I Sold My Soul for This?!?!

A Handbook to Warlocks as Pure Strikers

I am writing this guide because I'm tired of seeing questions about "why does my warlock's damage suck?" and "what can I do to put out good damage as a warlock?"  The fact that most warlock builds put out less damage than many non-strikers doesn't mean that warlocks can't be good strikers.  Warlocks can be good strikers, but they need specialized builds to become good strikers.  Because warlocks need specialized builds to do good damage, general guides don't serve the warlock class as well as they do for other strikers.  This is where the current guide comes into play.  If you are interested in more of the control aspects of the warlock, I highly recommend Malkonnen's excellent general guide to warlocks

This guide is going to first lay out the problem, then lay out the reasons for it, and then it will lay out solutions for the problem.  

This Handbook will use the following system for ratings:

• Red: A very weak choice, or one completely overshadowed by another.
• Purple: A sub-par, situationally useful, or heavily build-specific choice.
• Black: A middle of the road choice. Not bad, but not great either. 
• Blue: A very good choice. 
• Sky Blue: The optimal choice. 

Disclaimer

 All ratings are based on damage.  Other guides, such as Malkonnen's excellent guide, should be used if you want a more well-rounded treatment of the warlock class. I am very open to discussion, and am glad to add or reconsidering anything you guys find that I have overlooked.

This Handbook covers the following sources:

• AP - Arcane Power
• AV - Adventurer's Vault
• AV2 - Adventurer's Vault 2 (in progress)
• DP - Divine Power
• D### - Dragon Magazine, issue ###
• DMG - Dungeon Master's Guide
• DMG2 - Dungeon Master's Guide 2
• EPG - Eberron Player's Guide
• FRPG - Forgotten Realms Player's Guide
• MM - Monster Manual
• MM2 - Monster Manual 2
• MOTP - Manual of the Planes
• MP - Martial Power
• PHB - Player's Handbook
• PHB2 - Player's Handbook 2
• PHH# - Player's Handbook Heroes - Series # (the cards in with the new miniatures line)

Glossary

• Cha'lock - A Warlock who focuses on Charisma for a primary stat including Fey Pact Warlocks, Dark Pact Warlocks, and some Star Pact Warlocks.
• Con'lock - A Warlock who focuses on Constitution for a primary stat including Infernal Pact Warlocks, Vestige Pact Warlocks, and some Star Pact Warlocks.
• Dark'lock - A Dark Pact Warlock.
• DPR - Damage Per Round refers to the average damage you will do factoring chance to hit, average damage on a hit, miss and critical hit. The measuring stick for Strikers.
• Star'lock - A Star Pact Warlock.
• Fey'lock - A Fey Pact Warlock.
• Hell'lock - An Infernal Pact Warlock.
• Vestige'lock - A Vestige Pact Warlock.
• DIS - An acronym for Dual Implement Spellcaster, a feat that will get referenced a lot.
• AIP - An acronym for Arcane Implement Proficiency, a feat that will get referenced a lot.
• THP- An acronym for temporary hit points, which are your friends.

Acknowledgements: Malkonnen's excellent general guide to warlocks, from which I've shamelessly stolen.  Crimson_Lancer for opening my eyes to the possibilities of the warlock.  Lordduskblade for the gold standard of handbook formatting. 

Do warlocks actually do poor damage?

I've seen this question asked many times, and the answer is complicated.  If built and played like other classes, warlocks put out poor damage.  Most classes by mid paragon play something like this: rounds 1 to 5 spend all four encounter powers, and maybe spend 1 daily.  Rounds 5+ use at-wills.  This means that for most classes, their damage is coming primarily from encounter powers, with at-wills and dailies supplementing their encounter powers.  Let's compare a warlock to another single-target striker class whose damage is obvious: the barbarian.  For this analysis, I'm going to exclude all magical items, all feats, and leave stats at optimized level 1 values.

The most damaging level 1 barbarian encounter power is Avalanche Strike, which does 3W+str+con (for Ragebloods).  As barbarians use big 1d12 or 2d6 weapons and there are str and con races (like goliaths), this is typically 3d12+4+4= 27.5 damage. 

Warlocks have no encounter power that can even match this damage until level 17, with Your Delectable Pain doing 4d8+ 2d6 (curse) +4 (charisma)= 29 damage.  Yes, you read that right: the base damage of the most damaging warlock encounter powers doesn't even match the base damage of the most damaging level 1 barbarian encounter power UNTIL LEVEL 17. 

In short, a warlock, if designed and played like other strikers, will be at least whole tier behind in damage. 

Why does my warlock's damage suck?

There are three reasons why warlocks typically do less damage than other strikers

First, warlocks were designed with a large focus on control.  So although they get the striker label, most builds are at least half controller.  This focus on control, in part, accounts for the relatively poor damage output of warlock encounters and dailies. 

Second, warlocks are primarily designed to be lurkers, unlike all other striker classes, which are all artillery (e.g., sorcerers), skirmishers (e.g., rogues) or brutes (e.g., barbarians).  Lurkers are hard to kill because they're evasive.  Lurkers also don't do as much damage as other strikers, making lurker fights long, drawn out affairs.  This is of course, fine and dandy for monsters, but players are in a party, which might not be able to compensate for the long drawn out style that warlocks, as lurkers, were designed to use. 

Lastly, warlock damage can suck because designing and playing a damaging warlock is much more complicated than with any other striker.  Previous guides unfortunately haven't really helped a whole lot in this regard because they focused on optimizing the class in a straightforward way, like you would any other class.   This approach, although sensible, puts a good deal of controller into a build, and doesn't adequately address the class-specific methods for making the warlock into a good striker. 

Ability Scores

Strength - A common dumpstat. Redundant with Con for Fort, and HP/surges are a lot more valuable than a melee basic attack. The main thing going for it are armor/shield proficiency and a few other feats that require a small Str investment. (Recommended Starting Score: 8-13, before racial adjustments)

Constitution - Primary for Hell'locks, Vestige'locks, and half of Star'lock powers, but useful for everyone. Adds HP, healing surges, and boosts some of your Utilities so it's much better than Strength for Charisma based Warlocks. But remember you need both if you want the armor upgrades. (Recommended Starting Score: 12-18, before racial adjustments)

Dexterity - Redundant with Int for Reflex/AC, but it does add to Initiative and some good skills, but probably the most important thing these days is the 13 Dex requirement for Dual Implement Spellcaster. (Recommended Starting Score: 10-13, before racial adjustments)

Intelligence - Your 'Secondary stat' regardless of your pact.  However, intelligence riders are largely controller focused.  Feel free to dump Int in favor of heavy armor and/or dex if you're going pure striker, dual stat starlock, or have a specific multiclass/hybrid build in mind (Recommended Starting Score: 10-16, before racial adjustments)

Wisdom - A very common dumpstat. Redundant with Charisma for Will defense, and your probably not going to be counted on for any Wis based skills. The only thing it really has going for it is that some feats require a little of it. (Recommended Starting Score: 8-13, before racial adjustments)

Charisma - Primary for Cha'locks and a potential dump stat for Con'locks. Boosts several of your skills, and boosts enough of your Utilities that even Con based locks will likely prefer this over Wisdom. (Recommended Starting Score: 10-18, before racial adjustments)

At-Wills

Constitution based-

• Dire Radiance (PHB) -A very similar power to Hellish Rebuke, with several things in its favor.  It's radiant damage so it's great against undead. It's potentially a multiple damage power.  However, it targets Fort and its trigger is very situational. It might make for a good combat opener, as that is when it is most likely you can force the target to trigger the extra damage. But be careful about who you target as the melee only foes often have high Fort defenses, and ranged foes are already within 10 squares when you attack (so move afterwards!). Like Hellish Rebuke above, this power is constitution based.  Sadly WotC didn't think to give you the choice of basing this on Charisma instead of Constitution, so for star'locks who opted to ditch Con in favor of a Cha, this power is dead weight.
• Eyes of the Vestige (AP) - A useful utility spell. Getting everyone cursed ASAP is one of your primary motivations as a Warlock as your power increases as every cursed foe dies, so being able to curse an extra target (who doesn't have to be the closest enemy to you!) is very potent. And being able to damage an already-cursed target allows you to kill minions quickly and get a nice pact boon early in the encounter. In addition, you get to target Will and deal psychic damage, and get a variable upgrade on top of that. The main down side is the low actual damage. 
• Hellish Rebuke (PHB) - This is one of the most damaging at-wills in the game against a single target.  It also can serve as a defensive spell as it can discourage enemies from attacking you.  Once you learn to trigger the secondary damage roll, Hellish Rebuke is a double hitting power that even adds your primary stat both times and the second attack automatically hits if the first does. 

Charisma based-

• Eyebite (PHB) - a great defensive spell, but it puts out pathetic damage for a striker.  Unless you're a gnome, an eladrin or  want bards to make fun of you, pick something else.
• Spiteful Glamor (FRPG) - the power wouldn't be that bad if it weren't for the fact that you have to take Eldritch Blast with it. The bad news is a conditional upgrade from d10 to d12 over Eldritch Blast is almost worthless. The good news is it does at least target will and deal psychic damage opening it up to the Psychic Lock feat upgrade and making it rarely subject to resistance.

Constitution or Charisma based-

• Eldritch Blast (PHB) - Not that you get any choice with this one, but at least it isn't a terrible power to be stuck with. 1d10 damage is ok. Untyped damage means you don't have to worry about resistance, unless you admixture it. And counting as a Ranged Basic Attack means you work well with Warlords and can buff the hell out of this power with certain items and feats.
• Eldritch Strike (PHH 1) - This is hot way to make a nice melee warlock, and there is a reason why this is the most poached warlock at-will by non-warlocks.  1W+con or cha +curse damage and a slide 1 makes this as damaging as the much loved Howling Strike, but with more control and utility.   If you could swap Eldritch Blast for this it would be better.  However, by RAW the only way to take this power is as a human, a hybrid, or as a Half-elf of a different class. Just make sure to pick up a pact weapon, take Arcane Implement Proficiency, or hybrid carefully (e.g., swordmage) to get an implement that can be used as a weapon.

Strategies

There are eight basic strategies for making a damaging warlock, which are pretty much the same eight strategies that all strikers can use to do good damage.

Multiple-Damage Rolls

Warlocks are one of the few classes that have even one at-will with multiple damage rolls.  Warlocks actually have two at-wills with multiple damage rolls: Dire Radiance and Hellish Rebuke.  Both of these powers have a trigger for the second damage roll.  In addition, both of these powers are con-based, making multiple-damage rolls a con'lock strategy.  As the at-wills are where a warlock's damage lies, con'locks have a consistent damage advantage over cha'locks by using this strategy.  The trick with both Dire Radiance and Hellish Rebuke is getting them to trigger their secondary damage rolls consistently.  Once you can consistently trigger a warlock's multi-damage powers, you simply need to pick feats, items, paragon paths, and an epic destiny that adds to damage rolls.   

Dire Radiance's trigger relies completely on the enemy's actions, so your DM could deny it to you consistently.  This makes Dire Radiance situationally useful at best.  

Hellish Rebuke's trigger requires any sort of damage before the end of your next turn.  So your enemy could trigger it, or you could trigger it.  So you could use your temporary hit points from your pact boon to get beat on, and kill your enemies twice as fast. 

Nice, certain RAW triggers for hellish rebuke

Heroic Tier:

• Bloodclaw weapons- Level 2+: especially good for warlocks with eldritch strike or hybrids
• Soulfangs-Level 2+: can be useful, but do significant damage to yourself
• Standing in a fire
• Falling small distances
• Enemy Auras
• Sacrifice to Caiphon: Damage yourself when you miss with an encounter power using a dump stat

Paragon Tier:

• Bloodmage: Bolstering Blood Hurting yourself to hurt the enemy twice!
• Student of Caiphon: Steps of the Purple Stair

Epic Tier:

• Boots of Caiphan- Level 24: Useful, minor action power that can deal low damage to yourself.  

Accuracy

Warlocks can be designed, like rogues, to rarely miss.  This increases DPR because you're doing consistent, although not necessarily spectacular damage.  You need to pick feats, items, paragon paths, and an epic destiny that adds to attack rolls.  Starting with a natural 18 in your primary stat (preferably constitution) is a good start down this path.  Conditional benefits such as Prime Shot and combat advantage also are important.  Dragonborn, Gnomes, Humans, Half-Elves, and Tieflings have racial feat support that increases their accuracy. Revenants also can be from any of these races, so are similarly awesome.

Exploit Enemy Vulnerabilities

Warlocks can be designed to use vulnerabilities of enemies because warlocks can use a variety of elemental attacks.  Every time you damage a foe with an element to which they're vulnerable, they take extra damage equal to that vulnerability.  Therefore multi-damage powers combine very well with exploiting vulnerabilities.  

Undead are typically vulnerable to radiant damage, and you have many radiant powers including the at-will Dire Radiance.  In addition, the feat Lasting Frost can be used to create a vulnerability to cold.  Due to awesome feat and item support,

In general, the more elements your at-will of choice can do the better, because this makes it more likely to hit a vulnerability. Dragonborn (and Revenant Dragonborn) have good feat (the breath feats) and item support (Rod of the Dragonborn), so they are the masters of this approach.

Avoid Enemy Resistances

Warlocks use many elemental attacks.  Some enemies are resistant or immune to certain elements.  For example, many undead are immune to poison.  

One of the easiest method of avoiding resistances is to use powers with multiple energy types, preferably radiant or psychic.  The enemy therefore needs resistance or immunity to all the elements to resist any of the damage.  Just like with vulnerabilities,  Dragonborn (and Revenant Dragonborn) have good feat (the breath feats) and item support (Rod of the Dragonborn), so they are the masters of this approach.

Another easy method of avoiding resistances is to look for feats that negate or counter resistances, such as Surging Flame and Venom Hand Master. 

Resistances are multiplied in importance with multi-damage powers, as the enemy resists damage from each separate damage roll.  

Maximizing Criticals

Critical hits are an important part of DPR.  There are two aspects that could be optimized:  1) critical hit probability, and 2) critical hit damage.  The most important aspect of these aspects is critical hit probability, because critical hit damage isn't important if you don't get criticals frequently.  

The easiest and best way to increase critical hit probability is to take either the Student of Caiphon or the Daggermaster paragon paths, which give you the largest 18-20 consistent critical hit range.  Another powerful way to increase melee critical hit probability is multiclassing into Avenger, which is useful only for melee warlocks.  Using a multi-attack power, like twin strike, is also a great way of increasing the critical hit per turn probability. 

Many different items, and some feats can increase critical hit damage.  One of the best ways to increase critical hit damage is to use one of the many feats (e.g., Two Weapon Opening) or features (e.g., Punisher of the Gods) that grant additional attacks on a critical. 

Multi-attacks

Using multiple attack powers is a method of increasing DPR that is typically used by rangers (against a single target) and sorcerers (against multiple targets).  Warlocks have some area attacks in their encounter and daily powers.  These attacks typically do not do much damage to each target, but spread a great deal of damage among several targets.  

Several feats (e.g., Two Weapon Opening), items (e.g., Rending weapons) or features (e.g., Punisher of the Gods) grant additional attacks on a critical and are usable by at least some warlocks. 

Hybrids can also be made to use encounters and/or daily powers in the same turn you are using warlock powers.  This can be done by picking attack powers that require a minor action, a free action, or an immediate action.  Rogues and rangers both are good hybrids that can utilize this approach to multi-attacking.  This is a good strategy for a striker because warlock encounter powers produce little DPR, and these powers may allow you to get multiple striker features (e.g., curse, sneak attack, quarry) functioning in the same round. 

Some melee warlocks may also poach Twin Strike (e.g., by the half-elf dilettante power), and then use the Bard feat Combat Virtuoso to attack with Charisma instead of strength or dexterity.  Warlock can then deck themselves out like a ranger and be very respectable strikers. 

Charging

Eldritch Strike is one of the most damaging at-wills usable on a charge in the game.  For example, Eldritch Strike, with curse damage, puts out identical DPR to Howling Strike, which is a much touted barbarian at-will.  

Another charging option for a non-hybrid warlocks is a normal basic attack. If you are a non-hybrid warlock with a  good strength or have taken the feat Melee Training, a basic attack puts out as much damage as Eldritch Strike.  This is because, as a normal warlock, you can apply curse damage on any hit you make.  In contrast, hybrid warlocks don't have this luxury as they must use a  warlock power to apply thier curse damage.

There are a ton of feats and items that increase charging damage, virtually all of which are usable by warlocks.  In addition, warlocks have access to an at-will teleport at level 10, meaning they can easily charge each and every turn.  In short, you can make Shaka's San Diego Supercharger into a warlock with little to no difficulty. 

Lose-Lose Situations

Many players like to borrow defender strategies to create lose-lose situations for enemies that increase DPR.  Ideally the enemy is forced to do something not advantageous.  For example, combining a paladin's Divine Challenge (through the MC feat or a paladin hybrid) and White Lotus Riposte or the Dark pact boon means that the enemy will take damage from you regardless of what it does.  This increases your DPR. 

Another use of the lose-lose situation is using the various riposte effects to encourage the enemy to attack someone else who isn't as big of threat (like most defenders).   This also decreases the liklihood of getting nasty status effects, like stunned or dead, that would decrease your DPR. 

Coming soon feats

Coming soon: Hybrid fun for everyone

Even more example builds