User:Aquadrizzt/Inquisitor


 * This is meant to be an fun theorycraft of how an Inquisitor rework might look. Suggestions welcome.

Explanation
Inquisitor is an Ascendancy that has struggled to have relevance in the metagame for many leagues (less than 3% pick rate in every league since Abyss, excluding Synthesis and, to a lesser extent, Bestiary). Furthermore, more than 80% of Inquisitors in recent leagues have selected the same four notables. The other two are both hard to make use of, requiring either the active use of both spells and attacks (Instruments of Virtue), or proximity to enemies (Augury of Penitence) for abilities with rather mediocre effects.

The goal of this rework is to redefine Inquisitor's niche amongst the other Ascendancies. The primary themes of the reworked Inquisitor are critical hit-based spell builds, Consecrated Ground, and synergy with the "holy" spells (Divine Ire, Wave of Conviction, Purifying Flame).

Design
Pious Path: It makes more sense for Pious Path to be the node that passively generates Consecrated Ground around you. I've moved the Energy Shield regeneration to Sanctuary (again, to reinforce the "theme" of each notable), but added a movement speed bonus on Consecrated Ground, which should make it a very competitive first choice notable for the Inquisitor.

Sanctuary: This notable is now behind Pious Path (rather than the other way around), for theme and tree design purposes. Giving characters access to Proximity Shield (outside of spectres) seems like an interesting design space to explore and this effect, combined with the massive amount of energy shield and mana regeneration, should make this a top-tier defense/sustain notable. Note that Proximity Shield is only active while stationary, not while on Consecrated Ground, so it cannot be kept up permanently.

Augury of Penitence: Exposure is a neat mechanic thus far reserved for a few skills, one niche unique item, and from Raider's Avatar of the Veil. I'm not sure how I feel about the Inquisitor (a templar who is themed around "holy" spells) having access to Cold Exposure, but I've kept the cold damage bonus for now to stay true to the icon and theme of the ability. In general, this is a buff over the original version in terms of numerical effect and convenience, but a slight nerf in terms of effect stacking with other resistance reduction.

Inevitable Judgment: I like the original idea behind this notable a lot, but I take issue with the implementation. Penetration and resistance reduction are both important aspects of scaling elemental damage, and to have a "reward" that becomes worse with more optimization (e.g. as a character can reduce enemy resistances by large amounts) seems unsatisfying. What I'm trying to do with this node is that the enemy's "base" elemental resistance (e.g. before other sources of penetration) is 0 for critical strikes, but I'm unsure of how to phrase that mechanically.