Warlock Feat : Ability focus (Eldritch Blast)

[wangxiuming]

Yes. Ability Focus: Invocations increases DCs for invocations like Chilling Tentacles, Wall of Perilous Flame, and Charm (invocation version). It does not affect blast essences or shapes.

[Tekill]

If Warlocks had any 'I win buttons' you would see a lot of warlocks using CHR locks and you would see a lot of Warlocks winning in PVP. And you would have a lot of other players demanding Warlocks be nurfed. Granted, we are known masters of pve (the reasons for which are not related to spell DCs). But pvp, well we can be scary, but we are far from the top pvp class.

The two blasts I use, are for crowd control, and so, I argue that they are the closest to 'I win buttons' at least imo. I have not spent much time looking at the others blasts. Maybe I should because I have been seeing Warlocks use some of the other blasts with great affects...the undead one and the frost rime ones in particular- great for specific enemies. Noxious and Repelling are really about crowd control and that's why I took them, at least until my Horrid Wilting Blast gets approved.

Most of my player vs player use of the crowd control has had mixed results. Spell resistance is my bane- cant use anything but Vitriolic (which has no spell CC affects) against anyone with spell resistance. And if they have acid immunity up as well. Then its simply not much of a fight.
Sure I could pull out my Mords scroll, and they are probably Mord'ing me at that very moment anyways... should I include scrolls and pots in discussing a classes strength? I suppose so. Valuable rounds would have to be used up to breath through that SR or mantle spell...assay resistance, spell pen...whatever.
Its usually at this time when I roll two, natural ones in a row. Then my Light shields spell failure of 5% suddenly feels like its 50%
My fellow Locks know what I'm talking about.

So with fighters- they run up to me and Expose all my weaknesses - it only takes them one try to knock me down, if they bother. Chop-chop-chop-chop, then finally- ohhh...I finally get my blast off. Maybe I hit, maybe he fails his save this time and is knocked down for a round. Next round hes up again. Chop-chop-chop-chop then finally my blast goes off- maybe I hit, maybe with a lot of luck hes knocked down again- oh nope never mind my spell got interrupted with the fighters last crit, I will have to wait another round of chop-chop-chop-chop before I get another chance. I lose.

I could of tried to daze him with Vitriolic but there is no way Im getting past his fort save. Even if I dumped every resource into CHR (putting all my eggs in one basket) with a 33 DR (with my snowflake Aasimar) would still be a long shot. What is the average level 30 fort save for a warrior?
Well with my current balanced warlock it a dc of 26 (possibly 27 without the Ability focus feat). I will get one, maybe two chances to stun before I'm down.
I will say though, at least it is a chance...there is always a chance I can stun that bastard, before he cuts me down. A wizard will have a much better chance for obvious reasons. Make sure not to compare a saving through from a warlock and one from a wizard. Save or die.

The monks deflect missiles works with Blasts unless I wield nothing in my hands.
Rogues...I can obtain sneak attack immunity, but there is a way around that for some pro rogues. warlocks cant spot or listen for crap (low skill points)....I haven't much experience with PVP'ing sneaksters....they tend to be top pvp in the last tournaments I watched.

Warlocks could use more flavor - we are mundane in PVP. Tell me if I am right or wrong.

That is my rant- it was fun ranting.

[Valefort]

Can't you hit and run ? You have flee the scene and the fighter won't have haste for long, dispel it from him to make it short and then I don't know what the fighter can do exactly except hoping you'll stop moving and let him knockdown you.

Mirror image wand is useful versus knockdown by the way.

[Steve]

A fighter is never just a Fighter. Beat them at their own game, by multiclassing to a Build that supports your (winning) conflict RP goals.

For example, if I wanted to almost always win at PvP, I'd probably roll up a Warlock / Dragonslayer / Shadowdancer.

Pretty much, one has to use all available strategies when you set out to achieve X, or Y, or Z...and especially if it is XYZ.

[AC81]

Why would you target a fighters fortitude save? Throw a will save his way.

[Tekill]

@ Valefort – yes you have to kite in a situation like that. But its not easy. With a bow...you can take a few shots and then bolt. With my blast, I get one shot and it goes off at pretty much the end of the round. That gives the fighter a lot of time to catch up to me. My blast range is not the greatest so even a non hasted fighter has a good chance to cover most of the ground to reach before my blast goes off. So my blast goes off and I run away. At this point if the fighter has gotten close, he may get a few 'chops' in, unless I can tumble out of the way. So now hes chasing me and pretty much on my heels. Hopefully I can outrun him or maybe I had been able to use the first round to dispel him. So now I have to run far enough away from him and get enough distance to try another blast, again allowing him to close the distance fairly easily.
Can work in a wide open area. I know it has failed for me in the past, but I suppose I could just keep working at it.
Going invis is also an option- which can work. Go invis. Get some distance. Blast – go invis again....
How does a typical melee fighter get past good ol' invis?

@ Steve- I dont really have “winning conflict RP goals”.
I have a pve build and I don't mind losing pvp.
Warlocks do a lot of damage which makes them good at pve- just that simple. The point I was trying to make was that warlock blasts can not be used as 'I win buttons' even if we can spam them infinitely. The DC of the invocations essences are a smidge too low against bosses and other players, for a ChrLock to be truly effective. The combination of high damage and a spell effects at the same time, is nice, (and why I picked it) but currently it is fairly ineffective (but still stylish and fun).
But yeah, mix HIPS into just about any class and you are almost guaranteed a good pvp build. I myself am not a big fan of the sneak system in this game. Just personal preference. HipsLocks are tough no doubt about it...thats Dex, not Chr based.

@ AC81 – I use my reflex save blast against fighters since I don't have a wisdom based blast atm. There is a decent wisdom based blast that slows opponents for two rounds. Maybe I will give that one a try...I think it will have a lower dc because its a lower level invocation. Then again, against with a will save, it may still be very useful.
Then yet again, a fort saves are good against arcane casters.
Yeah thanks though, it might make a bit of difference and if not still a fun change.

[Tekill]

We are looking into it, but

Any update on your review of this feat?

Thanks in advance.

[mrm3ntalist]

We are looking into it, but

Any update on your review of this feat?

Thanks in advance.

Nothing new yet.

[Tekill]

Nothing new yet.

Okay, okay, uh-huh, yep...yes. I get it.

But ahhhh....when you say, nothing new yet. Ummmmm, does that mean you have not added it to the server yet, or you have not gotten to reviewing it yet, or you are still reviewing it, or you have not changed your minds on it and do not plan to do so anytime in the near future?

Thanks for you time btw.

[Tekill]

I discovered back in Sep that the feat Ability Focus Eldritch Blast is not available on this server.
That has not changed, for anyone interested in a Chr based Crowd Control Warlock.

QC said they were looking into it BUT there were balance issues to consider. -That was in October I beleive.
I thought I should wait and see what QC comes up with before levelling my toon up any further.
I have not heard any updates since then.
I tried PMing mrm3ntalist the other day, instead of posting here, not want to come across as a pest. But it seems I was still being a pest - as I got no response.

So what I will do is drop this subject for now and just grab another feat for my ChrLock.

I do think DR's are a bit low end game for warlocks spell affects, and do not see this feat as being OP. Especially since the spell effects are not that powerful to begin with. The only one that might be OP is the 10 round daze from Noxious blast...but its a daze.... even so, make it 3 rounds...or two.

But being able to do a 100 pt AOE damage blast per round is still fricken nice (unless you have spell and acid resist), so I should not complain. But I will anyways - it is too homogeneous of all Warlock's.

Perhaps as a simple fix to this issue would be to include this feat, but to only give it +1 instead of +2 to DC?

But that is enough from me. I surrender - I am giving up this campaign for more DC for warlocks. I am going to return to my job and my family. Heck, maybe I will even start bathing again...you never know. Why did I stop bathing myself because of this issue?
I do not know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.