Yes I suspect I am just very bad at it. I find a rogue much easier to solo. Would love any gameplay tips. I just keep dying and it's not very fun.
Play your cleric like your rogue.
When I level'd my cleric my Encounters were all DPS focused. Chains, Daunting, Sunburst ... Dailys Flamestrike + hammer (when i got it) I popped pots to self heal. The 40% self-heal debuff makes self healing kinda worthless when leveling. IMO your better off ganking the mobs asap rather than trying to outlast them.
Most pulls went - Chains, Divinity, Daunting ... oops all the minions / trash were dead leaving me maby 1 or 2 strong foes to mop up. If your trying to self heal while questing your in for a painful time. Once you get AS there are some bosses in the quest dungeons its handy to drop that on, pre-AS I never had a heal on my bar ever for leveling.
When I level'd my cleric my Encounters were all DPS focused. Chains, Daunting, Sunburst ... Dailys Flamestrike + hammer (when i got it) I popped pots to self heal. The 40% self-heal debuff makes self healing kinda worthless when leveling. IMO your better off ganking the mobs asap rather than trying to outlast them.
Most pulls went - Chains, Divinity, Daunting ... oops all the minions / trash were dead leaving me maby 1 or 2 strong foes to mop up. If your trying to self heal while questing your in for a painful time. Once you get AS there are some bosses in the quest dungeons its handy to drop that on, pre-AS I never had a heal on my bar ever for leveling.
The biggest problem with going DPS on a cleric is having to put up with the whiners in pvp! They just don't get it! Your role is suppose to be to "babysit"/heal me they cry! Oh nos another dps cleric eww!
You see, they just don't get it, NO ONE'S GOT OUR BACK! Until you make a cleric and actually GRIND it, then they simply just don't get it in my opinion.
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ausdoerrtMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
TBH, nothing stops you from having a DPS build with a branching hybrid into heals/support. There's enough power points to afford getting most of the basic support/heal skills, and anything that affects damage usually also affects heals.
People unhappy at lack of clerics in queued PUGs might want to take the time and trouble to OCCASIONALLY ATTACK THE GODDAMNED ADDS during boss fights. It's the difference between victory and a wipe around 30% when your cleric finally gets overwhelmed.
Too much of that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> makes clerics not want to play, and 90% of people do it unless you yell at them to actually pay attention and make at least a shred of effort. That is all.
The best part is that most players have such complete tunnel vision, so busy beating on the boss, that they don't even notice when the cleric is down and calling for help. They only notice that something is wrong when suddenly their HP drops like a stone and they die, too. OMG where's your blue circle? Could the fact that the cleric died recently be in any way connected?
Edit:
I actually had a PUG yesterday where someone said "Cleric stays on the boss, everyone else on adds, always". I nearly died of shock. The group's mediocre DPS was no longer a bar to killing the boss, and we went from wiping repeatedly to facerolling, as I didn't have every mob that had ever spawned during the fight on me and pots constantly on cooldown. I only had to Benny Hill a bit, mostly to avoid the red stuff, and knock away any overwhelmingly annoying clumps of monsters.
It was.. actually fun. Everyone got to kill stuff and stay alive. It made me want to play a little more. There's a moral there- if you are just lazy and expect the cleric to do all the work for the whole group while you blindly numberfarm the boss, it's never going to be a good time.
I actually had a PUG yesterday where someone said "Cleric stays on the boss, everyone else on adds, always". I nearly died of shock. The group's mediocre DPS was no longer a bar to killing the boss, and we went from wiping repeatedly to facerolling, as I didn't have every mob that had ever spawned during the fight on me and pots constantly on cooldown. I only had to Benny Hill a bit, mostly to avoid the red stuff, and knock away any overwhelmingly annoying clumps of monsters.
Hmmmm - gonna have to try on a guild run sometime, or even a PUG if I can get into one where people actually communicate and do more than run ahead of me and die
I read first few pages and i wonder where are those pro DCs coming from. What they say about DC being boring/repetitive makes me feel grossly inadequate. I have a hard time on my DC doing T2s. In T1 i can face tank about anything, which makes it easier for me to do my job as a healer. T2 do not work that way, i cant kite half a room worth off adds efficiently and thats what i need to do a lot of times. People asking for AS to be nerfed are rolling with a perfect team all the time. I do not and I do not want my main AoE heal nerfed in to the ground.
That said, i think the reason behind lack of healers is that too much responsibility being placed on a single player. You can get away with a crappy DPS or even a tank as it stands right now but a crappy DC is a death sentence for the team. A DC that cant off tank/ kite well and in between DPS will never keep the team alive. I personally do not like to feel after every dungeon wipe like its my fault for not stepping up the game and be able to handle adds well, not able to learn to DPS while i kite and in general pulling the team down.
On side note it would make my life easier if DCs had abilities that could be cast while running and that build divine power. A shield would make my life easier too but that would make us grossly OP.
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ausdoerrtMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
^AS doesn't really need to be nerfed hard (or at all), but the stacking needs to go.
Its almost like most people dont want to deal with the pressure of being absolutely necessary to a team and being the first person to get screamed at if things go bad.
LOL I thought that was tanks in traditional MMORPGS... Neverwinter compounded the problem by making clerics both healers and tanks at the same time!
i remember me at the low levels, i got so much tells like this.
"Oh no clerics, sry." followed by an instant kick
or
" We wipe off the cleric, because its always the healers fault. "
and now at the high levels, there is a lack of clerics. mmmh i can see why there are so less clerics^^.
neah .... just joking xD
its in every mmo a lack of healers and tanks (normaly more lack of tanks then healers but in this game we can run dungeon with 2 lol stacking astral shield clerics xD ).
I play in every mmo as a healer and i got mostly instant invites. I want to play more damage dealer but if i think how long the invite times are, then i go to my healer back.
sry for my bad english, but is not my mother language :P
Hmmmm - gonna have to try on a guild run sometime, or even a PUG if I can get into one where people actually communicate and do more than run ahead of me and die
I shall cross my virtual fingers for you. Moments like that are like the light at the end of the tunnel not always proving to be an oncoming train
I personally do not like to feel after every dungeon wipe like its my fault for not stepping up the game and be able to handle adds well, not able to learn to DPS while i kite and in general pulling the team down.
Hah, I have news for you.. having healed in a ton of MMOs (it's what I prefer to do, and I am usually pretty good at it), I have always felt like it's my fault when we wipe- even in games where the basic mechanics are working properly. It doesn't matter if it was a 40 man progression raid wiping to the the final boss- if we died, I always felt like Boxer the carthorse, "I will work harder!". Sometimes you just can't escape that feeling, if you're as neurotic and nerdy about it as I fear I might be.
I would LOVE to heal in the dungeons and be the pillar of the group. But as it is now, with the Devs refusing
to FIX THE CLERIC AGRO, i have stopped going into dungeons because i am sick and tired of pulling agro
of the entire room with my first heal, and then having to run around in circles and spamming health-pots
because healing myself is penalized with 40%...
If you want Clerics to dungeons, then send your complaints towards the Devs that refuses to fix us.
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shaneo8709Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 21Arc User
I would LOVE to heal in the dungeons and be the pillar of the group. But as it is now, with the Devs refusing
to FIX THE CLERIC AGRO, i have stopped going into dungeons because i am sick and tired of pulling agro
of the entire room with my first heal, and then having to run around in circles and spamming health-pots
because healing myself is penalized with 40%...
If you want Clerics to dungeons, then send your complaints towards the Devs that refuses to fix us.
This is accurate. Even with the reduced threat ability, its next to impossible to not get aggro. The major down side that I see so far, is that it seems EVERY boss fight consists of adds and at least some of those seem endless. I remember the third dungeon's first and last fight were torture for me, it was almost impossible to heal or even pay attention to other people with so many adds on me i spent my entire time running, using my burst knock back, chains, and potions just to stay alive. Needless to say this is not an enjoyable experience for the player.
I like the game, in general, but a few of these major broken elements that don't seem to be getting fixed are really annoying. If they aren't fixed soon I'll just end up ignoring all future cryptic and PWE games because of lost faith. A lot of abilities just don't seem to work right in general(prophecy of doom seems to do nothing in terms of reducing defense), but threat seems to be hugely broken in my experience having played the cleric, guardian fighter, and control wizard all to at least 23+. As the cleric i cant stop getting aggro, and as the guardian fighter i cant hold it. It makes the two most important roles trash to play.
The next big thing that bothers me is how party leads in dungeons and pvp's just kick with impunity and break the experience for everyone else. Every PUG i run the party lead in dungeons typically just either needs items they cant use because they cant be kicked for it, or kicks you for any word against them if an argument occurs. As a cleric i was instantly kicked from a group when the party lead guardian fighter ninja'ed my cleric gear and i spoke up about it. Thus wasting an hour of my time waiting for a dungeon and clearing most of it. PVP is generally the same.
I really want to like and continue playing, but the Devs really need to kick it in gear and put a major fix in for the massive bugs, fix the class balance, implement a vote to kick system, and implement a proper need/greed system to prevent needing on class gear that isnt your own.
It is the job of others to keep aggro off you. If it were not say a GF's responsbility, then it would be another class'. This is almost universal in all MMORPG.
In practice, in NW, the responsibility for keeping DC alive from large numbers of adds or a non-boss add falls largely to CW in the group since they have immense trash control.
That said, it erks me greatly to see some potential DC moaning so much about such a basic mechanic which can also be mitigated by yourselves since you do, in time, have some team-independent resources, tools and skills for it. If, for example, you are not even level 60, let alone level 50 when DC gameplay changes dramatically, you really should not comment about DC aggro (at least not without qualifying you are not an endgame player).
For example, you can quite trivially kite mobs with combination of Sunburst + Daunting Light/Forgemaster's Flame/Divine Glow (yes, I know its broken but it can be a good kiting Divinity builder since it has an even quicker animation than the other two two). Doing it within a permanent Astral Shield is also a very useful skill to learn which can come in handy in endgame dungeons.
The good thing is that players who cannot even get over such a basic mechanic, which can never be removed without changing the gameplay of the entire PvE game, will never make it to T2 dungeons and so not disappoint or ruin others runs.
On a related but separate note, one thing I would love is multiple switching Power bars/action bars that enable me to at least statically or preferably dynamically change Power setups so that I can do different things or adapt in the same fight.
For example, DC can end up using so many potions, even within a half decent group while doing dungeons like Frozen Heart, that it is a complete turn off (especially combined with the awful Bound loot and even lower than usual extremely low drop chance for higher tier items). Being able to switch to a Healing Word + kiting bar while keeping up all my other skills, would be both skillful and rewarding, and it still would not be as effective as chugging potions (therefore definitely not overpowered).
Finally, I actually feel bad for the game developers who have to basically sort out decent feedback about aggro as part of overall gameplay from ridiculous comments and suggestions.
hobieoneMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
the mainreason you dont see dc in groups pvp or pve is simple they are the first to die. because threat mitagation and threat gain abilities for tanks are broken
lol... Have you played ANY MMO before? Healers and tanks are ALWAYS on demand, and people are always saying there's not enough of them.
There's nothing broken or wrong with healing in this game -- and yes, I do play a cleric. It's vastly different from other games so it takes getting used to but once you do it's a lot more fun than healing in other games.
What does affect the number of healers is, as others said, the potential stress of dealing with keeping the group alive -- and with all the screaming and blame-festing that usually targets a healer -- and THAT is not something that any developer can change because it's human nature.
There is definitely something broken with healing in this game: healing aggro is through the roof and healing self-debuff is too extreme almost to the point of ridiculousness.
There is no reason that a tank shouldn't be able to pull something off of a healer, and there's no reason a healer shouldn't be able to heal themselves for almost full capability. You want a 10% difference? Fine, but taht 40% difference can literally wipe a group.
The problems with these two things have created a vacuum of clerics and a general need to run dual DC groups (Which shouldn't be a requirement, but in order to get geared for the content you're doing you must be able to actually finish the content... think about that: The gear that drops outside is garbage. You literally have people limping through dungeons in greens that are garbage to get replacement gear to be able to run the dungeon they just ran more efficiently. This is backwards from most MMOs (and most D&D DM tactics).).
It is the job of others to keep aggro off you. If it were not say a GF's responsbility, then it would be another class'. This is almost universal in all MMORPG.
In practice, in NW, the responsibility for keeping DC alive from large numbers of adds or a non-boss add falls largely to CW in the group since they have immense trash control.
That said, it erks me greatly to see some potential DC moaning so much about such a basic mechanic which can also be mitigated by yourselves since you do, in time, have some team-independent resources, tools and skills for it. If, for example, you are not even level 60, let alone level 50 when DC gameplay changes dramatically, you really should not comment about DC aggro (at least not without qualifying you are not an endgame player).
For example, you can quite trivially kite mobs with combination of Sunburst + Daunting Light/Forgemaster's Flame/Divine Glow (yes, I know its broken but it can be a good kiting Divinity builder since it has an even quicker animation than the other two two). Doing it within a permanent Astral Shield is also a very useful skill to learn which can come in handy in endgame dungeons.
Now this is total nonsence, while yes you can knock back mobs with sunbrust - it burns divinity leaving you with one less pip. FFs has a very slow divinity builder in the end you need to stop and DPs in order to gets pips you burned dow while sunbrusting and casting FFs divine mode. You can use it out of Divine mode but there are better options for divinity builder - it should be slotted to provide healing not divinity. Kiting within circle is possible if you have maybe two/three CCing and some regular adds on you, above that it becomes a nightmare since they will cover the entire AS with crowd control skills forcing you out of it and if you stop to cast something the meele ones will be on you. It depends heavily if the adds can be burned down quickly. And if not? I do not have problems dealing with few. I have problems dealing with more then ten. In the end you will go broke from buying potions. Which is not right no matter how you look at it. One person should not be forced to use double amount of potions.
You ether have a great CW that watches youre back 100 % of the time for that to work or good DDs who burn them fast. While daunting light has its uses, it will not stop or CC the mob train, nether will it provide the DPS needed to kill them fast, searing light might be better, it will burn more hp since mobs will follow one in line mostly.
I do not ask for agro to be reduced, it is fine actually. What is needed - GFs to be buffed a bit and more CWs with good control specs. And give clerics some better kiting tools.
Now this is total nonsence, while yes you can knock back mobs with sunbrust - it burns divinity leaving you with one less pip.
...
Whoah... who said anything about wasting Divinity for knockbacks?! You can kite, i.e. move, in a circle (small or large) perfectly with almost any type of mob.
The important thing is that you need a way to be able to do your job at the same time, be it healing output or aggro. That's where any kind of Divinity builder you can use without standing still for a long time is useful. In other words, the priority is first be able to kite at all (which you cannot if you choose a long animation cast builder), then build Divinity. Yes, there are a couple of better alternatives than FF for pure Divinity purposes, ofc, but it can do in a pinch as a quick top up, in between either the much larger Sunburst's gains and/or if you get space to throw Astral Seals (also larger), but otherwise need FF in other situations in the fight for normal Divinity healing.
Either they give us more ways to use our existing tools (like action bars) or better tools for specific circumstances like kiting.
But I do not see anything fundamentally wrong with the way aggro works from a DC's perspective. The core issues are with other classes, especially the GF who is basically less than half a class since its tanking (and non-existent aoe threat) side is broken and not needed.
The post above yours does a pretty good job describing it.
I was so thrilled when I got the shield because I knew it would make life easier. The problem is that it makes it too much easier and it's to the point that I will purposely not put it down as often as I can *whistles innocently*
It also makes the gameplay very static. It's put down the shield, throw some seals, maybe cast a separate encounter but overall hold down left click.
As I said previously I would really appreciate some alternatives. The shield should be toned down but I think viable alternatives need to be made as well. In the higher dungeons as boring as the shield makes the gameplay it's simply a bit too difficult without it so it's really a catch 22 situation.
I'm really annoyed about your attitude to AS actually. You obviously don't pug much and only play with people who know exactly what they're doing and work together.
Oh well. Maybe it's not the game for me. I don't enjoy failing on a regular basis and I want to see some progress for my efforts and changes. If the proposed changes to DCs means that this is more likely to see nothing, there is nothing here for me.
~*~ Sparkles! ~*~
The MMO may change but the inventory tetris stays the same.
i am a cleric. but I do not run dungeons. people think I am their personal heal pot. one the devs should design a target system --- target character players using f1 to f5 keys this will allow faster heal instead of trying to aim at characters with a bulleyes surrounded by a mob.
I leveled a rogue to about 15, and I chugged more pots than as cleric until 40 (aside from dungeons). *shrug*
I'm maxing power and crit on my cleric, so any trash mobs in solo content die lightning-fast. Plus there's a feat that gives you heals as a % damage on a crit.
Solo loadout different from group loadout: prioritize stuff that gives you more DMG/DP/AP. Get the tank companion or the dog companion (knockdown is nice). DP Searing Light on tight groups of weak mobs, Daunting Light as primary DPS skill, Holy Word+AstralSeal for heals, FF if you need more heals.
When I level'd my cleric my Encounters were all DPS focused. Chains, Daunting, Sunburst ... Dailys Flamestrike + hammer (when i got it) I popped pots to self heal. The 40% self-heal debuff makes self healing kinda worthless when leveling. IMO your better off ganking the mobs asap rather than trying to outlast them.
Most pulls went - Chains, Divinity, Daunting ... oops all the minions / trash were dead leaving me maby 1 or 2 strong foes to mop up. If your trying to self heal while questing your in for a painful time. Once you get AS there are some bosses in the quest dungeons its handy to drop that on, pre-AS I never had a heal on my bar ever for leveling.
Thank you both for these posts. I did some of these things but I might try the ones I didn't try (chains and hammer). Also I'll try swapping out for a lot more crit. And dps them first before they dps me - I'm not so good with that when I play this char. I would usually start with a d mode daunting and if I got lucky that would kill a lot of stuff. Not really trying to self heal but in playing a bit more now I think I need to be closer to get the benefit of my procs or something. I managed to get to 60 and I still make a point of soloing because I feel like I get better as a player when I do so. But it's still very painful. Trying to level a cat so that weens me off having a companion cleric (yea i needed it ). With dungeons it's rather painful that most of the dungeons are so easy and then you get to a boss and the step up is much harder. The trash mobs in Hotenow are not bad now though - they're harder. I don't know how I'm going to go when they change it to no AS shields stacking and only one cleric. I think I might just stick to T1s then. I'm kind of a nervous player. I would like to have a go and look at stuff but maybe I won't be able to.
~*~ Sparkles! ~*~
The MMO may change but the inventory tetris stays the same.
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thefrostymanMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 1Arc User
edited June 2013
Looks like it's time for me to start up a cleric.
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vinnersMember, NW_CrypticDev, Neverwinter Beta Users, Cryptic Developers, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Cryptic Developers ›Arc User
edited June 2013
I made a cleric, but got sick of groups that would get to the last boss then sputter out, or that expected me to kite mobs and heal them. If people want to do runs and actually kill bosses, hit up @vinners and I'll revive my poor cleric.
I made a cleric, but got sick of groups that would get to the last boss then sputter out, or that expected me to kite mobs and heal them. If people want to do runs and actually kill bosses, hit up @vinners and I'll revive my poor cleric.
Exactly this. I loved my DC xping to 60 and in PvP, but the first T2 dungeon I healed for was awful at the end. I had read about aggro issues before and thought that it was about players just failing at simple gameplay like in most MMOs, so I was surprised when I realized that the stories about being forced into kiting 15+ adds were legit.
Then follows the whinefest, ironically from a random TR (usually the last to die), who couldn't grasp how I was allowing him to die by not burst-healing him, not being able to cover the room in blue AS, and not being able to bust out Divinity at will while off-tanking/kiting an entire room full of epic adds.
If our group had been a regular one rather than a PUG, there would have been potential to succeed despite all that, but it doesn't change the fact that the aggro mechanics were ridiculous. Hopefully the changes at least make it so that DCs don't incur top threat levels simply by being in the same room as the mobs, much less by actually healing or hitting something.
Exactly this. I loved my DC xping to 60 and in PvP, but the first T2 dungeon I healed for was awful at the end. I had read about aggro issues before and thought that it was about players just failing at simple gameplay like in most MMOs, so I was surprised when I realized that the stories about being forced into kiting 15+ adds were legit.
Then follows the whinefest, ironically from a random TR (usually the last to die), who couldn't grasp how I was allowing him to die by not burst-healing him, not being able to cover the room in blue AS, and not being able to bust out Divinity at will while off-tanking/kiting an entire room full of epic adds.
If our group had been a regular one rather than a PUG, there would have been potential to succeed despite all that, but it doesn't change the fact that the aggro mechanics were ridiculous. Hopefully the changes at least make it so that DCs don't incur top threat levels simply by being in the same room as the mobs, much less by actually healing or hitting something.
I'm guessing you were in Spellplague. That seems to be the accepted strategy. I think the rationale is that, as you're going to get aggro anyway, you may as well kite those particular adds because no one else can do anything with them anyway and at that point you just have to kill the boss. (The adds that can't be put into a hole or pushed off apparently? idk I haven't played a CW). All rather nasty if you're just thrown into a pug to do that and everyone expects you to do it that way because everyone else does it that way. Healing word in D-mode and running that class feature that gives you D power with no offensive spells because you can't really stop even to do seals.
Yeah that sucks. I've been shown how and had sort of a practice run... but um... yeah ... hoping that pugs learn alternate strategies.
~*~ Sparkles! ~*~
The MMO may change but the inventory tetris stays the same.
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dakkhonMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 8Arc User
edited June 2013
As a cleric that reached the lvl 60 few days ago, i'm not so inclined to run dungeon with bunch of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> that yell on me because i didn't heal them with all the mobs on me, even the boss ...
Kitting is not fun, well i had fun long ago when playing a bard on EQ and pulling half the zone and kill them, but here... well ... i gave up on grouping and i'm running solo quests / foundry.
Dakkhon (60 Cleric), Emeraude (60 Control Wizard), Elvanshalee (60 Trickster Rogue), Khellyan (60 Guardian Fighter)
Server Beholder
Eh, well, you guys kept complaining about astral shield. Now it's about to be as useless as most of the other healing abilities, like, let's say, bastion of health: pathetic healing effects, atricious downtime, little efficiency because now anyway, everyone has to dodge everything... Awesome. And the mighty GWFs got an unneeded buff. Time to roll one I guess.
Comments
Play your cleric like your rogue.
When I level'd my cleric my Encounters were all DPS focused. Chains, Daunting, Sunburst ... Dailys Flamestrike + hammer (when i got it) I popped pots to self heal. The 40% self-heal debuff makes self healing kinda worthless when leveling. IMO your better off ganking the mobs asap rather than trying to outlast them.
Most pulls went - Chains, Divinity, Daunting ... oops all the minions / trash were dead leaving me maby 1 or 2 strong foes to mop up. If your trying to self heal while questing your in for a painful time. Once you get AS there are some bosses in the quest dungeons its handy to drop that on, pre-AS I never had a heal on my bar ever for leveling.
The biggest problem with going DPS on a cleric is having to put up with the whiners in pvp! They just don't get it! Your role is suppose to be to "babysit"/heal me they cry! Oh nos another dps cleric eww!
You see, they just don't get it, NO ONE'S GOT OUR BACK! Until you make a cleric and actually GRIND it, then they simply just don't get it in my opinion.
Too much of that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> makes clerics not want to play, and 90% of people do it unless you yell at them to actually pay attention and make at least a shred of effort. That is all.
The best part is that most players have such complete tunnel vision, so busy beating on the boss, that they don't even notice when the cleric is down and calling for help. They only notice that something is wrong when suddenly their HP drops like a stone and they die, too. OMG where's your blue circle? Could the fact that the cleric died recently be in any way connected?
Edit:
I actually had a PUG yesterday where someone said "Cleric stays on the boss, everyone else on adds, always". I nearly died of shock. The group's mediocre DPS was no longer a bar to killing the boss, and we went from wiping repeatedly to facerolling, as I didn't have every mob that had ever spawned during the fight on me and pots constantly on cooldown. I only had to Benny Hill a bit, mostly to avoid the red stuff, and knock away any overwhelmingly annoying clumps of monsters.
It was.. actually fun. Everyone got to kill stuff and stay alive. It made me want to play a little more. There's a moral there- if you are just lazy and expect the cleric to do all the work for the whole group while you blindly numberfarm the boss, it's never going to be a good time.
Hmmmm - gonna have to try on a guild run sometime, or even a PUG if I can get into one where people actually communicate and do more than run ahead of me and die
That said, i think the reason behind lack of healers is that too much responsibility being placed on a single player. You can get away with a crappy DPS or even a tank as it stands right now but a crappy DC is a death sentence for the team. A DC that cant off tank/ kite well and in between DPS will never keep the team alive. I personally do not like to feel after every dungeon wipe like its my fault for not stepping up the game and be able to handle adds well, not able to learn to DPS while i kite and in general pulling the team down.
On side note it would make my life easier if DCs had abilities that could be cast while running and that build divine power. A shield would make my life easier too but that would make us grossly OP.
LOL I thought that was tanks in traditional MMORPGS... Neverwinter compounded the problem by making clerics both healers and tanks at the same time!
"Oh no clerics, sry." followed by an instant kick
or
" We wipe off the cleric, because its always the healers fault. "
and now at the high levels, there is a lack of clerics. mmmh i can see why there are so less clerics^^.
neah .... just joking xD
its in every mmo a lack of healers and tanks (normaly more lack of tanks then healers but in this game we can run dungeon with 2 lol stacking astral shield clerics xD ).
I play in every mmo as a healer and i got mostly instant invites. I want to play more damage dealer but if i think how long the invite times are, then i go to my healer back.
sry for my bad english, but is not my mother language :P
I shall cross my virtual fingers for you. Moments like that are like the light at the end of the tunnel not always proving to be an oncoming train
Hah, I have news for you.. having healed in a ton of MMOs (it's what I prefer to do, and I am usually pretty good at it), I have always felt like it's my fault when we wipe- even in games where the basic mechanics are working properly. It doesn't matter if it was a 40 man progression raid wiping to the the final boss- if we died, I always felt like Boxer the carthorse, "I will work harder!". Sometimes you just can't escape that feeling, if you're as neurotic and nerdy about it as I fear I might be.
to FIX THE CLERIC AGRO, i have stopped going into dungeons because i am sick and tired of pulling agro
of the entire room with my first heal, and then having to run around in circles and spamming health-pots
because healing myself is penalized with 40%...
If you want Clerics to dungeons, then send your complaints towards the Devs that refuses to fix us.
This is accurate. Even with the reduced threat ability, its next to impossible to not get aggro. The major down side that I see so far, is that it seems EVERY boss fight consists of adds and at least some of those seem endless. I remember the third dungeon's first and last fight were torture for me, it was almost impossible to heal or even pay attention to other people with so many adds on me i spent my entire time running, using my burst knock back, chains, and potions just to stay alive. Needless to say this is not an enjoyable experience for the player.
I like the game, in general, but a few of these major broken elements that don't seem to be getting fixed are really annoying. If they aren't fixed soon I'll just end up ignoring all future cryptic and PWE games because of lost faith. A lot of abilities just don't seem to work right in general(prophecy of doom seems to do nothing in terms of reducing defense), but threat seems to be hugely broken in my experience having played the cleric, guardian fighter, and control wizard all to at least 23+. As the cleric i cant stop getting aggro, and as the guardian fighter i cant hold it. It makes the two most important roles trash to play.
The next big thing that bothers me is how party leads in dungeons and pvp's just kick with impunity and break the experience for everyone else. Every PUG i run the party lead in dungeons typically just either needs items they cant use because they cant be kicked for it, or kicks you for any word against them if an argument occurs. As a cleric i was instantly kicked from a group when the party lead guardian fighter ninja'ed my cleric gear and i spoke up about it. Thus wasting an hour of my time waiting for a dungeon and clearing most of it. PVP is generally the same.
I really want to like and continue playing, but the Devs really need to kick it in gear and put a major fix in for the massive bugs, fix the class balance, implement a vote to kick system, and implement a proper need/greed system to prevent needing on class gear that isnt your own.
In practice, in NW, the responsibility for keeping DC alive from large numbers of adds or a non-boss add falls largely to CW in the group since they have immense trash control.
That said, it erks me greatly to see some potential DC moaning so much about such a basic mechanic which can also be mitigated by yourselves since you do, in time, have some team-independent resources, tools and skills for it. If, for example, you are not even level 60, let alone level 50 when DC gameplay changes dramatically, you really should not comment about DC aggro (at least not without qualifying you are not an endgame player).
For example, you can quite trivially kite mobs with combination of Sunburst + Daunting Light/Forgemaster's Flame/Divine Glow (yes, I know its broken but it can be a good kiting Divinity builder since it has an even quicker animation than the other two two). Doing it within a permanent Astral Shield is also a very useful skill to learn which can come in handy in endgame dungeons.
The good thing is that players who cannot even get over such a basic mechanic, which can never be removed without changing the gameplay of the entire PvE game, will never make it to T2 dungeons and so not disappoint or ruin others runs.
On a related but separate note, one thing I would love is multiple switching Power bars/action bars that enable me to at least statically or preferably dynamically change Power setups so that I can do different things or adapt in the same fight.
For example, DC can end up using so many potions, even within a half decent group while doing dungeons like Frozen Heart, that it is a complete turn off (especially combined with the awful Bound loot and even lower than usual extremely low drop chance for higher tier items). Being able to switch to a Healing Word + kiting bar while keeping up all my other skills, would be both skillful and rewarding, and it still would not be as effective as chugging potions (therefore definitely not overpowered).
Finally, I actually feel bad for the game developers who have to basically sort out decent feedback about aggro as part of overall gameplay from ridiculous comments and suggestions.
Hopefully the big patch will fix this
There is definitely something broken with healing in this game: healing aggro is through the roof and healing self-debuff is too extreme almost to the point of ridiculousness.
There is no reason that a tank shouldn't be able to pull something off of a healer, and there's no reason a healer shouldn't be able to heal themselves for almost full capability. You want a 10% difference? Fine, but taht 40% difference can literally wipe a group.
The problems with these two things have created a vacuum of clerics and a general need to run dual DC groups (Which shouldn't be a requirement, but in order to get geared for the content you're doing you must be able to actually finish the content... think about that: The gear that drops outside is garbage. You literally have people limping through dungeons in greens that are garbage to get replacement gear to be able to run the dungeon they just ran more efficiently. This is backwards from most MMOs (and most D&D DM tactics).).
Now this is total nonsence, while yes you can knock back mobs with sunbrust - it burns divinity leaving you with one less pip. FFs has a very slow divinity builder in the end you need to stop and DPs in order to gets pips you burned dow while sunbrusting and casting FFs divine mode. You can use it out of Divine mode but there are better options for divinity builder - it should be slotted to provide healing not divinity. Kiting within circle is possible if you have maybe two/three CCing and some regular adds on you, above that it becomes a nightmare since they will cover the entire AS with crowd control skills forcing you out of it and if you stop to cast something the meele ones will be on you. It depends heavily if the adds can be burned down quickly. And if not? I do not have problems dealing with few. I have problems dealing with more then ten. In the end you will go broke from buying potions. Which is not right no matter how you look at it. One person should not be forced to use double amount of potions.
You ether have a great CW that watches youre back 100 % of the time for that to work or good DDs who burn them fast. While daunting light has its uses, it will not stop or CC the mob train, nether will it provide the DPS needed to kill them fast, searing light might be better, it will burn more hp since mobs will follow one in line mostly.
I do not ask for agro to be reduced, it is fine actually. What is needed - GFs to be buffed a bit and more CWs with good control specs. And give clerics some better kiting tools.
Whoah... who said anything about wasting Divinity for knockbacks?! You can kite, i.e. move, in a circle (small or large) perfectly with almost any type of mob.
The important thing is that you need a way to be able to do your job at the same time, be it healing output or aggro. That's where any kind of Divinity builder you can use without standing still for a long time is useful. In other words, the priority is first be able to kite at all (which you cannot if you choose a long animation cast builder), then build Divinity. Yes, there are a couple of better alternatives than FF for pure Divinity purposes, ofc, but it can do in a pinch as a quick top up, in between either the much larger Sunburst's gains and/or if you get space to throw Astral Seals (also larger), but otherwise need FF in other situations in the fight for normal Divinity healing.
Either they give us more ways to use our existing tools (like action bars) or better tools for specific circumstances like kiting.
But I do not see anything fundamentally wrong with the way aggro works from a DC's perspective. The core issues are with other classes, especially the GF who is basically less than half a class since its tanking (and non-existent aoe threat) side is broken and not needed.
I'm really annoyed about your attitude to AS actually. You obviously don't pug much and only play with people who know exactly what they're doing and work together.
Oh well. Maybe it's not the game for me. I don't enjoy failing on a regular basis and I want to see some progress for my efforts and changes. If the proposed changes to DCs means that this is more likely to see nothing, there is nothing here for me.
The MMO may change but the inventory tetris stays the same.
Thank you both for these posts. I did some of these things but I might try the ones I didn't try (chains and hammer). Also I'll try swapping out for a lot more crit. And dps them first before they dps me - I'm not so good with that when I play this char. I would usually start with a d mode daunting and if I got lucky that would kill a lot of stuff. Not really trying to self heal but in playing a bit more now I think I need to be closer to get the benefit of my procs or something. I managed to get to 60 and I still make a point of soloing because I feel like I get better as a player when I do so. But it's still very painful. Trying to level a cat so that weens me off having a companion cleric (yea i needed it
The MMO may change but the inventory tetris stays the same.
Exactly this. I loved my DC xping to 60 and in PvP, but the first T2 dungeon I healed for was awful at the end. I had read about aggro issues before and thought that it was about players just failing at simple gameplay like in most MMOs, so I was surprised when I realized that the stories about being forced into kiting 15+ adds were legit.
Then follows the whinefest, ironically from a random TR (usually the last to die), who couldn't grasp how I was allowing him to die by not burst-healing him, not being able to cover the room in blue AS, and not being able to bust out Divinity at will while off-tanking/kiting an entire room full of epic adds.
If our group had been a regular one rather than a PUG, there would have been potential to succeed despite all that, but it doesn't change the fact that the aggro mechanics were ridiculous. Hopefully the changes at least make it so that DCs don't incur top threat levels simply by being in the same room as the mobs, much less by actually healing or hitting something.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I'm guessing you were in Spellplague. That seems to be the accepted strategy. I think the rationale is that, as you're going to get aggro anyway, you may as well kite those particular adds because no one else can do anything with them anyway and at that point you just have to kill the boss. (The adds that can't be put into a hole or pushed off apparently? idk I haven't played a CW). All rather nasty if you're just thrown into a pug to do that and everyone expects you to do it that way because everyone else does it that way. Healing word in D-mode and running that class feature that gives you D power with no offensive spells because you can't really stop even to do seals.
Yeah that sucks. I've been shown how and had sort of a practice run... but um... yeah ... hoping that pugs learn alternate strategies.
The MMO may change but the inventory tetris stays the same.
Kitting is not fun, well i had fun long ago when playing a bard on EQ and pulling half the zone and kill them, but here... well ... i gave up on grouping and i'm running solo quests / foundry.
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