Worst Enhancement Trees

[droid327]

Feels like Archetypes have kinda slowed the pace of modernizing the older trees, even though those updates are largely successful. What are your top 4 existing trees in need of an update?

Mine are:

1. Archmage. One of the weakest and most outdated tree designs, when it should be one of the most iconic D&D playstyles

2. Warpriest. Same as above, it just fails to give a competitive melee package, with no real signature ability

3. Ninja Spy. Just all over the place. All 3 monk trees could make the list but that one is the most pointless overall

4. Occult Slayer. The other two barb trees are really strong, but OS has a builder spender system that really doesn't offer enough value right now

[magaiti]

5) Dark Apostate
6) Acolyte of Skin

[EdsanDarkbane]

Feels like Archetypes have kinda slowed the pace of modernizing the older trees, even though those updates are largely successful. What are your top 4 existing trees in need of an update?

Mine are:

1. Archmage. One of the weakest and most outdated tree designs, when it should be one of the most iconic D&D playstyles

2. Warpriest. Same as above, it just fails to give a competitive melee package, with no real signature ability

3. Ninja Spy. Just all over the place. All 3 monk trees could make the list but that one is the most pointless overall

4. Occult Slayer. The other two barb trees are really strong, but OS has a builder spender system that really doesn't offer enough value right now

This is a good start. I would agree that other HM monk needs an overhaul, although I would say SSG caused this issue by nerfing.

I know the Barbarian enhancements have a couple that plain do not work. But I actually like occult slayer otherwise.

[ZER0DIVISION]

Feels like Archetypes have kinda slowed the pace of modernizing the older trees, even though those updates are largely successful. What are your top 4 existing trees in need of an update?

4. Occult Slayer. The other two barb trees are really strong, but OS has a builder spender system that really doesn't offer enough value right now

I agree that the builder/spender stuff is bad, especially when what you get for 'spending' isn't all that great for how much it takes to 'build' the weapon bond stacks. It would be nice if the cores made building faster or reduced the cost of spenders. That being said, I feel like Occult Slayer has lots of great passive benefits in its own right that make it a great secondary tree for barbs.

Ravager on the other hand... several abilities don't really work or have not worked for a long time. For being one of the signature features of the tree, Cruel Cut has a very long cooldown, some of its upgrades don't seem to work, and stat damage quickly becomes irrelevant. I think the only nice things I can recall from Ravager is that the Aura of Fear that debuffs enemy stats will occasionally make some undead mobs automatically helpless. I only ever spend points in Ravager on my barb tank for the extra hp from cores.

My additions in no particular order:

1. Renegade Mastermaker: It's not terribly clear what this tree is trying to do. You get some nice tanky stuff, some cool tactical abilities that would make more sense in Battle Engineer, a builder/spender system that is useless. It's nice to dip into for tank builds but not much else. I guess the admixture SLAs could be nice if they weren't so slow to cast? I will say the capstone is very cool. There's some good stuff but you always feel like you're wasting AP to get to that good stuff.

2. Mechanic: Again, got some great passives, it's not a horrible tree. But all the cool things the tree gives you to use are all worthless. The alchemical trap attacks are clunky, and have minimal benefit even if you manage to get the DCs workable. They're cool in concept but not fun to use. The capstone clicky is pretty bad too, people pretty unanimously splash 2 artificer over taking that capstone.

3. Harper agent. Lol, what are you even doing in this tree beyond taking KtA?

4. Soul Eater: Consume/Stricken scale terribly. Also, they're slow moving projectiles that require a hard target and easily miss, what? Oh boy, blind and burning blood SLAs. The cone shape, Finger SLA, and debuffs are nice though.

5: Tainted Scholar: The depravity system is just bad, and the depravity spenders are bad too. The cores and the spell crit damage are pretty good, other than one core making you lose hp? Lol.

Also, shout out to the first core of Angel of Vengeance, which now does nothing on its own except 1 universal spell power and 2 sp! Oh boy!

For real though, most trees are not 'bad' but have aged with this game very poorly or are so bug-ridden that they essentially don't function how they're meant to. Most of them have great ideas, they just need to be migrated to the current state of the game, and actually work as advertised.

[magaiti]

I agree that the builder/spender stuff is bad, especially when what you get for 'spending' isn't all that great for how much it takes to 'build' the weapon bond stacks. That being said, I feel like Occult Slayer has lots of great passive benefits.

Ravager on the other hand... several abilities don't really work or have not worked for a long time. For being one of the signature features of the tree, Cruel Cut has a very long cooldown, some of its upgrades don't seem to work, and stat damage quickly becomes irrelevant. I think the only nice things I can recall from Ravager is that the Aura of Fear that debuffs enemy stats will occasionally make some undead mobs automatically helpless. I only ever spend points in Ravager on my barb tank for the extra hp from cores.

My additions in no particular order:

1. Renegade Mastermaker: It's not terribly clear what this tree is trying to do. You get some nice tanky stuff, some cool tactical abilities that would make more sense in Battle Engineer, a builder/spender system that is useless. It's nice to dip into for tank builds but not much else. I guess the admixture SLAs could be nice if they weren't so slow to cast? I will say the capstone is very cool. There's some good stuff but you always feel like you're wasting AP to get to that good stuff.

2. Mechanic: Again, got some great passives, it's not a horrible tree. But all the cool things the tree gives you to use are all worthless. The alchemical trap attacks are clunky, and have minimal benefit even if you manage to get the DCs workable. They're cool in concept but not fun to use. The capstone clicky is pretty bad too, people pretty unanimously splash 2 artificer over taking that capstone.

3. Harper agent. Lol, what are you even doing in this tree beyond taking KtA?

4. Soul Eater: Consume/Stricken scale terribly. Also, they're slow moving projectiles that require a hard target and easily miss, what? Oh boy, blind and burning blood SLAs. The cone shape, Finger SLA, and debuffs are nice though.

5: Tainted Scholar: The depravity system is just bad, and the depravity spenders are bad too. The cores and the spell crit damage are pretty good, other than one core making you lose hp? Lol.

Also, shout out to the first core of Angel of Vengeance, which now does nothing on its own except 1 universal spell power and 2 sp! Oh boy!

For real though, most trees are not 'bad' but have aged with this game very poorly or are so bug-ridden that they essentially don't function how they're meant to. Most of them have great ideas, they just need to be migrated to the current state of the game, and actually work as advertised.

Ravager is 6 AP for 6 damage and 5 melee power. That's all. Sadly.
RM is melee self-healing tank tree. Building AC is not useless. T5 is interesting, but hard to justify. But, there insn't that many tank trees in the game, so why not.
Mechanic has great crossbow line (pun not intended) and good T5, the problem is it has to compete with Inquis.
Harper, yes, outdated. Nothing is worth taking besides KtA and Int to hit/damage. Maybe +3 skills and 20% HAmp (if you somehow spent 20 pts).
Soul Eater T5/cores are fine. Consume has utility (speed buff, debuffing)

[Scrag]

5) Dark Apostate

I have had an extremely fun time with my DA tree. It is a total blast.

I agree, warpriest sucks. I just cant find any use for the tree, and my DA is melee/caster hybrid, which is saying something.

I want to try out barb, but I will be honest, the OS spender/saver mechanics stink.

[Xgya]

Feels like Archetypes have kinda slowed the pace of modernizing the older trees, even though those updates are largely successful. What are your top 4 existing trees in need of an update?

Mine are:

1. Archmage. One of the weakest and most outdated tree designs, when it should be one of the most iconic D&D playstyles

2. Warpriest. Same as above, it just fails to give a competitive melee package, with no real signature ability

3. Ninja Spy. Just all over the place. All 3 monk trees could make the list but that one is the most pointless overall

4. Occult Slayer. The other two barb trees are really strong, but OS has a builder spender system that really doesn't offer enough value right now

My own list
Warpriest for sure, tree needs some more love.
Harper Agent; the tree was released in a time when global trees were meant to be supporting trees; then we got Inquisitive and that philosophy got thrown out the window, making Harper the worst global tree by far.
My third would be Battle Engineer. It and Arcanotechnician contrast with one another in an unhealthy way. Arcano gives all the spellpower buffs and encourages runearm use, the other has the only source of runearm improvements beyond damage.
Archmage would be my fourth. I think it's serviceable and holds to its theme compared to all the above.

I don't think Ninja Spy deserves to be on that list. For years I behaved as if it was the only Monk tree, because I still hate melee, and kinda liked Shuri Monks.

[FuzzyDuck81]

1. Renegade Mastermaker: It's not terribly clear what this tree is trying to do. You get some nice tanky stuff, some cool tactical abilities that would make more sense in Battle Engineer, a builder/spender system that is useless. It's nice to dip into for tank builds but not much else. I guess the admixture SLAs could be nice if they weren't so slow to cast? I will say the capstone is very cool. There's some good stuff but you always feel like you're wasting AP to get to that good stuff.

3. Harper agent. Lol, what are you even doing in this tree beyond taking KtA?

One of my characters is a pure artificer with renegade mastermaker as main tree, harper agent as the secondary & a bit of illusionist to get colour spray. Destiny-wise magus of the eclipse is the primary with some handy damage dealing abilities, time stop to help with boss dps & another forcefield. Secondary destiny is exalted angel for the healing aura, MCMW & turn undead for the mass restoration, with unyielding sentinel as the tertiary tree to have just enough for renewal. It's a pretty fun build actually, with a combination of healing, buffs, curatives, shields, some CC & some damage dealing, though it's definitely a master-of-none approach it's actually my main raiding character & I built it specifically to be a generalised party support that's hardy enough to be able to stay alive while doing it.

As for other trees, ninja spy definitely needs some work to really make it effective & archmage is in dire need of updating too. Hopefully the recent introduction of archetypes with some of their more unique & interesting capabilities, including the relatively recent addition of modifiers to add extra effects to specific spells (which IMO would be a defining archmage thing) will allow them get some cool & effective updates.

[kuzka111]

imo better write here tree's that are good and dont need to be changed...

will be less work

[Nandos]

Harper Agent is the worst of the worst. It has never had an update/revamp and doesn't even have a proper capstone. Players only use it for the INT to hit/damage/trance enhancements.

It would be a good supplemental tree for a lot of builds if they would modernize it.

[DaviMOC]

I used to love warprist and warsoul.
Ameliorating Strikes was a really nice ability but it became almost useless nowdays. I feel like the tree itself just need a little bigger numbers. Its befnefits are way too limited to favored weapons without bringing that much of benefits. Divine Crusader that could improve on it just push you too much on a shield based spec.

OS have that old system but it is a strong tree just not as fun. OS + FoTW is the best way I know to be a tank that is not Undying Sentinel with a shield.

Rogue Mechanics needs to get its trowing abilities fixed and a better crit profile but its fine in a arti splash or combined with Inq.

I cant save Archamage XD.

I know its a good tree but i dont find any fun on playing vanguard. It dosent look good and feels like you always missing points to spend on your secondary trees.

[Smokewolf]

5) Dark Apostate
6) Acolyte of Skin

Neither should have been released without first taking player feedback seriously.

[Smokewolf]

Harper Agent is the worst of the worst. It has never had an update/revamp and doesn't even have a proper capstone. Players only use it for the INT to hit/damage/trance enhancements.

It would be a good supplemental tree for a lot of builds if they would modernize it.

Harper would be a pointless tree if not for Intelligence hit-to-damage. Which Int-H2D truly should have been part of the EK tree from the start. Speaking of which, the EK imbues for Wizards should differ from Sorcerers. Being that Wizards are not elementalists, but generalists. Ideally, having negative, sonic, rust, and force imbues would be a much better fit.

The Archmage tree should give a stacking +1 DC to the chosen school per core taken (-1 opposing). Instead of a bunch of crappy SLA's no one wants or rarely uses. Beyond that, adding features that reduce spell-cooldowns, add vulnerabilities, or strip imunities would all be welcome improvements.

[leesun]

1.) harper agent - it has int to-hit and damage, not much else. Bring it in line with other universal trees by giving it a clear purpose.
2.) henshin mystic - remove all staff fighting and double down on the fire/force ki sla and ki manipulation. make separate tree dedicated to staff fighting.
3.) archmage.) am pass WhEn!?



is the dc of the cap stone of Souleater still bugged?

[Oxarhamar]

Artificer too hybrid should offer more specialization

[Assassination]

Dark Hunter

The archetype is fun, traps and open lock.

The tree is a Dumpster Fire, just absolute useless Garbage.

Ranger is my favorite class, this tree was like a slap up side my head.

[Valtan]

Ravager
Occult slayer

[HailBlazR]

if we're talking about fully investing in a given tree, Harper and Swashbuckler have got to be some of the worst. They're both surprisingly good splashes even in 2023, but going full T5 in them is a great way to gimp your character. There are RACIAL trees which perform better than these ones.

[Eantarus]

Harper Agent is the worst of the worst. It has never had an update/revamp and doesn't even have a proper capstone. Players only use it for the INT to hit/damage/trance enhancements.

It would be a good supplemental tree for a lot of builds if they would modernize it.

It is a good supplemental tree for a lot of builds right now. Specifically any build that wants to use int to hit/damage, with the trance enhancement as a nice bonus.

I am leery of any changes to Harpers because as-is its so good for that relatively low investment. I worry if they modify it they're going to move the useful bits into high tiers and wreck the whole thing.

[Villefere]

Feels like Archetypes have kinda slowed the pace of modernizing the older trees, even though those updates are largely successful. What are your top 4 existing trees in need of an update?

Archetypes themselves are already in need of modernizing.