Shattered Kingdoms

Warlocks appear to be a very neat class on the surface. That is until you get deep down into them. There are a lot of perks, but there are also just some glaring disabilities that need to be addressed. These actually coming from three of what should be their most useful spells: stone skin/conjure elemental/magma spray.


Conjure elemental starts out as being nice, really nice as it provides a pretty much free tank for the warlock to use. Until you start noticing it's glaring weaknesses. Elementals are pretty sad tanks even though they're given some hefty hps. I played a sorcerer spellcaster and found that I could obliterate most anything by having a merc NPC shield block/parry their way through a group of NPCs.

While it could be a good tank, the absence of the ability to equip weapons on them makes them the bottom of the barrel when it comes to tanking NPCs for spellcasters. Not to mention they are only allowed to have 3 attacks, period, they lack the ability to go berserk (I seem to recall elementals being able to berserk, why did they lose that ability?) and tend to end up doing minimal damage to even a decently equipped NPC or player.

Another dismal fact about elementals is that once you conjure one you are stuck with it for a period of time (I haven't actually timed it), and they have a tendency to cut and run back to their home plain at the most inopportune times. This is very bad for anybody that has to rely on a NPC to stand in front of them.

To compound that, if your elemental is ever killed or dispelled before their time is up and you can "conjure another elemental" you are stuck completely without one until you can. That means you have to risk running for a pet if you ever find yourself without an elemental, and if you do have a pet you can't conjure one without first dismissing your pet. It's really boggling why warlocks aren't allowed to have storebought pets and an elemental at the same time. But this really irks me that you have to wait until a specific amount of time passes before you can get a new elemental.

Another thing is that I notice (from ganking NPCs in the wilderness) that elementals don't really seem to be under the influence of the resist elements spell. Chain lightning barely scratches my warlock, but after two casts of it, my elemental is about at 30% HP and anytime my tank is that low on HP I start to get worried. A spell like that is really difficult to utilize since it doesn't have the same range as other spells and it really runs the risk of ganking your tank.

The pros seem to be that fire elementals are immune to weapons under a certain level as well as air elementals and that fire elementals are auto hasted. Oh, and they can bash.

It's pretty much easier to play with charm person or control undead/animate dead than it is to play with conjure elemental. Especially since a single petrification or finger of death spell can gimp any elemental and send the warlock packing for half an hour, or expose them for the bash gank.

Stone skin looks really great, until you realize that everybody and their mother has a weapon that ignores the spell. I can probably pick up a couple weapons outside of every starting city that have reach and pass stone skin. Outside of the realm of stone skin, I think these weapons need to be either reduced in number or something else needs done to the armor code because of how elite it is to have a weapon that does magical damage. But the real point here is that they make stone skin next to useless. I can't even begin to want to waste the concentration and mana on upkeeping this spell anymore when everybody and their mother has a weapon that bypasses it, not to mention their innate ability to completely ignore the protection that armor gives to the wearer. Magical type weapons really need to be reduced in number, and that's not from an elitist point of view, that's from a balancing point of view.

Lastly, magma spray. For a master level spell, this has quite possibly got to be the most useless spell in the warlock's repertoire. The damage is comparable to cone of cold, yet it only hits a single target. And if it doesn't cling then it doesn't do any more damage. Most every other spell in the warlock's arsenal is preferable to this spell. Cone of cold hits an entire group. Chain lightning and fireball hit everybody in the room. Quaff even a weak vial of resist elements and magma spray isn't really a danger to your character. The damage over time isn't really worth it either. Outside of the world of PvP things get worse. If ever you venture to the wastelands, you can horrify yourself with the experience of finding out that magma spray is completely useless to just about every NPC out there. Either that or they're immune to the damage over time aspect of it, which is really stupid.

These are my beefs with the warlock class thus far, and I really think these things need addressed and changed.

Conjure elemental has no risk to it. Your never going to miss cast it and have a giant bash you then kill you unless you have a friendly giant around.

For your timing problems how about a skill/spell dismiss elemental. Where you are able to dismiss your current elemental and summon a new one next tick, restarting the timer. This would not work if it was killed but if it was badly wounded you could take the time and ME to dismiss it and summon a new one.

I think warlocks should probably have their pets again now that Elementals and warlocks have both been changed from what they where.

I think you will find that different elementals are immune to different elemental attacks. You need to pick the right one to go with your attack plan.

Your comment about a single finger of death or petrification is not to far off the mark with a sorceror or necro vs a magma spray.

Stone skin great spell why hold it when you can make flasks.

Magma spray is currently being looked at as I understand.
Why are you bitching about magma being useless damage wise compared to cone of cold then bitching that you can use magma against NPCs ?

Other important things to remember warlocks get light armor so they arnt like a necromancer or a sorceror they can move to the front rank. They also get a healing spell. Which a sorceror does not get (a necromancer half gets with cause spells). Warlocks also get wands which gives them a chance to charm person, control undead etc

Elementals were able to berserk back then, because mercs had the berserk skill back then. Apart from that, if you consider them weak you are simply stupid. They are not meant to deal damage, they are meant to absorb damage for a long time. And they are excellent in that. Giving them weapons or EQ generally would totally overpower them.

Stone skin now, it may not be as great as it used to be 4-5 years ago with all the new !SS weapons, but that's not a problem of the spell. It's a problem of the builders. Wimp the lewt ppl, wimp the lewt.

Magma spray can easily destroy unprepared enemies. And let's not forget, not that many have RE up all the time anymore. Most of the RE scripts are gone now, so only a handful of staves/wands/scrolls and whatever potions the warlocks brew can be used against warlocks. Only thing that needs to be tuned is the new damage over time system about magma spray. Not that even with the old system people died from magma damage at ticks. The PK was over, so they were either dead or they had all the time in the world to quaff a couple of heal potions or visit a healer and survive the tick magma damage.

Also, what Cyra forgets to mention is how many more elite spells are given to warlocks. Healing rays on its own makes warlocks one of the greatest group support classes, along with bards. Minimal cost in mana and time for decent group healing. That sounds pretty elite to me.

And finally let's not forget something else. Light armor. What makes warlocks so much better defense wise than any other wizard classes. The protection value and endless availability of mithril is something none should ignore. Easy to obtain mithril will save a warlock from a painstick backstab for example, when a sorc/necro will have a hard time to survive from it.

In conclusion, warlocks are fine. It just seems that Cyra plays or wants to play a warlock and he needs the class buffed.

Mithril doesn't stop backstabs--mirror image does.

Mithril stops a backstab death, way more often than cloth(fur, silk, water, fire, anything but the limited energy) armor.

But even if we follow your stupid logic, MI doesn't stop backstab either. Just lowers the chance to like 20% or 16% at high lvls. And warlocks can access MI through wands or staves anyway.

IMO, only two things needs to happen to warlocks. None of which cyra talked about and I had a decent running warlock. First, change the code of elementals such that they can't leave in the middle of battle! Two, fix the DoT of magma. Cyra, I have killed people with magma spray and no they weren't centaurs. It was a halfling.

I'm pretty much going to have to say QQ more noob to almost everything you've said.

I played a warlock for a year and found them to be absolute beasts in all respects. The only thing that slows a warlock down is people with a lot of MP and RE at the same time, and thats why you have staves and wands, to get around those.

The only argument you've posted with any merit is the damage over time effects of Mamga Spray which D is already looking at.

Magma spray does more damage than cone of cold. It's excellent vs NPCs and single opponents. Cone of cold takes longer to cast than MS and it has no double damage or sticking ability. In GvsG, yeah, cone of cold is better...that's why you use it instead of magma spray, duh? It's also castable from one room away and it does more damage underwater. Against a single opponent though..why bother with cone of cold when MS does more damage and casts faster? That's what it is there for.


The warlock is one of the most balanced classes in the game in my opinion. Actually, they are closer to being the most powerful. It's rediculous how easy they are to use and not die with if you're remotely smart or have even a modicum of game mechanics knowledge.

Excepting what is already being done to them, there needs to be no changes.

Magma spray only does more damage than cone of cold if it hits the cling effect, and that can only happen once. And if you have access to a friendly warlock that can brew potions then you've completely negated the advantage that magma spray has. Most fights these days involve group versus group in any case, which means the group attacking spells are far more preferable to the lone master level spell which barely makes a dent in people.

There are some things that I definitely like about the class, but there are also some glaring errors with the three spells that I've pointed out.

I can't believe you even think that warlocks are balanced when stone skin is next to useless these days.

Yeah, Muktar, that's great that you killed a halfling. But that doesn't mean anything to me, especially since I steamrolled your warlock not once but twice with a *swashbuckler*. God, that's awesome.

Cyra, that's nice that you did but having a priest nearby to help you and using a break in the code doesn't count. Cry more noob.

When I had stoneskins on my char (A necromancer) I found that they were effective for deflecting dirt kicks.

Ill agree that the elemental (without you casting spells) is ineffective. I think its purpose is to put you in second row and let you bash people.