test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Useless Clerics..
gizmotonic
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 48
Over the weekend I played with my guild and we ran the Epic dungeon, I played the cleric class and I found it interesting that the damage to heal ratio is way off....I mean completely way off. I was struggling to avoid agro, pulling agro easily from a single heal even though the tank was healing me. Then the squishyness of the cleric class is very bad. I found I would die within a few seconds of having agro. I am starting to think that clerics seem useless at end game and the way to win is fast dps and cash shop potions. Anyone agree, disagree? Post your comments and let me know what you think about the useless cleric class.
Post edited by gizmotonic on
0
Comments
As for dying really fast, you must stand still a lot and get hit on purpose because with your dodge and ability to just kite, you should never get hit so much that you would die.
Want to know why Neverwinter is so laggy? Check out the "Latency" section in this thread.
This. Tanks will need to resist the temptation to max their damage, and concentrate on the attacks that maximize their threat. At least, by the time they start grouping, they'll need to have specced this way, or they're just trying to be DPS, and being bad at it.
I am somewhat happy to hear that group cohesion and use of strategy is required at max level
Curious if you took the Battlewise feat for reduced threat?
Yeah this, unfortunately this.
One day, the God awful trinity of Threat/DPS/Heal will die. One day, we'll realize we've been harpooned by this concept and suffered through it for over a decade. So pervasive, even idiots like Slaviscek picked it up and baked it into a little game called Dungeons & Dragons.
Suddenly the game that was the leader, the pioneer, was now just another trend sucker. Makes me sad.
But yes, the ghost is right, the key to performing well on the Healing side, is your Tank must focus all his efforts on generating threat.
One day, we'll break from this crappy, rigid structure, but for now, that's how you conquer large, tough dungeons.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
In 4E a Cleric's heals are mostly additional side effects of damaging spells. In fact, most healing in 4E is self-healing through the healing surge mechanic. Leader role characters like Clerics just give more opportunities to spend surges. We don't have that mechanic here, but we have plentiful healing potions that produce a similar net result.
Furthermore, the NW Cleric is a maintenance Healer, not a spike healer. Think of a NW Cleric as a walking Heal-Over-Time effect. You have to give it time to work. The other characters have responsibilty to avoid and mitigate their own damage. And to self-heal with potions when necessary. It requires more thought on the part of everyone in the party. And it makes Clerics way more fun to play.
As far as NW Clerics being squishy, I completely disagree. I can't see that at all. They are more durable than the Trickster Rogue, way more durable than the Control Wizard and probably very close to the Guardian Fighter. This is as it should be in a D&D game.
Champions Online Advanced Forum Search
The Trinity is inevitable in a health point-type damage system. Every action a player takes in combat falls into one of the following categories:
1) Remove health.
2) Add health.
3) Prevent removal of health.
In any balanced system, being the best you can be at one of those means being less good at the other two. Therefore, there will always be DPS (who remove health), Healers (who add health), and Tanks (who prevent removal of health). If you attempt to muck with it, you inevitably create a situation such as the one that currently exists in STO, where DPS rules all; because Healing and Tanking extend fights, but DPS ends them.
Anticipating the usual responses; controllers are just ranged Tanks, and buffs/debuffs just make somebody else do their job better, effectively making you part of that job. So debuffing bad guy resistance is DPS, and buffing good guy resistance is Tanking.
Yeah I guess you COULD add a fourth and label it "support", which is essentially a class that supports each of the other three tiers do their job better.
I don't think the structure is inevitable though, I think we're stuck with what we have because we've adopted an old paper system (hit points, hit pct, damage accrued on hit), that was perfect for dice rolling, but perhaps a bit archaic for virtual servers that now sit on massive arrays and have computing power we only dreamed of just ten years ago.
I'd actually look forward to a system, where healing is very rare. That there is perhaps a "repair" system to deal with certain types of major wounds/inhibitions, but not a lot of healing. Actually, World of Tanks has this, (which to me is the best PVP out there). Yes I know tanks are wildly different than Fey Elves waiving two swords around like a bad Ang Lee film, but I still think it can be done intelligently.
I just think we're not thinking out of the box a whole lot. Mostly because the market has not demanded it. On the contrary, the market seems to know and want the "holy trinity" and would likely get confused and confounded if it was not there. Again, Dungeons & Dragons became victim of it, with 4e. Bill and his gang were obsessed with an in love with WOW when they designed 4e and to me it shows.
There was some "tanking" in earlier iterations of D&D, but because in paper, the DM often decided who was attacked, it wasn't always a reliable method. And yet superb combat and fun was still engineered.
I am confident one day, a game will come along and break the Tank/Heal/DPS mud that we're in and when they do, I'll be happy. In particular, designing raids where each member has an EXTREMELY narrow focus, in order to mitigate mistakes and maximize efficiency, just creates BORING play. At least, play that isn't as riveting, compelling or dynamic as I think it could be.
Wooden nickel only here, just a subjective point of view on the state of the union.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
I have no problem with that line of thinking, but watch a lot of videos, the first issue is we aren't taking enough damage from the baddies to begin with. To many videos of fights and all players staying full or very close to full the whole battle. Then when we do get surprised and someone or two are taking real damage, we go to heal and the bar barely moves up. They lol at us, then they pop a potion that they had planned the whole time. Soothing Light the exception to the healing rule, but it takes full divinity charges to heal as well or slightly better than an pot.
Your description of 4E Clerics, if true... then they nailed it in Neverwinter. That is exactly to a tee how it plays out.
DnD is based on Fighters being front line and healers being back line. That is the origin of the Trinity. Now mmo's added agro properties to further enhance the Fighters ability, the healer same before or after aggro added in.
This was discussed in another thread about the likes/dislikes of the combat system. Combat in NWO harkens back to the old hack-n-slash consoles, and part of that mechanic was spamming potions at the right time. It's just a part of how this game works.
You still need a Cleric, because they can mitigate how many potions you need for the party overall. But you will need potions, for PVP I'd say they were ESSENTIAL gear.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
So clerics bring less dps than a strait up striker, and their only benefit is to cut down on how much you spend on potions. Then you could mathematically argue that the increase of dps you would get by just bringing a striker instead would have a similar effect.
Yup, clerics sound pretty useless.
It might "sound" that way, but in practice they are not. If you overload on DPS, the tank can't hold aggro, the DPS drink potions like crazy to stay alive and you risk wipes.
A Cleric mitigates potion use for just emergencies, while also dealing with those nasty run offs that attack your DPS, by keeping them stable until aggro can be centralized again.
They work, they just don't work in the "keep me at max at all times", that you are probably used to in other games.
You can survive without a Cleric, but it's riskier, a Cleric adds stability and keep potion consumption to a minimum.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
Well then it seems to me that the argument changes from the above to "A cleric's usefulness scales negatively with the skill level of a given group."
Actually sounds pretty interesting, maybe someone can get on the math of that.
Yeah, I think that's fair, although perhaps more accurately, it mitigates risk, so that the standard trinity can operate quickly and efficiently.
Even a skilled group is going to have less risk with a Cleric and that's part of the "skill" in these games, to mitigate risk to ensure the simple execution of a basic tactic can take place without any major glitch.
It's the wizard I worry about. They need to be tweaked. Although, rumor has it they are being tweaked, not just visually, but many of their powers being adjusted as well.
Check out SHADOW on YouTube!
In any event, I don't think it will matter much since there will likely always be room for at least one cleric/support (In what I am assuming will be typical 10/25 man content.)
Personally though i'd prefer a support that does so without obligatory heals and supports by increasing direct damage/defense/movement values, that sort of thing.
The faster your fights are, and the lower the amount of adds, the less damage your party will take. A cleric will always ensure your party is at 100% for each encounter and that you have temp HPs to mitigate damage.
There are some pretty good healing techniques too. They are slightly obscured and some take feats to really make shine. You also won't see the average NWO Cleric using them lol
Find me ingame sometime and I may change your views on this
As for the PnP discussion ... my DM never used any 'threat mechanics' it was sometimes just a roll of the die. Of course if someone is in your face messing you up bad, chances are you will be attacking that person.
Healing threat never really existed. Hell its hard to tell who is casting what in a huge battlefield lol.
Clerics are designed to prevent damage, use +HP abilities (which the Guardian can use) and AOE Heal when fans are being spewed upon. If you've played WoW think of Clerics as a Discipline Priest that use HOTs to heal. Pots will be consumed like in D3.
This isn't the game-play where we AOE down trash and rush toward the boss.
Ability Scores || All Attribute Roll Combinations || My Cleric Stream \o/
Forgemaster's Flame cast with Divine Power is one amazing HoT for anyone in melee range with the target. (and adds a hefty slow) One tip for the folks out there
Also, aiming the crappy heals is a pain aswell, people call it skill and "fresh" way of healing, but these people did not even play the cleric past level 10, not only does it feel clunky but half the time your heal will "miss" because mobs stood in the way of your reticule, or people dodged at the last minute and it wasted the heal, it really is a stupid way of healing and adds nothing to the game
If heals are intended to just be so cheap rogues dont have to buy potions, ill be going pure 100% dps cleric the entire time, as just dpsing will kill mobs faster and prevent damage, so much for being a healer
As far as the more "active" role of healing (aiming etc) this is a much needed change in the general field of MMOs I think. The shift toward "action" MMOs does a good deal to freshen up the genre even if it isn't mind-blowingly innovative.
I know most Clerics said f'it and solely use AoE heals in combat, and Healing Word as prep/post ...
and yes I will be spec'd to unload the best AoE dps I can lol.
(although the Divine paragon feat line has some amazing synergy, just need to be high level really)
I hope not.
GW2 went without trinity. Groups feel like 5 soloists sharing a chat channel. It is boring beyond measure. It sucks beyond measure.
With trinity you have roles, interdependence, trust, coordination, and when acting as a group, the chance to take on tougher content.
You simply have NONE of that without trinity, as illustrated by GW2, and it doesn't even feel like grouping. The only real difference between a 5-man and an outdoor zerg for an event in GW2 is that the 5 man is in an instance and even more soloists can't just pile on at will. It's just a smaller zerg. It's boring.
If you want to solo, play other genres - or play GW2.
Most people that have problems finding groups in trinity-based games suffer from one of a few problems - 1, they want to play solo when the entire genre is founded on grouping and social, 2, they don't make friends or join a guild of like minded people, 3, they suck at playing and nobody wants to play with them, 4, they are so annoying that nobody wants to play with them.
All of these can be addressed by the player. If you want to be successful at MMORPGs, embrace grouping, make friends, join a good guild (of like minded people, not a guild that is useless), be good at something (even dps, the bottomfeeders of MMOs can be good dps or bad dps) - usually this means learn how to play in a group, and play nice (few people wanna play with jerks).
Unfortunately I don't think they will exist here either. Maybe a >60 zone *hint* *hint*
There are clear roles in NWO and 4e, this won't end up like GW2
People these days love talking in extremes. Just because the trinity is not as forced here, it certainly exists. (well actually there are 4 lol)
Or if you want to play rinse and repeat trinity quest there's always WoW or (in its perfected state of 1 button macro-mash) Rift. Just saying, hyperbole goes both ways.
Or they want to play with actual friends, RL friends who they've brought into the game who might not all want to play their 1 dedicated role forever. Or they want to play alts (trinity play makes this much less feasible). Or they have a significant other who they are pulling along into the genre. Or they're actually legitimately tired of playing reskinned DikuMUDs.
All of these can indeed be addressed by the player and we can keep the MMO industry precisely what it is right now and what it has been for the last ten years. If tabletop RPGs can evolve and change with time, why can't online ones?
Tabletop RPGs have a GM actively working to address imbalances. In particular, the GM controls aggro, and tends to select targets for the enemies based on what seems like it will be fun, which generally translates into "send the worst stuff at the Tank, and keep it off the Healer because he's squishy". A computer game doesn't, and can't with any technology likely to be available in the forseable future. That being said, the top selling tabletop RPG right now is D&D, which has "evolved" to more clearly codify the trinity into the rules.
The argument that 4e D&D more clearly codified the trinity may be somewhat valid in that it made classes who didn't cast spells useful but you can (and I have) played 4e D&D without any one role (including leader [that's healer for non D&D folks]) the same cannot be said for the MMO model of play. MMO's attachment to the trinity forces us to maintain backward mechanics (hate measurement), pushes a constant string of nerfs/buffs, makes PvP a nightmare and contributes to MMOs ending up being a job rather than a game. It has also contributed to all sorts of unpleasant divisions in the MMO community (Hardcores vs. Casuals, Raiders vs. Small Groupers, PvEers v. PvPers, Tank or Healer vs. DPS monkeys). There is nothing innately great about the trinity, we continue to use it because it is what we know, because MMO players (perhaps more than any other type of gamer) seem grossly resistant to change.