War priest analysis and review

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[sirgog]

Back on the permanent DP.

Many people do not realise that increased BAB means increased attack speed and also increased PRR if you are wearing armor. This is the reason people cast DP, the Str bonus is irrelevant (except at level 7 but even then, it's not that much). Just pretend the Str bonus does not exist, you would still cast the spell.

If you do not have 100% DP uptime in a fight, you are losing DPS. Casting DP interrupts your melee attacks, so there is no doubt that the permanent DP is a not insignificant DPS increase.


That said, you spend more time casting non-urgent heals in a fight than you do re-upping DP, so again Aura is much more of a +DPS effect. But the perma DP is something of significant value, worth perhaps 1% melee DPS and 100 SP.



I would invest deep into Warpriest if it had some sort of attack on a short cooldown that did a point-blank AoE heal when you used it (or perhaps when you hit with it) and that PBAoE healing was significant. I'd be fine with paying spellpoints for the attack, which would keep RS's niche as the super-efficient healer.

[EllisDee37]

I would invest deep into Warpriest if it had some sort of attack on a short cooldown that did a point-blank AoE heal when you used it (or perhaps when you hit with it) and that PBAoE healing was significant. I'd be fine with paying spellpoints for the attack, which would keep RS's niche as the super-efficient healer.

As in, the 15-second one is too long of a cooldown?