Citi this ones for you. When the discussion turns to reincarnation and if you are running a Warlock life how can you play them? Have to say even for one that is designed for crowd control they make an incredibly good sniper. In fact my preference when I start them is to treat them like an arcane archer. Eldritch Blast is you basic attack, like an archer you pick and choose your targets or as I do just blast the first one you see. You not going to do multiple kills with a single blast till level 6 at the very earlyist. The truth is I rarely use the spell list apart from the defensive nightshield , blur and resist energy. Offensively eldritch blast or the cone shape at level 6/7 from the enhancement tree are my main choices, yes I might use the consume DoT (damage over time) to kill something while I focus elsewhere but primarily I just blast things to pieces.
So to understand how I play my ranger/artificer/warlock I have my right hand on the arrow keys of the keyboard and my left hand hammers the U key. If I want to use a spell or enhancement from the hot bar it is easy to slip the left hand onto a number. This assumes a standard desktop qwerty keyboard but each player has their own way of playing, I rarely use the mouse unless it is to empty chests. Anyway lets looks at the build.
Looks simple doesn't it
Standard 32pt build with the focus on charisma, as this is a first life he hasn't got high enough to have a tome yet his bonuses come from items and airship to buff his abilities along with taking charisma in the enhancement tree. You pact with a great power determines what abilities and spells you have available to you. I prefer Fey which gives you sonic damage or in this case Great Old One which gives you bonus acid damage. It also has one of my favourite little bonuses that you get the SLA (spell like ability) of knock, saves finding a rogue to open those locked treasure chests. Another SLA is Phantasmal Killer which can kill instantly if your lucky. However although I have these I still prefer my Eldritch blast shape cone to fight with unless I am fighting a single powerful boss.
Great Old One, sort of sounds like me
In terms of enhancements I find the Soul Eater my personal favourite because it gives me the cone shape blast at enhancement tier 3. The eldritch blast is made up of force and with great old one acid, the cone a nice arc in front of you to tear through most opposition. The wiki will give the full list of choices for Soul Eater but consume is one of the key powers you get and gets hot key one at the lower levels simply because it backs up your blast till you get higher and your powers improve. I would point out the other lovely ability you pick up[ on the tier 3 enhancements is dark feeding and my personal choice is blood feast as constitution is something every monster has so is effective against plenty of targets. The tier two consume sight is something I tend to not choose. Why make something blind when you you have so many other options?
I Love Eldritch Wave
I could drill down much further but once you hit level 12 and get to the tier 5 abilities you get to focus on eldritch blast and Eldricth Wave is a room cleaner, my hot bar for GrouseNinga has wave on 1, undead to death on 2 (for Barovia, elsewhere it is finger of death) and depending on what I am running I switch it round. The tier four Steal Life Force with 12d6 damage and 12d6 healing is a very nice when your cleric is in hiding or dead. I dislike most of the tier two enhancements but that is very much personal choice. Sort of writing a book on how to play it this is a down and dirty quick guide. If you find it hard to use hot bar clicking or are a mouse user (guildie I am looking at you) the eldritch blast is your main focus so you will be needing items boosting your pact, fiend with fire is easy to find combustion but at higher levels fire seems to be difficult. However I will try fiend for Ninga at some point just to see how it goes, probably with a red scaled dragon born.
Note the combat chat, three destroyed at the same time
Hope this at least encourages a look at using a Warlock life because they are very moreish and I have to force myself to stop playing them to focus on my long term goals. Certainly dragonborn would have a natural affinity for meshing with the pact.
So sitting here assessing the 28 characters I currently have and the future of these characters. Some will become victims of my plans and look unlikely to feature in the forthcoming year. I am not an end game player yet, my focus has been and will continue to be building characters for end game but mainly just to enjoy playing. So what I am doing is putting to paper so to speak those characters I am going to work with consistently over the next year or so. I am going to reincarnate several for the first time but this is to set them for guild renown weekends where I farm my favourite renown quests. So here we go with characters I will play a lot of this year.
Been playing since Europe merged so not to bad
GrouseMan:- Having the completionist feat I am now working towards 33 lives so we get completionist racially. I know there isn't a feat or reward for this but time to kick through the rewards for race. He has been a assassin focused rogue but planning his future I am looking at a kukri wielding tempest ranger. Racially not sure what would be best but I can test over the next few lives. I have 6 Otto boxes to help as I am not a warforged fan so will only do heroic lives with them and get through as quickly as possible.
I like this big ugly but guess he needs to race a bit
Grouseconan:- My Half Orc barbarian, current he is a fighter and has two more barbarian lives to go. In terms of racial lives Dwarf, Half Orc and Warforged. Once again the boxes will allow me to skip through the wooden lives much quicker (and if you want to debate wood versus squishy happy to do so on another blog piece. I could probably get to where I want with Conan inside this year if I focus on him. Certainly the new Mists of Ravenloft covers ranking for him in a way that is a lot more enjoyable than previously. I have probably killed over 50,000 in the Red Fens nice to have an alternative.
At least this is well under way?
GrouseMerlin:- Currently on his third human life after completing three favoured soul, three Warlock, three Wizard and three Sorcerer. Merlin will need the three Human lives along with three Aasimar, three Drow, three Elf, three Halfing, three Gnome and Four Dragonborn. Yes my intention is to have Merlin finish as a Dragonborn Sorcerer. This could be the most fun character in terms of end game performance.
Doesn't look much compared to the others but this one is for fun.
GrouseYogi:- Originally I was only intending to run one druid bear form life but decided to go for three past artificer lives. I need to make this my priority so Yogi can work with my guildie and her Suzy druid. So will be logging in daily for this one, Once I am in the fens and mists I will blast through levels as I am very comfortable so far with both and see no issues of using wildernesses to help level me quickly, yes I do get through a lot of slayer boosts.
So whilst I have a lot of characters that will have multiple lives these are the four that will get most focus, probably I will get through Yogi by mid Feb, sort of appropriate that Yogi and Suzy can run together again, I hope by Valentines.
Heading back to Barovia with Yogi after the weekend.
