Cleric pass: Warpriest Tree

[Selvera]

Warpriest is a tree that I've seen a lot of discussion about, and it's one I'm rather interested in, so I decided to go do a pass over their abilities and see how I could give the tree a little love to catch up to more up-to-date enhancement trees/classes. While I did this, I found that I love a lot of what the tree currently does, the inbuilt synergy and the synergy with certain fighting styles (s+b and twf specifically), so I decided to keep and expand on these synergies somewhat.

While I came up with these ideas, I kept in mind that: Warpriests should have lower damage then paladins/fighters/barbarians, since those classes are more focused on melee prowess, while warpriest is more of a melee/spell-casting/tank/support hybrid tree. But with the ability to do many things well, it shouldn't outshine classes that do only 1 thing (like barbarian) in that 1 thing that it does. One issue with being good at many things, is that it's rather hard to gear for being good at many things, so I embedded a couple gear-replacements in the enhancement tree.

I'll be writing my reasoning for the changes in italics

Core 1: Smite Foe
Passive: +2 AC, +5 fire spell power, +5 light spell power
Active (15 second CD) Smite foe: Melee attack that deals 1d4 extra light damage (scaling with light spell power) and 1d4 extra fire damage (scaling with fire spell power).
Smite foe is like the warpriest's equivalent to smite evil, but it works on all enemies. I wanted to make this feel more melee-caster oriented by making it scale with spell power, and I found this was a good way to add a little power to the warpriest cores that would scale up to level 30.

Core 2: Resilience of Battle
Passive: +2 AC, +5 fire spell power, +5 light spell power, +5 PRR, Smite foe damage increased to 1d6 fire damage and 1d6 light damage (scaling with spell powers).
The main problem with this core before was that it was overpowered when you got it at level 3, and quickly became useless by about level 10. By switching it to PRR instead of DR, it scales much better into epics, while not overpowering it as much early.

Core 3: Sanctuary
Passive: +2 AC, +5 fire spell power, +5 light spell power, Smite foe damage increased to 1d10 fire and 1d light damage (scaling with spell powers)
While actively blocking gain 20 PRR. If using a shield or orb in the offhand, increase this to 30 PRR and 30 MRR while actively blocking.
I had a hard time with sanctuary, it had a weak effect and a low duration and shared a limited resource pool with the much better action boost inflame. I considered making it much more powerful but breaking on attack, but then I decided that was too prone to being invisibility v2 for exploits, without being too much to add for regular use. I finally settled on adding a little synergy with shields and orbs, while keeping a simmilar flavor to the origeonal .

Core 4: Blur
Passive: +2 AC, +5 fire spell power, +5 light spell power, Smite foe damage increased to 2d6 fire and 2d6 light damage (scaling with spell powers), 20% blur (permanent)
Add blur to your spellbook as a level 2 spell.
No change, except adding a little extra smite foe damage. This ability is a good gear replacement ability.

Core 5: Haste
Passive: +2 AC, +5 fire spell power, +5 light spell power, Smite foe damage increased to 2d8 fire and 2d8 light damage (scaling with spell powers), permanent haste
Add haste to your spellbook as a level 3 spell
Made haste permanent as a convenience, also it helps with the low mana pool many war priests can have. This ability is another good gear replacement ability.

Core 6: Implacable Foe
Passive: +2 all stats, +2 AC, +5 fire spell power, +5 light spell power, Smite foe damage increased to 3d6 fire and 3d6 light damage (scaling with spell powers), charge divine vessel every 20 seconds instead of every 25 seconds.
Add displacement to your spellbook as a level 3 spell
Active (CD 5 mins): You and nearby allies gain (level x 5) temporary hit points and attacks will do 10% additional damage. For the next 30 seconds, these bonuses refresh every 5 seconds on you and each ally that remains in range. These effects end expire 8 seconds after they are no longer refreshed.
Warpriests gain a LOT from multiclassing, this is partially because the core 5 and core 6 aren't considered worth taking, and partially because they have no critical increase nor similar power enhancement built into the class/tree. This means the core 6 needs to be more powerful. So I did.
The main problem I've heard about the capstone from people who used it, is that the active lasts too short a time for its relative power level/cooldown. To combat this I increased the duration, although I made the THP ticks less frequent, so the total number of tics remains the same. I also adjusted the amount of THP gained to scale up to 30 just a little better. Additionally I sweetened the pickup by putting some bonus smite damage and increasing the stat gain associated it. And then I added displacement, to help free up gear slots. This should be worth picking up now

Tier 1:
Divine Might: No change
It's already well balanced and worth taking

Toughness: No change
It's already well balanced and worth taking

Righteous weapons: Righteous Weapons: When wielding your religion’s favored weapon in your main hand, all weapons, orbs and shields you’re wielding gain +1 to their enhancement bonus.
Enhancement bonus is better then +1 hit/damage, but sometimes wielding a favored weapon means you're giving up something, such as a good critical profile, to do it, so I gave it a small buff to have it keep up with other trees with this in mind. This buff increases the synergy that the tree inherently has with tankier builds by supporting shields.

Sacred Touch: When you heal allies (with positive energy spells or ameliorating strikes). They gain +1/+2/+3 AC and +1/+2/+3 PRR for 20 seconds.
While this ability is a cool support ability, it was ruined by a short duration and not synergising with ameliorating strikes, one of the warpriest's signature enhancements. By increasing the duration and making the two enhancements work together, this should be a permanent +3 AC +3 PRR in close burst, which should be much more useful.

Awareness: No change
It's already well balanced, your standard tier 1 skill boost

Tier 2:
Smite weakness: Always applies 7 stacks of vulnerable, instead of 4 to 7.
My problem with this ability was that half the time, the vulnerability would be gone by the time your smite was off cooldown, preventing you from stacking it up. This buff makes it just a little stronger and allows you to stack up the vulnerability against bosses.

Wall of Steel: No change
It's already well balanced and worth taking

Righteous Weapons: Righteous Weapons: When wielding your religion’s favored weapon in your main hand, all weapons, orbs and shields you’re wielding gain +1 to their enhancement bonus.
See note for Tier 1.

Inflame (Action boost, 1 min CD, lasts 30 seconds): You and nearby allies gain +1/+3/+5 action boost bonus to armor class, attack rolls and damage rolls and saving throws.
Inflame is one of my favorite action boosts, but even so having 3 enhancements to buff it up seemed a bit much. I combined the base and the saves into one ability, lowering the power of putting 1 point in to compensate, then I improved the 3-point version so that it can keep up with other action boosts a little better.

(new)(Cleric Only)Bane of Undeath (CD 6 seconds): Spend a use of turn undead to radiate a pulse which deals 1d8+Charisma modifier light damage (scales with light spell power) and applies 20 stacks of destruction to undead within range, no save.
Clerics are unique in that they are the best class at turning undead. But without heavy feat/gear specialization, that's not anything useful. This ability gives war-priests a good alternative use for turn undead attempts that keeps them as a good undead-destroyer even without having to gear up specifically for it. Also, adds a little Cha synergy to go well with Divine Might. Favored soul warpriests inherently have an advantage by getting more favored weapon related feats, so they don't need a replacement ability for this.

Tier 3:
Burden of Sin: On being hit: The enemy that struck you deals 5/10/15% reduced damage for 10 seconds. (3/6/9% reduced damage if they’re a red name or a boss). No save.
Stat damage is in a bad place right now, and burden of Sin was one of the worst stat damage abilities out there. This new ability synergies with the tanky-ness nature of the warpriest, while also being a support ability since it reduces all damage, including AoE attacks the enemy/boss might have.

Righteous Weapons: When wielding your religion’s favored weapon in your main hand, all weapons, orbs and shields you’re wielding gain +2 to their enhancement bonus.
Some newer enhancement trees are getting better bonuses then +1 hit/damage with their passes. Warpriest has the penalty of having to use the favored weapon, so it should keep up with the best enhancements while dealing with this weapon, thus the +2.

Inflame: Energy Mastery: Your inflame now also grants +5/10/15% action boost to acid, cold, electric, fire and sonic energy absorption. Additionally it grants +5/10/15 action boost to acid, cold, electric, fire, sonic and light spell powers.
This further makes inflame a good choice for action boost instead of something like melee power or attack speed. As an added bonus, it helps out any allied arcane archers or sorcs that might happen to be standing nearby.

Wisdom, Strength or Charisma: No change
It's already well balanced and worth taking.

Tier 4:
Ameliorating Strike: no change
It's already well balanced and worth taking.

Fire Guard (replaces light guard): Enemies that attack you are dealt 1 fire damage per character level, scaling with fire spell power. While actively blocking with an orb or shield, this is increased to 2 fire damage per character level.
Light guard had a lot of problems. To fix the low damage, I made this scale with level. To add synergy with the inherent AC/blurr in the tree, I made it activate even if the enemy misses you. To add synergy with shields/tankyness I added the bonus damage while actively blocking. Then, I switched it to fire damage to balance out the number of light-damage only abilities the warpriest has.

Righteous Weapons: When wielding your religion’s favored weapon in your main hand, all weapons, orbs and shields you’re wielding gain +2 to their enhancement bonus.
See note for tier 3.

(New) Divine Flame (1 AP): Toggle: Your fire damage never heals enemies.
Warpriests are a little sloppy in how they can toss around fire damage as a bonus effect and/or in an AoE, so they can easily end up healing some enemies that they'd rather not heal. This helps them not have to worry about that as much.

Wisdom, Strength or Charisma: No change
It's already well balanced and worth taking

Tier 5:
So.. this is where I give warpriests that +1 critical range/multiplier that they need to compete with all the other boring classes that are the same and have it right? No. As I said, warpriests should have slightly lower damage then the other classes, but they do need some QoL improvements and buffs here and there to make up for it, so here I go!

Divine Power: Permanently gain enhancement bonus to strength equal to half your character level, and a full base attack bonus
The strength bonus doesn't stack with items, but at +15 at level 30, it should be strong enough that a warpriest can go ahead and not have to worry about finding an item that gives strength, thus freeing up an item slot. At the same time, when the warpriest gets this at level 12, they gain the same bonus as before the change at +6.

Divine Vessel: Your attacks generate a stack of Divine Conduit, maximum one stack per second. When divine conduit reaches 25 (or 20 with Implacable Foe), Divine Vessel becomes charged and can be activated. Stacks of divine conduit are lost 1 at a time every 3 seconds not in combat. Divine Vessel loses charge when using a rest shrine.
Active (when charged, instant cast): Make a melee attack that deals an additional 1d2/1d3/1d4 fire and 1d2/1d3/1d4 light damage per character level to all nearby enemies. (Damage scales with fire and light spell powers).
The main problem I had with this ability while using it was that you gathered the group of enemies, started whacking them to build up your conduit, then by the time it activates you've already whacked everything to death with your regular attacks. By allowing the warpriest to save up the blast and use it when they want it should help them AoE a mob when they want to AoE a mob, and not after the mob's already dead. Meanwhile, 75 seconds is unreasonable to wait for divine conduit, so I switch the leveling from making it faster to increasing the damage, ending at the same power level.

Wrathful Weapons: When wielding your religeon’s favored weapon in your main hand, all weapons, orbs and shields you’re wielding gain +1 to their enhancement bonus. When you score a vorpal hit with your deity’s favored weapon, your attacks gain 3d4 light damage (scaling with light spell power) on hit for the next 6 seconds.
I just made a couple of adjustments here, first off I made it synergies with shields/orbs like the rest of the tree, secondly I made it scale with spell-power.

Magic Backlash: No change
I like this ability as it is, good for a tanky-support type build. No changes needed.

Divine Intervention: Ward your target against fatal damage. Hit point damage cannot lower a warded ally’s hit point total below 1 HP. When an ally would have taken damage that lowers their HP below 1, they become invulnerable for 2 seconds, then are healed for 10 to 39 hit points and the spell fades. (Activation cost: 30 spell points, cooldown 2 minutes)
While using this my main problem was that you'd be invulnerable for a couple seconds, then you'd heal a small amount and start standing back up... while that group of enemies that got you down to 0 health is still attacking you. More then half the time you'd be dead before you had a chance to run/heal yourself after it activates. By making it drop you to 1 instead of -9, you shouldn't fall down, so you'll have a chance to heal yourself and save yourself from certain death.

[Vish]

Hmmm,
I would go radiant tier 5, and warpriest tier 4, but take the core 6.
That would be tight on ap, nothing left for dd, or aov and not much for human
Would it be better than a pally splash build...

Displacement and +2stats. And weapon damage that scaled with spell power that is also added.
Seems a pretty better choice. Would make me go pure.

So a pretty good over haul, with the damage adds and displacement
Still wouldn't go tier 5. Has to be better than aura.

On another note
I have put forth wisdom to hit and damage for the warpriest tree
Over in clerics forum
Also suggested same in new tree silver flame , another thread

I would like to see wisdom conversion in the game,
For warpriest, added in along favored weapons, tier2, tier3 and cha to wisdom tier4
That would make a 2 stat cleric. And leave str for pally splashes
Or divine might could be replaced by divine presence at tier1
Would be unuseful until tier2/3
Maybe be under power but potential op...

But I like your suggestions, just realize favored soul would get this buff
But that seems to go well with aov

Displacement is the real killer here,
Wa fu to warlocks

[Selvera]

I’m glad to see you like the look of my proposed changes

My idea for making this isn’t that it will be “better” then a pally splash or a fighter splash or a ranger splash or whatever, just that it would be good enough to consider going pure. Equal in power level, although that’s the hard one to achieve.

I disagree that tier 5 has to be better than aura, while certainly it should be a consideration, the main reason to pick up tier-5 and not aura is because then you would have 30+ AP free to spend on other trees (great if you’re splashing fighter/paladin) instead of having less than 10 AP free like you would if you pick up aura as well. I did however try to improve the tier-5’s so that they would be worth getting instead of aura for those who want to be more warpriest-like.

Basically I wanted good options in warpriest for all of the following:
1) Pure warpriest dedicating 41+ points to this tree, taking the T5’s and capstone.
2) Warpreist-radiant build, taking warpriest capstone and radiant T5’s.
3) Warpriest, with splashed melee class, taking warpriest T5’s, and spending AP in other melee classes.
4) Melee class with a splash of warpriest, taking a few of the early cores and low hanging fruit.
5) Warpriest archer -> while not the focus since smite is melee, considered since clerics make good archers and +enhancement bonus is easy/good to get on bows.

I was considering this for both clerics and favored souls.

Wisdom to hit/damage is something I considered, but I eventually decided that I preferred using strength/cha because I like the divide between melee clerics and caster clerics and believe that each of them has their unique role in the game. Using wisdom to hit/damage isn’t better than using str/cha, except for having better spell DC’s and a larger manapool.
Both of these are fair advantages for casting clerics to have over melee clerics, casting clerics need more mana because they split their mana between killing and healing, while melee only need mana for healing, they can kill just fine without spending any. Melee clerics can also get along just fine without high DC’s, and most things I suggested in this tree have no save because of/to support this.

Wisdom conversion might have a place in this game, but I’m happy with it not showing up in the warpriest tree. Maybe if they add the silver flame tree you suggested it might have a place there.