U51 Early Preview: Epic Destiny Revamp: Divine Crusader

[Cocomajobo]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Hello folks! This is part of the Epic Overhaul. If you haven't read our Overview post and its companion info post, please do that first before reading this!

Divine Crusader is a tree built to enhance your ability to Debuff enemies with your weapons, and to deal effective and righteous damage with your Shield. It also has a lot of synergies with your Favored Weapons and the Religion system within the game.

Core Abilities:

1. Just Cause (level 20): Each core ability you take in this tree, including this one, grants +10 Melee Power, +6 Ranged Power, and +15 Maximum Hit Points.
2. Extraordinary Virtue (level 23): Your weapons are immune to durability damage. +3 to all saving throws.
3. Confront any Foe (level 26): +5 Armor Class and +25 Positive Healing Amplification.

Tier 1 (requires level 20):

• Divine Smite: You gain the Smite Evil feat, and +1 uses of Smite Evil. Enhances Smite Evil attacks grant you +5 Temporary HP when they hit an enemy, with an additional +5 for each Divine Charge you have.
• Shield of Justice: +5/10/15% secondary shield bash chance.
• Spear of Light: +1/2/3 to Attack rolls and Damage.
• Divine Sundering: +2/4/6 Sunder DCs
• Crusading Attack: Choose between a Melee and Ranged Divine Builder attack. Multiselector:
  
  • Crusading Strike: Divine Builder: Melee Cleave Attack. +1/2/3(W). Enemies must make a Fortitude saving throw (20 + highest ability score modifier + Sunder bonuses), or take 5 stacks of Vulnerability and 5 stacks of Armor Destruction. Grants one Divine Charge.
  • Crusading Bolt: Divine Builder: Ranged Attack: +1/2/3(W). Enemies must make a Fortitude saving throw (20 + highest ability score modifier + Sunder bonuses), or take 5 stacks of Vulnerability and 5 stacks of Armor Destruction. Grants one Divine Charge.

Tier 2 (requires level 20):

• Endless Smiting (requires Divine Smite): +2/4/6 Uses of Smite Evil, Smite Evil regenerates 10/20/30% faster.
• Shield of Faith: Divine Charges now grant +3 Armor Class. Critical Hits, including from Shield Bashes or Offhand Strikes, have a 10% chance to generate a Divine Charge.
• Holy Mantle: Divine Crusader Destiny Mantle: Weapons and Shields you wield are considered to have your alignment for DR purposes. Your Base Attack Bonus is now equal to your Character Level.
• Consecration: The ground you are standing on is consecrated. While standing on consecrated ground you and your allies are healed every 3 seconds for 1 point of positive energy per character level. This is affected by your Positive Spell Power. Cooldown: 30/25/20 seconds. Duration: 15 seconds.
• Divine Spender: Choose between a Melee and Ranged Divine Spender attack. Multiselector:
  
  • Smite the Wicked: Divine Spender: Single-target Melee Attack: +3/4/5(W) and +1/2/3 critical threat and multiplier. Also deals 1d6 Holy damage per character level, scaling with 100% Melee or Ranged Power (whichever is higher). Consumes all Divine Charges, if 3+ Divine Charges are consumed, the target must make a Fortitude saving throw (20 + highest ability score modifier + Sunder bonuses), or take 20 stacks of Vulnerability and 15 stacks of Armor destruction. This is a Smite Evil attack. Cooldown: 12 Seconds.
  • Purge the Impure: Divine Spender: Ranged Attack: +3/4/5(W) and +1/2/3 critical threat and multiplier. Also deals 1d6 Holy damage per character level, scaling with 100% Melee or Ranged Power (whichever is higher). Consumes all Divine Charges, if 3+ Divine Charges are consumed, the target must make a Fortitude saving throw (20 + highest ability score modifier + Sunder bonuses), or take 20 stacks of Vulnerability and 15 stacks of Armor destruction. This is a Smite Evil attack. Cooldown: 12 Seconds.

Tier 3 (requires level 23):

• Gaze of the Divine: You gain True Seeing and are immune to Blindness. +1 Divine Charge cap.
• Shield of Light: +2/4/6 Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. Rank 3: While holding a Shield, you have Magic Missile Immunity as per the Shield spell.
• Axiom of Faith: You may select a Religion to be considered a follower of that religion and use its Favored Weapon. Multiselector:
  
  • Amunator's Blessing: You may use a Heavy Mace as your Favored Weapon.
  • Aureon's Blessing: You may use a Quarterstaff as your Favored Weapon.
  • Helm's Blessing: You may use a Bastard Sword as your Favored Weapon.
  • Olladra's Blessing: You may use a Sickle as your Favored Weapon.
  • Onatar's Blessing: You may use a Warhammer as your Favored Weapon.
  • Silvanus' Blessing: You may use a Maul as your Favored Weapon.
  • The Blood of Vol's Blessing: You may use a Dagger as your Favored Weapon.
  • The Lord of Blades' Blessing: You may use a Greatsword as your Favored Weapon.
  • The Silver Flame's Blessing: You may use a Longbow as your Favored Weapon.
  • The Sovereign Host's Blessing: You may use a Longsword as your Favored Weapon.
  • The Undying Court's Blessing: You may use a Scimitar as your Favored Weapon.
  • Vulkoor's Blessing: You may use a Shortsword as your Favored Weapon.
• Strike with Poise: Your Divine Crusader Destiny Mantle now grants Favored Weapons +1/2/3 to their enhancement bonus. Rank 3: Favored Weapons are also now considered Implements to you automatically.
• How Dare You Strike Me: Being struck by offensive magic has a 10/20/30% chance to regenerate a Smite Evil charge and grant you +1 Divine Charge. Rank 3: When you are struck below 50% HP, you automatically regenerate a Smite Evil, gain a Divine Charge, and Consecrate the ground at your location. This may only trigger once every 60 seconds.

Tier 4 (requires level 26):

• Purge the Wicked: +1/2/3 critical hit damage and critical hit confirmation, or +2/4/6 if you have the Power Critical feat.
• Blessed Strikes: +2/4/6% Doublestrike and Doubleshot
• Heavenly Presence: Your Divine Crusader Destiny Mantle now grants you the defensive traits of a Celestial. +10 Physical Resistance Rating and 10% Acid, Cold and Electricity absorption. In addition, you are immune to petrification.
• Crusade: Consecration now grants Crusade to allies who stand inside of it, and burns enemies that step inside. Enemies take 1d6 damage split between Fire and Light damage per Character Level, with both damage types scaling with your Fire spell power. Crusade: +10% damage, lasts 4 seconds, refreshed every 3 seconds while standing within Consecrated Ground.
• The Book of War: Favored weapons you wield gain +.25/.5/1(W).

Tier 5 (requires level 30):

• Mighty Crusade: Smite Evil attacks apply the Crusade buff to your entire party for 4 seconds. You gain +1 Armor Class and +1 Physical Resistance Rating for every 2 Religious Lore feats you have. Crusade: +10% damage, lasts 4 seconds.
• Bring Down Wrath: Your shield is now considered a Favored Weapon for the purposes of your Divine Crusader Destiny Mantle and The Book of War, and now doublestrikes at 50% of the rate of your Mainhand Doublestrikes at 50% of the rate of your Mainhand Doublestrike as if it were an offhand weapon.
• Law of the Divine: When you critically hit with an attack, you deal 1d6 extra Law Damage per Character Level, applying 1 stack of vulnerability. This scales with 200% of the higher of your Melee and Ranged Power. If you have the Embodiment of Law feat, this now triggers on each hit instead.
• Blessed Blades: While using a Favored Weapon, +1 Critical Multiplier on a roll of 19-20.
• Celestial Champion: +2/4/6% Doublestrike and Doubleshot, +2/4/6 Physical and Magical Resistance Rating, +10/20/30 Maximum Hitpoints.

[grudgebear]

The Lord of Blades' Blessing: You may use a Greatsword as your Favored Weapon.


Can I choose this option from multiselector even if I am not a Warforged/Bladeforged?

Answer:
Religion options are not restricted by race.

[cru121]

Shield of Light: +2/4/6 Healing Amplification. Rank 3: While holding a Shield, you have Magic Missile Immunity as per the Shield spell.

3 AP for 6 heal amp? either bump it up to 20/40/50, or drop the heal amp and make it 1 AP for permanent shield.

And this ability has the additional requirement of using a shield. Similar ability in Shadowdancer is lower tier and has no requirements. Maybe it should grant something extra?

[Lynnabel]

3 AP for 6 heal amp? either bump it up to 20/40/50, or drop the heal amp and make it 1 AP for permanent shield.

And this ability has the additional requirement of using a shield. Similar ability in Shadowdancer is lower tier and has no requirements. Maybe it should grant something extra?

This is a transcription error, it should be +2/4/6 PRR/MRR. Will get the OP updated. It's correct in-game atm.

[Cocomajobo]

This is a transcription error, it should be +2/4/6 PRR/MRR. Will get the OP updated. It's correct in-game atm.

Post fixed!

[nobodynobody1426]

Why is there shield silliness in what appears to be a Hybrid support DPS tree? Like put that back into US and keep it there because right now shields as DPS options are terrible. Replace the shield stupidity with some sort of passive group healing like what No Remorse used to do. That and make a reason to actually use Divine Channel.

[ideal_insomnia]

Ok, Divine Cursader used to be one of my favorite Destinies! Actually still is. So...

Not digging the Tier 3 so far. Axiom of Faith is not necessary on many builds; Gaze of the Divine is marginally beneficial, but the effect is easily replicated with gear and enhancements;
How Dare You Strike Me is situational (what if there are no casting enemies?); Shield of Light is really sad because it provides a very useful buff, but requires a shield, which automatically makes it unusable for a lot of builds.

Also, I really really hate the "Get charges, spend charges" mechanic. With a passion. This is my personal opinion, but I wish charges system was discarded in favor of something more straightforward (and less likely to glitch).

[arminius]

Also, I really really hate the "Get charges, spend charges" mechanic. With a passion. This is my personal opinion, but I wish charges system was discarded in favor of something more straightforward (and less likely to glitch).

Yes. This is why I never played a monk. The monk lives I've had have been level 9 Sorc or whatever. Now they've taken the monk mechanic I despise and put it on ... everyone

I'm also seeing the Divine Crusader aura and the auto-healing on death of aura-affected mobs missing. That was a big selling point for Divine Crusader

[nobodynobody1426]

Yes. This is why I never played a monk. The monk lives I've had have been level 9 Sorc or whatever. Now they've taken the monk mechanic I despise and put it on ... everyone

I'm also seeing the Divine Crusader aura and the auto-healing on death of aura-affected mobs missing. That was a big selling point for Divine Crusader

It was the reason to main Divine Crusader instead of just twisting stuff in. It made a great hybrid melee support tree where a melee could support other melee's with passive healing and damage boosts. Thankfully he whole builder / spender thing isn't that big here so we can just ignore the +shield stupidity and deal with missing parts of the tree.

If someone wanted to do a shield DPS setup, they would be playing Fighter and using the Legendary Dreadnaught tree for Dire Charge / tactics due to synergy with Vanguard. If someone isn't using Vanguard then they aren't using shields for damage.

[Stormraiser]

Mighty Crusade: Smite Evil attacks apply the Crusade buff to your entire party for 4 seconds. You gain +1 Armor Class and +1 Physical Resistance Rating for every 2 Religious Lore feats you have. Crusade: +10% damage, lasts 4 seconds.

What I don't quite understand is, if you've identified that lag is caused by too many calculations from damaging actions, why do you add things like this? a 4 second full party buff? Isn't that going to add one more calculation to every single attacking action in a raid? Further, This can keep stacking on and off, right?

[GramercyRiff]

I really like this ED, except the weird shield stuff. It's probably not changing so it's whatever. There are some very strong abilities here. I imagine they'll be nerfed before 51 goes live.


Does the Silvanus Blessing via Axiom of Faith enable you to take the crit range increase feat?

oh yeah...+5 AC from CaF is really weak. Please give something else. Thanks.

[Feltharen]

Mighty Crusade: Smite Evil attacks apply the Crusade buff to your entire party for 4 seconds. You gain +1 Armor Class and +1 Physical Resistance Rating for every 2 Religious Lore feats you have. Crusade: +10% damage, lasts 4 seconds.

What I don't quite understand is, if you've identified that lag is caused by too many calculations from damaging actions, why do you add things like this? a 4 second full party buff? Isn't that going to add one more calculation to every single attacking action in a raid? Further, This can keep stacking on and off, right?

This is a good point.

Also, core 1 & 3 are weak.

Core Abilities:

Just Cause (level 20): Each core ability you take in this tree, including this one, grants +10 Melee Power, +6 Ranged Power, and +15 Maximum Hit Points. >Weaker than Shadowdancer.

Confront any Foe (level 26): +5 Armor Class and +25 Positive Healing Amplification. > 5 ac at lvl 26? It feels low, probably a 5% ac would be better.

The AC bonuses also happens in Mighty crusade: +10 AC at lvl 30? when you need at least 300+ to be missed sometimes. (I feel that this part of the bonus should be reviewed)

[Gabrael]

i'm guessing the shield stuff is there mostly to caater to paladin going S&B but that still want some extra DPS, since crusader is about DPS mostly and a bit of survivability on the front line and all

the major part of shield defensive stuff will prolly remain in sentinel

[GramercyRiff]

It's not a tank ED so any instance of AC is the same as giving nothing. This thing is a force multiplier so build upon that theme.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Empyrean Magic - one of the most useful and loved twists of fate that granted stacking sacred universal spell power and spell crit chance (20 universal spell power, 10% spell crit chance) is gone? Completely obliterated?

RIP sorcs, warlocks, FvS, wizzy, clr casters

the more i read these proposed changes the more speechless I become.

[GramercyRiff]

Empyrean Magic - one of the most useful and loved twists of fate that granted stacking sacred universal spell power and spell crit chance (20 universal spell power, 10% spell crit chance) is gone? Completely obliterated?

RIP sorcs, warlocks, FvS, wizzy, clr casters

the more i read these proposed changes the more speechless I become.

Yeah the revamp is overall pretty bad from what we see in these threads. It's possible Empyrean Magic will be in one of the ED's not revealed here. It never made sense in Divine Crusader anyway.

[nobodynobody1426]

i'm guessing the shield stuff is there mostly to caater to paladin going S&B but that still want some extra DPS, since crusader is about DPS mostly and a bit of survivability on the front line and all

the major part of shield defensive stuff will prolly remain in sentinel

Sword and Board would be better suited with Legendary Dreadnaught because that synergized with Vanguard better. The shield stuff in this tree is kinda useless here. It seems like one of those design decisions that was "theme" over "function".

[nobodynobody1426]

Empyrean Magic - one of the most useful and loved twists of fate that granted stacking sacred universal spell power and spell crit chance (20 universal spell power, 10% spell crit chance) is gone? Completely obliterated?

RIP sorcs, warlocks, FvS, wizzy, clr casters

the more i read these proposed changes the more speechless I become.

If you look across all the changes it's basically a giant nerf to all the stuff we used to use while trying to force folks into theme based playstyles.

[Cernunan]

If you look across all the changes it's basically a giant nerf to all the stuff we used to use while trying to force folks into theme based playstyles.

Yes

[Taraborn]

Is the +10% from Crusade still a enhancement bonus, or is it untyped so stacks with Relentless Fury?