Hello.
I played the Acolyte and his subclasses a lot.
I thought a lot about his skills.
I wrote this big topic hoping to help Devs and I hope they will read it
And you fellow player, what is your opinion?
Rip Blood
Excellent skill. All branches of the skill have their uses.
Most often this skill is taken for the search for life, mana and ward, automatically launched Transplant.
The Rip Blood + Transplant combination is so effective and provides so much defensive efficiency, that most builds include it. I perceive this great efficiency (compared to others as negative for the diversity of builds âŚ
Two little useful nodes:
Rip Blood costs little mana. Regeneration included. Unless you have -100 in mana because of a Chain Sacrifice + Blood Wraith, this node is very rarely taken.
I havenât found any use for this node yet. The minions orient themselves well, and it would be harmful to constantly see them change targets.
Summon Skeletons
I find this skill almost perfect. All branches are useful and used in different builds (pure summoner, priest etc.)
I give a critical opinion on three things:
Dread Phalanx so far seemed useless to me (except to reduce hardware slowdowns).
We certainly get + 80% multiplicative damage (so a real + 80%), but we have half the skeletons. So half the HP. Fewer targets to distract the enemy.
In addition, if we use skeleton archers, the chances of Freeze, Chill or Ignite are halved (since we have half the skeletons).
The advantage is that if you have 11 Skeletons, the total number of Dread Phalanx Skeletons will be 6 and not 5 (because the whole thing is rounded up).
I like the spirit of this node.
But the reality is that people take Empty the Graves instead (which invokes 1 then 2 additional skeletons).
For two skill points invested, they have 3 skeletons invoked at 100% probability, immediately available.
Whereas Immortal, for three points, gives a 30% probability that a single skeleton will be summoned after three seconds.
In my opinion 10% is too little. It would take 15% for this skill to be interesting. With 3 points invested, that will make a 45% probability of a resurrection.
That said, I am disturbed by the existence of builds around the Chain Sacrifice.
Today Sacrifice is a skill that exclusively used to sacrifice skeletons to the chain. Players summon skeletons and then sacrifice them, endlessly, as quickly as possible.
Suddenly, making Immortal stronger would make this Sacrifice build (which I find poor, and far from the spirit of Sacrifice in my opinion) more powerful than it already is.
Anyway, this node is in the current state, not useful for 90% of cases.
Rogue skeletons are currently of little use. Armor shreding has almost no effect on endgame.
Mark for Death
This skill is very effective. Being able to increase the damage taken by enemies from +30% to +55% is universally useful.
However, as many players have said, this skill is a no brainer, rather boring to use.
You must curse each group of enemies, then use another source of damage.
The Chill effect is useful. Terror is less so.
Bone Prison has great potential, but as it stands this node is not interesting. Nobody uses it seriously. The 20 second cooldown time is huge.
I donât know what to do to revalue this node.
There is also the problem of lower protection, which becomes almost useless at the Endgame. Half of the nodes decrease protection from enemies. But itâs an other problem.
In the end Mark of Death should be reworked I think, to offer a real tactical diversity.
Marrow Shards
Marrow Shard does not interest players because:
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It consumes a lot of health, which makes it almost essential to be a Low Health build (and therefore a Lich).
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It does damage online, like the Desintegrate spell. It is not wide area damage.
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The tree on the right dedicated to the Bone Splinter, seems completely useless. Damage too low, impact zone difficult to control? Synergy with other skills non-existent?
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Some skills are useful but bring too hard a disadvantage. Iâm thinking of Bone of the Follower, which destroys a Minion with each cast. And Bone Knives, which doubles the damage, but removes any area effect.
So there would be a lot of changes to make your skill attractive compared to others.
Harvest
Very little skill used by players.
The two main problems are 1) the Acolyte is a fragile class in close combat and 2) this skill is well thought out but requires too many points invested in the nodes to be effective.
I believe that some nodes should have less points to invest, and be more efficient.
Wandering Spirits
Almost all the nodes of this skill are useful. It is widely used.
The tree of nodes on the left dedicated to the Fear effect, is never used, because Fear is useless (except on Transplant), see harmful if one seeks to kill the enemies quickly.
Most of the time players seek to do poison damage.
Some players use it to generate some mana and ward.
Personally I do not like the skills which are effective if we use them in automatic recast (numlock).
I do it myself, but I find it a shame that an active skill ultimately becomes a pure passive skill.
Transplant
The skill every Acolyte uses in any build.
Extremely more effective if combined with Rop Blood.
Few weak nodes:
Purgatory and Ivory (The Bone Minion are permanants) are in my opinion useless, as the Acolyte constantly Transplant, he does not need more life spawn for its minions.
Anemia (-2% health cost per point) has a very very weak effect.
Hungering Souls
A very thematic skill but very little used because underpowered.
Many players criticize the âIsolationâ node, which reduces the number of souls to 1. A loss of Area of Effect which is not compensated by powerful effects.
The nodes give rather weak bonuses. For example :
https://imgur.com/F7MThAG
Players have suggested that Wandering Soul should be able to briefly own the targets. Maybe during a critical hit, or when it kills a target?
I find the idea very good and thematic.
Summon Bone Golem
Much more interesting skill since the Threat was debugged.
The golem brought to level 4 of Threat, is an enemy magnet. The Golem perfectly fulfills its role as a tanker now.
All Bone Nova nodes are effective if coupled with a spell that hits your golem very frequently (who talked about Marrow Shards?).
The nodes that increase the resistance of the golem seem powerful (but I havenât tested them yet).
Critics:
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I donât see the use of Twin Golem. It decreases by 50% (multiplicative) all damage of the golem. It also decreases Threat by 50% (since, I believe, the size is totally linked to Threat, but maybe I was wrong?).
If you want to do damage (physical or magic) with your golem, this node is negative. And itâs the same if you want to tank. -
The Blood Golem is pointless. The Blood Orbs he leech are far too weak. He would have to use the playerâs Blood Orb (but this spell is already very useful and used in almost all builds).
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The Fire Golem is disappointing. Even with equipment that increases the fire damage inflicted by Minions. And in addition I find that it consumes too many skill points to be fully mounted (17 skill points if you want to max it out completely!).
I do not know what to do, but I fear that no one will take the Fire Golem as it is. -
The Spectral Golem is very interesting. It seems a bit devoid of specialization nodes, but it is self-sufficient.
Spirit Blagues & Soulfeast (No Feedback)
No feedback because not enough tested.
I let connoisseurs speak on the subject.
Summon Skeletons Mages
Excellent skill. All nodes are useful.
All of them? No ! Only one leaves to be desired: Archmage.
Who will sacrifice a slot just to get a Minion Casteur?
Who will have more damage but not more HP.
I suggest that the Archmage has an additional talent, that of using the playerâs skills.
Thus, an archmage using Sacrifice will do much more damage.
Likewise with a Death Knight archmage who will use Hungering Souls.
It seems to me an elegant and natural idea to make the Archmage really attractive in certain builds.
Sacrifice
A thematic and interesting skill. Unfortunately, this spell is only used competitively in one way. 3/4 of the skill branches are ignored.
This competitive way is to constantly spam Skeletons + Chain Sacrifice with the maximum aera of damage, and damages increased.
The Bone Nova branch is ignored. I do not know exactly why. Players do more damage with normal damage, combined with Chain sacrifice.
The Blood Wraith branch is very rarely used. Crimson Horror (improves a lot the power of the Blood Wraith) is nevertheless a fascinating node. I think here is why:
I tried to summon lots of Blood Wraith with Sacrifice. Itâs working but itâs complicated to use, and no so efficient.
You need to constantly manualy resummon them from your skeletons. You need one skeleton slot locked for your blood wraith. You need to not create chain sacrifice with all your minions. Which can happens, as your Blood Wraith can connect with your new created Skeleton pack. You should go Bleed, as Blood Wraith are great to inflict Bleeding (and Leeching).
Finally, itâs much more simple to simply use Summon Wraith. Auto cast spell. They are much more on the battles (usefull for some reasons). And they do not lock one slot for skeletons.
Last Sacrifice is useless.
In the end, I would say that it is especially not normal that Chain Sacrifice is essential in any Sacrifice build. We should be able to sacrifice a minion one by one, effectively.
And personally I donât really like the idea of the build which continuously switches Summon Skeleton / Sacrifice, to ultimately make a simple zone spell. I find it a bit poor.
Summon Wraith
really like this skill. It is very varied. We can make Wraith of all kinds: necrotic damage, leechers, fire, poison.
Most nodes have their uses.
The nodes linked to the Corpses, which start with Haunting (bottom right) are enigmatic and in the state of little use. But Iâm sure it will be clearer when the skills related to the Corps are available.
Locus of Death seemed unusable for the moment. Even in Arena, it seems to me much more useful to have Wraith capable of moving.
But I like the originality of the node.
Drain Life
I really like this skill. Original, interesting.
Pustulent End (Necrotic explosion on mob killed) and its nodes seemed to me underpowered, but I havenât tested it enough. It must be said that there are so many interesting nodes, and too few skill points available.
Grim Harvest (Leech 10 mana on each minion hit by the spell) is essential as soon as you use Dark Shackles, which pumps an astronomical amount of mana.
I also really like Dark Shacles and Grasp of the Damned. They transform comes out into something else entirely. A very good combo if you use a lot of Minions.
Note apart: I find that the visual and sound effect of Drain Life is poor. Not very impressive.
The Condemnation node, which gives the Damned element, seemed very weak to me.
Aura of Decay
A very interesting skill, with multiple uses. You can heal your minions, and boost their poison damage. We can decrease the power of enemies.
Apart from the Armor Shrering problem, underpowered in endgame, I have no complaints about the nodes of this skill.