Back from a break! My Impressions of the changes.

[Junaru]

Well I logged in for the 1st time in months to see what the changes to the Warlock were like. Well the 1st thing I noticed was my buffs were now permanant. No need to cast Accord over and over. One odd thing I noticed was Strength of Void.. Since I was only 31 when I logged out and had Adept I of this spell it sits in my book upable to cast. Well atleast SOE didn't remove it and make me loose the adept I book. Over the weekend my guild when to finish the GB(Nek Castle) for one of our Guardians and asked me to come along. Yes I warned them I hadn't play in months and everything was new to me, but they wanted me to come anyways. Hehe. The group was a Guardian(41), Warden(44), Ranger(3<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, Swashbuckler(33), Fury(32) and me Warlock(31). I have a few Adept III(DD, Flashfreeze, Infinite Void)  and all my other spells are Adept I. My Master II are Conflagaration and Negative Absolution. Most of the fights were multi mobs and I came out on top in about 75% of them. I did find that there was almost no sense in trying to cast a spell if the mob was 10% or less health. The spells just take too long to cast. 4 seconds doesn't sound like a long time but when you are sitting there watching the cast bar & the mobs health bar and the health bar is moving faster then your cast bar you tend to really feel the effects of casting slow. Over all the Warlock isn't bad. I mean I did do alot of damage and I was the lowest in the group but the fun of playing the Warlock seems gone to me. With the slow cast times and the long recast times I was never close to out of power. The whole night I never casted Infinite Void once. Before I left I was casting it a few times a fight or after the fight. Now it seems like a raid only spell. Also I found myself casting spells I wouldn't normally cast cause there was nothing else to caster. Every other spell was on a cool down. I just think they took all the cool things about the Warlock out. Before he was fun to play now I just spam the same 5 buttons and wait till they are ready to cast again. Sorry I'm not knocking the Warlock. I just liked the old Warlock alot more. <div></div>

[Geoff]

why would you expect to run out of power in a heroic fight, especially when you're in there with a 38 ranger, a 41 tank, and a 44 warden (did he mentor??).  And are you kidding me about taking the cool things out?  What did you cast before?  If anything, we have too MANY things to cast nowadays.  I had to add an extra [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] hotbar after the update and expansion. 

[Junaru]

Well I guess being level 60 might help with the cast bar. As it is at 32 I don't really have a ton of things to cast. 4 AoE spells but hell is it really "worth" casting "Mage 8 Storm of Lightning" spell against level 30+ mobs? It seems alot of the single target spells are linked. Umm one DoT worth casting and one debuff worth casting. Do I expect to run out of power. Umm no but before the revamp it was a problem and one that I liked. I like having to tap myself for power. I like having to balance my hps and power to be the most effective I could be. I like that we casted faster then Wizards but did less damage. I liked balancing my nukes with the hate. As for before not all my spells were linked like they are now. Before I had alot more single target nukes to cast. Before I had two life to power taps that I used. Hell before my DD was hitting fof over 900's and now it barely breaks 700 and takes longer to cast and recast. I'm going to guess here that you weren't in your 30's when the revamp came so you really can't understand where I am coming from. But at level 32 I spend alot more time waiting on cool downs then I did before and IMHO it sucks. Am I here crying about it. No just saying I liked the old Warlock more then I like the new one. <div></div>

[Seth]

<DIV>I was lvl 50 with the expansion and first i was like hmm different, then i hated the changes after a couple of weeks. After a couple more weeks i find that we could do completely insane amounts of damage and this was nerfed in LU16. Its going to take you some time to know what spells are doing again. You say that it seems some spells are linked now, and thats what you have to go through and throw away some spells.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At lvl 59 i found a way to do 25,000dmg in 30secs so im not complaining. I used to hate at the start people saying learn your class or go home. But its true, learn your dmg types, the cast times, the recasts, the extra dmg spells etc etc and master your timing.</DIV>

[Junaru]

Seth01 I agree 100%. I NEED to relearn the class and one night in Nek Castle isn't going to cut it. But I guess the EQ Bard in me wants to mash buttons and with the new Warlock I don't seem to do nearly as much button mashing as I once did. Again I never said the class sucks just that I like it more before the revamp. <div></div>

[Oakbr]

Not enough buttons to mash?  Hmmmm.  I've got 3 hotbars filled with spells + another one with just buffs.  Granted, I don't use every spell in every fight, but there's lots of things to do.  There are certain spell lines you won't have until higher level, like Nethros and Devastation.  Even so, you can toss in those debuffs early in the fight, use various DD and/or AE, root adds, mana pump your groupmates, stun mobs, etc. I'm not entirely pleased with the changes made in LU#13--I signed up to be a big nuker, not an AE specialist.  That said, even after the changes, Warlocks are a powerful class.  We can put out plenty of DPS, and that makes us welcomed in groups from Antonica to DoF.  We also seem to be played less often than Wizards, so we're somewhat unique.  I still get comments about people not realizing what Warlocks bring to the table--and Netheros (Lvl 48 Demon Pet) tends to startle people the first time you cast it.

[Dreadwalk]

I was in an XP group with a necro , wiz and myself.  We were exclusively killing ^^^ single mobs.  On the parsing the top 2 would be wizard or necro , more often necro if the wizard didnt get a 4.5k IC in.  BAsically the mob died to fast for me to get enough solo DD spells in to kill it. (and all of my DDs are Adept III).  If it is a group mob I know i will outdamage them all easy , but we are like a one trick pony  .. against solos struggling to compete.  Slow cast times and huge MIN/MAX range on spells not helping. On a side issue , If EQ2 ever introduces PVP you dont wont to be playing a Warlock , slow times will stuff you up against most out there. <div></div>

[Seth]

<P>Yer that is one thing not to do, duel. From the get go of LU13 i knew there was no chance in a duel and i shouldnt even bother. Eventually a month later a wizard out of no where duels me and the window pops up. I hesitate and examine the guy to realize it was a wizard. I should have just said no but my hand clicked yes. </P> <P>Countdown 3, 2, 1.... stun, ice comet = dead. The wizards runs off laughing.</P> <P>I bet that guy has a huuggggeeee E-[expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]. :smileysurprised:</P> <P>Soloing i have no problem with. Solo encounters are pretty weak for any mage class. When the changes first hit i just soloed to get an idea of what spells do and how i could apply them in an xp grp setup. Took maybe a week to really understand what spells did and such. Really though, i couldnt care if i wasnt able to solo and orange or yellow mob. At lvl 50 soloing is just not worth it if your after xp, and now that im lvl 59 i dont even bother to solo.</P> <P>thing is hang in there, see what you think after a week or so. You will prob hate it at first or be stuck in the middle, after abit more time you will know if you either hate the class or like it.</P>