Buffs mitigate spell damage. Spell damage cannot be amplified as melee damage can except via faerie fire. A prepared merc as such in the situation above, becomes unstoppable by a warlock because it takes 25 casts to kill it, nevermind the fact they could have heal vials. In the situation, my character could have been twinked out in the best possible armor in the game, but without a dispel wand of overpowered proportions, there is 0 way to deal with that. Even an elemental with sanctuary, armor, protection and every defensive buff possible would not last long enough to kill it. You cannot realistically kite someone for 20+ spells. Is it sinking in yet? Believe it or not, yes warlocks DO have other spells than magma. Utilizing a racial weakness -should- be the choice path, not resorting to magma simply because it ignores MR / MP.
You seem to think that I'm wanting warlocks to be able to kill anyone without any preparation. That's not true at all. That fight SHOULD have been lost. They were better prepped than me, I GET THAT PART. The part that IS screwed up that I'm trying to bring attention to is the fact that spell damage can be mitigated by such an insane portion that you're left with no option to run. Warlocks do have some of the longest range, but in the wilderness they still only get 1 room away with lightning bolt. Fireball and chain lightning can't reach in the wilderness. In cities, it's all fine and dandy until you have guards chasing you and slowing you down. I'm talking about offensive capabilities here, not defensive. A defensive warlock has guards stopping enemies for them to attack from range. Anyone can play a defensive warlock, hell even I can as bad as you all say I am. Not to mention, remember the log when I drove Syn's necro out?
Against MR opponents, they absolutely destroy because they have no MP and little in the way of saves. Typically they aren't over buffed. What I'm talking about is the above to where you have someone so enchanted or spelled up that a warlock will -never- be a threat unless they're attacking into a city. For a helpfile that says devastating power, that's pretty damn misleading. Earthquake is a joke. Sure it knocks prone but nowhere near the length of bash and it does very, very little damage and is easily bypassed by flight. For all the vulnerabilities it should easily be doing 2-3x the damage. Oh just an FYI for an idea of how weak earthquake is, it takes about 80% mana on a sprite with max mana trains just to kill 1 or 2 NPCs with it. The spell itself casts absurdly fast, yes, but it hits all rooms often times drawing in more NPCs than you can handle. Oddly enough, earthquake ignores MR and MP as well I believe at least it's damaged golems that are purely MR which is weird.
Chain lightning and cone of cold are honestly fine. They hurt, do good damage as they should and magma is fine. Lightning bolt actually does more damage than magma after the magma clings. The only time magma does considerable damage is ON the cling. After that, lightning bolt, chain lightning or cone of cold are the choice spells because they cast faster than magma on top of doing more damage.
Again, it boils down to the fact that one can be enchanted and buffed to a point that spell damage does nothing. Necromancers deal with this by controls and animates. Sorcs deal with this by having access to charmed barbs. The only caster without a way to deal with it is probably priests but then again, they're meant to be a support class and harm does pretty good damage regardless. When you have a class that is specialized in damage dealing spells, they need to have a way to deal damage. Otherwise, all the preparation in the world wouldn't matter if you can't deal enough damage to force someone away from you. My elemental lasted 6 rounds unbuffed. That's quite a bit. It also leads me to believe the giant didn't have frenzy or haste or such. If it had sanctuary and protection, it would have lasted longer but stilll nowhere near the 20 rounds i'd need for enough bolts.
Magma might do more damage, sure. It has roughly a 2 round cast time as well. Given the situation, magma might do 10% and 25% on a cling in that situation. In which case, I STILL need 16-20 rounds or so (10 casts of magma, maybe 8 if one clings) so again, there is 0 chance of winning the fight. Sure, theorycrafting if I was prepared I could have a sleep staff, put him to sleep half way through, heal up my elemental and such and continue the fight. What's to stop them from using heal vials? Elementals can miss bashes and that's a possibility.
And finally, yes. I'm a noob. There, I said it. I've never denied it. But for gods sake stop focusing on THAT aspect and listen to what I'm saying instead of dismissing it for once. Warlocks have NO way to deal with highly enchanted opponents offensively. They are an offensive class. Spell damage should not be able to be entirely nullified by that point. It doesn't matter who was playing that character or what his kit was. There is no winning that situation ever, regardless of whether my character attacked first, the location or what have you. When your spells, a weakness of theirs, is doing 4% damage, you can't win. Period. End of story. No matter how good you are, they shrug it off, catch you, force you out of position and kill you. 0. Chance. Of winning. All your advice is pointless because it would not work in this situation. I'm not saying their spells need to be stupidly overpowered. They kill unprepared opponents just fine. They need a way they can reliably damage a prepared opponent.
With that being said, Id' like the imms to lock this account. I'm done posting on this [REDACTED] hole.
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