Epic destinies and healing

[Ancient]

A post in the Wizard The end of DC-casting? got me thinking about healing (specifically raid/EE healing) and epic destinies. I haven't seen anywhere near the amount of discussion on epic destiny healing abilities. Specifically, what abilities are strong enough to shape builds for high end healing and if those abilities open the door for non-traditional builds being capable of filling the primary healer roles in high end content. As part of this discussion, I would love to hear feedback from people regarding their experience using these abilities.

The Options
Exalted Angel

• Renewal (Tier 3): Active Ability: (Cooldown 3 seconds, 5sp) Heals 1d2 HP per [4/3/2] character levels every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. If target is below 50% health, grants celestial shield, which absorbs [30/40/50] damage. Renewal can only target yourself if Exalted Angel is your primary destiny.
• Divine Wrath (Tier 6): Active Ability: (Cooldown 3 seconds, 30sp) Only usable when Endless Ardor stack is 10. Call down divine wrath on foes, dealing 2d6 light damage per character level, will save for half (DC 10 + character level + half charisma or wisdom mod). Allies caught within blast are healed for 1d6 HP per character level. Resets Endless Ardor.

Unyielding Sentinel

• Healing hands (Tier 3): Passive Bonus: You gain the Lay on Hands feat. You gain +25 positive spellpower.
• Endless lay on hands (Tier 3): Passive Bonus: +1 lay on hands use per rest. Lay on hands regenerate one use every 3 minutes and regenerate [0/10/20] faster.
• Light the dark (Tier 4): Active Ability: (Cooldown 7 seconds) Expand 1 lay on hands heals 150HP to allies around you and deals that much damage to nearby undead enemies.

Primal Avatar

• Rejuvenation Cocoon (Tier 1): Active (12 SP activation) (12 sec cooldown) (Empower Heal, Quicken, Enlarge) (SR: no) Protect target ally with a shield of [90/120/150] temporary HP for 9 seconds. Heals 5d6 HP every 2 seconds while the shield persists[/b]

Shiradi Champion

• Healing Spring (Tier 1): Active Ability: (Cooldown 30 seconds) Nearby allies heal 1d100 positive energy every [60/40/20] seconds for five minutes. Usable once per day.
• Illusion of Well Being (Tier 1): Passive Bonus: Healing spring additionally grants [10/15/20] temporary HP when it heals you for at least one HP. 1 extra use of healing spring per day.
• Fey Spring (Tier 2): Passive Bonus: Healing spring additionally grants DR [2/4/6]/ Cold iron and stacking [2/4/6] spellpower to nearby allies. 1 extra use of healing spring per day.

[Ancient]

I'll post my thoughts/analysis as a follow up post to keep my opinion separate from the facts.

My Opinion/Experience
Exalted Angel

• Renewal is a game changer for single target healing. When I first started using renewal for main tank healing, I had a few times where the main tank had to request that I throw a heal scroll for the stat damage. At tier 3, this has twist potential.
• Divine wrath makes easy raids a lot more fun for healers. It feels like you are nuking, it does an impressive amount of area healing. The casting requirements seem like the would be difficult for any non-fivs class (shoulder cannon), and there are raids where even a fvs shouldn't have the archon out. In addition, when I think of going into a really tough situation as a primary healer... most of the time my first thought is about how unyielding sentinel would help with some aspect of survival (anti-knockdown, hp, etc).

Unyielding Sentinal

• Light the dark - I want to like this ability since unyielding is such a great primary for tough raids, but it just seems far too limited use for anything other than a panic button. Panic buttons may be nice to have, but it is even better to not need the panic button.

Primal Avatar

• Rejuvenation Cocoon - I just recently started using this ability in solo play and I really like it. By itself, it wouldn't be a good main tank healing ability because the healing stops when the temporary hitpoints are removed. I do however think it looks great for patch healing, or as the self-healing option when paired with a renewal twist.

Shiradi Champion

• Healing Spring - A level 1 twist that provides 1d100 area effect healing every 20 seconds for for 5 minutes. I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how limiting the range is or if the limited number of uses cause problems. One interesting point is that there might be DPS arcanes who have this anyways and could put it down even if the primary healer doesn't. I'm curious to hear feedback on this ability. It seems like d100 would be very random in if you get a huge heal or not enough to be meaningful, but on resource intensive raids it seems like any persistent healing might be helpful.

Having used renewal a lot for high end healing, I know that I can heal quite a bit just using heal scrolls and renewal. It seems like adding a few more abilities might open the doors for bards/arti's to have more healing power than what clerics/fvs had prior to epic destinies. I'm also curious to hear any feedback if anyone has tried this out.

[cru121]

I have personally tried these:

Light the dark - Had it on my cleric. Heals for a lot (overhealing much), but limited uses and a bit too slow for the oh **** moments. It would be better if one could quicken it. Burst or quickened mass cure more useful. Not impressed.

Rejuvenation Cocoon - In easier content, allows my newbie ranger to play easily without a healer. In harder content, allows my ranger to survive until healer comes to save my sorry butt. Solid.

Healing Spring - It helps, allowed my ranger to solo easy content. Rejuv cocoon works better for me though. In groups, it's moderately useful. Weaker as a twist, OK when in Shiradi (with those temp HP and possibly DR).

[jbleargh]

Not sure if it is possible to be a main healer based only in Epic Destinies. IMHO, may help in easier content, but in non-raid/epic elite content anyone able to use heal scrolls can do the job.

Lots of things that are awesome in a divine are too weak for people without a blue bar, life of magic, maximise/empower/empower healing, devotion items, etc

I've been trying to make my barb a little bit more self-sufficient. The best combination till now is fast healing (enough for low damage) and Light the dark (fills my red bar, 3 charges and regenerates every 3 minutes).

[Vellrad]

I can comment as a bard/fighter who wanted good self heals:

Healing spring is good when in group, because it helps healers to save some mana. Due to its long duration, I can swap to 120 positive spell power club and drink +25 ardor potion, maximizing amount of healing I can do. 1/shrine is disadvantage, but if you can twist illusion of well beign, 10 minutes of spring is usually enough to get to the next shrine.

Rejuvenation cocoon is awesome. It restores lots of HP when used out of combat, and when used in combat, it gives 150HP bubble. When temprorary HP expires, healing stops, but, after all, its 150 damage avoided, which is very handy. The only drawback, when compared to spring is, you must have devotion on body slot, which is quite hard to find (especially if you want big value of devotion and/or don't want to resign from DPS gear).

I never used reneval, because it can't be twisted for self heals.

I also never bothered with lay on hands, because they're based on paladin level.

[SirValentine]

Shiradi Champion

• Healing Spring - A level 1 twist that provides 1d100 area effect healing every 20 seconds for for 5 minutes.

Healing Spring is great as long as you take it for what it is. It is NOT in-combat healing. It's a 5-minute party buff (like an extended Haste) that's awesome for topping people off as they run from one encounter to the next. It's utility during a long raid boss fight or such is minimal. 20 seconds is a long time, so it's not going to be able to save people from death. But, yes, it is useful, and will help augment other healing.