U39 Preview 1: Angel of Vengeance Revamp

[Cocomajobo]

Goals:

• Improve their DPS and efficiency
• Give them some SLAs
• Change their capstone to something universally useful to the tree & better for overall balance

Cores:

• Vengeful Magic's effects now trigger at 80%/60%/40%
• Vengeful Magic now also grants Passive: +20 Light and Alignment spell power
• The Archon's light spell now benefits from 100% of your Spell Power and Spell Crit (was 50%).
• Ascendancy's many versions based on deity are now gone. In their place:
• Ascendancy: Both versions grant +2 to all Skills, +20 Universal Spell Power, and a Searing Light SLA that costs zero spell points. Multiselector:
  
  • +4 Wisdom
  • +4 Charisma

Tier 1:

• NEW: Nimbus of Light SLA (12/8/4 second cooldown, 4/3/2 SP)
• Animus and Scourge have been combined into one ability with both sets of effects.

Tier 2:

• Just Reward is now gone.
• Taking the first rank of Articles of Faith now also grants Just Reward's former bonus.

Tier 3:

• NEW: Sun Bolt SLA (12/9/6 second cooldown, 12/10/8 SP)
• Wand & Scroll Mastery has moved down to Tier 2

Tier 5:

• NEW: Cometfall SLA (20/15/12 second cooldown,35/30/25 SP)
• NEW: Archon's Fury: (Requires Summon Archon) While this is toggled on, your Lantern Archon will add a stack of Archon's Fury on every shot. (Archon's Fury: 1d6 Fire damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, stacks up to 20 times. New stacks refresh the duration. This damage scales with 100% of Spell Power). While toggled on, every shot from your Archon costs 12 Spell Points.
• The spell DC boost in Tier 5 is no longer conencted to Smiting line.

[gwonbush]

Goals:

Tier 2:

• Just Reward is now gone.
• Taking the first rank of Articles of Faith now also grants Just Reward's former bonus.

The image doesn't match this at all. It has 3 ranks of Just Rewards, which is in Articles of Faith's old spot. Article's of Faith is now nowhere to be seen.

[Steelstar]

The image doesn't match this at all. It has 3 ranks of Just Rewards, which is in Articles of Faith's old spot. Article's of Faith is now nowhere to be seen.

Apologies, we flipped back and forth on which name to keep a few times as we wholly combined the two abilities. The note text is correct; the image should read Articles of Faith.

[edrein]

I like the improvements, but I'm disappointed and the removal of thematic magic.

I think most of us were hoping to see something similar to savants giving us spells based on our deity selection.

I for one am a bit disappointed that I'm not longer going to consider negative energy casting as an option for Vol/undead splash builds. I guess for now Dark Disciple reigns supreme.

[Silverleafeon]

Cocomajobo;6107380]Goals:

• Improve their DPS and efficiency
• Give them some SLAs
• Change their capstone to something universally useful to the tree & better for overall balance

Worthy goals.


Cores:

• Vengeful Magic's effects now trigger at 80%/60%/40%
  
  Much better than 75/50/25
  as healers tend to auto heal at 1/2 or less.
  
• Vengeful Magic now also grants Passive: +20 Light and Alignment spell power
  
  Very nice, granting something always useful for core 18
  
• The Archon's light spell now benefits from 100% of your Spell Power and Spell Crit (was 50%).
  
  I approve, the archon is a defining trait of favored souls. Increasing this ability will scale much better into epics.
  
• Ascendancy's many versions based on deity are now gone. In their place:
  Well played, so many races were highly inferior.
• Ascendancy: Both versions grant +2 to all Skills, +20 Universal Spell Power, and a Searing Light SLA that costs zero spell points. Multiselector:
  
  • +4 Wisdom
  • +4 Charisma
  
  Overall, a very nice capstone.
  Appreciate the opportunity to choose wis or cha.
  Great choice of SLA.

Tier 1:

• NEW: Nimbus of Light SLA (12/8/4 second cooldown, 4/3/2 SP)
  
  Nice tier one sla, great entry level spell.
  It scales well, is not overpowerful, yet is a great sla to build up endless ardor.
  
• Animus and Scourge have been combined into one ability with both sets of effects.
  
  Good show.
  Great way to make room for a nice nimbus sla.
  Nice reduction in action points.
  

Tier 2:

• Just Reward is now gone.
• Taking the first rank of Articles of Faith now also grants Just Reward's former bonus.
  
  I assume you mean that Articles of Faith now reads:
  " Articles of Faith: Your deity's favored weapon is considered a Spellcasting Implement in your hands.
  When you critically hit with a Fire, Force, Light, or Physical damage spell, you gain 10 Sacred temporary spell points."
  
  If so, very nice reduction of action points for this tree.

Tier 3:

• NEW: Sun Bolt SLA (12/9/6 second cooldown, 12/10/8 SP)
  
  Excellent addition of a very nice light sla.
  Makes AoV fit very well with Exalted Angel ED.
  
• Wand & Scroll Mastery has moved down to Tier 2
  
  Good placement.

Tier 5:

• NEW: Cometfall SLA (20/15/12 second cooldown,35/30/25 SP)
  
  Great sla to hide inside tier five worthy of other tree's outstanding abilities.
  Cometfall is often overlooked as a very interesting spell.
  
• NEW: Archon's Fury: (Requires Summon Archon) While this is toggled on, your Lantern Archon will add a stack of Archon's Fury on every shot. (Archon's Fury: 1d6 Fire damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, stacks up to 20 times. New stacks refresh the duration. This damage scales with 100% of Spell Power). While toggled on, every shot from your Archon costs 12 Spell Points.
  
  Again, high praise for recognizing an ability strongly associated with the favored soul class and making it even more interesting.
  The toggle effect with spell point cost is very interesting addition.
  
• The spell DC boost in Tier 5 is no longer conencted to Smiting line.
  
  Unlikely to matter much, however it grants freedom for build diversity by disconnecting the line.
  Thanks for leaving the DC boost in place.

QUOTE


Overall, extremely pleased with this tree.

In turn, this makes the Beacon of Hope tree extremely pleasing as well.

My main concern with the Beacon of Hope tree was that this tree would receive a sufficient amount of light slas and slas in general, which you have done while still retaining the essence of the tree as a whole and retaining class distinction for Favored Souls.

[Jetrule]

This is now a great heroic class tree. I think it almost makes FVS compete with warlock. It just needs a way to inflict light vulnerability or strip resistances. I would let the archons t-5 toggle stack 1-6 light vulnerability instead of fire damage, or have his light shot remove reductions and immunities to light/alignment damage like druids get with fire or cold. If his shot set up enemies for increased light damage it would be kind of fun to see who he was shooting at and follow his lead after he paints the target.

[HastyPudding]

Sun bolt SLA at tier 3?

If you're going to give them this then give the cleric's sun domain a sun bolt SLA for their level 5 bonus instead of a majorly redundant searing light SLA.

Everything looks good, although I'm slightly concerned about the massive drop in variety of the capstones in a single, generic SLA (that it costs nothing is irrelevant; FVS have gone beyond even sorcerers in their total spell points and I regularly see FVS in epics running around with 7,000-9,000 spell points). This feels like a cop-out. Not to mention this seems in open conflict with a sun elf/PDK favored soul's capstone, which is a downgrade, as well as healing-minded favored souls that might prefer that free healing from the Sovereign Host and Silvanus capstones. I'd say make the capstones a choice, but we don't need 20 different deity capstones, just 3-4.

Other than that, I really have no gripes with the changes.

[Silverleafeon]

........ to mention this seems in open conflict with a sun elf/PDK favored soul's capstone, which is a downgrade, as well as healing-minded favored souls that might prefer that free healing from the Sovereign Host and Silvanus capstones. I'd say make the capstones a choice, but we don't need 20 different deity capstones, just 3-4.

Other than that, I really have no gripes with the changes.

Sympathies, understandable.


The healing fans of favored souls can pick up close wounds from the beacon tree which more than makes up for the loss of cure light wounds.

The tier three sunbolt has half the cooldown (6 seconds instead of the capstone's 12 seconds) which more than makes up for the downgrade for sun elf change to searing light capstone.

Loss of repair serious wounds is whatever, given the huge healing power of divines that can heal thru warforge penalties.

[edrein]

Goals:

• Improve their DPS and efficiency
• Give them some SLAs
• Change their capstone to something universally useful to the tree & better for overall balance

Cores:

• Vengeful Magic's effects now trigger at 80%/60%/40%
• Vengeful Magic now also grants Passive: +20 Light and Alignment spell power
• The Archon's light spell now benefits from 100% of your Spell Power and Spell Crit (was 50%).
• Ascendancy's many versions based on deity are now gone. In their place:
• Ascendancy: Both versions grant +2 to all Skills, +20 Universal Spell Power, and a Searing Light SLA that costs zero spell points. Multiselector:
  
  • +4 Wisdom
  • +4 Charisma

Tier 1:

• NEW: Nimbus of Light SLA (12/8/4 second cooldown, 4/3/2 SP)
• Animus and Scourge have been combined into one ability with both sets of effects.

Tier 2:

• Just Reward is now gone.
• Taking the first rank of Articles of Faith now also grants Just Reward's former bonus.

Tier 3:

• NEW: Sun Bolt SLA (12/9/6 second cooldown, 12/10/8 SP)
• Wand & Scroll Mastery has moved down to Tier 2

Tier 5:

• NEW: Cometfall SLA (20/15/12 second cooldown,35/30/25 SP)
• NEW: Archon's Fury: (Requires Summon Archon) While this is toggled on, your Lantern Archon will add a stack of Archon's Fury on every shot. (Archon's Fury: 1d6 Fire damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, stacks up to 20 times. New stacks refresh the duration. This damage scales with 100% of Spell Power). While toggled on, every shot from your Archon costs 12 Spell Points.
• The spell DC boost in Tier 5 is no longer conencted to Smiting line.

Would it be terrible to ask to keep this version as is; but add multiselectors at the various SLA slots to add deity based flavor?

Such as Chill Touch for Vol as the T1 instead of Nimbus of light, or Magic Missles for Aureon/Lord of Blades respectively.
Necrotic Bolt/Necrotic Ray instead of Sun Bolt for Vol, Chain Missles for Aureon/Lord of Blades, Spike Growth for Sylvanus, etc.
Appropriate Capstones again, just appropriately based for level 20. Harm SLA for Vol, Blade Barrier for Lord of Blades, etc.

Additionally Archon's Fury could deal damage appropriate to that deity. Negative Energy for Vol, Slashing for Lord of Blades, Poison (or is it Acid now?) for Vulkoor, Force for Aureon, Holy for Silver Flame, etc.


Aside from wanting to return some of the deity based flavor to the tree. I'd highly suggest changing the damage type for Archon's Fury. Unlike Druids and Savants, FVS aren't going to have a way to strip mobs of their fire immunity. Perhaps make this a Light, Bane, or Alignment based damage type.

[HuneyMunster]

Would it be terrible to ask to keep this version as is; but add multiselectors at the various SLA slots to add deity based flavor?

Such as Chill Touch for Vol as the T1 instead of Nimbus of light, or Magic Missles for Aureon/Lord of Blades respectively.
Necrotic Bolt/Necrotic Ray instead of Sun Bolt for Vol, Chain Missles for Aureon/Lord of Blades, Spike Growth for Sylvanus, etc.
Appropriate Capstones again, just appropriately based for level 20. Harm SLA for Vol, Blade Barrier for Lord of Blades, etc.

Additionally Archon's Fury could deal damage appropriate to that deity. Negative Energy for Vol, Slashing for Lord of Blades, Poison (or is it Acid now?) for Vulkoor, Force for Aureon, Holy for Silver Flame, etc.


Aside from wanting to return some of the deity based flavor to the tree. I'd highly suggest changing the damage type for Archon's Fury. Unlike Druids and Savants, FVS aren't going to have a way to strip mobs of their fire immunity. Perhaps make this a Light, Bane, or Alignment based damage type.

It would be nice to see some flavor from Deities still remain, but would the option to still choose light spell would have to remain. If not, then Vol would be lacking in Undead heavy quests. Daggers are already a weak weapon for undead heavy quests as a lot of undead have dr bludgeon or slash. Also the Smiting line would need negative crit option.


Removing Fire from Archon's Fury would mean no fire element in the AoV tree when it focuses on Light/Alignment, Force/Physical and Fire damage.

[Angelic-council]

Goals:

• Improve their DPS and efficiency
• Give them some SLAs
• Change their capstone to something universally useful to the tree & better for overall balance

Cores:

• Vengeful Magic's effects now trigger at 80%/60%/40%
• Vengeful Magic now also grants Passive: +20 Light and Alignment spell power
• The Archon's light spell now benefits from 100% of your Spell Power and Spell Crit (was 50%).
• Ascendancy's many versions based on deity are now gone. In their place:
• Ascendancy: Both versions grant +2 to all Skills, +20 Universal Spell Power, and a Searing Light SLA that costs zero spell points. Multiselector:
  
  • +4 Wisdom
  • +4 Charisma

Tier 1:

• NEW: Nimbus of Light SLA (12/8/4 second cooldown, 4/3/2 SP)
• Animus and Scourge have been combined into one ability with both sets of effects.

Tier 2:

• Just Reward is now gone.
• Taking the first rank of Articles of Faith now also grants Just Reward's former bonus.

Tier 3:

• NEW: Sun Bolt SLA (12/9/6 second cooldown, 12/10/8 SP)
• Wand & Scroll Mastery has moved down to Tier 2

Tier 5:

• NEW: Cometfall SLA (20/15/12 second cooldown,35/30/25 SP)
• NEW: Archon's Fury: (Requires Summon Archon) While this is toggled on, your Lantern Archon will add a stack of Archon's Fury on every shot. (Archon's Fury: 1d6 Fire damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, stacks up to 20 times. New stacks refresh the duration. This damage scales with 100% of Spell Power). While toggled on, every shot from your Archon costs 12 Spell Points.
• The spell DC boost in Tier 5 is no longer conencted to Smiting line.

You guys done an amazing job here! Although.. I'm not too sure about vengeful magic. Does it really have to be HP(%) based? I'm just curious. Why not remove HP requirement and make it permanent, but with slightly weaker version. Or, something like, active ability with long CD. What would be an issue.

[Iriale]

I have recently made several lives of fvs, in addition to having a cleric in cap. And I can assure you that searing light is not competitive in epics. Could you design a better SLA capstone? Tier 3 Sun bolt SLA is better than capstone

Why have you given just +2 wis to the druid caster, when are you going to improve the other casptones to +4? And the druid caster does not even have a secondary caster tree. Why this discrimination?

I like the other changes.

You guys done an amazing job here! Although.. I'm not too sure about vengeful magic. Does it really have to be HP(%) based? I'm just curious. Why not remove HP requirement and make it permanent, but with slightly weaker version. Or, something like, active ability with long CD. What would be an issue.

I agree. abilities based on% hp are lame. They should be changed to something more logical. It does not need to be powerful, but usable.

[Iriale]

Would it be terrible to ask to keep this version as is; but add multiselectors at the various SLA slots to add deity based flavor?

Such as Chill Touch for Vol as the T1 instead of Nimbus of light, or Magic Missles for Aureon/Lord of Blades respectively.
Necrotic Bolt/Necrotic Ray instead of Sun Bolt for Vol, Chain Missles for Aureon/Lord of Blades, Spike Growth for Sylvanus, etc.
Appropriate Capstones again, just appropriately based for level 20. Harm SLA for Vol, Blade Barrier for Lord of Blades, etc.

Additionally Archon's Fury could deal damage appropriate to that deity. Negative Energy for Vol, Slashing for Lord of Blades, Poison (or is it Acid now?) for Vulkoor, Force for Aureon, Holy for Silver Flame, etc.


Aside from wanting to return some of the deity based flavor to the tree. I'd highly suggest changing the damage type for Archon's Fury. Unlike Druids and Savants, FVS aren't going to have a way to strip mobs of their fire immunity. Perhaps make this a Light, Bane, or Alignment based damage type.

I agree, it would be thematically better. The problem is that almost none of the previous SLAs were viable at level 20. Better SLAs that work in epics were needed.

The problem of giving Vol's blood only SLAs of negative energy is that they make them terribly ineffective with undead, when they should be good at subjugating undead. It is a thematic problem that also have the pale masters, who are much worse against undeads than against alive when they should be masters of undeath. This could be solved by introducing in the game some necromancy spells that are good against undeads. It is something that is missing much in the game, there is a lack of necromancy spells against undead

Anyway, I understand wanting to simplify it in a single SLA. But could not it be a SLA competitive in epics? Searing light is very weak. Why not a Flame strike SLA? It is not super powerful (ok for 0 sp, not need to be powerful), but viable in epics.

Even so it is an improvement with the current, having the SLA of level 3 and the cometfall SLA, so, I am glad with the changes

A request, devs, can you improve the feat scion of celestia? It's the most thematically appropriate feat for fvs caster, but having no improvement to DC spell is really painful. A caster fvs needs DC, even if he is blaster. At least add +2 to all the spells, even if the feat does not have +4 to anything. This would help fvs casters a lot

Could you also add conjuration to the DC boost of tier 5? cometfall is an important spell for fvs, and it is conjuration. It would really be good to add conjuration in addition to evocation.

[Codect]

Looks pretty good for the most part.

I would have liked a little bit more in the way of DC casting. Clerics (if DC spec'd) get a huge +4 DCs from their Domain (as well as other goodies) in addition to their +2 from Divine Disciple. FvS get +1 from AoV, and a situational +2 from the aura. Would be nice if you at least made the Tier 5 Evo boost a +2 or gave it 2 ranks from 1 AP each.

Also Conjuration boost would be nice to go with the Cometfall SLA.

The capstone searing light SLA seems weak considering it's the tree capstone. Would rather see Sunbeam or even Sunburst.

Finally, in your image it shows the Spell Pen enhancement having 3 ranks but on the wiki it says it is currently only 1 rank. You make no mention of changing it in your text list, can you confirm if it is 1 or 3?

[janave]

This is now a great heroic class tree. I think it almost makes FVS compete with warlock. It just needs a way to inflict light vulnerability or strip resistances. I would let the archons t-5 toggle stack 1-6 light vulnerability instead of fire damage, or have his light shot remove reductions and immunities to light/alignment damage like druids get with fire or cold. If his shot set up enemies for increased light damage it would be kind of fun to see who he was shooting at and follow his lead after he paints the target.

Still far from a lock even if you play it under 40% hitpoints.

Instead of 18 core light spellpower bonus, archon shot and light spells should add up to 20% vulnerability ~ d4 per shot.
Instead of 20 core uni sp bonus, some spell crit multiplier ~20-30%, or reduce hp requirements from 18th core, ~ 100%, 80%, 60%

If you could add back a client side only toggle archon light, that would be great.

Edit: Playing 1-11 will be less struggle, due to the new trees, that's significant to the whole experience of the class.

[SirValentine]

So AoV gets their Spell Penetration enhancement improved from +1 to +3, and their capstone caster stat increased from +2 to +4. OK, I don't have any issue with that, in and of itself.

But the contrast to the very recent series of nerfs to Season's Herald got is striking. There, you actively removed Spell Penetration, didn't increase caster stat in capstone, and actively removed or nerfed multiple other abilities relating to DC casting.

If you were nerfing everything, I wouldn't like it either, but at least you'd have consistency. Where is the logic here?

[Steelstar]

Finally, in your image it shows the Spell Pen enhancement having 3 ranks but on the wiki it says it is currently only 1 rank. You make no mention of changing it in your text list, can you confirm if it is 1 or 3?

It is, in fact, still 1. Sorry for the image. Will look into replacing it with a new version when Cordovan gets here.

If you could add back a client side only toggle archon light, that would be great.

Wish we could. Unfortunately, we cannot.

[Hipparan]

Goals:

• NEW: Archon's Fury: (Requires Summon Archon) While this is toggled on, your Lantern Archon will add a stack of Archon's Fury on every shot. (Archon's Fury: 1d6 Fire damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, stacks up to 20 times. New stacks refresh the duration. This damage scales with 100% of Spell Power). While toggled on, every shot from your Archon costs 12 Spell Points.

Yeesh. I understand that FvS have a lot of SP, but losing 12 SP every 2 seconds for something like this seems pretty steep. I'd rather have the toggle cost 50 SP when you activate it or something. Immolation from the Fire Savant tree has a similar effect but it occurs without any additional cost when you cast a fire spell. I would rather see this as a 0 SP toggle or a passive ability working like he Fire Savant version except it procs on Fire/Force/Light spells.

[Hoglum]

I'd suggest making smiting only apply to divine spells.

[GotSomeQuestions]

Edit: Playing 1-11 will be less struggle, due to the new trees, that's significant to the whole experience of the class.

Yeah, a level 3 caster-focused Favored Soul used to have a handful of first level spells only. Now they have two useful damage SLAs that scale well in those early levels. Will be a big improvement there.

Overall, it's a very nice tree for heroic play. It's what people were asking for, and it meets the goals you laid out. Should make Favored Soul an appealing choice for the Reincarnation grind (and it's always nice to have variety for that).

I wouldn't invest heavily here as an end game caster, but that's an issue with spell damage as a whole. That will require a more fundamental fix to casting, and shouldn't be addressed here. This tree will play well at lower levels and on lower difficulties, and it'll let newer players contribute as a caster without needing the enormous investment in gear and past lives required for a full DC build.

Archon's Fury is a little weird, because it'll take 240 spell points to stack it all the way up, then you want to keep toggling it every few seconds, so that it ticks a few times for free before you pay to refresh it. Seems like it'll be annoying to micromanage.