Update 56 Preview 1: Sacred Fist Archetype

[Shedrakzo]

I'll take a shot at some suggestions for Sacred Fist:

One of the biggest contention spots I've seen people bringing up is the Monk Stances. My suggestion is to create a new stance for Path of Light granted at level 6 as an Adapt stage and auto-grant Master and Grandmaster at level 12 and 18, respectively.

Radiant Stance: You gain +2 Charisma (3/4) at a cost of -2 Intelligence. While in Radiant Stance you gain 'Hit Effect: Gain 1 ki.' and 'When Missed in Combat: Gain 1 ki.' Additionally your Aura of Courage provides stacking Heal Amp while in this stance. Finally while in Radiant Stance you gain MMR cap equal to your Divine Grace bonus. Radiant Stance also counts as a Fire Stance for enhancements, items, or epic destinies.

I think tucking an MRR cap into a stance exclusive to this archtype, while also tying it to the core Paladin class feature, means that this emphasizes a heavy to pure paladin playstyle while also giving them a bit more magical defenses compared to a monk in a manner that reflects the class being a Paladin. +62 MMR cap certainly won't make a robe evasion build the best, but it might be an interesting testing ground to see how it may play out for balancing monks in the future.

Additionally to go along with Radiant Stance, I would suggest a Path of Light exclusive Ki Strike.

Radiant Strike: You strike an opponent, backed with the power of holy flames. Your attack will deal 1d6 fire and 1d6 light damage. On a critical, this damage is increased to 1d10 die and produces a blindness affect on the target. On a vorpal, this attack produces a Sunburst (as per the spell) with a DC based on Character Level + Charisma + Evocation bonuses.

Or something similar, DCs and numbers are entirely up to dev choice. But this would give the Sacred Fist some of the CC people are clamoring for, as well as returning the insta-kill from KotC, at least against undead.

With the changes occurring for handwraps in Swords to Plowshares, you could tuck it into the weapon line similar to KotC to help with feat costs.

And one final note, while not a part of this Archtype or even its discussion, I am curious to ask: is there potential for adjustments to the Razorclaw Shifter's tree while we're looking at non-monk handwrap users?

[QuantumFX]

IMO, SF should be as sturdy as a paladin, but in different ways from the paladin. Unfortunately, the Sacred Defender tree is horrible at supporting unarmored builds. Beyond the suggestions I made earlier in the thread, I think adding a change to "Reinforced Armor" enhancement could help. The change is to include the value from the "Armor Class Bonus" feat from Monk/SF to the docent/outfit armor bonus, and then running that number through the percentage increase from "Reinforced Armor".

[CeltEireson]

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.

That only really helps if its auto granted to handwrap monks as they are fairly tight for feats as is, especially as their enhancement tree has no equivalent of something like cleave etc to allow for attacking multiple opponents at once so if they want this they need to use feats to get. Could do power attack/cleave/greater cleave though those don't really fit thematically, whirlwind isn't bad on monks but its very feat intensive and basically takes up all your heroic feats over and above the basics (stunning fist, improved critical, two weapon fighting feats). Speaking of which - would be really nice if you could drop the feats requirements for whirlwind by one (combat expertise) to make it slightly easier to fit in for non-humans plus given the number of feats required you don't actually get to use it until level 15/18 (assuming you can fit it in at all in heroic).

[LurkingVeteran]

Looks interesting.

Two comments:
1) MRR cap is still a problem / pain for monks and will be for this as well. This is a good opportunity to raise the MRR cap of monks to that of armor wearers, or at least rogues (maybe add +2xBAB MRR cap in Iron Skin or piggyback on the unarmed +atk progression).

Just a reminder to those that think armor should have more MRR, there is no support in D&D for monks being weak against magic damage. In fact they are positioned as an anti-mage / tankier rogue with evasion and SR (which works on all spells) while armor wearers have no defenses against magic. This was more or less the case for most of DDOs existence as well. It makes no sense that rogues have higher MRR cap. I suspect it was an unforeseen side effect of the MRR system and dungeon designers adding things that increasingly pierce evasion but not MRR.

2) Sacred Fist seems like a straight up better monk in heroics than monk itself. They get more damage (assuming they get a Holy Sword-like spell to give them the boosted crit profile that all melee builds require these days), almost as high movement speed (or same if you splash SaD), can splash RS for SLA healing, and I assume, the paladin saves.

In epics I expect pure monk to catch up a bit in damage since the light damage procs do not crit (which is good since the reaper scaling bug on resistances has not been fixed yet), but the only reason to play an actual Monk in currently is abundant step and stunning fist. I don't know how SSG sees monks, but they either need to add some DPS / make their Ki moves actually good, or Sacred Fist will eat them. This is not necessarily because SF is OP, but Monks are just in a weird position atm.

[misterski]

but the only reason to play an actual Monk in currently is abundant step and stunning fist. .

Oh Sacred Fists can get Stunning Fist also. It only has the prerequisite of Flurry of Blows which Sacred Fist gets. I was able to get it on my test toon.

[CeltEireson]

Oh Sacred Fists can get Stunning Fist also. It only has the prerequisite of Flurry of Blows which Sacred Fist gets. I was able to get it on my test toon.

They also can get what is effectively whirlwind attack in enhancements rather than having to spend 5 feats to get the feat version, its a little weaker (3W versus 4W) but still it looks like its supposed to hit all nearby enemies. And you can get an additional version which is 5W at tier 5 and it also gives a stack of vulnerability to all it hits. So assuming the animation/speed is the same as current whirlwind feat then its kind of a kick in the face (no pun intended) for handwrap monks.

[Havocthedemon]

They also can get what is effectively whirlwind attack in enhancements rather than having to spend 5 feats to get the feat version, its a little weaker (3W versus 4W) but still it looks like its supposed to hit all nearby enemies. And you can get an additional version which is 5W at tier 5 and it also gives a stack of vulnerability to all it hits. So assuming the animation/speed is the same as current whirlwind feat then its kind of a kick in the face (no pun intended) for handwrap monks.

When I tested on Lam the animation was not the WW one but the regular cleave for monks they currently get if you (for some insane reason) actually take cleave. I think these should both be the regular WW animations as one is a bit weaker and the other is a T5 that should be strong. I don’t think it’s an insult to regular monks at all, they still have higher W, more cc options and stances.