First Look: U43 Pale Master

[Varr]

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.

This is the same Idea as a Fire Elemental getting healed by an Ice Storm or Polar Ray.

I'm officially done now. Counter away. I've said my piece.

[GramercyRiff]

I like a lot of this.

A zombie being physically more powerful than a vampire doesn't work for me though. The vampire is vastly superior in every way to a zombie. Frankly zombie being a form at all is bad, but that ship has sailed. Should've used wight.

The zombie slow attacks seems like it can't really be used but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the damage buff is a gain, but it doesn't seem like it.

[Zretch]

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!?

I would and I have. I've intentionally dropped my shroud in reaper mode because my DCs were high enough to do the job and my auras weren't doing any kind of meaningful healing. Single shots were taking over half my hitpoints and expecting anyone to throw Harm scrolls at me was laughable. It's counter to years of muscle memory build up as to which hotkey you use to help an ally in combat.

Let me try to explain how the mechanics of an undead shroud prevent energy drain but still allow healing to pass through......

......

......

It's F---ing Magic.

There. If my 150 lb elven druid can turn into a half-ton bear, on demand, then my vampire shroud can still let me get partially healed. Pull the stick out of your butt.

[Cadveen]

Sir,

Liches should get a phylactery ability. It will basically work like death pact from divine spells. Perhaps put some kind of draw back. Lose 25% spellpoints or maybe even have jibbers decay effect. Maybe decay effect can go away if a raise spell is applied.

Current Lich: Starts at Wizard Level 18.

• (zero from cores 2-4, outside of leveling)
• +4 CON, +4 INT, +2 WIS, +2 CHA
• +1 to Necromancy DCs
• On melee hit: 2-9 points of negative damage to living targets
• Gain +2 INT at Core 6/Level 20 (for +1 more DC)

Total ~4 Necro DC (a little more if you take the INT along the right side, which we did not here).

New Lich: Starts at Wizard Level 3. Is initially less powerful than original Lich form because, well, you're getting it 15 levels earlier.

• +2 CON, +2 INT
• +10 Negative Amplification, +5 Negative Spell Power, and +15 Magical Resistance Rating (different from what you got before, but still generally useful)
• +2 Necromancy DCs (Core 3)
• Inflict Weariness: On melee hit: 2-9 points of negative damage to living targets, plus energy drain on vorpal (Core 4)
• Whatever you want from the remaining list (Core 5) (This is where you started getting Lich form before)
• Gain +4 INT at Core 6/Level 20 (for +2 more DC)

Total ~5 Necro DC (again, a little more if you take INT along the right side, which we did not here).

If you go pure you're ending up at roughly the same position DC-wise as Lich form was before heading into Epics, which is exactly where we were aiming. DC casting is less concentrated into Lich form compared to the Live version; the current version means you're significantly behind as a DC caster if you don't pick Lich form. Moving away from that restrictive gating was done intentionally.

The Resistances added bulk up the caster's magical defenses, which is also a thematic element of Liches; if people have another Lich-thematic set of stats in mind (that isn't "Liches get better DCs, and are therefore better at being Pale Masters than any other Pale Master form") we're up for potentially moving things around.

[Cadveen]

Living beings that enter the aura are stricken with fear. Frozen in place or de-leveled. Some dc

Undead that enter the aura are:

If zombie form..caster s ignored by undead- no save

Vampire form - caster has chance to destroy and heal for hitpoints

Wraith - wraith gains temp hitpoints and spellpoints equal to undead

Lich - undead either cower in fear or become charmed - some dc

[Silverleafeon]

Sir,

Liches should get a phylactery ability. It will basically work like death pact from divine spells. Perhaps put some kind of draw back. Lose 25% spellpoints or maybe even have jibbers decay effect. Maybe decay effect can go away if a raise spell is applied.

+1

Very interesting idea, although I doubt it will happen...

[0ldschool]

Quote Originally Posted by apep1412 View Post
Any plans on making Shadow Form from Shadowdancer more compatible with Pale Master?

I personally like the idea quite a bit.

Just please don't do anything to adversely effect Shadow Form for the rest of us. Barring a decision to replace Imbuement, it's the only thing close to an Epic Moment that we have in SD.

[SerPounce]

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.

+1
Was just going to post this. The lore/flavor isn't and issue IMO. PM's aren't true undead.

Whether it's a good idea or not balance wise is another question. It's definitely a pro-grouping change. And it will make PM viable in a larger range of content (Which, yes, means "balancing around reaper" which is obviously a good idea despite the dev's odd insistence that they don't do it). Overall I'm for it, but I do get the complaint that it a makes a unique system function more like everything else which isn't particularly interesting.

[ned_ellis]

Presuming a 31 (minimum) ap spend to get Lich form in the current version we would have 46 negative spell power and 23 universal spell power. With imporved shrouding T5 this goes closer to 70 and 30.

In the proposed version, taking Lich form at T5 AND the Core 3 +10 neg spell power, we would get 35 negative spell power and 0 universal spell power from the tree.

Lich form DC in the current version with improved shrouding gives +5 Necro DC from various elements in the tree and the shroud (+6 with capstone).

Lich form DC in the proposed version (again without capstone AND the Core 3 +2 Necro DC) gives +4 Necro DC. With capstone that goes to +6DC. The Spell Pen is nice though.

Unless some really caster-centric Archmage tree revamp is in the works, the 'wizard pass' seems to have supporting niche melee styles in the crosshairs...which seems odd to me! (but not against it either)

Also, the new uber-death aura in the core, along with the higher neg heal amp, seems vehiculed to upping self-healing for pm's...but the 'allow 50% positive healing' also seems to go in that direction - overkill?! Also with (finally-I love it!) the functioning Cloak of Night, you've really hit the pm's weak spots/trade-offs; possibly too much?

I like the concept of customising your shroud but I'm having a real hard time, as a caster, to justify not going wraith or vampire over lich...which again seems odd!
Also, as a pale-trapper, with all that goodness in the capstone, the splash takes a much bigger bite out of your casting. As the tree is set-up, I would have expected a capstone more similar to Season's Herald...

I strongly support the suggestion of linking shadowdancer wraith to pm. In fact, seeing the tilt it's taking, the PM tree should do even more to consider rogue type styles.

[SerPounce]

[*]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.

Does the damage buff work with ranged attacks or just melee? Apologies if this was already answered.

[CrowInvictus]

Synergy with Eldritch Knight was definitely a sub-goal of mine. I wrote up the first draft of this pass at the same time as the Eldritch Knight pass last year.

Yes! Thank-you, I've been wanting to do a Death Knight theme build for years and I'm going to love it when U43 is live.

[droid327]

This is the same Idea as a Fire Elemental getting healed by an Ice Storm or Polar Ray.

No, its the same as a Fire Elemental with Fire Shield: Cold getting healed by a Scorch spell. The Elemental is wrapped in cold, but is still a Fire Elemental underneath. The Fire Shield absorbs half the Scorch damage, but the rest goes to heal the Fire Elemental.

The zombie slow attacks seems like it can't really be used but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the damage buff is a gain, but it doesn't seem like it.

Yeah I thought at first that it would be a net gain because +20% damage multiplies by everything while -20% speed could be additive with Haste.

Turns out you cant stack enough Haste for it to make that much difference. You can only get +15% attack speed permanently, which means with Zombie you'd be at -5% from base. That's an 18% loss of net speed, which means +20% damage is only a gain of +1.6% DPS. Its a total side-grade. Or really a downgrade, because all things being equal, its more strategically convenient to have faster if weaker attacks to do the same net DPS.

Conceivably, you could benefit from the +20% damage more in a build that relies heavily on click attacks, where attack speed itself is less important because of the animations and interruptions and you get 20% more out of your +W and +crit bonuses. But in practice, those kind of builds simply dont exist.

The only practical application I can see is with Repeaters, where alacrity doesnt really affect them anyway, so the penalty is also effectively nothing and its pretty much just a straight +20% damage. But Repeaters need a lot more than 20% more DPS to make them competitive. Still, Zombie Arti might be an interesting flavor build - its all INT based still.

Sir,

Liches should get a phylactery ability. It will basically work like death pact from divine spells. Perhaps put some kind of draw back. Lose 25% spellpoints or maybe even have jibbers decay effect. Maybe decay effect can go away if a raise spell is applied.

Liches put their soul in a phylactery to preserve their lifeforce. PMs dont actually take out their souls, they arent true undead, as discussed above.

[ned_ellis]

Just please don't do anything to adversely effect Shadow Form for the rest of us. Barring a decision to replace Imbuement, it's the only thing close to an Epic Moment that we have in SD.

snip
I strongly support the suggestion of linking shadowdancer wraith to pm. In fact, seeing the tilt it's taking, the PM tree should do even more to consider rogue type styles.

I should add : 'WITHOUT ruining it for others', yes!
Also, death domain should have some synergies in an ideal world (as per the example of the Death Pact spell).

[Xgya]

Still find the positive healing a bit odd. Needed for balance reasons, but leaves an odd taste.

Love the Animate Ally changes.
SLAs with SP costs, metamagics and immunity bypass? Lovely. (although there's still those pesky constructs. Will that bypass work on them too?)

Making choosing a shroud a meaningful choice from the get go and not just gated by Wizard levels is a huge plus for me. Great design decision.
So is making meaningful choices with the cores.

[droid327]

Also, death domain should have some synergies in an ideal world (as per the example of the Death Pact spell).

I thought so too at first but there's really no other corollary between Divine and Arcane casters like that. Usually splashing enough Cleric to make the Domain useful means you'll be giving up too many caster levels in your main class. Domains were meant to give Clerics a second functionality, or to better support a splash of something else, so the class wasnt relegated to being a pure healbot or a Chinese knockoff paladin...they werent meant to make Cleric splashes extra useful for tailoring into other builds.

That being said, a Cleric with /3 Wiz can take a Shroud and Lesser Death Aura, and you'll have Harm spells in your Cleric spellbook that you can use for both offense and healing (and AFAIK Harm has full spellpower where Heal only has 50%), Necrotic Ray and Bolt SLAs. Everything will be based on Negative and Necromancy school, no second types to gear for. So there's some synergy there for a Lich Priest

[tinyelvis]

This looks like a great improvement with a bunch of interesting choices that will be hard to make, though it may not persuade me out of Inquisitive (and that's a good thing).

Why not go both?

All wizards can now have great self healing starting at just 5 enhancement points (death to the robots... hurrah). I think this is a positive move. Now, you need to add self healing to the other classes in some form at a comparable price.

[ned_ellis]

I thought so too at first but there's really no other corollary between Divine and Arcane casters like that. Usually splashing enough Cleric to make the Domain useful means you'll be giving up too many caster levels in your main class. Domains were meant to give Clerics a second functionality, or to better support a splash of something else, so the class wasnt relegated to being a pure healbot or a Chinese knockoff paladin...they werent meant to make Cleric splashes extra useful for tailoring into other builds.

That being said, a Cleric with /3 Wiz can take a Shroud and Lesser Death Aura, and you'll have Harm spells in your Cleric spellbook that you can use for both offense and healing (and AFAIK Harm has full spellpower where Heal only has 50%), Necrotic Ray and Bolt SLAs. Everything will be based on Negative and Necromancy school, no second types to gear for. So there's some synergy there for a Lich Priest

I agree it wouldn't be great bar for flavour, but lich priest does sound nice! I love a good mystic theurge but in DDO it's not feasible.

The Death Pact was more intended for the phylactery idea that I posted in a thread a while back and it's been mentioned in this thread too...

As close as I'll get is probably the death cleric I've almost finished just for pm healing at cap...but having them spring the pass about the same time (and if they scrap the 50% pos heal idea!) might mean I'll actually get to use her for once!

[reywas]

Overall, love the changes. Definitely will do some thinking whether Tier 5 EK or Palemaster will be better on a melee wizard.

One thing really nags me, however. Dark Discorporation is a nice little spell, and having it on 50% HP is nice, but it is definitely not Tier 5 caliber. Especially when Tier 5 Warlock gets Finger of Death SLA, something that the necromancer themed Palemaster should definitely have when Warlocks have it. There is room in other tiers for the Discorporation SLA. Move that down to tier 4 (or maybe move Necrotic Blast to tier 4 and Discorporation takes that spot) and add FoD as Tier 5.

[deconedi]

Overall, love the changes. Definitely will do some thinking whether Tier 5 EK or Palemaster will be better on a melee wizard.

One thing really nags me, however. Dark Discorporation is a nice little spell, and having it on 50% HP is nice, but it is definitely not tier 5 caliber. Especially when Tier 5 Warlock gets FoD SLA, something that the necromancer focused Palemaster should definitely have when Warlocks have it. Ther is room in other tiers for the Discorporation SLA. Move that down to tier 4 (or maybe move necrotic Blast to tier 4 and discorporation takes that spot) and add Finger of Death as Tier 5.

I agree, Devs pls do it.

[Montegue]

Archmage desperately needs this sort of attention. Thanks for doing this, but please also do Archmage. I want to play a Raistlin/Elminster style wizard and always have. A staff in hand, robes, and mastery over the arcane.