Hello Everyone! I’m Charisma and after a long wait period, the changes to Warlocks are here!! The update is a massive step forward, but it comes with some large changes to gear for both DPS and Temptation! My goal is to give players new and old a place to jump from and some starting info. This guide will evolve with my testing (mostly just the rotation) as I continue to test encounter setups.
IMPORTANT: This is a starting point. I will tell you do’s and don’ts and tell you why, but if you don’t use them or care to experiment with your own ideas please feel free to. This is the setup that I’ve found to give the most damage output, but this is in no way the only build SW’s can run!
Okay, now that the introductions out of the way let’s get into the build!
Race:
Your race choice is very important in Neverwinter. Every race can play any class, but some races do certain classes much better than others!
With the nerfs to OBC and now that Pillar Crits, a high crit Tiefling build out performs the former human, lowcrit with OBC. In fact I don’t even use OBC anymore.
With that said, Tieflings are the best choice right now. The extra % damage buff when targets are below 50% synergies well with the rest of our kit and the ability scores line up perfectly.
Dragonborns are also a solid option because of their additional 3% power and critical strike. This works really well for obvious reasons as a dps.
Humans aren’t bad still, and a better option than many if you can’t stand tails or scales. The extra feats are a good bonus and the reduced damage helps keep us alive to siphon more souls!
Feats and Paragon choice:
With the changes to Warlocks, Temptation Warlocks are much more desirable for end game content. Because of this, I’ve decided I’ll give you guys my setup for both specs!
Hellbringer, Fury (DPS):
Heroic:
Energizing Curse: There’s four points here because it’s better than toughness. The added AP gain is really nice, and helps us get off our dailies a lot since I don’t recommend using the DC Sigil.
Weapon Mastery: Must have. Pretty self explanatory to be honest, additional critical strike chance is always good.
Empowered Rituals: As an SW lots of your damage will come from your encounter powers. Additional damage added to those is a no-brainer.
Determined Casting: Again, another feat that seems kind of self explanatory. When most of your dps comes from encounter powers, being able to use them more would increase damage output.
Blood Pact of Cania: There’s normally only two points here because we need to choose between this, and devastating critical. If you are a human put your three points here!
Devastating Critical: IMPORTANT! Critical severity is a coveted stat! You want it as high as you can possibly get it. Even though I’m not recommending the use of a vorpal or a dread enchantment, critical chance and severity is not to be neglected!
Fury:
Daughter’s Promise: Pretty obvious, With All Consuming Curse you curse anything you critically strike. You get a lot of use out of this.
Offering to the Prisoner: In a dungeon or group scenario, trash dies constantly. As long as you hit the trash you’re getting this buff.
Gatekeeper’s Empowerment: Gates of Hell does some crazy damage in large groups. Increasing that further is awesome, plus adding more AP gain when it kills targets. Unfortunately we don’t really get a lot of use out of the DoT increase to Hellish Rebuke, but the AP gain is worth it.
Infernal Wrath: Synergies well with All Consuming Curse, and with the change in armor pen helps make up for any missing Resistance Ignored.
Executioner’s Gift: This feat synergizes so well with Killing Flames and some other aspects of this build that I couldn’t recommend not taking it. (Plus, the additional damage you get from Killing Curse is tiny).
Brutal Curse: This is awesome. Additional damage to curse targets by a flat percentage, and it’s on top of the damage buff from warlock’s curse.
Creeping Death: This is really the only choice for dps warlocks. With the recent buffs it’s really our only choice. The Damnation tree and it’s capstone, Soul Desecration is nerfed to hell and doesn’t do near as much damage as this. The other option is Temptation and that’s for healing.
Damnation:
Relentless Curse: When you use an ability that consumes Warlock’s curse, the enemy is then smacked with a lesser curse. Lesser Curse will do additional damage over time, and it will synergize well with the rest of the build.
Powers and rotation!
Remember to use Warlock’s Curse as much as possible during combat! Curse every target you can, but don’t miss out on using a skill that’s off cooldown to do so. Warlock’s Curse increases the amount of damage enemies take, and can apply additional effects when you use encounters on targets affected by it.
AoE setup (Use for trash mobs and questing):
Class Feats:
All Consuming Curse: This combined with many of our feats increases our damage output by a lot. Also at rank 4 it increases lesser curses damage.
No Pity No Mercy: This is a class feat I will always have slotted, no matter what. Very high increase in damage output from Hellish Rebuke.
At-Wills:
Eldritch Blast: Weaker damage in single target situations but the third strike is an aoe. Decent when used in combination with Hellish Rebuke.
Hellish Rebuke: Main source of At-Will damage. I’ll use this almost exclusively when all my encounters are on cooldown.
Encounters:
Arms of Hadar: Insane AoE damage (because of the low, stacking cooldown) and it knocks enemies prone. I spam this a lot in combat.
Pillar of Power: Massive buff and decent damage to enemies inside. Try to get as many enemies inside as possible, but be sure to stand in it yourself. This is a bit of a risk vs reward, but it’s always better to be further from the combat, inside your circle and miss out on a bit of dps from PoP, than to die.
Fiery Bolt: Good AoE damage with a low cooldown. Remember to Warlock’s Curse the target you use this on to increase the damage the AoE damage!
Dailies:
Gates of Hell: Really good, instant, AoE damage. Good if trying to kill a large group really quick, rather than melting it with Tyrannical.
Tyrannical Curse: Your most important skill to doing AoE damage. Use this skill on the target with the most health in a room with lots of other enemies and watch the entire room melt when you drop PoP under the one you cursed.
Brood of Hadar: Very high single target Dps and works very well with Tyrannical Curse.
Your basic AoE rotation should be as follows:
Tyrannical Curse the biggest enemy you can find and drop Pillar of Power under him. Try to catch as many enemies as you can within that green circle. The more standing in it, the more dps you’ll do. Then, while inside the circle yourself, Warlock’s Curse the targets and drop Arms of Hadar on them. Then, Fiery Bolt. While your skills are on cooldown, use Hellish Rebuke on the enemy you used TC on. You want to maximize the damage he takes. Repeat as cooldowns come back up and watch all the pretty numbers fly from the enemies as they melt.
Single Target (Use for boss fights):
Class Feats: These will remain the same.
All Consuming Curse
No Pity No Mercy
Encounters:
Warlock’s Bargain: Applies an almost never ending DoT on your target. Also deals a portion of damage you take to the target it’s applied to and heals you while it’s active. (Hadar’s Grasp is a decent alternative if you don’t like WB. The damage output is basically the same)
Pillar of Power: Really hard to beat the damage that comes out of this skill. Not only does it buff you and your party but it’s perfect for maximizing that Owlbear Cub damage. Keep the boss in this circle at all times!
Killing Flames: Very strong single target encounter with a short cooldown that increases in damage as the boss loses health. Always have this slotted for boss fights! The Soul Puppet it can spawn is a decent bonus, even if it dies almost instantly.
Dailies:
Brood of Hadar: Awesome single target damage ability. The brood will swarm an enemy and do a bunch of damage plus slow, and best of all they’ll swap to another target if the target you casted it on dies.
Tyrannical Curse: Solid damage buff and amazing add control during boss fights.
Your basic Single Target rotation should be as follows:
First, open with Warlock’s Bargain. This skill should be used on cooldown, and the boss should have this DoT applied to them at all times. Then drop Pillar of Power, preferably with the boss inside. Stand in the circle for as much of the fight as possible. Now, Warlock’s Curse your target and use Killing Flames. If adds spawn, use Tyrannical on the boss. If not, use Brood. While your skills are on cooldown, use Hellish Rebuke and wait until they come back up. Repeat.
Pretty Simple, right?
Temptation (Sustain and End-Game Dungeons):
Heroic:
Since the heroics are largely the same I’ll simply cover any deviations and why they are made.
Toughness: I shifted three points from Energizing Curse here because when you are in Templock, your death usually means 1 or 2 other deaths. Even if no one else dies, you tend to be a juicier target for enemies, and this helps compensate.
Soul Reaping: Life Steal for Templock is very important. You heal group-mates for a % of your damage dealt, equal to your lifesteal chance. As you can imagine, lifesteal is a crucial part of being an good Templock.
Temptation:
Hope Stealer: Increases Lifesteal chance, increases healing to your group.
Hellish Condemnation: We use Hellish Rebuke a lot. This makes it so that targets you hit will deal less damage. Great debuff.
Dark Revelry: One of the best buffs we give. 20% power for 5 seconds is huge, especially when we can stack that with some of our other buffs.
Aura of Despair: 5% damage dealt debuff and a 5% damage resist debuff on anything and everything close to you.
Aura of Cruelty: Lifesteal chance for you and those around you. Mostly, I take this for the increase to healing that I get from the bonus lifesteal chance, but giving a chance and severity buff to those around me is also nice.
Soul Bonding: Makes it so you can heal with your lifesteal chance. Take it.
Damnation:
Parting Blasphemy: This procs all the time. Good damage bonus, but we are really only putting points in this tree for Power of the Nine Hells.
Power of the Nine Hells: Amazing bonus to Pillar of Power because nobody knows how to sit in a circle. Very useful in almost every party environment.
Fury:
Critical Promise: Good bonus damage.
Powers and rotation!
We have a lot of choice when it comes to Templock. We are mostly just here to buff allies with Pillar and Revelry when we can, and to heal if needed. That being said, damage still counts some, so powers do matter.
With the buffs to Dreadtheft and since this setup outputs consistent damage and not bursts of damage when spells are off cooldown, this rotation provides more even healing and better buffs, at the expense of damage. If you really wanted, you could run the Dps rotation from above, and trade more consistent healing and buffs for damage.
AoE setup (Use for trash):
Class Feats:
All Consuming Curse: This combined with many of our feats increases our damage output by a lot. Also at rank 4 it increases lesser curses damage.
Prince of Hell: Increases Lifesteal chance and therefor healing. We need this stat to be as high as it can get.
At-Wills:
Hand of Blight: Strong damage dealt debuff. I’ve had runs where this has saved my tank.
Hellish Rebuke: Main source of At-Will damage. I’ll use this almost exclusively when all my encounters are on cooldown.
Encounters:
Dreadtheft: Solid damage over time to all enemies in a line. Good when used in combo with Tyrannical Curse. Also decreases your damage taken when used on cursed targets.
Pillar of Power: Massive buff and decent damage to enemies inside. Try to get as many allies inside as possible, and be sure to stand in it yourself. Remember to keep Pillar of Power on your main Dps, even if he’s running around the arena like a madman.
Blades of Vanquished Armies: Since we can’t cast spells During Dreadtheft our only other option is to increase out damage output while we are casting it. However, just because BoVA is our only option, doesn’t mean it’s bad in any respect. It has decent damage output and it also increases our deflect, making us harder to kill.
Dailies:
Tyrannical Curse: Your most important skill to doing AoE damage. Use this skill on the target with the most health in a room with lots of other enemies and watch the entire room melt when you drop PoP under the one you cursed.
Brood of Hadar: Very high single target Dps and works very well with Tyrannical Curse.
Your basic AoE rotation should be as follows:
Tyrannical Curse the biggest enemy you can find and drop Pillar of Power under him and your main dps. If you main dps is ranged, it’s his job to grab the PoP buff. Cast BoVA and use Dreadtheft on the enemy you Tyrannical Cursed. Now, simply line up Dreadtheft to hit as many targets as possible. Remember to stay close so that you are hitting enemies with BoVA, and to stay inside your green circle!
Single Target (Use for boss fights):
Class Feats: These will remain the same.
All Consuming Curse
Prince of Hell
Encounters:
Warlock’s Bargain: Applies an almost never ending DoT on your target. Also deals a portion of damage you take to the target it’s applied to and heals you while it’s active. (Hadar’s Grasp is a decent alternative if you don’t like WB. The damage output is basically the same)
Vampiric Embrace: Large heals to the entire group. Okay damage. Gives Temp HP when used on a cursed target. I use this if I know the group will take a lot of damage.
Pillar of Power: Really hard to beat the damage and the buff that comes from this skill. Use it at all times. Remember to try and keep your Dps buffed!
Killing Flames: Very strong single target encounter with a short cooldown that increases in damage as the boss loses health. Always have this slotted for boss fights! The Soul Puppet it can spawn is a decent bonus, even if it dies quickly.
Dailies:
Brood of Hadar: Awesome single target damage ability. The brood will swarm an enemy and do a bunch of damage plus slow, and best of all they’ll swap to another target if the target you casted it on dies.
Tyrannical Curse: Solid damage buff and amazing add control during boss fights.
Your basic Single Target rotation should be as follows:
If you’re using Vampiric Embrace instead of WB, your rotation is mostly the same. Just use VE whenever your party takes a big hit, but don’t save it for too long. When in doubt, use it. Killing Flames also heals for a large amount, so you’ll always have something up, or soon to be up that will heal a large amount.
First, open with Warlock’s Bargain. This skill should be used on cooldown, and the boss should have this DoT applied to them at all times. Then drop Pillar of Power with the boss, and as many allies as you can, inside. Stand in the circle for as much of the fight as possible. Now, Warlock’s Curse your target and use Killing Flames. If adds spawn, use Tyrannical on the boss. If not, use Brood. While your skills are on cooldown, use Hellish Rebuke and wait until they come back up. Repeat.
Easy Stuff 
Artifacts:
The artifacts I use are the Wheel of Elements, Shard of Orcus’ Wand, Sigil of the Controller, and the Fragmented Key of Stars.
I’ve seen many Warlocks using the Sigil of the Devoted over Wheel and I can tell you from experience, the Wheel of Elements will do way more damage. Having full AP whenever you want is nice, but an additional 30% damage is better.
For Artifact sets I’m using the Orcus set because it does the highest damage out of all the Artifact neck/belt sets in the game.
Enchantments:
Ideally you’ll want Brutal rank 14’s in all your offense slots, and Radiants once you hit about 75% crit (the rest comes from bondings), or Savage if you need Armor Pen. You’ll want 75-80% crit, 80% armor pen. Anything over in either of those stats is a waste.
For my weapon enchantment I’ve recently been heavily testing Flaming. Flaming outperforms both Vorpal and Lightning in dps, by about 5% to 10% since it can now crit. Soulforged or Negation are good choices for armor. Obviously upgrade them to Unparalleled when you can.
Gear:
Remember to increase your armor pen, but don’t neglect Crit or Power!
Rex Corona and Rex Amiculum are Best in Slot, but they are very hard to get. Prioritize them. If you can’t afford the time investment for Rex Corona, Guise of the Wolf clan from the mysterious merchant in guild strongholds is a good alternative.
The Ring of Offensive Action from Makos in Omu look really strong for SWs, but they lose us a lot of ilvl. I’m still working on getting mine, and have no idea if they stack, but I will update this when I find out.
Primal Weapons should ensure a better damage output especially on bosses with how easy it is to take more than 10% of your maximum health in one hit, but a good alternative if you don’t like the high risk, high reward style are the Pilgrim Weapons. The Tyrant Weapons have their place, however I think it’s slightly below the other two. Primal>Pilgrim>Tyrant>Pioneer
I’m using the Hellish Rebuke and the All Consuming Curse artifact powers on my weapons.
Companions:
I’ll now dive into what companions you should be using, and why.
With the Release of mod 13, The OBC build is officially dead. PoP can now crit, so OBC is basically worthless. Don’t get too down in the dumps though! We have a new cute, love-able, must have companion in the form of the Chultan Tiger.
Chultan Tiger: This is your summoned companion. It’s active bonus isn’t all that impressive, but the Chultan Tiger has an ability it uses called, “Killer Instinct”. Basically, the Tiger will debuff enemies, making them take 10% more damage from all sources, on top of the bonus it gives you at the start of combat.
-Fire Archon: Very good damage. Synergizes well with our build. Buffs other archons.
-Air Archon: Again, more synergy with the rest of our build. Solid damage, and a must have. Buffs other archons.
-Erinyes of Belial: Critical Hit Severity is extremely strong for DPS and you want as much as you can get.
-Earth Archon: We will usually be at 100% HP if we are playing well. Warlocks shouldn’t be taking a lot of damage, so we will get a lot of use out of this little guy in groups. He’s borderline useless in solo content, but he buffs the other two archons.
Honorable Mentions:
-Dancing Blade: Almost as good as Erinyes, but no reason to use him once you have it.
Siege Master: 4% constant increased damage is nothing to laugh at, but it just isn’t as good as some of the other options.
Boons:
Mount bonuses:
