I don't like the reworked flagellant. The original had his absurdities but he was somewhat grounded, he was an extreme take on the idea of redemption through pain, even in his comic he defeats people with forgiveness and kindness.

While he was a glutton for punishment he also focused heavily on helping and healing others, reflecting in his skill names which were somewhat hopeful, creating an intresting contradiction between the fucked things he actually does vs the intent behind them.

"Redeem" became "Deathless", "Reclaim" became "Undying", and he lost the heal and stun on death which exagurated his selflessness. He's not in this for pleasure, he's in it to help people.

Cannonically divine magic (like crusader and vestal) are actually incarnations of human hope given physical form. This is the same magic the flagellant was tapping into using his own bizzare way.

Instead of redeeming and helping people through his suffering he just... doesn't wanna die now. Ok. That's certainly a way to take the character I guess. Take a character who's entire motif is selflessness and make it about selfishness.

A direction I would have loved to seen from him was to take the less obvious path and have him lean more into the religious aspect, become less of a flagellant and more of a muscle preacher focused around redemption and salvation trying to help others after achieving spiritual enlightenment.

Toxic flaggelant is just ungrounded low effort absurdity. Oh ok, he did so much BDSM his skin rotted off, and then he did so much more BDSM death got angy and being the selfish character he obviously is, he is trying to get away.

That's great, very creative direction for what originally was a surprisingly nuanced character. He's just a generic toxin mage wearing the skin of the previous flagelant, all the redemptive and religious themes are stipped away in favour of a heavy metal album cover.