Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

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MRFTW
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Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by MRFTW » Tue Jul 27, 2021 6:02 pm

I'm looking at making a fey pact warlock, mainly due to seeing someone else using one, it looking fun and interesting to play. However, lore on feylocks, both on Arelith and the internet in general, is sparse at best. There is also a build for a feylock/BG on the wiki, which seems to essentially emulate a sorc/BG in playstyle, maxing DCs and (ab)using the saves and divine shield. However, the one I saw being played in game was a CON-stacking feylock, which I believe is the standard path for abyssal/infernal pact warlocks.

Bearing this in mind, I have a few questions I'd be very interested to hear people's thoughts on regarding feylocks:

1. What sort of things would a fey patron ask of their servant?
I found this Quora link: https://www.quora.com/What-would-an-Arc ... ock-in-D-D
It seems to give reasonable examples of things one's patron might ask, and I'm wondering if other people agree that these sorts of ideas, and ideas in this vein, seem applicable to Arelith. I want to embody the more chaotic aspects of fey, spreading mischief and being caught in the middle of seemingly harmless, bizarre acts and RPing my way out of them.

Feylocks here are limited to neutral/evil, so I suppose that would matter as to what tasks my patron might have for me.

2. What are the cookie-cutter feylock builds?
As mentioned above, the two I've heard of are the feylock/BG from the wiki, and my friend's CON-feylock. Are there others? I'd prefer my alignment to be CN but the only vetted build mandating evil alignment concerns me a little.

I like the idea of being a inficasting DC mage, but the DCs look to be 4-5 lower at best than a comparable sorc, and spell selection for DC spells seems very limited.

3. How important is dexterity for a feylock, beyond the early game, and how much is good to start with?
I know it helps a tonne with bypassing base AC in the early game, but I'm not sure roughly how much I'd be missing eldritch blasts in epic levels with, say, 10 DEX. The wiki feylock build has 11 DEX, but obviously it has to sacrifice some to get 13 STR for divine shield.

This thread has some older answers, hopefully this is still good advice but someone to vet it would help: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=20721&hilit=feylock

4. What skills would you consider "essential" for a feylock?
Obviously, concentration and spellcraft are a must, tumble seems nice too. What about lore? I'm looking to pick up hide + MS and pickpocket as skills, so knowing what I can skip without too much sacrifice would be great.



Thanks in advance for your time and answers, I'd love any other info that seems pertinent or answers to questions I should've asked, too! I've prepared a copy-paste of my questions below so you can reply more easily without having to snip too much.


1. What sort of things would a fey patron ask of their servant?

2. What are the cookie-cutter feylock builds?

3. How important is dexterity for a feylock, beyond the early game, and how much is good to start with?

4. What skills would you consider "essential" for a feylock?

xanrael
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by xanrael » Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:22 pm

Some of the missions the Unseelie Dark Hunters perform for the Queen of Air and Darkness might spark some ideas:
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp? ... /20030315a

On the examples of food, drink, and songs, could go from nice (asking them for a bottle or copy of the song), trickery (nabbing some and replacing it, subversively convincing the town the bard is a hack then offering to hire the bard), or more overt (kidnapping to force a song/food to be written/cooked at gonne-point, etc).

Could also see a feylock infiltrating/creating a traveling performing troupe and sneaking in a few performances subtly extolling their patron.

Nitro
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by Nitro » Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:24 pm

High CON EDR feylock/blackguard is one of the safest builds on the server. You get a ton of HP, ludicrous AC and you can just outrun anything that can actually threaten you. Your damage output sucks but that's not what feylocks are there for anyway, you just spam mind fog, and if someone forgot a vital mind protecting buff you slam them with infinite CC. It's honestly not very fun to play, you're just a turret farting blue gas everywhere and occasionally queefing haste onto yourself and your DPS friend of choice as a feylock in its current state.

Dexterity you can largely ignore. You won't hit dexers anyway unless you cripple yourself to get high ranged touch attacks now that weapon bonuses don't apply anymore, and you'll hit the low-dex targets anyway with minimal dex investment. Early game you won't really hit reliably with eldritch blasts, so your goal is just to attach yourself to another group or person doing leveling until you get haste, at which point you become everyones best friend because permahaste is an amazing addition to any team. High level you'll hit most blasts and CC most mobs to enable soloing, if slowly.

Discipline, Concentration, Spellcraft. Hide and MS are nice but not essential, heal also lets you become an even more annoying livelord. I recommend bluff for when someone inevitably gets on your case for being a badman warlock so you can keep RP'ing in cities without the sword of damocles that is exile hanging over your head.

MRFTW
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by MRFTW » Tue Jul 27, 2021 8:15 pm

xanrael wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:22 pm
Some of the missions the Unseelie Dark Hunters perform for the Queen of Air and Darkness might spark some ideas:
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp? ... /20030315a
A fantastic resource, thank you so much!
Nitro wrote:
Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:24 pm
you're just a turret farting blue gas everywhere and occasionally queefing haste onto yourself and your DPS friend of choice
Quite the visual! :lol:

Hide + MS (and PP, though I am still on the fence about it) are mostly for flavour. I'm trying to design an interesting side-character for heroes and villains alike to bump into and wonder "What's that guy's deal?", being able to cast invisibility, then stealth when whoever I'm RPing with inevitably drops a see invisibility potion is the kind of stuff I think it'd be hilarious to pull off.

Getting the skills you mentioned doesn't seem too tough, the bard skillbook is so varied and good I find it really hard to pick, but it sounds like I should be able to get everything without too much trouble.

Regarding EDR feylock/BG - How does one split the stats? Get 19-20 CON for EDR then stack CHA, or get 16 CHA and then stack CON?

Which gifts would you pick? CHA and CON seem obvious, but I don't know if the bluff one would be strictly necessary, but I would definitely like to have a good, strong disguise. There are a few other minor gifts that would fit nicely, such as the sneaking one, or the ever-popular tongues/crafting, but in my eyes, a strong disguise is more important and if the bluff gift is very impactful, I think choosing that would be a no-brainer.

Spriggan Bride
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by Spriggan Bride » Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:13 pm

The darkness gift is pretty good on a feylock since it's not a spell you can cast and wand duration is so short.

Archnon
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by Archnon » Tue Jul 27, 2021 9:51 pm

Not to piggyback on your thread, but I've been wondering about feylock loremaster combo and if anyone has played with it. Extra dominations or even Necro focus seem like it would be an alternative to BG but maybe 5 levels is too much

AstralUniverse
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:12 am

I've seen a build that impressed me a lot, and it's been rising in popularity as of late from what I can see. its 30 Feylock, EDR 3, Cha based, with Enchantment, Illusion and Abjuration. The Grease is surprisingly useful and people still get KDed with FoM active so that's... interesting. The Acid Breath is also very good and gives the Feylock AoE damage for solo pve clear. Both of these spells are included in Shadow Conjuration and are based off Illusion focuses. On top of that, you get the super long invisibility casts and stronger shadow summons. Illusion school is fun if pure feylock and I actually recommend pure because I dont think BG dip is anything more than QoL when you're building towards EDR, DI% and you can gear towards very high saves without dark blessing, because you dont have a lot of stats to gear.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


Spriggan Bride
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by Spriggan Bride » Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:31 am

Is abjuration still a must-take on a warlock now that it has a much lower chance of working and does no damage? I got conflicting advice on that.

MRFTW
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by MRFTW » Wed Jul 28, 2021 5:05 am

Spriggan Bride wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:31 am
Is abjuration still a must-take on a warlock now that it has a much lower chance of working and does no damage? I got conflicting advice on that.
Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in with both sides of the debate, but I'm tempted to take GSF Abj just for the IGMS Immunity, although Feylocks should be able to counterspell. It'd be tempting to live on the risky side and practising your counterspell reflexes, though, if it saves 2 feats.
AstralUniverse wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:12 am
I've seen a build that impressed me a lot, and it's been rising in popularity as of late from what I can see. its 30 Feylock, EDR 3, Cha based, with Enchantment, Illusion and Abjuration.
I think I'm going to try this. I was planning on being a forest gnome anyway so the -2 STR/ +2 CON synergises way more with this build than with the BG variant, and it allows CN.

AstralUniverse
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Jul 28, 2021 6:38 am

Spriggan Bride wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:31 am
Is abjuration still a must-take on a warlock now that it has a much lower chance of working and does no damage? I got conflicting advice on that.
You dont have anything better to take. Simple as that.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


Spriggan Bride
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Location: Urdlen's Wake

Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by Spriggan Bride » Wed Jul 28, 2021 6:48 am

I'm considering transmutation for spamming Slow and teleportation on mine. I'm not recommending it to anyone that is just what I might do.

I guess the question is how much a warlock would be using dispels now. I don't doubt there's value in going GSF abjuration for the IGMS alone but I'm not sure it's the "must have" it once was. Seems better on a fiendlock where you have a devil/demon pounding away on the enemy while fishing for dispels to succeed, but maybe a feylock is better blasting away or using acid breath, mind spells or slow most of the time instead of throwing no-damage dispels for round after round until one strips some buffs.

AstralUniverse
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:07 am

Spriggan Bride wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 6:48 am
I'm considering transmutation for spamming Slow and teleportation on mine. I'm not recommending it to anyone that is just what I might do.

I guess the question is how much a warlock would be using dispels now. I don't doubt there's value in going GSF abjuration for the IGMS alone but I'm not sure it's the "must have" it once was. Seems better on a fiendlock where you have a devil/demon pounding away on the enemy while fishing for dispels to succeed, but maybe a feylock is better blasting away or using acid breath, mind spells or slow most of the time instead of throwing no-damage dispels for round after round until one strips some buffs.
Warlocks still use dispels. They still fish out buffs. You need to cast it a bit more times than before to get the previous outcome in number of buffs dispelled, but it's still good and worth taking. 100%.

You are also, I think, not really using Slow? If you have 30 feylock and illusion focuses, you just use Grease, saveless slow, and can still KD even on FoM targets. Someone correct me if there's some functionality I'm missing there.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


MRFTW
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by MRFTW » Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:14 pm

Slow effect reduces affected enemies to 1 attack per round. It's terrifyingly powerful.

AstralUniverse
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Re: Fey Pact Warlock (Feylock) Questions

Post by AstralUniverse » Fri Jul 30, 2021 9:52 am

MRFTW wrote:
Wed Jul 28, 2021 12:14 pm
Slow effect reduces affected enemies to 1 attack per round. It's terrifyingly powerful.
Interesting. I was under the impression that it's one of the least used and useful spells because in PvP it's just a matter of drinking a FoM potion one sec and disregarding your Transmutation school investment entirely. So I just find that there are schools with more cookies and better cookies than... teleport.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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