Update on New Divine Epic Destiny

[Teh_Troll]

Give it Adrenaline and I'll be happy.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Give it Adrenaline and I'll be happy.

Give it smites that hit like adrenaline, that would also give paladins a reason to take more than 2 levels.

[redspecter23]

I know it was probably mentioned in the other thread but it's important to repeat. Unyielding Sentinel currently has a few problems.

1. The current metagame doesn't require tanks to be effective and this destiny is almost all defense.

2. AC isn't needed for EH and isn't enough to make defense viable in EE making any buffs to AC almost meaningless, especially at the cost being the exclusion of another dps oriented destiny instead.

3. Lots of PRR is a good thing, but even without Unyielding Sentinel and it's bonuses a defensively built toon can still get very close to the 50% mitigation soft cap that PRR provides. This means that a toon already specced in defense gains no more than a few % points worth of PRR gains from anything in sentinel. Any PRR bonuses in the tree don't help a defensive toon enough to justify the cost of not being in a dps tree instead.

4. There have been improvements in the past to shield fighting, but it's still not quite there yet. Too many abilities rely on "actively shield blocking" You've already paid the price just by strapping on that board and decreased your dps. Make a move away from actively shield blocking as an ability prerequisite and simply having the shield equipped.

5. Explore options that relieve the huge opportunity cost that medium and heavy armor have in that they "turn off" evasion and lower your dodge cap. If you could come up with a comparable buff that requires medium or heavy armor, you'd make it easier to go that route and proxy nerf the massive power that 2 or 6 levels of monk currently provides compared to other options. Make players want to wear heavy armor instead of just throwing on light armor or robes and receiving not only the same defensive benefits (mostly due to diminishing returns) with evasion as the ultimate defensive bonus as well. At this point, even toons specced heavily in the defensive trees are hard pressed not to just splash 2 monk and use lighter armor. They really don't lose much compared to what they gain.

[xberto]

3. Lots of PRR is a good thing, but even without Unyielding Sentinel and it's bonuses a defensively built toon can still get very close to the 50% mitigation soft cap that PRR provides. This means that a toon already specced in defense gains no more than a few % points worth of PRR gains from anything in sentinel. Any PRR bonuses in the tree don't help a defensive toon enough to justify the cost of not being in a dps tree instead.


5. Explore options that relieve the huge opportunity cost that medium and heavy armor have in that they "turn off" evasion and lower your dodge cap. If you could come up with a comparable buff that requires medium or heavy armor, you'd make it easier to go that route and proxy nerf the massive power that 2 or 6 levels of monk currently provides compared to other options. Make players want to wear heavy armor instead of just throwing on light armor or robes and receiving not only the same defensive benefits (mostly due to diminishing returns) with evasion as the ultimate defensive bonus as well. At this point, even toons specced heavily in the defensive trees are hard pressed not to just splash 2 monk and use lighter armor. They really don't lose much compared to what they gain.

I strongly agree with these points.

And further I think the PRR for Heavier Armors and shields should be increased dramatically, across the board. Significant PRR increases might balance for non-evasion builds.

[Silverleafeon]

I always like practical examples, but that is me.
The more I delve into this build, the more I realize that Exalted Angel is an Evoker/Conjuration Epic Destiny.
DC boost there would be easily part of the theme.




Here is the enhancements and epic destinies took, Divine Wrath is not showing.

Class Split: 1 ~ 15 all cleric, 16 ~ 20 Favored Soul

Feats:
Premium Caster Package: Maximize, Empower, Heighten, Quicken, Empower Healing
Past Life Package: Arcane Initiate, Completionist
Evoker Package: Spell Focus Evocation, Greater Spell Focus Evocation

{Notice this looks just like my druid build...}
{Notice I neglected spell pen, as Fawn has all spell pen past lives, you could give up the 11 points into radiant for spell pen.}




Here is my spells and hot bar setup.

Most of my keyboard is hot keyed.
Left is toggles, things to gain spell points, access to character sheet, quest log, etc..
Upper right is buffs, with the more important ones on numbers pad key 1 thru 0.
Lower right is main casting bound to main keyboard leaving normal movement keys alone.

The bottom row: z thru , are my "free to cast spells" and almost all of them are light spells.
Due to the high critical spell % of this build generally you can cast these at will and stay at about the same sp,
due to the temp sp from Angel of Vengence. This is the row I use continually if I want to build up to Divine Wrath.
The normal spells have the metamagics turned off individually as all metamagics are turned on for colors of the queen.
{Buffs bars also have quickened turned off.}

The second row: g thru ; are my "healing spells" most of these are quickened and have various metamagics on them.
The one on the end uses my turn undeads for healing burst.

The third row: y thru \ are my "odd and ends spells" we have renewal (twice cause I want to avoid hitting t is I can),
rebuke foe (not sure why twice probably extra space), harper pin, remove curse, divine wrath on end to find easy.

The fourth row: 1 thru 0 are my "expensive emergency spells" this is the evoker row. These spells are fully metamagiced,
and casting them one right after another on a big group of mobs will do serious damage, killing most everything.
The first one is my sla, its not with the other slas because its not a light spell.



Basic Stats: {bear in mind I have completionist and +5 tomes}

Str 9
Dex 9
Con 13
Int 12 {skills max concentration, heal, and spellcraft, 1 into tumble, rest into balance till hit favored soul then extra into jump}
Wis 18 {all level ups here}
Cha 14


Spells not shown:
Favored Soul took anything that did not depend on cast levels:
Level 1: Cause fear (small auto debuff), Obscuring Mist, Remove Fear, Summon Monster I (gets rid of bigger summons)
Level 2: Close Wounds (quick heal stack builder, never use), Remove Paralysis (gets rid of slow, but not from spell wards)


Twists are
Cocoon (needed)
+3 evocation from Magistar {evoker style}
15% less cooldown from Magistar {optional, but I like as it reduces my sunbolt and sunbeam cooldowns}


You will notice I have Colors of the Queen turned off.
That is because I just came from a Von Raid and Divine Wrath can apply things normally hitting foes to allies.
I had a party member suddenly get -10 to reflex saves in a demonweb boss fight,
can you guess what magistar twist Fawn was using?

Depending on my mood, and what I am doing, I do turn Colors of the Queen on.
Since I was leading the raid, I did not feel like risking killing a party member.


Alternate enhancement/twist version, probably more popular version:



Here we give up radiant burst (using turn undeads for Divine Vitality) and gain more light spell power.
Swapped cooldown twist for +2 more evocation DCs.

Light spell power here is 396 (potential +30 and +30 from stacks and +30 spell boost) using a 126 light power, 19% radiant lore caster stick.
Positive spell power is 362 from Gauntlets of Immortality
Off hand is http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Balizar...or_of_the_King
Trinket Planar Focus of Erudition / Ioun Stone / crafted fire absorb 33% + efficient max II
Armor is Epic Blue Dragonscale with helmet
Hp Greensteel Boots / consider Heyclone boots here
Sp Greensteel Googles
Sage Locket for evocation / Torc / Silver Flame Talisman.
Ring of Shadows EE on off hand with xp bonus augment
Wise +9 ring main hand / Ring of Dijjin EE



So far this is the best light spell build that I have used.
There may be better out there, but I have studied this for a long time, and that is the best I can do so far...
Is it as good as a sorcerer, probably not, but that is to be expected.
This build suffer greatly from not having an archon, but maybe Exalted Angel will change...


Strongly accepted into raids as a healer, and preforms well in that regard.
Slight problem of not having enlarge for longer healing range, but that is optional even with a devoted healer.



Another option is to make the evoker spell on the top row only have quicken and heighten applied to them, halving their cost.
Also one could twist energy burst fire instead of Precise Evocation.
This allows more explosives per shrine.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;;;;;;;

I have rebuilt the Cleric Soul {Cleric 15/Favored Soul 5 ~ tier 5 AoV/EA ED} five times now?

It always turns out the same, light spells are evoker spells nowadays.
SLAs benefit from free metamagics.

What order would Fawn take them from level one?
Well...

Completionist is a very nice feat, but it mess up the feat order (insert plug for auto grant here), take it whenever.
Quickened is really needed in Epics and level 18+ so take at level 18.
Maximize is usually taken at level 12 or over, however if you have an Spell Like Ability to freely use it on, you can take much sooner.
Empowered Healing is for Renewal/Cocoon so take this at level 21.
Heighten is not good unless you have enough spell levels to make a difference, take at 15 or over.
Spell Focus Evocation should be taken before entering Epic Levels, so take at 9 or over.
Empowered should not be taken before level 6 as it would not be turned on due to spell costs before then.
Greater Spell Focus can wait, even up to level 24.
Arcane Initiate is nice to have at any level, so fit it in wherever seems good.

For Fawn the choice of Ruin vs Epic Spell Focus Evocation at level 27 could go either way.
What is extremely interesting is that she is some actual good use out of alignment spells.
She can use all of them due to being converted from a Druid as True Neutral,
and except for Unholy Blight she finds targets for them.
Order's Wrath actually makes EE crowd control, but unfortunately the duration is about as long as the cooldown:
6 seconds duration with a 4 second cooldown.

Still she misses Earthquake very much.


Cometfall and healing are Conjuration spells, light spells now have evoker saving throw which aims at the heart of this:


Precise Casting: Conjuration / Evocation: Passive Bonus: +1 DC to spells of the selected school.
EDP Cost: 1 Ranks: 2 Progression: 4 Requires: Requires feat Spell Focus: Conjuration for conjuration version, or feat Spell Focus: Evocation for evocation version.

from the Draconic Incarnation would actually be perfect copied into Exalted Angel.


Divine Wrath continues to tease.
Having excluded Nimbus of Light and Holy Smite SLAs from the main light spell cycling,
Fawn can finally use Divine Wrath some of the time.
Rarely it kills a player, often the target dies before she can build up a light stack,
sometimes a player needs healing urgently before all is ready, but when it works its very nice.


This build is akin to a Sorcerer, but of course the Sorcerer going to glory in 10k critical spells, while the Cleric Soul
get excited over a 2k+ spell crit.

Having gained all her Divine Sphere Epic Past Lives, its time to move on, perhaps to return someday depending upon
upcoming changes. She needs 3 Primal, 6 Arcane, 2 Martial, and some more Iconic Past Lives.
Perhaps a return to Druid, or perhaps something built just for the Arcane Sphere.
Primal is so easy with Shiradi + whatever. Martial can be returned to when we farm out new ED frontiers.
I pause at Bard+Fatesinger, wondering...Fawn rates Bard at the bottom of the classes due to flaws that need working out.

I guess since Fawngate is one of the few characters that can take Epic Completionist,
she will need to be copied unto the Xoriat Server for testing out Epic Completionist Alpha version.


It has been pointed out to me by someone who is completely done with epic past lives and now working on
Iconic + Heroic past lives that alternating Iconic with Epic to maintain some first time bonuses would be a
smart strategy.

Fawn has just been plain tired of emptying her TR cache and reflagging...sigh, I guess its time for an Iconic Heart next...

[Ancient]

This build suffer greatly from not having an archon, but maybe Exalted Angel will change...

It would be amazing if they simply added an archon to the EA destiny. Allow either FVS to have 2, or improve the one they have...

[IronClan]

We realize that this was poorly received since we poorly set up the expectation.

But that's NOT why it was poorly received Varg, it was poorly received because 20 seconds of invulnerability that is a huge Pain to charge up and only usable once in a blue moon is a really lame "Epic moment" on a DPS starved class/build. 20 Seconds to do what exactly? Continue sawing the tree down with a Butter knife? Run around and raise everyone with scrolls is the best thing to use it for and honestly I've never been lucky enough to have it charged when a near wipe happened. Of course I ended up going with a DPS ED like everyone else.

This is one of those disconnect things, the Devs think if they can just explain their intent correctly and get the right message out there players will like things.

The players on the other hand use the moment a couple times, go "meh, I might one day single handedly save a Shroud during the last 20 seconds of a Harry beat down if I am lucky enough to have this charged up, but otherwise who cares... Probably better to put the two points into Str/Con".

A LOT of the other Epic moments suffer this same overly narrow and overly hard to charge up "Meh Moment" thing.

The Angel ED's Divine Wrath is only worth bothering with if you have an Archon (though it is still a huge PITA to target and stuff dies so fast you often lose it and it goes on cooldown). The fix as EVERYONE has said already is giving Archon as a Core 5, and it makes a FvS's existing Archon full powered (full light crit% and spell power instead of half)

The Ascendency moment is just so short and so long to cooldown and so long to charge... I can count the times I've seen someone use EITHER Divine Wrath OR Ascendency in a actual quest on one hand. (I use Divine Wrath all the time but rarely see others) And two of those were during Mabar with endlessly respawning Mobs! Most of the moments feel like a race against time, to see if anything impressive happens; like hoping to get one or two really big light crits and then it's gone... Epic moment? No more of a disappointing moment most of the time. I think you should move most moments (at least new ones) into being toggles that charge up and cool down. while they are toggled on. While you use them instead of turning them on and fizzling out 30 seconds later and having a 2 minute 5 or 10 minute "forget about it all the time so I never use it" cooldown. Have them ramp up in power as you charge up instead of it being an on/off switch, and have a penalty to balance always being on.

Don't get me started on the entire Left side of the Angel tree... Judgment/Judge many etc. I can not be bothered to use these, I played with them just long enough to realize how fiddly and situational they were and reset my points to spend on things that didn't suck. Speaking of underwleming:

A tier 4 active ability that gives a 5% boost to damage against a single target per click. Does Turbine think the average player is an octopus to be clicking that while also doing DPS? 5 clicks that are not DPS, so I can raise light DPS by 25% for 30 seconds, You guys realize that if I miss out on casting ONE spell because I clicked that five times, that I am losing DPS in the deal right? Of course you're going to miss casting a couple damage spells not just one, because there's the global action timer that wont allow you to cast faster than whatever it's set at (feels like 1 second).

Simple fix make it passive, +5% damage for every 5 stacks of ardor/whatchamacallit, 25 stacks = +25% light DPS. Oh and while we're at it: Make all the stuff in Angel ED work for "Light Fire Force and Untyped" this means it's actually a little fun for a Fire Sorc to level, or a Archmage, and my "Dark Angel" idea too, give Divine Disciple Clerics using Negative energy an ED to be in. Also makes a nice alternate ED for a Pale Master. Just make a negative version of each Light/Pos ability and a Dark Wrath AOE.

Okay and last Angel ED ability before I stop ranting:
"Be at peace" 2 minute cool down... One enemy dazed (dazed!)... 2 points cost... Too situational and long cooling down to ever remember to use, so not worth spending points on.

Call it "Bow before Imminence" Make it a Self AOE centered Greater command like effect with appropriate epic destiny style DC, and give it a 30 second cooldown and 20 SP cost (free meta's). Move it to tier 6 this is more fun, useful AND epic feeling than anything currently there; as whats more epic feeling than making enemies bow before you?

[Wipey]

. Move it to tier 6 this is more fun, useful AND epic feeling than anything currently there; as whats more epic feeling than making enemies bow before you?

Make it work on players, and in public areas, please ?

Btw, rebuke is one of the better things in EA, it's not just light for YOU, it's + 25 % physical for everybody else.
It can be a pain, you are right, you gotta hotkey it and preferrably keep mob examine thingie open or you easily miss a stack.
Can get pretty piano -ey fast with all the different targetting, thyself, mob, party members and back in split second.

[IronClan]

I always like practical examples, but that is me.
The more I delve into this build, the more I realize that Exalted Angel is an Evoker/Conjuration Epic Destiny.

Very interesting, good stuff Silver, I also have a Light evoker, and have already done much of the same experimenting as you. Like you I've arrived at about 105 light spell power from Enhancements, but I honestly believe that Pure FvS Morninglord despite the loss of about 30 light spellpower will end up the more practical choice with Sunbolt at 18th level costing no SP, and a Archon to charge DW up. I have been able to lay down a DW every 15-16 seconds in target rich quests or raids if I don't need to heal. Ultimately being able to use the funky and often painful DW more often is what makes it my choice. That said I'm still playing around with it. An improved Divine Wrath spell (make it less finicky) and an Archon in the ED cores would open up my build possibilities tremendously, and DW is far and away the biggest light base damage available.

Have you considered 15 Druid 3 Cleric 2 FvS? I have a Pyromancer version of this concept (fire and light) that is 15 Druid 4 FvS 1 Sorc (or 5 FvS). Two Sunburst SLA's (Druid core 12 and Morninglord) to rocker back and forth between, Fire elemental form, Body of the sun, Firewall, Produce flame (a great little SLA I have a thing for SLA's that home in on their target) Sunbeam, and Earthquake. Best part is no one expects you to heal, so guilt free DPS. Seasonal thing is annoying until you get used to it.

[bennyson]

the more I realize that Exalted Angel is an Evoker/Conjuration Epic Destiny.

Exactly what I said in the old thread, make Exalted Angel the "divine" twin of Draconic Incarnation.