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Why are Punishing Light and Soothing Light so terrible?
madqhue
Member Posts: 58 Arc User
At this point I think almost all Clerics know that most of our spells are really only useful when Divinity is active and so we are continually hitting Tab to go into Divinity Mode, casting Astral Shield, and then tabbing back out to resume using our at wills or Divine Glow / Sunburst to rebuild divinity.
While in Divinity Mode our at-wills are replaced by Punishing Light and Soothing light which require holding the left and right mouse buttons to activate in order to distinguish them from the normal At-will abilities slotted in their place. You are unlikely to accidentally use either one for this reason, and it is a very good thing because they are both terrible.
I mean really really bad. For abilities that use up Divine Power these things are practically a curse rather than a blessing. The damage on Punishing Light is actually significantly LESS than Lance of Faith or Sacred Flame. Soothing Light is unique in that it is the only direct-channeled heal we have and so it could be a very interesting niche spell... but the healing provided by this use of divinity is so much less efficient than application or Astral Shield or Forgemaster's Flame that it becomes a complete waste to use it in this capacity.
I would expect both of these abilities to be inefficient compared to the use of full pips to enhance Encounter Powers but they should still be somewhat viable. If not then just eliminate them and let Tab only be used to turn divinity mode on and off for the Encounter Powers and let people sit in divinity mode with the regular builders if they so choose.
While in Divinity Mode our at-wills are replaced by Punishing Light and Soothing light which require holding the left and right mouse buttons to activate in order to distinguish them from the normal At-will abilities slotted in their place. You are unlikely to accidentally use either one for this reason, and it is a very good thing because they are both terrible.
I mean really really bad. For abilities that use up Divine Power these things are practically a curse rather than a blessing. The damage on Punishing Light is actually significantly LESS than Lance of Faith or Sacred Flame. Soothing Light is unique in that it is the only direct-channeled heal we have and so it could be a very interesting niche spell... but the healing provided by this use of divinity is so much less efficient than application or Astral Shield or Forgemaster's Flame that it becomes a complete waste to use it in this capacity.
I would expect both of these abilities to be inefficient compared to the use of full pips to enhance Encounter Powers but they should still be somewhat viable. If not then just eliminate them and let Tab only be used to turn divinity mode on and off for the Encounter Powers and let people sit in divinity mode with the regular builders if they so choose.
Post edited by madqhue on
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Comments
They honestly need to about double the damage/healing of the skills, then they might be worth actually using.
Both are utterly worthless and I have quit using them completely, even in PVP with the added movement ability.
The bad thing for me is that I hold down my mouse buttons while out of divinity since it spam casts them. So I find myself somtimes wasting divinity when I forget to switch or just double click the switch back.
definitely this
Both Soothing light and Punishing Light would need about a 100% to 200% increase in healing/damage to be worth using divinity on them.
The right click heal is nice when you need some single target healing and other spells are on cool down, especially if you don't have healing word slotted.
The left click is only good in pvp, you have divine power to waste, and your kiting somebody while doing damage to them.
Edit: n..oob is considered foul language?
If we run out of DP, we go back to normal.
Or, they could give us the same mchanics as CW and have 4 encounter skills and one of then in the Divine slot, but that would be a huge nerf in healing.
I want this class in NW.
I don't want them to remove our ability to choose whether or not I use Divinity on my encounter spells. For example, I want to be able to choose whether or not to use Divinity with Sunburst because I may or may not want the knockback effect.
Nor do I want them to rework the entire Divinity system to give us a 4th encounter slot like Control Wizards. That would literally require changing and rebalancing every single Devoted Cleric encounter power.
I'd just like them to increase the usefulness of the Punishing/Soothing Light abilities to the point that we would actually consider intentionally using them.
I am certain we have all had the reverse happen where we accidentally end up tossing down a Yellow Shield thus prompting some period of hardship before Astral Shield refreshes. It becomes a quality-of-life thing where I would like to be able to just stay in Divine mode and use the normal At Wills and throw down only Divine powered encounters. I'd switch out occasionally to conserve or build divinity if fighting against a smaller number of opponents, but I would feel less like I was fighting with the tab button and UI rather than the monsters.
The above would be something of a cop-out however as I really do think both of these abilities are intended to have a very solid role...they just dont have anywhere near the correct coefficients at the moment for that function.
I bet everyone pretty much would like that. But.
I feel that these divine at-wills are there mainly to keep us coming back to the normal mode. There is no real way of building divinity in divinity mode (yes, that one feat, but no -real- way) and that is how it's intended. If we could spam our normal at-wills and gain divinity, we could pretty much just sit there and do nothing else, occasionally slip back for the Sunburst to gain our AP. Totally different rhythm and balance.
The easiest way to fix this is adjust the numbers on our SL/PL. A bit different, but an interesting way to fix it, would be to grant us "divinity at-wills". For instance, Sacred Flame and Lance of Faith could always cast the so called "3rd hit". Astral Seal could provide the feat bonus (less damage from target). This, however, would need some thinking and adjustments, and that's as far as I bother to go not being able to do anything about it.
Though in my honest opinion, I don't see anything wrong with them. I see them only as a way to force divinity mode be what it is, a boosted mode where you only spend, never gain. Divinity.
It has been my experience that both of these skills are quite useful in the correct situation. I don't think either of them are meant to be spammed or used for top DPS/HPS. They are tools in a box, and I'd argue that there are situations where these tools are quite effective. Specifically, I've used both Punishing Light and Soothing Light to great effect in PvP.
PL is great for finishing off that target with 2% health that is trying madly to run away and escape - trying to land a Daunting Light or chains can be problematic against a dodging/fleeing target. You can instead try to rely on Searing Light, but there is no guarantee that you will have enough damage to finish the opponent with one attack on a relatively long cooldown. PL provides a constant stream of lock-on damage to help seal the deal.
SL is great for saving a friendly player that is near death and being targeted - those situations where you can't wait on cooldowns for our regular HOTs. While there are certainly more efficient heals, this is an on demand HOT with no cooldown that locks on target and allows you to continue moving while casting. Relying more on SL is also a great way to free up an encounter power for more damage or utility.
While it is true that I've used these two abilities less in PvE, similar situations can occur where I find it advantageous to use them.
In summary, I think it is wrong to treat either of these abilities as "primary" for damage or healing - that's not their purpose, and criticizing them on such a spectrum is not valid. I also would challenge a more enterprising player than myself to get some numbers crunched to help determine when these abilities are most effective.
They need to ramp up more quickly in damage and healing to account for the extremely rapid Divinity consumption. If they did, it would at least be an option, instead of a "gd it i forgot to tab/tab didnt respond" use.
So basically i never use soothing and punishing is very very situational
They both seem to go off very fast and quick to use the damage one looks like it hits fast.
Nothing could burn mobs faster than that in MOD3, continuous ticks on build with 4 pips could archive unseen anywhere else damage values.
— (The unwritten rule)