Feedback: Exalted Angel

[Sonofmoradin]

Seems like after testing, my turn undead does not recharge beyond 3/day outside the tavern, while total uses are 7 within the tavern. I tested it for about 10 mins.

EDIT: Erratic bug, it now recharges normally again.. :S

[maddmatt70]

I posted this in the other thread, but just to make sure Eladrin or whomever gets this I am posting it here. There should be +% to force damage and I would vote twistable something like 3 ranks +10%,+20%, +30% to force damage/bludgeon spells so that force specced wizards and sorcs get a boost. I would also like a non twistable fire boost perhaps add it to another ability in tier 5 or 6 something like 10%, 20%, 30% fire damage spells. A twistable negative damage boost would be interesting to but does not quite fit with the destiny thematically so perhaps if you are considering another divine destiny you could add that to it.

In general a few questions:
1. Is another divine destiny in the works?
2. Is there a movement to increase the viability of divine damage spells like the inflict spells, fire spells, and force spells?
3. Is there another divine destiny in the works with which has intentions to buff divine damage spells? I am thinking you guys maybe are making some sort of negative energy focused destiny which would have negative energy, force, and perhaps fire in it.

[justagame]

Is there a divine destiny that has something other than middling damage that takes forever to cast/stack, a small boost to healing, or <***?> charisma-based DCs?

Disappointing.

[deahamlet]

Since I was told I should post even if repeating what others have said.
Take this as coming from someone who plays a caster FvS that heals raids and sometimes heals friends in epics. I use BB, Divine Punishment and Implosion a lot. I find most of the light or good damage spells are weak to useless at end-game. I use destruction and slay living sometimes, but obviously with less success.

So here's my opinions on the destiny, in some detail.

1. It's missing force/untyped damage boosts - I'm sorry but BB is still the single most powerful spell to kill things. I use DP and light spells for stupid archers that won't budge. Cometfall also has untyped damage, it's great against pesky casters. I see nothing to improve BB or cometfall which makes me a sad panda. CLs are fine and dandy, but actual damage boosts like artificers get would be BETTER.

2. Speaking of artificers, does BB count as a divine spell for artificers so to increase caster levels, do I have to twist some from Exalted Angel? Or do all artificer spells used by an artificer count as "arcane" and magister and Draconic Incarnation apply to them? - This is more of a question than issue, I guess.

3. Astral vibrance - I'm sorry to inform you but in a raid situation I cannot afford to leave anyone below 50%. And even in epic quests, I'm not leaving people at < 50% HP to use this ability on them. Increase to something like 75% for allies.

4. The overall focus on light damage is sad considering the pathetic light spells we get in our arsenal.

5. CHA as part of save calculations for the new abilities. I don't get it. DCs for both cleric and FvS are WIS. CHA for turns on cleric, CHA for ability to cast (max 19 required). I seriously do not get it. If it's because you're trying to cover paladins as well, make it WIS/CHA, whichever is higher.

6. Judgement - this is an epic ability that is nearly useless in new content, only useful in max level 16 content (aka Necro) and Amrath/Vale. I want something useful for new content, stop with the undead/outsider obsession. Of course, same holds for Lay to rest, Judge the many, etc.

7. Blood and radiance - why do I have to cast HEALS to improve my light damage spells? Like light damage spells aren't weak enough, what's the point of this other than in raids? And even then, let me blast some SP on light spells to increase my healing effectiveness... wow, can it suck more? I have yet to meet a single person for whom blood and radiance makes sense as is. When I solo, I rarely heal because I work hard to NOT be hit. When I'm in raids, why am I spamming lame light spells to increase healing ability? I'm supposed to get excited my DP is going to be super awesome after healing the party 10 times? Light spells should increase light damage and heal spells should increase healing ability.

8. You threw a couple bones at the melee smiters (aka paladins), but generally it feels weird. You're not doing a great job for the casters and you're not really providing great benefits to melee either. I'm not sure I get it. Smite the wicked and Excoriate are supposed to attract people? Meh.

9. 50d6 damage for something that is tier 6, after a stack of 10 ardor... AND it has a save? Seriously underpowered and unimpressive.

Overall I am confused by this destiny. Not enough melee oriented options to make it awesome for paladin or melee divine... not enough of good caster benefits outside of WIS and CLs... obsession with undead/outsiders... weak abilities that have saves no less... no boosts to BB and cometfall... boosts to light spells which on a divine suck outside DP... weird mechanics that boost healing from light spells and light spells from healing... overall, just super confusing and disappointing.

[LiquidShadow]

There should be +% to force damage and I would vote twistable something like 3 ranks +10%,+20%, +30% to force damage/bludgeon spells so that force specced wizards and sorcs get a boost.

this is nice idea

[Sonofmoradin]

Ok, let me state my opinion about the exalted deeds epic destiny after years of having a cleric as my only main since 2006.

It is awsome. why?

Renewal, perfect since it makes scrolls obsolete and is very cheap as well and more effective with very low cooldown.

Light nuke capabilities are huge concerning they cost almost nothing as SP.

The Ascendance is also nice giving nice boosts, and making nuking with light spells even more cheap since there is a chance to gain sp from each cast. Clerics Have searing light, the level 1 light spell, the one from the destiny and divine punishment can all be used on cooldowns creating a huge addition to dps.

Only to tell you we went on the raid yesterday on epic hard and I had more than 60 kills with a point buy 32 cleric without any gear at all. The reborn in light is also awsome, giving even more boosts to nuke and heal without any cost BUT the only thing I do not like is the 100 stacks you need to gather to activate it; Maybe make it 60 stacks? I do not know, either way:

Rebuke foe, it is great addition to group dps BUT it should stack with itself (if it doesnt already). I am overall happy with those choices that were made available to this destiny, and the only problem is that divine wrath is still bugged and I havent tried it yet so I cant tell.

PS: Wings on my cleric? Beyond awsome.

[Sonofmoradin]

Besides aura bugged (turn undead charges that dont regenerate), the wings uses regenarate to fast...

Turbine, why when you try to fix one thing two other old issues get bugged again? :S

[maddmatt70]

this is nice idea

yes I agree. The thing is the devs plan to add a force line to the arti destiny when it comes out which in and of itself is not a bad thing. I do not mind if that is a divine twist but what have yeah.

There has been serious neglect of flame strike/firestorm and the negative energy spells (infict/harm) and this destiny continues that practice. I am also amazed that holy word in some form has not made it into DDO after all Holy Word with just 5 levels above the opponent paralyzes the opponent and could be the divine version of mass hold monster obviously holy word has to be handled with kid gloves or it becomes yet another instakill/ overpowerd spell, but you get the idea.

This destiny does not help force/untyped,fire, negative energy spells, or spell effects like holy word much less the divine dcs so yeah its a fail strictly speaking, but if the devs add an arti destiny with force/untyped, a negative energy destiny for the palemaster/clerical prestige enhancement and with the ability to twist the fire from the draconic incarnation it becomes not so bad. It really kind of misses that holy word ability or something that buffs that. It should be pointed out that the magister has everything wizards do and the draconic everything sorcerers do but this destiny does not have everything cleric or fvs do..

[SirValentine]

In general a few questions:
1. Is another divine destiny in the works?

We can hope!

2. Is there a movement to increase the viability of divine damage spells like the inflict spells, fire spells, and force spells?
3. Is there another divine destiny in the works with which has intentions to buff divine damage spells?

I certainly don't object to nuking but personally I don't care about it enough to want it as the primary focus of anything. Though they are mostly light-typed, Exalted Angel is full of spell DPS stuff...one of the reasons I find it boring and useless.

Is there a movement to increase the viability of divine CC & instakill spells?

Is there another destiny in the works which has intentions to buff divine DCs and spell penetration?

[Will_Ferrer]

Celestial Destiny
I like the bonuses to class levels and who can complain about extra SP? It's not totally clear to me how extra class levels are gonna effect Divine casters

Angelic Presence
Whoot extra CHA. I hope that -2 to attack rolls is gonna do somebody some good b/c it aint gonna do nothing for my Divine.

Astral Vibrance
This seems like a neat concept. If its affected by enhancements, gear and meta magics that's great. Even if the metas don't work that's still great. If its only 1d4, that's lame. Its not even worth putting on my hot bar except to turn it off once the Ascendance is over. Also there needs to be an icon in the buff bar for it!!!

Blessed Blades
I really hope this applies to ranged weapons as well.

Ascendance
Transformation toggle: Assume angelic form. Any time you cast light damage spell, chance to gain temporary spell points. Any time you cast single target cure spells on a target, chance to give the target temporary HP. Any time you smite an enemy, chance to gain temporary HP. Your Angelic Presence and Astral Vibrance abilities do not have health requirements while in Angelic form. Astral Vibrance has no spell point drain while you are in Angelic form. Form lasts 2 minutes, 5 minute cooldown.

Does the "Angelic form" change your type to Outsider?

Does the light spell temp SP work on SLAs like "Avenging the Light" or "Light of the Silver Flame" from the Favored Soul "Follower of the Silver Flame" capstone or something like the summon Archon or the FvS past life feat? Would be great if it did

Does the cure spell temp HP proc with SLA's like "Healing Word"? or spells like Close Wounds or abilities like Lay on hands or the Cleric past life feat? Would be great if it did

Does the smite temp HP apply to the light Shintao monk ability Smite Tainted Creature? Would be great if it did

Avenging the Light
I like the concept, cheep light spell, quick cool down and moderate damage. I don't like that is uses your CHA exclusively.

Endless Faith
I feel like +10% sp is a decent boost for 3 AP tho this feels like your asking Divines to use all their SP just to take full advantage of this. Unless meta magics are free with these abilities 4 points a tick is really awful. May wanna consider increasing the regen rate as well

Embrace the Light
Don't really see many Divines taking this. It really just seems like a tool added to help Pale Masters deal with light damage. We'll see how prevalent this energy type is the new content, and if this is warranted as something to help divines defend against it or allow Pales Masters a loophole.

Smite the Wicked
I like the idea of smiting although I wish it had something for ranged. I play a FvS under the Silver Flame religion and I use a bow. There is no smite here or anywhere that I can use, In fact there is nothing here that helps bow using Divines. There are so few of us that its likely a non issue.

Blood and Radiance
Im wondering if the summon Archon from the Angel of Vengeance PrC and Healing Aura/Radiant Burst from the Radiant Servant PrC apply stacks, or even the Healing Word/Light of the Silver Flame Capstone spells. It would be great if stuff like this did. Divines are gonna need ways to grow stacks without spending massive amounts of mana. Also I think it would great to allow pallies to use Divine Sacrifice to increase stacks. Although I can see some potential balance issues with this.

Excoriate
SLAs? summon Archon? FvS past life Feat? All these things should be included in its effects. If they do that's great if not maybe its worth considering.

Divine Wrath
This looks really good although I would like to see it DC changed to wisdom or charisma, there are so few high charisma divines. It really feels like a missed opportunity.

Reborn in Light
Counter increments with each Endless Ardor or Righteous Fervor Gain. When it reaches 100, ability becomes available.
Epic Moment Transformation: You are healed to full health and activate Ascendance, Angelic Presence, and Astral Vibrance (even if they are currently on cooldown). For 2 minutes (or until you leave Angelic form), you are immune to light damage, have a 50% Incorporeality, and gain +100 Light and Healing Power.
This ability can be used while dead, raising you at full health and in addition to the above benefits, the cooldowns of Light and Positive Energy spells are reduced to 1/5th normal, all spells cost 50% spell points, and all of your physical attacks gain On Hit: 100 Light damage and On Critical: Destroy evil undead or evil outsiders under 1000 hit points.

30 min cool down seems really long, I don't wanna run a whole quest or even 2 quests and not have my epic moment as a option. Every other ED can use its epic moment 3-6 times as often as this one.

Do the counters reset every rest, if so I can see me going much longer between uses. If I use a shrine then all my counters Ive gathered are lost its gonna take some time to get back then Im gonna hold it for the boss fight as a backup if its a multistaged fight then I'll will hold out as long as I can, to make sure I'm ready. I'll go the whole raid fight having never used my epic moment b/c I don't wanna need it and not have it. For me its too powerful and will most likely be something ill need to carry but rarely use.

Id like to see the cool down reduced to something that can be used more then once a session. Even if it means they have to trim a little off.

[Pewf]

All of this feedback, yummy!

But.. any word on any possible changes/updates they've made (if any)? No?

Boo.

[-Zephyr-]

I too would like to support the idea of angelic form costing more, but being permanent.
You can remove the bonuses it gives that are not in the description, it still would be much more "usable" if permanent.

[Don1966]

i'd like to point out that the other destinies that are geared towards casting spells have several effects in each that deal damage directly or increases damage from existing spells that work against almost all enemy mobs. or they have one effect that deals a crapload of damage to almost all enemy mobs. Lay to Rest works against undead and evil outsiders, how much of the new content and how much old epic content will this be really useful in?
for the vast majority of clerics and favored souls that do focus on casting for damaging mobs, charisma is a dump stat as all of their spells use wisdom as the dc modifier. tying the dc of anything offensive to only the charisma modifier for a divine means most will have a very low dc.
as i mentioned in an earlier post, the range of Avenging Light is insane low, why is a light spell not typed as a ray spell for distance purposes.
in addition, the +1 to caster level for each rank isn't working with rad servant aura or burst. is that WAI?
sadly, the character that i enjoy playing more than any other ones i have, my clonk, is going to get played very little when the expansion hits. i'll level up my bard and work on my completionist toon until such time as a decent cleric destiny is made or this one gets some major rework done to it.

[Henky]

Any word before going live on monday? Wings arent recharging atm, divine wrath isnt working, divine caster level increment not working....

[SealedInSong]

Reticent developers, thank you for all the time you put into these epic destinies. They’ve breathed a lot of life into the game and I’m extremely excited about all of them. I highly hope the cleric and artificer destinies address some of the playstyles not currently featured in the destinies now.

Getting wings on my cleric or paladin is singly one of the most exciting things about the expansion, no joke. However, I’d like to summarize player reactions to certain mechanical aspects of this destiny with the following:

Excessive micromanagement:
Endless ardor and righteous fervor stacking durations, stack requirements, and stack resets require prohibitive attention from the player. In practice, it’s really just not fun. Not fun at all.

Moreover, abilities such as “Be at peace” and “Rebuke foe” were not powerful enough to warrant resetting your stack completely. I can understand some tier6 abilities requiring careful judgment and tactical expenditure, but the aforementioned abilities are dreadfully underpowered for their cost.

“Be at peace” is particularly offensive given that the mez can be broken. Ask yourselves--how often do players honor breakable mez outside of a single instance like eVoN6? Answer: almost no one, and certainly not a blitzing Dreadnought.

I’d suggest the tier5 and below abilities merely require a certain stack of fervor/ardor and then expend a single charge of that stack to be used. “Excoriate” has the right idea in adding a passive buff when the stack is past a certain level. The other abilities would see a huge boost in utility if they just decrease your stack by one instead of blowing your whole load and thereby losing your whole stack and the benefits garnered from a full stack of “Blood and Radiance” and “Excoriate.”

“Reborn in light” is obviously useful but the stack of 100 is truly exorbitant and can be reset in so many ways. Consider at least bumping this down to something more manageable like 75.

More passive/static bonuses would be greatly appreciated, but barring that, less expensive ardor/fervor stacks would greatly improve the utility and fun factor of Exalted Angel.

Confusing logic:
I can see where you’re going with “Blood and Radiance” thematically, but I think a lot of players are finding difficulty with the idea of a heal-specced character needing to cast light spells from an extremely limited light spell selection to boost their heals and a light spell-focused character (not even really possible) needing to heal to boost their spells.

Similarly, using charisma modifiers for "Avenging light," "Smite the wicked," “Strike Down,” and "Divine wrath" seems to unduly target Paladins, low-DC Favored Souls, and the inexplicable charisma-based cleric (I’ve only ever encountered the rare drow cleric here and there who has had a decent charisma score as a secondary characteristic for Divine Might and turns at the expense of their constitution and strength).

Divines are medium-DPS at best, so giving them the option to perform some cooldown/ardor/fervor-restricted physical damage attacks with their main casting statistic feels appropriate. I don’t see how there would be an excess in power by making these abilities wisdom OR charisma.

Lack of offensive-casting options:
The divine spell list is dwarfed by the arcane spell list, and to compound matters, this destiny doesn’t appear to boost fire or negative energy or untyped damage in any way. This may be mitigated by some features of the cleric-inspired destiny or twists from the artificer destiny, but it would be nice for at least fire or untyped to be addressed in this particular destiny, even if it’s just in one or two enhancements.

Also, a lack of spell penetration and school focus enhancements forces divine casters to look at the magister tree which will not help them as a main destiny and only marginally help them with twists.

Coupled with a gaping lack of domains for clerics, I think everyone has been left scratching their chins at the lack of boosts for evokers and offensive-spellcasting divines in this destiny. Even a single enhancement of three tiers for 1) extra spell penetration, another for 2) increasing DCs for Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Necromancy, or Transmutation and another for 3) "spell school familiarity" similar to the magister enhancement which would reduce the cooldown of positive energy and light spells by 5/10/15%.

Too much focus on undead and evil outsiders:
I actually don’t personally have too much concern with this aspect but it appears many players do. In my opinion, exalted angel is currently more like Shintao monk, which has very useful abilities and an identifiable power bias versus “tainted” creatures and less like Hunter of the Undead which has a few useful abilities and an identifiable and not as useful power bias versus undead.

That said, the player base reaction towards this may merit some consideration. I think a lot of this protest may be quelled by addressing the micromanaging aspect of point 1, though.

Ascendance:
I think Pewf and several others had the right idea about this ability--I think everyone would agree that a permanent toggle is far more desirable than the transient version. In respect to pale masters and druid forms, I think we can all agree that a static augmentation with some drawbacks is always more desirable.

There have been a number of suggestions made to for a toggle option, but my preferred revision would be:

Transformation: Assume angelic form (type: outsider good, angel) . Any time you cast light damage spell, chance to gain temporary spell points. Any time you cast single target cure spells on a target, chance to give the target temporary HP. Any time you smite an enemy, chance to gain temporary HP. Your Angelic Presence and Astral Vibrance abilities do not have health requirements while in Angelic form. Astral Vibrance has a maximum 10 sp drain per 2 seconds while you are in Angelic form. Your maximum mana is reduced by 5% to maintain your connection to the divine. Duration toggle. Costs 50 sp to activate.

I think a max mana reduction, toggle activation cost, and capped Astral Vibrance cost should be more than enough to keep the toggle balanced. I’d be even happier to get a bonus to constitution, charisma, and/or wisdom (or all three) but if there’s still a balance concern, I’d do anything to get a permanent toggle for the angelic form. Even without the maximum mana reduction and as a permanent toggle, I see this form as slightly weaker than Lich form due to to its lack of meaningful contributions to DCs, ability scores, and the fact that it’s an epic level ability.

I cannot impress the importance of how much players such as myself would want to be in angelic form all the time instead of tiny durations.

[pr0phet00]

Extraordinarily well said Sealed.

[Thanquil]

is it possible to max out tree? can you put points into everything in tree if so would you need to tr to do this.

[Nick_RC]

I don't think any of the FVS in guild will be using this destiny.

N

[SirValentine]

Also, a lack of spell penetration and school focus enhancements forces divine casters to look at the magister tree which will not help them as a main destiny and only marginally help them with twists.

Coupled with a gaping lack of domains for clerics, I think everyone has been left scratching their chins at the lack of boosts for evokers and offensive-spellcasting divines in this destiny. Even a single enhancement of three tiers for 1) extra spell penetration, another for 2) increasing DCs for Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Necromancy, or Transmutation and another for 3)

Yes, this! Spell Pen, DCs, etc..

Too much focus on undead and evil outsiders:
I actually don’t personally have too much concern with this aspect but it appears many players do.

I don't have a problem with it as a theme, but I have a problem with it's implementation. Clerics, for instance, can instakill undead starting at level 1, and outsiders at level 7.

But in an "Epic" destiny, pretty much all we get is a bit more light DPS against these kinds of creatures? Gee...I can deal some light damage...or I can just cast Banishment or Undeath to Death.

How about stacking Turn Undead bonuses, or Abjuration caster level bonuses or something.

[Rizzia]

Exalted angel has definatley grown on me. The micro management is annoying, but I tend to ignore it for the most part, too busy with positioning, timing dots, heals and debuffs to watch 2 other timers. Since the archon contributes you are getting a steady supply of endless ardor stacking for divine wrath (which still doesnt work btw .. or not from what Ive seen), and also for rebuke foe.

The SLA is something I use alot, considering I only have 23 cha I've never seen a save, hits for as much as a 3rd teir dot tick. Its more powerful than alot of you make out, sure its no sorcerer sla...but meh. Will definatley be getting this and keeping it twisted.

My favourite thing is one that I want to hate because its a pigeon hole but its good at what it does. The problem I have with it, is that theres not enough outsider/undead heavy content in the xpac to justify using all the time. Judgement, lay to rest and judge the many line: Quests like wizking, devils assault, ADQ and chronoscope are really fun with these, but their all older content, and older/eclipsed loot/grind. Good at killing off your friendly PM too but thats another story

One solution could be to move these to teir 4/5/6 and make it work on ALL enemies (probably overpowered tho). Or keep current lvls (..or maybe 3/4/5) and work on all evil creatures.

I find myself using this destiny if I want to run outsider/undead heavy content, otherwise Unyeilding Sentinel for the extra HP buffer and damage mitigation.