y they remove

just when it was finally useful lol. Could of kept it in and updated it to make it worth going hierophant. Now we just have Ghetto Surgephant

also wut lvl arcane surge? does it scale with level? That would be nuts having a 20 arcane surge at 30.

Also, I don't like that they didn't provide first lab boosts like assassin gets.

Ambush/Assassinate as first point is amazing while Hierophant gets Illuminated devotion? Kinda a big difference in power levels there.

Pigeonholes you into using arcane surge while leveling then you gain a new link at 55? Yuck.

Hierophant is 'ok' but will probably be bad if we are getting changes like these to all ascendencies~ elementalist 500% inc dmg incoming.

How is illuminated devotion not good for leveling?

25% aoe+spell leech+40% spell damage seems good enough. I mean compare it to scion for example.
Convinction of power is also pretty damn powerful for first lab. Endurance+power charge sustain, ele penetration and reduced ele dmg taken? seems pretty good to me
Pursuit of faith is straight up 1 additional totem. How is that not good for leveling? way stronger than assassin first point imo

I personally don't think building part of an ascendancy around something like arcane surge is bad design but I guess that's something people can disagree with

Any mana heavy or mom build would love hierophant..
Elementalist and inquisitor will definitely be better for damage (unless elementalist gets some totally new mechanics) but hierophant isn't meant to be a dmg ascendancy
Especially for HC I think hierophant has a lot of potential.

For example a stromcall build would be pretty decent with hierophant I think

its level 1 arcane surge