Trying to suggest this sooner than later but played some more dungeon arbiter and noticed that
Going full bore on fire and holy in tong burns divinity rather quickly and without moving with prayer u start the next mob 1/2 to 3/4 divinity i think divinity out of combat is fine i dont think you need to touch divinity anymore but i think an interesting solution to this would be to give 2 pips opposing on encounter use - so forge master use would give 2 yellow pips
This does 2 things helps arbiter stay competitive in dps and if we need to tab we get a 2 pip regen instead of one i think it would greatly increase the fluidity of play for pvp and pve group
Also might be a more reasonable solution than giving all at wills 2 pip per use
Can sunburst be changed to "interrupt your target for 2 secs on hit" instead the knockback, the outcome is the same; by giving low level players a support when aggroed. Its feat can either increase base magnitud by 100 or give it a 3 secs less recharge if hitting more than 3 enemies.
Well, of course it can but then you hurt the feelings of clerics you actually want to throw their enemies through the air in pvp. trolls are people err, too.
Ok so I made 4 runs of the Lair of the Mad Mage on preview just now; three runs I played healing DC, and for one I reluctantly tried DPS. I was reluctant to try dps as on paper our encounters seems subpar to other classes.
I really liked the mechanic of empowering different spells with different types of judgement. It was interesting to come up with a rotation of at wills and encounters to synergize into something that flows together well. That being said, this was the numerical result of this run:
You may note from this that I'm the lowest in damage on this chart, which wouldn't be as big of a problem, if the warlock wasn't a HEALING spec. So not only is my damage really trailing behind true dps classes, as a healer, warlocks beat clerics because they are doing a respectable amount of damage as well as healing. My cleric did 10-15 million damage as devout.
Now, as much as I liked the playstyle of the arbiter cleric, I continue to equally dislike the playstyle of the devout cleric. I need to start with this important bug: the status ailment "Paralysis" continues to be unable to be removed by the spell "Cleansing Light". I believe this is intrinsic to cleansing light because it was unable to remove any form of CC, being the main "negative condition" that effect players, besides poison. In fact, Cleansing Light failed to remove any negative status ailments, including poison. This was noted on the final boss in the Lair of the Mad Mage. If it is only supposed to cleanse certain types of statuses, that should be made clear. However, I believe that having Cleansing Light remove various forms of CC would be tremendous and I can't emphasize that enough. As before, I spent the dungeon in a state of reaction instead of being proactive about helping my team. As much as I liked the change to astral shield (being able to move while channeling it), it still saw no use as the AoE was just too small. The cost of actively channeling it meant that I wasn't using that time to pray for divinity, which I would need since the AoE is too small to protect more than the tank and perhaps a brave rogue or barbarian. *I* certainly wouldn't trust standing in red even if I was also in astral shield. Part of @asterdahl 's response to devout clerics feeling bored was to dps in the downtime. Well, there's a couple problems with that. In the final boss fight, I spent an excessive amount of time praying for divinity- more than once I spent a solid 30 seconds just standing around praying. In fact, if you have nothing to do, you better pray because it's better to have that divinity as full as possible. For less important, quicker fights, devout clerics have 2 AoE encounters that do damage, Daunting Light and Sunburst. Please take a moment to absorb that. Remember, devout clerics do not get the feat that arbiters do to divorce the knockback from the damage of sunburst, so that leaves one encounter for group content. Daunting Light's AoE and cast time is simply not enough to justify slotting it as an encounter. Perhaps more importantly, please remember that I already stated that I needed to spend a significant amount of time praying for divinity which is exactly what I would need to cast Daunting Light in the first place. Also, a lot of devout spells look like they would synergize well together. Let's say a boss hits really hard. It would be great if you were grouped with a developing tank if you cast Geas and Astral shield in tandem to mitigate some of the damage the boss is about to deal. 15% can be the difference between life and death... sometimes. However, there go 2 of your encounters, leaving one. That one needs to be a heal, since you're a healer. If I'm supposed to deal damage AND heal, devout needs four encounter powers. Unless we're only expected to do damage during the trash battles between bosses, in which case we still need a better AoE dps power than daunting light, and a mechanic similar to arbiter that allows us to generate more divinity. Even without a developing tank, it's really nice to be able to see synergy between powers, and a lot of feats seem to encourage that.
Based on my previous post, I can offer this feedback that I feel would help the class.
Arbiter: Increase the base magnitude of all damaging powers. Reduce the amount of pips of judgment from 6 to 4 (allows for a rotation of 3 at wills, and a stack of judgement from an encounter) Increase the magnitude of fully empowered encounters. Please make any buffs we have party-wide or AoE. I understand that having break the spirit buff 2 types of damage is a "nod to clerics being the former kings and queens of buffing", but the 6 second 5% damage debuff on Geas does not seem so overwhelming that making it AoE (and/or last longer) would unbalance things. It's been brought up that Pillar of Power has 100% uptime, and it buffs all THREE types of damage. If you're deadset on keeping judgement pips the way they are, please move the feat Tipping Scales from the second choice, so it's not directly competing with Heavy Sun, which makes Sunburst usable in teams. This would allow Divine Glow a place in our rotation to more quickly allow us to deal damage and get back divinity.
Devout: Give one more AoE dps encounter to this paragon, for example, Chains of Blazing Light which would do damage. Change Divine Glow from a personal threat debuff to self+one other, similar to how exalt worked in the past. This would give clerics more control over the battle and utilize an encounter that importantly, does not use divinity. Please add a similar mechanic to arbiter to get back our divinity, or increase the rate at which divinity regenerates when you're Channeling Divinity. You could even change the 4th feats from "passive" to when you're actively channeling. I know there's a feat to increase divinity gain after 5 seconds of continuous channeling, but it's a huge ask to sacrifice being able to re-position yourself out of danger with Swift Prayers.
Please consider some more fine tuning on this class. The way it is, it's unable to compete in heals or dps in group content.
Thestia i really like all your commentary but i have one question. Is it not reasonable to believe the devs intentionally made the maximum pip number higher than 4 to force you to make a choice ? Otherwise what resources are we managing rather than reach the end of the spellchain and let it go? They have been trying to figure out a spellchain system for dc's since day 1 and it's feeling pretty good so far.
as for devout. A few people have suggested to me that i should try it. I have a few issues with that. Mainly it's about setting up a party on the test server before hand and making sure i can set all their gear so i know what i'm working with as a party healer to test. I would not know if my heals were effective for the content or if the other player just has really good gear.
The dps of the devout has be good enough that it run solo content fairly easily, so its output should not be too far behind the dps. After all if it takes 2 minutes for the dps player to run through a mission, the devout player can't take more than 3 minutes or the damage output values are too far off.
remember, the devout player is not a baby left out in the forest to fend for itself and die.
The devout needs to be fun to play and needs something that separates it from the cw. The arbiter has that.
At the moment it feels to me that the devout is all about the utility of their spells. Perhaps they should be viewed as a more powerful divine caster and get another encounter slot at no penalty. (although i would separate them into attack spells, defense spells and utility making it 1/1/2). I mention the no penalty part because it was stated several times when talking about cw that cd could be lowered but that spell damage would go down as a result.
What I am saying is that the devout player should not be penalized for slotting a selection of heal spells when they still need to be actively adventuring and completing quests. EDIT: While still holding the same, mostly not adjusted spell pool as the arbiter - even if it looks like all the paragon spells are attack and defense oriented... ok maybe there is a problem there.
At max gear the devout, or any other healer class, should still be considered a useful lifeline. If a 5 dps party is completing content, then obviously their defensive strengths are too high or the boss damage is not high enough. It's also possible the boss mechanics, if the boss has special powers, might not be doing their job.
That comment is based off your intention of having a 1 tank 1 healer 3 other mix for your parties.
You could also balance some dungeons to require 2 or 3 healers in a dungeon, or 2 tanks.
there is a certain game that i know of that allows players to have only 1 character per account but that character can unlock every class available in game and dungeons are balance off the idea that character role is flexible and having a 10 party of helars, or tanks or dps could all be viable strategies or even be intended requirements for dungeon completion.
Here's a a thought - when that exalt spell pops of and the dc dps goes higher - make the DC Glow Really Brightly so the other players know that the dc is attempting to deal damage to the boss.
The dps of the devout has be good enough that it run solo content fairly easily, so its output should not be too far behind the dps.
I would just caution that solo content is never a high bar in this game. Devout does need to be decidedly behind Arbiter in terms of DPS potential; otherwise we're missing part of the point of this design overhaul, which I thought was to reign in the overwhelming power of one-man-army-characters, among other things.
Of course, it's quite possible that both paragon paths are significantly undertuned in DPS and need to be elevated a bit, but Devout should not be anywhere close to what Arbiter ends up doing. Being able to kill open world trash mobs doesn't require much.
Here's a a thought - when that exalt spell pops of and the dc dps goes higher - make the DC Glow Really Brightly so the other players know that the dc is attempting to deal damage to the boss.
I have to respectfully disagree. The rest of the party won't care if the Devout uses this skill. Even if the very early test runs we're seeing are anything to go by, the Devout's DPS is near the bottom of group priorities, much like the expectation around AC DC on live. Even as a healing cooldown, the party has no need or desire to see it now that it's a purely a self-buff for the caster.
to be clear - the event they are trying to prevent is one person doing all the damage and the other players multiplying to an absurd degree.
which is why i believe the changes to acdc allow for the possibility to include a bard into the game in the future, but its buffing potential will be smaller than the acdc was.
> @glowingember said: > Thestia i really like all your commentary but i have one question. Is it not reasonable to believe the devs intentionally made the maximum pip number higher than 4 to force you to make a choice ? Otherwise what resources are we managing rather than reach the end of the spellchain and let it go? They have been trying to figure out a spellchain system for dc's since day 1 and it's feeling pretty good so far. >
In general, I would agree that the feel of the rotation does feel nice- however we simple do not have enough time to fully empower our pips several times in a trash battle to provide equivalent DPS to other DPS classes. I was looking at @sharpedge 's analysis of our runs, and interestingly, our breakdown of where our damage comes from is very similar to Barbarians and Rogues. Our 2 main sources of DPS come from encounters, and about 10% from at wills (actually about 28% of Rogue damage is from at wills because of Duelist's Flurry's bleed). This implies that relative to other classes, our rotation is good; we're all using about the same ratio of at wills and encounters, but cleric's damage is significantly less. My suggestions were ways to address that. If the devs decide to keep full empowerment at 6 pips, I could accept that, but then the base magnitude and fully empowered magnitude of our spells would need to be increased by a larger margin.
My suggestions were ways to address that. If the devs decide to keep full empowerment at 6 pips, I could accept that, but then the base magnitude and fully empowered magnitude of our spells would need to be increased by a larger margin.
oh. well that makes sense then.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
The dps of the devout has be good enough that it run solo content fairly easily, so its output should not be too far behind the dps.
I disagree. Devout should just barely be able to handle the solo content, and only by focusing on self-healing while slowly whittling away at the enemies....kind of like the "unkillable node-holder" PvP builds in the past.
So, better survivability, but longer fights. I would say that the Devout should be able to do maybe 70% of the Arbiter's DPS.
In practice, I see the Arbiter as the build for solo content. As things are, it is not as good as some of the other DPSers, so it is not really good enough for one of the DPS slots in group content. I would not object to it being boosted a bit or at least fixed to have some better AoE attacks - that's where I find the Arbiter to be lacking at the moment.
The Devout, on the other, hand - I don't see it as really feasible for solo content. As I said, it should be able to get through it, but it should take longer than the Arbiter, and should have to spend quite a bit of effort on staying alive. Devout should really shine in group content, but I don't think it is there yet - quite frankly, I find playing a Devout Cleric healer in a group to be utterly, utterly boring.
The dps of the devout has be good enough that it run solo content fairly easily, so its output should not be too far behind the dps.
I disagree. Devout should just barely be able to handle the solo content, and only by focusing on self-healing while slowly whittling away at the enemies....kind of like the "unkillable node-holder" PvP builds in the past.
So, better survivability, but longer fights. I would say that the Devout should be able to do maybe 70% of the Arbiter's DPS.
In practice, I see the Arbiter as the build for solo content. As things are, it is not as good as some of the other DPSers, so it is not really good enough for one of the DPS slots in group content. I would not object to it being boosted a bit or at least fixed to have some better AoE attacks - that's where I find the Arbiter to be lacking at the moment.
The Devout, on the other, hand - I don't see it as really feasible for solo content. As I said, it should be able to get through it, but it should take longer than the Arbiter, and should have to spend quite a bit of effort on staying alive. Devout should really shine in group content, but I don't think it is there yet - quite frankly, I find playing a Devout Cleric healer in a group to be utterly, utterly boring.
The devs have stated quite clearly that all classes that serve as the dps role are equal to each other. So that means if the arbiter has bastion of health slotted - which they seem to desire, with the proper use of pip and encounter rotation the dps of the dc will be the same as any equally geared dps class.
damage during a run player 1 2 3 4 5 equally geared non role classes 20% 20% 20% 20% 20%
something like dps dps support role tank healer +10 +10 +0 -10 -10
or what would you suggest?
the devout doing 70% damage of the dps is what i am asking for but when you say the devout should struggle doing solo content - well thats just gonna kill the desire for anyone to play devout. Don't think for a second that the class should only be playable as part of a party- that's just a waste of a paragon path.
and yes - playing a devout in group content is totally totally boring - you are standing still using astral shield - or hopping to the side if you feated for movement - the idea of managing your divinity pool is standing still praying to the gods. Saying that the dc has something to do in between healing people by dealing damage is not going to be very helpful since no one feels the devout's dps is going to contribute very much.
It's quite clear that no one believes the devout dc should have a high enough damage output to hurt a powerful boss. That's why people are going to try to make parties with no dc's in it to run through content faster.
As far as i am concerned there is only one way to work towards fixing this.
there needs to be physical, magical and divine damage.
Different bosses needs to have vulnerabilities and immunities to different sources.
barbarian and fighters would be physical wizards would be magical clerics are divine
paladin is a hybrid physical divine ranger is a hybrid physical divine
you can introduce eldritch knight as a hybrid physical magic bard hybrid physical magic
etc etc
the point is: Players need some reason to arrange their party composition to face the environment they are going to enter.
Also - you can introduce special weapon that transform one damage type to another., such as a control orb that modifies magical damage into physical force damage while equipped at a cost of -10% damage. Or something like that. That way no class will ever be blocked from participating.
Except, they would still be excluded. Why take a cw with a damage penalty when you could take a full strength Barbie?
Also, I think Bastion is meant to be a choice, not a requirement. So I think the DPS output will be judged by 3 damage encounters not 2. Also, I agree that devout, while my preferred build, will need to be substantially behind Arbiter in DPS. That's the thing about forcing roles on us, if roles are going to be enforced then the builds have to definitively follow that. If the roles are not substantially differentiated by their specialization, then this entire shift to role focused game will fail because we'll be in the same boat we are now where we can just brute force everything and ignore requirements. Devout is a heal role, if people find it too slow to solo, they can run Arbiter. Everyone has a second load out free.
Post edited by kythelion#3210 on
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
The devs have stated quite clearly that all classes that serve as the dps role are equal to each other. So that means if the arbiter has bastion of health slotted - which they seem to desire, with the proper use of pip and encounter rotation the dps of the dc will be the same as any equally geared dps class.
Ah, well, about Bastion. I see that as a matter of playstyle and circumstances. If I was an Arbiter in a group, I would only slot Bastion if I was running with an undegeared group or if we were for example heading into a tough boss encounter where survivability was critical. Moreover, if I have Bastion slotted then I would expect my DPS to be quite a bit lower than that of a "full" DPS class with 3 offensive encounters.
If I do not have Bastion slotted, I would be running with 3 offensive encounters, and I would like my DPS to be equivalent to that of "real" DPS classes, but I don't think that's the case right now, partly because of a lack of good AoE powers and partly because of pip management which means that my performance will be subpar in short encounters. Sure, I might get comparable numbers in boss fights or when fighting for a while against a target dummy, but lower performance in shorter fights will pull the total numbers down.
the devout doing 70% damage of the dps is what i am asking for but when you say the devout should struggle doing solo content - well thats just gonna kill the desire for anyone to play devout.
Devout doing 70% of Arbiter would make solo content a struggle by itself... well maybe "struggle" isn't the right word, but it would mean significantly longer fights and different tactics required - maybe a strong DPS companion and a lot of effort spent on keeping you and your companion alive. What I don't get is why anyone would want to do solo content as Devout - it just makes no sense.
Well, I can see this making some sense if you are a masochistic roleplayer ... "I'm a healer not a fighter.." , and in that case, yes, having solo play a struggle is just natural, but apart from that I see no good reason why anyone would ever want to do solo content as Devout. From my perspective, the Devout is primarily for group play (possibly PvP, but I really haven't tested that), while Arbiter is ideal for solo play, and perhaps usable in group play.
It's quite clear that no one believes the devout dc should have a high enough damage output to hurt a powerful boss. That's why people are going to try to make parties with no dc's in it to run through content faster.
Well....
If the content does not require a dedicated healer, then no - nobody will want a Devout Cleric. An Arbiter might be accepted as a DPS - in particular if it gets boosted a little bit to be equal to the other DPS classes.
However, the stated goal is to make sure that a healer and a Tank are needed, and if they succeed in reaching that goal then a Devout Cleric should be able to fill the need for a Healer.
Just stick with Arbiter for Solo, then either Arbiter or Devout for group play. Easy. One nice thing is that Arbiter and Devout don't require nearly as different stats as ACs and DOs do today, so there is no need to run with two totally different sets of equipment.
Arbiter not being on par with other DPS has been pretty clearly stated to be a design error to be rectified.
I’d rather that Bastion be ripped out of Arbiter so that we don’t run the risk of the Cleric DPS path being in any way balanced around niche healing utility.
Hello I got one question if we wanna Crit Heal then we need 25k Crit or we must got the same amout of crit that the other player?
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rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
Just because there is no reason to run devout in solo content does not invalidate those that choose to run it in solo content. In truth all classes and all paragon paths of all classes should be able to run all the types of content. Otherwise why bother to make the paragon paths in the first place? And I still run a Virtuous/AC in solo content right now and I have no issues with it, yes it takes longer to kill anything but it still works.
No one is saying you can't. If you want to that's fine, but you'll be doing it suboptimally. I choose to do lots of things that way, so it doesn't bother me. But it is an unfortunate effect of the way they're choosing to implement and forcefully feature the trinity of roles. If the roles are not starkly differentiated then you end up with a set of certain classes that will be more useful than others. Largely the problem on live that they're trying to correct where you don't need x role because someone else can do that job plus theirs. I don't actually dislike the less role focused game personally, but enforcing the trinity roles is a stated goal of M16. So, if they choose to continue on that path, they will have to make sure that anyone in a nondps path deals noticeably suboptimal DPS. Anyone in a nontank path has considerable trouble controlling and surviving aggro. Anyone in a nonheal path cannot generate enough heals to cover a team's needs. Not every role is intended to be a solo role, so solo content will play differently and slower for team based roles.
Funny part is that in pvp Healing Palas can heal soo much as well as kill almost anything 1v1. Arbiter has no chance vs Healing Palas in dimination. You guys should look into their solo damage.
Funny part is that in pvp Healing Palas can heal soo much as well as kill almost anything 1v1. Arbiter has no chance vs Healing Palas in dimination. You guys should look into their solo damage.
Yes, tank classes are ridiculous really as they have been for so many mods. Also, I really don't think they are looking into balancing pvp right now, I have stopped playing/testing on preview, as have most other pvpers on pc. In fact many have already quit/taken a break from the game or just waiting to decide what they will do as soon as the next mod hits.
@schietindebux I haven't done any more testing as most pvpers right now think that, in the current state of things, pvp will be dead next mod. No one has any incentive to really play on preview for that reason. I did log on a few days ago just to see if anything had changed on the DC and I saw a couple of new things including a nerf to out healing frequency, which while definitely welcome, makes the Arbiter even more useless and susceptible.
I do agree with what you said on tanks - I still cannot fathom that there will still be mods to come where tanks can burst you down via gap-closers or ranged attacks while accessing their shield for tankiness other classes don't have. GFs and OPs have been kings for so long with only TRs challenging their supremacy via ridiculous piercing mechanics. Next mods to come it seems tanks will still be kings.
Frankly put, this is not the time to test pvp, in spite of what devs are saying, since they are just not taking stock of what is being said other that politely acknowledging PvP related comments. The playerbase is PvE and that is what they are balancing now. I think T. Foss said that PvP balancing is not coming any time soon in the last video they made, so that already says a lot. See vid below after minute 15. The mod number where PvP balancing is stated is nothing more than speculation if I understand correctly.
If and when the times comes for serious pvp balancing and if I am still around, I will be happy to contribute to the discussion again but I fear that this will be in a very long time, if ever.
If the answer for devout to do well in solo content is to run a feat that gives them 20% bonus damage when solo i am going to scream in frustration.
once arbiters get their damage boosted they will be in a fine place. I guess balancing them for damage while they are not running bastion makes sense since then they get stronger while not running it - since we don't have dedicated powers slotted in dedicated slots.
devout just feel dull atm. i just see their identity as glorified healbot atm. Everyone's comments just kinda cement that further. "of course they are going to be slower in content. they can heal." "they can;t do everything. That's what loadouts are for - just swap."
"tanks can kill beat things to death in pvp. and they are tanky"
maybe what the devout needs are bonus abilities from their feats when the solo class feature is active. And give that class feature out at level 1.
They're time filler. Time better spent standing still and praying.
Unfortunately I have to agree that this is the function of devout at-wills at the moment on preview. They are the main source of our DPS in group content. Unless you're fighting a boss, in which case it's time wasted when you should be praying.
If the answer for devout to do well in solo content is to run a feat that gives them 20% bonus damage when solo i am going to scream in frustration.
once arbiters get their damage boosted they will be in a fine place. I guess balancing them for damage while they are not running bastion makes sense since then they get stronger while not running it - since we don't have dedicated powers slotted in dedicated slots.
devout just feel dull atm. i just see their identity as glorified healbot atm. Everyone's comments just kinda cement that further. "of course they are going to be slower in content. they can heal." "they can;t do everything. That's what loadouts are for - just swap."
"tanks can kill beat things to death in pvp. and they are tanky"
maybe what the devout needs are bonus abilities from their feats when the solo class feature is active. And give that class feature out at level 1.
I get the feeling the current dev team doesn't really care that much about solo play or solo players. There has been an obvious push to get more people to play with other people in MOD16. I have also noticed is that much of our questions about solo play is either ignored or met with disingenuous replies that say something like "well, NW is a MMO". I just don't understand why they are doing this other than perhaps they feel if more people play together it will be more competitive and people will spend Zen to keep up? IDK. It baffles me.
If the answer for devout to do well in solo content is to run a feat that gives them 20% bonus damage when solo i am going to scream in frustration.
once arbiters get their damage boosted they will be in a fine place. I guess balancing them for damage while they are not running bastion makes sense since then they get stronger while not running it - since we don't have dedicated powers slotted in dedicated slots.
devout just feel dull atm. i just see their identity as glorified healbot atm. Everyone's comments just kinda cement that further. "of course they are going to be slower in content. they can heal." "they can;t do everything. That's what loadouts are for - just swap."
"tanks can kill beat things to death in pvp. and they are tanky"
maybe what the devout needs are bonus abilities from their feats when the solo class feature is active. And give that class feature out at level 1.
I get the feeling the current dev team doesn't really care that much about solo play or solo players. There has been an obvious push to get more people to play with other people in MOD16. I have also noticed is that much of our questions about solo play is either ignored or met with disingenuous replies that say something like "well, NW is a MMO". I just don't understand why they are doing this other than perhaps they feel if more people play together it will be more competitive and people will spend Zen to keep up? IDK. It baffles me.
I'm convinced that all of the dev's decisions can be explained if you take into account one thing: control. They want to control what we are capable of, so that they can easily balance new content around that. The more options they leave us, the more ability scores and feat interactions and powers there are, the more likely it becomes that someone will find something they haven't thought of. With everything limited in the way they are becoming, all focus shifts to mechanics instead of player ingenuity.
Honestly, I can sympathize with the devs on that front. They are the DM where their players are the troublemakers constantly finding methods that they didn't prepare for, and just like in a real life PnP D&D session with an unimaginative DM, the game is suffering for it. At the same time, I'm a player that enjoys that aspect of D&D. I should be constantly pushed to work within the confines of the rules to succeed. I'm sad to see an end to an era, because I think the richest D&D games occur when a DM not only can prepare for many eventualities, but adapt to the desires of their players. In this case, our will has been heard, and deemed completely unacceptable, so the devs are changing the rules mid-game.
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Going full bore on fire and holy in tong burns divinity rather quickly and without moving with prayer u start the next mob 1/2 to 3/4 divinity i think divinity out of combat is fine i dont think you need to touch divinity anymore but i think an interesting solution to this would be to give 2 pips opposing on encounter use - so forge master use would give 2 yellow pips
This does 2 things helps arbiter stay competitive in dps and if we need to tab we get a 2 pip regen instead of one i think it would greatly increase the fluidity of play for pvp and pve group
Also might be a more reasonable solution than giving all at wills 2 pip per use
trolls are people err, too.
I really liked the mechanic of empowering different spells with different types of judgement. It was interesting to come up with a rotation of at wills and encounters to synergize into something that flows together well. That being said, this was the numerical result of this run:
https://imgur.com/a/3S3ga2W
You may note from this that I'm the lowest in damage on this chart, which wouldn't be as big of a problem, if the warlock wasn't a HEALING spec. So not only is my damage really trailing behind true dps classes, as a healer, warlocks beat clerics because they are doing a respectable amount of damage as well as healing. My cleric did 10-15 million damage as devout.
Now, as much as I liked the playstyle of the arbiter cleric, I continue to equally dislike the playstyle of the devout cleric. I need to start with this important bug: the status ailment "Paralysis" continues to be unable to be removed by the spell "Cleansing Light". I believe this is intrinsic to cleansing light because it was unable to remove any form of CC, being the main "negative condition" that effect players, besides poison. In fact, Cleansing Light failed to remove any negative status ailments, including poison. This was noted on the final boss in the Lair of the Mad Mage. If it is only supposed to cleanse certain types of statuses, that should be made clear. However, I believe that having Cleansing Light remove various forms of CC would be tremendous and I can't emphasize that enough. As before, I spent the dungeon in a state of reaction instead of being proactive about helping my team. As much as I liked the change to astral shield (being able to move while channeling it), it still saw no use as the AoE was just too small. The cost of actively channeling it meant that I wasn't using that time to pray for divinity, which I would need since the AoE is too small to protect more than the tank and perhaps a brave rogue or barbarian. *I* certainly wouldn't trust standing in red even if I was also in astral shield.
Part of @asterdahl 's response to devout clerics feeling bored was to dps in the downtime. Well, there's a couple problems with that. In the final boss fight, I spent an excessive amount of time praying for divinity- more than once I spent a solid 30 seconds just standing around praying. In fact, if you have nothing to do, you better pray because it's better to have that divinity as full as possible. For less important, quicker fights, devout clerics have 2 AoE encounters that do damage, Daunting Light and Sunburst. Please take a moment to absorb that. Remember, devout clerics do not get the feat that arbiters do to divorce the knockback from the damage of sunburst, so that leaves one encounter for group content. Daunting Light's AoE and cast time is simply not enough to justify slotting it as an encounter. Perhaps more importantly, please remember that I already stated that I needed to spend a significant amount of time praying for divinity which is exactly what I would need to cast Daunting Light in the first place.
Also, a lot of devout spells look like they would synergize well together. Let's say a boss hits really hard. It would be great if you were grouped with a developing tank if you cast Geas and Astral shield in tandem to mitigate some of the damage the boss is about to deal. 15% can be the difference between life and death... sometimes. However, there go 2 of your encounters, leaving one. That one needs to be a heal, since you're a healer. If I'm supposed to deal damage AND heal, devout needs four encounter powers. Unless we're only expected to do damage during the trash battles between bosses, in which case we still need a better AoE dps power than daunting light, and a mechanic similar to arbiter that allows us to generate more divinity. Even without a developing tank, it's really nice to be able to see synergy between powers, and a lot of feats seem to encourage that.
Arbiter:
Increase the base magnitude of all damaging powers.
Reduce the amount of pips of judgment from 6 to 4 (allows for a rotation of 3 at wills, and a stack of judgement from an encounter)
Increase the magnitude of fully empowered encounters.
Please make any buffs we have party-wide or AoE. I understand that having break the spirit buff 2 types of damage is a "nod to clerics being the former kings and queens of buffing", but the 6 second 5% damage debuff on Geas does not seem so overwhelming that making it AoE (and/or last longer) would unbalance things. It's been brought up that Pillar of Power has 100% uptime, and it buffs all THREE types of damage.
If you're deadset on keeping judgement pips the way they are, please move the feat Tipping Scales from the second choice, so it's not directly competing with Heavy Sun, which makes Sunburst usable in teams. This would allow Divine Glow a place in our rotation to more quickly allow us to deal damage and get back divinity.
Devout:
Give one more AoE dps encounter to this paragon, for example, Chains of Blazing Light which would do damage.
Change Divine Glow from a personal threat debuff to self+one other, similar to how exalt worked in the past. This would give clerics more control over the battle and utilize an encounter that importantly, does not use divinity.
Please add a similar mechanic to arbiter to get back our divinity, or increase the rate at which divinity regenerates when you're Channeling Divinity. You could even change the 4th feats from "passive" to when you're actively channeling. I know there's a feat to increase divinity gain after 5 seconds of continuous channeling, but it's a huge ask to sacrifice being able to re-position yourself out of danger with Swift Prayers.
Please consider some more fine tuning on this class. The way it is, it's unable to compete in heals or dps in group content.
as for devout. A few people have suggested to me that i should try it. I have a few issues with that. Mainly it's about setting up a party on the test server before hand and making sure i can set all their gear so i know what i'm working with as a party healer to test. I would not know if my heals were effective for the content or if the other player just has really good gear.
The dps of the devout has be good enough that it run solo content fairly easily, so its output should not be too far behind the dps. After all if it takes 2 minutes for the dps player to run through a mission, the devout player can't take more than 3 minutes or the damage output values are too far off.
remember, the devout player is not a baby left out in the forest to fend for itself and die.
The devout needs to be fun to play and needs something that separates it from the cw. The arbiter has that.
At the moment it feels to me that the devout is all about the utility of their spells. Perhaps they should be viewed as a more powerful divine caster and get another encounter slot at no penalty. (although i would separate them into attack spells, defense spells and utility making it 1/1/2). I mention the no penalty part because it was stated several times when talking about cw that cd could be lowered but that spell damage would go down as a result.
What I am saying is that the devout player should not be penalized for slotting a selection of heal spells when they still need to be actively adventuring and completing quests. EDIT: While still holding the same, mostly not adjusted spell pool as the arbiter - even if it looks like all the paragon spells are attack and defense oriented... ok maybe there is a problem there.
At max gear the devout, or any other healer class, should still be considered a useful lifeline. If a 5 dps party is completing content, then obviously their defensive strengths are too high or the boss damage is not high enough. It's also possible the boss mechanics, if the boss has special powers, might not be doing their job.
That comment is based off your intention of having a 1 tank 1 healer 3 other mix for your parties.
You could also balance some dungeons to require 2 or 3 healers in a dungeon, or 2 tanks.
there is a certain game that i know of that allows players to have only 1 character per account but that character can unlock every class available in game and dungeons are balance off the idea that character role is flexible and having a 10 party of helars, or tanks or dps could all be viable strategies or even be intended requirements for dungeon completion.
thanks a bunch.
Of course, it's quite possible that both paragon paths are significantly undertuned in DPS and need to be elevated a bit, but Devout should not be anywhere close to what Arbiter ends up doing. Being able to kill open world trash mobs doesn't require much.
I have to respectfully disagree. The rest of the party won't care if the Devout uses this skill. Even if the very early test runs we're seeing are anything to go by, the Devout's DPS is near the bottom of group priorities, much like the expectation around AC DC on live. Even as a healing cooldown, the party has no need or desire to see it now that it's a purely a self-buff for the caster.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
which is why i believe the changes to acdc allow for the possibility to include a bard into the game in the future, but its buffing potential will be smaller than the acdc was.
> Thestia i really like all your commentary but i have one question. Is it not reasonable to believe the devs intentionally made the maximum pip number higher than 4 to force you to make a choice ? Otherwise what resources are we managing rather than reach the end of the spellchain and let it go? They have been trying to figure out a spellchain system for dc's since day 1 and it's feeling pretty good so far.
>
In general, I would agree that the feel of the rotation does feel nice- however we simple do not have enough time to fully empower our pips several times in a trash battle to provide equivalent DPS to other DPS classes. I was looking at @sharpedge 's analysis of our runs, and interestingly, our breakdown of where our damage comes from is very similar to Barbarians and Rogues. Our 2 main sources of DPS come from encounters, and about 10% from at wills (actually about 28% of Rogue damage is from at wills because of Duelist's Flurry's bleed). This implies that relative to other classes, our rotation is good; we're all using about the same ratio of at wills and encounters, but cleric's damage is significantly less. My suggestions were ways to address that. If the devs decide to keep full empowerment at 6 pips, I could accept that, but then the base magnitude and fully empowered magnitude of our spells would need to be increased by a larger margin.
My suggestions were ways to address that. If the devs decide to keep full empowerment at 6 pips, I could accept that, but then the base magnitude and fully empowered magnitude of our spells would need to be increased by a larger margin.
oh. well that makes sense then.
So, better survivability, but longer fights. I would say that the Devout should be able to do maybe 70% of the Arbiter's DPS.
In practice, I see the Arbiter as the build for solo content. As things are, it is not as good as some of the other DPSers, so it is not really good enough for one of the DPS slots in group content. I would not object to it being boosted a bit or at least fixed to have some better AoE attacks - that's where I find the Arbiter to be lacking at the moment.
The Devout, on the other, hand - I don't see it as really feasible for solo content. As I said, it should be able to get through it, but it should take longer than the Arbiter, and should have to spend quite a bit of effort on staying alive. Devout should really shine in group content, but I don't think it is there yet - quite frankly, I find playing a Devout Cleric healer in a group to be utterly, utterly boring.
The devs have stated quite clearly that all classes that serve as the dps role are equal to each other. So that means if the arbiter has bastion of health slotted - which they seem to desire, with the proper use of pip and encounter rotation the dps of the dc will be the same as any equally geared dps class.
damage during a run
player 1 2 3 4 5
equally geared non role classes 20% 20% 20% 20% 20%
something like dps dps support role tank healer
+10 +10 +0 -10 -10
or what would you suggest?
the devout doing 70% damage of the dps is what i am asking for but when you say the devout should struggle doing solo content - well thats just gonna kill the desire for anyone to play devout. Don't think for a second that the class should only be playable as part of a party- that's just a waste of a paragon path.
and yes - playing a devout in group content is totally totally boring - you are standing still using astral shield - or hopping to the side if you feated for movement - the idea of managing your divinity pool is standing still praying to the gods. Saying that the dc has something to do in between healing people by dealing damage is not going to be very helpful since no one feels the devout's dps is going to contribute very much.
It's quite clear that no one believes the devout dc should have a high enough damage output to hurt a powerful boss. That's why people are going to try to make parties with no dc's in it to run through content faster.
As far as i am concerned there is only one way to work towards fixing this.
there needs to be physical, magical and divine damage.
Different bosses needs to have vulnerabilities and immunities to different sources.
barbarian and fighters would be physical
wizards would be magical
clerics are divine
paladin is a hybrid physical divine
ranger is a hybrid physical divine
you can introduce eldritch knight as a hybrid physical magic
bard hybrid physical magic
etc etc
the point is: Players need some reason to arrange their party composition to face the environment they are going to enter.
Also - you can introduce special weapon that transform one damage type to another., such as a control orb that modifies magical damage into physical force damage while equipped at a cost of -10% damage. Or something like that. That way no class will ever be blocked from participating.
Also, I think Bastion is meant to be a choice, not a requirement. So I think the DPS output will be judged by 3 damage encounters not 2. Also, I agree that devout, while my preferred build, will need to be substantially behind Arbiter in DPS. That's the thing about forcing roles on us, if roles are going to be enforced then the builds have to definitively follow that. If the roles are not substantially differentiated by their specialization, then this entire shift to role focused game will fail because we'll be in the same boat we are now where we can just brute force everything and ignore requirements. Devout is a heal role, if people find it too slow to solo, they can run Arbiter. Everyone has a second load out free.
If I do not have Bastion slotted, I would be running with 3 offensive encounters, and I would like my DPS to be equivalent to that of "real" DPS classes, but I don't think that's the case right now, partly because of a lack of good AoE powers and partly because of pip management which means that my performance will be subpar in short encounters. Sure, I might get comparable numbers in boss fights or when fighting for a while against a target dummy, but lower performance in shorter fights will pull the total numbers down. Devout doing 70% of Arbiter would make solo content a struggle by itself... well maybe "struggle" isn't the right word, but it would mean significantly longer fights and different tactics required - maybe a strong DPS companion and a lot of effort spent on keeping you and your companion alive. What I don't get is why anyone would want to do solo content as Devout - it just makes no sense.
Well, I can see this making some sense if you are a masochistic roleplayer ... "I'm a healer not a fighter.." , and in that case, yes, having solo play a struggle is just natural, but apart from that I see no good reason why anyone would ever want to do solo content as Devout. From my perspective, the Devout is primarily for group play (possibly PvP, but I really haven't tested that), while Arbiter is ideal for solo play, and perhaps usable in group play. Well....
If the content does not require a dedicated healer, then no - nobody will want a Devout Cleric. An Arbiter might be accepted as a DPS - in particular if it gets boosted a little bit to be equal to the other DPS classes.
However, the stated goal is to make sure that a healer and a Tank are needed, and if they succeed in reaching that goal then a Devout Cleric should be able to fill the need for a Healer.
Just stick with Arbiter for Solo, then either Arbiter or Devout for group play. Easy. One nice thing is that Arbiter and Devout don't require nearly as different stats as ACs and DOs do today, so there is no need to run with two totally different sets of equipment.
I’d rather that Bastion be ripped out of Arbiter so that we don’t run the risk of the Cleric DPS path being in any way balanced around niche healing utility.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Arbiter has no chance vs Healing Palas in dimination. You guys should look into their solo damage.
Aelan Icebleed (CW)
I do agree with what you said on tanks - I still cannot fathom that there will still be mods to come where tanks can burst you down via gap-closers or ranged attacks while accessing their shield for tankiness other classes don't have. GFs and OPs have been kings for so long with only TRs challenging their supremacy via ridiculous piercing mechanics. Next mods to come it seems tanks will still be kings.
Frankly put, this is not the time to test pvp, in spite of what devs are saying, since they are just not taking stock of what is being said other that politely acknowledging PvP related comments. The playerbase is PvE and that is what they are balancing now. I think T. Foss said that PvP balancing is not coming any time soon in the last video they made, so that already says a lot. See vid below after minute 15. The mod number where PvP balancing is stated is nothing more than speculation if I understand correctly.
If and when the times comes for serious pvp balancing and if I am still around, I will be happy to contribute to the discussion again but I fear that this will be in a very long time, if ever.
Aelan Icebleed (CW)
once arbiters get their damage boosted they will be in a fine place. I guess balancing them for damage while they are not running bastion makes sense since then they get stronger while not running it - since we don't have dedicated powers slotted in dedicated slots.
devout just feel dull atm. i just see their identity as glorified healbot atm. Everyone's comments just kinda cement that further. "of course they are going to be slower in content. they can heal." "they can;t do everything. That's what loadouts are for - just swap."
"tanks can kill beat things to death in pvp. and they are tanky"
maybe what the devout needs are bonus abilities from their feats when the solo class feature is active. And give that class feature out at level 1.
I get the feeling the current dev team doesn't really care that much about solo play or solo players. There has been an obvious push to get more people to play with other people in MOD16. I have also noticed is that much of our questions about solo play is either ignored or met with disingenuous replies that say something like "well, NW is a MMO". I just don't understand why they are doing this other than perhaps they feel if more people play together it will be more competitive and people will spend Zen to keep up? IDK. It baffles me.
Honestly, I can sympathize with the devs on that front. They are the DM where their players are the troublemakers constantly finding methods that they didn't prepare for, and just like in a real life PnP D&D session with an unimaginative DM, the game is suffering for it. At the same time, I'm a player that enjoys that aspect of D&D. I should be constantly pushed to work within the confines of the rules to succeed. I'm sad to see an end to an era, because I think the richest D&D games occur when a DM not only can prepare for many eventualities, but adapt to the desires of their players. In this case, our will has been heard, and deemed completely unacceptable, so the devs are changing the rules mid-game.