I had been mostly doing pvp with PUGs, but went in with some guildies yesterday and it was a TOTALLY different experience. It was a 2DC/2TR/1HR team, and we were up against another premade (I think a 2GWF/1DC/2CW? - def all the same guild on the other side). We were ahead most of the time, but it certainly wasn't a blowout.
The crazy part was how effective the other DC and I were at holding the center point, with occasional assistance from the HR and one of the TRs. We both had AS and HW slotted (they had sunburst for knockback and I was using FF). With that much healing going around it was difficult to kill either of us even with the healing depression. And with 2 DCs, the other team had to split their attention with who they wanted to prone so it was rare for either of us to just get proned to death.
I'm not really pvp geared yet - the only thing I do for pvp is swap some powers around. That run made me rethink the DCs utility in pvp. Though maybe it's just a demo of why premades tend to stomp pugs. :P
"MH set is the best set for soloing, even better than HP because of its healing and damaging abilities." said by Kaelac.
"Tenacity is going to increase the tankiness and survivability of a cleric effectiviely." still, said by Kaelac.
"Exaltation and Healing Word is a must in pvp, it is the core where you can 1v5 ppl at your node for a while, along with healing step and your pvp pot." This statement, said by me.
I'm going to disagree on a few points here. Firstly, MH is not the best set for soloing, all it does is provide you with heals everytime you cast an encounter, which is nice, but not needed. You don't really need to heal yourself much for solo content, and if you really need to well you have pots and artifacts, either waters or the raven skull. HP just seems better for solo because of the debuff, which also often times isn't needed for solo, but at least it speeds up elite kills and boss fights, and for me it's nice to have since I don't have all the extra dmg that I once did as a DO. Sharandar set probably becomes the best for solo because of it's incrased crit and the apen it gives you. Basically, if you can't keep yourelf alive then use MH, if you don't have enough dmg to burn through most mobs in a single rotation then definetely use HP.
Tenacity makes you more tanky, without a doubt, but if you can't manage to heal yourself back up then it's value is mediocre at best, all it does is make you die slower. That's why I prefer MH over the grim/profound sets, sure I take a little more dmg from hits but I can then recover those lots hit points.
I agree that HW/Exalt are great encounters for PVP, and healing step is an amazing feat, but realistically you are not going to 1 v 5 effectively. If the enemies have comparable gear to you and are at least half decent it becomes very dificult to have any sustained survivability for anything like 1 v 3 and up, of course it does depend on the classes.
I'm not crazy about Healing Word since Healing Depression came into play; it's pretty unimpressive without Divinity and is a downright terrible self-heal. Forgemaster's dishes out way more healing despite its limitations. Exaltation I continue to love, though; it's more valuable now than ever.
It's not bad without divinity, it just provides no direct healing, all HOT based. The great thing about HW is that you get 3 charges, it stacks so you can cast mutliple ones on a single target, it doesn't just refresh the HOT. It's synergizes amazingly with MH and it's a DP generator along with the fact that you can still cast it from divine even if it's on CD with all the charges used. Forgemaster's provides nice healing and is by far our most burst heal but it's healing is really is only double of a non divine healing word. It's also easy to dodge and even if you land it on somebody it's so easy for them to disengage and deny any healing from it to your party. It's also a DP drain. I found it can perform quite well in PUG's but not very well in premades.
after playing with exaltation in PvP I agree, its fun. but with such long cool time, it doesn't work nice with divine fortune (healing word works great)
having both healing word and exaltation is bit too much , its will be hard to do any damage (might work with prebuild party)
its hard choice, we can hardly do any damage or healing...
It's hardly too much, if you want to survive that is. You can socket a subpar dmg power if you want but I don't see the benefit. The only offensive power you can slot that makes any sense is DG.
Some very useful perspectives. I'll be first to admit my build and spec is pure PvE and I am by no means a seasoned or experienced PvPer.
We can see from this thread there are a number of setups that have been met with success from very different gear and skill loadouts.
What I like to hear is how you guys adjust your loadout vs opponents. Of course the match won't always be 1v1 but for example in the match posted we have 2 permastealth TRs who were pretty good at harassing. Usually we are fighting at a point where one of us is trying to recap or keep the point contested so kiting wasn't the best technique. I am using FF and my Plague Fire DoTs to try to limit their stealth and their mobility but when they can seemingly go out and straight back into stealth even with DoTs I find them very hard to counter. It's a DoT vs DoT situation, and a TR's DoTs is always going to hit faster and harder than mine and eventually when I get low enough they'll go for shocking execution which is usually a kill/soulforge. What do you guys do in those situations with DPS/healing rotations? Or maybe the best strategy is avoid altogether and support the team instead elsewhere?
The other issue I really am annoyed with is how Armor penetration doesn't work with a lot of our abilities and DoTs. I usually roll with about 1-1.4k ArP. In that match my damage output was actually third, just slightly behind the 2nd TR. However because FF, BoTS and Plague fire DoTs (along with many other DC skills) don't actually work with armor penetration our ability to keep up damage vs opponents is very limited especially vs the tankier classes. Then because our Armor Pen is gimped, our outgoing damage is gimped and thus my lifesteal return from DoTs is also gimped.
I have been trying to think how we can be successful (ie kill or stalemate) against other classes of similar GS without relying on a tanking/healing hybrid, and I can't see a clear strategy. I would be very interested to hear from the more seasoned guys about what works for you. I know 1v1 is not our strength either and possibly not what we should be doing in domination but that's probably another discussion and strategy altogether.
I have yet to see or find an effective way to stay alive and deal dmg, so it's pretty much would you rather stay alive and be hard to kill but do no dmg or would you rather try to deal dmg but spend a lot of time dead? I much prefer the first option.
Anyways I don't really switch my loadout for any reason really. What I run seems to be the best for keeping me alive and the most beneficial for my team. It also takes to long to start switching around and then if more enemies show up I'm screwed because I swapped out healing/defensive powers for offensive ones. I don't actively seek out 1 v 1 situations but your likely to end up in several during the course of a pvp match, either because your team has left you to defend solo or you're trying to cap a node and an enemy comes to contest it.
Depending on the enemy you're facing you have to decide what to do:
-TR: By far the easiest class for a DC to counter. They lack burst and it's easy to avoid most of their flurries, if you do that they can't even put enough dmg into you to make a SE worthwhile. You're DC though, not AC so they will probably just eventually drop you from the bilethorn dots and from PoB/daggers.
-GWF: Second easiest class to counter. GWF's you just have to watch out for the stun rotation, if they catch you with a complete rotation it's going to hurt, but you can still recover from it. Their powers are easy to dodge though except for FLS, you just have to try to intuitively dodge it or prevent it with Exalt, if you do that you break their rotation and it's easy to survive. Also get used to not dodging in the same direction always otherwise they will just use their sprint to hit you with an easy takedown even if they missed FLS.
-GF. I'm still undecided on how good or bad of a matchup this is for us. I've had all sorts of experienes against GF's. They have high burst but almost no sustained dmg so if you can avoid some of their burst/stun dmg it's usually not too bad, this is a lot harder than against a GWF though because they have more of them and they're less telegraphed. Really though I'd say it's not a favorable matchup, because they'll still throw you out of the cap node from time to time allowing them to slowly cap or to gain a few points here and there.
-HR: Bad matchup, especially if their using that boar charge spell that stuns you. If they're running that then forget it. At least against the more ranged focused ones you can survive for a while, even against constricting shot, although your unlikely to stalemate them.
-CW: Worst matchup by far, you might as well just run away. If the CW's half decent you hardly get to do anything and good ones will kill you in 15-20s and you'll be lucky to cast more than once or twice.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
I have yet to see or find an effective way to stay alive and deal dmg, so it's pretty much would you rather stay alive and be hard to kill but do no dmg or would you rather try to deal dmg but spend a lot of time dead? I much prefer the first option.
Anyways I don't really switch my loadout for any reason really. What I run seems to be the best for keeping me alive and the most beneficial for my team. It also takes to long to start switching around and then if more enemies show up I'm screwed because I swapped out healing/defensive powers for offensive ones. I don't actively seek out 1 v 1 situations but your likely to end up in several during the course of a pvp match, either because your team has left you to defend solo or you're trying to cap a node and an enemy comes to contest it.
Depending on the enemy you're facing you have to decide what to do:
-TR: By far the easiest class for a DC to counter. They lack burst and it's easy to avoid most of their flurries, if you do that they can't even put enough dmg into you to make a SE worthwhile. You're DC though, not AC so they will probably just eventually drop you from the bilethorn dots and from PoB/daggers.
-GWF: Second easiest class to counter. GWF's you just have to watch out for the stun rotation, if they catch you with a complete rotation it's going to hurt, but you can still recover from it. Their powers are easy to dodge though except for FLS, you just have to try to intuitively dodge it or prevent it with Exalt, if you do that you break their rotation and it's easy to survive. Also get used to not dodging in the same direction always otherwise they will just use their sprint to hit you with an easy takedown even if they missed FLS.
-GF. I'm still undecided on how good or bad of a matchup this is for us. I've had all sorts of experienes against GF's. They have high burst but almost no sustained dmg so if you can avoid some of their burst/stun dmg it's usually not too bad, this is a lot harder than against a GWF though because they have more of them and they're less telegraphed. Really though I'd say it's not a favorable matchup, because they'll still throw you out of the cap node from time to time allowing them to slowly cap or to gain a few points here and there.
-HR: Bad matchup, especially if their using that boar charge spell that stuns you. If they're running that then forget it. At least against the more ranged focused ones you can survive for a while, even against constricting shot, although your unlikely to stalemate them.
-CW: Worst matchup by far, you might as well just run away. If the CW's half decent you hardly get to do anything and good ones will kill you in 15-20s and you'll be lucky to cast more than once or twice.
Ive had 20+ k hits with SE against me from TRs, if I get non critted , It isnt nearly as bad, and I can usually skirt around, hit them with plague fire and bots dots and do my dance, but again Im DO, which is a bad place to be right now.. I would respec, but am still sort of holding out hope to get righteousness removed somehow.. Sice all my stacked defense, tenacity does nothing to prevent the damage from SE, it really doesnt matter, I could be wearing my peasant gear.
Sadly, I just prefer DO over AC.. I dont really want to switch. But may have no choice if Im to continue to pvp.
The rest as a DO can kill me to, HRs were easy cake before pre pvp patch.. since I could just outheal thier damage and all of thier CC skills were just keeping me in place.. which I wanted to do anyways. Now.. ya, they keep me in place, and thats bad..
I just had pvp a match with a cleric who's group pretty much gave up on her. She was not having it and she was trying to cap anything she could. I met her (GF) at a point and we fought. After about 15 seconds I stopped fighting. she could not do enough damage to me to even overcome my regen. Something needs to be done about that.
no class should be this helpless in pvp.
Perhaps give them a dps tree that stifles healing or something. Don't leave clerics hanging, or you will never see them in anything but premades.
Well, now you know what it feels like to be a rogue fighting a cleric (she could not do enough damage to overcome my regen), LOL.
In point capture pvp, it's better to be able to stay alive than deal damage. Clerics are still the best at that.
A cleric you can't kill easily can be about as effective as a perma-rogue at contesting a point, and everyone knows how much THEY are complained about. It's just that the perma-rogue will kill you EVENTUALLY. But the main thing they do that's so effective is hold the point without being killed. And even they are under risk of dying fairly quickly if caught out.
Now I'm using my pve rotation in pvp. Sunburst, divine glow, astral shield, sacred flame (or sometimes brand of the sun). Diving glow"s debuff can't be dodged. Sure, I die, but who doesn't. I'm also using the profound righteous set with a p/vorpal, and yes, I can keep people alive, as long as i'm not excessively focused, which sounds balanced imo. I bring 7k power and 2500 crit in pvp and basically I can keep anyone with a brain alive even in a 3 vs 2 situation, as long as i don't have the whole red gang nuking me. I also have around 1200 deflect, and I bought a greater barkshield last week, and so far, I'm in love with it. It buffed my survivability quite a lot without hampering my healing abilities, which is all I want. Now most GWFs takedowns are being deflected.
Divine glow does some damage. Not a lot, but when i need to kill someone, i'm just using it on divine mode on myself and then just spam soothing light. Works extremely well on TRs and CWs. On allies, when I can time it right, the red team members die like flies under a clould of DTT. So far it's been a very positive change to me, my very offensive build can make it up for the loss of heals, and I survive longer with some fine tweaking.
I wouldn't say clerics are useless in pvp but it's never been a duel character. It's a support one and you basically need good team mates to support, but if both team are equally good, a well played cleric will make a difference.
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mddoughtsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited April 2014
I agree with diogene. The healing depression took some getting used to, but now that I have the grim set, I do alright. I run divine glow, healing word, and astral shield.
I was dying a bunch when it was just sunburst, but the divine glow builds divinity much quicker and I can dodge away almost as easily as I can knock someone away. Depending on the GWF, I actually do okay 1v1 against them.
Party members sometimes run out of AS, and that can be a hassle, but overall it's not bad play.
I also have tenacity out my bum and use foresight, so I have nearly 75% DR, and that probably helps. The tenacity is a night and day difference, honestly.
Hallowed ground makes a big difference, and I know that 2k might be the soft cap for DCs, but I am generating AP at a nice rate, so I can keep it up a lot of the time.
This is why im really hoping when they add the 3rd tree to classes that Clerics gain a actual dps paragon path...and they rework one of the current trees to be more focused on dmg...
Given though a cleric unless fully spec'ed into tanking shouldnt be capping unless its the enemy spawn cap...I've seen some dang near close unkillable clerics holding that cap solo all game forcing the enemy to waste 2-3 people to kill them
Comments
The crazy part was how effective the other DC and I were at holding the center point, with occasional assistance from the HR and one of the TRs. We both had AS and HW slotted (they had sunburst for knockback and I was using FF). With that much healing going around it was difficult to kill either of us even with the healing depression. And with 2 DCs, the other team had to split their attention with who they wanted to prone so it was rare for either of us to just get proned to death.
I'm not really pvp geared yet - the only thing I do for pvp is swap some powers around. That run made me rethink the DCs utility in pvp. Though maybe it's just a demo of why premades tend to stomp pugs. :P
I'm going to disagree on a few points here. Firstly, MH is not the best set for soloing, all it does is provide you with heals everytime you cast an encounter, which is nice, but not needed. You don't really need to heal yourself much for solo content, and if you really need to well you have pots and artifacts, either waters or the raven skull. HP just seems better for solo because of the debuff, which also often times isn't needed for solo, but at least it speeds up elite kills and boss fights, and for me it's nice to have since I don't have all the extra dmg that I once did as a DO. Sharandar set probably becomes the best for solo because of it's incrased crit and the apen it gives you. Basically, if you can't keep yourelf alive then use MH, if you don't have enough dmg to burn through most mobs in a single rotation then definetely use HP.
Tenacity makes you more tanky, without a doubt, but if you can't manage to heal yourself back up then it's value is mediocre at best, all it does is make you die slower. That's why I prefer MH over the grim/profound sets, sure I take a little more dmg from hits but I can then recover those lots hit points.
I agree that HW/Exalt are great encounters for PVP, and healing step is an amazing feat, but realistically you are not going to 1 v 5 effectively. If the enemies have comparable gear to you and are at least half decent it becomes very dificult to have any sustained survivability for anything like 1 v 3 and up, of course it does depend on the classes.
It's not bad without divinity, it just provides no direct healing, all HOT based. The great thing about HW is that you get 3 charges, it stacks so you can cast mutliple ones on a single target, it doesn't just refresh the HOT. It's synergizes amazingly with MH and it's a DP generator along with the fact that you can still cast it from divine even if it's on CD with all the charges used. Forgemaster's provides nice healing and is by far our most burst heal but it's healing is really is only double of a non divine healing word. It's also easy to dodge and even if you land it on somebody it's so easy for them to disengage and deny any healing from it to your party. It's also a DP drain. I found it can perform quite well in PUG's but not very well in premades.
It's hardly too much, if you want to survive that is. You can socket a subpar dmg power if you want but I don't see the benefit. The only offensive power you can slot that makes any sense is DG.
I have yet to see or find an effective way to stay alive and deal dmg, so it's pretty much would you rather stay alive and be hard to kill but do no dmg or would you rather try to deal dmg but spend a lot of time dead? I much prefer the first option.
Anyways I don't really switch my loadout for any reason really. What I run seems to be the best for keeping me alive and the most beneficial for my team. It also takes to long to start switching around and then if more enemies show up I'm screwed because I swapped out healing/defensive powers for offensive ones. I don't actively seek out 1 v 1 situations but your likely to end up in several during the course of a pvp match, either because your team has left you to defend solo or you're trying to cap a node and an enemy comes to contest it.
Depending on the enemy you're facing you have to decide what to do:
-TR: By far the easiest class for a DC to counter. They lack burst and it's easy to avoid most of their flurries, if you do that they can't even put enough dmg into you to make a SE worthwhile. You're DC though, not AC so they will probably just eventually drop you from the bilethorn dots and from PoB/daggers.
-GWF: Second easiest class to counter. GWF's you just have to watch out for the stun rotation, if they catch you with a complete rotation it's going to hurt, but you can still recover from it. Their powers are easy to dodge though except for FLS, you just have to try to intuitively dodge it or prevent it with Exalt, if you do that you break their rotation and it's easy to survive. Also get used to not dodging in the same direction always otherwise they will just use their sprint to hit you with an easy takedown even if they missed FLS.
-GF. I'm still undecided on how good or bad of a matchup this is for us. I've had all sorts of experienes against GF's. They have high burst but almost no sustained dmg so if you can avoid some of their burst/stun dmg it's usually not too bad, this is a lot harder than against a GWF though because they have more of them and they're less telegraphed. Really though I'd say it's not a favorable matchup, because they'll still throw you out of the cap node from time to time allowing them to slowly cap or to gain a few points here and there.
-HR: Bad matchup, especially if their using that boar charge spell that stuns you. If they're running that then forget it. At least against the more ranged focused ones you can survive for a while, even against constricting shot, although your unlikely to stalemate them.
-CW: Worst matchup by far, you might as well just run away. If the CW's half decent you hardly get to do anything and good ones will kill you in 15-20s and you'll be lucky to cast more than once or twice.
Ive had 20+ k hits with SE against me from TRs, if I get non critted , It isnt nearly as bad, and I can usually skirt around, hit them with plague fire and bots dots and do my dance, but again Im DO, which is a bad place to be right now.. I would respec, but am still sort of holding out hope to get righteousness removed somehow.. Sice all my stacked defense, tenacity does nothing to prevent the damage from SE, it really doesnt matter, I could be wearing my peasant gear.
Sadly, I just prefer DO over AC.. I dont really want to switch. But may have no choice if Im to continue to pvp.
The rest as a DO can kill me to, HRs were easy cake before pre pvp patch.. since I could just outheal thier damage and all of thier CC skills were just keeping me in place.. which I wanted to do anyways. Now.. ya, they keep me in place, and thats bad..
Well, now you know what it feels like to be a rogue fighting a cleric (she could not do enough damage to overcome my regen), LOL.
In point capture pvp, it's better to be able to stay alive than deal damage. Clerics are still the best at that.
A cleric you can't kill easily can be about as effective as a perma-rogue at contesting a point, and everyone knows how much THEY are complained about. It's just that the perma-rogue will kill you EVENTUALLY. But the main thing they do that's so effective is hold the point without being killed. And even they are under risk of dying fairly quickly if caught out.
Divine glow does some damage. Not a lot, but when i need to kill someone, i'm just using it on divine mode on myself and then just spam soothing light. Works extremely well on TRs and CWs. On allies, when I can time it right, the red team members die like flies under a clould of DTT. So far it's been a very positive change to me, my very offensive build can make it up for the loss of heals, and I survive longer with some fine tweaking.
I wouldn't say clerics are useless in pvp but it's never been a duel character. It's a support one and you basically need good team mates to support, but if both team are equally good, a well played cleric will make a difference.
I was dying a bunch when it was just sunburst, but the divine glow builds divinity much quicker and I can dodge away almost as easily as I can knock someone away. Depending on the GWF, I actually do okay 1v1 against them.
Party members sometimes run out of AS, and that can be a hassle, but overall it's not bad play.
I also have tenacity out my bum and use foresight, so I have nearly 75% DR, and that probably helps. The tenacity is a night and day difference, honestly.
Hallowed ground makes a big difference, and I know that 2k might be the soft cap for DCs, but I am generating AP at a nice rate, so I can keep it up a lot of the time.
Given though a cleric unless fully spec'ed into tanking shouldnt be capping unless its the enemy spawn cap...I've seen some dang near close unkillable clerics holding that cap solo all game forcing the enemy to waste 2-3 people to kill them