Doomsayer's Proclamation: Am I Missing Something Here?

[Sir_Darien]

The Warlock Paragon Path, Doomsayer (PHB pg 140), gets an ability called Doomsayer's Proclamation at 11th level. The ability reads as follows:

"Enemies within 10 squares of you must roll 2 dice when rolling saving throws against fear effects. They must use the lower of the two rolls."

To me this means that whenever the subject must save against a power with the fear keyword they take this penalty. What's the problem, you ask? There are only 3 fear powers in the PHB that allow saving throws, and only one of them is a Warlock power; the level 1 daily power Dread Star. The other 2 are the Astral Weapon's level 20 daily, Astral Whirlwind; and the level 25 wizard daily Prismatic Spray. So assuming you swap out Dread Star for a new daily ability at 15th level, as most characters would, this ability is basically useless from level 14 until the groups wizard gets to level 25, or, if you are lucky enough to be travelling alongside an Astral Weapon, the paladin hits level 20.

Is there some other way to cause fear saves besides powers, or is this just an ability that had use sometime during development, but after playtesting all powers relevant to this ability were nerfed or altered to the point where they no longer allowed saves?

 

[Jack99]

If you are correct, it is indeed quite lame.

 

[Saitou]

The Doomsayer Paragon Path is the lamest thing in the entire book. It's a PP for the Star Pact 'Lock, who uses both CON and CHA, but has powers key off CHA only. It has absolutely *edit* pooptastic /*edit* "synergy" with Fear effects, as you said, and the actual powers aren't even that good!

This is something that must've been lost throughout development, though. I can imagine the Star Pact 'Lock starting out as a Cthulhu priest, fearmonger and whatnot. And slowly developing into what it is now. But the PP and some of the powers (notice how most of the high level Star powers are CON based) seem a bit disjunctioned from the end result.

Edit: Mind the language folks.

 

[Benly]

And unlike every other class in the book, a warlock can't choose a different paragon path without multiclassing. To me, this is the single biggest reason to avoid Star pact, which is a shame because I love that Far Planes flavor.

A Star pact warlock very nearly has to multiclass, and even then the good options are limited. Paladin might be the best, combining Cha synergy with a shared focus on Radiant damage (and thus ability to benefit from Astral Fire and Font of Radiance). You'll have some useless abilities if you go Hospitaler or Justicar, but not as many as Doomsayer has.

 

[Byronic]

I hope they improve the path in one of the upcoming books. Perhaps give him a better Paragon Path. Pity, I was planning to make one but not with the current PP. I suppose I could always alter the concept to fit "infernal"... although I'd have to change the fluff on that one as well.

 

[burntgerbil]

I found that an ok path is the cleric's Divine oracle. All their features are nice, but their 16th level feature lets you throw two dice and take the highest whenever you use an attack vs. Will. The downside being that if you still miss, you are dazed for the next round. Still - this looks like it could be great for a Cha focused Star lock that dips into some fey powers. I haven't played this yet, but It looks to be the best option I have found. I am playing an infernal Lock and I am still leaning in this direction over the soulstealer (or whatever it is called) paragon path.

 

[JDillard]

<snip>

I was going to contradict you (as I just made a Star Pact Warlock myself a couple days ago to see what it would be like) but I realized you're right. There are a lot of powers with the fear keyword. Very few of them, however, have any kind of save involved.

Oh well. I still want to play it. This power sucks, but the rest of the Paragon Path is pretty nice, and Accursed Shroud (Daily: Target is cursed and must re-roll any succesful attack taking the second roll) is really, really nice. Hit a solo with that and watch its damage just drop.

 

[Kordeth]

Easy solution:

"Enemies affected by a power with the Fear keyword that do not allow a saving through are instead affected for one additional round, as long as they are within 10 squares of the warlock when the effect's duration would normally end."

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I like Kordeth's solution. Or maybe replace the saving throw reroll with a bonus to hit with Fear spells. Say, +1?

 

[WOLead]

With the June 11th errata located on the Wizards site, there is now a second spell in the Warlock arsenal that is helped by the Star Pact Doomsayer's Proclamation.

"Hurl through Hell" now has a (Save ends) on the Stun effect. Better chances of an enemy staying stunned when it gets back from its snowball trip.