Divine Sphere Epic Destiny Changes

[Vargouille]

We’ve taken a great deal of feedback related to Divine Crusader, Unyielding Sentinel, and Exalted Angel into consideration, and put together some changes that we hope give more focus to these destinies, as well as improving the Divine Sphere play experience and build options. These changes are planned to go live with a patch after Update 21. This is in addition to some previously previewed changes that are going live with Update 21 in Unyielding Sentinel.

Please let us know what you think about any or all of these changes!

Divine Sphere Changes: Goals

These are the broader goals we've been aiming at.

• Unyielding Sentinel: Tanking, Support, and Healing.
• Exalted Angel: Offensive Casting (primarily light damage & DC casting)
• Divine Crusader: Offensive Melee, some Fire damage

Summaries of changes for each Epic Destiny

Exalted Angel
Add some abilities to aid DC casting, as well as another light damage spell. Melee abilities have moved out along with Renewal.



New:

• Command SLA
• Sun Bolt SLA
• Mass Cure Light Wounds SLA
• Transcendent Magic (Spell DC bonuses)
• Piercing Spellcraft (Spell Penetration Bonus, doesn't stack with Piercing Spellcraft from Magister)
• Shadows Upon You: Target foe becomes cursed with Shadows Upon You, reducing all saving throws by -2/-4/-6. Whenever this foe is damaged by spells or attacks, saving throws are reduced by an additional -1. Stacks up to 10 times.

Changed:

• Divine Wrath no longer requires Ardor to cast. Cooldown and SP cost have been increased.
• Reborn in Light cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 10 minutes. Counter requirements reduced to 25.

Moved:

• Renewal has been moved from Exalted Angel to Unyielding Sentinel. Requires being in Unyielding Sentinel to self-target.

Unyielding Sentinel
Renewal moves into Unyielding Sentinel, along with new increased threat generation, hit points, spell points, a raise dead option, and mass energy resistance spell.




New:

• Unyielding Sentinel now grants 40 spell points per Destiny level.
• Divine Energy Resistance: "You and nearby allies gain +35 Enhancement bonus to resist Energy for 1 minute per character level. (Includes Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, and Sonic.)" (Same bonus type as Resist Energy spells.)
• Commanding Presence: +50/100/150% Threat Generation (melee, ranged, magic)
• Strength of Vitality: +10/15/20% Insightful bonus to maximum hit points.
• Resurrection SLA

Moved:

• Bane of Undeath, Confront Any Foe, Endless Turning have been moved from Unyielding Sentinel to Divine Crusader.
• Renewal has been moved from Exalted Angel to Unyielding Sentinel. Requires being in Unyielding Sentinel to self-target.
• Block Energy is now lowered to Tier 2.

Changed:

• Light the Dark:
  
  • Now accepts metamagics: Quicken, Empower Healing
  • Benefits 50% more from spellpower.
  • Cooldown increased to 12 seconds.
• Hardened: Upgraded to add +5/10/15 AC.

Divine Crusader
Since it's time on Lamannia, Divine Crusader has taken some abilities from Unyielding Sentinel and Exalted Angel. Many proposed abilities have been moved around, altered, or cut.



Moved:

• Bane of Undeath, Confront Any Foe, Endless Turning: Moved from Unyielding Sentinel to Divine Crusader.
• Blessed blades, Smite the Wicked, Strike down: Moved from Exalted Angel to Divine Crusader.
• Strike down: Strike Down now cleaves multiple opponents. It retains the +3[w] bonus damage, and the vorpal effect on undead and evil outsiders, and now deals 500 fire damage on hit. The cooldown has been increased and the spell point cost lowered. (No longer requires counters it previously used in Exalted Angel.)

Some notable changes since last Lamannia:

• Stand and Be Judged: Now lasts 30 seconds. Increased cost and cooldown.
• Wrath of the Righteous: Activate: Gain 100 stacks of Wrath. Wrath: +1 Spell Power, +1% Damage with all attacks. Wrath decays by 1 stack every 3 seconds. Long cooldown.

unyieldingsentinel

[Krelar]

Unyielding Sentinel
Renewal moves into Unyielding Sentinel, along with new increased threat generation, hit points, spell points, a raise dead option, and mass energy resistance spell.

New:

• Unyielding Sentinel now grants 40 spell points per Destiny level.
• Divine Energy Resistance: "You and nearby allies gain +35 Enhancement bonus to resist Energy for 1 minute per character level. (Includes Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, and Sonic.)" (Same bonus type as Resist Energy spells.)
• Commanding Presence: +50/100/150% Threat Generation (melee, ranged, magic)
• Strength of Vitality: +10/15/20% Insightful bonus to maximum hit points.
• Resurrection SLA

Moved:

• Bane of Undeath, Confront Any Foe, Endless Turning have been moved from Unyielding Sentinel to Divine Crusader.
• Renewal has been moved from Exalted Angel to Unyielding Sentinel. Requires being in Unyielding Sentinel to self-target.
• Block Energy is now lowered to Tier 2.

Changed:

• Light the Dark:
  
  • Now accepts metamagics: Quicken, Empower Healing
  • Benefits 50% more from spellpower.
  • Cooldown increased to 12 seconds.
• Hardened: Upgraded to add +5/10/15 AC.

Is it intentional that endless smiting and endless lay on hands now require the enhancements that grant those feat? On live they do not so a Paladin who already has access to the base abilities can spend AP elsewhere. Now we will have to use at least 2 additional AP to regain access to those abilities.

Hardened still won't matter until you do something to fix AC's usefulness in EE.

[Vargouille]

Is it intentional that endless smiting and endless lay on hands now require the enhancements that grant those feat? On live they do not so a Paladin who already has access to the base abilities can spend AP elsewhere. Now we will have to use at least 2 additional AP to regain access to those abilities.

Sorry, there's a misunderstanding since I didn't explain the special symbols used on these diagrams.

You'll note that the requirement arrows coming from Bane of Undeath (for instance) are different from the other arrows (they have a strange color/texture). This is because you either need that enhancement OR you need the feats. This special requirement is unchanged.

[Krelar]

Sorry, there's a misunderstanding since I didn't explain the special symbols used on these diagrams.

You'll note that the requirement arrows coming from Bane of Undeath (for instance) are different from the other arrows (they have a strange color/texture). This is because you either need that enhancement OR you need the feats. This special requirement is unchanged.

Fair enough.

Oh and is the threat generation going to stack with what Sacred Defenders already get or are you giving Paladin's another unstacking bonus?

[mikarddo]

Exalted Angel
Add some abilities to aid DC casting, as well as another light damage spell. Melee abilities have moved out along with Renewal.

New:

• Command SLA
• Sun Bolt SLA
• Mass Cure Light Wounds SLA
• Transcendent Magic (Spell DC bonuses)
• Piercing Spellcraft (Spell Penetration Bonus, doesn't stack with Piercing Spellcraft from Magister)
• Shadows Upon You: Target foe becomes cursed with Shadows Upon You, reducing all saving throws by -2/-4/-6. Whenever this foe is damaged by spells or attacks, saving throws are reduced by an additional -1. Stacks up to 10 times.

Changed:

• Divine Wrath no longer requires Ardor to cast. Cooldown and SP cost have been increased.
• Reborn in Light cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 10 minutes. Counter requirements reduced to 25.

Moved:

• Renewal has been moved from Exalted Angel to Unyielding Sentinel. Requires being in Unyielding Sentinel to self-target.

Thats some interesting changes. Its hard to really go into a deep analysis without the details on the various SLA (cooldown, spell cost, available metas) but I will try even so. Please provide the full run down on every SLA in order to get proper feedback.
- Divine Wrath wasnt really limited by ardor so removing that restiction but upping the cooldown AND spell cost is a clear and possibly huge nerf. I consider that a very bad idea. Please reconsider in particular the spell cost.
- Divine Wrath really needs to allow Quicken atleast or have its animation time lowered significantly.
- Removing Renewal is a huge setback. More people like to run DC divines than low dps tank Divines and removing that option as a cheap and viable healer is a very bad idea. Sure, someone in EA can twist Renewal but to be competive for DC you need those twists for offensive things. I have yet to see a viable argument why Renewal cannot be in both EA and US.
- Reborn in Light should add all its benefits when used while alive, the restiction where the best stuff is only given when dead makes it lackluster compared to some of the other epic moments.
- Unless Command is on a really low cooldown thats too weak. Unless its practically no cooldown it should be Greater Command (obviously with a longer cooldown). Please reconsider and add GC instead.
Apart from these 5 things I really like what you are doing with EA. I cannot comment on the other two destinies as I have no experience with those.


Keep up the superb communications

[Bladedge]

Command SLA for Exalted Angel is kind of weak especially for epics, maybe Greater Command instead.

[Bladedge]

A refresher on what all the current Divine Crusader abilities currently do, could be helpful to us players for feed back.

[Gratch]

Divine Wrath changes? Just as I was finding it to be at parity to Fury/LD dps-wise with the right build to quickly level this destiny... at the same time as you add the sun bolt to help build divine wrath??? I don't know. I thought divine wrath was in a good place if you built for it. Takes a lot more light spell power, spell setup, sla setup building for it than Adrenaline+Unbridled Fury or Shiradi Nerve Venom or Master's Blitz (which I'd guess to be the top used ED abilities in EE currently). I'm not asking you to nerf them all (and then all monsters) - that's too big of a change. I'm asking you to allow Divine Wrath to keep potential without an insane cooldown/cost with the right build pumping out divine spells having a usage advantage.

Still 3 murky stances in Unyielding? Please explain how the term Unbreakable is different than the term Standing Against the Tide? Though they have different properties the terms seem very similar. Cut it down to two stances. One for battle stance (damage dice & HP) and one for extra defense stance (threat & AC & PRR & Dodge).

[serthcore]

About EA:
-I agree that this change on divine wrath is more like a nerf. Its cooldown shouldnt be increased, and it needs quicken.
- Losing renewal and gaining CLWM doesn't seem a good tradeoff, but still have to know about the cooldown.
- dc's and spell pen is good for some builds.

And here's a question: what are the DC formulas and cooldown on sunbolt and command?

[MeliCat]

"Shadows Upon You: Target foe becomes cursed with Shadows Upon You, reducing all saving throws by -2/-4/-6. Whenever this foe is damaged by spells or attacks, saving throws are reduced by an additional -1. Stacks up to 10 times."

A single target only and how much of a cool down?

[Wizza]

Exalted Angel
Add some abilities to aid DC casting, as well as another light damage spell. Melee abilities have moved out along with Renewal.

New:

• Command SLA
• Sun Bolt SLA
• Mass Cure Light Wounds SLA
• Transcendent Magic (Spell DC bonuses)
• Piercing Spellcraft (Spell Penetration Bonus, doesn't stack with Piercing Spellcraft from Magister)
• Shadows Upon You: Target foe becomes cursed with Shadows Upon You, reducing all saving throws by -2/-4/-6. Whenever this foe is damaged by spells or attacks, saving throws are reduced by an additional -1. Stacks up to 10 times.

Changed:

• Divine Wrath no longer requires Ardor to cast. Cooldown and SP cost have been increased.
• Reborn in Light cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 10 minutes. Counter requirements reduced to 25.

Moved:

• Renewal has been moved from Exalted Angel to Unyielding Sentinel. Requires being in Unyielding Sentinel to self-target.

Why is Transcendent Magic a T5 ability?
Why Piercing Spellcraft doesn't stack with Magister? What about DI. No-sense move. Noone is going to even notice that they stack.
Mass cure LIGHT SLA? No point in this in a DC offensive ED.
Why Reborn in Light has still a 10min cooldown? It should be 5, like every other epic moment. Lower the duration if needed.

Unyielding Sentinel
Moved:

• Renewal has been moved from Exalted Angel to Unyielding Sentinel. Requires being in Unyielding Sentinel to self-target.
• Block Energy is now lowered to Tier 2.

Changed:

• Light the Dark:
  
  • Now accepts metamagics: Quicken, Empower Healing
  • Benefits 50% more from spellpower.
  • Cooldown increased to 12 seconds.
• Hardened: Upgraded to add +5/10/15 AC.

Why is the CD on Light the Dark increased? It's supposed to be the healing destiny now.
Hardened is still useless. AC is useless.

Divine Crusader
Since it's time on Lamannia, Divine Crusader has taken some abilities from Unyielding Sentinel and Exalted Angel. Many proposed abilities have been moved around, altered, or cut.

Moved:

• Bane of Undeath, Confront Any Foe, Endless Turning: Moved from Unyielding Sentinel to Divine Crusader.
• Blessed blades, Smite the Wicked, Strike down: Moved from Exalted Angel to Divine Crusader.
• Strike down: Strike Down now cleaves multiple opponents. It retains the +3[w] bonus damage, and the vorpal effect on undead and evil outsiders, and now deals 500 fire damage on hit. The cooldown has been increased and the spell point cost lowered. (No longer requires counters it previously used in Exalted Angel.)

Some notable changes since last Lamannia:

• Stand and Be Judged: Now lasts 30 seconds. Increased cost and cooldown.
• Wrath of the Righteous: Activate: Gain 100 stacks of Wrath. Wrath: +1 Spell Power, +1% Damage with all attacks. Wrath decays by 1 stack every 3 seconds. Long cooldown.

unyieldingsentinel

Celestial Bombardment moved to T6, Wrath of the Righteous nerfed to have only a 100% damage bonus, it decays over time and it has a long cooldown. This destiny has basically no Epic Moment Good job. You really took the appeal out of this destiny. No way melees will choose this over Fury or LD.

Fire savants/Druids/Shiradis will twist the 30 Fire Spellpower and Empyrean Magic (which you moved to T3, lol) and that's about it.

[Coldin]

Just a few quick questions for the Divine Crusader.


What bonus does Sword of Justice grant, since it's now a core ability? Hopefully it's still +6.

Does the 500 Fire Damage for Strike Down apply to all enemies? This skill lacks a lot of usefulness if the damage only applies to Undead and Evil Outsiders.

Having both Smite the Wicked and Strike Down in the same Destiny feels a bit overkill. Perhaps one of these attacks could be made into a more generic attack that works well against all monsters?

What's the reason for moving Casigation and No Regret out of the cores, and into the tiers? Not that I really care one way or the other, just curious.

How long of a cooldown will it be for Wrath of Righteousness? 100 stacks decaying at 1 per 3 seconds means it'll last for 5 minutes. I suppose a 10 minute cooldown would be 50% uptime, though the last couple minutes of Wrath will be weak. Seems a bit strange that it starts out very powerful, then slowly degrades. One thing that I enjoyed from the original version was that it was constantly growing more powerful...while also weakening you slightly.

[SirValentine]

We’ve taken a great deal of feedback related to Divine Crusader, Unyielding Sentinel, and Exalted Angel into consideration, and put together some changes that we hope give more focus to these destinies, as well as improving the Divine Sphere play experience and build options.

Thanks.

Personally focusing mostly on Exalted Angel, and I like the general direction. I have some specific comments below:

Exalted Angel

New:

• Command SLA

So...an SLA of a spell from a school divines don't generally spec in, that's single target, and only lasts 6 seconds. There's a reason nobody uses this spell except at very, very low levels. 1 chance in 20 that 1 mob will lay down for 6 seconds is entirely worthless. Heck, 19 chances in 20 of making a single mob lay down for 6 seconds isn't worth the points to get it. If you made it Greater Command, it would be great in easy EH content, and probably still almost worthless in EE. (Well, except for Enchantment-specced arcanes to Twist it!) Send this one back to the drawing board.

• Sun Bolt SLA
• Mass Cure Light Wounds SLA
• Transcendent Magic (Spell DC bonuses)

Nice additions all. Does a Amauntor FvS with capstone get to use both Sun Bolt SLAs independantly (separate cool-downs)?

• Piercing Spellcraft (Spell Penetration Bonus, doesn't stack with Piercing Spellcraft from Magister)

Good that Spell Pen is being added. Why not stacking? All three Arcane sphere EDs have sources of spell pen that all stack with each other.

• Shadows Upon You: Target foe becomes cursed with Shadows Upon You, reducing all saving throws by -2/-4/-6. Whenever this foe is damaged by spells or attacks, saving throws are reduced by an additional -1. Stacks up to 10 times.

Sounds interesting, but I'm afraid it might be too unwieldy to use in practice. Single-target, must be cast. Right direction (a save de-buff option), but I think when I get to play-testing it I'll probably find it's just not worth trying to use of most mobs. Probably good for Orange-named mobs, but casting Energy Drain doesn't cost Epic Destiny points. I think this either needs to be AoE, or passive (auto-apply when other spell cast, or as an aura, or something).

Changed:

• Divine Wrath no longer requires Ardor to cast. Cooldown and SP cost have been increased.

Excellent that it no longer requires charges! Cooldown/SP...OK, I guess. At least now it'll be reasonably usable by folks other than FvS-with-archon.

But what about Rebuke Foe? Still going to have the same old charge requirements, making it essentially FvS-only? Rebuke Foe, at least for a FvS with an archon, is an awesome contribution to a group, especially in raids or other tough boss fights. I'd appreciate if that was practical to use for a broader selection of characters.

• Reborn in Light cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 10 minutes. Counter requirements reduced to 25.

The cool-down was unreasonable, glad to see it's changed. Though I'd still never use it personally.

Just a couple comments for the other 2 destinies:

• Commanding Presence: +50/100/150% Threat Generation (melee, ranged, magic)

Is this a toggle, or always on? It should probably be a toggle.

• Stand and Be Judged: Now lasts 30 seconds.

See, 30 seconds is a much more appropriate duration for a CC-type ability. And when I last looked, it's DC started, what, 11 points higher than a typical spell (base 30, instead of 19)? And causes Helplessness. Why didn't you just move this to Angel instead of making a useless Command SLA?

[Hathorian]

I haven't had a chance to look at these in detail yet but at a high level the concept of the proposed changes sound enlightened. What abilities in the EA tree will increase DCs and what DCs will be increased by how much? I think we need some more details.

[SirValentine]

- Divine Wrath wasnt really limited by ardor

Yes it was. Well, it wasn't if you had an archon auto-generating charges for you, but for everyone else, it was almost useless.

- Divine Wrath really needs to allow Quicken atleast or have its animation time lowered significantly.

YES! Devs, please, look at this issue.

- Removing Renewal is a huge setback. More people like to run DC divines than low dps tank Divines and removing that option as a cheap and viable healer is a very bad idea.

Yes, but they're adding a Mass Cure SLA as a core auto-grant, so I'm not too worried, as long as the SLA cost & cool-down are reasonable.

[Shmuel]

Some of these changes are good, others make things worse. Specifically, if exalted angel is to be the offensive casting sphere, it should get all, or nearly all the offensive casting options. Specifically, why does divine crusader have melee and fire damage??? There are few, if any, build that would be viable using both of those. Wouldn't it make mroe senase to have that be a melee/healing centered destiny rather than melee/fire spell damage?

I'd move empyrean magic to EA, and maybe change it so divine crusader gets mass cure light wounds or a heal SLA in that spot, and switch Flames of purity to the EA spot that has healing power, and put healing power in the divine crusader tree where flames is. Also eliminate the mass cure light wounds sla from EA, put a light or fire damage sla there instead (maybe fireball, sunburst, or something new along those lines).

[Seikojin]

Can these current changes be pushed to Lam for this weekend?

[Sardonica]

Wrath of the Righteous: Activate: Gain 100 stacks of Wrath. Wrath: +1 Spell Power, +1% Damage with all attacks. Wrath decays by 1 stack every 3 seconds. Long cooldown.

I am not happy with this change. Instead of a sustainable blitz (with hp penalty) Wrath of the Righteous becomes a decaying moment with a long cooldown. This will not be as fun for melees.

Originally I thought my paladin would spend most of her time in this destiny, it was that much fun. But not with this change.

[Desonde]

[*]Strike down: Strike Down now cleaves multiple opponents. It retains the +3[w] bonus damage, and the vorpal effect on undead and evil outsiders, and now deals 500 fire damage on hit. The cooldown has been increased and the spell point cost lowered. (No longer requires counters it previously used in Exalted Angel.)

Most of the stuff I'll have to look at on lamannia when it's closer to being ready, but this stands out as an issue.

Fire damage with those restrictions is terrible, Burnt Skeletons are immune, and fairly common in the game, but when you look at Evil Outsiders, All Devils are immune to it, Demons Resist (60?) or are immune [Ice flensers have a vulnerability], Efreet are immune, Night Hags are immune, Hellhounds are immune, Fire Quori can be healed, Acid Resist, and Cold is Vulnerable, Salamander's are immune, Fiendish creatures, Yugoloth and Tieflings resist.

About 33% of the creatures are immune to it's vorpal effect, and a further 33% are resistant to it, it makes the skill very unappealing.

[Vellrad]

EAs can twist extra DC from magister and draconic, but draconic and magister can't twist EA DC.
This is wrong.