First Look: Radiant Servant Adjustments

[axel15810]

Not a fan of the mass resist SLA. Will be very good in heroics to get that at level 12 for the heroic TR crowd but for epics, seems mostly meh. If you really need say, fire resist when playing at cap, you'll be wearing an item that is greater than 35 that will override/won't stack with the resist. I really was hoping for Heal considering Beacon tree has it and iirc part of the reason as stated in a dev post was an attempt at parity with that tree.

As far as Martyrdom, just add it for free to one of the cores if you want it to be a thing for flavor. I think it is kinda cool from a flavor perspective. But practically, it's still not worth taking for anyone even for 1 AP that gives what 3 AP did before. An ability that only works on death is kinda cool thematically but not useful practically.

Disappointed that some abilities like radiant burst, divine healing and bliss weren't given some buffs other than AP reductions. I know this is intended to be a quick pass but does tweaking these numbers up a bit really require a lot of dev time?

Melee cleric enthusiasts like myself would really love a burst buff as we can get more use out of it than caster clerics, being near the melees more often and all. The healing we get out of it feels lacking.

Overall the AP reduction to many abilities in this pass was nice, but playing with the new tree on Lamannia I felt forced to take weak abilities just to get up to what I want in the higher tiers. Because the lower tier stuff in the tree is now cheaper, but remains weak.

Last thing and fairly minor but as I mentioned before Radiance needs a name change. Radiance already is the term for light spellpower boosts/light damage found on equipment. This is a defensive CC elimination spell so it's just confusing. I can come up with a bunch of potential new names if the devs want suggestions.

[Tlorrd]

Not a fan of the mass resist SLA. Will be very good in heroics to get that at level 12 for the heroic TR crowd but for epics, seems mostly meh. If you really need say, fire resist when playing at cap, you'll be wearing an item that is greater than 35 that will override/won't stack with the resist. I really was hoping for Heal considering Beacon tree has it and iirc part of the reason as stated in a dev post was an attempt at parity with that tree.

I agree that mass resist SLA is meh; but they (devs) also said long ago that they basically wanted Heal SLA only for BoH as RS already get so much healing potential.

As far as Martyrdom, just add it for free to one of the cores if you want it to be a thing for flavor. I think it is kinda cool from a flavor perspective. But practically, it's still not worth taking for anyone even for 1 AP that gives what 3 AP did before. An ability that only works on death is kinda cool thematically but not useful practically.

Agree that adding to the cores could free up some space to put a cooler new RS ability. Hopefully for future update.

Disappointed that some abilities like radiant burst, divine healing and bliss weren't given some buffs other than AP reductions. I know this is intended to be a quick pass but does tweaking these numbers up a bit really require a lot of dev time?

Melee cleric enthusiasts like myself would really love a burst buff as we can get more use out of it than caster clerics, being near the melees more often and all. The healing we get out of it feels lacking.

Semi-agree, would be cool add some other buffs. But from healing aspect you have more than enough to use that as well as ameliorating strike and a mass cure.

Overall the AP reduction to many abilities in this pass was nice, but playing with the new tree on Lamannia I felt forced to take weak abilities just to get up to what I want in the higher tiers. Because the lower tier stuff in the tree is now cheaper, but remains weak.

Last thing and fairly minor but as I mentioned before Radiance needs a name change. Radiance already is the term for light spellpower boosts/light damage found on equipment. This is a defensive CC elimination spell so it's just confusing. I can come up with a bunch of potential new names if the devs want suggestions.

Eh, minor for the enhancement name. But as the tree's "Shining" ability, seems apo pro (sp?) to have it play on the Enhancement tree name as well.

Can you also be more specific in which higher tier enhancements you are looking for that is tougher to get due to the AP redux.

[SpardaX]

the main reason CMW is a bad SLA is that you get that with healing domain... kind of defeats the purpose
However for multiclass it might work...if healing domain is not chosen.

If they're on separate cooldowns though (which someone said they are) then I am all for it.
Multiple CMWs that cost 2-6sp that I can freely metamagic up to being super strong?
All on different cooldowns?

I'll take 5 to go please. Yes I want fries with that.

[Scortius]

Since you have the hood up on Mighty Turning and Improved Turning...

The U51 powercreep unwind (which I support) is going to effect turn checks. We haven't seen all the numbers so we can't analyze how it's going to work at various levels. It's going to be harder to get 50CHA on a cleric, though.

Turning, if you build for it and gear for it, can work quite well through mid-heroics. It's plausible that new players can make it work, and can be good for vets with developed toons.

Then, in epics, it both falls off a cliff and runs into a wall. Even decent items like the Hallowed Gauntlets (which were a good and needed step) don't seem to make up for the HD increases. Plus epic wards and turn wards (the HD are the cliff, the turn wards are the wall). But it suddenly becomes viable again at 29 in some content as gear finally catches up, except for the turn warded mobs.

I can't predict how the balancing will balance out, but there's an opportunity here- Improved turning could be +3/+6+/+9 (or more) rather than 2/4/6. Or you could add a turning bonus into the RS capstone if you don't want to overpower mid-heroic toons.

And the feat Improved Turning, which now only gives +1 level (so 1/2 an APs worth) could be adjusted. I like turning and build for it on my cleric, and the feat just isn't worthwhile. It'd need to be +4 or so before I'd consider taking that.

Also, you could make a Silver Flame augment in the new augment pass, to help with gearing.

[rabidfox]

the main reason CMW is a bad SLA is that you get that with healing domain... kind of defeats the purpose
However for multiclass it might work...if healing domain is not chosen.

If they're on separate cooldowns though (which someone said they are) then I am all for it.
Multiple CMWs that cost 2-6sp that I can freely metamagic up to being super strong?
All on different cooldowns?

Yup, they're on separate timers and for anyone who doesn't want 2x CMW SLAs then it opens up using a different domain. The idea that healers should run a heal tree + heal domain is really pigeonholing builds so having this SLA opens up more build options.

[Tlorrd]

Unfortunately, this will be all they will fix for RS for a long, long ... long, long time.

Even back in 2019 they stated that RS just needs cost balancing basically.

https://ddowiki.com/page/In_development#Update_49

[K_9]

The tree is looking better but still needs some tweaks. Raise Dead is a worthless T5 ability considering clerics get more spell slots than FVS

I would prefer to see something new along the lines of a new SLA that causes AoE positive healing (to allies) and positive damage to undead (enemies), with a save vs blindness. Hardly overpowered and serves multiple uses including getting mobs of your healer.

Also give them another ability called holy flames, single target damage spell that sets a target on fire for 1dX seconds for continual damage made of Fire/Untyped damage (like flame strike), but if the target is undead then it needs to make a fear save otherwise it cowers in place.

Both abilities also tie in the Radiant Servant type of tree.

[rabidfox]

The tree is looking better but still needs some tweaks. Raise Dead is a worthless T5 ability considering clerics get more spell slots than FVS

Welre not get raise dead. That was already replaced with AoE Mass Elemental Resists (The same +35 as Unyielding Sentinel's one but at available at level 12) because of feedback; it's a nice QoL improvement when buffing up a party in heroics.

[K_9]

Welre not get raise dead. That was already replaced with AoE Mass Elemental Resists (The same +35 as Unyielding Sentinel's one but at available at level 12) because of feedback; it's a nice QoL improvement when buffing up a party in heroics.

I agree that this much better for heroics. Assuming it is T5 ability, I'm not sure I would splash that high myself.

[Rhynn]

I'm not a fan of ANY of the radiant servant changes. Once again they are not well thought out, just like most loot/gear when a new expansion is released.

Here's my suggestions for Cleric updates:

To better compete and balance a cleric with a FVS, make the healing aura of clerics 4-5 times the current radius.
Try introducing one very strong(good damage) offensive spell unique to clerics


Rhynn
Reaper 10 Cleric

[kpak01]

I'm not a fan of ANY of the radiant servant changes. Once again they are not well thought out

Really? Do you think all the unchanged abilities they're saying they'll reduce to 1 AP per rank would be better staying at 2 AP per rank?

[Tlorrd]

Really? Do you think all the unchanged abilities they're saying they'll reduce to 1 AP per rank would be better staying at 2 AP per rank?

While I agree that reducing the costs to 1 AP provides more flexibility to enter into other enhancement trees ... technically it is actually a nerf due to how the tree provides you universal spell power and positive spell power. Now to offset that, they chose to add in Positive spell Crit damage enhancements; however, we did lose universal spell power regardless. In addition, they took away a core that gave us additional Positive crit chance which was a toggle (amazing! since it had some drawbacks and should not be kept up all at time), but they didn't replace that Crit chance at all. Thus we lost out on that too.

I'm happy to have more APs available to delve into other trees, but tbh this is actually a nerf pass to the Radiant servant tree itself.

Prime example of this is Water Domain: This domain uses your positive or cold spell power (whichever is greater) to provide Cold spell power. Now Cone of Cold or Greater creeping cold have max caster levels of 15 and 20 respectively. There is no master of X feat that includes those two spells. Current (and soon to be past) RS tree, Core 1 provided you with +1 positive sp and 0.5 universal spell power per AP spent in the tree ... Thus if you used all 80 points in RS tree, you could receive 80+40 additional sp for a whopping 120 to positive spell power (sans any additions provided through the actual enhancements themselves). This 120 positive spell power would apply to your cold spell power so that (in heroics at least) this could provide enough oomph. However, going into epics due to the MCL, this domain falls off precipitously. Now with the changes we lost out on that spell power since the tree has not replaced those lost APs with any additional spell power. I hope they consider replacing Greater Creeping cold with Tsunami. Or when the new divine ED trees are previewed there is an option to increase the MCL of spells in some of these domains that are capped without a Master of X feat to boost them.

[Morrissey87]

How needing less ap to get enhancements is a nerf??? If you really want that extra universal sp you just spend those extra points on that same tree on extra enhancements you didn't have before. Because I assume you don't think spending 80 ap on just one tree just to get some extra universal sp is better than lets say spending some of them on universal sp and universal crit on the divine disciple tree. Getting all that sp and crit on divine disciple needs at least 24 ap and will net you better results than spending those on the radiant servant on useless stuff, 36 universal in total. That leaves you with 56 left which you actually could spend on the new RS tree for a total of 84 sp plus the 56 for a total 140. Current tree allows for a maximum of 85 AP, a total waste of all your AP on useless things for a maximum of 40 universal sp and 80 positive for a total of 120 pos/cold sp which is less than the 140 and you also get some crit chance and other usefull stuff on the way instead of useless things on just the current radiant servant.

That said I like some of the changes on the pass and some others not so much. I do appreciate the AP reduction and the merge of the turning enhancements but positive spell crit damage instead of chance feels like not worth. As a healer I don't like too much rng when I need to heal my allies, and having less crit chance but higher crit dmg is more rng and will end up doing one of 2 things: doing anything at all, normal healing, or overhealing in most cases.

Not a fan of the mass resist sla but better than raise dead for sure. I think a Heal SLA would be much better and not op at all, or maybe instead of Heal SLA a Mass Cure Moderate wounds SLA.

As a quick pass is nice but I hope later (not too much later) the tree gets done properly in its entirety. Removing Martyrdom, Poisitive Aura and Positive Burst buffs (at least the aoe a bit bigger like the same as Negative Burst for positive burst and the aura should cover a bigger aoe than that)
Give us 4 tiers of 2% positive crit chance and the crit dmg on 2 tiers only at tier 4 and 5.

Another idea would be the capstone or a tier 5 having sort a heroic form change, like a weaker version of the Angel that gives some defensive stats and healing power for a time or a weaker toggle like PM forms but for positive healing, like Pacifism but without the drawbacks.
Also the choice between WIS and CHA on capstone would be a good idea too.

[Chaoscheerio]

I've been a cleric for the entirety of my time playing DDO, from the very beginning, even when I'm not and honestly? I'm not jazzed about these changes. The only thing that jumps out to me are the lower AP costs and turning enhancements being combined. I'm really sad to see pacifism go because I was totally one of warpriests that used it literally all the time(which makes little sense when I think of it) but I can see what you mean about the drawbacks not meaning much.

I have a couple concerns, mostly from a flavour standpoint.

The new T5 Radiance doesn't live up to its name like, at all. Like, great! It applies all this nice stuff with no range but... how is that radiant? It doesn't even do damage to undead. Is there a huge flash of light when we activate it? To be completely blunt this + the Raise Dead SLA feel like lazy band aids to an underwhelming enhancement tree. They're boring, and still borderline useless. Clerics already get a decent mass cure all with the positive energy burst and as others have pointed out have a Raise Dead SLA is utterly useless when playing on a difficulty above Hard from the level you're able to grab it. T4? Then I'll take it. Hell make it a core and I'll be happy.

Reactive Heal is nice but it's too restricting even now with the lower AP cost. As it stands, Clerics still only really have one T5 that's worth locking into- the Positive Energy Aura. It is still, even after these proposed changes, the only worthwhile thing. The unlimited caster level is only useful to pure clerics so it's like, meh?

The new cores are just... boring. Hooray a little bit extra... while Beacon of Hope -the comparable FVS tree- gets a bunch of flashy abilities that both cure afflictions AND heal at the same time.
Actually that's my main problem here. Beacon of Hope is the kind of tree that when you group up with someone running it, you think "Wow that looks really cool! I want to try that!" While Radiant Servant is just a burst bot that sits in the background when they aren't roleplaying as trees in epic levels.

My suggestions:
Add undead slaying enhancements. All we get currently are improved caster level and regenerating turns which are really only used for bursts and auras. I know our turns are already augmented by Domains but perhaps a reworked Pacifism like ability could make it so that our turns only affect undead but gain improved efficacy.

Remove/rework Radiance. As it stands, this ability severely disappoints me. It's not radiant at all. It should HURT undead and shadows. Paladins used to have Divine Light which instead of outright killing just damaged undead, maybe work that into this ability. Also if it doesn't illuminate the dungeon at all you've failed- in my opinion.

Convert the Raise Dead SLA to a Resurrection SLA. I don't care if it has a higher spell cost and longer CD. Raise dead is pointless #sorrynotsorry

Otherwise the rest of the changes feel completely in line to what DDO is accustomed to. The 2AP costs for all of those abilities always felt just awful when I had to take them as prerequisites. This tree is still just as boring as it ever was and is still going to be used primarily to get bursts and the aura.

I love this class. I completely fell head over heels after running with a gem collecting badass Radiant Servant that turned everything in her path and I really wish I could see it going in a better direction than what these changes are offering. I hope the devs take a step back and consider the flavour of the enhancement tree because as it stands there's just nothing there. You may as well call it "Babysitter" instead of "Radiant Servant".

TL;DR make Radiant Servant radiant again.

[Paladin_of_Power]

The tree is looking better but still needs some tweaks. Raise Dead is a worthless T5 ability considering clerics get more spell slots than FVS

I would prefer to see something new along the lines of a new SLA that causes AoE positive healing (to allies) and positive damage to undead (enemies), with a save vs blindness. Hardly overpowered and serves multiple uses including getting mobs of your healer.

Also give them another ability called holy flames, single target damage spell that sets a target on fire for 1dX seconds for continual damage made of Fire/Untyped damage (like flame strike), but if the target is undead then it needs to make a fear save otherwise it cowers in place.

Both abilities also tie in the Radiant Servant type of tree.

Agreed.
Make the AOE on Positive Energy Burst and Healing aura bigger please. That FvS healing wall being persistent + dump and run is so much better.

Epic Destinies need a better tree for Death/Negative Divine Disciples too. Need some increase in Max Caster levels of Neg spells too.