Cycle of change ... change.

scozzers

I expect a larger amount of the dc community to be ambavilent about this one but I use this feat (on 2 dcs currently in fact) and I'm not sure about this change at all.

As it is now on live it procs from all viable powers including at wills and with the right set up it can provide almost a constant 10% dmg increase in combat for all encounters.

The changed version only procs from encounters and gives an undisclosed % of damage/healing for a short (undisclosed) period on divine at wills only.

A brief test of the "new and improved" version on preview and I'm not impressed at all. I struggle to notice the so called extra burst on punishing light and I feel that a small burst of extra healing on soothing light isn't gonna make the blindest bit of difference. Add to this the fact that it has to be one or the other (ie healing or damage) so for instance if you use FF and then BtS and gain 2 stacks (it seems to cap at 3 btw) and then throw in say a HW or an AS, then bye bye damage stacks, hello soothing light stacks. It seems like a really over complicated pointless change that will benefit neither style of dc.

Edit: Perhaps it's not working as intended? (see post #14).

rapo818

Wait !? They plan to change this ****ty feat in a ****tier feat ? How is is possible ?

vorphied

I think the reason there hasn't been much comment on the rework of Cycle of Change is that Virtuous is already an unpopular tree. When I saw that Cycle of Change was being reworked, I thought they would do something to make it amazing so that Virtuous could compete better with Faithful and Righteous, but apparently not :P Looks more like a solid contender for worst capstone feat in the game.

beckylunatic

vorphied wrote: »

Looks more like a solid contender for worst capstone feat in the game.

Worse than TR Sabotuer, even.

I read it over, compared it to the current description, and tried to figure out what the heck they were thinking and I gots nothing.

scozzers

beckylunatic wrote: »

Worse than TR Sabotuer, even.

I read it over, compared it to the current description, and tried to figure out what the heck they were thinking and I gots nothing.

Having thought about it a bit, it does remove the need to use Seal to efficiently give a high uptime on stacks, allowing for an at will more in line with that path (ie LoF). Maybe I retract the slap for that but as for the rest of it, my hand remains poised.

tyrtallow

I wouldn't bash virtuous, it's a solid path (minus a weird feat or two, atm) and has been for the most part. I've always main-ed a virtuous cleric myself.

It is the only paragon path that focuses on rewarding a cleric who attacks (not a cleric who tries to be a striker - that's a very different kind of animal). Anyone who has ever complained that clerics have low damage potential has probably never met at least a decent virtuous cleric. My Divine Searing Light hits for 20k+ damage thanks to party debuffs on good days, higher the more allies buffs/debuffs there are. I've seen 40k+ ones. Consider that for a second. Granted most of my damage potential relies on skills that require proper mob positioning, but how fair would it be if I can do that kind of damage on scattered mobs? If I'm in a party with anyone who is able to reposition mobs well I usually have no trouble keeping my overall damage up to only a few million less than the majority. I don't know about you, but I think that's very good for a class that has to devote at least one encounter power to a heal like Astral Shield. For parties that choose to go without mob repositioning tactics my damage potential is much lower, and I usually switch to other encounters like Chains or Divine Glow, but my contribution is never inconsequential. Virtuous also complements the DC's base powers quite nicely, and in particular has great synergy with Holy Fervor. Any virtuous cleric worth his salt should be peerless when it comes to building AP, as being able to quickly and reliably spam dailies (and I mean much faster than other clerics) is the only way for a virtuous cleric to be a proper, functioning support character while doing what he does.
Unless you're an AC instead of a DO, in which case your existence is conflicted to begin with.

This is obviously a nerf to the +20% total damage virtuous currently potentially provides. Getting crit heals is easy with Astral Seal/Soothing Light, and atm Cycle of Change doesn't actually get used up on encounter power use, as scozzers mentioned. It's a solid +10% damage to encounter powers on an A.Seal crit (just check the tooltip on your encounter powers when you gain Cycle of Change stacks). Granted virtuous should use Punishing/Soothing Light - these powers complement virtuous' skillset very well (and both generate a ridiculous amount of AP while powering up virtuous' other feats) but I too have trouble noticing the supposed damage/healing boost the new Cycle of Change provides.
Not to mention virtuous -has- to constantly switch between damage and support. It is simply the way the path works - it goes about performing its supposed support role by attacking. This feat forces us to attack and then attack some more. With Punishing Light, no less. It is a serious departure from the supposed "is rewarded for attacking" theme virtuous currently has in that it forces the cleric to use actually his/her at-wills for the sake of just generating damage, and that damage is in no way comparable to the damage potential of most of our encounter powers anyway. At least as far as Punishing Light use goes. Soothing Light-wise, the main value of Soothing Light has always been in it's potential to spam Repurpose Soul procs on crits and not on the actual heal of the power itself, unless it crits + Healer's Lore (which would bring us back to Repurpose Soul procs). Increasing the heal of the at-will itself is questionable.

I too am really confused about this change. As much as I love the current Cyrcle of Change I guess I can live with a slight nerf, and I don't mind a rework as long as it sticks with virtuous' current theme, but this rework doesn't actually work at all.

Edit:
scozzers, according to findings in the another thread most of our powers are getting a 10% buff to healing/damage. Essentially they are giving all clerics Cycle of Change.
Which means the new Cycle of Change is just a freebie. Mixed feelings on this.

scozzers

tyrtallow wrote: »

Unless you're an AC instead of a DO, in which case your existence is conflicted to begin with.

xD

tyrtallow wrote: »

Edit:
scozzers, according to findings in the another thread most of our powers are getting a 10% buff to healing/damage. Essentially they are giving all clerics Cycle of Change.
Which means the new Cycle of Change is just a freebie. Mixed feelings on this.

That does change things slightly although it also kinda demotes the "damage" path a bit too.
One thing I noticed that I didn't mention is that the new stacks don't seem to drop off or have a duration. So if you're so single minded as to either slot solely damage encounters or solely healing encounters then you can choose when to unleash that extra burst of whatever 'cos the stacks will be there for you. Mixing heal encounters and damage encounters will pretty much be pot luck but that's ok I guess.
I didn't give it much more than 45 mins on test dummies so I'll have another crack with it later.

I liked your virtuous representin' there

tyrtallow

Heh . I don't think it can be properly called a nerf since we never actually lose that 10% extra damage on live. Everyone else is just getting buffed (and our own old Cycle of Change buff becomes permanent). End result is that we just get a new feat to play around with. I'll do some more testing later too.

theosymphany

Thanks scozzers and tyrtallow for sharing your experiences and suggestions. I'll test it a bit later too on preview.
I agree the theme of virtuous seems to reward healing with attacking and also vice versa. I don't like the fact you lose one type of stacks over another. What happens when you cast say a sunburst or divine FF which does both? If anything I think it should be an omnistack, that if you 'choose' to PL you get boosted DPS, and if you 'choose' to SL you get boosted heal rather than have your encounters dictate that for you.

That said, I don't think PL/SL is the right recipient for the capstone because you'd be running lots of divinity empowered encounters with Divine AS, Divine SL and Divine DL? What are your rotations like? (limited playtime as a virtuous DC).

scozzers

theosymphany wrote: »

What happens when you cast say a sunburst or divine FF which does both?

Well sunburst is classed as a heal encounter since it heals both in and out of dvine mode. Forgemaster's isn't, although ironically it's one of our best heals in divine mode. Without hopping on to check I'd safely assume that SB = SL stacks. FF is definitely PL stacks from my playing with it earlier. I very much doubt they've gone as far as to change it's mechanic based on divine mode or not, given what happened with linked spirit but I need to check so this is speculation soz.

tyrtallow

AFAIK many clerics can play like a virtuous cleric if they so wished, many usually have Healer's Lore/Holy Fervor and the right encounters. Only Virtuous actually rewards aggressive action with a damage boost, though.

Encounters are nothing special, standard SB/AS and Chains for most parties, SL if there's a good CW/GWF/GF, DG for GWFs. I'll sometimes slot the odd encounter for specific parties/battles. It may not seem much, but ultimately with the near constant +20% damage combined with party buffs/debuffs you will be doing a modest amount of damage even if, as far as you were concerned, you were simply trying to stack AP/debuff mobs/buff allies/heal but in a roundabout manner/etc. I no longer use DL. I recommend it as a filler bu it only really shines in fights where he number of targets is limited to 5 or so at a time.

You won't need to cast divine versions of anything (except perhaps AS) all the time. Various elementary factors conspire to make this so - good CWs rarely stack Singularities because many AoEs don't work with it, you'll want to alternate normal/divine Divine Glow (remember that by casting the normal version you are generating divinity which you can convert to quick AP->HG/DA with PL/SL), etc. With chains you'll be generating so much divinity you will need to spam PL/SL at some point. Ethereal Boon helps, because Divine Fortune doesn't work well with Holy Fervor.
In the end, as long as your remember that you're trying to keep everyone alive (unless you're not...) the rest will come naturally.

Depending on what happens in preview all this might change though, still doing tests.

Edit:
Findings:
-As scozzers previously stated Cycle of Change allows you to build 3 stacks of a buff called Cycle of Change: Life -or- Death. Using any normal mode encounter power that either debuffs or does damage gives you life stacks, using any purely protective/healing encounter power grants you death stacks. You cannot gain both life/death stacks.
-Life stacks are used up on the very first Soothing Light tick, Death stacks are used up on the very first Punishing Light tick. Each stack increase the damage of the very first Soothing/Punishing Light tick by around 100%, so 3 stacks = 400% damage.
-The very first tick still only counts as 1 tick, so no extra AP.
-The stacks last 30 seconds. Getting a new stack refreshes the duration. Using Punishing/Soothing Light uses up any Life/Death stacks. Life stacks have no effect on Punishing Light and Death stacks have no effect on Soothing Light.

Suggestions:
-Getting life/deathstacks should be easier. Atm building death stacks more or less requires that you slot Healing Word -and- use up at least 2 charges asap or use 2-3 different healing/protective encounter powers all at once.
I don't think there's any easy way to build life stacks in a practical setting, and slotting 3 damaging powers just to get a 400% healing increase on the first tick of Soothing Light sounds meh.
-Instead of increasing (the initial) tick damage, increasing the rate at which PL/SL ticks would be a better alternative imo. Like 3 stacks = faster PL/SL ticks for 3 seconds. It would also make Cycle of Change a lot more viable for clerics which slot both damaging/protective powers, as is the norm among virtuous clerics. Also, possibly just a bit more AP gain. Yay. And way more fun to try and master.

scozzers

tyrtallow wrote: »

AFAIK many clerics can play like a virtuous cleric if they so wished, many usually have Healer's Lore/Holy Fervor and the right encounters. Only Virtuous actually rewards aggressive action with a damage boost, though.

Encounters are nothing special, standard SB/AS and Chains for most parties, SL if there's a good CW/GWF/GF, DG for GWFs. I'll sometimes slot the odd encounter for specific parties/battles. It may not seem much, but ultimately with the near constant +20% damage combined with party buffs/debuffs you will be doing a modest amount of damage even if, as far as you were concerned, you were simply trying to stack AP/debuff mobs/buff allies/heal but in a roundabout manner/etc. I no longer use DL. I recommend it as a filler bu it only really shines in fights where he number of targets is limited to 5 or so at a time.

You won't need to cast divine versions of anything (except perhaps AS) all the time. Various elementary factors conspire to make this so - good CWs rarely stack Singularities because many AoEs don't work with it, you'll want to alternate normal/divine Divine Glow (remember that by casting the normal version you are generating divinity which you can convert to quick AP->HG/DA with PL/SL), etc. With chains you'll be generating so much divinity you will need to spam PL/SL at some point. Ethereal Boon helps, because Divine Fortune doesn't work well with Holy Fervor.
In the end, as long as your remember that you're trying to keep everyone alive (unless you're not...) the rest will come naturally.

Depending on what happens in preview all this might change though, still doing tests.

Edit:
Findings:
-As scozzers previously stated Cycle of Change allows you to build 3 stacks of a buff called Cycle of Change: Life -or- Death. Using any normal mode encounter power that either debuffs or does damage gives you life stacks, using any purely protective/healing encounter power grants you death stacks. You cannot gain both life/death stacks.
-Life stacks are used up on the very first Soothing Light tick, Death stacks are used up on the very first Punishing Light tick. Each stack increase the damage of the very first Soothing/Punishing Light tick by around 100%, so 3 stacks = 400% damage.
-The very first tick still only counts as 1 tick, so no extra AP.
-The stacks last 30 seconds. Getting a new stack refreshes the duration. Using Punishing/Soothing Light uses up any Life/Death stacks. Life stacks have no effect on Punishing Light and Death stacks have no effect on Soothing Light.

Suggestions:
-Getting life/deathstacks should be easier. Atm building death stacks more or less requires that you slot Healing Word -and- use up at least 2 charges asap or use 2-3 different healing/protective encounter powers all at once.
I don't think there's any easy way to build life stacks in a practical setting, and slotting 3 damaging powers just to get a 400% healing increase on the first tick of Soothing Light sounds meh.
-Instead of increasing (the initial) tick damage, increasing the rate at which PL/SL ticks would be a better alternative imo. Like 3 stacks = faster PL/SL ticks for 3 seconds. It would also make Cycle of Change a lot more viable for clerics which slot both damaging/protective powers, as is the norm among virtuous clerics. Also, possibly just a bit more AP gain. Yay. And way more fun to try and master.

Thanks for clearing up stack duration. Haven't had time to go on and check. 30 secs is pretty generous.
As for the idea of faster ticks. I think I'd prefer the extra burst over that tbh, just a bit more of it (or maybe both ). This makes more sense to me, especially with SL and desperate renewal. PL will will become a better finisher of "runners" too. Guess now we must see how the power re-working benefits those two.
As for AP gain, I believe there will be a dc artifact with 100% ap gain? Haven't seen it yet but if so, that's pretty swish.

theosymphany

Did further testing too and seems both types of Cycle of change stacks can be expended with either punishing light or soothing light. If I have life stacks, using either SL or PL will proc a heal on self/ally via cycle of change anyway. Likewise for death stacks, either divinity channel will proc it. This is better in that you're not forced to heal/DPS when you were meaning to do another. Damage/healing is in the range of 2-4k and seems to be able to crit. For me CoC procs on the 2nd tick of the divine at will. And yes, sunburst and FF (D or not) count as attacks and build life stacks.

scozzers

Well, I just had another quick blast with this and it seems to me that currently it's backwards.

Using heal encounters gives stacks of death which provide the damage boost on punishing light, clearly seen in the combat log. For example [20:17] [Combat (Self)] Your Cycle of Change deals 2278 Radiant to Target Dummy

Using damage encounters is giving stacks of life which do not give the damage bonus on punishing light, again evident in the combat log. This is could well be the reason that the extra burst on PL wasn't noticeable ...

If someone else could verify this in case I'm missing something obvious, that would be great.

edit: and yes, sunburst does appear to classed as offensive not protective and gives stacks of life. Encounters like healing word and astral shield are protective and currently give stacks of death.

theosymphany

Scozzers, the CoC stack mechanic you mentioned is what I mentioned. Whether the CoC stack will heal or DPS will depend only on it's type (life or death). Life stacks will always heal, death stacks will always do some damage when used with EITHER SL or PL. If nobody needs to be healed the stack of life is expended but does nothing. IMO it give more flexibility so I reap the benefit of CoC stack whether I SL or PL but it does need to be worked into the rotation. Overall it's a very minor boost...3.7k damage/healing every rotation for 3 matching encounters, and more complicated to use if you mix encounters. I'm not sold completely on its utility.

scozzers

theosymphany wrote: »

Scozzers, the CoC stack mechanic you mentioned is what I mentioned. Whether the CoC stack will heal or DPS will depend only on it's type (life or death). Life stacks will always heal, death stacks will always do some damage when used with EITHER SL or PL. If nobody needs to be healed the stack of life is expended but does nothing. IMO it give more flexibility so I reap the benefit of CoC stack whether I SL or PL but it does need to be worked into the rotation. Overall it's a very minor boost...3.7k damage/healing every rotation for 3 matching encounters, and more complicated to use if you mix encounters. I'm not sold completely on its utility.

My point was that surely it should be damage encounters that give death stacks and protective encounters that give life stacks. Not the other way around as it is currently.

theosymphany

Well, I guess devs got stuck with the name cycle of 'change' and thought they better match it so you get healing rewards for attacking and vice versa. I can't purport to understand what DC designers are thinking nowadays. I agree with you it's pointlessly complicated. With the nerf to moontouched, Linked Spirit and nerf to CoC there really isn't much appeal in the 2 paragons anymore.

vorphied

theosymphany wrote: »

I can't purport to understand what DC designers are thinking nowadays. I agree with you it's pointlessly complicated. With the nerf to moontouched, Linked Spirit and nerf to CoC there really isn't much appeal in the 2 paragons anymore.

Well, according to the data they posted recently, there are fewer DCs in NW than any other class. Considering that a good chunk of them are probably Invocation and Leadership alts, that's a pretty sad state of affairs.

I hope the devs invest more resources into figuring out why the class is comparatively unpopular and seeing what they can do to address that. I'd go so far as to suggest that perceived nerfs to DCs discourage players from picking them up and sticking with them. No one wants to board what appears to be a sinking ship, which probably contributes to the low population of GFs as well, since most players are aware that GFs do not currently fill a necessary role in PvE.

theosymphany

My sinking feeling is healer DCs are being not so kindly shown the door. My feeling is the changes have come largely from PvP.

A couple of reasons:
1. DPS classes were sick of dealing with opponents capable of healing in general in PVP and wanted a nerf. They got what they asked for because, well, 90% of characters are DPS characters and they are the vocal majority.
2. Moontouched's heal I think can bypass 5 target limit in open world PvP/PvE (haven't confirmed) so it got nerfed (down from 5% to 3% max HP per 3s). I don't like the fact the PvE version got nerfed too because of PvP.
3. Players can use PvE potions and health stones (full instant heal) in Mod 3 contests, which trivialises DC healing.
4. They want zen store health stones to sell. And sell they will as an arms race.

And I agree with you that there is a sinking ship syndrome. DCs are being more and more encouraged to go DPS route (gotta make use of that lifesteal!). Though with GWF nerfs we might well keep up with non destroyer GWF DPS.

lihin23nihil

vorphied wrote: »

Well, according to the data they posted recently, there are fewer DCs in NW than any other class. Considering that a good chunk of them are probably Invocation and Leadership alts, that's a pretty sad state of affairs.

I hope the devs invest more resources into figuring out why the class is comparatively unpopular and seeing what they can do to address that. I'd go so far as to suggest that perceived nerfs to DCs discourage players from picking them up and sticking with them. No one wants to board what appears to be a sinking ship, which probably contributes to the low population of GFs as well, since most players are aware that GFs do not currently fill a necessary role in PvE.

I think the infographic was stating the percentage of classes created since Shadowmantle not the overall population (hard to be sure of course). You point remains just as valid of course.

I have come to believe the design intention here must be to marginalise GFs and DCs even further as they are too specialised to find a place in the game as it is evolving. The trend away from the Healer/Tank/Controller/Dps gameplay towards a more free form anyone can do anything style seems to be happening more and more in the genre and in Neverwinter specifically (I know people will argue that it;s only CWs who can do this anything right now).

1) Remove the need for GFs & DCs from party queuing tools - check

2) Increase ability for other classes to self heal - check (regen and lifesteal are abundant)

3) Introduce secondary mechanics for healing and support - check (pets such as the Lilend are making a comeback even, abundance of new artifacts)

4) Introduce mechanics to remove the benefit of healing in PVP - check

5) Ignore or refuse to engage in any meaningful discussion about the 2 marginalised classes - check.

Maybe there's a distant future where the DC class gets a real rework to make it relevant again, or maybe there'll just be a new class released that fills the role and fits in with the new vision for the game. Only thing I can see is that we'll be the last to find out.

mconosrep

lihin23nihil wrote: »

1) Remove the need for GFs & DCs from party queuing tools - check

Must have missed this - do you have a link, please?

lihin23nihil

mconosrep wrote: »

Must have missed this - do you have a link, please?

Queue for any skirmish.

loboguild

lihin23nihil wrote: »

Queue for any skirmish.

Skirmish != Dungeon. They changed the Skirmish queue system a while ago.

lihin23nihil

loboguild wrote: »

Skirmish != Dungeon. They changed the Skirmish queue system a while ago.

No they aren't equal.
Yes they did.

Your point was?

tyrtallow

lihin23nihil wrote: »

No they aren't equal.
Yes they did.

Your point was?

His point, obviously, is that having a balanced team matters when it comes to tackling challenging content. These days having a "balanced" team can also mean having several good CWs or GWFs and no cleric, but the point still stands. Good clerics are welcome anywhere.
In any case, PvE has never actually been a problem for DCs.

Clerics are always useful, the issue is that Cryptic seems to be trying to phase out the healbot/tanky cleric for PvP. I'm all for that in the long run but atm this is simply impractical - even attacking DCs (not striker/DPS DCs mind you) have to deal with how many of our current powers are generally inferior to other classes' PvP-wise. OVERWHELMINGLY inferior - barely decent in fact. I'm all for balance and how a cleric that can successfully 1 vs 1 anything could be gamebreaking, but atm we are struggling to even stalemate competent players.

If you're going to take away our healing/tankiness then at least give our powers more utility in PvP. Keyword utility - not more damage, not more healing. Give Sunburst/Daunting Light/Divine Glow the extra ability to reveal hidden units for 1-2 seconds. Punishing Light should have a secondary ability like stamina drain. The slow on Break the Spirit should be on the normal version too. Make one of our other encounters undodge-able - every other non-tank class has a unique power/ability that is difficult/impossible to dodge - or just improve the casting time/effect of Prophecy of Doom a bit. It should at least have another useful secondary effect.

Note that many of these changes won't affect PvE, but would significantly improve our PvP potential. Again, we should at least be able to stalemate other classes.

vorphied

tyrtallow wrote: »

His point, obviously, is that having a balanced team matters when it comes to tackling challenging content. These days having a "balanced" team can also mean having several good CWs or GWFs and no cleric, but the point still stands. Good clerics are welcome anywhere.
In any case, PvE has never actually been a problem for DCs.

Clerics are always useful, the issue is that Cryptic seems to be trying to phase out the healbot/tanky cleric for PvP. I'm all for that in the long run but atm this is simply impractical - even attacking DCs (not striker/DPS DCs mind you) have to deal with how many of our current powers are generally inferior to other classes' PvP-wise. OVERWHELMINGLY inferior - barely decent in fact. I'm all for balance and how a cleric that can successfully 1 vs 1 anything could be gamebreaking, but atm we are struggling to even stalemate competent players.

If you're going to take away our healing/tankiness then at least give our powers more utility in PvP. Keyword utility - not more damage, not more healing. Give Sunburst/Daunting Light/Divine Glow the extra ability to reveal hidden units for 1-2 seconds. Punishing Light should have a secondary ability like stamina drain. The slow on Break the Spirit should be on the normal version too. Make one of our other encounters undodge-able - every other non-tank class has a unique power/ability that is difficult/impossible to dodge - or just improve the casting time/effect of Prophecy of Doom a bit. It should at least have another useful secondary effect.

Note that many of these changes won't affect PvE, but would significantly improve our PvP potential. Again, we should at least be able to stalemate other classes.

The big problem with the notion of phasing out healing support templates is that many players who choose a class like DC do it specifically because they want to heal. Helping to sustain team mates and hinder enemies is a satisfying and valid style of gameplay that shouldn't be discouraged, especially since no other class fills this role exactly.

At the same time, I agree that DC offensive options need to be more viable. Healing/support DC has been a popular choice because it's the only one that's defensible in competitive gameplay. DC powers are, with few exceptions, too telegraphed and too easy to avoid; others aren't even worth wasting stamina to dodge.

I think that a Leader-type class can be difficult to balance because of its potential to increase the effectiveness of other party members, but the worst thing to do is to make it too weak. The majority of players don't choose this type of class in the first place, which I suspect is why many other games will err on the side of throwing a kitchen sink of viable powers and defenses at them to help compensate for the fact that healer/buffer types tend to carry a lot of responsibility for their parties and will not continue to fill their role if it proves unrewarding or just un-fun.

theosymphany

So I've tried out all 3 paths, various combinations of gearsets and Cycle of Change for close to a week in Mod 3 content, mostly solo, sometimes in parties.

I feel Mod 3 content is a respectable step up in difficulty for DCs. Firstly mobs are quite beefy, and it usually takes 1.5 or 2-3 rotations to finish a pack. Secondly they have a combination of fast cc, deal high damage and in some cases, have fast overlapping AoEs that makes it hard to find safe ground (think kiting and killing a pack of golems in Frozen heart). From my testing killing fastest is the best way of limiting incoming damage rather than the traditional stand in AS and facetank. You won't be able to out heal damage otherwise. Also a fair proportion of incoming damage ignores damage resistance, so having high defense doesn't block that damage.

I decided Virtuous path with its slight DPS edge might help overcome this difficulty, even if some feats are really sub otimal. While overall it performed ok I find cycle of Change's mechanic unnecessarily clunky, counter-intuitive and ultimately ineffective. Cycle of change is meant to help augment a DC's healing abilities while DPSing and vice versa, but the current implementation gimps a DC doing exactly that if nothing else. Ultimately it doesn't make a virtuous DC any stronger offensively than his faithful or righteous counterpart. If nothing else the righteous DC with healing step has the easiest time soloing.

When soloing, using 3 DPS abilities I can channel divinity to proc a CoC heal. It's about 3k free healing every rotation, and consumes a little bit of divinity. I can live with that. I do not think it's particularly strong for a capstone feat, especially because it's the only one that has an active mechanic, one that has to be 'used'. Every single other capstone feat across all classes is a 'passive'. I don't understand why this has to change.

The bigger problem is, life and death CoC stacks are cancelled in a mixed rotation. In a party environment most DCs will be slotting at least 1 offensive and 1 defensive encounter. This means that unless we try to cast Encounter 1-> Channel Divinity to proc CoC -> Cast encounter 2+3 -> Channel divinity to proc coc, build divinity back up, and repeat we are not getting the full benefit of our capstone. Realistically, this CoC mechanic unnecessarily interferes with encounter timing and divinity building, and probably not worth pursuing for the order of 1k HP/damage per half cycle.

My suggestion is to remove the 2 types of stacks, and just let each encounter build 1 stack. If you still want to involve divinity, allow the stacks to either do an extra burst of damage when using Punishing Light or and extra burst of healing when using Soothing Light. This way the stacks are stored, don't cancel, and the healing/DPS effect is controlled by the player. Otherwise, in its current state I don't see significant benefit or enticement from Cycle of Change outside of solo situations.

I am glad the developers are starting to look at DC feats. Many of them are long overdue for revision, however like the sentiments expressed above me we do not understand why feats like Moontouched and Cycle of Change are getting nerfed (and in the case of Linked spirit, from semi-useful to waste of points) when they are almost the only enticing feats in paragon trees that are getting less and less popular.

At the least, give us an official feedback thread to discuss incoming changes and share your ideas of the class and balance so we can provide constructive feedback from our perspectives.

vorphied

theosymphany wrote: »

From my testing killing fastest is the best way of limiting incoming damage rather than the traditional stand in AS and facetank. You won't be able to out heal damage otherwise.

Anyone doing solo content with AS on their bar is doing it horribly wrong regardless of their spec. This side note doesn't have much to do with the topic, but I'm calling it out just because I see many players complain in-game that they take too long to complete Dailies alone and then admit that they're running around with healing powers.

The mobs on Preview definitely hit a little harder. Not hard enough to dent anyone using MH or slotting a bit of Life Steal for PvE, but hard enough to make Regen do a little work.

As for Moontouched, nerfing it is just sad. It's pretty much the only reason to invest in Faithful past the second tier of feats. The one advantage Faithful has is being able to dish out the most incidental healing in PvE, and they want to nerf this why? Virtuous, while not my favorite tree, at least has some additional options for buffing damage, and Righteous has the amazing Healing Step feat, so let Faithful keep its decent HG heal.

theosymphany

vorphied wrote: »

Anyone doing solo content with AS on their bar is doing it horribly wrong regardless of their spec. This side note doesn't have much to do with the topic, but I'm calling it out just because I see many players complain in-game that they take too long to complete Dailies alone and then admit that they're running around with healing powers.

Yes I agree. I was trying out various things to see what works best from a healing oriented to DPS heavy spectrum and it still came down to kill them before they kill you. However on a lower DPS/geared setup I imagine parts of Mod 3 would be a pain to solo. Miracle Healer set and Righteous path offered the easiest combination. Fabled Illiyabruen (now healing allies at 170%) and Dread Legion doesn't proc heal bonus on self when solo, and while the lifesteal was good from DL, MH+LS is better to keep the healing flowing in.

I think the Faithful build which I've clung on for almost 12 months is going to be dead, especially with the way the game content, overall class rebalance and gear sets in module 3 and beyond have inevitably shifted from multi-classing party centric cooperation to personal survival DPS race.