Ah. I blame my PC doing weird things while I wasn't looking. Nice changes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
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Ah. I blame my PC doing weird things while I wasn't looking. Nice changes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
I appreciate the willingness to make changes to warpriest.
Warpriest has been one of the weakest enhancements because it forces the player to do too many things.
Heal, Nuke, Tank, DPS. For reals, this tree expects you to devote significant resources into surviving melee combat, doing melee damage, casting healing spells, and casting fire and light spells. As a result, it does each of those four things very poorly.
Divine Vessel requires the warpriest to fight for 25 seconds before he/she can use a melee cleave attack. Not only is the fight already over by then, but it scales off his/her spellcasting ability.
Wrathful weapons only works after you score a vorpal hit, and then it scales best with Melee Power and Two Weapon fighting.
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Suggested Core Changes
Warpriest Core 1 - Your favored weapon is now a SPELLCASTING IMPLEMENT. Why is this not even a feature yet? The entire tree seems to center on the diety favored weapon.
Warpriest Core 2 - DR does not scale. I would replace it with 5 PRR/MRR.
Warpriest Core 3 - Replace boost with permanent 5 PRR/MRR. I already have 11 hotbars of buttons to press. I do not need more.
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Suggested Tier Changes - Focus more on fighting and less on casting.
Tier 1
Sacred Touch - You gain 2/4/6 Positive Spell Power.
Righteous Weapons - Your favored weapon gains +1 to hit and damage, and 1d6 light damage. Scales with melee power, ranged power, or light spellpower.
Tier 2
Inflame - Your Smite Foe attack grants Temporary Hit Points equal to your Wisdom score to allies near the target.
Righteous Weapons II - Your favored weapon gains +1 to hit and damage, and 1d6 light damage. Scales with melee power, ranged power, or light spellpower.
Tier 3
Greater Inflame - Your Smite Foe attack grants Temporary Hit Points equal to twice Wisdom score instead to allies near the target.
Radiant Flourish - Your Smite Foe attack gains [1]W and blinds enemies. No more buttons to press. Already have 11 hotbars. Add it onto the existing Smite Foe feature.
Magical Backlash - Remove. Not thematic. Doesn't make sense. Not useful. Replace with Wall of Faith.
Wall of Faith - You gain 3/6/10 MRR.
Righteous Weapons III - Your favored weapon gains +1 to hit and damage, and 1d6 light damage. Scales with melee power, ranged power, or light spellpower.
Tier 4
Silence the Wicked - Your Smite Foe attack gains [2]W and affected enemy can't cast spells for 4 seconds.
Righteous Weapons IV - Your favored weapon gains +2 to hit and damage, and 1d6 light damage. Scales with melee power, ranged power, or light spellpower.
Tier 5
Divine Vessel - Your spells automatically benefit from Quicken Metamagic Feat. You also regenerate 1 point of ability score damage every 3 seconds.
Wrathful Weapons - Your favored weapon grants 3 to hit and damage, 9 universal spell power, and 1d6 light damage. Scales with melee power, ranged power, or light spellpower.
Too many buttons. Need to merge extras into smite foe. Wrathful weapons does too big a jump at tier 5. Needs more survival support.
According to the first post, Benediction is actually a Dark Apostate T5, not a DD one. I assume you mean the unnamed DD T5 multiselector for SLA?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
Leaning more into smites is an interesting direction, but I'm getting whiplash after they were nuked in the first iteration :-D
Some notes about the new proposed smite changes ("Benediction"):
-Does this mean they will do double damage against everything? Because 2*(D6+4) is actually more powerful than the D6+8 they did before (it just arrives later in the progression, which I guess is OK since it caps out at MCL10). I still would have liked to get rid of the MCL10 limits because they mess up heroic progression, but if you raise it more with double damage it's going to be way too powerful. 15dmg/level will-save is already possible OP at L12 and L24+ where the MCL isn't holding you back.
-Isn't Balanced benediction strictly better as you get two good spells that work against all enemies?
-While Holy Smite was >> the other smites since 80% of the game is Evil alignment, I can't help but feel this turns spells that required knowing the enemy into a universal win-button. If I had a choice, instead of making them do the extra damage against all alignments, I would have made the T5 upgrade the damage dice of Holy to D6+6 and Chaos/Unholy smite D6+8, and made Holy do extra damage against undead instead of outsiders to further reward using the right spells. MCL could also be raised to 15 or 20 to smooth out L12 to L24 progression. That way smite clerics could be top tier nukers against undead/outsiders and A-/B+ against everything else provided they pick the right smite, which I think is fine. With the current changes, I suspect they will be A-tier against everyhing by just pushing the same buttons over and over.
Ok at least it's not a dead tree, the cost of not being Necro cleric is 3 DC's, not ideal but something we can just deal with and I think it winds up a bit stronger then current. Thanks for looking for supporting all the domains, fire just happens to be the one more usable due to spell list supporting it. Maybe at some point in the future have domains add spells to the book similar to how Stormsinger does for bard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
ok. now you have my attention. was gonna write off the original tree, but you have made a lot of changes!Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
just checking on crit line - so will it be that you can select neg/light or the elements?
hmmm. still wrapping my head around this. glad to see that you guys are at least talking to us rather then presenting it 3 days before it launches..... liking the new team much better then the old team! (no offense to you lynn, i think you were part of that crew but would always talk heh)
I did indeed, good catch. My notes got all sorts of turned around, apparently.Quote:
Originally Posted by LurkingVeteran
Benediction in DKA is being replaced by this: The Harm spell now benefits from 2x Spellpower and may now kill enemies.
I do want to do the alignment-spell boost in DD but there's not a lot of room on the top end. Maybe I should put it in instead of the T5 SLAs, I'll noodle on that.
This is kinda weird...Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
Three of the Elemental domains use Light as your Elemental spellpower, so this would favor Fire, Air, and Earth Domains with +10 per core if you go Light Path, but only +5 with Neg Path. This seems to align DD strongly with Light power, since that covers both your Domain and your Alignment SLAs in the tree
Cold is just +5 regardless since it scales on Healing
Also, maybe replace Word of Balance in the T5 with Flame Strike SLA, if the design is now "take both cores for Elemental options"?
If you want alignment spell boosts then increase the 10 MCL :trollface: Or create level 7 versions of them. The MCL10 and reduction on neutral / wrong alignment targets is what balanced the larger damage dice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
Not really, those domains use the higher of light or their elemental spell power, while also giving you +40 (2x20) of that spell power. It always ends up being really close in the end because you still need spell lore of that element so those items usually have +spell power attached. The spellpower swap makes more sense when you start using +alchemical potions.Quote:
Originally Posted by droid327
I love the concept of taking Bless, Bane, and Prayer and adding damage to them making some underused spells see some value. Curious how difficult this was to get to work? How hard would it be to add Contagion?
This theme of a debuffing cleric is just great. But I could see this being a real pain to get Contagion to work, since it may technically be 7 different spells for each disease and a real mess under the hood.
Well...I like that warpriest is staying the same but DD is still feeling like too much of a mess. I think you're trying too hard to keep the original flavor while still making it something that works with apostate. It's probably too late but I think you should just completely change it to something else, kind of like magister --> magus.
That way you're not forced to keep it to the whole light/dark balance throughout the whole thing. That wasn't something people really liked/wanted in the first place and why the enhancement tree was one of the worst. You basically only took it if you were a dps cleric because there was holy smite, spellpower, and nothing else in the other trees.
Maybe add in s'more negative spellpower into apostate and then make divine disciple all light/fire. Or, if you have time, something more to do with domains and expand on them. Kind of like archmage but uh...better.
Doesnt taking 2 core ones effectively lock out core 6? Or am i reading all this wrong? I hope I'm not following something....Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
Yes the capstone is only for pure light or dark, the loss is -3 DC and some spell power. Your choice if it's worth it or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Impaqt
Thanks! I've been wanting to play an undead cleric and now I can do it without having to take wizard levels.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
Found a minor bug, casting mass aid does the animation for the the damage (likely due to being part bless) but doesn't cause any damage (which is what I would expect).
OK, thanks...so much info, so many poor interpretations of it, fell into the mistake of believing some of it, too passionate and less casual of me, lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
If you are willing to retool the Warpriest, is it possible you could add +1 critical multiplier to the the Core 18 or Capstone so that non War Domain melee clerics can have standardized crits? Perhaps consider giving War Domain a unique bonus in the 18 Core since they get Holy Sword?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
Currently, War Domain cripples the rest of the domains as far as synergy with Warpriest goes due to them having Holy Sword for the full crit suite while the others only get threat range at 18 so that War Domain remains unique.
Overview
I will go into greater detail below with feedback separated into sections for easier digestion. Overall- I really like this archetype. Playing around with the negative spell casting feels unique from other spellcaster builds. Also, thank you for adding wis to hit and damage outside of the need to go deep into falconry as this will open up additional options for melee cleric builds. The spell damage doesn't quite scale well enough for this to compete with current top-tier spell DPS and leaves some small gaps where builds using this archetype could feel like you're playing a healer that doesn't just heal.
Spells
The spell choices are great. You have a nearly endless supply of AOE spells to cast at your disposal. If I were to request any changes/additions- it would be to add Mass Harm and Dark Wrath. I know most Clerics don't cast mass heal because of casting speed. Maybe this could be addressed in the tree for DA and RS?
Races
DA pairs well with Aureon for DC casting and a few of the other deity feats for melee, but there isn't a great pairing for spellcasting. Negative and Poison are paired together on gearsets in Sands, I think this would be a great opportunity to revamp Vulkoor's Avatar which doesn't really get much play to my knowledge. My suggestion would be something akin to Amaunator's Flames- only a dark flame version that dealt negative damage and reduced light damage. Also- it would be nice if the Human Improved Recovery line in human's racial enhancement tree could be a multi-selector of either positive or negative healing amplification. Humans get a lot of play, but Drow as a preferred choice again would be interesting.
Feats
If possible a Master of Darkness feat would also help boost this if it provided a boost to the caster level of some of the spells in DAs repertoire.
Spell Damage
Having a ton of AOE spells to cycle through is nice, but your damage at endgame is heavily dependent on Cursed Words. Having this share a cooldown with Dark Consumption lowers the overall effectiveness of the build. If you really want to scale the damage well, you're pretty married to Magus. Also- there isn't a way to strip immunity from mobs or cause vulnerability within the class/enhancement tree.
Domains
Death Domain is an obvious choice for DC casters, but it would be nice if a Dark Domain were added (Moon Domain?). This would mirror sun domain, but give Cold and Negative instead of Fire/Light. It would have the same 10% vuln and would grant allies healing from negative energy (even at 50%) for the next 20 seconds. Fill in appropriate SLAs. Also- can you please please please give every other elemental-based domain the same type of vulnerability debuff to enemies when using TU for the corresponding element?
Healing Buffs
I will post more about this in a separate post- but the #1 complaint I have consistently heard over the years when daring to play a Cleric as anything other than a dedicated healer is... "where are my heals?" My main is a Cleric, I've played every version of one there is to play and continue to come up with crazy builds... and if the build doesn't compare with top-tier DPS then the expectation is that you will be able to play dedicated heals in high reapers and raids. Can you please consider giving the enhancement tree a way to mark an ally so they can receive 200% healing from negative energy? Then we could be the tank heal while still playing this playstyle?
Summary
Overall I really like DA. I think it will add something fresh for the Cleric class and am hopeful that some additional tweaks can be made to make it even better.
So... not sure if anyone will see/do anything with this feedback but... the main issue with playing Cleric as anything other than a healer is that it isn't quite as good as the other things that do what it does and it also doesn't heal. For example- if you were going to play a melee cleric- barbarian, fighter, ranger, bard, wolf builds, assassins (in no particular order) all outclass Cleric by a large gap. But when you play Cleric as a melee in high skull reaper- you aren't going to be able to heal without taking huge losses to your DPS not to mention that the need for EDF hampers you as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynnabel
Would it be possible to look at ramping up the healing these non-healer Cleric builds are capable of? Like- maybe Warpriest has something that triggers a huge AOE heal on crits? Small heals on attack? Something that triggers an AOE heal when they use an action boost?
DC Casters and most damage spell builds can effectively heal while casting. DA feels like it will be tougher to balance unless we get some type of ability to allow our party to be healed by negative energy.
Also- I missed it in my last post, but on lamannia negative healing amplification is scaling much faster than regular healing amplification on DA. On the char sheet, it shows appropriately but the actual healing from heal is greater than harm on R1 (harm seems like it's been reduced by 66%).
when i look at how i play i this is also true. and at end game i get the majority of my light dmg from my epicmantles (angel or avatar) which often do more light dmg than the light spell proccing them. and im trying to do purely light dmg cleric builds (its fun)Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodynobody1426