Analyzing just whats changed with the class is just as important than testing the data. Otherwise you dont have a baseline to actually test for.
Also
Cleric resource managment I am finding it way too micromanaging to micromanage these empowers/divinity and gaining divinity. I mean man. We have to be situationally aware the most on the battlefield but we have to micromanage all this as well? This is too much. I dont know about anyone else, but Im not one of those clerics that just throw down heals and buffs and just stand around and do nothing. I'm having trouble deciding on what to use and when to use it cause Im way too busy trying to figure out what has what effect and how much empowerment I got to gain the effect I want it and if I should use divinity or a normal spell, and keeping track of my allies condition and my own condition and blah! This is too much micromanaging.
Bastion of Health: Heals allies at target location after a short delay, healing allies immediately and then applying a Heal over Time effect.
Divine Bastion of Health: Instantly heals allies at target location.
Empowered Bastion of Health: Bastion of Health now consumes stacks of Empowered Bastion of Health to heal allies for 10% of their missing HP per stack.
Bastion's major performance restriction is due to the target cap of 5 and it doesnt distinguishes those with full health and those which lost some. In some dungeon runs where many combat companions are summoned, this encounter is unreliable as it can heal people / companions with full Healths and ignore the one needing healing the most in the area because the target cap has reached 5. Either prioritize those with lost healths to be affected and maintain target cap of 5, or make the target cap to at least 10 to support those dungeon runs with combat companion
Well you guys made a lot of effort to rework the DC and i am really happy to see that. From the first glimpse i see that some neglected powers might now be worth using.
But there is one thing i was hoping for really badly:
Heroic Feats rework
Please you guys - the DC community pointed this out as an urgent change. We dont need a complete overhaul. Changing some numbers maybe. Or replace 1 or 2 heroic feats would make us happy allready i guess. (Dont give us more recovery btw)
and another thing that bothers me is
Searing Light
Please make it viable! Nobody really used it before - why should they use it now? Or did you find a new use for it that makes it very powerfull that i dont see?
On the surface it seems the devs gave us exactly what we've asked for as DC players. Options....If I'm reading all this correctly you can remain buff/debuff/mitigation cleric in the virtuous tree, have burst flavored healer in the faithful tree or even go straight dps all of them still having the affects of all the basic cleric heals and mitigation.....This rework seems like a godsend to me. Have to test of course.
^This.
I think some of the feedback so far is knee-jerk and understandable. Here's the thing: don't proclaim any particular thing is bad until you play it and actually use it; the new Sunburst will not "ruin DCs" - it just means fewer may be using it. I intend to keep it slotted, I'll just have to be more careful on choosing when to use it - like when i have to kite a couple mobs because the Melee fighters are at the other end of the room - scattering the mob doesn't matter to them at that point. This is just one example.
I haven't played the new system yet so I *know better* than to go bashing it right away.
For my part I really like what I see "on paper" and really hope it plays well. My main anxiousness (possibly the wrong word) is that things are now more complicated (mentally-speaking) in managing and using these encounters, etc. And the HR was supposed to be for more advanced players. I think we all hate learning curves (hence most of the negative reactions, I think).
I *really* like how you've created specific trees for the three areas of concern: DPS, Buff/Debuff, and Healing. This is excellent. So rather than poo-poo the whole pot I'm going to say thank you for what is obviously very careful thought and a lot of hard work on the Devs part.
But, ummm... one thing I didn't see listed AT ALL in the notes is anything about how Divinity will affect at-wills - I'm going to presume no change; status quo on those.
Keep the knock-back effect of default Sun Burst (for now at least) - those who don't like it can slot something else. Most DCs in a party shouldn't be "in the fray" where they can knock away mobs engaged by Melee anyway and if they are then hopefully that player will learn to play better. Don't change this, please.
One MAJOR thing missing entirely: the sloppy/slushiness of casting animations and dodge (Shift-key) mechanic. Every other class has a decent dodge ability (except maybe the HR) - I find dodge on DC to always feel so sluggish and it doesn't move very far (well, as compared to SW especially which seems like literally ten times farther) - and what about all those really SLOW casting animations? This has always been one of my gripes: how sluggish everything feels on a DC.
I would also like to add my vote to the "apparent overload on micromanaging" comment above.
Good:
1) I LOVE the Sunburst change, would be awesome in PvP.
Bad:
1) Exaltation doesn't grant immunity WTF? "..granting powerful damage resistance.. "---- GIVE US EXACT NUMBER DUDE.
2) Astral Shield is nerfed? Even stacking 2 (empowered + divine) would still be weaker than the one now. UNBELIEVABLE.
And please rework our Heroic feats, they are trash
On the live server, it takes A LOT for us to fuel our divinity pool.
Many Clerics, like myself, take between 14-15 feat points (4/5 Bontiful Fortune, 5/5 Rightous Rage of Tempus, 5/5 Etheral Boon) PLUS slot a Passive Divine Fortune in order to fuel our divinity pool.
Let me say that again for emphasis: Many Clerics take between 14-15 feat points (4/5 Bontiful Fortune, 5/5 Rightous Rage of Tempus, 5/5 Etheral Boon) PLUS slot a Passive Divine Fortune in order to fuel our divinity pool.
On some of the content (like Lostmauth or Valinrda) even with this HEAVY INVESTMENT in feats and powers it can be difficult to to keep 1-2 pips of our divinity bar filled.
With this big change to At-Will only generation, can you take a pass at the current investment we take for divinity gain? 14-15 feat points plus a passive SHOULD NOT BE REQUIRED to fuel a base class feature.
With the rework of the paragon paths 10 of those points disappeared already. So I am hoping that your plan for divinity gain on At-Will's only will pace with what we are able to do on live, if not provide even more divinity.
"the new Sunburst will not "ruin DCs" - it just means fewer may be using it" Yes that's what normally happens in a game when a skill is broken -> people avoid using it.
Don't proclaim it bad until you've used it? mmmm ok -> I use it and it knocks mobs away that myself and/or the group need to be clustered together. What you say? Don't use it then? See point one.
Why would anyone go for a pure healing build? Dailies would be an exercise in slow motion mob deterioration. Righteousness fully healing those around you except yourself, while you spammed At-Wills as the only way to build Divinity.
Heroic Feats completely ignored
AS major nerf + others
Answer this: Why does the Cleric class have to have existing good/popular skills nerfed so that currently broken ones can be improved? Why don't you just leave the good and rightly popular ones alone and you know -> fix the poor/unused ones?
Instead you go for the re-inventing the wheel approach, bringing a whole new set of issues to the class. If these changes are anything like what is going to hit the live servers, then you have utterly wasted whatever time you put into this ill thought out and unneeded level of class meddling.
Seriously, what is the issue with:
1. Improving the current under-performing and unused skills. The change here to Healing Word is an example that you can do this.
2. Improving Heroic Feats
3. Remove Righteousness
4. Damage increase to At-Wills and a couple of others to boost the Cleric damage output a bit - not asking for top of the chart dps figures.
5. Review Armor sets - how long will the High Prophet be a go-to set? Really.
6. Leave the current popular ones - alone.
Bring these changes to the PTR - trial them, act on feedback.
Not this over complicated mishmash of ups and downs.
...............vote for your favourite expansion.......... "Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity". ..............not this one then.............
Hmm tbh I don't mind them changing how Astral Shield works a bit since after reading the rest of the changes I see they have a given DCs a lot more diversity in how they can heal and buff the rest of the group.
I really hope they make sure that sunburst doesn't knockback when used normally, it made more sense like others say when we could choose when the knockback effect is needed, like if enemies were attacking me or we were pushing enemies off an edge. Perhaps make it so only the empowered version of Sunburst has this effect and the amount of knockback is based on stacks of empowerment.
Other than that so far this looks pretty interesting and adds a fair bit more thought and complexity to how you can play a DC solo or in groups. The only thing I'm not sure about is the reliance on heal over time spells, especially when you have made it so certain feats change instant heals to heal over time. When it comes to healing it is good to have a choice of both as sometimes a heal over time effect isnt enough to save someone.
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nwnghostMember, Moderators, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited October 2014
Note feedback is based on reading and knowledge of the class rather than Preview testing, as changes are not on Preview at present.
My first impression is that the wording of the changes are extremely vague. Unlike changes to TR and other classes, references are made to simply "reduce" "increase" "powerful" "short duration" and the like. That makes it very difficult to actually calculate how things work.
I would appreciate if you could give exact numbers for every power/feat.
Additionally, I am going to have to assume that all the changes refer to RANK I of powers rather than RANK III, i.e. the effect of powers likely will be double what is actually written in your changelog.
With that in mind, I think the rework is certainly interesting, but I feel maybe not exactly hitting the mark on what the Devoted Cleric actually needs.
My feedback won't go into as much detail as I have gone into for the TR and other changes feedback posts due to the above limitations.
In terms of Divine Mode being instant no-cooldown casts, it will look as if you can cast a single power up to 5 times in a row: 1 normal, 3x divine mode, 1x Empowered (triple buffed).
For buffs/debuffs that is very very powerful due to the way damage resistance debuffs stack (additive + multiplicative portion).
For healing, this allow fast responses to "major trauma" cases, though whether that is necessary with how powerful Lifesteal is for all damage dealers is questionable.
For Control powers (well, power singular, as we really only consider Chains of Blazing Light here) this seems excessive to allow the DC to root a target in place for around 12 seconds when casting it 5 times in a row with good timing.
Generally, it seems a good thing that DC is actually capable of dealing with healing much better than before, and this will be mostly evident in extremly low geared parties. Note that due to the successive modules' power creep and cheap Rare lvl60 items on the Auction House, newly level 60 characters tend to have at least 10,000 Gear Score already, some even more, so in your view, players are already "overgeared" for Tier 2 dungeons that requires 8,600 Gear Score.
For the average T2 geared player (14,500 - 16,000 Gear Score) the changes may be noticeable but not really necessary, while for the well-geared players, healing is not something usually even needed in excess of Potion usage.
As a result, I imagine just about all well-geared category DCs will respec to Righteous following the rework + both the Tier 1 feats from Virtuous (Lasting Wishes) and Faithful (Desperate Restoration), which will overall give them as much healing as they put out in Module 4 + a bit and a fair amount of damage output to contribute to the party.
Overall though, it still seems that even Righteous DCs will full damage encounter loadouts will remain a distant 5th in overall personal damage output, but will buff the party damage more than they do currently, which I am ambivalent about.
One thing that I did find peculiar is your reference to Astral Shield no longer healing in the Faithful and Virtuous Capstone tooltips. According to your rework, Astral Shield wouldn't heal in the first place and only in divine mode give temporary hitpoints as a one-off.
Lastly, I feel that the real change DCs need is likely in their Heroic Feats section rather than the Paragon Feats section.
All classes except DC could deal insane amount of damage. They all have feats that would increase their damage by 30%+. I don't see how nerfing Astral Shield and exaltation would allow us to survive longer than we do now.
It's true that the new feats allow us to heal more, but with healing depression and righteousness, our self-heal ability would still be pathetically weak.
PvP really is a joke now, everyone is killing everyone else in a few seconds, and it'll become worse as TR could 1 shot people again.
Suggestion:
Remove Righteousness (Healing depression is already bad enough)
Buff Astral Shield to its current state (the empowered version is SO LAME)
Exaltation grants CC immunity (or bring back dmg immunity)
All classes except DC could deal insane amount of damage. They all have feats that would increase their damage by 30%+. I don't see how nerfing Astral Shield and exaltation would allow us to survive longer than we do now.
It's true that the new feats allow us to heal more, but with healing depression and righteousness, our self-heal ability would still be pathetically weak.
PvP really is a joke now, everyone is killing everyone else in a few seconds, and it'll become worse as TR could 1 shot people again.
Suggestion:
Remove Righteousness (Healing depression is already bad enough)
Buff Astral Shield to its current state (the empowered version is SO LAME)
Exaltation grants CC immunity (or bring back dmg immunity)
Hm yes I have to agree, the empowered version of AS should keep some sort of regen effect. That doesn't mean the rank 1 should be as powerful as it is on live right now (and it would be lame if it were with all the buffs to healing) but that shield is really a major asset in pvp and it's a very precious tool for clerics playing their characters as conductors in pve (ala buff zone, stuff is happening here). AS and divine glow are the only skill fitting the "leader" role which is what the DC is supposed to be, and only AS has a strong enough visual effect to be noticed by most players. Don't nuke these abilities completely.
Bear Your Sins: Foes who are under the effect of one of your Damage over Time effects take 2/4/6/8/10% more damage from all sources.
Unless they rework Blessing of Battle to be DoT, I dont see this benefiting much for AC path. For DO path, they have brand of the sun which is easily spammable.
Analyzing just whats changed with the class is just as important than testing the data. Otherwise you dont have a baseline to actually test for.
Also
Cleric resource managment I am finding it way too micromanaging to micromanage these empowers/divinity and gaining divinity. I mean man. We have to be situationally aware the most on the battlefield but we have to micromanage all this as well? This is too much. I dont know about anyone else, but Im not one of those clerics that just throw down heals and buffs and just stand around and do nothing. I'm having trouble deciding on what to use and when to use it cause Im way too busy trying to figure out what has what effect and how much empowerment I got to gain the effect I want it and if I should use divinity or a normal spell, and keeping track of my allies condition and my own condition and blah! This is too much micromanaging.
So much this. ^^^
Divinity was already the clunkiest mechanic in the game now your just adding another layer of clunk and confusion.
My biggest concern is that divinity is only built by at wills.
That's fine for solo and clerics that go the DPS path but for healers and buffers (group play) there is little time to focus on using at wills when trying to figure out where the next spell is to go.
Unless they rework Blessing of Battle to be DoT, I dont see this benefiting much for AC path. For DO path, they have brand of the sun which is easily spammable.
This feat is actually borderline OP since in theory it should be triggered by plaguefire. A debuff triggering a stronger debuff. Add a few astral seals on 3-4 npcs, have burning guidance, see the whole room being lit with the two debuffs. No downtime. I have actually never bothered checking if burning guidance can apply plaguefire stacks; if it does well dungeons will look like christmas trees with various debuffs visual effects on every single npc. And it works with AC or DO.
Unless they rework Blessing of Battle to be DoT, I dont see this benefiting much for AC path. For DO path, they have brand of the sun which is easily spammable.
From the Same Path:
Fire of the Gods: When you critically strike a foe they are set ablaze, taking 20/40/60/80/100% of your weapon damage every second for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack.
After analysing the changes a bit more I realised they are overall bad.
Divinity is the worst part of it. First, gaining it from at-wills only will make things things so much more difficult, especially in situations when you need to move all the time to avoid red and have only short time to cast anything. The necessity of spamming at-wills is especially painful because of their non-existend dmg.
Normal/divine/empowered - this is unecessary complicated and totally not needed. Bottom line: "if it is not broken, do not fix it", and divinity was not broken! In practice it'll make casting divine spells harder, and empowered will be probably cast less frequently than dailies.
Encounters: hm.. let's see... Sunburst killed, Forgemaster's was only good because of heals so now it is killed, Astral shield gutted, Daunting light nerfed (less dmg in divine mode- why devs, why? Do you have any idea how hard it is to hit anything with it in normal mode?), exaltation nerfed... So is any encounter improved? Hm... Chains of blazing light: " Damage is no longer reduced for hitting additional targets" - that's one little improvement. Divine glow: got some extra healing effect, which is meh. This power's biggest problem is a tiny radius - if the effect was party-wide, now that would mean something.
Paragon paths: Faithful: totally useless, mostly because you can't heal mobs to death, and my team doesn't need me for healing either. I cannot imagine why would anybody choose it.
Virtuous: It offers some dmg mitigation, which is good, but not good enough. Again, my team mates can heal themselves just fine, they don't need me for that.
Righteous: the only reasonable choice: some debuffs, and dmg buffs that should increase cleric's dmg, but I'm afraid it is not enough. Clerics need a huuge dmg increase (like, twice if not tripple as much as we do now)
Problems that were not adressed:
Righteousness - it simply should go away, there is exactly 0 reason for it to exist. I cannot understand why a healing class is suppose to have the worst self-healing of all.
Heroic feats: just need to be reworked. There is like 2 of them that do anything (the +3/6/9% hp one that every class have and the extra divinity one), the rest could not exist and nobody would see the difference. Something like +5/10/15% dmg for all at-wills or 2/4/6/8/10% reduced cooldowns for example.
Lack of CC immunity in any form: especially painful in pvp. How about adding this effect to Exaltation or/and some other encounter? How about removing "3 hits and over" from Anointed army? It's effect is short even without it.
Lack of dmg: even with the new virtuous path, DCs dmg will be much too low. Currently we do less dmg than a tank while being as squishy as a dps class. We either need some really good dps heroic feats or/and the base dmg of our spells (especially at-wills if we are forced to spam them even with encounters out of cooldowns now) significantly increased.
Righteousness - it simply should go away, there is exactly 0 reason for it exist. I cannot understand why a healing class is suppose to have the worst self-healing of all.
Fully agree with you... Altho now it's not a heal nerf...
It should now exist as a 70% heal boost to ALL of our outgoing heals including self, not only for teammates...
1) Bring back Healing Step. I'm begging you!! (Make it a heroic feat <3333) - need it coz of Astral shield + exaltation nerf
2) Bring back Healing Step. I'm begging you!! (Make it a heroic feat <3333) - need it coz of Astral shield + exaltation nerf
3) Bring back Healing Step. I'm begging you!! (Make it a heroic feat <3333) - need it coz of Astral shield + exaltation nerf
4) Remove Righteousness
5) Let us gain divinity like stealth meter/stamina over time and/or from encounters
hi there, here is what i would say, based on reading only:
-the new mechanic seems interesting, let's test!
-Nevertheless, i don't see any point of making the DC more as a healer (in pve as only buffs/debuffs are required with LS, and in pvp, righteousness and co make healing worthless anyway, and we are here more for support buffering). So, why not make a path more of a buffing/debuffing one?
-the DPS tree seems really interesting...
-righteousness should be removed now
-Heroic feats need a complete rework too
-the repel on sunburst should be out of the equation
-why not change some powers in order to make more area effects one, especially prophecy of doom and/or FF?
-please,gentlemancrush, could you say more about shield in the "unbreakable devotion"? does it only protect for almost 350 on all attacks (considering a 700dmg weapon and that HoT triggers it always), or does it block an entire attack? is there any cooldown?
-please,gentlemancrush, could you expose more in details the motivation behind this rework? especially the way you see DC now, and in an other context, the way you see DC against LS?
-i would love to see a redesign on some armor sets, especially considering buffering /debuffering
Paragon paths: Faithful: totally useless, mostly because you can't heal mobs to death, and my team doesn't need me for healing either. I cannot imagine why would anybody choose it.
Virtuous: It offers some dmg mitigation, which is good, but not good enough. Again, my team mates can heal themselves just fine, they don't need me for that.
Righteous: the only reasonable choice: some debuffs, and dmg buffs that should increase cleric's dmg, but I'm afraid it is not enough. Clerics need a huuge dmg increase (like, twice if not tripple as much as we do now)
<snip>
Lack of dmg: even with the new virtuous path, DCs dmg will be much too low. Currently we do less dmg than a tank while being as squishy as a dps class. We either need some really good dps heroic feats or/and the base dmg of our spells (especially at-wills if we are forced to spam them even with encounters out of cooldowns now) significantly increased.
After reading everything a few more times I agree with this statement. The only path of worth in the meta game is the Rightous path. No one needs heals.
Between Potions AND Lifesteal AND Regen AND Artifacts (self heal) AND Banners (aoe heal/mitigation) AND Companions there is no place for actual healing in this game.
Rightous is the only one of the three paths that has any value AND THE DAMAGE WONT BRING US IN-LINE WITH OTHER DPS CLASSES.
Shouldn't Divine Forgemater's Flame do something more than just adding a slow? We are spending precious divinity on it. My suggestion to change it:
Forgemaster's Flame: DoT damage and slow
Divine Forgemaster's Flame: Place the damage buff on diving mode stacks up to 3 times
Empowered Forgemaster's Flame: Consumes stacks and heals allies
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mrvincent1959Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 740Arc User
edited October 2014
Just looking at their premise for this change: "Clerics have been in a nebulous spot until now. They were never really full on healers, or damage preventers, or damage dealers. This left them in a spot where they had to hybridize a lot of their skills, and has led to some problematic gameplay in the past."
The fact that we could "hybridize" our skills is what made us viable. We did not need an overhaul to the class with an EXTRA mechanic, turning us into button mashers, just some well-thought-out adjustments to make what we had more powerful.
Just looking at their premise for this change: "Clerics have been in a nebulous spot until now. They were never really full on healers, or damage preventers, or damage dealers. This left them in a spot where they had to hybridize a lot of their skills, and has led to some problematic gameplay in the past."
The fact that we could "hybridize" our skills is what made us viable. We did not need an overhaul to the class with an EXTRA mechanic, turning us into button mashers, just some well-thought-out adjustments to make what we had more powerful.
M6 almost drains your soul given how boring it is. (c) joocycuzzzzzz
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blackperry99Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 13Arc User
edited October 2014
Feedback:
The new mechanics seems nice, tough i am conserned about Virteous tree.
As far as i know, virteous is a debuff tree, wich the DC deserves, i've seen little good debuff DC's around lately.
Why don't you guys add a new paragon path purely meant for debuffing? Or maybe a hybrid path for mostly debuffing/buffing and some heals, would be much better for all of us, ofc imo
What do you think of this?
Keep the knock-back effect of default Sun Burst (for now at least) - those who don't like it can slot something else. Most DCs in a party shouldn't be "in the fray" where they can knock away mobs engaged by Melee anyway and if they are then hopefully that player will learn to play better. Don't change this, please.
I can't really speak from experience because I have never liked slotting Sunburst and only use it in Heroic Encounters to pad healing output, BUT a lot of people who play DCs would use this spell as a party heal, which requires being in the middle of your allies, "in the fray". Also, people who play Annointed Champion especially need to be close to allies for their buffs to take effect. Divine Oracles have better options to cast from the back lines.
Now, like Dio says, since they're taking away divinity regen from encounter powers*, there may be a lot less argument to using Sunburst in a standard rotation anyway.
Still, pretty much any power that comes with a big knockback attached to it translates into "do not use this power in 95% of PvE, or everyone around you will hate you". There's not really anything wrong with having powers that are only useful situationally, but this particular change takes a power many considered universal and core and something that gave them a measure of choice and control in how to apply it, and makes it generally unusable.
*I'm already <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up my face at the removal of being able to charge divinity out of combat without a training dummy handy. It was a useful thing to be able to do while waiting for a dragon. You can call that fear of change, but it's annoyance at reduction of utility.
I can't really speak from experience because I have never liked slotting Sunburst and only use it in Heroic Encounters to pad healing output, BUT a lot of people who play DCs would use this spell as a party heal, which requires being in the middle of your allies, "in the fray". Also, people who play Annointed Champion especially need to be close to allies for their buffs to take effect. Divine Oracles have better options to cast from the back lines.
Now, like Dio says, since they're taking away divinity regen from encounter powers*, there may be a lot less argument to using Sunburst in a standard rotation anyway.
Still, pretty much any power that comes with a big knockback attached to it translates into "do not use this power in 95% of PvE, or everyone around you will hate you". There's not really anything wrong with having powers that are only useful situationally, but this particular change takes a power many considered universal and core and something that gave them a measure of choice and control in how to apply it, and makes it generally unusable.
*I'm already <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up my face at the removal of being able to charge divinity out of combat without a training dummy handy. It was a useful thing to be able to do while waiting for a dragon. You can call that fear of change, but it's annoyance at reduction of utility.
I do concur about the concern for divinity=at-will-only aspect. We'll see how it goes.
This is my point about "change" - too many people think of Sun burst as a heal encounter, I've always thought of it as a damage encounter that just happens to include a sprinkle of healing with it - hence the knock back mechanic is something I welcome. others who use this encounter primarily as a healing tool will not like that mechanic. I get it.
However, because there are now different trees based on how you want to play, to-wit: DPS, Healing, Buff/Debuff - those who rely heavily on Sun Burst as a healing tool will have some great alternatives in that healing tree that can replace it. The Sun Burst heal and damage each were mediocre, at least now there is more *meaningful* damage (benefit: true consistent AoE tool) - without costing me divinity to do it.
My point is this: the tool with the knock back is now more useful, more often than the old way - for THIS particular encounter. And there are many players who do NOT use it. As for the "mob-scatterer I hate you" aspect: that's going to happen no matter what class you are if you use your mob-dispersal encounter. So this is simply a paradigm shift and one that's not too difficult to adjust to. In truth I play 75% solo - this is a benefit, I suspect it's a big benefit in PvP, too. So the only real complaint is the knock back during co-op Party play - for me about 25% of my play time - and it's easy to only use this encounter situationally (there are times even in party when dispersal is helpful).
This is why I like the change. Certainly not everyone does, and there are many who don't care. But for me, the change is a bigger positive than remaining at status quo for Sun Burst: more useful more often as opposed to the way it is right now: mediocre at best.
I'm not saying I'm right and others are wrong, I'm just saying *I* like the change. Other's won't. None of us are wrong and no one will change each others' minds. So it is what it is: feedback for the Devs.
Comments
Also
Cleric resource managment
I am finding it way too micromanaging to micromanage these empowers/divinity and gaining divinity. I mean man. We have to be situationally aware the most on the battlefield but we have to micromanage all this as well? This is too much. I dont know about anyone else, but Im not one of those clerics that just throw down heals and buffs and just stand around and do nothing. I'm having trouble deciding on what to use and when to use it cause Im way too busy trying to figure out what has what effect and how much empowerment I got to gain the effect I want it and if I should use divinity or a normal spell, and keeping track of my allies condition and my own condition and blah! This is too much micromanaging.
Bastion's major performance restriction is due to the target cap of 5 and it doesnt distinguishes those with full health and those which lost some. In some dungeon runs where many combat companions are summoned, this encounter is unreliable as it can heal people / companions with full Healths and ignore the one needing healing the most in the area because the target cap has reached 5. Either prioritize those with lost healths to be affected and maintain target cap of 5, or make the target cap to at least 10 to support those dungeon runs with combat companion
But there is one thing i was hoping for really badly:
Heroic Feats rework
Please you guys - the DC community pointed this out as an urgent change. We dont need a complete overhaul. Changing some numbers maybe. Or replace 1 or 2 heroic feats would make us happy allready i guess. (Dont give us more recovery btw)
and another thing that bothers me is
Searing Light
Please make it viable! Nobody really used it before - why should they use it now? Or did you find a new use for it that makes it very powerfull that i dont see?
^This.
I think some of the feedback so far is knee-jerk and understandable. Here's the thing: don't proclaim any particular thing is bad until you play it and actually use it; the new Sunburst will not "ruin DCs" - it just means fewer may be using it. I intend to keep it slotted, I'll just have to be more careful on choosing when to use it - like when i have to kite a couple mobs because the Melee fighters are at the other end of the room - scattering the mob doesn't matter to them at that point. This is just one example.
I haven't played the new system yet so I *know better* than to go bashing it right away.
For my part I really like what I see "on paper" and really hope it plays well. My main anxiousness (possibly the wrong word) is that things are now more complicated (mentally-speaking) in managing and using these encounters, etc. And the HR was supposed to be for more advanced players. I think we all hate learning curves (hence most of the negative reactions, I think).
I *really* like how you've created specific trees for the three areas of concern: DPS, Buff/Debuff, and Healing. This is excellent. So rather than poo-poo the whole pot I'm going to say thank you for what is obviously very careful thought and a lot of hard work on the Devs part.
But, ummm... one thing I didn't see listed AT ALL in the notes is anything about how Divinity will affect at-wills - I'm going to presume no change; status quo on those.
Keep the knock-back effect of default Sun Burst (for now at least) - those who don't like it can slot something else. Most DCs in a party shouldn't be "in the fray" where they can knock away mobs engaged by Melee anyway and if they are then hopefully that player will learn to play better. Don't change this, please.
One MAJOR thing missing entirely: the sloppy/slushiness of casting animations and dodge (Shift-key) mechanic. Every other class has a decent dodge ability (except maybe the HR) - I find dodge on DC to always feel so sluggish and it doesn't move very far (well, as compared to SW especially which seems like literally ten times farther) - and what about all those really SLOW casting animations? This has always been one of my gripes: how sluggish everything feels on a DC.
I would also like to add my vote to the "apparent overload on micromanaging" comment above.
1) I LOVE the Sunburst change, would be awesome in PvP.
Bad:
1) Exaltation doesn't grant immunity WTF? "..granting powerful damage resistance.. "---- GIVE US EXACT NUMBER DUDE.
2) Astral Shield is nerfed? Even stacking 2 (empowered + divine) would still be weaker than the one now. UNBELIEVABLE.
And please rework our Heroic feats, they are trash
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On the live server, it takes A LOT for us to fuel our divinity pool.
Many Clerics, like myself, take between 14-15 feat points (4/5 Bontiful Fortune, 5/5 Rightous Rage of Tempus, 5/5 Etheral Boon) PLUS slot a Passive Divine Fortune in order to fuel our divinity pool.
Let me say that again for emphasis: Many Clerics take between 14-15 feat points (4/5 Bontiful Fortune, 5/5 Rightous Rage of Tempus, 5/5 Etheral Boon) PLUS slot a Passive Divine Fortune in order to fuel our divinity pool.
On some of the content (like Lostmauth or Valinrda) even with this HEAVY INVESTMENT in feats and powers it can be difficult to to keep 1-2 pips of our divinity bar filled.
With this big change to At-Will only generation, can you take a pass at the current investment we take for divinity gain? 14-15 feat points plus a passive SHOULD NOT BE REQUIRED to fuel a base class feature.
With the rework of the paragon paths 10 of those points disappeared already. So I am hoping that your plan for divinity gain on At-Will's only will pace with what we are able to do on live, if not provide even more divinity.
Don't proclaim it bad until you've used it? mmmm ok -> I use it and it knocks mobs away that myself and/or the group need to be clustered together. What you say? Don't use it then? See point one.
Why would anyone go for a pure healing build? Dailies would be an exercise in slow motion mob deterioration. Righteousness fully healing those around you except yourself, while you spammed At-Wills as the only way to build Divinity.
Heroic Feats completely ignored
AS major nerf + others
Answer this: Why does the Cleric class have to have existing good/popular skills nerfed so that currently broken ones can be improved? Why don't you just leave the good and rightly popular ones alone and you know -> fix the poor/unused ones?
Instead you go for the re-inventing the wheel approach, bringing a whole new set of issues to the class. If these changes are anything like what is going to hit the live servers, then you have utterly wasted whatever time you put into this ill thought out and unneeded level of class meddling.
Seriously, what is the issue with:
1. Improving the current under-performing and unused skills. The change here to Healing Word is an example that you can do this.
2. Improving Heroic Feats
3. Remove Righteousness
4. Damage increase to At-Wills and a couple of others to boost the Cleric damage output a bit - not asking for top of the chart dps figures.
5. Review Armor sets - how long will the High Prophet be a go-to set? Really.
6. Leave the current popular ones - alone.
Bring these changes to the PTR - trial them, act on feedback.
Not this over complicated mishmash of ups and downs.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
I really hope they make sure that sunburst doesn't knockback when used normally, it made more sense like others say when we could choose when the knockback effect is needed, like if enemies were attacking me or we were pushing enemies off an edge. Perhaps make it so only the empowered version of Sunburst has this effect and the amount of knockback is based on stacks of empowerment.
Other than that so far this looks pretty interesting and adds a fair bit more thought and complexity to how you can play a DC solo or in groups. The only thing I'm not sure about is the reliance on heal over time spells, especially when you have made it so certain feats change instant heals to heal over time. When it comes to healing it is good to have a choice of both as sometimes a heal over time effect isnt enough to save someone.
My first impression is that the wording of the changes are extremely vague. Unlike changes to TR and other classes, references are made to simply "reduce" "increase" "powerful" "short duration" and the like. That makes it very difficult to actually calculate how things work.
I would appreciate if you could give exact numbers for every power/feat.
Additionally, I am going to have to assume that all the changes refer to RANK I of powers rather than RANK III, i.e. the effect of powers likely will be double what is actually written in your changelog.
With that in mind, I think the rework is certainly interesting, but I feel maybe not exactly hitting the mark on what the Devoted Cleric actually needs.
My feedback won't go into as much detail as I have gone into for the TR and other changes feedback posts due to the above limitations.
In terms of Divine Mode being instant no-cooldown casts, it will look as if you can cast a single power up to 5 times in a row: 1 normal, 3x divine mode, 1x Empowered (triple buffed).
For buffs/debuffs that is very very powerful due to the way damage resistance debuffs stack (additive + multiplicative portion).
For healing, this allow fast responses to "major trauma" cases, though whether that is necessary with how powerful Lifesteal is for all damage dealers is questionable.
For Control powers (well, power singular, as we really only consider Chains of Blazing Light here) this seems excessive to allow the DC to root a target in place for around 12 seconds when casting it 5 times in a row with good timing.
Generally, it seems a good thing that DC is actually capable of dealing with healing much better than before, and this will be mostly evident in extremly low geared parties. Note that due to the successive modules' power creep and cheap Rare lvl60 items on the Auction House, newly level 60 characters tend to have at least 10,000 Gear Score already, some even more, so in your view, players are already "overgeared" for Tier 2 dungeons that requires 8,600 Gear Score.
For the average T2 geared player (14,500 - 16,000 Gear Score) the changes may be noticeable but not really necessary, while for the well-geared players, healing is not something usually even needed in excess of Potion usage.
As a result, I imagine just about all well-geared category DCs will respec to Righteous following the rework + both the Tier 1 feats from Virtuous (Lasting Wishes) and Faithful (Desperate Restoration), which will overall give them as much healing as they put out in Module 4 + a bit and a fair amount of damage output to contribute to the party.
Overall though, it still seems that even Righteous DCs will full damage encounter loadouts will remain a distant 5th in overall personal damage output, but will buff the party damage more than they do currently, which I am ambivalent about.
One thing that I did find peculiar is your reference to Astral Shield no longer healing in the Faithful and Virtuous Capstone tooltips. According to your rework, Astral Shield wouldn't heal in the first place and only in divine mode give temporary hitpoints as a one-off.
Lastly, I feel that the real change DCs need is likely in their Heroic Feats section rather than the Paragon Feats section.
It's true that the new feats allow us to heal more, but with healing depression and righteousness, our self-heal ability would still be pathetically weak.
PvP really is a joke now, everyone is killing everyone else in a few seconds, and it'll become worse as TR could 1 shot people again.
Suggestion:
Remove Righteousness (Healing depression is already bad enough)
Buff Astral Shield to its current state (the empowered version is SO LAME)
Exaltation grants CC immunity (or bring back dmg immunity)
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Hm yes I have to agree, the empowered version of AS should keep some sort of regen effect. That doesn't mean the rank 1 should be as powerful as it is on live right now (and it would be lame if it were with all the buffs to healing) but that shield is really a major asset in pvp and it's a very precious tool for clerics playing their characters as conductors in pve (ala buff zone, stuff is happening here). AS and divine glow are the only skill fitting the "leader" role which is what the DC is supposed to be, and only AS has a strong enough visual effect to be noticed by most players. Don't nuke these abilities completely.
Unless they rework Blessing of Battle to be DoT, I dont see this benefiting much for AC path. For DO path, they have brand of the sun which is easily spammable.
So much this. ^^^
Divinity was already the clunkiest mechanic in the game now your just adding another layer of clunk and confusion.
My biggest concern is that divinity is only built by at wills.
That's fine for solo and clerics that go the DPS path but for healers and buffers (group play) there is little time to focus on using at wills when trying to figure out where the next spell is to go.
This feat is actually borderline OP since in theory it should be triggered by plaguefire. A debuff triggering a stronger debuff. Add a few astral seals on 3-4 npcs, have burning guidance, see the whole room being lit with the two debuffs. No downtime. I have actually never bothered checking if burning guidance can apply plaguefire stacks; if it does well dungeons will look like christmas trees with various debuffs visual effects on every single npc. And it works with AC or DO.
From the Same Path:
Fire of the Gods: When you critically strike a foe they are set ablaze, taking 20/40/60/80/100% of your weapon damage every second for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack.
Let's hope what you said about the feat proccing from plaguefire is right..
Divinity is the worst part of it. First, gaining it from at-wills only will make things things so much more difficult, especially in situations when you need to move all the time to avoid red and have only short time to cast anything. The necessity of spamming at-wills is especially painful because of their non-existend dmg.
Normal/divine/empowered - this is unecessary complicated and totally not needed. Bottom line: "if it is not broken, do not fix it", and divinity was not broken! In practice it'll make casting divine spells harder, and empowered will be probably cast less frequently than dailies.
Encounters: hm.. let's see... Sunburst killed, Forgemaster's was only good because of heals so now it is killed, Astral shield gutted, Daunting light nerfed (less dmg in divine mode- why devs, why? Do you have any idea how hard it is to hit anything with it in normal mode?), exaltation nerfed... So is any encounter improved? Hm... Chains of blazing light: " Damage is no longer reduced for hitting additional targets" - that's one little improvement. Divine glow: got some extra healing effect, which is meh. This power's biggest problem is a tiny radius - if the effect was party-wide, now that would mean something.
Paragon paths: Faithful: totally useless, mostly because you can't heal mobs to death, and my team doesn't need me for healing either. I cannot imagine why would anybody choose it.
Virtuous: It offers some dmg mitigation, which is good, but not good enough. Again, my team mates can heal themselves just fine, they don't need me for that.
Righteous: the only reasonable choice: some debuffs, and dmg buffs that should increase cleric's dmg, but I'm afraid it is not enough. Clerics need a huuge dmg increase (like, twice if not tripple as much as we do now)
Problems that were not adressed:
Righteousness - it simply should go away, there is exactly 0 reason for it to exist. I cannot understand why a healing class is suppose to have the worst self-healing of all.
Heroic feats: just need to be reworked. There is like 2 of them that do anything (the +3/6/9% hp one that every class have and the extra divinity one), the rest could not exist and nobody would see the difference. Something like +5/10/15% dmg for all at-wills or 2/4/6/8/10% reduced cooldowns for example.
Lack of CC immunity in any form: especially painful in pvp. How about adding this effect to Exaltation or/and some other encounter? How about removing "3 hits and over" from Anointed army? It's effect is short even without it.
Lack of dmg: even with the new virtuous path, DCs dmg will be much too low. Currently we do less dmg than a tank while being as squishy as a dps class. We either need some really good dps heroic feats or/and the base dmg of our spells (especially at-wills if we are forced to spam them even with encounters out of cooldowns now) significantly increased.
Fully agree with you... Altho now it's not a heal nerf...
It should now exist as a 70% heal boost to ALL of our outgoing heals including self, not only for teammates...
1) Bring back Healing Step. I'm begging you!! (Make it a heroic feat <3333) - need it coz of Astral shield + exaltation nerf
2) Bring back Healing Step. I'm begging you!! (Make it a heroic feat <3333) - need it coz of Astral shield + exaltation nerf
3) Bring back Healing Step. I'm begging you!! (Make it a heroic feat <3333) - need it coz of Astral shield + exaltation nerf
4) Remove Righteousness
5) Let us gain divinity like stealth meter/stamina over time and/or from encounters
-the new mechanic seems interesting, let's test!
-Nevertheless, i don't see any point of making the DC more as a healer (in pve as only buffs/debuffs are required with LS, and in pvp, righteousness and co make healing worthless anyway, and we are here more for support buffering). So, why not make a path more of a buffing/debuffing one?
-the DPS tree seems really interesting...
-righteousness should be removed now
-Heroic feats need a complete rework too
-the repel on sunburst should be out of the equation
-why not change some powers in order to make more area effects one, especially prophecy of doom and/or FF?
-please,gentlemancrush, could you say more about shield in the "unbreakable devotion"? does it only protect for almost 350 on all attacks (considering a 700dmg weapon and that HoT triggers it always), or does it block an entire attack? is there any cooldown?
-please,gentlemancrush, could you expose more in details the motivation behind this rework? especially the way you see DC now, and in an other context, the way you see DC against LS?
-i would love to see a redesign on some armor sets, especially considering buffering /debuffering
thanks for any response gentlemancrush.
Prophetic Action - Seeing into the future, you are able to shield all damage from one Encounter or Daily power every 60 seconds.
After reading everything a few more times I agree with this statement. The only path of worth in the meta game is the Rightous path. No one needs heals.
Between Potions AND Lifesteal AND Regen AND Artifacts (self heal) AND Banners (aoe heal/mitigation) AND Companions there is no place for actual healing in this game.
Rightous is the only one of the three paths that has any value AND THE DAMAGE WONT BRING US IN-LINE WITH OTHER DPS CLASSES.
Shouldn't Divine Forgemater's Flame do something more than just adding a slow? We are spending precious divinity on it. My suggestion to change it:
Forgemaster's Flame: DoT damage and slow
Divine Forgemaster's Flame: Place the damage buff on diving mode stacks up to 3 times
Empowered Forgemaster's Flame: Consumes stacks and heals allies
The fact that we could "hybridize" our skills is what made us viable. We did not need an overhaul to the class with an EXTRA mechanic, turning us into button mashers, just some well-thought-out adjustments to make what we had more powerful.
This. By Sune, this!
The new mechanics seems nice, tough i am conserned about Virteous tree.
As far as i know, virteous is a debuff tree, wich the DC deserves, i've seen little good debuff DC's around lately.
Why don't you guys add a new paragon path purely meant for debuffing? Or maybe a hybrid path for mostly debuffing/buffing and some heals, would be much better for all of us, ofc imo
What do you think of this?
- class features like divine fortune.
- righteousness
- daily powers.
None of this is in the OP. Thanks!
I can't really speak from experience because I have never liked slotting Sunburst and only use it in Heroic Encounters to pad healing output, BUT a lot of people who play DCs would use this spell as a party heal, which requires being in the middle of your allies, "in the fray". Also, people who play Annointed Champion especially need to be close to allies for their buffs to take effect. Divine Oracles have better options to cast from the back lines.
Now, like Dio says, since they're taking away divinity regen from encounter powers*, there may be a lot less argument to using Sunburst in a standard rotation anyway.
Still, pretty much any power that comes with a big knockback attached to it translates into "do not use this power in 95% of PvE, or everyone around you will hate you". There's not really anything wrong with having powers that are only useful situationally, but this particular change takes a power many considered universal and core and something that gave them a measure of choice and control in how to apply it, and makes it generally unusable.
*I'm already <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> up my face at the removal of being able to charge divinity out of combat without a training dummy handy. It was a useful thing to be able to do while waiting for a dragon. You can call that fear of change, but it's annoyance at reduction of utility.
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I do concur about the concern for divinity=at-will-only aspect. We'll see how it goes.
This is my point about "change" - too many people think of Sun burst as a heal encounter, I've always thought of it as a damage encounter that just happens to include a sprinkle of healing with it - hence the knock back mechanic is something I welcome. others who use this encounter primarily as a healing tool will not like that mechanic. I get it.
However, because there are now different trees based on how you want to play, to-wit: DPS, Healing, Buff/Debuff - those who rely heavily on Sun Burst as a healing tool will have some great alternatives in that healing tree that can replace it. The Sun Burst heal and damage each were mediocre, at least now there is more *meaningful* damage (benefit: true consistent AoE tool) - without costing me divinity to do it.
My point is this: the tool with the knock back is now more useful, more often than the old way - for THIS particular encounter. And there are many players who do NOT use it. As for the "mob-scatterer I hate you" aspect: that's going to happen no matter what class you are if you use your mob-dispersal encounter. So this is simply a paradigm shift and one that's not too difficult to adjust to. In truth I play 75% solo - this is a benefit, I suspect it's a big benefit in PvP, too. So the only real complaint is the knock back during co-op Party play - for me about 25% of my play time - and it's easy to only use this encounter situationally (there are times even in party when dispersal is helpful).
This is why I like the change. Certainly not everyone does, and there are many who don't care. But for me, the change is a bigger positive than remaining at status quo for Sun Burst: more useful more often as opposed to the way it is right now: mediocre at best.
I'm not saying I'm right and others are wrong, I'm just saying *I* like the change. Other's won't. None of us are wrong and no one will change each others' minds. So it is what it is: feedback for the Devs.