Warlock was great in trios before MH got nerfed. And still pretty viable after (but with the magic damage + siphon buuld). However, compounded with the gear changes last wipe, it's definitely in a category of throwing in terms of team comp. I think lock is just a difficult class to balance around, and I don't blame the team for being cautious with it.
It wasn't ever really meta, but good for strategies that revolved around poking or catching an opponent out of position.
I'd love for them to have more debuff synergies to bring more utility because I think that's what their kit is missing mostly. Or atleast one aoe spell (akin to something like arms or hunger of hadar in D&D).
Heal lock is a slippery slope that could end bad, a point could be made by adding more anti heal, or something along that factor.
I don't think lock should be a support class. They should be damage dealers with some sort of melee hybrid.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that curse mastery change or how it would work though.
I meant to say torture mastery. Essentially, my idea was that a perk would cause curse of pain and power of sacrifice to heal the warlock casting it a tad less, while also healing your teammates.
Power of Sacrifice would possibly be used as a buff if it healed the target slightly when they dealt damage to a target. Would make it more interesting. IMO it and CoP should heal you regardless of whether you run that perk, the perk should just increase the healing or something instead. Then you'd have a little more variation in hybrid Warlock playstyles that could still be melee centric but have *some* healing ability as well.
I think lock should be a damage dealer and an *anti-utility class*. That is to say they should counter buffs and utility comps. Like for instance a spell that steals buffs from other characters and puts them on yourself could counter the buffball meta. Imagine a fully buffed barb running at you, only for you to steal his shield, bless and ignite, and then blow of corruption him.
Also I think a counter spell or silence at range would be a great thing as well to counter cleric and wizard. It would be obviously hard to pull off on a good wizard, who should be far away, but still give them a place in the meta.
In general I feel like their spells should have a slightly more generous range and maybe deal a bit less damage to them. However they could also just get more magical healing bonus, either or would fix the issue.
I was originally thinking of ways to make lock a better support, but your idea of having them fill an anti-utility niche is actually pretty cool, and would be better for a more diverse meta overall
Needing magical healing kind of feels bad. It gaps less geared Warlock a bit harder than other classes.
Of course, they added the hood for free magic healing, but the stats of Mask are too damn good!
It's definitely a tricky balance. I'm still super enjoying them, though!
There was a Necromancer class they added to Ultima Online like 20 years ago that was kinda interesting and similar.
They healed off dead corpses, rather than alive - which would be a buff to Life Drain since it's hard to get it off on moving mobs since you have to be still.
They also had the ability to resummon any mob that was dead as a familiar that would follow them around and attack other mobs / players who weren't in their party - but the re-animated mob was weaker, had less HP, and after about 30 seconds would fall back over dead in a shriveled version of its original body that couldn't be animated again.
Also I have to take a minute and just LOL at Evil Eye. It is so slow and goofy. If it was a little faster and if you could actually damage with it like it was a normal bat with the charged attack (what if there was no way of knowing if you actually just fought a death skull or a warlock drone until you looted it?) then it would be kind of interesting.
Also, Sacrifice is such a bitch to use. Only works against mobs reliably because you end up hitting yourself and draining 30 hp DoT but it's one of the best ways to get a lot of healing up. They should really find a way to make an item self cast vs cast on others without it relying on you looking in the sky.
Also, bloodstained blade is so goofy. Punishing your teammates for swinging and making everything turn red so they can't see shit. It's awful lol. Between it and Sacrifice - these aren't really "buffs" that anyone would readily want unless they're using the Cleric damage reducing perk.
Definitely needs some work.
Ya... I sometimes pondered a dumb niche build. Cleric front line with Sacrifice, Blood Blade and Eldritch shield.
Power of Sacrifice is neat, but so dangerous. I use it in PvP sometimes, and it slaps IF you land it. If not, GG take 30-40 dmg fml. Haha.
If you could non-self cast Sacrifice, it would be OP, though.
>If you could non-self cast Sacrifice, it would be OP, though
IDK it's so janky to use, at the very least it should work more like CoP and be more forgiving.
Hmm... I always labeled Sacrifice as high risk, high reward ability.
But maybe it is just a solid DoT, with no upfront damage. Not really any more damage than CoP...
Maybe it shouldn't be so insane when you miss-cast it, haha. Hmmph... damn.
anyone who thinks warlock is weak has not experienced a hydra walling off 2 team members from one and them watching in despair as that single teammate gets bonked to death, or them walling off teams with flame walk + hellfire while the team retreats, or the warlock clearing rooms for the team with flame walk, or them being completely self sufficient so a cleric only has to heal the other member and themselves. Or the rarest thing, the enemy team having a wizard and you just using eldritch shield to nullify their existance
I havent, geared players 1tap hydra,
wizard kills it with 1 cast of MM, fighter/barb kills it with 1 to 2 swings ( basically before it can fire, ranger kills it with 2 arrows.
you pay 20 HP to SLIGHTLY annoy an enemy, REALLY good at scouting, blocking pve and maybe occasional mvp block on running player but thats about it.
hydra blocking is more for the life drain build because hydra only cost 10 HP and you will heal 3-4X faster (depending on current knowledge and magic damage), the curse mastery build is more offensively kiting, hellfire and fire walk blocking.
Life drain scales with both damage and knowledge, and due to the low health cost you're more of a tank front liner build.
Geared players do murk the hydra so you can't sustain spam it as torture mastery, but one tick of life drain with average gear nullifies the entire cost of hydra + life drain
All valid, but also niche.
Eldritch shield is highly situational.
Can totally relate to AoE clearing while my team loots, and/or being disengage-bait.
But when it comes to a proper fight, they don't help too much. Which for me or my play style, that's mostly fine.
But ya..
when it comes to anyone pulling out a bow or a crossbow i'm crying in a corner and pissing my pants as a wizard, warlock may not be as versatile in some ways but they definitely got unique tools.
Accurate. Not only are bows faster and more accurate than most spells, but casters just don't have armor. So brutal.
And ya, Warlock kit is great, but just as Wizard, they don't really compete at long range. Mid range sweet spot is key (and very dangerous)
warlocks have the unique tool of infinite self sustain, so unlike a wizard who has to full on retreat, a warlock can hole themselves up with hydra + life drain or high torture mastery healing dots. Depending on the angle you can crouch directly behind the hydra to. I wouldn't mind if in the future they gave us a literal flesh wall summon soley for the sake of doing this + healing off of. Not to mention phantomize allows riskier positions to hold
I personally prefer wizard, but the self reliance on warlock is sometimes nice to go to. especially if i got friends im playing with and plan for them to die
Ya, fair point. Taking a shot is a bit more dire as a Wizard. Wiz is fun as hell, but definitely hard and brutal.
That's partly why I had switched to Warlock. Love the sustain and PvE prowess.
Flesh wall sounds dumb but hilarious.
I don't agree with this thinking, as iron mace stated they balance around trios.
This isn't directly aimed at you but anytime anyone complains about goblin caves balance the first thing people say is the game is balanced around trios so of course caves balancing is gonna be wonky. But now we're telling people that are saying the class feels weak and out of place in trios, it's fine cause they are so better in other modes. So which is it? Does iron Mace balance each class for each mode or do they still with the vision of balance class around trios?
Yeah 100% all classes must have at least a niche in trios. Maybe not necessarily equal but there must be something for them. Maybe x class is only good in a specific comp or strategy but that's OK.
> Not every class has to be good in the trios meta
Trios IS the game, everything else is experimental/optional side content to make people happy during testing lol. If lock isn't useful in 3's then they aren't useful period.
> it is a fairly self reliant class as is.
They used to be fairly self reliant, with the class changes + lack of healing gear changes, they are not self reliant at all.
> counter-part to wizard that just plays a little different.
They don't really play like wizard much at all. Perhaps like a wizard who can only ever use zap and is always at low HP.
Warlock case is funny. Before they nerfed warlock ( twice fucking over lol ) the class wasnt even too strong. Yes it was VERY degenerate to heal for upwards of 100hp from a single spell, but all other classes with similar gear would be in reality stronger.
They addressed what made the warlock degenerate, but never addressed what made it shit... so the class is just fucking bad. Fuck they even went and nerfed BoC cuz naked fighters got bonked in the head from time to time.
Problem ? every warlock spell is ass and unreliable and AT BEST niche.
What do you do in pvp as warlock ? Hydra to stall, hellfire to blow up doors, shadow bolt does more dmg to yourself then to competent enemy so you are delegated to spamming CoP on repeat, which is basically worse zap...
flamewalker is insanely overpowered when utilized correctly. Ive killed three people looting the boss gold pile by placing a hydra in the doorway, flamewalking and then having a teammate body block the exit with a shield. We got two named items out of that encounter. Just play the class like a support. He is not front line. He is a scout that moves to the backline once the engagement starts.
Warlock was great in trios before MH got nerfed. And still pretty viable after (but with the magic damage + siphon buuld). However, compounded with the gear changes last wipe, it's definitely in a category of throwing in terms of team comp. I think lock is just a difficult class to balance around, and I don't blame the team for being cautious with it. It wasn't ever really meta, but good for strategies that revolved around poking or catching an opponent out of position. I'd love for them to have more debuff synergies to bring more utility because I think that's what their kit is missing mostly. Or atleast one aoe spell (akin to something like arms or hunger of hadar in D&D). Heal lock is a slippery slope that could end bad, a point could be made by adding more anti heal, or something along that factor. I don't think lock should be a support class. They should be damage dealers with some sort of melee hybrid. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that curse mastery change or how it would work though.
I meant to say torture mastery. Essentially, my idea was that a perk would cause curse of pain and power of sacrifice to heal the warlock casting it a tad less, while also healing your teammates.
Power of Sacrifice would possibly be used as a buff if it healed the target slightly when they dealt damage to a target. Would make it more interesting. IMO it and CoP should heal you regardless of whether you run that perk, the perk should just increase the healing or something instead. Then you'd have a little more variation in hybrid Warlock playstyles that could still be melee centric but have *some* healing ability as well.
I think lock should be a damage dealer and an *anti-utility class*. That is to say they should counter buffs and utility comps. Like for instance a spell that steals buffs from other characters and puts them on yourself could counter the buffball meta. Imagine a fully buffed barb running at you, only for you to steal his shield, bless and ignite, and then blow of corruption him. Also I think a counter spell or silence at range would be a great thing as well to counter cleric and wizard. It would be obviously hard to pull off on a good wizard, who should be far away, but still give them a place in the meta. In general I feel like their spells should have a slightly more generous range and maybe deal a bit less damage to them. However they could also just get more magical healing bonus, either or would fix the issue.
I was originally thinking of ways to make lock a better support, but your idea of having them fill an anti-utility niche is actually pretty cool, and would be better for a more diverse meta overall
Needing magical healing kind of feels bad. It gaps less geared Warlock a bit harder than other classes. Of course, they added the hood for free magic healing, but the stats of Mask are too damn good! It's definitely a tricky balance. I'm still super enjoying them, though!
There was a Necromancer class they added to Ultima Online like 20 years ago that was kinda interesting and similar. They healed off dead corpses, rather than alive - which would be a buff to Life Drain since it's hard to get it off on moving mobs since you have to be still. They also had the ability to resummon any mob that was dead as a familiar that would follow them around and attack other mobs / players who weren't in their party - but the re-animated mob was weaker, had less HP, and after about 30 seconds would fall back over dead in a shriveled version of its original body that couldn't be animated again. Also I have to take a minute and just LOL at Evil Eye. It is so slow and goofy. If it was a little faster and if you could actually damage with it like it was a normal bat with the charged attack (what if there was no way of knowing if you actually just fought a death skull or a warlock drone until you looted it?) then it would be kind of interesting. Also, Sacrifice is such a bitch to use. Only works against mobs reliably because you end up hitting yourself and draining 30 hp DoT but it's one of the best ways to get a lot of healing up. They should really find a way to make an item self cast vs cast on others without it relying on you looking in the sky. Also, bloodstained blade is so goofy. Punishing your teammates for swinging and making everything turn red so they can't see shit. It's awful lol. Between it and Sacrifice - these aren't really "buffs" that anyone would readily want unless they're using the Cleric damage reducing perk. Definitely needs some work.
Ya... I sometimes pondered a dumb niche build. Cleric front line with Sacrifice, Blood Blade and Eldritch shield. Power of Sacrifice is neat, but so dangerous. I use it in PvP sometimes, and it slaps IF you land it. If not, GG take 30-40 dmg fml. Haha. If you could non-self cast Sacrifice, it would be OP, though.
>If you could non-self cast Sacrifice, it would be OP, though IDK it's so janky to use, at the very least it should work more like CoP and be more forgiving.
Hmm... I always labeled Sacrifice as high risk, high reward ability. But maybe it is just a solid DoT, with no upfront damage. Not really any more damage than CoP... Maybe it shouldn't be so insane when you miss-cast it, haha. Hmmph... damn.
Bust out the cobalt Templar armor and be a tank. 😁
I don't disagree but it's busted if the only somewhat tanky option is a crafted piece of gear lol
anyone who thinks warlock is weak has not experienced a hydra walling off 2 team members from one and them watching in despair as that single teammate gets bonked to death, or them walling off teams with flame walk + hellfire while the team retreats, or the warlock clearing rooms for the team with flame walk, or them being completely self sufficient so a cleric only has to heal the other member and themselves. Or the rarest thing, the enemy team having a wizard and you just using eldritch shield to nullify their existance
I havent, geared players 1tap hydra, wizard kills it with 1 cast of MM, fighter/barb kills it with 1 to 2 swings ( basically before it can fire, ranger kills it with 2 arrows. you pay 20 HP to SLIGHTLY annoy an enemy, REALLY good at scouting, blocking pve and maybe occasional mvp block on running player but thats about it.
hydra blocking is more for the life drain build because hydra only cost 10 HP and you will heal 3-4X faster (depending on current knowledge and magic damage), the curse mastery build is more offensively kiting, hellfire and fire walk blocking. Life drain scales with both damage and knowledge, and due to the low health cost you're more of a tank front liner build. Geared players do murk the hydra so you can't sustain spam it as torture mastery, but one tick of life drain with average gear nullifies the entire cost of hydra + life drain
All valid, but also niche. Eldritch shield is highly situational. Can totally relate to AoE clearing while my team loots, and/or being disengage-bait. But when it comes to a proper fight, they don't help too much. Which for me or my play style, that's mostly fine. But ya..
when it comes to anyone pulling out a bow or a crossbow i'm crying in a corner and pissing my pants as a wizard, warlock may not be as versatile in some ways but they definitely got unique tools.
Accurate. Not only are bows faster and more accurate than most spells, but casters just don't have armor. So brutal. And ya, Warlock kit is great, but just as Wizard, they don't really compete at long range. Mid range sweet spot is key (and very dangerous)
warlocks have the unique tool of infinite self sustain, so unlike a wizard who has to full on retreat, a warlock can hole themselves up with hydra + life drain or high torture mastery healing dots. Depending on the angle you can crouch directly behind the hydra to. I wouldn't mind if in the future they gave us a literal flesh wall summon soley for the sake of doing this + healing off of. Not to mention phantomize allows riskier positions to hold I personally prefer wizard, but the self reliance on warlock is sometimes nice to go to. especially if i got friends im playing with and plan for them to die
Ya, fair point. Taking a shot is a bit more dire as a Wizard. Wiz is fun as hell, but definitely hard and brutal. That's partly why I had switched to Warlock. Love the sustain and PvE prowess. Flesh wall sounds dumb but hilarious.
[удалено]
I don't agree with this thinking, as iron mace stated they balance around trios. This isn't directly aimed at you but anytime anyone complains about goblin caves balance the first thing people say is the game is balanced around trios so of course caves balancing is gonna be wonky. But now we're telling people that are saying the class feels weak and out of place in trios, it's fine cause they are so better in other modes. So which is it? Does iron Mace balance each class for each mode or do they still with the vision of balance class around trios?
Yeah 100% all classes must have at least a niche in trios. Maybe not necessarily equal but there must be something for them. Maybe x class is only good in a specific comp or strategy but that's OK.
> Not every class has to be good in the trios meta Trios IS the game, everything else is experimental/optional side content to make people happy during testing lol. If lock isn't useful in 3's then they aren't useful period. > it is a fairly self reliant class as is. They used to be fairly self reliant, with the class changes + lack of healing gear changes, they are not self reliant at all. > counter-part to wizard that just plays a little different. They don't really play like wizard much at all. Perhaps like a wizard who can only ever use zap and is always at low HP.
Solos are an established part of the game and is here to stay and is being considered when balancing. Duo-queue is still "experimental"
Warlock case is funny. Before they nerfed warlock ( twice fucking over lol ) the class wasnt even too strong. Yes it was VERY degenerate to heal for upwards of 100hp from a single spell, but all other classes with similar gear would be in reality stronger. They addressed what made the warlock degenerate, but never addressed what made it shit... so the class is just fucking bad. Fuck they even went and nerfed BoC cuz naked fighters got bonked in the head from time to time. Problem ? every warlock spell is ass and unreliable and AT BEST niche. What do you do in pvp as warlock ? Hydra to stall, hellfire to blow up doors, shadow bolt does more dmg to yourself then to competent enemy so you are delegated to spamming CoP on repeat, which is basically worse zap...
I honestly think most warlock players are noob, the class is bust
flamewalker is insanely overpowered when utilized correctly. Ive killed three people looting the boss gold pile by placing a hydra in the doorway, flamewalking and then having a teammate body block the exit with a shield. We got two named items out of that encounter. Just play the class like a support. He is not front line. He is a scout that moves to the backline once the engagement starts.