Arelith

So, I have been leveling a Melee Pale Master for a few days now, and it just occurred to me how Melee Pale Masters are pretty shafted by the Pale Master nerf, now, before someone calls me out on how Pale Master is op and all that, I want to start that, I had joined the game not too long after the Pale Master nerf went up.

And there are not many pale masters that actually run pale master for melee spec by the time I actually got off the newbie coat of dust and got my 20 RPR, this feedback is actually more of a general question to everyone interested while waiting out the lock on the suggestion forums, ideas on what ways that could possibly make Pale Masters an actual choice when to comes to the idea of an mundane-ish melee class.

I actually pilfered some ideas that some people have for my own, and simply enough, the idea is for a Pale Master path, where, you sacrifice the free feats that you get from PM class levels (GSF Necromancy, Mummy Dust, Dragon knight) , along with being unable to summon minions or skeletons (akin to Spellswords), But gain back the full AC levels from vanilla Pale Master, and also change AB from 1/2, to 3/4

Any feedback on this idea is welcomed, since, I have always liked the idea of a pale master melee, since the class does not properly give spell slots or spells at all, and the nerd that I am, always enjoyed an idea of a lone death-knight.

C2 wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 12:04 pm I actually pilfered some ideas that some people have for my own, and simply enough, the idea is for a Pale Master path, where, you sacrifice the free feats that you get from PM class levels (GSF Necromancy, Mummy Dust, Dragon knight) , along with being unable to summon minions or skeletons (akin to Spellswords), But gain back the full AC levels from vanilla Pale Master, and also change AB from 1/2, to 3/4

I really like this as an overall concept; reducing the summon capacity for an increased combat viability. Bringing an interesting 'undead knight' concept to the playing field seems really cool!

As someone who used to play Rogueish “Bone/Death Knight” Palemaster archetypes almost exclusively, this concept is very interesting to me, and not overly too strong but has potential to be pretty silly in some areas in terms of being an AC tank Melee Archtype. It would make the Bone Fist Monk/Palemaster possibly a little more viable.

It doesn’t seem extraordinarily overpowered if you take away the free spellcasting focused feats in exchange for it and whatnot; considering we’ve got the “pew pew” Path of the True Flame archtype that is a glass cannon, this would be the opposite side of the spectrum, so I don’t really see why something like this would be completely out of the question or realm of reality.

Although, this is just a quick hot take. Would be interested in seeing what the Arelith build veterans think.

C2 wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 12:04 pm I actually pilfered some ideas that some people have for my own, and simply enough, the idea is for a Pale Master path, where, you sacrifice the free feats that you get from PM class levels (GSF Necromancy, Mummy Dust, Dragon knight) , along with being unable to summon minions or skeletons (akin to Spellswords), But gain back the full AC levels from vanilla Pale Master, and also change AB from 1/2, to 3/4

Its sounds nice. Maybe not my cup of tea because I think the whole fun in melee PMs is that you can still summon. Turning it into a PM-sword path sounds awfully boring, considering you're nearly impossible to kill, with below-average offence and no summons. But on the other hand it's kinda not game breaking and is unique to the current PM so why not. Sounds nice.

It would be nice if, when you picked a spellsword path and you decided to go Palemaster you could retain some of the spellsword perks, considering you cant use your summon abilities due to being a spellsword.

Shrouded Wanderer wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 4:56 pm It would be nice if, when you picked a spellsword path and you decided to go Palemaster you could retain some of the spellsword perks, considering you cant use your summon abilities due to being a spellsword.

No...
Simply no...
Noone wants SS which is sneak/crit imune..

But that melee path for PM is nice idea...
I made sugestion and post few months back on this topic myself..

I would imagine if they added a path for PM that added 3/4ths AB progression then people would both choose that path and spellsword for their minimum required 3 wizard levels.


The only way to negate that would be to have the path be aquired on a wizard level,and even then the only thing youd likely lose out on is Imbuing.

Shrouded Wanderer wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:21 pm I would imagine if they added a path for PM that added 3/4ths AB progression then people would both choose that path and spellsword for their minimum required 3 wizard levels.


The only way to negate that would be to have the path be aquired on a wizard level,and even then the only thing youd likely lose out on is Imbuing.

Ehhh...nope...you allready can pick PM with SS wthout AB loss or minimal if you take all/moust PM levels at epics...but noone do that bcs main point of SS is imbue...and you lose like 75% of that if you multiclas anything 10+ levels

I think their intention was to make palemaster less appealing to actaul caster builds to the point that they even made you require a certain cha/int score for the fee feats so that you could not easily do a non caster build just for crit immunity + the feats. (Bard/PDK/palemaster use to be viable before the stat requirements for free feats)

Even post nerf, melee PMs can still be quite powerful.

A build like: 4/16/10 Bard/PM/BG, for example, still gets epic mage armor, epic summons, 4 APR if you build it right (though that removes epic disc/tumble dumps), gets AC bonuses, and still gets all the PM immunities including Crit immunity. The AB isn't the best but it's still plenty workable. Not to mention of course the support you get with both epic dracolich and epic vampires.

The main thing is they're tougher to level now, since they don't get the uber AC right away, since they need epic mage armor for it, but once they get going, they get going really strong.

Here are my two cents here:

I have no issue with anyone playing a melee PM, but I do not think the build needs to be incentivized by the development team. It's a novel application of a class that was conceived of for casters, and it would be somewhat jarring to see them everywhere.

Hence, why I am suggesting for the removing the ability to use epic dracolich and epic vampires for a more mundane path, and yes, while build does not need to be incentivized by the development team, it is an idea, since, Pale Master in Vanilla, is actually terrible for a caster, but in Arelith, is workable as one. Still, every feedback is welcomed for me to build up a proper suggestion case for when suggestions does become open again.

CptJonas wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:14 pm

Shrouded Wanderer wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 4:56 pm It would be nice if, when you picked a spellsword path and you decided to go Palemaster you could retain some of the spellsword perks, considering you cant use your summon abilities due to being a spellsword.

No...
Simply no...
Noone wants SS which is sneak/crit imune..

But that melee path for PM is nice idea...
I made sugestion and post few months back on this topic myself..

Yes, I am stealing your ideal and building up on it like a LE death knight c:>
But yes, I believe some of the ideas before was what encouraged me to this idea, thank you for such and I hope this goes somewhere.

C2 wrote: Fri Mar 13, 2020 5:07 am

CptJonas wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:14 pm

Shrouded Wanderer wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2020 4:56 pm It would be nice if, when you picked a spellsword path and you decided to go Palemaster you could retain some of the spellsword perks, considering you cant use your summon abilities due to being a spellsword.

No...
Simply no...
Noone wants SS which is sneak/crit imune..

But that melee path for PM is nice idea...
I made sugestion and post few months back on this topic myself..

Yes, I am stealing your ideal and building up on it like a LE death knight c:>
But yes, I believe some of the ideas before was what encouraged me to this idea, thank you for such and I hope this goes somewhere.

Wana play DK?

2 options

1) Make 4/10/16 Warlock/BG/PM You got ok-ish AB, Super AC, IM to crit/sneak and undead and dracolich...but whats more important...you got guy who have eyes which shine with blue ice, undead arm, and have Dracolich and undeads..true Lich king cosplay

2) Got 5% and make Normal SS...but from vamp

I'd really avoid BG. unfortunately PM ac was switched to dodge which means that you hit your dodge cap pretty easily. between 5 from EMA, 11 from divine & 5 from PM - you don't get ac from haste or boots or mage armor.

I think the idea here is to create more viable options than a few select builds which require BG or otherwise. The intention seems to be "give me better melee stats if I sacrifice my summon potential" which I think is perfectly fine. I can see a lot of good coming from this in that you would be able to multi outside of the conventional blackguard dip.

Not everyone is going to want to play blackguard, and I feel like this might open up some more interesting avenues and permit for different and more experimental class combinations.