Feylock Feedback

[a1b2]

But on that note, I think you must be doing something terribly wrong. Here is a list of mid-end game dungeon mobs you can hold off the top of my head: (etc)

I actually have a devil/demon pact warlock, not a fey. So my experience is with that side rather then the fey side.

[Nitro]

If you think playing a warlock on the surface is bad, try a palemaster on for size. A lot of people might be accepting of magical fairy blasts, but necromancy of the animation sort is the greatest taboo for a lot of folk.

Which is fine, PM's can survive and thrive in the underdark, it'd be weird to call for a class buff just to make them viable to play on the surface without dying to pitchfork mobs.

[Shadowy Reality]

Having played a DD quite recently...

The issue with DD is that you have to either give up being Rogue or being WM to get that DR. Giving Rogue up means you lose Tumble AC and UMD, losing WM means you lose a big chunk of your damage.

Warlock doesn't have to give up anything, they get the damage, DR, tumble and UMD.

Frankly, they still have more survivability than a DD, they can focus on Con while the DD still needs Str do hit things. They can kite while the DD needs to stand to hit things.

[Umskiptar]

They need to lose that infinite Wounding Whispers.

[Rwby]

Gosh. I make a post before I go to bed and wake up and it's two pages long...

Just to restate if I wasn't clear enough before.

While I can agree with some of these changes in the name of balence, [In particular the DR related ones. I'm deeply sad about losing Etherial Visage, but not in the slighest about the hard DR loss, which was silly.]

My point was that the vast majority of these changes simply make the class significantly less fun to play. Fights play out in almost exactly the same way, only they now take longer, occur in a more restricted set of dungeons, and you now have significantly less unitily to add to anyone willing to party with you.

And that repeatedly casting invisability/displacement to mimic Improved Invisability is really not fun.

Friendlocks can at least hide behind a Summon and let it do the work. Feylocks have to click, every round, twice a round, on sometimes now on themselves two, and now stacking different abilities because you can't just chain hold Monster [if you even have it yet] you have to chain hold monster with Flare. [Or just take a really, really long time.]

And while people are remarking on being able to hold entire dungeons, remember that most people play Feylocks with trash DCs, and if you max your DCs you're doing it at the expense of other stats, likely cripplingly so and ultimately going to cap out around level 15 anyway, and keep that same DC all the way till 30, when I garentee you no-one is going to be much effected by it.

I'm not sad the call is balenced. I'm sad the class is balenced in a way that's made it much, much less fun to play.
[Not because I can't win more. But because it's much more tedious to win the same amount.]

[Durvayas]

Aside from warlocks having wounding whispers for some reason, I think the class is in a good place insofar as balance goes.

Wounding whispers seems rather unfair, being one of the strongest biteback shields now infinitely applied to punish anyone who manages to pin down the hardest class in the game to pin down next to monk.
Another important thing to note is that they have this on top of being able to use the new bard harps, so any properly geared feylock, which will already have up to 700HP, also has a Great restoration ready on tap to cheat death better than any heal pot or spell ever could. They don't need to do more damage to their melee opponents anymore per blast while disabling, the shield will handle that unless the opponent has UMD for a wand of silence. Wounding whispers is insult on top of injury for any melee that manages to somehow not get kited.

[Rwby]

My only issue with wounding whispers is that it's a spell that says I want to be hit in the face.

I don't want to be hit in the face. Nothing about the class says it's a class that wants to be hit in the face. That means you're in melee, which means you're doing it wrong.

My reward for pureclassing a spellcaster class is a spell that only works when I'm being meleed? [?!?!?]

Before Etherial visage was a way of avoiding both level 2 spells, and minor DR additions. That made sense, it protects against low level arrows and spells, and fits with the theme.

All wounding whispers does is make me confused and want to multiclass for... Anything else.

[One Two Three Five]

Honestly, for real honestly, I've been playing warlocks since they got put in. Literally.
They're fine. They're a little weaker than the 'infinite dominate monster and self-heal on pos-blast' days, but they're still a damn sight stronger than some other entire classes, and being real, almost every other 'path' class. Feylocks, as Scholar Midnight says, trivialize a lot of content. Even solo. Kill times might be long, but the risk is minimal.

My fiendlock? I can drop darkness (or stealth, or brand new: invis!) and send my summon in with zero risk. The darkness sphere is iffy, but it does bug out a lot of AI and put them in this weird run-attack-run cycle that lasts till they get double-magic-flared to death. And both warlock types have enough HP to survive most mobs. Literally, I don't die on these characters unless I'm not paying attention.

And by not paying attention I mean the only time my fiendlock has died in the last month was because I was alt-tabbed reading the forums. Feylocks are better at high end stuff, and fiendlocks do trail behind them, yes-

But trailing behind the dude playing on Laughably Easy Mode by two steps sure isn't 'weak.' I hate to say this but if your warlock is 'weak' or 'useless' you are doing something very, very wrong.
(And for the 'fiendlocks have an easier time leveling!' argument: yo, check it out though, the class chassis warlock is built on has UMD and a minimum of 3 cha bonus. Get creative, it's not hard. And, since umd is part of the class, you don't need to multiclass to get it like 3/4ths of the rest of the game)

[LichBait]

Can concur. I know this thread is about feylocks primarily, but before I had a level 29 fiendlock, didn't even have end game DR yet and he could solo dungeons that wiped larger parties of a different configuration using a few rudimentary tactics. Aka darkness spam.

[Mr_Rieper]

Might not be the place for it but, time for an unpopular opinion/suggestion.

Warlocks should be put behind a minor award (lowest tier reward).

It's the responsibility of players to roleplay their pacts in a way that sets the tone for the server. Warlocks are fundamentally different than other spell casters, as well as being much less common. RP responsibilities aside, the class is very powerful mechanically and, like other infinite casters, means that dungeons have to be inflated difficulty-wise, just so we don't have infini-casters yawning their way through every dungeon. This causes every other class to suffer, indirectly, as we all have to fight our way through the same dungeons.

I'm glad that, as players, if we want to roleplay as a pacted individual, we can. The option is there, available to us. I do think, however, that there should be some extra steps involved. Warlocks should be rare and unusual. In the very least, significantly more rare than sorcerers and wizards.

[One Two Three Five]

I'd say they should only be available on creation with a reward, BUT freely available ingame. There's a bit of extra weight to it, I think, if you have to actually make your pact. I was kind've disappointed when they were made available on creation.

[Morderon]

Warlocks needed the nerf.

Not that I'm completely happy with the update

I have a feylock that operated mostly incognito; but between the changes to haste (which I'd prefer more weavemastery even with a longer cooldown, or perhaps any spell triggers the cooldown unless if the haste target is self) and the lack of improved invisibility (what sorcerer or bard picks displacement& invisibility over improved invisibility?) it makes it harder to contribute and conceal. Goes double if the party's chosen foe that adventure is immune to mind-affecting.

So it's a push to have them be yet another accepted/known warlock which I thematically despise.

[kittenblackfriends]

I know my friend who is new to the game (started within the past month on NWN in general) has been lauding over how stupidly powerful warlocks are for soloing. And he was playing feylock.

NUUUUUU THEY GOT RID OF INVIS!
*Improved invis, unless I missed it

I will say, cure light is really underwhelming for the only thing you get at 19. Maybe if it was cure moderate it would be a marked improvement.

All in all, I think feylocks could arguably only take 16 levels and have nearly maximum potency.

He hasn't really mentioned anything about his ability to solo getting hit, since he was doing a hold-build. I'm not even sure he is aware of the DR stacking. But he's still having fun playing it.

[Prestige]

I'll freely admit that I don't fully understand the team's rationale behind the changes. From what I understood, people were dissatisfied with how immeasurably strong Feylocks were in 1v1 PvP because of their infinite hastes, kiting, sustained damage, and the fact that when you catch and pin them down, they're still these damage soaking machines with 600 HP.

So instead of addressing the issue of how problematic Feylock is when you try to fight it 1v1, they seem to have doubled down on that strength and massively gimped the party potential. A feylock can now, with having lost very little of their own strength, get a damage shield that does 36(!) biteback every hit, 20% damage immunity to all three physical types (!!), and they're still infinitely hasted, sustained-damage outputting tanks with 600 HP. The tradeoff is that you're now significantly less useful to an adventuring/exploring party, which makes a class that was boring and unfun to level now significantly more so. And for what? So they can be infinitely more annoying at level 30.

My suggestion would be to have transmutation focus double the number of people you can haste at a given time, so with greater transmutation you can haste four people. This means that you're able to have some greater agency with your build by giving you three prospective spell focuses: do you care more about consistent dispels from Abjuration, the enchanting and hold DCs of Enchantment focus, or the ability to provide the utility of extended hastes to four people through Transmutation? It's simple, but it makes feylocks a bit weaker and forces them to focus their builds a bit more.

[Clive Ashwood]

With the change from damage reduction to damage immunity warlocks, coupled with infinite cast WW, feylocks are even more powerful then before in pvp. They just are not party buff bots anymore along with being pvp gods.

[Wytchee]

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG, BUT...

10% physical immunity stacks with the 10% slashing/piercing/bludgeoning immunity from mithril, etc. and is applied before the flat 9/- DR provided by Epic Damage Reduction.

That means that if you are crit-smacked by a scimitar weapon master for 120 damage, it now subtracts a total of 33 points of that damage (12 + 12 + 9/-) compared to the 19/- flat DR of which old warlocks so often boasted. Warlocks are now even more tankier than before.

You also have one of the most potent biteback shields in the game (1d6 + 30!) on infinite cast, as well as 4+int modifier skillpoint progression and access to all of the most useful skills.

[One Two Three Five]

They're tankier at 100 and above, yes. Basically feylocks lost a little party utility, but as susistu? said in another thread, the optimal ('correct') build for them is the same, playstyle the same, power the same. You shouldn't be getting hit often on a class with permahaste and concealment anyway.

[Wytchee]

They're tankier at 100 and above, yes. Basically feylocks lost a little party utility, but as susistu? said in another thread, the optimal ('correct') build for them is the same, playstyle the same, power the same. You shouldn't be getting hit often on a class with permahaste and concealment anyway.

Absolutely, but you shouldn't even concern yourself with meleers who aren't frequently hitting you for over 100 damage. There's always a bit of grief when a class gets some of its goodies taken away, but I honestly think this change is better for the server as a whole. Mass haste and Improved Invisibility spam threatened to make wizards and sorcerers largely irrelevant in epic dungeons. Now, vancian arcanists have some of their niche back.

Warlocks remain top-tier in PvP and PvE, just not as over-the-top as they were. While I agree with a lot of OP's gripes, I'm glad that the class has been toned down.

[Peppermint]

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG, BUT...

You're forgetting that warlocks had 10% DI before, too. Under the old model, the warlock would've taken 31 damage less. The difference here is a margin of two points.

I'd argue that in most standard circumstances, the DR adjustment is a nerf. YMMV though.

[Nour]

Feylocks are still perfectly viable, even if they are not the single best class/path anymore. And I have seen almost zero stigma attached to being a feylock while playing my current character. If anything I have seen the opposite. On the few occasions characters that have attempted to question the origin/nature of their powers, they have been shamed for being intolerant or fanatics.

That isn't a class problem, that's an inability to roleplay prejudice problem and almost everyone on this server suffers it.

[OverTheSeaToSkye]

Feylocks are still perfectly viable, even if they are not the single best class/path anymore. And I have seen almost zero stigma attached to being a feylock while playing my current character. If anything I have seen the opposite. On the few occasions characters that have attempted to question the origin/nature of their powers, they have been shamed for being intolerant or fanatics.

That isn't a class problem, that's an inability to roleplay prejudice problem and almost everyone on this server suffers it.

+100000000. Fey are not giggly cuddlebuddies, ESPECIALLY those that grant pacts. They are vicious, nasty, aberrant, fickle, evil monstrosities.

[One Two Three Five]

While true, perhaps we can have that thread separately?

[Wytchee]

There was a weeks-long DM event years ago to correct the whole "Fey-pact warlocks are just quirky mages!" misconception. It worked for about a month.

You're forgetting that warlocks had 10% DI before, too. Under the old model, the warlock would've taken 31 damage less. The difference here is a margin of two points.

I'd argue that in most standard circumstances, the DR adjustment is a nerf. YMMV though.

All-in-all the warlock adjustments were a nerf, but I believe they will make the server a better place as a whole now that wizards and sorcerers have some of exclusive party utilities back (mass haste, improved invisibility, et cetera). Feypact warlocks will remain a well-rounded class, but no longer to the extent that they make epic vancian casters feel irrelevant in groups.

These adjustments were a step in the right direction.

[Queen Titania]

+100000000. Fey are not giggly cuddlebuddies, ESPECIALLY those that grant pacts. They are vicious, nasty, aberrant, fickle, evil monstrosities.

I am insulted.

[kittenblackfriends]

Titania doesn't grant pacts (in-game anyways). And fey really do have little regard for life, even the goodly fey.

I would totally sign up to pact with Titania if I could.