U39 Preview 1: War Soul & War Priest Revamp

[TMTrainer]

You're not wrong; the only difference between the Natures and a Fighter splash is AP cost overall. Although atleast with druids you aren't forced to take a T5, but you lose out on threat range. (Atleast at a lazy glance, from an offense and defense perspective. I broke down what the 6 kensai splash gets you earlier in the thread, it's disgusting how versatile and useful it is. Although the nature's trees are very self-sufficient at the moment and honestly don't require splashing to be useful compared to War Priest, hence my bringing them up as the example the devs should strive for.)

I'm fine on losing threat range with War Priest/Soul, give us crits and a defensive boost/stance. Give us an alternative offensive stance as well; to mimic how Nature's Protector has the rage option for DPS. Keep our defenses (AC, PRR, MRR) high but let us decrease our healing potential as our trade off for offensive power. Either by debuffing our heal amp, our healing spell power, etc. We won't be glass cannons in that case; but we'll be like the other melee DPS. Limited on options of self healing.

There, now we can create proper DPS boosts to War Priest/Soul and appease those who cry wolf over the potential to fully spell-cast. We're intentionally gimping our spell-casting as is by going melee, but now we'll take an active toggle that gimps our healing to further prove our dedication so that we gain DPS in return.

Actually, why not just double down on the hybrid portion of Warpriest and call it a day?

Look at Swashbucker, Warchanter and Arcane Archer, bring the trees up to date and divine it up. Bam.

All cores:
Now give 3 melee or ranged power, core 6 gives 15. You lose this melee or ranged power if you don't have your favored weapon equipped.
Now give 6 fire and light spell power, core 6 gives 30 each.
Now give 2 DR based on what deity you have selected.
Still give 2 AC, but now also give 5 PRR each.
Part of core 1:
Blessed Blade/Tips: Your Favored Weapon deals 1d4 Fire and 1d4 Light damage on hit, scaling with spell power; taking "Righteous Weapons" improves this damage by an additional 1d4 Fire and 1d4 Light. In addition, your favored weapon gains the old disrupting effect.
Core 3:
Sanctuary is now: 20% damage reduction.
Part of core 4:
Smite Foe and Radiant Flourish now hit twice, and each have +1 to critical threat range.

Radiant Flourish: Scales with spell power alongside melee power.
Silence the Wicked: Attack scales 200% with melee power.
Wrathful Weapons: Scales with spell power alongside melee power.
Ameliorating Strike: In epics, the healing is improved by an additional 1d2 per character level, the lesser restoration effect is improved to a Restoration effect, and everyone effected by it is granted "Light Guard" for 12 seconds which is a 2d6 Fire/Light guard effect that scales 100% with spell power.

Double down on the hybridy thing, make it a bursty fire/light damage melee thats also a cleric.

[Niminae]

Divine Power is now a +6 Sacred Bonus to Strength (plus the Base Attack Bonus it already gives).

Just to clarify, this is Sacred and not Divine? And the two stack?

[edrein]

Just to clarify, this is Sacred and not Divine? And the two stack?

I'm hoping so; otherwise it's a tad redundant with the Strength Domain.

[J-mann]

If evocation and spell DPS is your game then aren't you best in divine disciple or angel of vengeance?

If melee DPS is your goal. The cleric with a 6 or 8 level fighter splash is mighty tempting. It's not really a hybrid. Mainly just a self-healing/buffing fighter. ( kind of a paladin variant )

The pure favored soul melee with wisdom for damage and divine will might make a go of it. But personally I've sworn off of defense deficient melee characters.

If you use Vistani to pump the damage then you're likely to capstone Vistani instead of warpriest/warsoul.

Necromancy death magic goes to divine disciple again.

Positive magic if team healer is still a thing goes to radiant servant or Beacon of Hope ( I guess, beacon does not impress me )

So all that leaves would be non-evocation, non necromancy DC casters. ( enchantment I think is all that's left ) With that none of the divine enhancement trees provide any benefit so warpriest wins by default!

But now that I think of it if you're maxing enchantment DC, you can crush it best by going hard into Arcane Archer (+4 DC) through elf and pump out paralyzing arrows and enjoying the temp sp while not casting greater command. So warpriest/warsoul loses again!

I think you misunderstand what i want spells for. I want them for the same reason i want them on my druid, for the cc effects and the buffs/debuffs they apply rather than the damage. Warpriest could work with less dps in the tree and no stalwart if, and only if, there is something that is worth giving up those trees for. For druid we get a lot of utility and spells in the 7 through 9 tier that matter and dcs that work with a melee build. This is what they need to do for warpriest. Give us spells/utility that matters (and no inflame doesnt matter even with 100 percent up time it is weak) like druids have. Obviously the easiest way is to just hand out dpa, but the best way would be better utility, and a single target blind and silence doesnt cut it when the devs are throwing 12 mobs per a pack.

[Sproutecus]

I think you misunderstand what i want spells for. I want them for the same reason i want them on my druid, for the cc effects and the buffs/debuffs they apply rather than the damage. Warpriest could work with less dps in the tree and no stalwart if, and only if, there is something that is worth giving up those trees for. For druid we get a lot of utility and spells in the 7 through 9 tier that matter and dcs that work with a melee build. This is what they need to do for warpriest. Give us spells/utility that matters (and no inflame doesnt matter even with 100 percent up time it is weak) like druids have. Obviously the easiest way is to just hand out dpa, but the best way would be better utility, and a single target blind and silence doesnt cut it when the devs are throwing 12 mobs per a pack.

I tend to agree with everything you are saying. I think non-healing utility or CC spells are the way to go with this. Then give WarPriest some defensive buffs and Soul some offensive buffs.

But I also agree with folks who say that War domain and sylvanus are making balance tougher.


So here is my thought

1) Change war domain from holy sword to straight +1 to Competence to crit range
2) Change Sylvanus to +1W and then +1 to range (or maybe just +1W if +1 range is still too powerful)

yes these are nerfs, but it levels the playing field for further global buffs


Then
give both +1 to multiplier at core 12 or 18
give Warpriest +20% HP and 10-20 prr/mrr at 20
give Warsoul +1 to range and 10-20 mp/rp at 20.


Lastly,
give Wapriest STR modifier to DC's if higher than wisdom for ONE school (multiselector) at T5
give Warsoul ANOTHER +1 to range or possibly +1 multiplier on 19-20 at T5


This would give warpriests reasons to take other domains with multiple viable hybrid builds (pure tank, tanky melee, hybrid caster) and still be able to do some melee DPS

WarSouls on the other hand will be more pure melee DPS (+1 multiplier and +2 range, wis to dmg, and 10-20 melee power)


The side effect of this is that the Domain list then becomes much more flexible on the role you want to take...

Fire domain + EVO DC's = wall of fire/flamestrike/implosion/firestorm with mild melee DPS
Law domain + Enchantment DC's = greater command and symbol of stunning with mild melee DPS
Trickery + Enh Dc's = mass charm +command + mild melee
Earth domain + EVO Dc's = you end up with an earthquake CC/Mild DPS combo
Good domain+ Evo = BB SLA + mild DPS
Knowledge domain + Enchant Dc's = feeblemind and symbol of persuasion plus all other DC's are +2
Death + Necro DC's = insta kills and mild melee DPS.
Cold + Conj = solid fog + Cometfall for CC plus mild DPS

What about pure melee Warpriest?
War domain still gets some bonus dps, plus access to all weapons. Str and prot domain would be very tanky. None would be as good as warsoul for pure dps, but you get the extra HP and prr/mrr instead.


The best part is that the STR-to-DC bonus for warpriest means you can scale all the way through epics. You would still need to gear for some spellpower or DC's depending upon the build. And yes, you would lose some optimized gearing (and thus either some dps or defense) compared to a warsoul or a war domain warpriest, but again thats ok, you will have other options to either do CC or to DPS.

[edrein]

I think you misunderstand what i want spells for. I want them for the same reason i want them on my druid, for the cc effects and the buffs/debuffs they apply rather than the damage. Warpriest could work with less dps in the tree and no stalwart if, and only if, there is something that is worth giving up those trees for. For druid we get a lot of utility and spells in the 7 through 9 tier that matter and dcs that work with a melee build. This is what they need to do for warpriest. Give us spells/utility that matters (and no inflame doesnt matter even with 100 percent up time it is weak) like druids have. Obviously the easiest way is to just hand out dpa, but the best way would be better utility, and a single target blind and silence doesnt cut it when the devs are throwing 12 mobs per a pack.

Here's the thing though. Druid gets all of the benefits of Stalwart and a decent chunk of the DPS benefits of Kensai all while staying within their class trees, and maintaining full spell access and DC casting.

War Priest/Soul doesn't do any of that, even with the changes in the OP. We need more to make either a trade-off or a comparison.

[TMTrainer]

Here's the thing though. Druid gets all of the benefits of Stalwart and a decent chunk of the DPS benefits of Kensai all while staying within their class trees, and maintaining full spell access and DC casting.

War Priest/Soul doesn't do any of that, even with the changes in the OP. We need more to make either a trade-off or a comparison.

I mean, that's the problem, right? The problem with this tree is that it's almost impossible to fit everything that a melee needs in it.

So... don't fit everything it needs.

Here's the thing. Every melee in the game needs enough bulk, damage and utility to be considered viable. Normally this is accomplished with 2 trees and a couple of feats. FvS and Cleric are both caster first, melee second. Which means they don't have that second tree built in. They should not try to make this tree into a generalist tree and give it a pinch of everything... that's tree is never going to work... what they need to do is focus on one or two things and really make this tree shine at it while also building on already existing synergies. The reason why Wolf and Bear feel so gosh darn good is because the class has 2 trees to work with when it comes to finding a balance between damage and bulk. Warpriest and Warsoul are alone... they only directly have access to caster-synergistic trees.

This means that Warpriest and Warsoul need to be designed in a way that has synergies around their existing trees. Warpriest should gain some synergy with Channel Divinity, Turn Undead and Domains so that it can shine dipping into the other cleric trees (For example, Divine Vessel could produce a free Turn Undead effect within it's range, or perhaps have a low chance of restoring 1 use of Channel Divinity if it kills something), meanwhile Warsoul should get synergies that make it more flavored toward Favored Soul. Another "Aura" type effect, or a chance to produce low level spells (whenever you attack with your favored weapon, you have a chance to produce a Burning Hands effect) or something that fits with the role of a Divine Sorcerer that has synergies with the already existing (and new) enhancement trees.

I'd rather them not make a half baked tree. They need to choose something and double down on it. Make it a glass cannon that has stuff like Divine Vessel to just blow up enemies. Sacrifice bulk (because no matter how much they add, it won't be enough anyway because there is no way they can ever add SaD, StD, or ND level bulk to the tree) and just double down on the good stuff even it means it will do less physical damage than a normal melee (but instead do a crapton of magic damage for a melee).

Also, and I can't stress this enough, you guys need to find a way to make the Cleric Tree and the Favored Soul tree identical or functionally almost the same, even if that means changing current cleric builds or domains to make it work. If you do plan on making the trees different, you need to make them vastly different but accomplish the same thing, like SaD and StD. Pretty much the only big difference is the fact that you are giving one tree something like +1 multipler to make it comparable... which just doesn't sit well with me.

[edrein]

I mean, that's the problem, right? The problem with this tree is that it's almost impossible to fit everything that a melee needs in it.

So... don't fit everything it needs.

Here's the thing. Every melee in the game needs enough bulk, damage and utility to be considered viable. Normally this is accomplished with 2 trees and a couple of feats. FvS and Cleric are both caster first, melee second. Which means they don't have that second tree. They should not try to make this tree into a generalist tree and give it a pinch of everything... that's tree is never going to work... what they need to do is focus on one or two things and really make this tree shine at it while also building on already existing synergies. The reason why Wolf and Bear feel so gosh darn good is because the class has 2 trees to work with when it comes to finding a balance between damage and bulk. Warpriest and Warsoul are alone... they only directly have access to caster-synergistic trees.

This means that Warpriest and Warsoul need to be designed in a way that has synergies around their existing trees. Warpriest should gain some synergy with Channel Divinity, Turn Undead and Domains so that it can shine dipping into the other cleric trees (For example, Divine Vessel could produce a free Turn Undead effect within it's range, or perhaps have a low chance of restoring 1 use of Channel Divinity if it kills something), meanwhile Warsoul should get synergies that make it more flavored toward Favored Soul. Another "Aura" type effect, or a chance to produce low level spells (whenever you attack with your favored weapon, you have a chance to produce a Burning Hands effect) or something that fits with the role of a Divine Sorcerer that has synergies with the already existing (and new) enhancement trees.

I'd rather them not make a half baked tree. They need to choose something and double down on it.

Your not wrong; though I'll remind you that the bear on its own is offensively better than any other 'support/specialist' tree while maintaining an arguably better defense than Stalwart (extra 5% HP bonus).

Not entirely sure if building both trees around their respective caster counterparts would fully work. The issue with hybrids is they are already at a major disadvantage. That's only further impacted by gearing, the inefficiency of all spells, and further damaged by their spells compared to the purist spell caster from their respective class.

I mean it'd be neat. But the devs have already told me more than once that pushing for ahem... Undead divines runs into licensing issues, although a War Priest synergizing with Dark Disciple and being an undead would be hilariously fun... Shame though! Anywho back on point, I just don't really see it working out. Like I stated giving us a multiselector between two stances; High defense mild DPS and High Offense mild defense, would be the best way to go about it.

[TMTrainer]

Your not wrong; though I'll remind you that the bear on its own is offensively better than any other 'support/specialist' tree while maintaining an arguably better defense than Stalwart (extra 5% HP bonus).

Not entirely sure if building both trees around their respective caster counterparts would fully work. The issue with hybrids is they are already at a major disadvantage. That's only further impacted by gearing, the inefficiency of all spells, and further damaged by their spells compared to the purist spell caster from their respective class.

I mean it'd be neat. But the devs have already told me more than once that pushing for ahem... Undead divines runs into licensing issues, although a War Priest synergizing with Dark Disciple and being an undead would be hilariously fun... Shame though! Anywho back on point, I just don't really see it working out. Like I stated giving us a multiselector between two stances; High defense mild DPS and High Offense mild defense, would be the best way to go about it.

To be fair, I think that the only think the stance would need to say is something like this.

Multiselector (requires more than 2/3rds of your total levels to be either Cleric or FvS):
Great Weapon Warmaster: "While you have this stance on, your favored weapon gets Wisdom or Charisma to hit and damage, and you gain the Two Handed Fighting feat. When you would qualify for Improved or Greater Two Handed fighting (using Wisdom as opposed to Strength for the stat requirement) this stance improves, adding the appropriate feats."
Dual Weapon Warmaster: "While you have this stance on, your favored weapon gets Wisdom or Charisma to hit and damage, and you gain the Two Weapon Fighting feat. When you would qualify for Improved or Greater Two Weapon fighting (using Wisdom as opposed to Dexterity for the stat requirement) this stance improves, adding the appropriate feats."
Archery Master: "While you have this stance on, your favored weapon gets Wisdom or Charisma to hit and damage, and you gain the Point Blank Shot feat. When you would qualify for feat that has a Point Blank Shot requirement (using Wisdom as opposed to Dexterity for the stat requirement) this stance improves, adding the appropriate feats."

Probably overpowered, but I'm just trying to make a point. This fixes the MAD issues of making a Cleric or FvS melee while also giving them the melee feats required to function. The pretty expensive drawback is the fact that you are locked into a single weapon or you lose all your benefits and you still don't get access to Precise Shot/Power Attack.

[btolson]

They should try to increase synergy between DD/AOV and WP/WS, by augmenting melee dps through spellpower, or spell dps through melee combat (such as gaining spellpower every time you hit something in melee). Special attacks or procs are an option. Possibly even as hackish as a high core/capstone that reads: "you convert X% of the spellpower gained from your DD/AOV tree into melee and ranged power".

Otherwise, if you're a pure WS/WP, where are your 80 AP going? You better own vistani and like daggers. The only other option is be a secondary healbot, minus the good stuff.

[J-mann]

They should try to increase synergy between DD/AOV and WP/WS, by augmenting melee dps through spellpower, or spell dps through melee combat (such as gaining spellpower every time you hit something in melee). Special attacks or procs are an option. Possibly even as hackish as a high core/capstone that reads: "you convert X% of the spellpower gained from your DD/AOV tree into melee and ranged power".

Otherwise, if you're a pure WS/WP, where are your 80 AP going? You better own vistani and like daggers. The only other option is be a secondary healbot, minus the good stuff.

I agree, ideally they should have done is casting tree, melee tree, and healing/defense tree. Honestly part of the issue is how lackluster radiant servant is. The other big issue is the lack of desireable level 7,8,9 spells. In anyevent warpriest really needs a means to make its spellcasting side a part of its arsenal, and to do that the devs would need to do what theu did for druid forms, consolidate their attack and dc stat for at least some spells. Ideally that would be soundbust,command, and, comet fall for me, but warpriest only getting to use part of what it is when the devs seem to think hybrids are possible when the are not due to itemization and ap spend os holding the tree back. Correct this issue so that that hybrid really is possible (melee dps with some cc casting) and suddenly you have a fun and useful tree that might actually get used. Unlike now where i cannot see anyone using the tree (especially tied to crappy favored weapons).

[Niminae]

I'm hoping so; otherwise it's a tad redundant with the Strength Domain.

That was my concern exactly. If Sacred is a typo for Divine, which is an easy mistake to make, or if they don't stack for some reason, then that's just another push towards the War domain as the Strength domain would lose much of its already limited appeal.

[SerPounce]

A few thoughts after reading through the thread.

1. All the melee domains still have their place and are reasonably balanced for DDO. Yes, war is best if you don't get crit boosts somewhere else, but if you already have crit boosts from Kensai (or vistani, or wherever) then Strength and Animal are both better than war. I've done several different cleric/kensai builds with strength domain and t5 kensai. I love the str to reflex. Destruction has it's place for barbarian based builds that get ravager +2 crit range. Domains might not be perfect, but they're in a pretty good place.

2. Deities and favored weapons remain a mess and are the biggest problem with melee divines. Silvanus is great. Everything else is basically garbage for a Cleric. Dagger and longbow are OKish for some niche FVS builds, but it's still mostly Silvanus or bust. Why is Silvanus so much better than everything else, particularly for Cleric? Especially frustrating givin how restrictive Silvanus is.

3. Despite melee divines being one of my favorite builds, and having done many variants, I'm just not feeling super excited these trees. It's not that they're terrible, but they feel like a kind of uninspired middle ground between a t5 kensai DPS build with 7-14 cleric/fvs levels and a war domain radiant servant build with 15+ cleric levels that can be a proper raid healer. War soul is a little more interesting because war domain isn't an option, but with only +1 multiplier I don't think the DPS will be good enough. Hopefully I'll figure out an interesting way to make use of it in the future.

[elvesunited]

A few thoughts after reading through the thread.

1. All the melee domains still have their place and are reasonably balanced for DDO. Yes, war is best if you don't get crit boosts somewhere else, but if you already have crit boosts from Kensai (or vistani, or wherever) then Strength and Animal are both better than war. I've done several different cleric/kensai builds with strength domain and t5 kensai. I love the str to reflex. Destruction has it's place for barbarian based builds that get ravager +2 crit range. Domains might not be perfect, but they're in a pretty good place.

2. Deities and favored weapons remain a mess and are the biggest problem with melee divines. Silvanus is great. Everything else is basically garbage for a Cleric. Dagger and longbow are OKish for some niche FVS builds, but it's still mostly Silvanus or bust. Why is Silvanus so much better than everything else, particularly for Cleric? Especially frustrating givin how restrictive Silvanus is.

3. Despite melee divines being one of my favorite builds, and having done many variants, I'm just not feeling super excited these trees. It's not that they're terrible, but they feel like a kind of uninspired middle ground between a t5 kensai DPS build with 7-14 cleric/fvs levels and a war domain radiant servant build with 15+ cleric levels that can be a proper raid healer. War soul is a little more interesting because war domain isn't an option, but with only +1 multiplier I don't think the DPS will be good enough. Hopefully I'll figure out an interesting way to make use of it in the future.

War Domain's also good if you're taking more than 6 levels of fighters and ditching the Holy sword SLA. But really once you've gone all in with taking all combat feats and maxing a non-spell casting attribute then you're no longer a hybrid. You're a fighter who happens to be able to heal and buff himself through passive casting. It's a valid choice, but its not a warpriest or warsoul.

A warpriest or warsoul as per the design we're seeing here is a spellcaster hybrid. He maxes his spellcasting abilties and then when the enemies around him are sitting there helpless ( most likely via greater command ) then he goes to town on them with his melee or ranged abilities. The warsoul can get spellcasting attribute for damage which will improve his DPS. The warpriest will give better defense and whatever domain he wants. ( probably a spell DC enhancing one )

Is this viable? The concepts okay, but the enhancement tree needs a little more defense and offense. ( and not just offense for warsoul [glass cannon] and defense for warpriest [pea shooter tank] ) Not enough to put it on par or close to kensei. That would be silly. But more than it has now.

[edrein]

War Domain's also good if you're taking more than 6 levels of fighters and ditching the Holy sword SLA. But really once you've gone all in with taking all combat feats and maxing a non-spell casting attribute then you're no longer a hybrid. You're a fighter who happens to be able to heal and buff himself through passive casting. It's a valid choice, but its not a warpriest or warsoul.

A warpriest or warsoul as per the design we're seeing here is a spellcaster hybrid. He maxes his spellcasting abilties and then when the enemies around him are sitting there helpless ( most likely via greater command ) then he goes to town on them with his melee or ranged abilities. The warsoul can get spellcasting attribute for damage which will improve his DPS. The warpriest will give better defense and whatever domain he wants. ( probably a spell DC enhancing one )

Is this viable? The concepts okay, but the enhancement tree needs a little more defense and offense. ( and not just offense for warsoul [glass cannon] and defense for warpriest [pea shooter tank] ) Not enough to put it on par or close to kensei. That would be silly. But more than it has now.

I'm sorry but I feel like you're reading into that. There's nothing in the tree design that says, "Cast spells to CC and then beat down with the anemic DPS skeleton we've given you!" There's no DC bonuses, no tactics to DC effects, no stats to DC. Nothing here to support a hybrid play style in the slightest. Unless you want to consider the smidge of spellpower that's always been in the tree... But what's this; the new additions use melee power for scaling?

The concept of a hybrid is always going to be nice. But the practical viability of such isn't true. Just because you get the one off crazy multiclassed build like Tilomere's (that had less than half cleric/fvs levels) that can pull off CCing via spells and doing adequate melee DPS that it can capitalize on doesn't mean that's the case for everyone else or even the tree itself. There's nothing in war priest that lends itself to DPS. For the past few years it's mostly been splashed to make use of Ameliorating Strike. That's the purpose of the tree.

[elvesunited]

I'm sorry but I feel like you're reading into that. There's nothing in the tree design that says, "Cast spells to CC and then beat down with the anemic DPS skeleton we've given you!" There's no DC bonuses, no tactics to DC effects, no stats to DC. Nothing here to support a hybrid play style in the slightest. Unless you want to consider the smidge of spellpower that's always been in the tree... But what's this; the new additions use melee power for scaling?

The concept of a hybrid is always going to be nice. But the practical viability of such isn't true. Just because you get the one off crazy multiclassed build like Tilomere's (that had less than half cleric/fvs levels) that can pull off CCing via spells and doing adequate melee DPS that it can capitalize on doesn't mean that's the case for everyone else or even the tree itself. There's nothing in war priest that lends itself to DPS. For the past few years it's mostly been splashed to make use of Ameliorating Strike. That's the purpose of the tree.

I'm not reading into it. I'm grasping at straws. Trying to come up with a pure cleric warpriest/warsoul capstone concept that might work with the direction that warpriest/warsoul seems to be heading.

If it's melee DPS / tactical DC character with passive casting that you are going for, then warpriest/warsoul is not what you want. Splash 6-8 levels of fighter/barbarian/bard/ranger or capstone in vistani or arcane archer instead. But none of these would be warpriest/warsoul builds. And pumping up warpriest/warsoul to the point where it is competitive with Tier 5 Kensei splash isn't realistic.

Nor is warpriest/warsoul a spellcasting DPS build. That's divine disciple/angel of vengeance territory.

So all that is left is hybrid. And I'm going with DC spell caster because outside of necro/evocation none of the trees provide any support of DC casting.

And we agree again on viability. It's not up to a hybrid wolf/bear caster. I really doubt it is viable. It needs to be stronger offensively/defensively/casting.

[edrein]

I'm not reading into it. I'm grasping at straws. Trying to come up with a pure cleric warpriest/warsoul capstone concept that might work with the direction that warpriest/warsoul seems to be heading.

If it's melee DPS / tactical DC character with passive casting that you are going for, then warpriest/warsoul is not what you want. Splash 6-8 levels of fighter/barbarian/bard/ranger or capstone in vistani or arcane archer instead. But none of these would be warpriest/warsoul builds. And pumping up warpriest/warsoul to the point where it is competitive with Tier 5 Kensei splash isn't realistic.

Nor is warpriest/warsoul a spellcasting DPS build. That's divine disciple/angel of vengeance territory.

So all that is left is hybrid. And I'm going with DC spell caster because outside of necro/evocation none of the trees provide any support of DC casting.

And we agree again on viability. It's not up to a hybrid wolf/bear caster. I really doubt it is viable. It needs to be stronger offensively/defensively/casting.

I've two directions I'd like to see the War * tree go in general.

One would be an AA style route for the Righteous Weapons line as I posted here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post6109373) and the new capstone -FORM- from here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post6109377) and make the tree a spellpower fueled offensive line. The additional changes in the OP to make Priest and Soul separate meshes with them. The Extra Forms give additional options based on Deity choice. Overall I feel like this would be the best bridge between the various camps as an option. You get DPS that puts you near AA/Swashbuckler/Nature's Warrior without giving you the additional CC options built in like they have.

The other; would be to go into a more druid's Nature * tree line. Adding new spells or changes to spells in the cores to make them more hybridized and functional for a War * that's building for it. Additionally with things such as tactics to spells or bonuses to spell DCs such as Enchantment for Command and Greater Command. As well as CC attack and adding a knockdown to Divine Vessel (which I hope they do either way). This is the least likely option as it's going to require a lot more time and effort that the current pipeline probably allows.

[Vish]

Remember,
Rarer than unicorns

[Tilomere]

@Everyone comparing this to Kensai:

Henshin was just nerfed from 75 to 30 melee power.

What makes you think Kensai isn't also going to be nerfed from 60 to 30 melee power?

You guys are comparing Warpriest/Soul to a tree whos days are numbered.

[Kaboom2112]

What makes you think Kensai isn't also going to be nerfed from 60 to 30 melee power?

That's easy. Even with the gobs and gobs of MP Kensai's are not over performing.