Its been weeks now. Also so what if threat is fixed? You guys realize that GF are unable to keep their shield up and tank more than a couple mobs without the shield breaking right? Both clerics and GF are not working right. You know something is screwed up when the best tank spec is actually dps lol.
I don't know off hand what the threat modifiers are for a guardian but the reason threat is screwed up is simple.
Healing and damage converts to threat at roughly 1:1 (1000 healing = 1000 damage = 1000 threat). With 3/3 Sooth and 3/3 feat, we have 46% threat reduction (1851 healing = 1000 damage = 1000 threat).
However, healing generates threat for all mobs that track back the healing (everything that can see you basically) while damage only adds threat for the mob damages. So if we heal 5 targets (including ourselves or a pet for example) for 1000 healing we generate a total of 2700 threat on every mob that can see us.
For dps players, this means they need to do 2700 damage on a mob to keep us from pulling it away (there is likely an inertial threshold like 10% though) or even more than that if they have their own threat reduction effects.
For guardians, this means they need to generate 2700 threat on every mob they are trying to tank.
The key to threat management is for other players to take less damage - avoid everything that is avoidable - and to use health potions when applicable. The more damage we have to heal through the more threat we will generate.
If we are using direct heals, then our threat is actually less, and we can heal 1851 for every 1000 damage being done to each mob and avoid pulling off.
The only two ways this can really be fixed is a) give AOE healing spells a very low threat modifier (less than 0.2. 0.2 * 5 = 1.0 or 1:1) or to change AOE spells to generate only as much threat as the single greatest heal (if you heal 5 targets 1851 each it would generate 1000 threat total rather than 5000 total).
It's not fun having to be afraid of any sort of aoe stray healing because even 1 hit point heal on someone instantly puts 20 mobs on you.
This just means no-one is doing add control. As long as mobs are being damaged for more than your healing threat generation you won't pull.
Unfortunately, in most groups everyone just piles on the boss and ignores the adds leading to what I'm quickly beginning to term "Electric Slide" spam. The chains do not hold long enough and our single AOE knockback does little damage.
They could change Divinity version of the AOE to reduce threat to affected targets rather than adding it. That would make it useful. It would then cost 1 charge to knock back and wipe threat on mobs swarming us. Seems fair.
They could change Divinity version of the AOE to reduce threat to affected targets rather than adding it. That would make it useful. It would then cost 1 charge to knock back and wipe threat on mobs swarming us. Seems fair.
I really like that suggestion! It would provide a good way for us to take control of the fight instead of the current headless chickens we tend to degrade into.
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kerlaaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I can tell you one thing. As my main is a DC and alt is a CW when I do get adds on my CW (far less often then the DC) I know how to run then around like a pro. Thank you DC.
I still get primary agro......and in fact what ever the agro count variable is, I can actually go into areas with out doing a heal or attack and have enemies stop attacking other players to come after me only.
Some one must have told all the mobs that cleric flesh is especially tasty because I have the same thing. I'm not doing dungeons until something, anything, is done. I've played in healers in a variety of MMOs, but my dps characters could always out agro my healers. Death should be clearing the aggro, but it isn't. I get raised by teammates to immediately die. It doesn't help that sometimes the heal potions don't heal but go on cooldown anyway. Dungeons and skirmishes mean burning through not just heal potions but scrolls of life as well, and I just can't afford to keep doing that. I pull a ton of aggro still in normal areas (currently level 50), but I've managed so far with a rogue friend.
Maybe they have invented a new Cleric ability - Death Insult. [whilst dead you yell bad things about the mobs female parent. Divinity - you also hint that you got very friendly with said female parent].
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
I haven't experienced agro persisting through death - so far I've been lucky not to die (you get realllllly good at avoidance very quickly). I don't know what I'd do if the cooldown on potions was any longer than it is though.
Honestly, they could bandaid fix all of this by giving us an encounter ability upgrade that drops threat.
I haven't experienced agro persisting through death - so far I've been lucky not to die (you get realllllly good at avoidance very quickly). I don't know what I'd do if the cooldown on potions was any longer than it is though.
Honestly, they could bandaid fix all of this by giving us an encounter ability upgrade that drops threat.
Typically if I die with heals ticking on the group (forgemaster in divinity mode, astral shield) then when I am rezzed everything immediately remembers just how much it hates me and comes back to kill me - since I have low health when that happens, it is a 100% guaranteed second death.
I too have stopped dungeoning till it gets fixed. Problem is, the auction house is not attaching anything to my mail (for the last week!) so who knows how I will get geared up.
I've been running T2 Dungeons for about a week now and have tried the fix a few times and it doesn't seem to change anything.
I think the proof of the aggro problem really shows it's head when i die and the rest of the group has full health they die within 10 seconds. I would hope that then other classes would realize just how much aggro we clerics have to contend with.
I think it would be funny to just try a dungeon and use pay-to-win pots and just keep healing myself with my casts and act like an aggro totem so all the mobs are on me and the group can just kill them off of me lol.
This is putting me off playing my cleric. I've been in T2 dungeons for a while, and I'm just tired of almost every boss fight consisting of potion-chugging kitefests, with me tanking everything that isn't the main boss. It's <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> gameplay.
It is getting frustrating. Especially now that we have a new wave of 60's that are geared from auction house purchases to push their GS up and get into T2 dungeons and then they don't really have the first clue about how
a) Not to stand in the bad
b) Focus new adds that appear
c) Drink a pot when their health is low
d) Use a medkit after they die repeatedly
e) Tunellng the boss is not insta win
I do enjoy healing pugs, but then I expect or hope that people would make at least a little effort
If you ask me, the AI is pretty believable. Imagine, if you can, yourself as a monster/humanoid (or other enemy). You're having trouble killing the thing getting your immediate attention because there's someone casting white sparkles that make him healthy again. This becomes a trend with EVERY party that invades your territory. In pnp, we used to call this "strategy".
On the other hand, imagine you're fighting a group of enemies in any generic single-player RPG; there's a couple strikers in front of you, a caster off to the side, and a healer in the corner. In a random encounter like this, who do YOU attack first usually?
The fact that there are squajillions of mobs attacking at once, and that tanks can only hold a limited number of mobs attention for a limited amount of time is another matter entirely. The point is, it's an adventurer's AND/OR monster's priority to take out healers first.
The fact that there are squajillions of mobs attacking at once, and that tanks can only hold a limited number of mobs attention for a limited amount of time is another matter entirely. The point is, it's an adventurer's AND/OR monster's priority to take out healers first.
It is however a game though and you shouldn't be punished for being a healer.
At the moment we are punished for doing what the class was designed to do.
With the scenario you describe a CW can blow mobs off a cliff, then on a map with cliffs we should have the CW targeted by all mobs immediately, since they are the ones that represent the greatest risk to the mobs survival?
If you ask me, the AI is pretty believable. Imagine, if you can, yourself as a monster/humanoid (or other enemy). You're having trouble killing the thing getting your immediate attention because there's someone casting white sparkles that make him healthy again. This becomes a trend with EVERY party that invades your territory. In pnp, we used to call this "strategy".
On the other hand, imagine you're fighting a group of enemies in any generic single-player RPG; there's a couple strikers in front of you, a caster off to the side, and a healer in the corner. In a random encounter like this, who do YOU attack first usually?
The fact that there are squajillions of mobs attacking at once, and that tanks can only hold a limited number of mobs attention for a limited amount of time is another matter entirely. The point is, it's an adventurer's AND/OR monster's priority to take out healers first.
Yes and No.
Ever PvP? You can't always go after the healer. If you turn your back on the DPS they will kill you before you can take the healer down. This is called pressure. When you apply pressure you can keep the enemy team from doing what they want/need to do.
Same perspective here, only instead of pressure mobs respond to threat. Threat is a measure of how dangerous a monster views a given player. High threat abilities can be likened to strikes that are particularly painful but maybe don't do as much damage.
This is the point I was making earlier. It is up to the DPS and tank to keep the pressure on the mobs so that they /don't/ go after the healers, and to peel them off when they do.
In ideal situations healers don't need threat drops because DPS and tank can keep the mobs attention. On the other hand, it's our responsibility to manage our own positioning so that mobs are forced to go through the dps and tank to get to us. We lay down immobilizing chains, zip through mobs using our dash, and try to ensure that mobs are getting hit by cleaves and AOE damage fields and such.
That's really all we can do: keep everyone between us and the mobs.
It is however a game though and you shouldn't be punished for being a healer.
At the moment we are punished for doing what the class was designed to do.
With the scenario you describe a CW can blow mobs off a cliff, then on a map with cliffs we should have the CW targeted by all mobs immediately, since they are the ones that represent the greatest risk to the mobs survival?
I didn't program the AI for the mobs, nor do I know anything about doing in-depth, environmental AI situations. In a hypothetical, purely black and white fantasy game, a generic player or monster should target a healer first, while a tank should have the abilities to draw more aggro than the healer. But like I said, that is another topic of controversy. And as far as a single ad's priority is concerned, he's doing his assigned, logical job.
If an add or two were healing a boss in a battle, would you leave them alone because it's unfair to the add since they're just doing their job? Heaven forbid we get that kind of deep, strategical combat situation in this game, but I'm just being hypothetical again.
Ever PvP? You can't always go after the healer. If you turn your back on the DPS they will kill you before you can take the healer down. This is called pressure. When you apply pressure you can keep the enemy team from doing what they want/need to do.
Honestly, I haven't seen a PvP match where at least half the participants aren't complacent AFK. Then again, I don't PvP much, sorry. But I am aware of how threat works, and I believe healing is a form of threat. In my opinion, the general MMO has downplayed how much of a "threat" a cleric actually is, and it's just a common misconception that healers aren't a priority........or monsters are just dumb.
I dunno. Maybe I've been a pnp DM for too long....
Thing is the mobs should have to come from a certain direction through a door or something giving the players a chance to see and intercept them, not just appear out of nowhere as it seems they do. Also how do the mobs automatically all know who the healer is instantly, apparently they are well trained mobs who know what to look for and all agree to always attack the cleric..
You can apply any concept to a game with creatures that really are not real and live in a game world only. Its a game, and you have to make it fun for the players #1, if one class is getting beat on so bad they give it up, this needs fixing ASAP.
Thing is the mobs should have to come from a certain direction through a door or something giving the players a chance to see and intercept them, not just appear out of nowhere as it seems they do. Also how do the mobs automatically all know who the healer is instantly, apparently they are well trained mobs who know what to look for and all agree to always attack the cleric..
You can apply any concept to a game with creatures that really are not real and live in a game world only. Its a game, and you have to make it fun for the players #1, if one class is getting beat on so bad they give it up, this needs fixing ASAP.
I have to agree with that. Having fun in a game is first priority. But "fun" is relative. Some people have fun being healbots and analyzing from a RTS perspective, some people like the challenge of having to time your heals with proper kiting, and still some people have fun trying to find bugs/exploits or to play ninja looter. I might have fun playing a cleric a certain way that you might hate, vice versa.
And really, if you're not standing like hunchback, kung-fu master, anime weapon wannabe, or full-body shield, then you're probably a cleric (holy symbol, instead of weapon might give it away)....
And really, if you're not standing like hunchback, kung-fu master, anime weapon wannabe, or full-body shield, then you're probably a cleric (holy symbol, instead of weapon might give it away)....
Actually the mobs have no perception as its a game.
The developers merely programmed the mobs to attack the cleric with impunity.
I think everyone that plays a cleric and runs T2 dungeons is just asking for a little more breathing space.
Also how do the mobs automatically all know who the healer is instantly, apparently they are well trained mobs who know what to look for and all agree to always attack the cleric..
Threat is allocated when a mob witnesses a heal and - in Cryptic parlance - tracks it back to the caster. Even regeneration is tracked back this way.
If you never cast a heal you will have no mobs on you that you didn't attack. You also won't accomplish anything much.
If you ask me, the AI is pretty believable. Imagine, if you can, yourself as a monster/humanoid (or other enemy). You're having trouble killing the thing getting your immediate attention because there's someone casting white sparkles that make him healthy again. This becomes a trend with EVERY party that invades your territory. In pnp, we used to call this "strategy".
On the other hand, imagine you're fighting a group of enemies in any generic single-player RPG; there's a couple strikers in front of you, a caster off to the side, and a healer in the corner. In a random encounter like this, who do YOU attack first usually?
The fact that there are squajillions of mobs attacking at once, and that tanks can only hold a limited number of mobs attention for a limited amount of time is another matter entirely. The point is, it's an adventurer's AND/OR monster's priority to take out healers first.
I didn't program the AI for the mobs, nor do I know anything about doing in-depth, environmental AI situations. In a hypothetical, purely black and white fantasy game, a generic player or monster should target a healer first, while a tank should have the abilities to draw more aggro than the healer. But like I said, that is another topic of controversy. And as far as a single ad's priority is concerned, he's doing his assigned, logical job.
If an add or two were healing a boss in a battle, would you leave them alone because it's unfair to the add since they're just doing their job? Heaven forbid we get that kind of deep, strategical combat situation in this game, but I'm just being hypothetical again.
....
I dunno. Maybe I've been a pnp DM for too long....
I wanted to say something like this for so long but didn't want to be a lonely bark... but I agree to a certain extent..
If I were a mob, I wouldn't stroll up and hit the thing wearing plate armor.. I would go for the squishy or the one keeping everyone alive first, then move onto the rocks..
And when you think about it, the mobs doing it this way are actually doind the right thing, because it is causing so much anger and frustration!!
But I also agree that it should be fun, and it isn't fun when you are the one sucking down health pots so much more often than anyone else because you are the catnip to the dungeon's critters...
Also, I liked your pnp DM comment.. I do the same thing, target the healbots first!!
Do you slap your "healbots" with a -40% healing reduction too? :P
HAHA, if I did then I would be DM'ing for nobody... =\
"Hey guys, tonight I am going to try something different.. Everyone's healing surge will actually be 40% LESS effective, and your half-elf cleric will have the 40% reduction applied to all heals cast on itself..."
Comments
Healing and damage converts to threat at roughly 1:1 (1000 healing = 1000 damage = 1000 threat). With 3/3 Sooth and 3/3 feat, we have 46% threat reduction (1851 healing = 1000 damage = 1000 threat).
However, healing generates threat for all mobs that track back the healing (everything that can see you basically) while damage only adds threat for the mob damages. So if we heal 5 targets (including ourselves or a pet for example) for 1000 healing we generate a total of 2700 threat on every mob that can see us.
For dps players, this means they need to do 2700 damage on a mob to keep us from pulling it away (there is likely an inertial threshold like 10% though) or even more than that if they have their own threat reduction effects.
For guardians, this means they need to generate 2700 threat on every mob they are trying to tank.
The key to threat management is for other players to take less damage - avoid everything that is avoidable - and to use health potions when applicable. The more damage we have to heal through the more threat we will generate.
If we are using direct heals, then our threat is actually less, and we can heal 1851 for every 1000 damage being done to each mob and avoid pulling off.
The only two ways this can really be fixed is a) give AOE healing spells a very low threat modifier (less than 0.2. 0.2 * 5 = 1.0 or 1:1) or to change AOE spells to generate only as much threat as the single greatest heal (if you heal 5 targets 1851 each it would generate 1000 threat total rather than 5000 total).
It's not fun having every single boss fight be just add spam.
It's not fun having to kite said add spam which is a futile effort.
It's not fun having to rely on pots to actually stay alive as a healer because you purposefully gimp us.
It's not fun having to be afraid of any sort of aoe stray healing because even 1 hit point heal on someone instantly puts 20 mobs on you.
Makes me want to go back to an MMO that has actual boss fights and healers.
Sigh.
This just means no-one is doing add control. As long as mobs are being damaged for more than your healing threat generation you won't pull.
Unfortunately, in most groups everyone just piles on the boss and ignores the adds leading to what I'm quickly beginning to term "Electric Slide" spam. The chains do not hold long enough and our single AOE knockback does little damage.
They could change Divinity version of the AOE to reduce threat to affected targets rather than adding it. That would make it useful. It would then cost 1 charge to knock back and wipe threat on mobs swarming us. Seems fair.
Some one must have told all the mobs that cleric flesh is especially tasty because I have the same thing. I'm not doing dungeons until something, anything, is done. I've played in healers in a variety of MMOs, but my dps characters could always out agro my healers. Death should be clearing the aggro, but it isn't. I get raised by teammates to immediately die. It doesn't help that sometimes the heal potions don't heal but go on cooldown anyway. Dungeons and skirmishes mean burning through not just heal potions but scrolls of life as well, and I just can't afford to keep doing that. I pull a ton of aggro still in normal areas (currently level 50), but I've managed so far with a rogue friend.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
Honestly, they could bandaid fix all of this by giving us an encounter ability upgrade that drops threat.
Typically if I die with heals ticking on the group (forgemaster in divinity mode, astral shield) then when I am rezzed everything immediately remembers just how much it hates me and comes back to kill me - since I have low health when that happens, it is a 100% guaranteed second death.
I too have stopped dungeoning till it gets fixed. Problem is, the auction house is not attaching anything to my mail (for the last week!) so who knows how I will get geared up.
I think the proof of the aggro problem really shows it's head when i die and the rest of the group has full health they die within 10 seconds. I would hope that then other classes would realize just how much aggro we clerics have to contend with.
I think it would be funny to just try a dungeon and use pay-to-win pots and just keep healing myself with my casts and act like an aggro totem so all the mobs are on me and the group can just kill them off of me lol.
a) Not to stand in the bad
b) Focus new adds that appear
c) Drink a pot when their health is low
d) Use a medkit after they die repeatedly
e) Tunellng the boss is not insta win
I do enjoy healing pugs, but then I expect or hope that people would make at least a little effort
On the other hand, imagine you're fighting a group of enemies in any generic single-player RPG; there's a couple strikers in front of you, a caster off to the side, and a healer in the corner. In a random encounter like this, who do YOU attack first usually?
The fact that there are squajillions of mobs attacking at once, and that tanks can only hold a limited number of mobs attention for a limited amount of time is another matter entirely. The point is, it's an adventurer's AND/OR monster's priority to take out healers first.
It is however a game though and you shouldn't be punished for being a healer.
At the moment we are punished for doing what the class was designed to do.
With the scenario you describe a CW can blow mobs off a cliff, then on a map with cliffs we should have the CW targeted by all mobs immediately, since they are the ones that represent the greatest risk to the mobs survival?
Yes and No.
Ever PvP? You can't always go after the healer. If you turn your back on the DPS they will kill you before you can take the healer down. This is called pressure. When you apply pressure you can keep the enemy team from doing what they want/need to do.
Same perspective here, only instead of pressure mobs respond to threat. Threat is a measure of how dangerous a monster views a given player. High threat abilities can be likened to strikes that are particularly painful but maybe don't do as much damage.
This is the point I was making earlier. It is up to the DPS and tank to keep the pressure on the mobs so that they /don't/ go after the healers, and to peel them off when they do.
In ideal situations healers don't need threat drops because DPS and tank can keep the mobs attention. On the other hand, it's our responsibility to manage our own positioning so that mobs are forced to go through the dps and tank to get to us. We lay down immobilizing chains, zip through mobs using our dash, and try to ensure that mobs are getting hit by cleaves and AOE damage fields and such.
That's really all we can do: keep everyone between us and the mobs.
I didn't program the AI for the mobs, nor do I know anything about doing in-depth, environmental AI situations. In a hypothetical, purely black and white fantasy game, a generic player or monster should target a healer first, while a tank should have the abilities to draw more aggro than the healer. But like I said, that is another topic of controversy. And as far as a single ad's priority is concerned, he's doing his assigned, logical job.
If an add or two were healing a boss in a battle, would you leave them alone because it's unfair to the add since they're just doing their job? Heaven forbid we get that kind of deep, strategical combat situation in this game, but I'm just being hypothetical again.
Honestly, I haven't seen a PvP match where at least half the participants aren't complacent AFK. Then again, I don't PvP much, sorry. But I am aware of how threat works, and I believe healing is a form of threat. In my opinion, the general MMO has downplayed how much of a "threat" a cleric actually is, and it's just a common misconception that healers aren't a priority........or monsters are just dumb.
I dunno. Maybe I've been a pnp DM for too long....
You can apply any concept to a game with creatures that really are not real and live in a game world only. Its a game, and you have to make it fun for the players #1, if one class is getting beat on so bad they give it up, this needs fixing ASAP.
I have to agree with that. Having fun in a game is first priority. But "fun" is relative. Some people have fun being healbots and analyzing from a RTS perspective, some people like the challenge of having to time your heals with proper kiting, and still some people have fun trying to find bugs/exploits or to play ninja looter. I might have fun playing a cleric a certain way that you might hate, vice versa.
And really, if you're not standing like hunchback, kung-fu master, anime weapon wannabe, or full-body shield, then you're probably a cleric (holy symbol, instead of weapon might give it away)....
Actually the mobs have no perception as its a game.
The developers merely programmed the mobs to attack the cleric with impunity.
I think everyone that plays a cleric and runs T2 dungeons is just asking for a little more breathing space.
That was my point since my first post. I was just being facetious with kelanator.
Threat is allocated when a mob witnesses a heal and - in Cryptic parlance - tracks it back to the caster. Even regeneration is tracked back this way.
If you never cast a heal you will have no mobs on you that you didn't attack. You also won't accomplish anything much.
I wanted to say something like this for so long but didn't want to be a lonely bark... but I agree to a certain extent..
If I were a mob, I wouldn't stroll up and hit the thing wearing plate armor.. I would go for the squishy or the one keeping everyone alive first, then move onto the rocks..
And when you think about it, the mobs doing it this way are actually doind the right thing, because it is causing so much anger and frustration!!
But I also agree that it should be fun, and it isn't fun when you are the one sucking down health pots so much more often than anyone else because you are the catnip to the dungeon's critters...
Also, I liked your pnp DM comment.. I do the same thing, target the healbots first!!
Beholder
What Class Are You?
I would pay Zen to own and display this title
Do you slap your "healbots" with a -40% healing reduction too? :P
HAHA, if I did then I would be DM'ing for nobody... =\
"Hey guys, tonight I am going to try something different.. Everyone's healing surge will actually be 40% LESS effective, and your half-elf cleric will have the 40% reduction applied to all heals cast on itself..."
everyone re-roll's Warlords and Warlocks
Beholder
What Class Are You?