Problem is, I haven't seen one on the CharOp boards...not since 4e release. I may have just missed it, but I haven't seen it. Why? Because it either can't be done, because it is impractical to roll (because it involved directly nerfing a multiclass build that would benefit more from another primary), or maybe just because I missed it. Hence why I'm looking for a link to a build with numbers.
And confusingly, do all builds that average over 100 dps for all other strikers only involved a single race combination (the half-elf dil at-will), or can they use a bunch of races? It would seem, and I could be wrong here, but the Warlock is the only striker class that would need to "cheese" build to get some real dps going.
Edit: Oh, and to be clear, I agree that the Warlock is a different type of Striker in concept that leans more towards Control. I also agree that every other striker does considerable more damage, and that a Wizard does more control and damage then a Warlock. This is why the OP posted, and it's the reason this thread was posted. Helping to find a way to increase Warlock DPS to comparable levels of other strikers is hard within the rules, derailing a thread is not.
Fine, I'll Build it. However, I'll point out that almost every DPR Build that uses an Arcane Class on CharOps uses either Eladrin, Genasi, or Dragonborn, as all of those have heavy amounts of Racial Feats that produce amazing amounts of Cheese. Calling me on using Half-Elf is silly; you could do the same with a Human, I just happen to really like Half-Elves.
Fine, I'll Build it. However, I'll point out that almost every DPR Build that uses an Arcane Class on CharOps uses either Eladrin, Genasi, or Dragonborn, as all of those have heavy amounts of Racial Feats that produce amazing amounts of Cheese. Calling me on using Half-Elf is silly; you could do the same with a Human, I just happen to really like Half-Elves.
Those other classes can produce marginal benefits to the half-elf's ability to steal a new at-will, with particular concern to twin strike.
Arcane Implement Prof FTW. You are now exactly as good as the Sorc with Items.
Arcane Implement Prof. costs a feat AND the costs associated with a second implement AND 13 dex to gain a bonus that is, best case scenario, half as much as a sorcerer will with his str/dex bonus and roughly comparable to Bracers of Archery, which don’t cost a feat. Oh, yeah, and a sorcerer can take that feat too.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
Warlocks can use Weapon Focus, as well as EVERY other Feat a Sorcerer can, with the exception of the two or so Feats that boost AoE damage, and those are Wizard Feats.
You say this like it is an accepted fact. It is not. I have had many different DMs and have never once met one that let warlocks get weapon focus with a pact weapon. Customer service might be cool with it, but I think it is extremely rare to find a DM that is.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
It's actually BETTER than a Sorcerer's Bonus Damage? Because it CAN be much higher?? Duh? And even 5 points doesn't make it "vastly" inferior to even Sneak Attack, because there ARE no conditions for dealing Curse damage, whereas you MUST have CA to deal SA damage.
How can it be higher? Level 1: 1d6 vs +4. Level 15: 2d6 vs +8. Level 30: 3d6 vs +13. As for comparing sneak attack to curse, warlocks do have a restriction: they can’t miss, which rogues almost never have to worry about. When you factor in how much more often rogues will hit than warlocks will, it far exceeds the number of times that a rogue is deprived of CA. In short: on average, a rogue will get his sneak attack damage more times in a typical encounter than a warlock will get his curse damage. That is even ignoring the massive additional damage that sneak attack has on curse.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
Really, though, the only Striker 'Locks should be being compared to is Sorcerers, because the only reason a Sorc can approach other Striker's damage thresholds is via cheesey combos dealing with Chaos Orb or Winter/Frost abuse.
Sorcerer aren’t strikers. They are controllers. What makes them different from warlocks is that they are actually effective at being controllers. I am still not sure why they waste so much printing paper and valuable ink making single target sorcerer powers when no sorcerer in his right mind would take anything but multi-target or area attacks, but whatever. It is fun to have class where 70% of the powers are not even looked at.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
First of all, DOMINATE does not mean a Power sucks. Second of all, Otherwind Stride/Hunger of Hadar deals as much damage as many 19th-level Powers, and it can be done at 5th level. Lastly, Crown of Stars can Blind an enemy at 1st level.
No. Dominate powers do suck. Look at them. They don’t do any damage, so although you are costing the enemy an action, you are costing yourself an action by not doing anything better on your turn. You only make up for it if the monster can hit on his turn, but monster basic attacks are usually fairly lackluster so even if you manage to both hit with your dominate power and then also hit when they are dominated (a 25% chance on average) your damage is still unimpressive. Having one of your ‘strikers’ in the party use up one of his daily powers just to cancel out one guy is lame. Very lame. Otherwind Stride and Hunger of Hadar are awesome powers. My level 21 feylock still has both of them. But, again, I refer you to my main points which is that warlock attacks are mostly single-target low-damage duds. Unlike sorcerers, they don’t have the option to ignore all the single-target powers and grab the area ones. There are some, and they tend to be extremely good (Hunger, Otherwind, Rain of Frogs, Dark Rain, and Tendrils of Thubin to name a few), but you are still forced to take mostly single-target ones.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
Wrath of Acamar deals mediocre damage, but also removes a target from play. That's an incredible Power. Strand of Fate can combo with a bunch of Readied Actions to deal hundreds of extra damage. Doom of Delban is the single most damaging Power in the game.
Wrath of Acamar is also one of the only daily powers in the game that does absolutely nothing on a miss. Dailies that are completely wasted for nothing 50% of the time = lame. I had the power. It got retrained as soon as I hit 20. Doom of delban is nice, but it targets fortitude which is a serious minus on any power. Also let’s play some math: Barbarian ragestrikes a level 29 daily with a +6 bloodclaw mordenkrad and iron armbands, and then uses devastating strike for 4 rounds after: 18d6+42 (114) + [4d6+3d8+42 (72.5)] *4. Total 404. Warlock uses doom for 5 rounds, with a +6 viscous rod and a +6 DIP vanilla item: 35d10+15d8+110. Total 369.5. I am sure that there are ways to tweak these numbers. Admittedly I only used this as an example and did not spend a lot of time on it, but when you factor in rampage and the fact that the barbarian will hit far more often (high level monster Fortitude defenses are nigh-unhitable) I think the barbarian will win out.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
If you think 'Lock Powers suck, you aren't trying hard enough.
My level 21 warlock’s powers: Encounter: Otherwind Stride, Will of the Feywild, Cursegrind, Your Delectable Pain Dailies: Hunger of Hadar, Rain of Frogs, Dark of Mutoz Vot, Wispers of the Fey. I have dual implement prof., dark fury which affects nearly all my powers, and my damage is still less than half that of the rangers. Which powers are better? What power can I take that will better incapacitate an enemy than Confounding Arrows will? I have made what I think are the best choices available to a warlock and my damage is still nominal.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
Warlocks actually have a few available Encounter Powers that are Burst or Blast, and all of them have excellent Status Effects attached (Daze, Immobilize, etc). Also, stop trying to compare them to Melee Classes. Sorcerers SUCK at single-target damage compared to Melee Classes unless you use some of the super-cheese combos, because they mostly function on AoE Powers with EFFECTS. A Sorcerer's Effects aren't as good as a Warlock's, but they deal better damage. It's a trade-off.
When did I ever say that sorcerer single-target spells were not as useful as a bicycle to a fish? No sorcerer ever does or ever will take any of them. Sorcerer single-target spells have nothing to do with the price of tea in china. Sorcerers have plenty of area attacks so those powers are irrelevant to any discussion. Warlocks do NOT have enough area attacks. And if they did, since they can’t apply curse to more than one target, they are inferior at them to a sorcerer. And it is not a tradeoff. Hitting 8 guys for 20-30 damage each with a Spark Form compared to doing like 15-20 damage to one guy with Mire the Mind is not somehow mitigated by the fact that that one guy is blinded for a turn.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
NO ONE USES DARK FURY, GUY. If you really want extra damage, use a Pact Blade or Implement Prof and use Weapon Focus; stop trying to Strawman your way to Victory. Reckless Curse, right off the top of my head. All the Sand, All the Stars, Sprite War Call, Crackling Fire, Hero's Defense, Racing Fires of Ulban; these were all great Powers, and those are just the ones my Character can make good use of.
Once again, there is no reason to talk to me like I am an idiot. I know all about weapon focus/pact weapons, but that is not settled law. I have never met a DM who allowed it. And it says a lot just how terrible those feats are. They were designed expressly to be an option for implement casters comparable to weapon-focus. That they are so drastically inferior to the point of laughter says a lot about the designer’s metric of comparing spellcasters to weapon-classes.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
Again, Reckless Curse, and also, you underestimate Dilettante by a massive amount. Twin Strike with Implement Prof, TWF, DIS, and alllll the bonuses you'd normally associate with Twin Strike, and BAM; Ranger At-Will DPR - 3 because you don't have Lethal Hunter. Oh, the horror.
Did I mention that the level 21 warlock I have been playing for a year is a half-elf? Did I mention that I have retrained my dilettante power several times trying to redeem it? Well now I have. I know dilettante very well. Before VM, it was the definition of useless. Now, instead, it costs 3 feats to reach a point where it is not. Either way it is certainly not something to get excited about. But half-elves are not the topic of this thread, and I am tired of that argument, so let’s drop it.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
Yes they can; again, Crown of Stars can Blind an enemy, and then allow you to get extra damage for the rest of the entire Encounter. I've been playing a Warlock for almost a year now; single-target Control in the form of Targeted Removal works just fine. Rogues do it all the time with their Powers that completely incapacitate a single enemy. However, they don't have Powers that completely remove a target from play, and they certainly don't have the Ranged Single-Target death weapons a 'Lock can boast.
You fail to address the fundamental premises of why single-target control is an oxy-moron. The powers may be effective but they are not control, because they do not accomplish what a party wants a controller for. Controllers need to be able to impede the monsters as a whole in a profound way. Again, trading one ally for one monster is not what a party gets a controller for.
Crimson Lancer wrote:
One of our DMs plays a Feylock when he's not DMing, and Dominate-style Powers left and right with excellent Mobility tacked on can make a massive difference in most battles. Dominate is an excellent example of good single-target control.
Warlock mobility is impressive, but how does it translate into damaging or compromising your enemies? And again, dominate is not that impressive, especially at the cost of striker damage.
The problem is that you have to heavily optimize a warlock to get anywhere near the other strikers, or defenders, or to even get out of the leader ballpark. All the other strikers can easily accomplish this, without multiclassing or pulling obscure tricks. I'm sure that even a tiefling ranger can outdamage a run of the mill warlock. My feylock is not suboptimal at all (18 starting Cha & Int) but I'm still being outdamaged by the cleric. I don't feel that the defensive abilities are that much of an advantage to give up damage completely.
Not to mention that using Crimson's build, at 5th his daily power (hunger of hadar) does 2d10+Implement+1d6 (to one cursed target) to a 3x3 square. Sorcerer burning spray (1st level at will) will be doing 1d8+Dual Implement (Staff of Ruin/Any other staff)+8 (4 cha/4str) to the same 3x3 square. So, assuming 3 creatures are caught, he did about 40.5 damage total. Our sorcerer did 46.5 to the same 3 creatures with an AT WILL power. This is assuming both had +1 implements. Now, is this an optimized sorcerer, sure. But so is the warlock. Also, the sorcerer will have at least +1 better to hit (18 stat) and that assumes he doesn't take expertise (which I would at first level).
True, his daily power can be sustained and if all the monsters sit in it, pop for extra damage. But I do not think that is likely and if so, well, it is a daily. I'm just comparing its damage spread to an at will sorcerer ability.
At 11th level, charging with Howling Charge he has +17 vs. AC for 1d12+4d6+13 (assuming -2 ac for reckless). Our sorcerer has +17 vs Ref for 1d8+19 with burning spray (admixed cold). The charger deals about 33 damage while the sorc hits for about 23. So, if the sorc hits only 2 targets (close blast 3), he's done 46, over 30% more damage. That's not counting what happens should he hit the same targets next round with wintercheeze. I am assuming +3 weapon/implements. I am certain it will be pointed out that this is a very specifc build, but so is the 'lock one. Without specific builds, functioning as they were designed, which for the 'lock means not fighting at melee range, the sorc damage is just better because his class damage bonus affects every target of his Area/Blast/Burst spells.
Again, I'm not suggesting that 'locks are not an effective class. Only that they are not as capable at dealing damage
Arcane Implement Prof. costs a feat AND the costs associated with a second implement AND 13 dex to gain a bonus that is, best case scenario, half as much as a sorcerer will with his str/dex bonus and roughly comparable to Bracers of Archery, which don’t cost a feat. Oh, yeah, and a sorcerer can take that feat too.
The point is that a Warlock can keep up with a Sorcerer most of the time because he can take almost all of the same Feats, use all of the same Items, and abuse all of the same tricks. They don't do it as well, no, but they aren't abysmally lower than a Sorcerer.
You say this like it is an accepted fact. It is not. I have had many different DMs and have never once met one that let warlocks get weapon focus with a pact weapon. Customer service might be cool with it, but I think it is extremely rare to find a DM that is.
1) That's idiotic. Your DMs are houseruling. WeaponFocus gives you a bonus to damage whenever you use that Weapon to Attack. ANY attack. I've heard people say they would prefer that it only affected Weapon Attacks, but you're just houseruling if you assume that.
2) That means neither the 'Lock nor the Sorcerer can use it, meaning it's a net loss for both, so it evens out and is unimportant.
How can it be higher? Level 1: 1d6 vs +4. Level 15: 2d6 vs +8. Level 30: 3d6 vs +13. As for comparing sneak attack to curse, warlocks do have a restriction: they can’t miss, which rogues almost never have to worry about. When you factor in how much more often rogues will hit than warlocks will, it far exceeds the number of times that a rogue is deprived of CA. In short: on average, a rogue will get his sneak attack damage more times in a typical encounter than a warlock will get his curse damage. That is even ignoring the massive additional damage that sneak attack has on curse.
1) 6 > 4. Roll a 6 on that d6, and you're dealing more damage! ON AVERAGE, yes, the Sorcerer gets better damage at higher levels, and even then ONLY if he dumps every Stat Point into his Secondary Stat WITH a specific Race that gives a bonus to CHA/STR or CHA/DEX.
2) Again, 5 damage is not "massive" when it's situational. Your argument is also highly anecdotal.
Sorcerer aren’t strikers. They are controllers. What makes them different from warlocks is that they are actually effective at being controllers. I am still not sure why they waste so much printing paper and valuable ink making single target sorcerer powers when no sorcerer in his right mind would take anything but multi-target or area attacks, but whatever. It is fun to have class where 70% of the powers are not even looked at.
Um, no, look at the Sorcerer's Class Description. They are, first and foremost, Strikers. They deal damage.
No. Dominate powers do suck. Look at them. They don’t do any damage, so although you are costing the enemy an action, you are costing yourself an action by not doing anything better on your turn. You only make up for it if the monster can hit on his turn, but monster basic attacks are usually fairly lackluster so even if you manage to both hit with your dominate power and then also hit when they are dominated (a 25% chance on average) your damage is still unimpressive. Having one of your ‘strikers’ in the party use up one of his daily powers just to cancel out one guy is lame. Very lame. Otherwind Stride and Hunger of Hadar are awesome powers. My level 21 feylock still has both of them. But, again, I refer you to my main points which is that warlock attacks are mostly single-target low-damage duds. Unlike sorcerers, they don’t have the option to ignore all the single-target powers and grab the area ones. There are some, and they tend to be extremely good (Hunger, Otherwind, Rain of Frogs, Dark Rain, and Tendrils of Thubin to name a few), but you are still forced to take mostly single-target ones.
First off, most good Builds have better than a 50% chance to hit. Second, removing an enemy via Dominate with a Cunning Weapon means you've just increased your Party temporarily while lowering the enemy's Party temporarily. It's like a temporary Save-or-Die.
Do you really think that a Robe of the Archfiend has a bad Daily Power? Because I've seen it turn a difficult Encounter into a cakewalk.
Wrath of Acamar is also one of the only daily powers in the game that does absolutely nothing on a miss. Dailies that are completely wasted for nothing 50% of the time = lame. I had the power. It got retrained as soon as I hit 20. Doom of delban is nice, but it targets fortitude which is a serious minus on any power. Also let’s play some math: Barbarian ragestrikes a level 29 daily with a +6 bloodclaw mordenkrad and iron armbands, and then uses devastating strike for 4 rounds after: 18d6+42 (114) + [4d6+3d8+42 (72.5)] *4. Total 404. Warlock uses doom for 5 rounds, with a +6 viscous rod and a +6 DIP vanilla item: 35d10+15d8+110. Total 369.5. I am sure that there are ways to tweak these numbers. Admittedly I only used this as an example and did not spend a lot of time on it, but when you factor in rampage and the fact that the barbarian will hit far more often (high level monster Fortitude defenses are nigh-unhitable) I think the barbarian will win out.
You hit more than 50% of the time just using something like Reckless Curse and Expertise with a starting 16 Charisma as a Warlock. Use Prime Shot and maybe get some other odds and ends, and you will not be missing very often. It's not hard to do.
Doom of Delban is Cold damage. Winter/Frost to easily beat that damage with very little effort. I must disagree.
My level 21 warlock’s powers: Encounter: Otherwind Stride, Will of the Feywild, Cursegrind, Your Delectable Pain Dailies: Hunger of Hadar, Rain of Frogs, Dark of Mutoz Vot, Wispers of the Fey. I have dual implement prof., dark fury which affects nearly all my powers, and my damage is still less than half that of the rangers. Which powers are better? What power can I take that will better incapacitate an enemy than Confounding Arrows will? I have made what I think are the best choices available to a warlock and my damage is still nominal.
I would suggest replacing Cursegrind with All the Sand, All the Stars; Cursegrind seems nifty for mass Minion kill or something, but in my experience, using a Blast 3 Dazing Power can massively hamper your enemies. I'm also going to assume here that you're a Feylock, and you should expect to not be dealing as much damage as most anyone else; they basically are highly-mobile single-target Controllers.
When did I ever say that sorcerer single-target spells were not as useful as a bicycle to a fish? No sorcerer ever does or ever will take any of them. Sorcerer single-target spells have nothing to do with the price of tea in china. Sorcerers have plenty of area attacks so those powers are irrelevant to any discussion. Warlocks do NOT have enough area attacks. And if they did, since they can’t apply curse to more than one target, they are inferior at them to a sorcerer. And it is not a tradeoff. Hitting 8 guys for 20-30 damage each with a Spark Form compared to doing like 15-20 damage to one guy with Mire the Mind is not somehow mitigated by the fact that that one guy is blinded for a turn.
Most of the high-DPR Sorcerer Builds use a single-target At-Will and plenty of Cheese. That's all they do.
My Sorcerer Build concentrates on pretty much only AoE, and it's not all that far ahead of my Warlock Build when it comes to damage.
Again, All the Sand, All the Stars.
Once again, there is no reason to talk to me like I am an idiot. I know all about weapon focus/pact weapons, but that is not settled law. I have never met a DM who allowed it. And it says a lot just how terrible those feats are. They were designed expressly to be an option for implement casters comparable to weapon-focus. That they are so drastically inferior to the point of laughter says a lot about the designer’s metric of comparing spellcasters to weapon-classes.
1) Arcane Implement Proficiency allows you to use any Light or Heavy Blade as an Implement for any Arcane Power you have.
2) Weapon Focus is supported by the PHB FAQ, question number 15: "Can my Swordmage add Weapon Focus damage to his Implement Powers?" "Yes, he can."
3) That's why you don't compare Weapon-users to Spellcasters in DPR terms in 4E; it's obvious who would win every time.
Did I mention that the level 21 warlock I have been playing for a year is a half-elf? Did I mention that I have retrained my dilettante power several times trying to redeem it? Well now I have. I know dilettante very well. Before VM, it was the definition of useless. Now, instead, it costs 3 feats to reach a point where it is not. Either way it is certainly not something to get excited about. But half-elves are not the topic of this thread, and I am tired of that argument, so let’s drop it.
"Lrn 2 Bld" would be a very rude response here, and since I have nothing useful to say, I won't. :S
You fail to address the fundamental premises of why single-target control is an oxy-moron. The powers may be effective but they are not control, because they do not accomplish what a party wants a controller for. Controllers need to be able to impede the monsters as a whole in a profound way. Again, trading one ally for one monster is not what a party gets a controller for.
Banish to the Void. Sequester. Both Encounter Powers that completely remove an enemy from play. That's the very definition of what a Controller can do; an Effect that can temporarily remove the BBEG while you deal with his Minions. Wizards do it with Walls, Warlocks do it with Black Holes.
Warlock mobility is impressive, but how does it translate into damaging or compromising your enemies? And again, dominate is not that impressive, especially at the cost of striker damage.
I'd have to disagree. Passionate Betrayal after the Ranger heavily wounds the Big Nasty in a difficult fight can shift the battle in your favor in a very profound manner.
Not to mention that using Crimson's build, at 5th his daily power (hunger of hadar) does 2d10+Implement+1d6 (to one cursed target) to a 3x3 square. Sorcerer burning spray (1st level at will) will be doing 1d8+Dual Implement (Staff of Ruin/Any other staff)+8 (4 cha/4str) to the same 3x3 square. So, assuming 3 creatures are caught, he did about 40.5 damage total. Our sorcerer did 46.5 to the same 3 creatures with an AT WILL power. This is assuming both had +1 implements. Now, is this an optimized sorcerer, sure. But so is the warlock. Also, the sorcerer will have at least +1 better to hit (18 stat) and that assumes he doesn't take expertise (which I would at first level).
True, his daily power can be sustained and if all the monsters sit in it, pop for extra damage. But I do not think that is likely and if so, well, it is a daily. I'm just comparing its damage spread to an at will sorcerer ability.
At 11th level, charging with Howling Charge he has +17 vs. AC for 1d12+4d6+13 (assuming -2 ac for reckless). Our sorcerer has +17 vs Ref for 1d8+19 with burning spray (admixed cold). The charger deals about 33 damage while the sorc hits for about 23. So, if the sorc hits only 2 targets (close blast 3), he's done 46, over 30% more damage. That's not counting what happens should he hit the same targets next round with wintercheeze. I am assuming +3 weapon/implements. I am certain it will be pointed out that this is a very specifc build, but so is the 'lock one. Without specific builds, functioning as they were designed, which for the 'lock means not fighting at melee range, the sorc damage is just better because his class damage bonus affects every target of his Area/Blast/Burst spells.
Again, I'm not suggesting that 'locks are not an effective class. Only that they are not as capable at dealing damage
Agreed. However, the title of the Thread is, "Trying to salvage the Warlock as an actual damage-dealing striker." Can they deal damage? Yes. Can they deal good damage? Yes. Do they possess many Striker elements? Yes. Hence, the OP's premise is flawed.
I'm wondering if most people that argue the virtue of the Warlock to the death are a little too heavily invested in a character who happens to be one...
From a pure mechanical aspect the class is flawed and not very good sometimes because it isn't quite as narrowly focused on one roll and lacking alot of support that is tailor made for the class. Too many options people bring to the argument are special options intended for other classes that a Warlock has to bend over backwards to get to start to even compete with that other class. People also keep talking about how the Warlock will "totally mess with you in ways besides damage" but barring Curse of the Golden Mist (which really IS fantastic btw) I just don't agree, at all.
