The Dev's spent a lot of time making the focus for DC to be actually doing stuff rather than staring at health bars! Kudos to them.. I just hope they keep that playstyle
Like what...? I'd love to have some decent buffs/debuffs, but I have to keep Astral Shield and Sunburst on my bar for Living/AP-DP Gen respectively. So that leaves room for... 1 buff/debuff. I typically like Divine Glow, but sometimes Forgemasters has to go on there.
As an alternative, I guess you could nerf the AP/DP gain on Sun Burst since it's a similar problem to AS being too good. And then you can kinda just ignore people voicing their complaints (or try to placate them by posting a topic where you pretend to address their concerns but mostly pretend there aren't any).
And, for the record, the opening post of this thread is hilariously dismissive of player complaints. That's also pretty disappointing.
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sh4dowrunn3rMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 17Arc User
edited June 2013
Changes to AS are fine, but 90 % of our other powers are not. You must be a heal bot as people say and always use the same 3 powers.
Feats it's same thing if you check builds you'll see there is just one build with some variations, since there is a lot of feats that are totally useless or broken.
Once you get to 60 and start using purple gear there is no customization. People can call a little more of 1 stat and little less of another customization I don't. While leveling you could make a lot of diverse builds with diverse green equipment, with purples I don't feel like I have a choice.
So when you put this 3 things together... what do you get... Is it fun to be a member of clone army ?
That said PVE is doable, but not fun.
And PvP is disaster, so not fun either.
Switch Astral Shield into the Daily (scale healing/mitigation up) and Divine Armor into the encounter (scale down)?
Make Hallowed Ground shred defenses with opponents in it's aoe (no limit, in addition to buffing allied damage) instead of buffing defenses for allies?
Divine Glow should buff on non-divinity mode and debuff on d.mode (basically just switch effects)?
Give another skill as much AP gain as sunburst (divine glow, daunting light)?
Give us a toaster?
Anything?
Of course not. Nothing is wrong according to the devs. Everything is fine according to the devs. We've been buffed according to the devs.
So , fix to AS was good ( double stacking) changing it anyhow was not. There isn't any other skill that would make healing decent. I have all the healing increasing talents for maximum+heal percentage and as for 9,5 healer stacking power/crit/recovery off items my Healing word heals around 400 per tick on me (600~ for other) Bastion of light has 19 seconds Cooldown ( down from 25) and doesnt really heal much. Suburst is great, for everything, just the heal and damage are poor for t2 dungeon and healing other people than tank. With hallowed ground AS and ( i don't remember the name of that passive that increases defense upon healing others and at all times on you) incresed to 11% defense ( from my experience damage reduction) and hardly can finish any t2 , unless people i am with utgear me by far. I always thought that the content should be done respectively , for people wearing full t1 to be able to finish 2 dungeons ( ofc starting from easiest and going to hardest then CN). At this point we have people who ( im sorry but thats true) either was abusing bugs to get their gear or bought it from people who were. So If you are t2/t2,5 full you really shouldn't post things like " oh the changes are great , you people are just nubs". At this point its VERY hard to find a cleric for random dungeons and it even harder to complete it unless people are overgeared( in theory) for it. i Get it that someone with endgame gear can still finish whatever they want. BUT in my opinion it should be doable with little effort to get as a team from fresh 60 to endgame gear as 5 people who are not buying stuff on Ah and PVE only with each other. To see if powers/gear/enemies are well balanced. I believe one of the devs said they do not want to DC be a healbot like in other games. Well mission failed, it is a healbot and a crappy one that makes finish dungeons nearly impossible. Well i can wrong now, but i don't think so.
All this is quite discouraging to a relatively young Cleric. I thought the class was playing PvE very well at 30. I haven't been interested in going PvP against L60 folk so I have no clue how that might play out.
Lo, the mighty Oak: Just a little nut who stood his ground.
Bastion of health needs a cooldown reduction.
Healing word needs to be effected by recovery.
Healing words "power" would not get out of control by lowering its cooldown via recovery as it's a heal over time that only stacks in duration, improving targeting could help but is not vital. Adding a healing paragon path would go along way to adding an identity to the class too.
I do agree with the astral shield change in general however. But you should have had the foresight (no pun intended) to increase our other healing skills before removing 33% healing from one skill and lowering the duration on damage reduction. Bastion of health is a solid skill when it hits 5 targets, it has its purpose but it is not friendly to new players. Healing word is the same, its fairly solid but due to its punishing cool down and poor targeting it punishes again new players. It leads me to question the design philosophy of the company and the class designers and gives cause for concern for the future of the class and how it will be laid out before us.
I like many other people am happy to see the stacking AS removal. Even the changed to AS would be ok with me if my options were better for a real heal while AS is down. Our real options like people have already stated are Forge masters flame, Bastion of HAMSTER, or healing word.
Forge masters- Due to the crappy targeting system in this game 80 percent of the time it ends up on one of the 50 weak trash mobs, instead of one of the 5 elites or even the boss. It of course kills the weak mob nearly instantly so no one can actually benefit from the heal.
Bastion - Cool down is really terrible and heal is really weak....not worth it
Healing word (this is what i use) - I figure i have three shots and only 4 party members so this has a better chance of landing on a useful target (unlike FF). Still if my group is clustered again due to the crappy targeting there is a very real chance that i may just cast it 3 times on the rogue at full health rather than the tank who is at half health, but what are my other options...NOTHING
I have done maybe 6 T-2 runs since the patch( successfully completed but really not fun listening to the party beg for heals)...I basically sit in protectors enclave now and ride around in circles hoping that one day my cleric will be fun to play...I used to PVP...but of course that's no longer an option...despite being in full T2 and best in slot gear and having great defense etc etc...i get one or two shot regularly enough to know that clearly you didn't want us in PVP. Not only do we get HAMSTER, but any healing we actually do before the **** has no benefit whatsoever in honor gain. I have never received a blue item...EVER...because I can't kill anything and i'm a big fat walking target. Even if i get over 50 assits and heal like a pro and never die the best i can hope for in pvp as a healer is maybe a green item and of course the lowest amount of honor on the team...yay me...
So today comes Gauntlygrim it better be fantastic because at this point..it's the only reason i am still even playing the game.
You know how many people login and que for a dungeon and then after an HOUR AN A HALF log out because they still haven't got a group? Because clerics don't even want to play anymore..that's how bad it's gotten...oh and thanks so much for fixing a whole bunch of bugs and then calling them buffs..that' not insulting at all
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baalhashmalMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 65Arc User
edited June 2013
I just managed to obtain Astral Shield so I couldn't get a hands-on feel as to it's potential pre-patch/nerf. Even so, I think it's still quite effective when I tackle quests and dungeons with my friend (who happens to be a GWF).
I've avoided PvP entirely, simply because I get smashed quite quickly (I played two matches in the teen-levels and called it quits). As many have previously stated before, a cleric's healing capabilities...aren't very good, and the frustration I've had when playing with random players in skirmishes or dungeons grows as I grow in levels. Part of it is party members REFUSING to avoid red circles. I'm not sure what they're thinking but I gather they assume the devoted cleric's going to "take care of them," which is clearly not the case with our sub-par healing capabilities and their lack of common sense to attempt to avoid damage.
I like being a crux; I like the idea of being able to "fill in the gaps" in a party, but the gaps that have been placed by the developers are far too wide for a Cleric's capabilities to fill.
Cleric:Marquis Elmdore - Current Main Wizard: Iamblichus Fighter: Anna the Titan Barbarian: Anann Valkyrja Ranger: Minerva Cory'phaia Warlock: Suri Coralyne Reid
Guild: She Looked Level 18. Alliance: Imperium
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barkingmadly1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 3Arc User
edited June 2013
i just want to express how annoyed and angry I am about the last patch , i invested a lot of money into my cleric because it was fun to play , Its not fun for me anymore i am upset that I feel like my money is wasted now.
I played a cleric. T1 pvp gear, 9k rating. Did not played much pve. The class was okayish for the time I done lower epic dungeons, but had to rely heavy on healpots because I can't heal myself properly(aggro problems).
I enjoyed pvp. It was fun. I could win in 1vs1, using every skill that felt usable for me, 3-4 skills. I could survive group vs group fights too. I had no problem winning against unexperienced or not so well geared players. Use dodge when I know I have to, but there is rubberbanding that means life or death for the cleric. I don't stand still and smash two buttons. I try to use tactics to win. If im against a good player rogue,guardian or cw in decent equipment who knows what to do, then I lose sometimes.
Before the nerf a good geared(T2 prob) rogue could even one-two shot me while divine AS was on. Sounds not so OP. But I can deal with that if I lose. I don't complained that there is no diminishing returns on stuns, shield bash etc. what is OP in pvp. CWs, guardians killing me so that I can't even use a skill. My only chance to survive in a stunlock is the AS that I put down before and wait off and hope to survive while I can do absolute nothing.
The stacking with AS had to be fixed, but there is absolutly no excuse to highten the cd while we still have other crappy powers that needs buffs. Plus you made AS counterable, can vanish when you get pushed off from your feet. You nerfed the sunburst too with creating a cap on it, that helped stack divine power for better heals and using dailys more often. The divine sunburst push doesn't work many times that should help us escape. Don't know if there is a counter for this skill on other classes or its just a bug, server glitch whatever. But if its a skill, why is that we don't have any immunity options against crowd controls from other classes? And don't count hammer of fate that with the sunburst nerf, I can't even use it that often, is static and the duration is short.
Dear developers, before you nerf an already half broken class, buff the useless skills too. What logic is there to make usable skills onpar with the bad skills?? The healing on self debuff was okay while the class had AS and other useable skills. For me with AS and sunburst, its double nerfed. Now the class as it is in pvp, is a cripple. Its just a punching bag. Not fun anymore. And not even a free respec was given after this huge modification.
I have to say never felt so right to uninstall a game like on that day after the patch.
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vmlinuxMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
We made some changes to Astral Shield after finding that it was not balanced in line with the rest of the Cleric's abilities, or those of the other classes. At its most OP, some players could simply ignore defensive gear and just stay in the circle, which is no fun.
If a single skill on a single class is up "only" 66% of the time, that's a red flag for us that there may be some balance issues with that skill. We're currently looking into high-level dungeon scenarios where difficulty may be inappropriately scaled, leading some parties to feel like the previous version of Astral Shield was required just to make progress.
We've received a lot of positive feedback about the changes to Astral Shield, and it seems that many Clerics are enjoying all the other buffs and fixes. Astral Shield is still a really good skill, and we're monitoring to make sure that Clerics are just as useful in a group as they're intended to be.
Please continue to let us know your feedback, about Astral Shield and everything Cleric-related!
I quit the game tonight. Third or fourth time I've logged in, not been able to find a perfect premade group with one of each class, and not felt like sitting yelling trying to build one, or joining some garbage pug. So what do I do? I go run a PVP match. I wish I had recorded it, it was pretty funny how much I sucked actually, pre nerf I finally felt like I could survive long enough to do something after getting a ton of gear.
I'm not really mad, it's just that the game was fun being a solo healer in a group, and if you played it right you could be really good in a defensive at pvp, and if you played just right you could give people a run 1vs1. I can't kill any other class now even if I outgear them pretty good. Now clerics drag their teams down in pvp, and in pve it's just 3 heals and dodge. Why even have any other powers available? Time to move on to something else. I have a 100 dollar budget for games monthly, but this game won't be getting any of that from me anymore.
Like what...? I'd love to have some decent buffs/debuffs, but I have to keep Astral Shield and Sunburst on my bar for Living/AP-DP Gen respectively. So that leaves room for... 1 buff/debuff. I typically like Divine Glow, but sometimes Forgemasters has to go on there.
As an alternative, I guess you could nerf the AP/DP gain on Sun Burst since it's a similar problem to AS being too good. And then you can kinda just ignore people voicing their complaints (or try to placate them by posting a topic where you pretend to address their concerns but mostly pretend there aren't any).
And, for the record, the opening post of this thread is hilariously dismissive of player complaints. That's also pretty disappointing.
Well, you used to be able to load up break the spirit on the spider queen, and really hurt her healing to the point it made the fight go a lot faster. Can't do that now, have to have all heals.
Letting Astral Shield benefit from a few more feats would help tbh. I recently did some testing and in Divine mode it only procs Rising Hope and Invigorated Healing ... and neither benefit it a great deal. I understand that it gives a large amount of damage reduction and a significant amount of healing but when you can be punted out of it in a split second and then chain stunned, what difference do those make. I was under the impression that Astral Shield was a kind of all round defensive tool to benefit clerics regardless of which feat tree they chose. Perhaps a short period of CC immunity or knockback resistance while in it or after it's cast might be something to consider. Actually, if being knocked prone gives combat advantage, letting Astral Shield proc Divine Advantage might be a step in the right direction and then Divine Advantage's tooltip might finally seem correct too :P This would also mean that at least one feat in each tree gives some benefit to Astral Shield. I don't know, it's just a thought and I'm sure it'll get poo'd on by someone XD
Letting Astral Shield benefit from a few more feats would help tbh. I recently did some testing and in Divine mode it only procs Rising Hope and Invigorated Healing ... and neither benefit it a great deal. I understand that it gives a large amount of damage reduction and a significant amount of healing but when you can be punted out of it in a split second and then chain stunned, what difference do those make. I was under the impression that Astral Shield was a kind of all round defensive tool to benefit clerics regardless of which feat tree they chose. Perhaps a short period of CC immunity or knockback resistance while in it or after it's cast might be something to consider. Actually, if being knocked prone gives combat advantage, letting Astral Shield proc Divine Advantage might be a step in the right direction and then Divine Advantage's tooltip might finally seem correct too :P This would also mean that at least one feat in each tree gives some benefit to Astral Shield. I don't know, it's just a thought and I'm sure it'll get poo'd on by someone XD
This is a good idea. Even when I see cleric using it I'm rarely in the shield because it is full of red areas.
We made some changes to Astral Shield after finding that it was not balanced in line with the rest of the Cleric's abilities, or those of the other classes. At its most OP, some players could simply ignore defensive gear and just stay in the circle, which is no fun.
If a single skill on a single class is up "only" 66% of the time, that's a red flag for us that there may be some balance issues with that skill. We're currently looking into high-level dungeon scenarios where difficulty may be inappropriately scaled, leading some parties to feel like the previous version of Astral Shield was required just to make progress.
We've received a lot of positive feedback about the changes to Astral Shield, and it seems that many Clerics are enjoying all the other buffs and fixes. Astral Shield is still a really good skill, and we're monitoring to make sure that Clerics are just as useful in a group as they're intended to be.
Please continue to let us know your feedback, about Astral Shield and everything Cleric-related!
I play healers and tanks in every MMO I have ever played. Like many players here that's well over ten years of playing MMO's. I rolled a cleric here first and I still play her if begrudgingly. I personally feel Astral shield as it is now is fine by itself as a single encounter. The issue is that there isn't anything remotely decent in the clerics arsenal to fill those other two encounter spots. There is sunburst which is like AS a must have to build divinity and AP and that leaves one encounter which also must be a healing spell of some kind now. Take your pick from three rather unimpressive choices. Forgemasters flame,bastion of health or healing word. At this stage the cleric you at cryptic have created is simply lackluster in all aspects and not fun to play at all. You put a very large limit on what the class can do by only having three encounters yet you give nothing but one decent spell. I can not slot one heal one debuff and one dps spell and be of any use to any group at all and I SHOULD be able to do that with a D&D cleric. I can not slot two heals and one debuff and be of any use. If we weren't limited to three encounters it would be an entirely different story. If we had 5 encounter slots we could slot AS, two lackluster heals and two debuffs/buffs and actually be a decent but not OP class. It's not the dungeons that are overly difficult. It is the cleric class that is underwhelming,underpowered and simply the WORST support class I have played in ten years. Please do not delude yourselves in your studio and think your player base of clerics is happy with this class. We are not. I can assure you we talk amongst ourselves both within our guilds and to other clerics outside our guild. Cryptic...you are losing us one by one. Slowly but surely you are losing your support players. When enough of us get full on fed up and leave.....well ya know what happens to games when there's hardly any support players at cap....
I could add my own storys about trying to do PvP after the shield nerv, which was like picking a support char for Mid lane in Dota/lol, including the verbal abuse in teamchat (apparently, according to some of my esteemed temporary teammates only "HAMSTER and Morons" bring clerics to PvP right now) and my reluctance to join PvE queues, but I think what this all boils down to in the end, is not that people want Astral shield to be back the way it was, but to have valid alternatives.
None of the current healing spells have quite the ability to keep an entire team alive as well as Astral shield used to have, We have no real burst heal (Bastion of health is no burst heal, it's a joke with high CD) and need to target our teammates while everyone is running away all over the map from swarms of critters since the Tanks have just as hard a time to hold aggro as we have to heal now.
So, yeah, what's the Dev Teams opinion on that? Boost the other skills to make up for the Astral shield nerv, maybe make some abilities work differently in PvP and PvE to give clerics a fighting chance again? Give clerics some defence Boost to not be stunned and bursted down within 5 seconds in PvP? Some word beyond "We want players to chuck more potions during PvE" would be nice.
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I play a cleric as second to my TR (60), which is currently 42.
My statement: The cleric currently is completely ruined. Cryptic should feel ashamed what they have done to one of the most prestigious and powerfull class in D&D
Many people expect to be the cleric the main healer class. But they are wrong. By definition, it is a leader class, which of course can also tap into healing as support.
Leaders should in general encourage (buff) friends, and decourage (debuff) enemies while standing in the first line capable of holding the line. The DC in Neverwinter virtually fails in everything.
Buffs ...
one word to describe it all: weak to none existant. Healing is HAMSTER, damage resist buffs are HAMSTER compared with damage increase by class feats.
Debuffs ...
Not noticeable at all ... nothing any foe has to fear or worry about.
Suriviability ...
Ok in PvE ... but in PvP due to the fact that the DC is enemy of the state No.1 and is easily CCed, it doesn't matter if I wear chain or nothing. I'm just dead as soon the CC rotation starts. It's only a matter of time.
Righteousness makes heal ourself for 40% less ... but give us nothing in return. Make it give us 100% control immunity. Yes, no joke. Without that, PvP is unplayable for a DC against anyone that is not a bot. I even got flamed several times for not healing the group ... yeah, but how I am supposed to heal heal if I need to kite 5 bloodthristy people off who either has more CC, can sprint faster, are able to kick me around, snare or daze me. While I have ... ehm... nothing? Yeah ... great.
The most ignorant thing is, in PvE as a cleric swapping out any of my damage powers for support, what I get into return? The highest rank in healing ... but the lowest overall score. Thanks cryptic.
Same in PvP. If I not get focused and CCed to death without being able to throw any of my powers I can turn the tides for my team. However, what is my reward for my sacrificy beeing defenseless to support the group? The lowest score because healing, buffing and debuffing only count as an assist. So, normaly I get mid to low scores in PvP, a low amount of glory and no reward. Thank you for screw DC again, Cryptic ...
I can't live with imagine how can class developer start this topic without shame...
ARE YOU SERIOUS???
Did you try play cleric AT LEAST once in PUG dungeon or with new L60 friends?
If you can parse ability use in your server logs you can see AS but you DON'T see rest of 90% abilities... And you do NOTHING with this??
How you can do your job???
If you work for any other company in any brand you will be FIRED in one hour I guarantee you this.
I shelved my cleric. Just do crafting and my prayers. Play something else. When clerics are a myth, maybe they might get the message the rest of the game will die without a supply to feed groups.
I shelved my cleric. Just do crafting and my prayers. Play something else. When clerics are a myth, maybe they might get the message the rest of the game will die without a supply to feed groups.
Healers and tanks are the least played classes in any MMO , so by the looks of it NW atm is no different . If you're not in a guild in which there are like 10 dedicated clerics , gl looking for a cleric to do your DD and CN runs .
Outside the DD event you can't find a cleric to farm T2s anymore in zone chat or solo queue it doesn't matter .
I haven't done alot of T2's, my gear is pretty crappy, and I don't have an augment pet. I sit around 9.5k GS. Oh and I'm Aussie so my ping is 300+. I use SB, AS, HW, Seal, BotS, HG and Hammer for PvE, I switch to forgemasters for PvP and daunting light for foundry stuff. I agree with the majority of player sentiment here.
I think the duration fix/nerf to AShield was not needed. The extra duration countered the need to locate it(pugs mostly)/ kite in and out of it(those red circles that always land right on top of it), or being pushed out of it. The duration loss greatly diminishes it. Particularly in pvp, you can be pushed out of it and never make it back to it.
I haven't messed around with Soothing light too much, the divinity costs just seem to high for a mediocre skill. Perhaps I am wrong(although I didn't pick linked spirit either, although SB sounds like a more efficient way to use that anyway).
Punishing Light has similar problems, 7k-12k, 15 pulses(15 seconds?) attack over time while blowing all divinity is basically unusable in my mind. Occasionally I might try and finish a CW or TR with it. It does nothing to GF's or GWF's. I would suggest that punishing light either hits harder(2-3 times harder), or pulses up over time, e.g. The longer you hold it the harder it hits, so that the divinity cost becomes worthwhile. It is a slow useless at will atm, just a way to burn divinity. You are burning divinity and cannot do anything else but slowly walk while doing it.. and it doesn't even slow the target..
Righteousness: Seems fine in PvE. It needs to be removed or have +40% control resist added to it for PvP. Someone mentioned 100% earlier.. that would be nice but rather extreme. 40% could be added, and it wouldn't really matter if it was on in PvE, so would probably be the easiest fix to a lacklustre PvP class. Small steps etc.. If all that CC missed half the time, Clerics may actually be viable again in PvP. Especially if it made control classes.. (you know all those other classes. CW, TR, GF, GWF, all seem to have a minimum of a 2-3s control/prone skill on a short CD) take a second thought to actually trying to control a cleric.
Dodge/defence changes seem to have lowered Cleric damage significantly, the majority of our skills are DoTs. If the first attack misses.. we are screwed. Even Hammer of faith usually misses 1 pulse of 3 in PvP, negating 6k odd damage. Anecdotally on those Hulks and Unhallowed wights during the event I was routinely hitting for about 2.5k 3k 4k with hammer of faith. This from a final tier skill that used to hit for 16-20k pretty often and that is assuming one pulse doesn't miss or is interrupted by the cleric moving, also.. when is the control immunity during Hammer. I am not sure why the damage output of this skill seems lower, below tooltip values, but it's noticeable. Are DoTs in general being dodged even if its not the first attack? That shouldn't be possible
Moving in general: dodge should not interrupt BotS, the animation fires, but no damage is done. The same happens with lance of faith. I realise dodge is immediate while BotS isn't but it would be nice if At wills fired abit faster and allowed a dodge to happen also. That is most likely a ping related issue thou.
Overall, I don't think cleric is unplayable, just not enjoyable. Mind you getting 1-2 shot in PvP while taking 1-2 minutes to defeat someone is rather unbalanced.
IRighteousness: Seems fine in PvE. It needs to be removed or have +40% control resist added to it for PvP. Someone mentioned 100% earlier.. that would be nice but rather extreme. 40% could be added, and it wouldn't really matter if it was on in PvE, so would probably be the easiest fix to a lacklustre PvP class.
Sorry, but I played alot of PvP oriented MMORPGs, with most time DAoC for a short time as a healer in a setup group. DAoC had pure healing classes but those classes could wear medium armor similar to the DC in Neverwinter. At some time they introduced a special ability for tanks allowing to protect or guard a choosen team member - this team member then could not be attacked in melee.
Before this ability, the only option for a pure healer was to kite, kite and kite even more. Sucessfully kiting out the assist train leaves the enemy team with the option to switch target or waste time. This worked perfectly and though healer were always the primatry target, they had a chance to survive.
In Neverwinter however, kiting for a healer works only limited because everyone in the assist train has CC or can perma sprint so there is only a chance to escape if the team is incompetent and not focused on killing the cleric (which they of course should).
There was CC in DAoC too, but it was concentrated on one class, there were anti-CC spells and anti-CC powers available for everyone. And, there was an imunity so you could not be CCed over and over again.
Therefore, 40% CC imunity is too less for a healer which will always be primary target. He needs 100% to kite out any assist train. We should not forget that even with 100% CC imunity there is dodge/teleport for some classes, range damage, GWFs can sprint and do damage and rogues can teleport to a target to close the distance.
I would rather see the cleric stand in the front line taking the punishment but apparently that is not the way Cryptic want clerics to be. The only other option beside taking damage is avoiding damage by kiting ... or dying over and over again against any team with some clue ... and I don't see the latter as viable option.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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nibbnibbMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
Just to get this out of the way... We are defenseless in PvP. Without the ability to stop someone from targeting us or resist crowd control, we're always the first to be stunned and seconds later killed. PvE has less issues, but there are still plenty of issues worth addressing.
As many have stated, outside of Astral Shield nothing we do seems powerful. Healing Word is nearly unusable in both design and strength. Targeting a teammate during even small encounters is difficult. Add in the pressures of a dying teammate next to a healthy teammate during a boss add and it becomes nearly impossible to get the right guy. Even on the rare occasions you're able to pull off such a move, it's so underpowered (even in Divine mode) that all your efforts mean nothing. I don't know what could really help this power unless it became a group member targeted AoE with a substantial healing boost while in Divine mode. At least then you'd just have to aim in the general direction to get healing where it is needed.
Forgemaster's Flame is heading the right direction, but could use with one more tick of healing. Considering it takes a Divine pip, plus it only heals within melee range, and targeting into a mass of MOBs and hitting the wrong one usually means no healing effect since the MOB dies or unwanted aggro, it's can turn into a risky cast.
Do we even need to go into Bastion of Health? Outside of Divine mode, at best, it's an out of combat heal. The delay in cast is long enough that you have to anticipate where your target is going to be which is nearly impossible with all the red circle madness which all boss MOBs have. Even using a Divine pip you aren't assured of hitting your target. And saying you do hit your target, the heal is still underpowered. It's designed as an AoE heal, but the circle is too small to make that a reality in any instance except out of combat. Personally, I don't think making this into a super powerful heal is the answer... If it was designed to be a targeted AoE heal the correct fix is to make the circle two or three times as large.
As for that "moment of glory" heal that is designed to save the day? That should be Guardian of Faith. As it stands, this is one of the worst powers we have. It's like it never scaled from the pre-ten levels and now it's a big joke. You have Divine Armor that, in my eyes, should be a pre-combat event, Hallowed Ground which is perfect for when the fight is going good, Hammer of Fate for trying to finish off the boss in a blaze of glory, and Guardian of Faith for when you want to do card tricks at a child's birthday party. This should be changed to a party-wide 50% heal. At least then we can feel like Clerics every once and awhile.
Therefore, 40% CC imunity is too less for a healer which will always be primary target. He needs 100% to kite out any assist train. We should not forget that even with 100% CC imunity there is dodge/teleport for some classes, range damage, GWFs can sprint and do damage and rogues can teleport to a target to close the distance.
I was thinking 40% + the 10% inherent from wisdom, so actually 50%. 100% permanent CC immunity is too powerful imo. Clerics also have dodge, and are a ranged class. so its 50% plus dodge. I would have suggested DR on CC but considering clerics typically die in the first control event it seems pointless, and no doubt harder to code. 100% would be nice as I said, just too powerful. Even if it wasn't passive, similar to how block for GF works, it would still be pretty overpowered. 1 in 2 plus some dodges would even up the odds significantly, and it would make the other classes second guess whether should bother with a CC attempt.
If it was 100% then CWs would be up in arms because they could only use direct damage. Assuming the CC attempt negated the damage component of the spell too. Look at it another way, if you had 5 clerics with 100% CC immunity what group would you need to kill them.. probably only 5 GWFs could manage it.
100% CC immunity for any class in PvP always breaks PvP imo, so I wouldn't advocate for that amount.
The problem isn't with the 67% uptime, it's that we already have bad healing power and with reducing AS uptime you also further gimped our healing.
I'd also like to mention that AS healing still can't crit. But we have to bring AS along because the DR it gives is a must where adds do knockdowns with their at-wills and with several dozens of adds the threat first is bound to be chain CC'd by the adds at some point. It's not even a matter of someone being bad and not getting out of red circles. It's just going to happen.
So we are Astral Shield + Hallowed ground buff bots. No real decisions in play, just spam everything, save one thing for AS downtime and get out of reds.
Righteousness is very bad because DCs are who save teammates who are being CC locked by enemies. Guess what happens when we are the ones who get CC locked. Good luck trying to save yourself through Righteousness when you have a second of breathing time.
Other than making AS being able to crit, and buffing Bastion output around 50%, our AoE heals are actually fine. What we seriously lack are some meaningful single target heals and self heals. Make our single targets stronger, like +35% heal for Healing Word and -35% Divinity cost and +Righteousness ignore for Soothing Light. Nerf the "heals you too" feature by 50-100% in return if you like, it's not a deciding factor. Or even better, leave it as it is, just make the "heals you too" part heal you even if you heal yourself with it in the first place, making it a 200% heal if you heal yourself only with it.
I'd also recommend making healing-only encounters generate Divinity without the class feature. That'd make using the class feature with healing-only encounters meaningful, since we could use it to fuel more single-target heals.
Currently there is a great imbalance in healing-only vs. hybrid encounters. Consider Divine FF + SB vs. Divine HW + BoH. Hybrid has at least as good heals, plus they do dmg (possible + heal through Repurpose Soul), plus they generate Divinity without the class feature, and they generate more AP. Who in their right mind would use the less effective ones then?
The decision should be like this in my opinion:
- pure heals beat hybrids in healing per second (HPS includes cooldown, not just during their uptime)
- hybrids do dmg too, and their dmg+healing total should only surpass pure heals when their dmg crits with Repurpose Soul.
Don't put emphasis on "but hybrid encounters need enemies to be cast on, they aren't good without enemies", because we always have enemies. Not an issue in this add-fest endgame.
- both should be equal in Divnity and Action point generation on their own, without any class features involved. Or if Hybrids do surpass at D and AP generation (to add more decisions to the game), pure heals should be compensated through doing even that much better in the healing department. Result would be that DCs can mix what they bring to the fight depending on how much heals/dmg/D and AP gain they need. Even more possibilities, make pures generate more D and hybrids more AP. There are so much possibilities guys, pick one! Just do something where we aren't locked into using 3 specific encounters, but where we can make choices between encounters that are equal of worth in total but each is better for a different purpose.
The current all-purpose setup/"rotation" is:
- bring Foresight + Holy Fervor
- spam Astral Shield + Sunburst + Hallowed Ground (with moontouched) on cooldown
- use Divine Forgemaster's Flame in Astral Shield downtime
Not much choice there.
I understand ppl with skilled teams and overgearing the instance can switch some stuff up, but this is the cookie cutter, and by a large margin.
This needs to be balanced, and not by nerfing the hybrid encounters, but rather by buffing the healing-only ones. Give us options to choose from please!
Edit: Yeah, I know we have Linked Spirit build too, but I don't quite think Sunburst/Divinity swap and the excessive Linked Spirit numbers are intended. I also guess those'll be fixed sooner then the aforementioned problems. It's the usual progress in NWO, fix workarounds first, fix the reason why users made workarounds later.
Have soothing light arc to more party members as pips are consumed, so with a full set of pips it works as it does currently. With one pip down, it now can arc to a further person, giving you twice as much healing for the same Div cost. Two pips down it can arc twice, giving you three times the benefit (provided three party members are fairly close together), and with all pips gone you can potentially heal your entire team.
This would make soothing light more effective in general (since it's an obvious buff), but also make it more favourable as a last ditch heal, since its effectiveness would be inversely tied to divinity status. Juggling divinity levels could become an interesting balancing act, rather than "just keep enough to stagger-spam divine AS/FF on cooldown, omg omg".
Plus it would make taking the fourth pip feat worth doing, since it would give you access to "full team heal"-level while you still had a pip remaining.
Letting Astral Shield benefit from a few more feats would help tbh. I recently did some testing and in Divine mode it only procs Rising Hope and Invigorated Healing ... and neither benefit it a great deal. I understand that it gives a large amount of damage reduction and a significant amount of healing but when you can be punted out of it in a split second and then chain stunned, what difference do those make. I was under the impression that Astral Shield was a kind of all round defensive tool to benefit clerics regardless of which feat tree they chose. Perhaps a short period of CC immunity or knockback resistance while in it or after it's cast might be something to consider. Actually, if being knocked prone gives combat advantage, letting Astral Shield proc Divine Advantage might be a step in the right direction and then Divine Advantage's tooltip might finally seem correct too :P This would also mean that at least one feat in each tree gives some benefit to Astral Shield. I don't know, it's just a thought and I'm sure it'll get poo'd on by someone XD
This is a good idea. Even when I see cleric using it I'm rarely in the shield because it is full of red areas.
I thought about this some more. I think what would be better is adding a short period of CC or Knockback immunity to the Divine Advantage feat itself and then also have Astral Shield be able to proc Divine Advantage - as I feel it should anyway. Astral Shield is a HEAL over time now isn't it? Healing Word procs Divine Advantage, so why not Divine Astral Shield? Actually, I'd be interested in seeing a response from the OP to this, as to their reasoning behind that mechanic.
Comments
Like what...? I'd love to have some decent buffs/debuffs, but I have to keep Astral Shield and Sunburst on my bar for Living/AP-DP Gen respectively. So that leaves room for... 1 buff/debuff. I typically like Divine Glow, but sometimes Forgemasters has to go on there.
As an alternative, I guess you could nerf the AP/DP gain on Sun Burst since it's a similar problem to AS being too good. And then you can kinda just ignore people voicing their complaints (or try to placate them by posting a topic where you pretend to address their concerns but mostly pretend there aren't any).
And, for the record, the opening post of this thread is hilariously dismissive of player complaints. That's also pretty disappointing.
Feats it's same thing if you check builds you'll see there is just one build with some variations, since there is a lot of feats that are totally useless or broken.
Once you get to 60 and start using purple gear there is no customization. People can call a little more of 1 stat and little less of another customization I don't. While leveling you could make a lot of diverse builds with diverse green equipment, with purples I don't feel like I have a choice.
So when you put this 3 things together... what do you get... Is it fun to be a member of clone army ?
That said PVE is doable, but not fun.
And PvP is disaster, so not fun either.
Make Hallowed Ground shred defenses with opponents in it's aoe (no limit, in addition to buffing allied damage) instead of buffing defenses for allies?
Divine Glow should buff on non-divinity mode and debuff on d.mode (basically just switch effects)?
Give another skill as much AP gain as sunburst (divine glow, daunting light)?
Give us a toaster?
Anything?
Of course not. Nothing is wrong according to the devs. Everything is fine according to the devs. We've been buffed according to the devs.
PVP: How to make your life less miserable as a Devoted Clerics -- Still in it's Unfinished Glory
Dragon
So , fix to AS was good ( double stacking) changing it anyhow was not. There isn't any other skill that would make healing decent. I have all the healing increasing talents for maximum+heal percentage and as for 9,5 healer stacking power/crit/recovery off items my Healing word heals around 400 per tick on me (600~ for other) Bastion of light has 19 seconds Cooldown ( down from 25) and doesnt really heal much. Suburst is great, for everything, just the heal and damage are poor for t2 dungeon and healing other people than tank. With hallowed ground AS and ( i don't remember the name of that passive that increases defense upon healing others and at all times on you) incresed to 11% defense ( from my experience damage reduction) and hardly can finish any t2 , unless people i am with utgear me by far. I always thought that the content should be done respectively , for people wearing full t1 to be able to finish 2 dungeons ( ofc starting from easiest and going to hardest then CN). At this point we have people who ( im sorry but thats true) either was abusing bugs to get their gear or bought it from people who were. So If you are t2/t2,5 full you really shouldn't post things like " oh the changes are great , you people are just nubs". At this point its VERY hard to find a cleric for random dungeons and it even harder to complete it unless people are overgeared( in theory) for it. i Get it that someone with endgame gear can still finish whatever they want. BUT in my opinion it should be doable with little effort to get as a team from fresh 60 to endgame gear as 5 people who are not buying stuff on Ah and PVE only with each other. To see if powers/gear/enemies are well balanced. I believe one of the devs said they do not want to DC be a healbot like in other games. Well mission failed, it is a healbot and a crappy one that makes finish dungeons nearly impossible. Well i can wrong now, but i don't think so.
This is exactly how I feel, well said.
Forge masters- Due to the crappy targeting system in this game 80 percent of the time it ends up on one of the 50 weak trash mobs, instead of one of the 5 elites or even the boss. It of course kills the weak mob nearly instantly so no one can actually benefit from the heal.
Bastion - Cool down is really terrible and heal is really weak....not worth it
Healing word (this is what i use) - I figure i have three shots and only 4 party members so this has a better chance of landing on a useful target (unlike FF). Still if my group is clustered again due to the crappy targeting there is a very real chance that i may just cast it 3 times on the rogue at full health rather than the tank who is at half health, but what are my other options...NOTHING
I have done maybe 6 T-2 runs since the patch( successfully completed but really not fun listening to the party beg for heals)...I basically sit in protectors enclave now and ride around in circles hoping that one day my cleric will be fun to play...I used to PVP...but of course that's no longer an option...despite being in full T2 and best in slot gear and having great defense etc etc...i get one or two shot regularly enough to know that clearly you didn't want us in PVP. Not only do we get HAMSTER, but any healing we actually do before the **** has no benefit whatsoever in honor gain. I have never received a blue item...EVER...because I can't kill anything and i'm a big fat walking target. Even if i get over 50 assits and heal like a pro and never die the best i can hope for in pvp as a healer is maybe a green item and of course the lowest amount of honor on the team...yay me...
So today comes Gauntlygrim it better be fantastic because at this point..it's the only reason i am still even playing the game.
You know how many people login and que for a dungeon and then after an HOUR AN A HALF log out because they still haven't got a group? Because clerics don't even want to play anymore..that's how bad it's gotten...oh and thanks so much for fixing a whole bunch of bugs and then calling them buffs..that' not insulting at all
I've avoided PvP entirely, simply because I get smashed quite quickly (I played two matches in the teen-levels and called it quits). As many have previously stated before, a cleric's healing capabilities...aren't very good, and the frustration I've had when playing with random players in skirmishes or dungeons grows as I grow in levels. Part of it is party members REFUSING to avoid red circles. I'm not sure what they're thinking but I gather they assume the devoted cleric's going to "take care of them," which is clearly not the case with our sub-par healing capabilities and their lack of common sense to attempt to avoid damage.
I like being a crux; I like the idea of being able to "fill in the gaps" in a party, but the gaps that have been placed by the developers are far too wide for a Cleric's capabilities to fill.
Cleric: Marquis Elmdore - Current Main
Wizard: Iamblichus
Fighter: Anna the Titan
Barbarian: Anann Valkyrja
Ranger: Minerva Cory'phaia
Warlock: Suri Coralyne Reid
Guild: She Looked Level 18.
Alliance: Imperium
I enjoyed pvp. It was fun. I could win in 1vs1, using every skill that felt usable for me, 3-4 skills. I could survive group vs group fights too. I had no problem winning against unexperienced or not so well geared players. Use dodge when I know I have to, but there is rubberbanding that means life or death for the cleric. I don't stand still and smash two buttons. I try to use tactics to win. If im against a good player rogue,guardian or cw in decent equipment who knows what to do, then I lose sometimes.
Before the nerf a good geared(T2 prob) rogue could even one-two shot me while divine AS was on. Sounds not so OP. But I can deal with that if I lose. I don't complained that there is no diminishing returns on stuns, shield bash etc. what is OP in pvp. CWs, guardians killing me so that I can't even use a skill. My only chance to survive in a stunlock is the AS that I put down before and wait off and hope to survive while I can do absolute nothing.
The stacking with AS had to be fixed, but there is absolutly no excuse to highten the cd while we still have other crappy powers that needs buffs. Plus you made AS counterable, can vanish when you get pushed off from your feet. You nerfed the sunburst too with creating a cap on it, that helped stack divine power for better heals and using dailys more often. The divine sunburst push doesn't work many times that should help us escape. Don't know if there is a counter for this skill on other classes or its just a bug, server glitch whatever. But if its a skill, why is that we don't have any immunity options against crowd controls from other classes? And don't count hammer of fate that with the sunburst nerf, I can't even use it that often, is static and the duration is short.
Dear developers, before you nerf an already half broken class, buff the useless skills too. What logic is there to make usable skills onpar with the bad skills?? The healing on self debuff was okay while the class had AS and other useable skills. For me with AS and sunburst, its double nerfed. Now the class as it is in pvp, is a cripple. Its just a punching bag. Not fun anymore. And not even a free respec was given after this huge modification.
I have to say never felt so right to uninstall a game like on that day after the patch.
I quit the game tonight. Third or fourth time I've logged in, not been able to find a perfect premade group with one of each class, and not felt like sitting yelling trying to build one, or joining some garbage pug. So what do I do? I go run a PVP match. I wish I had recorded it, it was pretty funny how much I sucked actually, pre nerf I finally felt like I could survive long enough to do something after getting a ton of gear.
I'm not really mad, it's just that the game was fun being a solo healer in a group, and if you played it right you could be really good in a defensive at pvp, and if you played just right you could give people a run 1vs1. I can't kill any other class now even if I outgear them pretty good. Now clerics drag their teams down in pvp, and in pve it's just 3 heals and dodge. Why even have any other powers available? Time to move on to something else. I have a 100 dollar budget for games monthly, but this game won't be getting any of that from me anymore.
Well, you used to be able to load up break the spirit on the spider queen, and really hurt her healing to the point it made the fight go a lot faster. Can't do that now, have to have all heals.
This is a good idea. Even when I see cleric using it I'm rarely in the shield because it is full of red areas.
I play healers and tanks in every MMO I have ever played. Like many players here that's well over ten years of playing MMO's. I rolled a cleric here first and I still play her if begrudgingly. I personally feel Astral shield as it is now is fine by itself as a single encounter. The issue is that there isn't anything remotely decent in the clerics arsenal to fill those other two encounter spots. There is sunburst which is like AS a must have to build divinity and AP and that leaves one encounter which also must be a healing spell of some kind now. Take your pick from three rather unimpressive choices. Forgemasters flame,bastion of health or healing word. At this stage the cleric you at cryptic have created is simply lackluster in all aspects and not fun to play at all. You put a very large limit on what the class can do by only having three encounters yet you give nothing but one decent spell. I can not slot one heal one debuff and one dps spell and be of any use to any group at all and I SHOULD be able to do that with a D&D cleric. I can not slot two heals and one debuff and be of any use. If we weren't limited to three encounters it would be an entirely different story. If we had 5 encounter slots we could slot AS, two lackluster heals and two debuffs/buffs and actually be a decent but not OP class. It's not the dungeons that are overly difficult. It is the cleric class that is underwhelming,underpowered and simply the WORST support class I have played in ten years. Please do not delude yourselves in your studio and think your player base of clerics is happy with this class. We are not. I can assure you we talk amongst ourselves both within our guilds and to other clerics outside our guild. Cryptic...you are losing us one by one. Slowly but surely you are losing your support players. When enough of us get full on fed up and leave.....well ya know what happens to games when there's hardly any support players at cap....
None of the current healing spells have quite the ability to keep an entire team alive as well as Astral shield used to have, We have no real burst heal (Bastion of health is no burst heal, it's a joke with high CD) and need to target our teammates while everyone is running away all over the map from swarms of critters since the Tanks have just as hard a time to hold aggro as we have to heal now.
So, yeah, what's the Dev Teams opinion on that? Boost the other skills to make up for the Astral shield nerv, maybe make some abilities work differently in PvP and PvE to give clerics a fighting chance again? Give clerics some defence Boost to not be stunned and bursted down within 5 seconds in PvP? Some word beyond "We want players to chuck more potions during PvE" would be nice.
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My statement: The cleric currently is completely ruined. Cryptic should feel ashamed what they have done to one of the most prestigious and powerfull class in D&D
Many people expect to be the cleric the main healer class. But they are wrong. By definition, it is a leader class, which of course can also tap into healing as support.
Leaders should in general encourage (buff) friends, and decourage (debuff) enemies while standing in the first line capable of holding the line. The DC in Neverwinter virtually fails in everything.
Buffs ...
one word to describe it all: weak to none existant. Healing is HAMSTER, damage resist buffs are HAMSTER compared with damage increase by class feats.
Debuffs ...
Not noticeable at all ... nothing any foe has to fear or worry about.
Suriviability ...
Ok in PvE ... but in PvP due to the fact that the DC is enemy of the state No.1 and is easily CCed, it doesn't matter if I wear chain or nothing. I'm just dead as soon the CC rotation starts. It's only a matter of time.
Righteousness makes heal ourself for 40% less ... but give us nothing in return. Make it give us 100% control immunity. Yes, no joke. Without that, PvP is unplayable for a DC against anyone that is not a bot. I even got flamed several times for not healing the group ... yeah, but how I am supposed to heal heal if I need to kite 5 bloodthristy people off who either has more CC, can sprint faster, are able to kick me around, snare or daze me. While I have ... ehm... nothing? Yeah ... great.
The most ignorant thing is, in PvE as a cleric swapping out any of my damage powers for support, what I get into return? The highest rank in healing ... but the lowest overall score. Thanks cryptic.
Same in PvP. If I not get focused and CCed to death without being able to throw any of my powers I can turn the tides for my team. However, what is my reward for my sacrificy beeing defenseless to support the group? The lowest score because healing, buffing and debuffing only count as an assist. So, normaly I get mid to low scores in PvP, a low amount of glory and no reward. Thank you for screw DC again, Cryptic ...
ARE YOU SERIOUS???
Did you try play cleric AT LEAST once in PUG dungeon or with new L60 friends?
If you can parse ability use in your server logs you can see AS but you DON'T see rest of 90% abilities... And you do NOTHING with this??
How you can do your job???
If you work for any other company in any brand you will be FIRED in one hour I guarantee you this.
Healers and tanks are the least played classes in any MMO , so by the looks of it NW atm is no different . If you're not in a guild in which there are like 10 dedicated clerics , gl looking for a cleric to do your DD and CN runs .
Outside the DD event you can't find a cleric to farm T2s anymore in zone chat or solo queue it doesn't matter .
I think the duration fix/nerf to AShield was not needed. The extra duration countered the need to locate it(pugs mostly)/ kite in and out of it(those red circles that always land right on top of it), or being pushed out of it. The duration loss greatly diminishes it. Particularly in pvp, you can be pushed out of it and never make it back to it.
I haven't messed around with Soothing light too much, the divinity costs just seem to high for a mediocre skill. Perhaps I am wrong(although I didn't pick linked spirit either, although SB sounds like a more efficient way to use that anyway).
Punishing Light has similar problems, 7k-12k, 15 pulses(15 seconds?) attack over time while blowing all divinity is basically unusable in my mind. Occasionally I might try and finish a CW or TR with it. It does nothing to GF's or GWF's. I would suggest that punishing light either hits harder(2-3 times harder), or pulses up over time, e.g. The longer you hold it the harder it hits, so that the divinity cost becomes worthwhile. It is a slow useless at will atm, just a way to burn divinity. You are burning divinity and cannot do anything else but slowly walk while doing it.. and it doesn't even slow the target..
Righteousness: Seems fine in PvE. It needs to be removed or have +40% control resist added to it for PvP. Someone mentioned 100% earlier.. that would be nice but rather extreme. 40% could be added, and it wouldn't really matter if it was on in PvE, so would probably be the easiest fix to a lacklustre PvP class. Small steps etc.. If all that CC missed half the time, Clerics may actually be viable again in PvP. Especially if it made control classes.. (you know all those other classes. CW, TR, GF, GWF, all seem to have a minimum of a 2-3s control/prone skill on a short CD) take a second thought to actually trying to control a cleric.
Dodge/defence changes seem to have lowered Cleric damage significantly, the majority of our skills are DoTs. If the first attack misses.. we are screwed. Even Hammer of faith usually misses 1 pulse of 3 in PvP, negating 6k odd damage. Anecdotally on those Hulks and Unhallowed wights during the event I was routinely hitting for about 2.5k 3k 4k with hammer of faith. This from a final tier skill that used to hit for 16-20k pretty often and that is assuming one pulse doesn't miss or is interrupted by the cleric moving, also.. when is the control immunity during Hammer. I am not sure why the damage output of this skill seems lower, below tooltip values, but it's noticeable. Are DoTs in general being dodged even if its not the first attack? That shouldn't be possible
Moving in general: dodge should not interrupt BotS, the animation fires, but no damage is done. The same happens with lance of faith. I realise dodge is immediate while BotS isn't but it would be nice if At wills fired abit faster and allowed a dodge to happen also. That is most likely a ping related issue thou.
Overall, I don't think cleric is unplayable, just not enjoyable. Mind you getting 1-2 shot in PvP while taking 1-2 minutes to defeat someone is rather unbalanced.
Sorry, but I played alot of PvP oriented MMORPGs, with most time DAoC for a short time as a healer in a setup group. DAoC had pure healing classes but those classes could wear medium armor similar to the DC in Neverwinter. At some time they introduced a special ability for tanks allowing to protect or guard a choosen team member - this team member then could not be attacked in melee.
Before this ability, the only option for a pure healer was to kite, kite and kite even more. Sucessfully kiting out the assist train leaves the enemy team with the option to switch target or waste time. This worked perfectly and though healer were always the primatry target, they had a chance to survive.
In Neverwinter however, kiting for a healer works only limited because everyone in the assist train has CC or can perma sprint so there is only a chance to escape if the team is incompetent and not focused on killing the cleric (which they of course should).
There was CC in DAoC too, but it was concentrated on one class, there were anti-CC spells and anti-CC powers available for everyone. And, there was an imunity so you could not be CCed over and over again.
Therefore, 40% CC imunity is too less for a healer which will always be primary target. He needs 100% to kite out any assist train. We should not forget that even with 100% CC imunity there is dodge/teleport for some classes, range damage, GWFs can sprint and do damage and rogues can teleport to a target to close the distance.
I would rather see the cleric stand in the front line taking the punishment but apparently that is not the way Cryptic want clerics to be. The only other option beside taking damage is avoiding damage by kiting ... or dying over and over again against any team with some clue ... and I don't see the latter as viable option.
As many have stated, outside of Astral Shield nothing we do seems powerful. Healing Word is nearly unusable in both design and strength. Targeting a teammate during even small encounters is difficult. Add in the pressures of a dying teammate next to a healthy teammate during a boss add and it becomes nearly impossible to get the right guy. Even on the rare occasions you're able to pull off such a move, it's so underpowered (even in Divine mode) that all your efforts mean nothing. I don't know what could really help this power unless it became a group member targeted AoE with a substantial healing boost while in Divine mode. At least then you'd just have to aim in the general direction to get healing where it is needed.
Forgemaster's Flame is heading the right direction, but could use with one more tick of healing. Considering it takes a Divine pip, plus it only heals within melee range, and targeting into a mass of MOBs and hitting the wrong one usually means no healing effect since the MOB dies or unwanted aggro, it's can turn into a risky cast.
Do we even need to go into Bastion of Health? Outside of Divine mode, at best, it's an out of combat heal. The delay in cast is long enough that you have to anticipate where your target is going to be which is nearly impossible with all the red circle madness which all boss MOBs have. Even using a Divine pip you aren't assured of hitting your target. And saying you do hit your target, the heal is still underpowered. It's designed as an AoE heal, but the circle is too small to make that a reality in any instance except out of combat. Personally, I don't think making this into a super powerful heal is the answer... If it was designed to be a targeted AoE heal the correct fix is to make the circle two or three times as large.
As for that "moment of glory" heal that is designed to save the day? That should be Guardian of Faith. As it stands, this is one of the worst powers we have. It's like it never scaled from the pre-ten levels and now it's a big joke. You have Divine Armor that, in my eyes, should be a pre-combat event, Hallowed Ground which is perfect for when the fight is going good, Hammer of Fate for trying to finish off the boss in a blaze of glory, and Guardian of Faith for when you want to do card tricks at a child's birthday party. This should be changed to a party-wide 50% heal. At least then we can feel like Clerics every once and awhile.
I was thinking 40% + the 10% inherent from wisdom, so actually 50%. 100% permanent CC immunity is too powerful imo. Clerics also have dodge, and are a ranged class. so its 50% plus dodge. I would have suggested DR on CC but considering clerics typically die in the first control event it seems pointless, and no doubt harder to code. 100% would be nice as I said, just too powerful. Even if it wasn't passive, similar to how block for GF works, it would still be pretty overpowered. 1 in 2 plus some dodges would even up the odds significantly, and it would make the other classes second guess whether should bother with a CC attempt.
If it was 100% then CWs would be up in arms because they could only use direct damage. Assuming the CC attempt negated the damage component of the spell too. Look at it another way, if you had 5 clerics with 100% CC immunity what group would you need to kill them.. probably only 5 GWFs could manage it.
100% CC immunity for any class in PvP always breaks PvP imo, so I wouldn't advocate for that amount.
I'd also like to mention that AS healing still can't crit. But we have to bring AS along because the DR it gives is a must where adds do knockdowns with their at-wills and with several dozens of adds the threat first is bound to be chain CC'd by the adds at some point. It's not even a matter of someone being bad and not getting out of red circles. It's just going to happen.
So we are Astral Shield + Hallowed ground buff bots. No real decisions in play, just spam everything, save one thing for AS downtime and get out of reds.
Righteousness is very bad because DCs are who save teammates who are being CC locked by enemies. Guess what happens when we are the ones who get CC locked. Good luck trying to save yourself through Righteousness when you have a second of breathing time.
Other than making AS being able to crit, and buffing Bastion output around 50%, our AoE heals are actually fine. What we seriously lack are some meaningful single target heals and self heals. Make our single targets stronger, like +35% heal for Healing Word and -35% Divinity cost and +Righteousness ignore for Soothing Light. Nerf the "heals you too" feature by 50-100% in return if you like, it's not a deciding factor. Or even better, leave it as it is, just make the "heals you too" part heal you even if you heal yourself with it in the first place, making it a 200% heal if you heal yourself only with it.
I'd also recommend making healing-only encounters generate Divinity without the class feature. That'd make using the class feature with healing-only encounters meaningful, since we could use it to fuel more single-target heals.
Currently there is a great imbalance in healing-only vs. hybrid encounters. Consider Divine FF + SB vs. Divine HW + BoH. Hybrid has at least as good heals, plus they do dmg (possible + heal through Repurpose Soul), plus they generate Divinity without the class feature, and they generate more AP. Who in their right mind would use the less effective ones then?
The decision should be like this in my opinion:
- pure heals beat hybrids in healing per second (HPS includes cooldown, not just during their uptime)
- hybrids do dmg too, and their dmg+healing total should only surpass pure heals when their dmg crits with Repurpose Soul.
Don't put emphasis on "but hybrid encounters need enemies to be cast on, they aren't good without enemies", because we always have enemies. Not an issue in this add-fest endgame.
- both should be equal in Divnity and Action point generation on their own, without any class features involved. Or if Hybrids do surpass at D and AP generation (to add more decisions to the game), pure heals should be compensated through doing even that much better in the healing department. Result would be that DCs can mix what they bring to the fight depending on how much heals/dmg/D and AP gain they need. Even more possibilities, make pures generate more D and hybrids more AP. There are so much possibilities guys, pick one! Just do something where we aren't locked into using 3 specific encounters, but where we can make choices between encounters that are equal of worth in total but each is better for a different purpose.
The current all-purpose setup/"rotation" is:
- bring Foresight + Holy Fervor
- spam Astral Shield + Sunburst + Hallowed Ground (with moontouched) on cooldown
- use Divine Forgemaster's Flame in Astral Shield downtime
Not much choice there.
I understand ppl with skilled teams and overgearing the instance can switch some stuff up, but this is the cookie cutter, and by a large margin.
This needs to be balanced, and not by nerfing the hybrid encounters, but rather by buffing the healing-only ones. Give us options to choose from please!
Edit: Yeah, I know we have Linked Spirit build too, but I don't quite think Sunburst/Divinity swap and the excessive Linked Spirit numbers are intended. I also guess those'll be fixed sooner then the aforementioned problems. It's the usual progress in NWO, fix workarounds first, fix the reason why users made workarounds later.
Have soothing light arc to more party members as pips are consumed, so with a full set of pips it works as it does currently. With one pip down, it now can arc to a further person, giving you twice as much healing for the same Div cost. Two pips down it can arc twice, giving you three times the benefit (provided three party members are fairly close together), and with all pips gone you can potentially heal your entire team.
This would make soothing light more effective in general (since it's an obvious buff), but also make it more favourable as a last ditch heal, since its effectiveness would be inversely tied to divinity status. Juggling divinity levels could become an interesting balancing act, rather than "just keep enough to stagger-spam divine AS/FF on cooldown, omg omg".
Plus it would make taking the fourth pip feat worth doing, since it would give you access to "full team heal"-level while you still had a pip remaining.
Just a thought.
I thought about this some more. I think what would be better is adding a short period of CC or Knockback immunity to the Divine Advantage feat itself and then also have Astral Shield be able to proc Divine Advantage - as I feel it should anyway. Astral Shield is a HEAL over time now isn't it? Healing Word procs Divine Advantage, so why not Divine Astral Shield? Actually, I'd be interested in seeing a response from the OP to this, as to their reasoning behind that mechanic.