Feedback in advance for the 1.3 Lich Overhaul

[Heavy]

Hello all,
my name is Heavy and I am a Harvest addict.

As a avid Lich Enjoyer, it was literally the reason why I bought LE in the first place, when I saw Reaper Form and Harvest being available skills.

In preperation of the planned Lich update in 1.3 I wanted to resurface some of my older posts that are still very much valid on top of making a few suggestions for Passives and Threshold Passives for an udpated Passive Tree.

Here are two of my older posts regarding Lich in general and more specifically Reaper Form and some Harvest Feedback:

Ideas and Suggestions for Harvest, Reaper Form and Lich Overhaul (Melee Archetype)

Preface I have been playing warlock a lot since 1.0, simply because its shiny and new. But that doesn’t change the fact, that Lich thematically is still my favorit mastery. Being Death incarnate is the coolest thing ever in a video game for me. Togehter with Harvest, my single most favorit skill in the game it makes the perfect combination. I didn’t create a Supporter Unique for that playstyle for nothing. With 1.0 out and upcoming patches more frequently on the horizon I think we will see a lo…

Harvest, my favorite skill in the entire game and yet so boring!

So some people probably know me, some probably don’t. Some know it some don’t, but Harvest is my favorite skill in the entire game. https://imgur.com/3KvOrFK My strongest character utilizes it and it’s capable of doing really cool and diverse stuff. I am doing 400-500 corruption Monolith with ease and I am without any trying hard, under the top 10 Acolyte for SC Arena(Place 6 at the time of this Post to be exact). If i would not despise Arena that much, I guess I could make it under the top …

A TLDR for these would be:
Reaper Form is very cool and thematic, but feels way mroe mandatory then any other mastery skill. It either needs massive rrework or something that would rival it and be naturally incompatible with it, so you have to choose betwen Reaper Form or something else.

And Harvest has too few interesting nodes to really scale its damage. It basically only survives somewhat because of the 1 Int = 1 Flat Melee damage and Lich having 4 digit % damage increase with Death Seal.

Now to some new suggestions.
I will simply list a couple of concrete ideas that hopefully spark inspiration for EHG.
Some of them I will explain a bit more why others I will simply give the suggested stats:

• A lot more very powerful Health Regen Nodes. These would be inherently incompatible with Reaper Form and thus cause a tension between choosing Reaper Form or not. But they could be made very powerful.
• Flat and % Health Regen

A few ideas for thresold passives scattered across the Passive Tree:

• Flat Regen based on Vitality
• Increased Health Regen while leeching
• % of maximum health regen/sec

Lich always had the theme of a lot of power per node, but having some sort of downside. A node that gives a huge benefit for Crit Chance/Crit Multiplier a the cost of -5% Maximum Critical Strike Avoidance (you can’t get 100%) and taking X% increased bonus damage from crits (this should be additive with reduced bonus damage from crit
Similar to the new Void Knight Node Abyssal Fluctuations X% of incoming Physical, Void and Poison Damage is converted to Necrotic / Y% less necrotic damage taken

Maybe a new idea for a tech in a passive tree: two very strong thematic nodes that are mutually exclusive.

1. When you hit a Full Health Rare/Boss enemy you gain X% more damage for Y seconds
2. X% Melee Kill Threshold (more than the 10% that is currently in the passive tree so its a bit “special” compared to other classes that can get Kill Threshold, since its very thematic for Lich. Maybe Something like 14-18%

A Passive similar to Runemasters Inscribed Instruments Nodes. There is also a Node similar to this in Erasing Strike and Profane Veil:
Based on the Weapon Type you are using you get different bonuses.

1. Axe: %inc. area for skills
2. Wand + Off-Hand Catalyst: Poison + Necrotic Penetration
3. Wand + Shield: Ward Retention
4. Spear: Poison Penetration

With the removal of Endurance Threshold on most gear pieces it is incredibly hard to get 33% of your health as Endurance Threshold, especially once you start scaling health into the thousands. This was a very statisfying breakpoint to reach in conjunction with Deat Seal’s “Deadlock” Node (the one setting your health to 33% Health).
Lich definitely needs Endurance Threshold Support in the passive tree. Maybe even something like the Body Implicit: %maximum life added as Endurance Threshold.

And as the final suggestion a probably very controverse idea, that possibly needs some rebalancing of existing items.

• A big 1/1 Theme-defining passive node which would shape possible future Weapon Designs:
  Allows you to wield a 2-H Axe in One Hand together with a Off-Hand Catalyst. (All Scythes are “axes”). Converts half of all added Melee damage to Necrotic Spell Damage.

Alright that it from me for now. What do you think?
Do you have any ideas or wishes for the upcoming Lich update?

PS: Never forget: Everything comes with a price - even death.

[GoldenExperience]

Most importantly though I think Lich needs an alternative for Death seal or some kind of rework around it. The ability is on the same level as Volatile Reversal for Sentinel (if not worse) and too much of the class’s power is locked around the skill being active.

@Heavy

With the removal of Endurance Threshold on most gear pieces it is incredibly hard to get 33% of your health as Endurance Threshold, especially once you start scaling health into the thousands. This was a very statisfying breakpoint to reach in conjunction with Deat Seal’s “Deadlock” Node (the one setting your health to 33% Health).
Lich definitely needs Endurance Threshold Support in the passive tree. Maybe even something like the Body Implicit: %maximum life added as Endurance Threshold.

Flat Endurance threshold was a scam anyway as you would do better with some form of health affix in its place anyways.
The body armor implicit I’ve always seen as a bit problematic since body armor slot competes with many strong DR options like Titan heart and Null portent (now even Pale Ox) that always beat it.
However, now we have Brewmaster’s Buckle a pretty much must have for any Lich(IMO) and synergizes well with the potion stuff in Lich although it would be good to have other non potion spamming options.

@Heavy

Similar to the new Void Knight Node Abyssal Fluctuations X% of incoming Physical, Void and Poison Damage is converted to Necrotic / Y% less necrotic damage taken

This is good but make it Elemental and void not Phys and poison. Lich already has Aura of Decay reducing Poison damage and Armor during Deathseal as well as the potion node to protect from Phys.

Other things Lich needs IMO:

1. General more resistances/health/defenses in its tree, it is wayyy weaker than both Warlock and Necro in this regard as both of those have solid resistance and %increased health nodes in their trees.
2. More oneshot protection, stuff like the hit damage is taken as damage over time on new gloves I feel like that should be baseline for Deathseal lich else it is just too much more prone to oneshots.
3. A node to flip the mastery bonus from missing health to current health at the end of the mastery.
4. The ward retention from Intelligence is typically wasted on Deathseal Lich, give some way to convert the retention into a useful affix (Maybe endurance threshold or flat health or increased damage).

Also for Harvest, I think being the only melee skill in a spell focused class, it should get some major boosts in damage and additional synergies. Give it a node like Flame reave where it gets flat damage based on your flat spell damage(this will also give it a double dip synergy with Mourningfrost. Also give it a node Witchblade where any modifiers such as % increased spell damage and % more spell damage apply to Harvest as well. Its tree needs to be tightened up(less points, more benefits) as it is a major pointsink to get good nodes. Also the Spirit shards node looks thematic with the 13 but is awful in actual practice so that should be reworked as well (Maybe make it 6 as 666 is also sinister, syncs with Death’s embrace and keep the buffs at 13%).

[user38]

Sorry, a bit unrelated but when I saw the post title, all I could think of is Marrow Shards rework/improvement.

Hopefully it finally get its deserved improvement in which they totally missed back in 1.0 together with the introduction of Warlock and Falconer class. Hopefully in 1.3.

Although they also missed buffing/improving Abyssal Echo’s Potent Corruption node this patch where Sentinel is the main highlight. Too bad it’s one of the build/idea of this skill I really want to make it work in higher corruption and endgame content. (though I’m totally happy with VK’s overall improvement):

And feels like they’ve also missed buffing this part of the skill tree too. I don’t think it’s even “multiplicative” when most of the node that enhances a subskill’s damage are multiplicative on other skills (I tried focusing on this node and the damage was quite bad)…

Anyways, I’d really love Lich rework too as it’s one of my most-played classes 2nd to Sentinel.

[Llama8]

@Heavy

my name is Heavy and I am a Harvest addict.

Yes & we feel sad for you. We are always here to listen.

@Heavy

Reaper Form is very cool and thematic, but feels way mroe mandatory then any other mastery skill.

Apart from Holy Aura & Falcon.

@Heavy

And Harvest has too few interesting nodes to really scale its damage. It basically only survives somewhat because of the 1 Int = 1 Flat Melee damage and Lich having 4 digit % damage increase with Death Seal.

Yeah, I’d argue that Death Seal is a bit too mandatory as well.

@user38

Although they also missed buffing/improving Abyssal Echo’s Potent Corruption node this patch where Sentinel is the main highlight. Too bad it’s one of the build/idea of this skill I really want to make it work in higher corruption and endgame content. (though I’m totally happy with VK’s overall improvement):

And feels like they’ve also missed buffing this part of the skill tree too. I don’t think it’s even “multiplicative” when most of the node that enhances a subskill’s damage are multiplicative on other skills (I tried focusing on this node and the damage was quite bad)…

That node adds flat damage to the initial hit to make up for the lack of DoT, all the other nodes should affect it unless they specify that they affect the DoT.

[Maysterrac]

Hello everyone,
Started my first Harvest character yesterday, currently 55 and while planning its build i was shocked how difficult it was going to be to both get my resistances up AND get endurance threshhold AND get my HP up, as the passive tree only helps with armour and HP, whereas my mages and sentinels only ever had to care about non elemental resistances as their passives provide them everything else.

It’s also frustrating how death seal has ways to make use of ward gained outside of death seal but all those ward generation sources become useless during the seal. I wish the nodes converted the ward gen to something on top of the ward deletion on using the skill.

Side question since i’m very confused about it, the def shred node on bone curse : at 5/5 on the node, it gives “100% armour shred chance”, does it mean just one stack of that debuff uppon applying the curse?
or 20% chance to apply the debuff every time the cursed enemy is attacked, proccing the dmg, since it’s a 20% effectiveness skill?

[Heavy]

@Maysterrac

Side question since i’m very confused about it, the def shred node on bone curse : at 5/5 on the node, it gives “100% armour shred chance”, does it mean just one stack of that debuff uppon applying the curse?
or 20% chance to apply the debuff every time the cursed enemy is attacked, proccing the dmg, since it’s a 20% effectiveness skill?

Bone Curse is a little bit of a weird one here. All Ailments in the skill spec tree work when Bone Curse is dealing damage, so everytime the cursed target is hit.

But other ailment chances outside of the skill tree will not work, because this would make Bone Curse ridiculously strong since you need to hit soemthing anyway and it would double all your ailment applications.

The damage effectiveness has nothing to do with ailment application.

[Maysterrac]

Gosh so that node seem to be super powerful then, many thanks Heavy !

[Llama8]

It’s one stack per hit, that’s not much.

[sicklebill]

Almost a year ago, I’m not sure which season it was, it was when Merchant’s Guild and Circle Of Fortune just arrived.
At that time, I published a post about the flaws of harvesting LICH. The growth curve was too painful and it was difficult to obtain core equipment.
The machine is far worse than the Paladin in terms of damage and survivability, and its melee combat feel is also far inferior to that of the Paladin, not to mention that it is of no help to the team when teamed up with others. It is a machine that really needs to be reworked.
But the response was very bad, and people even questioned what the connection between LICH and melee was.
I was a customer who provided feedback, but other customers questioned me and thought there was something wrong with me. I felt discouraged and deleted the game.
LICH’s “reaper form” and “death seal” combined with “harvest” are very promising and unique gameplay, but unfortunately they are not taken seriously. It is obvious that the development team prefers sentinel and rogue.
This is also the reason why I still don’t want to spend money to buy the sponsor gift packs this season even though the appearance is very beautiful, because as a LICH player, I feel that my favorite profession is not valued.

I came back to play this season and even found that the damage of “Harvest” is not as good as Stygian Beam with Wandering Spirits, and the control feel is also inferior

[Heavy]

As somebody who started playing LE because of Reaper Form and Harvest I can assure you that the devs don’t prefer Sentinel and Rouge.

Every class and every mastery will get its time to shine, but with the scope of these touch-ups and reworks EHG can’t do multiple in one patch, because they also want to deliver other content as well.

There are even mroe other classes who havn’t received any updates in qutie a while.

[sicklebill]

The development team doesn’t like sentinels and rogues?
But it allows Paladin to stand and take the damage from the boss, and at the same time output far more devastating damage than LICH, allowing the Eagle Tamer’s Ballista or Explosive Trap to send the enemy home to sleep before they can even use their skills.
Then, in order to restrain the explosive damage mentioned above, they will create a shield when the boss’s health drops to a certain percentage, which makes the BD, whose damage is not enough, even worse.
From the beginning of Season 0, it was clear that the developers loved SENTINEL.
The development team can tell from the ladder and skill usage data which skills and professions need to be strengthened, but they are unwilling to even slightly adjust the values. As long as the damage multiplier of “Harvest” to cursed enemies is increased, or LICH’s “Aura” no longer has a negative effect on itself, these do not require major overhauls, but can greatly improve the entire game experience, but they are unwilling to do so.
Not to mention that LICH is a special caster, but there is no Passives to convert HP into MANA.
I hope I didn’t offend you, I just wanted to say that your argument is hard to convince me.

[Heavy]

Sorry but this is completly going beyond the topic of this thread.

All I am going to say are two things:

@sicklebill

The development team doesn’t like sentinels and rogues?

I didn’t say that, stop thinking in black and white. Just because something got attention doesn’t mean they hate everything else.

@sicklebill

From the beginning of Season 0, it was clear that the developers loved SENTINEL.
The development team can tell from the ladder and skill usage data which skills and professions need to be strengthened

But that is exactly what I said… they will eventually get to each class and mastery.

Also developers don’t purposefully change a class or mastery so its completely domiantes all leaderboards. That is a side-effect of giving it new more modern and interesteing stuff.

Just be happy that Lich finally gets some attention in 1.3

[Makszi]

It really bothers me that Acolyte is the only class in the game that cannot dual wield. It is especially bothersome that Lich, who in Reaper form WIELDS DUAL SCYTHES cannot freely dual-wield equipment, even though it is literally the only class in the game that by default dual wields (scythes in reaper form) without any passive point requirement. This is a grievous thematic error.

[Heavy]

I am actually confused by the whole dual wielding Scythes, because for me it doesn’t look cool and I always think a big 2H Scythe looks way more badass. Scythes are already (realistically speaking) very bad weapons and very unwieldy. Dual wielding them looks incredibly clunky.

I doubt they will change Reaper Form that much, but maybe we get MTX for it in the future.

I think my last suggestion in the OP (2H + Off-Hand Passive) would be something I want to see way more than actualy dual wielding

I also really like that there is no symmetry between classes/masteries, some can’t dual wield and the ones that can, can dual wield different weapon types.

[Makszi]

I agree, the dual scythes are a bit cheesy.

A 2H + Catalyst could be interesting.

[F0lk]

@Heavy

Reaper Form is very cool and thematic, but feels way mroe mandatory then any other mastery skill.

So it’s basically impossible to make a really good low life Lich build?

It’s the first time I’m trying to actually theorycraft around Harvest, only ever played Lich once, using a stygian laser guide, a long while ago. So now everything was going fine until I unlocked Reaper Form and remembered this skill puts you back at high health when it ends. Feels kinda clunky with the whole health>ward setup I was thinking of using.

So I thought maybe I would try not using Reaper and add some other curse or something instead. If it’s really that mandatory maybe I’ll have to figure something entirely different, especially because, for some reason, I was thinking of a high dodge build as defensive layer.

Uhhh, hope they cook something good for the new Lich skill and rework as a whole.
Love the archetype, but feels really lackluster.

[Heavy]

@F0lk

So it’s basically impossible to make a really good low life Lich build?

No, I made plenty of Liches without Reaper Form, but you are objectively losign so much power (more compared to many other masteries) when not taking it. It is just generically too much power for any type of build, both defensively and offensively.

Also you specified Low Health, which doesn’t matter if you do Reaper Form or not, with Death Seal you can force yourself lowlife on a decent uptime (up to 8 seconds with 5 seconds cooldown) so ~ 2/3 uptime.

Usually you remain in Reaper Form for the entirety of a whole echo and then once you finished the echo you let it run out and when you enter a new echo you can activate it again.

@F0lk

If it’s really that mandatory maybe I’ll have to figure something entirely different, especially because, for some reason, I was thinking of a high dodge build as defensive layer.

“Mandatory” is always a bit subjective and I say that as someone who likes deliberatly not playing the most powerful thing.

But dodge is a really bad defense for Acolyte/Lich, because you can’t scale it that well. Esepcialyl as a Lich you can have massives amount of Flat Armor, though Passives, Items and Death Seal.

@F0lk

Uhhh, hope they cook something good for the new Lich skill and rework as a whole.
Love the archetype, but feels really lackluster.

Yes that is my hope. I would call it lackluster, its just boring and one-dimensional.
I hoep we get more width and variety.

[F0lk]

@Heavy

But dodge is a really bad defense for Acolyte/Lich, because you can’t scale it that well. Esepcialyl as a Lich you can have massives amount of Flat Armor, though Passives, Items and Death Seal.

Yeah, that’s what I figured. The only other Lich I played was totally focused on that, huge armor and health pool. But thematically, I always thought Lichs are natually very nimble and dodgy, lurking in the shadows and stuff, so I wanted to try that.

[Macknum]

To me personal the lich form and lich beeing centered arround this is the best thing about lich. It don’t comes with the terrible downsides of the druid where you can’t use the skills like you want to or when you want to and it makes the toon better no way how you built it.

The most annoing thing for me personaly is death seal. It gives me 0 joy or fun and annoys me. Aura of Decay is kind of a joke either give us some rightous fire kind of playstyle and no turn on/off piece of crap that kills you sooner or later if you don’t look at it 24/7. AoD could use the pala treatment and be more passive while giving a dmg aura/buffs.

Outside of this I hope for a new lich skill that is either finaly a good spell for the class or even better a fun melee skill because there are far to little int melee skills in the whole class.

Outside of this nothing about the class is something to write home about or to complain about. It’s bland, boring, uninspired and has no real good synergies. To me it feels like a bit all over the place without a real idendity.

For my personal taste:

• get rid of Death Seal or rework it for easier and more fun useage.
• get rid of Drain Life and change it with Harvest
• after the change buff Harvest because it feels like you snatched it from the 80s. Yeah front cone attacks can be fun but Harvest is the most generic “Get random number increases so the skill works at least.” skill ingame.
• Remove reap from Reaper Form and make it a skill so Liches have some kind of mobility while doing dmg. Something like Shift that is able to procc other skills as well.
• Make AoD less punishing to use. There is an audience for those kind of skills out there and if you make terrible to use it’s a swing and a miss.

I like the Lich class on paper and the leech or low life playstyle coming with it but somehow even if it checks so many boxes it’s one of the classes I play least because it’s simply not fun to play.

[wast3d]

playing a lich in the current patch, i think the core theme and mechanics are still really good and i hope it doesn’t get changes that take away from it. having death seal and reaper both as skills every lich speccs is not a big deal for me personally. i hope some skills like aura of decay and marrow shards get a rework.

what lich defenitely is missing is some quality of life:

• reaper form’s cooldown is way too long, i often lose reaper form and and a huge chunk of my defensive scaling because of backtracking in tombs and cemeteries. maybe reduce the curve of reaper form’s life drain and / or life drain effects on the passive tree

• merge skill nodes that every lich takes anyway into the base skill functionality (for example death seals deadlock) and replace them with something that caters to build variability or more QoL