Community

Which is a bit weird. That means you're stuck with d6 for heroic, but can totally skip d8 once you hit paragon. It would have made more sense to simply drop it to a heroic tier feat, which would have fairly matched other feats similiar to it.

I thought I would update this thread with my experiences. My Drow Darklock is now 10th. This has been a good level for me, with decent damage and nice control. It is important to note that this is in LFR, so playing the 7-10th level mods at high is not the biggest challenge and it isn't unusual to feel capable.

I should also note the bad news. Levels 6-9 were pretty lame. The damage I inflicted was well below what other striker were dishing out, and often comparable to what defenders (and I'm not talking about cheesy ones) and even controllers were inflicting. That's unfortunate, given how little (relative) control a Darklock has when you try to go for damage. The combination of the low damage, pact boon disuse, and weak control at low levels can be pretty frustrating.

At just about all levels of play the Darkspiral Aura is near useless (with a few sporadic exceptions). As mentioned here and in other threads, it is really difficult to find a way to deal any real damage with the aura. There is a DM tendency to shy away from attacking the Darklock once they ever use their aura. This can extend over encounters, to foes that have absolutely no way to know about your aura. The upside is that you become near invulnerable, the downside is that you have a pretty useless class feature. Aura is also hard to trigger because you are an unappealing target. Because you likely avoided damage, few things care to take you on. They focus on the bloodied PCs instead.

Because of all of this, it becomes best to try to gather aura points in the first encounter of any adventure and aim for a burst of damage, then in later encounters try to use aura whenever possible. And, it can make a lot of sense to obtain/purchase a Rod of Corruption so you can gain some use out of your pact boon.

The good news, and the reason level 10 has been fun, is that the items, powers, and feats are starting to come together to offer opportunities for respectable damage and fun control.

Items

• Gloves of Eldritch Admixture - Adding 2d6 damage in two encounters and 1d6 in a third, plus being able to choose the type of damage and the type for your curse? Pure gold. I fought a troll today... welcome to fire, Mr. Troll. And, while not huge, it is an important addition to your damage. A daily feels so much more decent when you add 7 average damage to the result.
  
• Rod of Reaving +2 - The +1 was nice, and not for the obvious minion effect. Minions are of little concern in 4E. Adding 1 or 2 damage to every foe when you curse them... that adds up. When you consider my feats (see below), the Gloves, and the Rod, you end up with a respectable damage spike.
  
• Rod of Corruption - Until Paragon (if you will go Hexer), this is the key to gaining versatility. Trade your near-useless pact boon for spreading your curse, increasing you DPR due to the Rod of Reaving plus gaining tactical flexibility as you don't need to move around using minor actions to curse the foe you want to be nearest. As a Drow, I can instead use that minor on my racial powers or on items.
  
• Power Jewel - Cursebite, Power Jewel, Cursebite. Awesome.
  
• Gloves of Piercing - must-purchase in the early game when you likely inflict almost solely necrotic damage. This lets you get through that all-undead encounter. As you trade away powers later in the game for more control and psychic, these become less important. Still, they are worth carrying around and putting on when you find yourself before the door to a tomb...
  

Feats

• Level 1: Sacrifice to Caiphon - This feat is pretty useful at low levels, though less so at higher levels when you are often hitting pretty easily. Still, it is nice to have when you need it. Because you take little damage from most DMs, you can afford to inflict damage on yourself, even with higher level powers.
  
• Level 2: Implement Expertise (rod) - Accuracy is very important for us, both for damage and effects.
  
• Level 4: Improved Initiative - This feat is really nice to have. It often allows you Prime Shot in early rounds, lets you curse minions before they disappear, and help you get optimal positioning in round 1.
  
• Level 6: Cursed Advantage - You have to be a drow for this one. It is better than Distant Advantage, as you are often called upon to attack distant targets. This lets you get CA on bloodied foes, which is great for your accuracy.
  
• Level 8: Dual Implement Spellcaster - A small damage boost (probably +1 for most), but will be +2 at Paragon as you go for a +3 Vicious and +2 Reaving rod combo. Since you always have two rods, this is an easy choice over other damage boosters.
  
• Level 10: Empowering Shadows - you generally can move around with ease, thus gaining your concealment and this damage boost.
  
• Other feats worth considering include Distant Advantage if you aren't a Drow, Quickdraw instead of Improved Init if you want to have various rods in the Heroic tier, Lolth's Meat (useful in the early and late Heroic as you drop more foes), Dark Fury (if you can swing the attributes).
  

Powers

• Warlock encounter 1: Cursebite - A no-brainer. Most combats will have an opportunity for you to use this and it does great damage and works perfectly with a Rod of Corruption. You can almost always count on one hit, meaning a use of the Gloves and your curse damage are very likely to be applied to a target.
  
• Warlock daily 1: Decree of Khirad - I retrained this from Your Glorious Sacrifice at level 8, because I found it hard to be near PCs that wanted to give the sacrifice and because around this time melee basics for monsters can be pretty good damage. This power also gives you positioning, which can be huge at higher levels when the terrain gets pretty lethal.
  
• Warlock utility 2: Ethereal Stride - Critical for getting out of a bad place. You never use this unless you absolutely need it or know no foe/terrain will trap you in some way.
  
• Warlock encounter 3: Your Delicious Weakness - This power is so-so. You only trigger it periodically, and it is lackluster in other situations. But, it is nice at the lower levels when you are doing a lot of necrotic damage and this provides a way to counter that.
  
• Warlock daily 5: Twilight of the Soul - This is decent, but the other options are not stronger.
  
• Warlock utility 6: Dark One's Own Luck - This is pretty useful for the times when you must hit a target, such as when you used your Gloves, when Sacrifice to Caiphon would be too expensive in HPs, when you miss on a daily, when you fail an important save, etc. Though you could skip it due to the high accuracy, it seems prudent to take this.
  
• Warlock encounter 7: Influence of Acamar - A fantastic power. For once, it does good damage. And, it pulls a foe a significant distance. This lets you set up Decree of Khirad with an Action Point or pull a melee target to you to encourage them to attack you (and trigger your aura).
  
• Warlock daily 9: Ring of Pain - While you can't count on the spread, the damage is fantastic when you consider the ongoing damage. At 10th, I'm doing 2d10+8 and then 14 ongoing (with 9 ongoing to a separate creature if this one fails a save).
  
• Warlock utility 10: Accursed Souls - It can be a little hard to benefit from in some encounters, but it does boost your damage nicely. When it triggers early and the foes have a reason to bunch up, it can be really nice.
  

Comments always appreciated.

The infernal/dark pact combination is very useful.  While I've very rarely goten off the weakened benefit from the darkspiral aura, it's now a handy backup ability to deal some easy damage or kill minions after my character has gotten some temps.  Combining the temps with Sacrifice to Caiphon and you now have no reason to lose encounter powers without them damaging someone.  I've also found the two pacts make Life Siphon a must have, expecially in a party low on leaders.

In the campaign I'm in, we just hit 16th.  The warlock has really started to shine in the last few levels.  He was never bad before, but his pact boon shouldn't be what draws you to the class.  I was having some issues at lower level to be less of a controller and more of a striker, but with a few good feat selections the striker aspect is coming out more and more.

Alphastream1,

Love your posts in this thread. Very good notes and commentary. Keep updating it, please.

There is a new DDI article up on pact backgrounds. It is a really good read with many fine ideas.

I'll talk about it over on the main Warlock guide thread.