Skyforge Warlock and Witch PvE Guide

Skyforge Warlock and Witch PvE Guide by Nikola Tesla

Quick Faq:

1- How long does it take to unlock the Warlock/Witch?

3 Weeks/caps Minimum.

2- But this 9999k Prestige person claims’ otherwise.

It is mathematically impossible to unlock the class under 3 weeks/caps no matter what anyone do short of exploiting the game in one way or another.

3- Warlock or Witch?

Male = Warlock, Female = Witch. Sometimes it is lost in the translation and it is simply called “Sorcerer”.

Introduction:

Warlock/Witch is a Damage Over Time (DoT) based class. The class offerers fast small bursts through massive AoE DoTs that cost almost all their resources in a short span of time. The Class is not hard to play but difficult to master as the rotations and mana management get a bit difficult as they require you to pay attention at all times in higher difficulties. If you make a mistake in your rotation or mistakenly activate your mana regeneration skill at the wrong time, forced to cancel it, your output dps will be severely hindered. The Warlock is an advanced class for a reason, but once mastered it will reward you back with one of the best sustained damage if not arguably the very best sustained damage in the game.

PvE Build:

Click Me!

Is this build the very best one for PvE?

I strongly believe so, you can maybe change a thing or two to your own preference but it is a very good build that I stand by. If I change anything in it I will update it later but currently this is what I’m using (only takes one week cap and around 530 extra Sparks of Evolution from last week to reach it, after you unlock the first part with Sparks of Insight). Keep in mind this is purely for PvE but I still use it for 10v10 by just swapping out Volatile Curse.

Build Notes & Comments:

Living Helper: I thought it is necessary to mention this hereinstead of a later stage of this guide. Living Helper is the very worst spells in the Warlock/Witch book of spells. I can’t stress enough how weak it is to the point using it in ANY rotation regardless of the content hinder your overall DPS by a lot. I have tested it numerous times with a stopwatch in several different rotations and the results were always the same, the spell negatively impact the Warlock/With overall DPS due to it low damage, high mana cost, move slow, & channeling time. Cancelling it early does nothing to fix it many problems. Do not use it, there is nothing more that can be said about this spell even if you have 4 Amulets & a Weapon increasing it damage.

Volatile Curse: The Warlock/Witch PvE defining spell. It does a lot of work in Raids, it will always put the Warlock at the top of every Damage Meter chart in Operation Isabelle. The beauty of this spell comes from the fact it does not only remove 3-4 HP bars from every Raid boss but the fact it is also very powerful against Elite monsters such as the “Master” dealing 50% damage to them, effectively killing them if they are at 49% HP (1.3M) or less. It is however a Raid spell meant to be broken with team coordination, usually between Alchemist, Kinetic/Berserker and the Warlock. You can’t reliably break the curse by yourself nor is it suitable for solo contents, even though you can break it yourself solo on some bosses. The curse can’t Crit nor does it follow a fixed % for the shield HP or the damage done after breaking the curse. I can’t comment on the formula behind it since it performs differently from one boss to another based on the content itself. In the end it is powerful against all groups/parties content bosses in the game all the way to Distortions Raid at 65kP~ where it lose it usefulness for one reason or another.

Explosion of Darkness: The strongest spell in the Warlock book of spells after Volatile Curse, the damage from it is absolutely devastating against a single target specially when it crit on a target with less than 50% health. You will notice in this guide that I try to maximize it damage from Amulets, Talents and Rotation because it is our primary source of burst damage.

Ring of Fire: I get asked about this spell a lot in game and the forums. Why RoF and not Witch Fire? The answer is a simple as it is our strongest AoE spell, I actually firmly believe it is the strongest AoE spell in the game. The range is great and the damage is insane, one of it many uses is demolishing a very large group of adds in Operation Isabelle & Anomaly and I’m talking about as much adds the Tank & Support can handle. It is also strong against single targets so long they are not constantly moving. Which means the spell is effective against the first & 3rd Operation bosses while in the second and fourth it is good against the adds. Witch Fire on the other hand got a really short range that deny you the usage of Ranged Damage chapels and does decent damage for 190 mana. Yes the CD on RoF sucks but when it is time to use it delivers and does exactly what you expect from it. I believe in the end RoF vs WF can come down to personal preference but for the purpose of this guide I’m supporting RoF against WF in my build & rotations. I honestly can’t see myself given up the ability to demolish adds for Witch Fire or the damage it can do to single targets with Raid support buffs. Heck I even use it in PvP to close off choke points, points of interest and the enemy backline.

P.S.

RoF is always recommended on RU forums if you are wondering what are they using there for Raids.

Murder of Crows & Extermination: I grouped up them up here because they are somewhat related in the sense that they are independent of each others against single targets yet they are combined together for AoE. I will go in more details in Equipment/Amulets section in regards to those two spells. Just know against single targets they should not be mixed together and rather their rotation efficiency demands you either use MoC or Extermination.

Stats Priority:

Here where things get interesting as there are three primary different opinions on the matter. STR/Luck Vs STR/Valor Vs Luck/Valor. It seems some players on NA/EU are convinced that STR/Valor or Luck/Valor is the superior build specially with the extra new symbols coming to us sometime in the future, while the Russian Warlock community favour STR/Luck more for long battles.

Which opinion is right?

STR/Luck without a doubt for PvE, and Luck/Valor for PvP. Why?

1- STR/Luck scales better in PvE than STR/Valor or Valor/Luck and the longer the battle is the better STR/Luck gets.

2- Luck have more Symbols supporting it than Valor and it scales much better than Valor per one point for each.

3- Alchemist and Light Binders shares 20% of their stats and they are stacking Luck not Valor for the most part on their Rings.

4- RU Raiding Warlock community are in agreement that STR/Luck is the superior build for PvE.

What happens if the STR/Valor or Luck/Valor is better than STR/Luck for Raids?

Nothing really, None of the builds are “bad” or significantly inferior to the other two. You can always shift focus from one build to the other later on (or have more than one build on the ready one for PvE and one for PvP by swapping rings and chapels). Keep in mind Operation Isabella have been completed with both STR/Valor & STR/Luck with STR/Luck showing superior Damage Meter results. While the results are subject to player’s own skill, I will assume STR/Luck is superior for PvE until we get all the necessary tools later to test it for ourselves.

Stats Priority TL;DR:

STR/Luck is superior to STR/Valor or Luck/Valor for PvE. Luck/Valor is currently superior for PvP.

Chapels:

Accuracy > Crushing Blow > Crit Chance.

Wait a minute! You just said go for Luck, why is Accuracy more important than Crit Chance?

From the Wiki:

1. Might contributes to Base Damage at a rate of 10 Might to 1 Damage
2. At 0% Accuracy, Strength also contributes at a rate of 10 Strength to 1 Damage
3. At 50% Accuracy, Strength would improve your average damage at a rate of 10 Strength to 3.65 average Base Damage, and at 100% Accuracy (if possible) the rate would be 10 Strength to 5.84 average Base Damage.
4. Part of Minimum Base Damage is affected by Accuracy twice (i.e. one of its terms contains Accuracy^2), meaning that Accuracy becomes especially more valuable as you get more of it.
5. For a tanky character who already wants a lot of stamina, Solidity can be a good investment. But for dps-focused characters, there are many other, more valuable stats for damage.

http://skyforge.wikia.com/wiki/Base_Damage#Base_Da…

What about Crushing Blow?

It is base damage x 2 so it takes second priority, or rather get it over anything else whenever you can. There is also a strong Symbol coming our way from RU based on Crushing Blow and STR.

Chapels one to eight:

1- Accuracy.

2- Accuracy.

3- Crushing Blow.

4- Range Damage Or Discharge Recovery (Kinetic Symbol up time).

5- Accuracy.

6- Crit Chance.

7- Crushing Blow.

8- Range Damage Or Solidity.

Notes:

Temper is the equivalent of Crit Chance to Valor build.

Ranged Damage is unreliable in most cases since 20 yard is quite large to achieve constantly. So they are swapped out when we can’t reliably be at 20 yards away. In Operation Isabella & Anomaly you can reliably keep twenty yards away. For everything else swap Range Damage out.

When we in NA/EU get the event that allows us to have more than one stat active in one chapel aim for the Crit Chance we could not get due to Crushing Blow.

Symbols:

Priority Uno:

• Paladin, Divine Intervention.
• Warlock, Jinx.
• Ultimate Strength x 6 (Only two can be unlocked before acquiring the ability to unlock pink nodes)
• Maximum Recoil x 6 (Only two can be unlocked before acquiring the ability to unlock pink nodes)
• Mark of Death x 3 (When we receive the update to the Atlas in the future)
• Kinetic, Gravitational Perturbation.
• Alchemist, Strength Serum.
• Archer, Cold Calculation.
• Lucky Shot. (There is only one regardless of what the tooltip says, that or I’m absolutely blind)
• Slayer, Under the Cover of Darkness.
• Lacerated Wound.
• STR DoT when we get the Atlas Update.

What to go after when you can’t get anything from the Previous list:

• Impact.
• Element of Surprise x 3.
• Warrior’s Creed x 2. (In our current version only one is available)
• Bonus Dash x 2.
• Berserker, Frenzy.

There are more but they are no where as important as the ones listed above for PvE.

Equipments:

Rule of thumb, focus on upgrading Ritual Ornament (your rings) as much as possible all the way to rank 14 at least before ever upgrading your Main hand or Offhand. Matter of fact it is recommended that you never upgrade your Main Hand Rank or Offhand Rank until your Rings are very high in Rank or you desperately need some Prestige very late in the game.

• Amulets:

For Raids & Anomaly:

Explosion of Darkness (1) & Extermination (2)

For Everything Else:

Explosion of Darkness (1) & Murder of Crows (2)

If you find yourself having to pick between Purple and Green Amulets, the ones with more EoD damage wins in most cases.

It is also worth noting that you should collect two set of Amulets at end game, all 8 should have Explosion of Darkness as the first spell listed, four should have Murder of Crows as the second spell and four for Extermination as the second spell.

Why?

Although damage wise Murder of Crows is superior to Extermination, Extermination is more useful under Alchemist & Lightbinder Raid buffs since you want to unload as much damage as possible in 8 Seconds. I can only confirm based on stopwatch testing that without the Raid buffs Murder of Crows is superior but Raid buffs changes that. There are also some bosses with invulnerability and very few seconds where they become vulnerable and can be damaged, in that case Extermination is more useful than Murder of Crows.

• Rings: You want your four rings to have STR & Luck stacked, regardless of the Prestige. So if you are picking between a 450P Ring that got STR/Luck Vs 512P Ring with only STR and no Luck always go with the STR/Luck version. Purple & Blue Rings comes with two secondary stats, while green comes with only one.

As for the secondary stats priority goes like this:

Accuracy > Crit Chance. Ideally you want a Purple/Blue ring with both Accuracy and Crit Chance. All other secondary stats matter not. If you want to balance it out two rings should have Acc and two should have crit chance until you acquire ideal rings.

• Main Hand: Taint % damage increase is Best in Slot (BiS) because Living Helper is useless and Evil Eye can’t be used against Bosses not to mention the uptime is not worth it anyway.

• Off hand: I personally prefer the damage reduction when you use Dark Ritual for PvE. However for PvP go for Murder of Crows version.

Rotations:

The most common and basic rotation goes like this:

Taint x3 > Murder of Crows > Explosion of darkness > Taint x3 > Killer Crows spam, Explosion of darkness > Tain x3 > Dark ritual.

However, for Boss Battles with no constant adds or invulnerability phase or Kinetic Symbol in five man or solo it goes like this:http://youtu.be/38p1hc4czAA

• Taint x3 (LMB)
• Murder of Crows
• Switch Stance
• Ring of Fire (Immediately cancel the animation with the next step)
• Explosion of Darkness
• Taint x3
• Envoys of Taint
• Dark Ritual
• Taint x3 (one is enough to refresh the whole x3 stack but if the stack ran out Taint x3)
• Switch Stance
• Explosion of Darkness
• Taint x3
• Switch Stance
• Killer Crows spam until EoD is off CD
• Explosion of Darkness
• Taint x3
• Murder of Crows
• Switch Stance
• Killer Crows spam until EoD is off CD
• Explosion of Darkness

Volatile Curse Rotation in Raids:

• Taint X 3 (keep it refreshed)
• Wait for everyone to get in position and for the Raid to call for Volatile Curse.
• Raid Buffs
• Volatile Curse
• Switch Stance (If you are not already on Extermination Stance when you casted Volatile Curse)
• Killer Crow x 1 to activate Kinetic Symbol
• Ring of Fire and immediately cancel the casting animation with the next step
• Explosion of Darkness
• Envoy of Taint
• Taint x3
• Switch Stance
• Extermination
• Taint x3
• Killer Crows
• Explosion of Darkness

You have to be very precise and fast to do all of that in 10 seconds or less, it becomes a muscle memory after a while. Due note in Operation Isabella Volatile Curse do cause the boss to want to smack you across the face, specially the second and third boss so get close so they don’t leave RoF area of effect.

While Volatile Curse is down you want to spam EoD & Extermination and using Dark Ritual when you know you are not going to need to move.

Raid Adds Rotation:

• Taint X 3 (keep it refreshed) on the target with most health, usually dude with a shield mark.
• Wait for Tank to have them all in a nice stacked position
• Support single target buffs (on you)
• Murder of Crows
• Epidemic
• Switch Stance
• Killer Crow x1
• Ring of Fire and immediately cancel the casting animation with the next step
• Extermination
• Taint x3
• Epidemic
• Envoy of Taint
• Dark Ritual
• Taint x3
• Switch stance
• Killer Crow x1
• Extermination
• Taint x3
• Murder of Crows
• Epidemic