[Warrior Priest] Making Wrath viable

[Earthpac]

Just had an interesting idea for how to make the Wrath tree way more viable (which would also probably apply to DoK's as well).

Other than the obvious bumping of Absence of Faith up to a 50% heal debuff, what Wrath is really lacking is a way to actually use Righteous Fury to deal damage. As it stands Wrath is the tree that interacts least with Righteous Fury, with no abilities that actually utilise it. It's only really there to cleanse, emergency heal, or to manage your AP.

So what if one of the abilities in the Wrath tree were changed to use up Righteous Fury in order to deal extra damage?

Hammer of Sigmar would be the obvious choice, giving it something pretty simple like "consumes all remaining Righteous Fury to deal *up to* 150% bonus damage." with numbers obviously being interchangeable (a flat damage increase would probably be more balanced but that seems harder to theorize).

Might be quite hard to code though, but I've got no idea on that front. What do you guys think?

[Ramasee]

This is taken from an excerpt of several changes across all healing classes I have been working on. I will only be showing Path of Wrath changes in this thread. Also understand that most class changes are not possible as far as we have been told at this precise moment. These kinds of discussions are great; just do not expect them to come to fruition for a while.

Weight of Guilt - Remove curse requirement. Curse requirement removed because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for one set of mirrors in the entire game to have a requirement on their melee snare. Reduce it to 5s duration if you want it to be close to other mdps.

Prayer of Righteousness - Scales off of strength. Targets hit by the effect deal 5% less damage for 5s. Scaling is important to make it useful with later gear sets. The debuff gives another reason to run the aura as well as fitting with the new Path of Wrath identity.

Divine Justice - Whenever an ally triggers prayer of righteousness, it will do damage to your offensive target as well. Old tactic was bland. New one is slightly more damage than old one but on a different target. Rewards group focus fire better, if the warrior priest is assisting.

Soulfire - Now costs 60RF, is instant cast, deals damage over 9s and increases the damage those targets take from your smite by 20%. 15s cd. Now costs RF instead of AP to give Wrath a way to utilize their RF. The extra smite damage gives WP a minor AoE damage option combo something missing from WPs in general.

Sigmar's Reproof (new tactic) - Castigations now deals 20% more damage and reduces the target's toughness as well. Replaces Intimidating Repent since that effect was rolled into all WP 2H. Essentially gives the toughness debuff that used to be in Grace to Wrath rolled into castigation (in the grace changes not shown here, I changed greave of sigmar). Since it is slot 7 tactic, increased the DoT damage of castigation to bring it more to correct amount of power.

Absence of Faith - If target is cursed, healing debuff becomes 50% and cooldown is reduced by 5s. 25% single target healing debuff was ineffective and imbalanced with other classes. Added curse requirement to increase it to 50% with other classes, and it received reduced cooldown because of the requirement to make it a standard debuff, which increases counterplay.

Hammer of Sigmar - 20s cd - 30ap/5ft - Can only be used on targets below 25% health. Deals X damage. Consumes all RF. Deals additional Y spirit damage for each RF consumed. Taking the "execute" manner of this ability and running with it. New ability gives an RF dump to Wrath and a powerful reason to be a full wrath WP. {Seems OP had similar idea I did.}

[Voe]

To start, make guilty soul mirror DoK's Curse of Khaine and similar tactics from Zealots and Rune Priests.

Make Soulfire one second cast and to start ticking the moment the dot is applied (maybe add old guilty soul functionality to it).

Prayer of Righteousness should now also increase run speed by 20% for x seconds on proc. to oppose DoK's Covenant of Celerity.

I like your idea about the RF dump execute ability, but it should also be mirrored to the DoK torture tree.

[Earthpac]

Looks good but I'm not sure if the 25% limit is that good an idea. Having the only decent Wrath RF dump only usable on near dead enemies still doesn't leave an awful lot of interaction as for the most of the fight you'll be using RF exactly as before.

I'd also say laying on so many changes at once might not be the best way to operate. The dev's probably want to take things one ability at a time instead of opting for entire reworks of trees.

Stuff like the Soulfire change doesn't really do anything for Wrath as AOE isn't it's focus at all. Adding 20% damage to nothing is still nothing. Also the Castigation & Weight of Guilt changes aren't all that significant either. It just kind of clutters what Wrath actually needs, which is more single target damage and a RF dump, with tiny changes that don't really make any difference to gameplay.

If anything I'd say Bludgeon needs more of a buff than Castigation or Weight of Guilt which both have their uses, as it currently just as much damage as Sigmar's radiance but doesn't heal.

[Earthpac]

To start, make guilty soul mirror DoK's Curse of Khaine and similar tactics from Zealots and Rune Priests.

Make Soulfire one second cast and to start ticking the moment the dot is applied (maybe add old guilty soul functionality to it).

Prayer of Righteousness should now also increase run speed by 20% for x seconds on proc. to oppose DoK's Covenant of Celerity.

I like your idea about the RF dump execute ability, but it should also be mirrored to the DoK torture tree.

If this were to happen would Absence of Faith just become an exact mirror of Sanguinary Extension?

[Ramasee]

Yes, I agree one change at a time is most likely the way it will (and should) happen. However, sometimes when you suggest a change; it only works with a few other changes. Also when you list all the ideas at once, you reduce some of the counter-arguments of things like "why would I want castigation to reduce toughness if I can have sigmar's fist do it as well?" Also it would reduce some mirror arguments, and allow time for coding to happen if they know what they want to try next.

A lot of my numbers are just placeholders. Its mostly the ideas behind it, the numbers can be fine tuned. Limiting the health % allows for it to have a lower cooldown or be more powerful without it being considered over-powered. However, I see what you mean by you might still be using RF the same as before; the % could be increased in favor of less damage.

Soulfire is an AoE ability, thus I added AoE effects to it. However, it could be redesigned to be a single target DoT if we wanted wrath to have little AoE options at all. Also, you have to keep in mind that PvE does happen and will happen more in the future if/when they add in the dungeons.

Weight of Guilt change is mostly a quality of life/normalization thing.

The castigation changes increasing damage and lowering toughness do add increased single target damage. It also replaces a redundant talent of Intimidating Repent.

Bludgeon costs 30 ap, Sigmar's Radiance costs 35 ap. Not counting regen, starting at 250ap, you get one more attack of Bludgeon over Sigmar's Radiance. Bludgeon is on the same level as other spammable basic quality attacks of other mdps/tanks.

[Voe]

If this were to happen would Absence of Faith just become an exact mirror of Sanguinary Extension?

I don't wont to make Wrath tree into a dot damage tree, but rather a debuff tree with melee healing centric debuffs.

Absence of Faith could place a debuff on a target that would both help with damage and healing, something like a moderate damage attack that puts a 10 second debuff on a target that would make your attacks against it un-defendable. Kind of like slayer's Rampage, but only usable against one target.

Absence of Faith could also be a 10 second debuff on a target that would make your melee attacks heal your defensive target for 50% of the damage done. Kind of like DoK morale Life's End, but only usable on one target.

[Voe]

I am reading the long WP grace thread and in it, Azarael said that it is currently impossible to add new abilities to the game. In the same post he wrote:

Due to the way Absence of Faith works on the client, my proposal for this skill would be that it remains as it is, except that if the target is already Cursed, the heal debuff increases to 50%.

I think it is a fine idea, but how about making it 50% baseline and 75% or even a 100% if the target is cursed, but lower the duration from 10 seconds to 3 seconds if it is a 100% debuff and 5 seconds if it is a 75% debuff. Cooldown could be increased as well. It would add a lot of flavor to the skill and make Wrath WP a great addition to the melee train. Another option is to make heal debuff 50% for 10 seconds baseline, but if the target is cursed the duration increases to 20 seconds.

They could also change Guilty Soul to mirror Curse of Khaine (which I think is a potent, but boring change), and leave Absence of Faith changes further later.

[peterthepan3]

100% heal debuffs have no place in this game, regardless of whether or not a class is underperforming.

[zumos2]

Just a 50% heal debuff with 10 second cooldown would help a lot. Mostly so you can actually combine the dps WP with the WL for the strong armor debuff and heal debuff. Would that be enough to make the dps WP viable in 6v6? Probably not, but it would be a nice defensive alternative and good for scenarios and roaming.