How often do u unslot Astral Shield

rnewton8

Now that I have miracle healer set and decent gear, I am starting to go outside the box and try different skills.

So i was wondering, does Astral Shield ever leave your bar for final boss fights. there have been a few fights where i noticed Astral Shield was not a good choice in particular fights with heavy kiting, and 1 rougue on boss only for melee

For instance, Frozen Heart Last boss- Healing Word, Divine Glow, and daunting light or break spirit, seemed to be way better combo than my usual AS< SB<plus whatever for third setup.

No one really needed any more healing than i could throw out with Healing word, and the added dps got the boss down fast and the archers

Hard to believe i used to have such a hard time with that boss fight --- so easy now with a good group and the right spells on my part.

vorphied

For any remotely challenging content (or if grouping with less experienced players), AS always stays.

For solo content (i.e. Sharandar), I never slot AS. I use MH with full AoE damage setup and let the set bonus and my feats provide the healing.

morsitans

I only unslot it for doing silly foundry stuff where uber-kiting is required (like the 50 hulk challenge). Otherwise that skill might as well be glued in.

uri92

I unslot it everytime I PVP, because Forgemaster used to be way better. But now FF got nerfed, so I don't PVP at all except for daily.
I also unslot it everytime I do solo stuff like Sharandar or Foundries because SB/DL/HW is way superior.

Well I only slot AS for dungeons cause well yeah you know... healbot.

fondlez

Never unless dps cleric or solo.

Astral Shield in Divinity mode heals is one of the main ways to make sure to get aggro while kiting in FH. It no longer works as well as it used to since healing threat is shared between you and your target since a major patch a long time ago, but it is still better than using Forgemaster's Flame if there are any ranged in your party since they will rarely be close enough to pick up the burst healing from FF.

spani4rd

I'm going to say never, although that's not completely true, I do unslot it for solo content. That's it though.
I've never unslotted it in a dungeon and especially not on any boss fight I can think of. Maybe I did FH at some point without it but usually I still use it, make life easier for the meles and helps take agro if I'm kiting.
Tried some PVP builds without it but kept coming back to it, just too powerful, even if you use non divine mode sometimes

w3est0fn0w3r3

I unslot it in FH, use SB, FF, HW. but in my case we have a GWF or GF kiting adds and I put FF on the closet add to him and then use HW to put regen on anyone silly enough to take a hit (really only the kiter should take dmg in that fight if your careful)

rnewton8

yea that's how i ran FH last night. TR on the boss doesnt take damage so he doesnt need it. GWF tanking the adds, doesnt need much healing, a healing word here and there or a FF on one of his adds is more than enough. I think the best set up for that fight is Divine Glow n Prophecy of Doom on boss, and Healing word when the kiter comes around or if someone gets blasted by accident. Very fast n easy that way.

For all you guys saying "Never", I would suggest for FH at least to try unslotting it... I know it feels totally wierd and crazy to unslot our # 1 main heal, but trust me for that fight at least, there are better options. Especially if your still running 4/4 miracle healer set

fondlez

rnewton8 wrote: »

I think the best set up for that fight is Divine Glow n Prophecy of Doom on boss, and Healing word when the kiter comes around or if someone gets blasted by accident. Very fast n easy that way.

For all you guys saying "Never", I would suggest for FH at least to try unslotting it... I know it feels totally wierd and crazy to unslot our # 1 main heal, but trust me for that fight at least, there are better options. Especially if your still running 4/4 miracle healer set

There's a very big difference between an FH endboss fight where you, the Cleric, are the kiter and have to maintain aggro (this is what most posts in here are talking about) versus where someone else is kiting and you, the Cleric, have to especially go out of your way to NOT aggro... In the latter, you have far more options available.

Even these days with GF's being far more popular than they used to be, it is 50-50 as to whether the Cleric is the kiter in a random pug.

meirami

Not that often. There are a handful of boss fights when other skills are more useful, but when fighting mobs along the way, Astral Shield is very effortless and mostly proof*. As others have already said, it really depends on how much kiting there is. I don't use it when soloing nor when with a high-level group that can easily blow through the content without it (like during Aberrant Assault or normal Dread Vault). Either way, if someone in the development team is reading this and frowning, I'd still like to keep using Astral Shield in the future. Changing it wouldn't make other skills any more desirable, just Astral Shield worse.

* It's distressing when someone, typically the wizard, stands right next to the Astral Shield even though there are no mobs snuggling up to them and you've placed the AS so that the control wizard could also enjoy it (and the nice things it procs). But nope, the second you place it on the ground so that it covers everyone and there isn't even any aoe, the CW teleports out of it like it burns.

veramis1

I use it even when kiting at bosses in FH, to help the suicidal teammates standing still around boss survive.

diogene0

Easy solo content: because i don't need to, miracle healer will do miracles, and sunburst will heal me enough.

Competitive content like in the midsummer festival or valindra's invasion of the enclave: because i don't want to heal others, i want them to take damage, dodge, while i can dps mobs with all my nice deadly spells. The more they die the better. The only person i will heal will be myself.

hamji

Astral Shield is without a doubt the Cleric's single most powerful ability and as you have noticed in many instances completely unnecessary.

Contrary to popular opinion a Blue Shield is not the only shield to ever cast, in fact I use my yellow shield more often than the blue because the real power of Astral Shield is the mitigation and not the heal.

The heal is great and at some times essential. To be honest I have only found it essential in two situations. For a Strong AoE heal where everybody is so bunched up that singling a party member out with Healing Word is impossible then of course you need a Divine Astral Shield. Secondly when the fight is going extremely badly and I have just brought two or three people back from the brink of death then D-AS becomes essential not so much because it is so great(even though it is) but because everything else is on cooldown and I can't even provide the TempHP due to running around avoiding damage and chasing down the injured party members who all decide they are better off running away from the Cleric in opposite directions at the same time. There is a third time I use it though it is not essential which is when the party completely seperates and is fighting multiple groups of adds in multiple locations(yes, I'm talking about you PuG's), in these instances I will do something like pop down a D-AS and just leave, hopefully they are still alive when I get back from visiting all the others.

No doubt your mileage will vary depending on how great your real heals are and obviously mine are top notch so I have the luxury of just slipping a Healing Word on somebody and holding onto my Divine Power and Astral Shield cooldown incase they are actually needed.

The key in all of this is the reference to AoE heals. Whether of not you need them depends on party members positioning. All it really takes to make the heal of Astral Shield redundant in all but the most ferocious of battles is for you to have unobstructed line of sight to the injured party member.

The true magic of Astral Shield is seldom realised due to everybody being so hung up on the heal component of it. The fact of the matter is most of the time for me the heal is irrelevant. In a chaotic battle I may put down a Divine Astral Shield for somebody on the brink of death and within seconds they are back to full health but the truth is it is not from Astral Shield, it is from the Divine Healing Word I popped out just afterwards, the SB heal, Astral Seal effect, Repupose Soul heals AND the temp hitpoints from Sacred Flame coupled with the mitigation from AS which ensures that for those few seconds the injured party member becomes as hard as a rock and all the healing goes towards filling up their health bar and not just replenishing what they are losing.

To really taste the magic of Astral Shield you need to have mitigation up around the 35% mark because with 40% mitigation AND Astral Shield you can face tank just about anything especially if you have the Clerics undiverted attention and are receiving everything else on offer(HW,Repurpose Soul, TempHP....etc).

The problem is most people don't get that they need to anticipate when the shield is about to expire and start taking evasive action before it does because it is only within the few seconds (less than 5 in my case) that AS is on cooldown that anybody is any real danger of dying with >30% mitigation.

In practice what happens though is a GF with obsene damage mitigation already standing on a Blue shield with healing Word on them and you showering them with other heals while sitting on 3 PIPS of DP for Divine Healing Word casts will "Block", he will block like a machine gun, the best dang blocker you have ever seen but they didn't need to, they could have just face tanked whatever was hitting them. Of course what happens next is AS expires, even though every single Cleric's AS expires after exactly the same amount of time they will still somehow fail to anticipate it and so there they are with no Astral Shield and a fully depleted guardmeter. Not a major problem for me so long as I have line of sight to use HW and I am not too busy making up for other peoples mistakes at the time but still completely unnecessary.

To prove my point, last night I convinced a GF to face tank the adds he'd collected during the fight against Hrimnir. He was under the impression that they would one shot him if he stopped moving and they will if Astral Shield is not down but with it down he need not even block. We practiced for a while him anticipating the expiration and kiting until I replace the shield and it went extremely well. Point proved to that one particular GF at least.

The problem is timing, if party members can fit in with a Cleric's timing restrictions they can enjoy periods of near invincibility while still avoiding getting caught with their pants down when it is time to take evasive action.

fondlez

hamji wrote: »

last night I convinced a GF to face tank the adds he'd collected during the fight against Hrimnir. He was under the impression that they would one shot him if he stopped moving and they will if Astral Shield is not down but with it down he need not even block.

That may be true, but the problem is the CC from the golems. When you get knocked down, you not only lose your guard, but also your positioning. This is a disaster due to Combat Advantage as your enemies surround you basically making you lose all your tankiness. You cannot rely on every Cleric having the Divine Advantage feat and 100% healing uptime on you in FH.

Also, a good kiting GF is basically a completely independent unit. They should be getting a huge amount of AP by using the correct kiting spells, i.e. Knight's Valor, Iron Warrior and Supremacy of Steel. Therefore, they can use their daily Fighter's Recovery to instantly heal themselves for a large amount with one other damage encounter, like Frontline Surge.

oroness

Divine Advantage is one of the most amazing feats a cleric can get. Like we have much to choose from anyway, right?

tyrtallow

It sometimes leaves my bar but very rarely in dungeons, especially nowadays. My build was hit pretty bad by all the changes in FotF, but thanks to all the other interesting stuff that came with it on the whole it wasn't so bad. It's still a little odd to see high level companions actually surviving in hectic battles (which reminds me, AS and dailies help a lot with this). It comes down to whether I need to outlast mobs or just kill them off. Basically if I can't outkill them, I'll slot Astral Shield. It also still generates a large amount of AP.

It's nice to see other people come to the same realization, that you generally can't out-heal lack of control/mitigation. You can try, but there's a chance the experience/end result will be soul-crushing. Our healing simply isn't strong enough to do that, not unless Cryptic allows us to slot AS multiple times. Luckily we do have other powers that allow us to compensate for the lack, at least partly.

hamji

fondlez wrote: »

That may be true, but the problem is the CC from the golems. When you get knocked down, you not only lose your guard, but also your positioning. This is a disaster due to Combat Advantage as your enemies surround you basically making you lose all your tankiness. You cannot rely on every Cleric having the Divine Advantage feat and 100% healing uptime on you in FH.

Also, a good kiting GF is basically a completely independent unit. They should be getting a huge amount of AP by using the correct kiting spells, i.e. Knight's Valor, Iron Warrior and Supremacy of Steel. Therefore, they can use their daily Fighter's Recovery to instantly heal themselves for a large amount with one other damage encounter, like Frontline Surge.

Thanks for the insights.

misssmoozie

Considering how ridiculously broken it is compared to all the DC's other skills (save Divine Daunting lights..) I rarely let it leave my bar if I don't think a critting DL will 1-shot w/e camps we meet.

oroness

misssmoozie wrote: »

Considering how ridiculously broken it is compared to all the DC's other skills (save Divine Daunting lights..) I rarely let it leave my bar if I don't think a critting DL will 1-shot w/e camps we meet.

LOLWUT? broken?
I'd say all the other skills are broken. Take into account that we are using AS in Divine Mode, FF in Divine Mode, DG in Divine Mode, Searing in Divine Mode.
Those skills are good because we use them in Divine Mode.
The only skill I even afford myself to cast out of Divine Mode is Dauting Light, and formerly also Sunburst.

The rest? Well they're not even worth the points you need to invest on them in order to advance to the next set of spells.

misssmoozie

oroness wrote: »

LOLWUT? broken?
I'd say all the other skills are broken. Take into account that we are using AS in Divine Mode, FF in Divine Mode, DG in Divine Mode, Searing in Divine Mode.
Those skills are good because we use them in Divine Mode.
The only skill I even afford myself to cast out of Divine Mode is Dauting Light, and formerly also Sunburst.

The rest? Well they're not even worth the points you need to invest on them in order to advance to the next set of spells.

I meant that AS was broken as in ridiculously overpowered compared to the rest of our kit, a rather big circle granting 30% (or 33% if 3 ranks) is in no way balanced compared for e.g. a 3k dmg 1-3 target ranged attack (Searing lights).

I completely agree with you on that the majority of the cleric arsenal is a poor joke, we basically have a handful of usable skills, where half of them are extremely situation. Tho, I find Healing word is quite good even without divine mode if you make it crit, but, when it doesn't.. hehe, not worth much.