Emphasis on "should be". Arbiter is OK for solo play, but although it is meant to be equally viable as a DPS as the other DPS classes, there are some issues.
I have not tried Arbiter in PvP, but I would not be surprised to see it have issues because of control (vulnerable to control, and cannot reliably control/stun/root/whatever others).
In regular PvE, the Arbiter has two issues - its AoE is somewhat lacking, but I am actually hoping that will get fixed. The other issue is with long fights - the Arbiter does decent damage in short fights against a single opponent, but in longer fights, divinity management becomes an issue and the Arbiter has to spend too much time/powers on restoring divinity instead of doing damage. The arbiter is perfectly fine as a secondary single-target DPS, though
Just did a few dungeon runs with my Arbiter, with Barbarian and Ranger as the two other dps, AOE actually feels pretty good to me. Sure we aren't Thaum Wizards, however I was laying down a lot of damage between searing light and sunburst.
Overall the character works, but of the classes I have leveled that my characters are in comparable positions it was the most frustrating one to level (Barbarian (Sent) and Wizard (Thaum) are the comparable ones for gear etc, my Paladin and Warlock are both a tier above so not a good comparison).
It wasn’t frustrating because it couldn’t do the content, it was essentially as effective at that as the others, but it did require more care and management to achieve the same level of effectiveness. The learning curve for Cleric is just steeper with the changes.
My main issue with Arbiter is it has too many powers that are not damage powers. Chains of Blazing Light in particular should be an AoE Damage power, not as hard hitting as the much smaller AoE of Daunting, and apply the Immobilise or Stun with Radiance rather than having a Damage buff for Radiance. This would give Arbiter a flexible larger AoE splat with a CC effect, much like Warlock gets with Arms of Hadar (should they manage to hit anything with it)
I’m not at my computer atm, but I believe Arbiter has an Arbiter only healing power, this should also be adjusted to a Damage power that does a heal with Radiance, giving another “utility” AoE Power to Arbiter.
Basically, levelling an Arbiter is forced into a very small selection of powers (which must be changed between multi-enemy and single-enemy situation), and powers like Chains, that only provide CC are often not effective in group content.
The need to manage Divinity and Radiance/Burning makes Arbiter very distinct from the other DPS, but it just doesn’t reward that complexity very well.
I’ll leave the detailed analysis to the experts in the class, but as an amateur my experience in leveling it to 80 puts it way down on my list of characters to bother leveling to 80, the effort to reward ratio of the DPS role just doesn’t make it appealing for me.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
ok this new patch looks really interesting. Not sure what happened to heavy sun feat. If it's gone then it would be really cool to find an item in game that grants that feat. I guess that makes searing ligh... err javelin our area damage go to spell along with daunting light.
2
dread4moorMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,154Arc User
edited April 2019
Experimenting with a Devout "Damage-Trigger" pure-heal build. Despite the dev's stated objective of eliminating the health bar binary state (Full bar or dead) I find myself standing around in prayer/building divinity and waiting for someone to be near death.
Here is what I've run a few dungeons post-patch on: Emphasis on power and crit as those seem to be the only ones that affect heals. Yes, my crit is over the 67000 cap. ik. Working on that. Who knew maxing crit would be too easy? Anointed Army and Healing word seem to be the best choices for "set it and forget it" as-needed healing. "Repeated Blessings" seems to be WAI... or at least WATooltip says. Keeping Healing Word up nearly 100%. I've been opening fights with AA and HW. Cast HW again whenever expires. Using Swift Prayer and Battle Prayer to walk around while channeling divinity and further boost healing. Divine Glow as an extra Divinity boost/threat reducer. Saving Bastion of Health only for
Import Zone - [13] 11:03:08 PM | All - [16:34] 9:07:50 PM | Dove Took 8 | Healed (Out)
Type
Damage
EncDPS
CharDPS
DPS
Average
Resist
Hits
Crit%
Effectiveness
All
38,006,461
38,235.88
37,162.86
39,356.39
32,428.72
All
1,172
22%
115.3%
Healing Word
16,454,952
16,554.28
16,089.72
19,409.00
31,522.90
HitPoints
522
30%
116.4%
Bastion of Health
14,444,886
14,532.08
14,124.27
18,155.97
77,245.38
HitPoints
187
36%
114.3%
Shield
2,244,700
2,258.25
2,194.88
3,120.24
8,700.39
Shield
258
0%
NaN
Anointed Army
2,057,621
2,070.04
2,011.95
6,468.47
146,972.93
HitPoints
14
7%
111.8%
Hallowed Ground
1,698,452
1,708.70
1,660.75
12,799.19
41,425.66
HitPoints
41
0%
118.1%
Soothe
392,912
395.28
384.19
588.37
4,622.49
HitPoints
85
36%
117.0%
Mass Raise Dead
310,278
312.15
303.39
0.00
155,139.00
HitPoints
2
0%
NaN
Heal
150,980
151.89
147.63
0.00
150,980.00
HitPoints
1
0%
NaN
Exalted Healing Potion
140,000
140.85
136.89
4,895.10
35,000.00
HitPoints
4
0%
NaN
Champion's Return
63,154
63.54
61.75
198.41
1,754.28
HitPoints
36
0%
112.5%
Health Regen
35,690
35.91
34.90
0.00
17,845.00
HitPoints
2
0%
110.5%
Sigil of the Cleric
12,836
12.91
12.55
45.45
641.80
HitPoints
20
0%
111.5%
Keeping Healing Word up 100% seems to be the key to this theory.
TLDR Devout Pure Healer can be built for "damage-trigger" auto-as-needed healing.
The downside: Does absolutely zero damage. ... boring compared to Mod15 AC Buffer. But good potential.
Any ideas on the use of such a build? Suggestions on maximizing damage-triggered/auto heals?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
1
adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I just looked at the new Arbiter feats, and they are interesting....some seem much better than the old feats they replaced, but a couple of them have me scratching my head a bit.
At any rate, as far as I am concerned, Clerics are OK, both as Devout and Arbiter ... not perfect, but I'm am at least not worried about their viability in Mod 16.
Hoping for improvements...
3
rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
I agree, of all the classes clerics are probably in the most live ready state. Yes, it would be nice for arbiter to have a bit more damage, but it does enough for solo pve. Although with the traps, especially the one that reduces your damage, it is a pain to solo a rune master expedition.
Even if they aren't amazing, he at least listened to how much we hated the power combination feats locking down our powers. I think they're a definite improvement.
VERY sad to see that Heavy Sun has been replaced. Arbiter damage powers in groups *must* always be Searing Javelin and Daunting Light, and I have never been a fan of Daunting Light... less so now that if I want to DPS, it's my only option. The synergy with the "old" feat made it very easy to build pips of empowerment. Please consider bringing this back to give more options. Hitting multiple targets with Sunburst and gaining almost full pips of empowerment was a great way to start a fight, even in solo play.
I'm a little confused by the at will "Soothe". It has a divinity cost, and divinity can be depleted. This means there are times you cannot use your at will, which seems to be the opposite of what an "at-will" is. I do like the idea of a healing at will, and I don't think the price to cast this is too much of a burden, I am just confused that it has any cost to cast at all.
i've been sick with a really bad cold so i have not had a chance to do much testing today. however, i have been paying attention to the people playing devout. and the comments on arbiter as well. they have been mentioning that during extended fights the dc tends to run out of divinity and performance suffers.
i noticed the divinity gain feats for arbiter which i think will help with that. have not had a chance to test it but it looks like a good bonus.
I'm a bit confused about the devout feat that lets you balance your spells so that you can work your way through the chain to earn a minute of divine free spellcasting ?
err huh? i know im a but delerious atm but am i reading that right ? i would think after hammering away at a boss the party would rather the devout contribute some damage before people hands fall off from keyboard smashing.
i did notice that all the feats seam to be about dealing with our divinity levels. I really like the feats that boost our damage if we can keep our divinity balanced at 50% but if the devouts damage out put is so small as reported that 10% for ideal spell control is not that big a boost.
am i getting that right ?
*achoo* (there is a fairy stuck in my nose poking me with a stick - my wife said i made the fairy sad and she's sitting there crying. thats why its running so much. i hope she's not right...)
> @thestia said: > VERY sad to see that Heavy Sun has been replaced. Arbiter damage powers in groups *must* always be Searing Javelin and Daunting Light, and I have never been a fan of Daunting Light... less so now that if I want to DPS, it's my only option. The synergy with the "old" feat made it very easy to build pips of empowerment. Please consider bringing this back to give more options. Hitting multiple targets with Sunburst and gaining almost full pips of empowerment was a great way to start a fight, even in solo play.
Or we could just get Chains/Divine Glow damage back.
As much as I hated the feat, I thought I would miss using sun burst to fill the judgement, but the feat that gives any encounter a chance to fill it is WAY better. I definitely didn't find myself missing heavy sun after a couple mobs. And the new one made more sense for a ST rotation where I wanted bts instead of sunburst. Also, I found that replacing daunting light with bts was completely viable for tipping scales in mobs because searing light is pretty good. You should play around with replacing DL with some of the other radiant powers if you don't like it.
Greetings everyone. As I indicated in my previous post, I had to step away from the forums as we closed in on the final release candidate, there simply weren't enough calendar hours remaining to hit all the remaining feedback items and bugs while also posting regularly. However, this week, we built our release candidate—so I now have some time to reply again.
I feel like a big part of why people may dislike the healer gameplay is right now there is too little to do. You wait for someone to lose hp and then you pump them up. My suggestion to help mitigate this is to make cleanse less of a gimmick and more of a pivotal mechanic. Enemies in dungeons should apply more negative statuses which are removable by cleanse and already existing mechanics like partial paralysis should be removable by it.
Also, I think a way to make more encounter powers useful (even if they are not used most of the time), is to make some encounter powers small, long duration buffs. For example, a party 5% recharge speed buff that lasts 10 minutes and does not stack. The support classes could use these at the start of the dungeon then switch them for something else, but they would have a use.
Most cases of paralyze should now be able to be removed by cleanse. Since this post was made we have adjusted enemy damage, specifically we've increased the damage of enemy's "at-will" attacks in group content. Healing spells outside Bastion of Health have also been buffed to be more worthwhile, and some newly introduced feats should make for more active divinity management.
We're hoping that these changes should make healing significantly more interesting than it was over the past few weeks on preview. Moving forward, we would like to make cleanse a more active and important part of group play as well.
i have suggestion about last changes of Astral Shield channeling. Now with a feat we can move as normaly while channeling. but if we choose another feat it makes us possibly to move slowly. maybe its a bug but we like most the Shield channeling.
can you please add slowly moving while channeling for normal channeling (without feats) only with Astral shield you cannot move. 1st feat makes us possibly to move slowly while channeling Astral Shield and 2nd feat makes us move with normal speed while chanelling by Tab.
The manner in which you can move while channeling astral shield has been reworked, and there is now a class feature which allows you to move at a reduced speed while channeling astral shield and while channeling divinity. You can freely equip and remove this class feature from fight to fight now.
Since my comment yesterday was deleted, and I didn't even edit it -_-, I'll make a quick summary of it. Typing on my tablet is too rough to redo the whole paragraph.
Asterdahl, when you're looking at feats please keep in mind that being too limiting does not actually encourage diverse playstyles or power usage.
If you want feats to modify powers, I think it should be either at least 2 at wills OR 3 at least 3 encounters, but never combinations to proc. This way everyone can find a power they prefer to use and fits in their rotations without feeling forced. Something along the lines of Feat 1 makes Bastion, HW, and Intercession add a 5% incoming healing bonus to targets healed for 5 seconds. Feat 2 makes sacred flame and scattering light add a 5% divinity Regen bonus for 5 seconds, no stacking. Playstyle choice: your heals heals are better if you have to use them quickly or your "downtime" can be used for utility to keep your divinty up. Depending on how you play, either choice could be good, and doesn't shackle you.
Alternatively, instead of modifying powers at all, feats could modify mechanics. Something like Feat 3 makes all heal powers cost 20 less divinity and converts all heals to HoTs. Feat 4 makes all heals cost 20 more divinity and increases mag by 30. Playstyle choice: do you want to be a maintenance healer or a clutch healer?
These are both defining, meaningful choices that allow us to build specific playstyles and rotations unique to us, which is what you said feats should be. And they don't force every power choice on our bar.
This week's build featured the major feat revisions that I had been promising, so I hope you'll take a look at them. There are still a handful of feats that tie into specific powers, but there are 2 feat columns in each paragon path that do not involve any specific powers at all, but instead introduce or modify core class mechanics.
Those feats that directly affect powers are generally focused on powers which are guaranteed to be on your bar already, or affect one of two powers that is likely to be the third power on your bar, to help you decide and change up the gameplay. For instance, Forgemaster's Flame is definitely going to be on your bar for single target DPS as an Arbiter, so offering up a way that maybe you interact with Forgemaster's differently, that's something we feel is safe to do.
Absolutely amazing Searing Light changes As well as sun bursts pip changes. (now tipping scales feat must be cnanged, cuz as of now it has no use at all.) mayb make it pvp feat that does something ? Feels like we can AOE now.
P.S. - Now i could only wish if our piercing light feat could proc off sacred flame instead of lance of faight.
Searing Light received even further changes in this week's build, where it has been reworked into a fire power with new visuals as Searing Javelin. The feat that affects Searing Javelin can now also be triggered off of any at-will.
PLEASE reinstate the size of Hallowed Ground and Astral Shield. The current size of Hallowed Ground is smaller than most boss AoEs, and with the size of Astral Shield, it appears to only be meant for the tank. Any squishy trying to survive in AS could get accidentally backhanded by a mob they don't even have aggro from. The current size on live would allow for teammates to position themselves for combat advantage AND dodge to a position still with the shield. The size of the live Hallowed Ground would allow for positioning on larger battle grounds and accommodate protecting ranged squishies like rangers, warlocks and wizards. Please consider reverting the sizing of these two spells.
While I understand the desire for the older, larger sizes, we currently have no plans to adjust the size of those spells. For cases where an AoE is bigger than the area of Hallowed Ground, keep in mind that players can dodge out and back in without losing out on a significant amount of healing.
For Astral Shield, there's a learning curve on when, where and how to use it now, as it's not necessarily the same as before. You rightly pointed out that it can be useful to use on the tank, for instance, right before a big hit like Trobriand's hand cannon in the Lair of the Mad Mage. However, it can also be put to good use on a stacked group to reduce the damage on area-wide damage like Cry of the Atropal.
Even though we don't currently plan to increase the size of these effects, we will be keeping an eye on how often these powers see use, and definitely considering changes in the future, both to size and potency.
I started testing last night around midnight i think and got so engrossed in it i didnt stop till 5am - i hadn't done my dailies on live yet - i had a lot of fun testing things out - didn't feel like i was fighting the system at all. wow that was so unexpected for me XD
i love the new searing light. I love sunburst with the pips fixed and the reversion to 15 targets is awsome.
I'm exceptionally glad to read that you were so engrossed with the Arbiter. Thank you for taking the time to try out the changes on preview and to send your feedback. Since most of your feedback was centered around feats, I wanted to let you know that this week featured some major feat changes, so please check those out.
Trying to suggest this sooner than later but played some more dungeon arbiter and noticed that
Going full bore on fire and holy in tong burns divinity rather quickly and without moving with prayer u start the next mob 1/2 to 3/4 divinity i think divinity out of combat is fine i dont think you need to touch divinity anymore but i think an interesting solution to this would be to give 2 pips opposing on encounter use - so forge master use would give 2 yellow pips
This does 2 things helps arbiter stay competitive in dps and if we need to tab we get a 2 pip regen instead of one i think it would greatly increase the fluidity of play for pvp and pve group
Also might be a more reasonable solution than giving all at wills 2 pip per use
Divinity regeneration is definitely something we are keeping an eye on to ensure that Arbiter's DPS is competitive. We'll most likely simply increase the amount of divinity regenerated per pip if we feel changes need to be made.
Ok so I made 4 runs of the Lair of the Mad Mage on preview just now; three runs I played healing DC, and for one I reluctantly tried DPS. I was reluctant to try dps as on paper our encounters seems subpar to other classes.
I really liked the mechanic of empowering different spells with different types of judgement. It was interesting to come up with a rotation of at wills and encounters to synergize into something that flows together well. That being said, this was the numerical result of this run:
You may note from this that I'm the lowest in damage on this chart, which wouldn't be as big of a problem, if the warlock wasn't a HEALING spec. So not only is my damage really trailing behind true dps classes, as a healer, warlocks beat clerics because they are doing a respectable amount of damage as well as healing. My cleric did 10-15 million damage as devout.
Now, as much as I liked the playstyle of the arbiter cleric, I continue to equally dislike the playstyle of the devout cleric. I need to start with this important bug: the status ailment "Paralysis" continues to be unable to be removed by the spell "Cleansing Light". I believe this is intrinsic to cleansing light because it was unable to remove any form of CC, being the main "negative condition" that effect players, besides poison. In fact, Cleansing Light failed to remove any negative status ailments, including poison. This was noted on the final boss in the Lair of the Mad Mage. If it is only supposed to cleanse certain types of statuses, that should be made clear. However, I believe that having Cleansing Light remove various forms of CC would be tremendous and I can't emphasize that enough. As before, I spent the dungeon in a state of reaction instead of being proactive about helping my team. As much as I liked the change to astral shield (being able to move while channeling it), it still saw no use as the AoE was just too small. The cost of actively channeling it meant that I wasn't using that time to pray for divinity, which I would need since the AoE is too small to protect more than the tank and perhaps a brave rogue or barbarian. *I* certainly wouldn't trust standing in red even if I was also in astral shield. Part of @asterdahl 's response to devout clerics feeling bored was to dps in the downtime. Well, there's a couple problems with that. In the final boss fight, I spent an excessive amount of time praying for divinity- more than once I spent a solid 30 seconds just standing around praying. In fact, if you have nothing to do, you better pray because it's better to have that divinity as full as possible. For less important, quicker fights, devout clerics have 2 AoE encounters that do damage, Daunting Light and Sunburst. Please take a moment to absorb that. Remember, devout clerics do not get the feat that arbiters do to divorce the knockback from the damage of sunburst, so that leaves one encounter for group content. Daunting Light's AoE and cast time is simply not enough to justify slotting it as an encounter. Perhaps more importantly, please remember that I already stated that I needed to spend a significant amount of time praying for divinity which is exactly what I would need to cast Daunting Light in the first place. Also, a lot of devout spells look like they would synergize well together. Let's say a boss hits really hard. It would be great if you were grouped with a developing tank if you cast Geas and Astral shield in tandem to mitigate some of the damage the boss is about to deal. 15% can be the difference between life and death... sometimes. However, there go 2 of your encounters, leaving one. That one needs to be a heal, since you're a healer. If I'm supposed to deal damage AND heal, devout needs four encounter powers. Unless we're only expected to do damage during the trash battles between bosses, in which case we still need a better AoE dps power than daunting light, and a mechanic similar to arbiter that allows us to generate more divinity. Even without a developing tank, it's really nice to be able to see synergy between powers, and a lot of feats seem to encourage that.
Hi Thestia! Thanks for the feedback. In terms of Arbiter's DPS vs. other classes, this week should have seen some improvements in that regard, but I would say that Arbiter is definitely going to have a higher skill ceiling than some of the other DPS classes. We will be continuing to adjust numbers over the first few patches post release as well, to ensure that all the DPS classes are as close as possible to one another.
In regards to healing, and my previous comments about DPSing on the healing role, and your difficulty in maintaining divinity in boss fights. Keep in mind that, my comments were directed towards situations where the healer had plenty of divinity and wasn't being challenged by healing in the current fight. That comment was not intended to indicate that a healer should be focusing on DPSing during challenging boss encounters. I do hope that you'll try healing again after this week's adjustment to feats and class features. I hope that these changes will make Devout feel significantly more active.
The dps of the devout has be good enough that it run solo content fairly easily, so its output should not be too far behind the dps.
I disagree. Devout should just barely be able to handle the solo content, and only by focusing on self-healing while slowly whittling away at the enemies....kind of like the "unkillable node-holder" PvP builds in the past.
So, better survivability, but longer fights. I would say that the Devout should be able to do maybe 70% of the Arbiter's DPS.
In practice, I see the Arbiter as the build for solo content. As things are, it is not as good as some of the other DPSers, so it is not really good enough for one of the DPS slots in group content. I would not object to it being boosted a bit or at least fixed to have some better AoE attacks - that's where I find the Arbiter to be lacking at the moment.
The Devout, on the other, hand - I don't see it as really feasible for solo content. As I said, it should be able to get through it, but it should take longer than the Arbiter, and should have to spend quite a bit of effort on staying alive. Devout should really shine in group content, but I don't think it is there yet - quite frankly, I find playing a Devout Cleric healer in a group to be utterly, utterly boring.
The devs have stated quite clearly that all classes that serve as the dps role are equal to each other. So that means if the arbiter has bastion of health slotted - which they seem to desire, with the proper use of pip and encounter rotation the dps of the dc will be the same as any equally geared dps class.
To be clear, the original design goal for the feat that affected Bastion of Health for Arbiters was not intended to strongly encourage the slotting of Bastion of Health, that was an unfortunate byproduct of a very early paper design of that feat not going through iteration time before it hit preview. The intent was to basically allow an Arbiter who felt the need to slot Bastion of Health for small group play, skirmishes, or a carry situation, not suffer as significant a DPS drop as if they got zero benefit from the spell.
@schietindebux I haven't done any more testing as most pvpers right now think that, in the current state of things, pvp will be dead next mod. No one has any incentive to really play on preview for that reason. I did log on a few days ago just to see if anything had changed on the DC and I saw a couple of new things including a nerf to out healing frequency, which while definitely welcome, makes the Arbiter even more useless and susceptible.
I do agree with what you said on tanks - I still cannot fathom that there will still be mods to come where tanks can burst you down via gap-closers or ranged attacks while accessing their shield for tankiness other classes don't have. GFs and OPs have been kings for so long with only TRs challenging their supremacy via ridiculous piercing mechanics. Next mods to come it seems tanks will still be kings.
Frankly put, this is not the time to test pvp, in spite of what devs are saying, since they are just not taking stock of what is being said other that politely acknowledging PvP related comments. The playerbase is PvE and that is what they are balancing now. I think T. Foss said that PvP balancing is not coming any time soon in the last video they made, so that already says a lot. See vid below after minute 15. The mod number where PvP balancing is stated is nothing more than speculation if I understand correctly.
If and when the times comes for serious pvp balancing and if I am still around, I will be happy to contribute to the discussion again but I fear that this will be in a very long time, if ever.
While it is certainly the case that a majority of our players are PvE focused, we do in fact do a great deal of PvP playtesting internally. It's not the case that we're ignoring PvP balance entirely for Module 16. That said, we will absolutely be continuing to make adjustments for both PvE and PvP balance moving forward.
The strength and survivability of tanks in PvP is definitely something we are keeping a close eye on, and we may make adjustments to how block behaves in PvP if tanks prove to be too powerful.
Tried devout a bit last night.....soothing light is about 25% the heal it needs to be to actually be useful. Mine heals for 1,000 and critical hits for 2,000....useless when mobs are hitting for 200-500k. Seems it may be ok for low level, but unfortunately its the level 77 power.....hmmmm.....moving on I like that the final personal power for healer, and exalt both increase your damage....but 1%? Is this just a placeholder? My biggest hit with daunting light is an 80k crit, so 1% more is 80,800 right? I don't see this as even remotely useful, same for a heal, 800 more is nothing to someone with 300k+ max hp.....but you give arbiter 20% healing (but only with bastion) as a final feat?? also very low dps and I always end up out of divinity (at bosses) and having to hold channel divinity and move around for almost 30 seconds to get it back.....am I supposed to just wait around and try to aim heals at people? I don't understand this path and likely will not use it when module 16 goes live. Also feated guardian says the guardian remains for 12 seconds, from my experience its 5 seconds.
Soothe (previously Soothing Light) has received a buff, and there is also now a feat that is tied into making use of the at-will.
If the answer for devout to do well in solo content is to run a feat that gives them 20% bonus damage when solo i am going to scream in frustration.
once arbiters get their damage boosted they will be in a fine place. I guess balancing them for damage while they are not running bastion makes sense since then they get stronger while not running it - since we don't have dedicated powers slotted in dedicated slots.
devout just feel dull atm. i just see their identity as glorified healbot atm. Everyone's comments just kinda cement that further. "of course they are going to be slower in content. they can heal." "they can;t do everything. That's what loadouts are for - just swap."
"tanks can kill beat things to death in pvp. and they are tanky"
maybe what the devout needs are bonus abilities from their feats when the solo class feature is active. And give that class feature out at level 1.
I get the feeling the current dev team doesn't really care that much about solo play or solo players. There has been an obvious push to get more people to play with other people in MOD16. I have also noticed is that much of our questions about solo play is either ignored or met with disingenuous replies that say something like "well, NW is a MMO". I just don't understand why they are doing this other than perhaps they feel if more people play together it will be more competitive and people will spend Zen to keep up? IDK. It baffles me.
We absolutely do care about solo players, and I apologize if I or anyone else on the team has given you an impression to the contrary. In regards to "disingenuous replies that say something like 'well, NW is a MMO',"—you've received replies to this effect from the development team, or from other players?
We recognize that some players enjoy group content, and others enjoy playing on their own. Of course, we do absolutely build group content, or create designs that encourage or promote trying out group content, but we still build content for solo play as well—and there is no specific shift in our design philosophy as it relates to solo vs. group play for Module 16.
If the answer for devout to do well in solo content is to run a feat that gives them 20% bonus damage when solo i am going to scream in frustration.
once arbiters get their damage boosted they will be in a fine place. I guess balancing them for damage while they are not running bastion makes sense since then they get stronger while not running it - since we don't have dedicated powers slotted in dedicated slots.
devout just feel dull atm. i just see their identity as glorified healbot atm. Everyone's comments just kinda cement that further. "of course they are going to be slower in content. they can heal." "they can;t do everything. That's what loadouts are for - just swap."
"tanks can kill beat things to death in pvp. and they are tanky"
maybe what the devout needs are bonus abilities from their feats when the solo class feature is active. And give that class feature out at level 1.
If Arbiter gets upped to the other DPS classes and Devout is 70% of that I think it will be fine actually. 70% of a DPS is more then Arbiter during the last weeks which is mostly enough to run campaigns.
I think Devout could use an additional mechanic to generate divinity like gaining divinity when healing or dealing damage, whatever works best and is at least semi-reliable. Something rewarding for doing your job or taking a risk (trying to deal damage instead of only healing).
One of the new feat choices this week is focused on providing more interesting divinity related gameplay for the Devout, I hope you'll check out the changes and I look forward to your feedback.
Comments
Divine Glow now does not fill any judgement as it was before patch
Overall the character works, but of the classes I have leveled that my characters are in comparable positions it was the most frustrating one to level (Barbarian (Sent) and Wizard (Thaum) are the comparable ones for gear etc, my Paladin and Warlock are both a tier above so not a good comparison).
It wasn’t frustrating because it couldn’t do the content, it was essentially as effective at that as the others, but it did require more care and management to achieve the same level of effectiveness. The learning curve for Cleric is just steeper with the changes.
My main issue with Arbiter is it has too many powers that are not damage powers. Chains of Blazing Light in particular should be an AoE Damage power, not as hard hitting as the much smaller AoE of Daunting, and apply the Immobilise or Stun with Radiance rather than having a Damage buff for Radiance. This would give Arbiter a flexible larger AoE splat with a CC effect, much like Warlock gets with Arms of Hadar (should they manage to hit anything with it)
I’m not at my computer atm, but I believe Arbiter has an Arbiter only healing power, this should also be adjusted to a Damage power that does a heal with Radiance, giving another “utility” AoE Power to Arbiter.
Basically, levelling an Arbiter is forced into a very small selection of powers (which must be changed between multi-enemy and single-enemy situation), and powers like Chains, that only provide CC are often not effective in group content.
The need to manage Divinity and Radiance/Burning makes Arbiter very distinct from the other DPS, but it just doesn’t reward that complexity very well.
I’ll leave the detailed analysis to the experts in the class, but as an amateur my experience in leveling it to 80 puts it way down on my list of characters to bother leveling to 80, the effort to reward ratio of the DPS role just doesn’t make it appealing for me.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I'm still kinda bummed about the disparity in how buffs were purged, but you've worked really hard on cleric and this actually looks fun to me.
[puts on bib and grabs fork and knife, salivating]
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
Despite the dev's stated objective of eliminating the health bar binary state (Full bar or dead) I find myself standing around in prayer/building divinity and waiting for someone to be near death.
Here is what I've run a few dungeons post-patch on:
Emphasis on power and crit as those seem to be the only ones that affect heals.
Yes, my crit is over the 67000 cap. ik. Working on that.
Who knew maxing crit would be too easy?
Anointed Army and Healing word seem to be the best choices for "set it and forget it" as-needed healing.
"Repeated Blessings" seems to be WAI... or at least WATooltip says. Keeping Healing Word up nearly 100%.
I've been opening fights with AA and HW. Cast HW again whenever expires.
Using Swift Prayer and Battle Prayer to walk around while channeling divinity and further boost healing.
Saving Bastion of Health only for
Import Zone - [13] 11:03:08 PM | All - [16:34] 9:07:50 PM | Dove Took 8 | Healed (Out)
TLDR
Devout Pure Healer can be built for "damage-trigger" auto-as-needed healing.
The downside: Does absolutely zero damage.
... boring compared to Mod15 AC Buffer.
But good potential.
Any ideas on the use of such a build?
Suggestions on maximizing damage-triggered/auto heals?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
At any rate, as far as I am concerned, Clerics are OK, both as Devout and Arbiter ... not perfect, but I'm am at least not worried about their viability in Mod 16.
I'm a little confused by the at will "Soothe". It has a divinity cost, and divinity can be depleted. This means there are times you cannot use your at will, which seems to be the opposite of what an "at-will" is. I do like the idea of a healing at will, and I don't think the price to cast this is too much of a burden, I am just confused that it has any cost to cast at all.
i noticed the divinity gain feats for arbiter which i think will help with that. have not had a chance to test it but it looks like a good bonus.
I'm a bit confused about the devout feat that lets you balance your spells so that you can work your way through the chain to earn a minute of divine free spellcasting ?
err huh? i know im a but delerious atm but am i reading that right ? i would think after hammering away at a boss the party would rather the devout contribute some damage before people hands fall off from keyboard smashing.
i did notice that all the feats seam to be about dealing with our divinity levels. I really like the feats that boost our damage if we can keep our divinity balanced at 50% but if the devouts damage out put is so small as reported that 10% for ideal spell control is not that big a boost.
am i getting that right ?
*achoo* (there is a fairy stuck in my nose poking me with a stick - my wife said i made the fairy sad and she's sitting there crying. thats why its running so much. i hope she's not right...)
> VERY sad to see that Heavy Sun has been replaced. Arbiter damage powers in groups *must* always be Searing Javelin and Daunting Light, and I have never been a fan of Daunting Light... less so now that if I want to DPS, it's my only option. The synergy with the "old" feat made it very easy to build pips of empowerment. Please consider bringing this back to give more options. Hitting multiple targets with Sunburst and gaining almost full pips of empowerment was a great way to start a fight, even in solo play.
Or we could just get Chains/Divine Glow damage back.
We're hoping that these changes should make healing significantly more interesting than it was over the past few weeks on preview. Moving forward, we would like to make cleanse a more active and important part of group play as well.
Those feats that directly affect powers are generally focused on powers which are guaranteed to be on your bar already, or affect one of two powers that is likely to be the third power on your bar, to help you decide and change up the gameplay. For instance, Forgemaster's Flame is definitely going to be on your bar for single target DPS as an Arbiter, so offering up a way that maybe you interact with Forgemaster's differently, that's something we feel is safe to do.
For Astral Shield, there's a learning curve on when, where and how to use it now, as it's not necessarily the same as before. You rightly pointed out that it can be useful to use on the tank, for instance, right before a big hit like Trobriand's hand cannon in the Lair of the Mad Mage. However, it can also be put to good use on a stacked group to reduce the damage on area-wide damage like Cry of the Atropal.
Even though we don't currently plan to increase the size of these effects, we will be keeping an eye on how often these powers see use, and definitely considering changes in the future, both to size and potency.
In regards to healing, and my previous comments about DPSing on the healing role, and your difficulty in maintaining divinity in boss fights. Keep in mind that, my comments were directed towards situations where the healer had plenty of divinity and wasn't being challenged by healing in the current fight. That comment was not intended to indicate that a healer should be focusing on DPSing during challenging boss encounters. I do hope that you'll try healing again after this week's adjustment to feats and class features. I hope that these changes will make Devout feel significantly more active.
The strength and survivability of tanks in PvP is definitely something we are keeping a close eye on, and we may make adjustments to how block behaves in PvP if tanks prove to be too powerful.
We recognize that some players enjoy group content, and others enjoy playing on their own. Of course, we do absolutely build group content, or create designs that encourage or promote trying out group content, but we still build content for solo play as well—and there is no specific shift in our design philosophy as it relates to solo vs. group play for Module 16.