How do people feel about the Radiance tree?

[DaltonRaccoon]

Personally, I like it. I like having a 'free' light source and immunity to blindness, which essentially frees up a lite slot and a ring slot. And Searing Light is nice to keep at 1/5 IMO, because it's basically 'free' hits to break through effects such as bone shields.

However, I notice a lot of people are really hard on Radiance. Is Radiance BAD (and thus in need of buffs) or is it worthwhile?

[Radon26]

when i play Sun paladin, i just get the last chant, and that solves my lite issues.
the fact the radiance doesn't stack with it, negates one of the reasons i would pick it for.
as for blindness, I don't think any boss blinds you, and with smaller enemies you can just hit wherever, and something will die.
then there is that ability, which overloads your radiance. well, its overload. while strong, it is not that strong, and disables your already week illumination and searing light for 5 turns, as well as the radiance, which kills your vision, unless you had a greater light anyway.
judgement gives you healing, but so does 4 other abilities, which will give you enough positive to cast brandish, or flash of the blade, which already kills everything weak "in sight". for bosses, it is really not that effective at all.

you probably could use it if you really knew what you were doing, but the way it is now, it will never be anyone's first choice.

[xnd]

i was actually thinking it would be better to stack radiance and illumination together into one. well i tried doing so and didnt get the code to work... but making that combo the first talent would open up one more slot for some other talent. I see the code has a comment saying (maybe its the searing sight it refers to), is not really good and should be redone better.
"-- This doesn't work well in practice.. Its powerful but it leads to cheesy gameplay, spams combat logs, maybe even lags
-- It can stay like this for now but may be worth making better"
unless it refers to illumination talents above but its closer to the searing sight talent.

--

i was thinking of a chronomancy extradimensional light. tesseract means 4th light, kinda a stapple when tesseracts are used you see light so it fits.

[Frumple]

I like it, personally. The light itself means I can completely ignore light radius as a statistic and still be able to see pretty much everything, and the illumination is really nice for helping make sure I don't miss basically anything (extra nice is that it helps out a fair amount with boosting accuracy bonuses, something particularly pleasing for a staff-using sunpa), as well as crapping on stealth/invis enemies. Searing sight's passive daze is fairly pleasing, too, and the damage makes it trivial to see where stuff illumination doesn't reveal is. Daze is a very powerful debuff that can significantly help all my other abilities be that much stickier, even though the sight itself makes it harder to capitalize on it. Haven't really used the 4th talent, much, m'self, though. I generally just go 5/5/X/0, where X is however much it takes to get the daze to around 20% (iirc it's 4, but it could be 5, don't quite remember).

Not really sure what I'd do to change things up, though. I think I'd kinda' like it if searing sight worked sorta' like sleep, where the stuff it inflicts with daze stays that way through damage (probably just the sight's damage, and up to a limit) followed by a period of immunity. That'd make being able to take full advantage of the daze effect considerably more consistent.

[Atarlost]

There's some very stiff competition for category unlocks on a sun paladin. Guardian and Crusader are extremely strong. Combat Techniques is almost mandatory. Cornacs need to unlock a generic category unless they unlock staff mastery. Staff using cornacs can unlock it and that's pretty much it.

I think it could be decent if it gets included in an updated Anorthil as an unlocked category, but as a locked category on sun paladin it's not worth it. Your cat points are more valuable than your light slot.

[DaltonRaccoon]

Would it be unbalancing to have radiance available as an unlocked category for sun paladins?

[Frumple]

There's some very stiff competition for category unlocks on a sun paladin. Guardian and Crusader are extremely strong. Combat Techniques is almost mandatory. Cornacs need to unlock a generic category unless they unlock staff mastery. Staff using cornacs can unlock it and that's pretty much it.

I think it could be decent if it gets included in an updated Anorthil as an unlocked category, but as a locked category on sun paladin it's not worth it. Your cat points are more valuable than your light slot.

... I can't speak for higher difficulties, but for normal a sunpa has no need whatsoever for combat techniques (the only thing in it they'd find attractive is rush, and path of light subs for that juuuust fine. Plus there's rush boots if you really need it.). Staff mastery you get with cash. More inscription slots you... don't really need, but cornac or ogre can float an extra one just fine anyway. You've got at least four cat points and only three (two, if you're not going ogre or intending to use a short staff) trees you might particularly need to unlock. Sunpa's actually got wiggle room for categories

[malboro_urchin]

I think Judgment should be a lot stronger offensively, or, failing that, should be reworked. It's the tree's capstone talent, AND using it temporarily negates the benefits derived from all talent points spent in the rest of the tree. It's not very strong and has an incredibly long cooldown.

[Fael]

I can't speak for higher difficulties, but for normal a sunpa has no need whatsoever for combat techniques (the only thing in it they'd find attractive is rush, and path of light subs for that juuuust fine. Plus there's rush boots if you really need it.). Staff mastery you get with cash. More inscription slots you... don't really need, but cornac or ogre can float an extra one just fine anyway. You've got at least four cat points and only three (two, if you're not going ogre or intending to use a short staff) trees you might particularly need to unlock. Sunpa's actually got wiggle room for categories

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Plus, Crusader and Guardian are both great, but you can only actually use one of them (unless you're an Ogre), so it's a huge waste to get both. You get one or the other at L10 and then it's a tough call at L20 whether to get Radiance or an inscription slot. But, whichever you don't get, you get at L35 (except you got killed by a luminous horror before you got that far, since they're immune to any damage you can do). And if you're a Cornac, then you start out with the inscription slot and Radiance at L20 is a pretty easy call.

[DaltonRaccoon]

I'd reverse that. Radiance at level 10 is pretty useful (eliminates light source problems immediately) while Crusader's better skills aren't available until higher level anyway.

[Frumple]

except you got killed by a luminous horror before you got that far, since they're immune to any damage you can do

Eeehh, luminous -- and even radiant -- horrors actually aren't that bad to kill with a sunpa, just violently irritating. All you have to do is turn off basically all your sustains and they drop fairly trivially (so long as you remember to not stand in the sun puddles) once you stop full healing them every time you hit 'em. Which takes a lot of button pressing and probably turning off auto-use talents for a little bit, but it's not really difficult, per se. Just annoying.

On the other hand, path-of-lighting out and just going nope works just fine. They're not very quick, and PoL with a few points in it makes sunpas pretty darn mobile.

[Atarlost]

I can't speak for higher difficulties, but for normal a sunpa has no need whatsoever for combat techniques (the only thing in it they'd find attractive is rush, and path of light subs for that juuuust fine. Plus there's rush boots if you really need it.). Staff mastery you get with cash. More inscription slots you... don't really need, but cornac or ogre can float an extra one just fine anyway. You've got at least four cat points and only three (two, if you're not going ogre or intending to use a short staff) trees you might particularly need to unlock. Sunpa's actually got wiggle room for categories

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Plus, Crusader and Guardian are both great, but you can only actually use one of them (unless you're an Ogre), so it's a huge waste to get both. You get one or the other at L10 and then it's a tough call at L20 whether to get Radiance or an inscription slot. But, whichever you don't get, you get at L35 (except you got killed by a luminous horror before you got that far, since they're immune to any damage you can do). And if you're a Cornac, then you start out with the inscription slot and Radiance at L20 is a pretty easy call.

You don't get Crusader and Guardian. You get one or the other and Combat Techniques. Rush is good. Precise Strikes is important for maximizing crits on normal and crits are important for generating positive energy without wasting turns. Blinding Speed alone is probably worth the entire Radiance tree unless you're a Shalore.

You may only have a few trees to unlock, but two of them for whichever build are really good and for Cornacs something generic is nearly mandatory. And Radiance is really not good. I could only make it put out decent damage against large groups with the fourth talent and +light stacking to a degree detrimental to the class's core competency of hitting things. The passive damage talent is only relevant against brittle clear oozes and the non-stacking light radius is pretty much pointless. You're also not exactly short of good places to spend class talent points.

[Frumple]

... still not selling me on combat techniques, personally. Path of light is largely better than rush, and rush comes on boots t'boot. Crit stacking is mostly a non-issue for sunpas -- you've got built in crit up to 24%, and at least 12%, and can fit cunning in your build easily. Getting to 50+% phys/spell crit is more or less trivial, and you're probably not stacking dex so precise strikes is... less useful than it could be. Illumination helps with accuracy and stealthed/invis stuff, and does so passively. Global speed actives are things you basically trip over, kit wise, which makes that much investment into a tree I can more or less get elsewhere... unpalatable, y'know? Is half the reason I don't really like the combat techniques tree to begin with. Anything it offers I can itemize for and spend the talent points elsewhere.

Radiance definitely is more of a support tree than an overt damage dealer, though, sure. You get its damage throughput through the defense malus and daze more than the searing passive (which is more there to make it easy to find stealth/invis stuff than anything) and judgment -- its kinda' subtle. I probably wouldn't even notably recommend it unless you're going staff, really, which is where the defense malus really shines, but if you are it's pretty darn nice. Would say I think you're underestimating how helpful the light is, though. S'been very useful in practice to be able to just ignore light radius entirely as a statistic.

Also not exactly sure what cornac really wants on a sunpa, generic wise. Staff combat is about all I'd consider prioritizing, and you buy that. Everything else covers stuff sunpa's native kit largely already covers, or just isn't really all that impressive (to me, anyway, YMMV as always). The only generic tree they'd really want they get with cash.

And re: class points, personally, this last sunpa I ran (that cleared normal more or less without trying) didn't really have much trouble floating enough class points to 5/5/5/0 radiance and get everything else I wanted as well, despite being ogre and nabbing up both guardian and crusader. Skimped on pretty much all the tier four class talents except crusader and suncloak (both at 4/5, but the extra point in either wouldn't have really helped much), so no second life, but the only time the critter died was before I had access to it anyway. Bugger even had a mod conflict (with turtles) that meant it only got one prodigy.

They have a lot more leeway in class point investment than how it's being suggested, is how it seems t'me. And cat points, really...

[Atarlost]

... still not selling me on combat techniques, personally. Path of light is largely better than rush, and rush comes on boots t'boot. Crit stacking is mostly a non-issue for sunpas -- you've got built in crit up to 24%, and at least 12%, and can fit cunning in your build easily. Getting to 50+% phys/spell crit is more or less trivial, and you're probably not stacking dex so precise strikes is... less useful than it could be. Illumination helps with accuracy and stealthed/invis stuff, and does so passively. Global speed actives are things you basically trip over, kit wise, which makes that much investment into a tree I can more or less get elsewhere... unpalatable, y'know? Is half the reason I don't really like the combat techniques tree to begin with. Anything it offers I can itemize for and spend the talent points elsewhere.

Radiance definitely is more of a support tree than an overt damage dealer, though, sure. You get its damage throughput through the defense malus and daze more than the searing passive (which is more there to make it easy to find stealth/invis stuff than anything) and judgment -- its kinda' subtle. I probably wouldn't even notably recommend it unless you're going staff, really, which is where the defense malus really shines, but if you are it's pretty darn nice. Would say I think you're underestimating how helpful the light is, though. S'been very useful in practice to be able to just ignore light radius entirely as a statistic.

Also not exactly sure what cornac really wants on a sunpa, generic wise. Staff combat is about all I'd consider prioritizing, and you buy that. Everything else covers stuff sunpa's native kit largely already covers, or just isn't really all that impressive (to me, anyway, YMMV as always). The only generic tree they'd really want they get with cash.

And re: class points, personally, this last sunpa I ran (that cleared normal more or less without trying) didn't really have much trouble floating enough class points to 5/5/5/0 radiance and get everything else I wanted as well, despite being ogre and nabbing up both guardian and crusader. Skimped on pretty much all the tier four class talents except crusader and suncloak (both at 4/5, but the extra point in either wouldn't have really helped much), so no second life, but the only time the critter died was before I had access to it anyway. Bugger even had a mod conflict (with turtles) that meant it only got one prodigy.

They have a lot more leeway in class point investment than how it's being suggested, is how it seems t'me. And cat points, really...

Most of that is wrong.

Path of Light only lets you hit one enemy. It includes an escape unless something steps into the path behind you, but it's still only one closer. Rush also includes an attack that lets you take down eg. an orcish necromancer before he summons a half dozen high level skeletons that are each individually ten times more trouble than he is once his summon is on cooldown.

66% crit is the target for sword and board or 90% for two handed to maximize the Sun's Vengeance engine. And that's why you do stack dex and cunning and only dip enough strength for prereqs (36 at most for assault or execution and get the higher armor and weapon training levels can wait for items).

Accuracy helps with stealthed/invis stuff. A couple thief escorts will provide enough perception if you're pumping cunning.

Relying on items for rush gets you less range and long cooldowns. Relying on items for global speed greatly restricts your choices and unlike the skill usually aren't instant activation. Getting 20-30% global speed after wasting a turn activating a charm is not the same thing as getting around 50% global speed with instant activation. Relying on items for both puts them on a shared cooldown, which is not good. But you're contradicting yourself: your main argument for radiance is to get light radius without impacting your gear, but you claim combat techniques is bad because you can get rush and global speed from gear. Light radius is *far* more common from gear than either of those.

Daze is rendered moot by being attached to a DoT effect. Nothing stays dazed for more than one round. The defense penalty isn't better than the accuracy bonuses you can get from combat veteran. The utility of radiance is only a utility if you want to use a light that doesn't give either light or infravision.

[HousePet]

I've found Sun Paladin to be tanky enough not to need any fancy rush stuff.
Well that was a Skeleton Sun Paladin, which means I was extra tanky, but also couldn't use a movement infusion.
It still wasn't an issue that I didn't have Rush.