U58 Preview 3: Acolyte of the Skin Warlock Archetype

[KookieKobold]

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

Feats and Features This Archetype Gets (that base Warlock does not):

• Alternate version of Fiend Pact - True Fiend Pact. Identical to regular Fiend pact except rather than Dark One's Luck, you gain the following feat when appropriate:
  
  • Fiendskin: Your skin has been grafted with demon skin, granting you some of its inherent defenses. You gain a +1 profane bonus to Fire Resistance per Warlock Level.
  
  
• (You still gain Hurl through Hell as your level 15 Special Ability.)
• Rather than gaining Blast and Pact dice per level, Acolytes of the Skin gain the following feats:
  
  • 1: Lesser Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
  • 6: Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
  • 12: Greater Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
  • 18: Ultimate Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
  
  
• These feats may also be taken as regular feats if you meet the minimum level prerequisites as long as you have the first - just like how Monk stance upgrades work.
• Gaining Blast Dice and Pact Dice from other methods (such as enhancement trees, feats, or destinies) still functions as before. This alternate progression is only for the dice that before were granted from gaining Warlock levels.

Feats and Features this Archetype DOES NOT Get (that base Warlock does):

• Acolytes of the Skin do not get bonus automatically inscribed spells as they level up.
• They also do not get inherent Blast or Pact Dice (see above).
• They also may not choose any other pacts other than the True Fiend Pact.

Past Life
Acolyte of the Skin: You gain +5 Fire Spell Power and +1 MRR.

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.

Tier 1:

• Resilience of Body: +2/4/6 PRR
• Guarded Mind: You are Immune to Fear.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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. This scales with 125% Spell Power. 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.
• Ability Score: +1 Charisma

Tier 5:

• (this space intentionally left blank)
• 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.
• 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

What's Changed Since Preview 2:

• Bugfixes and implementation! This means that not a lot changed design-wise, but a lot more things should now be functional. Now's the time for more fine-tuning when it comes to design choices, so feedback is appreciated!

Known Issues:

• Visual Effects for this tree only function on Human (both Male and Female) characters.
  
• Animations for Demon Form only work on Human Male characters.
• Several icons are marked as placeholders

[cru121]

Without testing anything... Introducing the Beam at 125% in the same release that nerfs all other AoE shapes to 100%... Looks bad imho. Maybe find another way how to increase its damage if needed.

[Firebreed]

Beam being too narrow, slowing you, and having horrible height tolerance are deal breakers guys. More spellpower scaling won't change that.

Based on the lack of changes I would kindly ask you to read the feedback in Lamannia 2 and this thread once more.

[LurkingVeteran]

Without testing anything... Introducing the Beam at 125% in the same release that nerfs all other AoE shapes to 100%... Looks bad imho. Maybe find another way how to increase its damage if needed.

The other shapes were not nerfed since the base damage was increased. Further, single target is now 130%, upgradeable to 150%.

Otherwise I agree with the poster above, that if this is still not a cool looking (preferably wide) beam, please redo it.

[Hephaestas]

...I thought we were trying to get away from all the different over-scaling of warlock blast shapes? Rather see further changes or ability to up the dice.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

@Kookie

Does the blastshape feel good to you?

[Xezom]

So did some testing with this, and I have to say... it's doesn't feel much better than when most of the stuff was broken.

Having enemies run away from you in fear from your Glare abilities is horrible. I still VERY HIGHLY recommend making the glares paralyze with fear, otherwise they're going to remain pretty useless as well. They're pretty short range and cause things to flee from you, which is good for getting things off of you, but horrible for making use of your transformation and the double pact damage on feared enemies. Right now there is anti-synergy with itself. While you are potentially doubling your pact damage, you are making it a lot harder on yourself to hit enemies.

Beam is still terrible. It doesn't look as horrid with the removed force ball, but it still isn't a very highly functional shape to use. Even at 125% it is too unreliable to justify using it because of it's targeting and hit box. I'm pretty sure you could boost it to 200% and it would still be a marginal choice. The issue is not in the power of the shape, it's in the function. No amount of number tweaking will fix bad function. It just might make the bad function tolerable for the times when it DOES work well (which is few and far between). Beam just needs scrapped and replaced. I would rather see a melee Eldritch Blast put in. Paired with the two fear glares paralyzing things in fear it would at least have good synergy with itself and it's transformation.

Sadly, this tree didn't improve very much even with the function changes. It's just missing the mark in all the important places. It acts bulky, but isn't. It acts like it has high damage, but it doesn't. It uses a mechanic that is often times unwelcome in parties (fear),anti-synergistic with itself (shortening it's own range while making things run away from it), and useless on major bosses (Shaken works on bosses but you can easily get that from the Soul eater tree on hit and not need to use the fear casts in this tree).

[LurkingVeteran]

Can somebody post a video or screenshot of the beam in action?

[LunaticFringe]

Given that AotS needs more than just number-tuning to become well-considered, here's a thought - new blast shape. Eldritch Claws. Use the Flame/Thorn blade framework, and allow for single- or dual-wielding, thus adding something very different to locks. Given the risk/reward element, maybe make it 200% SP. And, it fits the whole fiendish concept. Combine that with the glares causing cowering, and that could help a lot.

[Xezom]

I also noticed that things were saving against the fear effect on the glare abilities, but there is no DC listed on the abilites. What does it scale with, how do they save (will/fort?), what's the spell school?

The descriptions make it sound like it always goes off to fear them, but monsters can and do save from it.

[knifefighter]

• 6: Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice
• 12: Greater Pact Attunement: +2d8 Blast Dice, +2d6 Pact Dice

Taking these feats is a trap as you need at least 12 warlock levels or you lose 7 base dice and 7 pact dice at lvl 32 unless I missed something

( +1 dice , +1 dice /2 epic levels, +1 dice/2 leg levels, from epic pact dice feat and epic eldrich blasting which both require 12 warlock levels)

[Seph1roth5]

They ask for feedback but don't seem to see/read what the problems are. It's like "Blahblahblahblah beam bad blahblahblah" "Ok, let's up the damage!"

The beam is like a slow-mo improved precise shot, like someone above mentioned, this is literally unusable and pointless. And I LIKE IPS. Is there any way to turn the beam into an always-on beam? So you just hold down the mouse and it stays shooting out? That'd be much cooler and easier to aim.

As MANY people have commented, fear is the opposite of what melees want to happen. Take it out or change it to stop people from running away from you! Make it paralyze on a failed save, or shaken if they make it or something. Or blind, or ANYTHING but run the hell away.

[MIvan]

Shape Stance: Beam Concentration is turned off at login.
I can accept this as a fair warning: 'dont use this terrible shape', but heh.

[Lotoc]

Can any of the SSG devs working on this archetype playtest it in Grim and Barrett?
Try it both with you as the AotS and try it with another person playing AotS.

Did you know that when you fear any color of Abishai they will do everybody's favorite party trick of Blue Abishai and Ogre mages and immediately cast greater invisibility while they heal to full?

[Saucetenuto]

I didn't play the earlier previews and I've never run a warlock so I'm going into this totally cold.

Beam definitely feels worse than the other blast shapes. It's like lightning bolt, you _can_ hit multiple targets but you basically never do. I'd always rather have chain, cone, or the homing one. The cool version of this is the one where you hold down the button and get a continuous beam with a wide hitbox; if that's too hard for whatever reason, then it might be better to give up for now and replace the Beam blast shape with an SLA or something.

The gazes don't seem to cost SP, should they?

The eldritch blast feats make sense on their own and open some interesting doors for character building, but they don't feel connected to the rest of the class design. Why is AotS more splashable than a normal warlock? If anything it seems like it should be _higher_ commitment, you know?

Having no way to pierce fire immunity is pretty rough, but you can somewhat compensate with your spell selection, this isn't like arcanotechnician where you have to 100% commit to the bit.

I don't hate the fear effects as much as everyone else seems to, you can use the gazes as easy, short-CD crowd control and it feels fine to me. If you try to use them like cleaves, to do damage on cooldown, then yeah it doesn't work. Related: you never want to gaze while you're demoning out, which is pretty weird from a flavor perspective. Maybe the gazes should daze if you're in demon form, and fear otherwise?

Let's talk about the demon some more. I like the concept a lot, but switching to it feels like a downgrade in power because you lose your ranged attack, and with it your ability to hit multiple targets. You get some AC and fortification in exchange, but on net I still feel less safe because I have to stand next to the people I'm killing. And the range on the claws is tiny, so you really have to cuddle up if you want to hit anybody, and you can't hit breakables at all. Overall the demon is the splashiest, shiniest thing in the whole archetype and it needs to be much cooler. Just brainstorming here:

* Have it do more stuff when you transform. Maybe grant a big pile of temp HP like ES gets with Shining Through, maybe a point-blank fireball, just something to make the transition more dramatic and give you a better reason to time it. Having it Shake people isn't enough, you can already get that for free on your eldritch blasts if you want it.
* The claws could have longer reach, and maybe something like strikethrough, so that you don't lose _too_ much relative to chain or cone.
* This might be a good place to address the fire immunity issue: maybe the demon pierces immunities like Sorcerer elementals do, or maybe the claws strip immunities briefly, something like that.
* Maybe the claws only hit one target, but with much better spell power scaling?
* How about a really aggressive fire shield variant: anybody who hits you gets zapped with your eldritch blast (up to once per second, or per two seconds, or whatever).
* Like I said above, demon form could also upgrade the gaze attacks. Not necessarily as disabling as a daze, just anything that's helpful and doesn't immediately stop you from attacking.

It doesn't need all of those, but probably it does need more than one. It makes the design more complex but this is a great place to put complexity because the flavor is so dense and overpowering.

If nothing else I'll probably run a 12 AotS / 8 something else at some point, that seems pretty good.

[xaxaeb]

@Kookie

Does the blastshape feel good to you?

I mean.... devs nerfed IPS cuz "it was too OP", so what do you think?

I don't hate the fear effects as much as everyone else seems to, you can use the gazes as easy, short-CD crowd control and it feels fine to me. If you try to use them like cleaves, to do damage on cooldown, then yeah it doesn't work. Related: you never want to gaze while you're demoning out, which is pretty weird from a flavor perspective. Maybe the gazes should daze if you're in demon form, and fear otherwise?

Fear is horrible because the mob will run away from the group (tough luck melees). And when it comes back - chances are that it will bring a lot of friends with it..... tough luck everybody.

[droid327]

...I thought we were trying to get away from all the different over-scaling of warlock blast shapes? Rather see further changes or ability to up the dice.

Yeah, agree - normalizing Cone and Chain so that you picked them for their geometry, not their damage scaling, was a good thing. Then they immediately turn around and make the same mistake with Beam.

Fix its AOE so that its situationally useful, dont try to reward people for using a shape you know is subpar.

[Smokewolf]

@Dev's

After much constructive feedback, none of the player suggestions were used. Which begs the question...

What's the point of this preview if player feedback isn't taken seriously?

Just to recap a few shortcomings after several weeks of "development," the AToS...

- Performs Eldritch beam attacks that are unusable within the game-mechanics of DDO. Example: Tall players will not be able to hit small mobs standing directly in front of them.

- Lacks good symmetry with itself or the adjacent Warlock trees.

- Has a gaze attack that fears mobs, causing them to run off. Which, if you think about it, will 100% get your Reaper / Raid group killed.

- Demon-Form melee ability is set at T5, yet lacks any supporting melee abilities earlier in the tree. Would be better to focus on a melee or caster tree, not both.

Currently, as the AToS is, no one but the fanboys want it, nor did anyone specifically ask for this garbage Archetype. Strongly recommend restarting from scratch, as AToS is likely to bomb no matter the amount of imbue dice you throw at it.

-Smoke

[Lotoc]

- The Demon-Form melee ability is set at T5, yet lacks any supporting melee abilities earlier in the tree. Would be great to either focus on a melee tree or caster, not both.

And you've not been reading people pointing out the form does not actually melee attack and is just delivering melee range spells.

[ianflaer]

Beam being too narrow, slowing you, and having horrible height tolerance are deal breakers guys. More spellpower scaling won't change that.

Based on the lack of changes I would kindly ask you to read the feedback in Lamannia 2 and this thread once more.

I completely agree. . . i mean "tell me you know the beam shape is bad without saying it is bad" vertical tolerance is absolutely a MUST fix, the slow down is ridiculous. why give me a pile of drawbacks so I can use what is objectively the worst blast shape in the game? why would I ever want that? tell you what, make the beam move as fast as a lightning bolt or arrow and remove the slow down and I think it might be ok, the vertical tolerance would still suck but it MIGHT be worth using . .. maybe