> @asterdahl said: > At first I was so excited about this new mod. but now I find the Cleric too easy to play. No skill or thought is really needed to and I personally feel this game had taken a back step for AC DC (sound like all classes and the method of playing) In my opinion my 5 year old granddaughter could play the test sever and I feel we have no choice but to become cookie cutter players. Hopefully some changes come or they put this mod on the back burner and re evaluate it. I'm not going to just stand there and throw a skill here and there BORING. How to fix this, I'm not sure except go to another game and that will very upsetting. tears. We are at the a certain level of skill and game playing. I don't feel this mod will continue the evolution or a positive improvement to the mmropg gaming community. Sorry my opinion. > > I see some other players offering comments like this, but what specifically is the issue? How is M16 Cleric gameplay less complex than that of M15 AC DC, which is decidedly cookie-cutter if you are playing optimally? Seriously, you don't even have to care what you're attacking as long as you're hitting your powers in the appropriate sequence and casting AA constantly; you don't even need to really attempt to heal anyone and have no expectation at all of dealing meaningful damage. > > I don't ask these questions to be belligerent; I'm genuinely curious as to why players feel that meaningful choices have been taken away and/or that their classes have become dumbed-down. To use Cleric as an example again, almost all of the Cleric feats were terrible in M15, but many of them looked decent upon casual observation...like Initiate of the Faith and almost the entire Virtuous and Faithful trees. > > > > Im adding to the post of arazith07 in an other thread that its also the fluidity and the variety of encounters. > We have a cleanse encounter now. Its great, really great. Its like the feat cleanse. But as an encounter. Awesome. I was using Cleanse as a heroic feat, it was needed in some situations despite the rage of former dps gf and survivor's wraps. But then we have different encounters that heal, thats all. And 1 mitigation encounter, astral shield. And its horrendous so far to use. I take it, we need practice. > > But playing an AC like arazith07 mentioned was all about the pace. It felt quite intense to be able to get those 2 dailies up at same time, the exaltation on dps, and break the spirit empowered. Granted i was not often playing in groups one phasing bosses because most of my friends in NW dont belong to this category,but even with my friends, playing my AC was pleasant. > It was intense. It was fun. Sometimes with weaker groups from alliance i even had to heal but it was still fun. I even had to dust off my faithful loadout for some K Team,specially the CR one. Still, it was fluid. > > So since Terramak mentionned on stream that we need to insist on forum on the reasons why we are feeling bummed about the changes, im posting again. > > I do not complain about losing powershare, about losing recovery,or investment into my character because its part of mmorpgs, i do complain because: > > -I heal but it seems like my healing doesn't count towards any action points gain > -I want to protect my tank, my melee dps but astral shield is tedious to cast and use (i mean, compare it to circle of power of Oathkeeper, now we talk about fluidity, why not doing something similar for us???) > -I want to experience some rythm, some activity in my healing actions but for now, i almost bore myself to death when playing as devout in dungeon. > -the divinity gain is somewhat off for a devout playing in group content. > > On the other side, playing an Arbiter has some "rythm". Some kind of combos in it. The radiant/burning mechanisms is great. It takes a little to get used to but its great. I feel active, i feel not stuck on the ground...I dont feel thick or heavy. I dont know how to say it better. So promised its the last time im writing about it, still being hopeful for next weeks patches. > > > > > Hey Eolee, thanks so much for returning to clarify your points. I'm glad you're enjoying arbiter, but let me try to put aside some of your fears for Devout if I can, since it seems like you really want to play a healer! > > There are some issues with AP gain while healing right now, we're looking into them, and I want to make sure you can gain AP as a healer, just as well as any other role. > > In regards to Astral Shield vs. Circle of Power, those two are very different spells. Circle of Power is now just a healing buff zone that the Paladin healer wants to stand in, so it actually makes them "less" mobile as well. That being said, for this week—you'll have the option to take a feat instead of the deprecated wide flare, that allows you to move while channeling astral shield. Let me know what you think. > > Ultimately, Astral Shield may not be for everyone, but it is quite powerful currently. Internally, some of our testers have been making good use out of it and enjoying it, that being said, a lot of content is just too easy to heal right now, so I can totally see the point about it being a bit boring. We're looking into making adjustments that should make healing more challenging and exciting.
I love you !!! THANK YOU! That's all I wanted was the Astral Shield movement. I'll gladly use it more now! This will be interesting!
Alright. I tried, but I can't enjoy this iteration of cleric.
A quick list of reasons: - Everything is changed. Most people would pace this out over a couple of mods, but now we have to scramble to change all our gear, companions, enchantments, legendary mounts, and play style. (Same for every class, but...)
- It's not changed in a way that is more fun. The class is now less fluid with a heavy focus on skills most people didn't enjoy using in the first place like Hammer of Fate and Searing Light.
- Most of the feats are meaningless. There are just 10 to choose from, but many of them change just one tiny thing about one power or another, which you then have to use for your spec or render that choice worthless.
- With Sunburst, the real feat choice is "do you want to annoy your party or not". I would argue that there should be no knockback to Sunburst without having to invest a point, so the opposite than it is now, because scattering mobs is something the person should be penalized for. When you smack enemies to the opposite side of the room, it will garner so much aggro from every melee class that you will never need to abandon any instance you want to leave from.
- Some encounters have the longest cooldowns, making you regret even slotting them.
- Others deal no damage anymore, making them have no real use (Chains of Blazing Light). If we're now expected to compete in damage since our buffing functionality is gone, who in their right mind would bring a skill that doesn't buff and doesn't deal damage?
- If we still had any damage left in Chains of Blazing Light or Divine Glow, no one would even bother with Sunburst.
Overall, I don't understand why not just make another class if there was nothing salvageable about the old DC. At least during the other mods, we still offered something substantial to the party other than a subpar dps that will always be limited by pvp (which many people don't even do).
I have seen a small progress in the healing build this week, thank you for taking some of our thoughts into consideration. The shorter cooldown on healing word is nice (although i would prefer no cast time on healing word as it is now and a cheaper divinity cost) and the divinity is recharging abit better but it is still abit to costly on the abilities and a need to recharge the divinity in combat alot and after it is still too long between fights. I would prefer the current style more of not using so many at wills please than this slow pace, the over usage of at wills kill the momentum alot and hinders more interesting rotations and a nice flow. I still find the buffs are too weak or not enaugh of them. A healer's job is also to help prevent damage and boost dps when needed for the group and understand mechanics of the fight not just damage and resource control/ managment. A smart buff at the right moment can go a long way and make it more interesting for the caster. Like many suggest it would be nice some kind of pip or empowerment etc system for healers also, maybe the stronger buffs could even be built into that if you prefer the people "working" more for them but would need to be nice ones and effective. Ex: a 20% group dps boost for 5 seconds or 20% defence buff or what i prefer doing the most cooldown reductions and action filling of the group (with this slow pace now would be welcome), these values are just random ideas and would need to fit the combat system now naturally. Because this is the main issue i have felt now switching from live to test and vice vesra, on live the flow is really nice for healer or buffer, wich would be important to feel in the new mod. Also i have seen you will readjust the rotation for the dps tree that it doesn't heal more than a healer, thank you I mainly wanted to say something positive and that i see a small progression in the heal tree slowly, it still needs alot of work ex the feats, also the class feature i find the last 3 abit bad like the range healing, the 1% only etc. and proper group buffs less focused bonuses for the player only, cleric is a support group role and heals. I wish you much luck because i would love to feel that playing healer and buffer is fun, useful and powerful, not limited to just spaming heals and waiting for damage or at wills. A dc currently on live feels like you're a powerful and meaningful player in the group. Thanx for your efforts
Thank you for checking out the changes on preview and taking the time to type up your thoughts. I hear the feedback about pacing, and as I will be taking a serious pass over the Cleric's feats. When I do this, I'll be focused on providing more opportunities for dynamic elements to pop up in your gameplay. I know that people don't want to just stand around doing nothing.
I would reiterate the point that, as you get better at divinity management, you do free up a lot of time for DPSing in group content, but I understand the feedback regardless.
Okay, since the questions and comments on ability scores are being studiously, wholesale ignored, I will try a narrower, more direct question. In what manner are we intended to boost our healing output? Is healing calculated as a form of damage thus I should invest in INT and power, possibly crit? Or is healing it's own contained category that I have no access to specifically boost? I do not seem to have the tools at my disposal in my modest means to root out this answer for myself.
Hello! I apologize for not responding sooner to your questions about core attributes! Please direct any feedback about core attributes to OFFICIAL M16: STATS AND MECHANICS where Noworries can see your feedback, as he is the keeper of attributes.
That being said, I can answer your more general question about healing: power definitely increases healing, and of course weapon damage. Also, because heals can crit, critical rating will improve your chances as well. To give a little more information, your chance to crit with heals is based on a ratio of your power and crit. The ratio is a little high in favor of crit right now and will change a bit.
Hopefully this information answers your question, thank you for your patience!
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
edited March 2019
I finally got to the point in the campaign where I defeated the Shadow dragon, and felt this would be a good spot to make some observations.
I played through the campaign as Arbiter, and my conclusion is that it works well enough for solo play.
The campaign difficulty felt just about right for me (until I reached Vanrakdoom, but I see that more as an issue with that area). What I mean by "just right", is that it was not absurdly easy, like the solo content on live - I actually had to be careful, think about timing and such. For the whole journey from 70 to 79, I actually died a few times (but in two cases that was due to falling), and I had to use a health stone twice. However, I did this as an IL 20K character, with fairly decent stat combinations - someone with minimal gear will probably find the journey tougher - perhaps too tough.
Gameplay as Arbiter is reasonably smooth. It may not be as great as the old DO/Righteous solo build, but it is smooth enough for solo play, so the mechanisms work well enough. Pausing between fights to press Tab for 20 seconds is kind-of boring, though - I would have liked a faster recharge when you are out of combat.
The burning/radiant pips may be slightly confusing at the start, but people should work them out quickly enough. The problem, however, is that you are more tied to specific rotations than before. For example you used to be able to cast a single target encounter power or an AoE one as combat demanded, but now you are effectively being restricted by the pips you have ..... combat now is just 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-3-tab-1-1-1-1-1-1-4 over and over.
Powers are a mixed bag. Some of them feel great, but others are just a waste of a slot. This is not really an issue, as we have enough good ones, but it does mean that it wouldn't really make a big difference if half of the powers were just removed. I could point out the issues with the "bad" ones, but I would just be repeating what others have said before. (just look at what Sylux said, for example)
The feats are where I have a problem. Many of them are just "if you use this power, that other power will be a bit better", Sorry, but if you don't use one of those powers, the feat is effectively useless. In my case, 7 out of the 10 feats were irrelevant for that reason.....and then I had to make a choice between two of the remaining ones.
As I said above, the feats are not that great. It feels like here is no real logic to them - they do not seem designed to support different playstyles, for example...just support different sets of powers, most of which people will not be using anyhow, and I fail to see any real logic in how they are paired up. In other words, apart from the feats, the Arbiter is OK.
To clarify what I mean by "different playstyles", I mean that you might have a choice between a feat that boosted some AoE effect and a feat that boosted damage against a single target - or perhaps a choice between a feat that was useful for a "ranged" attack, versus a feat that was useful for those who like to fight up close and personal.
Actually, I don't like the whole design of having to chose between pairs of feats at all. This was a big annoyance with the old boons - sometimes you had to choose between two "good" or two "bad" ones and both situations were annoying. Now, that got fixed for the boons, but the "either or" choice got implemented for the feats instead.
Why not just give us a pool of 10 feats, and allow us to pick any 5 we like ? Would have been much better.
As for Devout, I have not played that enough to comment on it.
My other issues with the Cleric are not specific to the paragons, but rather the class as a whole.
I have mentioned it elsewhere, but I will repeat it here - REALLY I do not like how the stats for Clerics are treated. Our highest initial ability score is in Wisdom as it should be, but Wisdom is utterly useless for clerics. This is just wrong.
Another problem is that it feels like healers are neglected/forgotten when it comes to gear. Look at the new weapon sets, or the gear available in the Undermountain campaign store. I do not see a single item that screams "Use me if you are a healer". All the gear seems designed to allow DPSers to do more DPS or to allow Tanks to tank better. Mod 16 effectively takes away a lot of freedom to force people into one of 3 rigid roles, DPS, Tanks and Healers, but then one of those roles is being neglected when it comes to gear choices. Yes, I realize this has nothing to do with the Clerics design and probably is the responsibility of a different developer, but this is an issue, and it does make people less enthusiastic about playing healers.
I played around with a lowbie Cleric that I transferred over after completing the first batch of missions required before you can enter Neverwinter proper.
I noticed immediately that my Cleric had an "unlisted" at-will. "Scattering Light" was shown as being a "Paragon" at-will when I moused over it on my powers bar but it was not listed anywhere on my powers list. Never mind that I am currently level 6 and selecting my paragon path is still quite a ways off.
Whether this sticks around after I select a paragon path or it gets replaced, I think that it should be listed at least up to that time.
Survivability has not been an issue at all thus far. I feel like I am probably using my at-wills too much, saving my encounters and daily for important moments that I don't really seem to be experiencing, but I'll get used to the flow as I play more I am sure.
Not really a fan of the Sacred Flame animation, but Lance of Faith is now an Arbiter at-will, so I don't know what might be available to use instead. In any event, that's just my opinion. I prefer something more direct from the cleric for these basic things than balls of fire dropping from above.
There were a couple of other issues but they are more properly placed in general (my companions doing a whopping 1 damage with every attack) or stats and mechanics (having my attributes changed but not being able to move my +3 stat bonus based upon what the different stats do now).
Okay, since the questions and comments on ability scores are being studiously, wholesale ignored, I will try a narrower, more direct question. In what manner are we intended to boost our healing output? Is healing calculated as a form of damage thus I should invest in INT and power, possibly crit? Or is healing it's own contained category that I have no access to specifically boost? I do not seem to have the tools at my disposal in my modest means to root out this answer for myself.
Hello! I apologize for not responding sooner to your questions about core attributes! Please direct any feedback about core attributes to OFFICIAL M16: STATS AND MECHANICS where Noworries can see your feedback, as he is the keeper of attributes.
That being said, I can answer your more general question about healing: power definitely increases healing, and of course weapon damage. Also, because heals can crit, critical rating will improve your chances as well. To give a little more information, your chance to crit with heals is based on a ratio of your power and crit. The ratio is a little high in favor of crit right now and will change a bit.
Hopefully this information answers your question, thank you for your patience!
Thank you. That does help tremendously with how I need to look at stat distribution. As to asking in the other thread, I will simply say that I have which is why I was forced to bring the question here. It is not your fault or your problem that questions posted there and in other thread so by the same dev are not getting answered, so I will not direct my frustration over it at you. You are doing a fantastic job of communicating and relieving concerns.
What i would like to see that the feats that are linked to specific at wills to produce an Effekt to specific encouter should be any at will to specific encouter.
Skilled sunburst doesnt seem to do what the tooltip stats other than the knock back null.
Out of combat Divinty recharge must be waaaaaaay faster.
One more thing (for now)… Having encounter powers that are fueled by divinity is what it is, but there is no divinity meter for these lowbie Clerics to actually see where they sit regarding encounter usage until we get to a higher level.
I think that if we are going to have encounter powers fueled by divinity, we need a divinity meter as soon as the first encounter power becomes available to our character.
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
Played a bit more of the Arbitor path after the patch went up. I am enjoying how it plays much more now. Divinity gain feel right, I can't spam encounters, but I can go effortlessly from mob pack to mob pack without feeling the need to stand around channeling divinity. Encounters feel meaningful and the balance for bastion is great. I have not done any group play yet, but thank you for listening to feedback @asterdahl!
Would like to suggest feats not necessary tied to encounter or atwill skills instead change mechanic of said class. Example one feat can change healing mechanic of cleric to heal over times or ' clutch ' healing like faithfull capstone. This will add different yet unique gameplay for clerics.
With the latest patch I loaded in to find that Bastion was essentially garbage on Arbiter paragon. I chose to use it because it gave good divinity gain, healed like a truck and was quick off its cooldown, making it a lot easier to use than Divine Glow which has a 28 second cooldown to it but no divinity cost. Now Bastion eats up basically all your divinity and yes it takes just as long to gain the divinity back to use it again as it does to wait for Divine Glow to come off cooldown, okay great. But you just made Bastion terrible, why would I use bastion now? Getting divinity back as an Arbiter takes ages while on the Devout paragon its a lot easier, was this an attempt to stop the dps path from healing? We need an easier way to gain divinity as Arbiter, this does not make me want to stay Arbiter when I'm soloing and trying to do damage - this makes me want to stay Devout no matter the content I'm running.
sounds like that divinity cost is meant to make bastion give you a portion of your divinity back by hitting multiple targets so you can save the healer from dieing. It seems to make sense you can use 4 or 5 divine attack powers for one divine healing power.
if it's a balancing issue then perhaps you should have divinity cost for about 250 and forget about the feat that makes bastion give divinity back.
on the other hand - with the pips to give us divinity back, having a high cost heal for arbiter seems to make sense - the arbiter is therefor the occasional clutch heal, it's not gonna be a regular thing.
EDIT: I actually fully appreciate how hard it will be to balance the divinity regeneration, and since i, among others are asking for pips to be added to the devout side of things - perhaps there should be no other way to refill divinity other than the passive tick, the tab prayer and the pip consuming. The extra ways you have implemented seem to be causing problems.
edit 2: limited stacks of divine holy water to top up the mana bar ? that lets you use potion cooldowns to hold things back - but then we could use another slot or 2 on the belt.
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
With the latest patch I loaded in to find that Bastion was essentially garbage on Arbiter paragon. I chose to use it because it gave good divinity gain, healed like a truck and was quick off its cooldown, making it a lot easier to use than Divine Glow which has a 28 second cooldown to it but no divinity cost. Now Bastion eats up basically all your divinity and yes it takes just as long to gain the divinity back to use it again as it does to wait for Divine Glow to come off cooldown, okay great. But you just made Bastion terrible, why would I use bastion now? Getting divinity back as an Arbiter takes ages while on the Devout paragon its a lot easier, was this an attempt to stop the dps path from healing? We need an easier way to gain divinity as Arbiter, this does not make me want to stay Arbiter when I'm soloing and trying to do damage - this makes me want to stay Devout no matter the content I'm running.
This was done so that the Arbitor Cleric wasn't a better healer than Devout. Arbitor is a dps class, our heal should only be used as a last resort. Gaining divinity as an Arbitor is easy too, just use at will attacks and hold tab for half a second. You gain quite a bit, especially if you are using the passives to boost divinity gain. Other classes have some hefty cooldowns compared to what we are used to, so dropping encounters should not be a frequent occurrence.
Ok, so 10 minutes into a fresh update: people were mad about low divinity recharge rate, and that the spells take too much of divinity, so you decided to do the best thing... make spells take even more divinity; well done - 6 years into this game, and I'm finally really thinking about leaving it for good.
I understand that some think that Arbiter has too strong heal: OF HAMSTER COURSE IT HAS A SHITLOAD OF HEALING - most of the DCs invested a LOT into having a lot of power (and as you @asterdahl said, more power == more heals) → hell, I have 65-70k standing power on my DC, before I get bondings or AA or anything, of course we HAMSTER heal so much, ffs.
what the HAMSTER dude, are you trying to throw people away from DC, or?
DPS Cleric WILL no live with the current bastion change in pvp thats for sure.
Here is WHY:
In order to cast empowered by 6 pips FF (quite strong skill) i need an about 7 SECONDS of almost standing still and HIT my enemy with Lance of faith.
Now, playing against mage, what he does? --> Chill Strike followed by disintegrate into an Ice Knife. The first tho skills will get me to almost 3/4 of my HP thats without Ice Knife Daily. And all this 200k damage he can cast INSTANTLY compared to me.
Another issue is that my FF empowered by 6 pips will most probably hit for the same 200k OVER 7 seconds that i have to stay and cast at wills. Mages SHEILD can eat up to 75% of my FF damage.
Now: Do you think its balanced??? Lets say mage comes to me on a nod, does 200k damage insatntly where i have to stay and shoot at wills to be able to fire my empowered FF to actually be eaten by his shield??? By the time i can cast my empowered FF and hit him through his shield, i will only damage him for an about 100k (taking into consideration that shield will eat half of my damage) his disintegrade will be up for the second time hitting me to DEATH.
Not even speaking of our daily cast time difference. Ice Knifes 1.5 sec vs Guardian that casts 2sec.
Do you believe its fair enough ?
I can talk endlessly about pvp becuz ive tried dueling against a TRAPPER, before those changes to bastion. I could barely heal myself with bastion being 80 devinity. with elven battle on. Guess why? Cuz he can daze me and hit with his daily SIX (6 times) in a raw, allowing me not do damage but barely HEAL myself. i can not see a way to actually fight with the current changes to bastion. Speaking as of PVP.
I can give you a link to my youtube channel so that you can actually watch what is going on pvp wise.
Totally unbalanced change to bastion thats for sure.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
- With Sunburst, the real feat choice is "do you want to annoy your party or not". I would argue that there should be no knockback to Sunburst without having to invest a point, so the opposite than it is now, because scattering mobs is something the person should be penalized for.
No, no, no. The thing is, Sunburst with knockback is higly useful for a low-level character that is playing through the first few levels. I did try to level up a brand-new Cleric, and I will say that the knockback was absolutely critical in keeping me alive.
Hi, I really like the concept of the changes. I'm happy that I'll be able to play as a healer, because that's why I play as a cleric. I'm eager to see the mod16 ready.
I have a feedback regarding builds, flexibility and feat/powers:
<font color=cyan>What do you think of giving power points to the player so that they have to choose between two versions of each encounter? For exemple: choosing between building healing word to give 1% dmg buff or 1% dmg reduction to the ones affected by the HoT; choosing between building astral shield to be a weak ground shield/HoT or a massive dmg reduction shield/low HoT around the caster that roots the cleric and spends lots of divinity.</font>
Forcing the player to choose between two versions of each encounter may allow many different builds and flexibility. It would be nicer to build your character. I say that because seems that now there are not so many ways to build differences between the players, and I this is really important in a rpg. This idea may be a way to make it possible to have devouts that are more healy or faster to move or shieldy or offensive buffers or durable in terms of divinity, etc.. Maybe there will be arbiters that will be more focused in pure dps or debuff or control effects, or more resistend arbiters, etc.. Of course I think this would be a thing to implement for all the classes. This would create the possibility to have, for example, soulweavers that may be more healers, more buffers, soulweavers that sacrifice more of their hp for theirs heals, that are more fragile or more tanky. Maybe it would create paladins that are faster and better with aoe threat, but less resistent; or slower, more resistent, but not as good to keep aoe threat. etc., etc., etc.,
(Sorry, I tried to use the color for the font, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong)
I hope my feedback helps in anything. I'm anxious to play the mod16. Good work =].
- With Sunburst, the real feat choice is "do you want to annoy your party or not". I would argue that there should be no knockback to Sunburst without having to invest a point, so the opposite than it is now, because scattering mobs is something the person should be penalized for.
No, no, no. The thing is, Sunburst with knockback is higly useful for a low-level character that is playing through the first few levels. I did try to level up a brand-new Cleric, and I will say that the knockback was absolutely critical in keeping me alive.
Well, it isn't wrong that knockback can have some use early on, but I'm not as convinced that it's that crucial to the low-level experience. I remember getting rid of it as quickly as possible back when I was leveling.
Granted, I haven't played as a new Cleric in M16 yet -- has the low-level content gotten harder somehow? Or is it maybe overtuned because of mob/zone scaling issues?
No, no, no. The thing is, Sunburst with knockback is higly useful for a low-level character that is playing through the first few levels. I did try to level up a brand-new Cleric, and I will say that the knockback was absolutely critical in keeping me alive.
It sounds like a scaling issue to me too. It's a good concern, but leveling to endgame is a transition period and most of the game is something else. How do other classes get around it without a knockback? I think it's better that the devs take a look at why low-level clerics struggle so much than let them rely on a gimmick. Leveling should be doable and fun, sure, but not the only basis on which all important decisions are made since leveling is just the very start.
I dont understand all the drama over sunburst all these years from day one. It's obvious players dont like the knockback - it drives other player nuts when dc uses the knockback in groups. A simple change to make it a daze or knockdown or stumble would have solved the issue. It's not a defining feature to a dc, why is this conversation still happening?
EDIT: I will add this - with the amount of cc immune mobs that have been added to dungeons, i would use sunburst to act as a clutch heal when players had the tendency of standing behind me. It also added a great deal of damage and ap generation with the fastest cd => more ap more flamstrike. so much damage for the dc was placed in flamestrike the more often we can cast it the better our dps. Edit 2 - i'm gonna miss the heal - but i like the heavy sun feat so much that if it works as the tooltip says, i will always pick it.
At first I was so excited about this new mod. but now I find the Cleric too easy to play. No skill or thought is really needed to and I personally feel this game had taken a back step for AC DC (sound like all classes and the method of playing) In my opinion my 5 year old granddaughter could play the test sever and I feel we have no choice but to become cookie cutter players. Hopefully some changes come or they put this mod on the back burner and re evaluate it. I'm not going to just stand there and throw a skill here and there BORING. How to fix this, I'm not sure except go to another game and that will very upsetting. tears. We are at the a certain level of skill and game playing. I don't feel this mod will continue the evolution or a positive improvement to the mmropg gaming community. Sorry my opinion.
I see some other players offering comments like this, but what specifically is the issue? How is M16 Cleric gameplay less complex than that of M15 AC DC, which is decidedly cookie-cutter if you are playing optimally? Seriously, you don't even have to care what you're attacking as long as you're hitting your powers in the appropriate sequence and casting AA constantly; you don't even need to really attempt to heal anyone and have no expectation at all of dealing meaningful damage.
I don't ask these questions to be belligerent; I'm genuinely curious as to why players feel that meaningful choices have been taken away and/or that their classes have become dumbed-down. To use Cleric as an example again, almost all of the Cleric feats were terrible in M15, but many of them looked decent upon casual observation...like Initiate of the Faith and almost the entire Virtuous and Faithful trees.
Im adding to the post of arazith07 in an other thread that its also the fluidity and the variety of encounters. We have a cleanse encounter now. Its great, really great. Its like the feat cleanse. But as an encounter. Awesome. I was using Cleanse as a heroic feat, it was needed in some situations despite the rage of former dps gf and survivor's wraps. But then we have different encounters that heal, thats all. And 1 mitigation encounter, astral shield. And its horrendous so far to use. I take it, we need practice.
But playing an AC like arazith07 mentioned was all about the pace. It felt quite intense to be able to get those 2 dailies up at same time, the exaltation on dps, and break the spirit empowered. Granted i was not often playing in groups one phasing bosses because most of my friends in NW dont belong to this category,but even with my friends, playing my AC was pleasant. It was intense. It was fun. Sometimes with weaker groups from alliance i even had to heal but it was still fun. I even had to dust off my faithful loadout for some K Team,specially the CR one. Still, it was fluid.
So since Terramak mentionned on stream that we need to insist on forum on the reasons why we are feeling bummed about the changes, im posting again.
I do not complain about losing powershare, about losing recovery,or investment into my character because its part of mmorpgs, i do complain because:
-I heal but it seems like my healing doesn't count towards any action points gain -I want to protect my tank, my melee dps but astral shield is tedious to cast and use (i mean, compare it to circle of power of Oathkeeper, now we talk about fluidity, why not doing something similar for us???) -I want to experience some rythm, some activity in my healing actions but for now, i almost bore myself to death when playing as devout in dungeon. -the divinity gain is somewhat off for a devout playing in group content.
On the other side, playing an Arbiter has some "rythm". Some kind of combos in it. The radiant/burning mechanisms is great. It takes a little to get used to but its great. I feel active, i feel not stuck on the ground...I dont feel thick or heavy. I dont know how to say it better. So promised its the last time im writing about it, still being hopeful for next weeks patches.
Hey Eolee, thanks so much for returning to clarify your points. I'm glad you're enjoying arbiter, but let me try to put aside some of your fears for Devout if I can, since it seems like you really want to play a healer!
There are some issues with AP gain while healing right now, we're looking into them, and I want to make sure you can gain AP as a healer, just as well as any other role.
In regards to Astral Shield vs. Circle of Power, those two are very different spells. Circle of Power is now just a healing buff zone that the Paladin healer wants to stand in, so it actually makes them "less" mobile as well. That being said, for this week—you'll have the option to take a feat instead of the deprecated wide flare, that allows you to move while channeling astral shield. Let me know what you think.
Ultimately, Astral Shield may not be for everyone, but it is quite powerful currently. Internally, some of our testers have been making good use out of it and enjoying it, that being said, a lot of content is just too easy to heal right now, so I can totally see the point about it being a bit boring. We're looking into making adjustments that should make healing more challenging and exciting.
Thanks for your answer. I did try the feat and yes i can see the difference. Now i can see myself in the future making a loadout to spec for it for some fights. And ty for looking into AP gain! And yes i figure that the difficulty of content has some issues. I shouldnt be able to solo dungeons on my arbiter or my OP I believe!
Anyway the fact that you are answering and taking time for that is promoting mod 16 in my eyes too. I think i was done with the thanks but that's an other one right here, thanks for taking the time to read and answer.
Comments
> At first I was so excited about this new mod. but now I find the Cleric too easy to play. No skill or thought is really needed to and I personally feel this game had taken a back step for AC DC (sound like all classes and the method of playing) In my opinion my 5 year old granddaughter could play the test sever and I feel we have no choice but to become cookie cutter players. Hopefully some changes come or they put this mod on the back burner and re evaluate it. I'm not going to just stand there and throw a skill here and there BORING. How to fix this, I'm not sure except go to another game and that will very upsetting. tears. We are at the a certain level of skill and game playing. I don't feel this mod will continue the evolution or a positive improvement to the mmropg gaming community. Sorry my opinion.
>
> I see some other players offering comments like this, but what specifically is the issue? How is M16 Cleric gameplay less complex than that of M15 AC DC, which is decidedly cookie-cutter if you are playing optimally? Seriously, you don't even have to care what you're attacking as long as you're hitting your powers in the appropriate sequence and casting AA constantly; you don't even need to really attempt to heal anyone and have no expectation at all of dealing meaningful damage.
>
> I don't ask these questions to be belligerent; I'm genuinely curious as to why players feel that meaningful choices have been taken away and/or that their classes have become dumbed-down. To use Cleric as an example again, almost all of the Cleric feats were terrible in M15, but many of them looked decent upon casual observation...like Initiate of the Faith and almost the entire Virtuous and Faithful trees.
>
>
>
> Im adding to the post of arazith07 in an other thread that its also the fluidity and the variety of encounters.
> We have a cleanse encounter now. Its great, really great. Its like the feat cleanse. But as an encounter. Awesome. I was using Cleanse as a heroic feat, it was needed in some situations despite the rage of former dps gf and survivor's wraps. But then we have different encounters that heal, thats all. And 1 mitigation encounter, astral shield. And its horrendous so far to use. I take it, we need practice.
>
> But playing an AC like arazith07 mentioned was all about the pace. It felt quite intense to be able to get those 2 dailies up at same time, the exaltation on dps, and break the spirit empowered. Granted i was not often playing in groups one phasing bosses because most of my friends in NW dont belong to this category,but even with my friends, playing my AC was pleasant.
> It was intense. It was fun. Sometimes with weaker groups from alliance i even had to heal but it was still fun. I even had to dust off my faithful loadout for some K Team,specially the CR one. Still, it was fluid.
>
> So since Terramak mentionned on stream that we need to insist on forum on the reasons why we are feeling bummed about the changes, im posting again.
>
> I do not complain about losing powershare, about losing recovery,or investment into my character because its part of mmorpgs, i do complain because:
>
> -I heal but it seems like my healing doesn't count towards any action points gain
> -I want to protect my tank, my melee dps but astral shield is tedious to cast and use (i mean, compare it to circle of power of Oathkeeper, now we talk about fluidity, why not doing something similar for us???)
> -I want to experience some rythm, some activity in my healing actions but for now, i almost bore myself to death when playing as devout in dungeon.
> -the divinity gain is somewhat off for a devout playing in group content.
>
> On the other side, playing an Arbiter has some "rythm". Some kind of combos in it. The radiant/burning mechanisms is great. It takes a little to get used to but its great. I feel active, i feel not stuck on the ground...I dont feel thick or heavy. I dont know how to say it better. So promised its the last time im writing about it, still being hopeful for next weeks patches.
>
>
>
>
> Hey Eolee, thanks so much for returning to clarify your points. I'm glad you're enjoying arbiter, but let me try to put aside some of your fears for Devout if I can, since it seems like you really want to play a healer!
>
> There are some issues with AP gain while healing right now, we're looking into them, and I want to make sure you can gain AP as a healer, just as well as any other role.
>
> In regards to Astral Shield vs. Circle of Power, those two are very different spells. Circle of Power is now just a healing buff zone that the Paladin healer wants to stand in, so it actually makes them "less" mobile as well. That being said, for this week—you'll have the option to take a feat instead of the deprecated wide flare, that allows you to move while channeling astral shield. Let me know what you think.
>
> Ultimately, Astral Shield may not be for everyone, but it is quite powerful currently. Internally, some of our testers have been making good use out of it and enjoying it, that being said, a lot of content is just too easy to heal right now, so I can totally see the point about it being a bit boring. We're looking into making adjustments that should make healing more challenging and exciting.
I love you !!! THANK YOU! That's all I wanted was the Astral Shield movement. I'll gladly use it more now! This will be interesting!
A quick list of reasons:
- Everything is changed. Most people would pace this out over a couple of mods, but now we have to scramble to change all our gear, companions, enchantments, legendary mounts, and play style. (Same for every class, but...)
- It's not changed in a way that is more fun. The class is now less fluid with a heavy focus on skills most people didn't enjoy using in the first place like Hammer of Fate and Searing Light.
- Most of the feats are meaningless. There are just 10 to choose from, but many of them change just one tiny thing about one power or another, which you then have to use for your spec or render that choice worthless.
- With Sunburst, the real feat choice is "do you want to annoy your party or not". I would argue that there should be no knockback to Sunburst without having to invest a point, so the opposite than it is now, because scattering mobs is something the person should be penalized for. When you smack enemies to the opposite side of the room, it will garner so much aggro from every melee class that you will never need to abandon any instance you want to leave from.
- Some encounters have the longest cooldowns, making you regret even slotting them.
- Others deal no damage anymore, making them have no real use (Chains of Blazing Light). If we're now expected to compete in damage since our buffing functionality is gone, who in their right mind would bring a skill that doesn't buff and doesn't deal damage?
- If we still had any damage left in Chains of Blazing Light or Divine Glow, no one would even bother with Sunburst.
Overall, I don't understand why not just make another class if there was nothing salvageable about the old DC. At least during the other mods, we still offered something substantial to the party other than a subpar dps that will always be limited by pvp (which many people don't even do).
I'm sorry, but this cleric is not for me.
I would reiterate the point that, as you get better at divinity management, you do free up a lot of time for DPSing in group content, but I understand the feedback regardless.
That being said, I can answer your more general question about healing: power definitely increases healing, and of course weapon damage. Also, because heals can crit, critical rating will improve your chances as well. To give a little more information, your chance to crit with heals is based on a ratio of your power and crit. The ratio is a little high in favor of crit right now and will change a bit.
Hopefully this information answers your question, thank you for your patience!
I played through the campaign as Arbiter, and my conclusion is that it works well enough for solo play.
- The campaign difficulty felt just about right for me (until I reached Vanrakdoom, but I see that more as an issue with that area). What I mean by "just right", is that it was not absurdly easy, like the solo content on live - I actually had to be careful, think about timing and such. For the whole journey from 70 to 79, I actually died a few times (but in two cases that was due to falling), and I had to use a health stone twice. However, I did this as an IL 20K character, with fairly decent stat combinations - someone with minimal gear will probably find the journey tougher - perhaps too tough.
- Gameplay as Arbiter is reasonably smooth. It may not be as great as the old DO/Righteous solo build, but it is smooth enough for solo play, so the mechanisms work well enough. Pausing between fights to press Tab for 20 seconds is kind-of boring, though - I would have liked a faster recharge when you are out of combat.
- The burning/radiant pips may be slightly confusing at the start, but people should work them out quickly enough. The problem, however, is that you are more tied to specific rotations than before. For example you used to be able to cast a single target encounter power or an AoE one as combat demanded, but now you are effectively being restricted by the pips you have ..... combat now is just 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-3-tab-1-1-1-1-1-1-4 over and over.
- Powers are a mixed bag. Some of them feel great, but others are just a waste of a slot. This is not really an issue, as we have enough good ones, but it does mean that it wouldn't really make a big difference if half of the powers were just removed. I could point out the issues with the "bad" ones, but I would just be repeating what others have said before. (just look at what Sylux said, for example)
- The feats are where I have a problem. Many of them are just "if you use this power, that other power will be a bit better", Sorry, but if you don't use one of those powers, the feat is effectively useless. In my case, 7 out of the 10 feats were irrelevant for that reason.....and then I had to make a choice between two of the remaining ones.
As I said above, the feats are not that great. It feels like here is no real logic to them - they do not seem designed to support different playstyles, for example...just support different sets of powers, most of which people will not be using anyhow, and I fail to see any real logic in how they are paired up. In other words, apart from the feats, the Arbiter is OK.To clarify what I mean by "different playstyles", I mean that you might have a choice between a feat that boosted some AoE effect and a feat that boosted damage against a single target - or perhaps a choice between a feat that was useful for a "ranged" attack, versus a feat that was useful for those who like to fight up close and personal.
Actually, I don't like the whole design of having to chose between pairs of feats at all. This was a big annoyance with the old boons - sometimes you had to choose between two "good" or two "bad" ones and both situations were annoying. Now, that got fixed for the boons, but the "either or" choice got implemented for the feats instead.
Why not just give us a pool of 10 feats, and allow us to pick any 5 we like ? Would have been much better.
As for Devout, I have not played that enough to comment on it.
My other issues with the Cleric are not specific to the paragons, but rather the class as a whole.
I have mentioned it elsewhere, but I will repeat it here - REALLY I do not like how the stats for Clerics are treated. Our highest initial ability score is in Wisdom as it should be, but Wisdom is utterly useless for clerics. This is just wrong.
Another problem is that it feels like healers are neglected/forgotten when it comes to gear. Look at the new weapon sets, or the gear available in the Undermountain campaign store. I do not see a single item that screams "Use me if you are a healer". All the gear seems designed to allow DPSers to do more DPS or to allow Tanks to tank better. Mod 16 effectively takes away a lot of freedom to force people into one of 3 rigid roles, DPS, Tanks and Healers, but then one of those roles is being neglected when it comes to gear choices. Yes, I realize this has nothing to do with the Clerics design and probably is the responsibility of a different developer, but this is an issue, and it does make people less enthusiastic about playing healers.
I noticed immediately that my Cleric had an "unlisted" at-will. "Scattering Light" was shown as being a "Paragon" at-will when I moused over it on my powers bar but it was not listed anywhere on my powers list. Never mind that I am currently level 6 and selecting my paragon path is still quite a ways off.
Whether this sticks around after I select a paragon path or it gets replaced, I think that it should be listed at least up to that time.
Survivability has not been an issue at all thus far. I feel like I am probably using my at-wills too much, saving my encounters and daily for important moments that I don't really seem to be experiencing, but I'll get used to the flow as I play more I am sure.
Not really a fan of the Sacred Flame animation, but Lance of Faith is now an Arbiter at-will, so I don't know what might be available to use instead. In any event, that's just my opinion. I prefer something more direct from the cleric for these basic things than balls of fire dropping from above.
There were a couple of other issues but they are more properly placed in general (my companions doing a whopping 1 damage with every attack) or stats and mechanics (having my attributes changed but not being able to move my +3 stat bonus based upon what the different stats do now).
Thanks.
Skilled sunburst doesnt seem to do what the tooltip stats other than the knock back null.
Out of combat Divinty recharge must be waaaaaaay faster.
I think that if we are going to have encounter powers fueled by divinity, we need a divinity meter as soon as the first encounter power becomes available to our character.
With the latest patch I loaded in to find that Bastion was essentially garbage on Arbiter paragon. I chose to use it because it gave good divinity gain, healed like a truck and was quick off its cooldown, making it a lot easier to use than Divine Glow which has a 28 second cooldown to it but no divinity cost. Now Bastion eats up basically all your divinity and yes it takes just as long to gain the divinity back to use it again as it does to wait for Divine Glow to come off cooldown, okay great. But you just made Bastion terrible, why would I use bastion now? Getting divinity back as an Arbiter takes ages while on the Devout paragon its a lot easier, was this an attempt to stop the dps path from healing? We need an easier way to gain divinity as Arbiter, this does not make me want to stay Arbiter when I'm soloing and trying to do damage - this makes me want to stay Devout no matter the content I'm running.
if it's a balancing issue then perhaps you should have divinity cost for about 250 and forget about the feat that makes bastion give divinity back.
on the other hand - with the pips to give us divinity back, having a high cost heal for arbiter seems to make sense - the arbiter is therefor the occasional clutch heal, it's not gonna be a regular thing.
EDIT: I actually fully appreciate how hard it will be to balance the divinity regeneration, and since i, among others are asking for pips to be added to the devout side of things - perhaps there should be no other way to refill divinity other than the passive tick, the tab prayer and the pip consuming. The extra ways you have implemented seem to be causing problems.
edit 2: limited stacks of divine holy water to top up the mana bar ? that lets you use potion cooldowns to hold things back - but then we could use another slot or 2 on the belt.
200 cost will feel more right maybe 250.
I understand that some think that Arbiter has too strong heal: OF HAMSTER COURSE IT HAS A SHITLOAD OF HEALING - most of the DCs invested a LOT into having a lot of power (and as you @asterdahl said, more power == more heals) → hell, I have 65-70k standing power on my DC, before I get bondings or AA or anything, of course we HAMSTER heal so much, ffs.
what the HAMSTER dude, are you trying to throw people away from DC, or?
Here is WHY:
In order to cast empowered by 6 pips FF (quite strong skill) i need an about 7 SECONDS of almost standing still and HIT my enemy with Lance of faith.
Now, playing against mage, what he does? --> Chill Strike followed by disintegrate into an Ice Knife. The first tho skills will get me to almost 3/4 of my HP thats without Ice Knife Daily. And all this 200k damage he can cast INSTANTLY compared to me.
Another issue is that my FF empowered by 6 pips will most probably hit for the same 200k OVER 7 seconds that i have to stay and cast at wills. Mages SHEILD can eat up to 75% of my FF damage.
Now: Do you think its balanced??? Lets say mage comes to me on a nod, does 200k damage insatntly where i have to stay and shoot at wills to be able to fire my empowered FF to actually be eaten by his shield??? By the time i can cast my empowered FF and hit him through his shield, i will only damage him for an about 100k (taking into consideration that shield will eat half of my damage) his disintegrade will be up for the second time hitting me to DEATH.
Not even speaking of our daily cast time difference. Ice Knifes 1.5 sec vs Guardian that casts 2sec.
Do you believe its fair enough ?
I can talk endlessly about pvp becuz ive tried dueling against a TRAPPER, before those changes to bastion. I could barely heal myself with bastion being 80 devinity. with elven battle on. Guess why? Cuz he can daze me and hit with his daily SIX (6 times) in a raw, allowing me not do damage but barely HEAL myself. i can not see a way to actually fight with the current changes to bastion. Speaking as of PVP.
I can give you a link to my youtube channel so that you can actually watch what is going on pvp wise.
Totally unbalanced change to bastion thats for sure.
I'm eager to see the mod16 ready.
I have a feedback regarding builds, flexibility and feat/powers:
<font color=cyan>What do you think of giving power points to the player so that they have to choose between two versions of each encounter? For exemple: choosing between building healing word to give 1% dmg buff or 1% dmg reduction to the ones affected by the HoT; choosing between building astral shield to be a weak ground shield/HoT or a massive dmg reduction shield/low HoT around the caster that roots the cleric and spends lots of divinity.</font>
Forcing the player to choose between two versions of each encounter may allow many different builds and flexibility. It would be nicer to build your character. I say that because seems that now there are not so many ways to build differences between the players, and I this is really important in a rpg.
This idea may be a way to make it possible to have devouts that are more healy or faster to move or shieldy or offensive buffers or durable in terms of divinity, etc.. Maybe there will be arbiters that will be more focused in pure dps or debuff or control effects, or more resistend arbiters, etc..
Of course I think this would be a thing to implement for all the classes. This would create the possibility to have, for example, soulweavers that may be more healers, more buffers, soulweavers that sacrifice more of their hp for theirs heals, that are more fragile or more tanky. Maybe it would create paladins that are faster and better with aoe threat, but less resistent; or slower, more resistent, but not as good to keep aoe threat.
etc., etc., etc.,
(Sorry, I tried to use the color for the font, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong)
I hope my feedback helps in anything.
I'm anxious to play the mod16.
Good work =].
Granted, I haven't played as a new Cleric in M16 yet -- has the low-level content gotten harder somehow? Or is it maybe overtuned because of mob/zone scaling issues?
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
EDIT: I will add this - with the amount of cc immune mobs that have been added to dungeons, i would use sunburst to act as a clutch heal when players had the tendency of standing behind me. It also added a great deal of damage and ap generation with the fastest cd => more ap more flamstrike. so much damage for the dc was placed in flamestrike the more often we can cast it the better our dps. Edit 2 - i'm gonna miss the heal - but i like the heavy sun feat so much that if it works as the tooltip says, i will always pick it.
I did try the feat and yes i can see the difference. Now i can see myself in the future making a loadout to spec for it for some fights.
And ty for looking into AP gain! And yes i figure that the difficulty of content has some issues. I shouldnt be able to solo dungeons on my arbiter or my OP I believe!
Anyway the fact that you are answering and taking time for that is promoting mod 16 in my eyes too. I think i was done with the thanks but that's an other one right here, thanks for taking the time to read and answer.