2019 ED Pass: Arcane Sphere

[Steelstar]

Hello! This is an early look at the Epic Destiny Pass currently slated for Update 43. (The second Sharn raid is coming before this, so there's still a bit of time before this reaches Lamannia). A few notes about this pass, before we get to details:

We had a few primary goals in the Epic Destiny pass, compounded by a very slim time-frame of 3 weeks for principal changes.

First and foremost, try to put each Destiny in a place where it's worth using for at least some builds.
Fix bugs and remove things that hinder fun or usability

You'll notice that every Epic Moment that required you to do weird things to charge it up no longer requires that.


Improve the ability for people to play in Destinies that match their Archetype (ranged characters in Shiradi, etc) without significantly hindering the current ability for people to play in Destinies that don't (casters in Shiradi, etc)


Like we said above, the timeframe was slim. We didn't hit everything we would have liked to, and there are still abilities within individual Destinies that still probably aren't worth taking. We're listening for feedback here, but our ability to act on it is similarly time-restricted; we're unlikely to further revamp whole trees or add completely new skills at this time, but we may be able to make number tweaks and fix outstanding bugs.

That said, this is the thread for Arcane Sphere Destinies, so let's dive in. Be sure to check out the other Sphere threads when you're done, as well as the topic on new Epic Past Lives coming with these changes.

Magister
This tree has quite a few neat things but didn't do the one thing it was supposed to do: Be the king of DC Casting. Twisting Magister's bonuses and going into other trees where you got relevant Ability Score increases provided a better bonus than this tree. Only that's not fun, and we'd rather see dedicated DC casters live here and get cool abilities with their DCs. We focused on that goal, and made a few of their other abilities spicier to go with it. The Sigils still aren't good; they fell a bit low on the priority list relative to other things. If there are simple number tweaks we can make to make them more worth using, we're all ears.


Added +1 to all Spell DCs to each Core (in addition to what those cores were doing already).
Imperceptible Casting adds +10 Universal Spell Power while active.
Fade into the Weave adds +25 Universal Spell Power while active.
Variable Resistance is unlinked from Sigil of Energy Negation.
Master of (Spell School) also increases DCs for that school by an additional 1/2/3.
Arcane Tempest moves to a 30-second cooldown, and a 10-second duration. 30 SP.
Arcane Tempest is no longer linked to Sigil of Battering Spellcraft
Arcane Tempest now costs 1AP
Arcane Tempest can now use the Quicken, Maximize, Empower, and Intensify Metamagics
Arcane Tempest now has a faster cast animation and cast time
Arcane Tempest no longer has a (previously-unlisted) saving throw
Arcane Adept now costs 1AP
Removed the Saving Throw from Arcane Tempest. (Yeah, it's a DC tree but we wanted it to be good no matter what school you were in.)
Arcane Spellsurge now has a 1 minute cooldown. 20 SP
Nullmagic Aura no longer requires charging. Now has a 4 minute cooldown.


Draconic Incarnation
This is another tree that has good things but is hampered by its restrictiveness. It's meant to be the king of elemental nuking, but the lack of metas and scaling DCs made that hard. It also didn't get that much extra spell damage relative to other Destinies, which was... weird. We fixed a lot of that.


Each Core now adds 5% Spell Crit Damage in addition to what it already does.
Go Out With A Bang, Energy Burst, and Energy Vortex now apply the Quicken, Empower, Maximize, Embolden, and Intensify Metamagics

Acid versions of these spells are now Conjuration spells
These spells should now be considered part of their Elements for the purpose of Caster Level increases (other than Savant's caster level increases, which were already working).


Go Out with A Bang, Energy Burst, and Energy Vortex now use their spell schools' (Evocation/Conjuration) bonuses as part of their DC calculation.
Flyby Attack now adds Evocation modifiers to its DC (Conjuration for the Acid version).
Dragon Breath no longer uses Charges.

Dragon Breath now has a 25 second cooldown.

Dragon Breath spells are now considered part of their spell school for the purpose of Caster Level/Max Caster Level increases.
Breath attacks now list Evocation/Conjuration as part of their DC calculation (they were already using it)



Black Dragon Breath is now a Conjuration spell.

(See below for related Dragonborn changes)


Draconic Fury's cooldown reduced to 1 minute
Draconic Hunger's Temp HP and SP are now 10x your Epic level.
Fearsome Invulnerability no longer needs to be charged.

It no longer says it does an Intimidate effect, on account of that functionality never being implemented ever.
It now also adds +30 PRR, MRR, and MRR Cap for the duration
It now has a 4 minute cooldown.


Energy Vortex, Draconic Hunger, and Fearsome Invulnerability now cost 1AP each.



BONUS: Dragonborn Racial Tree Changes
Dragonborn's dragon breath SLAs have always kept some parity with Draconic Incarnation, so we made some changes there to gel with the above Draconic Incarnation changes.


Dragonborn's Racial Black Dragon Breath is also now a Conjuration spell
Dragonborn Breath Attacks now scale with 100% Spell Power (which puts them on the standard spell damage progression we made after this skill)
Dragonborn's True Power enhancement now adds Conjuration DCs in addition to its Evocation DCs.


Fatesinger
What a weird tree. Fatesinger had a lot of fundamental issues that could only be solved by getting rid of the abilities entirely. We basically threw a lot of it out and Lynnabel built a new one. Here it is. (Note that we're listing the full tree here rather than individual changes, it's clearer that way.) General rule of thumb: The Hymns cost 2AP, as do the standard Ability Score increases. The rest cost 1AP per rank.
https://i.imgur.com/dwY8jE6.png


Cores:


Core 1: Fatesinger's Rep: Each core grants you +10 Melee Power, +4 Ranged Power, +25 Spell Points, 10 universal spell power, +1 Arcane Caster Level, +2 Effective Bard Levels and +2 Maximum Bard Songs. You also gain Inspire Courage if you didn't have it before.
Core 2: Glitter of Fame: +1 All Stats and all saves
Core 3: Harmonic Resonance: Attacks have a chance of building up Resonance on your enemies, increasing their Sonic vulnerability and reducing their Armor Class by 2 per stack (max 10)
Core 4: Intoxicating Presence: Enemies that strike you have a chance to be Fascinated.
Core 5: Grandeur: Friendly spellcasts bestow bonus AC (+3) and PRR (+3), offensive spellcasts now build up Harmonic Resonance (internal cooldown)
Core 6: Majesty: You are now immune to Charisma Damage, do not suffer from Arcane Spell Failure, also +25 Universal Spell Power


Tier 1:


First Harmonic Chord: Your inspire courage has +1/2/3 hit, dam, saves vs fear, and +3/6/9 Universal spell power. Also, you gain an additional +1/2/3 to Hit, Damage, and +3/6/9 Universal Spell Power
Siren's Song: Relocated, turns into a second Fascinate button (aka another cooldown version of Enthrall)
Music of the Spider Queen: also now adds Neutralize Poison to your Bardic Inspiration
Dirge: Make it actually work and be good, otherwise no change
+1 Str/Cha


Tier 2:


Second Harmonic Chord: Your inspire competence has an additional +1/2/3 skills. Also, you gain +1/2/3 all skills.
Bound Fate: relocated, no change (this is the active)
(this space intentionally left blank)
Reign: relocated, no change
+1 Str/Cha


Tier 3:


Third Harmonic Chord: Your inspire greatness has an additional +1/2/3 PRR and 0/0/10 Healing/Neg/Repair amp. Also, you gain an additional +0/0/10 healing/neg/repair amp and +1/2/3 PRR
Grim Fate: relocated, no change (this is the passive that makes the active better)
Arcane Hymn: You sing a magical Hymn that resonates within the Arcane Sphere. When you activate this ability, your target is surrounded by magical energies, bestowing Resonance. (HYMNS: Each member of your party, including yourself, may only benefit from one Hymn at a time, regardless of source. Attempting to activate this ability on someone else will dispel this Hymn from your former target. If you attempt to activate a different Hymn on someone who is already benefiting from this Hymn, it will dispel this Hymn as it applies the new one. You may activate this ability on yourself.)

Arcane: +1 INT WIS CHA, +20 Universal SP, +2 Spell Penetration, +4 UMD, +10% fire/cold/acid/electric absorb


Aria: relocated, no change
+1 Str/Cha


Tier 4:


Fourth Harmonic Chord: Your Inspire Heroics grants +1/2/3 AC, dodge, and saves. Also, you gain an additional +1/2/3 AC and saves
Martial Hymn:

Martial: +1 STR DEX WIS, +2 Sneak Dice, +20 max HP, +10 PRR and MRR, +5 AC, +10 Melee and Ranged Power


Divine Hymn: Another hymn, this time divine sphere themed

Divine: +1 STR CHA WIS, +1 Smite Evil, +2 to hit, dam, confirm critical hits, +10 PRR and +25 Positive and Negative Spell Power.


Primal Hymn: Another hymn, this time primal sphere themed

Primal: +1 WIS DEX CON, +25 HP, +10 Spell Resistance and healing amp, +10% Thrown and Bow attack speed, +3 Str while raging


+1 Str/Cha



Tier 5:


The Fifth Chord: You have a new Bard Song in your Bardic Ballad/Inspire Courage - Inspire Transcendence - +1 spell DCs, +1 tactics bonuses, +3 Spell Resistance and True Seeing. Also, you benefit from +1 DCs, tactics, +3 SR and are immune to blindness and have true seeing
Free Metamagic: Pick between Eschew, Extend, or Enlarge
Masquerade: Also now has 10% spell cost reduction
Bladesong: 2d6 Sonic damage on hit scaling with spell power, 3% competence to melee attack speed, also +1 Critical Multiplier on 19-20
+1 Str/Cha


Tier 6:


Greater Shout SLA: 6 second cooldown.
Free Metamagic 2: Pick between Quicken, Embolden, or Intensify
Turn of the Tide: Clean up what it actually gives you, make sure it's actually working as intended
+1 Str/Cha


EDIT: Additionally, the following changes will be making it in for Fatesinger's existing abilities:
Music of the Spider Queen's duration now matches Bard song durations
Dirge's DC is now d20 + Perform
Aria's threat reduction is now 20/40/60%
Siren's Song and Chord of Disruption damage take effect even if the Mesmerize doesn't land (aka bosses)
Bound Fate's DC is now d20 + Perform
Bound Fate's immobilization now actually immobilizes faster creatures
Bound Fate's immobilization now lasts slightly longer
Bound Fate now has a 1 minute cooldown.
Improved Turn of the Tide:
- No longer a Bard Song
- 3 minute cooldown
- Sonic and Light Damage now applies to bosses

[Noircere]

Since Bards also support DEX and INT builds via Swashbuckler Different Tack, can we get 4 options, STR, DEX, INT, or CHA, for Fatesinger ability scores?

[btolson]

Fearsome Invulnerability no longer needs to be charged.

It no longer says it does an Intimidate effect, on account of that functionality never being implemented ever.
It now also adds +30 PRR, MRR, and MRR Cap for the duration
It now has a 4 minute cooldown.



Can this ability's regenerate effect be described in the tooltip? How many HP/sec? is it positive healing?

[Zretch]

No idea why you're spending so much effort on Arcane Tempest in Magistar. Magistar is an extremely AP starved tree as multiple abilities in the tree require 3 points to select and have 3 point pre-requisites. After putting your 12 AP into your prime stat (failure to do so is a loss of DCs), and after spending 2 more points on tier 1 skills which do nothing for your casting, to unlock tier 2 skills, you only have 10 AP left to work up to Master of (Spell School). Each rank requires 3 AP to max out, so you put 3 into Specialist, Augmentation, and Familiarity and...yea, you get to put 1 into Master of. You can put 2 into there if you only spend 2 into Familiarity, but you can never put 3 into that skill unless you give up main stat increases. So OK, to get Master of maxed, you clip 1 stat increase and pick up +2 DC in a single school at the expense of potentially 1 DC in all schools if your main stat is now an odd number. *You haven't taken any other ability in the entire tree!* No sigils, no tempest, no nullmagic anything. There aren't the APs for any of it, including spell penetration!

Perhaps consider making the Specialist, Augmentation, Familiarity, and Master of lines be a single selection that costs 2 AP for full benefit, retaining the same pre-requisites. You could then go all the way up the tree, at least. You'd still only have two points left over for spell pen and you still couldn't take any of the flavor skills (sigils, nullmagics, tempest, etc), but it would be a bit easier to check almost all of the required boxes. Recall, I can get full DC benefit including full penetration from Exalted Angel today and still have points left over to take a big AoE heal (divine wrath), wings, and a very nice debuff for some flavor. It would be nice if Magistar could provide offer a little bit of flavor for those at which the tree is targeted (DC casters).

[Arkbusya]

Nice job, Inquisitive scoundrel will become great (but only if bug with swashbucler are corrected) :D

[Steelstar]

No idea why you're spending so much effort on Arcane Tempest in Magistar. Magistar is an extremely AP starved tree as multiple abilities in the tree require 3 points to select and have 3 point pre-requisites. After putting your 12 AP into your prime stat (failure to do so is a loss of DCs), and after spending 2 more points on tier 1 skills which do nothing for your casting, to unlock tier 2 skills, you only have 10 AP left to work up to Master of (Spell School). Each rank requires 3 AP to max out, so you put 3 into Specialist, Augmentation, and Familiarity and...yea, you get to put 1 into Master of. You can put 2 into there if you only spend 2 into Familiarity, but you can never put 3 into that skill unless you give up main stat increases. So OK, to get Master of maxed, you clip 1 stat increase and pick up +2 DC in a single school at the expense of potentially 1 DC in all schools if your main stat is now an odd number. *You haven't taken any other ability in the entire tree!* No sigils, no tempest, no nullmagic anything. There aren't the APs for any of it, including spell penetration!

Perhaps consider making the Specialist, Augmentation, Familiarity, and Master of lines be a single selection that costs 2 AP for full benefit, retaining the same pre-requisites. You could then go all the way up the tree, at least. You'd still only have two points left over for spell pen and you still couldn't take any of the flavor skills (sigils, nullmagics, tempest, etc), but it would be a bit easier to check almost all of the required boxes. Recall, I can get full DC benefit including full penetration from Exalted Angel today and still have points left over to take a big AoE heal (divine wrath), wings, and a very nice debuff for some flavor. It would be nice if Magistar could provide offer a little bit of flavor for those at which the tree is targeted (DC casters).

I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

[janave]

Added +1 to all Spell DCs to each Core (in addition to what those cores were doing already).
Master of (Spell School) also increases DCs for that school by an additional 1/2/3.


With the nerf to EA, this will cause a pendulum swing, not balance. DC casting is already the king of reaper runs, one CC+Necro caster can make R10 into epic casual once the numbers are met.

[Hobgoblin]

Added +1 to all Spell DCs to each Core (in addition to what those cores were doing already).
Master of (Spell School) also increases DCs for that school by an additional 1/2/3.


With the nerf to EA, this will cause a pendulum swing, not balance. DC casting is already the king of reaper runs, one CC+Necro caster can make R10 into epic casual once the numbers are met.

the only nerf to ea is reborn right? u still have the core dc boost from it? now we have more options for divines

[amberlink]

Will the new fatesinger use the ballad even without bard levels? Or is it still the old version of inspire courage?

[Lonnbeimnech]

+5% spell crit seems like overkill and not too helpful

I'm at 92% fire crit on my sorc right now on live, and it's not even a teifling, or maxed out for spell crits. putting him at 130% doesn't seem helpful.

how about +1 on caster level and max caster level in there

[thunir]

It looks like we got rid of the 10% mechanic off of Glitter of Fame. Thank you.
I always felt the worst cop out was 4 and 5 tier guards on a build that will almost always stay displaced/ wear mostly light armor. Intoxicating Presence is worthless even if it did work.

Also, Aria and Reign should have their buff time tied to bard songs. We were told this was going to happen, it never did , then their buff times were dropped in the song pass.

Cores:

Core 1: Fatesinger's Rep: Each core grants you +10 Melee Power, +4 Ranged Power, +25 Spell Points, 10 universal spell power, +1 Arcane Caster Level, +2 Effective Bard Levels and +2 Maximum Bard Songs. You also gain Inspire Courage if you didn't have it before.
Core 2: Glitter of Fame: +1 All Stats and all saves
Core 3: Harmonic Resonance: Attacks have a chance of building up Resonance on your enemies, increasing their Sonic vulnerability and reducing their Armor Class by 2 per stack (max 10)
Core 4: Intoxicating Presence: Enemies that strike you have a chance to be Fascinated.
Core 5: Grandeur: Friendly spellcasts bestow bonus AC (+3) and PRR (+3), offensive spellcasts now build up Harmonic Resonance (internal cooldown)
Core 6: Majesty: You are now immune to Charisma Damage, do not suffer from Arcane Spell Failure, also +25 Universal Spell Power

[Steelstar]

+5% spell crit seems like overkill and not too helpful

I'm at 92% fire crit on my sorc right now on live, and it's not even a teifling, or maxed out for spell crits. putting him at 130% doesn't seem helpful.


I think you're talking about Spell Crit Chance.

This bonus is Spell Crit Damage Multiplier.

[Lonnbeimnech]

I think you're talking about Spell Crit Chance.

This bonus is Spell Crit Damage Multiplier.

ah, my mistake.

[ThomasHunter]

I really enjoyed seeing the potential changes here! I am a bit sad that there is no change to Reign though as the duration was nerfed during the recent Bard tweak. Is there any way to make this last longer, especially if you have Bard songs already?

I also think that I tried it on a non Bard melee recently (Reign), but once I ran out of my initial changes I never got them back (it was twisted in). Is this WAI? Sadly that would make it meaningless as a Twist.

Thanks for reading!

Adventurers For An Improved Reign
Taleisin

[Lynnabel]

Is there any way to make this last longer, especially if you have Bard songs already?

I don't have a good way of making their durations scale, but they can definitely go up from 5 minutes (Aria too). What sounds good? 10 minutes? 15 minutes?

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

There is so much more you could do!

Suggestions:

1-Put in something that allows spellswords and runearms to scale based on someone's highest spell power and spell critical chance. For example if my repair spell power is my highest, my runearm will use that, or if my negative energy spellpower is highest, my spellswords will all use that! This will give melee artificers and Eldritch knights the Oomph they need!

2-Since the twists reset every time you become a level 30, add something to each tree that activates at level 30 based on which Scion feat someone took!

[Rogue_Trapper]

Looks good! But, I would like to know the extent of what all the abilities in Fatesinger are. As I am to lazy to lookup what the currently do, the "relocated, no change" or "also now" are not cool.

[Odysseus2011]

I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

Personally I would like to see an epic moment that is actually useful and worth spending points for imo.

[thunir]

That being said intoxicating presence is horrible:

Anything hitting you is not going to get fascinated, you are either attacking it directly or it’s getting hit with burst damage. It does nothing for you.

The blinding guard of majesty at least worked, but again why give guards to builds that as largely trying to avoid getting hit.

[droid327]

Martial Hymn:
Martial: +1 STR DEX WIS, +2 Sneak Dice, +20 max HP, +10 PRR and MRR, +5 AC, +10 Melee and Ranged Power

Primal Hymn: Another hymn, this time primal sphere themed
Primal: +1 WIS DEX CON, +25 HP, +10 Spell Resistance and healing amp, +10% Thrown and Bow attack speed, +3 Str while raging

Could Martial also offer INT? Wis is only really a Martial stat for Monks+Falconry, but Int is a martial stat for Rogues, anything with Harper (incl. all xbows right now), EKs, Swashbucklers, etc.

Also, while this change isnt the right place to address the overall shortcomings of bow archers...seems like a primal archer (or any bow build) would still greatly prefer the Martial hymn to 10% bow speed

[GordolGreydon]

Can we get Reign to scale with ranged or melee power?

[ThomasHunter]

I don't have a good way of making their durations scale, but they can definitely go up from 5 minutes (Aria too). What sounds good? 10 minutes? 15 minutes?

Wow, that’s a good question. My Bard used to have songs be almost 8 minutes if I remember correctly. But he’s a mutt and I know others had longer songs for sure. 10 minutes seems good to me but hopefully you’ll get other feedback as well.

Also, is it possible to make Reign be a decent twist without Bard songs or is that too broken? I just really enjoy Reign and would love it on other of my melee toons. I certainly understand if that won’t work for either technical or game balance issues.

Thanks Lynnabel and team!

[Lynnabel]

10 minutes seems good to me

10 minutes it is :)

[btolson]

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

After the arcane pass, Arcane Tempest is relatively weak (esp for a top tier ability that only offers damage, and a 30 second cooldown). Maybe upgrade to 1d6+6 damage per cl per tick? Or add some sort of CC/debuff to better compare against EA's Divine Wrath heal?

[Mindos]

we're listing the full tree here rather than individual changes, it's clearer that way.)



Dirge: Make it actually work and be good, otherwise no change

For completeness sake, can we edit this and say what it actually does instead of saying its good that it works now? Especially since the whole point of listing the entire tree was to be complete? Why list something that requires looking elseswhere to read its description? -same with all the other mentions of "no change".

[peng]

I just want to start off by saying that I'm a fan of the changes in general.


I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

The issue is that if you want the 2nd dc boosting ability, which costs 3 ap, you need to spend 3 ap on the 1st dc booster, and 6 ap in what is, imo, filler. So *if* you want to max DCs in 1 school, you have to spend 10 ap on stat boosts, 6 on dc boosts, 2 on anything in t1, and 6 on filler. With the changes, there's plenty worth taking in the tree, but since this line is geared at DC casting and costs 12 ap to take it all, it locks almost the entire rest of the tree out.

I'd recommend either making the spell school line not require the earlier levels as prerequisites, or follow Zretch's idea of 2 ap per and only 1 tier each for the max benefit. And apply the same to the energy burst line from draconic. And anywhere else it exists. Long, expensive pre-req trees are not fun when you only want 1-2 things in that tree. If you do make 1 of those changes, then maybe reduce the dc in the cores to 3 or 4. As is, magister offers twice as much dc as any other destiny.


And now that I've segued into draconic... go out with a bang. It sucks. Change the hp requirement to 75%-90% or significantly reduce the cooldown (possibly both). As is, I take it to get to eburst and never even put it on a hotbar. 4 minute cooldown, and only usable when I'd rather hit myself with a heal.


On to fatesinger! Could we get some sonic spell boosts in the cores? Maybe crit chance/multiplier or max caster levels? A spellsinger would have more damage from sonic spells in either of the other arcane destinies.

Also, am I correct in assuming that the harmonics give you their buff twice and everyone else once (assuming your songs apply to everyone)?

Also also:



Dirge and chord of disruption are not affected by spellpower. The damage is pitiful.
I've heard (haven't personally tested) that the +4 cha from turn of the tide doesn't stack with inspire excellence.
There are several on-hit debuffs that barely benefit melees, but would help a caster bard immensely (harmonic resonance, fragment of the song: valor). Is there a reason these only proc on hit and not spellcast?
Turn of the tide is a long cooldown, short duration, epic moment, melee buff that doesn't affect bosses. As many have asked before, why not?
Several abilities with long cooldowns that just aren't worth it (siren's song, bound fate).
Abilities with an unlisted DC (dirge, chord of disruption, bound fate).
Grim fate says that it may take effect even if bound fate doesn't. It may? Does it have a dc? A % chance to proc? Does it only work on alternate tuesdays?

[Pilgrim1]

I have 3 general issues that I think would change epic destinies for the better:

(1) expand the +1 stat bonuses to all 6 stats.
This enables toon that the destines are not build for to still use that destiny to some effect. It will make leveling off destinies slightly less painful. In addition it increases the different character builds available to take advantage of a destiny like this. Since destinies are designed to be used by many different builds this will only increase the diversity available.

(2) reduce the cost of +1 stats bonuses to 1 AP.
When Epic destinies where reduces most stats maxed out at ~60-70. Today the max is well over 130 for some stats. Thus the value of increasing stats has reduced, with the exception of characters who are defined by abilities on the d20 scale (like DC's). In addition since you are re-vamping and improving the existing destinies this will increase the number of action points stat hungry characters have to spend into the new toys and make for a more enjoyable experience.

(3) Add in base-line amounts of melee and ranged power to all destinies.
Being a physical damage toon in a destiny that has no melee or ranged power is really a painful process. Allowing at least some melee/ranged power into off destinies will make the leveling experience more enjoyable and might lead to interesting build options.

I will give destiny specific feedback in later posts.

[GordolGreydon]

Please make a change to "Goes Out With A Bang" to make it mirror the activation properties of Arcane Barrier found in Tier 4 of Eldritch Knight. Goes Out with A Bang has the potential to be an interesting ability, but the current activation requirements cause it to have little use and instead it becomes an AP tax in order to gain energy burst. By changing the requirements to a passive activation with the corresponding cooldown that it currently has it will increase its utilization as well as providing a great indicator to players that they are below 50% health. (If this changer were made it might be suggested to make it a toggle between On and Off so that players could turn it on and off as it might not always be prudent to have it active depending on the content.)

[-D_Rock-]

No idea why you're spending so much effort on Arcane Tempest in Magistar. Magistar is an extremely AP starved tree as multiple abilities in the tree require 3 points to select and have 3 point pre-requisites. After putting your 12 AP into your prime stat (failure to do so is a loss of DCs), and after spending 2 more points on tier 1 skills which do nothing for your casting, to unlock tier 2 skills, you only have 10 AP left to work up to Master of (Spell School). Each rank requires 3 AP to max out, so you put 3 into Specialist, Augmentation, and Familiarity and...yea, you get to put 1 into Master of. You can put 2 into there if you only spend 2 into Familiarity, but you can never put 3 into that skill unless you give up main stat increases. So OK, to get Master of maxed, you clip 1 stat increase and pick up +2 DC in a single school at the expense of potentially 1 DC in all schools if your main stat is now an odd number. *You haven't taken any other ability in the entire tree!* No sigils, no tempest, no nullmagic anything. There aren't the APs for any of it, including spell penetration!

Perhaps consider making the Specialist, Augmentation, Familiarity, and Master of lines be a single selection that costs 2 AP for full benefit, retaining the same pre-requisites. You could then go all the way up the tree, at least. You'd still only have two points left over for spell pen and you still couldn't take any of the flavor skills (sigils, nullmagics, tempest, etc), but it would be a bit easier to check almost all of the required boxes. Recall, I can get full DC benefit including full penetration from Exalted Angel today and still have points left over to take a big AoE heal (divine wrath), wings, and a very nice debuff for some flavor. It would be nice if Magistar could provide offer a little bit of flavor for those at which the tree is targeted (DC casters).

all this ^^^^^

[Steelstar]

Edited the main post to add a few adjustments to existing Fatesinger abilities that are also going into this update.

[Rob_65270]

Nice to see these passes. But am still loving to see Destiny trees for Arties and Warlocks at some point. But I'm loving to see these passes.

[SirShen]

(1) expand the +1 stat bonuses to all 6 stats.
This enables toon that the destines are not build for to still use that destiny to some effect. It will make leveling off destinies slightly less painful. In addition it increases the different character builds available to take advantage of a destiny like this. Since destinies are designed to be used by many different builds this will only increase the diversity available.


This for me is the main reason i don't take other EDs. So all these changes mean nothing to me if the state in the ED is not the main one i am using.

[Pilgrim1]

Magister
There is way to many points to spend in this tree, many of these abilities need to be consolidated into 1 tear. There is currently 68 available options in this tree, it is the most crowded destiny! I suggest the following: Compress all the sigil lines into 1 tear, compress the null magic line into 1 tear abilities. And combine the summing stuff into a single ability.

Keep in mind that this will now provide +5 DC to all schools and +6DC's to a single school, with upto 3 more for charisma/int users. Every FvS will now roll charisma and move to this destiny, every cleric will now move to this destiny and be 3 points behind FvS, and every DC wizard and sorcerer will now be dancing with joy at finally being able to cast spells in an arcane destiny. I would suggest you change the master of school to not include +3 more DC in that school but instead to be a alternative school. So if you focused on necromancy the master would allow you to pick +3 DC in any school other then necromancy. Otherwise the change you did will give school specific wizards a boost of +11 DC. Is that what you want?

Draconic
I like the changes to the core's as well as allowing the SLA to have DC casting added to them. However these changes bring them in-line with the other 9th lvl arcane spells, they do not surpass them. I would also spare a few min to look at the epic feet hell-ball.

I would suggest you change draconic furry to something that increase CL, crit chance, and crit damage instead of just SP.
With draconic hunger make sure they stack otherwise if you kill a handful of mobs you will only get the benefit one time.

Daunting roar and barrier of scales need to be looked at, in both cases i would adjust there cooldown down and increase their effect.

Lastly i would suggest adding some DC's to the core so that damage casters will not fall to far behind magister to the point where they can no longer land there spells.

Fatesinger
This is to new for me to comment on.

[Steelstar]

Otherwise the change you did will give school specific wizards a boost of +11 DC. Is that what you want?

Yes. We really specifically ran the numbers on this one.

[peng]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I've always thought that caster level bonuses should be split between destinies and epic levels. Maybe 1 caster level every other epic level (for 5 total) and 3 caster levels and max caster levels in caster destiny cores.

[Selvera]

When last I tested; [Color] Dragon Breath attacks gained no DC bonus for equipping items that gave "Breath Weapon Focus"; such as the Scarlet Scale Cloak. Is this going to be fixed, or are those items very specifically only for dragonborn breath weapons and not for an ED that anyone can take?

[Zretch]

I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

You see, there's a whole tree for that...Draconic Incernation. Why do I want to play in the DC tree for nukes? At least you can twist the big nuke from DI. The way you combat putting 100% of your points into DCs is to not require 26 APs to be spent in the DC casting tree to get all the DC benefit and then only give people 24 points to spend.

From my own perspective, crowd control is anything but boring, especially in a game where you so rarely find anyone resembling a tank in any group that forms.

[Anuulified]

Can you make energy sheath a selector type spell, so we dont have to reset it over and over.

[Shedrakzo]

Regarding Draconic Incarnation, I forget if there's any ED that supports Pale Masters well, so would it be viable to add a negative energy option to the selection of energy types? I suppose it could be justified being there with the whole dracolich thing.

[Edit] Some additional thoughts on the idea:
By making a negative energy route, Pale Masters can have access to their own 'Divine Wrath' type heal-damage ability in epics. Even if the healing portion is half of the damage you do; on a 30 second CD the negative version of Energy Burst is balanced.

By having the negative energy route in Draconic Incarnation you prevent PMs from having both the Magister DC boost and great self-healing/damage potential.

You also give an epic level version of Death Aura via a negative version of Energy Vortex.

It also gives Dark Disciple/death domain clerics an alternative destiny in the arcane sphere instead of just going Magister for DCs.

[Strambotica]

Ok. You find DC casters boring. BUT how about the people who loves them. I always compete with myself to get the hightest DC. (on Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Bard, Favored Soul, Cleric, Druid)
So… now if i want my necro cleric with high DC, need to run in Magister? My last life was necro cleric, running in EA for DC (extra necro from magister twist). And even with this, the Destruction DC where so so. Have to cast it a couple of times till finally works. And with lower spell points comparing with a FVS wasnt funny.

Draconic

Any chance to add DC to the cores? You cant nuke the things if you cant pass the DC. Wasnt fun to have big spellpower numbers and only see “save save save save save” (no need DC to all like Magister, Evocation + Conjuration)
Precise Casting. Maybe have the chance to add till +3?


Fatesinger

Martial Hymn: could add INT? There is many INT based DPS builds (Rogue and Artificer are people too :P)


But just like this... im thinking that my DC casters will run in EA or Magister, regadless the class.

[HastyPudding]

*hyperventilating*

First I looked at Magister and I was like YES!!! *with two silent middle fingers held up to Exalted Angel*

Then I looked at Fatesinger and I was like OMG I CAN'T DECIDE NOW!!

My only real complaint about Fatesinger was that it offers nothing in the way of enchantment or illusion DC's (just +2 DC's in The Fifth Chord, if I'm reading that right). Enchantments and illusion are the bread and butter (and flavor) of bards. I'd have expected maybe something in the upper tiers to compensate for spellsingers that aren't in Magister. +12 DC's vs +2 DC's (excluding the ability score enhancements) is a bit of a deal breaker.

[IBCrabin]

Is there a possibility of changing "Precise Casting: Conjuration / Evocation: Passive Bonus" to 2 and 4 instead of 1 and 2?


What type of numbers are we suppose to see using draconic? We are getting close to the 100% spell critical chance with all 4 element type, the extra extra 35% spell critical multiplier from the cores on top of the 35% LGS, 25% scion of fire, and 5% from Coalesced is going to create quite a bit of imbalance. This will get amplified when people combine with helpless mobs.

As a sorc in exalted angel, mobs die quickly in R1 to R5 when the toon have the evocation DC to not fail the spell to land. The extra 35% spell critical multiplier will push melee toon out of the party in quests environment.

[Carpone]

Draconic Energy Vortex -- any chance you'll fix the discrepancy between the description and current state? Despite the description which says it ticks every 2 seconds, it actually ticks every 3 seconds, for 15 ticks total.

[pjw]

I like the thought that has gone into these trees, and in light of the suggestion that new stuff is impossible, but simpler changes are, I have a couple of comments. I can also suggest a range of ideas that integrate with Enhancement Trees nicely, but that is a much more complex route to take.

1. Strictly segregating DC/DPS is not a good approach: Each kind of caster needs to be "OK" at the other task (but not as good).

2. Bottom Line: DC casting is about taking out the trash. Nothing more. It is (approximately) useless on red-names. DC casters need something for red names.

3. DPS casters fare apallingly in epics against red names (eg. vs 250k HP). With a full SP bar, 250k damage is entirely possible, but will literally take several minutes. Meanwhile my DPS melee friend will kill a similar enemy in about 20-30 seconds. We have enough Damage-Per-SpellPoint, just not enough Damage-per-Second.

Given the above, I would suggest:


DPS: each core of magister reduce the cooldown of all spells by 12.5%, for a total of 75% reduction.
DPS: each core of draconic reduce spell cooldowns by 15%, for a total of 90%.
DCs: Every second core of Draconinc incxreases spell DCs (they need to have DCs, just not as good as magister)
The epic moments in both should come with a +500 (or 1000) Spell Power Boost.


I recognize the DPS increase (10x) for draconic may *seem* a little high, especially if on a sorc who is already fast; if so make it the same as magister (roughly a 4x increase in DPS). But is should not be lower than that. My DC Wizzzard sucks at DPS and should not. Sorcerors should excel at DPS, Wizzzards should nevertheless "get by" at DPS, not crawl!

If this is not something that is palatable to the powers that be, then perhaps add an Epic Feat: "Spells with this feat active cost 5 times their usual amount and deal 5 times the damage". This would also help fix caster DPS.

If reducing times as a core is unpalatable, then perhaps add a 75% cooldown to the acrcane sphere thingies. Though that would make them mandatory choices, which is why I think it belongs in the core.

Edit: To clarify; part of my reasoning for arguing for a DPS increse in EDs is that it is exactly the right place for it to go. Casters (DPS and DC) are fine in heroics. They suck for DPS in epics; ED's (or free epic feats) are a natural place to address this. The +25% crit multiplier for draconic sounds good, and as a cost-free boost, it's great. My proposals are about trying to boost Damage-Per-Second, without boosting Damage-per-SpellPoint in order to address this imbalance.

[Whisper1]

+5% spell crit seems like overkill and not too helpful

I'm at 92% fire crit on my sorc right now on live, and it's not even a teifling, or maxed out for spell crits. putting him at 130% doesn't seem helpful.

how about +1 on caster level and max caster level in there

Do calc of your crit. I dont think 92% is possible for non-thiefling (-8% crit).

[Xugx_quetoxi]

I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but PLEASE change Energy Sheath so we can change the energy type without resetting the whole tree every time we switch from one raid to the other.


Thank you for listening and your consideration

[Whisper1]

Can developers clarify on this?

Magister destiny gives extra +6 spell DC (from core), also extra +3 spell DC (from Master of school) and click to get +5 from Spellsurge (20 sec duration/1 min cd).
So we are looking at extra 14 to spell DC's. Was this thought out?

I play blasting caster (evocation spec, yeah we exist) but this is crazy.


On other hand you give +30% crit damage for Draconic, but thing as blasting sorc Magister would be much better. No really choice. Why? I have 90 DC to save evocation spells + twist to lower 10 reflex saves but still a lot of mobs save often even on R1.

So i would take Magister over Draconic any time.
+30% crit dmg is only nice IF i stop seeing "saves" a lot of time even with high evocation DC
Extra +14 spell DC >>> +30% crit dmg and 50 spell power

p.s. I do welcome increase to spell DCs. But this makes every evocation sorc go to Magister. And will over-buff cheese insta-kill builds (they already can solo high reaper with insta-kills/charms), while evocation sorcs (already weak) will have to abandon our Draconic sphere.

[Whisper1]

"Fearsome Invulnerability no longer needs to be charged.
It no longer says it does an Intimidate effect, on account of that functionality never being implemented ever.
It now also adds +30 PRR, MRR, and MRR Cap for the duration
It now has a 4 minute cooldown."

+30 PRR and MRR?... I have 120 PRR and 100 MRR, this will buff my resistance vs physical and spell like what, extra 6-7% for short duration? Compared to +10.000 hp for 30 seconds or immunity to hostile magic for full party?

What?

[Varr]

This is great! My Lich-Monk is now going to have a Necro DC of One Million!!!

About time!

[pjw]

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

I am not sure it achieves this. First, DC casters can already take out the trash effectively, but AOE DPS always adds colour, but by my sums it is (very optimistically) going to do:

- 2d6 PCL is, say, 52d6 (assumining arcane aug 1) = 182 base
- assume 1000 spell power (assuming all metas apply, and very good gear) = 2000pts
- 10 seconds, once per 2 sec = 10,000 pts.

On the face of it, that's pretty nice, it's basically a DoT version of Energy Burst, perhaps slightly more damage.

But, against a single target it's 300DPS since it's only usable once every 30 seconds. It might be big damage, it's not big DPS. In a party, most in the area will be dead from melee before the third tick...or have moved away.

Can it be remade as single-target, and 5 times the damage? DC casters don't need help clearing the trash.

Edit: also, if it is intended as a DPS option for people to have fun, they should just twist Energy Burst IMO.

[pjw]

...Why? I have 90 DC to save evocation spells + twist to lower 10 reflex saves but still a lot of mobs save often even on R1.

So i would take Magister over Draconic any time.
+30% crit dmg is only nice IF i stop seeing "saves" a lot of time even with high evocation DC
Extra +14 spell DC >>> +30% crit dmg and 50 spell power
...

This is why strictly demarking draconinc and magister as DPS and DC is a flaw. DPS casters need DCs, and DC casters need DPS. They just should not be equally good at both. eg. magister should have 2/3 the DPS of draconic, and draconic, a slightly lower DC (perhaps a total of 3 or 4 less).

[pjw]

...
[B]Draconic Incarnation
Go Out with A Bang, Energy Burst, and Energy Vortex now use their spell schools' (Evocation/Conjuration) bonuses as part of their DC calculation.


Daunting Roar needs to have necro (fear) or enchant (mind affecting) or some other DC added to it; it does not scale well.

[Grace_ana]

*hyperventilating*

First I looked at Magister and I was like YES!!! *with two silent middle fingers held up to Exalted Angel*

Then I looked at Fatesinger and I was like OMG I CAN'T DECIDE NOW!!

My only real complaint about Fatesinger was that it offers nothing in the way of enchantment or illusion DC's (just +2 DC's in The Fifth Chord, if I'm reading that right). Enchantments and illusion are the bread and butter (and flavor) of bards. I'd have expected maybe something in the upper tiers to compensate for spellsingers that aren't in Magister. +12 DC's vs +2 DC's (excluding the ability score enhancements) is a bit of a deal breaker.

I would agree with this. Fatesinger is tough because bards can do so many different things. I would like to see some DC options in there for them as well, and perhaps a spell pen option too like in magister and draconic. Bards typically use enchantment, illusion, and/or evocation, and it would be great to have boosts for those.

[Shedrakzo]

As another suggestion regarding Fatesinger, perhaps Bladesong could be split into two separate enhancements: The "2d6 Sonic damage on hit scaling with spell power" portion becomes a Tier 4 ability, while the rest stays Tier 5 so that the former can be twisted. And perhaps the altered Tier 5 version could grant the ability to include longswords to weapons usable by swashbucklers. Without buffs, if that's considered too overpowered.

If that cannot be done, perhaps the damage portion of Bladesong could be increased just a bit to 6d6 or something higher, as 2d6 even with very high spell power doesn't seem to be very much. For instance, a friend has 600 sonic spell power when fully buffed and the 2d20 die from Feywild only deals about 200-300 a swing, even with the harmonic resonance debuff applied.

[Targal]

the most problemetic issue on Draconic Incarnation is that nuker casters will still use Magister due to lack of DCs. higher contents needs us to have higher DC.

I'll put simple comparison. Let's think there is 10,000 damage.

* Both: 10,000 damage / 5,000 damage on save

and when it critically hits.

* Draconic(30% crit damage): 23,000 damage / 11,500 damage on save
* Magister(6+ DC): 20,000 damage / 10,000 damage on save

30% crit damage isn't attractive than having +6 DC. You lose +6 DC which can keep full damage, to gain 30% bonus damage which procs only when you critically hit.
My suggestion is that Draconic core should have Evocation/Conjuration DC bonuses. I'm a sorc user, but I'll not choose Draconic unless I can get DCs very well.



...or this can be a solution. Reduce DC failure penalty. then It'll be like this:

* Draconic: every core, your DC failure damage penalty is decreased by 10%
* when it is decreased by 50% and you failed to DC, 10,000 damage becomes 7,500 damage on save(penalty 5,000 * 50%)
* with full core, it is 60%. 10,000 damage will become 8,000 on save.
(5,000 * 60% = 3,000 away => base damage 5,000 + penalty away 3,000 = 8,000)
* It only applies caster's elemental spells.


---

Nuker casters have critical problems that they can't make any dps at Higher Reapers. I'm not sure if you can solve this via Destiny abilities... but I hope you know the issue.

[noinfo]

Can you make energy sheath a selector type spell, so we dont have to reset it over and over.

This please.

[ElweSulk]

Fatesinger

Turn of the Tide: Clean up what it actually gives you, make sure it's actually working as intended

Improved Turn of the Tide:
- No longer a Bard Song
- 3 minute cooldown
- Sonic and Light Damage now applies to bosses

Suggested changes in addition to what above:
- Make the Sonic and Light damage scale with greater of: Sonic spellpower, Light Spellpower, Melee power (200%), Ranged power (200%), (or maybe also greater of all spellpowers; this would make it more available and interesting for different builds)
- Increase duration to 30 seconds
- 2 min cooldown (compared to increased dmg ouput from legendary dreadnought & Fury of the wild; a short cooldown is needed here)
- I think current version locks you out of using anything except normal attack during it's duration. Please make it so that it doesn't lock anything out.

[janave]

Can developers clarify on this?

I play blasting caster (evocation spec, yeah we exist) but this is crazy.



Same boat, my Wizard AM (Magister) will get a major freebie he didn't even work for, and is already out DPSing my Sorcerer (EA) elemental savant. Now, If my Sorc wants to catch up with the DC creep, will need to give up basic survivability and go to Magister, ya know they dont get any from class like Wizard(PM), (or reroll into Aasimar).

My Sorc is failing DC 113 Thunderstrokes on some Sharn mobs, failing DC104 holds on Gnolls all the time, while my Magister can wait to trigger Arcane Supremacy + hit WellSpring, and just kill stuff by the half of splash damage. Wo hoo now I will be hitting them for full damage. :)

Thanks for the freebie I guess, but this wont make the game more balanced or offer more play choices, it will become more cookie cuttered than ever ;)


All what he said too

Evokers will still need to land holds to efficiently and safely DPS. DC > measily spell damage increases.

[ElweSulk]

I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but PLEASE change Energy Sheath so we can change the energy type without resetting the whole tree every time we switch from one raid to the other.


Thank you for listening and your consideration

YES! This one please.

[Lynnabel]

- I think current version locks you out of using anything except normal attack during it's duration. Please make it so that it doesn't lock anything out.

This was fixed with U41 :)

[Seph1roth5]

Umm not everyone is soloing R10 quests with one hand while playing an iOS with the other. I'd much rather the devs not balance the game around reaper like they said they wouldn't.

That being said, I like the look of a lot of these changes.

Magister: No one liked being in Magister, usually just saw people twisting a couple things. Now it's a much more attractive ED for any DC-caster. Other EDs have more destiny but Magister'll is at least competitive and not just a place to slog out 2mil exp.

Draconic Incarnation: Being able to meta some of their slas sounds fun, and energy burst was already fun to twist heh. And it seems to do what the devs wanted in that it's all about raw power. I like the AP cost reductions as well, I think I always want to fit in daunting roar and I'm always tight on points.

Fatesinger: This was another ED like magister in that it didn't really help out many of my characters (although it did add SOMEthing usually). This updated version looks to definitely add a little bit of everything. I think the fascinate guard is a bit underpowered too though. The only time I think it'd come up is if I'm an intimi-tank and the party's getting beat up badly, I can intimidate, block, and hopefully fascinate them all...? Still, the changes look pretty cool. The core 6 no ASF sounds like it might be fun to toy around with.

[janave]

Is it possible to adjust Fade Into the Weave to be castable while moving? It has a relatively long cooldown and always sad when I lose while casting on the move. I would suggest a cooldown reduction rather than loading them with spell power, feel cleaner and better.

Fade 90s ?
Imperceptible 45s, -100% threat?

[Targal]

...or this can be a solution. Reduce DC failure penalty. then It'll be like this:

* Draconic: every core, your DC failure damage penalty is decreased by 10%
* when it is decreased by 50% and you failed to DC, 10,000 damage becomes 7,500 damage on save(penalty 5,000 * 50%)
* with full core, it is 60%. 10,000 damage will become 8,000 on save.
(5,000 * 60% = 3,000 away => base damage 5,000 + penalty away 3,000 = 8,000)
* It only applies caster's elemental spells.


I forgot evasive creatures. maybe having more DC will be good for ordinary Nukers

[ned_ellis]

No idea why you're spending so much effort on Arcane Tempest in Magistar. Magistar is an extremely AP starved tree as multiple abilities in the tree require 3 points to select and have 3 point pre-requisites. After putting your 12 AP into your prime stat (failure to do so is a loss of DCs), and after spending 2 more points on tier 1 skills which do nothing for your casting, to unlock tier 2 skills, you only have 10 AP left to work up to Master of (Spell School). Each rank requires 3 AP to max out, so you put 3 into Specialist, Augmentation, and Familiarity and...yea, you get to put 1 into Master of. You can put 2 into there if you only spend 2 into Familiarity, but you can never put 3 into that skill unless you give up main stat increases. So OK, to get Master of maxed, you clip 1 stat increase and pick up +2 DC in a single school at the expense of potentially 1 DC in all schools if your main stat is now an odd number. *You haven't taken any other ability in the entire tree!* No sigils, no tempest, no nullmagic anything. There aren't the APs for any of it, including spell penetration!

Perhaps consider making the Specialist, Augmentation, Familiarity, and Master of lines be a single selection that costs 2 AP for full benefit, retaining the same pre-requisites. You could then go all the way up the tree, at least. You'd still only have two points left over for spell pen and you still couldn't take any of the flavor skills (sigils, nullmagics, tempest, etc), but it would be a bit easier to check almost all of the required boxes. Recall, I can get full DC benefit including full penetration from Exalted Angel today and still have points left over to take a big AoE heal (divine wrath), wings, and a very nice debuff for some flavor. It would be nice if Magistar could provide offer a little bit of flavor for those at which the tree is targeted (DC casters).


I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

Please re-think with the bolded part in mind...


+5% spell crit seems like overkill and not too helpful

I'm at 92% fire crit on my sorc right now on live, and it's not even a teifling, or maxed out for spell crits. putting him at 130% doesn't seem helpful.

how about +1 on caster level and max caster level in there

was going to say it should be crit multiplier but apparently it allready is!


Personally I would like to see an epic moment that is actually useful and worth spending points for imo.

I agree; i find both draconic and magister top tier useless; I take arcane tempest just because I feel i need at least one 'toy' to play with!


Magister
There is way to many points to spend in this tree, many of these abilities need to be consolidated into 1 tear. There is currently 68 available options in this tree, it is the most crowded destiny! I suggest the following: Compress all the sigil lines into 1 tear, compress the null magic line into 1 tear abilities. And combine the summing stuff into a single ability.

Keep in mind that this will now provide +5 DC to all schools and +6DC's to a single school, with upto 3 more for charisma/int users. Every FvS will now roll charisma and move to this destiny, every cleric will now move to this destiny and be 3 points behind FvS, and every DC wizard and sorcerer will now be dancing with joy at finally being able to cast spells in an arcane destiny. I would suggest you change the master of school to not include +3 more DC in that school but instead to be a alternative school. So if you focused on necromancy the master would allow you to pick +3 DC in any school other then necromancy. Otherwise the change you did will give school specific wizards a boost of +11 DC. Is that what you want?

Draconic
I like the changes to the core's as well as allowing the SLA to have DC casting added to them. However these changes bring them in-line with the other 9th lvl arcane spells, they do not surpass them. I would also spare a few min to look at the epic feet hell-ball.

I would suggest you change draconic furry to something that increase CL, crit chance, and crit damage instead of just SP.
With draconic hunger make sure they stack otherwise if you kill a handful of mobs you will only get the benefit one time.

Daunting roar and barrier of scales need to be looked at, in both cases i would adjust there cooldown down and increase their effect.

Lastly i would suggest adding some DC's to the core so that damage casters will not fall to far behind magister to the point where they can no longer land there spells.

Fatesinger
This is to new for me to comment on.

Many times the bolded part!! I think of all the changes asked for THIS is the one that will help it not be the new EA for magic users. For eg., Draconic has very little in the way of dc's but sorcs need them to land spells; I dont have sharn (yet?) but if the saves are inflated how long will it take for them to kill an archer?! ;p

As others have said, a DC caster needs some dps and a dps caster needs some dc's.....


Can you make energy sheath a selector type spell, so we dont have to reset it over and over.

+100000! Even make it cost 2ap but please listen to this!


Regarding Draconic Incarnation, I forget if there's any ED that supports Pale Masters well, so would it be viable to add a negative energy option to the selection of energy types? I suppose it could be justified being there with the whole dracolich thing.

[Edit] Some additional thoughts on the idea:
By making a negative energy route, Pale Masters can have access to their own 'Divine Wrath' type heal-damage ability in epics. Even if the healing portion is half of the damage you do; on a 30 second CD the negative version of Energy Burst is balanced.

By having the negative energy route in Draconic Incarnation you prevent PMs from having both the Magister DC boost and great self-healing/damage potential.

You also give an epic level version of Death Aura via a negative version of Energy Vortex.

It also gives Dark Disciple/death domain clerics an alternative destiny in the arcane sphere instead of just going Magister for DCs.

Love this idea!! This would open up a lot of build flexibility and would be fantastically thematic! Who do I need to send gifts to to get this implemented?! :D

[Whisper1]

Evokers will still need to land holds to efficiently and safely DPS. DC > measily spell damage increases.

adding +crit damage wont help if very often 50% damage or even 0% (evasion) due to saves.

Sorcerors will be forced into Magister tree.

[Katalissa]

Haha... I knew Fatesinger would be the tree that was totally re-written.

The only suggestion I can really make is that the 6th core of it should be called "The Secret Chord" - in honour of the late great Leonard Cohen.

[janave]

Do they even read us?
Otherwise they would know that adding +crit damage wont help if very often 50% damage or even 0% (evasion) due to saves.

Yup, and it takes more investment too than the binary casting, necro casters will have no trouble fitting in the 2 Ruins for boss damage, we cannot do that on our evokers :).

Theoretically an evoker is better on Boss fights, tho still much behind a real martial DPS build, the theory lasts up to about R4-5. As for defenses: Instantkill > CC > Charactersheet.

On a second thought, ignore me, I am looking forward for the free* R6 exp :)

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

I see nothing in these trees for runearm use or spellsword use....... and yet both artificers and wizards are forced to start in the Arcane sphere.....

What artificers need: Full BAB while going melee (maybe give them a special version of Tensor's transformation similar to Knight's Transformation?), the ability to use their highest spell power score to scale runearms from (Rather than always having to change gear to improve the runearm blast of a different runearm), and runearm charge rate increase would be nice.

What Eldritch Knights need: The ability to use their highest spellpower score to determine the scaling of their Spellsword attacks, and some way they can get better armor class, physical resistance, and magical resistance. I'm thinking you could give them an armor class, MRR, and PRR bonus while Improved Knight's Transformation is added like so many points per epic level plus so many points per level gained in a tree.

[silinteresting]

Since Bards also support DEX and INT builds via Swashbuckler Different Tack, can we get 4 options, STR, DEX, INT, or CHA, for Fatesinger ability scores?

i agree with the above this would be good, only because id like to play a ek build in fatesinger.

your friend sil :)

[Montegue]

Very excited about the changes to Magister. I long to play in this destiny and know that Draconic with a twist is just fundamentally better. This might cause me to stop trying to play Eldritch Knight and focus entirely on being a caster at level 20+.

I would like to add my voice to the chorus saying that the points to achieve that goal are a little heavy, and frustrating (it's a fun tree, and I'd like to have a toy or two when DCs aren't a thing). It's not boring to be a DC caster, it's quite thrilling, but you *have* to focus on DCs because when you don't meet the threshold you may as well be piking. You guys will almost certainly balance against the new available DC caps in higher end content, so we *won't have a choice* but to invest in DCs fully if we want to do our job.

so, you know, great work, but please consider making the tree a little more points-friendly.

[Steelstar]

After the arcane pass, Arcane Tempest is relatively weak (esp for a top tier ability that only offers damage, and a 30 second cooldown). Maybe upgrade to 1d6+6 damage per cl per tick? Or add some sort of CC/debuff to better compare against EA's Divine Wrath heal?
I think we'd be fine changing the damage from (2d6 per CL) to ((1d6+6) per CL). Same cap, averages higher.


When last I tested; [Color] Dragon Breath attacks gained no DC bonus for equipping items that gave "Breath Weapon Focus"; such as the Scarlet Scale Cloak. Is this going to be fixed, or are those items very specifically only for dragonborn breath weapons and not for an ED that anyone can take?
Hmm. Will take a look.


Can you make energy sheath a selector type spell, so we dont have to reset it over and over.
I don't know that this will fit into the timeframe we have, and there may be balance concerns. Will need to talk it over with the team.


Regarding Draconic Incarnation, I forget if there's any ED that supports Pale Masters well, so would it be viable to add a negative energy option to the selection of energy types? I suppose it could be justified being there with the whole dracolich thing.

[Edit] Some additional thoughts on the idea:
By making a negative energy route, Pale Masters can have access to their own 'Divine Wrath' type heal-damage ability in epics. Even if the healing portion is half of the damage you do; on a 30 second CD the negative version of Energy Burst is balanced.

By having the negative energy route in Draconic Incarnation you prevent PMs from having both the Magister DC boost and great self-healing/damage potential.

You also give an epic level version of Death Aura via a negative version of Energy Vortex.

It also gives Dark Disciple/death domain clerics an alternative destiny in the arcane sphere instead of just going Magister for DCs.
An interesting idea, but outside the scope of what we have time for, sadly.


Ok. You find DC casters boring.
I didn't say that! I said I find only taking DC increases at the cost of a lot of other cool things boring.


Draconic Energy Vortex -- any chance you'll fix the discrepancy between the description and current state? Despite the description which says it ticks every 2 seconds, it actually ticks every 3 seconds, for 15 ticks total.
Will take a look.


Daunting Roar needs to have necro (fear) or enchant (mind affecting) or some other DC added to it; it does not scale well.
This is something I wanted to fix but lack the tech to do so right now; it might have to wait until after this update.

[HouseAtreides]

I didn't say that! I said I find only taking DC increases at the cost of a lot of other cool things boring.



But this is literally the way most of your playerbase experiences the game due to scaling. You're either maximum or useless in higher level content, to be blunt. There's no viable half and half version of almost anything, now. Especially a DC caster.

[Thar]

I didn't say that! I said I find only taking DC increases at the cost of a lot of other cool things boring.



Unfortunately, most of the other magistar items do not work well. the totems are not really a caster effect imo when i think of wizards. probably copying some other (game that shall not be mentioned) totem mechanics. Why would someone take a fixed point totem when you have to continually move around as a caster not to be smushed... The null guard effect is limited situationally useful but not as a tier 5/6 ability. DC's were the only item useful in the tree for casters. for non casters, nothing in the tree really gaves them anything useful out of tier 1

ie energy stacking. in epics +10 to resist isn't that useful when we take 9000 pts of fire damage. maybe change to absorb to stack better


summons - need spell focus AND taking the dc line.

tier 6 - whoot a non caster has a spell... but it's tier 6 and would you really stay in the tree for this? for a caster is it cheap enough and able to be boosted to be worth more than a 9th lvl spell you already have?

The tree needs some reasons to want to be here other than DC's. Make DC's a choice not the default in the tree.

null magic - lose 2-4 spell resist? when it's in upper 90s (drow) does that even matter? should be 10-30

that said, the dc's will make me choose between this over exaulted angel +3 core even though i'll miss the healing and cheap, fast tier 6 sla.

[Carpone]

Primal: +1 WIS DEX CON, +25 HP, +10 Spell Resistance and healing amp, +10% Thrown and Bow attack speed, +3 Str while raging
Does the attack speed increase apply to crossbows as well, or just bows? I ask because Shiradi Champion is Primal, and the description reads "This Primal Epic Destiny grants mastery with all forms of ranged combat". So it's not clear if excluding xbows is intentional, an oversight, or just a mistake in the description.

[Lynnabel]

Does the attack speed increase apply to crossbows as well, or just bows? I ask because Shiradi Champion is Primal, and the description reads "This Primal Epic Destiny grants mastery with all forms of ranged combat". So it's not clear if excluding xbows is intentional, an oversight, or just a mistake in the description.

I used the currently available buff numbers, it should be doing exactly what the Shiradi stance does on live right now. I believe it does encompass crossbow speed.

[janave]

The tree needs some reasons to want to be here other than DC's. Make DC's a choice not the default in the tree.
.

In content with spell resistance Magister was already the better eDestiny for arcanes. And I bet EA had the DC edge in MotU to offset Lich form and the many feats Wizards get.

Anyway, freebie or buyout this will likely eliminate off Magister builds for casters.

[Zafaron]

I don't think I've ever said this before, but.. Draconic might be in for too much power. This coming from somebody that loves power creep and huge damage numbers. I mean feel free to ignore me, because it's going to be fun to see the numbered (maximized+empowered energy burst!!!)

This ED pass probably makes me more excited than the Sharn expansion did, and it is very good. Really hope this makes it into the game in the not too distant future, so much good stuff I don't even know where to begin.

[Iriale]

Something that has not been said before: a really welcome change would be that you changed the requirements for [Spell School] Specialist. Currently requires the spell focus of the school, and being as a mandatory twist for any caster (DC or dps focused, it does not matter, and even for hybrids) this requirement is an unnecessary stress for any class that has no bonus feats. If you do not want to eliminate the requirement completely, at least include the wiz PL feat and the complecionist feat in the requirements so that it is not necessary to take the spell focus. Most builds do not have space for spell focus if they want to take DC past lives, and if someone has worked for them, they should be able to pick them up. Currently most of the builds take the twist taking advantage of a bug, without having spell focus, but please, allow this to be done legally. And no, do not fix the bug without changing the requirements, because there is really no room for so many feats in a class without bonus feats.

Think that without bonus feats, there are only 7 heroic feats, and with them you have to take metamagics (maximize, empower, quicken, heighten and empower healing or enlarge), spell penetration, and ... where do you find space, devs, for the spell focus and the two past life feats? Actually without the spell focus you have to discard one of those feats, or use a valuable epic feat for it (and with sharn you want the warlocks to spend a feat more in medium armor proficiency, wow!)... there is no space for the spell focus if you do not have bonus feats.

Please, change the requirements to include spell focus OR one DC past life feat, or delete them. Let us take the twist legally.

[janave]

Good stuff...

Please, change the requirements to include spell focus OR one DC past life feat, or delete them. Let us take the twist legally.

This would be huge! +1

[Iriale]

Regarding the changes that you have suggested: while I believe that now the arcane destinies become competitive with the other EDs of other spheres that had already been improved, I ask you to reconsider the proposed changes. As several people have already said before me, a nuker needs DC for its damage spells to work, and a DC caster needs some damage to function properly. Draconic should have more damage than DC, but should have DC. Personally I think the +1 to the DC by core should have it by default all caster EDs: exalted angel (who already has it), primar avatar (who desperately needs it, the caster druids are still orphans of ED with this pass), draconic and magister.

After that, Draconic should only have a modest up to evocation and conjuration (which really has it, a +2 if you spend points in that), and nothing to other schools. Instead, the magister should have increases to DC to all schools (divided into several enhancement lines). In fact, I think giving +11 to a school is a very bad idea and not only because of the power creep that this implies. Devs are always bringing up what is fun or not. Well, I'll tell what's not fun: that being a caster with a variety of spells from different schools, the game reduce you to a single school instead of let you use all the spellbook. Please, diversify the DC bonus of the magister a little, so that the total bonus to the DC is not so high, but it is obtained in many schools, to better take advantage of our spellbooks. Add some damage to magister or a reduction in the cost of the spells, and voila, it looks perfect. Remember, devs, that the reduction of the cost of the spells given by Arcane Adept does not stack with the one given by the equipment. Really sad for a tier 6 aptitude. At least do Arcane adept stack with equipment. Another possible option different from those already proposed: Magister is a good place to add improvements to metamagic feats, and a change like this is more elegant than adding damage to the classical form

Then there is something else that I would like to bring to your attention. The artificers who like to use all the abilities of their class (aka, spells + weapon) are orphans of ED. Shadowdancer is usually the ED chosen by these toons, but it does not add CL or spell damage, nor spell points, nor runearm improvements... please make fatesinger a more suitable ED for artificers by adding int to its ability selectors and some evocation DC, or add melee / ranged power to caster EDs. Anyway, to the pure casters the melee / ranged power is completely useless, and in this way EKs would also have an ED in their own sphere.

[Charltonsexton]

The Sigils still aren't good; they fell a bit low on the priority list relative to other things. If there are simple number tweaks we can make to make them more worth using, we're all ears.

How about instant cast and shorter cool down? It's been so long since I actually used a sigil - it would take a lot to get my wizard to stand still for any amount of time - but if I remember right isn't there a bit of a casting animation? What if it came out quickly like Energy Burst?

[Iriale]

Can you make energy sheath a selector type spell, so we dont have to reset it over and over.

I don't know that this will fit into the timeframe we have, and there may be balance concerns. Will need to talk it over with the team
While doing this leaves the true fire shield spell in a bad place, this need comes from the current design of the raids. In two raids (RTSO and killing time) an electric shield is needed. In the new raid of sharn we need a fire shield. And in none of those raids have this shield is optional: the damage we receive is too high to do without it. Not even for the toons with evasion.

Understand that if you designed content where this kind of thing would be an aid to people with low MRR rather than something mandatory even for tanks with bazillons of MRR, we would not need something like that. The problem of balance is brought by the design of the current raids, which require yes or yes the shield, before this change in itself (which, effectively, nullifies once again the access to the spell and makes it too easy for toons with high MRR other content class than raids)

[Shadow_Jumper]

While doing this leaves the true fire shield spell in a bad place, this need comes from the current design of the raids. In two raids (RTSO and killing time) an electric shield is needed. In the new raid of sharn we need a fire shield. And in none of those raids have this shield is optional: the damage we receive is too high to do without it. Not even for the toons with evasion.

Understand that if you designed content where this kind of thing would be an aid to people with low MRR rather than something mandatory even for tanks with bazillons of MRR, we would not need something like that. The problem of balance is brought by the design of the current raids, which require yes or yes the shield, before this change in itself (which, effectively, nullifies once again the access to the spell and makes it too easy for toons with high MRR other content class than raids)

FWIW unless you’re the tank in KT you don’t need energy sheathe.

I spend most of my time flipping between fire sheathe and cold sheathe; the latter being to guard against 2k dmg polar rays in r10 quests.

[LightBear]

Fatesinger tier5 Bladesongs sonic of 2d6 seems a bit light.
The sphere thought seems way better than what we used to have.
Greater Shout as a tier 6 is absolutely useless, make it an aura effect that ticks once every second and you have a winner, everything at that tier is supposed to be some epic ability that whirls the fights in your favor.
Maybe change it into Epic Fortex: You are surrounded by a whirling wall of sound strangely attracting enemies to come and dance with you (Save against Will or Otto's irresistible dance). Once every 6 seconds a thundering clap of boom dealing 6d6 sonic damage in a wide range around you can be heard. Every foe around you caught in the blast zone of your awesomeness is knocked to the ground (Save against Reflex) or Dazes them when they make the save and aren't dancing yet??????

Magister sigils are slow to cast and have a somewhat limiting range if I recall correctly. What they do isn't all that great nr wise and right now it says we can only have one sigil active at a time the wording could use a bit more work on what the actual limitations are, like can you stack different sigils or not. The Sigil of Energy Negation could use a wider protection range in the types, right now it should read basic elemental negation instead of energy, imho. If it stays like this then at least add elemental absorption to it. If anything is added to sigils GFX in the future I'd ask for a circle that displays their effective range. The summons don't do all that much, maybe spread some love there?

Overall welcome changes. :)

[Iriale]

FWIW unless you’re the tank in KT you don’t need energy sheathe.

I spend most of my time flipping between fire sheathe and cold sheathe; the latter being to guard against 2k dmg polar rays in r10 quests.
and who asked for this change, Anuulifier, has some of the best Khyber tanks. And he is now forced to reset draconic destiny every time he changes raid, because the devs design the raids in such a way that even the tanks need a spell that should be the way that the toons with low MRR would survive. And for RTSO and THTH the shield is not optional for anyone

[Iriale]

I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

I didn't say that! I said I find only taking DC increases at the cost of a lot of other cool things boring.
Of course it is boring to spend all your points in DC, but if you are a caster you must have a functional DC. Currently in Sharn only my main who is a complecionist with a maximized DC (equipment, build, past lives, all the spellcasting benefits of the reaper trees) has no problems. My alts, with less benefits, have DC problems. As soon as I start to discard DC bonuses in them to add other funnier things, they begin to enter the field of the useless. So if you design DC enhancements too expensive, in the end there is no room for anything else. Only with my main I can allow myself to be capricious with some things, and even so, according to what difficulties, I could regret that decision.

Consider, Steelstar, changing the ability selectors of all the EDs (not only arcane ones). So they cost 1 ap and that each ED offers the 6 abilities. This would help a lot, and not just the casters. Those melees that care about the tactical DCs would also to be happy. The hybrids would be a little more viable. And do not forget that nowadays the weapon combat uses all the characteristics, and not only the classic ones of str and dex, so it is a change that would benefit everyone.

On another topic I read that you said that there would be a problem of balance for lowering the cost to 1 ap. What problems? Maybe +1 to one ability was a great thing in 2012, but seven years later there are many other things that add MUCH greater powercreep. Please lower the cost of these abilities and expand the selectors, so that the EDs better reflect the game as it is in 2019

[janave]

I don't think I've ever said this before, but.. Draconic might be in for too much power. This coming from somebody that loves power creep and huge damage numbers. I mean feel free to ignore me, because it's going to be fun to see the numbered (maximized+empowered energy burst!!!)

This ED pass probably makes me more excited than the Sharn expansion did, and it is very good. Really hope this makes it into the game in the not too distant future, so much good stuff I don't even know where to begin.

1000 standing fire spell power (assuming Sharn and Ravenloft items)
+300 meta magic power
1d15+15 ~ 23 damage

Caster Level:
30 Base CR
3 Evocation Master
3 Red Dragon Spell Knowledge
2 Arcane Augmentation
1 Coalesced Magic

Master of Knowledge (idealistic to keep at max stack, especially in a group)
90 uni power
60 critX

Arcane Supremacy
100 critX

Fire Scion
25 critX

Event Robe Clicky
25 critX

Well Spring
150 uni power
20 critX

base x power x crit
(23 x 39) x (15.4) x (4.3) => 59 399


Very late here so i could probably made a few mistakes here and there :)


This is my current attempt with a similar setup on live, obviously not idealistic numbers:

(Combat): You hit Daask Brute for 42,237 points of fire damage. (non helpless)

I have an epic red dragon helmet on, but does not register +3 CL for energy burst fire. (as per combat log) Interestingly enough arcane augmentation +2 works fine.


In real gameplay ( as in not a wilderness) I rarely see above 30 000, timing everything together is clumsy.


Very barely 2k DPS with the average setup above. You can do better with spellbook rotation, of course that is more expensive as it should be.

[PsychoBlonde]

For Go Out With a Bang . . . this ability is basically impossible to use as it stands because you're likely to get killed if you hit the health requirement. And you HAVE to take it to get Energy Burst.

I would also suggest making the abilities in the entire line (energy sheath, Go out with a bang, energy burst) have a single rank that costs 2 points instead of 3 ranks that cost a point each. Either that, or disconnect them.

I'd suggest making Go Out With A Bang into a MODAL ability that, when toggled, fires AUTOMATICALLY when you hit 50% health, up to 1 time per minute.

I'd also suggest making Fatesinger have Dex, Int, and Cha as stat options instead of strength and cha.

Harmonic Resonance: 20 points of sonic vulnerability are pretty garbage . . . or is that 20%? It's hard to tell. Also, I'd suggest making this straight out vulnerability instead of sonic vulnerability.

Suggest making Intoxicating Resonance affect enemies that ATTACK you instead of enemies that HIT you. Or making it clear what "strike" actually means (hit or attack)

Third Harmonic Chord should be, at a MINIMUM 3/6/9 PRR not 1/2/3. Other epic destinies give 5/10/15 PRR for similar investment, for crying out loud!

Otherwise these changes look pretty solid. I approve!

[GramercyRiff]

I'm not crazy about some of these changes but they are changes.

I love the Arcane Sphere changes though. I never thought I'd see the day when I look at Fatesinger and think...yeah I think I'll run this ED right now. Arcane goes from being terrible to great.

[janave]

For Go Out With a Bang . . . this ability is basically impossible to use as it stands because you're likely to get killed if you hit the health requirement.

I'd suggest making Go Out With A Bang into a MODAL ability that, when toggled, fires AUTOMATICALLY when you hit 50% health, up to 1 time per minute.

I had a similar thought before on this. (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/505040-Draconic-Incarnation-T2-go-out-with-a-bang-is-hardly-playable)

[Iriale]

For Go Out With a Bang . . . this ability is basically impossible to use as it stands because you're likely to get killed if you hit the health requirement. And you HAVE to take it to get Energy Burst.

I would also suggest making the abilities in the entire line (energy sheath, Go out with a bang, energy burst) have a single rank that costs 2 points instead of 3 ranks that cost a point each. Either that, or disconnect them.

I'd suggest making Go Out With A Bang into a MODAL ability that, when toggled, fires AUTOMATICALLY when you hit 50% health, up to 1 time per minute.

I'd also suggest making Fatesinger have Dex, Int, and Cha as stat options instead of strength and cha.

Harmonic Resonance: 20 points of sonic vulnerability are pretty garbage . . . or is that 20%? It's hard to tell. Also, I'd suggest making this straight out vulnerability instead of sonic vulnerability.

Suggest making Intoxicating Resonance affect enemies that ATTACK you instead of enemies that HIT you. Or making it clear what "strike" actually means (hit or attack)

Third Harmonic Chord should be, at a MINIMUM 3/6/9 PRR not 1/2/3. Other epic destinies give 5/10/15 PRR for similar investment, for crying out loud!

Otherwise these changes look pretty solid. I approve!
I agree with this, especially with For Go Out With a Bang. When you are very hurt the first reaction is to heal and / or to run away from the enemies, not to activate an offensive ability. For Go Out With a Bang needs to be activated passively to be viable; its cooldown should be what balances the use of this skill, not its activation by the player

[GramercyRiff]

I want Harmonic Resonance to be straight up vulnerability too. It's more epic after all.

[Damian]

Any chance Enthrallement and the new Siren song can be fixed and work with oozes, undead, contrcuts, vermins when we have the fatesinger cores?

thx

[Cantor]

For Go Out With a Bang . . . this ability is basically impossible to use as it stands because you're likely to get killed if you hit the health requirement. And you HAVE to take it to get Energy Burst.

I would also suggest making the abilities in the entire line (energy sheath, Go out with a bang, energy burst) have a single rank that costs 2 points instead of 3 ranks that cost a point each. Either that, or disconnect them.

I'd suggest making Go Out With A Bang into a MODAL ability that, when toggled, fires AUTOMATICALLY when you hit 50% health, up to 1 time per minute.

I'd also suggest making Fatesinger have Dex, Int, and Cha as stat options instead of strength and cha.

Harmonic Resonance: 20 points of sonic vulnerability are pretty garbage . . . or is that 20%? It's hard to tell. Also, I'd suggest making this straight out vulnerability instead of sonic vulnerability.

Suggest making Intoxicating Resonance affect enemies that ATTACK you instead of enemies that HIT you. Or making it clear what "strike" actually means (hit or attack)

Third Harmonic Chord should be, at a MINIMUM 3/6/9 PRR not 1/2/3. Other epic destinies give 5/10/15 PRR for similar investment, for crying out loud!

Otherwise these changes look pretty solid. I approve!

I second these suggestions.

[btolson]

Go Out With a Bang is definitely not very useful, but given the name, it seems that getting yourself killed is part of the intended design.

It's exacerbated in reaper when 1 shot can easily be 75% to 100% of your HP. There's not enough granularity in incoming damage for it to be viable.

Maybe if it using it also gave you a ~6 second buff that extends your range of unconsciousness by... a LOT. Maybe 1000. For 6 seconds, I think that's OK. You go out with a Bang... but still stay standing for 6 seconds and see if you can get healed enough to stay standing longer.

Or else activating it gives you a good chunk of temp HP, so you can essentially heal and attack simultaneously.

[Cetus]

The DC benefits of magister are practically a no-brainer. It seems to me that draconic, as nice as the improvements to it are, will mostly be a toy-destiny for low reaper content.

You simply cannot compete with magisters high DC's in higher skull content with the changes draconic is currently receiving. Dreaconic needs evocation DC bonuses and spellpoint cost reductions *at minimum* in order to make DPS spellcasting compete with that whopping DC increase from magister. Nuking through high skull content is painful on spellpoint pools. It is much more cost effective and party desirable to CC and instakill instead.

[Grace_ana]

The DC benefits of magister are practically a no-brainer. It seems to me that draconic, as nice as the improvements to it are, will mostly be a toy-destiny for low reaper content.

You simply cannot compete with magisters high DC's in higher skull content with the changes draconic is currently receiving. Dreaconic needs evocation DC bonuses and spellpoint cost reductions *at minimum* in order to make DPS spellcasting compete with that whopping DC increase from magister. Nuking through high skull content is painful on spellpoint pools. It is much more cost effective and party desirable to CC and instakill.

It would make sense for, instead of draconic being the blaster tree and magister being the DC tree, having draconic being the blaster/evoc DC tree, and having magister be where the other DCs and spell pen live. That would better define the two playstyles.

Edit: Perhaps have cores 1, 3, and 5 have 5% crit multi and cores 2 and 6 have +3 evoc/conj DCs each. That would even out the available DCs with magister, and losing some crit multi would balance that.

[pjw]

I just ran some DPS tests on my Wizzzard and I was definitely wrong about him having abysmal DPS. He just has relatively poor DPS: approximately 3k. That's using decent gear, no metas (to save SP) etc.

With the new Draconic crit enhancements, that will go up by about 20% (while the new Arcane Tempest is cool and all, it doesn't represent much DPS boost). That's pretty much it tho.

So my current thinking is:


I still think there is a place for a spell cooldown reduction. Perhaps draconic should have 5% cooldown reduction per core for evocation and conjuration spells? This would be about a 50% DPS increase.
Perhaps the Sigil of Battering Spellcraft could give double the Spell Power, and perhaps reduce cooldowns by 10%?


Also a question: metas now apply to energy burst. Are they free?

[Bronko]

Fatesinger

Cores:


Core 1: Fatesinger's Rep: Each core grants you +10 Melee Power, +4 Ranged Power, +25 Spell Points, 10 universal spell power, +1 Arcane Caster Level, +2 Effective Bard Levels and +2 Maximum Bard Songs. You also gain Inspire Courage if you didn't have it before.
Core 2: Glitter of Fame: +1 All Stats and all saves
Core 3: Harmonic Resonance: Attacks have a chance of building up Resonance on your enemies, increasing their Sonic vulnerability and reducing their Armor Class by 2 per stack (max 10)
Core 4: Intoxicating Presence: Enemies that strike you have a chance to be Fascinated.
Core 5: Grandeur: Friendly spellcasts bestow bonus AC (+3) and PRR (+3), offensive spellcasts now build up Harmonic Resonance (internal cooldown)
Core 6: Majesty: You are now immune to Charisma Damage, do not suffer from Arcane Spell Failure, also +25 Universal Spell Power



I will miss the old Fatesinger ED. I'm willing to give the new one a shot but my suggestion: keep the Eschew Materials metamagic effect that Harmonic Resonance currently has. Unless there is a performance issue involved I think that removing it is an unnecessary nerf to that core ability.

[janave]

I just ran some DPS tests on my Wizzzard and I was definitely wrong about him having abysmal DPS. He just has relatively poor DPS: approximately 3k. That's using decent gear, no metas (to save SP) etc.

With the new Draconic crit enhancements, that will go up by about 20% (while the new Arcane Tempest is cool and all, it doesn't represent much DPS boost). That's pretty much it tho.

So my current thinking is:


I still think there is a place for a spell cooldown reduction. Perhaps draconic should have 5% cooldown reduction per core for evocation and conjuration spells? This would be about a 50% DPS increase.
Perhaps the Sigil of Battering Spellcraft could give double the Spell Power, and perhaps reduce cooldowns by 10%?


Also a question: metas now apply to energy burst. Are they free?

I think 3000 DPS can be surpassed but it would empty the mana bar in a few encounters. One of the strength of Wizard over Sorcerer is that we can fit each level 9 damage spell into the rotation without debuffs. Casting Meteor, Acid Well, Thunder and Iceberg is pretty solid damage (granted the target takes full damage). Especially when all the crazy crit multiplier is stacked up.

Cooldown reduction sounds good but needs to be weighted, if not, it actually buffs Wizards way more than Sorcerers relatively. I dont find the cooldowns too heavy on nukes to be honest.

Good idea on Battering Spellcraft, It could use a large bump, I doubt it will make necro mages take this.

Specifically for Wizard evokers, I suggest adjusting Master of Knowledge, so it stacks faster, and decays a little less.

Current:
Your Arcane Bolt and Arcane Blast spells now grant you one stack of Mental Honing (+3 Universal Spell Power, +2% Spell Crit Damage) when cast. This effect can stack up to 30 times. One stack is removed every 6 seconds.

Suggested:
Stack size max: 20
Effect: 5 spell power, 3% Spell Crit Damage (very minor buff to work out the numbers)
Stack interval: 9s

This would make it much much easier to build up, and keep at high stacks.


Not a bad idea to make Go out.. passive, but it could be remotely triggered by archers and casters, so much of the time it would be just heating air.

[Whisper1]

The DC benefits of magister are practically a no-brainer. It seems to me that draconic, as nice as the improvements to it are, will mostly be a toy-destiny for low reaper content.

You simply cannot compete with magisters high DC's in higher skull content with the changes draconic is currently receiving. Dreaconic needs evocation DC bonuses and spellpoint cost reductions *at minimum* in order to make DPS spellcasting compete with that whopping DC increase from magister. Nuking through high skull content is painful on spellpoint pools. It is much more cost effective and party desirable to CC and instakill instead.


Every sorc will abandon Draconic (few use it now) and move to Magister.

Look, i can predict future!

[Satyriasys]

I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

Zretch is 100% correct. Going straight stat increases is overwhelmingly more powerful than dipping into these cute and unnecessary gimmicks. That was the problem with Magister before and will remain a problem. The solution is to remove the stat increase line and tie them into other abilities. So whatever you take you are still getting them. Abilities will never compete with the power of increased mainline stat on a dc caster.

[Stingae]

Small beer compared to the DC debate I know, but most bards have maxed out their dodge cap by a reasonable way and get no benefit from the dodge bonus in fourth harmonic chord.

Could the self-only bonus include +1/2/3 to dodge cap to allow the user to benefit from the bonus?

[pjw]

Going straight stat increases is overwhelmingly more powerful than dipping into these cute and unnecessary gimmicks.

This is part of a larger quibble I have with ED stats in general: 1) the stat increases should be for any stat in all EDs, and 2) they should be auto-grants in cores. Otherwise, for many, they represent wasted opportunities (ie. useless to them), or must-haves (and half their points go there). This is especially true for anyone who cares about DCs, which have such a narrow range of viability.

[Montegue]

This is part of a larger quibble I have with ED stats in general: 1) the stat increases should be for any stat in all EDs, and 2) they should be auto-grants in cores. Otherwise, for many, they represent wasted opportunities (ie. useless to them), or must-haves (and half their points go there). This is especially true for anyone who cares about DCs, which have such a narrow range of viability.

This.

I don't have a choice. I *must* take all available INT increases or risk failing to do my job.

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Please use the Tiefling racial tree tech to create something in a tree that can be twisted as to allow a player to use their highest spellpower for usage in scaling spellswords, runearms, and sentient weapon filigree sets that scale based on spellpower.

If you do this then both Melee artificers and Eldritch Knight builds will gain something they badly need this update!

[janave]

Magister T6

11th Dimension

Dreamscape like effect, upon returning buffed with 2000 temp hitpoints, and a 15s hit-miss guard effect 95% proc Trap the Soul DC 20+INT/CHA (uncapped HD).

Cooldown: 4m33s

[erethizon]

The issue is that if you want the 2nd dc boosting ability, which costs 3 ap, you need to spend 3 ap on the 1st dc booster, and 6 ap in what is, imo, filler. So *if* you want to max DCs in 1 school, you have to spend 10 ap on stat boosts, 6 on dc boosts, 2 on anything in t1, and 6 on filler. With the changes, there's plenty worth taking in the tree, but since this line is geared at DC casting and costs 12 ap to take it all, it locks almost the entire rest of the tree out.

I'd recommend either making the spell school line not require the earlier levels as prerequisites, or follow Zretch's idea of 2 ap per and only 1 tier each for the max benefit. And apply the same to the energy burst line from draconic. And anywhere else it exists. Long, expensive pre-req trees are not fun when you only want 1-2 things in that tree. If you do make 1 of those changes, then maybe reduce the dc in the cores to 3 or 4. As is, magister offers twice as much dc as any other destiny.


And now that I've segued into draconic... go out with a bang. It sucks. Change the hp requirement to 75%-90% or significantly reduce the cooldown (possibly both). As is, I take it to get to eburst and never even put it on a hotbar. 4 minute cooldown, and only usable when I'd rather hit myself with a heal.

So many good points here. I can count the number of times I have used go out with a bang on one hand. I would suggest you change it to a toggle that costs no spell points and automatically activates when you drop below X% health (as a toggle I can accept 50% but the above suggestion of a higher percent would also be good). Sure, this means that the effect will go off at useless times on occasion (like when you get hit by a trap), but it's better than having it never go off like it does now. If I am below 50% health then I am jumping and casting a heal. I am not fishing around for the Go Out With A Bang hotkey and hoping it actually saves my life (though it probably won't). Perhaps if it worked as a powerful heal or made use immune to all damage (or at least physical damage) then it would be worth using. If we find that it triggers at useless times too often (like when hit by traps) then the cooldown can be reduced so it is able to be used more frequently.

And I love the ideas I have seen so far about getting rid of these 1/2/3 AP skills and replacing them with just a single skill that costs 1 or 2 AP and gives the full benefit. These are not class enhancement trees where we have 80 points to spend. We have far fewer points to spend and, if anything, you could take a cue from the reaper trees and make everything cost only 1 AP. The more we can fill out these trees the more fun they are to play. There are so many Epic Destiny skills I have never used because there simply are no points to spend on those skills.

Finally, having skills locked by useless skills below them is also a problem. One of the reasons Go Out With A Bang needs to be fixed is that this nearly useless skill is taken by almost everyone that uses the tree, not because the skill has any value, but because we are required to waste 3 points on it just to get the skill we actually want. Getting rid of the requirement to take lower skills to get higher ones would be great, but at the very least the highest tier of Go Out With A Bang should cost only 1 AP (so we end up spending just 1 AP instead of 3 to fully unlock the skill above it).

[thunir]

Is this a single target song? Is it on the ballad? Are we back to full party songs? Is it on Aura? How does it work.

[Lynnabel]

Is this a single target song? Is it on the ballad? Are we back to full party songs? Is it on Aura? How does it work.

You know Crown of Summer from Season's Herald? This is four different Crown of Summers. You pick a buddy for each Hymn, and then that buddy has that buff. If you try to pick a different buddy with the same buff, the original buddy loses the buff.

[legendkilleroll]

Hey Lyn, this kinda off topic for destinys but just after hearing your lastt post its on my mind

How come converter from the renegade mastermaker tree doesnt aply like crown of summer? Its pretty annoying imo as it last like 3mins with a 3min cooldown so you have to keep refreshing it, is there any reason it wasnt made the other way?

Maybe its worse for me as i only use it on my partner, i dont know if others feel the same

[Hobgoblin]

You know Crown of Summer from Season's Herald? This is four different Crown of Summers. You pick a buddy for each Hymn, and then that buddy has that buff. If you try to pick a different buddy with the same buff, the original buddy loses the buff.

ok just making sure that this works the way I think it does.


I cast the primal hymm on a barb. he gets the buff. I can then cast the martial hymm on a fighter right? but if i cast the primal on the fighter the barb would lose it correct? or would the barb lose it anyway as they are all hymms?

[SerPounce]

You know Crown of Summer from Season's Herald? This is four different Crown of Summers. You pick a buddy for each Hymn, and then that buddy has that buff. If you try to pick a different buddy with the same buff, the original buddy loses the buff.

Do you count as your own buddy? Seems like these could be popular twists (granted I've been thinking that a lot and there's only so many twists...).

[Lynnabel]

ok just making sure that this works the way I think it does.


I cast the primal hymm on a barb. he gets the buff. I can then cast the martial hymm on a fighter right? but if i cast the primal on the fighter the barb would lose it correct? or would the barb lose it anyway as they are all hymms?

You were right the first time. Your Primal Hymn target is your Primal Buddy, your Martial Hymn is your Martial Buddy. You can then cast the Arcane Hymn on yourself, and you are your own Arcane Buddy. If you try to cast your Martial Hymn on a different person, your fighter friend will lose his Martial Buddy Hymn buff.

[CSQ]

You were right the first time. Your Primal Hymn target is your Primal Buddy, your Martial Hymn is your Martial Buddy. You can then cast the Arcane Hymn on yourself, and you are your own Arcane Buddy. If you try to cast your Martial Hymn on a different person, your fighter friend will lose his Martial Buddy Hymn buff.

So you can cast each Hymn once on a single person, but each Hymn independently? For example, Arcane on yourself, Primal on the barbarian, Divine on the paladin, Martial on the fighter, and then nothing on the other party members because it would take away a Hymn you're already using?

[BoBoDaClown]

Fatesinger and other arcane.

I only play bards and still can't imagine using fatesinger.

If we split bards into two main archetypes: melee and caster, I can't see how Fatesinger is useable with either.

Caster: needs the DCs from Magister.
Melee: Leg Dread.

To fix the Caster issue:
Make Fatesinger give the same +DC to enchant as you could in Magister.
In addition, do the same with evocation in the Draconic and Exakted trees. Make Magister the tree where you can get all round high DCs (rather than just one school).

To fix the melee issue:
Fatesinger is never going to compete with Dreadnought for dps, so buff the buffs through the roof. Make it so a party is better off, dps wise, having a buffer in the group.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I'm liking the overall approach of getting rid of the whole "build charges" mechanic - the changes to magister in particular are pretty nice for making it practical to use...incidentally, just how absolute is that "immunity to harmful spells" from nullmagic aura? it could be interesting to have a pure mastermaker arty that can completely no sell incoming attacks in certain raid situations for almost 30 seconds :D

[Lynnabel]

So you can cast each Hymn once on a single person, but each Hymn independently? For example, Arcane on yourself, Primal on the barbarian, Divine on the paladin, Martial on the fighter, and then nothing on the other party members because it would take away a Hymn you're already using?

Correct! It's a 4 person (or 3 people and yourself) buddy system.

[threefeetunder]

Dirge: Make it actually work and be good, otherwise no change
Dirge's DC is now d20 + Perform

When you say you're making it work and be good, are you just talking about the DC change, or is there anything else? Specifically, is it finally going to scale with spellpower (as the damage is utterly negligible otherwise)?
Other then that, loving the changes so far!

[HastyPudding]

Correct! It's a 4 person (or 3 people and yourself) buddy system.

Or you can just use Arcane Hymn on yourself and say "Sorry kids, daddy needs AP for other things."

[HastyPudding]

Fatesinger and other arcane.

I only play bards and still can't imagine using fatesinger.

If we split bards into two main archetypes: melee and caster, I can't see how Fatesinger is useable with either.

Caster: needs the DCs from Magister.
Melee: Leg Dread.

To fix the Caster issue:
Make Fatesinger give the same +DC to enchant as you could in Magister.
In addition, do the same with evocation in the Draconic and Exakted trees. Make Magister the tree where you can get all round high DCs (rather than just one school).

To fix the melee issue:
Fatesinger is never going to compete with Dreadnought for dps, so buff the buffs through the roof. Make it so a party is better off, dps wise, having a buffer in the group.

I'm kind of in agreement with this. I don't think Fatesinger needs the same DC's as Magister, but it does need some enchantment and illusion DC bonuses if it's going to be even remotely competitive for spellsingers. +14 DC's in Magister vs +2 DC's in Fatesinger is just no contest to an enchantment spellsinger. A spellsinger without DC's is just a weak healer with fancy buffs.

[Strambotica]

Im in a Bard life atm (On EA for DC).

· Dirge: Got the great idea of twist Dirge and was insta regret, really long song, very useless... was on the 20% of the song when the mob was already dead (killed by other in my party)
Could keep the animation, but get the effect at the beginning of the song?

· About Tier 6 Greater Shout SLA. What if you change it to a sonic explosion dealing 2d6 sonic damage per caster level, the enemies must succeed a Fortitude saving throws vs 20 + Charisma mod + enchantment spell DC modifier or get stun (For a reasonable amount of time, and why not... with a DOT). (And could use some metamagics on it)

[Iriale]

following what we commented on the thread of the martial eds, Lynnabel, if you want the EDs to be generic Fatesinger should be the ED of the arcane combatants (and therefore should give better support to other arcane combatants like EKs or artificers, and not only bards), or you should add ranged / melee power to all the eds, so that there may be EKs in draconic, for example

Personally this change does not matter to me, I do not have EKs and the introduction of 12 more PLs has convinced me to abandon my alts, since SSG hates alts. But this would be a change consistent with what you said about generic EDs not belonging to a class

[thunir]

Leave greater shout alone! We have needed it forever, at least since master of music.

Dirge is worthless, you should make it a mass enthrall that doesn't break with the dirge procs and boost the power/ maybe.... Or just massively boost the power. Its not even worth singing at 20.

I can't help but feel you boosted Fatesinger and Fury of the wild because Bards and THWF suck. I feel like your putting the Cart before the horse. Same with Magister! If you have to give +11 to DC in the Destiny its not the castors fault.... and they still get spell surge. +16 to DC in destiny= propping up and imbalance in the game.


LD is looking worse and worse, you should pull the breaks off of blitz, or make Devastating critical and open +1, as is there is no reason for my warchanter to look at LD again, especially after the Combat Brute nerf.

[Tchtutax]

Three questions regarding Draconic Incarnation:

1) What are the new DCs for the Draconic Incarnation spells? (Vortex, Energy Burst specifically). The old one was (reflex save DC 20 + 1/2 character level + INT/CHA modifier for half damage)
2) Can wisdom characters get in on the fun here too? I always had issues that Clerics/Druids got left out on this tree.
3) Druid wolf technically has a frost breath weapon that doesn't seem to benefit from anything. Breath Weapon Focus, for example. Any way that can get attention here?

[Tchtutax]

Can we extend(metamagic) Vortex?

[btolson]

Go Out With a Bang is definitely not very useful, but given the name, it seems that getting yourself killed is part of the intended design.

It's exacerbated in reaper when 1 shot can easily be 75% to 100% of your HP. There's not enough granularity in incoming damage for it to be viable.

Maybe if it using it also gave you a ~6 second buff that extends your range of unconsciousness by... a LOT. Maybe 1000. For 6 seconds, I think that's OK. You go out with a Bang... but still stay standing for 6 seconds and see if you can get healed enough to stay standing longer.

Or else activating it gives you a good chunk of temp HP, so you can essentially heal and attack simultaneously.

After testing it for the first time in years... Go Out With a Bang is definitely a single target, long range attack. No AoE at all.

[Pilgrim1]

Are we talking about improving go out with a bang? Because let me share my idea!

Frozen in place for 6 seconds, immunity to everything (like the tea queen effect and that dreamscape feet). After 6 seconds deal 4 1d15+15 / level of fire, cold, acid, AND electric damage (so basically 4 energy bursts). Set you hp to -1.

The visual would be each energy burst visual done in rapid sequence over 1 second. Or they could go off every second while you are frozen in place.

Cooldown 5min.

Cool and fun!

[Whisper1]

I dont know what is happening - why dislike sorcerors?
Why i say about dislike?

1. Why add +int tanky armor, why sorcs use +cha?
2. Why make esoteric set that no sorc would use (flamecleansed is better by much).
3. Now we see draconic getting minor gimicky staff while magister is leaps above. Magister is already better than draconic (if i want to play in low reaper i switch to magister, not draconic). Only thing that matter is +crit dmg from cores, aside from fluff (and omg +30PRR/MRR moment as if extra 5-6% less dmg would save you). And magister gets like extra +11 DC! This is crazy high, and this means if you play in draconic you lose this 11 DC, which - in turn - means you get "save save save" on mobs for low/no damage.

[Shadow_Jumper]

Magister


Added +1 to all Spell DCs to each Core (in addition to what those cores were doing already).
Master of (Spell School) also increases DCs for that school by an additional 1/2/3.



This is absolutely insane. A straight 7-10% power creep right here.

I've been running sharn R10 for the last week. Mob's saves are not so high that a +9 DC increase should be justifiable in any sense. Casters are already in an extremely good place compared to other builds.

[Eshbawn]

Magister
This tree has quite a few neat things but didn't do the one thing it was supposed to do: Be the king of DC Casting. Twisting Magister's bonuses and going into other trees where you got relevant Ability Score increases provided a better bonus than this tree. Only that's not fun, and we'd rather see dedicated DC casters live here and get cool abilities with their DCs. We focused on that goal, and made a few of their other abilities spicier to go with it. The Sigils still aren't good; they fell a bit low on the priority list relative to other things. If there are simple number tweaks we can make to make them more worth using, we're all ears.


So I am maybe missing something but how do the proposed changes to the Magister tree make it more fun? Also, what "cool abilities" would casters now gain related to their ramped up DC's if that is the stated goal?

Of course there are new abilities which could be suggested to make this tree more fun for DC casters (~Ethereal Jaunt?). Unfortunately, however, nothing can be suggested in terms of new abilities because of the time restraint caveat. Leaving aside Arcane Tempest (which won't even have a save), the real question is how do the devs justify this proposed drastic increase to a single school's spell DC's? From just this tree alone a character would be able to immediately add +11 to their DC's from a specific school. Seriously, how does that make any sense?

A wizard can currently run in EA, for example, and twist in specialist which effectively gives them the same DC's as running in Magister. The ability to run in EA adds group healing abilities and is fun but yes it does make sense that this sort of thing should be penalized in terms of their DC's. The proposed +1 to DC's from each core would alone make this the "King of DC's" tree and a +5 seems plenty let alone the +5 to DC's via Spellsurge with a mere 1min cooldown. So, why, then add an additional +3DC via Master to the same school as the +3DC from specialist? This just seems crazy and I hope we hear more as to why this drastic increase is justified. The Magister tree seems to make sense as the go to tree for a dedicated caster if they want to be a generalist DC caster. To make the tree a quick button +11DC to a specific school just dumbs down DC casting and dumb is not fun.

Investing points in Master raises the caster level by three so already that also provides an additional +3 to spell pen from that school which is quite good. The proposed change to Spellsurge adds +5 to DC's for 20 seconds with only a 1 minute cool down. So adding yet an additional +3DC to the same school via Master in addition to the +3 from specialist just seems to be overly hasty....and the likely effects?

[Whisper1]

This is absolutely insane. A straight 7-10% power creep right here.

I've been running sharn R10 for the last week. Mob's saves are not so high that a +9 DC increase should be justifiable in any sense. Casters are already in an extremely good place compared to other builds.

You missed this

"Arcane Spellsurge now has a 1 minute cooldown. 20 SP".
+5 to all spell DCs for 20 seconds.

Was 4 min, now is 1 min cooldown. This means for every mob encounter.

So instead of +9 to DC add extra +5 from spellsuge for +14 total to DC.

[CeltEireson]

Hmm whilst draconian covers elemental damage dealers and magister covers dc casting what about something to boost force/untyped damage, probably best in magisterial and maybe something in cores similar to draconian, either increase in critical chance or damage. After all the SLAs for evoker wizards are all force based.

And in terms of core dc bonuses in magister, maybe tone it down to every other core giving a bonus.

[MrWindupBird]

Short thoughts. Fatesinger update looks interesting, adding crit to DI cores is not a bad idea. The magister changes are bad. Here's why.

Let's start with the Spell Specialist enhancement changing to +3 to school. This creates an even bigger wedge than already exists between schools. This is a bad thing because it forces a design decision: balance around increased DCs, but this makes casters non-specialized schools non-viable (this change alone makes a 6pt DC wedge, then there's 2DC from scion, and anywhere from 1-7 DC from feats+enhancements). Thats a 9-15 pt DC wedge, assuming equal gearing etc. That's not a good thing- it's fun to adapt appropriately and use a wide arsenal of tools, that makes for good game play. It also makes for more difficult content design where you end up shoehorning players into specific choices in order to meet DC benchmarks.

In a similar vein, giving Magister +6 DCs (or +5, whatever) in the cores is a bad idea. That alone is the divide between a sorc running in EA and a sorc running in LD. How many sorcs do you see in LD? It forces everyone into Magister who wants to DC cast, unless you make the non-core enhancements of Magister garbage to balance things out, and that doesn't sound like your design goal of fun.

TLDR the D20 system mostly still exists in DC casting, and this is already strained to the breaking point by spreads in build/school etc, much as to-hit and AC used to be. Introducing further spread will break it beyond repair.

Magister doesn't need this improvement when it costs the rest of the game balance. There are other neat ways to add effects which wont throw everything else into disarray- the cooldown reduction already in Magister is great, how about more improvements along those lines. -spell cost with specialized spell, or clickies for spell absorb, or -even making it sigil focussed.

I have other thoughts but Im brain-dead after working 16hrs, so they will have to wait.

[Pilgrim1]

All of you who are po-po-ing on magister DC boost don’t seam to realize that it sucks to be a wizard with epic destinies. The divines have it best in EA. If you don't like DC boosts in magister you should also be in Favor of removing them from Exalted Angel, right? Otherwise thats just hypocritical.

I’m personally in favor of introducing school specific DC boosts to some destinies and giving magister universal DC boosting.

For example:
Fate singer gets enchantment and evocation in cores.
Draconic gets evocation and conjuration in cores.
Primal gets evocation and transumtation in its cores.
And magister gets Universal dc boosting in its cores.
And EA gets to keep its universal, but its less than magister (3 vs. 5)

That way no destiny gets too far ahead of another in everything.

[Shadow_Jumper]

All of you who are po-po-ing on magister DC boost don’t seam to realize that it sucks to be a wizard with epic destinies. The divines have it best in EA. If you don't like DC boosts in magister you should also be in Favor of removing them from Exalted Angel, right? Otherwise thats just hypocritical.

I’m personally in favor of introducing school specific DC boosts to some destinies and giving magister universal DC boosting.


Nope, its currently one of the best time for virtually all DC casters. That includes Wizard.

Make the DCs boost in EA divine specific then. And make the Magistar ones Arcane specific.

Lets be honest, this gigantic buff is coming around because a select few people who the devs listen to complained that their IKs weren't 100% effective in Sharn.

As someone who runs with casters who care about helping their party over their KC, the DCs were just fine. We didn't have any trouble, and if you targeted weak save mobs then your IKs were fine. It took a little getting used to, and knowing which mobs were weak saved, but I see 0 reason for this gigantic buff.

This is going to straight trivialize even Sharn.



And magister gets Universal dc boosting in its cores.
And EA gets to keep its universal, but its less than magister (3 vs. 5)

Its +6 fwiw

[janave]

Nope, its currently one of the best time for virtually all DC casters. That includes Wizard.

Make the DCs boost in EA divine specific then. And make the Magistar ones Arcane specific.

Lets be honest, this gigantic buff is coming around because a select few people who the devs listen to complained that their IKs weren't 100% effective in Sharn.

As someone who runs with casters who care about helping their party over their KC, the DCs were just fine. We didn't have any trouble, and if you targeted weak save mobs then your IKs were fine. It took a little getting used to, and knowing which mobs were weak saved, but I see 0 reason for this gigantic buff.

This is going to straight trivialize even Sharn.

Its +6 fwiw

This.

But if FoD becomes 15s cooldown ( still better than most stuff with enlarge) give em all the DCs they want, as long as it is part of the kill count fetish toolkit, just let people work for their DCs.

I play a party support / cc caster, and I think a few places aside the saves are spot on.

[Xgya]

Alright, onto radical ideas. Brainstorm incoming.

The original Fatesinger Epic Moment meant for the singer to feel epic for a short while.
Traditionally, they were meant to make their allies feel that way.

While I never saw a Draconic Incarnation ever use Fearsome Invulnerability, would granting something like it to a whole group totally break balance, or something equally awe-inspiring ("For the next X minutes, no ally in range can fail a saving throw", "For the next X seconds, target (all?) ally cannot lose hit points" - alright, that one's too much, I know it is, but awe-inspiring? Definitely. Maybe tone it down to very high damage absorption.)
Call it "Unbroken Thread of Fate".

Alternatively, another awe-inspiring ability that sounds awesome but I don't feel would break anything. "Tempt Fate". Give every ally in range the Warpriest Divine Intervention buff. I wouldn't make THAT one the epic moment, since it might be a huge bag of do nothing, but it sounds interesting and unique enough.

Share Fate. The PnP Shield Other spell - it now exists as a DDO thing.

[Varr]

I’m by no means certain of this, but would guess most builds in most EDs don’t end up investing 12 of their discretionary points into stats.

Magister DC casters likely did so in a much higher clip.

This core boost does add the flexibility to maintain DCs that are reliable and reshift those 12 ED points that used to buy 6 points of Int and 3 DC into other Magister ED options.

I’ve not paid a lot of attention to recent build s, but it would surprise me if LDs are spending 12 ED points on Str or Con......or Monks are spending 12 points on Wisdom so forth and so on.

Could be wrong on other min maxed toons, but for my Magister Wizard this is a nice boost of DC and allows for non stat Magister flexing.

[janave]

.... this is a nice boost of DC and allows for non stat Magister flexing.

You are partially correct, and some builds may opt for less INT, however INT is also skill points, spell points, and helps with a number of abilities that dont work with spell focus or dc boosts, a basic one is the Knock spell. So in short the utility of stat increases reach beyond spell DCs.

The greater reason for Magister builds buying all stats points was the undesirable T6 row, may change with this pass.

Magister is not just for Wizards but all arcanes, Sorcerers willing to give up self sufficiency from EA will gain a massive boost to their power too, my Sorcerer dont want to be in EA, he wants to be in Magister, but the self sustain from EA combined with easy spell DC buffs is just more playable (since Sorcerer defenses from build are pathetic). Magister adds spell pen, spell levels, and now it looks like DCs on top.

[btolson]

Consider rebalancing some costs in Draconic, and removing some pre-reqs. Energy Burst costs 9 DP to get and, frankly, is not at all optional. Getting Breath ups that 12. Not much spread to explore some of the more flavorful options in the tree. There are 35 DP worth of other abilities (not counting stat boosts, which up it to 47). Dropping Energy Sheathe/Go Out With a Bang/Energy Burst to 1 rank each for 2 DP would help a little, but overall this tree is 50% on rails for everybody right now which I see as a problem. Putting design work into other abilities is almost a waste of time because of it.

Worst offender in tree: Barrier of Scales. 3 DP (6 DP if you include its pre-req) for 120 points of stoneskin on a 2 minute CD. It's beyond awful. Its benefit is on par with warlock Brilliance, except the latter is free every 2 seconds. New bard temp hp aura is in this ballpark too, free every 10 seconds. Far worse than Shining Through. This should be 1 rank for 1 DP and either have its cooldown reduced to 10 seconds at most, or (because that would be an annoying clickfest) either make your "scales" heal themselves every 10 seconds like an aura, or have its magnitude greatly increased and remain a clicky.

[btolson]

I'd also like to say that I'm against all the +DCs being added to Magister. It just pushes the spread between destinies way too much. Primal Avatar is straight up non-viable for casters in comparison. So is Divine Crusader. So is Fatesinger (for spellsingers). Shiradi... tougher call for certain builds but this has hardly been in vogue for a while.

Mob saves will inevitably go up so that Magisters with +16 DC virtually every encounter aren't straight no-fail on everything. The devs say they're trying to make destinies more general, but this is doing the opposite. DCs are important even for nuking. Destinies that were so-so for casters before are falling even further out of grace. Crusader in particular gets reduced to just a t3 twist for casters.

I think it's fine to have +3 to all DCs in the cores (not +6).
I think it's fine to have twistable +3 to a specific school in t2.
I think it's fine to put +1 DC in the third rank of Master (t5) (not +3)
I think it's fine to also put +1 DC in the third rank of Augmentation (t3), because Augmentation is kinda lousy anyway*
I think Arcane Spellsurge should be reduced to +2 DC. Especially at 33% uptime.

*Alternative suggestions include making Augmentation easier to use (debuff to all saves, instead of only reflex, etc) with a higher proc %. Make Magisters do some work for their increased DCs by softening up their opponents first, instead of pushing towards more "1 cast 1 kill" standing DC inflation. This may also require adding appropriate SLA(s) to this tree that match your specialization. If you focus Necro for instance, you don't have a lot of heroic-gained options to try and trigger Augmentation with.


Other stuff in the tree:
Variable Resistance is still terrible. At least make it % absorb. Resist has negative synergy with MRR and small quantities of it are unnoticeable.

Sigils take too long to cast, have too small a radius, and don't last long enough (especially the spellpower one). Limiting your mobility like this is often suicide.

The dispel on Nullmagic stuff - does it have a DC similar to the Dispel Magic spells? Not optimistic it could ever work if so.

Arcane Adept needs to stack with gear.

The summons need (much) more survivability.

[Eshbawn]

Still waiting to hear why the proposed additional +3DC to a specific school via Master is at all justified on top of the +5 from the core. If committed DC casters who actually put in all the effort to get their DC's up we're still not able to be effective then this change could make sense. However, the fact is that this is entirely NOT the case. Committed DC casters are already reaching DC's high enough to be very effective in just about any of the hardest content currently in game... including Sharn R10's. So, then, this proposal would really just trivialize DC's and it is very suspicious in terms of actual intent.

In relation to current number game dynamics gaining 11DC's from a single ED tree sounds so crazy because it is. The new +5DC's from the core, let alone the proposed changes to Spellsurge, already is a huge increase and will allow a dedicated DC caster to essentially have DC's high enough to basically be a generalist DC caster. A dedicated DC caster could hardly ask for anything more...so then why the additional +3 from the same school as specialist?

What is the honest reason for this proposal? It seems clear that this additional +3 on top of the +5 is NOT actually directed towards dedicated DC casters as is being suggested. So then why? So far a coherent reason has not been provided... perhaps the desire is to create a cheesy variety of easy buttons to quickly and trivially attain high DC's. This proposal would achieve that. However, in so doing, a sensitivity to proportion in terms of current number dynamics is basically being entirely thrown out the window. :(

[pjw]

I find myself being persuaded by the arguments against big DC increases for a single ED; and more specifically, I like the idea of removing must-have choices and making other destinies appealing, and making all destinies fun.

I also very much like the change, made ages ago, that added different levels of Melee Power to all different cores.

So here's my revised take:


every destiny gets +1 DC for every two cores (yes, every destiny, even Legendary Dreadnaught)
magister gets +1 DC every other core as well (for +6 in total)
magister loses the school-specifc bonus at T2, to be replaced by a universal spell-power boost (50/100/150)
arcane spellsurge goes to 120 second cooldown (ie. not usable EVERY encounter), but also adds a 50% reduction in spell cooldowns, and lasts 30 seconds.
all dependencies between items in magister & draconic tree items to be removed
draconic gain +1 evo/conj every other core (for +3 all, and a further +3 evo/conj)
fatesinger gain evo/ench every other core (for +3 all, and a further +3 evo/ench)
all stat increases in main trees are removed and replaced by +1 ANY stat in each core. This is good for all classes.


In the same way Melee power is granted, so is spell power. Note that most casters will have 500-100 spell power at cap, whereas melees (I guess) have nearer 200. So SP grants should be 3-5 times higher to provide the same boost.

Draconic: +10 per core
Magister: +20 per core
Fatesinger: +30 per core
Exalted Angel: +10 per core
Shiradi: +10 per core
Div. Crus: +20 per core
Everyone else: +30 per core

Not sure about 10/20/30; 15/30/45 and 20/40/60 also seem reasonable. eg. consider Shadowdancer: +10 melee power per core. +60 in total. That's an increase of 30% for someone starting with 180 melee power. Going the same way with spell power, would be to add 50 per core for a semi-decent caster on an off-destiny; but this is offset by adding DCs to every second core, so 10/20/30 may be about right.

[Varr]

You are partially correct, and some builds may opt for less INT, however INT is also skill points, spell points, and helps with a number of abilities that dont work with spell focus or dc boosts, a basic one is the Knock spell. So in short the utility of stat increases reach beyond spell DCs.

The greater reason for Magister builds buying all stats points was the undesirable T6 row, may change with this pass.

Magister is not just for Wizards but all arcanes, Sorcerers willing to give up self sufficiency from EA will gain a massive boost to their power too, my Sorcerer dont want to be in EA, he wants to be in Magister, but the self sustain from EA combined with easy spell DC buffs is just more playable (since Sorcerer defenses from build are pathetic). Magister adds spell pen, spell levels, and now it looks like DCs on top.

As a pimped 18/2 Sun Elf Lich/Monk...….with Insightful reflexes and harper enhancements for to hit and damage...…...I Hear ya, more Int is MORRREEEE.

But I already only speck in 4 of the 6 int boosts and can see that falling to 0 with this change. I have all the PLs and toys......and have spread out with a couple monk levels to punch for fun between mass holds and instakilling. Even have AA for pew pew fun when I desire to be totally pathetic. This broadening of Magister ED points use's though fits my do it all with flare approach.

Like the idea of being able to speck in tempest as an example.

[janave]

Fearsome Invulnerability promises too much.

2 drow champs insta shot me for approx ~2x700 physical damage and some champion damage procs, at 1100 hitpoints, in this case FI would have made no difference at all, I would still die from their attacks. In case I had 25% damage reduction, same as force field, I could have made it far enough to attempt to CC them.

This doesn't happen every day, but these are the areas next time I would buff me with defenses, if it can make any difference.

[PublicEnemy]

Great changes so far, still no arcane sphere with melee power added? (fatesinger doesn't seem to be of a great synergy with INT based melee casters)

So, in your opinion, with the new changes, will builds like melee artificer, eldritch knight and such be better off staying shadowdancer / dreadnought or is there anything more yummy for them now back in the arcane sphere...?

[deconedi]

Maybe it's an absurd idea, but would it be possible to put the sigils in the core? I know it is a matter of choice to distribute the 24 points in the tree, but I think that the sigils are underutilized as an option in the tiers. It would be a viable and versatile option to help party, since only one sigil remains active at a time.

[Whisper1]

Just learned that Exalted Angel gives extra +4 DC for free from cores.

Thats why most casters run in this destiny. Maybe fix this? I advise lower +3 DC in core to +1. Imho +3 DC from 1 core in unreasonable.

[Avocado]

Pray do tell why you think casters need an even larger boost to dcs? Is 135 necro dc not enough? Thats 20 points higher than the best assassin. Please dont add this much dc. Casters dont need it. They dont, they just dont. Focus on the trash that is magister's support abilities. The sigils are bad, increase the numbers on what they do, like 50 energy resist per tier instead of whatver it is now. I think this would give nice support utility for places where dcs casters cant use hold or fod or dance.

The reason to run in this or exalted angel is still barely worth it for most as the school specialty can be twisted for cheap. Leave it at +3. Do you really want people being able to twist +6 necro dc and run in EA for a total +9 dc. Better yet, just remove +3 all dcs in EA and replace it with +3 evocation only.

[Arch-Necromancer]

There is absolutely no support for Negative Energy nukers in Epic Destinies.

This could be fixed either by adding a Negative Energy choice to the Exalted Angel or by adding a Negative Energy choice to Draconic Incarnation.

Draconic Incarnation could get a Shadow Dragon choice that would have Negative Energy damage and be typed as a Necromancy spell.


And I don't see what cold damage has to do with sonic damage (bonus in Tier 4 Draconic Spell Augmentation). It would make more sense for electric damage to be coupled with sonic (thunder and lightning logic), and Air Savant gets bonus for both electric and sonic so it would be in line with Heroic enhancements.

[Strambotica]

First, don’t rush the ED plz. Since probably you don’t gonna touch them for years from now.

All Casters need DC:

· Wizard probably need all, since can swap Spells and type of Archmage, So great changes for them.

· Sorcerers mostly need Evocation and Conjuration, so plz add it on the cores too. Maybe core 4 gives +4 DC to Evocation and Conjuration, like in Exalted Angel.

· Druids need Evocation, Conjuration and Necromancy. A caster Druid will never take Primal Avatar, so could add Wisdom as a stat in all caster’s ED.

· Warlock -> depends on the Pact. But with these changes, probably all going to run in Magister for the DC. Since Fiend and Great Old Ones are usually Necromancy Focus, and Fey are Enchantment Focus. A Fiend and Great Old One could maybe take Draconic for some DPS (but a warlocks are not dps), but Fey ones don’t have any option in here. No Sonic, Light/Evil, Force spellpower. Or probably could stay in EA, since that gives 2 extra Charisma from Angelic Presence (That in my opinion, should give Wisdom too).

· Spellsinger Bard will probably stay in EA twisting Enchantment from Magister, since gives decent DC and Charisma and helps them with heals. Since there is nothing to help with Sonic. One thing is giving pretty buffs to the party, but… don’t want to be useless. I’m Stunning with Soundburst and Shout/Greater Shout and throwing mass hold monster… but can’t do anything more. Reverberate is lame, must use Fiendish Arpeggio to help a bit… but that is from the Tiefling Scoundrel… not from the class. Soothing Song takes forever. And this is with many racial points (Tierfling Scoundrel 16AP, Spellsinger 44 AP, Warchanter 24 AP, Swashbuckler 7 AP). Also, they are not welcome in THTH because they cause more lag. And don’t going to try to swing a weapon with a spellsinger.

In conclusion:

Magister. Add Wisdom as a possible stat.
Draconic: Add +4 DC Evocation and Conjuration in a Core, and Wisdom as a possible stat (oh, and like the previous post, lightning and sonic have better sinergy than cold).
Fatesinger. Add +4 DC Enchantment in a Core, and that all the pretty effects that are on hit also works with spells, and a spell that gives a dot or big aoe damage in tier 6.


Edit: a stance like Angelic Presence on Draconic Incarnation would be nice, thst gives +2 charisma and/or Intelligence, and enemies the are hit with your spells have a -2 penalty to mrr?

[SirValentine]

So Fatesinger is losing the Jump+ImmunityToSlipperySurfaces buff, losing Eschew as an automatic low core (instead a Tier 5), and having the Haggle/Perform buff cut in half?

So, I don't use Fatesinger a ton now, but you're taking away most of the few things I actually do like about it in the present form. If you want to truly make it completely useless to me, remove the Tier 3 Spell Pen twist, too.

At least the "Epic Moment", which currently specifically doesn't work exactly when you'd most want it to work, versus bosses, is getting fixed. That's something, I guess, though not enough to make me use Fatesinger.

[Rull]

Arcane: +1 INT WIS CHA, +20 Universal SP, +2 Spell Penetration, +4 UMD, +10% fire/cold/acid/electric absorb


The +1 INT WIS CHA strikes me as really odd for a hymn that you sing on a party member. Could you make that +2 so it will actually work if they have even stats?

[IlmerSilverhilt]

Great changes to Fatesinger but gonna miss Masked Ball. Was such a nice buff and the +1 cha goes well with my +3 PDK cha boost 8)

[janave]

First, don’t rush the ED plz. Since probably you don’t gonna touch them for years from now.

All Casters need DC:

· Wizard probably need all, since can swap Spells and type of Archmage, So great changes for them.

· Sorcerers mostly need Evocation and Conjuration, so plz add it on the cores too. Maybe core 4 gives +4 DC to Evocation and Conjuration, like in Exalted Angel.



Sorcerers need all DC as well, or at the very least Enchantment for mass hold. Without mass hold, the damage output doesn't scale up, and CC is pretty much the only defense for the Sorcerer. Tier-1 DC meta is instant kills, even Sorcerers spec into Necro these days.. Some CC buttons are also too strong next to others, but this is mostly content specific.

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Magister
This tree has quite a few neat things but didn't do the one thing it was supposed to do: Be the king of DC Casting. Twisting Magister's bonuses and going into other trees where you got relevant Ability Score increases provided a better bonus than this tree. Only that's not fun, and we'd rather see dedicated DC casters live here and get cool abilities with their DCs. We focused on that goal, and made a few of their other abilities spicier to go with it. The Sigils still aren't good; they fell a bit low on the priority list relative to other things. If there are simple number tweaks we can make to make them more worth using, we're all ears.


Added +1 to all Spell DCs to each Core (in addition to what those cores were doing already).
Imperceptible Casting adds +10 Universal Spell Power while active.
Fade into the Weave adds +25 Universal Spell Power while active.
Variable Resistance is unlinked from Sigil of Energy Negation.
Master of (Spell School) also increases DCs for that school by an additional 1/2/3.
Arcane Tempest moves to a 30-second cooldown, and a 10-second duration. 30 SP.
Arcane Tempest is no longer linked to Sigil of Battering Spellcraft
Arcane Tempest now costs 1AP
Arcane Tempest can now use the Quicken, Maximize, Empower, and Intensify Metamagics
Arcane Tempest now has a faster cast animation and cast time
Arcane Tempest no longer has a (previously-unlisted) saving throw
Arcane Adept now costs 1AP
Removed the Saving Throw from Arcane Tempest. (Yeah, it's a DC tree but we wanted it to be good no matter what school you were in.)
Arcane Spellsurge now has a 1 minute cooldown. 20 SP
Nullmagic Aura no longer requires charging. Now has a 4 minute cooldown.




Please make it so that Nullmagic strike can proc from melee attacks too, at least while a runearm is equipped or spellsword is being used.

Also, can you please put a Tensor's Transformation toggle somewhere in this tree? The small duration of my tensor's transformation spell is pathetic.....

[Shedrakzo]

Another Fatesinger suggestion:
Since the new version of Majesty doesn't have the blindness guard, perhaps the updated Intoxicating Presence might include a small chance that when you hit a target, there's a chance you fascinate the target. Similar to the guard break effect's daze.

While it effectively means nothing for the most part as 9/10 someone would immediately break the fascinate, it's just another little bard-flavored bonus that meshes with the bard enhancement trees. Assuming you can fascinate anything the Spellsinger cores work on and can coup the target as a swashbuckler.

And if it's viable, maybe Reign's vorpal damage could scale with melee power? And perhaps the initial temporary HP could also scale with melee power or something.

[thunir]

Core 4: Intoxicating Presence: Enemies that strike you have a chance to be Fascinated.

Still have not heard anything about this, it a horrible mechanic. you can't factinate anything you are beating on/ that is hitting you. Guardbreaking is better, but I would still rather have blindness.

Melodic guard ?

Cacophony Guard would even be better, but a fascinated guard is worthless.

Reigns damage, also awfully low for the investment. How about +1/2/3 tp the enhancement to you weapon if you don't want to boost the sonic/electric values?



Another Fatesinger suggestion:
Since the new version of Majesty doesn't have the blindness guard, perhaps the updated Intoxicating Presence might include a small chance that when you hit a target, there's a chance you fascinate the target. Similar to the guard break effect's daze.

While it effectively means nothing for the most part as 9/10 someone would immediately break the fascinate, it's just another little bard-flavored bonus that meshes with the bard enhancement trees. Assuming you can fascinate anything the Spellsinger cores work on and can coup the target as a swashbuckler.

And if it's viable, maybe Reign's vorpal damage could scale with melee power? And perhaps the initial temporary HP could also scale with melee power or something.



Reigns damage....

[Strambotica]

Mmmm maybe, if in a high tier on Fatesinger you put Charisma for Attack and Damage? or in the Core 6?
That probably will put melee bard in this weird tree.. just and idea (im dont play melee, so no idea if any good on this tree)

[thunir]

So Fatesinger is losing the Jump+ImmunityToSlipperySurfaces buff, losing Eschew as an automatic low core (instead a Tier 5), and having the Haggle/Perform buff cut in half?

So, I don't use Fatesinger a ton now, but you're taking away most of the few things I actually do like about it in the present form. If you want to truly make it completely useless to me, remove the Tier 3 Spell Pen twist, too.

At least the "Epic Moment", which currently specifically doesn't work exactly when you'd most want it to work, versus bosses, is getting fixed. That's something, I guess, though not enough to make me use Fatesinger.

Harmonic Resonance, is picking up twice as much sonic debuff, and it is also on spell cast now. It is also getting an A/C debuff to the tune of -20 AC. So Ill pay 1 AP for eschew if I want it. Bards hardly use components as it is. Most bard spell are verbal.

Haggle and perform is lost but your picking up +6 to all skills in the second cord.

[SirValentine]

Harmonic Resonance, is picking up twice as much sonic debuff, and it is also on spell cast now. It is also getting an A/C debuff to the tune of -20 AC. So Ill pay 1 AP for eschew if I want it. Bards hardly use components as it is. Most bard spell are verbal.



Two points:
1. Yes, as you point out, it's getting "stuff". It's just stuff that's uninteresting or useless to me. You re-listing what the devs already listed doesn't do any good.
2. You seem to think that only whether one class, Bard, gets use out of something is relevant. Epic Destinies are not specific to a single class, and are supposed to support a variety of classes and builds. (2b. You seem to think that however you play a Bard, somehow not needing components or caring about 6 extra inventory spaces, is the only way to do it.)




Haggle and perform is lost but your picking up +6 to all skills in the second cord.


I thought it said +3 to skills, not +6. If it's actually +6, I withdraw the part of my comment about Haggle & Perform.

[erethizon]

I find myself being persuaded by the arguments against big DC increases for a single ED; and more specifically, I like the idea of removing must-have choices and making other destinies appealing, and making all destinies fun.

I also very much like the change, made ages ago, that added different levels of Melee Power to all different cores.

So here's my revised take:


every destiny gets +1 DC for every two cores (yes, every destiny, even Legendary Dreadnaught)
magister gets +1 DC every other core as well (for +6 in total)
magister loses the school-specifc bonus at T2, to be replaced by a universal spell-power boost (50/100/150)
arcane spellsurge goes to 120 second cooldown (ie. not usable EVERY encounter), but also adds a 50% reduction in spell cooldowns, and lasts 30 seconds.
all dependencies between items in magister & draconic tree items to be removed
draconic gain +1 evo/conj every other core (for +3 all, and a further +3 evo/conj)
fatesinger gain evo/ench every other core (for +3 all, and a further +3 evo/ench)
all stat increases in main trees are removed and replaced by +1 ANY stat in each core. This is good for all classes.


In the same way Melee power is granted, so is spell power. Note that most casters will have 500-100 spell power at cap, whereas melees (I guess) have nearer 200. So SP grants should be 3-5 times higher to provide the same boost.

Draconic: +10 per core
Magister: +20 per core
Fatesinger: +30 per core
Exalted Angel: +10 per core
Shiradi: +10 per core
Div. Crus: +20 per core
Everyone else: +30 per core

Not sure about 10/20/30; 15/30/45 and 20/40/60 also seem reasonable. eg. consider Shadowdancer: +10 melee power per core. +60 in total. That's an increase of 30% for someone starting with 180 melee power. Going the same way with spell power, would be to add 50 per core for a semi-decent caster on an off-destiny; but this is offset by adding DCs to every second core, so 10/20/30 may be about right.

I've been wanting to make a suggestion like this too. Specifically, there is no need to have stat bonuses in any of the ED trees. Stat bonuses should simply be in the cores of every ED. In fact, given how much stat inflation has occurred since ED's were introduced, if you made it so that every core in every ED gave +1 to every stat (meaning no matter what destiny you played in you got +6 to each and every one of the 6 stats), it still wouldn't be overpowered. +6 to a stat (or even to every stat) is not the huge amount of power it was 10 years ago. If stat bonuses were simply in the cores we wouldn't have to waste any of our points in our ED trees buying stats. Being able to spend all 24 points on the fun stuff, instead of having to waste half of them on stat bonuses, would make all of the ED's way more fun to play.

The game has changed a lot in the last decade. With past lives and extremely powerful gear people have made some very powerful characters these days. In order to keep new players and first life alts from being too weak there should be more power in the ED's (and probably in the class trees as well). When too much power is located in the gear and past lives it makes newer characters feel like half (or less) of an older character. A higher percentage of the total power should be available from the class and epic destiny trees so that newer characters are not so weak.


A simple way to balance this would be to have two options. For example, instead of a place to put points that gives +3/+6/+9 PRR when you spend 1/2/3 points on it, it instead says, "adds +3/6/9 PRR or sets your PRR to 100/103/106, whichever is higher. This would allow characters that are way behind the curve to catch up somewhat while still allowing the powerhouses of today to use these upgrades as normal. It would be a quick and easy way to set a minimum amount of power for things likes PRR, MRR, saving throws, spell power, melee power, doublestrike, doubleshot, DC's of various spells and skills, etc.. It is far easier to balance the game when you elevate the minimum amount of power that each character has to be closer to maximum currently achievable.


The extremely powerful players will still outshine everyone else, but it won't be such a night and day difference.

[Whisper1]

I apologise for comment that Draconic ED is too weak that gave me infraction from Kordovan. Sorry all. I just see how Magister is buffed, but Draconic is not buffed in meaningful way because DC >>> any other buff by much. You cant do good damage if you cant reach stats to pass DC checks - speaking about blasting spells! Unless you only use DOT/Ray spells but they are single-target and damage is average. Sorry again for my opinion.

[thunir]

I thought it said +3 to skills, not +6. If it's actually +6, I withdraw the part of my comment about Haggle & Perform.

Sorry, that’s the way I read it. I could be wrong.

[Montegue]

Honestly, I welcome the +11-15 DC Magister will bring. Tired of my 100+ DCs getting laughed off by goblins.

[pjw]

I think 3000 DPS can be surpassed but it would empty the mana bar in a few encounters...

Sadly, it's worse than that: with a good rotation (read: automated on my keyboard), I could probably get a little over 4k DPS. But this is actually pretty abysmal because it will only take down a 250k HP red-name if:

- I start with a full SP bar (lol)
- the red-name has no immunities (lol)
- the red-name makes no saves (lol)
- I don't need any SP for haling or dealing with trash (lol)

SO, we are actually short of DPS (it's boring waiting 1-2 min to kill something) and DPSP (we will run out of SP anyway).

The reality of my (any?) wizard in epic-elite is he/she has little or no hope of arriving at most red-names and killing them. And don't get me started on EK in epic-elite. It's victim of the same DPS horror that wizards are subject to.

[Aelonwy]

I find myself being persuaded by the arguments against big DC increases for a single ED; and more specifically, I like the idea of removing must-have choices and making other destinies appealing, and making all destinies fun.

I also very much like the change, made ages ago, that added different levels of Melee Power to all different cores.

So here's my revised take:


every destiny gets +1 DC for every two cores (yes, every destiny, even Legendary Dreadnaught)
magister gets +1 DC every other core as well (for +6 in total)
magister loses the school-specifc bonus at T2, to be replaced by a universal spell-power boost (50/100/150)
arcane spellsurge goes to 120 second cooldown (ie. not usable EVERY encounter), but also adds a 50% reduction in spell cooldowns, and lasts 30 seconds.
all dependencies between items in magister & draconic tree items to be removed
draconic gain +1 evo/conj every other core (for +3 all, and a further +3 evo/conj)
fatesinger gain evo/ench every other core (for +3 all, and a further +3 evo/ench)
all stat increases in main trees are removed and replaced by +1 ANY stat in each core. This is good for all classes.


In the same way Melee power is granted, so is spell power. Note that most casters will have 500-100 spell power at cap, whereas melees (I guess) have nearer 200. So SP grants should be 3-5 times higher to provide the same boost.

Draconic: +10 per core
Magister: +20 per core
Fatesinger: +30 per core
Exalted Angel: +10 per core
Shiradi: +10 per core
Div. Crus: +20 per core
Everyone else: +30 per core

Not sure about 10/20/30; 15/30/45 and 20/40/60 also seem reasonable. eg. consider Shadowdancer: +10 melee power per core. +60 in total. That's an increase of 30% for someone starting with 180 melee power. Going the same way with spell power, would be to add 50 per core for a semi-decent caster on an off-destiny; but this is offset by adding DCs to every second core, so 10/20/30 may be about right.

A lot of good ideas here.

[Kithyx]

Suggestion:
Fatesinger +1 evo/enchant dc per core.

Magister +1 all dcs EXCEPT enchant per core.

Draconic +1 evo dcs per core.

[reywas]

+1 DCs per core is great (and should remain). But it also should get interesting abilities for cores. DI and Magister are the only two that just get some some meh passive. Exalted Angel and Crusaders get other abilities along with it.

If I were to redesign these, I would give +3 DCs to every casting ED (Maybe limited to certain schools Enchant and Illusion for Fate Singer, Conj and Evocation for Draconic, Evocation Transmutation and Conjuration for Primal Avatar) and +6 to magister to all schools, move the Tempest and some other magister abilities to cores (Sigils maybe, or abilities that add things to metamagics, like chance for knockdown on maximize, reducing enemy spell pen for Heightened spells). Similar with Draconic Incarnation with the Energy ____ for cores (granting every type so you can change it on the fly, share cooldown). Right now, it is strange to me that they, out of all the trees, are the only two that only get something actually interesting for their last core.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Please make it so that Nullmagic strike can proc from melee attacks too, at least while a runearm is equipped or spellsword is being used.


/signed, having it proc from melee attacks would be pretty sweet & open it up as having interesting use for more builds

[ElweSulk]

This was fixed with U41 :)

Great! :)

Please consider my other changes to "Turn of the Tide" also :) (i.e.: longer duration + shorter cooldown + scaling of damage based on sonic/melee power)

[Lamassut]

You have eliminated requirements of feats (cleave, power attack) in LD, do the same for casters. Eliminate the spell focus and spell penetration requirements please. Many casters are feat starved, and taking these two feats plus the metamagic ones supposes an unnecessary stress, not to say that it prevents to take past life feats (complecionist, PL wiz, PL bard)ç

You eliminated the requirement of spell penetration in exalted angel long ago, but the arcane sphere has never been touched, and you are forgetting to update this

[PublicEnemy]

Since Bards also support DEX and INT builds via Swashbuckler Different Tack, can we get 4 options, STR, DEX, INT, or CHA, for Fatesinger ability scores?

Dont forget this please, if you currently want to invest in stats as well, Melee INT have only really one option : Shadowdancer, but still none in the arcane sphere...would be great to have one ED with caster level for wiz/sorc AND Melee power.

Would be great to have atleast ONE melee capable/related ED in each sphere...

And I havn't noticed but maybe add BAB = char level somewhere in the fatesinger tree pretty please? (as an EK I don't need it but asking for others)

Also, any neg-amp possible somewhere in the Eds? (think I saw it is already the case in the new Fatesinger tree, is that right?)

Oh and ability for people to use CHA to hit/dmg, (maybe core 6 or tier 4-5 if you really don't want it to be twistable).

[Fivetigers33]

Great! :)

Please consider my other changes to "Turn of the Tide" also :) (i.e.: longer duration + shorter cooldown + scaling of damage based on sonic/melee power)

What is the proposed duration?

Also, what is the current duration?

[PsychoBlonde]

I would very much appreciate it if you'd make Energy Sheath, Go Out With a Bang, and Energy Burst grant all 4 elemental versions but share a timer, that way you could use whichever one was the best without having to reset your tree.

Or, if that's too much, just Energy Sheath.

[Cetus]

I still don't like the Go Out With a Bang functionality. Can you guys maybe just auto-trigger it when you fall below 50% (like Arcane Barrier from EK), and give it just a large AoE range?

Also - I'm still of the opinion that Draconic Incarnation needs some Evo DC love.

[Airmaiden]

So, after reading through these posts, I think some of the people replying to this thread actually play casters, but not all, as I have LOL'd at a lot of these posters.

Things I agree with:

Magister.

Too many points to have to spend in this tree ( Please make Specialist, Augmentation, familiarity and Master less points per ). This would give people a chance to take other abilities in this tree.

The Cores giving +1DC per is nice (but what this does is help the new DC casters/ players with little to no past lives). This is not necessary with PL's and well geared DC players. I play a 18 wiz/ 2 monk and my PK DC's are 127 and my Necro DC's are 114 with my holds being 108. I do not even have the Wizard capstone (which is a joke anyways).
But I am for this if it help newer players.



If you want my opinion on what wizards need, it would be some way to heal themselves, I run in EA for that very reason and will continue to do so purely to survive and to throw out the odd mass heal or divine wrath.


Draconic

5% Spell Crit damage for each core is very nice (30% more damage is great considering you will be critting 100% of the time) Most sorcs will have 100%+ Spell Crit chance and 95% Spell Crit damage for their main element.



If you want my opinion on what would help Sorcs……...and all Caster types, it would be metamagic feat spell point cost reductions.



Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

[janave]

Draconic can only compete with EA or Magister after the changes if 3 elements are in:

Sorcerer Point of View:

1) temporary hitpoints enough to survive 1 extra hit taken on any difficulty level
2) leap of faith copy on a short cooldown ( this and cc spells are pretty much the primary defense, as the class inherently offers very little, some champs are immune to common cc)
3) significant amount of MRR debuff on monsters, possibly scaled by epic level

But even if all 3 are met, my guess is just better off rolling a Wizard or Warlock in Magister and necro focus all the way up to r10 - which is 100% inline with the current meta. Necro focus is objectively grossly overpowered in higher reaper tiers, so not sure if lining up damage outputs is best. :)



4) (bonus) some cooldown reduction on level 9 elemental spells for Sorcerers (especially iceberg and thunderstroke) to match Finger of Death cooldown. Right now it takes more time and spell points clean low reflex mobs with the level 9 nukes than with level6 FoD or CoD.

FoD level 6 / 6s / ~56sp
Iceberg level 9 / 9s / ~75sp

FoD ~ kill target at 100% hps
Iceberg ~ take roughly 10-20% (elemental type) damage....

I know r10 is not supposed to be the measurement, but it is part of the game with progression and rewards, so it makes good sense to optimize for it.

[Cetus]

Draconic can only compete with EA or Magister after the changes if 3 elements are in:

Sorcerer Point of View:

1) temporary hitpoints enough to survive 1 extra hit taken on any difficulty level
2) leap of faith copy on a short cooldown ( this and cc spells are pretty much the primary defense, as the class inherently offers very little, some champs are immune to common cc)
3) significant amount of MRR debuff on monsters, possibly scaled by epic level

But even if all 3 are met, my guess is just better off rolling a Wizard or Warlock in Magister and necro focus all the way up to r10 - which is 100% inline with the current meta. Necro focus is objectively grossly overpowered in higher reaper tiers, so not sure if lining up damage outputs is best. :)



4) (bonus) some cooldown reduction on level 9 elemental spells for Sorcerers (especially iceberg and thunderstroke) to match Finger of Death cooldown. Right now it takes more time and spell points clean low reflex mobs with the level 9 nukes than with level6 FoD or CoD.

FoD level 6 / 6s / ~56sp
Iceberg level 9 / 9s / ~75sp

FoD ~ kill target at 100% hps
Iceberg ~ take roughly 10-20% (elemental type) damage....

I know r10 is not supposed to be the measurement, but it is part of the game with progression and rewards, so it makes good sense to optimize for it.

Well, the difference is that instakills and CC are all-or-nothing events. You can't just make a target "a little dead" or "a little CC'ed" with current spells.

I think the more practical solution would be to just cut the costs of DPS spells to compensate for this. It's too expensive to nuke, comparatively.

[janave]

Cutting the cost on nukes would help only on mid tiers, on high tiers the time difference becomes far more emphasized, we dont really have the time to sit out 4 more spell casts per monster, because it fights back. However impractical a necro caster could technically work without 2nd CC focus, but for a nuker CC is pretty much mandatory for this reason..

Evoker builds are so much less attractive, we are technically both a full out DC caster for CC, then also need to incorp the spell damage amps. Both gearing and speccing is extra investment and for the most part to less effect compared to just straight necro caster with ruins and dots and full metamagic options.

[thunir]

Didn't hear this mentioned in the pass, but does this really need a 2 min cooldown? The DC is relatively low and seems expensive at tier 3 and 2ap for a class that can already cc?

Might want to visit this if it hasnt been mentioned.

[Targal]

a lot of people say that draconic should have evo/coj +1 per core, but I think It should be more valued because draconic is the master of pure power and the current version does not show the concept very well.
We might need some revised version of the epic as something different.


So I wrote something for an example. (apologies for my bad English sentences as I'm not native.)


-------------------
Core 0:

Passive: You gain +50 SP, and +2 evo/coj DC, 10% spell critical damage.
Active: You gain "Elemental Focus Stance" ability. this has a version for each element - "Fire/Air/Water/Earth Focus Stand". you can only activate one of Elemental Focus stances.
During Elemental Focus Stance, Your elemental focused spells gain double benefit from the core passive abilities.

[Explanation]
Let's say that You're in Fire Focus Stance.
if you cast Coldray, Your bonus is +2 evo and +10% crit dmg.
if you cast Fireball, Your bonus is +4 evo and +20% crit dmg.

Core 1:

Passive: You gain +50 SP. When you cast Elemental Focused spells, 5% of the cost will be back to you.

Core 2:

Passive: You gain +50 SP. You gain +2 evo/coj DC, 10% spell critical damage.

Core 3:

Passive: You gain +50 SP. You ignore 10% of saving throw effect.(you penetrate saving throw effect by 10%.)

[explanation]
50% dmg reduction on save -> 40% dmg reduction / 30% while stanced
100% dmg reduction(=evasion) on save -> 90% dmg reduction / 80% while stanced
This does not apply to dmg reduction by elemental resistance(like fire to fire ele)

Core 4:

Passive: You gain +50 SP. You gain +2 evo/coj DC and 10% spell critical damage

Core 5(Draconic Fury):

Passive: You gain +50 SP. You gain +1 Maximum caster level for Arcane Spells.

[Current] Active Ability: (Cooldown 4 mins) +50 Spellpower for 20 seconds.
[Suggest] Active Ability: (Cooldown FIFTEEN mins) for 20 seconds, You gain +50 Spellpower and your stance bonus is increased to 4-times than double.


Total Bonus:
https://i.imgur.com/uexjVuf.png

Draconic Fury will be useful if we get like this.
I understand the value is somehow too high, but Dragon Fury is something ultimate so I thought It should have as cooldown 15 mins.
and Basic Stanced benefits are considerable, I think? Dragon Fury is just too much.
Considerable means when we compare to Wizard guys, Sorcerers should have something attractive than theirs such as Magister's untouchable DC. and those values are only for when you cast a spell of a certain elemental.

[Duhboy]

Since Bards also support DEX and INT builds via Swashbuckler Different Tack, can we get 4 options, STR, DEX, INT, or CHA, for Fatesinger ability scores?

I agree and support this.

[Grugmak]

Just a suggestion, but as you have stated the intent is to make draconic the elemental nuker tree could we by chance add WIS to the list of stats that the SLAs (burst, breath, etc) draw from? Druids can be/are elemental style nukers as well and these currently only use INT or CHA.

[LurkingVeteran]

There is a lot of good stuff in there, good work! The rebalancing of Combat Brute will also help balance caster vs. melee trash DPS in general, which might be the single biggest (relative) boost to caster DPS nuking. This was a great move.

However, I have to second the people asking about the DC gap between Magister and DI/everything else though, it's huge.

As an example, looking at this from the perspective of an evoker, DI has some good things:
-Better SLAs, however they are about on-par damage wise with the new SL9 spells, and on longer cool-downs.
-30% crit multiplier. This is mainly great for sorcs who sorely lack this in their trees, but it's not a huge amount (and it probably shouldn't be for an ED, the class trees should stand on their own).
-Spell point on kill. This is good, but you you already get some in reaper. It still does not help on long boss fights unless you get to kill a bunch of trash, which remains the biggest evoker weakness.

However, by picking Magister you get 8? more DC and +3 MCL (twist the MCL from Draconic). The MCL cancels out the crit mult, and the DC discrepancy will likely translate to higher effective DPS in the long run unless your DCs already are godly. This leaves a slight improved burst (SLAs on long CDs), and spell point efficiency on trash, vs. the great DC casting and likely higher sustained DPS of Magister. On paper at least, Magister just seems the clear choice for higher difficulties even for an evoker build.

Perhaps one could convert +3 of the new Magister's T5 "Master of ..." DCs to 3-6 spell pen? Spell pen is a huge headache for first lifers and it would be good to have a way to keep DC-specialists from feeling useless. EDIT: Even better to stagger it, make every second core spell pen instead of DC and leave "Master of" T5 perhaps?

[mr420247]

Really wish maj had 1 tier 4 heal-harm-recon sla

Just pick the one you need then peeps could twist 1 single heal to help there friends if they wanted to spend a tier 4 twist

Granted would really be helpful if necro wizies ever got a purple necro bar indicator

Daunting roar should have the same timer as ea sound burst if you want peeps to ever use it

[PublicEnemy]

Bladesong: 2d6 Sonic damage on hit scaling with spell power, 3% competence to melee attack speed, also +1 Critical Multiplier on 19-20


Could we please keep the "no combat penalties while moving" that this capacity had? It's a great bonus and help to save some feats (which you are pretty limited with when being an arcane user)

[MistaMagic]

My wizard says thank you very much as I (and most dc casters on Khyber) have noticed that with the release of Sharn the saves of mobs have increased significantly and I presume that will be the template for all future dungeons.

[Silverleafeon]

Please remove Call Kindred Being prerequisite and turn it into a multiselect.

Please remove Grand Summoner prerequisite.

Please remove [spell school] specialist prerequisite as thus is flawed and fails to recalculate after a TR.

Thanks for removing other requirements.



Wow! Unlimited Dragon Breath! Makes me want to run this destiny.

Thanks for removing more charge ups for Epic Moment.


Suggest consider somehow increasing epic destinies to level 10 with progressive points of 4 per epic level gating.
Magistar and Draconic would be so much better with more points.

[LurkingVeteran]

Also consider making the Draconic Hunger's 15% for 10xEpicLevel SP on kill instead 100% for 1xEpicLevel temp SP on spell cast (exact amount subject to balance). This would make it more viable during long boss fights, you could spam un-metad cheaper spells (e.g. Fireball, Lightning bolt) almost indefinitely. Granted, the on-kill mechanics might be a fun mechanic for group play, but I still feel draconic should allow sustainability of a pew-pew play style.

[vryxnr]

I would love to use Draconic Incarnation with my warlocks - but alas - even these changes are not enough to lure me away from Exalted Angel for them. Even with the self rez nerf, EA wings (yay mobility without a minute long cooldown like dragon wings have), heals (mass cure and divine wrath), higher DCs, bonuses to light/alignment damage, and Rebuke Foe still blows this new DI out of the water (for my aura-locks at least).

[mr420247]

Agreed but for etrs coming soon its going to be fun you won't need dcs just red named dps

High skulls Maj is insanely op n 3 mcls twist from drac all divines and es locks should have almost no fail dcs

And they nerf EA and don't give a single caster boost to shiradi n it is garbage it is not ok for epics let alone reaper bs penalties but uber the hell out of already op ranged dps ok

[janave]

Draconic could provide a way for Sorcerer to make up for the ~15-20% relative loss of spell points, due to system design not keeping up the original spell pts pool differences. A Wizard can easily pick up mental tougnesses, with little cost, and still max IK DC-s.., also get better passive universal spell crit rate. Most spell points sources, like reaper cores, are not aware of the pattern.. reaper spell point drops are also a huge offender as it makes spell point maximums irrelevant, and imbalances toward the high DC/spell pen potential builds.

Unrelated to EDs, but we still dont have a comparable filigree set for evokers. Ottos and Beholder sets are way better for IKs than spell damage. Coalesced magic had potential but numerically out of tune to become a real alternative.

[IlmerSilverhilt]

Could the Fatesinger core Aura of Grandeur be coded as an aura? So the +3 dmg goes to party too instead of self only 8)

nvm see now you changed it completely

[LurkingVeteran]

...

And they nerf EA and don't give a single caster boost to shiradi n it is garbage it is not ok for epics let alone reaper bs penalties but uber the hell out of already op ranged dps ok

Hard to tell, the way DDO logic works, there is a possibility that some weird Shiradi SP/RP hybrid will actually end up having the highest spell DPS build after the RP scaling changes. Tilo is probably already theory-crafting one.

[Fivetigers33]

Overall I like the changes to Fatesinger. However, I have a few comments.

Keep sonic vulnerability. My understanding is that as a different type of vulnerability from the catch all vuln that already has a variety of sources (Fetters of Unreality etc.), it should stack with regular vulnerability.

I liked the earlier suggestion about adding Longsword as a swashbuckling weapon somewhere in the tree. It's a traditional bard weapon, and one that most bards probably don't use.

I also liked the suggestion of adding Charisma for Attack/to hit somewhere in the tree. Last core would be better though.


Both of these would be nice additions to the T6 option. Or you could corrupt a wish and combine them into a single T6 option. I'd even be cool with that. My 2 cents.

[PublicEnemy]

I liked the earlier suggestion about adding Longsword as a swashbuckling weapon somewhere in the tree. It's a traditional bard weapon, and one that most bards probably don't use.

I also liked the suggestion of adding Charisma for Attack/to hit somewhere in the tree. Last core would be better though.


Both of these would be nice additions to the T6 option. Or you could corrupt a wish and combine them into a single T6 option. I'd even be cool with that. My 2 cents.

Agreed and...agreed, nice ideas there, in the long run could really help bards dps, and arcane dps in general.

[Duhboy]

Overall I like the changes to Fatesinger. However, I have a few comments.

Keep sonic vulnerability. My understanding is that as a different type of vulnerability from the catch all vuln that already has a variety of sources (Fetters of Unreality etc.), it should stack with regular vulnerability.

I liked the earlier suggestion about adding Longsword as a swashbuckling weapon somewhere in the tree. It's a traditional bard weapon, and one that most bards probably don't use.

I also liked the suggestion of adding Charisma for Attack/to hit somewhere in the tree. Last core would be better though.


Both of these would be nice additions to the T6 option. Or you could corrupt a wish and combine them into a single T6 option. I'd even be cool with that. My 2 cents.

Instead of Charisma to hit for the last core of Fatesinger how about Charisma to hit AND damage. Aswell as adding INT as part of the ability score upgrades.

[Rob_65270]

Umm not everyone is soloing R10 quests with one hand while playing an iOS with the other. I'd much rather the devs not balance the game around reaper like they said they wouldn't.

(snip)

This.

[pretendcasualplayer]

Three questions regarding Draconic Incarnation:

1) What are the new DCs for the Draconic Incarnation spells? (Vortex, Energy Burst specifically). The old one was (reflex save DC 20 + 1/2 character level + INT/CHA modifier for half damage)
2) Can wisdom characters get in on the fun here too? I always had issues that Clerics/Druids got left out on this tree.
3) Druid wolf technically has a frost breath weapon that doesn't seem to benefit from anything. Breath Weapon Focus, for example. Any way that can get attention here?

I also have comments and questions that have dragged me out of the woodwork to finally post. Are you keeping the existing calculation and simply adding the spell school to it or are you considering something else?

I understand why you are changing the acid portion of Draconic to Conjuration bonuses for Sorcerers, but as proposed this is also yet another potential nerf to Warlock casters using GOO pact. There are not enough feats to allow both an Evocation and Conjuration focus and still enable a warlock caster to be relevant in high difficulty end game content. Why not make the calculation for nuking abilities in this tree the higher of Evocation or Conjuration bonuses to enable relevance to both Sorcerers and Warlocks? Does Warlock really need another debuff?

Since we are considering leveling out power imbalances let's talk about how under powered Fey pact is relative to the other two with the Ravenloft belts. The argument that not many mobs have resistance to sonic doesn't hold up when many mobs are also not resistant to acid and Tiefling Improved Scorch removes fire immunity. If Fatesinger's Harmonic Resonance proposed "Attacks have a chance of building up Resonance ..." refers to non-spell damage, why don't we change this to something actually relevant for sonic casters? Are we planning on adding equivalent gear for stacking sonic spell power bonuses instead?

As a long time DC caster player I am certainly in favor of the Magister changes. Currently, you have to gimp a non-Shiradi caster wizard to make DC relevant in mid to high reaper and a wizard doesn't contribute much DPS for mobs outside of his or her DC. With all of the death warded mobs and champs, the high DCs of Sharn, the relatively low negative healing available to PMs, and the low hp and armor restrictions, the DC and Arcane Tempest updates will help keep things balanced. Many forum posters have tons of past lives and gear from raids that basically no one runs anymore. From what I see on Ghallanda, a good chunk of these players prefer to group with comparable players and everyone else is left in the dust. While the Magister changes may make these already OP players more so, they do help level the playing field as well.

[deconedi]

Hey Devs.

Would be possible to put the sigils in the core? I know it is a matter of choice to distribute the 24 points in the tree, but I think that the sigils are underutilized as an option in the tiers. It would be a viable and versatile option to help party, since only one sigil remains active at a time.

[Xgya]

I also have comments and questions that have dragged me out of the woodwork to finally post. Are you keeping the existing calculation and simply adding the spell school to it or are you considering something else?

I understand why you are changing the acid portion of Draconic to Conjuration bonuses for Sorcerers, but as proposed this is also yet another potential nerf to Warlock casters using GOO pact. There are not enough feats to allow both an Evocation and Conjuration focus and still enable a warlock caster to be relevant in high difficulty end game content. Why not make the calculation for nuking abilities in this tree the higher of Evocation or Conjuration bonuses to enable relevance to both Sorcerers and Warlocks? Does Warlock really need another debuff?


Another easy option would be to make the GOO damage Conjuration-based. Though that might be considered a buff to GOO Warlocks.

[Strambotica]

There is any chance that the Tier 6 Fatesinger ‘Greater Shout’ could do more damage? After all is a Tier 6 SLA.
I really don’t see me using this ED as a Bard, since as a caster I like DC (AKA EA atm and Magister after the pass). But maybe, only maybe… if I could have something to do some damage.
In the last month I did my last 2 Bards PL on my main character, great DC… but zero damage.
· Spellsinger 44 AP
· Warchanter 24 AP (only for extra charisma and Medium armor)
· Swashbuckler 7 AP for speed :P
· Tiefling Scoundrel 16 AP had fun with Fiendish Arpeggio.

So, you can see this is full caster and zero melee. I would like to see some DPS, at least in the ED.

PD: sorry for my bad English and for some long post, but like to put them in a context :P

[slarden]

Overall I like the changes. Divines definitely have better DC potential from their enhancement trees / domains. This change brings wizards, sorcs, bards, fvs and clerics very close with warlocks just slightly behind if they run in magister. Druid casters lose out on caster levels if they choose EA, magister or draconic and only one of those trees supports wisdom. I would suggest that EA should boost divine and primal caster levels until you address the casting aspects of primal avatar better.

This change also makes choosing cha-based fvs a little more interesting as it will have higher dc potential than wisdom in magister. Charisma casting favored souls are decidedly weaker than wisdom casting clerics/favored souls currently so I don't think this is problematic.

I like giving draconic crit damage boosts in the cores as it helps dps casting scale a little better and differentiates the trees better. Giving dragon's breath a cooldown rather than charges makes the destiny alot more compelling for people running mid skulls and below. I think draconic can be a good destiny for an arcane warrior type artificer or eld knight - both of which are flavor builds today and probably still will be after the change.

I like the greater shout sla and bound fate improvements. If bound fate still works on red names it might be a bit broken with the high dc and potentially abused. Assuming bound fate doesn't work on red names I think the tree needs more to match magister, EA and draconic. For example since bards only have 6 caster levels adding 3 universal casters levels in the cores makes sense - or alternatively +1 for each core to enchant and evocation only. Alternatively some dps slas associated with the cores. As it stands I would choose EA, Draconic or Magister over fatesinger for a bard. Unless bound fate still works on red names - then a fatesinger bard will be highly desired.

[janave]

I think the fact we discuss EDs as "one for mid skulls and another for highs skulls reaper" - tells the design is fundamentally wrong...

[Steelstar]

I think the fact we discuss EDs as "one for mid skulls and another for highs skulls reaper" - tells the design is fundamentally wrong...

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

[IlmerSilverhilt]

I like the greater shout sla and bound fate improvements. If bound fate still works on red names it might be a bit broken with the high dc and potentially abused. Assuming bound fate doesn't work on red names I think the tree needs more to match magister, EA and draconic. For example since bards only have 6 caster levels adding 3 universal casters levels in the cores makes sense - or alternatively +1 for each core to enchant and evocation only. Alternatively some dps slas associated with the cores. As it stands I would choose EA, Draconic or Magister over fatesinger for a bard. Unless bound fate still works on red names - then a fatesinger bard will be highly desired.

I hope they make it work on everything and just balance it with the DCs. As it is now I cant get anything in THTH, hope with new formula it will be possible at least sometimes 8)

[Arkat]

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

I'm sure you'll have to keep saying it over and over and over and over and over...

[slarden]

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

Can you say with a straight face that epic defensive fighting would exist without reaper? I think it is more accurate to say reaper isn’t always a factor in balancing.

[Zretch]

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

If Reaper mode were a sentient being, it would have such a complex by now. Reaper is part of your game, and a fun part of your game. You shouldn't be afraid to balance around it, as balance is good for the game. Who knows, it could even be more fun for a wider variety of classes and builds!

[Lynnabel]

Can you say with a straight face that epic defensive fighting would exist without reaper?

Yes.


You shouldn't be afraid to balance around it, as balance is good for the game. Who knows, it could even be more fun for a wider variety of classes and builds!

Reaper is meant to be a challenge, and we avoid releasing things that directly mitigate the challenge of it. For example, an ability that mitigated the self-healing penalty.

[SerPounce]

As we've said before, we aren't balancing this around Reaper.

What does that mean though? Reaper is part of the game. A part that a large portion of the player base uses and enjoys. Surely it's part of the balance conversation? It would be silly if it wasn't.

[Zretch]

Reaper is meant to be a challenge, and we avoid releasing things that directly mitigate the challenge of it. For example, an ability that mitigated the self-healing penalty.

I don't think balancing for reaper requires making reaper easier. I think it simply means assessing the impact of scaling reaper mechanics on particular abilities, classes, or builds. For example, DC casting sees CC durations lessened and DC requirements raised as reaper scales up, but their effectiveness per mana point is largely consistent. On the other hand, evocation caster efficiency craters as reaper scales up. One build remains strong while another build of the same class dramatically decreases in effectiveness. The argument could be made that the same falloff in effectiveness is felt by all DPS classes, but melee and ranged DPS classes don't have a blue bar that, once empty, renders them completely ineffective until the next shrine.

Balancing for reaper doesn't mean that sorcs should be able to one shot kill entire trash packs on R10 the same way they can on R1. It should mean, however, that they can contribute their share of DPS to the same number of encounters between shrines irregardless of reaper level. Their DPS goes down, just like everyone else's and the challenge remains consistently increasing, but the particular mechanics of reaper mode (debuff to outgoing damage with no corresponding increase in mana effeciency and a hard limit to mana pools) don't render a archtypical class (a nuking sorc isn't exactly a non-cannon flavor build) at such a disadvantage compared to other forms of DPS.

The challenge is what makes it fun, but balance doesn't equate to removal of challenge in my mind, simply balancing the relative effectiveness of builds to perform the role for which they are most suited. They can do it in different ways, but one flavor of DPS builds or healing builds or tanking builds shouldn't be rendered ineffective as difficulty scales up with other flavors are allowed to maintain effectiveness. I guess in much the same way you wouldn't allow an ability that mitigates the reaper self healing penalty, you shouldn't introduce a tanking tree whos defenses are mainly predicated on self healing. :)

[droid327]

If Reaper mode were a sentient being, it would have such a complex by now. Reaper is part of your game, and a fun part of your game. You shouldn't be afraid to balance around it, as balance is good for the game. Who knows, it could even be more fun for a wider variety of classes and builds!


What does that mean though? Reaper is part of the game. A part that a large portion of the player base uses and enjoys. Surely it's part of the balance conversation? It would be silly if it wasn't.

Reaper exists, but its just not used as a metric when doing balance.

Basically, the game is balanced around Elite. Reaper is then defined BY that balance point. Its meant to simply be "harder than Elite", and it gets harder the more skulls you add.

There's no promise that everyone can do Reaper. There's no promise that R10 is always possible (see: THTH). Its there to be a challenge, when Elite becomes too trivial. If its too hard - then just turn down the skulls. If its too easy, crank them up. But there's no intention that the game will provide a smooth and consistent progression from LE to LR10 for every player. And like Lynn said, there's no intention that you'll ever be able to "nullify" the added difficulty of Reaper to make it closer to Elite, since that defeats its entire raison d'etre.

In other words, Reaper will never adjust itself to you. You have to adjust yourself to Reaper, wherever that leaves you.

[Zretch]

Reaper exists, but its just not used as a metric when doing balance.

Basically, the game is balanced around Elite. Reaper is then defined BY that balance point. Its meant to simply be "harder than Elite", and it gets harder the more skulls you add.

There's no promise that everyone can do Reaper. There's no promise that R10 is always possible (see: THTH). Its there to be a challenge, when Elite becomes too trivial. If its too hard - then just turn down the skulls. If its too easy, crank them up. But there's no intention that the game will provide a smooth and consistent progression from LE to LR10 for every player. And like Lynn said, there's no intention that you'll ever be able to "nullify" the added difficulty of Reaper to make it closer to Elite, since that defeats its entire raison d'etre.

In other words, Reaper will never adjust itself to you. You have to adjust yourself to Reaper, wherever that leaves you.

Reaper difficulty represents 10 out of 14 difficulty levels in the game. Creating 10 extra difficulty levels and then declaring that you don't care whether they are balanced or fun or enjoyable by any or all of your player base is....nonsense. SSG is a professional company selling a product that competes with multiple other games. Abdicating responsibility for balancing any gameplay beyond Elite isn't "a thing", and I seriously doubt that the product manager, item designers, quest designers, etc, etc give 0 consideration to reaper difficulties when designing and developing new content or adjusting and balancing classes. The quality of the content they've been releasing in the last couple years has been too good for it all to be an accident.

And if elite is the balance point, then nuking sorcerers are way, way, way out of balance. As are warlocks, wizards, bards, dog druids, monks, assassin rogues, any class with a 2 level splash of arti using a crossbow, any melee class that can get a good dire charge DC, any class with the wisdom to mass frog, etc, etc, etc. This isn't to mention frankentanks built for R10 who are basically immortal in elite. This game jumped the elite shark pre-Ravenloft.

[slarden]

Yes..Well I take you at your word that reaper wasn't a factor when adding epic defensive fighting. From a player perspective it does feel like things are balanced around reaper to some extent.

[SerPounce]

Reaper exists, but its just not used as a metric when doing balance.

Basically, the game is balanced around Elite. Reaper is then defined BY that balance point. Its meant to simply be "harder than Elite", and it gets harder the more skulls you add.

There's no promise that everyone can do Reaper. There's no promise that R10 is always possible (see: THTH). Its there to be a challenge, when Elite becomes too trivial. If its too hard - then just turn down the skulls. If its too easy, crank them up. But there's no intention that the game will provide a smooth and consistent progression from LE to LR10 for every player. And like Lynn said, there's no intention that you'll ever be able to "nullify" the added difficulty of Reaper to make it closer to Elite, since that defeats its entire raison d'etre.

In other words, Reaper will never adjust itself to you. You have to adjust yourself to Reaper, wherever that leaves you.

That's fair to an extent, but if 50%+ of the playerbase is playing reaper 50%+ of the time, it really ought to be part of the balance conversation. Why should the most used quest difficulty be an afterthought?

I don't have an agenda here. There's no balance issue that I think they should be taking into account but aren't. And reaper seems generally balanced and fun (though as always there's room for improvement). Which is the case because (in my estimation) they do balance with reaper in mind. I'm just not sure what the rhetorical value is of pretending that they don't.

[janave]

Yes.

Reaper is meant to be a challenge, and we avoid releasing things that directly mitigate the challenge of it. For example, an ability that mitigated the self-healing penalty.

Instant kills mitigate the player damage debuffs, DC boosts mitigate the deflection rate of instant kills.

That means some EDs that do not fuel DCs or provide a means to mitigate the challenges (=other types of defense layers), will be simple progression steps instead of viable build choices.

I kinda like most of the changes you are making here ( selfish me), just not perfectly confident how long these changes will entertain the players neck deep invested in the meta you are buffing. :)

In the end, it should not matter if we are insta-shotting nameless monsters with a level 9 elemental spell for more spell cost and higher cool downs, in case the bosses were prepared to have some measure of deflection vs that same class of ability. I guess risking that it both works on regular and named targets is too much in some instances. Altho, I think the source of that risk is more about the Boss types disability to trace "clevering" players than the damage numbers effective overpoweredness.

[Kithyx]

Could we have cha to damage added to fatesinger 6th core please? The only other source for eldritch knights is to go purple dragon knight, and everyone hates the model so much that only wolf builds go PDK, thanks.

[LittleLexi]

While I appreciate much of the changes to Bards - I feel like a Greater Shout SLA at tier 6 is a little underwhelming...That's something that you might have lower in the tree or at tier 5 of the class tree. Hardly feels epic. Especially when you consider screamo Bards already have the Shout SLA, Horn of Thunder, and possibly even the Greater Shout and Shout spells already. It's too much of the same gimmick, and a bit boring as a result...

I have some ideas for possible alternatives, but not sure at this point how set in stone the ED passes are.

[amessi1]

With the addition of magic school (evocation/conjuration) being added to the DC calculation for Energy Burst, will it be in line with say a Lightning Bolt? Currently I've got a 99DC on Lightning bolt and 75DC on Energy Burst...just hoping they'll be on par...maybe add full character level instead of half?