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Hi, I'm a Cleric and I object!

inserthealsinsertheals Member Posts: 8 Arc User
edited June 2013 in The Temple
Hokay, I know we've seen umpteen amounts of doom and gloom on the forums these days but, I want to add my 183 cents into the convo.

I've run a bunch of CN's today to check it out, I was solo healing CN all day errrryday before the patch, and today I've wiped an unbelievable amount of times.

They seem to want to diversify group make up by making each class viable in dungeoning (fair enough) hence the nerf to double AS to make it not imba (fair enough) what isn't fair enough is 6 seconds where I'm scrambling to keep everyone alive, BUT when the AS finally gets up it has to heal everyone back up to full health and mitigate the damage that's coming in. It simply cannot cope! Not to mention that, but our other skills are barely able to keep people alive during that 6 second downtime. But that is another issue entirely.

I AM PERFECTLY FINE WITH THE NERF TO DOUBLE AS. BUT PLEASE LET OUR SHIELD LAST FOR 15 FREAKING SECONDS!

This has been my 183 cents worth.
Post edited by insertheals on

Comments

  • zephryl1zephryl1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 220 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    Before the patch, I thought it'd be possible to carry on without the 100% up-time shield, I was... mistaken.

    If you can't do a Castle Never when you're overgeared, with an experienced team and using CN set weapons then either the fight is too hard, or the classes too weak. Make a decision.

    Easy, 100% win solution:

    Change the final Feat of the "Faithful" tree from "Gain a 4th Divinity Pip" to "Increase Duration of Astral Shield" or "Reduce Cooldown of Astral Shield"

    Or, since we're running Sun Burst anyway, give it a second Divinity effect "When cast in Divine Mode, reduces the cooldown of Astral Shield by 5 seconds"
  • jeahannejeahanne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Or hell, just buff up our other heal skills enough to cope with Astral Shield as it is now in its nerfed state. I feel like now, as the ONLY healer class in the game, I cannot effectively heal a party alone anymore, which is ridiculous. We are not "off-healers" like, for an example pulled from another Perfect World game, the Light Bards in Forsaken World. We are main healers, so please Perfect World, give us the proper (not nerfed or OP) tools to do our job, that's all I ask.
  • venger0405venger0405 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 23 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    2 x As op yes totally fine with the change with that my issue at 11k GS now I drop a AS wait for it expire heal group wait for next AS get interupted before regaining any pips, drop another AS almost out of pips, shield expires group needs a heal out of pips try to hit something to gain pips but get knocked around by the 1000000 adds that have 4 circles under you always, no pips for shield try to heal grp because the mobs are chipping away at them throw a last heal 0 pips cant stand still to hit anything no shield 10000 mobs chasing me red circles everywhere..it's a fricking joke now...all the people that are saying its no big deal are either 12k gs or running premades of 12k+ 5mans...before anyone light me up before the change no issues solo healing CN, spellplague and everything else...I didn't rely on 2 DC's for double shields but **** without something to give you time to gain pips its bloody hard now and this doesn't even mention our general heals suck ***....
  • zephryl1zephryl1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 220 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    These are the things that I know this patch has done for certain:

    -Fixed Aggro
    -Made it much harder to heal
    -Completely and brutally murdered PUGs

    I will never queue for a group ever again, I will only be running with 4 other people that I know, and that have Teamspeak.
  • mumnochmumnoch Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 51
    edited June 2013
    If there is 1 thing I've learned from MMO developers is that they don't listen to the playerbase, they do whatever they want. I think I'll go try out Rift now that it's free. I spent most the day wiping in dungeon's that I was able to heal and DPS in pre-patch before I finally figured out the setup I HAVE to have in order to stand a chance at being able to do. Know that the setup is? HW, AS, SB. That's it. No fun AOE's, no nuking a little on trash to have some fun, no debuffing, no using 99% of our other abilities. Just the above 3 to stand a shot at it.

    Know what this has shown me after 11 hours of playing? F-this game, these guys are clueless and don't care about their playerbase. They want to make clerics as boring as possible and 1 dimensional as possible. This game is no longer worth my time, screw it. I'll go to another game where I'm not regulated to a bloody heal bot with only 3 choices available to me if I want to succeed.
  • shelendilshelendil Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I successfully solo-healed CN today. Group was GF, TR, 2 CW, and myself. None of us has the ancient weapon set, a couple people don't have their stat companions yet, and one CW was relatively undergeared (and new to the dungeon).

    Groups have to utilize a tank, and clerics can no longer heal through red circles. Other than that, business as usual--did the same shortcuts and mass trash pulls into knockoffs. I had to lean more heavily on Divine Armor and Healing Word, but I haven't had to use my free respec yet.

    In short, I think PvE will be fine; PvP is a different story.
  • maahkremuirsongmaahkremuirsong Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    shelendil wrote: »
    I successfully solo-healed CN today. Group was GF, TR, 2 CW, and myself. None of us has the ancient weapon set, a couple people don't have their stat companions yet, and one CW was relatively undergeared (and new to the dungeon).

    Groups have to utilize a tank, and clerics can no longer heal through red circles. Other than that, business as usual--did the same shortcuts and mass trash pulls into knockoffs. I had to lean more heavily on Divine Armor and Healing Word, but I haven't had to use my free respec yet.

    In short, I think PvE will be fine; PvP is a different story.


    Yes you are correct and same with me i greatly relied on Divine armor rather than HG, as for PVP....... sadly but also true...... T_T
  • meads91meads91 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Honestly, it isn't that bad as it is right now. The 5 seconds you have means you can actually play the class, to me casting 1 ability on cooldown is rather boring even when using the other abilities as filler when people are still topped up. The 5 seconds you have actually means you have to be prepared to heal the mouthbreathers who can't dodge out of red which is always exciting, unless they die then it's obviously your fault you didn't have the blue circle down...
  • jpollard89jpollard89 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I have to agree. i solo healed all content and i can still solo heal all content. but what the 5 second AS nerf did is remove all of the fun for me.

    i feel that our class is now 'obliged' to cater for that 5 second downtime of AS now, i feel its mandatory to use FF in those 5 seconds which feels so clunky, i no longer have the freedom with my 3rd spell as it is now FF or i guess il try HW/BoH. having FF means i cant use it on CD anymore for smooth divinity or AP but it has to be used as divineFF within those 5 seconds which just feels horrible.

    in all honesty its just made me feel that i dont wanna play DC anymore it feels completely different and i dont at all like it tbh. double AS was OP. 15 sec duration AS was NOT.
  • morsitansmorsitans Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1,284 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    And of course, doing anything solo is nightmarish now, so foundry missions are insane.
  • gtxinsanegtxinsane Member Posts: 116 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    jpollard89 wrote: »
    I have to agree. i solo healed all content and i can still solo heal all content. but what the 5 second AS nerf did is remove all of the fun for me.

    i feel that our class is now 'obliged' to cater for that 5 second downtime of AS now, i feel its mandatory to use FF in those 5 seconds which feels so clunky, i no longer have the freedom with my 3rd spell as it is now FF or i guess il try HW/BoH. having FF means i cant use it on CD anymore for smooth divinity or AP but it has to be used as divineFF within those 5 seconds which just feels horrible.

    in all honesty its just made me feel that i dont wanna play DC anymore it feels completely different and i dont at all like it tbh. double AS was OP. 15 sec duration AS was NOT.

    You can cast Forgemaster's flame before Astral Shield. You can reliably get FFlames CD down to 10s. By doing this, you generate divinity with flame as Shield is up, and as the Shield goes down your FFlame would most likely be off CD. You can only do this at the start of an engagement though, and pray that your team is strong enough where you can melt mobs easily.

    Still boring as f*ck though.
    Gabriel Angelfire - Devoted Cleric // Karguk the Impaler - Great Weapon Fighter // Zephalyne - Control Wizard
    PVP: How to make your life less miserable as a Devoted Clerics -- Still in it's Unfinished Glory
    Dragon
  • zephryl1zephryl1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 220 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    4th Edition DnD Devoted Cleric is meant to be a Healer, that can also provide a bit of DPS, some Buffs, some Debuffs and do a bit of tanking. Basically, a Healer that can fill little gaps in the party's makeup.

    TR not doing enough damage? Lower the defese, or raise his attack.
    CW's not controlling enough? Chains of Blazing Light!
    Not killing mobs fast enough? Prophecy of Doom, Daunting Light, etc etc

    Now... we don't have that choice. Astral Shield, Sun Burst, Healing-Encounter-of-your-Choice.

    Basically, we don't have the tools to do our jobs and our toolbox isn't big enough.


    SOLUTION:
    Have a DIFFERENT encounter bar for when you're Channeling Divinity. You can have 3 Encounters normally, and then 3 different (Or the same) encounters on the Divine slot. I imagine each slot would have to share a cooldown to make it balanced, but this way we could have Astral Shield and Forgemasters in 2 Divine Slots, and Sun Burst in a non-Divine.

    That would give is THREE slots to customize as we see fit. Need a bit of extra healing? Slot it in! Want to lay down some debuffs? Sure! Wanna help things get dead? You can do that if you want~
  • derida12derida12 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    jpollard89 wrote: »
    I have to agree. i solo healed all content and i can still solo heal all content. but what the 5 second AS nerf did is remove all of the fun for me.

    i feel that our class is now 'obliged' to cater for that 5 second downtime of AS now, i feel its mandatory to use FF in those 5 seconds which feels so clunky, i no longer have the freedom with my 3rd spell as it is now FF or i guess il try HW/BoH. having FF means i cant use it on CD anymore for smooth divinity or AP but it has to be used as divineFF within those 5 seconds which just feels horrible.

    in all honesty its just made me feel that i dont wanna play DC anymore it feels completely different and i dont at all like it tbh. double AS was OP. 15 sec duration AS was NOT.

    exactly this!
  • shelendilshelendil Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    jpollard89 wrote: »
    I have to agree. i solo healed all content and i can still solo heal all content. but what the 5 second AS nerf did is remove all of the fun for me.

    i feel that our class is now 'obliged' to cater for that 5 second downtime of AS now, i feel its mandatory to use FF in those 5 seconds which feels so clunky, i no longer have the freedom with my 3rd spell as it is now FF or i guess il try HW/BoH. having FF means i cant use it on CD anymore for smooth divinity or AP but it has to be used as divineFF within those 5 seconds which just feels horrible.

    in all honesty its just made me feel that i dont wanna play DC anymore it feels completely different and i dont at all like it tbh. double AS was OP. 15 sec duration AS was NOT.

    It's not all on our shoulders, however. Both GF and GWF have excellent survival abilities they can use in the 5-second window. There's also singularity, steal time, and smoke bomb, all of which reduce/prevent red circles. It will get better as other classes learn to adapt.
  • jeahannejeahanne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    jpollard89 wrote: »
    I have to agree. i solo healed all content and i can still solo heal all content. but what the 5 second AS nerf did is remove all of the fun for me.

    i feel that our class is now 'obliged' to cater for that 5 second downtime of AS now, i feel its mandatory to use FF in those 5 seconds which feels so clunky, i no longer have the freedom with my 3rd spell as it is now FF or i guess il try HW/BoH. having FF means i cant use it on CD anymore for smooth divinity or AP but it has to be used as divineFF within those 5 seconds which just feels horrible.

    in all honesty its just made me feel that i dont wanna play DC anymore it feels completely different and i dont at all like it tbh. double AS was OP. 15 sec duration AS was NOT.

    I totally agree. It's similar to how someone else put it earlier for me. As a cleric since this update, we don't have the defense to be a tank-healer, we don't have the DPS to be a combat-healer, and we don't have the healing to be a healer-healer.

    So what ARE we supposed to be since this patch?

    I mean, to me, it wouldn't be so bad except that I now have to burn through divinity in seconds in order to close the gap created in Astral Shield. 5 seconds doesn't seem like a lot, but trying to cover it in such a way where I'm also trying to regain the divinity I just spent is next to impossible, and certainly not something I would call easy, nor needing "more skill" (even though more skill now comes into it). What I used to be able to do (and no I never relied I the double AS circle aside from the one time it happened by accident in PvP) in healing a PUG group alone is impossible for me at this time. I literally use up all my divinity within one "cycle" of my skills, usually FF -> AS -> (maybe Bastion if needed, but not most of the time) -> to FF -> back to AS (or the other way around occassionally, with AS first), and ALL of those skills REQUIRE divinity to heal, so that's all my pips gone in the length of time it takes to press 2-3 buttons and one 15 second cooldown, I would arguably say that PWI is asking me to spend all my divinity in 20 seconds, and somehow RECOVER that same divinity in the same or less time WHILE ALSO STILL HEALING. I don't see how to make up the difference in recovering enough divinity to make it sustainable through something long like a boss fight (the adds kill me FAST since I'm throwing all my heals at the party and not myself).
  • morsitansmorsitans Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1,284 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    Drop bastion, it's horrible. Stick sunburst in there, don't use it in divinity (unless you have to) and while you won't heal an awful lot with it, if you fire it off into the pack where all your melee dps are (and the monsters), you'll build a fair amount of divinity and DP.

    So sunburst on cooldown, AS after a few seconds of the fight (so you don't waste ANY of the heal ticks on healthy people), then get forgemasters ready for when AS drops. Might be able to fit another sunburst in, rinse, repeat. Welcome to healbot-time!

    But hey, at least you don't got all teh aggro, right? :)
  • jeahannejeahanne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    The problem I have with sunburst though is the amount of aggro it draws. It usually gets me covered in adds.

    Perhaps though that's been more of a failing of my party, because I still draw way too much aggro since patch. But I will give it another shot, I just need to find a few people I can count on for raids now :/
  • reeferdtrinireeferdtrini Member Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I totally agree. It's similar to how someone else put it earlier for me. As a cleric since this update, we don't have the defense to be a tank-healer, we don't have the DPS to be a combat-healer, and we don't have the healing to be a healer-healer.

    Sadly I have to agree with the above statement. ran a sp with dc 2cw's 2 rogues. the defenses of the cw's where horrible they got one to 2 hit most times as was on cd, and these guys were geared in t2's and ancients as well as I am,i put my gems into def to get it to 2300 thinking I could take a few hits outside of my own as. this was viable till yesterday, I felt as if I wasted money on gems and time trying up my survivability in dungeon's.

    either buff our defense or reduce the monsters dam but as is it's ridiculous, I could careless about double as.and I don't like the feel of other moves on my bar such as forgemaster why should I be forced now to equip it
  • spani4rdspani4rd Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 297 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    zephryl1 wrote: »
    4th Edition DnD Devoted Cleric is meant to be a Healer, that can also provide a bit of DPS, some Buffs, some Debuffs and do a bit of tanking. Basically, a Healer that can fill little gaps in the party's makeup.

    TR not doing enough damage? Lower the defese, or raise his attack.
    CW's not controlling enough? Chains of Blazing Light!
    Not killing mobs fast enough? Prophecy of Doom, Daunting Light, etc etc

    Now... we don't have that choice. Astral Shield, Sun Burst, Healing-Encounter-of-your-Choice.

    Basically, we don't have the tools to do our jobs and our toolbox isn't big enough.


    SOLUTION:
    Have a DIFFERENT encounter bar for when you're Channeling Divinity. You can have 3 Encounters normally, and then 3 different (Or the same) encounters on the Divine slot. I imagine each slot would have to share a cooldown to make it balanced, but this way we could have Astral Shield and Forgemasters in 2 Divine Slots, and Sun Burst in a non-Divine.

    That would give is THREE slots to customize as we see fit. Need a bit of extra healing? Slot it in! Want to lay down some debuffs? Sure! Wanna help things get dead? You can do that if you want~

    Sounds like a great idea. Would really fit the "leader" class description. Would def allow some versality in terms of buff/debuff, added dps or additional control (not that we have many spells for this, maybe just chains). I'm sure other class players would throw a hissy fit about us being able to slot 6 encounters though
  • inserthealsinsertheals Member Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    Ok, with further investigation I can still solo heal CN, I perhaps was a bit too ticked off. However, if everyone isn't perfect there's a wipe. What the CD for AS doesn't give is any room for error, I know that MMO's traditionally are 'if you make an error, you wipe', but I still believe it's a bit harsh.

    No margin for error AT ALL, barely taking into account, knockdowns, knockbacks, server lag and a plethora of other stuns/snares/silences is too harsh.

    #Clericsforchange
  • zephryl1zephryl1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 220 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    spani4rd wrote: »
    Sounds like a great idea. Would really fit the "leader" class description. Would def allow some versality in terms of buff/debuff, added dps or additional control (not that we have many spells for this, maybe just chains). I'm sure other class players would throw a hissy fit about us being able to slot 6 encounters though

    It's not really slotting 6 though, slot 1 shares a cooldown with Divine Slot 1 etc etc, so it's... more like being able to rapidly swap Encounters. I know CW's that swap spells during certain boss fights, it's not that different.
  • jeahannejeahanne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    How can you swap spells DURING a fight? Isn't that something that requires being out of combat and near a fire/alter to do?
  • gtxinsanegtxinsane Member Posts: 116 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    jeahanne wrote: »
    How can you swap spells DURING a fight? Isn't that something that requires being out of combat and near a fire/alter to do?

    Nope, you can do it as long as the encounter slot is not on cooldown. Still drag and drop. It will go on cooldown when slotting it in combat though.
    Gabriel Angelfire - Devoted Cleric // Karguk the Impaler - Great Weapon Fighter // Zephalyne - Control Wizard
    PVP: How to make your life less miserable as a Devoted Clerics -- Still in it's Unfinished Glory
    Dragon
  • zephryl1zephryl1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 220 Bounty Hunter
    edited June 2013
    Not the spells cooldown, it's a generic 8 seconds I believe.
  • xdeathbydegreesxdeathbydegrees Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    At first I thought I was the only one having problems or that I've went wrong somewhere along the way and screwed my build up.
    It became extremely hard to keep everyone alive, not to mention if one of the other classes is not doing his/her job right and they die, then you are automatically the one to blame.
    & what's more annoying is that, I think the Devs are leaving us to coop with it over time which might be just impossible.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Divinity@xDeathbydegrees ~ 10k+ GS Devoted Cleric
  • jeahannejeahanne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    I think there is little inclination by the devs to change anything, and sadly people WILL cope with it, even if it's just the newbies that come in and don't know any different than how it is in it's nerfed state.

    But honestly, the last dungeon run I did was so miserable I've been finding excuses not to play. Not only will every other class have to learn to replay to survive (essentially) without decent heals, but I'm sick of being screamed at for being: "HAMSTER Cleric", "Cleric that can't heal", "Idiot", "incompetent", ect. (which I was called all of in one Epic Karru run in broken English from a French guy) when I'm doing the absolute best I can and, because of things that are outside of my control, I'm simply not effective anymore. It's just not fun. I saw another quote I like in a forum recently:

    "... realize that healing potions are a better Cleric than you are now..."

    I think it about sums the situation up. Maybe AS needed a nerf (I personally don't know if I agree with this), but the entire class needed some buffing in healing ability to cope with it, and we just don't have that ability. Maybe people with better gear can do better than I can, but right now I can't heal well enough in my PvP T1 (that I got as a crutch to get out of my greens until I could get REAL T1-2) to make getting better gear a possibility, so I'm in a catch-22. For now, I'm just content to leave healing in the game to two things: Clerics who are better geared and better than I am, and the healing potions that are better than all of us.
  • jackmeister6969jackmeister6969 Member Posts: 51
    edited June 2013
    AS wasnt meant to last 15 seconds right from the start. They just fixed it. Sure.. I prefer the longer duration, but lets not forget that we have Guardian Fighters in the game. GFs got buffed up big time. They got 35% additional threat for all encounters, not to mention that Cryptic lowered down our Heal aggro.

    If your running without a GF or atleast a GWF then I expect your pt to dance a lot. Clerics hardly even die post patch because aggro's on DPS not on us. I dont see why you should worry bout the 5 sec downtime. Make sure the tank's doing his job and youll be fine.
  • jeahannejeahanne Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited June 2013
    But even IF AS wasn't meant to last 15 seconds, it doesn't solve the fact that Divine Clerics don't have other healing skills strong enough to leave ANY room for error at ALL in a party. And that's in a party of people who know each other and work well together and are in full T2 (if you don't believe me go read any of the other threads on this written by Clerics). Aside from players who are fully geared, it now takes at least two people to do a job that SHOULD only take one. To point out an inconsistency that someone else highlighted awhile ago:

    Perfect World seems to want to get rid of parties that have multiple Clerics in them by removing the ability for Astral Shield to stack (which everyone agrees needed done). Further, they are apparently trying to force more variety into parties by buffing the other classes, like Great Weapon Fighter and Guardian Fighter, to be more effective, since before this patch they were fairly useless in dungeon runs thanks to things like a broken threat system.

    However, Perfect World then makes it apparent that they DO want two Clerics in a party by making any undergeared (my meaning by this is people not in T2) noneffective as solo healers, especially in PUG groups, and far less effective in premade groups that play together all the time. Even fully geared Clerics will tell you that healing with the nerf is POSSIBLE, but a party can still wipe at the slightest provocation, like the Cleric getting downed or killed, running out of divinity, ect.


    If that isn't a glaring inconsistency in what Perfect World is trying to achieve I'm not sure what is.

    Still further, you have the fact that even though many GFs and GWFs SHOULD be taking more aggro now, many in PUG groups are not because they don't know HOW. Up until a couple of days ago they COULDN'T take aggro to save their lives (and many died because of this), so they will have to relearn the game in many respects. How many PUG GWs and GWFs will be able to do this when they won't be able to survive the learning process in a level 60 dungeon with a Cleric that heals less well than their HP potions?

    Saying, "Make sure the tank is doing his job and you will be fine" is a non-answer, even if it is true that a party now needs a good tank that is doing their job. It doesn't address the fact that even if Astral Shield is now working as INTENDED, working as intended doesn't mean working WELL. Understand here that I'm not pushing that AS be put back exactly as it was or raging about it or doomsaying. I'm only saying that this intended mechanic still needs rebalancing, because even if you slap the "Support Healer" title on a Cleric, the fact remains that we are still the ONLY healers in the game at this time, and are not given the tools to be effective as such, especially if it is true that Perfect World wants more variety in a parties. Having to slate 2 spaces to Clerics every run just to survive doesn't add any variety that wasn't already there before patch, it's just switching the doubles out to another class.
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