Update 56 Preview 1: Sacred Fist Archetype

[droid327]

Sacred Fist:

• Step 2: Add places for players to spend Ki:
  
  • Sacred Whirlwind and Exalted Whirlwind now cost Ki
  • Sacred Whirlwind and Exalted Whirlwind now also provide a small light and fire debuff to better synergize with the new Ki spells
  • Add new Ki spells to the spellbook to greater increase utility and allow for better active Ki spending
    
    • Sacred Fist is a paladin, which is a spellcaster, so this is a perfect place to put a source of reliable ki drain!
    • The spells are a combination of short-duration, quick-activation personal buffs and explosive ki fire attacks that scale with melee power
• Step 3: Boost Handwraps a bit across the board for everyone. The feat Swords to Plowshares will now provide Handwraps a +1 Morale bonus to Threat Range.

- Ki spenders just made this archetype 1000% better by actually giving it something both useful and unique

- Whirlwind cooldowns reduced 1s, maybe? Otherwise you're just adding a Ki cost simply to add a Ki cost. If they're Ki-limited, then they shouldn't be as cooldown-limited. If I have the extra Ki and want to spam them, that should be possible.

- S2P bonus range for Handwraps maybe doubled with Imp Crit, a la KT and Battleaxes? That'd make it the same as 19-20/x2 weapons, which seems reasonable for the cost

[Kielbasa]

The new ki spender spells will they be auto granted or will we have to select them? Paladins are starved for spell slots.

Will there be a pass on cleaves and how they interact with 2wf and handwraps to clean up any bugs? In general cleaves are usually less satisfying to play with than strike through due to weird things going with the hit box, slow animations, improper damage, and number of hits versus other weapon styles. Also has drifting lotus been looked at? Last time I had it on my hot bar it suffered from these issues as well.

[nobodynobody1426]

Maybe thing about adding the Monk elemental forms to the archetype?

[nooblord]

Sorry if repeat, havent read the thread. just plopping separate, distinct ideas.

I like the theme of relying on ki instead of mana for spells. some sort of toggle that takes X% of mana cost from ki for spells. Punch to cast. Might be really annoying in gameplay, who knows. The idea is to get into a rhythm of punch punch heal to be a battle 'hot' healer through punches.

When i think of a "monk" paladin, i think of prayers executed in the way that monk executes his/her forms. Some sort of basic move combo system could be really interesting to affect how the the base smite and the base lay on hands functions. You could theoretically replace LOH with any cure spell, i suppose. The moves could be granted with the new archetype and would cost ki.

For defense, i like the idea of holy bulwark paladin meeting the dexterity of monk. Some way to stack block chance, PRR, or AC in exchange for Ki could be interesting. Creating blessed ground as you fight on some move set to grant party buffs and defensive layers could be interesting.

[K_9]

The new ki spender spells will they be auto granted or will we have to select them? Paladins are starved for spell slots.

Will there be a pass on cleaves and how they interact with 2wf and handwraps to clean up any bugs? In general cleaves are usually less satisfying to play with than strike through due to weird things going with the hit box, slow animations, improper damage, and number of hits versus other weapon styles. Also has drifting lotus been looked at? Last time I had it on my hot bar it suffered from these issues as well.

Also will new spells cost purely KI, or KI and spell points? This is important as Paladins don't have a high amount of spell points. (even less as usually dumping wisdom)

[Havocthedemon]

Maybe thing about adding the Monk elemental forms to the archetype?

I think there’s a good argument for that staying purely monk - however the feats like Improved Martial Arts and Vorpal Strikes should be fair game here if you want to spend a slot on them. Although I’m fairly certain Vorpal Strikes has been broken for a long time and the only thing it does is add slashing as a damage type.

[Willan]

Vorpal strikes would be worth taking if it was moved to a lvl 28 feat and have it grant sovereign vorpal w/ the 0.5[w].

[drathdragon]

Sorry if repeat, havent read the thread. just plopping separate, distinct ideas.

I like the theme of relying on ki instead of mana for spells. some sort of toggle that takes X% of mana cost from ki for spells. Punch to cast. Might be really annoying in gameplay, who knows. The idea is to get into a rhythm of punch punch heal to be a battle 'hot' healer through punches.

When i think of a "monk" paladin, i think of prayers executed in the way that monk executes his/her forms. Some sort of basic move combo system could be really interesting to affect how the the base smite and the base lay on hands functions. You could theoretically replace LOH with any cure spell, i suppose. The moves could be granted with the new archetype and would cost ki.

For defense, i like the idea of holy bulwark paladin meeting the dexterity of monk. Some way to stack block chance, PRR, or AC in exchange for Ki could be interesting. Creating blessed ground as you fight on some move set to grant party buffs and defensive layers could be interesting.

this is beautiful,

i love the concept.

[Seph1roth5]

I like the idea but it feels like far too much of the tree is just copied from KoTC (and not the trance or insta-kill part!).

Path of Light - should give you access to fists of light. Maybe add in finishing blows and give it light/fire stuff?

Tier 5 - All pretty underwhelming. Avenging cleave is junk in KoTC, and violence begets violence is as well. It's like you literally looked at the t5s from monk/paladin and took the worst ones.

KoTC stuff - maybe ditch the KoTC copies and put in something else (especially the t5s). To what depends on what you want to do with this tree. As it is it just feels like a mashup of all the KoTC stuff I didn't want to begin with, and some base monk stuff. What about a new stance that's light element? (and adding to jidz tekka and such). Giving and beefing up fist of light so it's more than just a trickle of healing?

[Havocthedemon]

I like the idea but it feels like far too much of the tree is just copied from KoTC (and not the trance or insta-kill part!).

Path of Light - should give you access to fists of light. Maybe add in finishing blows and give it light/fire stuff?

Tier 5 - All pretty underwhelming. Avenging cleave is junk in KoTC, and violence begets violence is as well. It's like you literally looked at the t5s from monk/paladin and took the worst ones.

KoTC stuff - maybe ditch the KoTC copies and put in something else (especially the t5s). To what depends on what you want to do with this tree. As it is it just feels like a mashup of all the KoTC stuff I didn't want to begin with, and some base monk stuff. What about a new stance that's light element? (and adding to jidz tekka and such). Giving and beefing up fist of light so it's more than just a trickle of healing?

I also think the cleave animations are pretty lackluster. I mean there’s a reason normal monks don’t use them. The cleave is just some extra W with a weak animation for a T5?Theres no extra crit range or multiplier on the clicky. Can we get a WW version of Holy Retribution from Kotc as a tier 5? Breaking up the fast hand wrap attack animation isn’t worth it for clicky attacks this bad. I don’t mind VBV which is basically just an extra +1 all the time. What if it was like the bard swash one Exploit Weakness instead?

[Duhboy]

This tree doesn't really add anything to this class as a whole. I suggest instead of Radiant Servant to have access to Warpriest. That way Sacred Fist Paladins will still have Divine Might aswell as having access to useful abilities that would augment it such as Righteous Weapons, Ameliorating Strike, etc.

[SWCarter]

This tree doesn't really add anything to this class as a whole. I suggest instead of Radiant Servant to have access to Warpriest. That way Sacred Fist Paladins will still have Divine Might aswell as having access to useful abilities that would augment it such as Righteous Weapons, Ameliorating Strike, etc.

Agree with this. To me, Warpriest is a much better fit than Radiant Servant, though there may need to be some tweaks to offer Charisma in the capstone and a multi-select for Divine Bastion.

[Kielbasa]

So I have some hot takes on this archetype so far having given it some time to percolate.

The 18/20 sacred fist cores are not good enough. Multi classing will be the first thing everyone does when they role one of these up.

A paladin without divine might feels wrong you're already giving up heavy armor, good martial weapons and all those benefits to use handwraps with some on hit damage and glowing fists (which graphically looks great please add this to monk stances or light/dark philosophy.) This will get people in the door but what will keep them here?

One interesting idea I have would be rolling the smite foe active attack and enhancement line boosting it into the sacred strike line with a cower effect tacked onto it to add a little cc and party healing to a sacred fist.

The cleaves aren't interesting enough. Sacred Whirlwind add cowers enemies on a vorpal. Avenging Whirlwind add cowers enemies on a crit. Now you have some cc baked into the build and it can be done without making a charisma version of stunning fist and outraging monks everywhere. DC is 10 + half paladin level + charisma modifier + sunder item bonus.

I can see three primary offensive builds coming out of it in its current state all probably 18/1/1 handwraps, quarterstaves, or dagger(s).

Sacred defender will need a once over. All of the shield specific stuff will need to go since you cannot use one and remain centered so a combination of dodge, dodge cap and mrr cap needs to be in here somewhere. Otherwise robes will just hit both caps much to quickly and you also won't have enough dodge/ac/mrr cap to matter and this build will just go casplat.

Radiant Servant will also need a few tweaks to be a viable primary tree on a non cleric. Paladins have a tiny spell point pool comparatively to primary heals so this tree will have to grant a healthy chunk of it somewhere or there needs to be some non spell point based healing baked in that isn't just lay on hands unless you boost their regen rate significantly. A heal sla in the 18/20 core and some additional AoE healing in tier 5 would go a long ways towards making the build viable.

[Arkat]

This tree doesn't really add anything to this class as a whole.

But, but...handwraps!!!

[dgtgtd]

Curious about the decision to give the new cleric archetype wis to hit and damage in its tree, but not do the same for charisma on the Sacred Fist. This is pigeonholing all Sacred Fist builds into using Feydark Illusionist.

[Alternative]

But, but...handwraps!!!

But, but... 18/2 pal/monk!!!

[Duhboy]

But, but...handwraps!!!

But, but... toliet paper!!!

[grudgebear]

What are your thoughts on re-introducing divine might back into the tree?

A cha based stunning fist or stunning blow.

Do the cleaves get offhand hit and double attack yet? Can you make that change for all cleaves so TWF feels like an option again?

I really miss Divine Might from this tree. Stunning blow on this archetype not being CHA based while entire identity of this archetype is, makes another shortcoming.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

I really like how this archetype is looking. The charisma for wisdom swap opens up a lot of synergies, and I am a fan of adding in Radiant Servant to give some good uses for all the Channel Divinities that Paladin gets. I keep trying different radiant servant builds, and this looks intriguing.

it is spread kind of thin on ability scores. Divine Might would help a lot with stunning fist and not having direct access to charisma for hit/damage, but even without it, it seems like you would start off in a better place than a monk - with easier healing and quick access to easy extra damage.

[Havocthedemon]

I really like how this archetype is looking. The charisma for wisdom swap opens up a lot of synergies, and I am a fan of adding in Radiant Servant to give some good uses for all the Channel Divinities that Paladin gets. I keep trying different radiant servant builds, and this looks intriguing.

it is spread kind of thin on ability scores. Divine Might would help a lot with stunning fist and not having direct access to charisma for hit/damage, but even without it, it seems like you would start off in a better place than a monk - with easier healing and quick access to easy extra damage.

Divine might would be nice. Even if it’s not the multiselector one fvs gets - a Cha trance would help greatly as pally doesn’t get much as far as tactics bonuses.