I'm guessing a lot of you haven't done spellplague elite yet. You'll absolutely need a CW to use his knockbacks on the final boss. There are several other situations such as this where it is good as well. Granted I get what most of you are saying, random knocking for "deeps" is just stupid. I agree that CWs should be gathering groups rather than splitting them, but just wanted to point out that there are situations where knocks are needed.
I'll also point out that I've found just as many clerics are guilty of using knocks for absolutely no reason. I've had clerics knock plenty of groups that I've gathered up to stun with Steal Time only to miss all of them.
i agree, cleric has knockback when in divinity and using sunburst, but i myself using sunburst in divine mode only when overwhelmed by adds, so they get pushed away and eventually get taunted by tank or pulled by CW after that. The difference between the CW and cleric's knockbacks is that cleric while using it it heals the entire team to full hp and pushes the mobs away from himself which saves his own life and in this way keeps the whole team alive, while the CW knockback if is used random, has no meaning even as dps mode, because instead of killing the mobs, it just spread them out and can happen they would attack the cleric after they start to gather back again.
So yeah, in some dungeons/skirmishes like the lvl 53 one skirmish is not advisable to use it at all, as the dungeon is very bugged and if a mob is knocked out of the map, can make the instance to stuck and force everyone to leave before reaching the final boss.
What I find most helpful is when CWs pull all the adds into their black hole thingy, run up right in the middle of the group, and scatter them all away right after the blast.
I remember being in a group on LotMD (umad, dragon?) where someone told me I shouldn't use the skill as it upsets some players. At first I was a bit put off by being told how to play, but in retrospect it was good advice. I don't think I've ever re-slotted the skill since.
apostasyxMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 8Arc User
edited May 2013
As a GWF I hate knockbacks, from anyone. I can see a cleric using one because of the aggro problems, but when a CW uses black hole to group up all those tasty adds for me to AOE down and him or someone else decides to immediately throw them all over the place, get's a littler rage inducing.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
If they're smart with it (knock off a ledge onto traps/fall damage for mobs) it can speed things up. Can also save people when the **** hits the fan. But 'just cause' is a bad idea.
Knocking back for the sake of knocking back is bad...
But too often mages don't use their CC Effects such as this. When facing the black dragon I had to try several times with absolutely no assistance from the CW to knock the healers off the cliff while the CW simply tried to ineffectively hit the dragon.
The CC effects are awesome and darn near required...
Sure sometimes they mess with other people but the only thing worse than using the knock-arounds too much is to not use them at all.
Knocking back for the sake of knocking back is bad...
But too often mages don't use their CC Effects such as this. When facing the black dragon I had to try several times with absolutely no assistance from the CW to knock the healers off the cliff while the CW simply tried to ineffectively hit the dragon.
The CC effects are awesome and darn near required...
Sure sometimes they mess with other people but the only thing worse than using the knock-arounds too much is to not use them at all.
gotta love to be knocked down off the cliff in spellplague as cleric....Instadeath
There's probably times where it can be useful, and maybe I haven't experienced that if they are end game. I find Repel to be almost completely useless to spec, because it's so situational it just seems better to just use the push from Shield. /shrug
This is an old thread, but I'm posting in it, because having rolled a tank as my first toon I find knockbacks completely annoying. General scenario - as if it weren't hard enough to try and get agro from the dps that run off from the group while we're still fighting and pull another encounter of mobs with no cleric or tank around to help them - when I actually do get in front and try to charge into the middle of a group to hit my taunt some cw or cleric knocks them back first thing. Out of the range of my taunt and at that point they're spread out everywhere so I can't cleave for threat. IMO Knockbacks are pvp skills. Great for domination and getting people off of cap points or keeping melee away from a caster. But in a dungeon? Put a different skill on your bar. As long as everything's in range of my taunt and cleave I can hold agro on it. Which allows me to turn the mobs that do cone aoe's away from the group and block, and hold mobs in place as you dodge in and out of red circles. The same goes for getting the first hit on a group of mobs. In any mmo I've ever played the person who gets the first strike gets initial agro, and then for someone else to take agro they have to get a certain percentage of threat above the person currently tanking. That alone makes holding agro so much easier, which in turn reduces the amount of work both your tank AND cleric have to do. So in the hopes that the general populace reads this - Im posting in a 2 month old thread and saying leave your knockback's off your bars or save them for overwhelming emergencies.. aka - tank's taunt is on cooldown and holding a boss in a direction that it's cone aoe's aren't shooting at the group.
I'm not even to end game yet so I can't say how many bosses do directional aoe's.. but I do know that pugging up through the lair of the mad dragon has been a total joke. No patience, no communication, DPS's charging into boss fights with the cleric back looting a chest because he was the last person at it. CW knocking everything out of my aoe range as soon as hit lunging charge to try to get to the group before the dps so I can taunt and cleave to get a good threat lead, which results in adds beating on the healers, all of the dps standing around in a big circle with me chasing adds down waiting on my taunt cooldown with each dps beating on a different target, all targets scattered out of aoe range and basically making what should've been a 30-45 second fight into a 2-3 minute long cluster intimacy where I'm holding up my shield praying the cleric finds time to heal me.
So, for the love of god, only knockback if its absolutely necessary to save you or the healer's life, and let your tank pull. With multiple mobs the best place the mobs should be is stacked up so that not only the GF's cleave is swatting as much as it can, but every dps in the group with non knockback aoe abilities are able to effectively do as much damage as possible as well, resulting in shorter fights with less sphincter puckering from everyone (esp the healer) when they see their HP close to nil with potions on cooldown.
*Last edit* - I will say if a raid mechanic requires a knockback to kill clerics as mentioned above, so be it. But while clearing trash and dealing with mobs you have to kill in a boss fight, or at least the killing of them makes the fight 10x easier, - A GF can easily pull threat off a healer with taunt/ mark, threatening rush + cleave etc PROVIDED the mobs are in range of the aoe effects of these abilities.
I just want to add in these experiences are purely from pugging. I just started playing the game recently, and while I am noticing it's a bit different from most mmo's (I've played so many over the years) I'm finding it holds true to the cores on threat generation and agro. I can't wait until I'm caught up with my guild and won't have to argue these points with people any further, unless they are under our guidance.
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i agree, cleric has knockback when in divinity and using sunburst, but i myself using sunburst in divine mode only when overwhelmed by adds, so they get pushed away and eventually get taunted by tank or pulled by CW after that. The difference between the CW and cleric's knockbacks is that cleric while using it it heals the entire team to full hp and pushes the mobs away from himself which saves his own life and in this way keeps the whole team alive, while the CW knockback if is used random, has no meaning even as dps mode, because instead of killing the mobs, it just spread them out and can happen they would attack the cleric after they start to gather back again.
So yeah, in some dungeons/skirmishes like the lvl 53 one skirmish is not advisable to use it at all, as the dungeon is very bugged and if a mob is knocked out of the map, can make the instance to stuck and force everyone to leave before reaching the final boss.
Oh what fun.
I remember being in a group on LotMD (umad, dragon?) where someone told me I shouldn't use the skill as it upsets some players. At first I was a bit put off by being told how to play, but in retrospect it was good advice. I don't think I've ever re-slotted the skill since.
Knocking back for the sake of knocking back is bad...
But too often mages don't use their CC Effects such as this. When facing the black dragon I had to try several times with absolutely no assistance from the CW to knock the healers off the cliff while the CW simply tried to ineffectively hit the dragon.
The CC effects are awesome and darn near required...
Sure sometimes they mess with other people but the only thing worse than using the knock-arounds too much is to not use them at all.
gotta love to be knocked down off the cliff in spellplague as cleric....Instadeath
I'm not even to end game yet so I can't say how many bosses do directional aoe's.. but I do know that pugging up through the lair of the mad dragon has been a total joke. No patience, no communication, DPS's charging into boss fights with the cleric back looting a chest because he was the last person at it. CW knocking everything out of my aoe range as soon as hit lunging charge to try to get to the group before the dps so I can taunt and cleave to get a good threat lead, which results in adds beating on the healers, all of the dps standing around in a big circle with me chasing adds down waiting on my taunt cooldown with each dps beating on a different target, all targets scattered out of aoe range and basically making what should've been a 30-45 second fight into a 2-3 minute long cluster intimacy where I'm holding up my shield praying the cleric finds time to heal me.
So, for the love of god, only knockback if its absolutely necessary to save you or the healer's life, and let your tank pull. With multiple mobs the best place the mobs should be is stacked up so that not only the GF's cleave is swatting as much as it can, but every dps in the group with non knockback aoe abilities are able to effectively do as much damage as possible as well, resulting in shorter fights with less sphincter puckering from everyone (esp the healer) when they see their HP close to nil with potions on cooldown.
*Last edit* - I will say if a raid mechanic requires a knockback to kill clerics as mentioned above, so be it. But while clearing trash and dealing with mobs you have to kill in a boss fight, or at least the killing of them makes the fight 10x easier, - A GF can easily pull threat off a healer with taunt/ mark, threatening rush + cleave etc PROVIDED the mobs are in range of the aoe effects of these abilities.
I just want to add in these experiences are purely from pugging. I just started playing the game recently, and while I am noticing it's a bit different from most mmo's (I've played so many over the years) I'm finding it holds true to the cores on threat generation and agro. I can't wait until I'm caught up with my guild and won't have to argue these points with people any further, unless they are under our guidance.
That way mobs dont move and you (cw) get all that ap goodness.
Wait till mobs hit the ground after singularity if you are trying to knock mobs off a cliff.
Im not even max lvl on my cw and i know this!!