Celestial Powerset - feedback

The test server is up with the new Celestial powerset, and so far, it looks amazing. Gonna take some time to get through all the new shiny powers.

Gotta say, I love the mechanic so far. It's a combo system, but not as involved as Hard Light, and the powers themselves look stunning.

First impressions - great job.

Visually, I think it looks amazing - especially when comboing from one tree to the other.

Getting the timing down took a bit to get used to (eventually I am sure it will just be second nature/muscle memory).

I really like the diversity with damage. Nice variety of DoTs and burst.

I agree it is a pretty fun power to use. It's going to be fun trying to figure out which combos are the best. The thing about it is you have to pick up both parallel powers to get the benefit so it gives players some variety (hopefully) on different builds.

A powerset that offers a crit chance buff, a might buff and a precision buff (for dps spoken) which allows a good variete of what kind of build you wanna go for. The DoTs will be a future issue as like Mental and Nature in raids, you dont wanna have a 2nd Celestial DPS with you and I dont know about the healer part yet since some offensive powers writing dots while delivering group heal. Not looked into it yet. I do like the variety and the interaction between both trees which limits you in your choices and forces you to make some decisions. The healer part is quite impressive so far and I just scratched the top of it. I do like both sides atm but I tend to say I will not switch my main atm, more-likely my healer alt, t5 raids solo-heal should be easy when you figured out the HoT and Burst to set on time.

Gotham Wastelands Raven Bounty is awesome too, the drop you can get, can be chosen by the player, so you will not get trash if you dont want, also it allows quick upgearing with a small organized group since the drops are 85 items.

Don't forget that it's a powerset that also offers a Resto buff for the caster and up to 3 other people. That's crazy.

First impressions:
was really surprised to see all of the SCs have a purpose. Might make deciding which to grab difficult for a change.

Also. liked that BOTH trees seem to have a decent number of heals (even if some are only unlocked by the combo system). Only tried the Blessed tree in action so far but was happy with the graphics, burst damage and heals of course. And love all the buffs and self+1 shield for most wounded teammate. Need to duo/alert to really test this out but got ALL day tomorrow for that. Sweet so far.

I really like the Celestial power so far, especially the colors the devs chose for villain players who use this powerset D ). However that's the one problem that I also have with it so far, is that the Cursed powers look more villainish and the Blessed abilities simply seem out of place being used by a supervillain.

There was so much information that I had to make a little chart as to what heals/combos make best sense as a healer. For the most part, starting with Blessed gets better heals, but starting with Cursed gets better damage. I was just trying things out before game crashed on me. I can use Blessing>Death Mark and get a shield plus HoT when the target dies. Or I can get better damage by doing the reverse combo.

I dunno.... have TONS of practicing to do. Need to get used to which powers have what combos. I ran Regal Hotel t3 solo to get the feel of things and was quite happy that I didn't have to switch to DPS to get decent damage out. The AoE's from Admonish>Blight and Death Mark>Blessing were quite impressive for my healer stance.

Here is my initial feedback: All 4 supercharges are garbo, Sacrifice is no where near the level of usefulness of a Regen, Invig, or Trans and a group 75% damage shield for 50% when Electric has a group shield that heals on hit and block ALL damage for the same price no way needs price reduced or changed to healing as well as the 75% shield. Life Idol dumb weak 25% damage super, Life Siphon. Meh heals not worth giving up the other amazing heals. Suggestion. Sacrifice needs to heal the caster and grant more power as well. Life Siphon bump it up to 50% and double the healing power. Life Idol, double the damage straight up.

Heals: I really like admonish to blight combo but I REALLY think the HoT from Blight should be group wide. Celestial is very limited in group healing and that one thing would make it even. Guardian's Light is awesome as is Divine Light. Really just want Blight to HoT the group instead of just you and 3 others.

DPS: Havent had too much time but from what I can tell all the powers are usefull but I'm really on the fence with Dark Pact. 20% damage for 30% more power seems too much. I would work much better as just a might booster or give some crit chance or something.

I actually liked Idol & thought it was so reliable and cheap that they might nerf it at some point. If you're good with your weapon combos, you can almost keep one up indefinitely.

The only problem with skills like Idol would be in raids that we move too quickly through. Being fixed in place sort of hurts when on the move. But in boss fights, I could see tossing one of those out there for an indefinite extra tick.

It ticks much better than totum for sure. Probably mid 100's for 2000 might, then the ticks gradually just mellow on out.

The only problem is, if u want to be viable in healing, u dont have enough PP to spec into it =/

However my healing impression:

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!11

I love to use Admonish and combo with it to get a crazy high HoT right after the Burst Heal. The single target instant heal is great and allows to add dmg on top of it but would refrain from using the cursed version since it reduces your chances to react proper cause of the slow chain. I really love the burst + HoT system. From the healer perspective this powerset is way above expectations.

An amazing supercharge, figuring out that 50% atm, the 35% was underwhelming compared to Idol.

The slow combo rotation in order to get the second part of the power is to slow and potentially will be a break for healing in raids or alerts. When using combos in Nexus with how the adds attack it works OK in the hallways but the combo aspect for boss fights end up loosing more and not getting heals out when they are needed to the group. I'm not saying the power is bad but the combos are to slow and sluggish to make for a viable heal. Not to mention the combos are easily broken.

Well, I only toyed around with it for and hour or 2 last night, and boy is it a beautiful powerset, both visually and aurally. Wow! I noticed that some of the combos have a really tight timing window compared to others. I've been leveling a HL villain toon to get acclimated to the comboing, and at this point I maybe miss about 10% of the time with it, and that's usually when I'm interrupted. I was working with Blessed to Cursed combos, and some were very easy and forgiving timing wise. Others were much more difficult to hit. I can see why even Spord was missing his combos quite a bit. I imagine some of the windows will need to be increased, but we'll see. Additionally, the effects of comboing are quite varied, both for healing and DPS. Learning the intricacies of the powerset will take time, for sure. Celestial seems like a high risk:reward powerset, which is very different from all the others, even HL. If you miss a combo in HL, you can easily jump into another, because all you're really losing is some free damage. As a Celestial healer, especially, the combos produce a lot of the necessary healing bonuses. If you miss them, you're healing will suffer. I imagine a lot of folks will try it out. Few will be able to master it. Most, I suspect, will either not use a lot of the combos (or not use them well), or will become frustrated and change powersets. I know I'll be spending a lot of time on the test server just to familiarize myself with the powerset before it goes live. Learning this on the fly is not recommended.

Learning this "on the fly" is definitely not recommended. I spent a few hours trying to figure out what powers did what, then some time learning the combos. I then went into Regal Hotel t3 solo so I could fight some easy adds and get a feel for things. After that, I got to muck my way around Gotham Wastelands, where a DPS grouped me and we did the duos together. I most certainly would not have been prepared had I not spent all of that time prepping.

It's obvious that there are solo, alert, and raid-level heals. This powerset also definitely plays to armories, as there really are just too many options and I'd seriously want to respec depending on the content I'd be running.

One of the things I found interesting were the two shield moves: Blessing into Death Mark and Death Mark into Blessing. They have different cool downs, but it allows a shield "alternation". The shield from Blessing interacts with the Regenerative Shielding mod, whereas the Corrupted form of Blessing, does not. The damage that the corrupted form does is nice though. Found it useful in the duos. Still trying to get a feel for the HoT's and haven't gone into Divine Light yet. Will do that today.

Yeah, the combo windows are a touch tricky. Some allow tapping almost immediate. Others, like Cleansed Death Mark, take just a moment before tapping melee is allowed.

The non-comboed powers are definitely clippable like the other healer sets. Same rules apply, cannot use a damage dealing heal to clip another power. I can clip the animation from Cleansed Blight with another heal. We're also going to have to get in the habit of comboing at the end of a clipping rotation. We may need to do a few things, but that power that is our last cast will need to be chained into it's combo. It changes how I activate my CC Trinket group shield. I usually activate trinket, then activate a second time so I can hold melee to get the group shield. I clip the animation with a heal just in case something bad happens to someoen. Now, I'll be clipping the animation and finishing the combo. I'm enjoying the challenge, indeed.

I was thinking this, as well. There are many different options for both healing and DPS, and they each seem better suited for certain situations. Armories cannot get here soon enough, LOL!

I suspect that comboing into a power keeps you from getting the benefits of HT mods and such. That would explain why the corrupted Blessing shield does not benefit from Regenerative Shielding. I wouldn't be surprised if similar restrictions are found for some of the other comboed powers.

Clipping will definitely be interesting. This powerset is not going to play like any other powerset we have. I sure hope no one tries to post a guide before launch, like some did with Quantum, because Celestial will take some time for even the most accomplished players to master. There will need to be some serious game time on live before a useful guide can be produced, IMO.

MY CONCERN is the stacking dots, with how many players that are going to be going celestial, it takes more coordination than even nature in order to run more then 1 celestial dps. This class is HEAVY into dots, nearly every power actually, and each one is not able to stack. Healing wise it seems solid, 2 rejouv type powers, ionoic drain, Sorcery type shield, and the weapon buff were my choices.

DPS this power can blow people away, especially in pvp. The dots are HUUUGE