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An open letter to Devoted Clerics
merlin420id
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
After running the call to arms event for three days, I am completely shocked as to how many lvl 60 clerics there are that don't have a clue as to what they're doing. I would say that 1 out of 4 actually knew what they were doing. By that I mean not only do they recognize their role in the group (healer), but also they knew how to do it. A cleric that doesn't know how to heal is just as bad as a guardian fighter that doesn't realize he has a shield or a rogue that never dodges. It's what your job is!!!!
So here's a few tips for the clerics that haven't been told or been able to figure it out on their own:
1. Astral Seal is your MAIN heal!!!! When you hit something with astral seal, any character that does damage to that character is healed a little bit. Therefore, it is wise to hit as many mobs with AS as you can in the beginning of the fight to get the healing started.
2. Healing Word is NOT your main heal!!!!! If you notice, healing word is a low level encounter. You only have 3 charges and it doesn't heal for very much. I am TOTALLY amazed at how many clerics there are in this game that think HW is a clerics main and only heal.
3. Divine power is your friend!!!!! If you read your encounters, you will see a second bit of wording that will tell you what divinity does for it. For example, forgemaster's flame will do a large heal to anyone around the mob if used with divine power. For those that don't know, you press your tab, then your encounter to get divine power.
Sorry to be so basic here, and I don't mean to be condescending even though it probably sounds like it. It's just terribly frustrating how many lvl 60 DCs there are that don't have the foggiest idea. I guess this could probably be said for any class, but a poorly played cleric will effect the group moreso than any other poorly played class.
Thanks for listening!!!!!
So here's a few tips for the clerics that haven't been told or been able to figure it out on their own:
1. Astral Seal is your MAIN heal!!!! When you hit something with astral seal, any character that does damage to that character is healed a little bit. Therefore, it is wise to hit as many mobs with AS as you can in the beginning of the fight to get the healing started.
2. Healing Word is NOT your main heal!!!!! If you notice, healing word is a low level encounter. You only have 3 charges and it doesn't heal for very much. I am TOTALLY amazed at how many clerics there are in this game that think HW is a clerics main and only heal.
3. Divine power is your friend!!!!! If you read your encounters, you will see a second bit of wording that will tell you what divinity does for it. For example, forgemaster's flame will do a large heal to anyone around the mob if used with divine power. For those that don't know, you press your tab, then your encounter to get divine power.
Sorry to be so basic here, and I don't mean to be condescending even though it probably sounds like it. It's just terribly frustrating how many lvl 60 DCs there are that don't have the foggiest idea. I guess this could probably be said for any class, but a poorly played cleric will effect the group moreso than any other poorly played class.
Thanks for listening!!!!!
Post edited by merlin420id on
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Comments
GF's that don't taunt/tank
CW's that don't control
I guess that's it, but, people can play how ever they want. Best to just avoid pug's altogether.
hmmmmm, maybe why i said this " I guess this could probably be said for any class, but a poorly played cleric will effect the group moreso than any other poorly played class."
Maybe being constructive and adding how GFs taunt best or CW control best would have been more appropriate. Just sayin........
You're better off making sure Divine Astral Shield is down, Divine Forgemaster's Flame is on the toughest mob, and you're building AP with Sunburst. If those are all on CD, I'll pop Astral Seal on a few mobs.
But the game is full of poorly played classes. Even while going full on heals, I still out DPS a lot of rogues, wizards, guardians and great-weapon fighters.
So my advice, just learn to play your class to the best of it's ability, and we'll all be better off.
Used well (i.e. not by me) it can pour out the heals, since you can cast it in divinity for HoT+Spikeheal and it doesn't use a charge, meaning you can immediately follow it up with a non-divine cast. That's one person topped up from "near death" to "fine in a second or two", and you can go off and focus on the others (when I use it, of course, it generally hits a full-health TR and then the tank dies, which is why I use forgemasters).
Astral seal is NOT our main heal. It's a very important heal, and it's extremely useful for proccing a ton of stuff, but if your options are "whale on the sealed monster" and "stand in the blue shield", I would advise you very strongly to stand in the blue shield. Don't be the guy who thinks "HAY I CANS SOLO TEH OGRE ALL THE WAY OVER HERE" because astral seal is not going to cut it, and we'll usually end up burning another encounter saving you.
If I had one thing to say about the Call to Arms event, it's "please don't split into two parties either side of the map", because that's incredibly annoying to heal through.
This would help me! I'm new to MMO and rolled a GF before I'd even heard the word "tank" and what it meant. I don't do a lot of group content because I really don't know how to tank and don't want to make others in the group mad. SO, anyone who want's to take on the task of adding how GF's taunt best or CWs control best would be much appreciated. If we all knew a little more of what we were supposed to be doing, maybe it would make gameplay better for alll
Nothing is more frustrating then putting a forgemaster's or astral shield on a tough mob, only to watch it get knocked clear across the room. Oh well, didn't need that divine point anyhow.
Clerics need to be preventative rather then reactive. However, if the party, or some players, behave in ways that are hard to anticipate or predict. It makes it very hard to be anything but reactive. And that is always going to, unfortunately, reflect poorly on the cleric.
However, recently I have been playing my GF a bit, and quite frequently in PUGs, and I have discovered how many DCs play in a very different way than I do - sometimes I see no Astral Seals at all...something I just don't understand.
I agree wholeheartedly!!! A huge problem with this game is how fast you level, which is one thing (among many) that were brought up during closed beta to no avail. But just invoking 3x a day can get you a level every 2-3 days without playing your toon once. That's just plain silly.
TR that use Cloud of steel as their main attack???
GF that punt everything into the other packs of unaggroed mobs???
CW that singularity everything into the packs of unaggroed mobs???
GWF that do the same??
TR that don't attack the biggest bad-est mob!
The event could easily be run without a healer, with no issues what so ever, but without thinking, it's much harder, soloing whatever you like - impossible!
What Class Are You?
True, it's not a main heal, but you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. There's not really much choice for healing after AS (that's SHIELD btw) and FMF, so it's a toss up between Sun Burst and Healing Word. Healing word has 2 main benefits, it's targeted and it also heals the caster. If you're kiting you can throw out your 3 charges and get some nice heals ticking on yourself. The only other targeted heal uses the divinity you spend most of your time building up. Personally I use Sun Burst, but calling people out for using HW is just stupid.
Well done, you're correct about something, but it hardly takes a genius.
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---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
Totally agree with this. I'm new to the MMO genre and participation in parties had been pretty much limited to a scattering of Dungeons. I outlevelled most of the Skirmishes without ever seeing them.
Additional comment: Queue times for Call to Arms GF or DC were literally under 1 minute for me. However, I stopped using the Cleric as the hot shots were pulling 2/3 of the mobs from behind the fence right at the get go, leaving me to kite like mad while downing potions. The loot returns from the 3 "fence" chests and even the Event chest do not offset the frustration or expense of the potions.
Not really, he's just asking people not to f@ck up.
True but in a particularly patronizing fashion, not to mention that some of his 'advice' is dubious if not downright wrong...
Unsurprisingly, this rarely goes down well....
Rofl. You need a healer for this incredible easy event? I think you have no clue about playing your class.
I play cleric as main. I only need to put more then astral shield if the group is giga HAMSTER. Otherwise I switch to damage.
I used to do that until someone asked me not to...
Honestly things going badly in any of these runs has been related to CW pulling every single mobs and their AoEs into a tight space where you cannot dodge. Oh and ignoring when some one is getting chases and downing potions like crazy.
True, tanks that don't taunt or build agro (might be taunt might be another way depending on the spec/level) can be an issue, but it's more that people of any class ignore when their someone on their team is in trouble.
As for clerics? sunburst and repurpose soul heals with the occasional soothing light keeps everyone alive unless they don't know what they are doing. It's best for a cleric running this event to simply go full damage even if they are a support spec.
Id say you need to roll a DC before you post how to play one as you clearly have some misconceptions of the class.
1. Astral Shield (not Astral Seal) is your main heal and should always be cast while tabbed (Should be on bar 100% of the time)
2. Healing word is the best single target spike heal available and can crit upwards of 8-14k (divine mode)
3. Agree mostly however FF is totally situational and should not be on your bar 100% of the time
4. Astral Seal is great for keeping HP topped off/divinty building and is probably under utilized by most DC's
5. Sunburst with a quick tab press will proc the divine mode without using a pip and combined with Linked Spirit is totally OP. It also is the single best way to build AP for a DC (Should be on bar 100% of the time)
6. Plenty of other tips but this covers most of the important stuff
But yes every class should learn how to play. I used to be a gwf and wondered why my dps was always really low compared to others. I switched from mobility to an extra damage encounter and swapped my feats and now do way more damage although I still only have t1 pvp gear for the survivability and only have t2 pvp gear for all of my other characters. GF is the class I have left to level up and am not really looking forward to it, it seems of less interest to me.
I've gotta ask, How exactly are you outdamaging lots of DPS classes? Saying lots makes it sound like...you know, lots :P The majority or at least a good portion of them. You mentioned above using FF, SB, AS as your encounters. I'm a very heal centric DC and use those encounters at least 90% of the time and even if I'm pushing as hard as I can I cannot get within a lightyear of my usual team mates. Not even sorta close lol. Even when we pug some players now and then it's not even close. Mind you I've been on vacation and away not playing for 6 weeks now, my gear is relatively average by todays game standards.
My team has been grabbing different DC's while I'm away and in a new guild they did several runs with that guilds main DC. He was Very DPS oriented. AShield as the Only heal and the other two encounters were DPS options. @Perfect@ vorpal, rank 8+ enchants, main/off ancient and a stone. He was spec'ed for DPS as well, I do not know what as I was not there to personally talk to him . Just info from my team mates who did run with him. He did Amazing DPS, although not amazing healing, but even still he Never beat them in dps. Got near them, but never above. So, I'm honestly curious how in the heck you can do such huge damage with three heal encounters? Thanks!
With a full healbar, a DC should never outdamage any other class....but it does happen. Mind you, the Call to Arms event is very bad for any kind of 'score' interpretation since as a "all levels welcome" event, I'm pretty sure it scales everything proportionately except the actual final numbers. I can do it with a party of level 15s and I'll heal 32000, because level 15s don't have that much health to heal. In a party of 60s it's ten times that.
Damage clerics can do impressive numbers, I don't think that's even in question. Divine searing light through the middle of a CW's singularitied crowd? Oh my.
I've never played a DC, so I've no clue what their strategies are. However it's true that most PUGers don't know what they're doing.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
With the added caveat that a lot of our stuff is AoE, so depending on whether people stick together or spread as far apart as possible, our job can be laughably easy to facepalmingly difficult.
You'd think they would have to go AFK half way through for a FULL heal spec/loadout DC to outdps them with anything less than absolutely perfect gear. I wish I could even give numbers of a typical run in some of the T2's but truthfully I rarely look at the damage score card. Doing all the extra damage and presumably less healing. Doesn't the rest of the team have to be more defensive, and again, presumable do a little less DPS themselves making it a wash?
The problem is that you can easily ruin a cleric build. Many feats are bugged, many feats don't work actually and all feats are somewhat weak compared with other classes. While my rogue easily gets 40% more damage from stealth by feating, my cleric have to fight for very 1% of healing.
Furthermore, the healing skills of the cleric are weak compared with damage done by other classes and also by the incoming damage. This is because every class is supposed to defend themself by using dodge. The cleric can play like a demigod but still won't be able to heal the group because the other players don't know how to play.
Forgemaster is very situational, only heals from divine and is not even counted then as heal in game terms since it don't proc linked spirit.