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NMBLNG
2010-03-20, 06:14 PM
So in a few months a friend of mine is going to start an epic-level campaign, custom setting. I've decided that I want to play a Tiefling Warlock of the Star Pact. Question for the Giants: How do you optimise a Starlock?

Now I know warlocks don't have the highest DPR, and I'm ok with that. But this campaign will have other experienced players that know what they're doing, so I need to make sure that I'm not dragging too far behind the other strikers or controllers.

Currently the build starts at level 18 as a charisma-focused Star Warlock / Master of the Starry Night. (Think fanboy of C'thulhu). Feats focus on getting things marked cursed. Improved Starpact boon + MotSN utility ability means I can get some good bonuses to hit. High charisma + fiery rebuke = about +20 damage to one hit each encounter.:smallsmile:

Any experience/warnings/advice on how to make warlocks effective?

Gralamin
2010-03-20, 06:58 PM
So in a few months a friend of mine is going to start an epic-level campaign, custom setting. I've decided that I want to play a Tiefling Warlock of the Star Pact. Question for the Giants: How do you optimise a Starlock?

Now I know warlocks don't have the highest DPR, and I'm ok with that. But this campaign will have other experienced players that know what they're doing, so I need to make sure that I'm not dragging too far behind the other strikers or controllers.

Currently the build starts at level 18 as a charisma-focused Star Warlock / Master of the Starry Night. (Think fanboy of C'thulhu). Feats focus on getting things marked cursed. Improved Starpact boon + MotSN utility ability means I can get some good bonuses to hit. High charisma + fiery rebuke = about +20 damage to one hit each encounter.:smallsmile:

Any experience/warnings/advice on how to make warlocks effective?

First, do you have access to DDI? There is a lot of nice warlock content in DDI.

Second, you'll want to focus on getting 1) Things cursed as often as possible and 2) Getting your pact boon as often as possible. With these requirements its generally a good idea to grab Double Implement Spellcaster, and pick up a Bloodcurse Rod and a Rod of Corruption (Note: There are likely better rods, these are just the two I thought of off the top of my head).

There is an alternative if you have DDI/Dragon Annual: You can change to Servant of Caiphon, and Arcane Implement Proficiency (Heavy Sword) [Possible because of Swordmage], and grab a Radiant Weapon. Now all of your attacks can deal radiant damage, and you get 18-20 Crit range.

Master_Rahl22
2010-03-20, 08:56 PM
I have a level 25 Tiefling Fey'lock with Dual Pact (Star), so a lot of the stuff I did will work for you too. I really like this character, so hopefully this will be helpful. The guide I used is here (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19648994/The_Power_of_the_Dark_Side:_The_Warlocks_Handbook) but here are some highlights.

Feats: Sacrifice to Caiphon is a must. Spend a few HP to keep an Enc power you missed with? Yes please! Twofold Curse and Relentless Curse are paragon tier, and will help make sure you reap the benefits of your pact boon. Dooming Action is great for nova rounds, since it lets you apply your curse damage again on an AP. Dual Implement Spellcaster is a great feat. I used this to grab a Rod of Brutality (gives your curse damage Brutal 1, 2, or 3 based on level) and Rod of the Star Spawn (crit on 19-20, can spend a surge on crit). Called Shot is another great feat, +5 damage when you have Prime Shot.

Items: The above mentioned rods were ones I really liked. Shadow Warlock armor is free CA as long as you move 3 squares every turn, so that's awesome too. Most of the rest of my gear is built around teleporting and Charm/Psychic stuff, so it won't be as helpful.

Powers: I really like Strand of Fate and Dark Transport, which are both Star Encounter powers. Strand of Fate is awesome for taking down solos, and Dark Transport is just fun since you can teleport some enemy right in the middle of your group and you're not stuck in the middle of all the enemies either.

NMBLNG
2010-03-21, 12:43 AM
I don't have DDI/Dragon Annual, though I may have a friend that has it. I'll have to check. In general I try to stick to the common books so that DMs are more likely to have access to it. But that's another thread....

Curse EVERYTHING. Got it. Getting pact to trigger...that's probably the harder part. But that's why we have wizards to kill minions.

I took some time to read some more of the warlock abilities. It seems that if I want to be dealing a lot of damage and actually doing striker-y things, that damage will have to come from items and feats. Warlock's curse helps, but 2d6 is probably not going to be doing enough at near epic levels. I'm thinking that I'll need to make sure that all or most of my abilities have some good controlling aspect to them.

Kallisti
2010-03-21, 12:46 AM
@Master_Rahl22: No love for the Bloodcurse rod? The beautiful, shiny Bloodcurse rod? The jolly, candy-like Bloodcurse rod?

NMBLNG
2010-03-21, 12:49 AM
@Master_Rahl22: No love for the Bloodcurse rod? The beautiful, shiny Bloodcurse rod? The jolly, candy-like Bloodcurse rod?

Me thinks I will need to look at this item. Which book is it in?

And on that note, are there any multiclass feats that grant training in stealth?

Kallisti
2010-03-21, 12:57 AM
I believe it's core, but I'm not certain. It's either that or Adventurer's Vault. It makes it so that your pact boon triggers once when a cursed victim is bloodied and again when he dies. Whether that means slaying a cursed minion is worth double points is up to the GM, but chances are they're not. Still an excellent item in either case, though.

Also, the combination of Rod of Reaving and Rod of Corruption. It lets you nuke every minion on the field for massive pact boon AND GREAT JUSTICE, and curses any survivors.

Basically, the Rod of Reaving lets you do damage every time you curse someone (I forget how much, but it's a pittance), and the Rod of Corruption turns your curse into Dr. Device, spreading outwards from any cursed victim who dies. So you curse a minion, who dies and triggers a curse explosion, those hit die and trigger curse explosions...

See also, Cursebite. Find a way to learn Cursebite. Like Two-fold Pact. Cursebite is among my favorite Warlock spells, because it rewards you even more for getting a curse on as many enemies as possible, which you should be doing anyway. That, All the Sand All the Stars, and Thief of Five Fates are easily my favorite Warlock spells.

I have just expressed pretty much the sum of my woefully-lacking 4e Warlock knowledge.

NMBLNG
2010-03-21, 01:04 AM
Also, the combination of Rod of Reaving and Rod of Corruption. It lets you nuke every minion on the field for massive pact boon AND GREAT JUSTICE, and curses any survivors.
emphasis added

Please turn in your Warlock Card on your way out.:smalltongue:

This warlock will be nuking for C'thulhu and all that Far Realm/Xoriat goodness.

Kallisti
2010-03-21, 01:07 AM
Never! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh FOR GREAT JUSTICE R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Tyrrell
2010-03-21, 10:00 AM
I like shadow warlock armor from Adventurer's vault 2


Property: when you have concealment from your Shadow Walk class feature, any creature affected by your Warlock's Curse grants combat advantage to you.

NMBLNG
2010-03-21, 11:26 AM
I think I found a feat that does the same thing, more or less, and is useful out of battle. MP2 (I think it's 2) has a rogue MC feat that grants you training in stealth, and the 'sneaky rogue' feature, whatever it's called.

Basically, you can move normally without penalty to your stealth checks. In addition, if you have any kind of concealment you can make a stealth check to become hidden. As long as I can keep moving, I can be hidden nearly all the time.

On a scale from Kraft to Gouda, how cheesy is this?


edit: The biggest drawback I see to this is monsters with some kind of truesight ability. How prevalent is this in higher levels?

Kurald Galain
2010-03-21, 01:22 PM
The key to playing a warlock is to not focus on DPR (in which they will always lag behind to some extent) but on harassing your enemies (in which they excel).

Basically, you do a bit less damage in exchange for the ability to blind/prone/slide or otherwise impair your foe.

NMBLNG
2010-03-21, 06:15 PM
The key to playing a warlock is to not focus on DPR (in which they will always lag behind to some extent) but on harassing your enemies (in which they excel).

Basically, you do a bit less damage in exchange for the ability to blind/prone/slide or otherwise impair your foe.

i.e., pretend to be a high-damage controller.

Yakk
2010-03-21, 06:40 PM
So, what level are you?

Are you a Con or a Cha star-lock, or somewhere in the middle?

The warlock pact powers are amoung the highest damaging at-wills in 4e. Yes, better than twin strike, because on a hit, you get a 2d6+double-stat+double-tap attack.

For encounter powers, grabbing sacrifice is tempting: it turns all encounter powers into reliable powers, which makes single-target ones especially nasty.

My favourite AOE warlock power is star shackles, but it is cha-based. It can single-handedly kill a good fraction of an entire army. In a given combat, it ends up being "everyone hit burns an average of 2 standard actions or dies in a handful of rounds -- oh, and you get to spread it!"

If you are going the AOE route, MC wizard for Enlarge Spell/Destructive Wizardry is tempting.

NMBLNG
2010-03-21, 09:28 PM
Mostly CHA based. Not sure how much I'm going to put into CON at this point. Starting no lower than level 18, though we may start higher.


The warlock pact powers are amoung the highest damaging at-wills in 4e. Yes, better than twin strike, because on a hit, you get a 2d6+double-stat+double-tap attack.
No quite sure what you mean by that. Care to explain?

Yakk
2010-03-22, 09:19 AM
One way to get easy damage boosts in mid-high level 4e is to exploit the failure of 4e designers to fully take into account the multiplying effects of multi-tap powers.

When you deal 7[W] damage and add 30 to it, the [W] dice match or exceed your damage bonus.

When you deal 1[W] damage 4 times, adding 30 each time, that 30 bonus ends up being multiplied.

Due to good old imperfection, you can get a higher damage bonus on attacks than 4e seemed to be balanced against.

In the case of the infernal and starlock at-wills, they are both "double-tap" powers. You deal a damage roll when you hit, then when the triggering condition goes off, you deal damage again. If you can get your static damage bonus up, and reliably trigger that condition, you can cause some serious pain.

--

In your case, you are a cha-based starlock. That is ok, but it means you will be neglecting your star-pact at-will dire radiance.

Trying to balance all three of con, cha and int is a mistake.

--

At level 18, you have a paragon path. The student of caphion is a powerful enough paragon path that people would MC warlock just for it. Get a way to make all of your powers radiant (one was mentioned earlier in this thread) and you can get a wide crit width.

A top-notch feat is the one that gives you a second pact. This can significantly widen your selection of powers you have. As a cha-lock, your choices are fey or dark pact. Both of them have mediocre at-wills, but what are you gonna do?

What you get out of them is that you now have a 2nd purpose to put your curse bonus, and have access to more riders on powers.

--

Sacrifice to Caphion is a must.

--

Lasting Frost/Arcane Admixture/Wintertouched is also a decent combo, but mixing it with Radiant cheese is tricky. (it works out to +5 damage per tap)

Ie, an eldrich strike with gloves of eldrich admixture (the warlock gloves that change the damage type of eldrich blast) and arcane admixture radiant and lasting frost and wintertouched and arcane riposte and arcane riposte mastery gives you a power that deals [W]+Cha+Etc+Lots damage and repeats if the target dares attack you.

Going deeper down the cheese hole, you hybrid swordmage, pick assault swordmage, mark the target. Now if the target attacks you, you get a free attack -- if the target doesn't attack you, you get a free attack.

This isn't as far down the cheese hole as you can go, but the hole goes as deep as you want to go. (Swordmage|Warlock hybrids can hit close to 1000 average DPR at epic).

--

There is an entire tree of radiant cheese out there. Boons that grant you bonus damage when you damage radiant vunerable targets, ways to impose radiant vunerability, etc.

NMBLNG
2010-03-22, 02:04 PM
So multi-tap = hitting more than once with 1 ability. That's not too hard.

Never heard of arcane riposte. I don't have access to DDI/Dragon Magazine, mind you.

I guess I'll looking for less character optimisation and more character awesomeization. Being able to do really cool things, and not falling behind in combat.

NMBLNG
2010-03-25, 11:33 PM
Sorry for the minor thread necromancy...

So, apparently I DO have access to DDI, and the Student of Caiphon looks like a fun class. Though it's totally getting re-fluffed as Chosen of V'Ger. I'll have to go through the list of star names and replace them...

Unicron (Transformers), V'Ger(Star Trek), C'thulhu(Lovecraft), Trigon(Teen Titans), HAL(2001), Galactus(Marvel Comics)....maybe someone from Robotech, like Exedore. Any other heralds of the Far Realm?

Edit: JENOVA (FF7) and Zuul (Ghostbusters)
Edit: Dalek (Dr.Who)