Crown of Retribution: Does anyone even use this perk?

[DrWily]

Is it worth having in any build whatsoever, and is it affected by spellpower?

[Selvera]

I've never used it, but by reading the text for it it sounds like it could be useful if you have a friend who plays a tank and pulls all the agro, or if you really like running around with fighter hirelings and spamming their intimidate ability.

I do not know if it's effect by spellpower, but even if it is, the damage is by far the weakest part of the ability. The useful part is having enemies hitting the tank to lower their fortification and makes them vulnerable to light spells.

[DrWily]

Yeah, I'm aware that the damage is the weakest part of the ability. The only thing that could boost it's damage is making enemies vulnerable to light damage, but in epic content (especially in EE and Legend content) you're gonna be taking 300-500 damage per hit, and for what? A chance of slightly debuffing an enemy, and when the Shield is on your allied tank, you also get to *drumroll please* reflect a grand total of 1% of the damage that they just took, sometimes even less than 1%.

Now I can't exactly say that from the perspective of someone who actually uses this in Epics, since I've never run a Favored Soul in Epics, but I assume that is what someone who is in that perspective would say. I mean, it must be kinda good if you use it on a Paladin (who already gets a light damage guard in Sacred Defender) or on a melee Warlock, but otherwise it's basically a waste of 2AP. Hell, maybe even in those situations it's a waste of 2AP, since there are so few methods of dealing Light damage and so many other methods of destroying Fortification.

I think the way Crown is right now is the way it was back before U19 and the Enhancement overhaul, as in it was just ported over. That may explain it's sort-of uselessness in high level content. IMO buffing it in almost any way, even simply adding it the option to scale the damage with spellpower, would be a significant improvement over what it is as it stands.

[Zachski]

This tree is just a mess to begin with. It's sorta set up as the caster tree, but it's got abilities that are only useful in melee range... this is probably from back when it was FVS's only prestige enhancement, so it had to cater to both playstyles.

[janave]

This perk might be more useful for a friendly melee than to you, since the AoV tree is outdated by now and it was designed to work best when taking damage. If you play EEs, there is "almost nothing"* you can do at-level to play this pre as intended without risking to be 1-2shotted by champions (especially using 2-3 hit attacks).

*played in heavy armor, various tower shields from raids, 150ish prr, over 1000 prebuff hps. Buffing avoidance is clearly counter purpose of the abilities, since then you dont benefit from the procs.


FvS plays best in EA, but most of its core perks are useless unless you can be in sentinel ED. Maybe if you only spam Ruin and Greater ruin, it works. (there are much better classes for that tho, Wizard, Warlock..)

Many of us waiting a pass for FvS, but since it was topping the chart when they conducted the balance survey, its likely not priority. (Would love to be corrected on this of course)