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Shield of the Divine, Agent of the Divine, you're thoughts?
derpolicious
Member Posts: 6 Arc User
So after getting Shield of the Divine, I almost immediately disliked it because of the loss of direct healing upon gaining this feat. I respeced into Faithful to try out direct heals vs HoT heals. Took a while to farm up the AD to do so and when I did, I felt totally let down once again upon using Agent of the Divine. 25% less from direct heals AND a loss of HoT's all for a "Gift of faith" that pretty much saves someone if their accidentally taking massive damage from something they should otherwise be able to avoid. Personally, I prefer the virtuous (HoT path) over the Fatithful (Direct Heal path) for my particular play style. After playing both I saved up the AD to respec once again and this time I went back into the virtuous tree (HoT's) and just ignored getting Shield of the Divine. So I was just wondering what you guys thought of these 2 feats, if you would take them, and why. Seem to be doing just fine without them now, though I saved 1 point just incase it really is a necessary feat. This is all coming from my perspective of healing as a DC Anointed Champion, let me know what you guys think.
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The nice thing about SoD is that I can "over heal" habitually and it work in everyone's favor. I'll start a fight by dropping a Divine Glow on the main tank and cluster of mobs running down on him. Then build up 3 stack of divinity, right bumper, and drop one Bastion of Health on the Tank, reguardless of his health, even if he is full. The HoT effect keeps him healed and the buffs he gets from having a HoT on him will keep him safe while I check on the rest of the party.
Second point of business is to find that one Ranger or Wizard who pulled too many mobs and is about to be hurting, the trick is to read the fight and to be there BEFORE they need you to be. I'll drop my second Divine Bastion of Health on that guy and anyone close, or do a Divine Glow instead if he is close to 100% health.
Third is a check back on the tank, if tank is good still and everyone else is happy, then I'll refresh the divine glow on the main tank and mobs.
That'll have me fully empowered. I'll start refreshing my stack now, tossing out an Astral Seal or two and then using Blessing of Battle or Sacred Flame, depending on how much DPS I want to do. (I like Sacred Flame, I know its slow but with boosted Divinity generation I can fill my divinity with 1 Astral Seal and 2 Sacred Flames, which is fast.)
When everything starts to go bad, where you normally would need to drop a fat heal, this is what I do:
For starters I'll normally hold off on using my Daily until there is a need, I use Hallowed Ground and Annointed Army. When trouble starts to happen I'll drop one of those (probably Annointed Army) to buy myself time to get 3 stacks of divinity. Then I'll start spamming Bastion of Health, Tank first, then DPS guys who are in Trouble. Divine BoH will NOT heal the tanks fast enough, they just have too many hit points, but it will slow down their death. So Tank -> DPS guys who aren't running around silly and I can find quickly -> back to Tank. Then when you are fully empowered try to get things as clustered up as possible near the tank and drop the fully empowered Blessing of Health there.
The 3 stack empowered BoH WILL directly heal for A LOT (30% of their missing HP instantly + the first tick of the HoT). It will take most DPS classes back to full health on the cast alone, if not on the first HoT tick. It'll take the Tanks up greatly and the HoT will take him the rest of the way and keep him there for at least 16 seconds. Plus all the Buffs for getting the HoT effect.
Basically the fully empowered Bastion of Health is your "fat heal" for emergencies, you just have to be able to get to it quickly when you need too.
The real trick to being a good Shield of Divinity healer is being able to predict the fight a little so you can pre-heal. Its awesome as hell to have everyone at 100% all the time even through a real nasty fight with a ton of adds. Also it feels like I generate a LOT less agro with the HoTs than with direct healing.
I agree aggro does seem to be a huge issue as of late. Most of where I was coming from wasn't based on epic dungeons. Now that I'm 60 and have a decent amount of T1 gear I'm starting to notice how much it would really help to have a 12 sec HoT.
I'm curious though, you made no mention of healing word in you're rotation. Aside from that, that's pretty much my play style and loadout. Sacred flame's third shot that gives temporary HP seems like it wasn't working. I havnt used it at all after I noticed that. I didn't pay attention to how it stacked divine power. If its really that fast ill stop running astral seal and blessing of battle for it, or switch depending on the encounter. Ill try it out tomorrow, as well as spend that final point in shield of the Devine and give it another go.
I found Healing Word to be lackluster compared to Bastion of Health, mostly because it's constricted by width so in order to affect your entire party they have to have optimal positioning which, let's be honest, NEVER happens in pugs. The temp HP from Sacred Flame definitely works, it only affects one party member though and it's not substantial enough to absorb more than one or two hits from even a weak add. SF still builds divinity faster than Lance of Faith, but I went Divine Oracle so I'm not sure how good BoB stacks up.
My loadout is Divine Glow, Bastion of Health, and Astral Shield. I typically Astral Seal to pull (2 casts is a bar and a half of divinity for me) and use divine Astral Shield on the group for temp HP (it has great coverage) and divine BoH for HoT coverage and then empowered Divine Glow at 3 stacks to buff damage resist for the party and debuff mob resistance in a huge AoE. I typically cover everything I can with Astral Seal to build divinity because it's a tad bit more efficient than Sacred Flame, and everytime I get 1 bar of divinity I'll refresh divine Astral Shield on my party to keep the temp HP buffer up to absorb big hits and then divine BoH to keep HoT coverage up. I only divine Divine Glow if the party isn't in danger of taking huge damage, which is usually never when you're at 10.5k gear score and running Castle Never/Dread Vaults. I always try to keep 3 x Empowered Divine glow up because my recovery is high enough that the duration matches the cooldown, but sometimes it's necessary to drop an empowered Astral Shield when your party can stack up and AoE everything as long as any mobs that have AoE CC are dead. In the event I'm rolling empowered Divine Glows the whole time I always follow up with Astral Shield and BoH anyways to keep my AP rolling in - this way I have HG uptime of about 40% (my own estimate) throughout the entire fight and the bosses drop crazy fast when focused. I'm also running 4/4 High Prophet with a Plaguefire enchant on my weapon, so between my defense debuffs on enemies and damage buffs on allies I'm increasing party damage by 60% or more overall. It's very, very effective.
PS This thread belongs in Cleric class discussion.
Edit: I totally forgot the whole point of the discussion. Shield of the divine is definitely worth it. It's passive healing that you never have to cast, and I've seen my HoTs crit for 26k before. I highly recommend ot for any end-game healing, especially if you're running with mostly pugs.
Gamertag: ReallyRecon
I'm finding it rather difficult to hit everyone with the HoT's without healing word (Because of how often you can cast) because these pugs either have no tank or a terrible tank forcing the group to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. Seems like every cast even though their AoE end up being single target
Oh and astral shield, LOVE the temp HP. HATE that most groups don't even stand in the **** thing for all that reduced damage. Guess we can call this "PUG LIFE" :cool:
Point of the discussion aside, I'm glad you go into detail as there really isn't much on the web to reference to. Also, I was wondering what the main stats to gear towards for us would be. Currently I'm going Power-->Crit-->Recovery/defence in that order based on my best guess.
Edit: For some reason when I first got onto the forums, I thought "Xbox General" was the only xbox related forum. I see now that there actually is multiple sections for us lol.
I'm still wondering how people feel about agent of the divine because in my experience it was terrible.
EDIT 2: Blessing of Battle takes a total of three casts to fill my divinity meter to full, i'm not even speced for the increased damage buff it adds via feats but there's a lot of times I have to move and one shot for one "pip" is a life saver in most cases. For me any way.
Sorry in advance for the wall of text, I got a little too carried away. Unfortunately the color scheme on these forums is terrible for stuff like this but I went back through and bolded/underlined to try to make things easier to read. Dear Mods: TOO MUCH CONTRAST MAKES YOU BLIND! :mad:
My feat tree can be found here. Keep in mind I barely PvP, and if I wanted to my Powers and Feats would look completely different. This is entirely PvE oriented and focuses on stacking HoTs/temp HP to keep my party alive with a secondary focus on buffing their damage output and damage resistance. The two goals of the build go hand in hand - damage resist makes healing more effective and buffing damage output/debuffing enemy damage resist increases your dungeon clear speed by a considerable margin.
Edit: I forgot to mention, you shouldn't skip something just because it's based off of weapon damage. Every ability in the game is modified by your weapon damage and thus it becomes the determinant for how much healing or damage you do, making it the single most important stat you have. If you find a weapon upgrade that only gives you +10 weapon damage but reduces your other stats by -30, it's still better and you should swap it out. The only time this doesn't apply is when the upgrade is only 1 or 2 points of damage.
Heroic Feats
Healing Action, Domain Synergy, and Initiate of the Faith may seem like good investments but if you understand the way they actually work they're clearly useless.
Healing Action stacks multiplicatively - at lower levels it's completely useless and at level 60 with a low gearscore the extra AP gain is very negligible and hardly noticed. At higher gear scores it can be good, but it's trumped by the other feat choices available.
Domain Synergy looks decent on paper, but at level 60 with over 3k recovery it would give me a little over 150. Worthless compared to the other choices.
Initiate of the Faith is the most useless feat of them all. At 5k power it will give you 50 crit rating. Not sure why they even put it in the game to be honest.
For Battlewise see the explanation of Soothe under Powers.
I put 1 point in Cleanse for utility: it's great when it procs to remove poison and other DoTs and the 20s internal cooldown means putting extra points in it would be wasteful. In PvP you might invest more for reliability, and there may be some PvE encounters I haven't seen yet that would necessitate more reliable Cleansing but I honestly don't see it - my HoTs are ticking so often that I feel like it procs every 20 seconds on all of my allies.
Templar's Domain would be okay in a pure DPS build but the 5 minute cooldown on it is ridiculous, and if you don't have a lot of Armor Pen to begin with it's a total waste of feat points.
The first two are self-explanatory - more healing and damage resist is great. The Tier 2 feats are a bit trickier but I skipped them for valid reasons. Urgent Prayers will only affect allies below 50% HP when maxed out at 5/5 points, so if you tend to overheal and keep your party topped off (like a good Cleric :cool:) you're effectively getting no returns out of a 5 point investment. In the event that your allies do drop below 50%, it's a negligible heal compared to what you should have waiting for an ally whose HP is dropping fast (Bastion of Health is overpowered, please use it). I skipped Second Sight as well because I never use Prophecy of Doom.
For Tier 4 feats, I skipped Virtue's Gift because, again, it works based on health thresholds. If you're above 75% HP chances are your party isn't in a bad spot that would necessitate the extra healing, and when you're in trouble you're probably dipping below 75% and at that point you receive no extra healing from it.
I put 1 point in Cleansing Fire for the proc chance; it's great when it procs and I don't miss it when it's not up. For 1 point it's amazing.
For your last 10 points you can either put them in Faithful to help your heals, or Righteous to help your party out with a little DPS or increase your damage when soloing. Neither choice is better than the other, it's all up to personal preference. I went with Faithful.
Tier 1 feats are self-explanatory - all of your heals have a HoT component so Resounding Beliefs is a no-go. As far as Tier 2 goes, I've never played Anointed Champion so I can't speak to the effectiveness of Prestigious Exaltation. For Divine Oracle however, Benefit of Foresight is flat out amazing. Foresight grants 6% damage resist to any allies affected by your heals, and the feat boosts this to 11%. A must have in my opinion.
Powers
You take what you want to use and you don't take what you don't use. I may respec to grab at least 1 point in Forgemaster's Flame because the damage boost could be useful in certain scenarios like Epic Lair of the Pirate King where I barely have to heal anyone at all and I can just focus on buffing damage even further to clear it insanely fast.
I've heard Searing Light can be decent DPS and healing on large groups of enemies, however like Healing Word I don't enjoy the fact that it has to be cast on enemies that are lined up. In hectic fights your positioning and your party's positioning can get very bad very fast, and having to rely on lining it up perfectly is too risky for me. The 1 point in it isn't necessary to get to higher tiers of abilities, however the only other alternative is putting 2 points in Divine Guardian, which is really only a PvP ability.
Soothe is useless - never take threat reduction. You should be taking more threat than the DPS in your party because you're there for support, and any pressure you can relieve on them frees them up to deal more damage. The more damage they do, the faster they kill things, which means they're taking damage for a shorter amount of time, therefore they require less healing. I forgot to mention Battlewise earlier but the same logic applies.
I haven't experimented with Prophecy of Doom but it's single target so I classify it as PvP/DPS spec and unnecessary for this build's purpose. It may be useful on bosses but I'm not sure how you could give up Divine Glow/Astral Shield/Bastion of Health to be able to use it. Maybe someone can shed some light on that. Break the Spirit is under the same category; I have it in my build because it's one of our only CC abilities but I haven't gotten any use out of it aside from trolling people on the rare occasions I PvP with my friends so I'll probably reallocate those points elsewhere.
Hammer of Fate is for PvP as well, I can't see it's usefulness in this build. Prophetic Action is nigh-useless because it will absorb any hit you take, even if you happen to be struck by a bug that hits for 2 damage. Couple that with the fact that it requires 3 points for a 40 second cooldown and you can cross it off almost immediately. Waste of points IMO.
Terrifying Insight should be slotted in when you're solo because it's awesome. If you somehow manage to turn this build into a DPS spec without having to respec everything, maybe by grabbing an extra set of gear, it's mandatory.
I believe every other Power I picked up is self-explanatory but if you need some explanation on anything else let me know.
The first point you make is pretty true, PUGs have a tendency to go crazy and try to run around to avoid everything because they don't know if you're a reliable healer or not, and that just makes healing them even harder. If they ever say anything to you about your healing just tell them to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> off - if they want more heals they can learn to position themselves properly or they can manage their threat output. Both of those things rely on them and not on you, but they'll never learn. The average console gamer isn't worth the time you'd spend explaining it.
As for stat priority, you've got it completely backwards. Power is great and all, but if your other stats are lacking then it's going to be a huge sink of points for little return. It's like constructing a building - you need a proper foundation before you can put something great on top of it, otherwise it will collapse when things go bad.
When I hit level 60 I went with something like this: Defense/HP > Recovery > Crit > Power > Lifesteal > Armor Penetration >> Regeneration >>>> Deflection.
You want to have at least 22k HP and 2k Defense when you start T2 dungeons because when you're dead you contribute 0% of your support potential and thus you're 100% useless. To add to that, your positioning should be close to the melee when you're in a party to get the most usefulness out of your AoE heals and buffs. I typically run in with the tank and try to stick right behind him so that I'm laying down heals that hit the melee in front of me and the ranged allies behind me. Either way you should always be in the thick of things because that's where your party needs the most support, and that's the role you're filling as a Cleric. Being tanky is definitely your top priority.
Your Recovery should be somewhere above 1500 but not too high past 3000 - a decent amount is necessary to get your cooldowns shorter and more manageable as well as increasing your AP gain so you have better uptime on Hallowed Ground/Divine Armor, but once you're past 3000 you start hitting diminishing returns and the points are better spent elsewhere.
Crit is a great stat to have because your heals will crit and that's free extra healing. It's worth mentioning that upon application (1st tick), if a HoT or DoT crits then every subsequent tick will crit also. Try to get around 20-25% critical chance on your character sheet to start with and add more as you upgrade, with the end goal being 30-33%. Not sure how much rating that is.
Lifesteal is a good stat because it's free self-healing, and you heal yourself 70% less effectively than you can heal your party so some extra survivability can be gained with just a little bit of investment.
Armor Penetration is similar to Lifesteal but just a bit more important. Even though you're a healer/support you want around 400-800 because every enemy has armor and you're contributing to overall party DPS by increasing this stat. When you're soloing you'll want it even more because with 0 ArPen you'll notice just how slowly you kill things by yourself. Don't get more than 1000 on your healing set because you'll need the stats elsewhere, but if you grab an extra set to swap out for soloing/DPS spec then you should have a total of 2k on that. Don't go above 2540 rating, boss resist caps out at 24% and any extra Armor Pen rating you have beyond that number is completely useless. Even as you approach 2540 you hit diminishing returns around 2k so the points can be more useful if they're allocated somewhere else.
Regeneration is similar to Lifesteal because it's free healing and doesn't generate any threat. Having a little bit on your gear isn't a bad thing at all, but don't try to stack it. Other stats are better but you'll end up with some anyways because of the way stats are distributed on our high-end gear.
Deflect is pretty useless unless you're stacking it, which means you know exactly what you're doing and wouldn't be reading this write-up in the first place. Other stats are better.
I don't know why I saved Power for last because it's more important than Deflect/Regen, but again with the building/foundation analogy, you want a strong base before you start stacking Power. Get your HP/Defense to 22k/2k respectively, Recovery to 1500, Crit to about 25%, and Armor Pen to around 400-800 before you focus on adding more Power. At lower gear levels you may feel like you lack Power and you'll be tempted to put it on your gear by swapping pieces/enchants, but you need to resist the temptation.
Here's a screenshot of my Character Sheet (hint: click the link;)). I'm aware I've overstacked Recovery and I have very little Lifesteal but that's because I'm just now starting to run through Castle Never with my friends and I plan on replacing my belt/neck/rings with Ancient gear that only drops in that dungeon. I'm really short on gold from swapping around enchants and I can't be bothered to farm more, so I'm just waiting until I replace a few pieces to re-optimize and strike a good balance between all my stats.
I hope I explained everything in detail, if you have any more questions let me know!
Gamertag: ReallyRecon
Gamertag: ReallyRecon
Going to be Healing Word - just because it has 3 uses (6 if counting divinity), so it's easy to spread about. But the logic presented here is sound.
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I noticed on your character sheet you have 20 AC, which means you aren't using the passive for bonus AC.
I love the extra AC, which has me around 32 - 34 AC. I can off tank pretty effectively and as long as I don't get hit with a stunning ability I can heal through being attacked with ease (camp near the tank, then ignore adds, stay out of the red stuff). This has also helped a lot of threat issues.
What are your thoughts on it? It feels like a great surviveability boost but there is a trade off.
EDIT: I've run pugs where I had more AC than the main tank. Last night it worked out really well when the main tank DC'd and was replaced by a second hunter. (2 hunters, 2 rogues, and me) So I ended up playing tank for the last 15 minutes or so (got stressful as the hunters pull agro easily and die fast, but we finished).
Edit: Just kidding, you're talking about Anointed Armor. I chose Divine Oracle for my paragon, so I don't actually have access to it. I play very up close and usually tank whenever there's no Guardian Fighter, and I get plenty of damage reduction from my Defense and Foresight (extra 11% when feated). I'm not sure how much in terms of reduction you actually receive from the +12 AC Anointed Armor grants you but I prefer the party-wide 11% reduction that Foresight provides.
I also consider myself an extremely competent player, so I prefer speccing to support my entire group, which oftentimes in PUGs can contain not-so-competent players. Basically if I'm taking so much damage that I die, you can guarantee my entire party had died first. That sounds really egotistical but I don't think I've ever been the first to die to anything other than the last boss in Dread Vaults - the combat lag was so bad that I got knocked back and fell through the platform and died instantly
That's not for lack of pulling aggro though. I tank my fair share and usually top Damage Taken unless there's an actual tank, but really the only time I fail to keep party members alive is when they run away from/LoS me and I'm physically unable to heal them.
Gamertag: ReallyRecon
In terms of over-healing to prepare for the onslaught it would seem that Agent of the Divine is the better choice (as even if they are full health it stores the heal til they need it).
Are there any obvious errors in the Kaelac build that I'm overlooking?
Join us brothers and sisters and distant relations and confused onlookers.
Join us in the shadows where we stand mostly vigilant... although slightly distracted by our inventories.
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In all the dungeons I have completed you will have that moment during the final boss fight were you and your party take huge spike damage and you are either partway through your cycle of skills or dealing with adds and unable to get a heal off.
gift of faith is a safety net
Using this setup I was quite efficient at keeping the party in full order while running Castle Never, with my GS at the time only being 9800'ish. (My buddy's tank is roughly 14k gs.)