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How to Kill (or even just survive) CWs?
captobvious8
Member Posts: 21 Arc User
I'm at a loss. I've done all the defense/deflect/regen stuff and I would say I'm a pretty tanky cleric. I can go most pug matches with 2 or less deaths, often times just holding 2.
But in high end guild vs guild pvp, or even against a partial premade with good communication, if they have even one good CW, it's really hard to stay alive, even in a 1v1 situation with them. If they have 2... forget about it... I'm done. No, I don't quit, but I may as well have, cause I become a non-factor. Can't hold caps, nor can I even provide much assistance healing the team if all they have to do is bring one CW and negate everything I do.
I can't cast anything. If he has decent enough recovery, he can pretty much knock me out of my circle, and keep me under constant stun-lock so I can't defend myself. I have no stealth, unstoppable, shield, or any CCs whatsoever to give me an advantage. All I can do is hope I have enough divinity to cast AS when soulforged finally keeps me alive long enough to get an opening. Only to get knocked out again, or be killed anyway cause all his encounters are coming off cooldown. And even if he can't kill me fast enough on his own, all he has to do is hold me in place long enough for his teammate... of ANY class... to kill me.
Only decent defense I've ever found is break the spirit. The damage reduction + dot really helps, especially if I manage to get astral seal on him, too. But that's a big if. Against a good one, I don't have time. And I die. And my team loses, cause it's essentially 4v5. Also it only lasts 5 seconds or so. The .01 second stun you can get with divinity is rarely useful, cause it's not like you can do anything to turn the tables on him. And it costs divinity, which is hard to come by when perma-stun-locked.
Anyone have any other ideas? It's really frustrating. Especially watching your OWN CW die faster than you cause you geared for so much defense/deflect/regen that you can't heal worth a ****.
But in high end guild vs guild pvp, or even against a partial premade with good communication, if they have even one good CW, it's really hard to stay alive, even in a 1v1 situation with them. If they have 2... forget about it... I'm done. No, I don't quit, but I may as well have, cause I become a non-factor. Can't hold caps, nor can I even provide much assistance healing the team if all they have to do is bring one CW and negate everything I do.
I can't cast anything. If he has decent enough recovery, he can pretty much knock me out of my circle, and keep me under constant stun-lock so I can't defend myself. I have no stealth, unstoppable, shield, or any CCs whatsoever to give me an advantage. All I can do is hope I have enough divinity to cast AS when soulforged finally keeps me alive long enough to get an opening. Only to get knocked out again, or be killed anyway cause all his encounters are coming off cooldown. And even if he can't kill me fast enough on his own, all he has to do is hold me in place long enough for his teammate... of ANY class... to kill me.
Only decent defense I've ever found is break the spirit. The damage reduction + dot really helps, especially if I manage to get astral seal on him, too. But that's a big if. Against a good one, I don't have time. And I die. And my team loses, cause it's essentially 4v5. Also it only lasts 5 seconds or so. The .01 second stun you can get with divinity is rarely useful, cause it's not like you can do anything to turn the tables on him. And it costs divinity, which is hard to come by when perma-stun-locked.
Anyone have any other ideas? It's really frustrating. Especially watching your OWN CW die faster than you cause you geared for so much defense/deflect/regen that you can't heal worth a ****.
Post edited by captobvious8 on
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Comments
What makes you think you should be able to go one-on-one with <insert class here>?
Bring a tank and you heal the tank while he dispatches the CW.
That's the whole problem with MMO PvP players are always yelling about "nerf <class>" because my class can't beat them.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
In situations that you happen to get alone against them, it's LoS time. In open spots like node 2, try to find those edges in the nearby walls that the CW can't see you. I usually get an AS in the edge of the walls in both Hotenow and Rivenscar and try to get them out of line of sight, in order for them to work for their damage. If you manage to stay in your circle, then they will need a daily to get your HP bar to move.
Nodes 1 and 3 in Hotenow, you can kite a CW indefinitely around the columns, but the tough part is nodes 1 and 3 in Rivenscar (you should avoid them if multiple CWs are there).
Of course if 2 CWs are on you and they are clever enough to chain CC you, you can't last for long obviously but if you manage to last long enough in order for help to arrive you are fine. Keep slide for the *ching chang* sound of Icy Knife and make them run for their money.
Just underlining that only the really good geared CWs are posing a problem and usually those running with HV sets. Otherwise, even if they stack ArmPen, they go up to 20-25% maximum, which means that our Def+Foresight makes it really hard for the non HV ones to burst us down.
Personally I moved away from stacking Deflect and went on pushing my HP and Regen+Def. I stand at 32khp with 1010 Regen and it feels much much better.
Best way to kill a CW is "distract it long enough for your team to murder it". If the CW has blown all their CCs on you, they've got very little left to defend themselves from other peeps.
If you stack regen and are pretty good at skooshing around, it's not too hard to stalemate a CW for long enough for them to get ganked by your team. If you can alternate self heals with the odd BotS/Seal reapplication then you'll eventually burn them down through attrition even without support.
If you're up against 2 CWs, then yeah, you're probably wormfood, BUT: you've just tied up two of the enemy team AND they've just blown a bunch of CC cooldowns on you. Enter stage left: TR or GF, aaaand goodbye CWs.
Break the spirit does help considerably. Feated astral seal a little. Pre-ticking hot. And if they're not top of the line a cw can be an easy kill - with a couple of dots and a laser beam they melt and their dodge is just a brief respite from lasery goodness. But we don't have the same level of get out of jail free cards that other classes have to break control - so - stuff happens.
On the issue of what class a DC is supposed to beat in the rock scissor papers paradigm: a DC is not supposed to beat any class. With the approach this game has taken, a DC is supposed to help any other class be killed - through a variety of means. But A DC can beat any class. It's just that at the bleeding edge it becomes very difficult. Our biggest problem is denial of access to heals (combined with the hideous mechanic of righteousness), and there's no shortage of cc in this game - which is obviously why regen is almost universal to dc pvp builds (and other classes as well).
Now start a thread about high end impact shot rogues
2 CWs together though; that is a nightmare for me.
Having said that, I've been around many MMO games and always had a soft spot in my heart for healers. NWO is quite unique in its definition of healer, and you either love it or hate it. The thing is that if you learn how to play him and gear him for the job, they are an amazing asset for all teams, PuGs or PMs.
Now, in the rock, paper, scissors argument...I think that we have to be a bit careful on our generalisation. There is no 1v1 in the game, and it hardly matters if you can beat anyone in 1v1. As long as the team works and you do your job, then it's quite alright.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
1v1 takes all the fun out of the games. It makes no sense to take the role of the healer and ask for someone to kill in 1v1. Healers are the essence of teamwork. Team keeps them safe, team stays safe and their game is suddenly better.
The feeling I get when helping my team-mates survive the zerg rush in node 2 and come on top, is much much better than killing a random CW or TR in 1v1.
If you are not Sentinel spec, Sunburst for CC off a point or against a big cast (yes, you want to close the distance not run away if you are not LoS'ing), Break the Spirit for damage reduction the instant you see them and LoS'ing all work long enough on a point for a good team to come get rid of us pests. That's pretty much the best you can hope for against a good one. Slotting Guardian for emergency knockdowns is pretty useful too the second you hear us casting our Ice Knife - but not many DC's have that art down.
Against even two average ones, well, I hope you have a TR or CW lurking in the background watching your back! Those guys are the snipers on a team for a reason.
Cleanse + being a halfling help as well.
Also, a Perfect feytouched will reduce CWs damage by 12% and increase yours by 12% (50% uptime).
Iyon the Dark
With module 2, the Power of the Sun will get to the Righteous tree, so maybe we will have to change up the standard Seal/Flame. Plus, as it is said here, Power of the Sun+Feated Astral Seal is a 10% damage reduction passively, which are not affected by ArmPen...a nice bonus for our survivability.
With regards to 1v1-ing CWs, BotS + power of the sun > sacred flame. The issues mentioned above are much less a problem in 1v1. There's now also the option of going BotS+SF rather than AS+SF. BotS+Power of the Sun also reduces crit chance by 5%, so may be better than Feated AS (needs testing).
Iyon the Dark
If he has HV on or if he is running Oppressor (yikes!), it's actually a matter of time.
Feytouched literally does nothing on a DC.
Use Barkshield and Holy Avenger instead.
I am torn on Barkshield. I have been able to endure so many nukes from 3-4 people with Soulforge that I would never change it. I understand that Barkshield absorbs Tene and that it can be good against people that use their biggest attacks first, but I tend to be focused a lot for Barkshield to regenerate its charges.
On the other hand, Soulforged, especially if you are able to get a Greater/Perfect allows you to cast heals and your regen ticks to give you quite some health back.
As far as the weapon enchant is concerned, there is nothing else than Holy Avenger.
I just tested it yesterday with the person who originally posted that thread. If you look at your tooltip before/after buff you will see the increase. Also, as I mentioned, it reduces tene dmg... it is the only thing that reduces tene dmg.
Well, that's a first for a weapon enhancement damage buff (tooltip change instead of buff per damage dealt)! I'll have to test that sometime.
That still does not explain the lack of damage reduction, which is the purpose of this particular thread and more important to Clerics in general.
Feytouched is great. Applies 12% damage debuff (like Power of Oppression's 5%) to everyone hit by encounter and a 12% damage buff. And it has 50% uptime.
PFeyt gives 6% effective DR and 6% more effective damage.
Perfect Avenger gives 2.5% effective DR at most and some damage (19%?).
Iyon the Dark
No point quoting tooltips to me. I have a Feytouched and tested it, as you would see if you followed the link.
If all I wanted on my Cleric was a 12% damage buff, I'd slot a Perfect Vorpal and watch both my damage and heals go through the roof.
So, how do you know the damage debuff/reduction of Feytouched works?
Iyon the Dark
On a side note, to be relevant to the thread... the one weakness of feytouched is tht you cannot trigger the debuff/buff unless you hit the target. Cw's are usually out of range. Just try to get out of line of sight and dodge on ice knife. BTW, has anyone noticed that the ice knife sound effect does not always go off as of late?
Yeah, that's an odd one. I used to always hear it even if they were a mile away. Nowdays, sometimes it hits you without any incoming sound at all. That's annoying, even for me on my CW, since it is one of the hardest hitting abilities in the PvP game (can hit harder than a Shocking Execution) and only balanced by the fact it is so telegraphed.