A new dev diary giving us a inside look at what went into the development of the upcoming Celestial powerset set to be released with the game's first major update, Blood Moon, later this month has been published on the game's official website. Champions Online designer and creator of the Celestial powerset, Vurt, explains what the set is all about and how its "dual purpose" functionality works.

Vurt describes  the Celestial as being intended to fill the gap of a fully dedicated healer/supporter framework, which the game currently lacks. Designing the set did present some challenges, however. For one, when designing healing powers in a system that allows for powers to be cherry picked it presents a challenge in terms of making the powers individually useful and also providing an incentive for players to specialize in the set. They also want the set to be viable in group and solo play.

Making almost all the powers dual purpose was one way that they tackled the aforementioned issues. Many of the Celestial powers function in both healing allies and attacking enemies. This should allow for the powers to be viable in group and solo play and also make the powers individually interesting.

As for those who dedicate themselves to the Celestial set and specialize, they will be rewarded with "combinatorial potency", which basically means that most of the set's abilities essentially are much more potent when, well, combined! An example is given with the reveal of two new powers, Conviction, which increases an ally's maximum health for a short time, and Iniquity which heals a target. Vurt describes this example as a combination of abilities that allows players to restore a significant amount of health to their allies.

The full dev diary can be viewed here.