Will there be any mix-mashing of Ascendancy classes?

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Pewzor wrote:

As a hardcore min/maxer it's pretty idiotic to make a summoner not going necromancer witch.

I'd say you're not a very good player if you think that when other classes clearly have very powerful advantages for summon builds.

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Hierophant seems to be totem focused and guardian is clearly geared towards support/buff bitch.

Summoners frequently go heavy on support to boost their summons making Guardian an obvious choice. But let's look at Hierophant since it's less obvious.

Summoners are frequently starved for slots and with one passive, you turn all your 4-slot equipment into 5-slot equipment gaining LV3 Elemental Penetration, LV1 Life Leech, LV1 Increased Area of Effect. Lots of fun things a summoner could do with that setup - for example stick the zombies with life leech, spectres with elemental penetration, and your own attack or support skill (like Abyssal Cry) with the AoE. And note how Ritual of Awakening says "less totem damage" not "less damage" so the penalty gets completely ignored if say you're using Raging Spirit Totems, Skeleton Totems, and/or aura totems. Alternatively, if you don't want to support your minion efforts with totems, just go the Sanctuary of Thought route and make yourself super tanky while also giving yourself all the mana you could possibly use.

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rdespair wrote:

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Pewzor wrote:

As a hardcore min/maxer it's pretty idiotic to make a summoner not going necromancer witch.

I'd say you're not a very good player if you think that when other classes clearly have very powerful advantages for summon builds.

"

Hierophant seems to be totem focused and guardian is clearly geared towards support/buff bitch.

Summoners frequently go heavy on support to boost their summons making Guardian an obvious choice. But let's look at Hierophant since it's less obvious.

Summoners are frequently starved for slots and with one passive, you turn all your 4-slot equipment into 5-slot equipment gaining LV3 Elemental Penetration, LV1 Life Leech, LV1 Increased Area of Effect. Lots of fun things a summoner could do with that setup. And note how Ritual of Awakening says "less totem damage" not "less damage" so the penalty gets completely ignored if say you're using Raging Spirit Totems, Skeleton Totems, and/or aura totems. Alternatively, if you don't want to support your minion efforts with totems, just go the Sanctuary of Thought route and make yourself super tanky while also giving yourself all the mana you could possibly use.

I dont know if you ever played HC before, or just bad.

I have zero issues surviving HC in all current contents, and I don't really group hug to do maps.
And all the shit you mentioned will not come close to the bonus provided by necromancer.
And the super tanky part... why would I need that if I am literally afking HC tier 15 maps with 150 iiq already? tbh if you can't really afk any map as a summoner you have failed.

And using totems to support my summons is just stupid and extra work for lower return than that necromancer talents provide since all I am looking for is damage.

The only annoying part are my spectres sometimes getting one shot in some extreme instance and how are you beating 100% extra life and damage on that?

Fuck diversity, let the OP oneshot 6 man group builds commence! My wander will ascend into a GOD crit oneshot machine than clears maps in under a minute!

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_Zerk_ wrote:

Fuck diversity, let the OP oneshot 6 man group builds commence! My wander will ascend into a GOD crit oneshot machine than clears maps in under a minute!

Ascendancy clearly kills diversity.
Even if we ignore the whole witch/tempalar arguments on summoners...

I will use another blatantly obvious example, totem marauder which is very popular totem builds... which will probably die out.

All physical witch builds will become subpar

All caster ranger...

the list goes on.

It's amazing how people could argue otherwise.

Yay! Another one of these threads!

We haven't seen what the Scion will bring... perhaps a "mix-mash" is an option.

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Krehlmar wrote:

I see tons of choices for say casters and somewhat for melee... But so far totemers have a obvious pick and so do summoners


And I despise that, I fucking *hate* a "optimal" path if that path if just to optimal to digress from.

Point of order; With the subclasses revealed now there isn't an optimal path for totem users. There is one class that is of obvious use for all totems, the Templar Hierophant, but that doesn't necessarily make it the best for all totem builds.

What does the Hierophant bring to the table? More totems that individually do less damage, the ability to have more than one totem without Ancestral Bond or the Soul Mantle, i.e. the ability to have more than one totem and still do damage without fearing curses. That's a big deal.

If you've got 3 totems they each deal 70% damage, for a total of 210% damage - i.e. a tiny 5% improvement over the damage you'd get from 2 totems with Ancestral Bond and not taking the Hierophant/Ritual of Awakening. If you pick up Ancestral Bond as well you've got 4 totems they each deal 60% damage, for a total of 240% damage, but you don't get the benefit of your attack dealing damage.

Of course, you get more total hits, so if your build is based around on-hit or on-crit effects, this may matter a lot; if not, not.

But surely the possibility of dealing damage apart from totems while having 3 totems is a big deal?

That again depends entirely on which totem build you are talking about.

Here is a specific counterexample I know well, where the Hierophant would be a poor choice.

I'm currently playing a pretty strong physical/chaos crit dual siege ballista totem build for Scion that knockbacks on crit. It uses one 5L for the siege ballista and the main attack, that doesn't deal damage, uses 5L to build frenzy, power, and endurance charges.

Using Templar/Hierophant would give more ballistae for more knockback, a tiny damage increase from the ballistae, and another tiny damage increase from the main attack dealing damage while building charges.

On the other hand, it is even easier to retool the build for Duelist or Ranger than Templar, and, with a bit more effort, for Shadow- and all three offer a LOT more than the Hierophant does.

Duelist/Champion: Unstoppable Hero, Fortitude, (Inspirational or First to Strike, Last to Fall): A huge defensive and minor offensive upgrade.

Shadow/Assassin: Unstable Infusion, Deadly Infusion, Deadly Infusion: A huge offensive upgrade.

Ranger/Pathfinder: Nature's Adrenaline, Master Surgeon, Master Herbalist. A strong offensive and defensive upgrade.

Apart from those three, each of which blow Hierophant out of the water for this build, it just might be the case that the Scion subclass when eventually revealed will be a contender too.


...And if you think this is an exceptional special case, ask yourself whether somebody building a more normal crit elemental totem build would be better off using Templar/Hierophant, Templar/Inquisitor, or Shadow/Assassin. The answer is going to be: "...it depends", not "Hierophant is optimal pick!"

EDIT: Cleared up a few typos.

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Pewzor wrote:

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_Zerk_ wrote:

Fuck diversity, let the OP oneshot 6 man group builds commence! My wander will ascend into a GOD crit oneshot machine than clears maps in under a minute!

Ascendancy clearly kills diversity.
Even if we ignore the whole witch/tempalar arguments on summoners...

I will use another blatantly obvious example, totem marauder which is very popular totem builds... which will probably die out.

All physical witch builds will become subpar

All caster ranger...

the list goes on.

It's amazing how people could argue otherwise.

If we are speaking strictly from a min/max point of view I must ask: How much diversity is there now lol

and secondly why do min/max folks care about diversity

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k1rage wrote:

and secondly why do min/max folks care about diversity

It has something to do with the currently min/maxed build forced into different class all together hence taking sub-optimal passives yet ascendancy subclass talents forcing such clear subpar "builds" (as far as passive tree is considered) to become the new max.

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Pewzor wrote:

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k1rage wrote:

and secondly why do min/max folks care about diversity

It has something to do with the currently min/maxed build forced into different class all together hence taking sub-optimal passives yet ascendancy subclass talents forcing such clear subpar "builds" (as far as passive tree is considered) to become the new max.

yes buy why do min/maxers

care, all they care about is having the best stats, why should it matter to them as long as they can attain them

the game changes and we all must adapt

If you're concerned with absolute maximum clearspeed and shaving every last nanosecond off your fight times (i.e. Pewzor), then yes - Ascendancy classes will potentially reduce diversity. 'Course, literally all of those players are basically already running very minor variations on CoC Discheese, so...frankly, if even one Ascendancy class introduces even one option that's competitive with CoC Discheese, then Ascendancy will have increased min/max diversity.

For the rest of us, there's plenty of ways to twist the given Ascendancies in ways that're unique and interesting to run. As was stated above, the Heirophant turns all your 4-links into 5-links, which is pretty huge. I've been prototyping a Bringer of Rain Ice Crasher on the Heirophant pretty much ever since it came out - Bringer of Rain gives you an 8L on the Heirophant from a three-chaos helmet nobody ever uses anymore. You could do it with Summon Raging Spirits, too - BoR's melee gems work for the Raging Spirits, they'd get elemental penetration from Heirophant Ascendancy, and furthermore all your Spirits blind things like crazy so you get a ton of defense.

...Bringer of Rain Templar summoner. I honestly may have to try that at some point here, just to be a total weirdo. Nevertheless, there's ways to use the given Ascendancies to make whacky builds. Yeah, maybe the Necromancer is the best choice for a bog-standard summoner, but who cares? If you're in this to make the bog-standard boring builds...well, CoC Discheese is about as well-documented as a build can get 'round here.