Update 56 Preview 2: Sacred Fist Archetype

[Lynnabel]

Howdy all! Please be sure to check out both the Producer's Letter (https://www.ddo.com/news/ddo-producers-letter-august-2022) and the Archetype Overview (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/533707-Update-56-Preview-2-Archetype-Overview?p=6534218#post6534218) page before diving in here :)

Sacred Fist is a Paladin Archetype, joining Stormsinger and Dark Apostate as the first wave of 3 Archetypes.

Changes from Base Class
Feats:
Added:
Armor Class Bonus: (1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20) This version scales off of Charisma instead of Wisdom. If you are part-monk this will use the highest of Cha or Wis.

Flurry of Blows (1)

Unarmed Strike (1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20)

Evasion (2) (note: they do not get Improved evasion except as a t5 in the Sacred Fist tree.)

Path of Light (1) This is the Handwraps deity feat. As with all deity feats it grants proficiency with its weapon (in this case Handwraps). It is automatically granted rather than being chosen during feat selection.

Divine Dream (6) This is the level 6 "special" deity feat. It makes you considered to be in Heavy Armor while centered for the purposes of the Sacred Defender tree. This does NOT let you be centered in heavy! It is automatically granted rather than being chosen during feat selection.

Removed:
Sacred Fist Paladins do not gain Shield, Armor, or Martial Weapon Proficiency of any kind. Note that because they get the Path of Light this means they can use Handwraps!

Spellbook:
Level 1:
Added: Ki Bolt. Fire a bolt of pure Ki towards enemies. Deals 1d6 Fire and 1d4 Force damage per caster level, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 10 Ki
Removed: n/a

Level 2:
Added: Sacred Flame Empowerment. Upon cast, you are empowered by holy magic, granting you +3 Sacred Fist Dice and allowing your critical hits to deal 1d20 Bane damage per Sacred Fist Dice, scaling with 100% of your Melee Power. Cost: 18 Ki
Removed: n/a

Level 3:
Added: Creates an incinerating wave of ki fire. Deals 1d6+3 fire and force damage per caster level to targets within the wall, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 18 Ki
Removed: n/a

Level 4:
Added: Waves of fire emanate from your body, dealing 1d6 per Sacred Fist Dice in fire and Light damage to enemies in your vicinity, scaling with Melee Power. For 20 seconds after you cast this spell, you benefit from Fire Shield: Hot, which prevents 50% of your incoming Fire damage and deals a small amount of Fire damage to attackers that strike you in melee. Cost: 30 Ki
Removed: n/a

Skills:
None for this Archetype.

Misc Class Attributes:
Ki Ability: Charisma

Ki Progression: Monk

Note: If you are part-monk (which uses Wisdom for ki), the Ki system will ever so politely take the highest of those modifiers. So don't worry that you'll end up wis-based if you multiclass.

Past Life
Sacred Fist: +5 Healing Amp and +5 Pos Spellpower per stack

New Tree: Sacred Fist
Replaces Knight of the Chalice

Themes: Punch paladin! Burn enemies with your sacred fists.

Cores:


Core 1: Sacred Flame: Toggle: Your melee attacks while centered deal an extra 1d6 Fire damage, scaling with Melee Power. Each core ability in this tree grants you +5 Healing Amplification and +5 Positive Spellpower.
Core 3: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your weapons while using Sacred Flame now bypass Lawful + Good DR.
Core 6: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. Gain +3 Remove Disease Charges and your Remove Disease now applies Greater Restoration to your target.
Core 12: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. You gain Immunity to Energy Drain.
Core 18: +1 Saves and AC. +1 Sacred Flame dice. When you use Turn Undead, you and nearby allies gain +1 Ki on hit and +3 Ki on crit for 20 seconds.
Core 20: +4 Charisma, +3 Saves, +1 Sacred Flame dice. +10 Melee Power. +1 W with Weapons. You absorb 25% of all Fire damage.


Tier 1:

Sacred Strike I: +1 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons.
Extra Smite: +2/4/6 bonus to Smite Evil.
Disciple of the Fist: +1/2/3 Heal, Concentration, and Intimidate. Rank 3: You gain +1 Reflex saving throws.
Deft Strikes: You gain +3/6/10% chance to make offhand attacks while centered.
Ki Shout: Ki Activate: Intimidates nearby enemies, encouraging them to attack you. This ability uses your Concentration skill, and shares a cooldown with the Intimidate skill. (Activation Cost: 5 Ki. Cooldown: 6 seconds)


Tier 2:

Sacred Strike II: +2 to hit and +1 to damage with Favored Weapons.
Sacred Whirlwind: Make a sweeping attack against all nearby enemies for +3[W] damage. Shares a cooldown with the Cleave feat. Cooldown: 5 seconds. Cost: 12 Ki
Critical Mastery: +1/2/3 to confirm critical hits and critical hit damage
Fast Movement: You run 1% faster for each of your Paladin levels.
Action Boost: Doublestrike: Activate to gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doublestrike for 20 seconds.


Tier 3:

Sacred Strike III: +1 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons.
Sacred Smite: An improved smite that adds +1/2/3 to your weapon's critical damage multiplier and +1/2/3 to your weapon's critical threat range. In addition, this applies 1d2 stacks of Armor Destruction and 1d2 Stacks of Vulnerability unless the enemy makes a Fort Save (DC 10+Cha Mod+Sunder bonuses). Cost: 15 Ki (note: this is a Light ki melee attack)
Light of Hope: +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your Sacred Flame toggle now allows you to strike Incorporeal enemies as if you had Ghost Touch.
Instinctive Defense: You take 5/10/15% less extra damage when struck while helpless.
+1 Str / Cha


Tier 4:

Sacred Strike IV: +2 to hit and +1 damage with Favored Weapons.
Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds. (Antireq Tempest + Swash Deflect Arrows)
Light of Glory: +1 Sacred Flame dice. Your Sacred Flame damage is now Light instead of Fire.
Iron Skin: While centered, you gain an additional 5/10/15 PRR.
+1 Str / Cha



Tier 5:

Sacred Strike V: +3 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons, +10 Melee power.
Evasive Dance: Improves your Evasion ability so on a failed Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, you only take 85/70/50% damage.
Avenging Whirlwind: Make a sweeping martial arts attack against all nearby enemies for +5(W) damage. Damaged enemies gain one stack of Vulnerability. Shares its cooldown with the Great Cleave feat. Cost: 18 Ki
Violence Begets Violence: While Centered, when an opponent misses you in melee, you gain +1 critical threat range for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 5 times and is reset if you critically hit.
(this space intentionally left blank)


Added Tree: Radiant Servant
Replaces Vanguard

Changes from base Radiant Servant: All things that say "Cleric Level" now work off Paladin Level.[/QUOTE]

Bugfixes from Previous Lamannia:

Path of Light is now granted automatically instead of being dragged and dropped to prevent UX problems
sacred fist cores no longer cost 2 AP
both Whirlwind Attacks in this tree now use the Whirlwind Attack animation


Known Issues:

Base Paladin can erroneously access the new Ki Spells.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Please consider replacing Radiant servant for Warpriest/Warsoul tree.

The healing tree has no place being lodged into handwrap melee types. Thank you.

[Pandjed]

Could we get Fists of Light here (and be it at 20th level/capstone in tree to avoid monk multiclass shennanigans to take dark as well)? It doesn't even need the finisher feat, I would just really like to use the GMoF epic moment with this tree, but half of its effect is gated by having Fist of Light.

[Deivonte]

Never mind, I saw that they use the Whirlwind Attack animation, which is massive. Thx ;)

[QuantumFX]

Sacred Defender still needs more options to support unarmored builds.

[Lotoc]

What is the duration of sacred flame empowerment going to be?
Also question, the deity feats which grant +atk/dmg to favored weapons and go upto +3/3 for simples, would it be possible for them to treat handwraps as simple rather than exotic? They're one of the few sources of stats that grant distinct bonuses based on simple/martial/exotic category and wraps and other monk weapons are kind of undeserving of the lower bonus seeing as they are all statted like simples.

[Lynnabel]

Could we get Fists of Light here (and be it at 20th level/capstone in tree to avoid monk multiclass shennanigans to take dark as well)? It doesn't even need the finisher feat, I would just really like to use the GMoF epic moment with this tree, but half of its effect is gated by having Fist of Light.

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different! :)

[Pandjed]

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different! :)

Well, I'm more concerned with how GMoF has little synergy with anything as a main-tree outside monk (and I'm not asking for the combo-system, but for the singular feat and there is a light ki attack in the sacred fist tree, for that matter, so it's supposed to work with monk multiclass after all to enrichen the combo system!?).

Nonetheless, let's look into "angle ED synergies towards paladin".

Well, we got the three divine trees, that's were paladins should feel home! I love Divine Crusaders, so--- hm... no sunder DC on sacred fist, one ability that uses sunder and the actual attack is more of a reason to use it... well, can't equip shields either, so I have to build around those enhancements as well... Well, mantle may save it, max BAB--- ah, got it already! Erm, lawful and good bypass! Oh, is in core 3. Well, I could swap my favorite weapon, use GMoF to make it a ki weapon as well, and more or less ignore the handwraps! ...well, Consecrate is nice, but there is a lot of double-downs or avoids here, so maybe not that fit to be a main-tree.

Unyielding Sentinel! That makes people buff, so... ah yeah, the MRR cap and the obvious lack of 50 PRR compared to heavy armor... and sacred fist tree doesn't have much defensive support, so I could slap the other two trees instead, and ignore the SF-tree altogether. Let's not do it right away though, we need to keep looking! So do I want hate on a more DPS build? Usually no. Knight's Challenge and other shield buffs aren't accessible either. Not much attack power here though... I mean, if I want to solo on r1, this seems to be fine, but going to threateny in raids will make the tank hate you, and in highish reaper you want neither be too threateny, nor too low on DPS, which is usually the thing people expect you to bring. Overall, this tree is halfway decent, but spread the character too much.

Exalted Angel though! It doesn't have any melee support, and the only spellpower sacred fist has here is positive...

Hm... I don't think that "angle ED synergies towards paladin" is doing good. I guess, I have to look at the rogues, the fighters, the rangers, the barbarians, the bards, and such to get something out of it. Nah, let's be insightful, I'll try to guess what this build is supposed to do in epic!


It could be a cloth armor PRR tank (so -50 PRR) that tries to stack dodge (though monk multiclass to get earth stance would be recommended here), that ignores the sacred fist tree to get the usual combo of heal and tank out of the two other trees, ignoring handwraps to get two dinocrafted weapons into its hands, so the EDs would be US and maybe some shadowdancer for the avoidance.
Or I use 1 fighter level, get my heavy armor proficiency and ignore my empty ki bar, but can also equip a shield then and be a tank with an extra bar.

Or it could be a healer, using radiant servant as main tree, and then with the whole positive spellpower, EA makes a lot of sense, it's not like you need something else than healing aura and PEB in heroics, and you still got your LoH! Some US for staying power and LoH as well, and you could only use sacred fist during leveling!

...I guess I go GMoF anyway, if I want to play a fisty paladin, I want to play it fisty. Being reminded each time I use Split the Soul that I use the inferior version is still better than to play EDs that offers little to no support for handwraps (and what they offer is also covered by GMoF) and cloth armor.



But seriously, why is Sacred Smite a light ki melee attack, if there is no intention to make it also buff Split the Soul. Even a passive that just grants the benefit of having it (like Divine Dream makes Sacred Defender think you got heavy armor) would be enough in my books.

[Havocthedemon]

This is kind of everything I ever wanted. God I hope can we get more AP to spend eventually. 80 just isn’t enough there’s so many goodies here with the other trees

[Kielbasa]

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different! :)

I said it before and I'll say it again Sacred Fist needs more Cower!!! This way they synergize more with divine crusader.

[Nandos]

Do Sacred Fists get the Divine Health feat at level 3? If so, please change the level 4 enhancement Divine Health in Radiant Servant (Sacred Fist version) to something else. It does the same thing as the feat.
Thanks

[ZER0DIVISION]

The ki spells are a nice addition, but ki bolt & incinerating ki wave will go unused in epics for any build using Epic Defensive Fighting, which causes them to fizzle out after traveling forward for a half-second. As 'ranged' abilities that scale off melee power, can they ignore Epic Defensive Fighting? That would be a huge boon for both sacred fist and henshin mystic builds that will let them actually use these cool abilities at endgame.

[LurkingVeteran]

Howdy all! Please be sure to check out both the Producer's Letter (https://www.ddo.com/news/ddo-producers-letter-august-2022) and the Archetype Overview (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/533707-Update-56-Preview-2-Archetype-Overview?p=6534218#post6534218) page before diving in here :)

Sacred Fist is a Paladin Archetype, joining Stormsinger and Dark Apostate as the first wave of 3 Archetypes.
...



First, please increase the animation speed on ki bolt and/or make it usable while moving. Last time I tried using it, the slow animation that locked you in place made it useless. You are not a ranged character, it's not enough damage to one-shot anybody. You usually need to close that distance to melee at some point, and you can't do that if locked in place for three seconds.

Second, do the cleaves truly grant as many attacks as WW for handwraps? In that case this is very powerful AoE, and I can't imagine making a regular monk who only has one WW (while this can have three). It's not necessarily a bad idea since it would give wrap users a unique niche as AoE melee, but yeah it would actually be as Sacred Fists and not monks. On the other hand, if you nerf it too much it won't be worth using. If you want to nerf it, I would considering removing one of them or increasing CD. I'm not a huge fan of having three cleave buttons, but I guess people can macro it.

[Havocthedemon]

I said it before and I'll say it again Sacred Fist needs more Cower!!! This way they synergize more with divine crusader.

Can we also get back divine might since we are losing it with kotc? The double strike action boost seems pretty out of place and I think this would be a good place for it. Thanks

[Duhboy]

Please consider replacing Radiant servant for Warpriest/Warsoul tree.

The healing tree has no place being lodged into handwrap melee types. Thank you.

Totally agree. Radiant Servant has zero reason to be included. Paladins are already self sufficient. If I wanted to play a character that heals I would play a cleric, FvS, Bard, etc. Warpriest makes more sense to go along with Sacred Fist. As for the Tier 5 abilities, they need work. Violence begets Violence is trash. Change it for something that's on tier of Holy Retribution or something.

[Ordinary]

So I copied my level 32 Monk to Lamannia who is LG and used a +20 Lesser heart of Wood to TR into a Sacred Fist
I was able to take the first level as Sacred Fist, but when talking to the Life Shaper from that point on and trying to select Melee->Paladin as my new class, I get the report of "(Error): Subclass mismatch! Report this bug!".

This issue is probably also present for when switching to other archetypes when you lesser TR,

[Lynnabel]

So I copied my level 32 Monk to Lamannia who is LG and used a +20 Lesser heart of Wood to TR into a Sacred Fist
I was able to take the first level as Sacred Fist, but when talking to the Life Shaper from that point on and trying to select Melee->Paladin as my new class, I get the report of "(Error): Subclass mismatch! Report this bug!".

This issue is probably also present for when switching to other archetypes when you lesser TR,

Excellent, thank you for taking the time to post this. Will begin investigating asap!

[terrenceknight1]

Hi Lynnabel if the ED's were supposed to look at as a sacred fist are to be paladin focused ones than can we please have some means to interact with enhancements that require shields? I mean we're already getting something that'll treat us as if we're in heavy armor for the sake of enhancements so some means to gain eligibility for shield focused boosts might help with PRR/AC or potentially other bonuses might be welcome to let us take further advantage of more paladin focused ED trees.

[Ordinary]

Scenario: At level 1 take cleric, choose a deity feat
At level 2, take sacred fist - Automatically awarded the sacred fist deity feat
At level 6 cleric I can select the relevant Deity feat for the deity selected at level 1
At paladin level 6 I would be automatically assign the Sacred Fist deity feat

I thus have 2 Deity feats for level 1 and 6

Is it meant to work like this? I can see why you auto assign the Sacred Fist deity feats for 1/6 but if you do the cleric levels first you can end up following 2 deities.

I didn't test taking Paladin 6 before cleric 6 to see if I didn't get a Deity feat at level 6 cleric.

[Lotoc]

Is incinerating wave (SFi) going to have the same save formula as incinerating wave (Monk)? No mention of the saving throw in the intro post but saving throw being tied to stunning bonus+ wisdom may end up a problem.

[SWCarter]

Is there any chance that the new spells could be auto-granted? If not, Ki Explosion is only going to be used by pure Paladins, as Holy Sword and Zeal are must-haves in the Level 4 bracket.

[Nickodeamous]

Lets give this to handwraps monks too. Been asking for this for years! (Lynn knows I have) :)

Nico

[toapat]

for its cost of 30 ki, ludicrously long casting time, and incredibly high investment of the extremely competitive paladin 4th level spell slot, Waves of Fire is absolutely unusable. as it is, it does incredibly low damage when used, comparable to one tick of the epic strike Consecration, a spell that ticks 10 times over 20 seconds. Even quickened the spell takes several seconds to resolve during which you cannot be making melee attacks, including whirlwinds.

I honestly dont know how to even balance this. In Testing it doesnt compete with either Sacred or Avenging Whirlwind, if it instead did Paladin level times Sacred Fist dice it would instead be wildly overpowered, but that feels like what it needs that is how weak the spell is currently.

Im still a firm believer that Sacred Fist should have kama and Shuriken Proficiency just for the sake of being inherently capable of performing SWF, TWF, THF, and Ranged builds, even if they can only natively utilize handwraps as favored weapons.

the Radiant Servant Capstone was not updated to be +2 charisma, +2 wisdom.

Radiant Servant Divine Health still is a meme that should be replaced with something not inherently available to SF.

Sacred Flame Empowerment: Duration should be 18s+6per caster level. as a 18 second buff it feels like it will devour Ki until you reach epics when it has fallen far enough behind as to be no longer relevant.

Ki Bolt/Incineration Wave: My current examination is incomplete because i have not rolled a Fullcaster Sacred Fist this Lamannia Incarnation, However preliminary testing shows that these spells should scale with 3 times Melee Power to remain competitive with martial attacks and spellcasting. Further their DCs for paladin should be changed to 10+Paladin level + Charisma Modifier + Sunder modifier. However to also support some of the more edge weirdness with Sacred Fist specifically, id like to see Ki Bolt and Incineration Wave scale with the higher of 3x Melee/Ranged Power or 1x Fire Spellpower.

[Dilgar]

The tier 5s are not exciting, Violence Begets Violence is a bad ability that I would hope be removed from Monk rather than expanded to this tree.

I dont really know much about shields (I pretty much play monk exclusively), but would the charisma to ac counting as a shield (maybe even 50% of the bonus?) for stalwart make sense?

[SpardaX]

Added: Ki Bolt. Fire a bolt of pure Ki towards enemies. Deals 1d6 Fire and 1d4 Force damage per caster level, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 10 Ki


Can I get a better explanation on this please? I'm pretty sure the Henshin bolt does the same damage dice (1f6 Fire + 1d4 Force) and it scales off 300% Melee Power instead of this iteration's 200%, which would make this version both worse, and also twice as expensive (Henshin's costs 5 ki).

In what way has this been adjusted for playability and made to have "Increased damage!"?

Is the save for half damage being removed?

[Madja]

I just think that for something that's called Sacred Fist this seems to focus a lot on fire damage instead of holy or light. It's almost like Henshin but with wraps.

[Caarb]

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different! :)
GMoF needs to be monk inspired not monk exclusive. There is definite synergies here with Sacred fist but non-monks should not be locked out of the tree. How about instead of granting fists of light into sacred fist you add it to GMoF - core 3 or 4 so that other centered builds can fully utilise the ED.

[Dandonk]

Level 1:
Added: Ki Bolt. Fire a bolt of pure Ki towards enemies. Deals 1d6 Fire and 1d4 Force damage per caster level, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 10 Ki

Level 3:
Added: Creates an incinerating wave of ki fire. Deals 1d6+3 fire and force damage per caster level to targets within the wall, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 18 Ki


I'm not sure I see how Ki Bolt is improved, but it does need to be,, along with Incinerating Wave. I've done a fair bit of running with a staff monk, and the SLA abilities in henshin tree are useless. They do so little damage, and animation is fairly longish, so its not even worth putting them on the hotbar.

[Metellica]

Copied my character to Lamannia and did a TR into an Iconic Tabaxi Trailblazer.

Leveled:
1-2 Monk
2-8 Ranger

Attempted to take Sacred Fist Paladin (which it accepted)
Picking any feat or Religion appears to give the "Invalid Advancement Data!" error.

[Xgya]

I really hope there's an actual fix for the ki spells this time around.

Love the theme, hate the animation hurdle.

If at all possible, I wish those worked like Adrenaline - on a next melee attack, do thing, no animation, no stopping attacks.
Especially for things like Wave or Cauldron. Pop the button, get into combat, fwoosh, things explode from fisticuffs.

The animation break is what kills those. They're a class' melee tree abilities, require you to hit things in melee to cast, and stop you from keeping hitting things in melee.

[tapster]

Hi Lynnabel if the ED's were supposed to look at as a sacred fist are to be paladin focused ones than can we please have some means to interact with enhancements that require shields? I mean we're already getting something that'll treat us as if we're in heavy armor for the sake of enhancements so some means to gain eligibility for shield focused boosts might help with PRR/AC or potentially other bonuses might be welcome to let us take further advantage of more paladin focused ED trees.

Centered with orbs would be nice

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

I tried out a low level Sacred Fist Drow, taking it up to level 4. Ran into a few potential bugs (or misunderstandings on my part), but overall liked the low level experience a lot.

I went heavy on the charisma, and took Magical Training at level 1 to leverage Feydark with Sacred Fist and Radiant Servant. Overall, it played exactly like I had hoped - kind of a jedi knight. Handwraps were effective with the extra fire damage, or I could hit harder with shadowblades and Char to hit and damage. Having a cure moderate SLA with echoes of power meant there was never really a need to rest. I was generating a ton of Ki, but had nothing to do with it.

At level 4, I got Ki bolt and more healing. The combination of extra damage, lots of attacks, and easy healing makes it a fun low level character. Not sure all of this will scale well at higher levels, but it looks like it could be a fun leveler.

Issues:

Quest rewards and starting gear seemed targeted to paladin instead of sacred fist. I kept getting lots and lots of plate mail and swords - including starting gear.

The fist-fire does not seem to affect some creatures that do not have fire immunity. Skeletons in Korthos and Saltmarsh seem immune to it. No damage in the chat or on the screen. Almost like the fire isn't there at all. Turn and hit a cultist, and the fire is back.

Ki Bolt sent a message about "Ki Bolt helps a skeleton" when I cast it at a skeleton.

The damage in Ki Bolt's description does not seem like an upgrade from the old Ki bolt. Didn't it always do 1-6 Force and 1-4 fire per level? If the scaling is 200%, that is less than it used to be. A level 4 monk ki Bolt was not able to kill a solo Saltmarsh skeleton.

Radiant Servant has a lot of good channel divinity powers, but Paladin doesn't get channel divinity until level 4. It would be helpful if the first core of Radiant servant gave +1 channel divinity, just so there is some use to several of the tier 1 enhancements at early levels.

[donblas]

While centred and wielding two longswords am not getting the 20% HP boost or 6 CON from Sacred Defender stance.

The text of Divine Dream states you get the benefit while centred. Does it also require handwraps and no other weapon?

The same toon gains the benefits when it switches to handwraps and when it switches to a single longsword rather than two.

[Tepi]

Totally agree. Radiant Servant has zero reason to be included. Paladins are already self sufficient. If I wanted to play a character that heals I would play a cleric, FvS, Bard, etc. Warpriest makes more sense to go along with Sacred Fist. As for the Tier 5 abilities, they need work. Violence begets Violence is trash. Change it for something that's on tier of Holy Retribution or something.

I agree on Holy retribution. As it is, I don't see how Sacred Fist really changes mechanically from KOTC, other than losing the strongest stuff. Sure you might be using handwraps now instead of some variation of sword but mechanically, its identical aside from needing KI to cast cleaves that were free before.

Sacred Fist is meant to be a more spellcaster orientated paladin, I think RS is fine. Warpriest wouldn't make much sense since a lot of the stuff is either kinda rubbish or mirrored already. Personally I'd rather they just kept KOTC and changed the stuff in Sacred Fist so there isn't overlap but i'm not hopeful. Bard and cleric get to have 2 similar trees with synergy (DD and the new one + Spellsinger and the new one). Paladin has only had one and a half unique trees since the changed enhancement system came out and even when it gets a variation, most of it is copied from KOTC. I think the combination of the new tree + tank tree + healer tree will be fun, but I can't say that i'm not a little disappointed that the new variation isn't a little more original.

Edit: Any chance we could get a Ki Spell for an aoe heal? Having radiant burst is nice but having the equivilent of like cure moderate mass might be nice to enforce a kind of "cheap but smaller" healing playstyle you can weave between attacks. I actually enjoy that kind of playstyle on my paladin. Can Ki spells have metamagic? Also adding ki cost to the aoes kinda feels like you added it just for the sake of it. If you do this, maybe lower the cooldown?

Edit 2: Any chance this paladin could get magic training? Kind fits with the theme if you envision it as a more spellcaster focused paladin with like stronger healing power.

[toapat]

Critical Problems:

1: Shadowscythe is currently on lammania uncentering Sacred Fist paladins, despite proficiency and the Shadowblade modifier.

2: Ki Explosion can accept MM: Empower, Maximize, and Intensify despite having no scaling off of spellpower.

[askrj1]

Made a SF18/Mnk1/FvS1 and while I wasn't expect to actually use FvS spells with that 1 level, I had no access to the FvS spellbook at all, was this meant to happen?

Things that were already mentioned like MRR cap, totally lost potential of making a possible punchy tank thing when you're stuck at cloth cap with such limited options to raise MMR cap. In fact I've bug reported this at least once before and it's really nothing new, but Dance of the Wind 3PC MRR cap still doesn't work.

I don't understand why you needed ki shout on SF, it still has the paladin skill set and is cha based, you're going to work much better with intimidate.

Losing trance is pretty big, hopefully that makes it way in somehow without needing to get a level of cleric/FvS.

Smites on unarmed. That animation. Please do something about it.

EDIT: Any chance we can get S2P on Sacred Strike 4?

[donblas]

Made a SF18/Mnk1/FvS1 and while I wasn't expect to actually use FvS spells with that 1 level, I had no access to the FvS spellbook at all, was this meant to happen?



I had the same problem. There is a warning "Spell shortage detected" go see the trainer.

But another almost identical toon did not have the problem! The one with the problem was a Tiefling, the one without the problem was a wood elf

Going to the trainer and asking for spell exchange fixes the problem.

[liston33]

I am liking everything i have seen so far....with the exception of whirlwind attack.... Considering whirlwind attack is an attack within itself it shouldnt be base off of 3 attacks at melee speed..plus the semi long delay at the end... In my opinion Whirlwind attack needs to go back to what it was before being based off of attack speed.

[Lynnabel]

Howdy friends, happy Wednesday! Time for a bugfix and design change roundup!


incinerating wave now scales correctly (aka with melee power)
corrected description on ki spells
removed saving throw from incinerating wave and ki bolt
Sacred fist dice now scale with 200% melee power
Added 1d6 Force damage per Sacred Fist dice to Ki Explosion
Ki Bolt, Incinerating Wave, and Ki Explosion may now be quickened, and may no longer take spellpower metamagics (as they don't scale with spellpower)
Fixed that one sickle to be centering (nice find!)


Thanks for the feedback so far!

[Dandonk]

Ki Bolt, Incinerating Wave, and Ki Explosion may now be quickened, and may no longer take spellpower metamagics (as they don't scale with spellpower)

Quicken will not help pure monks, and I feel that adding a feat tax to these very underwhelming abilities is a bad idea. Why not make their animation quickened from the start? They deal so abysmal damage anyway that it won't matter much, but at least I won't die of boredom while watching the animation play.

[Lynnabel]

Quicken will not help pure monks, and I feel that adding a feat tax to these very underwhelming abilities is a bad idea. Why not make their animation quickened from the start? They deal so abysmal damage anyway that it won't matter much, but at least I won't die of boredom while watching the animation play.

I am making changes here for Sacred Fist - if pure Monk happens to benefit, then that's okay, I don't expect anything here to be viewed through the lens of "how does this help pure monks."

[Propane]

Hello-

I created a lv 7 on Lamannia and leveled up to 20.
I few thoughts-

- starter gear should be "monk" not paladin -
- really miss Divine Sacrifice - would much rather have that than the smites - the AP spend of 3+6 for limited number of smites is hard to justify.
- like Light of Glory - make sense from a theme and game play point of view
- like faster movement - good idea to help with the feel of play style


suggestions
remove both T1 extra Smit and T3 Exalted smite
move Instinctive Defense to T1 spot just opened up
Replace T3 Exalted smite with Divine Sacrifice
Bring over for the open T3 spot something like a Radiant Flourish, Shattering Strike, Opportunity Attack, or handwrap version of Quick Strike
Removed Critical Mastery and place defect arrows in that spot (Defect is way to high in the tree)

[Kielbasa]

Quicken will not help pure monks, and I feel that adding a feat tax to these very underwhelming abilities is a bad idea. Why not make their animation quickened from the start? They deal so abysmal damage anyway that it won't matter much, but at least I won't die of boredom while watching the animation play.

This!! And adding a spell point cost to abilities that do not innately cost spell points is weird.

Also sacred fist needs some passive ki gen in the tree somewhere preferably low hanging fruit or one of the first few cores. It would be nice to be able to reliably open a fight with ki bolt or incinerating wave.

[Pandjed]

I am making changes here for Sacred Fist - if pure Monk happens to benefit, then that's okay, I don't expect anything here to be viewed through the lens of "how does this help pure monks."

It would be smart to expect it, though. For years ki-casters have been mostly neglected and even though the last changes were an improvement, it was from horrible to bad. So when these abilities, which have been associated with monk are now taken and being improved to benefit another class more than they were at monk, many players that like the concept of a ki-caster will bring up the one class that echoes in all ki-spells and in the same vein will also vent some pent up frustration at the same time.

Henshin mystic is a good tree, but it's so good in quarterstaffing, that the ki-spells are more or less shoehorned in by this point, as they never got enough love to feel good when using them.

Personally, I will expect that the ki-spells will still be a waste of time to use, breaking attacking animation as a DPS need to have a high reward. But in the same vein, if I use quicken on a ki spell, will it cost SP and ki at the same time?




TL;DR: You can't take an ability that was exclusive for one class, put it into another one, and don't expect that ppl won't question any change to it with look of the original class.

[droid327]

Does Fire Shield: Hot reduce fire damage? Both wiki and compendium says FS: Hot reduces Cold damage, and vice versa. Patch notes say the opposite

The Ki attacks shouldnt be animation-gated...they should just fit into the natural flow of melee combat.

Quicken really does seem like an unnecessary feat tax considering Paladins dont get bonus MA feats like Monks. And you already have, what...TWFx3, IC:B, S2P, Precision is pro forma, likely MT if you want to go CHA based. And that's not even getting into Stunning Fist, Two Weapon Defense, Dodge+Mobility, etc.

Heck, I think Fists need a couple MA feats (6 and 12?)

The Ki spells are really what's going to define this build, I think. If you end up not even using them because you cant fit Quicken into your feat schedule, and they're a major DPS loss without it...then you're back to where we were in Preview 1 where the entire subclass just feels flat and boring, a reductionist Monk

[Havocthedemon]

Just here saying that the Double Strike boost still seems out of place. It should be the Divine Might since we are losing it from KOTC and Paladin has zero tactics bonuses. Double Strike boost is all but useless - I’d take haste boost over that any day. Remove that and give us one of those two things, thanks.

[Lynnabel]

It would be smart to expect it, though. For years ki-casters have been mostly neglected and even though the last changes were an improvement, it was from horrible to bad. So when these abilities, which have been associated with monk are now taken and being improved to benefit another class more than they were at monk, many players that like the concept of a ki-caster will bring up the one class that echoes in all ki-spells and in the same vein will also vent some pent up frustration at the same time.

Henshin mystic is a good tree, but it's so good in quarterstaffing, that the ki-spells are more or less shoehorned in by this point, as they never got enough love to feel good when using them.

Personally, I will expect that the ki-spells will still be a waste of time to use, breaking attacking animation as a DPS need to have a high reward. But in the same vein, if I use quicken on a ki spell, will it cost SP and ki at the same time?




TL;DR: You can't take an ability that was exclusive for one class, put it into another one, and don't expect that ppl won't question any change to it with look of the original class.

Henshin uses SLAs which don't increase in SP cost when using metamagics. So no, it will not.

[Duhboy]

I agree on Holy retribution. As it is, I don't see how Sacred Fist really changes mechanically from KOTC, other than losing the strongest stuff. Sure you might be using handwraps now instead of some variation of sword but mechanically, its identical aside from needing KI to cast cleaves that were free before.

Sacred Fist is meant to be a more spellcaster orientated paladin, I think RS is fine. Warpriest wouldn't make much sense since a lot of the stuff is either kinda rubbish or mirrored already. Personally I'd rather they just kept KOTC and changed the stuff in Sacred Fist so there isn't overlap but i'm not hopeful. Bard and cleric get to have 2 similar trees with synergy (DD and the new one + Spellsinger and the new one). Paladin has only had one and a half unique trees since the changed enhancement system came out and even when it gets a variation, most of it is copied from KOTC. I think the combination of the new tree + tank tree + healer tree will be fun, but I can't say that i'm not a little disappointed that the new variation isn't a little more original.


If that's the case, then why would I, let alone anybody would want to play a subpar spellcaster with some healing capabilities? If I want to play a spellcaster that can heal then I would play a cleric, fvs, bard, alchemist, etc. I.E. anything BUT a paladin.

Warpriest would offer way more than Radiant Servant could. With Warpriest, Sacred Fist Paladins would keep divine might, have +10% sacred bonus to hp, haste SLA, righteous weapons line, doublestrike, magic backlash, smite foe w/ add ons including Ameliorating Strike (AoE heal strike), etc.

[Pandjed]

Henshin uses SLAs which don't increase in SP cost when using metamagics. So no, it will not.

Was not asking about the SLA, but the spell (so Sacred Fist version).

[Propane]

As I was working a build - the min DEX reequipments for the two weapon fighting chain came to mind.

The Archetype pretty much forces you into two weapon fighting - 15 min DEX with 17 for the upper two tiers.

These types of builds are already feat starved and attribute thin - any thoughts on reducing the cost?
Newer players could be become frustrated with trying to make one with out tomes / etc..

A few thoughts-

- ranger auto grants the two weapon fighting feats - this could go along ways here
- the selection of the Archetype comes with a +2 DEX adjustment

[Propane]

So I copied my level 32 Monk to Lamannia who is LG and used a +20 Lesser heart of Wood to TR into a Sacred Fist
I was able to take the first level as Sacred Fist, but when talking to the Life Shaper from that point on and trying to select Melee->Paladin as my new class, I get the report of "(Error): Subclass mismatch! Report this bug!".

This issue is probably also present for when switching to other archetypes when you lesser TR,

I tried something similar..

I took my LV 20 Clunk (17 cleric / 3 monk) - copied over - and tried using a +20 heart to go 20 Sacred Fist.
Ran into the same issue - could only take the 1 Sacred Fist level - ended up making a 16 cleric / 3 monk / 1 Pal (Sacred Fist).

Interesting that 1 LV of Sacred Fist makes hand wraps a Favored weapon and also unlocks the Warpriest Righteous Weapon line.

I might end up trying a Sacred Clunk!

[misterski]

I tried something similar..

I took my LV 20 Clunk (17 cleric / 3 monk) - copied over - and tried using a +20 heart to go 20 Sacred Fist.
Ran into the same issue - could only take the 1 Sacred Fist level - ended up making a 16 cleric / 3 monk / 1 Pal (Sacred Fist).

Interesting that 1 LV of Sacred Fist makes hand wraps a Favored weapon and also unlocks the Warpriest Righteous Weapon line.

I might end up trying a Sacred Clunk!

That's because you get Path of Light as an autogranted deity feat at level 1. It's odd that a character can have multiple deities but that's been the case forever.

[Gljosh]

Sounds cool, I like the ability to get some more Healing Amp through Past Lives.

This will be great for my normal Q-Staff based characters.

[Tepi]

If that's the case, then why would I, let alone anybody would want to play a subpar spellcaster with some healing capabilities? If I want to play a spellcaster that can heal then I would play a cleric, fvs, bard, alchemist, etc. I.E. anything BUT a paladin.

Warpriest would offer way more than Radiant Servant could. With Warpriest, Sacred Fist Paladins would keep divine might, have +10% sacred bonus to hp, haste SLA, righteous weapons line, doublestrike, magic backlash, smite foe w/ add ons including Ameliorating Strike (AoE heal strike), etc.

I agree with that. Nobody is going to go much past burst and cure sla simply because paladin doesn't have the tools to become a healer. I was talking more thematically than gameplay wise. I think going into RS a bit will be worth it for cure sla and burst but uncapped cures is kinda pointless when paladin only gets cute serious. This tree isn't going to magically turn paladin into a healer and anyone going 40 points in it would be better with a cleric. Honestly this whole variation seems kinda lazy. Also adding defense stuff to sacred fist kinda makes little sense when it has a full tree dedicated to defense.

It seems weird to me that they made this variation which is neat but them added a tree that seems to be 80% what the old tree had. Obviously this variation shouldn't be stronger than base paladin but what is the point in making a tree so similar?

[Dandonk]

I am making changes here for Sacred Fist - if pure Monk happens to benefit, then that's okay, I don't expect anything here to be viewed through the lens of "how does this help pure monks."

Fair enough. I just don't see how these poorly performing abilities can be of any help whatsoever to any build, regardless of class.

[Alternative]

Quicken really does seem like an unnecessary feat tax considering Paladins dont get bonus MA feats like Monks. And you already have, what...TWFx3, IC:B, S2P, Precision is pro forma, likely MT if you want to go CHA based. And that's not even getting into Stunning Fist, Two Weapon Defense, Dodge+Mobility, etc.


This is serious, if it can't take dps stuff + dodge line of feats, it won't be playable at end game. Being a cloth melee it's going to need at least 2 extra or autogranted feats. Since it's limited to wraps, maybe it could get a twf line like a ranger does? Although half a number of monk extra feats would be more in theme I guess. They could come at late levels if multiclassing is a concern, but something needs to be added here.

[Lotoc]

This is serious, if it can't take dps stuff + dodge line of feats, it won't be playable at end game. Being a cloth melee it's going to need at least 2 extra or autogranted feats. Since it's limited to wraps, maybe it could get a twf line like a ranger does? Although half a number of monk extra feats would be more in theme I guess. They could come at late levels if multiclassing is a concern, but something needs to be added here.
Two Weapon Defense or Swords to Plowshares being granted in cores or the attack/damage enhancements on the lefthand side could help a lot.
Paladin has always been pretty feat starved, I guess at least the autogranting of completionist frees up a feat but there's a reason the current KotC grants Knight's Training (TWF and SWF have more feats to take than 2hf), Shot on the Run (So many ranged feats to take) and alternatives to Cleaves and Great Cleave (takes 2 feats/3 feats respectively).
Moving Paladin feat progression into a very feat heavy character archetype (cloth melee) is asking for problems when you can't fit in the dodge>mobility>spring attack line to help with your dodge stat.
Honestly I kind of feel the level 6 deity feat is kind of underwhelming and could do with doing something besides just letting you use a grand total of 3 enhancements in Sacred Defense.
Seriously I'm not joking the only thing Divine Dream currently does is let you use the three Greater Sacred Defense enhancements, which many Sacred Fist builds won't be even be going for.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

Hi,
apologies if this has already been found:

I did a little more testing with Sacred Flame, and I am consistently seeing no fire damage when I hit undead (skeletons and zombies in Korthos, Saltmarsh Skeletons and Shadowyboss in Saltmarsh) or Iron Defenders (Korthos and Harbor). I put on Min's Handwraps (1-4 fire damage) and turned on Sacred Flame and went back to Saltmarsh.

Fighting rats, crows, smugglers - I got handwrap damage, fire damage, and fire damage. Fighting Skeletons and Shadowboss, I only got handwrap damage and the smaller fire damage (1-4). I turned sacred flame off in the middle of the fight, and I still got handwrap damage and 1 fire damage. I turned it back on, and fought a rat and skeletons at the same time - rat took handwrap damage, fire damage, fire damage... skeletons only took handwrap damage, fire damage.

It seems the sacred flame damage is a slightly different type that only affect living creatures (like poison?) I also did not see any sacred flame fire samage when I hit altar's in Heyton's rest with sacred flame, but I did see it with ember weapons.

Is Sacred Flame supposed to only affect living creatures?

[Havocthedemon]

Hi,
apologies if this has already been found:

I did a little more testing with Sacred Flame, and I am consistently seeing no fire damage when I hit undead (skeletons and zombies in Korthos, Saltmarsh Skeletons and Shadowyboss in Saltmarsh) or Iron Defenders (Korthos and Harbor). I put on Min's Handwraps (1-4 fire damage) and turned on Sacred Flame and went back to Saltmarsh.

Fighting rats, crows, smugglers - I got handwrap damage, fire damage, and fire damage. Fighting Skeletons and Shadowboss, I only got handwrap damage and the smaller fire damage (1-4). I turned sacred flame off in the middle of the fight, and I still got handwrap damage and 1 fire damage. I turned it back on, and fought a rat and skeletons at the same time - rat took handwrap damage, fire damage, fire damage... skeletons only took handwrap damage, fire damage.

It seems the sacred flame damage is a slightly different type that only affect living creatures (like poison?) I also did not see any sacred flame fire samage when I hit altar's in Heyton's rest with sacred flame, but I did see it with ember weapons.

Is Sacred Flame supposed to only affect living creatures?


What happens if you have the enhancement that makes it Light damage? All functions normal?

[Lynnabel]

Hi,
apologies if this has already been found:

I did a little more testing with Sacred Flame, and I am consistently seeing no fire damage when I hit undead (skeletons and zombies in Korthos, Saltmarsh Skeletons and Shadowyboss in Saltmarsh) or Iron Defenders (Korthos and Harbor). I put on Min's Handwraps (1-4 fire damage) and turned on Sacred Flame and went back to Saltmarsh.

Fighting rats, crows, smugglers - I got handwrap damage, fire damage, and fire damage. Fighting Skeletons and Shadowboss, I only got handwrap damage and the smaller fire damage (1-4). I turned sacred flame off in the middle of the fight, and I still got handwrap damage and 1 fire damage. I turned it back on, and fought a rat and skeletons at the same time - rat took handwrap damage, fire damage, fire damage... skeletons only took handwrap damage, fire damage.

It seems the sacred flame damage is a slightly different type that only affect living creatures (like poison?) I also did not see any sacred flame fire samage when I hit altar's in Heyton's rest with sacred flame, but I did see it with ember weapons.

Is Sacred Flame supposed to only affect living creatures?

This is indeed a bug, great catch.

[ProdigyThirteen]

-The two obvious EDs to go for (DC and GMOF) don't feel like a great home for it
-It feels spread thin on attributes due to needing Cha for Paladin portions, Wis for Monk portions, Dex to be able to TWF and then Con and a potential 5th attribute for hit/damage scaling
-It feels like it's not sure if it's trying to be more Paladin or more Monk. The tree is definitely more Paladin but the spellbook is definitely more Monk. The lack of support in the tree for the spells gives it a confused identity
-The tree is lacking interesting cores and interesting tier 5s, nothing excites me to see or use
-It's missing vital features (trance, monk combo system + stances if you care for GMOF), forcing multiclassing
-The left line in the tree could honestly not exist and I don't think it would change anything. It needs to be split up or reduced in cost
-I can't for the life of me figure out why it gets Radiant Servant. It doesn't add to the Monk theme, the Paladin theme, the Melee theme or the Ki caster theme


But so as to not only bash it;
-I like the theme and flavour of it, lots of overlap in class specific bonuses like saves and AC that makes for a fun combo
-I like the WWA cleaves, it's nice not being forced into a long list of feats to get WWA
-I like that it can benefit from SD, I think it would possibly be better if it counted as shield rather than heavy armour, but either is great
Wow I'm really struggling to find anything more to add on the positives now I'm writing it down. I really enjoyed the class, it will likely take the crown as my favourite in the game, so there's a lot to be said about the theme and flavour, but mechanically it feels severely lacking.

[Havocthedemon]

-The two obvious EDs to go for (DC and GMOF) don't feel like a great home for it
-It feels spread thin on attributes due to needing Cha for Paladin portions, Wis for Monk portions, Dex to be able to TWF and then Con and a potential 5th attribute for hit/damage scaling
-It feels like it's not sure if it's trying to be more Paladin or more Monk. The tree is definitely more Paladin but the spellbook is definitely more Monk. The lack of support in the tree for the spells gives it a confused identity
-The tree is lacking interesting cores and interesting tier 5s, nothing excites me to see or use
-It's missing vital features (trance, monk combo system + stances if you care for GMOF), forcing multiclassing
-The left line in the tree could honestly not exist and I don't think it would change anything. It needs to be split up or reduced in cost
-I can't for the life of me figure out why it gets Radiant Servant. It doesn't add to the Monk theme, the Paladin theme, the Melee theme or the Ki caster theme


But so as to not only bash it;
-I like the theme and flavour of it, lots of overlap in class specific bonuses like saves and AC that makes for a fun combo
-I like the WWA cleaves, it's nice not being forced into a long list of feats to get WWA
-I like that it can benefit from SD, I think it would possibly be better if it counted as shield rather than heavy armour, but either is great
Wow I'm really struggling to find anything more to add on the positives now I'm writing it down. I really enjoyed the class, it will likely take the crown as my favourite in the game, so there's a lot to be said about the theme and flavour, but mechanically it feels severely lacking.

The attribute problem is not unique - this is a problem for any melee class that doesn’t use Dex as a main stat. It’s just the way stats work. And you don’t need both CHA and Wis - this class wants you to use CHA since we have Feydark we can take advantage of this.

If you multiclass, then Wis is a good option. If you’re complaining about wanting to use WIS and still needing CHA bc you’re a Paladin - this is like splashing rogue into fighter for traps and complaining about needing INT for traps. It’s not a good argument. And the dexterity requirements for TWF aren’t very high, you do know even first life toons can get tomes through favor right? Start with a lower CON - this is what every first lifer has to do it’s nothing new to DDO. First lifers will have less life get used to it.

As for valid points, yea a trance is desperately needed and the T5’s are a bit medium but to be fair it’s a melee tree - it’s relatively as good as all the others besides lack of crit mods which pally always gets from Holy Sword. Shield idea is interesting.

[droid327]

- Saves on the Ki spells is a mistake - is it WIS or CHA based? I'm guessing WIS since Pals are technically WIS casters, which obviously is totally broken since SF is a STR/CHA build. And even if it is CHA...that basically handcuffs you to Feydark, and its insult to injury since SF doesnt get Divine Might and is forced to splash for that

- Flame damage didnt seem to work against Kobolds when I was using a Greatsword with Kensei. Light damage worked vs the Abishai in Grimm

- Ki spells are spells, not SLAs...so Quicken adds 10 SP to their cost, even though they dont cost any SP themselves >< Another insult to injury, considering the feat tax already just for one or two spells, which have mediocre damage, on a SP-limited class. I burned myself out just keeping the Flame buff active before each fight. They're meant to be Ki spenders, which should be spammed a lot, and 10 SP per cast is way too limiting

- Smite is still Exalted, not Sacred. Doesnt count as a Light builder

- Feel like Sac Def enhancements for this subclass should give +MRR cap instead of +MRR. +25 from Sac Def, +20 Angelskin (which you'll take for the PRR regardless) puts you at 45, so literally any other source of MRR will put you at MRR cap...that seems like inelegant design. +25 MRR cap would put you at 75 in Cloth, which still isnt a lot, but at least lets you take better advantage of Angelskin plus your normal gear and other bonuses.

- Why does Path of Light not get Fists of Light? That'd be a huge boon to the archetype, being able to apply the "healing curse" effect - I splashed /3 Monk for it and it made an amazing difference

- Still not enough to spend Ki on, even with the cleaves now costing Ki too. Ki spells, as mentioned above, are lackluster. I get where its tempting to just cut and paste the Henshin ones, but they should really be a full suite of short-term (20s?) buffs or physical attacks, rather than mediocre boilerplate damage spells. Even if that means having to design new abilities. As mentioned above, the save aspect is a dealbreaker, so making it self-focused avoids that issue, plus it also gives it a bit of distinction from Henshin. Some ideas:

= Most important: A 3[W] +1/+1 Cleave, with a short (3s?) CD. I think having a simple, straightforward "Ki dump" would be a big benefit for the subclass since you currently cant really spend it as fast as you build it
= Dodge bonus, ignoring Dodge cap - perhaps like +5, then a stacking dodge-when-hit effect for another +10
= MRR + MRR cap
= Vampirism, scaling on Pal level (1d2 per 2 maybe?)
= Haste boost, a la Alchemist Bottled Boost
= Aligned+Metalline
= Temp HP, a la Blood Trib or Stanch
= Radiant Forcefield, with an appropriate CD

Basically the class should really always be building and spending Ki in combat as fast it can to keep its combat efficacy optimized, I think

[SWCarter]

If dual-wielding, the capstone is only giving the +1W to the primary weapon and not the secondary weapon. The capstone reads "+1W with Weapons" (plural), so this appears to be a bug.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Howdy friends, happy Wednesday! Time for a bugfix and design change roundup!


incinerating wave now scales correctly (aka with melee power)
corrected description on ki spells
removed saving throw from incinerating wave and ki bolt
Sacred fist dice now scale with 200% melee power
Added 1d6 Force damage per Sacred Fist dice to Ki Explosion
Ki Bolt, Incinerating Wave, and Ki Explosion may now be quickened, and may no longer take spellpower metamagics (as they don't scale with spellpower)
Fixed that one sickle to be centering (nice find!)


Thanks for the feedback so far!


I see you're still going ahead with Radiant Servant tree on this Archetype. Paladins already excel in self-sufficiency, but one cleric tree will not suddenly make it a better party healer than the actual healer classes.

Without Warpriest or Warsoul tree support, it will end up not being used by endgame players.

At least give Sacred Fist tree Divine Might (T2) enhancement, so its comparatively decent'ish when compared to KoTC.

[GoldyGopher]

If you choose to start at Level 4 or Level 7 (Vet I or Vet II) you are give full plate armor and a shield. Should get a Cloth Armor.

[misterski]

The attribute problem is not unique - this is a problem for any melee class that doesn’t use Dex as a main stat. It’s just the way stats work. And you don’t need both CHA and Wis - this class wants you to use CHA since we have Feydark we can take advantage of this.

If you multiclass, then Wis is a good option. If you’re complaining about wanting to use WIS and still needing CHA bc you’re a Paladin - this is like splashing rogue into fighter for traps and complaining about needing INT for traps. It’s not a good argument. And the dexterity requirements for TWF aren’t very high, you do know even first life toons can get tomes through favor right? Start with a lower CON - this is what every first lifer has to do it’s nothing new to DDO. First lifers will have less life get used to it.

As for valid points, yea a trance is desperately needed and the T5’s are a bit medium but to be fair it’s a melee tree - it’s relatively as good as all the others besides lack of crit mods which pally always gets from Holy Sword. Shield idea is interesting.

Stunning Fist is WIS based, so yes Sacred Fist does need lots of WIS. They also need at least 14 WISDOM to be able to cast all of their spells, which, granted, they could get through gear. Also, 17 Dex to get Imp/Greater TWF is a fairly high bar to set when you consider the other stats that the class needs. Lower CON means lower Concentration which means lower Ki. And then you add in the required CHA....

[ZzpxpzZ]

In general I really like the direction of all these archetypes, but I just wanted to weigh in here.

I appreciate the need to have somewhere to spend your ki but it’s a really bad idea to put that ki coat on the cleaves. The ki cost is going to screw them over in normal flow of gameplay if running with a group or relatively strong. Against most trash packs melee gets at most to run in and throw down their cleaves. After which the enemies are either dead or nearly so, or else the rest of your group will be doing the same. In normal trash situations there will not be enough time to sustain ki between each pack of trash so you will be pigeonholing sacred fist into just watching the show for 2 out of every 3 packs ineffectually punching a single mob trying to generate ki.

[misterski]

In general I really like the direction of all these archetypes, but I just wanted to weigh in here.

I appreciate the need to have somewhere to spend your ki but it’s a really bad idea to put that ki coat on the cleaves. The ki cost is going to screw them over in normal flow of gameplay if running with a group or relatively strong. Against most trash packs melee gets at most to run in and throw down their cleaves. After which the enemies are either dead or nearly so, or else the rest of your group will be doing the same. In normal trash situations there will not be enough time to sustain ki between each pack of trash so you will be pigeonholing sacred fist into just watching the show for 2 out of every 3 packs ineffectually punching a single mob trying to generate ki.

Henshin Mystic gets help with ki generation on hit in their Core 6. Sacred Fist needs something like this if they're not going to get something like Sun Stance. As for the cleaves, please lower the ki cost if you're not going to remove the ki cost entirely.

[Havocthedemon]

Stunning Fist is WIS based, so yes Sacred Fist does need lots of WIS. They also need at least 14 WISDOM to be able to cast all of their spells, which, granted, they could get through gear. Also, 17 Dex to get Imp/Greater TWF is a fairly high bar to set when you consider the other stats that the class needs. Lower CON means lower Concentration which means lower Ki. And then you add in the required CHA....

One, you assume people even want stunning fist. Monks don’t even use it in high reaper - we use tomb of jade. Hitting trash with stunning fist is not something you do. Orange names and reapers get jaded - stunning fist is a waste of a feat on a feat starved class. If a monk won’t use stunning fist - a sacred fist won’t either. Single target stun that can’t hit a reaper is not worth a feat when you have other options from class/destiny.

17 dex is not high, considering it’s 11 bab for GTWF and by that time you have +5 or even +6 tome kicking in. You really only need a 14 base dex - even lower if you plan accordingly and want to push the envelop. 2-4 points of CON is equal to what, +2 to the concentration skill? Thats not a significant amount of ki - lvl 18 right now and have a ki bar over 200. Your arguments are over exaggerated and clearly not coming from someone who plays. The stat issue isn’t any worse here than any other melee class that doesn’t use dex as main stat. Stop complaining - that’s how stats work in D&D.

[misterski]

One, you assume people even want stunning fist. Monks don’t even use it in high reaper - we use tomb of jade. Hitting trash with stunning fist is not something you do. Orange names and reapers get jaded - stunning fist is a waste of a feat on a feat starved class. If a monk won’t use stunning fist - a sacred fist won’t either. Single target stun that can’t hit a reaper is not worth a feat when you have other options from class/destiny.

17 dex is not high, considering it’s 11 bab for GTWF and by that time you have +5 or even +6 tome kicking in. You really only need a 14 base dex - even lower if you plan accordingly and want to push the envelop. 2-4 points of CON is equal to what, +2 to the concentration skill? Thats not a significant amount of ki - lvl 18 right now and have a ki bar over 200. Your arguments are over exaggerated and clearly not coming from someone who plays. The stat issue isn’t any worse here than any other melee class that doesn’t use dex as main stat. Stop complaining - that’s how stats work in D&D.

Yeah Tomb of Jade, which requires at least 4 monk level splashes and 22 AP in the Shintao tree. We're talking about Sacred Fist not the Monk class.

[ChristopHilljr]

With this build requiring Dex, con and charisma access to a trance is a must. If you want to go Strength you're stretching even further on ability points. I don't think it'll make the build over powered but will help with the fact that you don't get easy access to charisma attack and damage. Please consider testing this out on the next Lam, even if you don't keep it I'd like to see if it is too much power.

[Lotoc]

The capstone and tier 5 of Sacred Fist are kind of underwhelming, to the point that 1fvs/1mnk/18SaFi taking volfvs first level for daggers as favored then just going 41 points Vistani is kind of an outright improvement.
There isn't really anything hugely interesting or rewarding in Sacred Fist Tier 5 right now, a big thing with heroic enhancement trees with almost every build is "I've hit level 12 and now I can get the big thing of the tree I am focusing on" and the sacred fist tree doesn't deliver in this regard.
The level 20 core could do with being more rewarding offensively, it needs to be a reward for not multiclassing after all and with the loss of Divine Might vs KotC, the lack of Ascendency and 3% melee/ranged damage aura it has a lot to make up for.
I'd propose having core 20 grant like 2-4 Flame Dice or perhaps some way to put CC into the class which right now it is sorely of lacking, along the lines of "Enemies hit by your Ki Explosion (or maybe Ki spells in general) cower for X seconds on failing a will saving throw" (charisma+sunder bonuses for the DC)

Other suggestions;
Scrap instinctive defense in tier 3 and put Iron Skin in it's place, move Evasive Dance down to tier 4 where Iron Skin was.
Violence Begets Violence is kind of not great and will see little use, compounded by the fact the class overall lacks sources of dodge and max dodge bonuses. This again makes t5 feel very underwhelming, you've got whirlwind attack and Improved Evasion that serve as "interesting" except the improved evasion doesn't count as improved evasion for shadowdancer core 3 to give you the no fail on 1, so odds are if improved evasion is something you care about you'd just have it in epics from SD as you'd likely want the Sneak Attack dice anyway as a TWF build.
Overall even with the capstone feeling rather underwhelming it's also very hard to find things I'd want to take to reach the 40 point requirement to take it.

[Tilomere]

Hmm, so what you guys are telling me is that there is a third crappy 20 melee power "offensive" paladin tree because the other two aren't ineffective enough, that will be hopeless outclassed by casters with hundreds of power while leveling, with the drawback that you lose all armor and weapon feats, but gain access to the cleric radiant servant tree.

So really what you are selling is an improved zDPS paladin, which I will call negative dps paladin, that spends all its points in SaD and Radiant Servant, that spends its feats to get back plate + shield use, that runs 20% faster than a normal zero dps paladin, and heals more than a normal zero dps paladin, while doing marginally less zero dps than a normal paladin.

I approve because it provides AoE healing to melee near the negative dps paladin due to RS. I also suggest you implement a gamewide improvement of moving melee/ranged power from legendary and epic levels into heroics.

[Ipsum]

Theres a lot going on in the capstone, but I wish it just had another ki spell attached to it. I'd love to get a ki spell at 20 that scales into epics and gives me a way to spend the huge amounts of ki you are getting at that point.

[misterski]

This is a minor request, but would it be possible to give Sacred Fists that start with veteran levels a separate choice for equipment? The armor you get with the paladin choice is useless to Sacred Fist. The monk veteran equipment would work better.

[ThomasHunter]

Similar to how KotC grants Knight's Training at Tier 4, would it be reasonable and similar to have Sacred Fist grant Swords to Plowshares at Tier 4 with the Favored Weapon enhancement?

Thanks, this looks like a fun build!
Taleisin

[droid327]

Theres a lot going on in the capstone, but I wish it just had another ki spell attached to it. I'd love to get a ki spell at 20 that scales into epics and gives me a way to spend the huge amounts of ki you are getting at that point.

Yeah a Kamehameha bolt-style linear AOE blast in the capstone would be nice - 1d6+8 Light damage per clvl, scaling with Melee Power. Cost: 40 Ki, plus all your remaining Ki. For each additional point spent, add X damage. I'm not sure how much max Ki is practical at L32, but balance accordingly, and commensurate with the time it takes to build up max Ki from zero. It should be a substantial chunk of damage when fully charged.

That'd create a lot of value to passive and active Ki generation, since it would let you charge up your blast faster. And you'd never have "too much" Ki since every point would always be good for something.

[fatherpirate]

Side note, Whirling Steel Strike Feat is limited to characters
with monk levels.

That should be modified to include Paladins or at least this
version of them.

Thxs

[Havocthedemon]

Yeah Tomb of Jade, which requires at least 4 monk level splashes and 22 AP in the Shintao tree. We're talking about Sacred Fist not the Monk class.

This was to point out that people don’t use stunning fist. It’s bad when we have more effective uses of cc that don’t cost a feat. That was your whole point about needing wisdom on this class. You don’t need wisdom at all, it’s CHA based. All you need is minimal base DEX (around 12) for feat requirements and the most Con you can have while keeping CHA as main stat. Your whining about being MAD on this class is not any different than any melee class that currently exists that doesn’t use Dex as main stat.

[Lynnabel]

Side note, Whirling Steel Strike Feat is limited to characters
with monk levels.

That should be modified to include Paladins or at least this
version of them.

Thxs

Good catch, this won't make next Lam but will be in for the live release. I'll check on Zen Archery as well.

[Havocthedemon]

Good catch, this won't make next Lam but will be in for the live release. I'll check on Zen Archery as well.

Just in case this wasn’t seen can we have the sacred fists dmg die toggle added to the list for the epic feat Enhanced Elemental Dice?

[Lynnabel]

Just in case this wasn’t seen can we have the sacred fists dmg die toggle added to the list for the epic feat Enhanced Elemental Dice?

Yep - that and the Dark Apostate dice are being added.

[Arkat]

Good catch, this won't make next Lam but will be in for the live release. I'll check on Zen Archery as well.

How about the Epic feats - Improved Martial Arts and Vorpal Strikes?

[FuzzyDuck81]

How about the Epic feats - Improved Martial Arts and Vorpal Strikes?

Good call - I think remove the requirements for monk levels from both, then for vorpal strikes remove the WIS requirement too. In fact, maybe you could throw an additional bone of an extra +0.5W for razorclaw shifters if they have the sharper claws enhancement too (since you can't rage and be centered this would prevent doubling up with improved martial arts anyway).

[Havocthedemon]

How about the Epic feats - Improved Martial Arts and Vorpal Strikes?

Arkat, I thought this came up earlier somewhere but isn’t Vorpal Strikes still mostly broken? As in, all it does is add slashing as a type and all that other text is nothing? I do agree with you about the feats those would be nice to take here.

[Arkat]

Good call - I think remove the requirements for monk levels from both, then for vorpal strikes remove the WIS requirement too. In fact, maybe you could throw an additional bone of an extra +0.5W for razorclaw shifters if they have the sharper claws enhancement too (since you can't rage and be centered this would prevent doubling up with improved martial arts anyway).

Yes, these are good suggestions, especially the one about Razorclaw Shifters. An extra +0.5W damage for taking that feat would be nice for them.



Arkat, I thought this came up earlier somewhere but isn’t Vorpal Strikes still mostly broken? As in, all it does is add slashing as a type and all that other text is nothing? I do agree with you about the feats those would be nice to take here.

Yes, as far as I know, the Vorpal bit still isn't working, but I could be wrong.

[misterski]

To make monk only feats work with sacred fist, do like is done for stunning fist and make flurry of blows rather than monk the prerequisite. Would need to make 23 wis or 23 cha as the stat prerequisite to work better with sacred fist.

[GoldyGopher]

I spent some time last week playing two attempts at a Sacred Fist Archetype and would like to share my thoughts.

As a long time player I played a TWF Paladin Build since before the batman build was popular and long before TRs, so starting over meant deleting the character and trying again. About two years ago that character, not quite a racial completionist switched from 12/6/2 (Paladin/Rogue/Monk) to a pure Monk loosely based on Strimtom's Falconry Striker build and I have really enjoyed playing it, but a part of me really wants to take this character back to its roots and Sacred Fist has the potential to do just that; a TWF Paladin.

This archetype is neither a monk nor a paladin, rather it is stuck in the middle and has the failings of both classes.

Monk has 4+ intelligence modifier on skills. All joking aside if you use intelligence as a dump stat and have a 6 to 8 skill points to spend each level, including a tome. Paladin only has 2+ Intelligence modifier giving (gulp) only 2 to 4 with the same tome, and starting with only 12 to begin with. So you are either short skills or you pull points from another ability during build.

Monk meshes well with Falconry getting you Wis to hit and damage and a Combat Trance all built off Wisdom. Sacred Fist is built off Charisma and it lacks a meshing with either a universal or class tree. You might build a dex build, but no dex trance, easily available (looking at you Horizon Walker). You don't have divine might out of Knight of the Chalice either. Basically instead of spreading out your ability points over four abilities (Dex, Con, Wis, and slightly into Int) you need Str, Dex, Con, Chr and Int if you want any skills.

With as many Racial Enhancement Points as this character has I tried dumping Str, and using Int and Harper Agent. Unlike Wis and Falconry this puts two abilities as needing to be maxed out. And if you go Feydark Illusionist, for the Charisma to Hit and Damage and Trance, what else do you spend your points on as you are neither a caster nor using illusionary weapons.

If you want to be a bit tanky, you don't have a shield nor the monk stances to help you out, your AC and PRR is not up to snuff.

In the end it was you give up a lot to make up for the easy to get dps of Falconry Striker or you strive to be a tank short AC and PRR and not get the damage of a paladin tank (and that is saying something).

Next Lamannia I want to take a look at the original Valkyrie Build (14 Paladin, 6 Rogue) or something along those lines and see if I can get a Dex/Chr build to work. While it has potential I still think it is going to be a tad short.

I am not saying this should be all monk or all paladin, but it needs something. If you want tanky, than you need more ACC and PRR, if you want DPS it needs a better mate than Feydark Illusionist.

[QuantumFX]

Yep - that and the Dark Apostate dice are being added.

And "Arcane Spellsword" In the Draconic Incarnation tree?

[Havocthedemon]

I spent some time last week playing two attempts at a Sacred Fist Archetype and would like to share my thoughts.

As a long time player I played a TWF Paladin Build since before the batman build was popular and long before TRs, so starting over meant deleting the character and trying again. About two years ago that character, not quite a racial completionist switched from 12/6/2 (Paladin/Rogue/Monk) to a pure Monk loosely based on Strimtom's Falconry Striker build and I have really enjoyed playing it, but a part of me really wants to take this character back to its roots and Sacred Fist has the potential to do just that; a TWF Paladin.

This archetype is neither a monk nor a paladin, rather it is stuck in the middle and has the failings of both classes.

Monk has 4+ intelligence modifier on skills. All joking aside if you use intelligence as a dump stat and have a 6 to 8 skill points to spend each level, including a tome. Paladin only has 2+ Intelligence modifier giving (gulp) only 2 to 4 with the same tome, and starting with only 12 to begin with. So you are either short skills or you pull points from another ability during build.

Monk meshes well with Falconry getting you Wis to hit and damage and a Combat Trance all built off Wisdom. Sacred Fist is built off Charisma and it lacks a meshing with either a universal or class tree. You might build a dex build, but no dex trance, easily available (looking at you Horizon Walker). You don't have divine might out of Knight of the Chalice either. Basically instead of spreading out your ability points over four abilities (Dex, Con, Wis, and slightly into Int) you need Str, Dex, Con, Chr and Int if you want any skills.

With as many Racial Enhancement Points as this character has I tried dumping Str, and using Int and Harper Agent. Unlike Wis and Falconry this puts two abilities as needing to be maxed out. And if you go Feydark Illusionist, for the Charisma to Hit and Damage and Trance, what else do you spend your points on as you are neither a caster nor using illusionary weapons.

If you want to be a bit tanky, you don't have a shield nor the monk stances to help you out, your AC and PRR is not up to snuff.

In the end it was you give up a lot to make up for the easy to get dps of Falconry Striker or you strive to be a tank short AC and PRR and not get the damage of a paladin tank (and that is saying something).

Next Lamannia I want to take a look at the original Valkyrie Build (14 Paladin, 6 Rogue) or something along those lines and see if I can get a Dex/Chr build to work. While it has potential I still think it is going to be a tad short.

I am not saying this should be all monk or all paladin, but it needs something. If you want tanky, than you need more ACC and PRR, if you want DPS it needs a better mate than Feydark Illusionist.


You think it’s needs more DPS or more defense?

[misterski]

You think it’s needs more DPS or more defense?

He's saying it doesn't have enough of either, leaving it feeling mediocre. The devs need to focus it in one direction or the other.

[Seph1roth5]

Forget if I already mentioned, but this archetype should ditch the stuff copy/pasted from KoTC and just replace vanguard so we can still play with KoTC.

[misterski]

Forget if I already mentioned, but this archetype should ditch the stuff copy/pasted from KoTC and just replace vanguard so we can still play with KoTC.

Doubt this will happen. Otherwise you would have the fire/light damage from the Sacred Flame toggle stacking with the light damage from the KoTC cores.

[GoldyGopher]

You think it’s needs more DPS or more defense?

No I am saying it is stuck in the middle, not enough DPS to make it a DPS character, not enough defense to make it a Tank. If the build offered something else that would be okay, not that I know exactly what that something else is. If the Devs view this archtype as DPS than make it a DPS class, whether that is a better Universal tree to mesh with or improvements to the class tree or changes to spells or .... The opposite is true if they want to have it as a more tanky monky build.

[TPICKRELL]

No I am saying it is stuck in the middle, not enough DPS to make it a DPS character, not enough defense to make it a Tank. If the build offered something else that would be okay, not that I know exactly what that something else is. If the Devs view this archtype as DPS than make it a DPS class, whether that is a better Universal tree to mesh with or improvements to the class tree or changes to spells or .... The opposite is true if they want to have it as a more tanky monky build.

Agreed, it either needs better defenses so it can tank, or needs a synergistic trance so it can dps.

[Arkat]

Agreed, it either needs better defenses so it can tank, or needs a synergistic trance so it can dps.

Ditto.

[Metellica]

Copied my character to Lamannia and did a TR into an Iconic Tabaxi Trailblazer.

Leveled:
1-2 Monk
2-8 Ranger

Attempted to take Sacred Fist Paladin (which it accepted)
Picking any feat or Religion appears to give the "Invalid Advancement Data!" error.

Just testing this on live with a newly rolled Iconic Tabaxi Trailblazer and receiving the same error.