Adramelech Warlock - please help with spell balance

[DaveW]

I have been working on a female warlock spell book lately, and don't seem to ever be satisfied with it. My trouble seems to be based on the balance of spell types that I end up selecting. For example, she seems to work best with curses, burns, and demon creatures, but I can't find the right numbers of each sort of spell to make me happy, and to get what I feel is proper support (spawnpoints, etc.) for the spells that I choose.

The "size" of the Demons that I have been selecting has varied, and I can't put my finger on exactly which ones I want. For example, the are a few ways to get Demons +1 melee, so more demons attacking would result in more dice. Therefore, I started to think that Firebrand Imps and Wildfire Demons were the way to go... until I realized that few of these would ever benefit (or benefit much) from the Demon healing ability on causing damage. (That is, I figure one or two hits and they are dead.) Also, many small Demons are vulnerable to zone attacks and certain anti-swarm spells that seem to be typical in some books.

If I instead go with larger Demons for durability, the ability to break through defenses to get to annoying conjurations, and useful healing on damage, then I start to have too few to really benefit from the various Demon +1 melee spells. I've also looked at more moderate sized Demons (Infernian Scourgers and Blood Demons, for example) thinking that they would be the best of both worlds, but I still am not satisfied with how the book comes together.

Another trouble that I am having is deciding between Demons with flame immunity and Fire attack bars, or ones that are Flame -2. My thinking is that Flame attacks are nice (since if the target has a revealed curse, you get the Flame +1 trait on the target; and since Flame attacks are especially good against certain Mages), but I fear situations where having only a few methods of producing non-Flame attacks can hurt (using Creatures to take out Battle Forges or Walls of Earth, in particular).

Three questions for folks who have played the female warlock....

1) How many spellbook points do you usually use for each of these: Burn generation purposes (including fire attack spells), Demon creatures, and Curses in your Adramelech books? I guess that I would count Sersyrix as general support since it can do different things for you.

2) When selecting your Demon creatures for the female warlock, do you go larger or smaller (and roughly how many large / medium / small ones are there)?

3) Do you prefer to use Demons with Flame attacks (and Flame immunity), or those that do not have Flame attacks (Flame -2, but piercing or vampiric)?

My guess is that you can do this in various ways. I'm looking to make something fairly utilitarian but still rather competitive.

Thanks in advance for your insight!

[sdougla2]

I'm interested in people's experience with this as well. I've only played the Adramelech Warlock twice so far, and both times were with a Pentagram build that utilized cheap imps. I wasn't satisfied with that strategy because those creatures are far too vulnerable to being killed off. I've been working on a spellbook for her that relies on bigger demons (mostly Dark Pact Slayers), but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

In terms of Wildfire Imps and Firebrand Imps, I think Firebrand Imps are much better for the Adramelech Warlock. The things that you want to destroy that have fire resistance or immunity, Wildfire Imps won't kill anyway.

[Knabbmaster]

One combo for the adremelec warlock is first put 4-5 burn conditions (which is usually not a problem) ,adremelecs touch and possibly ghoul rot on opponent mage you also need 1-2 creatures in play. Each upkeep phase they will suffer a lot off direct damage they will try too stop you by playing dispel or geyser but both of those are quick spells which means they can be stopped by jinx. Therefor you will use all off your actions too play jinx also there will be enchantment transfusions and jinx on all off your creatures if they can't deal with this they will soon be dead.

[DaveW]

@Knabb: I've been able to get around six burns on the enemy mage with Adramelech's Touch on it in the past with little difficulty. My trouble comes in getting them to stick. The best way for the opposing mage to do this is through a Geyser spell. For four mana and a quick action, all of the burns go away. Renewing Rain is more costly, but will cover multiple objects, and provide some healing as well. There are plenty of other ways to remove burn conditions as well (the Wand, Spring, and Priestess ability come to mind for example). Therefore, burns can not be the only focus... I think it has to be all things in moderation.

I hadn't thought of Enchantment Transfusion and Jinx. Thanks for that thought.

[Arlemus]

I'm also working on an A. Warlock build.  For whatever it's worth, so far I've played her ~10 times and seen her played ~5 times additionally.

Addressing your questions:

1).  To me this is the most difficult question, I'm still figuring this out as well.  Right now I generally have 1 copy of most high cost situational curses (deathlink, enfeeble, arcane corruption, etc), and multiples of low cost curses (agony, marked for death, rust, adramelech's touch, etc). 

In terms of fire attack spells I have 1 Firestorm, 2 Fireball, 1 Devil's trident, and 2 flameblast.  Again, still working on the amounts.

2).  Right now, I have a relatively even amount of low/medium/high cost demons.  Specifically, 3 Firebrand Imps, 3 Wildfire Imps, 4 Infernian Scourgers, 2 Flaming Hellions, 1 Blood Demon, Cereberus, Adramalech, and Sersiryx.

Similar to Dougla and yourself, I initially tried to go heavier on imps, but after a couple games of them getting slaughtered I had to rethink.  With her ability card + her helm, the imps can do more damage than most lvl 1's, but like most lvl 1's they have no staying power.

Right now I guess my "go-to" creature is the infernian scourger.  They're not my favorite thematically, but they have a decent body, do decent damage, and they trigger pentagram easily with their counterstrike.  Triggering pentagram easily is important because it lets you transition into Flaming Hellions, which is her best creature, IMO.

3).  I definitely prefer demons with flame attacks; they trigger her ability card.  However, I think it's important to include both types because they function differently.  I think it would be a mistake to include one group and not the other.

[sdougla2]

I've been leaning towards running 6 Flameblasts and 1 Ring of Fire for attack spells. Flameblast is more spellbook efficient than Fireball or Devil's Trident, and with attack boosts (Fireshaper Ring, Marked for Death, and Smoldering Curses), it's more mana efficient as well. It doesn't have as much range, but I've had good results focusing more on level 1 attack spells than on level 2 spells.

I'm still working a lot on the demon and curse distributions.