+1
Warlock is missing something in pve. It's pretty bad at the moment, ever since cross got nerfed...

I think it would be better to slightly increase the damage of the second wave of Cross of Annihilation from 25% to 35%, while also improving the quality of Warlock gameplay by creating a new AoE hunting spell with a 5-second cooldown. The spell could use a damage formula similar to the Shaman's Mortal Melody, while still dealing less damage than Cross of Annihilation. It should also support the Aim Spell with Cursor, as warlocks currently do not have any spells with this feature.

The area of effect/size and visual design/sprite of the spell could replicate exactly the spell that the boss Zor'Varuk casts when in the presence of his Shade of Zor'Varuk:



Adding a new AoE spell would not necessarily alter the Warlocks’ core playstyle, as Cross of Annihilation would still remain their main source of damage. Thereby preserving their wave-playstyle.

Thus, warlocks would have a reliable AoE option that deals less damage than Cross of Annihilation but compensates with a larger effective area, making it a pratical and useful tool for hunting, despite the longer cooldown = 5s.

Mortal Melody's damage output is already higher than Whirlwind's and Advanced Soul Fire, so a New Spell based on the Mortal Melody's damage formula would still deal meaningful damage while remaining weaker than Cross of Annihilation, but giving it its own place within the Warlocks’ hunting spell rotation. Its larger area of effect and longer cooldown would keep it well balanced, helping to compensate for the current lack of damage warlocks experience while hunting.

I understand the point that warlock is hard to play PvE because warlocks don't have AoE spells to be cast by target or aim cursor spells to hunt.

Moreover, Cross of annihilation 2nd wave was nerfed in 25% some time ago, not considering PvE but only to prevent PvP high damage.

The main issue with warlocks right now is the need of an AoE TARGETED spell for hunting.

If necessary, the second wave of Cross of annihilation could be removed, but another AoE spell should be added — not a high-damage one, just something to ease the present rotation of casting two waves every two seconds [Cross + Whirlwind], making PvE hunting smoother.

So instead of simply increasing the 2nd wave damage, Staff should keep the 2nd wave damage and introduce a new spell to ease a bit their gameplay to make it less tiring, exhausting.

I personally like the idea of a DoT spell that spreads moderate damage across multiple enemies, 4 up to 6, simultaneously.

Subclass balancing should be a regular and ongoing process.

In other words, developers should constantly review and adjust subclasses, especially after releasing a new update, patch, or season, when it becomes clear that one or more subclasses have been directly or indirectly improved to the point where they perform above or below their intended role in the game.

This should always take into account each subclass's purpose, whether it is focused on offense, defense, single-target DPS, support, debuffing, or any other role.

Unfortunately, the Zezenia developers rarely do this. In most cases, subclasses are only adjusted through nerfs, and even then, they almost never restore part of the damage lost from previous nerfs or make corrections to unnecessary balance changes. A good example is the damage reduction applied to Cross of Annihilation.

For Warlock, my suggestion is to increase the damage of the secondary wave of Cross of Annihilation to 66%. Warlocks feel underwhelming since they don't have another AOE for hunt besides Advanced Soul Fire, Energy Blast and Whirlwind, so basic mages AOE spells, that deal lower or capped damage.

For Barbarian, I propose removing Shockwave and bringing back Bloody Cross, old barbarian spell from 2018. Bloody Cross allowed Barbarians to deal high area damage around themselves, while also extending one extra tile in each direction, creating a cross-shaped area of effect centered on the character.


Image: The shape of Bloody Cross and its AoE pattern.

This spell was removed before the introduction of two-handed weapons because it was considered underwhelming, due to the higher cooldown and mana cost, and slightly higher damage compared to Rage of Fury.

However, with the current state of the game, Bloody Cross would fit well as a powerful damage complement to Rage of Fury than Shockwave, offering higher damage and a larger area of effect in exchange for a longer cooldown (6 seconds) and greater mana consumption (~600).

Shockwave, on the other hand, is a wave spell that does not fit the playstyle of a warrior subclass. Despite its high damage, it performs poorly in both PvM and PvP, especially during hunts, since it effectively hits only about three monsters on average, whereas Bloody Cross could hit all eight adjacent monsters while dealing approximately 20% more damage than Rage of Fury.

Although Bloody Cross consumed significantly more mana (around 600–650 MP) and had a longer cooldown of 6 seconds compared to Shockwave's 4-second cooldown, it provided much better AOE performance and felt more appropriate for the barbarian subclass metagame today.

I hope the developers decide to remove Shockwave and restore Bloody Cross to the game. Having a 6 seconds cooldown and dealing around 20% more damage than Rage of Fury seems like a balanced approach for what Barbarians are meant to be: an offensive melee subclass with a limited spell range in comparison to rangers and mages spells.

In my opinion, Barbarians should be able to achieve experience rates comparable to those of Marksmen, despite the disadvantages of fighting at close range. Likewise, Warlocks deserve better experience rates and more enjoyable gameplay.

Barbarians are practically useless in pvp because they can only attack at close range and die easily — in contrast to Paladins, who tank very well and have a stun on their shield spell —, Barbarians could instead be balanced aiming only to earn a greater XP/hour, placing them somewhere between Marksmen and Rogues...


§ In other words, their spells could be optimized for hunting and leveling, similar to pyromancers, who also do not have many tools for damage or single target dubuffs in pvp!


§ Nowadays, Barbarians progression speed is close to Paladins, but Barbarians aren’t good for PvP. So they fail in their two main aspects to be classified as a subclass focused on damage: either achieving top 3 XP/hour or being useful in a game which pvp environment focuses on high burst damage.


{...} As for the mage Warlocks, they only require a small damage increase, which could easily be introduced by improving the special talent ''Immolation.”


—> Since Advanced Soul Fire has a damage cap, it does not benefit properly from the buff of ''Immolation”, which boosts Advanced Soul Fire and Cross of Annihilation damage -:


• Therefore, Advanced Soul Fire could be removed from the special talent, leaving the talent to increase only the damage of Cross of Annihilation from 25% as it currently does to 50%;


• This damage buff is what Warlocks are looking for and would help them feel rewarded for the tedious requirement of having to cast waves continuously every two seconds without interruption over hunting.

It would greatly solve the problem of the barbarian.

It would be great if they did this with the players on a test server, implementing it for us to test, but they don't even do that, so it's a bit complicated. But it would be a good idea

Actually, this spell was rarely used because it had a 2 sec casting time, mana cost of 480 and the main issue was its 30 sec cooldown.

For that reason it was only viable in hunts for barbarians in the late game. Even so, its damage was excellent, ranging from 30 % to 33 % higher than the damage of the spell Rage of Fury, not just 20 %.

I agree that if this spell were brought back to the game with a cooldown between 5 and 7 seconds, while keeping the same damage values it had from 2018 until its removal about 2020, it can bring barbarian's experience gain rate up to the level this subclass should be at, closer to the experience gain rate of marksmen, as others have already mentioned in the comments.


I managed to find a screenshot of the spell's original icon.

Furthermore, this was the area that the spell covered at that time: 4 extra sqm in each direction to form the cross, in addition to the area surrounding the character. So besides the area of rage of fury, it reaches an extra 4 tiles in each cardinal direction (north, south, east, and west), significantly increasing its effective range for linear and multi-target engagement.





Extremely useful when the barbarian overpulls monsters..... considering today’s hunting grounds, especially in hardcore portals, and would finally help rework barbarians to make them truly balanced in terms of experience gain, ultimately paving the way to barbarians become genuinely competitive state, bringing them up to the same level as pyromancers, marksmen and rogues ....

As you mentioned, at that time bloody cross spell was eventually removed simply because its cooldown was too high and its mana cost made it impractical, unlike blind rush, which remained in the game to this day thanks to dealing damage while still being viable and engaging for pvp.

Anyway .... today the Zezenia scenario regarding level progression and hunting places are completely favorable for the return of spells like Bloody Cross or even the creation of new ones, for example for warlocks, who also desperately need something new ...

It would be great if the paladin and barbarian had a spell that would attract all the monsters that enter the warriors' field of vision so they would focus on them


I think the priority right now should be: fixing the party system, improving Warlock and Barbarian, making all hardcore dungeons have faster respawn and fixing the situation with only one daily boss in game.


Warlock:

Restore the old damage of Cross.

Add a new spell similar to Cross, with slightly lower damage, comparable to Whirlwind.

Currently, high-level Warlocks have the worst XP per hour among all vocations (except Paladins/barbarian).

The main issue is the lack of life steal and damage, aside from Cross, Warlock has nothing left.

It’s also the worst mage in terms of tanking ability.


Barbarian:

Shockwave: should hit all creatures inside the box.

Another great complement may be to add a chance of a stun effect to the Shockwave against players only.

Barbarians deal good damage in PvP, but their own subclass's "disabling" spells (without using combined spells for two different subclasses) are practically useless in PvP.

In other words, when a barbarian is alone in PvP, the best thing they can do is jump away.

After testing Barbarian and Paladin, why the hell would anyone pick Barbarian over Paladin?

At level 1000 with 200 skills, a Paladin's Cleave hits for 1580 × 8, while a Barbarian with the same stats hits for 1845 × 5 and 1400 × 3.

That means the Paladin's total Cleave damage is 12,640 , whereas the Barbarian's total damage is only 13,425.


For a subclass that's supposed to be the melee damage specialist, that's barely a 6% advantage.


Considering the Paladin also brings superior utility and survivability, it's hard to see a compelling reason to choose Barbarian in its current state.


Barbarians should have an EXP rate higher than, or at least comparable to Rangers.


Conclusion: It's essential to bring barbarians and warlocks up to the same fierce level as the other agressive subclasses like pyros and rangers, making barbarians viable to reach maximum percentage of experience and providing to warlocks a suitable improvement on his both main pve damage spells to compensate the inherent hardcore playstyle that this subclass has due to its gameplay being based on wave spells, keeping not large AoE damage spells, but medium size as cross.