2019 ED Pass: Arcane Sphere

[GordolGreydon]

Can we get Reign to scale with ranged or melee power?

[ThomasHunter]

I don't have a good way of making their durations scale, but they can definitely go up from 5 minutes (Aria too). What sounds good? 10 minutes? 15 minutes?

Wow, that’s a good question. My Bard used to have songs be almost 8 minutes if I remember correctly. But he’s a mutt and I know others had longer songs for sure. 10 minutes seems good to me but hopefully you’ll get other feedback as well.

Also, is it possible to make Reign be a decent twist without Bard songs or is that too broken? I just really enjoy Reign and would love it on other of my melee toons. I certainly understand if that won’t work for either technical or game balance issues.

Thanks Lynnabel and team!

[Lynnabel]

10 minutes seems good to me

10 minutes it is :)

[btolson]

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

After the arcane pass, Arcane Tempest is relatively weak (esp for a top tier ability that only offers damage, and a 30 second cooldown). Maybe upgrade to 1d6+6 damage per cl per tick? Or add some sort of CC/debuff to better compare against EA's Divine Wrath heal?

[Mindos]

we're listing the full tree here rather than individual changes, it's clearer that way.)

• Dirge: Make it actually work and be good, otherwise no change

For completeness sake, can we edit this and say what it actually does instead of saying its good that it works now? Especially since the whole point of listing the entire tree was to be complete? Why list something that requires looking elseswhere to read its description? -same with all the other mentions of "no change".

[peng]

I just want to start off by saying that I'm a fan of the changes in general.

I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

The issue is that if you want the 2nd dc boosting ability, which costs 3 ap, you need to spend 3 ap on the 1st dc booster, and 6 ap in what is, imo, filler. So *if* you want to max DCs in 1 school, you have to spend 10 ap on stat boosts, 6 on dc boosts, 2 on anything in t1, and 6 on filler. With the changes, there's plenty worth taking in the tree, but since this line is geared at DC casting and costs 12 ap to take it all, it locks almost the entire rest of the tree out.

I'd recommend either making the spell school line not require the earlier levels as prerequisites, or follow Zretch's idea of 2 ap per and only 1 tier each for the max benefit. And apply the same to the energy burst line from draconic. And anywhere else it exists. Long, expensive pre-req trees are not fun when you only want 1-2 things in that tree. If you do make 1 of those changes, then maybe reduce the dc in the cores to 3 or 4. As is, magister offers twice as much dc as any other destiny.


And now that I've segued into draconic... go out with a bang. It sucks. Change the hp requirement to 75%-90% or significantly reduce the cooldown (possibly both). As is, I take it to get to eburst and never even put it on a hotbar. 4 minute cooldown, and only usable when I'd rather hit myself with a heal.


On to fatesinger! Could we get some sonic spell boosts in the cores? Maybe crit chance/multiplier or max caster levels? A spellsinger would have more damage from sonic spells in either of the other arcane destinies.

Also, am I correct in assuming that the harmonics give you their buff twice and everyone else once (assuming your songs apply to everyone)?

Also also:

• Dirge and chord of disruption are not affected by spellpower. The damage is pitiful.
• I've heard (haven't personally tested) that the +4 cha from turn of the tide doesn't stack with inspire excellence.
• There are several on-hit debuffs that barely benefit melees, but would help a caster bard immensely (harmonic resonance, fragment of the song: valor). Is there a reason these only proc on hit and not spellcast?
• Turn of the tide is a long cooldown, short duration, epic moment, melee buff that doesn't affect bosses. As many have asked before, why not?
• Several abilities with long cooldowns that just aren't worth it (siren's song, bound fate).
• Abilities with an unlisted DC (dirge, chord of disruption, bound fate).
• Grim fate says that it may take effect even if bound fate doesn't. It may? Does it have a dc? A % chance to proc? Does it only work on alternate tuesdays?

[Pilgrim1]

I have 3 general issues that I think would change epic destinies for the better:

(1) expand the +1 stat bonuses to all 6 stats.
This enables toon that the destines are not build for to still use that destiny to some effect. It will make leveling off destinies slightly less painful. In addition it increases the different character builds available to take advantage of a destiny like this. Since destinies are designed to be used by many different builds this will only increase the diversity available.

(2) reduce the cost of +1 stats bonuses to 1 AP.
When Epic destinies where reduces most stats maxed out at ~60-70. Today the max is well over 130 for some stats. Thus the value of increasing stats has reduced, with the exception of characters who are defined by abilities on the d20 scale (like DC's). In addition since you are re-vamping and improving the existing destinies this will increase the number of action points stat hungry characters have to spend into the new toys and make for a more enjoyable experience.

(3) Add in base-line amounts of melee and ranged power to all destinies.
Being a physical damage toon in a destiny that has no melee or ranged power is really a painful process. Allowing at least some melee/ranged power into off destinies will make the leveling experience more enjoyable and might lead to interesting build options.

I will give destiny specific feedback in later posts.

[GordolGreydon]

Please make a change to "Goes Out With A Bang" to make it mirror the activation properties of Arcane Barrier found in Tier 4 of Eldritch Knight. Goes Out with A Bang has the potential to be an interesting ability, but the current activation requirements cause it to have little use and instead it becomes an AP tax in order to gain energy burst. By changing the requirements to a passive activation with the corresponding cooldown that it currently has it will increase its utilization as well as providing a great indicator to players that they are below 50% health. (If this changer were made it might be suggested to make it a toggle between On and Off so that players could turn it on and off as it might not always be prudent to have it active depending on the content.)

[-D_Rock-]

No idea why you're spending so much effort on Arcane Tempest in Magistar. Magistar is an extremely AP starved tree as multiple abilities in the tree require 3 points to select and have 3 point pre-requisites. After putting your 12 AP into your prime stat (failure to do so is a loss of DCs), and after spending 2 more points on tier 1 skills which do nothing for your casting, to unlock tier 2 skills, you only have 10 AP left to work up to Master of (Spell School). Each rank requires 3 AP to max out, so you put 3 into Specialist, Augmentation, and Familiarity and...yea, you get to put 1 into Master of. You can put 2 into there if you only spend 2 into Familiarity, but you can never put 3 into that skill unless you give up main stat increases. So OK, to get Master of maxed, you clip 1 stat increase and pick up +2 DC in a single school at the expense of potentially 1 DC in all schools if your main stat is now an odd number. *You haven't taken any other ability in the entire tree!* No sigils, no tempest, no nullmagic anything. There aren't the APs for any of it, including spell penetration!

Perhaps consider making the Specialist, Augmentation, Familiarity, and Master of lines be a single selection that costs 2 AP for full benefit, retaining the same pre-requisites. You could then go all the way up the tree, at least. You'd still only have two points left over for spell pen and you still couldn't take any of the flavor skills (sigils, nullmagics, tempest, etc), but it would be a bit easier to check almost all of the required boxes. Recall, I can get full DC benefit including full penetration from Exalted Angel today and still have points left over to take a big AoE heal (divine wrath), wings, and a very nice debuff for some flavor. It would be nice if Magistar could provide offer a little bit of flavor for those at which the tree is targeted (DC casters).

all this ^^^^^

[Steelstar]

Edited the main post to add a few adjustments to existing Fatesinger abilities that are also going into this update.

[Rob_65270]

Nice to see these passes. But am still loving to see Destiny trees for Arties and Warlocks at some point. But I'm loving to see these passes.

[SirShen]

(1) expand the +1 stat bonuses to all 6 stats.
This enables toon that the destines are not build for to still use that destiny to some effect. It will make leveling off destinies slightly less painful. In addition it increases the different character builds available to take advantage of a destiny like this. Since destinies are designed to be used by many different builds this will only increase the diversity available.

This for me is the main reason i don't take other EDs. So all these changes mean nothing to me if the state in the ED is not the main one i am using.

[Pilgrim1]

Magister
There is way to many points to spend in this tree, many of these abilities need to be consolidated into 1 tear. There is currently 68 available options in this tree, it is the most crowded destiny! I suggest the following: Compress all the sigil lines into 1 tear, compress the null magic line into 1 tear abilities. And combine the summing stuff into a single ability.

Keep in mind that this will now provide +5 DC to all schools and +6DC's to a single school, with upto 3 more for charisma/int users. Every FvS will now roll charisma and move to this destiny, every cleric will now move to this destiny and be 3 points behind FvS, and every DC wizard and sorcerer will now be dancing with joy at finally being able to cast spells in an arcane destiny. I would suggest you change the master of school to not include +3 more DC in that school but instead to be a alternative school. So if you focused on necromancy the master would allow you to pick +3 DC in any school other then necromancy. Otherwise the change you did will give school specific wizards a boost of +11 DC. Is that what you want?

Draconic
I like the changes to the core's as well as allowing the SLA to have DC casting added to them. However these changes bring them in-line with the other 9th lvl arcane spells, they do not surpass them. I would also spare a few min to look at the epic feet hell-ball.

I would suggest you change draconic furry to something that increase CL, crit chance, and crit damage instead of just SP.
With draconic hunger make sure they stack otherwise if you kill a handful of mobs you will only get the benefit one time.

Daunting roar and barrier of scales need to be looked at, in both cases i would adjust there cooldown down and increase their effect.

Lastly i would suggest adding some DC's to the core so that damage casters will not fall to far behind magister to the point where they can no longer land there spells.

Fatesinger
This is to new for me to comment on.

[Steelstar]

Otherwise the change you did will give school specific wizards a boost of +11 DC. Is that what you want?

Yes. We really specifically ran the numbers on this one.

[peng]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I've always thought that caster level bonuses should be split between destinies and epic levels. Maybe 1 caster level every other epic level (for 5 total) and 3 caster levels and max caster levels in caster destiny cores.

[Selvera]

When last I tested; [Color] Dragon Breath attacks gained no DC bonus for equipping items that gave "Breath Weapon Focus"; such as the Scarlet Scale Cloak. Is this going to be fixed, or are those items very specifically only for dragonborn breath weapons and not for an ED that anyone can take?

[Zretch]

I'm not here to stop anyone from putting 100% of their points in DCs. I think it's boring, but that's not especially important. You do you.

Arcane Tempest is there for those who want to drop big damage on stuff part-time.

You see, there's a whole tree for that...Draconic Incernation. Why do I want to play in the DC tree for nukes? At least you can twist the big nuke from DI. The way you combat putting 100% of your points into DCs is to not require 26 APs to be spent in the DC casting tree to get all the DC benefit and then only give people 24 points to spend.

From my own perspective, crowd control is anything but boring, especially in a game where you so rarely find anyone resembling a tank in any group that forms.

[Anuulified]

Can you make energy sheath a selector type spell, so we dont have to reset it over and over.

[Shedrakzo]

Regarding Draconic Incarnation, I forget if there's any ED that supports Pale Masters well, so would it be viable to add a negative energy option to the selection of energy types? I suppose it could be justified being there with the whole dracolich thing.

[Edit] Some additional thoughts on the idea:
By making a negative energy route, Pale Masters can have access to their own 'Divine Wrath' type heal-damage ability in epics. Even if the healing portion is half of the damage you do; on a 30 second CD the negative version of Energy Burst is balanced.

By having the negative energy route in Draconic Incarnation you prevent PMs from having both the Magister DC boost and great self-healing/damage potential.

You also give an epic level version of Death Aura via a negative version of Energy Vortex.

It also gives Dark Disciple/death domain clerics an alternative destiny in the arcane sphere instead of just going Magister for DCs.

[Strambotica]

Ok. You find DC casters boring. BUT how about the people who loves them. I always compete with myself to get the hightest DC. (on Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Bard, Favored Soul, Cleric, Druid)
So… now if i want my necro cleric with high DC, need to run in Magister? My last life was necro cleric, running in EA for DC (extra necro from magister twist). And even with this, the Destruction DC where so so. Have to cast it a couple of times till finally works. And with lower spell points comparing with a FVS wasnt funny.

Draconic

• Any chance to add DC to the cores? You cant nuke the things if you cant pass the DC. Wasnt fun to have big spellpower numbers and only see “save save save save save” (no need DC to all like Magister, Evocation + Conjuration)
• Precise Casting. Maybe have the chance to add till +3?

Fatesinger

• Martial Hymn: could add INT? There is many INT based DPS builds (Rogue and Artificer are people too :P)

But just like this... im thinking that my DC casters will run in EA or Magister, regadless the class.