Spellplague Cleric

arestin · May 2013

Hi guys,I decided to send out a distress signal after a disastrous run in the epic spellplague dungeon yesterday. I've only successfully completed this dungeon once and that was with 2 clerics in the party.The strategy was to double stack astral shields in the middle of the boss room,with a CW picking the adds off both of us.However,I joined a party yesterday as the only cleric and it was an absolute nightmare.I was flamed by this CW called 'Avanger or something in the party and I'm this close to quitting.This was the layout yesterday.

9.7k GS,running with Divine Emissary and High Prophet,random unicorn and drake accessories.(I'm running on Deistik's crit build)

Skills -Brand of the sun/astral seal - FF/Astral Shield/Sun Burst - Soothe/Foresight

Party Members - 1 rogue , 1 GWF , 2 CWs

The party's strategy was to place astral shield remotely close to the boss,enough for the CW's to dps the boss while clearing the adds off the ledge.90% of the time I'm running for my life but I'm either getting knocked back by accident or mobbed real bad.I died like 7-8 times on the way to the boss fight too. I've done all the tier 1 dungeons including mad dragon and even a 4 person grey wolf den. I've also done multiple times of epic spider and karra runs.

Maybe I shouldn't have gone on that run with tier 1 equips but I didn't expect things to be so drastic. Perhaps, any of you pro clerics out there can advise me on the things I should have done or avoided.Thank you in advance for the help.

deistik · May 2013

Been a while since I've done Spellplague... but if I remember right, we just kept 2 dps on the boss the whole time he's up, and sat at the opposite side to deal with adds (you need to be kind of far from the boss or the adds get buffed). The dps shouldn't need very many if any heals (unless they're terrible at moving).

Myself and our GF managed the adds while the CW threw all of them in the goop

It's a kite/tank heavy fight, so come prepared for that.

weeatdimsum · May 2013

You don't seem to have done anything wrong. But I can't say that for 100% since I don't actually know what went down in that run. However, ask what the plan is before you do it and, if you don't agree with it, voice your objections. Most parties won't risk loosing their Clerics for this dungeon and will try to make their Cleric feel as (relatively) safe as possible. I wouldn't risk fighting or pulling the adds any closer than the back 2/3s of the field though. Any closer and they become more annoying to deal with. In that final stretch, I've had alot of success playing Duck Duck Goose with the adds just running on the edge of my Astral Shield.

Whether or not you're using T1 or T2 gears is a matter of preference from my own experience. Just keep trekking. Aggro and threat changes coming soon.

arestin · May 2013

@ deistik - Thanks man,saw both your guide and video,they're both awesome.There were 2 CWs beside me the whole fight but I really think they made me 'circle' too close to the boss.It was literally the worst run I ever had,with the worst abuse I received in a party.

@weeatdimsum - I did,I asked them what they wanted before the fight.It's 1 thing not being appreciated for what you're doing in the party and it's another for being hurled insults when the party died.I can't wait for the new changes to come,where the GF can do their job and I don't have to be the multi-utility guy.

dariyanorn · May 2013

@arestin, I don't understand why you (or rather your party decided to) put the Astral Shield close to the boss. Usually I run this with two Clerics or 1 Cleric and 1 Tank, and having 2 CWs is highly recommended. Single Rogue on boss. The idea is to knock the adds of the platform, the problem is that when the adds are close to the boss he empowers them - making them unknockable; so the way I've always done it (in many various groups) is to stand close to the edge diagonally away from the boss on the side, not too close so he doesn't empower them and not too far so we can sometimes throw Astral Seal on the boss and pick up loose adds bothering the Rogue. Final phase can get hectic since they are all empowered automatically, if it's a good group with 2 Clerics you might be able to just stand in the middle and stack Astral Shields, if not then some kiting may be done.
Either way I have seen my share of people being impatient and flaming others, I have both ran this dungeon 1-shotting every boss without a single wipe to wiping to last boss endlessly, it's all about the whole party working in sync and knowing what they are doing. I think you just got unlucky, being a single Cleric on that fight without a tank to handle adds or 2 good CWs is TOUGH.

arestin · May 2013

@ daryanorn - I feel so much better knowing that it's not fully my fault that the party died.The main reason why I placed my circle there is because of that annoying CW screaming at me.(apparently,they think that astral shield do not have cooldown and that we can just walk right through 20 mobs.) As you said,it was a terrible run with a lousy bunch of party members.I'll take note of your pointers next time I run again.

getyoazzinmyvan · May 2013

I did it with Myself (cleric) 2 CW's,Rogue,GWF. Circle in middle, Rogue GWF on boss. When boss went down GWF and Rogue helped on adds. No problems whatsoever.

hidusx · May 2013

The skill of the CW determines whether this fight is a cake walk or a nightmare. If they are reliable with their mob punting you can pretty much eat a sandwich and drop down astral shield every once in a while between bites. If they are not consistent then you are going to be running for your life from start to finish. Unfortunately it seems the majority of CW's you come across in PUGs are absolutely useless when it comes to punting - missing most of them/sending mobs in random directions etc.

getyoazzinmyvan · May 2013

hidusx wrote: »

The skill of the CW determines whether this fight is a cake walk or a nightmare. If they are reliable with their mob punting you can pretty much eat a sandwich and drop down astral shield every once in a while between bites. If they are not consistent then you are going to be running for your life from start to finish. Unfortunately it seems the majority of CW's you come across in PUGs are absolutely useless when it comes to punting - missing most of them/sending mobs in random directions etc.

A lot of Cw's seem to think they are there to do damage. I mean granted they can put up decent #'s but when I started doing Tier 2's on my CW I quickly realized that going straight DPS isn't gonna cut it anymore. I'm hoping when the next class comes out its a straight up Ranged DPS like the Rogue. Hopefully the CW players will move to that and leave the ones who actually want to "control" mobs to be the CW's

ausdoerrt · May 2013

Just squelch the offenders so you never have to see em again, and move on.

justiniand1 · May 2013

The DPS CWs seem to be the single biggest detriment to parties I've come across. One of them even had to the gall to tell me to L2P and stop concentrating on 'Cleansing' everyone and just heal, I decided to be the bigger man and not point out the fact that cleanse would only tick on 10% of my heals.

ausdoerrt · May 2013

^ Ahahaha, that's golden.

/off-topic The best CW builds I've seen so far focus on debuffing, that Ray of Enfeeblement is amazing.

kattefjaes · May 2013

justiniand1 wrote: »

The DPS CWs seem to be the single biggest detriment to parties I've come across. One of them even had to the gall to tell me to L2P and stop concentrating on 'Cleansing' everyone and just heal, I decided to be the bigger man and not point out the fact that cleanse would only tick on 10% of my heals.

I'd still vote for 95% of TRs in general. At least a CW might accidentally AoE and hit/slow a few adds if you kite them over him. TRs tend to go and stick to the boss, standing in red circles, tunnel vision button mashing all single target and sweaty, hypnotised by the numbers. Generally this is followed by handy advice like "HAEL ME U F*CKIN ****", or if the TR is of a more poetic bent, helpful advice to stop hitting things and "just focus on healing, k?".

That said, the other 5% are a pleasure to play with, they're HAMSTER when they have situational awareness and know how the game works.

arestin · May 2013

I really appreciate so much encouragement,it makes me wanna give the cleric another shot.The stories about other CWs and TRs really crack me up too.

chonir01 · May 2013

Depends on the CW as others have said.

2DC is easy mode and the CW can be totally bad and you'll still walk through the encounter. With a single DC though your CW needs to be decent (Or 2 CW's that are semi-decent will work)

I've been through the dungeon many times as a solo cleric, and a few with 2DC teams and how much pain you get depends on your CW's. The last run I had in there was not good, the CW was pretty bad. You can generally tell before you get to the boss though how it'll go. The entire run I had mobs swarming me, the CW was doing next to nothing to keep them off. Seldom seen a black hole, the rare knockbacks were terrible with mobs just scattering and not actually being controlled. The 2 rogues were tunneling the biggest baddie there and only the GWF was making any effort to protect me, and to thier shame the rogues berated him for not *DPSin the boss*

The last boss was messy but first attempt we wiped @2%? 1%? Very little ... It was painful, I chugged a ton of pots and kited non-stop, but at least the GWF was trying to help me out some. Second attempt, the rogue leader starts screaming *Cleric get closer to the boss* .. which I totally ignore, I'm close enough to FmF the boss I have no reason to be closer. The CW still suxs at adds and the Rogue is yelling *all DPS boss* ... the GWF (who admitted being kinda new here) did as he was told, leaving me and the CW with adds. Yer I died pretty freaking quick.

Back at the campfire the rogue is telling us we are all terrible, the GWF is asking if he should help out on adds since I am being swarmed .. to which they say, *no all DPS boss*. At this point I rage. I admit it, I raged. The two rogues and the CW were in the same guild .. the GWF could obviously see there was an issue with add control and was trying to help. I told them next time to bring a CW who can do his job and left.

Like I said at the start. One GOOD CW is all you need, or 2 that are OK and you can solo heal this without too many issues. Get a BAD CW who just punts things around the platform (Not off - Just around the platform) and suddenly you have 20+ adds eating your face and its gonna be a bad day.

From your OP I think you had 2 BAD CW's. The ones who think thier DPS actually matters. It dont. My wife plays a CW. Its a CONTROL wizard. Your main roll as a CW in a group is to control the mobs. Lifts / punts / black holes / steal time ... She does great on Damage over a run, but she understands that her damage means nothing on bosses. Shes not there to kill the boss, shes there to control the boss adds while the rogue kills the boss. If she did ZERO dmg but controlled the adds the outcome would be the same - boss dead.

tldr - too many freaking *DPS CW DUH* in this game.

arestin · May 2013

@chonir01

I'm glad that you left the party before the boss,else you would be the one starting this thread.All other clerics can learn from this,if you're entering an add intensive dungeon get a trustworthy CW first.Hopefully,they'll really fix the aggro problem in the new patch.

mewbrey · May 2013

Don't know if this was covered but fighting near the boss is often a bad idea if your a solo cleric on the final boss is spellplague, as the "zombie" minions will be buffed by the boss causing them to be immune to CC and deal 50% more damage pretty much nullifying your astral shield, if you fight beyond the middle eye i.e the opposite side of where the boss spawns they will be out of range from the boss to be buffed.

Just a warning however, on the final phase you have to deal with them enraged as you cannot move far enough away from the boss to keep them away from getting buffed, but it makes the first 75% of the fight much easier if your not having to deal with enraged zombies.

Edit:
Just re-read the posts and noticed its already been covered, but will leave information here, sorry!

trickyfloki · May 2013

Here is some advice from a CW on this fight. All a cleric has to do is heal enough to pull aggro on mobs spawning so i don't have to run around too much. Other than that don't get hit by knockback and fall off and the rest should be up to the CW and DPS. This comes with one big caveat though, during the last phase clerics need to put on their running shoes and pull all aggro and just jog around the platform. This lets the dps and me (the cw) kill the boss faster making all the mobs despawn. As other have stated this fight is easy with a good CW and a nightmare with bad ones.

Also imho best group comp for this fight is cleric cw rogue x2 and (random member). I find doing it with a second cw makes my job actually harder and doing it with less than 2 rogues makes fight last too long, too much time for mistakes to happen.

unspecifiederror · May 2013

If you've played other MMOs you are probably aware of that special bond between Healer and Tank. I don't just mean in mechanics, but the players behind the characters. Healers and Tanks usually get to a point where they say things like "My Tank" or "My Healer" and are referring to one particular individual. The extreme interdependence between the classes creates this sort of bond. You get those people saying LFG 3 DPS because they ALWAYS run together. The Healer + Tank combo is also what makes or breaks runs.

In Neverwinter I've noticed it's Cleric and Control Wizard. I have a CW I almost always run with and a few others I run with on occasion. In all the runs I've done with a bunch of different group compositions the only person I really care about is the CW, or one of the CWs. I often say "I'm the Cleric, I've got my CW, I don't really care who the other 3 people are." (Spider is an exception, must have at least 1 rogue)

If/when you run with a really good CW and then run with a bad CW you'll notice the difference right away. The biggest difference between the two is a good CW is a CONTROL Wizard. A bad CW is trying to out-dps rogues.

chonir01 · May 2013

arestin wrote: »

@chonir01

I'm glad that you left the party before the boss,else you would be the one starting this thread.All other clerics can learn from this,if you're entering an add intensive dungeon get a trustworthy CW first.Hopefully,they'll really fix the aggro problem in the new patch.

I did actually send the GWF a tell apologizing for leaving, he's the one I felt bad for. He admitted he was kinda new to the instance yet was still the only one trying to protect me. The two rogues tunneling the boss I really did'ent care about.

Now Maby I was abit harsh on the CW and he was learning / new, thats possible. But when his guildeys started calling us out for being *bad* and telling me that my circle needs to be nearer the boss (So the adds can become immune to the odd punts the CW was getting off???) Its time to call it a day.

Gotta note that no one else was dying, just me b/c I was swarmed with adds with no control. As I said in the above post the first attempt was damm near a kill, b/c the GWF ignored the boss and did his best to control the HAMSTER on me. As soon as he left (under instruction from the party leader) it just went to hell.

I play my wifes CW enough to know that its not always possible to maintain 100% black hole uptime, sometimes your encounters are on CD for a second, sometimes you dont hit enough mobs to build 100% AP right away, I'm not screaming b/c I expected perfect play here. Just when he did punt, maby 1-3 adds would go in the drink and the other 10 would scatter over the platform and rush straight back to me. Thats just not good lol.

As Unspec noted, DC + CW is the core of a group in NWN. A good DC and CW will make or break a group. I love my 2 CWs, even though I give them HAMSTER when I'm kiting for my life, they at least focus on keeping my sorry HAMSTER alive

Spellplague Cleric

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