Herald of Xotli - Class Tree Alternate Advancement

Hi, i'm willing to take a look at the class section of the AA system for the HoX, it has to be said that on the overall i consider the AA advancement for the HoX, especially for what regards the Archetype section, poor.

An explaination to this from my point of view it's quite simple, it does not boost significantly any aspect of the HoX, it does not fill the gap it is suffering compared to other classes, it does not offer a real solution to the Ethernal issue Possession > Avatar nor it does provide us of any serious tool to be effective.

Why?

Short analaysis:

General Tree on AA: It's General, common to everyone, our boost on resistances it's common to all the classes, so who is already strong and with high rates of immunity will be even stronger and even more immune, we will be more resilient and that's true, but hell we are meant to be DPS not tanks give us damage boosts!!!

Archetype: well, there's not that much to be said, only 2 perks are worth a mention here: Will of the Sublime to boost critical rating and base weapon and spell damange and Ethereal Escape, our only effective anti-cc, taking it to 5 points it's a pain though.
It looks like this tree is meant to be for pure casters only, and that's fully understandable, but it does not match at all HoX needs, even though they are classified as mages.


Class Tree: Here we finally find something nice, Passive boost to Hellfire Breath is a must a +5% at level 5 of boost to damage it's something nice even if not insane, i often wonder if it's worth spending so much time in both grinding or time leveling to get it to rank 5 for a +1% of difference between rank 4 and 5. I strongly reccomend also the boost to PoIF damage, to BtD Dot, the decrease on cd for Desecrating Essence and PoIF.

I would  like to dedicate my attention also to some Minor and Major perk of this section:


Hunger for More: mainly a new rank of HellStrike, faster indeed and a 2 step combo (compared with the 3 step of our last rank of the regular Hell Strike), i don't find it particularly usefull, and absolutely not worth the sacrifice of a Major Perk to use it. It requires 1 slot.

Enslaving Fire: New rank of PoIF which adds a stun to the PoIF combo. A nice perk i have to say, it's to be considered that, being a Minor Perk and not a passive perk it requires to be slotted on the bar and  it would not be possible to use it along with RSoX. Is ti worth the sacrifice?
Honestly I do not know.

From the Beyond: The concept behind this perk is amazing, mainly you charge toward your enemy and you get automatically transmuted in your Demon Form, my personal concern about this is that you will not get the Stun from the polymorph.
It's my personal belief that this will work fine in a mainly Avatar Spec, even if RSoX still remains the top.


Feeding the Pyre: It will increase the stack of the Burning Skull spell to 6, also adding a chance to trigger damage on attacks done. I find it quite pointless.





And now a special mention for the 2 core perks for the HoX:


Prince of Terror: It's an amazing perk, it switches the damage of your combo finisher from FIRE to UNHOLY, with a chance of applying a wrack which increase target susceptibility to Spiritual Attacks (nice to boos DT damage), increases fire resistance and fire damage done.
It is a good perk but it requires 2 slots on the bar, being it a Major Perk.
I'm wondering how it would work on an Avatar Spec, but also a possession spec could receive benefits from it.





Red Shadow of Xotli: Here's the most used perk, and let me be clear, it is not used for what it does but for what it PASSIVELY gives. The skill itself is mainly a pointless self-ress, true thing is that when self ressing with RSoX you will be restored to life in demon-form and with a short CC immunity, but this feature from my point of view is entirely USELESS in PvP contests.
The best feature of this perk is the passive boost to the stats.
Red Shadow of Xotli passively increase Intelligence and Strenght by 100 points if slotted on the bar (2 slots) and when transmuted in demon form it increases furthermore this stats by +325 Strenght and +450 Intelligence.
This means that on a mere numerical bases an Herald of Xotli fighting on demon form will ahve +425 on Strenght and +550 on Intelligence.
What immediately appears clear is that this Perk is perfect for an Avatar build, but a possession hox will have advantages from it given the boost to Intelligence (so to Magic Damage).

Unfortunately though Avatar tree is widely considered (and with some good arguments) gimped and way under par compared with Possession.

In the end i do believe that a Possession HoX has a bit more tricks to be effective, especially thanks to Chains of Anguish which is, from my point of view, an unrenounceable skill for an HoX.

True thing is that chosing an Avatar spec feating Mindless Brute and Damning Eloquence will allow an HoX to have approximatively +1k HP and an istant "Inferno Curse" which is absolutely a great debuff when istant (furthermore boosted by the perks: +20 to combat rating reduction for each rank) and in addiction an increased duration on Demon Form, plus Avatar of Xotli and Fire Lance a good melee combo that used to be greate before the Great Nerf of Avatar tree.
It is also true that preferring an Avatar spec over a Poss/General spec will make us lose some armor bonus and anti-root from general tree plus some boosts to elemental resistance and boost to magical damage.

At the end of the story it's a matter of personal liking, i still find a Possession/General spec way more suitable for an HoX, but I encourage everyone to give a try at an Avatar/Possesion or at a Possession/Avatar build and to test them out, same goes for the hot topic of "making a choice" for what perks must be taken or not.
It depends on your playstyle, it depends on what you are asking to your class.
The only thing I feel to assure is that, at least at the actual state of the art, any choice for Class Perks that goes outside the Perimeter of RSoX and PoT it's not a good choice.


I will try (hopefully) to play a bit with perks on TL environment and to provide you with some feedbacks on how the HoX fares with Avatar/Poss spec and chosing different perks setups.


Stay tuned for furthere updates!!


Arcalimon