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Post by Yojimbo on Nov 25, 2013 22:00:18 GMT
Was thinking about BK and my desire to build one and started doing some math on the STR SP option and figured I would post my findings and thoughts on it. Here is what I came up with on the build I am contemplating here are where the numbers match up currently for it: L60 Base | 50 | 5 | 5 | +12 | 62 | 6.5 | 6 | +14 | 64 | 6.75 | 6 | Demi x1 | 66 | 7 | 7 | +16 | 68 | 7.25 | 7 | Demi x2 | 70 | 7.5 | 7 | Arti | 72 | 7.75 | 7 | L80 | 74 | 8 | 8 |
The Spell Penetration feats are 2 each so with L80, STR Arti,2x Demi, and +16 gear I an match Legendary Spell Penetration. I would like to see some bump to this that would mean only the most drastic build could reach an SP of 10 from STR perhaps the numbers could be reworked more but this is where I personally feel is the sweet spot for the calculation so here is a chart of those numbers using my same build to start and progressing on till it hits 10 SP: L60 | 50 | 5.714285714 | 5 | +12 | 62 | 7.428571429 | 7 | +14 | 64 | 7.714285714 | 7 | Demi x1 | 66 | 8 | 8 | +16 | 68 | 8.285714286 | 8 | Demi x2 | 70 | 8.571428571 | 8 | Arti | 72 | 8.857142857 | 8 | L80 | 74 | 9.142857143 | 9 | | 76 | 9.428571429 | 9 | | 78 | 9.714285714 | 9 | | 80 | 10 | 10 |
So the only way to reach Paragon SP levels is to reach a STR score of 80 which I don't think is impossible just incredibly difficult and might nerf some other aspects of the build. The calculation I am using is 2/7th STR Mod. Here below is continued progression using the current STR SP calculation until it reach 10 SP: 76 | 8.25 | 8 | 78 | 8.5 | 8 | 80 | 8.75 | 8 | 82 | 9 | 9 | 84 | 9.25 | 9 | 86 | 9.5 | 9 | 88 | 9.75 | 9 | 90 | 10 | 10 |
I give both decimal and rounded numbers which assumes always round down.
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Post by Raj on Nov 25, 2013 22:35:37 GMT
That doesn't mean much when your main offensive spells are bigbies and you're better fighting 1v1 the bigby targets instead of spamming bigby8 (a spell mostly used against mariliths nowadays, everything else has conceal and takes weak dmg; and mariliths are str-tank target anyway, you better hold them in melee with a bk). The other bigbies aren't even used by decent fast casters anymore (and raks/fiends usual bigby main targets have 0 sr anyway).
The ''tank with bigbies'' concept was ok when hells were young, players were weak and undergeared (back in the days of no lore based dmg spells)
Your calculations are incredibly confusing and useless.
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Post by Yojimbo on Nov 25, 2013 23:33:02 GMT
Well I would love to clear up the confusion so lets start with saying what columns are what.
For table 1 and 2 the first column is the level, gear, and other causes of stat boost stating with unmodified STR score at L60. The 2nd column is that strength score so my current build on paper reaches 50 base STR before any stat gear, demi iterations, artifact, or L80 bonus stats. The 3rd column is the raw calculation of STR Mod/4 in table 1 and STR Mod * 2/7 in table 2 including full decimal data. The 4th column is the number from column 3 rounded down, as I assume that is how the game will handle rounding, to show you what boost in SP the character gets. The 3rd table is a continuation of the 1st table minus the first column as I had no further labeling beyond where it ended and the rest of the columns are the same as 2nd, 3rd, and 4th columns above.
I agree the class could use more carrots but I would think fixing/improving one carrot the class already gets would be worthwhile thing to post here. I am possibly mistaken about SP of the SP feats but I thought they scaled from +2 SP to +10 SP.
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Post by Raj on Nov 26, 2013 0:19:31 GMT
It's a known fact their sp is okay, but can't compete with paragon one (it's +7/8 on most bur builds); that's not too bad, they're str based and get free spell pen afterall, plus the only decent bk builds are pure; now, if they had anything worth cast with such okay sp...
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Post by Raj on Jan 12, 2014 23:27:44 GMT
Today I noticed a BK player was using shock weapon at full CL, has it been changed to a BK spell in the silent update? The spell description is still unchanged. Anyway, shameless bump And I found a thread with other people, some good nerds/flamers/players included , sharing similar concern in the past too highergroundpoa.proboards.com/thread/21781/bane-knight-thoughts
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Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 13, 2014 17:22:08 GMT
Today I noticed a BK player was using shock weapon at full CL, has it been changed to a BK spell in the silent update? The spell description is still unchanged. Didn't change that in the last hotpatch, no. Funky
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Post by louisvilleslugger on Jan 27, 2014 4:28:41 GMT
BUMP. Raj has some good ideas for making BK's more playable.
-Outkast
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 4, 2014 15:24:45 GMT
Another necro-alert: Was wondering if it was possible to add some of the BG spells to the BK spell list? The ones that come to mind are Corrupt Weapon and Frost Weapon. It's kind of a pain to not get full dice on these, especially when the party is missing a cleric and you want to play party weapon-buffer. That being said, I would understand if this isn't an option. Just seems like it would be a nice boost, and I would hate for my ebil BK to have to beg some self-righteous paladin for 2-dice Bless Weapon. Not even going to try and suggest extended duration for Death Ward - the current spell slots are tight, but you still get enough crit-immune duration per rest that it's not a major issue. Also, I was wondering if there might be something that could be done with Magic Weapon for BKs. Would be fun to incorporate some of their spell-casting ability into their weapon buffs to apply some kind of debuff effect. This may have already been suggested at some point in the past, but it would be kind of fun to have something like a "!bk mw 5-9" command, where the numeric value corresponds to the appropriate Bigby spell level, and the weapon buff drained an appropriate spell slot to apply the Bigby effect on-hit (with a "!bk mw clear" option as well to stop draining spell slots if not needed - or just have the command load a single on-hit effect which is then cleared automatically when used). Of course that's just one idea, obviously I wouldn't want to encroach upon Pariah territory by suggesting magic damage (and besides BKs already get plenty of weapon damage buffs), nor would I want to suggest something like Enervate on-hit which would step on the toes of Lash of Hatred (nor Breach on-hit since there's a BG poison for that).
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Post by FunkySwerve on Feb 4, 2014 18:03:06 GMT
I could see adding more spells to BK, though I think it'd probably be better to add them from the sorc side to preserve more class distinction, if we can find appropriately themed ones. Suggestions welcome.
Funky
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Post by Raj on Feb 4, 2014 20:31:28 GMT
Checking their current spellbook
They have pw: stun but lack pw: kill (bumping the divination spells they know, and are somehow worth know, from 2 to 3) They have dismissal and banish, could get greater dispel and energy immunity (from 2 to 4)
With 3-4 decent spells it's almost worth invest in a school, and that rewards CC BK sorcs, or just some build diversity from the standard BK who get only melee feats, or a lone focus.
They have a bunch of DC-reliant spells from ench/necro/illu school but not sure I want to step on pm/heralds toes; it would be quite fitting to give them antiphaty anyway (that, along with gmw, and to a lesser extend mind fog/confusion, might make ench a sensible focus choice as well)
As a matter of convenience, expeditious retreat and displacement could find their way into BK spellbook as well.
I too prefer not to mix bg spells with bk, to preserve some flavour for the prestige class.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 4, 2014 22:43:41 GMT
Definitely agree with Expeditious Retreat and Displacement. Clairaudience/Clairvoyance would be nice as well. I'll add some more after I get home from work.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 5, 2014 4:02:18 GMT
As promised, going to add extra nominations for spells to be added to the BK's list (in addition to the ones I listed above). They are, just to start, as follows: Lesser Spell Breach, Spell Breach, Greater Spell Breach, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Globe of Invulnerability, Lesser Spell Mantle, Greater Spell Mantle. I would add more, but I think that BK needs a more clearly defined niche before we can proceed further. Evocation foci for Bigby hands seems to be an obvious choice for BKs, but I think they could be more well-rounded with addition of a second school, probably (as I believe Raj suggested) either Abjuration or Divination. If abjuration, I would suggest adding greater access to some of the buffs/debuffs inherent to that school to their spell lists. If divination, the addition of Power Word: Kill would probably be more helpful than anything else, along with whatever other buffs we could add from that school. Necromancy, to which BK already has some access according to the current spell list, is another option that could be worthy of consideration. I think many of us feel that BKs are intended to serve as a buff tank/anti-caster caster. I believe that the quasi-class should be better adapted to fit this role, through the addition of spells to its list, and in my opinion (and a host of others) the granting of bonus spell foci feats upon achieving Bane Knight status. If we go the Evocation/Divination route, I think something like Greater Spell Focus (Evocation) and Greater Spell Focus (Divination) would help to facilitate that. Or, if we want Bane Knight to be more specialized, have them gain Epic Spell Focus (Evocation). Personally, I feel like since we already have two quasi-classes that are heavily focused in Evocation, the former route might be more preferable, as it allows BKs to invest their feats in a variety of ways to be either more generalized (that is, taking Epic Spell Focus in both schools) or more specialized (choosing a particular school and taking that school to Legendary Spell Focus). While this might seem a bit unbalancing, I think their limited spell lists and the incredible feat-tight nature of most BK builds tends to make this a non-issue. Furthermore, doing something like this would increase the viability of CC Sorcerer BKs who would be able to invest in a more diverse collection of spell foci and increase their usefulness as specialized arcane casters. Another possible way that this could be implemented, though I'm unsure of the difficulty in its implementation, is to have the character, on achieving Bane Knight status, receive upgraded spell foci (preferably to Epic Focus, once again due to the extremely feat-tight nature of the build) according to whichever initial spell focus (or foci) they have chosen. If we keep the spell lists small (but larger than they are now), I can't imagine a player would invest in more than 2 spell focus feats (and having it only check for the first two foci could probably be a helpful limit to abuse on this as well). Anyway, just my thoughts. Conceptually, Bane Knight has always been my favorite quasi-class by far. When I first started on the server, it was my dream class. I would be ecstatic to see it get a little love.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 10, 2014 18:31:56 GMT
Performing another unwelcome necro on this thread because I don't want to start yet another BK thread. What I was wondering is if it was possible to change how the free spell penetration is calculated. Even with XR subraces it will be impossible to get to +10 spell penetration, and incredibly difficult to get to even +9 spell pen (you would need to be CC Blackguard, start at 18 STR, get 10 Great Strength feats, use STR artifact, be level 74-80 and double demigod). What I was wondering is if it wouldn't be too game-breaking to just have spell penetration for Bane Knights be calculated according to their number of Great Strength feats. With the introduction of paragon levels, and egos, etc., pure sorcerers can get up to +12 spell penetration (assuming 10 from feats, +1 from autochannel, +1 from Wrap of Fistandantilus, maybe another +1 from ego for +13). Due to the feat-tight nature of Bane Knight builds, I believe most builds would delay taking their last one or two Great Strengths until paragon levels, making it effectively the same as PSP for two feats instead of one (which is fine of course since it's not just for spell pen). Another reason why I'm fond of this idea is that it helps CC Sorcerer BKs be able to be on par with CC Blackguard spell penetration since they currently have difficulty (due to not gaining +4 STR from Legendary Blackguard). Sorry, I know I'm getting kind of obsessive about this... If I don't get these thoughts out I'm just not going to be able to concentrate on anything else. I hope you understand.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Feb 10, 2014 20:56:44 GMT
I don't really regard this thread as necroable, since it hasn't died. Most of the spells I'd consider adding would be more thematic, like antipathy. I'm ok with their SP being 2 below PSP, though. Funky
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 10, 2014 21:27:39 GMT
Fair enough. I suppose I tend to make the mistake of thinking that I have to take Bigby 9 on Bane Knight, when I could be taking ED, which would potentially offset the lack of extra SP if used properly. That being said, here's some thematic spells I would like to see added:
Level 1: Endure Elements (added defense) Expeditious Retreat (added mobility, useful since BG FoM isn't at full caster level for BKs) Ray of Enfeeblement (on theme, added incentive for Necromancy focus)
Level 2: Blindness/Deafness (they get the mass version, add incentive for Enchantment focus) Ghostly Visage (utility, greater incentive for Illusion focus) Resist Elements (minor defensive boost, incentive for Abjuration focus)
Level 3: Dispel Magic (added incentive for Abjuration focus) Displacement (BKs currently get no conceal, added incentive for Illusion focus) Hold Person (seems on theme, added incentive for Enchantment focus)
Level 4: Enervation (on theme, added incentive for Necromancy) Fear (same) Lesser Spell Breach (on theme, incentive for Abjuration)
Level 5: Break Enchantment (same) Cloudkill (doesn't currently seem to be a lot of options for conjuration spells) Feeblemind (another good, on theme, Divination option)
Level 6: Circle of Death (another SoD spell, making three total, first one that's not illusion) Eyebite (on theme) Greater Dispelling (anti-caster goodness, incentive for Abjuration) Spell Breach (same)
Level 7: Energy Immunity (good, situational self-buff, another good Abjuration option) Rebuke (a 4th, very thematic SoD)
Level 8: Antipathy (as Funky said, on theme) Greater Spell Breach (same as other breach/dispels) Horrid Wilting (just seems to be a good thematic fit)
Level 9: Mordenkainen's Disjunction (totally on theme) Power Word, Kill (on theme, another SoD, another great incentive for divination - yes please)
Obviously, I don't see any reason for all these to be added, but a good number of them would be really helpful to give BKs a lot more different options.
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