Starting on the 30th, want to play a full healer DC. Any help appreciated!

teflondon75

I don't see a lot of build discussion going on and I'm sure that is partly due to the class forums being taken down(?) I've not played NW at all yet so sorry if I'm asking some silly business :P I'd like to build a purely defensive/healing DC. I Have seen people asking about offensive/DPS cleric builds so I'm assuming there is right/wrong way to build the different flavors of cleric. After looking at the NW power calculator etc I've decided that while interesting to look at I'll not really know what to take first, how many points etc until I test them and seeing as respec's cost RL money I'm hoping some kind soul that has played DC can give me some advice on what is working for them. That's really it :P anybody that can give some suggestions it would be fantastically appreciated!

PS: I watched some streams/youtube vids of DC's doing some of the instances and it looked like they were just absolutely struggling to keep people alive/themselves alive etc. Does one have a lot of hair pulling to look forward to or is it not nearly so bad as it looked haha.

unexistant

From what I've played of the Cleric, they feel more like offensive supports rather than defensive ones. What I mean by that is they do alright damage while pumping out some heals on the side. My assumption is that Cryptic is trying to push people into buying Potions as well as attempting to avoid enemy damage with their dash/evasion skills.

teflondon75

Unexistant, yeah from what I've seen the combat is a lot more like Tera's(only example of an mmo I've played sorta-ish like this combat wise) than other traditional mmo's in that everybody has to be ultra aware of their surroundings and the healer is not about just straight outhealing everything. I very much approve!

acylion

Okay, a few quick thoughts. Just a disclaimer, I haven't actually played much Devoted Cleric; what I'm saying is mostly impressions from a) watching others in my party, and b) talking to those players about how they find the class.

All classes in Neverwinter have a class ability bound to the 'tab' key, which is basically 'press me to become awesome'. For Trickster Rogue, tab triggers stealth - you get an idea what we're talking here. For the Cleric, tab triggers Divine Power. Divine Power boosts the effects of your abilities, or makes them do something else entirely.

How do you build up Divine Power? You gain Divine Power by doing damage.

So you have to attack. That's the first thing.

The second thing is, there's no tab targeting and target locks in this game. This means you actually have to watch the battlefield and pay attention to where your allies are, so you can target them with a reticle...or make sure you catch them in the AoE radius of your heal effect. You can't just blindly heal them from the user interface. As a healer in some games, I spend more time watching the UI than I do watching the actual action. That doesn't work in Neverwinter. You'll fail that way.

Finally, the Divine Cleric's powers really are a hybrid of damage, control, and healing effects. Sometimes your heals/buffs will do double duty as damage and control as well.

So it depends on what you mean by 'full healer'. In my mind, a pure healer build is one who really doesn't care about attacking at all, maybe would do basically negligible damage if they were to attack. You can't do that in Neverwinter. But you can of course build a character whose emphasis is on healing - within the playstyle that the game needs.

EDIT: As an addendum - it's also worth noting that this isn't a game where tanks can glue all mobs to them like a human sticky ball. As a cleric, you'll get a ton of aggro. I usually play healers and support in MMOs, but I'm running Trickster Rogue main for Neverwinter.

As a consequence though, I make it a point to bodyguard clerics - I'll switch away from the boss and start burning down adds that have aggro'd on the cleric, if I see it happening and the tank isn't dealing with it (or can't). The thing is, not every player is going to do that. So as a cleric, you'll probably need to be able to take care of yourself if need be.

difinitus

acylion wrote: »

How do you build up Divine Power? You gain Divine Power by doing damage.

So you have to attack. That's the first thing.

There is a passive in the 20s that allows your non-damaging abilities to generate Divine Power.

The second thing is, there's no tab targeting and target locks in this game. This means you actually have to watch the battlefield and pay attention to where your allies are, so you can target them with a reticle...or make sure you catch them in the AoE radius of your heal effect. You can't just blindly heal them from the user interface. As a healer in some games, I spend more time watching the UI than I do watching the actual action. That doesn't work in Neverwinter. You'll fail that way.

Single-target healing is almost non-existent within NW. It is very hard to land your single target heal (Healing Word) with a large boss and minions everywhere.

So it depends on what you mean by 'full healer'. In my mind, a pure healer build is one who really doesn't care about attacking at all, maybe would do basically negligible damage if they were to attack. You can't do that in Neverwinter. But you can of course build a character whose emphasis is on healing - within the playstyle that the game needs.

Currently as it stands, there is only one Paragon path to choose from which is a Hybrid path. Give it time for Cryptic to release other paths and assuming one dedicated to pure healing.

As a consequence though, I make it a point to bodyguard clerics - I'll switch away from the boss and start burning down adds that have aggro'd on the cleric, if I see it happening and the tank isn't dealing with it (or can't). The thing is, not every player is going to do that. So as a cleric, you'll probably need to be able to take care of yourself if need be.

Thanks for knowing how to play your role in a dungeon, I wish others knew this.

kilo418

Just be ready to catch a lot of hate from pugs who don't understatd you aren't there to heal through heavy damage. The DC doesn't drop heavy nuke heal, you supplement health regeneration and potions are still the main from of healing during long encounters with heavy damage (Have fun with the mad dragon, every wipe was my fault for not healing all the damage from the adds that the group was ignoring)