Early Look - Favored Soul Improvements

[Severlin]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

[Maelphistez]

Good base changes. Makes Warpriest FVSs actually feasible.

[Peter_Stauffenberg]

Looks interesting being able to use charisma or wisdom instead of strength to boost damage and hit.

Is this something we can expect to see for clerics and maybe even Paladins too, i. e. all classes with a deity favored weapon? That would making a charisma based melee Paladin a good choice. You get great saves and still have the dps you would get from a strength based Paladin. The downside is that it only works for your favored weapon.

What about the Divine might Enhancement that you can get in warpriest. Will it bump the charisma or wisdom stat instead of strength if you fight with your favored weapon? Otherwise Divine might will be useless to take.

[Stoner81]

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.

[HuneyMunster]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.

I would think wisdom may be a better choice for the extra will saves if you can still obtain the umd for various scrolls and wands you would want to use. FvS don't have good fire spell for dragonic and the festive wis agu can replace the +2 bonus cha from Angelic presence. Also Divine Crusader's Celestial Bombardment and Stand and Be Judged uses wisdom and not charisma. Main benefit would be twisting Energy Burst so maybe people will also go charisma.

I also thought the same on monks having to wait for the new universal dagger tree for wisdom for hit and damage. Though, would not surprise me it would require daggers that would un-center a monk.

[Propane]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage

Favored Weapon only....

[Renvar]

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless),

FvS and Cleric tree changes are still pending. I am hoping they will sync these up.

[Renvar]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.

Also, make a 10 FvS, 10 Monk Drow Vulkoor Short Sword Ninja spy. It can have wis to damage on the SS.

[YUTANG75]

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.
Sev~

Seems a bit high. A free +200hp for pure favoured souls by level 20? Is hp a problem for them or something, I've never played one.

[slarden]

This will completely mess with Divine Might (which the above makes useless), everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

There is KTA to even that out for damage, but the loss of tactics is too much. A cleric can get knockdown immunity, immunity to stuns and a much better tactics DC with a strength cleric. No reason to play a fvs melee. Ranged has some possibilities...

Fvs casters on the other hand....esp with splashes...should be fun...

Seems a bit high. A free +200hp for pure favoured souls by level 20? Is hp a problem for them or something, I've never played one.

I would rather get 140 and splash 6 pal on my caster for high saves and stacking 20% hp. Seems like a nice reaper build with all the good spells minus implosion. No different than warlock or other classes with hp bonuses.

We probably see a lot running around in US also at epic levels for more stacking. Chain Lightning SLA though... hard to pass up.

[Thar]

How about a 3rd enhancement tree is that in the works?

changes seem good for melee fvs and some boost somewhat to casters that you don't have to choose between chr/wis for spells vs spell points. Not sure the casting boost is enough without some sla love.

[MonadRebelion]

Greetings,

We are working on a Divine pass, but for this pass instead of solely focusing on class trees we wanted to update the base classes. Although we think Cleric is behind Favored Souls a bit, we also wanted to give Favored Souls - as part of their base class - some improvements that would add some quality of life changes. These are the changes to the base class of the Favored Soul that we are looking at.

Favor Soul
Base Class Changes

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

~ Your Energy Resistance becomes Energy Absorption to better scale at high levels.

~ At level 2 you choose Charisma or Wisdom. You use this ability score for your to hit and damage with your Favored Weapon. This ability only functions if at least half your character levels are Favored Soul.

~ At level 6, Favored Souls can choose one of the following bonuses:
• You gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 10 Hit Points for each epic level you have gained.
• You gain 20 spell points per Favored Soul level. You also gain 30 Spell Points for each epic level you have gained.

Some design notes.

Our first iteration had Favored Soul choosing Wisdom or Charisma for hit and damage with their Favored Weapon at level 14. This cut down on splashes and was meant to support FvS melee builds. The problem we had is we don't want a player to have to have a bad experience for 13 levels before they could play their "real" build. Moving the bonus to lower levels just made it more and more of a splash ability rather than a Favored Soul core ability. The solution rewards people who are mostly Favored Soul, but gives a smooth experience while leveling.

Sev~

The changes look good to me. At this point, I'm not sure why you'd want to resist 2 level splashes of FvS for the Chr/Wis to hit/dam. Given the current state of the game, I can't think of a build that will go over the top from that splash. If someone can think of one I'd be interested to hear about it.

[Rinveron]

The changes look good to me. At this point, I'm not sure why you'd want to resist 2 level splashes of FvS for the Chr/Wis to hit/dam. Given the current state of the game, I can't think of a build that will go over the top from that splash. If someone can think of one I'd be interested to hear about it.

At least half of your toon levels have to be Fav Soul for the char/wis for hit/dam so that build wont work. I don't see why they don't give it to cleric as well (or just wisdom for cleric since char wont effect spells for them)

[MonadRebelion]

At least half of your toon levels have to be Fav Soul for the char/wis for hit/dam so that build wont work. I don't see why they don't give it to cleric as well (or just wisdom for cleric since char wont effect spells for them)

To clarify, I don't see why there should be resistance to getting rid of the half-level-FvS requirement. It doesn't seem to me that any builds will go over the top by just taking two levels of FvS so they can get chr/wis to hit/dam if the half-level requirement were lifted.

[Renvar]

AI don't see why they don't give it to cleric as well (or just wisdom for cleric since char wont effect spells for them)

Because FvS and Cleric share the warpriest tree and Clerics get the war/strength/Animal domain as an option to boost DPS dramatically. If you give the Cleric the Wis/Cha damage feature that the FvS is getting, then the FvS is nothing more than a second rate Cleric as far as melee is concerned. This stat change, at least, may not add DPS, per se, but gives them a unique feature that may have some niche appeal.

[HuneyMunster]

Favored Weapon only....

Good point on that its favored weapon only.

Seems a bit high. A free +200hp for pure favoured souls by level 20? Is hp a problem for them or something, I've never played one.

Also an option of 700 spell points and with option or either cha or wis for dc and spell point bonus changes them from being just below sorcerer in total spell points to being by 700 above.

FvS only get Archon and capstone as sla's so would have been nice to see a few changes to the AoV tree instead of just extra spell points. Nimbus of Light and Searing Light could do with a boost for red named dps. Searing Light could be change to do the same damage that it does against undead against evil targets. nimbus could be boosted to be similar as EA Avenging light but without a save and per casters level up to mcl10 for example.

[ThomasHunter]

Very excited to have an extra 300 HP! Yes, after gearing and working at it, my FvS barely hits 900 HP at 30. Decent, but he simply cannot soak up any damage.

Would love some Displacement as well given that he just sucks up the damage so poorly.

Overall, some nice changes. Looking forward to seeing the trees for sure!

[CSQ]

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.

My concern is that this gives an unfair advantage vs. Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks. Why? Because in order to render Favored Souls unable to cast effectively, you would need to damage both Wisdom and Charisma, whereas other casters lose effectiveness if one attribute is damaged. Granted, I don't know the implementation yet, so this might be a moot point.

I'm also not a giant fan of moving resist to absorption. I know absorption scales better in epic content and higher difficulties, but resistance is more useful in early heroics and for mitigating chip elemental damage (you know, 3 points here, 6 points there, etc.); perhaps adjusting it so that it's a ratio (half the current resist and add some absorption) so that 2 fire damage is fully resisted instead of just mitigated to 1 fire damage.

[SerPounce]

Yet you refuse to give Wisdom for to-hit and damage on Monks! Are you actually serious?



I still can't believe you have given this to FvS but not Monks...

Stoner81.

Different classes get different abilities. Without getting into the specifics about how strong or weak Monk is vis a vis FVS there's nothing inherently wrong with giving an ability to one that the other doesn't have just because they would both find it useful.

I do think they need to be careful about letting people have any attribute to any ability they want. It's already bordering on out of hand.

[Fedora1]

everybody will probably choose CHA since it automatically affects spell points as well so it makes sense to just pump CHA for everything.

Except this says otherwise:

~ Favored Soul now uses the higher base ability score of Charisma or Wisdom for spellcasting. This includes DC calculations, Spell Point calculations, spell memorization, and checks to see whether you can cast the spell.