Shattered Kingdoms

I'm surprised Hellion didn't receive more votes. That class, and perhaps Paladin (to a lesser degree) has always seemed underpowered, and will very quickly be steamrolled by any other class, especially with the updates to enchant/consecrate. In a lot of ways Warlocks should be a top tier class, but for some reason, are not, and I'm not entirely sure why. They have great spells for ranged damage, can summon elementals, and wear light armor. Yet, that is the only class that never had a Hero.
The person who voted Barbarian must have been joking.



Don

I think a lot of the reasons warlocks are considered fine is, like rogues, they kill people who are unprepared stupid fast, typically. Magma can one shot some sorcs after all. However, against prepared people, like rogues, you're an easy pick and nullified. Sanc / protection is really all you need to nullify a warlock unless you're a centaur. Magma still destroys them regardless due to their fire weakness. Add on shield and resist elements and you're golden. Even moderate enchants are enough to stop a warlock's power house spells from doing 30% per cast down to 4-12% per cast. Sometimes 16 if you're really lucky. Unless you've a dispel wand, you're pretty much up the creek without a paddle. Even more so if they have healing vials.

The difference between other classes, such as necro or sorc, is they have melee damage to ball back on via barb charms etc and dispel and FoD / Petrification. The elemental is a mercenary which typically gets 3 attacks per round, but does little to no damage. Giving them frenzy is a death wish as their survival rate goes down the toilet for a very, very tiny boost of damage. However, making the elemental a barb isn't the answer. I think simply giving warlocks dispel is all they need or maybe make it so elementals can ingest things so it's slightly easier to buff them. They'll have a way to debuff people who have scripted RE / shield and all that stuff instead of having to run away helplessly.

Against melee, a warlock almost has to be in a tribunal. A storebought pet will never, ever suffice against a warrior with a brain. A reaching weapon will reach behind the elemental and kill the pet in 2-3 rounds at most typically, even if its buffed. If you're smart and put your elemental second row, then all they have to do is still down the pet and reach behind it. Also when you have spells like chain lightning and fireball which hit your pet, unless you have a magic immune pet, then your battlegrounds become severely limited. In the wilderness lightning bolt is the only spell that can reach and only 1 league away. In cities, fireball and chain lightning can reach 1-2 rooms away but hit everything in the room which may bring in more than you can handle. Earthquake brings in -everything- around you and is easily mitigated simply by flying. Not to mention the knockdown / prone effect of it is way, way too short to do any good. By the time you cast it, they're up the next round giving you no time whatsoever to cast a spell in between them. If you opt to spam earthquake, it's damage is very, very minimal. I'd say cause light is probably more powerful. However, despite that, earthquake is a strange spell because it, like magma, ignores MR and can damage golems and barbs.

All in all, warlocks are kind of like a magical artillery class. They may have range but they -have- to have support. Playing a solo warlock without a tribunal is near impossible to do anything offensively, despite the large scale devastation they're somewhat capable of. Ranged combat and ranged spell casting a like ate a huge nerf to the change that makes it so when your party enters combat, you do as well. It makes it so you absolutely cannot flee because your elemental will as well so you can't initiate combat and then start pelting fireballs or what have you.

Pair that with the fact that elementals can only be buffed via wands and staves (they can't ingest things so no quaffing potions or eating herbs) and you've a really odd class that's hard to balance.

Tl:Dr Give warlocks dispel so they aren't reliant on magical devices. Magical devices should add utility, not be a necessity. This would also make it so that they can dispel people who are buffed up instead of running away helplessly like a rogue.

How do you figure? Hellions got a buff because of the enchant changes, because now people are less likely to have a crapton of fortitude and MP on their armor. Paladins are still tanks with holy word and BoG.

MAD is a game design term for systems with classes and ability scores. It stands for Multiple Ability/Attribute Dependency. Classes with MAD rely on more attributes than others to perform well in their functions, and these classes must often choose a subset of their skills to specialize in as a result.

Examples include the D&D paladin, ranger, and the SK hellion. When compared to bread and butter simplicity like the D&D fighter, wizard, or the SK sorcerer, we can observe a fixed resource spread more thinly among more "important" attributes, or we can observe a multi-tasking class which must be "built" to suit different roles very carefully lest it do none of them well at all.

D&D paladins and rangers are outrageously good, grep.

If you're working with a 30-point buy, sure. Or even a heroic array, maybe. But when you've got to have 16 wisdom to cast your best spells, 13 strength for that power attack feat, and you're thinking about turning undead decently... and you're looking at two 8s in your array, you're going to have to make some tough choices. That's what MAD is about. Your active abilities require a spread of attributes more diverse than other classes comparatively.

Standard game balance lingo.

You are surprised because you are wrong. The hellion class is amazing, and got a boost by the fact that stats can be enchanted now. The last hellion I played was a deep-elf, which is the worst race to ever pick for the class, and I had to have put at least 100+ people in body bags over the course of playing her.

I might make a Sargas hellion just to round them out at some point.

I'll add that Edoras was putting Hammer members in body bags with his MC hellion with little trouble as well.

Hellion's a good class, it's just a hard class. People with poor to little understanding of how to exploit the class's strengths complain about the weakness of hellion. Everyone else pwns with them.

QED MAD makes it possible to building a class "wrong."

Ive said for a LONG time, rogues definitely need that old 'conceal' skill that would allow them to be unseen in any city/ civilized area even with detect invis/ hidden. I think they should only be seen by true sight, or faerie fog. Swashbucklers need riposte and finesse to be better.