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!
Dear Sir:
I will summarize for You the current situation You have caused. It is not just a question of nerfing AS and Cleanse; at the same time You applied a number of bonus and improvements to the rest of the classes (i.e. autohealing for some melee classes, etc). The combination of the full set of nerfs/improvements is what is causing our troubles:
1 Solo content
Before the nerfing, leveling a DC from 40 to 50 was yet pretty harder than most other classes; It continues so (some bosses just regenerate faster than any damage any DC can do). Content from lvl 50 (when receiving AS) to 60 is far harder to do now, no matter if you take a couple levels in advance and/or gear yourself heavily using the AH. It is not just a problem about AS duration, player skill or gear, it is just the bosses are tuned for the other classes, who have far better DPS and both far better survivavility than DC now. And the aggro problem, playing solo, even with a melee pet, is of course the same than before. Result: difficulty can be fun (it was); impossibility is not fun.
2 Foundry
Most foundry content has become unplayable for a DC at level 60. Not more difficult, nor harder, but impossible (and then UNPLAYABLE) because that same reason. You can check the forums, DCs asking for missions they can do, complaints and questions about the problem, etc. In my case, I WAS trying being one of the reviewers for new foundry content, trying to filter exploits and helping to improve -when possible- the missions; Now, I quit at the 4th death and I am unable to review as I am unable to finish most of them.(My GS is 10.240, my current pet a phoera lvl 25, with good gear)
3 Group PvE
As you diminished heavily our capacity for healing ourselves and the other classes, at the same time you improved in a number of ways their survavility (i.e. with autohealing). If you analize with care the comments from both the DCs and the other classes, "you cant do that quest with a pug, you need a really good group, go just with people of your guild", etc,etc ) You will discover that at the present moment the situation is: If the group can do the quest WITHOUT a DC and with an empty slot, then join them as a DC and you will be able to do the quest. Just do the maximun healing you can (even if poor) to save them a few potions. So simple as this; and so sad.
4 PvP
The worst situation.
Honestly, I just do the 4 daily matches for the AD, and even that is hard to suffer.
DC has at the same time: the worst DPS of any class (that could be acceptable), the worst speed (I wonder why), the worst survivability (really unreasonable).
Survivability: you can use your playing skill ONLY when you are able to see a red area or at least you can try to dodge if you see another player animation. At the moment, every other class can automatically stun, daze, prone, a DC. No possibility even to dodge. Moving, at the lower speed, is not an option to avoid these. You can not use any playing skill, no tactics, no strategy, and no gear serves if you get permastunned from the very beginning of every match and then any other class can 1-shoot you to death (if they are properly played and geared) or 3-shoot You (if not well played). The rest of classes have some defense against the others, DC just none. Auto healing would be the only defense, but first with the righteouness "feat", then the permastunning avoiding any selfhealing, then instakilled,our survability is just 0 (cero). AS duration nerfing, just contributed to that a little bit.
Conclusions:
This is not a problem of overpowering, but of basic playability.
The design for the DC was not great, and the implementation was poor (most abilities and bonus dont work properly or at all yet, like the control resistance, even after your modifications). Most abilities of DC are really poor comparing to other classes, except the AS,which was comparable to the power the other classes have available. Now you have "balanced in line with the rest of the Cleric's abilities" the AS. You said "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"; the rogues stealth is up "only" 90% of the time, the GF blocking up "only" 90% of the time, the CW abilities the same thing.
No playing skill or ubergear can solve this problem, just a careful consideration of the combat data you have gathered in the servers about this issue, just you and your team checking personally the playability before the changes can solve this. And sadly, the results show You didnt.
I can live with "pay2win", a company needs to earn money: but this new concept looks like "pay2sux"; no way.
I know there have been tons of posts/replies already but I read this page and feel the need to reply.
To the Clerics having healing issues, I use Sunburst, Forgemasters flame, and astral shield. At wills Astral Seal-Sacred Flame, It works perfectly. Unless someone YOLO's out of my range, people rarely die. AS leaves the ground at 5 seconds on CD. Cast divine FF at 6-5 seconds.... If people are taking big damage, and it seems too much, cast Divine Armor, Sunburst in-between to build AP/divinity and before you know it AS is back up. That has worked for me solo healing all the T2 Dungeons.
The problem with this is that you are now a healbot, and that is all you can be while still remaining effective. Trade out any of those powers for something more entertaining, and you can no longer heal effectively.
0
elewyndylMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I will summarize for You the current situation You have caused. It is not just a question of nerfing AS and Cleanse; at the same time You applied a number of bonus and improvements to the rest of the classes (i.e. autohealing for some melee classes, etc). The combination of the full set of nerfs/improvements is what is causing our troubles:
1 Solo content
Before the nerfing, leveling a DC from 40 to 50 was yet pretty harder than most other classes; It continues so (some bosses just regenerate faster than any damage any DC can do). Content from lvl 50 (when receiving AS) to 60 is far harder to do now, no matter if you take a couple levels in advance and/or gear yourself heavily using the AH. It is not just a problem about AS duration, player skill or gear, it is just the bosses are tuned for the other classes, who have far better DPS and both far better survivavility than DC now. And the aggro problem, playing solo, even with a melee pet, is of course the same than before. Result: difficulty can be fun (it was); impossibility is not fun.
2 Foundry
Most foundry content has become unplayable for a DC at level 60. Not more difficult, nor harder, but impossible (and then UNPLAYABLE) because that same reason. You can check the forums, DCs asking for missions they can do, complaints and questions about the problem, etc. In my case, I WAS trying being one of the reviewers for new foundry content, trying to filter exploits and helping to improve -when possible- the missions; Now, I quit at the 4th death and I am unable to review as I am unable to finish most of them.(My GS is 10.240, my current pet a phoera lvl 25, with good gear)
3 Group PvE
As you diminished heavily our capacity for healing ourselves and the other classes, at the same time you improved in a number of ways their survavility (i.e. with autohealing). If you analize with care the comments from both the DCs and the other classes, "you cant do that quest with a pug, you need a really good group, go just with people of your guild", etc,etc ) You will discover that at the present moment the situation is: If the group can do the quest WITHOUT a DC and with an empty slot, then join them as a DC and you will be able to do the quest. Just do the maximun healing you can (even if poor) to save them a few potions. So simple as this; and so sad.
4 PvP
The worst situation.
Honestly, I just do the 4 daily matches for the AD, and even that is hard to suffer.
DC has at the same time: the worst DPS of any class (that could be acceptable), the worst speed (I wonder why), the worst survivability (really unreasonable).
Survivability: you can use your playing skill ONLY when you are able to see a red area or at least you can try to dodge if you see another player animation. At the moment, every other class can automatically stun, daze, prone, a DC. No possibility even to dodge. Moving, at the lower speed, is not an option to avoid these. You can not use any playing skill, no tactics, no strategy, and no gear serves if you get permastunned from the very beginning of every match and then any other class can 1-shoot you to death (if they are properly played and geared) or 3-shoot You (if not well played). The rest of classes have some defense against the others, DC just none. Auto healing would be the only defense, but first with the righteouness "feat", then the permastunning avoiding any selfhealing, then instakilled,our survability is just 0 (cero). AS duration nerfing, just contributed to that a little bit.
Conclusions:
This is not a problem of overpowering, but of basic playability.
The design for the DC was not great, and the implementation was poor (most abilities and bonus dont work properly or at all yet, like the control resistance, even after your modifications). Most abilities of DC are really poor comparing to other classes, except the AS,which was comparable to the power the other classes have available. Now you have "balanced in line with the rest of the Cleric's abilities" the AS. You said "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"; the rogues stealth is up "only" 90% of the time, the GF blocking up "only" 90% of the time, the CW abilities the same thing.
No playing skill or ubergear can solve this problem, just a careful consideration of the combat data you have gathered in the servers about this issue, just you and your team checking personally the playability before the changes can solve this. And sadly, the results show You didnt.
I can live with "pay2win", a company needs to earn money: but this new concept looks like "pay2sux"; no way.
Well I would have perhaps more diplomatically told this since this is a free game and I have not payed.
However you nailed the issue. I have 2 Clerics since I refuse to use respec tokens. Anyway my other not the main I level up very slowly so my casual friend can keep up with the levelling speed.
If we are talking at lower levels Clerics do ok in PvP. Max level PvP and I feel like a paperdoll even if my gear is purple and PvP oriented with Life Steal which is guess is nice.
If Astral Shield is nerfed then Clerics defense should be buffed since right now they seem like weak paperdolls the easiest character to kill in max level. Clerics have mail armor and still the easiest to kill at max level.
Oh I do also Dungeons though where it really bugs me is in PvP that Cleric is so weak at max level.
The problem with this is that you are now a healbot, and that is all you can be while still remaining effective. Trade out any of those powers for something more entertaining, and you can no longer heal effectively.
Yeah see the thing with that is I've since starting in beta, only ever used 3 healing encounters in dungeons. I'm a cleric. My job is to heal my party and makes downs a minimum. Cleric damage even if geared as a DPS is little compared to a geared DPS slot, 500k-1m more damage from a cleric is not going to make or break a run. The DPS classes do the DPS. The healer keeps them alive to do the DPS. damage encounters on a cleric in a 5man party are a waste imo
I don't think that being nothing more than a heal-bot is ok no matter what, however this game and it's changes made it where the cleric (1-Heal + 1-2 Heals/Buffs/Nukes/read variety) is now a Heal BOT (1 Heal + Heals/Heals/Heals/read boring more heals).
The long line of stupid decision's made by developer's is too long to list here, however the change to the cleric class by these developer's shot them close to the top of that list. Taking a fun class that could do multiple things and changing said class to only doing 1 thing and then furthering the insult by making it so said changed class can't even do that 1 thing well isn't smart. I keep surfing these forum's hoping to read where they changed the class back and/or buffed it so it can once again heal but I know I'm not the only one that says this game went from fun to non-fun and went from being logged in daily to never logging in. I have made it to the char select screen a couple of times though. /sigh
Yeah see the thing with that is I've since starting in beta, only ever used 3 healing encounters in dungeons. I'm a cleric. My job is to heal my party and makes downs a minimum. Cleric damage even if geared as a DPS is little compared to a geared DPS slot, 500k-1m more damage from a cleric is not going to make or break a run. The DPS classes do the DPS. The healer keeps them alive to do the DPS. damage encounters on a cleric in a 5man party are a waste imo
I don't think that being nothing more than a heal-bot is ok no matter what, however this game and it's changes made it where the cleric (1-Heal + 1-2 Heals/Buffs/Nukes/read variety) is now a Heal BOT (1 Heal + Heals/Heals/Heals/read boring more heals).
The long line of stupid decision's made by developer's is too long to list here, however the change to the cleric class by these developer's shot them close to the top of that list. Taking a fun class that could do multiple things and changing said class to only doing 1 thing and then furthering the insult by making it so said changed class can't even do that 1 thing well isn't smart. I keep surfing these forum's hoping to read where they changed the class back and/or buffed it so it can once again heal but I know I'm not the only one that says this game went from fun to non-fun and went from being logged in daily to never logging in. I have made it to the char select screen a couple of times though. /sigh
To each their own.
I wouldn't ask for more offensive abilities on a healer just as I wouldn't ask for more AOE on a single target DPS.
I enjoy cleric as it is, but welcome any changes that may come.
I think it couldn't be said enough, but Devoted Clerics are not a HEALER class, but a LEADER class. In fact, the tabletop DnD version of the DC is basically focused on buffs and debuffs instead of massive heals (you COULD still focus on healing though). Daunting Light granted combat advantage, Searing Light blinds targets, Lance of Faith increased DPS against a target, Bastion of Health cured wounds, etc.
Healing isn't the only way to minimize downs. Damage mitigation (given to DCs in form of ONE spell), Damage Buffs, Debuffs all take a part in this. In fact, a good party will only down in very extreme cases even without a cleric. Developers mentioned in an article that they didn't want the DC to become the stereotypical heal bot, in which they failed to do so.
I wouldn't ask for more offensive abilities on a healer just as I wouldn't ask for more AOE on a single target DPS.
Which must make solo content a joy for you? Doing a level 60 foundry quest with a bar full 'o heals is...exciting, but not terribly rewarding.
Plus if all those damage-dealing skills are utterly pointless, why do they exist? With healing as it currently stands, you need to bring a full set of heals, thus 70%+ of our entire skillset might as well not be there at all.
- the content was made it seems counting on our damage resistance up on the party at all times. Why not let us fulfill that then? I propose tying them to an at-will mechanic, like the 3rd strike of Sacred Flame - I'd love it if half of the DR from AS got transfered there, high skill grps could even forgo using the bloody thing and slot something exciting. Either that or tone down the burst from the mobs. Simple things like halving their damage and doubling their attack speed should already help both this and the current uselessness of the deflect stat. BTW doing the same thing with deflect - halving severity and doubling its % - would be awesome too.
- buff single target heals. I'm at 11,9k GS, 6k power unbuffed which is around 8k with all party and self buffs. My Divine Healing Word heals for 9,5k noncrit over 10 seconds. I think DCs should be able to heal for that much in 8k GS, not 12k. Buff its base value or its scaling, I dunno, maybe both. I'd also like to see HW scale with recovery.
Give Soothing Light some love too. It would be lovely if the "also heals you" part was removed and its primary heal buffed for around 50%.
Furthermore, we lack burst heals. Even if all my heals are on someone when he's at 10% HP and said person also drinks a potion, they are in a few second window where they could be killed with another hit. I understand it doesn't happen often, and ppl should care more not to get hit, and there are full HP stones to be bought, but it just feels wrong not to have an "I'll save you" button as a Healer, even if on a terribly long CD or on a Daily slot. Experienced ppl wouldn't bring it along because it would have terrible heals per sec when factoring in the CD, and that it's single target, but DCs in low gear and doing dungeons with randoms would give an arm for something like that.
I propose redesigning our first Daily, Guradian of Faith to do a massive single target heal (50% max HP?) on the person that is on lowest HP in the party. It would also make an awesome PvP tool and a contender for the second Daily slot in PvE.
- PvP survivability. I don't mind being utterly useless in dmg as long as I can save ppl and myself. I'm okay with 2 ppl CC locking me to death or bursting me in 4 secs. I'm also okay with ppl overgearing me being able to kill me over some time. But right now a single person can do those things to me often in way worse gear then what I have.
It's trivial and already discussed a thousand times but toning Righteousness down would be also needed I think. What about making the 40% from Righteousness only apply to hybrid skills (ones that heal and do dmg at the same time, like FF and SB) and not pure-healing skills (like HW, AS)?
This way the debuff would be meaningful while levelling and not gimp us when we try to just purely survive in PvE or PvP?
Which must make solo content a joy for you? Doing a level 60 foundry quest with a bar full 'o heals is...exciting, but not terribly rewarding.
Plus if all those damage-dealing skills are utterly pointless, why do they exist? With healing as it currently stands, you need to bring a full set of heals, thus 70%+ of our entire skillset might as well not be there at all.
Foundry quests are never materially rewarding, anyway, unless they're the "one minute ogre exploit" type. It's the quality of the journey that counts, it's about story, really. I don't do a lot, but the odd one has really impressed me.
I am a bit puzzled why you're talking about walking into a solo foundry with a "bar full 'o heals" anway. You should have loads of other skills available, you simply can't spend all those power points without getting a few solid nukes. Just reslot- it's easy and painless. A lot of other classes reslot mid-dungeon for different boss fights/trash, after all.
It's true, of course, that DC is a little slower and more tedious for solo dungeons than a DPS class. However, it's not that bad, really. MMO veterans who know how to pull cleanly, kite when needed and generally handle stroppy mobs will have little or no problem. Sure, it's not the same as being able to gather three groups, CC and burn them down with a couple of rotations the way you can with a CW, but that really is their party piece.
With a little lateral thinking, you can still solo OK. DCs are pretty rubbish as primary damage, even specced for it (though people who run with poorly-organised scrubs might imagine otherwise), but we can still kill things when we need to- even if sometimes we have to bore them to death
Ok, so the issue I was addressing here was that "as the DC currently stands, you're basically a healbot in dungeons", and the response was "why should you want to be anything else?", to which I replied: because healbots are utterly stupid in a foundry, or any other solo quests.
That was sort of my point.
Pre-AS nerf, we could take "AS, sunburst to fuel it and our daily, and then one 'fun' power". If we wanted to go full healbot we still could, and as a consequence we'd be really pretty **** hot at keeping everyone up, but for a lot of dungeons speccing full heals wasn't necessary: you could also do some debuffing, or CC, or other fun stuff. Now this is less feasible: you can't have 100% AS uptime, so you really kinda need a heal to carry through the AS downtime. So it's "AS, sunburst to fuel it and our daily, and then another heal."
And as for solo stuff, yes, of course you wouldn't normally take a bar'o heals (see above), but no matter what you had on your bar, one of them would always be AS. We do pretty poor damage compared to basically all the other classes, but we were (prepatch) at very low risk of dying while tediously chipping healthbars away. Now we don't even have that safety net: AS can't be up all the time and now it's got the righteousness fever, too.
To those who complain about the AS being nerfed the one thing most are not realizing is the fact the cleric is meant to be a healer and not a dps toon. It is meant as a group toon and not really a solo toon. Unlike the original NWN cleric that could be combined with monk as a second class.
And as for solo stuff, yes, of course you wouldn't normally take a bar'o heals (see above), but no matter what you had on your bar, one of them would always be AS. We do pretty poor damage compared to basically all the other classes, but we were (prepatch) at very low risk of dying while tediously chipping healthbars away. Now we don't even have that safety net: AS can't be up all the time and now it's got the righteousness fever, too.
You really find solo play that hard? I am not claiming massively m4d sk33lz or anything, but I often don't even bother with Astral Shield for small pulls. For big pulls, I drop Hallowed Ground and/or divine Forgemaster's Flame when AS drops, then dodge away from the mobs. Two dodges are plenty to keep you from chipping a nail for the five seconds or so that AS will be down. Dodge is your friend. If you can't stay totally healthy for these five seconds against solo content mobs with relative ease, there is an issue with your skillset or gear.
Also, and I can't stress this enough, spam seals on your mobs. It's super-effective!
Really, soloing as a DC isn't hard, I find that I soak damage much better than on my CW. Of course, I have to, as damage is mediocre at best, so you can't burn stuff while it's still going "what the..?", but them's the vagaries. I do wish it were faster, but you can't have it all.
Right. So you're essentially giving it the ol' L2P response. Ho hum.
I don't find solo play hard, I find it frustrating. My main is a DC so it wasn't until I tried some of the other classes that I realised just how horrible our damage is. Monsters I was taking several hits to kill are..one shot kills with basically every other class. The trade off, I assumed, was that DCs wouldn't TAKE much damage either. Because we can heal.
So when ONE side of that equation gets reduced substantially, and the other side gets....ignored, frustration ensues.
I feel like there is some sort of cognitive defect here: I'm trying to explain why clericing is just not that much fun anymore, and you're basically saying "it's fine! Just use Astral Seal!" It's...an answer, but not the topic I was addressing.
Seriously though: try some foundry quests. If you did any while levelling, the difference between a foundry quest at 30 and one at 60 is surprising. Damage scales significantly faster than healing over the last few levels.
Quoted for truth. You can still do all the content. You just need to have traits of a HAMSTER to "enjoy" it. This class is dead to all but those people who fall in my previous sentence. And have you few people who are supporting this even tried PVP or healing endgame dungeon's? Probably not without A: Going full heal loadout, B: Having your group drink heal pots like coke's, and C: Having your group be "over-geared" to the content.
A Fanboy sounds like a blind idiot to those of us that actually gave this patch a solid try, the Dev's stopped responding because they know they F-d up, and either don't care or don't care. I've no intention's of supporting a game with developer's like that.
Right. So you're essentially giving it the ol' L2P response. Ho hum.
I don't find solo play hard, I find it frustrating. My main is a DC so it wasn't until I tried some of the other classes that I realised just how horrible our damage is. Monsters I was taking several hits to kill are..one shot kills with basically every other class. The trade off, I assumed, was that DCs wouldn't TAKE much damage either. Because we can heal.
So when ONE side of that equation gets reduced substantially, and the other side gets....ignored, frustration ensues.
I feel like there is some sort of cognitive defect here: I'm trying to explain why clericing is just not that much fun anymore, and you're basically saying "it's fine! Just use Astral Seal!" It's...an answer, but not the topic I was addressing.
Seriously though: try some foundry quests. If you did any while levelling, the difference between a foundry quest at 30 and one at 60 is surprising. Damage scales significantly faster than healing over the last few levels.
To those who complain about the AS being nerfed the one thing most are not realizing is the fact the cleric is meant to be a healer and not a dps toon. It is meant as a group toon and not really a solo toon. Unlike the original NWN cleric that could be combined with monk as a second class.
My last message about this issue for this person:
Astral Shield is a damage mitigation effect in normal, plus healing (regeneration before the nerf, a HoT now) in divine, see the wiki: "Create a shimmering shield at target location that reduces incoming damage to allies in its protective circle." Divinity: "Allies now Regenerate while in it's radius."
AS is an effect for the people who mean toBE A HEALER for A GROUP (healing and helping them/yourself to survive to an attack). Nothing to do with DPS at all.
Many DCs, focused on Party Healing, adjusted their stats and feats in order to have AS available in divinity all the time. The healing done or the damage avoided by AS (ticks of a few hundreds) is not comparable to the damage done by High level Bosses and adds (damage of Thousands); but it helps. Before the Nerf, it was even stackable, adding the effect of every AS dropped at the floor by every healer: the fights against the bosses in top level were then more manageable for the party (manageable, as I repeat: healing come in hundreds and damage in Thousands). Now, the duration of AS, effects and stack have been reduced or removed.
Is the issue CLEAR now for You?
You can do the troll if you wish (I am fond of trolls, specially the Gauntlgrym ones), but please, at least READ FIRST and learn the tiniest bit before doing it, to avoid to demonstrate in just 2 lines you have no idea at all about what You are saying. It is really sad.
Seriously though: try some foundry quests. If you did any while levelling, the difference between a foundry quest at 30 and one at 60 is surprising. Damage scales significantly faster than healing over the last few levels.
In all seriousness, I don't use AS in foundry solo. I might slot it for a tight hallway foundry if I am duoing with my friend. Sunburst, Forgemasters, Daunting light(or chains I suppose but the damage is reduced for multiple targets iirc), Seal, BotS. There is really no huge benefit to AS solo, if you have to dodge out of it anyway. Drop a FF and charge behind them and smack them with DL as you go by. You can generally open a pull with DL, only problem with that is you have to wait the 12sec or so before the next pull, and needing to fight something longer to get your pips back.
I do wish Seal overwrote it self thou. very annoying when you hit and it auto targets you back to the first target and then it immediately wears off. Worse is when it fires and you dispel it with dodge. Would also be nice if cleric skills fired at the start of the animation instead of the end too.
Which must make solo content a joy for you? Doing a level 60 foundry quest with a bar full 'o heals is...exciting, but not terribly rewarding.
Plus if all those damage-dealing skills are utterly pointless, why do they exist? With healing as it currently stands, you need to bring a full set of heals, thus 70%+ of our entire skillset might as well not be there at all.
I don't do foundry anymore, but when I did, I used damage encounters. I thought it was clear I was talking about dungeons, not using damage encounters in dungeons. Foundry I use to do for daily foundry AD but It doesn't seem worth the time anymore for the payout, with all the BoE items in the game.
Even if they reduced the heal per tick on AS it needs to have 100% uptime because how horrible the rest of the heal mechanic's are for the cleric if they wish the cleric to be anything other than a boring heal bot.
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If You are thinking to let the things to stay as they are now, I would suggest at least to correct the descriptions of the DC class.
As an example, the wiki. Where it reads now:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of a Leader. Leader in this context means the member of the party which stays back and fills in the cracks of their party. A leader can boost morale, tend to the wounds, make the enemies lose the will to fight or rally the members of party together.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with controller as a secondary role. They are a versatile class, equally capable of serving as a healer and of controlling the battlefield with the magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for protection."
I would suggest to update the descriptions with a far more realistic approach:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of Bait. Bait in this context means the member of the party which stays back and is killed at the least crack of their party. A bait can boost morale of the enemy, tend to horrible axe wounds with a tiny pot of mercurochrome, make the enemies lose the will to fight because they are laughing to death or rally the members of party together to loot for greed on equipment only a cleric can use.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with Dead Meat as a secondary role. They are a little versatile class, equally uncapable of serving as a healer or controlling the battlefield with the laughable magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for nothing, as they can be 1-shooted by any other class, most bosses and even some adds."
In that way, at least new people coming to the game would receive a clear idea about the thing.
Asked for feedback, 170 replies received, 11.567 visits and no life signs yet.
If You are thinking to let the things to stay as they are now, I would suggest at least to correct the descriptions of the DC class.
As an example, the wiki. Where it reads now:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of a Leader. Leader in this context means the member of the party which stays back and fills in the cracks of their party. A leader can boost morale, tend to the wounds, make the enemies lose the will to fight or rally the members of party together.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with controller as a secondary role. They are a versatile class, equally capable of serving as a healer and of controlling the battlefield with the magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for protection."
I would suggest to update the descriptions with a far more realistic approach:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of Bait. Bait in this context means the member of the party which stays back and is killed at the least crack of their party. A bait can boost morale of the enemy, tend to horrible axe wounds with a tiny pot of mercurochrome, make the enemies lose the will to fight because they are laughing to death or rally the members of party together to loot for greed on equipment only a cleric can use.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with Dead Meat as a secondary role. They are a little versatile class, equally uncapable of serving as a healer or controlling the battlefield with the laughable magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for nothing, as they can be 1-shooted by any other class, most bosses and even some adds."
In that way, at least new people coming to the game would receive a clear idea about the thing.
I wonder why clerics have the least amount of survivability in game. CW's have shield, sever reaction, tons of cc that includes aoe stuns and aoe knockbacks, Rogues aside from being able to 1-2hit most, they have stealth and when in stealth can even run faster, GFs just block, and then the gwfs LOLZ......... unstoppable running jutsu is soooo darn cheezy.
As a support class, why cant we get out of clashes safely. Dont tell me sunburst knockback will save me, coz you know the requirements, and with the divinity nerfs......duh!
Ashield was never godly in pvp, all people had to do was just knock us out of Ashield and then kill us; the people who dont see the value of knockbacks/push in pvp are either very ignorant or really stupid.
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mewbreyMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 517Bounty Hunter
Asked for feedback, 170 replies received, 11.567 visits and no life signs yet.
If You are thinking to let the things to stay as they are now, I would suggest at least to correct the descriptions of the DC class.
As an example, the wiki. Where it reads now:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of a Leader. Leader in this context means the member of the party which stays back and fills in the cracks of their party. A leader can boost morale, tend to the wounds, make the enemies lose the will to fight or rally the members of party together.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with controller as a secondary role. They are a versatile class, equally capable of serving as a healer and of controlling the battlefield with the magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for protection."
I would suggest to update the descriptions with a far more realistic approach:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of Bait. Bait in this context means the member of the party which stays back and is killed at the least crack of their party. A bait can boost morale of the enemy, tend to horrible axe wounds with a tiny pot of mercurochrome, make the enemies lose the will to fight because they are laughing to death or rally the members of party together to loot for greed on equipment only a cleric can use.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with Dead Meat as a secondary role. They are a little versatile class, equally uncapable of serving as a healer or controlling the battlefield with the laughable magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for nothing, as they can be 1-shooted by any other class, most bosses and even some adds."
In that way, at least new people coming to the game would receive a clear idea about the thing.
Asked for feedback, 170 replies received, 11.567 visits and no life signs yet.
If You are thinking to let the things to stay as they are now, I would suggest at least to correct the descriptions of the DC class.
As an example, the wiki. Where it reads now:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of a Leader. Leader in this context means the member of the party which stays back and fills in the cracks of their party. A leader can boost morale, tend to the wounds, make the enemies lose the will to fight or rally the members of party together.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with controller as a secondary role. They are a versatile class, equally capable of serving as a healer and of controlling the battlefield with the magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for protection."
I would suggest to update the descriptions with a far more realistic approach:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of Bait. Bait in this context means the member of the party which stays back and is killed at the least crack of their party. A bait can boost morale of the enemy, tend to horrible axe wounds with a tiny pot of mercurochrome, make the enemies lose the will to fight because they are laughing to death or rally the members of party together to loot for greed on equipment only a cleric can use.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with Dead Meat as a secondary role. They are a little versatile class, equally uncapable of serving as a healer or controlling the battlefield with the laughable magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for nothing, as they can be 1-shooted by any other class, most bosses and even some adds."
In that way, at least new people coming to the game would receive a clear idea about the thing.
Truly Yours,
Fairly accurate. There's so many "feedbacks" on this issue, the dev's in all likely-hood will do nothing or continue to speak lie's like "After numerous feedbacks from our beta community we have adjusted classes to improve everyone's experience!"
Asked for feedback, 170 replies received, 11.567 visits and no life signs yet.
If You are thinking to let the things to stay as they are now, I would suggest at least to correct the descriptions of the DC class.
As an example, the wiki. Where it reads now:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of a Leader. Leader in this context means the member of the party which stays back and fills in the cracks of their party. A leader can boost morale, tend to the wounds, make the enemies lose the will to fight or rally the members of party together.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with controller as a secondary role. They are a versatile class, equally capable of serving as a healer and of controlling the battlefield with the magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for protection."
I would suggest to update the descriptions with a far more realistic approach:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of Bait. Bait in this context means the member of the party which stays back and is killed at the least crack of their party. A bait can boost morale of the enemy, tend to horrible axe wounds with a tiny pot of mercurochrome, make the enemies lose the will to fight because they are laughing to death or rally the members of party together to loot for greed on equipment only a cleric can use.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with Dead Meat as a secondary role. They are a little versatile class, equally uncapable of serving as a healer or controlling the battlefield with the laughable magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for nothing, as they can be 1-shooted by any other class, most bosses and even some adds."
In that way, at least new people coming to the game would receive a clear idea about the thing.
Truly Yours,
Made me laugh and pretty much sums it up in my book.
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ghostravynMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 59
edited July 2013
The problem with the cleric is that the risk vs. reward is not balanced. Inherent in the class are three major flaws that cause this problem: complexity, imbalanced player skill vs. effectiveness, and survivability. These problems prevent playing the class from being a rewarding experience that would make a player want to play a cleric in the first place.
COMPLEXITY
I haven't played enough of the other classes to be able to call this definitively, but so far I am seeing a few issues that I think are problematic.
Powers with dual abilities and the transition into and out of Divine mode increase the learning curve of the class.
The relationship between abilities, powers, and feats is complex and confusing; synergy is hard to find.
The inability to target specific players, aimpoint reticle, and the multi-action requirements to not only cast but to aim spells compounds the problems behind effective heals.
Is the class a ranged class or a melee class? How come most of the powers are ranged, but for me to benefit from them I have to be at the target? Why is my survivability so hampered if you want me to wade into the pool? The overall vision for the class is muddy and confusing, and needs to be reworked in accordance with its power lists.
IMBALANCED SKILL vs. EFFECTIVENESS
There are examples of clerics out there that have mastered their builds. @blahblahsean of the Lemonade Stand is an example, and his ability to tweek his character to being top kills in PVP is testament to his ability. This should remain the case, but the problem is that an average player in another class becomes an exceptional player to the average cleric player. The complexity issues in the class means that to be an effective cleric you have to be a master, whereas other classes have a more forgiving player skill to effectiveness balance. I'm not asking the class to be dumbed down, but the base effectiveness of the class needs to provide a little more strength to the non-min/maxer.
SURVIVABILITY
The D&D cleric should be second in line to the fighter in terms of overall survivability due to its front-line combat role, but that is not so in this game. Armor stats alone are not enough to justify the balance, and the cleric does not have full access to the level of armor that should be available based on the background material (no shield, no weapon, holy symbols can be worn and used). Each other class has some sort of survivability mechanism, be it stealth, control, damage resistance, control resistance, or a mix of these. The cleric has none of these, a sharp contrast from its pen-and-paper role and a poor comparison to the rogue, which has a mix of all four. Instead, the cleric has healing, which has a few flaws:
The cleric's self-heal ability has been restricted through Righteousness. Interestingly, no other class than this one has a negative class feature.
Routine heals are applied at the point of attack, but the healing attacks are ranged powers. With the mad hodge-podge that is fighting, especially at upper levels, it is too easy for the cleric to be missing out on the very heals he's providing.
Aimed zones are appropriate, but because they are aimed they take longer to cast which limits their effectiveness as a clutch-power.
GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE PVE
Leveling the cleric is very unbalanced. At low levels it does decent damage in solo play to complete content. As the cleric gains in level, that damage begins to drop off sharply, but the cleric has no real survivability increase. Around about level 30 it became very difficult to complete end-of-zone solo dungeons, and at level 35-ish I ended up only being able to do the front half of the zone and then turn to PVP in order to level up; end of zone dungeons were no longer doable as the difficulty in killing the boss increased with no increased survivability mechanism.
PVP
In PVP, each class should be able to basically face off any other class, alpha-strikes* notwithstanding. It should be expected that any class should be munch-fodder to good teamwork. The cleric is usually the first class singled out to be killed in PVP. In most games, this is because the players know the only way to kill the rest is to take down heals first. In this game it's because the cleric is basically a free kill. There should be a penalty for taking down the cleric - ie: consumption of all your encounter powers to make that alpha strike. Instead, the cleric withers under the at-will powers in a blink, leaving the attacking player full access to their encounter powers to deal with the next player on the list.
Some Ideas on Potential Fixes:
The following ideas are each stand-alone options. I present each one as a single idea, not balancing them across the whole.
Make Soothing Light intelligent. Keep the aiming as is, but grant the power the ability to jump to the most-injured character if the current target is fully healed.
Make Soothing Light AOE. Keep the aiming as is, but Soothing Word becomes an AOE heal that splashes out in a small radius around it.
Make Healing Word intelligent. Instead of increased duration on subsequent casts, make Healing Word jump to the most-injured if the current target is already affected.
Some powers, like Bastion of Health become a Burst (AOE splash around the cleric) instead of an aimed Blast.
Where the hell's my damage? At-will attacks that do heals at the expense of damage? That's fine, but if I elect to forego the default Astral Seal/Sacred Flame route, my damage output should increase. Make Lance of Faith also provide a targeted Damage Resist/Defense debuff.
Sun Burst in Divinity Mode is useable when controlled, breaks control, and provides a short resistance to control. I really should have some way of responding to the Rogue's alpha-strike in PVP.
Chains of Blazing Light is a joke. Because it only immobilizes (ranged attackers don't care about being immobilized unless they're being chased), increase its duration. Increase its duration even more when cast in Divinity Mode.
Good post ghostravyn。 Imho all cleric powers need serious re-balance and fixing. Currently, the cleric is only poorly designed in his role as leader. However, I don't have hope that cryptic is fixing the cleric soon. Best we can hope, that there will be a fix in 1 or 2 years which bring balance (if the game survive this long). The best example is Star Trek Online where game balance was and still is completly destroyed, too. Cryptic is too lazy and or not competent enough to fix their own games.
Sad but true.
Instead we will se more pay2win from zen store or more lock box lottery. That is what cryptic focus on.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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vmlinuxMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Asked for feedback, 170 replies received, 11.567 visits and no life signs yet.
I think you might misunderstand the purpose of this thread. It's not someplace developers are reading, it's to get all the rants focused into one post rather than separate rants taking up the whole forums screen and scaring away new players who are interested in the cleric from the game.
It's pretty obvious the cleric isn't going to be improved at this point, and if anything it might get nerfed a bit more as people are learning how to cope. I've decided to keep playing as a pure healer, but only until like eqnext or wildstar comes out. The game lost it's lasting power for me.
Agreed, the stacking was op and needed to go. If it was a bug that was causing 15 sec duration then fine fix it. Yes you are right balance does need to be looked at. But please do not just think that means it needs further nerfing...what it means is the rest of the cleric healing needs a boost.
I have played lots of different mmo's (including tera which is kinda similar to neverwinter in many ways) and I have to say the healing here is the worst I have ever encountered. It leads to a general feeling that you want the healing to be poor in order to encourage use of health stones and therefor zen purchases.
Comments
Dear Sir:
I will summarize for You the current situation You have caused. It is not just a question of nerfing AS and Cleanse; at the same time You applied a number of bonus and improvements to the rest of the classes (i.e. autohealing for some melee classes, etc). The combination of the full set of nerfs/improvements is what is causing our troubles:
1 Solo content
Before the nerfing, leveling a DC from 40 to 50 was yet pretty harder than most other classes; It continues so (some bosses just regenerate faster than any damage any DC can do). Content from lvl 50 (when receiving AS) to 60 is far harder to do now, no matter if you take a couple levels in advance and/or gear yourself heavily using the AH. It is not just a problem about AS duration, player skill or gear, it is just the bosses are tuned for the other classes, who have far better DPS and both far better survivavility than DC now. And the aggro problem, playing solo, even with a melee pet, is of course the same than before. Result: difficulty can be fun (it was); impossibility is not fun.
2 Foundry
Most foundry content has become unplayable for a DC at level 60. Not more difficult, nor harder, but impossible (and then UNPLAYABLE) because that same reason. You can check the forums, DCs asking for missions they can do, complaints and questions about the problem, etc. In my case, I WAS trying being one of the reviewers for new foundry content, trying to filter exploits and helping to improve -when possible- the missions; Now, I quit at the 4th death and I am unable to review as I am unable to finish most of them.(My GS is 10.240, my current pet a phoera lvl 25, with good gear)
3 Group PvE
As you diminished heavily our capacity for healing ourselves and the other classes, at the same time you improved in a number of ways their survavility (i.e. with autohealing). If you analize with care the comments from both the DCs and the other classes, "you cant do that quest with a pug, you need a really good group, go just with people of your guild", etc,etc ) You will discover that at the present moment the situation is: If the group can do the quest WITHOUT a DC and with an empty slot, then join them as a DC and you will be able to do the quest. Just do the maximun healing you can (even if poor) to save them a few potions. So simple as this; and so sad.
4 PvP
The worst situation.
Honestly, I just do the 4 daily matches for the AD, and even that is hard to suffer.
DC has at the same time: the worst DPS of any class (that could be acceptable), the worst speed (I wonder why), the worst survivability (really unreasonable).
Survivability: you can use your playing skill ONLY when you are able to see a red area or at least you can try to dodge if you see another player animation. At the moment, every other class can automatically stun, daze, prone, a DC. No possibility even to dodge. Moving, at the lower speed, is not an option to avoid these. You can not use any playing skill, no tactics, no strategy, and no gear serves if you get permastunned from the very beginning of every match and then any other class can 1-shoot you to death (if they are properly played and geared) or 3-shoot You (if not well played). The rest of classes have some defense against the others, DC just none. Auto healing would be the only defense, but first with the righteouness "feat", then the permastunning avoiding any selfhealing, then instakilled,our survability is just 0 (cero). AS duration nerfing, just contributed to that a little bit.
Conclusions:
This is not a problem of overpowering, but of basic playability.
The design for the DC was not great, and the implementation was poor (most abilities and bonus dont work properly or at all yet, like the control resistance, even after your modifications). Most abilities of DC are really poor comparing to other classes, except the AS,which was comparable to the power the other classes have available. Now you have "balanced in line with the rest of the Cleric's abilities" the AS. You said "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"; the rogues stealth is up "only" 90% of the time, the GF blocking up "only" 90% of the time, the CW abilities the same thing.
No playing skill or ubergear can solve this problem, just a careful consideration of the combat data you have gathered in the servers about this issue, just you and your team checking personally the playability before the changes can solve this. And sadly, the results show You didnt.
I can live with "pay2win", a company needs to earn money: but this new concept looks like "pay2sux"; no way.
The problem with this is that you are now a healbot, and that is all you can be while still remaining effective. Trade out any of those powers for something more entertaining, and you can no longer heal effectively.
However you nailed the issue. I have 2 Clerics since I refuse to use respec tokens. Anyway my other not the main I level up very slowly so my casual friend can keep up with the levelling speed.
If we are talking at lower levels Clerics do ok in PvP. Max level PvP and I feel like a paperdoll even if my gear is purple and PvP oriented with Life Steal which is guess is nice.
If Astral Shield is nerfed then Clerics defense should be buffed since right now they seem like weak paperdolls the easiest character to kill in max level. Clerics have mail armor and still the easiest to kill at max level.
Oh I do also Dungeons though where it really bugs me is in PvP that Cleric is so weak at max level.
Yeah see the thing with that is I've since starting in beta, only ever used 3 healing encounters in dungeons. I'm a cleric. My job is to heal my party and makes downs a minimum. Cleric damage even if geared as a DPS is little compared to a geared DPS slot, 500k-1m more damage from a cleric is not going to make or break a run. The DPS classes do the DPS. The healer keeps them alive to do the DPS. damage encounters on a cleric in a 5man party are a waste imo
The long line of stupid decision's made by developer's is too long to list here, however the change to the cleric class by these developer's shot them close to the top of that list. Taking a fun class that could do multiple things and changing said class to only doing 1 thing and then furthering the insult by making it so said changed class can't even do that 1 thing well isn't smart. I keep surfing these forum's hoping to read where they changed the class back and/or buffed it so it can once again heal but I know I'm not the only one that says this game went from fun to non-fun and went from being logged in daily to never logging in. I have made it to the char select screen a couple of times though. /sigh
To each their own.
I wouldn't ask for more offensive abilities on a healer just as I wouldn't ask for more AOE on a single target DPS.
I enjoy cleric as it is, but welcome any changes that may come.
Healing isn't the only way to minimize downs. Damage mitigation (given to DCs in form of ONE spell), Damage Buffs, Debuffs all take a part in this. In fact, a good party will only down in very extreme cases even without a cleric. Developers mentioned in an article that they didn't want the DC to become the stereotypical heal bot, in which they failed to do so.
PVP: How to make your life less miserable as a Devoted Clerics -- Still in it's Unfinished Glory
Dragon
Which must make solo content a joy for you? Doing a level 60 foundry quest with a bar full 'o heals is...exciting, but not terribly rewarding.
Plus if all those damage-dealing skills are utterly pointless, why do they exist? With healing as it currently stands, you need to bring a full set of heals, thus 70%+ of our entire skillset might as well not be there at all.
- the content was made it seems counting on our damage resistance up on the party at all times. Why not let us fulfill that then? I propose tying them to an at-will mechanic, like the 3rd strike of Sacred Flame - I'd love it if half of the DR from AS got transfered there, high skill grps could even forgo using the bloody thing and slot something exciting. Either that or tone down the burst from the mobs. Simple things like halving their damage and doubling their attack speed should already help both this and the current uselessness of the deflect stat. BTW doing the same thing with deflect - halving severity and doubling its % - would be awesome too.
- buff single target heals. I'm at 11,9k GS, 6k power unbuffed which is around 8k with all party and self buffs. My Divine Healing Word heals for 9,5k noncrit over 10 seconds. I think DCs should be able to heal for that much in 8k GS, not 12k. Buff its base value or its scaling, I dunno, maybe both. I'd also like to see HW scale with recovery.
Give Soothing Light some love too. It would be lovely if the "also heals you" part was removed and its primary heal buffed for around 50%.
Furthermore, we lack burst heals. Even if all my heals are on someone when he's at 10% HP and said person also drinks a potion, they are in a few second window where they could be killed with another hit. I understand it doesn't happen often, and ppl should care more not to get hit, and there are full HP stones to be bought, but it just feels wrong not to have an "I'll save you" button as a Healer, even if on a terribly long CD or on a Daily slot. Experienced ppl wouldn't bring it along because it would have terrible heals per sec when factoring in the CD, and that it's single target, but DCs in low gear and doing dungeons with randoms would give an arm for something like that.
I propose redesigning our first Daily, Guradian of Faith to do a massive single target heal (50% max HP?) on the person that is on lowest HP in the party. It would also make an awesome PvP tool and a contender for the second Daily slot in PvE.
- PvP survivability. I don't mind being utterly useless in dmg as long as I can save ppl and myself. I'm okay with 2 ppl CC locking me to death or bursting me in 4 secs. I'm also okay with ppl overgearing me being able to kill me over some time. But right now a single person can do those things to me often in way worse gear then what I have.
It's trivial and already discussed a thousand times but toning Righteousness down would be also needed I think. What about making the 40% from Righteousness only apply to hybrid skills (ones that heal and do dmg at the same time, like FF and SB) and not pure-healing skills (like HW, AS)?
This way the debuff would be meaningful while levelling and not gimp us when we try to just purely survive in PvE or PvP?
Foundry quests are never materially rewarding, anyway, unless they're the "one minute ogre exploit" type. It's the quality of the journey that counts, it's about story, really. I don't do a lot, but the odd one has really impressed me.
I am a bit puzzled why you're talking about walking into a solo foundry with a "bar full 'o heals" anway. You should have loads of other skills available, you simply can't spend all those power points without getting a few solid nukes. Just reslot- it's easy and painless. A lot of other classes reslot mid-dungeon for different boss fights/trash, after all.
It's true, of course, that DC is a little slower and more tedious for solo dungeons than a DPS class. However, it's not that bad, really. MMO veterans who know how to pull cleanly, kite when needed and generally handle stroppy mobs will have little or no problem. Sure, it's not the same as being able to gather three groups, CC and burn them down with a couple of rotations the way you can with a CW, but that really is their party piece.
With a little lateral thinking, you can still solo OK. DCs are pretty rubbish as primary damage, even specced for it (though people who run with poorly-organised scrubs might imagine otherwise), but we can still kill things when we need to- even if sometimes we have to bore them to death
Ok, so the issue I was addressing here was that "as the DC currently stands, you're basically a healbot in dungeons", and the response was "why should you want to be anything else?", to which I replied: because healbots are utterly stupid in a foundry, or any other solo quests.
That was sort of my point.
Pre-AS nerf, we could take "AS, sunburst to fuel it and our daily, and then one 'fun' power". If we wanted to go full healbot we still could, and as a consequence we'd be really pretty **** hot at keeping everyone up, but for a lot of dungeons speccing full heals wasn't necessary: you could also do some debuffing, or CC, or other fun stuff. Now this is less feasible: you can't have 100% AS uptime, so you really kinda need a heal to carry through the AS downtime. So it's "AS, sunburst to fuel it and our daily, and then another heal."
And as for solo stuff, yes, of course you wouldn't normally take a bar'o heals (see above), but no matter what you had on your bar, one of them would always be AS. We do pretty poor damage compared to basically all the other classes, but we were (prepatch) at very low risk of dying while tediously chipping healthbars away. Now we don't even have that safety net: AS can't be up all the time and now it's got the righteousness fever, too.
You really find solo play that hard? I am not claiming massively m4d sk33lz or anything, but I often don't even bother with Astral Shield for small pulls. For big pulls, I drop Hallowed Ground and/or divine Forgemaster's Flame when AS drops, then dodge away from the mobs. Two dodges are plenty to keep you from chipping a nail for the five seconds or so that AS will be down. Dodge is your friend. If you can't stay totally healthy for these five seconds against solo content mobs with relative ease, there is an issue with your skillset or gear.
Also, and I can't stress this enough, spam seals on your mobs. It's super-effective!
Really, soloing as a DC isn't hard, I find that I soak damage much better than on my CW. Of course, I have to, as damage is mediocre at best, so you can't burn stuff while it's still going "what the..?", but them's the vagaries. I do wish it were faster, but you can't have it all.
I don't find solo play hard, I find it frustrating. My main is a DC so it wasn't until I tried some of the other classes that I realised just how horrible our damage is. Monsters I was taking several hits to kill are..one shot kills with basically every other class. The trade off, I assumed, was that DCs wouldn't TAKE much damage either. Because we can heal.
So when ONE side of that equation gets reduced substantially, and the other side gets....ignored, frustration ensues.
I feel like there is some sort of cognitive defect here: I'm trying to explain why clericing is just not that much fun anymore, and you're basically saying "it's fine! Just use Astral Seal!" It's...an answer, but not the topic I was addressing.
Seriously though: try some foundry quests. If you did any while levelling, the difference between a foundry quest at 30 and one at 60 is surprising. Damage scales significantly faster than healing over the last few levels.
A Fanboy sounds like a blind idiot to those of us that actually gave this patch a solid try, the Dev's stopped responding because they know they F-d up, and either don't care or don't care. I've no intention's of supporting a game with developer's like that.
My last message about this issue for this person:
Astral Shield is a damage mitigation effect in normal, plus healing (regeneration before the nerf, a HoT now) in divine, see the wiki: "Create a shimmering shield at target location that reduces incoming damage to allies in its protective circle." Divinity: "Allies now Regenerate while in it's radius."
AS is an effect for the people who mean to BE A HEALER for A GROUP (healing and helping them/yourself to survive to an attack). Nothing to do with DPS at all.
Many DCs, focused on Party Healing, adjusted their stats and feats in order to have AS available in divinity all the time. The healing done or the damage avoided by AS (ticks of a few hundreds) is not comparable to the damage done by High level Bosses and adds (damage of Thousands); but it helps. Before the Nerf, it was even stackable, adding the effect of every AS dropped at the floor by every healer: the fights against the bosses in top level were then more manageable for the party (manageable, as I repeat: healing come in hundreds and damage in Thousands). Now, the duration of AS, effects and stack have been reduced or removed.
Is the issue CLEAR now for You?
You can do the troll if you wish (I am fond of trolls, specially the Gauntlgrym ones), but please, at least READ FIRST and learn the tiniest bit before doing it, to avoid to demonstrate in just 2 lines you have no idea at all about what You are saying. It is really sad.
Thanks in advance, etc, etc, etc
In all seriousness, I don't use AS in foundry solo. I might slot it for a tight hallway foundry if I am duoing with my friend. Sunburst, Forgemasters, Daunting light(or chains I suppose but the damage is reduced for multiple targets iirc), Seal, BotS. There is really no huge benefit to AS solo, if you have to dodge out of it anyway. Drop a FF and charge behind them and smack them with DL as you go by. You can generally open a pull with DL, only problem with that is you have to wait the 12sec or so before the next pull, and needing to fight something longer to get your pips back.
I do wish Seal overwrote it self thou. very annoying when you hit and it auto targets you back to the first target and then it immediately wears off. Worse is when it fires and you dispel it with dodge. Would also be nice if cleric skills fired at the start of the animation instead of the end too.
I don't do foundry anymore, but when I did, I used damage encounters. I thought it was clear I was talking about dungeons, not using damage encounters in dungeons. Foundry I use to do for daily foundry AD but It doesn't seem worth the time anymore for the payout, with all the BoE items in the game.
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If You are thinking to let the things to stay as they are now, I would suggest at least to correct the descriptions of the DC class.
As an example, the wiki. Where it reads now:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of a Leader. Leader in this context means the member of the party which stays back and fills in the cracks of their party. A leader can boost morale, tend to the wounds, make the enemies lose the will to fight or rally the members of party together.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with controller as a secondary role. They are a versatile class, equally capable of serving as a healer and of controlling the battlefield with the magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for protection."
I would suggest to update the descriptions with a far more realistic approach:
"The Cleric is a class based on divine origin and has a primary role of Bait. Bait in this context means the member of the party which stays back and is killed at the least crack of their party. A bait can boost morale of the enemy, tend to horrible axe wounds with a tiny pot of mercurochrome, make the enemies lose the will to fight because they are laughing to death or rally the members of party together to loot for greed on equipment only a cleric can use.
A Devoted Cleric is a build of cleric with Dead Meat as a secondary role. They are a little versatile class, equally uncapable of serving as a healer or controlling the battlefield with the laughable magical power granted by the deity they serve.
Devoted Clerics wear chainmail for nothing, as they can be 1-shooted by any other class, most bosses and even some adds."
In that way, at least new people coming to the game would receive a clear idea about the thing.
Truly Yours,
so true
As a support class, why cant we get out of clashes safely. Dont tell me sunburst knockback will save me, coz you know the requirements, and with the divinity nerfs......duh!
Ashield was never godly in pvp, all people had to do was just knock us out of Ashield and then kill us; the people who dont see the value of knockbacks/push in pvp are either very ignorant or really stupid.
This post made me smile, thank you!
Fairly accurate. There's so many "feedbacks" on this issue, the dev's in all likely-hood will do nothing or continue to speak lie's like "After numerous feedbacks from our beta community we have adjusted classes to improve everyone's experience!"
BS is BS.
Made me laugh and pretty much sums it up in my book.
COMPLEXITY
I haven't played enough of the other classes to be able to call this definitively, but so far I am seeing a few issues that I think are problematic.
IMBALANCED SKILL vs. EFFECTIVENESS
There are examples of clerics out there that have mastered their builds. @blahblahsean of the Lemonade Stand is an example, and his ability to tweek his character to being top kills in PVP is testament to his ability. This should remain the case, but the problem is that an average player in another class becomes an exceptional player to the average cleric player. The complexity issues in the class means that to be an effective cleric you have to be a master, whereas other classes have a more forgiving player skill to effectiveness balance. I'm not asking the class to be dumbed down, but the base effectiveness of the class needs to provide a little more strength to the non-min/maxer.
SURVIVABILITY
The D&D cleric should be second in line to the fighter in terms of overall survivability due to its front-line combat role, but that is not so in this game. Armor stats alone are not enough to justify the balance, and the cleric does not have full access to the level of armor that should be available based on the background material (no shield, no weapon, holy symbols can be worn and used). Each other class has some sort of survivability mechanism, be it stealth, control, damage resistance, control resistance, or a mix of these. The cleric has none of these, a sharp contrast from its pen-and-paper role and a poor comparison to the rogue, which has a mix of all four. Instead, the cleric has healing, which has a few flaws:
GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE
PVE
Leveling the cleric is very unbalanced. At low levels it does decent damage in solo play to complete content. As the cleric gains in level, that damage begins to drop off sharply, but the cleric has no real survivability increase. Around about level 30 it became very difficult to complete end-of-zone solo dungeons, and at level 35-ish I ended up only being able to do the front half of the zone and then turn to PVP in order to level up; end of zone dungeons were no longer doable as the difficulty in killing the boss increased with no increased survivability mechanism.
PVP
In PVP, each class should be able to basically face off any other class, alpha-strikes* notwithstanding. It should be expected that any class should be munch-fodder to good teamwork. The cleric is usually the first class singled out to be killed in PVP. In most games, this is because the players know the only way to kill the rest is to take down heals first. In this game it's because the cleric is basically a free kill. There should be a penalty for taking down the cleric - ie: consumption of all your encounter powers to make that alpha strike. Instead, the cleric withers under the at-will powers in a blink, leaving the attacking player full access to their encounter powers to deal with the next player on the list.
Some Ideas on Potential Fixes:
The following ideas are each stand-alone options. I present each one as a single idea, not balancing them across the whole.
Sad but true.
Instead we will se more pay2win from zen store or more lock box lottery. That is what cryptic focus on.
I think you might misunderstand the purpose of this thread. It's not someplace developers are reading, it's to get all the rants focused into one post rather than separate rants taking up the whole forums screen and scaring away new players who are interested in the cleric from the game.
It's pretty obvious the cleric isn't going to be improved at this point, and if anything it might get nerfed a bit more as people are learning how to cope. I've decided to keep playing as a pure healer, but only until like eqnext or wildstar comes out. The game lost it's lasting power for me.
bingo! you got the whole idea of it.