WL's Strange Skill Tree

[ponko22]

After the MDPS patch, doesn't everyone think the skill tree for Warlock is strange? It doesn't seem very well thought out.

[Path of the Hunter]
It looks like a tree designed for AoE, but there's clearly a lot of wasted skill.

- Why are Coordinated Strike (simultaneous attack with lion) and Hack (next lion attack is guaranteed to be critical) in this path?

These 2 skills are in this skill tree, so you can't increase your attack power when building a single-target build.
Also, when doing an AoE build, most people set Loner (25 Damage Buff, unable to summon lion) as their TAC, so these 2 skills become unnecessary. And then there's the 11th skill, Hack and Slash (15% armor penetration for slashing balde and Whirling Axe), but for some reason, it reduces the AP for Hack.

- Also, why is Force Opportunity (a single-target armor debuff) at point 9 here?

[Path of The Axeman]
Thin The Herd (healing debuff) at point 13 is a useless skill that nobody uses, as most characters have it at point 9 of their skill tree, but WL has it at point 13 and it requires an attack from the side or rear.

[Path of The Guardign]
Baited Trap at point 11 (Baiting Strike adds an armor buff and increases Disrupt by 10%) lacks the synergy of knocking down opponents upon disruption like Mara does, and Baiting Strike is a PvE skill that reduces monster hate, so it's a completely useless skill.Incidentally, Mara doesn't have this PvE skill. It's a wasted skill slot.

Are there still people using these skills?
For reference, here's a build I'm using for AoE and Single Target.
I'm still experimenting with defensive builds.

- Single Target
https://builder.returnofreckoning.com/c ... 3,521,9198

- AoE
https://builder.returnofreckoning.com/c ... 4,9202,521

[Shieldslam]

The entire class honestly doesn't quite have synergy anymore. Not sure if it ever had after live.
Let's take a look at the class and its kit, or rather how I think it should be played based on its abilities:
A pet-based medium armor melee burst class with little utility but decent CC and the ability to kite. Engaging and disengaging constantly every 10s (cd on strongest dmg abilities/gapcloser) with the pet providing a bit of dps and CC between bursts. It's supposed to be annoying, mobile, squishy yet highly damaging in combination with the pet but once seperated loses a lot of power.

How it actually plays in reality:
1. Its identity is supposed to be the Lion which, unfortunately, has terrible AI and gets stuck everywhere / takes questionable paths to Narnia. Sometimes I tell mine to attack a target 5m away from me so it decides to run to a nearby tree, around it and then to the target, maybe even getting stuck in the terrain and despawn. Some zones are almost entirely unplayable like Thunder Mountain. For example I refuse to go into the crypt BO in T2 EMP because there are multiple spots where the pet despawns and by the time I reach the flag/boxes I respawned pet at least 3 times already and then the same on the way back out. At many keeps (for example south keep in Praag) you can't even send your pet through the OPEN gate, it always tries to take the backdoor. In short: class mechanic is incredibly unreliable.
2. You yourself are close to useless without the pet because many abilities and tactics rely on it. I've lost fights I had 100% won just because the Lion despawns after getting stuck on a pebble and I can't do anything meaningful on my own for 15s. 6v6 ranked is not a thing anymore but very rarely you encounter a decent group with a braincell or two and when they instantly focus the Lion the moment it spawns you will do absolutely no damage at all, (2h?) tank level of dps.
3. The solution to many issues is to, ironically and sadly, use Loner and give up your class mechanic/pet entirely which shouldn't be the way to play the class in WBs. When you first look at Loner it seems like a self-nerf or troll tactic, until you figure out it's actually the most reliable one. Imagine someone new picks this class and asks his friend only for him to say "Oh just equip the tactic that makes your pet go away" .. like what's the point? The only people who stuck to WL, from my experience, are either solo addicts who simply "deal" with the pet and accept it or WB Loner players, too often have I heard from people that they couldn't continue with that pet. When it despawns you have to wait 15s, demount, summon, remount .. like wtf - should be able to resummon with no CD if it died out of combat.
4. The class has close to no base utility. A meaningless 20% attack speed debuff and a pull (only with pet). I guess it has a situational morale ability (Pack Assault) I think I've pressed like 3 times in my life by accident .. and a strength debuff only from behind/sides. Nothing to offer besides burst dmg.
5. COOLDOWNS. Every ability worth pressing has a 10s cooldown. Coordinated Strike, Cull The Weak, Thin The Herd, Force Opportunity, Pounce, Whirling Axe (13s), the new Hack - what do you do during the downtime? Not much really, WL doesn't have a potent no-cd spammable ability like SL/CHOP toughness debuff, or Maras whole debuff rotation to keep up, Mara/WH/WE stackable dot. You're basically stuck with 2 seperate weak physical dots and a glorified autoattack (Sundering Chop). No channel either unless you go WB tree all the way up. The only viable way to play is either the 10s burst windows, lame deftard or AOE WB build spamming 1 button apart from WA every 13s. No build/gameplay variety at all.

Another part of the issue are the trees. As you mentioned it's a total mess with abilities all over the place:
1. Force Opportunity being at 9pts in AOE tree leads to the same limiting factor some other classes have (WH Repel Blasphemy and BAL / Mara Armor debuff / 4/6 tanks for KD) where they are also basically always forced to go up a certain tree because the class is nearly unplayable without it. Those should just be base to open up way more options for builds. I mean, WL doesn't even have either of the base disarm Mara(+range KD on disrupt)/WH/WE have on parry. It's literally the only DPS class in the entire game without a hard cc by default.
2. AOE tree has the best debuff, middle is single target only with an OUTGOING heal debuff and an execute, pet tree has all the CC. So what do you do exactly? You have to go AOE for armor debuff 100% of the time, so if you go KD you can't go middle but if you go pet tree you won't have personal damage and you're even more reliant on the pet. Even with +2 sov you could only go armor debuff/execute/KD and 1 more point while griefing your build. Leonine Frenzy is also the only way to actually make the pet do any meaningful damage but can't crit (could on live) and once again makes you rely on a buggy pet even more.
3. Tactics. Aaaaaaah. Half the tactics don't work without a pet and barely any even apply to the pet like Centuries of Training/Discerning Offense/Riposte etc. Soooo many completely unusable tactics. I struggle to find any to even consider using. Primal Fury buff, crit buff, etc. all don't apply to the damn pet either.
4. Stances. Trained To Hunt is the WB stance, Kill the solo stance (but why does it have toughness if it gives pet your STR/WS?). What does Threaten do then? Well nothing really. 5% crit is nice but only from sides/behind while also increasing pets defensive stats (Toughness/Wounds) based on yours. If you are built offensively the pet gets barely, if any, stats from this stance because you don't build those stats. However if you build defensively the last thing you really care about is conditional 5% crit - complete mess. Threaten also gives the pet a base 618 armor debuff which doesn't stack with yours (doesn't need to, should be replaced entirely) and a slow (50% uptime) you don't require but the challenge is decent. Clearly it's supposed to be the pet tank stance which makes you the "threat" but in a pvp game you aren't fighting bots/npcs who can get taunted.
5. One personal grudge I have is how the pet behaves in terms of closing the gap. If it gets CC'd in any way it will basically never reach its target ever again without Charge but wasting a personal offensive/defensive cooldown because pet functions like a PvE mob (knockback is a KD instead) is silly. Having to waste a tactic slot to make it somewhat stick to someone while other pets are ranged and don't have that issue is also strange. When you Pounce at someone from range it takes your pet quite some time to get to the target, even more if they run away, so you're just standing there dishing out laughable damage without your pet. It should either mini-Pounce on your target or get a significant speedboost when you Pounce or a base movementspeed increase of 25% so it doesn't just get taken out completely by a single slow/CC.

TLDR: The entire class is a mess. The trees, synergy, tactics, abilities, pet AI and scaling. Had high hopes for mdps rework but nothing changed besides getting an overtuned selfheal. All WL has to offer is burstdmg, sustained dps is poop and survivability (non deftard) is just as bad. Highly unlikely anything will change because you'd have to rework the class from the ground up basically with updated pet AI and synergy between pet/WL and abilities.

[ponko22]

Thank you for logically explaining everything I wanted to say. I think you are a great player who has observed and experienced a lot.

Yesterday, after defeating one of DEST Player, my lion stopped moving, so I tearfully deleted it and ran around for 15 seconds.(Someone unfamiliar with the game might say this, but the Revenge TAC doesn't activate if you delete it yourself, so I never acquire it.)

Those who are saying WL is excessively powerful should read this person's writing and try to explain it logically.
To be honest, I don't have any expectations of the developers.
Even in this situation, I often see amazing WL players in SC, and I want to continue studying and learning.

[gisborne]

Those who are saying WL is excessively powerful should read this person's writing and try to explain it logically.
To be honest, I don't have any expectations of the developers.
Even in this situation, I often see amazing WL players in SC, and I want to continue studying and learning.

It was excessively powerful, but got tuned down during the mDPS patch. It used to have 50% (!!!) armor ignore on AE abilities, for example. Compared to its counterpart the Slayer it has greater mobility, an annoying skill in fetch (regardless of how useless ppl say, it still works sometimes), and greater defense while damage remains mostly comparable.

[ponko22]

Please talk about the present situation, not the past. Also, please refrain from selectively quoting only parts of the text.

Regarding Fetch, as @Shieldslam pointed out earlier, Pet has many problems that cannot be solved through strategy alone
please point those out first.

[Shieldslam]

It was excessively powerful, but got tuned down during the mDPS patch. It used to have 50% (!!!) armor ignore on AE abilities, for example. Compared to its counterpart the Slayer it has greater mobility, an annoying skill in fetch (regardless of how useless ppl say, it still works sometimes), and greater defense while damage remains mostly comparable.

Of course all that armorpen was too much and rightfully tuned down, no question. But going from 50% to 15% is questionable. You have to keep in mind that the class offers nothing but dmg, no buffs/debuffs worth considering so if the damage is tuned down what does that leave the class with?

However I wouldn't consider WL to be much more useful than Slayer. Is it more tanky? Barely, the only thing it has over SL is medium armor which I wouldn't call "greater" especially in WS stacking meta (Slayer staying in yellow). Mobility by default obviously but nobody has as much mobility besides new WE and mSH, that was always WLs unique thing. Fetch is a pet ability so most don't even have it realistically because majority run Loner, though having a pull is strong but needs either a tactic or Charge to be effective so comes at a cost - Mara in comparison doesn't need a pet or tactic and is ranged.

Damage is absolutely not the same, not even close. My WL is built full offensive with 56% crit and apart from Coordinated Strike and Execute nothing hits hard. As mentioned single target your pet just dies and so does your damage. WB spec is just procc fishing with Slashing Blade/Trained to Hunt which might look like a lot but really doesn't contribute much. I've topped dmgchart in WB and LOTD doing **** all besides procc spamming myself, WL is the mdps equivalent of fraud Engis. Especially the downtimes between bursts (10s or 13s for AOE) is laughable. My lowgeared SW does quite a lot more dmg/dps than my fully geared WL.
WL is most likely in a better spot than SL simply due to mobility alone as that tool is so unbelievably strong and versatile. I think it mostly comes down to the fact that Slayer is just terribly balanced and doesn't really have anything unique to him in the end since Rampage was nerfed. Not intending to go for a "we vs them" discussion but WL/SL are honestly impressively terrible when compared to Destro options and I don't think there's much of a point comparing WL to SL when they are both in a bad spot.

Edit: At least Slayer can reduce parry/block by 50% on focus target. Also has AP reduction for grp (not always useful). 3 sec undefendable KD by base which WL has no access to without pet tree/build. Shatter Limbs CD increase on opponents is also something you can't just ignore. 5 sec anticrit on himself. Slayer has a bad crit dmg tactic but WL has no access to any with Loner. Rampage, even the nerfed version. WL has nothing even remotely comparable to that, just the silly interrupt. It's literally JUST Pounce, armor debuff and ranged morale 1 root that WL has in a WB setting.

[Bozzax]

I think the concerns about the mastery trees are fair. There are several abilities that could be rearranged to create more coherent build paths and improve build diversity.

From my experience pet is generally reliable enough if you manage it properly with manual controls/keybinds, and addons help as well. There are certainly pathing issues in some areas, but I don’t think they’re a defining issue with the class.

That said, any design improvements should be looked at in the context of WL’s current power level. WL is already one of the strongest MDPS because it combines several strengths that very few classes have at the same time: medium armor, exceptional mobility, the ability to save Charge as a “get out of jail” card instead of using it offensively, near-immunity to snares while Charge is available, extremely fast target switching, and very high front-loaded burst.

Because of that, improving the mastery layout or optimizing the trees shouldn’t be viewed as free quality-of-life changes. Better tree synergy would create stronger and more flexible builds, which is a direct increase in power.

So my conclusion is that I agree the trees could be improved (true for most classes).However, doing so without significantly reducing some of WL’s current strengths would push the class beyond its already very strong position. If the goal is a healthier design, the right approach is a rebalance: improve the awkward parts while trimming power elsewhere, rather than simply stacking improvements on top of an already top-tier career.

[DevanShell]

I feel like the build variety is better than it was before the MDPS patch, since Path of the Axeman now has more valuable talents.

The AoE nerfs were well deserved. However, the MDPS patch also opened up a niche 12-man playstyle with an AoE spec and pet. I find the AoE interrupt incredibly powerful, since you can AoE interrupt at 2 places at once (pet and player).

Single-target White Lion (Guardian) performs very well against pugs and unorganized groups. I always run the armor debuff build:

https://builder.returnofreckoning.com/c ... ,9199,9201

Against a coordinated 6-man, however, your pet becomes your biggest weakness. Once it's focused down, you lose a huge amount of both utility and damage. Even with Revenge, your DPS falls off a cliff. The pet-focused playstyle is a lot of fun, but it can also be incredibly frustrating.

Overall, I think ST White Lion is still in a good spot, with more than one viable build for small-scale fights and scenarios.

AoE White Lion, on the other hand, lost a significant amount of damage and kill potential. That said, with your AoE interrupt and Pounce, you still bring enough utility to justify a spot in a group.

If your pet keeps getting stuck, try pressing Stay followed by Heel. That works for me most of the time. The only thing you can't really control is the pet's pathing, especially on maps like TM or Reikland Factory.

[salazarn]

There are certainly some redundant tacticsthat are never taken
Lionheart and blindsided both come to mind.

Also going 11 points into axeman for a 50% atk speed debuff that are typically more baseline is not v satisfying.