Feylocks No Longer Have A Damage Spell

[Mamma ama Warlock]

I played 2 blasters and didn’t max out dex. That’s not necessary.

Yes, you don't need to max out dex to play a blaster. Though one of the main points of feylock was that you traded some blasting power (compared to infernal, abyssal, fathomless) for a miss chance utility on blast and better spellbook. It was already difficult enough to make the spells work given the high save meta and lack of ESF, and now PvE is even harder as feylocks are completely without a usable damage spell.

It is possible to just play a blaster, but if that's the solution, why even bother supporting all of these other pacts? Why bother giving warlocks spell replenishment at all if the blast is the only thing that matters?

I think this change hits the fey and star pacts especially hard as their pact blasting bonuses are weaker on account of their spellbook. We'll see fewer of the different warlock pacts and more of the same cookie-cutter infernal/abyssal/fathomless blasters. The server will be less creative and less fun.

Both blast shapes have AoE potential, while the single target one also has unlimited range. And while Ice Storm was amazing for leveling (speaking from experience), it does not invalidate dex feylock blasters. Besides, Ice Storm is not party-friendly, which is an important consideration. Oh, and that being said: you can choose Eldritch Doom instead of Eldritch Chain for immediate access to AoE damage & party healing. Basic Eldritch Blast already does everything its stronger version can (except for range)

[Xerah]

It is possible to just play a blaster, but if that's the solution, why even bother supporting all of these other pacts? Why bother giving warlocks spell replenishment at all if the blast is the only thing that matters?

Blast isn't the only thing that matters, but it should be your primary damage type (aoe or single target) in most cases. Disable or supplement with spells, damage with blast. I haven't played a feylock (just the older type that looks like it would play similarly) but did play night hag, infernal, and undying--each of those types uses both spells and blast which is likely the design target the team is trying to reach.

I don't really get the view that warlocks should be given all these extra tools to hide their mechanics so people don't 'out them'. Additionally, people are way too militant about warlocks anyway. Sure, there should be some people who are (certain paladins, I'm looking your way) but the general population shouldn't care that much.

[Jencent]

I am sorry you have had such a harsh experience, but being a warlock does not immediately get you exiled. Summoning undead and evil outsiders will. Warlock is a very popular class, and the general perception of simple blasters is far less severe. Exile and KoS are just not the sentiment among a decent part of players. The chances of being confronted for being a warlock are not zero, but they're not nearly as high as you make them out to be. Unless there's been a drastic shift in the last month or so, I've been away from the surface for a while.

Beside you are able to play even as animator on surface. But you have to be a bit smarter to do such thing.

[Anomandaris]

The reality of this change is that it has affected fey and non-mono pact blasters too much. Right now the mechanical incentive is to play a blaster mono-pact.

A change was needed, but what was implemented was not in touch with the reality on the ground. Empowered withering ray on tap was a serious issue, ice storm was not. Just a few moments looking at damage outputs, lack of friendly fire, and other spell characteristics would show the massive disparity between the two. Some other things were also problematic (like hell inferno stacking), but making a blanket change like this has an adverse impact on other builds that were already weaker. For example, the lack of stacking of cursed storm and blackfire has also hit wizards, who were already struggling to pump out damage. While it seemed to be targeted mainly at the hell inferno warlock DOT stacking, it was used by other classes that weren't broken.

People can debate until their faces turn blue about RP impact, how the class should be played and so on, but I would be willing to bet when we look at the pact/build distribution, this change will have a clear effect of reducing Warlock build variety. If you had a cha based build, you probably are mono pact cha blaster now (or if you had the dex to swing it the other way). I'm thinking that's not what we wanted? People don't usually build down the middle, they build to some level of min/max to be able to at least do "something" very well, which is understandable. The idea that a blaster would get some use out of casting, while "sort of" true, is just not meaningful. Action economy will dictate the strongest action at the time will generally be used by more skillful players. Why cast a spell that is demonstrably subpar in terms of damage, hit reliability, and overall effect, that also has limited castings/day or a long CD when you can spam EB? This translates into PvP and PvE.

People will generally follow the mechanics, because builds are shared among the community, lead by mechanically savvy players. Watch blasters (which were already very common) continue to edge out caster locks. Ice storm was fine empowered on CD, and feylock is unfairly gimped by this. Let's not push people into blasters, which is what this does, as it's less interesting for everyone involved.

[Xerah]

I'm not debating how a class should be played, I'm talking about class identity and the class identity of warlock in D&D has always been eldrich blast. Class identity then informs mechanics. When playstyle is too far away from class identity, then mechanics get changed as a result. This seems to be the case here.

I still don't understand why you're not using the disable spells as a fey pact and were just spamming withering ray. In my mind, the class identity of fey pact is enchantment/illusion based control + eldrich blast; not AoE spell damage.

[Anomandaris]

I'm not debating how a class should be played, I'm talking about class identity and the class identity of warlock in D&D has always been eldrich blast. Class identity then informs mechanics. When playstyle is too far away from class identity, then mechanics get changed as a result. This seems to be the case here.

I still don't understand why you're not using the disable spells as a fey pact and were just spamming withering ray. In my mind, the class identity of fey pact is enchantment/illusion based control + eldrich blast; not AoE spell damage.

I have run a fathomless/infernal caster, not a fey pact, but have traveled with several. And they were not spamming withering ray (as they don't get withering ray inficast), they were using their CC, and their one meaningful damage spell, Ice Storm. They now do not have ice storm in a meaningful way, hence the conversation. And a low dex build that has invested into summoner/caster feats (spell foci, multiple pact feats, etc) will often not have the feats to get more than 1-2 eldritch mastery, making their touch AB meh. The class pretty clearly seems to have designed with caster/summoner/blaster hybrids in mind.

[Kythana]

but I would be willing to bet when we look at the pact/build distribution, this change will have a clear effect of reducing Warlock build variety

Yep, pretty much. There's no real point in going dual pact summoner/spellcaster anymore. You use your one damaging spell, and then use your weakened eldritch blast for three minutes until it comes back on CD. Very boring way to play, especially when you don't have the dex/feats to invest in EB damage.

I'm currently leveling an Undying/Star dual pact, and I now have no reason to do this combination. The few decent spells I would get from star pact would be better spent making eldritch blast stronger, and effectively kills this build.

I'm not debating how a class should be played, I'm talking about class identity and the class identity of warlock in D&D has always been eldrich blast.

Really? Has the class identity of warlock also been a summoner too? Because a majority of warlocks I see are known for having a huge devil/demon out, and how it's effectively immune to word of faith.

[TroubledWaters]

People will generally follow the mechanics, because builds are shared among the community, lead by mechanically savvy players. Watch blasters (which were already very common) continue to edge out caster locks. Ice storm was fine empowered on CD, and feylock is unfairly gimped by this. Let's not push people into blasters, which is what this does, as it's less interesting for everyone involved.

Agree wholeheartedly with this post, but to clarify, feylocks were already unable to empower Ice Storm and have it replenish.

They were using the basic unempowered version, which they can no longer use.

[Xerah]

Really? Has the class identity of warlock also been a summoner too? Because a majority of warlocks I see are known for having a huge devil/demon out, and how it's effectively immune to word of faith.

Many warlocks do not summon. They all do eldrich blast. I'm unsure why this is worded so combatively.

[RedGiant]

I played 2 blasters and didn’t max out dex. That’s not necessary.

Eldrich doom, is based on Cha, which is where the AOE damage from warlock should be coming from (which is why I assume these aoe got limited). You already have high Cha so it’s a very simple swap if you want a warlock good with AOE.

Not to repeat myself from the last thread, but this is another case where the developer commentary would have helped immensely in letting people understand the need and corresponding reasons for the change besides warlocks are over tuned.

A bit late, but a follow-up comment on the Xerah/Chris sub-thread. To be a full blaster (EM III) you need 20 Dex and get a +6 on top of that for your dex touch attacks. Assuming you max your dex on top of this when you play, you aren't realistically going to miss much with even this minimum set-up.

If you go my max-blaster route (EMIII + PB + AB), you only really ever miss on a 1.

I intentionally did not talk about blast-shapes before.

If you go the Doom route, you never, ever miss, because you can target the ground. Your AoE just works, albeit at significantly reduced damage. Many a build takes advantage of this. (Apparently Fey Pact takes advantage of this? Mine did!)

If you go the Chain route, as above, the wise builder will get this to only miss on a 1.

I still maintain even the AoE route on an invested blaster out-performs pre-nerf caster, coming in at .5 x 27d6 + apprx. 13-14 from Agonizing Blast. This also doesn't limit you to five targets as per Withering Ray, nor does it have a fort. save for half.

I think most people should be able to rebuild to fit some kind of functionality, be it summons or blasting,

itis just a shame to lose the archetype. Another solution here would be to just shuffle the Pact Spells abit to give each pact some sort of acceptable damage potential at pact-level? Some pacts can still pull it off, like Abyssal and Infernal. Heck, even Undying can sorta pull it off. The others are in a bit of a hard place.

[Kythana]

Really? Has the class identity of warlock also been a summoner too? Because a majority of warlocks I see are known for having a huge devil/demon out, and how it's effectively immune to word of faith.

Many warlocks do not summon. They all do eldrich blast. I'm unsure why this is worded so combatively.

Because this is all rather irrelevant to what others have been saying. The class fantasy has nothing to do with it. Arelith warlocks are their own thing at this point, with D&D's warlock serving as more of a base level template or an inspiration.

And if we look at Arelith warlock as a whole, the class is very much intended to have the option to be a primary spellcaster instead of using Eldritch Blast. After all, many pacts give inficasting for damaging aoe and single-target spells. And by choosing to mutlipact, you sacrifice your eldritch blast potential for more spells.

So saying that this was changed because of a playstyle that wasn't suited towards the class fantasy is not applicable. It was nothing more than a heavy handed nerf to certain builds that excelled in pve. And feylock happened to be caught in the crossfire, for no good reason.

[Biolab00]

I played 2 blasters and didn’t max out dex. That’s not necessary.

Eldrich doom, is based on Cha, which is where the AOE damage from warlock should be coming from (which is why I assume these aoe got limited). You already have high Cha so it’s a very simple swap if you want a warlock good with AOE.

Not to repeat myself from the last thread, but this is another case where the developer commentary would have helped immensely in letting people understand the need and corresponding reasons for the change besides warlocks are over tuned.

A bit late, but a follow-up comment on the Xerah/Chris sub-thread. To be a full blaster (EM III) you need 20 Dex and get a +6 on top of that for your dex touch attacks. Assuming you max your dex on top of this when you play, you aren't realistically going to miss much with even this minimum set-up.

If you go my max-blaster route (EMIII + PB + AB), you only really ever miss on a 1.

I intentionally did not talk about blast-shapes before.

If you go the Doom route, you never, ever miss, because you can target the ground. Your AoE just works, albeit at significantly reduced damage. Many a build takes advantage of this.

If you go the Chain route, as above, the wise builder will get this to only miss on a 1.

I still maintain even the AoE route on an invested blaster out-performs pre-nerf caster, coming in at .5 x 27d6 + apprx. 13-15 from Agonizing Blast. This also doesn't limit you to five targets as per Withering Ray, nor does it have a fort. save for half.

I think most people should be able to rebuild to fit some kind of functionality, be it summons or blasting,

itis just a shame to lose the archetype. Another solution here would be to just shuffle the Pact Spells abit to give each pact some sort of acceptable damage potential at pact-level? Some pacts can still pull it off, like Abyssal and Infernal. Heck, even Undying can sorta pull it off. The others are in a bit of a hard place.

I'll need to be a little more specific here
There're 2 Max-Blaster Route, you can't possibly have both Precision Blast and Agonizing Blast.

1) If you opt for Damage, you want Agonizing Blast ( You need 20 Dex and 24 Cha )
2) If you opt for Precision, you want Precision Blast ( You need 24 Dex and 18 Cha(For level 8 spells))

Precision Blast requires 24 Dex
Agonizing Blast requires 24 Cha

You'll need these feats to be Max Blaster
1) Eldritch Mastery ( lv5 )
2) Greater Eldritch Pact ( lv10 )
3) Eldritch Spear ( lv15 )
4) Epic Eldritch Pact ( lv20 )
5) Eldritch Chain ( level 23 )
6) Greater Eldritch Mastery ( level 25 )
7) Epic Eldritch Mastery ( Level 28 )
8) Precision Blast or Agonizing Blast

You cannot skip Blast shapes because it's a requirement for Epic Eldritch Mastery. There's no way around this.
Therefore, Blaster Warlock does not really have other option but FULL investment into all their feats and pure 30.

The same goes for Summoner-lock, Epic Eldritch Summon need level 28 Warlock, there's no way around this.

I've mentioned earlier that this change for Warlock spells effectively kills much of the multi-pact and multi class.
In the first place, i believe that those spells are meant to be a flavor and not actually to build around, i'll skip on how effective they are since the above posts already wrote all about that.

Regarding the RP side...I'm not sure. You delve deep into the pact which is why you get powerful blast or super summon ( due to bargain ). So...if you are multipact, Fey 3 Abyssal 3, It's really complex RP for me. At least, i can never find the balance to convince how to be epic champion of both Fey and Abyssal. There're builds with 3 Epic pact as well...I just don't know.

With this change, killing Multi-pact, I'm not sure if it's good or bad. Anyway, it's already fixed in stone about the changes so, i doubt it can get any worse.

Edit : There seems to be a misconception here. Feylock never has Withering blast.
Feylock only has Ice storm and their infinite cast Mind Fog + Confusion / Hold Monster

[AstralUniverse]

I played 2 blasters and didn’t max out dex. That’s not necessary.

Eldrich doom, is based on Cha, which is where the AOE damage from warlock should be coming from (which is why I assume these aoe got limited). You already have high Cha so it’s a very simple swap if you want a warlock good with AOE.

Not to repeat myself from the last thread, but this is another case where the developer commentary would have helped immensely in letting people understand the need and corresponding reasons for the change besides warlocks are over tuned.

A bit late, but a follow-up comment on the Xerah/Chris sub-thread. To be a full blaster (EM III) you need 20 Dex and get a +6 on top of that for your dex touch attacks. Assuming you max your dex on top of this when you play, you aren't realistically going to miss much with even this minimum set-up.

If you go my max-blaster route (EMIII + PB + AB), you only really ever miss on a 1.

I intentionally did not talk about blast-shapes before.

If you go the Doom route, you never, ever miss, because you can target the ground. Your AoE just works, albeit at significantly reduced damage. Many a build takes advantage of this.

If you go the Chain route, as above, the wise builder will get this to only miss on a 1.

I still maintain even the AoE route on an invested blaster out-performs pre-nerf caster, coming in at .5 x 27d6 + apprx. 13-15 from Agonizing Blast. This also doesn't limit you to five targets as per Withering Ray, nor does it have a fort. save for half.

I think most people should be able to rebuild to fit some kind of functionality, be it summons or blasting,

itis just a shame to lose the archetype. Another solution here would be to just shuffle the Pact Spells abit to give each pact some sort of acceptable damage potential at pact-level? Some pacts can still pull it off, like Abyssal and Infernal. Heck, even Undying can sorta pull it off. The others are in a bit of a hard place.

I dont know if you actually played these builds but you may have noticed that eldritch blast rolls a suspiciously high amounts of 1s. Eldritch chain doesnt chain to the next target if you roll 1 somewhere along the chain, so you only hit 0-2 targets quite frequently, instead of hitting 3 targets consistently. Eldritch doom also has this issue where it sometimes (pretty often) doesnt register targets within the aoe, hitting only a part of the mob cluster instead of all of them. Empowered withering ray, with it's consistent and ginormous aoe size, was not really far behind dedicated blasters in clear speed, speaking from extensive experience here.

[Biolab00]

I played 2 blasters and didn’t max out dex. That’s not necessary.

Eldrich doom, is based on Cha, which is where the AOE damage from warlock should be coming from (which is why I assume these aoe got limited). You already have high Cha so it’s a very simple swap if you want a warlock good with AOE.

Not to repeat myself from the last thread, but this is another case where the developer commentary would have helped immensely in letting people understand the need and corresponding reasons for the change besides warlocks are over tuned.

A bit late, but a follow-up comment on the Xerah/Chris sub-thread. To be a full blaster (EM III) you need 20 Dex and get a +6 on top of that for your dex touch attacks. Assuming you max your dex on top of this when you play, you aren't realistically going to miss much with even this minimum set-up.

If you go my max-blaster route (EMIII + PB + AB), you only really ever miss on a 1.

I intentionally did not talk about blast-shapes before.

If you go the Doom route, you never, ever miss, because you can target the ground. Your AoE just works, albeit at significantly reduced damage. Many a build takes advantage of this.

If you go the Chain route, as above, the wise builder will get this to only miss on a 1.

I still maintain even the AoE route on an invested blaster out-performs pre-nerf caster, coming in at .5 x 27d6 + apprx. 13-15 from Agonizing Blast. This also doesn't limit you to five targets as per Withering Ray, nor does it have a fort. save for half.

I think most people should be able to rebuild to fit some kind of functionality, be it summons or blasting,

itis just a shame to lose the archetype. Another solution here would be to just shuffle the Pact Spells abit to give each pact some sort of acceptable damage potential at pact-level? Some pacts can still pull it off, like Abyssal and Infernal. Heck, even Undying can sorta pull it off. The others are in a bit of a hard place.

I dont know if you actually played these builds but you may have noticed that eldritch blast rolls a suspiciously high amounts of 1s. Eldritch chain doesnt chain to the next target if you roll 1 somewhere along the chain, so you only hit 0-2 targets quite frequently, instead of hitting 3 targets consistently. Eldritch doom also has this issue where it sometimes (pretty often) doesnt register targets within the aoe, hitting only a part of the mob cluster instead of all of them. Empowered withering ray, with it's consistent and ginormous aoe size, was not really far behind dedicated blasters in clear speed, speaking from extensive experience here.

Eldritch Doom seems to /register/ only when PVE enemies agro you. As an Eldritch doom player of multiple PC, If you appear from invisibility and cast Eldritch Doom, out of 5 monsters, you might not even hit any of them despite being on the AOE radius.
It will only somehow register when they begins attacking you.

I don't know how the mechanic behind it works but that's how Eldritch Doom is. It's unreliable in PVE unless you can face tank them which i usually build my Warlock around that if i'm opting for Eldritch Doom.
This is a long standing bug for several years which does not seem to have any definite date to when it is fixed.
A good point to note is, Eldritch doom has no problem in PGCC when you target enemies but the problem surfaces when playing on the main server.

As for the rolling '1'. Yep, it's quite frequent and usually, could be a cause of death if you just 'miscalculate'. It's a gamble.

[Chloe123]

I dont know if you actually played these builds but you may have noticed that eldritch blast rolls a suspiciously high amounts of 1s.

You mean the server cheats on you and rolls more than 1/20 nature 1 against you?

[AstralUniverse]

I dont know if you actually played these builds but you may have noticed that eldritch blast rolls a suspiciously high amounts of 1s.

You mean the server cheats on you and rolls more than 1/20 nature 1 against you?

It sounds like a conspiracy theory, I know, but the point is you'd clear faster or almost faster with empowered withering ray. It's also sometimes easy to forget some mobs have really low fort save (or are just unlucky) and they take full damage, which is almost like blast damage, without a touch attack roll at all.

[The First Vicar]

WARLOCK:
Pact Spell Adjustments: Ice Storm, Sound Lance, Withering Ray, and Darkbolt now have a replenishment timer of 3 minutes.

"Look how they massacred my boy"

https://tenor.com/view/look-how-they-ma ... f-14452160

But seriously, this is a really dumb idea IMO. Please change it back, this makes every lock but a blaster lock almost ineffective.

It severely limits the class in terms of damage output and I feel is a step BACKWARDS in terms of character depth and exploration as it forces you into a the funnel known as blasterlock.

Farewell Gary, it's been fun. Pet's Cornigun

[The First Vicar]

Not to repeat myself from the last thread, but this is another case where the developer commentary would have helped immensely in letting people understand the need and corresponding reasons for the change besides warlocks are over tuned.

T H I S

[MRFTW]

I dont know if you actually played these builds but you may have noticed that eldritch blast rolls a suspiciously high amounts of 1s.

You mean the server cheats on you and rolls more than 1/20 nature 1 against you?

It sounds like a conspiracy theory, I know, but the point is you'd clear faster or almost faster with empowered withering ray. It's also sometimes easy to forget some mobs have really low fort save (or are just unlucky) and they take full damage, which is almost like blast damage, without a touch attack roll at all.

Between the 50% (effective 25%) concealment so common everywhere and the 14% chance to roll at least one 1 on 3d20, eldritch chain really doesn't perform much better than doom, if at all. My eldritch chain blaster got HUMBLED when they partied with an undying / infernal dual pact with eldritch doom.

Emp. Withering Ray was a bit nuts for sure, my 18 CHA, 10 dex spotlock was clearing runic dungeons with only that, a 25 CL blast (no feats) and the summoned formian from Greater Planar Binding. I wasn't even doing anything cheesy, just shoot 'n' loot.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

So I undestood withering ray taking a hit, in fact the spell was out of place compared to all other warlock damage spells not on CD.

it was a lvl 4 spell in a lvl 4 slot. Where soundlance, Scintling sphere, and Fireball are all lvl 3 spells in lvl 4 slots (somethin a wizard can maximize spam via spellbound wands and do more damage than their warlock empowered spam counterpart). Withering ray actaully is just a straight up better spell. Further more, it is one of those cool spells (i Like variety) that performs just as well empowered as it does maximized. So while spamming empowered fireballs was like a warlock infinite casting lvl 5 spells (6 for warlock). Withering ray was like a warlock infinite casting lvl 7 spell (6 for warlock) in terms of effectiveness.

I do not know why soundlance got hit so hard. Maybe because it scales really fast? Like you reach 10d8 right at lvl 10 vs fireball needing 15 lvls for 15d6 in addition to friendly fire? Its not nearly as big as an offender as withering ray was as I pointed out.

Honestly, something that has always bothered me on warlocks pacts in general is that there is not variation of CDs. Like surely soundlance does not need a 3min cooldown along with say delayed fireballs, but can still use SOME cooldown. Not even a minute is really required to stop the spamming of it you can just make it between 12 and 30 seconds.

Now obviously you want longer duration CC spells to have longer cooldowns like tenticle spells because you do not want the spell lasting longer than the CD itself. But for one shot damage spells, 3 mins seems ridiculous and not even worth listing as a pact spell.

[Griefmaker]

Fireball are all lvl 3 spells in lvl 4 slots (somethin a wizard can maximize spam via spellbound wands and do more damage than their warlock empowered spam counterpart).

This is definitely news to me and if it is true, I am elated. But how does someone empower fireballs in a spellbound wand?

Unless it is a recent change? I know when I last played the wands were just introduced.

[RedGiant]

I'll need to be a little more specific here
There're 2 Max-Blaster Route, you can't possibly have both Precision Blast and Agonizing Blast.

Completely possible to have both with the right race, gift combo. I was incorrect, however, when I said you could have them both with EM III. (I have struck through my previous posts on this.)

I did experiment with a build that gave up EM III to have both, because for a time I was suspicious about the blast math and wanted to see if static damage somehow beat out rng damage, but + 6d6 additional damage (EM III) is indeed almost always greater than a set 13 (24 Dex + 12 = +13 ability modifier). I did also experiment with a 'cheap' blaster that took /just/ the two static feats, so I could fit in other things, but this sacrificed quite a bit to underperform.

All this to say, my current blaster is a max precision blaster.

I dont know if you actually played these builds but you may have noticed that eldritch blast rolls a suspiciously high amounts of 1s.

See above. I think there is alot of superstition about Arelith math. My only remaining superstition about the Warlock damage formula regards primary and secondary damage types.

I currently only play a precision Warlock. I have done a DOOM Warlock, but not run into the problems everyone talks about. Maybe that's because I played a Fey Pact, aggro'ed everything in sight, dropped it on my head for healing and damage, while reducing their hit chance? To quote Xerah, here, I thought that's what everyone did?

But that is, of course, not the case.

Between the 50% (effective 25%) concealment so common everywhere and the 14% chance to roll at least one 1 on 3d20, eldritch chain really doesn't perform much better than doom, if at all. My eldritch chain blaster got HUMBLED when they partied with an undying / infernal dual pact with eldritch doom.

I have quietly grown to the opinion that if you are not going precision blast on a chain build, "U R doin it wRoNg," for exactly what you say here.

Still, to get us back on track, my best solution, as above, would be to shuffle the pact spells to give every pact some sort of appropriate/acceptable damage potential that doesn't outshine a dedicated blaster.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Fireball are all lvl 3 spells in lvl 4 slots (somethin a wizard can maximize spam via spellbound wands and do more damage than their warlock empowered spam counterpart).

This is definitely news to me and if it is true, I am elated. But how does someone empower fireballs in a spellbound wand?

Unless it is a recent change? I know when I last played the wands were just introduced.

feel free to look up spellbound wands on wiki or discord. It is late and I am not looking it up this minute.

But the TLDR version is that if you have lots of wizard levels, then you auto apply empower/maximized. will choose maximize over empower if you have both.

[AstralUniverse]

I kinda really regret phrasing myself the way I did.
Guys, I didnt mean to say that I think rolls of 1 happen more than 5% of the time (although I definitely believe that when it comes to touch attacks at least), because it's beside the point tbh. Even if you roll 1s only 5% of the time, it is extremely notable on Chain blast, because when you roll a 1 on a target, the chain breaks and it doesnt even attempt to roll vs the next target. And it's not just 1s it's also concealment if you're not that one build so you can very frequently hit less than 3 targets.... and empowered withering ray just felt BETTER, over all. Especially if you're some kind of undying warlock with gsf necromancy in the mix and not enough dex for precision blast. Mobs saves are pretty low-mid range, some of them have very low fort, even the ones with high fort could be unlucky.

As I said, this nerf was not meant to target dedicated blasters (doom or chain), it was meant to prevent none-blasters from dishing out almost as much damage as dedicated blasters in pve. The argument that Doom is stronger than withering ray (but only when mobs actually register your existence apparently??) is fine, so that build isnt impacted by this nerf and probably hasnt taken empowered spell anyway. But I think we can all agree that a dual or triple pact warlock shouldnt also dish out roughly 200 damage x2 per round without any charisma or necro foci investment because it's really not far behind dedicated blaster with fkin' lots of investment in blasting.

It is only sad for me that as a melee warlock player (who is very much invested in blasting) I lost my AOE shtick. sniff I had my fun but it's fair. Cant have everything.

[-XXX-]

But I think we can all agree that a dual or triple pact warlock shouldnt also dish out roughly 200 damage x2 per round without any charisma or necro foci investment because it's really not far behind dedicated blaster with fkin' lots of investment in blasting.

Withering Ray MAv is 60 (max dmg = 90)
Empowered MAv is 90 (max dmg = 135)
Maximized = 90 damage flat
All subject to save for 1/2 dmg (DC 34 fort when ESF:Necro at 38 CHA)

Dunno where we're getting 200 damage 2x per round here... do you mean 45 damage dealt to 5 targets each?