[Suggestions & Ideas] Acolyte/Warlock: Bringer of Pain & Despair

Preface [READ ME] :pleading_face:

Many of these ideas have been compiled from others and have been expanded on. These are suggestions, ideas and speculation. Feel free to critique but keep in mind anything here is just to put forth concepts and ideas that might be tested. I do hope some actually get used.

Passives

  • All DoT ticks from any source can crit and will apply on-hit effects.

Skills

Parent skill nodes will be shown as bold:

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Child nodes will be bulleted and italic:

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Skill descriptions will be under a triple header.

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Accursed Bone :xray:

Cooldown: 0

Summons bone spikes up from the ground that inflict the stacking Rigor Mortis curse and bleed.

Essentially Diablo 3 Bone Spikes.

Rigor Mortis > Curse

Slows enemies, lowers damage dealt and shreds damage resistances.

Enfeeble

Rigor Mortis now slows attack and cast speed.

Ash Bones

Accursed Bones applies the Ash Bones ailment which stacks and deals increased necrotic damage the lower the enemy’s health is.

  • All-Killing

The Ash Bone ailment instantly kills an enemy below a certain health percentage.

Yes, this is a reference to All-Killing Ash Bones from Naruto.

Bone Cage

Accursed Bone has a chance to stun and immobilize an opponent for X seconds.

Inspired by Diablo 3 Bone Prison Necromancer passive. Would love if a similar animation for this was made.

  • Jailbreak

When Bone Cage ends Accursed Bone is cast from the spot.

Bone Spear

Percentage chance on-hit to launch a Bone Spear at enemies you damage with Accursed Bones.

Bone Spear is a fast moving long range projectile that pierces all enemies and applies all effects of Accursed Bones.

  • Jawbone of an Ass

Each enemy hit by Bone Spear fires Marrow Shards in an AoE circle and will consume the cost of Marrow Shards.

Bone Spirit

Every time an enemy is hit with Accursed Bones you gain a charge of Bone Spirit. On three charges you launch a homing single target Bone Spirit projectile at the nearest enemy.

Bone Spirit deals 300% damage to cursed enemies and procs curse effects by 300%.

  • Rapid Animation

Each instance of damage caused by Marrow Shards gives a charge of Bone Spirit.

  • Frugal Soul

Bone Spirit now only requires two charges but its damage and effect is reduced by 20%.

Calcification

Accursed Bone deals more damage and applies more stacks of the Rigor Mortis curse and bleed at the cost of health.

  • Arthritis

Accursed Bone has significantly increased critical chance and damage at the cost of both percentage current health and mana.

Osseous Renewal

Damaging enemies with Accursed Bone provides the stacking Osseous Renewal buff up to a cap.

Osseous Renewal increases mana recovery by both flat and percentage.

  • Mending Marrow

Osseous Renewal now also increases health recovery by both flat and percentage.

Bone Storm

Accursed Bone is no longer a spell but an aura that deals constant damage.

  • Sanguine Tempest

Accursed Bone now drains health instead of mana and applies bleed more rapidly.

Path of Bones

Accursed Bones causes an immediate secondary eruption of bones to burst from the center in a larger area.

Increasing the area of Accursed Bones also increases the area of Path of Bones by an even larger amount.

Essentially the Path of Bones rune of D3 Bone Spike plus D3 Bone Nova.

  • Macabre Cascade

Path Bones of causes two more eruptions of bones in two outer rings.

  • Ivory Forest

Accursed Bones has a chance to proc Path of Bones on each enemy hit centered on that enemy.

Items:

Dance of the Seedling > Relic

Causing damage with Accursed Bones’ skill node Path of Bones gains a chance to proc another Path of Bones.

Clematis Vine Flower > Weapon

Accursed Bone’s chance to proc Bone Spear is increased to 100%.

Knucklebone Necklace > Necklace

Marrow Shards have a chance to cast Accursed Bone when hitting an enemy. Accursed Bone cost is used if cast this way.

Accursed Bones have a chance of casting Marrow Shards when hitting an enemy. Marrow Shards cost is used if cast this way.

Renyrb’s Destination > Feet

Inflicting Rigor Mortis grants you extra movespeed.

Using Harvest also casts Accursed Bone for each enemy hit.

(Optional: Using Accursed Bone also casts Accursed Bone for each enemy hit.)

Yes, it’s meant to allude to Bryner’s Journey from D3.

I’m sure if you payed attention that I took a lot of inspiration from Kimimaro from Naruto so no need to point that out.

Grave Shadow :ghost:

Cooldown: 0

Fires your shadow in a cone in front of you that damages and inflicts the Shadow Curse ailment which stacks.

Shadow Curse > Curse

DoT, curses and ailments, except Shadow Curse, have their duration increased and deal damage faster by 10% per stack of Shadow Curse. Non-damaging effects have their effects increased by 10% per stack of Shadow Curse.

Doom

Shadow Curse has an infinite duration but you can only apply 1 stack of Shadow Curse directly. It increases stacks on its own which stack faster over time.

  • It Tolls For Thee

The effects of Doom stacks Shadow Curse faster.

Shadow Plague

Grave shadow becomes a homing projectile and spreads to nearby enemies rapidly. All projectiles can hit a single target. Each projectile can only spread a single instance of Shadow Curse.

  • Darkness Descends

Each Shadow Plague projectile can spread +1 on the same target.

  • In The Dark of the Night

Enemies that die with Shadow Curse have a chance to spawn a Shade minion. Their attacks apply Shadow Curse.

Rare monsters and bosses will periodically spawn a Shade.

Flavor text: Evil will find them.

  • Skittering Shadows

Instead of spawning a Shade a Shadow Spider will be spawned.

Shadow Spiders infect enemies with poison and Rigor Mortis in addition to Shadow Curse.

  • Ungoliant

When five Shadow Spiders have been summoned they will merge into one Giant Shadow Spider.

Giant Shadow Spider is bigger, has more health and damage resistance.

Has more damage. Gains attack speed. Gains a large AoE attack. Each attack inflicts +2 stacks of poison, Rigor Mortis, Shadow Curse and +1 random ailment other than poison and +1 random curse other than Rigor Mortis and Shadow Curse.

Can have up to X Giant Shadow Spiders.

(Optional: This could instead be the effect of an item dependent on testing of course or that an item would simply increase the amount of Giant Shadow Spiders you can have.)

Shadow Tendrils

Grave Shadow is instead cast in a large circle area, slows enemies and keeps applying stacks of Shadow Curse to enemies in the AoE.

Grave Shadow now has a cooldown.

  • Pit Trap

The initial casting of Shadow Tendrils is twice as large. It now drags and displaces enemies towards the center.

The lingering effect remains the same size.

Darkness Descends

Grave Shadow is now an Aura. It constantly drains health instead of mana.

Items:

Staff of the Eleventh Hour > Two-Handed Staff

+2 Levels in Shadow Curse.

+DoT %
+DoT on-hit

The Shadow Plague ailment applies a stacking movement speed and attack speed slow, attack damage reduction and resistance shred to enemies with each stack of Shadow Plague.

Shadow Plague now deals Necrotic damage which increases with each stack.

Flavor Text: "We have been delayed." *Cough, Cough*

Rasputin’s Phylactery

+2 Levels in Shadow Curse.

Grave Shadow’s In The Dark Of The Night skill node will instead summon Shadow Imps.

Shadow Spiders will also be Shadow Imps and have the same buffs.

Shadow Imps are ranged.

Giant Shadow Spiders will instead be a Gorlab which is a creature of shadow and flame.

The Gorlab attacks with melee and in addition to what the Giant Shadow Spider can do it inflicts +2 ignite ailment on attack it also periodically casts a fire version of Hungering Souls similar to the Soulfire unique item but also does the same thing as its melee attacks.

Balrog is copyrighted since and would probably be too much. Ungoliant is already skirting it. Yes, I also think current copyright law is stupid.

Corrupted Blood :drop_of_blood:

An obvious nod to the WoW blood plague.

Costs health.

Inflicts a DoT called Blood Plague that applies bleed and periodically spreads. If the subject dies with it they explode and further spread Blood Plague.

Corrosive Hemoglobin

Blood Plague now causes poison damage and shreds resistance.

Blood Boil

Blood Plague now causes fire damage.

Parasitic

Blood Plague damage heals you.

Blood Leech

If an enemy or minion, other than Blood Leech, dies with Blood Plague a Blood Leech is spawned.

Blood Leech applies Blood Plague on attack and explodes on death creating an AoE burst of damage that deals more the more stacks of Blood Plague the enemy has while spreading Blood Plague in the AoE.

Blood Leech is spawned with 1 permanent stack of Blood Plague which cannot be cleansed and cannot gain more.

Rare monsters or bosses periodically spawn a Blood Leech.

  • Symptomatic

Enemies and non-Blood Leech minions periodically spawn Blood Leeches.

This is dramatically increased for rare monsters and bosses.

  • Squick

The AoE explosion of Blood Leech is larger and the damage to enemies with Blood Plague is increased.


Item:

The Devouring Maw > Head

Corrupted Blood’s Blood Leech skill node now spawns twice as much and twice as fast.

Blood Leeches now have a chance to spawn a Blood Leech on death.


Corpse Lance

If an enemy or minion dies with Blood Plague they shoot a Corpse Lance to each nearby enemy which deals damage and applies Blood Plague and bleed.

Corpse Lance deals more damage for each instance of a curse, DoT or ailment on an enemy.

Rare monsters or bosses periodically spawn a Corpse Lance.

  • Scourge

Corpse Lance transfers each instance of curse, DoT and ailment the enemy or minion had to those it hits.

  • Already Dead

Enemies and minions with Blood Plague periodically fire Corpse Lances.

This is dramatically increased for rare monsters and bosses.

  • Brittle

Hitting enemies with Corpse Lance increases your critical chance and damage.

  • Corpse Blight

Hitting enemies with Corpse Lance increases your DoT damage.

Devour

Enemies and minions that die with Blood Plague are devoured and grant the Acolyte health and mana.

This effect will periodically proc on rare monsters and bosses.

  • Gluttony

Every time Devour Procs you gain a stack of Gluttony. Each stack of Gluttony increases max mana, max health, mana regen and health regen.

Each stack of Gluttony also reduces the time for periodic procs of Devour from rare monsters and bosses.

  • Feed Me Your Sins

For each instance of a curse, DoT and ailment on a Devoured minion or enemy enhance its effects.

  • Gormandize

For each instance of a curse, DoT and ailment on a Devoured minion or enemy you gain a stack of Gormandize.

Each stack of Gormandize increases your damage, movespeed, attack speed and cast speed.

  • Bottomless Pit

You gain stacks of Gluttony and Gormandize faster and you lose stacks slower.


Item:

Obrik’s Tome > Relic/Off-Hand

Gluttony and Gormandize can now stack infinitely.

Flavor Text: There's something about that Obrik fellow. He who wields the Sceptre of Stars.


Picky Eater

For every minion or enemy Devoured fire a Corpse Lance.


Item:

Second Helping > Relic/Idol
Looks like a bib.

Devour Procs twice. If Upon A White Horse occurs Devour procs a third time.


  • Upon A Pale Horse

Blood Plague instantly kills enemies, or your minions, below a certain threshold.

  • Pestilence

More instances of Blood Plague raises the threshold of Upon A Pale Horse up to a cap.

  • Ebola

Each instance of Shadow Curse raises the threshold of Upon a Pale Horse infinitely. This is added on top of Pestilence.

The curse and ailment enhancement of Shadow Curse applies as well at a reduced rate.

Meaning Shadow curse enhances the effect threshold of Upon a Pale Horse itself just like any other ailment or curse but at a reduced rate since otherwise it would be rediculous.

Patient Zero

You can no longer cast Blood Plague. Instead you have 1 permanent stack of Blood Plague and Blood Plague spreads from you periodically in a large area. This is increased to X stacks if you have the Epidemic skill node and the rate that it spreads is increased per stack.

You and your minions can now have 1 stack of Blood Plague.

Your minions also spread Blood Plague periodically and are spawned with X stacks of Blood Plague.

Blood Plague cannot be cleansed from you or your minions.

  • Epidemic

You and your minions, including your Blood Leeches, can now have up to X stacks of Blood Plague.

Each stack increases movespeed as well as increases the rate and area at which Blood Plague spreads from you or your minions.

  • Symbiotic

Blood Plague now instead heals you and your minions and increases damage resistance.

  • Crown of Blood

Blood plague spreads faster and farther.

  • Virulent

Blood Plague is now spreads significantly faster the closer you are to an enemy up to a point.

  • Blood Frenzy

If you or your minions are under the effect of Blood Plague you or your minions receive the Blood Frenzy buff.

Blood Frenzy increases move speed, attack speed, casting speed and gives cooldown reduction based on how many stacks you have.

Summon Mummy Lord :adhesive_bandage:

Casts Locust Swarm which damages and spreads to nearby enemies and infects them with Mummy Rot.

Mummy Rot stacks infinitely and is refreshed each time it is applied. Deals necrotic damage.

Enemies that die with Mummy Rot become a Mummy Minion.

Mummy Minions are melee and apply Mummy Rot on damage.

Mummy Lords and Mummy Minions have the Curse of the Mummy passive.

Curse of the Mummy

Any enemy that damages or otherwise targets the Mummy Lord or a Mummy Lord minion receives a permanent infinitely stacking curse called Curse of the Mummy.

Curse of the Mummy: For every stack of Curse of the Mummy on an enemy the Mummy Lord and Mummy Lord minions deal increased damage to that enemy.

Hegemon

Mummy Minions last longer and deal more damage.

Sandstorm

Mummy can cast an AoE sandstorm on enemies that causes blind and reduces damage dealt.

  • My Eyes

Blinded enemies take increased damage from DoT and have lowered resistance.

  • Worm Rot

Mummy Lord and Mummy Minion attacks now infect enemies with Worm Rot in addition to Mummy Rot.

Each time an enemy is infected by Worm Rot they take damage.

Worm Rot

Stacks infinitely, is refreshed each time it is applied and damages enemies over time.

Enemies affected by Worm Rot spread Worm Rot to nearby enemies. This occurs faster the more stacks of Worm Rot they have up to a cap.

Enemies that die under the effects of Worm Rot spawn a Small Worm Mummy Minion whose attacks infect enemies with worm rot and explode on death.

Worm Rot on rare monsters or bosses will spawn a Small Worm Mummy Minion periodically and faster with more stacks up to a cap.

Hierophant

Mummy Minion becomes Mummy Acolyte. Mummy Acolyte attacks with ranged and upon death casts a random spell that the Mummy Lord can cast.

Honor Guard

Mummy Minion becomes Mummy Minion Warrior.

They have increased attack speed and attack twice with dual-wield khopesh weapons. They have increased health and damage reduction.

Honor Guard and Hierophant cannot both be taken.

Canopic Golem

Mummy Lords summon a Canopic Golem every X seconds up to two.

Has a taunting aura.

It is immune to ailments, CC, debuffs, curses and takes 25% less damage.

Attacks with a melee flaming sword that applies an ignite ailment.

Periodically shoots a flame dart that applies an ignite ailment to a target which spreads to nearby enemies.

Upon death cannot summon another Canopic Golem for X seconds.

  • Child of Ra

Canopic Golem gains a large aura that applies the ignite ailment periodically. The ignite ailment does not decay for any enemy within that aura.

Scarab Lord

Enemies that die with Mummy Rot spawn clouds of Scarab Minions that attack enemies rapidly while inflicting Mummy Rot and bleed.

More stacks of Mummy Rot spawns more Scarab Minions.

Rare monsters or bosses will periodically spawn them and will spawn faster with more stacks of Mummy Rot up to a cap.

  • Get It Out Of Me

Enemies infected with Mummy Rot will periodically spawn Scarab Minions. More stacks of Mummy Rot makes them spawn faster up to a cap.

Rare monsters or bosses will spawn them significantly faster.

  • Golden Scarab

Spawned Scarab Minions become Golden Scarab Minions.

Golden Scarab Minions inflict twice as many stacks of Mummy Rot and Bleed. They also a inflict a random instance of an ailment, DoT or curse other than Mummy Rot or Bleed.

  • Burrow

Upon death or expiration Scarab Minion inflicts an AoE on enemies that increases all current stacks of DoT, Ailments or Curses by a percentage.

Putrid Offering

Mummy Lords can cast Sacrifice on any minion it can spawn, except Canopic Golem, in melee range of an enemy which also inflicts Mummy Rot.

Desiccation

Mummy casts an AoE curse that applies stacks of Mummy Rot over time while lowering resistance and healing for Mummy Rot damage dealt to all allies.

  • Putrify

Desiccation increases the stacks of Mummy Rot by a percentage.

Avatar of Set

Can only summon 1 Mummy Lord.

Mummy Lord is now melee with a large multi-hit AoE attack which applies Mummy Rot. Probably uses two large khopesh weapons. Can probably use Death Knight model with a retexture.

All casting speed is also applied to attack speed. All attack speed is also applied to casting speed.

Increased size, health and attack speed.

Sandstorm cannot be cast and instead is a large aura around the Mummy.

Desiccation cannot be cast and instead is a large aura around the Mummy and it applies Mummy Rot twice as fast.

Can cast Putrid Offering while attacking and can be used on up to three minions and has a reduced cooldown.

Priest of Sekhmet

Mummy Lord gains the spell Shifting Contamination.

Shifting Contamination: AoE targeting spell on allies that cleanses ailments and curses which are also transferred to any nearby enemies if available.

Rotting Shield

Mummy gains the Rotting Shield spell and periodically casts it on an ally.
More likely to cast on ally that is being attacked.

Rotting Shield

Buff that provides a large renewing ward shield that reduces damage taken, increased physical and necrotic damage dealt and increased damage against cursed enemies. The renewal of ward slows down until the buff expires.

When Rotting Shield expires or is broken the buffs it provides are extended depending on the damage the shield took while AoE exploding to spread stacks of Mummy Rot which is also increased depending on damage taken.

  • Spoiled Restoration

When Rotting Shield expires or is broken it increases health regeneration depending on the damage dealt to the shield.

Provides both flat and percentage increase to health regeneration.

  • Revitalizing Deterioration

When Rotting Shield expires or is broken it increases mana regeneration depending on the damage dealt to the shield.

Provides both flat and percentage increase to mana regeneration.

Arise & Kneel

Mummy Lord casts an AoE that increases attack speed, casting speed and move speed of allies while reducing attack speed, cast speed, movement speed and damage of enemies.

Immortal

Mummy Lord and Mummy Minions have a chance to respawn at full health where they died while inflicting the Fear ailment.

Dreadful Glare

Mummy Lord and Mummy Minion will periodically inflict the Fear ailment on a single enemy.

  • You’re Paralyzed

Dreadful Glare and Immortal instead stuns the enemy.

Wither

Mummy Lord minions inflict +1 instance of ailment, curse or DoT to whatever enemy a Mummy Lord is attacking.

Inspirations:

Cursed Seal :imp:

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Apply a single target curse that transforms the target.

Can only target self or a directly summoned minion. Cannot target indirectly summoned minions. Can target using icons.

You become a Nightwalker.

Nightwalker

Passives:

  • Life Eater

Any enemy that dies nearby restores health and mana.

  • Annihilating Aura

Has a large aura that deals increasing necrotic damage.

Mummy Lord becomes a Crawling Apocalypse (D&D)

Summon Skeleton becomes a Reaper. (A large Grim Reaper with wings.)

Summon Volatile Zombie becomes a Dullahan

Summon Bone Golem becomes a Devourer.

Summon Skeletal Mage becomes a Skull Lord. (Model after Myrkul.)

Final Thoughts

This Acolyte/Warlock brainchild has been an attempt at making a new and better rendition of both the Diablo 2 and 3 bone, blood and curse Necromancer while forming it into a Last Epoch design and for the most part I think I’ve succeeded. Though I’m sure some would beg to differ.

I know it doesn’t have Bone Armor but that is already in two skills. Those being Bone Curse and Transplant. Although I wouldn’t be against it being its own thing but you even have Bone Wall being part of Bone Curse as well.

Whether or not these ideas are used for this game I wanted to throw them out there for people to be able to have at least.

Any feedback is welcome. Just know I’m not on the forums that much but I’ll try to look at it once a week until this thread dies.

Cheers

1 Like

Wasn’t expecting them to announce a release day so soon not just for the Warlock specialization but full release of the game. Perhaps they are running out of funding. I was thinking they would need at least until the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025 before they could finish fixing bugs, improving performance and just plain finishing all the final systems and polishes.

Maybe the whole Unity debacle scared them as well. Could be they plan to use the money from release to not only work on the game itself but also porting it to a different engine. Guess we’ll have to see.

Will be interesting to see what exactly they do with the Warlock they put forth early next year. Looking forward to it.

While EHG worked on the last major patches there was a lot of work done in the background that didn’t had an immediate impact on some of the last patches.

But I think there was a lot of work halfway done already in the background while the last patches dropped.

I don’t think you shoudl be scared that they run out of funding, but should be excited because they might just kept a lot of the stuff coming in 1.0 in their backpocket to fully release it at us now.

When Runemaster released they already did actively worked on the other two classes.

I agree that bug fixes of returning bugs and htings like zone transition times are a worry to me, but I am not worried about content or funding.