Warlock Enhancements: Enlightened Spirit

[Steelstar]

Hey, everyone. Here's our current design for Enlightened Spirit, one of the three Enhancement Trees for Warlocks in U26. Unlike other Warlocks, Enlightened Spirits turn toward the paths of light, which is reflected in their damage and the types of abilities they get. They're better at close-range AOE than other Warlocks, and have a lot of abilities to support themselves, their allies, and their summons.

Their Eldritch Blast shape works differently from other trees - Their first Core ability is a toggle which takes Eldritch Blast off of your Auto-Attack... and instead puts the damage out every few seconds as an Aura. While this is active, you can't fire Eldritch Blasts normally, but you can wield weapons or fire spells while the Aura deals damage passively. There are also two large AOE Eldritch Blast abilities in the tree that can be used whether or not you have the Aura active. We expect this tree to be popular with some cross-class builds, but should stand on its own as a Warlock as well.



Core Abilities

• 1 AP, class level 1: Eldritch Aura: Stance: While this is active, your Eldritch Blast changes into an aura. It deals the same damage as your Eldritch Blast to all foes in range every 8 seconds. You cannot fire Eldritch Blasts while in this stance, but may attack normally with weapons and cast spells.

• 5 AP, class level 3: Aura of Courage:You gain immunity to Fear, and all allies around you gain a +4 morale bonus to saving throws against fear. Passive: +5 Healing Amp

• 10 AP, class level 6: Shape Vestments: While wearing Light Armor, you gain +10 Maximum HP and +5 MRR. While wearing Medium Armor you are proficient with, you gain +20 Maximum HP and +10 MRR. Passive: Your Eldritch Aura now affects enemies every 4 seconds.

• 20 AP, class level 12: Aura of Menace: Toggle: You project a 15 meter Aura of Menace, decreasing the saving throws, attack, and armor class of nearby enemies by 2. Passive: Your Eldritch Aura now affects enemies every 3 seconds. Passive: You gain proficiency with all Martial weapons.

• 30 AP, class level 18: Spirit Armor: When your Eldritch Aura is active, each time you are hit by an attack, you gain a stack of Spirit Armor. (Spirit Armor: +1 stacking PRR and MRR. Stacks up to 20 times.) Passive: Your Eldritch Aura now affects enemies every 2 seconds.

• 41 AP, class level 20: Celestial Spirit: +2 CON, +2 CHA.Toggle: When enabled, you float above the ground, gain Feather Falling, and are immune to knockdown effects. When enabled, your Eldritch Blasts gain 3d6 Light damage, and you gain 10 Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.

Tier One

1. Resilience of Body: +2/4/6 PRR
2. Spiritual Defense: While your Eldritch Aura is active, you and nearby allies get a +1/2/3 bonus to AC. You personally receive 5/10/15 Maximum Hitpoints.
3. Resilience of Soul: +2/4/6 MRR
4. Brutality: Multiselector: Brute Fighting (attacks)/Brutal Spellcasting (spells) Toggle: Your damaging (attacks/spells) generate [25/50/75]% more hate than they normally would, making enemies more likely to attack you.
5. Rewards of Tribute: +1/2/3 Heal, Balance, and Intimidate. Rank 3: +1 Fortitude Save

Tier Two

1. Resist Energies: Gives an ally an Enhancement bonus against Fire, Cold, Electric, Acid, and Sonic damage, reducing that type of damage taken by 10. The bonus increases to 20 at caster level 7 and 30 at caster level 11. (SP Cost: 75/70/60)
2. Spiritual Bastion: While your Eldritch Aura is active, you get +3/6/10 PRR, and nearby allies get +1/2/3 PRR.
3. Power of Enlightenment: Multiselector: Light or Positive: You gain 5/10/15 (Light or Positive) Spell Power and 2/4/6 Universal Spell Power.
4. Shield: You permanently gain the effects of the Shield spell.
5. Action Boost: Defense: Activate to gain a +[5/10/15] Action Boost bonus to Armor Class and Physical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds. (Cooldown: 30 seconds.)

Tier Three

1. Eldritch Burst: Fire your Eldritch Blast in an AOE centered on you. All enemies caught in the burst take 2d6 Light Damage that scales with Spell Power, plus any other effects and damage your Eldritch Blasts produce. This ability shares a cooldown with Cleave.
2. Spiritual Ward: While your Eldritch Aura is active, you get +3/6/10 MRR, and nearby allies get +1/2/3 MRR.
3. Power of Enlightenment: Multiselector: Light or Positive: You gain 5/10/15 (Light or Positive) Spell Power and 2/4/6 Universal Spell Power.
4. Fortify Summons: Your summoned creatures, hirelings, and pets get +25/50/100% fortification, 5/10/15 PRR, and 5/10/15 MRR.
5. CON/CHA

Tier Four

1. Medium Armor Proficiency: Passive: You gain proficiency in Medium Armor, and the ability to cast arcane spells in medium armor without arcane spell failure.
2. Retribution: Your Eldritch Blasts, Melee Attacks, and Ranged Attacks gain 1d6/2d6/3d6 Light damage that scales with Spell Power.
3. Cure Moderate Wounds SLA: Heals 2d6+4 hp plus 1 point per caster level (max 10), as per the Cure Moderate Wounds spell. (Cooldown: 3 Seconds. SP Cost: 8/6/5)
4. Imbue Summons: Your summoned creatures/hirelings/pets gain 10/20/30 Melee, Ranged, and Universal Spell Power
5. CON/CHA

Tier Five

1. Spirit Blast: Fire your Eldritch Blast in an AOE centered on you. All enemies caught in the burst take 10d6 Light Damage that scales with spell power, plus any other effects and damage your Eldritch Blasts produce. This ability shares a cooldown with Great Cleave.
2. Beacon: While your Eldritch Aura is active, all allies within your Aura gain +10 Healing Amp. You personally receive an additional +10 Healing Amp.
3. Break Forth: Calling upon your patron, you convert the space around you into positive energy, healing 1d8 plus 1 per Warlock level to all nearby allies, remove 1d4 negative levels and 1d6 points of ability damage. Undead take 1d8 Positive damage per Warlock level (Will save for half). (Metamagic: Empower, Empower Heal, Maximize, Quicken. Spell Resistance: Yes)
4. Displace Summons: Your summoned creatures/hirelings/pets gain a permanent 25% Concealment, as per the item effect "Lesser Displacement", and 10% Dodge.
5. Displacement SLA: The caster's appearance becomes extremely blurred, giving enemies a 50% miss chance when attacking. (Cooldown: 3 seconds. Activation Cost: 6 SP)
   
   
   As usual, this is all subject to feedback and change. Let us know what you think!

[Jetrule]

All the enhancements focus on light damage. Is this a mistake part of a earlier design or will Feypact warlocks now do light and force damage blasts? If so will it be changed to Celestial pact? Break forth is obviously a celestial patron.. Will we see new or different feats for feypact?

[EllisDee37]

Pure warlocks are unable to take the Empower Healing Spell metamagic feat, correct?

I ask because you have two abilities here that can be boosted by Empower Healing Spell, which is weird for a class that can't take the feat.

[Steelstar]

All the enhancements focus on light damage. Is this a mistake part of a earlier design or will Feypact warlocks now do light and force damage blasts? If so will it be changed to Celestial pact?

Neither. In this tree, you can get Light damage that scales with Spell Power out of Retribution (for both Eldritch Blasts and weapon attacks), Spirit Blast, Eldritch Burst, and Celestial Spirit. All of this stacks on top of what you're getting from your Pact.

[Ikeas]

I love it.

[Blackheartox]

How will permament shield interact with eldritch arcanes upgrade to grant 10 prr?

Is the blast dc based? The activated one
Summon upgrades? In ddo? Why?
Why radiant burst? Could this not be something inovative?
Also what is its cd? From break forth that is

[edrein]

I'll reply in depth later but for right now this is looking weak for one of your two 'melee' oriented trees, especially for being the mainly melee proposed one.

[legendkilleroll]

If you took unholy blast or penetrating blast from other tree, would they apply to the aura or the two aoe attacks?

[gwonbush]

Considering the SP constraints of a Warlock, the Resist Energies SLA is overly expensive for a single target buff, since even fully upgraded it is only cheaper than casting individual resists if you need to resist all 5 types. I'd suggest dropping the SP cost to [50/40/30], which is more useful in general questing where only 2 or 3 types of resist are needed.

[cru121]

10 AP, class level 6: Shape Vestments: While wearing Light Armor, you gain +10 Maximum HP and +5 MRR. While wearing Medium Armor you are proficient with, you gain +20 Maximum HP and +10 MRR. Passive: Your Eldritch Aura now affects enemies every 4 seconds.

What if you wear Heavy Armor? What about robes?


Regarding Resist Energies: I'd rather make it single element AoE, to make it different from the epic SLA. Maybe combine with Protection from Energy, or a small MRR buff.

[Jetrule]

Neither. In this tree, you can get Light damage that scales with Spell Power out of Retribution (for both Eldritch Blasts and weapon attacks), Spirit Blast, Eldritch Burst, and Celestial Spirit. All of this stacks on top of what you're getting from your Pact.

Ok I have very few quibbles from a game design stand point. The line meant to enhance Hirelings and summons is very strong. If Hirelings are on their game. The usefullness of any enhancements that benefit hirelings or pets is predicated on the possibility of summons Pets and hires being usefully programmed and following orders.

Otherwise the enhancements feel very strong and strike me as being similar to a melee cleric in divine crusader epic destiny.

I just have nerd issues with the tree being in flavor and in effect a celestial pact tree. The great old ones have weird and sinister mind bending abilities in both the feats and corresponding tree. We don't know yet about Fiendish pact. But this tree in no way corresponds to a fey pact.

Fey are the representation of nature spirits elves and faeries. They can be any alignment but all tend to be mischievous tricky and nature oriented. This tree is obviously the tree more in line with The ideas and mythos of midieval monotheism especially the christian tradition, and in D&D best expresed by the celestial pact. The two view points have long been distinctly different cosmologies throughout our worlds history and two sets of colors for the fantasy palate so to speak. Mashing them together is very interesting in a rpg character if drawing from different sources. However having a warlock choose a fey base and then have no fey power corresponding tree available just seems wrong and in a way clueless to lore history and the whole fantasy genre in general.

[Xerio]

This, looks awesome.

I'm actually looking forward to giving this class a run now.

any chance heavy armor proficiency & ASF removal can be put in for a tier 5?

[Violith]

If you took unholy blast or penetrating blast from other tree, would they apply to the aura or the two aoe attacks?

curious about this as well. also if it does work with unholy blast, would the AOE effect an ally at all (like a palemaster)

[Steelstar]

How will permament shield interact with eldritch arcanes upgrade to grant 10 prr?

Good question, I don't know offhand. I'll look into it, and get back to you.

Is the blast dc based? The activated one

It's literally an Eldritch Blast - The base damage does not have a save, but Pact damage (and the Light damage added here) do.

Summon upgrades? In ddo? Why?

Because P&P Warlocks are often summoners, and Summons can ultimately use all the help they can get.

Why radiant burst? Could this not be something inovative? Also what is its cd? From break forth that is

It could potentially be different. We went around trying to re-invent the wheel for a while, and ultimately decided this ability was almost exactly what we wanted in this slot. Cooldown's the same as Positive Energy Burst. We're open to suggestions for AOE healing abilities of similar power levels to put in this slot instead, and interested to hear your thoughts on how to make it different!

I'll reply in depth later but for right now this is looking weak for one of your two 'melee' oriented trees, especially for being the mainly melee proposed one.

It's not so much "Melee-oriented" as "Melee-compatible".

If you took unholy blast or penetrating blast from other tree, would they apply to the aura or the two aoe attacks?

Absolutely! And if you took Retribution here, the Light damage would apply to other styles of Eldritch Blast as well.

Considering the SP constraints of a Warlock, the Resist Energies SLA is overly expensive for a single target buff, since even fully upgraded it is only cheaper than casting individual resists if you need to resist all 5 types. I'd suggest dropping the SP cost to [50/40/30], which is more useful in general questing where only 2 or 3 types of resist are needed.

Good thoughts, we'll talk about the SP cost.

What if you wear Heavy Armor? What about robes?


Regarding Resist Energies: I'd rather make it single element AoE, to make it different from the epic SLA. Maybe combine with Protection from Energy, or a small MRR buff.

No effect in Heavy Armor or Robes. Resist Energies is a single-target version, unlike the Epic SLA.

This, looks awesome.

I'm actually looking forward to giving this class a run now.

any chance heavy armor proficiency & ASF removal can be put in for a tier 5?

Glad to hear it!

There's a lot of incentives in other classes right now to go Heavy armor, or no armor at all; there aren't as many to stick with Light or (especially) Medium at the moment. As Warlocks are often Light-armor users in P&P, we wanted to support that here, and provide some incentives if you choose to go up to Medium. I think you could definitely make a Heavy-armor Warlock work though, either through multiclassing or good gear setup.

[Blackheartox]

So if break has same cd as radiant burst, will it have any limitations?
Clerics bursts limit is number of charges.
Will this one also have some kind limit or limitless sp costed heal?

A good way would be to again add something like you guys did in scholar with depravity and use charges for burst to limit the uses

[Maelodic]

This tree looks amazing!
How long do spirit armor/celestial spirit last? I'd love for you to say they are permanent.

I'm super hyped up for this. Can't wait for lamma land.

EDIT: Oh, and displace SLA is solid.

[Steelstar]

This tree looks amazing!
How long do spirit armor/celestial spirit last? I'd love for you to say they are permanent.

I'm super hyped up for this. Can't wait for lamma land.

Celestial Spirit is a toggle, and is essentially permanent.

Spirit Armor stays long as long as your Eldritch Aura is on, the stacks tick down one every 3 seconds.

[Qhualor]

Hopefully there is enough power in the Enlightened Spirit tree when not using summons. In some quests summons are a bad idea. In raids they are always a bad idea because you can't control them.

[Maelodic]

Will the light damage from Retribution/Spirit Cleaves have a save or are they similar to base damage?

[Steelstar]

Will the light damage from Retribution/Spirit Cleaves have a save or are they similar to base damage?

Retribution will not have a save.

Right now, the extra Light in the Spirit Cleaves works like Pact damage, and has the same saves/DCs.