Epic Destinies General Feedback

[BlackSteel]

You might benefit from moving some of those long duration, infrequently casted spells to hotbars you don't have keyed, to click on when you need them. It cuts down on buttons you have to bother with.

could also use Q,E,F,G,T, & V

all my setups simply use 1-5 and those keys, no alt or cntrl. all other abilities I simply click with the mouse

but then again I play an arti, I can use less keys

[Angelic-council]

Deleted.

[HatsuharuZ]

I feel that Magister, Shadowdancer and Fatesinger are a bit underpowered.

[Xiadais]

I feel that Magister, Shadowdancer and Fatesinger are a bit underpowered.

Magister has good twists. Other than that it's garbage.

Shadowdancer is nice for people with massive sneak damage, against things that have inherent sneak immunity (not 100% fortification, sneak immunity, there's a difference). In U23 that's probably going to be the only use for it, since everybody is going to be able to blitz at the same time.

Fatesinger is somewhat meh, but I can see it being useful for bards who... need... more... songs? Anyway, some of the proc damage is quite nice. 11.55 damage per hit average. Then from the core, +3 to damage, from an ability +3 to missile damage, +3 from inspire courage assuming the enhancers from the tree and not having it if you weren't in Fatesinger, 3.5 sneak damage if you take Shadowdancer as your echoes stance, and for the ~5-9% of the time that it's up, Turn the Tide for 40% physical damage [I interestingly didn't see anything about Turbine changing it to MP and RP, although they did change Zeal of the Righteous, the level 5 Divine Crusader core] and 205 proc damage vs. non-bosses.
Overall, its only proper use is for arcane pastlives on a shuriken thrower, otherwise its bonuses suck compared to your overall damage.


Yes, they are all underpowered. I doubt Turbine cares.

[Therigar]

Yes, they are all underpowered. I doubt Turbine cares.

I think it is a bit more complex and a bit sadder than that. I don't think Turbine actually understands its own game or what it is that player do with it.

Epic destinies are intended to correlate with specific character classes. But, with only a few exceptions, the optimal ED is almost always NOT the one associated with a character's base class.

Shadowdancer might be an exception in that it does work very well for rogues. But, it is also very situational in that it works best for a certain build type of rogue rather than all rogues in general.

All three of the arcane EDs are mostly valued for the points they provide towards unlocking twists of fate -- in general arcane casters will run in Shiradi rather than either Draconic or Magister and, at least for myself, I can see no reason to run my bards in Fatesinger except that it is a bridge destiny to another sphere.

These issues all arise from the same problem at Turbine -- players do not do what the developers think they do. Until the developers actually appear to think "how can I exploit this to do something entirely outside of what it was intended to do" then they won't ever manage to give enhancement trees, epic destinies, feats, gear, whatever that is actually of targeted usefulness to specific parts of the population and of no value to the remaining parts.

All efforts to balance the game will, as a result, continue to suffer because all that is really happening is that players are looking for yet another way to exploit a synergy that the developers either did not anticipate or that they undervalued.

IMO the easy solution is to link EDs so that most of the benefits only accrue if a character has the majority of their levels in the associated character class. Again, by way of example, Shadowdancer is associated with rogue, only characters with the majority of their levels in rogue would be able to access and benefit from the highest reaches of the ED.

[Xiadais]

I think it is a bit more complex and a bit sadder than that. I don't think Turbine actually understands its own game or what it is that player do with it.

Epic destinies are intended to correlate with specific character classes. But, with only a few exceptions, the optimal ED is almost always NOT the one associated with a character's base class.

Shadowdancer might be an exception in that it does work very well for rogues. But, it is also very situational in that it works best for a certain build type of rogue rather than all rogues in general.

All three of the arcane EDs are mostly valued for the points they provide towards unlocking twists of fate -- in general arcane casters will run in Shiradi rather than either Draconic or Magister and, at least for myself, I can see no reason to run my bards in Fatesinger except that it is a bridge destiny to another sphere.

These issues all arise from the same problem at Turbine -- players do not do what the developers think they do. Until the developers actually appear to think "how can I exploit this to do something entirely outside of what it was intended to do" then they won't ever manage to give enhancement trees, epic destinies, feats, gear, whatever that is actually of targeted usefulness to specific parts of the population and of no value to the remaining parts.

All efforts to balance the game will, as a result, continue to suffer because all that is really happening is that players are looking for yet another way to exploit a synergy that the developers either did not anticipate or that they undervalued.

IMO the easy solution is to link EDs so that most of the benefits only accrue if a character has the majority of their levels in the associated character class. Again, by way of example, Shadowdancer is associated with rogue, only characters with the majority of their levels in rogue would be able to access and benefit from the highest reaches of the ED.

I agree with your evaluation of why imbalance exists.

I disagree with your solution. It would be way too limiting as far as build diversity is concerned; it would be better if Turbine just gave strong incentives that meshed well with the class's core abilities. I'm not really sure what that means, though.
One slight example: The smite/turn synergy in some of the divine EDs. However, that isn't important enough to the divine characters to make it a strong incentive, or better than other options, in general.

[WARNING: I ACCIDENTALLY STARTED TYPING, AND NOW THERE'S A WALL OF TEXT HERE... It discusses individual destinies and spheres, possible ways to balance them, possible ways to make spheres be more welcoming, and ways to make destinies more class-specific.]

I can't think of any reasonable way to make EA more suited for FvS and Cleric. Some already run in it, some run in UyS because they want HP and SP, and Renewal to hjealbot, some use Shiradi or DI for DPS. Nothing belonging to FvS or Cleric classes particularly stands out as something only they do that could be improved.
UyS is the tank destiny. It could perhaps use more DPS so that it's not just an "I-have-the-threat-so-I'm-tanking-btw-I-have-HP-but-don't-contribute-damage". I don't know what else to say here, since both Paladins and Fighters are typical tanks, so it would be unfair to give massive advantages in the smite/turn department. Maybe amplifying defensive stances?
DC is a divine DPS thing, mostly only used for the crit threat range. Purification is garbage for Epic levels, although somewhat noticeable in long (boss) fights. It has some smite/turn junk, but it's garbage... I don't know what they could do to make it be valued over LD, because Blitz is Blitz and DPS is DPS no matter what kind of melee you are. Zeal of the Righteous, like Blitz, tries to directly increase DPS without regard to class abilities, but does a worse job of it, sooo yeah. I'm not sure what Turbine could do with it. All the current stuff should probably stay as-is, with some added divine-class-only advantages?
Overall, the divine EDs are good at very specific things. Basically anyone can comfortably do a divine past life.

GmoF is obviously for those with yellow bars. Basically the only reason to use it, though, is Everything is Nothing (and on this farm there was NOTHING, EiEiN.). Well, that and the no-fail reflex. I know monks who use it, but they're not concerned about DPS; if they were, they'd definitely Blitz. EiN is situationally useful, but it's definitely not worth it over most other available offensive options in EDs. The simplest thing I can think of to make GmoF more monk-friendly is by making it massively increase the damage of ki strikes, perhaps with the elemental-focused line on the center-left side. Ki strikes also work for centered Kenseis, though. That still wouldn't be bad, because it would be an alternative to LD (if its numbers are competitive). The destiny is still fairly useless for non-monks, though, although there's not much reason that it would have to be non-monk-friendly.
LD is OP. Now that Blitz doesn't require charging (read: annoyance), and doesn't require kills (group-friendly), there's not much of a reason for any melee (or non-Slayer Arrow ranged) to use something other than LD if they're concerned primarily about DPS. It also has nice support abilities such as the %DR boost, the stun break, and the Fort save boost. It's well-rounded overall, but that makes it much too desirable by basically anyone who isn't a tank or a caster. I don't know what to do with it. People don't like nerfs (waah my build is broken now and I don't play enough to TR--ironically, I'm in that boat), so probably keep it...?
Shadowdancer is useful for high attack-rate, mostly-sneak-damage people, and assassins. It has its niche role, but arguably does it worse than it should, because DPS roguely-people are probably usually better off Blitzing. If the sneakiness and assassination and shadow defenses were more powerful and functional, it would help a lot. Just to incentivize the rogue class specifically, maybe the cores could additionally add sneak dice based on how many you have from feats and enhancements.
Overall, the martial sphere is nice for martial classes, although I can't even imagine how much it would suck to do martial pastlives on a caster. There's no easy or good fix for that.

Magister sucks. Modern wizards use Magic Missiles and run in Shiradi, or very rarely use DC casting. When they do DC-cast, their DCs are usually good enough and they don't need magister, especially since most of the Magister DC stuff is twistable, EA has exclusive DCs, and DCs in general are good enough without extra boosts. Adding more DC would not be a fix to Magister, because it would be unnecessary. Maybe if it was like 6-10; then, it would be useful for newer players/characters, and useful for not having to fully spec for DC with gears and pastlives and such, and useful for getting the DCs for absurd stuff like fort save spells vs. EE stormhorns and reflex vs. EE shadar-kai. Another option could be to make CC and insta-kills cheaper and/or SLAs in T5, T6, or cores, which would make instakill/CC a more viable option due to SP limitations.
DI is nice for nuke-ly arcanes, divines, or any other nuke-ly caster. Unfortunately, all the good ability can be easily twisted, which results in people running in Shiradi with Energy Burst. For non-casters it basically only offers Dragonhide, Energy Sheath, and Draconic Perception. I'd say it could be made more sorc-friendly by having T5 and T6 abilities that make the destiny worth it over Shiradi. Adding more caster levels and maximum caster levels, and Spell Power, especially if it were somehow tied to Savants, would be nice. 30 Spellpower does something, but it's nothing compared to what things like Shiradi Magic Missiles and Blitz offer. Adding CL and max CL would inherently make it competitive with Shiradi, because then lower-level spells (aka cheap ones) would have increased power. 3 or 4 would not be good enough to make it actually do something competitive.
Fatesinger is the best option for non-casters in the arcane sphere. It has interesting song stuff, but it's nothing that a bard really wants, because singing songs is a once-and-done, and then they get to DPS/hjeal/CC/die-in-piles-to-hide-behind/whatever-it-is-that-bards-do. It would make little sense to modify the destiny to make song-singing a more continuous activity, because that would entirely change the way a build is played in the destiny. It probably just needs Turn the Tide to be slightly weaker, slightly more useful against bosses, and much more frequent. That still doesn't make any incentives specifically for bards, though. Maybe they could double (yes, double, or more) the song effects from the destiny for bards only (or however they'd have to do it due to multiclassing). Make the songs good enough that you almost certainly want a Fatesinger in your raid group. (Remember when Bards and Artificers were highly desired in a raid, due to their bonuses being a high enough portion of total group DPS that it was worth it?) I've never played a bard.
Overall, the arcane sphere sucks for non-arcanes, and is marginal for arcanes. Since every other sphere has something for most builds, it would make sense for Fatesinger to be in a similar position to DC and FotW/Shiradi as far as leveling in the sphere for pastlives is concerned. (They do know that acquiring pastlives is a significant portion of game play for many players, right?) Also, the arcane sphere should be something that arcanes want to use.

Shiradi is nice for shuriken-throwers and multihit-spell-casters. It's overall a good destiny; some people want it to be more universal/inclusive, but encompassing both archers and mages is already pretty darned broad in purpose. I think it's in a good place, other than being desired more than arcane destinies for arcanes.
Primal Avatar sucks. Does anyone use it? I know all kinds of fleshies use Cocoon, and supposedly some TWF'ers twist Balanced Attacks for CC, but other than that it's garbage. A DPS-oriented animal Druid wants to run in LD, because it's better DPS. A caster Druid simply does not benefit much from the destiny. I guess it's okay for hybrid druids, but I'm not sure how effective those are, and Sentinel or DC would probably be better for a mix of animal and spellcasting. The animal-specific benefits should be made huge specifically for animals. There should also be some large druid-magic incentive. I can't think of any specifics for that, though, but one lame idea is just adding Earthquake DCs. (But I've heard things about Earthquake already being easy to get a reliable DC with?)
Fury of the Wild is for people with Slayer Arrow, or for melees getting primal XP. It's pretty good, I guess. Sure, it's strange that it's more useful for rangers than for Barbarians, but barbarians really don't have much to do with primal things, just melee DPS. If everyone really wants class-specific EDs, though, it could possibly add things to Barbarian Rage, like limited spellcasting and clicky use while raged, and tons of DPS, STR, and CON stuff? I don't really see the point, though, because barbarians are comfortable running in LD and do kind of belong there. They're practically the same as a DPS fighter in their role, except with less CC, no lawfulness, and no spellcasting/hjealing of any sort.
Overall, the primal sphere has something for most people, except nuke-ly casters and druids. Not much wrong with it, although Primal Avatar is lame and the melee benefits aren't quite competitive with other spheres.

I typed too much. It would probably be beneficial if Turbine read it, though, although I know my ideas are far from perfect.

TL;DR: The arcane sphere sucks. Primal Avatar sucks. Primal and divine spheres are pretty good. LD is excellent at what it does and the martial sphere is not very welcoming to casters, moreso than other spheres are unwelcoming to melees.
Ways to balance stuff include flat-out making destinies better, and tying benefits directly to class-specific abilities.