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Will clerics be a solid dps class?
rebel230
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 4 Arc User
I remember playing a cleric in the original NW game, and it rocked. I can do a wizard but am hopeful it will be a solid dps based class for groups as I prefer not to be a healer.
Post edited by rebel230 on
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Based on what information do you asume that?
Granted the Divinity paragon line of feats can make a very strong healer from the template, and we haven't seen the other 2 Paragon paths' skills (encounter/daily/at-wills)
Its secondary role seems to be buffing and shielding.
There still needs to be some work done, but it could be a very viable AoE dps template
I guess based on the last dev infos like
http://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/1b01hp/iama_lead_combat_designer_kevin_stocker_for/
There was another video with some Information about clerics.....
Part 1: NW-DMFKR9RPL http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?427711-Brunnen-des-Lichts-Teil-1
Part 2: NW-DLBTN8W28 http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?444281-Brunnen-des-Lichts-Teil-2
Icewind Dale campaign Osthafen sehen & sterben (German)
NW-DMC3IOWAE http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?477201-Osthafen-sehen-amp-sterben
This is all true, but it doesn't change the fact that cleric DPS is currently garbage. I get that they want to make them more than healbots, but their DPS spells just plain suck. It's crazy that they do a small fraction of the damage of CW spells and pull 100% more aggro, heals or not.
I made a DPS oriented cleric and a control oriented wizard. The wizard's at-wills were doing significantly more DPS than the cleric's encounter powers.
We will see next weekend how the powers scale per level, if at all.
Brand is decent for an extra DoT. Would be nice if Sacred Flame has a 5' radius, or 10-15' splash. 150DR and improved Div gain (over lance) isn't too bad though.
There is no denying that At-Wills pretty well stink for dps though, but their primary role is to generate Divinity when your powers are on CD. I had 9s-11s on my 3 encounter powers, so when you add positioning etc, not a ton of low dps downtime.
Anyways, I have yet to see a twitch feed or youtube vid of a rogue* or CW that can AoE farm at the rate my DC was. Like zip for downtime as well... except in instances where it can be very prolonged fights.
* I haven't seen much open world usage of the stealth->AOE dagger move they use as an opener almost every time. But from instance play, it was doing ~2k with 10+ levels above my DC and daunting crits for 2700 with zero power on gear other than weapon.
I have no L50 numbers
Best I did was L34 on my reroll, and that's where I was pushing 2.7k AoEs
Polar Ray is his most basic single-target At Will that works a lot like the Divine Laser clerics get, builds chill stacks on foes and freezes them after a few seconds. His daily does ~40k AoE on a really good hit.
Will certainly judge things at 60 and see. I still see a very solid healer/support build in there as well. That Spirit Link alone is pretty awesome, not to mentioning the temp hp feats & shielding abilities.
The Temp HP feats and skills are awesome, especially since the Guardian Fighter has a lot of Temp HP feats and skills as well that synergize very nicely.
Mind you the Cleric does have some heavy hitting skill from my time playing them.
You may be more comfortable playing a Wizard than Cleric if you would never want to be a healer just to be safe.
I would agree with this. The cleric can put out "decent" dps though, and in BW1 and 2 I felt a little over powered. BW3 swung the pendulum to the other extreme. Let's hope BW4 gets us to a balanced state.
Actually I think it might be Leader/Controller. DC's have a lot of AoE and CC, not so much single-target sustained or burst dps.
Just logged off after hitting 50 on my Cleric. DPS in terms of raw numbers is fine, as other posters have said. Cleric does good AE damage, and it's possible to finish top of a dungeon damage-done list simply from that. Especially since pretty much every boss has a "spawn adds" gimmick to it. However the only DPS measure that really matters is sustained on the boss, and (at least for me) I found this disappointingly low. In my late 40s, I would use Brand of the Sun (damage over time) and Astral Seal (heals people hitting the target for a little while) on the boss, then I'd try and round up adds and AE-knockback them over a cliff (if possible) or herd them into an area for slow AE grinding (if no cliff available). Easier than it sounds, because since any sort of healing (even low power healing from Sunburst or Astral Seal) gives aggro on every mob in range, the adds would run straight for me because I'd 'heal' someone before anyone else could grab them. This is mostly good, except in the Wolf Den where the shadow wolves destroyed me.
In groups I ran with Sunburst, Forgemasters and Chains. Chains isn't great, but there are times when you really need to park a group of mobs, and Divine+Chains is a good way of doing that. Soloing, I ran with Brand, Lance of Faith, Sunburst, Searing Ray and Chains. It worked out pretty well, Searing Ray is a great flexible spell - burst on target with Divinity, or in a line without. I could AE down most trash in mob groups in my first two or three spells, leaving me with the one or two tougher monsters. Made for incredibly quick solo levelling.
Caveats:
a) I got up to the Scrying Tower in Chasm. It may change then on.
b) In said area, a boss called 'Tokar' was a real challenge for me. That was the first solo challenge in the game, but my companion got locked into his AE and it was very hard to pick her up and avoid the other AEs.
Your at-will setup would never allow for that, by the sounds of it though. I always used Sacred Flame for better Div generation and the small temp HP buff. Brand is awesome DoT and debuff whith the feats. Astral Seal is very small heals compared to incoming dmg.
Very surprised you didn't have Astral Shield as an encounter. That and Forge means you can take a better dedicated dps move (Daunting) while partied. (Or a good debuff/buff like Break Spirit/Prophecy/Glow)
Div+ Glow and Hallowed ground makes your melee dps into uber killing machines.
Absolutely hate the FF nerf. Was bad enough they removed it from the first half of your leveling career, but now it lasts 4s ... they should have at least modified the CD on it. for a 15s CD that's a laughable uptime percentage for any skill.
Armor pen feat was quite nice once you got 1000+ AP. Decent proc chance when using at-wills. The first tier Paragon one was very nice when it proc'd (long duration) but the frequency/dependency of using Div powers makes it very unreliable.
Didn't get a chance to test the T4 Paragon Feat for uptime/proc rate
Astral Shield is a level 50 power, and I logged off after I hit level 50 - hence I haven't tested it. I grabbed Hammer, ran out, hit a mob with it, and took a break.
Terrifying Insight is quite easy to sustain in a group, with Brand of the Sun being a DOT and Astral Seal having a quick cast time. At least, there are no other At Wills I can see being better for sustaining it. I can always re-apply Seal, and the damage numbers it produced weren't hugely down from Lance of Faith. Any At Will that gets boosted on the third hit was pretty much useless in group boss fights, because of movement issues. It was very rare for me to be able to stand still for long enough to get the third hit in from Lance of Faith or Flame, simply because an AE template would open on me. Playing with Euro lag there is little incentive to take the risk of not moving as soon as I see the template (unless you know the boss has very slow cast times).
I didn't notice Flame producing noticeably more divinity than Lance of Faith or even spamming Seal - possibly that's a build issue. I had a lot of Crit gear stacked along with a relatively balanced Str/Wis/Cha, and it was very rare for me not to max out Divinity after a round of spellcasting. Sometimes a round of Div spellcasting from Sunburst/Forgemasters/Chains would take me straight back up to close-on max Divinity again, so my only issue was cooldown. Less good without adds to hit with spells, but then if there are no adds up the fight is usually not at a dangerous stage. I did sacrifice single target DPS for ability to kill adds,
I didn't like Daunting last beta weekend, and didn't try it this weekend. The number of situations where mobs stayed still was very low, meaning it would sometimes miss due to the cast time. I can see it being useful outside the PUG environment if people start to have disciplined groups, but not with most of the groups I ran with.
I didn't try Glow, and I haven't talked to any melees to see how beneficial Glow + Hallowed is. If it's as good as you say, that's helpful to know - it would need to be quite a hefty DPS boost to beat out damage on Flamestrike against multiple targets, but I can certainly see it being useful in fights where there are few or scattered adds. What sort of damage improvements were they seeing?
Div+Glow radius is quite small, and failed to get any concrete numbers. Would like to test with someone when this goes live. Duration & Damage increase. I would only load Glow for the bosses personally, and tell them to stack up at the beginning (or prebuff them standing on you)
Honestly hadn't noticed Brand keeping a 4 stack up (or Forge's DoT used w/o Div)
Sometimes I had to fraps and replay just to see how often procs were coming up etc. I unfortunately was dealing with an insane ping too
Forgot the moved Shield to 50, was 40s last go around.