U80 Preview 1 - Iconic Duergar Mindcleaver

[woq]

Thematically it has potential.

Unfortunately in it's current form it's completely +1 heart bait race as it is when everything about it makes more sense on dragon lord or barbarian and it has straight up antisynergy with fighter with destruction, critical threat, sunder and -will drop in the tree, with all 4 of those things being pointless for a kensei fighter.

It needs to be more distinct from regular duergar in a way that fits a fighter if it's gonna be a fighter base class, not just be locked behind hearts to feel good.

Please don't leave it like this. It's really aggravating to have an iconic that you should ~never play as the base class it comes burdened with.

 

[Igognito]

Many given comments are valid.
In my opinion I feel that the lack of a +2 Con is the biggest short coming if duergars.

+2 Con -4 cha was the original 3.5e stats.

Being a fighter, we will make it work.
The conjured weapons are an interesting touch, but them lacking sentience will cause limited use to the ability.

I like the concept, it can be made to feel like a psychic warrior instead of a fighter but it needs work.

Forge apprentice is beyond useless?! That needs to be replaced. Unless we change the fighter to wizard

Mind weapons, should give some options on the base weapon. I would suggest great axe, battle axe to be added. The art could scale so it would be an easier change.

Mind weapons, at level 20-29 could have an extra ability to cover for the lack of sentience and get one more for 30+.
My suggestion is to add abilities from the trace of madness. Which the feel psionic.

Forgemaster, should be merged in mind weapons. From a level after and not be a different option.

I would put invisibility as tier 1 to replace forge apprentice. And I would continue to add 3 more psionic SLAs in order to give the physic warrior feeling.

Selection of powers: graft weapon (deadly weapon), energy adaption (resist energy or protection from energy), thought shield (spell resistance), inertial barrier (the force dome forgot the name), etc. make those selectors and give together with invisibility a total of 4 psionic powers. Give phychic blast! Change greater shout to do psionic damage and use Wis save instead of fort. That would synergize nice with the sunder.

Remove forge apprentice, embed forge master in the empower the mind, conjured weapons, and finally remove forge familiarity or embed it.

These three are clearly options for wizard. The could be multi selectors instead of the sunder option, unbreakable spirit, greater weapon amplitude.

Cheers
Ps: I love the concept it just needs a bit tunning to have it's identity. (For me that ought to be phychic warrior)

 

[Archmage]

If the Force Axes were good and if you could slot a sentient gem with them then I'd try it.

 

[seph1roth5]

Hello, everyone! Welcome to your first look at the Duergar Mindcleaver Iconic.

If you haven't yet, we suggest you take a look at the preview for base Duergar first - It will give a better basis for understanding Duergar and this Iconic.

Mindcleavers are Duergar who tap into the power of their mind to create axes made of Psionic energy as well as empowering their own weapons. Let's take a look! As usual, many of their enhancements are shared with base Duergar; things that are different from the base Duergar are in blue.

Duergar Mindcleavers are Forgotten Realms characters.
Duergar Mindcleavers start with 1 level of Fighter (no archetype).

• (Yes, this is the second Iconic Fighter we've done. However, they should have a pretty distinct niche relative to Purple Dragon Knight.)

+1 STR, +1 INT

• Dwarven Stability
• Dwarven Stonecunning
• Weapon Familiarity: Dwarven Waraxe
• Giant Evasion
• Orc and Goblin Bonus
• Poison Save Bonus
• Spell Save Bonus
• Enlarge Self: Transmutation SLA: For one minute, you grow in size, granting you a +5 Psionic Bonus to PRR. 6 SP, 20 second cooldown. This cancels Reduce.
• Reduce Self: Transmutation SLA: For one minute, you shrink in size, granting you a +3% Psionic Bonus to Dodge. 6 SP, 20 second cooldown. This cancels Enlarge.

-----

Duergar Mindcleaver Enhancement Tree​

Cores​

• Underdark Upbringing: +5 Max HP, +6 Max Spell Points
• Mindcleaver Abilities: +1 INT or CON
• Underdark Upbringing: +5 Max HP, +6 Max Spell Points
• Mindcleaver Abilities: +1 INT or CON
• Underdark Upbringing: +5 Max HP, +6 Max Spell Points

Tier 1​

• Dwarven Weapon Training: Multiselector: Choose from Axe Training or Pick and Hammer Training (identical to Dwarf version)
• Duergar Shape I: While Enlarged, you gain a +3 Psionic Bonus to Attack. While Reduced, you gain +3 Psionic Bonus to Max Dodge and the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor. Your Enlarge and Reduce now last for two minutes.
• Mind Weapons: You can tap into your soul to manifest and empower weapons. This grants both the ability to conjure physical Soul Axes to wield as weapons, as well as the ability to enchant your current weapons to be more powerful.
  
  • This enhancement has three components:
    
    • Conjure Mindcleaver: Mindcleavers are Dwarven Waraxes made of force and may use your Intelligence modifier for their attack and damage. Mindcleavers share some of the properties of Flame Blade: As you level up, they become more powerful. They appear in your Weapon slot; you can see their description box as with any weapon. If you unequip your Mindcleavers, they will dissipate into nothingness and must be summoned again.
      
      • (As you level up, your Mindcleavers get level-appropriate versions of Impactful, Force Blast, Combat Mastery, and Destruction).
    • Conjure Dual Mindcleavers: Creates a Mindcleaver in each hand.
    • Empower with Mind: This effect changes your equipped weapons, shields & orbs to the Force material type, causes them to be treated as implements, and grants a +1 enhancement bonus. This is considered an Item Enchantment. As an object made of force, it's immune to damage from oozes & rust monsters, although any special material properties of the original weapon remain.
• Armor Cleaver: +1/2/3 Sunder DCs
• Forge Apprentice: You gain proficiency with Handaxes, Light Picks, Light Hammers, Throwing Axes, and Throwing Hammers, and consider them Simple Weapons.

Tier 2​

• Dwarven Weapon Training: Multiselector: Choose from Axe Training or Pick and Hammer Training (identical to Dwarf version)
• Duergar Shape II: While Enlarged, you gain a +3 Psionic Bonus to Damage. While Reduced, you gain a +3% Psionic Bonus to Max Dodge. Your Enlarge and Reduce now last for three minutes.
• Unbreakable Spirit: +1/2/3 Will Saving Throws
• Psychic Armor: You gain +2/4/6 Force Absorption and +2%/+4%/+6% Psionic bonus to your total Armor Class.
• Forge Familiarity: Your Arcane Spell Failure chance while wearing armor is decreased by 5%/10%/15%.

Tier 3​

• Dwarven Weapon Training: Multiselector: Choose from Axe Training or Pick and Hammer Training (identical to Dwarf version)
• Duergar Shape III: While Enlarged, you gain a +5% Psionic Bonus to Fortification Bypass. While Reduced, you gain a +5 Psionic Bonus to Natural Armor. Your Enlarge and Reduce now last for five minutes.
• Mind's Edge: Melee Sunder Attack: You conjure a Mindcleaver and send it hurtling at target foe, making an Attack roll on that target and dealing damage with your main hand Melee weapon if it hits, plus 1d4 Force Damage per Character Level to that target that scales with 100% Melee Power. In addition, the affected target must make a Will Saving Throw (14 + STR/INT mod + Sunder Bonuses) or be Sundered, losing -10% AC penalty and - 25% Fortification for 6 seconds. This ability is considered a Sunder for the purpose of other abilities.
  
  • (This is, functionally, a main-hand-melee attack at range.)
• Great Weapon Aptitude: +5/10/20% Strikethrough Chance
• Forgemaster: Axes, Picks, and Hammers in your hands become Spellcasting Implements, and no longer take item damage.

Tier 4​

• Dwarven Weapon Training: Multiselector: Choose from Axe Training or Pick and Hammer Training (identical to Dwarf version)
• Duergar Shape IV: While Enlarged, you gain a +2 Psionic Bonus to Critical Confirmation and Damage. While Reduced, you gain a +10 Psionic Bonus to MRR. Your Enlarge and Reduce now last until rest or death.
• Perfect Mindcleavers : Mindcleavers and weapons that are Empowered With Mind that you wield cause enemies to become Shaken for 6 seconds. This can apply once every 2 seconds.
• Shattering Mind: Your Mind's Edge now explodes when it hits its target, hitting enemies in a small radius. Affected enemies also suffer the Psychic Trauma effect, which grants -3 to Will Saving Throws. Stacks 5 times. Lasts 24 seconds.
• Invisibility: SLA. 6 SP, 12 second cooldown.

-------

Iconic Past Life Feats​

• Iconic Past Life Stance: +2% Force Absorption per stack of this Past Life.
• Passive Bonus: +1 Saving Throw vs. Illusions per stack of this Past Life

Please change the passive iconic past life bonus. A bonus to saves vs illusion is very very weak. Side note, bard and dark bargainer's bonus to saves vs enchantment is also very very bad.

Maybe change it to saves vs spells? Even saves vs evocation would be way better.

 

[unbongwah]

Artificers have synergy with dwarven axes so why not an arti Iconic?

Artificer is still technically a Premium class, even though SSG has given it away free several times; and so far SSG hasn't done an Iconic based on a P2P class. Unless we're counting Chaosmancer since Wild Mage is a P2P Archetype, but I think the only way to get it is buying a bundle with both WM and CM.

Plus like I said earlier, druid is the only F2P class which still doesn't have an Iconic, so it's unfortunate they didn't fix that this time. Maybe we could've had a duergar Blight Caster or something.

Also, Archetypes >> Iconics now. I’d say retire Iconics and create more Archetypes in the future with Expansions. I have to think that the design depth is large enough. Iconics are okay but always feel a bit clunky especially compared to an Archetype.

Why sell us only Iconics or Archetypes when they can sell us both?

It's really aggravating to have an iconic that you should ~never play as the base class it comes burdened with.

Off the top of my head: S&B build with 41 Vanguard / 17(?) racial / 11+ Kensei / 6+ Harper Agent so you can have T5 Vanguard abilities with +1 crit range & multiplier. Not saying that's a great use of duergar / Mindcleaver bonuses, just that's the first one that came to mind.

That said, I like the idea of a Psionic Warrior variant, but there's nothing here which seems to address the fundamental weaknesses of pure fighters (i.e., no Imbue nor Battle Trance) and it adds an INT-based racial ability to a class which otherwise lacks INT synergies (apart from Know the Angles).

 

[FaceDancer]

Item issues with iconic gear loadout.

TBD Large shield is not equippable. Race required is Sun Elf.

Mindcleaver's Armor Heavy Armor not equippable. Race required is Dhampir Dark Bargainer.

 

[Lotoc]

Honestly the mindcleaver could really do with a racial tree imbue and some racial tree imbue dice, especially if it is going to be fighter as a baseline.
We have a big lack of races which offer imbue dice, in fact the only races that offer imbue dice are Drow Elves directly and Half elf, Elf, Wood Elf and Morning Lord through the racial Arcane Archer tree.

Still feel Dark Hunter makes a more compelling fit than fighter (though that may be reserved for an Iconic Drow in future) offering +1 crit threat to onehanded weapon options addresses an issue with Dark Hunter as is that in order to get your crit profile you end up split between the Tempest and DWS trees with little room to invest in Dark Hunter - an Iconic Duergar Dark hunter would be able to invest deeper into DH as a Tempest Dark Hunter.

 

[Igognito]

I wonder if monk could be used instead of fighter. Then the psychic warrior style might be even more suitable.
I would though make the tree to allow the mind weapons as mono weapons and some armor to maintain centering.

 

[Zvdegor]

Seems interesting. I might try out a melee artificer or wizard EK multiclass.

Iconis Duergarnfits really well for the Vistani Robot build. Might try a hammer version too!

 

[NomadDog]

Things I liked about the Iconic Duergar Mindcleaver

1. The Mindcleaver is extremely similar to the Feydark Illusionist blades. I think they are great for leveling, but fall off when you get past Lvl 20. Being that this an Iconic that starts at Level 15, it feels like you are only going to get maybe 5 levels of real use out of them. I thought damage output was reasonable, but not super strong. Definitely worked better than the Dwarven War Axe that came with the Iconic equipment.

2. The special melee attacks in the racial tree felt pretty good. I really like the Shattering Mind effects. The aoe burst and sunder felt good, especially when you followed up with Cleave/Great Cleave.

3. Didn't play with Enlarge/Reduce too much, but the visuals were really fun. And the fact that you can actually get it to be permanent (until death, etc) with enhancements makes it feel unique for the class.

Things I didn't like/found missing

1. The fact that I couldn't take CON in the racial tree was disappointing. I would have liked to have gotten a few more HP.

2. I could not equip the armor included in the iconic equipment because it was race restricted: Dhampir Dark Bargainer. Along with that, I was unable to equip the shield that was included with the iconic equipment because it was race restricted: Sun Elf.

Overall thoughts:
I think that Iconic does have a unique feel with the different abilities. It works just fine as a base fighter out of the box and paired well with Kensai, which you lose with Dragonlord. Enlarge/Reduce is pretty cool and definitely on theme and the fact that you can get Invisibility as an SLA (even though it's in Tier 4, was also on theme.

This is an iconic that I'm not sure has the ability to fill a niche that doesn't already exist in the game. PDK as a base fighter, I think, is stronger than Duergar. It will be interesting to see what types of builds people theorycraft out of this.

 

[f1b041b3]

Just terrible. Intelligence as a main stat? A minuscule amount of hp and sp as cores? An invisibility sla as a tier four? More conjured weapons that don't appeal to anyone except for maybe the most casual of players? Attacks that lower will saves and add shaken, the latter of which might as well be ignored as it requires mind weapons? I won't fault you for the iconic past life stance since it's hard to beat scourge's for a melee, but you couldn't even be bothered to give it a useful passive.

Oh, and one of the big marketing points of iconics is that reincarnations add both class and iconic past life feats, so the least you can do if you're going to start recycling the classes is to make both base and archetype selectable for each one. Yeah, I know I can just multiclass into whatever I need for a particular toon, but out of everything they could've picked they went with fighter which locks out arguably the best melee splash class.

Given that there's no iconic completionist feat and a laughably bad passive, I'll probably just skip this one. I hope that at least the pack content is better than these new races.

 

[Rull]

Passive Bonus: +1 Saving Throw vs. Illusions per stack of this Past Life.

That's incredibly weak.
Isn't it just strictly worse than Razorclaw's "Passive Bonus: +1 Will Saving Throw per stack of this past life."?

Since Duergar get a +2 Racial bonus to Saving Throws against Spells and Spell-like Abilities.... I propose something in line, like:

Passive Bonus: +1 Saving Throw against Spells and Spell-like Abilities per stack of this Past Life.

It'd fit better and not be as weak (while still being miles behind 3 prr, 3 mrr, 5% fort or 3 USP)

 

[timir78]

Yes. Neither forced fighter starting class, past live feats, or enhancement aren´t much tempting for me to buy it and spend time playing it form more than completion purpose.

Isn´t possible to make some imbue which will rewrite equipped weapon type and image to Dwarfen Waraxes instead replacing wielded weapon with summoned weapon? It would solve problem with sentients gems and add missing imbue. I like playing vanguard.

 

[karthunk]

Was the choice of fighter because you guys saw how many Dwarven fighters that are made in the game currently? This iconic has nothing that will move people away from the current dwarven tank.

This is really ticking me off the more I look at it because this gives absolutely no value to the ultimate bundle.

 

[songswrath]

Iconic Past Life Stance: +2% Force Absorption per stack of this Past Life

I think you're missing an opportunity for a cool Iconic Past Life: x3 uses of Enlarge Self (1 min duration ?)

He's right here make the passive 1% per tier and make the active a sla. With a multi selection of enlarge and shrink.
You enlarge yourself for 20-30 seconds
With a cool down of 10/5/3 minutes.
With a few past live this will let you use this ability for a short tine 2 to 3 times and with only done one typical 1 use per quest.
How deep the bonuses go for the sla . Idk have to think about that

 

[Grimscore_Riffstorm]

I'm not interested in buying this. I was all for an alchemist or an artificer because they are exponentially overdue, but this is just bleh. Meh. Pointless and not interesting. Another fighter? Really? Guess that's the end of it.

 

[Dayvyd]

Iconic Past Life Stance: +2% Force Absorption per stack of this Past Life

I think you're missing an opportunity for a cool Iconic Past Life: x3 uses of Enlarge Self (1 min duration ?)

This

 

[Rugar]

Adding D-Axe as the primary weapon here is a big fail IMO. Thematically, this should have been a pick / hammer focus. My suggestions as follows:

Rename: Duergar Mindpiercer
Remove Weapon Familiarity: Dwarven Waraxe
Remove all Dwarven Axe multi-selectors from the Racial tree
Change all references from "Mindcleaver" to "Mindpiercer" with appropriate changes in weapon type
Move Invisibility SLA from T4 to replace Forge Familiarity in T2
Replace T3 Forgemaster with:
Mind Spike: Imbue toggle. d4 per imbue die, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Changes any pick damage from Piercing to Force.
Replace T4 Invisibility with:
Spikethrough: When Mind Spike is toggled on, Heavy and Light picks gain the same ability to strikethrough as Bastard Swords and Dwarven Axes.

 

[Ptalon]

Fighter is totally the appropriate choice.

Purple Dragon Knight isn't even a real fighter. He's pretending to be a Pallie and uses Charisma to fight.

I am actually glad that it is compatible with Arcane Trickster. (Since I held off on getting those lives.)

An issue I have (with both Duergars) is that they shouldn't have to use points for a 4th tier Invis that they should get naturally.

 

[Aelonwy]

Adding D-Axe as the primary weapon here is a big fail IMO. Thematically, this should have been a pick / hammer focus. My suggestions as follows:

Rename: Duergar Mindpiercer
Remove Weapon Familiarity: Dwarven Waraxe
Remove all Dwarven Axe multi-selectors from the Racial tree
Change all references from "Mindcleaver" to "Mindpiercer" with appropriate changes in weapon type
Move Invisibility SLA from T4 to replace Forge Familiarity in T2
Replace T3 Forgemaster with:
Mind Spike: Imbue toggle. d4 per imbue die, scaling with 200% Melee Power. Changes any pick damage from Piercing to Force.
Replace T4 Invisibility with:
Spikethrough: When Mind Spike is toggled on, Heavy and Light picks gain the same ability to strikethrough as Bastard Swords and Dwarven Axes.

I for one would be absolutely ticked off if dwarven waraxe support were completely removed from Duergar. Adding an imbue is fine removing a niche playstyle from being supported altogether is NOT.