Ideas for the Warlock Class

[Zarono]

So i don’t know how far in development warlocks are yet, but i felt it to be an appropriate time to make known my expectations as a player in regards to what a warlock is and does.

What is a warlock?

To me, a warlock is known for 3 things:
1: they cursin’ everything. “All right, that’s it! Curses! Curses on your whole family! Curses on you! Curses on your cow!”

2: They steal the life and power of their enemies (either with mind control or more curses). “With each passing moment, you make yourself more my servant!”

3: (and this may be my WoW nerd talking) There’s at least one demon guarding their person and/ or doing their bidding at all times. “Why have you summoned me, human scum!?” - “Hey man, can you, like, do my laundry?”

so in this regard, here are some skill suggestions that i would like to see.

Skill Suggestions

Frailty: Curse the enemies in an area, causing them to take damage as they move or attack. (for an amount of damage scaling with intelligence) (possible talents: Enemies cursed flee in fear for an amount of time, cursed enemies are faster, cursed enemies are taunted and slowed, cursed enemies take more damage when they attack, cursed enemies take more damage when they move.)

Weakness: Curse enemies in an area, causing them to deal less damage to you, and their attacks will heal your minions for a percentage of their maximum life (possibly as a talent)

Summon Demon Guard: Summon a large melee demon with high aggro generation, a percentage of the damage you take is transferred to the demon guard. (Possible talents: summons a second guard to share damage, curses can be applied to the guard to affect all enemies near it, guards are healed by a percentage of the damage you do, guards gain a cleave ability.)

Summon Taskmaster: Summon a ranged demon which empowers your other minions or itself at the cost of their lives (a demon which sacrifices minions to buff itself, or which basically casts a warlock version of dread wraith on your minions) (possible talents: taskmaster empowers you when it sacrifices another minion, taskmaster increases the movement speed of all other minions, taskmaster causes the nearest minion to taunt any enemies that attack you, taskmaster heals your other minions at the cost of it’s own health.)

Summon Arch demon: Summon a demon which draws it’s power from you, casting the same damage spells that you have equipped with increased spell power, as the expense of your own spell power. (the idea is you have it deal your spell damage while you run around cursing everything) (possible talent ideas: Demon gains tremendous spell power, but become permanently silenced, demon gains any slotted talents for equipped damage spells, demon can also summon undead minions if equipped.)

Link Life: Connect your life force to up to 3 enemies, causing all damage taken to be split between yourself and them. (possible talents: linked enemies are taunted to attack you and gain frenzy, spells cast on linked enemies return mana/hp, link can only be cast on one enemy, but automatically chains, link can be cast on minions, and automatically chains to enemies (minons would still share damage))

Aura of hurt (name tbd): channel an aura of big hurt around you, dealing necrotic damage and slowing enemies within it. (possible talents: enemies hit grant ward, minions in the aura gain frenzy, aura persists for up to 5 seconds based on mana spent while channeling, aura is stronger but now sweeps in a line around you, aura is cast as the target location.)

[Heavy]

So here my take on what Warlock means to me and after that i want to comment on some of your points:

What i would like to see is a few things:

• Enough opportunities to go either “DoT Caster” or “direct damage caster”

• Strong focus on weakening enemies

• Strong tools to deal with high threat/big health enemies

• With already a few curses present in the acolyte/lich kit adding even more curses(not only damage curses but also pure utility/defensive/debuff ones) in conjuction with the next point ->

• Certain passives and skills/skill spec tree nodes that revolve around enemies being cursed and some even stacking with the number of each curse that the enemy has. Increased damage/trigger chances for certain effect increased based on number of curses on enemy etc.

Few base skill suggestions which can be further expanded on with intersting skill spec trees:

1. Skill: Inevitable Doom: Area, Curse, Damage Over Time, Void

• Very long lasting curse dealing minor damage over time, which increases with each second active on enemies.

• Few possible notable skill spec tree node:

• “Sudden Doom”: reverse damage curve, dealing very high DoT damage for a much shorter duration, which strongly decreases over time.(small nodes leading up to it could further decreases duration while increasing damage)

• “Singly Doom”: Makes the skill a singletarget skill with a very big more damage multiplier, while keeping damage curve mechanic

2. Skill: Shattering Curse: Area, Curse, Debuff

• Demoralize enemies, decreasing their damage. Effect and all effects on skill spec tree increase in strength as enemies health decreases.

• Skill Spec Tree Nodes:

• “Decisive Shattering”: Enemies affected take increased damage from all sources, further increases by each other curse the enemy is afflicted by.

• “They shall fall one by one”: All effects of “Shattering Curse” increases when enemies affected by “Shattering Curse” die. (Just already cursed enemies will recieve the increasing effects, newly fresh casted “Shattering Curse” will start at base value). This one might be hard to program, not sure though.

3. Skill: Arena of Doom: Area, Ground, DoT, Void

• Creates a really big ground effect which deals minor damage over time. All DoT effects on enemies within this arena will tick quicker(they will do the same overall damage, so the DoT’s will expire earlier)

• Skill Spec Tree Nodes:

• Slowing Down the Traitors: All enemies within this Arena will get a stack of slow for each DoT effect on them when the Arena is casted. (Small nodes leading to this could give the whole arena some general slow for all enemies)

• Keep them sealed: Arena get walls around it (similar to Bone Prison)

4. Skill: Shadow Bolt: Projectile, Spell, Void

• Sustainable damage skill compareable with Fireball for Mage. Deals more damage for each curse present on enemies hitted.

• Skill Spec Tree Nodes:

• Quickened End: Hitting an enemy will let all present DoT’s on them deal damage equal to the next 2 seconds deal immediately and subtract 2 secodns of their remaining duration.

Now to the stuff you suggested:

I like your curses ideas and “Link Life” skill. Not sure about the “Aura of hurt” thing, since sacrificing life is already a pretty Lich thing and i would like to keep it as a (almost) unqiue feature. Only baseline abilities that support that are marrow shard and transplant.

Everything minion related i strongly dislike. I could get behind the idea of having 1 very permanent strong companion/guard that scales somewhat with player stats instead of minion stats. Or perhaps a temporary strong pet as soem sort of cooldown. I would think of either a demon, similar to some of your suggestions or my personal favorite some sort of Ghost/Spirit thing, which might even not be attackable for enemies.

But i think all kind of pet/companion type of thinks should kept optional.