Elephant In The Room - Celestial/Light escorts.

[Faeryan]

Ye, I'm not much into #1 myself either as I try to cope with the situation the best I can. If I enter a level unprepared/underleveled and get a surprise escort it's all my fault. Just thought a lot of people might find this a welcome addition.

As for the Wordly Knowledge I think one of two Prodigies is a bit too steep price to pay for tree. You do have a point there though; if DG deems an escort category worth a prodigy point it's not likely to happen that escort trees are granted for 4k gold.

[grobblewobble]

This tree is absolutely, unquestionably, one of the most desired rewards from escorts. Either for the direct talent, a free heal, or for the whole tree itself, which is quite powerful in it's own right, and borderline to broken on some classes. (Combine it with Aegis!)

More, having it is almost essential for a smoothly running skeleton/ghoul, due to their lack of proper healing. Healing light solves that, and providence neatly solves the issue of them being unable to cure status ailments through wild infusions.

I agree that it's really great for classes with aegis. But for other classes, I don't think it is necessarily the most desirable escort reward, even if you're undead. Especially for classes do not build their magic stat, imo other escort rewards often have more to offer. And the light tree still comes at a cost, you need to invest a category point and several generic points.

[grobblewobble]

As for the Wordly Knowledge I think one of two Prodigies is a bit too steep price to pay for tree.

You do get the tree unlocked. So you effectively get an extra category point too. I think it is a reasonable buy, if you feel the tree is essential for your build. For many classes, there is only one really good prodigy anyway - imo this can easily be the best way to spend your second one.

[Davion Fuxa]

Sometime ago, Parcae2 kicked off a thread on this: Get rid of Anorithil escorts

Anyhow, my thoughts haven't changed that I don't consider Celestial/Light to be all that more powerful then some of the other Escort rewards that might be picked up.

I also think bpat gave that best suggestion in that thread - just improve the other Escort Rewards.

[evouga]

My suggestion would be, guarantee (at least) one escort of each type.

Then if your Anorithil gets eaten by Wrathroot or The Master or something, you have a failsafe in Worldy Knowledge. But at least every char has a fair chance of getting every escort reward.

[nukularpower]

Personally, I get around worrying about this by using the level 1 prodigy addon http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/starting-prodigy

I'm not sure where I stand on Light being available period, but I hate having to roll the dice and/or save/reload to get the anorthil. With the addon, I just give myself the tree with Worldly Knowledge and then take whatever escorts I get. If I cant use Light, I just ignore the prodigy. Cheaty I know, but it beats savescumming, I guess.

[jotwebe]

Two years ago I would have agreed with the OPs position, but nowadays there's just so much stuff around that between status-clearing runes and the Conditioning tree, Celestial Light is nice to have but by no means essential.

I think boosting other escort rewards, in addition to being plain unnecessary, could end up with some negative consequences if the inevitable power creep starts changing escort rewards from their current status of nice bonuses to must-haves. And escort rewards should not be that good, because that in turn would encourage start scumming, which in turn is bad because it replaces the roguelike skills of creatively dealing with what the RNG throws you with mindless patience, and we've got other games for rewarding that.

So if there were any changes to be made, in my mind it should only be nerfing the better ones. But as others already have said, Light isn't all that good, and I don't think any nerfing is necessary here.

[RedBucket]

It's not all about the power of the tree, I'd feel like I have nowhere to put generic points on a lot of mages with no escort categories. But maybe that's just me. There's always hexes, staff combat, and harmony/vile life, but those may not be enough and some aren't always attractive.

[jotwebe]

I don't see the problem there?