AoE Rebuke seems problematic due to mag heal mobs. And even assuming ploder could be reasonably spending time in combat spamming mag dmg on boss, surely this can't possibly compare to HB. Or maybe aoe instakill but i can't picture many spawns even in abyss (not that I'm too familiar with every map of every run, far from it, and yes there are randoms) in which aoe rebuke would have more than a few targets, well I'm no pro but I can only think of a handful period, 5ish maybe
edit: I do see the benefit for AoE instakill, surely would be useful in both hells and abyss, the only problem is the mag damage, then again maybe I'm overestimating that as well...it just seems like most AoE insta have an option for no constant damage for use of instakilling multiple mobs at once, to use CoD vs. FoD as an example, CoD can be safely used to instakill multiple death targets without healing anything or producing kb, whereas AoE FoD is mainly used for the dmg spam, the +1 DC helps for sure but PM DC on CoD isn't exactly poor in the first place
Just trying to clarify, I don't mean to shoot the idea down Deso, it is both cool and unique, it just seems difficult to use as carrot for neutral ploder due to losing HB at marginal gain, maybe something like boosting rebuke DC would be more desirable and less problematic? Well I would support that, maybe just as evil and good aligned XR gets +DC, neutral could get +DC to rebuke and something else? I still think neutral needs more carrot other than some possible already-extant loots, but this could be a good start toward laying a foundation for neutral ploder, could be improved in future updates with maybe a unique insta spell for neutral ploders, or some other kind of new spell, or improving some existing spells if cleric's good-evil axis is neutral?
Or, what about in addition to boosting rebuke DC, also improve Abj spells? To attempt to carve a niche for an effective neutral ploder that is more effective with Abj and Ench, in exchange for losing HB and option for pal saves?
also rebuke can't be empowered, true, but it doesn't need to be, empower barely adds any damage at all, it can still be extended for another slot, 8s and 9s are still cleric most needed slots even after geat nerf, meaning most cleric has lots of 8s and 9s, meaning situations where rebuke spam is needed, cleric can stil have 2 full spell level for flex
rebuke being level 8 I think is intended as a balancer for several reasons, so that it competes directly with other 8s (and 9s extended), not sure if there is more reasoning too?
and regardless of rebuke use, neutral cleric would preclude use of HB, for abyss I can't see dropping HB for rebuke, that sounds painful when evil can use both if builder so desires, maybe some more overall changes could be implemented to create an impressive neutral ploder option
Anyway I like the idea of improving neutral cleric as atm there is no real point to doing so but I think the answer lies in new spells, editing spells, new gear, editing gear, not an XR sub special
This just seems too ambitious a task to tackle with XR sub, rather than other future updates which could better serve to explore this option
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Anyway for cleric, why does it only get one SF feat + the ESF Heal? I won't bother asking or arguing with the specialized alignment thingies (edit ok well I end up doing so anyway
) but would not 2 ranks of SF be appropriate? Why would that be too imbalanced? ESF Heal is nice but it's hardly comparable to a "necessity" feat like BUR version gets.
I am basically seeing +2 Wis and worse feats than HC. Added special is cool but ... ? Why is this overall so weak? What is the fear here? Again look at Druid XR, this is superior just due to 2 ranks foci bonus
Or am I missing something? What is the rationale to ploder XR getting -1 "necessary" feat vs. HC and keeping the ESF Heal? I would assume the +2 DC stat is a given for higher-tier rarity, the plode/HB DC is nice but does ploder really need more DC anyway? Wouldn't easing build difficulty help more with freeing up extra feat slot?
Also Enervate is not evil only, i loved using it on pal splash build. it should be fixed that Evil domain can be taken with good aligned toon (yes this belongs in another thread and forum but I would rarely think of it offhand, just posting here as a placeholder I guess)
adding DC for both enervate and HB seems a bit stronger than opposing good version getting plode DC, DC helps HB/enerv more than plode, evil cleric accessing plode+HB already is such strong offensive tool that evil ploder is very strong anyway, to me it looks like as of now evil XR ploder gets more than good due to +1 DC on the 2 "trademark" evil cleric spells which are either low DC or dual save and thus more problematic to land than plode
edited also some other parts of the post, deleted some things, added some words, tried to make it less of an attack on deso and more of supporting his objective for neutral ploder