test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
PLEASE Fix Threat With Cleric...
ms18instachi
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 9 Arc User
I am so tired of casting 2 healing spells and having every mob in 10 miles target me.
As a Cleric I spend half of my time trying to run away from mobs that are wailing on me...
If tanks had 50% of my threat It would be nice.
As a Cleric I spend half of my time trying to run away from mobs that are wailing on me...
If tanks had 50% of my threat It would be nice.
Post edited by ms18instachi on
0
Comments
Clerics naturally have way too much threat or tanks either can't or don't taunt enough. Also its made me realise the faux difficulty with encounters in NWO by which I mean the devs solution to harder bosses is throw mode adds in rather than any form of decent mechanics (I really hope this changes).
I have all the +threat powers and feats
She has all the -threat powers and feats
We have done some extensive testing with isolated mobs, to see just how it works.
ONE heal will often override the GFs Mark ability if he fails to do any damage to the marked target before the heal goes off
I have flanked a marked target, and spammed my Aggrivating Strike attack, and have been unable to pull threat off of her after her heals have ticked enough times. She will often stand there doing nothing, with me being unable to pull aggro off of her, no matter what skills I use.
Im stuck using knockdowns and stuns to mitigate damage since I cant hold aggro.
The ONLY power so far that seem to work, (and this is just in a 1 vs 1 fight), is Knights Challenge. And thats because the mechanics of this specifically say "temporarily locking your target in 1 on 1 combat with you"
Something is wrong with either GFs being able to generate threat, or how much threat clerics are building up.
So what exactly are your CWs and GWFs doing?
This is what makes the fights exciting! I love how the game play is more about managing adds with tons of CC while protecting your healer with a more fragile aggro system. If GFs could just run around and give every add a quick bonk on the head for permanent aggro, this game would be a whole lot less interesting.
i shouldnt have to depend on GWF or CW for anything. What if im in a party that doesnt have either as can happen very often with the queue system. I understand having a few mobs go after me but during some of the epics, there are easily over 30 tough mobs after me. that is just ridiculous. I rolled a healer, i want to heal, not be "tanking". Tanking being a relative term because the actual tanks cant really tank anyways.
If it takes a combination of every other class to pull aggro from a healer then something is definitely wrong.
Perhaps I should roll a rogue like almost 70% (joking estimate) of the rest of the playerbase and not have to deal with aggro at all.
The funny thing is they nerfed cleric healing on self by 40% because we were using less pots than anyone else (though no doubt it actually had more to do with pvp whines), now at 60 doing dungeons I think clerics are probably using the most. If they don't fix aggro, increase coin drops in dungeons (seriously, sometimes I get 1 copper a drop) or remove the righteousness debuff then sooner or later I'll be out of gold and unable to continue unless I go and grind for gold off random mobs...
A GF marks a target with any ability (Tab, Enforced Threat ect) and the Mark lasts UNTIL the marked Target HITS THE GF ONCE. And then the mark is gone and the GF no longer has a threat buff. Now blocking attacks avoids losing the mark but you cant block all the attacks from a group of trash mobs it is only reliable against a single target, As the Tab power only marks a single target and it is easier to block all attacks from a single target and dance around them a little bit if needed.
THERE IS NO TAUNT POWER IN THE GAME. (I don't really think knights challenge taunts it just makes alot more threat from those double damage strikes) Marking is not taunting it is a buff for the GF that lets them generate more threat.
The GWF has 0 threat moves. All of there marking powers make marked targets take more damage Until they land one successful hit on the GWF. All threat buffs in the sentinel path, either are completely glitch and do nothing or just so unreliable they are useless. Increased threat on sure strike at will only on a crit. Increased threat on Daring shout and Come and get it moves that do no damage on there own. And increased threat on Slam. Probably the most reliable one but its a daily power and thus much harder to use.
This is why more players have been avoiding bringing any fighter type to T2 dungeon in favor of 2 Clerics, 2 Wizards and a Rogue.
My main is DC, I have not built for low threat... I am built for for recovery and have had 0 problems so far.
That said, based upon your testing, this sounds like a serious problem.
I have played every class so far, with most race combos(as is my custom for beta testing) and have settled on Cleric and Rog(Just dropped my tank, probably wont go HWF since I have always loved rogues, but /shrug) and finally got my buddy to kick his kid off so he can finally get into this on his new PC. I look forward to threat dueling with both of my characters.
Thanks again for the valuable report, most comments fall FAR short in when making claims on these forums, people never seem to want to take the time to form theories and test/prove them, let alone communicate them properly... hense the degeneration of topics to pages and pages of "this" comments, or uninformed complaints that cant even be straight forward about simply being whiny.
Anyway, its been a pleasure and keep up the good work you 2!
Mirror Ja'kreen
X'Tem
Active RPer
PFdev suppose Tank work = another dimension balance. :mad:
But we should depend on the GF? What if you are in a party that doesn't have one, or a cleric for that matter?
i wouldn't get too comfortable with this.
they're gonna slam AS with the nerf bat; whether they fix the damage reduction stacking or straight-out nerf (d)AS' healing, something is going to change.
OT: allegedly, if you unequip then re-equip ALL your armor when you start a dungeon, you have significantly less threat.
no, this is crappy talents and buggy mechanichs
Please make it possible to play a healer. Thanks!
I don't run a duel cleric set up my friends and I have 1, me. I was frustrated like most of you about the agro and trying to kite, then I figured out that, kiting is actually worse than standing and facing a lot of things. The reasons why a lot of this trash is high dps is because of combat advantage. If you face the mobs and try to not let them get behind you and move around to avoid AoE and hard attacks. I don't mean dodge either, that's for emergency, I mean stop attacking and let the animation finish and just move over and face them more.
This may sound nuts but with the agro + a taunt "that breaks if the war gets hit" so.....hold agro and let the man taunt, but not get hit. I stand in my Astral Sheild, my astral seal grants 5% damage reduction + 10% healing increase, shield grants regen + another 10% damage reduction, my enchantment stacks 3x for 15% more damage reduction and the taunt reduces damage as well.
My healing, is increased from temp hp's 10% so I use the at-will that grants temp hps and seal. I tanked the trash at piriate boss Teir 2 with the tank and a CW while the rouge dealt with the boss and me hitting him with healing word and a AoE- emergency heal when he miss dodged a hard attack. The smaller mobs like the dam imps in the dragon T2, and the spiders in priestess of Lloth T2 are a mother, because its hard to keep them in front of you they are fast and "always" try for your backside, but they do about 80-85% less damage if you try to keep them in front of you and attack to keep the heals rolling.
I actually even considered trying another respect and fitting in the trait "allies ignore 80% of damage from combat advantage for 5 seconds after you heal them" this seemed to work but again, you have to stand and fight not run, even strafing gives them combat advantage and they pwn your face off.
Other times I have used sun burst to fight what is in front of me and stand near a cliff of ledge for when they do get behind me I knock them off. I realize how nuts it seems, but I was amazed when I didn't try to kite it was actually easier, but being a healer mostly in MMO's it is hard to get over the " ok don't freak out" face the stuff position it like a melee and put seals on everything and try to get of my primary attack when possible, right now 30% defence 4% deflection 28% critical "crit hits and heals proc AoE heals on target crit for 15% of hit or heal" add in another 5% reduction from seal 15% reduction from my weapon enchant 2% damage reflect from armor enchant "lesser" and 10% from astral shield = 30% defense +30% damage reduction +4% deflection. Try to tank it and heal yourself with 10% healing increase on seal + HoT from Astral Sheild + AoE heals for 15% of crits + 10% healing increase from temp hps from at-will+ healing word = you don't die, but burst from combat advantage will kill you running away "or strafing away".
The skills I use with a mind toward threat generation are:
Tier3 Threatening Rush for both mobility as well as marking the maximum number of mobs possible.
Tier3 Enforced Threat, talented to reduce cd to 13s for attempting to turn mob(s) back to me when I inevitably loose threat.
Mark, for both pulling and refreshing/placing a mark on specific targets out of melee distance.
Aggravating Strike to generate threat while blocking
I also use T3 Tide of Iron as my 2nd at will to both damage and replenish my guard meter. My two remaing encounter skills are currently Lunging Strike and Griffon's Wrath, both at T3. I intend to put points into adding the enhanced threat generation to Lunging Strike but haven't gotten there yet but I utilize both to attempt to generate maximum threat via the damage delt component of mark when against single targets as well as interrupt with Griffon's Wrath as opportunity allows. My dailys are Villain's Menace and Terrifying Impact again for threat generation vs marked targets and a situational interrupt/distance touching of mobs. Class features are Shield Talent as my guard meter seems to go down woefully fast and Enhanced Mark in an attempt to maximize the use of Threatening Rush, Mark and since it also X's mobs Enforced Threat (though I admit to not being clear if that's actually a legitimate mark or just the game saying you pissed this mob off just now).
I have been tanking skirmishes as well as dungeons, since my guild is small and we do not have enough people at close enough to the same level to fill our own group we always see pugs. However, my friend rolls as a cleric and while I am not even close to versed in the specifics of his class and build I do know he has focused on threat mitigation where available up to his level/points. I have also queue'd alone and run with full pugs and in every instance maintaining control of mobs has always been an absolute struggle. Large group encounters invariably result in mad dashes to the cleric in an attempt to pull multiple adds off and failing that attempting to stun/interrupt/knock down to try and mitigate the damage. The other issue I have which I find incredibly frustrating is that even at my level and running through my entire battery of skills I can not turn a mob, one on one, from a level 15 tank pet. If I manage to succeed in turning the mob away the pet will simply turn it right back to themself. Keeping in mind that these are pugs and one simply has to face the reality that people KNOW my threat is straight fubar I have resigned myself to people comming into them with their tank pets out... they know I can't protect them and don't have a leg to stand on in asking them to pull out dps or cleric pets. Tanking is my preffered play style so the choice of first character was a foregone one, every other aspect of the game is incredibly fun for me and I find myself looking forward to playing more than I have in a fair while. I sincerely hope that this is an issue being addressed as it's not only overgeneration of threat by clerics at work. It's a severe lack of effective threat generation/control on the part of the GW that is the real issue IMO. I hope the detail can be of some help here, if I can provide more to assist in improving this issue please feel free to contact me and I'll provide any details I may be able to share.
-edit: I also make a point of checking the list for most damage taken and I can at least say that I have yet to fail in topping that but it does make me sad when the next person down took over half as much as I did. It makes me cry little panda tears...
That is certainly a method of doing it as the game stands but it's a bandaid fix, not a solution and not a terribly viable one when the tank pets continually turn the boss back to face the group time after time. Give me sufficient threat and mitigation to gather the mobs and place them appropriately so the cleric can do their job of healing instead of kiting and the dps can aoe nuke to burn the adds and then focus on the boss.
This isn't like WoW where you have 2-3 tanks just grab up EVERYTHING while everybody else just nukes and smashes their keyboards.
A lot of Wizards are not doing their part on TOP of probably Guardians not doing enough to hold stuff. There's a lot of CWs that don't freaking CC or knock back sufficiently. DPS can sit with a few mobs on top of them while Astral Shield/Hallowed Ground/Divine Armor is up.
I don't know if overheals generate threat but sometimes if the cleric is not doing enough they heal too much too fast and the threat becomes a problem off the bat.
Every player would attack the fragile wizard or the annoying cleric.
The artificial intelligence should behave likewise.
I applaud Cryptic for that brave decision.
But the problem exists.
The solution:
- Reduce threat generation from healing.
- Increase damage and therefore understandable threat generation of fighters.
- Give defenders more group control as part of their powers. But no stupid taunt against monsters.
PS.
Do not care about 1v1 PVP. This game is D&D RPG and MMO.
If people want fair 1v1, then they should pick the same class.
Only thing i tested how broken threat is if anytime u heal and grab mobs they won' stop chasing u i went like across full map still had same adds after me until i hit small town/village this is terrible in normal mmo this shouldn't happen they should give up after certain distance, but nope if u heal they can chase u forever.
Games still in beta i can see theres still issues to address, i hope they fix this soon i don't want just band aid like taking off armor, reequip sooth, etc.
1. Many cleric heals require an attack. Which means in addition to healing threat, the also gain damage threat. This seems to be one of the big issues of why its hard for even a GF to pull things off a cleric at times. If GFs dont have a taunt, then indirect heals really shouldnt have any threat.
2. One of the clerics main healing abilities, puts a debuff on the target that gives health to anyone that attacks it. Imagine this, in a group of 5, there are 4 people getting heals every time they attack the target. 4 people getting heals is 4x the healing threat for the cleric.
3. Most boss fights have waves of adds. Without enough AoE dps in your group, there wont be any way to pull them off the cleric often enough to keep the cleric alive. Especially if all 4 group members keep getting heals from HoTs as well as each time they attack targets with the debuff. (See #2).
4. More often than not, the only way to pull a target off a cleric, is to kill it, rather than to gain aggro on it. This is a flawed mechanic from a tanks perspective. However, a high DPS class like a rogue SHOULD be able to pull threat off a single mob that is chasing a cleric, but often times kills it before they manage to do this. This again is most likely due to the cleric earning double threat from both the damage they do AND the heals they do. (the rogue is getting healed each time he attacks the mob that is on the cleric, so its almost counter productive). Whats the saying? 1 step forward, 2 steps back - basically.
they wear mail for a reason. they're not supposed to be, "stand back, heal, never get into contact with enemies." you will pull aggro. you can handle it. if you spec correctly, you will pull less, but you will never "never pull aggro."
working as intended.
They also aren't meant to pull as much hate as they do, people have shown that there is clearly buggy mechanics around Cleric's threat generation being way to high. Also it only takes one AoE heal to sometimes get more than half of the mobs following you. I also think there is a slight issue with how many adds spawn. Naturally it's done on the bosses Health but rather than a constant flow of adds it seems that the game spawns about 15 adds at once what is another big part of the issue.