Post by Shapey on Aug 19, 2023 21:31:09 GMT -5
Hey there Champions! I've come with a new archetype review, and today's subject is The Radiant! Radiant indeed, as this archetype evokes a celestial theme with its collection of... well, celestial powers! But is the Radiant as bright as it presents itself? Let's find out.
The Radiant comes as follows:
Super Stats
○ Presence (Primary, Level 6)
○ Ego (Level 10)
○ Intelligence (Level 15)
○ The Radiant Innate Trait (+10 Pre/Ego/Int, +8 Rec)
Powers
Energy Builder: Eldritch Bolts (Innate)
Power 2: Rebuke (Innate)
Power 3: Vengeance (Level 6)
Power 4: Seraphim (Level 8)
Power 5: Expulse (Level 11)
Power 6: Compassion (Level 14)
Power 7: Circle of Radiant Glory or Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary (Level 17)
Power 8: Eldritch Shield (Level 21)
Power 9: Arcane Vitality (Level 25)
Power 10: Binding of Araton or Soul Mesmerism (Level 30)
Power 11: Divine Renewal (Level 35)
Power 12: Planar Vortex (Level 40)
Specializations
○ Presence (Level 10)
○ Sentry (Level 20)
○ Sentinel (Level 30)
Radiant centers around a blend of Celestial and Sorcery powers, quite to its benefit as a healer as both powerframes provide a lot for healing. It doesn't have high offensive capabilities but some powers it has give a chance for ample debuffing opportunity.
Eldritch Bolts is your Energy Builder. Initial strike has a chance to root your target, and interestingly enough, has an advantage giving it a chance per bolt to stun your target. A more interesting effect for an EB, but otherwise your standard kind.
Rebuke is your Blast. It's one of the Celestial powers that're multi-purpose, as it has damaging properties when targeting foes and healing properties when targeting allies. While it does have a bit of a long charge, fully charging it will undoubtedly be your strongest single target heal and damage. It has a 100ft range for both purposes and deals Dimensional damage to foes. It also has one of the more unique advantages, Abmonish, which causes it to stun up to five targets within 10 feet of your primary target when fully charged, which works both when healing or damaging. However, given the next power, this is a bit unnecessary.
Vengeance is a charged AoE (8ft-15ft) power that deals Dimensional damage. It has an initially small range that gets wider the longer you charge it on top of increasing the damage of it. Whenever you fully charge this power, it grants you a stack of Unforgiving, which decreases the charge time and energy cost of Vengeance by 10% per stack, stacking up to 3 times. A spammable attack while your energy provides, but its hidden utility is in the Redemption Denied advantage, which causes Vengeance to Paralyze the primary target and Stun secondary targets when fully charged. This can be a great way to control a fight or apply debuffs, benefiting your team and yourself.
Seraphim is your Passive. It increases your Paranormal (Ego, Dimensional, and Magic) damage you deal, increases the healing you deal, increases your Dimensional damage resistance substantially and Paranormal damage resistance to a lesser degree, causes you to generate a small amount of energy when struck by Dimensional damage, and heals you and nearby allies by a small amount every 3 seconds.
Expulse is a charged PBAoE power. The power must be fully charged to have any affect. When fully charged, you generate a healing rune at your location and deal Dimensional damage to enemies within 15ft. The healing rune heals allies close to or within in every second and lasts for 10 seconds. This can be used both as self-preservation or if you need an additional HoT at your location, though take care that you use it when healing is not dire, given it has to fully charge to have any effect.
Compassion is your toggle form. Grants a stack of Compassion, increasing your healing done by a large amount and increasing your ranged and melee damage dealt by half that amount. You gain a stack of Compassion every time you directly heal yourself or an ally (with some exceptions on the direct part), stacking up to 8 times. Lasts 20 seconds, each new stack refreshes the duration and grants you energy, can only generate a stack every 4 seconds. The healing, damage, and energy granted scale with Presence or Recovery, whichever stat is higher.
Circle of Radiant Glory or Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary is your first choice. Circle of Radiant Glory is a Sorcery circle that, when fully charged, will spawn a circle at your location that revives you if you are defeated within it. In addition, re-casting this power will move the circle to your current location and heal up to 5 allies in both the old location and new location, with a short cooldown. If the circle revives you, it goes on a significantly long cooldown and cannot be used. Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary are Sorcery sigils that, when fully charged, will spawn 5 friendly immobile sigils around you. These sigils grant yourself and allies increased damage, hold, and knock resistance, as well as aggression stealth (the range at which enemies will attack you) and perception stealth (the range at which enemies can see you), and heal each target for a small amount every 2 seconds. This has a moderate cooldown, and sigils cannot be relocated once placed. The Mystic Transference advantage reduces the amount of sigils summoned, but also heavily reduces the cooldown. The choice here is between a self-revive capable of healing in multiple spots and sigils that slightly buff and heal allies. As sigils are prone to being destroyed by AoE, Circle tends to be the better choice between the two, as being able to revive yourself can be the difference in a dire situation.
Arcane Shield is your block upgrade. It increases the amount of damage mitigated by blocking with a significantly higher amount of non-physical damage mitigation than other block upgrades.
Arcane Vitality is an AoE (45 degree cone) heal. It heals up to 5 targets in its cone, with a slight penalty when healing more than 3 targets. You can target and heal yourself, but it will have no AoE. Simple but effective. It also has an advantage that frees allies from control effects at the end of its maintain, but typically rank 3 is the best idea for it.
Binding of Aratron or Soul Mesmerism is your second choice. Binding of Aratron is a single-target maintained incapacitate. This deals damage and incapacitates your target after 1 second, with the duration lasting longer the longer you maintain. Soul Mesmerism is a single target charged paralyze. Paralyzes the target once fully charged. As your previous powers cover in areas, the choice is entirely inconsequential, as I wouldn't recommend using either over your other powers. Soul Mesmerism at the very least has Glossolalia as an advantage, which can chain-paralyze.
Divine Renewal is your revive. As the name implies, it returns any defeated player back to life. Increasing ranks increases the amount of HP a player is revived with. This is unfortunately the worst revive, however, as the Radiant Renewal advantage is the only revive advantage that causes it to take longer to cast to make the revive AoE. I would recommend rank 3 over it, as any movement or damage will interrupt a revive cast.
Planar Fracture is an Ultimate damage-over-time power. When fully charged, it creates a rift at your target, dealing dimensional damage every second to up to 10 foes and applying Bane on the initial tick, with a 25% chance every subsequent tick to apply Bane again. Bane causes a random debuff to be applied to enemies. The rift lasts 16 seconds. With the Double Vortex advantage, this can be a great way to debuff enemies.
Radiant is kitted up pretty well with both healing and control, with enough damage to get by on its own. It is one of the best healing archetypes, if not the one, but what makes me give it such high praise? How would I build it?
Talents
○ +8 Presence
○ +8 Ego
○ +8 Intelligence
○ +8 Constitution
○ +5 Pre/Ego
○ +5 Pre/Int
Powers
○ Energy Builder: Eldritch Bolt
○ Power 2: Rebuke (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 3: Vengeance (Rank 2, Redemption Denied)
○ Power 4: Seraphim (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 5: Expulse (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 6: Compassion
○ Power 7: Circle of Radiant Glory (Rank 2)
○ Power 8: Eldritch Shield (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 9: Arcane Vitality (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 10: Soul Mesmerism (Glossolalia)
○ Power 11: Divine Renewal (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 12: Planar Fracture (Double Vortex)
Specializations
Presence
○ Repurpose (2/3)
○ Selfless Ally (2/2)
○ Dominion (2/2)
○ Force of Will (2/2)
○ Vulnerability (2/2)
Sentry
○ Fortified Gear (3/3)
○ Precise (3/3)
○ Stalling Tactics (2/3)
○ Sentry Aura (2/3)
Sentinel
○ Caregiver (3/3)
○ Sentinel Aura (3/3)
○ Wither (2/2)
○ Genesis (2/2)
Sentinel Mastery
Travel Powers
Any, just be sure to rank one up to 3. Wings tend to be popular for this AT.
Gear
Starting:
○ Bonus Healing Primary Offense with Presence mod(s) and a Sentinel's Brooch
○ Defense Rating Primary Defense with Presence mod(s) and a Growth Amulet
○ Max Energy Primary Utility with Presence mods and a Gambler's Lucky Gem
○ Transcidental Belt (+20 Pre/14% Bonus Heal), Diplomatic Bracers (+20 Ego/Int), Friendly Eyepiece (+20 Con/+338 HP)
Ending:
○ Distinguished or Justice Healing Offense with Presence mods and Sentinel Brooches
○ Distinguished Freedom or Justice Fitness Defense with Presence mods and Growth Amulets
○ Distinguished or Justice Efficiency Utility with Presence mods, a Sentinel's Brooch, and a Gambler's Lucky Gem
○ Onslaught Gloves of the Savior with a Presence mod or Cosmic Presence with a Healing Core
○ Onslaught Tights of Fitness with a Presence mod or Cosmic Talon of Rage with a Health Core
○ Onslaught Mask of Efficiency with a Presence mod or Cosmic Vision of Wrath with a Control Core
Gameplan
When in solo content, open encounters with Vengeance to paralyze your primary target and stun anything else before using Rebuke to burn down the primary target, or continuously use Vengeance to hit a whole group. Use Arcane Vitality as healing as needed. In group content, utilize Vengeance to control groups of mobs and apply Wither and Vulnerability, causing everything to be unable to act while also taking more damage. You can continue using it even after Hold Resist stacks are maxed to continue applying the debuffs. This also will apply Sentinel Mastery for light amounts of group healing. If your group is primarily melee, use Expulse around them for a heal-over-time and target an ally that will get Arcane Vitality's cone to cover everyone. Use Rebuke if an ally needs a strong heal, or they are further than Arcane Vitality can reach. Summon your Circle and continuously re-summon it as your party moves, or if you're standing with your allies and need an instant PBAoE heal. When healing is not needed, continue using Vengeance and Rebuke in tandem, throwing in Planar Rift to apply even more debuffs to foes. The more targets this reaches, the better, so try to summon it in a large pack.
Other notes
Though your Control strength is going to be rather high, it is important to remember that bosses cannot be CC'd. However, attempting to CC will still apply your 3 debuffs (Wither, Vulnerability, and Sentinel Mastery) so don't be afraid to use it regardless. Radiant very much does not need its secondary stats, so very little investment can be made into them, but a small amount will help with secondary-scaling specs, like Force of Will. As consequence of its secondaries, Radiant is rather fragile, and being in Support role means it has less base health, so Distinguished gear heavily makes up for this weakness. However, Justice gear can increase your healing a lot further than Distinguished can, but would leave you less safe. The same applies between Onslaught and Cosmic secondaries, Onslaught being safer but Cosmic having more potential. What you use in the end is up to you, but do make sure to get them in full sets. I would not recommend mixing sets!
Overall, I believe the Radiant is a great healer, and possibly the best in terms of power and spec allocations. It might struggle with its defenses to begin with, but if you have a good group to aid you or are smart about crowd control, this archetype can truly shine.
As before and always, thank you for reading.
The Radiant comes as follows:
Super Stats
○ Presence (Primary, Level 6)
○ Ego (Level 10)
○ Intelligence (Level 15)
○ The Radiant Innate Trait (+10 Pre/Ego/Int, +8 Rec)
Powers
Energy Builder: Eldritch Bolts (Innate)
Power 2: Rebuke (Innate)
Power 3: Vengeance (Level 6)
Power 4: Seraphim (Level 8)
Power 5: Expulse (Level 11)
Power 6: Compassion (Level 14)
Power 7: Circle of Radiant Glory or Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary (Level 17)
Power 8: Eldritch Shield (Level 21)
Power 9: Arcane Vitality (Level 25)
Power 10: Binding of Araton or Soul Mesmerism (Level 30)
Power 11: Divine Renewal (Level 35)
Power 12: Planar Vortex (Level 40)
Specializations
○ Presence (Level 10)
○ Sentry (Level 20)
○ Sentinel (Level 30)
Radiant centers around a blend of Celestial and Sorcery powers, quite to its benefit as a healer as both powerframes provide a lot for healing. It doesn't have high offensive capabilities but some powers it has give a chance for ample debuffing opportunity.
Eldritch Bolts is your Energy Builder. Initial strike has a chance to root your target, and interestingly enough, has an advantage giving it a chance per bolt to stun your target. A more interesting effect for an EB, but otherwise your standard kind.
Rebuke is your Blast. It's one of the Celestial powers that're multi-purpose, as it has damaging properties when targeting foes and healing properties when targeting allies. While it does have a bit of a long charge, fully charging it will undoubtedly be your strongest single target heal and damage. It has a 100ft range for both purposes and deals Dimensional damage to foes. It also has one of the more unique advantages, Abmonish, which causes it to stun up to five targets within 10 feet of your primary target when fully charged, which works both when healing or damaging. However, given the next power, this is a bit unnecessary.
Vengeance is a charged AoE (8ft-15ft) power that deals Dimensional damage. It has an initially small range that gets wider the longer you charge it on top of increasing the damage of it. Whenever you fully charge this power, it grants you a stack of Unforgiving, which decreases the charge time and energy cost of Vengeance by 10% per stack, stacking up to 3 times. A spammable attack while your energy provides, but its hidden utility is in the Redemption Denied advantage, which causes Vengeance to Paralyze the primary target and Stun secondary targets when fully charged. This can be a great way to control a fight or apply debuffs, benefiting your team and yourself.
Seraphim is your Passive. It increases your Paranormal (Ego, Dimensional, and Magic) damage you deal, increases the healing you deal, increases your Dimensional damage resistance substantially and Paranormal damage resistance to a lesser degree, causes you to generate a small amount of energy when struck by Dimensional damage, and heals you and nearby allies by a small amount every 3 seconds.
Expulse is a charged PBAoE power. The power must be fully charged to have any affect. When fully charged, you generate a healing rune at your location and deal Dimensional damage to enemies within 15ft. The healing rune heals allies close to or within in every second and lasts for 10 seconds. This can be used both as self-preservation or if you need an additional HoT at your location, though take care that you use it when healing is not dire, given it has to fully charge to have any effect.
Compassion is your toggle form. Grants a stack of Compassion, increasing your healing done by a large amount and increasing your ranged and melee damage dealt by half that amount. You gain a stack of Compassion every time you directly heal yourself or an ally (with some exceptions on the direct part), stacking up to 8 times. Lasts 20 seconds, each new stack refreshes the duration and grants you energy, can only generate a stack every 4 seconds. The healing, damage, and energy granted scale with Presence or Recovery, whichever stat is higher.
Circle of Radiant Glory or Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary is your first choice. Circle of Radiant Glory is a Sorcery circle that, when fully charged, will spawn a circle at your location that revives you if you are defeated within it. In addition, re-casting this power will move the circle to your current location and heal up to 5 allies in both the old location and new location, with a short cooldown. If the circle revives you, it goes on a significantly long cooldown and cannot be used. Sigils of Radiant Sanctuary are Sorcery sigils that, when fully charged, will spawn 5 friendly immobile sigils around you. These sigils grant yourself and allies increased damage, hold, and knock resistance, as well as aggression stealth (the range at which enemies will attack you) and perception stealth (the range at which enemies can see you), and heal each target for a small amount every 2 seconds. This has a moderate cooldown, and sigils cannot be relocated once placed. The Mystic Transference advantage reduces the amount of sigils summoned, but also heavily reduces the cooldown. The choice here is between a self-revive capable of healing in multiple spots and sigils that slightly buff and heal allies. As sigils are prone to being destroyed by AoE, Circle tends to be the better choice between the two, as being able to revive yourself can be the difference in a dire situation.
Arcane Shield is your block upgrade. It increases the amount of damage mitigated by blocking with a significantly higher amount of non-physical damage mitigation than other block upgrades.
Arcane Vitality is an AoE (45 degree cone) heal. It heals up to 5 targets in its cone, with a slight penalty when healing more than 3 targets. You can target and heal yourself, but it will have no AoE. Simple but effective. It also has an advantage that frees allies from control effects at the end of its maintain, but typically rank 3 is the best idea for it.
Binding of Aratron or Soul Mesmerism is your second choice. Binding of Aratron is a single-target maintained incapacitate. This deals damage and incapacitates your target after 1 second, with the duration lasting longer the longer you maintain. Soul Mesmerism is a single target charged paralyze. Paralyzes the target once fully charged. As your previous powers cover in areas, the choice is entirely inconsequential, as I wouldn't recommend using either over your other powers. Soul Mesmerism at the very least has Glossolalia as an advantage, which can chain-paralyze.
Divine Renewal is your revive. As the name implies, it returns any defeated player back to life. Increasing ranks increases the amount of HP a player is revived with. This is unfortunately the worst revive, however, as the Radiant Renewal advantage is the only revive advantage that causes it to take longer to cast to make the revive AoE. I would recommend rank 3 over it, as any movement or damage will interrupt a revive cast.
Planar Fracture is an Ultimate damage-over-time power. When fully charged, it creates a rift at your target, dealing dimensional damage every second to up to 10 foes and applying Bane on the initial tick, with a 25% chance every subsequent tick to apply Bane again. Bane causes a random debuff to be applied to enemies. The rift lasts 16 seconds. With the Double Vortex advantage, this can be a great way to debuff enemies.
Radiant is kitted up pretty well with both healing and control, with enough damage to get by on its own. It is one of the best healing archetypes, if not the one, but what makes me give it such high praise? How would I build it?
Talents
○ +8 Presence
○ +8 Ego
○ +8 Intelligence
○ +8 Constitution
○ +5 Pre/Ego
○ +5 Pre/Int
Powers
○ Energy Builder: Eldritch Bolt
○ Power 2: Rebuke (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 3: Vengeance (Rank 2, Redemption Denied)
○ Power 4: Seraphim (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 5: Expulse (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 6: Compassion
○ Power 7: Circle of Radiant Glory (Rank 2)
○ Power 8: Eldritch Shield (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 9: Arcane Vitality (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 10: Soul Mesmerism (Glossolalia)
○ Power 11: Divine Renewal (Rank 2, Rank 3)
○ Power 12: Planar Fracture (Double Vortex)
Specializations
Presence
○ Repurpose (2/3)
○ Selfless Ally (2/2)
○ Dominion (2/2)
○ Force of Will (2/2)
○ Vulnerability (2/2)
Sentry
○ Fortified Gear (3/3)
○ Precise (3/3)
○ Stalling Tactics (2/3)
○ Sentry Aura (2/3)
Sentinel
○ Caregiver (3/3)
○ Sentinel Aura (3/3)
○ Wither (2/2)
○ Genesis (2/2)
Sentinel Mastery
Travel Powers
Any, just be sure to rank one up to 3. Wings tend to be popular for this AT.
Gear
Starting:
○ Bonus Healing Primary Offense with Presence mod(s) and a Sentinel's Brooch
○ Defense Rating Primary Defense with Presence mod(s) and a Growth Amulet
○ Max Energy Primary Utility with Presence mods and a Gambler's Lucky Gem
○ Transcidental Belt (+20 Pre/14% Bonus Heal), Diplomatic Bracers (+20 Ego/Int), Friendly Eyepiece (+20 Con/+338 HP)
Ending:
○ Distinguished or Justice Healing Offense with Presence mods and Sentinel Brooches
○ Distinguished Freedom or Justice Fitness Defense with Presence mods and Growth Amulets
○ Distinguished or Justice Efficiency Utility with Presence mods, a Sentinel's Brooch, and a Gambler's Lucky Gem
○ Onslaught Gloves of the Savior with a Presence mod or Cosmic Presence with a Healing Core
○ Onslaught Tights of Fitness with a Presence mod or Cosmic Talon of Rage with a Health Core
○ Onslaught Mask of Efficiency with a Presence mod or Cosmic Vision of Wrath with a Control Core
Gameplan
When in solo content, open encounters with Vengeance to paralyze your primary target and stun anything else before using Rebuke to burn down the primary target, or continuously use Vengeance to hit a whole group. Use Arcane Vitality as healing as needed. In group content, utilize Vengeance to control groups of mobs and apply Wither and Vulnerability, causing everything to be unable to act while also taking more damage. You can continue using it even after Hold Resist stacks are maxed to continue applying the debuffs. This also will apply Sentinel Mastery for light amounts of group healing. If your group is primarily melee, use Expulse around them for a heal-over-time and target an ally that will get Arcane Vitality's cone to cover everyone. Use Rebuke if an ally needs a strong heal, or they are further than Arcane Vitality can reach. Summon your Circle and continuously re-summon it as your party moves, or if you're standing with your allies and need an instant PBAoE heal. When healing is not needed, continue using Vengeance and Rebuke in tandem, throwing in Planar Rift to apply even more debuffs to foes. The more targets this reaches, the better, so try to summon it in a large pack.
Other notes
Though your Control strength is going to be rather high, it is important to remember that bosses cannot be CC'd. However, attempting to CC will still apply your 3 debuffs (Wither, Vulnerability, and Sentinel Mastery) so don't be afraid to use it regardless. Radiant very much does not need its secondary stats, so very little investment can be made into them, but a small amount will help with secondary-scaling specs, like Force of Will. As consequence of its secondaries, Radiant is rather fragile, and being in Support role means it has less base health, so Distinguished gear heavily makes up for this weakness. However, Justice gear can increase your healing a lot further than Distinguished can, but would leave you less safe. The same applies between Onslaught and Cosmic secondaries, Onslaught being safer but Cosmic having more potential. What you use in the end is up to you, but do make sure to get them in full sets. I would not recommend mixing sets!
Overall, I believe the Radiant is a great healer, and possibly the best in terms of power and spec allocations. It might struggle with its defenses to begin with, but if you have a good group to aid you or are smart about crowd control, this archetype can truly shine.
As before and always, thank you for reading.