test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Thinking about coming back to Neverwinter
asochazzle
Member Posts: 2 Arc User
As the title suggests, I played the game for about two months after launch but quit because the DC just didn't have that "cornerstone of the group" feel that clerics have in DND. After looking around the cleric forums, I see not much has changed. Would anyone mind answering a few questions for me while I wait for the game to finish patching?
When I log in. . .
1) What stats should I be looking at as important? Which stats are no longer important? If I recall, during my time cooldown reduction was the BIG THING to have. Crit was a secondary, power was that stat you dumped into once all the other benchmarks were met. Does this still hold water? I quit when linked spirit had just become a big thing and the blue circle thing had gotten nerfed to the point where it could no longer be spammed without gap (which was much needed IMO. No class should be defined by a single ability).
2) Companions. Holy capoopy did I forget that these things existed! Everyone in my day rocked the floating blue stone, is this something I should look into investing in? IIRC it can't die, so there's a solid advantage in and of itself. How is the survival rating on pets as a whole?
3) Spec. I'm an EHP kinda fella who understands that mitigating damage is just as important as healing it. Is the bottom tree (IIRC its the mitigation tree) still usable for endgame content? Will I be kicked out of groups for not being a healbot? Will being a Tiefling ultimately shoot me in the foot for racial stat bonuses?
4) Gearing. I have mostly tier 2 with maybe one or two pieces of tier 1. How far behind am I in the gearing curve? I can't recall exactly which set pieces I have. Is there a website where I can inspect the gear on my characters without having to log in? I know I don't have the healing set that heals allies (back in the day nobody even knew if the effect was bugged or not) so I'm guessing its either Templars or something else.
5) Paragon. I saw on the forums some people talking about a templar paragon path? I hated the divine oracle, will the alternative path be something I should even look into, or is the oracle the only real route with the secondary paragon being a bunch of flashy stuff with little substance?
I know the questions seem really newb, please try to bare with me. I really appreciate you taking the time to read the post. Looking forward to any answers you folks can provide. Over and out.
When I log in. . .
1) What stats should I be looking at as important? Which stats are no longer important? If I recall, during my time cooldown reduction was the BIG THING to have. Crit was a secondary, power was that stat you dumped into once all the other benchmarks were met. Does this still hold water? I quit when linked spirit had just become a big thing and the blue circle thing had gotten nerfed to the point where it could no longer be spammed without gap (which was much needed IMO. No class should be defined by a single ability).
2) Companions. Holy capoopy did I forget that these things existed! Everyone in my day rocked the floating blue stone, is this something I should look into investing in? IIRC it can't die, so there's a solid advantage in and of itself. How is the survival rating on pets as a whole?
3) Spec. I'm an EHP kinda fella who understands that mitigating damage is just as important as healing it. Is the bottom tree (IIRC its the mitigation tree) still usable for endgame content? Will I be kicked out of groups for not being a healbot? Will being a Tiefling ultimately shoot me in the foot for racial stat bonuses?
4) Gearing. I have mostly tier 2 with maybe one or two pieces of tier 1. How far behind am I in the gearing curve? I can't recall exactly which set pieces I have. Is there a website where I can inspect the gear on my characters without having to log in? I know I don't have the healing set that heals allies (back in the day nobody even knew if the effect was bugged or not) so I'm guessing its either Templars or something else.
5) Paragon. I saw on the forums some people talking about a templar paragon path? I hated the divine oracle, will the alternative path be something I should even look into, or is the oracle the only real route with the secondary paragon being a bunch of flashy stuff with little substance?
I know the questions seem really newb, please try to bare with me. I really appreciate you taking the time to read the post. Looking forward to any answers you folks can provide. Over and out.
Post edited by asochazzle on
0
Comments
2.) Augments are a must, the blue stone is the cheapest and also useful one... Combat pets arent good.. because they deal very little damage compared to just boosting your stats. I usually just keep 1 leader companion for survivability situations, while the rest is just used for the active bonus.
3.) Wait for the incoming cleric feat overhaul..
4.) Clerics are the easiest to gear up. Currently we need only HP set for running dungeons.. As for the web, gateway.playneverwinter.com
5.) You mean Anointed Champion? Very clunky to use.. the paragon at-will is super slow while have quite a neat buffing capability when specced.. But still, DO > AC for PvE currently. PvP people seems to like Exaltation's immunity from AC paragon for PvP purpose..
The major thing to understand about the DC class right now is that for most groups, our healing simply isn't required in most content. In Mod1, boons were introduced - unlockable bonuses from campaigns that increase stats or give some benefit to the player. In Mod2, there are two boons that increase lifesteal. One is a direct increase of the stat, the other makes it more effective. They also introduced a new type of gear, the artifact and gave each player three slots to put them in. Each artifact can add up to three stats, in greater amount than rings and whatnot give. The end result of all of this is people frequently outgear the content blowing through it so quickly that they don't take much damage. The mobs don't live long enough. When people do take damage, lifesteal heals it back faster and more effectively than our healing can. In order to try and stay relevant to the current meta, DCs have pretty much had to shift towards focusing on debuffing mobs, which is why the T1 High Prophet set is now considered BIS, really required actually. Because our utility is pretty much defined by the HP set, Divine Glow and having Plaguefire or Terror enchants, our stats really don't matter that much as none increase the effectiveness of the debuffs. (Some people have claimed that having Armor Pen increases the debuff but I've never seen it proven.)
Given all of that, my DC's have stats closer to what a damage dealing class would have, with decent armor pen and lifesteal. They aren't going to win paingiver in a dungeon but it makes their soloing easier through the campaigns and doesn't hurt their performance in group play. (because of artifacts again, it's possible to have good numbers in pretty much all stats now instead of making trade offs) Also, it should be noted that in Mod3, the Power stat was changed to provide a +% increase rather than a numerical one. It's now generally considered best to get Crit up to around 2k to 2.2k and then stack power.
As far as your race and stats, at the moment it really doesn't matter. Even in the harder content, the damage mitigation from Astral Shield is more important than the healing and your stats don't affect that. There are changes coming but it seems unlikely they will be more than QoL changes for us. The fact that people outgear the content and heal themselves better than we can is unlikely to change.
We started out as the healers of the group because content was hard. Slowly everyone became stronger. Because of artifacts and boons people have a lot of stat points to spend. Right now we are the buff/debuff character of the group we increase allies damage and decrease defense of enemy's. Most of us use High Prophet set and a plague fire weapon enchantment for debuff.
My advice:
There is a big overhaul coming up for DC in module 5. Catch up on content you missed, and get all the boons your missing. By the time you have those module 5 is probably here and then worry about builds etc.
Like others have said already, healing from clerics has become less needed over time, so any "cornerstone of the group" is never going to happen in the future. Nobody knows what the cleric changes will be, but I am guessing it will be healing changes and a bit more dps. The higher healing will likely be useless (I doubt it will beat the temptation warlock healing) and the higher dps will probably still have the cleric coming last on the paingiver most of the time.
I wish I was wrong, but the cleric will still be seen as the buffbot after the changes, the buffbot might make dungeon sprints a bit faster, but I think that even that in the future that will no longer hold true. I have seen a forum post where 3cw and 2sw finished Castle Never in 20 minutes, with gs inflation even the buffbot role will not be needed as every mob will die in single rotations, even bosses will melt so fast that it will not be noticed if there is a cleric there.
My advice is to start leveling the GWF. I think the problem of support classes not being needed is beyond just this game, I think there is a general trend in MMOs to make every class completely self reliant without needing any other class as support, which of course means that dps is king.
I think you're spot on with this. The move tends to be away from a structured party with specific roles. Now groups are no longer that - They are just 5 individuals who happen to be soloing in the same instance.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
I totally concur with clericalist's sentiments.
Guess we'd just have to settle for low-mid tier