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Has anyone else run into this new power from Divine Power, Spirit of Healing, in their games?
It seems to be too good. In the encounter we used it in, we effectively were able to recover hit points (without spending surges) with ridiculous ease.
Here's the text:
Utility level 6
Daily Conjuration, Divine , Healing
Minor Action Ranged 10
Effect: You conjure a spirit of healing in 1 square within
range. T h e spirit lasts until t he e n d of your next turn.
W h e n an ally in the spirit's square or adjacent to it hits
an enemy, that ally regains hit points equal to t w i c e your
W i s d om modifier. As a move action, you can move the
spirit 4 squares.
Sustain Minor: The spirit persists.
So everyone can technically get 8 healing every time they hit an enemy.
I still have to try it out with my Elven Cleric, but let's just say reading that power made me very happy to just have reached level 6.
Also, keep in mind the power has the Healing keyword, so it adds the cleric's wisdom mod to the healing done (because of Healer's Lore). That is, a cleric with a +4 wisdom modifier would heal someone 12 HP every time they hit a target. If you have someone with multiple attacks, it just gets crazier.
Last edited by Lord Ernie; 29th July 2009 at 09:51 AM..
The points you raised weren't unknown to us, I just wanted to spare you the details of our particular cleric's setup but yeah, our experience has been that this power pretty much trivialized the combat, with everyone ending with full hit points and no lost surges. That screams broken.
If the enemies sucessfully identify the spirit, they could try to outmaneuver characters it. Retreat to an area with narrow paths and lots of cover. Forced movement and immobilizing powers might also work. Then there's Dispel Magic.
There might be encounters were no such option is viable, but there should be some difficult encounters at least.
My Elven Cleric has learned it recently (or rather, swapped another power for it; we are 12th level right now) but so far I havn't found a situation where it made sense to use it. Surely, there will be some in future.
It's just a daily power, after all, so one encounter gets easier, but not all.
At most it allows you to enter one more encounter before retiring to rest up.
Also don't forget, that it limits the cleric, since the power must be sustained. If the opposition has such means, have them stun the cleric and the spirit fades away (of course, they need some power to be able to stun the cleric to do that, only few monsters have that).
That hardly seems broken to me.
Now Life Transference as written (i.e. if usable on yourself), THAT's broken (but the intent should be clear, that it cannot be used on yourself, and it should only be used that way).
Bye
Thanee
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I don't know if the power seems broken...but it feels like it is being given out at too early a level. This power feels more paragon tier to me. I can definitely see it making one combat per day trivial for several levels at least. That fact makes the utility overpowered at level 6. I'd rather have seen it around say level 16.
I don't think it sounds too bad. It eats a standard action to conjure it, and requires sustaining.
Its level is fairly low, but all things considered, it's fairly situational. You have to be both adjacent to the spirit, and able to hit the enemy. So it doesn't help unconscious creatures whatsoever.
Well, I don't think that it looks too bad all things considered. Against a solo, where it's going to be the most useful, it's mostly just stopgap. Against huge swarms of enemies positioning is key with the thing, as is maintaining it. Just saying that to me, it doesn't really sound so bad.
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I don't think it sounds too bad. It eats a standard action to conjure it, and requires sustaining.
Actually, conjuring is a minor action, which sweetens the deal considerably.
I'm not saying it's overpowered in any kind of way, since I haven't seen it in action. Just that it seems to turn everyone near to the spirit into a quasi-Battlerager.
So with teh healer' lore note, that thing heals 12 damage every time you kill something?
That's pretty strong, can't say its broken out right, but its certain seems better than cure moderate wounds
I will say healing is a funny thing in 4e. Because defense stays comparative with offense (in 3e offense scaled much faster), healing can become a true weapon. I'm seeing more and more builds that create nigh invulnerable parties.
So with teh healer' lore note, that thing heals 12 damage every time you kill something?
Actually, it's every time anyone near the spirit hits something - more Battlerager than Warlock style.
Quote:
I will say healing is a funny thing in 4e. Because defense stays comparative with offense (in 3e offense scaled much faster), healing can become a true weapon. I'm seeing more and more builds that create nigh invulnerable parties.
Yeah, I was thinking something similar. In fact, with all the extra cleric powers granting healing, I'm again looking to set my cleric up as a hybrid cleric|invoker (and he's the only leader in the party), simply cause there are tons of powers to replace that loss of a single Healing Word.
I think it was an illthought out power. With the abundance of items/feats that boost healing, and the cleric's healing lore class feature, it would have been much more reasonable as healing just wis instead of 2xwis. Or even only healing 1.
Healing 1 per hit could still wind up around 10 at 8th level fairly reasonably (1 + wis + healer's brooch + healer's implement feat) which is a fairly significant amount.
Limiting it to once per player to round would be better as well... 'if a player standing adjacent to the spirit hits with a power during their turn' as opposed to 'when an ally ... hits an enemy'. As written a sorcerer/wizard/whatever can let loose an AE and trigger the heal multiple times per round. Even melee get plenty of multiattack powers.
I think it was an illthought out power. With the abundance of items/feats that boost healing, and the cleric's healing lore class feature, it would have been much more reasonable as healing just wis instead of 2xwis. Or even only healing 1.
I'm beginning to wonder about healers lore. You simply can't make a cleric power that reads well but heals small amounts (i.e. healing 1 damage reads really badly), this is also part of the problem with sacred ground. Really I think if healing lore only worked on powers that required surges spent everything would be fine.
Healer's Mercy also looks suspect to me, that's a LOT of healing. And any cleric with at least 1 good encounter non-damage power can generally get it without any real cost... and they have an entire build of such powers as encounter/dailies in DP. Never mind a number of good utilities and an excellent at will...
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Spirit of Healing certainly sounds broken to me, in the sense of being much more powerful than normal powers of that level. One little utility power that can give a lot, lot, lot of healing without surges. Far more than cure serious wounds. Your party is going to be substantially more powerful in one fight every day.
And am I reading it correctly, that someone with a good area power can potentially heal himself 48 hit points if he hits 4 targets with one attack?
I'd have to agree with Destil that Healer's Mercy looks pretty good if you compare it to the formidable but highly specialized Turn Undead power.
I'm still not sure that it's as broken as some people suggest. Yes, it can be a lot of healing that doesn't use surges, but it is a daily power so it's only going to come into play for one encounter per day. It also seems to me that a lot of it's potential usefulness is dependent on where it is placed/moved and how your allies are positioned.
I'll guess I'll form a better opinion of it once I see it in play.
If that one encounter is the big bad ending of the campaign, it can turn cinematic into mundane.
The best way for the enemy to end this effect is to kill the cleric. I say every time a cleric casts this spell, he is focus fired until dead. That aught to tip the scales back, eh?
Meh, it's a daily. It's not coming out all the time and if it does, you amp up the difficulty to smish them. Clerics are supposed to be the kings of healing, that's their job. There's no such thing as a 'cleric ability that heals a small amount'.
Well in our game it is just plain stupid - one encounter a day we basically walk out with full hit points at no healing surge cost. Its overpowered. It should be more limited. Right now its sort of brain dead to choose this power at the appropriate level and that's not how powers should be.
We'll be nerfing it or banning it. Like so that it triggers once a round only...
Have you tried moving the enemies away from it? Forcing the party to spread out? It's not exactly a subtle effect, and requires some modicum of cooperation and/or terrain advantage to truly abuse.
AoEs/auras that cause ongoing damage are a good counter as well. Healing 10 per turn isn't so bad when you're being hit with an AoE or an Aura that damages the entire party just for being beside the spirit. The party'd end up taking less damage by spreading out, defeating the brokenness of this ability.
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