Early Look - Favored Soul Improvements

[Severlin]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

[Maelphistez]

Good base changes. Makes Warpriest FVSs actually feasible.

[Peter_Stauffenberg]

Looks interesting being able to use charisma or wisdom instead of strength to boost damage and hit.

Is this something we can expect to see for clerics and maybe even Paladins too, i. e. all classes with a deity favored weapon? That would making a charisma based melee Paladin a good choice. You get great saves and still have the dps you would get from a strength based Paladin. The downside is that it only works for your favored weapon.

What about the Divine might Enhancement that you can get in warpriest. Will it bump the charisma or wisdom stat instead of strength if you fight with your favored weapon? Otherwise Divine might will be useless to take.

[Stoner81]

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.

[HuneyMunster]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.

I would think wisdom may be a better choice for the extra will saves if you can still obtain the umd for various scrolls and wands you would want to use. FvS don't have good fire spell for dragonic and the festive wis agu can replace the +2 bonus cha from Angelic presence. Also Divine Crusader's Celestial Bombardment and Stand and Be Judged uses wisdom and not charisma. Main benefit would be twisting Energy Burst so maybe people will also go charisma.

I also thought the same on monks having to wait for the new universal dagger tree for wisdom for hit and damage. Though, would not surprise me it would require daggers that would un-center a monk.

[Propane]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage

Favored Weapon only....

[Renvar]

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless),

FvS and Cleric tree changes are still pending. I am hoping they will sync these up.

[Renvar]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.


Also, make a 10 FvS, 10 Monk Drow Vulkoor Short Sword Ninja spy. It can have wis to damage on the SS.

[YUTANG75]

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.
Sev~

Seems a bit high. A free +200hp for pure favoured souls by level 20? Is hp a problem for them or something, I've never played one.

[slarden]

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.


There is KTA to even that out for damage, but the loss of tactics is too much. A cleric can get knockdown immunity, immunity to stuns and a much better tactics DC with a strength cleric. No reason to play a fvs melee. Ranged has some possibilities...

Fvs casters on the other hand....esp with splashes...should be fun...


Seems a bit high. A free +200hp for pure favoured souls by level 20? Is hp a problem for them or something, I've never played one. I would rather get 140 and splash 6 pal on my caster for high saves and stacking 20% hp. Seems like a nice reaper build with all the good spells minus implosion. No different than warlock or other classes with hp bonuses.

We probably see a lot running around in US also at epic levels for more stacking. Chain Lightning SLA though... hard to pass up.

[Thar]

How about a 3rd enhancement tree is that in the works?

changes seem good for melee fvs and some boost somewhat to casters that you don't have to choose between chr/wis for spells vs spell points. Not sure the casting boost is enough without some sla love.

[MonadRebelion]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

The changes look good to me. At this point, I'm not sure why you'd want to resist 2 level splashes of FvS for the Chr/Wis to hit/dam. Given the current state of the game, I can't think of a build that will go over the top from that splash. If someone can think of one I'd be interested to hear about it.

[Rinveron]

The changes look good to me. At this point, I'm not sure why you'd want to resist 2 level splashes of FvS for the Chr/Wis to hit/dam. Given the current state of the game, I can't think of a build that will go over the top from that splash. If someone can think of one I'd be interested to hear about it.

At least half of your toon levels have to be Fav Soul for the char/wis for hit/dam so that build wont work. I don't see why they don't give it to cleric as well (or just wisdom for cleric since char wont effect spells for them)

[MonadRebelion]

At least half of your toon levels have to be Fav Soul for the char/wis for hit/dam so that build wont work. I don't see why they don't give it to cleric as well (or just wisdom for cleric since char wont effect spells for them)

To clarify, I don't see why there should be resistance to getting rid of the half-level-FvS requirement. It doesn't seem to me that any builds will go over the top by just taking two levels of FvS so they can get chr/wis to hit/dam if the half-level requirement were lifted.

[Renvar]

AI don't see why they don't give it to cleric as well (or just wisdom for cleric since char wont effect spells for them)

Because FvS and Cleric share the warpriest tree and Clerics get the war/strength/Animal domain as an option to boost DPS dramatically. If you give the Cleric the Wis/Cha damage feature that the FvS is getting, then the FvS is nothing more than a second rate Cleric as far as melee is concerned. This stat change, at least, may not add DPS, per se, but gives them a unique feature that may have some niche appeal.

[HuneyMunster]

Favored Weapon only....

Good point on that its favored weapon only.



Seems a bit high. A free +200hp for pure favoured souls by level 20? Is hp a problem for them or something, I've never played one.

Also an option of 700 spell points and with option or either cha or wis for dc and spell point bonus changes them from being just below sorcerer in total spell points to being by 700 above.

FvS only get Archon and capstone as sla's so would have been nice to see a few changes to the AoV tree instead of just extra spell points. Nimbus of Light and Searing Light could do with a boost for red named dps. Searing Light could be change to do the same damage that it does against undead against evil targets. nimbus could be boosted to be similar as EA Avenging light but without a save and per casters level up to mcl10 for example.

[ThomasHunter]

Very excited to have an extra 300 HP! Yes, after gearing and working at it, my FvS barely hits 900 HP at 30. Decent, but he simply cannot soak up any damage.

Would love some Displacement as well given that he just sucks up the damage so poorly.

Overall, some nice changes. Looking forward to seeing the trees for sure!

[CSQ]

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.


My concern is that this gives an unfair advantage vs. Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks. Why? Because in order to render Favored Souls unable to cast effectively, you would need to damage both Wisdom and Charisma, whereas other casters lose effectiveness if one attribute is damaged. Granted, I don't know the implementation yet, so this might be a moot point.

I'm also not a giant fan of moving resist to absorption. I know absorption scales better in epic content and higher difficulties, but resistance is more useful in early heroics and for mitigating chip elemental damage (you know, 3 points here, 6 points there, etc.); perhaps adjusting it so that it's a ratio (half the current resist and add some absorption) so that 2 fire damage is fully resisted instead of just mitigated to 1 fire damage.

[SerPounce]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?



I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.

Different classes get different abilities. Without getting into the specifics about how strong or weak Monk is vis a vis FVS there's nothing inherently wrong with giving an ability to one that the other doesn't have just because they would both find it useful.

I do think they need to be careful about letting people have any attribute to any ability they want. It's already bordering on out of hand.

[Fedora1]

everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

Except this says otherwise:


~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

[Gratch]

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.


How does the epic part of this work for multiclass? % of 10/30 based on your FVS % split (round down)? So a 6 FVS 14 Monk would get +60 heroic HP and 30 epic HP?

[MonadRebelion]

I'm also not a giant fan of moving resist to absorption. I know absorption scales better in epic content and higher difficulties, but resistance is more useful in early heroics and for mitigating chip elemental damage (you know, 3 points here, 6 points there, etc.); perhaps adjusting it so that it's a ratio (half the current resist and add some absorption) so that 2 fire damage is fully resisted instead of just mitigated to 1 fire damage.

This is a good point, but most people have access to shipbuffs that take off 30 points of elemental damage with no level requirement. So, at low level you're barely taking any elemental damage unless you're running reaper. It seems to me, then, that having the absorption bonus is not much of a loss at low level.

[Ungermax]

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.


I like all this. These are the kind of subtle changes that let the class be fleshed out more without really adding anything new, as well as making FvS less racist against dwarves and warforged.

Definitely approve of the wis/cha to hit and damage thing.



Favor Soul
~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.


I don't like this at all. Way too much. In my opinion there is no justification for any FvS build to have more hp than a pureclass barb without entering the world of EDs. Not in this fashion anyway.

It has no flavor to it whatsoever. It's just a copy and paste job from the Cleric Animal domain with a caster counterpart. That massive bump in hp is understandable under the context of an Animal Cleric because it fits the theme of the domain - don't just hand that out to any FvS when they hit 6. And I don't think a FvS should necessarily get a huge sp boost. Perhaps these could be toned down. I can see the reasoning behind it - choose melee or casting really. But maybe add in the option of PRR and MRR boosts to make it less of a blatant bump up. Something like that would allow FvS of the same race and deity to still have different build choices.

[WiseFreelancer]

I like all this. These are the kind of subtle changes that let the class be fleshed out more without really adding anything new, as well as making FvS less racist against dwarves and warforged.

Definitely approve of the wis/cha to hit and damage thing.



I don't like this at all. Way too much. In my opinion there is no justification for any FvS build to have more hp than a pureclass barb without entering the world of EDs. Not in this fashion anyway.

It has no flavor to it whatsoever. It's just a copy and paste job from the Cleric Animal domain with a caster counterpart. That massive bump in hp is understandable under the context of an Animal Cleric because it fits the theme of the domain - don't just hand that out to any FvS when they hit 6. And I don't think a FvS should necessarily get a huge sp boost. Perhaps these could be toned down. I can see the reasoning behind it - choose melee or casting really. But maybe add in the option of PRR and MRR boosts instead to make it less of a blatant bump up. Something like that would allow FvS of the same race and deity to still have different build choices.

Initially I liked the idea of more HP, but I agree - FvS need an option that makes them more survivable, and some PRR/MRR would do the trick just as well (and maybe without such OP boosts).

The rest is sorely needed, especially wis/cha to damage. Even if wis to damage happens eventually through some tree, the spared APs is probably worth it.

[SirValentine]

...for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes.


Uh, why? Instead of modifying the non-D&D things you invented yourself, you're going to remove even more D&D, base class abilities?



~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.


Why? It's a buff, for sure. But not one that makes sense or is needed. What ever happened to making hard choices?



~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.


At least you gave a reason, even if it's not a good one. Resistance & Absorption already stack; there's no need to nerf one to buff the other.



~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.


Every FvS just automatically gets to-hit and damage with their casting stat for free? And you thought that was a good idea?

[Gratch]

Every FvS just automatically gets to-hit and damage with their casting stat for free? And you thought that was a good idea?

I'd put it more at just flavor than overpowered. It's only the favored weapon and takes a side road from Divine Might (which buffs those that use STR as the tohit/damage).

It does give more options for hybrid casting/melee options, but you could still make a better STR-based melee only.

[Gargoyle69]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

Sev,

First off, thank you for this "early look" approach you have been adopting lately. I think it is an excellent way to engage. So, kudos for this, please keep doing it.

Secondly, would you mind please clarifying for us your thinking here, as people are probably a bit confused (as I am) by what appears to be some major changes of direction from that previously given.

Specifically:
1) Previously DDO seems to have endeavoured where possible to keep the base classes as true to the original D&D game rules as possible, and keep the things that separate it from that game into things like underlying system mechanics and / or enhancement trees. However here you seem to be introducing quite significant differences. Does this signify a departure from that model into the future?

2) Previous class passes have been pretty strongly focused on enhancement trees, but here you are explicitly making base class changes rather than putting things into enhancement trees. Is there a reason that these changes are not felt to be more appropriate being split up and added into the FvS trees?

3) Previously (eg here (https://youtu.be/tnWcV9PrBcw?list=PLzPthfI5h08_aUwWtrFLs7lGw0jJtk86 s&t=1763)) you indicated that unusual abilities to atk & dmg such as wisdom would be more appropriate in universal trees where everybody can get them, but where they should have to pay a premium price to get it. However above you are proposing giving it for free to all favored souls, but noone else. So has the previous thinking changed?

Thanks in advance for considering.

[J-mann]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

Sev, any new diety/favored weapons feats? The fact that you have all the half decent favored weapons locked behind iconics/forged is deeply annoying and frustrating. I would like to build a decent 2hf/swf+2hf build but you have the favored weapons locked behind iconics for who knows why. This is a very bad thing, and it needs addressed if your pass will be successful for melee cleric/fvs builds.

[pjw]

Like clerics, these guys need wisdom to damage AND crit profile changes, perhaps like swashbucler for favoured weapons.

Also, how about wisdom to damage scaling with proportion of total divine levels? E.g. 15 fvs/clr gets 100% wisdom to damage, 10 fvs/clr gets 67% etc. Or something like that.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Favored Souls NEED a dev pass, they need love - but these changes are way off the mark because they make the Favored Soul into something very non-DnD.

Favored souls have no real SLAs (They need some); only 2 enhancements trees (they need a 3rd( and they are very difficult to level up in Heroics due to their need to have ability points spread out and their weak enhancement lines (not for a beginning player). Their enhancement trees should be similar to clerics but not identical; a melee focus, a caster focus, and a heal focus - following established prestige classes and canon.

I am not a fan of going off abandoning the core rules and hallucinating custom MMO class for Dungeons and Dragons. This is not World of Warcraft. IF you implement these changes Favored Souls will no longer be Favored Souls but something else - 'Standing Stone's Holy Cow'

I do not believe their Energy resist should become absorb. It should stay resist, in the rules its resist - there are other ways to mitigate elements with epics.

I also do not believe throwing hit points and mana at them is a good idea especially without doing the same thing for other classes - Sorcerers, say. But why?

I do not believe they should be able to choose between wisdom or charisma - this is a terrible idea that is counter to the way every other class works. Would you allow Rogues at lvl 2 to choose intelligence or dexterity? would you scale her choice to 1/2 her total levels? That is overly complicated and not a good idea. We solve the 'to hit' and 'dmg' with enhancement trees not core Dungeons and Dragons Class changes.

Making to hit based on wisdom is a really bad idea and should not be a class change - this too is counter to the core of Dungeons and Dragons - as someone said - why not give it to monks too or wizards? At best, what it should be a hallucinated feat or better something like dexterity to hit and damage in the rogue assassin enhancement line; e.g. part of the newly reworked Favored Soul enhancement trees, not a general class function change.

I am a die hard fan of the game Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeon Master, and rules lawyer. I greatly respect Standing Stone for being a steward of the Dungeons and Dragons name - please honor fans of this great game and uphold the rules as best you can; hallucinating and reinventing core class elements should only be done under the most nuclear of circumstances.

I would like to see enhancement line changes and these proposals moved there - Please rethink these changes and focus on them into the enhancements trees.

Also - Just as an aside - Favored Souls are supposed to get actual wings at lvl 17 - there must a way to keep the visual of wings visible on them passively all the time and then they spread open when their flight option is used? One of the reasons I played a Favored Soul in pen and paper was to have the wings. I bet I'm not alone.

[Emerld]

ok, maybe at some point I have not read the reason, so forgive me if this a stupid question: All the other classes have 3 enhancement trees (we are not counting racial and/or harper). Why is the FVS being left with only 2 trees? When I heard there was going to be some changes, I got excited thinking a new tree and something really new was going to be brought to the table; something not seen and/or done by the other classes.

Why Is the fvs restricted to only 2 enhancement trees?

[J-mann]

Like clerics, these guys need wisdom to damage AND crit profile changes, perhaps like swashbucler for favoured weapons.

Also, how about wisdom to damage scaling with proportion of total divine levels? E.g. 15 fvs/clr gets 100% wisdom to damage, 10 fvs/clr gets 67% etc. Or something like that.

Scaling is a horribad idea. Other than that, SOMETHING needs to give for favored weapons or melee souls/clerics will be iconic/forged only. We definitely need more favored weapons choices or at bare, bare, bare minimum the unlocking of FR deities from behind the iconic wall.

[jimcricket]

Cant you at least try to keep the game close to Dungeons and Dragons,. These changes seem like something brainstormed in 5 minutes and jotted down on the back of an envelope

[EllisDee37]

I'm currently on a break from DDO for a bit, but my current is life is a melee warforged favored soul (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/453381-Completionist-Project?p=5964230&viewfull=1#post5964230) using greatswords.

If the proposed changes in the OP went live today, I would not switch away from strength-based because I use divine might.

[Morroiel]

Changing elemental resists to absorption not only makes sense it means that the benefit of the absorbs lasts no matter how content changes (assuming it stacks multiplicatively with all other absorbs).

Casting stat being cha or wisdom at first seemed like an issue but I did some spreadsheeting and I think it will just be a QoL fix for the most part - with the exception of hellball and energy burst now finally being semi-viable dc on a divine (its my opinion that those abilities should have already been using highest of int/wis/cha anyways).

The bad:

Offering HP and SP stat boosts not only is completely unoriginal, it does nothing to delineate the playstyle of favored soul vs cleric. Not only this but you are essentially not offering a choice either between the two stats: 300 HP is so much more beneficial than 700 SP. Consider that your hp values on a fvs are ~2k at cap. Your current sp values of a fvs at cap are ~6-8k. But what's worse is HP is a survival stat, increasing its maximum matters. Increasing the maximum SP you have only matters if all of the following conditions are satisfied: 1) You run out sp in current gameplay, 2) You lack sustaining resources to combat sp-drain heavy quests, 3) Your consumable sustaining resources are limited (no pots, no trinkets, etc.), AND 4) The differential in the SP shifts all of these things from TRUE to FALSE. Sadly sp-gating isn't a thing anymore.

If you want to just artificially boost stats then doing one of the following for SP would work MUCH better:

1) Spell costs are reduced by % (stacks with item and destiny sources)
2) Your echoes of the ancestors is buffed by {insert appropriate text / amounts}
3) All metamagics have their costs reduced by x% or y sp. Exception amount for heighten.

However, I strongly encourage you to consider other alternatives that actually delineate fvs from cleric:

This isn't a 3.5 pure dnd game anymore. When you made warlock you pulled heavily from both 4e and 5e. I suggest you start thinking along those lines for fvs. In 5e, fvs is just a divine sorcerer with some fluff.

Give fvs sorc casting speed and cooldown adjustments (even if you have to implement this in a coarse grained way due to lack of time). This alone would differentiate clerics from fvs much like it has done for sorcs vs wizards. It is a big benefit and would drastically cut down the amount of work you need to do on fvs with regards to the trees as the core class features would be buffed.

When fvs came out, the higher sp pool and wings (and a ele resists / dr) were the defining features of the class. The wings are no longer special - exalted angel and the overabundance of the ability in other places made that so. The higher sp pool mattered when cap was 20 and it helped differentiate fvs from cleric and was one of the big things differentiating sorc from wiz. However as time has gone on, sp pools no longer matter. The attrition styled challenge no longer exists in really any shape or form. Fvs more and more resembles cleric each day, while sorcs still hold their identity distinct from wizards primarily on the casting speed and cooldown reduction feature. With the addition of domains, I see absolutely no reason to play a fvs over cleric. Adding casting speed to fvs would make me seriously weight the benefits of domains vs casting speed.

Tl;dr: Give fvs casting speed increases instead of hp/sp stat inflation.

[AnubisPrime]

At least half of your toon levels have to be Fav Soul for the char/wis for hit/dam so that build wont work. I don't see why they don't give it to cleric as well (or just wisdom for cleric since char wont effect spells for them)

CHA does affect turn undead. If this is retooled then we will see...

[MonadRebelion]

In my opinion there is no justification for any FvS build to have more hp than a pureclass barb without entering the world of EDs. Not in this fashion anyway.


This sounds right to me. The HP bonus should get killed for the exact reason you mention.

[MonadRebelion]

Tl;dr: Give fvs casting speed increases instead of hp/sp stat inflation.

I like these ideas too. I think getting rid of the HP bonus is the way to go. Should just buff casting times and echoes of power.

[Elfishski]

Changing elemental resists to absorption not only makes sense it means that the benefit of the absorbs lasts no matter how content changes (assuming it stacks multiplicatively with all other absorbs).

Casting stat being cha or wisdom at first seemed like an issue but I did some spreadsheeting and I think it will just be a QoL fix for the most part - with the exception of hellball and energy burst now finally being semi-viable dc on a divine (its my opinion that those abilities should have already been using highest of int/wis/cha anyways).

The bad:

Offering HP and SP stat boosts not only is completely unoriginal, it does nothing to delineate the playstyle of favored soul vs cleric. Not only this but you are essentially not offering a choice either between the two stats: 300 HP is so much more beneficial than 700 SP. Consider that your hp values on a fvs are ~2k at cap. Your current sp values of a fvs at cap are ~6-8k. But what's worse is HP is a survival stat, increasing its maximum matters. Increasing the maximum SP you have only matters if all of the following conditions are satisfied: 1) You run out sp in current gameplay, 2) You lack sustaining resources to combat sp-drain heavy quests, 3) Your consumable sustaining resources are limited (no pots, no trinkets, etc.), AND 4) The differential in the SP shifts all of these things from TRUE to FALSE. Sadly sp-gating isn't a thing anymore.

If you want to just artificially boost stats then doing one of the following for SP would work MUCH better:

1) Spell costs are reduced by % (stacks with item and destiny sources)
2) Your echoes of the ancestors is buffed by {insert appropriate text / amounts}
3) All metamagics have their costs reduced by x% or y sp. Exception amount for heighten.

However, I strongly encourage you to consider other alternatives that actually delineate fvs from cleric:

This isn't a 3.5 pure dnd game anymore. When you made warlock you pulled heavily from both 4e and 5e. I suggest you start thinking along those lines for fvs. In 5e, fvs is just a divine sorcerer with some fluff.

Give fvs sorc casting speed and cooldown adjustments (even if you have to implement this in a coarse grained way due to lack of time). This alone would differentiate clerics from fvs much like it has done for sorcs vs wizards. It is a big benefit and would drastically cut down the amount of work you need to do on fvs with regards to the trees as the core class features would be buffed.

When fvs came out, the higher sp pool and wings (and a ele resists / dr) were the defining features of the class. The wings are no longer special - exalted angel and the overabundance of the ability in other places made that so. The higher sp pool mattered when cap was 20 and it helped differentiate fvs from cleric and was one of the big things differentiating sorc from wiz. However as time has gone on, sp pools no longer matter. The attrition styled challenge no longer exists in really any shape or form. Fvs more and more resembles cleric each day, while sorcs still hold their identity distinct from wizards primarily on the casting speed and cooldown reduction feature. With the addition of domains, I see absolutely no reason to play a fvs over cleric. Adding casting speed to fvs would make me seriously weight the benefits of domains vs casting speed.

Tl;dr: Give fvs casting speed increases instead of hp/sp stat inflation.

Great suggestions once again.

I think CHA/WIS to damage would be better placed as difficult to reach enhancement in an updated Warpriest (even if only the FS version) or third tree rather than being a freebie.

[J-mann]

I'm currently on a break from DDO for a bit, but my current is life is a melee warforged favored soul (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/453381-Completionist-Project?p=5964230&viewfull=1#post5964230) using greatswords.

If the proposed changes in the OP went live today, I would not switch away from strength-based because I use divine might.

It would be nice to be able to build a decent melee soul/cleric that doesnt require being a forged or Iconic to boot. More deities or remove the stupid FR only requirements.

[Maelodic]

I will echo what others have said. Especially compared to the cleric changes, this feels a bit like a slap in the face.
The vast majority of the warpriest tree is not useful. Past tier 2, the angel of vengeance tree is generic and not terribly great.
If you're going to do a pass on favored soul and not touch them again for 5 years, this can't be it- there's nothing defining here about the class- you've given a lot of raw stats to the class, and not much else.

I don't mean to be rude, but with the really cool and unique changes you're giving to clerics, this seems rather uninspired- especially when the class has so much potential.

I'd rather you delay the rework and give it the care it needs than release it sooner.

[HuneyMunster]

Give fvs sorc casting speed and cooldown adjustments (even if you have to implement this in a coarse grained way due to lack of time). This alone would differentiate clerics from fvs much like it has done for sorcs vs wizards. It is a big benefit and would drastically cut down the amount of work you need to do on fvs with regards to the trees as the core class features would be buffed.


I thought this also for a long time, but I'm doubting this would ever be implemented due to time constraints.

[Morroiel]

I thought this also for a long time, but I'm doubting this would ever be implemented due to time constraints.

False we know the cooldown reduction enhancements/abilities already are coded into their engine. And we know they can apply to a specific subclass of school. So its reasonable to assume they could be coded to apply to fvs spells only; especially since arcane spells seem to have an arcane tag or some means of tagging de novo for arcane augmentation. Even if this is not the case a reasonable backup would just to individually edit the cooldowns for all the spells -> it would literally take a person ~2 hours at snails pace: 1 edit/minute.

We also know that casting speed animation is a defined property attached to the spells. Given that they are already modulating the spells by making charisma clones -> adjusting a single valued number associated with casting speed animation ought to be trivial.

What would take time is if they needed to tweak each from a design perspective - but they could just implement a coarse grained system: 33% cooldown reduction - another simple number change associated with the spells; and a simple multiplier to the casting animation time.

While I don't know the specifics of their dev tools, its literally impossible for this not to be a simple process (albeit horrendously boring work but not much work in total). (Relevant: I've done lots of modding, content creation, game development, and programming myself.)

We are talking about:126 spells, changing 2 fields each. In fact, if the dev tools are set up in a modern manner, it would be possible with a simple macro.

[DrawingGuy]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

This change does alleviate the split casting frustration, though as others have mentioned, if it is automatically based on the highest stat, this does give FVS double stat protection against debuffing. Whether that is seen as OP or another reason to go FVS is up for debate. With CHA ties into Divine Might, has more options for increasing via race and Harper, stronger cross class workings with Pally and Shiradi builds, I can see this tying into a nicer Warpriest build.

The change from Resist to Absorption is an item I like - I actually hope to see that happen on other sources like the Resists in GMoF.

I admit I too am a bit miffed that only recently they said no to WIS to hit/damage for Monks as they want to go away from streamlining stats being tied to classes and instead being tied to the extra cost of universal trees and races... then we now see this... Though would this be a "higher of the stat" or an overwrite? Divine Might and being CHA based caster I see as the strong draw of a melee FVS, making them still STR based.

The flat HP/SP dump I'm not a fan of. No lore or flavor tied to it at all, simply making them superior to Barbs in base HP (as everyone with experience will take HP over SP). It also in no way will convince people to take FvS over Cleric and their new domains.

I think Morroiel had a great idea - consider making FvS more strongly like Sorcs vs Wizard with casting and cooldown benefits on their spells. FvS faces the same penalties as Wiz vs Sorc, but a fraction of the benefits. I'd gladly have you guys scrap all of the other considerations in favor of this.

[Dunmere]

I have been waiting for a FvS pass for what seems like years and I was so excited.... Finally, SLAs !!!, maybe an Archon that stays on for more than 5 minutes, a real and meaningful melee option, a 3rd enhancement tree, etc.

BUT no :(

Nothing to get excited about.... just play Clerics, at least they have SLAs.

[krolikru3]

Overall, I can't complain.

I am so happy about the fact that I can just pick WIS or CHA. I've been going wisdom, for all the DCs, and my SP is at 4K right now, which isn't bad, could be better. I can't wait to have a major SP boost, going from 46 CHA, to 76 WIS.

I like the absorption idea.

I like the HP dump.

Would have liked to see some SLAs seeing as I burn through my already small mama pool so quickly after about 6 metagmagic feats active (Max, Emp, Intensify, heighten, quicken, emb) but hey, I'll be getting a larger mana pool soon so, I can't complain too much.

Though, serious question...
Are we getting Lesser hearts of wood?

And more importantly...
A +20?

Now I say this firstly because I'm wondering how I'm going to acquire all this new stuff that is given to me at lvl 2 and 6, but I'm capped....

And with this already looking like a MASSIVE update, and how the game has changed since our last +20 especially with these new multiclass options... I'd say a +20 is fair. At the very least just a regular or +1. Because I'm a basically completed toon. I just need to recon into a sun elf in a few months after I grind my slavers sets and LGS, then I'm done with my FVS.

Thoughts?

[the_one_dwarfforged]

There is KTA to even that out for damage, but the loss of tactics is too much.

uh...kta adds to dcs?????????

unless you mean the loss of str only based abilities which i would consider a valid point except i thought the average clown had decided that since theyre single target theyre useless anyway and doesnt use them, and also anyone who is playing a dedicated tactics build isnt going to be playing a divine melee anyway so....moot point???????????


Favor Soul

+1 to confidence.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

I mean why don't we just let every class just choose at the character creation what their main stat will be - you know, like after you pick your alignment?

And while we are at it why don't we just allow any class to cast any spell that they like -

a Wizard who's main is strength for DCs and a Bard who is 100% comeliness - oh wait, comeliness is original AD&D - well
it doesn't matter, DDO wants to hallucinate rules, they can make it up - comeliness affects your ability to seduce kobolds;

oh and we can remove the cross class for skills and just make it random during character creation - like daily dice - you roll and what you get is what you get.
Sorry your fighter got spellcraft. Make the best of it, choose use Intelligence for your weapon to hit and damage.


I MEAN THERE IS THE BRINK OF INSANITY AND THEN THERE IS THE ABYSS!


Really, if the Favored Soul changes posted here go through I shutter to think about what will be next for this game. I thought those in charge were fans of Dungeons and Dragons?

Favored Souls DO NOT need a base class reworking - they need a new enhancement tree, they need their existing 2 trees upadated with the addition of competitive enhancements for melee, casters, and healers and Spell Like abilities like every other caster - the wildest stretch is they could be brought in line with the wizard/sorc cleric/fvs argument for faster casting and spell cool down based on some Dungeons and Dragons canon please - but whatever it is they need something to keep them relevant vs. the updated clerics because as everyone's said with domains there will be zero reason to roll a favored soul.

[Ladislaio]

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Does this count epic levels? so to be wis:damage you need 15 levels of FvS? This is much worse than 14 levels for endgame style builds as it means you cannot take 6 levels of a different class or two sets of 3 to get different cores.
Is there any chance that this can be changed to "highest class level" or "majority of class levels" to allow for 8-6-6 splits or 10-6-4?

I'd really like to be able to play a fvs / monk wisdom based bow build and not have it be horribly weak compared to gxbow or thrower builds at endgame.

[Vish]

Gets my seal of approval
Anything that increases multiclassing is good
And I could see some good splits with these changes
Can't think of anything too op
Other than a fvs nuker. May be worth it.

But the real question is,
What about warpriest?

Until I see changes there it don't matter
What they change around it
And really, fvs should have got a 3rd tree
That's what's needed
Something for reaper,
Or ravenloft
Keep it fresh
Then everyone will play one
Maybe sneak healers back in that way

Full speed ahead

[azrael4h]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

I don't see the point of this, but it isn't a huge issue. It'll amount for a few more SP for caster-focused FvS, since they won't be just putting just enough into CHA to access the spells, but maxing out only one stat.


~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

Makes sense I guess. Resistances in generally have been devalued because of the massive numbers bloat. Granted, I think the numbers bloat needs to be scaled back hard instead.


~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

Useless. First off, You gave Holy Sword to Clerics. Using a stat that a) doesn't scale with Divine Might and b) can't get as high as Strength anyway is in now way comparable to that. Secondly, very very very few of the favored weapons are worth bothering with. So far, you have something that only a few races can use, and only two actually heroic races (Elf and Warforged). In both cases, you're just as well off to rely on STR instead. Without more varied and actually useful Favored Weapons, as well as some way to push them into legitimate contention DPS wise, this will be a niche build within a niche build. Players will remain, as now, better off ignoring the favored weapons entirely.

That's ignoring the fact that you're giving War Domain Clerics free Khopesh proficiency. Which pretty much invalidates every single handed favored weapon anyway.

WIS-to-hit and damage should have been added to Monk, as they are the WIS-based melee class. Their special abilities, finishers, and everything ride on WIS, so it's thematic and logical. This is just a middle finger to the Monk players. I am not impressed with your middle finger, and it does not make me reconsider giving you any money.


~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

[cru121]

I think this should make the cleric changes more palatable for FvS players... and should buy SSG some time until they can come up with the third FvS tree.
Thumbsup.

I don't see many picking the spell point option. Perhaps add +1% spell critical damage per fvs level.

[dunklezhan]

How will the "make a choice at level X" changes be applied to existing FVS characters?

[Yalinaa]

So, the Cha / Wis hit and damage will work on bows also? Elven fvs silver flame archers will have insane DC on their paralyzer / instakill arrows.:)
14 fvs / 6 monk Wis based AA, here I come!!:)

[RKP]

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.


My main is a fvs. Favored Souls have been my favorite class for years now. I don't like the above one bit. You are totally stepping away from the pnp favored soul. You are making DDO a DnD 4th edition game not a 3.5 edition game. In 4th every character attacks (or can attack given a feat selection) with their main stat/spellcasting stat. Congrats 4th edition was the biggest failure and had the shortest life span of any edition. If I wanted to play a fvs in DDO that could attack with charisma I would have made my main a PDK with one level of fighter. At best this should be an action point option that I can ignore. Of all the ways to improve fvs in DDO this is probably the laziest.

[BigErkyKid]

Plus one on a pass that boosts the "FVS feeling" and not just SP/HPs.

Casting ability is welcome, but not enough IMHO.

After this, if you didn't want to roll a FVS to start with, you won't either.

[Fedora1]

These changes seem like something brainstormed in 5 minutes and jotted down on the back of an envelope

Uhhhm excuse me but.... This was done on their 30 minute lunch break written on a napkin. Give the devs some credit. Sheesh! :rolleyes:


Seriously though, my feedback on these changes is that yes they would make FVS better than they are now, but at the cost of lore and traditional D&D FVS. There have been some good suggestions on how to revamp FVS in a way that still aligns with what makes a FVS a FVS in D&D.

[Arch-Necromancer]

Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

Now this is a GREAT change. I have always wondered why Sorcerers don't have their casting abilities shared between both charisma and intelligence stats, while favored Souls have theirs shared between wisdom and charisma. This inconsistency made Favored Souls very problematic to play because of ability stat spread. Now this will be fixed.

I personally would go with forcing just charisma here (to make a proper difference from Cleric), but I never complain about a choice, so great decision here. :D



~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

Instead of using higher stat, maybe you could tie this with Wisdom/Charisma choice for spellcasting, and make it a feat you choose on level 1 (wisdom or charisma).

It would make more sense that way and would probably be easier for you to implement than having repeated checks for current higher stat (which might cause unwanted problems with stats not applying correctly and such).



~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

I don't see that this is really needed. Some people complained about PnP having resistance so maybe you could keep the resistance.

Absorption could be added with epic destiny enhancements or feats (for epic levels) instead of changing core class on heroics too.



~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Does 10 hit points per level mean that instead of 8 hit points per level you now get 10 or that you get additional 10 hit points on top of base 8 for a total of +18 HP per level?

If you just get 10 hit points per level INSTEAD of 8 (the same as paladin or fighter) then this is OK, great way to make the class catch up to paladin or fighter.

If you mean +10 HP on top of base +8 for a total of +18 per level then this is not a good idea and you should consider the other "meaning" instead.

Spell point bonus should also be comparable to HP, lower than proposed. Maybe +10 for heroic and +20 for epic?

If you feel like SP pools should increase, then they need to increase for all caster classes. Fixing just one won't fix the game's problem of ALL (or most) casters draining their SP pools too fast.


Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Good choice, but you should consider giving players a choice betwen wisdom and charisma on level 1 and sticking with that chosen stat for both spellcasting and favored weapon combat.


I think you should make a few tweaks to enhancements as well to include more choices:

Favored Souls do not have a "dark side" choice. It could be simply added with a selector between light and negative spellpower in Angel of Vengeance tree.

Smiting: Your Fire, Force, Light, and Physical damage spells have an additional 2% chance to critically hit
Dark Smiting: Your Fire, Force, Negative, and Physical damage spells have an additional 2% chance to critically hit

Same for all enhancements with bonuses to light spells, dark versions should give bonuses to negative energy spells.

There should also be a selector between light and negative energy spellpower in Exalted Angel tree:

Radiant power: Passive Bonus: +[10/20/30] Light spellpower
Negative power: Passive Bonus: +[10/20/30] Negative energy spellpower

And negative energy SLAs too.

[Niminae]

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

Best. Change. Ever.



~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

Second Best. Change. Ever.

[Rog]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.

my monk would love wisdom to damage i agree was hoping it would be a feat or something you could spend actions points on.

[Renvar]

So, the Cha / Wis hit and damage will work on bows also? Elven fvs silver flame archers will have insane DC on their paralyzer / instakill arrows.:)
14 fvs / 6 monk Wis based AA, here I come!!:)

You can make that build today. Nothing about these changes improves the DC on arrows. Anyone building a paralyzer/instakill archer was maxing wis anyways. Whether through ranger and monk or FvS and monk. THis does make your to hit and damage a little higher, but were you missing before? And this build is an instakill and CC build. it has never been a DPS build and nothing here boosts DPS enough to change that. It just streamlines the gear a bit. For something, that, honestly was lagging behind x-bow and thrower anyways for ranged.

[Crysae]

People freaking out about wis/cha to damage as if it will even be used in a class that has access to Divine Might *facepalm*

I'm assuming enhancement pass changes will come later and shake things up quite a bit, ideally with a THIRD TREE PLEASE. Obviously for melee FVS to be any good, Warpriest needs some touching up. I'd suggest crit expansion for deity favored weapons, possibly multiplier too. Something to bring them in line with the "15-20x3" mantra of swash? Non-estar deities need touching up also. There are a lot of deities that no-one uses for good reason - they're useless.

Not a fan of consolidating casting stats, it seems kind of unnecessary.

While I do like having more HP or Mana... I agree it does seem kinda tacked on. Unless we're proposing to add flat HP to EVERY class, I don't see why FVS should get so much HP at the expense of say Paladins.

These are mostly good changes I think, but the real meat-and-potatoes-make-fvs-relevant-again changes will be in the enhancement tree changes.

[Soleran100]

"~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained."


Will this be retroactive back to level 1 or only from 6th lvl on?

[Cantor]

Great suggestions once again.

I think CHA/WIS to damage would be better placed as difficult to reach enhancement in an updated Warpriest (even if only the FS version) or third tree rather than being a freebie.

I agree it could be put in warpriest, but I don't think it has to be particularly high. Keep in mind that's it's favored weapons only, that really limits what it can do.


I don't think the hp or sp thing is a big deal. The huge SP offsets the fewer SLAs. The HP is the option if you're not a caster, maybe it could be shifted more toward epic levels but with the same total.

[EllisDee37]

I agree it could be put in warpriest, but I don't think it has to be particularly high. Keep in mind that's it's favored weapons only, that really limits what it can do.I think I'd rather they just essentially copy from the swashbuckler tree, as someone partially suggested upthread:

1) Change the ML3 core to give a divine version of swashbuckling, which increases your favored weapon to 15-20x3. (Or better if using a specialty named weapon.)

2) Add a divine version of A Different Tack to tier 3 warpriest. Instead of choosing between Dex/Int/Cha like swash, choose between Wis/Cha.

[Cantor]

I think I'd rather they just essentially copy from the swashbuckler tree, as someone partially suggested upthread:

1) Change the ML3 core to give a divine version of swashbuckling, which increases your favored weapon to 15-20x3. (Or better if using a specialty named weapon.)

2) Add a divine version of A Different Tack to tier 3 warpriest. Instead of choosing between Dex/Int/Cha like swash, choose between Wis/Cha.

1 Just seems too strong to me. I do concede though, that most favored weapons need big help to be usable. I'd rather see crit mods come in T5 of the weapon line.

2 Good.

[EllisDee37]

1 Just seems too strong to me. I do concede though, that most favored weapons need big help to be usable. I'd rather see crit mods come in T5 of the weapon line.Fair enough, in that swashbuckling is limited to single-target only and greatly reduces offhand choices.

How about the "divine swashbuckling" doesn't increase to 15-20x3, but instead 15-20x2 to match scimitars and falchions? For x3 weapons, increase to 17-20x3 like khopeshes. Or maybe 18-20x3 if 17-20x3 is too good.

Still in core 3, of course. Remember that favored weapons are generally crappy (longsowrd, dagger, etc...) and not being able to play your build "for real" until level 12 (tier 5) would be a bummer.

[karatemack]

Olladra would have some cool potential with Monk if we had more named Sickles.

Elven AA FVS seems like a much better choice for pure FVS than Warpriest by a long mile with the changes to WIS to hit and damage. DC caster with effective ranged and self-healing? Hmm... what am I missing here???

[J-mann]

1 Just seems too strong to me. I do concede though, that most favored weapons need big help to be usable. I'd rather see crit mods come in T5 of the weapon line.

2 Good.

T 5 is way too late to make most favored weapons usable. They need to remove the stupid iconic only barrier from the only half decent deity feats and add some more deities. Give us some options here or warpriest will remain where it is, in the no one uses beyond divine might land.

[Skycaptain]

Not sure if anyone else has noticed, but the sp boost is nowhere near as good as the hp boost. 200 @ level 20 could easily be a 50% increase for a poorly-geared FvS. Whereas 400 sp at level 20 is, at most, a 25% increase. Even healers and evokers would be better off taking the extra health.

To bring the sp in line with the hp, it would need a significant boost, say 50 sp per level instead of 20. Then it would near the 50% increase for poorly-geared FvS. But giving a class that much sp for free begs the question of how much power a class that hasn't been touched for five years needs to compete in 2017 DDO. While I would prefer casting speed changes a la sorcerer, if we're going to have hp/sp changes they may as well be somewhere near as useful as each other.

Edit: sp-> hp

[Eryhn]

getting main FVS stat to hit and dmg seems to be a far greater boon to a melee fvs than is unifying 2 stats into one for a caster

you are introducing a selector between HP and SP for making a melee/caster choice. can there please be at least 2 subsequent SLAs for caster FVS? or some deity styled boosts to DC/spellpower as seen in cleric domains? and some equally diversifying goodies for melee? as also seen in cleric domains?

unless fvs will eventually get said domains, too? i kinda forgot what the plan was on fvs and domains ...

[Matthey]

I don't like the changes. Do the pass right or don't bother. There are some good suggestions already.

Faster spell casting and cool downs for parity with sorcerers.
Add more deities without iconic restrictions.
Finish the 3rd tree (Could be called Favored or Chosen).
o divine health for more HP
o divine protection for PRR/MRR
o divine resistance for spell resistance
o divine mana for inventory food to eat which cures and slowly regenerates HP and spell points over time (including in quests)
o divine intervention (random divine benefits like knockdown close foes, extend unconsciousness by 10 HP/level, summon a lantern archon)
o free dragonmark feat (1st core ability or could also be given at 1st level for FvS)

Please no Charisma or any other stat to melee damage except for strength. It makes some sense that dexterity can be used to hit with light weight weapons but everything else messes with basic game mechanics and encourages unbalanced exploitation multi-classing. Divine enhancement should give strength to a character to do more melee damage.

[Gargoyle69]

Sev,

First off, thank you for this "early look" approach you have been adopting lately. I think it is an excellent way to engage. So, kudos for this, please keep doing it.

Secondly, would you mind please clarifying for us your thinking here, as people are probably a bit confused (as I am) by what appears to be some major changes of direction from that previously given.

Specifically:
1) Previously DDO seems to have endeavoured where possible to keep the base classes as true to the original D&D game rules as possible, and keep the things that separate it from that game into things like underlying system mechanics and / or enhancement trees. However here you seem to be introducing quite significant differences. Does this signify a departure from that model into the future?

2) Previous class passes have been pretty strongly focused on enhancement trees, but here you are explicitly making base class changes rather than putting things into enhancement trees. Is there a reason that these changes are not felt to be more appropriate being split up and added into the FvS trees?

3) Previously (eg here (https://youtu.be/tnWcV9PrBcw?list=PLzPthfI5h08_aUwWtrFLs7lGw0jJtk86 s&t=1763)) you indicated that unusual abilities to atk & dmg such as wisdom would be more appropriate in universal trees where everybody can get them, but where they should have to pay a premium price to get it. However above you are proposing giving it for free to all favored souls, but noone else. So has the previous thinking changed?

Thanks in advance for considering.

Hi Sev,

Just following up the above. Any chance you can share some of the thought processes involved on these fronts please?

Would love to understand more of the bigger picture and context that those changes sit in.

Thanks.

[krimsonrane]

Favored souls. Making long swords great again.

Meanwhile, rogues are stuck on whatsarogue status

[J-mann]

Favored souls. Making long swords great again.

Meanwhile, rogues are stuck on whatsarogue status

rogues still have mechanic yaknow. It is probably one of the more powerful builds in the game yaknow. Now sin and TA are hurting I give you that.

[Jasparion]

Very excited to have an extra 300 HP! Yes, after gearing and working at it, my FvS barely hits 900 HP at 30. Decent, but he simply cannot soak up any damage.

Would love some Displacement as well given that he just sucks up the damage so poorly.

Overall, some nice changes. Looking forward to seeing the trees for sure!

I have a 2nd life FVS who hits about 1,500 HP with no raid gear and only a bit of end game gear. This is in US though. EA I think its about 1,000 HP.

The one thing I would query is the statement by Sev that FVS is ahead of Cleric. I would absolutely love to know what measure that is true. Clerics get SLAs, can get reasonable DCs and dont have to even think about splitting stats.

[Steve_Howe]

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.



What if I still want to use Strength for my To Hit and Damage stat? Tripping and Stunning Blow are valid tactics for a Melee-centric FvS.

Please allow us to choose Strength as our "melee" stat.

[Dreppo]

No, no, no. I find these proposed changes very upsetting. You can't possibly make sweeping changes to the base class. The base races and the base classes are among the few things remaining that make this game a D&D adaptation. If you look at every other base class, they are as faithful to the source material as possible given the game limitations. Where you have room to customize is in the additional systems you've invented that go along side the core D&D systems, chief among those being the enhancement system (epic destinies being another, though it's really just more enhancements). Please, leave the base class alone and turn to enhancements as the main basis of your tweaks.

Keep in mind I'm not making any value judgements on the specific ideas you've proposed; I'm not saying FVS couldn't use some more HP, or some more SP, or elemental resistances, or whatever. I'm all for all that. What I'm objecting to is the fundamental approach that you're taking by significantly altering the base class. And if you go ahead with this, then other classes also deserve tweaks to the base class. I implore you to not go down that road. It's not just the power creep aspect of it, but also the blandness of turning this into just another generic MMO, frustrating and alienating the D&D fans.

I'm afraid you must scrap this this approach entirely and start over. I only give this advice because I care about the game. Please, please reconsider.

[Eryhn]

The one thing I would query is the statement by Sev that FVS is ahead of Cleric. I would absolutely love to know what measure that is true. Clerics get SLAs, can get reasonable DCs and dont have to even think about splitting stats.

agreed. the one scenario where that is true is on maybe hard, elite where you can to some extent burn SP with no worries and brute AOE the livin daylight outa mobs. prly not even on all elite content as at some point DC and mob save for half damage becomes an issue with the newer content (depending on gear and PLs). experienced players may mitigate that up to some point by chosing appropriate spells against appropriate saves but there is definetly an efficiency wall you hit at some point and beyond that it's basically DC casting where indeed, especially with the proposed changes, cleric is ahead.

looking at stuff as of now "do it right or don't do it" sounds pretty much on spot. proposed changes seem lackluster and lazy as well as non-par compared to cleric domains. would like to see more incremental by level increasing goodies more specifically tailored to caster/melee. would like these changes to more appropriately address the current issues with higher difficulty levels FVS. would also need to see enhancement trees with it to come to proper judgement.


at the very least there should be something akin to air domain evoc increases. something made to fit the playstyle of fvs more. like, i.e. add a tier3 and tier4 to the scourge/just reward line that give temp stacks of increased evoc dc and temp stacks of mob save decrease. since we are at it, add a tier 5 in that line that gives some not too op but noticable stacks to spell crit chance or spell crit multiplier. this is so obvious, simple and actually working as an improvement idk why bother with weird global changes rather than giving the AOV tree a once over ...lemme spell that out for funs:

tier1: Scourge:
on Fire, Force, Light, or Physical damage spell, +3 to Fire, Force, Light, or Physical Spell Power for 6 seconds. stacks 3/6/10 times.

tier2: Just Reward:
When you critically hit with a Fire, Force, Light, or Physical damage spell, you gain 3/6/10 Sacred temporary spell points.

tier3: Menacing Barrage:
Each time you inflict damage with Fire, Force, Light or Physical, mob recieves -1 saves; -2 AC for 3 seconds. stacks 1/2/4 times.

tier4: Precise Barrage:
Each time you crit with Fire, Force, Light, Physical, +1 to your evoc DC for 6 seconds, stacks 1,2,3 times

tier5: Divine Devastation:
Each time you crit with Fire, Force, Light, Physical, +5% crit chance and +10% critical damage multiplier for 3 seconds. stacks 1,2,3 times

[raclaw]

now we need more deities with different weapons like Tymora (shuriken), Anhur (falchion), Horus-Re (khopesh), Ilmater (unarmed strike), Clangeddin or Tempus (battle axe) and Torm (greatsword for living characters) ;)

[valkrei]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.


Yea because Monks are so under powered in this game. lol

[valkrei]

Personally I never understood why there was a class called favored soul. Seemed like a lame hybrid to me.

[Grace_ana]

I'm not a fan.

1. I have generally opposed changes to core DnD stuff on principle. This is a DnD-based game; that should not change. I pointed out back when divine grace was changed that we could very easily head down that slippery slope. I cannot imagine what Wizards of the Coast would think about changes to the core class, and I'm curious if that has even been considered or how all that works behind the scenes, given that we have been told in the past that stuff couldn't be done because WotC.

2. FVS+monk+X will become the new power class. I'm not opposed to power classes, there will always be power classes. But if past experience means anything, I'm not entirely sure you all have thought this one through. It took me 5 minutes to pull up the planner and fully sort out a FVS elf AA with some ridiculous survivability, damage, and CC. It took another 5 minutes to sort out a FVS/fighter/monk with warhammers that would be equally crazy. Neither were even enhancement-starved; I had lots of leftovers. Particularly with evasion being king again with the introduction of reaper, this is sure to spawn a plethora of hate-filled threads demanding nerfs for the next two years. And then when you nerf them - as you will, I'm sure - people will be angry that they had the rug pulled out from under them, again, when you could have just listened in the planning stages.

I'm honestly not sure anymore what you guys are balancing against. It feels like it's against the current power levels, which is a losing proposition and a fast way to power creep. We don't need more of that.

Also, it is mindblowing that you think cleric is behind FVS right now. I can't even comprehend the set of misinformation that could possibly have led to such a conclusion.

[karatemack]

Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit

How did I miss this on the first read-through???

This is why players say the devs are out of touch with the player experience.

[NabeGewell]

this


Give fvs casting speed increases instead of hp/sp stat inflation.

[Doomflayer]

When most of the melee classes suck so bad in this game why are we worried about making healers even better?

[Ravand]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

+1

[Galad1]

I agree there is a huge need for a pass on the FvS. But this should be done through the implementation of a 3rd. Enhancement tree, and a shake up of the existing two. NOT through a twisting/mashing/totally-ignoring-the-basic-mechanics of the core rules for the FvS. Your focus should be to build character options, which falls in line with basic rules for the FvS. Not to re-invent the wheel.

Sincerely

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

IDEAS THAT WORK:

1. Add a 3rd enhancement tree + meaningful Spell Like abilities.
2. Update, bolster, and renew the existing two tree to bring in line with the new third tree to keep FvS a viable option vs Clerics + Domains.
3. Add faster casting and faster spell timings equal what a sorcerers are to keep viable against Cleric + Domains.

IDEAS THAT MUST BE DELETED:

1. Changes to the base class.
2. Changes to the base class.
3. Changes to the base class.

[Silverleafeon]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

In order to keep D&D philosophy, we can look back at pen and paper history.

There were desires to make certain classes rarer than others.
Back in those days, there were minimum ability requirements for Monks and Paladins.
Given that ability scores were rolled 4d6 (discard 1 dice), this make these classes rarer.
The concept was that the world should have more fighters than other types.

Druids and Monks also faced trial of combat to allow access to upper levels.
If you lost the trial, you lost your entire level of experience.
At any given time, a Druid or Monk might face a trial by an upstart Monk as well.

Only humans could advance in "paragon" type levels.
Most classes began collecting followers, building keeps or towers in "paragon" levels.

Second edition had some changes.
Third edition brought the d20 system into the game.

Overall in pen and paper, Clerics and Druids dominated the powerful Divine classes.
Each system would bring in these two as bases classes then promote other Divines in later expansions of the edition.
But at the same time, expansion would add features to Clerics and Druids.

So overall classes such as Favored Souls, the Healer, the Shukenja, etc... never could keep up with extra options
presented for channel divinity/turn undead/domains/spontaneous caster/ect...

The Favored easily adapts to DDO, so adding it to DDO was very wise.
The extra spell points combined with Sorcerer rules for learning spells helped make Favored Souls distinctive from Cleric.

Where does the lore of the Favored Soul come from?

"A Favored Souls differs from a Cleric in that a Cleric gain training an support from a religious organization,
yet a Favored Soul gains training, support, and unique abilities directly from a deity."

Sorry if this is partial misquote, but its from a very old official D&D source.

Historically, which D&D sometimes draws from, the life and times of Joan of Arc is probably the standard of Favored Soul philosophy.
She is in fact the most documented human from the Middle Ages and provides a contrast of "taught by deity" vs "taught by the church".

Notice that she has been depicted wearing Breastplate (medium armor), carrying a sword (favored weapon).
This alone has been a distinction from the typical heavy armor, can only wield blunt weapons (mace) philosophy of first edition clerics.

This could be translated several ways, but given that Joan of Arc was a female,
gaining wisdom/charisma to damage for a favored weapon would be very closely following old school D&D philosophy.

One of the true thorns in the side of Favored Souls is that they received a split casting stat.
This was an attempt to duplicate the philosophy of "monks and paladins should be rarer, therefore they have min ability prerequisites".
It was a failure, making an already disadvantaged classes worse.

There is a lot of brilliance in making a Favored Soul choose which casting stat that they want" Wis or Cha.
This retains the Split stat philosophy, yet flips it over into distinction from Clerics and Druids.
It opens up the Hellball Draconic Favored Soul build which a cleric or a druid could never hope to rival.

This also makes the Avenging Angel/Exalted Angel build actually make a certain amount of sense, in that Cha finally helps with spell DCs.
Since traditionally in pen and paper D&D, Favored Souls have received a certain amount of Cha support, this works for me.
It has been a very common post of "please correct the Favored Soul capstone which grants +2 Cha",
which this change answers directly without touching the tree itself.

I would describe Joan of Arc as both Wise and Charismatic in nature.

Having played a lot of divines, I know that energy absorption is a key to their survival.
The don't have evasion or superior MMR or respectable saving throws.
Its quite brilliant changing resist to absorption.
It also scales well.
And considering that Favored Souls only get 1 element at 5th, 10th & 15th, any debate about low level effectiveness being lost
is rather silly from point of view.

There is a debate about whether dual stats casting is a great advantage vs ability stat drain.
Again, having played a lot of divines, I have found that possessing the Heal spell makes
" Ability Damaged, Blinded, Confused, Dazed, Dazzled, Deafened, Diseased, Exhausted, Fatigued, Feebleminded, Insanity, Nauseated, and Poisoned"
trivial in nature to those classes possessing this spell.
If one enters a dungeon known for stat draining, a class of this nature usually spend a certain amount of
time, effort communication (including voice) & teaming dealing with the situation.
In the rare cases where a divine is unable to cast, voice communication followed by a teammate using a heal scroll solves the problem.
Yes, perhaps for soloing certain dungeon, there is an advantage, but otherwise, it hardy an issue for a player who thinks ahead.


Now the level six ability does give me pause to consider.

Reaper does place a strong amount of resource drain on a divine character.
Granting Wis/Cha to damage with a favored weapon does allow a certain relief in that area.
Favored Souls get more spell points than Clerics, however Clerics can use their turn undead to heal,
and they get a large amount of spell like abilities.

I started building a set of legendary greensteel items to raise spell points, but I abandoned that path,
although I had made multiple shards toward thus. My new path was raising hit points.

Now any healer will realize that dying hurts the party badly.
A healer needs to stay alive.
Hit points keep you alive.

So while the Devs are hoping to supply us with a "difficult" choice, this choice fails.
There is no choice here.
Hit points are highly superior to spell points.

Also, you stepping on the toes of Barbarians with the hit points or Sorcerers with the spell points.

If I was playing a Favored Soul, yes I would gobble up the bonus hit points, sure goodies are goodies.


But let us pause and ponder if this is in character with Joan of Arc.

Hmmm...

Well, she did survive a lot, so maybe...

The spell points make more sense.


Given that the PC has probably already discussed all of this, and you are waiting to see our side,
I would recommend not granted the:

At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

but replacing it with

"At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain +1 universal saving throw per Favored Soul level.
• You gain +0.1 critical spell damage per Favored Soul level."


I think these would be more in line with a class that is supported directly by a deity.


I would also recommend:

Increase Epic Destiny Levels to 10 during the next expansion, because +16 points benefits casters more than melee,
and many Epic Destinies are lacking for casters simply because there are not enough points to spend.
If a Dev disagrees with this philosophy, I suggest you go look at whatever design notes exist from MotU expansion
in regard to the future.

Adding 3 more SLAs to the Angel of Vengence tree along with "+2 wis to the capstone.

Making a 3rd tree someday, but its ok if its not right now.


In regards to Cleric vs Favored Soul balance, I personally don't think this is enough class changes.

Child, Follower, and Beloved should include some bonus spell points, enough to make them somewhat attractive to Clerics and Pally.

Child = +50 spell points
Follower = +100 spell points
Beloved = +150 spell points

[Grace_ana]

Given that the PC has probably already discussed all of this, and you are waiting to see our side,
I would recommend not granted the:

At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

but replacing it with

"At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain +1 universal saving throw per Favored Soul level.
• You gain +0.1 critical spell damage per Favored Soul level."


I think these would be more in line with a class that is supported directly by a deity.


I would also recommend:

Adding 3 more SLAs to the Angel of Vengence tree along with "+2 wis to the capstone.

But wouldn't this make way more sense in a third tree instead of changing the base class?

[Renvar]

FVS+monk+X will become the new power class. I'm not opposed to power classes, there will always be power classes. But if past experience means anything, I'm not entirely sure you all have thought this one through. It took me 5 minutes to pull up the planner and fully sort out a FVS elf AA with some ridiculous survivability, damage, and CC. It took another 5 minutes to sort out a FVS/fighter/monk with warhammers that would be equally crazy. Neither were even enhancement-starved; I had lots of leftovers. Particularly with evasion being king again with the introduction of reaper, this is sure to spawn a plethora of hate-filled threads demanding nerfs for the next two years. And then when you nerf them - as you will, I'm sure - people will be angry that they had the rug pulled out from under them, again, when you could have just listened in the planning stages.

Curious to see these "massively OP" FvS elf AA builds and FvS/Fighter/Monk warhammer builds.

[Morroiel]

Curious to see these "massively OP" FvS elf AA builds and FvS/Fighter/Monk warhammer builds.

8/6/6 sylvanus build was already a strong contender for being a top build. It isn't as strong as pure monk but it can put out some pretty strong dps. I don't think these changes will make them OP but it does give them a nudge towards being op.

I don't think there's any "massively OP" fvs elf AA build.

[Grace_ana]

Curious to see these "massively OP" FvS elf AA builds and FvS/Fighter/Monk warhammer builds.

Pull up a planner. If it took me 5 minutes, I think you can handle it. Toons with excellent DPS (including a ranged option), survivability including AC and self-healing, and CC? Sure, okay. As I said in the cleric thread, sure, I'll use it if you give it to me to blow through some lives, but it will be totally broken and you won't like it.

[Silverleafeon]

But wouldn't this make way more sense in a third tree instead of changing the base class?

+1 well said

I can agree with you on that point (of the proposed level six new ability), as long as Child, Follower, and Beloved feats are not consider part of the base class,
and therefore could receive some bonuses that provide caster support.

We have already received upgrades to these feat without a general alarm, so I cannot see how adding casting bonuses would hurt.


Child = +50 spell points
Follower = +100 spell points
Beloved = +150 spell points

OR

Child = +0.1 spell crit damage
Follower = +0.2 spell crit damage
Beloved = +0.3 spell crit damage



Boosting via tree (I want my SLAs) and auto granted feats still leave the core class alone.

As you can see this would provide least broken part of the level six option on the table to Favored Souls,
while still retaining the essence of the core class.

My proposal of +400 spell points is reasonable, yet less than (20*20)+(30*10) = 700 sp.

This has the added advantage of making these feat more on the level that a cleric or pally might actually consider taking them.



Just want to be clear that I stand by my opinions on all the changes except the level 6 choice group,
which I feel should be shifted into the Child, Follower, Beloved feats as shown above.

[slarden]

Olladra would have some cool potential with Monk if we had more named Sickles.

Elven AA FVS seems like a much better choice for pure FVS than Warpriest by a long mile with the changes to WIS to hit and damage. DC caster with effective ranged and self-healing? Hmm... what am I missing here???

Yeah I would think elf/helf 14 fvs / 6 centered monk wisdom based/water stance would be the way to go or possibly 12 fvs/ 2 fighter / 6 monk if more feats are needed. 10k stars and attack/damage based on wisdom along with AA DCs for imbues. And with the focus on enchant for the AA imbues greater command and hold person is kind of freebie. Should be a fun build. I can see splashing a little bit of warpriest and harper in, but AA would be the main tree for sure as it almost always is with a non-ranger archer build.

[Morroiel]

Yeah I would think elf/helf 14 fvs / 6 centered monk wisdom based/water stance would be the way to go or possibly 12 fvs/ 2 fighter / 6 monk if more feats are needed. 10k stars and attack/damage based on wisdom along with AA DCs for imbues. And with the focus on enchant for the AA imbues greater command and hold person is kind of freebie. Should be a fun build. I can see splashing a little bit of warpriest and harper in, but AA would be the main tree for sure as it almost always is with a non-ranger archer build.

The problem with both those splits is it forces you into exalted angel, which might be good for your dcs but is absolutely **** for your damage. It has potential for a niche cc/heal focus build.

Playing a ranged toon without a fair amount of ms enhancement and/or wings is sub optimal at the moment.

Additionally if you aren't running in exalted angel, not only will you lose wings, you'll also lose a substantial amount of dcs - negating the point of the build in the first place.

I fail to see how these live up to the "massively op" claims that the other poster implied.

[Pyed-Pyper]

I mean why don't we just let every class just choose at the character creation what their main stat will be - you know, like after you pick your alignment?

And while we are at it why don't we just allow any class to cast any spell that they like -

a Wizard who's main is strength for DCs and a Bard who is 100% comeliness - oh wait, comeliness is original AD&D - well
it doesn't matter, DDO wants to hallucinate rules, they can make it up - comeliness affects your ability to seduce kobolds;

oh and we can remove the cross class for skills and just make it random during character creation - like daily dice - you roll and what you get is what you get.
Sorry your fighter got spellcraft. Make the best of it, choose use Intelligence for your weapon to hit and damage.


I MEAN THERE IS THE BRINK OF INSANITY AND THEN THERE IS THE ABYSS!


Really, if the Favored Soul changes posted here go through I shutter to think about what will be next for this game. I thought those in charge were fans of Dungeons and Dragons?

Favored Souls DO NOT need a base class reworking - they need a new enhancement tree, they need their existing 2 trees upadated with the addition of competitive enhancements for melee, casters, and healers and Spell Like abilities like every other caster - the wildest stretch is they could be brought in line with the wizard/sorc cleric/fvs argument for faster casting and spell cool down based on some Dungeons and Dragons canon please - but whatever it is they need something to keep them relevant vs. the updated clerics because as everyone's said with domains there will be zero reason to roll a favored soul.


"We have to destroy this game in order to save it." -anon dev

[PurpleTimb]

it is mindblowing that you think cleric is behind FVS right now.
QFT; I concur.

[Katanauser]

I'm not in favor of your changes. As my Marine DI used to say "BS! Get back ladies!"

You need to work on content, content, content... 36 was boring and pointless imho. and the total amount of downtime lately... unacceptable.

[Grace_ana]

The problem with both those splits is it forces you into exalted angel, which might be good for your dcs but is absolutely **** for your damage. It has potential for a niche cc/heal focus build.

Playing a ranged toon without a fair amount of ms enhancement and/or wings is sub optimal at the moment.

Additionally if you aren't running in exalted angel, not only will you lose wings, you'll also lose a substantial amount of dcs - negating the point of the build in the first place.

I fail to see how these live up to the "massively op" claims that the other poster implied.

I have no idea why you would use exalted angel with either of them. It's a melee or ranged dps build with heavy survivability, CC, and spells. Losing a few levels of a class won't hurt your DC. Your spell caster level loses some but it doesn't matter too much for many spells.

A ranged toon is most definitely not suboptimal at the moment. I have a few and play with a few. They are dominating right now due to reaper.

[Morroiel]

I have no idea why you would use exalted angel with either of them. It's a melee or ranged dps build with heavy survivability, CC, and spells. Losing a few levels of a class won't hurt your DC. Your spell caster level loses some but it doesn't matter too much for many spells.

A ranged toon is most definitely not suboptimal at the moment. I have a few and play with a few. They are dominating right now due to reaper.

Don't know what destiny you are suggesting to play in then - blitz and fury of the wild don't offer charisma or wisdom. Fury of the wild or blitz is the right choice to begin with but his leads to the following problem:

You'll be down 8 charisma or 6 wisdom, +3 transcendental dc, 3 spell pen, and most importantly wings (if you are splashing mc).

On top of losing casting levels -> spell pen for your fvs spells from mcing. Caster levels matter for nearly ALL of the relevant DC spells for a fvs.

You are stuck with only 1 good active attack to chain for fury of the wild, which means your furyshot will be lackluster.

Which means your best option might be blitz but this is where you're screwed, keeping stacks up will be nearly impossible if you intend to actually make use of your spell dcs.

This is a flavor toon or a 3rd rate toon at best. 14 monk/6 ranger twisting in cocoon and renewal in fury of the wild gets you far more sustained dps, ranged-related cc, burst dps, and survivability (abundant step). In short till I see a build post clearly distinguishing why such a toon is "massively op", I'll keep on believing the rational thing: hybrid caster/dps builds are ****. Also don't know where you are getting heavy survivability: you could have same hitpoint pool w.r.t. to taking a hit as the 14/6 split but you won't have wings to guarantee a miss on the next incoming hit.

[Cashier]

Ok, so I've read through the forum posts, and I've seen some reoccurring complaints about the new changes, and I'm going to try and give a valid argument or explanation for each of them.


1) Monk WIS to DMG and hit.


A) First off, make a separate thread for your non-stop complaining. The devs are talking about FVS here. If you want to complain about your "Needed" monk changes, create a new thread.

B) LOL! This would be so boring. You would basically have one way to builda monk: Max Wisdom. That's it. You're problems are solved. No need to balance the other stats to give you a nice comfortable build, no. There would be no diversity in how people make PURE melee monks. It would now just be a competition to see who can get the highest wisdom, making it more or less, a P2P class. Because to get the highest wisdom, you'd have to buy stat tomes, and stat pots, etc. I feel like what makes DDO fun is creating something from nothing, and balancing gear, enhancements, feats, ED, etc. to give the maximum effectiveness for each class.


2) If you're going to increase mana/HP pools, do it to every class.


A) What?! do you SEE the hp and mana pools of the FVS?! You're giving up one for the other. You either have a decent HP bar (1k-1.1k) And a mana pool from 4k-4.6k, OR A decent mana pool (5-6k,) and your HP is chilling somewhere from 700-900. Compared to a sorc (Which more or less is the FVS of the arcane casters) which has a stable SP bar ranging from 5-7k, and hp ranging from 1k-1.2k. ?!!? Now, for healer FVS, that might not the case, because they don't have to gear in spell crit items, spell power items, DC items, etc. But for the ones that do DAMAGE, you're picking between one, and the other. And though, the HP might bypass the sorc, after the changes are made, a sorc can do a lot more damage that a FVS, if built correctly. And FVS, are meant to be built a LITTLE tanky. They get access to heavy armor, shields, etc.

B) That would be madness. Now we are just trying to make the game easy? Because that's what I feel the community wants? If you want an easy game, DDO is not for you. It's supposed to be challenging, and if Devs try to catch one class by giving it a little boost on HP/SP, the rest of the community shouldn't demand a raise for ALL classes. We beg for a FVS/Cleric remake, devs try, and everyone just constantly complains. I'm not saying these changes are PERFECT, would love to have seen another tree for the FVS, but for Christ sakes, calm down. Not EVERYONE can have their way. And usually the devs have a reason of doing everything, usually. I doubt this is the last we will hear of these changes, I expect some newer, upcoming threads, giving more in depth detail in the near/upcoming future.


3) Replacing resistance for absorption is madness!


A) Do you not have access to a guild ship? I believe you can get 30 resistance? is that not good enough for your low-level heroics? And if you're not in a guild high enough, There are around 55 guild above the level of 140 in just Khyber ALONE. I'm sure you can ask for a ship invite from your fellow adventurers :)

B) I assume they are making these changes for the upcoming Ravenloft update, which will (with my predictions) be end-game reaper focused content. Which would explain why SSG put out the RTRs, to 1. Help grind out that needed RXP, and 2. The keep you occupied with heroic content, so when Ravenloft comes out, you won't be burnt out of end-game already. (Just my opinion)


4) You can't mess around with the base class! I thought DDO was based on D&D!? are you just scrapping that now?!


A) You're correct, it is BASED on D&D, but DDO IS NOT D&D, DDO is DDO. if you want to play D&D, no one is stopping you.

B)I think it's time to spice things up a little bit. And who says that the original game is perfect anyhow? You've done it before, admit it. When sit down and play Monopoly, do you play 100% by the ACTUAL rules? Well first off, Free parking doesn't give you the money in the center. If you land on a property, and don't want to buy it, the bank is supposed to auction it right there and then, to the rest of the players. There's more, but let's not get sidetracked, the point is, people play the games in different ways. If the devs have kept this game alive for over 10 years, I think they know what they're doing.


Here are just a few of the reoccurring points that kept popping up, and continued to **** me off. But, to each their own. Everyone has their own opinions, I'd just thought I'd give some insight on what people on the other side of the table might be thinking.

-Icedtea

[dunklezhan]

4) You can't mess around with the base class! I thought DDO was based on D&D!? are you just scrapping that now?!


I thought FVS was a class created for DDO anyway. Wasn't it basically a sorcerer bloodline rather than its own class in PnP? I was mostly a 2nd ed player skipped 3rd ed till pathfinder came along. I could well be wrong.

Either way. I agree with you on this point in particular. its not worth getting het up about on the 'core' DnD issue with this one.

The new suggestions do still provide choices and meaningful consequences, so that's good. What's been simplified as a result though is questionable I think.

In some ways it's good, because if you're building an evoker, your choice is right there, in other ways it's bad, because the choice is right there and obvious.

But that's because I think we're looking at it wrong. It's meant to be seen as a "boost" to your chosen specialisation. It just doesn't seem that way to us, because it means directly "nerfing" something, as compared to what we have now... for no discernable reason. I mean, its not like FVS were particularly leading in the HP or SP count (because few FVS went max cha because DCs weren't based off that).

That said, I think if FVS had been built this way from the start though, where basically the benefit of being a FVS is a choice of casting stat and medium combat capabilities out the box... I think we'd all have been nodding and saying 'makes sense'.

FVS weirdness was distinctive. I think these changes make it less distinctive... but simpler and more accessible.

I still haven't decided how I feel about it. Mixed, frankly.

[die]

Greetings,


Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

I endorse this message! I like all the changes.

- Doom

[slarden]

The problem with both those splits is it forces you into exalted angel, which might be good for your dcs but is absolutely **** for your damage. It has potential for a niche cc/heal focus build.

Playing a ranged toon without a fair amount of ms enhancement and/or wings is sub optimal at the moment.

Additionally if you aren't running in exalted angel, not only will you lose wings, you'll also lose a substantial amount of dcs - negating the point of the build in the first place.

I fail to see how these live up to the "massively op" claims that the other poster implied.
The ranged build doesn't need no fail dc or spell pen to be effective with supplemental spellcasting and would work with several destinies. It's premature to assess any theory crafting builds at this point. i wouldn't assume exalted angel is required for a ranged build. Maybe for a pure dc caster but I would probably go with charisma on a pure caster. Possibly wisdom as a pure caster in shiradi but I think we will see more shiradi clerics than fvs.

[Silverleafeon]

Also, it is mindblowing that you think cleric is behind FVS right now.

Sev is a smart fellow with a lot on his mind,
I am going with that he inverted his sentence, meaning to say:

"Favored Soul is behind Cleric..."

but accidently said the opposite.

I blame the vampires, and am wondering if we get to become all vampires in the raid?
That would be interesting, "Load your inflict spells!"

[karatemack]

I blame the vampires, and am wondering if we get to become all vampires in the raid?
That would be interesting, "Load your inflict spells!"

You won't get to become a vampire until after you complete 3 of each alignment past life. It's the alignment completionist reward.

[Morroiel]

Sev is a smart fellow with a lot on his mind,
I am going with that he inverted his sentence, meaning to say:

"Favored Soul is behind Cleric..."

but accidently said the opposite.

I blame the vampires, and am wondering if we get to become all vampires in the raid?
That would be interesting, "Load your inflict spells!"

The devs and sev said the same thing on ddocast a week or so ago. They think cleric is behind fvs - I have no idea why.

[Steve_Howe]

I thought FVS was a class created for DDO anyway. Wasn't it basically a sorcerer bloodline rather than its own class in PnP? I was mostly a 2nd ed player skipped 3rd ed till pathfinder came along. I could well be wrong.

You are. It first appeared in the D&D Miniatures Handbook in 2003. It was then made official for the D&D v3.5 game in the Complete Divine book in 2004.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Miniatures_Handbook_coverthumb.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b1/Complete_Divine_coverthumb.jpg

[Morroiel]

You are. It first appeared in the D&D Miniatures Handbook in 2003. It was then made official for the D&D v3.5 game in the Complete Divine book in 2004.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Miniatures_Handbook_coverthumb.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b1/Complete_Divine_coverthumb.jpg

And in 5e it went back to being a sorcerer bloodline :) (a seriously OP one at that).

[Steve_Howe]

And in 5e it went back to being a sorcerer bloodline :) (a seriously OP one at that).

Pathfinder has a Celestial bloodline for Sorcs in that system. They get a tiny bit of healing, iirc, but nowhere near as much as 5th Ed. I'm sure.

[Arch-Necromancer]

You are. It first appeared in the D&D Miniatures Handbook in 2003. It was then made official for the D&D v3.5 game in the Complete Divine book in 2004.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Miniatures_Handbook_coverthumb.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b1/Complete_Divine_coverthumb.jpg

You can google it too:

https://dndtools.net/classes/favored-soul/

Here are class features from D&D:

Deity's Weapon Focus: At 3rd level, a favored soul gains the Weapon Focus feat with her deity's favored weapon. If the character already has that feat, she can choose a different one.

Energy Resistance (Ex): At 5th level, a favored soul chooses an energy type and gains resistance 10 against that type. At 10th level and 15th level, the character gains resistance 10 against another energy type of her choosing.

Deity's Weapon Specialization: At 12th level, a favored soul gains the Weapon Specialization feat with her deity's favored weapon. If she already has that feat, she can choose a different one.

Wings (Ex): At 17th level, a favored soul gains wings and can fly at a speed of 60 feet (good maneuverability). A good-aligned favored soul grows feathered wings, and an evil-aligned favored soul gains batlike wings. A favored soul who is neither good nor evil may choose either type of wings.

Damage Reduction (Su): A 20th-level favored soul gains damage reduction. If the character is lawful-aligned, the damage reduction is 10/silver. If the character is chaotic-aligned, the damage reduction is 10/cold iron. A favored soul who is neither lawful nor chaotic may choose either type of damage reduction.
__________________________________________________


As you can all see, Favored Soul gets Energy RESISTANCE, not Absorption.

If the reason for changing resistance to absorption is epic level scaling, why not just add it to epic levels through epic destiny trees or feats? Why change the base class in heroics too and break the core rules just because you want to fix the class in epics?

On the other hand, Favored Souls do not get permanent Wings in DDO. Instead they get Leap of Faith, a SP consuming ability.

I think that "Wings" could be simulated by the "floating" and "feather fall" effect like one you have in Wraith Pale Master form. It could be a toggle at free will ability gained as a feat on level 17 Favored Soul. Leap of faith could stay since it together with floating would simulate flying ability.

And, as rules state, THERE ARE ALSO EVIL FAVORED SOULS!

Neutral Favored Souls can choose EVIL BAT-LIKE WINGS TOO.

This game does nice so far on allowing players to be dark, evil-looking characters (Pale Master shrouds, Dark Path Clerics). So why not tweak Favored Souls to have dark path too?

There is no negative energy choice for Angel of Vengeance. It needs to be included.

So instead of breaking D&D rules, you can actually make the game more interesting by actually following them and making the class have a dark side choice, and better simulation of "Wings" on level 17.

I want a Favored Soul Necro with bat-like wings AS D&D RULES DEMAND!

[Arch-Necromancer]

But I think that breaking the rules for focusing the casting stat on either wisdom or charisma instead of both is a good choice because, as someone already mentioned it, stat spreading caused the class to be underperforming in D&D, and in DDO too, so it can be viewed as a DDO tweak that fixed this problem. But more changes to base class such as adding HP/SP, changing resistance to absorption are not needed and should be done with enhancement trees or epic destiny enhancements/feats.

There is an enhancement in Exalted Angel destiny tree:

Endless faith: Passive Bonus: Spell point pool increased by [4/7/10]%. Echoes of power restore up to [18/24/30] sp.

Why not tweak it to give more SP pool increase like [5/10/15]% instead of changing Favored Soul base class? And do something similar to other divine destiny tree for HP? That way you would not change the base class and break D&D rules too much, but change the Epic Destiny tree, and that way all claracters could benefit from it, effectively fixing part of SP pool problem for ALL classes.

[Cashier]

But I think that breaking the rules for focusing the casting stat on either wisdom or charisma instead of both is a good choice because, as someone already mentioned it, stat spreading caused the class to be underperforming in D&D, and in DDO too, so it can be viewed as a DDO tweak that fixed this problem. But more changes to base class such as adding HP/SP, changing resistance to absorption are not needed and should be done with enhancement trees or epic destiny enhancements/feats.

There is an enhancement in Exalted Angel destiny tree:

Endless faith: Passive Bonus: Spell point pool increased by [4/7/10]%. Echoes of power restore up to [18/24/30] sp.

Why not tweak it to give more SP pool increase like [5/10/15]% instead of changing Favored Soul base class? And do something similar to other divine destiny tree for HP? That way you would not change the base class and break D&D rules too much, but change the Epic Destiny tree, and that way all claracters could benefit from it, effectively fixing part of SP pool problem for ALL classes.


The reason the don't put these in ED, is because then everyone is able to twist it in, and again, they won't it to be a FVS ability, and ONLY fvs. This would just mean a SP boosts to all casters, assuming most casters twist in the already cheap ability, being tier 1.

[Grace_ana]

Don't know what destiny you are suggesting to play in then - blitz and fury of the wild don't offer charisma or wisdom. Fury of the wild or blitz is the right choice to begin with but his leads to the following problem:

You'll be down 8 charisma or 6 wisdom, +3 transcendental dc, 3 spell pen, and most importantly wings (if you are splashing mc).

On top of losing casting levels -> spell pen for your fvs spells from mcing. Caster levels matter for nearly ALL of the relevant DC spells for a fvs.

You are stuck with only 1 good active attack to chain for fury of the wild, which means your furyshot will be lackluster.

Which means your best option might be blitz but this is where you're screwed, keeping stacks up will be nearly impossible if you intend to actually make use of your spell dcs.

This is a flavor toon or a 3rd rate toon at best. 14 monk/6 ranger twisting in cocoon and renewal in fury of the wild gets you far more sustained dps, ranged-related cc, burst dps, and survivability (abundant step). In short till I see a build post clearly distinguishing why such a toon is "massively op", I'll keep on believing the rational thing: hybrid caster/dps builds are ****. Also don't know where you are getting heavy survivability: you could have same hitpoint pool w.r.t. to taking a hit as the 14/6 split but you won't have wings to guarantee a miss on the next incoming hit.

Hint: It's not primarily a caster. That's where you're getting hung up. Just because a toon CAN cast doesn't mean that is necessarily its primary aspect. I build a lot of toons, both theory and testing on lives (I don't post them in the forums, because that takes too much focus on my part to be around and answer questions). Trust me, this is not anything like a 3rd rate or flavor toon.

Hybrid builds can be amazing with the right synergy. The wis to hit and damage provides that synergy, with no drawbacks whatsoever. You're really, really missing it here. Plus, wings are nice but not remotely necessary. I play most toons without them and do just fine.

[Renvar]

Hint: It's not primarily a caster. That's where you're getting hung up. Just because a toon CAN cast doesn't mean that is necessarily its primary aspect. I build a lot of toons, both theory and testing on lives (I don't post them in the forums, because that takes too much focus on my part to be around and answer questions). Trust me, this is not anything like a 3rd rate or flavor toon.

Hybrid builds can be amazing with the right synergy. The wis to hit and damage provides that synergy, with no drawbacks whatsoever. You're really, really missing it here. Plus, wings are nice but not remotely necessary. I play most toons without them and do just fine.

And you are missing that it won't have the crit profile or the raw damage or ranged power numbers to make it all that powerful. Bows aren't great dps anyways due to the slow rof and low base damage. This build will still lag behind the best shuri builds and Xbox builds today. It will have strong cc strong self heals and average dps. It will be a good build. But not the best. Not even close. If this build was that omg awesome people would be doing it today. The only difference when you have to use dex for to hit and damage is some gear slots and a loss of about 10 damage per hit. You can get your to hit high enough with dex around 60 and accuracy items and enhancements tho that to hit isn't a problem. So all this change does is make gearing easier and adds a little damage. But not enough to match the other ranged builds

[Grace_ana]

And you are missing that it won't have the crit profile or the raw damage or ranged power numbers to make it all that powerful.

I'm not missing anything at all. You might want to pull out a planner as well and take a look. It will absolutely have the crit bonuses.


Bows aren't great dps anyways due to the slow rof and low base damage. This build will still lag behind the best shuri builds and Xbox builds today. It will have strong cc strong self heals and average dps. It will be a good build. But not the best. Not even close.

You don't understand ranged builds then. I can't help you there.


If this build was that omg awesome people would be doing it today.

Um, how? The FVS changes aren't live or even on Lama.


The only difference when you have to use dex for to hit and damage is some gear slots and a loss of about 10 damage per hit. You can get your to hit high enough with dex around 60 and accuracy items and enhancements tho that to hit isn't a problem. So all this change does is make gearing easier and adds a little damage. But not enough to match the other ranged builds

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. There are huge differences, including having to invest in multiple stats heavily. Having one stat control your hit, damage, AC, burst damage (if ranged), spell DCs, spell points, and ranged CC DC (if ranged) all at the same time is huge.

[karatemack]

If this build was that omg awesome people would be doing it today.

Wait... how can I use WIS for to-hit and damage and my casting stat on a FVS today?

Unless I'm missing something... then today I would have to invest in WIS, CHA and DEX or STR to get to the same effect as I will by just investing in WIS after.

CC relates to DPS. Self-healing relates to DPS. Max damage with this build? Nope. How big will the gap be though and do the gained abilities make it worth the slight loss in DPS? Maybe. Guess it comes down to playstyle though.

[Grace_ana]

Wait... how can I use WIS for to-hit and damage and my casting stat on a FVS today?

Unless I'm missing something... then today I would have to invest in WIS, CHA and DEX or STR to get to the same effect as I will by just investing in WIS after.

CC relates to DPS. Self-healing relates to DPS. Max damage with this build? Nope. How big will the gap be though and do the gained abilities make it worth the slight loss in DPS? Maybe. Guess it comes down to playstyle though.

And it's giving up a little bit of damage at most for a ton of survivability. You're losing some BAB, which will affect your damage, but remember that you're primarily using the AA tree (so dps stuff there), or the monk/kensai trees (melee power, crit bonuses, etc.). Plus lots of leftover points to put wherever you need them for dps. It's not much of a loss, and toons that survive better do more dps.

[SeveredSteel]

And it's giving up a little bit of damage at most for a ton of survivability. You're losing some BAB, which will affect your damage, but remember that you're primarily using the AA tree (so dps stuff there), or the monk/kensai trees (melee power, crit bonuses, etc.). Plus lots of leftover points to put wherever you need them for dps. It's not much of a loss, and toons that survive better do more dps.

8/6/6 is a better dps build than 12+. Advantage of 12FvS is heal spell. You will not b DC'ing with 12 FvS levels. Loss of DC boosting feats or loss of DPS feats. There is no in-between for DC builds. Then gear slots, where ais it going to slot LGS, Enchantment, insightful enchantment, quality enchantment, quality spell focus, artifact Spell focus, profane dc, melee power, accuracy, deadly, insightful MP, acc, dead. Doublestrike, and ghostly? These hybrids will be ~15 dc below a dedicated DC build, good luck landing spells. Are these hybrids going to rely on DC feats wiz life, SF/GSF/Heighten or will they lean on DPS feats like Cleave/G.Cleave, Im[ Crit, Melee power 2%, tactics, weapon fighting lines? This is just heroic feats. Then we have the AP. AP for dps builds does not coincide with DC builds. Kensei and Monk high tiers couple with what DC boosts, which DC feats?

There are already current options to build hybrid builds on live right now using Harper or PDK. Warlock, Sorc, Bard and Wizard. They're all lower tier. The singular advantage of the fvs hybrid is maul of silv. And Heal spell if your hybrid wasn't arcane robot. In any and all cases it's going to not be top tier melee/ranged and at best will not be 2nd tier DC.

[Silverleafeon]

As an alternative to boosting Child, Favored, Beloved:

If the Devs are looking for ways to distinguish Favored Souls & Sorcerers from Clerics & Wizards, and realize
that the current spell point calculations are arbitrary abstract conversions of spell slots, then you could take this route:


~ At level one , Favored Souls & Sorcerers gain the following bonus:
Fury of the Self Taught (replace with whatever cool name you desire) feat
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul/Sorcerer level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.


Changing the math as you please, one could easily drop the numbers to 10ish ect...

One could also remove the spell cost penalty in the Sorcerer capstone, add more epic destiny points for everyone to spend in the expansion, and via la Sorcerers...
looking pretty till their pass.....

I remain the same opinion about the other changes, and am just offering another alternative to the level six feature.

[Silverleafeon]

The reason the don't put these in ED, is because then everyone is able to twist it in, and again, they won't it to be a FVS ability, and ONLY fvs. This would just mean a SP boosts to all casters, assuming most casters twist in the already cheap ability, being tier 1.

Its a good point, and just the same Warpriest is a tree for two classes, therefore its not easy to slip better favored weapon for favored soul
options into this tree because both classes get the same tree.

Notice the wording Favored is both a class name and a weapon name.
Favored Souls should have better favored weapons than Clerics.

There is the Child, Favored, Beloved feats...which are autogranted to Favored Souls,
however the feat is also available to Clerics and Pally.

So again, the Half level = Favored Soul class = bonus granted mechanic does not work therein on the Child/Favored/Beloved feat line or on the Warpriest line.

There is also the rumored new independent knife tree from the upcoming expansion which was rumored? to have wis to damage?
Available to all for action points?

Of course this leaves Favored Souls who now can use Cha for casting out in the cold...especially if they are just using weapons for auxiary dps.

[Grace_ana]

Some are, unfortunately.

I guarantee no one is playing that build. No one.

Want to guess how I know?

[slarden]

And you are missing that it won't have the crit profile or the raw damage or ranged power numbers to make it all that powerful. Bows aren't great dps anyways due to the slow rof and low base damage. This build will still lag behind the best shuri builds and Xbox builds today. It will have strong cc strong self heals and average dps. It will be a good build. But not the best. Not even close. If this build was that omg awesome people would be doing it today. The only difference when you have to use dex for to hit and damage is some gear slots and a loss of about 10 damage per hit. You can get your to hit high enough with dex around 60 and accuracy items and enhancements tho that to hit isn't a problem. So all this change does is make gearing easier and adds a little damage. But not enough to match the other ranged builds

It's not really something possible today because zen archery only helps with attack and not damage.

It's premature to make final assessments when it's only theory-crafting at this point. It's kind of a nice nitch for favored soul to have wisdom to hit/damage, 10k stars, spellcasting all on the same stat and where being centered in ocean stance makes total sense. It will make a nice centered divine warrior that has burst ranged dps, cc, healing all in one. Not the best at any one thing but effective at all. There are a alot of bows that can help with crits - some easy to find - some hard including sapphire sting, silver bow, unwavering ardency, bow of sinew, epic thornlord, pinion and epic sapphire sting. Divine Crusader is the most thematic and interesting destiny choice, but there are several that would work and some would probably be less thematic but better. Divine Crusader does have +1 crit range and shadow arrows has +1 crit multiplier making epic sapphire sting 16-20 x 4 before counting epic feats. The 10k stars ranged power boost for 60 seconds out of 2 minutes definitely does not suck.

The best build in the game is the build a person has the most fun playing. I expect this to be a build that people will like because of all the utility and versatility. Having everything based on wisdom is what makes it feasible to gear well for both ranged dps and spell casting. Looking forward to trying it and not even a little worried where it stacks up on the power charts. It should be a solid build for soloing reaper or joining a party and it doesn't matter to me how fast it does dps on a kobold.

[Silverleafeon]

The devs and sev said the same thing on ddocast a week or so ago. They think cleric is behind fvs - I have no idea why.

Wow...no way if they are talking live.

Hmm...only way I can figure that is adding upcoming under development updates that we can not see yet.

For example, if Angel of Vengeance is actually fixed into an awesome tree.

And you add in these changes include the powerful level six hit point bonuses.

Then yeah.

Of course we cannot see the Angel of Vengeance tree changes,
nor the Warpriest tree changes
nor the lesser point costs for Radiant Servants.

But if that level six feat choice is getting in the way of having an awesome Angel of Vengeance tree,
then I certainly want the level six feat choice to go into the trash can.

[Arch-Necromancer]

The reason the don't put these in ED, is because then everyone is able to twist it in, and again, they won't it to be a FVS ability, and ONLY fvs. This would just mean a SP boosts to all casters, assuming most casters twist in the already cheap ability, being tier 1.

And it is a problem if other casters can use it too? You are saying other casters don't have problems with SP pools?

Favored Souls and Sorcerers already get more SP per level and double SP bonus from item effects.

This means if you increase SP pool by 15% instead of 10% it affects favored souls and sorcerers more than wizards and clerics (double bonus from this enhancement).

If you need SP bonus just for favored souls, maybe SP bonus enhancement could be added to Favored Soul enhancement tree, either Angel of Vengeance or a new tree in the future.


As an alternative to boosting Child, Favored, Beloved:

If the Devs are looking for ways to distinguish Favored Souls & Sorcerers from Clerics & Wizards, and realize
that the current spell point calculations are arbitrary abstract conversions of spell slots, then you could take this route:


~ At level one , Favored Souls & Sorcerers gain the following bonus:
Fury of the Self Taught (replace with whatever cool name you desire) feat
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul/Sorcerer level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.


Changing the math as you please, one could easily drop the numbers to 10ish ect...

One could also remove the spell cost penalty in the Sorcerer capstone, add more epic destiny points for everyone to spend in the expansion, and via la Sorcerers...
looking pretty till their pass.....

I remain the same opinion about the other changes, and am just offering another alternative to the level six feature.

Why would you add a feat for that at all? If you want larger SP gain per level just change base SP progression through levels:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Spell_point

[Grace_ana]

Personally, I think the devs should scrap changing the base class (resistance to absorption is really the only thing that makes sense due to the nature of the game and isn't a huge departure from pnp). Take the other stuff and some of the other suggestions made here by Silverleafon and others. Craft a third enhancement tree around that, including a multiselector in which you can choose wisdom or charisma to EITHER affect your casting stats (DC, SP, etc.) or melee/ranged stats (hit, dmg, etc.).

[karatemack]

I wonder if a third tree is already in the works? Other spell additions or other changes to FVS not listed here?

If it is then it might be helpful to give players a fuller picture of what is being planned for FvS as all the moving pieces change the full picture and could shape some of the feedback being provided.

[gummolo]

I wonder if a third tree is already in the works? Other spell additions or other changes to FVS not listed here?

If it is then it might be helpful to give players a fuller picture of what is being planned for FvS as all the moving pieces change the full picture and could shape some of the feedback being provided.

This

[Angelic-council]

I like the changes very much.. but you guys are so late. Now I have to change my gear and even the race. Sigh.

[Cashier]

I like the changes very much.. but you guys are so late. Now I have to change my gear and even the race. Sigh.

How so? lol. Why would you have to change your gear? Whatever if anything with gear, maybe get rid of the CHA/WIS items you don't need. and sun elf is still the best caster class.... What would you have to change?

[Silverleafeon]

Why would you add a feat for that at all? If you want larger SP gain per level just change base SP progression through levels:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Spell_point

+1 quite true, easy enough to tweak?

[Grace_ana]

I'm going to try to explain this all another way.

Anytime in the game that characters are allowed to use a stat other than their usual stat for anything, they have to make either an enhancement or feat investment (or two class-bound spells). The more of an investment, (usually) the more powerful it is. Below are all the ways in the game to change the default stat used.

Insightful reflexes - int for reflex save, feat
Force of personality - cha for will save, feat
Weapon finesse - dex to hit with light weapons, feat
Brutal throw - str to attack with thrown weapons, feat
Zen archery - wis to attack with ranged weapons (not thrown), monk feat
Past life: harbinger of nature's wrath - wis for hit and damage for summoned scimitars only, feat and a past life
Cormyrean knight training - cha for attack and damage with certain weapons, tier 1 PDK
Strategic combat I - int to hit, tier 1 harper
Strategic combat II - int for damage, tier 3 harper
Knife in the darkness - dex to hit with daggers and kukris, core 1 assassin
Dagger in the back - dex for damage with daggers and kukris, core 2 assassin
Targeting sights - int for damage with crossbows and thrown weapons, core 3 mechanic
Staff control - dex to hit with qstaffs, core 1 acrobat
Stick fighting - dex for damage with qstaffs, core 2 acrobat
Basic ninja training - dex to hit with centered weapons, core 1 ninja spy
Advanced ninja training - dex for damage with centered weapons, core 2 ninja spy
Different tack - dex, cha, or int for damage while SWF, tier 3 swashbuckler
Improved weapon finesse - dex for damage with bows, thrown weapons, and melee weapons with which you can use dex to hit, tier 2 DWS
Elven grace - dex for damage with certain weapons, tier 4 elf
Morninglord grace - dex for damage with certain weapons, tier 4 morninglord
Throw your weight around - con for damage with certain weapons, tier 4 dwarf
Skillful thrower - dex for damage with returning thrown weapons, tier 3 halfling
Tempest - dex to hit while dual wielding light weapons, core 2 tempest
Graceful death - dex for damage while dual wielding light weapons, core 3 tempest
Insightful strikes - int to hit, artificer spell
Insightful damage - int for damage, artificer spell

There are three takeaways from the above list:

1. Absolutely no one gets a choice for free. All of the options require at least a minimal investment, ranging from a specific class and spell slot all the way up to a feat and past life. Requiring the build investment is what balances it all out.

2. There is literally no option anywhere in the game for a caster to choose a preferred casting stat. Nowhere. It destroys the balance between investment and the power of spellcasting.

3. Allowing a class to choose a consolidated, preferred stat for BOTH casting and melee/ranged for free is so beyond broken, I cannot comprehend why it is even being suggested.

[Qezuzu]

There are three takeaways from the above list:

1. Absolutely no one gets a choice for free. All of the options require at least a minimal investment, ranging from a specific class and spell slot all the way up to a feat and past life. Requiring the build investment is what balances it all out.

2. There is literally no option anywhere in the game for a caster to choose a preferred casting stat. Nowhere. It destroys the balance between investment and the power of spellcasting.

3. Allowing a class to choose a consolidated, preferred stat for BOTH casting and melee/ranged for free is so beyond broken, I cannot comprehend why it is even being suggested.

Casting stat seiously doesn't matter beyond a few nuances (in FvS case they choose between better will saves or higher eburst DC, among other things) so being able to choose between WIS/CHA is not unbalancing. Yes, it is unique to choose casting stat, but this doesn't make it unbalancing.

Some ways to choose a different stat for things are so cheap it's a wonder why you even included them. See: core abilities fir acro/temp/ninja/assass, spell slots for artie. This is just another cheap way to change stat for att/dmg (not free: cheap. Not being able do something like 8/6/6 while benefiting from this counts as a cost.)

Wiz can already get INT to hit/dmg pretty cheaply (they're going to be investing in harper either way,) but you don't see melee/caster hybrid wizards blowing through content. Unless Warpriest gets overbuffed, I guarantee it will be the same for FvS.

Remember: just because it's a new way to do things doesn't make it unbalancing. Classes are supposed to be different.

[Cashier]

Casting stat seiously doesn't matter beyond a few nuances (in FvS case they choose between better will saves or higher eburst DC, among other things) so being able to choose between WIS/CHA is not unbalancing. Yes, it is unique to choose casting stat, but this doesn't make it unbalancing.

Some ways to choose a different stat for things are so cheap it's a wonder why you even included them. See: core abilities fir acro/temp/ninja/assass, spell slots for artie. This is just another cheap way to change stat for att/dmg (not free: cheap. Not being able do something like 8/6/6 while benefiting from this counts as a cost.)

Wiz can already get INT to hit/dmg pretty cheaply (they're going to be investing in harper either way,) but you don't see melee/caster hybrid wizards blowing through content. Unless Warpriest gets overbuffed, I guarantee it will be the same for FvS.

Remember: just because it's a new way to do things doesn't make it unbalancing. Classes are supposed to be different.

I agree fully. You said that choosing one stat is unbalancing? Altough... every other caster class only has to focus on one stat? Sorc:CHA Wiz:INT Cleric:WIS Druid:WIS I don't understand how making FVS the same way is unbalancing. You get get far better damage in a Sorc, and a DC wizard is amazing in upper content. *** are you complaining about?

[Enoach]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes




~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

I'm going to admit that I'm torn here. While making this use the highest would help make them the same as the other caster class, but at the same time to me it feels like it is moving some of these classes away from what gives them flavor. Such as how Strength and Charisma is important to Paladin abilities.



~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

I actually like this change because of how it scales.



~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

I like this idea, especially limited to favored weapon. However, I hope this does not override Strength if that is the highest or when features the use Dexterity when dexterity is the highest.



~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Why a choice here - Why not 5 HP and 10 SP per Heroic and 5 HP and 15 SP per epic level and use the percentage of favored soul levels

This would be +150 HP and +350 SP

verse
+300 HP OR +700 SP




Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

[Grace_ana]

Casting stat seiously doesn't matter beyond a few nuances (in FvS case they choose between better will saves or higher eburst DC, among other things) so being able to choose between WIS/CHA is not unbalancing. Yes, it is unique to choose casting stat, but this doesn't make it unbalancing.

Some ways to choose a different stat for things are so cheap it's a wonder why you even included them. See: core abilities fir acro/temp/ninja/assass, spell slots for artie. This is just another cheap way to change stat for att/dmg (not free: cheap. Not being able do something like 8/6/6 while benefiting from this counts as a cost.)

Wiz can already get INT to hit/dmg pretty cheaply (they're going to be investing in harper either way,) but you don't see melee/caster hybrid wizards blowing through content. Unless Warpriest gets overbuffed, I guarantee it will be the same for FvS.

Remember: just because it's a new way to do things doesn't make it unbalancing. Classes are supposed to be different.

We've well and truly jumped the shark now.



I agree fully. You said that choosing one stat is unbalancing? Altough... every other caster class only has to focus on one stat? Sorc:CHA Wiz:INT Cleric:WIS Druid:WIS I don't understand how making FVS the same way is unbalancing. You get get far better damage in a Sorc, and a DC wizard is amazing in upper content. *** are you complaining about?

It's one stat for casting AND physical damage. Please show me the other classes that can inherently do that with zero investment. I'll wait here.

[SeveredSteel]

It's one stat for casting AND physical damage. Please show me the other classes that can inherently do that with zero investment. I'll wait here.
Sure, despite this being an irrelevant criteria, we will indulge you inner casual. Showing other classes with zero investment :

Sorcerer PDK 3 ap. Zero with racial AP used. Even if no racial ap possessed it is minimal with 3 ap. None of these are running around broken. Maybe you're just the best builder of all time and the majority of posters don't know anything. But, that is only in a bizzaro world reality.
Bard PDK. Yes.
Warlock PDK. Yes.

What, now you're not going to use PDK racial tree and human isn't good? K. glad that's settled then.

Wizard with harper 12 ap. 2 ap cost if maxed racials. Otherwise 5 ap beyond what KTA maxed out would cost. Are we not going to take KTA on an int build?

No one is excited to make any of the above. You can now count your fvs build amongst them. Grats.

[DarthBeckett]

Is there really much difference between "with no investment" and what you where going to do anyway?

[Qezuzu]

We've well and truly jumped the shark now.

You could reply to at least one point, maybe.


It's one stat for casting AND physical damage. Please show me the other classes that can inherently do that with zero investment. I'll wait here.

In case you just skimmed my post, I kind of already said that doing something at a slightly lower cost than everyone else doesn't make something unbalanced.

Anyway, Sorcerer and Warlock can get CHA to damage and attack for a few weapon types for free with PDK enhancements and three racial points from racial past lives. Bard can also do this (or they can invest in Swash which gives a lot more benefits to melee/ranged damage as well. Seeing as you can very easily get away with only 41 points in spellsinger, this is again not that big of a cost given the major bonuses that exist in Swash.)

I don't know how well versed you are with Wizard but you usually are going to have a decent amount of investment in Harper since it provides more INT, so taking the INT-to-dmg from here is not terribly costly.

And artificer gets the insightful spells of course... actually basically every caster can get casting-stat-to-damage except for WIS caster (Flame Blade doesn't count, it's worse than using a normal weapon with your STR.)

Wizard also comes with 5 bonus feats so they have a much easier time fitting in both the casting feats and the melee/ranged damage feats, and yet their casting/phys dmg hybrids still suck because Eldritch Knight is really weak. Newsflash Warpriest is as well. So unless it gets uber buffed (doubtful given they already put Holy Sword in War domain, and putting competence bonus to crit range/mult in Warpriest would greatly cheapen that domain) I'm really not forseeing particularly good hybrid FvS any time soon.

I just want to remind you that there has NEVER been an overpowered melee/phys dmg build in the game. Ever. It has never happened, and it has NOTHING to do with how "costly" it is to get casting-stat-to-att/dmg. An overpowered hybrid build will never happen, especially on a class with no bonus feats.

[Grace_ana]

Sure, despite this being an irrelevant criteria, we will indulge you inner casual. Showing other classes with zero investment :

Sorcerer PDK 3 ap. Zero with racial AP used. Even if no racial ap possessed it is minimal with 3 ap. None of these are running around broken. Maybe you're just the best builder of all time and the majority of posters don't know anything. But, that is only in a bizzaro world reality.

Minimal is not the same as none. It requires AP, as well as a specific race and potentially racial past lives if that is what you are using. Small investment and no investment are not the same thing.


Bard PDK. Yes.
Warlock PDK. Yes.

Same thing as above.


What, now you're not going to use PDK racial tree and human isn't good? K. glad that's settled then.

No idea what you are even talking about here, dude.


Wizard with harper 12 ap. 2 ap cost if maxed racials. Otherwise 5 ap beyond what KTA maxed out would cost. Are we not going to take KTA on an int build?

So...like I said, AP investment.
You're literally making my point here, dude.


No one is excited to make any of the above. You can now count your fvs build amongst them. Grats.

Yes, no one was excited to make monk rangers for synergy or anything.

Hey, since it doesn't matter, we can just give everyone a stat choice. Warlocks can choose either charisma or constitution for all their physical and casting attributes. I mean, dwarf anyway, amiright? Also, rangers can just choose either dex or wis for all their damage and DCs. No problem there. Let's just let everyone have it for free, since we can already get it another way, because it's exactly the same!

Some of you should review psychoblonde's quote in my sig. It's applicable.

[SeveredSteel]

Minimal is not the same as none. It requires AP, as well as a specific race and potentially racial past lives if that is what you are using. Small investment and no investment are not the same thing.
.

Minimal is, for all intents and purposes, effectively zero. Three AP into PDK isn't going to ruin any hypothetical build. Specific race, okay, and so? It's 3 ap to combine stats for both physical and magical damage. Wow, omg, so broken that no one plays it. Crazy, I know!. And if you think you're not taking KTA in any int hybrid then idk what to tell you.

If your theorized magical FvS hybrid is so broken then a PDK sorc would have already proved in game how OMG OP pls nerf it was. But it isn't. Only in your imagination is a fvs hybrid broken. Bards can pick any race and spend some AP in swash tree. I know, I know, "not zero, bro!!!!!!1111". but I guess a bard hybrid wasn't going to use swash for melee now /s

You're wrong. And you should feel bad.

[Qezuzu]

snip

You literally have no argument that FvS WIS/CHA-to-att/dmg is unbalanced beyond "it's free," and when given other similar abilities that can be used to make casters with casting-stat-to-att/dmg that are not only not overpowered, they're not even good, you say they don't count because they're not totally 100% free. Which implies you think casting-stat-to-att/dmg casters could be overpowered (not just "okay," a level they're barely even able to reach, but overpowered,) if only they had three more AP to play with.

You've also completely avoided mentioning the restriction to this feature, which is Favored Weapon only. Meaning you wouldn't be able to use this with most of the good weapon classes e.g. Khopesh, it wouldn't work with any thrown weapons or crossbows, and the best ones (Scimitar, Maul) come with race restrictions.

[Silverleafeon]

Since Artificiers got a spellpower: All Runearm Shots: Between 50% and 80% unnerfed in Update 36

perhaps
Summon Archon (Favored Soul): 50% could be unnerfed as well?

[Elfishski]

You literally have no argument that FvS WIS/CHA-to-att/dmg is unbalanced beyond "it's free," and when given other similar abilities that can be used to make casters with casting-stat-to-att/dmg that are not only not overpowered, they're not even good, you say they don't count because they're not totally 100% free. Which implies you think casting-stat-to-att/dmg casters could be overpowered (not just "okay," a level they're barely even able to reach, but overpowered,) if only they had three more AP to play with.

You've also completely avoided mentioning the restriction to this feature, which is Favored Weapon only. Meaning you wouldn't be able to use this with most of the good weapon classes e.g. Khopesh, it wouldn't work with any thrown weapons or crossbows, and the best ones (Scimitar, Maul) come with race restrictions.

I would agree that it's not particularly overpowered - I just played a 12 FvS 6 monk 2 fighter Arcane Archer recently, and it was decent. Wis to damage would have made it better, but it wouldn't have been brokenly better with a few extra damage per hit.

However, "free" bonus HP and stat-to-dmg is still a really bad precedent I would argue.
1. it sets a precedent where all the other classes will say "why not me???"
2. it makes it harder to find cool new things to add in a 3rd tree or to update the weak warpriest because they already got it for free and nobody wants to lose it once they have it
3. it's actually less fun. Looking forward to having the AP to be able to use wis for damage is anticipation that keeps you wanting to level, and spending those points is really satisfying too. And then your character feels more awesome than it did before, you notice the difference and you want to play more. All good things.
4. it's less flavorful adding base things to a class like that - it doesn't attach to anything in the D&D background, and that makes some people cross, and it doesn't imply that your character learned or did anything better.


My preference:
Do a mini-update on the trees instead. Squeeze your choice of stat for wis to spellpoints or cha to dcs in somewhere in Angel of Vengeance. Put wis or cha to damage in core 12 or T5 warpriest for favored soul.

There's no reason why cleric warpriest and FvS warpriest have to be identical - make them subtly different like Stalwart Defender and Sacred Defender.


Adding a pile of bonus HP is really crude, not a good way to balance the classes (I mean, why FvS and not barbarian??). The other things are fine but much better placed into an enhancement tree, and not for reasons of it being immediately unbalanced compared to other build options.

[Eryhn]

Since Artificiers got a spellpower: All Runearm Shots: Between 50% and 80% unnerfed in Update 36

perhaps
Summon Archon (Favored Soul): 50% could be unnerfed as well?

I like this thought. as it is, its dps addition to a full fledged caster doesn't amount to much, whereas on melee arcane split builds the dps is a joke.

still haven't TRed my weird 21 points for archon in AOV silvanus maul 12/6/2 kensei/pally split. It's nice that if enough mobs are there it works to power arcane warrior feat and it gives back a decent amount of temp SP as well -but the dmg with lantern ring added is still a joke. ticks like 60-90 at lvl 30. ok, yeah, i could boost spellpower another 75ish or so with slavers light and insight light but meh. looking at it now its rather wasted 21 AP compared to what else i could get for that, which makes melee with archon a pure funs for flavor choice ...

[Codect]

Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit
Sev~

Is this a joke? How this is the conclusion you've reached is beyond me. There are very few reasons to consider playing a FvS rather than a cleric on live. These changes are just going to reinforce this.

The cleric domain changes you've posted are powerful (imo too powerful), interesting, offer a lot of choice and build on the identity of the class. These FvS changes in comparison are narrow in scope, uninspiring, boring, and if anything they make FvS more generic.

I hope this isn't everything you have planned.

[RKP]

Is this a joke? How this is the conclusion you've reached is beyond me. There are very few reasons to consider playing a FvS rather than a cleric on live. These changes are just going to reinforce this.

The cleric domain changes you've posted are powerful (imo too powerful), interesting, offer a lot of choice and build on the identity of the class. These FvS changes in comparison are narrow in scope, uninspiring, boring, and if anything they make FvS more generic.

I hope this isn't everything you have planned.



I agree 100% with the criticisms of this proposed "improvement" for favored souls. The cleric updates look fantastic and have clever game mechanics. The fvs improvements look tacked on by someone that didn't like the fvs class but wanted people to have a reason to buy the class for multi-classing/completionist purposes. Keep the plan but make it an AP option and then add something more interesting for the base class. How about an extra weapon buff on the deity's favored weapon besides adding more weapon specialization. Maybe extra light damage when wielding the favored weapon? Or alignment damage? That might be interesting because it would encourage a fvs to choose the extreme alignments for more damage (ie CG or LG). Or maybe play off the resistance aspect. A favored soul gets hit with damage that is covered by his/her energy resistance then (s)he gets a short term favored weapon buff similar to the artificer spell, elemental weapons. The whole fvs plan just seems like a "we gave up and did this" plan. Please go back to the drawing board.

[Fedora1]

You're wrong. And you should feel bad.

She is only wrong about it being way OP. However she is right about the basic point of NO investment gets you a great deal.

All of your examples require more of an investment than you make it out to be. Having to choose a very specific race (PDK) and spend AP does not get you a build that is solid in both casting AND melee at the same time. Yes, they can share a stat, but it's still not a melee build because there is very little way to build a decent melee + caster sorc.

The AP investment into Harper for INT as a wizard will also not build a solid melee + caster.

The only example that merits anything close is going to be a swash, which is a solid melee with good CC and support caster. However, they still need some AP investment to do it - minimal yes.

So I don't see the FVS being so OP it will be game breaking, but I would expect at least one FOTM build to pop up as a high survivability melee caster come out of it.

One way NOT to argue against an exaggerated OP claim is by saying that 12 AP or 3AP + specific race or 3 AP + grinding RPL is comparable to "free".

[Grace_ana]

One way NOT to argue against an exaggerated OP claim is by saying that 12 AP or 3AP + specific race or 3 AP + grinding RPL is comparable to "free".

We can argue all day about the power levels, and that's fine because it's subjective. But this quote is just truth. Anyone that argues otherwise is using Shade math. And if we're going to just start pretending "some" and "free" are the same thing, that sets quite the precedent.

[Grace_ana]

You literally have no argument that FvS WIS/CHA-to-att/dmg is unbalanced beyond "it's free," and when given other similar abilities that can be used to make casters with casting-stat-to-att/dmg that are not only not overpowered, they're not even good, you say they don't count because they're not totally 100% free. Which implies you think casting-stat-to-att/dmg casters could be overpowered (not just "okay," a level they're barely even able to reach, but overpowered,) if only they had three more AP to play with.

Too much nonsense in there to actually address, so I won't bother.


You've also completely avoided mentioning the restriction to this feature, which is Favored Weapon only. Meaning you wouldn't be able to use this with most of the good weapon classes e.g. Khopesh, it wouldn't work with any thrown weapons or crossbows, and the best ones (Scimitar, Maul) come with race restrictions.

Yeah, I hate TWF warhammers in LD with pulverizer. So weak, man. So weak.

[Fedora1]

You've also completely avoided mentioning the restriction to this feature, which is Favored Weapon only.


Yeah, I hate TWF warhammers in LD with pulverizer. So weak, man. So weak.

Not to mention some of the alternative arguments also have restricted weapons - although the restrictions are not as harsh as being limited to a single weapon.

Bards restrictions are not a problem since they actually get great crits regardless of choice, but the PDK ability is restricted to shortswords, longswords, bastard swords, and greatswords for example. So now you have to play a specific race, spend AP, and be restricted to one of those weapons - of which the only one that is special also costs an extra feat. Greatswords are a good choice only because there are a LOT of nice named ones out there, so you could almost say you only get the bonuses with two weapons.

[SeveredSteel]

I would expect at least one FOTM build to pop up as a high survivability melee caster come out of it.
".

You would be wrong, too. Don't sweat it, being right as much as I am is only a curse.

[Fedora1]

You would be wrong, too. Don't sweat it, being right as much as I am is only a curse.

I'm pretty certain it will happen if only because a lot of people will be stoked to play a FVS build that doesn't suck.

[Silverleafeon]

Don't forget, weapons choices are currently linked to AoV capstone SLAs.

So, if you want Sunbolt SLA, you get to swing a Heavy Mace as a Favored Weapon...

So, if you want to swing a Greatsword, you get Shield as an SLA capstone...


Silverflame is not bad with a longbow & Searing Light combo,
nor is SH with longsword & CLW combo


Still, compared to getting Earthquake, Aura, and Divine Disciple Capstone...hopefully AoV gets some SLA love soontm

[Qezuzu]

Yeah, I hate TWF warhammers in LD with pulverizer. So weak, man. So weak.

So EDs haven't been mentioned yet but they're another reason hybrid builds suck.

Taking Pulverizer means not being in Exalted angel, which means your DC will drop by 6 or 7 points. In terms of DC casting that is a metric f***ton. You would also lose five FvS caster levels, meaning you would lose a lot of benefit from Master of Light.

So not only would you be doing mediocre melee damage (again with the whole "no competent melee enhancement tree",) you'd have gimped DCs and gimped spell damage (for whatever spell damage is worth.) This is the exact same issue that current hybrid builds run into, there is just no way to invest enough in both areas to make either of them usefully strong.

Feats: there aren't enough feats for both casting and melee feats at the same time. You cry that we're not putting any emphasis on being restricted to PDK for that CHA-to-att/dmg but a hybrid FvS will absolutely have to be Human for any hope of getting enough feats. And you have basically no hope of fitting in all the good epic feats, given that pure casters struggle to fit in all the decent feats without having to worry about added in Overwhelming Crit.

ED: you need to choose a destiny and you're basically restricted to Divine Crusader if you want semi-competent performance in either area. This means no Dreadnought goodies. This means lower DCs and light spell damage. Crusader is by no means bad but this is just another area where you need to make suboptimal choices to accommodate both things at the same time.

Enhancement trees: no caster has a competent physical damage tree and this is probably going to remain the case for FvS.

Multiclassing: multiclassing has heavy cost to caster performance and hybrids suffer just the same. Taking even a light splash like 3 bard for better crit profiles means you lose implosion, 2 DC from the FvS capstone and spell level, three caster levels which is roughly 10% of your spell damage just gone, and three spell pen. Doing a heavier splash like 12/x means you might as well not bother casting spells at all beyond heals/buffs.

Hybrids suck, always will suck, and no amount of freebies will make them not suck. Not only will FvS with casting stat to att/dmg not be overpowered, not only will it not be strong, it probably will not be worthwhile on any difficulty above Hard as compared to just a straight up caster FvS.

This is with the sole caveat of them making Warpriest sort of okay, which doesn't fix the problems with feats, or ED, or multiclassing.

[Arch-Necromancer]

If having one and the same stat for both weapon damage and spellcasting seems too much, maybe instead of getting one stat for casting, Favored Souls could keep current distribution between wisdom and charisma for casting (staying true to PnP), but get reduced cooldown for spells (like sorcerers).

Reducing cooldown for spells would help Favored Souls in casting (maybe even more than one casting stat choice), and would not ruin PnP base class by changing casting stats.

Then players would be able to choose between wisdom and charisma just for favored weapon bonus.


I would also consider instead of making this a feat, this favored weapon stat bonus could be added to Warpriest enhancement tree.

It would fit in nicely into the Righteous Weapons enhancement line. Then giving wisdom/charisma for hit and damage could be given gradually:

Tier 1 Righteous Weapons enhancement could have a selector between wisdom and charisma to hit, and Tier 3 one would give wisdom or charisma to damage.

That way it would match other stat changes to weapon hit/damage from enhancement trees (similar to Harper Agent).

[Silverleafeon]

If having one and the same stat for both weapon damage and spellcasting seems too much, maybe instead of getting one stat for casting, Favored Souls could keep current distribution between wisdom and charisma for casting (staying true to PnP), but get reduced cooldown for spells (like sorcerers).

Reducing cooldown for spells would help Favored Souls in casting (maybe even more than one casting stat choice), and would not ruin PnP base class by changing casting stats.


Favored Souls having dual casting has been one of the biggest thorns in the side of caster favored souls.

Respectfully, I recall that D&D makes it very clear that their rules are guidelines that DMs can alter.

I feel that Dual Stats brings the flavor split stats while eliminating the huge mistake of split caster stats.

While I would welcome faster casting speeds, that is likely to entail a complete rewrite of the clerical spells,
and the time might be better spent elsewhere atm.

Dual Casting Stats brings new builds to Divines, such as being able to twist Energy Burst,
which happens to be the best caster twist in the game.

Favored Souls are extremely likely to have the quicken feat (for the heal & mass heal spells alone),
and adding some more SLAs will help provide spell that can be quickened for free.



Then players would be able to choose between wisdom and charisma just for favored weapon bonus.

I would also consider instead of making this a feat, this favored weapon stat bonus could be added to Warpriest enhancement tree.

It would fit in nicely into the Righteous Weapons enhancement line. Then giving wisdom/charisma for hit and damage could be given gradually:

Tier 1 Righteous Weapons enhancement could have a selector between wisdom and charisma to hit, and Tier 3 one would give wisdom or charisma to damage.

That way it would match other stat changes to weapon hit/damage from enhancement trees (similar to Harper Agent).

While this is not my preferred approach, one should note that most casters don't use weapons much,
and most weapon masters don't use offensive spells much.

If you want to make a pure favored soul caster pay 13 action points to be able to use their favored weapon,
most favored soul caster will not bother spending the action points on thus.

There is the broken tree builds, but one expects them to be cleric/wizard hybrids not a favored soul caster.

;;;;;;

If the Devs want to move Wis/Cha to the Warpriest tree, although I object, its no big deal.

If the Devs refuse to finally fix the split casting stat, its a huge deal, enough to break out the pickforks and torches....

[Silverleafeon]

Perhaps I should say it another way.

If you put Wis/Cha to damage in the warpriest tree, you pretty much are giving it to melee Favored Souls for almost free.

They will invest in the tree anyway if it has been improved enough.
If its not improved enough, well then no one will use it anyway.

You also might be letting them get around the proposed half levels must be favored soul.


You are making wis/cha to damage less reachable to Favored Soul casters that might use weapons to save spell points.


It makes little sense for a Favored Soul focusing on weapon attacks to go pure favored soul,
when Fighter/Monk/Ranger grants bonus feats.


And there is the difference between a caster and a weapon master favor soul,
its the feats that set them apart.


A Caster Favored Soul will take:
Quickened
Empowered
Maximize
Spell Focus ____
Heighten
Intensify
Hellball (Cha casting)
Ect...


A Weapon Master Favored Soul will take:
TWF/SWF/THF/SM line of three feats
IC
Weapon Stance
Overwhelming Crit
Perfect TWF
Ect...


There is a huge difference in feat lines here.

[Silverleafeon]

Oh, and don't forget the nightmare of mixing weapon and casting buffs via equipment slots.

If one wants to make the "perfect" caster melee hybrid Favored Soul, good luck,
wis/cha to damage is the least of your problems...

[Silverleafeon]

When I was on the Player's Council, Sev introduced some theory crafting for potential "Knight" class.
(Due to NDA, I will not go into details.)

The biggest objection voiced by PC members was that is was too close to Fighter and Pally.

At that point, I realized that Class distinction is very, very important.
Its important for classes to be as different from each other as possible.


The changes outlined (except for the level six group), definitely provided a larger gap between Cleric, Favored Soul, and Druid.
Should there ever be an Oriental Expansion, it would distinction for the future.


I realize some claim that Wis/Cha to damage sets a dangerous precedent,
but each class must have distinctions, so just because Favored Soul gets thus with Favored Weapons,
does not mean that other classes deserve a "distinction" feature of Favored Soul.


Favored Soul and Cleric are very, very close; Domains and theses or other Class Changes are important distinctions.


Rangers get manyshot,
Monks get stunning fist,
Barbarians get rage,
all making them distinctive from Fighters.

[slarden]

We've well and truly jumped the shark now.


It's one stat for casting AND physical damage. Please show me the other classes that can inherently do that with zero investment. I'll wait here.


It's going to be an interesting build that I look forward to trying out, but I am not seeing the balance issues you are seeing. An artificer has this today with insightful damage and insightful strikes, using intelligence for spellcasting and using int potentially for reflex saves. With a 12 pt investment in harper any int casting build would have the same thing but better since they get int to hit, int to damage and KTA on top of it. Artificer with insightful strikes and damage is your closest match.

The Artificer must cast the spell on weapons, but it works with any weapon while the fvs ability only works on one weapon. So let's say long bow is your favored weapon and you find a good short bow you would like to use- sorry but your wisdom to hit and damage is limited to a single weapon.

Arcane Archer tree has a long history of buggy interactions favorable to players. If such a thing exists that is where any OP abilities would come from not simply the concept of using a single stat for everything. That is cool, but not OP on it's own.

[FrostBeard]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

Ok Change

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

Not sure this will make much of a difference. Need some numbers to tell. What % per feat. 10% doesn’t seem like very much since absorption stacks multiplicity.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

This makes Divine Might useless and may affect Class\Racial\Destiny stat enhancement trees that only give bonus to certain stats. Strength is hard to beat as there so many additional bonus sources already in the game. Rage, Tensors, Inherit\set bonuses on items already in game, also many feats are tied to strength like power attack, two handed fighting. Etc.,
It will be difficult to justify the use of this change.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Ok Change. Spell points seems unneeded as Favoured Souls already get double like sorcerers.

I’d love to see the new enhancement trees tie in with whatever is done to the base class, making them unique, fun and useful.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~


Some Suggestions to make Favoured Souls more unique
• Deity's Weapon Focus\ Specialization bonuses
• Energy Resistance bonuses\penalties linked to deity
• Unique skill Wings\Aura abilities linked to deity
• Special Damage Reduction linked to deity scales to level
• Use of Heavy Armor unsure why favoured souls can’t use heavy Armor.
• Better Deity Feats tied to favoured weapon that scale to level.
• Faster casting similar to sorcerers.
• Less spells, more unique spells

[DaviMOC]

Thought we would have a healing tree finally( as the game is recovering the healbot mechanics).

The changes are good but as alot already said it is a bit off the classic FVS. I suggest going more tunned to what it is on 3.5. What about removing warpriest tree and adding a new melee tree more aligned to favored weapons? Having its own melee tree would be nice. I imagine the FVS on tabletop more like a hybrid melee/caster offensive combatant . Maybe that should be the way to be followed to give its own niche and relevance, instead of being in the shadow of a cleric or paladin.

I like the resistance to absorption changes. In DDO proportion of damage and health or it is complete overpowered negating all elemental damage or it is complete useless negating like 50 of 1000.( useless on most epic quests). Thinking in that way, the barbarian DR should be rethought too.

[Arch-Necromancer]

Some Suggestions to make Favoured Souls more unique
• Deity's Weapon Focus\ Specialization bonuses
• Energy Resistance bonuses\penalties linked to deity
• Unique skill Wings\Aura abilities linked to deity
• Special Damage Reduction linked to deity scales to level
• Use of Heavy Armor unsure why favoured souls can’t use heavy Armor.
• Better Deity Feats tied to favoured weapon that scale to level.
• Faster casting similar to sorcerers.
• Less spells, more unique spells

Favored Souls do not get heavy armor in PnP, only medium. Clerics do get heavy armor. That is one difference between those classes.

Faster casting times would be nice. :D

[ilhares]

Seems a bit high. A free +200hp for pure favoured souls by level 20? Is hp a problem for them or something, I've never played one.I had originally made drow FvS, and it hadn't worked out well for me - on those, it would be a notable improvement.

The one time I built an FvS with the intention to be a healer, I went warforged. I ended up just murdering everything with my greatsword and almost never had to worry about my own HP. Damage resistance, elemental resistance, and glancing blows kinda made it a cakewalk. First time I truly enjoyed playing a divine character, I rocked it out through two eTRs. Having more HP or SP wouldn't be bad, but neither would have affected me greatly. I suppose with everybody trying to jump on the Reaper bandwagon lately that those extra SP might be real handy for healing/raising people all the time.

[jellyfish21]

Just, please, add the spell line to transform the character into a celestial being. Favored Soul. There is a reason behind the name. There are simple spells to create a true celestial by level 20. They need the spells, not the enhancements. What about Righteous Might, a basic PHB spell. Or, improve Divine Might to scale into epics, or scale shield of faith. Introduce the resistance spells for saving throws. Scale divine favor. Get rid of the type of bonus for divine might. Everyone has insight bonuses to STR. Why would you need divine might? Introduce Greater Magic Weapon and scale it into epics. Introduce Magic Armor. Make heroes feast unable to be dispelled. Give them permanent, special buff from house Jerasco, the healing house. Change their weapon of choice to a weapon group. Revamp the entire melee enhancement line. Enable them to float and animate them with wings. Change DC's of blade barrier and scale it with warlock damage. Make blade barrier constant damage like a wall of fire. Improve Greater command to work on any enemy, including undead and vermin, by way of a celestial language. Increase dc's, increase dc's more, then, increase dc's a lot more. We shouldn't need a 90 dc to effect epic elite, Trash-mob enemies in a legendary raids. Otherwise, any CC build is useless. Useless. Very useless. If you want only melee enemies, a level 30 wizard should be able to wisk them away, like cotton or dust. A level 30 CC caster should be able to effect any enemy. Your red names are chit. Give a CC player at least a chance to CC red named. So, spell damage, increase dc's and increase dps to a warlock level.

If you do not increase a spell dps of the favored soul unto equal to a warlock, you failed. You failed completely. You should just quit work.

[Soleran100]

"Make blade barrier constant damage like a wall of fire"

That made me think that there should be an SLA bladebarrier effect that centers on the caster and moves with them:) I'd like that alot for an FVS spell (cleric too.)

[gummolo]

"Make blade barrier constant damage like a wall of fire"

That made me think that there should be an SLA bladebarrier effect that centers on the caster and moves with them:) I'd like that alot for an FVS spell (cleric too.)

Nice idea!

[elvesunited]

The pure favored soul melee attacker is very similar to the pure druid wold attacker.

Both take fighting feats over spell casting feats.
Both generally have a physical attribute prioritized over a mental attribute.
As such neither is effective as a DC or DPS caster.
Both get some benefits from their class to enhancement ( deity feats / wolf form )
Both have only one class tree that is useful to them. ( warpriest / nature warrior )
Both enhancement trees have only one at best decent tier 5 ability.
Both are capable of exscessive self-healing during melee fighting.
Favored benefitting from their large spell point pool and wolves from temporary sp.

What you've got is a melee attacker who is constantly healing himself to make up for his subpar defensive and offensive ( compared to true fighter types ) At higher difficulties this falls apart which is why almost all wolf builds are multi-class.

Will the new changes make a difference? yes, but not that much.

Charisma or Wisdom as pell casting stat won't change anything. The melee favored already gave up on meaningful DC so was dumping wisdom. Charisma was either a 2nd or 3rd priority stat.

Charisma or wisdom for damage will allow them to have their spellcasting stat as their primary attribute but it won't change that much. They still won't have the spellcasting feats needs for decent DC casting. And they'll still need the minimum physical attributes for the fighting feats ( like 13 Strength for Power attack ) Depending on the fighting style they go for it still might make sense for the physical attribute to be the primary attribute.

Hit points are the biggest help. ( no one will take spell points ) But even then having large amounts of hp isn't enough. You also need the dodge, AC, PRR, MRR, etc to make losing those hit points as difficult as possible. And favored souls tend to be lacking in the defense department.

[Soleran100]

Will the new changes make a difference? yes, but not that much.

Charisma or Wisdom as pell casting stat won't change anything. The melee favored already gave up on meaningful DC so was dumping wisdom. Charisma was either a 2nd or 3rd priority stat.

Charisma or wisdom for damage will allow them to have their spellcasting stat as their primary attribute but it won't change that much. They still won't have the spellcasting feats needs for decent DC casting. And they'll still need the minimum physical attributes for the fighting feats ( like 13 Strength for Power attack ) Depending on the fighting style they go for it still might make sense for the physical attribute to be the primary attribute.

Hit points are the biggest help. ( no one will take spell points ) But even then having large amounts of hp isn't enough. You also need the dodge, AC, PRR, MRR, etc to make losing those hit points as difficult as possible. And favored souls tend to be lacking in the defense department.

Having your caster stat used for melee damage at low heroic lvls will be a very nice boost to lvling. Soundburst, (insert alignment spell) and beat on them with a staff(or dagger, warhammer, sickle etc) will be useful until you get BB which is alot better then how it is today.

[Niminae]

Perhaps I should say it another way.

If you put Wis/Cha to damage in the warpriest tree, you pretty much are giving it to melee Favored Souls for almost free.

They will invest in the tree anyway if it has been improved enough.
If its not improved enough, well then no one will use it anyway.

You also might be letting them get around the proposed half levels must be favored soul.

That's not a bad thought at all. And they have placed special restrictions on specific abilities in Enhancement trees before, such as 8 Fighter levels required for the T4 Weapon Group Specialization when all T4 abilities require only 4 specific class levels.

[Arch-Necromancer]

That's not a bad thought at all. And they have placed special restrictions on specific abilities in Enhancement trees before, such as 8 Fighter levels required for the T4 Weapon Group Specialization when all T4 abilities require only 4 specific class levels.

Good point. Kensei does that with Weapon focus feat requirement. Perhaps the warpriest could have Deity weapon feat requirements for its Righteous Weapons line. That would be consistent with Kensei and would give restrictions to wisdom to hit and damage based on Favored Soul levels.

Other option would be to include wisdom to hit/damage into warpriest cores, dependng on which level you want them to get it.

[rover223]

Seems a bit high. A free +200hp for pure favoured souls by level 20? Is hp a problem for them or something, I've never played one.

Yeah it is, you're often in the thick of it and 500-600 points behind the fighters and paladins.

[Teeaaa]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~



When the update comes out, will there be a way for a free "reincarnation" or similar so we can respec or rebuild our FVS to best coincide with the new updates?

[RKP]

I have thought about the reasons that I don't like the so-called "improvements" to favored souls. My primary gripe is that the "improvements" will not match anyone's current build of a fvs. If you played a favored soul as more than just a ticket to completionist you will have invested ability points (and tomes) on at least two of three (more likely all 3) of the combo of strength, wisdom, and charisma. With the so-called "improvements" everyone's build will be obsolete. That means everyone has to TR or get a +20 stone fix their build. Are you going to send a +20 stone to every fvs character? Probably not.

Contrast the above with the cleric improvements. After reading the list of domains a number of times I think I can safely state that there is almost certainly at least one domain that would be a welcome addition to every cleric build out there. Quite a difference if you think about it. One improvement is a welcome addition every cleric pc can enjoy and the other improvement sends every fvs character back to the drawing board.

not cool

Personally, if you go through with this, I will TR my main to a cleric which is a pity since I seem to be the only person running a fvs in legendary.

[RKP]

How about if, at level one, the Favored soul was allowed to choose wisdom or charisma and this was used as a bonus on damage when the fvs crits with the deity's favored weapon? If that is too OP then how about on a vorpal hit? That won't ruin anyone's build and would be welcomed by everyone. You can still use the "half your levels have to be fvs" restriction if cherry picking that ability by a multiclass is a concern.

[rover223]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

Will a third tree be introduced for the class?

[Steve_Howe]

Will a third tree be introduced for the class?

Eventually. Not for this update.

[Silverleafeon]

I am rather disappointed that counting religious lore feats is not used more often.

There are probably some situations where this would be easily implemented.
Such as the upcoming cleric/favored soul passes.

For example, the Child, Favored Beloved Feat line up could have a trigger in it such as:
...if religious lore feats => (heroic levels/2) then ...
Or in an enhancement tree such as
...religious lore feats * (0.1) * {insert factor} ....

If there is zero plans for an independent wis to dam tree, then perhaps the warpriest tree should consider thus,
as low hanging fruit for monks to pluck?


Also...

I really feel that placing Dual Spellcasting ability stats into an enhancement tree leaves Favored Souls
more open to possible bugs; I much prefer it to be hard wired into the core class.

There is enough stuff that does not work already.
Sure as shooting, when everything is done, something like hellball will be left out,
or energy burst which will kill the whole idea of Cha casting anyway...

[rover223]

Angel of Charity

Core 1 1ap lvl 1 font of grace. 1 heal amp and .5 pos per ap spent

Core 2 1ap lvl 3 vibrancy. +1 to haggle for each core

Core 3 1ap lvl 6 alchemist. can craft healers kits into CSW pots

Core 4 2ap lvl 12 embracing the light
heighten

Core 5 2ap lvl 18 penetrating the darkness
Enlarge

Core 6 2ap lvl 20 all stand up
Mass true resurrection 50sp
+2 wis +2 cha +2 con
9


Tree 1 the light within
Tier 1?*
Tier 2 2ap produce flame
Tier 3 3ap sunbolt
Tier 4 3ap sunbeam
Tier 5 3ap sunburst
11

Tree 2 aura of hope
Tier 1 2ap glimmer of hope
Aura. Adds fvs level prr/mrr to fvs level allies in radius?*
?* ?* ?* Passive ki regen fvs level per minute
Tier 2 2ap good hope
Tier 3 2ap brightened hope
Aura add. Fvs level/4 sacred saves
Tier 4 2ap fire shield
Tier 5 3ap beacon of hope
Aura Add Heal amp 20/40/70 plus fav soul level
Offers raise dead to party members within its radius
11

Tree 3 angelic touch
Tier 1 2ap pos +10 heal spells crit +1%
Tier 2 2ap +1 wis cha con
Tier 3 2ap pos +20 crit 2%
Tier 4 2ap +1 wis cha con
Tier 5 2ap pos +30 crit 3%
10

Tree 4 Dana?*
Tier 1 3ap 25/50/75 cure scrolls
Tier 2 3ap 30/60/100 sp
Tier 3 6ap efficient empower heal -1/2/4
Tier 4 2ap panacea?*
14

Tree 5 favored by the light
Tier 1 3ap +1/2/3 diplomacy heal
Tier 2 3ap +5/10/15 light resistance
Tier 3 3ap +10/20/30 light absorption
Tier 4 6ap +1/2/3 to spell pen
Tier 5 3ap +10/20/30 to spell damage multiplier
18
73

Notes1
Warpriest tier 2 fav weapon add wisdom to hit
Warpriest tier 3 fav weapon add wisdom to damage
Warpriest tier 4 fav weapon add charisma to wisdom. Divine presence

Notes2
My thanks to Silverleafeon, for the Lost Trees Project.
I used that for inspiration, and borrowed quite heavily from its design philosophy.
However, I felt the beacon angel was too closely copied from radiant and aov. I wanted a soul that complimented its own trees and brought forth new possibilities. This is more a hybrid of sla and healing, so that depending on flavor, you could spec either way.
It is a heal amp build. To synergize with radiant. One to heal, one to boost heals. While still maintaining either damage or heals. But heavily influenced along rezzing lines.
A pure angel of charity will have a +20 p/mrr, +5 saves, and +100 heal amp. Aura. ?*Plus mass true Rez. He will be a beacon of hope (for party wipes).?*


https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/476774-New-Favored-Soul-tree-the-Angel-of-Charity

[Niminae]

Will a third tree be introduced for the class?


We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes.

My bolds for emphasis.



Eventually. Not for this update.

That 'eventually' has been waiting over 6 years. Right next to the Druid and Artificer third trees, and the enhancement pass for Cleric, FvS, and Druid trees in general. At this point it's not at all clear that this will ever happen.

[Iriale]

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.
Good change. That division was a mistake of original D&D and never worked. I had preferred to be only wis based, but that choice is right.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.
Have you tested if this is not excessive? Test, please, and do it right (not as you did with warlock and other changes lol ) If it is balanced, no problem, it's thematically ok.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.
Good. Level up a Fvs caster at low levels is painful. But I think that monks, druids, and clerics should have too wis to damage. In pnp I hate this option, but in DDO the numbers are so high that is needed if you want to melee (or weapon ranged) I don't mind if you remove the requisite of "half your character levels are Favored Soul" Not needed with the actual powercreep.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.
I don't like this. Faster casting as sorc is better, as other players have said before. Melee divines need big improvements in Warpriest, not in base class. Caster divines need better prestiges, and all casters (arcane/divine) need improvements to metamagic efficiency.

Too, with the big bonuses to DC and spell power that have the cleric domains, fvs will be a underwhelming option. Other reason for remove big bonuses in domains and add fun and thematically appropriate aptitudes.

[Magnus_Arcanis]

First off, to those that are upset about class changes or diversions from D&D 3.5 (or whatever edition you hold dear). Eventually you’re going to realize that D&D Online should be considered its own edition. Online is a version of D&D just like 5th edition and 3.5 are versions of D&D. I think you’ll be much happier with the state of the game once you accept that.

Onto the proposed class changes themselves.

---- Highest of Wisdom or Charisma for spell casting.

This seems odd to me. I don’t dislike it mind you, but it being the first of its kind to have a choice of casting stat makes it feel uncomfortable. If the plan moving forward is to introduce alternate casting stats throughout various classes (with or without costs)… I can support that. If that is not the plan, then I don’t feel its right to have a class that does.

At least not without some of cost to it. Making it a feat, enhancement, or some other option that would involve giving up an opportunity someplace else would at least feel fair.


---- Energy Resistance becomes Absorption.

I’m on board with this change. Still wish absorption would apply before resistance, but.. this seems like a good move to me for the long term.

---- Charisma or Wisdom to hit and damage with favored weapon

There is no doubt in my mind that this should be in the core of Warpriest. Again, this mostly speaks to a cost of some kind. Every other form of stat substitution has a cost and a restriction. This only has a restriction. Has two actually . Which is something I’d like clarified.

Does “half your character levels” count epic levels (Ie needing 15 levels of FVS on a lv.30 character)? Do the ‘levels’ from epic destinies apply? How about Half Elf dilettante (though I’m fairly certain this won’t apply)? Personally I don’t feel that this restriction needs to exist if the cost is severe enough to balance things out, but if it remains as is, then my opinion on it may change with your answers.

Also, it’s assumed that for to-hit and damage that the highest between Strength, Charisma, or Wisdom (or other if applicable) would be applied. The way its written allows it to be interpreted as you use your choice of charisma or wisdom regardless if it is the highest or not.

---- Hit Points & Spell Points

Another point of clarification. It is implied that the HP and SP gained per level is in addition to its base increase. If true, seems way overpowered. Like, in the “how could this possibly be a thing” category. Another way to interpret it would be to see this replace the base increase. Which if that’s true… would at least seem more balanced against other classes. At least for Hit points anyway.


---- Level 14

What’s the deal with the obsession about level 14? The level to balance things around used to be levels divisible by 3. ;) However, I agree. Stat substitutions should be available as early as possible. Level 1 preferably.

[elvesunited]

This seems odd to me. I don’t dislike it mind you, but it being the first of its kind to have a choice of casting stat makes it feel uncomfortable. If the plan moving forward is to introduce alternate casting stats throughout various classes (with or without costs)… I can support that. If that is not the plan, then I don’t feel its right to have a class that does.
Favored Soul has always had two casting stats while all other classes had one. Personally I don't see why anyone would go for bonus spell points ( Charisma ) over DC. (wisdom) ( favored souls tend to get a lot of sp ) But I'm guessing they are making this change so that it doesn't leave any character who has put a lot of focus on one stat over the other in the lurch by picking the other stat as the spellcast state.


Another point of clarification. It is implied that the HP and SP gained per level is in addition to its base increase. If true, seems way overpowered. Like, in the “how could this possibly be a thing” category. Another way to interpret it would be to see this replace the base increase. Which if that’s true… would at least seem more balanced against other classes. At least for Hit points anyway.

I see this as trying to make the favored soul melee character a thing. I don't see it working though. The melee favored soul lacks the defenses to utilize those hit points effectively. A much better solution would be a heavy upgrade to the warpriest enhancement tree. ( both offense and defense )

[Niminae]

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.
Have you tested if this is not excessive? Test, please, and do it right (not as you did with warlock and other changes lol ) If it is balanced, no problem, it's thematically ok.
Look at it this way: 1 Energy Resistance reduces 100 energy damage by 1 point. And 1 Energy Absorption does exactly the same. But when that 100 energy damage becomes 200, 500, 800 energy damage then 1 Energy Resistance still only reduces the energy damage by 1 point. And 1 Energy Absorption will reduce that energy damage by 2/5/8 points. This is the scaling which was mentioned as the intent of the change. It seems appropriate to me, and not lending itself to balance problems. Unless you think that reducing 800 energy damage by 8 points seems excessive?
And yes, I'm aware that 1 Energy Resistance and 1 Energy Absorption aren't the exact figures involved. The examples serves to make the point, and even multiplying the effect by 10 doesn't make the example invalid. Unless you think that reducing 800 energy damage by 80 points seems excessive?


~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.
I don't like this. Faster casting as sorc is better, as other players have said before. Melee divines need big improvements in Warpriest, not in base class. Caster divines need better prestiges, and all casters (arcane/divine) need improvements to metamagic efficiency.
Faster casting notwithstanding since it isn't one of the options, more Hit Points is probably going to be the selection of most FvS since more Spell Points that go away just as fast as the already deep FvS spell point pool aren't going to be terribly helpful.

We can only hope that when and if there is ever a Divine class pass that FvS get a few select SLAs so that their deep spell point pool can be useful.


Too, with the big bonuses to DC and spell power that have the cleric domains, fvs will be a underwhelming option. Other reason for remove big bonuses in domains and add fun and thematically appropriate aptitudes.
Agreed. And again, we can only hope that when and if there is ever a Divine class pass that FvS get some enhancements which allow them to compete with the benefits that Cleric Domains grant to that class. A third tree which in part focuses on DCs might be nice.

[rover223]

I've got a 3 past-lives FS in a holding pattern waiting for the divine pass and new Aasimar race to be released, anyone heard anything or have any inputs as to when it will occur?

[SpardaX]

Clerics are getting 3 new SLA's entirely for Free, on top of the 3 they already get from DD, and any more they get from Race. Favored Souls have 1 that is only available as a capstone.
If you do nothing else this pass, Please give FvSs at least 1 (preferably at least 2) SLA's in a tree somewhere. (Preferably I'd prefer to get a DD / Savant style tree that is actually geared towards casting, but I know that wont happen.) I can settle for AoV getting 1 or 2 SLA's injected in it, but having the "Divine Sorcerer" which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be the more casty of the Cleric / FvS not have any SLA's seems bad to me.

TL;DR: Clerics have lots of SLAs. Can FvSs also get some of that please?

[SpardaX]

I've got a 3 past-lives FS in a holding pattern waiting for the divine pass and new Aasimar race to be released, anyone heard anything or have any inputs as to when it will occur?

"Before Update 37, Which itself, is set to come out at Halloween, provided all goes well and the Lotro expansion goes to plan." Keep in mind, it is entirely possible that it doesnt.

I believe is the closest we have to a date. I don't know if Im just bad at it, but I can only ever find a date 2 or 3 days before that date. I assume this is because they're only game to put a date down once its almost completely done and they know they can release it.

[Angelic-council]

Angel of Charity

Core 1 1ap lvl 1 font of grace. 1 heal amp and .5 pos per ap spent

Core 2 1ap lvl 3 vibrancy. +1 to haggle for each core

Core 3 1ap lvl 6 alchemist. can craft healers kits into CSW pots

Core 4 2ap lvl 12 embracing the light
heighten

Core 5 2ap lvl 18 penetrating the darkness
Enlarge

Core 6 2ap lvl 20 all stand up
Mass true resurrection 50sp
+2 wis +2 cha +2 con
9


Tree 1 the light within
Tier 1?*
Tier 2 2ap produce flame
Tier 3 3ap sunbolt
Tier 4 3ap sunbeam
Tier 5 3ap sunburst
11

Tree 2 aura of hope
Tier 1 2ap glimmer of hope
Aura. Adds fvs level prr/mrr to fvs level allies in radius?*
?* ?* ?* Passive ki regen fvs level per minute
Tier 2 2ap good hope
Tier 3 2ap brightened hope
Aura add. Fvs level/4 sacred saves
Tier 4 2ap fire shield
Tier 5 3ap beacon of hope
Aura Add Heal amp 20/40/70 plus fav soul level
Offers raise dead to party members within its radius
11

Tree 3 angelic touch
Tier 1 2ap pos +10 heal spells crit +1%
Tier 2 2ap +1 wis cha con
Tier 3 2ap pos +20 crit 2%
Tier 4 2ap +1 wis cha con
Tier 5 2ap pos +30 crit 3%
10

Tree 4 Dana?*
Tier 1 3ap 25/50/75 cure scrolls
Tier 2 3ap 30/60/100 sp
Tier 3 6ap efficient empower heal -1/2/4
Tier 4 2ap panacea?*
14

Tree 5 favored by the light
Tier 1 3ap +1/2/3 diplomacy heal
Tier 2 3ap +5/10/15 light resistance
Tier 3 3ap +10/20/30 light absorption
Tier 4 6ap +1/2/3 to spell pen
Tier 5 3ap +10/20/30 to spell damage multiplier
18
73

Notes1
Warpriest tier 2 fav weapon add wisdom to hit
Warpriest tier 3 fav weapon add wisdom to damage
Warpriest tier 4 fav weapon add charisma to wisdom. Divine presence

Notes2
My thanks to Silverleafeon, for the Lost Trees Project.
I used that for inspiration, and borrowed quite heavily from its design philosophy.
However, I felt the beacon angel was too closely copied from radiant and aov. I wanted a soul that complimented its own trees and brought forth new possibilities. This is more a hybrid of sla and healing, so that depending on flavor, you could spec either way.
It is a heal amp build. To synergize with radiant. One to heal, one to boost heals. While still maintaining either damage or heals. But heavily influenced along rezzing lines.
A pure angel of charity will have a +20 p/mrr, +5 saves, and +100 heal amp. Aura. ?*Plus mass true Rez. He will be a beacon of hope (for party wipes).?*


https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/476774-New-Favored-Soul-tree-the-Angel-of-Charity

We don't really need that tree imo. I don't see it being useful. Sure, you can add 100 more HP. 50 more heal amp. Throw in some saves and mrr.. but it's just not what FvS need right now. FvS are 75% damage and 25% heal. Bringing them more towards healing wouldn't make a good sense to me. FvS lack in SLAs. They need either justified SLA or critical damage multiplier.

[Magnus_Arcanis]

Since I missed Lamania... is anyone able to answer exactly how many levels of FvS we need to get Wis/Cha to attack and damage? 5 (with ED)? 10 (with or without ED) or is it actually 15 since the 'character level' of a capped character right now is 30?

[Silverleafeon]

Given the Animal Domain is going ahead with +hp bonuses,
Favored Souls getting the same option makes sense.

[Keladon]

Since I missed Lamania... is anyone able to answer exactly how many levels of FvS we need to get Wis/Cha to attack and damage? 5 (with ED)? 10 (with or without ED) or is it actually 15 since the 'character level' of a capped character right now is 30?

At lvl 30 you'll need 10 levels of FvS.

[Silverleafeon]

At lvl 30 you'll need 10 levels of FvS.

Makes logical sense.

The release notes wording probably should be changed from half "character" level to half "class" level.

[Silverleafeon]

Hello Devs,


Mass Heal & Reincarnate casting times


While Druid & Divines begin to undergo their overview passes, I would like to mention:

There are two spells that they posses with long & extremely long casting times, Mass Heal & Reincarnation.

Quicken is recommended for both these spells simply for the safety of the caster,
even then the casting time is larger than normal.

This does yield hireling problems concerning mass heal being interrupted.


Now logically, perhaps one might consider the slower casting speeds is a balance measurement?
Or a distinction between classes?

But if this were the case then one must consider their equaling spells from a different class?

Resurrection = Reincarnation yet the Druid version is much, much slower than the other.
Mass Heal = Mass Regeneration yet the Cleric version is much slower than the other.

Notice the crossover, which indicates to me that the Designers did not have a distinctive birds-eye-view.
If a design approach were taken Mass Regenerate would actually be slower than Mass Heal.
This would be a point of view that cleric healing greatly trumps druid healing, which is not true for a smart player.

Considering the idea that Druids & Divines need more love,
I respectfully request that these two spells both have their casting time reduced appropriately.




Also, a few random ideas:

If the 3rd favored soul tree focuses on SLAs, then there is less concern about improving the Angel of Vengeance tree.
This also makes Clerics Healing > Favored Soul healing.

Regardless, the Radiant Servant tree could be less expensive, which should be easy to accomplish during future changes.


I love the ideas from Domains, and I think the Favored Soul class changes help balance the boost.
Perhaps, consider something similar for Wizards and Sorcerers?


EI:


Wizards get to choose a Spell School (in place of the domain) and get appropriate bonuses based upon that school.

Sorcerers get less choices but a few critical ones that are more general.

The design should be balance according to how much love these casters need.



Thanks for reading,
Silver