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

[Stalker0]

Crit is also a hit.

So he does 60% time damage.
+ 5% times bonus damage.

But what every way you want to math it out.

hehe still confused apparantely. Is the total chance to hit (including crits) 60% or 65%?

 

[mellored]

hehe still confused apparantely. Is the total chance to hit (including crits) 60% or 65%?

60%
40% miss

 

[Stalker0]

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.

 

[Stalker0]

The biggest assumption we are making is 2 short rests.

We know from experience that doesn't always happen.

True, often times you get a short rest after every fight

 

[Kinematics]

I did my own spreadsheet on the warlock after seeing Treantmonk's video. I also have some updated fighter and barbarian charts to compare with. I haven't updated other classes to compare with.

First, this is what I see for the warlock:

Eldritch Blast is the blue line at the bottom. It includes Hex and Agonizing Blast. This is what Treantmonk usually uses as his "baseline" for damage. I'm not sure if it exactly matches his, but it looked pretty close when I compared against what was shown in the video.

I took out the GWM feat for the Pact of the Blade builds, because I agree that the warlock doesn't meet the prerequisites. I also didn't attempt to figure out how to include Eldritch Smite.

The red line is Pact of the Blade without Spirit Shroud. The green line is with Spirit Shroud.

Pact of the Blade build: Greatsword (Graze), Hex, Pact of the Blade, Thirsting Blade, Lifedrinker.

Spirit Shroud does 1d8 per hit at level 5, and 2d8 at level 9. This assumes Spirit Shroud and Hex and Lifedrinker all stack. No effort was made to deal with the conflict in the use of bonus actions between casting Spirit Shroud and moving Hex.

Here is a (edit: obsolete) graph to compare the warlock data with some barbarian and Champion fighter data:

Details of the different curves:

• Barb PAM Reck — Berserker barbarian using Reckless Attack with a PAM build. This is the highest damage I've gotten so far.
• Barb PAM No Reck — Same Berserker, but not using Reckless Attack. This curve is on par with the Champion PAM build.
• Barb Tank Tree — A build with no damage feats, using a battleaxe+shield for tanking, and no Reckless Attack. World Tree subclass, so no subclass damage features either. Lowest damage output, to help bracket the range of possible damage.
• Champ UA PAM — Champion fighter with a PAM build similar to the barbarian. This appears to be a midline in damage.
• Warlock Blast — This is the Eldritch Blast warlock build. Treantmonk's baseline.
• Warlock Blade — This is the Pact of the Blade build from the earlier chart. It is roughly on par with the Champion build.
• Warlock Blade+Shroud — This is the Pact of the Blade build including Spirit Shroud. This almost matches the Berserker using Reckless Attack at level 11, although it remains flat from then on while the Berserker continues to improve.

Assuming the Champion is a reasonable mid-range target for a martial type, the Pact of the Blade warlock hits that pretty well, as long as you don't deal with Spirit Shroud.

Being midline, but with the potential for massive burst damage with Eldritch Smite, seems perfectly fine. Being top-line (with Spirit Shroud) and having that same burst potential does not seem fine. Overall, I think the Pact of the Blade options are good when considered within the class itself, but Spirit Shroud definitely needs to be removed from warlock's spell list.



If you want to see the spreadsheet I used to generate these, it's available on Google Drive here. This is just a copy as it currently stands, since I'm constantly working on the real version. There's a bunch of stuff in there, so PM me if you're having trouble figuring it out, or find a bug.

 

[Clint_L]

Another thing to note, as that graph illustrates, is this new version of bladelock shoots up to top tier damage relatively early, at 5th level, and then emphatically so at level 11. Given everything else a bladelock can do at that level, it shouldn't also be delivering 30% more damage than a champion or non-reckless barbarian (heck, at that level it almost matches a reckless barbarian).

 

[mellored]

• Warlock Blade+Shroud — This is the Pact of the Blade build including Spirit Shroud. This almost matches the Berserker using Reckless Attack at level 11, although it remains flat from then on while the Berserker continues to improve.

IMO, you should also include foresight at level 17.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Spirit Shroud does 1d8 per hit at level 5, and 2d8 at level 9. This assumes Spirit Shroud and Hex and Lifedrinker all stack.

Hex and Spirit Shroud are both concentration and as such mutually exclusive

 

[Kinematics]

IMO, you should also include foresight at level 17.

Good point. I added it to the two Pact of the Blade builds.

Hex and Spirit Shroud are both concentration and as such mutually exclusive

Figured there was something I was missing. Making adjustments for that as well.

These changes boost the highest levels for the builds, but lower the overall curve for the Shroud build. Shroud is still above the midline at levels 11+, but not quite as significantly. The non-Shroud build is still comfortably in the midline.

Edit: Updated for some fixes for the Champion.

 

[mellored]

Good point. I added it to the two Pact of the Blade builds.


Figured there was something I was missing. Making adjustments for that as well.

These changes boost the highest levels for the builds, but lower the overall curve for the Shroud build. Shroud is still above the midline at levels 11+, but not quite as significantly. The non-Shroud build is still comfortably in the midline.

Foresight works with EB too.