New Divine Epic Destiny

[SirValentine]

would it be possible to change magistar innates and the ability score increases?
You will have to change the innates of Magistar and Draconic anyway, they are not like the rest.
Could we changed it to "You gain caster levels in whatever your icon class is for you character." and add
+1 cha or +1 int or +1 wis for the right side ability increase?

I made that exact suggestion that a year and a half on Lama during the MotU beta, and was flatly told by a dev that it would never happen.

They liked to claim EDs would be generic, but their implementation made (some of them) very, very class-specific.

I'd be happy if they changed their minds and did this now.

[Silverleafeon]

I you look very carefully at melee divine, ask them "Do you ever splash or do you play pure 20 cleric/favored soul.
Just ask them.


Then look at Epic Desties carefully.
What does a divine give up most when selecting an Epic Destiny that is not in the divine sphere?
{particularly with the implication Epic Destinies are going up to level 10.}

Say a cleric 17 / monk 3 in Fury of the Wild does not gain caster levels from Fury of the Wild.
Which means a casting cleric will have much more interest in a new divine epic destiny than a melee divine?

[Satyriasys]

-Piloto

Great to hear destinies have not been abandoned!

I will have to agree with others in that a DC tree is probably what is missing most for divines atm. Since this would be a Cleric tree I would focus on DCs, Healing and buffing some of their iconic spells. Maybe an improved version of Blade Barrier or Implosion. I think Blade Barrier should look more like the spinning blades in The Shroud. Maybe give them some summoned floating weapons that follow them around, I always thought that was missing in this game but present in other D&D games. Mass Resurrection maybe too?


- Still waiting for an Artificer destiny.

[luvirini]

Suggestion: While you are adding an spic destiny and we will be getting new fatepoints for ETR, please add a fourth twist as possibility to have more options in the use of the fatepoints. The cost would raise as the previous wist slots(that is first level would cost 4 points and so on).

[soloist12]

As much as I'd love to see a good ED for melee in this sphere since it would make my running up EPLs suck less . . . please for the love of all that is holy give the divines a DC-casting ED. It's whats needed in the game more.

Nothing stopping any melee-divine now from going into FoTW or LD.

This. Also, like in magister, some form of boosting max spell levels. Spells like blade barrier go from awesome in heroics to being laughed at in storm horns. We need a way to augment spells in our book that completely fall off the grid in the end game - divine's don't have that many to begin with (half are heals/buffs). Also, perhaps another offensive SLA or two. Perhaps some unique healing boosts in the tree as well.

Wouldn't mind an overpowered divine destiny, seeing as arcanes have shiradi, melee's have LD/Fury, and ranged have Fury.


While we're at it, any chance Arcane Augmentation can be altered to Spell Augmentation to assist divine classes?

[Sebastrd]

If you're looking to increase options for melee divines, focus on improving Unyielding Sentinel. I'd much rather see the next divine destiny focus on casting.

I think the phoenix is a perfect fit for a divine destiny that focuses on light and fire damage spells, resurrections, fire/light auras, and an improved leap of faith type ability somewhat like fly-by attack from Draconic Incarnation.

[SirValentine]

While we're at it, any chance Arcane Augmentation can be altered to Spell Augmentation to assist divine classes?

Not to mention the other two arcane classes it doesn't currently help.

[Lauf]

The sphere (or more precisely - EA) could do with a bit of work to get the new ED right.

add DCs to the EA and remove judgment (which really isn't a caster's main-stay) and you've now made EA the caster destiny in the sphere.
maybe even throw an SLA in there for good measure.

make a new offensive melee ED, put judgment in it, add some aura debuffs, move the heal amp from EA into it as well, put the full BaB and whatever other DPS goodies you come up with there also (can one suggest a top tier +1[W] aura? would be in line with existing LD bonuses for melees who prefer this ED, and would also be in line with the warpriest / pally effects of aiding close allies) and there you go, you have yourself a new tree for the melee divines

[Mellkor]

I would like to see the 3 destinies in the divine sphere shape up like this:

New one: All out offensive and aoe enemy debuff focused. (Celestial Champion plus some other offense buffs/enemy debuffs would make melee FvS playable again post level 20, IMO. CHA and WIS to hit and damage would also be really nice. Must also include a bonus to crit multiplyer as well.)

Exalted Angel: Healing and offensive casting DC focused. (this one needs some love to achieve this, particularly, dramatically boost divine spell DC's and introduce healing aura specific boosts)

Unyielding Sentinel: Defense and survivability focused (pretty much good as is, IMO.)


Alternatively, add celestial champion and a few other passive offensive boosts to Unyielding Sentinel, make Exalted Angel a more pure healbot focused sphere, and make the new one an all out offensive casting focused sphere.


As an FYI: I have retired all my melee divines for a while now because they simply do not play well past level 20 as melee divines since post level 20 game-play came out. I think the melee aspect of divine fighters is what needs the biggest boost right now. Playing my melee WF FvS used to be my favorite character, I hope it can be again with these changes. I would guess this would be good for Pally's also if done right.

[Seikojin]

Hi. Today I wanted to give you all an early glimpse into some of our plans on the character advancement front and see what you thought. We are thinking of implementing a new Epic Destiny in the Divine Sphere for possible release in our next update. The main goals that we’ve come up with so far are:

1. Provide an interesting new Epic Destiny option in the Divine Sphere.
2. Complete the Divine Sphere’s array of Epic Destinies, bringing it up to three, like the other spheres.
3. Introduce a potent melee damage dealing Epic Destiny option in the Divine Sphere, giving melee-centric characters another interesting secondary destiny to play outside of their favorites.
4. Provide several non-melee-centric abilities that pair nicely with other character classes who wish to further their progress in the Divine Sphere. These would be targeted at, for example, casting-heavy clerics and favored souls, but would be an interesting alternative to other casters as well.

Now I have Mr Roboto stuck in my head. LOL

Thanks for opening up this discussion with the community this early. I think this will go far in prototyping and deploying new content like this for the game.

1. Yes please!
2. Makes common sense.
3. Again, makes good, common sense.
4. Can understand as well since other ED try to cover a range of play styles per destiny.

Here are some of the ability ideas that we are kicking around:
1. Aura of Purity (This would be Passive or a timed Toggle.)
- You would emit a purifying aura that debuffs enemies with small stacking debuffs to their attack and damage.
- If passive, smaller debuffs over longer times.
- If toggle, larger debuffs, shorter duration.
- This aura could also cast Lesser/Medium/Greater Restoration on allies over time.
2. Extraordinary Virtue (would be passive)
- You would gain great resistance to evil curse effects and possibly negative energy and evil debuffs such as the sicken effect from Unholy Blight.
3. Consecration (would be an active, spell-like ability)
- Bind an enemy so that it can do no harm for a lengthy duration. The enemy could continue to perform melee attacks for negligible or zero damage and would be unable to cast spells. Bosses would be immune.
4. Overwhelming Smite (active)
- Upgraded melee Smite ability: As you smite a target enemy, there would be a chance of causing an AOE blast that deals massive divine damage to all nearby enemies as well as extra damage and knockdown to your primary target.
5. Celestial Champion (always on passive)
- You would become a holy melee warrior, with full BAB (if you don’t have it already), +X sacred bonus to damage on all melee and ranged attacks, a sacred bonus to critical threat range, possibly add some wisdom or charisma mod to attack bonus and damage.

1. I think Passive is good here, does 1 stack every X seconds while in range; maximum stacks based on purchased cap (5,10,15)
2. I don't see this being too useful since people pretty much run with immunity or solutions on hand. Maybe a passive buff to existing abilities that do these effects, like remove curse (becoming a mass version), etc.
3. I think an ability that prevents AOE for casting would be better. Or wards an area; however enemy ai would move out to recast. Also a debuff to melee would be nice, however, I think the spell casting/ability using would be better.
4. Sounds good. Would be nice if it was a passive with a low proc like lit2.
5. This sounds good, and you can make the stat check be cha/wis; whichever is higher.

Keep in mind that all of these will most likely change. We just wanted to get some early development ideas in front of you to get your impressions on them. These exact abilities are not necessarily likely but are just a sample of our thinking.

Some questions:
What do you think might make an interesting ability to have in this tree?
Between melee offense, melee defense, spell offense, and healing, which direction would you like to see the tree lean towards? (Leaning toward more than one of these is possible, but there are only so many abilities which can fit in one tree. “Leaning” also implies that when you lean toward something, you are leaning away from something else, i.e. you can’t lean toward all four things at the same time and be a one man army. )

I think a melee healer would be a lot similar to a spellsword, but have abilities that healed and buffed while in combat.
Core abilities give SP and caster levels, a level 5 giving mass heal. The different trees could give passive and active ac, prr, and dodge buffing. Attacks that cast aoe heals and restores, divine abilities to smite and damage enemies, with tier 6's that offer powerful caps to those lesser abilities. Things that are boss useful, so nothing that bypasses their immunities, but does massive damage and heals the party. Like healing curse like the monks, but stronger (since it is an ED).

[redspecter23]

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but a divine melee destiny has to be at least somewhat competitive with Dreadnaught or Fury. If not it has to bring something unique and powerful of it's own to the table or it's basically just a destiny melee run in to get divine karma. That's not actually the worst thing in the world, but I'm guessing that's not what the goal for this is.

Both Dreadnaught and Fury pump out dps and both do so in different ways. While this new destiny doesn't have to necessarily have bigger numbers all the time, adding some ability or set of abilities that allows it to pump out big comparable numbers in other ways would be where I would start. From there, fill in the blanks to add flavor.

This may not be the most popular suggestion, but I liked some elements of the "mark" system from dnd 4th edition and it could get some use here. Allow this destiny to "mark" a single mob at a time and while that mob is marked, you gain severe offensive benefits against that mob in addition to massive hate bonuses. Balance the ability with cooldown and duration but I'd suggest it be a no DC ability to do it. As a starting point

bosses can be marked
low tier bonuses can include mob slowdown and hate generation so it could be twisted if tanking is viable at some point
higher tier bonuses include debuffs for the mob and crit range and multiplier bonuses for the player against the mark which synergize well with smites in general
if you had for example a 30 second duration with 1 minute cooldown you could be "on" 50% of the time. Exact numbers could change 15/30 or 10/20 would be better, but add more power.

In this way, you add very high situational dps that can rival fury and dreadnaught if implemented correctly rather than have a very flavorful, but quite underpowered destiny that only people looking for karma would care about.

[Teh_Ghoul]

For the love of god make a dc caster divine sphere rather than melee dps. Right now divines have tank and healbot. Divine dps can do fine in fotw or ld but casters need something better.

In fact since you're probably not going to make the new ed as strong as blitzing or furyshot, that means you're putting all your work into a fate part farm only, if you make it for melee.

[sirgog]

Buffs contingent on a paladin getting a kill? That's a joke right?

The paladin class has issues atm, those are not really the point of this thread.

If the buffs were significant enough, however, groups could make them happen now, just as decent groups will help someone build up their early Master's Blitz stacks. (Bad players will ninja the kill instead and go 'OMG LOOK AT MY KILLS!!!!!' but you don't balance around what clueless players do).



Edit: I also think Exalted Angel needs more DC casting options in it. The DPS casting options have not stood the test of time since MOTU came out - Divine Punishment was awesome at the 20 cap, OK early in the 25 cap and is rarely used at the 28 cap. I don't think this needs to be a different destiny.

[Mellkor]

3. Introduce a potent melee damage dealing Epic Destiny option in the Divine Sphere, giving melee-centric characters another interesting secondary destiny to play outside of their favorites.

I just wanted to comment on this: This should not read "....interesting secondary destiny...."

It should read:

3. Introduce a potent melee damage dealing Epic Destiny option in the Divine Sphere, giving DIVINE based melee-centric characters an interesting PRIMARY destiny to play.

[hit_fido]

What do you think might make an interesting ability to have in this tree?

Something like:

Core ability, level 1; Heralding Blows: Your presence and success on the battlefield foretells the triumph of your cause to the dismay of thine enemy - every time you damage a foe with melee, ranged, or spells, up to once every three seconds gain one stack of Heraldry, up to a maximum of the greater of your wisdom or charisma modifier. Each stack expires after ten seconds.

Tier 2 ability; Scourging Blows: Up to once every 9 seconds, an enemy you deal damage to will feel the wrath of your cause; if you are good aligned, add the count of your Heraldry stack as additional Holy damage; if you are neutral (including True Neutral) aligned, add the count of your Heraldry stack as additional Light damage; if you are lawful aligned, add the count of your Heraldry stack as additional Lawful damage; if you are chaotically aligned, add the count of your Heraldry stack as additional Chaotic damage. Rank 2 decreases period to 6 seconds and doubles damage; rank 3 decreases period to 3 seconds and triples damage. Melee, ranged, and offensive spells can trigger this effect.

Tier 4 ability; Repenting Blows: Up to once every 15 seconds, an enemy you deal damage to must make a will save (DC 20 + 1/2 character level + WIS/CHA modifier) or be stricken with great remorse for their defiance of your cause, falling to their knees as if under the effects of Greater Command. Rank 2 decreases period to 15 seconds and inflicts Shaken after the repentance fades; rank 3 to 8 seconds and inflicts Fear after the repentance fades. Melee, ranged, and offensive spells can trigger this effect. Requires ranks in Scourging Blows.

Tier 4 ability; Glad Tidings: Every time an enemy repents from the effects of your Repenting Blows, all nearby party members receive the count of your Heraldry stack as positive energy healing and are affected by Lesser Restoration. Requires at least one rank in Repenting Blows.

Tier 5 ability; Converting Blows: Up to once every 60 seconds, an enemy you deal damage to must make a will save (DC 20 + 1/2 character level + WIS/CHA modifier) or be persuaded by the inevitability of your triumph to join your cause, turning against your enemies as if under the effects of Domination. Only one foe can be converted at any given time. Rank 2 decreases period to 45 seconds and the converted foe is raged for the duration of the conversion and then fatigued afterwards; rank 3 to 30 seconds and the converted foe is raged and hasted for the duration of the conversion and then exhausted afterwards. Melee, ranged, and offensive spells can trigger this effect. Requires ranks in Repentant Blows.

Tier 5 ability; Witness the Power: Every time an enemy converts from the effects of your Converting Blows, all nearby party members receive the count of your Heraldry stack as a Sacred bonus to melee double strike and ranged double shot for 3 seconds and are affected by Restoration. Requires at least one rank in Converting Blows.

Tier 6 ability; Triumphant Blows: Activate to add the count of your Heraldry stack to universal spell power (Sacred bonus) and to melee/ranged damage modifier (Sacred bonus) for you and nearby party members for the next 30 seconds. While under the effects of Triumphant Blows, your fervor manifests itself as an aura of Force damage dealing your WIS/CHA modifier once per second to any enemies standing in your vicinity. Also while under the effects of Triumphant Blows, any foe you personally slay will rise again in incorporeal spirit form, bound even in its afterlife to fight for your cause for the next 60 seconds until passing into oblivion. Removes all stacks of Heraldry after Triumphant Blows ends. Cooldown: five minutes. Requires at least one rank in Converting Blows.

[oradafu]

I'm still reading through the comments, but I thought I'd give my first gut reaction to a new Epic Destiny.

First, it's great to see that Epic Destinies haven't become (yet) a dead system. Hopefully, we'll continue to get more EDs, since we're still missing the Artificer ED. Also, if this is the melee-centric ED in the Divine Sphere, we're still missing the Divine DC casting ED. So there needs to be at least two more EDs released after this new one.

Second, I think the Devs are doing things backwards, again. My original complaint about releasing EDs before the new Enhancements was that the Devs were building the system backwards. The new enhancement system should have came first then the EDs added after to "enhance" the new Enhancements.

This is a redux of that. The Paladin trees need a major reworking. Players that play paladins (especially pure paladins) have been saying that since the new enhancement trees were first unveiled. The Devs ignored almost all the negative comments about the Paladin trees then and they haven't done anything to fix those trees since. Now they are adding a new ED and it appears they are "fixing" paladins this way. They need to fix the actual enhancement trees instead of heaping an additional layer onto Paladins. Ugh! (The same seems to be true with DC divines also.)

===

I like the idea of Overwhelming Smite, except it has a major problem of relying on Smites. Even with Endless Smites, Smites can only be used occasionally since they don't build back up quickly. Since the recharging of Smites is so slow, it's reserved usually for boss and the occasional mini-boss fights. Instant kills and CC don't work on bosses. So the Devs are taking the main DPS arsenal (against bosses) so paladins can attack Trash better.

See this is the problem right there. Paladins don't have anything in their enhancement trees that boosts DPS in the tree for regular trash anymore. Paladins had it previously when Divine Might was just add up to +8 damage constantly. But even if Divine Might were to return to its original form, all increases to damage rely on specific types of mobs and/or uses SP or charges. Paladins don't have a generic DPS boost that's just on a cooldown timer: no Smite Foe, no Eldritch Strike, no Called Shot, no Bleed them Out, no Assassin's Trick, no Assassinate, no Sly Flourish, no Quick Strike, no Sweeping Strike, no Staff Lunge, no Frozen Fury, no Ear Smash, no Hate, no Slaughter, etc. Paladins need at least one ability like these in their trees. And once that ability gets placed in the trees, then the Devs can add Trash CC stuff to it in the EDs.

One thing I'd like to see in this ED missing in the other Divine EDs, but found in the two other caster spheres is a summon. I think maybe an elder Archon summon, although I'd prefer an elder Ghaele Cleric that could spam an occasional Mass Heal. Maybe the Devs could come up with a something brand new to summon (but not is its going to delay the release of Gnomes).

Well, that's my intial gut reaction to this news.

[Silverleafeon]

History repeats itself from the days of the protection domain becoming divine disciple, this time in the epic destinies?

Thank you for seeking input early and often, happy holidays.

[HatsuharuZ]

Some questions:
What do you think might make an interesting ability to have in this tree?

Aura of Glory. It's a paladin spell that gives a +4 morale bonus to Charisma to all allies in range.

Between melee offense, melee defense, spell offense, and healing, which direction would you like to see the tree lean towards? (Leaning toward more than one of these is possible, but there are only so many abilities which can fit in one tree. “Leaning” also implies that when you lean toward something, you are leaning away from something else, i.e. you can’t lean toward all four things at the same time and be a one man army. )

Melee offense and healing. A low-tier DC-increasing ability that divines could easily twist would be swell.

[Razahe]

3. Introduce a potent melee damage dealing Epic Destiny option in the Divine Sphere, giving melee-centric characters another interesting secondary destiny to play outside of their favorites.

I just wanted to comment on this: This should not read "....interesting secondary destiny...."

It should read:

3. Introduce a potent melee damage dealing Epic Destiny option in the Divine Sphere, giving DIVINE based melee-centric characters an interesting PRIMARY destiny to play.

Pretty much this.
"Another" destiny that doesnt shine at at least 1 special thing but only does a little bit of everything is not really needed. I appreciate the attempt to add something to the divine tree, but if you do all that work for a new destiny, make it something that is wanted and really endgame useful. I don't expect this to be done, but a more complete revamp of the divine sphere would help to establish a proper new destiny here.


For me the divine sphere is has several problems:

UD:
Definately tankstyle, though, no real tank-content available. Or in other words, no tanks needed. The DPS here is just meh compared to LD or Fury.

EA:
Interesting Destiny, but not comparable to what arcanes get from "their" destinies + arcanes have 2.5 destinies to chose from (Magister isnt that good, twisting the DC works most of the time so it counts only .5 )
Exalted has just too many mixed in things that are unnecessary but no real focus:
- only 1 decent damage ability on tier 5 damage, but with ugly targeting mechanism and super slow cast animation. (You have to target something, but the spell is cast at the position of the mob at cast time, so if the mob is moving, you might miss it, still if the mob dies before your spell is done, the whole spell is canceled, on cooldown and no area heals, pretty ugly.) Compare this to draconig burst and you see that it is heavily lacking.
- No DC boosts, this happens basically by twisting magister or Draconic or both, and most of the time your DC still sucks compared to not-further-mentioned meleee instant kill abilities. DC problem exists for any caster type though
- Heals: 1 "regeneration" like singletarget and a hard to use tier 5 heal (see targeting problems above) is not really what i would consider a healing destiny. Real healers (i know, hardly needed anymore) dont get too much out of this ED

For me, at least EA was a bit fun to play, but not really competitive to most other stuff, UD was so insanely boring and useless too me i didnt bother doing more than cap it and get my fate points out of it.


Suggestions:
Valid for all: Dont limit the enemies you can use this ED against, at least i dont like switching my ED every quest because the mobs change.

UD: Make this a melee-divine based ED, use stuff like smites, add light dmg to attacks (let it scale with spellpower?), self-heal/buffs

EA: The whole idea about radiating light leads me to the fact that this should be the offensive caster divine sphere, heavy light AOE damage, DCs, debuffs

NEW: Well, whats left, healer type. But not the one that stands in the last line, and all he has to do is clicking massheal as soon as it is off cooldown. Make it a healer that keeps others save, perhaps this is a better place to put your "tank" ideas. Massive heals, possibilites to absorb massive damage, grab aggro, let the real dps toons do their work. Create this ED in a way so a tank based melee can use it to tank bosses and stay alive on its own, but still being able to keep the aggro, or use this ED on a healer type, with the ability to keep up an entire even scattered (like Truthful one at start) party without permanent messages of target blocked, targed invalid and target out of range. Name it "Fortress of Rejuvenation" and call it a day :P

Summary: See start, dont create "another destiny", create THE destiny, everything less is a waste of development time

[Systern]

1. I agree with the very common sentiment in this thread that from a game balance perspective, Divine DC casting is a more pressing void to fill than a Divine Destiny to farm EPLs in. I have multiple friends that felt forced to TR their FvSs because it lacks anything like Divine Disciple and their characters just no longer worked after U19. I know so many Divine Palemaster and Evoker types that just stopped functioning because of the enhancement pass.

2. The Destiny map needs a slight rethink in it's layout. The Prime elemental map that Shroud is based off (mapped on the inside of a sphere) is better for a game system than the flat map that's currently in place. The current layout is very Bostonian thinking at the moment! (Boston is The Hub of the Civilized Universe; Martial Sphere is the Hub of the DDO universe.) The Primal sphere should be rotated counter-clockwise, Draconic and Magister should swap locations, and new connecting bridges created. Players will want to fill out the map for fate points anyway, how they traverse the map can be much less painful. I'd actually connect Fury to Legendary, Shiradi to Draconic, Primal Avatar to The New One, and Magister to Angel.

3. If the desires of the player base is too much work in the allotted time (Buff Sentinel's damage options and make the New destiny DC based), then I'd hope that when you say "melee damage" you mean "mundane damage" (melee/ranged) and my Arti will find something enticing in the destiny. Cuz at the moment, Angel and Sentinel gut nuttin fo ma Arti to have fun doing to make pursuing a divine EPL feasible.

4. Hey, since this is a wishlist and we have all the time in the world.... Fatesinger's Epic moment isn't all that Epic. "Here's a bunch of damage that doesn't work when you want damage the most!" What would be more Bardly and more Epic than..... MASS DOMINATE! It'd be Epic to have the "Pied Piker of Xen'drik" marching the whole dungeon to kick some red named butt.