Shattered Kingdoms

Alright, instead of creating a spam of threads,i'm going to centralize all my ideas to this thread here. No more threads, all my ideas will go here.

In short here's what I think about warlocks and such and some things to improve them.

Elementals

Problem
Elementals need some huge work done. As the front line of defense for a warlock, it's pretty bogus that any spell casting class can just toss out a dispel and poof, bye bye elemental.

Secondly, the fact that elementals are on a timer makes this class a huge PITA to play. You have to keep track of when you summoned it, and if you log off or so, well, that timer doesn't reset when you log on, so it can disappear at the most inopprotune times.

Third: Pets and elementals. Sorcs can have charms and pets. Necros can have wraiths, controls and pets. Why not elementals and pets? Sure elementals are tough and such, but if you can reach the warlock and own him (which most classes can easily have second row cept swashies, priests and a fewothers..) then what's the point?

Fourthly: Resistances. Fire elementals immune to fire. Why isn't air immune to lightning? What's the point of having spells that do damage if in turn they also damage your elemental, and mostly more than it will the enemy. Given the damage some people are capable of putting out melee wise, an elemental doesn't pose a serious problem as it is. Take in account the fact that you yourself are damaging your elemental, and then the problems are obvious. Healing rays isn't suitable enough to keep it up from that hail of incoming damage.

Solutions to Elementals

Okay first, make the elementals so they have some resistance to dispel.

Second problem solution: Take away the timer. I propose that conjure elemental be reworked entirely Redo the elementals if possible and make it so you can call any elemental at any time, HOWEVER only one at a time. For example. You call a fire elemental and see some priest vulnerable behind a lion. My idea, you should be able to dismiss the fire elemental, immediately call a water elemental and goto town. This gives warlocks reach and keeps them from getting wtfpwnd when their elemental decides to go home. Conjure elemental already has a loooong cast time so doing this at the wrong time or getting walked in on while you do this is bad.

Third problem's solution: Self explanitory. Theres two ways to fix this. Either A. give warlocks pets and elementals or B. make their elementals undispellable and permenant. Either works.

Fourth problem's solution: Easily said. Make elementals immune to their respective elements. Air elementals should be immune to lightning. Seriously, it makes no sense that this element damages them when they live on a plane potentially filled with this stuff. Infact, it could possibly be done so it could even heal them like cause spells and harm does undead, but I think that'd be a bit over stretching it.

Spell Set

Problems

Earthquake: Useless spell. Only use is for levelling and even then it's incredibly dangerous cause you'll die if you don't use it. It's spell is horrendous. If you need proof, I can goto the colliseum where a bunch of low level NPCs are, cast earthquake and show you the damage it does. Emptying the mana at veteran - mentor int he chancel (NPCs that were tough) would, if i'm lucky, kill 1 NPC of the 3-4 i pulled in. That was about 18 successful casts with a few fails here and there.

Solution
Several solutions here I've come up with. One lengthen it's cast time and strengthen it's damage. Make it do A LOT more damage since it can easily be bypassed by flying (which everyone has access to in one form or another).

An additional thing is possibly making it cause a lag akin to a prone to affect. Seriously. An earthquake. I don't think someone is going to remain flat footed when a 7.0 is shaking the ground.

As an add on, if warlocks can't be second row, consider making stoneskin absorb weapons from magic damage dealing weapons as well (life drain, etc.) that way they have some sort of defense..Light armor is good, but a barbarian furied zerked with gstr and haste and a yoyo or any other reaching weapon and you're a goner.

That's really about all I can come to. I know warlocks should have weaknesses and strengths like any other class, but hte main problem they have is there are too many weaknesses and not enough strengths. All the damage their spells do can be easily nullified with good enchants. Since they're second row any warrior with a reaching weapon or magic weapon can take one out. (Hellion magic cleave = ouch.) In theory they're alright, but to be competitive imo they need a serious buff. Something needs to be done. One spell (aka magma spray) should not make this class. yes it ignores MR, yes it clings and it hurts pretty badly, but that shouldnt be the end all be all of this class. Anyone with access to RE can nullify even this spell.

Post your ideas here. This as I said will be the last warlock buff thread I make, promise. All my ideas will go here from now on so I don't clutter up the forums.

Why are you worried about a magic cleave from a hellion? I junked Velshar ages ago. I can't even think of any weapon that can cleave outside of the infernal halberd that uses magic.

Warlocks seem fine to me =/

Warlocks are a horrible class.

You have to go Druid, or hope whatever cabal you join gets attacked on a regular basis, or you won't ever be worth dirt.

Sure, a warlock can kill people. Any class can kill people. But anybody worth a damn is rarely going to be bothered by a warlock. Except for during cabal raids, IMO.

I can. It's just that most of them do not have reach.

It's been a while since I've fought a warlock from either end, but I believe the problem isn't lack of defense, but lack of offense. When even low-MP griffons can laugh at magma spray, what are warlocks supposed to do?

I like getting rid of the elemental timer, provided there's a new penalty for letting your elemental die. By all means, let warlocks pick their elementals, and boost bad elementals so they're worth picking. This also prevents dispelling an elemental from being such a long-term shutdown.

The class is designed to have second-row vulnerabilities. Some improvement to stoneskin could be warranted. I'd like to see warlocks get whip back, as part of second-row design. But we don't need the elemental equivalent of back-row classes like sorcs/necros. Warlocks just need the power to match their weakness.

Maybe let art boost the damage of elemental spells, as well as reduce saves. As a bonus, this would also help spells like cone of cold compete with magma spray; magma does get monotonous. I wouldn't mind seeing warlocks have some minor AOE-debuffs as well, such as forced grounding and/or poison from a new wind spell.

cone of cold > magma spray

The only buff that warlocks need is a fix to elementals to be only affected by remove compulsion and give them a chance of saving against it.

No. Magma spray definitely needs to have a 10% chance of deleting a victim's pfile when successfully cast.

Are they currently affected by remove compulsion and cancellation? I thought dispel was the way to get rid of them, and at least that's an aggressive spell. Wouldn't having them affected by remove compulsion make it worse?

I'd prefer a buff where the elemental gets some percentage of the warlock's saves (e.g., 1/2) to help them resist the dispels.