Update 56 Preview 1: Dark Apostate Archetype

[Lynnabel]

Howdy all! Please be sure to check out both the Producer's Letter and the Archetype Overview page before diving in here

Dark Apostate is a Cleric Archetype.

Spells/Feats/Class Features

Instead of automatically preparing Cure Wounds spells, Dark Apostates automatically prepare the Inflict Wounds spells.

Past Life: Dark Apostate: +5 Negative Healing Amplification and +5 Negative Spell Power (stacks 3 times)

New Tree: Dark Apostate
Replaces Radiant Servant

Themes: Dark healing, evil magic, negative damage, undead control and destruction

Summary: Shroud yourself in shadow as a master of darkness and negative energy magic.

Tree:

• Core 1: Dark Apostate Each core in this tree including this one grants you +5 Negative and Alignment Spellpower and +5 Negative Healing Amplification.
• Core 3: Shadow Shrouding: Toggle: Shroud yourself in Necromantic Energies and assume the form of a Shadow. While in Shadow form, you are considered an Undead, gain a base 100% Fortification, and may heal from Negative Energies. This healing comes at a cost - Undead naturally only take 50% healing from Positive Energy and take 100% more damage from Light. You gain +2 Wisdom and +2 Constitution, as well as +5% Incorporeality and Concealment as your form is partially obscured and intangible. This is a Major Form.
• Core 6: Enhanced Shadowform I: Your Shadow Shrouding gains an additional +5% Incorporeality and Concealment (for a total of 10% each).
• Core 12: Enhanced Shadowform II: Your Shadow Shrouding gains an additional +5% Incorporeality and Concealment (for a total of 15% each). Your Bestow Curse, Doom, and Bane spells no longer have a saving throw.
• Core 18: Enhanced Shadowform III: Your Shadow Shrouding gains an additional +5% Incorporeality and Concealment (for a total of 20% each). You also passively gain +1 Necromancy DC.
• Core 20: Master of Shadows: Your Shadow Shrouding gains an additional +5% Incorporeality and Concealment (for a total of 25% each). You also passively gain +4 Wisdom.

Tier 1:

• SLA: Bane
• Apostate's Skills: +1/2/3 Heal, Hide, and Bluff. Rank 3: +1 Will saving throw
• Shadowy Bulwark: +5/10/15 HP
• Apostate's Curse: Toggle: Your Favored Weapons channel the dark energies within you, twisting them into evil versions of themselves - they deal an additional 1d6 Evil Damage on hit (scaling with 100% spellpower).
• Traditionalist Caster: +3/6/10 Universal Spell Power when wielding an Orb or Staff.

Tier 2:

• SLA: Prayer
• Dark Judgement: When you critically hit with a Negative Energy or Alignment-based spell, you gain 3/6/10 Sacred temporary spell points. Rank 3: Your deity's favored weapon is considered a Spellcasting Implement in your hands.
• Enhanced Turning: +2/4/6 Turn Undead charges.
• Enhanced Curse I: (req Apostate's Curse) Your Apostate's Curse gains 2 additional damage dice, and grants your Favored Weapons Ghost Touch.
• Cursed Words: Expend a Turn Undead charge to bestow a Curse to all enemies around you with no save.

Tier 3:

• Pray for Mercy: Your Prayer-like spells (Bless, Bane, Prayer) now resonate with Evil energies, dealing 1d6 Evil damage per Caster Level to all enemies. This damage is doubled against enemies that are Cursed.
• Endless Turning: Turn Undead uses regenerate at a rate of one every 120 seconds, or 10%/20%/30% faster if it already regenerates.
• Dark Consumption: Expend a Turn Undead charge to steal the lifeforce of target Undead, dealing 1d6 Bane damage per Character Level. You gain 1d6 Negative Energy healing per Character Level if you are in any Undead form.
• Enhanced Curse II: (req Enhanced Curse I) Your Apostate's Curse gains 2 additional damage dice, and grants your Favored Weapons the ability to use Wisdom for their attack and damage mods.
• +1 Wisdom

Tier 4:

• Blessings of the Shadows: You gain +5 Incapacitation range per character level.
• Return to Dusk: While you are in any Undead form, when you are knocked unconscious, you dissolve into shadows, granting you Invisibility and Displacement. After 5 seconds, your body reforms, and you are healed for 1d6 Negative Energy per Character Level. This may only happen once every 3 minutes.
• Visage of Shadows: You are immune to natural, magical, and supernatural diseases.
• Enhanced Curse III: (req Enhanced Curse II) Your Apostate's Curse gains 2 additional damage dice.
• +1 Wisdom

Tier 5:

• Benediction: Your Inflict Wounds spells have no maximum caster level.
• 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.
• Necromantic Devotion: +1 DCs with Necromancy spells.
• Ultimate Heresy: (req Enhanced Curse III) Your Apostate's Curse gains 2 additional damage dice. On crit, you apply 1d3 stacks of Vulnerability and apply the effects of the Curse spell.
• Shadows of Death: You gain +5% Negative and Alignment Spell Critical Chance

Note that this tree releases alongside the revamped Divine Disciple tree, see below!

[Lynnabel]

This tree has very strange core abilities. It will not make sense unless you look at it in-game.

Core A: Multiselector:

• Emissary of Light: Req Cleric 1, antireq Emissary of Darkness: You have chosen Light as your path. For each Core Ability you take in this tree, you gain +5 Light and Alignment Spellpower.
• Emissary of Darkness: Req Cleric 1, antireq Emissary of Light: You have chosen Darkness as your path. For each Core Ability you take in this tree, you gain +5 Negative spellpower.

Core B: Multiselector:

• Aspect of the Sun: Req Cleric 3: You gain +2 to all Saving Throws and +3 PRR.
• Empowered by the Darkness: Req Cleric 3: You gain +2 to all Saving Throws and +3 MRR.

Core C: Multiselector:

• Light Spellbook I: Req Cleric 6: Your Cleric spellbook gains Sunbolt as a Level 3 spell.
• Dark Spellbook I: Req Cleric 6: Your Cleric spellbook gains Enervation as a Level 3 spell.

Core D: Multiselector:

• Light Spellbook II: Req Cleric 12: Your Cleric spellbook gains Sunbeam as a Level 6 spell.
• Dark Spellbook II: Req Cleric 12: Your Cleric spellbook gains Necrotic Ray as a Level 6 spell.

Core E: Multiselector:

• Light Spellbook III: Req Cleric 18: Your Cleric spellbook gains Sunburst as a Level 8 spell. You gain +1 caster level and max caster level with Light/Alignment spells.
• Dark Spellbook III: Req Cleric 18: Your Cleric spellbook gains Power Word: Stun as a Level 8 spell. You gain +1 caster level and max caster level with Negative Energy spells.

Core F: Multiselector:

• Priest of Endless Light: Req Cleric 20 and Emissary of Light: Your mastery over Light has granted you impossible power. +4 Wisdom, +2 to all Saving Throws, and +10 Light/Alignment spellpower and positive healing amp. You gain +1 caster level and max caster level with Light/Alignment spells and +1 evocation DCs.
• Deacon of Endless Darkness: Req Cleric 20 and Emissary of Darkness: Your mastery over Darkness has granted you impossible power. +4 Wisdom, +2 to all Saving Throws, and +10 Negative spellpower and negative healing amp. You gain +1 caster level and max caster level with Negative Energy spells and +1 necromancy DCs.

Tier 1:

• Nimbus of Light vs Inflict Light Wounds SLA
• Defense of the Heart: +2/4/6 PRR
• Divine Smiting I: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Defense of the Soul: +2/4/6 MRR
• Spell Points: +30/60/100 Maximum Spell Points

Tier 2:

• Spell Penetration: +1/2/3 Spell Penetration
• Improved Metamagic: Empower/Enlarge/Maximize/Quicken
• Divine Smiting II: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Shield of Dusk and Dawn: When struck, attackers are dealt 1/2/3d6 Light and Negative damage, scaling with your spellpower. Rank 3: When enemies critically hit you, they are Blinded for 2 seconds with no save.
• Light and Dark: Whenever you cast a Light, Alignment or Negative spell, you gain +3 to your Negative, Light, and Alignment Spell Power for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 3/6/10 times.

Tier 3:

• Soundburst vs Inflict Light Wounds, Mass
• Improved Metamagic: Empower/Enlarge/Maximize/Quicken
• Divine Smiting III: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Multiselector:
  
  • Disciple of Dusk: You gain +5/10/15 Negative Healing Amplification. Rank 3: +5 Negative Spellpower
  • Disciple of Dawn: You gain +5/10/15 Positive Healing Amplification. Rank 3: +5 Light and Alignment Spellpower
• +1 Wisdom

Tier 4:

• Sun Bolt vs Inflict Serious Wounds SLA
• Improved Metamagic: Heighten
• Divine Smiting IV: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Multiselector: (select what you did not select in Tier 3)
  
  • Disciple of Dusk: You gain +5/10/15 Negative Healing Amplification. Rank 3: +5 Negative Spellpower
  • Disciple of Dawn: You gain +5/10/15 Positive Healing Amplification. Rank 3: +5 Light and Alignment Spellpower
• +1 Wisdom

Tier 5:

• Multiselector:
  
  • Divine Wrath SLA
  • Harm SLA
• Multiselector:
  
  • Transcend Light: Req having only Emissary of Light cores. You now gain the Spellbook spells of the Path of Darkness.
  • Transcend Darkness: Req having only Emissary of Darkness cores: You now gain the Spellbook spells of the Path of Light.
  • Bring Balance: req having both Light and Dark cores: The Word of Balance spell is added to your Spellbook at level 7. (yes, both light and dark cores... this tree is funky fresh)
• Divine Smiting V: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Condemnation: +5% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Damage
• Divine Empowerment: +1 DCs with Evocation and Necromancy spells

[HailBlazR]

Excuse me if this has already been answered elsewhere, but I saw multiple people ask this in the Producer's Letter thread and didn't see a dev response.

Will the new Archetypes be required to get the Heroic Completionist Feat? That's the only thing I care about here, since none of the archetypes look interesting to me. I would only play them if required to get the Completionist feat. And even then, I'm not sure I'd particularly enjoy it.

[Lotoc]

Excuse me if this has already been answered elsewhere, but I saw multiple people ask this in the Producer's Letter thread and didn't see a dev response.

Will the new Archetypes be required to get the Heroic Completionist Feat? That's the only thing I care about here, since none of the archetypes look interesting to me. I would only play them if required to get the Completionist feat. And even then, I'm not sure I'd particularly enjoy it.

answered in this thread here https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showth...etype-Overview

Specifically

Past Lives and Completionist

Archetypes have their own past lives that fit in with the current Heroic Past Life system. If your majority class is an Archetype, you will earn that Archetype's past life.

An Archetype's past life counts as a prerequisite for the Heroic Active past life feats. Furthermore, an Archetype's past life feat will qualify someone for Heroic Completionist, assuming they haven't earned it already. If you have 1 copy of all heroic class past lives done on a character except for Cleric, for example, you'd be able to qualify for the Cleric portion with either base Cleric or with Dark Apostate. This means that as we release new Archetypees, Heroic Completionist won't be removed from players that have already earned it, and new options will open up for players still on that journey. Finally, with this release, Heroic Completionist will become automatically granted to characters that qualify.

In summary, Heroic Completionist will become: You win DDO! You gain +2 stats and +2 skills. This feat is automatically obtained at level 3 for all characters that have completed at least one class or archetype past life for each of the available classes in the game.

[Epicsoul]

Will additional dice for Apostate's Curse be added to the Draconic tree?

[FuzzyDuck81]

No max caster level on inflict spells from dark emissary is going to make those some pretty hard hitting SLAs from divine disciple. Interesting idea with the curse mechanic too & having a weapon imbue will definitely assist warpriests in their damage dealing capability.

[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?

[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.

[lain5246]

This tree has very strange core abilities. It will not make sense unless you look at it in-game.

Core A: Multiselector:

• Emissary of Light: Req Cleric 1, antireq Emissary of Darkness: You have chosen Light as your path. For each Core Ability you take in this tree, you gain +5 Light and Alignment Spellpower.
• Emissary of Darkness: Req Cleric 1, antireq Emissary of Light: You have chosen Darkness as your path. For each Core Ability you take in this tree, you gain +5 Negative spellpower.

Core B: Multiselector:

• Aspect of the Sun: Req Cleric 3: You gain +2 to all Saving Throws and +3 PRR.
• Empowered by the Darkness: Req Cleric 3: You gain +2 to all Saving Throws and +3 MRR.

Core C: Multiselector:

• Light Spellbook I: Req Cleric 6: Your Cleric spellbook gains Sunbolt as a Level 3 spell.
• Dark Spellbook I: Req Cleric 6: Your Cleric spellbook gains Enervation as a Level 3 spell.

Core D: Multiselector:

• Light Spellbook II: Req Cleric 12: Your Cleric spellbook gains Sunbeam as a Level 6 spell.
• Dark Spellbook II: Req Cleric 12: Your Cleric spellbook gains Necrotic Ray as a Level 6 spell.

Core E: Multiselector:

• Light Spellbook III: Req Cleric 18: Your Cleric spellbook gains Sunburst as a Level 8 spell. You gain +1 caster level and max caster level with Light/Alignment spells.
• Dark Spellbook III: Req Cleric 18: Your Cleric spellbook gains Power Word: Stun as a Level 8 spell. You gain +1 caster level and max caster level with Negative Energy spells.

Core F: Multiselector:

• Priest of Endless Light: Req Cleric 20 and Emissary of Light: Your mastery over Light has granted you impossible power. +4 Wisdom, +2 to all Saving Throws, and +10 Light/Alignment spellpower and positive healing amp. You gain +1 caster level and max caster level with Light/Alignment spells and +1 evocation DCs.
• Deacon of Endless Darkness: Req Cleric 20 and Emissary of Darkness: Your mastery over Darkness has granted you impossible power. +4 Wisdom, +2 to all Saving Throws, and +10 Negative spellpower and negative healing amp. You gain +1 caster level and max caster level with Negative Energy spells and +1 necromancy DCs.

Tier 1:

• Nimbus of Light vs Inflict Light Wounds SLA
• Defense of the Heart: +2/4/6 PRR
• Divine Smiting I: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Defense of the Soul: +2/4/6 MRR
• Spell Points: +30/60/100 Maximum Spell Points

Tier 2:

• Spell Penetration: +1/2/3 Spell Penetration
• Improved Metamagic: Empower/Enlarge/Maximize/Quicken
• Divine Smiting II: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Shield of Dusk and Dawn: When struck, attackers are dealt 1/2/3d6 Light and Negative damage, scaling with your spellpower. Rank 3: When enemies critically hit you, they are Blinded for 2 seconds with no save.
• Light and Dark: Whenever you cast a Light, Alignment or Negative spell, you gain +3 to your Negative, Light, and Alignment Spell Power for 6 seconds. This stacks up to 3/6/10 times.

Tier 3:

• Soundburst vs Inflict Light Wounds, Mass
• Improved Metamagic: Empower/Enlarge/Maximize/Quicken
• Divine Smiting III: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Multiselector:
  
  • Disciple of Dusk: You gain +5/10/15 Negative Healing Amplification. Rank 3: +5 Negative Spellpower
  • Disciple of Dawn: You gain +5/10/15 Positive Healing Amplification. Rank 3: +5 Light and Alignment Spellpower
• +1 Wisdom

Tier 4:

• Sun Bolt vs Inflict Serious Wounds SLA
• Improved Metamagic: Heighten
• Divine Smiting IV: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Multiselector: (select what you did not select in Tier 3)
  
  • Disciple of Dusk: You gain +5/10/15 Negative Healing Amplification. Rank 3: +5 Negative Spellpower
  • Disciple of Dawn: You gain +5/10/15 Positive Healing Amplification. Rank 3: +5 Light and Alignment Spellpower
• +1 Wisdom

Tier 5:

• Multiselector:
  
  • Divine Wrath SLA
  • Harm SLA
• Multiselector:
  
  • Transcend Light: Req having only Emissary of Light cores. You now gain the Spellbook spells of the Path of Darkness.
  • Transcend Darkness: Req having only Emissary of Darkness cores: You now gain the Spellbook spells of the Path of Light.
  • Bring Balance: req having both Light and Dark cores: The Word of Balance spell is added to your Spellbook at level 7. (yes, both light and dark cores... this tree is funky fresh)
• Divine Smiting V: +2% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Chance
• Condemnation: +5% Light, Negative, and Alignment Spell Critical Damage
• Divine Empowerment: +1 DCs with Evocation and Necromancy spells

the loss of negative energy burst is rough

[rabidfox]

the loss of negative energy burst is rough

It was still the choice on LAM, so not sure if the lam build has the wrong SLA or if the notes are wrong there.

[droid327]

[*][*]Bring Balance: req having both Light and Dark cores: The Word of Balance spell is added to your Spellbook at level 7. (yes, both light and dark cores... this tree is funky fresh)

This seems odd as its an Untyped spell and thus scales off Force spellpower, which this tree and class dont otherwise support (outside of a few spells like Cometfall and the antiquated Blade Barrier). Its a nice idea in principle but maybe this needs a special version of the spell that does Light damage instead of Untyped, or something.

Also, the tree has completely lost any support for Fire casting...which seems odd given so many Fire spells in the Cleric spellbook, and now you're pretty much shoehorned into Fire Domain if you want to cast them with any kind of support.

[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

[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.

[Kasinata]

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.

id have to agree that soundburst... is going to be the obvious choice as clerics dont have a lot of control spells, getting this as a cheap sla wins over most dmg spells at a glance

[QuantumFX]

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