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Neverwinter and Cleric first impressions
spiralofhope
Member Posts: 6 Arc User
I'm an orphan from years of WoW, but that game has been sliding downhill for too long so I'm done with it. I just started playing Neverwinter a few days ago, and it was a good experience. I say was, because now I've been kicked in the teeth by Cleric mechanics so I'm starting to feel horrible gameplay pain.
I rolled a cleric and am past 40 now. These are some random thoughts on the game/gameplay and class.
I'll be updating my thoughts over here:
http://blog.spiralofhope.com/3409-neverwinter-and-cleric-first-impressions.html
= General
= Cleric-specific
I rolled a cleric and am past 40 now. These are some random thoughts on the game/gameplay and class.
I'll be updating my thoughts over here:
http://blog.spiralofhope.com/3409-neverwinter-and-cleric-first-impressions.html
= General
- I'm using Linux/Wine, and it's running well. I wouldn't play this game if I couldn't run it on Linux. No I won't give support. =p
- The game looks good, although I had to tweak some settings because I'd get my butt kicked in some random situations, like whenever there's a monster treasure chest. A single specific mob that can force me into slideshow-mode is a very serious problem.
- Sometimes when I'm in the main city, I'll teleport around. I assume this is lag from heavy time-of-day activity. It's obnoxious. I was lucky that I started playing during a good time of day and didn't see this until I was comfortable with the game. This will definitely turn new players off.
- The city is huge and confusing. Sending me on tours to various places when I don't have a mount is hell. Another poor new player experience. Perhaps introducing the player to the autorun hotkey will help a little.
- The sparkly path mechanic is amazing. I don't think I'd play the game without it. I get terribly lost. It being able to point the player at a travel-door is helpful. The travel map needs to indicate the suggested quest-path more clearly. There are circumstances when that mechanic is unable to draw a path because the player isn't in the right area. That needs to be fixed. I had to randomly try areas until the pathing mechanic started working again.
- I hate cutscenes and think they're a waste of resources, but having a cutscene as an introduction to each new area would probably be exciting and informative for new players.
- After getting comfortable, I accept quests and run away, but the speech ends up dying if I go too far. Sometimes I do want to listen to it all without standing next to the quest-giver.
- A new player needs to be introduced to the bank.
- I wonder if it would be a good idea to allow experienced players to skip the "tour" quests or give them some alternative.
- The "what's new" (U) when levelling is really cool. However, since I'm anti-PvP, I won't complete that one PvP quest, so I have to dismiss that dialog every time I level.
- Levelling is easy. I'd say it's too easy.
- There isn't enough content for alternate levelling paths. I hope that's fixed in the future.
- Two character slots, seriously? Since it's so easy to permanently screw up a character, there's no room to experiment.
- I'm completely confused about the zen coin thing. The new player experience for this is just awful.
- The game is "just hard enough". There are moments of panic, and there is a lot of mobility.
- Imagine a railroad spike through your eye, then tie your hand to it. This is what the mouse-look experience is for me. The "do that ability in that general direction maybe at that thing over there perhaps" is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. I can get used to some of it, but it eliminates the value of most single-target abilities. I have to do everything with random AoE. Also, I keep trying to left or right-click (or do both, like WoW) and I get dismounted even if I wasn't mousing-over an enemy.
- In combat, over an enemy, hold left-click. Auto-attack commences. Without letting go of left-click, shift to dodge. The auto-attack does not re-start. This gets me so often.
- The powers/feats thing is really confusing. I think it's partly a layout issue, but the information is absolutely incomprehensible in places.
- Powers are confusing. It's hard to know what any abilities is.. there's no way to "try out" anything. I thought I would be locked into my choices and have a limited number of points as I levelled, forcing a specialty. I didn't know that I would eventually be forced to get everything.
- Guardian of Faith leaves enemies prone. Great, that's a new mechanic. What does it mean? For how long?
- There are lines leading from feats on the left to the right, I didn't know if I was restricted to taking a certain path before "unlocking" one of the rows on the right. I later noticed that it's a certain number of points that unlocked all of the items on the right, but now I can't go back and "fill in" all the other interesting ones I'd prefer. Looking at the stuff on the right, there are references to abilities I can't get information on. "Power of the Sun" references "Brand of the Sun", which doesn't exist. The same is true for other items.. I don't know what they're talking about. Not giving free respecs to a new character is extreme punishment.
- Powers/feats is so outrageously confusing that it's best to follow a guide. This kicks new players in the pants, removes the player from the game out onto the internet and diminishes the fun of exploring new abilities.
- I levelled two pets up, but the cost to upgrade them is outrageous. So I have a barely-functional pet which often doesn't do the right thing which I can't even make survivable letalone useful. Not a good experience for a new player. Also, it would be nice to have a toggle to remove pets from the city. Less clutter.
- I often attempt to mount, don't get feedback fast enough, press the mount hotkey a second time, and end up not being mounted at all. That's frustrating.
- Implement a pet emote audio toggle. Some player's pets keep emoting every time we drop out of combat, and it's extremely annoying.
- The auction house UI is garbage. There's just too much wrong with it, from tabbing to browsing, to not seeing per-item costs..
- When posting an item, I need to be able to easily see competing items, and not just exact matches either. For WoW, AuctionLite was a decent start. http://www.wowace.com/addons/auctionlite/
- Introducing new players to voice chat would be helpful. I looked and looked and never found the push-to-talk hotkey. I must have skimmed past it three times. It needs to be made much more obvious.
- The death/wounds mechanic is stupid. The mechanic to stand in a fire.. wait, I mean stand by a campfire for three minutes to recover has actually had a group grind to a halt on more than one occasion. Stupid. Hey wait, aren't I some sort of healer or something? Naw.
- Diablo called, they want their gems back. Removing bag space with this mechanic is stupid. Have it all go into some well-organized virtual space that's separate from the character's backpack.
= Cleric-specific
- I assume I'll be given a free opportunity to respec if new thingy-things are introduced. Paragon? Whatever it's called. If not, I'll rage.
- Channel Divinity is a stupid mechanic. I'd rather be able to assign some hotkey to immediately use the alternate for a power. I'm constantly forced to tab-use ability-tab, which isn't fun. Getting stuck in the wrong mode and being confused in the spur of the moment is not good gameplay.
- "Divine Fortune" doesn't work with Sun Burst if I use it out of combat to only heal.
- I'm always in horrible pain. I can't keep healed, even if given time between fights. I understand not being able to heal myself as well, but calling it "Righteousness" is insulting. I'm righteous, so I suck at healing myself? I recommend regeneration when out of combat, and specific abilities heal the character better. For example, sun burst could heal based on the number of friendly targets, with stronger heals the less characters near. Perhaps have a pool which is split into damage and healing depending on the targets present. How about regeneration if standing still? More out of combat, but some while in combat. Perhaps a self-channelled spell, but not a self-Soothing Light, since that's crappy.
- Sun Burst's knockback is annoying at times. Sometimes I just want a decent heal. Most if not all of the knockback mechanics are frustrating when playing with others. This is probably due to the targeting mechanics. Yes I can and do hold control to target, which helps.
- Around level 20-30 I was really having a blast, and now in my 40s I'm hopeless.
- I can't get enough scrolls of identification, so I bet my gear sucks.
- I always have threat unless the group is particularly good. Having a game require other players be particularly good with awareness and teamwork in this manner is forcing players to collect into exclusionary cliques, making the new player experience even worse since far fewer good players will be available for random grouping. I can stay alive most of the time, unless there is ranged in which case I'm dead, but all that movement is fun when solo and terrible with a group. I may as well just sit on my hands and let myself die in the few seconds it takes than run around for minutes on end.
Post edited by spiralofhope on
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Comments
How are you playing your cleric to even get confused your current mode.
I'm always in horrible pain. I can't keep healed, even if given time between fights. I understand not being able to heal myself as well, but calling it "Righteousness" is insulting. I'm righteous, so I suck at healing myself? I recommend regeneration when out of combat, and specific abilities heal the character better. For example, sun burst could heal based on the number of friendly targets, with stronger heals the less characters near. Perhaps have a pool which is split into damage and healing depending on the targets present. How about regeneration if standing still? More out of combat, but some while in combat. Perhaps a self-channelled spell, but not a self-Soothing Light, since that's crappy.
Use healing word and sunburst while leveling before you have Astral shield. It gets easy when you get astral shield. My solo pve powers are Sunburst, Astral shield and Daunting light.
Sun Burst's knockback is annoying at times. Sometimes I just want a decent heal. Most if not all of the knockback mechanics are frustrating when playing with others. This is probably due to the targeting mechanics.
No, don't use Sunburst in divinity mode when in a group. It messes up the poor DPS guys' attacks.
I can't get enough scrolls of identification, so I bet my gear sucks.
you don't have to identify every single piece of gear.
I always have threat unless the group is particularly good. Having a game require other players be particularly good with awareness and teamwork in this manner is forcing players to collect into exclusionary cliques, making the new player experience even worse since far fewer good players will be available for random grouping. I can stay alive most of the time, unless there is ranged in which case I'm dead, but all that movement is fun when solo and terrible with a group. I may as well just sit on my hands and let myself die in the few seconds it takes than run around for minutes on end.
Healers always will have aggro. And you are right in saying this game requires every player to be good with awareness and teamwork. This weeds out the bad players.
It gets better after 50, because astral shield is ridiculously good.
Also, I didn't know what I was doing, so I could've done things better: collect monsters by astral seal spam >> chains >> daunting light would've been much faster than sunburst, searing light, lance of faith panicspam.
DCs can actually put out reasonable damage, you just need to focus on it. In dungeons I usually go semi-full healbot, but in just open world PvE stuff I switch to damage encounters because there's no need for lots of heals. Divine glow followed by daunting light is great. Especially if you let the monsters get near enough that you can catch yourself in the radius of a D'd Divine glow so you get a damage buff: follow that with a normal daunting and watch the big numberz arrive. Hell, if you want to speed things up, get a cleric companion and have her handle the healing. It's stupid that a healer class is able to noticably benefit from a healing pet, but it's true: so there you go.
Regarding feats/power descriptions: a lot of feats reference powers, and some powers reference feats. Power of the sun, for instance (a feat) references brand of the sun (an at-will power you get at 35). Foresight and benefit of foresight are similar (foresight is a class feature, benefit of foresight is a feat).
Don't get me wrong, though: tooltips are frequently garbage, and this is not a new complaint (foes are knocked back and take increased damage! -how far are they knocked back? And how much damage? NOBODY KNOWS). A lot of the actual statistics have been gleaned by players parsing the combat logs.
Oh, and these sort of player-guided studies have also revealed that a lot of the feats and powers don't work as advertised anyway. Or don't work at all. Or have ludicrous internal cooldowns of 5mins that are not listed anywhere.
So read these forums. There are a lot of build tips and tricks.
As for mouselook, I'm ...not quite sure what your complaint is? I especially don't see how it particularly affects single target abilities, unless you're specifically refering to hitting a single target in a mass of targets (in which case an AoE would actually be a better choice anyway). It's not mouselook that's objectionable, it's the lack of any alternative targeting method, I'd say. That and hitbox funz (hitting any target in the karrundax bossfight that isn't..karrundax, is basically impossible for me).
Righteousness is stupid, this is a common complaint. And yes, gear with regen stacked on it can really help (mostly only needed in "stupid damage" areas, i.e. pvp), but for most common & garden PvE you should be able to keep yourself up with just sunburst + astral seal ticks. Take forgemasters if you like: cast it in divinity on something trying to melee you to death and watch them flail in vain as your health increases. Forgemasters is great.
Don't use guardian of faith: it's a horrible daily. Use hallowed ground and flamestrike. Flamestrike is great for interrupting big red splat attacks, and HG is a defense and damage buff AoE over a GIGANTIC area (and if feated into -moontouched-, it's a heal too).
Learn the divinity mechanic. It's...interesting and at least different from run'o the mill MMOs, and might take some getting used to, but it's powerful if used well. Plus there are tricks you can do by tabbing quickly: there are quite a few feats that proc if you "heal people from divinity", but that seem to allow you to heal normally and quickly switch to divinity. Linked spirit, for instance, gives targets a buff for 5% of your stats per target hit, so hitting all party members gives ALL of you +25% of your own stats for 10 secs. Casting sunburst and hitting tab while the casting anim is still playing gives you non-divine sunburst heal, no knockback, but counts as healing everyone from divinity so procs linked spirit. It's a trick worth learning, since you can effectively keep LS up on the whole party continuously.
But yes, divine status seems to be server side, or at least subject to lag, so you will sometimes get situations where you DEFINITELY pressed it, but it didn't switch fast enough (or at all). This only really happens if you tab multiple times in a short period, but we've all had moments where we skoosh in to fire off a tabbed sunburst trick (see above) followed by a divine astral and instead skoosh in, catapult all the monsters off into the distance (making the CWs swear in party chat) then lay down the dreaded yellow astral (making the melee DPS swear in party chat). It happens. And hey, when it does, keeping everyone alive until you're back on track is a good test of your healing abilities! :P
Finally, aggro: man, if you'd been here a few months ago....back in beta NW, healer aggro was off the scale. Dropping an astral or a sunburst would make every monster under the sun beeline directly toward you. Guardian fighters could mark and threaten like crazy but monsters would be all "lol nope: ganking teh healz. Brb".
It got to the point where nobody took tanks in parties, because...why bother? Take two tanky DCs and let them tank stuff, since they're getting all the aggro anyway. Astral shields used to stack, and crossheals don't suffer from righteousness, so two DCs were a winning combination.
Post aggro fix, tanks can hold aggro, and astrals don't stack anymore (but you don't need two DCs, so it doesn't matter). If you're taking ALL the aggro, chances are your tank is doing it wrong. You can make things a little easier by holding back the heals until they're really needed (give folks a chance to damage stuff and build aggro), but really, a half decent GF should be able to mark and taunt most monsters fairly easily, and a good CW should be able to control them to the point where they're not able to move anyway.
Anyway, if you're on mindflayer, I'd be happy to healbot a few lowbie dungeons with you so you can play with some of the more amusing DC damage powers and stuff.
You only have to talk to the PvP NPC to complete that quest, you don't actually have to do any PvP.
You'll find threat less of a problem at level 60, also you should be aiming for at least 2k defense so when you do take threat you'll be able to tank the extra damage. Learning to kite is valuable, I tanked the adds on the final boss of epic FH last night (group was 3 Wizards, 1 Rogue) - although you may have trouble with it seeing as you experience a lot of lag issues.
We've been given a free respec 2 times now, both times were when significant changes to the class were made.
- Divinity is actually a fun mechanic once you get used to it. I do remember it feeling awkward at first, but it gets to be natural with practice. It's arguably the most difficult class mechanic to adjust to and use effectively, and it requires some fast decision-making, but I find it rewarding.
- Aggro is basically a non-issue these days. Not that you won't get any in higher level play, but it's not unmanageable. Occasionally you may wish that you could generate MORE aggro if you end up with PUG team mates who can't seem to avoid red zones, because skating around the rink is easier than trying to heal stupid.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
As I said,
> I'm constantly forced to tab-use ability-tab, which isn't fun.
Having to do this while looking at people's health and positioning, red stuff on the ground, dodging, kiting and applying hots/dots/whatever .. will occasionally screw me up.
I had done some reading and bumped into an offhand comment about astral shield. I was looking forward to it, but I despise the Channel Divinity mechanic and was looking forward to replacing it. However, when I "unlocked Rank 3 of all previous powers" I only got a kick in the teeth. Thanks Hasbro.
So I suppose I have to pay money for Hasbro's mistake.
I've been trying to be more careful now that I know those scrolls are more rare than the Diablo-gems. Selling unidentified stuff is a bit annoying though because of the slap-in-the-face dialog that pops up every. single. time.
I'd bet that endgame is quite a different experience than what I'm seeing now. Right now I'm basically never going to do another group because of the threat, health and general survivability issues I have. Some is probably skill, some gear, but a lot is the mindboggling lack of skill.
I bumped into what looks to be the only threat-reducing power. I'm playing with it, but I don't think it would be a viable tool unless it was changed to be AoE.
I've noticed some interesting tactics like that which work spectacularly well. It's quite fun the amount of damage I can put out. When I get going, I can easily out dps the tank. I'm still half the dps of the lowest dps, but it's still nice to be able to blow away groups of little adds.
I understand the notion of simplified descriptions to not overwhelm a newer player, but making simplified descriptions to not overwhelm a stupid player is insulting. An "Oh hai, I'm an adult!" mode would be nice. Wishful thinking for a toy company I suppose..
Unless I'm holding control down for every use of every single-target power, there's a chance something will wander in front of my reticle and screw things up. In a crowd, I realise I have to be more careful.. but that mechanic is just painful on my hands. As I said above..
> Having to do this while looking at people's health and positioning, red stuff on the ground, dodging, kiting and applying hots/dots/whatever .. will occasionally screw me up.
and now add a differentiation between single and area abilities, targetted or not, holding control or not..
I can do all of this, but it's tiring and distracting and waters-down the fun-hectic type gameplay that the look-act reticle thing forces.
I'm pretty sure my choice of stats on my gear is completely stupid. I hate having to look for/through guides rather than intuit based on my experiences in the game and.. well, tooltips (but we already confirmed that one won't ever happen). Thanks for the tips on that one, I'll have to try it out.
Using abilities as interrupts is tough for me, especially when I reflexively reach for them when they're still on cooldown, panicing and then flailing at my shift key desperately trying to dodge.
I was using guardian because it's an aoe heal.
HG is amusing I suppose.. I have it and use it, but I can't really figure out what it does. Again, this is a tooltip problem. I think I'm working in the right direction for moontouched..
I saw all of the various mechanics, but it's just more confusion. I have to memorize huge sets of power names and abilities and juggle them in my head. Even if I read a guide, I'm still forced to go through all sorts of acronyms and map them out to powers. One button per power is so much better to work with than having a "shifted state". Maybe I'll get used to it..
That's clearly a bug.. =p
I was hesitant but ended up being pulled into a manual group for that wolf boss. For once it was trivial. Of course we didn't down the boss, because wolves will always eat me alive. Maybe I'll get that with a 10-man at level 61.
I went with whatever was at the top of the list.
Really? The quest is flagged as PvP though. Strange. Thanks!
New classes/specs (or whatever they're called) will be added, so I expect there will be more free respecs. I'm still levelling up my less-than-stellar cleric hoping that I'll be able to iron out all these issues in the future. Hopefully my future skill will make up for my previous lack of skill's mistakes.
I expect other players will have more skill and encounter-experience at 60, which will help.
Kiting isn't a problem, all the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> choices in powers and tactics has forced that talent out of me. Except for the shadow wolves in that one boss fight. Those.. I have a moment to kill outright or they run after me and nip me to death.
Lag is only an issue at certain times in town, never in a dungeon. Although lately skylines have become a serious slideshow issue. I have to toy with video settings some more, but it's likely that the game doesn't have the nuances of video control necessary for me to eliminate that problem. No it's not view distance.. I'm stumped for now.
Skating around the rink.. hilarious!
Today I turned level 15, after a struggle of about a week... and apparently I will stay a level 15 forever.
So, I built a cleric, like I do in any game I play and has clerics. I know that, by definition, clerics are weak, but between being weak and being totally unable to play, and dying as soon as I step out of a safe zone is a long way.
But, first, about the game.
1. It lags like hell. I click now, and it reacts 30 seconds later. Enough time to die without any problems
2. The font used in the game is more than tiny. I keep wondering why didn't they provide a magnifier. Sorry, not everyone has eagle eyes.
3. Tutorials? The game creators most probably never heard about them. New player game play? No way! I mean, it seems that we were supposed to know what to do in the game even before it has been created.
4. At Will??? What am I supposed to understand that one means? English is not my main language, and I assume that I am not the only player having English as a second language. I asked my native English friends what do they understand when reading "at will", and ALL shrugged. So, it's not my problem for not knowing what it means.
5. Circles circles.... and more circles. Red ones, blue ones. No matter in which circle you are, you simply cannot move. And if you are not in a circle, you are usually on your belly, desperately trying to stand up and "fight". And when you should be able to fight, nothing works. The clicking is in vain, and it is not doing anything. They keyboard works from time to time, but not enough to kill a bunch of mobs attacking you ... so end result: dying every 5 minutes or so, plus the 3 spent to heal the minor injuries, plus the way back to a fight you know for sure you simply cannot win ... today, while dying way too many times, and seeing ABSOLUTELY no possibility of doing any of the quests I have in the list, I really wondered: why in hell am I wasting my time with this game? Some find it awesome! I liked it too, up to level 10 or so, but not after that. I gave it 5 more levels chance to see whether anything changes to better. Things changed to worse, so ... I wonder how many people gave up ... like I will do, because they could not play it. We will never know.
Now, just a few words about my computer: it is a very good one, and I never had problems. So all the "not working" parts were not from my computer.
As for my gamer experience, I played PWI, mainly as a cleric, but also on all the other classes there, for 4 years straight, so it's - again - not a matter of being inexperienced in playing such games. From my point of view, this game simply cannot be played solo and as a cleric.
Therefore, yeah, I am one of the quitters, and not ashamed to admit it. I realized once again that I have better things to so with my time rather than waste it in what I consider now to be a stupid game.
Sounds like virtually all of your issues stemmed from your poor connection to the game's server. That, or you were suffering from a bug. Doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how good your computer is.
I have no other explanation for how you could possibly have been dying that much or for the experience you describe.
P.S. Your native English-speaking friends probably needed some context. Even so, how does a native English speaker not know the expression "at will" (as in "fire at will...")?
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Make sure your gear is about at your level, there's usually no point holding on to some mouldy old armour piece just because you used your only rank 3 or 4 enchant on it - trust me you'll get zillions of those. Either hit the AH or just buy the new wave of vendor gear at each level point gear is tied to. Gold flows in pretty quick through questing.
The divinity mechanic is a tough one to start with. But tabbing in and out of the mode does get much easier - even tabbing during animation if you're into the linked spirit thing becomes second nature. Change your AOE power targetting to takes effect on release rather than double click - makes things go quicker.
Avoid spending points on things that reduce threat. When you do need them, they're not strong enough to work, and when you don't need them you don't need them.
Read the forum posts that provide solid info or at least grounded opinion on feat choices - the tooltips will lie to you repeatedly. E.g. Heroic-Feats-One-Build-to-Rule-Them-All
If you don't pvp you miss a cheap option for your first tier 1 60 gear - buying a set with pvp glory points gained by competing in pvp matches. Not a great set but it'll do you for many of the elite dungeons. Or whack together some cheap blues from the AH. Use all your saved lvl 4 enchantments and go do the tier one dungeons.
It can be rough - but it does get better.
Don't run away from blue circles. They heal.
Also, a few tips.
>From the HUD settings, enable always display of allies' health. This will help you locating that one team-member who is low on health.
>Want to run to some place but lot of mobs on the way? Use Divine armor and run.
>Don't aim your astral shield dead center on boss. Aim it a bit to the side.
>Sunburst generates threat. Use it in non-divinity when mobs are just about to die to kill them while also healing your allies.
>Getting too much aggro? Run towards the GFs. (sometimes you'll have to tank for rogues or wizards though)
>daunting light will 1-shot most trash mobs. If not, clean up with sunburst.
But yeah, darcelle: virtually all of your issues appear to be lag related, not game-related, and the only game related issues really should've been cleared up in the tutorial zones, which are unskippable and pretty comprehensive: they even introduce you to your powers in a nice, staged order, so you understand all the different categories. Just for your benefit, though (and really, we should make some sort of 'utter nublet guide to teh cleric' and stick it at the top of the forums):
At will = GREEN ICON, SQUARE this power can be used "at will": it has no cooldown, so you can spam it. You can have two at a time, and these powers are usually bound to LMB and RMB. For a cleric, one of these should almost always be astral seal.
Encounter = RED ICON, SQUARE this power has a cooldown: often 10+ seconds. You can use it, then must wait until the cooldown expires before you can use it again. Some powers have 'charges' (healing word is one of these): you can use it multiple times with almost no cooldown, but each use consumes a charge: run out of charges and you can't use the encounter. Charges recover on cooldown, one by one. Most of your powers will be encounters. You can equip three at any time.
Daily = BRIGHTLY COLOURED ICONS, ROUND these are (supposedly) very strong powers, which you cannot use until you accumulate enough action points (AP).This is the giant yellow gem in the centre of your skillbar. For clerics, dealing damage and healing generate AP: you'll see your gem start to fill with brighter yellow. Once you have enough AP you should hear a BONGGG and see your gem start to flash/look super-pimp, and your daily slots (you can, eventually, have two) will go from being dark to bright, indicating you can now cast a daily. Once you cast it, all your AP are spent and you must build them up again. Your first daily will be guardian of faith: do not be disheartened, as this skill is terrible. Just replace it as soon as you get any others.
Class features = YELLOW ICONS, SQUARE these are 'passives': skills which you equip that then provide some sort of constant buff or advantage to your character without you needing to do anything else. Your first one will be healer's lore, which increases the healing you do by a percentage. You will eventually be able to equip two.
Channel Divinity: this is your special magic OMG IMMA CLERIC LOL feature, which unlocks at level 10. You have a yellow bar to the left of your targeting reticle, with three plus-symbol pips next to it. Each pip represents a full bar, so three pips means you actually have three bars worth. This is your divinity. You build divinity by hitting stuff and healing peeps (mostly hitting stuff, to be honest). As you do so, the bar grows and yes: if it reaches the top it adds a pip and then resets.
You spend divinity to heal. Pressing tab changes the yellow bar to blue, and your character holds up their symbol like an idiot amazed by the power of BLUE LEDs. This is divine mode. In D-mode, your at-will powers (LMB, RMB), WHATEVER THEY WERE, are now 'punishing light' (LMB) and 'soooothing light' (RMB). Punishing light is a yellowish lazor beam of damage, soothing light is a blueish lazor beam of healz. Both beams consume divinity, so if you see a damaged ally, you can switch to divinity, hold down RMB and watch as a beam of blue gives them health back, while your blue divinity bar on the left decreases. Soothing light also gives you health (and indeed can be cast directly on yourself. Don't though, it's a waste of divinity).
You can also use encounters (and ONLY encounters) in divinity, and all encounters have slightly different effects when cast in divinity. For instance, healing word, when cast in divinity, does NOT consume a charge, and also provides an upfront heal as well as it's usual HoT. Sunburst heals for more, and now knocks monsters back.
Each use of divinity in this manner consumes a single pip of divinity, so is equivalent to spending a whole bar on punishing/soothing light. Almost always, though, using an encounter in this manner is a better use of divinity than lazor beams.
I also changed my gear to focus on regeneration. It made a staggering difference.
Thanks a lot for those tips.
It still seems impossible to do anything with a group though. People stand in stupid and dodge healing. Interacting with the game world itself makes healing way more difficult compared to the portrait-clicking I did in WoW (via Clique).
Bottomline is that your character needs to meet certain "breakpoints". After that you can basically play your character any which way you want, whether you prefer an easier or perhaps an unbelievably hectic playstyle. For example. At your level (40ish) the only healing required from you in groups is Astral Seal, Soothing Light and Forgemaster's Flame, or some other power combination that helps you achieve similar results as slotting and using these three. Whatever else you decide to slot is up to you. If your tank sucks at managing aggro you could get Chains/Sunburst/both so you can root or push away mobs chasing you. If your wizard is terrible at controlling adds you may want to slot Chains or even Daunting Light so you can kill off annoying adds yourself. You should save your dailies for large encounter battles or when the boss' HP reaches 60% or 30%.
It is true that you can choose to go beyond what is expected of you but you'll be doing your teammates a great disservice if you do this constantly imo, especially since at higher levels every other "experienced" member of the level 60 community expects your teammates to be able to use potions/bring injury kits/dodge red circles and DPS reliably/control mobs/manage aggro properly. If you spoil them they'll just end up getting kicked from epic dungeon groups anyway.