The sacred fist alone is the answer to why anyone should "get" the warpriest at least in terms of game mechanics. It is easily one of the best classes you can play.
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The Warpriest isn't martial enough for me to buy it as a real front-liner, and its casting is flat-out inferior. Inquisitors get a pretty huge synergy with Teamwork feats, and a set of Judgements that, IMO, are just plain better in combat than Blessings in most situations (especially since you can switch between them freely).
Like domains, blessings are a nice way to color a character and are sometimes crucial in specific circumstances (my warpriest's war blessing has saved lives with it's speed boost alone), but they aren't the core of the class.
Even without archetypes, the warpriest is extremely effective as long as you build and run it like a warpriest, instead of trying to make it work like a cleric, fighter, or inquisitor. Heavy armor goes a long way at low levels, and being able to cast quickened-still-self-only spells multiple times is, well huge.
Not only is my warpriest able to hold a spot in the front line, he's convinced a number of folks he's OP. That doesn't show on paper, but in real play experience. I can, for example, wait to buff myself. If a fight goes well, I can save the resources. If a fight DOES go sideways, I can safely buff as swift actions on the front line with little risk. Which means I am much more likely to have what I need, when I need it. My buffs aren't only fast, I can play in a way that means I am much more likely to only expend them when they'll be useful.
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So, I was looking through the Advanced Class Guide today, and I don't quite understand why the Warpriest:
a) exists
and
b) is something a person would voluntarily play
From what I understand, the idea of the Warpriest is to combine the Cleric and Fighter classes in a way that allows a player to have a more "martial" divine character without having to play a Lawful Good Paladin. The thing is, the Warpriest only gets 6 spell levels, yet has the same BAB progression as a regular cleric. Instead of getting two domains, they get a much more limited set of "Blessings", and in return they get...Weapon Focus for free. All that they get in return for this, really, is Sacred Weapon (and a matching armor ablity).
Is there something I'm missing here? It doesn't seem like a terribly interesting or flavorful class, and mechanically it seems inferior to being a regular cleric.
Being able to throw buffs like divine favor on yourself as a swift action at 2nd level is a huge benefit, especially with the fate's favored trait. It may not be enough to base a class around, but they also get the blessings, sacred weapon and armor, bonus feats, and count as an equal level fighter for feats like weapon specialization and improved critical. They basically end up being a fighter that gets to have some nice cleric spells as well. Overall, it ends up being a solid class.
It's amazing for TWF based builds. Sacred weapon rewards high crit weapons, and the bonus feats mean you can get TWF feats earlier than any other 3/4 BAB class. And Fervor can be used with both your hands full. This is the only 3/4 BAB class I would recommend using TWF on.
You can use weapons like the mancatcher and whip and still deal good damage with sacred weapon.
Usually it would depend what the dm will let you know about the campaign. If the dm tells you this campaign is going to level 20, just play a cleric, it might be hard at first but you will be much better off. If the game is ending by level 9, warpriest would do the job nicely.
I would be quite willing to play one to level 20.
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All I will say on the Warpriest is the Arsenal Chaplain archetype brings out all the best things about the Fighter and combines them with 6th level Cleric casting to make a character that I REALLY love. I don't care for the base warpriest as much, but the Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain is one of my favorite archetypes in the whole game now.
Bonus feats, Fighter weapon training, 6th level casting, an awesome list of spells to bolster with your weapon training... The Arsenal Chaplain is a combat powerhouse that can be built for melee or ranged, and with the right spell selection and a decent INT you'll be useful out of combat too.
And yeah, I'd be quite happy with a 20th level Arsenal Chaplain warpriest. It packs a Hell of a punch in a fight.
I'm currently playing a 'warpriest' of Cayden Cailean in a Hell's Rebels campaign right now.
Tiefling with two claws, no waiting.
If there's been an irony in the campaign so far, it's been that things are usually done by the time she gets rolling, but she's no slouch in terms of combat.
The other benefit is 'reducing the amount of downtime' the party has to recover from fights.
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It also has an interesting interaction with the vital strike chains, getting access to the feats before they actually have iterative attacks, and gaining access to greater vital strike while never even getting the 4th iterative. If you're going to play vital strike, its probably the class to do it with.
When I used some level 8 warpriests against my party (total CR of the encouter = APL) they had serious trouble to beat them. Mostly because the warpriests started the fight by swift casting Shield of Darkness, which is basically an improved Displacement. The party couldn't use targeted spells against them and while they were prepared to fight invisibility that didn't help them against the total concealment provided by magical darkness.
Now add all the bonus feats they get and you can do some fun stuff with them. The warpriests I used against my party used throwing weapons (the most feat intensive fighting style I can think of) and it worked pretty well.
My conclusion was that they are really strong in a fight and aren't completely useless in social encounters either due to having diplomacy as a class skill. Of course Inquisitors outperform them for out of combat activity, but they can't really keep up in straight up combat. Getting bonus feats faking full BAB goes a long way.
There are fun archetypes for the warpriest that AREN'T sacred fist. The Forgepriest is actually quite entertaining - aside form the awesomeness that is getting Craft Magic Arms and Armor early at 3rd level, this is a character that is perfectly comfortable in full plate and a two handed weapon, while being able to heal and buff himself as a swift action, AND GETS THE SHIELD SPELL. This character is designed to simply never die. If you are insane enough to take the protection blessing as well, it gets completely over the top.
There are fun archetypes for the warpriest that AREN'T sacred fist. The Forgepriest is actually quite entertaining - aside form the awesomeness that is getting Craft Magic Arms and Armor early at 3rd level, this is a character that is perfectly comfortable in full plate and a two handed weapon, while being able to heal and buff himself as a swift action, AND GETS THE SHIELD SPELL. This character is designed to simply never die. If you are insane enough to take the protection blessing as well, it gets completely over the top.
Actually since Sacred Fist got nerfed (you don't get to use your warpriest level as your BAB for flurry) its actually not very good. You're better off just making a normal warpriest (with armor) and taking advantage of things like brawling enchant, and your swift action buffing and just pick up the TWF feats.
Warpriest is an amazing class due to its ability to self buff. It works best when combined with classes that get extra attacks like TWF or archery which can benefit from the large amount of bonuses the warpriest can get from self buffing.
With the Arsenal Chaplain archetype it is incredibly strong. Picking up weapon training and the ability to pickup Advanced Weapon Training via feats is incredibly strong.
Weapon Training effectively puts you at full BAB, and swift action self buffing with Divine Favor/Power puts you above it. With Fate's Favored it's even better. Plus Divine Power is like free haste. Plus there are a ton of other self buffing spells to help you ramp up power.
If you don't know how to optimize the class and utilize every bit of power I will agree it can be underwhelming, but between self buffing, 6th level spells, and everything else the class gets its truly amazing. They only thing they can't do well is skills.
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Still another build that I'm excited to play is a Natural Attack build with Warpriest. Play a Tengu with Claws and a Bite and use Sacred Weapon Damage instead of the regular damage.Isn't the problem with that though that you have to take Weapon Focus separately for each type of natural attack? Weapon Focus Claws, Weapon Focus Bite, Weapon Focus Hair, etc. That was how people were agreeing you had to do it the last time I remember it coming up.That's a problem, but I think it's worth it.
If you play as a human, half elf, or a half orc you can snag this feat.
Martial Versatility (Combat)You further broaden your study of weapons to encompass multiple similar weapons.
Prerequisites: Fighter level 4th, human.
Benefit: Choose one combat feat you know that applies to a specific weapon (e.g., Weapon Focus). You can use that feat with any weapon within the same weapon group.
Special: You may take this feat more than once. Each time it applies to a different feat.
And most natural attacks fall under the natural weapon group.
NATURAL
Unarmed strike and all natural weapons, such as bite, claw, gore, tail, and wing.
Half orc with the alternate racial trait sacred tattoo and the fates favored trait blend well with the base warpriest. A 2 level dip in ranger for the claws and the razor tusk feat makes a nasty natural attacker.
Still another build that I'm excited to play is a Natural Attack build with Warpriest. Play a Tengu with Claws and a Bite and use Sacred Weapon Damage instead of the regular damage.Isn't the problem with that though that you have to take Weapon Focus separately for each type of natural attack? Weapon Focus Claws, Weapon Focus Bite, Weapon Focus Hair, etc. That was how people were agreeing you had to do it the last time I remember it coming up.That's a problem, but I think it's worth it.
If you play as a human, half elf, or a half orc you can snag this feat.
Martial Versatility (Combat)
You further broaden your study of weapons to encompass multiple similar weapons.
Prerequisites: Fighter level 4th, human.
Benefit: Choose one combat feat you know that applies to a specific weapon (e.g., Weapon Focus). You can use that feat with any weapon within the same weapon group.
Special: You may take this feat more than once. Each time it applies to a different feat.
And most natural attacks fall under the natural weapon group.
NATURAL
Unarmed strike and all natural weapons, such as bite, claw, gore, tail, and wing.
Half orc with the alternate racial trait sacred tattoo and the fates favored trait blend well with the base warpriest. A 2 level dip in ranger for the claws and the razor tusk feat makes a nasty natural attacker.
You don't even need that feat to get a bite. Just take the half-orc race trait that gives you a bite: Tusked.
Wear a Helm of the Mammoth Lord to gain a Gore attack, too.
Still another build that I'm excited to play is a Natural Attack build with Warpriest. Play a Tengu with Claws and a Bite and use Sacred Weapon Damage instead of the regular damage.Isn't the problem with that though that you have to take Weapon Focus separately for each type of natural attack? Weapon Focus Claws, Weapon Focus Bite, Weapon Focus Hair, etc. That was how people were agreeing you had to do it the last time I remember it coming up.That's a problem, but I think it's worth it.
If you play as a human, half elf, or a half orc you can snag this feat.
Martial Versatility (Combat)
You further broaden your study of weapons to encompass multiple similar weapons.
Prerequisites: Fighter level 4th, human.
Benefit: Choose one combat feat you know that applies to a specific weapon (e.g., Weapon Focus). You can use that feat with any weapon within the same weapon group.
Special: You may take this feat more than once. Each time it applies to a different feat.
And most natural attacks fall under the natural weapon group.
NATURAL
Unarmed strike and all natural weapons, such as bite, claw, gore, tail, and wing.
Half orc with the alternate racial trait sacred tattoo and the fates favored trait blend well with the base warpriest. A 2 level dip in ranger for the claws and the razor tusk feat makes a nasty natural attacker.You don't even need that feat to get a bite. Just take the half-orc race trait that gives you a bite: Tusked.
Wear a Helm of the Mammoth Lord to gain a Gore attack, too.
That's true but you can't take it and sacred tattoo. I'd rather have a +2 to all my saves.... Just saying.
Is there something I'm missing here? It doesn't seem like a terribly interesting or flavorful class, and mechanically it seems inferior to being a regular cleric.
It's mostly for people who don't want to multiclass as a fighter/cleric.
The Paladin is very restrictive due to the alignment, but a cleric doesn't have as much martial abilities as the fighter. Furthermore, multiclassing is more crippling than beneficial IMO. Hybrid classes do elevate several issues that multiclassing imposes.
What makes you not want to play it?Getting what I want out of them is way too clunky.
One day I'll make it work, but right now they're looking better on paper than in reality to me. Sacred Fist's Weapon Proficiencies and being locked into Style feats are annoying, particularly the latter.
I found quite the opposite. On paper the War Priest looks unimpressive so much so it was struggle to build one. In play it turned out pretty good. I didn't play one but a player was kind of forced into it. Needed a healer and didn't want be the healer. So I told them to pay Inquisitor or War Priest. They chose a War Priest, I was more thinking they'd go inquisitor as the war priest seem dull to me. In playing they were quite good. The thing he loved was he could play a follower of his favorite god but pick any favored weapon. So he was war priest of Sarenae with Falcata as favored weapon.
That's true but you can't take it and sacred tattoo. I'd rather have a +2 to all my saves.... Just saying.Still another build that I'm excited to play is a Natural Attack build with Warpriest. Play a Tengu with Claws and a Bite and use Sacred Weapon Damage instead of the regular damage.Isn't the problem with that though that you have to take Weapon Focus separately for each type of natural attack? Weapon Focus Claws, Weapon Focus Bite, Weapon Focus Hair, etc. That was how people were agreeing you had to do it the last time I remember it coming up.That's a problem, but I think it's worth it.
If you play as a human, half elf, or a half orc you can snag this feat.
Martial Versatility (Combat)
You further broaden your study of weapons to encompass multiple similar weapons.
Prerequisites: Fighter level 4th, human.
Benefit: Choose one combat feat you know that applies to a specific weapon (e.g., Weapon Focus). You can use that feat with any weapon within the same weapon group.
Special: You may take this feat more than once. Each time it applies to a different feat.
And most natural attacks fall under the natural weapon group.
NATURAL
Unarmed strike and all natural weapons, such as bite, claw, gore, tail, and wing.
Half orc with the alternate racial trait sacred tattoo and the fates favored trait blend well with the base warpriest. A 2 level dip in ranger for the claws and the razor tusk feat makes a nasty natural attacker.You don't even need that feat to get a bite. Just take the half-orc race trait that gives you a bite: Tusked.
Wear a Helm of the Mammoth Lord to gain a Gore attack, too.
Yes, you can.
What I linked isn't a Racial Trait. It's a race trait, like the 2 traits every character has available to them. Tusked =/= Toothy.
So, you get Fate's Favored and Tusked as your traits. Your Racial Traits are unaffected, meaning you can still get Sacred Tattoo.
I link stuff to Nethys and the like whenever I post notes like that, such as I did in the link on Tusked.
I found quite the opposite. On paper the War Priest looks unimpressive so much so it was struggle to build one. In play it turned out pretty good. I didn't play one but a player was kind of forced into it. Needed a healer and didn't want be the healer. So I told them to pay Inquisitor or War Priest. They chose a War Priest, I was more thinking they'd go inquisitor as the war priest seem dull to me. In playing they were quite good. The thing he loved was he could play a follower of his favorite god but pick any favored weapon. So he was war priest of Sarenae with Falcata as favored weapon.What makes you not want to play it?Getting what I want out of them is way too clunky.
One day I'll make it work, but right now they're looking better on paper than in reality to me. Sacred Fist's Weapon Proficiencies and being locked into Style feats are annoying, particularly the latter.
Yeah, you can make some weird builds work with a Warpriest.
A while back I was tinkering with ways to make the sling good. Turns out you can use a sling just fine as an Arsenal Chaplain and even measure with the best of the best archer builds. The only thing is instead of Manyshot you have Startoss Comet and Startoss Shower, which let you strike multiple opponents with a single Standard Action instead of hit the same opponent several times. Otherwise, a warpriest slinger turns out to be a REALLY solid ranged damage dealer (especially when using a Sling Staff and Slipslinger Style for the x3 crit) and is really fun to compare to an archery-focused Arsenal Chaplain.
I'm just happy I can build a real slinger now.
I mean, you still have to play a halfling practically. But yes, a halfling warpriest with a sling can be fearsome.
I mean, you still have to play a halfling practically. But yes, a halfling warpriest with a sling can be fearsome.
Yeah, you do. That's the only downside, though halflings are the race I wanted to use for my slinger anyway, so it worked out for me.
But it also means that you can make a kickass Chakram or Javelin build, too, since the feat choices are almost the exact same with the exception of 1-3.
I always come to this class for making a build with an (otherwise) stupid weapon. My personal favourite is using Barroom brawler to sacred weapon EVERYTHING.
That actually sounds incredibly fun.
I mean, you still have to play a halfling practically. But yes, a halfling warpriest with a sling can be fearsome.
One of the issues I have with the Warpriest is that due to things beyond its class design, playing a WP who is not a half-orc with a sacred tattoo and the fate's favored trait is practically a cost.
It's like how, due to first order optimization, so very many eventual paladins were abandoned by Fae in the woods.
You don't need to take a Weapon Focus a bunch of times. That's been covered. Advanced Weapon Training:
Weapon Specialist (Ex) The fighter selects a number of combat feats that he knows equal to his weapon training bonus with the associated weapon group. The selected feats must be ones that require the fighter to choose a type of weapon (such as Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization), and the fighter must have chosen weapons that belong to the associated fighter weapon group. The fighter is treated as having the selected feats for all the weapons in the associated weapon group that are legal choices for those feats. The fighter is also considered to have those feats with these weapons for the purpose of meeting prerequisites.
So, get to level 5 Warpriest and spend a feat on Advanced Weapon Training and shazam, you apply Weapon Focus and Weapon Spec to every weapon in a given group. Say, Natural Weapons. That means you have Sacred Weapon in ALL your natural weapons.
How to get those natural attacks:
1. Take the Adopted (Tusked) trait. You can still get Fate's Favored this way.
2. 2 level dip into Ranger for claws.
3. Use Racial Heritage (available to Human and Half-Elf) and select Lizardfolk. Then take the feat Dangerous Tail.
4. Wear that gore-granting helmet.
As a human with a 2 level dip into ranger, you could have 2 claws, a bite, and a tail slap without items by character level 7 along with Multitattack and Sacred Weapon for each of them. (2 levels of ranger followed by 5 levels of Warpriest.) Later on you get the gore helmet.
You don't need to wildshape for nuffin.
As far as I know, there's some ambiguity in "What weapon group does the Arsenal Chaplain have weapon training in" that hasn't been officially resolved yet.
Various interpretations I've encountered are:
1) None.
2) Whatever group that weapon belongs to.
3) A special group consisting of any weapon the Warpriest treats as a sacred weapon.
It's amazing for TWF based builds. Sacred weapon rewards high crit weapons, and the bonus feats mean you can get TWF feats earlier than any other 3/4 BAB class. And Fervor can be used with both your hands full. This is the only 3/4 BAB class I would recommend using TWF on.
You can use weapons like the mancatcher and whip and still deal good damage with sacred weapon.
And with the Cult Leader archetype, even though it takes longer to get the feats, you can get sneak attack with two weapons that have very high crit ranges, and good damage from sacred weapon.
I mean, you still have to play a halfling practically. But yes, a halfling warpriest with a sling can be fearsome.One of the issues I have with the Warpriest is that due to things beyond its class design, playing a WP who is not a half-orc with a sacred tattoo and the fate's favored trait is practically a cost.
It's like how, due to first order optimization, so very many eventual paladins were abandoned by Fae in the woods.
Or maybe you don't need to optimize everything completely.
I mean, Fate's Favored is great. And unless you have a really good reason I would suggest taking it.
But being a Half-orc isn't really necessary. You already have good fort and will saves, and since your spell casting is based on wisdom you will have a really good will save.
Actually since Sacred Fist got nerfed (you don't get to use your warpriest level as your BAB for flurry) its actually not very good. You're better off just making a normal warpriest (with armor) and taking advantage of things like brawling enchant, and your swift action buffing and just pick up the TWF feats.
It could work well, since flurry means you don't need dex when you already have to worry about wisdom and perhaps strength.
...of course, it bashes against the classic early monk problem- how to survive when you aren't turtled up with dex/wis... Eventually it has fine AC (two stats to AC, scaling bonus, and buff spells solve that problem even with middling dex/wis)... but getting to that point is hard.
There are fun archetypes for the warpriest that AREN'T sacred fist. The Forgepriest is actually quite entertaining - aside form the awesomeness that is getting Craft Magic Arms and Armor early at 3rd level, this is a character that is perfectly comfortable in full plate and a two handed weapon, while being able to heal and buff himself as a swift action, AND GETS THE SHIELD SPELL. This character is designed to simply never die. If you are insane enough to take the protection blessing as well, it gets completely over the top.Actually since Sacred Fist got nerfed (you don't get to use your warpriest level as your BAB for flurry) its actually not very good. You're better off just making a normal warpriest (with armor) and taking advantage of things like brawling enchant, and your swift action buffing and just pick up the TWF feats.
I imagine it would work okay if you can convince your GM to let your Sacred Fist use the Unchained Monk's Flurry of Blows.
Or maybe you don't need to optimize everything completely.
One thing that I've found though is that it's a lot harder for people to eschew first order optimization than it is for them to reject specific synergies down the line.
Like people seem to want all their choices at level 1 to work together as well as possible, but they aren't always tied to devoting all their feats etc. to a specific trick that will become unstoppable by level 11ish.
This may not be universal though, *shrug*.
(It also kind of bugs me how much better the Elf and Halfling FCBs are for the occultist than what anybody else gets, so this might just be a me thing.)
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In my opinion, the Warpriest is just ok. It is best at being something besides what I would call a Warpriest/Battle Priest/crusader, and if thats the sort of thing Im aiming for, Cleric, Inqusitor, and Oracle, again in my opinion, all do the job better. To which degrees really depends on the circumstances.
Fervor is nice, but when Ive played them, it just doesnt feel like its good enough for all it trades out. Less spells per day and at a slower rate hurts a lot more than it seems on paper, and the lack of any way to go beyond the generic Cleric list hurts.
While I believe in general Blessing powers where implimented better than Domain powers, (actually working as self buffs most of the time), they also just don't seem to do the trick. Like most of the class, it came close, but just needs a little more oomph to make it.
I also think removing the pseudo Full BaB was a poor choice, effectively requiring Fervor and constant self-buffing to keep up rather than being the special feature it was intended to be.
Im not sold on Sacred Weapon damage, as it seems to do the exact opposite of what a warrior-cleric should focus at, and I think a good comprimise would be to allow Full BaB instead of increased damage, so that it doesn't feel like a wasted class feature if you are using a greatsword or bastard sword, or even a longsword or mace until highee levels when it stops mattering.
I think sacred weapon was a good design decision, since it enables a warpriest to effectively use a deity's favored weapon even if that weapon isn't honestly very good normally.
I do find though that people tend to overrate it, since it works out mathematically to be about as much extra damage as Weapon Training adds (the Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain honestly gains from trading Sacred Weapon dice for weapon training; all they give up is blessing choice.)
I think sacred weapon was a good design decision, since it enables a warpriest to effectively use a deity's favored weapon even if that weapon isn't honestly very good normally.
I do find though that people tend to overrate it, since it works out mathematically to be about as much extra damage as Weapon Training adds (the Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain honestly gains from trading Sacred Weapon dice for weapon training; all they give up is blessing choice.)
Depends on the weapon and the scale of the game really. Whips, starknives, daggers and scimitars/rapiers get a lot of mileage out of hitting 2d6 damage. Most of the big pipe hitting weapons people choose really dont. And if you aren't going to hit the mid teens its definitely not worth it.
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Chaplain is better always, regardless of weapon, that's why it is the WP and the vanilla is the more healy WP.
at lv5 normal warpriest had gone from 1d6 to 1d8, which is +1 damage average
A chaplain has WT for a +1 to attack and a +1 to damage
at lv9 normal is still at 1d8
chaplain is now at +2 to attack and +2 damage.
at lv10 normal is finally at 1d10 for another 1 average damage increase putting total at +2
chaplain is still at +2 to attack and damage
at lv13 normal is still at 1d10 for his +2 damage
chaplain goes to +3 to attack and damage
at lv15 normal is now at 2d6 for +1.5 damage total 3.5
chaplain is still at +3 to attack and damage
at 17 normal is still at 2d6 for damage total 3.5
chaplain is now at +4 to attack and damage
then 3 level later at lv20 normal goes to 2d8 for 5.5 damage total increase.
So not only are you coming online faster, your damage bonus is the same, only losing out at lv20. BUT you are also getting an accuracy boost. Using a simple conversion of 2 damage per accuracy we get a total of +12 damage.
Depends on the weapon and the scale of the game really. Whips, starknives, daggers and scimitars/rapiers get a lot of mileage out of hitting 2d6 damage. Most of the big pipe hitting weapons people choose really dont. And if you aren't going to hit the mid teens its definitely not worth it.
If you're using a piddly d4 weapon with focused weapon, you're getting average damage bonuses of:
Level 1: +1 damage
Level 5: +2 damage
Level 10: +3 damage
Level 15: +4.5 damage
Any kind of free damage is nice, but that's hardly enough to make it the defining feature of a class. It's generally behind Weapon Training + Weapon Specialization (ahead for levels 1-3 though when the fighter has neither; sure the Warpriest can take weapon spec too, but not gloves of dueling.)
I think the Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain for, say dagger throwers, is an upgrade because you've already upgraded the damage die to d6 and you're getting (over the base d4 die for a dagger):
Level 1: +1 damage
Level 5: +2 damage
Level 9: +3 damage
Level 13: +4 damage
Level 17: +5 damage
The difference is really stark when you compare the vanilla warpriest and the arsenal chaplain, both using a greatsword, however.
Chaplain is better always, regardless of weapon, that's why it is the WP and the vanilla is the more healy WP.
....
So not only are you coming online faster, your damage bonus is the same, only losing out at lv20. BUT you are also getting an accuracy boost. Using a simple conversion of 2 damage per accuracy we get a total of +12 damage.
Yeah. It's one of those things that can easily confuse those of us who are weak at math. Basically, the MAC trades out defensive powers for greater offensive ability. You lose sacred armor and channel, but gain greater accuracy, while having more reliable damage. And you trade out your second blessing to empower your war blessing.