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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5148885" data-attributes="member: 82106">Not only that, but all of these analysis ignore the second-order effect of healing. That is that the character receiving the healing STAYS UP and can continue to do damage. Yes, Astral Seal MAY do less damage in the more direct sense that Keterys is talking about than say Sacred Brand but because the fight goes longer the damage dealers get to drop in more damage in those extra rounds, which means in the long run a party deploying Astral Seal will virtually always end up with more hit points and surges left at the end of the fight than a party which deploys Sacred Brand etc. Now, couple that with Keterys' point above that Astral Seal actually in a lot of cases does as much damage as Sacred Brand and you will begin to see the issue with this power. The effect may decrease somewhat at very high levels, but it is still there. What ends up happening is that the less challenging encounters go from being attrition where they at least chip away at the party's surges to being basically futile exercises if you have a decent healing build cleric that is smart enough to just stick with Astral Seal in these encounters. Another factor is the asymmetric nature of the damage done to a party. if most of it tends to come down on the defender and certain melee strikers then it may pass the rate at which Astral Seal can restore it. If the monsters instead start trying to ALSO deal damage to the leader, that just spreads things out and actually makes Astral Seal MORE effective. This is a lot more typical tactical situation than the one where the monsters are simply free to decide to pile all their damage on any one specific party member.Plus in the final analysis Astral Seal is only one at-will power. In those tactical situations where it is NOT worth using you simply ignore it and its no big deal. The overall effect is the power adds quite a bit to total party resiliency over an adventuring day. I'm not really a big fan. Recovery Strike is a bit tamer and overall probably is a wash, but Astral Seal used at maximum effectiveness is a problem.</blockquote>

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