test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Clerics in PvP
skalt112
Member Posts: 1,089 Arc User
I just had pvp a match with a cleric who's group pretty much gave up on her. She was not having it and she was trying to cap anything she could. I met her (GF) at a point and we fought. After about 15 seconds I stopped fighting. she could not do enough damage to me to even overcome my regen. Something needs to be done about that.
no class should be this helpless in pvp.
Perhaps give them a dps tree that stifles healing or something. Don't leave clerics hanging, or you will never see them in anything but premades.
no class should be this helpless in pvp.
Perhaps give them a dps tree that stifles healing or something. Don't leave clerics hanging, or you will never see them in anything but premades.
Post edited by skalt112 on
0
Comments
of course, i never beat a guardian in a pure 1 vs 1 but i don't try to.
also, a dps cleric pretty much forgoes healing anyways as u can't do both effectively unless u consider buffs/debuffing/dailies/punishing light as bursts of dps that any cleric can do
People complain so much with the recent nerf, but even if we look back to pre tenacity and healing depression, how many DC out there actually know how to build and play one? LOL answer is only a few, any veteran PVP player in this game can tell you the same thing.
Stupid player lose no matter what class they play, even if they be a P2W and get full 10s and emblem, they will still lose.
But, DC is a bit bad right now not gonna lie about it, it is really premade only atm, you would not be able to carry in pug game period.
The sad thing is that a DPS cleric cannot compete with any other class' damage output even if specced that way. There is some burst potential there, but it's dependent on the following:
1. Ideal buff/debuff combos
2. Ideal positioning
3. Divinity consumption
Altogether these challenges make DPS clerics not very scary at all. They only chunk you if you stand still long enough for them to empty their kitchen sink. They're like slightly sturdier CWs with one less encounter slot, less CC, fewer dodges, and lower overall damage output.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
u r somewhat right. it takes me a bit to get my combo going and then once i switch to punishing i will completely out-pace any wizard/hunter. also they usually spend a couple dodges on forge and break the spirit while prophecy is undodgeable.
punishing is pretty much 25 ticks of 700 damage for a minimum of 17.5k damage, divine prophecy doing 6k if they r still alive, and forge/break the spirit doing at least 700 per tick for 5 ticks which is a minimum of 3.5k each. the occasional daily is 3k x 3, but is usually partially-dodged so only 1-2 connect which works for me as it means they can't dodge my actual barrage.
i won't lie as wizards/hunters start off doing more dps than me as i have to go through several animations b4 i get serious. the real issue is that clerics can't compete in terms of cc spam, but the dps is fine for me at least.
Healing Word and Exaltaion and even Astral Shield can be casted fairly quick and thats good - because i fell like spending half of my time in PvP being strangled in the air or beat to the ground and so on...
I was defending with another cleric we both had our daily ready (~13k GS) This flame strike thingie. Both actually caught the enemy Hunter Ranger in the middle and made him loose half of his life. Then we put on divine at will and burned him down which took a lot of time too.
With other Specs you might be able to deal better damage but as you are allways the target of every enemy player a glasscanon build wont survive too long.
Couple of questions, Do you run in premades or in pugs?
Are you AC or DO cleric?
Pre patch, I had no issue killing HR's, I was like 25% of the time killing CW's and TR's and at worst stalemating a GF. This was all in PUGs, In this current meta, I find my fullest potential to be in relation to the pug match Ive drawn, good or ok one, that will protect me , I have no issues helping the team win.
Post patch, I cannot do anything I did prepatch, Only people Im taking out 1 vs 1 are the undergeared, otherwise Im just a lump of clay sitting around.
What I get from people usually is the following:
1. Switch to AC,
2. Your job is just to heal/debuff , no longer to hold nodes or play defense
3. Switch to all the blue PVP and get your defense to 5k .. um ya!
I went against a premade the other day where I couldnt even damage thier HR, This isnt a lie, he just sat there and lol'd while I tried.
Premades are always tough and the best of them should whip you, but when a cleric cant even damage a HR, thats pretty sad.
Punishing? DId I miss a power somewhere?
punishing light is our divine at-will on left-click while soothing light is on right-click.
agreed. i so love that combo although i'm not righteous (but considering respeccing since virtuous seems awkward as a dps/hybrid path). 1 cleric does the burst dps while the other tanks/heals.
In the past It took lot of players and lot of time to kill a DC
now its take almost same time as killing any other character and healing is very bad
for now I try mainly debuff and DPS (I still didn't finish a profound set but I do have 3k def and 2K deflect)
I am not an expert PvP player but still I think of changing my build to allow me bit more PvP
especialy since PvP get more and more attention (patches, equip)
http://nwcalc.com/dc?b=pa4:27sink:13zrxv,13l3314:110000:1uo000:1u0uz1&h=0&p=anc
I think about this build
using astral seal and lance of faith as at will
anointed armor and holy fervor as class features
break the spirit, forgemaster flame and chains as encounters
and dodge a lot with healing step
for PVE ill try to get as much s buff as I can using temporary hit points
I need to give up exaltation... but again I hardly use it
for now DC is the worst class for PvP, sure I can kill low levels, but not charctes at my level
my simple tactic is stay bit on the back, astral seal as many as I can, drop forgemaste with divine if I didn't get hit
usually I attract a lot of argo after ppl notice there is healing
if one charcter chase me I dodge back and debuff, slow and chain it as much as I can.
usually GWF like to chase me and they are very easy to debuff, hold, slow and dodge
but once healing step is gone and they catch you. they do lot of damage
Punishing Light's channeling can be interrupted by any manner of CC, the damage isn't that high on anyone with gear, it requires blowing tons of Divinity, and it can be defeated by obstructing line-of-sight or simply walking away. You can beam down someone who undergears you and doesn't effectively counter you, but otherwise it's meh except to finish someone who's about to escape or get a kill with a trickle of health left.
Prophecy's application can't be dodged, but the detonation can be. The defense debuff isn't bad, but the cooldown (unless the target dies, of course) and mediocre damage payoff combined with the long animation make it a really niche choice.
Break the Spirit is telegraphed enough to dodge easily, and neither BtS nor FF do impressive damage. Basically you have a DPS rotation with no actual burst, especially if you're relying on Punishing Light to supply your damage. No one at a high gear and skill level will be threatened by this.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
That is where you need Exaltation for 2 sec immunity, sunburst for 2 seconds no melee around and some constantly regen HWs ticks. Stalemate any GWF and GF isnt a great problem for any DC, instead, the ability to get up from being proned before you are dead is. A cleric with low power (1500 power only) can heals a lot with HWs, so don't under estimate its strength in pvp, it is still a solid choice and a must-have encounter in our slot in pvp. FF cannot counter ranger attackers and perma tr, so it is not in my list. AS maybe, but if and only if there is pure melee battle and no great snipers in my team.
LOL, thanks - I have never once looked at the name.
for punishing light, yeah people hiding on pillars r annoying and i did agree on cc being the main reason i lose. still, line-of-sight is an issue for everyone as the hiders will just wait on regen b4 they come back out. but it's not weak as i did check and see how much 3 bars of divinity did in terms of dps and it pretty much killed a wizard that didn't dodge it.
idk how geared people are past 13k, but i am currently hitting close to base damage with my 10% armor pen and prophecy. maybe like 10% less than base damage. i know tanky rogues/hunters with high deflect pretty much gimp any form of dps i have, guardians can block most of it (so i just move behind them if they don't target me), and everyone struggles with gwf's except maybe rogues. as such, my main targets r the wizards/hunters and a guardian if he decides to ignore me.
the thing is, break the spirit and forge are mainly for charging divinity. if it lands, then that's fine and if it criticals, then a couple of 1k per sec dots that last 5 seconds makes my job easier. to me, damage on those is a bonus as it's the most reliable way to gain 1 bar of divinity after a divine prophecy.
never knew prophecy could be dodged because it almost always hits and even kills someone after they killed me. since most people have 24k hp, i just have to deal 20k hp to guarantee the kill even after i die. the cooldown isn't an issue as long as my target dies and it generates large amounts of ap so that's nice too. sometimes, i even get a chance to use it back-to-back if people die at a reasonable pace, although the slow casting ruins it if they die too fast.
if hammer of fate could break clerics free from cc in addition to being immune during casting, i would definitely get so many more kills. cc is the only thing stopping a dps cleric from winning reliably.
When I talk about line of sight being an issue, I mean that it's even worse for something like Punishing Light because enemies have to remain targetable for you to continue to inflict damage. No fire-and-forget, obviously.
My goal isn't to be excessively negative or to completely debunk your favorite play style, but I would recommend that you stay flexible as you fight players with better gear. If you're fighting people with only 24k of HP, you aren't fighting strong competition. Chances are that they are either going in with glass cannon PvE builds or are just severely undergeared in general.
As for Prophecy, you don't see the detonation being dodged often because it's such a rarely used power that most players know nothing about it. I think I realized that I could dodge the damage when some DC threw it on me and I happened to be in the middle of dodging something else when it went off.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I find we're a counter class, moving the node that needs help or to counter the other teams movements/take advantage of their deaths or being out of position. Awarness of what's going on in the fight and in the battleground your in are key for how I play.
1-Yes, vastly outperforms DO for PVP purposes unless you wan't to focus on being a dps glasscannon >.< 2-Seriously? We're still good node holders, you just can't go solo vs everybody
3-What a joke, way overcapped, just wasted stats. You have other ways to aquire DR also. You can easily get to 40% DR as an AC
I'm not sure how you couldn't even dmg him at all, sounds like a combination of him bothing be good and way outgearing you, also, as I've said many times, HR's will just destroy DC's in a heads up fight.
[QUOTE=nurmood;7687701
I was defending with another cleric we both had our daily ready (~13k GS) This flame strike thingie. Both actually caught the enemy Hunter Ranger in the middle and made him loose half of his life. Then we put on divine at will and burned him down which took a lot of time too.[/QUOTE]
I prefer Guardian of Faith for a PVP dmg daily. Does some dmg, heals and has a prone. Neither component is great by itself but when you roll it up together it's pretty decent. I find the prone can be the key sometimes, you can use it to allow your team to nuke somebody and land their own disables or you can hit an already disabled enemy to allow your team to take him down. I still use HG more than anything though
Exaltation is an absolute must for PVP in my opinion and people can continue to farm their profound sets but I'll say it yet again MH has still been the best set for me even in the post patch meta
"MH set is the best set for soloing, even better than HP because of its healing and damaging abilities." said by Kaelac.
"Tenacity is going to increase the tankiness and survivability of a cleric effectiviely." still, said by Kaelac.
"Exaltation and Healing Word is a must in pvp, it is the core where you can 1v5 ppl at your node for a while, along with healing step and your pvp pot." This statement, said by me.
I love my MH for various reasons, but I don't actually swap enchants back from my PvP gear for solo content (or for most group content). With all the regeneration, healing, and temp HP procs, you don't actually need the set bonus. I think High Prophet is kind of overkill for solo, but it should shave a little time off of boss fights, so that's something.
I'm not crazy about Healing Word since Healing Depression came into play; it's pretty unimpressive without Divinity and is a downright terrible self-heal. Forgemaster's dishes out way more healing despite its limitations. Exaltation I continue to love, though; it's more valuable now than ever.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
after playing with exaltation in PvP I agree, its fun. but with such long cool time, it doesn't work nice with divine fortune (healing word works great)
having both healing word and exaltation is bit too much , its will be hard to do any damage (might work with prebuild party)
its hard choice, we can hardly do any damage or healing...
Well, here is some resources from Kaelac's ACT, where both of us played a good competitive match yesterday. My HW heals a lot especially when allies are just out of combat or running to me for heals. However, i did change my encounters from SB to AS then back again to SB to serve different purpose.
Kaelac's healing output:
https://i.imgur.com/IiDHDyQ.png
Elf's healing output:
https://i.imgur.com/5hDojlE.png
These pictures can only be a reference to you all as both of us played differently in the match. Kaelac mostly staying at mid, aiding team combat and also dying to cap/defend (like a usual cleric) while i roamed between bases to cap nodes (as an annoying running/kiting sent). I do admit he is a good cleric and even better than me in team combat, just because most of his over-heal and timing isn't reveal on the ACT doesn't means his healing ability is bad. Kindly check his guide for more cleric informations, it is the best guide of dc atm.
Can you pls show us your items and character stats allocation? If a normal 12k gs cleric can do the same thing as you mentioned, then only it is viable, or else you are plainly stomping other guys who are 5k gs beneath you. I want to learn from you and dio anyway because the M3 campaign highly focused on kills to advance, which the weakest part of me atm. Btw if a cleric can out dps a cw, tr, hr, and gwf at equal gs bracket, they should delete their character.
(I'm not a huge PvP guy so I'm offering large grains of salt with my opinions btw)
I can take PvE built characters from other classes into a PvP match for a lark and a larf and do Ok but if I take my PvE DC into PvP I get eaten for lunch.
However, my PvP built DC that doesn't focus on healing as much as being solid does fine unless matched by quality players.
That the qualities that make a good PvE DC are so very different than what you need in PvP and simply switching a few Encounters around isn't enough to convert.
Maybe that's part of it?
All of that is nice, but it doesn't make a strong case for HW considering that the match lasted so long that I'd be surprised if you had lower healing numbers. Also have no idea how the fight was actually flowing on both sides. For example, it appears that Kaelac is running a Faithful build, which is asking to die a lot. When you spend that much time dying as a DC, it becomes difficult to maintain sufficient Divinity to use Forgemaster's (or anything, really) as a heal. He probably would have been better off running Healing Word in that match since it would have provided at least some benefit without requiring Divinity usage.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
depends on enemy team composition. if there r only 1-2 prone spammers, then i can easily do well as a dps cleric and possibly compete for most kills. if there are more, then i am likely spending most of the match being knocked all over the place because the gwf's/guardians see me as the easiest kill.
against so many prones, i have no choice but to slot astral shield or die in some ditch.
We can see from this thread there are a number of setups that have been met with success from very different gear and skill loadouts.
What I like to hear is how you guys adjust your loadout vs opponents. Of course the match won't always be 1v1 but for example in the match posted we have 2 permastealth TRs who were pretty good at harassing. Usually we are fighting at a point where one of us is trying to recap or keep the point contested so kiting wasn't the best technique. I am using FF and my Plague Fire DoTs to try to limit their stealth and their mobility but when they can seemingly go out and straight back into stealth even with DoTs I find them very hard to counter. It's a DoT vs DoT situation, and a TR's DoTs is always going to hit faster and harder than mine and eventually when I get low enough they'll go for shocking execution which is usually a kill/soulforge. What do you guys do in those situations with DPS/healing rotations? Or maybe the best strategy is avoid altogether and support the team instead elsewhere?
The other issue I really am annoyed with is how Armor penetration doesn't work with a lot of our abilities and DoTs. I usually roll with about 1-1.4k ArP. In that match my damage output was actually third, just slightly behind the 2nd TR. However because FF, BoTS and Plague fire DoTs (along with many other DC skills) don't actually work with armor penetration our ability to keep up damage vs opponents is very limited especially vs the tankier classes. Then because our Armor Pen is gimped, our outgoing damage is gimped and thus my lifesteal return from DoTs is also gimped.
I have been trying to think how we can be successful (ie kill or stalemate) against other classes of similar GS without relying on a tanking/healing hybrid, and I can't see a clear strategy. I would be very interested to hear from the more seasoned guys about what works for you. I know 1v1 is not our strength either and possibly not what we should be doing in domination but that's probably another discussion and strategy altogether.
Guild and guide info
Module 4 Comprehensive DC guide |Module 4 MoF CW Handbook |New! Scourge Warlock Guide| NW Numbers and Mechanics guide |Crit, Power and DPS guide | Dungeon Delving guide and more
Fair questions, though. I don't think that DCs have an obligation to be stuck in a pure support role; it's just the nature of game mechanics that such is very strongly encouraged.
The challenge I see with DC 1v1 (against characters of comparable strength) is that the DC isn't well-equipped to win a straight-up DPS race. Prior to Tenacity a DPS DC could put some serious hurt down with a perfect rotation incorporating a D-mode Divine Glow and culminating in a huge Daunting Light crit, which was awesome but largely impractical; now even that burst combo is significantly less bursty, and other classes put out both better burst and better sustained damage than the DC.
That's why I think that the most viable approach to evenly matched 1v1 scenarios as DC is to limit offensive encounters to one or maybe two slots. DCs need some way to buy time while building Divinity and AP back up or to mitigate burst damage while they eat away at the opponent's health, and a full DPS setup is unlikely to prevail in a straight-up fight. Daunting Light alone won't win a fight, and DC DoTs are so weak against PvP-built characters that they can barely be relied upon to beat someone's regen even under Healing Depression.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
The ones that aren't effective melt faster than CWs (they have less dodges). I can only assume these guys are dps builds but yeah, I wouldn't go that route if you want to win.
The healing ones can be about as effective as a perma-stealth rogue at distracting/contesting points. Just because you eventually die doesn't mean contesting a point against 4 people isn't worth it. Perma rogues eventually die too unless they give up contesting for a little bit.
I am not an expert and I will like to see other ppl tactic as well
against stealth TR:
Its not rare to find yourself 1:1 with TR
1. I usually absorb the range attack, he got only 8 and best thing is try to face them, TR have lot of combat advantage and no reason to give it. I put on me chains during this time
2. I save my dodge for after the range attack, usually they use encounter at that time (usually they crit hit me and I get healing step any way)
3. once TR is out of stealth, I don't go fast with my encounters, first I hit with astral seal and other at will (with power of oppression its 5% less damage), usually TR dodge straight after they get out of stealth, even 2 dodge in a raw. only then I use encounter
4. some of them go hide in a corner to get the stealth, so if u don't see him, putting chains on the corner can help
but again, the 50% reduction of healing is way too much
I have a feeling that when the developers did simulation of the new tenacity, they probably found that its impossible to kill healer tank cleric with full gear of tenacity. so the simple solution they found is nerfing our heals by half
not the most creative solution but only 11% will complain