Too many warlock versus other casters

[Kuma]

level of fun

are you saying a class being too fun means it needs nerfed

Regular mages need some love, if anything, based on these results. And not just "giving them warlock toys".

[Chloe123]

level of fun

are you saying a class being too fun means it needs nerfed

Regular mages need some love, if anything, based on these results. And not just "giving them warlock toys".

It's fun to play because it's overpowered comparing with other arcane casters. Invoker was fun to play but get nerfed hard. If you check the announcement history you will see almost all vancian casters and invokers are nerfed hard, spellcraft change, sequencer changes, invoker focus cost changes. While warlock gets several boost even their player number is higher. It deserves invoker treatment.

[Hin_Justice]

People keep saying warlock is OP. Give examples, please. Because I've laid out exactly the major weaknesses it has - which balances it perfectly. And I think I'll remind people again what they are:

Warlock is a damage machine. It doesn't dispel enemies well, at all. If anything, we are very limited on what we can and cannot do. Our pact determines our spell focuses and game play. And we don't have the ability to cast Shield, Spell Mantles, Spell Resistance, Protection Against Spells, Magic Vestment. We also can't cast Death Armor, Epic Mage Armor, and most other AC boosting spells mages have.

We are mid AC and low abjuration spell abilities. So these are big, gaping weaknesses. So we're not OP. We're a balanced class. We trade full spell book a-la-cart choices and Level 9 to Most Epic Spells for a small list of infinite Level 1 - 6 spells.

Many of those are on 3min timers too. In fact, there are some pacts where their most powerful infinite spells (5-6) are ALL on CD timers.

We have no Fire Arrows. No Magic Missiles. No regular summons (we have to put feats in for that). Oh! And we're an Evil class. So we gotta deal with extremist LG/Druid shenanigans who oppose those warlocks that are open about it. So we're a mage class with In-game consequences for playing said class from go.

[Coolguy McMagic]

People keep saying warlock is OP. Give examples, please. Because I've laid out exactly the major weaknesses it has - which balances it perfectly. And I think I'll remind people again what they are:

Warlock is a damage machine. It doesn't dispel enemies well, at all. If anything, we are very limited on what we can and cannot do. Our pact determines our spell focuses and game play. And we don't have the ability to cast Shield, Spell Mantles, Spell Resistance, Protection Against Spells, Magic Vestment. We also can't cast Death Armor, Epic Mage Armor, and most other AC boosting spells mages have.

We are mid AC and low abjuration spell abilities. So these are big, gaping weaknesses. So we're not OP. We're a balanced class. We trade full spell book a-la-cart choices and Level 9 to Most Epic Spells for a small list of infinite Level 1 - 6 spells.

Many of those are on 3min timers too. In fact, there are some pacts where their most powerful infinite spells (5-6) are ALL on CD timers.

We have no Fire Arrows. No Magic Missiles. No regular summons (we have to put feats in for that). Oh! And we're an Evil class. So we gotta deal with extremist LG/Druid shenanigans who oppose those warlocks that are open about it. So we're a mage class with In-game consequences for playing said class from go.

Apart from dispelling and AC, all of the things you mentioned Warlocks are weak at are weak themselves. Fire Arrows? Magic Missiles? What? Those are terrible.
Everyone can cast shield, it's called drinking a potion. The other spells you listed can be breached off easily. A dex blasterlock can get pretty good AC, too. Should be able to get AC in the mid fifties.

Also I don't know where that stuff with the "Warlocks need to invest feats into summons" comes from.
Other classes need to invest feats, too - the Epic Spell and the Spell Foci, while Warlocks get theirs off bonus feats. Shamans, Favoured Souls, Clerics and Sorcerers dont get any bonus feats before 30.

Not to mention that the Warlock summon is leagues and leagues ahead of every other summon in the game. Gate is semi-comparable but that's not feasible in PVE and spamming it is only an option for sorcerers and favoured souls.

So yeah. Warlocks are super strong in general.

That being said, I agree that Warlock is popular because it's fun and not just because of its power level (though the power level is super high).
It's a cool, flexible class with interesting bonus features and I hope that part stays. But let's not pretend the class isn't incredibly powerful.

[Kythana]

And we don't have the ability to cast Shield, Spell Mantles, Spell Resistance, Protection Against Spells, Magic Vestment.

Shield potion. Wear a headband of protection.

Spell Mantle and Protection Against Spells can both be scrolled or UMDed from books.

Magic vestment is only the loss of 2 AC.

We also can't cast Death Armor, Epic Mage Armor, and most other AC boosting spells mages have.

Drink a potion if you want death armor? There are way better damage shield options, and warlock has access to all of them, through native casting or books/scrolls.

The only other option for AC increasing arcane spells comes from GMA. Warlocks have access to Shadow Shield, and if you want, you can divine dip for AC. Epic pacts and summons discourage this however.

So we're not OP. We're a balanced class. We trade full spell book a-la-cart choices and Level 9 to Most Epic Spells for a small list of infinite Level 1 - 6 spells.

Most Epic Spells are terrible with the exception of EMA, and Conduit/Dust for PVE.

The same applies for level 9 spells. In a world where every build can get high saves, DC based spells just aren't amazing.

Anything else you'd you want from 9th circle can be accessed through UMD or consumables.

We have no Fire Arrows. No Magic Missiles. No regular summons (we have to put feats in for that)

Instead you have a better summon that is essentially impossible to banish, and spammable eldritch blast.

Oh! And we're an Evil class. So we gotta deal with extremist LG/Druid shenanigans who oppose those warlocks that are open about it. So we're a mage class with In-game consequences for playing said class from go.

Just play in the Underdark? Or use the incredibly high disguise skill you have access to?

The problem with Warlock is that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. When you compare it to every other caster, it functionally performs better than they ever will. Sure, there are some things that sorc/wizard/invoker/ect get access to that warlock doesn't. But what Warlock has in return more than makes up for it, and there's a reason so many play them.

Similar to why there were so many abjurant champion spellswords on the recent class breakdown. Players are attracted to classes that are mechanically viable and strong. But Warlock is a bit too oppressive for what it does, and there really needs to be some thought on it and casters in general.

[Edens_Fall]

I love the infi-cast spells and those on timer for warlock. Which you get being based on the Pact they make. It adds fun and a level of spell management to the class.

I would love if Sorcerer got some of the same love honestly.

[Kalopsia]

In my experience, it can be challenging to interpret raw, tabular data, especially when interesting details are scattered across multiple sections and entries. Presenting data in such a way can lead to confirmation bias, subconsciously tempting observers to gaze past the bigger picture at select entries that appear to confirm what was already believed to be the case.

To make the data more accessible, I've taken the time to create a chart that displays class popularity data of the past 30 days based on totals per class rather than individual builds. The result is quite interesting, in my opinion. For instance, rogues and bards are among the most popular classes, yet the tables obfuscated this detail by scattering their numbers across a greater variety of individual builds. Meanwhile, warlocks and spellswords have been designed with straightforward pureclass builds in mind, which immediately shifts the attention towards the seemingly disproportionately high numbers of their build variants.

I'm certainly not claiming everything is perfect, but the chart does show quite a bit of build diversity, which is something the team aims to iterate upon with future updates.

[Eyeliner]

I think they're extremely popular right now because the building community on Discord has made a specific build the flavor of the month, and that's entirely because of WoF resistance which is nice but a little overblown in how powerful it is. I mean a warlock who takes that is giving up significant blast strength so once that summon is gone they're going to struggle. Maybe that needs to be nerfed or maybe not, I'd say the problem is with WoF itself and not warlocks necessarily. I mean six months ago I was laughed out of discord for asking about playing a summoner lock and told warlocks suck and only one specific undying blast build was worth playing. There are factors but to a large degree it's also just faddish.

They're also just fun. We forget the "fun" aspect a lot of the time. They're not fun because they're overpowered but they have an addictive bag of tricks and you have to give up some to use others so once you play one warlock you'll want to try another variation, and there are so many variations it's easy to find yourself making four of them. Is that a problem with warlocks? I think it's a problem with how other classes are designed. Favored souls and sorcerers in particular could look to the warlock model as a way to make the classes more enticing.

I also don't think they're top-top-tier for solo PvE, if they're popular with epic sacrifice players it's probably because they're tired of druids and shamans. They're good for PvE, don't get me wrong, but you can't autopilot like with those classes and you have to play strategically-- which again, is fun, because you're either dominating or in serious trouble all of the time and that's a rush you only get with some classes and maybe should be spread around.

[Kythana]

This is pretty neat. What exactly is the cutoff for majority, middling, and minority?

[Kalopsia]

This is pretty neat. What exactly is the cutoff for majority, middling, and minority?

From what I've seen in the query, it selects them dynamically based on the most, second most and least levels present in a given build. That also explains all the "minority" counts of rogue and bard - both are common dip classes, after all.

Loremaster illustrates this behaviour quite well in the chart. The "minority" loremasters seen there are characters that have no other dip besides loremaster, for example a 25/5 or 27/3 build. The "middling" loremasters do have a dip with fewer levels, so those could be a 22/5/3 builds with 5 levels in the class.

[Kythana]

This is pretty neat. What exactly is the cutoff for majority, middling, and minority?

From what I've seen in the query, it selects them dynamically based on the most, second most and least levels present in a given build. That also explains all the "minority" counts of rogue and bard - both are common dip classes, after all.

Loremaster illustrates this behaviour quite well in the chart. The "minority" loremasters seen there are characters that have no other dip besides loremaster, for example a 25/5 or 27/3 build. The "middling" loremasters do have a dip with fewer levels, so those could be a 22/5/3 builds with 5 levels in the class.

I'd be curious to see a distribution like this, with actual cutoffs for levels. Being able to see how of those characters who have fighter levels <= 6, for example.

A 23/3/4 build is effectively dipping into two classes, but one would count as middling, which is a bit misleading.

[perseid]

level of fun

are you saying a class being too fun means it needs nerfed

Regular mages need some love, if anything, based on these results. And not just "giving them warlock toys".

I agree to an extent but I would actually take a middleground stance here I think. It varies a little by the caster archetype since there's more vancians than just Wizard obviously. But to use Wizard as an example since it's non-gish purecaster, I think opening accessibility to unique field manipulation options like Dark Undertow would go a long way to creating some amount of parity as it would at least allow the purecasters to emphasize their primary strength (the sheer volume of spells they can cast, most of which are often useless). I don't think this needs to be a perfect 1:1 thing though either. Predator as a ghetto FoM for wiz/sorc accompanied by Wraith Stride is a good example in my opinion of introducing another class' features to a lackluster vancian list without just copy+pasting a spell from another class.

[Kalopsia]

This is pretty neat. What exactly is the cutoff for majority, middling, and minority?

From what I've seen in the query, it selects them dynamically based on the most, second most and least levels present in a given build. That also explains all the "minority" counts of rogue and bard - both are common dip classes, after all.

Loremaster illustrates this behaviour quite well in the chart. The "minority" loremasters seen there are characters that have no other dip besides loremaster, for example a 25/5 or 27/3 build. The "middling" loremasters do have a dip with fewer levels, so those could be a 22/5/3 builds with 5 levels in the class.

I'd be curious to see a distribution like this, with actual cutoffs for levels. Being able to see how of those characters who have fighter levels <= 6, for example.

A 23/3/4 build is effectively dipping into two classes, but one would count as middling, which is a bit misleading.

Good call! I've invested a bit more time to create the chart you requested using the old class readout query. The total numbers are a bit higher because the new query only selects the first middling and minor class, which means some classes might get skipped if characters have identical level investment in them. We're still looking into ways to address this.

Anyway, here's how things are looking. This is once more based on data of the past 30 days. Character level 30 only; no deleted PCs.

Working on these charts made we wonder if in future, this is how class distributions ought to be published. Would appreciate your opinions on that! :)

[CptJonas]

From what I've seen in the query, it selects them dynamically based on the most, second most and least levels present in a given build. That also explains all the "minority" counts of rogue and bard - both are common dip classes, after all.

Loremaster illustrates this behaviour quite well in the chart. The "minority" loremasters seen there are characters that have no other dip besides loremaster, for example a 25/5 or 27/3 build. The "middling" loremasters do have a dip with fewer levels, so those could be a 22/5/3 builds with 5 levels in the class.

I'd be curious to see a distribution like this, with actual cutoffs for levels. Being able to see how of those characters who have fighter levels <= 6, for example.

A 23/3/4 build is effectively dipping into two classes, but one would count as middling, which is a bit misleading.

Good call! I've invested a bit more time to create the chart you requested using the old class readout query. The total numbers are a bit higher because the new query only selects the first middling and minor class, which means some classes might get skipped if characters have identical level investment in them. We're still looking into ways to address this.

Anyway, here's how things are looking. This is once more based on data of the past 30 days. Character level 30 only; no deleted PCs.

Working on these charts made we wonder if in future, this is how class distributions ought to be published. Would appreciate your opinions on that!

"Working on these charts made we wonder if in future, this is how class distributions ought to be published. Would appreciate your opinions on that! "→ For me personaly its YES...only with minor change → Like this:

[Kalopsia]

"Working on these charts made we wonder if in future, this is how class distributions ought to be published. Would appreciate your opinions on that! :) "→ For me personaly its YES...only with minor change → Like this:

I like this! Adjusted the code to make it happen :D

[The Vandals of Rome]

Warlock was clearly designed and developed with a lot of passion and care.

It's one of the most well flavored and fun classes on the server because of that thought and care; it has a really strong soul.

I think that's why it's popular.

[RedGiant]

I agree with those here who state that this is a fun, well-designed class. I think one of these reasons you see so many is the sheer number of ways you can build then.

To that point, I myself have a long-running warlock whose concept (loosely inspired by Constantine) was to cram as many epic pacts in as possible. This is nowhere on the recommended list, but I will attest to it being 100% fun.

Taking the original OP with as much charity as possible, I think the best interpretation would be to give some of the struggling caster classes some help. I also love that Kalopsia brought facts to this discussion. Warlock is currently outpaced in popularity by both Bard and Cleric and followed quickly by Wizard and Spellsword. I am not sure there is actually any problem here....

...until one gets down to Invokers. I am playing through my first Hemomancer after leaving off an aborted Elementalist, I will say there are glaring obvious reasons Elementalists are played even less than a discontinued class. I plan on bringing a detailed Feedback as soon as I hit Epics, because I think even Hemomancers, who are the stronger horse, need some significant tweaking.

[Power Word, Haste]

I will say there are glaring obvious reasons Elementalists are played even less than a discontinued class.

Real.

[Chloe123]

It's argued that warlock shall not be nerfed because it's fun to play but not overpowered. So why are wizards get nerfed for spellcraft changes, nerfed for sequencer changes that removes mantles and SR, and why are invokers and hemo get nerfed with focus changes and summon changes? Is that only warlock the class that can have "fun"? I'd say just nerf warlock so they are of same level of so called "fun".

[Dreams]

It's argued that warlock shall not be nerfed because it's fun to play but not overpowered. So why are wizards get nerfed for spellcraft changes, nerfed for sequencer changes that removes mantles and SR, and why are invokers and hemo get nerfed with focus changes and summon changes? Is that only warlock the class that can have "fun"? I'd say just nerf warlock so they are of same level of so called "fun".

I don't think anyone argued that. They're popular because they're fun. If you've got suggestions on how to improve the other classes, that is probably feedback worth sharing.

[Chloe123]

Some classes are designed to be easier to play than others, like clerics are one of the most popular ones because how easily they are to handle PvE contents, and thus they are designed to have a lower power cell due to being a dispel bait. Plantshape druid is strong in PvE and need almost no gears to play around, but is limited by damage shields in PvP, they both have lower power cell in PvP. Weapon masters are very powerful in PvP, but if you ask them to solo Abby or Last bastion, it's almost an impossible task.

In contrast, I feel warlock has both now, need almost zero gears to dominate the pve contents, and has high pvp cell if you know what you are doing, one example is blasting and kiting with your summons.

But with so many players playing warlock, it's hard to have objections, they are so "fun" to play!

[ReverentBlade]

This is what happens when you try to adjust PvE content alongside Class balance. Pick something to be your anchor point and balance around it. Constantly tweaking both means an equilibrium this is impossible to reach. All of the dungeons have been power-creeped and its bad.

[The First Vicar]

Why do you say the class is not being picked for RP reasons?

Because mechanically, Warlock is currently one of the best choices to play.

Despite having options like conjuration spec wizard(lol), or pm(lol), if you want a class fantasy as a summoner, Warlock is the best choice due to their essentially WoF immune summon.

That's not even including all the others benefits they get like infinite casting or EB.

So yes, there is going to be a non negligible amount of players that are drawn to Warlock exclusively because it's a powerful pick.

Warlock needs to be tuned down a bit, and other casters need to be improved.

As a person that plays one of the main warlocks on the server I'd have to disagree with turning them down. They are fine as is. They can be beaten easily by a few classes. There is nothing to turn down. If your complaint is the pet, then I would just play wildmage/sorc and wombocombo you with ts+igms instead. If you're upset about the infini casting lower level spells then give me level 9 spells and no infini cast. The point is mute in my opinion. Warlocks are balanced but also sacrifice quite alot to be better in other aspects. You can also build them many different ways and come out with a completely different character in the end.

Also, compared to other casters they are op? You mentioned something like this in another post but I didn't want to double tag you, but my God what are you smoking? If you take away their pet they are a subpar hemomancer (at best) with no level 9 spells

[The First Vicar]

IMO the popularity of warlocks is more related to the QoL rather than raw mechanical power.
Furthermore, the class offers a lot of space for customization - players can build a warlock any way they want to refect their RP and preferred playstyle and it'll likely stil be functional, whereas the majority of other classes are offering 2-3 "prescribed" optimal builds or it's dumpster fire land for them.

This exactly. The Qol of Warlock is amazing but I'm not as powerful as a wildmage or a sorcerer, if played correctly by the right person.

[The First Vicar]

Like my summonlock's pocket wm that is WoF immune and have almost 60 ac, 50 ab and 10-20/x3? If you trying to chase me I will kite you while let my fiend hit you and if you choose to kill the summon sorry I use associate tool to kite you and blast you. It's so Balanced.

Statstics won't lie, if every classes are balanced there won't be much gap between class distribution. But look at how many plays sorcceer, plays invoker and how many plays warlock, there's are something wrong here.

Warlock is a phase.

The pet isn't that strong unless you bring a bard and you use a sequencer. It's good, don't get me wrong, but either way you can dispel the thing: 49 ac, 40 ab (after the buffs for the cornigun), (10-20 is ONLY on the unselie summon and that thing gets like 30 something ab with that before buffs, maybe higher with different sequencers but the damage is garbage unkess it crits. Just disable it and your fine.) So let's not blow things out of proportion. The pets saves never make it out of the 30s. You can easily disable or hinder it or just ignore it and dive in straight on the caster. And if I go summoner lock then congrats I can hit you for 40-100 a cast. That's it. Not bad but just run at me and turn my 400hp and 52ac into dust. The solution is rather simple I just don't see people think of how to brainstorm and kill it, but rather complain that it's too powerful and people are picking it over other casters because they dont know how to properly pvp. Yeah naw. Use knockdown. It's a mage. Def not overpowered.

Honestly, as stated above. I am WAY more afraid of a sorcerer or Wildmage when it's ran by a competent player. Wildmages and sorcs can easily kill you with the wombocombo way quicker than any warlock can and theres NOTHING you can do about it. Kiting happens on more than just the warlock also, it's always been an issue.