Shattered Kingdoms

Kin is my friend so I'm going to pass over that last post; there's no way I can respond positively to it except to say to take a break and let your blood pressure lower, dude.

I do think that there's some question of how well warlocks can handle the current metagame, though. If a sorcerer is facing a well-prepared opponent who saves against all his spells, he still has charms to fall back on, and the last time I was around, Lathron with a full set of buffs was pretty scary on his own. Necromancers have similar resources--although we're all aware that you could counter that with some dispelling, at least they both have that melee option. I suppose the question is: if their offensive capabilities are taken out of the picture by a prepared opponent, do warlocks bring as much value to a group as a supporting class, like a bard or a priest or a shaman? Is the addition of an elemental and healing rays as valuable as the healing and buffs provided by a priest or shaman, or bard songs?

These aren't pointed questions, by the way. I'm genuinely curious.

Simple answer: yes. Faerie fire alone makes them worth having anywhere.

I think 'love hole' sounds dirtier than the censored term. I suggest we incorporate some grey aura spheres for censor words and lighten the load 'love' has to pull around here. 'Elements hole', 'justice hole,' 'mystery hole,' 'growth hole', 'fate hole', 'chaos hole', or even 'time hole' all have a nicer ring than 'love hole', and 'love' has too much of a lightie bias anyway.

Cone of cold is a very strong group damaging spell in end-game PvP, and healing rays is obscenely powerful for it's mana efficiency. If you have a competent leader in group PvP that communicates well, you can also do obscene damage to an enemy team before they even get to the room with you. Elementals are also extremely sturdy and now that they are "conditionally harder to dispel" they are infinitely more viable. End-game PvP, since warlocks get wands and staves, they have an absurdly large plethora of options to choose from that can totally wreck a group if they have access to a sleep staff, fear wand, magma staff, or cone of cold wand.

The biggest thing is that you just have to recognize a warlock's strengths and play to those, and avoid confrontrations where their weaknesses are exposed. I mean, Kin and I ambushed a six-man group under Morea one time and sent them all packing or killed them on the same character he's whining about being underpowered now.

I vote for 'magic hole' or 'lucky hole'.

Prince, I'd sum up the warlock class like this:

Strengths - Killing poorly prepared enemies, support in group pvp, survivability
weaknesses - killing well prepared enemies, utility

Basically, they can't solo people who are well prepared and know what they're doing, unless the warlock is druid/harlie, or is a defending tribunal member. They bring enough to group pvp to be worthwhile in that regard, though, and they are very difficult to kill when played properly. They have very little utility compared to the other casters. I would give them identify.

I would personally avoid playing the warlock class (unless it was druid/harlie) because I place huge importance on being able to kill any kind of enemy at any given time solo. That is just because of my playstyle of running around like a solo badass and killing everyone in sight.

^^^

Just throwing this out there, but most classes have issues dealing with well-prepared opponents who are prepared specifically to counter the strengths of the class.

It is easier to neutralize a warlock than other classes because a warlock has only one way to hurt you - raw spell damage. He gets no "I win" spells, and he has no real access to melee damage. Most other classes have more options, meaning that in order to neutralize them, you need to prepare for multiple kinds of threats. Even priests can use petrification scrolls.

All things considered, I think warlocks are okay. They just don't fit my playstyle. I would give them identify, though.

I think you're trolling slyly to keep this thing going and I approve.

I also think that clearly giant warlocks overcome the terrible weakness that the class generally has, since giants have enhanced damage and BASH so are more than spellcasters. Maybe you should try a giant warlock Kin.