Community Poll: Divine Avenger or Angel of Vengeance

[SisAmethyst]

That's actually why I think we do need the Angel of Vengeance first. Except for a brief period around level 11, my three melee favored souls have had no problem handling any content in the game including epic play, and are already at the upper end of character power even if they never receive a PrE. Whereas offensive-caster favored souls really start to lag by endgame, suggesting they could use a boost to stay competitive.

In other words, you never seeing offensive casting favored souls = Angel of Vengeance.

The other point of view is that lots of people are enjoying melee favored souls now and would have even more fun if they received a PrE, so why not give them something we know they'll enjoy rather than going forward with an OC PrE that, if botched, might not be enough to make OCs viable at endgame anyway. I can understand and respect this perspective -- like I said, I have three melee favored souls myself (Vulkoor, scimmy, 18/2) and anything that makes them more fun to play would be welcome. But a serious rethinking of offensive casting at endgame is needed and my hope would be that the Angel of Vengeance would kick-start that process.

I second that ... the question is why are there only rarely offensive casting FvS? Maybe because next of kiting mobs through a BB, there isn't much more? Needless to say that a BB only works as long as mobs constantly traverse the border. On the other side in a group you prefer except the opposite, to have a mob stationary.

An Angel of Vengeance should have more to give then kiting with a BB and therefore would bring us more options to play with. That would indeed include new spells that probably overlap with upcoming Druid spells like:

Storm of Vengeance: Storm that rains acid, lightning, and hail doing 3d6 damage/round.
Earthquake: Intense tremor shakes 80ft. radius doing 10d6 damage and reduce movement speed.
Vigorous Cycle: Grants party fast regeneration.
Righteous Might: Your size increases (+4 STR, +2 CON, +2 AC, +DR 3/good), and you receive -1 to hit but +3 to damage.
[b]Stone Body[b]: Transforms the caster's form to stone (+4 STR, -4 DEX, damage reduction 10/adamantine, 50% movement penalty, immune to negative effects, half damage versus acid/fire).
Battletide: Creates an aura that gives enemies -2 to hit and damage and -2 on saves, +extra attack for caster.
Greater Magic Weapon: Temporary weapon enchantment +1 bonus/four levels (max +5).
[b]Magic Vestment[b]: Armor or shield gains temporary +1 enhancement bonus/four levels.
Visage of the Deity: You gain Charisma bonus and elemental resistances.
Regenerate: Target is cured 10% of their maximum hit points/round.
Animalistic Power: Imbues a target with an aspect of the natural world. The target gains a +2 STR, +2 DEX, and +2 CON.
Undeath's Eternal Foe: Party is granted immunity to negative damage, level/ability drain, poisons and disease.

Maybe even:
Gate: Summons a devil from another plane.
Bodak's Glare: Kills target and in case it was a humanoid return as a Bodak.
Planar Ally: Summons an extra-planar ally up to 12 HD.

[EyeRekon]

Divine Avenger first.

[Chette]

At this point in time, with the game the way it currently is and no other changes, I would have to say Divine Avenger. My reason for this is that for levels 12-20 (non-epic) devine casters are already gods. They really don't need anything else to be able to solo just about any non-epic content. The opposite side of this of course is that their spell selection is very limiting in epic. Unless some additional crowd control, debuff or damage spells are added that would be useful in epic, I don't see a PrE line making much of a difference. I would love to see more flexibility for offensive casters, but I would like to see this come in the form of spells first, and PrE second.

It's my opinion that the Angel of Vengeance PrE will be of more benefit to a melee FvS at this time than a Divine Avenger would be to a caster.

That being said I have both, love both, and would be happy with either.

[Silverleafeon]

Well, if the developers are looking at the favored soul please please consider these situations:

1) Who has the highest light spell in the DDO game?

A) Wizards and Sorcerers: http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Spell:Sunburst ;; Should not Clerics and Favored Souls have a better high (8th) level light spell than Wizards and Sorcerers? Just the nature of the classes would suggest this matter.


2) Which light spell does more average damage to the average creature at level twenty: the first level Nimbus of Light spell http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Spell:Nimbus_of_Light or the third level Searing Light spell http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Spell:Searing_Light ?

A) Searing Light which should lead the charge and is an important capstone spell does 5d8 damage which equals 4.5 X 5 = 22.5 average damage to non undead creatures (there are no/very few high level undead creatures). Nimbus of Light does 1d4+24 damage which equals (2.5 x 1) + 24 = 26.5 average damage.


3) How many Clerics and Favored Souls actually keep the Smiting Enhancement line at level twenty?

A) Most Clerics and Favored Souls retrain their enhancements at around level 17 or before to eliminate the smiting enhancement lineup. The only possible exception is the underpower Silver Flame Capstone Users which others have mathematically proven is inferior to use at level twenty due to low power/high cooldown timer.


4) Why are some people suggesting suggesting to do the melee prestigue class over the caster prestigue class?

A) Because everyone picks the exact same spells to use as a Favored Soul; however if a handful of quality new spells were introduced then the whole picture would change.

[aristarchus1000]

Caster FvS's, and divine casters in general, are unstoppable before epics, so any Pre will need to be carefully tuned to not overpower them even more in pre-epic content while making offensive casting viable in epics.

Personally, I don't think this is something that can be done in a Pre. It requires new spells, and reworking a lot of epic content. This is not a small project like a class Pre.

[Silverleafeon]

Perhaps Epic Rules for Epic Character would solve the Epic Gap for casters?

And yes broken aint good cause it would need nerfing.


Pondering how much the Cleric and Wizard Prestigue class helped those caster type characters, one has to wonder what the future would hold if a Favored Soul Caster Prestigue class was made?

Would it grant high quality light/smiting spell like abilities (hopefully that work well in Amarth)?
Would it grant some sort of lasting area effect situation-aura of smiting? lol


Pondering what a good battle divine healing able character would look like?

Would it have better weapons damage/attacks with diety's favored weapon?
Or would it be general weapon bonuses?
Will there be more favored weapons in the future and how would that affect this?

Anyway, hope springs eternal...

[AylinIsAwesome]

I think Turbine needs to introduce a new level 9 spell for divines.

A level 9 spell that immobilizes mobs (just not as well as Mass Hold, either shorter duration or no auto-crit, not both), and that also damages them so that it can get boosts from the Smiting enhancement lines.

If the damage is significant enough, it'd be a good reason to actually take those enhancements, and the immobilization of mobs would be very welcome.

[Dlusin]

Angel of Vengeance would be great, I like my evocation FvS quite a lot, and making it more viable at endgame would be fantastic.

[FrozenNova]

Vote's for AoV;
Casters are pretty awesome already all the way to cap - and yet, at epic, that's almost entirely stripped away for almost every casting build. If Epic continues as it does (though that's a different debate) AoV would be greatly appreciated so our beloved capped casters have a reason to be again.
Depends what AoV actually does though. If its primary purpose is to introduce light damage spells, it won't be useful in epic - and with epic deathward, our most powerful tools - destroy and implode - are rendered useless, and the ridiculous hp means blade barrier is no longer anywhere near as interesting. It'd be great if it gave us new, useful CC to play with.

[Lavek]

angel of vengeance


dont want to see my only role in epics to hjeal, I want to have some fun too

[Twerpp]

Pump FvS melee up more. My vote.

[Twerpp]

And add domains at the same time for the benefit of all divines. Choosing the appropriate domain as a pre-req as well.

[Mellkor]

Divine Avenger!!!!!

and make it +1 to crit multiplyer! Gimme back mhy ESoS before it was nerfed!

[domecek1]

divine.

[Sanguine_J3S3]

Angel of Vengeance for sure!

[Failedlegend]

Angel of Vengeance for sure!

I definitely vote for Divine Avenger (that's the melee one right)

Oh and here's the Tally so far

Divine Avenger: 38 (including my vote)

Angel of Vengeance: 24

[Tibullus]

I vote for Divine Avenger

[HarveyMilk]

The community is obviously split. Why not just put a little more work into it and release both together?

[Failedlegend]

The community is obviously split. Why not just put a little more work into it and release both together?

Split yes....to close to call no...the obvious majority want Divine Avenger

Divine Avenger: 39

Angel of Vengeance: 24

[sirgog]

AoV; Evokers are currently the weaker ones in Epic, so hopefully this will make them more valued again.

Disclaimer: I have both a Human Evoker and a WF melee FvS.

/This (except for the part about having an Evoker).

Wisdom-based FvS's can't do enough damage to warrant inclusion in endgame groups as nukers, they are far behind wizards, sorcs and even bards in crowd control, and so they end up being forced to play as 'healbots with utility'. They have only one truly powerful CC spell (Symbol of Persuasion) and a bunch of mediocre ones (Cometfall, Greater Command, Symbol of Stunning and the Blindness part of Holy Aura). Plus they don't have the spell slots to take all of those without seriously impacting their healing or buffing.

The Bladebarrier that is so overpowered from level 12 to level 17 or so barely does enough to tickle endgame bosses, and is too slow to kill anything else (except in Amrath where mob HP is very low). Plus, Bladebarrier kiting prevents melee party members from attacking the foe being kited.

OTOH, melee souls can put out enough DPS to fill a melee role in a party while also being its sole healer. When you can maintank normal Horoth, elite Suulomades, epic Turigulon and the epic Demon of the Frenzied Deep; when you can solo elite A New Invasion; when you can deal over 16% of Arraetrikos' Normal difficulty HP in damage in one pass while being the only healer - you just don't need the help as much as the Evoker specs do.