Thank you for the recent improvement to its function. I feel that now it's at least a viable option and offers something a little different from Foresight. Foresight with its associated Feat and ability to be shared with healed targets is still quite powerful, but Anointed Armor has the advantage of not requiring an investment of Feat points to be fully effective. Besides, it's probably for the best that the old Path retain some of its advantages to help encourage diversity and to make Path choice feel like an actual choice.
Thank you for the recent improvement to its function. I feel that now it's at least a viable option and offers something a little different from Foresight. Foresight with its associated Feat and ability to be shared with healed targets is still quite powerful, but Anointed Armor has the advantage of not requiring an investment of Feat points to be fully effective. Besides, it's probably for the best that the old Path retain some of its advantages to help encourage diversity and to make Path choice feel like an actual choice.
Yea i agree, also Anointed Armor its a permanent buff while foresight need to be activated by an healing spell. I think the power is balance with foresight now. Good job.
I'd like to suggest that toning down existing options that are popular with players to make new, less amazing features more palatable by comparison may not be the best way to go about encouraging diversity. At the very least, please try not to taketh without the giveth in some other form, because DCs will need a tablespoon of sugar to wash down a bitter nerf to the effectiveness of the old Paragon Path's best loved class feature.
As for Anointed Armor, it should be bumped up considerably since it affects only the DC and cannot be shared with party members.
I most definitely agree that DCs don't need toning down in the present paths.
Kianni Ravenmoon and Izyana Sol'Eetah
0
lazaroth666Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,332Arc User
edited November 2013
Paragon paths are ok so far, the problems are the set bonuses for Fabled and Dread Legion sets which are close to useless.
Exaltation definetely needs something that flys to the target that is healed or a beam. Tried that in Pit fight and in this big mess I never was sure if Exaltation hit the person I wanted to hit or hit at all. Sometimes I had someone in target but he didn't seem to get any more health by my heal. So there really needs to be an indicator. Healing Word is perfectly clear with that. Sometimes if you target wrong and only heal yourself you see that because there isn't any bubble flying.
Feedback: Class Feature: Anointed Armor This is now worth taking (in PvP at least) due to the recent substantial increase. Thank you!
[EDIT]
This is also now worth taking in PvE as it helps survivability all round, not only in PvP.
[/EDIT]
Feedback: Power: Exaltation While this power is *not bad* as it stands, perhaps giving it multiple charges similar to Holy Word could make it a very nice power to choose.
Also, in agreement with previous posters, it definitely needs some form of visual indicator travelling between caster and target.
I started a separate thread to raise awareness for the need to improve the new set so as to make it something we would actually want to play for. I encourage anyone who is interested in seeing changes made to contribute there as well. It'll be very disappointing if the Dread Legion set makes it to live the way it appears now on Preview.
Feedback: Daily Power: Anointed Army This power is EXTREMELY under-powered and is fully dissipated (from the caster - i.e. *me*) within 1-2 seconds of casting in Epic dungeon and pre-made PvP scenarios. This cannot replace a Moon-Touched Hallowed Ground (by a very long way) or even Divine Armor (which is poor in comparison to a Moon-Touched Hallowed Ground).
This power needs an extreme buff which increases time taken to dissipate each charge (substantially), or a complete re-think in the method of removal.
Feedback: Class Feature: Anointed Armor This is now worth taking (in PvP at least) due to the recent substantial increase. Thank you!
[EDIT]
This is also now worth taking in PvE as it helps survivability all round, not only in PvP.
[/EDIT]
Feedback: Power: Exaltation While this power is *not bad* as it stands, perhaps giving it multiple charges similar to Holy Word could make it a very nice power to choose.
Also, in agreement with previous posters, it definitely needs some form of visual indicator travelling between caster and target.
Exaltation is already fairly powerful, so is unlikely to get multiple charges or to affect the entire team at once. (Unfortunately, Exaltation is one of those abilities that is more powerful than it feels due to it's buffing nature.)
We're tweaking the FX a tad to make it a bit more clear who the target is. Currently a pillar of light is played on both you and the target, but said pillar of light is very difficult to see on them as it blends with your own. The current thought is that the light pillar will only play on the ally target and the FX on the caster will be updated slightly. This should help with the targeting confusion quite a bit.
(The Pillar would play on you if you have no other ally targeted. The Cleric would still always affected by this power even when using it on others.)
Hoping to avoid a projectile as the travel time would delay the power from affecting the target by that much. (Which makes it that much harder to save people with the Divine version.)
Exaltation is already fairly powerful, so is unlikely to get multiple charges or to affect the entire team at once. (Unfortunately, Exaltation is one of those abilities that is more powerful than it feels due to it's buffing nature.)
Understood. Thanks. I have the feeling it *will* be in my bar if only during PvP.
We're tweaking the FX a tad to make it a bit more clear who the target is. Currently a pillar of light is played on both you and the target, but said pillar of light is very difficult to see on them as it blends with your own. The current thought is that the light pillar will only play on the ally target and the FX on the caster will be updated slightly. This should help with the targeting confusion quite a bit.
(The Pillar would play on you if you have no other ally targeted. The Cleric would still always affected by this power even when using it on others.)
Hoping to avoid a projectile as the travel time would delay the power from affecting the target by that much. (Which makes it that much harder to save people with the Divine version.)
Good news, thanks. Perhaps a simple colour difference, or even colour hue may work?
Or a column moving up on the caster and column moving down on the target or maybe vice-versa may make more sense..
Exaltation is already fairly powerful, so is unlikely to get multiple charges or to affect the entire team at once. (Unfortunately, Exaltation is one of those abilities that is more powerful than it feels due to it's buffing nature.)
We're tweaking the FX a tad to make it a bit more clear who the target is. Currently a pillar of light is played on both you and the target, but said pillar of light is very difficult to see on them as it blends with your own. The current thought is that the light pillar will only play on the ally target and the FX on the caster will be updated slightly. This should help with the targeting confusion quite a bit.
(The Pillar would play on you if you have no other ally targeted. The Cleric would still always affected by this power even when using it on others.)
Hoping to avoid a projectile as the travel time would delay the power from affecting the target by that much. (Which makes it that much harder to save people with the Divine version.)
Yes, let's please avoid travel time It's already occasionally an issue with Healing Word, and Exaltation needs to stay speedy.
If any Anointed Champion power needs tweaking at this point, I'd consider giving Anointed Army a radius to match Divine Armor, at the very least. As it stands, it seems that Divine Armor is still always a good choice, while Anointed Army will be a bit situational with its small AoE and short-lived, easily removed buff.
Realistically, who would use the new path in a dungeon?
Foresight is always up from heals and better for the group. The change to Anointed Arm is a great change but unless its a group buff its useless.
The new heal is a good idea too, but targeting is awful in dungeons so people use group/AE heals. Maybe make the heal group in divinity mode otherwise again its not going to be used.
I think the new path is good in theory but just wont work. The DC has to be group buffing and healing you cant target in that mess or while your running for your life.
This path may be great in PVP but you dont want a path for just pvp right?
Realistically, who would use the new path in a dungeon?
Foresight is always up from heals and better for the group. The change to Anointed Arm is a great change but unless its a group buff its useless.
The new heal is a good idea too, but targeting is awful in dungeons so people use group/AE heals. Maybe make the heal group in divinity mode otherwise again its not going to be used.
I think the new path is good in theory but just wont work. The DC has to be group buffing and healing you cant target in that mess or while your running for your life.
This path may be great in PVP but you dont want a path for just pvp right?
To be fair, this Path has some good things going for it in PvE:
1. Blessing of Battle grants +6% DR to self and allies (easy to maintain the buff even if not spamming the At-Will). Foresight + Feat = 11%, which is of course superior, but requires more effort to maintain on the entire party since it drops off in a few seconds when not refreshed. Blessing has the advantage of being completely fire-and-forget, not being tied to the condition of you using direct healing encounters or Soothing Light or party members continuing to attack Astral Seal targets.
2. Exaltation is not only a Heal+10% DR buff+Damage Buff+Invulnerability+Regeneration for self and target, it also boosts healing output for the caster if the Prestigious Exaltation feat is taken. The healing is modest, and the invulnerability and regeneration effects are short-lived, but the other buffs last up to 10 seconds and don't even require use in Divine mode to activate. Not bad.
3. Anointed Holy Symbol provides group (temp) healing regardless of which encounters you're using while in Divine mode. It's a bit like Miracle Healer in that regard, but affects all nearby allies each time it activates. I think that's pretty significant.
What I saw: Support oriented cleric
What I thought I was getting: Support oriented paragon
What I got: Cleric with worse support ability. Seriously, the lack of Foresight was worse than I thought it would be.
What I wished I got: More beams and lasers.
The problem with an Exaltation build is that if you're going full support it's very difficult to gain divine power.
With Divine Oracle, we can take AS+BoH/HW+SB / healer's lore+Foresight to keep foresight's buff 100% of the time while generating a decent amount of divine power. We can always cast AS in divine mode and we have enough divine power for a last minute divine BoH or for a shooting light.
With Anointed Champion, if we're going full support with AS+Exaltation+BoH/HW, we have to leave Healer's lore in order to take Divine Fortune and we still don't generate enough divine power.
Feedback: divine power generation
With the path intended to be more support-ish, we can't build as support-ish DCs as with the path intended for dps
I agree some of the abilities are good they just dont go far enough.
Keeping foresight up is not difficult, it is up during the normal course of playing (healing).
If they are not AE/group effects they will not be used (except maybe in pvp) Anyone who has tried single target healing in a pve environment knows Exaltation is going to be impractical. What would you replace to use this ability?
Holy symbol maybe you could do some kind of temp hp build.
The traditional build with a miracle healer set is still much better way to go.
I still feel that if they changed Exaltation and Armor to group buffs this would be a solid path.
Part of the thing with Foresight is that it's associated feat is too good. Feats are generally not intended to double the effectiveness of things, but that's pretty much what it does.
There is a reasonable chance that the feat may get toned down abit to be more in line with other options.
With that said, Anointed Armor is currently too weak and will also get bumped up a bit to be more comparable.
What are you doing? Any time a reasonable skill is mentioned it seems a prompt for it to get "toned down" aka nerfed. It was bad enough when you messed up HoF and now this joins the growing list of misery?
Just stop with the Cleric dislike for heaven's sake. When the feedback on a new skill suggests it compares poorly with a previous one, it's NOT a cue to nerf the existing one to bring it down to match the other bad one.
Listen properly to the feedback, not as a reason for yet more Cleric dislike, but to improve the new lacklustre skills being proposed.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
I agree some of the abilities are good they just dont go far enough.
Keeping foresight up is not difficult, it is up during the normal course of playing (healing).
If they are not AE/group effects they will not be used (except maybe in pvp) Anyone who has tried single target healing in a pve environment knows Exaltation is going to be impractical. What would you replace to use this ability?
Holy symbol maybe you could do some kind of temp hp build.
The traditional build with a miracle healer set is still much better way to go.
I still feel that if they changed Exaltation and Armor to group buffs this would be a solid path.
This
BoB v Foresight just doesn't seem to stack up. So you've got to refresh Foresight - and? - players have been doing that for a long time. Exaltation - just a source of frustration in pve. You hit the target? - err no you didn't - he's in there somewhere and you thought you'd got him, but no. As stated by several others, for pve it's group heals/aoe while your dodging things, so justifying Exaltation here flies out of the window.
The problem you now have is if this is directly changed to a group skill - in pvp this would appear to be OP. Seems you've just created a skill for pvp and ignored the reality of pve group play here.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
We're tweaking the FX a tad to make it a bit more clear who the target is. Currently a pillar of light is played on both you and the target, but said pillar of light is very difficult to see on them as it blends with your own. The current thought is that the light pillar will only play on the ally target and the FX on the caster will be updated slightly. This should help with the targeting confusion quite a bit.
(The Pillar would play on you if you have no other ally targeted. The Cleric would still always affected by this power even when using it on others.)
Hoping to avoid a projectile as the travel time would delay the power from affecting the target by that much. (Which makes it that much harder to save people with the Divine version.)
That's good news. You could save travel time though by making it a beam, like CW's Ray of Enfeeblement. This way it would be instant and visible. The FX you describe could still be hard to see once lots of mobs are around you but maybe due to the FX around you or not it will be much clearer. Have to check this out to see myself.
Realistically, who would use the new path in a dungeon?
Foresight is always up from heals and better for the group. The change to Anointed Arm is a great change but unless its a group buff its useless.
The new heal is a good idea too, but targeting is awful in dungeons so people use group/AE heals. Maybe make the heal group in divinity mode otherwise again its not going to be used.
I think the new path is good in theory but just wont work. The DC has to be group buffing and healing you cant target in that mess or while your running for your life.
This path may be great in PVP but you dont want a path for just pvp right?
Have you played this path on preview? It can keep your party alive quite well. The lack of Foresight is heavily compensated by the other defense boosting stuff you have or the temp hitpoints. Actually after I tried it on preview I am gonna choose the new path. It fits much better to a healing healer than the other path. And if you are unable to single target people when a lot of mess is going around you then you do something wrong.
Have you played this path on preview? It can keep your party alive quite well. The lack of Foresight is heavily compensated by the other defense boosting stuff you have or the temp hitpoints. Actually after I tried it on preview I am gonna choose the new path. It fits much better to a healing healer than the other path. And if you are unable to single target people when a lot of mess is going around you then you do something wrong.
I'm sorry, what? You acknowledge that it's a mess in the midst of the fight, then say you're doing it wrong if you cannot pick your target out in the middle of this mess?
Single target is at best a hit and hope, with yourself, other players, mobs, companions, adds, dodging aoe, constantly fluctuating.
That's why it is broadly acknowledged - apart from your own apparent 100% perfect targeting in this mess - that pve healing is aoe based. Sure pvp is different with the Exaltation skill looking ok for this, but to come out and say that people who cannot hit the right single target all the time (and that's what it's got to be to avoid wasting the skill on an incorrect one) in the middle of this mess are doing something wrong is just daft.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
You're right, lyaise; targeting specific players when they are all grouped tightly together and dancing around is not an exact science since that causes issues with this game's line-of-sight targeting.
As for the Anointed Champion's viability, though, I still think I will try it for both PvE and PvP. I expect that the constant temp HP healing (Anointed Holy Symbol is a very good class feature) and the buffs will compensate for lack of the admittedly powerful feated Foresight.
I did a little test the other week to compare.
Baseline Damage Resistance: 34.3%
+ Blessing of Battle = 40.3%
+ Exaltation = 44.25%
+ Blessing of Battle and Exaltation = 50.3%
+ Blessing of Battle, Exaltation, and Anointed Armor = 56.3%
So you can expect that the entire party will enjoy a 6% DR boost at all times from your At-Will (-5% from feated Foresight, which is up most of the time, but not literally 100% since it falls off in about 3 seconds if your target for some reason fails to continue attacking an Astral Sealed target or does not get a direct heal from you). You and your Exaltation target will enjoy an additional 10% damage resistance for about 10 seconds (not to mention 2 seconds of damage immunity if used in Divine mode), and you personally can leverage Anointed Armor for additional DR and deflection.
On top of all that, assuming that you've taken Prestigious Exaltation, your heals will gain +10% power while you're buffed. I think this will make for a very competitive support path even given the AoE nature of PvE play.
Howdy!
The upcoming Shadowmantle module introduces new Paragon paths for all of the existing classes.
We expect a lot of great feedback so we're setting up these threads to keep it more specific.
We'll be stopping by these threads everyday so keep your feedback coming in!
Devoted Cleric - Anointed Champion
The Anointed Champion features a variety of buffs to increase the effectiveness of you and your allies, and features several powers that can save allies in over their heads.
Paragon paths contain 1 Atwill, 1 Encounter, 1 Daily, 3 Class Features, and 3 Feats.
Well here's my final feedback on this class prior to the patch:
I came back to see the state of the class with the new Paragon path coming out. Things that have changed are AS nerf. Hof nerf, incoming Foresight nerf - And still the Righteousness penalty . I may live with the former ones but not the latter, which is fundamentally against my idea of a healing class mechanic.
So if the patch does not do something about this Righteousness penalty - I'm gone.
(insert - can I have your stuff, insert reply - nope, get your own :-).
I realize that this penalty is unlikely to be fixed in this patch, but that doesn't change my belief that it is fundamentally wrong for a healer to be penalized for healing. I will always stand by that.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
0
adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I realize that this penalty is unlikely to be fixed in this patch, but that doesn't change my belief that it is fundamentally wrong for a healer to be penalized for healing. I will always stand by that.
Well, think of it as the cleric making a sacrifice for the well-being of others. The fact is that cleric AoE heals are so powerful that if it wasn't for this penalty most DCs would be at 100% HP in PvE most of the time...well, unless they are the last person standing in a group - when the rest of the party has wiped, a single DC does not have a high survival chance.
There are many things to complain regarding DCs - powers that should occasionally crit (but never do), AP that just doesn't work with most of our powers, armour sets that add AP and Life Steal instead of the stats that most DCs want, lack of any companions or artifacts that specifically help us - but the Righteousness penalty is reasonable for game balance purposes - the DCs would simply be too hard to kill, compared to other classes without it.
Hoping for improvements...
0
lazaroth666Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,332Arc User
edited December 2013
That's right, righteousness is reasonable (althought I think it should not work on feats like the 4th sharandar boon, I mean we should receive full heal 400hp and not 240) otherwise it would be harder to kill a DC.
I like the life steal and arpen works fine with it due to his sinergy meaning more dmg more healing from life steal but is it really appropriate for a DC? He is a "Devoted Cleric" not a "Dark Cleric" unless they release something like a dark path paragon for clerics based in DPS and somehow healings based in dps (he betrayed his gods, lost faith, w/e).
If the devs expect us to use life steal + arpen sets then the 4 pieces set bonus should be like some % of your damage or hp gained by life steal is distributed to your allies OR how the devs like to work based on stacks: each time you steal life from enemies, you build a stack of martyrdom, when it reachs 10/25/50 whatever, it is released as a big heal to your allies at certain range from you. In this way, I would be very glad to use a set with those stats because 1) there is a reason to grind for that set, 2) stats works very well, 3) ppl will not be just a healing bot using AS on floor and HW on whoever is not full heal, I will have to be very active in a fight in order to heal others 4) It is going to be fun that the harder I hit or the more I hit, I will heal more.
ARp is getting fixed for DC skills this patch. That suddenly makes ARp viable as a stat for them.
The Divine Oracle path is meant as a support/dps path. Divine Glow + Daunting light can 2 shot people who aren't prepared for it. Not all clerics have to only heal or only support. They can do DPS and are actually pretty decent about it. I know plenty of times that I was leveling where I'd run up on a group of minions, 1 spell, dead minions, didn't even slow down in my run.
While the new path looks interesting, it is more heavily focused on support. I'm keeping the old path and hoping that the next path released will be more DPS focused.
After all, I will give the new path a go with my healer.
In trash situations I'm inclined to ditch Astral Seal for Blessing of Battle. It has a nice range and uptime of 10 seconds so your main At-Will can still be Sacred Flame. Anointed Holy Symbol adds to the effectiveness of Deepstone Blessing and so does Anointed Army, which I probably won't use though. Depending on the party/situation you can switch between Healer's Lore and Anointed Armor (which will receive a buff sooner or later) for more healing or more tankiness. I'm starting to see some nice synergies.
Another thought that crossed my mind: A decent team of GF and DC probably could now accomplish what everyone has dreamed of: The GF standing in the middle of everything soaking up tons of damage. On top of an absurd DR, Tactitian-Swordmasters can go immune for quite some time.
Comments
Thank you for the recent improvement to its function. I feel that now it's at least a viable option and offers something a little different from Foresight. Foresight with its associated Feat and ability to be shared with healed targets is still quite powerful, but Anointed Armor has the advantage of not requiring an investment of Feat points to be fully effective. Besides, it's probably for the best that the old Path retain some of its advantages to help encourage diversity and to make Path choice feel like an actual choice.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
We need more precise tooltips to give feedback about damage reduction anyway, "does something" doesn't mean anything.
Yea i agree, also Anointed Armor its a permanent buff while foresight need to be activated by an healing spell. I think the power is balance with foresight now. Good job.
I most definitely agree that DCs don't need toning down in the present paths.
This is now worth taking (in PvP at least) due to the recent substantial increase. Thank you!
[EDIT]
This is also now worth taking in PvE as it helps survivability all round, not only in PvP.
[/EDIT]
Feedback: Power: Exaltation
While this power is *not bad* as it stands, perhaps giving it multiple charges similar to Holy Word could make it a very nice power to choose.
Also, in agreement with previous posters, it definitely needs some form of visual indicator travelling between caster and target.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?528721-DC-Dread-Legion-Equipment-Suggestion-to-Rework-Stats
I started a separate thread to raise awareness for the need to improve the new set so as to make it something we would actually want to play for. I encourage anyone who is interested in seeing changes made to contribute there as well. It'll be very disappointing if the Dread Legion set makes it to live the way it appears now on Preview.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
This power is EXTREMELY under-powered and is fully dissipated (from the caster - i.e. *me*) within 1-2 seconds of casting in Epic dungeon and pre-made PvP scenarios. This cannot replace a Moon-Touched Hallowed Ground (by a very long way) or even Divine Armor (which is poor in comparison to a Moon-Touched Hallowed Ground).
This power needs an extreme buff which increases time taken to dissipate each charge (substantially), or a complete re-think in the method of removal.
Exaltation is already fairly powerful, so is unlikely to get multiple charges or to affect the entire team at once. (Unfortunately, Exaltation is one of those abilities that is more powerful than it feels due to it's buffing nature.)
We're tweaking the FX a tad to make it a bit more clear who the target is. Currently a pillar of light is played on both you and the target, but said pillar of light is very difficult to see on them as it blends with your own. The current thought is that the light pillar will only play on the ally target and the FX on the caster will be updated slightly. This should help with the targeting confusion quite a bit.
(The Pillar would play on you if you have no other ally targeted. The Cleric would still always affected by this power even when using it on others.)
Hoping to avoid a projectile as the travel time would delay the power from affecting the target by that much. (Which makes it that much harder to save people with the Divine version.)
Understood. Thanks. I have the feeling it *will* be in my bar if only during PvP.
Good news, thanks. Perhaps a simple colour difference, or even colour hue may work?
Or a column moving up on the caster and column moving down on the target or maybe vice-versa may make more sense..
Yes, let's please avoid travel time
If any Anointed Champion power needs tweaking at this point, I'd consider giving Anointed Army a radius to match Divine Armor, at the very least. As it stands, it seems that Divine Armor is still always a good choice, while Anointed Army will be a bit situational with its small AoE and short-lived, easily removed buff.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Foresight is always up from heals and better for the group. The change to Anointed Arm is a great change but unless its a group buff its useless.
The new heal is a good idea too, but targeting is awful in dungeons so people use group/AE heals. Maybe make the heal group in divinity mode otherwise again its not going to be used.
I think the new path is good in theory but just wont work. The DC has to be group buffing and healing you cant target in that mess or while your running for your life.
This path may be great in PVP but you dont want a path for just pvp right?
To be fair, this Path has some good things going for it in PvE:
1. Blessing of Battle grants +6% DR to self and allies (easy to maintain the buff even if not spamming the At-Will). Foresight + Feat = 11%, which is of course superior, but requires more effort to maintain on the entire party since it drops off in a few seconds when not refreshed. Blessing has the advantage of being completely fire-and-forget, not being tied to the condition of you using direct healing encounters or Soothing Light or party members continuing to attack Astral Seal targets.
2. Exaltation is not only a Heal+10% DR buff+Damage Buff+Invulnerability+Regeneration for self and target, it also boosts healing output for the caster if the Prestigious Exaltation feat is taken. The healing is modest, and the invulnerability and regeneration effects are short-lived, but the other buffs last up to 10 seconds and don't even require use in Divine mode to activate. Not bad.
3. Anointed Holy Symbol provides group (temp) healing regardless of which encounters you're using while in Divine mode. It's a bit like Miracle Healer in that regard, but affects all nearby allies each time it activates. I think that's pretty significant.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
What I thought I was getting: Support oriented paragon
What I got: Cleric with worse support ability. Seriously, the lack of Foresight was worse than I thought it would be.
What I wished I got: More beams and lasers.
With Divine Oracle, we can take AS+BoH/HW+SB / healer's lore+Foresight to keep foresight's buff 100% of the time while generating a decent amount of divine power. We can always cast AS in divine mode and we have enough divine power for a last minute divine BoH or for a shooting light.
With Anointed Champion, if we're going full support with AS+Exaltation+BoH/HW, we have to leave Healer's lore in order to take Divine Fortune and we still don't generate enough divine power.
Feedback: divine power generation
With the path intended to be more support-ish, we can't build as support-ish DCs as with the path intended for dps
Keeping foresight up is not difficult, it is up during the normal course of playing (healing).
If they are not AE/group effects they will not be used (except maybe in pvp) Anyone who has tried single target healing in a pve environment knows Exaltation is going to be impractical. What would you replace to use this ability?
Holy symbol maybe you could do some kind of temp hp build.
The traditional build with a miracle healer set is still much better way to go.
I still feel that if they changed Exaltation and Armor to group buffs this would be a solid path.
What are you doing? Any time a reasonable skill is mentioned it seems a prompt for it to get "toned down" aka nerfed. It was bad enough when you messed up HoF and now this joins the growing list of misery?
Just stop with the Cleric dislike for heaven's sake. When the feedback on a new skill suggests it compares poorly with a previous one, it's NOT a cue to nerf the existing one to bring it down to match the other bad one.
Listen properly to the feedback, not as a reason for yet more Cleric dislike, but to improve the new lacklustre skills being proposed.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
This
BoB v Foresight just doesn't seem to stack up. So you've got to refresh Foresight - and? - players have been doing that for a long time. Exaltation - just a source of frustration in pve. You hit the target? - err no you didn't - he's in there somewhere and you thought you'd got him, but no. As stated by several others, for pve it's group heals/aoe while your dodging things, so justifying Exaltation here flies out of the window.
The problem you now have is if this is directly changed to a group skill - in pvp this would appear to be OP. Seems you've just created a skill for pvp and ignored the reality of pve group play here.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
That's good news. You could save travel time though by making it a beam, like CW's Ray of Enfeeblement. This way it would be instant and visible. The FX you describe could still be hard to see once lots of mobs are around you but maybe due to the FX around you or not it will be much clearer. Have to check this out to see myself.
Have you played this path on preview? It can keep your party alive quite well. The lack of Foresight is heavily compensated by the other defense boosting stuff you have or the temp hitpoints. Actually after I tried it on preview I am gonna choose the new path. It fits much better to a healing healer than the other path. And if you are unable to single target people when a lot of mess is going around you then you do something wrong.
I'm sorry, what? You acknowledge that it's a mess in the midst of the fight, then say you're doing it wrong if you cannot pick your target out in the middle of this mess?
Single target is at best a hit and hope, with yourself, other players, mobs, companions, adds, dodging aoe, constantly fluctuating.
That's why it is broadly acknowledged - apart from your own apparent 100% perfect targeting in this mess - that pve healing is aoe based. Sure pvp is different with the Exaltation skill looking ok for this, but to come out and say that people who cannot hit the right single target all the time (and that's what it's got to be to avoid wasting the skill on an incorrect one) in the middle of this mess are doing something wrong is just daft.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
As for the Anointed Champion's viability, though, I still think I will try it for both PvE and PvP. I expect that the constant temp HP healing (Anointed Holy Symbol is a very good class feature) and the buffs will compensate for lack of the admittedly powerful feated Foresight.
I did a little test the other week to compare.
Baseline Damage Resistance: 34.3%
+ Blessing of Battle = 40.3%
+ Exaltation = 44.25%
+ Blessing of Battle and Exaltation = 50.3%
+ Blessing of Battle, Exaltation, and Anointed Armor = 56.3%
So you can expect that the entire party will enjoy a 6% DR boost at all times from your At-Will (-5% from feated Foresight, which is up most of the time, but not literally 100% since it falls off in about 3 seconds if your target for some reason fails to continue attacking an Astral Sealed target or does not get a direct heal from you). You and your Exaltation target will enjoy an additional 10% damage resistance for about 10 seconds (not to mention 2 seconds of damage immunity if used in Divine mode), and you personally can leverage Anointed Armor for additional DR and deflection.
On top of all that, assuming that you've taken Prestigious Exaltation, your heals will gain +10% power while you're buffed. I think this will make for a very competitive support path even given the AoE nature of PvE play.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Well here's my final feedback on this class prior to the patch:
I came back to see the state of the class with the new Paragon path coming out. Things that have changed are AS nerf. Hof nerf, incoming Foresight nerf - And still the Righteousness penalty . I may live with the former ones but not the latter, which is fundamentally against my idea of a healing class mechanic.
So if the patch does not do something about this Righteousness penalty - I'm gone.
(insert - can I have your stuff, insert reply - nope, get your own :-).
I realize that this penalty is unlikely to be fixed in this patch, but that doesn't change my belief that it is fundamentally wrong for a healer to be penalized for healing. I will always stand by that.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
Well, think of it as the cleric making a sacrifice for the well-being of others. The fact is that cleric AoE heals are so powerful that if it wasn't for this penalty most DCs would be at 100% HP in PvE most of the time...well, unless they are the last person standing in a group - when the rest of the party has wiped, a single DC does not have a high survival chance.
There are many things to complain regarding DCs - powers that should occasionally crit (but never do), AP that just doesn't work with most of our powers, armour sets that add AP and Life Steal instead of the stats that most DCs want, lack of any companions or artifacts that specifically help us - but the Righteousness penalty is reasonable for game balance purposes - the DCs would simply be too hard to kill, compared to other classes without it.
I like the life steal and arpen works fine with it due to his sinergy meaning more dmg more healing from life steal but is it really appropriate for a DC? He is a "Devoted Cleric" not a "Dark Cleric" unless they release something like a dark path paragon for clerics based in DPS and somehow healings based in dps (he betrayed his gods, lost faith, w/e).
If the devs expect us to use life steal + arpen sets then the 4 pieces set bonus should be like some % of your damage or hp gained by life steal is distributed to your allies OR how the devs like to work based on stacks: each time you steal life from enemies, you build a stack of martyrdom, when it reachs 10/25/50 whatever, it is released as a big heal to your allies at certain range from you. In this way, I would be very glad to use a set with those stats because 1) there is a reason to grind for that set, 2) stats works very well, 3) ppl will not be just a healing bot using AS on floor and HW on whoever is not full heal, I will have to be very active in a fight in order to heal others 4) It is going to be fun that the harder I hit or the more I hit, I will heal more.
Hope they read this
The Divine Oracle path is meant as a support/dps path. Divine Glow + Daunting light can 2 shot people who aren't prepared for it. Not all clerics have to only heal or only support. They can do DPS and are actually pretty decent about it. I know plenty of times that I was leveling where I'd run up on a group of minions, 1 spell, dead minions, didn't even slow down in my run.
While the new path looks interesting, it is more heavily focused on support. I'm keeping the old path and hoping that the next path released will be more DPS focused.
In trash situations I'm inclined to ditch Astral Seal for Blessing of Battle. It has a nice range and uptime of 10 seconds so your main At-Will can still be Sacred Flame. Anointed Holy Symbol adds to the effectiveness of Deepstone Blessing and so does Anointed Army, which I probably won't use though. Depending on the party/situation you can switch between Healer's Lore and Anointed Armor (which will receive a buff sooner or later) for more healing or more tankiness. I'm starting to see some nice synergies.
Another thought that crossed my mind: A decent team of GF and DC probably could now accomplish what everyone has dreamed of: The GF standing in the middle of everything soaking up tons of damage. On top of an absurd DR, Tactitian-Swordmasters can go immune for quite some time.