Update 66 Preview 1 - Epic Destiny Refresh

[Lazuli]

You will take cocoon and like it mister!!

That was good

Now seriously, I consider the healing of the original EA mantle lost. It's not that I personally am going to miss it much (except in skellies with skulls, but not too much either), but I consider a shame that they are eliminating all non-dps options. There are still a few left, let's see how long they take to fall.

But what has to be fixed is that the negative damage of the draconic or the magus ED does not work with unholy avatar, since it is a nightmare to heal undead for those who choose this option (which I don't even touch with a long pole, because it has too many immunities,... but I know of people who have caught it, and hated it for this).

 

[rabidfox]

You make a pretty compelling case. Initial thoughts from the team are that we're probably going to leave the original on-spellcast burst-of-damage as a multiselector so you can enjoy either playstyle if you want the original sauce or the new Blade Barrier.

So, to that end:

• New Multiselector with Angelic Form: Wrathful Form: "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 Soul now has: "You apply Consecrated Cinders to enemies when your Wrathful Form damages them, and apply Consecrated Sparks to allies when your Wrathful Form heals them. Consecrated Cinders: -5 Armor Class and Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. Consecrated Sparks: +5 Armor Class and Physical and Magical Resistance Rating"

Just tossing this idea out there. For the wrathful form, since we don't have a heal circle nor the old passive heal pulse, how about it also procs an AoE heal around the caster when they cast a positive spell (with ICD similar to the existing pulse/barrier ICD). It would be half-way between the current passive and the new barrier setup. As long as person is actively healing, then it means those near them would get heal pulses still.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

Can we please get some justification from you on WHY you are completely eliminating the EA heal aura? This change is not sitting well with the majority it seems.

If it was deemed OP, probably the appropriate thing to do would be to tune it down, longer tick length, less heal, not completely eliminate it.

There are no real great options for ED trees for HEALERS outside of sentinel now.

The aura has always been fairly overpowered. Radiant servants have to invest in tier 5 for a weaker aura that's not even permanent...
That said, the idea of the aura existing is not bad for the game. I think it should get moved to tier 5 so that healers, or anyone who really wants it can invest appropriately, rather than just getting it as a spash while using tier 5 sentinel for the best of both trees.

 

[Falkor]

Yep. Sentinel tree is it. And that's what my healers use already. EA is already lackluster for healers, and they are making it TOTALLY WORTHLESS for healers. And no, I'd never go into t5 EA for the healing aura. It's useful, but not that useful, especially in comparison to sentinel tree.

And draconic breath is getting nerfed too hard.

What is it with these people and their heavy handedness? It's been like this for ages. It's not just a nerf. It's a nuke-nerf from an orbital gun. If you are going to use the word balance ... then please by dog have an actual BALANCED approach!

But as it is, the way it's done and the heavy handedness ... I will never financially support.

These aren't minor changes to roll with. It will force people to rebuild alts, and I for one, refuse to rebuild and regrind my alts to meet changes like this. I basically end up with fancy, end-game bank toons. That I don't play. And I'm bored of grinding levels, so I don't play. And I read changes like this, and ok, some things look ok ... but overall, no. Just . No.

In other words, changes like this waste peoples time. I enjoy playing this game. I hate having my efforts in this game get thrown in the dumpster because ... whatever.

So, I read these changes and just feel vindicated in not dishing out money and in my on-going diminishing participation in the game.

 

[Elves United]

Draconic Incarnation: Epic Strike nerfed into oblivion
60% reduction is damage is probably enough to get players to stop using it as it puts it on par with other options the caster can use from a safer distance.

Magus of the Eclipse: Some good buffs
21% increase in DPS Moon lance / Gloom lance. The Tier 5 upgrade is interesting.
Chill Aura being multi-selected with chance of extra damage on spellcast is good.
Moving Grand Summoner to Tier 4. Multi-selecting with a useful defensive buff that has no correlation with that ability. And requiring use of the Magus Mantle. Take that you over-powered summoners!

Divine Crusader: Weakest epic strike gets nothing
The consecration epic strike is perhaps the weakest in the game. Been in many, many groups and I've never seen it used. But no change?

Exalted Angel: Massive change that renders whole destiny pointless to many
21% increase in DPS for light pillar / flame pillar
32% nerf on Holy Fireball weakening Tier 5.
Magus did a multi-select on chill aura. Can exalted get a multi-select on this moving blade barrier?
As it stands this mantle is a severe downgrade from the previous one in both DPS and heal support.
And having to turn off the whole mantle to prevent the blade barrier from going off will drive characters to other mantles.
By the time my healer gets to legendary levels his hot bar consists of mass cures and heal spells. So an epic moment that buffs single target cure spells? Not even remotely useful.

Fury of the Wild: I can't tell if Fury Cutter was buffed or nerfed.
I haven't tested it. And I haven't used it before so I'd have no frame of reference if its better or worse. But it seems to me that while the damage has dropped from 4d6 to 3d6 the rate of which you can apply stacks of fury cutter has increased significantly. My suggestion would be that fury cutter dice increase with the epic strike upgrades. But even then still no match for adrenaline as an immediate damage boost will almost always beat damage over time.

Shadowdancer: Some good buffs but Tier 4+5 still need a lot more help
The cooldown reduction is significant because it means the extra dodge or damage per hit can be maintained 100%.
The lightning effect I assume is only for the spell.
This does a little but not nearly enough to fix the Tier 4 + 5 problems.
----suggestions---
From the shadows: No longer requires stealth
Bring Darkness: Remove the first blood feat from Bring Darkness as no caster will ever have that feat
Epic Strike Upgrade II: turns ranged attacks into AOE. ( can you imagine Shiradi with competition? )
Epic Strike Upgrade II: using spellcaster version can use spell penetration instead of sneak dice for damage effect.
Consumed by Shadows: Counts as an assassinate attempt. ( separate timer than actual assassinate ) If they MAKE their save then the enemy gets the other effects.
Unholy feeding: Temporary hp for kills is a very situational benefit. How about temporary hp on crits? Note: I tried Unholy feeding in dojo, wilderness, and quest killing with both spell and melee. I never got any temp hp. So I don't know if multiple triggers of Unholy feeding stack or not. I suspect they will not when this ability is actually working.

 

[Lazuli]

The aura has always been fairly overpowered. Radiant servants have to invest in tier 5 for a weaker aura that's not even permanent...
That said, the idea of the aura existing is not bad for the game. I think it should get moved to tier 5 so that healers, or anyone who really wants it can invest appropriately, rather than just getting it as a spash while using tier 5 sentinel for the best of both trees.

Radiant Servants' aura needs a buff, it's really not good or useful. In reaper it's like having nothing. That doesn't mean EA's aura had to disappear.

When they put the new mantle on, I'll try it, see if it's worth it. Otherwise, sentinel and ready. Anyway sentinel is the mantle I use in most of the content.

 

[somenewnoob]

The aura has always been fairly overpowered. Radiant servants have to invest in tier 5 for a weaker aura that's not even permanent...
That said, the idea of the aura existing is not bad for the game. I think it should get moved to tier 5 so that healers, or anyone who really wants it can invest appropriately, rather than just getting it as a spash while using tier 5 sentinel for the best of both trees.

If they do that, they would need to do some SERIOUS work on the tree to make it appealing to healers. I would be wasting points to get to t5.

I've said in this thread, EA is not a good healer tree. It tries to be a tree that does 2 things and as a result does neither well.

 

[somenewnoob]

Yep. Sentinel tree is it. And that's what my healers use already. EA is already lackluster for healers, and they are making it TOTALLY WORTHLESS for healers.

And draconic breath is getting nerfed too hard.

What is it with these people and their heavy handedness? It's been like this for ages. It's not just a nerf. It's a nuke-nerf from an orbital gun.

Not paying for that kind of approach, ever.

And no, I'd never go into t5 EA for the healing aura. It's useful, but not that useful, especially in comparison to sentinel tree.

Yes, there is literally no good tree for healers outside of sentinel. We have so many niche ED trees, but a whole section of the trinity (heals).......completely left out.

 

[Phaaze]

fatesinger melee suffers from lack of aoe and if playing a melee single weapon fighting bard/swashbuckler its only made worse by not having access to short cooldown cleaves in its enhancements

Suggestion: make the melee epic strike "The Sword Sings" a cleave and the discord "Blade of Discord" a bigger cleave like great cleave.

 

[NightHiker]

• Grand Summoner moves to multiselect with New Tier 4 Lunar Studies, and is now part of the Destiny Mantle

As one of the few people who actually used this ability to some effect, I feel targeted...

Hireling based play is a very niche and flavor play style, and it's been made possible by the combination of the Primal hireling/summoning focused abilities + the Grand Summoner buff, for good synergy and passable survivability and QoL (with the added movement speed from Grand Summoner the hires can actually keep up with you).

With this change these become mutually exclusive, which ends up making BOTH less appealing at the same time and pretty much erasing this kind of build, the exact one I love to play, from the game.

I keep trying to find reasons to come back to the game, but with little to no success - please, please consider making changes that actually benefit and encourage different, non cookie cutter ways to play that are flavorful, interesting, and far from being overpowered - instead of erasing them from the game.

Leave Grand Summoner out of this rework and in a low tier, and keep it non mutually exclusive with the hire buffs from Primal.

Thanks!

 

[Tonquin]

https://imgur.com/a/psntEvy

If you want more videos or info on chain heal's issues, just let me know.

I've set the projectile speed to Very Very Fast and added some severe homing in the hopes of preventing this behavior. Please let me know next Lamannia if this ability is easier to use!

 

[rabidfox]

Radiant Servants' aura needs a buff, it's really not good or useful. In reaper it's like having nothing. That doesn't mean EA's aura had to disappear.

When they put the new mantle on, I'll try it, see if it's worth it. Otherwise, sentinel and ready. Anyway sentinel is the mantle I use in most of the content.

It's the same heal value per level as healing wall and arti's repair aura (also very meh). Healing walls ticks aren't amazing either, it just has the situational usefulness of being able to place them somewhere else (but it also interferes with melee players vision so some complain about it to me). I find the cleric aura about as useful, I just stand next to ranged/casters for it's ticks to help them. As for arti's repair aura.. it's just mostly memes for me taking it on my bubble build.

What I would like to see for cleric is love for:
Divine Healing: Channel Divinity: Your target heals 1d4/2d4/4d4 hp every 2 seconds for 2 seconds per point of Heal skill you possess
It's pretty much just a junk ability right now. At the least, it needs be able to scale off positive spell power. Then clerics could put out long lasting HoTs and those needing extra ticks could turtle close to the cleric for the aura's effect too.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

I've set the projectile speed to Very Very Fast and added some severe homing in the hopes of preventing this behavior. Please let me know next Lamannia if this ability is easier to use!

Speaking of projectile speeds, is there any chance you could also look at light/lightning bolt style spells (including the new shadowdancer strike). Its always seemed odd that light is one of the slower projectiles in ddo

 

[rabidfox]

I've set the projectile speed to Very Very Fast and added some severe homing in the hopes of preventing this behavior. Please let me know next Lamannia if this ability is easier to use!

Awesome. Any chance you could look at warlock's:
Enervating Shadow: Eldritch Blast Shape Stance: This makes your basic attack seek out enemies
It's got issues with actually hitting targets too. haha. =)

 

[Shear-buckler]

It can be implemented back by them leaving it alone and them not doing anything.

Well obviously the devs disagree, and if you want it back you need to make a better case than "did the aura hurt your feelings?"

 

[somenewnoob]

So assuming these threads are to get player feedback, any chance you can comment on the feedback received from the EA Aura?

 

[Griglok (Karatemack)]

I've set the projectile speed to Very Very Fast and added some severe homing in the hopes of preventing this behavior. Please let me know next Lamannia if this ability is easier to use!

This may fix it- just wanted to hop in and point out that one issue I have noticed with chain heals is that it seems to nearly always miss when your target jumps after/during cast. When I time the cast to match when a target lands from a jump, it seems to WAI every time.

 

[Aelonwy]

What is it with these people and their heavy handedness? It's been like this for ages. It's not just a nerf. It's a nuke-nerf from an orbital gun. If you are going to use the word balance ... then please by dog have an actual BALANCED approach!

It has always been cow-from-orbit. Why adjust something incrementally 10% at a time when 50 to 60% will ensure everyone respecs.

So now we've gone from:

1. No more twists of fate.
2. Can't even see more then 3 Destiny Trees if you spend in 3. So can't even peek and dream about what if.
3. Nerfs. Just get ride of the words epic and legendary. Just remove them from the game. Then it makes it easier to just have this weaksauce in the game. Why start destinies at level 20? It ain't epic! Why level gate the tiers/cores? It ain't legendary either!

I mean, you gotta admit when you ask the question, why do destinies start at level 20, and the old answer was because they are stronger than heroic, but now come on, +1, 2, 3, some minor build up, etc. You've nerfed so much the Epic Destinies are just renamed Heroic Universal trees.

I agree with Mindos Epic Destinies are feeling less and less epic, nevermind that we are entering Legendary levels and they don't feel appropriate to that either.

If an epic strike/ability does not do more than a level 9 spell what is the point? How can you objectively call it epic?

*sigh* this only makes me wonder what is being sold with the next expansion to make all these nerfs necessary

 

[Lazuli]

I've set the projectile speed to Very Very Fast and added some severe homing in the hopes of preventing this behavior. Please let me know next Lamannia if this ability is easier to use!

From my ignorance of how the code of this game works, is this how chain lingthing works? This spell is quite effective in finding enemies, it never misses the first target and generally finds others. Maybe this targeting can be used as a model for chain heal, in case the change you just made doesn't go well.

 

[Lotoc]

From my ignorance of how the code of this game works, is this how chain lingthing works? This spell is quite effective in finding enemies, it never misses the first target and generally finds others. Maybe this targeting can be used as a model for chain heal, in case the change you just made doesn't go well.

One thing is chain lightning will bounce from terrain if it doesn't connect with a unit (back when EDF/ Knight's Transformation had the spell range restrictions a method to use chain lightning effectively was to fire it at the ground as the bounce range was longer than your actual range)
I imagine chain heal lacks that functionality