U51 Preview 3: Exalted Angel

[Tilomere]

A big portion of the feedback was related to healing balance,

You're hilarious.

[J1NG]

---- Thoughts on changes I'd make after some consideration ----
( trying to balance in power and fix practicality issues while adding some spice )


Angelic Charge: Instead or reduced cooldown. Give it reduced spell cost for favored souls.

Favored Souls will benefit more from that.

I have some doubts this will happen, since there was apparently intention to keep (as much as possible) class relation to a Destiny unless absolutely necessary, and even then in limited quantities. (Monk and GMoF for example).

Especially since potentially your reduction for FvS also could mean a splash of 1 or 2 for FvS also would then apply this discount.

Angel Form: your spells regardless of type have a 15% chance of 1d4+4 per caster level fire damage, 15% chance of 1d4+4 per caster level light damage, 15% per caster level positive damage/heal. Each has its own 10 second cooldown. This effect will never heal an enemy or harm an ally.

This will put this ability more on par with Draconic Incarnation. It will also make it easier for warlocks to process through eldritch blast.

This would also make it very much harder to control, since if it only checks for on proc and it can proc on enemies or allies, you potentially lose bonus damage because someone else took the hit in your attack (eg a party member in a Positive Aura) as well as potentially useful healing if you're healing someone and the bonus healing may have been helpful, but your Lantern Archon took the healing charge because it fired on an enemy nearby instead.

I would say the existing implementation, whilst not the best, is probably still the better approach to this.

Sun Pillar/Flame Pillar/Healing Pillar: Range changed to that of a normal spell. With extend working on it.

The range for these spells is distractingly bad. It's worse than every other spell that a cleric/favored soul has. In a gameplay situation this renders the pillar spells a pain in the butt. I really hope this is not WAI.

Think you mean Enlarge, rather than Extend, since there is no time component to extend in the first place for these one shot SLAs. But I too wouldn't mind if these were allowed the Enlarge metamagic to work on them.

Angelic Body: Cures poison, disease or curse ( natural or otherwise ) upon having it inflicted. Cooldown 60 seconds. If another is inflicted before the cooldown completes, the character will have to cure that on their own or wait.

Because natural poisons and diseases are really quite rare.

That, is actually not a good idea. At least, not at the moment. Assuming there is another preview for this, I would head off and start testing this immunity first. There have been instances before where the Devs give something more useful than what it reads it to be, and I'm not sure if anyone did any thorough testing on this yet. But if not, it may be better to keep as is, rather than a 60s timer auto trigger.

Or, if you really want something like that, perhaps a self trigger on the self healing portion trigger from the T3 Holy Presence. That way, it does remove any new stacks of Disease and Poison, but if you're in the middle of battle - like with the Orthons in LVoD, then potting up would be more useful before the stacks of damage take hold. Otherwise, if you can wait until the next self trigger, then you'll clear yourself of it automatically. I think the Devs may allow that, since it doesn't diminish the danger of something like the Orthon disease DoT, but would grant some leeway under some circumstances; especially if it only applies to yourself and not to others.

Endless Turning: Greater Restoration when turn undead. +2/4/6 hit dice of undead effected.

Restoration is for heroics. This is Epic go greater. Also more hit dice of undead effected.

Unsure on the Restoration or Greater choice at this time. But the more Hit Dice of Undead being affected, I think we need to wait and see, because there's been talk of CR modifications (impacting a variety of areas), which will greatly impact on the amount of Turn Undead DC requirements too. So I would say... "maybe"?

Sunbolt SLA: Changed from the 1 AP point invested stats in Angel of Vengeance to the 3 AP point invested version.

Let's not actually put out an inferior version than heroic.

If I'm not mistaken, it's the same current (Live, or "Old") Sunbolt SLA when I tested it last preview (will need to do further tests to confirm as I ran out of time testing old exploits first to see if they were fixed). And technically, it isn't inferior to the AoV version one at all (especially since either it was replaced with the T1 version from AoV, or it has the DC bonus now applying and is counted as a 10th Level Spell unlike the AoV or DD one which is 3rd Level only). I was the one who requested, if possible, that is be maintained (after hearing that it would be removed from EA during the Dev chat), since I often use it and other stuff, to test immunities, resistances, etc on things in game. So I would decline supporting this change for personal (testing opportunity) reasons.

Delayed Judgement: Double the damage. Make sure fire portion is working. Cannot heal enemy.

It quacks like a duck. It uses spell DC like a duck. It uses spellpower like a duck. But its a goose! Okay Delayed Judgement is not a spell. It occurs to me that this spell excuse me ability might just be broken. I recall the light damage but not the fire damage when I used it. In any event the damage wasn't at the level such an ability suggests it should be at.

What were you testing this on? Because the only issue I found when I used this, was the bonus damage at the end was very low and appeared to fire "after" the enemy stun (helpless?) duration is over. Both Fire and Light portions worked without issues for me otherwise.

Enhanced Metamagics: Maximize 5/10/15 fewer spell point Empower 5/10/15 fewer spell point Quicken 5/free.

There's no reason why you can get free metamagics from some destinies but the same cannot be said for exalted Angel at Tier 4. Making maximize free may be a bit much but no reason not to make metamagic savings equivalent.

Having now managed to get 0 Spell Point Quicken and even a 1 Spell Point Maximise (If Fragment of the Meridian worked properly, through working with other Trees) at the same time, I don't think the changes to the numbers offered by the existing reductions is completely necessary and may potentially overpower the Exalted Angel instead to the point of making it a "must take" Tree instead of being a "possible" Tree to take.

Holy Fireball/Chain Cure: In addition to damage if the character has holy command ability then every enemy hit by spell gets the tripped, blinded, made helpless effect if they fail their saves.

Granted you have to wait until Tier 5 for an area effect crowd control. But make it a good one.

You want both Holy Fireball or the Chain Cure to trigger the bonus CC effects? You're not going to be popular in any party let me say that.

I think you just meant Holy Fireball, but that then potentially overpowers that SLA a bit too much, especially when there are both effects available to choose from.

Blessed water: +1/2/3 turn undead charges. +4/8/12 turn undead dice. Keep bonuses if have Font of Life.

Again turn undead needs a massive boost if it is to be effective at epic levels. Massive boost!

If the Devs didn't make mention that they were looking at ways to sort out the CR issue on enemies, again, I'd agree with this. But since they have already given the indication that they will look into it, I think pre-emptively asking for a boost here, will only see it being nerfed away later and players becoming upset at the nerf/removal later on.

J1NG

[elvesunited]

This would also make it very much harder to control, since if it only checks for on proc and it can proc on enemies or allies, you potentially lose bonus damage because someone else took the hit in your attack (eg a party member in a Positive Aura) as well as potentially useful healing if you're healing someone and the bonus healing may have been helpful, but your Lantern Archon took the healing charge because it fired on an enemy nearby instead.

The hope would be that the spell would not proc would not trigger on an enemy it would heal or have no effect on are on an ally it would harm. So the lantern archon would only use the healing charge if it fired on an undead enemy. In any event the goal is to get this more on par with draconic and more warlock friendly.

Think you mean Enlarge, rather than Extend, since there is no time component to extend in the first place for these one shot SLAs. But I too wouldn't mind if these were allowed the Enlarge metamagic to work on them.

Yep, meant enlarge

That, is actually not a good idea. At least, not at the moment. Assuming there is another preview for this, I would head off and start testing this immunity first. There have been instances before where the Devs give something more useful than what it reads it to be, and I'm not sure if anyone did any thorough testing on this yet. But if not, it may be better to keep as is, rather than a 60s timer auto trigger.

I'm pretty sure it's just the "natural" ones. Which reduce this to flavor since "natural" is rare and not that dangerous. But this is an attempt to change a nothing ability into something someone might take.

Unsure on the Restoration or Greater choice at this time. But the more Hit Dice of Undead being affected, I think we need to wait and see, because there's been talk of CR modifications (impacting a variety of areas), which will greatly impact on the amount of Turn Undead DC requirements too. So I would say... "maybe"?

If the devs do a major CR overhaul then they can also go back and adjust the "turn undead" destiny. Putting turn undead in an epic destiny and knowing it doesn't work well in epics in self-defeating and renders multiple abilities in the destiny to worthless. It probably pointless anyway since I don't think the additional hit dice will make that big a difference.

If I'm not mistaken, it's the same current (Live, or "Old") Sunbolt SLA when I tested it last preview (will need to do further tests to confirm as I ran out of time testing old exploits first to see if they were fixed). And technically, it isn't inferior to the AoV version one at all (especially since either it was replaced with the T1 version from AoV, or it has the DC bonus now applying and is counted as a 10th Level Spell unlike the AoV or DD one which is 3rd Level only). I was the one who requested, if possible, that is be maintained (after hearing that it would be removed from EA during the Dev chat), since I often use it and other stuff, to test immunities, resistances, etc on things in game. So I would decline supporting this change for personal (testing opportunity) reasons.

From my testing it performed pretty much exactly the same as the AoV version only it had twice the cooldown and twice the cost.

You want both Holy Fireball or the Chain Cure to trigger the bonus CC effects? You're not going to be popular in any party let me ay that.

I think you just meant Holy Fireball, but that then potentially overpowers that SLA a bit too much, especially when there are both effects available to choose from.

Obviously the CC effects would only effect enemies. But yes it would process on the chain for enemy undead. Holy fireball does decent damage but there isn't that much to distinguish it from the spells divines already have.

[J1NG]

The hope would be that the spell would not proc would not trigger on an enemy it would heal or have no effect on are on an ally it would harm. So the lantern archon would only use the healing charge if it fired on an undead enemy. In any event the goal is to get this more on par with draconic and more warlock friendly.

Unfortunately, the way DDO works, that won't work the way you're thinking it will. Not without a lot of work that I doubt the Devs have time for in order to make this one instance of it work the way you're describing.

If as per your description it is made to work from any type of source, means exactly the situation that I've described; healing auras will proc the chance at a damage bonus, but because it's an ally it won't do damage. But it will (code wise) have eaten up that proc for 10s. The Lantern Archon firing every 2 seconds, will likely fire off and trigger a healing proc as well, and put it on timer, as there's no distinction involved when you set it to allow proc on all source types; this is exactly the same as Colours of the Queen and Double Rainbow right now on Live.

In short, there's a complete lack of control to it where you may as well not have it at all.

I'm pretty sure it's just the "natural" ones. Which reduce this to flavor since "natural" is rare and not that dangerous. But this is an attempt to change a nothing ability into something someone might take.

I don't want to be that person, but "pretty sure" is not a confirmation that it is. I ran through this with Arcane Tempest in the Magus thread, where reading what was posted was what stuff was being based off, and not what the in game testing data was showing. So if there's a Preview 4, definitely want to check that out before I give my support for a change.

But as for what change, I doubt we'd be getting Knockdown Immunity, even with the fact you get "Wings", since stuff with wings can get knocked down too. The likelihood is, that the Zephyr Filigree set will be seen as the customary non-GMoF source of Knockdown Immunity for casters as the "cost" for getting that immunity that is universally achieveable route too that can compliment any Caster Destiny, and not just the Exalted Angel.

If the devs do a major CR overhaul then they can also go back and adjust the "turn undead" destiny. Putting turn undead in an epic destiny and knowing it doesn't work well in epics in self-defeating and renders multiple abilities in the destiny to worthless. It probably pointless anyway since I don't think the additional hit dice will make that big a difference.

Again, I never said they can't, but you just know players are going to complain at that point, even when the Devs have (at that point) locked the data down and know what the changes will do (and so should players), but some players will still complain.

From my testing it performed pretty much exactly the same as the AoV version only it had twice the cooldown and twice the cost.

I only did minor testing with the time I had available. Are you confirming now that the new Exalted Angel Sunbolt is now considered a 3rd Level spell (uses 3 Spell Level Absorbs and is blocked by Mantle of Invulnerability)? And no longer a 10th Level spell (Which can be used on stuff like Titan Mk III aka Ronny)? DCs? The cooldown and cost I find less of an issue, as if it remains a 10th Level spell, it's possible to use it to burn through (ignore) Mantles and Immunities that the normal AoV Sunbolt can not do same to. Or did you only compare the damage and cooldown and SP cost?

Obviously the CC effects would only effect enemies. But yes it would process on the chain for enemy undead. Holy fireball does decent damage but there isn't that much to distinguish it from the spells divines already have.

It's a high level damage spell that appears to work quite well from what I've seen so far, but that's just me.

J1NG

[elvesunited]

Well the release notes are out and there have been some last minute changes .......

Angelic Form: Exalted Angel Destiny Mantle: Your offensive spells have a 15% chance to deal 1d3+3 bonus Fire damage per caster level. Your offensive spells also have a 15% chance to deal 1d3+3 bonus Light damage per caster level. Your Positive Healing spells have a 15% chance to deal 1d3+3 extra Positive Healing per every 2 Character Levels. These damage effects each have a unique cooldown of 5 seconds.

The cooldown has been reduced from 10 seconds to 5 and they work on all spells. ( not just spells of that type ) similar to draconic. The damage has dropped however from 1d4+4 to 1d3+3. If any Warlocks take this destiny that will make them happy.


My grade: C ( D if the range issue on the pillars is not resolved )

This destiny provides divines with flawed abilities that they already have. I wait to see if pillar still has its range issue. Flaming Sphere is still here for reasons that boggle the mind. Angelic Body still seems to think immunity to natural poisons and disease is worth anything in epics. Single target, short duration target crowd control remains. And the destiny fails to make Turn Undead into something useful. Still they did bring back the cure moderate wounds mass SLA and the the healing aura isn't bad if you are some sort of divine tank. Holy Fireball is powerful if you manage to spend enough AP to get there.

[Xararion]

Yeah not going to lie, I was sure the 60s cooldown flaming sphere was a in-joke by the devs to have a stand-in for a fire type ability. Still not very impressed at getting sunbolt either when you already get in on FvS heroics. Just feels lackluster when almost there was many new abilities unavailable to heroic builds in the other trees. Also still no extra support for alignment spells, but that was expected.

[elvesunited]

My grade: C ( D if the range issue on the pillars is not resolved )

Well it wasn't resolved. The range for the pillar spells is significantly less than the range of every other spell I cast. What a waste.