First Look: U43 Pale Master

[lain5246]

as someone who loves the ek pale master and has played it multiple lives, i was wondering Why? theme wise i like but the best parts of zombie are tier 5 capped and with the melee atk speed debuff not very appetizing. i would like to ask would you consider making knights transformation a multi selector with the permanent tencers? can any of the shrouds get increased threat gen, will there be armors that can have set bonuses crafted on them? is it possible to change Eternal Furor: You (while in a Shroud) AND your Skeleton Knight gain +5/10/15 Profane Bonus to PRR to a generic buff?
over all i will still play it regardless i just don't want it to be like swashbluckler and Battle Engineer tier 5 or warchanter core 6.
thank you for the hard work and here is my current build that i am favoring
https://www.facebook.com/ahorsleyjr/...5045020101038/

[Ultramaetche1]

• Core 1: Dark Reaping: For each Core Ability in this tree you get +3 Negative Spell Power and +3 Negative Healing Amplification.

Does this mean that players will no longer receive the 0.75 Universal and 0.75 Negative spellpower that the existing PM grants? That's a pretty hefty nerf.

If you assume minimum for capstone PM you currently get:

41 x 0.75 (Universal from points in tree)
==
30 Universal
&
41 x 1.50 (Uni + Neg from points in tree)
10 (T5 Archlich)
==
71 Negative

With the changes you're looking at:

0 Universal
&
3 x 6 (6 cores of 3 each)
5 (if Lich)
10 (Deathly Power, assuming you take it)
5 (Ascendant Shroud: Lich)
==
38 Negative

PLEASE tell us that the Spellpower from the cores are IN ADDITION to what's currently there, if not, that's a 30 USP nerf and 33 NegSP nerf.

[Silverleafeon]

I personally like the idea quite a bit.

I'm game to see where that goes...

[droid327]

[LIST][*]Dark Discorporation: Multiselector:

• Reactive Discorporation: When your HP drops below 50%, gain Dark Discorporation for 20 seconds. This effect still ends if you attack. This effect may only trigger once every 60 seconds.

Is there/could there be a short (~2 sec) ICD before it will break on attack, at least for the auto-fire version? I could see this being pretty pointless in the thick of battle, for melee PMs, when you're attacking several times a second, and your Discorp breaks before you even realize it went off, kinda defeating the whole purpose.

Just to give you enough time to realize you've gone batty and respond accordingly, take a moment to heal up, reposition yourself, etc.

[droid327]

[*]Shroud of the Zombie: While in this form, +4 Constitution, +20% damage with attacks but you attack 20% slower than normal. You gain +3 PRR, +3 MRR.

Is that a multiplicative or additive speed bonus? Like is it just -20% stacking Alacrity? Or is it like Racial healing modifier, where its always 80% of whatever you'd be doing otherwise?

Zombie Arti with +20% damage sounds like it might be interesting since Alacrity barely affects RXBs...assuming it works with ranged attacks too

No more -Int on crit for zombies? BRAAAAINS!

[Varr]

Interesting reading last 4 pages. Appreciate reading some echo's of my disappointment about the 50% healing decision. Pos Rep endourcement on the way.

Not much I can add that doesn't sound inflammatory. Positive healing should not work on players that have chosen to forgo life for death. There have been listed a myriad of ways to improve self healing and even group type healing touch up that make sense. This simply does not. Just like undead taking out of breath damage underwater would be silly, this is even more so.


The lore is what has this 14 year old game on its feet still. Been playing since day one, and will continue...….but decisions like this, common sense throw away moves, are just bad for the game.

[die]

Hey Varr,

I noted that as a gratis the poz healing is probably too much actually. I would not mind if its like Warfoged Repair Systems, "you give some you get some." If Pale masters have to trade negative hamp for poz vulnerability it would be fair enough, wonder who would choose that outside raiding setups tho.

I could see a couple of implementations:

I) Negative Energy Conduit (Select one of )
a) 10/20/30 negative healing amp
b) 10/20/40% positive healing vulnerability

II) Mixin enhancement: with Deathless Vigor - perfect label for this !?
10/20/30 hitpoints and 10/20/40% pozzz energy vulnerability

III) New enhancement (with tradeoffs)
20/30/50% pozz vulnerability
negative negative hamp 10/20/30 (dont apply math knowledge :P )



I think these are fair, in that it costs some points, -so no gratis, allows more building choice much like forged characters who can benefit from either more self repair or more incoming heals from others. Would maybe consider thematically to add 10-20% base for Zombie form, coz they arent all bone and floaty clothes.. something thematic to be healed on them.

with Varr, the poz healing is the single most important change -even tho the others are big too!

I could get on board with this.

[Zretch]

Interesting reading last 4 pages. Appreciate reading some echo's of my disappointment about the 50% healing decision. Pos Rep endourcement on the way.

Not much I can add that doesn't sound inflammatory. Positive healing should not work on players that have chosen to forgo life for death. There have been listed a myriad of ways to improve self healing and even group type healing touch up that make sense. This simply does not. Just like undead taking out of breath damage underwater would be silly, this is even more so.


The lore is what has this 14 year old game on its feet still. Been playing since day one, and will continue...….but decisions like this, common sense throw away moves, are just bad for the game.

Seems like the objection is based on a false premise. Pale Masters in DDO are shrouded in negative energy, they're NOT undead. Undead is a one way trip, not a toggle. Undead would be more like a race, permanent and unchangeable without a full TR. It is not much of a stretch to believe that the neg energy shroud 100% shields them from energy drains and neg levels, and strengthens them when negative energy is directed at them, but positive energy, while weakened, can still get through (they are, after all, still alive underneath that shroud).

Most importantly, though, this is a game that is supposed to facilitate and encourage grouping. Having a single subtree of a single class be the only instance in the game of a player being unable to be healed by standard healing spells in a group setting is bad design, in my opinion. In PnP, players and the DM can far more easily accommodate such a choice as action declarations and decisions aren't nearly as "real time" as they are in this game. How many times are you going to have to blow your heal scrolls on that PUG PM, or mistakenly hit Harm on a non-pale master before you just say screw it and throw nothing but heals anyway? A 50% reduction to incoming healing and a 100% vulnerability to incoming light damage is a perfectly acceptable penalty for the benefits of being in a shroud. The option to remove the light damage penalty is nice (and requires using a core to do so, which may or may not be worth the sacrifice), but note there is no ability in the tree to increase the positive healing (unlike warforged with Healer's Friend or Renegade Mastermaker with Easily Fixed). Also, for folks saying it's so easy to just pump heal amp to make up for it, sure, but are you really going to pump both heal amp and negative amp while still fitting in a full DC gearset and gearing for negative spellpower as well? Well, seems like that's a tradeoff in and of itself.

My 2 cents.

[droid327]

Interesting reading last 4 pages. Appreciate reading some echo's of my disappointment about the 50% healing decision. Pos Rep endourcement on the way.

Not much I can add that doesn't sound inflammatory. Positive healing should not work on players that have chosen to forgo life for death. There have been listed a myriad of ways to improve self healing and even group type healing touch up that make sense. This simply does not. Just like undead taking out of breath damage underwater would be silly, this is even more so.


The lore is what has this 14 year old game on its feet still. Been playing since day one, and will continue...….but decisions like this, common sense throw away moves, are just bad for the game.

PMs aren't undead. They just wear a shroud of undeath. But they haven't actually died, their souls are not removed from their bodies. You can't just toggle between life and true undeath. Their life force is hidden, suppressed, but still there underneath. So I think lore wise a 50% reduction is perfectly applicable. Positive healing is suppressed, just like their life force.

[Havocthedemon]

If you want to keep discussing this with me you should go back and read my first post and try engaging with the points I make there.

That would be more useful than getting offended because you think I'm telling you that you don't know how to play. That's not the case and if we could get off this 'you think you're better than me' stuff we could talk about the issues instead. People bring these prodigious chips on their shoulders to these discussions and can't see the words in front of them.

You volunteered the fact that you're getting hit a lot. That generally doesn't happen to me or the really strong PMs I run with, unless they're bored and racing other players for kills. My point was there are things you can do about that. If you want to pretend I've been vague about the solutions in the current version of the game, I'll say this again: play more slowly, watch your aggro and use more CC. It's not rocket science, you just modify your approach in harder content. It works and doing better in the game without asking developers to make it easier for you might even feel good too.

Thje problem with these threads is they reek of people wanting to run the game's hardest content as quickly, carelessly and easily as some r1 levelling zergfest. This change to healing is another step in that direction. It's another very obvious counter-example to developers claiming they don't balance around reaper because they idea this might be needed in elite or below is laughable. It seems like the typical throw the baby out with the bathwater solution for what is not actually that much of a problem and it will lead to some problematic builds appearing in game.

At the end of the day, don't worry too much about what I've said here. My opinions literally carry zero weight when it comes to game changes. It's very likely you'll get what you want out of this, have some fun with it, and hopefully later on not get bored with the build or the game when you notice that much more challenge and uniqueness has disappeared. I don't bear you or other people asking for this any ill will, it's just sometimes too much candy is no good for us, much as we might want it.

Thanks.

While I do get your point about too much candy being good for us (see warlock nerfs) I just don’t think that’s what this is and your opinion is a little bit of an overreaction. It’s not about getting hit all the time, but let’s say a Reaper teles on your “perfect positioning” or there’s no safe spot while the melees beat on a red name, (which frankly happens quite a bit no matter how “perfect” your play style is) if you have 2k life and take 1.5k damage in one hit, even if the threat is eliminated a second after you have to sit there for a full 2 mins while your aura ticks for 30 HP and the cool down on neg energy burst is terrible. Or you know, pop out of form to heal from a party member then back in.

Again, you can redirect this to gameplay like you keep doing (because you really seem to hate the zerg but are the first one to say you steam roll everything) or we can just accept that a PM isn’t an undead race, it’s a living creature that takes on the shroud and traits of an undead form as Silver Leafeon explained.

To be honest, I don’t care too much about PM as I’m still rocking monk even after the nerfs, it’s just silly to me that me or another toon can’t support a PM with a heal and people are acting like it’s going to change anything for the PM currently. All it does is make the group rely on each and reward that because now a clerics mass heals actually do something to an unfortunate caster too close. Or you know, archers, dots, etc. but we can pretend that doesn’t happen if you’d like.

I appreciate the discussion and as you said our opinions don’t really care any weight when it comes to the logical decisions of the devs. I think a PM being able to be healed by a non cleric/fvs party member is a great thing but we can disagree, that’s fine. I’m excited for the update either way, the EDs look great. I’m just waiting for the day a bow user can somewhat compete with inquisitor. Something about that classic archer life is quite fun but the damage just isn’t good enough right now. Someday I’ll use you again Void, someday!

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Does this mean that players will no longer receive the 0.75 Universal and 0.75 Negative spellpower that the existing PM grants? That's a pretty hefty nerf.

This is a very nice example to show how Dyscalculia works : To me, these numbers look awfully small, and because of that, I just can't imagine them to be useful in any way.

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Perhaps you could consider making it so that each of the pale master shrouds allow the player to use certain stats for attack and damage?

For example the shroud of the zombie could allow one to use their constitution for determining hit and damage, the vampire could offer the higher of either intelligence or charisma, the wraith could offer the highest of dexterity or intelligence etc.

As it is, there's not enough reason to go zombie......

[darkmoon_cn]

Constructs are easy- web and prismatic. If weak constructs just frog, your dcs should be high enough that your going to hit.
Undead quests- Frog will hit trash undead, undeath to death and sunburst for incorps. flesh to stone/halt them until off timer or again prismatic
KT unless its in final part you can insta there too. for shielded try prismatic.
THTH best insta there is sunburst, you can also frog those too.

Not really seeing an issue. I also have fully geared dc cleric and dc warlock and I know which I prefer.

i know how to do that
but ''can'' not ''good''

first ''prismatic'' not stable instant-kill spell,but u r team need stable,in kt
sec ''sunburst'' have very long cooldown,ln/lh maybe ok.but reaper is bad idea

I run r10 and r1 raid regularly,im a RL
I will choose other DC,in r1 kt/thth/rso.cause wizard not a first choice

however,i just wanna Wizard back to T1 DC
cause i love it,12 year

[Graskitch]

overall the pm enhancement tree update looks great making it more versatile for customizing and choosing which shroud to take.

[*] My third concern are the Necrotic SLAs. I think that the SLAs should still use hitpoints as a casting cost. It offered a different style of casting (much like how the warlocks have depravity for their Tainted Scholar SLAs), which offered a greater diversity of build options. Conceptually, it was like you were projecting your life force at your enemy, hence the HP cost. If the concern is the increase in damage (from the metas), then I'd suggest making them a multi-selector that uses either SP or HP, keeping the HP version pretty much as it is now, but allowing for the quicken metamagic (honestly I never understood why quicken couldn't be used on it in the first place).

I agree with tuxedoman - having the necro SLA's use hit points as the cost was very unique - it was like sacrificing your body for necrotic energy which was very appropriate. I am not sure why it should be changed to SP. just the change alone to having metamagics apply to the SLA's is good enough.

there have been good arguments for and against 50% positive healing applying to shrouded palemasters. I myself I dislike it - I do find it to be lore-breaking. I feel it makes the palemaster enhancement more generic, taking away a very unique flavor/lore. It is going to make healers in party less inclined to take harm, which is a very interesting circumstance/restriction in having a palemaster in group.
Blah's suggestion for negative healing amp would be more appropriate.

This 50% is SOOOOOOOO DISGUSTING. Numerous times players make suggestions and the response is: "That does not fit the FLAVOR" . 50% healing from positive energy tastes (flavor) like the ooze between an orcs toes
IT MAKES NO SENSE

Undead are NOT healed by positive energy PERIOD. I get in its current state PM s are often excluded from epic reapers because of healing issues. This is just a dumb fix

So not to just complain and not give constructive feedback I have a suggestion:
At first i was thinking more neg spell power that helps damage too much. If the intended goal of the DUMB idea of undead being healed by positive energy is to make PMs viable in epic reaper mode then this should fix it:

Core 1: passive +6 negative heal amp per core
Core 5: passive +25 negative heal amp (31 total)
Core 6: passive +75 negative heal amp (81 total)

Based on my calculations, that will be plenty of neg heal amp on reaper 1 to 2 or maybe 3, in epics with little neg heal amp on gear. Should get between 150-200 neg heal amp. Simple fix without a completely nonsensical fix

on a separate note, if palemasters can be healed 50% by positive energy spells, characters that have taken Improved Construct Essence should also be able to be healed 50% by positive energy spells (while still granting 100% base healing from repair spells).

[Varr]

PMs aren't undead. They just wear a shroud of undeath. But they haven't actually died, their souls are not removed from their bodies. You can't just toggle between life and true undeath. Their life force is hidden, suppressed, but still there underneath. So I think lore wise a 50% reduction is perfectly applicable. Positive healing is suppressed, just like their life force.

I said they forgo life for death...…..they chose to forgo positive energy for negative energy. You can understand how silly it would be for a cleric to get 50% healing standing in my death aura correct? There is a positive and negative effect, and they should be mutually exclusive.

[droid327]

I said they forgo life for death...…..they chose to forgo positive energy for negative energy. You can understand how silly it would be for a cleric to get 50% healing standing in my death aura correct? There is a positive and negative effect, and they should be mutually exclusive.

They dont forego anything. They trade some life for some death. They suppress a portion of their life energy to manifest negative energy around themselves. There's no reason it should be mutually exclusive, they're just two opposing magical energies. Taking Fire Savant doesnt prevent you from casting cold spells entirely, it just suppresses how effective you are with cold. This is exactly the same idea.

Maybe Death Domain clerics could get 50% negative healing, I wouldnt have a thematic problem with that at all...though I wouldnt necessarily see the gameplay advantage of that.

[Silverleafeon]

I said they forgo life for death...…..they chose to forgo positive energy for negative energy. You can understand how silly it would be for a cleric to get 50% healing standing in my death aura correct? There is a positive and negative effect, and they should be mutually exclusive.

Well technically, a better example would be:


DDO creates vampire race of undead
DDO creates enhancement tree granting "living shroud" to undead races to turn them magically into normal humanoid living creatures.
DDO allows undead race inside "living shroud" to restore hit points while inside friendly death aura.
Said player chooses cleric as class and vampire as race, takes theoretical enhancement "living shroud" and chases you around the dungeon trying to stay within your aura but not die from all your aggro mobs.

Something like that anyway?

[Silverleafeon]

Seems like the objection is based on a false premise. Pale Masters in DDO are shrouded in negative energy, they're NOT undead. Undead is a one way trip, not a toggle. Undead would be more like a race, permanent and unchangeable without a full TR. It is not much of a stretch to believe that the neg energy shroud 100% shields them from energy drains and neg levels, and strengthens them when negative energy is directed at them, but positive energy, while weakened, can still get through (they are, after all, still alive underneath that shroud).

Most importantly, though, this is a game that is supposed to facilitate and encourage grouping. Having a single subtree of a single class be the only instance in the game of a player being unable to be healed by standard healing spells in a group setting is bad design, in my opinion. In PnP, players and the DM can far more easily accommodate such a choice as action declarations and decisions aren't nearly as "real time" as they are in this game. How many times are you going to have to blow your heal scrolls on that PUG PM, or mistakenly hit Harm on a non-pale master before you just say screw it and throw nothing but heals anyway? A 50% reduction to incoming healing and a 100% vulnerability to incoming light damage is a perfectly acceptable penalty for the benefits of being in a shroud. The option to remove the light damage penalty is nice (and requires using a core to do so, which may or may not be worth the sacrifice), but note there is no ability in the tree to increase the positive healing (unlike warforged with Healer's Friend or Renegade Mastermaker with Easily Fixed). Also, for folks saying it's so easy to just pump heal amp to make up for it, sure, but are you really going to pump both heal amp and negative amp while still fitting in a full DC gearset and gearing for negative spellpower as well? Well, seems like that's a tradeoff in and of itself.

My 2 cents.

+1 well said

[Varr]

No reason for me to argue, its already a done deal. I'm quite comfortable with my position, this change is counter intuitive. Its a shroud, then as now, drop it for positive healing.

No no, this shroud that radiates in negative healing that's a benefit to me in undead form/shroud/however you like to address the stance, can also be penetrated by positive healing and the inner me can be helped by it.

There are two sides of this fence, my side and the other. The other has won, and will get this. They stand with the developers and are also wrong.

[janave]

on a separate note, if palemasters can be healed 50% by positive energy spells, characters that have taken Improved Construct Essence should also be able to be healed 50% by positive energy spells (while still granting 100% base healing from repair spells).

Yup, lotsa refactoring to go on the repair side as well. And still yet to see the proper logic from the "this is only a shroud" camp, if it is just a so-so undeadlyish state or even less that, why-where all the traits, immunities and 100% negative healing from? in that sense if we arent full undead why get full negative healing and not just say 50% ?

There is no way to warp language around that, but I'd love to see someone try


Technically they want full undead trait list, full neg healing, and half pozz, but there is no logic or lore to support the full package :P.

Who would give up energy drain, poison damage, and con drain immunity for the positive healing?
raise hands,
..anyone!?