Faithful is good for healcarrying undergeared, dumb pugs and that is about it.
Virtuous requires great timing and skill in order to heal efficiently - no doubt most of the faithful healbots lack this skill, hence the rabid obsession over a skilless autohealbot tree.
That one was funny. Considering i've been successfully tackling all of the various challenges this game has to offer (that includes a mod 6 3 man tos final boss clear) and still play faithful because it has more flexibility and gives me times to focus on critical issues instead of trying to catch up, I've been mildly amused by your comment.
Faithful definitely gives you more flexibility, and I have no interest in making my game more challenging by gimping my character. It's simply superior to virtuous in many ways, ie you can virtually be at several places at the same time thanks to gift of faith and auto heals if you planned them accordingly, and you're not stuck with one rotation because the healing flow has to keep going or the tank dies.
Also, in pvp, faithful is vastly superior to any other cleric build and that's not theory it's a fact.
That one was funny. Considering i've been successfully tackling all of the various challenges this game has to offer (that includes a mod 6 3 man tos final boss clear) and still play faithful because it has more flexibility and gives me times to focus on critical issues instead of trying to catch up, I've been mildly amused by your comment.
Faithful definitely gives you more flexibility, and I have no interest in making my game more challenging by gimping my character. It's simply superior to virtuous in many ways, ie you can virtually be at several places at the same time thanks to gift of faith and auto heals if you planned them accordingly, and you're not stuck with one rotation because the healing flow has to keep going or the tank dies.
Also, in pvp, faithful is vastly superior to any other cleric build and that's not theory it's a fact.
Sorry cupcake. I am so sorry you are too unskilled to properly play a Virtuous. I truly feel bad for you.
Sorry cupcake. I am so sorry you are too unskilled to properly play a Virtuous. I truly feel bad for you.
I agree. I always have a tendency to ignore absolute statements like "faithful is vastly superior to any other cleric build". Infact the teams I play with, really enjoy my full virtuous build, but ok....I'm not so vastly superior: I can live with it.
Conversely, I really enjoy to know more about other builds. After reading this forum, I'm attracted by the buff of the righteous, knowing that I will lose my 200K heal and I have to change the way I play. Every (intelligent) build has pro and cons and till now I haven't seen any "vastly superior" one: there are a lot of good builds covering different needs.
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
Faithful vs Virtuous is WOW Pally vs Druid healing.
I am running a Virtuous build at the moment, purely to test the AP gains of it. How often can I drop Hallowed Ground, and are the Hots better than the clutches. And. Is damage mitigation better than the Lazarus effect.
I have 1 feat in Righteous for Furious Intervention (AP)
2 in Faithful, Desperate Restoration to get to Benefit of Foresight (damage mitigation).
The rest in Virtuous as follows Have Faith, Urgent Prayers, Gift of Haste (AP), Unbreakable Devotion,Cleansing Fire (But I am thinking of swapping this to Virtues Gift, since I am almost always full health) and gift of the divine.
The build is meant more for damage mitigation than clutch healing.
So I run with Foresight for DM, and then Holy Fervour for AP.
I have Hallowed Ground keyed, and any other daily I so desire.
Brand of the Sun for dot damage (since virtuous seems to be 'I am just going to leave this here till later' play-style), and Astral Seal.
Boh, SB(Divine Mode Only, and for the AP) and DG(Damage Mitigation and Buff and HOT) round off the encounters.
I have only just started running this build, so still testing it out.
It does seem a bit squishier in solo PVP, but in a group, it is far better and stronger 2 v 6 in gaunt with ease....man we beat the snot out of those 2.
5 Man Dungeons\Skirmishes it does seem to keep everyone up more than faithful, but these are pugs, so can be the group as well. But I do think it may be stronger, because in KR, I out DPS'D two of the DPS'ers....and I am not going for DPS at all, I like standing in the back, smoking and throwing out the odd band aid to the fat guy everyone calls tank.
It takes a lot of getting used to, and dropping the Divine Glows perfectly timed, is something that requires a level of skill. Also, one has to be careful with the SB, groups don't like their enemies doing ballet across the screen, so time your divine modes correctly. Everyone should know how to use BOH by now.
Anyway, that's the current style I use. Next I want to try the whole AC/DC thing, with an anointed army by my side and see what that brings, BoBs and such stuff.
Just a follow up on this:
You will be loved!
Been running this build for about a week now and the contribution it makes to a team is quite significant and it shows in their responses.
Besides the AP generation from spamming SB and dropping an empowerd DG, the perks are wonderful.
I can drop Hallowed Ground every 2 to 3 divine cycles, so the team is mitigated and battle ready.
If you cannot spam SB because of the specific boss encounter, try and drop as many DG's on the tank as you can, these will hit the boss as well. Just be ready to throw a few Divine BOH's across the room.
I have also received the odd, wow nice heals, from the epic dungeons, so I don't see any sacrifice there.
I have read in a few posts on this forum how bad the Virtuous build is, and I must say, those folks are not using it properly. Both builds have their perks, I am loving this one because of the benefits to the Group.
I have also read how skilled you need to be, and while the build takes some time getting using to, after about 4 hours playing you will have it in hand.
Solo Play will probably be the hardest to get used to, but once you have it, you will be soloing IWD Heroics (the smaller ones of course).
Another perk to this, get your dailies up before the Encounter or the PVP battle starts. Nothing like running into the opposition, dropping your ready to go Hallowed Ground and watching the other team melt. Just cast BOH and DG, before the match starts and watch your AP rise.
All discussion who is more superior - Faithful or Virtuous after all recent changes is getting obsolete. Meta is changed. Few reasons for it. First - reduced NPC damage was huge step back to reduce healers role. Then, high rank weapon enchantments are starting work as they supposed to (Vorpal, Terror, Fey). Not buff mobs, but opposite. The less damage for them, the less healing work for DC. Finally, mobs have twice HP. So instead of dynamic reactive gameplay you get tedious trash cleaning, trash still bites but not to extend you really scare.
I partially agree. As a virt., my healing scoreboard has never been very high because I work a lot to encrease the defence of the team. In my opinion an "average" team still needs a lot of heal. Damage reduction (-25%) is not always enough to compensate the +50% hp of the mobs. Many players still die in eCC (and even worse in eToS) and the boss is still unchanged. This may be irrelevant for eCC, but in eToS the heals of the cleric are a must.
From my point of view, all discussion who is more superior is meaningless even before the latest changes.
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
Virtuous requires timing and honestly more skill to play effectively and efficiently. It also has the best healing passives of the three trees. It's by far the best healing tree we have. AC or DO works with it.
Faithful is a good place to start when you first jump in. But you're going to be basically useless once your teammate wastes their o HAMSTER heal pool. Now you have to build it back up. The passives aren't anything that amazing. Group oriented obviously but overall lack luster. Really only works well with DO and foresight.
I've tested Virtuous Extensively and it's my preferred play style. I found that personally I had less party survivability when I used Faithful.
I will say this about Virtuous- Temporary hit points are you friend! Since you're healing over time temp hit points make a nice cushion for spike damage while still healing the affected and giving damage mitigation buffs. I play anointed champion for extra AC and anointed holy symbol right now but I've also tried it with Divine Oracle to great affect with foresight.
I feated some into Faithful to get the increased healing at 30% health up into the divine power increase. the level 70 artifact offhand with Anointed holy symbol helps with divinity and temp hit points. Currently- no matter what people do standing in the red is a bad idea. I prefer the 'manual' transmission of buffs and healing (( I like that description)) and to have increased control over who is healing when. When I see red on the ground I heal the party near it immediately so that if they do take damage the mitigation buffs/regen take effect ASAP.
Just my 2 copper.
Relmyna - AC/DC Righteous + Haste| Nadine - CW MoF (working on it)|Buffy - GF SM Tact| Hrist - Justice Tankadin|Healadin (Wannabe Tank)| Lena -MI Sabo TR (Farmer) | Jeska - GWF SM Destroyer (Farmer) | Maggie - HR PF Trapper (Wannabe DPS)
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
As an OP tank main; give me Virtuous or you will get death. The AP gain from Virtuous makes it far better for me as the tank. By and large no one else seems to care though. I've never really noticed any difference in healing capacity between Virtuous and Faithful DCs, but Righteous is a waste of time if you need heals as the tank. Note this is only from t1, t2 and KR perspective.
As a DC I haven't noticed much difference between Faithful and Virtuous for solo play, I think the Virtuous is a little more "tanky" which at my average 400 ping is nice, but its hardly needed.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Comments
That one was funny. Considering i've been successfully tackling all of the various challenges this game has to offer (that includes a mod 6 3 man tos final boss clear) and still play faithful because it has more flexibility and gives me times to focus on critical issues instead of trying to catch up, I've been mildly amused by your comment.
Faithful definitely gives you more flexibility, and I have no interest in making my game more challenging by gimping my character. It's simply superior to virtuous in many ways, ie you can virtually be at several places at the same time thanks to gift of faith and auto heals if you planned them accordingly, and you're not stuck with one rotation because the healing flow has to keep going or the tank dies.
Also, in pvp, faithful is vastly superior to any other cleric build and that's not theory it's a fact.
Sorry cupcake. I am so sorry you are too unskilled to properly play a Virtuous. I truly feel bad for you.
I agree. I always have a tendency to ignore absolute statements like "faithful is vastly superior to any other cleric build". Infact the teams I play with, really enjoy my full virtuous build, but ok....I'm not so vastly superior: I can live with it.
Conversely, I really enjoy to know more about other builds. After reading this forum, I'm attracted by the buff of the righteous, knowing that I will lose my 200K heal and I have to change the way I play. Every (intelligent) build has pro and cons and till now I haven't seen any "vastly superior" one: there are a lot of good builds covering different needs.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
I am running a Virtuous build at the moment, purely to test the AP gains of it. How often can I drop Hallowed Ground, and are the Hots better than the clutches. And. Is damage mitigation better than the Lazarus effect.
I have 1 feat in Righteous for Furious Intervention (AP)
2 in Faithful, Desperate Restoration to get to Benefit of Foresight (damage mitigation).
The rest in Virtuous as follows Have Faith, Urgent Prayers, Gift of Haste (AP), Unbreakable Devotion,Cleansing Fire (But I am thinking of swapping this to Virtues Gift, since I am almost always full health) and gift of the divine.
The build is meant more for damage mitigation than clutch healing.
So I run with Foresight for DM, and then Holy Fervour for AP.
I have Hallowed Ground keyed, and any other daily I so desire.
Brand of the Sun for dot damage (since virtuous seems to be 'I am just going to leave this here till later' play-style), and Astral Seal.
Boh, SB(Divine Mode Only, and for the AP) and DG(Damage Mitigation and Buff and HOT) round off the encounters.
I have only just started running this build, so still testing it out.
It does seem a bit squishier in solo PVP, but in a group, it is far better and stronger 2 v 6 in gaunt with ease....man we beat the snot out of those 2.
5 Man Dungeons\Skirmishes it does seem to keep everyone up more than faithful, but these are pugs, so can be the group as well. But I do think it may be stronger, because in KR, I out DPS'D two of the DPS'ers....and I am not going for DPS at all, I like standing in the back, smoking and throwing out the odd band aid to the fat guy everyone calls tank.
It takes a lot of getting used to, and dropping the Divine Glows perfectly timed, is something that requires a level of skill. Also, one has to be careful with the SB, groups don't like their enemies doing ballet across the screen, so time your divine modes correctly. Everyone should know how to use BOH by now.
Anyway, that's the current style I use. Next I want to try the whole AC/DC thing, with an anointed army by my side and see what that brings, BoBs and such stuff.
Just a follow up on this:
You will be loved!
Been running this build for about a week now and the contribution it makes to a team is quite significant and it shows in their responses.
Besides the AP generation from spamming SB and dropping an empowerd DG, the perks are wonderful.
I can drop Hallowed Ground every 2 to 3 divine cycles, so the team is mitigated and battle ready.
If you cannot spam SB because of the specific boss encounter, try and drop as many DG's on the tank as you can, these will hit the boss as well. Just be ready to throw a few Divine BOH's across the room.
I have also received the odd, wow nice heals, from the epic dungeons, so I don't see any sacrifice there.
I have read in a few posts on this forum how bad the Virtuous build is, and I must say, those folks are not using it properly. Both builds have their perks, I am loving this one because of the benefits to the Group.
I have also read how skilled you need to be, and while the build takes some time getting using to, after about 4 hours playing you will have it in hand.
Solo Play will probably be the hardest to get used to, but once you have it, you will be soloing IWD Heroics (the smaller ones of course).
Another perk to this, get your dailies up before the Encounter or the PVP battle starts. Nothing like running into the opposition, dropping your ready to go Hallowed Ground and watching the other team melt. Just cast BOH and DG, before the match starts and watch your AP rise.
Just thought I would provide the feedback
I was surprised how RiAC AP support build performs in new conditions. Just like in mod 5 plus AP thing.
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/dc?b=23ci:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,1xj3035:1u0y000:1000000:150uz57&h=1&p=anc
— (The unwritten rule)
From my point of view, all discussion who is more superior is meaningless even before the latest changes.
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
Faithful is a good place to start when you first jump in. But you're going to be basically useless once your teammate wastes their o HAMSTER heal pool. Now you have to build it back up. The passives aren't anything that amazing. Group oriented obviously but overall lack luster. Really only works well with DO and foresight.
I will say this about Virtuous- Temporary hit points are you friend! Since you're healing over time temp hit points make a nice cushion for spike damage while still healing the affected and giving damage mitigation buffs. I play anointed champion for extra AC and anointed holy symbol right now but I've also tried it with Divine Oracle to great affect with foresight.
I feated some into Faithful to get the increased healing at 30% health up into the divine power increase. the level 70 artifact offhand with Anointed holy symbol helps with divinity and temp hit points. Currently- no matter what people do standing in the red is a bad idea. I prefer the 'manual' transmission of buffs and healing (( I like that description)) and to have increased control over who is healing when. When I see red on the ground I heal the party near it immediately so that if they do take damage the mitigation buffs/regen take effect ASAP.
Just my 2 copper.
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
As a DC I haven't noticed much difference between Faithful and Virtuous for solo play, I think the Virtuous is a little more "tanky" which at my average 400 ping is nice, but its hardly needed.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.