test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
This GWF just made my day
angelkilier
Member Posts: 42
I just finished a Kessell's Retreat with a group that initially having 2 DCs (me and another). 3,4 pulls into the place, suddenly one of the GWF said "You know there is something wrong when the DC is doing top damage".
I was kinda stunned, thinking that the other DC must be superb in damage dealing to top the chart and the GWF must be praising his damage. (It turned out later he was actually blaming us for "not healing".) As I check the chart, I was top on executioner and the other DC was second, 2 and 3 on paingiver, yet still top and second on field medic. (the group really lacks dps to be honest) The other DC instantly left after what the GWF said. I suppose he realized what actually that GWF meant - you DCs should heal rather than deal damage.
I realized that not long after, as the GWF goes "I'd be laughing so hard if I win field medic at the end while we have 2 DCs".
I check the chart again and answered "not even close"
So the spot was filled and we go on, nothing to say until after the boss fight. suddenly the GWF says "with 4 m to spare". OK now 10mil from me (top) and 6mil from him (second) in field medic. He's now top on executioner with 53 and I got 50
I replied "while you only killed 3 more than a DC... it's how the game is designed dude, chill out"
"ya only kept dying because a DC wanted to play DD instead of healer.. hey i'm just glad I got so much life steal and soulforge armor enchantment.. Go be a CW if you dont want to keep melee alive :P" and I was ignored.
I normally hate whining on forum just because someone insults me or whatever. However, I just want to say to this guy, "dude I'm sorry I picked up burning guidance and became an aggro ***** and died twice" Seriously, with full support load out, there's no way a DC can do much damage. the mob counts was high because burning guidance can easily get tons of last hits for us. I just don't know what that dude wants me to do while I spam AS, SB, DG and astral seal. There is no real instant heal in this game to fight against his life steal.
When I think about this again, it really made me laugh. It amazes me how ignorant some people are sometimes
Edit: Just to clarify, 10 mil was in field medic. I was on top of the healing chart while he was second at 6mil.
I was kinda stunned, thinking that the other DC must be superb in damage dealing to top the chart and the GWF must be praising his damage. (It turned out later he was actually blaming us for "not healing".) As I check the chart, I was top on executioner and the other DC was second, 2 and 3 on paingiver, yet still top and second on field medic. (the group really lacks dps to be honest) The other DC instantly left after what the GWF said. I suppose he realized what actually that GWF meant - you DCs should heal rather than deal damage.
I realized that not long after, as the GWF goes "I'd be laughing so hard if I win field medic at the end while we have 2 DCs".
I check the chart again and answered "not even close"
So the spot was filled and we go on, nothing to say until after the boss fight. suddenly the GWF says "with 4 m to spare". OK now 10mil from me (top) and 6mil from him (second) in field medic. He's now top on executioner with 53 and I got 50
I replied "while you only killed 3 more than a DC... it's how the game is designed dude, chill out"
"ya only kept dying because a DC wanted to play DD instead of healer.. hey i'm just glad I got so much life steal and soulforge armor enchantment.. Go be a CW if you dont want to keep melee alive :P" and I was ignored.
I normally hate whining on forum just because someone insults me or whatever. However, I just want to say to this guy, "dude I'm sorry I picked up burning guidance and became an aggro ***** and died twice" Seriously, with full support load out, there's no way a DC can do much damage. the mob counts was high because burning guidance can easily get tons of last hits for us. I just don't know what that dude wants me to do while I spam AS, SB, DG and astral seal. There is no real instant heal in this game to fight against his life steal.
When I think about this again, it really made me laugh. It amazes me how ignorant some people are sometimes
Edit: Just to clarify, 10 mil was in field medic. I was on top of the healing chart while he was second at 6mil.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
As long as you hit the baseline "healing" requirements a DC is then free to focus in whatever else he decides to do. We've always had good damage potential, so if you can squeeze that in then why not? Just remember that our damage is burst-type and for longer fights debuffing is more effective.
If it had been something else like T1 Idris, then it's possible that the GWF might simply be using bad/ineffective gear. What makes this particular case unique is that Kessell's is one of the higher level skirmishes/DGs - only people with decent gear and who have been playing the game for quite a while can get in. The fact that these people are failing to significantly out-DPS a cleric slotting AS/SB/A.Seal (plus no Searing/Daunting Light) is undeniable proof of how bad these people are at playing their class.
Seriously - even a GF should be able to out-DPS a cleric not using Searing/Daunting Light.
You are exactly right, though my point wasn't really blaming the group not dishing out enough dps. that particular GWF was actually on top of the paingiver chart. I'm not complaining about that. It's that people not understanding other classes yet still criticizing for whatever reason kinda saddens me.
if they actually add that section to DC's dps, then well, DG alone would make us top the chart.
I do think most people still regard DC to be support/heal type, so it wont be surprising if they raged on you for not keeping them alive for maximizing pt dmg... Altho when having a really undergeared team (usually in t1 dungeons), we going DPS might be better because of much faster kill.
It's sad to say that the GWF has a point though...
DPS DC is not as efficient as compared to CW.. Because what we have is only damage & debuff, (and maybe a little CC from chain which barely counts), while as for CW, they have damage, debuff, AND PRONES + CC + enemy grouping which really helps bursting down while also keeping party alive. Moreover, our only area damage daily, flamestrike, has very little prone radius (the middle one). Also, do not forget that their tab ability is an improved encounter slot... which makes CW actually has 4 encs to use. Cleric's 3 encounters, altho when used in divinity, doesnt provide much bonus (daunting has no upgrade to damage, only its radius, while chain's damage upgrade is negligible, searing light? Too much positioning hassle, sunburst in divine? no no no). Comparing those aspects alone, cleric is already gimped as it is when going as DPS, dont you think?.
You were using AS/SB/DG. That is a support loadout doing all of the above. I'd switch SB to FF/PoD on boss depending on DPS but that's a minor adjustment in the scheme of things.
If the GWF had survivability issues he was either switching out his black ice armor for AoW, which works if (1) he had the DPS and (2) he had the survivability and experience to pull it off. In this case it looked he like neither. So probably just badly built or badly lagged or badly played. Anyone can get easily one shot in there with or without a healing DC because the spike damage is just that high.
Black ice damage (accounts for ~55-65% of overall incoming damage in KR) penetrates all standard armor, and bypass Hallowed Ground, Astral Shield and Foresight's damage resistance. Blaming the cleric in this case showed nothing but a lack of understanding of game mechanics, party synergy and self awareness. You did good.
Guild and guide info
Module 4 Comprehensive DC guide |Module 4 MoF CW Handbook |New! Scourge Warlock Guide| NW Numbers and Mechanics guide |Crit, Power and DPS guide | Dungeon Delving guide and more
I'm surely missing something here.. but reaching 10 mil in paingiver using those loadout is quite unbelievable. To think that the GWF loses in paingiver stat while the DC is using this somewhat defensiv encounters, how incompetent that GWF must have been...
PS
I don't think the 10m was supposed to be damage since he points out that the GWF did out-DPS him in paingiver (check his second post). I honestly don't know what it means since 10m total damage done (everyone's added DPS) is enough to kill everything in Kessell's, and 10m total healing done on a GWF is just ridiculous.
10 mil in field medic. not pain giver. sorry if i didn't make that clear
1) our group lack good dps, other than the GWF. Again I wasn't complaining about him not dpsing, I'm complaining about his ignorance about DC class. It's the other 2 dps (TR and another GWF) who are really lacking. And the CW we got that filled the spot actually helped a lot on the boss fight.
2) Burning Guidance gives a lot dps/kills while the group is melee heavy. When everyone is standing inside AS while mobs are around, you see burning guidance popping like nuts. This can easily pull aggro for DCs and get you killed.
Okay? I don't know what to tell them. DCs are amplifiers, like someone mentioned. I was running that setup because in so many of the runs I was doing for that event, I had room for slotting Burning Guidance because I had healing covered with just AS and SB and apparently DPS was desperately needed, because that was not the first run where I'd placed second or first in DPS.
I just find it amusing when DCs break the mold that people who haven't played a DC see us in. We're a surprisingly versatile class.
LOL, with all due respect, I'm not sure how you 'slot burning guidance'. Burning guidance is one of the 5th tier dread ring boons.
My latest Main is a DO Dwarf Feated and Geared for Solo play with DivPow regeneration, Power, Crit, ArPen, Defence, hp, Recovery a little bit of Deflect and Regeneration. I have two level 30 Ioun Stones
I use:
Brand of the Sun and Lance of Faith with Focused Poise
Divine Powered Divine Glow, as it buffs me in melee as well as lowering enemy defence,
Daunting Light with Nimbus of Light for the Nuke level Damage, plus an additional debuff (Divine Powered if I need the larger area, although firing the normal one in the middle of a mob does peripheral damage to all of them)
Normal Sunburst for a bit of healing and enough damage to take out lots of minor enemies as I am buffed from the Divine Glow.
Hammer of Fate for the damage, or Hallowed Ground in a party if we need the buff.
Against Dungeon Bosses, I might change to Astral Shield instead of Divine Glow if we need the DR and Regeneration. But, usually, it is not needed most of the time.
My best healing is Soothing Light with Desperate Renewal and after using three damage encounters I can add about 70% of Max hp to a heavily wounded party member in seconds due to Desp Renew and Cycle of Change. Although they should never have less than 99 potions of Greater Healing, anyway, as in Epic Dungeons that would be stupid.
Ethereal Boon means that I can cast my encounters while travelling between battles to get more Div Power when they come off cool down. And when I get the fourth piece of profound armour from PvP Glory, I'll have 7.5% more healing and 30% more Divine Power regeneration. Although, I usually regenerate Divine Power from At Wills faster than my Encounters cool down anyway. Rank 10 Greater Plaguefire also helps. It cost me 4,050,000 AD, though.
This DO has often topped the Executioner, Paingiver and Field Medic tables, although not so much with level 60 GWF and CW in the party with much higher GS than him.
But I have often had ranting from GWF and CW because I was second Paingiver, even though no one died and I saved their stupid butts several times.
It can be a bit upsetting to get that sort of abuse from people who do not know how many nerfs there have been since the days when the blue Astral Shield duration was LONGER than the Cool Down, so you could have it up all the time and it actually made a difference.
But my shield is broad, my skin is thick, and I just figure "Stuff 'em!"
~
I totally meant Daunting Light, not Burning Guidance. Or whatever is the encounter that is the delayed big beam of light that does massive damage (and not so delayed with divinity). All these fancy names screw me up most of the time
...
Tired of running dungeons with exploiters and cheaters? Join the legit channel by visiting http://goo.gl/1zfnTS to apply!
Performing ritual pony sacrifices to Tiamat to earn favor with the RNG Gods since 2014.
...
In this day and age though, what with overflow XP/the DC artifact, there's really no excuse to have poor solo DPS unless you just started playing.
Anyway, I got to some of the early battles a little late as they kept racing on, used blue Divine Glow close up to buff myself and the Warriors, Daunting Light with Nimbus of Light for big damage to almost kill the Illithid and Sunburst to finish off and heal everyone. Anyone who got badly hurt I use Soothing Light as I am Feated for that and Divinity regeneration, and it is much more effective than anything else to heal one character.
And I got kicked!
Now, no one died, and no one ever got badly injured.
They had a GS of about 9 to 11k. My GS was 15.2k and I have a Greater Plague Fire Rank 10 and Rank 8 Gear enchants, 5240 Power, 4005 Crit, 1500 ArPen, 3520 Recovery (with Ioun Stone of Allure).
And I get kicked!
The kick vote failed at first so I said "I saw no vote" and someone said "Because it was a vote to kick you".
WHY?
"Use healing circle, HAMSTER!"
"Healing Circle? No such thing. You mean blue Astral Shield? There is no need for it until we get to the boss. It's just a waste of divinity with a slow cool down"
After the next battle, same thing happened and I am back in Protector's Enclave, somewhat stunned.
I queued again and got into a 15k team and we wiped the floor with everything. But I got in 3 seconds after the delve ended, so had to waste a key.
In chat with two of the first team, BOTH of whom claim they voted NO to kicking me, they said they got wiped multiple times with the Boss after kicking me.
HA HA HA HA HA!!!
HAMSTER who just have no idea what a DC is and how it works. Our job is NOT healing the warriors - that is just one thing we can do.
And we are certainly not divine Astral Shield spammers on low level mobs with a couple of level 60 Illithid.
"Healing Circle", my big fat HAMSTER!
~
To a certain degree I understand it's your choice what power you use, but I can't 100% agree with your choices. I'm not sure how the situation was. Maybe they were potting, and feel shouldn't need to pot when doing trash? Considering their low GS, it's reasonable for them to feel unsafe. What I do agree with you is that kicking is not necessary, at least they can address this with a better approach.
I personally would always put AS on my bar. DG most of the time, unless it's healing intensive then I use something else.
In a few days I'll have enough Glory for the Profound Righteous Gauntlets, so I can dump my Grand Templar boots and gloves and get another 30% Divinity regain. That should be ferocious. I'll lose the 450 Crit for the Grand Templar two-piece bonus, but, hey? Maybe I should have gone for Faithful, though, for the hp and Defence? Deflection is as much use as a chocolate tea-pot.
But only a fool who don't know jack would kick a 15.2k Cleric with a GPF, 5240 Power, 4005 Crit and 3520 Recovery in the Dread vault. What if they'd got a 7k TR replacement? Kick him as well until they get a Priest who does what he's told?
If they'd even asked for Astral Shield, I'd have used it instead of Divine Glow if they were having trouble. But I've done enough delves to know it's just a waste of divinity until the Boss and the DG buff is better. Unless you are playing with idiots who need the security blanket.
AS also massively screws my ability to defend myself. It's cool down is still about 15 seconds, and you still have to dodge like hell in there. DG and SB cool down in less than 10 seconds. DL is a little higher, so I am casting a Damage/Debuff/Buff and a Damage/Heal every 10 seconds, with more than a 40% chance to score a Crit. And a Damage/Debuff every 12 secs or so. Plus, every hit with Brand of the Sun ticks seven times and every three hits Lance of Faith does the GPF debuff. Any GWF who cannot kill an illithid in 10 seconds with all of that going on should just give up.
EDIT
I checked in-game, and the cool-downs are actually:
Divine Glow 11.8
Daunting Light 10.3
Sunburst 8.8
And that is without any of the Feats for extra Recovery proccing.
As I usually cast them all in that order, with only Divine Glow chanelled with divinity, they tend to all come off cool down at the same time and restore 30% of a divinity bar. And I am BotSing and LoFing all the time as well, and every tick of BotS, from every target hit with it, restores divinity, as does every hit with LoF with Focused Poise. In between, I spot heal if needed, but SB usually does all that is needed.
Before the Boss room in Dread Vault, divine AS is a waste of divinity with a 14.8 second cooldown. And even then, it is often just a placebo and security blanket. Better to use a blue Sunburst and blow them off the cliffs.
And now I have Burning Guidance, and will soon get my Profound Righteous Bracers to complete the set, so I'll get an extra 7.5% healing and 30% divinity recharge. That should be interesting. It will be especially interesting to see if the Profound armour is better for PvE than the Grand Templar set.
~
That is what happens to cleric when he tried to drag the whole team... he got kicked instead xD
The cleric's quite reasonable to put all offensive encounters since he outgeared the rest of the team,. but we gotta know too whether or not the team is potting like crazy to stay alive, or not. What people expect of DC since day 1 is that they can heal, reducing pot usage..
Altho we can do burst damage quite nicely, we obviously lack the prones/CC to help in mitigating damage... unlike CW with their stronger control & prones + 4th encounter slot.
This healing issue can be worst in PvP.. Luckily it only happened once
Altho I always use all support encounters (HW, AS, Exalt) in PvP, i can still get blamed for "not healing"..
The match was kinda lopsided.. the 2 GWF in our team had like around 10-12 kills while one of the GWF on the other side got 27 kills, and the second killer in the board (on their side too) got like 20 kills. The match was clearly imbalanced and I was the only one blamed for the match.. they said i wasnt healing .. Was at lost for words since I heal ALL the time during the match except when i died.. And yea, there's one TR in my party dealing low damage and always choose to be in mid.. But no, the GWF blamed me for "not healing".. Can't really blame them for being so shortsighted, since I died alot in that match due to my party's inability to provide sufficient protection to me.
What I'm curious tho.. is Black Ice set BIS for GWF PvP?
Astral seal pretty much should be nailed to the skillbar for dungeon running. That one crappy at will can provide 20-30% of your healing, and it's all effortless top-up heals that you don't need to worry about.
Astral shield is the one skill that even the dumbest mouth-breathing moron can recognize, and on top of that: it is so incredibly useful. It allows everyone else on your team to be far, far more fast and loose about dodging, and it also allows you to control the battlefield. People stand in blue. Want your melee to go over THERE rather than mooching around whaling on something stupid somewhere else? Stick the blue circle over THERE and watch them run over. Plus it's a fantastic way of clustering your melee (and sometimes even the CWs/HRs who might drift through for some heals) so you can stick a divine glow on them all (and some astral seals on the stuff they're smashing).
It's the defining skill of our entire class, and people will expect to see it. If you're not going to bring it, tell everyone up front so they know. Or phrase it in ways they can understand, like "We seem pretty geared, so I'm going to go mostly debuff and damage, but if it looks like we need extra heals, I'll bring out the blue circle, ok?"
Basically, a lot of bad, bad undergeared underskilled moron clerics take full-on damage encounters, and spend the entire dungeon pew pewing with space lasers while everyone else dies. Doing this is FINE if you're skilled and geared enough to pull it off, but it's not going to be immediately obvious to a group of randoms (your story sounds like a pug) that you're going all-out debuff/deeps because you're geared: they may just assume it's because you're clueless.
Also, honestly: daunting light, even with nimbus feated, is not really worth it in dungeons. It's a big divinity drain cast in bluemode, and it's painfully small and slow when cast normally. Yeah, big numbers + debuff, etc, but still. Plus it'll potentially draw more aggro than you need. Plus it has a 5-target cap (if you really want to go dps, fire divine searing light through a singularity). It's lovely for soloing, but really poorly-suited to a dungeon context.
Astral shield + astral seal is 90% of the work you're expected to do, so I would always, always start with those on my bar at the very least.
Seal some stuff and stick down a blue circle and you can pretty much sit in the corner and sing showtunes for all the rest of the party cares (obviously higher geared parties will be expecting some debuffs, but higher geared parties are usually smarter people who know how DCs play anyway).
Fill out the rest with whatever takes your fancy. And if you're going to be fairly aggressive in dungeons, get a set of high prophet. Seriously. That stuff is amazing.
(Also, 4k crit is a tad excessive, as is 3.5k recovery, especially if you have 1 or 2 points in rising hope, which you should).
What do you mean by "drag the whole team"? If they run away from me and get into trouble when I am looting a node or a chest, that's their problem.
Of course they weren't. I always keep an eye on their Health bars on the left of the screen. I suspect the GWF just did not like me doing damage and killing things. But, as my Gear Score was 6,000 higher than his, what would he expect?
And I only just got Burning Guidance last night. I dread to think what will happen now.
We've all experienced that. Many, many times. You are lucky it only happened once.
I have three level 60 DCs - A Tiefling AC with High WIS, CHA and INT, a Dwarf AC with High STR and WIS and this new main Dwarf DO with high STR, WIS and CON. The Tiefling has everythign possible for extra healing and temp hp and she STILL got this "No heals, DC?" from HAMSTER. I just reply "No kills, GWF?"
But she could not defend herself due to being a Healer spec, and could not even heal herself properly due to the Righteousness handicap.
The first two were respecced at least three times, the new one once. And it is by far the best build so far. He almost has a complete set of Profound Righteous, but I think the Grand Templar is actually better for solo and PvE, but I do want to see how the extra 30% divinity regeneration works out.
Of course, you CAN blame them for being pig-ignorant idiots.
I'm afraid, *I* am the expert on playing a DC, not them. *I* know where my strengths and weaknesses lie, not them. And I also keep an eye on party composition and what they are doing.
And you heal no one when you are dead. HG and AS disappear when you die, which is why a good team gang-bang us in PvP. But if you can hit them with DL AND buff yourself and the warrior in melee with them, AND hit them with DL (although FF always hits) AND do a critical Sunburst AND debuff and damage them with a GPF-powered BotS and LoF, they often die before they can do too much damage. That usually works a lot better than reducing incoming damage and letting them live longer. Placebo.
But I might change the Dwarf's History, as saying "I am a disciple of the God of Battle - heal yer feckin' selves." might make idiots with no sense of humour think I would not heal them at all.
But as I say, if they had asked for it, I'd have used it if they needed it. But we didn't need it. It's just a placebo. That chat conversation I quoted happened after I was kicked. Vote Kick failed, kicked. That is all that happened in-game.
No, of course I don't have Astral Seal. It's HAMSTER and requires a totally different play-style. I use Blessings of Battle and Sacred Flame with the ACs and Brand of the Sun and Lance of Faith with the DO, with Focused Poise. He is specced for solo play and PvE, although I do the Daily PvPs during the Arena Events as well for the AD, Glory and Seals.
I don't believe it can be that high. But with Soothing Light and three stacks of Life by using damaging encounters, I can heal someone from 20 to 80% of their hp with Cycle of Change within seconds. It's all in the Feat synergies. And I have tried many, many builds with three level 60 DCs. It's one of the reasons I abandoned my Tiefling Healer build. That and the abuse for "not healing".
Oh, LOL LOL LOL LOL! Just let me dry my eyes! Gnnff! Splutter!
I have seen idiots run away just as I cast it, run away just as I cast Sunburst so they are outside the area when it triggers, run away from Bastion of Health so it fires when they are outside the area, stand outside a blue Astral Shield and, one time, someone even managed to stand outside an Invigorated Healing blue Astral Shield AND a Moon Touched Hallowed Ground! He really takes the Darwin Award for that one. Standing there at 20% max hp while two feet away there was a Moon Touched HG with an invigorated healing blue AS inside it, ticking away to nothing!
That is ANOTHER reason I abandoned my Tiefling healer.
No one dies in the non-Epic Dread Vault with me as Cleric unless they try to kill the tentacles, or try to fight the Illithid as soon as we get in there. Or they fall off a cliff, or charge ahead into mass mobs on their own.
That is not my experience and I rarely use DL with Divinity in dungeons unless I am solo. Plus, it is MUCH easier to hit than in PvP, I get divinity back when it cools down, and I get extra divinity from Lance of Faith, which also debuffs with Greater Plague Fire. DL also has a peripheral damage area you cannot see, so in the middle of a mobs of Illithids hits all of them. There aren't often more than five and with lesser mobs, a Sunburt does some nice crit damage. I always swivle the mouse so I am looking straight down in melee, so I can see what I am hitting with DG and DL. I also use blue DG and normal DL at distance if anyone is in melee, as monsters do not dodge out of the way and by the time I close the distance, they will both be off cool down and I'll have 30% of a bar of divinity back just from the 3 cool downs. I rarely have less than 2 full pips of Divinity, unless I have spot healed someone with Soothing Light.
Not if you have a Perfect Vorpal. But it was 8 million AD, so I got a GPF for 4,050,000 AD instead, plus a Lesser Soulforged that was ready to upgrade, plus another as a reagent and upgraded it to Rank 8 for nothing as I had several Coalescent Wards. I figured my remaining AD will soon be high enough again that I can get a Perfect Vorpal later on and sell the GPF.
But those scores are with a level 30 Ioun Stone with Epic gear, rank 7 Runes and Rank 7 and 8 Enchants on Epic gear that has stats at 154. In PvP, I have less, but then I have some Tenacity.
I used to have 5 ranks in Rising Hope, but it is a waste. You don't need the longer duration as it can proc pretty reliably.
I also used to have Disciple of Divine Lore but respecced to Ethereal Boon, and took 3 points out of Rising Hope and put it into Restoration Mastery. Note that Astral Shield cannot score a Critical Hit, but DG, DL and SB can and give a Defence buff to the party.
~
Omg... story of my life. I think some people really under-value how much it can help, particularly with linked spirit talented. I've tried to explain to people but it just falls on deaf ears.
I don't really care if they die, though. It's really their own fault, especially after I encourage them to stop running of it after I've purposely cast it where they were standing.
And 4k crit is overkill because of diminishing returns. Crit is good, certainly, and all DCs should boost crit (repurpose soul is
3k crit is +17.1%
3.5k is +18.36%
4k is +19.4%
Sure, crit has less horrific DR than regen or lifesteal, say, but I'm just not sure it's worth going all the way up to 4k just for an extra 1-2%, when we usually run at around 30-33% with just 3k anyway. And you could put those 500-1000 points into arpen for pvp lolz, or get even moar power.
As for astral seal. Well. TRs can go from 20% to 80% from a single duelist's flurry if they hit a sealed monster, and sealing several monsters means any AoE class can just wade in and watch the lovely green numbers. And all of this cost me zero divinity (and in fact gained me a fair bit). And I didn't need to use X number of attacks and then switch to soothing. Astral seal is lovely. It's the second laziest passive healing you can provide (astral shield being the laziest).
My general approach is to provide constant maintenance healing, but most importantly, constant mitigation. Astral shield provides masses of mitigation, and with that and astral seal you can keep up foresight basically 100% of the time (DO, here). I very rarely NEED to be able to bring someone back from 20%, because they almost never get there in the first place. If I have to use soothing light and it's NOT because a CW decided to "see how hard thoons actually hit" or something, then I generally consider that a personal failure.
And idiots who run away from astral shield are idiots. Better healing or different skill loadouts won't make them NOT idiots. For everyone else, blue circle == happy place, and these people are the ones that booted you for not bringing it. Ok, doing that is also idiotic, but it's a slightly higher grade of idiot than the blue-circle avoiders. It's usually just a lot easier to default to blue circle because ...yay blue circle.
I'm basically...a lazy cleric. Buff dudes, debuff bads, spam mitigation and tick heals, stand somewhere that hits everything with burning guidance, drink smooth dark ale, put feet up.
BTW warlocks are glass cannons (no true dodge, think squishy class + GWF sprint) so expect them to be DC-huggers. At least we can expect the new class to stand inside our Astral Shields, a nice change from the HR.
I have yet to be accused of being a bad dpser (even when I did not do great on the paingiver ranking) when I play other classes in failed parties, I guess its just easier to point the blame on the cleric for failure. And I must repeat, this is not what most people say, but in those cases where I haven been given grief, its always been my cleric.
The cleric class is like the goalkeeper in soccer, he will not often get the praise but he will be the villain for letting in one goal. The GWF is like the striker he can miss endless number of goals and then score one and he is the hero. Good players know the value of both and what they are about, and obviously bad players don't.
Funny you should say that, as I did have more ArPen and less Recovery and Defence but rearranged my Enchants and gear between me and the Ioun Stones. I had three Rank 8 Silveries in Utility slots for the extra Glory, but now I have one Rank 7 I am upgrading and the other two I swapped with Dark Enchants for a bit of extra Movement. Plus, the two rings have Defence Slots now, so have Rank 8 Azures. I did have two Offence rings with either Darks or Azures in them; I forget now.
So many people say ArPen is pointless for a Cleric, others say it is very useful in Icewind Dale, which I have not started yet. I was hoping that when they finish beta testing the new module, all our healing and buffing spells will benefit from Crit and all our damaging powers will benefit from ArPen. It costs me 2.5 gold to remove an Enchant, but at least I have a ton of cash. I used all my seals for gear and sold it, and the Epics I salvaged so I have about 50k AD I cannot refine at the moment. I can always try the Tiefling Healer again one day and send her all the Enchants.
All my characters were stripped of enchants for the Dwarf to use, as they are just Leadership mules now. In theory, you can easily get 150k AD per day from 12 characters just from doing Professions every 6 to 8 hours, if you are lucky with the Rare tasks and have enough mining claims, refugees, marks of gratitude etc. And there are several normal tasks that give you 1200 or 1600 AD. Good source of Enchants and Runes to feed artifacts as well. All the Arcane and Training runes go straight into my Artifacts, and once I get the Profound, Eldritch and Empowered runes to level 8, they will become Artifact food as well.
Ironically, in last night's Dread Vault delve, my strategy worked fine until the Boss room. We got to the far edge and half the party were missing. Then we got a message saying "You just left me to die! Screw this party". Poor CW must have been a first-timer and tried to fight the Illithid as soon as we got in there and then left the party. Did not even realise that if she had waited, she would have got the treasure from the chest anyway.
Also ironically, I dodged off the edge and died! That's only happened once before. I probably should have kept Divine Glow instead of swapping it for Astral Shield!
Cheers!