War priest analysis and review

[BFD20001]

First off the fact that I have to PAY to reset my enhancements is ridiculous. If you are changing the enhancement trees on us, the least you could do is reset our enhancements initially for free…

Keep the Protection Tree as is and add War Priest to Cleric only. This works well with the planned addition of Divine Avenger to FvS. This solves the problem of FvS not having access to Domains and Turn Undead. It also maintains the Protection tree as an option, avoiding the waste of previous work.

War Priest
http://www.angelfire.com/pro/demon_1/prc_warpriest.htm
FvS would automatically be disqualified due to lack of Turn Undead, not to mention that some may not even have the requisite spells. Furthermore if FvS want Turn Undeads they can get them. Finally keeping War Priest a Cleric Tree leaves room for keep Protection and ensures that Favoured Soul’s Divine Avenger remains unique to FvS)

War Domain
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists....htm#warDomain
Note well that neither Haste nor Blur is on this list. Furthermore, FvS do NOT get domains, so if these remain domains, FvS should NOT get access to them. Of course, Clerics are still waiting for actual domains…

Other References:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Warpriest_enhancements
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ancements-list


That being said, moving right along to the Review…


CORE ABILITIES
Arguably no better than Protection which it is unfortunately replacing. With the exception of Implacable Foe, Core abilities are lackluster and pale next to other trees.

Should include some PRR increase (+2-5 per lvl etc)
Ideally would also include either Universal Spell Power or Positive Spell Power in some fashion (0.5 – 1.0 per point? 1-2 per Core Ability?)
While Light Spell Power is good. Fire Spell Power is significantly lacking


Smite Foe
Cooldown needs to be reduced. Even 12s would be a major improvement, and significantly increase the value of the follow on abilities. Or could be something like -1s per Core Ability or -2s per additional effect, etc.

Resilience of Battle
If PRR not added to every core, then swap DR for PRR. Possibly add +HP as well. This should also grant Tower Shield Proficiency.

Sanctuary*
First, this should be removed and replaced with Weapon Group Training granting melee proficiency (and ideally tower shield prof as well if not done above with RoB). As for Sanctuary itself, this needs to stack and ideally would be a percentage increase instead of an absolute number (+%). Duration could be raised to 30s. Any takers want to roll a Cleridan and check if it stacks properly with Sacred Defence yet? Regardless, leaving Sanctuary as Protection only makes more sense – especially since there is no WP option to improve Sanctuary.

Blur*/Haste
As mention neither of these spells are part of the War Domain and for that matter FvS do not get Domains. Blur should be removed and left as part of Protection being replaced by an AoE heal. Haste and the PBAOE heal could swap positions depending upon the specific heal selected. In any event, these need to be SLAs rather than granted spells – use the reuse Archmage versions (Illusion II: Blur 3SP/6s & Transmutation III: Haste 6SP/6s)

Implacable Foe
Duration should be longer or the cool down should be reduced. Perhaps using special Bard Song mechanics… 6s + 6s per Cleric level? Should also reduce Divine Vessel by more, possibly even in half.


TIER ONE ABILITIES
Not perfect, but off to a good start. Some nice early abilities with potential; however, individually many of the abilities have problems that require attention to be equalized or corrected when compared to their corresponding enhancements in other trees.

Divine Might
Should use Turn Undead and ideally would fully stack rather than being Insight. Make it something like a ‘Turn’ type bonus… this would also fix the Paladin issue.

Toughness
Should be increased to +10 per rank LIKE EVERY OTHER Toughness (+10/+20/+30)

Righteous Weapons (I)
Really require more Favoured Weapons, especially since they would be so easy to add. Regardless this could be improved by granting Weapon Focus: <favoured weapon>. Use the selector to choose appropriate faith.

Sacred Touch*
Removed and returned to Protection. Replaced with ‘something’… Low level AOE heal perhaps? (mAid/mCLW – heck how about Mass Cure Minor Wounds!?!?!) If kept, bonuses need to be at least doubled and probably tripled and it needs to work with ALL healing (Aura/Burst/Ameliorating Strike/Heal/mHeal/Vigor/Regeneration/etc) rather than merely positive energy damage spells.

Awareness
Could stand to have the + saves vs traps added to each level…


TIER TWO ABILITIES
Probably the best of the War Priest tiers. Multiple decent enhancements that are unique, flavourful and useful. Small changes are all that is necessary to make some of them really stand out.

Smite Weakness
Increase stack duration. As is, it is very difficult to increase stacks since they can completely expire before you can smite again to renew them. 5s would be adequate, but 10s would be best. Could also offer a cool down reduction to Smite Foe (-2s/-3s?) Further, could offer multiple ranks increasing initial stack size and cool down reduction (4-7 w/ -1s; 5-8 w/ -2s; 6-9 w/ -3s etc) perhaps with a reduction to 1AP/rank.

Wall of Steel
Pretty good. Could also offer Tower Shield Proficiency if this is not granted elsewhere (maybe rank3 bonus only?)

Righteous Weapons (II)
Could be improved by granting Weapon Specialization: <favoured weapon>

Inflame
Does capture the essence of the War Priest ability, although mechanically it is working quite differently; ideally this would be a ‘song’ (just like the Bard ability) with its proper duration (would throw a bone to Cards and other Divine/Bard multis and open up Fatesinger synergy). However short of that change, it should be powered by Turns or at the very least Spell Points. It should also last longer and progress significantly faster: +2/+4/+6 needs to be the minimum advancement and +3/+6/+9 would not be out of line. As a minimum War Priest core abilities could further extend the duration.

Inflame: Saving Throws
Should as a minimum progress as recommended for Inflame (2/4/6 or 3/6/9); however, it could easily be integrated with the core Inflame ability freeing up a slot for a completely different ability.


TIER THREE ABILITIES
Having peaked early, tier3 begins a downwards slide in relative power to other Trees. Requires moderate changes to pull even with many other Trees’ Tier3s.

Burden of Sin
Current change could do slightly better and go to 15/35/60% (+15/+20/+25 from +15/+15/+20) Stack duration could be extended.

Righteous Weapons (III)
Could be improved by granting Greater Weapon Focus: <favoured weapon>

Inflame: Energy Absorption
Should be increased to 10/20/30% but could go to 15/30/45%. Also as per Inflame: Saving Throws, could simply be integrated into the base Inflame ability freeing up a tier3 slot.

Stat
Add +1 Constitution as option please


TIER FOUR ABILITIES
The current Tier4 abilities are deficient in comparison to other Trees. Small changes would increase their standing greatly and serious change would make some of them really stand out.

Ameliorating Strike
Current changes make this a decent ability but it can still be improved further. Similar to Smite Weakness the reduction to 1d2 opens the possibility of multiple ranks. These could also increase the restoration ability as well: 1d2 w/ Lesesr Resto; 1d3 w/ Resto; 1d4 w/ Greater Resto. Further 1 second reductions to Smite Foe’s cool down per rank would keep this worthy of 2AP/rank.

Light Guard
Decent as far as guards go anyway. Make sure that other Tree guard effects benefit from the triggering on Zero Damage buff.

Righteous Weapons (IV)
Improved by granting Greater Weapon Specialization: <favoured weapon>

Stat
Add +1 Constitution as additional option


TIER FIVE ABILITIES
These abilities really have to carry their weight, especially when considering that Radiant Savant offers Positive Energy Aura for Clerics at least. Compared to the constant healing of the aura most of these abilities are found lacking. Indeed, massive improvements are necessary to compete with options given that unlike the lower tiers only a single Tier5 level can be accessed.

Divine Power
Not terrible, but certainly not worth 2AP. While maxed BAB is nice, as this is a cheaply cast spell and the enhancement STR is essentially worthless by lvl12, reduce cost to 1AP. Could even change the enhancement bonus to alchemical. Conversely replace Divine Power with Righteous Might. This could be done easily by merely doubling the Ram’s Might spell (+4 Size STR & +6 damage) or properly including the +2 Size CON, +2 AC and 9 DR (and/or PRR) in addition to the +4 Size STR and damage. Properly done Righteous Might has much better synergy with the rest of the War Priest abilities and more importantly is unique rather than a rehashed castable spell. Swapping places with Divine Vessel or Magic Backlash would permit Righteous Might to use Wrathful Weapons as a prerequisite if necessary.

Divine Vessel
The time limit on stacking needs to go; also off hand strikes do not seem to proc stack increases even if no stack has been gained recently (hard to test to be fair). Reduce required total stack for activation to 20 (with Implacable Foe further reducing to 15 or even 10.)

Wrathful Weapons
Improved by granting Superior Weapon Focus: <favoured weapon>. Could also stand to proc the Light Damage effect on crits rather than vorpals. Perhaps as a multi rank enhancement: 1d4/2d4/3d4.

Magic Backlash*
Move to Protection (Occult Slayer or both!) to free up a tier5 slot… Regardless needs to be when EN attacks with a spell and knockdown chance probably should be increased (15/30/45 or even 20/40/60). Either way, damage should have nothing to do with it and it should have the chance to trigger on ANY and ALL spells (AoE or otherwise that potentially affect the character)

Divine Intervention*
Should be returned to Protection – even then Protection provided more (+2 WIS) for less cost (only 1AP), so it should certainly be reduced in cost for War Priest. Regardless, DI needs serious improvement. First it needs to properly work with chars that have extended Unconsciousness (Die Harder/Eternal Defender/etc), next it needs to prevent unconsciousness keeping the character alive and active, and finally it needs to heal significantly more than 10d4. As the Protection capstone it should be at least equivalent to Eternal Defender (+250 positive energy)… if it remains WP tier5 then perhaps 10x/5d4 per (healer/char/?) level or 10x/5d4 per point of heal skill? That said Reactive Heal is +250 positive energy as well so that should be the baseline.


ADDITIONS
Tier 3 Weapon Ability:
Articles of Faith [Angle of Vengeance Tier2]. Astounded that this is not already there. Ties the favoured weapon into casting and attacking. This is a must do in order to salvage the tree as it currently is. Alternatively included automatically as part of Smite Foe.

Tier 4 Healing Ability:
Some form of mass healing. Ideally a SLA rather than Burst/Aura. War Priest’s get mCLW & mHeal – split the difference and you have mCSW. A mCSW SLA would be a great PBAoE heal. Could possibly include a Mass Restoration effect as well (similar to the combined Cure and Resto in the Bottomless Flask of Rum)

Alternatively this could be something as weak as mAid (on a fast cooldown for a low spell point cost it would not be terrible) if the Blur Core ability was replaced with the real heal instead. Haste should go back to the fourth core and this would be the new fifth. This also leaves Blur in Protection where it belongs.


Other options – in addition to the two blank spots, War Priest abilities marked with * could be removed and replaced with some/all of the following:
Weapon Group Training [Warchanter Tier5] – Gain Martial Weapon proficiency and +2 tohit & damage
Armorer [Warchanter Tier5] – Gain Heavy Armour and Tower Shield proficiency.
Aura of Fear (Menace) [Angel of Vengeance Core3] – 15 meter aura with -2 saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks (or just mirror Aura of Menace with 15 meter aura with -2 saving throws, attack, and armor class)
Extra Action Boost [Kensai Tier1] – additional action boosts to increase uses of Inflame

[mezzorco]

CORE ABILITIES
Arguably no better than Protection which it is unfortunately replacing. With the exception of Implacable Foe, Core abilities are lackluster and pale next to other trees.

Should include some PRR increase (+2-5 per lvl etc)
Ideally would also include either Universal Spell Power or Positive Spell Power in some fashion (0.5 – 1.0 per point? 1-2 per Core Ability?)
While Light Spell Power is good. Fire Spell Power is significantly lacking

I like PRR idea. About light/fire spellpower, simply replace fire with positive.

Resilience of Battle
This should also grant Tower Shield Proficiency.

Exactly

Righteous Weapons (I) / (II) / (III) / (IV)
Really require more Favoured Weapons, especially since they would be so easy to add. Regardless this could be improved by granting Weapon Focus: <favoured weapon>. Use the selector to choose appropriate faith.

Normally, weapon improving enhancements cost 2 AP and grant +1 hit/damage to one handed weapon, +1/+2 to two handed.
Here, you get +1 weapon enhancement, so +1/+1. Also, if your weapon is an implement, you gain +3 USP. I think this weapon line is fine as it is.

ADDITIONS
Tier 3 Weapon Ability:
Articles of Faith [Angle of Vengeance Tier2]. Astounded that this is not already there. Ties the favoured weapon into casting and attacking. This is a must do in order to salvage the tree as it currently is. Alternatively included automatically as part of Smite Foe.

Signed. Not sure about implementation, but Warpriest should include Articles of Faith.

[Deamus]

/signed

The only part i disagree is the turn undead use for divine might . At the moment with sp is a huge improvement. You can dps but also use auras and bursts .

[BFD20001]

There are a couple points for comparative analysis. First, there is the PnP roots of the PrC as way of background. Second, a look at similar PrEs/Trees for other classes; third a look at competing options and finally a look at what War Priest is replacing.

PnP
In PnP a War Priest is at least the equivalent of an equal level Paladin, and in most respects generally superior due to the increased casting ability. Clerical spell buffs make up any difference in melee capacity and individual and group healing is vastly superior. Defensively the Paladin might have a slight edge (especially if in a ‘tank’ PrC) but in PnP casting generally trumps all.

Obviously having the War Priest PrE completely outclass Paladin is a problem – though how much of a problem is up for debate. Even in DDO casters have a power advantage over melee, and thus due to class requirements WP is starting from a stronger base. Now Paladin is also viewed as one of the weaker classes in game so perhaps having them all re-roll to War Priest would be a bonus, but short of that WP should not completely overshadow Paladin.


KotC (Paladin melee DPS)
WP offers less DPS than KotC and virtually no tank equivalent to DoS (Sacred Defender). Even though KotC got screwed (really needs to over the bonus versus BOTH Outsiders and Undead) it still contains a number of melee DPS increases that have broad applicability and short cooldowns although Paladin/KotC Smites are limited they fortunately regen 1 every 90s.

While Smite Foe works on any mob, Smite Evil only has its maximum effect on evil mobs. Although a Paladin can use all his smites up within a minute the slow recharge of the ability means that in a long sustained fight Smite Foe comes out ahead. Essentially any continuous battle of at least 3 minutes brings Smite Foe to a minimum of parity with Smite Evil; by 5 minutes SF is solidly in the lead with no chance of SE ever catching up. This is before even considering their respective Smite upgrades: Exalted Smite marginally increases damage, but Smite Foe gains stacking Vulnerability and AoE healing. For a PrE ability to so grossly outclass a totem feature of a class speaks volumes. Not that Smite Foe needs a nerf, rather Smite Evil needs massive buffs (not the least being faster regen). Thus it is fair to say Smite Foe is appropriately functional.

The other DPS increases are Righteous/Wrathful Weapons and Divine Vessel for War Priest and Divine Sacrifice, Censure and Holy Retribution for KotC. Righteous Weapons’s grant of a constant +1 enhancement (+4 total) is generally going to be better than Divine Sacrifice; however, equating their AP expenditure brings DS into rough parity. Wrathful Weapons and Censure are similar in that they are on-Vorpal abilities, but between WW’s additional always on +1 enhancement and Censure’s limit of only Evil & Chaotic Outsiders gives WW the win. Fortunately for Paladins, Divine Vessel’s goofy Divine Conduit implementation ensures that Holy Retribution comes out ahead. KotC also gets some Action Boosts (Attack & Damage) but with no way to increase them (number, duration, magnitude) they are not as useful as Inflame – even ignoring that Inflame affects the entire party!

Divine Might is a bit of a wash given that both WP & KotC have access to it, although it bares mention that KotC DM uses Turns while WP uses SP (undoubtedly due to the poor decision to include FvS…). WP gets it as a Tier1 ability while KotC must wait until Tier2. WP DM is also cheaper at 1AP/rank with KotC DM costing twice as much… hopefully KotC DM benefits from this cost reduction. Ideally DM would also get a bonus type make over to ‘Divine’ or ‘Turn’.

For the remainder of the enhancements, KotC seems to have the edge due to slightly better buff possibilities. However, WP’s Implacable Foe definitely trumps KotC’s Weapons of Good.

As a whole KotC does OK in comparison but the individual DPS abilities do not stack up well. Only KotC’s Core damage bonus keeps it ahead and even then mostly just against the KotC’s favourite enemy. Thus War Priest not only does well in this comparison, it basically overshadows KotC completely. A sad day to be a Paladin indeed…


Warchanter (Bard melee DPS)
An interesting comparison since most dismiss it out of hand, but these two PrEs probably have the most in common conceptually: they are the melee DPS option of otherwise ‘support’ classes. While Bardical abilities bring more base DPS than Clerical ones, as we have seen WP does significantly increase melee Cleric DPS.

While Bards have less base HP than Clerics, Warchanter grants double the bonus HP than War Priest and for far less. WC also have better damage avoidance, although WP’s heavy armour grants better damage mitigation.

WC’s Enchant Weapon can apply to any weapon being used (and cast on others) but generally there are better weapon buffs available (Elemental Weapons is easily scrollable for example); however, WP’s Righteous Weapon only applies the Faith’s favoured weapon greatly limiting choice. Equalized for AP the two enhancements are roughly equal but RW scales higher for a linear increase in cost.

Despite Armour & Weapon Group Training being available to WC they are noticeably absent from WP. While Clerics are naturally proficient with Heavy Armour, presumably some FvS would benefit from it. Although WP heavily favours using the favoured weapon, the inability to access other weapons is a serious disadvantage. WC easily comes out ahead on choice and especially the lack of necessity to splash other classes.

WP’s Core AC increases and Wall of Steel are slightly better defensively than WC’s Rough and Ready, although the latter is available sooner.

One major difference is that WC significantly buffs a Bard’s totem abilities (songs) while WC does no such thing for Clerics/FvS. Not only does WC increases base Bard songs it also adds several new distinct specialty ones; WP’s only acquire two new spells that are easily replicated.

Comparing BAB abilities, WP’s Divine Power is already lackluster due to replicating a lvl4 spell and the ease of acquiring +6 (or greater) enhancement STR, although the permanency is useful and saves spell points/slots. WC’s Victory Song costs less, but has significantly shorter base duration of 20s – fortunately vorpalling extends this indefinitely – and is only activated by singing Inspire Courage, which luckily Bards tend to do. WP does slightly better but neither is ideal.

Smite Foe and its upgrades (Smite Weakness & Ameliorating Strike) from WP initially look to be better than Gathering Cold and its upgrades (Iced Edges & Northwind) from WC since combining damage, debuffing and healing in a single attack seems to be the complete package, especially since Gathering Cold’s attacks have critical and vorpal activation requirements; however, as a toggle Gathering Cold is active far more than Smite Foe’s 15s cooldown timer permitting many more attacks and thus proc chances in the same amount of time. Further, WC’s Howl of the North’s constant +1 crit multiplier is vastly superior to WP’s Wrathful Weapons +1 enhancement. While WP maintains some versatility, WC would seem to take the melee DPS increase.

WP group buffs amount to Inflame and Implacable Foe. Fully upgraded, Inflame’s short duration and limited number of charges reduce its usage to a mere 2.5 minutes between rests. +4 attack & damage is only equal to a regular Bard’s Inspire Courage that lasts significantly longer and can be used far more often. Implacable Foe does much better as a group buff providing a large DPS and survivability bonus but with a meager 18s duration (and 5s non-refreshed time) and a 5 minute cooldown (6% uptime). Finally, both Inflame and Implacable Foe also have far shorter ranges/smaller AoE than Bard Songs.

Conversely a WC brings +7 atk & dmg that initially lasts longer than Inflame’s entire time but with a duration that can be extended beyond 8 minutes. In addition to an upgraded Inspire Courage, a WC has a number of additional songs that provide unique party benefits such as Greater Heroism, DR and Doublestrike that combine to narrow any DPS and survivability gap. Indeed, WC’s Warmaster song completely outdoes Inflame by itself, admittedly for only half the duration but with many more uses. WC also has Rallying Cry (and Sprint Boost for personal use as well) as an Action Boost to dispel Fear effects and grant a movement & save bonus to the party.

Ultimately given the roughly equal benefits of both PrEs, and then only because of WP’s Implacable Foe’s potential, the WC wins if for no other reason that songs can be kept up constantly even though the WC probably brings more party DPS and additional survivability than WP in the majority of situations. This study is particularly noteworthy as in PnP the WP has no such duration limits on Inflame/Implacable Foe (and significantly greater ranges) making them far closer to PnP Bard songs. Also, as Rally is a PnP WP totem ability it is noticeably missing from the WP PrE. Of course it does need to be kept in mind that the standard healing capabilities of Cleric (with FvS having the possibility) greatly exceed those of a Bard, meaning that WP is more survivable than WC – and that survivability does extend into party survivability as well.

Note that Bards may also benefit from the same buff given Ameliorating Strike:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ng#post5100209


Divine Disciple
Arguably the strongest of the divine PrEs if for no other reason than being caster centric rather than melee. As a pure Caster PrE, the complete lack of melee enhancements is not surprising, and the caster enhancements available are at a minimum interesting and mostly functional; however the lack of available Positive Spell Power increases is noticeable, especially given the Negative & Light bias. Neither of those are terrible, but the lack of Core increases does hurt since it pressures the selection of Universal Spell Power for further increases.

Next the addition of Spells rather than SLAs from the remaining Core Tiers is again disappointing. Not only for the use of a spell slot, but the dramatic cost increase for applying meta-magics. Fortunately the PrE is otherwise full of SLAs. Transcend Light/Darkness (Core5) is nice however in that not only does it increase the casting stat WIS, but by essentially replicating the entire opposite selection it offers quite a bit of versatility.

Each Tier offers some variation on Spell Power, Spell Critical and a SLA. As mentioned both the Spell Power and Spell Critical pressure towards the less efficient Universal in order to cover all the bases. Nevertheless the SLAs themselves offer many interesting possibilities, especially for ‘Darkness’ (negative energy). As a whole these mostly measure up comparably to the principal WP enhancements (Smite Foe & upgrades, Righteous Weapons & upgrades, Inflame, etc)

Divine Disciple also has Spell Point increases, Spell Pen increases, Caster Level increases and Efficient Meta-Magics as one would expect for a caster PrE and the presence of the Turn powered Divine Vitality allows DD to aid other casters directly. In this respect DD is ahead of the ancillary enhancements of WP (Sacred Touch, Burden of Sin, Light Guard, Magic Backlash) that do not really add to WP’s primary focus.

Interestingly Divine Disciple originally included Vulnerability, an equivalent ability to War Priest’s Smite Weakness. Unfortunately it suffered from the same issue: too few stacks applied combined with too long a cooldown resulted in a near worthless ability; however, in a rare case of synergy alternating between the two abilities would have rapidly raised the stack to maximum. Sadly in an all too frequent case of what were they thinking, Vulnerability has been removed from DD and replaced with yet another efficient meta-magic… Feathered again Even ignoring the loss of synergy, this is unfortunate as Vulnerability was DD’s only way to directly increase others’ damage. Further, with three previous efficient meta-magics DD was not really hurting for another… for shame.

Ultimately, even though Divine Disciple is only roughly equivalent to War Priest in aim maintenance, it nevertheless comes out ahead due to the current meta-game.

[mezzorco]

While Bards have less base HP than Clerics, Warchanter grants double the bonus HP than War Priest and for far less.

WP: 15hp, 3AP, level 1
WC: 30hp, 3AP, 10 at level 3, 10 at level 12, 10 at level 20

WC also have better damage avoidance.

WP damage avoidance/mitigation: 12AC (2 per core), DR 5/- (core 2), 20PRR action boost (core 3), 10PRR - 9AP total cost
WC damage avoidance/mitigation: 6AC, DR 6/-, 6PRR - 12AP total cost

Despite Armour & Weapon Group Training being available to WC they are noticeably absent from WP. While Clerics are naturally proficient with Heavy Armour, presumably some FvS would benefit from it. Although WP heavily favours using the favoured weapon, the inability to access other weapons is a serious disadvantage. WC easily comes out ahead on choice and especially the lack of necessity to splash other classes.

Bards can use light armors and shields, but suffer from shield ASF. If they want to wear medium armors, they must invest to tier 5 and still can't use shields properly. Without tier 5, they can't wear armors heavier than light even if splashing.
Clerics are automatically proficient with medium and heavy armors, and they can use shields with no penalties.
FvS can use medium armors and shields automatically, if they want heavy armors they can splash (anyway everyone will splash fighter or pally). REMINDER: bards can't use heavy armors even if splashing, due to ASF.
Cleircs and FvS are automatically proficient with their deity's favored weapon, they need no other proficiencies. Whether or not favored weapon choice is appropriate or lacking is another discussion.

WP’s Core AC increases and Wall of Steel are slightly better defensively than WC’s Rough and Ready, although the latter is available sooner.

Right, I talked about it previously.

One major difference is that WC significantly buffs a Bard’s totem abilities (songs) while WC does no such thing for Clerics/FvS. Not only does WC increases base Bard songs it also adds several new distinct specialty ones; WP’s only acquire two new spells that are easily replicated.

I could argue that WP has Divine Might, and there's nothing better than that for a melee. It's tier 1, so even a bard could pick it if splashing, but this reduces options locking you in a bard/cle/x choice.
It would be silly to say that WP and WC equally benefit from Divine Might just because a bard can splash 1 cleric level.
So, to me Divine Might wins over Improved Inspire Courage.

Comparing BAB abilities, WP’s Divine Power is already lackluster due to replicating a lvl4 spell and the ease of acquiring +6 (or greater) enhancement STR, although the permanency is useful and saves spell points/slots. WC’s Victory Song costs less, but has significantly shorter base duration of 20s – fortunately vorpalling extends this indefinitely – and is only activated by singing Inspire Courage, which luckily Bards tend to do. WP does slightly better but neither is ideal.

Neither is ideal, exactly. It's worth noting that Victory Song is available only at level 18, so most bards won't benefit from it, being 16/x/x the most popular class split for bards.

Smite Foe and its upgrades (Smite Weakness & Ameliorating Strike) from WP initially look to be better than Gathering Cold and its upgrades (Iced Edges & Northwind) from WC since combining damage, debuffing and healing in a single attack seems to be the complete package, especially since Gathering Cold’s attacks have critical and vorpal activation requirements; however, as a toggle Gathering Cold is active far more than Smite Foe’s 15s cooldown timer permitting many more attacks and thus proc chances in the same amount of time. Further, WC’s Howl of the North’s constant +1 crit multiplier is vastly superior to WP’s Wrathful Weapons +1 enhancement. While WP maintains some versatility, WC would seem to take the melee DPS increase.

Right expecially if two weapon fighting. For TH fighters the difference is slighter, due to less procs for bards and same cooldown for clerics.

WP group buffs amount to Inflame and Implacable Foe.....Conversely a WC brings +7 atk & dmg that initially lasts longer than Inflame’s entire time but with a duration that can be extended beyond 8 minutes....Of course it does need to be kept in mind that the standard healing capabilities of Cleric (with FvS having the possibility) greatly exceed those of a Bard, meaning that WP is more survivable than WC – and that survivability does extend into party survivability as well.

I think that main class traits are songs for bard and heals for cleric. That being said, bards are more addicted to buffing while clerics are more to healing, and in this case it's a draw.



I disagree with your comparison because you can't compare trees without comparing what base classes give, and without keeping in mind multiclassing possibility.
Overall, I think that both trees are well balanced, among the best trees of this enhancement pass.
Anyway, I would add for WP "articles of faith", that would benefit from weapon line. For WC, I would change Frozen Fury to use highest mod between STR and CHA, not just CHA.

[voodoogroves]

good stuff

Sadly, the extra HP is hardly enough to make Bard20 a useful War Chanter. Their capstone does not compete well with others. It needs something else - maybe an addition boost to Skaldic Rage.

[IronClan]

Keep the Protection Tree as is and add War Priest to Cleric only.

Hi just like to say on behalf of FvS players: Turbine please don't pay any attention to this persons Ideas

[BFD20001]

Hi just like to say on behalf of FvS players: Turbine please don't pay any attention to this persons Ideas

Not a FvS PrC; should not be a FvS PrE. You should demand a proper FvS PrE rather than wanting Cleric cast offs.

[IronClan]

Not a FvS PrC; should not be a FvS PrE. You should demand a proper FvS PrE rather than wanting Cleric cast offs.

We'll take what we can get as opposed to waiting for something that never materializes (you know like the melee FvS PrE that Eladrin was working on that we never got).

It's interesting that you're looking out for FvS by not wanting them to settle for "cast offs" but you want the protector tree to remain a FvS tree "to keep from wasting work". Despite Protector being a cast off cleric tree.

Yes clearly you have only altruistic (not to mention consistent) motives LOL.

[sirgog]

My thoughts. My main has been a melee-focused divine since early 2008. I've not read the entire thread.

- Firstly, giving up the Radiant Aura is an enormous price to pay, and nothing in the Warpriest tier 5 is worth it. Aura actually adds a lot of melee DPS, as it means you are spending time attacking, not healing, and all non-urgent healing occurs passively and automatically. (Not to mention that you also get Reactive Heal in the RS tier 5, which covers the first required emergency heal on each character in each boss fight).

- Secondly, permanent DP is better than anyone is giving it credit for, but still not enough to merit losing the aura. 100% uptime on DP is essential to maintaining your damage output, and again, time spent casting spells is time not spend swinging.

- Third, while there is some personal survivability in the Warpriest tree, there needs to be more. A tier 5 selectable, or a level 18 or 20 core ability, that adds significant personal survivability via some method (PRR, HP, passive energy absorb, whatever).

- Finally, Warpriests are the most likely divine to get tripped or stunned, yet Radiant Servants have several countermeasures to cover critical heals when they are tripped/stunned (Aura passive healing, Reactive Heal, worst case scenario Martyrdom). Warpriests need a point-blank AoE heal they can cast while tripped/stunned or a method to break CC on themselves. It can be very inefficient or on a significant cooldown, it just needs to be there. (100 SP is fine as a cost, it's an emergency button not a go-to heal).

[Yehediah]

- Firstly, giving up the Radiant Aura is an enormous price to pay, and nothing in the Warpriest tier 5 is worth it.

This probably can't be repeated enough times. At least me and one other (and I think a few more) have mentioned this. Honestly, nothing in any cleric tree is likely to make up for losing that.

Considering the ridiculous amount of damage high level stuff does AND the expense of keeping tons of spell point pots, scrolls, and wands, this OUGHT to be much lower. Everyone seems to want things harder, which keeps getting translated to tons more DPS and less shrines, etc. - almost always meaning harder and more expensive for the poor healer FAR MORE than it means HIGHER challenger. Either that, or make it easier to self heal for the melees between and/or during trash mob fights.

[Postumus]

First off the fact that I have to PAY to reset my enhancements is ridiculous. If you are changing the enhancement trees on us, the least you could do is reset our enhancements initially for free…

You lost me right out of the gate with this. Seriously, you're going to make a big deal about a couple of thousand plat? Run a quest and you'll have 5 times what you spent in ten minutes. What else is there to use plat on these days anyway besides ship buffs and enhancement respec.

Try again.

[Sokól]

You lost me right out of the gate with this. Seriously, you're going to make a big deal about a couple of thousand plat? Run a quest and you'll have 5 times what you spent in ten minutes. What else is there to use plat on these days anyway besides ship buffs and enhancement respec.

Try again.

But some of us have to redo them at every login...

[IronClan]

Seriously, you're going to make a big deal about a couple of thousand plat?

I agree who cares about a few thousand plat (actually can get up to tens of thousands of plat but new players don't matter right Postumus?) no the thing that is worthy of being dissatisfied is not the plat (well unless you're a new player with 40 AP's poorly spent that you need to respec, but again new players should be left to sink or swim, who cares if they keep playing the game or they quit in frustration at the poor design and oafish clumsy customer service that follows it in many aspects of the game they are encountering, new players are not important amirightpostumus?).

No the reason it's worthy of taking exception to is called "principle" in that no one should be made to pay any price due to changes they had no control over ON PRINCIPLE... Because giving a free reset of enhancements once at no cost is something that should happen every time they make changes. And whats more they should hand out a new round of +20 LR's EVERY TIME THEY MAKE A MAJOR NERF to all impacted characters that have that line of enhancements. Because of the principle of the matter; But also because it's just good customer service to not make your customers feel put out or cooerced/extorted into spending their own money/TP/game resources on things that are needed to correct the nerfed poor design choices they made which in many cases where kinda obviously bad choices (many of which were correctly pointed out by US ON THE FORUMS amirightpotumus?).

[BFD20001]

You lost me right out of the gate with this. Seriously, you're going to make a big deal about a couple of thousand plat? Run a quest and you'll have 5 times what you spent in ten minutes. What else is there to use plat on these days anyway besides ship buffs and enhancement respec.

Principle. Although the cost is significantly more than a “couple thousand plat” the simple fact is that if Turbine is going to affect my character I should not be out of pocket for those changes. In this case, I and every other Fvs (and Clerics) are. I suspect that you do not spend enough time in game to understand any of the other plat sink/cost items I could list.

Try again.

You really should take your own advice.

We'll take what we can get as opposed to waiting for something that never materializes (you know like the melee FvS PrE that Eladrin was working on that we never got).

Yes, Divine Avenger. You might have noticed that I mentioned it already.

It's interesting that you're looking out for FvS by not wanting them to settle for "cast offs" but you want the protector tree to remain a FvS tree "to keep from wasting work". Despite Protector being a cast off cleric tree.

You clearly fail to grasp that those are not conflicting opinions. Yes I want Protection to stay (for both FvS and Clerics), it already exists and there is no good reason to simply remove it other than spite, especially since Prot has some unique abilities and indeed arguably makes a better War Priest PrE than War Priest itself! But that that does not mean I cannot also want us to get a proper FvS melee PrE rather than War Priest.

I also think the complete enhancement nerf would be much better if any class could select any tree… that also does not mean that I cannot believe that under the current system developing a single PrE for both Clerics and us is cheating our FvS out of our deserved melee PrE.

Yes clearly you have only altruistic (not to mention consistent) motives.

Yes I know that I do, thank you. Although in the interest of full disclosure I do feel that Protection makes for a better Battle Soul/Cleric than War Priest…

My thoughts. My main has been a melee-focused divine since early 2008. I've not read the entire thread.

Really wish you had. Would have enjoyed your fuller input. Thanks for your points though!

- Firstly, giving up the Radiant Aura is an enormous price to pay, and nothing in the Warpriest tier 5 is worth it. Aura actually adds a lot of melee DPS, as it means you are spending time attacking, not healing, and all non-urgent healing occurs passively and automatically. (Not to mention that you also get Reactive Heal in the RS tier 5, which covers the first required emergency heal on each character in each boss fight).

Exactly. In my analysis I mention the exact same thing.

- Secondly, permanent DP is better than anyone is giving it credit for, but still not enough to merit losing the aura. 100% uptime on DP is essential to maintaining your damage output, and again, time spent casting spells is time not spend swinging.

Not so much. I give permanent DP a lot of credit and it is ok, maybe even good; however, that is at best. Even ignoring that it competes with Aura for Clerics, if you are seriously meleeing you already have a better STR item and the BAB difference while certainly nice is not huge; unfortunately it is a castable spell. Even then 2+ minutes of up time for one of the quickest cast spells is an excellent ratio.

- Third, while there is some personal survivability in the Warpriest tree, there needs to be more. A tier 5 selectable, or a level 18 or 20 core ability, that adds significant personal survivability via some method (PRR, HP, passive energy absorb, whatever).

Or throughout the entire tree, but otherwise completely agreed.

- Finally, Warpriests are the most likely divine to get tripped or stunned, yet Radiant Servants have several countermeasures to cover critical heals when they are tripped/stunned (Aura passive healing, Reactive Heal, worst case scenario Martyrdom). Warpriests need a point-blank AoE heal they can cast while tripped/stunned or a method to break CC on themselves. It can be very inefficient or on a significant cooldown, it just needs to be there. (100 SP is fine as a cost, it's an emergency button not a go-to heal).

Correct – could not have said it better myself.

[BFD20001]

Only Turbine would throw the baby out with the bathwater, but given their LONG and EXTENSIVE history of doing so it should come as no surprise. In this case rather than leaving well enough alone (or even fixing something) they are simply deleting Protection from existence. For those playing defensive melees or hybrid-casters the loss of Protection is like being borroed, shaded, tarred and feathered all at once while being burned at the stake. In fact the argument could be made that Protection makes a better War Priest than War Priest!

Protection’s Protector1 mirrors War Priest by granting +2AC per core; however, rather than a blanket +5 Fire & Light per core, Prot offers 0.75 Universal Spell Power per point spent. Spend 40 points in Prot and you equal the entire bonus granted by WP, but can apply that bonus to ALL spells. A significant step up in casting power. However, WP’s Smite Foe is a nice melee attack even if it suffers from a long cooldown, plus it can be upgraded later.

Prot receives Sanctuary earlier, and then sees it upgraded twice. Unfortunately it suffers the same issues as WP’s Sanctuary (does not stack with Sacred, short duration); indeed worse since there are more boni that do not stack. Prot’s Sanctuary upgrades are also full Core abilities. While WP’s Sanctuary is obviously not as good as Prot’s upgraded Sanctuary as neither is particularly great, WP is better off since it swaps the upgrades for other abilities: Resilience of Battle and Haste. RoB’s 5 DR is no better than a Sanctuary upgrade, but Haste at least has the potential of some benefit even if it is a full spell rather than a proper SLA. Close overall: if Haste is being used WP comes out ahead between them, but given how widely available Haste is already and its cost of a spell slot (Cleric only) that may not happen all that often.

While WP gains Blur as a spell, Prot’s Death Pact is an SLA. As with Haste, WP granting Blur as a spell carries additional usage costs: namely a spell slot (Cleric) and full spell points. Death Pact as a SLA does not suffer these additional penalties. While Blur is permanent for the WP, it nevertheless is readily available from wands, scrolls and items, not to mention arcane casters reducing its usefulness. Death Pact saves on both spell points and a special material component. Unlike Blur it is not readily available elsewhere, although it could be cast by the user if they desired (if they have sufficient levels to do so; for those that do not this is a great way to get access to the ability at all let alone sooner). Still Death Pact is better than Blur if only for those few times when you want it.

Protector2 grants +2 WIS and Divine Intervention to Implacable Foe’s +2 CON and the 6% uptime super buff. The stats are roughly equal, but Prot’s DI capstone is overshadowed by WP’s Tier5 equivalent DI. While IF has its issues, it is a unique party buff that when used properly can contribute significantly to party DPS & survivability.

Overall the Core abilities are fairly equal with Implacable Foe from WP being the best active ability while Protection’s Universal Spell Power is the best passive.

Both Prot & WP share Awareness, Sacred Touch, Toughness and Divine Might although WP has seen its DM’s cost cut in half (hopefully that will be applied to KotC’s DM – sad to say typically turbine it was not). Prot gains Shield Other to WP’s Righteous Weapons. While RW is +1 tohit & damage on every attack it is limited to the specific favoured weapon; SO despite being an active ability has a decent duration (given a reasonable Heal skill) and short cooldown. Prot and WP are pretty even at this tier.

Prot’s first SLA, Command is cheap and cools down quick – even without meta augmentation it is still an effective spell vs mobs without SR. Prot also gets its lone efficient meta-magic at this tier, a nice option for the hybrid caster/melee, although Efficient Empower Heal is not available, it does work on Empower/Enlarge/Maximize/Quicken so a likely option exists. Energy Resistance grants a minor stacking bonus to personal elemental resistances, while Grant Energy Resistance upgrades Shield Other to do likewise. Trapfinding has some synergy with the ‘Find Traps’ spell, but is still limited by the inability to actually disarm them – its cost is also high for what it does and even the +1 saves vs traps would not redeem at half the cost. WP continues its Righteous Weapons Progression and upgrades the initial Smite Foe ability with Smite Weakness; unfortunately SW is rather lackluster givens its stack and duration requirements [fortunately changed for live to make this a much better upgrade]. WP’s Wall of Steel grants some needed PRR for a reasonable cost decreasing incoming damage by up to ~6%. WP’s Inflame Action Boost has a nice 50% uptime and affects all close party members but as an AB has only a limited number of non-regenerating uses per rest. Inflame: Saving Throws upgrades the base Inflame. Although Protection has the nice Efficient Meta, it is held back by the weak Trapfinding whereas War Priest has no weak options this tier.

Prot’s second SLA, Prayer is not as good as its first suffering a shorter duration and longer cooldown. Still it is a party wide buff that also debuffs mobs: useful for a hybrid melee/caster. Unfortunately Armored is terrible granting only a single AC for 2 AP each rank. Grant Armor upgrades Shield Other but rather than being an outright buff like Armored, it grants Wary stacks with a duration. Sadly this duration is too short to be meaningful without significant investment. Alert also grants Wary but gives more stacks per rank; while not a particularly useful ability it can be changed with GA (through SO) to keep Wary up. As an Action Boost, Alert suffers all the penalties of being a limited use ability per rest. While WP’s Righteous Weapons continues to improve its Burden of Sin ability is worse than Grant Armor/Alert: BoS not only has a low proc chance, but then it targets STR & DEX with short duration damage stacks… Inflame: Energy Absorption further upgrades WP’s Inflame ability. Straight up Resistance vs Absorption is often personal preference, but they do stack maintaining some distinctiveness. WP gets STR as a Stat option in addition to Prot’s WIS & CHA. With nothing to stand out it is a race to the bottom and both Prot & WP do poorly. Only WP’s RW & STR Stat keep it ahead for Tier3.

War Priest comes on strong in Tier4 with its signature Ameliorating Strike improvement for its base Smite Foe. RW continues to upgrade and WP has the extra STR option for its Stat. Both WP & Prot share Light Guard, although like DM it has been buffed up for the re-release. Prot however can also Grant Light Guard as another Shield Other upgrade. Cautious has a low proc rate of granting a Wary stack making it next to useless. Prot does get Stalwart Pact as a SLA, although AP cost, activation cost and cooldown work against it even being good. WP takes this tier on AS alone.

Prot’s Blur is WP’s fourth Core and WP’s Divine Intervention is Prot’s sixth Core and as such their issues have been covered before. Since neither is particularly good, it is worth noting that Blur is at least cheaper than DI at this tier. Arcane Encumbrance (Prot) and Magic Backlash (WP) are the same ability by different names; in any event, a low proc chance to knockdown on damage alone is pretty bad no matter what it is called. Prot’s Dodge Elements is a major defensive buff with a 33% uptime. WP’s Divine Power suffers a number of issues: its enhancement STR bonus is outdated by the time it is unlocked and it is a cheap spell easily cast, but being permanent does have some benefits such as anti-magic immunity and the full BAB grants better PRR constantly. Wrathful Weapons is a nice on vorpal bonus, but as with RW requires favoured weapon limiting wide application. Divine Vessel leaves a lot to be desired, requiring an increasing stack limit with a short duration. Even when DV’s stack requirement is reduced by IF it can be difficult to achieve activation in regular questing and when it does activate is a far cry from the ‘cruise missile’ it is made out to be notwithstanding that it is a nice proc when it does go off. Still even despite their problems, WP has more decent abilities at Tier5 and thus again comes out ahead.

However, even though War Priest does better the higher the tier, Protection is never completely out of contention. Merely being less generally useful or more specialized does not make something useless and indeed it is a close race. WP does generally do better, but Protection has some interesting abilities that are unmatched.

War Priest is definitely very good even if does not compare favourable to Radiant Servant, but it does not always exceed Protection which it is replacing; nevertheless it is a fine addition overall.

[eachna_gislin]

You lost me right out of the gate with this. Seriously, you're going to make a big deal about a couple of thousand plat? Run a quest and you'll have 5 times what you spent in ten minutes. What else is there to use plat on these days anyway besides ship buffs and enhancement respec.

Try again.

They could at least give us a month's grace with free resets, particularly since we have to do bug testing for Turbine. It's not like the enhancements come with warning messages (does not work at all, does not work quite as described, does not persist, etc) so we can skip the bad ones.

My clerics spend their plat on consumables, crafting essences, and random lootgen items in the AH that replace their now semi-useless raid gear.

I also make sure every cleric has stacks of unbound remove curse potions to give out in raids with frequent curses (ToD, CitW, etc). Yes, everyone "should" have their own and "no", I'm not a NPC vendor to just dispense what people can't be bothered to carry for themselves. But curses are such a pernicious PITA that I find it more fun and relaxing and a better game if I hand someone a stack of 20 or 30 potions, rather than drag their soulstone from one side of the map to the other. It's not a huge expense but it does add up if I end up in a few back to back runs with new people.

[Vellrad]

You lost me right out of the gate with this. Seriously, you're going to make a big deal about a couple of thousand plat? Run a quest and you'll have 5 times what you spent in ten minutes. What else is there to use plat on these days anyway besides ship buffs and enhancement respec.

Try again.

I had to pay 100k.