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rkv13
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 217 Bounty Hunter
How should PvP work for Clerics?
For Clerics more so than some of the other classes, it strikes me that our feats will make a big difference. Depending on your encounter power choices you can be a scary AoE damage powerhouse, a god-tier-healing energizer-bunny, or even a durable disruptor (defensive feats, Sunburst Knockback, etc).
Should our healing be the major focus of the class? Should we be in the backlines with the Wizards casting spells from a distance, or should be be closer to the fray offering disruption and some light tanking by way of sticking our necks in the line of fire? (note: we wear chainmail, not cloth, so we can take a few hits before going down, and all of our healing abilities affect ourselves as well as our target)
Thoughts?
**Note that I'm asking how should this class play, not so much how do they work as of BW3. I'm interested in theory-crafting, not numbers/ratio quoting.
For Clerics more so than some of the other classes, it strikes me that our feats will make a big difference. Depending on your encounter power choices you can be a scary AoE damage powerhouse, a god-tier-healing energizer-bunny, or even a durable disruptor (defensive feats, Sunburst Knockback, etc).
Should our healing be the major focus of the class? Should we be in the backlines with the Wizards casting spells from a distance, or should be be closer to the fray offering disruption and some light tanking by way of sticking our necks in the line of fire? (note: we wear chainmail, not cloth, so we can take a few hits before going down, and all of our healing abilities affect ourselves as well as our target)
Thoughts?
**Note that I'm asking how should this class play, not so much how do they work as of BW3. I'm interested in theory-crafting, not numbers/ratio quoting.
Post edited by rkv13 on
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They can't heal for nearly as much as any class can DPS, have absolutely no spike healing (even tho every class can spike DPS), and they have the weakest DPS of any class in the game (less single target DPS than GF, TR, or CW, and less AoE DPS than CW or GWF). Their only saving grace is their 1 control spell, which wizards can do better.
too bad it's a daily and before you can load it you're just a moving killcount cake.
Exactly, Hallowed ground right on a tower & basically set up an easy camping location for your party.
Also Clerics are decent at assisting CWs. (They CC setting up an easy target for your AoE target spells.)
The laser of death is also pretty funny when you can kite melee guys for a bit.
Exactly. Clerics will never be the main damage dealer. They have decent burst damage, but their sustained damage isn't anything to brag about. Clerics' main role is support and provide great sustainability, given you can stay alive. While it's your job to keep the team alive, it's also the team's job to keep you alive. This is downside to clerics: If the opponent is smart they'll know to target you, and if you find yourself in a 1 on 1, chances are you're not gonna come out on top (especially against a Trickster Rogue). From my experience, it's best to just disable the opponent, try to gather with your team, and hope someone will notice you're in trouble and help you out. If you're team mates know the value of a cleric, they'll help. But if they don't...well @!$^
Completely disagree. If your team is educated or has a clue, they keep the cleric alive and burn the people trying to kill/cc/disable you.
Admittedly I think Cleric is a class that will take skill to play properly in Neverwinter PvP purely because of the targeting mechanics and lack of burst heals. But I don't think this is a bad thing. Clerics are game changing if your team plays as that, a team.
Righteous Paragon path for the chance to heal when hit, with my Feats based around Extra Health, extra healing, extra divine power and temp hit points.
you won't get many kills as a cleric, but you sure can rack up the points on capturing and assists since you won't die so much with the arsenal of defensive skills and feats.
In my opinion, I do think some adjustment needs to be made so we aren't so gimped one on one when doing something, I think that kind of sucks personally but in a good group I can cause massive carnage.
Rogues have insane burst and all three dps classes have enough CC with no diminishing returns that you will frequently (if not always) be focus CC'd and unable to act before you are dead. You will never last 1v1 against a rogue who has a daily off cd and can faceroll. Any rogue with skill will destroy you. You can hold your own against a CW pretty well until help shows up. GWFs can't burst through your heals at all (at least in the 30s they can't seem to).
As soon as the other team figure out you are the healer, if at least three of them have more than two brain cells to rub together you will be chain CCd on almost every rez. You can get maybe three casts off, if they are instants, before you are dead. The rest of your health bar will be spent not in control of your character.
It's basically the "kill the healer first" strat (which is the right thing to do) but you have no 'oh <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>' buttons, CC breaks. If you run a premade you dps should be able to peel for you (in theory) but in a pug that isn't going to happen.
I have had the most luck ignoring point 2 and just running through to the back line and starting a cap on that. This at least keeps the rezzers off the mid for a little bit while my team does something useful.
Also, if you have a good group they will stay on point then you can be at range dropping some healing love and maybe a hallowed or flame strike to help out. Most puggers will have three guys leave the point to chase one dude with low health though leaving you solo vs the soon-to-be-incoming-rez-of-doom.
I try to keep divine AS up all the time in fights. Sometimes that's literally the only thing I do. Try to build enough divinity to keep it up with a few at-wills/damage attacks and get it up again. If I see an enemy I pop it quickly, it's usually enough to survive the burst damage and control coming your way. Without it you're just dead as soon as someone realizes you're there. Clerics heals make her quite tanky, making it easy to keep 2-3 enemies on you for some time while your allies get a node or come to aid.
Allthough I have lots of fun with her, I don't feel cleric has a huge impact. Pve healing is a lot more fun and your existance matters. You survive, sometimes. You make your allies survive, sometimes. But it's nothing compared to the cc and dmg others ditch out.
My unstructured, off-topic and pointless thoughts. But there.
At wills: brand of the sun and astral seal
encounters: Healing word, Profecy of doom and break the spirit
dailies: Hallowed ground (with the feat that give it the heal) and hammer
How does it work?
This is based on debuffing the enemy and having them get chewed up by DoTs while you heal through their damage. Astral seal procs on your DoT spells allowing you to debuff and run while still getting healed. Combined with hallowed ground nothing can kill you solo.
My feats are all very heal specced and my stats are all wis/cha. I'm only level 50 so I haven't finalized the build yet but the results so far are very impressive. Wizards and rogues now either run from me or die and I've had some good success in 2v1s. My gear is all power, recovery and defense.
AoE damage on a cleric is way too low to be of any worth in PvP, our DoTs actually hit pretty hard (especially when you debuff with PoD) and BtS combined with PoD basically makes anything a free kill.
Once I get to 60 I'll refine the build to hopefully have something that works in PvE and PvP, with skill swaps, of course.
People complaining about a HEALER having lower single target and AoE damage then DD classes, smh. Unreal what people ask for these days...
- At Wills: Brand of the Sun and Astral Seal. Brand lets you tag everything quickly, and Seal means you're cleansing/ tossing out little heals/ Foresight constantly
- Encounters: Forgemaster's Fire, Breaking the Spirit and Astral Shield. The former two are easily targeted DoT's, and Astral Shield is the reason healing clerics are useful
- Dailies: Hallowed Ground and Divine Hammer. I rarely use the hammer. Feated, Hallowed ground is quite nice
- Passives: Foresight and Holy Fervor/ Terrifying Insight. Foresight, when feated and spread about with AS/ Astral Seal is really good damage reduction. I am undecided on which other passive is best
Try not to lead the charge, but you can play fairly aggressively as long as you get AS up. If multiple strikers on the other side decide to dogpile you, you are in trouble if your team doesn't help. So.. it's exactly like PvE
Yes -40% self heal sucks and ofc if i get focus by 3 dps, i gonna die in 5sec. But it means that my caster are free and the dps on me will be CCed.
Here is what I did/do:
I went the Virtuous Cleric (top) feat tree mostly because I use brand of the sun and it helps generate divinity faster, I spec'd a lot of anti-threat and off-tank stuff for PVE content and most of my gear is all about power, defense and recovery (in that order) though I have about 900 in crit also.
Basically your class powers are Prophetic Action and Foresight, Prophetic action means that people blow their big-hits and they just get canceled out by that class power once every 40 seconds. Foresight is for increase damage resistance.
At wills are brand of the sun (D.O.T.) and astral seal.
For my dailies in PVP I have Hammer of fate (H.O.F.) for a targeted big-hit and don't use anything else, though I keep divine armor on the other side I have never used it in PVP.
For my skills I use the divine version of 'Astral Shield' (pointless unless divine), 'forgemasters flame' and 'Break the spirit', you may notice that all my attacks, except H.O.F., are DOT's and the goal is to spread them around liberally while generating divinity and slapping seals on everyone so my team gets heals.. Also, the DOT-ticks heal me, so if I can get seals out and start getting dot's out then I am a fountain of health. (edit: note that the divine forgemasters is our 'big heal' so you can turn the tide with one of those)
Mainly, you need to slap down an Astral shield and then start slinging out seals and forge/break everywhere, so if you have the option to drop in on top of a control point then that can be a good option if you time it so you are not alone. You need enough recovery so that you can cast Astral shield again before it runs out, I have about a 1.5 second window from when it comes off cooldown and needs to be put down again. It is important you keep seals up on players you are keeping DOT's on. Anyway, with this setup I can 1v1 outheal almost any other players damage, unless they have knockbacks or negation for the shield (which then things go south fast). But that is only on TR's and CW's, a GF or a GWF are not any threat at all and with this build another healer will melt 1v1.
Your ideal team is two DC's, two TR's and a CW so if you have 60's in your guild matching that, gather up and go dominate.
What Class Are You?
Did you try to use it with DP? ... best heal without cooldown.
One of the better pvp matches, I wish that this video program didn't cut it off at 10m in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2SzqfJQKUk
What Class Are You?
exactly.
i cannot outheal anyone's dps.
even with TAB on, my heals heal for very little and anyone can out-dps them.
combine that with the -40% self-heal passive, im incapable of holding my own vs a rogue or a good mage.
all im good for is to knockback and chain so we capture a point easier.
pvp atm is proken, there's no diminishing returns on CC, and healing is useless.
we play a DC/GW/GWF/TR/TR combo with my buddies and mostly pvp.
everybody agrees that cleric (and gwf) are not as good as the other 3 classes,
You are doing something wrong or are not at 60 yet, I can post video and end-game score screenshots that say otherwise.
What Class Are You?
First if your healing you shouldn't be slotting in Sun Burst.... Second again unless your under level 45/50 then you don't know how to play this class so don't post things in this forum discouraging players from playing. Thirdly I'm level 55 and I can let a rogue stand there and continuously attack me with 0% chance of killing me by himself. I repeat 0% chance of killing me, so you spitting out some gibber gabber about not being able to heal? Please....
Tell it brother unseenbrawn!
What Class Are You?
You and I run almost the identical build for pvp
against a PUG group, it's pretty much an assured takeover in 2 min.
against skilled groups <as such as can be after 2 weeks> my build is heavily dependent upon action point generation. Which means I need targets to keep regenerating AP's. Have started running into formed groups that will pull back from the middle, let us take it, then charge when HG runs out and I'm left with little AP's. Then they steam roll in
Everything changes with time.
Adapt and overcome !