Acolyte of the Skin: a suggestion and a thread to discuss

[Wizza]

There a couple of ideas being discussed in the Closed beta/Enhancements thread about the new Sorcerer's PrE. The first one is the Battlemage and the second one is a charm based PrE.

IMHO, giving Sorcerers a prestige like Battlemage will result in very few people taking it. That is because noone will ever prefer a Battlemage to a pure melee or a pure caster oriented build.

A charm based PrE would just be hated by the entire party. Try to bring it in Prison of Planes-like quests and you will make everyone mad.

These are my personal opinions about these 2 kind of PrEs.

That's why, what Sorcerers' need is a more defensive focused PrE but with some offensive that coupled with the Sorcerers spells will make a decent build. That's why I decided to give this suggestion its own thread: TO DISCUSS ONLY ABOUT THIS PRE AND MY SUGGESTION, to brainstorm, feedback and maybe to come up with something that Devs may consider.

This is a copy-past from the above mentioned thread:

Please stop suggesting a charm based Sorcerer. Everyone in your group will hate you.


Acolyte of the Skin I:

You replace your own skin with a demon's one. You gain IMMUNITY to poision, +2 Con, 10 Fire Resistance, +2 Dodge and 2 Cold/Electric/Acid/Sonic Resistance. You gain +1 Max caster level and caster level to your fire spells. You summon the essence of a demon and are now able to cast Demonic rays Spell as SLA.

• Demonic rays Spell: You emanate two rays from your eyes on one target. Each of them deals 1d3 per caster level, up to a maximum 15d3 at caster level 15. Cooldown 6 seconds.

Acolyte of the Skin II:

An acolyte’s skin and its wearer have grown more comfortable together, as if they had never been separate. You gain IMMUNITY to Disease, +2 Con (+4 total), 10 Fire resistance (+20 total), another +2 Dodge and 2 Cold/Electric/Acid/Sonic Resistance (+4 total). You gain +1 Max caster level and caster level to your fire spells. You are now able to cast Demonic Roar as SLA.

• Demonic Roar: You roar like you never had in your whole life. You deal a 6d6 fire damage and your opponents become Shaken and Helpless for 2 seconds. This affects everything, including Undeads and Constructs. DC: 15 + Half character level + Cha Modifier + Fear based effects enhancements (the one in Draconic for example). AoE same as Haste and Daunting Roar. Cooldown 10 seconds.

Acolyte of the Skin III:

An acolyte's skin and its wearer are now the same entity. You gain Immunity to Blindness, +2 Con (+6 total), 10 Fire resistance (+30 total), +2 Dodge (+6 Dodge), +2 Cold/Electric/Acid/Sonic Resistance. You gain +1 Max caster level and caster level to your fire spells. Only the final death can separate you two. You also gain 25 DR/- . Your affinity with Fire is now at the maximum level. You also gain 20 Fire Spell power. You are now able to cast Demonic Fireball as Sla.

• Demonic Fireball: You create a powerful ball of demoniac fire with your mouth. On impact, the explosion deals 1d3+1 fire damage per caster level, up to a maximum of 30d3+30 at Caster Level 30. This spell is too powerful for you and you need some time to heal your wounds. You suffer a -2 Con penalty lasting 6 seconds. AoE same as Delayed Blast Fireball. Cooldown 8 seconds.

To summarize, you will have:

30 Fire Resistance,
6 Dodge,
6 Element resistance
3 MCL/CL to Fire spells
Immunity to Blindess/Poision/Disease
+6 Con
25 DR/-
+20 Fire Spell power.

And the 3 SLAs that I've just made up.

As you can see. this PrE is more defensive than offensive so most of these bonuses are written to achieve that goal. This PrE is for more survavibility hence why the Stun SLAs at tier two. However, being a demon, I feel also that we wouldn't be a real demon without a powerful offensive SLA. Being kinda powerful, the cooldown at tier 3 is 8 seconds, making it not really spammable. Can be increased to 10 seconds but then it would have the same cooldown as the stun.

The Tier 1 SLA is basically a Lightning bolt of fire but single target, so worse than it in the end.
The Tier 3 is an enhanced Delayed Blast Fireball, capped at caster level 30. You also suffer a -2 Con when you cast it. Being powerful has some consequences.


I didn't include a summon at tier 3 because Turbine just can't make them useful. It would just be a waste of time and a waste of PrE.

The trees with the new system could be arranged with something like this:

Core abilities:

T1: Immunity to poison, +2 con,
T2: +1 MCL/CL
T3: Immunity to disease, +2 con,
T4: +1 MCL/CL
T5: DEMON SKIN TOGGLE: Immunity to blindness, +2 con, +1 MCL/CL, +25 Fire Spell power, 25 DR/-


Tier 1:

Demonic rays Spell SLA
Fire resistance, 3 rank, 2 AP each: 10/20/30 Fire resistance
Elemental Resistance, 3 rank, 1 AP each: 2/4/6 Cold, Electric, Acid, Sonic Resistance
Spell Crit chance I: +2% to Fire spells
Electrocution for Fire spells.


Tier 2:

-
Efficient Metamagic
Pierce Dragon Resistance (Pre Req Elemental Resistance) 3 ranks, 2 AP each: You bypass 5/15/25 Fire resistance
Spell crit chance II: +2% to Fire Spells
Cha +2


Tier 3:

-
Efficient Metamagic
Spell pen 3 ranks, 1 ap each: +1/2/3 Spell pen
Spell crit chance III: +2% to Fire Spells
Cha +2


Tier 4:

Demonic Roar SLA: DC 15 + Half Character level + Cha mod + Fear based effect enhancements (like the one in the Draconic Incarnation)
Efficient Metamagic
Dodge I: +2% dodge
Spell Crit chance: +2% to Fire spells
Cha +2


Tier 5:

Demonic Fireball SLA
-
Dodge II: +2% dodge
-
Fearless demon, 2 ranks, 2 AP each: +1/+2 DC to Fear based Spells (our T5 SLA)



Run out of time, might add something more later. Tell me what you think about this, I actually like it (crazy, right?)

[FuzzyDuck81]

Looks interesting - bit of a warlock kind of flavour with the demonic links, but maybe expand it to be either demon or devil linked with some slightly different capabilities or elemental focuses? The 25/- DR is way too high though, even a LOB FvS with addy body can only hit 15/adamantine unless adding feats to the mix too... maximum 10/silver or 10/cold iron (depending which one & would be in line with FvS so no real issue there) with a clicky to boost it higher temporarily.

[Wizza]

Looks interesting - bit of a warlock kind of flavour with the demonic links, but maybe expand it to be either demon or devil linked with some slightly different capabilities or elemental focuses? The 25/- DR is way too high though, even a LOB FvS with addy body can only hit 15/adamantine unless adding feats to the mix too... maximum 10/silver or 10/cold iron (depending which one & would be in line with FvS so no real issue there) with a clicky to boost it higher temporarily.

I would agree with you that 25 DR/- might be too high..if this was PrE MotU. With mobs hitting for well over 200 on EE, this is hardly gamebreaking.

However, it is still true that this PrE will also work for Heroic content so the clicky idea looks interesting. There will still be a problem with heroic thou. 15 DR/- with a clicky of 40 seconds for 10 additional DR/- with 1 minute of cooldown maybe.

Multiple Demonic toggles is interesting also. Maybe different elements thou, kinda like the Savants but with some Demonic-ish power. I have one blank spot at tier 5, maybe you can add something different for each form.

We could move the 25 DR/- from Core to Tier 5 (I don't know if the the 20 Spell power alone would make the T5/Capstone interesting) ability so we could change it with other skins as I said above. Let's see:

Based on the Skin you took as Core ability (making it a Multiple Selector) the T5 ability could make something like this:

1) 25 DR/-.
2) A 4th but less powerful SLA.
3) 30 additional Spell power to their element.
4) A permanent Fireshield/Energy Sheathe effect on.

and so on.

This is actually a really interesting idea IMHO. Different skins for different playstyles or just different flavors. Sounds good.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I was thinking also of more physical capabilities... high-ranked devils & demons are also very melee capable, so it'd make sense that a line based around it would implement some of those kinds of skills too, which would make it a pretty attractive line for the Tukaw-types as well as the castery ones.

[Wizza]

I was thinking also of more physical capabilities... high-ranked devils & demons are also very melee capable, so it'd make sense that a line based around it would implement some of those kinds of skills too, which would make it a pretty attractive line for the Tukaw-types as well as the castery ones.

The problem is, as I said at the beginning of the OP, noone would take a Tukaw or these Battlemages in party over a pure melee or a pure caster. The idea might be coold, even if I dislike it, but it would not be accepted. No matter how much they make Battlemages viable, they will never be THAT viable. IMHO.

[Failedlegend]

Just looks like a crappy Fire Savant with minor defensive abilities (which is the worst Savant due to fire being useless) I'd rather see a mix of a few more iconic battlemage PrEs like Eldritch Knight, Dragon Disiple, Swiftblade, Hexblade, Daggerspell Mage, etc. for Sorc Dragon Disciple is fairly popular sprinkle in a few abilities from other battlemage prestiges to flesh it out and you'd end up with an awesome Battlemage PrE

- Ways to reduce or eliminate ASF either by ASF value or just by armor type...like Tier 1 could nullify ASF for Light Armor/Light Shields, Tier 3 Medium Armor and Large Shields, Tier 5 Heavy Armor and Tower Shield (along with the relevant proficiencies)

- As SLAs (allowing for the spell to be modified) you could have buffs that have more effect on your self (make them self-target only) like for example Haste lasts longer, it's Dodge%/Reflex and Attack bonus scales a bit, Tier 5 ability could make spells like Haste & Tenser's Transformation last until rest and become undispellable...another good one would be Master's Touch to allow for Martial Proficiency's without Multi-classing

- Name it <Color> Dragon Disciple and have it like Savants where there's different versions for each element with slight differences.

- Natural Armor and PRR Increases to reflect your skin becoming dragon scale hard (probably have it increase for every core ability purchased)

- Bonuses to Str, Con and Charisma (aspect of the dragon or w/e)

- Breath Weapon (Element based on color choice) uses per day = Con mod

- Elemental Resistance (eventual immunity) based on color chosen

- Some immunities based on chosen color (similar to how palemaster gets undead-like immunities)

- Some sort of "Dragon Form" like the Palemasters forms...probably is where some of the abilities suggested here are accessed/gained. No need to change healing type since most Dragons are healed by positive energy...although it would be a thematic capstone to be healed by your chosen color/element

- Sorc Level counts as 1/3, 1/2, a full fighter (tier allotment up to you guys) for purpose of feat pre-reqs.

- Spell Resistance

- Some sort of Dragon roar ability that triggers an intimidate (does trigger intim cooldown) and cause cause fear (shaken on save)

- Damage Reduction/ X, where X is based on color (ie. Black = Adamantine, White = Crystal)

- Toggle abilty that allows you to expend Mana per strike to deal extra damage of your colors element (or maybe just a Single Element buff similar to Artificer "Elemental Weapon" except it stacks with any spells of that nature...probably part of the "Dragon Form")

- Spellpower bonus based on color choice (probably per point spent in tree kind of thing...less than what Savant grants though)

- Unarmed gains x[W] and piercing to reflect growing claws. (amount of increase up to devs...make it nice enough to matter though)


Thats all I can think of...Anyone else have more suggestions for a battlemage type PrE

This would make for a versatile Tree it could be unarmored, light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, Sword & Board, 2-Hander, TWF, Unarmed. (specific weapon group or type specifically avoided to make it flexible) that mixs martial and arcane prowess quite well to make a fun and unique Prestige Tree. The builds associated with this tree could be vastly different...Fighter/Sorcs, Sorc/Paladins, Monk/Sorcs, etc. (A Barbarian Occult Slayer/Sorceror Dragon Disciple would be funny) varying between Light splashes and deep multi-classing.

[Wizza]

Fire being useless? I should have stopped reading there. Fire is the best element at the moment for endgame. Or have been stuck into the shroud/ToD?

Anyway, if you want to discuss about a Battlemage/whatever you wanna call that "thing" of a Sorcerer melee-PrE, that I despise totally, this is not the thread for you. This is all about Acolyte of the Skin and how to make it, a PrE that gains no proficiency with any armor or weapon and that use no weapons/unarmed at all.

You are making a PrE that fits multiclass. It should be viceversa. It's up to players find the beauty of multiclassing and what you can gain with the 2nd or 3rd class levels.

A melee PrE for Sorcs just does not make any sense to me and I please everyone that wishes to comment about them to not do so in this thread.

[Failedlegend]

Fire being useless? I should have stopped reading there. Fire is the best element at the moment for endgame. Or have been stuck into the shroud/ToD?

Fire is the most commonly resisted element in the game regardless of whether your playing heroic or EPic...the best endgame elements are Electric or Ice...acid makes a great secondary though. Both Electric and Acid only have a small handful of mobs that are resistant let alone immune and Ice is great for first life (or badly geared TRs) as its not very reliant on DCs.

Anyway, if you want to discuss about a Battlemage/whatever you wanna call that "thing" of a Sorcerer melee-PrE, that I despise totally, this is not the thread for you. This is all about Acolyte of the Skin and how to make it, a PrE that gains no proficiency with any armor or weapon and that use no weapons/unarmed at all.

You are making a PrE that fits multiclass. It should be viceversa. It's up to players find the beauty of multiclassing and what you can gain with the 2nd or 3rd class levels.

A melee PrE for Sorcs just does not make any sense to me and I please everyone that wishes to comment about them to not do so in this thread.

First off this is an open forum and if you make a suggestion people are going to either disagree or agree with you if you'd like to have a private conversation do so in PM

Second, this is not a "thing" it's Dragon Disciple with a few abilities from other PrEs sprinkled in to fill out the tree (which the devs have done with quite a few trees) Dragon Disciple is a highly requested and VERY iconic Sorceror Prestige class where-as Acolyte of the Skin is incredibly niche and frankly vastly underpowered.

Dragon Disciple does not require multi-classing actually it specifically adds proficiency with all armor and Martial weapons to allow a Single-Class Sorc to go this route and whether YOU like Battlemages or not is irrelevant the point is it's a very popular build and there's no reason not to have at least 1 tree dedicated to that playstyle mind you this tree could also be used by a normal Sorc to get some extra toughness and it does it better than your version of AotS.

Oh and again I very much agree...NO CHARM BASED SORC PRE!!! :P

IMHO, giving Sorcerers a prestige like Battlemage will result in very few people taking it. That is because noone will ever prefer a Battlemage to a pure melee or a pure caster oriented build.

This is just wrong...again it's a very popular playstyle regardless of whether YOU like it or not. It's just as popular and most likely more popular than a sneaking rogue and they have an entire prestige (Assassin) dedicated to that that.

Just go look at the Tukaw thred...it was originally made back when the Level cap was 14 and it's still an active thread...a VERY long active thread. Than go see the various variants made...The Wakut (Palemaster Tank...Tukaw spelt backwards), The WF Juggernaut (Melee focused Artificer) and many more.

[Wizza]

No alot of monsters even in Epic are commonly resistant/immune to fire...the best endgame elements are Air & Water/Ice...acid makes a great secondary though.

Lol, I'm an Air savant, I know exactly which endgame element is the best and it is not Air nor Water. TOR has Dragons immune to both. FoT same as TOR + Dracolich immune to BOTH elements. Undeads are very spread in eGH making fire the overall best element.

First off this is an open forum and if you make a suggestion people are going to either disagree or agree with you if you'd like to have a private conversation do so in PM

In fact, you disagreed, which I'm fine with. It's what you typed down here that does not belong TO THIS THREAD.

Second, this is not a "thing" it's Dragon Disciple with a few abilities from other PrEs sprinkled in to fill out the tree (which the devs have done with quite a few trees) Dragon Disciple is a highly requested and VERY iconic Sorceror Prestige class where-as Acolyte of the Skin is incredibly niche and frankly vastly underpowered.

Dragon Disciple does not require multi-classing actually it specifically adds proficiency with all armor and Martial weapons to allow a Single-Class Sorc to go this route and whether YOU like Battlemages or not is irrelevant the point is it's a very popular build and there's no reason not to have at least 1 tree dedicated to that playstyle mind you this tree could also be used by a normal Sorc to get some extra toughness and it does it better than your version of AotS.

As I said, go make your own thread for "Dragon Disciple with a few abilities from other PrEs". I couldn't care less if it's highly requested, very popular and very iconic. Talk about it in your own thread. I don't see any suggestion or even a try beside the "This sucks. Let's talk about another thing off topc" to make Acolyte of the Skin even worth something.

[Failedlegend]

As I said, go make your own thread for "Dragon Disciple with a few abilities from other PrEs". I couldn't care less if it's highly requested, very popular and very iconic. Talk about it in your own thread. I don't see any suggestion or even a try beside the "This sucks. Let's talk about another thing off topc" to make Acolyte of the Skin even worth something.

You made a thread about the new Sorc prestige coming in Lammania..non-Acolyte talk is NOT off-topic...you just don't like it. World of difference oh and Congrats on finding 2 mobs that are immune to lightning and acid...saying a Lightning Dragon is immune to lightning is as obvious as saying a fire elemental is immune/healed by fire. I never said NOTHING is immune to Lightning or Cold...just much less than Fire. Oh and fires advantage against undead is nice yes...but the huge amount of mobs immune to it make it useless as a primary...it's an ok secondary but I'd rather have Acid...mind you my Air Savant tends to carry around firewall and the first Spellpower enhancement (1 AP) for the few mobs weak against fire but it's definitely not worth specializing in it.

Oh and AotS does suck as it's a very boring prestige in DDO 90% of AotS's awesomeness is on the roleplaying side...so IMO the DDO version is only 10% of the PrE thus pointless.

[Wizza]

Name me relevant mobs in eGH ENDGAME immune to Fire.

Also, the thread is called "Acolyte of the Skin: a suggestion and a thread to discuss". It is NOT called: "Discuss about the new PrE Sorcs will get". It's specifically about AotS.

[Cetus]

1)You made a thread about the new Sorc prestige coming in Lammania


2)..non-Acolyte talk is NOT off-topic...

1) No he didn't

2) Yes it is

[Failedlegend]

Name me relevant mobs in eGH ENDGAME immune to Fire.

Also, the thread is called "Acolyte of the Skin: a suggestion and a thread to discuss". It is NOT called: "Discuss about the new PrE Sorcs will get". It's specifically about AotS.

I like how you specify a single quest to limit my options but it's still easy any Fire Giant and fire giant related mob. There's even a red name Fire Giant called Ferros...also they take extra damage from Cold spells.

Oh and don't worry as per your request I will no longer mention non-AotS stuff. Since people opposing your idea makes you upset I'll instead focus on why AotS (at least your version) is really underpowered also you taken alot of the flavour out by removing the Demon summon which can easily be coded to rely on your Sorc Level to scale as an equal level fighter (code already exists in PM Tree) that even discourages multi-classing which you seem to hate.

Even if Fire was a viable element AotS still ends of just being a lesser Fire Savant with your version...it would only get used by fire savants once they maxed Fire Savant so they could get even more fire spellpower.

The Eye beam SLA is essentially a watered down Lightning Bolt spell w/ fire it would be more effective and frankly make more sense as a ray spell...just have the animation be red and come of of your face instead of your general middle area something similar to polar ray would work..but you know fire.

DR25/- is nice but OP it should be DR25/Silver would be more appropriate...or just straight up PRR since it scales better than AC or DR.

Demonic Roar I actually like except it should cause fear/helpless and only shaken on a successful save...there's no reason it should deal fire damage...maybe untyped if your thinking concussive damage.

Demonic Fireball this is WAY too OP...the Con penalty is negligible at a 6 second duration...it should be a perm -2 Con per cast until rest, stacking and will kill you if you hit 0 Con. To clarify I think adding a negative like -2 Con to offset making a super powered spell is easily exploitable and should not happen...sure give a Fireball-like SLA with a few demonic tweaks (ie. a cool animation with a small red head similar to the fear one but comes out of you and fires a fireball) but not an attack that does so much damage. It would be funny to see Fire Savants dropping like flies because they killed themselves with this spell though.


Now for the summary

30 Fire Resistance

This would actually be quite good especially if it stacks with Resist Energy as its a very common element for enemy spellcasters to use (especially fire wall)

6 Dodge

Can't really complain about free dodge but to be honest the cap is 25% unless you have a way to increase it your probably already capped or near cap...this would free up some gear slots for earlier levels though

6 Element resistance

If it stacks with resists..can't complain...if it doesn't nigh useless

3 MCL/CL to Fire spells
+20 Fire Spell power.

I;m sure Fire Savants will exploit this greatly...again it's a bad idea to make AotS a Fire Savant lite because either it will stack and Fire Savants will exploit that or it won't stack and everyone will take fire savant instead

Immunity to Blindess/Poision/Disease

Nice options...devs won't take it, they hate immunities...less useful to WF (blind immune is nice) but gives them less of an edge over fleshies...so good for fleshies

+6 Con

Can't see why anyone but those terrible awful Battlemages you hate so much and no one ever actually plays (despite it being a very popular build/subject of discussion) would want this but it's a nice bonus for them to cherry pick if they have points left over after taking what they want from Dragon Disciple


There ya go review without mentioning an alternative...because expressing ones own ideas is bad and shouldn't ever be done...at least according to you Wizza. So yeah I deem you AotS "Fire Savant Lite" the Sorcs need a unique PrE not a supplemental PrE to make Fire Savants feel better and the "Battlemage" archetype is very popular regardless as to whether you like it or not.

[HatsuharuZ]

There a couple of ideas being discussed in the Closed beta/Enhancements thread about the new Sorcerer's PrE. The first one is the Battlemage and the second one is a charm based PrE.

IMHO, giving Sorcerers a prestige like Battlemage will result in very few people taking it. That is because noone will ever prefer a Battlemage to a pure melee or a pure caster oriented build.

A charm based PrE would just be hated by the entire party. Try to bring it in Prison of Planes-like quests and you will make everyone mad.

Hey, I didn't suggest a "charm-based" tree, I just suggested a charm SLA... amongst a whole bunch of other things. Please read a bit more carefully.

[Wizza]

Thanks for actual feedback. Just to clarify one last thing: I never said you shouldn't have your own idea about this. I just said to talk about it in the proper thread. I might even come and give you feedback on your ideal PrE

Even if Fire was a viable element AotS still ends of just being a lesser Fire Savant with your version...it would only get used by fire savants once they maxed Fire Savant so they could get even more fire spellpower.

I don't think you can take 2 Core abilities 5 with the enhancement pass (I might be wrong). This means that you can't take actually neither the DR nor the SP but you can take a +2 MCL/CL to Fire Spells which imho is a good thing.

The Eye beam SLA is essentially a watered down Lightning Bolt spell w/ fire it would be more effective and frankly make more sense as a ray spell...just have the animation be red and come of of your face instead of your general middle area something similar to polar ray would work..but you know fire.

What I tried to avoid is to use the same MCL cap that we have now. This is why I upped the MCL on basically both T1 and T3 SLAs, so MCL/CL bonuses can actually be more relevant.

DR25/- is nice but OP it should be DR25/Silver would be more appropriate...or just straight up PRR since it scales better than AC or DR.

We could make it DR 25/Cold Iron, like Demons in game IIRC. Would work yeah.

Demonic Roar I actually like except it should cause fear/helpless and only shaken on a successful save...there's no reason it should deal fire damage...maybe untyped if your thinking concussive damage.

Yeah main reason was the stun and helpless part. Untyped damage makes more sense, true.

Demonic Fireball this is WAY too OP...the Con penalty is negligible at a 6 second duration...it should be a perm -2 Con per cast until rest, stacking and will kill you if you hit 0 Con. To clarify I think adding a negative like -2 Con to offset making a super powered spell is easily exploitable and should not happen...sure give a Fireball-like SLA with a few demonic tweaks (ie. a cool animation with a small red head similar to the fear one but comes out of you and fires a fireball) but not an attack that does so much damage. It would be funny to see Fire Savants dropping like flies because they killed themselves with this spell though.

I wanted to give something powerful as T3 with a penalty but thinking about it, it may be too much. Maybe lowering the damage at 25d3+25 with MCL at 25. The Con penalty was the first to come in mind because of the +6 that we gain from the Innates, making it actually a +4.

This would actually be quite good especially if it stacks with Resist Energy as its a very common element for enemy spellcasters to use (especially fire wall)

Yes, everything I stated stacked. This would stack also with the bonuses we have on live.

Can't really complain about free dodge but to be honest the cap is 25% unless you have a way to increase it your probably already capped or near cap...this would free up some gear slots for earlier levels though

I'm not sure how, as a Sorc, you actually reached 25% dodge cap. On Live at the moment, my Sorc has about 4%.

Anyway, I thought dodge was better than PRR because PRR needs to have a much higher bonus to be actually worth something. Also, with the new dodge changes, with just an item +10%, we are looking at a 16% dodge. That's a good chunk of survavibility right there, the main goal of this PrE.

If it stacks with resists..can't complain...if it doesn't nigh useless

Stacking.

I;m sure Fire Savants will exploit this greatly...again it's a bad idea to make AotS a Fire Savant lite because either it will stack and Fire Savants will exploit that or it won't stack and everyone will take fire savant instead

While I think that Fire is the best element at end-game, Fire savant is the worst of the Savants IMHO. As I said above, they can't take the +20 Spell power or the last +1 MCL/CL but instead they could take just the +2 MCL/+2CL. Why not. Isn't this the main reason of this new enhancement pass? They could also take the +30 Fire resist or even more Fire resistance bypass.

Nice options...devs won't take it, they hate immunities...less useful to WF (blind immune is nice) but gives them less of an edge over fleshies...so good for fleshies

Devs probably won't even look at my suggestions (or anyone's suggestions) but it is here and I like sharing ideas.

Can't see why anyone but those terrible awful Battlemages you hate so much and no one ever actually plays (despite it being a very popular build/subject of discussion) would want this but it's a nice bonus for them to cherry pick if they have points left over after taking what they want from Dragon Disciple

+6 Con is 81 HP at level 28..I wouldn't throw them away sincerely. I would take them right away on my Savant on live.

[Failedlegend]

Sorry I haven't responded unfortunately I got kicked out of the Lama forums.

I still stand by "Fire Savant Lite" it really is just a weak version of Fire savant and will only succeed in being a place for fire savant to spend extra AP don't get me wrong you had a few cool Ideas (ie. Demonic Roar) but each PrE a class gets should give it an entirely different option not buff an existing one and I know you don't like Battle Mages but a PrE geared towards that would be really popular since it is a fairly popular build and the offensive caster is pretty much covered by the savants (although I'd love to see a Force Savant)

[Wizza]

Sorry I haven't responded unfortunately I got kicked out of the Lama forums.

I still stand by "Fire Savant Lite" it really is just a weak version of Fire savant and will only succeed in being a place for fire savant to spend extra AP don't get me wrong you had a few cool Ideas (ie. Demonic Roar) but each PrE a class gets should give it an entirely different option not buff an existing one and I know you don't like Battle Mages but a PrE geared towards that would be really popular since it is a fairly popular build and the offensive caster is pretty much covered by the savants (although I'd love to see a Force Savant)

I did post HERE another suggestion for AotS not dependant on fire since you think that it will still be a Fire Savant Lite.

Also, just because you keep mentioning here and you keep thinking that Battlemages are "popular", DDO Oracle has a nice list of the Popular Multiclass updated to April 20. You will notice that in the Least Popular Combos there is ONE single Sor/Wiz/Monk, ONE Sor/Brb/Drd, 2 Sor19/Fig1.

The most popular ones are 60 (SIXTY) Tukaws (18Sor/2Mnk) and 34 Sorc18/Mnk2.

No, they are not popular. They wouldn't be popular with a Melee PRE and they will never be popular.

PS: I'm still waiting your suggestion for this "Battlemage"

[jalont]

Some thoughts :

1.) A charm-based pre is just stupid. And even if it wasn't, I feel like it should be a wizard Pre.

2.) A melee/caster pre COULD be appealing. There are people that hate running casters and would take the pre for completionist. I don't know if I would, but I DO like melee/caster mix on druid, so I would give it a try.

3.) Your idea is fully fleshed out and I see no inherent problems with it. For me, at least, though, I would never trade offense for defense, and I'm not sure what serious player would. Leveling, sorcs make quick levelers because of their offensive abilities. I've never found a case where defense actually increases leveling speed.... In endgame, being a shiradi sorc provides more defense than your current outline would. I just don't know. Honestly, if I had to choose between the three, it'd probably be the battlemage pre.

ETA: I'm one of the people that view sorcs as completely overpowered compared to the rest of the classes. I'm not trying to get into a debate about it. I really don't care. I gave up on any sort of balance a long time ago. But, my point is, it is hard to talk about another pre when we're comparing it to the strongest, most overpowered pre in the game. Everything is just going to end up looking meh. While it would be nice to have another pre... i'm not sure it's worth it. Either it's going to never get used because it's in competition with savant, and who would choose the obviously weaker option, or it's just going to be another overpowered mess.

[jskinner937]

Fire is the most commonly resisted element in the game regardless of whether your playing heroic or EPic...the best endgame elements are Electric or Ice...acid makes a great secondary though. Both Electric and Acid only have a small handful of mobs that are resistant let alone immune and Ice is great for first life (or badly geared TRs) as its not very reliant on DCs.



First off this is an open forum and if you make a suggestion people are going to either disagree or agree with you if you'd like to have a private conversation do so in PM

Second, this is not a "thing" it's Dragon Disciple with a few abilities from other PrEs sprinkled in to fill out the tree (which the devs have done with quite a few trees) Dragon Disciple is a highly requested and VERY iconic Sorceror Prestige class where-as Acolyte of the Skin is incredibly niche and frankly vastly underpowered.

Dragon Disciple does not require multi-classing actually it specifically adds proficiency with all armor and Martial weapons to allow a Single-Class Sorc to go this route and whether YOU like Battlemages or not is irrelevant the point is it's a very popular build and there's no reason not to have at least 1 tree dedicated to that playstyle mind you this tree could also be used by a normal Sorc to get some extra toughness and it does it better than your version of AotS.

Oh and again I very much agree...NO CHARM BASED SORC PRE!!! :P



This is just wrong...again it's a very popular playstyle regardless of whether YOU like it or not. It's just as popular and most likely more popular than a sneaking rogue and they have an entire prestige (Assassin) dedicated to that that.

Just go look at the Tukaw thred...it was originally made back when the Level cap was 14 and it's still an active thread...a VERY long active thread. Than go see the various variants made...The Wakut (Palemaster Tank...Tukaw spelt backwards), The WF Juggernaut (Melee focused Artificer) and many more.

Sorry, but I have to agree with OP on this. If I could pick a savant based on element alone, I would go fire for both leveling and epic. Acid and elec would be secondary. Fireball, DB Fireball and Firewall make for best draconic combo dps in end game. There are some immune to fire in Tor, but not much else in endgame.

The only reason that air savants are common is they have immunity to knockdown (some at least) and wings. For draconic its usually water savant because the DCs are as critical. But if you got the DCs and want the best AOE damage for your mana cost, fire hands down wins.

[AtomicMew]

I'd like to see for a battle caster type of PrE that is focused around short range, extreme burst damage PB and PBAoE range spells. What I don't want to see is a melee focused battle caster PrE that depends on weapon DPS. I really despise the gearing requirements for hybrid-type characters, and that's why I play a sorc rather than a druid or divine.