Shattered Kingdoms

So my recent experience with Gungja the giant fistie warlock was a lot of fun, but it taught me some things about the combo. Most importantly, joining the Fists really is the only way to go for a giant warlock. And the reason is that a giant warlock is essentially the worst of both worlds. It sucks as a caster and it sucks as a fighter. Most warlocks fight behind their elementals, but a giant cannot conjure one, until he age ticks or unless he gets the help of a Zavijahn priest. But this quickly wears off and with fatigue know making him even dumber, that's a really brutal hit. He can, of course, wait for an age tick, but that just seems like a stupid way of doing things. A character shouldn't only become viable after sitting on the shelf for months.

Since you can't rely on an elemental, you think well then maybe he should be fighting up front since he is after all a giant. Except as a warlock you get no real access to skills that allow you to deal out physical damage. So even though you can pack a wallop, you really can't. So then there are spells, since after this is a warlock. However, giants are so dumb that taking hits from multiple sources essentially flushes your concentration down the toilet. When getting hit by three or more people the only combat spell you have access to his shocking grasp. Not even healing rays to heal yourself. Not even burning hands which might let you hit all of them, assuming they are in a group. So he can't fight in back, and he can't fight up front. The only way forward is to shelve the character until you get an elemental or join the Fists(which admittedly is pretty entertaining). But I don't think that this is the way it should be to have a viable character.

That being said, it certainly does have a lot of potential, and it should be a rare combo so I wouldn't say it should get a lot. But to make it at least not an absolutely horrible experience, the concentration requirements on healing rays and burning hands needs to be lowered so that they can be cast while taking hits. I would also so lightning bolt, as you aren't going to be taking down armies with it, and front row casting is still an incredibly dangerous task. I would also say that breath of life should be lowered as well. If someone is desperate enough to get back to life this way, we're only hurting the other characters by not allowing giants to cast this at all.

Giant warlocks have been broken for a long time. I can't really think of a practical application for them.

At least gnome mercs have a hypothetical application as a mage killer.

Hold on, so you rolled a giant warlock and you're complaining that it wasn't very good, and that the warlock class should be buffed because of how bad giant warlocks are?

Just reduce the INT needed to cast conjure elemental to the point that a sitting giant can do it and the problem is solved. Reducing the concentration on other spells would be too big of a buff to warlocks. Reducing the INT for conjuring an elemental would only make a practical difference for a giant. It still doesn't make giant warlocks great, but it at least makes them more playable. A bouldering, magma spraying, lightning bolting giant in the second rank behind his elemental would at least be funny, if not very powerful.

That said, there ARE other options for a giant warlock besides Fist that take care of this problem. But, still, it wouldn't be bad to make this change to allow more giant warlock diversity (so maybe we'll see more than one every few years).

Just in case this gets raised again, giant warlocks are what are known as an 'advanced' combo. You can't choose this combination if you identify yourself as a newbie (to keep them from screwing themselves).

lol

I'd be curious what other race/class combos fall under this 'advanced' tag, besides necromancers as a whole of course.

Sprite swashies, surely.

Doubtful, sprite swash is certainly less 'advanced' than giant warlock. It's just swashes in general that are broken as hell.

Some amazing swashes have been sprites, (way) back when swashes were good: Quin? Peq?

Surprisingly, centaur bard does not seem to be an "advanced" combo.