For sure. This is what the healer from my guild was saying about Dracolith, prompting the question in the title of the thread. Were you running with a tank, or the usual set-up for CN?
Finished CN with GF, TR, 2 CW, DC (me). Took minor adjustments, but seems as easily farmable now as before patch.
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mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
Hmm, seems this isn't as cut-and-dried as all that then, judging from what people have said. I guess what made me start this thread in first place was to establish what exactly the main thing that needs to be adjusted is?
I play a CW as my main, and have a GF as an alt, and have run a fair few CN dungeons, along with numerous T2s .. since the patch it seems that so many of the groups I'm in are so reliant on DC healing, and sometimes the DC themselves are reliant on their old ways of doing things, that it makes for a painful experience. There must be a few major things that DCs are having to do now that perhaps they weren't pre-patch that's making the difference according to the variety of replies to this thread?
Before the patch, it was more or less "stick AS down on cooldown, hallowed ground down when it's ready, maintain enough DP/AP to do those two things, and other than that, have fun!"
Now it's more..."do all of the above except replace 'have fun' with 'use whatever crappy emergency panic heals you have during AS downtime and hope you don't get instagibbed by anything, and don't you dare try to be anything other than a healbot'"
It's.....less fun. Oh, and just random solo open-world stuff is a hell of a lot harder, too, since the aggro fix doesn't apply and all our heals are now worse.
Before the patch, it was more or less "stick AS down on cooldown, hallowed ground down when it's ready, maintain enough DP/AP to do those two things, and other than that, have fun!"
Now it's more..."do all of the above except replace 'have fun' with 'use whatever crappy emergency panic heals you have during AS downtime and hope you don't get instagibbed by anything, and don't you dare try to be anything other than a healbot'"
It's.....less fun. Oh, and just random solo open-world stuff is a hell of a lot harder, too, since the aggro fix doesn't apply and all our heals are now worse.
Wait wait. The healing agro fix didn't work properly?
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mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
But this is what I'm trying to get to the bottom of in this thread .. some are having a horrific experience since the patch, while others are finding it just as good or better. I don't think it's constructive to start throwing around comments like "well they need to not be a crappy healer", especially when that's not relevant for so many DCs .. but there must be something those able to heal effectively are doing that the others aren't?
I literally had one dungeon run last night that went well .. out of 7 .. something isn't right, or not clear enough.
Wait wait. The healing agro fix didn't work properly?
No, it's nice in dungeons. It's just that for solo questing outside dungeons (foundry etc) it's irrelevant, because...you're the only target.
And mack: it's...more that everyone has to coordinate now, and be on the ball. Previously as a decent cleric you could just about keep a bad pug alive as long as they actually killed things. Now you...really can't.
Edit: or at least, I really can't. (lol l2p nub etc)
Wait wait. The healing agro fix didn't work properly?
not that is not working but you need to read it carefully. GF -> Threat generation on all abilities has been increased by 35%. it is increased but not spread. now, healing -> Threat from Healing is now spread across enemies in an encounter, generating less for each enemy in the encounter. decreased? no, just spread
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mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
Lol .. well that's the thing. While I see most people having major problems with DCs now, I also see others with no issues at all. I get a decent view of the action as I play a CW, and obviously people's gaming styles are subtly different, but man oh man .. the variety of problems it throws up seems inconsistent and random.
I could understand if most of the healers were fine with it, and a couple were finding the changes difficult .. but it seems more weighted the other way now judging from the replies on this thread. When I asked the question originally I honestly thought there would be a balanced/reasoned shift that needed to happen .. but to hear some are doing just the same as they were and not having issues is very odd. I know I shouldn't be all that fussed about it, as someone who just melts faces etc, but considering about 80% of the stuff I do is in pugs it's kind've making me wonder if I'm in for one hell of a frustrating time and disappointing/incomplete dungeon runs from now on ..
It's funny seeing all the bad clerics unable to heal now that the crutch that made the game set to Ultra Easy was fixed.
It's even funnier seeing all the clerics who are good still able to heal just fine as if there wasn't even a patch.
If you play a cleric and this patch affected you at all, you're just a ****ty player who should quit trying and go get a construction job somewhere because that's all you will ever be good at.
Those are not good clerics, its good tanks that make it seem easy now. Its not hard to rotate skills if nothing is on you and you are forced to run while going thru 30 potions per boss fight.
That said, its going to be blank nightmare for me as a casual player in pugs now. And before trolls will start pointing out about me finding a static group. I cant do that and i already suffered a penalty and was forced to farm gold heavily since i went thru anywhere from 40 to 70 potions (not to mention kits) per dungeon.
Did a few dungeons today with various groups but always with a GF who was very much looking forward to this patch. Now warning, I do have full tier 2 gear and a stone but basically as I posted yesterday in a different thread before the patch, the biggest change was not going to be astral shield but the aggro. The patch has made it possible for the cleric to concentrate far more on his job and less on just staying alive. Today was the first time I can remember that I was not top for damage received by a long long way, I even dropped below a TR once. Personally this has resulted in me switching from FF to HW, since I now have much more time to specifically heal who I want.
Basically all the whine was exactly that, a whine. Things change and you adapt, dungeons have not all of a sudden become impossible or even hard for the most part.
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mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Did a few dungeons today with various groups but always with a GF who was very much looking forward to this patch. Now warning, I do have full tier 2 gear and a stone but basically as I posted yesterday in a different thread before the patch, the biggest change was not going to be astral shield but the aggro. The patch has made it possible for the cleric to concentrate far more on his job and less on just staying alive. Today was the first time I can remember that I was not top for damage received by a long long way, I even dropped below a TR once. Personally this has resulted in me switching from FF to HW, since I now have much more time to specifically heal who I want.
Basically all the whine was exactly that, a whine. Things change and you adapt, dungeons have not all of a sudden become impossible or even hard for the most part.
Hmm, interesting. Did you also change feats to support your Forgemaster’s Flame to Healing Word switch? And was there a change to your daily abilities to compensate?
I'm just trying to understand why there's such a gulf in those who can currently manage and those who are struggling (I don't subscribe to the belief it's due to inability).
(t2 gear and a stone.....miiiight help. Also a pet GF who knows what he's doing)
More seriously, perhaps I'm simply not good enough or geared enough, but previously you could stick the shield down over your melee dps, flit around using sunburst to top up heals and do some damage (all for DP & AP generation) and your third encounter was a free choice. I usually used forgemasters anyway, since it was a great heal for anyone going off-piste or outside the circle for any other reasons (in bosses, stick shield over your add-attracting tanks, stick ff on the boss to keep the rogue soloing it alive). And if all was going well you could use it non-D'd as an extra source of AP/DP. And get yourself on that 1337 damage table, yo.
Now you kinda...don't have that luxury, since AS will go down and won't be coming back up for a few seconds. Everything has to be focussed on surviving those few seconds (and remember there are things that can instantly kill you without it), and of course if you're alternating divine forgemasters with divine AS you're burning twice as much DP while also losing a source of it.
And you'd better hope that rogue on boss knows to pot, because backheals from astral seal are not that great.
It's doable, but it's just far, far less fun.
And the change of AS from a regen to a HoT means that it's now 40% less effective at healing us, too...which I DO notice.
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mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Yeah, I see your point. I'm a bit surprised by the seemingly big shift that's taken place though. It's one thing to balance a class, but another to totally change how it behaves (if I read between the lines of this and other replies). Also, considering the generation of gold isn't great in the game, and that while DCs get used to it there will be lots of pots and injury kits bought, that seems a rather sad state of affairs also.
I think like most people above 10k GS, and don't mind a reasonable level of difficulty. However, I dunno .. from everything I've seen so far I'm concerned about the next few weeks taking my CW into dungeons (even with very capable people in my guild and friends list) .. it just seems 'too' drastic right now, without a great deal of a smooth learning curve for anyone (just high costs). Obviously there are some players who are able to adapt quickly, and that's fine and all .. but it seems like most are mostly in 'wtf' territory or have re-rolled already perhaps in some clerical form of rage.
I guess my overall point is I like we get to use GFs more, and their viability is back where it belongs. I also think encouraging more skill in the top end epics is good .. but surely the healing has to be reachable for most, rather than some .. *shrug*
They need to make GF and GWF as much a requirement as DC then for the dungeon finder groups, because last night in the SKIRMISH (easiest group content?) I was still running for my life with EVERYTHING agroed to me while everyone facemashed the boss and no one took control of adds and I didnt have the safety net of AS to support all of the facemashing. Of course we had a GF, but he was focused on the boss. And tyo make matters worse i am STILL ending up in group with my (the DC) and 4 dps. REALLY?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Welcome to a clerics world. Now clerics aren't the only ones who need to use potions. Learn to dodge that red, my CW has hasn't even notice the change and is doing just as well as before.
The Astral shield nerf was a much needed one however I feel the other healing spells need a buff. Astral shield is still the best healing spell, the other one don't even come close to matching it. Please make our other healing spells useful.
I loved reading about the pots my gold stash as a cleric is really low due to the amount of pots I have to quaff in every dungeon I go to due to our -40% heal debuff and tanking everything now that aggro is being spread I can just see other people either complaining about cleric not healing or about the amount of pots they have to drink
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phicasleaphiMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 5Arc User
edited June 2013
99% of the people saying it wasn't broken weren't clerics. The clerics who were saying it wasn't broken said it was no longer fun. I completely agree I could do it with 3 heals on my bar instead of 2 and a dps = 0 fun/ higher chance of group survival/ much lower divine power gain. This would always be the same 3 heals I would loose any chance to de-buff and I would just be a heal bot. Is it possible yes is it fun no.
The whole party would need to change how they ran everything, 1 GF would be needed and the group less concentrated on using knock backs all the time maybe saving it for AS downtime.
I (10.8K + stone DC) ran Karrundrax (1 GF, 2CW, 1 TR, 1 DC) and CN (1TR, 2CW, 2DC) today. Karrundrax worked like a charm with the GF, I needed to drink maybe 3 pots during the whole delve. I used AS, sunburst, HG and HW in the final fight.
CN worked like a charm, too. Much to the dislike of our guilds GF, GFs are still neither needed or wanted in CN, as 2 DCs can still easily manage the final encounter by simply ROTATING the AS.
So by nerfing the uptime of AS, they gave many players and excuse to still run 2DC groups, since you need 2 DCs now to keep AS up.
To say something to difficulty: I think this game moved into an direction where some training/coordination is needed to win endgame content. Well that would be all swell, wouldn't this game be a game focused on casual gamers playing pugs....
And of course you start highly favouring voice chat to coordinate things, which I personally don't like much.
It's hard to keep a straight face when the skimpily-dressed half-elf rogue chick suddenly blurts out in a deep manly voice "IM ON BOSS, RIGHT GUYS? ONE SEC, GETTIN' A BEER."
EDIT: and yes, that's exactly what I said would happen: people will just run 2DC groups and alternate shields, because that's a far, far easier fix than learning tactics and stuff. People are lazy, and hey: they were running 2DC groups ANYWAY, so they don't even have to change their chatspam.
I feel for you folks. As a GF who can finally get into groups I've noticed just how unfun the DC playstyle is now. Sadly what else has been highlighted is just how lazy so many people got by being babied by AS.
The good groups I was in tonight all had CW or GWF who knew what they were doing and this actually allowed the DC to slot in something other than heals. I think as people begin to adjust to actually dodging and working as a group rather than a steamroll this may even out for you guys.
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mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
Well, it seems something has to change .. adjusting is one thing, but flipping the playstyle of everyone overnight seems a bit OTT.
I dunno .. it just seems that there's too much of a disparity between pre-patch and post-patch ..
We don't need that much, only 1 fix + 1 buff would be great...
The #1 fix i'd like to see, is Healing Word affect by Recovery. This simple fix would change our life and make this power more viable. Why the hell do i need 4k recovery if my powers aren't even affected by it ?
The #2 buff needed is a buff to Bastion of health, because that cooldown is not viable at all, and the heal is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. Maybe more heal and less cd, or same heal and much less cd... or w/e
What makes being a cleric not fun is that 3 powers are mandatory now.
Sunburst cause it's the only way to get AP/DP effectvely and the healing is fine considering the low cd (even if buffed heal would be welcome).
Astral Shield, cause no other power can compare to it.
Forgemaster, cause it's a strong heal, but very situational and requires divinity. Some prefer HW over Forgemaster, but I don't like using a power that doesn't benefit from my 4k recovery....
So basically we have no other choice but playins Sunburst, Astral Shield, FF. Where is the variety ?
Divinity isn't that easy to gain you know... Many people don't even get that 4th Divinity bar because they can't even keep 3 Divinity bars full...
PVP
I am not gonna talk about it because actually I have no idea how to make the cleric able to compete in PVP. It's a total <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in all ways.
mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
Fs .. just logged in and been told that 3 of my guild's DCs are re-rolling or quitting over this 'rebalance'. One stated something I keep seeing in posts/feedback ..
"It's unplayable, and not fun now" .. or .. "The damage is too high to heal" .. or "They suddenly want everyone to play a different game" .. etc .. etc ..
I've been dungeoning with them since the 27th of April (and some during closed beta), and completed the end game with them also (we were mostly running things like CN for upgrades and fun until last night).
I'm not impressed at all that these changes have resulted in such a bad reaction. So pissed off ..
A big change in the patch is also that you have all the time in the world now to build divinity, thus healing your group while doing so through crits. Before the patch, fielding SB would mean you would have all aggro within seconds. Now you can use SB effectivly along with AS without catching aggro. Also, AS got fixed so it cant be exploited by CWs, GFs and so on in PvP, now you will have it up for it's full duration then work your way around the 6 sec downtime.
For PvE, you will need a tank now. I've run into plenty of stressy dpsers since yesterday that think they are invulnerable thanks to AS, but now they take dirtnaps during the AS downtime if they dont dodge or position themselves in the right place close to a FMFed mob. But it's not my problem, since clerics dont have any great direct heals. Some say use bastion, but honestly, it's just a slow <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> skill that heals for so little it's not woth the time or the encounter spot. It also doesnt build divinity unless you field a class feature to just compliment bastion.
IMO, everything is easier as a cleric since patch thanks to the aggro changes, except PvP, but it's not impossible to do well, you just need a smart team that takes out the leathal threats i.e CWs.
My point of view as a DC ... AS nerf was needed as hell. Everything was too easy, stay in permanent circle, dont bother with dodging ground attacks and you will have full hp all the time. Yesterday, i was with two different groups in epic dungeons ... first with skilled ppls, who knows how to dodge attacks, helping me a lot to keep them alive (even with nerfed AS). Second group with band of morrons, which was just standing on one place all the time, dont bother to dodge just one ground attack ... they was dead all the time and was asking stupid questions: what is with cleric? So maybe its other classes, who needs learn to play with new patch, not clerics
EDIT: btw big thanks to Cryptic, that im now pure cleric, not strange mix of tank and cleric as before patch
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phicasleaphiMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 5Arc User
A big change in the patch is also that you have all the time in the world now to build divinity, thus healing your group while doing so through crits.
So for clerics not using a crit build?
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malkavierMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
One thing many players undervalue: Taking along Cleric pets in some dungeons instead of Stones or Cats, especially now that pets are scaled to roughly the equivalent of their owner-players for healing + damage. It's extremely nice having the extra heals from Cleric pets to help cover the difference between the Cleric changes and potion downtime.
The AI also seems to have been quietly improved a bit, in that they don't quite as often stand in red circles and engage when their owner engages instead of when the first party member engages.
How Cryptic trolls the entire NWO playerbase: 9200 GS listed for CN, implying anyone who needs more has no skill.
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mackehMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
But stones are used to enhance a class .. how are people meant to put out max dps etc if they're running around with a lvl 15 cleric who often doesn't interact in a fight efficiently?
I've been reading a lot of the topics on Clerics and AS, but I've only experienced this slightly myself. I have a L 60 cleric, but only for a few days, so my gear score is just now 5717 which allowed me to turn Cloak Tower Epic last night. I have not run any other L 60 dungeons period...pre or post patch.
My pug in cloak tower epic had a GF and we had 4 total player drops and 1 death. This doesn't seem overly harsh to me, but this is probably the lowest difficulty dungeon for L 60's so I can only imagine it gets much worse as we go along.
That being said, I don't plan to drop my cleric for either my CW or GWF alts. I also don't plan to respec at this time either. I'll have to wait and see how things go for me.
Foundry - Fight Club? (nw-dluqbofu7)
- JailBreak (in development)
Comments
Finished CN with GF, TR, 2 CW, DC (me). Took minor adjustments, but seems as easily farmable now as before patch.
I play a CW as my main, and have a GF as an alt, and have run a fair few CN dungeons, along with numerous T2s .. since the patch it seems that so many of the groups I'm in are so reliant on DC healing, and sometimes the DC themselves are reliant on their old ways of doing things, that it makes for a painful experience. There must be a few major things that DCs are having to do now that perhaps they weren't pre-patch that's making the difference according to the variety of replies to this thread?
Blue Harvest
Now it's more..."do all of the above except replace 'have fun' with 'use whatever crappy emergency panic heals you have during AS downtime and hope you don't get instagibbed by anything, and don't you dare try to be anything other than a healbot'"
It's.....less fun. Oh, and just random solo open-world stuff is a hell of a lot harder, too, since the aggro fix doesn't apply and all our heals are now worse.
Wait wait. The healing agro fix didn't work properly?
I literally had one dungeon run last night that went well .. out of 7 .. something isn't right, or not clear enough.
Blue Harvest
No, it's nice in dungeons. It's just that for solo questing outside dungeons (foundry etc) it's irrelevant, because...you're the only target.
And mack: it's...more that everyone has to coordinate now, and be on the ball. Previously as a decent cleric you could just about keep a bad pug alive as long as they actually killed things. Now you...really can't.
Edit: or at least, I really can't. (lol l2p nub etc)
not that is not working but you need to read it carefully. GF -> Threat generation on all abilities has been increased by 35%. it is increased but not spread. now, healing -> Threat from Healing is now spread across enemies in an encounter, generating less for each enemy in the encounter. decreased? no, just spread
I could understand if most of the healers were fine with it, and a couple were finding the changes difficult .. but it seems more weighted the other way now judging from the replies on this thread. When I asked the question originally I honestly thought there would be a balanced/reasoned shift that needed to happen .. but to hear some are doing just the same as they were and not having issues is very odd. I know I shouldn't be all that fussed about it, as someone who just melts faces etc, but considering about 80% of the stuff I do is in pugs it's kind've making me wonder if I'm in for one hell of a frustrating time and disappointing/incomplete dungeon runs from now on ..
Blue Harvest
Those are not good clerics, its good tanks that make it seem easy now. Its not hard to rotate skills if nothing is on you and you are forced to run while going thru 30 potions per boss fight.
That said, its going to be blank nightmare for me as a casual player in pugs now. And before trolls will start pointing out about me finding a static group. I cant do that and i already suffered a penalty and was forced to farm gold heavily since i went thru anywhere from 40 to 70 potions (not to mention kits) per dungeon.
Basically all the whine was exactly that, a whine. Things change and you adapt, dungeons have not all of a sudden become impossible or even hard for the most part.
Hmm, interesting. Did you also change feats to support your Forgemaster’s Flame to Healing Word switch? And was there a change to your daily abilities to compensate?
I'm just trying to understand why there's such a gulf in those who can currently manage and those who are struggling (I don't subscribe to the belief it's due to inability).
Blue Harvest
More seriously, perhaps I'm simply not good enough or geared enough, but previously you could stick the shield down over your melee dps, flit around using sunburst to top up heals and do some damage (all for DP & AP generation) and your third encounter was a free choice. I usually used forgemasters anyway, since it was a great heal for anyone going off-piste or outside the circle for any other reasons (in bosses, stick shield over your add-attracting tanks, stick ff on the boss to keep the rogue soloing it alive). And if all was going well you could use it non-D'd as an extra source of AP/DP. And get yourself on that 1337 damage table, yo.
Now you kinda...don't have that luxury, since AS will go down and won't be coming back up for a few seconds. Everything has to be focussed on surviving those few seconds (and remember there are things that can instantly kill you without it), and of course if you're alternating divine forgemasters with divine AS you're burning twice as much DP while also losing a source of it.
And you'd better hope that rogue on boss knows to pot, because backheals from astral seal are not that great.
It's doable, but it's just far, far less fun.
And the change of AS from a regen to a HoT means that it's now 40% less effective at healing us, too...which I DO notice.
Yeah, I see your point. I'm a bit surprised by the seemingly big shift that's taken place though. It's one thing to balance a class, but another to totally change how it behaves (if I read between the lines of this and other replies). Also, considering the generation of gold isn't great in the game, and that while DCs get used to it there will be lots of pots and injury kits bought, that seems a rather sad state of affairs also.
I think like most people above 10k GS, and don't mind a reasonable level of difficulty. However, I dunno .. from everything I've seen so far I'm concerned about the next few weeks taking my CW into dungeons (even with very capable people in my guild and friends list) .. it just seems 'too' drastic right now, without a great deal of a smooth learning curve for anyone (just high costs). Obviously there are some players who are able to adapt quickly, and that's fine and all .. but it seems like most are mostly in 'wtf' territory or have re-rolled already perhaps in some clerical form of rage.
I guess my overall point is I like we get to use GFs more, and their viability is back where it belongs. I also think encouraging more skill in the top end epics is good .. but surely the healing has to be reachable for most, rather than some .. *shrug*
Blue Harvest
Blue Harvest
I loved reading about the pots my gold stash as a cleric is really low due to the amount of pots I have to quaff in every dungeon I go to due to our -40% heal debuff and tanking everything now that aggro is being spread I can just see other people either complaining about cleric not healing or about the amount of pots they have to drink
The whole party would need to change how they ran everything, 1 GF would be needed and the group less concentrated on using knock backs all the time maybe saving it for AS downtime.
CN worked like a charm, too. Much to the dislike of our guilds GF, GFs are still neither needed or wanted in CN, as 2 DCs can still easily manage the final encounter by simply ROTATING the AS.
So by nerfing the uptime of AS, they gave many players and excuse to still run 2DC groups, since you need 2 DCs now to keep AS up.
To say something to difficulty: I think this game moved into an direction where some training/coordination is needed to win endgame content. Well that would be all swell, wouldn't this game be a game focused on casual gamers playing pugs....
It's hard to keep a straight face when the skimpily-dressed half-elf rogue chick suddenly blurts out in a deep manly voice "IM ON BOSS, RIGHT GUYS? ONE SEC, GETTIN' A BEER."
EDIT: and yes, that's exactly what I said would happen: people will just run 2DC groups and alternate shields, because that's a far, far easier fix than learning tactics and stuff. People are lazy, and hey: they were running 2DC groups ANYWAY, so they don't even have to change their chatspam.
The good groups I was in tonight all had CW or GWF who knew what they were doing and this actually allowed the DC to slot in something other than heals. I think as people begin to adjust to actually dodging and working as a group rather than a steamroll this may even out for you guys.
I dunno .. it just seems that there's too much of a disparity between pre-patch and post-patch ..
Blue Harvest
What we need is some buffs to our other heals.
We don't need that much, only 1 fix + 1 buff would be great...
The #1 fix i'd like to see, is Healing Word affect by Recovery. This simple fix would change our life and make this power more viable. Why the hell do i need 4k recovery if my powers aren't even affected by it ?
The #2 buff needed is a buff to Bastion of health, because that cooldown is not viable at all, and the heal is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. Maybe more heal and less cd, or same heal and much less cd... or w/e
What makes being a cleric not fun is that 3 powers are mandatory now.
Sunburst cause it's the only way to get AP/DP effectvely and the healing is fine considering the low cd (even if buffed heal would be welcome).
Astral Shield, cause no other power can compare to it.
Forgemaster, cause it's a strong heal, but very situational and requires divinity. Some prefer HW over Forgemaster, but I don't like using a power that doesn't benefit from my 4k recovery....
So basically we have no other choice but playins Sunburst, Astral Shield, FF. Where is the variety ?
Divinity isn't that easy to gain you know... Many people don't even get that 4th Divinity bar because they can't even keep 3 Divinity bars full...
PVP
I am not gonna talk about it because actually I have no idea how to make the cleric able to compete in PVP. It's a total <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in all ways.
- DRAGON - ( Mehrea DC 13.1k ) - ( Volsung TR 11.7k )
Blue Harvest
"It's unplayable, and not fun now" .. or .. "The damage is too high to heal" .. or "They suddenly want everyone to play a different game" .. etc .. etc ..
I've been dungeoning with them since the 27th of April (and some during closed beta), and completed the end game with them also (we were mostly running things like CN for upgrades and fun until last night).
I'm not impressed at all that these changes have resulted in such a bad reaction. So pissed off ..
Blue Harvest
A big change in the patch is also that you have all the time in the world now to build divinity, thus healing your group while doing so through crits. Before the patch, fielding SB would mean you would have all aggro within seconds. Now you can use SB effectivly along with AS without catching aggro. Also, AS got fixed so it cant be exploited by CWs, GFs and so on in PvP, now you will have it up for it's full duration then work your way around the 6 sec downtime.
For PvE, you will need a tank now. I've run into plenty of stressy dpsers since yesterday that think they are invulnerable thanks to AS, but now they take dirtnaps during the AS downtime if they dont dodge or position themselves in the right place close to a FMFed mob. But it's not my problem, since clerics dont have any great direct heals. Some say use bastion, but honestly, it's just a slow <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> skill that heals for so little it's not woth the time or the encounter spot. It also doesnt build divinity unless you field a class feature to just compliment bastion.
IMO, everything is easier as a cleric since patch thanks to the aggro changes, except PvP, but it's not impossible to do well, you just need a smart team that takes out the leathal threats i.e CWs.
EDIT: btw big thanks to Cryptic, that im now pure cleric, not strange mix of tank and cleric as before patch
So for clerics not using a crit build?
The AI also seems to have been quietly improved a bit, in that they don't quite as often stand in red circles and engage when their owner engages instead of when the first party member engages.
Blue Harvest
My pug in cloak tower epic had a GF and we had 4 total player drops and 1 death. This doesn't seem overly harsh to me, but this is probably the lowest difficulty dungeon for L 60's so I can only imagine it gets much worse as we go along.
That being said, I don't plan to drop my cleric for either my CW or GWF alts. I also don't plan to respec at this time either. I'll have to wait and see how things go for me.
- JailBreak (in development)