Kaelac's Scourge Warlock Guide- Bargaining for Effectiveness

Edit 10 Nov:  Added Soulbinder paragon info.  I have had limited time testing and things are still being fixed/changed so my opinion is not final.  Overall my current opinion is that it adds nothing useful to the current PvE setups, effects are too niche or too minor to justify the shift.  The loss of HR, NPNM is not worth it for damage and utility builds.

Edit 3 Oct: I've done multiple runs post TT rework and it's still a great daily, you should still use it in the same situations, but it is more important to hold back encounters and damaging sources so you can use them while daily is up to maximise damage.  TT is still overall a significant source of your overall damage if you do it right (45-60% of outgoing damage from my parses)
Edit 30/9. Some of the build links were not working and now updated.  If there is a clash, use the written version over the link.

This guide is a work in progress, initially a theorycrafting exercise but adding info as I become aware of it.  There's a lot of testing and quantifying effects to be done and by no means can I claim I know everything.  There's a bunch of bugs and possibly unintended mechanics for the class right now, as expected with anything at launch so the optimal playstyle may well change in the future.

The discussion, like most of my guides is based on practicality for PvE dungeons although I will mention applicability for PvP and other situations where warranted.




Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Ability scores, stats and boons
2.1 Ability scores
2.2 Stats
2.3 Boons
2.4 Gear and Companions

3. Power skill and feats
3.1 Powers- at will, encounters, class features, dailys
3.2 Heroic feats
3.3 Paragon feats

4. Build
4.1 Fury
4.2 Damnation
4.3 Temptation

1. Introduction

Class Role
The Scourge Warlock (SW) gains infernal powers from bargaining with infernal entities.  In Neverwinter SWs are a primary damage dealer class with a mixture of single target and AoE abilities.  Right now I believe the class is best classified as a damage amplifier and provides a multiplicative effect of overall party damage towards bringing down key targets and surrounding mobs quickly.  Secondly the class has a tree that enables lifesteal based healing as you DPS, allowing strong maintenance healing to party members without necessarily sacrificing a lot of personal DPS.  Aside from that SW has limited control ability and control resistance, a high HP pool but medium defense and a potential for high crit, decent deflection and high crit severity.  The SW is extremely vulnerable when surrounded due to possessing no immunity frame dodges and medium AC and defense and you should work together with party members to ensure personal safety.

Support build healing turns out to be quite effective because you heal as you DPS.  A well geared lifesteal warlock can fairly effortlessly fill in the maintenance healing party role and outperform DCs in healing.  Does this kill the DC class? By no means.  DC is an incredible ally when it comes to raising a Warlock's lifesteal.  A DC can double the warlock's outgoing healing just by standing around and using Astral Shield.  She can buff your damage by up to 50% more which is also an extra 50% more lifesteal along with our combined damage resistance boost to party (DC feated Foresight/Blessing of Battle 11% + Astral Shield 24% is 35%, aura of temptation 5% for 40% total).  Think synergy and cooperation, not competition between the classes.  As a DC main this is even better, as I can focus on mitigation and debuffs instead and outsource healing.  Warlock healing is much easier to maintain compared to DC healing, because it happens as you do damage, where as DCs have to sacrifice offense capabilities for healing encounters with cooldowns.  Lifesteal is a proportion of outgoing damage.  The more you DPS the more you lifesteal and share.  Therefore, even if you're primarily specced for temptation healing, you must not ignore DPS.  It doesn't matter how much you can lifesteal if you don't hit hard enough.  Temptation warlocks need to build their characters and juggle their stats well more than any other build.  You need a good lifesteal % and to grab incoming healing boons and bonuses where you can, and after that MAXIMISE DPS by being as efficient as you can with your feats, powers and rotation.  The more you hit the more life you get back (and give to party).  Also, temptation warlock healing is limited by range.  You need to be close to the party members (a very rough estimate at about 10-20 feet radius, which is about 1-2 astral shield diameter) for the healing to take place.  Therefore watch your positioning, don't hang out in the back by yourself, and even when strafing with dreadtheft have some situation awareness if someone is in dire need of HP (rare but can happen).  High healing and DPS builds will probably draw a lot of aggro.  Always watch where you are and where you want to be.

DPS build don't do a lot except for DPS, but they can put out high numbers.  At this stage warlocks don't bring a lot of partywide buffs or support rather than their own DPS.  Warlock's Curse only boosts personal damage, and there are few if any feats in Fury/Damnation trees that support your allies.  SW works really well together with CWs who freeze everything in place allowing optimal positional advantage.  Without one however, you are very vulnerable to being swarmed and overrun if you grab aggro or get surrounded.  The SW class right now can get some very high numbers on damage charts due to the damage amplification effect, without using it effectively they are significantly weaker.  Some players may feel the extra DPS from the buff is not deserved, some may.  In anycase, don't get hung up if a SW beat you in DPS because it's a reflection of group rather than personal damage.  Likewise, if you're the SW it's not worth boasting about your high status on paingiver chart simply because amplified damage is attributed to you.

I feel there is a curse based DoT build also making use of Deadly curse, Curse bite and curse feats, however they seem fairly weak DoTs so far but might work in a good setup.

Currently the class is very lopsided.  You have strong damage output by using particular sets of gears and a particular loadout.  Naturally this makes the other choices significantly less important, as even temptation warlock will have loads of DPS and healing that way, while a fury not using that ability will be significantly weaker.  The class is not competitive with existing classes without these mechanics, but that DPS needs to be integrated in a better way with skills, feats, class features and ability choices so that gear and encounter isn't the be all and end all there is.  As such it's hard trying to craft multiple builds because there is a superior loadout from all three trees.  I'm expecting fixes, but hoping it's not a simple knee jerk response because there's a lot of lost potential.

2. Ability score, stats and boons

2.1 Ability scores

TL;DR: PvE: Max CON, get 14 INT minimum then max CHA, preferred roll 16 CON 16 CHA 12 INT before race bonus although swapping INT/CHA is fine
PVP/Hybrid: Max CON, Max INT depending on build aims

Class ability scores
Basically there are 2 build paradigms- builds that max CON/CHA, and builds that max CON/INT as well as ones in between.  I cannot say with certainty if one is clearly superior over another at this stage, but both are different means to being efficient.

CON- most important of class stats- 1% damage bonus and 2% HP per point makes this an all-rounder stat for any build, PvE and PvP, damage and support.  Max this for any build no question.  You’re fairly squishy defense wise and you don’t have a CW’s control to help you stay alive.  A big HP pool is important for the buffer.

CHA- +1% crit per point, +1% combat advantage per point and companion bonus.
Ignore companion stat bonus- far too weak to make a difference.
Crit is great.  Warlocks do not get a lot of inherent crit depending on your gearsets, and since crit is one of the harsher diminishing return stats it makes sense to max crit via CHA rather than crit strike.  Given there are some interactive crit based feats, along with No Pity, No Mercy class feature that grants combat advantage after crit it's an important class mechanic.  Even the temptation warlock probably gets the most DPS/lifesteal out of a Vorpal, so you shouldn’t completely ignore your crit.  The translation of DPS from 1% extra crit vs 1% recharge speed is already established with my DC guide and power vs crit guide.  CHA also boost your damage with CA by 1% per point.  Combat advantage uptime is improved significantly for you with No Pity, No Mercy class feature, especially as many of our powers are DoT based.  You get like 30% CA uptime by yourself, and way more if you run with any GF or HR also in parties.  I'd estimate you want probably 30% ish overall crit chance to be comfortably proccing your feats and the like, getting 40% crit is not a dream.  Also because SW can have high crit severity CHA is a very strong stat at the endgame.

INT- +1% recharge speed increase and 1% resistance ignored per point. I'm undecided on INT vs CHA for the moment as it's quite a complex calculation numbers wise. (gains in ArP/recovery vs Crit and opportunity costs).  INT is handy because a significant chunk of damage comes from encounters proccing your set bonus.  You need decent cooldowns for that to happen faster, however mathwise I don't believe it compares to CHA.

Don’t get me wrong, I seriously recommend your end stat to have at least 14 INT.  Then up to you whether you want high than that.  Why?  Firstly Armor Penetration is not hard to build.  Consider our CW sisters who have no inherent RI%.  Does it stop them being DPS monsters? No.  ArP has almost linear gain from 800-2000 and only starts to diminish after 2000.  By having at least 4 points in INT you avoid that diminishing return, and only need to stack about 1400-1900 ArP which is fairly easy to do with gear.  Even if your sets don’t give a lot of ArP (some do some don’t) it isn’t all that hard to build around lower INT with the right equipment and augment pet.  At least you won’t have the issue like HR of having too much ArP.

RI% is the most significant offensive stat in PvP, and crit is weaker due to crit resistance, so INT is a better investment than CHA for PvP purposes.  Alternatively if you're built for utility or temptation high INT can lower the time between encounters (heals) but I feel unlike DCs the recharge speed isn't as important.  Most warlock powers already have quite short cooldowns and many abilities have cooldowns beneath 10s.  You will feel even less of a difference with RSI.  Also if you use Dreadtheft it quite nicely fills in downtime between skill recharges and often your skills are recharged before DT actually runs out.

In terms of recharge speed increase, recovery has low diminishing returns at 2k, and is the cheapest stat to boost via gear/enchants.  Not many sets have recovery so it does help to get some from INT.  You have a T3 feat that gives 10% recharge speed.  That is already quite significant.  Recharge speed actually has very harsh diminishing returns.  You get significantly less for your buck the more you have, so raising yourself from say 20 to 25% RSI isn't all that noticeable compared to say 10-15%..

Overall I believe INT to be a better investment than CHA only for PvP heavy warlocks or if you want a character for both PvP and PvE.  Some of your powers have quite low cooldowns and in PvP you want to chain encounters as much as you can for damage, proccing set bonus and lifesteal.  Also crit damage suffers additional tenacity reduction so it's not as worthwhile.  For PvE builds, I believe CHA is a better investment.

Non class ability scores (STR/DEX/WIS):
Can pretty much ignore all.

2.2 Races
Full info see http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Race

Strongest for healing build: Dragonborn
Strongest for DPS: Tiefling, then Humans and Dragonborn
Strongest PvP: Dragonborn, Tiefling, Halfling

Human: +2 CON.  3% defense (negligible), 3 extra heroic feats.  T4 heroic feats basically gives you 3-4% extra damage or thereabouts compared to other races but you lose 2 stat points, which kinda hits hard for Warlocks since your class stats are all pretty important.  Because of that I think dragonborns have better overall output than humans.
Dragonborn: +2 CON and +2 INT or CHA.  Only race that can roll CON INT combo, if you want INT.  5% incoming healing is great (all heals affect you at 105%).  Extra 3% power and crit strike (not crit chance) is small but useful bonus for both DPS and healing builds.  Probably one of the better classes for PvP due to potential for high INT and incoming healing and possibly better than Halflings because SWs are more of an offensive than defensive class.
Tiefling: +2 CON and +2 CHA.  +2.5% DPS is decent, extra 2 CHA surpass it above with human DPS from the extra crit and CA bonus
Half Elf: +2 CON and +2 CHA.  Not sure if dilettante works but your secondary bonuses are all fairly weak and can be ignored.  Tiefling better in all ways minus lore/cosmetic ones.
Sun Elf: +2 INT +2 CHA.  Another race for INT bonus.  AP gain may or may not be important depending on how good warlock dailys are.  If you use Flames of Empowerment and basically keep your meter full then it’s useless for you.  10% control resist can help especially in PvP
Halfling: +2 DEX +2 CON.  You lack offensive bonuses but have slightly more deflection chance and cc resist which is helpful for PvP.  Small stature allow you to hide behind soul puppet.  Only consider for PvP.

2.3 Stats
2.3.1 Offensive stats
ArP- You want max 24% Resistance ignored (RI) for PvE.  The most important offensive stat.  Because the Warlock class will targets tougher mobs a lot with Harrowstorm, Tyrannical Threat and Warlock's bargain to take advantage of DoTs I recommend you max the PvE limit at 24% resistance ignored.  If you have 14 INT then you only need 20% which is around 2000 ArP.  Note with campfire bonus you get 1% extra RI from +1 INT so you can shoot for 23% RI based on INT and ArP.  For PvP you want 2400 plus whatever RI you have on INT.  Relying on Prince of Hell to raise ArP is not worth it.  You can get up to 450 ArP from boons.

Recovery- Recovery from set gear can vary a bit.  I'd say probably look at 1k or so.  I don't think it needs to be above 2k.  High recovery builds can be a 'thing' but you're not entirely dependent on having any encounter up constantly (maybe warlock's bargain and curse builds) that you need so much.

Crit- 1500-1800 (no vorpal), 3000-3500 with Pvorp.  Again can vary a lot with gear sets.  Power trumps crit at the cutoffs mentioned.  Crit should not be ignored totally especially if you use No pity no mercy and also because you get 15% severity from feats.

Power- put the rest of your stat points here once you have enough investment in the others.  Many people overstack power early on, actually you need to work on everything else first.  Much better to cap ArP first and get decent crit, recovery with only 1k power than to have 6k power and not enough resistance ignored.

2.3.2 Defensive stats
Max HP- get to 25k+ before boosting defense as buffer.  You should get plenty anyway with CON.  I would advice bumping this up again closer to 30k for Epic Lostmauth and beyond.  Your offensive stats reach fairly high diminishing returns at that point and you need to be tanky to have staying power and absorb the very high spike damage.

Defense- Get 1.5k as you can, high HP pool means nothing without some defense.  Some sets give more than others.  Try to aim for 30% resistance ignored total (you get some from feats in temptation).  I would suggest after you improve your offensive stats you come back and improve this to 2-2.5k for bosses and dungeons after M4 (Epic Lostmauth and beyond).

Lifesteal- at least 1000-1300.  Many of your feats interact with lifesteal.  For DPS build I won't recommend more than 1300 especially if you take Hope Stealer feat.  For temptation healing builds there is no cap so long as you already optimised DPS based on ArP/recovery/crit, but you don't really need that much.  Healing wise 1k Lifesteal will bring more healing than 1k power until 5k LS then power wins.  Power isn't that efficient to add damage.  Please note however, there is such a thing as overhealing.  Think about the lack of demand for healing DC in the current meta, and thus you don't need super healing, just enough for party to get by.

Regen- Because of high HP pool regen is quite effective.  Get lifesteal first but also worth getting 600-1200 ish regen.  You can get up to 450 from boons.  You will have to kite a lot due to combination of damage and healing aggro and this helps immensely in those situations.  Worth getting higher regen for PvP heavy builds.

Deflect- roll with whatever is on your gear and don't bother getting more for PvE.  High deflect builds are definitely possible for both PvP and PvE if you prefer to go that route.

2.3.3 Auxiliary ratings (boons/artifacts):
AP gain: Warlocks have naturally low AP gain but having both full AP and fast AP gain is useful to max DPS.  Dailys are a central mechanic to your class.  In fact, flasks of major potency (AP potions) can be useful to you in a dungeon to quickly charge AP between pulls, of course DC artifact is better.  Right now daily damage is the biggest component of your overall damage and you always want to have it ready for big fights.
Combat advantage bonus: nice to have and take where it's offered
Control bonus: useless for our class
Stamina gain: OK but not a significant concern, you can run for a fair bit with your stamina already and if you're temptation you have a great feat for that.
AoE resist: ignore
Control resist: ignore
Incoming Healing bonus: Definitely try to get at least 500 (DC artifact + boon).  This raises your lifesteal proportionally as well as all other sources of healing.

2.4 Boons

If you're unhappy with your boons you can respec by respeccing feats under feat menu cost about 78k AD and much cheaper than respec token.

Sharandar
1. Dark Fey Warder +250 defense.  You can take power if you have no issues dying, but for me I like the survivability boost due to my ping.  Power is a dump stat while defense is a core stat.  Warlocks are really too fragile otherwise.  Temp locks want to save all your defensive slots for lifesteal so this helps you.
2. Fey Precision +250 crit, don’t need deflect in PvE
3. Either is fine, HP is good with your CON bonuses but AP gain is also important because it's so low and AP helps your DPS.
4. Elven Ferocity because you get some healing off it via lifesteal too
5. Elven resolve- you will need to dodge a lot and 10% is very noticeable.  Other bonuses are rather minor at best.

Dread Ring
1. Reliquary keeper’s Strength for power unless you want to up your crit just that little bit more
2. Evoker’s thirst, lifeteal > regen but if you already have 1k+ LS which is easy with gear/enchants go regen.  Temptation PvE build should take LS.  PvPer take regen
3. Forbidden Piercing no question.
4. Shadowtouch for extra damage and you get some of the damage back via lifesteal
5. Endless consumption for more lifesteal.  Madness is not worth it after fix and burning guidance doesn't work with ArP.

Icewind Dale
1. Encroaching Tactics for CA damage
2. Appreciation of warmth for more lifesteal/regen/DC healing
3. Either can work.  I feel the 250 recovery is usually better because it's normally low from SW gear.  Sleet skills is ok choice too with high crit.
4. Cool resolve.  Cold shoulder is a very very small chance to proc, and 200 damage is tiny when it's one mob out of 20 or so whacking on you.
5. Winter's Bounty.  You get 10% AP every 90s or so and can add up to be 5-10% of your overall AP gain.  You want to minimise the time between 0 AP and 100% AP.

Tyranny of Dragon
1. Dragon's Claws +200 Power, you probably have enough HP
2. Dragon's Gaze +200 Crit
3. Draconic Armorbreaker +200 ArP
4. Dragon's Greed +200 lifesteal or regen as above, go with what you need.
5. Dragon's revival for more incoming healing (works with lifesteal), way better than Dragon's Thirst, depending on how they are implemented.  DPS builds get Dragon's Fury for 5% crit severity.

2.5 Gear and companions
2.5.1 Weapon set
T1 and T2 go for the Diabolist sets, they have the best combination of stats.
When gearing up use the Dread ring/Drake seal blade until you get artifact weapon or Dread Legion set.  I think you can skip Fabled Formorian and Fallen dragon for artifact weapon because artifact weapons have highest weapon damage.

The artifact weapon that boosts Hand of Blight has both good effects and good stats and I consider it my preferred pick, however if you find yourself favoring the other 2 at wills get the weapon to match.  Personally the only at will I get much damage out of is Hellish Rebuke and the mainhand will be available in Mod 5 which I believe will be an upgrade.  Artifact offhand will be available in Mod 5 and is the clear BiS.

2.5.2 Armor set
(may update as I get more data)
T1 and T2 sets are direct upgrades.  There's basically 3 options and I don't recommend 2+2 because they are good bonuses.  Each of the Tier sets offer a decent bonus and does help push your damage up.  They roughly correspond to each paragon tree in the order of Fury/Damnation/Temptation.

Inferno Diabolist (T1) Accursed Diabolist (T2) : +400/450 Recovery, encounters trigger Hellfire which takes up to 1.5 (T1)/3 (T2)% of an opponent's health (max 1000 T1,  2000 T2) after 6 seconds per tick per target.  In almost all cases you'll be procing the max damage (2000) a lot.  It's a significant portion of your overall damage (20% and easily more if you play it right).  Go to set for Fury and Temptation build for max DPS.  Stat wise it's good distribution for a DPS setup, strong in power/crit, some recovery, defense and lifesteal.  Basically this is your bread and butter once size fits all set.  Atm procs per tick on most DoTs.  Not sure if working as intended, but SW's overall damage is weak without it.  For trash most probably won't live long enough for Hellfire to tick in for highly geared parties, but if you're all fairly fresh this set bonus makes a huge difference to your DPS output.

Devilish Warlock (T1) Malevolent Warlock (T2): +400/450 ArP, encounters trigger Puppetmaster, and deal 3% (T1)/ 4% (T2) bonus damage per tick per target.  The bonus is tripled when you have a SP out.  The Damnation build really needs this set to compensate for DPS and is significantly weaker without it.  The bonus is instantaneous and not delayed like the first set.  Theoretically this scales with your prowess unlike Diabolist set, however even at decent gearscores with the puppet you're doing a few hundred damage per proc rather than thousands.  Note also the damage is at 9 or 12% of encounter used.  The more damage you did with the encounter the stronger the puppetmaster proc is.  This means the ticks are low for something like BoVA but potentially higher than Diabolist for something like Killing Flames.  Thus the set can be in theory somewhat of a boss killer single target or even PvP set (only if you're really high GS though).  The stat distribution is the well balanced in this set with strong power/recovery, decent defense, free ArP and some lifesteal and deflect however you need to build crit elsewhere.

Wicked Mage (T1)/ Nether Mage (T2): +400/450 Deflection, encounters give 3% (T1)/ 6% (T2) healing to nearby allies within 30 feet.  This is a tankier and supplementary healing set.  Theoretically good for any build if you still want some support, however currently even temptation warlocks don't need this.  Your lifesteal is based on DPS.  If you take the other sets you already get 8-25% extra DPS that gives you shared lifesteal anyway.  That trumps the empty extra healing this set gives.  This set really is more for crazy high non temptation DPS guys who can then convert some of that damage to healing, but I'm willing to bet none will sacrifice their stats for it.  Note your positioning.  You need to be within 30' of your party members which is about the size of a PvP banner artifact.  If you've been a DC you should be used to this, if not make an effort to come near party members to heal them.  Statwise it's fairly defensive which is needed for a healing build because of extra aggro and stacks power defence and lifesteal hard and some deflect.  You have a lot of LS but you need to work hard to build ArP, recovery and crit if you use this set.

Malabog's Castle set: Short uptime, long internal cooldown (ICD), ok stats but weak bonus means it's inferior to the others.  I'm hearing the ICD is not currently implemented which makes the set very powerful for now.

Dread Legion Set: Probably best stat distribution of them all, good lifesteal for healing builds but bonus is mediocre.  Worth the grind if you're not after a set bonus.
Black Ice Set: Both are skippable although they can fill in niches in PvP depending on your playstyle.

Draconic Set: Allies gain 5% more lifesteal isn't bad but it isn't that good either as they either already have sufficient lifesteal (GWF/CW/SW/HR) to not care or not enough LS/DPS to make a difference (DC/TR/GF).  Stats on gear are scattered so you have to build around it, and the gloves are cheap and the other pieces fairly easy to acquire so you can get full T2 easily.  That said, the set allows for overload slots, and given the current utility for red/black/green glyphs they can still add a lot of damage to your attacks.  Fresh 60s should buy the arm and feet ASAP for a good boost to stats and utility while farming other pieces.

2.5.3 Other items
Because there are so many choices for gear now it's pointless to say X item is best for Y character or say any is better than another.  Rather remember the stats you are building towards and simply use gear help build your stats to the right cutoffs then round off with enchants.  Don't forget your augment companion gear and runes.

Rings:
Module 4 rings are your best in slot.  For offense builds go for 2x Ring of Pain (+181 Power, 181 Recovery, 138 Crit, Mod 4 epic dungeon).  Works especially well with Accursed diabolist set as they have much crit but not as much recovery.  The other option is to use the Shore set (Mod 4 skirmish) which gives more overall gearscore and useful rounded stats.  The (non Fury) SW does make good use of all stats and I believe in rounded characters so it's not as much as a waste as it may be for other characters.  If you want more HP and defense the ring of shielding is another good pick.

Ancient Necromancer's Ring of Undeath is a good entry option for healing setup- recovery crit and ArP are all lacking on your gear and you get 2 extra defensive slots to boost your lifesteal.  Even for DPS it's a great ring to start with because you get to boost 4 crucial stats.
Ancient berserker's ring of cleaving is the perennial popular ring with power, ArP and lifesteal, however make sure you get crit and recovery elsewhere too.  I see a lot of warlocks go for this but don't sacrifice crit and recovery for it.
Ancient slavemaster's ring of control is another popular choice with power, crit, recovery.
Corrupt black Ice rings are good as are most of the Mod 4 ones.  Other options: pyrotechnic, master slaver's

Generally you are looking for gear that provides any of the following: Armor penetration, Recovery, Defense, Lifesteal, regen, crit, max HP, power in roughly that priority.  It is imperative you focus on ArP first and power last.  Too many players do this the wrong way round.  You either get lots of deflect or none at all in gear.  For PvE I don't think it matters all that much.  PvP is another story.

CON artifact belt is your best in slot if you want a mix of damage, gearscore and survivability.  However if you really want to max DPS and are committed using a Perfect vorpal and the Erinyes pet CHA gives higher return for damage than CON, and is much cheaper too (see calculations in my power vs crit guide section 4).  High combat advantage uptime and high severity does mean decent payoff for higher crit chance.

Health stone: You high HP means potions are sometimes a drop in the ocean.  Health stones are around 80k each on AH and holds 200 charges and heal you to full.  Works out to be 400 AD a pop, no need to use it on cooldown of course, just once in a while on a boss fight or lag or  in a tricky spot where you need HP now.  My health stones on other chars generally lasts 3 mths or more.

2.4.4 Weapon and armor enchant
Vorpal Good for any build.  With innate high crit chance and +15% severity crit feat makes it even more appealing.  Even temptation warlocks get good mileage out of a vorpal since that gives burst lifesteal healing also.  Note that Tyrannical threat doesn't crit, but it does't need to either because it's just an amplification of incoming damage.  If your encounter crits the entire magnitude of that crit will still be amplified.  I believe overall the vorpal enchant is the strongest for both PvE DPS and healing warlock builds.
Plague Fire and Terror are ok but loses punch compared to CW and GWFs.  Your small AoE cap and single target at wills really means you won't keep many stacks up at once.  Terror is probably preferred over PF in that regard due to the buff lasting 1 extra s, but PF effect is way more potent.  The necrotic damage from the enchant does NOT do anything for Fury Creeping Death.
Lightning depends on lots of AoE and DoT capability.  The warlock has some but nowhere to the extent of CWs.  It is quite sweet if you rely on dreadtheft/blades/harrowstorm a lot but vorpal gives a much more consistent boost.  However, against single/few targets it's much weaker.
Bronzewood: Can work well as an entry enchant, Bronzewood doesn't buff daily damage but if you're using mainly TT it doesn't matter.  Don't forget it only has 50% uptime due to internal cooldown of 10 seconds.
Lifedrinker may seem like a good idea but it's pretty weak and the healing is personal only.  Adds roughly 1-4% boost to damage and healing.  Necrotic damage does not proc creeping death.  Use only for flavour, not utility.
Frost is a decent control enchant, you lack control and this can help you buy a bit more time with AoEs.  DPS not as high as vorpal/lighting but you have an easier time dealing with aggro.

Soulforged- death will happen.  Soulforge gets you another chance at a mortal existence before your pact gives it away to your diety.
Barkshield is good substitute if you never actually die but otherwise probably not as good as SF.  Warlock's bargain HP cost can be partly or fully absorbed with barkshield.

2.5.5 Companions
http://neverwinter.g...a.com/Companion

Augment:
All options are fine.  Most popular choices are Ioun stone of Allure or Cat.  There are more lifesteal belts than icons and they are more accessible so I'd say a cat probably works out better.  Falling damage bonus is no joke and saves you in draco and other dragon fights.  Itemisation and choices on belts in mod 4 is better than cleric icons.
Otherwise Ioun stone is still fine.

Companions of note:
Lizardfolk Shaman/ Acolyte of Kelemvor/Battlefield Medic (+6%) +2/3/5% incoming healing.  Amplifies your lifesteal for healing builds but not for DPS.
Blink Dog/ Intellect Devourer +2/3/5% combat advantage damage decent given high CHA and CA uptime with NPNM.
Erinyes of Belial +5/10% crit severity useful for any build
Wild Hunt Rider +2/3/5% chance per encounter to raice DPS by 10% 5s.  Many of your dots count as multiple encounters to proc this.  Not as OP as on CW but decent.
Laughing skull +500 Power and recovery on start of combat for 25s most encounters are over in 25s.  Kinda situational.
Lightfoot thief can work well given your high crit, I don't have parses though for numbers.

2.5.6 Artifacts:
http://neverwinter.g...ia.com/Artifact
Active slot: DC /Eye of Lathander/ Kessel's Sphere of Annihilation
Good thing most SWs have a DC.  DC artifact is a perfect match and it will probably stay in your active slot for a long time.  Flames of Empowerment is a strong bonus when AP meter is charged.  Tyranical Threat is the best daily ever.  Hoard your AP or use it on the go.  Great at home and great on vacation, DC artifact offers best of both worlds.  Best of all it's absolutely free!  As an extra bonus you get to know how a DC works, many of their skills are transferable to SW class.
Statwise consider DC artifact/Eye of Lathander and Defender's banner for incoming healing bonus.
Many other options depending on how much you want to spend.
Budget builds: DC (active)/ Waters/ GWF/ Eye of Lathander

3. Power, Skills and Feats

Class Mechanic: Warlock's Curse (WC, tab)
Places a Warlock's Curse on your target and they receive 20% more damage from you.  You can WC up to 3 targets but the damage bonus will be divided between them.  Try to keep this up on priority targets especially before a curse consuming effect.  Does take 1-2 s to place and easily interrupted.  It sometimes expires early, and with lag and multiple warlocks you can lose track of which you've marked.

Soul Puppet (SP)
Summoned with various SW powers.  Melee attacker who will follow for 120 s or they have attacked 5 times then will dissipate.  If you attempt to summon with a SP active it gains 20% increase in damage for 20s.  Effect stacks up to 5x.  Can act as a meatshield, can also die with attacks.  Attacks about 1.2s apart, melee and can grant combat advantage.  If you're not specced in damnation the SP is not all that effective.  PvE enemies seem to ignore puppets and target you anyway.
SP is more helpful levelling up than in the endgame.  In dungeons it lags far behind most of the time and doesn't last long enough if you're not Damnation build.  If you are it's only a few % boost of damage at most because it is melee and has to actually get close to enemy to attack.  Currently a lot of boss fights lock your puppet out of the room and you lose that utility.  In PvP can potentially act as your meatshield.  For Fury and Temptation paths the puppet is a gimmick and you shouldn't be concerned about its effectiveness at all.

Lesser Curse (LC)
Puts a small DoT on target and counts as a curse.  Applied by powers and feats, lasts for about 5 seconds.  By itself does negligible damage but can help proc curse consume abilities.

Shadow Sprint
You move faster and have 30% additional DR while shifting.  Get out of red with this or a least take less damage.  Sprint in bursts rather than continuously to conserve stamina.  Gives you great mobility.

Soul Sparks (SSpark, Soulbinder paragon only)
You gain an additional soul spark meter consisting of 5 petals, each with 6 increments.  Each spark adds one increment, every 6 sparks gain a 'petal'.  Soul sparks are gained by a critical hit, as well as various damage and abilities and feats.  You may have up to 30 Soul Sparks at any given time and they passively increase your Life Steal by.08% each (2.4% total). When combat ends you are healed for.5% of your max life for each Soul Spark you possess and they are consumed. Soul Sparks last until consumed or combat ends.

3.1 Powers
Sample power allocation:
http://nwcalc.com/sw...60000&h=0&p=hlb

3.1.1 At- Wills
Dark Spiral Aura (DSA, necrotic, 1-3/3)- Necrotic damage to consider for Fury builds.  Long casting time.  Basically when slotted you get a spiral for each kill, and you can release with DSA.  Using DSA to get spirals is not worth the time opportunity cost.  It's ok for daily quests where mobs die fast, but in dungeons you don't really have the time to make good use of this.  Can be of use once you get used to it or if you have the Artifact weapon.
Eldritch Blast (EB, 1/3, fire, 1/3)- similar to chilling cloud, first 2 hits are fast but 3rd hit slower and is AoE.  AoE is tiny, like 5 feet.  In most cases mobs won't be close enough for AoE to hit unless in singularity or melee range.  Third hit has extra AP gain.  I don't see much reason to use this at lv 60.
Hand of Blight (HoB, necrotic, 3/3)-  Has melee and ranged version.  Melee is a fair bit faster to cast and hence higher DPS, all single target hits.  Probably your bread and butter at will.  Travel time increases with distance although cast time is the same.  Also necrotic damage.  From my tests this does slightly more damage than EB overall by a few % and has better AP gain.  Generally if you can afford to be in melee range for at wills do that as it's faster.
Hellish Rebuke (Hellfire paragon only, HeR, fire, 3/3)- DoT power and you can put on each mob similar to Astral Seal/Brand of the Sun.  Foes attacking you will refresh HeR duration.  Ticks 9 times over 12 seconds.  My preferred right click at will.  Decent fire and forget spell due to long duration and has the highest damage per cast.  The damage definitely racks up and you should DoT multiple targets between encounters rather than use  HoB too much.  In most dungeons my HeR overall does 2-3x damage of HoB even with casual usage.  Animation is slightly delayed after the click so get used to it or you'll keep prematurely cancelling the cast.  Don't worry about tagging every mob, target the tough mobs that need more than one rotation to clean up and let encounters burn the rest.
Essence Defiler (Soulbinder paragon only, necrotic, 3/3) a somewhat slower at will that grants a Soul Spark per hit, you gain 3 additional sparks after the 3rd hit if the target is cursed.  If this is your paragon you are almost obliged to use this as your main at will to gain sparks.  The DPS isn't as high as HoB or Hellish Rebuke but it's ok for what it is.

3.1.2 Class Features
Shadow Walk (3/3) Run speed improved by 10-30%.  Can help with positioning as such for PvE especially because shift cancels dreadtheft early.  Improves mobility in PvP to T1 mount level.  Useful if you need to kite or reposition a lot.  Also useful if you use dailys on cooldown a lot (replace FoE) or you have good tank/ party members giving good CA uptime (replace NPNM)
Dark One's Blessing (0/3) Gain life when target affected by Warlock's curse dies.  Depends on size and proc rate but I think most of the others are better picks especially because many curse consuming skills will rob you of this.
Deadly Curse (3/3) Warlocks's curse deals damage when applied to targets not already affected by Warlock's curse.  Confusing description for a confusing feat.  Each time you place a WC you proc about 1-2k damage tick, can crit.  The curse has to be removed before reapplication procs the damage.  Some potential synergies with the curse feats but if you're not specced for it it's a tiny component of overall damage.  For single target rotation it can potentially work if you are using curse consumers
Warding Curse (0/3) Targets affected by your Warlock's curse deals 4/6/8% less damage to you.  This is quite weak as it doesn't even affect allies and given you can only affect 3 targets with WC at a time you won't even feel a damage difference.  If a boss is going to 1 shot you 8% less damage is still a one shot.  With adds it won't help as 3 out of 20 is insignificant.  Skip.  Some potential use in PvP.
Hellbringer paragon
Flames of Empowerment (FoE, 3/3) You deal 8-12% more damage when AP meter is full.  Means you sacrifice the utility of dailys but generally a good pick.  If you cycle through dailys a lot though use something else like Deadly Curse or Shadow walk.  Having this means sometimes holding a daily back isn't a bad thing.  12% more damage is great, more if feated.  Even if you use dailys you don't generally spam back to back.  FoE grants a boost for those in between times.
No Pity, No Mercy (NPNM, 3/3) Crit hits briefly give you combat advantage over critically hit targets.  I think it works a bit like Eye of the storm.  Once you crit then every hit on that target becomes a CA hit.  For Dots I think every crit dot refreshes the duration.  CA is at least a 15% boost to damage, and with 20 CHA it's easily 25% or more.  Works well with high crit build for DPS.  Even with self buffs this can give you about 25% CA uptime which is a good deal of damage.  This is always on my bar.  In parties CA can work out to be over 70% of all your hits.  Having this means your overall dreadtheft CA uptime is usually 70% or higher.
Prince of Hell (PoH, 0/3) Increases your armor penetration stat by 10/15/20%.  This is weak.  Even if you stack 2000 ArP you get 200-400.  It really should have added resistance ignored instead.  Also only works on your base ArP and not from other stat buffs/boosts.  Even in PvP you only get like maybe 2-4% more damage from increased RI.  Others are better.
Soulbinder paragon
Dust to Dust (D2D, 0/3)  When SSparks are consumed for healing they also grant 0.2% AP per spark (at rank 3).  To me this is a dubious power.  You want AP gain during combat, not at the end when you can use your artifact/potions/pinatas.  The AP gained is a lot less than intended and is likely bugged until it get fixed.  Not worth the slot honestly.
Borrowed Time (0/3)  When you have Ssparks you are healed every 2 seconds for 0.08% of your max HP per SSpark.  This can be useful for PvP or sustain/defensive builds and may make you solo slightly better, BUT I believe for current PvE content it is not needed.  It's much better to do more damage.  More DPS = more lifesteal healing = less damage taken = less required healing.  That is not going to change.
Snuff Out (3/3) When a target die within 30' you gain a Sspark.  This effect triggers once per 5 seconds.  This is not helpful when things are going well.  However if you're kiting and running for your life it a way of getting Ssparks.  However in those situations 30 Ssparks won't help you really.
As you can see I don't really see how the Soulbinder paragon offers anything useful to the class in light of current damage and healing mechanics.  When lifesteal gets overhauled or content becomes much more difficult things could change.
3.1.3 Encounter Powers
Single Target only: Killing Flames, Vampiric Embrace, Warlock's Bargain, Wraith's Shadow

Can affect multiple targets: Inferno Spheres, Dreadtheft, Fiery Bolt, Cursed Bite, Pillar of Power, Harrowstorm, Blades of Vanquished Armies

Killing Flames (KF, fire, 3/3) Last hitting allows you to raise a Soul Puppet.  Damage increases as target health decreases.  This gets you some great hits on boss fights and dragon hunts.  Cooldown is also nicely synced with WB.  Can often hit harder than dailys when boss health decreases.
Inferno Spheres (IS, fire, 2/3) When cast raises 4-6 spheres than either auto seek surrounding targets or you can launch them with the button again at a specific enemy and places a LC on them.  Damage is very weak and unless you're in a curse heavy build you may not get much use out of it.  Shortest cooldown of all your encounters if you want it to proc set bonus.
Vampiric Embrace (VE, necrotic, 3/3) Single target ability with some lifesteal.  Consumes curse on target to give you sizable temp HP.  VE Healing is shared to party with Temptation capstone feat.  I used it levelling but haven't found a niche for it at 60 except some boss fights like Fuminorax if you need the healing.
Dreadtheft (DT, necrotic, 3/3) Lasts 6s and can hit many targets in a beam.  Learn to practice aiming and kiting with this.  Backpedaling is often a good strategy to maximise AoE capture.  If you get stunlocked/cc it cancels early.  If there are multiple targets, targetting the one at the back makes it a lot easier to pivot laser the stuff in between than vice versa.  You can walk during DT and you should stay mobile or start moving towards next section for efficiency.  Necrotic damage useful for Fury capstone.  You cancel this early if you press the key again, shift, get controlled/pushed or picks up something on ground.  Use mouse for loot rolls when this is in effect rather than shift+2 so it doesn't cancel.  Ticks 24 times over ~6s seconds.
Fiery Bolt (FB, fire, 3/3) Always cast this on a cursed target.  Basically just tab cast.  Great AoE clean up about 10' diameter.  Curse consumer.  I use this for levelling, solo and in dungeons.
Cursed Bite (CB, necrotic, 0/3) potential synergy with all the cursing feats but haven't tested personally for effectiveness.  Does one tick of damage on all cursed targets, short cooldown.
Pillar of Power (Hellbringer paragon, PoP, fire, 1/3)- cancelled early if you're controlled or enemies get into the AoE.  AoE remains for duration of the spell until it's off cooldown so maximum uptime is 50%.  Take 2 s to charge up for damage.  Some potential but the AoE is really too small and the charge up/ cast time leaves you extremely vulnerable.  I really feel this should be an ability centered on self rather than just a tiny AoE on the ground.  Thus far I feel it's not competitive with a lot of the other options.  Possible in a single target setup if you don't even get aggro or have to dodge out of red, ie never.
Soul Scorch (Soulbinder paragon, 1/3)- you spend 6 Sspark to deal damage.  This power has no cooldown but consumes 6 Ssparks per cast.  If the target is cursed SScorch consumes the curse to add a stackable DoT component.  It's an ok power for what it is.  If you manage your Sspark gain well you can burst targets with this, but you need to judge whether you prefer to have a higher multiplier with many Ssparks vs using them with this encounter.  If you prefer to just have the passive effects of Ssparks then IMO you don't really need this.
Harrowstorm (HS, fire, 3/3) Puts an AoE DoT on target.  Ticks 5 times at roughly 1 per second, 6 ticks on primary target.  Should open with this on a cursed tough mob.  If you curse again before duration expires mob is proned with a burst of damage but at the expense of the DoT.  If you kill a mob before HS ends you lose the extra ticks.  Slightly long cast time can easy to be interrupted.  Definitely pick a beefy target for this to max duration.  Each tick counts as an encounter.  Still good to consider for single target/ PvP especially with option for prone/interrupt.
Warlock's Bargain (WB, necrotic, 3/3) sacrifice 15% of your health upfront to put a DoT on target and also lifesteal back health to you.  Counts as a curse and is not consumed with consuming abilities.  You want this for single target/boss fights and can also work in clearing dungeons.  Necrotic damage synergy with Fury.  Generally if the target lives long enough you get more life back than you paid for but if you're kiting an add train this could be suicide.  Each tick counts as an encounter.  Ticks 6 times over 8 seconds.  The self damage portion of this goes towards your damage on paingiver charts, so if you think WB is doing most of your damage, you have to subtract the self damage from it first for a more accurate comparison.  Half the HP cost is paid for by the GF if he uses Knight's valor.
Wraith's Shadow (WS, necrotic, 0/3) Places about 5-7 ticks of damage and debuff on a single target over about 5 seconds.  Can end early by reactivating to control target.  Possibly worthwhile for single target setup for bosses because multi procs of Hellfire, though they're immune to control effects.  Some uses as a PvP power.
Blades of Vanquished Armies (BoVA, necrotic, 3/3) Puts a point blank AoE (PBAoE) around yourself and hits up to 5 enemies within the AoE (10' diameter) for a short duration,  Ticks 13 times over 5 seconds with a fairly short cooldown.  Can be more useful than Harrowstorm if you get aggroed a lot.  Possibly preferred for Fury builds over Harrowstorm because it's necrotic.  Each tick counts as an encounter.  I find this nice for soloing rather than Harrowstorm since it won't expire early by killing the target.  Also good if you're kiting/dealing with lots of melee mobs like FH/Spellplague boss.  If you use a lightning enchant this is your go to encounter.

3.1.4 Daily Powers
Accursed Souls (AcS, necrotic, 3/3) AoE, quick lifesteal heal and raises a Soul Puppet.  Good panic button and also for boss fights if you need to spawn a puppet but have no adds to kill.
Brood of Hadar (BoH, necrotic, 3/3) Can hit multiple targets, fast and decent damage.  Good to use when you want damage fast such as Valindra in MC.  Necrotic to boot.  Does one big hit then summon 6 imps which can all do a follow up attack that can slow an enemy.  Because of the extra melee hits, on single target it is even better than FoP overall damage wise and is a lot faster.
Flames of Phelgethos (FoP, fire, 1/3).  Puts a strong DoT on target that lasts 15-22 ticks (seems to vary).  If there are other targets around one of them will suffer 6 ticks of damage also.  I believe BoH is a better daily than this.
Tyrannical Threat (TT, 3/3).  At the moment TT Upgrades cursed targets to Tyrannical Curse.  Those targets now deal 30-50% of your incoming damage to surrounding targets.  This daily does amazing DPS especially in add heavy fight, because all the damage dealt to primary targets gets redealt.  Thus TT is essentially a damage amplifier.  This is the ultimate trash killer ability.  TT doesn't crit or gain combat advantage because it's just reflecting damage from you (but it does benefit again from buffs).  I also believe it does not give you lifesteal, which is probably working as intended or otherwise too powerful.
Gates of Hell (Hellbringer paragon, GoH, fire, 3/3).  Long charge time but a powerful hit.  You want to sandwich mobs between you and cast location.  Unfortunately it has a 5 target limit.  Gives back about 4% AP per enemy killed at full ranks.  I think even with TT rework you can still get more damage out of TT than GoH if you have encounters up and can play well.  Basically between TT and BoH there is no real good situation for other dailys.
Immolation Spirits (Soulbinder paragon, IS, fire, 0/3) You summon two spirits who attacks surrounding enemies for 15 s.  Spirits gain DR per 6 sparks consumed.  I don't find a niche for this except for pseudo tanks who sort of attack enemies.  They don't do AoE damage, and overall can do slightly more damage than BoH or FoP but the damage time is slow and the spirits themselves are slow at moving.  Skip.
3.2 Heroic Feats
Ranked from A to E, A= awesome E = eww.

Energizing Curse (B rank) adds a multiplicative 6-30% AP bonus when attacking against cursed targets.  At least you're usually attacking cursed targets so you'll benefit from this a fair bit unlike the feat from other classes, sizable bonus too.  Point dump here if you need.
Weapon Mastery (A rank) 3% crit for 3 feat points, yes please.
Toughness (A rank) With a high CON you get even more mileage out of toughness.  Worth at least 2 but deserves 3 points.

Shadow Fold (D rank) Shadow sprint consumes 2-10% less stamina.  Even with no investment in stamina you have quite a lot of mileage you can cover.  Not necessary.
Empowered Rituals (A rank) Adding 2-6% encounter damage is decent.  You don't use at wills a lot and they are usually single target.  Encounters are your bombs.
Battlewise (E rank) many other ways to manage aggro without wasting feat points

Determined Casting (A rank) Encounter cooldowns reduced by 2-10%.  Basically more recharge speed increase.  This is the reason why you don't need high INT, good investment especially because other feats in this tier are weak.
Desperate Restoration (D rank) When under 30% hitpoints incoming healing is increased by 5-15%.  How often are you going to stay under 30% HP?  You will probably pot first anyway in that situation, and this doesn't work on pots (haven't tested, but it's my bet).  Otherwise you'll lifesteal right back up anyway with the next encounter.
Soul Reaping (D rank) Lifesteal stat increased by 1.5/3/4.5 points per level.  I don't see why this is a tier 3 feat and why it's not percentage based.  At 60 you get 270 lifesteal, which isn't bad (saves a defensive slot) but there are boons for that too.  Determined casting in comparison saves you speccing about 1k+ recovery.

Blood Pact of Cania (A rank) great boost and multiplicative with CON bonus if it's similar to learned spellcaster (haven't done the parses).  Each point increase damage by 1+ (CON-10)/100 %.  (24 con is 1.14%).  Always active.
Devastating Critical (A rank) +5/10/15% extra severity is great.  Even at 30% crit that's roughly a 1.5/3/4.5% increase in outgoing DPS and lifesteal.  Is it better than blood pact?  Point for point yes but only if you go crit.  Max this then put left over in blood pact.
Scornful Curse (C rank) Increases direct damage from curse effects by 10/20/30%.  I'm unsure what the curse portion damage is.  From my parsing overall curse portion of damage is tiny in a Damnation spec but this could change with different feats and powers.  You need to somehow work out how much of your damage is from curses.  If it's 10-15% or more of your overall outgoing damage without the feat then it's worth it.  Right now I think curses don't do enough damage for this to measure up.

3.3 Paragon Feats (names only, comments not updated yet)
3.3.1 Fury
Fury is a direct DPS tree.  Increases the strength of your curse and adds additional damage components. WD = weapon damage.  First tier is very weak but some decent options in the others.

A lot of the T3 and 4 feats basically allow you to cheese via Tyrannical Threat daily.  Stack it on a boss and throw everything you have at it for instant AoE.  Without TC they lose a lot of punch.

Daughter's Promise (D rank) Deal 20-200% of weapon damage to nearby target when a cursed target is killed.  200% WD isn't much but adds up if you use a lot of curses.  However I think if you curse consuming skill is the killing blow (eg VE, FB) then you don't get this to proc.  Only consider if you're built for cursing targets a lot and otherwise quite skippable  This feat usually amounts to far less than 1% damage.
Critical Promise (C rank) after a crit, your next attack also deal 2-10% of weapon damage as necrotic damage.  Again, not a big bonus, but at least adds up to be more than Daughter's Promise.  Adds about 1% of your overall DPS when geared.
Offering to the Prisoner- (A rank) Damage increased by 5% for 15s when a cursed target is killed.  Not sure if it can stack but I doubt it.  Good in groups as things will die fairly quickly so bonus is almost always active.  You can curse something that's about to die to get bonus.
Gatekeeper's Empowerment- (Hellbringer paragon, A rank) GoH now deal 1-5% more damage and generate 0.4-2% more AP for each target killed.  FoE class feature now increase damage by 1-5% when AP is full.  Looks good if you use FoE even without GoH bonus.
Burning Soul- (Soulbinder paragon, B rank) Each Sspark increase damage by 0.4/0.8/1.2/1.6/2%.  Decent if you gain sparks fast enough and don't spend them.
Killing Curse (E rank) You deal 5% of weapon damage as additional damage when attacking a cursed target.  5% of WD is pretty weak, it's not 5% overall, which for T3 is a bit inconsistent with other classes.  Weakest feat in entire tree and represents less than 1% of overall damage.
Executioner's Gift (B rank) At will and encounter powers deal up to 3-15% necrotic damage as target's health diminishes.  Not bad, and helps kill elites/bosses faster towards the end which is always handy especially in combo with Tyrannical curse.  Adds about 3-5% overall DPS in T2 dungeons.
Brutal Curse (B rank) Your WC increase your damage vs affected targets by an extra 2-10%.  Pretty weak for a T4 but at least it's not trash.  Makes you stronger vs single target and again, synergy with Tyrannical Threat.
Murderous Flames- (B rank) Killing flame deals 6-30% of its damage to foes within 30 feet split equally.  If there are no other targets primary target takes all the damage.  Basically buffs Killing flame DPS by 30%.  Hearing for a fair few that part of this feat is bugged and you don't get AoE.  If the single target works for you great, if not skip
Creeping Death- (A rank) When targets afflicted with your WC takes necrotic damage from you (encounters and abilities), Creeping death deals 25% of the necrotic damage over 8 s.  Can stack.  To get good mileage you pretty much need to use necrotic damage in your attacks such as BotVA, DT.  Can contribute 5-25% (est) of overall DPS (highly dependent if you cheese with TT and if you have Accursed Diabolist set).

3.3.2 Damnation
Damnation offers some DPS and utility with soul puppet.  Offer more ways for things to be cursed.  However Damnation is highly gear dependent for the puppetmaster bonus.  Without it you have no support and less DPS than Fury.  Puppet is ok for levelling but power is outclassed by encounters are you gear up at 60.

Parting Blasphemy (E rank) Deal 1.2-6% of WD to target when curse is removed.  I think curses only get removed when consumed/expired or you rotate WC around.  You probably have better things to do in combat like casting Hellish Rebuke and the damage is mediocre.  Rubbish feat.
Relentless Curse (D rank) When a target affected by WC is killed, nearby target has a 20-100% chance to be afflicted by a lesser curse.  Basically propagates each WC, but if you consume it with an ability this won't proc.  It's not much but you need some points somewhere and this is better than Parting Blasphemy with potential to work with curse builds.  Damage from LC itself is negligable unless your build can make other use of it.  I'm talking less than 10k damage out of 20 million.  Only benefit is this grants slightly more damage/utility to your curse consumer abilities, but there is nothing that warlock's curse can't do anyway.  If you're using cursed bite then yes this is decent.
Syphoning Curse (D rank) When a cursed target is killed, the last hitter is healed for 0.4-2% of your WD.  Again, WD is really weak and don't mean anything.  Skip.  Useless for temptation and rubbish for everyone else.  I'm hearing that this feats heals for full WD but have not tested to confirm.
Power of the Nine Hells (Hellbringer paragon, C rank) PoP's damage buff lasts for 1-5 s after you leave its area, and allies can receive 10-50% of its benefit.  Obviously only good if PoP is in your rotation.  Extending the buff by 5s is not bad as it can push the uptime to 70% or more.  Is it worth 5 feat points?  Possibly not.  Maybe 2-3.  SW tend to be very mobile, so PoP is kinda useless without this, but I feel for a paragon feat (and skill) PoP is just not competitive.  If anything it should be an aura around self rather than a tiny spot on the ground.  In PvE you will get rushed and mobs near you will cancel the buff early.
Sparkbinder (Soulbinder paragon, C rank) Summon duration of spirits from Immolation Spirit daily last 1-5s longer.  Ok feat for average daily.  Still doesn't make IS that good.
Warding Spirits (A rank) you take 10% less damage when your have a SP active.  Decent even if it doesn't help you DPS, SWs are not that tanky and this is a big help to your DR.
Burning Puppets (D rank) Your SPs have a 5-25% chance to apply lesser curse when they attack.  More weak curses for when your puppet actually gets close enough to hit something at least a couple of times.  Ridiculously useless unless you're built for cursing, and you probably will be if you try it.
Ghastly Commander (A rank) When you have a SP active you deal 10% more damage and lifesteal for 2% more.  Finally a T4 feat that looks like a T4 feat.  It's a yessss from me.
Wrathful Souls (C rank) Your SP deal 20-100% more damage and their attack lifesteal 3-15% of damage to heal you.  You have to analyse how much damage SP are doing to see if worth it or not.  SP attacks so slowly.  If they're doing 5% of your damage or more yay, if not meh.  At low GS SP did 10% of my damage, but that quickly dropped, and with over 12k GS wraith claw is only 2% of my DPS and most of the time they lag behind you so combat uptime is limited.  A lot of times SP don't zone in with you to boss fights which really hurts the damnation spec.  Basically useful from 6-12k GS but not after that.  Skip.  Potentially better in PvP and boss fights if the fix the spawning issue.
Soul Desecration (A rank)- Your SP is now permanent and will not dissipate after 5 hits.  Targets marked by WC will spawn SP upon death.  Additionally, you spawn a SP the next time you deal damage every 15s.  Great for this tree.  Basically improves all the previous feats that require SP active.  Also helps you get the 100% increase in SP attack by proccing it a lot.
3.3.3 Temptation
Temptation is defined by the capstone which heals party at 300% of your lifesteal.  Also offers some damage mitigation buffs.  You don't have many ways of adding DPS however although there are some survivability tools to help you and the party manage aggro.  Without a DC you can fake one with some damage mitigation and lifesteal healing.  With a DC you become a monster when paired up righteousness.  The DC can protect/buff and you can do the healing.  I don't see temptation warlocks as replacing DCs (Templocks replace healers, which DCs are not) and neither is having both in a party redundant as long as the DC is flexible.

Vengeful Curse (D rank) When damaged you have 2-10% to apply Lesser Curse to your attacker.  Remember that LC damage is nothing, and with a chance that low don't bother.  Does give you a few more curse consumer effects, but for BoVA it's minor and for Fiery bolt you''ll be marking the target beforehand anyway.
Hope Stealer (B rank) Crit hits raise your LS stat by 2-10 points per character level.  600 LS means very little but for a temptation build you want all you can get.  Good feat for other trees to dip in to to lower their overall lifesteal investment on gear.
Compounded Soul (A rank) Striking cursed foes has chance to grant 1-5% of Warlock's max HP as temp HP to allies near warlock.  Have to check range, you have high max HP so the buff is decent.  Doesn't look like there is ICD and the HP is great.  Temp HP also helps buff GFs damage.  Good investment.
Hellish Condemnation (Hellbringer paragon, C rank) Targets affected by Hellish Rebuke deals 1-5% less damage.  Basically a weaker Power of the sun feat.  If you are good at branding everything with HeR then ok, but targetting individual mobs in a crowd is slow, it's a pain and even then probably not that necessary especially if there is a DC in party.  Skip.
Vampiric Sparks (Soulbinder paragon, C rank) Each Sspark increase your lifesteal by 0.01-0.05 per spark.  Until lifesteal gets tweaked, you don't need this.
Aura of Despair (A rank) enemies within 20 ft of you deal 5% less damage.  This is better, basically an inverse Foresight that also helps your party.  20 feet is the diameter of an astral shield.  Covers a fairly broad area if you're in close to short range, which is where my SW is usually at.
Aura of Cruelty (A rank) Allies within 20ft of you lifesteal for 1-5% more.  It's a good feat, more LS for everyone (self included).  You actually get 5% more damage converted to hit points.  Eg if your lifesteal gives you 8% damage to HP, now it's 13% to people near you.  Considering how high diminishing returns are for SW, this feat makes it great. Also, it makes Hope Stealer slightly redundant, but as it is applied after Hope Stealer is calculated it's not wrong to take both.  Also means that party member's lifesteal becomes a lot more potent too whatever it was.  As most would be having 8-12% base lifesteal, increasing that number by 5% is effectively increasing their lifesteal amount by 25-33% when active.  You do need to be close to them for it to work, and most of the time it's overhealing anyway, so it's great in theory, but nothing to worry about too much in practice.
Eldritch Momentum (A rank) you restore 5% stamina each time you take damage.  I don't feel your stamina runs out that often but mobility and shadow slip's 30% DR is the only way you have to deal with threat.  High DPS high healing builds will get your swamped with aggro (especially after a TT) and kiting is the only way to survive and get out of red.  Probably a must take for PvP for kiting especially with DoTs.  Basically Healing Step on steroids.
Darkness (C rank) Enemies damaged by Blades of vanquished armies briefly deal 10% less damage to you.  Depends on uptime and utility.  BoVA is a decent power and basically means you take 10% less melee damage.  However if it is not in your rotation, and the fact that it doesn't seem to benefit allies makes it less useful for a T4.  Also BoVA has a lowish uptime, maximum you can get it is probably 50% which means this feat is not 100% effective, nor will it help you vs range mobs like Valindra.
Soul Bonding (A rank) Your Lifesteal now heals allies for 300% of its value.  Healing component of Vampiric Embrace now also heals allies for 100% of its value.  This is your reason to go temptation right?  300% lifesteal for each player is no joke, especially when stacked with Endless consumption boon.  You can outheal DCs with this, but bear in mind GWF and CWs get by just fine with their own lifesteal too.
4. Build

To me a class is well designed when there are, good diversifying option.  I want my choices to be hard because they're both good or excel in given situations.  However, right now I think building a good warlock is, much like the DC, avoiding the bad feats.  There are some hidden options that shows promise yes, but overall disappointing.

I feel apart from Temptation line all of the T1 and 2 feats are too weak and generic to splash into other builds.  In contrast GF/CW/GWF and even DC trees all have something good in T1/2 to round out your build.

Because the capstones are distinct and powerful I don't recommend any hybrid builds (ie no capstones).  You'll be horribly ineffective.

General Playstyle:
SWs can be effective in the close, medium and long range and you should practice being proficient at each.and adjust loadout according to dungeons and parties.  For example, add heavy dungeons like Mad Dragon, Pirate King, Malabog redcaps, Frozen Heart, Cragmire crypts favor a closer range approach.  Ranged based/caster targets such as Karrundax, CN is better dealt with at the medium to long range.  Of course, depending on composition and who gets aggro you may need to switch it up.  Stay mobile always but if you're kiting, kite in a circle rather than straight forward/backwards so you are never too far from the party.  CW/DC vets are used to this but seeing many newer players getting separated and ganked trying to deal with threat.  Even Dreadtheft is not a static skill, you can move around and start moving towards next part of dungeon to be efficient (face mob with camera and walk backwards).

Never use all your stamina, use it in bursts because it's your defensive tool.  You get 30% more DR in shadowslip, use it to lessen unavoidable hits eg MC/VT bosses and more importantly become immune to pushes or stunlocks.  Also sometimes it's worth cancelling Dreadtheft early to recast encounters or run.

For boss fights usually additional adds appear at 30%, 50% or 70%.  If you are going to use TT try to hold off and have it ready for when adds pop rather than waste it early in the fight.  It does have a long cast time so do it before you get aggro.  Once the damage start spewing you'll be the biggest aggro magnet in the room.  Get yourself to Astral Shield/ Icy terrain fast.  Use rejuv pots ahead of time for more overall healing than healing pots, your HP bar is so big that normal healing pots seem 'weak' in topping you up.  Icewind elixirs are a good combo of the 2.  If there are multiple SWs in the party it's worth rotating TT's to max coverage time.
Finally, don't worry too much about DPS meters.  Your DPS is high mostly because of TT and it's not worth boasting about.  Play efficiently, but It's not worth going out of your way to chase DPS.  

Heroic Feats:
Pretty much one way to go
1 Energising Curse, 3 Weapon Mastery, 3 Toughness
3 Empowering Rituals, 5 Determined Casting
2 Blood pact of Cania (keep wanting to type Narnia), 3 Devastating Critical.

For humans put 3 extra points in Blood pact of Cania  Energising curse is also a very decent option, since you're almost always casting on cursed targets it's 18% more AP gain effectively which is huge for Warlock class.

4.1 Fury build (revised 27th August):
Idea is to have high crit and attack cursed targets a lot.  Use Necrotic damage encounters and sources for best synergy.  A number of the feats proc necrotic damage, which isn't much by itself but you get to double dip with capstone.
http://nwcalc.com/sw...60000&h=0&p=hlb

5/5 Critical Promise (much better than Daughters) small damage boost but at least it's necrotic.
5/5 Offering of the prisoner (can swap with Gatekeepers, personal choice) almost perma bonus
5/5 Executioner's Gift (Killing curse sucks and bugs Murderous Flames) for extra necrotic damage
5/5 Brutal curse allows you to hit hardest where it counts
1/1 Creeping death for the nice DPS

Crit promise adds about 1% overall damage, Executioner's gift about 5% but both proc capstone.

For full DPS the last 10 points I suggest
5/5 Gatekeeprs/Offering of the Prisoner whichever you didn't take, or Murderous Flames if you like KF
5/5 Hope Stealer free extra lifesteal which procs a lot for you anyway and means you can use more offensive slots and take more regen instead of LS.

For utility I suggest
5/5 Hope stealer see above
5/5 Compounded soul Fury build use a lot of DoT based skills and this can proc a lot of compounded soul.  Temp HP to party adds up and is useful adding utility aspect in an otherwise DC/GF less party.

Loadout:
Dungeon clearing Loadout
At-Wills: Hand of Blight, Dark Spiral Aura/ Hellish Rebuke
Class Features: Flames of EmpowermentNo Pity, No Mercy
Encounters: Warlock's Bargain/Harrowstorm/Blades of VADreadtheft
Daily: Tyrannical Threat and Accursed Souls

Single Target Loadout
At-Wills: Hand of Blight, Dark Spiral Aura/ Hellish Rebuke
Class Features: Flames of EmpowermentNo Pity, No Mercy swap to Deadly Curse if you have a good tank keeping mark up
Encounters: Warlock's Bargain/Wraith's Shadow/VE/Killing FlamesDreadtheft (with T2 set)
Daily: Tyrannical Threat (if boss spawn adds) and BoH (or just hold onto daily for FoE)

Gear: Diabolist Set.

Playstyle:
In a Fury build you are focusing on doing 3 things well- using your dailys, proccing Hellfire from your set and proccing Creeping Death. Firstly when to daily.  Tyrannical threat is your main daily whenever there is a bunch of mobs.  It takes a while to channel, so cast this before you enter the red zones, then mark 3 main mobs and by the time party unleashes rotations things should be dead.  You can rotate Warlock's curse around if things die to extend uptime.  Try to have party clutter adds around the marked mobs instead of spreading them out as the damage is AoE.  Save AP for the big/dangerous pulls, TT will really help whittle them down quickly.

As for encounters you need to decide whether proccing Hellfire or Creeping Death is more important.  Necrotic damage procs creeping death, and DoT powers currently get the best mileage out of Hellfire.  Harrowstorm I find is a very useful power, lots of dots, lots of targets, even if it's fire based the Hellfire procs make it worthwhile.  Alternatively Blades of VA works is slightly less damage per tic but has way more ticks and is centered on self, good if you get swamped a lot and is necrotic to boost for best of both worlds.  WB is good utility/ticks.  Dreadtheft is what you use while waiting for cooldowns to recharge and to mop up adds.  Try to target a mob in the back and not the front, then use that as a pivot as you swing around to get the best angles.  Don't forget to mark targets with to proc CD and gain extra AP.

You don't always need 3 targets with Warlocks' curse up.  Sometimes it's better to just curse one enemy for max damage buff.  Creeping death isn't the be all and end all, use it as a secondary power rather than build everything around
it.
Feel free to experiment with other encounters, such as cursed bite if you use a curse heavy build, there's various means to high DPS.  You can play around with Gates of Hell, it's also strong but not as OP as TT.

Accursed Souls is a rare panic button when you need immediate lifesteal and damage.  Save AP otherwise when you don't need it for FoE damage boost.  NPNM helps extend your CA uptime, but if you have a tank you can swap to Deadly Curse or whatever else you fancy.

Damnation build:
Really weak first and 2nd tier feats makes it hard to build.  Lesser curse was doing almost no damage so doesn't seem all that worthwhile.
http://nwcalc.com/sw...6z000&h=0&p=hlb

5/5 Parting Blasphemy
5/5 Relentless curse both are bad but T2s are even worse unless you use PoP which i don't see happening yet.
5/5 Warding Spirits I like more defense and you are squishy
5/5 Ghastly Commander good bonus.  SP damage boost is not as good in high end parties.
1/1 Soul Desecration perma puppet FTW.

For more DPS take
5/5 Critical Promise
5/5 Offering of the prisoner

For more utility take 5/5 Hope Stealer and 5/5 Componded Soul as above

Gear: Puppetmaster sets, but diabolist works also.

Loadout:
Dungeon clearing Loadout
At-Wills: Hand of Blight, Hellish Rebuke
Class Features: Flames of EmpowermentNo Pity, No Mercy
Encounters: Harrowstorm/ Blades of VA, Fiery BoltDreadtheft
Daily: Tyrannical Threat and Accursed Souls

Single Target Loadout
At-Wills: Hand of Blight, Hellish Rebuke
Class Features: Flames of EmpowermentNo Pity, No Mercy swap to Deadly Curse if you have a good tank keeping mark up
Encounters: Warlock's Bargain/Killing Flames/VEDreadtheft
Daily: Tyrannical Threat and BoH

Playstyle:
The good thing about Damnation is the 10% extra damage reduction from feats and also the Soul Puppet.  However I'm finding the puppet rather annoying- it pulls a lot of random aggro solo and also in dungeons.  It also get shut out of most boss lairs and you lose that utility/synergy.  It's DPS is great at low GS but drops off to 1-2% at high GS, and it's melee and slow.  The other good thing is you don't care about whether encounters are necrotic or fire.  If it does damage you can use it.

I usually open with tab mark then fiery bolt in a pack, then if I'm using Harrowstorm I remark and put it on toughest mob.  If I'm using BoVA I cast it as the gap closes, then right click to put Hellish Rebuke on a few stragglers (prioritise tougher mobs rather than squishy ones) then DT to clean up.  Make good use of TT as above.  Use TT, mark, Harrowstorm on boss, throw FB, Hellish Rebuke them all, rotate WC when you need then DT everything.  Use DC artifact after to get your AP up again to repeat.  In parties where you end up pulling more threat or where there's a lot of clustering BoVA may be easier to use and execute than HS.

Overall Damnation spec isn't bad but isn't as distinct as the other trees, and damage is lower.

4.3 Temptation:

Currently my preferred build.  You still do great damage, have great survivability and decent support for the best of all worlds.
http://nwcalc.com/sw...6z5zv&h=0&p=hlb

5/5 Hope Stealer free extra lifesteal which procs a lot for you anyway and means you can use more offensive slots.
5/5 Compounded Soul no ICD.  Temp HP to party adds up and complementary with healing.
5/5 Aura of Despair
5/5 Aura of Cruelty (more lifesteal for all which is more healing, even if it doesn't go onto your charts)
5/5 Eldritch Momentum great survivability boost
1/1 Soul Bonding whole point of Temptation

For last 5 points there isn't much choice.  all the other T1s are very weak so probably go Hellish Condemnation/Darkness for full Temptation build.

Playstyle:

Dungeon clearing Loadout
At-Wills: Hand of Blight, Hellish Rebuke
Class Features: Flames of Empowerment or Shadow WalkNo Pity, No Mercy
Encounters: Harrowstorm/BoVA, Fiery BoltDreadtheft
Daily: Tyrannical Threat and Accursed Souls

Single Target Loadout
At-Wills: Hand of Blight, Hellish Rebuke
Class Features: Flames of Empowerment swap to Shadow Walk if you prefer mobility, No Pity, No Mercy swap to Deadly Curse if you have a good tank keeping mark up
Encounters: Warlock's Bargain/Harrowstorm/VE/Killing FlamesDreadtheft
Daily: Tyrannical Threat and BoH

Gear: Diabolist set (offensive healing) Nether mage set (defensive healing)

Encounter use similar to Damnation build, daily use see Fury build.  No need to swap Vampiric Embrace in clearing trash, you heal enough with your DoTs.  Temptation warlocks are the most positional of all 3 paths and you shoul never be very far from those you want to heal especially during DT.  Aura of cruelty is 20 feet, healing is about 30 feet from set and capstone.  Don't pull threat till other party members engage.  You will probably pick up aggro at some point.  CW's icy terrain and DC's Astral shield is your friend, otherwise get to a GF/GWF.  Worse thing you can do is separate yourself from the party, they don't have your mobility to pull them off you if you run into a corner.  Stick with the party almost always, your healing is AoE based and does nothing over 20 feet (est).  If there's a tank you want to hover near them, they are usually the only ones needing healing.  Warlock's Bargain is a decent heal over time too if you need to swap in for some situations.  When dreadthefting I find it useful to keep on the move, even if it's just left right left right because mobs do charge you and put down red and you don't want to have to cancel DT and sprint out.  For bosses it depends on the party you have and what is needed.  Tanks using Knight's Valor absorb half your Warlock's Bargain costs, but don't use it if they're low on health.  You should still have very high DPS with this build.  Just remember to let allies pull big packs before you fire up everything, but don't lag behind the party either.  Position, position, position.

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