U58 Preview 2: Acolyte of the Skin Warlock Archetype

[Steelstar]

Acolyte of the Skin is a new Warlock Archetype themed around Demonic power and transformation!

Feats and Features This Archetype Gets (that base Warlock does not):



Alternate version of Fiend Pact - True Fiend Pact. Identical to regular Fiend pact except rather than Dark One's Luck, you gain the following feat when appropriate:

Fiendskin: Your skin has been grafted with demon skin, granting you some of its inherent defenses. You gain a +1 profane bonus to Fire Resistance per Warlock Level.


(You still gain Hurl through Hell as your level 15 Special Ability.)
Rather than gaining Blast and Pact dice per level, Acolytes of the Skin gain the following feats:

1: Lesser Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
6: Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
12: Greater Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
18: Ultimate Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice


These feats may also be taken as regular feats if you meet the minimum level prerequisites as long as you have the first - just like how Monk stance upgrades work.
Gaining Blast Dice and Pact Dice from other methods (such as enhancement trees, feats, or destinies) still functions as before. This alternate progression is only for the dice that before were granted from gaining Warlock levels.



Feats and Features this Archetype DOES NOT Get (that base Warlock does):


Acolytes of the Skin do not get bonus automatically inscribed spells as they level up.
They also do not get inherent Blast or Pact Dice (see above).
They also may not choose any other pacts other than the True Fiend Pact.



Past Life
Acolyte of the Skin: You gain +5 Fire Spell Power and +1 MRR.

Enhancement Trees:

This archetype gets the new Acolyte of the Skin tree in place of Enlightened Spirit! It retains the Tainted Scholar and Soul Eater trees.



Acolyte of the Skin Enhancement Tree:



Core 1: Fiendish Form I: You gain +3% Fortification and +1 Fortitude Saves per Core ability.
Core 3: Fiendish Form II: You gain +3 HP per Core Ability.
Core 6: Fiendish Form III: You gain +3 Fire Resistance per Core ability.
Core 12: Fiendish Form IV: You gain +3 MRR per Core Ability.
Core 18: Fiendish Form V: You gain +3 PRR and Universal Spell Power per Core Ability.
Core 20: Ultimate Fiendish Form: +4 Charisma, +20% Competence bonus to HP. You gain Spell Resistance equal to your Charisma score.



Tier 1:


Resilience of Body: +2/4/6 PRR
Guarded Mind: You are Immune to Fear.
Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
Dark Deals: +1/2/3 Spellcraft, Haggle and Concentration, rank 3: +1 Will saving throws
Resilience of Soul: +2/4/6 MRR

Tier 2:


Hellish Rebuke SLA
Mindwrack: Your Eldritch Blast, Melee and ranged attacks reduce the Will saving throw of the target by -1 for 6 seconds. The effect stacks up to 4 times.
Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
Nightshield: You gain the effects of the Nightshield spell.
Hellfire: You bypass 5/10/15 Fire Resistance with your spells.

Tier 3:


Shape Stance: Beam Concentration. Eldritch Blast Shape: Transform your Eldritch Blast into a magical beam of Force dealing damage to all enemies in a straight line. While active, you have -1 Pact Damage die.
Devil's Bulwark I: While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Natural Armor per 2 Warlock Levels.
Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
Fiendish Glare: Beams of evil energies emerge from your eyes, dealing damage to all enemies in a wide cone. Enemies take 1d6 Evil damage plus the effects of your Eldritch Blast, and are Feared by your frightening visage. Shares a cooldown with Cleave. Cost: 6 spell points
Ability Score: +1 Charisma

Tier 4:


Drink Their Fear: Your Eldritch Blast deals double its Pact damage to enemies that are Feared.
Devil's Bulwark II: (req Devil's Bulwark I) While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Physical Resistance Rating per 2 Warlock Levels.
Skin Adaptation: Your Fiendskin now grants Cold, Lightning, and Acid resistance in addition to its Fire Resistance.
Luck of the Gambler: +1/2/3 to all saves.
Ability Score: +1 Charisma

Tier 5:


(this space intentionally left blank)
Devil's Bulwark III: (req Devil's Bulwark II) While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Magical Resistance Rating and Magic Resistance Rating Cap per 2 Warlock Levels.
Fiendish Symbiosis: You call upon your fiendish patron, transforming into a Demon for 30 seconds. You gain +100% Fortification, heal from Fire damage, and gain Natural Armor equal to your Pact Dice. While in this form, you no longer Eldritch Blast, instead you lash out with demonic claws as a melee attack. Each strike deals your full Eldritch Blast damage on hit. Entering this form is so frightening that activating this ability causes nearby enemies to become Shaken. Cooldown: 3 minutes, lasts 30 seconds + 5 seconds per core ability.
Glare of the Pit: Beams of evil energies emerge from your eyes, dealing damage to all enemies in a wide cone. Enemies take 4d6 Evil damage plus the effects of your Eldritch Blast, and are Feared by your frightening visage. Shares a cooldown with Great Cleave. Cost: 12 spell points
Dark Lore: +1/2/3 Necromancy DCs





Known Issues:


None of the visual effects for this tree have been set up
Several icons are marked as placeholders

[Xezom]

Starting my testing and feedback. I'll edit and update this post as I get going:

First issue I've run into so far is that Beam Form only Slows you as if you are casting a normal spell on the first cast of it per cycle. So if you hold it down you chug... hard. It makes the run and gun feel very strange. Edit: upon further testing, it's inconsistent on which one it does it on Sometimes the third, sometimes the first.

On Beam Form, the beam width hit box is VERY narrow. If enemies are not directly behind each other it's highly unlikely to strike more than one. The range also seems slightly lower than standard Eldrich Blast.

Fiendish Glare also stays on after your first cast. Or at least the visual effect and this will no longer work (fear) at all after that point. It acts like a single target projectile after you cast it for the first time, very wonky and broken right now.

ON Glare of the Pit and Fiendish Glare: Do they have a save vs the Fear? If so, what type and what does the DC scale with? The ability says "may become feared" but doesn't say under what conditions. Currently Fiendish Glare is so busted it's hard to test DC scaling if it has one.

One Hour testing Edit and Feedback:

Glare of the Pit and Fiendish Glare work for the first time you cast ONE of them per game session. Once Cast, NEITHER of them will function apart from their damage. The Fear doesn't seem to be working even on the first cast. I would clarify if they Always fear or have a DC and how it scales. Very hard to test and give feedback when the two main abilities don't function. Also the abilities cost 0 in game rather than their listed amount.

Fiendish Symbiosis: Interesting, but the animation just seems wrong. It should mimic the Dragonborn's swiping animations not the blasting animation from other eldritch Blasts. Know it says visuals are no set up, hoping that includes the animation for the transformation cause its funky looking to melee with point blank blasts.

I'd personally widen the beam wideth as it's not very user friendly. It's like trying to kill enemies with nimbus of light style casting only. It's rough. Also it doesn't just stay on like the enhancement suggests. It still hits in cycles of threes, with teh chug happening on the third or first instance in the rotation. Change it to a solid Beam/Laser that periodically does damage with a wider hit box and we'll talk.

Otherwise the tree is fairly unremarkable IMHO. You are definitely more bulky in the defense department than most other Warlocks except that you don't get the Temp HP the ES gets which sorta offsets that. Not being able to use heavier Armor without spell failure hurts its bulk. With the two main fear abilities not functioning it's pretty lack luster even for Warlock standards. I'd make the fear effects a paralyzed with fear not a run away Fear. No helplessness, but having a melee transform while also having things run away from you in fear feels counter intuitive (provided it actually does that when the skills actually function).

I'm going to hang up my coat on testing this one. There are too many breaks to fairly test its capacity, and as an eldritch blaster that's damage focused it's new shape leaves much to be desired. You are better to stick to Chain. I'm going to give this a "I'll pass," for this go around. Sorry SSG, at least for me this was a swing and a miss. This Archtype needs to go back to the drawing board.

[Stravix]

Fiendish Symbiosis: You call upon your fiendish patron, transforming into a Demon for 30 seconds. You gain +100% Fortification, heal from Fire damage, and gain Natural Armor equal to your Pact Dice. While in this form, you no longer Eldritch Blast, instead you lash out with demonic claws as a melee attack. Each strike deals your full Eldritch Blast damage on hit. Entering this form is so frightening that activating this ability causes nearby enemies to become Shaken. Cooldown: 3 minutes, lasts 30 seconds + 5 seconds per core ability.


I LOVE the way the duration on this is handled.

Gives the capstone more power for pure builds in an organic way.

[Cadic]

First some feedback: Fear is a really really bad mechanic to saddle on this class. We generally NEVER want to fear enemies due to them running all over the darn place causing more aggro from other enemies, etc. If you are really stuck on fear here, then they need to stand in place. The fear is counter to nearly all of the abilities in the tree since they need the enemies gathered up in small spaces. (Both glares, the symbiosis, etc)

Bugs so far:
Symbiosis doesn't work at all. Just does some draconic burst animation, but no change to the eldritch blast other than being melee range only.

Skin adaption didn't seem to kick in until I logged out and back in.

Fiendish Glare, and Glare of the Pit only work once. As soon as you use one, the visual animation remains on until you log out and log back in. During the animation, the glares don't do damage, etc.

Eldritch Blast beam is very bad overall. The attack width is extremely narrow, and the range is smaller than regular. Why would we ever turn this on? It lowers our pact dice, and gives us a worse attack? Seems to work like precise shot where it won't past through the first enemy targeted as well, so you have to make sure to have the furthest enemy targeted. (Maybe this was more feedback than bug, but it seems really bad)

Skin adaptation talent doesn't seem to be doing anything. It might be always working right now as my enhancements to my resistances were good, but not raising when I take the enhancement.

T4 of the tree only requires 15 points in the tree instead of the normal 20.

[Lotoc]

Overall with a quick test I'd say I'm somewhat disappointed on the delivery so far.
the way I read beam I'd had imagined it'd be a continuous wide blast akin to a flamethrower rather than the standard pattern of blasts being fired out as shots. The beam is also fairly narrow and shorter range than a standard eldritch blast rather than the distance of the ray spells it seems to be an imitation of.
I'd say beam shape as it stands simply will be skipped over in favor of chain or cone in regular play.

On the transformation, I imagine the demon model is a visual that will be put in later and the demon will be rigged to do an actual attack animation to deliver the blasts? It's kind of disappointing that mechanically it's basically coneshape with much smaller area. The description is pretty misleading as it'll have you thinking you're actually making melee attacks when it's just spell hits in melee range - probably best to clarify that this is purely spell hits in the tooltip before someone goes building a melee acolyte thinking it will actually need to land melee attacks.

Overall the most interesting thing this archetype seems to be doing is moving pact/blast dice into a monk feat situation where you can get full progression as a multiclass at a feat cost, just there's not really a way to deliver on that possibility in this archetype.
If this feature was on regular warlock with enlightened spirit it'd be great for building a multiclass melee warlock utilizing the aura but for an archetype far more focused on being a blaster warlock and far less support of a melee multiclass build this fails to deliver.

If I were to make a suggestion it'd probably be to scrap beam shape and replace it with Blast Shape : Claw, adding your blast/pact damage on melee attacks at a spellpower scaling penalty (say 75% scaling) and rather than having the transformation replace your blast shape have it boost your shape's spellpower scaling by 25% while active

[Scrag]

Is shaken == fear in the context of this bonus damage here? If so, that tails in nicely with core 3 soul eater!

edit: Why all the +fire power if you cant convert the blast damage from force to fire? I mean the whole schtick here is fire fire fire, but blast damage cant be converted to fire? Either with an imbue or something else?

[dkyle]

How about adding a feature "Frozen with fear", where fear you inflict causes the mob to stand in place? As it stands, major parts of this archetype are fundamentally unusable.

[droid327]

Wow. Big wah-wah here on the main class mechanics...


Beam Shape: its not a channeled beam at all like it sounded, its just regular EBs that go in a line and penetrate. Its just IPS for Blast. Like IPS, it stops after you hit the targeted mob. Unlike IPS, you cant target yourself and reticle-fire for infinite passthrough, because the shots all go high without a hard target.

Transformation: doesnt actually add EBs to your melee attacks, just gives you a melee-range EB. It doesnt have the delay after the third shot, but it attacks slightly slower than a regular EB, so...its not that much of a DPS buff, especially considering the range penalty and the opportunity cost at T5

Glare: as others have said, buggy to where you cant even test it

Also, double Pact damage on fear doesnt seem to work with Shaken (ie from Soul Eater core), dunno if that's WAI or not but Shaken is classified as a Fear effect.\

Hellfire (T2) requires Warlock L4

Slimy Doom (Contagion) still uses its "must pass two saves or it reapplies" mechanic even though its a DOT now, which effectively makes it infinite duration

--------------------------

The one interesting part is the Feat based Blast and Pact Die progression, which has (afaict) exactly one interesting application: an 18 FvS/2 AotS Tiefling, who can basically just use Chain Shape as their default attack in a Fire/Light-based nuker build. That has some interesting possibilities, giving you the sustained AOE of Chain attacks with the burst damage of AoV FvS...

However, this mechanic would only be useful when splitting with a class that can support charisma casting, otherwise your blast DC will be unusable... support fire power, and ideally light and Alignment too... and actually offer something synergistic beyond what Warlock can do itself. Favored soul and sorcerer are the only other charisma casters, but fire savant wouldn't use chain shape even if they had it.

I'm not sure why an acolyte blaster would splash deep into another class either, since splashing casters is almost never worth it- so the feat based blast dice really only matter if you're splashing a little Warlock onto something else

[SocratesBastardSon]

Conceptually the archetype is really interesting, but it looks like you're trying to make a tank. However, given how backloaded all of the defenses are, and the new blast forms slow your character, this isn't really a Fiend Pact variant, it should be called the Suicide Pact. It's a glass cannon. Granted it's tougher than, say, alchemist, but they get to stay at range and run around to avoid damage.

It needs Medium (or heavy) armor proficiency that removes ASF, and the +20% Competence bonus to max hit points currently unavailable until cap (really?) should go where every other class gets it, tier 5. Frankly, it ought to be a 25% bonus.

[LunaticFringe]

Given how common fire immunity is, should the skinnie have a immunity strip? Removing 15 points of FR won't help much against immune... and given the heavy fire bent, maybe this archetype should have a strip. It would certainly differentiate it from normal locks...

Edit: Maybe attach it to demon form. That would give demon form more oomph.

[Cadic]

Given how common fire immunity is, should the skinnie have a immunity strip? Removing 15 points of FR won't help much against immune... and given the heavy fire bent, maybe this archetype should have a strip. It would certainly differentiate it from normal locks...

Edit: Maybe attach it to demon form. That would give demon form more oomph.


It would need to be on something other than that. 3 minute cooldown is pretty bad for immunity stripping.

[LunaticFringe]

It would need to be on something other than that. 3 minute cooldown is pretty bad for immunity stripping.

I'm trying to come up with something that has some balance to it, and also does not require a new node. Given that we're on preview 2, we likely have one more preview, and that's it (with p3 in roughly 2 weeks). So, major code changes are probably not in the cards. Maybe have the claw attack grant a refreshing 30-second strip (so you get it for the duration of demonform, plus 30 seconds. Far from perfect, but better than nothing. Most strips last for 30 seconds, right?

[Steelstar]

We have corrected the Beam Blast Shape entry in the original post, which was incorrect. It now reads:



Shape Stance: Beam Concentration. Eldritch Blast Shape: Transform your Eldritch Blast into a magical beam of Force dealing damage to all enemies in a straight line. While active, you have -1 Pact Damage die.

[Xezom]

We have corrected the Beam Blast Shape entry in the original post, which was incorrect. It now reads:



Shape Stance: Beam Concentration. Eldritch Blast Shape: Transform your Eldritch Blast into a magical beam of Force dealing damage to all enemies in a straight line. While active, you have -1 Pact Damage die.


Disappointing to say the least. I would VERY highly suggest increasing the hit box width at the very least. As it is, there is no benefit to using it over Chain at all. Chain might not be the best as far as AoE is concerned, but Beam is barely even good for single target let alone AoE. Also, is the slow supposed to be there or not cause as it is it chugs like mad holding down your mouse button to auto fire.

[droid327]

Disappointing to say the least. I would VERY highly suggest increasing the hit box width at the very least. As it is, there is no benefit to using it over Chain at all. Chain might not be the best as far as AoE is concerned, but Beam is barely even good for single target let alone AoE. Also, is the slow supposed to be there or not cause as it is it chugs like mad holding down your mouse button to auto fire.

Yeah agreed, chain can do everything beam can do and more, except hit four or more targets in a straight line... but that almost never happens. I think beam needs to work more like the transformation attack, and after the wind up send out a steady stream of blasts at about the rate that the transformation claw attacks hit at. No pause after the third one. It should also be hit scan, not projectile. That will differentiate it better from the other shapes.

[SpardaX]

This sounds super fun to me at least, to the point where I had Lamannia loading up to test it, until I saw that the fear eye beam cones werent working and thought Id give it a miss until thats working.

To the guy who said "We NEVER fear things", I fear things. I spend level 1 - 10 in a Fearsome / Invulnerablity armor. The main reason I take it off is because it stops working (and ravenloft armor of course). On a ranged character, having the enemies run away from you instead of at you is a god send. On a melee character, it's a bit more annoying, but my motto is: Any enemy running away from you, is an enemy not currently trying to kill you. Passive CC basically. It sounds a bit of a shame that the Eldritch Blast beams are too narrow to be greatly effective, but lightning bolts and arrows are pretty narrow too so while it sounds like it might need a bit of widening, Im sure people will adapt if they choose to use it. Fix the eye beam cones and I'm interested at least.

My one confusion with the tree is the Demon form at the end, which reminds me of when you guys gave Grandmaster of Flowers an Eldritch Blast stance. In the same way that I wasnt sure how basing a character on melee would change effectively to short periods of ranged attacking, I'm also not sure how basing a spell caster ranged style of play is going to work going melee for 1 out of every 3 minutes. Other than that though, I think it looks cool.

[Baahb3]

The one interesting part is the Feat based Blast and Pact Die progression

I too have been trying to wrap my mind around this. I could not think of a build that would splash warlock to open up these feats because as you said, splitting caster classes is usually a death sentence.

Your FvS split is interesting but I still don't know if dedicating 3 feats to what would ultimately be a filler attack between regular spells would be worth it.

[Rehmlah]

Bug: When taking level 18 Acolyte of the Skin, Ultimate Pact Attunement was not listed in the auto-granted feats. I was able to take it as a normal feat and swap it out and back in at Fred.

[Lotoc]

I too have been trying to wrap my mind around this. I could not think of a build that would splash warlock to open up these feats because as you said, splitting caster classes is usually a death sentence.

Your FvS split is interesting but I still don't know if dedicating 3 feats to what would ultimately be a filler attack between regular spells would be worth it.

I guess it opens up blaster as an option for splashing warlock, say you don't really feel like playing a rogue or fighter or some archetype but want the past life you can easily go 6 acolyte and get full blast damage, coneshape and a t5 then M1+W through the game.

[Cadic]

Ultimate pact dice are not being granted at level 18 to the Acolyte.

[droid327]

I guess it opens up blaster as an option for splashing warlock, say you don't really feel like playing a rogue or fighter or some archetype but want the past life you can easily go 6 acolyte and get full blast damage, coneshape and a t5 then M1+W through the game.

Yeah I guess that's an option if you really dont like playing Inqui either lol

Or load up on defensive enhancements and just be a chainturtle. 2 AotS 4 Fighter 14 Clr Luck Domain, healing aura/burst and Stal Def :D Wonder if Heal Aura ticks refresh Feigned Health?

[Seph1roth5]

Fear is good if you're soling and have good ranged dps, sometimes. Here it's practically a drawback that should come with a big boost. 15 fire resist bypass is sad, and +1 fire resistance per level is worthless too. Would honestly be better if it were +20 at lv 1 and you lost 1 per level.

I think all the archetypes have been pretty bad. They would've been better if they didn't come with enhancement trees and just gave us a few alternatives at character creation. Then they could churn out more, faster. Because as it is, none of them look decent to take as your main tree or pure class, and mostly just something to splash in a little for a couple things.

[droid327]

Fear is good if you're soling and have good ranged dps, sometimes. Here it's practically a drawback that should come with a big boost. 15 fire resist bypass is sad, and +1 fire resistance per level is worthless too. Would honestly be better if it were +20 at lv 1 and you lost 1 per level.

I think all the archetypes have been pretty bad. They would've been better if they didn't come with enhancement trees and just gave us a few alternatives at character creation. Then they could churn out more, faster. Because as it is, none of them look decent to take as your main tree or pure class, and mostly just something to splash in a little for a couple things.

That's not true....fist is decent as a standalone build, though it benefits from a splash. Stormie seems to be an adequate if unimpressive caster formula. People seem high on blight for casting so far.

But yeah...DA, DH and AotS all seem to suffer from "what exactly are we supposed to do, and how are we supposed to do it properly?" syndrome

Batting .500 on the designs so far

[Pandjed]

Alternate version of Fiend Pact - True Fiend Pact.

Please rename it, it really feels like you're mocking all fiends with it, that didn't give you some skin. Something like Demonskin Pact.

Would it be possible to make a model change to the acolytes? Like how dragonmarks appear on the faces of people who got the feat? A mark, a color shift or the like on the skin would make me happy, as the original prestige class was someone fusing their skin with that of a fiend.

[mikarddo]

That's not true....fist is decent as a standalone build, though it benefits from a splash. Stormie seems to be an adequate if unimpressive caster formula. People seem high on blight for casting so far.

But yeah...DA, DH and AotS all seem to suffer from "what exactly are we supposed to do, and how are we supposed to do it properly?" syndrome

Batting .500 on the designs so far

I find Stormsinger to be excellent pure - main in Spellsinger, secondary Stormsinger.

Really strong leveling - heal song, regular heals, good aoe dps, cc. Strong solo and very strong grouped. At cap I also find Stormsinger to perform very well. High on kill count in high reaper, good healing, excellent CC, buffs from song. I often compete favorably with other casters for kills while also buffing and healing (songs and Shouts) in particular in longer quests due to mana efficiency.

So, I wouldnt call it unpressive :) Multiclassing Stormsinger looks much weaker though.

[EdsanDarkbane]

If the transformation is locked at tier 5, AND has no option to upgrade, via feat or enhancements the transformation must be over tuned and last at the very very least 90 seconds.

Quests are too big for a KEY feature to last 30 seconds. I would stick it at 2 minutes. With options to extend or affected by Metamagic extend.

It should feel like claw swipes and/or have a buff strikethrough, and possibly be considered to be linked to the two handed strikethrough feat tree.--this will help balance, as now your have significant feat investment. Make sure the demon is OVERTUNED.

Additionally, the demon form should be OVERTUNED.

Try adding into core4 or Tier 5, an Enhancement that will auto change to demon when taking lethal damage in normal form. Also it should full heal and remove debuffs, and make immune to cc effects for 3 seconds.

[kpak01]

First some feedback: Fear is a really really bad mechanic to saddle on this class. We generally NEVER want to fear enemies due to them running all over the darn place causing more aggro from other enemies, etc. If you are really stuck on fear here, then they need to stand in place.


Agreed, but that's not even specific to this class. Cowered is great! They stand still. Shaken is good, as their saves and stuff are debuffed. "Panicked" or "Feared" or "Frightened", whatever you want to call it, where they run all over the place, is stupid and useless, for everyone everywhere.

[Stravix]

If the transformation is locked at tier 5, AND has no option to upgrade, via feat or enhancements the transformation must be over tuned and last at the very very least 90 seconds.

Quests are too big for a KEY feature to last 30 seconds. I would stick it at 2 minutes. With options to extend or affected by Metamagic extend.

It should feel like claw swipes and/or have a buff strikethrough, and possibly be considered to be linked to the two handed strikethrough feat tree.--this will help balance, as now your have significant feat investment. Make sure the demon is OVERTUNED.

Additionally, the demon form should be OVERTUNED.

Try adding into core4 or Tier 5, an Enhancement that will auto change to demon when taking lethal damage in normal form. Also it should full heal and remove debuffs, and make immune to cc effects for 3 seconds.

Agree with more power, but i think the duration is fine as is, as it isn't 30 seconds, it is 36-66 seconds based on core progression. That said, a 2 minute cooldown would be nice to have ~50% uptime by endgame.

[Ereshkigal]

I have nothing new in regards to mechanics, but agree with the bulk of what is posted.

I do want to say I love that the damage was moved to feats. I find this to be a welcome boost to multiclassing. Please do not remove this mechanism.

[Kortar]

Rather than gaining Blast and Pact dice per level, Acolytes of the Skin gain the following feats:

1: Lesser Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
6: Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
12: Greater Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
18: Ultimate Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice



Only use I see for multi-classing is to get past lives for classes I don't want to play. 6 Acolyte (SE/TS) / 14 X for full blast damage (with a better progression) at the cost of two feats.



Fiendish Symbiosis: You call upon your fiendish patron, transforming into a Demon for 30 seconds. You gain +100% Fortification, heal from Fire damage, and gain Natural Armor equal to your Pact Dice. While in this form, you no longer Eldritch Blast, instead you lash out with demonic claws as a melee attack. Each strike deals your full Eldritch Blast damage on hit. Entering this form is so frightening that activating this ability causes nearby enemies to become Shaken. Cooldown: 3 minutes, lasts 30 seconds + 5 seconds per core ability.


Why is this not a blast shape or a major form?
Unless the attack speed is really fast this is weaker than cone. There is no need for a long cooldown.
A melee blast shape sounds fun but not these conditions.

[Stravix]

Only use I see for multi-classing is to get past lives for classes I don't want to play. 6 Acolyte (SE/TS) / 14 X for full blast damage (with a better progression) at the cost of two feats.



Why is this not a blast shape or a major form?
Unless the attack speed is really fast this is weaker than cone. There is no need for a long cooldown.
A melee blast shape sounds fun but not these conditions.

Honestly, I do not mind the temporary form change, but it needs a lot more power to be worthwhile. Maybe make the swipes around 1/5x-2x faster than standard blasting, for a dps increase in the mode for the overhead of swapping combat styles mid combat

[Baahb3]

It should feel like claw swipes and/or have a buff strikethrough, and possibly be considered to be linked to the two handed strikethrough feat tree.--this will help balance, as now your have significant feat investment. Make sure the demon is OVERTUNED.



Instead of strikethrough, I think making the EB damage burst in a small AOE around the Warlock. The physical damage of the strike can be single target, but by making the EB damage a small AOE, it could add something unique to this Archtype.

[Kortar]

Honestly, I do not mind the temporary form change, but it needs a lot more power to be worthwhile. Maybe make the swipes around 1/5x-2x faster than standard blasting, for a dps increase in the mode for the overhead of swapping combat styles mid combat

That's fair,

but since it's Tier 5 I don't think it's would be much of a DPS boost overall since you would lose the ability to use Eldritch Wave every 12 seconds.

I think overall SSG needs to make less "once per quest" abilities like this one. I do not find those appealing at all.

[droid327]

Agree with more power, but i think the duration is fine as is, as it isn't 30 seconds, it is 36-66 seconds based on core progression. That said, a 2 minute cooldown would be nice to have ~50% uptime by endgame.

I cant quite figure out the design intent on this...

3 min cooldown is too long to use rotationally all the time, even with a 66 sec uptime...you just dont want to bounce between melee and ranged blasting that often for trash mobs, you want to stick to the one thing you're built to do. 3 min cd is too long even to just use it for champs and reapers; you'd want more like a 1 min CD for that.

Its practical use would seem to be limited to bosses, in the same vein as Epic Moments. But 30 secs or so is usually enough time to kill a boss when you're in full HAM mode...so the extra duration will likely go to waste a lot of the time. I think even in raids, 3 mins is an awkward window where you'll often be on CD still when you need the burst, or the defense (I can imagine people cheesing THTH with the heal-with-fire though)

I'd think it'd be more useful if it scaled attack speed and/or damage rather than duration - get more done in the 30 sec window, rather than having a bigger window to do stuff. Or reduce the CD to 1 min (and base duration to 24 secs, with 6 +6 sec bonuses) so that you got closer to 100% uptime for a pure Acolyte, then you can make that your actual intended playstyle.



I think overall SSG needs to make less "once per quest" abilities like this one. I do not find those appealing at all.

I think its a good complement to builds that have strong sustained AOE otherwise....you have Blast for trash killing and can go into boss mode for bosses, which is usually where Locks are least effective. I just think it really needs to be a significant bonus, then...something that really changes the dynamics of a single fight, not just basically an action boost like it is now.

[Firebreed]

Some observations made by someone else that were posted in the other Lamannia forum. (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/536899-Acolyte-of-the-skin-big-miss?p=6567144&viewfull=1#post6567144)

[Cadic]

So just a question here about the design. What do you see as the AotS getting that is so valuable for what it gives up?

For instance, the pact spells? These just seem to be removed with nothing replacing them. The AoTS is not really getting anything "better" than other Warlocks. Blast damage is pretty much the same (maybe due to bugs?) so no DPS advantage.

Dark One's Luck is 1000% better than 20 fire resistance. At minimum this should be changed to fire absorption since 20 fire resistance doesn't matter when incoming damage is in the thousands.

Maybe I am missing something here, so please feel free to enlighten (spirit) me. :)

[Aelonwy]

I want to give this a try when time allows. Fiend is not a pact that I would have chosen for special attention. This seems weird: "Skin Adaptation: Your Fiendskin now grants Cold, Lightning, and Acid resistance in addition to its Fire Resistance" because according to *apologies* a 5E source "Most fiends resist or ignore cold, fire, and lightning damage. And, pretty much every fiend (with a couple exceptions) have immunity against poison damage. Furthermore, many fiends have additional resistances to damage from non-magical or non-silvered mundane weapons."

So why should Fiend Skin Adaptation grant resistance to all the major elements?

Personally, I would have found an enchanter/beguiler archetype more interesting. Maybe an enchanter universal tree would be a better idea. And Abyss pact is so abysmal (sorry not sorry) that it certainly could have used the help with a tree focused on supporting it. Or maybe with so many undead/negative energy character types a Universal support tree for that would be a better idea too.

[Rhiadd]

How does the damage of the blasts for a pure level 20 compare with the base warlock? The loss of ES means the loss of the imbue on the blasts - is there something here that makes up for that?

[Stravix]

Little confused by the mechanics mis-match on this one after some more inspection.

Compared to normal warlock, this one gets +2 blast die, but -2 pact die.

That said, the entire tree seems dedicated to fire damage (pact die) and things which affect the pact die (double pact die against feared targets)

Wouldn't it make more sense to have the feats grant +1 Blast die and +3 pact die instead? (for a total of 4/12 compared to base warlocks 6/10)

That way it can lean hard into that fire damage, and you get a bigger payoff for the fear effects doubling your pact die.

[wolfdy]

Most of the stuff doens't work, i assume's getting fixed.
However, this begs the question, how are we suposed to test stuff if theres no working stuff to be tested?

8d8 blast and 8d6 pact over 18 lvls VS 6d8 blast 10d6 pact. Why? Is there a reason for this? huh
Btw, who are the pact Attunement for? Multiclass? Cuz i dont see what else. Funny how ES would benefit from this to dip into some martial classes for aura hehe

The tree itself is nice, loads of defensives, unique at least (even if familiar to ES), but i dont think this can compete with T5SE + CapTS. ES was martial, it wanst direct competition, meanwhile Acolyte is blast centered aswell

Oh the fear, the horror. Double pact damage against feared enemies? Not my cup of tea. Not consistent, its either too OP against trash that can be feared and CC or useless. I'd rather be just a immunity to fear strip and we get some more dmg elsewhere

Give me perma demonform. We got undead, shades, elementals, Gimme demons D:
Tooltip's very misleading btw, "attack" makes us think we can get attack speed/doublestrike

Why should i glare to hit 100% of a blast if i can just continue blasting without the animation interruption? ES uses Aura bursts for aoe, Wave's 2 hits with 150%, just as ball the glares prob wont be worth the animation chain canceling (btw, starting an eldritch blast takes forever, wish this was diferent)

3HP per core, lol

Line blast its just... x.x line's the worst shape, it might work on PnP but here we barely have time to target that we want, and even when we do tarteting something behind all the other things its just unrealistic (RIP FIRIN MAH' LAZER)

Can Chain be a proper "chain"? 5 targets instead of 3? '-' Cone's used 90% of the time. Let us have a choice, plenty of packs have more than 5 targets. But the way it is atm, cone has huge range and hits EVERYTHING, theres no reason aside from stuff above me to use chain. Scratch that, i have jump and cone hits vertically.

IMO Warlock needs a rework, Soul eater and Tainted Scholar are basically the same Tree, they add damage and this problem will resurface everytime something gets changed around the class. We only have a "defensive" tree with ES/Acolyte (Or at least give wave to Tainted instead, this way we can dip into Acolyte)

I Would love to See Soul eater as an actual DoT/necromancy/CC tree; Move Wave, Spell Tearing and Eldritch Seeker to Tainted (Dmg stuff). Move Confusion, Enervating Shadow, Utterdark Blast, Faltering Blast, Stunning Blast to Soul eater (CC & evil stuff) etc.
Soul Eater and Tainted Scholar Seem like someone thought of a very OP tree, split it into 2, and put some filler in it

Can you imagine a Soul Eater where everycore gave you an eldritch blast shape/essence/thingy? Evil, Confusion, Slow, Debuff saves, NEgative lvls. Wow, such necromancy :O

[Xezom]

So I gave this guy another go today just to see if there was some potential that I missed. I'd originally thought of doing a AotS/Pal split. Unfortunately, You can't be a paladin with AotS because Paladin requires Good alignment and AotS forbids good. If the pact was something different it's a set up that I could see working with the wonky Blast/Pact dice feats. A possibility would be to remove the "not good" restriction from the fiend pact for this Archetype only. I'm not saying that it's an optimal set up due to lack of Arcane spell failure removal in heavier armor, so you're still not that bulky even if you got the save bonuses from paladin. But it would at least open up some of the bulkier options.

Sadly, at this point this Archetype just doesn't have a home in DDO right now. Even if the fear "SLA's" worked, I'm not convinced it would matter. As has been pointed out, most bosses and important targets are immune to fear effects meaning your double Pact damage will not apply when you need it the most.

The latest I tried was as a Chain Blaster: TS Capped, taint the blood and no worse fate (for the shaken on hit) from SE, and up to Drink their fear in AotS. Used the Scare spell and symbol of fear manually cast. It's not as god awful bad as relying on the broken sla's in this tree, but having things run in fear is definitely a pain more than an asset. You can evard's them to help lock them down so they dont run away, but that just adds another layer of clunk to the playstyle. Not to mention Symbol of fear has a slow cast time, and Scare has a really big delay between time of cast and when it goes off. Also, shaken doesn't seem to proc the double pact dice even though it is a form of fear. It does when things are feared by Scare tho. If it would work with shaken, as it seems like it's intended to, then the synergy between AotS and Soul Eater would be great for the fortitude cut on hit and the shaken on hit causing your pact dice to double. I still agree that being as this is all about fire that the swing should have went heavier to pact dice than to base dice in the feats but that's a minor issue compared to the other major issues this tree has.

The Beam shape just needs scrapped. If it was me, I'd do something like this:

Eldrich Blast Shape: Projected Fear- Transforms your Eldrich Blast into a blast of fiery terror at a distance damaging all enemies in a small area around your target. Enemies hit by this shape become shaken in fear. -10/15/20/or some other negotiable number% Eldrich Blast attack speed.

This way you're not penalizing the Pact damage that this tree is about, providing some decent AoE options of Warlocks, but still having a drawback of being slower. This would make Projected fear the slower but harder hitting Eldrich Blast shape, self synergize with the Drink their Fear point once it works with Shaken effects, and offer an true AoE form for Warlocks.

[Cashiry]

Past Life
Acolyte of the Skin: You gain +5 Fire Spell Power and +1 MRR.





+1 MRR is low IMHO, +2 MRR would be much better,

[Strimtom]

This tree is hard to evaluate, but conceptually it is very cool. I couldn't terst much since almost nothing worked on lamannia, so here is what I got:


Pact attunement (feat) text says d6 for blast and d4 for pact instead of the proper numbers d8/d6
Tree seems to be very melee oriented, but the beam is focused on long range penetration and being in the back line. Very counter intuitive.
Beam thoughts: Beam is too narrow, and beam needs to have better height tolerance. Also, beam feels very out of place in the tree, that is heavy focused on melee damage. Beam should be a narrow cone imo, like the eye beam. Regardless it should not slow you.
Eye beam attacks only works once, the visual never goes away, and I can't test anything else about it since they definitely don't work
Skin adaptation doesn't work
Shaken (which is a fear) doesn't proc drink their fear when it should
Howl of terror would be great for this tree, maybe as T5 for SLA.
Cores should at least be 4 or higher, 3 per core feels low considering they get no other powers for cores.

[Lotoc]

Idea for replacing beam shape
What if rather than a blast shape in this tree you were to get a toggle that changed your pact damage from fire to something less resisted like slashing damage to fit the theme of demonic claws (while still scaling with your fire sp/crit) but it had the drawback of doing some low amount of fire damage to yourself, it'd have to be low because recoil damage tends to get amplified in reaper, and on lower difficulties your fire resist should block most of it.

Overall it'd make the archetype less tethered to Tiefling for fire bypass and also give a manner to heal oneself by using the transformation without relying on the threat of fire damage being in your current quest.

[LurkingVeteran]

Idea for replacing beam shape
What if rather than a blast shape in this tree you were to get a toggle that changed your pact damage from fire to something less resisted like slashing damage to fit the theme of demonic claws (while still scaling with your fire sp/crit) but it had the drawback of doing some low amount of fire damage to yourself, it'd have to be low because recoil damage tends to get amplified in reaper, and on lower difficulties your fire resist should block most of it.

Overall it'd make the archetype less tethered to Tiefling for fire bypass and also give a manner to heal oneself by using the transformation without relying on the threat of fire damage being in your current quest.

I like the ides of actual beams because they are fast and not slow like regular eb. Shame this was just wonky ips for regular eb. Please make it actual beams, or failing that, a red lightning bolt.

[SpardaX]

So just a question here about the design. What do you see as the AotS getting that is so valuable for what it gives up?

For instance, the pact spells? These just seem to be removed with nothing replacing them. The AoTS is not really getting anything "better" than other Warlocks. Blast damage is pretty much the same (maybe due to bugs?) so no DPS advantage.

Dark One's Luck is 1000% better than 20 fire resistance. At minimum this should be changed to fire absorption since 20 fire resistance doesn't matter when incoming damage is in the thousands.

Maybe I am missing something here, so please feel free to enlighten (spirit) me. :)

Whether it's working correctly or not, I can't say. Buy at least as written, the archetype gains base damage on a regular lock, and gets it's damage faster.

Arch lock:
2d8/2d6 at lv 1
4d8/4d6 at lv 6
6d8/6d6 at lv 12
8d8/8d6 at lv 18.

Regular lock:
1d8/1 at lv 1
1d8/1d6 at lv 2
2d8/2d6 at lv 4 (this is where the archetype is at lv 1)
2d8/3d6 at lv 6
3d8/4d6 at lv 8
3d8/5d8 at lv 10
4d8/6d6 at lv 12 (and so on until)
6d8/10d6 at lv 20. Both last dice, you only get AT 20.

So even if you consider 6d8+10d6 = average 27+35= 62 vs 8d8+8d6 = 36+28 = 64, an average damage increase of 2 to be negligible (I assume by design), at the very least, from lv 1 all the way to lb 19, the archetype is quite far ahead.

Which at least to me, suggests: If you consider Warlock to be "Sorcerer, but we took a bunch of your spells away but in return gave you a free damage button, so you basically take the Utility spells you were going to but don't need to worry about attack spells", then this Archtype (at least from 1 to 19) of "Have even less spells, but have even more eldritch blast damage" suggests to me that it's the Warlockiest warlock.

Obviously once you hit lv 20 the damage almost completely evens out, but by then with destiny spells and destiny abilities, the metrics of heroics are all thrown out anyway. And at least in my opinion, the only Fiend spell worth having is Rage, -maybe- command, but you can get that as an SLA in a tree. And at level 20 you're generally going to have someone Primal Screaming you so even rage becomes unnecessary.

[Aelonwy]

So I played around with this in heroic running the new quest. Its really hard to say much since the special attacks didn't seem to be working all that well or at all. At this moment I cannot say that the trade-off of loosing half my warlock spells for this tree is even remotely worth it. I mean you end up being a full caster class with LESS SPELLS than pure ranger or paladin. ?! Underwhelming to say the least.

We loose Enlightened Spirit's access to Medium Armor Proficiency but gain multiple enhancements that depend on wearing armor but... but there isn't much appropriate caster "armor" for this archetype. Its in a weird position.

As of this moment I see only drawbacks and zero allure.

[SpardaX]

Unfortunately, You can't be a paladin with AotS because Paladin requires Good alignment and AotS forbids good.

Sadly, at this point this Archetype just doesn't have a home in DDO right now.

If nothing else, I can say that a Paladin that does not have to be Lawful Good, has been hinted at by some devs as a future coming Archtype.

[Zoobie1977]

Devil's Bulwark does not work with a Docent as armour - is that intentional?

[Zoobie1977]

Both Glare enhancement abilities shares CD with Cleave - does that make them mutually exclusive?

[Smokewolf]

I LOVE the way the duration on this is handled.

Gives the capstone more power for pure builds in an organic way.

Problem with a T5 melee ability (Fiendish Symbiosis) is that there is nothing (melee-wise) that comes during the characters enh-tree progression that builds up to it. Thus its just a flavor ability with no substance and a crappy cool-down. Someone would be a fool to make a build around this when the other Warlock trees are significantly better. (And that not really saying much)

[Lotoc]

Problem with a T5 melee ability (Fiendish Symbiosis) is that there is nothing (melee-wise) that comes during the characters enh-tree progression that builds up to it. Thus its just a flavor ability with no substance and a crappy cool-down. Someone would be a fool to make a build around this when the other Warlock trees are significantly better. (And that not really saying much)

You've kinda missed it, you don't need to and in fact it's worthless to build for melee with this archetype even in the transformation as it isn't actual melee attacks and instead point blank blasts, all the durability in this tree basically just serves to let you survive point blank blasting.

[Pandjed]

As many pointed ot, the eldritch stance doesn't fit the rest of the tree and feels like a worse cone.

Another idea: How about making the eldritch stance a melee stance with strikethrough (maybe even combinable with THF)? Add some more defensives in and we got a melee caster that doesn't burst like ES, but instead strikes. Make the demonform stronger, so that it feels like an extension or make demon form a major form instead, we got plenty of bears running around after all. Could also open up new cosmetic skins as a business model.

If this would be a melee centric tree that also has some ranged SLAs, I think this would feel better to play.

[Lotoc]

As many pointed ot, the eldritch stance doesn't fit the rest of the tree and feels like a worse cone.

Another idea: How about making the eldritch stance a melee stance with strikethrough (maybe even combinable with THF)? Add some more defensives in and we got a melee caster that doesn't burst like ES, but instead strikes. Make the demonform stronger, so that it feels like an extension or make demon form a major form instead, we got plenty of bears running around after all. Could also open up new cosmetic skins as a business model.

If this would be a melee centric tree that also has some ranged SLAs, I think this would feel better to play.

Ultimately I think one of the biggest problems with Acolyte of the Skin is it simply isn't doing anything that warlock doesn't already do, nor is it exploring alternative potentials of the class in any meaningful way.
It's really just ending up blastier warlock when the predominant way to build warlock is blaster anyway.
Thematically acolyte of the skin had room to be a genuine tank archetype for warlocks and I feel like it would have been much better received than this iteration. Instead it's less tanky than ES.
It could have been designed to support a melee playstyle, heck an unarmed (handwrap) warlock that manifests his pact as demonic claws would have been amazing in theming.
Honestly I'm pretty surprised that this archetype tree gets a 20% hp scaler rather than 15% or a scaler at all, this simply is not a melee tree. What little melee capacity warlock has is pretty much removed with this archetype it's just a bulky caster and it getting more than EKs and Vile Chemists is kind of a joke when it's going to play from range the majority of the time.

[LurkingVeteran]

Ultimately I think one of the biggest problems with Acolyte of the Skin is it simply isn't doing anything that warlock doesn't already do, nor is it exploring alternative potentials of the class in any meaningful way.
It's really just ending up blastier warlock when the predominant way to build warlock is blaster anyway.
Thematically acolyte of the skin had room to be a genuine tank archetype for warlocks and I feel like it would have been much better received than this iteration. Instead it's less tanky than ES.
It could have been designed to support a melee playstyle, heck an unarmed (handwrap) warlock that manifests his pact as demonic claws would have been amazing in theming.
Honestly I'm pretty surprised that this archetype tree gets a 20% hp scaler rather than 15% or a scaler at all, this simply is not a melee tree. What little melee capacity warlock has is pretty much removed with this archetype it's just a bulky caster and it getting more than EKs and Vile Chemists is kind of a joke when it's going to play from range the majority of the time.

If this turns into a melee tree, can SSG please speed up the projectiles and animations of the other warlock blast shapes so warlock blasters are not so slow and clunky, and can more smoothly chain with spells? I was really happy to see "beams" because one expect beams to be fast, which means warlock might actually become fun to play with a cool beam lining up enemies.

This is what people expected:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/7/73/Wizard-melting-cultists-with-Disintegrate-3.jpg
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/7/73/Wizard-melting-cultists-with-Disintegrate-3.jpg

What we got seems like the regular old pew-pew.

[Stravix]

So, while this is an interesting archetype it seems plagued by some notable issues, bugs notwithstanding (but there seem to be a lot of those too).


Blast Die spread vs Primary tree: This class grants more blast die and less pact die than normal warlocks, signalling that the archetype should be focused on blast damage, not pact damage, and yet the enhancement tree is entirely focused on enhancing the pact die side of your damage. This mismatch needs to be addressed in some fashion, and I would suggest making the feats grant +1/+3 blast/pact die instead of +2/+2 as it currently is.
Fiendish Symbiosis: This needs more oomph. As of now this is a DPS loss to use this, which should not be the case. Maybe also give it a "blast speed" bonus per core allocated (honestly 15% wouldn't be overkill), and maybe reduce the CD to 2 minutes to give it ~50% uptime at lvl 20
The Cores: Likely a bit low, might need a small bump (especially HP), but this is close to being OK.
Inscribed spells: Personally OK with these gone, but it feels as if we got nothing for it. Trade blast die progression for the new style: wash. Trade +2 to all saves for 20 fire res: wash at best. Trade the inscribed spell for... nothing? Likely need something we can say we get for those spells.
Beam Shape: Honestly, this seems to not work in the way that people want. If it supposed to be a continuous beam, it seems to be failing at that goal. I don't know what can be done about that in the timeframe left, but this seems to be a bit of a stinker ATM.


Honestly, I like the look of this one, but it needs some love to bring it up to snuff. There are a lot of neat ideas in here (Duration of abilities based on core progression, double pact die against feared enemies, etc. but it seems hamstringed by low numbers atm)

[Triaxx2]

Some thoughts on how I'd have built this, though I suspect it's too late for such a sharp change:

Beam needs double range. Straight up, in order to have a different role to cone. Cone can also hit multiple enemies and in a far wider radius. Were I doing it, the claw attack would have been the primary attack shape, with additional cleaving/great cleaving potential further along. And the Beam would be a Ray style ranged attack.
Claw would also change on fighting style. SWF would scale speed with attack speed, THF would turn it into close range chain attack with additional jumps on strikethrough, and TWF making it double hit on offhand hit chance.
Fiend Form would become a multi-selector:
Fiend Reaver, SWF speed Pact Die imbue for the duration. IE, for each Pact Die you have it's 1d6 of Imbue, with fast SWF attack speed.
Fiend of Chains, THF style, jumps work as if you have 500% strikethrough chance (IE hits 6), Vorpals trigger an SDK chain style attack.
Fiend Ravener, spellpower scaling increased by 100% for the duration, stacks fortification reduction 5% per 10% offhand doublestrike.

All in all I like the idea, but it just... has some issues fitting into how DDO plays right now.

[Scrag]

This is what people expected:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/7/73/Wizard-melting-cultists-with-Disintegrate-3.jpg
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/7/73/Wizard-melting-cultists-with-Disintegrate-3.jpg

What we got seems like the regular old pew-pew.

I am a people and this is what I expect too!

[dng242]

I like the idea here, but not the execution. There doesn't seem to be a good solid vision for what this is to be.

The bean hints at an eldritch bow user.
The Glares seem to say raging barbarian.
While the Fiendish Symbiosis is dark cleric melee.
And they don't really work well together.

I would recommend #1. Find a vision and go after it! Ideally something not already done in Warlock.

Perhaps build on the Glare and Symbiosis. Replace the ray with what effectively would be a short range (melee + 10m) semicircle attack blast shape (in the guise of the claw attack) (not sold on this exact attack method, but something demon esc). Allow that blast shape to count for as the aura for Enlighten spirit buffs (e.g. spiritual defense). Make Enlighten spirit available (obviously) and remove soul eater. That synergy makes more sense.
May need some more changes to be survivable at close range.

Make this a diving, moving, shifting demon that rips enemies apart up-close and personal (but with a little more range/difference than melee).

Not fully fleshed out, but it does have a clear direction that is different than what you can get now.

[Kielbasa]

Agree with others the most interesting part of the tree is the demonic transformation turning you into a essentially a razorclaw shifter but with lots of fire and bigger claws. The first core should be you give up use of all other warlock blast shapes and transform into a minor demon and do a better job building upon that throughout the cores and higher enhancement tiers.

Beam shape should just be removed it is going to run into all of the problems people have with improved precise shot.

Where beam shape is you should have the demonic version of eldrich aura ~ "tainted aura". From there you can work on tweaking the glare abilities so they have a range similar to greater color spray. Add some sort of demonic leap to t5 and you would have a rampaging demon warlock that is unique compared to its other gameplay styles. More glass cannon than Enlightened spirit since you won't have all that temp hp but you should have more damage and mobility to compensate.

[SilentRunning]

I understand that you have an image as to the "Beam cannon" blast shape.

Did anyone notice this little bit of info in Steelstar's post at the beginning of the thread:


Known Issues:

None of the visual effects for this tree have been set up
Several icons are marked as placeholders

[LurkingVeteran]

I understand that you have an image as to the "Beam cannon" blast shape.

Did anyone notice this little bit of info in Steelstar's post at the beginning of the thread:

Good point, but it's not just visuals for the slow projectiles. A beam is supposed to be fast. If they speed up the projectiles, replace the visual with some laser ray(s?) and make sure it properly pierces, I would be happy to call it "beam(s)". One wider ray might be advisable since small slow projectiles + lag is an annoying combination (the shape of lightning bolt is a good inspiration), but this is also a balance issue w.r.t. lightning bolt.

[Duhboy]

After playing with this on Lamannia, it became quickly apparent that this tree needs some work and not just from a functional point of view such as certain abilities not working but from a practical view as well. Such as but not being limited to being a mostly copy and paste replacement of an Enlighted Spirit blaster but neglecting to include an ability into AOTS that Enlighted Spirit has (Spiritual Retribution) that made it a go to for blasters. With that said I went through AOTS and gave my critique and and suggestions in red. Enjoy.



Acolyte of the Skin is a new Warlock Archetype themed around Demonic power and transformation!


Past Life
Acolyte of the Skin: You gain +5 Fire Spell Power and +1 MRR.
As some people pointed out +1 MRR per past life seems a bit lower given how regular Warlock PL gives +3 MRR per stack.


Enhancement Trees:

This archetype gets the new Acolyte of the Skin tree in place of Enlightened Spirit! It retains the Tainted Scholar and Soul Eater trees.



Acolyte of the Skin Enhancement Tree:



Core 1: Fiendish Form I: You gain +3% Fortification and +1 Fortitude Saves per Core ability.
Core 3: Fiendish Form II: You gain +3 HP per Core Ability.
Core 6: Fiendish Form III: You gain +3 Fire Resistance per Core ability.
Core 12: Fiendish Form IV: You gain +3 MRR per Core Ability.
Core 18: Fiendish Form V: You gain +3 PRR and Universal Spell Power per Core Ability.
Core 20: Ultimate Fiendish Form: +4 Charisma, +20% Competence bonus to HP. You gain Spell Resistance equal to your Charisma score.

Seems like the level 20 core is missing something. I think adding Fire spell power or something wouldn't be a bad idea.

Tier 1:


Resilience of Body: +2/4/6 PRR
Guarded Mind: You are Immune to Fear.
Why? There are alot of different ways to get fear immunity let alone in Soul Eater tree.
Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
Dark Deals: +1/2/3 Spellcraft, Haggle and Concentration, rank 3: +1 Will saving throws
Resilience of Soul: +2/4/6 MRR

Tier 2:


Hellish Rebuke SLA
Mindwrack: Your Eldritch Blast, Melee and ranged attacks reduce the Will saving throw of the target by -1 for 6 seconds. The effect stacks up to 4 times.
Not really a point to this when you have abilities such as Fiendish Glare, Glare of the Pit, and No Worse Fate in Soul Eater tree that does shaken/ fear effects
Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
Nightshield: You gain the effects of the Nightshield spell.
Do we really need a passive shield effect when we can just simply cast the spell?
Hellfire: You bypass 5/10/15 Fire Resistance with your spells.

Tier 3:


Shape Stance: Beam Concentration. Eldritch Blast Shape: Transform your Eldritch Blast into a magical beam of Force dealing damage to all enemies in a straight line. While active, you have -1 Pact Damage die.
Devil's Bulwark I: While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Natural Armor per 2 Warlock Levels.
Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
Fiendish Glare: Beams of evil energies emerge from your eyes, dealing damage to all enemies in a wide cone. Enemies take 1d6 Evil damage plus the effects of your Eldritch Blast, and are Feared by your frightening visage. Shares a cooldown with Cleave. Cost: 6 spell points
Ability Score: +1 Charisma

Tier 4:


Drink Their Fear: Your Eldritch Blast deals double its Pact damage to enemies that are Feared.
Devil's Bulwark II: (req Devil's Bulwark I) While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Physical Resistance Rating per 2 Warlock Levels.
Skin Adaptation: Your Fiendskin now grants Cold, Lightning, and Acid resistance in addition to its Fire Resistance.
Luck of the Gambler: +1/2/3 to all saves.
I suggest moving this to tier 2 replacing Mindwrack and add a AOTS version of Spiritual Retribution like Hellish Retribution here that makes your Eldritch Blasts, Melee Attacks, and Ranged Attacks gain a +1d6 Evil or Fire damage per Imbue Dice that scales with Spell Power.
Ability Score: +1 Charisma

Tier 5:


(this space intentionally left blank)
Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to add a fire immunity removal when using your eye beams and eldritch blasts.
Devil's Bulwark III: (req Devil's Bulwark II) While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Magical Resistance Rating and Magic Resistance Rating Cap per 2 Warlock Levels.
Fiendish Symbiosis: You call upon your fiendish patron, transforming into a Demon for 30 seconds. You gain +100% Fortification, heal from Fire damage, and gain Natural Armor equal to your Pact Dice. While in this form, you no longer Eldritch Blast, instead you lash out with demonic claws as a melee attack. Each strike deals your full Eldritch Blast damage on hit. Entering this form is so frightening that activating this ability causes nearby enemies to become Shaken. Cooldown: 3 minutes, lasts 30 seconds + 5 seconds per core ability.
This ability smells like a trap. No Warlock in their right mind would use this as is especially in reaper let alone high reaper because not only does it limit you to melee range for your eldritch blasts but it offers nothing in compensation for it such as but not lmited to PRR, dodge, etc.
Glare of the Pit: Beams of evil energies emerge from your eyes, dealing damage to all enemies in a wide cone. Enemies take 4d6 Evil damage plus the effects of your Eldritch Blast, and are Feared by your frightening visage. Shares a cooldown with Great Cleave. Cost: 12 spell points
Dark Lore: +1/2/3 Necromancy DCs

[droid327]

I suggest moving this to tier 2 replacing Mindwrack and add a AOTS version of Spiritual Retribution like Hellish Retribution here that makes your Eldritch Blasts, Melee Attacks, and Ranged Attacks gain a +1d6 Evil or Fire damage per Imbue Dice that scales with Spell Power.

This. I think people are really sleeping on the implications of ES's Imbue for a pure Blaster lock. If AotS is supposed to be a Blast-focused archetype, then it really does need some analogous ability. Otherwise, an ES lock is always going to be a far better blaster, because it has all the same Blast and Pact die, plus every Bonus Imbue Die you can stack is effectively +1d6 Blast Die (scaling 100% on the same spellpower as Utterdark). Considering how easy it is to get a lot of Bonus Imbue die, that's a huge boost to your base Blast damage.

[Bjond]

an ES lock is always going to be a far better blaster

Yep, that was my first and instant thought on seeing it locked into fire-pact: "where's the immunity strip or type-change to evil?" The tighter you bind it to a single damage type, the more critical it is for the class to be able to use that damage type EVERYWHERE. And, it should be easily-everywhere, too. Not a debuff for the 2nd hit to land, but a special hellfire type of fire damage that hurts everything no matter what.

IMHO, it should be a feature of the skin itself and then also tie the bonus feats to having that skin, too; ie. your character has gotta be seriously committed to it's fiend (be the actual class) in order to reap the benefits.

[cmecu]

I didnt get to test this preview because you only had it during the week days. Really wish you would include some weekend time so other people who work for a living get a chance to test it also. You probably would get a lot more people giving you feedback instead of just a handful of people.

With that being said, when I got to look at it at preview 1 , I noticed it didnt have Howl of Terror. I hope you intend to have Howl of Terror for this archetype.. Seems silly to be a fiend and not be able to have that Terror you put into creatures, especially if they take more damage when afraid.

And I hope you all plan to do another test with this preview. Sounds like a lot of stuff still needs to be worked on for all the classes.

[Tilomere]

I'm not understanding the multiclassing vision. Is it intended to be for heroic builds only, or should the epic warlock blast/pack die feats also have the 12 warlock class level requirements satisfied by being a level 1 Acolyte of the Skin?

If it is intended to splash with other casters, should it have a DC of highest of Int/Wis/Cha + evo bonuses + base?

If it is intended to splash with other casters, should Acolyte of the Skin levels count as any class for the purposes of enhancement tree progression and vice versa? Otherwise I don't see how a partial warlock, partial other class enhancement tree works compared to 20 warlock SE + TS classic combo (which already isn't considered top dps).

[LurkingVeteran]

I'm not understanding the multiclassing vision. Is it intended to be for heroic builds only, or should the epic warlock blast/pack die feats also have the 12 warlock class level requirements satisfied by being a level 1 Acolyte of the Skin?

If it is intended to splash with other casters, should it have a DC of highest of Int/Wis/Cha + evo bonuses + base?

If it is intended to splash with other casters, should Acolyte of the Skin levels count as any class for the purposes of enhancement tree progression and vice versa? Otherwise I don't see how a partial warlock, partial other class enhancement tree works compared to 20 warlock SE + TS classic combo (which already isn't considered top dps).

This is also a good point.

To be honest, multi-classing warlock is never going to be great DPS anyway since a large chunk comes from C5-C6 in TS. It only really makes sense for very defensive builds that have little other means of damage, at least beyond heroics.

[Rosze]

Given how common fire immunity is, should the skinnie have a immunity strip? Removing 15 points of FR won't help much against immune... and given the heavy fire bent, maybe this archetype should have a strip. It would certainly differentiate it from normal locks...

Edit: Maybe attach it to demon form. That would give demon form more oomph.

Think all warlocks should get a strip after some lvl it’s a key issue for warlocks. Every other caster basically gets a strip or has variety of spells. Warlocks have neither.

[dng242]

I'm not understanding the multiclassing vision. Is it intended to be for heroic builds only, or should the epic warlock blast/pack die feats also have the 12 warlock class level requirements satisfied by being a level 1 Acolyte of the Skin?

This an issue I noticed as well. Perhaps the Epic feat will accept either Warlock 12 or Ultimate Pact Attunement as a prerequisite

[carsonfball]

Given how common fire immunity is, should the skinnie have a immunity strip? Removing 15 points of FR won't help much against immune... and given the heavy fire bent, maybe this archetype should have a strip. It would certainly differentiate it from normal locks...

I agree. I only play fire warlocks if I'm a Tiefling due to being able to strip fire immunity. It'd be nice to be able to play other races though such as Dragonborn. Too many things heal from fire or are immune to fire at this point to make it worth playing as any other race. The problem with a Tiefling build though is that there is redundancy between that racial tree and this new tree in the form of element resistances. They may stack, I'm not sure, but beyond a certain point, it doesn't really help anyway so it doesn't matter too much if they stack, there's no real reason to spend the points.

[NemesisAlien]

Sounds cool right? You get Yamato's main cannon and superman's eye beam.

Then you log in and realize it sounds too good to be true.

[carsonfball]

This is what people expected:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/7/73/Wizard-melting-cultists-with-Disintegrate-3.jpg
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/7/73/Wizard-melting-cultists-with-Disintegrate-3.jpg

What we got seems like the regular old pew-pew.

That's certainly what I expected based on the description. Like, specifically what I expected. It sounded like the beam from Diablo.

[carsonfball]

Think all warlocks should get a strip after some lvl it’s a key issue for warlocks. Every other caster basically gets a strip or has variety of spells. Warlocks have neither.

+1

The only way to strip immunity for any warlock is to play a fiend pact Tiefling. No other pact even has the ability to strip immunity via racials.

[droid327]

That's certainly what I expected based on the description. Like, specifically what I expected. It sounded like the beam from Diablo.

Me too - I dont think the game can support an actual channeled beam like that which procs 4 hits per second or anything. That's what the Devs specifically moved away from when they redid Doublestrike.

What I think it should be, the closest thing DDO can approximate, is an insta-hit ray-shape AOE (well really a "wall" shape so it picks up vertical difference stoo) that procs at the normal Blast rate, but doesnt have a pause. So it winds up whenever you start the blast, but then just keeps chugging until you let go or interrupt it. Then just make the animation into your character holding their hand out steadily with a steady beam emerging like Diablo channels.


+1

The only way to strip immunity for any warlock is to play a fiend pact Tiefling. No other pact even has the ability to strip immunity via racials.

Warlocks dont need immunity stripping because half their damage isnt subject to immunity

That should actually be the model for all OTHER elemental casters - 50% effective against element-immunes, so its still a weakness but not a game-stopping vulnerability.

[SilentRunning]

Sunbolt comes to mind as a beam, if it could be turned into a channel effect for 4-5 seconds, you don't want something absurdly op though.

Lotro runs off the same engine that DDO does and although the art style is different, there are a few channeled skills that fit the beam effect. They last for about 3-5 seconds or so.