Warlock

[Asmon]

So much wrong in this thread. Atm the WL has no melee charge, which means he has no retreat killing potential and is extremely easy to kite, unless you can use FoF (for 40 energy and 40% less melee damage) or Swift Movement.

Yes the leap can be cancelled by kb abilities such as Shotgun blast, if the WL is not already in middle air when you trigger the ability. Anyway, he remains susceptible to suppression and damage. And yes the cooldown on the leap is huge, I'd go with Codex and say 12 but it might even be 16 seconds, whatever it is it results in Elite WL being worse at fighting than his retail counterpart, especially when you take the lower hp into account.

The leap does no damage and has no domino effect. If 2 units get kb'ed that's merely because the WL did land on both of them.

The leap is unreliable as the WL is being kited. It will properly happen again if you micro it out, otherwise you can wait for the distance between the WL and his target to reach some unknown magic value.

Also Ace did I read that WL's weapons grant very high damage? Please.

[Torpid]

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[Codex]

Also Ace did I read that WL's weapons grant very high damage? Please.

I'm not 100% sure on the cooldown for warlock leap but it's a lot longer than the original cooldown for melee charge. Regardless, Torpid, Asmon, we were having a perfectly good civil discussion before these contributions, let's please try to keep it that way.

For example, actually address the point directly by perhaps quoting some figures for the dps of the weapons instead of just eyerolling and showing your disapproval. Some people might read into that badly

@Panda

Happy to try to help any time. I personally think Warlock has plenty of good matchups, but bear in mind that Warlock doesn't scale into the late game in the same way that a Farseer does, so you can always aim to exploit that. In the end, the Warlock is a tanky force in the front, but it doesn't add that much to his army itself and any builds involving witchblade AND champion's robe is necessarily going to be very power intensive. We can play some mock games sometimes to show you what I mean because reading an explanation on a screen is never going to be as effective as seeing it for yourself.

[Dark Riku]

Some people might read into that badly

Like me.

So much wrong in this thread. Atm the WL has no melee charge, which means he has no retreat killing potential and is extremely easy to kite, unless you can use FoF (for 40 energy and 40% less melee damage) or Swift Movement.

"So much wrong in your post." Melee charge = his leap.
And tell me how most units will kite with speed 5 vs speed 5.5.

Yes the leap can be cancelled by kb abilities such as Shotgun blast, if the WL is not already in middle air when you trigger the ability.

No, it will go through once the animation starts. I have shotgun blasted, full auto'd, etc him so many times and he just jumps anyways.

Anyway, he remains susceptible to suppression and damage.

Like almost any other hero/unit out there...
What hero or unit isn't susceptible to damage? °_O
WL is one of the few lucky heroes that can get an invulnerability armor upgrade. With an extra nice trait that no other has: the ability to spam whatever ability he has.

..., whatever it is it results in Elite WL being worse at fighting than his retail counterpart, especially when you take the lower hp into account.

Yeah, knockback/big distant closer at the start of every engagement is so bad. -.-
+30HP back and no more leap would be a nerf to the WL.
How is he worse for fighting than retail? His special with the merciless witchblade not doing friendly fire anymore? HoD being buffed? His bubble being buffed?

The leap does no damage and has no domino effect.

Yeah, it only disrupts and possibly makes your unit a sitting duck because they are on their ass. No biggy.

Also Ace did I read that WL's weapons grant very high damage? Please.

Yes, you read that. And yes they do.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

warlock's weapons are pretty middle ground as far as commander weapons go.

[Torpid]

Their raw dps isn't much. However unlike something like the warboss power klaw or the HT crushing claws they grant highly damaging abilities to throw on top of his destructor or in the case of the MWB it has that amazing tracking special attack and hence his doesn't even matter that his chasing ability isn't fantastic. Ultimately you get immolator/kurnous for the abilities neither of which are hindered by his leap, and then the MWB has that epic special which is also not hindered by his leap.

We also can't assess the leap without looking at how good it synergises with banshees, because that's obvious, especially early on in the game. Furthermore early on you won't even be doing much damage with the WL. His starting blade does 30dps, that's less than the farseer by default who does 35. So really you are only using the warlock for tying up more than anything else and the leap and all the disruption it causes only makes the warlock better suited for that role especially considering the damage debuff from FoF is really irrelevent.

[Torpid]

Anyway, he remains susceptible to suppression and damage.

Like almost any other hero/unit out there...
What hero or unit isn't susceptible to damage? °_O

Apothecary with the right wargear assortment in t2 is practically immune to both suppression and damage -> Stims to counter suppression + Leveled up heal+sanguine for regen in melee and ranged + IME so you can spam heal yourself = Warlock is far easier to counter than the apothecary.

[Nuclear Arbitor]

Their raw dps isn't much. However unlike something like the warboss power klaw or the HT crushing claws they grant highly damaging abilities to throw on top of his destructor or in the case of the MWB it has that amazing tracking special attack and hence his doesn't even matter that his chasing ability isn't fantastic. Ultimately you get immolator/kurnous for the abilities neither of which are hindered by his leap, and then the MWB has that epic special which is also not hindered by his leap.

and that is entirely true of all wargear that isn't a straight damage or health wargear. there are only a few wargears which are straight damage/health and not ability. those that are for damage/health do a lot of that. MWB falls into the straight damage category although it gives up dps for utility in the form of the energy drain and the ranged stance. whether or not it's balanced is a different issue.

[Torpid]

The point that I was trying to make was that the leap reducing the chasing ability of the warlock doesn't really negate his ability to kill stuff though.

[Tex]

This is a ridiculous thread.

Destructor has always been a huge strength for the warlock against chaos. Nothing has changed with this ability. It isn't the root of the problem by any means.

I already posted a very detailed list of things that HAVE changed which have pushed this matchup more and more in the warlock's favor.

[Dark Riku]

Apothecary with the right wargear assortment in t2 is practically immune to both suppression and damage -> ... = Warlock is far easier to counter than the apothecary.

Could you stop trolling in every thread please? -.-

This is a ridiculous thread.

How about we don't ridicule all these, let's say, "ridiculous people"
but instead encourage them to post things and/or ask questions?
So they might come out a better player, see new perspectives, try new thing, etc?

[Kvek]

Apothecary with the right wargear assortment in t2 is practically immune to both suppression and damage -> ... = Warlock is far easier to counter than the apothecary.

Could you stop trolling in every thread please? -.-

Sarcasm, if you check his posts etc, you will see it .

[Ace of Swords]

Destructor has always been a huge strength for the warlock against chaos. Nothing has changed with this ability. It isn't the root of the problem by any means.

Exactly, so perhaps it's time to look into it because it's too strong?

[Panda]

Destructor has always been a huge strength for the warlock against chaos. Nothing has changed with this ability. It isn't the root of the problem by any means.

Exactly, so perhaps it's time to look into it because it's too strong?

Is this one of the possibly broken things that has become accepted by the community over time as "it's just part of the game"? Like the thread on catachan bleed?

[Ace of Swords]

Destructor has always been a huge strength for the warlock against chaos. Nothing has changed with this ability. It isn't the root of the problem by any means.

Exactly, so perhaps it's time to look into it because it's too strong?

Is this one of the possibly broken things that has become accepted by the community over time as "it's just part of the game"? Like the thread on catachan bleed?

It's not exactly broken, it's fine vs everyone else, but truth to be told, and it was pointed out by many already, it really favors the MU for the eldar when it's a WL vs chaos instead of wse/fs.

And I think it's quite clear how the WL stands out compared to the other 2 eldar heroes overall.

[Forestradio]

Destructor is a huge problem vs nade launcher heretics. Never get them if you are facing a warlock. He'll just get immolator and free squad wipes

Could the nade launcher upgrade tweak heretic formation so they spread out more?

[Codex]

To be fair the hp nerf to basic tics has been the biggest influence on how potent destructor is against them. Now it only requires a small bit of fire from one guardian followed up with a destructor to wipe them.

If people think it is a concern (and I cannot remember if this change has already been implemented) perhaps change the damage type from grenade (1 vs 1.25 = +25% to heavy infantry) to plasma (0.75 Infantry vs 1.5 HI).

This would give:
1. double damage to HI,
2. -25% damage to infantry, +25% damage to HI compared to grenade damage

But then again it would quite seriously hamper its utility against stuff like banshees, guardians, guardsmen, scouts etc. And I'm not particularly convinced that Destructor is overpowered.

@Riku

Yes Warlock has speed 5.5 but you can still kite an alacrity FC can't you? The primary purpose of kiting is to reduce the damage output of an enemy, and if you can avoid it entirely great, but that's not necessary to achieve the desired effect. It's just to create a situation where you're getting more out of the position than your opponent is, and generally not kiting a melee commander with wargear upgrades is exactly what your opponent wants you to do.

@Torpid

The point is that it doesn't really nullify Warlock's ability to kill stuff, but at the same time it increases the periods of time that you can manipulate and hamper the Warlock and focus firing down the enemy army.

You mention that he synergises well with Banshees. This is true. But he does not add anything to the banshees directly unless he goes for channeling runes. And I don't think many people are going to go for 3 wargears in T1, so I'm assuming he'll have a weakness of one sort or another: no weapon or no armor, kitable, able to be knocked back during channeling, whatever. Regardless I generally find channeling runes to be most effective against Chaos considering their lack of reliable knockback in T1.

As I was saying, because he doesn't add anything directly to the banshees themselves it does mean that they are vulnerable to being focussed down early on in a fight, during the period which leap is on cooldown and you've controlled the Warlock using suppression and largely ignoring him in favour of attacking his army. Don't get me wrong: this is not an easy fight, but it should be possible if you focus on taking down his most fragile and big threats and don't give him the space to use his mobility to his advantage.

Consider the jedi build, which is without a doubt very annoying. Generally you want to pick something that can kite him while shooting (transports are great at this) or you want to pick something that can melee him without any concern. This generally means walkers, as it can be a concern if his melee skill is too high or if he's going for kurnous. Regardless, getting either of these will seriously hamper the mobility of the Warlock, and even with the Heart of Darkness post-buff he can't be wasting his time and hp/energy pool running ahead of the formation with impunity any more. That's already a win in itself, and if he cannot use this mobility to his advantage it just becomes questionable to go for heart of darkness over warp throw or channeling runes imo.