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"Astral Change," and what could have been.
tursio
Member Posts: 69
As of the time of this posting...
On the Devoted Cleric's character creation screen, instead of it listing "Divine Mode" or "Divine Power" as our class mechanic, we instead have something called "Astral Change" listed there.
If you mouse over the icon for this "Astral Change" ability, it says, "Toggles between the enemy and ally version of your right click power."
This leads me to believe that at one point, the Devoted Cleric was intended to have a dualistic kit of At-Wills with damaging abilities on one mode of Tab, and healing and ally-buffing abilities on the other.
Soothing Light and Punishing Light being so wimpy would make much more sense under this model, because in that case, they would be two aspects of a single at-will that would be equipable in ONE at-will slot and toggled between using Tab - usable (possibly) without limit, or perhaps with a count of usage charges.
This also would make the Virtuous tree's capstone trait "Cycle of Change" make a great deal more sense. That capstone's description seems to assume that the cleric is rapidly swapping back and forth between healing allies and hurting enemies, and producing a high volume of healing crits -- something which the DC under the "Astral Change" design would probably have actually been able to do as described via Soothing Light spam, but which the DC we got at release just leaves us scratching our heads about. (Further suggesting this is the fact that the Virtuous tree is the only tree with a feat that explicitly affects Soothing Light and only Soothing Light).
It's all very interesting, conceptually, and seems to me like it could have made for some very deep and interesting gameplay. It also sounds like, if we needed to directly heal someone, that would've been quite a bit easier to manage than it currently is. In short, it would have contributed to us feeling more like an actual leader/healer class.
But instead, for some reason, we got a WoW Holy Power knockoff Tab mechanic that would have almost undoubtedly been better suited for a Battle Cleric instead. We got a Virtuous capstone trait that was/is (I'm not keeping track of it nowadays) majorly bugged out in a way that benefited the DC sorta (because it didn't consume its stacks) but left all of us wondering, "Okay, but if this Feat DID work correctly... how on earth would we ever keep it stacked? o.O"
Of course, my guess is that we were meant to keep it stacked using a completely different class Tab gimmick than we have now.
So anyway... all of this leads me to believe that at one point Cryptic (1) had a completely different Tab functionality planned out for the DC but (2) probably found it difficult to balance, and (3) didn't feel like they had enough time to finish and implement a "Divine Power"-using BC to go along with it. So they probably jammed the two systems together, contributing to the ridiculously awkward not-really-a-healer class that we have today. Now, that is conjecture on my part, but it's at least slightly educated conjecture.
Being able to use Soothing Light (and maybe other possible healing At-Wills that seem not to have even made it into the final game) with total freedom might also have put DCs much nearer to being able to function respectably as a control class in a pinch (as it stands now, there just isn't room on our bar, and Soothing Light is only rarely useful due to the DP requirement, its low throughput, and targeting trouble).
Ah, what could have been. I feel a bit ripped off, because Astral Change sounds like it was a much, MUCH better idea for the class's design (and it leaves me wondering what on earth they're going to do for the Battle Cleric when and if they actually make one, 'cause Divine Power is about the only thing that makes sense there. It would reward the Battle Cleric for wading into combat and battling.)
I don't suppose we have any Alpha testers around who can somehow illuminate this further, or something? Or any Cryptic devs?
On the Devoted Cleric's character creation screen, instead of it listing "Divine Mode" or "Divine Power" as our class mechanic, we instead have something called "Astral Change" listed there.
If you mouse over the icon for this "Astral Change" ability, it says, "Toggles between the enemy and ally version of your right click power."
This leads me to believe that at one point, the Devoted Cleric was intended to have a dualistic kit of At-Wills with damaging abilities on one mode of Tab, and healing and ally-buffing abilities on the other.
Soothing Light and Punishing Light being so wimpy would make much more sense under this model, because in that case, they would be two aspects of a single at-will that would be equipable in ONE at-will slot and toggled between using Tab - usable (possibly) without limit, or perhaps with a count of usage charges.
This also would make the Virtuous tree's capstone trait "Cycle of Change" make a great deal more sense. That capstone's description seems to assume that the cleric is rapidly swapping back and forth between healing allies and hurting enemies, and producing a high volume of healing crits -- something which the DC under the "Astral Change" design would probably have actually been able to do as described via Soothing Light spam, but which the DC we got at release just leaves us scratching our heads about. (Further suggesting this is the fact that the Virtuous tree is the only tree with a feat that explicitly affects Soothing Light and only Soothing Light).
It's all very interesting, conceptually, and seems to me like it could have made for some very deep and interesting gameplay. It also sounds like, if we needed to directly heal someone, that would've been quite a bit easier to manage than it currently is. In short, it would have contributed to us feeling more like an actual leader/healer class.
But instead, for some reason, we got a WoW Holy Power knockoff Tab mechanic that would have almost undoubtedly been better suited for a Battle Cleric instead. We got a Virtuous capstone trait that was/is (I'm not keeping track of it nowadays) majorly bugged out in a way that benefited the DC sorta (because it didn't consume its stacks) but left all of us wondering, "Okay, but if this Feat DID work correctly... how on earth would we ever keep it stacked? o.O"
Of course, my guess is that we were meant to keep it stacked using a completely different class Tab gimmick than we have now.
So anyway... all of this leads me to believe that at one point Cryptic (1) had a completely different Tab functionality planned out for the DC but (2) probably found it difficult to balance, and (3) didn't feel like they had enough time to finish and implement a "Divine Power"-using BC to go along with it. So they probably jammed the two systems together, contributing to the ridiculously awkward not-really-a-healer class that we have today. Now, that is conjecture on my part, but it's at least slightly educated conjecture.
Being able to use Soothing Light (and maybe other possible healing At-Wills that seem not to have even made it into the final game) with total freedom might also have put DCs much nearer to being able to function respectably as a control class in a pinch (as it stands now, there just isn't room on our bar, and Soothing Light is only rarely useful due to the DP requirement, its low throughput, and targeting trouble).
Ah, what could have been. I feel a bit ripped off, because Astral Change sounds like it was a much, MUCH better idea for the class's design (and it leaves me wondering what on earth they're going to do for the Battle Cleric when and if they actually make one, 'cause Divine Power is about the only thing that makes sense there. It would reward the Battle Cleric for wading into combat and battling.)
I don't suppose we have any Alpha testers around who can somehow illuminate this further, or something? Or any Cryptic devs?
Post edited by tursio on
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Comments
Huh. Never noticed that before. Seems like it's just the right click At Will power, though. Still, that could've really been interesting!
I wonder if all At Will powers would've had an ememy/ally function, or if it would've automatically switched to the divine versions we currently have.
RainFeather- Dragonborn DC
Rune Fell- Drow CW
That said, OP's post is a lot of speculation from just a name and tooltip!
If they are not even happy to experiment with mechanics like Linked Spirit, I highly doubt they ever had much concrete ambitions about the core Cleric class beyond what we have now.
Note. I assume you meant "Soothing Light and Punishing Light" not Daunting Light.
I had forgotten it's only the right click power. Still, what I said about Soothing/Punishing obviously applies. I'm going to tweak the OP to reflect the correct information.
p.s. in response to echokazul: My guess is that there would have been differing versions for each. For all I know, Brand of the Sun and Astral Seal (perhaps in a slightly modified form) might have started out as alternate versions of each other (much like Punishing Light and Soothing light probably would have started).
Devine Power often feels like it's more in the way then helping us. While the remaining 3 classes gets really good ones. Having to press tab everytime we wanna do something "special" or in some cases mather of life and death, then cast abillties, is really slow. It feels like it's built for a melee dmg class, that can switch to healing on demand.
Divine Power really does feel (to me) like it was built more for a Battle Cleric who's going to be in the fray beating guys up with a series of attacks while throwing a spell periodically, rather than for a Devoted Cleric who's meant to be at range and supporting.
You could think about it that way (OT) or this way (makes more sense imo): instead of stopping at just at-wills, the developers decided it would be more fun if more cleric abilities were affected by "astral change". So they started experimenting on encounter powers. Unfortunately at some point they found the for-enemies and for-allies only model too constricting. They wanted clerics to be more dynamic, and for players to not have to continually press Tab just so you can switch between DPSing/controlling or buffing/healing. That would have been a nightmare. So from there they moved to powers having both "normal" and "divine modes". Instead of some powers only affecting either enemies or allies, these powers now affected both and divine mode simply made them more powerful or gave them extra effects. And that is how we ended up with the model we have today.
Personally, I do think both Soothing and Punishing have uses in niche circumstances (ones which I see happen in PvP more often than in PvE) where a single player is getting flattened, everything else you could provide is on cooldown, and the best thing you can do is to throw Soothing Light on them, triggering Desperate Renewal (if you've got it) and Divine Advantage (I think that's the name - the feat that mitigates combat advantage bonus damage when you use certain heals, of which Soothing Light is one) to provide just enough additional survivability for the target to endure what's being thrown their way. When that's used on like a GF or something in a PvP situation it can enable some hilarious turnarounds - assuming no one just pops a Daily and finishes the GF off anyway.
Likewise, you can argue that Punishing Light is useful for finishing off low-health-and-fleeing PvP targets who already have your Brand of the Sun on them, when your other equipped At-Will is Astral Seal. Sure, I'll use a few ticks of Punishing Light then to finish someone off.
And yes, I suppose one can make arguments around the High Prophet's set bonus and/or weapon enchantments, and Punishing Light. (Plaguefire + High Prophet's for boss shredding.)
None of that changes that both Soothing and Punishing are very underwhelming At-Wills for the majority of level 60 setups, which is a bit of a bummer.
As to the description of what the devs may have done... honestly, I wish they HAD made encounters that had an offensive mode and a defensive mode that I had to pick between for each cast. Maybe then utility spells like Chains of Blazing Light could still make it onto my bar sometime (as the offensive half of some other ability - perhaps Bastion of Health).
Yes I would have loved to see this occur, it would have been alot better then what we have now, give the divinity mechanic to the battle cleric...
Imagine if it became "instead of throwing down a clutch heal and stopping everyone being instagibbed by the boss, I accidentally stuck down some mediocre pew pew! Go me!"
While some number of "Tab fails" would surely happen, I don't think it would be substantially more often than right now.