Astral Seal is now useless

valaniille

Seriously Perfect World? "AT WILL" healing power can heal only once per 4 seconds? Its now encounter power not "at will"! why is it still called "at will"? Thats not fair. As it deals almost no damage between these 4 seconds its now u-s-e-l-e-s-s. In 4 seconds we might die, in pvp even sooner, it used to be a lifesaver, now its worth next to nothing. And it gives me no life points although it says it would... Where is this 5x more healing coming after these 4s after all? I dont see it. Its nothing compared to damage dealt by even one equal level ennemy. AS used to keep me safe in solo play agains 4-5 equal or similiar lvl enemies, long enough to defeat them with my dc's low dps, now my life bar is always low when it comes to close combat, and falls down 10x faster...
I feel like devoted clerics once more have been cheated by perfect world here... Why did you take our main at-will from us? We dont deal damage, we're not invisible, we dont move fast, farming refining stones(=upgrading gear) takes us 10x longer, now we ...cant heal anymore... Thank you perfect word!

stpensive

Prior to this release, I was a 17.5k Cleric. We are a tanky class; if you need AS to keep youself alive, you are doing something wrong. You should also invest in the Eternal set (WOD) as it will add a metric ton of hit points (min shot up 30k to 60k).

The main 'problem' I am having is killing stuff in a timely manner but its always been like this for our class. That said, not much (including mob swarms) has had me below 50% health. My only death (at 66) came from me jumping off a cliff by accident.

patsfire

Maybe inform the OP of exactly which powers you use? I think that would help a lot.

valaniille

No, I dont understand why relying on gear should be better than relying on powers... ? And i wasnt doing it "wrong", my character was really well made, before dlc I performed as well as 17-18k clerics with my set of choice being t1 set (hp), im talking about elol or castle never, so i was quite tanky i guess, before, now im not.
Besides, you didnt get the point, i can get better gear, but that doesnt recompensate poor heals my astral seal has become... i wasnt crying bcs i get poor heals for me, but this means poor heals for other players in team. And this 4s time means poor healing, i just dont understand why they did this, what for? Am i suppose to change my epic astral symbol artifact weapon now too? Used to be the best weapon, now its worth nothing...

armadeonx

To be fair, DC's accepted the low dmg with AS as it's purpose was to heal anyone who hits the target. Granted the healing was small but it's a supplementary between encounters.

If you nerf the healing aspect of it then it does indeed become a pointless skill. Negligible damage with negligible healing = negligible skill.

Rather than make it pointless it would've been better to replace it with a new one or just lose it and buff Blessings of Battle.

stpensive

@valaniille
The HP is \ was fantastic but, if you are using it with the new content, that's just reckless.

That said, I too would like an explanation from the devs for the nerfish time condition. Its not like it did a ton to keep a party alive; like @armadeonx pointed out, it was purely maintenance. If I had to guess, they wanted to make the Paladin look even more attractive.

stercesderised

Agree with grneral consensus here. What a waste of points...

Tested AS vs BotS yesterday...wayyyyy more benefit using BotS for divinity generation plus damage. AS will now collect dust.

stpensive

stercesderised said:

Agree with grneral consensus here. What a waste of points...

Tested AS vs BotS yesterday...wayyyyy more benefit using BotS for divinity generation plus damage. AS will now collect dust.

I was AC (Anointed Champion) prior to EE but switched to DO (Divine Oracle) when I had seen that I would have taken me 487 years to make it to 70 with how little DPS I was putting out.

First time I was ever specked DO, and I have to say, BotS is pretty awesome, especially for building divinity. When I hit 70 (probably today), I am not sure if it is wise to stay DO now that a healy Cleric will be in demand again (LS and Regen changes).

Question: what have you chosen and will you stay that way or switch?

zephyriah

Astral Seal's best feature was not healing or damage, it was for proccing other skills and feats. The change reduced how often the proccs occur. THAT was likely the reason for the change.

Edit: to answer a question by stpensive. AS is till very valuable in group situations and will always be on my bar for the "when you heal" proccs.

jaydeekay

Anyone else having problem with life steal in general. It seems that life steal doesn't work at all anymore but regen works better than it ever did before...but I don't need heals after the battle I need it during

armadeonx

lifesteal has been nerfed to make it a 'chance' rather than continuous.

valaniille

I agree, they must have done this to make ppl buy palladin...:( but i dont see many paladins... never seen one actually, and since update, i havent seen a single cleric around. Ppl will wake up when they finish leveling up and start looking for healz for new dungeons
Perfect world give us our old AS back!

patsfire

Wait, Brand of the Sun for building Divinity? Why not use Astral Flame, that's what I have been using and it is great.

valaniille

zephyriah said:

Astral Seal's best feature was not healing or damage, it was for proccing other skills and feats. The change reduced how often the proccs occur. THAT was likely the reason for the change.

Thats true. Thats what i meant by 'lifesaver'. Even with almost no life left, a few blasts of AS and bam! All my feats popped up and i had all my health again. And could heal everybody again with full divinity bar. Now- nothing... I use all divinity gained with astral seal to heal ...myself. And after that im not fully healed, with no divinity, running for life, and when you run you do nothing. Sadly, ads wont wait 4 seconds. And even if, after those 4s nothing triggers. Is there other thing triggering all the feats and skills like AS used to do?

Perfect world will you speak to us?

stercesderised

stpensive said:

stercesderised said:

Agree with grneral consensus here. What a waste of points...

Tested AS vs BotS yesterday...wayyyyy more benefit using BotS for divinity generation plus damage. AS will now collect dust.

I was AC (Anointed Champion) prior to EE but switched to DO (Divine Oracle) when I had seen that I would have taken me 487 years to make it to 70 with how little DPS I was putting out.

First time I was ever specked DO, and I have to say, BotS is pretty awesome, especially for building divinity. When I hit 70 (probably today), I am not sure if it is wise to stay DO now that a healy Cleric will be in demand again (LS and Regen changes).

Question: what have you chosen and will you stay that way or switch?

DO Faithful for life. ;-).

stercesderised

patsfire said:

Wait, Brand of the Sun for building Divinity? Why not use Astral Flame, that's what I have been using and it is great.

BotS generates divinity while using astral flame; every DoT tick from BotS generates divinity so you can slide around and still be generating divinity....

Giving up that feature for a small heal proc every 4 seconds is just dumb. I can regenerate a bastion of health divinity cast in that time with BotS for a 25-%50%+ heal vs Astral Seal. Not to mention I am speeding up the fight with dps via those DoT ticks (faster fight means less healing needed, and more loot over a comparable period of time).

armadeonx

My DC is AC (no pun intended lol) and he's more tankier now - especially since I got the respec and corrected a few earlier mistakes - definitely does more damage.

I swapped out AS as my secondary at-will to Blessings of Battle - 1 hit and it buffs me and nearby team for about 10 seconds while I spam encounters etc.

magnusg15

AS is nerfed, but i always waffled about using it anyways. BoB and Sacred flame... done. oh, and raise your def.. clerics shouldnt be dying unless youre in an epic.

valaniille

I dont like how they change things without even asking ppl...and without a reason. TR should have been nerfed! Not already weak DC. I used to support PW from time to time, they wont get money from me anymore, well thats for sure. I will stop this game after getting 100%, ts not fun being played like this.