I tried some more DPS (righteous) cleric vs wizard duels with today's new patch.
I found that even with the clipped animations, empowerment is too slow and complicated to be really viable.
So first, here is what my CW buddy is doing:strumming his qer1[tab] keys, and spamming the mouse button. So he is doing the proverbial mindless face-roll. The order of attacks is totally random, even his ice knife is going off randomly.
I on the other hand have a precise list of operations I have to pull off in order to even get empowered.
First, I found that the fastest way to get to 3 pips of divine power is to use brand of the sun 4 to 5 times (depending on which gear set I am using), then to get empowered, press [tab] to get into divine mode, then press r 3 times to fire off an encounter in divine mode and trigger 3 stacks of empower, then hit tab again, and then hit q to bring up the astral shield retical, then click to land it in empowered mode.
A few times today I managed to pull off this 11+button combo, but never managed to win from the success, because as a DPS spec I cannot take as many hits as the old tanky style. [I also tried with other encounters empowered, but all are too little too late]
I just did a (faithful) DC test vs some rogues and it was completely different from righteous since I was much much more difficult to kill. I was able to keep myself alive with healing spells and then get to empowered astral shield which really made them mad. This seems much more reliable than DPS in Pvp, but sadly I was never really close to killing anyone either.
I think DC needs a good DPS spec for PvP so some of the PvP achievements can be done. I doubt as a healer I would get 40 triple kills in 10 years
Haven't had a chance to test the new patch exhaustively, and with NaNoWriMo around I'm not sure how much opportunity I'll get, but I will say that so far the improved casting speed helps reduce the clumsiness of the new Empowered mechanic. I still need to do a field test of it, though.
Also, I am a little concerned about players seeing the blue Astral Shield and getting confused about the new effect (temp HP only). The visual doesn't technically match the effect (temp HP is a "sort of" shield, but instinctively we think of shields in terms of defense values). I'm hoping in the future we'll see a more appropriate texture, but this issue is far from crucial, so this is really just more of a quality of life feedback thing I don't expect will see changed.
I approve of the empowerment visual. I still need to see it in conjunction with whatever that Anointed Champion power is that throws golden globes around us to see if the two clash, but it's what we asked for, so I'm happy with that.
Mechanically, all I can say so far without a field test at Tiamat's is that getting divine/empowered buffs out feels smoother overall compared to past patch. I was fast enough to throw down three charges of Divine + Divine Glow, empower Astral Shield, toss the last Divine Glow out normal, build up, and slam down a 3D+1E Daunting Light nuke on a combat dummy, but I need to look closely when I've more time to see whether I was still Glowing on the last blast. Pretty sure I did a 50K+ crit on one of them, though, which previously I've only been able to get against dragons with everyone else stacking their debuffs on top of mine (I usually only manage 20-25K otherwise).
Also, Divine Chains is blazing fast to throw three stacks out, which I very much like. A possible slot for emergency empowerment, even though I like Daunting Light better as a nuke. Still need to test healing powers.
That's all for now. So far I'm liking things, but I'm sure there's lots of people still not happy about something. Just a matter of finding what can be improved most optimally with the time left before release. I really wish they had given you devs a bigger window to work with.
BUG: Astral Shield As reported before, fully empowered AS still blocks almost all damage - you gotta get a real good spike to get above the DR
BUG: Exaltation Seems to do additive DR that can go up/beyond 80%
BUG: Agent of Divine Still is able to heal for >maxHP. I've had heals for over 160k.
BUG: Bear your Sins and Condemning Gaze + Divine Glow + Empowered Daunting Light The (de)buffs between all these powers can lead to some insane damage. I was able to pull of 50+k crits on fully geared players and 270+k crits on mobs (no Vorp, not PvP spec). Some kind of synergy there buffs the damage beyond imaginable.
BUG: Astral Shield As reported before, fully empowered AS still blocks all damage
I've done some pretty extensive testing, and I'm absolutely sure a DC can take damage inside a fully empowered Astral Shield. You just have to burst to see the result. That being said, I do believe the DR math may be going above the 80% cap, because I've endured a full rotation (without attempting to dodge) of 3 encounters and a daily of a 20k dps specced GWF and only took about 25% of my health in damage.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
edited November 2014
Heroic feats, things like Prophetic Action haven't event been addressed/acknowledged by the devs yet.
Please don't let the last 9 days be for nothing. What's the point of an overhaul left full of holes?
Give DC (maybe healer-types only?) a reliable CC escape to help them in their fights vs the CWs. This is basically the only class that deserves to have something special in their repertoire when it comes to dealing with CCs. A CW can reliably lock down a DC and pretty much will never feel threatened, so they can focus on proper rotation and chaining CCs without much interruption.
This situation leads to much frustration to the DC class and should be remedied. It's been 4 modules of CWs predating on DCs all the time.
- based only on fighting against healing DC. Maybe DPS DC would destroy me, I don't know yet.
- such a change needs to be carefully implemented, as DC still needs to be able to be killed especially in 1vs2 situations.
Give DC (maybe healer-types only?) a reliable CC escape to help them in their fights...
DPS and CC immunity is only a tip of the problem DC is facing in PvP. Now the "effective cooldown" of your encounter skills have been brought to that of dailies with all the added layers of divinity and empowerment you need to build up to do anything meaningful. So the real question is can the Cleric survive long enough to build all those up in PvP? Perhaps now is a good time to add a training dummy at the campfire spawn area.
Regarding Astral Shield: I'm not sure if people realize this, but the description of this power is summarized as performing the following:
1.) Normal: Increase Defenses by 10/20/30%. It is unclear whether this is +30% extra Defense or +30% Damage Resistance (there is a difference) as the Character Sheet does not update to reflect the adjusted amount.
2.) Empowered: Absorb damage equal to 3/6/9% of Caster HP MAX from each attack. Unknown if it's actually Target HP MAX.
From what I can tell testing alone, and presuming that the "Astral Shield Counter" buff applied is the Empowered version, the following is happening:
- The caster receives the Empowered benefit no matter what, as soon as it's cast, EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT IN THE RING. It lasts for around 12 seconds.
- A protection field is placed at the target area. Any friendly player that steps within it receives the Normal bonus to Defense/DR. It lasts for around 9 seconds.
So it looks like the Empowered benefit, as far as the caster is concerned, is not bound to the target ring. I was alone, so I couldn't tell you whether it applies the Empowered benefit to allies inside the ring once on-cast, to all allies in view once on-cast, or to anyone as soon as they enter the ring (as the DR buff does) and it dispels if they leave the ring. Also unknown whether there is a target cap for the Empowered effect.
My cleric has 28835 HP, so a fully Empowered Astral Shield will absorb ~2595 HP from each attack. Let's say AS is using DR, not Defense. So, let's say you do a hit for 10K. My current Protection/DR is ~4500/40%. With Astral, let's presume it's additive and gives me 70% DR. That drops the 10K hit to 3000 damage. Empowered reduces that by around 2600, so your 10K hit is reduced to 400 damage.
If it applies Empowered first, then DR, the 10K hit becomes 2220 -- Empowered AS would, in that case, quickly lose efficacy the bigger the hit, which is less-than-optimal for PvE.
This is my understanding of the mechanic of Astral Shield, and I could easily be mistaken in any of its details (including order of applied resistance), but hopefully this at least shows you a little as to why your experience with clerics standing in their rings are practically invincible unless they take spike damage. And frankly, this is as it should be. The cleric needs to retain their Leader role in Module 5, which means the party needs to see those rings and go, "Okay, that's where I'm supposed to stand so I don't die" in PvE. Because if I'm spending all that time building up Divinity, casting out three Divine spells, then dropping a ring, it better darn well be worth it to keep my team protected!
Also, remember, Astral Shield NO LONGER HEALS, so in order for it to remain attractive as a power to slot, it has to have something in return that's as effective as those healing pulses.
If you're trying to counter AS in PvP, the only thing I can think of is to knock the cleric out of their ring. You won't get rid of the empowered bonus, but you'll drop them down to normal DR (in the above example, I would take 3400 damage out of that 10K hit, which is better than 400).
We're probably not really going to see whether Astral Shield has become overpowered or is within tolerance until it goes Live, since that's where all the players actually congregate.
BUG: Bear your Sins and Condemning Gaze + Divine Glow + Empowered Daunting Light The (de)buffs between all these powers can lead to some insane damage. I was able to pull of 50+k crits on fully geared players and 270+k crits on mobs (no Vorp, not PvP spec). Some kind of synergy there buffs the damage beyond imaginable.
Being DPS feated is probably a solid way to go into PvP, even if your gear is not PvP specced.
Regardless, this power synergy is normal, even on Live, just not as potent. You should try adding a Hallowed Ground and see if you can break 270K. I'm usually combining Hallowed Ground, Divine Glow, Linked Spirit, Plaugefire Enchant, and probably other things I forgot this early in the morning to turn mages in my party into nuclear bombs.
It's kind of gratifying to hear "HOLY HAMSTER!" over Skype when they see big numbers pop for Magic Missile.
If you're worried that that's too much damage, you may want to more closely examine the power creep that PvE is beginning to suffer from, which makes such synergy/damage useful, if not outright necessary.
POSSIBLE BUG?: Brand of the Sun
This power's Damage Over Time ticks only add Divinity for the FIRST creature you tag. You do not gain Divinity faster for tagging multiple targets (reducing this power's benefit for Divinity gain). May be working as intended if it's only meant to extend duration of divinity gain, not multiply the divinity gain rate.
BUG: Divine + Break the Spirit VISUAL: Casting animation, when spammed quickly, interrupts itself, blocking the "missiles" from being thrown; only the last missile fires. Not a serious glitch, the damage does still proc.
FEEDBACK: Casting speed animation, Divine Encounter powers The faster casts for Divine is awesome, but the animations do glitch up a bit in general when cast as quickly as possible. Maybe something to consider smoothing after it goes live. This MAY be influenced by network speed, not entirely sure. Do higher pings tend to cause more animation issues for fast-casting powers (including at-wills)? I've had some glitchy animations on Live with my Ranger's at-wills, and I'm still unsure as to the source.
BUG: Divine + Chains of Blazing Light Divine Chains grants AP. This should either not grant AP (to be consistent with other damaging powers), or other powers need to grant AP. (Reporting that ain't gonna make me popular, I bet.)
I wish we had a couple extra weeks before Mod 5's release,I don't think the changes are fully ready to hit Live yet...But since this is the last week of updates,here's my overall opinion on new DC:
The gameplay is much faster and more active than on Live.Devs listened to our feedback,gave us faster divinty gains, faster casting of divine encounters and a visual indication of empowerment stacks.As a result,combat is now smoother and flows better.However,we are a bit too good in some aspects and a bit too lacking in others.
Solo play
There's 100% improvement.Not much to say here.We are tankier and kill faster,regardless of tree.
Team PvE
-I like how we have to adapt per battle,rather than go in with a specific rotation which is repeated over and over.
-I like how,regardless of tree,I can deal more damage than on live.
-I like the protection I can grant my allies.Several layers of absorption,tempHp "shields" and DR mitigation.
-I like the faster,more complex gameplay.
-I don't like how sunburst scatters adds.
-I miss being able to get some divinity before boss battles.
-I miss divine AS's fast HoT ticks.Yes,the absorption of Empowered AS is much better.However,it was our fastest "reaction" to our allies getting hit.Even if we heal them now (which would require an extra heal slotted),you have to target your ally,cast,wait for the heal to take effect etc.The fact that AS was healing people as soon as they got hurt,was often life saving.
-I miss healing step,it often saved me from certain death,by giving me an extra dodge just in time.
-I dont like how buff dailies lock down AP generation.
PvP
This is where most of the work needs to be done.
-Our team support is a bit too much.It's almost impossible to kill someone if a cleric is around,simply because of righteousness.Basically,if one team has a cleric and the other doesn't,the team without one is at a huge disadvantage. Sure,the same can be said about GFs with KV up,or CWs stunlocking everyone etc,but that doesn't mean it's balanced just cause other classes have some broken skills too.It's better to fix Op abilities all around,than make everyone OP just to keep up with other OP classes.
-Dps path can deal some massive damage due to bugged buff interactions.I'm not sure yet what is causing it,but it has been reported several times.
-Sunburst is a bit OP with the knockback in pvp.I still think it should be converted to a stun.It also ignores cc immunity.I can knock a GF who is blocking,even if I'm not sitting behind them.
-Divine Break the Spirit's stun duration should be shortened.
-AS's DR should be lowered to 20 (+2% + 2%) like on Live.The multiplicative 10% version was weak,but a 30% DR boost is too much.
-We absolutely need an extra dodge (this is even more true in PvP than in PvE).Even the slightest cc can completely counter us.
In short, cheesy abilities aside,I feel that a support cleric has very good survivability,a bit too much support and too little defense against cc.
So my suggested changes,other than bug fixes (Righteous with huge damage and Faithful with huge heals from gift of faith) would be:
-Improved Heroic Feats,especially Initiate of the Faith and Domain Synergy.
-30% stamina cost for dodging.
-Divine Break the Spirit's base stun reduced to 2 seconds,down from 3 seconds.
-Sunburst's knockback converted to a stun.
-AS's DR reduced to 24% down from 30%
-Divine AS no longer adds tempHp.Instead,you summon a healing circle in the targeted area,that constantly heals allies standing on it.(It would not provide DR though,just like this build's Divine AS doesn't atm).This would allow some "passive,instant-response" healing,as well as deal with the issue of many sources of tempHp provided by the DC that do not stack with each other.
-Righteousness now affects only cleric abilities and is reduced to a 50% boost (currently it boosts all healing,including life steal etc).
In my opinion,in PvP Clerics should have to carefully time their dodges to avoid big hits and then use their heals to recover from minor hits,while providing support to the party.This is where skill and a bit of luck come in,as DCs arent tanky by nature,like,say,GFs.It's our spells that make us withstand damage.Currently we can just heal through almost anything without having to dodge much (excluding getting one shot from Lashing blade or Ice knife,but that's a different issue,not a DC problem),but a CW can lock us down and make us fully useless,as 2 dodges are not enough to dodge cc.This is basically bringing us to the point of "If the enemy has a CW on the point,I'm just gonna die,nothing I or my team can do about it.If the enemy has no CW on the point,I provide such as strong advantage to them,that the enemy -has- to target me first,but 1 person can simply not kill me,so 2-3 of them need to coordinate just to take me down.".This is why I suggested the above changes.It would lower the "passive" tankiness and increase the "active" tankiness.
That's about it.In any case,thanks to the Devs for trying something new with our class and for listening to our feeback and thanks to all the players who contributed with their feedback
Edit: Looks like gentlemancrush posted an update while I was typing.Woohoo,dodging now costs 30% stamina! Thank you!
Edit 2: Almost forgot,divine healing word still sometimes doesn't apply tempHp.
feedback: Prophetic action now pa worst class feature in game, because pa can block 100 dmg from at-will or dot's(plague fire), then pa will be on cooldown (40 sec). I think prophetic action must be block encounter power or reduce pa cooldown by 25(up from 10) per rank.
I was able to run 2 dungeons, ToS and SP, with rundom pugs. Overall i think the new DC is more flexible, as we have more healin power and i like it. The changes to AS are hard, but also strong enough to accept them.
I wanted to report a BUG that occure during those runs
during the last boss fight, there were some moments when fireing AT WILLs would not generate divine power. Sometimes changing target helped some other changing at will (fire the lLB at will then the RB at will) but some other cases, it stopped generating divine power. If this is not a problem due to lag, it is quite dangerous to let it go live.
Feedback: Class Features Aside from Prophetic Action there is a bunch of other class features that are barely used: Anointed Action, Soothe, etc. The offhand bonuses for them are also mediocre. Can you change them to maybe include the Empowered mechanic: i.e. Anointed Action makes your empowered encounters give +10% more AP per stack of empowered; and/or using Propheic Action will give a shield for %5 HP (per stack of empowerment) to allies (not self) near where you cast an empowered encounter. Something like that.
Feedback: Breaking control Along with the suggestion above, maybe Anointed Armor can give 2 seconds of control immunity after casting an empowered encounter (per stack). And or give control immunity while casting all empowered encounters. Something to give clerics breathing room.
This might save some unused Class Features from being dead for another 2-3 months and it will give DCs some ways of not being CC-locked 100% of the time. The numbers I give above are approximate.
Co-Founder of -Valor-
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josiahiyonMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 396Arc User
Hey all, we have a handful of changes we are making to improve Cleric gameplay slightly and put them more on par with other classes defensively.
Devoted Cleric: Dodging now costs 30 stamina (down from 50).
Devoted Cleric: Divinity Gain can no longer be incorrectly Deflected.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
Thanks for listening and sorting through the feedback! There is a lot of info here, much of which is bad, some is good. The 2 changes above (and previous changes) how shown that you guys have a pretty good sense of the good and bad suggestions.
The only major thing left is a heroic feat rework. Maybe some cc blocking or resistance.
In PVP right now (gear, etc max):
DPS DCs are competitive vs most classes/builds but not over powered. We will lose to HRs most of the time, and often to TRs. CWs can lock us down (Oppressive) or spike us (renegade), but we can kill them too. GFs can kill us if they catch us with a full rotation, but we can kill them otherwise. Same with GWFs. SWs -- i haven't seen enough to say.
Heal DCs can survive 1v1 vs. most classes and builds. Perhaps All. The heal to self and ally feels good, like how a healing class should play.
2v2 and 3v3 is where it gets interesting. Don't have enough testing yet to comment.
In general, pretty balanced, and MUCH better than mod 4. I don't think the massive overhaul was necessary, but your updates have been solid. Kudos for the effort!
When at three classes with such scale change justified unset of the features/skills etc. for all without exception of the classes. I'm ask to consider such possibility. Thank you.
can we fix the faithful ridicolous heals from capstone?
Reach 45 per cent of HP go back to full life...it s healing for 160k + .. not hat toning that down to 50k+ would change something.
In not calling for nerf but at least an internal cooldown to not proc 2 times in a row on the same toon.
can we fix the faithful ridicolous heals from capstone?
Reach 45 per cent of HP go back to full life...it s healing for 160k + .. not hat toning that down to 50k+ would change something
If I'm with a team in Tiamat, then I want them to go up to full life as a result of a capstone feat. How are potent heals something you'd NOT want?
Unless you're just talking about PvP? In which case, I don't think the developers are focusing on that right now. Wait until after it goes live and gets a full stress test, they'll probably balance it out for PvP later once there's a larger community of testers (i.e. Live players) that complain about invincible Cleric teams or some such.
Feedback: Breaking control Along with the suggestion above, maybe Anointed Armor can give 2 seconds of control immunity after casting an empowered encounter (per stack). And or give control immunity while casting all empowered encounters. Something to give clerics breathing room.
Either that or allow us to use our shift dodge even when CCed. We don't have anything else to counter CC unless it's the AC's daily (which is not feasible considering its long "cooldown").
i dont know your idea of balance but even in pve seems a bit too much
Agent of the Divine looks like it's performing the following:
- 25% of healing from ALL spells are deducted from their capacity and added to a buff, Gift of Faith.
- HoT is removed from ALL spells and the amount it would have healed is also added to a buff, Gift of Faith.
Fully feated healing powers are pretty potent. I am presuming that Agent of the Divine is applying the total healing possible, not the actual amount healed (i.e. if you're at full health, this capstone would be worthless). It looks to me like the goal is to provide a steady quasi-Soulforged effect, as well as give the Cleric the option to do something OTHER than heal in an emergency (i.e. this is a cleric's clutch heal before he has to clutch heal).
Also, are these numbers something you personally have witnessed on your own Cleric, or are other players applying these numbers? What kind of gear did you/they have on? Was it realistic Live test equipment, or was it totally maxed out in everything? Maxing is easy to do in Preview, after all, so there's a certain level of gear bias one has to account for while testing. Could you give more data?
Comments
I found that even with the clipped animations, empowerment is too slow and complicated to be really viable.
So first, here is what my CW buddy is doing:strumming his qer1[tab] keys, and spamming the mouse button. So he is doing the proverbial mindless face-roll. The order of attacks is totally random, even his ice knife is going off randomly.
I on the other hand have a precise list of operations I have to pull off in order to even get empowered.
First, I found that the fastest way to get to 3 pips of divine power is to use brand of the sun 4 to 5 times (depending on which gear set I am using), then to get empowered, press [tab] to get into divine mode, then press r 3 times to fire off an encounter in divine mode and trigger 3 stacks of empower, then hit tab again, and then hit q to bring up the astral shield retical, then click to land it in empowered mode.
A few times today I managed to pull off this 11+button combo, but never managed to win from the success, because as a DPS spec I cannot take as many hits as the old tanky style. [I also tried with other encounters empowered, but all are too little too late]
I don't see why it has to be so complicated!
I think DC needs a good DPS spec for PvP so some of the PvP achievements can be done. I doubt as a healer I would get 40 triple kills in 10 years
is impossible to kill a cleric faithful, when he is low at 45% hp a burst of 143k HP heal comes
CW: the new stacking damage on feats mechanics is leading to some crazy damages like 180k ice knife on a un-debuffed dummie
Also, I am a little concerned about players seeing the blue Astral Shield and getting confused about the new effect (temp HP only). The visual doesn't technically match the effect (temp HP is a "sort of" shield, but instinctively we think of shields in terms of defense values). I'm hoping in the future we'll see a more appropriate texture, but this issue is far from crucial, so this is really just more of a quality of life feedback thing I don't expect will see changed.
I approve of the empowerment visual. I still need to see it in conjunction with whatever that Anointed Champion power is that throws golden globes around us to see if the two clash, but it's what we asked for, so I'm happy with that.
Mechanically, all I can say so far without a field test at Tiamat's is that getting divine/empowered buffs out feels smoother overall compared to past patch. I was fast enough to throw down three charges of Divine + Divine Glow, empower Astral Shield, toss the last Divine Glow out normal, build up, and slam down a 3D+1E Daunting Light nuke on a combat dummy, but I need to look closely when I've more time to see whether I was still Glowing on the last blast. Pretty sure I did a 50K+ crit on one of them, though, which previously I've only been able to get against dragons with everyone else stacking their debuffs on top of mine (I usually only manage 20-25K otherwise).
Also, Divine Chains is blazing fast to throw three stacks out, which I very much like. A possible slot for emergency empowerment, even though I like Daunting Light better as a nuke. Still need to test healing powers.
That's all for now. So far I'm liking things, but I'm sure there's lots of people still not happy about something. Just a matter of finding what can be improved most optimally with the time left before release. I really wish they had given you devs a bigger window to work with.
As reported before, fully empowered AS still blocks almost all damage - you gotta get a real good spike to get above the DR
BUG: Exaltation
Seems to do additive DR that can go up/beyond 80%
BUG: Agent of Divine
Still is able to heal for >maxHP. I've had heals for over 160k.
BUG: Bear your Sins and Condemning Gaze + Divine Glow + Empowered Daunting Light
The (de)buffs between all these powers can lead to some insane damage. I was able to pull of 50+k crits on fully geared players and 270+k crits on mobs (no Vorp, not PvP spec). Some kind of synergy there buffs the damage beyond imaginable.
Regular/unempowered/non-divine sunburst goes through all cc immunity skills and shift abilities
Please don't let the last 9 days be for nothing. What's the point of an overhaul left full of holes?
1) Heroic Feats Rework; Templar's Domain, Initiate of Faith, Domain Synergy etc. are UTTERLY USELESS.
2) Reduce stamina cost.
3) Bring back blue bubble VFX for Divine Exaltation.
4) Rework Class Features; Prophetic action, soothe, Anointed Holy Symbol etc. are so bad, hardly anyone uses them.
BUG
1) Break the Spirit now activates so fast that there is no animation sometimes.
2) Righteous Feats debuff/buff stacks in a way that increases our damage more than intended.
3) Agent of the Divine heals more than max HP, and I still heal less when the health pool of Gift of Faith has reached my max HP.
Mod 12.5 PvP Power/Crit/Arp Optimization
Youtube channel (PvE/PvP)
Give DC (maybe healer-types only?) a reliable CC escape to help them in their fights vs the CWs. This is basically the only class that deserves to have something special in their repertoire when it comes to dealing with CCs. A CW can reliably lock down a DC and pretty much will never feel threatened, so they can focus on proper rotation and chaining CCs without much interruption.
This situation leads to much frustration to the DC class and should be remedied. It's been 4 modules of CWs predating on DCs all the time.
- based only on fighting against healing DC. Maybe DPS DC would destroy me, I don't know yet.
- such a change needs to be carefully implemented, as DC still needs to be able to be killed especially in 1vs2 situations.
DPS and CC immunity is only a tip of the problem DC is facing in PvP. Now the "effective cooldown" of your encounter skills have been brought to that of dailies with all the added layers of divinity and empowerment you need to build up to do anything meaningful. So the real question is can the Cleric survive long enough to build all those up in PvP? Perhaps now is a good time to add a training dummy at the campfire spawn area.
1.) Normal: Increase Defenses by 10/20/30%. It is unclear whether this is +30% extra Defense or +30% Damage Resistance (there is a difference) as the Character Sheet does not update to reflect the adjusted amount.
2.) Empowered: Absorb damage equal to 3/6/9% of Caster HP MAX from each attack. Unknown if it's actually Target HP MAX.
From what I can tell testing alone, and presuming that the "Astral Shield Counter" buff applied is the Empowered version, the following is happening:
- The caster receives the Empowered benefit no matter what, as soon as it's cast, EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT IN THE RING. It lasts for around 12 seconds.
- A protection field is placed at the target area. Any friendly player that steps within it receives the Normal bonus to Defense/DR. It lasts for around 9 seconds.
So it looks like the Empowered benefit, as far as the caster is concerned, is not bound to the target ring. I was alone, so I couldn't tell you whether it applies the Empowered benefit to allies inside the ring once on-cast, to all allies in view once on-cast, or to anyone as soon as they enter the ring (as the DR buff does) and it dispels if they leave the ring. Also unknown whether there is a target cap for the Empowered effect.
My cleric has 28835 HP, so a fully Empowered Astral Shield will absorb ~2595 HP from each attack. Let's say AS is using DR, not Defense. So, let's say you do a hit for 10K. My current Protection/DR is ~4500/40%. With Astral, let's presume it's additive and gives me 70% DR. That drops the 10K hit to 3000 damage. Empowered reduces that by around 2600, so your 10K hit is reduced to 400 damage.
If it applies Empowered first, then DR, the 10K hit becomes 2220 -- Empowered AS would, in that case, quickly lose efficacy the bigger the hit, which is less-than-optimal for PvE.
This is my understanding of the mechanic of Astral Shield, and I could easily be mistaken in any of its details (including order of applied resistance), but hopefully this at least shows you a little as to why your experience with clerics standing in their rings are practically invincible unless they take spike damage. And frankly, this is as it should be. The cleric needs to retain their Leader role in Module 5, which means the party needs to see those rings and go, "Okay, that's where I'm supposed to stand so I don't die" in PvE. Because if I'm spending all that time building up Divinity, casting out three Divine spells, then dropping a ring, it better darn well be worth it to keep my team protected!
Also, remember, Astral Shield NO LONGER HEALS, so in order for it to remain attractive as a power to slot, it has to have something in return that's as effective as those healing pulses.
If you're trying to counter AS in PvP, the only thing I can think of is to knock the cleric out of their ring. You won't get rid of the empowered bonus, but you'll drop them down to normal DR (in the above example, I would take 3400 damage out of that 10K hit, which is better than 400).
We're probably not really going to see whether Astral Shield has become overpowered or is within tolerance until it goes Live, since that's where all the players actually congregate.
Being DPS feated is probably a solid way to go into PvP, even if your gear is not PvP specced.
Regardless, this power synergy is normal, even on Live, just not as potent. You should try adding a Hallowed Ground and see if you can break 270K. I'm usually combining Hallowed Ground, Divine Glow, Linked Spirit, Plaugefire Enchant, and probably other things I forgot this early in the morning to turn mages in my party into nuclear bombs.
It's kind of gratifying to hear "HOLY HAMSTER!" over Skype when they see big numbers pop for Magic Missile.
If you're worried that that's too much damage, you may want to more closely examine the power creep that PvE is beginning to suffer from, which makes such synergy/damage useful, if not outright necessary.
This power's Damage Over Time ticks only add Divinity for the FIRST creature you tag. You do not gain Divinity faster for tagging multiple targets (reducing this power's benefit for Divinity gain). May be working as intended if it's only meant to extend duration of divinity gain, not multiply the divinity gain rate.
BUG: Divine + Break the Spirit
VISUAL: Casting animation, when spammed quickly, interrupts itself, blocking the "missiles" from being thrown; only the last missile fires. Not a serious glitch, the damage does still proc.
FEEDBACK: Casting speed animation, Divine Encounter powers
The faster casts for Divine is awesome, but the animations do glitch up a bit in general when cast as quickly as possible. Maybe something to consider smoothing after it goes live. This MAY be influenced by network speed, not entirely sure. Do higher pings tend to cause more animation issues for fast-casting powers (including at-wills)? I've had some glitchy animations on Live with my Ranger's at-wills, and I'm still unsure as to the source.
BUG: Divine + Chains of Blazing Light
Divine Chains grants AP. This should either not grant AP (to be consistent with other damaging powers), or other powers need to grant AP. (Reporting that ain't gonna make me popular, I bet.)
Gain less divinity if at-will is deflected.
FIX IT BEFORE LAUNCH PLEASE.
Mod 12.5 PvP Power/Crit/Arp Optimization
Youtube channel (PvE/PvP)
- Devoted Cleric: Dodging now costs 30 stamina (down from 50).
- Devoted Cleric: Divinity Gain can no longer be incorrectly Deflected.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer
The gameplay is much faster and more active than on Live.Devs listened to our feedback,gave us faster divinty gains, faster casting of divine encounters and a visual indication of empowerment stacks.As a result,combat is now smoother and flows better.However,we are a bit too good in some aspects and a bit too lacking in others.
Solo play
There's 100% improvement.Not much to say here.We are tankier and kill faster,regardless of tree.
Team PvE
-I like how we have to adapt per battle,rather than go in with a specific rotation which is repeated over and over.
-I like how,regardless of tree,I can deal more damage than on live.
-I like the protection I can grant my allies.Several layers of absorption,tempHp "shields" and DR mitigation.
-I like the faster,more complex gameplay.
-I don't like how sunburst scatters adds.
-I miss being able to get some divinity before boss battles.
-I miss divine AS's fast HoT ticks.Yes,the absorption of Empowered AS is much better.However,it was our fastest "reaction" to our allies getting hit.Even if we heal them now (which would require an extra heal slotted),you have to target your ally,cast,wait for the heal to take effect etc.The fact that AS was healing people as soon as they got hurt,was often life saving.
-I miss healing step,it often saved me from certain death,by giving me an extra dodge just in time.
-I dont like how buff dailies lock down AP generation.
PvP
This is where most of the work needs to be done.
-Our team support is a bit too much.It's almost impossible to kill someone if a cleric is around,simply because of righteousness.Basically,if one team has a cleric and the other doesn't,the team without one is at a huge disadvantage. Sure,the same can be said about GFs with KV up,or CWs stunlocking everyone etc,but that doesn't mean it's balanced just cause other classes have some broken skills too.It's better to fix Op abilities all around,than make everyone OP just to keep up with other OP classes.
-Dps path can deal some massive damage due to bugged buff interactions.I'm not sure yet what is causing it,but it has been reported several times.
-Sunburst is a bit OP with the knockback in pvp.I still think it should be converted to a stun.It also ignores cc immunity.I can knock a GF who is blocking,even if I'm not sitting behind them.
-Divine Break the Spirit's stun duration should be shortened.
-AS's DR should be lowered to 20 (+2% + 2%) like on Live.The multiplicative 10% version was weak,but a 30% DR boost is too much.
-We absolutely need an extra dodge (this is even more true in PvP than in PvE).Even the slightest cc can completely counter us.
In short, cheesy abilities aside,I feel that a support cleric has very good survivability,a bit too much support and too little defense against cc.
So my suggested changes,other than bug fixes (Righteous with huge damage and Faithful with huge heals from gift of faith) would be:
-Improved Heroic Feats,especially Initiate of the Faith and Domain Synergy.
-30% stamina cost for dodging.
-Divine Break the Spirit's base stun reduced to 2 seconds,down from 3 seconds.
-Sunburst's knockback converted to a stun.
-AS's DR reduced to 24% down from 30%
-Divine AS no longer adds tempHp.Instead,you summon a healing circle in the targeted area,that constantly heals allies standing on it.(It would not provide DR though,just like this build's Divine AS doesn't atm).This would allow some "passive,instant-response" healing,as well as deal with the issue of many sources of tempHp provided by the DC that do not stack with each other.
-Righteousness now affects only cleric abilities and is reduced to a 50% boost (currently it boosts all healing,including life steal etc).
In my opinion,in PvP Clerics should have to carefully time their dodges to avoid big hits and then use their heals to recover from minor hits,while providing support to the party.This is where skill and a bit of luck come in,as DCs arent tanky by nature,like,say,GFs.It's our spells that make us withstand damage.Currently we can just heal through almost anything without having to dodge much (excluding getting one shot from Lashing blade or Ice knife,but that's a different issue,not a DC problem),but a CW can lock us down and make us fully useless,as 2 dodges are not enough to dodge cc.This is basically bringing us to the point of "If the enemy has a CW on the point,I'm just gonna die,nothing I or my team can do about it.If the enemy has no CW on the point,I provide such as strong advantage to them,that the enemy -has- to target me first,but 1 person can simply not kill me,so 2-3 of them need to coordinate just to take me down.".This is why I suggested the above changes.It would lower the "passive" tankiness and increase the "active" tankiness.
That's about it.In any case,thanks to the Devs for trying something new with our class and for listening to our feeback and thanks to all the players who contributed with their feedback
Edit: Looks like gentlemancrush posted an update while I was typing.Woohoo,dodging now costs 30% stamina! Thank you!
Edit 2: Almost forgot,divine healing word still sometimes doesn't apply tempHp.
I wanted to report a BUG that occure during those runs
during the last boss fight, there were some moments when fireing AT WILLs would not generate divine power. Sometimes changing target helped some other changing at will (fire the lLB at will then the RB at will) but some other cases, it stopped generating divine power. If this is not a problem due to lag, it is quite dangerous to let it go live.
Aside from Prophetic Action there is a bunch of other class features that are barely used: Anointed Action, Soothe, etc. The offhand bonuses for them are also mediocre. Can you change them to maybe include the Empowered mechanic: i.e. Anointed Action makes your empowered encounters give +10% more AP per stack of empowered; and/or using Propheic Action will give a shield for %5 HP (per stack of empowerment) to allies (not self) near where you cast an empowered encounter. Something like that.
Feedback: Breaking control
Along with the suggestion above, maybe Anointed Armor can give 2 seconds of control immunity after casting an empowered encounter (per stack). And or give control immunity while casting all empowered encounters. Something to give clerics breathing room.
This might save some unused Class Features from being dead for another 2-3 months and it will give DCs some ways of not being CC-locked 100% of the time. The numbers I give above are approximate.
Thanks for listening and sorting through the feedback! There is a lot of info here, much of which is bad, some is good. The 2 changes above (and previous changes) how shown that you guys have a pretty good sense of the good and bad suggestions.
The only major thing left is a heroic feat rework. Maybe some cc blocking or resistance.
In PVP right now (gear, etc max):
DPS DCs are competitive vs most classes/builds but not over powered. We will lose to HRs most of the time, and often to TRs. CWs can lock us down (Oppressive) or spike us (renegade), but we can kill them too. GFs can kill us if they catch us with a full rotation, but we can kill them otherwise. Same with GWFs. SWs -- i haven't seen enough to say.
Heal DCs can survive 1v1 vs. most classes and builds. Perhaps All. The heal to self and ally feels good, like how a healing class should play.
2v2 and 3v3 is where it gets interesting. Don't have enough testing yet to comment.
In general, pretty balanced, and MUCH better than mod 4. I don't think the massive overhaul was necessary, but your updates have been solid. Kudos for the effort!
Iyon the Dark
Thank you very much for listening to this concern!
Awesome! Now we don't need much.
SUGGESTION:
1) Heroic Feat Rework
2) Class Feature Rework
Mod 12.5 PvP Power/Crit/Arp Optimization
Youtube channel (PvE/PvP)
Reach 45 per cent of HP go back to full life...it s healing for 160k + .. not hat toning that down to 50k+ would change something.
In not calling for nerf but at least an internal cooldown to not proc 2 times in a row on the same toon.
If I'm with a team in Tiamat, then I want them to go up to full life as a result of a capstone feat. How are potent heals something you'd NOT want?
Unless you're just talking about PvP? In which case, I don't think the developers are focusing on that right now. Wait until after it goes live and gets a full stress test, they'll probably balance it out for PvP later once there's a larger community of testers (i.e. Live players) that complain about invincible Cleric teams or some such.
Patience.
Either that or allow us to use our shift dodge even when CCed. We don't have anything else to counter CC unless it's the AC's daily (which is not feasible considering its long "cooldown").
Agent of the Divine looks like it's performing the following:
- 25% of healing from ALL spells are deducted from their capacity and added to a buff, Gift of Faith.
- HoT is removed from ALL spells and the amount it would have healed is also added to a buff, Gift of Faith.
Fully feated healing powers are pretty potent. I am presuming that Agent of the Divine is applying the total healing possible, not the actual amount healed (i.e. if you're at full health, this capstone would be worthless). It looks to me like the goal is to provide a steady quasi-Soulforged effect, as well as give the Cleric the option to do something OTHER than heal in an emergency (i.e. this is a cleric's clutch heal before he has to clutch heal).
Also, are these numbers something you personally have witnessed on your own Cleric, or are other players applying these numbers? What kind of gear did you/they have on? Was it realistic Live test equipment, or was it totally maxed out in everything? Maxing is easy to do in Preview, after all, so there's a certain level of gear bias one has to account for while testing. Could you give more data?