the solution should have been to strengthen the defense on the clerics not to make all the fighters defensively stronger, often immune, and great at self-healing while nerfing the cleric all to hell
Yeah you would think we would have similar defences to a GWF since we wear chain mail and they wear scale mail.
I don't know about you but it feels like we are wearing cloth and not chain mail. When I think chain mail I don't think of a squishy class, yet we are squishy.
I was doing Cloak Tower as a cleric, pretty easy as you know, asked if anyone wanted to do the mini boss Throg and a guy said no so I said ok lets skip it. We get to the bit where Throg is below us and two of us attack the mobs above Throg while three others go down to fight Throg.
We are still fighting the mobs up top and one of those fighting Throg is typing 'Healer heals us', 'Why u know heal?', the fight is still going on and I am ignoring them while killing and repping the two of us when the rage begins and the three below start talking about kicking me from group. Had to laugh as I was leader and just booted them all and even better the game brought three new peeps in.
Best bit was that they reported me for not healing them, they called me a griefer, and said I should enjoy my ban. Nothing happened of course but it did make me wonder why they thought I was their own personal heal bot.
yeah some players just don't understand that when you are being attack its all man for themselves... I can't heal them when I am being attacked by throngs of adds and my hp is dropping like flies.... or when they are charging ahead while there is still a bunch of mobs to take care and they are dying up ahead... I am sorry buddy that's the reason why you should stick to my lead not yours... although you might be the tank.. but I am your life support... that is if you don't want to use your pots.. speaking of that.. you also should use your pots... I as a cleric trying to save your sorry *** have to pot myself cause I can't heal myself and you at the same time... sigh... thank less.. .and we also don't get much of the loot.... and we blow a lot of money on hp pots...
i also hate the fact that.. you have to hit mobs in order to regain your divinity... means you can't stay in divinity mode or that you can mass heal....><"
i also hate the fact that.. you have to hit mobs in order to regain your divinity... means you can't stay in divinity mode or that you can mass heal....><"
Uh this is a good thing for how the spells work. Also if you use divine fortune you can cast non-damaging spells and gain divinity.
Uh this is a good thing for how the spells work. Also if you use divine fortune you can cast non-damaging spells and gain divinity.
Why is this particularly a good thing, rather than an annoying thing or just a....thing?
I mean, guard recovers if you do nothing, stealth meter recovers if you do nothing, unstoppable only matters when you're actually doing things (you don't generally want -or indeed need- to pop unstoppable right at the start of a fight)...but divinity just sits there needing to be recharged.
So if you're approaching the boss room and you've got one pip left? It's gonna be a fair bit harder than if you have a full set, and you're gonna have to do some deeps rather than healing for a bit. At the very least you're gonna need to do a skoosh-in/sunburst/skoosh-out pretty soon.
Or you could stand outside the boss room casting everything and proccing ethereal boon, for like a week and a half. Or hope that your team can damage themselves so you can slot divine fortune and the few spells that actually proc it, and again sit around for like a week and a half.
And it means if you die, everything gets subsequently harder. Especially in PvP.
It would be very nice if it naturally recharged. Hell, even to just "one pip".
Why is this particularly a good thing, rather than an annoying thing or just a....thing?
I mean, guard recovers if you do nothing, stealth meter recovers if you do nothing, unstoppable only matters when you're actually doing things (you don't generally want -or indeed need- to pop unstoppable right at the start of a fight)...but divinity just sits there needing to be recharged.
So if you're approaching the boss room and you've got one pip left? It's gonna be a fair bit harder than if you have a full set, and you're gonna have to do some deeps rather than healing for a bit. At the very least you're gonna need to do a skoosh-in/sunburst/skoosh-out pretty soon.
Or you could stand outside the boss room casting everything and proccing ethereal boon, for like a week and a half. Or hope that your team can damage themselves so you can slot divine fortune and the few spells that actually proc it, and again sit around for like a week and a half.
And it means if you die, everything gets subsequently harder. Especially in PvP.
It would be very nice if it naturally recharged. Hell, even to just "one pip".
Divine Fortune allows your non-damaging powers also build Divine Power, so you can spam heals to generate divinity at any time.
Why is this particularly a good thing, rather than an annoying thing or just a....thing?
I mean, guard recovers if you do nothing, stealth meter recovers if you do nothing, unstoppable only matters when you're actually doing things (you don't generally want -or indeed need- to pop unstoppable right at the start of a fight)...but divinity just sits there needing to be recharged.
So if you're approaching the boss room and you've got one pip left? It's gonna be a fair bit harder than if you have a full set, and you're gonna have to do some deeps rather than healing for a bit. At the very least you're gonna need to do a skoosh-in/sunburst/skoosh-out pretty soon.
Or you could stand outside the boss room casting everything and proccing ethereal boon, for like a week and a half. Or hope that your team can damage themselves so you can slot divine fortune and the few spells that actually proc it, and again sit around for like a week and a half.
And it means if you die, everything gets subsequently harder. Especially in PvP.
It would be very nice if it naturally recharged. Hell, even to just "one pip".
If you are having trouble keeping divinity it's either a build issue (no points into gaining more divine power) or a player issue (not managing their divinity well). I never have this issue of divinity expect maybe in PvP and then really I gain it so fast it hardly matters.
Also my healing spec cleric doesn't even have ethereal boon and she always have at least 2 pips of divinity going into a boss fight if not all 4 pips. My Dps spec cleric has almost always has divinity to burn.
Divine Fortune allows your non-damaging powers also build Divine Power, so you can spam heals to generate divinity at any time.
Sounds nice on paper, but doesn't seem to proc from an awful lot of heals. I think it's basically "direct heals" so bastion, HW etc. Possibly ONLY bastion and HW, neither of which I like using.
As for faeriestorm: uh....congrats? It does rather fall under the "this is never a problem for ME therefore it's not an issue" domain, though, which is never a terribly balanced approach to take. Plus nice undertones of "LOL L2P", there.
If you have a party wipe and you've burned all your divinity, then you now have problems. And of course, if you have a party wipe and you haven't burned all your divinity, then that right there might be WHY you just had a party wipe.
I can only assume you never wipe, ever, and thus presumably never run with pugs, ever.
And it still doesn't answer the question of why we have to WORK to get divinity when other classes get their class features back for free.
If you are having trouble keeping divinity it's either a build issue (no points into gaining more divine power) or a player issue (not managing their divinity well). I never have this issue of divinity expect maybe in PvP and then really I gain it so fast it hardly matters.
Also my healing spec cleric doesn't even have ethereal boon and she always have at least 2 pips of divinity going into a boss fight if not all 4 pips. My Dps spec cleric has almost always has divinity to burn.
While alot of the issues probably are management, your post made me wonder about ethereal boon.. I wonder if its working properly since the change. Wouldn't surprise me if it was doing 1% instead of 10%, but just a late night pondering really. I haven't tested that in anyway.
While alot of the issues probably are management, your post made me wonder about ethereal boon.. I wonder if its working properly since the change. Wouldn't surprise me if it was doing 1% instead of 10%, but just a late night pondering really. I haven't tested that in anyway.
1 bar = 10 Encounters and full 3 pips = 30 Encounter cooldowns. Doesn't take much effort to realise it is working as stated/"intended", thus making it now a poor feat indeed. If you are choosing between that and Linked Spirit, for example, it's no contest.
Sounds nice on paper, but doesn't seem to proc from an awful lot of heals. I think it's basically "direct heals" so bastion, HW etc. Possibly ONLY bastion and HW, neither of which I like using.
As for faeriestorm: uh....congrats? It does rather fall under the "this is never a problem for ME therefore it's not an issue" domain, though, which is never a terribly balanced approach to take. Plus nice undertones of "LOL L2P", there.
If you have a party wipe and you've burned all your divinity, then you now have problems. And of course, if you have a party wipe and you haven't burned all your divinity, then that right there might be WHY you just had a party wipe.
I can only assume you never wipe, ever, and thus presumably never run with pugs, ever.
And it still doesn't answer the question of why we have to WORK to get divinity when other classes get their class features back for free.
Wiping isn't always the clerics fault, btw I have run with pugs, though not often, and have wiped before. I can tell you even burning as much divinity as I burn though I generate it nice and fast too and that's with using soothing light alot. Honestly I find it hard to burn it out completely. It's a mechanic that makes it so you can't just spam your most powerful skills with divinity all the time unless you go out of your way to regenerate it.
As for other classes:
-yeah rogues can regenerate stealth naturally, but in combat? only if they use shadow strike or don't get hit long enough. If you get hit and your stealth meter is not full you lose stealth meter for incoming damage.
-Ok guardian fighters regenerate block after battle. To not do so really wouldn't make sense seeing as it is resting. They also have skills that recover guard meter in combat so they can keep their shield up longer. As a guardian fighter if your shield breaks you are in trouble in combat. Also block isn't the tab skill, mark is the tab skill akin to you slide on a cleric.
-GWF need to take damage to fill their unstoppable meter, which drains when they are out of combat for long enough.
So then we have the devoted cleric's divinity. Divinity adds a bonus to are skills great. We don't need it to position are selves like TR or block like the GF so why again is there any reason to need it to replenish out side of combat? GF's block is their tactical move and a TR needs to stealth so they can run behind their target. It might replenish outside of combat but once it's up in combat they need to dodge and stuff or use shadow strike to reenter stealth.
Yes we need to hit stuff or heal to generate divinity. We fill the leader and controller roles but the class wasn't designed as a healbot. Designed to heal? yeah but not just heal and nothing else.
We need it to actually be effective in combat, which is why starting a fight with zero divinity is a bad place to be. If you spend the first ten seconds of a fight skooshing about sunbursting and sacred flaming just because you need the DP, you are a pretty useless cleric for ten seconds. And this is silly.
If a GF always needed to wander in and shield bash a few dudes to replenish their guard meter, I'm pretty sure they'd get annoyed. Instead, they know they'll always start a fight with a full shield bar (I'm using guard not mark because while mark is their tab skill, guard is totally their divinity-analogous class mechanic). Rogues will always start a fight with a full stealth bar. We, on the other hand, can quite easily find ourselves starting a fight with fairly depleted divinity.
Neither of those classes need to think (mid fight) "I need to make sure I save enough divinity for the start of the next fight". It's dungeon-based budget management, and it's annoying.
Reminds me of the old "Need moar Rage, not enough Raaaaage!" message in WoW, except its a healer we're talking about, not a dps!
It's like a reverse Mana. I guess they need something to make healing more involved. Sure, it only applies for start of a fight, but your party better be on tipy toes and possibly chugging potions (I think the real underlying issue since DC is never meant to compete with a potion in NW).
But tbh, once your geared up, it is something you rarely notice. With no one running T1 content these days, and getting instantly geared up from AH, I imagine that's why it is not a common complaint.
About the only time I'm sensitive to making sure I have *something* in the old divinity bank, is on start of Epic Spider, and if you pre-clear the extra spiders, that's not really an issue.
Also, I long dropped BotS and reverted back to Sacred Flame in PvE for more consistent and higher upfront Divinity + AP gain after they stomped all over Ethereal Boon. Only time I use BotS now is if I'm aggroing adds in FH.
Of course, if they ever nerfed Sunburst's Divinity gain, we're so screwed, its not even funny
We need it to actually be effective in combat, which is why starting a fight with zero divinity is a bad place to be. If you spend the first ten seconds of a fight skooshing about sunbursting and sacred flaming just because you need the DP, you are a pretty useless cleric for ten seconds. And this is silly.
If a GF always needed to wander in and shield bash a few dudes to replenish their guard meter, I'm pretty sure they'd get annoyed. Instead, they know they'll always start a fight with a full shield bar (I'm using guard not mark because while mark is their tab skill, guard is totally their divinity-analogous class mechanic). Rogues will always start a fight with a full stealth bar. We, on the other hand, can quite easily find ourselves starting a fight with fairly depleted divinity.
Neither of those classes need to think (mid fight) "I need to make sure I save enough divinity for the start of the next fight". It's dungeon-based budget management, and it's annoying.
but our divinity have 3 charges, 4 if you spec into it. Rogues have 1 stealth charge. GF have 1 block charge (though a single hit doesn't take it all)
Then the solution isn't to make divinity recharge but rather conserve it and not burn it all at once. You need to balance usage with gain. Honestly this is one of the things I like best about the cleric is how the divinity works.
That's not even a comparison. The charges don't work the same way or even mean the same thing. It's just arbitrary numbers on a scale. You could say "look, the GF can block 20 <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> hits and thus they have 20 charges while we only have 3 (or 4)"..it's not a fair or meaningful comparison.
My point is that our class mechanic, which a whole TON of heals depend upon, can be depleted (relatively easily, especially if party is teh dumbzorz) and cannot be replenished without either speccing into feats and passives or finding monsters to hit.
"Medic! I got wounded over here!"
"Ok, one sec: need to smack a kobold around for a minute. Then I'll heal you."
It would be nice (for instance) if it naturally regenerated even to just one pip. Just so we could do SOMETHING without needing to go find stuff to hit. Plus it's not even like getting to zero DP stops you going into divine mode, so if you get lagged or were busy panic running/dodging the red because shield dude is concentrating on mad deeps, it's possible to find yourself not firing off a sacred flame or two to get a smidge of DP back, but instead doing a single laughable tick of punishing light and then absolutely nothing whatsoever.
That's not even a comparison. The charges don't work the same way or even mean the same thing. It's just arbitrary numbers on a scale. You could say "look, the GF can block 20 <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> hits and thus they have 20 charges while we only have 3 (or 4)"..it's not a fair or meaningful comparison.
My point is that our class mechanic, which a whole TON of heals depend upon, can be depleted (relatively easily, especially if party is teh dumbzorz) and cannot be replenished without either speccing into feats and passives or finding monsters to hit.
"Medic! I got wounded over here!"
"Ok, one sec: need to smack a kobold around for a minute. Then I'll heal you."
It would be nice (for instance) if it naturally regenerated even to just one pip. Just so we could do SOMETHING without needing to go find stuff to hit. Plus it's not even like getting to zero DP stops you going into divine mode, so if you get lagged or were busy panic running/dodging the red because shield dude is concentrating on mad deeps, it's possible to find yourself not firing off a sacred flame or two to get a smidge of DP back, but instead doing a single laughable tick of punishing light and then absolutely nothing whatsoever.
Yeah well the cleric class was clearly not designed around out healing peoples stupidity. Like people who refuse to use potions after combat and run into the next fight almost dead. Oh and for the record you can do something to heal people without divinity. Might not be as good but it's still something. If you are relying on divinity for all your healing and don't have a way to replenish it then yeah maybe you have a problem.
Basically if people used potions and stop expecting the cleric to babysit them for any and all healing then keeping up divine power works just fine. Clerics are clearly not designed around emergency healing but rather more preventive, healing over time, and the occasional spike damage.
People need to stop expecting the presence of a cleric as a replacement for potions.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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nwnghostMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
I don't think so.
I just started 3 days ago with a DC (now lvl 43) and it can take me a good 30-50 mins to get into a dungeon delve, often so long that I pretty much miss the bonus chest because I can't get a group.
aside from the fact that there are few good clerics, finding one is quite difficult nowadays. Every time DD is up i get a lot of requests. I could just imagine all those parties looking for a DC, and read zone chat.
I'm pretty sure you guys have seen how many people are looking for a DC, more than any other class.
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derpaderpistMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
But why , I love killing DCs please lvl up some more .
" We live in an age of the cheaply made, disposable, high priced junk. " - theunwarshed
aside from the fact that there are few good clerics, finding one is quite difficult nowadays. Every time DD is up i get a lot of requests. I could just imagine all those parties looking for a DC, and read zone chat.
I'm pretty sure you guys have seen how many people are looking for a DC, more than any other class.
Yeah even more so then GF these days. Yet I rarely have any desire to take those groups because what they are looking for is a healbot and that isn't even fun on my healing spec cleric.
As for other classes:
-yeah rogues can regenerate stealth naturally, but in combat? only if they use shadow strike or don't get hit long enough. If you get hit and your stealth meter is not full you lose stealth meter for incoming damage.
-Ok guardian fighters regenerate block after battle. To not do so really wouldn't make sense seeing as it is resting. They also have skills that recover guard meter in combat so they can keep their shield up longer. As a guardian fighter if your shield breaks you are in trouble in combat. Also block isn't the tab skill, mark is the tab skill akin to you slide on a cleric.
-GWF need to take damage to fill their unstoppable meter, which drains when they are out of combat for long enough.
Well for rogue , unless you are the target of everything around it regenerates really quickly ( you can lower the meter loses by dmg with feats) for GW you have skill to gain some in combat for free and feat from gaining it from dmg caused. Gf have skills and they hardly run out of block in pve if theyre decent. The class was originally designed to be more than a healbot but then patches came and in pve you are either healbot, you party is VERY overgeared for the place or you fail. Getting divinity from healing is almost non-existant and you have to heal mostly and not make dmg , so its not that easy to get it.
Well for rogue , unless you are the target of everything around it regenerates really quickly ( you can lower the meter loses by dmg with feats) for GW you have skill to gain some in combat for free and feat from gaining it from dmg caused. Gf have skills and they hardly run out of block in pve if theyre decent. The class was originally designed to be more than a healbot but then patches came and in pve you are either healbot, you party is VERY overgeared for the place or you fail. Getting divinity from healing is almost non-existant and you have to heal mostly and not make dmg , so its not that easy to get it.
oh really? Maybe use some skills that do damage and healing then. Sunburst is a great one. Also, if people play smart they don't need so much healing. Even on my healing spec cleric I don't have issues (with only sunburst, astral seal and scared flame for damage).
Also my Dps cleric has topped both healing and damage in some dungeons, but of course this only works when people don't try and make friends with the red circles. Only time someone needs a healbot is when people try to do that (even my heal spec cleric isn't a healbot, not really). Most of the time my healing spec cleric only needs to use 2 of her encounters and sometimes I wonder why I don't make the third a dps one.
The main difference between people who have enough Divinity for their healbot role in PvE under any circumstance and those who don't is Astral Seal.
They even effectively made Divinity cheaper in PvE because you no longer waste it as often with Astral Shield's uptime gap while everything else was kept the same.
The only time lack of Divinity makes a critical difference is in PvP and one of the reasons why general Cleric builds are either unfun in PvP or even unviable in pugs. Hard to do an already tough job (enemy players are not predictable AI with set phases or easily survivable behavior) if you have so little to work with.
But for PvE healbot specs, you should never have any critical (sure you can have annoying or even very rarely occasional painful) issues with Divinity if you have these, in order of priority:
1. Gear with high enough Recovery (or high enough CHA) to be able to spam Sunburst often.
2. Astral Seal - learn to love it.
3. Righteous Rage of Tempus paragon feat.
4. Bountiful Fortune heroic feat.
Once you slap in an explicit Divinity builder like Divine Glow or even Forgemaster's Flame, you have absolutely no Divinity excuses, and in many situations you do not even need to Astral Seal!
The main difference between people who have enough Divinity for their healbot role in PvE under any circumstance and those who don't is Astral Seal.
They even effectively made Divinity cheaper in PvE because you no longer waste it as often with Astral Shield's uptime gap while everything else was kept the same.
The only time lack of Divinity makes a critical difference is in PvP and one of the reasons why general Cleric builds are either unfun in PvP or even unviable in pugs. Hard to do an already tough job (enemy players are not predictable AI with set phases or easily survivable behavior) if you have so little to work with.
But for PvE healbot specs, you should never have any critical (sure you can have annoying or even very rarely occasional painful) issues with Divinity if you have these, in order of priority:
1. Gear with high enough Recovery (or high enough CHA) to be able to spam Sunburst often.
2. Astral Seal - learn to love it.
3. Righteous Rage of Tempus paragon feat.
4. Bountiful Fortune heroic feat.
Once you slap in an explicit Divinity builder like Divine Glow or even Forgemaster's Flame, you have absolutely no Divinity excuses, and in many situations you do not even need to Astral Seal!
You do not need Ethereal Boon feat either.
Quite true, except Righteous rage of the tempus isn't required. My heal spec doesn't have it and has no divinity issues, I'd say bountiful fortune is more important then righteous rage of the tempus (which she has maxed out).
Quite true, except Righteous rage of the tempus isn't required. My heal spec doesn't have it and has no divinity issues, I'd say bountiful fortune is more important then righteous rage of the tempus (which she has maxed out).
Really? That's interesting. Certainly opens up a lot more possibilities in Paragons if that's the case.
They even effectively made Divinity cheaper in PvE because you no longer waste it as often with Astral Shield's uptime gap while everything else was kept the same.
Whaaa? "You now need to cast astral shield and then probably also another heal in the downtime (because LOL BLADEMASTERS or whatever), so divinity is cheaper?"
Previously it was "use SB to fuel astral shield, keep it up 100%, then have fun with whatever as your third power.", whereas now it's more commonly (unless your team is good) "use SB to fuel astral shield and another heal because AS can't be up 100%".
Whaaa? "You now need to cast astral shield and then probably also another heal in the downtime (because LOL BLADEMASTERS or whatever), so divinity is cheaper?"
Previously it was "use SB to fuel astral shield, keep it up 100%, then have fun with whatever as your third power.", whereas now it's more commonly (unless your team is good) "use SB to fuel astral shield and another heal because AS can't be up 100%".
I don't know about you but if I actually need a heal in that gap (talking in general, not just Spider), either Astral Seal or Divine Armor will fill the gap. But I'm not healbot spec. Doubling up on Divinity healing has always seemed like a terrible idea even from the beginning let alone after they nerfed Astral Shield...
And yes, I've cleared all content in the game, including DV + CN and run Spider speed runs in pugs for AD all the time if my CW is not needed (normally later in DD pre-clear time when [Zone] calls for DC go through the roof).
Speedruns of any kind you need D.Divine glow. Plus its a speed run, glitches skips galore. All the team needs is d glow and linked spirit. Everything else is just gravy.
As for divinity issues. I'm with faeriestorm here that it's usually the players fault. Not all the time you need to cast divine versions of spells, sometimes even astral shield. For all its worth the only situation i can see where its worth dropping a divine ashield is when you do a big pull and everbody is taking a beating. In other situations thogh its usually the tank + 1 or 2 more that are getting damaged And normal as + healing word suffice.
Comments
Yeah you would think we would have similar defences to a GWF since we wear chain mail and they wear scale mail.
I don't know about you but it feels like we are wearing cloth and not chain mail. When I think chain mail I don't think of a squishy class, yet we are squishy.
yeah some players just don't understand that when you are being attack its all man for themselves... I can't heal them when I am being attacked by throngs of adds and my hp is dropping like flies.... or when they are charging ahead while there is still a bunch of mobs to take care and they are dying up ahead... I am sorry buddy that's the reason why you should stick to my lead not yours... although you might be the tank.. but I am your life support... that is if you don't want to use your pots.. speaking of that.. you also should use your pots... I as a cleric trying to save your sorry *** have to pot myself cause I can't heal myself and you at the same time... sigh... thank less.. .and we also don't get much of the loot.... and we blow a lot of money on hp pots...
Uh this is a good thing for how the spells work. Also if you use divine fortune you can cast non-damaging spells and gain divinity.
Why is this particularly a good thing, rather than an annoying thing or just a....thing?
I mean, guard recovers if you do nothing, stealth meter recovers if you do nothing, unstoppable only matters when you're actually doing things (you don't generally want -or indeed need- to pop unstoppable right at the start of a fight)...but divinity just sits there needing to be recharged.
So if you're approaching the boss room and you've got one pip left? It's gonna be a fair bit harder than if you have a full set, and you're gonna have to do some deeps rather than healing for a bit. At the very least you're gonna need to do a skoosh-in/sunburst/skoosh-out pretty soon.
Or you could stand outside the boss room casting everything and proccing ethereal boon, for like a week and a half. Or hope that your team can damage themselves so you can slot divine fortune and the few spells that actually proc it, and again sit around for like a week and a half.
And it means if you die, everything gets subsequently harder. Especially in PvP.
It would be very nice if it naturally recharged. Hell, even to just "one pip".
Divine Fortune allows your non-damaging powers also build Divine Power, so you can spam heals to generate divinity at any time.
The thing about Divinity from healing is ... get this, you'll never expect it ... you have to heal to generate Divinity! Who'd have thunk it?
So, yeah, that has nothing to do with point of the post you quoted.
If you are having trouble keeping divinity it's either a build issue (no points into gaining more divine power) or a player issue (not managing their divinity well). I never have this issue of divinity expect maybe in PvP and then really I gain it so fast it hardly matters.
Also my healing spec cleric doesn't even have ethereal boon and she always have at least 2 pips of divinity going into a boss fight if not all 4 pips. My Dps spec cleric has almost always has divinity to burn.
Sounds nice on paper, but doesn't seem to proc from an awful lot of heals. I think it's basically "direct heals" so bastion, HW etc. Possibly ONLY bastion and HW, neither of which I like using.
As for faeriestorm: uh....congrats? It does rather fall under the "this is never a problem for ME therefore it's not an issue" domain, though, which is never a terribly balanced approach to take. Plus nice undertones of "LOL L2P", there.
If you have a party wipe and you've burned all your divinity, then you now have problems. And of course, if you have a party wipe and you haven't burned all your divinity, then that right there might be WHY you just had a party wipe.
I can only assume you never wipe, ever, and thus presumably never run with pugs, ever.
And it still doesn't answer the question of why we have to WORK to get divinity when other classes get their class features back for free.
While alot of the issues probably are management, your post made me wonder about ethereal boon.. I wonder if its working properly since the change. Wouldn't surprise me if it was doing 1% instead of 10%, but just a late night pondering really. I haven't tested that in anyway.
1 bar = 10 Encounters and full 3 pips = 30 Encounter cooldowns. Doesn't take much effort to realise it is working as stated/"intended", thus making it now a poor feat indeed. If you are choosing between that and Linked Spirit, for example, it's no contest.
Wiping isn't always the clerics fault, btw I have run with pugs, though not often, and have wiped before. I can tell you even burning as much divinity as I burn though I generate it nice and fast too and that's with using soothing light alot. Honestly I find it hard to burn it out completely. It's a mechanic that makes it so you can't just spam your most powerful skills with divinity all the time unless you go out of your way to regenerate it.
As for other classes:
-yeah rogues can regenerate stealth naturally, but in combat? only if they use shadow strike or don't get hit long enough. If you get hit and your stealth meter is not full you lose stealth meter for incoming damage.
-Ok guardian fighters regenerate block after battle. To not do so really wouldn't make sense seeing as it is resting. They also have skills that recover guard meter in combat so they can keep their shield up longer. As a guardian fighter if your shield breaks you are in trouble in combat. Also block isn't the tab skill, mark is the tab skill akin to you slide on a cleric.
-GWF need to take damage to fill their unstoppable meter, which drains when they are out of combat for long enough.
So then we have the devoted cleric's divinity. Divinity adds a bonus to are skills great. We don't need it to position are selves like TR or block like the GF so why again is there any reason to need it to replenish out side of combat? GF's block is their tactical move and a TR needs to stealth so they can run behind their target. It might replenish outside of combat but once it's up in combat they need to dodge and stuff or use shadow strike to reenter stealth.
Yes we need to hit stuff or heal to generate divinity. We fill the leader and controller roles but the class wasn't designed as a healbot. Designed to heal? yeah but not just heal and nothing else.
If a GF always needed to wander in and shield bash a few dudes to replenish their guard meter, I'm pretty sure they'd get annoyed. Instead, they know they'll always start a fight with a full shield bar (I'm using guard not mark because while mark is their tab skill, guard is totally their divinity-analogous class mechanic). Rogues will always start a fight with a full stealth bar. We, on the other hand, can quite easily find ourselves starting a fight with fairly depleted divinity.
Neither of those classes need to think (mid fight) "I need to make sure I save enough divinity for the start of the next fight". It's dungeon-based budget management, and it's annoying.
It's like a reverse Mana. I guess they need something to make healing more involved. Sure, it only applies for start of a fight, but your party better be on tipy toes and possibly chugging potions (I think the real underlying issue since DC is never meant to compete with a potion in NW).
But tbh, once your geared up, it is something you rarely notice. With no one running T1 content these days, and getting instantly geared up from AH, I imagine that's why it is not a common complaint.
About the only time I'm sensitive to making sure I have *something* in the old divinity bank, is on start of Epic Spider, and if you pre-clear the extra spiders, that's not really an issue.
Also, I long dropped BotS and reverted back to Sacred Flame in PvE for more consistent and higher upfront Divinity + AP gain after they stomped all over Ethereal Boon. Only time I use BotS now is if I'm aggroing adds in FH.
Of course, if they ever nerfed Sunburst's Divinity gain, we're so screwed, its not even funny
... and incoming in 3, 2, 1!
but our divinity have 3 charges, 4 if you spec into it. Rogues have 1 stealth charge. GF have 1 block charge (though a single hit doesn't take it all)
Then the solution isn't to make divinity recharge but rather conserve it and not burn it all at once. You need to balance usage with gain. Honestly this is one of the things I like best about the cleric is how the divinity works.
My point is that our class mechanic, which a whole TON of heals depend upon, can be depleted (relatively easily, especially if party is teh dumbzorz) and cannot be replenished without either speccing into feats and passives or finding monsters to hit.
"Medic! I got wounded over here!"
"Ok, one sec: need to smack a kobold around for a minute. Then I'll heal you."
It would be nice (for instance) if it naturally regenerated even to just one pip. Just so we could do SOMETHING without needing to go find stuff to hit. Plus it's not even like getting to zero DP stops you going into divine mode, so if you get lagged or were busy panic running/dodging the red because shield dude is concentrating on mad deeps, it's possible to find yourself not firing off a sacred flame or two to get a smidge of DP back, but instead doing a single laughable tick of punishing light and then absolutely nothing whatsoever.
Yeah well the cleric class was clearly not designed around out healing peoples stupidity. Like people who refuse to use potions after combat and run into the next fight almost dead. Oh and for the record you can do something to heal people without divinity. Might not be as good but it's still something. If you are relying on divinity for all your healing and don't have a way to replenish it then yeah maybe you have a problem.
Basically if people used potions and stop expecting the cleric to babysit them for any and all healing then keeping up divine power works just fine. Clerics are clearly not designed around emergency healing but rather more preventive, healing over time, and the occasional spike damage.
People need to stop expecting the presence of a cleric as a replacement for potions.
I just started 3 days ago with a DC (now lvl 43) and it can take me a good 30-50 mins to get into a dungeon delve, often so long that I pretty much miss the bonus chest because I can't get a group.
I'm pretty sure you guys have seen how many people are looking for a DC, more than any other class.
Yeah even more so then GF these days. Yet I rarely have any desire to take those groups because what they are looking for is a healbot and that isn't even fun on my healing spec cleric.
Well for rogue , unless you are the target of everything around it regenerates really quickly ( you can lower the meter loses by dmg with feats) for GW you have skill to gain some in combat for free and feat from gaining it from dmg caused. Gf have skills and they hardly run out of block in pve if theyre decent. The class was originally designed to be more than a healbot but then patches came and in pve you are either healbot, you party is VERY overgeared for the place or you fail. Getting divinity from healing is almost non-existant and you have to heal mostly and not make dmg , so its not that easy to get it.
oh really? Maybe use some skills that do damage and healing then. Sunburst is a great one. Also, if people play smart they don't need so much healing. Even on my healing spec cleric I don't have issues (with only sunburst, astral seal and scared flame for damage).
Also my Dps cleric has topped both healing and damage in some dungeons, but of course this only works when people don't try and make friends with the red circles. Only time someone needs a healbot is when people try to do that (even my heal spec cleric isn't a healbot, not really). Most of the time my healing spec cleric only needs to use 2 of her encounters and sometimes I wonder why I don't make the third a dps one.
They even effectively made Divinity cheaper in PvE because you no longer waste it as often with Astral Shield's uptime gap while everything else was kept the same.
The only time lack of Divinity makes a critical difference is in PvP and one of the reasons why general Cleric builds are either unfun in PvP or even unviable in pugs. Hard to do an already tough job (enemy players are not predictable AI with set phases or easily survivable behavior) if you have so little to work with.
But for PvE healbot specs, you should never have any critical (sure you can have annoying or even very rarely occasional painful) issues with Divinity if you have these, in order of priority:
1. Gear with high enough Recovery (or high enough CHA) to be able to spam Sunburst often.
2. Astral Seal - learn to love it.
3. Righteous Rage of Tempus paragon feat.
4. Bountiful Fortune heroic feat.
Once you slap in an explicit Divinity builder like Divine Glow or even Forgemaster's Flame, you have absolutely no Divinity excuses, and in many situations you do not even need to Astral Seal!
You do not need Ethereal Boon feat either.
Quite true, except Righteous rage of the tempus isn't required. My heal spec doesn't have it and has no divinity issues, I'd say bountiful fortune is more important then righteous rage of the tempus (which she has maxed out).
Really? That's interesting. Certainly opens up a lot more possibilities in Paragons if that's the case.
Whaaa? "You now need to cast astral shield and then probably also another heal in the downtime (because LOL BLADEMASTERS or whatever), so divinity is cheaper?"
Previously it was "use SB to fuel astral shield, keep it up 100%, then have fun with whatever as your third power.", whereas now it's more commonly (unless your team is good) "use SB to fuel astral shield and another heal because AS can't be up 100%".
I don't know about you but if I actually need a heal in that gap (talking in general, not just Spider), either Astral Seal or Divine Armor will fill the gap. But I'm not healbot spec. Doubling up on Divinity healing has always seemed like a terrible idea even from the beginning let alone after they nerfed Astral Shield...
And yes, I've cleared all content in the game, including DV + CN and run Spider speed runs in pugs for AD all the time if my CW is not needed (normally later in DD pre-clear time when [Zone] calls for DC go through the roof).
Could you explain what this means?
As for divinity issues. I'm with faeriestorm here that it's usually the players fault. Not all the time you need to cast divine versions of spells, sometimes even astral shield. For all its worth the only situation i can see where its worth dropping a divine ashield is when you do a big pull and everbody is taking a beating. In other situations thogh its usually the tank + 1 or 2 more that are getting damaged And normal as + healing word suffice.
PVP: How to make your life less miserable as a Devoted Clerics -- Still in it's Unfinished Glory
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