U41 Preview 2: Eldritch Knight

[Cocomajobo]

Eldritch Knight has been improved!

• Cores
  
  • Core 1: Eldritch Strike: Melee Cleave Attack. +1[W]. If this attack hits, your weapon also releases a blast of magical energy, dealing an additional 1 to 2 Force Damage per character level to all nearby foes.(Activation Cost: 0 Spell Points Cooldown: 12 seconds). You gain proficiency with Simple Weapons. Every Core Ability in the Eldritch Knight tree grants you +10 Max hit points.
  • Core 2: Spellsword (you get all four of the following toggles, 5 spell points to activate). Passive: +2% Doublestrike, +10 Universal Spell Power. You gain proficiency in Light Armor and Martial Weapons.
  • Corrosive: Charge your equipped weapon with magical Acid, causing it to deal an additional 1d6 (element) damage on hit. You gain an additional Spellsword Die every 3 (wizard/sorcerer) levels (at 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18). This damage scales with Acid Spell Power. While active, your Eldritch Strike deals 1-2 additional Acid damage per Character Level which scales with Acid Spell Power. While this is enabled, your weapon and shield attacks have Ghost Touch. Flaming: As above, with fire. Frost: As above, with cold. Shock: As above, with electric.
  • Core 3: Melee weapons are considered Spellcasting Implements in your hands. You gain the Quick Draw feat. -15% Arcane Spell Failure from equipped Armor and Shields. +2% Doublestrike. +10 Universal Spell Power
  • Core 4: Subtle Force: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6 seconds. -20% Arcane Spell Failure from equipped Armor and Shields. +6 Resistance to Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, and Sonic. +10 Universal Spell Power. +2% Doublestrike. Your Spellsword Dice are now d8s (instead of their original d6s).
  • Core 5: Subtle Force II: +5% Stacking Incorporeality. Your Deflect Arrows now triggers every 2 seconds. +2% Doublestrike. +10 Universal Spell Power. Your Spellsword Dice are now d10s (replacing the previous d8s).
  • Core 6: Eldritch Blade: Your Eldritch Strike now grants you a Power Charge. When you have 5 Power Charges, they are removed, and you gain Eldritch Power. Eldritch Power: +10% melee damage, +4d6 Spellsword Dice, +3d4 Force Damage on Hit (this scales with Force spell power), +25 Universal Spell Power, +15 Physical Resistance Rating, +40 Magical Resistance Rating. Duration 30 seconds. Passive: +1 Spellsword Die. Your Spellsword Dice are now d12s (replacing the previous d10s). +2% Doublestrike. +2 (Intelligence/Charisma), +2 Constitution, +10 Universal Spell Power.

• Tier 1
  
  • Improved Mage Armor: (unchanged) Spell Like Ability: Mage Armor. (Activation Cost: 8/6/4 Spell Points). In addition, while you are under the effect of the Mage Armor spell, you gain a +3%/+6%/+10% Exceptional Bonus to Armor Class.
  • Arcane Siphon: Melee Attack: +1/2/3[W]. On hit: Gain +10/20/30 Universal Spell Power for 20 seconds. 12 second cooldown.
  • Item Defense: (unchanged) You have a 25%/50%/75% chance to negate potential item wear.
  • Toughness: (unchanged) +5/10/15 Max hit points.
  • Battlemage (unchanged) +1/+2/+3 Concentration, Intimidate, and Spellcraft.
  
  
• Tier 2
  
  • Improved Shield: Spell Like Ability: Shield (Activation Cost: 8/6/4 Spell points). In addition, while you are under the effect of the Shield spell, you gain +3/+6/+10 Exceptional Bonus to Physical Resistance Rating.
  • Mystic Wards: +3/6/10 Magical Resistance Rating.
  • Action Boost: Spell Power: Activate to gain a +10/+20/+30 Action Boost bonus to Spell Power for 20 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.
  • Shield Training: (unchanged) Passive: You gain proficiency with all shields except Tower Shields, and your Arcane Spell Failure chance from equipped shields is reduced by 5%.
  • Wand & Scroll Mastery: (unchanged) +25%/+50%/+75% effectiveness from your wands, scrolls, and other items that cast spells, and +1/+2/+3 to the save DC of your offensive wands. Taking Wand and Scroll Mastery in one enhancement tree will block its availability in other enhancement trees.
  
  
• Tier 3
  
  • Arcane Barrier: (Now 1 Rank): Passive: When your hit points drop below 50% of maximum, you are immediately protected by an Arcane Barrier that reduces all incoming damage by 25% for the next 20 seconds. This effect may only trigger once every 90 seconds.
  • Eldritch Accuracy: You get (INT/CHA) to hit with weapons and shield bashes.
  • Synergetic Magic: While you have Action Boost: Spell Power active, you also get the benefits of Action Boost: Power (+10/20/30 Action Boost bonus to Melee Power and Ranged Power for 20 seconds.)
  • Critical Mastery: +1/2/3 to confirm critical hits and critical hit damage (before weapon multipliers)
  • Ability Score Multiselctor: (unchanged) +1 STR/DEX/(INT or CHA)
  
  
• Tier 4
  
  • Knight's Transformation: Toggle: While this is turned on, all your spells and SLAs that are affected by Metamagics have their range reduced to touch range. You cannot enable the Enlarge Metamagic while this is active. You gain +30 Universal Spell Power, +5 to Hit with Weapons, +3% Doublestrike, and +3% Spell Critical Damage. Your Base Attack Bonus equals your Character Level.
  • Improved Offhand: Multiselector:
  • Shield Striking: (unchanged) On Hit: +5%/+10%/+15% chance to proc an immediate Shield Bash attack with an equipped shield. Every six seconds while you have a shield equipped, you gain Temporary hit points equal to the enhancement bonus of your equipped shield.
  • Orb Saves: +1/2/3 to saving throws and +3/6/10 Universal Spell Power while holding an Orb.
  • Force's Point: When you cast a spell, you gain a stack of Force's Point: Martial (+1 To-Hit and Damage). This stacks up to 5 times. When you hit with a melee weapon, you gain a stack of Force's Point: Magical (+2 Universal Spell Power). This stacks up to 10 times. Stacks last for 12 seconds each. You may only gain each effect once per second.
  • Armored Arcana: You gain proficiency in Medium Armor, and suffer no Arcane Spell Failure from Light or Medium Armor.
  • Ability Score Multiselector: (unchanged) +1 STR/DEX/(INT or CHA).
  
  
• Tier 5
  
  • Improved Knight's Transformation: If you have Knight's Transformation active, you also gain +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Multiplier with Melee Weapons, +3 to Damage with Weapons, and the Mobile Spellcasting feat, allowing you to move more quickly while casting.
  • Knight's Magic: Multiselector:
  • Knight Striker: If you have Knight's Transformation active, you also gain +2 to Evocation DCs, +2 to Conjuration DCs, and +20 Melee Power.
  • Knight Controller: If you have Knight's Transformation active, you also gain +2 to Enchantment DCs, +2 Illusion DCs, +4 Spell Penetration, and +20 Melee Power.
  • Force's Edge: When you cast a spell, you gain +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Threat Range for 12 seconds. When you make a Melee Attack, you gain +5% Spell Critical Chance for 12 seconds.
  • Radiant Forcefield: Spell Like Ability: Radiant Forcefield (Activation Cost: 30 Spell Points. Cooldown: 3 minutes.)
  • Eldritch Tempest: Activate: Perform a spinning melee attack, dealing weapon damage +5[W] to all nearby enemies and knocking them prone for 1 second and Slowing them by 50% for 6 seconds. This attack has +10 to Critical Threat Range and +3 to Critical Multiplier. (Activation Cost: 25/20/15 Spell points. Cooldown: 60/45/30 seconds). If any foes are struck by Eldritch Tempest, your weapon also releases an explosion of magical force, dealing an additional 1d6 Force damage per character level to all nearby enemies. This additional force damage is affected by your spell power. (now 1 Action Point per rank)

LAMANNIA ONLY: Fixed a bug from Preview 1 where Ranged damage wasn't taking Spellsword Dice beyond the first.

[Claver]

- The acid damage from Spellsword scaled nicely for a level 18 sorcerer and was well worth the 5 AP to unlock

- Eldritch Strike is showing force damage on screen over the head of the test kobold but this force damage did not appear in the combat log. I am; however, seeing the additional acid damage now from Eldritch Strike

- Arcane Siphon seemed to always produce bigger damage relative to Eldritch Strike...I'll have to do a bit more testing to be sure

- Knights Transformation...I like the graphic similar to Tensers (Nice Touch)...p.s. Thanks for the +20 melee power, that does make Tier 5 worth consideration

- Eldritch Tempest...Cool animation...I now notice the damage numbers thanks to the +3 crit multiplier...again making Tier 5 worth consideration



Switched from Tier 5 Vistani into Tier 5 EK....Damage felt promising; but for this particular acid build, I value being able to cast fog/rain spells at a distance so I don't think I'll make EK my focus on this particular life....but definitely will consider it in the future

[GramercyRiff]

There's still the BaB issue with pure Wiz/Sorc qualifying for melee feats, but it's good to see Spellsword and Transformation get a good buff from last version.

I'm still not sure Transformation is worth the severe drawback. I'd have to play it again.

edit: I can see a world where the drawback wouldn't matter in this version, so it's probably good now.

Oh and Tempest also. That ability seems pretty good now.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

• 
  
  • Core 6: Eldritch Blade: Your Eldritch Strike now grants you a Power Charge. When you have 5 Power Charges, they are removed, and you gain Eldritch Power. Eldritch Power: +10% melee damage, +4d6 Spellsword Dice, +3d4 Force Damage on Hit (this scales with Force spell power), +25 Universal Spell Power, +15 Physical Resistance Rating, +40 Magical Resistance Rating. Duration 30 seconds. Passive: +1 Spellsword Die. Your Spellsword Dice are now d12s (replacing the previous d10s). +2% Doublestrike. +2 (Intelligence/Charisma), +2 Constitution, +10 Universal Spell Power.

Is that supposed to just be "+4 Spellsword Dice"? Or is it just an additional +4d6 elemental damage? (so 7d12 + 4d6 when Eldritch Power is active, or 11d12 when it's active?)

Either way, loving the improved die as you level!

[Pilgrim1]

[B][COLOR=#FFFF00]Eldritch Knight has been improved![*]Corrosive: Charge your equipped weapon with magical Acid, causing it to deal an additional 1d6 (element) damage on hit. You gain an additional Spellsword Die every 3 (wizard/sorcerer) levels (at 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18). This damage scales with Acid Spell Power. While active, your Eldritch Strike deals 1-2 additional Acid damage per Character Level which scales with Acid Spell Power. While this is enabled, your weapon and shield attacks have Ghost Touch. Flaming: As above, with fire. Frost: As above, with cold. Shock: As above, with electric.

Couple of things:

1) does the 1d6 damage dice scale with wizard/sorcer levels, or wizard/sorcer CASTER levels?
2) if it scales with caster levels consiter allowing it to scale past lvl 18 so that it becomes viable for a lvl 30 toon?
3) eldritch strike scales with CHARACTER levels?

This seams a little inconsistent.

I like the changes to the dice size. I would like to see less melee power in the tree and instead allow the bonus dice to crit base on your spell crit chance. That way its like your casting a spell with your weapons. Bonus points if you allow it to trigger abilities that triger on spell cast to!

[Claver]

Tested a 13 Druid/ 6 Sorcerer/ 1 Barbarian Arcane Bear fighting in Dire Bear Form

- Forces Edge AND Forces Point both trigger and stack when casting Bear Form druid spells that count as melee attacks such as: Maul, Shred, tremor and Relentless Onslaught

- The spellsword fire damage stacks with the melee damage from the bear attack spells listed above

- Relentless Onslaught seems to be bugged only doing base weapon damage rather than 5(W) with +1 crit multiplier . This was true even when I had toggled off spellsword and knights transformation

- The temporary hit points from Eldritch Shield appear in the buff bar but no longer show up in the enhancement tree description

- Eldritch Tempest, Arcane Siphon, and Eldritch Strike all seem to work in bear form

- Beast Awakened from Natures Protector allows druid spells to be cast while raging. I tested while raging and all EK enhancements continued to WAI


CONCLUSION: This could be a crazy fun build. I'm not sure if its is competitive or even viable but I know I will play it for the novelty alone. I hope the Force Edge/Force Point combo is working as intended and if not...please don't fix it

[Steelstar]

[/LIST][/LIST]

Is that supposed to just be "+4 Spellsword Dice"? Or is it just an additional +4d6 elemental damage? (so 7d12 + 4d6 when Eldritch Power is active, or 11d12 when it's active?)

Either way, loving the improved die as you level!

Yep, should just say "+4 Sellsword Dice". 11d12 total while Eldritch Power is active.

[Sho-sa]

Y'all have certainly made some improvements however, the two main levels of consensus from our preview thread have not been addressed; INT/CHA to damage and the Epic Defensive Fighting feat forced into Heroics.


Therefore, I suggest a reasonable compromise.



At Tier 4, remove Knight's Transformation toggle and replace with INT/CHA to damage. At this level it is not low hanging fruit, players can purchase from Harper for fewer AP and it is still superior with KtA. A player who invests this far into the tree will be appropriately compensated for their expenditure.



At Tier 5, combine all 4 Knight's Transformation (KT Tier 4, KT Tier 5, Knight Striker Tier 5-Knight Magic selector option 1, Knight Controller Tier 5-Knight Magic selector 2) into a single purchase of 2/4/6 APs. (Arrange the progression as you see fit.)



At Tier 5, replace the now free slot (Knight Magic) with the original Tenser's Transformation Tier 5.



I won't rehash all the previous excellent points made to support these refinements which will turn this tree into a viable option.


Thank you for your time.

[masterofthewand]

it looks better... But I don't understand why there is so much conviction on their part to make EK spells touch based... I don't think i can get past this... We'll see downloading now...

[LevelJ]

• Tier 3
  
  • Arcane Barrier: (Now 1 Rank): Passive: When your hit points drop below 50% of maximum, you are immediately protected by an Arcane Barrier that reduces all incoming damage by 25% for the next 20 seconds. This effect may only trigger once every 90 seconds.
  
  
• Tier 5
  
  • Radiant Forcefield: Spell Like Ability: Radiant Forcefield (Activation Cost: 30 Spell Points. Cooldown: 3 minutes.)

I got my Palemaster/Eldritch Knight loaded up into Lamannia and started doing some testing. Sadly it appears that the issue with Arcane Barrier are still present, where it reduces negative energy healing for Palemasters by 25% while it is active. But to make matters worse, I also confirmed that this is also an issue with the Radiant Forcefield SLA.

Yes I've probably got a bug report list a mile long when it comes to Arcane Barrier, and while it is good that it's no longer a prerequisite for the toggle (I'll make another post about the toggle when I have more time to thoroughly test it specifically), it completely flies in the face of what the devs here are trying to accomplish...making a tree that supports spellcasting and melee working together. Why then does it not cooperate with other trees present on the same class?

These defensive options, while nice in theory, are completely invalidated for Palemasters because of this bug. If we could fix these issues, that would be great.



I'll do more work on the Sorcerer version later once I start tweaking my melee sorcerer, but I wanted to get this out of the way first, because of how crucial it is to Undead melee builds that also want a little defense. Especially given all the healing troubles we Palemasters already have in Reaper that have all but wiped such builds out there.

-Jayron

[btolson]

So, a complaint I have: I used to be able to get light armor prof and -10 ASF for 8 points total investment. Now it takes 11, which does not play well with an investment of 31/41 in the other class trees.

Is it possible to reshuffle the -ASF in the cores to preserve existing builds? 10% at level 3. Additional 10% at level 6. Additional 15% at level 12. The total by 12 remains unchanged. Beyond just preserving existing builds, it definitely makes sense for -ASF to become available as soon as you can wear armor that would inflict it. Which is exactly how it works on live now - light armor prof and -10 ASF are bundled into the same enhancement. Thus, it is a leveling concern as well.

[cru121]

I like it, thanks. Any epic feat that would further increase spellsword damage?

[cru121]

Looking at the new math, it seems that cores and sorwiz levels are a bit over-rewarded in terms of Spellsword dice.
12 levels: 4d8 - 18
15 levels: 5d8 - 22.5
18 levels: 6d10 - 33
20 levels: 7d12 - 45.5 +13 eblade (+4d12=26 at ~50% uptime)

For example, an EK with 15-17 levels of eligible class has less than half Spellsword damage compared to EK20. Less than 40% if you can keep Eldritch Blade up.
Maybe some of the power should be moved to Tier 5?

[Selvera]

While the changes are buffs to a tree that is underpowered due to having some pretty large flaws at all levels; and thus buffs are the correct direction to go; I still have a few things worth discussing.

1) These buffs are very much a buff to melee EK's moreso then ranged EK's, because the ranged EK builds (which I've put some thought into theorycrafting since the last lam thread) often are unable to take the core 18 and capstone ability for numerous reasons. I sort of consider this a good thing, for balance reasons.

*Shuriken and Crossbow builds almost have mandatory classes requiring 3 levels (shuriken) or 4 levels (crossbows). Archer builds are much weaker if they don't take the AA capstone; which costs 55 AP; and thus only have the AP for the first 3, or perhaps 4 for the rare AA player who has all their racial lives done. Hybrid archer builds usually want 4-6 levels in ranger; and thus can't take the top 4 cores in EK either. Furthermore; the EK tree has very little useful goodies for archer builds in it; so they're sort of just filling in AP for the core abilities.

2) There was nothing done to address the "you need all the stats in the game" synderome of EK's. I and others suggested a few ways to make certain stats less important for them (for me it was making critical profile, melee damage and spell DC's/spell pen less important). Nor does there appear to be anything happening on the "your ravenloft sets are exlcusive" problem.

3) The devs seem to have some stigma against letting caster damage scale through epic levels... like they think that spellcasters (and spellpower builds in general) at level 20 should be doing full damage and it's only by adding some spellpower which they can get after that. And so to compensate for not having damage that scales up through epics the same way melee does; they'll just give them level 26 level damage at level 20, and watch them get outstripped by builds that have giant power-spikes when they get on their slavelords/ravenloft sets and weapons. Perhaps this is in light of some change in how epic spellpower works or something we don't know about? I'm a bit skeptical.

I haven't run the math for new spellsword dice yet; but I'm ballparking it as pretty **** good at level 20, not so sure of if it holds up at level 30.

[Chacka_DDO]

• Cores
  
  • Eldritch Tempest: Activate: Perform a spinning melee attack, dealing weapon damage +5[W] to all nearby enemies and knocking them prone for 1 second and Slowing them by 50% for 6 seconds. This attack has +10 to Critical Threat Range and +3 to Critical Multiplier. (Activation Cost: 25/20/15 Spell points. Cooldown: 60/45/30 seconds). If any foes are struck by Eldritch Tempest, your weapon also releases an explosion of magical force, dealing an additional 1d6 Force damage per character level to all nearby enemies. This additional force damage is affected by your spell power. (now 1 Action Point per rank)

I think some good additions compared to the first preview but in my opinion, it should be Cooldown: 45/30/15 seconds.
Seemingly you don't like the idea that it is a 6 seconds knockdown, I would prefer that with a DC check rather than an irresistible 1 second with a 50% slow (when you see the Study in Sable boss got something like this I don't see why a player should have a weaker ability).
At least now it looks like it is worthwhile to use this ability at all.

And I still don't understand what gives you the idea it needs to reduce the casting range for spells with Knight's Transformation to touch range, I can deal with that but I see no sense in it anyhow!
The same as for Epic Defensive Fighting (there you should have a different way to give melee characters an HP buff).

[Vish]

Steel,
Nice job on changes
I thought it needed more doublestrike,
And the mp is needed too

But
You mentioned changes to epic feat arcane warrior
Care to clue us in?
Will it be pushed for u41?

I want to run a ek arcane warrior
Would appreciate any info
Thx

[Saekee]

Tested a 13 Druid/ 6 Sorcerer/ 1 Barbarian Arcane Bear fighting in Dire Bear Form

- Forces Edge AND Forces Point both trigger and stack when casting Bear Form druid spells that count as melee attacks such as: Maul, Shred, tremor and Relentless Onslaught

- The spellsword fire damage stacks with the melee damage from the bear attack spells listed above

- Relentless Onslaught seems to be bugged only doing base weapon damage rather than 5(W) with +1 crit multiplier . This was true even when I had toggled off spellsword and knights transformation

- The temporary hit points from Eldritch Shield appear in the buff bar but no longer show up in the enhancement tree description

- Eldritch Tempest, Arcane Siphon, and Eldritch Strike all seem to work in bear form

- Beast Awakened from Natures Protector allows druid spells to be cast while raging. I tested while raging and all EK enhancements continued to WAI


CONCLUSION: This could be a crazy fun build. I'm not sure if its is competitive or even viable but I know I will play it for the novelty alone. I hope the Force Edge/Force Point combo is working as intended and if not...please don't fix it

I asked about this in the last thread, glad to see it working. Druid attack stuff occurs sans BAB like wolf attack speed so one can overcome BAB issues with the splash. 8 druid/12 wiz for example

[btolson]

So, a complaint I have: I used to be able to get light armor prof and -10 ASF for 8 points total investment. Now it takes 11, which does not play well with an investment of 31/41 in the other class trees.

Is it possible to reshuffle the -ASF in the cores to preserve existing builds? 10% at level 3. Additional 10% at level 6. Additional 15% at level 12. The total by 12 remains unchanged. Beyond just preserving existing builds, it definitely makes sense for -ASF to become available as soon as you can wear armor that would inflict it. Which is exactly how it works on live now - light armor prof and -10 ASF are bundled into the same enhancement. Thus, it is a leveling concern as well.

Minor correction: on live, light armor proficiency and -5% ASF are bundled, with the other -5% in L3 core, for -10% total by L3 and an 8 pt investment.

[Sproutecus]

I think some good additions compared to the first preview but in my opinion, it should be Cooldown: 45/30/15 seconds.
Seemingly you don't like the idea that it is a 6 seconds knockdown, I would prefer that with a DC check rather than an irresistible 1 second with a 50% slow (when you see the Study in Sable boss got something like this I don't see why a player should have a weaker ability).
At least now it looks like it is worthwhile to use this ability at all.

And I still don't understand what gives you the idea it needs to reduce the casting range for spells with Knight's Transformation to touch range, I can deal with that but I see no sense in it anyhow!
The same as for Epic Defensive Fighting (there you should have a different way to give melee characters an HP buff).

Requiring a DC is yet another gearing issue when EK's will already be tight in that area.

[Chacka_DDO]

Requiring a DC is yet another gearing issue when EK's will already be tight in that area.

I would expect that an EK can focus on charisma or intelligence for weapon damage, DC and to hit and then this should be not a big problem.
I just hope we get charisma for damage and to hit for the sorcerer and the same for wizards with intelligence.