Both of these skills seem like really cool concepts (especially for a buff/mitigation build like I'm playing). But from what I've read they're somewhat lackluster. I have 3 skill points left and I have everything I need. I normally run Sunburst/Astral Shield/Divine Glow for encounters. Can you imagine a situation where I might want to swap one of these in? Is one better than the other? By the way I play PvE exclusively.
lazaroth666Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,332Arc User
edited February 2014
Strictly speaking of PvE, Prophecy of Doom is useful to debuff elite mobs or bosses damage resistance and if you use it on weak trash you can get your daily very fast. Break the spirit isn't useful for a PvE DC, it lower the enemies damage but it is not really necessary, you can do it with Astral Shield anyway.
kolbe11Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited February 2014
^THIS.
I went virtuous build and took Second Sight, so people get anywhere from 1k-6k heals when Prophecy of Doom ends on a boss. Sure, it has a long cooldown and Divine Glow debuffs/buffs better, but when I am dodging mobs and trying to keep people alive, it fits many DC's needs well.
"It is said that idle hands are the Devil's tools: Idle geek hands, however, came up with gunpowder, nuclear weapons, and toilet plungers." -Illiad
i used to run SB HW AS too, and then replaced SB with divine glow.
sunburst is good for heals ( with MH set ) and buffing but after module 2, CWs have enough regen/lifesteal and rarely need any heals, for that healing word is enough .
So i bagged my MH set and went full debuf with High Prophet set . and works really good with divine glow .
I rarely use sunburst, only if i have a pug squishy team .
I havent really tested prophecy of doom cause i dont have any points on it ( HUH ?! ) and im loving divine glow so even if i had to replace another encounter with PoD, id have to choose between HW and AS .
Don't forget, Prophecy of Doom (PoD0 can also be used on the weaker enemies that will die fast/ about to die, in order to build up loads of AP. You learn to use this corecrtly and you can have Hallowed ground up like crazy. I myself am trying get PoD in my rotation.
Well with the sunburst trick nerfed, this seems like a perfect time to put PoD in my rotation. I'm really glad everyone advised me to take it over BtS.
Prophecy of Doom is nice for what it does, but they really need to speed up its animation. There's absolutely no reason that it should take so long to cast considering that it's already a niche ability.
I have been playing around and recently did a respec where i took the points in PoD to get the 25% heal. I am still learning how to take full advantage of this power, but the fact that you can target a trash mob or something close to death, and it comes off cooldown on death, you can spam this power, getting heals and debuffing all along - not to mention having your daily available incredibly fast. I say i am still learnig becuase i could see where this could, if used properly keep you in constant use of a daily and having plently of heals.
Throw in the repurposed soul which gives healing off the damage you produce, you get excellent synergy. i think i am just scratching the surface here on this power.
Anyway, does the heal from this trigger Linked when PoD is cast in divine mode? how is the heal calculated, i.e. is it based on the damage inflicted while the power ia active or simply the killing attack? i.e. should i try to time the death blow to be another encounter/daily (thinking hammer here ) or is this not as much a concern.
the problem is you can only have 3 encounters
since you have to have astral shield usually its end up to 2
and as ppl say divine glow is great and I hardly remove it (in pvp I try something else usually)
so it comes to 1 spot of encounter... somehow neither Prophecy of Doom or Break the Spirit take this spot
if I need damage there is daunting light if not sun burst is great since its direct healing and proc many feats (the knock away is very useful as well)
if I don't need to fight adds, healing word is great
chains is nice as well for solo / pvp
I tired prophecy of doom once, the feat, the long cool time and animation is bad. but again I didn't master it for the use of daily.
I did like break the spirit with divinity in pvp, if you spam forgemaster flame as well. ppl will hunt you down
you can mx both I guess, since you don't need to max many class features daily and at will
Both of these skills seem like really cool concepts (especially for a buff/mitigation build like I'm playing). But from what I've read they're somewhat lackluster. I have 3 skill points left and I have everything I need. I normally run Sunburst/Astral Shield/Divine Glow for encounters. Can you imagine a situation where I might want to swap one of these in? Is one better than the other? By the way I play PvE exclusively.
Thanks!
Unless you're using the sunburst pocket heal/knockback, I have found I get better results with either FF than either PoD or BtS. They can all be situationally useful, but that largely drops off if you're running with geared people in high end instances.
The right to command is earned through duty, the privilege of rank is service.
I usually stick to AShield, Divine Glow and finally Sunburst for its divinity gain, HP set bonus, Foresight - more than the actual healing or damage. Divine Glow also has good divinity gain and usually my rotation is (D)Shield, (D) DGlow, Sunburst, then (D)Shield, DG, SB to get back to full divinity and repeat. (I also have a normal Terror enchant.) Sometimes I'll switch out SB for PoD in boss fights like Hrimir, but usually stick to SB most of the time.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
In dungeons I generally run Astral Shield, Divine Glow and Sunburst. Some times I change Divine for another heal if it is needed, but I almost never do this.
In PVP, I like either FF or BTS.
Foundry - Fight Club? (nw-dluqbofu7)
- JailBreak (in development)
What was the Sunburst trick and how has it been nerfed?
~
casting sunburst and then switching to divinity b4 the animation ends. allowed u to apply linked spirit without using a bar of divinity, but no longer possible.
I now use Prophecy of Doom > Divine Glow > Daunting Light. Result is enemies HP melt faster, and helps against the inclusion of the PvP patch. These three encounters all debuff the enemy, yes even my daunting light debuffs target. I also have HP armor set, and use terror weapon enchantment.
Also, I should point out that enemy teams, now target me more often than the rest of my pvp party.
I now use Prophecy of Doom > Divine Glow > Daunting Light. Result is enemies HP melt faster, and helps against the inclusion of the PvP patch. These three encounters all debuff the enemy, yes even my daunting light debuffs target. I also have HP armor set, and use terror weapon enchantment.
Also, I should point out that enemy teams, now target me more often than the rest of my pvp party.
Divine glow tends to make you a target. I love the debuff from prophecy of doom but I can't really get over how long it's CD is, not to mention it's super slow cast animation. I already somebody have trouble casting because everybody's cast animations are faster than ours and often my casts are cut off mid cast. PoD seems impossible to cast sometimes if you're being targeted.
So you feated Daunting Light? Makes it actually useable for PVP then I guess, as a str8 dmg spell I didn't feel it brought enough to justify a slot. You may consider trying chains with DG and DL. It's nice to hold people in place so you can hit them with your two offensive area spells.
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darkzangaMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited March 2014
I do a lot of DC soloing. When I get to the boss mob I remove Daunting Light and replace with Break the Sprit. Sunburst, BoS and ForgeMaster are my Boss killer. I consider Skirmishes solo, But I dont use Breakthesprit I stay with DL, FM and SB.
Groups-- AS,Divine Glow, ForgeMaster. Really bad groups I will pull out sunburst.
I never PvP and rarely group. If you need me to heal in the group you're not going to make it.
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vikingbradMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited March 2014
I use same loadout for PvE & PvP group
Sunburst, Divine Glow, Astral Shield
Hallowed Ground for Daily
Rarely might swap Divine Glow for Healing Word for where party gets separated, Malabog final boss etc
For PvE
High Prophet armor
Soulforged armor
for PvP
Grim Faithful set
Barkshield
Swapping between
Greater Vorpal mainly for solo
Greater Terror for group
For Solo
Sunburst, Chains, Daunting Light
Flamestrike or HG
Would like anyone's thoughts on better Armor enchant for PvP. Soulforged/barkshield doesnt seem to be worth it. I get attacked a lot so thinking Bloodtheft might be good.
Anyone have any preference?
Ricky Gervatheist Lvl 60 DC on Dragon Server
Looking for a guild for PvE Dungeons to suit AEST evenings
Sunburst, Divine Glow, Astral Shield
Hallowed Ground for Daily
Rarely might swap Divine Glow for Healing Word for where party gets separated, Malabog final boss etc
For PvE
High Prophet armor
Soulforged armor
for PvP
Grim Faithful set
Barkshield
Swapping between
Greater Vorpal mainly for solo
Greater Terror for group
For Solo
Sunburst, Chains, Daunting Light
Flamestrike or HG
Would like anyone's thoughts on better Armor enchant for PvP. Soulforged/barkshield doesnt seem to be worth it. I get attacked a lot so thinking Bloodtheft might be good.
Anyone have any preference?
IMO SF is still useful since it can give you a second chance to pop encounters or a Daily and recover your footing long enough to survive or at least help your team just a bit more. Barkshield I'm not as fond of because DoTs and At-Wills eat the charges rapidly, but it also has some use.
I'm not very familiar with the Bloodtheft enchantment, but I imagine that what I heard about the modest heal amount is correct since I see it never in PvP and rarely on people standing around doing nothing in PE. I assume people like it for cosmetic reasons.
Thunderhead can be fun, but like the other enchantments it has a ridiculous cooldown. Negation has never been bad, just suffering from the combination of long cooldown and iffy activation timing. When it kicks in exactly as you would want it to, it's great; when it procs after you get hit by a stray At-Will and nothing else, it's a waste.
As for solo, why not ditch the Sunburst and use Divine Glow? If you have at least Greater enchantments, I'm sure the rest of your gear is up to par. You should never need a healing encounter at all when doing solo content, especially if you have at least a bit of Regeneration and class features or feats that grant you passive healing and temp HP buffers. An AoE rotation with Divine Glow saves a great deal of time.
I do a lot of DC soloing. When I get to the boss mob I remove Daunting Light and replace with Break the Sprit. Sunburst, BoS and ForgeMaster are my Boss killer.
Sunbust/BotS/FF has got to make for the slowest solo boss kills ever. Skoosh up to them, pop a divine DG for selfbuff+enemy debuff, pop a seal on them for tickheals, and stick chains down to hold them, and they now have taken quite a bit of damage, plus have their mitigation debuffed. If you're wearing HP set armour (which for solo stuff, and a lot of party stuff, you should be) then they also now have three stacks of HP's armour shredding, so should be horrendously squishy. THEN you hit them with daunting light.
You can do most bosses in two rotations, or if you're lucky on crits, one.
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darkzangaMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Sunbust/BotS/FF has got to make for the slowest solo boss kills ever. Skoosh up to them, pop a divine DG for selfbuff+enemy debuff, pop a seal on them for tickheals, and stick chains down to hold them, and they now have taken quite a bit of damage, plus have their mitigation debuffed. If you're wearing HP set armour (which for solo stuff, and a lot of party stuff, you should be) then they also now have three stacks of HP's armour shredding, so should be horrendously squishy. THEN you hit them with daunting light.
You can do most bosses in two rotations, or if you're lucky on crits, one.
I'm guessing I dont have much gear plus you're also talking about having different types of armour. I dont spend that much time playing.
Im in Dread Ring or Sharanda doing the daily dungeons. I've tried your combo many times and outside the Illusion pilar (PF) I can not two rotation any of the those mobs. As I type I cant two rotation the PF. Im talking about the bosses in Dread Ring and Dread Forge...etc
Would like anyone's thoughts on better Armor enchant for PvP. Soulforged/barkshield doesnt seem to be worth it. I get attacked a lot so thinking Bloodtheft might be good.
Anyone have any preference?
Currently Soulforged is pretty decent, at least it brings you back alive and you can sometimes recover and continue to hold a point for several minutes. Sometimes it just brings you back just long enough to die again, but so be it. They're also cheap and tbh having a lesser is not that much diferent because the additional healing you get it's so depressed.
Barkshield is actually quite good, but you need to be pretty tanky to notice it, otherwise you die to fast anyways to really take any advantage from it.
I've heard that some high end PVP clerics were testing lifedrinker/bloodtheft as a combo for the new pvp meta but I don't think they've reached any meaningful conclusions yet.
That's ok. My stuff isn't super amazing (though I do now have a normal vorp, which is lovely) but it's probably above average.
I'd still say that the divine glow/chains/daunting combo is about the "highest single-target or small group" encounter nuke damage we can put out, though (divine searing light through a singularity notwithstanding). Even if you can't do it in two rotations, it'll still take you fewer rotations than anything else.
Sunburst is primarily for AP gain and emergency knockback, and BotS is about the worst single-target at will to bring because you simply can't spam it. Forgemasters is amazing as a heal, and not bad as a snare, but the damage is pretty sub-par when compared with some of our other (primarily damage) encounters.
For solo content in Sharandar and Dread Ring my main DC (DO) uses DG, DL and SB for encounters, Lance or Sacred Flame (really doesn't matter) and Brand of the Sun. She's reasonably well geared (Ancient weapon set, HP set, 13.6k GS) so her fights don't take as long as a less well geared char might face. Divine Glow to start a fight. Against groups of just weak mobs, let the melee mobs close and finish them off with sunburst and maybe an at-will or two. Brand on ranged mobs should kill them. Against stronger mobs, Brand them and then facetank long enough to set up DL. If multiple stronger mobs, use divine DL to hit both. Against bosses, I do the same thing basically, with kiting during cooldown. Brand and other at-will to kill weak mobs (powries, servitors etc...) or normal rotation against stronger adds (Sharandar only of course) Sunburst is mostly used as another AOE, to debuff with the HP bonus and a weak self heal, also a good safety net if I can't dodge out of the red. All of my encounters can be cast without a target, Ethereal Boon means I always have the use of full divinity at the start of each fight.
With my second cleric (AC) I basically do the same thing, except it takes a bit longer to kill the adds without Brand and with less power, the fights take longer. However she is wearing the Zealot armor, not having full HP yet and has more Lifesteal on top of that. Combined with Astral Seal as her second atwill, her burst damage means she often ends up with full health after a fight. With green regen gear but not lifesteal, that's the rotation she used while leveling, soloing everything up through Rothe Valley (after that a friend wanted to run together) including the treasure room in Edge of the Underdark (much much harder than the boss fight) without once dying.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
BotS is about the worst single-target at will to bring because you simply can't spam it.
You don't need to spam it. Just tag as many mobs as you can and then switch to another at-will or encounters. Then Brand is basically doubling the hits you're getting. If you really want 'fire and forget' and have good coordination, pair it up with Astral Seal for a stead stream of self healing and divinity gain. I don't usually do that as it's a bit fiddly, but it works great in parties when you have to kite, as it really makes the mobs hate you.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
Against a whole mob of monsters, maybe, but single target? It just feels so clunky, and seal never leaves my bar, so having at least one at-will I can just hold down LMB for the lulz is much nicer for me.
Plus with the sticky targeting in this game I often find I'll brand one dude, get a crit (yay) then aim at another dude and brand the first dude again, overwriting the crit. With SF, this isn't a problem, plus every crit procs repurp (and I think I run at around 36% crit now, so there are a fair number of crits).
About the only time I use brand is for bossfights where it's nice to have a couple of fire and forget things you can spaff at the boss in less frantic moments without losing mobility (since SF pretty much roots you).
Seriously though: everyone should try chains. I didn't, for aaaages, coz I used it back in the 30s and found it lackluster. It totally comes into its own at higher gearing, and I feel stupid for having ignored it for so long. The actual snare + damage has a stupid range, waaaay larger than the actual mark you place on the ground, and it can one-shot powries (and if it doesn't, they're immobilised and almost dead anyway, so it's "single hits from sacred flame" whackamole).
Against a whole mob of monsters, maybe, but single target? It just feels so clunky, and seal never leaves my bar, so having at least one at-will I can just hold down LMB for the lulz is much nicer for me.
Plus with the sticky targeting in this game I often find I'll brand one dude, get a crit (yay) then aim at another dude and brand the first dude again, overwriting the crit. With SF, this isn't a problem, plus every crit procs repurp (and I think I run at around 36% crit now, so there are a fair number of crits).
About the only time I use brand is for bossfights where it's nice to have a couple of fire and forget things you can spaff at the boss in less frantic moments without losing mobility (since SF pretty much roots you).
Seriously though: everyone should try chains. I didn't, for aaaages, coz I used it back in the 30s and found it lackluster. It totally comes into its own at higher gearing, and I feel stupid for having ignored it for so long. The actual snare + damage has a stupid range, waaaay larger than the actual mark you place on the ground, and it can one-shot powries (and if it doesn't, they're immobilised and almost dead anyway, so it's "single hits from sacred flame" whackamole).
I rock BotS for solo. It's awesome for that imo. More damage, drops mobs quicker and on the weaker mobs I can hit them with BotS and forget about them, they die 5-6 s latter. Really no need to have ASeal for solo play.
I'm in complete agreement on Chains. I used to use DG/SL/SB for soloing which sounds pretty horrible but you actually churn right through stuff, except the boss type mobs. With that said I started using DG/Chains/SB about 2-3 weeks ago and it's so much better, chains hits so hard and in such a big area, and I only have it at lvl 2 since I didn't really use it for much of anything. I would run DL of course but I didn't take it as a power back in the day and I'm not about use a respec just for a solo power.
I find at amusing that when I first started my solo powers were SB/SL/Chains, pretty much because my options were limited. Then it became Chains/FF/Daunting, SB/FF/Daunting, SB/FF/Divine Glow, SB/AS/Divine Glow (because those Mindflayer/intellect devourer packs in the Whispering Caverns were ridiculously powerful back in the day) and now I'm back to SB/SL/Chains.
SB/Chains is enough for normal mobs and each power can wipe out normal mobs by itself on a crit. I use SL instead of Divine Glow/Daunting because after getting better gear I no longer bother fighting mobs in small packs, I try to fight multiple packs at once to save time. Divine Searing Light combos with Chains for massive damage against large groups, I've killed multiple cyclops lieutenants in one hit with a crit and the catapults in War Maker's camp usually get one-shotted so I don't have to deal with constantly spawning adds. For single target damage I use Hallowed Ground + Punishing Light, using SB/SL/Chains when I'm down to 1+ divinity pips to increase divinity or if an opportunity to deal massive damage with divine SL presents itself. Bosses down go down pretty quick, the zulkir of illusion never gets an opportunity to respawn unless something irl distracts me, for example.
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Hah, wow: I'd honestly never even considered using PL in solo (or, admittedly, any) play, simply because I've become habitualised to saving my divinity for other stuff.
Against a whole mob of monsters, maybe, but single target? It just feels so clunky, and seal never leaves my bar, so having at least one at-will I can just hold down LMB for the lulz is much nicer for me.
Plus with the sticky targeting in this game I often find I'll brand one dude, get a crit (yay) then aim at another dude and brand the first dude again, overwriting the crit. With SF, this isn't a problem, plus every crit procs repurp (and I think I run at around 36% crit now, so there are a fair number of crits).
To deal with the sticky targeting, just move a step after each shot with Brand and you'll break the target lock. I only run Seal with my AC because I don't have Brand. The self heal isn't much due to Righteousness. Either cleric will always have either Sacred or Lance as my left mouse button.
Seriously though: everyone should try chains. I didn't, for aaaages, coz I used it back in the 30s and found it lackluster. It totally comes into its own at higher gearing, and I feel stupid for having ignored it for so long. The actual snare + damage has a stupid range, waaaay larger than the actual mark you place on the ground, and it can one-shot powries (and if it doesn't, they're immobilised and almost dead anyway, so it's "single hits from sacred flame" whackamole).
I used to use Chains when soloing and still do if I'm ever in Quickling Den, but it left my bar once my main got to Dark Fey Enclave. Chains is useless against War Trolls, who will charge out of it and I'm not sure but I think that breaks the effect on everything else. Back then, I ran Chains, Forgemasters and Sunburst and played keepaway with mobs, rooting, slowing and knocking them back as needed. I was a lot squishier back then and it usually worked well.
"We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
Comments
I went virtuous build and took Second Sight, so people get anywhere from 1k-6k heals when Prophecy of Doom ends on a boss. Sure, it has a long cooldown and Divine Glow debuffs/buffs better, but when I am dodging mobs and trying to keep people alive, it fits many DC's needs well.
I tried using other powers, but nothing yields as much benefit to the group as DG. Heck, even I can crit for 27k with DG on a mob with Daunting Light.
Trith : Fury Soulbinder :
sunburst is good for heals ( with MH set ) and buffing but after module 2, CWs have enough regen/lifesteal and rarely need any heals, for that healing word is enough .
So i bagged my MH set and went full debuf with High Prophet set . and works really good with divine glow .
I rarely use sunburst, only if i have a pug squishy team .
I havent really tested prophecy of doom cause i dont have any points on it ( HUH ?! ) and im loving divine glow so even if i had to replace another encounter with PoD, id have to choose between HW and AS .
note: debuff>buff
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Throw in the repurposed soul which gives healing off the damage you produce, you get excellent synergy. i think i am just scratching the surface here on this power.
Anyway, does the heal from this trigger Linked when PoD is cast in divine mode? how is the heal calculated, i.e. is it based on the damage inflicted while the power ia active or simply the killing attack? i.e. should i try to time the death blow to be another encounter/daily (thinking hammer here ) or is this not as much a concern.
since you have to have astral shield usually its end up to 2
and as ppl say divine glow is great and I hardly remove it (in pvp I try something else usually)
so it comes to 1 spot of encounter... somehow neither Prophecy of Doom or Break the Spirit take this spot
if I need damage there is daunting light if not sun burst is great since its direct healing and proc many feats (the knock away is very useful as well)
if I don't need to fight adds, healing word is great
chains is nice as well for solo / pvp
I tired prophecy of doom once, the feat, the long cool time and animation is bad. but again I didn't master it for the use of daily.
I did like break the spirit with divinity in pvp, if you spam forgemaster flame as well. ppl will hunt you down
you can mx both I guess, since you don't need to max many class features daily and at will
Unless you're using the sunburst pocket heal/knockback, I have found I get better results with either FF than either PoD or BtS. They can all be situationally useful, but that largely drops off if you're running with geared people in high end instances.
In PVP, I like either FF or BTS.
- JailBreak (in development)
What was the Sunburst trick and how has it been nerfed?
~
casting sunburst and then switching to divinity b4 the animation ends. allowed u to apply linked spirit without using a bar of divinity, but no longer possible.
I now use Prophecy of Doom > Divine Glow > Daunting Light. Result is enemies HP melt faster, and helps against the inclusion of the PvP patch. These three encounters all debuff the enemy, yes even my daunting light debuffs target. I also have HP armor set, and use terror weapon enchantment.
Also, I should point out that enemy teams, now target me more often than the rest of my pvp party.
Divine glow tends to make you a target. I love the debuff from prophecy of doom but I can't really get over how long it's CD is, not to mention it's super slow cast animation. I already somebody have trouble casting because everybody's cast animations are faster than ours and often my casts are cut off mid cast. PoD seems impossible to cast sometimes if you're being targeted.
So you feated Daunting Light? Makes it actually useable for PVP then I guess, as a str8 dmg spell I didn't feel it brought enough to justify a slot. You may consider trying chains with DG and DL. It's nice to hold people in place so you can hit them with your two offensive area spells.
Groups-- AS,Divine Glow, ForgeMaster. Really bad groups I will pull out sunburst.
I never PvP and rarely group. If you need me to heal in the group you're not going to make it.
Sunburst, Divine Glow, Astral Shield
Hallowed Ground for Daily
Rarely might swap Divine Glow for Healing Word for where party gets separated, Malabog final boss etc
For PvE
High Prophet armor
Soulforged armor
for PvP
Grim Faithful set
Barkshield
Swapping between
Greater Vorpal mainly for solo
Greater Terror for group
For Solo
Sunburst, Chains, Daunting Light
Flamestrike or HG
Would like anyone's thoughts on better Armor enchant for PvP. Soulforged/barkshield doesnt seem to be worth it. I get attacked a lot so thinking Bloodtheft might be good.
Anyone have any preference?
Looking for a guild for PvE Dungeons to suit AEST evenings
IMO SF is still useful since it can give you a second chance to pop encounters or a Daily and recover your footing long enough to survive or at least help your team just a bit more. Barkshield I'm not as fond of because DoTs and At-Wills eat the charges rapidly, but it also has some use.
I'm not very familiar with the Bloodtheft enchantment, but I imagine that what I heard about the modest heal amount is correct since I see it never in PvP and rarely on people standing around doing nothing in PE. I assume people like it for cosmetic reasons.
Thunderhead can be fun, but like the other enchantments it has a ridiculous cooldown. Negation has never been bad, just suffering from the combination of long cooldown and iffy activation timing. When it kicks in exactly as you would want it to, it's great; when it procs after you get hit by a stray At-Will and nothing else, it's a waste.
As for solo, why not ditch the Sunburst and use Divine Glow? If you have at least Greater enchantments, I'm sure the rest of your gear is up to par. You should never need a healing encounter at all when doing solo content, especially if you have at least a bit of Regeneration and class features or feats that grant you passive healing and temp HP buffers. An AoE rotation with Divine Glow saves a great deal of time.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Sunbust/BotS/FF has got to make for the slowest solo boss kills ever. Skoosh up to them, pop a divine DG for selfbuff+enemy debuff, pop a seal on them for tickheals, and stick chains down to hold them, and they now have taken quite a bit of damage, plus have their mitigation debuffed. If you're wearing HP set armour (which for solo stuff, and a lot of party stuff, you should be) then they also now have three stacks of HP's armour shredding, so should be horrendously squishy. THEN you hit them with daunting light.
You can do most bosses in two rotations, or if you're lucky on crits, one.
I'm guessing I dont have much gear plus you're also talking about having different types of armour. I dont spend that much time playing.
Im in Dread Ring or Sharanda doing the daily dungeons. I've tried your combo many times and outside the Illusion pilar (PF) I can not two rotation any of the those mobs. As I type I cant two rotation the PF. Im talking about the bosses in Dread Ring and Dread Forge...etc
Currently Soulforged is pretty decent, at least it brings you back alive and you can sometimes recover and continue to hold a point for several minutes. Sometimes it just brings you back just long enough to die again, but so be it. They're also cheap and tbh having a lesser is not that much diferent because the additional healing you get it's so depressed.
Barkshield is actually quite good, but you need to be pretty tanky to notice it, otherwise you die to fast anyways to really take any advantage from it.
I've heard that some high end PVP clerics were testing lifedrinker/bloodtheft as a combo for the new pvp meta but I don't think they've reached any meaningful conclusions yet.
That's ok. My stuff isn't super amazing (though I do now have a normal vorp, which is lovely) but it's probably above average.
I'd still say that the divine glow/chains/daunting combo is about the "highest single-target or small group" encounter nuke damage we can put out, though (divine searing light through a singularity notwithstanding). Even if you can't do it in two rotations, it'll still take you fewer rotations than anything else.
Sunburst is primarily for AP gain and emergency knockback, and BotS is about the worst single-target at will to bring because you simply can't spam it. Forgemasters is amazing as a heal, and not bad as a snare, but the damage is pretty sub-par when compared with some of our other (primarily damage) encounters.
With my second cleric (AC) I basically do the same thing, except it takes a bit longer to kill the adds without Brand and with less power, the fights take longer. However she is wearing the Zealot armor, not having full HP yet and has more Lifesteal on top of that. Combined with Astral Seal as her second atwill, her burst damage means she often ends up with full health after a fight. With green regen gear but not lifesteal, that's the rotation she used while leveling, soloing everything up through Rothe Valley (after that a friend wanted to run together) including the treasure room in Edge of the Underdark (much much harder than the boss fight) without once dying.
Plus with the sticky targeting in this game I often find I'll brand one dude, get a crit (yay) then aim at another dude and brand the first dude again, overwriting the crit. With SF, this isn't a problem, plus every crit procs repurp (and I think I run at around 36% crit now, so there are a fair number of crits).
About the only time I use brand is for bossfights where it's nice to have a couple of fire and forget things you can spaff at the boss in less frantic moments without losing mobility (since SF pretty much roots you).
Seriously though: everyone should try chains. I didn't, for aaaages, coz I used it back in the 30s and found it lackluster. It totally comes into its own at higher gearing, and I feel stupid for having ignored it for so long. The actual snare + damage has a stupid range, waaaay larger than the actual mark you place on the ground, and it can one-shot powries (and if it doesn't, they're immobilised and almost dead anyway, so it's "single hits from sacred flame" whackamole).
I rock BotS for solo. It's awesome for that imo. More damage, drops mobs quicker and on the weaker mobs I can hit them with BotS and forget about them, they die 5-6 s latter. Really no need to have ASeal for solo play.
I'm in complete agreement on Chains. I used to use DG/SL/SB for soloing which sounds pretty horrible but you actually churn right through stuff, except the boss type mobs. With that said I started using DG/Chains/SB about 2-3 weeks ago and it's so much better, chains hits so hard and in such a big area, and I only have it at lvl 2 since I didn't really use it for much of anything. I would run DL of course but I didn't take it as a power back in the day and I'm not about use a respec just for a solo power.
SB/Chains is enough for normal mobs and each power can wipe out normal mobs by itself on a crit. I use SL instead of Divine Glow/Daunting because after getting better gear I no longer bother fighting mobs in small packs, I try to fight multiple packs at once to save time. Divine Searing Light combos with Chains for massive damage against large groups, I've killed multiple cyclops lieutenants in one hit with a crit and the catapults in War Maker's camp usually get one-shotted so I don't have to deal with constantly spawning adds. For single target damage I use Hallowed Ground + Punishing Light, using SB/SL/Chains when I'm down to 1+ divinity pips to increase divinity or if an opportunity to deal massive damage with divine SL presents itself. Bosses down go down pretty quick, the zulkir of illusion never gets an opportunity to respawn unless something irl distracts me, for example.
I may have to try it, now. Thanks for the tip! :P
I used to use Chains when soloing and still do if I'm ever in Quickling Den, but it left my bar once my main got to Dark Fey Enclave. Chains is useless against War Trolls, who will charge out of it and I'm not sure but I think that breaks the effect on everything else. Back then, I ran Chains, Forgemasters and Sunburst and played keepaway with mobs, rooting, slowing and knocking them back as needed. I was a lot squishier back then and it usually worked well.