Update 56 Preview 2: Sacred Fist Archetype

[SWCarter]

Is there any chance that the new spells could be auto-granted? If not, Ki Explosion is only going to be used by pure Paladins, as Holy Sword and Zeal are must-haves in the Level 4 bracket.

[Nickodeamous]

Lets give this to handwraps monks too. Been asking for this for years! (Lynn knows I have)

Nico

[toapat]

for its cost of 30 ki, ludicrously long casting time, and incredibly high investment of the extremely competitive paladin 4th level spell slot, Waves of Fire is absolutely unusable. as it is, it does incredibly low damage when used, comparable to one tick of the epic strike Consecration, a spell that ticks 10 times over 20 seconds. Even quickened the spell takes several seconds to resolve during which you cannot be making melee attacks, including whirlwinds.

I honestly dont know how to even balance this. In Testing it doesnt compete with either Sacred or Avenging Whirlwind, if it instead did Paladin level times Sacred Fist dice it would instead be wildly overpowered, but that feels like what it needs that is how weak the spell is currently.

Im still a firm believer that Sacred Fist should have kama and Shuriken Proficiency just for the sake of being inherently capable of performing SWF, TWF, THF, and Ranged builds, even if they can only natively utilize handwraps as favored weapons.

the Radiant Servant Capstone was not updated to be +2 charisma, +2 wisdom.

Radiant Servant Divine Health still is a meme that should be replaced with something not inherently available to SF.

Sacred Flame Empowerment: Duration should be 18s+6per caster level. as a 18 second buff it feels like it will devour Ki until you reach epics when it has fallen far enough behind as to be no longer relevant.

Ki Bolt/Incineration Wave: My current examination is incomplete because i have not rolled a Fullcaster Sacred Fist this Lamannia Incarnation, However preliminary testing shows that these spells should scale with 3 times Melee Power to remain competitive with martial attacks and spellcasting. Further their DCs for paladin should be changed to 10+Paladin level + Charisma Modifier + Sunder modifier. However to also support some of the more edge weirdness with Sacred Fist specifically, id like to see Ki Bolt and Incineration Wave scale with the higher of 3x Melee/Ranged Power or 1x Fire Spellpower.

[Dilgar]

The tier 5s are not exciting, Violence Begets Violence is a bad ability that I would hope be removed from Monk rather than expanded to this tree.

I dont really know much about shields (I pretty much play monk exclusively), but would the charisma to ac counting as a shield (maybe even 50% of the bonus?) for stalwart make sense?

[SpardaX]

Added: Ki Bolt. Fire a bolt of pure Ki towards enemies. Deals 1d6 Fire and 1d4 Force damage per caster level, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 10 Ki

Can I get a better explanation on this please? I'm pretty sure the Henshin bolt does the same damage dice (1f6 Fire + 1d4 Force) and it scales off 300% Melee Power instead of this iteration's 200%, which would make this version both worse, and also twice as expensive (Henshin's costs 5 ki).

In what way has this been adjusted for playability and made to have "Increased damage!"?

Is the save for half damage being removed?

[Madja]

I just think that for something that's called Sacred Fist this seems to focus a lot on fire damage instead of holy or light. It's almost like Henshin but with wraps.

[Caarb]

It's important that Sacred Fist has its own niche instead of borrowing from Monk. That's why they get Smites and not monk stances or the combo system.

So, with that in mind, if you're looking for more ED synergies, lets try to angle them towards the Paladin parts and not the parts that currently work with current monk. We want them to feel similar but be different!

GMoF needs to be monk inspired not monk exclusive. There is definite synergies here with Sacred fist but non-monks should not be locked out of the tree. How about instead of granting fists of light into sacred fist you add it to GMoF - core 3 or 4 so that other centered builds can fully utilise the ED.

[Dandonk]

Level 1:
Added: Ki Bolt. Fire a bolt of pure Ki towards enemies. Deals 1d6 Fire and 1d4 Force damage per caster level, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 10 Ki

Level 3:
Added: Creates an incinerating wave of ki fire. Deals 1d6+3 fire and force damage per caster level to targets within the wall, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Note that this spell has been adjusted for playability for this Archetype and Henshin Mystic will also see this increased damage! Cost: 18 Ki

I'm not sure I see how Ki Bolt is improved, but it does need to be,, along with Incinerating Wave. I've done a fair bit of running with a staff monk, and the SLA abilities in henshin tree are useless. They do so little damage, and animation is fairly longish, so its not even worth putting them on the hotbar.

[Metellica]

Copied my character to Lamannia and did a TR into an Iconic Tabaxi Trailblazer.

Leveled:
1-2 Monk
2-8 Ranger

Attempted to take Sacred Fist Paladin (which it accepted)
Picking any feat or Religion appears to give the "Invalid Advancement Data!" error.

[Xgya]

I really hope there's an actual fix for the ki spells this time around.

Love the theme, hate the animation hurdle.

If at all possible, I wish those worked like Adrenaline - on a next melee attack, do thing, no animation, no stopping attacks.
Especially for things like Wave or Cauldron. Pop the button, get into combat, fwoosh, things explode from fisticuffs.

The animation break is what kills those. They're a class' melee tree abilities, require you to hit things in melee to cast, and stop you from keeping hitting things in melee.

[tapster]

Hi Lynnabel if the ED's were supposed to look at as a sacred fist are to be paladin focused ones than can we please have some means to interact with enhancements that require shields? I mean we're already getting something that'll treat us as if we're in heavy armor for the sake of enhancements so some means to gain eligibility for shield focused boosts might help with PRR/AC or potentially other bonuses might be welcome to let us take further advantage of more paladin focused ED trees.

Centered with orbs would be nice

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

I tried out a low level Sacred Fist Drow, taking it up to level 4. Ran into a few potential bugs (or misunderstandings on my part), but overall liked the low level experience a lot.

I went heavy on the charisma, and took Magical Training at level 1 to leverage Feydark with Sacred Fist and Radiant Servant. Overall, it played exactly like I had hoped - kind of a jedi knight. Handwraps were effective with the extra fire damage, or I could hit harder with shadowblades and Char to hit and damage. Having a cure moderate SLA with echoes of power meant there was never really a need to rest. I was generating a ton of Ki, but had nothing to do with it.

At level 4, I got Ki bolt and more healing. The combination of extra damage, lots of attacks, and easy healing makes it a fun low level character. Not sure all of this will scale well at higher levels, but it looks like it could be a fun leveler.

Issues:

Quest rewards and starting gear seemed targeted to paladin instead of sacred fist. I kept getting lots and lots of plate mail and swords - including starting gear.

The fist-fire does not seem to affect some creatures that do not have fire immunity. Skeletons in Korthos and Saltmarsh seem immune to it. No damage in the chat or on the screen. Almost like the fire isn't there at all. Turn and hit a cultist, and the fire is back.

Ki Bolt sent a message about "Ki Bolt helps a skeleton" when I cast it at a skeleton.

The damage in Ki Bolt's description does not seem like an upgrade from the old Ki bolt. Didn't it always do 1-6 Force and 1-4 fire per level? If the scaling is 200%, that is less than it used to be. A level 4 monk ki Bolt was not able to kill a solo Saltmarsh skeleton.

Radiant Servant has a lot of good channel divinity powers, but Paladin doesn't get channel divinity until level 4. It would be helpful if the first core of Radiant servant gave +1 channel divinity, just so there is some use to several of the tier 1 enhancements at early levels.

[donblas]

While centred and wielding two longswords am not getting the 20% HP boost or 6 CON from Sacred Defender stance.

The text of Divine Dream states you get the benefit while centred. Does it also require handwraps and no other weapon?

The same toon gains the benefits when it switches to handwraps and when it switches to a single longsword rather than two.

[Tepi]

Totally agree. Radiant Servant has zero reason to be included. Paladins are already self sufficient. If I wanted to play a character that heals I would play a cleric, FvS, Bard, etc. Warpriest makes more sense to go along with Sacred Fist. As for the Tier 5 abilities, they need work. Violence begets Violence is trash. Change it for something that's on tier of Holy Retribution or something.

I agree on Holy retribution. As it is, I don't see how Sacred Fist really changes mechanically from KOTC, other than losing the strongest stuff. Sure you might be using handwraps now instead of some variation of sword but mechanically, its identical aside from needing KI to cast cleaves that were free before.

Sacred Fist is meant to be a more spellcaster orientated paladin, I think RS is fine. Warpriest wouldn't make much sense since a lot of the stuff is either kinda rubbish or mirrored already. Personally I'd rather they just kept KOTC and changed the stuff in Sacred Fist so there isn't overlap but i'm not hopeful. Bard and cleric get to have 2 similar trees with synergy (DD and the new one + Spellsinger and the new one). Paladin has only had one and a half unique trees since the changed enhancement system came out and even when it gets a variation, most of it is copied from KOTC. I think the combination of the new tree + tank tree + healer tree will be fun, but I can't say that i'm not a little disappointed that the new variation isn't a little more original.

Edit: Any chance we could get a Ki Spell for an aoe heal? Having radiant burst is nice but having the equivilent of like cure moderate mass might be nice to enforce a kind of "cheap but smaller" healing playstyle you can weave between attacks. I actually enjoy that kind of playstyle on my paladin. Can Ki spells have metamagic? Also adding ki cost to the aoes kinda feels like you added it just for the sake of it. If you do this, maybe lower the cooldown?

Edit 2: Any chance this paladin could get magic training? Kind fits with the theme if you envision it as a more spellcaster focused paladin with like stronger healing power.

[toapat]

Critical Problems:

1: Shadowscythe is currently on lammania uncentering Sacred Fist paladins, despite proficiency and the Shadowblade modifier.

2: Ki Explosion can accept MM: Empower, Maximize, and Intensify despite having no scaling off of spellpower.

[askrj1]

Made a SF18/Mnk1/FvS1 and while I wasn't expect to actually use FvS spells with that 1 level, I had no access to the FvS spellbook at all, was this meant to happen?

Things that were already mentioned like MRR cap, totally lost potential of making a possible punchy tank thing when you're stuck at cloth cap with such limited options to raise MMR cap. In fact I've bug reported this at least once before and it's really nothing new, but Dance of the Wind 3PC MRR cap still doesn't work.

I don't understand why you needed ki shout on SF, it still has the paladin skill set and is cha based, you're going to work much better with intimidate.

Losing trance is pretty big, hopefully that makes it way in somehow without needing to get a level of cleric/FvS.

Smites on unarmed. That animation. Please do something about it.

EDIT: Any chance we can get S2P on Sacred Strike 4?

[donblas]

Made a SF18/Mnk1/FvS1 and while I wasn't expect to actually use FvS spells with that 1 level, I had no access to the FvS spellbook at all, was this meant to happen?

I had the same problem. There is a warning "Spell shortage detected" go see the trainer.

But another almost identical toon did not have the problem! The one with the problem was a Tiefling, the one without the problem was a wood elf

Going to the trainer and asking for spell exchange fixes the problem.

[liston33]

I am liking everything i have seen so far....with the exception of whirlwind attack.... Considering whirlwind attack is an attack within itself it shouldnt be base off of 3 attacks at melee speed..plus the semi long delay at the end... In my opinion Whirlwind attack needs to go back to what it was before being based off of attack speed.

[Lynnabel]

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!

[Dandonk]

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)

Quicken will not help pure monks, and I feel that adding a feat tax to these very underwhelming abilities is a bad idea. Why not make their animation quickened from the start? They deal so abysmal damage anyway that it won't matter much, but at least I won't die of boredom while watching the animation play.