Cleric DD chaos hammer SLA's cooldown makes me sad

[rabidfox]

That moment when I'm running a chaos cleric and find out that the DD tree's chaos hammer (and order's wrath) SLA has a 2x longer cooldown than holy smite (and unholy blight) (20/15/12 seconds vs 10/8/6 seconds). The 10/8/6 cooldown was where the SLA was at even before the DD tree revamp; it would so do nice if chaos hammer and order's wrath had the same cooldown.

[Firebreed]

Absolutely signed.

[rabidfox]

Ahhh, the cleric DD t5 that upgrades (Holy Smite, Unholy Blight, or Order's Wrath and Chaos Hammer) still breaks targeting on any mob that's in the air like memphits (it does nothing to those mobs, it's like they don't exist as far as the spells are concerned); while the unupgraded versions of the spells hits them fine. I remember reporting that bug and forum posts about it back when the DD revamp went thru. I would've hoped it would've been fixed by now.

[LurkingVeteran]

Signed. As it is now you are heavily disadvantaged for not picking Holy Smite, which works on many more enemies anyway.

[droid327]

There's a good reason why

Chaos and Law Domains get those spells as SLAs with 6 sec CDs, while no Domain gives you a Holy Smite SLA

So Chaos and Law Clerics can cycle both their DD and Domain SLAs to get up to 3 casts every 12 sec, while other Clerics only cast two Holy Smites every 12 secs

If all the DD SLAs were the same 10/8/6 then Chaos and Law would be able to cast twice as often as Holy Smite, which would be pretty unbalanced, considering that now you can ignore the alignment restrictions on those two (which was the major advantage of Holy Smite before)

[rabidfox]

There's a good reason why

Chaos and Law Domains get those spells as SLAs with 6 sec CDs, while no Domain gives you a Holy Smite SLA

So Chaos and Law Clerics can cycle both their DD and Domain SLAs to get up to 3 casts every 12 sec, while other Clerics only cast two Holy Smites every 12 secs

If all the DD SLAs were the same 10/8/6 then Chaos and Law would be able to cast twice as often as Holy Smite, which would be pretty unbalanced, considering that now you can ignore the alignment restrictions on those two (which was the major advantage of Holy Smite before)

That's not really a good reason. Fire domain is tossing down firestorms every 8 seconds (other damage domain doing similar- air doing lightning/chain lighting, sun doing it's stuff), so that doesn't really hold up as a reason. DD t4 Holy smite + damage domain's SLAs (be it Chaos, law, fire, etc.) would be better for damage than T4 chaos hammer or order's wrath DD SLA. Comboing the t4 with whatever one's domain's SLAs are is just what damage dealers do; the shorter cooldown on holy smite/unholy blight makes them the better choice to pair up for any damage dealer. You're also effectively saying that anyone that wants to run chaos hammer/orders wrath has to be paired with the same domain which limits build choices.

[droid327]

That's not really a good reason. Fire domain is tossing down firestorms every 8 seconds (other damage domain doing similar- air doing lightning/chain lighting, sun doing it's stuff), so that doesn't really hold up as a reason. DD t4 Holy smite + damage domain's SLAs (be it Chaos, law, fire, etc.) would be better for damage than T4 chaos hammer or order's wrath DD SLA. Comboing the t4 with whatever one's domain's SLAs are is just what damage dealers do; the shorter cooldown on holy smite/unholy blight makes them the better choice to pair up for any damage dealer. You're also effectively saying that anyone that wants to run chaos hammer/orders wrath has to be paired with the same domain which limits build choices.

Elemental domains are going to pair with Chaos/Order because of the core restrictions in DD - you cant take Elemental Crit and Holy Smite SLA T5 booster, which means your Holy Smite doesnt do double damage against Neutral enemies - and that's a pretty serious drawback. Also, Elemental clerics have to deal with immunity, which Alignment clerics do not.

Same logic for a Chaos or Law Domain taking T4 Holy Smite and T5 Chaos/Law, your Holy Smite SLA will cast twice as fast but be nerfed vs anything Neutral (and worthless vs the occasional Good).

The only domain that really benefits from it is Sun Domain, since its already aligned with Light. But Sunburst is not really that great compared to Firestorm or Chain Lightning, and they already lose out on Searing Light Domain SLA sharing a cooldown with the DD SLA.

[rabidfox]

Elemental domains are going to pair with Chaos/Order because of the core restrictions in DD - you cant take Elemental Crit and Holy Smite SLA T5 booster, which means your Holy Smite doesnt do double damage against Neutral enemies - and that's a pretty serious drawback. Also, Elemental clerics have to deal with immunity, which Alignment clerics do not.

Same logic for a Chaos or Law Domain taking T4 Holy Smite and T5 Chaos/Law, your Holy Smite SLA will cast twice as fast but be nerfed vs anything Neutral (and worthless vs the occasional Good).

The only domain that really benefits from it is Sun Domain, since its already aligned with Light. But Sunburst is not really that great compared to Firestorm or Chain Lightning, and they already lose out on Searing Light Domain SLA sharing a cooldown with the DD SLA.

Meh, lower end caster damage dealers like clerics will still be lower end either way. And when I TR off this build in a few days I won't give it another thought. By the time I got the t5 ability, all the alignment spells had hit their MLC (and will go downhill peformance wise until I can take master of alignment); even then it won't be high tier damage compared to other casters out there. I was simply disappointed that the cooldown pretty much locked in my choices (and would lock in choices 100% for anyone not running chaos/law domain unless they want to run a pure flavor sub-par build).

[Zuldar]

Chaos and Law Domains get those spells as SLAs with 6 sec CDs, while no Domain gives you a Holy Smite SLA

They can still do that by just taking holy smite instead of a second chaos hammer SLA, they all scale off the same spell power anyway.

[rabidfox]

Also the t5 doesn't make all mobs take damage regardless of alignment. Chaos hammer vs dretches... does nothing to them (that's my combat log after multiple casts, it doesn't even touch them). One holy smite later (just the spell) and they were dead. Good creatures take zero from holy smite (but how often do we fight good creatures?), while chaos hammer, unholy blight, and orders wraith have a decent number of mobs that can be potentially be immune to damage (I've seen this same behavior on upgraded orders wrath, haven't tried with unholy yet). Could be a bug that doesn't get talked about because no one runs around using anything but holy smite, or could be working as intended... who knows.

[yfernbottom]

Also the t5 doesn't make all mobs take damage regardless of alignment. Chaos hammer vs dretches... does nothing to them (that's my combat log after multiple casts, it doesn't even touch them). One holy smite later (just the spell) and they were dead. Good creatures take zero from holy smite (but how often do we fight good creatures?), while chaos hammer, unholy blight, and orders wraith have a decent number of mobs that can be potentially be immune to damage (I've seen this same behavior on upgraded orders wrath, haven't tried with unholy yet). Could be a bug that doesn't get talked about because no one runs around using anything but holy smite, or could be working as intended... who knows.

I for one would be really intersted to know if this is WAI or not,

Regardless, Chaos hammer is a single target spell that many many mobs are outright immune to. Having it have such a long cooldown is just silly, regardless of interactions with domain choice.

[rabidfox]

I for one would be really intersted to know if this is WAI or not,

T5- "Your Holy Smite spell now deals full damage to all enemies, regardless of alignment."

Holy Smite - "This spell has no effect on Good targets, and Neutral targets take half damage"

So the two possible interpretations are neutral & good would take full damage; or as it seems to be the case in-game, neutral takes full but good still takes no effect. So if it's WAI then it really does make Holy Smite way better than the other choices given enemy alignments; if its not WAI then that's a whole other can of bugs. But yeah, it would nice it we knew for certain if it was WAI or a bug. (it's pretty much the same with the other 3 alignment spell types with 1 alignment type full damage, 1 alignment type zero effect, and the rest half damage.)

[droid327]

They can still do that by just taking holy smite instead of a second chaos hammer SLA, they all scale off the same spell power anyway.

Yes, but it wont benefit from the T5 like a second Chaos Hammer would

Also the t5 doesn't make all mobs take damage regardless of alignment. Chaos hammer vs dretches... does nothing to them (that's my combat log after multiple casts, it doesn't even touch them). One holy smite later (just the spell) and they were dead. Good creatures take zero from holy smite (but how often do we fight good creatures?), while chaos hammer, unholy blight, and orders wraith have a decent number of mobs that can be potentially be immune to damage (I've seen this same behavior on upgraded orders wrath, haven't tried with unholy yet). Could be a bug that doesn't get talked about because no one runs around using anything but holy smite, or could be working as intended... who knows.

That, however, definitely seems like its not WAI. The T5 should make all of those spells work the same against everyone. The only difference should be the secondary debuff effect.

[rabidfox]

Yes, but it wont benefit from the T5 like a second Chaos Hammer would

And I say, "yeah, so?" It would hardly be overpowered nor game breaking; it would still be bottom tier caster damage compared to sorc/alch/druid and would be just about on par compared to fire (and other domain) clerics.. What it would do is make for more build choices on caster clerics which is always fun. It already has a trade-off of giving up the capstone too.

That, however, definitely seems like its not WAI. The T5 should make all of those spells work the same against everyone. The only difference should be the secondary debuff effect.

From the in-game text I posted above, it could be read either way. Unless a dev chimes in that's broken or not, we won't really know. The t5 text (and the text of how the aligment spells work) is just too ambiguous to really say if its WAI or not as a player.

[rabidfox]

Hit heroic sharn today and the MCL10 on it was making the chaos domain build feel very weak compared to fire with its better MCL SLAs that I normal do; shorter cooldown T4 SLA wouldn't turn things around in this level bracket- just can't compete with other spells/SLAs doing 50%+ more damage because of MCL. At level 24 I'll grab master of alignment and see how it feels then.

[LurkingVeteran]

Elemental domains are going to pair with Chaos/Order because of the core restrictions in DD - you cant take Elemental Crit and Holy Smite SLA T5 booster, which means your Holy Smite doesnt do double damage against Neutral enemies - and that's a pretty serious drawback. Also, Elemental clerics have to deal with immunity, which Alignment clerics do not.

Same logic for a Chaos or Law Domain taking T4 Holy Smite and T5 Chaos/Law, your Holy Smite SLA will cast twice as fast but be nerfed vs anything Neutral (and worthless vs the occasional Good).

The only domain that really benefits from it is Sun Domain, since its already aligned with Light. But Sunburst is not really that great compared to Firestorm or Chain Lightning, and they already lose out on Searing Light Domain SLA sharing a cooldown with the DD SLA.

It seems like you are emotionally invested in defending this design flaw for some reason. Beyond the lower levels, there is no reason to take the Order of Chaos domains since Sun is clearly better after you get access to Sunburst. Sunburst has no alignment restrictions and has higher caster level (25). Especially when you get it (smites are capped at 10 until L24) but also late game (34 vs 29, ~15% damage). Sun also has a 10% vulnerability buff which is the only one cleric can access, and a large chunk of spell power built into the domain. Overall this is a 20-30% damage difference. As a light/smite nuker you will be using both sunburst and smites regardless, it's just that currently Sun Domain and Holy Smite SLA are strictly better than all other options (known as a dominated strategy in game theory). This is not good design. The other smite SLAs deserve to at least have the same 6s CDs. The other smites look cool, it's a shame they are rarely used.

That said, the Bring Balance enhancement is also clearly better than the rest because Holy Smite works on nearly everything anyway, so the optimal setup is likely Sun Domain, Holy Smite SLA and Bring Balance so you can use the other smites as well.

EDIT: Upon reading this I think you are mistaken in how the DD enhancement works. It does not make the smites do double damage against everything, unless they changed it again. It just makes it do normal damage where it would do less (or at least supposed to, apparently it's bugged as well...). This basically just makes them as good as Holy Smite, i.e., Holy Smite SLA without the enhancement is as good as Chaos Hammer with it (or still better as it turns out...).