Update 66 Preview 1 - Epic Destiny Refresh

[PraetorPlato]

One of my favorite thing to do on my healer is to pop a holy smite or cometfall when mobs are low on HP so I can snipe kills. There's something fun about beating someone on the kill count on a near zero DPS healbot build.

Hey, now you can do that WHILE playing "flaming bumper cars"!

 

[FuzzyDuck81]

Quick further update in response to feedback on Draconic Incarnation:

• Dragon Breath's damage is now 1d6+5 from 1d6+3
• Dragon Breath's upgraded damage is now 1d6+10 from 1d6+7

A big reason for the change is that no other Destiny ability required pure or nearly-pure classes to use - originally in the ED designs we leaned way harder on Spellbook Modification, and Weird was the last little bit of that. In practice, however, it punished multiclasses and made some variant builds harder to explore than they should be. In that respect, making it a SLA makes it easier for all characters to use.

Also, it means that now a pure rogue can sneak up then go "BOO!" and scare things to death.

 

[The Narc]

I wish they did! Kill counts have brought a lot of competitiveness, envy and misunderstandings to a game that is cooperative and not competitive.

I like healthy competition but with the kill count system being based off last blow or who has the most area of effect attacks it just corrals everyone into certain playstyles for mob grouping or kill sniping which can be toxic enough to take away from group synergy, i suspect more in pugging which is something i rarely do anymore.

A more measure able analytic would be damage done in a quest and would maybe be a better way to track analytics to see if there is game balance required, but even this could lead to fully toxic behaviour.

The anonymity of gaming from computers across borders versus everyone siting at a table in person is that no one is truly accountable for their actions and/or behaviour. It is no different then forums people are much braver behind their anonymity then if they were in person.

 

[rabidfox]

Hey, now you can do that WHILE playing "flaming bumper cars"!

Hahahah. =) The difference is choice. When mobs are near death, agro is already established and I can safely attack something that has a sliver of health remaining.

 

[Aelonwy]

I think we could probably do that, but I'm worried that'd end up with, like, a LOT of threads. The big thing I'm looking to solve is that newcomers to the thread aren't seeing our dev responses. I hate to commit to this since it's a TON of work but I'm wondering if I should be editing the original post with links or something when we make feedback-based adjustments?

Maybe separate them into the spheres or since those are not particularly important to the design of the destinies anymore... separate them into the destiny types you listed in the OP:

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

​

Might as well call Unyielding Sentinel what it is... the Tank tree.

That should help focus the discussion to the type and comparisons between the destinies in each category.

 

[somenewnoob]

Hey, now you can do that WHILE playing "flaming bumper cars"!

Maybe separate them into the spheres or since those are not particularly important to the design of the destinies anymore... separate them into the destiny types you listed in the OP:


Might as well call Unyielding Sentinel what it is... the Tank tree.

That should help focus the discussion to the type and comparisons between the destinies in each category.

Sentinel is "the healer tree" too!

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

I wish they did! Kill counts have brought a lot of competitiveness, envy and misunderstandings to a game that is cooperative and not competitive.

Yup. Personally I ignore kill counts. ?

 

[The Narc]

Nah, add proper dps meters and a whole lot of the nonsense would go away.

Agreed, but even this could still lead to toxic behaviour even though the value in these analytics might be greater than just plain kill counts.

 

[Aelonwy]

Sentinel is "the healer tree" too!

Well yes especially with the recent changes to EA. In a twisted sort of way that makes some sense. Perhaps they should capitalize on that and adjust US accordingly.

 

[l_remmie]

I am pretty sure these changes effectively KILL the exalted angel tree.

People took this tree for 1 reason: Passive no nonsense healing aura that everybody can rely on.

All the other stuff except the holy fireball and threat reduction was filler at best.

Why would anyone want a clunky blade barrier mechanic that requires you, the healer, to get up close and personal and keep moving in and out like an idiot to give poor healing and poor damage. Having to do micro positioning to get those procs makes you mess up the actual healing too.

Exalted angel has literally nothing going for it with these changes.

 

[Lazuli]

Sentinel is "the healer tree" too!

although we healers really take it for its tankiness, since to heal you first have to stay alive...

 

[The Narc]

But why, in your scenario, would they waste time brining down the power level of epic destinies?
You said it is to sell more legendaries, but that goal is far more efficient to achieve by just cranking up the power level of what they are trying to sell.

Because power creep has to be maintained to a certain level or it is possible it could be great for a short period of time with nothing left to have sustainable future growth.

 

[somenewnoob]

Well yes especially with the recent changes to EA. In a twisted sort of way that makes some sense. Perhaps they should capitalize on that and adjust US accordingly.

I'd like a new tree healing focused tbh. EA isnt it.

 

[somenewnoob]

although we healers really take it for its tankiness, since to heal you first have to stay alive...

First Rule of Healing: Soul stones can't heal

 

[somenewnoob]

I am pretty sure these changes effectively KILL the exalted angel tree.

People took this tree for 1 reason: Passive no nonsense healing aura that everybody can rely on.

All the other stuff except the holy fireball and threat reduction was filler at best.

Why would anyone want a clunky blade barrier mechanic that requires you, the healer, to get up close and personal and keep moving in and out like an idiot to give poor healing and poor damage. Having to do micro positioning to get those procs makes you mess up the actual healing too.

Exalted angel has literally nothing going for it with these changes.

Wings? And yeah.....that's all!

Mass cmw is nice qol thing, but not really needed with all the masses healers have.

 

[Meowcifer]

@Tonquin

Draconic Incarnation "Dragon Breath" will remain largely unusable for players so long as the direction of the attack projects to the side while back-peddling. (Should always remain towards the players facing) This isn't a new issue either but one that players have been begging to have corrected since the initial release of the Dragon Born race.

Shadow Dancer "Weird" changing this is an SLA is fine and I totally understand the reasoning behind it. However what I don't understand is why the Shadow Dancer ED has Weird in the first place? IMHO Shadow Dancer attempts to support melee, ranged and casters within the same Destiny, while mostly Falling at all three. Would be wise to narrow SD down to supporting just melee & ranged while leaving casting to the magic specific ED's. While most would rather see a return to Stealth oriented play and Assassination abilities that Rogues / Rangers were made for.

Magus Let's be clear, this ED is pretty lack-luster from T1 to T5. At best, players choosing it will have some modest improvements to DC and Penetration. (Yawn) However, all the other caster centric ED'S do as well, while providing other "useful" and interesting abilities. Whats most glaringly problematic is:

T1...

* Moon Lance, this should be treated as a ray attack rather than a single target projectile. Casters would get far more use out of something capable of hitting more than 1 mob.

T2...

* Moonlight, its cost is pretty high for its rather short duration. Furthermore the negative energy attack should be able to heal "friendly" undead, such as players and their skelly pets.

* Lunar Insight, is a big fat nothing burger as I've never seen a serious build that uses it. Would be far better to have this become a triggered effect, rather than a clicky. Something similar to the Primal Avatar "Ever Green" would be fantastic.

T3...

* Share the Light, change "these summons have your Cold and Negative Spell Power" to "these summons have your Spell Power". Reasoning behind this is that there are several summons in Called Upon that dont use Cold or Negative, thus Share the Light is pretty pointless for anything other than the Lich.

T5...

* Eclipse, +3 to all DC's is the "standard" for all caster ED's. Why not add to this (at rank 3) when your target makes their save vs your spell, you gain +1 DC for 10 seconds, stackable up to 3 times.

* Time Stop, with a 10 second duration, extreme cooldown, small AoE, and (seaming) only working on raid bosses. Regardless of the intentions for this ability, It's a total joke. One that I'd rather see Time Stop replaced with the "Weird" spell, currently in Shadow-Dancers ED. Besides, the ability fits much better on a DC focused caster, than some rogue hybrid that's not going to have the DC's needed to utilize it effectively.

*Cosmos, Is a single-target spell, with an extremely high cost and cooldown. Everything about this spell is unsuitable for combat, considering its a T5 ability. Especially when a players SLA' s can do equivalent damage (AoE) for 10 or less spell points, and at half the cooldown.

Magus is decent utility as a tree for healers. Nullmagic Aura is great, though it does require you to be close to melee. Time Stop is your contribution to overall red-name DPS along with Implaccable Foe if you have it. The freeze on Moon Lance can keep something locked down until it is dealt with (dangerous champions, for example). A proc to strip buffs from mobs on offensive spellcast (Divine Wrath, Moon Lance).

I would recommend trying it for any healers not dead-set on Unyielding Sentinel.

 

[somenewnoob]

Magus is decent utility as a tree for healers. Nullmagic Aura is great, though it does require you to be close to melee. Time Stop is your contribution to overall red-name DPS along with Implaccable Foe if you have it. The freeze on Moon Lance can keep something locked down until it is dealt with (dangerous champions, for example). A proc to strip buffs from mobs on offensive spellcast (Divine Wrath, Moon Lance).

I would recommend trying it for any healers not dead-set on Unyielding Sentinel.

Worth dipping into a little bit or need to go all in? Say hypothetically a tree you have 13 points in got nuke nerfed from orbit and you were looking for a place for those 13 points.........hypothetically!

 

[DBZ]

Can put more points into primal just for evasion and max dodge or sd

Can get like 50 stacking dodge with reborn and greater ele form

 

[Lazuli]

Worth dipping into a little bit or need to go all in? Say hypothetically a tree you have 13 points in got nuke nerfed from orbit and you were looking for a place for those 13 points.........hypothetically!

Primal avatar will give you more for that investment imo.

 

[Sorccadin]

You cant learn the enchantment "Lotus Bloom" when you have orchid blossum in the GmoF Tree.
Furthermore, i belive if the EA Mantle was akin to Eldritch aura in the way it worked, this version could be fine. A blade barrier around you just feels bad to use IMO, will prolly stop me from using that mantle in general.