U39 Preview 1: War Soul & War Priest Revamp

[Vish]

At the moment, you can work up stacks toward a new charge even if you haven't used your existing charge yet.

So, does this have an unlimited counter on it,
Or can you only store one charge,
Or do they stack overflow and you get multiple?
That would be sweet

Steel,
Ok been looking over the changes
Everything looks ok, except
Add +2 mp/rp to each righteous weapons
That will make it worthwhile
Include wrathfully, maybe 5 mp/rp
Change 18 core
Make it displacement
You said warpriest is defensive,
So here's defense
Haste sucks, is stoopid
Or change it to something else defense
But make it worth going pure
Because if you go pure and go tier5
You have no aura
And if you're melee then you take damage
And here's old cleric
Heal thyself
So you will be firing off heals just to keep yourself alive
It's much different than melee with aura
So basically a naked cleric
And if you expect it to kill something,
It needs defense and offense
Thus a couple small changes
If you did that, I might consider something
And the reduction to 3 min on the timer,
What I was thinking too.
Remember, I never seen a pure warpriest
Rarer than unicorns
It's gotta be something good to get them to do it

Otherwise, I'm just playing warlocks

[Sormiron]

Making making a hybrid was what I originaly always wanted to do with cleric. fire or light would make sense. Right now I can only see fire working but maybe in some future with destiny changes light will too.

With it being a hybrid doing extra fire damage it would make more sense to go crusader and take scion of fire instead of just end up in dreadnaughty again. I kind of like the idea

[Niminae]

Mostly a solid upgrade to both classes fighting trees. I guess it isn't a surprise that that applies to both classes since the trees are almost identical. Adding more "things to do" in between auto attacks was a good thing. I especially approve of lowering the costs of Righteous/Wrathful Weapons to 1 AP each, changing the STR Enhancement bonus in Divine Power to Sacred, and moving Magic Backlash down to T3.

Please consider adding heavy armor to the Warsoul Tier 5 Divine Champion:

NEW: Divine Champion: While wearing Medium armor, you gain +5% Doublestrike, +5% Doubleshot, +5 to confirm critical hits and critical hit damage (before weapon multipliers)

You only need 5 FvS levels to go to T5 in the tree, and many of the classes a FvS might want to multi- with bring Heavy armor to the table. There's no particular reason that a FvS should be limited to wearing Medium armor to get the benefits of this ability, especially if they either paid a feat to get Heavy armor or paid the opportunity costs in capstones and etc. by multi-classing.

Also please consider that FvS may not be STR based melee. Divine Power should be a multi-selector for STR/WIS/CHA. And DEX if you wanted to be really kind to the Silver Flame builds.

Some kind of weapon grouping of weapons similar enough to the deity weapons would offer a lot more flexibility.

I'm pretty sure that if I ever play a Warpriest again I'll still be multi-classing with Fighter or Paladin or both in order to make an effective melee combatant. But at least now the Warpriest tree is both less expensive and has better low hanging fruit.

[edrein]

Making making a hybrid was what I originaly always wanted to do with cleric. fire or light would make sense. Right now I can only see fire working but maybe in some future with destiny changes light will too.

With it being a hybrid doing extra fire damage it would make more sense to go crusader and take scion of fire instead of just end up in dreadnaughty again. I kind of like the idea.

I'm curious as to why you say that. Given most mobs in epic levels (and especially at end game) are fire resistant or immune this statement seems a bit off. If anything light/alignment damage would be the best route as to increasing the shelf life of the enhancements and not needing to go back and retweak things.

Unless War Priest/Soul is getting something to strip enemies of fire immunity; this is a bit of a moot point. Although this is the same argument I have about to new T5 ability in Angel of Vengeance. Fire damage is a bad plan if you aren't a druid or savant.

[NabeGewell]

While you're at it fix Zealous Faith from Angel of Vengeance to actually ad the 1/3 to caster levels rather then to be a waste of ap and do nothing. I assume it's exact same bonus as from Intense Faith and does not stack? lol

Regarding war tree:

Good to see ranged types are getting options, added doublestike and doubleshot, and competence bonus to critical multi like every other class nowadays, divine power actually giving stackable strength after about 12years. Seeing improvement(regarding deity weps) for Silvanus builds, nothing more, really. Inflame cooldown is too high, overall too many short time long cooldown boost clickies to care about, rather decrease numbers abit on some and make them passive like Knigh of the Chalice this tree is aspiring to be. Ameliorating strike is probably the best thing from the older version of this tree and still it's too high in tier(ap costly) for it's effect/cooldown, especially when you concider self healing debuff in reaper - you barely benefit from it yourself.

TLDR: if you want to have a laugh compare the divine trees of core5-6 and t4-5 of ones from warelock has and then ask yourself if the war tree is good now.

[Niminae]

I dislike the logic that we should punish pure/near pure clerics simply because they didn't take War Domain over Strength, Destruction, etc. And expecting that they should by virtue, of not picking War Domain, multiclass to pick up crits to round out their builds.

I think you're right in general, except I'd not use the term 'punish.' But I also see a repeat of the same issue which caused them to abandon all of the deity-specific options in the AoV capstone: When you have a lot of options, some of them are just going to be mechanically better than others. There are 19 domains, and that's a lot of options. And of the melee oriented sub-set of the domain options, some are simply better than others.

I guess there'd be no huge harm in offering a threat/multiplier bonus in the Warpriest that wouldn't stack with the War Domain. But then you'd hear it from the War Domain players, saying that their domain was being watered down, etc. There's also no real harm in setting it up so that players who plan to take at least 14 levels of Cleric are pointed towards (but not forced into) the War domain, while players who plan on a different level split might select a different melee oriented domain. It's a balancing act, and as Lincoln said (paraphrasing) someone will always be ****ed off at your decisions.

[edrein]

I think you're right in general, except I'd not use the term 'punish.' But I also see a repeat of the same issue which caused them to abandon all of the deity-specific options in the AoV capstone: When you have a lot of options, some of them are just going to be mechanically better than others. There are 19 domains, and that's a lot of options. And of the melee oriented sub-set of the domain options, some are simply better than others.

I guess there'd be no huge harm in offering a threat/multiplier bonus in the Warpriest that wouldn't stack with the War Domain. But then you'd hear it from the War Domain players, saying that their domain was being watered down, etc. There's also no real harm in setting it up so that players who plan to take at least 14 levels of Cleric are pointed towards (but not forced into) the War domain, while players who plan on a different level split might select a different melee oriented domain. It's a balancing act, and as Lincoln said (paraphrasing) someone will always be ****ed off at your decisions.

The issue is; people cried and moaned over the original War Domain, screaming it was going to be OP or didn't cater to certain weaker fringe deity options (I'm look at you Helm). So rather than try the unique and brilliant idea they original presented, they settled for the Holy Sword option. Something I fought tooth and nail against from day one for the very situation we're sitting in currently. Everyone else is going to suffer because of War Domain. By no means am I saying give every War Priest range and multiplier. But give them one or the other to make pure/14 level clerics in the other domains attractive in their own right. With the way it's looking now; I'd only ever play a cleric again to go 14 clr/6 monk strength domain with an emphasis on Vistani and Ninja Spy.

War Domain + War Priest doesn't even come close KotC, which in itself is quite telling. But meh, I guess most people are still in the Clerics are healbots mentality. And I'll take a leap of faith and say Favored Souls are about to get thrown into the healbot clause as well given how strong Beacon of Hope is and how weak War Soul is as a solo tree. (Mind you, I'll admit that Vistani and Sylvanus Maul do in some ways change that. But both of those are options placed behind a paywall.)

[Sormiron]

I'm curious as to why you say that. Given most mobs in epic levels (and especially at end game) are fire resistant or immune this statement seems a bit off. If anything light/alignment damage would be the best route as to increasing the shelf life of the enhancements and not needing to go back and retweak things.

Unless War Priest/Soul is getting something to strip enemies of fire immunity; this is a bit of a moot point. Although this is the same argument I have about to new T5 ability in Angel of Vengeance. Fire damage is a bad plan if you aren't a druid or savant.

What I am saying is that it got synergy with what already excist in the game. Light is a bit trickier. Going Exalted angel doesnt do much for melee atm so I guess it would be dreadnaught again. Sure fire damage doesnt do much to mobs with fire immunities but you should do fairly well even without and if tuned well, very well against those without.

Wisdom based fvs using divine crusader WITH celestial bombardment is something I would like to see.

Maybe something to atleast partly bypass fire immunities would be in order. I am not entirely sure it should be in the warpriest/warsoul tree though.

[J-mann]

The way to balance favored weapons usefulness is to ad fire or light damage on hit like a arcane archer can get elemental or force on hit,.Take what arcane archer does, make it 2d6 base fire and 1d6 for every extra tier on favored weapons, for a max of 5d6. Let spell power work on it and viola you now get a scalable useful damage proc on favored weapons. Have a separate enhancement that converts the fire damage to light damage like a warlocks force to evil damage on base blasts conversion. worried about op arcane archers? well dont let them have a aa damage imbue and a warpriest damage imbue active at the same time. I think this would be terrible though since a cleric aa right now is pretty poor dps but good cc. are the numbers too high? change to 1d6 and d4 or what ever . Something that would make a cleric with 800ish fire spell power do about 300 a hit in fire damage. This is already the case with a elemental scion feat.

If you want to balance the weapons against each other then you can modify the % of spell power that works with the divine imbue. Mauls and dangers the least. Maces, long bows, war hammers and sickles the most.


Another easy alternative would to be adding the same crit threat bonus that mauls get for having 6 divine levels as a follower of sylvanius to warhammers maces and sickles. Then adding a +1 to all the others except daggers. give daggers a +1w.
Or nerf mauls down to +1 threat range give that to maces warhammers sickles and long bows, Give the other weapon types a .5w bonus and no one would care anymore.

All nerfing mauls will do is ensure they are not viable either. I play 2hf and hate robos so maul is really the only option, and it is locked behind Iconics. I play as a warpriest/pally in pretty much all my d&d games and would like to see it as a viable tree in ddo, but currently it is not due to weapon selections. The issue is that you need to make taking t5 with a favored weapon as attractive as splashing 5/6 Kensai (depending on if you need the multi or not) and using a better weapon and getting almost as much dps just from the splash and a weapon swap as a ton of ap, and as soon as you add that ap back into kensai it becomes a blow out in kensais favor. The issue with your damage proc idea is again, you have to balance around far too many variables. Each weapon, each fighting style (base damage procs like that vastly favor 2wf) and so forth. The change of divine vessle to a clicky is a huge improvement, but unless they do something to balance out the weapon choices some (and give us some more 2hf non-iconics or make staves not break if you swing them twice in a quest) t5 warpriest will be a flavor build and thats a shame.

[Niminae]

I see no changes to the righteous weapon line except t5. I guess that means it is still +1 enhancement bonus to weapons.

Righteous Weapon Line - I'm really surprised you all didn't modify this at all.

I think you both missed that they changed the cost to 1AP per tier straight up the line.

And many trees grant better then +1 hit/damage for the same 2 AP.

But it's 1 AP now.

When I first looked at the text under the table, I was hunting for the changes to Righteous/Wrathful Weapons, and there isn't any mention of them at all. But you can see that they put the orange "this has changed" indicator around the entire chain, and then the (1) under each tier pops out at you and you go "Ahhhhh, I see now!"

[J-mann]

The issue is; people cried and moaned over the original War Domain, screaming it was going to be OP or didn't cater to certain weaker fringe deity options (I'm look at you Helm). So rather than try the unique and brilliant idea they original presented, they settled for the Holy Sword option. Something I fought tooth and nail against from day one for the very situation we're sitting in currently. Everyone else is going to suffer because of War Domain. By no means am I saying give every War Priest range and multiplier. But give them one or the other to make pure/14 level clerics in the other domains attractive in their own right. With the way it's looking now; I'd only ever play a cleric again to go 14 clr/6 monk strength domain with an emphasis on Vistani and Ninja Spy.

War Domain + War Priest doesn't even come close KotC, which in itself is quite telling. But meh, I guess most people are still in the Clerics are healbots mentality. And I'll take a leap of faith and say Favored Souls are about to get thrown into the healbot clause as well given how strong Beacon of Hope is and how weak War Soul is as a solo tree. (Mind you, I'll admit that Vistani and Sylvanus Maul do in some ways change that. But both of those are options placed behind a paywall.)

Sad part is is the vistani t5 is probably the better way to go for that build in any event because you will want the vistani capstone. I cannot think of a build where t5 warpriest is a good choice as it stands now with the weapon choices we have outside of silvanus, and even then splashing kensai would likely be far superior (or if a non-iconic saying screw favored weapons and splashing kensai and picking up a falcion/kopesh, in fact that option is likely vastly superior as it stands). Also the only decent 2hf option being locked behind robos or iconics is beyond annoying and needs fixed. Open up fr deities to non-iconic characters.

[J-mann]

Also I would like to reiterate that inflame is far, far, far, far too expensive for the benefits it provides. 4 ap and 50% uptime would be far more reasonable for the provided benefits.

[edrein]

What I am saying is that it got synergy with what already excist in the game. Light is a bit trickier. Going Exalted angel doesnt do much for melee atm so I guess it would be dreadnaught again. Sure fire damage doesnt do much to mobs with fire immunities but you should do fairly well even without and if tuned well, very well against those without.

Wisdom based fvs using divine crusader WITH celestial bombardment is something I would like to see.

Maybe something to atleast partly bypass fire immunities would be in order. I am not entirely sure it should be in the warpriest/warsoul tree though.

Consecration is half good and half fire. So the Light spell power is actually effective in Divine Crusader.

Exalted is in an odd spot. The tree is definitely caster leaning and focused, but Angellic Form definitely has some strange leftover holdout of some other idea for there to be melee parts in the tree it seems when you take a look at Reborn in Light.

Until Celestial Bombardment is updated to have a non-insane SP cost and cooldown, I'll hold my breath. 100SP and 1 minute cooldown is insane (And that requires you wasting 3 points on it). I'd love to see it get split or updated with a bit of Bludgeon/Force damage as well to give it more universal appeal as previously stated Fire damage is in an awkward spot.

[edrein]

Sad part is is the vistani t5 is probably the better way to go for that build in any event because you will want the vistani capstone. I cannot think of a build where t5 warpriest is a good choice as it stands now with the weapon choices we have outside of silvanus, and even then splashing kensai would likely be far superior (or if a non-iconic saying screw favored weapons and splashing kensai and picking up a falcion/kopesh, in fact that option is likely vastly superior as it stands). Also the only decent 2hf option being locked behind robos or iconics is beyond annoying and needs fixed. Open up fr deities to non-iconic characters.

Actually, in the case of the build I mentioned, previously I would have skipped going for any T5 (atleast in preference) and would have just focused on spending AP. That being said T5 Ninja Spy would give 50% doublestrike for 12 seconds. Meaning you wouldn't have to play in DC if you didn't want to. The only reason that build would be remotely decent is due to fact you can pick up about +3W with daggers while centered, strength for reflex saves, and stun immunity. You'd still probably explode if anything hit you, though Shadow Veil makes up for that.

But yeah, overall it feels like clerics got the short end of the stick. And I'm really not seeing/feeling a big difference gap between War Priest and War Soul. If one is supposed to be offensive and one defensive, they both need to get bumped in their appropriate directions. As neither holds a candle to Sacred Defender or KotC (although KotC is by no means a comparative DPS tree). Overall, I'd hope to see some of the suggestions people have offered here on the Deity Weapons line show up. Giving us 'spell imbues' for light damage or thematic damage would help a lot, especially if it scales like the new AA. I'd sacrifice a gear slot and really pimp out my light spellpower to accomplish big hitting on-hit numbers for light damage. (And no, I'm not talking Enlightened Spirit levels. 40-60 per swing is anemic.)

[btolson]

I think you both missed that they changed the cost to 1AP per tier straight up the line.



But it's 1 AP now.

When I first looked at the text under the table, I was hunting for the changes to Righteous/Wrathful Weapons, and there isn't any mention of them at all. But you can see that they put the orange "this has changed" indicator around the entire chain, and then the (1) under each tier pops out at you and you go "Ahhhhh, I see now!"

They're all still 2 AP on Lam. Your guess is as good as mine if that's a bug.

[Sormiron]

Consecration is half good and half fire. So the Light spell power is actually effective in Divine Crusader.

Exalted is in an odd spot. The tree is definitely caster leaning and focused, but Angellic Form definitely has some strange leftover holdout of some other idea for there to be melee parts in the tree it seems when you take a look at Reborn in Light.

Until Celestial Bombardment is updated to have a non-insane SP cost and cooldown, I'll hold my breath. 100SP and 1 minute cooldown is insane (And that requires you wasting 3 points on it). I'd love to see it get split or updated with a bit of Bludgeon/Force damage as well to give it more universal appeal as previously stated Fire damage is in an awkward spot.

Concecration scales with Fire spellpower, both the good and fire damage part. I dont think light spellpower has any effect on it at all if I remember correctly.
Celestial bombardment sure is costy but it is on my wishlist.
Exalted Angels Reborn in light is is a bit odd. I´ve not tested it but I have some vague memmory of some monks using it becouse of their attackspeed. I doubt the light damage on hit scales with anything.

I did miss the change of cost to Righteous weapons. that is good. The enhancment bonus issue due to item changes I mentioned earlier is not a biggie. It´s just been lingering like a splinter in my skull since I did tests with it and every enhancement bonus I could get on my weapons. just fix it please... FIX IT!

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Goals:

• Add ranged support to these for Silver Flame builds
• Bring overall weapon DPS up between burst and +[w] attacks (additionally, giving Favored Soul access to weapon criticals)
• Give this tree interesting things to do (Its only attack skill right now is on a long cooldown)
• Fix/Remove a few of the abilities that are huge AP sinks for minor benefit
• Push Warpriest to have more defense than War Soul
• Push War Soul to have more offense than Warpriest

Both CLR and FvS versions:

• Cores:
  
  • Smite Foe is now a Multiselector with a Melee and Ranged version.
  • Smite Foe's cooldown has been reduced to 12 seconds
  • Implacable Foe's cooldown has been reduced to 3 minutes.
• Tier 2:
  
  • Inflame is no longer an Action Boost. It no longer has charges, and now has a 90 second cooldown.
  • Inflame: Saving Throws has been rolled into Greater Inflame (see below)
• Tier 3:
  
  • Inflame: Energy Absorption is now "Greater Inflame", has all the effects of Inflame: Energy Absorption and Inflame: Saving Throws
  • Magical Backlash has been moved to Tier 3!
  • Burden of Sin is gone.
  • Replaced with: Radiant Flourish (multiselect melee/ranged): +1/2/3[w] attack, adds 1d6/2d6/3d6 Light Damage that scales with 200% of (higher of Melee or Ranged Power). Small chance to blind non-Boss enemies with no save. 6 second cooldown.
• Tier 4:
  • Light Guard is gone.
  • Replaced with +3/6/10% Doublestrike or Doubleshot (Multiselector)
  • New: Silence the Wicked (multiselect melee/ranged):
  • +1/2/3[w], affected enemy can't cast spells for 4 seconds.
    • Melee: 14/12/10 second cooldown.
    • Ranged: 20/18/15 second cooldown.
• Tier 5:
  • Wrathful Weapons: Light damage is now 10d6 Light Damge that lasts for 12 seconds, and scales with the higher of Melee and Ranged power at 200%.
  • Divine Power is now a +6 Sacred Bonus to Strength (plus the Base Attack Bonus it already gives).

Cleric (Warpriest) Only:

• Cores:
  
  • Implacable Foe is now a Multiselector (all versions have the same effects):
    • +2 STR, +2 CON
    • +2 CON, +2 WIS
• Tier 2:
  
  • NEW: Action Boost: Melee & Ranged Power
• Tier 5:
  
  • NEW: While wearing Heavy armor, you gain +10 PRR, +10 MRR, +10 AC, and +50% to threat generation with melee and ranged attacks.
  • Divine Power is now 1AP.

Favored Soul (War Soul) Only:

• Cores:
  
  • Implacable Foe is now a Multiselector (all versions have the same effects):
    
    • +4 STR
    • +4 WIS
    • +4 CHA
• Tier 2:
  
  • NEW: Action Boost: Haste
• Tier 5:
  
  • NEW: Divine Champion: While wearing Medium armor, you gain +5% Doublestrike, +5% Doubleshot, +5 to confirm critical hits and critical hit damage (before weapon multipliers)
  • Divine Power remains at 2AP. It now also grants a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Multiplier with weapons.

Please consider adding the following effect to one of the enhancements in the warpriest tree "Any weapon you are granted proficiency with through your domain feats counts as your favored weapon". This effect would add to the War Domain builds!

[Niminae]

They're all still 2 AP on Lam. Your guess is as good as mine if that's a bug.

... Golly! And of course I am just assuming that being highlighted in orange means that there was a change, since there was no actual key defining what the colored and uncolored boxes meant.

[Niminae]

What do the orange outlines mean?

What does the non-orange mean?

Do the numbers indicate AP cost?
- If so, why are there boxes with no numbers?

[adrian69]

Is the Core 5 just multiplier or both +1 to crit range and multiplier and was just left out? War Clerics will be ahead defensively and offensively without it. Actually wouldn't mind seeing it being attached to deity weapon and auto adjusts in at level 12 to be fair and then give FvS an extra multiplier or critical range either in T5 or capstone.

I don't like the idea of Divine Might(whatever it's called for what these days) pushed to tier 2, but I'll accept.

I'd also like to see FvS's +6 Sacred Strength a Multi-selector between Strength/Wisdom/Charisma. Even going Charisma or Wisdom to damage, it's hard to fit in the needed gear to get enchantment and evocation spells to effectively hit except the earliest points in the game unless you just give up up some melee-ish things in trade. I don't see it breaking or pushing too much.