New Cleric - Help?

Comments

• wholyhandgrenade Member Posts: 0 Arc User

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  I go with healing word, chains of light, and sunburst... at level 60 I exchange in AS when doing boss fights. I don't get complaints, but do have to request someone to stay close and cover me if the group wants AS. I'll typically exchange out sunburst for AS as sunburst has a nasty habbit of getting everything to go agro against me. Dailies I'd suggest flame strike and ground, and flame strike and hammer at level 60. Healing is good and all, but nobody needs it that much unless you are in boss fights or going up against tough normal encounters as you might have in CN. Basically, if you struggle then you need to request someone cover you or they can forget about you healing and protecting everyone.

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• angrysprite Member Posts: 4,982 Arc User

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  papasprague wrote: »

  Level 19 Half-Elf DC. Even when people are all alive, I get complaints that I'm "not healing" if I ever do anything but press my HoT skill and AoE healing burst.
  
  I Astral Seal, Lance things when no one's in immediate danger, throw my HoTs when there's charges, spam the burst skill. Tab skill and use the healing at-will when someone needs big heals. No one seems to die, and when people DO die, it's because I'm dead already.
  
  Am I missing something? It feels thus far that in this game, healing is very "passive", not a lot of point and click healing like other MMO's. Feels kind of like Guild Wars 2. Seem about right?

  
  Don't be concerned. You're doing it right. They are doing it wrong (yes, really). Based on your player level you appear to be referring to Cloak Tower - which MOST PUGs have no clue how to play (they almost ALWAYS miss the lower boss and hence: no super chest reward). It gets better as you level-up and the player base understands that DC are not EMT medical technicians in this game.

  

  iBooks - http://j.mp/WPFFj1 and PDF - http://j.mp/1o2L7qy

  
  

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• tyrtallow Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 747 Arc User

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  At that level you are only expected to use Astral Seal on elites and spam Sunburst. That's your healing. Healing Word is optional/situational. You're actually being very generous by slotting it and spamming it on everyone. Soothing Light is also situational, and yes you're using it properly.
  
  The thing about the Cleric class is that Cryptic is trying hard not to make into a pure healbot. Clerics in this game are about damage mitigation, some control and generally just keeping the party alive, even through the use of deadly force if necessary. You are not expected to keep everyone fully healed. Players are expected to use potions especially in dungeons (not a problem since potions drop constantly at lower levels and are very cheap). Tanks (Guardian Fighters) even have their own heals and good ones are pretty much self-sufficient unless we start talking intense boss fights.
  
  It's not so much that healing is passive, it's just that healing is only part of our duties. Or you could go the other extreme and say healing is so intrinsic to us (some feats/sets allow us to heal while we do something else) that what really matters is that we use our main heals at just the right moment.
  Although that may change as you gain levels - if you want to play a support-focused cleric, then that's where the Paragon feats come into play. You can then build a cleric that focuses on healing and granting the party various powerful bonuses through your heals.

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• dullsmile Member Posts: 25 Arc User

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  At all levels dps need to use potions as well, as you have determined healing in this game is not about restoring HP's once they are gone. The name of the game here is mitigation. If you plan on healing every dungeon, then you should look around on here for one of the many new(ish) linked spirit builds. I use my own version of unspecifiedterror's build found in the cleric forums, works quite well. I am 54 and haven't had any issues keeping people alive through every dungeon so far using primarily sunburst, healing word (exchanged for forgemasters flame in dungeons), and either Astral Shield or Daunting Light depending on the fight. Dailies I use flamestrike and divine armor in the world, and swap hallowed ground for flamestrike in dungeon. Passives I roll with foresight 100% of the time and use holy fervor in the world and healers lore in dungeon. At wills Sacred Flame and Astral Seal. Once you get into the paragon feats you will have a few choices, I would suggest looking at a linked spirit build as it is very powerful right now. With sunburst it is possible to keep everyone linked up 100% of the time (adding 5% of everyones stats to everyone else) by just keeping it on cooldown. Healing word is okay, but you really should keep it on cooldown during encounters to keep divinity and action points building. It sounds like you have the right idea and are doing fine. People shouldn't expect us to heal them 100%, especially when you aren't in combat, they have potions for that. During combat they will get enough splash healing in the end by dropping sunburst every 10 seconds and throwing healing word around. If you have aggro and can't do anything but dodge and run around (which happens in every dungeon at some point) and your teammates can't stay out of red long enough to stay alive it's their own fault.

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• wholyhandgrenade Member Posts: 0 Arc User

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  the hardest thing for a cleric to get used to is using and flipping on and off divinity, it will really mess most clerics up until they get used to it and become skillful at it... I don't like playing other characters cause I feel it messes up playing my cleric when I jump onto it (clerics take skill to play well and if your key strokes are off you might as well rid your cleric and play something else) ... if there is a more challenging class to play than cleric I'd like to know about it cause I am not aware of any other class having to contend with the divinity type of thing

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• rnewton8 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 131 Bounty Hunter

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  Everything thats been said already is spot on for cleric. Healing is less than optimal for clerics at low lvls but u will get by. I did all the dugneons on even lvl as I leveled...... Once u get to 60 n u have all ur skills and synergistic feats ull be loving it and that wont take long in this game. And yea I do feel some resemblance to Guild Wars 2 healing. GW2 has a similiar channel heal. There are lots of links to good builds around here. Linked spirit is good, and so is a AS Hallowed Ground Build

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• wholyhandgrenade Member Posts: 0 Arc User

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  rnewton8 wrote: »

  Everything thats been said already is spot on for cleric. Healing is less than optimal for clerics at low lvls but u will get by. I did all the dugneons on even lvl as I leveled...... Once u get to 60 n u have all ur skills and synergistic feats ull be loving it and that wont take long in this game. And yea I do feel some resemblance to Guild Wars 2 healing. GW2 has a similiar channel heal. There are lots of links to good builds around here. Linked spirit is good, and so is a AS Hallowed Ground Build

  
  I kind of like different cleric builds in the game, when clerics are built different and use different encounters and dailies they play so much better together than those that are identical. Two clerics of different builds, one using AS and the other not, are quite capable of holding the center point by themselves in 5v5 pvp (learned that today when another cleric and I held the middle after waver after wave of all 5 of the oppositions team members contending it while the rest of our team took the ends for a team win) ... again, if you play cleric you had best learn to become insanely good out of necessity since they were nerfed into the ground

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• deathrus1 Member Posts: 4 Arc User

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  I was doing the level 32 instance.
  
  I kept getting killed by imps and adds.
  
  I told my group to please Kill the adds when they spawn.
  
  After that we were fine and killed the dragon.
  
  Don't be afraid to tell your group to manage adds for you.

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• coopoor Member Posts: 14 Arc User

  June 2013 edited June 2013

  I been playing clerics for a long time. Time spent playing is about half healing an DD on those chars. On Neverwinter the clerics seem to do both at the same time. I was seemingly confused in PvP contest when i was killing people getting killed but at the end of the Pvp contest i was in the middle of the pack with kills an#1 with heals which is confusing enough considering i actively healed no one at all in a traditional sense, I personally enjoy the cleric class on this game. Your not playing the traditional role of sitting back an spam healing those who need it. You are more in the thick of the fight. I would suggest going to a lower an play around farming using all your skills in different combinations an find out what works best for you ! The game will always take care of itself.

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