It's been discussed in the cleric thread, but since it's not directly related to the new Paragon Path, I wanted to raise the issue in a different thread.
With the controversy over the Fabled Set and the Fomorian Set, I was surprised to see another similar stat allocation for the new DC equipment. It could at least be said that the Sharandar gear addressed a lack of Armor Pen and Life Steal for players who wanted those stats for their DCs, but what gives with the Dread Legion gear?
- It's true that even the most defensive DC needs to attack, but Armor Penetration and Life Steal are the overall least useful stats for any but the all-out offensive DC, which is rarely desirable in groups except when more than one DC happens to be present. And for that, we already have Fabled and Fomorian.
- Perhaps even more importantly, where is the DC Regen set? When you see so many DCs running around in blue junk for the stats, it should be an indicator that many players aren't getting what they feel that they need from the existing Epic gear options. Would it be a terrible thing to design a DC set around Regeneration and Deflection as secondary stats a la High Vizier?
Please consider reworking the stat bonuses, because they are very unexciting as they stand now and provide little incentive to collect and craft. It would also help to indicate the % chance of activation for set bonus powers and any internal cooldowns so that A) we aren't unpleasantly surprised and
if something is wrong with a set's bonus, we will figure it out more quickly and report it.
Comments
I agree with a few points commented by vorphied, even thought I would like to add information about the 4 pieces set bonus which I consider are worse that the stats:
Dread Legion set: When healing, you have a chance to trigger evocation of mending. After 5 seconds the evocation triggers, healing up to 5 nearby allies for 500. This heal is increased by 10% for each additional target affected.
Maths (please correct me if I'm wrong) 10% increased per each ally total full party 50% so 500 + 50% is 750 each 5 seconds.
Thanks to righteousness 40% less, it would be only 200 HP if I am alone and 300 when there are nearby allies.
Using Miracle Healer's set, when you have around 30k HP, you can heal an ally or yourself for 1500 more or less for each used encounter and it is not affected by the debuff. According to this comparison, Why would I even bother to get another set? It is just not practical. Btw fabled set bonus does not even work with the DC, only allies.
I am an avid PvP player with my DC, my kill/death ratio is high I know (unfortunately we are unable to see this) so from this point of view, even thought I consider that arpen and life steal are not bad for the cleric, the set bonus provided by each set fabled and dread legion are just so low when you compare them even with lower tiers. As mentioned before, a PvP cleric have to use either Miracle Healer or a combination of blue items in order to get a good result in battle, that is unfair.
A simple rule is: if you want the best stuff, work hard for it but if we consider these sets like the last tiers so far with these terrible bonus, I really do not feel motivated.
I love the DC but I am thinking about rolling to another class because I do not see some love unfortunately. What about a set bonus that reduce the righteousness by some % or gives temp points, anything will be better that the actual bonus.
I expect these are no different but that is completely personal speculation.
If I recall, they modified some of that gear in response to player feedback on Preview, at least as far as adding weapon set bonuses where none had originally existed.
One can hope that the stats are merely placeholders, but I don't want it to pass without comment in case they are not. It will be extremely disappointing if DCs are given a niche armor set for a second module in a row. They really need their own Deflection/Regen set, not more Life Steal and Armor Pen :P
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
@Devs: Is it possible to know the reasons why you prefer to add this (In my opinion) useless stats ?? is there any reasonable explanation to do that ?? Just asking so we can try to understand ur point of view on this.
I'm also curious to know, though I suspect that the community has guessed correctly in that they were trying to further increase the availability of offensive sets for DCs when they followed the Champion set from GG with the Fabled set.
That's nice and all, but I think we're due for a strong support set now I'm campaigning hard for a Deflection/Regen or at least a Defense/Regen set. It's really baffling that DCs, of all classes, still lack such an option in epic gear and have to make patchwork blue sets to achieve the optimal stat combination.
Devs, please show us the love
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
To be honest, there is no need to bring two DC'S into a group. 1 to debuff and dps and another to heal, the role can be filled by one healing DC. If the intent to actually make a DPS cleric is in the works they really need to focus on making it. However, that doesn't seem to be the case, nor in high end pvp or pve. There is always a dedicated healer (Devoted) ha ha ha!
Anyways, I really hope the stats are changed, because as it stands Arm Pen is broken for DC and doesn't work and life steal is laughable to be any help towards a successful DC in pvp or pve.
I'm not trying to be so negative, however, as a DC in the game who has a PVP and PVE speced DC'S, both of thoese stats are useless to me and have played no significant part in being successful in my pvp or pve encounters.
foundry Call of the Blood - NW-DTAK6CXZ2
campaign Heart of Nature - NWS-DUKNH9PPZ
Iyon the Dark
I suggest keeping armor pen and exchanging lifesteal for something else like;
Armor Pen/Deflection
Armor Pen/Regeneration
Armor Pen/Movement
There are talks about "we already have an armor pen armor with feywild module," true, but if you look at all the armors T1's and T2's out there, there are way more options for you other DCs. This gives us, armor pen loving DCs, another option to choose from.
At the risk of derailing this topic, I have to ask what it is about Armor Pen that you love for DC. As it is right now on live, it doesn't even work with most DC powers (the worst of that appears to be fixed in Shadowmantle, though). It also doesn't boost healing.
Life Steal is terrible, but it's terrible in a way similar to how Armor Pen is terrible: its usefulness is predicated on the idea that you are dealing massive damage as your primary function in the group, which is generally untrue of DCs. DCs can do significant damage, don't get me wrong, but that's not usually the role they're needed to fill.
We're talking about end-game sets here, not T1. Having decidedly niche set options for two modules in a row would be extremely disappointing.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
What role a player plays is up to that player, not any other. Here, a dps DC is best in a pvp scenario, it's where I use my dps builds. Although I have used one of my dps builds in pugs and yet to have falter in healing the group.
As for end game gear, the T1 High Prophets gear can be a choice end game gear for the burst cleric builds.
As for my suggestions to stats, they were made because if you place the regen/deflection stat on the gear, you will never hear the end of it where players say it is OP, especially for the popular regen DC build. I am leveling one of those up right now and even though i dont have rare or epic gear, it does quite well with what I have, at my level. It just shines at level 60. I played with a DC regen/deflect build in a pug, and he was near godlike in a Karrundax.
My suggestions are to better balance things out. Regen to heal you, deflect to minimise damage, movement to out manuever/keep away from those trying to hit/kill you.
Debating with role-play is like trying to debate religion. Whatever you like best will be correct for you, so there's not much point in pursuing the math there.
DPS is arguably the worst role for DC in PvP. It can work okay in some PUGs, but it's a one-trick pony with one decent burst and virtually no CC. It's a spec for messing around and having fun (nothing wrong with fun, mind you), not for being competitive, and we should all hope that the devs don't balance around that idea.
Suggesting that it would be unbalanced to include regen/deflect on DC epics is like saying that Guardian Fighters shouldn't have defensive stats built into their epic armor sets and should be forced to cobble together blues to get the stats they want.
High Prophet is a special case because of its interesting set bonus. Wouldn't call it end-game, but it has its uses.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
You cannot love a stat that is broken. Armor Pen does not work for our spells, so saying this means you do not actually look at your logs or you just have no clue what you're saying.
There are not "way more options for you DC'S" because the t1 and t2 pve sets are all the same stat allocations. Power, Crit, Recovery, and Defense.
The only different sets with "way more options" are the t1 and t2 PVP sets which have life steal. The other set would be arm pen from Feywild.
So I don't want to be rude, but please don't try to argue something that has no logic (saying you love a stat that does literally nothing for you due to it being broken and does not work with our spells).
The person who posted that made a good point and you're trying to refute it by giving bad information to people who might listen to you and think that armor pen actually works.
Thank you for this.
This game doesn't have options for multiple specs in the que system. IE it cannot tell if you are a "dps" DC or a healing DC. The que system assumes that there is one tank (GF), one healer, (DC), and a mixture of 3 dps (tr, gwf, cw, and soon to be hr).
Like vorph said, if you have a group of friends and they don't mind u being a one trick pony and you want to have fun and they accept that, sure have fun.
But it is clear this game has a structure and the DC falls into a strict healing role and giving us stats that do not help us and force us into 1 gear set or 2/2 is by far underwhelming and disappointing.
Problem is, already mentioned many times before, we already have an useless set (fabled) that is not used and we are receiving almost the same set, it would be really great if we receive a set with better stats or at least another "4 pieces set bonus" otherwise, keep playing with Miracle Healer or roll another char if you want.
The point of this thread is not to suggest that DCs must be played a certain way all of the time, but to point out that the Dread Legion set as shown on Preview is redundant and that a strong demand exists for a T2.5 set that might actually make people consider trading out their blue gear or sending their smelly old Miracle Healer to the cleaners once in a while.
There's no real gear progression if very few players actually want the new gear.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
I'm with you at 100%. DC already have an armor pen set and don't need another one that has also a nearly useless full set bonus. In addition those stats on a DC are barely useful in any way. I hardly find a use for the armor pen on DC (despite the fact that is currently bugged), and even in case there was one, we already have a set for that (probably two since the fomorian should have armor pen too if I'm not wrong).
Life steal is probably even worse, since it depends on dps dealt and, as we all know, DC are not exactly a dps class, even if I see my daunting light crit for 40k or more once in a while, but I cannot rely on that to survive.
Having regen could be an interesting alternative to the current sets. A lot of DCs that I know (myself included) have more than 25k hp and regen would be really nice and a good alternative defensive stat.
The issue is the following:
The set bonus is not a solo player bonus - it is a group bonus, but when a DC is in a group, nobody is interested in the damage he does - the DC is there to heal, buff and debuff. This set is not going to make me a better healer - so it is useless for me - far inferior to the MH set.
That's it....there is no reason whatsoever to spend time and energy on getting this set. Life steal...get real, please.....
To Dev teams, please stop hating DC as our lives are already miserable enough getting bullied by mobs in PVE and also 'angry mobs' in PVP.
Appreciate it, thank you!
So you're saying that a DC can compete in DPS with an at-will which is single target and has low base dmg and a couple of encounters that don't provide any CC, have small range and long CD with any other class?
The fact that a DC should eventually get a good burst dmg doesn't make it a dps by any means.
Problem is that developers saw how OP a def/deflection/regen set should be in PvP and I hardly belive they will intruce a set like that into the game.
Other than that I'm pretty much sure this is just a placeholder for the real set.
And, it should be for critical clerics
2-piece: +450 critical chance
4-piece: Cooldown reduced on critical hits (0,2 second per critical hit, without internal cooldown)
OR,
4-piece: Critical hits gives you a stack of holy might (+200 power, stacks up to 5, 10 sec duration)
Would be very interesting imho
We already have team-wide life steal from astral seal, can't see any use for it to be on our gear.
One big aspect in mmos is Item-Progression...let me be part of it!
Since a long time i just help friends out with their item-progression because there is nothing what my cleric really wants to have. I was hoping for module 2 and now i am really afraid that there is again no new set for my DC. Like Vorpied said, my Miracle Set is smelly...
Love the idea, but would personally hope for either an encounter cooldown reduction bonus similar to what you first suggested. Even 1000 Power isn't a huge difference, and additional heals like with MH or FI are generally preferable.
Also, just to call it out specifically, this request goes for the Fallen Dragon weapon set as well. I think the majority of us are not any more excited about a second consecutive T2.5 weapon set with Armor Pen and Life Steal than we are about the Dread Legion's currently displayed stats.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Would be an interesting alternative to High prophet / Miracle healer 4-piece.
Another idea:
4-piece: Makes you cast spells twice as fast (double speed on cast animation)
Or,
4-piece: You master your spells, allowing them to be cast while moving. (at half speed?)