U39 Preview 1: Beacon of Hope

[Cocomajobo]

Goals:

• Primary focus on Healing + Restoration
• Provide new and interesting ways to Heal
• Secondary focus on Buffing, as an active loop for players who are not spending their primary or secondary focus on weapon attacks (War Soul) or offensive casting (Angel of Vengeance).

Key:

• Unchanged since First Look thread
• Changed since First Look thread

Cores:

1. Pleasant Disposition: For each Core ability you gain, +1% Positive Spell Critical Chance, +10 Healing Amp, and +5 Positive Spell Power.
2. Beacon of Grace: Cost: 6 SP: You and allies ahead of you heal for 1 point of Positive Energy per Favored Soul level. Undead enemies ahead of you take the same amount of damage (Will save for half). Both scale with your Positive Spell Power. 6 second cooldown. This ability is considered a 1st Level Favored Soul Spell of the Conjuration school.
3. Shining Light: Whenever you cast one of your Beacons or use Flight of Glory, you and affected allies gain a Sacred bonus to Healing Amplification equal to your Favored Soul level for 12 seconds. Enemies in the zone of effect are dazzled and take a -1 penalty to attack, spot, and search. These enemies are illuminated by Shining Light, dispelling stealth, invisibility, blur, and displacement, for 10 seconds, and giving a -40 penalty to hide. Sightless enemies are immune to the dazzle effect.
4. Beacon of Hope: Cost: 30 SP: You and allies ahead of you take the dispelling effects of a Panacea, Restoration, and Remove Paralysis spell, and heal for 5 points of Positive Energy per Favored Soul level. Undead enemies ahead of you take the same amount of damage (Will save for half). Both scale with your Positive Spell Power. 30 second cooldown. This ability is considered a 5th Level Favored Soul Spell of the Conjuration school.
5. Flight of Glory: Cost: 10 SP: When you use your Leap of Faith, nearby allies gain Temporary Hit Points equal to triple your character level, plus an additional 50.
6. True Resurrection SLA: 25 SP. 10 second cooldown. Multiselector:

• • Passive:+4 WIS. You gain +3 Maximum Caster Level with all Positive spells. Your Hope and Beacon abilities that scale with Favored Soul level now add Epic Levels as well.
  • Passive: +4 CHA. You gain +3 Maximum Caster Level with all Positive spells. Your Hope and Beacon abilities that scale with Favored Soul level now add Epic Levels as well.

Tier 1:

• Good Hope SLA 10/5/2 SP. (3 second cooldown)
• Confidence: +1/+2/+3 Concentration, Diplomacy and Heal. Rank 3: You also gain +10 Positive Energy Spell Power.
• Divine Durability: +2/4/6 Competence Bonus to PRR.
• Spell Critical Chance: Positive: +2%
• Spell Points: 30/60/90 Spell Points

Tier 2:

• Close Wounds SLA: (6/4/2 Spell Points) (3/2/1 second cooldown)
• Hope for Inspiration: Target ally gains a Sacred bonus to all Skills equal to 1 + 1/4 your Favored Soul level for 18 seconds. 6 second cooldown.
• Divine Durability II: +2/4/6 Competence bonus to MRR.
• Spell Critical Chance: Positive: +2%
• Might's Reward: Multiselector (Shares a cooldown and same SP cost as Divine Might).
  
  • You gain an Sacred bonus to Positive Spell Power equal to 5 + your Strength modifier for 30/60/120 seconds.
  • You gain an Sacred bonus to Positive Spell Power equal to 5 + your Wisdom modifier for 30/60/120 seconds.
  • You gain an Sacred bonus to Positive Spell Power equal to 5 + your Charisma modifier for 30/60/120 seconds.

Tier 3:

• Hope for Protection: Target ally gains a Sacred bonus to PRR and MRR equal to 3 + your Favored Soul level for 18 seconds. 6 second cooldown.
• Efficient Empower Healing
• Spell Critical Chance: Positive: +2%
• Ability Score Multiselector
  
  • Wisdom
  • Charisma

Tier 4:

• Death Ward SLA: 10/8/5 SP (4 second cooldown)
• Hope for Victory: Target ally gains a Sacred Bonus to Melee Power and Ranged Power equal to 3 + half your Favored Soul level, and Universal Spell Power equal to 6 + your Favored Soul level. This lasts for 18 seconds. 6 second cooldown.
• Optimism: Every time you cast one of your Hope abilities, you gain a stack of Rising Beacon, giving yourself +2 PRR, +2 MRR, and +1 AC. This stacks up to 10 times, and stacks fade once every 12 seconds. Hope for Success grants 3 stacks.
• Spell Critical Chance: Positive: +2%
• Ability Score Multiselector
  
  • Wisdom
  • Charisma

Tier 5:

• Raise Dead SLA: 15 SP, 9 second cooldown
• Hope for Success: Target ally gains +1 to Critical Threat Range and Multiplier with weapons for 18 seconds. 60 second cooldown.
• Heal SLA: 40 SP, 6 second cooldown
• Undying Beacon: Allies affected by your Beacons gain Unconsciousness Range equal to 10x your Favored Soul level. This effect lasts for 12 seconds, and is refreshed if the target is affected by another Beacon spell.
• Wall of Healing: Cost: 15 Spell Points. Create a wall that persists for 15 seconds. Allies and Undead in the wall take a Cure Moderate Wounds spell every few seconds. 30 second cooldown.

[thomascoolone64]

hey Coco, My character (currently standing infront of you in the Dojo) Is Stuck in a T Pose, Ive Reset my client multiple times....

[J1NG]

Something is needed to be changed.

Wall of Healing will produce any item damage effects as well. (Lantern Ring for example, proc'ing light damage on self and others in the Wall of Healing on each tic)

Also, in game (Lamannia) cooldown is currently 60s, not 30s.

J1NG

[Jetrule]

I am wracking my brain to try and come up with something featuring this tree as my main tree that I would enjoy playing. Its sort of like radiant servant without the undead turning or the mobile healing aura. I like that you put the goals at the top of the post. In this case they appear to be spot on. heal your party, buff your party, do some dps on undead.

[edrein]

Will undead allies be healed by the Beacon abilities? After all there's nothing technically in the way of that.

[Wh070aa]

So a worse radiant servant. This tree is completely useless if your allies are not constantly dying, and giving a buff SLA like death ward is completely meaningless IMO. Also the uptime of hope is ridiculously short, making only worth vile thing pretty meaningless, and a chore to use. It's like halfling cleric that decided to invest in halfling racial abilities instead of maxing out Radiant servant for healing. It's unpleasant to play, and takes your attention away from your support role.

Like why would you ever use it? It's not good as a splash and does not synergize with other trees.

I am really disappointed.

Edit:Well at least Fury of the Wild gets a buff, I guess.

[Silverleafeon]

Having now seen the AoV tree, I can say that I am quite pleased with both these trees overall.

Favored Souls as casters will be much better off.

The Raise Dead SLA is still blah to me, however it could simply not be taken (ignored) given the uniqueness of the rest of the tier five abilities being so interesting. In other words, the other four tier five abilities are very strong and well liked by me, so the raise dead sla can easily be ignored and left alone.

Death Ward SLA is interesting, would like to it become a Multi-selection featuring FoM as well.
This would grant continued choices after gaining level 16+ of favored soul.


Beacon is really cool.
Good job on thus.


The Hope Buffs are more interesting when one takes the point of view that one might not keep all of these buffs active all the time.

For example, practical play:
Use inspiration only on trapper
Use protection only on tank
Use victory on whoever catches your favor when time allows
Keep success active on your favorite dps king.

When one take the route that the key is not keeping all the buffs active all the time,
then it seems a little less overwhelming.




Overall, this tree works well with the AoV tree, which is nice.

Like the changes.

Recommend multi-selection on DW sla.

Because Wall of Healing, Heal SLA, unconscious bonus, hope for success are so good, willing to overlook the blah raise dead sla.



Have not playtested this build on Lamania yet, so this is theory crafting opinions.

Thanks for reading and see my earlier comments on the official thread.

[Silverleafeon]

A possible caster build, especially with the reduction in some costs of the AoV tree might be:

AoV
Cores and capstone
avoid metamagics saving some points for Beacon tree.


Beacon
Cores 1 thru 4, possibly 5
Both wis/cha
Pos spell crit chance
Good hope and close wounds sla
spell points if have room
picking up optimism and one of the hope buffs likely victory

[Antheal]

*sigh*

I was really, really, looking forward to Beacon of Hope. For, like, years now. Check my posting history.

But I have to say I'm rather underwhelmed.

Button spamming and redundant SLAs over what I was going to take as spells anyway, give me no real reason to change from my Healing Domain Radiant Servant.

I expected better.

[janave]

Low on synergies with existing FvS trees, for self healing the class doesn't need help. As for group healing a full specialization is expected, and as always enough reaction time (defenses).

It is a hard tree to design, especially because it covers Radiant Servant. Thematically also very close to Paladin's role.

Almost any interesting way to heal a party has been played out,.. aura, regeneration, triggered heal, bomb...

[SirValentine]

Your Hope and Beacon abilities that scale with Favored Soul level now add Epic Levels as well.

I still think that, while an interesting idea, improving scaling in Epics is not something that should be in a single tree of a single class.

[Steelstar]

I still think that, while an interesting idea, improving scaling in Epics is not something that should be in a single tree of a single class.

Even if the only scaling it is improving are abilities that are exclusively in that single tree of that single class?

Interesting. It'd be a much worse tree without it.

[Hipparan]

[B][U]

• Wall of Healing: Cost: 15 Spell Points. Create a wall that persists for 15 seconds. Allies and Undead in the wall take a Cure Moderate Wounds spell every few seconds. 30 second cooldown.

This is an ability I am looking forward to, but I'd rather have it work like the Wall of Fire SLA from the Fire domain so you can cast it again immediately after it runs out.

[GeoffWatson]

Even if the only scaling it is improving are abilities that are exclusively in that single tree of that single class?

Interesting. It'd be a much worse tree without it.

I think he means that other classes abilities should scale into epic as well.

[scipiojedi]

I think he means that other classes abilities should scale into epic as well.

Initiate corrupt a wish sequence countdown

[GotSomeQuestions]

First, reposting my flavor suggestions from the First Look thread:

Wall of Healing could be renamed after Irian, the Eternal Day. And here are some other abilities that could get that flavor too:

Core One: Irian's Dawn
Core Three: Irian's Light
Core Six: Irian's Zenith
Wall of Healing: Irian Manifest

I would also rename "Undying Beacon" because Eberron already has the Undying Court. The name suggests positive energy undead when that's not what's going on. Perhaps "Beacon of the Eternal Day"?

Second, am I alone in being really excited for this tree? It's super strong for end game play when you actually want to heal people. The Beacons and Wall of Healing are especially welcome. Can't wait to use those.

I really like the scaling effect in the capstone. It makes it competitive with the free Searing Light in the Angel of Vengeance capstone, and helps to differentiate focused healers from characters who take their capstone in AoV or Warsoul.

However, at cap, players who take Scion of the Ethereal Plane will get a small damage bonus from Hope for Inspiration. That means your optimal buff rotation involves targeting multiple players every few seconds, in addition to throwing down heals and other spellcasting. It certainly solves the problem of players just sitting back and healing, but does it go too far in the other direction?

Also, as others noted, some of the SLAs just aren't very "cool". Deathward and Raise Dead have their uses, but no one looks at the tree and goes "oh wow I want those". I don't know how to fix that, though.

Overall, I think this tree does a great job of meeting its goals, and giving healing focused players the tools to excel.

[Steelstar]

First, reposting my flavor suggestions from the First Look thread:

Wall of Healing could be renamed after Irian, the Eternal Day. And here are some other abilities that could get that flavor too:

Core One: Irian's Dawn
Core Three: Irian's Light
Core Six: Irian's Zenith
Wall of Healing: Irian Manifest

I would also rename "Undying Beacon" because Eberron already has the Undying Court. The name suggests positive energy undead when that's not what's going on. Perhaps "Beacon of the Eternal Day"?

For licensing reasons, we can't put the names of setting-specific deities into new commonly-shared tree abilities.

In the case of Undying Beacon, it's not named after the deity - It's named after the fact that it keeps your party from dying. The coincidence of that particular common adjective appearing in a Deity name is unrelated. (Unyielding Sovereignty is grandfathered in at this point.)

[GotSomeQuestions]

That's a shame, but I can't argue with your licensing contracts.

Would it be possible to make a Realms-only version keyed to Celestia, changing only the names? The first core could lock Eberron characters into the Irian version, and FR Iconics into the Celestia one.

[Morroiel]

Build: 20 Fvs, Aasimar, bond of protection, wisdom, dc casting / healing spec, EA destiny

Enhancements Used (still playing around but this is roughly what I settled on being optimum):


Overall: While I really like the idea of the tree and think there's been a lot of good design work here, the actual implementation leaves a few things to be desired. Beacon of Hope and Beacon of Grace have a very unsatisfying visual effect - specifically it mostly appears to be a much smaller cone visual than the empirically tested aoe its coded with. Standing still seems to fix the animation's visual area a bit, however, if you could double check to make sure that the visual effect lines up with the actual coded area that would be much appreciated (I have a feeling it should be widened). Wall of Healing is coded in game to be 15 second duration, with a 60 second cooldown; I hope this was just a mistake. Either way, wall of healing is a lot more lackluster than you would think, if you are kiting or moving and happen to miss the uptick, you'll miss the healing effect. This surprised me as I anticipated a wall of fire - ish styled coding healing effect as opposed to just a wall visual over a static healing aura coded effect. That being said the visual is pretty cool - though I anticipate problems with seeing the visual in certain quest areas and raids. I was pleasantly surprised by how fast the sla buffs casted in this tree; I had anticipated slower animation times - thank you for making these pretty seamless to cast. The actual hope abilities themselves are satisfying to use - more group play and raid play will determine just how big of an impact they make (kobold test times confirm my theorycrafting that they could potentially make furythrowers a bit too strong in some raid settings). Hope for Inspiration is lackluster, I'd suggest shifting the scaling to 1/3 (see my specific feedback below for further details). Ultimately one concern I have with the hope buffs is that the icons won't be distinctive enough that when players receive their buffs in PUG settings that they might not make full use of hope for success - please make these distint. Might's Reward, deathward sla, and raise dead sla are all lackluster - you'll see that I didn't even bother to take the deathward sla for 1 AP; this is because the divine spell list is lackluster at certain levels (specifically level 8 pretty much guarantees that you'll be taking deathward mass as a spell). I'd recommend swapping it with FOM (possibly increasing the cost to 2 AP and only 1 rank). Honestly raise dead sla is fine being lackluster as AP wise it works out that you can only take 4 T5s unless you want to give up something significant (and if you made it worth giving something up, I'd fear you making this tree to OP). A recommendation you might consider is mass cure light wounds or greater restoration sla. Lastly, might's reward is incredibly incredibly!!! lackluster at cap. You might consider changing it to scale with just straight up your ability score (wisdom/charisma/strength). As it is, I'll probably drop that enhancement point, good hope, and use 1 racial AP to get the 13 positive spell power under confidence tier 3.

Positive Spell Crit Chance: This might just be a personal thing, but typically when I'm playing a healer, I don't rely on crits. If a crit happens, it might be beneficial but more often than not its overkill (unless I'm trying to heal myself on high skulls). This means that while crit chance is excellent for dps casters, I find it oddly placed for healing trees. I don't mind if you leave it in, because it does have some small synergy with the amount of aoe heals in this tree and potentially trying to self heal on reaper 10 in endgame; however, I'd prefer some other definitive, static buff to my heals in its place - caster levels, more positive spell power, heal amp, etc..

Beacon of Hope and Beacon of Grace: I really like these abilities, but as mentioned above. I'm a bit concerned with the visual effect while moving (non-static). Even while static, it seems to affect a standard cone aoe rather than what the animation itself seems to project. I will say that I like the synergy of casting beacon of grace immediately before beacon of hope for a more effective beacon of hope. Overall I'm VERY happy with these abilities besides the visuals. The cooldowns feel right, the healing amount feels right (if probably a bit high on beacon of hope for endgame).

Flight of Glory: Consider increasing the aoe effect upon landing. I assume the design intent here was for the FvS to wing in and cast the beacons to heal while simultaneously giving his frontliners the temp hp buff. As it stands, the aoe area is a bit small to safely do this in high skull reaper. I imagine that if it does not get changed, I'll probably just animation cancel in place with it to buff the backline instead but that seems to go against the design intent - ultimately, I don't care how it ends up, but just letting you know how it will get used if it remains the same.

True Resurrection: This is an awesome sla to have as it completes the level 9 divine spells (though it does weaken cleric's enhanced spell slots relative to FvS). It feels fitting for the tree, and I quite like the epic levels affecting your abilities. Consider changing the stat increase to be +2 (wis/cha) and +2 con instead of the +4 wis/cha. This is for balance reasons w.r.t. AoV tree. As it stands, there's no reason to take AoV to T5 and capstone over Beacon for a DC caster (see my feedback on that thread for more information).

Good Hope Sla: Not amazing, but I'll take it for now until I decide to drop might's reward.

Close Wounds Sla: Amazing, for a top off heal ability. Also decently good for leveling / dps casters keeping up their stacks. My one concern is that the cooldown seems too short for the 1 AP investment. I'd prefer something like 6/4/1 or 6/3/1 for cooldown instead. Give me a reason to invest more than 1 point in this.

Death Ward Sla: Horrible. You are going to take mass dw at level 8 spell level anyways on a pure FvS. I'd STRONGLY STRONGLY consider changing this to freedom of movement. It would accomplish what seems to be your design goal behind these slas, freeing up spell selections at certain crunched levels. Again though, if you are going to have more than 1 rank for a buff sla, you need to give me a reason to invest more than 1 point.

Raise Dead Sla: Horrible but it doesn't matter. THe other T5s are decent enough that I'm not worried about a 5th T5 being lackluster. If you feel like changing this or ever buffing this tree, I'd consider changing this to greater restoration or mass cure light wounds sla. Or possibly a max level healing caster level buff. Or if you want to be really creative allow you to select one of the earlier Hopes (inspiration, victory, protection) and give it a passive buff.

Divine Durability I and II: Decent. Not much to say except that there's a lot of prr/mrr in this tree when you combine optimism and this.

Efficient Empowered Healing: good

Optimism: really strong - actually a bit too much prr/mrr.

Hope for Inspiration: Lackluster mainly because +8 to skills doesn't do as much as you think it does. Honestly it would be great if there was some way to specialize more into some of these buffs and pick one to enhance in some capacity. Give than hide is a dps skill now, I understand the hesitancy behind not granting a more generous scaling but at the very least consider 1/3rd scaling instead of 1/4th -> +11 to skills at level 30 is a bit better. One thing I really like about this buff though is that theres some synergy with intimitanks - given that as a healer you'll be with them anyways.

Hope for Protection: Good enough. I'm a bit worried about the synergy of having 2 FvS Beacons cast this on each other. Optimism + this buff + durability would be a LOT of prr/mrr.

Hope for Victory: 18 MP vs 18 RP vs 36 SP -> there's a clear winner here and a clear loser. 18 RP > 18 MP >> 36 SP in terms of net effect / multiplier. I'd probably triple the spell power and halve the ranged power if you want a more balanced buff. If not, I'm fine just casting it on the ranged toons.

Hope for Success: Dislike the change to only affect the main hand weapon. This basically is going to guarantee that it only gets cast on ranged toons and very occasionally thf users. 18 seconds lines up near perfectly with fury capstone 20 second burst dps from throwers. This was a monster in testing. I worry about this impacting the difficulty of some raid mechanics (pt 4 shroud, etc.). I also urge you to change it to affect both mainhand and offhand weapons. I'd also urge you to consider making it a bit more elaborate so crit range and crit multiplier were based on weapon type. Lastly, I'd urge you to consider adding a spell crit % and spell crit multiplier to it as well so that dps spellcasters aren't even further behind than they already are. Also if you could add a color based aura buff effect like you have for the other hope buffs, that would be appreciated.

A note about hope buffs: they seem to only last 12 seconds instead of the intended 18 seconds. Hopefully you manage to sort this out.

Heal Sla: Good but when you actually compare cometfall sla vs this, this wins out at cap (where you aren't going to be using empower / maximize on cometfall). This is mainly due to the similar cooldown between the heal spell and heal sla (as opposed to AoV's cometfall sla has double the cooldown of the actual spell). See my other feedback on AoV for more details. Overall this is a good choice and fitting nothing much to say here.

Undying Beacon: Honestly still seems strong to me, I didn't get a chance to see this in action though, so its all just theorycrafting.

Wall of Healing: Visuals look good but I'm a bit concerned that in some areas (stormhorns, etc.) there's going to be some issue with seeing the effect. It also appears to be coded in a way that the ticks of healing are timed and if you aren't in the aoe effect you miss out. This is probably to avoid intentionally straffing it like people try to do with mobs and wall of fire; however, the side effect is that kiting and positioning to make use of the wall leads to the wall being a lot less effective than it should be. Lastly, the cooldown is 60 with a duration of 15 contradictory to what has been indicated as intended. Hopefully this gets fixed. As it stands, the ability is pretty weak outside a few niche scenarios.

Might's Reward: This ability is just bad. You are looking at a 50-60 positive spell power buff at cap. This is decent in theory but it costs time and sp to maintain, as well as, AP to train. I see the static 13 positive spell power in confidence or the 30 spell points in T1 to be superior. Potentially this could make an impact in very niche scenarios, in which case I'd consider it. Tbh I think you should just make it your ability score out right instead of the mod and call it a day.

Final Words: I really like this tree, but I believe it could use some polish. Overall thanks for the design work and giving a real effort to making buffing viable again.

PS. I reference my AoV feedback, I haven't gotten to it yet but I'll provide a link here at the bottom to it when I do.

[unbongwah]

Having two rez SLAs seems excessive. If you need to rez your party members that often on a heal-specced FvS, you're doing it wrong. <insert "you had one job" meme here> I'd rather see, say, the Raise Dead SLA become True Resurrection; while the capstone SLA is e.g. MCCW or Mass Heal.

I agree FoM or Mass Death Ward SLA would be more helpful than Death Ward SLA. Although really I'm not fond of SLAs for long-term buffs in general; they don't chew up that many SPs normally, after all. I'd rather see more healing SLAs or short-term buff SLAs (e.g., Prayer), so you can spam them more frequently.

I'd also like to see Cometfall SLA moved from AoV to BoH. AoV is the de facto Evocation tree; BoH looks like the de facto Conjuration tree and Cometfall is a Conjuration spell. Particularly since BoH can be backup undead nukers with Beacon of Grace / Hope and Positive Energy spells, which are also Conjuration. And it would also help mix things up by giving BoH builds one of the better CC SLAs so they're not just healers / buffbots.