Lamannia Update 66 Preview 2 - Epic Destiny Refresh

[Edrein]

Angelic Form and Wrathful Form do both trigger off of Alignment Spells. Alignment spells proc the Light damage portion of the damaging mantle. And yes, AotS stuff will work with both of these versions!

Does this also extend to Enlightened Spirit's blasts? Iirc they're keyed to count as Light spells correct?

 

[Edrein]

Turning off your pact dice as an aots critically impairs your damage capability. A fully kitted out, high fire spellpower atos was the least fun character I have ever played. There were quests I simply could not complete solo at all and had to bring in help that did pretty much any kind of damage i did not do.

You could not pay me enough money to burn life away doing that again without a strip capability. And to be honest, the experience was so bad I doubt I would try again even if I had a strip capability.

While I agree with you on the fire side of things. I feel like AotS played with the AotS tree as your primary tree is just frustrating in general. The fire issue is just a run on of the fact that Tieflings have fire striping. Tiefling is obviously the best choice for AotS for several synergy reasons, but their innate fire strip feels like the reason that AotS itself didn't get a fire strip for non-tieflings. I personally would have just made the pact fire damage for AotS use a different channel, kind of like the 6 different types of evil damage in the game. Let it harm normally immune mobs and not heal mobs that heal from fire damage and call it a day.

On paper it seems great and I want to love it. But in practicality boy is it frustrating, especially when you scatter mobs to the winds with the fear and then find yourself unable to actually then hit them your blasts for the increased damage. I hope with Dragonlord getting innate Cower, that we might get an update to AotS soon to give them cower instead of fear.

 

[Gunzilla]

Exalted Angel​

If you’re really interested in thoughts, here’s mine:

Since I spend a lot of time soloing in Exalted Angel and with the self healing changes you’re making to the mantle, I think I’ll be looking for a new hobby. Probably something like woodworking or gardening.

I now feel like I’ve wasted a significant amount of my life/time and money on this game since my solo play-style is being taken away from me.

 

[Cyberdine (YezakGai)]

If you’re really interested in thoughts, here’s mine:

Since I spend a lot of time soloing in Exalted Angel and with the self healing changes you’re making to the mantle, I think I’ll be looking for a new hobby. Probably something like woodworking or gardening.

I now feel like I’ve wasted a significant amount of my life/time and money on this game since my solo play-style is being taken away from me.

That's a sad way to look at things. Games change, and if this particular thing does change, it shouldn't completely invalidate the fun you've had.

The game will eventually die. That doesn't mean all of us have wasted time, life, or money. But I guess that's just my perspective.

 

[Kyrr]

That's a sad way to look at things. Games change, and if this particular thing does change, it shouldn't completely invalidate the fun you've had.

The game will eventually die. That doesn't mean all of us have wasted time, life, or money. But I guess that's just my perspective.

I don't think anyone who was affected by this mantle change should invalidate their fun they've had. I also don't think it should be the reason they quit. Not sure how long they've played but the exalted mantle wasn't an introduction until ~2-2.5 years ago and didn't have self sustainability until they were introduced.

 

[Mordenkainen]

Damn, that's some nice warlock love there.

 

[Frybri73]

If you’re really interested in thoughts, here’s mine:

Since I spend a lot of time soloing in Exalted Angel and with the self healing changes you’re making to the mantle, I think I’ll be looking for a new hobby. Probably something like woodworking or gardening.

I now feel like I’ve wasted a significant amount of my life/time and money on this game since my solo play-style is being taken away from me.

Im with you. This update screwed every character I play. They literally took everything I find fun about the game away. In my opinion the whole thing is a steaming pile of..... and should be scrapped. I guess i should thank them... they made my mind up for me. My bday is coming up...same day as ddo anniversary actually. i was considering buying a new pc as a present since my current one is old and sucks. wont be doing that now and instead will be putting that money toward that revolver ive been wanting(my other hobby) and extra supplies to make food for it. Range season coming up soon anywho so its whatever

 

[droid327]

Turning off your pact dice as an aots critically impairs your damage capability. A fully kitted out, high fire spellpower atos was the least fun character I have ever played. There were quests I simply could not complete solo at all and had to bring in help that did pretty much any kind of damage i did not do.

You could not pay me enough money to burn life away doing that again without a strip capability. And to be honest, the experience was so bad I doubt I would try again even if I had a strip capability.

AotS can afford to lose pact more than regular Lock...standard Lock has 57% of EB damage from Pact vs only 43% for Aco. Plus you get Ruin+Gruin late in Epic to pick off the occasional Fire Immune, and potentially EBT depending on your build.

But, tbh, pure AotS sucks, there's no point in playing one over a standard lock if you're going pure. The only real point is to multiclass and still get full EB. So in that case, whatever you're MCing should presumably give you something to make up for the fact that you're locked into Fire.

 

[Vooduspyce]

Now that DB is way weaker, let s have our 2nd spell in that tree to compensate and to be equal to others Epic Destinies

Yes, please!

 

[BiggerTrolls]

I want to double check, does force warlock damage trigger things that key off of force spells/damage? I'm looking at mantles! Warlock damage is terminal at this point...

 

[mikarddo]

Updates and a bug round-up after some more internal tinkering:

Thanks so much for your wonderful feedback, and if you have any further thoughts, questions, or suggestions, let us know!

Great changes for warlocks! Those were badly needed.

Nice to see melee/ranged bug fixes for more dps though that leaves casters even worse off relatively.

Wrt. DI and the nerf to Dragon Breath. This leaves DI a weakened tree. I would like to suggest the following 3 changes to somewhat keep DI useful.

a) Other caster trees have two offensive spells. Please add a second offensive spell to DI. I suggest to place it in tier 2 instead of Coalescence or Conduit.
b) The Epic Moment in DI feel very weak. I have been using DI for a long time on a character with (near) max points and I do not even take the epic moment nor does anyone else I talk to. Please add some spell DC, some spell crit chance and some spell crit mult to the effect to give it a little oomph.
c) The wings in T5 have a cooldown of 15 seconds. Compared to 3 seconds cooldown (albeit with charges, but only 15 seconds recharge) for the wings from EA (in core 3, so much easier to get) this feels very bad. Please lower the cooldown significantly.

Thank you.

 

[Tilomere]

Can you remove the white cloudy screen flash on consecrate-sacred ground?

 

[FVSHasBeenEvenMoreGutted]

b) The Epic Moment in DI feel very weak. I have been using DI for a long time on a character with (near) max points and I do not even take the epic moment nor does anyone else I talk to. Please add some spell DC, some spell crit chance and some spell crit mult to the effect to give it a little oomph.

the epic moment actually has a use. the Lava Divers used it in their skellies push raids to perma CC the trash mobs so they didn't respawn (Ying and/or sardonic can correct me if I'm not 100% correct). other than that its useless

 

[Tyriax]

Some stuff to love, some to test out, liking the direction of a lot of this! The knights challenge/throw the boom change feels like a really good one, strong utility for single target pulls.

Personally Id like to see a little more attention paid to the hybridness of the cores in Fatesinger. I dont play casters so I have no idea if core 2 "when you stike" applies to spell cast, but I know for sure that core 4 does nothing for melee based FS who arent also some kind of hybrid melee/spellcaster.

Not sure what could be added here, but as its turning shouts and echose of discord into a heal something along the lines of ameliorating strike specifically for blade of discord would be thematically appropriate and still applies to those hybrid melee/casters as well. For the ranged version Im not sure if that works as well for an archer or xbow but its something to consider.

 

[rabidfox]

the epic moment actually has a use. the Lava Divers used it in their skellies push raids to perma CC the trash mobs so they didn't respawn (Ying and/or sardonic can correct me if I'm not 100% correct). other than that its useless

Nope. Trash that's CC'd for more a limited period of time in raids automatically dies (likely as a countermeasure to prevent such tactics); after dying they would then respawn after a set period of time (and again the next time the corner became active). We might have had a tank on DI for elemental immunity vs fire during the epic moment; I'm sure we tried it, but I can't recall if that was a tactic we were still using on the successful r10.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

• We've fixed a particularly pernicious bug that prevented melee and ranged attacks with bonus damage from scaling that bonus damage with a doublestrike or doubleshot.

Excellent changes/fixes. Does this part apply to the sonic damage on fatesinger strikes? (Sword sings/Pluck)

 

[Tuxedomanwashere]

Hi all! I hope your 2024 is treating you well!

With Update 66 we're embarking on a pretty large overhaul of the current 13 Epic Destinies in an effort to adjust their structure, balance, and presentation. This takes the form of some universal changes that apply to all trees, and some specific changes that apply to certain abilities within certain trees. Without further ado, let's get right to it!

Changes for this preview are in this awesome teal and are bolded!

Changes to All Trees​

All Epic Destiny Trees have received the following:

• A pass over their individual icons for readability and iconography - this includes several new icons and edits to existing ones to provide a cleaner and more cohesive within-tree look.
• All Mantle ability icons now have a color-coded border around their Icon for maximum readability on a hotbar or within a tree.
• All Strike ability icons now have a color-coded border around their Icon for maximum readability on a hotbar or within a tree.
• All abilities that upgrade a Mantle or a Strike now have an appropriate border that matches the border of what they're upgrading for maximum visual clarity.
• Trees have been reordered and rearranged to support more clear Prereq lines in cases where ability upgrades are required - for example, an ability that says "Your Destiny Mantle gains this specific bonus" is now in a line with that Mantle and has arrows to properly convey its relationship.
• A ton of tooltips have been rewritten, reworded, color coded, and simplified or expanded depending on their needs.

You'll notice this section is almost all about how the trees are presented - and it's something that we hope really makes a difference. But now, onwards to the funky stuff!

Draconic Incarnation​

Most of these adjustments are about Dragon Breath, an ability that we think is quite strong but has overshadowed the other caster-based Epic Strikes and (more importantly) outpaced the intended difficulty of our content. To that end, we're lowering its damage, but are also lowering its AP cost and its cooldown. Other Epic Strikes are being adjusted as well, Draconic just happens to be first and we're starting here!

• Dragon Breath is now a 1-rank, 2AP Ability.
• Dragon Breath damage adjusted to 1d6+5 damage per caster level.
• Energy Burst now increases Dragon Breath's damage to 1d6+10 damage per caster level.
• Gaping Maw now increases Dragon Breath's damage to 1d6+10 damage per caster level.
• Dragon Breath cooldown adjusted to 12 seconds.
• Dragon Breath and Attune the Arcane have swapped places in the tree.
• Dragon Breath now has its intended max caster level of 20 to match the other Epic Strikes. All Epic Strikes should now have a Maximum Caster Level of 20.
• The Epic Moment no longer makes you immune to negative damage if you are Undead.
• Spread Your Wings now properly puts all other jaunt abilities on cooldown.
• Inevitable is now on its own damage channel and should therefore no longer conflict with other damage over time abilities.

Gonna have to echo other people's sentiment in improving Spread Your Wings. It makes no sense that a T5, locking out T5s in other trees and gated by level 30, is surpassed by an ability that you can get 4 levels earlier, with far less investment, and without hard locking other abilities in other trees.

Fatesinger​

Fatesinger's largest adjustments are in how it calculates its DCs for its CC abilities. It's also the first tree in alphabetical order to have its cores adjusted, which means this is a great place to talk about our new Core structure for certain destinies.

Quick Interlude for a Chart!​

Going forward, we've standardized the HP and SP so that certain destinies match each other based on their intended playstyle. This mostly resulted in a bump to HP for the Martial Destinies, but we're happy to have a good standard to fall back on when iterating on this system.

Destiny Type	Destiny Trees	HP Per Core	SP Per Core
Martial	Divine Crusader, Grandmaster of Flowers, Legendary Dreadnought, Fury of the Wild	25	-
Hybrid	Shadowdancer, Fatesinger, Machrotechnic, Shiradi	15	25
Spellcaster	Draconic Incarnation, Magus of the Eclipse, Primal Avatar, Exalted Angel	-	50
Unyielding Sentienel	Unyielding Sentienel	35	20

Back to Fatesinger​

Where were we... right! Fatesinger!

• Core abilities now grant +15 HP
• Renamed "The Rhythm to Reign" to "Pianissimo"
• Renamed "Reign" to "The Rhythm to Reign"
• DC for Discord abilities (melee/ranged) is now 20 + highest mod + stun DC
• DC for Greatest Shout + Discord (spell) is now 20 + highest of int/wis/cha + evocation DC
• Strike a Chord sonic damage is now 1d6+3 per Caster Level.
• Little bit of Music and Master the Acoustics have swapped places in the tree
• Master the Acoustics rank 3 now doubles the sonic damage for all epic strikes in the tree in additional to it's original bonuses.
• Critical Threat Range of Pluck the String and The Sword Swings increased from +2 to +4
• Arrow of Discord is now an AOE Ranged Attack (see the AOE Ranged Attacks thread)
• Arrow of Discord's Bonus Damage has been reduced from 30% to 15% (see the AOE Ranged Attacks thread)

I'm fine with most of the changes. Kinda bummed out about the change to Greatest shout. No more hulk shouting for me.

Magus of the Eclipse​

Magus is the first of the trees to get a more significant overhaul to its structure. The big goal here was to provide more traditional spellcasters a way to better utilize the whole tree. We also wanted to significantly boost the damage of the Epic Strikes to make them a more attractive choice for damaging spellcasters.

• Moon Lance and Gloom Spear now deal 1d8+8 damage per caster level
• Chill Aura is now multiselected with: "Flash of the Eclipse: While in your Magus of the Eclipse Destiny Mantle, your Cold and Negative spells have a chance to blast your target for an additional 1d6+6 damage per character level of the same type as the spell used, as well as applying one stack of Shattermantle. Each element can only strike once every 5 seconds, tracked separately."
• Share the Light now requires Chill Aura as a prereq
• Null Magic Strike is now multiselected with Share the Light and moves down in the tree to Tier 3
• New Tier 4 where Null Magic Strike was: "Lunar Studies: While in your Magus of the Eclipse Destiny Mantle, you gain Spell Resistance, Magic Resistance Rating, and Magic Resistance Rating Cap equal to 3 times the number of Metamagic feats you've acquired."
• Grand Summoner moves to multiselect with New Tier 4 Lunar Studies, and is now part of the Destiny Mantle
• New Tier 1 where Grand Summoner was: "Moontouched: +2/4/6 Magic Resistance Rating. Rank 3: +5 Negative, Cold, Force, and Universal Spell Power"
• Lunar Imbuement is now: "Casting Moon Lance or Gloom Spear grants you +5 Negative, Cold, Force, and Universal Spell Power for 12 seconds, and these spells apply 5 stacks of Vulnerability to the enemy struck."
• All Core abilities now grant +1 Spell Penetration each
• Core 4 now grants +3 Spell Pen (which is still total of 7 across all 4 cores + 3 from core 4, but is now spread out a bit and easier to access)
• Lunar Power is now: "+10 Negative, Cold, Force, and Universal spell power. Your Moon Lance and Gloom Spear spells now deal 1d12+16 damage to enemies with 0 or less Spell Resistance."
• AP costs of several abilities have been adjusted to try to get this tree closer to the goal of 60-ish AP for all abilities like other Destiny Trees. It's still below other trees, but now the margin is less severe.
• Grand Summoner moves to multiselect with Tier 1 Imperceptible Casting
• Improved Arcane Pulse is now named Unholy Pulse and grants +15 neg amp in addition to its existing effects

I liked everything up until I got to Grand Summoner sharing a multiselector with Imperceptible Casting. I mean, wouldn't it make sense to have them be separate so you're far less likely to pull aggro off of your summons, pets, and hirelings (thematically of course; not sure if anyone actually uses summons currently)?

Machrotechnic​

This tree got some fun stuff to help it branch out a bit and boost its Strike DPS in relation to the others.

• The cooldowns of the Hammer Time spells and the damaging Epic Strikes have swapped places - leaving the Sonic and Electric Epic Strikes at 10 seconds and the Hammer spells at 15 seconds.
• Rune Arm Use now allows you to use highest of INT/WIS/CHA for Rune Arm DCs
• The Tier 4 strike upgrade boosts the Sonic and Electric damage of the strike to 1d6+8

Awesome change to runearms. Opens up interesting build variety.

Divine Crusader​

Small changes and bug fixes for this tree.

• Core Abilities now grant +25 HP
• Core 4 damage now correctly scales with melee/ranged power.

Nice.

Exalted Angel​

Another tree to receive a larger overhaul. Most of these changes are centered around the Mantle and the Epic Moment. A new mechanical sub-theme within this tree is abilities that boost your Armor Class and Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. Furthermore, we boosted the damage of the Epic Strikes significantly.

• Holy Fireball damage adjusted to 1d6+4 Fire and 1d6+4 Light damage per caster level. Cooldown Adjusted to 10 seconds.
• Divine Protection is now: +1/2/3 Armor Class and Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. Rank 3: +5 Fire, Light, Positive, Alignment and Universal Spellpower.
• Metamagic Attunement II in tier 5 no longer grants spell power (was moved to tier 2 Divine Protection)
• Metamagic Attunement II now has proper feat prereqs
• Sun Pillar and Flame Pillar now deal 1d8+8 damage per caster level
• New Multiselector with Angelic Form: Wrathful Form: "Casting a Fire, Light, Alignment, or Positive Spell causes you to be surrounded by fire and light for 5 seconds, damaging all enemies nearby every 2.5 seconds for 1d6 Fire and 1d6 Light damage per caster level. This damage will not strike dazed targets unless they are also stunned. Subsequent spellcasts extend the duration by an additional 5 seconds, up to a maximum of 15. This ability ends when you leave combat. Your Positive Healing spells heal 1d6 extra Positive Healing per caster level. This has a cooldown of 5 seconds before it can trigger again."
• Angelic Form is now: "Your offensive Fire spells deal 1d6+6 bonus Fire damage per caster level, and your offensive Light spells now deal 1d6+6 bonus Light damage per caster level. Your Positive Healing spells heal 1d6 extra Positive Healing per caster level. These damage effects each have a unique cooldown of 5 seconds." (this is pretty much what was here before, but with slightly different heal scaling and no % chance)
• Angelic Body is now: "While within your Exalted Angel Destiny Mantle, you gain +5 Armor Class and Physical and Magical Resistance Rating, and are immune to Natural Poisons and Natural Diseases.
• Angelic Soul is now: "Your Wrathful Form and Angelic Form now apply Consecrated Cinders to enemies and Consecrated Sparks to allies. Consecrated Cinders: -5 Armor Class and Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. Consecrated Sparks: +5 Armor Class and Physical and Magical Resistance Rating"
• Holy Presence and Angelic Soul have swapped places
• Holy Presence is now: "While in your Exalted Angel Destiny Mantle, you gain 15% damage absorption to all Elemental (Fire, Cold, Electric, Acid, Poison, Sonic) and Alignment (Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic) damage."
• Blessed Water's Rank 3 now also grants +15 Magical Resistance Rating if you have the Font of Life feat
• Shadows Upon You now also reduces Armor Class and Physical and Magical Resistance Rating by 1 per stack.
• Ascendance is now: Epic Moment. For the next 20 seconds, your single-target Cure Wounds spells you cast on any target now instead apply to all allies. These spells cannot crit. For the duration of this ability, Raise Dead and Resurrection also raise your target to full HP like True Resurrection does. Finally, your Turn Undead can now turn any type of creature regardless of genus, can destroy things it turns, and you gain +3 to each Turn Undead stat per Religious Lore feat.
• Chain Cure projectile set to Ludicrous Speed and added homing so it hits your allies more often
• Bane of Undeath now allows you to use your character level instead of your class level for Turn Undead
• Delayed Judgement DC scaling is now enchantment

Sad about the change to Holy Presence. Can we not keep it as it is? There was already a pretty hefty opportunity cost in putting points in a tree that was on the lower end for damage and/or tanking, and the healing penalty in reaper made it so that it become of greater benefit for those around you than yourself.

Another note, but it's odd to me that the ability to turn other genera is locked behind a level 30 ability on a 5 minute cooldown. I'm not saying we should be able to instakill anything, but a gradual increase in the amount/type of creatures would make more sense and offer some interesting considerations in the enhancement line, for example. You guys already have "Bane of Undeath". You could have something like "Bane of the Wicked", which would affect evil outsiders (or if you're feeling generous, evil creatures in general), and then the epic moment would temporarily give you "Bane of Existence", which affects everything.

Grandmaster of Flowers​

Almost all of the adjustments here are centered on the Epic Strikes.

• Core Abilities now grant +25 HP
• Drifting Lotus Epic strike now deals +10/20/30% damage
• Orchid Blossom Epic Strike now deals 1d6+10 damage per caster level
• Fixed ranged power scaling on Orchid Blossom
• Fixed tainted creature boost on Orchid Blossom
• Lower cooldowns of inner focus and wholeness of spirit to be 120/90/60 seconds

When you say fixed power scaling and boost, does that mean the damage should be going down?

Legendary Dreadnought​

• Core Abilities now grant +25 HP
• Dire Shot is now an AOE Ranged Attack (see the AOE Ranged Attacks thread)
• Legendary Rally (Ranged) is now an AOE Ranged Attack (see the AOE Ranged Attacks thread)
• Legendary Rally (Ranged)'s Bonus Damage has been reduced from 50% to 25% (see the AOE Ranged Attacks thread)

Mostly positive change imo with the exception of repeaters and dual-crossbows, but I left that comment in the other thread.

Shadowdancer​

Another tree to get a slightly more in-depth overhaul, focused on beefing up the Mantle a bit and boosting the Epic Strike.

• Core abilities now grant +15 HP and +25 SP.
• Epic Strike: Becomes a beam like Lightning Bolt instead of being single target. Cooldown adjusted to 8 seconds. (note: the Lightning Bolt targeting is not working in this preview!)
• Shadow Mastery Epic Moment's activation time has been significantly reduced
• Weird is now a SLA instead of a Spellbook Spell, with the same cost and cooldown as it had before
• Consumed by Shadows debuff attack from t5 now also applies Shadow Loss and 3 stacks of Darkness to affected enemies.
• Mantle t5 upgrade's shadowy floating vfx and feather fall moves to the T2 Mantle upgrade, Depths of Darkness
• New t5 to replace Greater Shadowform: Unholy Feeding: On kill, you gain 6 temp HP per sneak attack dice. You also gain +10 Force and Universal Spell Power and are immune to Pressure Plates and Bear Traps.
• Shadowstrike (Ranged) is now an AOE Ranged Attack (see the AOE Ranged Attacks thread)
• Shadowstrike (Ranged)'s Bonus Damage has been reduced from 50% to 25% (see the AOE Ranged Attacks thread)
• Shadowstrike (Ranged)'s bonus to Critical Multiplier has been lowered from +3 to +2 (see the AOE Ranged Attacks thread)

Thank you for adding Weird as an SLA. It felt weird (no pun intended) for rogues and other stealthy classes that thematically can enshroud themselves in darkness to be unable to use a T5 ability like that. Change to the epic strike is also nice, with the exception of the multishot ranged weapons as noted above.

Fury of the Wild​

Most of the adjustments here center on the tree's Epic Strikes. We wanted to boost Quick Cut to make it a more attractive choice versus Adrenaline.

• Core abilities now grant +25 HP
• Great Leveler now applies a 2 second no save knockdown against targets who succeed against the 6 second knockdown. Tool tip upgraded to indicate the save is vs the Balance Skill.
• Adrenaline's cooldown has been adjusted to 9 seconds
• Quick Cut's animation upgraded to use whirlwind (2 hits in a 360 degree area)
• Cutter now always applies to all creatures hit without requiring you to be Quick
• Quick now always applies to you (assuming you hit a creature)
• Cutter damage reduced from 4d6 to 3d6 and is now slashing damage, not bane.
• Be The Whirlwind now applies to Quick Cutter

Nice.

Primal Avatar​

These changes are entirely about the tree's Epic Strikes.

• Carrion Swarm DOT damage bug fixed to actually be 1d6+1 per 2 character levels.
• Carrion Swarm gains a saving throw interval to remove the dot.
• Spring to Summer AOE damage adjusted to 1d6+6 per Caster Level.
• Storm Catcher single target damage adjusted to 1d8+8 per Caster Level. DOT damage adjusted to 1d6 every 2 seconds per Caster Level.
• Fix bug with core 3 so that it's stuff YOU CAST and not spells that affect you
• Carrion Swarm visual bug fixed so you have a unique channel per originator

I' m assuming this means Carrion Swarm damage is going down... oh well, can't win 'em all. I'm glad core 3 has been fixed.

Shiradi Champion​

For this tree, a lot's going on. You are probably going to have to check this one out in the game as the abilities have been shuffled considerably.

• Core abilities now grant +15 HP, +25 SP
• Feywild Attunement's Base Attack Bonus now works regardless of weapon type.
• Fey Lights now deals 1d6+3 Force damage per caster level, scaling with Force Spell Power. Selecting an element with your mantle's Stay ability will change this damage to match that type.
• Core 4 is now: "You gain +1 Saves vs Spells, with an additional +1 for every Favored Enemy feat you've acquired. +1 Maximum Manyshot charge."
• Pin is now: "AOE Ranged Attack: Make a Ranged Attack that shatters on impact, hitting all enemies in a small area around where it lands. If a moving enemy is affected, they are slowed for 12 seconds. 15 second cooldown."
• Otto's Whistler's Immobilize and Dance effects when upgrading Pin have been reduced to a 6 second duration (though still with no saving throw) as Pin's ability to lock down groups is now significantly stronger.
• Fey Form mantle upgrade is now Cruelty of the Hunt: You deal +10% damage against the helpless.
• Track now works on harmful spellcasts and reduces saves by 1/stack.
• New Enemy of my Own multiselector: Fey Form: You gain Dr10/Cold Iron, +5 Force and Universal Spell Power, and your main hand weapon becomes an Implement
• New Whirling Wrists multiselector: Flickering Fingers: +1/2/3 Imbue Dice
• New Phase Double multiselector: Fey Presence: +2/4/6% incorporeality
• Hunts End is now a ranged attack that deals +250% damage and automatically crits.
• Greater Beguiling Charm has been cut, and Beguiling Charm now has its upgrade by default
• Hunt's End and Pin have switched places, with Pin becomes the new epic strike. Pin gets upgraded now in Hunt's End's place, and Hunts End is now multiselected with the Beguiling Charm ability and is no longer an Epic Strike.
• Beguiling Charm and the space where Greater Beguiling Charm was move up a tier, to Tier 3 and 4, and Enemy Of My Own goes down to Tier 2
• New Tier 4 where Greater Beguile would have been: Countenance of Queens: -15% threat from all sources
• The second Strike upgrade for Pin is "Overwhelming Force: Pin now applies 10 stacks of Track to enemies struck." The first strike upgrade in tier 3 is Otto's Whistler, which moved in from its previous location in tier 4.
• Pin is now an AOE Ranged Attack
• Otto's Whistler's Immobilize and Dance effects when upgrading Pin have been reduced to a 6 second duration (though still with no saving throw) as Pin's ability to lock down groups is now significantly stronger.

Hmm. Similarly bummed out about the change to Hunt's End. The current version offers great tactical utility as an ability to spike high-priority monsters. If it has to be nerfed (presumably because of its ability to deal this damage to multiple targets as opposed to adrenaline's first target), can we not just have it on a longer cooldown? It's not as great of a deal to me, since I can see the prospect of this change allowing for example Hunt's End and another attack to be used in quick succession (due to it no longer being an epic strike), I do see the concern for those who would have benefitted or preferred the more strategic aspect of managing groups of cooldowns together for sniping monsters, which would be thematically appropriate for bows and GXBs.

Unyielding Sentinel​

Some fun stuff in here!

• Celestial Mandate damage increased to 75% and it now has a +30 to hit bonus.
• Throw the Boom is a separate ability, sharing a cooldown with Knight's Challenge.

Conclusion​

This is an early preview, which means we're very interested in your thoughts and feedback on these changes. Please let us know what you think!

I wasn't able to test this on lamaland, but wouldn't Knight's Challenge stay single-target? Because if that's the case, I don't really see the need for them to share a cooldown. Non-tanks are likely to use one or the other if they are for whatever reason caught in that tree up that far (and if both become aoe then only Throw the Boom which stuns targets would be used in this clearly heavily construed hypothetical), and tanks need more help in generating and keeping aggro, not less. Adding one or several additional monsters to the tank's front is only going to make people playing tanks, a generally thankless job outside of raiding, that much happier. Especially because it's not unheard of for stragglers to go after adventurers in the back of the party (especially when they teleport, phase in or out, or just randomly reset due to zombie aggro). I'm extending this challenge to anyone in this thread. What would be the reason to have them share a cooldown?

 

[songswrath]

If you’re really interested in thoughts, here’s mine:

Since I spend a lot of time soloing in Exalted Angel and with the self healing changes you’re making to the mantle, I think I’ll be looking for a new hobby. Probably something like woodworking or gardening.

I now feel like I’ve wasted a significant amount of my life/time and money on this game since my solo play-style is being taken away from me.

I hate to be that guy but if you have to have a aura healing you all the time. It better to up your play tactics not just run in button smacking. Invest in some defense in your build. Yes dps is king but there no dps if your a soul stone.
I think this change was great I am fine with removed easy buttons.

Over all most the changes are good only one I disagree with is locking out str trance from rage. You need 3 fighter for it this takes away the lvl 18 core that's where most the power is in alot of builds. If the combo of getting a trance and haste boost is becoming to easy move the haste boost to the lvl 6 core or in tier 5
But in fact it time we just overall balance trances and make them universal say a 1 for every two levels this is on par with what most end game players are hitting with them now.

 

[Rosze]

Turning off your pact dice as an aots critically impairs your damage capability. A fully kitted out, high fire spellpower atos was the least fun character I have ever played. There were quests I simply could not complete solo at all and had to bring in help that did pretty much any kind of damage i did not do.

You could not pay me enough money to burn life away doing that again without a strip capability. And to be honest, the experience was so bad I doubt I would try again even if I had a strip capability.

Same goes for most of Warlocks. My Abyss Warlock is basically useless with undead. At least arcane tempest spell works

 

[popejubal]

You are correct in that this bug is fixed for all abilities! I just got it working this morning It should be a pretty big bump for all melee and ranged Epic Strikes.


To make matters infinitely more confusing, that combat log text is actually reporting the caster level of the spell BEFORE max caster level is applied. Funky, right? On my list in the short term is a change to that text to have it report caster level accurately, but unfortunately it's an intricate fix.

That would be wonderful. Actually knowing the faster level that you’re really casting a spell at would be amazing!

Thank you for all that you do.