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How to get your Cleric to heal you and how healing works
castertroyt79
Member Posts: 58
For those that had tried out this class, I'm sure you would had realized that Cleric, being the only healer in this game heals very differently than conventional MMO.
Most of our heals are small heals and a big Hot. If you see a big golden circle/seal/mark on the target, that's our indirect way of healing you. That is basically a debuff on the enemy that when you hit them, you get healed. Many of our attacks generate heals as well. The HoT builds up slowly...and most of us won't get any burst heal unless we are in a certain stance (called divinity), in which we need to use our skills to attack/heal to build it up, and we can burn it up faster than gasoline. Also, we need to manually target you to heal you...and it doesn't help if you're in the frey.
Do your fellow cleric a favor. When you need heal, dodge out of the combat to an area with no obstructions, then start jumping. It's easy for us to notice you that way, and throw the appropriate heal at you. Don't get all emo at us when we don't heal you right away...our HoT contains only 3 charges and chances are that we ran out of charge. Even though we can cast 1 charge of HoT per second, each of the charges takes 15 seconds to recharge.
Most of our heals are small heals and a big Hot. If you see a big golden circle/seal/mark on the target, that's our indirect way of healing you. That is basically a debuff on the enemy that when you hit them, you get healed. Many of our attacks generate heals as well. The HoT builds up slowly...and most of us won't get any burst heal unless we are in a certain stance (called divinity), in which we need to use our skills to attack/heal to build it up, and we can burn it up faster than gasoline. Also, we need to manually target you to heal you...and it doesn't help if you're in the frey.
Do your fellow cleric a favor. When you need heal, dodge out of the combat to an area with no obstructions, then start jumping. It's easy for us to notice you that way, and throw the appropriate heal at you. Don't get all emo at us when we don't heal you right away...our HoT contains only 3 charges and chances are that we ran out of charge. Even though we can cast 1 charge of HoT per second, each of the charges takes 15 seconds to recharge.
Post edited by castertroyt79 on
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/fellow cleric
The hard part is Clerics are a moving class, most times becoming offtanks for the trash. If people realize clerics are SUPPOSED to be DPSing and stop asking for direct heals and stand on the aoe heal+hit the mob with the buff and most important stay off red circles they will be just fine. Don't expect every cleric to burst save you just because you want to top the dps chart and you wanna cower behind the tank's shield. My personal rule is melee gets no direct cast hots, Tank gets it 100% plus aoe field, melee near tank = get healed from the aoe plus every 3rd hit heals anyone near the mob. thats why i keep extra hot charges for ranged dps, but the golden rule is red circle death is your own fault, don't blame the cleric.
For those who play Age of Conan, if you played a tempest of Set, you will feel right at home.
Astral shield is seriously the most overpowered skill in the game, and is a 100% must have for cleric. Big blue aoe, 50% damage reduction (assuming you are using foresight with the 5% increase passive) and about a 700 heals per second as long as you stand in it. That is almost twice as much as healing word, and its a huge aoe and a damage resistance buff.
Sunburst is amazing because it builds your action points extremely fast if you hit the max number of targets with it.
DCs are not there to heal you so that you can stand in red circles and continue to DPS. Healing is largely a personal function. Unlike games like WoW, Rift, TOR and EQ2, potions are a core part of gameplay, and you are expected to use them in group play. In other words, the presence of a devoted cleric is not a replacement for having the proper type of potions ready. If you get too low, it is your responsibility to heal yourself.
I'll totally send you a healing word when I can, but don't rely on that. My first priority is the tank, for that's the one who should be taking the vast majority of the damage. Even if you're not a rogue, get behind the mob. Let me have clear access to the tank, for crying out loud. And, for Sune's sake, stay in the big circle that I just laid down on the ground.
Actually that doesn't help as I've seen how people just crowd around the front of the enemy taking hits they don't need to take so everyone's bar shows.
Completely agree with OP. That Lrn2ply chant that we keep seeing DPSers yell at everyone all the time, also applies to them. Lrn2avoid. Dodge is there for a reason, it's not just an optional button. Move away from the rest of your melee friends if you get down to half and we'll hit you with heals because we can actually target you then. Quit standing in the arcs of the attacks these enemies do just for the heck of it because that makes you take unnecessary splash damage.
It's no different then in other action mmo's cept those mmos usually have some AOE effect that players have to learn to say within to receive healing no matter what's happening. If you're not in the healing zone in those style games you're not getting healed it's that simple and the same thing applies here.
The only improvement in healing I can suggest that the devs change is the divinity beam. Make it so it goes to the lowest hitpoint player automatically. The rest we can handle normally but sometimes someone moves the wrong way and gets in the way of the beam.
And finally, this is Trinity Lite people that's why when you do a random pug you can end up with 4 rogues and a GWF in a party because you're supposed to be able to dodge trick CC and use pots, that's how it's made.
/fellow cleric who's done plenty of healing in action mmo games before
After my first cleric and the ****estorm that is cleric agro (every cleric is off tank in NW) and failure of DPS to nuke the adds gathered in a rather nice circle around me for AOE goodness,I've decided to run with a CC/DD build (healing lite) and take full responsibility of her well being into my own hands.
It's only low level atm (25 or so) but it's survivability has gone through the roof (both solo and party)in comparison to my old healbot and it's made handling adds a lot more manageable.
I don't subscribe to the DC being a healer prime as it can mitigate a lot more damage than it can heal.
I don't carry HW anymore because it is really not all that helpful in epics.
Learn to dodge.
Learn to deal with ads so I do have the divinity and the time to put down shield, use sunburst, etc.
Learn to sit in that blue nice area... it protects you and heals you. I take great care to try to place it to cover the most people, but if you keep choosing to run out of it and stay in red areas... There's no cure for stupid, that's what I'm saying.
Learn to use pots. I use them. A lot. You should too. You've somehow managed to be at 30% hp at end of a fight? Drink a pot, don't be silly and enter the next fray like that.
Learn to attack things that I place seal on. See, if you don't let me get swarmed, I have time to put seal on everything around so when you leave the nice comfort of the shield to deal with ads, you're still getting healed.
For the love of all that is holy, please do not leave shield and stop attacking seal-ed enemies just to sit in a corner jumping. Pop a pot and continue to attack an enemy with seal and stop sitting in the red aoe to continue DPS-ing.
It is quite shocking how many melee I have seen sitting in the red aoe a boss does all around him... SIGH.
My cleric is a DPS cleric that depends on passives to heal party... crits causing heals, seals causing heals, shield down, etc.
Other than that I am on ad killing patrol. I sit in my own shield and kill archers/casters, any swarms, etc. There's not a lot of nice AOE dps though really. If none of the dps help with ads, it's still too much at some bosses. And having no wizard is a headache.
I'm getting into the habit of leaving dungeons if I see no wizard, some GWF do a good job and some rogues are on ads like there's no tomorrow... but some fights just require AOE and I've known too many bad GWF to trust them anymore. Sad state.
When a group deals well with ads, they are getting heals in over-abundance. When they do not, I just don't have enough time to do much of anything but try to survive.
I strongly advise you to not go into Mad Dragon without at least 1 CW and 1 GWF.
Was in Mad Dragon for the first time yesterday, party wipe. First wipe was my fault as I was replying a message while gathering at the gates...didn't expect to start in range to the dragon's 1-hit kill....when we tried on the second round, I was mostly being chased around by adds while the rest of the team is focusing on hitting the dragon... I have to waste my heals on myself and kept kiting the mobs in order to survive. Needless to say, I died and the tank blamed the failure on me. In fact, I seldom see players helping to take care of the adds...caring more for their DPS stat at the end of the dungeon...which gives nothing other than to boost your epeen (correct me if I'm wrong).
So my second advice to players is to help control the adds so that both clerics and CW can focus their effort on keeping you guys alive and dps-ing the boss. Dead Cleric will usualy lead to wipe...wipe leads to bad morale, bad morale leads to leaving the dungeon, which leads to an incomplete dungeon, which means no epeen booster.
Between damage reductions and potions, it's pretty easy to survive about anything. Cleric healing is just icing on the cake.
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If you're not serious enough to be using voice chat, there's lots of stuff to do besides Epics. Do those instead, they don't need this level of coordination.
Nobody gets to just stand there and let somebody else worry about their HP in this game. I think that makes it more fun, and in the long run that's going to make more people play healers, and more people bother to get GOOD at playing healers. Healers in some games could just as easily be a multiboxed second account, healing yourself.