Spellsword Paths

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Spellsword Paths

Post by Good Character » Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:39 am

This is a megathread thread about all the paths rather than a critique on the existence of the paths.

Bladesinger:
Great thematically and mechanically. I currently have no complaints on this path. It has a racial limit and a feat people generally do not want to take that helps mitigate a bit of its strength. It helps encourage people to play half-elves where often they are neglected for the mechanically superior elves or humans.


Abjurant Champion:
Great thematically. It's the defensive path for the spellswords, and it enables strength-based spellswords to be played competitively. Path alone has inspired my currently favorite character to play. However, it feels mechanically lackluster. It has three main features: bonus shield AC, ESF: Abjuration, and a bonus but weaker imbue armor. Bonus shield AC is great - no complaints. ESF: Abjuration is great and 10% bonus dispel chance is nothing to scoff at, but any other spellsword path can get up to GSF: Abjuration. The bonus 'imbue armor' for your shield is cool for certain areas that apply a elemental damage tick, but a significant portion of the playerbase don't even know those places exist. You also will never find yourself using anything other than the Cold version for your actual armor, so the shield-version and your armor are likely to never stack. Even then - Frost/Flame shield if cold DR/DI was important to you. The class also loses maelstrom, an amazing ability both in PvE and PvP.

If the path continues to want to double-down on its defensive capabilities, possibly applying debuffs based on the imbue of your shield could do the path greater justice - whether the debuff is applied when using elemental strike or when being hit by a melee attack.


Arcane Marauder:
A simple concept and easy to build, but leaves a last impacting. On the weaker end thematically, but mechanics-wise it's doing its job. It's following the same footsteps as a the bladesinger; offers DEX builds kill pressure. Goes great with the new weapon, too.

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by Good Character » Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:21 am

So far I have played Abjurant Champion extensively. Bladesinger is a far off second but still played, but Marauder I've only theorycrafted with.

Bladesinger
Bladesinger is still a solid choice. It does its job and needs no other explanation. Played around with it with others on PGCC.


Marauders:
Marauder could potentially be absolutely annoying and, though I say it hesitantly, broken. Given that spellswords lean more towards their martial aspects, more often than not they can continuously keep Haste up with the help of Extend Spell. Marauder, in my opinion, is now an amalgamation of monk and old barbarian that had biteback.

A strength-based marauder cares little about their AC because it can now be played out in a specific way to do the fact Maelstrom is an instant action. They run a Falchion and apply their Negative imbue due to how Maelstrom doesn't receive any DC or bonus damage from matching element types. Marauder gives themselves Haste and Acid Sheath, run towards their target(s), Maelstrom with Fire Maelstrom if at medium-max HP but otherwise Negative Maelstrom. If the target stops to apply a buff that ignores negative damage, the Marauder will be far enough away to spam breaches with a wand. Repeat every thirty seconds. You're an absolute menace in group play.


Abjurant Champions:
For Abjurant Champions, as mentioned above about Maelstrom's disregard for DC and bonus damage, the shift to extra elemental DR from having access to an extra elemental imbue type plus the removal of Maelstrom from Abjurant Champions means they're potentially locked into a near pointless elemental strike if they've chosen the wrong elemental imbue.

Math behind it (assuming 30 spellsword levels):
Without a matching imbue type to the strike you use: DC is 31(10 base + (30/2 levels) + 6 INT mod).
For an example, a wizard, whose secondary save is Reflex and Fortitude, hits a Reflex/Fortitude save of 30 if hitting the +20 save cap. (e.g. 10 base + 20 save cap). In other words, any build hitting the save cap can reduce 95% of your strikes. Factor in that most melee builds take rogue for Evasion and Evasion helps further reduce two of the Strike types (and arguably one of the better ones [e.g. Fire]), using a strike outside of the matching type is moot.

With a matching imbue type: DC is 36.
Builds with secondary saves versus whatever you use will reduce your strike 70% of the time.

4 of the 5 elemental strikes can be nearly or entirely negative.
1. Cold can be completely ignored with FoM. FoM pots are readily made.
2. Electrical's damage is reduced completely with an Evasion save.
3. When accounting for an Evasion save, for Fire, assuming no Defensive Essences and using the matching imbue, the damage is on average 24 over 2 rounds. Assuming with Defense essences (24 / 4 / 5) is 4 over 2 rounds. With no essences but not a matching imbue, 9 over 1 round. With essences, no damage at all.
3. Negative Imbue can be completely ignore with Negative Energy Protection. NEP pots are both lootable and readily made.

tl;dr: Abjurant Champions, in comparison to a pure strength-based medium-sized unpathed spellsword, get 2 AC, +2 dispel DC, and 5/+4. However, they trade the ability to adapt to scenarios which is what Maelstrom would usually provide. Abjurant Champions need to be reverted back to when their shield would provide them an additional Elemental Imbue type, or Maelstrom needs to be reintroduced. DCs overall need to be bumped if immunities have now been introduced to Elemental Strikes. Unlike the old spellsword, Elemental Strikes can only happen once per round unlike the once per flurry of old that had to worry about offering too high of a DC.

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by WarriorMage » Wed Feb 09, 2022 10:19 am

Abjurant Champion doesn't lose any versatility at all. Maelstrom uses the elemental type with which you imbued your weapon in the first place. In fact, Abjurant champion is arguably the strongest spellsword path as it has the highest ac and dispel values. The loss of Maelstrom isn't significant as it shares cooldown with elemental strike.

What all the paths have in common is that they absolutely stomp other melees. Having played with it quite extensively in the PGCC I figured out all you have to do to win against a melee build is follow the same recipe. At the beginning of the fight, the opponent is going to throw a breach at you thinking he just won because you are now sitting at potentially 5 less ac. What they might not have seen coming is that you will time stop and cast 3-4 mords in a row. Each cast has 20-25% chance to remove each individual ward from the target. From my experience, I've noticed 3-4 casts is enough to remove almost every ward the opponent had. You basically lost up to 5 ac while the opponent potentially lost haste, barkskin, shield, mage armor, cat's grace, bull's strength, bear's endurance, improved invisibility, plus any other ward they had. This translates to a grand total loss of 13 ish ac, 3 ab and dmg, 90 hp and any other effect they had up. It's a garanteed loss of many rounds worth of buffs. Now you charge at them and finish the job because they cannot possibly recover from those massive losses in time. You're statistically superior by now. Why?

Marauder horc with 42 STR and unfettering edge:

DMG: 2d6 greatsword + 16 str + 8 twohanded + 6 ews + 5 enhancement bonus + 1d6 bludgeoning bonus + 1d10 sonic + 2 warcry + 2d8+2 imbue weapon (+3d8 with elemental strike) (15-20/×2)

AB: 20 base + 16 str mod + 4 feats + 5 imbue enhancement bonus + 4 weave affinity + 1 twohanded + 2 warcry + 1 fire imbue + 4 elemental strike = 57

AC: 49
Breached: loses up to 5 ac (1 shadow shield + 1 shield + 3 mage armor)

Yes, this 57 ab is counting elemental strike but since you can proc it every round, it counts as your new highest attack per round. It's a free +4 ab to every spellsword.

Abjurant Champion human with 40 STR and scimitar/rapier:

DMG: 1d6 + 15 str + 6 slashing bonus + 4 essence + 2 warcry + 2d8+2 imbue weapon (+3d8 with elemental strike) (12-20/×2)

AB: 20 base + 15 str mod + 4 feats + 5 imbue attack bonus + 4 weave affinity + 2 warcry + 4 elemental strike = 54

AC: 57 + 1 with cold imbue
Breached: loses up to 5 ac (1 shadow shield + 1 shield + 3 mage armor)

A str bladesinger has similar stats to Abjurant Champion, with 2 less ac and higher threat range.

No other melee class receives such high amounts of elemental damage, reaches such high ab so easily and retains the ability to cast time stop and mords, which are two of the most powerful spells in the game, all at the same time.

Favored soul has the disadvantage of wind up. Most mages, with the exception of certain div sorcs, have low ac. All of them have 27-29 caster level vs dispels. Spellsword has as little wind up as desired since it's buffs remain active for a very very long time, reaches very high armor class for a non div str build or absurd amounts of dmg if marauder, while retaining 30 CL vs dispels, which makes it as hard to dispel as a mundane.

Spellsword is absurd right now and elemental strike should probably lose its +4 ab or be put on a much bigger cooldown.

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by Apothys » Wed Feb 09, 2022 8:56 pm

I think we should give the class time to settle in, the above example is a little bit of a eye opener on what 'could' be done in rare situations, but most builds are not min/maxed and pvp situations are not as simple as throwing down timestop and multiple Mords, for example, its never one on one, nor would I want to have only mords and timestops as my high level spells. Besides thata lot of gearing for a half orc to get his intelligence that high along with his Strength.

Lets give it time, perhaps when we spellswords get into some pvp i can update you how it felt. However PVE wise, its great, things are still a real challenge. Please dont change anything yet.

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by WarriorMage » Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:22 pm

If you do not intend to min/max, then you probably aren't worried as much about balance to begin with.

This thread is about spellsword balance, and it's just as early to ask for path buffs as it is to state one's own observations regarding the least balanced aspects of a class. It hasn't exactly been released last week. Nor is the desire to balance classes around the least min/maxed builds. You could have built wisdom based fighter/wm/cot back before the nerf. Should the build have been balanced considering that not so min/maxed alternative? Probably not. Although, I do feel like it's hard to ruin a build when you just take 30 lvls of a single class.

If you never find yourself in a one on one PvP situation, you are very lucky because that represents just as many of the PvP situations on Arelith as does mass PvP, if not more, and should have a say in balance matters. I decided to leave my experience with the class here as it does have a rather easy time dealing with other melee classes. You do not need to gear intelligence to have access to time stop + 3 mords, and horc does not have a penalty to intelligence so the above situation is very much possible with minimal gear. You can trade a cast of mords with an extended warcry, I guess. Is it worth it? Probably not. If we introduced a class which had the ability to slot 10 hellballs, said class shouldn't be balanced around considering the player may slot 10 casts of cure minor wounds, instead.

Do keep in mind I do not wish to deter from your marauder spellsword experience but it doesn't take much PvP to determine that the ability to achieve 57 ab with the damage potential the path offers is a little too high compared to other classes. Numbers don't lie.

I'm providing feedback with numbers so they can help others figure out what's too over the top with the class and I assure you my intent is not to nerf spellsword just because I don't like or play the class on the main servers. Quite the contrary. Just read my profile name.

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by Apothys » Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:49 pm

Fair enough i get your point :)

Maybe if the +1 attack bonus gained every 6 levels was tied to hard intelligence progression like the imbue weapon progression. That would alleviate some of the AB Min/Maxing abuse from someone who just doesnt have Intelligence high and gears into it instead?

Though thinking about it, they wouldn't have a high elemental damage either if they were a half orc with 42 strength as the elemental damage is based on hard intelligence right?

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by Svrtr » Thu Feb 10, 2022 12:30 am

Apothys wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:49 pm
Fair enough i get your point :)

Maybe if the +1 attack bonus gained every 6 levels was tied to hard intelligence progression like the imbue weapon progression. That would alleviate some of the AB Min/Maxing abuse from someone who just doesnt have Intelligence high and gears into it instead?

Though thinking about it, they wouldn't have a high elemental damage either if they were a half orc with 42 strength as the elemental damage is based on hard intelligence right?
SS already builds for 18 INT to have full spell casts, and the 42 STR HOrc marauder is built with this in mind.

If you moved it to 20 STR for full weave AB, then the HOrc marauder could instead get 40 damage and full weave AB but then have more casts or better DCs, and so would trade 1 AB and 2 damage when 2h-ing (going from 24 to 22) for 1 more DC and the rest.

I will say, the only AB difference in potential between abjurant and marauder is approximately 2 AB. This of course is notable, but abjurant gets ESF abj and more AC. Marauder gets 1 AB from 2h-ing but loses a notable amount of AC, hitting about 49 AC where STR abjurant hits 57. The gain is 6-8 damage from 2h-ing, EWS, and a reduced cooldown on maelstrom from 1 minute to 30 seconds, and of course imbue weapon being turned into an enhancement bonus. This translates to 38 damage on a falchion crit (assuming a bronze weapon or any weapon without an inherent enhancement bonus, and 57 on a 3x weapon), and they have power attack but power attack is kind of worthless in most scenarios.

As it is, imbue and elemental strike aren't affected by twohanding, so marauder's strength is it leans into the power elemental strike has, that being more damage for more rapid kill pressure. I do not think the problem itself is marauder of course, its damage is notable for sure and probably a little bit much but Ill admit otherwise the path is a little bit bland, receiving EWS, power attack, and some DR but losing imbue armor and its DI and DR. However, the problem as it stands is likely elemental strike in general. Being able to be used every round, and as mentioned thus having one attack at +4 AB on average along with a bonus (2d8) * 1.5 + 2 damage that crits and has an array of bonus effects seems excessive, both in theory and in practice with the SS marauder I have been leveling to test out.

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by WarriorMage » Thu Feb 10, 2022 12:39 am

You only need 18 base intelligence as a spellsword.

Horc stat spread at lvl 1:

Str 21 (17 + 2 race + 2 gift)
Dex 9
Con 14
Int 18 (16 + 2 gift)
Wis 8
Cha 6

Epic Feats:

EWF Twohand
Epic Prowess
Armor Skin
ESF Discipline
Great Strength I and II

Final Strength Score:

21 base + 7 at 30 + 2 Great Strength II + 12 gear and bull's strength = 42

I also agree with Svrtr's statement that the problem is not marauder itself but the numbers that elemental strike enables.

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by Apothys » Thu Feb 10, 2022 12:49 pm

Thanks for the clarification, it seems far to easy for a Horc to get to such stats.

Do you think the old spellsword class less powerful than the new reworked one? I never played the old class as it seemed a bit OP for me.

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Re: Spellsword Paths

Post by WarriorMage » Thu Feb 10, 2022 2:04 pm

The old SS wasn't OP, it was mostly a support class with the ability to proc debuffs once per flurry. It simply didn't have the damage output the current versions achieve, and the attack bonus was much more reasonable. A pure spellsword would have 3 APR and lacked discipline, even though you would get a +15 bonus at lvl 28. This because you couldn't invest in ESF Discipline so you ended up with 16 ranks + 15 bonus at 28 = 31 base, plus whatever amount of str and disc gear you had, whereas a multiclassed SS would get 33 ranks + 10 ESF disc = 43 before str and disc gear. You were kind of forced to multiclass and lower your caster level vs dispels or you would be suboptimal.

The best build before the rework was probably a dex 5 swash / 25 SS, which achieved 60 AC and 48 AB with a lower CL vs dispels of 27 by taking AD: abj. A str 27 SS / 3 bard would reach around 53 AC and similar AB. Both had nowhere near as much dmg output as the current versions have, both because of the raw dmg numbers and the AB to land the hit. The latter one only had 3 APR. At some point there was a prevalence of dex 21 SS / 6 fighter / 3 monk, which was dispel bait, and dex 27 SS / 3 monk, which dealt hilariously low physical dmg and relied on imbues to even kill anything. Both monk versions had about 60 AC and 44 AB. Another one was a str 25 SS / 5 WM with about 50 AC, 47-48 AB and a CL of 27 vs dispels. This last one had rather low AC but could deal some decent damage at least.

The current spellsword is a direct upgrade in almost every possible way. Mostly due to elemental strike's +4 AB and bonus damage, which makes the class extremely good at melee combat. More so than most classes.

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