[quote]It really doesn’t. Most people don’t run Lunafactions. In GMs I run Phoenix Protocol, as does almost every other Wellock I run into. In lower level content where enemies are easy to kill, I run Sunbracers. Well functions completely fine on its own, and using Lunafactions for example, will not make a big difference on DPS, whereas something like Sunbracers will greatly increase ad clear.[/quote] Most people aren't using well effectively then. Just because tons of people don't run it doesn't mean that their tactics are the most efficient. People use machine guns in DPS too. Doesn't matter, rockets or swords are better. However, you are wrong about Lunafactions having a DPS effect. In teams that know how damage rotations work, that's the difference between hitting all of your rockets and having 2+ left in the canister because you can't reload fast enough to get the last ones out. Even if it's just one rocket per guardian, in a raid team (assuming one running Tractor), and each rocket only does 100k (that's low balling it), then that's 500k of DPS wiped off the board. That's equivalent of a thundercrash with chest piece. Depending on the boss, that could easily double to a mil damage left on the table. So yes, if you want to optimize properly, Lunafaction boots is a must. You're simply not firing as many bullets without it, and less bullets means less damage, especially on a rocket meta where You're only firing a handful of them.

[quote][quote]1. Weaken grenades are only 15% as is divinity. The only 30% debuffs in the game are tractor and tether. Only hunter can do 30% debuff without a weapon, which is exactly what I said. This conversation is about class utility and versatility, not how replaceable they are with weapons.[/quote] But regardless, the class utility of Tether is diminished if it can be replaced by a simple weapon. Well is virtually irreplaceable, and therefore its value increases. I also never said Div or Weaken grenades granted the same amount of debuff as Tether. However, their existence provides as an alternative to Tether. Your average Tether Hunter will deal less damage than if they were, for example, a Celestial Gunslinger. During a DPS phase, what do you think will deal more damage: A Hunter applying a 30% debuff but doing subpar damage as an individual, or a Hunter doing fast and efficient burst DPS while their teammate applies a 15% debuff? Tether Hunter may be good, but it’s replaceable. Well is not. On top of that, Well does not need an exotic like Celestial Knighthawk to function efficiently. You just place it, and you can have the DPS exotic of your choice equipped. For example, you could have a Solar Warlock pop a Well, which grants near invulnerability AND a 25% buff to all outgoing damage, and then they could wear something like Verity’s Brow and pump out amazing burst DPS. Hunters in the earlier scenario have to choose, Debuff/Buff or DPS? Warlocks can have both, without needing to choose. Hell, they could have all three: Tractor, Well, and Verity’s. Now they’ve just rendered any Void Hunters useless, while still being on par with a Celestial Hunter, whose build revolves around DPS. [quote]2. We do not "need" to shift away from anything. If people don't want to play the de facto healing class, there are two other classes to choose from, each with their own thing. Having a weak support super is not out friend in this case, especially since warlocks do not stack up in terms of ability versatility or boss DPS.[/quote] But Well completely outclasses the rest of Warlock. It’s like a subclass in and of itself. Nova Bomb is bad for DPS, Chaos reach as well. Winter’s Wrath is just not a good super for PvE, and Needlestorm is decent, but there’s no damage buffing exotic. Nothing else can really hang with Well. Say there’s 3 people about to go into a GM, a Titan, a Warlock, and a Hunter. Do you really think they’d let the Warlock use anything other than Well? The general rule of thumb is to have at least 1 Well, no matter the activity. During Day 1 Crota’s End, most people just ran all Wells as their team. Well does too much, and every other subclass lingers in its shadow. [quote]3. Hunters have the "toolbox" place where they have tons of abilities that do various things. Titans currently have boss DPS and the ability to tank things with the banner build. You take away healing/buff from warlocks and they have nothing. Each class needs "something" to excel at, otherwise players are just going to switch to the other classes. With buff/healing gone, expect the support-oriented players to swap to bubble titan so they can keep helping their fire team.[/quote] Which is why, like I said, Warlock needs to go back to being the space magic ability spam character. Devourlock, Crown of Tempests, that sort of stuff. And we’ve seen a little bit of a revival of that with Strand Warlock and being the Threading master. Warlock isn’t the “support class” right now, it’s the “Well class.” If it truly is supposed to be the support class, then we need to see it do some supporting in other subclasses than Solar. [quote]This wouldn't be the biggest deal, except less than 30% of players main warlock. It is, statistically, the least played class in D2. They may get some boost as players test out the new super, but over time, the numbers will diminish as they have been for years. Bungie is satisfied with gutting the class (they gave everybody our healing nades, for instance), but have been shy about adding something to replace the once-uniwue properties of the class, leaving warlocks with nothing else to do except Well. Take that away too, and the best course of action is to simply switch to another class entirely.[/quote] It’s literally because of Well. Some people don’t like to play Well, some people aren’t needed to be a Well during a DPS phase. And Well is the only reason people play Warlock in PvE. If Bungie were to make every Warlock subclass all just as viable as the next, then Warlock would be used more. But as it stands, in PvE it’s just Hunter, Titan, or Well. [quote]4. All those instances can be replaced with bubble titan. In fact, for planets, the strat is laying two bubbles, one between left and middle plate, and one between right and middle plate, and you just run through the bubble on your way to the next plate. Bubble buff lasts longer than the plates do.[/quote] But Bubble requires you to step out of it to do any damage and therefore lose the overshield bonus. And if you say, get hurt and you need to heal, you don’t heal the moment you step inside Bubble like you do with Well. You just get an overshield. You have to wait for your recovery to kick in. It’s basically if Well lost it’s healing and just had it’s damage. Bubble requires you to choose, survivability or DPS. Well does not. Well you can just gain infinite healing and damage, and you don’t need to step outside of its radius. With Bubble, you gain survivability and damage, but you can’t have both at the same time.[/quote] 1. Tractor Cannon can't pair with star eater scales to do crap tons of damage. In fact, Tractor does no damage at all, which means it's not a 1:1 comparison. There is nothing in the game that does the damage of a tether and also debuffs by 30%. Additionally, no other class can achieve 30% debuff without wasting a weapon slot, and it's the most important weapon slot for DPS. Hunters can have a 30% debuff attached to a powerful super and still have a DPS loadout. That's unique and not replicated by tractor cannon. 2. Well does outclass the rest of warlock in boss DPS scenarios. That's not because it's "so much more powerful", it's because the rest of the warlock kit sucks for boss DPS. The closest is Strand, but it's still outclassed by several damage supers from other classes (t crash and burning maul with their respective exotics, and then any hunter DPS super paired with star eaters). Through poor analysis and feedback from under educated influencers, the "fix" is to make well suck as much as the rest of the warlock kit. In reality, the superior option would've been to give warlocks an exotic or new super that was capable of holding up in a DPS environment like the other two classes, which would encourage more use outside of well. Tl;Dr - Well "outclasses" warlock kit because the rest of the warlock kit isn't very good or unique. 3. We do not need another add clear class. Add clear is an unnecessary thing to build for and can actually be replaced with guns like trinity ghoul or sunshot. When warlocks were space magic spam, it was in a meta where bosses weren't as tanky as they are now. For example, in Leviathan, you could take out Calus in a single damage phase with an anarchy and a special ammo sniper rifle. It was fine to run stormcaller, because you didn't need it. This game is not like that anymore. We need modern utility for modern D2 game play, which is impressively tanky bosses (look at the last 4 dungeons as an example). Space magic isn't a niche or a specialty. It's a theme. And there are multiple builds that already play into that theme from all 3 classes. This is a space magic game. What warlocks needs is a specialty, something unique to drive player engagement. Titans and Hunters have this, and everyone's fine with it, but for some reason, when people say warlock needs one, people want to become poetic about it instead of pragmatic. 4. Making warlock subclasses "just as viable as the next" is the right solution I agree. However, the path is where we differ. I want the other subclasses to be raised up and given more utility. You want Well to be knocked down to be in line with the rest of the class. I think you're wrong here because the rest of the warlock kit, as I have stated and shown multiple times, is not great compared to the other two classes. Nerfing warlock isn't going to make people leave star eater scales or thundercrash to come back to Nova bomb. You can go so far as to remove Well from the game, but Nova bomb still sucks. You gotta give people a reason to switch and "warlocks best super is getting nerfed" isn't it. The path is upwards, not downwards. Bringing up the average. 5. When you walk out of a bubble, you keep the overshield if the titan is equipped properly. When you strafe in and back out, which takes less than 1 second, your overshield refreshes. No boss in D2 short of master content can kill you fast enough for overshield to not be enough. In master content, if you're gonna die out of a bubble, you were gonna die in the well anyway. Using the left stick and lose a couple seconds of DPS is not "choosing between survivability and DPS" and suggesting that it is a binary situation is overstating how difficult bubble is to use. Remember, people have been using bubbles since D1. Clearly, the player base will adapt to it. They did before without issue. Did you think no one finished a hard mode VoG on D1 cuz Well didn't exist?