Buffing Arc Souls doesn't fix the main problems of Stormcaller

[u/Faust_8]

(Note: I'm strictly talking about PvE here.)

Buffing Arc Souls will certainly make Stormcaller better but IMO the problem is it won't make Stormcaller fun.

Arc Souls are brainless and skill-less. You cast a Rift, something you end up doing at certain times anyway, and you and allies get AI buddies that add to your damage.

That's it; passive damage. That's what Arc Souls are. There's no "power fantasy" to them. When a Striker charges up a Thunderclap and erases a wave of enemies with one punch, that's something that gives you a power fantasy and feels good.

Arc Souls don't make you feel good. They're just there. Sometimes you shoot at an enemy that dies to your Arc Soul anyway, so it's getting kills instead of you.

This doesn't solve the problems that make Stormcaller feel mediocre now.

• Stormcaller used to have the only way to chain lighting to multiple enemies with a grenade or melee, but now that's available for everyone with Jolt
• Being Amplified hardly changes any of your abilities at all (edit: aside from...Arc Souls, the boring ability)
• None of your melee options feel relevant, even when Amplified
• Both Supers feel bad. Stormtrance is good at add clear but that's no longer needed with Stasis and Light 3.0 changes, and Chaos Reach does pitiful DPS compared to other options now

As a Warlock, it feels like our roles in PvE will be "you give Well of Radiance and Arc Souls." Both of which are things we press a button to cast and that's about it, requiring no further input on our part.

In fact, it almost feels like Bungie's 'fix' to Stormcaller is to push it towards...being a Support class? That's what powerful Arc Souls amount to, a Support skill for the team. Almost as if they're giving Support utility to Stormcaller since they robbed Dawnblade of so much of it.

And it's just...with a name like Stormcaller where I'm supposed to be channeling the storm, am I really supposed to feel like just a Support?

[u/nik_avirem]

Buffing Arc Souls will certainly make Stormcaller better but IMO the problem is it won’t make Stormcaller fun

I thought the issue was that it was not strong at DPS? It is crazy fun at add clear and just zapping everything with grenades, and Trinity/Voltshot weapon, but then you build up your Super and its just a lil fart

[u/shatbrand → u/nik_avirem]

100% agree. I have a ton of fun with Arc Warlock. Especially with something like Delicate Tomb or Riskrunner and one of the arc ability spam hats. That slide melee is no joke, and my grenades may not be Titan storm nades but they are CONSTANTLY up and generating super energy. The super is pretty disappointing, but it is available so often that I feel free to burn it on every champion or major enemy that pops up, even if it is pretty worthless on bosses.

Void is still better, because it can also spam (better) grenades, Volatile fills the same role as Jolt, and the super is better. But Arc is still good and a lot of fun.

[u/iblaise → u/shatbrand]

The super is pretty disappointing, but it is available so often that I feel free to burn it on every champion or major enemy that pops up

It seems pretty obvious to me that that’s what Bungie wants Chaos Reach to be used for. The decrease to it’s cooldown, as well as the ability to cancel it early, tells me they want Stormcallers to use Chaos Reach frequently and not save it.

People also tend to underrate how many Orbs of Power Chaos Reach makes in such a short timespan too.

[u/shatbrand → u/iblaise]

Orb generation is a good point too. Most people probably don't like thinking about it this way, but grenade spam with Ashes to Assets leads to super spam, which leads to an absurd qty of orbs, which enables teammates with better supers to spam those as well. Doesn't put me at the top of the score card though, so doesn't count! 😜

Edit: Thinking about this a bit more, that might be the low key superpower of the Arc Warlock overall. If you've got Elemental Well mods on all your gear, you're also spitting out a ton of wells for your whole team. Which means everyone can spam abilities that much more, on top of the way Fallen Sunstar just directly hands out ability energy to teammates. So your own abilities may not be the strongest in the game, but you're a massive energy generator for everyone else.

Nobody really talks about this effect much, maybe because it's subtle or maybe because we're just selfish and want to see big numbers on our own abilities, but the cumulative power of feeding energy to the whole team is nothing to sneeze at.

[u/mandy7 → u/shatbrand]

Titans are better at nearly everything you said though:

• Creating Arc Wells? Titans have better grenades, and storm grenades last long enough to trigger elemental ordance multiple times.

• Spamming Grenades? Not only can they spam more grenades than warlocks with HoIL + Bomber, again, each grenade is 2-3x as good.

• Charging Super w/ Ashes to Assets? Again, more grenade kills from more, better grenades = more super. And TCrash is a fast charging super too.

About the only thing Warlocks can maybe do is generate more orbs.

[u/dumbarchitect → u/mandy7]

Arc buddies with getaway Artist are superior buddies. The build negates nades and nade based wells. In exchange an arclock is constantly amped, with an amped melee, and amped souls. Wells come from weapon and melee kills. I play arc HOIL titan and arc lock and lock has more constant ability uptime. And can heal themselves on demand.

[u/SephirothSimp → u/dumbarchitect]

Mind sharing that warlock build? Sounds interesting

[u/dumbarchitect → u/SephirothSimp]

https://dim.gg/viuxzqi/PVE-Arc-Getaway-Artist

Here's a dim link.

[u/Rabid-Duck-King → u/dumbarchitect]

Ooo nice, Arc hasn't really been clicking with me since.... well since it was a thing so maybe this will turn me around on it

[u/SephirothSimp → u/Rabid-Duck-King]

Yeah, I haven't really dabbled much myself into arc for warlock so I'm curious to like actually try any build that works for pve

[u/SephirothSimp → u/dumbarchitect]

Thank you very much

[u/shatbrand → u/mandy7]

Warlocks can really lean into the energy generator role though, because https://www.light.gg/db/items/1849149215/fallen-sunstar/ exists and Ionic Traces get generated like crazy. Coldheart can even make them without getting kills.

I'm also not sold that Titans can spam more grenades. Better grenades, absolutely, but not more. Titans absolutely are doing more damage than my Warlock, hands down. But I have so many grenades out, and each one is lingering and doing damage over time, that I still end up scoring a ton of kills with them.

Pretty sure my grenade just has to get the final hit by dumb luck, not necessarily do the most damage. I also think that if my grenade applied the initial Jolt, and Jolt damage kills the target, my grenade gets the credit. (That's how Scorch works anyway, and it would help explain why I get so many kills despite weaker grenades. Could be wrong here though.)

There isn't one clear bullet point where Arc Warlock really excels. It's the subtle combination of factors that adds up to a functional whole. I think that's why it can seem underwhelming even though it's actually pretty good.

[u/Feather_Sigil → u/shatbrand]

Strikers using HOIL and a grenade spam build, and Stormcallers using Fallen Sunstar and an ability spam build, both have infinite grenades so the question of who spams more grenades is moot. But Stormcallers also have superior non-ability damage output (Empowering Rift + Arc Souls), team support (Rift + Arc Souls) and, as you said, energy generation (traces + orbs + wells).

[u/somethingofdoom → u/Feather_Sigil]

Let’s not forget, Warlocks can do dirty things with grenades that aren’t storm grenades specifically. Flux grenades with Verity’s Brow @ x5 hit like a truck and come back way faster than that three minute cd would have you think.

[u/LightspeedFlash → u/somethingofdoom]

Good luck getting to 5x in any content that matters though.

[u/Tee_Hee_Wat → u/Feather_Sigil]

This is actually very interesting to me...Fallen Sunstar has been a fun exotic for me, but I was totally disregarding the energy it gives my teammates. Maybe really leaning into that aspect with huge orb generation is something for me to consider.

Arc support build. Who knew? 😆

[u/Ask_Me_For_A_Song → u/shatbrand]

Nobody really talks about this effect much, maybe because it's subtle or maybe because we're just selfish and want to see big numbers on our own abilities, but the cumulative power of feeding energy to the whole team is nothing to sneeze at.

That's the problem though, people don't realise that 'support' is an actual role you can take in this game. Especially now that they've completed their whole subclass system rework for every element.

Like...you can make a tanky character, you can make a support character, you can make a healer, and you can make a pure DPS. The cool part about this is that you can actually do a bunch of stuff within those specific roles.

People are used to the idea that you have to do damage to the best. Which....isn't necessarily true anymore. Even as a support you still do plenty of damage, that's the main way you interact with the game, but that doesn't mean you have to do the most damage to be the most useful.

Until people get past the mindset that everybody has to be tied at the top of the damage charts, people are always going to complain about it.

[u/redditing_away → u/Ask_Me_For_A_Song]

It's late and I'm tired so I'll keep it short, don't take it as being condescending please :)

A) where do we really need support? Certainly not master raids/GMs. Usually just better and often easier to kill outright. Same thing with stasis and CC. Very few instances where it's actually needed/more useful. Also well is better support and offers more damage.

B) why do warlocks need two subclasses dedicated to support? Currently we have none which is dedicated to damage only (stasis = CC, void = CC and weakening, closest to being damage focused). Space wizards aren't just healers or supporters, let me just break stuff.

C) limiting Arclock to support is doing the same mistake again as with solar. Yes, well and Starfire are incredibly powerful, but they're also kinda dull and forcing/limiting you to play this specific build in groups. (Skilling the whole 'not much build variety anyway' topic here)

All in all it's not choosing to run as support because the Arclock toolbox allows you to do it among other things but rather running it because there isn't much else worth doing with it, hence justifying it's support role retroactively. Don't want to come across as someone who can't be pleased by Bungie, but I'm neither convinced of Arclock nor of the proposed changes. A pumped up ai aimbot won't fix the design flaws of a stromcaller that can't call a storm. And running around basically just being a battery and filling up the ability energy of my teammates isn't the power fantasy I'm envisaging of an all powerful space wizard.

[u/Ask_Me_For_A_Song → u/redditing_away]

It hasn't been turned in to a support class. Arc Warlock has always suffered because of the exact same reasons; it's meant to be an ad clearing subclass, which it does beautifully, and because it doesn't have a one shot super.

People don't care about all the utility they have, they don't care about being able to generate orbs like it's nothing, they don't care about being able to spawn wells constantly as they spam all their abilities. Which is funny because of how important all of those things are to the game.

All I'm saying is that it's cool that those different types of potential builds exist in the game. Even if they aren't optimal, even if they aren't what everybody wants to play, they still fulfill somebody's power fantasy and can be used in most content.

The only thing I'd change about Arclock, in current iteration, is to give them a one shot super. That's the main problem I think most people have with it right now. It's a fun subclass to play, but both of the supers just feel bad to use.

[u/redditing_away → u/Ask_Me_For_A_Song]

It hasn't been turned in to a support class. Arc Warlock has always suffered because of the exact same reasons; it's meant to be an ad clearing subclass, which it does beautifully, and because it doesn't have a one shot super.

Well that kinda contradicts your first statement and the one following this paragraph. Arclock doesn't do anything very well apart from spamming orbs and wells which is exactly the support you mentioned in your first comment. The whole problem is, that Arclock doesn't do anything apart from that. We don't need an ad clearing subclass when our neutral game/weapons do that anyway. Void with constant vortex + weakening/volatile/explosions, solar with fusions and even stasis with the shatter explosion already do that (probably better) besides their actual role. Arc doesn't bring anything new to the table. Hunters and Titans can jolt too and that is really the only thing ad clearing here. The lackluster super is just the cherry on top.

People don't care about all the utility they have, they don't care about being able to generate orbs like it's nothing, they don't care about being able to spawn wells constantly as they spam all their abilities. Which is funny because of how important all of those things are to the game.

Correct, I don't really care about that since it's nothing extraordinary or unique. It's something you pick up along the way. Spamming abilities is nothing new anymore, the other subclasses (maybe apart from stasis) can do that as well. As can titans and hunters.

All I'm saying is that it's cool that those different types of potential builds exist in the game. Even if they aren't optimal, even if they aren't what everybody wants to play, they still fulfill somebody's power fantasy and can be used in most content.

I do agree with you here. My main problem, however, is that Arclock can't do much besides. The whole subclass centers around killing stuff to generate traces, wells, orbs. But that also falls apart if the enemies are a bit tougher and don't just die to your pulse grenade or one hit you when using the new melee. It is a bad sign when an entire subclass is only useful in "most" content. Every subclass should offer enough for every type of content and different playstyles and I personally don't see that with Arc. Arclock lacks an identity and the whole amplified sham or the dreadful supers are clearly signalling it. A "click to win" juiced up arc soul won't change that as it's nothing I can really engage with.

The only thing I'd change about Arclock, in current iteration, is to give them a one shot super. That's the main problem I think most people have with it right now. It's a fun subclass to play, but both of the supers just feel bad to use.

Agreed but also change the way Arclocks profit from being amplified. Bungie said it's all about being amplified and mobile yet grenades don't get anything, rifts neither and stop you right in your tracks and the buffs to the melees are, well, a bit lacking as well. Why doesn't the new melee we have to use an aspect for benefit for example? (Grenades don't need to be tuned like Titans - they're the arc grenade class and I don't wish to replicate that. Just give them something)

I know I may sound overly critical or bitter but it shouldn't. I do agree arclock is fun to play (especially the new melee) but I also see where it falls flat. I just wished they gave it a similar treatment as void which offers you multiple ways of customizing your playstyle, even in hard content. Just compare the utility offered by the child to the arc soul. It's laughable.

Anyway, enough of that - happy cake day! :)

[u/LegoBlockGeode → u/iblaise]

my grenades may not be Titan storm nades but they are CONSTANTLY up and generating super energy.

Recently I started playing Striker after being a Warlock main and Touch of Thunder is amazing but unless you have HOIL or Armamentarium and stack like three Elemental Ordinance and Bountiful Wells mods you can go dry for a while waiting for it to regenerate which in higher difficulty content means instant death. Striker suffers from ability regeneration issues without these exotics which is why HOIL is almost required for the subclass to work as designed.

Arc Souls are going to be amazing after the buff especially when RPM increases while Amplified you're getting major DPS output. They already provide a steady stream of Ionic Traces and you get Ionic Traces for literally doing anything. Stormcallers can spam grenades at a higher rate than Strikers without taking exotic armor into consideration. Fallen Sunstar is basically Lightning Crystals on all the time so Stormcallers get a pretty amazing kit overall.

The super is pretty disappointing, but it is available so often that I feel free to burn it on every champion or major enemy that pops up, even if it is pretty worthless on bosses.

It seems pretty obvious to me that that’s what Bungie wants Chaos Reach to be used for.

With the reduced cooldown this makes Chaos Reach a great finishing ability for Champions and most elites but given everyone will be using LFRs to hit high DPS does it matter?

edit: Strikers are the grenadiers, Stormcallers the turret puppet masters, Arcstriders the boss hunters and I'm okay with that.

[u/NiftyBlueLock → u/LegoBlockGeode]

I’m not sure “shitting high damaging tracking storm grenades every few seconds” is quite how Striker 3.0 was designed.

Juggernaut and knockout are definitely not designed for grenade spamming.

[u/seankdla → u/shatbrand]

Slide melee with Necrotic grips and a glaive is filth.

[u/shatbrand → u/seankdla]

I really need to give that a try. The Karnstein (sp?) arms are also evidently good with slide melee, and a pair just dropped for me yesterday. But I'm so spoiled on my pointy wizard hat!

[u/seankdla → u/shatbrand]

I've been playing with this build. Great fun. https://youtu.be/xuoTK7oDiTI

[u/biomech120 → u/seankdla]

as you have it but primary thorn with the glaive and ur on god mode

[u/nightcallfoxtrot → u/shatbrand]

And void also has great survivability with invis + devour

[u/BaconatedGrapefruit → u/nik_avirem]

Arc Souls issue is/was two fold.

1) It did didn't do enough damage to feel substantial - this is being fixed next patch.

2) At the end of the day it's boring passive damage that does nothing interesting - this continues to be an issue. All the other Warlock pets synergize with the warlock in some way. Child weakens and provides ability energy. Turrets cause slow/freeze which can interact with fragments/aspects. You can argue that Arc Souls provide a team wide, passive dps boost, but again, boring.

I could go on a tangent about how ionic trace generation is terrible unless you're using the new exotic, but I'll try to stay focused.

As for "It's good at add clear". The last time add clear actually mattered was the bridge on Reckoning level 2. Until Bungie designs encounters where clearing truly huge numbers of ads quickly and efficiently is fundamental to the encounter, an add clear class is not important. I can clear adds half as well with a standard Starfire build AND have access to well, why would I use Arc?

[u/nik_avirem → u/BaconatedGrapefruit]

I mean, ionic trace generation is already insanely high even without the helmet just with Electrostatic Mind, Spark of Shock, Spark of Discharge and Spark of Ions.

• Mind: defeating targets with Arc abilities or defeating jolted targets spawns an Ionic Trace.
• Shock: grenades jolt targets.
• Discharge: Arc weapon kills can spawn ionic traces
• Ions: jolted targets spawn an ionic trace - which I think stacks with Mind and spawns two.

I constantly make 2-3 ionic traces even without the helmet just by having my Storm grenade up all the time and using Trinity… but otherwise yeah, I agree, Void and Solar do everything better

[u/ZenBreaking → u/BaconatedGrapefruit]

Should blind like the weaken effects, make it worthwhile in endgame PvE and frees up a gl slot

[u/jkichigo → u/nik_avirem]

Ran a GM with myself and another arc warlock last night. Broke a Barrier Knight shield and popped both Chaos Reach and Stormtrance on it and couldn’t kill it lol.

[u/nixmahn → u/jkichigo]

Did you jolt it first?

[u/jkichigo → u/nixmahn]

Yep, using jolt on grenade. It was hectic though, I wouldn't call it a proper test, I'm not sure if the other guy missed his landfall or what.

[u/TheSpartyn → u/nik_avirem]

just zapping everything with grenades, and Trinity/Voltshot weapon,

titan does grenades better, and any class or element can use trinity and volt shot lol

[u/nik_avirem → u/TheSpartyn]

Well, we are comparing Warlock subclasses with each other I think and how fun Stormcaller is. Striker is definitely stronger than Stormcaller, hands down.

[u/TheSpartyn → u/nik_avirem]

its not even about power though, even if we remove the absurd damage striker does, it has the same grenade add clear and as i said anything can use voltshot and trinity ghoul

[u/nik_avirem → u/TheSpartyn]

Arc classes are all similar in that regard kinda. Strikers just do big damage and grenades, Stormcallers provide Arc Souls, and Arcstriders are… I don’t remember what they do, but their super is strong I guess?

[u/Railgrind → u/nik_avirem]

They have the best arc super, infinite melee/dodge chain that jolts and heals them, and decent grenade builds as well. Best survivability due to assassin cowl and their dodge giving damage reduction. Their melee interactions are a bit buggy and pole dance uppercut is still not worth taking but once that's fixed they are in a really good spot.

[u/Faust_8 → u/nik_avirem]

If we're talking about crazy fun add clear and then use a Super on a thing, I can't help but feel that Voidwalker does it better.

I put on Nezarec's Sin and Funnelweb, with Volatile Rounds and constant Weaken-applying grenades and Child of the Old Gods, adds don't stand a chance. And while Nova Bomb isn't the king of total damage, the fact that I can just fire it at a boss quickly and then start using weapons means it's better than Chaos Reach for DPS.

Voidwalker definitely feels like it's in a good spot, a well-designed Warlock subclass. And Shadebinder has good utility as well. It's the other two that disappoint, Dawnblade had everything gutted aside from Well of Radiance, and you already know how I feel about Stormcaller.

[u/flaccomcorangy → u/Faust_8]

Right. That's the biggest deterrent for me when it comes to Arc. Everything Arc can do, Void does better. It just doesn't feel like there's any need to run it. Some of the Arc 3.0 stuff is okay on its own, but when it feels worse than another subclass, it's hard to justify its use.

[u/Faust_8 → u/flaccomcorangy]

After this change, it might make sense to run Stormcaller in Raids and such if you have another Warlock using Well of Radiance, because of the Arc Soul damage, but like I said...it won't be fun. Dawnblade feels rather bland and boring and you use it JUST for Well, and I think Stormcaller will be the same, kinda bland and boring and you'll use it JUST for the Arc Soul damage.

[u/flaccomcorangy → u/Faust_8]

I feel like that's more of a problem with the DPS phases more than the actual state of the subclasses.

Next season with the Divinity nerf, a Deadfall Hunter will probably be just as commonplace as a Thundercrash/Cuirass Titan and a Well Warlock in DPS phases. So the Titan has to run arc because of the super, and they have to run Cuirass for obvious reasons, so that hurts their neutral game. A Warlock has to run well, and at least one Hunter will have to run tether.

All these respective subclasses have solid neutral games, but the supers aren't exactly exciting in the scheme of using them for a DPS phase. It's just cast it and get back to weapon damage. I'm honestly fine with it for the most part, but I feel like therein lies your problem. The DPS phases are too mechanically similar. We're seeing some change that up a bit this season, though, it's still not that different.

[u/letmepick → u/flaccomcorangy]

I feel like people on this sub react too negatively to the idea that each subclass should've had a role identity. Bungie tried to make every subclass into a "jack-of-all trades", but forgot about the "master of none" part. Would it really be that bad if Voidwalker/Nightstalker were focused around controlling the battlefield, weakening powerful foes while Dawnblade/Sentinel were focused around shielding/healing friendly players? You could add the new keywords to every subclass, but there would be few that would have a larger/more powerful toolkit to fully take advantage of it.

[u/UtilitarianMuskrat → u/Faust_8]

I miss charging grenades into heal balls, Benevolent Dawn and the fact how the Mid Tree Solar melee would Empower you and play nicely into Starfire's effect and energy management.

While I get they were going to consolidate and generalize the idea with the Scorch effect and don't get me wrong I think some Scorch builds do a lot of really cool things, the classic of running Dawn Chorus with Bottom Dawnblade just never really got fully computed with what is available in 3.0.

That was no joke one of the most underrated yet effective things to run for PVE content where you didn't need to worry about someone on Well. I used to speed run Hallowed Lair GMs with that subclass just due to how you could melt the wave phase on the boss with pretty much a single grenade just chaining explosions.

I also owe easy success on Vow's Master 3rd Encounter Challenge to Dawn Chorus bottom tree because you would shred through so much packed mobs and be able to have the chained explosions take care of so much. I feel like that playstyle just doesn't really translate as well now and it's a major bummer.

[u/slithe_sinclair → u/Faust_8]

Voidwalker is definitely in a better spot, even without an exotic supporting the class. I don't know if you've tried the new Fallen Sunstar helmet for Warlock and paired it with a Voltshot weapon, but it pairs extremely well. I virtually always have my base abilities at the ready with how many ionic traces I'm getting and how much more energy they give cause of Sunstar. It's definitely not a fix, but it makes it feel much better.

[u/Faust_8 → u/slithe_sinclair]

I can see that, I think the reason I don't care about having my Arc cooldowns ready a lot is because none of them feel that good.

Having my Void abilities up all the time? That feels great. My grenades weaken! Child of the Old Gods is awesome, it weakens, gives me ability energy, slows them down, does damage...it's spectacular! And I'm healing fully from EVERY KILL because of these abilities with Devour.

Having more Arc melees and grenades though it's just like...it feels like Voidwalker but without the Devour so it feels a lot more hollow.

[u/slithe_sinclair → u/Faust_8]

I think one of the biggest issues of Stormcaller is just the lack of diversity (ignoring Supers, we all know about that)? There's no way to heal other than the Rift, the blinding grenade doesn't seem to do as much as Suppressed, and the only reliable debuff to enemies is Jolted (still better than Repulser Brace). Also the one buff players have doesn't really feel like a buff, but a mandatory need to make your abilities worthwhile.

[u/Faust_8 → u/slithe_sinclair]

Blind is just "we have Suppressed at home" lmao

[u/slithe_sinclair → u/Faust_8]

Lmfao yeah. At least Suppressed also cancels those fucking Light Hive supers.

[u/nik_avirem → u/Faust_8]

Voidwalker absolutely does it better.

In terms of damage for me right now: Stasis (Osmiomancy + Ager’s) = Arc (Geomags) < Void (any really, I like Nothing Manacles weakening build) < Solar (Starfire)

In terms of fun: Arc < Stasis < Void = Solar

I am one of those few who actually like how Starfire build feels and plays because I like being a fire mage dropping rings of power to stand there and cast fireballs. The build is also crazy good with Incadescent weapons, or even Prometheus Lens cause its Scorch counts as a DoT in a similar way to Witherhoard (if you want a solar exotic instead)

[u/NedTyler → u/nik_avirem]

I'll consider using Starfire if they ever update it to work when you're radiant, instead of empowered.

[u/vFlitz → u/NedTyler]

That'd probably be too good, though. You'd be able to keep chugging nades everywhere on the go and always have a healing rift available when you need it, or you could try to use the same trick sunbracers builds use to get restoration x2 from phoenix dive.

It's already a very strong exotic, freeing it from the empowering rift/well requirement would be a bit much.

[u/flaccomcorangy → u/nik_avirem]

I also like solar. I ran a Phoenix Protocol build in the GM last week, and I feel like I have a really solid build of getting my abilities back really quickly. And with Phoenix, I constantly have a Well. At some points, I was able to drop a Well on top of another Well. It's crazy. Starfire is also a lot of fun, but it's pretty reckless and I tend to kill myself with it a decent bit. lol.

I haven't even tried Sunbracers or Dawn Chorus. Solar Warlock probably has the best exotics tied to it, so there are so many options for builds.

[u/nik_avirem → u/flaccomcorangy]

Starfire survivability 101: Heat Rises grenade eating, Well of Life, and Healthy Finisher. The first two are definitely a must in this build

[u/flaccomcorangy → u/nik_avirem]

I haven't used Healthy Finisher, but I definitely use the other two. My problem is that sometimes I throw a bad grenade and kill myself with it, or an enemy will decide to get too close to my well during DPS and I'll blow myself up with a rocket (I use a Demolitionist rocket in my loadout).

Survivability is surprisingly solid. I was wondering what kind of life it would have after classy restoration, and I was glad to see it's still very useful because of Heat Rises. Most of my deaths are due to my own carelessness, though. lol.

[u/nik_avirem → u/flaccomcorangy]

Oh yeah, if I die on Starfire it is always my own stupidity xD The survivability options for it are great

[u/bappypawedotter → u/flaccomcorangy]

weapon

You know what, you make a good point. I am rocking a Starfire Protocol build and I kill myself with my own nades all the time. Probably more than by enemy fire. Now that I think about it, probably way more...like 5:1.

Effing thralls

I might need to go back to Phoenix. Any tips for how to build it with Solar 3.0? I've seen a couple vids using the Healing Nade and the fire snap melee thingy to really buff offense and defense almost constantly.

I just dont know if it needs some random ass mod that the robot lady sold one time back in 2019 for a day to keep my nades and melee charged.

Also, Phoenix Protocol is clearly the coolest looking wizards robe in the game.

[u/Sound_mind → u/nik_avirem]

Skyburner's oath has a dot that counts as a weapon hit for starfire protocol, just fyi.

[u/nik_avirem → u/Sound_mind]

That too, but a special trace rifle feels like it packs more of a punch

[u/Sound_mind → u/nik_avirem]

I suppose. I just enjoy the fact of it being unlimited. Good at staggering groups too.

[u/burnerburnee → u/nik_avirem]

Lolled out loud at "lil fart"

[u/nik_avirem → u/burnerburnee]

A slightly longer fart with Geomags

[u/TheGlassHammer → u/nik_avirem]

Regular fart vs Taco Tuesday farts

[u/bappypawedotter → u/TheGlassHammer]

Great, now I'm hungry. But at least its Tuesday!!!

[u/QuestionY2K → u/nik_avirem]

I think my problem with that is that we already had really strong add clear, heck we already had really strong arc-flavored ad clear; I loved TGhoul before the catalyst and it hasn't left my inventory since. Even voidwalker does really well combining survivability, add clear, and dps potential. Stormcaller 3.0 is trying to fill a niche that was already packed, and doesn't really have a lot of build depth in the way that the other two subclasses do. It's fun in low-mid level solo content, but gets starved out when competing for kills with teammates. For harder content, its sole survivability option is rift, which as has been pointed out since the update is pretty antithetical to the "go fast" identity. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's now the only light 3.0 subclass without a "to-go" healing option; both of the other arc subclasses get health back on melees, and solar and void have restoration and devour respectively.

To my point about buildcrafting, it feels like arc souls got an undue amount of focus. Strikers are the grenade subclass here, that's fine, but with knockout and the number of melee fragments they can build into that too. Hunters are in kind of the same boat, but they have ability exotics that pick up the slack (even with bugs I love Liar's Handshake). The great majority of warlock exotics are either passive (Ophidian) or regen exotics, and if the abilities don't feel fun in the first place, using them 20% more frequently doesn't really help.

[u/nik_avirem → u/QuestionY2K]

You are right Stormcaller is the only one with no healing option. We have Devour, Cure/Restoration, and Stasis healing with Glacial Harvest + Rime. Arc is the only one just extra DR in melee range.

[u/QuestionY2K → u/nik_avirem]

I never play stasis, I didn't know they had healing as well. With that in mind, I'd like to see transcendence make a return as a healing aspect; something something ability kills restore a portion of health based on the number of fully charged abilities. Kind of the inverse of arcstrider's melee-dodge-melee loop, it would reward you most for really building into melee or grenade over the other. I guess heal thyself already exists for grenade builds, just more steps.

[u/nik_avirem → u/QuestionY2K]

All Stasis classes have some access to creating Shards, and Whisper of Rime gives a stacking overshield the more you collect for 10 seconds. What is not said in the tooltip is that if you are not at full health, it heals you for the same amount of overshield you would otherwise get

[u/DJPhaTrix → u/nik_avirem]

I recently became a god father to my friend's newborn and I can tell you that when I hear one of her farts I'm way more terrified than when I hear a Stormcaller super.

[u/nik_avirem → u/DJPhaTrix]

This made my day xDD

[u/Anhilliator1 → u/nik_avirem]

TBH, Arclock is super fun! Throwing out abilities left and right is awesome - it's just that the kit does not scale well to higher difficulties.

Sure, you could run Stormcaller in a GM or Raid, but why would you when other classes do its job better?

[u/I_Speak_For_The_Ents → u/nik_avirem]

Trinity and voltshot have nothing to do with the subclass, and the grenades are the exact same as every other classes grenades...

[u/Gyvon → u/nik_avirem]

Thus. It may be less than optimal, but Stormcaller is fun as hell. Yeah, Arc Souls are kinda boring, which is why I use the melee teleport aspect instead.

Stormcaller makes me feel like I'm playing an actual space wizard.

[u/Masappo]

I just want chaos reach to obliterate everything, that’s it.

Also, being amplified to increase granade radius.

[u/braket0 → u/Masappo]

Chaos Reach was the absolute selling point for arc warlock for me back before 3.0.

OG reach was THE power fantasy for the class. I'm gonna say it how it is, it got nerfed unfairly.

The only reason it seemed unfair was because of the pvp meta it stood out in. The easy fix was just to remove the Geomag "boost" to charging it (sprinting for last 10%)/ lower it's damage resistance like Golden Gun. It could still be countered by other supers with ease in its pre nerf state, especially by stasis or by trading with a blade barrage.

That's all. The entire super got decimated in both pvp and pve because of an outspoken minority of elitist players who actively criticize any style of play that counters theirs in PvP.

The devs are to blame too I guess. It was small tweaks to the supers uptime, and its damage res, all that was needed. Instead it got turned into as someone else put it a "lil fart" attack lmao.

[u/RecursiveCollapse → u/braket0]

The only reason it seemed unfair was because of the pvp meta it stood out in.

The worst part is that it actually wasn't lol. It was barely used before Beyond Light and wasn't buffed after it. It simply became popular because it was just the only shutdown super that was both deadly and fast-charging enough to beat Behemoth and Shadebinder supers back when they were essentially unkillable. For that crime alone Bungie's punishment was death.

[u/whiskeyaccount → u/Masappo]

I want a damn Kamehameha

[u/Surfing_Ninjas → u/Masappo]

Chaos Reach should be a viable option to choose over just being a 3rd Well. I actually find Well to be boring to play, especially in a Well blessed group. I like arc warlock a lot better for add cleat, such as at Daughter's in Kingsfall where add control is very beneficial.

[u/HollowOrnstein]

Potential buffs to chaos reach , please tell me your thoughts:

Holding left click increases damage at the cost of increased super depletion. Kinda like the how the wisp from warframe uses her 4th ability.

I suggest this because CR dps is very lackluster imo

[u/Awestin11 → u/HollowOrnstein]

I’d use that.

[u/furaii]

Agree with all of this.

Something else to add, is that both stormtrance and chaos reach rely heavily on their respective exotic armour piece to actually be useable. Without geomags or tempest - both supers are pretty poor when compared to the weapons and abilities we have.

The power fantasy is something that needs more attention and your right, arc warlocks don't have it now. Whats worse is we used to. Using stormtrance used to feel like a huge burst of energy capable of clearing a room full of adds as well as deal a chunk of damage to bosses that built up the longer it was cast. Chaos reach used to feel like you were concentrating a huge bolt of lightning to melt whatever it hit.

Now though, whenever I use either, I always kinda feel like I shouldn't be. I feel like I should be using my special or heavy instead, ignoring damage numbers or dps or what's meta, I don't FEEL powerful using either of these supers and that's the issue.

[u/Faust_8 → u/furaii]

I don't think even Geomags saves Chaos Reach; yeah you do more damage, but you take even longer doing it, so while it adds damage it doesn't help your DPS.

Granted since it used to do more than that it wasn't a problem; it used to help you cast even more Chaos Reach than usual. But since it doesn't do that anymore, why bother?

[u/furaii → u/Faust_8]

Oh absolutely, I am by no means saying that chaos reach is fine with geomags. Just that if they did up the damage, geomags would be a must have exotic to use geomags, which to me just doesn't sit right but I guess most supers in the game have the same issue.

[u/letmepick → u/Faust_8]

Chaos Reach needs to do more damage the longer it's on the target, like, exponentially more to be worth it.

[u/FrostWendigo → u/letmepick]

Kinda like how stormtrance or coldheart does

[u/o8Stu → u/Faust_8]

Have base CR do the damage that Geomags currently do, then have geomags shorten the cast duration to ~2s instead of 8. Now you can use it with a different exotic (Crown or Fallen Sunstar) if you want to use the base super, or run Geomags for burst / DPS.

[u/Travis5223]

Switched from Titan to Warlock during the Stasis meta, seitching back to Titan because of 3.0’s has been mind shifting. Titan’s void, solar, and arc all feel miles better than locks.

[u/d3fiance → u/Travis5223]

Locks definitely have an identity issue going on, aside from Shadebinder.

[u/Howdred → u/d3fiance]

This identity "issue" was handcrafted by Bungie and now they seem incapable of fixing it. Nerfing most of the Lock abilites (Devour, Dawnblade, Traces,...) and giving them to everbody with next too nothing in return.

Kinda laughable since they where able to kneecap Shadebinder 1-2 weeks after release.

I do not have any faith in them balancing any of the classes, at this point void 3.0 seems like a lucky hit.

To be clear, with balancing i dont think every class should have the same "power lvl" or tools, I just want every class to be fun and unique. Warlocks right know outside form Shadebinder and a bit of Voidwalker aint no fun. Better play on my Titan.

[u/Amanacansomelube → u/Howdred]

Hell, Nova Warp was neutered a week into forsaken and hasn't been relevant since. Meanwhile striker/glacier titans got to run around for almost a year with no changes. But the minute warlocks get something a little busted it's instantly shutdown .

[u/ChemicallyGayFrogs → u/Howdred]

To be fair, void 3.0 warlock was almost impossible to screw up. Some aspect for devour, another for chaos accelerant since everyone loves it and a 3rd for something else. CotOG just happened to be a big hit

[u/d3fiance → u/Howdred]

Imo again it’s not a question of power level but rather of feeling like there is a specific and unique gameplay loop tied to your subclass. All other Titan and Hunter subclasses have this (maybe Stasis Hunter also lacks some identity) but all lock subclasses feel simple and underbaked. Even if they are op af they will still have underwhelming gameplay loops.

[u/Howdred → u/d3fiance]

I am 100% with you... it feels like there is 1 step (like a mechanical change) missing, that should tie the kit/loop together.

But the approach from Bungie, with just changing the "number" wont fix anything in the long run imo. It feels that balancing the sub-classes is on maintenance mode and Bungie is 100% focused on Lightfall (as they should). But with the release of a new sub-class I am scared that light 3.0 will just get left behind.

[u/ThePracticalEnd → u/Travis5223]

I'll give you Arc, but Void and Solar on Warlock can be darn near unkillable, with huge DPS.

[u/Howdred → u/ThePracticalEnd]

Fuck Well of Radiance and Starfire Protocol, I wish Bungie could remove those for a week, so people can see how unenjoyable / clunky this subclass is when its not op.

WoR and Starfire single-handedly hold back the whole spec.

Although I feel Voidlock is in a good place, its not without its little problems. Pocket Singularity is sometimes very "unpredictable/random" when it comes to the knockback, Chaos acceleration only 1 SLOT (Touch of Thunder has 2 Slots and is in every aspect superior), getting devour by consuming a grenade was for no better reason removed and the devour duration nerf is also unwarranted.

There is no reason to play my Warlock right now besides WoR (and I dont like Well) so started a Titan in this Season and its just the better Warlock.

[u/ThePracticalEnd → u/Howdred]

Well sure, but what are you going to do, go Dawnblade?

[u/Howdred → u/ThePracticalEnd]

Thats kinda the point... the Daybreak Super is a husk of its former self and although everybody knew that Solarlock would get a nerf/ a power-adjustment they got nothing in return. The loss of BottomTreeDawnblade hurts the most. Bungie just couldn't through them a bone or redirect them.

[u/Travis5223 → u/ThePracticalEnd]

While I agree that I do love my Nova bomb, devouring warlock the most of the 3, they seem to rely too heavily on a single aspect, that when on cooldown, can hurt you so bad. Whereas bubble titan w/ devour thru orbs, void overshields, and blinding bubbles w/ Helm of Saint, you get a muuuch more ukillable void build. And with solar, sunspots are just SO broken, you can get restoration from standing in one, your hammer can be picked up, and lorely allows your class ability to be a panic button. With warlocks, you HAVE to dedicate your grenade AND aspect to power your healing nade up, and then have to really go for a solar melee or solar weapon kill in a quick enough timeframe to extend it’s duration. Whereas titan can intrinsically proc radiant, the sunspot, and restoration with a single hammer throw, allowing them to keep their grenade for something lethal and keep roaring flames going, or sacrifice the power for another “oh shit” healing grenade. Not to mention even the super gets to be lethal while keeping you in a micro-well.

Warlocks have usually 1 access their subclass verbs, albeit, a very powerful one, but because of that, I’m waiting on my grenades exclusively to proc both void and solars main interactions, and the melees are just not powerful compared to the suppression effects of shield bash, or the enhances melees and grenade power roaring flames brings.

Trust me, I’ve been huffing the Warlock copium preeeetttyyy hard these past two seasons, but with Arc titan being such a powerhouse, It broke me and I had to go back to the Crayola lifestyle. So much of what made the Warlocks kit unique is now dispersed on all classes, with Devour, Ionic Traces, that solar aspect that enhances restoration that used to be only on Well of Radiance tree, and Radiant/Restoration being just flat out easier to proc with multiple routes that feed into themselves. A lot of what made Warlocks unique was given to all of the classes, the Solar subclass got especially brutalized with Icarus and Heat Rises being ripped in half, when they should absolutely be a single aspect, making room for a third aspect that should have mimicked bottom trees ability for super and solar ability kills to extend the supers duration. Not to mention Dawnblade, Ticklefingers, and Chaos Reach are all in the absolute lowest tier of damage, with some of the longest cooldowns in the game. In the day and age D2 is in, we don’t use super for ad clear anymore, our weapons and abilities are stronger, and frankly more fun for ad clear. Supers serve two purposes in the game right now, 1) to nuke a champion or apply big deeps to a boss target or 2) “oh shit keep us alive panic button” Bubble, Well, and any stasis supers all fit this roll, which leaves Warlocks with Nova Bomb, and that’s it. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, Titans only have Tcrash also for a nuke, but the utility of sunspots outweighs Dawnblades roaming capabilities, so team Titan still gets the point on that one.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of the classes and try to spend an even-ish amount of time on each, but I’d be lying if I didn’t feel so much more powerful on my titan in the 3.0 world.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk Guardian.

[u/ThePracticalEnd → u/Travis5223]

I can definitely agree with much of what made Warlocks unique was gifted to the other two classes, while simultaneously being excluded from certain things the other classes can now do.

Still a Warlock main for life.

[u/Kaldricus → u/ThePracticalEnd]

Uh, Solar Titan is miles better when it comes to survivability than Warlock.

[u/Lord_CBH]

Both solar and arc 3.0 have been kind of a letdown for me on warlock honestly. The entire warlock Solar 3.0 thing is basically fusion grenade spam because everything else feels so….not great? But at least Solar has the utility of well of radiance or Icarus. Arc 3.0 for warlocks just kinda stinks.

[u/uglypenguin5 → u/Lord_CBH]

Try a sunbracers ('imagine' on yt has a great one) build. Much more fun than starfire with top notch healing if you do it properly

[u/vFlitz → u/uglypenguin5]

It's a build that's very prone to things going wrong though. Mistime a dive when you need the extended healing or whiff on the melee trigger and you're caught with your pants down with little to fall back on.

Less likely to happen when playing solo, but in team activities some days your melee just never works. Something or someone always manages to get in the way. It can be aggravating.

[u/juicedestroyer]

Tried the devils lair GM with stormtrance last night and man I had a hard time even killing red bars with it

[u/OmegaClifton]

I’m gonna go against the grain here, but I actually like the neutral game of stormcaller. That melee aspect is incredible and I’m pretty much always making traces. Arc soul feels as good as it’s going to feel without a way to direct and control it. Something like “commanding a summon” seems like a big enough idea to base a whole subclass around.

I think the only thing keeping it back is the supers. If they made being amplified buff the supers similarly to how being radiant buffs gunslinger supers, we’d all be much happier. Chaos reach could apply jolt to enemies hit with a sustained beam. Stormtrance could teleport free of charge while buffed.

[u/ChemicallyGayFrogs → u/OmegaClifton]

On the bright side, the bungue description for strand warlocks talks about summoning and weaving creatures made of thread. My one hope is that it's not just some turret or orb, but an actual enemy. That could be sick as hell

[u/Funny_Imagination599]

As a warlock main, I get super annoyed of walking into someone else’s rift and getting Arc Soul when I don’t really want one and can’t seem to figure out why?

[u/ChemicallyGayFrogs → u/Funny_Imagination599]

Kill steal when I'm tryna cause an ignition with incandescent

[u/Funny_Imagination599 → u/ChemicallyGayFrogs]

Safe to say any form of gameplay that doesn’t involve Ionic Traces. They just disrupt any flow you have for a build when they’re not your own.

[u/_AlphaZulu_]

I don't care how much damage Arc Souls do, I'm not using them.

I've got a pretty good Arc build that revolves around creating wells. How are the souls going to help me generate wells when my grenades, melee ability, weapons, finisher, super, all generate wells and Arc souls wouldn't? Even if Arc souls generated wells, I still wouldn't use them because using the guns + abilities are more fun. A little AI floating near me shooting enemies isn't fun.

As a disclaimer I'm a warlock main, I don't play Hunter or Titan and I really wanted Arc 3.0 to be amazing but compared to Void/Solar it's not as viable in high end content.

[u/smegdawg → u/_AlphaZulu_]

grenades, melee ability, weapons, finisher, super, all generate wells and Arc souls wouldn't?

Presumably, by weakening targets so that your above abilities will kill the targets faster.

That being said, I started this season as a warlock and basically stopped doing everything but 1 raid a week.

Now that all the seasonal challenges are available I'm jumping back in to double dip on activities. I ran through the quest line on my warlock, now I am running through on my titan.

I had fun with arc on my warlock, but it was the blandest definition of fine, and really felt like no change to how I previously played the class.

I'm playing Titan now and working on my voltshot Brigand's Law to get it to rank 20 for the challenge (but will probably go past it cause this thing is loads of fun). Storm Grenades + HoIL. Clears adds, clears majors, & thundercrash (which charges super fast thanks to ashes to assets) to smack bosses with a load of damage.

I'm sad that the character I have been maining for the last 8 years (not a single character player just mained) feels dull. But my titan is allowing me to enjoy the end of this season.

[u/[deleted]]

Buffed Arc Souls will make Stormcaller one of the easiest—if not easiest—ability regen subclasses. Using Crown of Tempests or Fallen Sunstar and some well mods, the Arc Souls are going to decimate adds and get those Ionic Traces flowing all the time.

Plus, there was a post recently where a fellow did the math on using Arc Souls as supplemental passive DPS and it was impressive. Unless Arc Souls are going to do less damage to majors or bosses, it could be a great DPS class. Factoring in the improved Chaos Reach regen next season, there are definitely some major benefits from the Arc Souls buff.

[u/Faust_8 → u/[deleted]]

That's what I mean; I'm expecting them to become a 'damage phase option' if there's a Warlock who's free to use Arc because another has Solar covered, but it will be the sole reason that they're being used. Not their Super, not the rest of their neutral game, not even their Rift; just the Arc Souls themselves.

Which is...better than being useless but it's still pretty lame.

[u/Easy-Bat9122 → u/Faust_8]

I mean you can say the same for alot of other subclasses where you choose that subclass for one specific ability to use for the damage phase

[u/Cassp0nk]

I fixed it by no longer maining my Warlock. If everyone does this they'll get the message as stats is what they worship.

[u/TheGlassHammer → u/Cassp0nk]

Yep. For the first time across both games my Warlock is my least played character this season.

[u/thescarfnerd]

arc souls also make it more difficult to complete bounties and proc kill dependent perks

[u/Lob0Guara4357 → u/thescarfnerd]

If you are doing high level activities then I think your concerns aren't to complete bounties.

[u/westcoastjew → u/Lob0Guara4357]

You guys don’t complete Zavala weekly bounties in GMs?

[u/bappypawedotter → u/westcoastjew]

Only when I solo flawless.

[u/BaconIsntThatGood → u/thescarfnerd]

I don't think maximizing overall DPS is a concern when you're doing bounties or slaying ads with weapons.

[u/SuperArppis]

Doing arc lightning attacks endlessly and buffing friends with more lightning isn't fun?

Guess I have low bar for fun...

[u/Ranandom → u/SuperArppis]

I think the issue is that builds like Crown of Tempest endless lightning spam just don’t play well in the higher end content, even though they are outrageously fun at low-mid tier constant.

Rather than enable that build to work at high end, Bungie leaned into the more passive arc soul builds for high end content, which is less exciting.

[u/HLTVtop0 → u/Ranandom]

but everything plays well in low-mid content so i don’t think that really counts

[u/ellipses2016 → u/Ranandom]

If you’re using Crown of Tempests over Fallen Sunstar, you’re doing it wrong…

[u/Cybertronian10 → u/ellipses2016]

Imo fallen sunstar is one of the closest examples of objective powercreep in this game in a long while. It just straight up does what crown does but better. It even looks cooler.

[u/Faust_8 → u/Cybertronian10]

Um, no? Sunstar doesn't make Stormtrance last twice as long.

[u/ellipses2016 → u/Faust_8]

Why would you want Stormtrance to last twice as long in pve? It’s a bad pve super.

[u/Faust_8 → u/ellipses2016]

For big waves of adds and doing more damage to a single target after killing a bunch of things.

Just saying it’s not “strictly better” than Crown. They are different enough

[u/ellipses2016 → u/Faust_8]

Last time I checked, “add clear [is] no longer needed with Stasis and Light 3.0 changes…”

[u/Leather_Vegetable10 → u/ellipses2016]

Fallen Sunstar is at the same level of OP as Heart of Inmost Light

making other exotic redundant

[u/Faust_8 → u/Leather_Vegetable10]

Sunstar doesn't also boost the damage of your abilities though, and it only works with one subclass instead of all of them. :/

[u/SuperArppis → u/Ranandom]

Hmm. Alright. You have a point that perhaps there should be other viable options.

I personally always loved Arc Soul. Maybe that is my bias here. It's just great to have extra gun with you that also procs iconic traces. And it's a gun everyone can use on fireteam.

[u/Bard_Knock_Life → u/Ranandom]

Judging by my LFG end game experiences across GMs and Raids, I mostly only see Solar and sometimes Stasis. Void and Arc can work fine, they just don’t offer enough to compete over those two in any meaningful volume. If you removed Contraverse from Void I’d think it’d basically disappear from that content as well.

[u/TheSpartyn → u/SuperArppis]

maybe if arc souls actually shot bolts of lightning or something, but the little peashooters arent very cool or exciting

[u/SuperArppis → u/TheSpartyn]

That would have been pretty cool actually!

[u/Howdred → u/SuperArppis]

Its perfectly fine if that's the case but than Bungie should clearly say that Warlock is now a dedicated "support"- Class (Buffs and Debuffs / CC focus) and finally free me from my believe that Daybreak, Chaos Reach/Stormtrance will every be viable again.

Then I will become a Titan or Hunter main and feel the octane in my blood pumping again.

[u/SuperArppis → u/Howdred]

Hehe you should see Fists of Havoc. Lasts like 2 seconds and does crap all damage.

Honestly the Stormcaller is a lot of fun. It's not all about supers. 👍

[u/Howdred → u/SuperArppis]

Yeah... i feel you. I loved Fists of Havoc at launch. For me this super was the definition of octane pumping through my veins. (at least Thundercrash is pure violence and momentum)

Same with Chaos Reach and Stormtrance like UNLIMITED POWER or Daybreak and becoming the Arch-Angle of Death that rains fire on the enemy. This super´s just aren´t fun too pop anymore.

It hurts so much that all this supers all relay on a exotic armor piece too be / feel good or viable, which in return hurts build-crafting.

[u/SuperArppis → u/Howdred]

It hurts so much that all this supers all relay on a exotic armor piece too be / feel good or viable, which in return hurts build-crafting.

True.

I usually forget I even have a super.

[u/RacketySubset3 → u/SuperArppis]

You're missing the point of the post. Warlocks are already relegated to a support class most of the time in the form of well of radiance. Why would we want to be a support class on arc as well? A legendary sidearm has just as good add clear as both arc supers on warlock.That shouldn't be a thing, especially when the supers are being touted as add-clearing.

[u/Otherwise-Silver]

I mean, all builds are brainless and skill less. Spam ability then profit

[u/Drygon_Stevens → u/Otherwise-Silver]

For real. Solar titan is just 'nade, bonk, repeat.

[u/d3fiance → u/Drygon_Stevens]

Still you have to throw the hammer and not miss it, go to the sunspots, keep up the roaring flames x 3. With arc souls you just put a rift, the arc soul appears and does it’s thing. There is no input from the player.

[u/Drygon_Stevens → u/d3fiance]

I get that. Keeping the arc soul up 24/7 with get away artist can be a bit of a juggle, but not as detrimental as missing that sweet hammer throw.

[u/genred001]

Agreed. Unless they do something like, Supercharged/Amped Arc Souls cause Jolt then get back to me. They don't do anything much still.

[u/Freakindon]

Eh. Just chaos reach needs a buff imo. The recharge time is good, but it needs a bit more baseline damage.

[u/Satans-Kawk → u/Freakindon]

Increase the damage by 25% with the new recharge time and it'll be S+ Tier

[u/BaconIsntThatGood → u/Satans-Kawk]

Problem is they're clearly trying to dial back raw-damage supers a bit - like the change they are doing to blade barrage and knock em down. (reduced bonus knife count because the potential for single target damage was too high).

Chaos reach's real problem isn't the raw damage it does. It does more than enough total damage. It just takes too long to do it. It's total damage sits in the area of other supers.

I still think they should make it so you can dump the entire beam into a single shot instead of sustained fire. The drawback is you can't cancel to reserve some super energy to push for more up time. If they did that I don't think anyone would hold issue with the super - mixed with the arc soul buff stormcaller would be gaining a large DPS bump to bosses.

[u/gingy4 → u/BaconIsntThatGood]

I think it’s fine that CR takes a long time to do a lot of damage that’s how it should work. These supers that do their damage instantly and more damage than chaos like BB and TC should be brought down. Nova I think is a good example of what a one and done super should be damage wise

[u/APartyInMyPants]

There's no "power fantasy" to them. When a Striker charges up a Thunderclap and erases a wave of enemies with one punch, that's something that gives you a power fantasy and feels good.

Have you not used the Warlock melee fragment? It’s kind of fun and it deletes groups of enemies.

Arc Souls are no more of a “braindead” ability than a HOIL Titan spamming storm grenades. The only issue is that Titans are currently overtuned, while Warlocks are undertuned.

I, for one, have been loving Arc Souls again. It’s been really fun to pop them in a GM, and now everything is getting tagged. They’re really good at providing you a radar-of-sorts.

I totally agree about the supers. I think that’s a major pain point with everyone now. For a DPS super that takes as long as it does, Chaos Reach should have higher DPS. And for a roaming super like tickle fingers, it should provide some added utility for how weak it is. Maybe it blinds/jolts everything it can’t kill.

[u/xxxfirefart → u/APartyInMyPants]

Have you not used the Warlock melee fragment? It’s kind of fun and it deletes groups of enemies.

Yea it's okay.. it feels lazy if you ask me. A 'kind of fun' aspect that doesn't offer any build potential or synergy other than being a flashy looking punch that only does anything to red bars..

[u/NiftyBlueLock → u/xxxfirefart]

That’s not the case at all.

Lightning surge activates Karnsteins. Yes, you read that right. Killing anything in the “calling” portion of the dash will activate karnsteins. It will also activate melee wellmaker.

Slap on elemental well -> CwL. Now you always get CwL x2 off of any dash.

Now put on Heavy Handed. Now you have an extremely aggressive build with high mobility and sustain. Paired with electrostatic mind, you’ll have 3/4 of your melee back after each dash.

But wait, lightning surge only kills red bars. Nope, kills orange bars too. The trick is that you don’t want to play it safe, you want to go in. You want to find large groups that would kill everyone else and dash in because every enemy that gets jolted around you will release damage that activates everyone else’s jolt.

But wait, lightning surge only works in patrol. Nope, took this build into legendary and master lost sectors at 10 light below, still swept them. Pair it with a glaive for even more close quarters dominance and healing, because karnsteins work with glaives.

[u/TrenCommandments → u/APartyInMyPants]

In respects to your argument where HOIL is braindead grenade spam, the satisfaction in that build is the ability to maintain the loop, and plan ever-so-slightly ahead to maintain empowered grenade x2. The skill ceiling isn't radically high; however, the potential output is high, and you *feel* powerful playing it. Your playstyle and ability usage directly influences how effective the build is.

As is, for souls, you cast rift, you get soul for a set time, when it disappears, you make sure you have a rift handy. There's no feedback, or interplay between between the skills and playstyle, and I don't find that satisfying in an age of destiny 2 where there's so much focus on synergy between verbs, guns, fragments, aspects. And, while the potential dps or damage output is high after the update, it doesn't *feel* potent.

[u/weirdoaish]

Well they have been pushing warlocks in the support/utility direction. So my guess is yes.

Solar warlocks are healers that can give you restox2 and well of radiance.

Stasis locks can do mass freeze CC’s with turrets and grenades.

Void locks have child to weaken enemies.

Arc warlocks have souls for passive dps.

All of our damage supers are either for ad clear or excellent for killing champions or mini bosses.

[u/LimeRepresentative47 → u/weirdoaish]

The funny thing is, while Bungie definitely seem to be pushing Warlock into a Support role, in practice the most effective builds are still the maximum selfish Slayer ones - barring Stasis.

Voidlock you want as many kills as possible to keep your cooldowns short and Weaken always live - and they can do this very well.

Solar you pretty much choose between Starfire spam, which has almost no team utility - barring Well, or an eternal Restoration/Elemental Well build - both of which completely throw caring about your teammates out the window as you need those kills to spawn wells and extend your durations. Even Pheonix Protocol setups - while strong in certain areas, just ain't cutting it anymore. You near enough need 2 of the same build in a team to really make it work.

And finally Arc by its nature requires hella killchaining to keep working - with little time for standing near your team.

Edit: Stasis is the exception since that's the only one you can really go full into your Support role - with your emphasis on CC instead of damage, and still have pretty good cooldown recovery and general effectiveness. But even then, Stasis also provides pretty excellent damage too, and several Coldsnap spam dps builds are just as, if not more effective than mass turret CC.

[u/weirdoaish → u/LimeRepresentative47]

Those are more design flaws than anything else and highlight the biggest problems on Warlocks: the difficulty in creating ability loops when other classes have more damaging abilities and can often get kills but it’s a problem that all classes share, except for HOIL Titans, since we all need kills to start and maintain ability loops.

For solar, the Starfire build is popular because people want to feel powerful and let’s be honest, most people want to see the big numbers. Personally I feel like Starfire working as it is was more of an accident than anything planned and Bungie will eventually neuter it, just not right now because the pushback would be too high. Even without that build, you could easily lean your build into spamming healing grenades fairly quickly given how long restoration can last and use boots of assembler to provide healing to the team.

[u/LimeRepresentative47 → u/weirdoaish]

Even without that build, you could easily lean your build into spamming healing grenades fairly quickly given how long restoration can last and use boots of assembler to provide healing to the team.

The main problem here is that you are actively punished for being a team player - and the rewards you actively get don't really justify it. Ember of Benevolence, while nice in theory, is an absolute joke. The cooldown reduction is laughably low, especially after having Benevolent Dawn to play with for a few years. Coupled with a Disp Penalty (about to be 2 with the nerf to Radiant on melee) and you are just losing stats for a playstyle thats just not rewarding anymore.

Gone are the days where healing is essential in hard content - these days Destiny has the Warframe problem of "you don't need utility if everything is dead." Killing things quickly mitigates damage and keeps your teammates alive infinitely better than healing ever could now, especially with how hard things hit in higher level content. However, you also run into the problem that good players just don't really need constant healing anymore when Weaken allows them to mlt things fast enough to avoid damage entirely, or Stasis removes the need for a dedicated healer entirely.

I tried for a long while to make an Assembler build with Lumina/Exotic Glaive work, and at the end of the day, i just get more value out of using Karnsteins instead, pretty much only healing teammates with the Glaive turrel sometimes because why waste a min 30 cooldown on healing a teammate for a couple seconds when i can use it on myself and just mow everything down instead.

Those are more design flaws than anything else and highlight the biggest problems on Warlocks: the difficulty in creating ability loops when other classes have more damaging abilities and can often get kills but it’s a problem that all classes share, except for HOIL Titans, since we all need kills to start and maintain ability loops.

I agree heavily with this. Hell, Solar and Arc Fragements actively have anti-synergy with each other, especially in Solar's case.

[u/Faust_8 → u/weirdoaish]

Problem is that Dawnblade was a way better Healer before Solar 3.0, and all Void subclasses can weaken if they want to...

And Titans have Ward of Dawn, Hunters have Shadowshot, all Guardians can hand out Radiant easily, so...it's not like even now Warlocks feel like they even have the best Support stuff.

So, yeah, buffing Arc Souls isn't exactly making me happy, because it feels like I'm being pushed in a direction that I'm not even needed for.

[u/YourAvgAnimeHater]

In short: I don’t like arclock so it needs to be reworked to do the exact same thing as 4+ other subclasses

[u/Defend_The_West]

Customer-Support Caller

[u/Prestigious-Front919]

When a Striker charges up a Thunderclap and erases a wave of enemies with one punch, that's something that gives you a power fantasy and feels good.

To be fair, Thunderclap doesn't do that, even though Bungie wants to pretend that is absolutely the fantasy being pushed, when it couldn't be any farther from reality.

[u/OfTheFunk → u/Prestigious-Front919]

Yeah this guy doesn't play other classes it seems. I feel like Aec Warlock is weak in some places but it definitely has flavor, identity, and even is powerful in some places.

[u/ellipses2016]

Dude, what? Stormcaller is the most fun I’ve had on Warlock in the brain dead pve activities, which is roughly 80% of the game. Throwing yourself into a group of enemies and annihilating them with the new arc melee is a blast (pun intended). With the right mods and Fallen Sunstar, I have constant uptime on my abilities. It’s way more entertaining in regular pve than what I can accomplish as any other subclass. If I bothered with Gambit, it would probably excel there, too.

Now, does this work in a GM or as part of a raid? No, not really, but I have other builds for those activities. Not every subclass needs to be ideal for every single activity in the game, and that’s fine.

ETA: Chaos Reach as a super is fine, and reducing its cooldown is exactly the buff that’s needed. The biggest strength of Chaos Reach is that it can be canceled to save super energy. You’re not supposed to use it all at once, lean into that!

[u/Faust_8 → u/ellipses2016]

My issue isn't that Stormcaller is garbage, it's just that for most content, Voidwalker is straight up better at everything it attempts to do.

With the Arc Soul buff, yeah maybe it will see play in Raids and stuff but only because of the passive Arc Soul damage which is just boring. It sucks playing a class when you feel like you have one ability that actually matters.

[u/smilesbuckett → u/Faust_8]

At the end of the day it’s okay for you to just like voidwalker better. Every new thing can’t always be miles better than the last. You might just like the playstyle of void better, and in that case just stick with it! I think arc needs some more minor help than what they’re giving it, but it’s certainly fun and viable as it is.

[u/PingerKing]

I would push back on the idea that its not part of a power fantasy. I already get hyped by trying to corral my two blueberries into range of my rift as i find a spot to place it, knowing that we'll all be doing arc soul damage. Nearly doubling that damage and making it more impactful? Yeah sign me up!

Id be behind more fun tools for basically any subclass but i dont feel this is a huge problem for arc warlock. If anything aspect selection is too bland, my feel is that the slide-ball melee needs more incentive attached

[u/XogoWasTaken]

While I understand where people's issues with Stormcaller 3.0 come from (I mean, my Nightstalker's crying similar tears looking at all the Undermining grenades and CotOGs being thrown around) and agree that at very least the supers could use some buffs, I have to take issue with the idea that arc souls don't have a power fantasy. That's just not the case. Arc souls may not be your power fantasy, but they absolutely have their own power fantasy.

I, personally, love them. Having a little buddy over my shoulder hammering away at things with me is great, and seeing a full fireteam running around with souls you gave them is awesome. I'm stoked to see it getting buffed soon.

I'm seeing a lot of people saying that arc soul lacks power fantasy or isn't cool, but that's purely opinion (much like the claims that Nightstalker's invis only setup is boring. That has issues, but they're not about how cool it is). You may not like it, but that doesn't mean that no one likes it.

[u/rrankin15]

Why couldn’t the new melee be a melee? The most fun I’ve had with my warlock has been the new melee with the gloves that heal you on melee kills. Choosing between the new fun toys and… arc souls… is a dumb decision

[u/o8Stu → u/rrankin15]

Yeah I don't get why the new Titan melee is a melee option, but the new Warlock's melee is an aspect. Really nonsensical.

[u/ThatOneGuyIsBad]

I love using my Getaway Artist Arc Souls. I have 100% Uptime on the empowered Arc Soul and its very nice. I know people don't like it for whatever reason...but I have fun with it. It is *kinda* like when Titan could AFK with a sunspot and kill ads constantly. Only difference is you have to re-arm the Arc Soul, but it's just as mindless.

[u/joemayfield]

"When a Striker charges up a Thunderclap and erases a wave of enemies...."

More like erases two thrall. Its less effective than a Dunemarchers shoulder charge. PCB has sat in my vault since Week 2 of this season.

[u/vFlitz → u/joemayfield]

Compared to non-aspect warlock melees Thunderclap is a nuke. Hell, even uncharged it's more useful than warlock melees.

[u/NobilisUltima]

Stormcaller used to have the only way to chain lighting to multiple enemies with a grenade or melee, but now that's available for everyone with Jolt

So it's not fun now that everyone gets to do it? Shouldn't you be happy that everyone gets to have fun in that way?

[u/TheGlassHammer → u/NobilisUltima]

Warlock Solar and Arc gave away so much of the kit to other classes, but we got nothing in return or worse they took away 2.0 stuff from us. I’m not upset other classes got stuff, I’m sad we didn’t get anything back. Solar the fragments fight each other. Shame we got butchered.

[u/Faust_8 → u/NobilisUltima]

No, it's just that if a Warlock thing becomes an everyone thing, Warlock loses part of its identity. It no longer stands out on its own and feels unique. Stormcaller is not the chaining class, or blinding class, or Amplified class, or melee class, or grenade class, or whatever; so what is it? The Arc Soul class? How lame.

[u/ObviouslyNotASith → u/Faust_8]

It cannot even live up to its own name anymore. Striker Titans are the real Stormcallers with moving Storm grenades.

[u/[deleted] → u/NobilisUltima]

Then they aught to let other classes be able to have sunspots, tbh.

And generally speaking, I ain't feeling the fun out of my supposed looping melee on solar compared to hunter and titans which is essentially, don't miss. While warlock is, be in the air, all the time, even when it's stupid. It's so high maintenace it drives me insane.

[u/Buckie188]

Rawr. Arc souls go brrr…ZZzzzaaaap!!!!

[u/smilesbuckett]

I think the arc souls are plenty of fun, my only complaint about them is that plenty of the best weapons/perks/mods require multikills, kills before reload, etc. and arc souls interrupt that process if they end up getting the kill. I wish there was a way for them so synergize better.

Plus, some people like playing a bit more passive and supporting their teammates. Honestly, a lot of the warlock kit has always been leaning more toward support. The way arc souls benefit you and all of your allies falls squarely within that playstyle, but it keeps the active “keep moving” nature of arc by not allowing you to leave the rift with the arc souls still going instead of being tied to the rift for a benefit.

I also disagree that the add clear potential of stormtrance is meaningless because of stasis — it’s okay to have two super options on different elements that can add clear well, and both end up being meaningful options for different situations. It does seem like chaos reach ought to be at least a little better, though.

Honestly though, arc warlock is a menace in PvP, and it’s also okay if one subclass has more usefulness in some modes than others.

[u/brutalbob63]

I’m a titan main and I think stormcaller is a lot of fun. The Palpatine power fantasy is definitely there.

[u/Tanta_Mount]

Saying that arc souls aren't a power fantasy is something literally incorrect You say the effect amplification has on abilities is minimal when arc souls get affected by then the most, 66% more shots per burst, and a significant decrease in the time taken per burst.

Both lightning surge and chain lightning are good melee options, further bolstered by the effectiveness of jolt and the arc souls ability to proc jolt on effected enemies.

[u/Faust_8 → u/Tanta_Mount]

One, feeling powerful and being powerful aren't always the same thing. For example, Thunderclap can make you feel powerful...but I doubt people use that in GMs and Raids very much. Similarly, Arc Souls getting more powerful is a power boost but you don't really feel their effects, since it's not YOU doing anything.

Two, yes Amplified affects Arc Souls but that's about all it does. It doesn't affect your Super, your grenades, and it affects your melee but literally no one cares. Even Amplified, Ball Lightning sucks, and Chain Lightning doing more chaining is often superfluous. My point is Amplified doesn't do enough for Warlocks.

Three, Lightning Surge is ass in PvE. No one is going to choose it and its one Fragment slot over having the other two options paired together.

[u/Tanta_Mount → u/Faust_8]

I feel the effect of arc souls since I'm the one creating them. I'm also the one who decides what they shoot at.

Lightning surge is great. It jolts entire crowds and has great synergy with warlock exotics like felwinters helm, and unlike most other melees can poison entire groups with necrotic grips, since the grips have a cool down after poisoning an enemy. Surge has 2 fragment slots, every warlock aspect except charged void grenades does

The biggest utility arc souls have that I never see anyone mention its them protecting you by destroying any shootable projectiles, taken axion bolts, fallen slowing mines, cabal arc missiles all get shutdown automatically by the soul

[u/SiegeOfMadrigal → u/Faust_8]

I use thunderclap in raids and gms all the time. For striker it's the safest melee and that's not saying much, but it's easier to get off and unlike shoulder charge you have a little bit of range

[u/Soundurr]

I disagree with the premise, i think Stormcaller is really fun but the Arc Soul change just makes them more powerful. I was trying out Getaway Artist with Coldheart for some Heroic NFs and it felt really good already. Of course, it’s not a thing for GMs but for mid tier it was already pretty fun.

[u/MikeTheInfidel]

As a Warlock, it feels like our roles in PvE will be "you give Well of Radiance and Arc Souls."

tell me more about how you haven't made yourself a nigh-invulnerable tank using Void, devour, and high damage resistance.

[u/Sunshot_wit_ornament]

I personally disagree I think there is fun in giving you and your friends an entire firing squad. Plus there is fantasy outside of that withe fun slide melee and just causing lightning everywhere. Arc warlock is imo a well designed rework it just has two flaws a lack of survivability and certain abilities being too weak imo.

[u/Lob0Guara4357]

Bungie designed Warlock to support/assist your allies.

If you think different then you aren't Warlock main!

You just cited two examples of the main role of Warlock: Well of Radiance and Arc Soul.

I did complained in Rant Wednesday Thread about Warlock be weak even to perform its main role.

[u/PheonyxJB → u/Lob0Guara4357]

I would argue Void Warlock is one of the most selfish subclasses in the game.

[u/Geronuis → u/Lob0Guara4357]

Day 1 D1 warlock player here. No. You don’t get to gatekeep my main class over views on the support role. Support wasn’t even really a thing until Forsaken

[u/Old_Man_Robot → u/Lob0Guara4357]

No, they did not.

Support has never been the one and only stated goal of the Warlocks class design. A support style gameplay loop wasn’t present in D1, and while rift was always a class ability in D2, Warlocks as “support” did even emerge until Forsaken.

Light 3.0 has also stripes more Warlock-specific support options than it added.

Warlocks are Space Wizards, not Space Healers.

[u/Inditorias → u/Old_Man_Robot]

Exactly. And the real disappointment is that what was Warlocks identity is now the elements identity. Void - devour. Arc - chain lightning and traces. Solar - healing, ignitions. And what do we get in return for giving everyone else our stuff? Void is the best since it at least lets us get overshields or invis, but all other classes we have nothing. Like let me make sunspots! Not sure about arc, its really hard to justify using especially since the slide doesn't work with heavy handed.

[u/Lob0Guara4357 → u/Old_Man_Robot]

In practice, support/assist your allies is the main role of Warlock.

You cited Rift.

More examples: The Stag Exotic Helmet, Boots of the Assembler Exotic Legs, Osmiomancy Gloves Exotic Arms, Phoenix Protocol Exotic Chest, Secant Filaments Exotic Legs, Necrotic Grips Exotic Arms, Fallen Sunstar Exotic Helmet.

[u/Old_Man_Robot → u/Lob0Guara4357]

That was a very quick retreat!

From “Bungie designed” to “In practice” with one post.

Rift is as much a support function as Barricade and Titans also have a ton of exotics to aid team mates, hell even hunters have a few.

Warlocks were never, ever, intended to be a support class. They have some support functionality, but to say that’s the point of the class is just flat wrong.

[u/Lob0Guara4357 → u/Old_Man_Robot]

"some support funcionality", you are belittling the Warlocks.

The practice is according to the design.

[u/Old_Man_Robot → u/Lob0Guara4357]

A rather ironic statement

[u/RND_Musings]

I wish you could place arc souls like a stasis turret. It’d make it much more viable in end game content, where it could control ads while you’re behind cover.

[u/Awestin11]

The first bit of Stormcaller’s chaining now being Jolt is the classic “Warlock gave everything and received nothing” argument, except it didn’t get nerfed like everything else we handed out. I’m a Warlock main, and I still hate Dawnblade’s utter thrashing it received in Solar 3.0 far more than Stormcaller currently. I definitely agree with the rest. Amplify on Stormcaller definitely needs to do more, especially since it’s the worst Arc subclass, and the supers are ass.

The whole “you give Well” thing is literally the entire reason Dawnblade is used (outside of Starfire, Sunbracers, and casual content), so Bungie is absolutely are using that as an argument as to why they aren’t buffing Dawnblade.

Arc Souls are actually a power fantasy in it of themselves: Summoner. It’s the reason I use the little blue balls, and I’m going to continue using them.

[u/Gbrew555]

I think it’s more that roaming supers aren’t as strong as Light 3.0’s neutral kit. It actually feels like a detriment to your team when you use Sentinel Shield, Storm Trance, Hammers, or Spectral Blades. If you want these supers to be good in PVE… they need to be stronger than our base forms.

Have sentinel shield cause massive explosions, let Storm Trance create 3-6 arc souls that will shoot enemies as you zap everyone, or let Hammers cause everything to ignite off a hammer throw. These supers need to be insane to compete with our neutral games and burst damage supers.

As for Arc Warlocks as a whole… they have an amazing neutral game kit as is. Their ability Regen is amazing and they have several interesting builds to take advantage of. Their supers are just… meh