Patch v0.5 with the new animations from GD Patch 1.2.1.0.
Click on the image to download it:
Installation: As always, just extract the Priest folder into ‘Grim Dawn/mods’
Since Crate surprised us with the “10” and a whole new DLC, it inspired me to come back to modding and work on something new and independent from the Diablo franchise. Well, it’s hard to say it’s something new after all those masteries created by other modders and included on Grimarillion and Dawn of Masteries over the years.
Even so, those priests that we find in Arkovian Undercity always made me wonder it could be a nice concept for a class. However Crate never approached this theme, so I brought back that old idea and started to work on it.
The Priest is a caster, but also can be a melee/ranged weapon hitter. Deals Elemental/Aether damage with transmuters supporting Cold and Vitality damage. Arkovian survivors, they are devoted followers of Attak Seru and Ishtak matrons.
The v0.1 will probably be a bugfinder simulator, here’s the changelog:
NEW ITEMS:
Crown of the Lady of Sorrows
Visage of the Scarlet Cardinal
Mask of Basilius
Mark of the Exarchs
Pendant of the Cursed King
Sacred Sapphire of Rudaprast
Essence of the Guardians
Grasp of Everlasting Sparks
Peacemaker
Madrilara’s Inscriptions
Rothma’s Invocations
Lacrimosa
NEW SETS:
The Sparkbinder
The High Council
Shadowseeker’s Trail
MI Items:
Modifiers for Priest skills were added to some MI items. These changes will work along with the modifiers for Diablo 3 classes on Grimarillion and Dawn of Masteries compilations.
I read the description of skills and items and was impressed.
I suggest to add:
a stone golem which deals physical and elemental damage and scales with pet bonuse (the golem has two transmutators - the first one converts elemental damage into aether, the second one converts elemental damage into vitality).
skills or modifiers for existing skills for the pet support.
I just finished mod translation and noticed following.
Is it intended new sets have 1st lvl requirement, while it have 94lvl power?
Non-mythical Madrilara’s Inscriptions missed inventory icon (chessboard)
Non-mythical Grasp of Everlasting Sparks have granted modifiers from Riftwarped Grasp
There is no special sound when you unlock new skill tier by investing in mastery.
Misc
More looks like unused/incomplete, but:
High Council Scepter spawns Clairvoyant’s Wand
Lorewalker’s Archive spawns Word of Inquisitor Abalon
Personal remarks.
You use 35th mastery number and same time tagClass11Skill* tags.
I’d rather use ^e color code for hidden modifier description to match item stat colors: ^oHidden Modifier: ^zPanetti's Replicating Missile ^eno longer passes through enemies.
Yep, those are unused items for now. No idea what causes the missing sound. Class number was modified after all the ‘‘11’’ thing, to work with Grimarillion.
I’ve noticed Priest have only 24 skills, whenever GD standart 27. Are you planning add skills? I’d like Zarthuzellan’s Sunspot - Doombolt equivalent but another template.
Is Spectral Longsword granted modifier correct? increase target’s cold resist?
I played through the campaign on Veteran and Elite difficulties and have some words to say about the Priest mastery. It is a pure glass cannon with limited defensive capabilities and utilites, and its gameplay can be described as the walk on razor’s edge.
Priest’s abilities are a mixed bag. On one hand, Priest’s spammable attacks (the Requiem Aeternam and the Holy Shock) and Exclusive skills are great. On the other hand, Priest’s rechargable abilities are… not so much. The Rothma’s Ritual is very clunky and is not as fun as Blackwater Cocktail, Sigil of Consumption, Devastation, or Judgment. The Attack Seru’s Intervention is counter-intuitive and hinders the player more than helps. The Rattosh’s Veil needs to be capable of being combined with Devotion skills. Finally, Thaldanis’ Arcane Barrier is a worse version of Demolitionist’s Blast Shield.
In conclusion:
Attack Seru’s Intervention and Thaldanis’ Arcane Barrier must be reworked;
the Rattosh’s Veil must be capable of being combined with Devotion Skills;
the Rothma’s Ritual should be adjusted in the following way: reduce the damage dealt per second, increase its duration and cooldown to 4 seconds;
the Requiem Aeternam should work like the Righteous Fervor or the Savagery, building up charges and becoming stronger with each strike.
So, the Priest mastery has a room to grow, but right now it is good only as a glass cannon. The Arcanist mastery, the Inquisitor mastery, and the Necromancer mastery offer much more utility and have better defensive abilities.
Patch 0.3 with more bug fixes (Thanks Mamba for the reports), Thaldanis Protective Barrier reworked and a new circuit-breaker skill called Indulgentia.
Happy new year y’all.
Changelog
BUG FIXES
Fixed an issue where Pendant of the Cursed King wasn’t dropping.
Fixed an issue where Mythical Mask of Basilius didn’t have skill modifiers as intended.
Fixed an issue where Deathwatcher’s Pendant didn’t have skill modifier for Rattosh’s Veil as intended.
Fixed an issue where the female animation of Shadow Strike when modified by the Shadowseeker’s Trail set wasn’t working at all.
Fixed an issue where Malkadarr’s Blade didn’t modify the animation FX of Dark Embrace.
Fixed an issue where Crown of the Lady of Sorrows didn’t have a mythical version.
Fixed an issue where the dodge animation wasn’t working while dual wielding melee weapons with a male character.
SKILLS
Indulgentia: New circuit-breaker skill. Grants you invulnerability, increased damage and offensive ability for 3 seconds.
Attak Seru’s Intervention: Moved to tier 6 and its modifier to tier 8.
Thaldanis’ Protective Barrier: Moved to tier 4. Now it’s a temporary buff that lasts for 10 seconds that grants % Damage Absorption, % Health Regeneration, % DA and Slow Resistance.
Healing Factor: New Thaldanis Barrier modifier at tier 7. Increases healing effects and reduces bleeding duration. Also grants physical, pierce and bleeding resistance.
Ishtak’s Blessed Aura: Added flat health regeneration.
Arkovian Legacy: Added 6-50% resistance to life reduction.
MI ITEMS
Ikrix Scale: Added +3 to Thaldanis Protective Barrier | Modifier → 2 seconds duration + 15% Crit Damage to TPB.
VFX
Reduce the brightness of the lighting when Rattosh’s Veil despawns.
Just finished a Hardcore run with Priest and Inquisitor at level 86.
I must say, it was quite fun. Early on I rushed Rothma’s Ritual and started one-shotting stuff left and right. Built tanky with a shield but still doing tons of damage, and it felt great. Finished the main campaign and both expansions in Veteran with most sidequests done, and then went into Ultimate because in Normal at level 80 progress slows down too much.
In Ultimate it was all okay until the Warden. After the Warden I was leveling up too slow, and upgrades were few and far between. For a while I farmed Alkamos on Veteran to get good items from him, but didn’t get much. I did realize that most items for the Priest class were found in the Steps of Torment, which makes sense lore-wise and felt like a cute fun touch.
Now, to summarize my experience which abruptly ended while fighting Karnath Chillblood, Coliseum Amalgam:
Itemization:
It requires a lot of work. The arkovian items were pretty nice, but at no point did I ever find a legendary, epic or set piece that benefited the class. It always felt like I was using only the Inquisitor half of every item, and of course, having no full class-combo upgrades was going to end my run eventually. A few points of note:
I read that the class has sets. If I just got extremely unlucky and found nothing, there’s not much to do about that. But, if the sets were all max-level sets, then I would recommend at least having a few low or mid-level tiers of one or two sets, just so that the class feels more fleshed-out during the playthrough and not only at the end, because after all most characters don’t even reach “endgame” and finish every quest and campaign before even getting past 65.
MIs felt good in general. Great job there
Affixes that increase the level of skills of the class would go a long way in helping with itemization.
Skills:
Most skills felt pretty samey to other classes, but it is to be expected from a mod in development. I loved the theme but I think it needs to be better represented by its skills, specially considering that it is pretty much the opposite of a Necromancer. Brainstorming crazy ideas outside the crate, I would love for it to have an ability that separated the souls of creatures from their bodies in order to effectively “double” the DPS you can do with AoE abilities. For example, let’s say Rattosh’s Veil trapped the souls of those that walked through, debuffing the creature a bit and creating a static copy that when hit redirects its damage to the original. Also having a skill that has a node to lean into necromancy would be really cool, like one of the skills summoning a temporary skeleton per enemy hit or something. Just throwing ideas out there.
It would be nice for one of the exclusive skills to be different. As they stand they feel like vanilla flavour and purple-dyed vanilla flavour.
Can’t really say much about the rest, as the class felt good overall. Wouldn’t have made it to level 86 otherwise.
Worldbuilding:
This section is just pure unfiltered daydreaming, because as a class mod it does fulfills its purpose very well, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the run I had with it. If you wanted to go above and beyond, it would be great to have the Priest be more tied to the world itself like all the other classes, and for that (and considering mods are not easily combined) I imagine the addition of a faction, with its own hub, quests, lore and reputation, with items that greatly benefit the class.
Conclusion:
As it stands the class shows great potential. The theme and lore are great, but its identity is rarely felt after the initial class selection screen. The items need a lot of work, but it is going in the right track. The colour palette and design stands out from the other classes which is great.
I would love to see the mod getting more development in the future as I love what’s already there, but as a fellow modder (of other games (for now)) I do understand that many times as cool as projects like this can be, a cool idea still needs a fair share of time and effort.
