2019 ED Pass: Divine Sphere

[LeoLionxxx]

Some additional changes to EA would be welcome. I should probobly read though what everyone else has said, but 5 pages is a lot.

The big, blinding thing to alter is the big, blinding vfx on the Ascendance capstone ability. Something more subtle, like transparent angle wings, might be more appropriate; bonus points if they flap at certain times, like casting a spell or jumping.

As I understand it, the Ascendance "Angelic Form" is a major change. I wonder if it should be a permanent one, instead of a 2 minute buff. Else, perhaps it could have a shorter duration and pack more of a punch, to make it more of an "Epic Moment", than an "Epic 2 minutes".
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The other big thing I don't like in this tree is the "Astral Vibrance" toggle, due to it draining SP every 2 seconds. If I'm waiting around for a party member, I don't want to have to micromanage this buff by toggling it off, and then on again when I want it.

If nothing else, please at least change the wording to be less scary; " Having this ability active costs 1 sp every 2 seconds, increasing by 1 every 2 seconds", which says to me that the sp drain/second grows the longer you have it on!
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Would it be possible to make "Reborn in light" only usable while dead? It's frustrating when you accidentally click it and loose that safety net, especially now that it's once per rest.
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Someone made a fair point about the "Endless Faith" being very expensive to get, since you have to get the 2 pre-requisites as well, yet for toons in any other ED, it's a cheap twist. I suggest the pre-requisite be removed and/or the cost of these 3 reduced. That would free Angels up to spend points on enhancements that are more fun than simple spellpower.

[SirValentine]

All these trees add to Cleric/Paladin(/FvS) caster level in their cores. Do they also add to Turn Undead level? If not, they should.

Additionally, at least one should have a purchased ability that improves Turn Undead. Turn Undead doesn't need any help in Heroic; it needs it exactly where Epic Destinies come into play, in Epic.

[grudgebear]

NEW: T6: The Book of War: Wrath of the Divine: While wielding a Favored Weapon in your Main Hand, you gain +1 to Hit and Damage for every 2 Religious Lore Feats you have with all equipped weapons and shields. (1 Rank, 1AP)

Please remove this restriction based on religious lore feats and limit this to just while wielding Favored Weapon in your Main Hand. Or just lower the bonus if you don't have these feats.

This will open up Divine Crusader for other melee classes, especially for fighters. Kensai's and vanguards are not to be seen in and high endgame content. Monks, Rangers have means to recover themselves from battles and Fighter just simply does not.

This divine epic destiny can be a strong contender against Legendary Dreadnought.


P.S. However I really appreciate the effort revamping Divine Crusader tree and fixing it's bugs.

[LucidLTS]

Exalted Angel
This is a good tree, for those who can make use of the skills in it. We analyzed it and didn't see much that we thought merited major change, though we might try to loop back for some bugfixes before release. We did make a change to one skill for game balance reasons.

• Reborn in Light no longer charges with Endless Ardor and Righteous Fervor; instead, it is once per Rest (keeps 10min cooldown).

The 10 minute cool down, and *only* the 10 minute cool down, is enough of a limitation on Reborn in Light. If you want to nerf it, take away some of the extras, but DO NOT limit it to once per rest.

First, something that allows you to recover from a TPK is fundamentally different from something that lets you quickly dispatch an opponent. Quickly defeating an opponent takes you from the position of strength (characters usually defeat opponents) to a position of more strength (defeating them faster), reversing a TPK takes you from a position of weakness (you're all dead) to a more equal footing (sure you're a character, but now you have death penalty, worn gear, no buffs, etc).If you've already had a TPK, you've learned your lesson, suffered your pain, etc. This doesn't remove the challenge, there's already a surfeit of challenge or we wouldn't have had the TPK to begin with. Sitting around as a bunch of soul stones waiting for the 10 minute timer to expire is already super painful, but it lets you salvage the 2 hours your group has just invested in this raid.

Second, at T6, it's already super expensive to get access to - you can't just dump in a few points and add the twist in your 4th slot, and if you're in EA the 9 points it takes to get a decent Endless Ardor keeps you from taking much worthwhile elsewhere in the tree. Plus it's not that great tree. Letting RiL be unusually powerful, especially in a way that is leveling the field not tipping it further to a player's already considerable advantage, is appropriate.

Third, unless and until you successfully limit lag wipes to once per rest, removing the safety valve that lets us recover from them as often as they may occur is a terrible idea.

As others have suggested, adding another T6 might be a viable alternative - I'd support the second T6 that let them regenerate, or even better split all the other considerable benefits into a second T6 and leave RiL just a self/friend resurrection on 10 minute cool down.

[darknoobslayer]

Along with getting full health could we get some spell points to? Also is there any chance of reducing the cost of 2 AP enhancements to 1 AP in the trees?

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Divine Crusader:
This is also a Pretty Good tree in its current form, but lacks a little scaling and punch. In adding punch, we wanted to give some solid bonuses for Divine characters in here; you can get access to some alternative Favored Weapons, and then really make them shine if you've got a lot of Divine levels. We think Warpriests and War Souls will shine in here, along with Paladins once KOTC gets revamped later this year.

• Castigation's damage now works on bosses as listed
• Castigation now grants its listed Melee Power
• No Regret now grants its listed Melee Power
• Strike Down's tooltip now correctly says it deals Light damage
• Strike Down's Light damage now scales with 200% Melee Power
• Confront Any Foe now adds +3[w]
• Confront Any Foe's Light damage now scales with 300% Melee Power
• Smite the Wicked's Light damage is now 100 against Evil creatures and 100 against Undead creatures. Evil Undead creatures take both.
• Smite the Wicked's Light damage now scales with 200% Melee Power.
• Smite the Wicked now destroys Undead and Evil Outsiders under 1500 HP on a Vorpal.
• Stand and be Judged now has a DC of 10+Wisdom Modifier+Character Level+Stunning Bonuses (We also made it faster & more reliable to cast a few Updates ago)
• Celestial Bombardment now only has 1 rank, that does what the old Rank 3 did.
• Celestial Bombardment now costs 20SP.
• Celestial Bombardment now takes the Enlarge, Maximize, Empower, Intensify, Embolden, and Quicken Metamagics.
• Celestial Bombardment is now significantly quicker to cast.
• Moved Celestial Champion one spot left, to the middle of T5, it just feels better there.
• Celestial Champion's Doublestrike and Doubleshot are now Sacred-typed.
• NEW: T4: The Book of War: (Multiselector): Pick one of the following to gain as a Favored Weapon: Longsword, Longbow, Morningstar, Greatsword (1 Rank, 1AP)
• NEW: T6: The Book of War: Wrath of the Divine: While wielding a Favored Weapon in your Main Hand, you gain +1 to Hit and Damage for every 2 Religious Lore Feats you have with all equipped weapons and shields. (1 Rank, 1AP)

Fixed it

• Each core ability now grants two religious lore feats for a maximum of +10 religious lore feats
• Artificers using this tree are considered to have stepped up from revering Onatar, to worshiping him and gain Warhammers as a favored weapon.
• Castigation's damage now works on bosses as listed
• Castigation now grants its listed Melee Power
• No Regret now grants its listed Melee Power
• Strike Down's tooltip now correctly says it deals Light damage
• Strike Down's Light damage now scales with 200% Melee Power
• Confront Any Foe now adds +3[w]
• Confront Any Foe's Light damage now scales with 300% Melee Power
• Smite the Wicked's Light damage is now 100 against Evil creatures and 100 against Undead creatures. Evil Undead creatures take both.
• Smite the Wicked's Light damage now scales with 200% Melee Power.
• Smite the Wicked now destroys Undead and Evil Outsiders under 1500 HP on a Vorpal.
• Stand and be Judged now has a DC of 10+Wisdom Modifier+Character Level+Stunning Bonuses (We also made it faster & more reliable to cast a few Updates ago)
• Celestial Bombardment now only has 1 rank, that does what the old Rank 3 did.
• Celestial Bombardment now costs 20SP.
• Celestial Bombardment now takes the Enlarge, Maximize, Empower, Intensify, Embolden, and Quicken Metamagics.
• Celestial Bombardment is now significantly quicker to cast.
• Moved Celestial Champion one spot left, to the middle of T5, it just feels better there.
• Celestial Champion's Doublestrike and Doubleshot are now Sacred-typed.
• NEW: T4: The Book of War: (Multiselector): Pick one of the following to gain as a Favored Weapon: Longsword, Longbow, Morningstar, Greatsword, Bastard Sword, Dwarven War Axe (1 Rank, 1AP)
• NEW: T6: The Book of War: Wrath of the Divine: While wielding a Favored Weapon in your Main Hand, you gain +1 to Hit and Damage for every 2 Religious Lore Feats you have with all equipped weapons and shields. (1 Rank, 1AP)

[BandVP]

I see why it as nerfed, and it makes sense. Nowadays if you're making an endgame build, you always do for Drednaught. The 50% helpless damage is really beneficial when you're doing reapers. However, taking away 35% is far too much in my opinion. I personally think lowering it down to 25% to 30% is good, as it still keeps Drednaught a strong hitter, whereas with 15% you have little to no difference.

[axel15810]

Would love to see some improvements to Crusader's aura and debuffing. And maybe a new capstone that isn't just a worse DPS boosting alternative to master's blitz. Or maybe make crusade's buff more flexible/less restricted to just a fixed area. I feel like the tree needs more things in the buff/debuff area, more things other than just more melee power and damage, to help it stand out from just being a worse Legendary Dreadnaught for so many builds.

The new increases/fixes to DPS in the tree are nice but it needs the debuffs/buffs to be better to make it more unique and more worth using in an off-DPS kind of role as a KotC paladin or Warpriest melee cleric/melee FVS would want to fill. (Also as a side note please revisit warpriest at some point to make it worth using as a primary tree, it isn't currently IMO, it needs love. Falconry is a better option than Warpriest in pretty much every relevant way.)

The DPS for obvious reasons won't and shouldn't surpass dreadnaught's so there really should be some super attractive buffs/debuffs here to make the tree shine. That would interest me in using it as a primary tree. Parties should really value the debuffs and/or buffs that Crusader brings and currently they just don't. Aura is really meh, and crusade is too restrictive because of the fixed area.

[Hobgoblin]

Not sure if it has been mentioned, but can u fix the cure mass sla? It won't cast if u dont have yourself targeted

[Bluenoser]

Similar to what others said about unhitching endless faith from pos and rad spellpower, but I'd go a step further: an extra 30 spellpower when you hit epics is just OK, and certainly not worth 3 AP. I would eliminate the tiers of POS and RAD and just make each 30 points for 1 AP, and reduce the endless faith to only 1 or 2 tiers (again, separate from the spellpowers). It's ridiculous to have to spend 11 points in tier 1 just to get some bread and butter divine casting power and a stat point.

[Don1966]

Hello! This is an early look at the Epic Destiny Pass currently slated for Update 43. (The second Sharn raid is coming before this, so there's still a bit of time before this reaches Lamannia). A few notes about this pass, before we get to details:

We had a few primary goals in the Epic Destiny pass, compounded by a very slim time-frame of 3 weeks for principal changes.

• First and foremost, try to put each Destiny in a place where it's worth using for at least some builds.
• Fix bugs and remove things that hinder fun or usability
  
  • You'll notice that every Epic Moment that required you to do weird things to charge it up no longer requires that.
  
  
• Improve the ability for people to play in Destinies that match their Archetype (ranged characters in Shiradi, etc) without significantly hindering the current ability for people to play in Destinies that don't (casters in Shiradi, etc)

Like we said above, the timeframe was slim. We didn't hit everything we would have liked to, and there are still abilities within individual Destinies that still probably aren't worth taking. We're listening for feedback here, but our ability to act on it is similarly time-restricted; we're unlikely to further revamp whole trees or add completely new skills at this time, but we may be able to make number tweaks and fix outstanding bugs.

That said, this is the thread for Divine Sphere Destinies, so let's dive in. Be sure to check out the other Sphere threads when you're done, as well as the topic on new Epic Past Lives coming with these changes.


Divine Crusader:
This is also a Pretty Good tree in its current form, but lacks a little scaling and punch. In adding punch, we wanted to give some solid bonuses for Divine characters in here; you can get access to some alternative Favored Weapons, and then really make them shine if you've got a lot of Divine levels. We think Warpriests and War Souls will shine in here, along with Paladins once KOTC gets revamped later this year.

• NEW: T6: The Book of War: Wrath of the Divine: While wielding a Favored Weapon in your Main Hand, you gain +1 to Hit and Damage for every 2 Religious Lore Feats you have with all equipped weapons and shields. (1 Rank, 1AP)

how tricky would it be to make this a multi selector and have +1 melee power for every Religious Lore Feats you have as a choice?

[ElweSulk]

Divine Crusader:

• NEW: T4: The Book of War: (Multiselector): Pick one of the following to gain as a Favored Weapon: Longsword, Longbow, Morningstar, Greatsword (1 Rank, 1AP)
• NEW: T6: The Book of War: Wrath of the Divine: While wielding a Favored Weapon in your Main Hand, you gain +1 to Hit and Damage for every 2 Religious Lore Feats you have with all equipped weapons and shields. (1 Rank, 1AP)

T4: Please extend this list with more weapons. As pointed out earlier in this thread; Dagger is missing; but please add more choices too.

T6: "Cleric, Favored Soul, Paladin receive this feat at every level. Bard received this feat at level 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 ,11, 13 ,15, 17, 19.", and add "+1 to Hit and Damage for every 2 Religious Lore Feats". This basically means +10 for cleric, FS, Paladin, and +5 for Bard. This locks out other classes. You specifically open up other destinies with removing requirements (example: LD no longer need power attack and cleave). Please reconsider this so it's more attractive to other classes too.

[Paladin_of_Power]

Divine Crusader:

• Would have liked to see some buffs to Turn Undead. HD, Max HD, Total HD you get the idea.
• Would have liked to see something to buff the Holy Retribution from KoTC. It runs out of steam. Increase the HP limit of the destroyed proc. Possibly tie it into Smite the Wicked somehow. As that is similar.
• Speaking of, would like an option to increase the HP limit of Smite the Wicked above the new 1500hp limit. More tiers?
• Since Consecration creates holy ground, how about adding a proc to cause a Neg level to Evil foes per tick? Similar concept to a Good aligned character equipping certain Evil equipment (causes a neg level). Perhaps 5% chance each tier?
• Bane of Undeath needs more cowbell fow anyone to consider taking it. Undead Bane 2d6 is pretty weak in Epics. I'd be surprised if anyone took this one to gain Turn Undead feat. Would like to see Epic Undead bane instead, +8 hit/dmg and extra 6d6 points of damage against Undead.
• Would like to see some Positive Spellpower built into this Destiny. Possibly X per core?
• Really like The Book of War items. Flavorful, very useful, thematic.
• Good Job on Celestial Bombardment ! Wish the save had a 'higher of' option to be more Paladin friendly (STR or CON + Tactical DC) but.... I understand as it is.
• Does No Remorse even work? "Whenever an enemy who was recently affected by your Aura of Purification is slain, nearby allies are healed for Positive Energy equal to the CR of the slain enemy."
• "+25 Spell Points, +10 hit Points" This bonus appears three times in the cores. The numbers look a bit light for an Epic level benefit.

[john0]

With new gear setup it is easy to have a near 100% doublestrike permanent uptime. Add in the 10% doublestrike change from DC and 30% reaper doublestike boost and then pop zeal 50% and you get another extra 90%. So you end up with a 190% doublestrike... could we change doublestrike to be like doubleshot so that going over 100% has actual use?

[ElweSulk]

Divine Crusader:

• Castigation's damage now works on bosses as listed
• Castigation now grants its listed Melee Power

I'm pretty sure the damage from this one doesn't work in general. Please test it properly vs normal/champion/orange/red/purple mobs. I currently see no damage on them at all from this one.

Other thing: Please change "Bane of Undeath" (tier 1) to cost 1 AP. And "Endless Turning": remove requirements, and grant turn undead also if don't have.

[ElweSulk]

With new gear setup it is easy to have a near 100% doublestrike permanent uptime. Add in the 10% doublestrike change from DC and 30% reaper doublestike boost and then pop zeal 50% and you get another extra 90%. So you end up with a 190% doublestrike... could we change doublestrike to be like doubleshot so that going over 100% has actual use?

Or atleast make Zeal temporary benefit from above 100% just like doubleshot. This temporary could be either: a) if above 100%: zeal% is what can be above 100%, or b) while zeal is running: total % is just like doubleshot. Example: a) 120+zeal (50; decreasing as usual) = 100+50=150 (and then decreasing), b) 120+zeal = 120+50=170 and decreasing as normal. In both cases: when zeal duration is finished: 100% cap again.

[ElweSulk]

I'm pretty sure the damage from this one doesn't work in general. Please test it properly vs normal/champion/orange/red/purple mobs. I currently see no damage on them at all from this one

I tested on low level kobolds now, and it seems like if the get purification stacks, they don't take damage from it... but if I'm close to them, the aura ticks for 1 pt of bane damage on them slowly. And it's not increased by number of stacks of purification on them.

So I'm pretty sure Castigation is broken.

[Grailhawk]

I tested on low level kobolds now, and it seems like if the get purification stacks, they don't take damage from it... but if I'm close to them, the aura ticks for 1 pt of bane damage on them slowly. And it's not increased by number of stacks of purification on them.

So I'm pretty sure Castigation is broken.

Test it on something with more hp, I used the cannon on the air ship I saw as the stacks grow the damage went up once the cannon had less than half health the damage goes down then capped at one till it dies . It's not stack% of Max hp but of current hp. So a low level kobold may have lost enough hp on the build up to never lose more than 1 hp per tick.

No idea if it's working on more than one target or what it's range is I tested this less than 3 months ago.

[ElweSulk]

Divine Crusader:

• Castigation's damage now works on bosses as listed
• Castigation now grants its listed Melee Power

I've done some more testing on "Castigation" and "Aura of Purification", and have found following:

• Castigation: Seems to do it's % damage based on # of purification counters, but once enemy has less than 100 hp it only does 1hp damage no matter how many purification counters. bug?
• Aura of Purification: Description says: "Every 3 Seconds While Active: Nearby enemies gain a stack of Purification". This is NOT the case. No matter the number of enemies, only one enemy gains counter from this aura. And it will be that enemy until it dies that gains counters. By the description: ALL enemies within aura range should get a counter. BUG! Please fix

[FlavoredSoul]

Any chance of the semi-common bug (usually notice it once every dungeon or so) that causes divine crusader to occasionally give stacks of the purification debuff to allies to be fixed?

It's really annoying when you get 3 or 4 stacks of -damage and - spell power just because you're near someone in divine crusader.