Possible fix for the warlock, what do you think?

[Ziffna]

<DIV>Ok since LU13 warlocks have been and continue to be AE specialists the problum with this is there are quite significant number of single target encounters.  This is the biggest problem i have seen as a warlock.  What we need is for all or most of our encounter only AE be changed to Targeted AE without the encounter restriction. This way we can truly be AE specialist when the situations call for it.  Such as getting 3-4 single mobs that aggroed on the pull as it stands now warlocks AE spells are useless with the exception of our fury line which is the weakest PBAoE i have seen of any of the classes, or at 65 we get rift which while a great spell is limited in its usefulness being that we have to be right in the middle of the mobs and arn't able to target it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>By taking our current Green AE spells and making them targeted AE's (belive theses are orange if they exist post lu 13)  we would be able to use our ae spells when ever there was multiple targets in the area we are targeting not just  when there is a large encounter.  Because of the potential problems i can see the need to restrict the number of mobs that could be hit by the spells down some perhaps down to 5 like devistation and i can see that having an AE targeted stun could present problems but with the recent 75% reduction in duration that shouldn't be a problem.  Our AE root should also be reverted to its previous form of being a targeted AE with say a 10 mob limit.  Perhaps you could even give higher spell quality AE's increases in target # but that might be asking too much.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Suggested changes to targeted AOE spells:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Devistation Line</DIV> <DIV>15m radius from target</DIV> <DIV>5 targets max</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Absolution Line</DIV> <DIV>15m radius from target</DIV> <DIV>5 targets max</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Skellital Grasp line</DIV> <DIV>15m radius from target</DIV> <DIV>10 target max</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Possibly Rift</DIV> <DIV>just change to targeted AE instead of PBAoE</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Fixes </DIV> <DIV>Fix the fury line to do suffecient damage to warrent getting into melee range of the mob.</DIV> <DIV>Fix change to Dark infestation so that dot continues after spawning broodlings</DIV> <DIV>Give the curse of isolation line a useful spell effect other then making nil crystals or make it instant cast and near 0 mana, after all it has near 0 usefulness.</DIV> <DIV>Fix nethros so that it switches targets in an encounter when the target dies as the broodlings are now.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Not sure what to do with our seal line it has questionable benifit some say its great other say it's useless personally i can't say it's good or bad as i can't see any difference when fighting mobs even con, lower con or higher con, nor when fighting solo, heroic or epic mobs but i'm running all masters or ad3 spells maybe that negates the effect if that is the case the spell still needs to be looked at.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Ziffnabb on <span class=date_text>06-12-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:19 AM</span>

[HenrikStyrer]

<P>That'a a horrible idea. </P> <P>1 - Doesnt alter the fact that most encounters 3 or less mobs.</P> <P>2 - Aggro management would go to [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]. Every tank would hate you.</P> <P> </P> <P>But something needs to be done. Maybe they should redefine our role alltogether, because this king of AE isnt working out as planned.</P><p>Message Edited by HenrikStyrer on <span class=date_text>06-12-2006</span> <span class=time_text>12:11 PM</span>

[Dajuuk]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> HenrikStyrer wrote:<BR> <P>That'a a horrible idea. </P> <P>1 - Doesnt alter the fact that most encounters 3 or less mobs.</P> <P>2 - Aggro management would go to [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]. Every tank would hate you.</P> <P> </P> <P>But something needs to be done. Maybe they should redefine our role alltogether, because this king of AE isnt working out as planned.</P> <P>Message Edited by HenrikStyrer on <SPAN class=date_text>06-12-2006</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>12:11 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I am not making a statement on the idea pro or con, but it would address issue 1 your raised above to some extent.    It would allow the use of our AoE abilities against multiple encounters simultaniously.   Which would allow groups with warlocks in it, to create their own version of > 3 mob encounters by pulling several single and duo encounters simultaniously.   It would be an out of encounter aoe centered around the target rather then the caster.    Right now with Rift and the fury line we can do pretty decent damage when nuking a large number of single and duo encounters.  But before the rift line we only had 1 out of encounter AoE and lagged far behind other aoe classes when trying to kill many differant encounters at the same time.</P> <P><BR> </P>

[HenrikStyrer]

<P>Just because there is a warlock in the group doesnt mean it's better to take on multiple encounters. For a tank having multiple encounters is a pain, and 1 class out of 24 that has alot of "blue" AEs doesnt justify it.</P> <P>You have to put your ideas in perspective.</P>

[Araxes]

<div></div>Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think that currently in the game if you have something targeted (either tank or mob) and cast Rift -- the Rift radius is centered on your target - not on you.  If you have nothing tareted it is centered on you.  (Rift and only Rift works this way.  The Fury line does not, so far as I can tell.)As for the idea itself - I certainly would not want targeted PBAoE.  Three reasons:1.  Adds2.  Lack of situational use ergo a lack of practical functionality i.e. my value as a class goes down3.  Confusion among other players as to what exactly my role truly is - let's leave definitions as they are and improve what we haveNow what I WOULD like to see in future spell lines or in adjustments to perhaps ONE current spell line is this:- the ability to set - via a grid or some other geometric pattern - a variable effect radius; the grid or spell pattern could be moved around like a floor rug would be moved around - dragged with the mouse - to set a player-determined range and area (within defined limits) ... if you play WoW and have tried the Warlock -- this would be most similar to their "rain of fire" type spell, where the player chooses the actual area to "set down" the meteor rain.I think that would be a very cool and much appreciated addition.  It would give us a bit more flexibility in terms of outside AoE and also allow us to be very selective about its usage.  But I'd only like to see it in one new spell line - or perhaps as a change to the Fury line.  Othwerwise I'm fairly content with the current repertoire we have.If you realy want to get down to the issue ... getting rid of the "Target is no longer alive" message would solve just about all our problems.  Of course it would also horribly imbalance many encounters in regards to our abilities ... so ... I doubt it will ever be removed as an obstacle to spellcasting.<div></div><p>Message Edited by Vicontessa on <span class=date_text>06-12-2006</span> <span class=time_text>05:07 PM</span>

[Worrick]

<DIV>Rift is cenetered on you no matter what you target. All blue AEs function that way, they radiate from the caster.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The original poster has a good idea for targeted AEs, btu it woudl not be a good idea to change our current encounetr AEs to that. Encounter AEs are very often mroe usefull them blue AEs for the simple reason that they are easy to see what woudl be hit, you can safely use them around other encounters with no worry of atatcking mroe mobs then you wanted. Also another important part of encounter AEs, they have no target limit beyond simply being 1 encounter, changing them to out of encounetr AEs would limit the targets so you can't even hit all the members in some encounters.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So in effect you would be takeing a good spell type adding 1 situational benefit, and takeign away 3. Unlimited target, saftey near other mobs, aggro issues.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would like to see our Blue AEs changed to target AE. They have much to gain from this with little to loose. The only loss is that you do not need a target to cast right now, but would with this change. Oh and you also have to pay more attention to which mob you are targeting and what is near it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A change like this would be best as a ne spell line type, maybe added with an adventure pack, expansion pack, or AA style thing. It should use a purple icon backround since Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, and Orange are already used.</DIV>

[Ziffna]

<DIV>I guess it's just a situation i run into more then most nearly every group i run in pulls 2 or more encounters especially when dealing with single mob encounters.  As for getting unwanted adds unless your casting them at something to pull, never a recomended idea i'd see it being quite hard to get adds with an area of 10-15m most of the time if your fighting something and another mob gets that close it's going to agro weather you use a targeted AE spell or not.  Basicly they would have the same effect of casting a fury line spell with the added benifit of not having to be right in the middle of the mobs doing there blue combat arts smashing your head in. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Being that there is apparently much dislike of this idea, i propose adding a new modifier skill with a 3 second reuse time and no mana cost that causes an ae spell to act as a targeted but not encounter locked ae and imposes a 5 mob limit on targets hit.   In this way Warlocks that prefer the safety of the encounter locked ae can have them and those like myself that deal with multiple encounters regularly can use their spell as real AE's rather then the target encounter spells we currently have.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Really the only problem i see with having out of encounter ae's is the fact that apparently the game coding for a wall or door being in the way has no effect mob run though walls and doors at will and spell effects go right though them unless it's a line of site issue on the players end.  Perhaps one day we will again see a mmo where walls and doors were obsticals that mobs and players had to deal with not just players. </DIV>

[SwissArmySh]

<P>Fixing or tweaking?</P> <P>Are we a broken class?</P>

[Diapause]

<P>I think you are trying to solve a content problem by fixing one individual's spell make-up. The problem is that this game is heavily ported towards single encounter fights. It is usually one 'ubah' mob with some very weak henchlings that go down faster than a girl a prom night in any regular group.</P> <P>What we need is more diverse encounters.. </P> <P>1. Maybe have two or 3 'ubah' bosses linked that pose almost raid-like strategy in a single group setting. </P> <P>2. Having adds that are incorporated under one single encounter group when they 'add' would also help fix the prob. </P> <P>3. Add more larger group encounters. I don't mind the 'weak henchling' make up, but there aren't enough 8-12 group encounters in game at the non-raid level that make it noticeable to have a Warlock in group.</P> <P>Those ideas above anything else will address your concerns IMO. Just imagine Apocalypse Crit'n on 12 mobs at once.. ah, if only I can dream.</P> <P>Quattra</P>

[Xarov]

<P>Diapause hit it right on the head, After LU 13 Warlocks became "AE specialists" but they didnt make ae encounters more in depth or as plentiful as single target fights </P> <P>We had some issues but LU 24 is helping us in alot of them.. Lets hope it works out well </P>

[Worrick]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Xarovix wrote:<BR> <P>Diapause hit it right on the head, After LU 13 Warlocks became "AE specialists" but they didnt make ae encounters more in depth or as plentiful as single target fights </P> <P>We had some issues but LU 24 is helping us in alot of them.. Lets hope it works out well </P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I diasagree a little bit here. Lu 13 was rigth when DoF came out, during the DoF expansion there was a lot of opportunities for the AE of warlocks . In KoS though I do agree, there is practically zero use for an AE specialist when there is a great lack of any reason to use AEs. Raids in KoS often have soem initial adds that die within 20 seconds, but then turn into single target for the rest of the fight. On there rare cases there are multiple mobs in an encounter that lat long enough to matter, there is not enough hate generation by the tank to use AEs too thier fullest.

[Ziffna]

<P>to me being an AE specialist is all about doing damage to an area what we really are are large encounter specialist.  We only have one relitivly weak ae that truly affects an area not an encounter untill level 65 when we get rift as a bonus ae.  every thing else we cast is an encounter spell not an area of effect unless your counting the encounter as the area of effect to me tho, an encounter is a target not an area off effect.  If we are supposed to be AE speciallists then 2 seperate encounters standing next to eachother should be hit by the same spells not arbatrairly seperated.</P> <P>PS. Pretty sure you can only hit 5 mobs with apoc.  unless it is different from devistation as devistation has a 5 mob limit even tho it's limited to encounter only.</P>

[SwissArmySh]

The targeting change in this new update will make me a lot happier when it comes to landing those encounter AoEs.

[SmEaGoLLuM]

<div></div>Glad one of my previous posts has gotten at least the OPer thinking and post his opinion which is very valid regarding warlocks only having one blue ae and a very weak one at that, which is what I said in my post in dark infestation. Having said that though, I believe only nebula needs to be changed to a blue ae, and apocalypse should not be limited to 5 targets, it should be 8 targets or unlimited. Don't really want to go into detail why, have said it time and again and am not really in the mood atm.<div></div><p>Message Edited by SmEaGoLLuM86 on <span class=date_text>06-14-2006</span> <span class=time_text>10:50 PM</span>

[Dajuuk]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> SmEaGoLLuM86 wrote:<BR> Glad one of my previous posts has gotten at least the OPer thinking and post his opinion which is very valid regarding warlocks only having one blue ae and a very weak one at that, which is what I said in my post in dark infestation. Having said that though, I believe only nebula needs to be changed to a blue ae, and apocalypse should not be limited to 5 targets, it should be 8 targets or unlimited. Don't really want to go into detail why, have said it time and again and am not really in the mood atm.<BR> <P>Message Edited by SmEaGoLLuM86 on <SPAN class=date_text>06-14-2006</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>10:50 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I don't understand why Apocalypse is limited in targets at all.   It makes no sense.   Its an encounter base AOE it should hit the whole encounter.   I don't know that it really makes much of a differance because there are so few > 3 mob encounters but it makes no sense that apocalypse is the only encounter aoe with a target limit.</P> <P> </P>

[Windowlicker]

I can't say I like the idea of the above changes.  The only thing I'm concerned with at the moment is our single target damage.<div></div>