Update 66 Preview 1 - Epic Destiny Refresh

[Maze]

All the changes look and sound like complete garbage.

I love constructive criticism.

 

[Ike]

I love constructive criticism.

I love a comment that points out constructive criticism.

 

[tsotate]

Good point. I’d rather leave [Weird] as a spell and lose a spell slot, or reduce the cooldown as suggested above to 45 seconds, or allow cooldown reductions on SLAs.

Maybe a multi-selector with both spell and SLA versions, so people can choose free metas vs cooldown reduction?

Outside my issues about the healing aspect for the EA mantle's redesign; I've now begun to look at it for divine nukers and it's something I don't like. It forces one to be in melee range (well circle range) to do extra damage to mobs and most caster/nukers really like to keep a distance. So we go from fire/light damage added onto spells from a distance to having be to up close to do extra damage (and we lose light damage). Feels bad to me. It's entirely counter to how I play cleric and FvS for damage.

Not only does it force melee range, but also continuously moving in and out of melee range. So if the unwanted damage does grab any aggro (admittedly unlikely, since the mantle can't even crit), the EA toon can screw up positioning for everyone while the mobs chase them.

 

[Matuse]

I think its underrated, and most critiques are from a current build perspective. Yes, having damage circles proc while healing a raid is bad, but this will likely be very good for leveling.

How? Even going solo and circle strafing large groups of monsters, it takes as much as a full minute to kill them. And not all of them, because there's that couple of monsters in the middle of the circle who never quite do the in-and-out part to take damage, or the archer/caster who spends the whole time out of range of it and never gets hit at all, so even after tediously running around for a minute I still have to plink off a couple of stragglers whose AI decided not to submit to my aura limitation.

It's not like the damage from the aura is good. I never saw it crit, and I never saw it hit for more than 800, where my current personal best for a mantle proc is 16k. There's some unknown internal cooldown as well so you can never really be sure when it's even going to work. At least if I'm edge-kiting a regular blade barrier, I can hit an enemy many times by pathing them correctly. That's not an option with this.

I'm better off in Primal Avatar Heart and getting the bonus damage when I choose to use it, by casting spells - but better because Primal works on every cast without the current 15% randomization. Then I can just blast some dudes and they are dead right away.

In a group with other people drawing aggro, it would be even less effective. When I saw the effect as the epic moment I said to myself "Well, there's some build points I can definitely spend elsewhere". Making a pointless, hard to use effect and making it permanent instead of once every 5 minutes and it is still a pointless, hard to use effect.

As a heal for the rest of the group it's seriously lacking. Again, the mysterious and unknowable internal cooldown. If we're rushing along, then they might never enter (or exit) the effect and never get the benefit. If we're on a raid boss or something where the group is fairly stationary, then I have to do a literal do-see-do back and forth back and forth to put people into and out of range which simultaneously hits monsters who I might not want to be hitting if they are CC'd or I could possibly draw aggro. What completely aggravating tedium.

Then of course there's what it looks like. Ugh. Having to spend my entire epic life with a night club velvet rope following me everywhere?

If your performance is notably improved by turning off the mantle, then the mantle is bad to its very core. With the current mantle, the only time it's really bad is when fighting iron golems because it insists on constantly healing them. I cannot envision any circumstance where I would be better off using the new mantle versus using nothing.

I guess the new mantle is great for farming very low level content, where I can run through a dungeon spamming close wounds on myself to keep the aura going and it murders all of those level 5 enemies. Hurray.

The devs don't like the healing on the current mantle, I get it. There are solutions to this. Increase the tick length to 10 seconds. Make it never crit. Have positive spellpower only give a 25% boost. Shorten the radius. There are ways to limit it without completely removing it.

 

[Matuse]

I am filled with visions of people doing Curse of Strahd and the EA aura accidentally killing brides at the wrong time and messing up the timing for the end of the raid. SSG really likes to put in those linked death mechanics, but don't let your healer go anywhere near the fight.

 

[Qeistalan]

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 to All Trees​

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!

So ... are devs gonna shut off the plat/shards cost for resetting ED trees?
Cuz I don't feel like going plat-broke cuz of having to rebuild my ED trees on multiple toons.

[Rhetorical question; I know devs don't do things benevolent for players.]

 

[Thar]

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 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+3 damage per caster level.
• Energy Vortex now increases Dragon Breath's damage to 1d6+7 damage per caster level.
• Energy Burst now increases Dragon Breath's damage to 1d6+7 damage per caster level.
• Gaping Maw now increases Dragon Breath's damage to 1d6+7 damage per caster level.
• Dragon Breath cooldown adjusted to 12 seconds.
• Dragon Breath and Attune the Arcane have swapped places in the tree.

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

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.

Machrotechnic​

Only one change - and it's cooldown timer related.

• 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.

Divine Crusader​

Only one change - adjusting the cores to match the aforementioned chart.

• Core Abilities now grant +25 HP

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
• Angelic Form is now: "Casting a Fire, Light, or Positive spell causes a flaming blade barrier ring to erupt around you. Enemies entering or leaving the ring take 1d6 Fire and 1d6 Light damage per caster level, and allies entering or leaving the ring are healed for 1d6 plus 1 per caster level in positive energy (this healing and damage has a short cooldown to prevent weirdness). The flaming ring lasts for 5 seconds per spell cast, but subsequent casts extend the duration by 5 seconds each up to a maximum of 30 seconds."
• 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: "You also apply Consecrated Cinders to enemies when they touch your flaming Blade Barrier ring, and apply Consecrated Sparks to allies that touch your flaming Blade Barrier Ring. 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.

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

Legendary Dreadnought​

Only one change - adjusting the cores to match the aforementioned chart.

• Core Abilities now grant +25 HP

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.

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.

Primal Avatar​

Note: this entire tree's adjusted state is not in this preview! 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. It's still doubled in Tier 3 (to 2d6+12)
• Storm Catcher single target damage adjusted to 1d8+8 per Caster Level. DOT damage adjusted to 1d6 every 2 seconds per Caster Level.

Shiradi Champion​

For this tree, we wanted to make Fey Lights stronger and broaden the tree's ranged DPS appeal. This is also the debut of a cool new feature, Exploding Arrows, the details of which are in another thread!

• 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.
• 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."
• Hunt's End goes from an 8 second to a 9 second cooldown
• 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.

Unyielding Sentinel​

This tree actually received no changes!

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!

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." how is manyshot charge useful if not a ranger? are you giving access to manyshot if you are a full rogue?

 

[DBZ]

Going to need full 20 feat respecs and race changes after this op ness hits

 

[Lotoc]

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." how is manyshot charge useful if not a ranger? are you giving access to manyshot if you are a full rogue?

Many shot can be picked up in the feat system and basically every rogue archer takes it?

 

[Matuse]

Correct, I haven't tested it, but I do know how it functions based on use of the previous epic moment. If the numbers posted do not match on lammania I would bug report it. But, if it actually does do 2d6 per caster level its going to be very strong for epic leveling.

If you just intend to cast close wounds to proc barriers and expect them to do all the heavy lifting you're doing it wrong

I was testing the aura to see how effective it is. I wouldn't suggest only using it as your sole killing mechanism outside of running Butcher's Path. The answer is that the aura is completely ineffective. Circle strafing the pirates in a legendary R1 Saltmarsh quest and I spent more SP healing myself while waiting for the aura to kill them than if I had stood still and facerolled my spell hotkeys. I never used the epic moment, because everything about it looked terrible. With a PERMANENT epic moment, it was terrible. Maybe the current Lamma version of the damage is very badly bugged and it's not hitting anywhere near where it should be. I can't say. But I can say that what it does now is weaker damage than the Archon, and at least the Archon spreads LGS/Dino bone procs, where the aura doesn't.

It's quite possible that the mantle is not functioning as it should be. I know in some respects it isn't - right now you can toggle the mantle, pew pew an enemy to get the laser swords circling, cast an archon, and then switch to another mantle and the archon will keep the EA blades spinning indefinitely even after you switch to a different mantle. I doubt that's intended behavior.

 

[Meowcifer]

In regards to the EA mantle change, at least make the ability a multiselector. As a high level endgame healer I am not specced into damage, nor do I want to be doing damage and pulling threat in raids and R10s.

As far as the rings go, the on enter/exit mechanics rarely feel good unless you are leaving blade barriers while zerging and passively shredding mobs. Having the ring follow you nullifies this benefit, though depending on your viewpoint that could be a good thing concerning lag. I'm not here to argue on that front, simply to make the point that blade barrier mechanics aren't very good or fun.

If anything I would suggest maybe a smaller circle providing an aoe healing/damage (depending on mantle selections) effect within it, centered on you, on some kind of proc.

 

[YeeboF]

I support the nerf, but this goes much too far. Should be at least 1d6+6, upgraded to 1d6+10. Even then its much less then multi-vial, meteor swarm, etc... but I assume a full spell pass is not within scope of this project

This is really the issue. If this ability on an absurdly long cooldown can't compete with abilities you already have coming out of heroics, who in their right mind is ever going to bother with it?

 

[glass_jaws]

Can you explain if this is a buff or nerf due to the bug?

• Carrion Swarm DOT damage bug fixed to actually be 1d6+1 per 2 character levels.
  

 

[somenewnoob]

In regards to the EA mantle change, at least make the ability a multiselector. As a high level endgame healer I am not specced into damage, nor do I want to be doing damage and pulling threat in raids and R10s.

THIS can not be stated enough. 100% this.

There is ZERO CHANCE I will take this on my healer and just do another mantle.

 

[Vooduspyce]

Shiradi Champion​

For this tree, we wanted to make Fey Lights stronger and broaden the tree's ranged DPS appeal. This is also the debut of a cool new feature, Exploding Arrows, the details of which are in another thread!

• 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.
• 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."
• Hunt's End goes from an 8 second to a 9 second cooldown
• 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.

This is a ranged/caster hybrid tree but there are too many enhancements that apply to just one or the other, making it challenging to work up to tier 5 without taking lots of stuff I don't want. Please change things like Phase Double, which gives doubleshot, to have a multiselector option for casters. Pierce Deception, Enemy of My Own, Whirling Wrists, Lore of the Hunt and Control should also be a part of multiselectors to have options for both ranged play and casters.

 

[DBZ]

Di spell timers thats bout it and or Fatesinger dcs less those get hammered next round and jack left

 

[Aelonwy]

Why are you calling it as a "Hybrid" tree when it supports instakill caster well, but not sneaky one?

I sort of feel the same way about Shiradi, but its that Shiradi no longer supports caster well enough to exist and just doesn't have enough choice to spend points to climb the tee. The tree desperately needs more multi-selectors.

• Cores 2 and now 4 aren't going to be useful to spell casters outside of their passive benefits.
• Good Luck has been a poor choice from the beginning since it has never stacked with gear luck bonus. A unique bonus would actually make it worthwhile.
• Fey Sight could get Spell Pen bonuses, 1 per rank to reflect casting Illusion/Enchantments requiring Spell Pen
• Phase Double could have a multi-selector for either a dodge bonus or a small Incorporeal bonus
• Either Enemy of My Own should get a multi-selector of spell power or maybe a Fey vulnerability? is there an element to which fey are particularly vulnerable?
• Or Whirling Wrists could have a multi-selector with Arcane Dexterity or Improved Metamagic Quicken

I know I said similar things when Shiradi got its spell caster nerf a long while back and maybe since few if any spellcasters use it anymore it no longer matters; but I think the above changes could go a long way toward making it a decent choice for Illusionists though possibly still secondary to better spell casting destinies.

 

[kimberlyte]

my favourite two trees on divine casters are EA for healing and Primal for the strikes/spells and evergreen.

So it looks like EA will be hot garbage with the proposed mantle changes. I rarely ever even buy the strikes, let alone cast them, and the only things I cared about in EA were the aura, the wings, and mass cure mod SLA. Without the healing aura and an actively horrid blade-mantle in its place that I refuse to ever take, that's a lot of destiny points for two minor benefits that I can definitely live without. So long EA, you were nice but never really OP. Too bad you were ended this way.

The unfinished nature of Primal has me worried since I expect a similar nerfbat is waiting in the wings. Mess with evergreen or the strikes and I'll have absolutely nothing to look forward when leveling a caster in epics, since I never enjoyed draconic. The destiny trees were already a big bucket of meh where half of my points felt wasted. Now, most of them will feel that way.

 

[Monkey_Archer]

Quick tier list for new epic strikes:

S - Adrenaline, Hunts end
A - Drifting lotus, Shadowstrike/Nightmarelance, Concecration,
B - Quick Cutter, Magus/Macrotechnic/EA/Sentienel/Primal strikes
C - Fatesinger strikes, Direcharge, Feylights
D - Draconic

 

[Qeistalan]

I'm not Nostradamus, but I did prophesize that the ED "balance" would be a dumpster fire of (wait for it) ... epic proportions.

Why get excited for ANY future expansion if the devs constantly nerf everything before developing & releasing new content?

Three steps backwards to take one step forward. Brilliant.