Arelith

Please post all feedback here so it's easier for me to sort through. Thanks!

Feels nice to crit. Couple of pain points, an idea, and a question:

Pain point 1: Hex feels slightly off now. I could 100% be imagining it, but I feel like the kill-to-recharge ratio was a little snappier previously. Also, with curse of duality, I'm seeing the extra damage to curse weapon, but 100% I am not seeing any extra damage from pos/neg vuln on hex, with 26 Hexblade levels.

Pain point 2: Curse weapon falls off now. It falls off after the cooldown is over. Which is good, because minus the curse weapon you're a bad fighter with a bad single target curse song, but with both you're dope.

However: If your duration is longer than your cooldown, why not just give it a 24 hour duration, fall off if it leaves your inventory, and let you cast it whenever?

Idea: A hex feat that makes your hex a limited AOE with like, 50% power on additional subjects.

Question: On Malediction of worms, is it staying otherwise the same? And, when you say FOIG, is it going to be accessible by basically anyone?

Summary: Overall feels better. I didn't test a spellcasting version yet, but I'm sure having access to shield and haste will do them a lot of good. I'm not sure what the optimal hex/curse set up is with this version, yet, but I suppose someone else will figure that out or I'll make it up with napkin math eventually.

Drowboy wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 11:00 pm Feels nice to crit. Couple of pain points, an idea, and a question:

Pain point 1: Hex feels slightly off now. I could 100% be imagining it, but I feel like the kill-to-recharge ratio was a little snappier previously. Also, with curse of duality, I'm seeing the extra damage to curse weapon, but 100% I am not seeing any extra damage from pos/neg vuln on hex, with 26 Hexblade levels.

Pain point 2: Curse weapon falls off now. It falls off after the cooldown is over. Which is good, because minus the curse weapon you're a bad fighter with a bad single target curse song, but with both you're dope.

However: If your duration is longer than your cooldown, why not just give it a 24 hour duration, fall off if it leaves your inventory, and let you cast it whenever?

Idea: A hex feat that makes your hex a limited AOE with like, 50% power on additional subjects.

Question: On Malediction of worms, is it staying otherwise the same? And, when you say FOIG, is it going to be accessible by basically anyone?

Summary: Overall feels better. I didn't test a spellcasting version yet, but I'm sure having access to shield and haste will do them a lot of good. I'm not sure what the optimal hex/curse set up is with this version, yet, but I suppose someone else will figure that out or I'll make it up with napkin math eventually.

Thanks for the feedback!

1a: I didnt change anything with the refresh.
1b: So the damage curses are now damage increase effects similar to divine might. They won't be effected by vulnerability or immunity. The +1 damage is there to make up for that if you have the vulnerability feat. The vulnerability still gets applied and will boost other sources of damage such as those from allies, essences, blade of elements, etc.

2: I put the short duration on it because with the buffs I felt like it needed a small windup. Ive had a few other people mention it as well as a negative change so ill likely increase the duration again

Idea: its something I originally considered, but i think it makes hex a little too good in group pvp.

Question: maledictum of worms will require 25 levels in hexblade but no other prereqs besides the FOIG quest. Its going to be expanded slightly to block more forms of healing, and its also going to cause a movement speed debuff in the AoE that will affect everyone except the caster or people with freedom.

A quest? Into it.

I could be wrong on this, but I was running a neg essence+hypocrisy hex, and the damage was 7 (4 essence/3 hex) regardless. Should the vuln have added to the essence damage, or is some weird stacking thing what I'm seeing?

Although, yes, especially if/when malediction changes, aoe hex is probably a bit too good on top of that.

Drowboy wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 11:40 pm A quest? Into it.

I've said too much!

Its gonna be a bit more involved than things like vamps or druid FOIG features, but im not going to give away much more than that.

Okay, so... feedback, testing with a 24/3/3 Hex/BG/Tumbledump build...

That build can get 5 curses, which would mean they can get the neg/pos, and 4 other damage ones, for a total of +12 irresistable damage. Put it together with divine might and you're looking at around +22 bonus damage. With having shield now, their defenses are a decent amount stronger now too. Of course, if you go for curse of blood+curse of sacrifice instead, that'd be +16 irresistable damage and +26 with divine might. That's a pretty hefty amount.

Curse of blood and curse of sacrifice still scales. So if you end up combining both of those you get +8 damage for the price of 2 curses. So compared to the +4 from 2 of the other damage curses, it's +8 vs +4 and multiplies on crits, that makes the curse of blood + curse of sacrifice combo much better. (Unless you want to get the vamp regen).

Though I should comment:
Now that the curses damage types are irresistable, the type of damage doesn't really matter anymore.
Curse of Hypocrasy gives +2 POS and +2 NEG, total +4. The other damage ones only give +2, meaning that the Curse of Hypocrasy is now in every way better than the other +damage ones except the curse of sacrifice, which has a drawback.

I also find that the current setup means that there's incentive to load up heavily on curses while ignoring the hexes. I think there ought to be some incentive or mechanic to ensure that hexblades have some of both.

The1Kobra wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 12:34 am Okay, so... feedback, testing with a 24/3/3 Hex/BG/Tumbledump build...

That build can get 5 curses, which would mean they can get the neg/pos, and 4 other damage ones, for a total of +12 irresistable damage. Put it together with divine might and you're looking at around +22 bonus damage. With having shield now, their defenses are a decent amount stronger now too. Of course, if you go for curse of blood+curse of sacrifice instead, that'd be +16 irresistable damage and +26 with divine might. That's a pretty hefty amount.

Curse of blood and curse of sacrifice still scales. So if you end up combining both of those you get +8 damage for the price of 2 curses. So compared to the +4 from 2 of the other damage curses, it's +8 vs +4 and multiplies on crits, that makes the curse of blood + curse of sacrifice combo much better. (Unless you want to get the vamp regen).

Though I should comment:
Now that the curses damage types are irresistable, the type of damage doesn't really matter anymore.
Curse of Hypocrasy gives +2 POS and +2 NEG, total +4. The other damage ones only give +2, meaning that the Curse of Hypocrasy is now in every way better than the other +damage ones except the curse of sacrifice, which has a drawback.

I also find that the current setup means that there's incentive to load up heavily on curses while ignoring the hexes. I think there ought to be some incentive or mechanic to ensure that hexblades have some of both.

Thanks for the feedback!

Curse of sacrifice still does not currently multiply on crits. Its the only one that doesn't.

Curse of hypocrisy / hex of duality are better for builds that focus on hexes, netting you 6 damage for 2 feats. Hypocrisy is also the best choice on a 5 level dip.

If you take 3 or more elemental curses, your overall damage will be better by focusing only on elemental.

As far as focusing on both, - 4-5 ab, -8-10 skills, and the physical vulnerability are all very useful in pvp. The -saves one is probably one of the weaker ones, so im still working on ideas to make that more useful. I might have it drop SR by double the saves drop as well (-2 SR / 5 levels), but I haven't decided on anything yet.

My point though, is that the curse of Hypocrisy is now in every way better than the curses of Flame/Frost/Dissonance/etc, it's getting twice as much irresistable damage as the elemental curses and has no drawbacks, so there's no reason to ever take the elemental curses instead of the curse of hypocrisy, unless I've missed something

So, after fooling around with the new Hexblade stuff in the PGCC, I'm pretty dang happy with it! Here, in no particular order, are the thoughts of a dumb-dumb who admittedly doesn't know builds for beans, and is just talking from the experience of having played a pure Hexblade for the past few months.

-The 5 turn duration on Curse Weapon is more just... annoying, than anything? I feel like all it'd really end up doing is causing people to stare at the clock to know when the Curse is gonna drop off, and say "hey, don't engage the next group yet". And PvP I feel like it won't really be meaningful, with as short as PvP generally is.

-Base Hex change to AC malus... *Chef's kiss* Mwah, beautiful, gorgeous, can't say enough good things! Other Hex changes all seem good too, when taken with everything else that's changing.

-I would love an automatic indication of when the Hex is available to re-cast after a previous target dies, rather than just the total-time cooldown notice. Dunno if that's possible.

-I seem to remember a change from the first conception of the class to its implementation, wherein the damage from Elemental Curse feats was changed, to give the +5/Curse/hit that then scales at higher levels, rather than starting at +1 and scaling all through Hexblade levels, so as to give people a significant damage "oomph" when starting a Hexblade out and getting that first curse. With that in mind, the new +2/Curse/hit doesn't really have that "oomph", but maybe that's just me. The critability of the damage and ignoring of resistance/immunity is great, I'm very glad for that change, particularly with PvP in mind! Even so though, I wonder what kind of impact that'll have on leveling a Hexblade. I know that my solo grind will suffer with that change, at least. I'm sure this will obviously help in PvP, but I would never claim to be knowledgeable enough about PvP (or even PvE and overall balance) to say whether it's a reasonable help or not, I leave that to all you MUCH smarter people than me

-Class Physical DI changed to feat... I feel like that's a little bit of a strange change when part of the stated goal was to get Hexblades more survivability. Especially since, unless I'm completely misunderstanding something, even with the feat the DI can't possibly be as much as it was before. But maybe with Shield and Haste being added to the Spellbook, having that much DI on every Hexblade was too much. Speaking of...

-Spell changes: Shield, Haste... GREAT additions. No longer will I have to waste all my money on Haste wands or worry about the number of charges my Brooch of Shielding has... or worse, hold on to that Shield-casting small shield just to have it as a backup. More spells per day and spells known... how can I complain about that?

-A constant, if minor, frustration with the class as a whole has been Arcane Failure reduction not applying when you load a server with armor on/shield out, necessitating players to remember to quick-switch armor when moving between servers. This seems to be even weirder on the PGCC currently, I swear it has sometimes stopped applying after random rests or something... I don't quite know what's going on there. I know I've forgotten about this and had it impact me plenty of times, so unless there's a workaround I don't know about (or it's just a bug with me???) then I'd be forever grateful to whoever can fix this

-Maledictum of Worms, having some quest or trial or something involved in getting it sounds like it has the potential to be great! VERY interested to see how that plays out, though I'm hoping the access to this won't be in some area that could potentially gatekeep people from getting it.

Anyway, that's my two cents! Interested to see how all the changes play out, even if I have some minor reservations right now. Glad to see that there's still plenty of attention being paid to the Hexblade and how it's working out, particularly with the idea of how it can be more easily/effectively multiclassed!

PlunderBunny wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 3:23 am -Maledictum of Worms, having some quest or trial or something involved in getting it sounds like it has the potential to be great! VERY interested to see how that plays out, though I'm hoping the access to this won't be in some area that could potentially gatekeep people from getting it.

That's mildly a concern because Hexblades don't inherently have access to an IG network that would help disseminate that info like, say, druids or necromancers would to find their own secret NPCs. Some players who aren't in the cool kid's posse might struggle finding help if they aren't in the right IG faction or OOC Discord.

May be a problem, may not... It just came to mind.

I don't have feedback as much as a question... How would you build a hexblade who used their offensive spells? I'd actually love to hear developer input on that, how you see it working.

Gouge Away wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 6:57 am

PlunderBunny wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 3:23 am -Maledictum of Worms, having some quest or trial or something involved in getting it sounds like it has the potential to be great! VERY interested to see how that plays out, though I'm hoping the access to this won't be in some area that could potentially gatekeep people from getting it.

That's mildly a concern because Hexblades don't inherently have access to an IG network that would help disseminate that info like, say, druids or necromancers would to find their own secret NPCs. Some players who aren't in the cool kid's posse might struggle finding help if they aren't in the right IG faction or OOC Discord.

May be a problem, may not... It just came to mind.

That'd be my concern with it too, yup!

Gouge Away wrote: Sat Aug 08, 2020 6:57 am I don't have feedback as much as a question... How would you build a hexblade who used their offensive spells? I'd actually love to hear developer input on that, how you see it working.

You wouldn't really. Hexblade doesn't have enough useful offensive spells to be focusing on offensive spellcasting. Maybe dropping a situational spell now and then but otherwise you're way better served using those spellslots for buffs (haste).

I guess I know that, I just see those spells like dominate and evards, some of which are my favorites in the game and I have to wonder if someone actually makes use of them. I wonder if the devs just added them for "flavor" or to use a while while doing writs or if they're actually intended to be part of the arsenal, like by lowering saves with Hex of Acedia then following with a phantasmal killer or something?

I played around with a Hexblade 27/dip3.

It felt fairly solid now. I didn't really bother but I can see hexblade/wm or hexblade/wm/monk dishing out crazy amounts of damage on the back of curse weapon, but probably not as much as your typical barbarian/wm.

With that said, I really dislike the duration of the curse weapon now. This is such a core class feature that it feels terrible to have to refresh it so often. I would compare it akin to rangers or paladins having to refresh their blade thirst/bless weapon before every fight. It also hurts more Hexblade dips, as investing say 5, or 10 levels in hexblade loses much of its appeal if you get a slightly better weapon for 30 or 60 seconds repectively.

I'm going to increase the duration of curse weapon again.

I like the changes so far. Personally would love to see protection from alignment added to the spell list. It’s a spell that several other classes get and would not hurt on Hexblades.

All the changes look great, tested a few variants out in PGCC and I could see myself enjoying a 27/3 or some such variation. The thing that jumped out at me honestly was silence on the spell list. Very spooky if this class gets built properly for melee engagements, that it could self-silence and utterly demolish anything reliant on combat casting. I don't know if there is a comparable that doesn't need a wand or suffer from something like bard w/ bard song? Seems extremely powerful if not perhaps too much so.

I had an old Hexblade in the PGCC, which I deleveled and leveled again. I could never get Curse Weapon to work, it just remained at 0 uses forever.

This may or may not be relevant/useful.

You try relogging? That seems to work for me.

Sizable post, I included a tldr at the bottom.

Only one I have that hasn''t been mentioned yet:

1) Third level spells - Pretty much all Useless for what Hexblade is going to be doing (swinging a weapon). The only time someone would realistically be using any of these would be to extend a zoo buff - which requires a pretty significant feat investment for not a whole lot.

Bestow Curse: Flavor
Darkfire: If this wasn't restricted it could be ok. (Gotta have that keen bonus - maybe replace this with keen blade?)
Dispel Magic: Flavor
Displacement: Not very good with Imp. Invis available.
Invis Purge: MAYBE a consideration, Niche.
Invisibility Sphere: Flavor, useful for running through zones with haste.
Nagative Energy Burst: Flavor
Poison: Flavor
Slow: Could be useful, but hexblade isn't a caster class and won't be getting high DC's. Even still, this is probably the best spell choice here, just incase you land a 1 on your target.
Stinking Cloud: Same as Slow.
Vampiric Touch: Same as Above, Flavor

While there's nothing wrong with the amount of flavor spells, the amount of actually useful ones are niche at best.

Potential fix: Move Haste from being a level 4 spell, to a level 3 spell. It's a little weird that it's under level 4 spells instead of 3 already, AND doing this would give more incentive to actually taking extend spell.

Sidenote: A little sad to not see any damage reflection spells on the list. Whether that be death armor or elemental shield. Hexblade already gets a lot of necromancy spells - I would think that a hexblade would be more interested in spell that will aide them in melee than attack spells like ice storm??


Additionally, going back to the Curses/Hexes as mentioned earlier:

I think this is a more interesting thing to take a look at. We get 1 hex every 5 levels and a few bonus ones for going epic Hexblade. With how each hex/curse now scales per 5 levels as well (other than the damage ones), you get more benefit from taking scaling things, than just base damages. I think the most realistic amount of hexes a player will get that is focuses into hexblade will be 5-6 (23+ Hexblade with the ability to dip into 2 classes OR a 26+ hexblade with the ability to dip into one).

Curse of Acid/Dissonance/Flames/Frost/Lightning: BAD (Unless for some reason you're not taking any hexes, but that's even worse
tbh..)
These are all TERRIBLE options to take considering they absolutely DON'T scale at any rate that is worth what we can get in comparison. +2 damage (or 1 extra if you take the elemental vulnerability one) is just.. not really worth it, even if they get multiplied on crits.

• You have to take 2 curses AND a level 23 hex to make it better than a single curse (Hyposcrisy). That's pretty bad, considering what you lose for it and only gain 2-4 points of damage. For an investment of half of your curses/hexes, an extra 2 damage just.. isn't good enough.

Curse of Blood: BAD (HEXBLADE 5-15), FEELSBAD (Epic Hexblade)
This one is nice to have, but it feels bad taking it when other similar classes (*Cough* Ranger *Cough*) get "free" spells that make their weapons +5 and vampiric without needed to choose between the vampiric or something else, while also getting bonus feats to make them better as well. It would feel better to just add this curse to the base curse weapon to put it on par with what other classes are getting for free.

Curse Hypocrisy: NO BRAINER #1 CHOICE
This one is a must-have. With the limited amount of hexes we get to choose, getting 2 damage ones for the price of one is just.. Too good to pass up.

Curse of Sacrifice: BAD to Meh.
This one is interesting because it actually scales nicely. The effect of it being magical though isn't particularly important, now that all the other damages ignore resistance. The downside of it damaging you means you're pretty much forced into taking the Blood Curse or fork over thousands of coin in healing kits for a little bit of damage. Losing health every time you swing (Or losing a hex choice to negate this), and it not being multiplied on crit makes this a pretty meh choice if you go down a heavy hexblade route.

Curse of Life: BAD (Hexblade 5-15) NO BRAINER (epic hexblade)
This one is in a good place, it adds worthwhile scaling and a true choice to consider. While not likely to change much by itself, the chance to take this for PvE will likey reduce the chances of needing to spam heal pots to stay alive.

Hex of Acedia: BAD and remains bad.
Yeah, this one is pretty useless to hexblades as there's not really any spell or effect we can do to benefit from this. Sure, there's an arguement that this has the potential to be good, if you have an epic caster your running with and are looking to PvP, but that's a pretty niche reason for a 2 minute CD for at best -5 to all saves. Would also likely require an OOC method to coordinate its usefulness (i.e discord going hey, I 'm going to hex player xyz quick cast banshee's or something).

Hex of Ineptitude: Bad and scales to considerable, if investing 2 feats
Same thing above, although at least this one DOES have the ability to be relatively useful (Assuming you take IKD, as a -10 to Discipline can actually be really good.)

• I would suggest combining Acedia and Ineptitude together, to make them a solid "choice" and having the ability to contend with the current no brainer choices.

Hex of Hallucination: BAD (Hexblade 5-10), Decent (15), NO BRAINER (Epic Hexblade)
Now this is what something good looks like. If you're going heavy into hexblade and not taking this one, it just.. Feels really bad.

Epic Hexes:

• As a baseline, a 15% vulnerability to the elemental or pos/neg damage is pretty negligible. I think that turns out to be what, a bonus 1 damage for the hexblade unless they are useing a sword of the elements?

Duality/Elemental Decay: Niche to Meh.
+1 damage to curses just isn't enough to warrant another feat here in my opinion. As stated above the 15% vulnerability isn't exactly worthwhile either imo. There is however, something to be said of being in a party with a true flame sorc or something.

Neglect: Okay.
15% vulnerability to physical damage is to me, more likely to be useful for the feat cost. Physical damage is more prevelant than elemental and all that. Your base damage will likely do more with this anyways, than the curses and stuff being added on.


tldr;

Spells:
Change haste to a level 3 spell so we have a useful 3rd level spellslot, and incentive to feat into extend spell.

Hexes:
Changing either Curse of Blood to given with curse weapon, putting it more on par with Blade Thirst's cost (levels..) would be a welcome change. Or you could increase the amount of hexes learned to 1 every 4 levels, up to level 20, and then keep the epics the same.

That is, if you dont want to rework the majority of the hexes to be better than what they are. I just feel that I'm being forced to take Hypocrisy, Blood, Hallucination, Life and it really only gives you one choice out of the rest. Not taking these four, AND going deep hexblade, feels like you just miss out on so, so much.

While I really like the changes, I've noticed that because Hexblade scales so well with all the class feats, you don't actually get to use the epic bonus feats for anything but curse weapon/hex improvements, leaving you fairly feat-starved in epics.

Rangers get epic bonus feats at 23/25/26/29/30. Maybe that would be a progression to consider for Hexblades as well, but the numbers would definitely need to be double checked because of all the potential extra damage.

Is it possible they could be added to the list of competent rope-users, at all?

Well I’m definitely excited about these changes. Any idea when we’ll see a live push? I’ve already got my new character planned out!

The only “concern” I would have is that 5 hex blade dips for any non good restricted character may become incredibly common. Even if you’re not a CHA or divine build, the 5 levels of HAB + -1ac Hex + Curse of Hyp is pretty sick.

Some ideas I has were- and clearly there’s a trend here

21/5/4 bard hex fighter
19/6/5 BG fighter hex
21/5/4 Barb hex fighter
18/7/5 Fighter WM hex
21/5/4 Ranger Hex Fighter
20/5/5 Champion Hex Fighter
20/10 Champion Hex
15/10/5 Fighter Pm Hex (I think this ones particularly interesting personally)

Just lots of awesome combinations that a 5 hex dip allows for!

Although I will note that the DI change did crush my 30 Hexblade EDR plans, lol.

30% DI Hex
5% Racial
10% Equipment
9/- Reduction....

Lol it was going to be glorious!!

I agree with a lot of points mentionned by Cantalyssa.

I'll add some remarks I made myself after hours of testing on PGCC and with a Heckblade on the
live server as well.

My overall thought is that, instead of making Heckblade a more viable option for dips, it now became just a viable option for dips, and that heavy Heckblade received a bit of a downgrade.

Before going further, I'd like to point out that all of this is based on my opinion, which can and will likely be biased, mostly because I'm clearly not a game mechanix expert, and that I clearly haven't thought about every single possibility.

After a long time of editing the draft, I removed the few suggestions I had in mind, because Suggestion Box is closed and this is supposed to be a feedback anyway. If suggestions are allowed, I'll add them.

• Hex changes
  • From -1 every 6 Lv to every 5 Lv. Good, I support this change. I'd even say put that to a Every 4 Lv to Allow 24/3/3 without losing much.
  • From skill point to AC reduction. Great. Very helpful, it actually does something decent without taking feats.
    
    • On Hex feats
      • Acedia (- Saving throws). As stated by Cantalysa, it would be helpful in combination with another player. Other than that, the offensive spells of HB will not really benefit from this. Base DC is too low, and you aren't likely to gear for CHA in early game.
      • Hex of Ineptitude (- Skill points). See Cantalysa's feedback. Could be useful. -Concentration for better taunt, -Discipline for better KD/Called shots/Disarm, -Listen/Spot for better sneaking (Using Hex doesn't break sneak) It has some uses, for sure.
      • Hex of Hallucination ( - AB). Probably a must have.
      • Hex of +1 Dmg. It's one of the reason I feel that scaling as a heavy HB got downgraded. You're giving +1 dmg to each curse, and your local True Flame gets +15% on elemental damages at best. I'd rather take Fighter 4 for +6 dmg with Weapon Spec and some feats on the side. Not to mention you need to reach epic HB to grab this feat.
      • Hex of %Physical. Good for STR builds.

• Curses
  
  • Elemental Curses. No explanations, just an example.
    Lv 11 on live server : 2 Curses. 10 dmg total. (Perhaps even more, I haven't reached 11 yet).
    Lv23 on PGCC : 4 Curses and Hex of +1 dmg. 12 dmg total, 24 in case of crit (with a x2). Decent. But you smoked all of your feats. You also have to crit to make it decent.
    And that's if you don't take Hex of -AB. If you do take it, which you should, change that 12 into a 10. same as Live version WITH 12 more Levels taken. Very sad face.
    
    EDIT : As pointed, the elemental damage bypasses any resistance, which is great. So I have to agree that PGCC numbers should be lower than live version, but perhaps not that much.
  • Curse of Hipocrisy.
  • Curse of BDSM sacrifice. I'd consider this one almost decent, yet it still lacks some punch. A +3 per 5 level instead of +2 perhaps, and you'd still take 5 damage.
  • Curse of Life. Damage from Elemental is reduced AND the natural damage reduction is taken away and placed as a feat instead. This is supposed to be somewhat of a buff, right?
  • Curse of Blood. It's good, but as mentionned in another feedback... Rangers.
  
  
  • Spells added are great. I mean, Haste and shield are. Additionnal spells per Rest is also great.
  I'd also argue that the quest for Maledictum of worms should be available at epic HB, starting from 21, rather than 25.
  
  There are probably a lot of stuff wrong. Feel free to correct, anyone.