30 Divine Cleric Reporting for Duty

ganiries · February 2013

Made the decision to create/play a cleric this weekend and had a lot of fun. From streaming videos I've seen and lots of hearsay, the divine cleric was probably the most challenging to level solo during this first beta run. Although by challenging, I mean never really dying (accept in skirmish events). Just taking a bit longer to get through tougher mobs.

Skills, I'm sorry, Powers - Won't get too specific, but I tried 'em all and there are definitely a decent mix of damage and healing skills, I mean powers. They're easy to swap out for healing in groups, or for soloing. Was surprised to see a lack of utility in the powers themselves. Pretty much straight healing, aoe healing, reactive type heals and the same with damage. There were more powerful powers (lol) and better options as I leveled up. I'm sure there'll be more, but I've always enjoyed the staple of specific classes with certain utility powers, ie group stealth, teleport, etc, etc.

Feats - At first glance, I wasn't too happy with the "trees" themselves. I'm still not sure I am. After reading all the descriptions, there are definitely some nice combos, such as; plus to crit + aoe heal when you crit. That sorta' thing. I thought Feats themselves would customize the class (differentiating between two divine clerics), but found it will most likely be a mixture between feats and....

Gear - Gear with plus to crit made a big difference and just as easy to get as gear with other stats. Made soloing easier for sure, but didn't help too much when grouped. In the Cloak Tower, I could have been nude and it wouldn't have made a difference as it was so easy, but in skirmishes (and I'm sure in the future) the combination of the right gear and the right feats, will make a big difference in my gameplay.

Should I go full dps and never dps as well as GWF or Rogue? Should I go full recovery/power and be the best healer? Carrying the extra gear may be tricky, but not impossible, but the feats are as good as your next respec.

Tactics - Healing was very, very different than most skill (clicky) based mmo's I've played. Group targeting was made extra difficult by having 5 companions soak up most of the heals, or the direct heals at least. My best strategy for group healing (just in skirmishes, the only difficult thing I did), was to use three healing encounter powers, the reactive at-will, and the higher level at will (replaced lance). Pretty much a full-heal power line-up, with the one aoe damage daily for mega-explosion fun. BOOM!

Everything else - Really enjoyed the weekend. Really enjoyed the class. Looking forward to more grouping during the next weekend and on release. As well as some tougher challenges! Sorry for not knowing the names of the powers or feats, I just referred to them (to myself), as the hand, the swirl, the spear, etc.

Selune's blessing upon thee! Wait, I chose the leaf guy I think...

dukesofjmu09 · February 2013

I agree with most of what you said. I played a cleric to 30 as well and really enjoyed it. However, I think the class is currently overpowered. I was never really close to death during normal play (accidentally went AFK in some blue fire one time). In contrast, there were some tough parts for me as a guardian fighter to level 20 when large groups of mobs surrounded me.

I took mostly healing points in the talent tree and still led DPS in cloak tower using a combination of the AoE chains and AoE damage spells. Streaming damage with divine power on larger single target mobs made them pretty easy to bring down. I really enjoyed the class but I wouldn't mind them scaling the AoE damage down a bit and allowing us to become more of a specialized healer OR damage class.

hibbleton · February 2013

Levels 1-30 aren't meant to test your abilities as a player to figure out if you suck at your class or not. Hell, 30-59 will still be effortlessly cakewalk. If the game was hard before 60, it would turn a lot of potential players (and buyers) away from the game. There were plenty of bosses here and there (the Gnoll in the mines within Blackdagger and the undead Dwarf Doomguide) that gave my Trickster Rogue some trouble, but the experience was fast and streamlined which is a good thing for an action MMO. I want to get to 60 as fast as possible to experience what the game has to offer, not spend a month grinding groups of mobs because the skirmishes or bosses are impossible to do solo.

volcxxx · February 2013

Cleric is OP compared to Guardian (both lv 30). I felt on lv 30 cleric like aoe dps sorc-type powerhouse.
Overall dps need to be toned down by 30-40%.

lanessar13 · February 2013

I think the Guardian needs to be brought up to Cleric standards, not reducing cleric to guardian levels.

volcxxx · February 2013

lanessar13 wrote: »

I think the Guardian needs to be brought up to Cleric standards, not reducing cleric to guardian levels.

Than content should be 3x times harder than it is. Game must be challenging to be fun. I'v had highest fun factor in Guaridan (becouse of difficulty) than Cleric tbh.

shaosyant · February 2013

lanessar13 wrote: »

I think the Guardian needs to be brought up to Cleric standards, not reducing cleric to guardian levels.

I have to agree with this. If it's going to be a D&D flavored game I'd like the option to have my cleric play as something that can put out damage, and not get stuck in a healer's role.

Same thing with guardian. If they want to play DPS-style with sword and shield then they should have options to do just as well. The expense should be in healing and tanking ability respectively, and not cries of "nerf."

ganiries · February 2013

I agree the solo content (can't imagine doing the standard quest progression grouped) was very easy, but healing a group was very challenging in the two playable skirmish events. I didn't feel overpowered when people were dying. Thankfully anyone could resurrect. It'll be interesting to see how they tweak the cleric class for sure.

keielin · February 2013

I liked the feel of the cleric a lot as it currently is. I'd rather not see it's damaged toned down as it would make solo content unnecessarily difficult for cleric player, and I fear it would cause a situation that I see a lot in other MMOs (WoW for example) where there are very few healer character, which holds everyone up when trying to find healers for dungeons, etc. While I really would like to see a better targeting system for single target heals (maybe have it lock on to the nearest ally to the cursor when you use the heal skill, or some sore of friendly only targeting mode).

However with that said, I did find myself soloing the last boss of Cloaked Tower for the last 1/4 of his health as my teammates died (yeah that was probably my bad though it was a pain to try and get to a position where I could actually target them for heals). I was able to beat him spamming Divine Power infused knockbacks (Sun Burst I believe) and also the empowered version of that slow/DoT/area heal light beam.

Now in terms of overall difficulty the game could definitely use a few tweaks, but hey that's what forge content is for.

falchoin · February 2013

During beta I got a cleric and guardian to 30 and a rogue to 17 legitimately. As far as difficulty goes I had the hardest time with the cleric. The guardian had absurd healing with its daily and the rogue body double helped a lot in keeping the heat off him.

Maybe it was just me, but it felt like going for a crit/hp build and using the heal %max hp on crit feat was "necessary". The lack of other good feats which could adequately do something similar only exacerbated the issue. Coupled with empowered Forgemaster's Flame (which keielin referred to) I rarely needed to use Healing Word... which was probably a good thing as targeting with Healing Word was spotty at best in dungeons/events given the difficulty in picking out one specific player in the sea of other melee players + companions. Sun Burst also worked wonders with the heal on crit feat as it procced off both heal and damage crits.

I guess I'm worried Neverwinter will end up like Champions Online where you more or less need to crit since a lot of the better effects there are crit procs. I want real options, not the illusion of choice.

idetoxi · February 2013

Is it just me, or did most clerics overlook our best heal, which was the the divine verseion of Astral Seal(right click). Soothing Flame I think it was called, not sure though.

ganiries · February 2013

I used that a bunch of times Ide. In groups it was nice, seemed to 'lock on' the target. Although hitting the target was a little tough at times. Easier when a group member would be low on hp and run out of combat. It was just a matter of deciding to tab and then using that "time" for a single target, as opposed to getting off as many aoe heals as possible and as needed.

Solo, I didn't use, except to try out. Preferred using the divine power for damage (left click) which was very powerful. Feel my divine beam foul fiend thing!

Edit: As a direct heal, casting into a mob fest, with 3-4 players around them, I found this landing on companions just as often as players.

evakane · February 2013

I agree with most of the OP, I should like to also agree that companions do you a disservice when you are accompanied by a healer, they get in the way of heals you would/should have gotten, and in a critical situation they are often a liability if you're expecting heals.

Also, for those playing with a cleric, it's not so simple as targeting you on the list and spamming heals at you. Mobs and companions get in the way of Healing Hands (which is one of our best single target heals so far, obviously can't comment on post-30 abilities.) That only leaves our TempHp from Sacred Flame, and Crit AE heals (which are small but still significant), big bomb AE and GTAE heals, and if you're not a damage taker, but you're tanking something you shouldn't be, those heals very well might not be sufficient to keep you alive.

So what I'm saying is, just because you have a cleric in the group doesn't mean that you can take easily dodged special attacks in the face, and it doesn't relieve you of the responsibility to make yourself available for heals, or to duck out of combat when things get too hot and wait for a heal, or even quaffing a pot in an emergency situation.

hibbleton · February 2013

evakane wrote: »

So what I'm saying is, just because you have a cleric in the group doesn't mean that you can take easily dodged special attacks in the face, and it doesn't relieve you of the responsibility to make yourself available for heals, or to duck out of combat when things get too hot and wait for a heal, or even quaffing a pot in an emergency situation.

I'm fairly sure anyone who is good at PvE already understands this, and people who are bad at PvE will never, ever grasp the concept.

volcxxx · February 2013

falchoin wrote: »

During beta I got a cleric and guardian to 30 and a rogue to 17 legitimately. As far as difficulty goes I had the hardest time with the cleric. The guardian had absurd healing with its daily and the rogue body double helped a lot in keeping the heat off him.

Same here, (30 guardian, 30 cleric, 18 rogue). Hardest time i had with guaridan, cleric was walk in the park and completly no challenging. Just owned all without using single pot. Easy mode compared to guardian.

evakane · February 2013

hibbleton wrote: »

I'm fairly sure anyone who is good at PvE already understands this, and people who are bad at PvE will never, ever grasp the concept.

Is that a joke? I mean you're joking right? lol

volcxxx wrote: »

Same here, (30 guardian, 30 cleric, 18 rogue). Hardest time i had with guaridan, cleric was walk in the park and completly no challenging. Just owned all without using single pot. Easy mode compared to guardian.

I surprised so many people say this. I leveled one of each to 30, and I used drastically more pots on the rogue, but that was only during the early levels, by around 12'ish I started getting more pots than I used probably because my abilities got a little more devious or maybe I got a little better at evasion.

The Guardian, I found to be lower on damage, but having some pretty decent burst capability (considering it's a tanker anyway), and once you get the damage/heal daily you rarely needed a pot, unless you foolishly let your block run out, but even then you could always kite and Tide of Iron to get it back up (kite boss and Tide of Iron peons), then dig back in and keep whaling.

volcxxx · February 2013

Im comparing killing speed of cleric and guardian - cleric just HAMSTER mobs from distance, not wasting time for positioning/defending like guardian (you dont need heal yourselve, just spam skills that dps and heal you meantime). Playing cleric is just much more efficient than guardian. Sure you can play guardian even without pots but spend 1 hr in the same content in cleric and guardian and you will notice that cleric is much more powerfull (overall) than guardian. Even crowded by mobs you can easly over-heal damage done to cleric in most cases. After lv 20 i rarely even used dodge skill.

evakane · February 2013

volcxxx wrote: »

Im comparing killing speed of cleric and guardian - cleric just HAMSTER mobs from distance, not wasting time for positioning/defending like guardian (you dont need heal yourselve, just spam skills that dps and heal you meantime). Playing cleric is just much more efficient than guardian. Sure you can play guardian even without pots but spend 1 hr in the same content in cleric and guardian and you will notice that cleric is much more powerfull (overall) than guardian. Even crowded by mobs you can easly over-heal damage done to cleric in most cases. After lv 20 i rarely even used dodge skill.

I'm not disagreeing that they output more damage. Just saying the difficulty really wasn't any more. Personally, I plan to play a Cleric as a main character, so I'm not complaining, I think they do fine. In DPS it's Rogue > Cleric > Fighter of the three we played, as it should be.

lomyrill · February 2013

I did try the right click heal a few times. I didn't use it in instances much, mostly because I only grouped up a few times. When I did use it, it was mostly a few times when people nearby were getting hit hard by mobs. I wanted to see if it would provide more of a heal to them when compared to the single-person heal (and it did seem to lock on to them better for that as well).

It would be great if we could "lock on" to players in our party for the single-person heal. Say, using F2 to select #2 in our party, F3 for #3... etc.

hibbleton · February 2013

lomyrill wrote: »

I did try the right click heal a few times. I didn't use it in instances much, mostly because I only grouped up a few times. When I did use it, it was mostly a few times when people nearby were getting hit hard by mobs. I wanted to see if it would provide more of a heal to them when compared to the single-person heal (and it did seem to lock on to them better for that as well).

It would be great if we could "lock on" to players in our party for the single-person heal. Say, using F2 to select #2 in our party, F3 for #3... etc.

If you hold control while targeting someone, it sticky-targets them and you cannot move your targeting reticle until you let go of Control.

falchoin · February 2013

hibbleton wrote: »

If you hold control while targeting someone, it sticky-targets them and you cannot move your targeting reticle until you let go of Control.

Hmm, maybe an option is needed to make the sticky targeting a toggle is needed? Press once to lock on. Press again to detarget.

tehsig · February 2013

Well, that Foundry series for killing goblins and spiders then undead then ogres stopped me at Doom HARD. At no point from when i started it at 15 to when the servers came down with me at 30 was I able to do it, whereas my buddy blasted through it on his guardian fighter through pots, skills, and mitigation. Clearly, even overpowerd clerics meet their match against poor dungeon design, but it illustrates another point about the class: we're the healers. Any damage we do to enable soloing is gravy, and i'm happy to have it.
My experience with grouping with my buddy and doing a skirmish was basically this: healing will be button mashing or skill-testing, and for each of us who've been playing online healers for nearly 2 decades, not being able to select our target with a function key or portrait click will separate us between those who adapt to action play and those who say clerics suck.
Now, I think it sucks that I have to develop new skills to play this game, since just about every other class transitions well between games, but for the people just coming to the genre of online healing, I doubt they'll even notice how different healing in this game is to that in any other. Mana what? heh.

vernednd · February 2013

tehsig wrote: »

Well, that Foundry series for killing goblins and spiders then undead then ogres stopped me at Doom HARD. At no point from when i started it at 15 to when the servers came down with me at 30 was I able to do it, whereas my buddy blasted through it on his guardian fighter through pots, skills, and mitigation. Clearly, even overpowerd clerics meet their match against poor dungeon design, but it illustrates another point about the class: we're the healers. Any damage we do to enable soloing is gravy, and i'm happy to have it.
My experience with grouping with my buddy and doing a skirmish was basically this: healing will be button mashing or skill-testing, and for each of us who've been playing online healers for nearly 2 decades, not being able to select our target with a function key or portrait click will separate us between those who adapt to action play and those who say clerics suck.
Now, I think it sucks that I have to develop new skills to play this game, since just about every other class transitions well between games, but for the people just coming to the genre of online healing, I doubt they'll even notice how different healing in this game is to that in any other. Mana what? heh.

Transitions, or changes, are always stressfull to some degree, but Im sure everyone will adapt to this form of healing. It was rough at first, but eventually, with some practice, I was able to perform my roll in groups fairly well. I honestly prefer it since I have to focus more on positioning of myself and others to be effective, compared to older mmo's where I literally just stood still nearly the entire time pressing number keys watching bars. This system allows me to stay more involved in the fight and run around a bit more!

The best tactic I found (at least for the 1-30 content) was to stay on the periphery of the fight. Going in every now and then to assist with some crowd control/pbaoe. The hold ctrl lock helps alot with the channeling heal as well.

Cheers!

lanessar13 · February 2013

vernednd wrote: »

Transitions, or changes, are always stressfull to some degree, but Im sure everyone will adapt to this form of healing. It was rough at first, but eventually, with some practice, I was able to perform my roll in groups fairly well. I honestly prefer it since I have to focus more on positioning of myself and others to be effective, compared to older mmo's where I literally just stood still nearly the entire time pressing number keys watching bars. This system allows me to stay more involved in the fight and run around a bit more!

The best tactic I found (at least for the 1-30 content) was to stay on the periphery of the fight. Going in every now and then to assist with some crowd control/pbaoe. The hold ctrl lock helps alot with the channeling heal as well.

Cheers!

To some degree this is true. There is a degree of "changing your operational mode" which has to occur with players in this model as opposed to older models. However, it's not ALL that needs to happen.

I've healed in MMOs for time out of mind, pretty much every MMO released to date (even MxO, god), so I can see where this model will fail. Sometimes, you need a concentrated heal on a target, and you need to do it quick. Single-target healing is unreliable, even with the CTRL method, because you'll need to de-select the target at times and leave yourself vulnerable to a companion or another player jumping in the way when you attempt to re-select the tank. Even a second can be fatal later in the game, where things get tighter.

I don't think portrait selection is the solution, but I'm hoping the devs actually look at this problem. If you're playing CT or DK, which is this game's equivalent of deadmines and gnomeregan, of course, it's easy to keep up with the heals and the mishaps don't show. During beta weekend, we had access to the first instances available in the game. The easy instances. The instances where you aren't punished for mistakes with a wipe (unless your group is truly, truly terrible).

I don't doubt that the people stating clerics don't need a fix on their healing will change their tune once they hit Hotenow. Or another instance. Because those little points where a second doesn't matter will become "it DOES matter" and, no matter how you "adjust" mentally, there is a physical barrier (companion) that no amount of teamwork can overcome to land a heal. Telling the rogue to stay low over voice chat doesn't solve the issue. If knockback is more heavily used, you'll weep even more for the single-target heal you can't land because characters are bouncing around. And god forbid that they use random teleports in a boss fight, which will make single-target healing all but impossible in the current model.

Anyhow, I've said my piece. Single target healing does need a fix, and it will have to be sooner rather than later. The basic mechanics of it are a great idea, but not practical, and no amount of changing tactics will make it viable. It's like having a heal based on RNG, which works only so long as you DO have a direct heal that always hits what you want. If that mechanic is on every single-target heal, then it's not reliable, and there will be times where things fail, not due to skill, but due to random factors beyond a person's control.

That doesn't exist for DPS (hits enemy), it doesn't exist for tanks (taunts enemy, enemy is only targeting tank), but it does exist for healers (throws a heal, companion intercedes, tank dies).

lordarkaine · February 2013

Clerics were fine the way they were. The damage a cleric does is low compared to a rogue, I was able to match rogues in the dungeon through AOE damage spamming with very little healing and only because mobs die SO FAST in this game that I was murdering them before the rogue could even REACH them. Soloing a cleric will always have the edge over other classes because it can heal. A class that can keep 5 players alive at once in the face of overwhelming odds is going to BREEZE through solo play regardless. I don't feel it is was much stronger than Guardians, it simply had the heals to keep on going and the nukes typical of a squishy class. Rogues were still embarassing my damage with TRUE dps and I believe Wizards will ultimately devastate cleric damage with TRUE AOE damage. The lack of wizards leaves a missing element for comparison, and while Guardians can't heal themselves, they can potion chug with their greater durability to tank through mob damage. Soloing as a tank has always been a chore in MMOs and most MMOs solve this by allowing a tank class to equip a two-hander, yet in this case they don't want guardians using two-handers.

xarallei · February 2013

shaosyant wrote: »

I have to agree with this. If it's going to be a D&D flavored game I'd like the option to have my cleric play as something that can put out damage, and not get stuck in a healer's role.

Same thing with guardian. If they want to play DPS-style with sword and shield then they should have options to do just as well. The expense should be in healing and tanking ability respectively, and not cries of "nerf."

Pretty much this. The last thing I want is for them do nerf cleric damage to hell making cleric leveling an absolute slow miserable experience.

moses73 · February 2013

I haven't had the chance to play yet. Next weekend of beta for sure, and my 1st class will be cleric and I hope there's an archer class at release

hundredhandslap · March 2013

I'm very glad to hear that healing requires your full attention and some actual strategy. I may actually play a healer for once.

bejita231 · March 2013

lordarkaine wrote: »

Clerics were fine the way they were. The damage a cleric does is low compared to a rogue, I was able to match rogues in the dungeon through AOE damage spamming with very little healing and only because mobs die SO FAST in this game that I was murdering them before the rogue could even REACH them. Soloing a cleric will always have the edge over other classes because it can heal. A class that can keep 5 players alive at once in the face of overwhelming odds is going to BREEZE through solo play regardless. I don't feel it is was much stronger than Guardians, it simply had the heals to keep on going and the nukes typical of a squishy class. Rogues were still embarassing my damage with TRUE dps and I believe Wizards will ultimately devastate cleric damage with TRUE AOE damage. The lack of wizards leaves a missing element for comparison, and while Guardians can't heal themselves, they can potion chug with their greater durability to tank through mob damage. Soloing as a tank has always been a chore in MMOs and most MMOs solve this by allowing a tank class to equip a two-hander, yet in this case they don't want guardians using two-handers.

Problem is I can play and its encouraged to play a cleric with no healing abilities and all dps abilities, because i solo and even group faster that way by just spamming potions and not worrying about clerics lackluster healing abilities, if I choose to make a build with no healing i should be very close to the DPS of the other classes, cleric is not a true healing class as its healing is very weak compared to potions, and you can do all the content by simply mashing potions

If dps classes can just spam potions all day and have better healing than my heal speced cleric, than my dps speced cleric should have the same dps as a dps class

30 Divine Cleric Reporting for Duty

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