Early Look - Cleric Domains

[Faltout]

Just how good is a CMW SLA?

Assume 75% sp cost & double cooldown = 6 sp cost and 6 second cooldown.
Assume full metamagic application for free


Positive energy heals an ally for 2d6+4 plus 1 per caster level (Maximum caster level 10.) hit points, or deals the same amount of damage to an undead creature. (A Will save reduces this damage by half.)



Assume base of 500 positive spell power.
Assume Cure Focus
Assume possessing Max, Empower Healing, Intensify, Quicken
Assume Angel ED
Assume healing domain


2d6+32 base healing = 39 average
Spellpower 500+150+100+75+75=900ish
Typical healing before healing amp = 351 average

+ healing spell critical chance.
+ healing amplification of the target.

[Silverleafeon]

+ healing spell critical chance.
+ healing amplification of the target.

Aye, anything at half health or over is going to be pretty much healed up (excepted tanks).
This makes an ideal fill up between fights top off heal.

An while healing a tank, its a good sla to cycle with other spells.


;;


What happens when you add crit & amp?

Say maybe 33% chance to spell crit & 50% healing amp?

Now you have 695 average damage.

Consider that healers usually auto target toon below half health.
Hmm...not bad...

[John3000]

Greetings.

As we work on a Divine pass, we want to add in our version of Domains for Clerics. Rather than having them simply be a series of spell options, we wanted players to pick a Domain that gave the Cleric interesting build options that worked with enhancement trees.

That said, we wanted to give the players a preview of how Domains work in DDO, and want options would be available for Clerics.

Domains
Starting at level 2, a Cleric will pick one Domain which will provide additional (free) class feats as they level.

Chaos Domain

You cannot take this domain if you are Lawful.

Level 2: You gain +1 to Will saving throws for every 2 Cleric levels.

When you use Turn Undead your party gains 1d20 points of Universal Spell Power and 1d10 points (each rolled separately) of Melee Power, Ranged Power, Physical Resistance Rating and Magical Resistance Rating.

Level 5: You gain Chaos Hammer as an SLA

Level 9: Your spell critical chance is increased by 3%

Level 14: You gain Prismatic Spray as an SLA


Good Domain

Level 2: You gain +2 Light Spell Power (Radiance) per Cleric Level. You gain +1 to the Heal skill for every 2 Cleric levels.

When you use Turn Undead your party gains temporary hit points equal to five times your Cleric level for 20 seconds

Level 5: You gain Deific Vengeance as an SLA

Level 9: You gain Blade Barrier as an SLA

Level 14: You gain +3 to hit, damage, and armor class against evil creatures in combat. You gain +3 to saving throws against spells cast by evil creatures.

Law Domain

You cannot take this domain if you are Chaotic.

Level 2: You gain +1 to the DC of your Enchantment spells. This increases by +1 at 6th, 12th, and 18th.

When you use your Turn Undead your party gains a Sacred bonus to saving throws equal to half your Cleric level for 20 seconds

Level 5: You gain Order's Wrath as an SLA

Level 9: You gain Greater Command as an SLA

Level 14: You gain +3 to hit, damage, and armor class against chaotic creatures in combat. You gain +3 to saving throws against spells cast by chaotic creatures.

Sev~

Love the "Your Turn Undead works on Elementals" to Hold/Banish them on elemental domains. :-)

Might I suggest that you bring the Good, Chaos and Law domains up to par by allowing these three domains to :

* Your Turn Undead works on Outsiders opposite of your domain's alignment (Evil/Chaotic/Lawful) (Hold/Banish) - Only works if mobs are banishable = not in their home plane

or give them a Banish SLA if too complicated...

It would make perfect sense if these specific alignment based spheres are specialized against opposite aligned outsiders just as it makes sense that Elemental domains have effect on elementals.

ps. Thank you for the effort you are putting into cleric domains... looking forward to that update :-)

Cheers

[cru121]

Your Turn Undead works on Outsiders opposite of your domain's alignment (Evil/Chaotic/Lawful) (Hold/Banish) - Only works if mobs are banishable = not in their home plane

The new chaos cleric overlords definitely deserve an ability to banish reapers. Let's do it!

[RKP]

Congratulations on the cleric improvements. They are well thought out and mechanically interesting. The improvements are also well in line with PNP D&D which is appreciated. A win all around. Now please go back and do something similar for favored soul.

[glmfw1]

Not true. One could, if one chose, have a cleric that did not worship any god, but instead worshiped certain ideals (such as healing and knowledge), as long as they weren't diametrically opposed in some fashion. Although, playing a cleric in pnp without a deity made role-playing....interesting...

Stormtytan

If a cleric was following a philosophy rather than a deity, then his/her domain options would be limited by that philosophy (as adjudicated by the DM). Where the spells/powers came from would depend on the DM/Setting (is there generic divine power floating out there? Do the gods fill a pool of power that all clerics draw from irrespective of belief system? Does the power come from within? Do Gods actively grant the spells, and does the follower of a philosophy get his/her spells directly from a God or multiple Gods without realising it).
Such a cleric in DDO would lack a God's favoured weapon (making some War Priest enhancements meaningless) and lack access to deity related feats.
In PnP your DM could say "ah... as a follower of the philosophy of knowledge and healing, your favoured weapon is the flail, with a book for the head and bandages in place of the chain" then allow you to use other flails provided you inscribed words on the head and wrapped the chain links in fabric. In DDO, there is no active DM to make these calls, so the follower of a philosophy would need to pick the deity/pantheon that most closely matched the philosophy they wanted to follow.

[Niminae]

How did I lead those kill counts? I guess I just imagined all those solo reaper runs (and EE before reaper)?

Looks like you've answered your own question: When you solo you will always be leading in the kill counts. But maybe your hireling will come close, if you're playing a Cleric.

by and large it will be all but impossible to build an ineffective Cleric unless you're really trying once these changes hit live.

It will still be pretty easy to make an ineffective melee Cleric. Which is the entire reason for the Warpriest tree. And it is a trap.

[Niminae]

Sure, go ahead and do it. I will finish my racial lives on all my toons by running a cleric in good domain, tossing blade barrier SLAs like mad and sprinting through the dungeons. It will be a faster run than my warlock, arty, or mechanic.

I mean, if you give it to me, I'm gonna use it, but you probably won't like it.

And you go right on believing that. I mean, if you really think that some L9 ability, halfway through a TR, is going to make you a goddess, you go girl! The rest of us will be going through their past lives faster than you with some better build.

The fact is that your comments on the Domains are pretty much off point. Example - Animal Domain: You're worried about 15% fort bypass at L14? Really? Precision gives 25% fort bypass and +5% to hit with the horrible requirement of a 13 Dex and 1 BAB. And 'horrible' was meant sarcastically. Fort bypass is almost strictly a boss mechanic and does nothing for you while chewing through the trash mobs. The Animal domain blows and will only be taken by Clerics who need the HP in order to survive until they build their gear and/or EDs. Whereupon they will abandon it like the bad idea that it is in favor of a Domain that actually does something for them.

[karatemack]

Looks like you've answered your own question: When you solo you will always be leading in the kill counts. But maybe your hireling will come close, if you're playing a Cleric.



It will still be pretty easy to make an ineffective melee Cleric. Which is the entire reason for the Warpriest tree. And it is a trap.

I know the punctuation can be tricky to figure out... but... a cleric is capable of soloing EE and low skull reaper quests. A cleric is also capable of leading kill counts on higher difficulty settings. That is without Domains.

Honestly, you will have to try much harder to even be as gimp at melee as Clerics are today. This is one of the good changes IMO. While Warpriest still will require some tweaking, it won't be much. Clerics should not be a leader in melee DPS, however the Domains open up many multi-class builds which provide some interesting options. Personally, I would love to see Clerics be able to be more effective with Mace/Heavy Mace and for smites to register high damage output. But still... pure cleric vs pure barbarian... the barbarian should always come out ahead in terms of melee DPS. I'm not sure Clerics are off as far as you seem to think. Wish you were on my server so I could help you more.

[Grace_ana]

And you go right on believing that. I mean, if you really think that some L9 ability, halfway through a TR, is going to make you a goddess, you go girl! The rest of us will be going through their past lives faster than you with some better build.

Probably not, though.

The fact is that your comments on the Domains are pretty much off point. Example - Animal Domain: You're worried about 15% fort bypass at L14? Really? Precision gives 25% fort bypass and +5% to hit with the horrible requirement of a 13 Dex and 1 BAB. And 'horrible' was meant sarcastically. Fort bypass is almost strictly a boss mechanic and does nothing for you while chewing through the trash mobs. The Animal domain blows and will only be taken by Clerics who need the HP in order to survive until they build their gear and/or EDs. Whereupon they will abandon it like the bad idea that it is in favor of a Domain that actually does something for them.

It's like an endless Groundhog Day where I get to keep explaining that stuff for free is not the same as stuff for cost. Also, fort bypass is most definitely NOT just a boss mechanic, and anyone that thinks that is frankly not a very good player. I find that way too many people think that they can just muscle through lots of stuff while ignoring game mechanics, and then they wonder why other people are kicking their butts. Trash mobs on higher levels most certainly go down faster with fort bypass (epics, not heroics). Fort bypass is crucial to crits, and in a game that is heavily reliant now on crit damage, the more bypass you can get the better. I don't see people pulling out their high-crit weapons only on bosses.

Regardless, my comments stand as they were meant, which is to maintain some semblance of balance to the game. You can disagree, but do it logically. Pretending that a "small" investment (small being subjective) is the same as for free is not logical. Saying that a fort bypass ability should stay by pretending it is mostly useless is not logical - I mean, if it was that useless, why would you want it? It's silly.

[elvesunited]

And you go right on believing that. I mean, if you really think that some L9 ability, halfway through a TR, is going to make you a goddess, you go girl! The rest of us will be going through their past lives faster than you with some better build.

The fact is that your comments on the Domains are pretty much off point. Example - Animal Domain: You're worried about 15% fort bypass at L14? Really? Precision gives 25% fort bypass and +5% to hit with the horrible requirement of a 13 Dex and 1 BAB. And 'horrible' was meant sarcastically. Fort bypass is almost strictly a boss mechanic and does nothing for you while chewing through the trash mobs. The Animal domain blows and will only be taken by Clerics who need the HP in order to survive until they build their gear and/or EDs. Whereupon they will abandon it like the bad idea that it is in favor of a Domain that actually does something for them.

The cleric himself is a limited weapon using combatant. And the melee domains seem to take that into account with each seeming to support a different class to be multi'd into.

War -> cleric-fighter ( what other class could utilize those tactical DCs? )
Destruction -> cleric-barbarian ( cast while raged )
Strength -> Cleric-monk ( strength as reflex )

Which leaves animal. Which pretty much syncs right up with cleric-ranger. Be it a tempest or archer, animal domain provides reflex saves ( good for evasion), armor piercing ( quite useful as they rely on low damage but higher attack rates ), and hp for the fighting class with one the biggest issues with squishiness.

[Arch-Necromancer]

Death Domain

Level 5: You gain Necrotic Ray as an SLA

Necrotic Ray is a level 6 Wizard spell! Clerics can get it into their spellbooks as a level 6 Cleric spell with Divine Disciple core that requires level 12 Cleric!

You probably meant Necrotic BOLT since it matches Searing Light for light clerics in Divine Disciple tree.


That being said, I think that Necrotic Bolt needs a tweak to make it comparable to Searing Light.

First thing to note here, it is a negative energy spell, which means it doesn't work on Undead and mobs with Deathward, limiting its use drastically.

So this downside needs to be taken into account when considering changes to it.

Second thing to note is that it has a Fortitude save for half damage, while Searing Light doesn't have a save at all!

So on top of its uselessness on many mobs (undead and deathwarded), it has a save for half damage!

Another thing to note is that it heals enemy undead if you cast it on them.

And the projectile moves horribly slow and doesn't home its target too well, while Searing Light moves fast and homes targets better, maybe even with longer range.


The best way to improve it would be to make it similar to Chill Touch, practically make it a ranged version of Chill Touch, with range and projectile speed like Searing Light.

This means, full damage for non-undead, and fortitude save for additional strength (or some other stat) damege. And for undead it causes fear (or stun or slow) instead of damage to fix the problem of enemy undead healing from it.


And if you do that you could also fix Necrotic Touch and Necrotic Blast for Pale Master to work in the same way since they have the same problems too (and remove 50% spellpower penalty from them while you are at it).

So on top of negative enenrgy damage (without 50% spellpower penalty), spells could get additional effects:

Necrotic Touch: constitution damage (fortitude save), stun effect for undead instead of damage (will save)

Necrotic Bolt: strength damage (fortitude save), slow effect for undead instead of damage (will save)

Necrotic Blast: dexterity damage (fortitude save), fear effect for undead instead of damage (will save)

[SpartanKiller13]

Which offense casting one do you all think is the best? I'm leaning towards Water because you can use Pacifism at full damage (hilarious) and GCreeping is a great support DPS spell from what I've heard, while Cone of Cold isn't bad. Also obviously full casting from one spellpower is OP.

Sun domain spells suck. Fire domain I keep hearing that Firestorm is broken. Earth gets Melfs (eh) and Earthquake (yay!). Chaos has Prismatic Spray, but I've never had much luck with it. Maybe I'm missing something? Air gets Chain Lightning which is pretty solid though.

On the subject of power creep, to me it only really matters once you're creeping on the top tier of power. Everything else is balance. Clerics have been weak, and domains will make them less weak. I don't think they will be OP - anyone who has the gear/PL's to make one strong could make a different class equally strong or stronger yet.

I believe the Healing Domain does not grant "Empower Healing Spell". It looks like it grants "Empower Spell" but only works on healing spells. In that case, it should stack with Empower Healing Spell just fine. I think that's pretty significant if you want some real powerful Cure Wounds.

If that's the case why not write it as +75 Positive Spellpower and get on with it? The description is hilariously complex if it stacks with EHS. Granting ES but only with healing spells is basically what EHS is anyway, except they both apply to things like CMW which you have an SLA for. Do you want all three applying? Getting a little ridiculous.

Especially via the Radiant Servant tree which removes max caster levels from cures deep into the tree.
That CMW SLA is looking very sweet.

I think finally there will not be any doubt that Clerics can heal better than Druids if they want to.
Druids are very strong healers if you understand them.

I'm already drooling a little at it.

Mass Regen is nice because you can throw it early in combat and have the effects last for a while, vs reactive healing of a Cleric.

Is taking healing feats and Radiant Servant enhancements really a thing?

Taking my 20th level favored soul into account. All feats and enhancements focused on maxing light spellpower. And through equipment ( and that virtually everyone has healing amp these days ) he can heal almost anyone to full with a single non-meta'd heal spell. Healing for 2000 when 1000 will do seems like needless over-heal. So what's the point?

Perhaps the healing domain would be better served by having any healing exceeding the full hp be given to the target as temporary hp ( non-stackable ) to a max of the clerics level x 10. That would give the healing domain cleric some interest.

My view is that it's for dips, and heroic content *gasp*. CMW SLA for only 5 levels of Cleric? 15/5 (or 12/5/3), and heal nearly as well as your lvl 20 FvS. Or at least 14/6 with like Fighter for some DPS.

Just how good is a CMW SLA?

Typical healing before healing amp = 351 average healing for a cost of 6 sp.

Compare to Renewal:

1d2 * 15 * (500+75) = 135 average done three times in an 8 second period = 405 total healing for a cost of 5 sp.

Note that this is twistable and available to everyone.
Of course, not everyone has high positive spell power or the ability to wait 8 seconds for healing.

I think you underestimate the value of an immediate heal; 350 is going to hit for 500 minimum in epics, and on healamp people you're more at 800 or so. Ignoring crits because those never happen when you need them.

Or use both lol. Just because you have one OP cheap heal doesn't mean you can't have two

[Gregen]

If that's the case why not write it as +75 Positive Spellpower and get on with it? The description is hilariously complex if it stacks with EHS. Granting ES but only with healing spells is basically what EHS is anyway, except they both apply to things like CMW which you have an SLA for. Do you want all three applying? Getting a little ridiculous.

Good point. Maybe they don't want it to stack with Empower. If I had to guess, they probably don't want the +75 to apply to Radiant Aura, which only accepts EHS and not Empower or Maximize.

[DarthBeckett]

I just wish we would get more talk about the non-Domain aspects of the Cleric pass.

[Cantor]

How will feral charge from the animal domain interact with an already shape-shifted animal or tree?

I see animal domain as working best with primal avatar/AoN due to HP bonuses, but if feral charge shifts you out of AoN or doesn't work while shifted into AoN it would result in taking 8 instead of 14 cleric levels and instead taking 6 warlock for an aura that does work with primal avatar/AoN.

AoN would want to be in destruction, that is assuming cast while raged works for a tree.

[Tlorrd]

I just wish we would get more talk about the non-Domain aspects of the Cleric pass.

Seems like there won't be any ... (Insert Dev rebuttal)

[Tlorrd]

Especially via the Radiant Servant tree which removes max caster levels from cures deep into the tree.
That CMW SLA is looking very sweet.

I think finally there will not be any doubt that Clerics can heal better than Druids if they want to.
Druids are very strong healers if you understand them.

While it is true druids are great healers ... There was already never any doubt that clerics are the best healers when specced for ultimate healing.

[Silverleafeon]

While it is true druids are great healers ... There was already never any doubt that clerics are the best healers when specced for ultimate healing.

Druid Reincarnation casting time is so awful its dangerous to use.

[Tlorrd]

Druid Reincarnation casting time is so awful its dangerous to use.

lol ...

radiant servant tree with unlimited caster levels for healing spells and later coupled with the capstone keeps the healing tree relevant through out epics for what it's designed for. The things that need to change in that tree are ...

1. Reduce the AP cost of many of the enhancement to bring it in line with 1 AP/rank

2. Change Mighty Turning to a toggle

3. Change Reactive heal to scale off of your Heal Skill ... like 10x heal skill. And reduce it's cool down.

4. Add in positive crit multiplier to the level 18 core and capstone ... +10% and +20%, respectively for a total of +30%. (yes this should be there for the new era of reaper)

5. Change Martyr to also auto-cast an AOE resurrection to all party members.

6. Increase buffs to party members healing amp with Positive Energy Shield so that the requirement to have the temp hps is removed. That whole notion doesn't make sense to me.

7. Place Divine Vitality in this tree and buff it to be better ... OR ... add in spell point regen from aura in Tier 5

8. Grant more buffs and/or debuffs from aura (although SSG went the route of using TU for this) ... like PRR/MRR, Spell Resistance, etc.

9. Add in conjuration, enchantment, abjuration DCs and SLAs (again SSG went with domains for this and skipped abjuration altogether).

9a. SLAs that could have been in this tree ... (any of the healing ones, but otherwise ...) Dismissal, Banishment, Cometfall, Holy Aura, Divine Vengeance, FOM, Command, Greater Command, Close Wounds (I couldn't help but list it), Protection from Elements, Resistance.

I could go on, but that's enough for now.