Update on New Divine Epic Destiny

[Wipey]

Druid is paid class, clerics or fvs will never get Earthquake despite it being core divine spell in pen and paper and every d&d game and "some " persistent cc is direly needed.
Command, symbols, comets barely work unless you gimp your main schools and slot all that stuff on gear somewhere.

Asking for "more " healing or focus on that doesn't make any sense to me, that "strength" of class or mean of contribution is much much less needed than ever before.

[SirValentine]

So does that mean you'll be changing something to allow for a pure Über-healing-based Epic Destiny?

Well, he said he was NOT going to rework existing destinies. That list was what we wanted, not what we're getting.

Though he did also say he's going to make Exalted Angel be even more healing focused. (Joy. Still no caster-focused ED, another melee ED, and the best excuse for for a caster ED pushed towards hjealbot.)

[SirValentine]

Druid is paid class, clerics or fvs will never get Earthquake despite it being core divine spell in pen and paper and every d&d game and "some " persistent cc is direly needed.

FvS is a paid class, too. And Druid's been around enough that it is no longer the new kid on the block.

[SirValentine]

Even if it is added to the cleric spell book, druids will be more effective using it, because they have
water elemental form and the spells: sleet storm and ice storm.

Yes. Druids have tons of debuffs they can stack with it. So it wouldn't take away from Druids being the Earthquake masters; it would just give Clr/FvS some more flexibility.

This actually would be a huge bone to throw the divine right now, let them chew on that till December...

Yes.

[SirValentine]

What spell is that?

Why write a comment to an important issue and not include details like which spell?

I figured everyone already knew what I was talking about; it's been brought up often enough over the last year and a half. Sorry.

And, as others have already answered, it's Earthquake.

Though there are also a number of other spells implemented in-game that have not been given to the classes that should have them, and I support them being properly assigned, as well.

[mikarddo]

Thanks everyone for your interest and input on last month’s post on the new Divine Epic Destiny. Based on your feedback, we’ve made some changes to our design, and we’d like to share with you where things are headed for this

To address points 1 and 2 above, we will likely be making the new destiny fit a more hybrid melee/spellcaster role, a little like warpriest. This doesn’t mean it will be watered down and ineffective at both. Rather, it will have a strong mix of viable options for melees as well as caster hybrids. The new destiny will be strong in melee and be fun for melee oriented characters to play, but it will also have some key spell casting abilities and enhancements that will be of interest to divine casters, such as a significant boost to divine casting DCs and some strong spell-like abilities.

In order to address point 3, we’d also like to make a set of changes to the other two divine epic destinies to adjust their roles and amplify their power level. While this will definitely amount to less than a complete reworking of these trees, we hope to be able to go through the trees and make several changes for the better. Some of these will include giving more melee potency to the Unyielding Sentinel, and giving more healing emphasis and general spell efficacy to the Exalted Angel.

As we get closer to filling out the new destiny’s tree, we’ll be looking at this thread (as well as back through the 14 pages of the original thread) to see if we can incorporate any more of your ideas. Thanks again for your input.

I am sorry but what you present here sounds quite bad. Making a hybrid tree is not going to appeal to anyone. Instead make a full melee ED to rival LD and upgrade EA to become a good divine DC and healing ED. Only a few changes are needed for that.

[Pentaur-Silvermane]

It sounds like...

1) They wanted to do a melee tree, so they're still going to
2) They don't want bother fixing under-powered existing EDs, so they're not going to
3) We complained about under-powered existing EDs, so they're going to make some token changes to shut us up
4) We said we wanted DCs, so they're going to randomly throw a token DC boost into the melee tree to shut us up
5) We said that a caster tree was more needed than yet another melee tree, so they decided to call the new melee tree a "hybrid" to shut us up

Am I wrong?

Is the main issue development time? If so, my suggestion:

1) Don't waste anyone's time with an unattractive mishmish ED
2) Table the new ED entirely for now, until you actually have the resources to do it right
3) Spend the resources you were going to use developing a new ED for fixing the existing EDs

And, as was said in the other thread, there's already several good melee EDs out there, but no good divine caster ED out there at all.

This is totally what they are gonna do...We wanted a caster ED so they give us a melee/hybrid ED...

If they make EA a healer based ED and give us another melee/hybid (cause there isn't already enough of them) then where do offensive caster divnes go?

Sooooo disapointing.

Seroiusly if you don't have the time to do a decent job on a caster based ED then don't bother at all.

[HatsuharuZ]

I don't think we need a "healing" destiny. The reason being, a healer just needs enough spellpower on his/her healing spells to mostly refill a player's HP bar, which doesn't go up nearly as much over a given number of character levels as the HP bars of enemies do.

Also, It would make sense to add an ability to Unyielding Sentinel that increases the critical profile of smiting abilities, including the warpriest one. I would suggest getting rid of "Confront Any Foe", and putting a smite-enhancing ability there.

As for the 3 stances in the U.S. tree, I would suggest getting rid of one of them and splitting the abilities of the discarded stance between the remaining two.

[Miow]

So, instead of fixing US, EA, Magister, Primal Avatar etc etc because it takes you "too much time", you'd rather go on with your schedule and make a new mixed melee/spellcasting ED that will likely suck just as much as Primal Avatar. Awesome.

This tree better have some goddamn good ability like Master's Blitz, Fury Epic moment, Dragon Breath or the old bugged Treetard or you will have wasted just as much time.

Oh, did I already tell you that I'd rather you FIX THE OLD EDs than making a new one?

While i agree, the divine sphere needs a new ED regardless.

Dev please man, you need to go balls out on dc to do proper dc casting, throw in some spell power and spell pen and we are cooking. Giving us part of a divine casting ED is not what we wanted. Gimme a dam pie, not a slice of pie!!

Edit: Mmmmmmm pie.....

[Postumus]

By the way, for those of you wanting to influence future situations like this, perhaps apply here:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...layers-Council!

If 100 responses to a question don't influence devs much, why would a mere 20-30?

[spectroum]

Great to see an update in this

I just want to remind you guys something

Whatever you do either to EA,US or the new ED don't make the mistake of an epic moment that would be at best something average..

All epic moments should be revamped and look like Blitz,Fury,Dragon Breath and Tea.

People say that these moments are OP (well besides Dragon Breath) but the drawbacks balance the OPness out imo.
Blitz drawbacks: a) you lose it when you get through any sort of load screen, b) you have to constantly kill mobs, c) in a raid or a full party it's hard to get it starting
Fury drawbacks: a) you can't prep it or use it before engaging mobs, b) requires to score vorpals in order to prep it, c) has a short duration
Tea drawbacks: a) only 1 use per rest, b) Joy proc has a low % chance to proc so therefore you can never be certain if you can get benefited or not
Breath drawbacks: a) only 5 uses per rest, b) can hit many mobs in line but easily miss them all due to positioning (see demonweb), c) you can't move when using it

So to explain my point here...all the above epic moments offer something exciting and huge in terms of damage BUT they have many drawbacks as well making them even. So don't be afraid to offer us with new epic moments based on the idea of those above. It certainly won't make them OP just like how Skybreaker isn't OP in the sake of eSoS by having higher base damage.

It's all about balance...

[Deamus]

Sounds really good imo the update. It goes to the correct direction. I'm eager to see a preview.

This ED will certainly make me come back to the game !

[PsychoBlonde]

I hope the new destiny has a different "theme" from the existing ones. I'd just like to see something a bit darker, give some breadth to the Divine tree.

It's also good that you guys are giving some consideration to US and EA. Here's a few concrete suggestions:

Unyielding Sentinel

• Change the stances so that you get all of the benefits in all of the stances, just somewhat reduced when you're not in the "main" stance that primarily grants that benefit. For instance, make Steadfast make you immune to knockdown but if you're in Stand Against The Tide you're also immune to KNOCKBACK. There are plenty of classes that get immunity to knockdown somewhere, that'd be a unique ability for this tree and this destiny truly VALUABLE for tanking some of the bosses in the game.
• None of the tier abilities should be completely stance-dependent. You can make them somewhat better in a stance (holy burst instead of holy when you're in Stand Against the Tide, for instance), but if you spend points on it, it should be active. One of the worst things about this tree is that there is literally NOTHING worth twisting in because it all depends on the innate abilities. Heck, Anoint Weapon is a friggin' tier 5, so you can't twist it regardless. Sense Weakness is hella more powerful than Purify Weapon and you can freely twist it in on any build. The alignment-based abilities should grant DIFFERENT things for DIFFERENT alignments, not ONLY grant something IF you have X alignment. If you're chaotic, your weapons should get Chaotic from Fanaticism. Maybe if you're Neutral Fanaticism, Purify, and Anoint do electrical damage or similar.
• Make levels in the destiny count as Paladin levels for the purpose of improving your LoH and Smite Evil.
• Make Endless Lay On Hands grant 2 LOH per rank, not 1, and have them regenerate 10/20/30% faster instead of just a flat 10%.
• Make Endless Turning grant 2 turn attempts per rank, not 1.
• Healing Hands should grant healing amp not positive spellpower. You folks might want to consider this an opportunity to fix the stacking rules and amounts on healing amp.
• Intolerant Blows should be more like +[2]W or +[3]W
• Hardened should provide a % boost to AC not just a flat number. It should probably also add to PRR. It's tier 5, you can't twist it, make it awesome.
• Ward Against Evil should always proc, not just be a measly 20% chance. Maybe give it a 3/6/9% chance to proc some kind of medium-big boom. Also, rename it, retribution isn't a "ward", it's not protecting you, it's hitting them BACK.
• Here's the big one: UNDYING VANGUARD SUCKS. IT SUCKS HARD. This is supposed to be an epic moment? It's nearly impossible to build up 200 stacks in any quest with any kind of a door or area transition in it, and what the heck is the point of having 10,000 temp hp if they GO AWAY in 20 seconds? Reduce the stacks DRAMATICALLY and make the temp HP last until they get chomped away by damage. THAT would actually be good. If you want to reduce it to 5000 temp hp, FINE, (although, boo), but don't taunt us with HP we don't actually get to USE.

Exalted Angel

IMO this tree is actually not that bad, it's just kind of boring to play. If you're a caster, you basically stop casting spells and just pew pew pew light until you get the Divine Wrath boom. The melee aspects (blessed blades, smite the wicked) are really kind of pointless in that they have little synergy with the rest of the tree. It's somewhat ironic that this is the tree where you get big bonus SP because this is also the tree that more or less completely removes the necessity for USING your SP for anything other than buffs.

One suggestion, however, is to make it so that Judgment and Judge The Many count as casting a light spell when they go off. I think Judgment and Judge The Many are a little too specific. They should work on any evil critter--just have a greater effect vs. undead and evil outsiders.

But EA is not a "bad" tree in the way Unyielding Sentinel is. It's a *little* unfocused, is all.

[redspecter23]

Unyielding Sentinel

• Change the stances so that you get all of the benefits in all of the stances, just somewhat reduced when you're not in the "main" stance that primarily grants that benefit. For instance, make Steadfast make you immune to knockdown but if you're in Stand Against The Tide you're also immune to KNOCKBACK. There are plenty of classes that get immunity to knockdown somewhere, that'd be a unique ability for this tree and this destiny truly VALUABLE for tanking some of the bosses in the game.
• None of the tier abilities should be completely stance-dependent. You can make them somewhat better in a stance (holy burst instead of holy when you're in Stand Against the Tide, for instance), but if you spend points on it, it should be active. One of the worst things about this tree is that there is literally NOTHING worth twisting in because it all depends on the innate abilities. Heck, Anoint Weapon is a friggin' tier 5, so you can't twist it regardless. Sense Weakness is hella more powerful than Purify Weapon and you can freely twist it in on any build. The alignment-based abilities should grant DIFFERENT things for DIFFERENT alignments, not ONLY grant something IF you have X alignment. If you're chaotic, your weapons should get Chaotic from Fanaticism. Maybe if you're Neutral Fanaticism, Purify, and Anoint do electrical damage or similar.
• Make levels in the destiny count as Paladin levels for the purpose of improving your LoH and Smite Evil.
• Make Endless Lay On Hands grant 2 LOH per rank, not 1, and have them regenerate 10/20/30% faster instead of just a flat 10%.
• Make Endless Turning grant 2 turn attempts per rank, not 1.
• Healing Hands should grant healing amp not positive spellpower. You folks might want to consider this an opportunity to fix the stacking rules and amounts on healing amp.
• Intolerant Blows should be more like +[2]W or +[3]W
• Hardened should provide a % boost to AC not just a flat number. It should probably also add to PRR. It's tier 5, you can't twist it, make it awesome.
• Ward Against Evil should always proc, not just be a measly 20% chance. Maybe give it a 3/6/9% chance to proc some kind of medium-big boom. Also, rename it, retribution isn't a "ward", it's not protecting you, it's hitting them BACK.
• Here's the big one: UNDYING VANGUARD SUCKS. IT SUCKS HARD. This is supposed to be an epic moment? It's nearly impossible to build up 200 stacks in any quest with any kind of a door or area transition in it, and what the heck is the point of having 10,000 temp hp if they GO AWAY in 20 seconds? Reduce the stacks DRAMATICALLY and make the temp HP last until they get chomped away by damage. THAT would actually be good. If you want to reduce it to 5000 temp hp, FINE, (although, boo), but don't taunt us with HP we don't actually get to USE.

I have to agree with most of what's said here. They really missed the mark with US. It would have been a great place to put some shield bash enhancements and I think they could have done better than +7% doublestrike with a shield equipped. I'd make it 5% doublestrike per rank as well as +10% shield bash per rank in addition to the PRR bonuses for Legendary Shield Mastery. At tier 2, that makes a nice twist for S&B toons that aren't in US destiny.

I'd change Block Energy's requirement be just having a shield equipped for up to 30% absorption. Shield blocking for that benefit makes it less than niche.

Hardened could easily be +10 AC and +10% AC added on top of that. It would make a decent tier 5 at that point.

I think adding an antithesis to sneak attack damage in this tree would be interesting. Do extra damage to mobs that you have intimidated. For 20 seconds after a successful intimidation check, you deal +3/+6/+10 damage to those mobs. One of the drawbacks to playing a "tank" style is you lose sneak attack potential. This could level that out a bit.

I think they could have put more threat gen effects in here too. Tanks have a lot of DPS hitting the other side of the mob they have to account for. At bare minimum, there should be enough passive threat gen in this tree to equal the threat you would create if you were in a DPS destiny like fury or dreadnaught.

Whoever created Ward Against Evil was joking, right? 20% chance for piddly damage in epic content. At 100% chance it would still be weak, especially for a high tier ability. Guard effects don't scale well into elite. If they have to stick with 20%, I'd make it 20% chance when wearing heavy armor, 10% for medium armor to deflect an incoming hit back at the mob. That means, you completely avoid the hit 20% of the time and all the damage goes back to the mob. You add an extra layer of defense high enough in the US tree it can't be twisted and you make a scalable guard effect. This extra layer of defense is sorely missing from armored builds that have to compete with evasion and high dodge that robe wearers benefit from.

[Vellrad]

Great to see an update in this

I just want to remind you guys something

Whatever you do either to EA,US or the new ED don't make the mistake of an epic moment that would be at best something average..

All epic moments should be revamped and look like Blitz,Fury,Dragon Breath and Tea.

People say that these moments are OP (well besides Dragon Breath) but the drawbacks balance the OPness out imo.
Blitz drawbacks: a) you lose it when you get through any sort of load screen, b) you have to constantly kill mobs, c) in a raid or a full party it's hard to get it starting
Fury drawbacks: a) you can't prep it or use it before engaging mobs, b) requires to score vorpals in order to prep it, c) has a short duration
Tea drawbacks: a) only 1 use per rest, b) Joy proc has a low % chance to proc so therefore you can never be certain if you can get benefited or not
Breath drawbacks: a) only 5 uses per rest, b) can hit many mobs in line but easily miss them all due to positioning (see demonweb), c) you can't move when using it

So to explain my point here...all the above epic moments offer something exciting and huge in terms of damage BUT they have many drawbacks as well making them even. So don't be afraid to offer us with new epic moments based on the idea of those above. It certainly won't make them OP just like how Skybreaker isn't OP in the sake of eSoS by having higher base damage.

It's all about balance...

Tea and breaths are not epic moments.
EM is something at highest tier you charge to use, and have a lenghty cooldown afterwards:

• DI: Fearsome Invulnerability.
  Never heard about anyone using it.
• EA: Reborn in light.
  I hear more complains about it than good things.
• FS: This ED don't seem to have epic moment. People say Turn the Tide is, but its useless vs bosses, and has too big cooldown to use in regular trash combats (unless its one huge trash battle, with couple dozens of mobs).
• Fury: Unbridled fury
  This is one of few epic moments that are awesome.
• GoF: EiN
  This is one of few epic moments that are awesome.
• LD: blizt
  This is one of few epic moments that are awesome.
• Magister: Nullmagic Aura
  Sounds good on paper, but I never heard anyone actually using this.
• PA: Avatar of nature
  Famous tree, now nerfed to oblivion.
• SD: Dark imbuement
  Buffs damage output for 30 seconds. Much, much weaker than unbrindled fury, but has a good potential when amount of attacks during that 30 seconds is huge. Manyshot or fussilade comes to mind.
• Shiradi: Rain of Arrows:
  Its rarely used. Damage output seems nice, but randomness of damage makes it really underwhelming.
• US: Undying vanguard:
  This is terrible moment, it takes ages to charge, and then it simply ssucks.

Most of epic moments needs to be terribly buffed, but blizt and fury seems to be ballanced well, IMO.

[spectroum]

Tea and breaths are not epic moments.
EM is something at highest tier you charge to use, and have a lenghty cooldown afterwards:

• DI: Fearsome Invulnerability.
  Never heard about anyone using it.
• EA: Reborn in light.
  I hear more complains about it than good things.
• FS: This ED don't seem to have epic moment. People say Turn the Tide is, but its useless vs bosses, and has too big cooldown to use in regular trash combats (unless its one huge trash battle, with couple dozens of mobs).
• Fury: Unbridled fury
  This is one of few epic moments that are awesome.
• GoF: EiN
  This is one of few epic moments that are awesome.
• LD: blizt
  This is one of few epic moments that are awesome.
• Magister: Nullmagic Aura
  Sounds good on paper, but I never heard anyone actually using this.
• PA: Avatar of nature
  Famous tree, now nerfed to oblivion.
• SD: Dark imbuement
  Buffs damage output for 30 seconds. Much, much weaker than unbrindled fury, but has a good potential when amount of attacks during that 30 seconds is huge. Manyshot or fussilade comes to mind.
• Shiradi: Rain of Arrows:
  Its rarely used. Damage output seems nice, but randomness of damage makes it really underwhelming.
• US: Undying vanguard:
  This is terrible moment, it takes ages to charge, and then it simply ssucks.

Most of epic moments needs to be terribly buffed, but blizt and fury seems to be ballanced well, IMO.

ah you're right with the breath thing...it's just been like a year i played my sorc as a DI and totally forgot about it :P

idk if rain is the shiradi's epic moment but certainly tea seems more epic..(none of them is listed as epic moment actually :P)

[Vargouille]

[*]Make Endless Lay On Hands grant 2 LOH per rank, not 1, and have them regenerate 10/20/30% faster instead of just a flat 10%.

Lay on Hands doesn't regenerate at all without Endless Lay on Hands. The 10% reduction after that does stack in the same as that +1 Lay on Hands stacks, so rank 3 is 20% faster than rank 1 in addition to providing +2 Lay on Hands uses. We can try to clarify that text further to make that clear and more consistent with how we usually present that information.

don't taunt us with HP we don't actually get to USE.

The protection is intended to be time based, not hit point based. We realize that this was poorly received since we poorly set up the expectation. A possible translation here would be to simply make you invulnerable for 20 seconds, which was the intended goal. It happened to be simpler to grant an intentionally excessive amount of temporary hitpoints than to make you fully invulnerable, so that short cut was taken in order to spend more time on other Epic Destiny work. But this is a good example of how presentation matters, and we could have done better.

There are of course other possible changes which we are happy for players to suggest as part of our re-examination of divine Epic Destinties, but the intent was never to actually grant 10,000 temporary hitpoints for full use (any more than Unyielding Sovereignty is expected to actually heal 10,000 hit points). Again, sorry for the confusion.

[Kanuk]

Thanks everyone for your interest and input on last month’s post on the new Divine Epic Destiny. Based on your feedback, we’ve made some changes to our design, and we’d like to share with you where things are headed for this new destiny.

Some of the key suggestions we gathered so far from last month’s thread:
1. Having the new destiny be melee centric to the exclusion of other niches like spellcasting may be undesirable.
2. Including a boost to Divine Spell DCs would be great.
3. Making some changes and improvements to Unyielding Sentinel and Exalted Angel would be most welcome.

In addition to the above suggestions, another idea that many seemed to like was this:
4. Substantially reworking the two existing divine destinies to allow for the new destiny to be a pure offensive divine caster.

I’ll speak to number 4 first. .

I will also start by answering #4. You are wrong; re-working the existing divine ED is not a requirement to allow the new destiny to be pure offensive divine caster. What I understood from those 14 pages is that we want the new ED to be divine caster (if not pure offensive) first and foremost. Then, adjustment to the 2 existing ED would be the secondary request, it would be the icing on the cake really!

Regarding point #1, you kind of got it. Currently, there’s 5 melee ED (LD, GMOF, FotW, ShadowDancer & US), 3 caster ED (EA, Draconic,Magister), 2 kind of hybrids (Primal Avatar for divine casters and some melee & Shiradi for caster or range i guess can be consider hybrids) and finally the lack luster Fate singer. Considering a melee divines has 5 ED options, there’s simply no need for a divine melee ED. At the moment, most divine caster i know our either shiradi or draconic and that’s sad.

#2:Got that right! There is a need for some source of DC boost for divine somewhere in the divine sphere! This is going to be the “cleric” ED right? Based on D&D PnP3.5, caster wise, the only difference in DC specialization between a cleric and a wizard is the wizard gets more feats. But they could both focus as much in a school reaching same DC. Also, Cleric ED should get DC boosting abilities before FVS. Again, cleric and wiz having less SP are supposed to be more efficient with the spells they use where as Fvs and Sorc are not as efficient but can cast more of said spells. Something like +2 or +3 to be chosen between necro and evocation in the cleric ED and also a +1 or +2 in the Exalted Angel ED would be perfect.

#3: Personally, if you do the cleric ED right, i don’t care so much about the others...but yes, they both need some love as once Divine has made his way around all the ED trees, they rarely go back to the divine sphere i would think.

To address points 1 and 2 above, we will likely be making the new destiny fit a more hybrid melee/spellcaster role, a little like warpriest. This doesn’t mean it will be watered down and ineffective at both. Rather, it will have a strong mix of viable options for melees as well as caster hybrids. The new destiny will be strong in melee and be fun for melee oriented characters to play, but it will also have some key spell casting abilities and enhancements that will be of interest to divine casters, such as a significant boost to divine casting DCs and some strong spell-like abilities. .

This sent a shiver down my back.... the warpriest, really, please enlighten me as to what is caster related currently in the warpriest enhancement tree? I know it does not exist in DDO, but did you know that Clerics could cast a spell called Miracle!!!! You know how they did that, not by smacking something in the face with their holy weapon, they cast a freaking spell!!! This is going to be the Cleric ED, Clerics are casters! The reason why they were given shield and armor is because they are expected to be in the mist of things healing at very close range. That made it feasible for a Cleric to go either melee builds OR caster. Trust me, if Clerics had access to their full spell list (Domains to say the least and of course earthquake), most EPIC Cleric would be caster and not melee.

My overall idea for a Cleric ED would be from left columns to right (A to E)
A: melee abilities
B: Turn undead related abilities and some group related buffs
C: healing and light related abilities
D: Something very close to the magister spell focus line. Possibly only from tier 3 to 5 with DC at tier 3, with spell cooldown tier 4, caster level tier 5. Could put light or heal buff /SLA at tier 1 and 2 and pump more light/healing into tree “C”.
E: stats line, wisdom and charisma (maybe force, but hey, where the base stats enhancement for clerics before the pass not Wisdom and Charisma? Just saying).

I guess not more than one out of the 4 non stats tree should be melee, the rest should be caster/turn related. Please don’t make it more melee than caster. It needs to be a caster ED, some offensive casting some melee related abilities, but more caster than melee. Please.

[nibel]

The protection is intended to be time based, not hit point based. We realize that this was poorly received since we poorly set up the expectation. A possible translation here would be to simply make you invulnerable for 20 seconds, which was the intended goal. It happened to be simpler to grant an intentionally excessive amount of temporary hitpoints than to make you fully invulnerable, so that short cut was taken in order to spend more time on other Epic Destiny work.

Wouldn't had been easier to copy-past the invulnerability buff from cannith challenges, and reduce the timer from 60 to 20 seconds?

Also, just to point out, the Shadowdancer tier 3 ability "Meld Into Darkness" is almost the same thing, lasts for almost the same time (15 seconds), and can be used much more frequently (once every 2 minutes). This sums up why the US Epic Moment is so weak in everyone's eyes.

[redspecter23]

The protection is intended to be time based, not hit point based. We realize that this was poorly received since we poorly set up the expectation. A possible translation here would be to simply make you invulnerable for 20 seconds, which was the intended goal. It happened to be simpler to grant an intentionally excessive amount of temporary hitpoints than to make you fully invulnerable, so that short cut was taken in order to spend more time on other Epic Destiny work. But this is a good example of how presentation matters, and we could have done better.

There are of course other possible changes which we are happy for players to suggest as part of our re-examination of divine Epic Destinties, but the intent was never to actually grant 10,000 temporary hitpoints for full use (any more than Unyielding Sovereignty is expected to actually heal 10,000 hit points). Again, sorry for the confusion.

I have to ask. Is invulnerability for 20 seconds considered comparable to Master's Blitz for an entire quest (unless you go through a door)? The world wants to know if Master's Blitz is the yardstick we should be measuring epic moments by... or is it above the curve for what an epic moment should be.

Regardless, all that effort for 20 seconds of immunity seems like an awful lot of work. If you survived that long building it up, I'm sure you don't really care about the next 20 seconds. If we have some new raid boss coming that goes absolutely nuts for exactly 19 seconds every 10 minutes, then this ability may have a use after all.

Also, Vargouille if you're reading this far, see what you can do about throwing some knockback immunity to tanks, possibly in the US tree. Moving 2 feet every 2 seconds to re-engage with nearly every giant and dragon along with other types of mobs is killer on your dps when you only get glancing blows while standing still. Bare minimum, can you have it not knock you back on a miss?