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Any DPS Clerics in PC?
popezen01
Member Posts: 125 Arc User
in The Temple
Curious,
Does anyone run a DPS cleric? XBOX user here about to get mod 6 and I have heard a lot of stories about DPS cleric being nerfed. I get that but does anyone actually run one on PC today? I'd like to hear how you do and do you come in top 2 in dung/skirms?
Does anyone run a DPS cleric? XBOX user here about to get mod 6 and I have heard a lot of stories about DPS cleric being nerfed. I get that but does anyone actually run one on PC today? I'd like to hear how you do and do you come in top 2 in dung/skirms?
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The key challenge in mod 6 is survive-ability. Depending on where in the development of mod 6 xbox is started the mobs range from crushingly hard to only difficult. Resent changes made in mod 7 (armor pen fix) has made the dungeons manageable from a damage perspective.
At any rate with Elemental Evils launch I quickly leveled my righteous DC to 70. Then I respec'ed to the Faithful tree and farmed my gear (everyone is looking for heals to help drag them through dungeons). After I obtained my complete T2.5 set, I respec'ed to Righteous. Depending on the party I'm usually in top 3 (sometimes top 1) of the dps chart (you aren't going to out damage those end game gwf/sws).
As righteous I have healed every end game dungeon to completion. Is it as comfortable as it is with a healer? no. And ideally I take a healer (dc or op) with me to relieve me from healing duties so i can focus on buff/debuff/dps. Believe me you will get a lot of comments about those "buffs" or the ones lie "i am getting out damaged by healer!". Here's what you can't do as righteous, carry a poorly geared team through a dungeon, its brutal without passive heals. If your going righteous either take a healer or take a geared team. Your team will appreciate it.
Also don't pug queue for dungeons, your taking a healer spot and there's a decent chance that you are not going to be able to provide enough heals for a pug queued team. Use your guild, lfg, etc.
The problem is that many teams want heals mainly. On the other hand, the righteous is the best path for solo quest and fast levelling.
I agree that pug teams are not the best for a righteous.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
If Xbox in Mod6 inherits the same 'armor penetration/damage resistance bug', then going through T1-2 dungeons or skirmishes will be rough for the Righteous healer, as even small mobs (like archers, spiderlings) can one-shot or near-kill squishy or weaker geared players. Even tanks standing in a fully empowered astral shield could be one-shot, especially if they stand in any red spots even with their shield up. I would still lose players sometimes on my Faithful AC, but I could heal practically anyone from near-death and on revival in a matter of 1-2 seconds (there is a ~1sec delay for Gift of Faith to proc sometimes, and you have to be physically within range ~30ft? for it to proc, so it doesn't work for the one-shot deaths). Playing as Righteous, you'd have to have extremely good reflexes to heal everybody at a blink, and mostly your powers will be slotting defense and healing encounters anyway, so getting your damage in will be limited as compared to playing in Mod 5 (unless you play with an exceptionally well-geared team).
Righteous DCs can still claim top 3 in paingiver, but usually it's the well geared players that can get top 1-2 on the paingiver charts. However, an equivalently geared CW or GWF will usually always beat the DC. PUG groups will expect your DC to heal though, and may sometimes blame you if the healing isn't up to scratch. Playing with guild-mates who know your build, or with well-geared teams should be doable for the Righteous DC.
tldr; It isn't that the DPS DCs are nerfed in Mod 6, it's that dungeons/skirmishes become so friggin hard due to the one-shot mechanics from the supposed Armor Penetration bug. If this bug does not get onto Xbox however, perhaps running a DPS DC in Mod 6 won't be so bad.
It's like saying "I'm going to build a heal/debuff GWF!"
The job of the DC is to protect/heal/(de)buff. If you want to go DPS, then make a TR. Or a GWF. Or even a CW.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
The real issue is that our world here on the PC had horridly difficult dungeons, where there were bugs with mob ArP/DR and healers and tanks were absolutely needed. Devotion Oathbound Paladins were still in short supply, so Clerics went heals. This has since been fixed, and I'm hoping to see more of my Devoted friends come back to the Righteous side. It does take a different mind-set, though. Where the healer would take pride in keeping their party alive, a Righteous DC has to look at the paingiver chart and take pride in the fact their CW/SW/GWF did a complete absolute fkton of damage and be content with the fact that their Divine Glow, Empowered Break the Spirit and Exaltation made that happen.
Arohan-DC - 3k DC
Che Guevara - 3.6k OP tank
Hodor - 2.6k GWF
A dedicated "DPS cleric" would only be using abilities like Flame Strike/Hammer of Fate instead of also using Hallowed Ground/Anointed Army/Armor, would only use damage powers like Daunting/Searing/Chains instead of a more balanced loadout like Divine Glow or some other debuff/some damaging power/Astral Shield or Bastion, and would intentionally ignore a dying tank/fellow DPSer in combat for the sake of dealing damage.
While this kind of playstyle is acceptable (even encouraged) for true DPS classes (GWFs, SWs, TRs and even HRs/CWs to an extent) you are gimping your Righteous DC if you play like this in challenging content.
That said, good Righteous DCs are very much in demand in organized groups. Not as dedicated DPSers or dedicated healers (except for a few very skilled exceptions), but as something in between. One could argue that when it comes to increasing overall damage done scores none of the DPS classes can match the Righteous DC.
You'll be fine in LFG PUGs as long as you advertise yourself as Righteous DC. Don't queue solo unless you want to go full support.
As for topping damage done, the simple fact is that almost all Righteous buffs/debuffs also affect teammates. Combined with the fact that Avatar of the Divine only has 50% uptime, let's just say that in competitive circles people who can't outDPS the Righteous DC (assuming he's not being a HAMSTER and denying other people his buffs/debuffs) are either not trying hard enough or are undergeared.
You can top dps chart, but any SW/TR/HR/GWF who know how to play will outdps you at same ilvl
anyone can give me a short hint for build that works also in PVP ?
After respeccing: Someone mentioned annoited symbol+ offhandfeat but i do not benefit that much from it having gift if haste too...AP gain is too slow
I am using BtS SB DG most time
What the secret...thx
Max your ST and WIS
get your ArP cap, then max your Crit.(DPS/Heal)
If you want play tanky go AC if not go DO.
DO has a better DPS, with offhandfeat and Terr.Insight.
some goes for AP gain, i m not, choosing to max my dps and buff. However my main artifact provide 5% AP gain zone so ...
If you cannot cap your ArP and get a least 50% crit, pass your way...
Will cost you alot of AD to change from Faithfull to Righteous, fyi.
I do some runs in Pvp, and by avoiding to be stunted it's fun. Def is really low even with pvp set.
Stunted/controlled = dead.
Max your ST and WIS
get your ArP cap, then max your Crit.(DPS/Heal)
If you want play tanky go AC if not go DO.
DO has a better DPS, with offhandfeat and Terr.Insight.
some goes for AP gain, i m not, choosing to max my dps and buff. However my main artifact provide 5% AP gain zone so ...
If you cannot cap your ArP and get a least 50% crit, pass your way...
Will cost you alot of AD to change from Faithfull to Righteous, fyi.
I do some runs in Pvp, and by avoiding to be stunted it's fun. Def is really low even with pvp set.
Stunted/controlled = dead.
ST and WIs 100% agree its why I didn't go Lostmouth set. The greater waistband of Honor is just toooooo good for us.
month ago I met some cleric beeing very tanky by that and using exactly the benefit from offhandfeat+daily as far as I could read ACT correctly, probabaly it was a virtous build not sure
so I want to heal +spend AP for dungeons and thought about a good synergy from these feats for PVP
btw did some matches with my 2,3k DC, he has full buring set , its ok much easier than playing My warlock as main, despite he deals less damage
And I don't think going full crit is the best way, a large portion (+/-15%) of our DPS come from Fire of the god, who can't crit. Crit is important, but keeping a good balance between power and crit is more effective than just stacking crit without taking power into consideration.
I cant give up what the waistband oh honer + double slotted necklace gives for the lostmouth set. Just cant do it.
I didnt specified lostmauth set, because it is evident...
i max my crit for the heal too (75%), cause we still have to heal (some feat heals with crit). and we still need high crit to trigge fire of the Gods. However i manage to have 17k+ power - so i m pretty balanced DC doing massiv DPS - buff- debuff and enough heal.
*****************
DO stands for Divine Oracle.
I ran multiple dungeons with a righteous cleric and getting in the top 2 probably happened once. All my runs were PUGs and I would often have the highest stats, paradoxically when I had the top stats I would do worse in paingiver because I am spamming heals more than damage. For high stat parties I would generally do better because I can spam daunting lights, but then I could never win paingiver because there were other monster dps in the party.
A common pattern I observed was that often number one in paingiver would have double or even triple to the second in paingiver (this was mostly the GWF and I repeat I don't know if the meta has changed). When I finished third I would not be that far behind second, but often there was a guardian or palladin in the party that a righteous should be able to beat in paingiver.
So no, its very rare to come second or first as a dps cleric.
Running act in Dragon HE´s and some guild runs I can say that a dps cleric even far better geared can´t compete , but as there are not that many pure dps builds ingame, mostly hybrid builds or "AP clerics" (what a sad being) it´s hard to tell
Comparing single target damage against other classes like GWF and warlock I think DC would never ever reach same results
beside that there is no class as far as I know that can compete with high geared GWF
From my experience it's not rare to top 1 paingiver in Queue and LFG PUGs if people in your party don't really know how to dps, you can go full dps and only heal via DW and Repurpose soul, if the tank is doing his job, it's more than necessary for T1s/skirmishes, and ok for T2 with a good party setup.
Now for the ranking dps with good players, this is how i feel from my 2.6kIL point of view :
GWFs/SWs : they will deal +/-50% more dmg than me at same IL, up to +/-100% more dmg for nearly BIS, even more with BIS.
TRs/HRs : I don't meet a lot of good HR or TR, but from what I've seen, they can deal +/-25% more dmg than me at same IL, with TR dealing slightly more than HR.
CWs : Imho, we're on par with CWs DPS now. good CWs with better IL will outdps me, but it's never a huge gap like with any other DPS class.
OPs : I havn't seen a burning guidance OP in action but from what i've heard they can rekt evertything.
GFs : I want to see a DPS GF one day.
When you play with ppl that can deal more damage than you, don't forget to exclusively empower Break the Spirit and spam HG, everyone will be Happy
There are no odds, there's just a taboo against DPS DCs. Doesn't mean you can't roll 2 DCs in a party or a devotion OP and righteous DC. Healadin/Righteous, a GF with ITF yields 2 godlike DPS for the run with more than enough(overkill) mitigation. Hell with that combo you can roll 2 GWF and watch em steamroll.
I'm assuming you don't even know what you're talking about since you just contradicted yourself by pointing out that what actually makes a Righteous DC special is his ability to increase overall party damage. That's the Righteous DC's leader aspect at work btw.
Anyway, for the sake of our new players, the point most of the people in this thread are trying to make is this: the odds are stacked against a Righteous DC personal DPS-wise (in a group PvE setting), but when it comes to increasing overall DPS the Righteous DC is unmatched. You may think the distinction is irrelevant, but it is. This is because, playstyle-wise, good Righteous DCs do not play exactly like a DPS class. And playstyle matters A LOT in an action game like Neverwinter.
The taboo against DPS DCs exist in part because of Righteous DCs who don't really know what they should be doing in group content.
True DPS classes are expected to ignore dying party mates (no heals/powerful defense buffs, so it's not like they can do anything about it) and focus mostly on increasing personal damage.
Now, if you know how a Righteous DC works then you know that a large part of Righteous DC damage comes from buffs/debuffs. In a group, most of these buff/debuffs also affect allies, which is why Righteous DCs play a hybrid leader/attacker role instead of a true DPS role. Righteous, like all DCs, also has access to powerful defensive spells like Divine Glow/Astral Shield/Bastion/HG/AA. Note that dead party mates = zero extra damage from your buffs/debuffs. You are not expected to carry them defense-wise - that's the OP/GF/Virt or Faithful DCs job - but you should help out. When you solo queue tho expect to play full support because people in these groups generally don't know what they're doing.
Now the good news is that, in many ways, this kind of playstyle still very much resembles the traditional MMORPG DPSer role, you just need to throw in a few support spells/functions while you're at it. Overall this kind of dynamic playstyle should still be very appealing to players accustomed to playing attacker roles or players who are tired of playing dedicated healbots.
It's also very satisfying to watch monsters practically melt when you start attacking them. It might not be because of your own personal DPS, but Righteous DC buffs/debuffs are very noticeable.
the singel target damage from DC on top is not very good, its bad tbh