U45 Preview 2: Alchemist Vile Chemist Tree

[Cocomajobo]

Hello, all! This is the First Look thread for Alchemist's Vile Chemist enhancement tree.

If you haven't looked at the Base Class and Spellcasting threads yet, I suggest you do that first, then come back here.

Imbuing their concoctions and Simple weapons with potent poisons, Vile Chemists are versatile combatants. Between striking foes with poison-coated weapons and tossing Spellvials filled with toxins, Vile Chemists take a hybrid weapon/casting offensive role, dealing with individual targets effectively.



Cores

• Core 1: +2 to saves vs. Poisons, +2 to saves vs. Diseases. Poison Spells you cast leave an enemy Contaminated.
• Core 2: Poisoned Coating
  
  • Exclusive with Eldritch Knight Toggles.
  • Toggle: While active, deal an additional 1d6 Poison damage on hit. You gain an additional 1d6 every 3 Alchemist levels (at 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18). This damage scales with Spell Power.
  • Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +5 PRR.
• Core 3: +3% Doublestrike. You gain a chance based on your Intelligence score to throw an extra Simple Thrown Weapon per attack.
  
  • Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +5 PRR.
• Core 4: +10 Universal Spell Power, +5% Doublestrike and Doubleshot. Your Poisoned Coating dice are now D8s (instead of the original d6s). If you have Simple Thrown Expertise, you now use the higher of your Dexterity and Intelligence to determine the chance to throw an extra projectile.
  
  • Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +5% Dodge and full Base Attack Bonus.
• Core 5: Brushed Aside: You gain the Defensive Roll feat (When below 20% HP, there's a chance equal to your Reflex save that attacks do half damage and have their effects negated). Your Poisoned Coating Dice are now d10s (Replacing previous d8s). Your Simple Weapons gain +1 Competence bonus to their Critical Damage Multiplier.
  
  • Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +5% Dodge Cap and +5 PRR
• Core 6: +4 Intelligence. Your Poisoned Coating die size is now d12. You gain +2 Poisoned Coating dice.
  
  • Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +10 PRR and +5% Dodge Cap.

Tier 1

• Stiffen Skin: Ceruleite SLA.
• Deadly Poison: +2 to hit and +1 to damage with Simple Weapons.
• Alchemical Accuracy: +1/2/3 to attack
• Martial Subtlety: -20/30/40% threat generation with melee and ranged attacks
• Skills: +1/2/3 to Hide, Move Silently, and Bluff. Rank 3: +1 Reflex Saves

Tier 2

• -
• Deadly Poison: +2 to hit and +1 to damage with Simple Weapons.
• Poisoned Shot: Multiselector: Melee/Ranged attack: +1/2/3[w]: On successful damage: struck enemies are Contaminated. (6 second cooldown).
• Venom Affinity: +3/6/10 Poison Spell Power, Rank 3: +1 Reflex saving throws
• Stone of the Subliminal: Alchemist's Stone Toggle: While wielding an Orb in your off-hand, you gain +5% Doublestrike, +5% Doubleshot, and are Blurry. You can only have one Alchemist's Stone Toggle active at a time

Tier 3

• Wave of Poison: Cerulite SLA:
  
  • You infect enemies in a short cone with a deadly poison that eats away at them. After 6 seconds, target creatures take 1d6+4 Poison damage per Caster Level. (MCL:10). (6 second cooldown). Affected Enemies are Contaminated for 20 seconds.
• Deadly Poison: +2 to hit and +1 to damage with Simple Weapons.
• Toxic Augmentation: Striking an enemy that is Contaminated with a melee or ranged attack reduces their Fort Saves by 1, stacks 6 times.
• Firm Ambition: When your reaction is Orchidium, you gain +1 Fortitude Save, +1 for every 5 Alchemist Levels you have
• DEX or INT

Tier 4

• -
• Deady Poison: +2 to hit and +2 to damage with Simple Weapons.
• Envenom the Heart: While your Poisoned Coating is active, hitting enemies that are immune to Poisons or Poison Damage makes them vulnerable to Poisons and Poison Damage for 12 seconds. Creatures you hit that are not immune to Poisons take 15% more Poison damage for a while.
• Unbreakable Ambition: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +8 PRR.
• DEX or INT

Tier 5

• Greater Wave of Poison: Cerulite SLA:
  
  • You infect enemies in a short cone with a deadly poison that eats away at them. After 6 seconds, target creatures take 1d6+8 Poison damage per Caster Level. This will Contaminate enemies. (MCL:20).
• Fatal Poison: +2 to hit and +2 to damage with Simple Weapons. +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Range with Simple Weapons. For Darts, this Range bonus is +2 instead.
• Toxic Augmentation: Striking Contaminated enemies will apply stacks of Vulnerable.
• Sapping Ambition: While your Reaction is Orchidium, attacking with Simple Weapons gives a 10% chance to gain 10 temporary Spell Points +1 per Alchemist level.
• Chemical Weapon: Passive: Your Simple Weapons gain +1[w]. Your simple ranged thrown weapons attack 15% faster.

Known Issues

• N/A

Bugs Fixed Since Preview 1

• Tier 5 Enhancement tooltip no longer erroneously lists a Competence Bonus to Critical Multiplier. (It remains in the 5th Core as intended)
• The "Ambition" enhancements in each Alchemist Enhancement Tree that grant bonuses to saves now properly grant their +1 base bonus as described
• "Stone" toggles in each of the Alchemist Enhancement Trees now properly add and remove their effects when you equip/unequip Orbs and toggle the stance on/off.
• Vile Chemist's Greater Wave of Poison effect no longer overwrites its own Wave of Poison.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Chemical Weapons looks exciting, but most of the ranged attack speed increases that I tested on live don’t actually work as stated. When I get into Llama, I’ll check to see if that actually does anything. If it does, that will be a pleasant surprise.

[Splunge]

Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +5% Dodge and full Base Attack Bonus.

Chemical Weapon: Passive: Your Simple Weapons gain +1[w]. Your simple ranged thrown weapons attack 15% faster.

There have been a bunch of tests that show throwing speed being capped at about 84 throws/min. Is that intended? Will Chemical Weapon increase my throwing speed if I'm already at full BAB and have a few other feats that increase it (quick draw, rapid shot, blinding speed, whirling wrists)?

[Pilgrim1]

~snip

I think it would be really cool if all of the SLA in this tree applied the Orchidium state instead of the Ceruleite state. It would be a fun way of instantly re-seting your reaction.

Are you prepared for this tree to be the strongest and most impressive ranged tree in the game, by a wide margin? Because thats whats going to happen. Your basically giving shurikin monks law damage but calling it poison. This will be inquisitive all over again. The only reason it will not be as wide spread is because it will require 6 alchemist to use.

I would remove defensive roll from this tree, its already plenty strong enough.

[HastyPudding]

Wave of Poison and Greater Wave of Poison both need better visual indicators. Right now, they spill half the contents of the bottles to the character's left instead of in front of them. Very wasteful.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Chemical Weapons looks exciting, but most of the ranged attack speed increases that I tested on live don’t actually work as stated. When I get into Llama, I’ll check to see if that actually does anything. If it does, that will be a pleasant surprise.

Testing results:


--Alchemist level 1
0 BAB, Point Blank Shot
0 Ranged alacrity
0 Thrown Attack Speed Bonus
40 daggers in 1 minute
repeated test 37 daggers in 1 minute.


I noticed that sometimes the dagger throwing animation would happen, but the number of daggers in my throwing hand inventory didn't go down.


Equipped Quiver of Alacrity with 10% Ranged Alacrity - no difference in displayed numbers on "+" Ranged Combat section of character sheet.
40 daggers in 1 minute.
repeated test 41 daggers in 1 minute.
Looks like Ranged Alacrity does not have a significant effect?
I am not wearing the Quiver of Alacrity with any of my remaining tests unless otherwise stated.


--Level 3 Alchemist
Added "Quick Draw" feat. BAB +2
0 equipment used and 0 AP spent on enhancements.
45 daggers thrown in 1 minute.
repeated test 44 daggers thrown in 1 minute.


--Level 6 Alchemist
Added Precise Shot, Batallion Brew. Picked up Multitude of Missiles free, but won't use it for testing since that's Doubleshot instead of attack speed.
learned Alchemist version of Haste spell (Quicksilver Potion)
cast Quicksilver Potion
24 daggers thrown in 30 seconds. (I did 30 seconds because my Haste effect does not last a full minute.)


I now have +21% Thrown Attack Speed Bonus listed. That bonus does not go away even after the Haste wears off. Is part of the problem that the "+" only checks some effects occasionally? My movement speed changes when I cast Quicksilver potion and it drops when the Quicksilver Potion wears off.
My most recent spell color is Blue. Casting some non-blue Alchemist spells doesn't seem to change that. Casting other non-blue alchemist spells does change that. My current reaction color is green, but I haven't spent any AP, so I don't think that will make a difference in thrown attack speed.


My Thrown attack speed bonus is still listed as +21%.


----Alchemist level 12
No AP spent.
Added no relevant Ranged/thrown Attack speed bonuses
I did not choose Simple Weapon Expertise because I did not want the Doubleshot to mess with my calculations. 0 Doubleshot is best for figuring out how fast I'm throwing those daggers.


With Haste(Quicksilver Potion)
48 daggers thrown in 1 minute.
Repeated test - 43 daggers in 1 minute. What is going on here?!?! That's a huge difference and I'm not getting sloppy on how long that "minute" is because I'm using my phone with a 1 minute timer and being very careful.


without Haste(Quicksilver Potion)
39 daggers thrown in 1 minute.
-there was a noticeable amount of "thrown animation happens, but inventory doesn't count down" happening during this minute. Lag? Bug? I don't know.
Repeated test 45 daggers thrown in 1 minute.


Still level 12 Alchemist
Spent a bunch of AP. Including:
Chemical Weapons (15% thrown attack speed)
Vistani Haste boost (30% bonus to attack speed)
Vistani Knife Juggler (5% bonus to thrown attack speed with daggers)
Hidden Blades (3% doubleshot)
More Hidden Blades (5% doubleshot)
Note: My Doubleshot listed on my character sheet is 0%. It is not displaying the Doubleshot from Hidden Blades or More Hidden Blades. Is this a display error or is it not having the correct effect?


46 daggers thrown in 1 minute.
This does NOT look like the thrown attack speed and doubleshot are working correctly.
repeated test: 44 daggers thrown in 1 minute.


Caste Haste (Quicksilver Potion)
48 daggers thrown in 1 minute.
Repeated test 52 daggers thrown in 1 minute.




--Level 20!
Messed around with level 20 and threw in a few Wizard levels to do Zombie testing, but I forgot that Zombie required 3 Wizard levels, so I just did a Lesser Reincarnation and went back to 20 as a pure Alchemist with the same feats (No Simple Thrown Weapon Expertise - I don't want that Doubleshot here).
BAB +15
0 AP spent
21% Thrown Ranged Attack Speed bonus listed on the "+" tab. I honestly don't know where this bonus is coming from.
No equipment used at all aside from the throwing daggers I bought in the Harbor.
List of Feats:
Battalion Brew
Insightful Courage
Liquid Luck
Insightful Reflexes
Improved Critical: Thrown
Precision
Weapon Focus: Thrown
Metamagic: Accelerate Spell
Precise Shot
Improved Precise Shot
Quick Draw
Rapid Shot
Point Blank Shot
Multitude of Missiles (not used for this testing because Doubleshot isn't the same as attack speed)
Magister Epic Destiny with no twists so that I won't mess with the numbers (yet).


I threw 53 daggers in 1 minute with none of my AP spent and Magister Epic Destiny chosen.


Now I am spending my AP now, but still in Magister Epic Destiny
Same choices as I had at level 12 plus the Vile Chemist capstone and more Vistani AP spent including Celerity and the core up through Core 5.
53 daggers in 1 minute with all of those Enhancements that should have given me more attack speed with the thrown daggers and some Doubleshot as well.


Swapped to Shiradi Champion with Whirling Wrists and Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow plus Primal Hymn twisted from Fatesinger.
"+" Thrown Attack Speed now listed at 111%. 16% doubleshot.
80 daggers in 1 minute. (approximate rate of 69 per minute if you remove the doubleshot)
Repeated test and threw 88 daggers
That's still FAR below what all of the bonuses say I should be throwing.

Haste/Quicksilver Potion cast and I threw 93 daggers in 1 minute.
Repeated and got 89 daggers in 1 minute.
I put myself into a Purple reaction and I cast Haste/Quicksilver Potion and used 2 Vistani Haste boosts during the minute and threw 91 daggers in 1 minute.


Please let me know if this testing was helpful. I don't mind doing this if it's going to help, but I don't want to spend multiple hours again if it's not actually useful to you. The "blank" throws I experienced seemed to be significant no matter what speed I was throwing at. A modest portion of the thrown dagger animations didn't seem to actually result in a thrown dagger, so that caused a lower number of attacks vs. the number it should have been. Also, it seems like many of the effects that should be increasing thrown attack speed are not having any effect at all.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Just for fun, I leveled to 30 and took Primal Doubleshot and Blinding Speed to see if they made any difference. I also took Shadowfell because I was curious to see if Vampirism works with thrown weapons.

I now have 68 Doubleshot and I threw 132 daggers in 1 minute. Removing the Doubleshot factor, that works out to a rate of about 78 daggers per minute. Which is not a big difference from what I had at level 20. When you consider that I now have a BAB of 20, I don't think that the Blinding Speed is having any effect on my rate of fire.

Also, the Vampirism from Shadowfell does work with thrown daggers. YMMV with other ranged weapons. I didn't test anything other than daggers.

[GordolGreydon]

So what version of the core 3 is the one that's going forward?

The one posted on these notes

Core 3: +3% Doublestrike. You gain a chance based on your Intelligence score to throw an extra Simple Thrown Weapon per attack.

Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +5 PRR.

or the one that's on Lam

Hidden Blades: +3% Doublestrike and Doubleshot. Darts and Throwing Daggers you equip gain +1[W]. Passive: While your Reaction in Orchidium, +5 Physical Resistance Rating.


If we get a choice, the former is better then the latter

[Yamani]

Yea, what core 3 are you using. Also Martial Subtlety is only giving -40% melee threat unlike whats stated here.

[capsela]

Core 5 and tier 5 both give competence threat/crit. Why?

And tier 5 sapping ambition is maybe the worst tier 5 I've ever seen.

[Havocthedemon]

Core 5 and tier 5 both give competence threat/crit. Why?

And tier 5 sapping ambition is maybe the worst tier 5 I've ever seen.

Hey come on now! Give some credit to the T5’s in Harper

[Splunge]

And tier 5 sapping ambition is maybe the worst tier 5 I've ever seen.

It's the same as Feed on Magic, which is a T5 in the Soul Eater tree. I take that one on all of my SE warlocks. If you cast a moderate number of spells like warlocks do and like I expect vile chemists to do, it's a huge increase to your effective SP pool.

My biggest problem with the tree is the 6 second delay on the SLAs. How often do non-bosses last 6 seconds unless you're fighting a large group in high reaper? And if it's high reaper, I'm not going to get my squishy toon with no armor proficiency close enough to a large group of mobs to use a "short cone."

[capsela]

Hey come on now! Give some credit to the T5’s in Harper

Well played.

The Harper tree is the best joke the devs have ever made. How about updating the terrible trees we have now instead of making new ones?

Extra spellpoints is A+ worthless. Especially in a tree made for melee/ranged attacks. It boggles the mind.

[Quikster]

So what version of the core 3 is the one that's going forward?

The one posted on these notes

Core 3: +3% Doublestrike. You gain a chance based on your Intelligence score to throw an extra Simple Thrown Weapon per attack.

Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +5 PRR.

or the one that's on Lam

Hidden Blades: +3% Doublestrike and Doubleshot. Darts and Throwing Daggers you equip gain +1[W]. Passive: While your Reaction in Orchidium, +5 Physical Resistance Rating.


If we get a choice, the former is better then the latter

Any word on this?

[Zretch]

I think it would be really cool if all of the SLA in this tree applied the Orchidium state instead of the Ceruleite state. It would be a fun way of instantly re-seting your reaction.

Are you prepared for this tree to be the strongest and most impressive ranged tree in the game, by a wide margin? Because thats whats going to happen. Your basically giving shurikin monks law damage but calling it poison. This will be inquisitive all over again. The only reason it will not be as wide spread is because it will require 6 alchemist to use.

I would remove defensive roll from this tree, its already plenty strong enough.

You sure about that? Surikan aren't simple weapons (they're exotic), so not sure what the level 6 core is giving you. With 6 Alch, you're at 2d6 damage dice, and that scales not with something synergistic to all your other damage (ranged power), but to something that you'd have to include in your gear set in addition to ranged power, doubleshot, accuracy, deadly, seeker, etc, etc, etc.

I'm positive people will run 18 Alch/2 Arti VA + Inquis builds just like they would do 18 Wiz/2 Arti EK + Inquis builds, but i don't think there's as much synergy with shuricannons as you think there is.

[capsela]

Any word on this?

The word is that this was too fun and interesting. So it had to be mercy killed. Which is nice for me because I don't have a raid throwing dagger and now never will .

[Krumm]

So what version of the core 3 is the one that's going forward?

The one posted on these notes

Core 3: +3% Doublestrike. You gain a chance based on your Intelligence score to throw an extra Simple Thrown Weapon per attack.

Passive: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +5 PRR.

or the one that's on Lam

Hidden Blades: +3% Doublestrike and Doubleshot. Darts and Throwing Daggers you equip gain +1[W]. Passive: While your Reaction in Orchidium, +5 Physical Resistance Rating.


If we get a choice, the former is better then the latter

Can a developer please chime in on this?
Not sure why the patch notes and whats actually on Lam could be so different.
Huge difference in dps...

[HungarianRhapsody]

Bump for at least hope of a “seen by a dev” on the many, many thrown attack speed bonuses not working. Since Alchemists are supposed to be good at thrown weapons.

[Ewynn]

Tier 4

• -
• Deady Poison: +2 to hit and +2 to damage with Simple Weapons.
• Envenom the Heart: While your Poisoned Coating is active, hitting enemies that are immune to Poisons or Poison Damage makes them vulnerable to Poisons and Poison Damage for 12 seconds. Creatures you hit that are not immune to Poisons take 15% more Poison damage for a while.
• Unbreakable Ambition: While your Reaction is Orchidium, +8 PRR.
• DEX or INT

So what you're really saying is that in order to make poisons effective as either a Ninja, or a Rogue Assassin we'll need four levels of Alchemist. I can kind of buy this for the Rogue, but as the monk poison is Ki-based/mystical/cosmic, it seems a bit much to require such an investment to make poison an effective tool. Perhaps you could provide a similar capability to make a Dark Monk/Ninja viable. As it is no one plays a Dark Monk melee because their poison is ineffective.

As for the rest of U45 looks pretty good to me (+1), we'll see how it executes. Glad to see the epic-ification of Catacombs and Delera's.

Please forgive my poor formatting, I'm an inexperienced poster.

Zilgabex Msl'Wick of Khyber

PS I just realized that my last post brought this up:


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• 11-27-2019, 05:06 PM
  Thread: Alchemist confirmed as next class
  
  by Ewynn
  
  
  Replies80Views7,224
  
  
  Fix Poison and just say, "NO" to GUNPOWDER!
  
  
  Perhaps poison will be fixed for the Ninja Spy with the addition of an Alchemist poisoner of some sort. With almost any significant beast possessing poison immunity it's hard to see how an Alchemist...
  
  
  

[Tilomere]

[*]Envenom the Heart: While your Poisoned Coating is active, hitting enemies that are immune to Poisons or Poison Damage makes them vulnerable to Poisons and Poison Damage for 12 seconds.

This isn't thematic to D&D idea of teamwork and shouldn't exist. It causes damage to be "true" and results in no highs and lows in game play, and no reliance on team mates. Same with sorc bypassing elemental immunity. Same problem that caused inquisitor to be broken, where you just hold auto attack down, and bonus "true" damage kills anything, even mobs you're character should be weak to and more reliant on working with others to overcome.

Plus, it isn't thematically poison if it is just true damage. It is just broken inquisitor true damage, again. Plus it won't give interesting builds. There's no reason for example to hybrid fire damage from flasks with poison damage, to make up for the other's weakness to immune or resistant mobs, because both are in fact true damage.