Update 56 Preview 2: Sacred Fist Archetype

[ProdigyThirteen]

-The two obvious EDs to go for (DC and GMOF) don't feel like a great home for it
-It feels spread thin on attributes due to needing Cha for Paladin portions, Wis for Monk portions, Dex to be able to TWF and then Con and a potential 5th attribute for hit/damage scaling
-It feels like it's not sure if it's trying to be more Paladin or more Monk. The tree is definitely more Paladin but the spellbook is definitely more Monk. The lack of support in the tree for the spells gives it a confused identity
-The tree is lacking interesting cores and interesting tier 5s, nothing excites me to see or use
-It's missing vital features (trance, monk combo system + stances if you care for GMOF), forcing multiclassing
-The left line in the tree could honestly not exist and I don't think it would change anything. It needs to be split up or reduced in cost
-I can't for the life of me figure out why it gets Radiant Servant. It doesn't add to the Monk theme, the Paladin theme, the Melee theme or the Ki caster theme


But so as to not only bash it;
-I like the theme and flavour of it, lots of overlap in class specific bonuses like saves and AC that makes for a fun combo
-I like the WWA cleaves, it's nice not being forced into a long list of feats to get WWA
-I like that it can benefit from SD, I think it would possibly be better if it counted as shield rather than heavy armour, but either is great
Wow I'm really struggling to find anything more to add on the positives now I'm writing it down. I really enjoyed the class, it will likely take the crown as my favourite in the game, so there's a lot to be said about the theme and flavour, but mechanically it feels severely lacking.

[Havocthedemon]

-The two obvious EDs to go for (DC and GMOF) don't feel like a great home for it
-It feels spread thin on attributes due to needing Cha for Paladin portions, Wis for Monk portions, Dex to be able to TWF and then Con and a potential 5th attribute for hit/damage scaling
-It feels like it's not sure if it's trying to be more Paladin or more Monk. The tree is definitely more Paladin but the spellbook is definitely more Monk. The lack of support in the tree for the spells gives it a confused identity
-The tree is lacking interesting cores and interesting tier 5s, nothing excites me to see or use
-It's missing vital features (trance, monk combo system + stances if you care for GMOF), forcing multiclassing
-The left line in the tree could honestly not exist and I don't think it would change anything. It needs to be split up or reduced in cost
-I can't for the life of me figure out why it gets Radiant Servant. It doesn't add to the Monk theme, the Paladin theme, the Melee theme or the Ki caster theme


But so as to not only bash it;
-I like the theme and flavour of it, lots of overlap in class specific bonuses like saves and AC that makes for a fun combo
-I like the WWA cleaves, it's nice not being forced into a long list of feats to get WWA
-I like that it can benefit from SD, I think it would possibly be better if it counted as shield rather than heavy armour, but either is great
Wow I'm really struggling to find anything more to add on the positives now I'm writing it down. I really enjoyed the class, it will likely take the crown as my favourite in the game, so there's a lot to be said about the theme and flavour, but mechanically it feels severely lacking.

The attribute problem is not unique - this is a problem for any melee class that doesn’t use Dex as a main stat. It’s just the way stats work. And you don’t need both CHA and Wis - this class wants you to use CHA since we have Feydark we can take advantage of this.

If you multiclass, then Wis is a good option. If you’re complaining about wanting to use WIS and still needing CHA bc you’re a Paladin - this is like splashing rogue into fighter for traps and complaining about needing INT for traps. It’s not a good argument. And the dexterity requirements for TWF aren’t very high, you do know even first life toons can get tomes through favor right? Start with a lower CON - this is what every first lifer has to do it’s nothing new to DDO. First lifers will have less life get used to it.

As for valid points, yea a trance is desperately needed and the T5’s are a bit medium but to be fair it’s a melee tree - it’s relatively as good as all the others besides lack of crit mods which pally always gets from Holy Sword. Shield idea is interesting.

[droid327]

- Saves on the Ki spells is a mistake - is it WIS or CHA based? I'm guessing WIS since Pals are technically WIS casters, which obviously is totally broken since SF is a STR/CHA build. And even if it is CHA...that basically handcuffs you to Feydark, and its insult to injury since SF doesnt get Divine Might and is forced to splash for that

- Flame damage didnt seem to work against Kobolds when I was using a Greatsword with Kensei. Light damage worked vs the Abishai in Grimm

- Ki spells are spells, not SLAs...so Quicken adds 10 SP to their cost, even though they dont cost any SP themselves >< Another insult to injury, considering the feat tax already just for one or two spells, which have mediocre damage, on a SP-limited class. I burned myself out just keeping the Flame buff active before each fight. They're meant to be Ki spenders, which should be spammed a lot, and 10 SP per cast is way too limiting

- Smite is still Exalted, not Sacred. Doesnt count as a Light builder

- Feel like Sac Def enhancements for this subclass should give +MRR cap instead of +MRR. +25 from Sac Def, +20 Angelskin (which you'll take for the PRR regardless) puts you at 45, so literally any other source of MRR will put you at MRR cap...that seems like inelegant design. +25 MRR cap would put you at 75 in Cloth, which still isnt a lot, but at least lets you take better advantage of Angelskin plus your normal gear and other bonuses.

- Why does Path of Light not get Fists of Light? That'd be a huge boon to the archetype, being able to apply the "healing curse" effect - I splashed /3 Monk for it and it made an amazing difference

- Still not enough to spend Ki on, even with the cleaves now costing Ki too. Ki spells, as mentioned above, are lackluster. I get where its tempting to just cut and paste the Henshin ones, but they should really be a full suite of short-term (20s?) buffs or physical attacks, rather than mediocre boilerplate damage spells. Even if that means having to design new abilities. As mentioned above, the save aspect is a dealbreaker, so making it self-focused avoids that issue, plus it also gives it a bit of distinction from Henshin. Some ideas:

= Most important: A 3[W] +1/+1 Cleave, with a short (3s?) CD. I think having a simple, straightforward "Ki dump" would be a big benefit for the subclass since you currently cant really spend it as fast as you build it
= Dodge bonus, ignoring Dodge cap - perhaps like +5, then a stacking dodge-when-hit effect for another +10
= MRR + MRR cap
= Vampirism, scaling on Pal level (1d2 per 2 maybe?)
= Haste boost, a la Alchemist Bottled Boost
= Aligned+Metalline
= Temp HP, a la Blood Trib or Stanch
= Radiant Forcefield, with an appropriate CD

Basically the class should really always be building and spending Ki in combat as fast it can to keep its combat efficacy optimized, I think

[SWCarter]

If dual-wielding, the capstone is only giving the +1W to the primary weapon and not the secondary weapon. The capstone reads "+1W with Weapons" (plural), so this appears to be a bug.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Howdy friends, happy Wednesday! Time for a bugfix and design change roundup!

• incinerating wave now scales correctly (aka with melee power)
• corrected description on ki spells
• removed saving throw from incinerating wave and ki bolt
• Sacred fist dice now scale with 200% melee power
• Added 1d6 Force damage per Sacred Fist dice to Ki Explosion
• Ki Bolt, Incinerating Wave, and Ki Explosion may now be quickened, and may no longer take spellpower metamagics (as they don't scale with spellpower)
• Fixed that one sickle to be centering (nice find!)

Thanks for the feedback so far!

I see you're still going ahead with Radiant Servant tree on this Archetype. Paladins already excel in self-sufficiency, but one cleric tree will not suddenly make it a better party healer than the actual healer classes.

Without Warpriest or Warsoul tree support, it will end up not being used by endgame players.

At least give Sacred Fist tree Divine Might (T2) enhancement, so its comparatively decent'ish when compared to KoTC.

[GoldyGopher]

If you choose to start at Level 4 or Level 7 (Vet I or Vet II) you are give full plate armor and a shield. Should get a Cloth Armor.

[misterski]

The attribute problem is not unique - this is a problem for any melee class that doesn’t use Dex as a main stat. It’s just the way stats work. And you don’t need both CHA and Wis - this class wants you to use CHA since we have Feydark we can take advantage of this.

If you multiclass, then Wis is a good option. If you’re complaining about wanting to use WIS and still needing CHA bc you’re a Paladin - this is like splashing rogue into fighter for traps and complaining about needing INT for traps. It’s not a good argument. And the dexterity requirements for TWF aren’t very high, you do know even first life toons can get tomes through favor right? Start with a lower CON - this is what every first lifer has to do it’s nothing new to DDO. First lifers will have less life get used to it.

As for valid points, yea a trance is desperately needed and the T5’s are a bit medium but to be fair it’s a melee tree - it’s relatively as good as all the others besides lack of crit mods which pally always gets from Holy Sword. Shield idea is interesting.

Stunning Fist is WIS based, so yes Sacred Fist does need lots of WIS. They also need at least 14 WISDOM to be able to cast all of their spells, which, granted, they could get through gear. Also, 17 Dex to get Imp/Greater TWF is a fairly high bar to set when you consider the other stats that the class needs. Lower CON means lower Concentration which means lower Ki. And then you add in the required CHA....

[ZzpxpzZ]

In general I really like the direction of all these archetypes, but I just wanted to weigh in here.

I appreciate the need to have somewhere to spend your ki but it’s a really bad idea to put that ki coat on the cleaves. The ki cost is going to screw them over in normal flow of gameplay if running with a group or relatively strong. Against most trash packs melee gets at most to run in and throw down their cleaves. After which the enemies are either dead or nearly so, or else the rest of your group will be doing the same. In normal trash situations there will not be enough time to sustain ki between each pack of trash so you will be pigeonholing sacred fist into just watching the show for 2 out of every 3 packs ineffectually punching a single mob trying to generate ki.

[misterski]

In general I really like the direction of all these archetypes, but I just wanted to weigh in here.

I appreciate the need to have somewhere to spend your ki but it’s a really bad idea to put that ki coat on the cleaves. The ki cost is going to screw them over in normal flow of gameplay if running with a group or relatively strong. Against most trash packs melee gets at most to run in and throw down their cleaves. After which the enemies are either dead or nearly so, or else the rest of your group will be doing the same. In normal trash situations there will not be enough time to sustain ki between each pack of trash so you will be pigeonholing sacred fist into just watching the show for 2 out of every 3 packs ineffectually punching a single mob trying to generate ki.

Henshin Mystic gets help with ki generation on hit in their Core 6. Sacred Fist needs something like this if they're not going to get something like Sun Stance. As for the cleaves, please lower the ki cost if you're not going to remove the ki cost entirely.

[Havocthedemon]

Stunning Fist is WIS based, so yes Sacred Fist does need lots of WIS. They also need at least 14 WISDOM to be able to cast all of their spells, which, granted, they could get through gear. Also, 17 Dex to get Imp/Greater TWF is a fairly high bar to set when you consider the other stats that the class needs. Lower CON means lower Concentration which means lower Ki. And then you add in the required CHA....

One, you assume people even want stunning fist. Monks don’t even use it in high reaper - we use tomb of jade. Hitting trash with stunning fist is not something you do. Orange names and reapers get jaded - stunning fist is a waste of a feat on a feat starved class. If a monk won’t use stunning fist - a sacred fist won’t either. Single target stun that can’t hit a reaper is not worth a feat when you have other options from class/destiny.

17 dex is not high, considering it’s 11 bab for GTWF and by that time you have +5 or even +6 tome kicking in. You really only need a 14 base dex - even lower if you plan accordingly and want to push the envelop. 2-4 points of CON is equal to what, +2 to the concentration skill? Thats not a significant amount of ki - lvl 18 right now and have a ki bar over 200. Your arguments are over exaggerated and clearly not coming from someone who plays. The stat issue isn’t any worse here than any other melee class that doesn’t use dex as main stat. Stop complaining - that’s how stats work in D&D.

[misterski]

One, you assume people even want stunning fist. Monks don’t even use it in high reaper - we use tomb of jade. Hitting trash with stunning fist is not something you do. Orange names and reapers get jaded - stunning fist is a waste of a feat on a feat starved class. If a monk won’t use stunning fist - a sacred fist won’t either. Single target stun that can’t hit a reaper is not worth a feat when you have other options from class/destiny.

17 dex is not high, considering it’s 11 bab for GTWF and by that time you have +5 or even +6 tome kicking in. You really only need a 14 base dex - even lower if you plan accordingly and want to push the envelop. 2-4 points of CON is equal to what, +2 to the concentration skill? Thats not a significant amount of ki - lvl 18 right now and have a ki bar over 200. Your arguments are over exaggerated and clearly not coming from someone who plays. The stat issue isn’t any worse here than any other melee class that doesn’t use dex as main stat. Stop complaining - that’s how stats work in D&D.

Yeah Tomb of Jade, which requires at least 4 monk level splashes and 22 AP in the Shintao tree. We're talking about Sacred Fist not the Monk class.

[ChristopHilljr]

With this build requiring Dex, con and charisma access to a trance is a must. If you want to go Strength you're stretching even further on ability points. I don't think it'll make the build over powered but will help with the fact that you don't get easy access to charisma attack and damage. Please consider testing this out on the next Lam, even if you don't keep it I'd like to see if it is too much power.

[Lotoc]

The capstone and tier 5 of Sacred Fist are kind of underwhelming, to the point that 1fvs/1mnk/18SaFi taking volfvs first level for daggers as favored then just going 41 points Vistani is kind of an outright improvement.
There isn't really anything hugely interesting or rewarding in Sacred Fist Tier 5 right now, a big thing with heroic enhancement trees with almost every build is "I've hit level 12 and now I can get the big thing of the tree I am focusing on" and the sacred fist tree doesn't deliver in this regard.
The level 20 core could do with being more rewarding offensively, it needs to be a reward for not multiclassing after all and with the loss of Divine Might vs KotC, the lack of Ascendency and 3% melee/ranged damage aura it has a lot to make up for.
I'd propose having core 20 grant like 2-4 Flame Dice or perhaps some way to put CC into the class which right now it is sorely of lacking, along the lines of "Enemies hit by your Ki Explosion (or maybe Ki spells in general) cower for X seconds on failing a will saving throw" (charisma+sunder bonuses for the DC)

Other suggestions;
Scrap instinctive defense in tier 3 and put Iron Skin in it's place, move Evasive Dance down to tier 4 where Iron Skin was.
Violence Begets Violence is kind of not great and will see little use, compounded by the fact the class overall lacks sources of dodge and max dodge bonuses. This again makes t5 feel very underwhelming, you've got whirlwind attack and Improved Evasion that serve as "interesting" except the improved evasion doesn't count as improved evasion for shadowdancer core 3 to give you the no fail on 1, so odds are if improved evasion is something you care about you'd just have it in epics from SD as you'd likely want the Sneak Attack dice anyway as a TWF build.
Overall even with the capstone feeling rather underwhelming it's also very hard to find things I'd want to take to reach the 40 point requirement to take it.

[Tilomere]

Hmm, so what you guys are telling me is that there is a third crappy 20 melee power "offensive" paladin tree because the other two aren't ineffective enough, that will be hopeless outclassed by casters with hundreds of power while leveling, with the drawback that you lose all armor and weapon feats, but gain access to the cleric radiant servant tree.

So really what you are selling is an improved zDPS paladin, which I will call negative dps paladin, that spends all its points in SaD and Radiant Servant, that spends its feats to get back plate + shield use, that runs 20% faster than a normal zero dps paladin, and heals more than a normal zero dps paladin, while doing marginally less zero dps than a normal paladin.

I approve because it provides AoE healing to melee near the negative dps paladin due to RS. I also suggest you implement a gamewide improvement of moving melee/ranged power from legendary and epic levels into heroics.

[Ipsum]

Theres a lot going on in the capstone, but I wish it just had another ki spell attached to it. I'd love to get a ki spell at 20 that scales into epics and gives me a way to spend the huge amounts of ki you are getting at that point.

[misterski]

This is a minor request, but would it be possible to give Sacred Fists that start with veteran levels a separate choice for equipment? The armor you get with the paladin choice is useless to Sacred Fist. The monk veteran equipment would work better.

[ThomasHunter]

Similar to how KotC grants Knight's Training at Tier 4, would it be reasonable and similar to have Sacred Fist grant Swords to Plowshares at Tier 4 with the Favored Weapon enhancement?

Thanks, this looks like a fun build!
Taleisin

[droid327]

Theres a lot going on in the capstone, but I wish it just had another ki spell attached to it. I'd love to get a ki spell at 20 that scales into epics and gives me a way to spend the huge amounts of ki you are getting at that point.

Yeah a Kamehameha bolt-style linear AOE blast in the capstone would be nice - 1d6+8 Light damage per clvl, scaling with Melee Power. Cost: 40 Ki, plus all your remaining Ki. For each additional point spent, add X damage. I'm not sure how much max Ki is practical at L32, but balance accordingly, and commensurate with the time it takes to build up max Ki from zero. It should be a substantial chunk of damage when fully charged.

That'd create a lot of value to passive and active Ki generation, since it would let you charge up your blast faster. And you'd never have "too much" Ki since every point would always be good for something.

[fatherpirate]

Side note, Whirling Steel Strike Feat is limited to characters
with monk levels.

That should be modified to include Paladins or at least this
version of them.

Thxs

[Havocthedemon]

Yeah Tomb of Jade, which requires at least 4 monk level splashes and 22 AP in the Shintao tree. We're talking about Sacred Fist not the Monk class.

This was to point out that people don’t use stunning fist. It’s bad when we have more effective uses of cc that don’t cost a feat. That was your whole point about needing wisdom on this class. You don’t need wisdom at all, it’s CHA based. All you need is minimal base DEX (around 12) for feat requirements and the most Con you can have while keeping CHA as main stat. Your whining about being MAD on this class is not any different than any melee class that currently exists that doesn’t use Dex as main stat.