U39 Preview 1: Angel of Vengeance Revamp

[Eryhn]

Vengeful Magic: You gain +20 Fire, Force and Light spellpower. You gain +1 Sacred bonus to spell DCs. Whenever you critically hit with a fire, force or light spell you gain a stack of Vengeful Magic. Vengeful Magic: You gain 1% spell critical damage multiplier with fire, force and light spells for 6 seconds. Stacks up to 15 times, stacks fade one at a time.

lol. sure I'd take that.

It makes a lot of sense as the mechanic is the same as scourge/just reward so basically investing into 18 main class levels gives you a "better" scourge/just reward. Thing is though, we all know it's not hard to keep just reward ticks up, so this is *almost* a flatout 10-15% spell crit multi. Do I want that? Hell yeah. Did Steel sound like he'll give that out? Hell no. SO - this is kinda wishful thinking?

there is 2 variables here, one is the mechanic that builds stacks or triggers the ability, the other is the effective strength of the buffs.

In this suggestion the mechanic to get the buff is highly reliable, and the buff is very strong. No offense but sadly Steel sounded a bit stingy I don't see it happening, and if we make enough noise to get this mechanic tied to just reward the buff will get neutered into some "ok it's something but it's kinda meh" like i.e. +1% crit chance per stack, 5 stacks max ...or thats what I'm afraid off ...

that being said I rly want some sort of spell crit multi and again, it's not just wanting powercreep it is needed to some extent in higher levels and it can be done without going totally OP



anyways, the mechanic means we have available so far are

* triggers on spell crit
* triggers on being hit
* triggers at fixed HP threshold

then, there is stuff like getting a % chance to trigger on these above

then there also is getting a clicky in some way

then there is stuff like paying in HP or such to activate something

then we had the notion of being hit or reaching an HP threshold triggers something, but, that is not reset as soon as you heal back up but has stacks lasting over it.



I feel the most undesirable things are indeed the fixed HP threshold, and other than that, getting a crappy buff. hence I argued for some combo of things in the hopes of getting an endresult where with somewhat controled and mindful playstyle that takes some risks, you can maximise the buff gains ...


another thing btw would be to build charges that once full allow you to apply a clicky. like shadow charge or blood and radiance ...


I'd also once again like to mention a multiselector choice, as it's pretty apparent there is some folks who 100% want something that amounts to a flat/reliable buff and some that are willing to buy into the vengeful/risk taking theme and going either way fully makes the other side feel like it sucks...

[Xyfiel]

Vengeful Magic: When you take damage from a spell your next spell within 10 seconds gains +2 dc and 10% critical damage.

Simple
Elegant
Thematic

Would need to make sure it is only enemy spells so you can't necrotic touch yourself(or anything else I am not thinking of).

[Angelic-council]

lol. sure I'd take that.

It makes a lot of sense as the mechanic is the same as scourge/just reward so basically investing into 18 main class levels gives you a "better" scourge/just reward. Thing is though, we all know it's not hard to keep just reward ticks up, so this is *almost* a flatout 10-15% spell crit multi. Do I want that? Hell yeah. Did Steel sound like he'll give that out? Hell no. SO - this is kinda wishful thinking?

Actually, Steel said he could replace it with something else, but if it's going to be a passive like, then it won't be the same, much weaker than it's right now. That 10 - 15% which we have to stack by actually scoring a critical hit seem very balanced. It's better than having HP threshold or like you suggested, we get bonus upon getting hit (5% chance). I mean, I been playing a FvS since day one. I have to say, 15% is like baby boost, but at least it's something we get to use everywhere. not only in limited scenarios where it might happen or not. I think several people already proved that in this thread. But, it's up to Steelstar.

[TMTrainer]

I feel like Vengeful magic should have a permanent passive portion (a little bit of spellpower, DCs, and crit/multipler) but I feel like the %threshold effects should be... vengeful.

80% - Enemies who hit you physically or magically while you are below this threshold have a chance to be knocked down/blinded based on your spell DC. They also take some amount of light and fire damage (scales with spell power) whenever this effect triggers.
60% - While below this threshold, you radiate a permanent aura around you that deals damage over time. Enemies within range take light and fire damage over time (think Positive Energy Aura in size). In addition, you also gain a lesser Vigor lesser healing effect (1 HP per 5). Both of these effects scale with spell power.
40% - Both of the above effects improve. While you are below this threshold, your regeneration effect improves, as per Regenerate's smaller healing effect (2 HP per 5) which scales with spellpower.

I would even add a 20% "active" threshold effect the improves these previous effects even more, or something extreme like "once per rest, when you drop to 20% HP, you heal to 50% HP and gain PRR and MRR for 30 seconds".

...these are just ideas of course, I'd love to see these thresholds become "defensive but not really" effects based on how low you get. Nothing that you want to lower your HP for, but if your HP gets low, it provides you with some boons to help you if you're in a rough spot.

[btolson]

Semantically, "Vengeful Magic" should be seen as a component of revenge, getting payback. Building up stacks when you crit, etc, has nothing to do with that. That's why my suggestion somewhere above placed stacking vulnerability on things that actually attack you, because anything "Vengeful" should be 100% useless against anything that hasn't done you harm.

That said, I'm not especially lobbying for that idea. As a ranged attacker with CC and instakills, I wouldn't expect much mileage out of it, any more than I'd expect mileage out of straight up hp % thresholds.

My official vote is for something passive and permanent, and drop "Vengeful" completely. It doesn't work well for this class in this game. Maybe for the melee tree it would make sense.

[Silverleafeon]

Semantically, "Vengeful Magic" should be seen as a component of revenge, getting payback. Building up stacks when you crit, etc, has nothing to do with that. That's why my suggestion somewhere above placed stacking vulnerability on things that actually attack you, because anything "Vengeful" should be 100% useless against anything that hasn't done you harm.

While I see your point, revenge is not necessary due to personal injury.

Also harm can be emotional instead of physical.

venge·ance
[?venj?ns]

NOUN
punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong.


Vengeance has been executed due to injury suffered by others.
Any party stepping into a dungeon with likely suffer injury as a whole which a Favored Soul could execute vengeance upon.
In fact certain plot lines could in fact place a favored soul in a state of vengeance.


There is also the definition of "with a vengeance" which is defined "to an extreme of excessive degree"

That said, I'm not especially lobbying for that idea. As a ranged attacker with CC and instakills, I wouldn't expect much mileage out of it, any more than I'd expect mileage out of straight up hp % thresholds.

I quite agree on that point.
Both % thresholds and stacks upon being damaged are more suited to a barbarian build playstyle or the like.

My official vote is for something passive and permanent, and drop "Vengeful" completely. It doesn't work well for this class in this game. Maybe for the melee tree it would make sense.

I am agreeable for Steel to rename the core 18 if desired.
I am agreeable for Steel to take one of these options:

+1 DC & +20 light spellpower along with doubling Scourge bonuses in some way
+1 dc & +20 light spellpower along with one of the above on crit/cast bonus stack for +x total spell crit damage
+1 DC & +20 light spellpower along with a +X static spell crit damage bonus


obviously the Spell Crit Damage will be far less than the 50% since it will be often on...so the 10-15% seems much more practical, however even a 5% would be welcome over the other options to me


Bear in mind that during Raid Boss fights a Favored Soul often has to turn off their archon in perhaps at least half the raids due to "kill foes together/sequence" or "don't draw agro from beast X before circumstance Y", etc..

Hence a on crit stack is less likely to form during a Raid End Boss fight, due to the Favored Soul mass healing and nonarchoning.

Also bear in mind stacks would time to form after entering dungeon, shrining, long treks, etc...


If in fact the Devs don't intend on a player operating at 40% health continually, remember that it might be possible for a Favored Soul to gain 2k health due to certain class choices along with LG bonuses, leaving them at 800 hp while at 40%...this is significant enough to possible solo with in certain dungeons.

[Silverleafeon]

Now that I think about it, my main druid when wearing Leg Greensteel hp set can easily reach 1700+ hp while in Shirdia.

So, if one actually built for a health % bonus, it could be sustainable?

Strength of Vitality: Passive Bonus: +10/15/20% Insight bonus to maximum hit points.
Leg Greensteel five hp set +36% legendary

Favored Soul Stout of Heart
Usage: Passive
Prerequisite: Favored Soul level 7
Description
Through strength of faith, you gain 10 hit points per Favored Soul level or Epic level

Estimated HP with legendary gear before bonuses: 1350
(simply copying my leg druid's hp while wearing leg greensteel sp set - not hp set)

Math 1350 + 300 = 1650 * 1.2 * 1.36 = 2692.8 hp
(assuming all the ability score bonuses were invested in cha not con for better casting ability)

(of course the question is "are gains made by constant always on health % bonuses outweighed by the loss of switching from EA to UA epic destiny?)



Either way, Devs might consider that with possible additional future health increases, it could be prudent to ensure that % health boosts have a timer upon them. (Although I see no reason to change the half orc racial tree values at this time.)


Not advocating that direction, but large FvS health pools are now possible with recent game changes.

[slarden]

Either way, Devs might consider that with possible additional future health increases, it could be prudent to ensure that % health boosts have a timer upon them. (Although I see no reason to change the half orc racial tree values at this time.)


Not advocating that direction, but large FvS health pools are now possible with recent game changes.

This would be a move that primarily hurts casual players as there is a much bigger amount of hp available through reaper trees and past lifes compared to unyielding sentinel % bonus. A vet with a lot of hp wont' go into US for the 20% boost.

Fvs caster seems like it will be a fairly casual-friendly build with the 300 hp bonus, 10% aasimar bonus and potentially 150 hp bonus from scion of celestia if needed. There would be no real need to go into US.

[edrein]

This would be a move that primarily hurts casual players as there is a much bigger amount of hp available through reaper trees and past lifes compared to unyielding sentinel % bonus. A vet with a lot of hp wont' go into US for the 20% boost.

Fvs caster seems like it will be a fairly casual-friendly build with the 300 hp bonus, 10% aasimar bonus and potentially 150 hp bonus from scion of celestia if needed. There would be no real need to go into US.

Sure you will; any vet worth their salt building to abuse the HP situation as being described will indeed go US for the 20% boost. After all; that's the difference between being one shot at 40% or being two shot.

I don't think anyone would do any such building, but if we're being honest that's how it'd go.

And no caster is going to drop the insane SP bonus for the 300HP option, even if they are going Vengeful Magic meme build.

[slarden]

Sure you will; any vet worth their salt building to abuse the HP situation as being described will indeed go US for the 20% boost. After all; that's the difference between being one shot at 40% or being two shot.

I don't think anyone would do any such building, but if we're being honest that's how it'd go.

And no caster is going to drop the insane SP bonus for the 300HP option, even if they are going Vengeful Magic meme build.

All you really lose with the 300 hp option is spell points you don't need. A fvs will still have more spell points than a cleric and my cleric does fine. On top of that fvs has just reward. With US you lose much more. I haven't seen any top players using US except in tanking situations. It's more of a casual player choice to run in US when not tanking.

[elvesunited]

All you really lose with the 300 hp option is spell points you don't need. A fvs will still have more spell points than a cleric and my cleric does fine. On top of that fvs has just reward. With US you lose much more. I haven't seen any top players using US except in tanking situations. It's more of a casual player choice to run in US when not tanking.

I find it depends on the quest and your gear. Some quests the damage comes a little faster and harder than others. While in others if you play smart they'll almost never touch you.

But personally I'd never trade 300 hp for spell points. And now that Angel of vengeance will be sporting multiple new SLAs, I'll need to even less. And with archons now benefiting from full spell critical, just reward will be going off a lot more often.

[Silverleafeon]

Looks like there are even more hp bonuses already than I listed.

Just wanted the Devs to plan that it could be possible to play a FvS staying at 40% health and plan accordingly.
(Whether the build is viable or not is going to be entirely up to the Devs final plans.)

Just letting the Devs know that % health bonuses could become "always on" with some serious work and planning...

<Still prefer on crit buff / scourge doubled / passive buff choices over on hit / health % anyday>

[Angelic-council]

I mean, the whole concept of Angel of Veangence is that, you are - already in anger, you literally bring down divine wrath upon your enemies. So it's more like, emotional vengeance.. we have an ability called scourage, where we have to hurt enemies to gain more power (spell power), then we have - just reward, where we get rewarded for brutually hurting enemies (this refered to critical hits), we also have aura of menace, where enemies get debuff by just getting near FvS (they scared, feel the anger, FvS unleashing negative energy that actually affecting enemies defenses), we also have archon's fury (even archon is vengeful to a point where now it inflicts 1d6 fire damage.. so why not vengeful magic be even more aggressive, peak of the vengeance, and that is.. once you score critical hit, it scales up, increasing our vengeance level (critical damage multiplier, every time we use it), that's why I think it would fit AoV theme. In fact, FvS get cometfall at tier 5, so AoV even have CC, so monsters don't hit you.. and now we get this, HP thresholds that doesn't fit this tree and quite useless now days.. 50% is not even enough to help you in critical situations. So it doesn't work, we have to change and replace it. Why anyone need 50% critical damage at 40%, when we have CC or already powerful enough heal to heal us to nearly full health.. reaper? 50% isn't good, you just die and it's a waste, again, we would CC and 50% is not enough to finish off enemy.

I would love to hear what Steelstar think about all our suggestions so far! is it something possible?

[slarden]

I find the "too many hp" argument extremely weak considering all the hp available from past lifes and reaper.

[TMTrainer]

Yeesh. I understand that FvS have a lot of SP, but losing 12 SP every 2 seconds for something like this seems pretty steep. I'd rather have the toggle cost 50 SP when you activate it or something. Immolation from the Fire Savant tree has a similar effect but it occurs without any additional cost when you cast a fire spell. I would rather see this as a 0 SP toggle or a passive ability working like he Fire Savant version except it procs on Fire/Force/Light spells.

It can proc the temporary spellpoints from the Just Reward effect... meaning occasionally it will discount itself to only cost 2 SP. That being said, if you get unlucky, yeah, it's going to cost quite a bit, but it's incredibly good damage and FvS has the largest spellpoint pool in the game now.

Edit: NVM ignore me.

[asdfghhjkl]

I find the "too many hp" argument extremely weak considering all the hp available from past lifes and reaper.

I think his point is that if a first life character can run around with 1200hp and contribute, then a reaper heavy quad completionist could run around with 1200/3000 and keep the 40% threshold effect up full time.

This ignores that reaper heavy quad completionists play at different difficulty settings than your typical first life character, of course.

[red_kain]

Tested, it appears to work exactly as described.

Need more information if people believe it to not be working properly.


The idea is that your power spikes up considerably when you desperately need it. That might be for a heal, or to finish off an enemy. Nobody on our end expects a playstyle where you attempt to hover at 40% forever for maximum power, but people seem to think that's how they should play this ability.

Since the last Lamannia, we've added a passive +1 DC to all spells to this enhancement (and a passive +2 to the capstone). We could scrap this ability entirely and put something static but numerically much, much weaker in its place if that's what people really want.

Alternately, we're open to suggestions about what to replace it with*.

You could try something like, "Gain 1chr (or wis, not sure how multiselector on core might be done *could just do both*) 1% spell critical chance, and 10% spell critical damage when struck, effect stacks up to 3 times, lasts for 5 seconds, all stacks are lost at once"

Personally offensive low HP threshold stuff isn't great, as when you're low HP you typically go for heals first, then back to offense, so unless its like "when you fall below 40% hp, you gain a 10 second buff" they basically don't exist in my experience.

[slarden]

I think his point is that if a first life character can run around with 1200hp and contribute, then a reaper heavy quad completionist could run around with 1200/3000 and keep the 40% threshold effect up full time.

This ignores that reaper heavy quad completionists play at different difficulty settings than your typical first life character, of course.

I highly doubt people will run around with 40% hp because they then lose the advantage of having high hp which is a much bigger deal and independent of aov. I’ve seen 0 people using this imagined tactic in draconic or fury of the wild for example.

I get people want to change it, but at least make a reasonable case which this argument is not.

[Angelic-council]

I think his point is that if a first life character can run around with 1200hp and contribute, then a reaper heavy quad completionist could run around with 1200/3000 and keep the 40% threshold effect up full time.

This ignores that reaper heavy quad completionists play at different difficulty settings than your typical first life character, of course.

Whoever suggesting those doesn't seem to play FvS. In order for FvS to have 3k HP in reaper, one must have all the HP bonus from past lifes, all the gear, sets of LGS and heavily invested in reaper, like 80+ points at least.. then get beaten up so it's now 1200/3000. I haven't seen any offensive caster with 3k HP yet. That doesn't seem very reasonable at all. Why does anyone have to spec tanker to have this in a first place. It's like trying to cut a steak with a spoon. We need to change it.

[Angelic-council]

I truly think that developers done a good job with the revamp, I hope they realize that lv18 core is quite terrible, and that, 15 - 20% crit damage multiplier doesn't add too much into this tree (not OP), considering it's a divine caster DPS tree (that used to have crit multiplier long time ago). New SLAs provided to this tree will become quite beneficial and by increasing archon damage to deal 100%, we can finally consider archon to be useful, not to mention we get to use its feature with archon's fury (although, 1d6 fire added each 2 sec is quite weak and things would be dead by then before we get to even see its highest damage, or simply resisted). We can finally get to choose between charisma and wisdom at captstone, this was much needed. That really leaves to vengeful magic.. lv18 core should be much more powerful than all other cores behind it.. +1 DC and 20 spell power is definitely nice, but it's underwhelming with just 2 of them alone. I hope.. possibly in next preview, we get to see something more realistic change!