also by testing on mobs today ive noticed that Guardian of Faith damage is bagged. It deals radiant damage that means that if we have 6 YELLOW pips - damage should be increased by 100x6=600 additionally to 2500 that it has. = 3100 overall. But i found that if we have 6 RED pips while executing GoF it does more damage then having yellow pips.
I dont really see how we can regain divinity in pvp. Its extremely slow as well as we get very little divinity even if we use scales of judgment in order to trade our pips for an extra divinity.
IMO divinity gain should be improved. Otherwise its really unplayable in pvp. ( i mean i was testing 1v1 with a mage, all i can do is hit 3 FF's either i kill him or he survives through healing and then its just a pain to fight him back, becuz im rinning and i got no divinity regeneration whatsoever.) Even if i use Divine Glow feated to give me full pips that then i can trade for divinity thats barely enough for anything..... and eventually i end up running with at wills mot of the fight ....
Many people underestimate new Divine Glow mechanic with tipping scales feat. It instantly gives us full amount of pips resulting in a burst damage that could be done by forgemasters flame.
Consider COST of FF to be reduced from 300 to 200.
Also we got AOE issues. Skills have to be looked at.
Change Searing Light into cone effect instead of damage in line that could help alot.
Thank you very much for the feedback! PvP feedback is welcome, we've been testing out Arbiter in PvP as well. We've had different results, but we also haven't been doing a lot of 1 on 1 duels specifically. Arbiter's offensive spells are very strong, because their damage is balanced around the time it takes to naturally regain divinity as if it were the actual cool down of the ability.
So the concern with any adjustments, especially in PvP is that it could give Arbiter a disgusting amount of burst damage. We've found that Arbiter can already be excellent in PvP, and have had quite a few rounds where someone playing Arbiter was cleaning house. That said, we've also made some adjustments to other classes recently, so things may have gotten out of line again. Please keep testing and sending your feedback. If you get to try out any group PvP combat, and maybe dueling a few more classes, feedback based on those sessions would be great, thank you!
Astral Shield should be renamed to "DC killer" or something. While I might understand the idea behind the whole rework on Devout, with the new "animations" that make us look like Linu La'neral, I find Astral Shield to be the worst encounter to use. With our AP gain as Devout being so slow (no Ap gain from healing), Astral Shield would be a good tool for us to mitigate damage while waiting for Hallowed Ground and make me feel a little better and more valuable than a Healbot.
Too bad we have a high chance of getting killed while casting it... "Hold on mobs! Im casting my astral shield, go away!"
So eithermaybe give us some AP gain by healing (because thats the only thing a Devout is doing) and also change this Astral Shield mechanism. I dont see myself using it much in the future.
Sorry in advance if this got said already, a little overwhelmed with all the changes. I mean, with this new game.
You can interrupt astral shield at any time with shift, or by casting any other spell.
Oh I know that. But the shield disappears. And thats divinity wasted. And its not like we are refilling our bar easily.
My point is that the dmg mitigation encounter we can use aside of being healbot is useless imho.
Astral shield's divinity cost is charged per tic, so if you stop, you won't lose any divinity, and you can instantly recast it. I urge you to keep playing around with it in group content, especially as tanks get more capable at holding aggro, and keeping enemies in one spot.
I've been tanking a lot in internal playtests and one of our QA testers makes excellent use out of astral shield, and has been really digging it lately.
i'd like to add that I spent ~3 years fine tuning a build and gear for my cleric, only to have you developers completely change the game in a way that makes having a unique build impossible and also makes the game not even fun anymore. going from preview for 2 days then back to live for a while i almost wanted to cry. It's horrible what you've done to this class and this game. unless something major changes before mod 16 comes out I am going to stop playing this game and take down my guide on mmominds.
thanks
I'm sorry to hear that you're having such a negative time with the changes. Know that we will be making large adjustments over the coming weeks, but it would be helpful to know—what in particular are you upset about? I know it's frustrating, but we can neither make changes or explain the reasoning behind the change that upsets you if you're not specific.
For instance—I do know that there are a number of individuals who have given the feedback that they "can no longer have a unique build." I hear this, but can you go in-depth about what made your build unique before? Honestly, there were so many trap abilities and feat choices in the old system that you could very easily make your character garbage, and we absolutely intentionally made changes to prevent this from happening.
We don't think it's fair to players to provide choices that make their character terrible, and ultimately it pollutes the stable of players available to play content. That said, we'd still like to provide enough choices between what feats you pick, and what powers you slot that not every Cleric is exactly the same.
We feel that on live, in most cases, there were in reality a very limited number of acceptable builds, so we don't think we've really removed a significant amount of real choice. But if you can elaborate on what you liked that is now gone, what playstyle you feel is missing, maybe we can make some positive changes for you. Thank you!
Some of the skills do feel pretty pointless. Some of the Devout skills increase damage and you will be doing little damage with that spec.
I've talked about this a little in other posts, but ideally you actually will be dealing damage whenever you don't need to heal. In fact, in some internal dungeon runs, our devout have gotten really good at being efficient with their heals and divinity, to the point that they can pull some very decent numbers. That feat choice is ultimately a utility column, but I do understand the feedback.
Well, I love the look and feel of the Arbiter. I'm going to post a basic rotation that will hopefully be effective at getting people used to powering up your encounter powers. First, I start with Lance At-Will to build fire pips. After I have a couple (or filled, your preference) I drop a Forgemaster's Flame encounter on the strongest mob. That will, in turn, give a radiant pip. So then I build radiant stacks by using the Sacred Flame [i think] At-Will. When full, I drop a Daunting Light on all the weaker mobs that have no doubt surrounded me by now. That gives me a pip of Fire. At this point, I liked using Divine Glow with the Feat 'Tipping the Scales' which gives full pips as long as you have at least 1 pip in fire or radiant. This would fill up my fire stacks and allow another fully maxed out Forgemaster's.
Keeping in mind those Encounter powers will also fill pips, but with the Divinity management, it seemed like an 'expensive' way of gaining pips, when At-Wills will do so for free.
So here is the critical feedback. 1) Divinity regeneration is slow. I foresee groups waiting in between battles for the Cleric to refill divinity. What it is from a D&D standpoint: "Following the harrowing battle, the Cleric grasps her holy symbol and prays for more divine inspiration." What it really is: "Wait a minute, I have to hold down tab for 20 seconds..." Perhaps increasing the rate of recovery outside of battle would help. 2) I love that At-Wills GENERATE pips. I hate the At-Wills USE pips. After running through River District Dig Sites (good mix of strength of enemies in there) for a couple hours, I NEVER wanted my At-Will to do 20 more Magnitude by using all the stacks. All it did was frustrate me when I misclicked or got out of rotation slightly.
Thanks for the updates to the class! Now I just need to find a group willing to let the Cleric learn to to heal so I can post comments on that!
Thanks for the feedback! I am truly happy to hear that you're having some fun with the Arbiter's mechanics!
I'd like to comment on two things: first, for the Arbiter, you can actually consume your pips to restore a huge chunk of divinity. Channeling divinity when you have pips consumes them to restore divinity. Give the a shot and after you've played with it for a while, let me know if you still feel like its too slow. How you work this into your rotation will depend on your build and power choices.
Second, on the topic of at-wills consuming pips. Please note that dailies can also be empowered by radiant or burning judgement. I did consider not allowing at-wills to consume pips, however, as using the opposite element would have to switch you to the other side of the scale anyway (because you can't have both burning and radiant judgement) I saw no reason not to let the at-wills benefit from judgement. In reality, yes you probably never want to actually consume pips with an at-will, but its better that if you make that mistake, at least your at-will did get some boost.
Is there any change coming soon to allow mounts from characters already bound to be swapped with other characters? I feel no need to maintain my dps class anymore and wish to only play healer at this point.
While I don't think we currently have any plans for a system like this, if you can direct this to general feedback so that other members of the team can see it, I would appreciate it. For the most part, I'll be the only one reading this particular thread as I handled the Cleric reworks. (We'd love to read all the threads, but well, there's a lot to read, and even more work to do!)
Is it Working as intended that NONE of the Devout healing spells actually give action points if you use them? That makes using dailies as a working healer nearly impossible. Also- Is there an intent to add a divinity mechanic for healing like there is for DPS?
That certainly shouldn't be the case, healing spells should generate AP, but I will look into it. Additionally, channeling divinity also generates AP. All powers, including channeling divinity should be generating the same AP per second. So with that in mind, if a power is nearly instant, it won't be generating a lot of AP.
We had actually considered making AP regenerate passively in combat (instead of on action use), but we didn't go forward with that change. However, there are some concerns with AP generation for healers. I haven't found it to be a big problem, but I've had a long time to get used to the changes. If you're just standing there between heals, you won't generate much AP.
I'm considering high end content with boss phases where things are untargetable and thus I have only one at will that heals anything that I can use.
I'm thinking from the perspective in which a healer, lets say in a dungeon like Castle Ravenloft is currently where the first and third boss is untargetable for periods of time and there are huge AOE damage sources that you presumably have to keep people alive. I then have the choice between Praying as my party quickly dies or twinkle at will healing them. If I'm not gaining AP from healing which I can't cast at wills while I'm using bastion ect how do I expect to mitigate damage in a prolonged instance for enough time for me to pray a bit and get the party back on track? Also- I can't very well pray and stand still because then I'll be the one who is dead so I'd have no choice but to take the move/pray option.
I have since played the new dungeon as a healer and I see that things don't hit as hard as the do in mod 15 but my concern still remains. I get that daily powers are supposed to be more strategic but honestly it doesn't feel as fluid as the DPS DC in terms of divinity management or AP generation and it's quite more difficult to test outside of a queued instance.
The situations you describe are why we did consider making AP generation a simple passive in combat, but were ultimately concerned it would be too drastic a change and would be met with a lot of negativity. That said, as I mentioned in my original post, your encounter heals should still generate AP, but the AP generated, like all powers, is based on how long it takes to cast. Basically it is roughly: AP generation = CastTime * (TotalAP / ~60). That's not exactly correct, but its very close to that.
So, if you just toss out a bastion of health and then stand there, yeah that won't be much AP. You need to fill your time not using encounters with at-wills or channel divinity. (Which you should be anyway.) Let me know how you feel about AP as you get to test out more group content though, I'm eager to hear your continued feedback and truly appreciate it.
Honestly I really can’t believe in my play since mod2 that we have proper dev that is actually reading and giving feedback to at least what we right and feel. Keep that job brother! We really appreciate it !
Is it Working as intended that NONE of the Devout healing spells actually give action points if you use them? That makes using dailies as a working healer nearly impossible. Also- Is there an intent to add a divinity mechanic for healing like there is for DPS?
That certainly shouldn't be the case, healing spells should generate AP, but I will look into it. Additionally, channeling divinity also generates AP. All powers, including channeling divinity should be generating the same AP per second. So with that in mind, if a power is nearly instant, it won't be generating a lot of AP.
We had actually considered making AP regenerate passively in combat (instead of on action use), but we didn't go forward with that change. However, there are some concerns with AP generation for healers. I haven't found it to be a big problem, but I've had a long time to get used to the changes. If you're just standing there between heals, you won't generate much AP.
I'm considering high end content with boss phases where things are untargetable and thus I have only one at will that heals anything that I can use.
I'm thinking from the perspective in which a healer, lets say in a dungeon like Castle Ravenloft is currently where the first and third boss is untargetable for periods of time and there are huge AOE damage sources that you presumably have to keep people alive. I then have the choice between Praying as my party quickly dies or twinkle at will healing them. If I'm not gaining AP from healing which I can't cast at wills while I'm using bastion ect how do I expect to mitigate damage in a prolonged instance for enough time for me to pray a bit and get the party back on track? Also- I can't very well pray and stand still because then I'll be the one who is dead so I'd have no choice but to take the move/pray option.
I have since played the new dungeon as a healer and I see that things don't hit as hard as the do in mod 15 but my concern still remains. I get that daily powers are supposed to be more strategic but honestly it doesn't feel as fluid as the DPS DC in terms of divinity management or AP generation and it's quite more difficult to test outside of a queued instance.
The situations you describe are why we did consider making AP generation a simple passive in combat, but were ultimately concerned it would be too drastic a change and would be met with a lot of negativity. That said, as I mentioned in my original post, your encounter heals should still generate AP, but the AP generated, like all powers, is based on how long it takes to cast. Basically it is roughly: AP generation = CastTime * (TotalAP / ~60). That's not exactly correct, but its very close to that.
So, if you just toss out a bastion of health and then stand there, yeah that won't be much AP. You need to fill your time not using encounters with at-wills or channel divinity. (Which you should be anyway.) Let me know how you feel about AP as you get to test out more group content though, I'm eager to hear your continued feedback and truly appreciate it.
Instead of gaining AP while passively standing in combat why not give pips of 'stored' divinity like in Arbiter that I earn by healing an ally but have them disappear shortly after showing up- maybe similar to how the pips of empowerment disappear now. If Praying restores divinity and AP like you said that sounds like it might fix the issue and make praying in combat take less time and be less punishing if I can pray and restore more divinity at a time if I'm in a prolonged healing situation? I wouldn't then be so concerned about not having a daily power to protect the party.
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)
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I'll never retrace my steps.
I really like the Arbiter mechanics, but I think some class features should be changed (the final class feature shouldn't be about healing, for instance). I'd like to see stronger feats, making the decision between the two of a pair harder and more combinations viable.
About the Devout, I think it could be a little more fun. The Arbiter has nice mechanics like Scales of Judgment, while Devout is basically a healbot. My suggestion is an empowerment system for the Devout, something like this: - Using at-wills grants empowerment stacks; - When you reach X stacks, you next healing Encounter or Daily power will have empowered effects, consuming all X stacks (just like damaging powers have added effects by Judgment on Arbiter). At-wills don't consume stacks; - When Channel Divinity is used, all current empowerment stacks are used and you gain extra divinity for each stack consumed (but maybe less divinity than the Arbiter gains with Judgment, considering that Divinity should be somewhat limited for Devout). I used the word "empowerment" here to give some familiarity with the live version, but another word may be used if that causes confusion.
tested the new changes in dungeons grouped and the dps cleric heals as much as the healing build... and do max dps. the healing build is poorly done and a big lack of proper buffs also too many stand still mechanics like the recharging divinity, the astral shield... also in the feats there's info for warding flare when it's not in the encounters, seems very incomplete and it doesn't make sense to put the other build as dps when it heals as much as the healer build! The healing side needs to be more effective, more buffs and smoother gameplay and less of a mess than it is now and also a lack of any interesting choices.
While i keep playing devout in dungeons on preview trying to heal and not giving up on it, the comments here are 98% going in same way. Devout has serious issues while Arbiter remains fun (to which i totally agree).
Please think about taking into account the negative but constructive feedback given by all of us here about Devout.
I played Paladin healer and i can already see them being healer favorite choice. Really fluid to play. Devout feels like a whale trying to swim in a sea of glue.
Doesnt make sence to me becuz using Lance of Faith it stacks Fire pips BUT to increase magnitude of piercing light we should use radiant pips. Isnt it should be other way around? Use at wills (lance of faith) and stack fire pips to actually EMPOWER Piercing Light (as well as feated proc that could be used to crit instantly)?
Divinity does not make a DC use an enhanced version of a power. It's very easy to be confused if you expect behavior of things to be as they were pre module 16, instead of as they are now described in the tooltips of powers. (So much has changed, so this sort of confusion is to be expected, thank you for your patience!)
Thanks for answering to my questions. I went back to Preview after your comment and noticed that I had all tooltips wrong due to localization. I opened the game in English version and now I can follow more the discussion.
That being said, I took some more time to do some testing. Without repeating too much what other players have already mentioned in respect of powers (where is Warding Flare? Couldn't find it anywhere, or, how can I ask mobs to politely put themselves in a line so I can use Scattering Light?...), I have some (other) questions:
I played with my Mod15-17k DC. DPS mechanic is not easy, but I can understand that with time and use I can efficiently learn to do dps (thanks for your explanation, btw!). My request is: please reassure me that there will be a tutorial for Arbiter DCs, that it will not only be available for newly level 30 DC that have just chosen the path. A walthrough to understand how this new mechanic works is really needed, especially since Devout is so much different.
Back to DPS mechanic: out of curiosity, why DCs need to have such mechanic to play DPS, while other DPS classes, don't? I understand if we're considered 2ndary dps and we have to learn this to buff ourselves, but how can this similar mechanic cannot be part of - example - CWs, with elemental/arcane type of attacks? Basically, what are the reasons for introducting this mechanic?
Physical Damage. Ok, so now we can buff projectile and magical damage. Is Arbiter damage magical only or also projectile? Do we have a way to buff physical damage (by the way, is considering physical damage all melee?).
Divinity is very slow builing. I have also a Healer OP and divinity is much more fluent to use, recharge and deliver. Same as APs, I get that we're now supposed to not spam dailies, but I noticed that no healing spells will grant APs, which for a Devout is difficult to gain.
Astral Shield. Got it how to cast it, thanks, but is unbelievable how can I realistically use it: the area is too small, only tank can stand there and I need to specifically order them not to move too much, while delivering it I'm stuck - yes, I can move, but power and effect is gone - it's like I'm sacrificing movement/preservation of other party allies/my own life to deliver one and only power.
Hallowed Ground. Great power with great effect, but... I find it too small to squeeze there a tank and 3 allies considering mobs that are swarming all over the tank, all our pets and myself why not.
Chains and Healing word. Seeing a casting area would be really useful, so far I noticed that Chains apply to a really wide area (even wider than Hallowed Ground).
So far, playing DC is a lot slow: I can say that Devout is easily outclassed by OP Healer in terms of usability and 'fluidity', while DPS is much easier to do with whatever other DPS class (for the moment, until I get the hang of it!).
Been playing Arbiter some now also. My complaint about divinity Regen still stands. A small increase would make it more forgiving. I know you want there to be fail error and skill requirement, but it still needs to be friendly to play. A little room for error in rotation goes a long way. It is significantly easier to build ap in this build however. I pretty much never got my daily up in devout. I was able to refill it about every 3-4 mobs as Arbiter. Something is off. Also, playing Arbiter you are rewarded for providing heals by using bastion with pips, which can be used to increase damage or eaten for divinity making the play easier, smoother, and more rewarding. Devout has no such. I'm expected, as you have said, to provide damage between my heals, but I have no mechanic to make this largely feasible. It eats too much divinty for not enough return, especially since devout does not have an instant divinity return like Arbiter can do by consuming pips.
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josiahiyonMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 396Arc User
I have leveled an arbiter to 80, using mostly thefabricant’s (sharp edge) posted build and playstyle. Still have a lot to test, but mostly enjoying the changes.
1 thing I have found frustrating: the tab mechanic itself feels bad to use. It’s slow, not fun, not fluid, doesn’t feel like the action combat that makes this game unique. It also doesn’t even seem very effective (not much divinity return). Need to play more before I make a suggestion, though.
I've read every comment on this thread as i main a Cleric and concerned for the future of the class. I've read the Dev say on multiple threads that you gain AP from channeling divinity and from casting healing spells such as bastion of health. Do you mean coming in a future version of preview? because i can fully charge divinity from 0 to full with 0 AP and the meter does not move. I'm also getting inconsistent increases from Exalt and daunting light, sometimes it moves sometimes it doesnt. however when i at-will with BoB it moves every time i use it.
I think one of the main problems people are having is how the new systems work. The math or explanation behind mechanics and damage now that everything has been changed. Aggro, healing, what is magnitude and how does it translate to dmg etc.
I planned on testing with video evidence but the server went down for maintenance assuming for an update for tomorrow so i will reserve my feedback to see what got changed and go from there
I have solo'd Arbiter a great deal i have solo'd Devout a great deal (yes its a thing and more enjoyable for me at the moment) i have dungeon run arbiter and waiting to get the chance to dungeon run devout
so i will have feedback coming in the next few days after i see the devout changes but wanted to make aware that what you are saying here on the forums is not what is happening in the game currently as far as i can tell
I've played Arbiter to 80 in solo content, almost entirely in the new areas. No dungeon feedback to provide yet, but some first impressions:
- It feels powerful and has a fairly rapid pace of engagement from group to group compared to some other classes I've tried thus far. It doesn't one-shot the entire map with a single encounter the way the M15 DC does, but I have to admit that it's more fun to benefit from my core class mechanics in normal gameplay vs. completely ignoring them like I do when running solo content on live.
- Sacred Flame allowing limited movement while attacking is actually very enjoyable and makes the At-Will portion of the rotation feel much less wooden. I don't know if this was intended or not, but it would be nice for it to stay and for Lance of Faith to have the same functionality.
- Arbiter does need an Outgoing Heal self debuff if it's going to be incentivized to use Bastion of Health+Mendicant's to generate Divinity for DPS. I've seen it acknowledged elsewhere that Arbiter is far too good of a healer, so I know it's being looked at.
- It could be my personal play style preference and/or lack of experience with the class so far, but I find that I'm getting basically no use out of Burning Judgment stacks. In AoE situations I've been using Daunting Light almost exclusively because I haven't needed much of anything else. Weaker mobs are likely to die to something as simple as a (Heavy) Sunburst regardless of whether or not I have Burning Judgement up, so cleaning up the stragglers if I miss them with the buffed DL is no big deal. And that's if I didn't kill them most or all of the way with the Sacred Flame spam I used to build up Radiant stacks in the first place.
- Flame Strike losing its knock-up is unfortunate, because it was just fun.
- While the BoH+Mendicant's mechanic isn't bad when you get used to it, I think it's still thematically odd that the Cleric DPS path gets saddled with casting Bastion of Health in order to support its DPS rotations. I would have guessed it to be something like Sunburst being a Divinity-consuming encounter that generated Judgement stacks based on enemies and allies within its radius, but not a massive healing spell.
- Chains not being a DPS encounter feels very bad. Not only is Divine Glow converted to an entirely different function (removing another beloved splat AoE), Chains of Blazing Light is now a completely ineffectual control spell with 0 damage. Root is not a useful form of crowd control in general, certainly not useful enough to warrant sacrificing one of 3 encounter slots for it. Further, high-level enemies resist CC to such a degree that the duration is far shorter than advertised in the tooltip. In its current incarnation it might as well be deleted from the game, and I'm not speaking hyperbolically. If we're trying to reduce or eliminate the number of false choices players have, I would extend that philosophy to Cleric encounter selection and fix Chains.
Doesnt make sence to me becuz using Lance of Faith it stacks Fire pips BUT to increase magnitude of piercing light we should use radiant pips. Isnt it should be other way around? Use at wills (lance of faith) and stack fire pips to actually EMPOWER Piercing Light (as well as feated proc that could be used to crit instantly)?
Wanted to ask if this intentional?
I addressed this a bit in another post earlier in the thread, but it is intentional. The proc window remains open long enough for you to use your fire pips on a fire spender, build radiant pips and then use your proc. I do appreciate the feedback though, and we may make changes to this feat. Arbiter is a little less straightforward of a DPS, but I understand if things like this can feel a bit difficult to master.
Divinity does not make a DC use an enhanced version of a power. It's very easy to be confused if you expect behavior of things to be as they were pre module 16, instead of as they are now described in the tooltips of powers. (So much has changed, so this sort of confusion is to be expected, thank you for your patience!)
Thanks for answering to my questions. I went back to Preview after your comment and noticed that I had all tooltips wrong due to localization. I opened the game in English version and now I can follow more the discussion.
That being said, I took some more time to do some testing. Without repeating too much what other players have already mentioned in respect of powers (where is Warding Flare? Couldn't find it anywhere, or, how can I ask mobs to politely put themselves in a line so I can use Scattering Light?...), I have some (other) questions:
I played with my Mod15-17k DC. DPS mechanic is not easy, but I can understand that with time and use I can efficiently learn to do dps (thanks for your explanation, btw!). My request is: please reassure me that there will be a tutorial for Arbiter DCs, that it will not only be available for newly level 30 DC that have just chosen the path. A walthrough to understand how this new mechanic works is really needed, especially since Devout is so much different.
Back to DPS mechanic: out of curiosity, why DCs need to have such mechanic to play DPS, while other DPS classes, don't? I understand if we're considered 2ndary dps and we have to learn this to buff ourselves, but how can this similar mechanic cannot be part of - example - CWs, with elemental/arcane type of attacks? Basically, what are the reasons for introducting this mechanic?
Physical Damage. Ok, so now we can buff projectile and magical damage. Is Arbiter damage magical only or also projectile? Do we have a way to buff physical damage (by the way, is considering physical damage all melee?).
Divinity is very slow builing. I have also a Healer OP and divinity is much more fluent to use, recharge and deliver. Same as APs, I get that we're now supposed to not spam dailies, but I noticed that no healing spells will grant APs, which for a Devout is difficult to gain.
Astral Shield. Got it how to cast it, thanks, but is unbelievable how can I realistically use it: the area is too small, only tank can stand there and I need to specifically order them not to move too much, while delivering it I'm stuck - yes, I can move, but power and effect is gone - it's like I'm sacrificing movement/preservation of other party allies/my own life to deliver one and only power.
Hallowed Ground. Great power with great effect, but... I find it too small to squeeze there a tank and 3 allies considering mobs that are swarming all over the tank, all our pets and myself why not.
Chains and Healing word. Seeing a casting area would be really useful, so far I noticed that Chains apply to a really wide area (even wider than Hallowed Ground).
So far, playing DC is a lot slow: I can say that Devout is easily outclassed by OP Healer in terms of usability and 'fluidity', while DPS is much easier to do with whatever other DPS class (for the moment, until I get the hang of it!).
Hello, thanks for reading my response and taking the time to switch your client to English and come back with more feedback! I apologize that your native language is not supported on preview. I'd like to take a moment to answer a few of your questions.
Warding Flare was removed but the feat was not reworked yet, I apologize, it won't be in this week's build, but I'd like to have a fix in for the week after. In regards to the judgement mechanic—a lot of DPS classes do have unique mechanics, such as stealth, unstoppable, etc. so you can think about the judgement mechanic in terms of those other unique class mechanics.
As far as it being a more advanced sort of skill to make use of—I deliberately chose to make Arbiter a more advanced DPS class early on in development as I know a lot of clerics who enjoyed the class's role as a buffer, and liked thinking about the complex possibilities of buffs and debuffs, might be bored by the relatively straightforward healing paragon path. So I wanted to ensure that the DPS path was reasonably complex and rewarding to play.
It seems like many of you are enjoying playing the Arbiter, so hopefully I hit somewhere near the mark on that goal. If not, please let me know what you do and do not like, and we'll see if we can't get a little closer with your help!
In regards to damage types: all non-physical, non-projectile damage is considered magical. Ice, lightning, radiant, fire, etc. are all magical. So in short, as Cleric deals exclusively fire and radiant damage—they deal magical damage. Projectile damage covers things like the ranger's bow attacks, the rogue's dagger throwing powers (around which the Whisperknife paragon path is focused) and other assorted abilities like Barbarian's hidden daggers.
Finally, on the topic of Oathkeeper vs. Devout, I truly appreciate your perspective having played both healers. I am surprised to hear that you feel so strongly that Oathkeeper flows more smoothly. Please continue to try out various power loadouts for the Cleric, and let me know if you still feel that way.
Generally we've found them both to be equally viable healers in internal playtests, but most of the feedback has been that the Devout feels stronger, and definitely has better divinity efficiency. We'll continue to monitor the feedback and performance of both classes and make adjustments, so I look forward to more feedback as you get time to play around with both classes!
As far as not being able to have a unique build, before there were many options and a lot of them had uses, for example there was Initiate of the Faith which gave you a % of your power as crit, but if you had enough crit with your build you may instead take points in Holy Resolve to add an extra layer of lifesaving when you almost get killed, or hey we had cleanse, which was great for many builds, but some clerics ran with dps gf's who hated cleanse cuz it messed up their stacking shield warriors wrath with survivors wraps, a mechanic which is currently still common on live. And different clerics would make their builds accordingly. Then we get into path feats, I run righteous so I'll focus on that. Any righteous cleric usually would take bear your sins and condemning gaze and the Avatar capstone. But other then those 3 feats you had a world of options. Some may choose to take a few feats from Faithful, for ac this was great because battle fervor shared 15% more power, and gift of haste would grant allies Ap when you cast a heal over time, which for most of us was Divine Glow. Or maybe you want to improve your divinity gain, you could go with a few feats from virtuous and
take gift of the gods and get 25% more divinity gain. Or maybe full righteous is more your style so you go for that. But there were many viable options. Now its just "take this feat and you make these powers locked into your rotation because this is what your build is"
Then we get to at wills
Some of us weren't really specced for healing so we would run astral seal, problem fixed. or maybe the group didn't need the cleric to heal, then we could run sacred flame to give temp hp to our gf's for the 15% dmg boost, or use lance of faith to clear trash...most any DO would use brand of the sun because it easily procced bear your sins and most ac were specced with battle fervor and also for me at least, blessing of battle gave 1 divine symbol per cast so it was easy to fit into my ac rotation because of the buffs it provided and the divinity gain. but even if you didn't use those at wills and had other choices, you had your reasons and that was fine.
Our encounters had variety.
Most of us ran break the spirit and divine glow always. But hey maybe u need more damage resistance, ok. astral shield time. Or maybe you need to deal more dmg, or cc enemies, so you could use chains of blazing light or sunburst. maybe you need to take up the dps role, daunting light was great for that. maybe you wanna give your allies even more AP and since you have gift of haste you have a reason to actually use healing word. maybe you want to find a middle ground and provide some damage resistance as well as dps, forgemasters flame was good for this. maybe you needed to heal everyone as much as possible while shielding the party? you may decide to slot astral shield, warding flare and bastion of health. (I personally used this in Castle Ravenloft on several occasions and it was very successful.
last but not least are personal powers.
there was so much variety and viability in every one of them before this preview version. the only ones I found no use for were light of divinity and anointed holy symbol. the heal from divinity was too weak to be useful, and the temp hp from symbol was pathetic at best. depending on your build (maybe you have low ap gain) you could slot holy fervor, and increase the amount of dailies you could cast. if you were ac you want to daily as much as possible so it makes sense you run hastening light, for yourself of course but also for your team. but maybe as ac you needed to dps? you could run anointed action and holy fervor if your rotation focused on making a buff window and buffing as much as possible in that window, but maybe instead you preferred an even pace and use more divine encounters vs dailies then you could use divine fortune instead. if you were DO then almost 99% of the time you ran terrifying insight. the problem here was you guys went back and forth with this power when you should have made it a mechanic of the divine oracle. then we would have had more freedom for our power choices. But moving past that you had options depending on your role and playstyle. for me I am always in the middle of combat and I move around, dodge all the time, so I liked to keep prophetic action on. but if there was a gf running knights valor I didn't need it so I would usually use holy fervor because as DO divine fortune didn't really do anything, it made my rotation require 1 less brand of the sun for full divinity which was about a 1/2 second shaved off, and to me this wasn't worth slotting. maybe as either paragon you weren't a good healer but for some reason of divine intervention you had been blessed with a group that actually NEEDED HEALING then you could always slot healers lore.
My point is we had many choices prior to this, and we've had time to get to know our powers and their synergy with the other classes and players of various skill levels, these new powers have no synergy, its all cookie cutter builds and even though you guys did try? to not add worthless feats, the way you designed our powers and the dmg or healing they deal you've made several I would never consider slotting, either because I feel they have no use in my rotation or other powers do the same thing but better and faster.
as arbiter my only way to heal myself or anyone else is bastion of health. as DO if I wasn't healing with repurposeful soul I had divine glow which was honestly in my opion our perfect power. Divine Glow did it all. But you guys decided to completely destroy it.
that's about all I have to say about all that for now.
thanks for taking the time to listen asterdahl, and the rest of you cleric players here as well
( I didn't bother to even get into Dailies because the version of them on preview is hamster )
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions and let me know about what you liked about the old system, I truly appreciate it! I've read the whole post, and I will definitely consider your thoughts as I revisit the feats for Cleric.
I do want to touch on a few things though: in particular, you mention all of the various decision you made when choosing which powers to slot on your bar, depending on the situation. You also mention the you had time to get to know your powers and their synergy with other classes. I understand that with all the changes going on, you may not be thrilled to relearn a class that you've already known for years, but I do believe there are still options available to you based on the needs of the group, or the content that you're running.
For instance, I was playing through a dungeon the other day as a Justicar tank; running divine touch for emergency healing, with one of our QA testers running as the Devout, and while I know that Astral Shield is not the most popular power in this thread right now, they were using Astral Shield exclusively for healing most encounters, freeing up their other two encounter power slots to deal more damage. Since we had a whisperknife and a thaumaturge who would also benefit, they took break the spirit for the added damage.
On the other hand, in much tougher scenarios, they were swapping out to a completely different set of spells. I think those options still exist, but they're new and different, and will take some time to get used to. And if those options don't exist, if there are spells that are just worthless right now, I'll definitely be taking a look at them.
Finally, you mention that Divine Glow was the perfect power, because it did everything. I can't really give you a satisfying response to this particular item of feedback. The idea that one power would provide so many benefits, and do so many things all in one button press was definitely something we deliberately set out to change. Although some of the newer powers are much simpler than Divine Glow, we hope you can take the time to look at the whole picture of the class and how it plays, as opposed to just one power.
We don't think every power has to be amazingly interesting in its own right, we'd like their uses to be clear, and their interactions with other powers, or how and when you'd use it to provide the interesting gameplay.
Been playing Arbiter some now also. My complaint about divinity Regen still stands. A small increase would make it more forgiving. I know you want there to be fail error and skill requirement, but it still needs to be friendly to play. A little room for error in rotation goes a long way. It is significantly easier to build ap in this build however. I pretty much never got my daily up in devout. I was able to refill it about every 3-4 mobs as Arbiter. Something is off. Also, playing Arbiter you are rewarded for providing heals by using bastion with pips, which can be used to increase damage or eaten for divinity making the play easier, smoother, and more rewarding. Devout has no such. I'm expected, as you have said, to provide damage between my heals, but I have no mechanic to make this largely feasible. It eats too much divinty for not enough return, especially since devout does not have an instant divinity return like Arbiter can do by consuming pips.
Thanks for the feedback. The healing mechanic on Arbiter is far too strong right now. I know there's a very strong feeling that the divinity mechanic is not forgiving for Devout right now, so it is something that we are looking at. That being said, in group play, once you get even a little used to it—it's actually very uncommon to run out of divinity. So we don't want to overcorrect.
The unintuitive thing about asking for more divinity regeneration is, that the game will actually be less forgiving. Which was the whole problem with group content in the first place that resourced based healing will help to solve. Let's say you regenerate your divinity as fast as Arbiter on your Devout, we now assume you can get your divinity back extremely quick. Mistakes in content now need to happen on a timescale that your group can wipe quickly in the few seconds it takes for you to get back to a full bar.
On the other hand if divinity regenerates slowly, and you spend it slowly, we can allow for continued mistakes to be made, as you dip deeper and deeper into your reserves, because we know you can't get it back quickly, and if you run out completely, then you'll wipe.
That said, we don't want it to be miserable to play solo either—so we're going to keep an eye on things and adjustments are still very much on the table.
I've read every comment on this thread as i main a Cleric and concerned for the future of the class. I've read the Dev say on multiple threads that you gain AP from channeling divinity and from casting healing spells such as bastion of health. Do you mean coming in a future version of preview? because i can fully charge divinity from 0 to full with 0 AP and the meter does not move. I'm also getting inconsistent increases from Exalt and daunting light, sometimes it moves sometimes it doesnt. however when i at-will with BoB it moves every time i use it.
I think one of the main problems people are having is how the new systems work. The math or explanation behind mechanics and damage now that everything has been changed. Aggro, healing, what is magnitude and how does it translate to dmg etc.
I planned on testing with video evidence but the server went down for maintenance assuming for an update for tomorrow so i will reserve my feedback to see what got changed and go from there
I have solo'd Arbiter a great deal i have solo'd Devout a great deal (yes its a thing and more enjoyable for me at the moment) i have dungeon run arbiter and waiting to get the chance to dungeon run devout
so i will have feedback coming in the next few days after i see the devout changes but wanted to make aware that what you are saying here on the forums is not what is happening in the game currently as far as i can tell
I very much look forward to your feedback once you've had time to prepare it. I do believe there are some bugs with AP gain on a variety of spells, as you say, so I will be looking into it.
In regards to magnitude, most simply it's a way of marking the potency of a spell so that they can be understood relative to one another. For instance, if a spell says 100 magnitude, and when you cast it you deal 5,000 damage, a spell that says 200 magnitude will deal 10,000 damage. Of course, there is variance on your weapon damage, but the mean damage will be precisely double for the second spell.
You could also choose to understand 100 magnitude as 100% weapon damage, but for various reasons we have decided not to communicate it that way, but rather in a more abstract format. Because, in reality, it will never truly resemble your actual weapon damage, as many other stats will be taken into account. (Power, enemy defense, etc., etc.)
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
edited March 2019
The Arbiter as not bad ... not flawless, but it works well enough for solo play. I do have a few complaints - one being that "hold Tab down for 20 seconds between fights" is, well..a bit boring. The second issue is with the Feats, a couple of which should really be rethought, but that will be the subject of a second, much longer post.
Overall, though, it works - getting from 70 to 80 is reasonably easy, and while fights may take a bit longer than they did in M15, things were quite frankly getting a bit boring there due to a lack of challenge.
Now, there are things that could be improved - I wouldn't mind a power which granted CA - I am currently running around with a Dancing Blade in solo play to check how a CA-focused build feels.
I also wouldn't complain if I got a better AoE power - I really miss the old Chains.
Comments
But i found that if we have 6 RED pips while executing GoF it does more damage then having yellow pips.
So the concern with any adjustments, especially in PvP is that it could give Arbiter a disgusting amount of burst damage. We've found that Arbiter can already be excellent in PvP, and have had quite a few rounds where someone playing Arbiter was cleaning house. That said, we've also made some adjustments to other classes recently, so things may have gotten out of line again. Please keep testing and sending your feedback. If you get to try out any group PvP combat, and maybe dueling a few more classes, feedback based on those sessions would be great, thank you!
I've been tanking a lot in internal playtests and one of our QA testers makes excellent use out of astral shield, and has been really digging it lately.
I'm sorry to hear that you're having such a negative time with the changes. Know that we will be making large adjustments over the coming weeks, but it would be helpful to know—what in particular are you upset about? I know it's frustrating, but we can neither make changes or explain the reasoning behind the change that upsets you if you're not specific.
For instance—I do know that there are a number of individuals who have given the feedback that they "can no longer have a unique build." I hear this, but can you go in-depth about what made your build unique before? Honestly, there were so many trap abilities and feat choices in the old system that you could very easily make your character garbage, and we absolutely intentionally made changes to prevent this from happening.
We don't think it's fair to players to provide choices that make their character terrible, and ultimately it pollutes the stable of players available to play content. That said, we'd still like to provide enough choices between what feats you pick, and what powers you slot that not every Cleric is exactly the same.
We feel that on live, in most cases, there were in reality a very limited number of acceptable builds, so we don't think we've really removed a significant amount of real choice. But if you can elaborate on what you liked that is now gone, what playstyle you feel is missing, maybe we can make some positive changes for you. Thank you!
I'd like to comment on two things: first, for the Arbiter, you can actually consume your pips to restore a huge chunk of divinity. Channeling divinity when you have pips consumes them to restore divinity. Give the a shot and after you've played with it for a while, let me know if you still feel like its too slow. How you work this into your rotation will depend on your build and power choices.
Second, on the topic of at-wills consuming pips. Please note that dailies can also be empowered by radiant or burning judgement. I did consider not allowing at-wills to consume pips, however, as using the opposite element would have to switch you to the other side of the scale anyway (because you can't have both burning and radiant judgement) I saw no reason not to let the at-wills benefit from judgement. In reality, yes you probably never want to actually consume pips with an at-will, but its better that if you make that mistake, at least your at-will did get some boost.
So, if you just toss out a bastion of health and then stand there, yeah that won't be much AP. You need to fill your time not using encounters with at-wills or channel divinity. (Which you should be anyway.) Let me know how you feel about AP as you get to test out more group content though, I'm eager to hear your continued feedback and truly appreciate it.
Instead of gaining AP while passively standing in combat why not give pips of 'stored' divinity like in Arbiter that I earn by healing an ally but have them disappear shortly after showing up- maybe similar to how the pips of empowerment disappear now. If Praying restores divinity and AP like you said that sounds like it might fix the issue and make praying in combat take less time and be less punishing if I can pray and restore more divinity at a time if I'm in a prolonged healing situation? I wouldn't then be so concerned about not having a daily power to protect the party.
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
I really like the Arbiter mechanics, but I think some class features should be changed (the final class feature shouldn't be about healing, for instance). I'd like to see stronger feats, making the decision between the two of a pair harder and more combinations viable.
About the Devout, I think it could be a little more fun. The Arbiter has nice mechanics like Scales of Judgment, while Devout is basically a healbot. My suggestion is an empowerment system for the Devout, something like this:
- Using at-wills grants empowerment stacks;
- When you reach X stacks, you next healing Encounter or Daily power will have empowered effects, consuming all X stacks (just like damaging powers have added effects by Judgment on Arbiter). At-wills don't consume stacks;
- When Channel Divinity is used, all current empowerment stacks are used and you gain extra divinity for each stack consumed (but maybe less divinity than the Arbiter gains with Judgment, considering that Divinity should be somewhat limited for Devout).
I used the word "empowerment" here to give some familiarity with the live version, but another word may be used if that causes confusion.
the healing build is poorly done and a big lack of proper buffs also too many stand still mechanics
like the recharging divinity, the astral shield... also in the feats there's info for warding flare when it's not in the encounters,
seems very incomplete and it doesn't make sense to put the other build as dps when it heals as much as the healer build!
The healing side needs to be more effective, more buffs and smoother gameplay and less of a mess than it is now and also a lack of any interesting choices.
Please think about taking into account the negative but constructive feedback given by all of us here about Devout.
I played Paladin healer and i can already see them being healer favorite choice. Really fluid to play. Devout feels like a whale trying to swim in a sea of glue.
Doesnt make sence to me becuz using Lance of Faith it stacks Fire pips BUT to increase magnitude of piercing light we should use radiant pips. Isnt it should be other way around?
Use at wills (lance of faith) and stack fire pips to actually EMPOWER Piercing Light (as well as feated proc that could be used to crit instantly)?
Wanted to ask if this intentional?
Thanks for answering to my questions. I went back to Preview after your comment and noticed that I had all tooltips wrong due to localization. I opened the game in English version and now I can follow more the discussion.
That being said, I took some more time to do some testing. Without repeating too much what other players have already mentioned in respect of powers (where is Warding Flare? Couldn't find it anywhere, or, how can I ask mobs to politely put themselves in a line so I can use Scattering Light?...), I have some (other) questions:
I played with my Mod15-17k DC. DPS mechanic is not easy, but I can understand that with time and use I can efficiently learn to do dps (thanks for your explanation, btw!). My request is: please reassure me that there will be a tutorial for Arbiter DCs, that it will not only be available for newly level 30 DC that have just chosen the path. A walthrough to understand how this new mechanic works is really needed, especially since Devout is so much different.
Back to DPS mechanic: out of curiosity, why DCs need to have such mechanic to play DPS, while other DPS classes, don't? I understand if we're considered 2ndary dps and we have to learn this to buff ourselves, but how can this similar mechanic cannot be part of - example - CWs, with elemental/arcane type of attacks? Basically, what are the reasons for introducting this mechanic?
Physical Damage. Ok, so now we can buff projectile and magical damage. Is Arbiter damage magical only or also projectile? Do we have a way to buff physical damage (by the way, is considering physical damage all melee?).
Divinity is very slow builing. I have also a Healer OP and divinity is much more fluent to use, recharge and deliver. Same as APs, I get that we're now supposed to not spam dailies, but I noticed that no healing spells will grant APs, which for a Devout is difficult to gain.
Astral Shield. Got it how to cast it, thanks, but is unbelievable how can I realistically use it: the area is too small, only tank can stand there and I need to specifically order them not to move too much, while delivering it I'm stuck - yes, I can move, but power and effect is gone - it's like I'm sacrificing movement/preservation of other party allies/my own life to deliver one and only power.
Hallowed Ground. Great power with great effect, but... I find it too small to squeeze there a tank and 3 allies considering mobs that are swarming all over the tank, all our pets and myself why not.
Chains and Healing word. Seeing a casting area would be really useful, so far I noticed that Chains apply to a really wide area (even wider than Hallowed Ground).
So far, playing DC is a lot slow: I can say that Devout is easily outclassed by OP Healer in terms of usability and 'fluidity', while DPS is much easier to do with whatever other DPS class (for the moment, until I get the hang of it!).
1 thing I have found frustrating: the tab mechanic itself feels bad to use. It’s slow, not fun, not fluid, doesn’t feel like the action combat that makes this game unique. It also doesn’t even seem very effective (not much divinity return). Need to play more before I make a suggestion, though.
Iyon the Dark
After you get bonus from Lance "100% crit to searing light" that dmg won't effect with Judge bonus.
small video as an explanation with 100 and 150k.
Thank you.
I think one of the main problems people are having is how the new systems work. The math or explanation behind mechanics and damage now that everything has been changed. Aggro, healing, what is magnitude and how does it translate to dmg etc.
I planned on testing with video evidence but the server went down for maintenance assuming for an update for tomorrow so i will reserve my feedback to see what got changed and go from there
I have solo'd Arbiter a great deal
i have solo'd Devout a great deal (yes its a thing and more enjoyable for me at the moment)
i have dungeon run arbiter
and waiting to get the chance to dungeon run devout
so i will have feedback coming in the next few days after i see the devout changes but wanted to make aware that what you are saying here on the forums is not what is happening in the game currently as far as i can tell
- It feels powerful and has a fairly rapid pace of engagement from group to group compared to some other classes I've tried thus far. It doesn't one-shot the entire map with a single encounter the way the M15 DC does, but I have to admit that it's more fun to benefit from my core class mechanics in normal gameplay vs. completely ignoring them like I do when running solo content on live.
- Sacred Flame allowing limited movement while attacking is actually very enjoyable and makes the At-Will portion of the rotation feel much less wooden. I don't know if this was intended or not, but it would be nice for it to stay and for Lance of Faith to have the same functionality.
- Arbiter does need an Outgoing Heal self debuff if it's going to be incentivized to use Bastion of Health+Mendicant's to generate Divinity for DPS. I've seen it acknowledged elsewhere that Arbiter is far too good of a healer, so I know it's being looked at.
- It could be my personal play style preference and/or lack of experience with the class so far, but I find that I'm getting basically no use out of Burning Judgment stacks. In AoE situations I've been using Daunting Light almost exclusively because I haven't needed much of anything else. Weaker mobs are likely to die to something as simple as a (Heavy) Sunburst regardless of whether or not I have Burning Judgement up, so cleaning up the stragglers if I miss them with the buffed DL is no big deal. And that's if I didn't kill them most or all of the way with the Sacred Flame spam I used to build up Radiant stacks in the first place.
- Flame Strike losing its knock-up is unfortunate, because it was just fun.
- While the BoH+Mendicant's mechanic isn't bad when you get used to it, I think it's still thematically odd that the Cleric DPS path gets saddled with casting Bastion of Health in order to support its DPS rotations. I would have guessed it to be something like Sunburst being a Divinity-consuming encounter that generated Judgement stacks based on enemies and allies within its radius, but not a massive healing spell.
- Chains not being a DPS encounter feels very bad. Not only is Divine Glow converted to an entirely different function (removing another beloved splat AoE), Chains of Blazing Light is now a completely ineffectual control spell with 0 damage. Root is not a useful form of crowd control in general, certainly not useful enough to warrant sacrificing one of 3 encounter slots for it. Further, high-level enemies resist CC to such a degree that the duration is far shorter than advertised in the tooltip. In its current incarnation it might as well be deleted from the game, and I'm not speaking hyperbolically. If we're trying to reduce or eliminate the number of false choices players have, I would extend that philosophy to Cleric encounter selection and fix Chains.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Warding Flare was removed but the feat was not reworked yet, I apologize, it won't be in this week's build, but I'd like to have a fix in for the week after. In regards to the judgement mechanic—a lot of DPS classes do have unique mechanics, such as stealth, unstoppable, etc. so you can think about the judgement mechanic in terms of those other unique class mechanics.
As far as it being a more advanced sort of skill to make use of—I deliberately chose to make Arbiter a more advanced DPS class early on in development as I know a lot of clerics who enjoyed the class's role as a buffer, and liked thinking about the complex possibilities of buffs and debuffs, might be bored by the relatively straightforward healing paragon path. So I wanted to ensure that the DPS path was reasonably complex and rewarding to play.
It seems like many of you are enjoying playing the Arbiter, so hopefully I hit somewhere near the mark on that goal. If not, please let me know what you do and do not like, and we'll see if we can't get a little closer with your help!
In regards to damage types: all non-physical, non-projectile damage is considered magical. Ice, lightning, radiant, fire, etc. are all magical. So in short, as Cleric deals exclusively fire and radiant damage—they deal magical damage. Projectile damage covers things like the ranger's bow attacks, the rogue's dagger throwing powers (around which the Whisperknife paragon path is focused) and other assorted abilities like Barbarian's hidden daggers.
Finally, on the topic of Oathkeeper vs. Devout, I truly appreciate your perspective having played both healers. I am surprised to hear that you feel so strongly that Oathkeeper flows more smoothly. Please continue to try out various power loadouts for the Cleric, and let me know if you still feel that way.
Generally we've found them both to be equally viable healers in internal playtests, but most of the feedback has been that the Devout feels stronger, and definitely has better divinity efficiency. We'll continue to monitor the feedback and performance of both classes and make adjustments, so I look forward to more feedback as you get time to play around with both classes!
I do want to touch on a few things though: in particular, you mention all of the various decision you made when choosing which powers to slot on your bar, depending on the situation. You also mention the you had time to get to know your powers and their synergy with other classes. I understand that with all the changes going on, you may not be thrilled to relearn a class that you've already known for years, but I do believe there are still options available to you based on the needs of the group, or the content that you're running.
For instance, I was playing through a dungeon the other day as a Justicar tank; running divine touch for emergency healing, with one of our QA testers running as the Devout, and while I know that Astral Shield is not the most popular power in this thread right now, they were using Astral Shield exclusively for healing most encounters, freeing up their other two encounter power slots to deal more damage. Since we had a whisperknife and a thaumaturge who would also benefit, they took break the spirit for the added damage.
On the other hand, in much tougher scenarios, they were swapping out to a completely different set of spells. I think those options still exist, but they're new and different, and will take some time to get used to. And if those options don't exist, if there are spells that are just worthless right now, I'll definitely be taking a look at them.
Finally, you mention that Divine Glow was the perfect power, because it did everything. I can't really give you a satisfying response to this particular item of feedback. The idea that one power would provide so many benefits, and do so many things all in one button press was definitely something we deliberately set out to change. Although some of the newer powers are much simpler than Divine Glow, we hope you can take the time to look at the whole picture of the class and how it plays, as opposed to just one power.
We don't think every power has to be amazingly interesting in its own right, we'd like their uses to be clear, and their interactions with other powers, or how and when you'd use it to provide the interesting gameplay.
The unintuitive thing about asking for more divinity regeneration is, that the game will actually be less forgiving. Which was the whole problem with group content in the first place that resourced based healing will help to solve. Let's say you regenerate your divinity as fast as Arbiter on your Devout, we now assume you can get your divinity back extremely quick. Mistakes in content now need to happen on a timescale that your group can wipe quickly in the few seconds it takes for you to get back to a full bar.
On the other hand if divinity regenerates slowly, and you spend it slowly, we can allow for continued mistakes to be made, as you dip deeper and deeper into your reserves, because we know you can't get it back quickly, and if you run out completely, then you'll wipe.
That said, we don't want it to be miserable to play solo either—so we're going to keep an eye on things and adjustments are still very much on the table.
I very much look forward to your feedback once you've had time to prepare it. I do believe there are some bugs with AP gain on a variety of spells, as you say, so I will be looking into it.
In regards to magnitude, most simply it's a way of marking the potency of a spell so that they can be understood relative to one another. For instance, if a spell says 100 magnitude, and when you cast it you deal 5,000 damage, a spell that says 200 magnitude will deal 10,000 damage. Of course, there is variance on your weapon damage, but the mean damage will be precisely double for the second spell.
You could also choose to understand 100 magnitude as 100% weapon damage, but for various reasons we have decided not to communicate it that way, but rather in a more abstract format. Because, in reality, it will never truly resemble your actual weapon damage, as many other stats will be taken into account. (Power, enemy defense, etc., etc.)
Overall, though, it works - getting from 70 to 80 is reasonably easy, and while fights may take a bit longer than they did in M15, things were quite frankly getting a bit boring there due to a lack of challenge.
Now, there are things that could be improved - I wouldn't mind a power which granted CA - I am currently running around with a Dancing Blade in solo play to check how a CA-focused build feels.
I also wouldn't complain if I got a better AoE power - I really miss the old Chains.