Divine evocation spell selection.

[Koechophe]

Okay, as a preface, I love divines and their amazing heals, but I have found the spells in offense to be a bit disjointed element wise. This makes it hard to actually form a somewhat offensive caster at many points in the game for both clerics and favored souls. It is especially worse for clerics, as FVS get free spell points and damage added to specific spell types.

The main problem I see is a heavy variation of spell elements. For instance, the only ones you get amplification to are negative energy light and alignment.

Negative energy does not deal enough damage, to put it bluntly, for it to be a viable source of damage and usage of a spell slot and sp. Harm and slay living are the only real damaging spells, and slay living is really an instakill, not an evocation. That leaves harm as the only real evocation for this school. Harm and mass harm.

Likewise, light and alignment has 7 spells that many of which can only be boosted by potency, nothing else. Because of course clerics dont get sunburst....

Nimbus light
Searing light
Divine punishment
Chaos hammer
Orders wrath
deific vengeance
Holy smite.

While all of these are great at their stages in the game, it isnt enough to constitute a very expensive enhancement line to support them. Chaos hammer, orders wrath and holy smite CANNOT all be used by one character, They either get chaos hammer OR orders wrath. And those of those spells, holy smite is the only one thats really worth anything. Deific vengeance is also severely lackluster. So that leaves 1 aoe spell that drops off hard early, 2 rays that drop off hard early and a great dot. This is not viable to be the only real source of damage and heavily pales in comparison to the untyped damage they can do.

Likewise, the other catagorys include:

Fire:
Flame strike
Fire storm
Symbol of flame.

Clerics have no amp for any of these, and flame strike is only half fire. Symbol of flame is also quite uneffective for clerics. So that leaves, again, 1.5 spells they have, meaning any element-specific amp is wasted and there is no enhancement amp for these either for clerics, reducing usefulness.

And untyped:
Blade barrier
Destruction
Implosion
Glyph of warding
Greater glyph of warding

These are really the most usefull spells, but sadly, clerics cannot get enhancement amp for them and you have to wait for higher leveled potency in order to get any sort of amp on them. And the glyphs are lackluster.

And physical (Bludgeoning)
Commetfall

This gets its own catagory. Sweet spell, but once again, no amp for clerics, and has to use potency

In conclusion, the spell selection for specific elements on clerics/fvs is terrible. There are also only 3 light spells, which gimps the intention behind radient servent a lot. I think there should be more light spells at the very least, and possibly more fire spells, to work off of the existing element. Too many divine spells are of elements that have little to no amplification for. and that much diversity causes issues if you ever want to make any offense out of a divine caster, especially a cleric.

[varusso]

divine =/= arcane

They arent SUPPOSED to have huge offense in magic, other than a couple of specific types -- IE: fire and holy (light). This has always been at the heart of DND and is reflected in DDO. This would be like complaining that arcanes have limited healing capabilities. And unless you are a PM or WF, they do. And even then they are still limited to other PMs and WFs.

If you want nuka nuka boom boom, roll an arcane.

Trying to force an apple to look like an orange will drive you bananas

BTW< light spells can be increased by brilliance instead of potency, which can bump it to a 75% boost. Curative spells (which can be increased by Ardor), double as damage spells vs. undead (which occupy a significant portion of the DDO realm). Beatitude boosts Good-based spells.

Theres plenty of item-based augmentations out there, just the enhancement boosts are lacking. But realistically, once you get BB and DP, nothing else really matters. Theres PLENTY of offense just in those two spells. Add in ridiculous healing ability, and a decent divine evoker really has nothing to complain about.... past lvl 11/12

[DarkForte]

DP is boosted by one of your enhancement lines, and superior brilliance clickies aren't that uncommon..

[SirValentine]

Got a few things for you.

Negative energy does not deal enough damage, to put it bluntly, for it to be a viable source of damage and usage of a spell slot and sp.

Yup. It's situationally useful during levelling, but pretty rarely at cap. Except to heal undead teammates.

Harm and slay living are the only real damaging spells, and slay living is really an instakill, not an evocation. That leaves harm as the only real evocation for this school. Harm and mass harm.

I'm not sure what you think "Evocation" means, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. Harm is not Evocation.

Also, there is no Mass Harm.

Nimbus light
Searing light
Divine punishment
Chaos hammer
Orders wrath
deific vengeance
Holy smite.

While all of these are great at their stages in the game, it isnt enough to constitute a very expensive enhancement line to support them.

Divine Punishment is so awesome all by itself from the moment you get it through to Epic endgame raids that the rest of those are irrelevant. Personally, I have all 3 Smiting lines maxxed out (total 22 AP spent) just for DP. Plus all the gear I can get my hands on to boost it further.

BTW, it's NOT just Potency. Get a Brilliance clicky for +75% instead of +50% from Potency. Also, don't neglect your crit gear.

Fire:

You're right, divine fire spells are rather crappy.

that much diversity causes issues if you ever want to make any offense out of a divine caster, especially a cleric.

This is probably the first time I've seen someone complain that divines have too much spell diversity. The usual tirade is how the divine spell list is almost entirely useless. :-)

A divine is not a Sorc. Mana-efficient spell DPS comes mainly from Blade Barrier and Divine Punishment. When mana-dumping, you can of course add other stuff into the mix, like Cometfall, Searing Light, etc..

But that doesn't prevent offense: divines do great insta-killing and CC. Look at Slay Living, Destruction, Implosion, Banishment, Dismissal, Undeath to Death, Greater Command, Hold Person, Soundburst, Cometfall (as CC instead of damage), the various Symbols of whatever, etc..

[Koechophe]

To respond, one of the most common comments was that you can boost light spells. I specifically said most of those can only be boosted by potency as they are alignment based.

The main point of this thread is that clerics need better diversity within the elements they have. Like fire, for instance, has 1.5 spells you use in it, both aoe. Same with untyped, there arent any single target ones. Light, however, has no aoe.

So the three main elements for a cleric are:

Fire:
firestorm
Flame strike
Symbol of flame

Light:
Searing light
nimbus of light
Divine punishment

Untyped
Blade barrier
Destruction
Implosion
Cometfall (bludgeoning, but still)

So for each of the actually usefull catagorys, they only have 4 or less spells. Wizards have around 7 or 8 per element. And for 2/3 of those catagorys, they cant boost the spell by element at all.

I know clerics have healing capacity but the heals themselves take enough sp to really gimp how much damage they can do compared to wiz/sorc. In addition, the spells themselves are almost always worse in damage than the wiz/sorc counterparts. DP, the best light spell, is not nearly as effective as the arcane niac's cold and eladers surge because both can be stacked.
BB isnt as effective as firewall/icestorm/acid rain Because the aoe is a lot smaller and it generally isnt constantly hitting the mob.
Searing light has a lot lower damage ratio than most arcane spells
Flame strike has a huge cast time
Cometfall has damage every 2 levels instead of 1, and once again, the lack of enhancment boost gimps the damage.

Clerics do have drawbacks to compensate for their heals. And to be honest, the spells for clerics are all based at higher levels than not. Clerics, in my opinion, need more fire, light and untyped damage and some enhancments to support them, so that offense is viable and works throughout the game. I know they arent supposed to have a ton of offense like sorcs/wiz, but arent they supposed to have enough to make it a viable option?

[Wipey]

if you ever want to make any offense out of a divine caster, especially a cleric.

Lack of offense compared to what ? Well built and played arcane ? probably
Amrath or Vale elites , can your other "offensive" classes do it faster or easier ? Any divine can solo content with blade barrier, implosion , symbol of death , slay living , destruction , comets and div punishment .And play with other spells if bored.
More versatility and options are always good but you underestimate divine power.

[Pape_27]

Flame strike has a huge cast time

Agreed.

Flamestrike is basically worthless vs anything but a non-moving mob. Any mob that is moving has moved out of the aoe by the time you cast the spell and the animation appears.

The main issue I have with offensive divine spells in general is that there are about 5 good ones. Divine Punishment, Blade Barrier, Implosion and Destruction and the situationally useful Banishment.

I would like to see some different spells added, especially at the lower levels where the offensive divine spells that are useful are extremely limited. The good ones, that eventually lose their effectiveness are Soundburst, Searing Light and um.... yeah, there really are no others. (a footnote to that - soundburst is more of a cc spell than an offensive spell).

Should Divine casters have an enhancement tree for spell damage? Right now, I see no reason to add any other enhancement lines for offensive spells beyond light (not counting the healing lines as offensive). Basically there are no spells for them to boost so it would be pointless. Rarely use the alignment spells, and if I do its for the CC part - daze, stun, blind, slowed etc, definately not the damage part, so that line is skipped.

Is adding new spells and/or enhancement lines needed right away? It would be nice!

With that said I would want the devs to do the following first: Add Cleric domains + finish the pre's for Cleric and FvS.

_

[varusso]

To respond, one of the most common comments was that you can boost light spells. I specifically said most of those can only be boosted by potency as they are alignment based.

The main point of this thread is that clerics need better diversity within the elements they have. Like fire, for instance, has 1.5 spells you use in it, both aoe. Same with untyped, there arent any single target ones. Light, however, has no aoe.

So the three main elements for a cleric are:

Fire:
firestorm
Flame strike
Symbol of flame

Light:
Searing light
nimbus of light
Divine punishment

Untyped
Blade barrier
Destruction
Implosion
Cometfall (bludgeoning, but still)

So for each of the actually usefull catagorys, they only have 4 or less spells. Wizards have around 7 or 8 per element. And for 2/3 of those catagorys, they cant boost the spell by element at all.

I know clerics have healing capacity but the heals themselves take enough sp to really gimp how much damage they can do compared to wiz/sorc. In addition, the spells themselves are almost always worse in damage than the wiz/sorc counterparts. DP, the best light spell, is not nearly as effective as the arcane niac's cold and eladers surge because both can be stacked.
BB isnt as effective as firewall/icestorm/acid rain Because the aoe is a lot smaller and it generally isnt constantly hitting the mob.
Searing light has a lot lower damage ratio than most arcane spells
Flame strike has a huge cast time
Cometfall has damage every 2 levels instead of 1, and once again, the lack of enhancment boost gimps the damage.

Clerics do have drawbacks to compensate for their heals. And to be honest, the spells for clerics are all based at higher levels than not. Clerics, in my opinion, need more fire, light and untyped damage and some enhancments to support them, so that offense is viable and works throughout the game. I know they arent supposed to have a ton of offense like sorcs/wiz, but arent they supposed to have enough to make it a viable option?

I agree that divine are woefully lacking in good AOE spells (other than BB), especially at low levels. But then again, they are SUPPOSED to be. That is the purview of the arcane. A divine's intended role (in all forms of DND) is to heal, with some other things here and there so they arent relegated to the role of healbot hireling. Those few things can be very powerful when you focus on them and build for them, but it doesnt change the fact that they ARE intended as healers first.

Now as for BB vs. arcane damage AOES -- drop a BB, run away a bit, and drop another BB that doesnt touch the first one. Kite the mobs through them and watch them die horribly. If you are zerging through a dungeon, drop a series of BBs, and the mobs that are trying to catch you will die in your wake. It is HIGHLY effective, and since it is typeless damage, there are no immunities/resistances reducing the damage -- unlike firewall, icestorm, acid rain, etc.

Fighting a tough boss? DOT him up, drop BBs, and laugh maniacally as the boss kills himself trying to catch you. If the boss isnt mobile, DOT him up and start using your Superior Brilliance + light spells, or let the melees/arcanes/etc beat on him while you toss mass heals/cures and keep your DOTs stacked.

Sorry but divines are VERY powerful, both offense and defense. Anyone who thinks otherwise simply doesnt understand them well enough. They may have a limited spell selection, but that hasnt stopped them from being top tier classes.