Archer against Warlock Analysis

[WaldoT]

Archers are good at single target damage yet they underperform compared to a dex warlock. These scenarios use the archers best scenario to fight against the warlock. This is a regular shootout with the warlock just blasting against the archer just shooting. Yet for every single instance the Warlock comes out ahead. This video does not go over other options warlock has such as area denial forcing the archer to move with tentacles or using a planar gate to add something else to pressure the archer. These videos don't go over the fact a warlock is a jack of all trades the video's look at the fact that one of their trades single target ranged dps outperforms a class which entire purpose is single target ranged dps.

Notes about the video: The warlock hits on any blast that isn't a 1 so optimizing AC doesn't really matter for the test. Unless specified the tests used self buff wards that optimize AC for the warlock. DR wards are only used when they are mentioned in the clip.

Part 1: Builds looked at Ranger 21 Fighter 6 Bard 3 | Ranger 7 Arcane Archer 19 Monk 4 vs Warlock 30 Dex Blaster
https://youtu.be/_0aoP14eabo

Part 2: Builds looked at Ranger 5 Fighter 6 Arcane Archer 19 | Fighter 6 Ranger 21 Paladin 3 vs Warlock 30 Dex Blaster
https://youtu.be/FK1x78j6HxU

Part 3: Builds looked at Ranger 7 Arcane Archer 19 Monk 4 Vs Warlock 30 Dex Blaster(Inclusion of Rapid Shot, Tentacles, and Summon by popular demand)
https://youtu.be/V2joD2WbXZI


Conclusion: Archers underperform against warlock in the one scenario it should ideally defeat warlock. Possible solutions offered are to increase archer damage. Reduce the -15 AB penalty, Giving archers some kind of tool to overcome some concealment. A lot of the archers damage is mitigatable especially the archers that are not arcane archers. An archer would have to start the fight with a breach rod or another consumable to get rid of damage shields. Not Arcane Archers such as the Div Ranger or the Ranger Fighter had a difficult time against the warlock with the increased chance of not being able to overcome the warlocks 55 AC. The Div Ranger also had to overcome the windup time of using divine might which gives the warlock an entire round or less of blasting depending whether or not the haste was done pre fight or during the fight.

I realize this isn't a perfect test and I may not of accounted for everything. The analysis does not go over Zen Archery builds because that's a different can of worms with optimal spell order for engagement and the powerful role summons play.


Warlock Build:





Arrows used:


Archer Builds: Generic build offered by Arelith. The video shows the stats on the archer for each fight.

[Kalopsia]

Do your archer builds have Blind Fight?
I saw "attacker miss chance 55%" in the combat log. That pretty much only appears if you lack the feat.
Missing 55% of the time would explain the lacking damage.

[WaldoT]

Epic fey pact inflicts a 55% miss chance on those struck by eldritch blast and should not stack with concealment. But that is why it shows 55% miss chance in the log. I have blindfight on all 4 builds.

[AstralUniverse]

Do your archer builds have Blind Fight?
I saw "attacker miss chance 55%" in the combat log. That pretty much only appears if you lack the feat.
Missing 55% of the time would explain the lacking damage.

The feylock gives him 55% to miss. There might still be a reroll from blind fight but if it misses it still reports 55% concealed, right?

Also, I dont think I've seen any div archer with divine might in there. I think +9 damage from divine might slapped on top of the AA damage with DR pen *should* interrupt more of the warlock's casts and could very well tilt the fight hard in favor of the archer.

[WaldoT]

There was a divine might ranger but not a divine might arcane archer. The issue with the divine might ranger is that the warlock gets a fair amount of blasting in before the ranger can do anything assuming the divine might occurs at the same time of the warlock starting blasting. I wished to grab a sample of ranged builds and these were the ones recommended. I wouldn't be opposed to bringing up more builds if there needs to be more tested for balance discussion. Do you have a particular spread you would like to see for the divine might arcane archer?

[AstralUniverse]

The ranger doesnt have enough ab to confirm crits. I think, if there's a good answer to that warlock it would be ranger/aa/div. That Faerie Fire affect really screws up the archer really bad tho that it may end up not mattering. But something like this... aa build in the wiki I cant seem to upload in the right format *sigh*. Either of the div/AA look fine. About the same. remember you dont care much about your own ac for this test.

[Kalopsia]

Do your archer builds have Blind Fight?
I saw "attacker miss chance 55%" in the combat log. That pretty much only appears if you lack the feat.
Missing 55% of the time would explain the lacking damage.

The feylock gives him 55% to miss. There might still be a reroll from blind fight but if it misses it still reports 55% concealed, right?

I'm not so convinced anymore. It's possible that the "blind fight negates miss chance entirely" statement is actually correct. I did some experiments a few months ago. Gave a char with Blind Fight a miss chance of 100%, and they never missed.

Could also be a NWScript quirk though, maybe 100% miss chance rolls back to 0% or something.

[AstralUniverse]

Do your archer builds have Blind Fight?
I saw "attacker miss chance 55%" in the combat log. That pretty much only appears if you lack the feat.
Missing 55% of the time would explain the lacking damage.

The feylock gives him 55% to miss. There might still be a reroll from blind fight but if it misses it still reports 55% concealed, right?

I'm not so convinced anymore. It's possible that the "blind fight negates miss chance entirely" statement is actually correct. I did some experiments a few months ago. Gave a char with Blind Fight a miss chance of 100%, and they never missed.

Could also be a NWScript quirk though, maybe 100% miss chance rolls back to 0% or something.

It's deceptive. Some of these builds had 48 ab on their first attack, so they *should* miss quite a lot against 55 ac, but then the AA ones with 56 ab were also missing quite a lot, oddly enough. To me it does look like Faerie Fire works quite consistently from playing with it live but I'll try to pay more attention if some mob suddenly bypasses it and probably has blind fight. So far I havent noticed such occurrences.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I am curious to how much the archer beats the warlock here. I notice you used well rounded archer builds too instead of pure damage (which is mostly fine for comparison since warlocks do more than one thing). I am curious how much say the ranger fighter heavy AA compares direct damage wise and ability to disrupt casts.


A warlock reliance on magic should not be overlooked either in circumstantial situations like an antimagic field, not having right pacts while in certain under dark areas, have their blasts fare less effective against inquisition paladins, etc. Of course warlock has way more utility (though some say that can be made up for in various consumables.. less QoL for archers in general).


Other questions:
Did you spam called shot to lower bother their ab and ac? (probably mute since they touch attack you anyways)
How was your damage when using truestrike with called shot leg spam? (since you are ranged they cant just 'back off until duration runs out'). If they dex is brought down you can continue to rain more shots after truestrike wears off. If they use restoration, I think you can spend the same action economy to drink another true strike.

[Kalopsia]

Another aspect to consider is that ranged attacks are instant and spells are not, so I imagine you could use cover to your advantage here.
(Unless the warlock has stealth, which does happen :D)

[WaldoT]

I am curious to how much the archer beats the warlock here. I notice you used well rounded archer builds too instead of pure damage (which is mostly fine for comparison since warlocks do more than one thing). I am curious how much say the ranger fighter heavy AA compares direct damage wise and ability to disrupt casts.


A warlock reliance on magic should not be overlooked either in circumstantial situations like an antimagic field, not having right pacts while in certain under dark areas, have their blasts fare less effective against inquisition paladins, etc. Of course warlock has way more utility (though some say that can be made up for in various consumables.. less QoL for archers in general).


Other questions:
Did you spam called shot to lower bother their ab and ac? (probably mute since they touch attack you anyways)
How was your damage when using truestrike with called shot leg spam? (since you are ranged they cant just 'back off until duration runs out'). If they dex is brought down you can continue to rain more shots after truestrike wears off. If they use restoration, I think you can spend the same action economy to drink another true strike.

1. The first video showcases a ranger fighter heavy aa which forgoes any defensive capabilities for lots of damage and lots of ab. While it did do a fair amount of damage it's regular non critical attacks often failed to win the concentration check against the warlock.

2. That's true there are different ways to disable a warlock and an archer. Warlock has the advantage of defensive casting while standing still whereas archer does not. Warlock also can be silenced whereas archer cannot. Both of them can be KD'ed

3. Spamming called shot would be at a risk when I wasn't fully hitting their ac on some of the builds. I did not use truestrike in the testing. That is a fair point as it is a tool that Archer has at their disposal.

Another aspect to consider is that ranged attacks are instant and spells are not, so I imagine you could use cover to your advantage here.
(Unless the warlock has stealth, which does happen )

Issue with disengaging and re-engaging is as an archer you have to be very careful you are standing still long enough to not incur the -15ab penalty. Including stealth and positioning gameplay while important to consider is difficult to test. I fully agree with your point.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Good videos,

Looks like in some instances, the damaged are pretty close to par.

As discussed earlier, when doing just a standing there 'shoot at each other' vacuum, the heavy AA archer will probably quickly turn the tide with truestrike potions and called shot leg spam.

To be honest, i am uncertain why you were not hitting more often without truestrike even, that trick just seals the deal for defeating a lot of discipline scores out there. You should be able to consistently land called shot even without true strike trick (and lower their ac for more shots) against 55 ac

the pure DP high ab deep AA archer is looking at

25 BAB
15 dex mod
3+ bow
4 feats
9 from AA
= 56 ab
Rapid shot = 54 ab
Called + rapid =52 ab without any special modifier buffs like a bard song, or soem cleric battle tide or truestrike

so with rapid and called shot you should be hitting your first 2 attacks with with a rolled 3 or higher against 55 ac. (concealment doesnt care if you used rapid + called of course). Your third attack will need a 8 or higher, and your bonus attack from haste will need 8 or higher (since its your second bonus attack after rapid being applied). So I am wondering if you properly kitted out the arcane archers' ab.

[Waldo52]

Sorry to derail the topic but this called shot talk is interesting. A lot of people talk about knockdown but I see very little on CS.

Is this feat useful on other types of archers (like rogues) or on melee builds?

[msterswrdsmn]

Its useful on -both-, moreso on ranged builds and melee builds, but still useful

Ranged builds benefit from spamming called shot: leg. Each hit is something like a -2 dex/20% debuff to movement speed, and it stacks up to 5 times, I think? It doesn't immobilize people, but it slows them to a crawl and makes melee enemies essentially unable to retaliate.

Called shot - Arm gives a -2 stacking AB penalty, up to -10 AB. This is super useful against other ranged characters, who are ironically going to be the biggest threat to a dedicated ranged build.

My pre-nerf monk/rogue using a staff benefited from called shot in a head-to-head fight or against sneak-attack immune enemies, as I was effectively able to stack a -10 to -15 AB penalty on an enemy within the first round or two with my 8-10 attacks per round.

Called shot isn't seen as much on melee builds because it isn't -as- useful as knockdown is, and there isn't much of a reason to take it for a melee build unless your being put into attrition battles (ex: loosing my main source of damage as a staff monk/rogue build) AND you have a high number of attacks per round.

Most melee builds don't benefit as much from called shot for the same reason most sneak builds don't benefit heavily from crippling strike; your damage output should be high enough to kill the target or severely injure them before you can stack the debuffs up in any meaningful amount. On the other hand, just a single successful called shot - leg will severely hinder a melee characters ability to close in on a ranged character.

[Waldo52]

Its useful on -both-, moreso on ranged builds and melee builds, but still useful

Ranged builds benefit from spamming called shot: leg. Each hit is something like a -2 dex/20% debuff to movement speed, and it stacks up to 5 times, I think? It doesn't immobilize people, but it slows them to a crawl and makes melee enemies essentially unable to retaliate.

Called shot - Arm gives a -2 stacking AB penalty, up to -10 AB. This is super useful against other ranged characters, who are ironically going to be the biggest threat to a dedicated ranged build.

My pre-nerf monk/rogue using a staff benefited from called shot in a head-to-head fight or against sneak-attack immune enemies, as I was effectively able to stack a -10 to -15 AB penalty on an enemy within the first round or two with my 8-10 attacks per round.

Called shot isn't seen as much on melee builds because it isn't -as- useful as knockdown is, and there isn't much of a reason to take it for a melee build unless your being put into attrition battles (ex: loosing my main source of damage as a staff monk/rogue build) AND you have a high number of attacks per round.

Most melee builds don't benefit as much from called shot for the same reason most sneak builds don't benefit heavily from crippling strike; your damage output should be high enough to kill the target or severely injure them before you can stack the debuffs up in any meaningful amount. On the other hand, just a single successful called shot - leg will severely hinder a melee characters ability to close in on a ranged character.

Fascinating and informative, thank you.

[Arigard]

The issue with Warlock is it can reach crazy high touch attack these days, which is strange considering championship darts were removed because it was a bug that allowed a crazy high touch AC from +15 ab items, yet now it's possible to get as high a touch AB with standard warlock paths and yet they do more damage. Sure some of the paths might be a little less "tanky" but it really isn't by much when you factor in the range increases, skills, corner-sneaking & new spell availability etc.

I'm not honestly sure where a ranged AB character comes out on top to be honest vs a warlock at present. Touch AB is infinitely more powerful than traditional AB.

Even things like called shot stacked aren't going to make much of a dent when a Warlock can get high 40's and in some instances 50+ touch ab. It's kind of crazy. 99% of builds have zero way to get AC to a point that they'll be able to effectively stop a dedicated warlock from hitting them on every shot.

Warlock is a cool class and all, but it seems a little over-tuned, especially the touch AB potential. It's gonne damage with weapon-master touch ab.

[elftv]

It is worth noting the exchange from item buff to ab has shifted to stacking three different feats which is a tad more expensive in addition to being less tanky.

[Archnon]

Warlock blaster is a bit OP. The key issues are precision blast, which essentially doubles your dex modifier for AB and allows you to bypass concealment, thereby eliminating the need for Blind fight, and that warlock gets discipline. Take those things away and it would be in much better shape. Right now, blast locks are really powerful. Spell locks, at least the DC is pretty low and summons can be dismissed, but the blast lock has a pocket cannon which never misses.

[AstralUniverse]

Warlock blaster is a bit OP. The key issues are precision blast, which essentially doubles your dex modifier for AB and allows you to bypass concealment, thereby eliminating the need for Blind fight, and that warlock gets discipline. Take those things away and it would be in much better shape. Right now, blast locks are really powerful. Spell locks, at least the DC is pretty low and summons can be dismissed, but the blast lock has a pocket cannon which never misses.

Blaster does around 180 damage per round against a single target when left unchecked and allowed to stand and cast. I dont think it's so op tbh. If the Archer's build had slightly more damage suddenly the warlock cant cast without getting interrupted a lot more, and these recorded fights would look much different and a lot more in the archer's favor. I think this thread should say stuff about archers rn, rather than on warlock. Warlock is really not that good. If blaster lock is op, then just normal sorcerer is way way more op.