The Ascendant Class Changes

Traded frenzy charge on kill to frenzy charge when hitting rare/unique, IMO thats a nerf.

Please add back Culling Strike to Slayer Scion Ascendancy, it's one of the main reasons people go Scion over another class...

Still seems weak as piss. An ascendancy point for a passive/stats is lame af

Why replace bleed chance with projectile speed? Both of my ascendancy choices are being nerfed with these changes; I'm going to have to respec my build.

Wasn't the point of the changes to make the Ascendant more attractive? Some of the nodes were nerfed (Berserker, yes I see the move speed, still a nerf for most builds). I don't get it.

Nobody plays Scion because the Ascendancy doesn't offer the extreme benefits of the other classes. The options that you get as Scion are watered down, say, half as good. I get it, you can't offer the full blown benefits of each class to the Scion because the character would be getting the best of 2 classes.

But, the total has to be comparable. And, when it comes to something like Ascendancy attributes, 50%+50% does not = 100%. In fact, I'd say that to be comparable, the Ascendant would have to offer something like 75-90% of what is available to the other classes. This was not the case, and will still not be the case. The extra skill points help, and starting from an alternative point on the tree is useful for a few select builds, but those things do not make up the difference.

Its pretty sweet but,
Gladiator node becomes worthless tho, movement speed from block for what reason?
And the removed spell block conversion wich made it some nice deff option is missing, overall get much weaker.

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Wolfie83 wrote:

Please add back Culling Strike to Slayer Scion Ascendancy, it's one of the main reasons people go Scion over another class...

I agree.
Also, the Necromencer ascendency doesn't actually provide any 'Necromency' based benefit. It's the same as not having it at all.

I noticed that roughly a third of all my chars were scion before the ascendancy started, afterwards I didn't continued with them and used mostly other builds, witch, ranger, marauder.

Usually it's that the boni provided by the ascendant class are less useful then the one of the actual ascendancy class. because it's usually the more specific advantage that make the ascendancy class so useful. Like 1% Lifeleach from totems, for the chieftain the master surgeon node of the pathfinder etc. if I want to do damage with totems, i have the heropant and the chieftain, if I want to do something with endurance charges I have the juggernaut. Something with frenzy charges raider and so on. Even when i just want to build an elemental build with crits to prog elemental status allients
I can use the Inquisitor for that, because the current ascendant will not get the critical strike on full life.

Currently se is not unique in any way, there are some rare builds based on uniques were I can combine certain aspects better with the scion then with other clases, but aside from that most other classes are more unique and on top more powerfully then the scion.

It's not like all the possibilities for uniqueness are really used.
I guess the buffed ascendant class is already in the making.
But, it would be cool to see a second class for the scion, with unique boni around the board.

a few examples for some nodes I would like to see in such a class.
Dark Archon
+15% Spelldamage
damage by spells leaches 0,5% mana
+0,5% life leached per curse.
usefull for pretty much any caster

Greed
+40% magic find
10% shorter duration of flask
-15% charges used.

Also useful for anybody specially the ssf players.

Cold Steel or something themed for Daresso
15% of physical damage as extra cold damage
15% of cold damage as extra physical damage
15% freeze chance with attacks
No ascendancy passive is currently themed for ice, even when the whole chieftain class has a fire theme. And there are quite a number of Attack based frost builds something like this might temp them to try them with another class.

Will the Ascendant Necro aura stack with Necro's Commander of Darkness?

Some of these changes look fine, but I also do not really like some of the changes.

The raider change for frenzy charges will probably make killing bosses a little easier, but killing will be slower.

I personally do not really like the change to elementalist. The reduced reflected elemental damage is huge, but the 30% increased elemental damage for each damage type for which you have a matching golem, for me at least, is preferred to being able to have more than one golem active. The main part of elementalist when I play is to have both the extra golem and the extra damage while a golem is active. That way you can use an ice golem and a fire golem and then cold to fire.

The pathfinder change is overall great, but I still don't see a reason to pick the pathfinder on an ascendant instead of the actual class.

I can't really comment on the deadeye changes because I don't use it, however with the new skill gems the bleed chance might have been nice to try with that and gladiator.

Speaking of gladiator, the changes remove the '30% of block chance applied to spells' which makes it significantly more cumbersome to cap that spell block chance.

Slayer changes are awesome, certainly a buff

Champion has just been slightly improved, still no real reason to take it imo.


Like occultist, chieftan has not been changed. Is the chance to ignite really that good? I personally do not see a use for using the Chieftan as an Ascendant.
The Juggernaut change also just doubles the chance to gain a fortify charge on hit. Sure, this is great, but if I were going juggernaut, I'd choose his class. What am I going to pair this up with, slayer?
The berserker actually gets nerfed slightly, but the added movement speed is huge. I can see myself taking this perk.


Heirophant changes are probably going to see a lot of use, especially now that MoM will most likely have to be utilized with the nerfs to ES.

I've never taken guardian on scion and have never, ever thought of a reason to. 25% reduced effect of curses on you sounds a lot better than removing them every 5 seconds, especially because it will work with map mods.

Inquisitor just adds 10% chance to create consecrated ground on kill and 5% increased elemental damage. Alright I guess.

It's small changes for sure. I think this is a great start, but I think it is important to keep a close eye on the scion and see if she needs a little bit more once this makes it into the live game and we see how builds are utilizing the features.