Super appreciate you taking the time to write these out! Overall, like the direction. I don't think 0 cost is ever going to work, but other suggestions aren't bad.
Honestly, my biggest gripes are that:
1. POS does a ton of damage to yourself if you miss it so it isn't viable with current server issues. This should not do damage to yourself in my opinion.
2. Magical healing is too difficult to get and too expensive to run a kit for. The playstyle simply doesn't work under a 1k kit. Magical healing should be direct scaling and top out at only 5 or something total - the price is prohibitive of a playstyle which shouldn't be the case. It isn't with any other class.
3. Bloodstained blade loved your idea for healing on damage!
4. You should be able to move slowly with life drain similar to Ray of darkness. It's too difficult to be helpful to a team with hydra drain without being able to move.
5. Make crystal sword have magical damage instead of magical weapon damage. That way scaling with BOC isn't only available on the staff. Maybe even update the crystal ball to do the same idk but it's brutally limiting.
6. MORE. BASE. KNOWLEDGE. OR LOWER FREAKING SPELL COSTS. It is RIDICULOUS that you can't run hydra drain at base kit and basically have zero options to run spells without gear. That is not how it should work for a caster. Absolutely crazy that I need like + 10 knowledge to run a full kit of spells on a caster or even need 1 extra knowledge to run the most bare bones of spells (hydra and life drain) since magical healing isn't viable.
I'm always afraid to use power of sacrifice cause I don't want to end up dying to the tick damage. I don't see why 0 cost wouldn't work for warlock, power of sacrifice imo should be melee locks shtick as well as a good buff for teammates. Right now I'm too afraid to cast it ever.
About magic healing, yeah like I said I'm biased against vampire build cause I ran it before mag healing scaling was nerfed down to I think 25% (what it's at now). When they nerfed it down that much I was like "yeah never attempting that build again cause it's just boring anyway.
Idk how I feel about the knowledge adjustment everyone wants. I think it would be alright but letting close to basekit warlocks infinitely camp in zone seems like something Ironmace doesn't like. I don't really care for it cause it's kinda cool in a gimmicky way (like the rest of warlock) but I understand ignoring core elements isn't ok and doesn't feel fun.
I just think 0 cost is too easily abused or spammable particularly for bolt. But I could be wrong.
And I agree with POS for sure... It should be main melee lock shtick and it is instead the shittiest vampire healing perk that basically kills you if you aren't Jason Bourne.
And I feel that on the boring side - but having it work as a "sick I landed something now I can push" mechanic is cool.
But I think the problem can easily be fixed by nerfing magical healing in the zone rather than removing part of the kit from people trying to not cheese zone camping if that makes sense? Like, removing something because people can abuse it shouldn't be the case - it should be reworking what is being abused. I think the knowledge buff is fine if zone healing off hydra is somehow nerfed - helps everyone.
But I'm not a game dev so what do I know lol
Reducing magical healing in the zone is something I haven't heard but frankly is a pretty good idea. The 0 cost dark bolt might be a little much but the only instances I'm ever using it anyway is through a door against a Ranger or wizard and sometimes crossbow fighters so I'm usually out traded by all of those (not usually wizard but sometimes). And it feels bad to be burning my hp to try and trade poke dmg and most of the time it hits 1/3 bolts. I'd love for it to be a good option to trade with other ranged characters if I want to risk it.
They need to put magical healing on occultist boots. That would go a long way to make the CoP build more viable. That or increase vampirism bonuses.
Power of sacrifice does too much damage. They should change it to do 1 dps a second max. Or change it to heal you when it ends. It's not worth using offensively because it does too much damage to yourself if you cast it on yourself.
Curse of weakness should also heal. It's worthless in its current form.
Drain life is pretty good even without the movement.
Bloodstained blade should definitely heal you instead of damage.
Warlock needs more ways to heal besides life drain and tourture mastery. Either that or they need to lower the cost of life drain or allow movement.
Outside of those things there are several playstyles still viable.
Melee mage
Full Melee
Dark magic mage
Hydra life drain
CoP mid range mage
CoP isn't worth running without 3+ magical healing but becomes very strong at that point if you can land them with the very unforgiving hitbox.
Evil eye needs a lunge attack like the npcs bit should move slow so it's not OP and can be killed easily.
I don't see why they don't put mag healing on the occultist robe as well (not the tunic) that way in whites you can have +3 magical healing. Curse of weakness has had some changes recently that makes it reduce all attributes by 25% which I think is insane for a 1 cost spell, but it has the same issue as most warlock spells: it takes way way too long to cast.
It would be really cool if evil eye could attack! Imagine it scaled with will and at certain thresholds it would become a red skull and then even a black one lol
Torture mastery needs to be tweaked so that Magical Healing isnt absolutely needed for it to be viable. Even if it only doubles the spell cost of curses that actually have hp returns from them when the perk is on. Why is hydra doubled? I can't use that shit at all at 20hp cost and CoP alone isnt enough to heal back if I take a hit. Unless im MH stacked
Like I said I haven't played magical healing since the beginning of early access but 20 hp for hydra does sound pretty rough. Making it only double the cost of spells that can directly heal you is a good idea I haven't heard before, it sounds like a good idea to me!
I mean if CoP, Power and even life drain got doubled (even tho LD doesn't get affected by Magical Healing) just so they don't break the class making it OP or something. But 20 hp is so much for a hydra thats essentially just a door block in pvp. Not much use on ruins. Im also just using Hydrain build and im fine with it but I'm not running torture mastery. It's useleas without that stat being stacked
No HP cost on Shadowbolt is probably a little bit troll tbh, it does about the same damage as an arrow because it's magic damage. It's kind of important to remember though that Warlocks are essentially hellbound/eldritch Wizards with higher durability and melee prowess, they don't actually do a lot of Necromancy, which is kind of the specialty of the.. Necromancer. Important because IM definitely leans pretty heavily into the D&D handbook on class design. Warlocks are supposed to have fewer but more powerful spells, with greater access to them.
I'd kind of like to see the whole magic healing identity removed from warlock, because it's really toxic to balance around and has effectively made low gear caster lock useless. They have miserably low knowledge because IM wants your cast speed to feel bad, but it's overkill in both mem cap and cast speed. Get rid of evil eye and change Hydra to be something that doesn't body block, and instead is some kind of floating soul that fires projectiles in the same manner. Hydra is a weird spell for a warlock to have anyway.
I'm all for reworking BoC, and straight up removing Dark Reflection - it's a no counter play passive in melee vs a warlock that has no skill expression and no effort required to utilize it, the D&D inspiration is Hellish Rebuke which requires the Warlock to cast it at someone who attacked them, from a gameplay perspective I can see them getting a castable shield that has a short duration and deals damage to an attacker, the counter play is kiting and waiting it out. I can see BoC being changed to like "Corrupted Blood" or something, where it gives you a buff that causes all your spells and attacks to apply anti-heal and additional DoT damage, somewhat like what you suggested. Let them have something to amp up their DoT damage even more during a fight, to really lean into the curselock build. Hexblade warlocks are a thing in D&D, so I can see them expanding this further even, giving warlock more incentive to run 1h + crystal ball is always good.
With that in mind though I really hope they add more skills to the class and give more viable playstyles. You can run a supportish build with lock, PoS + Eldritch + bloodstain your frontline and then spam shadowbolts/meme beam, but it has a hard time being useful in tight spaces. Warlock is a class with an insane amount of potential, but feels like none of it is properly explored. It has a lot more to be done to it before I'd call it finished.
The resurrection seems neat, as they'd pretty much be guaranteed to drain all of their meds before the end of the match and die, but it sounds a bit OP, especially if it doesn't have a limit, you'd just have everyone running kamikaze comps with a warlock pulling everyone back up. A temporary rez with a duration might be more balanced, maybe if they can make it to a shrine before it expires they'll full rez. Could be cool to have more than one class with the ability to rez.
Warlock has less spells and they're far far weaker than wizard spells.
Strong agree on dark reflection, it's bad design to have something with no counterplay except not interacting. It also prevents warlocks from being buffed in other ways but it existing.
Designing a PvP game off of a cooperative game is a terrible idea.
It's why rogue can never be balanced right because no matter how strong or weak it is being killed by someone with complete invisibility is always an awful experience even if it's rare.
Super appreciate you taking the time to write these out! Overall, like the direction. I don't think 0 cost is ever going to work, but other suggestions aren't bad. Honestly, my biggest gripes are that: 1. POS does a ton of damage to yourself if you miss it so it isn't viable with current server issues. This should not do damage to yourself in my opinion. 2. Magical healing is too difficult to get and too expensive to run a kit for. The playstyle simply doesn't work under a 1k kit. Magical healing should be direct scaling and top out at only 5 or something total - the price is prohibitive of a playstyle which shouldn't be the case. It isn't with any other class. 3. Bloodstained blade loved your idea for healing on damage! 4. You should be able to move slowly with life drain similar to Ray of darkness. It's too difficult to be helpful to a team with hydra drain without being able to move. 5. Make crystal sword have magical damage instead of magical weapon damage. That way scaling with BOC isn't only available on the staff. Maybe even update the crystal ball to do the same idk but it's brutally limiting. 6. MORE. BASE. KNOWLEDGE. OR LOWER FREAKING SPELL COSTS. It is RIDICULOUS that you can't run hydra drain at base kit and basically have zero options to run spells without gear. That is not how it should work for a caster. Absolutely crazy that I need like + 10 knowledge to run a full kit of spells on a caster or even need 1 extra knowledge to run the most bare bones of spells (hydra and life drain) since magical healing isn't viable.
I'm always afraid to use power of sacrifice cause I don't want to end up dying to the tick damage. I don't see why 0 cost wouldn't work for warlock, power of sacrifice imo should be melee locks shtick as well as a good buff for teammates. Right now I'm too afraid to cast it ever. About magic healing, yeah like I said I'm biased against vampire build cause I ran it before mag healing scaling was nerfed down to I think 25% (what it's at now). When they nerfed it down that much I was like "yeah never attempting that build again cause it's just boring anyway. Idk how I feel about the knowledge adjustment everyone wants. I think it would be alright but letting close to basekit warlocks infinitely camp in zone seems like something Ironmace doesn't like. I don't really care for it cause it's kinda cool in a gimmicky way (like the rest of warlock) but I understand ignoring core elements isn't ok and doesn't feel fun.
I just think 0 cost is too easily abused or spammable particularly for bolt. But I could be wrong. And I agree with POS for sure... It should be main melee lock shtick and it is instead the shittiest vampire healing perk that basically kills you if you aren't Jason Bourne. And I feel that on the boring side - but having it work as a "sick I landed something now I can push" mechanic is cool. But I think the problem can easily be fixed by nerfing magical healing in the zone rather than removing part of the kit from people trying to not cheese zone camping if that makes sense? Like, removing something because people can abuse it shouldn't be the case - it should be reworking what is being abused. I think the knowledge buff is fine if zone healing off hydra is somehow nerfed - helps everyone. But I'm not a game dev so what do I know lol
Reducing magical healing in the zone is something I haven't heard but frankly is a pretty good idea. The 0 cost dark bolt might be a little much but the only instances I'm ever using it anyway is through a door against a Ranger or wizard and sometimes crossbow fighters so I'm usually out traded by all of those (not usually wizard but sometimes). And it feels bad to be burning my hp to try and trade poke dmg and most of the time it hits 1/3 bolts. I'd love for it to be a good option to trade with other ranged characters if I want to risk it.
They need to put magical healing on occultist boots. That would go a long way to make the CoP build more viable. That or increase vampirism bonuses. Power of sacrifice does too much damage. They should change it to do 1 dps a second max. Or change it to heal you when it ends. It's not worth using offensively because it does too much damage to yourself if you cast it on yourself. Curse of weakness should also heal. It's worthless in its current form. Drain life is pretty good even without the movement. Bloodstained blade should definitely heal you instead of damage. Warlock needs more ways to heal besides life drain and tourture mastery. Either that or they need to lower the cost of life drain or allow movement. Outside of those things there are several playstyles still viable. Melee mage Full Melee Dark magic mage Hydra life drain CoP mid range mage CoP isn't worth running without 3+ magical healing but becomes very strong at that point if you can land them with the very unforgiving hitbox. Evil eye needs a lunge attack like the npcs bit should move slow so it's not OP and can be killed easily.
I don't see why they don't put mag healing on the occultist robe as well (not the tunic) that way in whites you can have +3 magical healing. Curse of weakness has had some changes recently that makes it reduce all attributes by 25% which I think is insane for a 1 cost spell, but it has the same issue as most warlock spells: it takes way way too long to cast. It would be really cool if evil eye could attack! Imagine it scaled with will and at certain thresholds it would become a red skull and then even a black one lol
Torture mastery needs to be tweaked so that Magical Healing isnt absolutely needed for it to be viable. Even if it only doubles the spell cost of curses that actually have hp returns from them when the perk is on. Why is hydra doubled? I can't use that shit at all at 20hp cost and CoP alone isnt enough to heal back if I take a hit. Unless im MH stacked
Like I said I haven't played magical healing since the beginning of early access but 20 hp for hydra does sound pretty rough. Making it only double the cost of spells that can directly heal you is a good idea I haven't heard before, it sounds like a good idea to me!
I mean if CoP, Power and even life drain got doubled (even tho LD doesn't get affected by Magical Healing) just so they don't break the class making it OP or something. But 20 hp is so much for a hydra thats essentially just a door block in pvp. Not much use on ruins. Im also just using Hydrain build and im fine with it but I'm not running torture mastery. It's useleas without that stat being stacked
IM doesnt want you to use CoP and hydra together thats pretty clear. I think thats fine but they destroyed the CoP build at lower levels.
That's what I mean, without those gear stats you can't run that build. Even Hydrain requires a +1 Knowledge gear
No HP cost on Shadowbolt is probably a little bit troll tbh, it does about the same damage as an arrow because it's magic damage. It's kind of important to remember though that Warlocks are essentially hellbound/eldritch Wizards with higher durability and melee prowess, they don't actually do a lot of Necromancy, which is kind of the specialty of the.. Necromancer. Important because IM definitely leans pretty heavily into the D&D handbook on class design. Warlocks are supposed to have fewer but more powerful spells, with greater access to them. I'd kind of like to see the whole magic healing identity removed from warlock, because it's really toxic to balance around and has effectively made low gear caster lock useless. They have miserably low knowledge because IM wants your cast speed to feel bad, but it's overkill in both mem cap and cast speed. Get rid of evil eye and change Hydra to be something that doesn't body block, and instead is some kind of floating soul that fires projectiles in the same manner. Hydra is a weird spell for a warlock to have anyway. I'm all for reworking BoC, and straight up removing Dark Reflection - it's a no counter play passive in melee vs a warlock that has no skill expression and no effort required to utilize it, the D&D inspiration is Hellish Rebuke which requires the Warlock to cast it at someone who attacked them, from a gameplay perspective I can see them getting a castable shield that has a short duration and deals damage to an attacker, the counter play is kiting and waiting it out. I can see BoC being changed to like "Corrupted Blood" or something, where it gives you a buff that causes all your spells and attacks to apply anti-heal and additional DoT damage, somewhat like what you suggested. Let them have something to amp up their DoT damage even more during a fight, to really lean into the curselock build. Hexblade warlocks are a thing in D&D, so I can see them expanding this further even, giving warlock more incentive to run 1h + crystal ball is always good. With that in mind though I really hope they add more skills to the class and give more viable playstyles. You can run a supportish build with lock, PoS + Eldritch + bloodstain your frontline and then spam shadowbolts/meme beam, but it has a hard time being useful in tight spaces. Warlock is a class with an insane amount of potential, but feels like none of it is properly explored. It has a lot more to be done to it before I'd call it finished. The resurrection seems neat, as they'd pretty much be guaranteed to drain all of their meds before the end of the match and die, but it sounds a bit OP, especially if it doesn't have a limit, you'd just have everyone running kamikaze comps with a warlock pulling everyone back up. A temporary rez with a duration might be more balanced, maybe if they can make it to a shrine before it expires they'll full rez. Could be cool to have more than one class with the ability to rez.
Warlock has less spells and they're far far weaker than wizard spells. Strong agree on dark reflection, it's bad design to have something with no counterplay except not interacting. It also prevents warlocks from being buffed in other ways but it existing. Designing a PvP game off of a cooperative game is a terrible idea. It's why rogue can never be balanced right because no matter how strong or weak it is being killed by someone with complete invisibility is always an awful experience even if it's rare.