U58 Preview 2: Acolyte of the Skin Warlock Archetype

[SilentRunning]

I understand that you have an image as to the "Beam cannon" blast shape.

Did anyone notice this little bit of info in Steelstar's post at the beginning of the thread:

Known Issues:

None of the visual effects for this tree have been set up
Several icons are marked as placeholders

[LurkingVeteran]

I understand that you have an image as to the "Beam cannon" blast shape.

Did anyone notice this little bit of info in Steelstar's post at the beginning of the thread:

Good point, but it's not just visuals for the slow projectiles. A beam is supposed to be fast. If they speed up the projectiles, replace the visual with some laser ray(s?) and make sure it properly pierces, I would be happy to call it "beam(s)". One wider ray might be advisable since small slow projectiles + lag is an annoying combination (the shape of lightning bolt is a good inspiration), but this is also a balance issue w.r.t. lightning bolt.

[Duhboy]

After playing with this on Lamannia, it became quickly apparent that this tree needs some work and not just from a functional point of view such as certain abilities not working but from a practical view as well. Such as but not being limited to being a mostly copy and paste replacement of an Enlighted Spirit blaster but neglecting to include an ability into AOTS that Enlighted Spirit has (Spiritual Retribution) that made it a go to for blasters. With that said I went through AOTS and gave my critique and and suggestions in red. Enjoy.

Acolyte of the Skin is a new Warlock Archetype themed around Demonic power and transformation!


Past Life
Acolyte of the Skin: You gain +5 Fire Spell Power and +1 MRR.
As some people pointed out +1 MRR per past life seems a bit lower given how regular Warlock PL gives +3 MRR per stack.


Enhancement Trees:

This archetype gets the new Acolyte of the Skin tree in place of Enlightened Spirit! It retains the Tainted Scholar and Soul Eater trees.



Acolyte of the Skin Enhancement Tree:

• Core 1: Fiendish Form I: You gain +3% Fortification and +1 Fortitude Saves per Core ability.
• Core 3: Fiendish Form II: You gain +3 HP per Core Ability.
• Core 6: Fiendish Form III: You gain +3 Fire Resistance per Core ability.
• Core 12: Fiendish Form IV: You gain +3 MRR per Core Ability.
• Core 18: Fiendish Form V: You gain +3 PRR and Universal Spell Power per Core Ability.
• Core 20: Ultimate Fiendish Form: +4 Charisma, +20% Competence bonus to HP. You gain Spell Resistance equal to your Charisma score.

Seems like the level 20 core is missing something. I think adding Fire spell power or something wouldn't be a bad idea.

Tier 1:

• Resilience of Body: +2/4/6 PRR
• Guarded Mind: You are Immune to Fear.
  Why? There are alot of different ways to get fear immunity let alone in Soul Eater tree.
• Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
• Dark Deals: +1/2/3 Spellcraft, Haggle and Concentration, rank 3: +1 Will saving throws
• Resilience of Soul: +2/4/6 MRR

Tier 2:

• Hellish Rebuke SLA
• Mindwrack: Your Eldritch Blast, Melee and ranged attacks reduce the Will saving throw of the target by -1 for 6 seconds. The effect stacks up to 4 times.
  Not really a point to this when you have abilities such as Fiendish Glare, Glare of the Pit, and No Worse Fate in Soul Eater tree that does shaken/ fear effects
• Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
• Nightshield: You gain the effects of the Nightshield spell.
  Do we really need a passive shield effect when we can just simply cast the spell?
• Hellfire: You bypass 5/10/15 Fire Resistance with your spells.

Tier 3:

• Shape Stance: Beam Concentration. Eldritch Blast Shape: Transform your Eldritch Blast into a magical beam of Force dealing damage to all enemies in a straight line. While active, you have -1 Pact Damage die.
• Devil's Bulwark I: While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Natural Armor per 2 Warlock Levels.
• Power of the Fiend: Fire: You gain +3/6/10 Fire Spell Power and +1/2/4 Universal Spell Power.
• Fiendish Glare: Beams of evil energies emerge from your eyes, dealing damage to all enemies in a wide cone. Enemies take 1d6 Evil damage plus the effects of your Eldritch Blast, and are Feared by your frightening visage. Shares a cooldown with Cleave. Cost: 6 spell points
• Ability Score: +1 Charisma

Tier 4:

• Drink Their Fear: Your Eldritch Blast deals double its Pact damage to enemies that are Feared.
• Devil's Bulwark II: (req Devil's Bulwark I) While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Physical Resistance Rating per 2 Warlock Levels.
• Skin Adaptation: Your Fiendskin now grants Cold, Lightning, and Acid resistance in addition to its Fire Resistance.
• Luck of the Gambler: +1/2/3 to all saves.
  I suggest moving this to tier 2 replacing Mindwrack and add a AOTS version of Spiritual Retribution like Hellish Retribution here that makes your Eldritch Blasts, Melee Attacks, and Ranged Attacks gain a +1d6 Evil or Fire damage per Imbue Dice that scales with Spell Power.
• Ability Score: +1 Charisma

Tier 5:

• (this space intentionally left blank)
  Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to add a fire immunity removal when using your eye beams and eldritch blasts.
• Devil's Bulwark III: (req Devil's Bulwark II) While in any armor, your Fiendskin now grants +1 Magical Resistance Rating and Magic Resistance Rating Cap per 2 Warlock Levels.
• Fiendish Symbiosis: You call upon your fiendish patron, transforming into a Demon for 30 seconds. You gain +100% Fortification, heal from Fire damage, and gain Natural Armor equal to your Pact Dice. While in this form, you no longer Eldritch Blast, instead you lash out with demonic claws as a melee attack. Each strike deals your full Eldritch Blast damage on hit. Entering this form is so frightening that activating this ability causes nearby enemies to become Shaken. Cooldown: 3 minutes, lasts 30 seconds + 5 seconds per core ability.
  This ability smells like a trap. No Warlock in their right mind would use this as is especially in reaper let alone high reaper because not only does it limit you to melee range for your eldritch blasts but it offers nothing in compensation for it such as but not lmited to PRR, dodge, etc.
• Glare of the Pit: Beams of evil energies emerge from your eyes, dealing damage to all enemies in a wide cone. Enemies take 4d6 Evil damage plus the effects of your Eldritch Blast, and are Feared by your frightening visage. Shares a cooldown with Great Cleave. Cost: 12 spell points
• Dark Lore: +1/2/3 Necromancy DCs

[droid327]

I suggest moving this to tier 2 replacing Mindwrack and add a AOTS version of Spiritual Retribution like Hellish Retribution here that makes your Eldritch Blasts, Melee Attacks, and Ranged Attacks gain a +1d6 Evil or Fire damage per Imbue Dice that scales with Spell Power.

This. I think people are really sleeping on the implications of ES's Imbue for a pure Blaster lock. If AotS is supposed to be a Blast-focused archetype, then it really does need some analogous ability. Otherwise, an ES lock is always going to be a far better blaster, because it has all the same Blast and Pact die, plus every Bonus Imbue Die you can stack is effectively +1d6 Blast Die (scaling 100% on the same spellpower as Utterdark). Considering how easy it is to get a lot of Bonus Imbue die, that's a huge boost to your base Blast damage.

[Bjond]

an ES lock is always going to be a far better blaster

Yep, that was my first and instant thought on seeing it locked into fire-pact: "where's the immunity strip or type-change to evil?" The tighter you bind it to a single damage type, the more critical it is for the class to be able to use that damage type EVERYWHERE. And, it should be easily-everywhere, too. Not a debuff for the 2nd hit to land, but a special hellfire type of fire damage that hurts everything no matter what.

IMHO, it should be a feature of the skin itself and then also tie the bonus feats to having that skin, too; ie. your character has gotta be seriously committed to it's fiend (be the actual class) in order to reap the benefits.

[cmecu]

I didnt get to test this preview because you only had it during the week days. Really wish you would include some weekend time so other people who work for a living get a chance to test it also. You probably would get a lot more people giving you feedback instead of just a handful of people.

With that being said, when I got to look at it at preview 1 , I noticed it didnt have Howl of Terror. I hope you intend to have Howl of Terror for this archetype.. Seems silly to be a fiend and not be able to have that Terror you put into creatures, especially if they take more damage when afraid.

And I hope you all plan to do another test with this preview. Sounds like a lot of stuff still needs to be worked on for all the classes.

[Tilomere]

I'm not understanding the multiclassing vision. Is it intended to be for heroic builds only, or should the epic warlock blast/pack die feats also have the 12 warlock class level requirements satisfied by being a level 1 Acolyte of the Skin?

If it is intended to splash with other casters, should it have a DC of highest of Int/Wis/Cha + evo bonuses + base?

If it is intended to splash with other casters, should Acolyte of the Skin levels count as any class for the purposes of enhancement tree progression and vice versa? Otherwise I don't see how a partial warlock, partial other class enhancement tree works compared to 20 warlock SE + TS classic combo (which already isn't considered top dps).

[LurkingVeteran]

I'm not understanding the multiclassing vision. Is it intended to be for heroic builds only, or should the epic warlock blast/pack die feats also have the 12 warlock class level requirements satisfied by being a level 1 Acolyte of the Skin?

If it is intended to splash with other casters, should it have a DC of highest of Int/Wis/Cha + evo bonuses + base?

If it is intended to splash with other casters, should Acolyte of the Skin levels count as any class for the purposes of enhancement tree progression and vice versa? Otherwise I don't see how a partial warlock, partial other class enhancement tree works compared to 20 warlock SE + TS classic combo (which already isn't considered top dps).

This is also a good point.

To be honest, multi-classing warlock is never going to be great DPS anyway since a large chunk comes from C5-C6 in TS. It only really makes sense for very defensive builds that have little other means of damage, at least beyond heroics.

[Rosze]

Given how common fire immunity is, should the skinnie have a immunity strip? Removing 15 points of FR won't help much against immune... and given the heavy fire bent, maybe this archetype should have a strip. It would certainly differentiate it from normal locks...

Edit: Maybe attach it to demon form. That would give demon form more oomph.

Think all warlocks should get a strip after some lvl it’s a key issue for warlocks. Every other caster basically gets a strip or has variety of spells. Warlocks have neither.

[dng242]

I'm not understanding the multiclassing vision. Is it intended to be for heroic builds only, or should the epic warlock blast/pack die feats also have the 12 warlock class level requirements satisfied by being a level 1 Acolyte of the Skin?

This an issue I noticed as well. Perhaps the Epic feat will accept either Warlock 12 or Ultimate Pact Attunement as a prerequisite

[carsonfball]

Given how common fire immunity is, should the skinnie have a immunity strip? Removing 15 points of FR won't help much against immune... and given the heavy fire bent, maybe this archetype should have a strip. It would certainly differentiate it from normal locks...

I agree. I only play fire warlocks if I'm a Tiefling due to being able to strip fire immunity. It'd be nice to be able to play other races though such as Dragonborn. Too many things heal from fire or are immune to fire at this point to make it worth playing as any other race. The problem with a Tiefling build though is that there is redundancy between that racial tree and this new tree in the form of element resistances. They may stack, I'm not sure, but beyond a certain point, it doesn't really help anyway so it doesn't matter too much if they stack, there's no real reason to spend the points.

[NemesisAlien]

Sounds cool right? You get Yamato's main cannon and superman's eye beam.

Then you log in and realize it sounds too good to be true.

[carsonfball]

This is what people expected:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/di...ntegrate-3.jpg

What we got seems like the regular old pew-pew.

That's certainly what I expected based on the description. Like, specifically what I expected. It sounded like the beam from Diablo.

[carsonfball]

Think all warlocks should get a strip after some lvl it’s a key issue for warlocks. Every other caster basically gets a strip or has variety of spells. Warlocks have neither.

+1

The only way to strip immunity for any warlock is to play a fiend pact Tiefling. No other pact even has the ability to strip immunity via racials.

[droid327]

That's certainly what I expected based on the description. Like, specifically what I expected. It sounded like the beam from Diablo.

Me too - I dont think the game can support an actual channeled beam like that which procs 4 hits per second or anything. That's what the Devs specifically moved away from when they redid Doublestrike.

What I think it should be, the closest thing DDO can approximate, is an insta-hit ray-shape AOE (well really a "wall" shape so it picks up vertical difference stoo) that procs at the normal Blast rate, but doesnt have a pause. So it winds up whenever you start the blast, but then just keeps chugging until you let go or interrupt it. Then just make the animation into your character holding their hand out steadily with a steady beam emerging like Diablo channels.

+1

The only way to strip immunity for any warlock is to play a fiend pact Tiefling. No other pact even has the ability to strip immunity via racials.

Warlocks dont need immunity stripping because half their damage isnt subject to immunity

That should actually be the model for all OTHER elemental casters - 50% effective against element-immunes, so its still a weakness but not a game-stopping vulnerability.

[SilentRunning]

Sunbolt comes to mind as a beam, if it could be turned into a channel effect for 4-5 seconds, you don't want something absurdly op though.

Lotro runs off the same engine that DDO does and although the art style is different, there are a few channeled skills that fit the beam effect. They last for about 3-5 seconds or so.