Why did Phantasmal Warlock Get Nerfed?
iWarlock’s damage scales based on the number of unique conditions on the target. In a big PvE boss fight it can easily do x1.5-x2 the damage of a iZerker due to the fact the boss has pretty much every condition under the sun on him.
Throw in that iWarlock is a ranged unit, it’s pretty easy to get 3 warlocks up and keep them up, at which point the Mesmer can top DPS for very little work, so I do understand why they did this. It isn’t conjecture either it’s long been recognised that while mesmer’s damage is slow to gain (and thus they perform badly in fast moving scenarios), in situations where they can build up their phantasms over the course of a minute or so their DPS can become a positive wrecking ball
Garnished Toast
Oh so this was a pvp nerf cause of pve. I get it now.
No it was a warlock nerf. Not limited to pvp or pve.
No player is ever alive long enough for a fully cond stack to get on them, and 3 warlocks out.
even in PvE it is really only ever on the world bosses, with tons of ppl fighting it. In dungeons you usually just can get that many conditions on consistently, and in general open world pve no mobs survive long enough for it…
So it was nerfed… for the very specific chance you might fight a world boss… that seems… a little ridiculous. Why not just nerf the damage per cond? Or… cap it… or something?
Because ultimately we’d need the Phantasms to have their (direct) damage removed (and the Clones too, even indirect one), and be made into actual living hexes.
Because ultimately we’d need the Phantasms to have their (direct) damage removed (and the Clones too, even indirect one), and be made into actual living hexes.
Like mage and disenchanter in their current state? :P
“So it was nerfed… for the very specific chance you might fight a world boss… that seems… a little ridiculous. Why not just nerf the damage per cond? Or… cap it… or something?”
Capping a damage modifier is a move too arcane for ANet’s designers. It’s so much easier to stick to Design 101 intro handbook and ruin the warlock.
Because ultimately we’d need the Phantasms to have their (direct) damage removed (and the Clones too, even indirect one), and be made into actual living hexes.
Like mage and disenchanter in their current state? :P
In a way, yes.
Stronger in actual utility, ofc.
For example I could see the Duelist as a specialist combo-field sniper. Give him 100% trigger chance again, but he does no damage on his own. Maybe actually extend the barrage. In other words what he does is give X projectile finishers, that’s it. But balance X the right way, and that’s actually fairly powerful, because:
Losing the damage from the Phantasms means the damage of the other abilities goes up.
I don’t think it was nerfed because of the PvE lol.
It’s incredible in pvp. Sometimes the top dmg dealing phantasm depending on the state of your target, even 3-4 conditions should make your warlock hit the hardest, and on top of that it’s ranged.
iWarlock attack speed was faster than intended. Originally iW was around 6s. A few patches ago they screwed something up and buffed it to ~4.5s. So now they fixed it back to normal.
Deal with it.
Yeah like if world bosses were harsh. My cat soloed a dragon. Senseless nerf.
iWarlock is still pretty good, but it’s definitely a situation-based skill. I’m a critbuild, and on bosses (not even worldbosses, mind you) my warlocks will regularly hit for 6000 damage. So, that’s about 18,000 damage every six seconds on autopilot. I won’t complain about a 1.5 second nerf when I’m looking at that level of free damage. It’s not a bad skill for PVP, but I find Berserker to be vastly more useful and more distracting to foes.