So cleric self healing was nerfed because they were getting too much gold in game compared to other classes, yet it's okay for me to group with and heal someone else for the full amount to save money on pots that way. How does that make any sense? Is Cryptic just trying to punish solo clerics?
If cleric healing was deemed as too much on self then it's too much. Period.
Also, divine empowered Forgemaster's Flame wasn't working with the healing redux for whatever reason in BWE3. It will be interesting to see if anyone changes their opinions about cleric self healing after that is fixed.
only thing i can say is devs already said there was bugs in the cleric self heals, and that heal aggro was too high.
I still found class enjoyable to play, even with bugs; so, I can say that it was different experience than BWE 1 & 2, but still not exactly disappointing.
Cleric is awesome. in some ways it is overpowered. to cry about it is...shameful. Great class Devs please do not change a thing. it works awesome for players that know how to adjust and play it the way you developed it to be played.
I only played cleric in BWE 3, and like it alot. It was admittedly pretty comical trying to tank/kite the level 13 skirm because of the threat/aggro issue. But I finished the weekend very happy with the class and did not even know until after that it was bugged.
I think everything will be ok the next time the server is live. In any event, it would stand to reason that as a result of the aggro bug, the data collected from last weekend is a bit polluted. All the extra damage clerics took due to it adds another variable and makes simply assessing the self heal nerf difficult. It seems to be reality that this issue will have to be evaluated later on once the threat mechanic is working properly, to see if the self heal needs to come back up a tick.
0
Options
l1zardo1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
This spell works so well, I can't imagine any cleric not using it: once you get it, it's pretty much the only heal you need. Other spells really need to be brought in line with this one's power. Specifically, Bastion of Health, because these two spells represent two different methods of doing the same thing, but Astral Shield far outperforms Bastion of Health.
Indeed. We have 3 powers that really are f'n amazing. I wish we had more choice, but you really are nerfing yourself by taking anything else. Tried to explain how a 475/s aoe HoT was far superior to any potion for the entire party, and that is just part of your 'bag of tricks'
Hopefully they give us more to think about when choosing encounter abilities.
The fact that we could have uber heals/shield and pot was too much for them. I tend to agree. Devs don't want a cleric tank that is 100% self-sufficient. I think they chose poor words in the AMA to try and relay that. Saying 'its about gold' was pretty silly, and allowed some idiots to solely pick on that wording instead of the message.
The AMA was done right at the end of the beta, and they were aware of all the DC issues. People still want to 'let them know' .... and let them know ... and let them know.
I don't see any suggestion threads. That's all that would be productive. But I guess that is rarely anyone's motive these days.
0
Options
lanessar13Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, SilverstarsPosts: 8Arc User
Indeed. We have 3 powers that really are f'n amazing. I wish we had more choice, but you really are nerfing yourself by taking anything else. Tried to explain how a 475/s aoe HoT was far superior to any potion for the entire party, and that is just part of your 'bag of tricks'
Hopefully they give us more to think about when choosing encounter abilities.
The fact that we could have uber heals/shield and pot was too much for them. I tend to agree. Devs don't want a cleric tank that is 100% self-sufficient. I think they chose poor words in the AMA to try and relay that. Saying 'its about gold' was pretty silly, and allowed some idiots to solely pick on that wording instead of the message.
The AMA was done right at the end of the beta, and they were aware of all the DC issues. People still want to 'let them know' .... and let them know ... and let them know.
I don't see any suggestion threads. That's all that would be productive. But I guess that is rarely anyone's motive these days.
There's a lot more testing to be done, honestly. It's hard to offer a suggestion when one ability isn't affected by the nerf, and those who loved it will see changes later. On top of that +power did nothing for healing (another bug), so...
At the numbers I saw (and the damage regularly taken) I'd say that clerics need to get the righteousness debuff reduced by another 15-20%. It's hard to gauge, but 75% was terrible and 50% will help, but not scale against higher content - so perhaps 40% would hit that sweet spot all the way up.
I personally think a flat "debuff" is a lazy way to do it. And I don't think it was thought out or balance tested for very long before being introduced.
Personally, were I to balance this system, I'd balance it around solo play and how you'd want the heals to perform there. Then, introduce a buff (not a debuff) to increase healing on group members to the point where it will be beneficial but not pigeon-hole a cleric into healbot role. Start at "Healing increased on allies by 75%" and modify it from there. That requires sampling in all level ranges, instances, etc. to determine.
To do it even better, the buff would apply by power - i.e. Healing Word heals you for 3000, heals a party member for 5500. Otherwise, as a developer, you're trapped into developing in a three part balancing act: 1. The power itself, 2. The power as it affects others and 3. The power as a whole within the framework. We could even add 4. The power as it affects the cleric himself.
If it's done by power, this reduces the balancing act tremendously. The numbers can be tweaked independent of the overall "buff" in this situation, and allows them to individually be corrected without making another power too powerful and yet a third and a fourth too weak.
Heck, we don't even know how the powers scale very well at 60 (note: with gear, because this can be a game changer). But the numbers I'm reading tell me "not very well against how much mob damage increases". Just compare some white damage in Ebon Downs versus the white damage you're seeing in Helm's Hold. It was easily 800-1K more hit. That's white damage. The kind you don't dodge, and from a minion.
I'm looking at the long term, damage incoming at higher levels. Level 20 is sort of "whatever" because being OP for 5 or even 10 levels is literally nothing - just a few hours worth of work and you aren't OP anymore. From what I was seeing in Ebon Downs and Vellosk, especially the ramp-up in difficulty, the cleric becomes a punching bag.
Was I playing the same game as you guys over the last three weekends? I had no issues with healing (dwarf cleric lvl 45) Maybe it was that fact that I wasn't standing around in AoEs or waiting for mobs to hit me. I accepted at birth that I wasn't going to solo through game and decided to team up with a good GF and Rogue instead. For most of the time the rogue killed stuff, the GF took agro and I healed. It sort of worked fine every time, I did go through a few potions but these were found and not purchased.
If Cryptic wants to require party-ing it up all the way, they should let us know.
If that's the case, I'm not interested in this game, thanx.
0
Options
l1zardo1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited March 2013
.... the open world is tuned to solo+companion. Groups actually make it mind-numbingly easy
Was I playing the same game as you guys over the last three weekends? I had no issues with healing (dwarf cleric lvl 45) Maybe it was that fact that I wasn't standing around in AoEs or waiting for mobs to hit me. I accepted at birth that I wasn't going to solo through game and decided to team up with a good GF and Rogue instead. For most of the time the rogue killed stuff, the GF took agro and I healed. It sort of worked fine every time, I did go through a few potions but these were found and not purchased.
Having a three person group for solo content is fine? I SURE HOPE SO.
0
Options
lanessar13Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, SilverstarsPosts: 8Arc User
Having a three person group for solo content is fine? I SURE HOPE SO.
QFT.
"I had no problem doing content with friends when my friends could technically do that content solo, but I couldn't".
Pretty clear statement that the class is now broken, when in previous BWE, it may have been OP, but was "fun" and on-par with the Trickster Rogue.
0
Options
landofruitMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 13Arc User
edited April 2013
My experience in Beta Weekend 3 was lower level. I made level 20.
Groups
I was a mob magnet. I was sliding constantly in boss fights. The tanks must have felt useless most of the time. I'm glad to hear it was a bug.
Solo
The Man-at-Arms was holding them off of me and we were doing well. In fact, I won an area mini-game "Chase the Spy" with 16 catches at level 19. That was against rogues, lots of great weapon fighters, control wizards and another cleric. I tried the Mercenary as a companion. She was low ranked and completely unhelpful with soloing. I come wondering if it would have been different is she was ranked higher.
Overall, the cleric aggro was annoying in groups, it soloed good, and was fun. I did use significantly more potions during Beta Weekend 3, but still had a ton of them at the end of the weekend. I never had to buy any.
0
Options
l1zardo1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2013
It was OP in weekend 2... and in #3 we had instant aggro of everything. Just waiting now to see the new build. Hope they let us do a W4 sooooon.
Be glad they do not want to touch our party healing ability. So much crying about self heal, but with easy solo content and (hopefully) good groups, it should be a non-issue.
0
Options
lanessar13Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, SilverstarsPosts: 8Arc User
It was OP in weekend 2... and in #3 we had instant aggro of everything. Just waiting now to see the new build. Hope they let us do a W4 sooooon.
Be glad they do not want to touch our party healing ability. So much crying about self heal, but with easy solo content and (hopefully) good groups, it should be a non-issue.
Again, we'll just see how this all scales at higher levels. It started getting worse the higher I got, but, maybe things turn around the last 15 levels.
I'll repeat what I said in another thread; blanket "debuffs" will make balancing a nightmare. There are already 3 skills a player should never have on his bar after 20th level (because there are much better options).
Just off the top of my head, I can say that if you want to handle a problem with a cleric self-healing through a boss encounter, you add a stacking heal reduction which fades after 10 seconds. That handles the "issue" Cryptic had with cleric healing better than blanket debuffs.
0
Options
l1zardo1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2013
Agreed. Their 'fix' is further reaching than the scenarios it was attempting to fix.
CW has already shown that PvP can have different power functions than PvE. Pretty sure group content can be the same.
Late zone content should be the toughest to solo, and bad pulls etc should result in potential death. I really can't compare to other classes though, and we did have our 'new feature' reducing more than intended.
Time will tell, but you are very correct that any blanket change is a lazy approach that will unbalance something other than their targeted reason.
I do realize they were just trying to get data from W3 to see how far off from the mark ... unfortunately it's all tainted.
Devoted Cleric may not be for you. Good thing there will be more cleric classes and lots more heal classes in the future.
You don't know that. There will be more classes. But you do not know they will be more healing. Look at this class! at level 25, I had 2 attacks, just 2, that did not heal. How are they going to make a better healing class than that? It heals MORE? The Devoted cleric already got debuffed and nerfed because it healed too much as it is. I very highly doubt there will be another more healing cleric. It's going to be a melee pure damage and buff cleric with very little healing at all most likely.
l1zardo1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2013
Honestly, I am certain that the middle paragon path has a healing at-will (Cure Light Wounds), as well as another encounter ability that solely heals. (its called a utility spell though ... so not sure about that lol) - Cure Serious Wounds.
Found those poking around the game files.
Also that paragon line's feats give around +40% heals with all of the circumstance mods, and an amazing heal to Hollowed Ground daily.
You can't just sit back and only throw heals. You have the Divinity 'resource' that you need to manage in order to make use of the best effects for the class.
In essence that is what is keeping the Cleric in the action, not via lack of abilities or feats tailored to being a healer.
It just feels like classes are balanced around potion usage. That is not very fun when it leads to the paradox of classes with a lot of healing abilities, not being able to properly heal themselves. My suggestion:
1. Remove healing potions.
2. If necessary, compensate with an alternative gold sink without interfering with class abilities.
3. Give all classes except Clerics a self-heal as 8th ability on a 1-2 minute cool-down.
4. Let Clerics heal themselves properly.
5. ???
6. More fun to be had by all!
It just feels like classes are balanced around potion usage. That is not very fun when it leads to the paradox of classes with a lot of healing abilities, not being able to properly heal themselves. My suggestion:
1. Remove healing potions.
2. If necessary, compensate with an alternative gold sink without interfering with class abilities.
3. Give all classes except Clerics a self-heal as 8th ability on a 1-2 minute cool-down.
4. Let Clerics heal themselves properly.
5. ???
6. More fun to be had by all!
I disagree for two primary reasons here.
The first is that this doesn't seem like more fun but more homogenization. The classes are all different and that's reasonable. Clerics as Leaders shouldn't be doing as much damage as Rogues as Strikers, and Rogues as Strikers shouldn't be able to heal the way Clerics do as Leaders.
The second is that you're talking about taking away a core mechanic of D&D games. The "pop a healing potion" has been in the game since the days when it was Chainmail. As it is, all classes have the ability to stabilize other players.
Yeah, it would be good for clerics to be able to self heal as well as they heal others. Frankly, it makes sense to do so. But removing healing potions doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
The right to command is earned through duty, the privilege of rank is service.
0
Options
jirodyneMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Yeah, it would be good for clerics to be able to self heal as well as they heal others. Frankly, it makes sense to do so. But removing healing potions doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
And debuffing a class just because they save more money on potions than other classes doesn't make much sense either. It's a HEALING class. It's a CLERIC. And yet they nerfed it, just because it was saving a bit of gold on Pots... Gold that is going to be spent on..... what else? a single Horse? That's.... That's it, since everything else in the entire game is ADs. So really, why does it matter? It's not like they can transfer the potions to other toons, or the money. So why did they make the already weak Cleric even weaker?
From lvl 1 to 25, as a cleric, I was unable to solo anything. I had to actually go out and party with 1 other person, cause if I fought anything bigger than 3 minion only, or 1 standard enemy only, I could not run, attack, heal and kill it. It would just swing and kill me in 3-4 hits. Even with potion spamming, it only saved me an extra 7 seconds of life.
This grew even worse when I leveled up, cause I was doing less damage, and taking more damage. From what I have seen while playing Beta 3, Clerics are purely for groups and could not be played Solo, even with a companion for a while cause I took all the Threat and he couldn't kill them before they killed me, even with my damage and healing and potions helping.
I think I died.... somewhere between 53 and 57 times. Hard to remember, especially in the dungeons where everything ignored everyone else and went right for me. For a game based all around moving out of danger zones, it's the common normal attacks that kill me quicker than those things do.
So yeah, while I do not agree with taking away the potions, I do believe it's unfair to punish the healing class, for doing his job. From this I hear, this 'cleric' the 'Devoted cleric' isn't even Healing main. It's more geared towards DPS build than healing. So what is going to happen when they DO add in the Cleric that is pure healing?
So yeah, while I do not agree with taking away the potions, I do believe it's unfair to punish the healing class, for doing his job. From this I hear, this 'cleric' the 'Devoted cleric' isn't even Healing main. It's more geared towards DPS build than healing. So what is going to happen when they DO add in the Cleric that is pure healing?
As I recall, they have been clear that they're not following the cookie-cutter MMO mold of having a pure healing class. That being said, as you quoted I agree that it makes sense for clerics to be able to fully self-heal.
The right to command is earned through duty, the privilege of rank is service.
And debuffing a class just because they save more money on potions than other classes doesn't make much sense either. It's a HEALING class. It's a CLERIC. And yet they nerfed it, just because it was saving a bit of gold on Pots... Gold that is going to be spent on..... what else? a single Horse? That's.... That's it, since everything else in the entire game is ADs. So really, why does it matter? It's not like they can transfer the potions to other toons, or the money. So why did they make the already weak Cleric even weaker?
From lvl 1 to 25, as a cleric, I was unable to solo anything. I had to actually go out and party with 1 other person, cause if I fought anything bigger than 3 minion only, or 1 standard enemy only, I could not run, attack, heal and kill it. It would just swing and kill me in 3-4 hits. Even with potion spamming, it only saved me an extra 7 seconds of life.
This grew even worse when I leveled up, cause I was doing less damage, and taking more damage. From what I have seen while playing Beta 3, Clerics are purely for groups and could not be played Solo, even with a companion for a while cause I took all the Threat and he couldn't kill them before they killed me, even with my damage and healing and potions helping.
I think I died.... somewhere between 53 and 57 times. Hard to remember, especially in the dungeons where everything ignored everyone else and went right for me. For a game based all around moving out of danger zones, it's the common normal attacks that kill me quicker than those things do.
So yeah, while I do not agree with taking away the potions, I do believe it's unfair to punish the healing class, for doing his job. From this I hear, this 'cleric' the 'Devoted cleric' isn't even Healing main. It's more geared towards DPS build than healing. So what is going to happen when they DO add in the Cleric that is pure healing?
It would not be fun to die so many times. My experience with cleric was much different. I only played BWE3 and have never played a healing class before. I duoed up through the orc area and it was fun but challenge wise I found the content pretty trivialized for two players.
I started soloing with the sewer escort quest. It was pretty tough, I died once on the boss. The boss in the next quest with the gates was really hard (died a few times) but by then quests are tuned to a companion and I did not have one yet.
After that I got a companion (dog) and found the quests to be very doable solo. At that point I was fighting mobs 2-3 levels above me, but all fights were winnable and my potion stack was growing. I stopped playing just short of 19 because I did not want to see anymore content. I am far from an elite player. I had not even figured out the divinity function yet other than to spam at wills with it.
As far as the thread title, I am pretty happy with cleric. I only played it in its buggiest state, and group combat was totally borked for everyone due to the aggro bug, but assuming that is now behind us, I am very hopeful that the class will be fun to play and definitely soloable. Some may need to use a cleric pet, others will be fine with a tank for threat management or a DPS to simply burn things down faster. Still others might need to add some foundry content to get them at or a level or so above the mobs. But I hope they do not nerf overall difficulty of the game, that would be a mistake and would make grouping in anything but delves/skirms a pretty boring experience.
0
Options
mewbreyMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 517Bounty Hunter
As I recall, they have been clear that they're not following the cookie-cutter MMO mold of having a pure healing class. That being said, as you quoted I agree that it makes sense for clerics to be able to fully self-heal.
What he is referring too in his post, is that in 4ED D&D tabletop, the divine oracle paragon class we have been lumped with is actually more of a damage paragon path for clerics, compare to the miracle worker paragon as an example. In the future I hope they add at least two more paragon classes to each class, I would like to see Miracle worker and astral savant would mix well with the current divine oracle.
had not even figured out the divinity function yet other than to spam at wills with it.
Don't do that, your divine pips are valuable, while you can use your right click as an oh poopie! button that can save people, it is often more valuable if you can not get into the situation of having to use your divine pips for that, using the secondary effects of encounter skills with the pips often yields a much greater return, this is of course from a grouping stand point.
They can't change potions very much at all, without rebalancing the solo ability of every single other class.
When you are soloing, layer up your 3 stack HoT before the pull, then 2 dps encounter powers to open, with dodges inbetween. Damage is paramount to stay alive, and smart usage of Divinity buffed spells
Not much to talk about until the new game build though. Did notice many of the useful lower level powers are higher up in the tree now. Might cause some issues.
0
Options
bejita231Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 18Arc User
edited April 2013
Cryptics excuse for nerfing clerics was that they had more money than everyone else because they could heal without the need for potions
But what Cryptic so idioticly didnt realize was that a cleric nerfs his damage by a ton puting healing abilities on his bar, you dont have to use as many potions but you also cant farm as fast as the other classes, now now the clerics healing is not worth being placed on your hotbar, you mineaswell just remove heals from the cleric and make them a dpser
0
Options
prunetracyMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Cryptics excuse for nerfing clerics was that they had more money than everyone else because they could heal without the need for potions
But what Cryptic so idioticly didnt realize was that a cleric nerfs his damage by a ton puting healing abilities on his bar, you dont have to use as many potions but you also cant farm as fast as the other classes, now now the clerics healing is not worth being placed on your hotbar, you mineaswell just remove heals from the cleric and make them a dpser
I wouldn't say a ton. Most of the Cleric's healing comes from secondary effects. The issue was more that Clerics always benefit from the healing spells they cast, while other group members only get heals targeted on them. This means the Cleric receives more healing spells in quantity, so they're balancing it by reducing the amount of those self-heals. The effect was broken in our most recent beta, leaving self healing far lower than intended. We'll see how it is in this coming beta.
0
Options
bluelightbanditMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 4Arc User
You really really REALLY don't understand what we are saying.
Again, Clerics are meant to heal, in a party thats their MAIN job, if they nerfed because we do good DPS and had enough heals to not use as much potions as other classes, you nerf its self heal ? NO, you nerf its DPS, of COURSE we are gonna use far less potions, thats our main power, to be able to heal everyone, including us.
And we dont do as much DPS as many say, we have a nice AoE DPS, but single target we DONT win from Wizards or Rogues...go try some pvp and u'll see.
Having characters that can only be played one way is not what D&D is. It's actually what made DDO kinda cool, despite it's awful graphics, generic 'swing-and-a-miss' combat style, and quests that you ran over and over and over and over again. Being able to build a cleric that could out dps other classes, or heck, even a paladin that could switch between tank and primary healer was pretty fun.
If this is a game that every character of a specific class will look exactly the same at end game then I'm just going to go back to WoW. At least there I could play a capped dwarf with PTSD who did nothing but sit around fishing and drinking beer all day.
Comments
If cleric healing was deemed as too much on self then it's too much. Period.
Also, divine empowered Forgemaster's Flame wasn't working with the healing redux for whatever reason in BWE3. It will be interesting to see if anyone changes their opinions about cleric self healing after that is fixed.
I still found class enjoyable to play, even with bugs; so, I can say that it was different experience than BWE 1 & 2, but still not exactly disappointing.
I think everything will be ok the next time the server is live. In any event, it would stand to reason that as a result of the aggro bug, the data collected from last weekend is a bit polluted. All the extra damage clerics took due to it adds another variable and makes simply assessing the self heal nerf difficult. It seems to be reality that this issue will have to be evaluated later on once the threat mechanic is working properly, to see if the self heal needs to come back up a tick.
Indeed. We have 3 powers that really are f'n amazing. I wish we had more choice, but you really are nerfing yourself by taking anything else. Tried to explain how a 475/s aoe HoT was far superior to any potion for the entire party, and that is just part of your 'bag of tricks'
Hopefully they give us more to think about when choosing encounter abilities.
The fact that we could have uber heals/shield and pot was too much for them. I tend to agree. Devs don't want a cleric tank that is 100% self-sufficient. I think they chose poor words in the AMA to try and relay that. Saying 'its about gold' was pretty silly, and allowed some idiots to solely pick on that wording instead of the message.
The AMA was done right at the end of the beta, and they were aware of all the DC issues. People still want to 'let them know' .... and let them know ... and let them know.
I don't see any suggestion threads. That's all that would be productive. But I guess that is rarely anyone's motive these days.
There's a lot more testing to be done, honestly. It's hard to offer a suggestion when one ability isn't affected by the nerf, and those who loved it will see changes later. On top of that +power did nothing for healing (another bug), so...
At the numbers I saw (and the damage regularly taken) I'd say that clerics need to get the righteousness debuff reduced by another 15-20%. It's hard to gauge, but 75% was terrible and 50% will help, but not scale against higher content - so perhaps 40% would hit that sweet spot all the way up.
I personally think a flat "debuff" is a lazy way to do it. And I don't think it was thought out or balance tested for very long before being introduced.
Personally, were I to balance this system, I'd balance it around solo play and how you'd want the heals to perform there. Then, introduce a buff (not a debuff) to increase healing on group members to the point where it will be beneficial but not pigeon-hole a cleric into healbot role. Start at "Healing increased on allies by 75%" and modify it from there. That requires sampling in all level ranges, instances, etc. to determine.
To do it even better, the buff would apply by power - i.e. Healing Word heals you for 3000, heals a party member for 5500. Otherwise, as a developer, you're trapped into developing in a three part balancing act: 1. The power itself, 2. The power as it affects others and 3. The power as a whole within the framework. We could even add 4. The power as it affects the cleric himself.
If it's done by power, this reduces the balancing act tremendously. The numbers can be tweaked independent of the overall "buff" in this situation, and allows them to individually be corrected without making another power too powerful and yet a third and a fourth too weak.
Heck, we don't even know how the powers scale very well at 60 (note: with gear, because this can be a game changer). But the numbers I'm reading tell me "not very well against how much mob damage increases". Just compare some white damage in Ebon Downs versus the white damage you're seeing in Helm's Hold. It was easily 800-1K more hit. That's white damage. The kind you don't dodge, and from a minion.
I'm looking at the long term, damage incoming at higher levels. Level 20 is sort of "whatever" because being OP for 5 or even 10 levels is literally nothing - just a few hours worth of work and you aren't OP anymore. From what I was seeing in Ebon Downs and Vellosk, especially the ramp-up in difficulty, the cleric becomes a punching bag.
If Cryptic wants to require party-ing it up all the way, they should let us know.
If that's the case, I'm not interested in this game, thanx.
Having a three person group for solo content is fine? I SURE HOPE SO.
QFT.
"I had no problem doing content with friends when my friends could technically do that content solo, but I couldn't".
Pretty clear statement that the class is now broken, when in previous BWE, it may have been OP, but was "fun" and on-par with the Trickster Rogue.
Groups
I was a mob magnet. I was sliding constantly in boss fights. The tanks must have felt useless most of the time. I'm glad to hear it was a bug.
Solo
The Man-at-Arms was holding them off of me and we were doing well. In fact, I won an area mini-game "Chase the Spy" with 16 catches at level 19. That was against rogues, lots of great weapon fighters, control wizards and another cleric. I tried the Mercenary as a companion. She was low ranked and completely unhelpful with soloing. I come wondering if it would have been different is she was ranked higher.
Overall, the cleric aggro was annoying in groups, it soloed good, and was fun. I did use significantly more potions during Beta Weekend 3, but still had a ton of them at the end of the weekend. I never had to buy any.
Be glad they do not want to touch our party healing ability. So much crying about self heal, but with easy solo content and (hopefully) good groups, it should be a non-issue.
Again, we'll just see how this all scales at higher levels. It started getting worse the higher I got, but, maybe things turn around the last 15 levels.
I'll repeat what I said in another thread; blanket "debuffs" will make balancing a nightmare. There are already 3 skills a player should never have on his bar after 20th level (because there are much better options).
Just off the top of my head, I can say that if you want to handle a problem with a cleric self-healing through a boss encounter, you add a stacking heal reduction which fades after 10 seconds. That handles the "issue" Cryptic had with cleric healing better than blanket debuffs.
CW has already shown that PvP can have different power functions than PvE. Pretty sure group content can be the same.
Late zone content should be the toughest to solo, and bad pulls etc should result in potential death. I really can't compare to other classes though, and we did have our 'new feature' reducing more than intended.
Time will tell, but you are very correct that any blanket change is a lazy approach that will unbalance something other than their targeted reason.
I do realize they were just trying to get data from W3 to see how far off from the mark ... unfortunately it's all tainted.
You don't know that. There will be more classes. But you do not know they will be more healing. Look at this class! at level 25, I had 2 attacks, just 2, that did not heal. How are they going to make a better healing class than that? It heals MORE? The Devoted cleric already got debuffed and nerfed because it healed too much as it is. I very highly doubt there will be another more healing cleric. It's going to be a melee pure damage and buff cleric with very little healing at all most likely.
Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
Found those poking around the game files.
Also that paragon line's feats give around +40% heals with all of the circumstance mods, and an amazing heal to Hollowed Ground daily.
You can't just sit back and only throw heals. You have the Divinity 'resource' that you need to manage in order to make use of the best effects for the class.
In essence that is what is keeping the Cleric in the action, not via lack of abilities or feats tailored to being a healer.
1. Remove healing potions.
2. If necessary, compensate with an alternative gold sink without interfering with class abilities.
3. Give all classes except Clerics a self-heal as 8th ability on a 1-2 minute cool-down.
4. Let Clerics heal themselves properly.
5. ???
6. More fun to be had by all!
I disagree for two primary reasons here.
The first is that this doesn't seem like more fun but more homogenization. The classes are all different and that's reasonable. Clerics as Leaders shouldn't be doing as much damage as Rogues as Strikers, and Rogues as Strikers shouldn't be able to heal the way Clerics do as Leaders.
The second is that you're talking about taking away a core mechanic of D&D games. The "pop a healing potion" has been in the game since the days when it was Chainmail. As it is, all classes have the ability to stabilize other players.
Yeah, it would be good for clerics to be able to self heal as well as they heal others. Frankly, it makes sense to do so. But removing healing potions doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
And debuffing a class just because they save more money on potions than other classes doesn't make much sense either. It's a HEALING class. It's a CLERIC. And yet they nerfed it, just because it was saving a bit of gold on Pots... Gold that is going to be spent on..... what else? a single Horse? That's.... That's it, since everything else in the entire game is ADs. So really, why does it matter? It's not like they can transfer the potions to other toons, or the money. So why did they make the already weak Cleric even weaker?
From lvl 1 to 25, as a cleric, I was unable to solo anything. I had to actually go out and party with 1 other person, cause if I fought anything bigger than 3 minion only, or 1 standard enemy only, I could not run, attack, heal and kill it. It would just swing and kill me in 3-4 hits. Even with potion spamming, it only saved me an extra 7 seconds of life.
This grew even worse when I leveled up, cause I was doing less damage, and taking more damage. From what I have seen while playing Beta 3, Clerics are purely for groups and could not be played Solo, even with a companion for a while cause I took all the Threat and he couldn't kill them before they killed me, even with my damage and healing and potions helping.
I think I died.... somewhere between 53 and 57 times. Hard to remember, especially in the dungeons where everything ignored everyone else and went right for me. For a game based all around moving out of danger zones, it's the common normal attacks that kill me quicker than those things do.
So yeah, while I do not agree with taking away the potions, I do believe it's unfair to punish the healing class, for doing his job. From this I hear, this 'cleric' the 'Devoted cleric' isn't even Healing main. It's more geared towards DPS build than healing. So what is going to happen when they DO add in the Cleric that is pure healing?
Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
As I recall, they have been clear that they're not following the cookie-cutter MMO mold of having a pure healing class. That being said, as you quoted I agree that it makes sense for clerics to be able to fully self-heal.
It would not be fun to die so many times. My experience with cleric was much different. I only played BWE3 and have never played a healing class before. I duoed up through the orc area and it was fun but challenge wise I found the content pretty trivialized for two players.
I started soloing with the sewer escort quest. It was pretty tough, I died once on the boss. The boss in the next quest with the gates was really hard (died a few times) but by then quests are tuned to a companion and I did not have one yet.
After that I got a companion (dog) and found the quests to be very doable solo. At that point I was fighting mobs 2-3 levels above me, but all fights were winnable and my potion stack was growing. I stopped playing just short of 19 because I did not want to see anymore content. I am far from an elite player. I had not even figured out the divinity function yet other than to spam at wills with it.
As far as the thread title, I am pretty happy with cleric. I only played it in its buggiest state, and group combat was totally borked for everyone due to the aggro bug, but assuming that is now behind us, I am very hopeful that the class will be fun to play and definitely soloable. Some may need to use a cleric pet, others will be fine with a tank for threat management or a DPS to simply burn things down faster. Still others might need to add some foundry content to get them at or a level or so above the mobs. But I hope they do not nerf overall difficulty of the game, that would be a mistake and would make grouping in anything but delves/skirms a pretty boring experience.
What he is referring too in his post, is that in 4ED D&D tabletop, the divine oracle paragon class we have been lumped with is actually more of a damage paragon path for clerics, compare to the miracle worker paragon as an example. In the future I hope they add at least two more paragon classes to each class, I would like to see Miracle worker and astral savant would mix well with the current divine oracle.
Don't do that, your divine pips are valuable, while you can use your right click as an oh poopie! button that can save people, it is often more valuable if you can not get into the situation of having to use your divine pips for that, using the secondary effects of encounter skills with the pips often yields a much greater return, this is of course from a grouping stand point.
When you are soloing, layer up your 3 stack HoT before the pull, then 2 dps encounter powers to open, with dodges inbetween. Damage is paramount to stay alive, and smart usage of Divinity buffed spells
Not much to talk about until the new game build though. Did notice many of the useful lower level powers are higher up in the tree now. Might cause some issues.
But what Cryptic so idioticly didnt realize was that a cleric nerfs his damage by a ton puting healing abilities on his bar, you dont have to use as many potions but you also cant farm as fast as the other classes, now now the clerics healing is not worth being placed on your hotbar, you mineaswell just remove heals from the cleric and make them a dpser
I wouldn't say a ton. Most of the Cleric's healing comes from secondary effects. The issue was more that Clerics always benefit from the healing spells they cast, while other group members only get heals targeted on them. This means the Cleric receives more healing spells in quantity, so they're balancing it by reducing the amount of those self-heals. The effect was broken in our most recent beta, leaving self healing far lower than intended. We'll see how it is in this coming beta.
Having characters that can only be played one way is not what D&D is. It's actually what made DDO kinda cool, despite it's awful graphics, generic 'swing-and-a-miss' combat style, and quests that you ran over and over and over and over again. Being able to build a cleric that could out dps other classes, or heck, even a paladin that could switch between tank and primary healer was pretty fun.
If this is a game that every character of a specific class will look exactly the same at end game then I'm just going to go back to WoW. At least there I could play a capped dwarf with PTSD who did nothing but sit around fishing and drinking beer all day.
~Oscar Wilde~
"Look at what the Great Weapon Fighter can do, he's so OP!"
~Andy Velasquez~