.

Also, I don't recall if any race gives proficiency. But it doesn't stike me as a hard thing to overcome.


With warcaster, 14 Con, and Resilience Con, you can have a 97.75% chance to pass a DC 10 check.

Seems reasonable to assume you will have it. All the other DPR analysis assumes you don't get stunned and lose rage, or get dropped to 0, or immobilized and can't reach the target...

Assuming 4 rounds * 3 attacks per round is about a 54% chance to crit in an encounter.
Assuming 2 battles per short rest, and that's about 1 crit per short rest.

You have 3 slots. And if you use 2 per short rest for spirit shroud, leaves 1 left for a crit. Plus you can regain slots in between fights if you got lucky.

So yea, that seems ok too.

That was my analysis as well, though I remain unsure about the feat, and what the replacement feat would be if it's not usable. The replacement feat might also increase damage, though as you mention it might be Resilient Con.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Averaging out crit smites is indeed SOP. Including limited use abilities that don't apply ongoing buffs (specifically crit smite) is however extremely non-standard. It's as renewable a resource as Action Surge.

And most of what Treantmonk has done is shown that the upcast level 5 Soul Shroud (?) from Tasha's that adds 2d8 damage per hit is OP and needs errata with this version of the warlock. It on its own is responsible for over 17dpr.

 

[Kurotowa]

If you're not familiar with how optimization (for 30 years now) works for D&D that's fair. But your reply is basically "I don't find this useful" when thousands do and have been doing so for a very, VERY long time now. Either you accept the basic premise of optimization itself is something you can get use out of or you don't. But at the point where you don't then I guess let the people who do find it useful discuss it rather than crap on what other people appreciate about it? You can be sure, given what Crawford has said even even very recently, that he also finds it helpful in balancing classes and abilities and is not dismissive of it either.

And I've been taking whacks at poorly designed sim models that don't reflect actual play for 20 years, going back to the WotC Character Optimization board for 3e. So this is not a new thing for me. I was kvetching about it then and I'll kvetch about it now.

Really, it's not the methodology so much as the broard and hard conclusions people inappropriately draw from them. "Oh, the Bladelock is OP, it needs to be nerfed!" No. The difference is less that it looks at first glance due to a combination of errors (using GWM), deceptive numbers (crit Smites), and questionably outdated material (Spirit Shroud). If you remove GWM, consider the likely scenario that a lot of DMs will put at least some limits on pre-revision material, and allow for the limited and random nature of crit Smites, the picture looks very different. Maybe in need of a little numbers tuning, but not the vast gap the clickbaity video would lead you to believe.

 

[Clint_L]

The full Treantmonk Bladelock analysis video is out, and I have problems with it.

He assumes that Blade Pact lets you qualify for feats with "Proficiency with a martial weapon" requirements like GWM. I strongly disagree with this interpretation. Temporary spell granted proficiencies do not count for feat requirements.

Probably agree

His math assumes 100% uptime on Spirit Shroud. Between limited spell slots and the need to make Concentration checks from being in melee, that's an over optimistic assumption. Also it's bringing pre-revision material into a post-revision environment, which I strongly suspect a lot of DMs are going to put limits on.

He's using it as written - you can debate what DMs will allow, but the point of testing is to look at what is in the actual rules. Assuming 80% uptime doesn't change the math much.

His math assumes you will Eldritch Smith on every crit. This is literally impossible when you have as few spell slots as the Warlock and are already devoting at least one per combat to Spirit Shroud. This is particularly egregious.

You have a 5% chance of critting, so on average will get less than one per combat. But cut the amount added by critical in half if you like; it doesn't make much difference. Critical hits don't contribute much damage anyway.

With those three components removed the math looks very different from what he proposes.

Not really; it still winds up at or above the top of the heap, plus all the advantages that he cites.

So before anyone cites his conclusion in forum posts or the survey forms, or accuses the devs of having no ability to balance their material, take all that into consideration. These numbers are not reliable.

Disagree, and you haven't provided any math to disprove him, just some suppositions that are mostly questionable and even taken together don't make that big a difference in the numbers. Bladelock should be nearer devotion paladin than berserker barbarian for base damage, given all the other advantages that it offers. It's way overtuned, but that will likely be corrected in the final pass.

 

[mellored]

Averaging out crit smites is indeed SOP. Including limited use abilities that don't apply ongoing buffs (specifically crit smite) is however extremely non-standard. It's as renewable a resource as Action Surge.

Right.

There is usually a DPR calculation that you can do round after round.

And a Nova calculation. What you can do in one round.

And sometimes a survivability. Measured in rounds it takes for some iconic creature to kill you.

No concensus on trying to combine them.

 

[Charlaquin]

You have a 5% chance of critting, so on average will get less than one per combat. But cut the amount added by critical in half if you like; it doesn't make much difference. Critical hits don't contribute much damage anyway.

The crit part isn’t the issue here, the issue is the assumption that the warlock will always have a Pact Magic slot available to Eldritch Smite with when they crit. Especially since he’s also assuming the Warlock uses a spell slot to cast Spirit Shroud every combat. Pact Magic really only gives enough spell slots to use one per encounter, assuming 6 encounters and 2 short rests.

 

[Stalker0]

The full Treantmonk Bladelock analysis video is out, and I have problems with it.

He assumes that Blade Pact lets you qualify for feats with "Proficiency with a martial weapon" requirements like GWM. I strongly disagree with this interpretation. Temporary spell granted proficiencies do not count for feat requirements.

His math assumes 100% uptime on Spirit Shroud. Between limited spell slots and the need to make Concentration checks from being in melee, that's an over optimistic assumption. Also it's bringing pre-revision material into a post-revision environment, which I strongly suspect a lot of DMs are going to put limits on.

His math assumes you will Eldritch Smith on every crit. This is literally impossible when you have as few spell slots as the Warlock and are already devoting at least one per combat to Spirit Shroud. This is particularly egregious.

With those three components removed the math looks very different from what he proposes. So before anyone cites his conclusion in forum posts or the survey forms, or accuses the devs of having no ability to balance their material, take all that into consideration. These numbers are not reliable.

I updated my math to the correct 60% total hit rate. I edited the original post and reposted here. Ultimately conclusion didn't change just the margin.

UPDATE: I was assuming a 65% hit rate instead of 60%. tht has been fixed.

Lets check a few of these

First: TM has noted a DPR of 65.84, compared to the next highest 58.3 for the Barbarian. So that's our starting place.

1) Does Pact of the Blade count for "feat proficiencies"? An excellent question that should get clarified; I would probably agree that it doesn't myself.

2) 100% uptime on spirit shroud, I agree thats tough. In a 3 round combat, I would assume uptime of 2 rounds.

3) Eldritch Smite on every crit, how reasonable is that? So I would assume two 3 rounds fights per short rest. Over the 6 encounters per day we are supposedly supposed to have, that's 18 rounds or 54 attacks. If we maintain our uptime numbers from number 2, we need 1 spirit shroud a fight. So 6 shrouds. We have 9 slots + 2 for our new magical recall ability, 11 slots. So we have 5 slots to spend on smites over the course of the day.

Alright lets redo the math with these new assumptions.

2d6 + 5 (Base Greatsword) * 55% +
4d6 + 5 (Crit) * 5% +
1d6 (Lifedrinker) * 55% +
2d6 (Lifedrinker Crit) * 5% +
2d8 (Spirit Shroud) * 55% * 2/3 (2 out of 3 rounds) +
4d8 (Spirit Shroud Crit) * 5% * 2/3 +
5 (Graze) * 40%

6.6 + .7 + 1.925 + .35 + 3.3 + .6 + 2 = 15.475, 15.475 x 3 attacks = 46.425.

A crit with an eldritch smite is: 12d8 (eldritch smite crit). Now the next math is complicated which I'm doing in excel. But assuming we can get up to 5 crits over over 54 attacks (more than 5 crits = 5 crits for this exercise). Our damage is:

141.6687

Divided over the 18 rounds of combat: 7.87

New Bladelock DPR: 54.30
So still pretty close to the barb, and technically we haven't considered the various advantage options we could have, or any subclasses. Lets do an easy one. The Celestial warlock gets to add +5 radiant damage once per round if your doing radiant damage innately (which there are several ways to do that with this bladelock).

93.6% chance at least 1 of my 3 attacks hits, so .975 * 5 =

4.68

Bladelock (Celestial) DPR: 58.98
Barbarian (Berserker) DPR: 58.3

Even taking your objections to account (which I do agree with), it still seems like Bladelock is king of the hill.

 

[Mistwell]

And I've been taking whacks at poorly designed sim models that don't reflect actual play for 20 years, going back to the WotC Character Optimization board for 3e. So this is not a new thing for me. I was kvetching about it then and I'll kvetch about it now.

Really, it's not the methodology so much as the broard and hard conclusions people inappropriately draw from them. "Oh, the Bladelock is OP, it needs to be nerfed!" No. The difference is less that it looks at first glance due to a combination of errors (using GWM), deceptive numbers (crit Smites), and questionably outdated material (Spirit Shroud). If you remove GWM, consider the likely scenario that a lot of DMs will put at least some limits on pre-revision material, and allow for the limited and random nature of crit Smites, the picture looks very different. Maybe in need of a little numbers tuning, but not the vast gap the clickbaity video would lead you to believe.

The conclusion you drew was wrong. Adjusting for each of the three objections you made (two of which were flawed, one badly so) it STILL out damages all martial classes for damage. Which is a sure sign it needs to be nerfed. But you're trying to spin it "I was able to shave a few points damage off this and make my own completely unfounded assumptions about future nerfs to other stuff so it must be all tossed out!" and that's not an accurate conclusion.

You're spinning. All Treantmonk did was assess it with the existing rules - which is what the playtest outright states should be done to assess it right now. You're adding stuff to spin. It's a bad look. If we don't have data on changing Spirit Shroud, then it's there for example. If you average crits, then they're fine in this analysis - and you HAVE to average them if you're going to keep it consistent for all analysis. You don't toss it out because "Stuff is random so maybe you never hit even!"

There is nothing click-baiting about Treantmonks stuff. That's not him. That's never been him. And there is no reason for you to make that claim about him since you, apparently, don't know much about his videos.