Warlock at a glance Thread - Conquest of Elysium 3

Rather then a full guide, I'll just do an introductory summary split into 4 sections: The bad, The good, Tips, summon breakdown.

Warlock at a glance

The bad
- You will not know which of the 4 element you start with: Earth, Fire, Air, Water. You start with a random element L2 warlock with 2 gem income of that type. (You really should be allowed to choose... Imagine the tactical options)

- VERY luck dependent (more so then others) in the gem types you find most abundant and starting path, making it hard to intentional plan your tactical focus.

- A variety of units serving different purpose populate the same summon class. You may not summon what you need even if casting the right elemental path. Ex. Getting a spell blaster when you need salamander tank.

*- All elementals from lesser summon do not heal, they will attrite quickly and do not last. One of their two biggest weakness (Note: Air elemental is most durable in this regard, as they are the only mid ranked archer among all the elementals).

*- Gems are in general rarer then other resources. They are also split into 4 types. For dwarfs and hoburgs this doesn't matter too much as most of the gems summon units performing similar roles, but for warlock this is their second achille's heels as each path serve such different roles. Thus warlock have the largest scattered resource out of all the class, making them very very luck dependent. In fact, think of them as having 4 different types of very rare resource each used for something very different and you've gotten a grasp of their problem.

- Your basic gold/iron troop set is basic, while your gem troop set tend to be weaker then other gem using nation. Eg. Dwarfs already has a good basic troop set, in addition to great gem value (eg. 5 dwarven elites vs 3-6 less elemental or 1 elemental, no contest). Hoburg is closer in per gem combat power to warlock (also doesn't heal, but has some really badass units), but it has a decent basic troop set on top of an extra resource summon : weeds! It's not all bad though, if you have a bit of luck (see The good).

- Somewhat uncommon warlock recruit.

The good
- The 4 element summon path gives you a huge range of different utilities / abilities. They all have certain specialties and give you vast tactical possibilities. You can fly, go viking (coastal raid) ..etc. Of course, you can't control your starting path of the gem type distribution of the map... so it's not a controllable advantage but more a luck based one, as trade can only go so far.

- Compared to other gem using nation or otherwise. Gem for gem/other special resource you tend to get weaker pure combat power out of it then others. However, your summons have various special attributes giving them more options and possibilities. Overall I rate this as a pro. Warlocks rely more on tactical flexibility, they have lots of special abilities at the cost of pure combat power.

- In regards to the weaker combat power per gem observation, the exception is in ranged power. Warlock is top tier in ranged. Slyphs are already pretty good for the cost, thunderbirds by comparison is wtfbbq awesomesause. Dwarfs, hoburg and the like can't hold a candle to your ranged power (and hoburg pack good ranged power themselves). The downside is that to make use of this asset you need luck (a lot of it). If you have bad luck with air gems... well too bad =3 Starting with air warlock is also of huge importance. an Air warlock + plentiful air gem map is a lot of fun if you get it. This is unfortunately an advantage you get to maximize in say.... 25% of the warlock game.

- Mines (Gems) availability are less affected by game age. (Whereas say sacrifice will be affected by age where cities are rare or non-existant)... Oh Come on, I gotta stretch for more advantages for warlock here!

Tips
- Warlocks of each element gets certain abilities. Most notable is Air and Water, who gets flight and amphibian. Earth gets moutain walk while fire gets... something irrelevant I forgot.

- L2 Warlocks of a choosen element cannot summon from the opposing element (water warlock may not summon fire). L1 warlocks are unaffiliated and may be upgraded to any path you want (and corresponding gems), they can summon all lesser elemental paths.

- L3 warlocks can only summon from their own path. with a 20% discount.

- See section 4 for exact details on what you can expect from summons.

- Water: They are mostly amphibian and mostly melee except one. Generally weaker then other paths, their advantage being amphibian and can do the viking thing (shore raiding). If you get a water warlock start having him as your viking leader is probably a good bet.

- Earth: They all tank very well. It's a huge shame elementals do not heal, making them ideal for defense rather then offense where they attrite quickly. I'd save up for greater earth summon when possible as those things tank and do heal. You do need some lesser summon to help expand early on however. Needs must as they say =3

- Air: They all fly, are mostly ethereal except one, and are all exceptional archers. One of my favorite path to start with. Flying warlock, lesser air summons that doesn't attrite (mid row archer), unparalled ranged power.

- Fire: They are mostly ethereal, mostly melee, mostly floats (next best thing to flying). The elementals make excellent front line with a flying air warlock army since they can move through anything except moutains at 1 mp (even in winter!). Set trade to Rubies to keep up your supplies of fire elementals, it's hard to keep up a decent frontline with this fast moving army, but well worth it for the expansion potential. Avoid big battles with this as you will need land crawling melee to stiffen up your front line to give your Air archers time to work their magic.

- Always use your trade to buy gems, without exception. At 2 gold per gem, the power ratio you get from each gem is vastly superior to 2 gold.

- I skipped the elemental royalties anaylsis (L3 warlock summon, cost 160 gems + 150 gems warlock upgrade), as usually you're on the winning path if you're at the point of considering them. I'll leave them for you to find out what they do =).

- Keep in mind that for lesser summoning, with the exception of air path, all other path summons will attrite quickly on offense due to "do not heal". Front line greater summons however all heal (Earth in particular), so weight your options carefully: Instant ammunition or long term staying power.

- For greater summoning, you always have the chance to summon the champion of said path, who are *usually* much weaker in pure combat power then the other 2 possibilities, trading for leader and an extra summoner. Keep this in mind for those situation where you need to call up meat / archers (fort is about to be attacked).

- From my observations, I would guess that the chance to summon a specific unit is split close to evenly with all other types.

- Each summon category have different mix of utility. Eg. Greater earth has 66% tank / 33% commander. Greater water has 33% glass cannon melee / 33% spell blasters / 33% amphib leader ...etc.

- In general, for greater summons, fire and water is a mixed bag with some weaker options, earth consistently produce good tanks while air consistently produce good to wtfbbq archers.

- In general they are an strictly average class. I think they need ways to influence gem type income through conversion or something more then trade. At the very least you need to be able to pick your starting warlock path and gem type, rather then the current crapshoot.

Breakdown of possible summons (quantity range are not correct but should be in the close)
Lesser water (20 sapphires) - all around average chaff, viking meat:
1 water elemental - Amphib, resilient, with a powerful AoE 5 "instant kill" drowning melee attack. Nice unit. It's a shame elementals do not heal.
3-6 lesser elemental - Amphib, average, with a double attack. Non-healing fodder.

Greater water (50 sapphires) - Glass cannon defenders / archers / viking leader :
6-8 Winter wolves - Not amphib (the exception), relatively fragile... and melee. What they have is a devastating AoE ice breath attack. This odd combination makes them awesome for 1 thing: Defense (where they get first strike). 3-4 added to a defensive position will add a big punch to your lines. On offense they die far too easily, I'd only even think about it if I have a full front melee rank to spread the hits. They are very unlikely to survive any extended engagement or larger battles.
2-5 Undines - Amphib, fragile, mid row L1 spellcasters. Excellent spell blasters in great quantities.
1 wave champion - Amphib, tough knight melee, mid row L1 caster, commander. They can lead can cast lesser summon of their own path. Wave champion makes excellent viking leader.

Lesser Earth (20 emeralds) - Great fort defenders, decent offensive chaff:
1 earth elemental - Armored, tough, hits hard with AoE stun. Monstrous when defending fortified locations.
3-6 lesser elemental - Armored, average durability, with a weak 3 AoE stun attack. These guys make great defenders on fortified location which cuts down their attrition by a lot.

Greater Earth (50 emeralds) - Finally, tank that heals:
1-3 Earth drake - Armored, resilient, weak attack. They are designed to tank, and only tank. Works nicely with archers, like air summons. Feel free to cry if you get a single earth drake, definitely the worst summon value by far out of everything. dwarfs of equivalent gem value laugh at your drakes.
1 Sand worm - Giant unarmored meat, single target swallow attack. Huge number of hitpoints, and they do heal! They only attack 1 unit at a time however. Keep these things alive and try not to let them tank solo, they're tough, but unarmored and heals slowly.
1 Earth champion - Tough knight melee, mid row L1 caster, commander. They can lead and cast lesser summon of their own path.

Lesser air (20 diamonds) - Flying archers:
1 Air elemental - Fly, ethereal. Single ranged (melee capable) target lightning attack with a AoE stun melee. Less firepower then the total firepower of a single summon of lesser air elementals, but they can melee far better. I'd recommend giving all these to an air champion for a quick flying raid force once you get him.
3-6 lesser elemental - Fly, ethereal, very fragile. Single ranged (melee capable) target lightning attack. Nice archers!

Greater air (50 diamonds) - More flying archers / flying commander:
2-5 thunderbird - Fly, fragile. Absolutely wtfbbq devastating archers, packing insane dual AoE lighting stun and AoE wind stun ranged attacks. They lose these attacks in melee however. Never let these birds melee (their melee is weak)! They are your best archers by far. I was able to mow through baron difficulty armies with these babies with maniacal glee (of course, I had air warlock start and a map with most mines producing air gem...)
2-5 slyphs - Fly, ethereal, fragile, mid row L1 spellcasters. The air equivalent of undine, as archers though thunderbirds are far superior. They're decent spell blasters nonethless.
1 Air champion - Fly, Tough knight melee, lightning aura, mid row L1 caster, commander. They can lead and cast lesser summon of their own path. Give this flying commander all your greater air elementals and form a nice flying raid force.

Lesser fire (20 rubies) - all around average chaff, mobile and suitable for offense:
1 fire elemental - float, ethereal, fire aura. Single melee target. Ideal as frontline for air warlock army. They'll attrite nonethless but last surprisingly long doing good damage with its fire aura.
3-6 lesser elemental - float, ethereal, fragile. Single melee target. Probably the weakest elemental summon. Still they're ethereal and floats, so they work well with an air warlock army serving as front line meat wall.

Greater fire (50 rubies) - Fire aura meat / archers / commander:
3-6 salamander - Unarmored, fire aura. They have 20+ hp IIRC but no armor, but they do heal. Their single melee is weak but they are designed as meat wall that does damage through aura. They are basically earth drake that traded resilience for retaliatory damage.
1 Phoenix - flying, fire immune, immortal, fiery explosion on death (8). Non-leader commander. Decent immortal scouts that double as reusable V-8 rockets. Sounds very useful! (thanks jsv for the info) Edit: I finally got it, its awesome! It does more damage then stated on death as the burn damage adds another 2-5.
1 flame spirit - float, ethereal, fire aura, mid row L2 spellcasters. The fire equivalent of undine/slyphs. They're good spell blasters and may score L2 fire spells. Compared to slyphs and undine that comes in 2-5s they are generally poorer value, Also you don't always get ones with good spells (Incinerate, fireward, meteor all population L2 pyromancy). It's nice *when* you get a good AoE spells though, Also they auto burn forest.
1 Fire champion - Tough knight melee, AoE firebrand attack, mid row L1 caster, commander. they can lead and cast lesser summon of their own path.

Edited by: finalgenesis

The Earth Champion is great for exploration. He's fast (4 AP) and strong enough to take weekly defended locations singe-handedly.

Greater fire can give you also
1 Phoenix - flying, fire immune, immortal, fiery explosion on death (8). Non-leader commander. They're decent immortal scouts (no acute senses, alas), but are rather expensive.

Excellent post. Wish I had read it before I posted in the general discussion area. Finished my first game there and can now say that

finalgenesis wrote: Thus warlock have the largest scattered + rare resource out of all the class, making them very very luck dependent. In fact, think of them as having 4 different types of very very rare resource each used for something different and you've gotten a grasp of their problem.

you are spot-on. I understand better now.
I think I had poor luck so far.
I started as a water mage and found mostly earth and then fire gems. My summons was also of always the opposite sort (hoping for meat shield, got glass cannon or scouty commander). Played whole game and never got more than 1 air gem income (only one coal mine with air on the map). Never got any trade (only 1 town on map until late game!). Still managed to beat the AI because ... it's kinda stupid.

A couple of random comments:
- I think Warlock is one of the races that might do better on a bigger map, hoping for more variety in the right kinds of gems.
- Shouldn't those winter wolves at least have the ability to move without penalty in ... winter? You'd have thought.

Great post. Thanks much.

onomastikon wrote:
- I think Warlock is one of the races that might do better on a bigger map, hoping for more variety in the right kinds of gems.

I had no problems with the gem income playing on a large map vs 1 opponent.

Thanks for the save jsv, edited into OP =3

Glad you found it helpful Ono. I find that when I play Warlock I have a hard time keeping the the front lines filled, so I know exactly what you mean.

I'm really thinking that Warlock needs a bonus to gem conversion. Maybe a L2 mage can convert 1 gem of any element into their choosen one at 1 ap per gem or give them a 2 trade at capital on top of the option to pick your starting element. It's not cool to have your flexibility dictated by what gem types are around you and what your random starting element is X.X

Edited by: finalgenesis

Flame Spirits never come in batches of more than one, because they are fairly tough buggers and can have pretty good spells. They are murder on any non-fire immune units that try to attack them due to the high strength heat aura and any army with one of them autoburns forests.

Thanks for the info Edi, I've never actually walked them into forest so never found out about the autoburn.

Also noticed a large mistake: Air and water slyph/undines only pack L1 spells (brain fart), that's why they come in batches of 2-5, whereas flame spirit have L2 so they come in solo.

Flame spirit pack 14 HP ethereal with aura (5) vs 30 HP ethereal aura (3) fire elemental, it's really a last resort since enemies shouldn't reach your midrow caster and ranged. A nice bonus if it comes down to that =3

Edited by: finalgenesis

jsv wrote:

onomastikon wrote:
- I think Warlock is one of the races that might do better on a bigger map, hoping for more variety in the right kinds of gems.

I had no problems with the gem income playing on a large map vs 1 opponent.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean! (So far I have only played on small maps.)

This would be good to add to the wiki
Coeiii.wikia.com

I haven't played enough to be sure, but I don't think the warlock stacks up too badly against the hoburgs in terms of gem power. I might have been unlucky, but I tried hoburg lesser summons a few times and they died far too quickly. The greater summons are very good but nearly as expensive as elemental royalty.

On a large map, if you get lots of one type of gem early, then a fairly early elemental royalty summoning isn't out of the question. I'm saying this because my earth-warlock start on a large map actually found so many water gems that I was able to upgrade the apprentice and summon royalty well before upgrading the earth warlock. I only saw the earth and water royalty, but the earth one in particular is just outstanding.

Warlocks also have in my opinion above-average combat magic. This is a great combo with their many spellcasting summons. That level 3 upgrade to get royalty is by no means wasted gems.

Finally, the fire warlock gets fire immunity - which means if he has an army of fire summons he can burn forests without worrying about torching himself. The fire warlock has the burn forest ability, like a pyromancer.
Level 3 warlocks get further abilities. I don't remember all of these though so if someone else can fill them in ,that'd be much appreciated:
If I remember rightly, the air warlock gets an air shield. That seems quite useless to me as he's a back-rank unit who shouldn't be a target. Does air shield protect against siege weapons?
The earth warlock doesn't get a special power, but he has more hp than the others and gets armour. Unlike most human spellcasters, at level 3 he's too tough for a single assassin or most AOE spells to have much chance of killing.

Hoburg constructs like spiders and dragonflies are pretty decent, but lesser frontline things like clockwork horrors are not very robust. And all constructs share a great weakness of nearly non-existent MR (dragons have only 6 and everything else even less than that). Spells like pig curse are devastating against construct armies.

Earth summons are outstanding, I agree... but early game can be tough for a warlock

OK, I've been playing warlock for a little while vs. baron difficulty opponents and frankly, he seems pretty underpowered. So far all the classes I've played receive some sort of bonus in the early game to remain competitive but all the warlock gets an inherent +2 gem income (well, inherent as long as you control your magic cave) and... that's it? Just as a comparison
baron
+ can raise free (immobile) levies
+ yearly free troops
+ extra 25% gold and iron income
+ discounted basic troop offers (quite a deep discount if you consider he gets +25% gold)
- baron himself is a poor combatant
- only access to magic is through wizard hires

warlock
+ 2 gem income from home citadel (nice because you don't have to protect both the citadel plus a coal mine/village/etc like other classes do)
+ basic summons seem pretty good and don't have a chance of turning on you (but you can't take a risk by spending "sparingly", either)
...
- special resource is divided into four pools
- upgrading your warlocks cuts them off from some of those resources, and requires a lot of shuttling troops around since your apprentices will not necessarily be hanging out with your L2 and L3 warlocks
- no free troops of any kind
- no % resource bonus
- low level summons don't heal
- having no free troops or bonus gold/iron means you must rely heavily on your warlock in combat... but this being CoE3, spellcraft is unreliable, both the starting pool of spells and the casting of them

It just seems like he has heaps of disadvantages with very few advantages to offset them. Giving him a few gold income from a settlement seems like a fair place to start, and possibly some trade points so he can acquire the gems he needs!

Edited by: Arbit

In my plays through with Warlock, I have to agree that he is a slow starter. That tends to mean many games lost early. On the other hand, when he gets going, he can be very powerful, with armies that many races cannot go near beating.

Advantages of the warlock:

• very strong and cheap minor summons (earth stuns + water ... paralyzes? something like that) that are strong blockers for the price and good on the offensive
• air summons are ranged and very strong ranged they are
• prolly the best rusher in the game because of the summons IF he gets some early water or earth income
• iron surplus allows for lots of heavy infantry + siege weapons -> safe citadels and easy defense in general
• can focus most gold on crossbows
• has access to rather cheap immortals (phoenix) that help with map-control a lot and are a pain for some enemy classes
• Warlocks are great against big armies because they often get an "all enemies" lvl 3 spell; they also may get paralyzation or stun which is great
• easy access to "burn forest"
• the earth major worm summoning (I forgot its name) is VERY strong for its price
• great in a team with a good starter and map controller (I found Barbarian and Warlock to be a very strong team) that leaves the mines to the Warlock
• big army clash usually means the warlock wins

Disadvantages:

• tough start
• he's not too good at map control
• some major summons ain't worth the price (winter wolves, the campions if you don't need another commander)
• very dependent on mines
• oh my god! there's an assassin
• fire/air start is a bit slower (but not generally weaker)
• some summons "never heal" (but they're cheap and replaced easily)

I think Warlock is the second strongest class in the game right now. First the Baron, then a huge gap, then Warlock.

@Arbit: Summons are like free troops. The Baron gets 2.5 gold and 2.5 iron of an iron mine. The Warlock gets 2 gold and 2 iron and 1-4 gems. The gems are like a gift. Not to mention 2 gems are a lot more worthy than half a gold and half an iron.

That's a bit of a rosy analysis, IMO. His biggest disadvantage that you didn't mention is his special resource is split into four pools. This really hampers his ability to tech and to summon. Scraping together the 50 gems of the same type for a greater summoning takes comparatively longer than, say 50 sacrifices. I felt like I had to control half the map before I could get together a ruby income of 15 or so, whereas getting 15 sacrifices is pretty attainable early in the game if you grab a city and some assorted villages. And say the rndm gods have decided you should have a high sapphire income, so naturally you pour your resources into a water warlock, right? But it can be a friggin disaster if you lose him and don't have another apprentice ready to take his place, because now you can't make use of most of your special resources except for minor summons.

The comparison between a baron's and a warlock's iron mine doesn't take the whole picture into account. True, the baron is only getting +0.5 gold and +0.5 iron out of that mine versus 1-4 gems, but he's also getting extra gold out of all the various cities and towns and such, and his gold also goes farther given he gets discounted troop offers. I probably should have compared him to another spellcaster/summoner like the cultist/necro/etc, though.

I finished up a warlock game where a great water warlock with a water queen, a fire warlock, 2 or 3 greater summonings worth of fire stuff, about a rank of crossbows, and about two ranks of various lesser summons and heavy infantry all died assaulting a mountain stronghold with about 10 dai bakemono and 90 bow/spear/sword bakemono. I even tried save scumming my way out of defeat and lost 3 or 4 times! Maybe I just got lots of crappy summons and spells that game, but.... jeez. I would not put the warlock at #2.

Well I didn't list it as a disadvantage, because I don't think it is a disadvantage. I should have posted earlier that this just reflects my opinion. It's not an analysis, it's more like an impression I got from MP and SP games.
The thing is: from my point of view you don't need the big summons. Go with the minors. The only majors I ever summon in MP or SP are earth (try for the purple worm) and fire (hope for a phoenix). Why would you wait for major, if the minors are so strong?
The majors may still useful, but you just don't need them badly like the other classes. They seem more specialized not plain better.
You're stronger without them, I think. It's very hard to stop a warlock who attacks with 2-3 lines of crossbows + cloud/air elementals and 1 line of water/earth elementals+lesser earths / waters supported by some spearman. That may be the strongest early game killer stack (OK this might already be considered mid-game but you get those units out really fast).

And you'll be summoning continually while attacking, so you'll never run out of chaff. The fact that the elementals stun/paralyze counters many strong early game units (trolls are soooo dead for example, if you find them). The elementals are even pierce resistant!

I have to play some more MP to see, if he's really that strong. You're very welcome to pm me for a game, if you want to . Looking at that stack you described: that definitely needs way more crossbows to get going.

It sounds like you may be coming from a multiplayer perspective and I'm coming from a vs AI perspective. I could see how with the 2 gem income and good lesser summons a warlock could make an effective rusher against humans, but against an AI with a substantial resource bonus it probably would not be sufficient. Exploiting late game summons is probably more important vs the AI because it will wear down early game summons through attrition, again due to resource bonuses.

I'd love to play this game multiplayer but unfortunately it's pretty unlikely I could given time constraints.

Try playing Warlock as a Team member.
The Warlock is a late starter, and not a "mass coverage" nation like some of the others. Even when a Warlock gets up in power he will probably have a few really big armies. So best to team with someone that (A) does not need mines much or at least will not post guards there so that you are allowed to have them. And (B) can keep a lot of territory well patrolled. Barbarian or Troll King comes to mind. Also High Cultist, Necromancer, Priest King. Allow your ally to protect you while you build up. And early on just snag some of the prime mines he clears (the ones with the most gems) and leave him some of the lesser ones since low gems wont matter to him.

Also do not pass on the abilities of your Warlock. If its Earth then you have mountain movement. Fill his army later with other earth units and you can create a hit-n-run attacker that the enemy cant easily follow thru the mountains. Not to mention always having a 1-shield benefit if you are attacked in the mountains. If your Warlock is air then you get flight. If all your units are air units you can move fast. If your Warlock is water then you get amphibian. Create a small army of water elementals and move around the coastline and jump in/out of lakes. Very irritatng to try and catch.