Update 56 Preview 1: Dark Apostate Archetype

[Ghustor]

I said the same thing about Stormsinger, a lack of immunity removal mechanic is going to make the negative energy part of the build very unreliable. There are a lot of monsters immune to negative energy in the game.... thankfully less so for alignments, so at least that will work. I'm also unsure why one of the core mechanics of the tree (Apostate's curse) is locked behind using weapons when warpriest could do that. Perhaps adding a way to use it with spells would add more ways to use it...?


I like the idea of archetypes in general though.

+1

Sorc, Druid and Alch has they mechanic to rip out immunity. Wiz can do that with undeads only (what still lets a lot of mobs immunies) and as soon they improved the infricts dmg some ppl was playing 16 cleric / 4 wiz, but the SP was drained too fast, what makes this build unreliable. To make it right, the cleric needs to overcome immunities and maybe had some SLA. We need to count the infrict is FOR save based and has the worst filigrees, so, mobs will save more than they save for Sorc/Alch/Druid casters.

A nice plan, but still not well balanced. Need to improve the design

[Khurse]

~ New DD tree doesn't seem to be included, so working with the old one..

- Dark Consumption doesn't seem to work. Target undead, don't target undead, target non undead, doesn't seem to do any damage or heal. (Tested on Drow in Kings Forest and Isle of Dread undead)

Honestly I'd suggest this ability be redone as the PM "Unholy Avatar". With a tree focusing on neg damage, being able to strip undead's immunity is orders of magnitude better than being able to get some heals off of undead if you happen to be fighting some.
Switch it with "Blessings of the Shadow" if you want to keep them the same tier.

- Return to Dusk
If this gives the same 50% damage reduction as "Dark Discorporation" it's arguably useful, without it- as someone mentioned turning invisible and gaining 25% concealment won't do anything in current end game, it probably won't even break a mobs attack chain.

-Benediction
Doesn't seem to work, All my "Inflict" spells seem to be casting at level 26 ( 32 Cleric Sun Elf)

-Cursed Words
Doesn't seem to work. Ran into Isle of Dread Wilderness, surrounded by 6 dinosaurs hit it, no noticeable effect, inspecting mobs didn't show anything added to effects on them


More testing when DD gets updated on Lammania, but so far I'm of two minds..

I really like the Archetype idea, think it's fantastic, but.. for cleric, this seems to take the abilities for one pretty decent tree, and spread them over two .
I'd really like to see the "Harm" SLA that DD gets at T5 worked into Dark Apostle .

Even with it, you are a weaker PM, with better Non Undead Healing, (PM's obviously still rule for healing undead parties)

Really liking the direction so far though!

- Also not sure if I'm reading it wrong, but the only 'Inflict" spell I had as automatically prepared was "Inflict Light Wounds"(in addition to "Cure Light Wounds". Every other level had the normal "Cure" spell.

[Pandjed]

Had to google to make sure, that apostate is the same in English. This is the shorthand definition I got first and after some skimming, it seemed to be good enough:

a person who renounces a religious or political belief or principle.

So...

Why are there favored weapons!? Something, that stems from a religous belief, a system/church that tells to use these weapons, because the [insert deity here] wields it itself, favoring it over all other weapons?

Get away with it! Save the narrative, instead of using a cool title and then abandon it with the character creation by choosing a deity! Use the design space of level 1 and 6 for something else!

If there are concerns about favorite weapons because of warpriest, add an enhancement to Dark Apostate tree that makes you select a favored weapon and grants proficiency with it... and let it be a multiselector with "none" of the usual suspects, so that suddenly Greataxe, Khopesh, Shuriken, etc. become choices for melee clerics!

[droid327]

Had to google to make sure, that apostate is the same in English. This is the shorthand definition I got first and after some skimming, it seemed to be good enough:



So...

Why are there favored weapons!? Something, that stems from a religous belief, a system/church that tells to use these weapons, because the [insert deity here] wields it itself, favoring it over all other weapons?

Get away with it! Save the narrative, instead of using a cool title and then abandon it with the character creation by choosing a deity! Use the design space of level 1 and 6 for something else!

If there are concerns about favorite weapons because of warpriest, add an enhancement to Dark Apostate tree that makes you select a favored weapon and grants proficiency with it... and let it be a multiselector with "none" of the usual suspects, so that suddenly Greataxe, Khopesh, Shuriken, etc. become choices for melee clerics!

You can be an apostate from a church and still follow the tenets of the religion...Protestants are still Christian even though they reject Catholicism, e.g. This tree is just a cleric who embraces "forbidden knowledge", but they're still a follower of the deity.

And I dont think they want to divorce deity selection from favored weapon status, at least until L26 in Divine Crusader. Otherwise you'll just get everyone wielding the "best" weapon, which is the exact opposite of what Favored Weapons are supposed to encourage.

That being said, I do expect to see a lot of Toaster Apostates wielding Greatswords, especially considering Undead form lets them ignore all the usual issues of Warforged Clerics having their self-healing penalized

[sithhound]

Will the concealment and incorporeality from the cores stack with items and spells? Reaper is the default difficulty nowadays, and it starts at 10/5 concealment/incorp bypass at R1, and add 5/5 each additional skull, and you end up at 55/50 bypass on R10. This just seems like an odd choice for CORES. Basically, if you run high skull Reaper, you will get almost nothing from the CORE abilities of the tree? Just seems like an odd design choice to me.

[EinarMal]

Not a fan of this, mixing in the melee weapon into a mostly caster tree. Also lackluster cores with incorp being mostly useless if you run above R4.

Negative damage is also one of the worst in terms of immunity. I don't even see a way to bypass for undead? Combine that with deathward and this is a noob trap tree.

[Targal]

(Removed by myself)

[Targal]

Ward of Shadow: Wards all nearby allies against all four alignments and light. This is Protection from Elements but for Law, Chaos, Evil, Good, and Light damage.

Can we just have this as a standard? It is somewhat annoying when we have unblockable damage type that is only blockable by very specific way even like this. It isn't creative. How can Dark apostate be way better than RS for protecting people?
Especially those damages are too big general when compared to pnp, and there can't be a reason that we don't have such unusual protection to DDO. I would want just "Resist alignment & light" as a standard too, and "Resist poison" to specific class(like arti, alch) too.
Think of how horrible the last HC4 was. 200 alignment damage to 200 HP character?

--


(Edited)

I mean...
Divine(clr, fvs): Resist light&alignment
Druid: Resist light&alignment(they are a protector in neutral. Why not.), Resist Poison(why not to Nature caster)
Alch, Arti: Resist poison
Other casters: No to them. These are exclusive to these classes

This should go like this

[Qezuzu]

Typed on phone sorry for grammar issues.

I have been running a Death Domain cleric running Magus of the Eclipse for years and I'm pretty excited about this.

I'm primarily a DC caster so the no-save Curse is pretty cool.
I like the sprinkle of melee stuff. A cursespewing debuffer could make for a really cool build.


I think having only damage spells on the dark side for Divine Disciple SLAs is a miss.
Tier1 is ok for early levels
Tier3 is a choice between a great CC spell and a middling AoE damage spell. Smart players will always take Soundburst as AoE helpless + AoE spell is just more time and probably mana efficient. It's just not a interesting choice.
It might be better to have a choice between two utility spells. Bestow Curse likely loses out in heroic levels but would see use in epics. Blindness and Symbol of Pain might also be interesting options.
If you keep dark damage sla in tier3, then perhaps Symbol of Death could be an option in Tier4.

Tier5 is confusing. I swore it was still Flame Strike until I went back and checked and saw it was Divine Wrath. A lvl9 spell vs a lvl6 spell? Also consider that Harm is really meh.. I have not used it in heroic in awhile but after the scaling to inflict spells, especially if MCL can be removed, it's just not worth casting in epic. Again, don't know about heroic where it's probably quite nuclear I admit, but the inability to actually kill something will always be annoying.
Harm could be tweaked ot perhaps this sla could be replaced with energy drain or mass inflict critical.

Wizard spells are also an option. Aura of Death? This would allow a dark apostate to really become the dark version of radiant servant.

I also don't think the Tier5 transcend/balance is very compelling. Word of Balance isn't particularly strong and, with the ability to select any core, you'll pick and choose which spell you want, so the other spells you get were already your second choice. The only thing I'd go out of my way to get would be Sunburst.. except, most likely, I'd pick Sunburst over the only decent PW:Stun and MCL increase. Transcend could be a different payoff for staying "pure" to your path, while balance could be get all spells+WoB+probably another small payoff like MCL increase on WoB.

Really, the Tier5 for Divine Disciple is unexciting. Second-pick spells,stat increases, and a strong SLA.. otoh I think the Dark Apostate Tier5 is very compelling.

I personally don't think a remove immunity option is needed for negative energy. Cleric curbstomps undead at all levels and constructs are always a pain for casters, but cleric has the tools to deal with them. I don't think it's worth the space another ability could go.

[Aaabbbcccddd]

I am fine with this tree not having a death aura, but at least keep the negativ energy burst sla in the Divine Deciple tree, pls. For me that was the main reason to go cleric/wizard.

I really like that that there is a way to get wisdom to hit and dmg without going into the falconry tree. That helps melee clerics a lot.

[Targal]

* soundburst vs inflict wound mass
I think you don't have to remove holy smite because you're going to nerf its damage to +4 from +8
And soundburst is somewhat not related to cleric

* harm SLA
It doesn't accept metamagic and it isn't that helpful than wraith SLA.
I think Harm should accept metamagic and should do more damage(or some special dice roll) against living creature.

[nobodynobody1426]

* soundburst vs inflict wound mass
I think you don't have to remove holy smite because you're going to nerf its damage to +4 from +8
And soundburst is somewhat not related to cleric

* harm SLA
It doesn't accept metamagic and it isn't that helpful than wraith SLA.
I think Harm should accept metamagic and should do more damage(or some special dice roll) against living creature.

Yeah they going pretty hard on Cleric / FvS right now, I guess too many people played them on Hardcore. It's the same thing that happened to the Shiradi Champion mantle.

Just noticed they completely removed the fire support, making this an actual nerf to DD.

[QuantumFX]

As with all things in DDO today: Can we get an option to *not* heal mobs with negative energy? I don't need to make things vulnerable, just don't let me heal mobs. And, have it affect the Shadow Dragon effects as well! Please and Thank You.

[Arcanesnipr]

Question, with the addition of the dark apostates curse imbue and sacred fists flame imbue, will these also be added to the draconic arcane spellsword ability? Same question but legendary feat Enhanced elemental dice?

[droid327]

Oh wait a second...War Priest only has the CHA trance, doesnt it?

Can we get that switched out to the same as FvS, a multiselector WIS or CHA, since Apostate is deliberately supporting WIS melee? Seems weird and inelegant that a melee Apostate would almost definitely need to splash /1 FvS for their version of the trance

Also...you cant use nuking metas with the Evil bonus damage, since Bane/Bless/etc. dont take Max/Emp/Intensify, can you? That puts a crimp on the mechanic since free metas is kinda half the point of SLAs, especially for something like Alignment damage that isnt as well-supported with gear and destinies.

[QuantumFX]

Is the person who set up the new Divine Disciple cores okay?

[nobodynobody1426]

Is the person who set up the new Divine Disciple cores okay?

The "new" DD is actually a nerf ... which kinda shocked me since I didn't think it was possible. Well it's a nerf for any build that isn't death domain necro cleric, which just happens to work with the "new" tree.

I'd take the old Light side tree over this ****.

[Seph1roth5]

DD was a horrible tree, but way to find a way to actually nerf the few good things it had lol. Mostly people just took it on a blaster cleric because what ELSE would you take?

It's ridiculous/hilarious to nerf holy smite and then also remove it from DD. Like other people have pointed out, the loss of fire support is crazy too. I don't think people understand what's good/useful and what's not. 25% incorporeal is a neat idea, but like people have pointed out, pointless in reaper. 25% concealment is something you should get at lv 6 or 12 core, not 20.

Most of the SLAs in DD are bad choices. Harm as a t5? Put that in the core line instead of concealment. It's garbage as an offensive spell so it's just a self-heal. It's not something you spam a lot so it doesn't need to be an sla. Divine wrath is a strong spell but probably has a long CD.


The archetype seems interesting, but I also think it's weird to mix in caster and weapon stuff. It just means that it's only going to get half the bonus a real tree would've given. If I go front row negative dice and cursing, I'm not going to be built for dcs/spellpower so the spell pen/crit chance aren't going to mean much. If I'm a caster I'm not going to have improved crit and all the style feats to be dps. It's like an ED, going to have a ton of points spent in useless **** just to unlock higher tiers.

[Khurse]

Ok for the DD stuff

All Tested on 32 Sun Elf Cleric

The core abilities seem messed up for me? (Find it odd that no one mentioned this...so maybe it's only for some toons? )
The First light core and last Dark core are both in the first spot on the left, the last spot on the right (normally the 20 core) has the First Dark Core and last Light core.
The normal level 3 core (2nd from left)has the levle 18 core (Power Word Stun) and the level 3 Dark Core (Light Defense, +2 Save +3 MRR)
Level 6 core(3rd from left) has the Level 12 Dark core (Necrotic Ray) and the Level 6 Light (Sun Bolt)
Level 12 core (4th from left)has the Level 6 Dark (Enervation) and level 12 light (Sun Beam)
Level 18 core (5th from left) has both the Level 3 and the Level 18 Light cores.

Also I'm still showing Negative Energy Burst /Necrotic Bolt etc as available options that work if you put the points into them.

RE: The Dark Apostate.

Still a cool idea, I'm not sure about the melee damage line of enhancements on what seems to be a caster tree, but- even if you decide to change this. PLEASE leave teh graphic for "Apostate's Curse" in for your weapon.
Even if I never plan on hitting anything, having the weapon glow red and black is just cool.

-Turning on any of "Apostate's curse"/ Dark Consumption/Cursed Words/ and the Shadow Shrouding all put each other on 30 second cool downs.
Not sure if WAI

The Tier 4 Wisdom Enhancement can't be taken in the DA tree

[rabidfox]

The core abilities seem messed up for me? (Find it odd that no one mentioned this...so maybe it's only for some toons? )
The First light core and last Dark core are both in the first spot on the left, the last spot on the right (normally the 20 core) has the First Dark Core and last Light core.
The normal level 3 core (2nd from left)has the levle 18 core (Power Word Stun) and the level 3 Dark Core (Light Defense, +2 Save +3 MRR)
Level 6 core(3rd from left) has the Level 12 Dark core (Necrotic Ray) and the Level 6 Light (Sun Bolt)
Level 12 core (4th from left)has the Level 6 Dark (Enervation) and level 12 light (Sun Beam)
Level 18 core (5th from left) has both the Level 3 and the Level 18 Light cores.

That's by design. You can take a mix of light and dark cores or go a single path. The more you take of a 2nd path in the cores, the more it locks you out of higher level cores.