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I started a cleric about a month ago and level'd him up. I have a few questions.
dresmith37
Member Posts: 13 Arc User
1. Namely, why did they WoW clerics in this game? (actually WoW priests can heal much better)It is so sad to see no bonus's against undead and no full plate. No Harm or Heal type spells. If you are going to use the D&D name, why make GG roll over in his grave?
2. PVP - I'm sorry, there is no way a rogue would dare attack a true battle priest (traditional cleric) in broad daylight. Here the cleric's can get one shotted.
3. Soloing PVE - The class is so weak, it takes forever to level or finish Sharandar quests.
2. PVP - I'm sorry, there is no way a rogue would dare attack a true battle priest (traditional cleric) in broad daylight. Here the cleric's can get one shotted.
3. Soloing PVE - The class is so weak, it takes forever to level or finish Sharandar quests.
Post edited by dresmith37 on
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Maybe one day we'll get a "real" healer. Sad.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
We are not just healers, and comparing the DC to any WoW healer is like comparing a WoW warlock to a hunter - both are DPSers and both have pets but the similarity ends there.
NWN is based on 4th edition D&D, and the 4th edition D&D is wildly different from the D&D you seem to be familiar with. Be thankful the devs didn't bother to give us Turn Undead because the power is gimped in 4th edition.
Holy/fire damage (which is the damage type most of our powers do) is supposed to deal higher damage to undead, however it seems this hasn't been implemented yet.
Devoted Clerics are more like caster clerics, and keeping with this theme they can only wear up to medium armor in-game. The cleric you seem to be looking for is the Battle Cleric, which is a more martial class.
Harm and Heal are missing in 4th ed.
Only clerics with below average gear and glass cannon clerics get one-shotted often, and creating a glass cannon cleric on purpose means you are making the conscious decision to ignore diminishing returns on power/crit/recovery/armor pen. Which is stupid if you want to be serious PvPer.
Currently only very well-geared clerics can have surplus stats but once the new module goes live more people should have extra stats to dump into def/deflect/regen, so that even clerics with average gear should have decent defensive stats even if they choose to focus on power/crit/recovery/armor pen.
Clerics that spec for survivability are notoriously hard to kill, see Gctrl's guide for details.
The DC's AoE burst damage potential is one of the highest of any class. If you slot Terrifying Insight and slot powers like Sunburst/Searing Light/Chains/Daunting Light/Divine Glow you can easily kill off Sharandar mobs and move from one group to another faster than most classes. Just get a cleric companion/Lillend for healing and you'll rarely even need to use potions.
If you didn't bother to get Terrifying Insight and powers like Chains/Daunting Light/Divine Glow/Searing Light then either respec or wait for the next module. Even a pure support cleric should have an extra 9 or so power points to play around with, why would you choose to skip the best solo powers we have?
Every Cleric decision is governed by their one overriding objective, which is so transparent it's see through: The need for players to buy and use potions.
Starting from the absurd Righteousness Mechanic onward everything is directed at making this class as poor as it possibly can be whilst trying to keep others alive.
Mention a good skill on the new Paragon path? Dev responds with a looking to tone this down comment....
Mention that one of the new Paragon path skills compares poorly with an existing skill? Dev responds with a looking to tone down the existing skill....
Bottom line - you will never get a real healer, that would impact on potion use. The first decision they made was to penalize a healer for healing themselves, that sets the scene for everything else to follow with this class.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
just one topic like this each week...
The cleric of NWO is a healer, yes. But more regeneration-like with highly supportive buffs/debuffs and mitigations.
As written in many another threads, Ashield + ASeal are mostly high enough to keep people alive.
Also a quick example in numbers: Pot (8500) + Healing word (3k + 1.5k HoT) + sunburst (2k) may end up somewhere between 15k and 20k within a few seconds.
If a CW decides to be first-facetank, it's not the clerics fault if he dies.
About PvP I can agree, sometimes it's a bit hard. But haven't been one-shoted for a really long time, and my defense is quite low.
The only thing that's really annoying as cleric, beeing first target. So often CWs lift you up and chain-CC to death or GFs throw you around. A little chance of ignoring/lowering CCish effects would be nice. (Like in other games, the CCs get less effective in chain or just get ignored while in CC effect, also runes/gems/w/e against CCs)...
On PvE I have almost no problems, well the sharandar Warriors maybe a bit hard from time to time, but still killable.
Also you still have the possibility to team up, whats speeding up daily quests anyway.
lol - just one patronizing reply each week....
I know how the healer works, I've healed just in just about every major and a few minor mmo's for years. From the standard tab target, through heal via damage, and action mmo's. This healer is purely based on mercenary pot buying - for themselves. How ridiculous is that for a healer? It's not first heal, it's the subsequent mass mobbing on the cleric - and yes I played at original launch when it was a complete joke.
Well I'll hold off now for a few days for the new Paragon paths to be introduced. By the way, they have said they are going to tone down at least one of the current DC skills - feedback forums are a good place to check this. Melee with cross skills, whilst the Cleric has a new Paragon path that experienced people on the PTS are already saying isn't as good as the one they have now.
Oh, and one shotting? - Wait for Hunters to get to end cap with a bit of gear.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
It's because mitigation directly affects the value of potions (and every other HP recovery mechanic in the game) that the devs made it a point to balance healing in the game as they did. Didn't you ever bother to wonder why our main heal is divine Astral Shield and not divine Forgemaster's Flame, when Forgemaster's Flame heals for significantly more? Many people don't even use FF.
And hunters have nowhere near the burst potential of TRs. That's actually one of the main issues of the class atm.
And stop complaining about Righteousness. It doesn't affect our best heals and if you bothered to check how well clerics built specifically for survivability do (like Gctrl's cleric) then you'll know that the devs make a pretty darn good point about why that mechanic should remain.
I only play clerics at NWO, also got other good clerics at the guild - and other guildmates never said a word about "high pot needing" or being low healthy that often while I "healing" - and I'm hybrid DPS specced, not classical heal specced. Also I do much without Foresight and AShield+Seal only.
I also know healer from various MMOs, and also many supportive classes/ideas.
Actually in my first MMO about something like 10 years ago, I played a DD, for about 6 or 8 weeks - then I was wondering what's that hard about heal and support since many people were failing.
Tested, loved and got stucked. So I've played priests, monks, clerics, druids, however they are named in various MMOs.
My first thought at NWOs cleric was kinda like "uh, shall this work?" too, but I understood it's mechanics very fast and haven't seen that many people screamin.
It's not about high numbers floating, it's more about many lower numbers constantly floating with buffs and mitigations. Highest I did so far was a nearly 8k crit on Healing Word.
Also my pot-usage is quite low, maybe buying a stack per month - could do much lower with less offensive solo playing... and summoning my clerical companion way more often...
Watched my gold during the last 2~3 weeks, +130 gold.
Doesn't explain why other classes are still capable of dying when we're healing them, though. If the idea is that having 100% heals to ourselves makes us unkillable, the 100% heals that we give to everyone else should make them unkillable. Hell, double DC teams should be instant win teams.
Gctrl's build approach is about as counter-intuitive as you can get, focussing on exactly zero of the DC's core stats, and exploiting the innate deflect bonus of halflings. It's not an example of "how clearly OP the DC is", it's a shining exemplar of exactly how insanely off-piste you have to think to get a near-unkillable PvP cleric. It's only viable as a team-member (rather than as a pure troll-machine) because DCs provide mitigation as well as healing, and mitigation doesn't scale. A cleric with 4 wisdom would mitigate exactly as much damage as a cleric with 24. The same strategy would never work for say...CWs, because they need INT to actually DO anything.
If clerics were slightly better at self-healing, then maybe we wouldn't need to make crazy things like DEX/CON halflings, or waltz around in full regen blues, just to....not be instagibbed in PvP.
So there's that.
Also, the reason most people don't use forgemaster's as a main heal is because it needs a monster, and a monster that will survive for the duration of the DoT.
Astral shield can be cast anywhere, anytime, and will heal everyone in the circle. And it's a HoT that can start up anytime, so even people outside the circle can see it and move over and get in on the action (contrast with, say, BoH, where if you miss the cast, you miss out entirely).
Yes, it also provides a lovely chunk of mitigation, but it already has SO MUCH MORE utility than almost every other power we have.
A healing class - and you can put whatever description you like against the cleric, the bottom line is that's its needed to put out heals by various mechanisms to keep the group alive - takes longer to get through mobs, but mitigates this with self heals. Main on another action mmo Tera is a Mystic, with no direct self healing. But have they (or any other major mmo) felt it necessary to introduce a healing penalty? Of course not.
The Cleric actions here are probably closest aligned to the Rift Chloromancer which also heals via damage. They need to take a real close look at how Trion have done this, which would improve the Cleric here no end. Instead we get yet more incoming toned down messages from the combat developer who, as soon as they see a skill being mentioned as good - immediately responds with a looking to nerf this. There's a link to one of these in my response today on another poster's question in the Cleric category.
Not surprisingly the feedback on the Anointed Champion has dried up. People recognize that praising a skill immediately puts it in the firing line for a tone down response.
Everything they do here points to reducing this class to the absolute minimum it can be, purely to maximize their cash shop.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
You are confusing actual PvP gameplay with ideal PvP gameplay. The fact of the matter is that everyone benefits significantly from having increased survivability in PvP. Everyone. It's why Tenebs are ridiculously powerful.
Once you start using perfect and rank 8+ enchants it can even be argued that better survivability starts to becomes more of a priority over extra DPS for all classes. This is especially true if you're a cleric and you expect to be on the receiving end of attacks from people using perfect vorpals.
You also seem to misunderstand Gctrl's guide because he's mainly telling you how to pull it off while keeping costs reasonable. Some of the toughest clerics I know running around in the game are neither halflings nor do they have low wis. Several of them have both high defensive stats and good power/recovery. They're all using end-game items though.
I have tried using Forgemaster's Flame as my main heal several times after the first major AS nerf. My reasoning: Forgemaster's Flame had better CD, better healing and I played with a close-knit group using Ventrilo so everyone knew where they should be standing. It didn't matter if the yellow/blue circle graphic was there or not, I would just tell them where mob carrying the FF debuff was.
Ultimately AS won primarily because of the mitigation and a bit because of its very good uptime/downtime ratio.
Mitigation is our specialty. Every healing and HP recovery mechanic in the game benefits from mitigation. Even potions.
As I recall, Righteousness was implemented because people were complaining that DCs were not using pots at all at some point during beta, both in PvP and PvE. I wonder why... it might be because an extra 50% of Healing Word's heal is equivalent to chugging a PvE HP pot.
Anyway our best heals (FF and AS) both ignore Righteousness.
I'd suggest the people complaining about Clerics not using pots where the accountants.
But seriously, who where these people complaining? People playing dps/tank saying healers are OP? If every mmo dev listened to "that other class is OP" comments, we'd all be playing zero output roles.
People complained the Clerics weren't using pots - you know why? Because they are a healer. That's what they do. Their dps is low as a trade off against this class mechanic.
So other classes with little or no healing abilities and using pots complained that the healer wasn't using pots? Consequently the healer got the healing penalty. Just writing that makes it sound so utterly ridiculous, which of course it is.
I'm not having a go at the Tyrtallow's post here - I think this is entirely accurate, a well thought out article from an experienced player. My comments are aimed directly at the devs.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
"Not using pots" is supposed to be one of the perks of being a healer class. "You might have HAMSTER damage output, but you really don't need to worry about keeping yourself alive".
(besides, with a cleric companion, NOBODY uses pots for run of the mill solo stuff)
As for heals that affect us and our targets....what, healing word and soothing light. That's it. Sunburst is a PbAoE spell, so it's impossible NOT to hit ourselves with that, but I don't think that really qualifies as 'free backheal' so much as 'gimped direct-heal'. Everything else can happily be cast on others for zero benefit for us. Sure we CAN get in on the heals by casting stuff close enough so that we can share the benefit, but as far as "free backheals" go, it's JUST healing word and soothing light.
The core problem seems to be that the "free backheals" were too advantageous, since that's the ONLY thing that's different from "direct casting on self": spamming a healing word on everyone in the party would ALSO spam healing word on yourself, four times. Rather than address this issue (healing word spam backheals), they decided "hay let's stick in a flat modifier so all heals are less effective on the caster...er...except FF and AS for some reason (which will thus become massively preferable)".
It also means you have ludicrous situations like "healing word is 2.7x better if cast on literally anyone else". You don't have clutch situations where you have to decide whether to HW yourself and survive but maybe let an ally die, or choose to save the ally, because...it's gonna give you the same HAMSTER heal either way. There is absolutely zero advantage to casting it on yourself.
If I were designing it, I'd ditch righteousness entirely, and reduce the backheal from HW and soothing light to perhaps...40%, but have this stated in the powers themselves (in cryptic-speak I guess this would be something like "when cast on an ally, you heal yourself for a smaller amount" because cryptic are...cryptic), and I'd have the powers be EXACTLY as effective when cast directly on yourself as they would be when cast on allies.
So: healing word on an ally, they get 100% HW benefit, you get 40% benefit. Healing word on yourself? You get 100% benefit.
It'd thus be more efficient (total heal points-wise) to cast on an ally, but not necessarily always appropriate, and it would provide you with more tools to keep yourself alive.
2 - I disagree that we are soft. I don't wear blues and I have no regen gear yet I can hold a node against 3 players long enough for help to arrive, I can stalemate and kill a GF, I have never been one-shotted and I keep my teammates healthy and in the fight. And yes, I am an effective healer/buffer in PvE as well. My PvP tankiness comes from the desire to build a PvE ''healtank''; something that can keep my party buffed while being the last to die. Yes, as with every other class I get destroyed when confronted by a guild of premades, but on a level playing field against a non-premade I am a pretty effective PvPer and far from being the doormat. I'm lucky to get more than 4 kills but I usually die the least amount of times and usually have the highest amount of assists. AShield helps a lot in taking and holding nodes and Chains can pin a particularly nasty TR or CW. Daunting Light? 15-16k crits are not uncommon.
3 - Outside of the Realm of Malabog, Sharandar is a profitable (gold-wise) cakewalk. I can solo Dark Fey & Blighted Grove in 40-45 minutes, soloing both dungeons. I have perfected the art of working with my Man-At-Arms companion in dealing with Trolls, Thorns and Giantsouls. I do not need to use a potion in Dark Fey or Blighted Grove and my Man-At-Arms only dies halfway through the boss fights in Gnarlroot & Witch Fen.
Righteousness has slewed our entire approach to healing, forcing this concentration on two skills which by some apparently ad hoc thinking are not affected by it, ruining others and making this class one of the worst healing roles around. It needs to go, with the changes you suggest being looked at.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
This may come as a surprise to people but DPS DCs can hit like a truck. They also can be tanky, so barely any damage done. I know with simply seal + branding of the sun on multiple targets I can yawn and never go below 90% health even with multiple mobs beating on me. Now if that did full healing? I'd never go below 99% health, I'm sure. So, while yes, there are times as a DC leveling up that it's annoying, end game it's illrelevant as a DC who tries a little won't need a pot ever, anyways.
All your saying here is that if you set up the class one way it gives dps, whilst setting it up another way sacrifices the dps but makes it tougher - that's no different from any other game, but still doesn't get around the fact that this Righteousness mechanic is a fundamental flaw for this class.
A healer put on a level with others of potentially needing to heal? - of course they need to heal that's their purpose. Healers set up to heal (yes some do that) get through mobs slower but mitigate this with self healing while the fight goes on. It's how the healing is carried out with this broken 40% penalty that's the ridiculous thing here.
Annoying while leveling, that doesn't get near it. All these posters from capped out end game saying I can do this/that etc miss the point. When does the game lose the most people? - not when their committed to the end game. It's when they start to play their preferred class in a game, try it and find one broken mechanic impacts everything about it. That's when their numbers drop.
Healers are always one of the less popular roles in an mmo, yet always in demand. A continuation of this healing penalty will not attract people into the game to play this class, the reverse in fact.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
Righteousness is a ridiculous mechanic. The idea of having healers heal themselves for less makes no sense, and it's frustrating for new players. If they're new to this type of game and somehow haven't been completely discouraged by lvl 60, imagine what happens when they hit the DC gear wall and attempt to walk into T2 content or PvP undergeared and with Righteousness in full force. No wonder experienced and strong DCs are in short supply.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Tomas, Human Devoted Cleric
Dragon Shard
1. CC
2. Debuffs in general
3. A special lower health gain debuff
Other games come with debuffs that reduce the effect of heals on you. This way you don't have to always only attack the healer first becaue you can also just debuff the tank and burn him because the healer won't be a big help on him during that time. For example in the MOBA Wrath of Heroes a heal debuff was perfect against those classes that dealt vampiric damage and healed themselves. Or if more than one healer was present. Instead of focussing 3 healers just debuff 1 player and burn him.
You can find much better ways to deal with a class that might heal too much rather than bringing "Righteousness" and making it 100% permanent through the whole game.
I haven't leveled a DC for a while, but at that time found that DC were fine early and mid-game but around 40+ they started losing SOLO efficiency relatively to all the other classes.
I started this game 3 months ago with a DC. My experience seems to be the complete opposite of yours. I found soloing from 1 to 60 to be very slow and deliberate. Difficult even, at times. Because we can't hack-n-slash our way through you have to think before you do something and pick mobs off. If you accidentally drew another mob into a fight you would find yourself in trouble. However, once I got to 60 and started gearing up it got easier. Sharandar is a breeze, except for Fomorian Warriors and Celadine. I do solo Celadine, but it's a tricky one and I have to pot during the fight.
Contrast my GF. He is level 46 right now and I am running train through these quests. So much easier than leveling my DC.
DC is still my favourite class though.
I actually think you're both saying more or less the same thing. Sure at lower levels it's pretty straightforward. Around 40 it get's to be a pain. AS is only available at 50 points spent so you're still some way off that. You see other classes who you have partied with sailing past in terms of leveling as it takes so long - relatively - to get through mobs whilst your own survivability isn't that brilliant.
This is where the faults in the class show up, and the time where people's frustrations with the class reach the point where they switch off from it.
After all, why log on every time knowing you're going to have another painful leveling experience when you can switch to something that, as you say, is so much easier.
Sure, end game is something else as you start the vertical gear progression treadmill.
"Mod 6. Oh my f****** god. It gutted the game pure and simple. And what wasn't gutted was messed up by the poorly thought out new level cap and equip. The game never recovered from that atrocity".
..............not this one then.............
Actually I think we are saying the same thing (almost) as I was just referring to the leveling aspects. It was 30ish-60 that I found more difficult relative to other classes than 1-30ish. When you hit 60, gear can make a huge difference.
If you have leveling issues do yourself a favor and slot Sunburst or Chains/FF or Searing Light/Chains or Daunting Light or Divine Glow, slot Terrifying Insight and stack crit. Then come back and tell me whether a DC should be struggling on any non-boss solo content fight. Healing Word does have its uses in certain areas where kiting is necessary, but you could simply hire a cleric/Lillend companion to cover all your self-healing needs instead.
I do see morsitan's point, instead of Righteousness affecting HW and Soothing Light you could just remove Righteousness and nerf HW and Soothing Light's self healing a bit though the end result is the same as giving our present HW/Soothing Light a slight self-healing buff, which would be welcome. I personally think that there should be a healing bonus when you use these powers on yourself (which technically is equivalent to casting them twice on the same target).
I still don't understand how Righteousness is supposed to be an issue if you're not actually using Healing Word, however. You people are actually making it sound like Healing Word is the Astral Shield of your builds.
Clerics are actually one of the easier classes to gear. No one expects you to top DPS charts so there's no pressure on getting a purple weapon ASAP, and no one expects you to actually tank so what actually matters is that you do have decent survivability. Happily, blue level 60 items with defense/deflect/regen are dirt cheap and last but not the least, you should have very little trouble getting into T1 dungeon groups. Transitioning to T1s / T2s should be pretty straightforward.
It's pretty much textbook. At least, compared to the hell some other classes have to go through.