WARLOCK IS COOKED (BAD) - Thoughts on Hotifx #65 & Suggestions for Balance

Make sure to like, comment and subscribe - I read every comment! Big love ❤
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:45 Hotfix 65
1:49 Damage Scaling Changes
3:23 Hit & Run is still the Best Caster Build
3:52 Torture Mastery changes aren't live?
4:06 How IronMace can improve their balance strategy
4:43 Suggested Balance Changes for Warlock
5:28 Outro
Hydra/Life-drain Guide: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5i5n6mufJhpbMksi=xSGxGuO9ZGhgFkIQ
Torture Mastery Guide: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mYClgaOOptZ0jLssi=l8xukItN4Y34qQZQ
Warlock Damage/Healing Calculator: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LTpiiP0JNyXvHaJ58XzM_MyOEacJYK0XUAMLw8dW0W0/edit?usp=sharing
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Music: The Medieval Banquet by Shane Ivers - www.silvermansound.com
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (bit.ly/CreativeCommons4-0)
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[@JarPapa]

Thanks for tuning in ❤ What are your thoughts on the recent Warlock changes? Are they justified? Let me know!

[@killy_montana5939]

this video needs to be sent to ironmace, honestly what are they thinking?

[@puffallo1935]

Seems like theyre pushing more of a melee build Eldritch, BOC, POS, BSB pick a 2 hander and 2 tap You only need 100% movespeed Halberd underrated right now, the spacing is great, and the falchion/ball combo is better for this build so that if you get pushed while casting you arent just folded The new gear is more focused to building hp so im starting to think its time to maximize hp and pdr and use POS (15 str/Vig) for your damage Im thinking HP% bonuses on gear would scale better as well as additional phys dmg to take advantage of strength multipliers Also Phys power bonus % would be more valuable so that you dont hit the power softcap too hard and miss out on damage What do you think? id love to see a video like this

[@FLAMINGFOXFILMZ]

Honestly warlock needs a complete overhaul/rework. Ironmace cant decide what they want from the class and either buff it to broken or nerf it to nigh unplayable

[@gusgus11111]

boiz the easiest way to kill warlocks just walk straight and as the spell leaves their hand just strafe works 90% of the time

[@TheRedVipre]

Not a Warlock main, but I had been playing Melee lock with Bloodstained Blade, Power of Sacrifice, and BoC this wipe. My build is legitimately dead now with the health cost change because I already burned through health items faster than a Barb before the nerf. Literally going out of my way to build something other than the CoP/Phantomize/Movespeed kiterlock everyone hates and IronMace decided to kill it.

[@JarPapa]

@@TheRedVipre I feel you my man! I’d been running a BoC Will Stacking Platelock build with magic staff but with the increased health cost and reduced scaling, it now feels soooo bad to run anything outside of the meta high MS caster build. They’ve kinda killed build diversity with these changes 😔

[@iKawf]

Here's a tip. Eldritch sheild negates negatives to PoS

[@TheRedVipre]

@@iKawf I'm aware, it doesn't negate the tick completely and the original blood cost of casting all 3 together is what makes it nonviable.

[@winstinwin7650]

I was just getting good at warlock,,,,,ok ok I was just not dying as often then the nerf hammer comes lol

[@tylerpetree4271]

feel this heavily lol

[@JarPapa]

Hang in there guys 🙏 times like these (whilst tough) will make you an even better and stronger Warlock when we eventually get buffed again. Hold strong, experiment with builds and try your best to have fun! I'll try and get an optimised 'best' Warlock build out as soon as possible ❤

[@redacted5035]

Same 😢 literally just got the game like 2 or 3 weeks ago 😭

[@INFJ-ThaneTr]

It was barely nerfed. Clearly stupids think otherwise cause they don't consider the gear changes

[@OogwayTheEG]

im glad im not the only one who feels like this- ik warloc needed a nerf badly but alot of what you suggest sounds very sane and reasonable- hopefully some of the devs catch wind of these ideas lol

[@PhantomBuild]

They are just pushing evry warlock player to go full in on the TM CP build. I really don't understand why they would ruin hydra lifedrain it was not that good but it was just a more fun playstyle.

[@PIayer420TV]

Yeah cause going anywhere on the map and being able to self heal instantly basically is totally fair vs the guys who have to sit at a fire or drink 16 potions. Totally. Fucking warlock mains are so trash they don't even know it.

[@PhantomBuild]

@@PIayer420TVI am just saying they should not push people towards the most hated playstyle in the game.

[@kingcowt1]

torture mastery went from 3 ticks to break even and 10 health profit for one curse... now it is one curse to break even...

[@Stravos96]

i fully expected and agree with nerfing the initial damage of CoP, but also agree that it was hit too hard. i also predicted the health cost increase and doubling instead with TM almost exactly somehow since i thought that it should probably be a little more punishing to miss spells as well as to persuade you to equip TM more often, using up one of the perk slots. it seems tricky to balance that idea, but its a good one in theory. knowing now that they are probably doing it with arena in mind and with the potential healing nerf as well, ive changed my mind and think that super low costs with low healing would be a better solution. i think the best way to do this is to probably just to return the old base spell costs (maybe potentially tweak them slightly i guess), remove the doubling/tripling cost, and heal for only 1 per tick. thats all that TM would do in this case: All curses inflicted upon enemies restores 1(0.1) health to the caster with each instance of damage dealt. doing it this way doesnt punish the player for spamming and missing nearly as much, but it also wont heal nearly as much. it also allows for a little more versatility of spell options to be reasonable like hydra without necessitating life drain along with it quite so much. (again, i originally thought a good nerf could be to punish misses more with a slightly higher hp cost... but seeing as how they want to nerf the healing, mainly for arena, i think that no longer makes sense to do and this version would likely be all around better and simpler to follow too which is nice) i like the idea to nerf phantomize by giving it a usage limit. makes sense. maybe in that case it should go back to 10% potentially but idc really. additionally, theres a bunch of simple tiny nerf ideas that warlock could get compared to how it was last patch, but you really cant go that far with them at all before warlock would start to feel underpowered again. and theres probably a few more creative ways the class needs a slight buff in a few areas to help promote more satisfying gameplay both when playing for and against warlocks. most importantly, do whatever is needed balance-wise to give the kris back. i honestly think it could have probably been returned with the balance of last patch with the exception of toning down CoP a little bit and maybe still being slightly too strong with demon, so it needs a rework on the healing skill in demon form or maybe just a complete rework of demon to force using barehanded and rebalancing around that idea for example, who knows how they'll do it if they do it. a bonus interesting idea to try to reduce kiting is to make spellbook slower. maybe it will already feel impactful enough just by making it -12 instead of -10 which would be a super simple quick and easy change. the problem with going slower is that then you start having to also change the crystal ball and maybe even the staff and youd have to rework all 3 of them at the same time, maybe even providing tiny buffs to compensate. possibly even make the crystal ball the fastest and weakest one instead for instance... theres some options here that make a lot of sense to slow casting movement a bit more, but i honestly dont know how much slower it should be to make it right. its probably really not that much

[@yeahdudelikewoah]

I like your suggested changes a lot. You really hit the nail on the head with them just making speed lock the only viable option. The nerfs are too broad in how they affect almost every build of warlock while also being so heavy handed that the only warlock build left standing was traditionally the strongest one and the one everyone complained about. Now you will just see a lot less warlocks and basically the only warlocks you will see are going to curse of pain you and run away. I have been trying my shit melee lock builds out still and its not completely unplayable but I feel like the biggest retard on earth for not just playing a fighter. I think the torture mastery nerf is fine, the phantomize nerf is fine; I would even be open to a hydra nerf. The curse of pain nerf is just a lil too high but the icing on all of this is the spell cost change. Ironmace needs to reverse that nerf, it kills all build diversity and shoehorns people into playing the class in the most toxic manner imaginable.

[@willfire6789]

Gonna be real im still cooking with lock. Just gotta hit your curses and be extra mindful of your health. Now though, when IM finally gets their thumb out of their mouth and finally do what they say, in this case, nerfing the healing on tm, im not so sure. We'll see how things go.

[@johnatetello4341]

here i am a rogue main really enjoying playing a new class then boom nuke nerf but I honestly think they will either reverse or slightly reverse changes....

[@DewbzThePanda]

Think a rework to the mechanics to torture mastery would be more appropriate, instead of cutting the numbers around the only viable sustain for pvp outside of hydrain they can just delete the viability if cursing and running with your healing, maybe reduce TM healing per tick but make it tick off of any damage you deal to them while they are cursed giving you a pseudo life steal that encourages aggression and staying withing fighting range

[@nickzanoni582]

Thank god

[@rezahel2142]

They removed kriss from him, the demon form is not really viable (someone who see you transform, just run in the opposite direction, with the kriss, you can "follow him" but not now), and now the spells / DoT too ? They wanna make him a warrior with one spell for support or what ? I don't understand

[@TheRealKinetic-q1t]

Found the solo player

[@iKawf]

They still have some secret tech that's not exposed. I have seen the new warlock meta, it's gets patched

[@arktrain4733]

I love to go melee on warklock with some spells, but now it's gonna be different. I liked warlock because of how versatile it was. I say bring back kris or find a way to increase the ways of playing melee work lockwolat feels good. I dont think boc needs a buff it feels right, but i do think that they should do something with the other skills. Im hoping they find a way to use more of the fact that you sacrifice your health for some type of different buff/ damage. What im saying is kinda confusing. I liked just having to curse once and then finding a way to use your skill to fight melee or use other spells to kill the enemy. I really do love warlock but, ill be switching to other classes, because i dont have fun playing a class that takes me playing perfectly and giving all i can just to win half the fights because the class doesnt do enough damage. Ill be waiting tho maybe iron mace will do some tyoe of crazy change that will benefit the warlock.❤ anyways love the videos jar and goodluck in your adventures fellow dungeon crawlers.

[@FoldingTeaLeaves]

If TM has it's healing reduced then I think I'm pretty much done with the class sadly. This was way too much all at once

[@Tipz011]

Ive been playing warlock with no healing besides potions, a staff, spells and it rocks... That seems to be the way IM wants us to do it, so pets go!

[@roli_cannoli]

It's crazy to me that they made the same exact mistake with the druid buff a little while ago

[@Bloodsaber64]

agreed, im a new player as of last week, made a lock and was like wow this is pretty nice, played after the nerf and im like nah bruh ima play something else

[@Zanezy.]

Probably not playing at all this patch. Fighter and bard sitting at perma 330 move speed while also having 60pdr is fine but god forbid a warlock curse actually do something useful for once. Oh IronMace please quit massacring my beloved class

[@wideout7838]

You’ve never seen a 60pdr fighter or a 50pdr bard at 330ms lmao. Tuff to even hit 310 on those classes unless ur gear is absolutely nuts lol. And fighters never touching it outside of sprint and even then only rondel fighters in trousers will really make it past 300 without

[@dylanmoss4763]

bro has no idea how fighters and bard actually build AHHAHAHAHH there is simply no way u can have 330 movespeed as a 60% pdr fighter. maybe at around 30-40% pdr u can get close to 300 with loose trousers and lightfoot boots on top of the plate gear. only time they have "perma 330 move speed" is when u press sprint which doesnt last very long. so idk where ur getting 330 perma LMFAOO

[@silent8109]

@@wideout7838 you never seen bis then

[@amarsh4056]

You realize they took Dex/Agi off of Fighter gear and replaced it with STR/VIG right? they wont be nearly as fast now. I'm sure Bard nerf will come next. It also doesn't help that so many people just want to meta game and play whatever they hear is "The Best" instead of what they actually enjoy, forcing the hand of the company to nerf it. Obviously if something is meta to that extent it needs to be nerfed. That is the whole point of balancing, people only complain that their class got nerfed when it was legit the meta and practically 50% of the player base was using it. I remember the good ol days when there was no warlock class. I used to play rogue and they pooped on rogue, you know what i did instead of get upset? i tried other classes till something else felt good.

[@wideout7838]

@@silent8109 I fought a kid just 2 days ago in a legit 500k kit lol. Viola, 2 other god rolled uniques, full legendary BiS otherwise and he had +5 additional MS 1.5%MS bonus and 1 agi and he wasn’t even close to 330 lol. When ur wearing 2-3 plate pieces like that and holding a weapon and shield combo ur not hitting 330MS BiS or not

[@AMMrawCR]

I may be wrong but I feel like you didn't even mention the fact that all magic resistance got buffed. Like they nerfed warlocks and wizard damage while buffing mr, which essentially equates to a double nerf on damage. I think IM is smart tho. If you nerf the sub 25 gs lobbies the hardest then you'll see less noobs complaining on reddit while saying that they have 'nearly 2k hours'. Like yeah you clearly played perfectly as a rondel fighter and warlock is just so op there's nothing you can do. Reddit is a cancer to this game

[@redacted5035]

Reddit is a cancer period 😂

[@Adam-lk2lp]

I don't play tm but with the changes and the increased cost you don't have a lot of options, hydrain is just unplayable

[@juanuribejaramillo4347]

Great game, good concept, but i respectfully state that Iron Mace is not a company I would take example on. They straight up lied when they said the game was not free to play back when the steam issue was on, and basically forced everyone who wanted to play to buy the full game, one year later, game is free to play. The other matter is the fact they don't respect their customers time to provide reliable and precise deadlines for their updates and patches, since the delays and extra time is a rule for them. As a last comment, the balancing team being deficient either in number of workers or skill, creates a scenario where no change will be good, covering one hole by unpatching a crack, and the cycle never ends. I love this game, but I never felt so anoyed by a company doing "their work". At his point, if I had been given the choice of free to play, would have never bought this game.

[@amarsh4056]

I couldn't disagree more. the paid version gives you so many more features, free to play version at least gives new players a taste to see if they want to stick around. I think that's a good move and it isn't like things are set in stone just because they had people pay for the game initially to play. They may not have intended for there to be a free version at the time but that doesn't mean they "lied" by adding one. Also, the game is early access, anybody that expects precise deadlines for an early access game is just being unrealistic or must be new to gaming because every early access game is like that and even plenty of full release games are like that including triple A game studios. If you love the game, be happy you supported it and did pay for it because it's a great game and well worth the price point. It has in game quests that give you rewards, cosmetics as well as the skins that actually affect stats and give you a reason to accomplish things in game, that alone is something barely any other game does anymore, PARTICULARLY multiplayer games. I understand being slightly frustrated but to say you've NEVER felt more annoyed at a company.... bruh, look at other games that are out these days, they are dog shit and a lot of them are so much worse.

[@juanuribejaramillo4347]

@@amarsh4056 Agree to disagree. I value the respectfull way you stated your argument and I am aligned in some parts with your opinion, but not with the whole of it. The industry of gaming being in a decline is not a reason to justify shady business decisions. Again respect and good health for you sir.

[@Ziptie5]

warlocks nerfed but still good imo

[@mikemosc3254]

I thought hating warlock was a meme, not an actual thing. Rangers and rogues seem just as annoying to me.

[@CurseSeer4561]

Everyone was already speccing into high move speed/high damage warlock because it’s the “meta”. Not sure how you even fix that because movement speed will always be king in this game it seems. The two classes I dislike playing against are barbarian, because it forces me to run away and play like a warlock out of fear of being 2 tapped. And warlock, because they play like warlock and it forces me to commit to a several minute chase to probably lose anyway. Warlock is a very strong class that’s hard to capitalise on their mistakes or out skill, because they get a free escape with phantomise while also being able to apply insane pressure if you try to back off from them at all. I think the way they’ve designed caster warlock overall is unhealthy for the game, and it creates a lot of unwinnable situations for most classes. if you’re at all competent with warlock they won’t be able to pressure you, while also not being able to run away from you either.

[@DoinMyBest4Ever]

Jar what are we gonna do.. 😂😂

[@BadManOhBadMan]

Lmao my guy… it’s Ironmace, they don’t play their own game, they have no fkin clue what to do or how to balance…. This isn’t new, they’ve done it to other classes…

[@JarPapa]

I know brother, they've done it countless of times with all classes in the past. I just wanted to create this video as I posted a similar one on the Ranked/AP System earlier this year and SDF commented on it and actually implemented some of the suggested changes; hoping this manages to reach him or some of the dev team in some capacity! 🙏

[@TheRedVipre]

Straight up misinformation saying they don't play. The community manager uploads his gameplay to his KZbin channel @GraysunsWar and in previous Q&As it was confirmed by the devs that the majority of their office mains Barbarians.

[@ondrejhalenka]

Guys, warlock is still overtuned. I am sorry that your favourite class got nerfed but you still have infinite health pool as long as you have mobs around you or you are able to hit curse on players. You can spam this curse indefinetly. Your curse was doing damage of a wizard fireball. (Dont know how does it work after patch but it will still hurt a lot). Your class is able to easily solo any boss and if you ever get into a sticky situation you have that button which will make you invincible for 6 sec... Warlock can do thing that any other clas cannot. So yes the nerf is 100% justified.

[@roli_cannoli]

God forbid warlock is good for one month

[@PIayer420TV]

Literally still the best class. Has best access to weapons, has plate options. Has demon options, Has self heal, Has get out of jail free card phantomize. Plus odds of finding items for characters that are melee only, vs items that have a magic roll is a joke. Every item in the dungeon has magic rolls on it. If you think warlock isn't still the jack of all trades and you're dying, it's because you are dogshit. Play bard for a season and get back to me. 😂

[@lukasholik1152]

This nerf doesn’t make sense, as it is typical for Ironmace doing “balancing” making class either strong or extremely bad.

[@rinzashi]

game is still bot compelete guys dont care about the patches this much tell your opinion to devs so they can do better no need to get upset or shi (i hate warlock but it doesnt has to do anything with the patch they shouldnt buff barb and fighter too)

[@Avo4929]

This is slap on the wrist compared to what Im is doing to wizard lol

[@rml4474]

A bit of a classic Ironmace update, though after like a handful of hours on the new patch i felt like Warlocks still good, feels like they want their main spells to really just be Bolt and Ray instead of CoP (which 1 full hit still half hits squishies on mid gear)

[@INFJ-ThaneTr]

Lol warlock nerf is barely noticable.

[@RobertJWH]

The issue for me, is warlock does the best at everything. Best boss clear, best healing (unlimited) best group mob clear, huge range damage and CC with hydra, its got the best melee weapon in the game running longsword and have amazing armour options. PVP It's great in 1v1 at low levels and at high gear levels. Its great 2v2 and 3v3. It is safe to play with phantomise and has huge kit abilities, while having huge melee options too. Having 35 damage at base level on a hitscan ability that heals you is just ridiculous. There is no weakness to this class. I started playing Warlock for the first time this wipe, and I often win 1v2 or get 4 or 5 kills per match. No other class can I even get close this this with. And I am new to warlock. This class does it all. And at S tier while doing it. Its totally busted.

[@RobertJWH]

Wizard for e.g. is busted in 3v3 but thats it.

[@Btk780]

I thinks it hilarious that warlock has been walking around untouchable forever. Get s a nerf and everyone acts like the class is over. It's not that bad the class has way too many options and was overpowered for the longest time. No class should b as versatile as warlock

[@snakyjake9]

I'd love for every class to be as versatile as warlock, tbh. Give fighters a two-handed weapon perk. Give rogues more flexibility without only buffing landmine. Give wizard, cleric, and druid cantrip spells that are weaker with no spell cap. Give cleric guiding bolt for a ranged projectile option. Give everyone more weapons and armor choices with varying stat lines. I think if IM only nerfed curse of pain and Phantomize, warlock mains wouldn't be complaining, while the heavy lifting for nerfing the toxic warlock build would have been done. The problem is they also simultaneously buffed MR, nerfed Occultist Boots, nerfed every non-TM caster warlock build with increased spell cost, and nerfed TM except at a super high MH level. This comes after IM took away the Kris dagger, which made BoC crystal ball builds less viable, which came after several nerfs to the melee buff spells because of how strong the Kris dagger was. Even right before this patch, there were a ton of great slightly off-meta warlock builds that weren't as cheesy / toxic as the CoP phantomize build, which have been made even worse. Now, warlocks have very little build variety at low gear, and are basically trolling at high gear if they aren't running TM with max magical healing. Instead of speed / damage though, they'll just build speed / survivability with magic pen and be just as annoying. I think IM could have nerfed Phantomize even harder, dropping the MS bonus down to zero and increasing the cooldown. That plus the CoP nerfs would still make warlock a much more balanced class without gutting it.

[@querelleur8330]

people arent mad about the warlock being nerf, they're mad about the nerf being that freaking stupid, every damn build of the warlock is nerfed badly by this patch and make it literally impossible to do a thing against a fighter or a barbarian rushing at you, they even nerfed the occultist's boots movement speed by 2 points in a game where movement speed is THE stat and they gave a smaller CD on fighter sprint. at this point why not just remove warlock and basically every other casters if they only end up buffing melee .

[@amarsh4056]

Warlock was way too good in basically every single way. When 50% or more of the player base is playing one class, they should get nerfed into the ground until they can be balanced back up not slowly nerf'd until they are just weak enough. it'll be temporary and people need to stop complaining. They did the same thing to rogue on season one or 2 and basically made it unplayable. It isn't like they nerfed Lock and made everything else way better. It's still playable you just can't be a one trick pony with it anymore. All warlocks were doing is cursing and running away and if you got close, phantomize and with the curse doing insane damage all it took is one parry with a long sword after 1 or 2 curses and the fight is over. It was absolutely lame to fight them. You also have to consider that they were just completely broken when it comes to boss farming and still probably will be. I think all the changes are justified for the time being and they will slowly rework it by the end of the season.

[@dylanmoss4763]

thank fucking god, tired of seeing endless warlocks running around the game because its broken, womp womp now ur class actually takes soem skill

[@haydentopping8913]

Cringe.

[@silent8109]

ur prolly ass

[@gabrielmoreno3027]

Are you aware that they still actually haven't implemented the change xD? It's still the 2 base, you can try it out yourself

[@JarPapa]

3:52 😘

[@lukalalosevic200]

good thing you commented without watching the video ...thank you for your amazing input really thank you so much ... banobo

[@gabrielmoreno3027]

@@lukalalosevic200 keep yourself very safe dear

[@coldcoder3138]

Bud, they literally patched it a day ago.

[@lukalalosevic200]

@@gabrielmoreno3027 da fuck is monkey yapping about

[@janesaroma]

nerfed too hard.