U57 Preview 1: Imbue Overhaul

[Skyael]

The imbue toggle from half elf dilletante for warlock has a cooldown of 2 seconds, unlike all the other imbues. Is this staying?

[Yamato-San]

There's a lot to break down here, starting with Elemental Weapons. Unlike the other two listed, Elemental Weapons is just a flat 3d6 damage scaling with nothing. So it's not numerically comperable in the same way to a scaling imbue like Inquisitive or EK since its only ever going to be 3-18 damage.

In the new system, you'll need to pick between your Inquisitive imbue or your Vile Chemist imbue. However, the dice you gain in either tree (or anywhere else) will work with whichever one you pick. So, since both are 1d8...

You'll end up with 1d8 base + 10 dice from Vile Chemist (6 from leveling, 4 from other cores) + 6 from Inquisitive + 2 alchemical bonus from Elemental weapons means that you'll be doing 19d8 damage of your choice of Law or Poison. 19d8 = 85.5 average damage. Before you were doing 54 from Inq (12 * 4.5) and 21 from vile chemist (6 * 3.5) which makes 75 average damage, plus the nonscaling 3d6. Another big thing to keep in mind is that with this you can gain bonus dice from more sources, such as gear or filigrees, which further increases the damage of the new flow.

Thank you for the answer!
(I had only 2 cores Vile Chemist in mind = 6 dice from leveling)

So this would give for my example with a toggle to Law: 14d8 Law + static 3d6 Fire = 17 dice at level 20 without items/filigrees.

Inquisitors are really nerfed for at least the heroic levels 12 to 20 running without another enhancement tree which gives additional dice.
12d8 Law dice become 7d8 Law dice.

Looks like 4 Level Artificer is now mandatory for the Agility Engine +3 dice if you already splash 2 Arti for the Runearm and other trees for dice fishing.

Not happy with this; another Inqui nerf with more forced 'must have' enhancements; a good universal tree becomes much more restricted.

[Lotoc]

You're the 40th person to mention Embodiment of Law so yes, yes, I'll take a look at it.

On top of this the Law of the Divine enhancement in Divine Crusader basically sees a big nerf with this overhaul and law of the divine is a big draw of using DC as an endgame build right now.

[Phoenicis]

Well, it really depends. I am assuming that if you're going core 18 into ES then you're using the ES aura instead of cone/chain, which means that 3d6 of the previous on-hit that only applied to blasts now applies to your melee strikes as well, and melees tend to hit a lot faster than once every 2 seconds. I suppose if you are in ES but don't hit people with weapons and don't want to take any feats or use any gear or take any ED abilities that relate to bonus imbue dice then yes, you'll be doing less damage with your imbue than you were doing before with those procs.

But what am I going to have to give up to spend the points in the right spots/get the right gear/take the right feats to boost my imbues? There is opportunity cost here.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, believe me. It's just that without changes (some of them likely major) to several of my characters, the damage they do is going to go down.

[Duhboy]

No.

He meant to say yes but said no because reasons.

[Lynnabel]

But what am I going to have to give up to spend the points in the right spots/get the right gear/take the right feats to boost my imbues? There is opportunity cost here.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, believe me. It's just that without changes (some of them likely major) to several of my characters, the damage they do is going to go down.

I think without knowing the specifics of each of your builds I can't really answer that. All of the places a player can get dice are written up in the first post.

The imbue toggle from half elf dilletante for warlock has a cooldown of 2 seconds, unlike all the other imbues. Is this staying?

Yes, if something isn't mentioned just assume its the same as before.

- I would like to see more Dice in other ED's besides DI

- Regarding "Filigree Set Bonuses that used to give a scaling imbue on-hit now give +1 Dice": Wreath of Flame and Frozen Wanderer used to also give 50 Fire/Cold spellpower besides the on-hit procs (at the same tier). I hope those stay alongside the +1 Imbue Die.

Yes, the filigree sets still give their spellpower, its just the on-hit part that's getting swapped out. I think adding more dice elsewhere in the EDs is a fine idea, any ideas where it'd go?

[Nickodeamous]

Monk:
(Ninja Spy Tier 3) 1d6 Poison Damage, melee or ranged power, also continues to do its regular Ninja Poison on-crit stuff
(Henshin Mystic Tier 3) 1d6 Fire and 1d6 Force, melee or ranged power
(Henshin Mystic) Each core grants +1 Dice

Is there a reason that Shintao is not part of this fun system? My guess is this is just for those that have some sort of elemental or other damage type outside of bludgeon. I see a boost for Sacred Fist, so, I gotta do my due diligence and at least stick up for handwrap monks

Thanks!
Nico

[misterski]

Monk:
(Ninja Spy Tier 3) 1d6 Poison Damage, melee or ranged power, also continues to do its regular Ninja Poison on-crit stuff
(Henshin Mystic Tier 3) 1d6 Fire and 1d6 Force, melee or ranged power
(Henshin Mystic) Each core grants +1 Dice

Is there a reason that Shintao is not part of this fun system? My guess is this is just for those that have some sort of elemental or other damage type outside of bludgeon. I see a boost for Sacred Fist, so, I gotta do my due diligence and at least stick up for handwrap monks

Thanks!
Nico

They're just migrating the existing stuff from henshin mystic and ninja spy to the new system. Shintao doesn't have anything like it in their tree so there's nothing to migrate over.

[Lotoc]

Monk:
(Ninja Spy Tier 3) 1d6 Poison Damage, melee or ranged power, also continues to do its regular Ninja Poison on-crit stuff
(Henshin Mystic Tier 3) 1d6 Fire and 1d6 Force, melee or ranged power
(Henshin Mystic) Each core grants +1 Dice

Is there a reason that Shintao is not part of this fun system? My guess is this is just for those that have some sort of elemental or other damage type outside of bludgeon. I see a boost for Sacred Fist, so, I gotta do my due diligence and at least stick up for handwrap monks

Thanks!
Nico

Lighting the candle does work with wraps at least, just lighting the candle doesn't actually work properly right now on lamm

[Xgya]

I don't know about everyone else, but my standard rotation for ES warlocks (and what I've seen) is Mass Hold/Tentacles, jump into middle of CC'ed enemies, Eldritch Burst, Spirit Blast, Energy Burst (from Draconic ED), re-cast crowd control spells, repeat until everything is dead. Throwing an actual melee attack instead of spells and SLAs is very, very rare. Probably why most posters are not considering melee attacks on an aura-lock as a worthwhile trade-off.

Mostly this. ^
But also a lot more of this. ^

ES Warlocks actually left clicking on mobs while aura is active? With what feats? What stats?
This is about as true as saying pure Fire sorcs that spent points in EK to equip Sharn sets with fire crit on it somehow spend time hitting things with their rods instead of just chucking another Delayed Blast Fireball. They've got a nice weapon imbue that scales off of their spell power that they can use in melee, so that means they must hit things in melee, right? And that Cleave is DEFINITELY somewhere on their bars...


More seriously, if the Major Form grants +3 die, making the base 1d8 would help. Base damage unchanged from before (3d4+3d6=4d8).

With a different feat and ED selection, might make them slightly better than before, which wouldn't bring Warlocks to the top of the heap yet.
Without those (so, Heroic Warlocks!), no changes.
Well, technically, a nerf of going from 3d4 to 1d8 at lower levels, but that might and probably should come at a lower AP cost, so it might even out.

[Nickodeamous]

They're just migrating the existing stuff from henshin mystic and ninja spy to the new system. Shintao doesn't have anything like it in their tree so there's nothing to migrate over.

gotcha. yeah, that makes sense.

thanks!
Nico

[M.ham]

Well, it really depends. I am assuming that if you're going core 18 into ES then you're using the ES aura instead of cone/chain, which means that 3d6 of the previous on-hit that only applied to blasts now applies to your melee strikes as well, and melees tend to hit a lot faster than once every 2 seconds. I suppose if you are in ES but don't hit people with weapons and don't want to take any feats or use any gear or take any ED abilities that relate to bonus imbue dice then yes, you'll be doing less damage with your imbue than you were doing before with those procs.

So just to confirm... taking Enlightened Spirit Tier 4, eldritch blast will be increased by 1d6 plus any additional imbue dice acquired? And it scales with light spell power?

Cheers,
M.

[misterski]

Divine Crusader's T5 now adds Vuln + Armor Piercing on his while the Embodiment of Law toggle is active.

Thanks for the nerf. Not.

[LilacDragon6]

Frenzied Berserkere hasn't cause self-harm damage in years.

Why is this being brought back? This is stupid.

[TPICKRELL]

Frenzied Berserkere hasn't cause self-harm damage in years.

Why is this being brought back? This is stupid.

Enough Said.

[Rehmlah]

I like addition of an imbue for artificers! Also, letting (Greater) Elemental Weapons scale with whatever the target's imbue dice scale with feels nice.

One thing I miss is being able to give class pets some extra damage on hit - is there any chance we could give them an imbue (via trainer or enhancements or otherwise)? I know it doesn't amount to much, but I enjoy it.

[cmecu]

Spiritual Retribution is currently a 1d4/2d4/3d4, is it changing to 1d6/2d6/3d6 or to a flat 1d6?

flat 1d6 , no more ranks to put in it.. however . you can get imbue dice to increase that d6. As it stands right now I thik I have 2 filligree sets in that add +1 and then I had orb i off hand for another +1.. so I has +3 total imbue dice.. but not sure the build I was planning to do any more because offhand versatility is being changed. Orbs add +1 imbue die now instead of a spell crit.

[Lynnabel]

Frenzied Berserkere hasn't cause self-harm damage in years.

Why is this being brought back? This is stupid.

Mostly for flavor. If people are truly dead set against this then it can get cut, but I have a fondness for downsides and wanted to at least gauge the temperature in the room before giving up on my dreams :P

[Arkat]

Mostly for flavor. If people are truly dead set against this then it can get cut, but I have a fondness for downsides and wanted to at least gauge the temperature in the room before giving up on my dreams :P

Wasn't it enough that my Barb lost almost 360 HP due to Torc's work??

[Lotoc]

Mostly for flavor. If people are truly dead set against this then it can get cut, but I have a fondness for downsides and wanted to at least gauge the temperature in the room before giving up on my dreams :P

a downside is fine but it kind of needs to be a bit stronger than the average to warrant it, also the recoil scales with reaper difficulty so it makes it very likely that a barbarian smacking a group of enemies just outright kills theirself.