Clerics need stuns or stun immunity like everyone else

captobvious8 · July 2013

A cleric was fun to play in pvp till about 50. Then all the other classes got their more powerful abilities that pretty much makes us worthless if we're attacked. Sure, we got astral shield, which is huge for healing. But as far as self-defense is concerned (keeping yourself alive), AS is pretty worthless in pvp. Why? Every single class has pushbacks to knock us out of that circle. Or their damage can be so high that circles don't matter.

Never mind that we're also severely crippled with righteousness. 40% debuff in healing means we pretty much can't heal ourselves through fights, which is pretty much all we can TRY to do, since we have no cc's to speak of and our offense is limited, to put it lightly.

I realize we have sun burst, chains, and forgemaster's flame. But these abilities are almost worthless in pvp against even a moderately skilled opponent. "Whoa, you knocked me back? And THEN you put chains on me? No matter. I'll just charge at you, breaking me free of your root and instantly closing the distance you just created. And while I'm at it, with the same single move I'll stun you and hit you for half your health."

We need actual stuns. Like, honest-to-God helplessness causing stuns that give us a chance to land some actual attacks. EVERY other class has this. GWFs just prone-lock you. Tanks charge and knock you back and forth across the map (THAT move is OP all around). CWs... well, everything they do is a control attack. Even freaking ROGUES have two full stuns. And one is ranged.... And all we can do is knock back people or slow them down? Hell, our slowdowns are easy to break out of if you use a charge, teleport, unstoppable, etc. Full stuns are NOT.

Either that, or we need stun immunity somehow. I think it's only fair that a HEALER should get extra protection from control effects. We're already crippled with righteousness, so let's make this a little more fair by giving us some encounter abilities that make us stun-immune or something. Or even just physical control immunity. Perhaps from divine Astral shield. I wouldn't mind being vulnerable to stuns as much if we could at least stay in our **** circle. It only lasts 10 seconds, ya'll. Then you can use the next 5 seconds to kill us (cause it usually takes half that long against anyone besides another cleric).

What do you guys think? I feel in the name of class balancing this needs to happen, because we got the shaft in the control department. I realize we can heal, but in a one-on-one fight for control of a capture point that healing matters little, because their damage output is MUCH higher than any healing rate we can can muster. That's assuming we're not stun-locked and thrown around the arena, and actually get a chance to cast... anything. Stuns and other control effects are a pretty one-sided show.

Also, throwing down an AS circle is like putting a big KILL ME sign in the air above my head. I think the fact that we get so much more attention payed to us is enough to give us some means of defending ourselves.

baqqara · July 2013

captobvious8 wrote: »

Also, throwing down an AS circle is like putting a big KILL ME sign in the air above my head. I think the fact that we get so much more attention payed to us is enough to give us some means of defending ourselves.

That was actually what i said to a dear rogue friend of mine couple o' times. I only use it in GG, in mass fights noone can tell one opponent from the next fella. For 5vs5 i sadly need to use mainly damage/control abilities.

Here are a few tipps: Divine Glow when aimed right can be a very good "killer" as it does damage instantly, plus it gives a good mitigation debuff for 15% increased dmg on that target. Also if your target already has a rogue on his ***, give them your divine Divine Glow, that will buff the rogue as well.
Next thing: i began to love Break the Spirit, use it in divine mode and it stuns

yes, there is the stun you were looking for, i use that so much actually.

That said. You could just Forgemasters along with Divine Glow and of course Brand of the Sun. That way you have 3 dots ticking, increased damage and can whack you target with Lance or that other spam thingy. If you stay far away, you dont need further things.

I would certainly love to have invincibility every once in a while, but tbh it is not needed. But i only know 60s pvp as a DC and CW. Both are squishy, can dish out real Terror but are ****ed when a metalmonster gets near and you got no teleport/slide left.

It is like said in couple of threads already: rock/paper/scissors. I would certainly love to see where GWF/GF fit in, but you dont have to fight them, as really many players of that classes are facerollers, you can just outrun/los them, and catch them the next time they are in a fight already

also, GFs are best screwed from behind, they dont like it tho ;D

wholyhandgrenade · July 2013

I no longer run AS in PvP, I have a lot of fun with healing word but if you think you can drop down AS and not draw the attention of all opposition attackers you are in for a rude awakening. Even when clerics use it on my team I am often reluctant to trust going into it as the rogues will fog it and the CW's will set their exploding boulders right in the middle and most everyone knocks you out of it in such a way that you can no longer move until you are either dead or in dire need of escape. I like when AS is down on my team, but whether I go into it or not depends upon a lot of different things.

landragoon · July 2013

baqqara wrote: »

Next thing: i began to love Break the Spirit, use it in divine mode and it stuns yes, there is the stun you were looking for, i use that so much actually.

Break the Spirit taking Divine Mode to stun is already a huge letdown. Furthermore, it's a fairly slow-moving projectile and has a very distinct sound - competent players can dodge it with ease. And even if you get it to hit, it still only lasts for a minuscule amount of time. I still use it when PvPing, simply because stacking triple DoTs and running away is the closest I have gotten to being useful outside of organized groups

wholyhandgrenade · July 2013

As to clerics being able to stun.... if you take the third cleric tree and place all points in the last skill you can place multiple points into, you will be able to have stun on the flame strike daily that lasts for a whopping 0.5 seconds (one point gives the cleric a 0.1 second stun with it... this compares to what 3 to 6 seconds of stun in any other class?).

I personally think clerics should be naturally immune to stuns or at the very least should be as immune to them as GF's are (50% since they can hide behind their shields), clerics weren't given the 50% dodge (if they have much dodge it comes at a horrible price)... the fighters were heavily buffed to substantially weaken the cleric in game play with the idea of not flooding the cleric with all the adds (hey guess what, the adds all after the cleric was the bug not the cleric itself so why fix the bug and then neuter the cleric which wasn't bugged?).

As to rogues and chains of light, when chains does work against a number of them they are only held for perhaps 0.2 of a second... no other class is so little affected and I don't understand why rogues get away with that.

atorz · July 2013

I myself, Mostly only use AS on none divine mode, at it seems to give a higher damage reduction, Seem to work rather nice, as most other party don't consider it a thread, or think you're not doing it right, wich most of the time can keep the party alive just by making my job easier to heal with my other encounters.
Imo they should make it so the other team does not see where you throw AS, I'll take that over a stun myself.

wholyhandgrenade · July 2013

atorz wrote: »

I myself, Mostly only use AS on none divine mode, at it seems to give a higher damage reduction, Seem to work rather nice, as most other party don't consider it a thread, or think you're not doing it right, wich most of the time can keep the party alive just by making my job easier to heal with my other encounters.
Imo they should make it so the other team does not see where you throw AS, I'll take that over a stun myself.

I don't want to have to use AS, it simply doesn't fit my build unless we are giving a 4th encounter slot so we can have sufficient attacks and heals as opposed to either pick one or the other. Give us the forth encounter slot and I don't care so much about either the stuns/knockdowns or the AS/mitigation problem (we would essentially be 25% faster on our cool downs and they would build our divinity/action points all that much faster which would likely put the cleric on par).

blahblahsean · July 2013

Yup, cleric definitely need some form of CC-immunity and some form of hard-CC (stun, prone, daze).

These additions would be a good start:

Break the Spirit should have a 1 second stun baseline and should have a 2 second stun followed by a 5 second slow when used in divine mode.
Sun Burst should daze targets for 1 second and a divine Sun Burst should not only knock targets back but also daze them for 1.5 second.
A divine Daunting Light should daze targets for 1 second.
Chains of Blazing Light should root targets for 2.5 seconds baseline and when used in divine mode it should stun targets for 1 second followed by a 2.5 second root.
Guardian of Faith's prone should last 2.5 seconds (and it should do more damage and heal for more, as this daily is currently useless)
Foregemaster's Flame's snare should last 6 seconds and snare targets by 70% and when used in divine mode it should root targets for 1 second.
Bastion of Health should give the cleric 4 seconds of control immunity and if used in divine mode it should break the cleric out of any CC and then grant the immunity. This is reasonable given the extremely long cooldown and poor healing this skill does.
Prophetic Action should grant 10% of max HP as temporary hitpoints on a 60/50/40 second cooldown as well as blocking an attack over 2.5k damage (currently this class feature is worthless since it ends up blocking attacks that do negligible damage).
Astral Shield should increase the cleric's runspeed by 30% while in the healing zone.
Healing Step (Righteous Feat) should be a baseline ability that the cleric class starts with as part of their dodge mechanic.
Clerics also need a better way to deal with crowd control, that would mean either adding a new ability or changing class mechanics. One idea of mine would be to make the cleric immune to crowd control while channeling Soothing Light or somehow make it so the cleric can spend divinity to break out of CC or become immune to CC. For example, they could make it so spending divinity on an encounter skill would break the cleric out of CC and then cast the spell.

These changes would make a DPS cleric have relatively comparable CC to the other classes without giving healing clerics too much control.

wholyhandgrenade · July 2013

I'd love flame strike to stun for 5 seconds not 0.5 if you deck it out with your points. Chains of light should auto stun and stun for a good duration, not the joke severely reduced time that many rogues have. Instead of a stun for Sun Burst as you suggest, I'd much rather Sun Burst knock them back prone... hell they are blown back rather violently why should they be landing on their feet? To be fair though, I often cast chains of light immediately before sun burst so they will be stunned upon landing but when chain of light fails to effectively stun certain classes its futile.

faeriestorm · July 2013

blahblahsean wrote: »

Yup, cleric definitely need some form of CC-immunity and some form of hard-CC (stun, prone, daze).

These additions would be a good start:
Break the Spirit should have a 1 second stun baseline and should have a 2 second stun followed by a 5 second slow when used in divine mode.

A divine Sun Burst should not only knock targets back but also daze them for 1.5 second.

A divine Daunting Light should daze targets for 1 second.

Chains of Blazing Light should root targets for 2.5 seconds baseline and 3 seconds when used in divine mode.

Guardian of Faith's prone should last 2.5 seconds (and it should do more damage and heal for more, as this daily is currently useless)

Foregemaster's Flame's snare should last 6 seconds and snare targets by 70%.

Bastion of Health should give the cleric 4 seconds of control immunity and if used in divine mode it should break the cleric out of any CC and then grant the immunity. This is reasonable given the extremely long cooldown and poor healing this skill does.

Prophetic Action should grant 10% of max HP as temporary hitpoints on a 60/50/40 second cooldown as well as blocking an attack over 2.5k damage (currently this class feature is worthless since it ends up blocking attacks that do negligible damage).

Healing Step (Righteous Feat) should be a baseline ability that the cleric class starts with as part of their dodge mechanic.

These changes would make a DPS cleric have relatively comparable CC to the other classes without giving healing clerics too much control.

I agree with all but the prophetic action proposed change. Yes the first hit is usually a trash hit but then next is usually a huge one. Although when it does shield damage it just shields the damage not the CC and I feel it should do both. I mean if you block all damage from an attack and still get stunned that kind of defeats the purpose.

captobvious8 · July 2013

I think one of the most helpful things mentioned, even if nothing stun-related is changed, is making AS circles invisible to enemies. That alone would balance things out soo much (though not completely), and make healing more viable in pvp. As it is now, it is clearly obvious there is a healer nearby when you see that circle thrown down, and it is VERY easy to get people out of it. Many games actually require some skill to determine the healer from the other types, and in this game, it doesn't. I think, given the crosshair targeting style this game uses, that making it less obvious who the healer is and how he is healing would alone go a long way to increasing survivability for healers, and everyone else.

Also, as others have said, not only do healers get knocked out, but so does every other teammate that uses it, since EVERY class has multiple knockbacks and stuns (except, of course, clerics). The way it is now, the strategy is knock them out of the circle, stun-lock them, and dps them to death. For any class, any situation. Essentially meaning that the best team is probably 5 well-geared CW's. I think it would go a long way to adding some more strategy and variety in the game if healing circles weren't so obvious, thereby making them a more challenging mechanic. Especially since ALL we have is domination matches at this point.

Or, alternatively, keep AS circles visible, but make those inside immune to physical effects like pushbacks, and maybe prone and choke, but not dazes, roots, slows, etc. So cc attacks still have their effect and damage, but we can actually stay in the circle, making said circle more relevant. If devs are worried that would effect pve, think about this: this just keeps you from getting knocked out. It doesn't mean you're immune to red circle damage. Many boss attacks will hit you **** hard even if you're in the circle, and are best avoided by dodging out of it. So it wouldn't keep you from having to move to avoid damage.

Clerics need stuns or stun immunity like everyone else

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