Shattered Kingdoms

Alright, another thread from me. Yay. I know, hold the applause, but this is another "buff the locks" thread. Per help file.


Warlocks are the most untraditional of the wizardly professions, for in the
truest sense they are not wizards at all. A warlock receives his powers
from Yed, the great lord of the elemental planes and all warlocks must
pledge their powers to his service. Warlocks wield great destructive
power, but are often as great a danger to their friends as they are to
their enemies.

The bolded statement is laughable. Anyways, lets go over a few tweaks that I think would make the warlocks better. Feel free to chime in those who have pk experience or just those who want to share their views. Don't flame, this is gameplay. Just say whether you agree or disagree or not with something and state why or why not.

Elementals

Elementals are pretty darn tough. The only problem is they have 2 GLARING weaknesses. One is they can be dispelled. Not only can they be dispelled, they can be dispelled so easily it ain't even funny. NPCs can dispel an elemental with near 100% accuracy. Which they love to do. A lot. This makes me wonder what a sorc with art can do. Sorcs or any class with dispel can eat a warlock a live because, they can't have a pet AND an elemental at the same time. No third row and lets face it, ironguard doens't cut it when people wear mithril / addy weapons or energy. Solution? Don't make them undispellable as that'd be overpowered, but give them SOME resistance to dispel based on the wielders willpower or such. Seriouly. It sucks to be all prepped, go in spelled out the wazoo only to have your ele taken out at the start before you even get a spell cast.

Secondly is the timer. Explain to me why a necro wraith can be raised in multitude, has the shortest lifespan of any undead (at 45 minutes real time) yet is STILL longer lived than a warlock elemental. Elementals have a timer of about a day or so IC. This equates to roughly 24-30 minutes at most before it decides to leave you high and dry. Solution? Make them have NO time ot live and give them concentration instead.

Third and finally, is elemental resistances. The fire elemental is immune to fireball. This makes sense. But why is say the water elemental not immune to ice / water spells like Cone of Cold? Why is the air elemental not immune to electricity like Chain lightning? This could be a big boon to warlocks simply because it gives their elementals some survivability while casting things like chain lightning and earthquake. This would also give more versatility to the elementals than just everyone using fire elementals cause they're the bomb diggity as some say. More versatility is never a bad thing.

Spells

As stated above, warlocks are supposed to be a destructive force. They aren't much of one as mostly they're used as cabal defense or trib defense. This not a "role" for a "destructive force." A destructive force is something like a tornado wrecking a city. An earthquake destroying a city. Etc. That is a destructive force. As it stands now, their spells, with the exception of magma spray, can all be easily negated through sheer MP or MR. One spell should NOT under any circumstance make a class.

Solution? For one buff earthquake. Like seriously. I imagine the spell to be something akin to an 8.0 richter (sp?) scale earthquake that you know, does massive damage, opens chasms and such (as the death message says if you're lucky enough to kill something with it) not some piddly fast casting spell that does so little damage that you can drain your mana pool and only kill 3 of the NPCs of the 15 it hits. Increase it's cast time, make it ignore MP and MR , which I think it does already, (flight can negate it) and like..multiply it's damage by 10 or so. Seriously, as easily as it can be negated it needs a HUGE buff. Right now, it's useless and in most levelling areas will get you killed, even with the throw code and ironguard seeing as most of the NPCs love to throw wooden spears (not affected by ironguard).

This would probably be overpowering, but I propose also to make a concentration spell that makes spells ignore the affect of MP. What this means is a warlock's damage can't be negated simply by MP enchants. The reason I say this is because of the "Super enchanters" that are out there that stock SO many runes that they can negate just about any spell thrown at them. Same with MR. This would give locks a bit of an edge over them. Make it say ignore MR instead of MP as a warlock doing full damage could be pretty devastating if it ignored both MR and MP. Probably a bit overpowering, but just throwing ideas out there.

The reason I say this, is warlocks are not fine with just wands and staves in their current forms. I'm against the ideas of wands and staves having overpowered charges to begin with, especially with the ridiculously fast zap spam you can do with OP wands of say, acid blast or so that I've seen some people use. The charges of those things should be capped at 3 or so. I simply can't fathom a wand having more power than a spell that's concentrated on. I'm aware there should be l337 and powerful items out there, but still. Some of the things are ridiculous. (Op cone of cold anyone?)


Defensive Spells.

Now, if warlocks aren't going to get a pet and an elemental (which is completely unfair seeing as necros get a control, animate AND pet and sorcs get charmees and pets) then their defensive buffs should be looked at a bit. Ironguard is fine. Stoneskin is fine, but why is it that warlocks have no way to negate spell damage other than MP? They don't have shield or armor or such. The only things they have is to negate melee damage. Perhaps add shield to soak up some spell damage? Maybe spell ward to resist their own spells? Again, just throwing ideas out there.

Anyways. Voice your opinions and ideas. Yes, I know I post a lot of "assessment threads" and such and yes, I know I suck at the game. You don't have to tell me that. However, warlocks do need some help in my opinion. Agree or disagree, state your ideas or reasons. So go!

Edit: For those of you that say warlocks are fine and use that one, I think it was a centaur lock, druid as an excuse, that character is in a cabal and has abilities most locks don't. I'm looking at locks as a class b y themselves because a class isn't supposed to be dependant on a tribunal or cabal, which at htis point this class is.

Locks are sick against unprepped opponents and terrible against completely prepared opponents.
They're great in groups for PvE, both as healers and given they can summon elementals.
They're crazy sick at ranged damage with fireball, chain lightning, and lightning bolt.
Everyone loves brewed warlock spells.


That said, they've always been walked over/ignored by people with RE, MP and magical attack weaponry. To be honest though... I'm okay with that, because they don't need a lot to be almost completely combat effective. I brought Feanor down below 50% with my centaur peacekeeper lock in a couple fights, which sounds pretty bad until you realize that Feanor was completely kit out and I was wearing a lance and throwaway mithril.

I think all they really need is to be able to have pets buyable again.

Agreed. Sorcs get charms and pets, necros get undead and pets. Either take it away from every casting class that can "make" a pet, or give it back to warlocks.

If it were up to me, it wouldn't be possible to dispel elementals, and warlocks would be allowed a store-bought pet on top of their elemental. Though really, only one of those changes might be necessary.

I would also introduce -more- nice wands into the game . . . maybe some that lighties/greybies can actually use? The only two decent damage-dealing wands in the game are darkie only. I don't think I'd consider going lock unless it were a druid darkie, to be honest.

Locks do need an upgrade. Earthquake needs to be more viable in combat. It needs either a damage upgrade or a least a chance to knock NPCs down.

Also technically, fire elementals are immune to fireball and air elementals are immune to earthquake, seeing how they fly.

I am all for not being able to dispel and elemental.

Undo the last nerf-bat change to earthquake and give them store-bought pets - 'locks would be fine, really.

What was the last nerf change you speak of? I don't remember anything being done to it.

Luring by earthquake is now simply a recipe for suicide, and the "helpless" effect makes it about useless.

Warlocks are fine, and they don't deserve store bought pets unless Elementals come with a concentration cost.