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Official Feedback Thread: Devoted Cleric Changes

gentlemancrushgentlemancrush Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 445 Cryptic Developer
Greetings Adventurers!
Clerics have been in a nebulous spot until now. They were never really full on healers, or damage preventers, or damage dealers. This left them in a spot where they had to hybridize a lot of their skills, and has led to some problematic gameplay in the past. This has also led to issues with how Divine Mode interacts with a player’s choices. Given this we have made a prodigious overhaul to all Cleric Encounters, Feats, and Divinity itself to try and facilitate more active gameplay, better moment to moment choices, and let Clerics carve out a better role for themselves (whether that be as buffers, debuffers, healers, or DPS).

Overview
The biggest overhaul Clerics are seeing in this patch is the total rework of Divinity. Divine Mode powers no longer share cooldowns with their non-Divine counterparts (instead having no cooldown). Divine mode powers have all been retuned or reworked to better fit this change, and Divine Power generation is now handled exclusively by At Wills, but is substantially faster than it used to be. This brings us to the new mechanic being added, Empowered. When you cast a Divine spell, you gain a stack of Empowered for the non-Divine version. Each spell interacts differently with these stacks, and choosing what spells you want to empower to get the bonus effect will be a big part of choosing how to spend Divinity.
In addition to these changes we have rebuilt the 3 feat trees to better facilitate healing and supportive gameplay while still opening a DPS path. Let’s take a look at all the changes below.

Powers
  • New Mechanic : Empowered – Divine Encounters require 1 Divine Symbol worth of divine power and grant a stack of Empowered for the power used. Powers may only consume stacks of Empowered granted by their Divine versions and you may only have 3 stacks of Empowered for each power.
  • Divine Power is now only generated by At Wills.
  • Divine Mode powers have no cooldown.
  • Sun Burst: Now does the Divinity version as its baseline.
  • Divine Sun Burst: Applies a damage over time effect to all foes in the area of effect. This effect can be stacked up to 3 times.
  • Empowered Sun Burst: Sun Burst now consumes stacks of Empowered Sun Burst to increase the knock distance and the heal potency by 15% per stack.
  • Healing Word: Heals and applies a Heal over Time effect to yourself and all allies in a line. Max 3 stacks. 3 charges.
  • Divine Healing Word: Grants yourself and all allies in a line Temporary Hit points every 3 seconds for 9 seconds.
  • Empowered Healing Word: Healing Word now consumes stacks of Empowered Healing Word to immediately heal all allies in addition to the Heal over Time effect. This heal is increased based on the number of stacks consumed.
  • Searing Light: Throw a powerful beam of light through targets in front of you.
  • Divine Searing Light: Fire a beam of light through targets in front of you, dealing 15% of the damage to enemies around them.
  • Empowered Searing Light: Searing Light now consumes stacks of Empowered Searing Light to strike with increased Armor Penetration. Ignores 10% additional armor per stack.
  • Chains of Blazing Light: Mark a location with a holy rune for a short duration. When a foe steps on the mark chains of fiery light Immobilize them. Damage is no longer reduced for hitting additional targets. This Immobilize is halved on players.
  • Divine Chains of Blazing Light: Instantly marks a location, Immobilizing targets for 1 second and dealing a small amount of damage.
  • Empowered Chains of Blazing Light: When Chains of Blazing Light strikes a foe it consumes all stacks of Empowered Chains of Blazing Light to increase the immobilize duration is by 2 seconds per stack. Damage is increased by 10% per stack.
  • Daunting Light: After a brief delay, summon a powerful column of light that burns the targeted area.
  • Divine Daunting Light: Instantly strikes the targeted location at reduced damage.
  • Empowered Daunting Light: Daunting Light now consumes stacks of Empowered Daunting Light to increase the critical chance and severity of Daunting Light by 10% per stack.
  • Forgemaster's Flame: Ignite your target with Astral Fire, dealing damage over time.
  • Divine Forgemaster's Flame: You unleash a burst of Astral Fire, dealing damage and slowing the target for 6 seconds. This slow stacks up to 3 times.
  • Empowered Forgemaster's Flame: Forgemaster's Flame now consumes stacks of Empowered Forgemaster's Flame to increase the damage dealt by Forgemaster's Flame by 10% per stack and grant Astral Forge to all nearby allies when cast. Astral Forge increases the damage allies deal by 5% per stack for 8 seconds.
  • Paragon: Annointed Champion: Exaltation: You bless your ally and yourself, healing both of you and granting increased damage dealt and increased damage resistance.
  • Divine Exaltation: Heal yourself and your ally, granting powerful damage resistance for 2 seconds.
  • Empowered Exaltation: Exaltation now consumes stacks of Empowered Exaltation to increase the heal by 15% per stack. The damage buff and resistance buff are increased by 5% per stack.
  • Paragon: Divine Oracle: Prophecy of Doom: Target has lowered damage resistance for 8 seconds. If the target is still alive when this effect expires they take damage. If the target dies while affected by this power you gain AP and the power is instantly recharged.
  • Divine Prophecy of Doom: You deal instant damage to target foe. This damage is doubled if the target is affected by Prophecy of Doom.
  • Empowered Prophecy of Doom: Prophecy of Doom now consumes stacks of Empowered Prophecy of Doom to increase the duration of Prophecy by 2 seconds per stack and the damage resistance debuff by 5% per stack.
  • Bastion of Health: Heals allies at target location after a short delay, healing allies immediately and then applying a Heal over Time effect.
  • Divine Bastion of Health: Instantly heals allies at target location.
  • Empowered Bastion of Health: Bastion of Health now consumes stacks of Empowered Bastion of Health to heal allies for 10% of their missing HP per stack.
  • Break the Spirit: You sap your target's strength, dealing damage over time and causing them to deal 20% less damage.
  • Divine Break the Spirit: You stun the target briefly, dealing damage and reducing their damage by 10%, stacking up to 3 times. The stun gets shorter each subsequent cast on the same target.
  • Empowered Break the Spirit: Break the Spirit now consumes stacks of Empowered Break the Spirit to grant nearby allies Bolstered Spirit, which increases their damage dealt by 10% per stack consumed and lasts 8 seconds.
  • Divine Glow: Deal damage to foes at target location, reducing the damage resistance of foes who are damaged by 10% for 6 seconds. Allies at the target location are healed, granted a Heal over Time effect, and gain 10% increased daamge resistance for 6 seconds.
  • Divine Divine Glow: Deal damage to foes at target location, reducing their damage dealt by 5% for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. Allies are healed and gain 5% increased damage dealt, stacking up to 3 times.
  • Empowered Divine Glow: Divine Glow now consumes stacks of Empowered Divine Glow to increase the effect radius of Divine Glow by 5' per stack and increase the duration of the buffs and debuffs by 2 seconds per stack.
  • Astral Shield: Create a shimmering shield at target location that causes allies to have their defenses be 10% more effective.
  • Divine Astral Shield: Grant Temporary Hit Points to all targets within the affected area.
  • Empowered Astral Shield: Astral Shield now consumes stacks of Empowered Astral Shield to shield allies from a portion of incoming damage. Astral Shield blocks 100% of the Cleric's weapon damage per stack consumed.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • gentlemancrushgentlemancrush Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 445 Cryptic Developer
    edited October 2014
    Feats
    Virtuous: A tree focused on layering healing effects on allies and preventing harm.
    T1
    • Lasting Wishes: You heal for 2/4/6/8/10% more.
    • Have Faith: Allies under the effect of your Heal over Time effects take 1/2/3/4/5% less damage.
    T2
    • Urgent Prayers: Applying a Regeneration or Heal over Time effect to an ally below 10/20/30/40/50% HP will also cause them to be healed for 150% of your weapon damage.
    T3
    • Unbreakable Devotion: Your Heal over Time effects grant allies a shield that ignores a flat amount of damage. This amount is equal to 10/20/30/40/50% of your weapon damage.
    • Purity: Your Regeneration and Heal over Time effects have a 2/4/6/8/10% chance when healing an ally to heal for 3 times as much.
    T4
    • Virtue's Gift: Your Heal over Time effects are increased by 20% while you are above 95/90/85/80/75% health.
    • Cleansing Fire: Your damaging encounter powers have a 10/20/30/40/50% chance to apply a Heal over Time effect to all allies within 20' of the target. This effect heals for 350% of your weapon damage over 15 seconds. This effect does not stack.
    T5
    • Shield of the Divine: When you or an ally within 30' of you takes damage they receive a Heal over Time effect from you that heals for 500% of your weapon damage over 20 seconds. An ally cannot trigger this effect while already affected by Shield of the Divine. Additionally, Word of Healing, Bastion of Health, Divine Glow, and Astral Shield no longer directly heal allies, and instead apply a Heal over Time effect to affected allies for double that amount over 12 seconds.

    Faithful: A tree focused on using large heals to save allies from death, even able to bring them back from the brink of death.
    T1
    • Resounding Beliefs: Your direct healing powers heal for 2/4/6/8/10% more.
    • Desperate Restoration: When you or the target of your healing are below 30% HP you heal for 6/12/18/24/30% more.
    T2
    • Divine Intervention: Your direct healing spells have a 5/10/15/20/25% chance to grant the target 150% of your weapon damage as Temporary Hit Points.
    T3
    • Shared Burdens: Your direct healing spells also heal allies within 20' the target for 4/8/12/16/20% of the original heal.
    • Chaplain's Strength: When a foe is within 30' of you your healing is increased by 2/4/6/8/10%
    T4
    • Test of Faith: When taking damage you gain a stack of Faith. Every 3 seconds a stack of Faith will seek out a nearby damaged ally and heal them for 60/120/180/240/300% of your weapon damage. You can only gain a stack of Faith once every second.
    • United by Faith: For each ally within 30' of you your healing is increased by 1/2/3/4/5%.
    T5
    • Agent of the Divine: Your healing spells now heal for 25% less and store the difference on the target as a "Gift of Faith". While an ally has Gift of Faith on them, when they drop below 30% HP the Gift of Faith is expended to immediately heal them for the full amount. Additionally Word of Healing, Bastion of Health, and Divine Glow no longer apply a Heal over Time effect, but instead grant the amount they would have healed directly to Gift of Faith.

    Righteous: A warrior of unshakable faith who decimates foes in the name of his diety.
    T1
    • Astral Fury: You deal 2/4/6/8/10% more damage.
    • Furious Intervention: You generate 2/4/6/8/10% AP when dealing damage.
    T2
    • Righteous Suffering: When you take damage you deal 2/4/6/8/10% more damage for 10 seconds.
    T3
    • Bear Your Sins: Foes who are under the effect of one of your Damage over Time effects take 2/4/6/8/10% more damage from all sources.
    • Piercing Light: Your damaging powers have 2/4/6/8/10% additional Armor Penetration.
    T4
    • Condemning Gaze: Your damaging encounter powers apply a stack of Condemned to affected targets for 30 seconds. If a foe reaches 5 stacks of Condemned they take 3/6/9/12/15% more damage from all sources for 15 seconds and will not gain new stacks of Condemned until this effect expires.
    • Fire of the Gods: When you critically strike a foe they are set ablaze, taking 20/40/60/80/100% of your weapon damage every second for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack.
    T5
    • Avatar of the Divine: When you enter combat you gain Avatar. Avatar increases your damage by 40% and increases your cooldown speed by 40% for 25 seconds. After you have activated Avatar you cannot benefit from it again for 60 seconds. Avatar will reactivate automatically when it is ready. Leaving combat cancels Avatar and resets its cooldown.
  • gentlemancrushgentlemancrush Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 445 Cryptic Developer
    edited October 2014
    Feedback
    We need to collect as much feedback as possible on this so we can tweak the feel and effects of the Devoted Cleric in PVE and performance in PVP. Given that, we would like you to categorize and color code your feedback so we can sort it and act on it most effectively! Please use the below format to submit bugs/feedback.

    Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
    Spec: (Please enter the spec that you are providing feedback for here)
    Please use “Bold” face text for the Type & Spec then type your feedback in the body of your post. If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use BLUE.
    (Concise Feedback & Screen Shots are much appreciated)

    Examples:
    Bug: Destroyer
    Destroyer’s Purpose didn’t grant stacks while dealing damge.

    Feedback: Sentinel
    I feel like I don’t have enough tools to stay alive under fire now and it makes tanking too hard.

    Please try to play for a few hours to get used to the changes. Thank you again for all your help Adventurers! We look forward to hearing back from you!

    Chris “Gentleman_Crush” Meyer
  • gentlemancrushgentlemancrush Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 445 Cryptic Developer
    edited October 2014
    Update 10/14, for a preview push this week.
    Devoted Cleric: Empowered: This is now a global resource that is applied by any divine power and can be consumed by any non-divine power. When you reach 3 stacks you will get floater text to notify you that you are fully Empowered.

    Devoted Cleric: Astral Shield: This power no longer incorrectly blocks all damage when used with no Empowered stacks.
    Devoted Cleric: Brand of the Sun: This power now also grants Divine Power when the DoT component ticks.
    Devoted Cleric: Divine Fortune: This class feature now correctly increases Divine Power gain by 5% per rank (down from 50%).
    Devoted Cleric: Divine Glow: This power should now correctly show how much damage it will deal.
    Devoted Cleric: Searing Light: This power now correctly states the radius of the Divine version (15').
    Devoted Cleric: Forgemaster's Flame: No longer erroneously mentions healing in rank up text.
    Devoted Cleric: Forgemaster's Flame: Base slow for this power now slows the foe for 60% (up from 40%).
    Devoted Cleric: Divine Bastion of Health: This power now heals for roughly 100% more.
    Devoted Cleric: Punishing and Soothing Light: These powers now drain Divine power half as fast.
    Devoted Cleric: Lance of Faith: This power now deals 25% more damage.


    Devoted Cleric: Divine Oracle: Prophecy of Doom: This power now lists how much damage it can deal.

    Devoted Cleric: Faithful: Agent of the Divine: The heal from this feat is now clamped and cannot exceed the target's Maximum HP.

    Devoted Cleric: Righteous: Fire of the Gods: This feat can no longer crit.

    Changes for 10/24
    Daunting Light: Now correctly gives global Empowered Stacks.
    Bastion of Health: Cast Time reduced by roughly 50%.
    Bastion of Health: This power no longer has a target cap.
    Divine Bastion of Health: This power no longer has a target cap.
    Divine Glow: This power no longer has a target cap.
    Divine Divine Glow: This power no longer has a target cap.
    Astral Shield: This power now adds damage resistance to players standing inside it instead of multiplying their damage resistance.
    Divine Astral Shield: This power now grants 50% more Temp HP.
    Healing Word: This power no longer has a target cap.
    Divine Healing Word; This power no longer has a target cap.
    Divine Healing Word: This power now grants 2.4 times more Temp HP each tick.
    Fire of the Gods: No longer incorrectly deals damage and applies in an AoE.
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Sunburst rework
    Sunburst in non-divine mode has the knockback now? A lot of people are going to have issues with that.
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

    Neverwinter Census 2017

    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
  • franklin223franklin223 Member Posts: 42 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Doesn't look like the patch is live on Mimic yet but:

    Feedback: Please take a pass at the DC heroic feats. They are out of line with heroic feats for the other classes.
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Affects me minimally as it's not a power I slotted regularly, but I know it's a staple for probably more than half of people playing DCs. Yikes.

    I'm hoping the DPS tree can still heal with reasonable effect. I like my versatile cleric.

    Feedback: overall changes
    A bit disappointing to see nothing for the heroic feats, as many of these are pretty worthless. As it stands, there is very little variation in how to spec a DC's heroic feats without wasting points, and they're the only class where the extra feat points from choosing human as your race are superfluous rather than a clear advantage.
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

    Neverwinter Census 2017

    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
  • franklin223franklin223 Member Posts: 42 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Please look into redesigning Powers Prophetic Action and Sooth. neither are are taken these days.

    Prophetic Action suffers from RNg - you very well might ignore a 400 damage tick from a DoT instead of the big spike damage coming next. Too random to be viable.

    Sooth is no longer necessary in today's metagame.
  • sprawlfxsprawlfx Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Sunburst
    I only ever used Astral Shield for AP gen (heal and damage in same strike = +25% AP gain.) Always hated the repel effect, so rarely used it that way, except with purpose... pushing baddies into holes. Now I guess it will not generate AP anymore, so it will be completely useless, I think.

    Feedback: Feats
    Also agree heroic feats need a complete rework. Clerics always had the short end of that particular stick.
  • pitshadepitshade Member Posts: 5,665 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Sunburst
    Please, please don't make sunburst always have the knockback effect. It is only useful in rare situations and having it happen all the time will make the power undesirable. In group play, players want mobs stacked up not scattered. When soloing, all of our best damaging powers have small to medium size AOEs. In either case scattering mobs makes everything worse.
    "We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
  • tornnomartornnomar Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 400 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Just how fast does Divinity rebuild only using At-Wills? Its worth asking because you really don't have a heck of alot of time to stand around spamming At-Wills just to build divinity.
  • franklin223franklin223 Member Posts: 42 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: The damage of our At-Wills should also be increased to bring them more in line with other classes. Soloing can be a nightmare and take an age to complete. An increase in damage for Sacred Flames, Lance, Blessing of Battle and Brand of the Sun could go along way to close the enormous damage gap that we see party play and make dailies more manageable. While Astral Seal could remain as is with its healing component, all of the other need a big bump in DPS.
  • diogene0diogene0 Member Posts: 2,894 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Well...

    The sunburst rework is interesting, mostly for pvp purposes it seems. Since it's not required anymore to make some divinity, well, why not. But not it's a terribad pve spell. One heal less on out spell bar.

    Astral shield not providing any sort of regen sucks. This spell was great as a "beacon" to say team member where to go and what was the buffed zone. But maybe the healing from divine glow will make it up for it who knows. The empowered version doesn't look that bad anyway.

    It seems that divine advantage as it is disappeared too, and it was really an awesome, awesome feat. I'm not sure I like the replacement.

    Break the spirit is uninspiring as it is. As long as it doesn't have an AoE effect this spell will remain underwhelming, even with a -20% damage debuff. This would make an great replacement for sunburst if only it could hit multiple (8?) targets! Please consider it. You removed a lot of synergies from the current DC trees and spells (like must apply temp HPs to heal more), this would bring some really interesting combos to the table.


    Now my concerns:

    - what about righteousness? Any rework inbound? Yes it's needed! Especially in pvp. Righteousness boosting incoming healing on allies instead of increasing incoming healing from cleric spells is a bit lousy, it defeats the purpose of having a dedicated healer since some people reported it's buffing lifesteal effects (which don't need that right now).

    - what about the base damage from cleric spells? Any plans to increase them? I pity clerics using the healing trees with the daunting light rework (which is a nerf for this spell). Divine mode dealing less damage? meh. So in order to alleviate the pain in the *** long and tedious lvl 61 daily quests are clerics have to go dps. Dailies or teamplay. I'm sure you don't want to do that to your DC players. :) Cooldowns are LONG, base damage is LOW, please.

    - Will high prophet get a rework? Now that there's more debuffs all around the place, maybe it's time to make this set a bit less a "must have, must use" gear. I'm not sure that what we need right now is clearing content faster.

    Anyhow i'll test this on preview as soon as the tyranny of dailies give me a break!
  • tsokushintsokushin Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Greetings Adventurers!
    This brings us to the new mechanic being added, Empowered. When you cast a Divine spell, you gain a stack of Empowered for the non-Divine version.

    Daunting Light: After a brief delay, summon a powerful column of light that burns the targeted area.
    Divine Daunting Light: Instantly strikes the targeted location at reduced damage.
    Empowered Daunting Light: Daunting Light now consumes stacks of Empowered Daunting Light to increase the critical chance and severity of Daunting Light by 10% per stack.

    Bolded for emphasis.

    Feedback:

    This empowered rework will destroy all synergy of daunting light in PvP due to the delay of a regular daunting light, especially with the halving of the Chains of Blazing Light snare reduction. One of the following must occur for functionality purposes.

    1) Each stack of empowered also lowers the delay of non-divine Daunting light by 33% (100% at 3 stacks).

    2) Lower the delay on non-divine Daunting light itself.

    3) Increase the radius to be equal to that of Chains of Blazing Light.


    Other than that, so far seems to be a brilliant rework. Although some testing would need to be done with Divinity generation and such, and I certainly hope that these empowered stacks do not operate the same way as current Cycle of Change stacks meaning: 1 stack of empowered for 1 ability knocks off empowered stacks of other abilities.
  • zoiks100zoiks100 Member Posts: 355 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Sunburst rework
    Sunburst in non-divine mode has the knockback now? A lot of people are going to have issues with that.

    Unlikely, since sunburst won't generate divine power anymore far fewer people will use it.

    By the way, you guys might want to make it a little more clear whether divine powered encounters are additive with the base encounter effects still, or completely separate now. I'm guessing separate from the context, but I'm not sure.

    And while I'm not going to cry doom just yet, I'd just like to point out now that no cooldown divine power encounters sounds like it's going to result is RIDICULOUS burst dps from clerics. 3-4 rapid fire divine daunting lights in a row...yeah...

    ps. Am I the only one who sees the base Astral Shield encounter description? Cause I'm pretty sure right now it's giving something like +20% DR base, not +10%. That's a 50% nerf, assuming it's not literally +10% defense which would be even worse...
    Don't Panic.
    airplane-2-o.gif
    Okay, Panic.
  • ghoulz66ghoulz66 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,748 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Avatar of the Divine
    I am quite upset about this. A DPS feat with a massive cooldown. So I'm soloing my daily, run up to 2 weak guys, proc this, kill em in a couple seconds, now I have to wait 60 seconds just to repeat this. This is only viable for a boss fight.
  • gentlemancrushgentlemancrush Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 445 Cryptic Developer
    edited October 2014
    ghoulz66 wrote: »
    Feedback: Avatar of the Divine
    I am quite upset about this. A DPS feat with a massive cooldown. So I'm soloing my daily, run up to 2 weak guys, proc this, kill em in a couple seconds, now I have to wait 60 seconds just to repeat this. This is only viable for a boss fight.

    Read the tooltip again :)

    Specifically "Leaving combat cancels Avatar and resets its cooldown."
  • justsyndrajustsyndra Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    The fun part about cleric, for me, was having encounters that I could use to save an ally in a close call. First glance seems to have removed this in a way, and moved it to passive methods where all I have to do is show up and throw down any old skill. I look forward to testing and compiling feedback over the next few weeks! Really would prefer if numbers and internal cooldowns (or lack thereof) were more clear, it's a problem across the whole game.
    No longer playing Neverwinter.
  • zoiks100zoiks100 Member Posts: 355 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    diogene0 wrote: »
    Empowered version is getting a pretty strong effect and you can now stack divine & non divine mode AS if i read correctly. Rejoice!

    Unless I'm missing something, I'm still predicting a huge nerf in overall effectiveness of AS. Though I expect there's a good chance a 3 empowered stack AS will be completely game breaking for pvp, for the limited uptime anyway.

    Even assuming a single empowered stack AS + a stacking DP-AS is at least as effective as the current live server DP-AS, that's more than double the cast time. And we have no idea if the new DP-AS stacks with itself or is nearly as effective as the HoT effect on live, I'm betting it doesn't and it isn't. Which leads to the problem of having to cast something you don't want to be able to cast something you do want...something I think may be happening to a lot of the cleric encounters now.

    Other posters have pointed out the real problems with clerics before. For dps their encounter cds are too long. their at-will do too little damage, and they have too little dps support effects (CC, debuffs, buffs) on their best dps abilities. For healing the main problem comes down to a lack of single target healing, the problems of the targeting system in applying single target heals, and the fact that their most effective abilities require players to clump up in a game where combat is designed so that clumping up is otherwise detrimental (red circles, combat advantage, boss facing, etc). These changes feel like they're all in the absolute wrong directions to me but who knows.
    Don't Panic.
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    Okay, Panic.
  • totenkopf77totenkopf77 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 32 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feats

    "Additionally, Word of Healing, Bastion of Health, Divine Glow, and Astral Shield no longer directly heal allies, and instead apply a Heal over Time effect to affected allies "

    [*]Agent of the Divine: Your healing spells now heal for 25% less Additionally Word of Healing, Bastion of Health, and Divine Glow no longer apply a Heal over Time effect


    So, I'm seeing a ton of things that say "less" and very few that say "more". The few that say more seem to involve tiny numbers like 10 measly percent. I will withhold full judgement until can try on preview but this all sounds like a lot of wasted time nerfing the DC yet again. I didn't think DC could get much worse but it sure sounds like you found a way. The huge nerf to Divine Glow pretty much kills buffing, Righteous is a 10 percent damage increase except for a few seconds every minute which is not impressive given how far underpowered we are. The loss in healing is meh as who cares as SW will have that sewn up in a jiffy. This sounds really bad I hate to say.
  • diogene0diogene0 Member Posts: 2,894 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    zoiks100 wrote: »
    Even assuming a single empowered stack AS + a stacking DP-AS is at least as effective as the current live server DP-AS, that's more than double the cast time. And we have no idea if the new DP-AS stacks with itself or is nearly as effective as the HoT effect on live, I'm betting it doesn't and it isn't. Which leads to the problem of having to cast something you don't want to be able to cast something you do want...something I think may be happening to a lot of the cleric encounters now.

    OK. On live divine AS and non divine one stack already. I've had tons of fun in pvp with that. Divine mode and non divine mode are seemingly designed to be casted consecutively. Like, divine AS > normal AS. Yes the casting time is going to be doubled. Hopefully at-wills will make a ton of divinity to make it up for the doubled casting time for everything while being busy hitting TAB all the time. We'll see. It needs testing and it will probably needs a lot of refining, but right now I don't see any significant issue with Astral shield. There are far more pressing issues. Like the base damage of our damage spells, and on that matter I agree with you.
  • rickcase276rickcase276 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,404 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I think these changes are going to be good for the DC. Yes, we still need a bump to weapon damage, but are not the class that needs the bump the most (GF need that). And I read the tooltip on the Avatar says that once you leave combat the cooldown resets, so you are able to cast it again immediately when back in combat, as the timer would be back to 0. I know my main DC will stay righteous, but not so certain if I will keep my second in Faithful or move it. Time will tell, I guess.
  • helpimblindinrlhelpimblindinrl Member Posts: 972 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback

    Sunburst always pushing will mean the dcs will not use it full stop. People rage at wizards running tab repel unless its specifically for throwing off cliffs and for using Ice Storm at all. Unless you specifically don't want people to use it anymore its a bad change.
  • destinyknightdestinyknight Member Posts: 962 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Sunburst
    Oh good god! The first thing I saw, I havent even read the rest yet, but the first thing I saw is Divine Suburst has become the default. I had to post to say NO! Absolutely not.

    I intentionally when using Sunburst, chose when to use divine and when to use normal. Because there are too many times where divine sunburst works against you and your party. That needs to be left alone. There was actually a form of skill needed for that spell and awareness of when to use divinity and when to use normal. This cannot be turned into the norm. A cleric will be condemned if they used it. The normal is good when a group just needs a quick heal, and deal a bit of damage to surrounding enemies.

    Divine is for breaking distance from enemies or knocking them away. Dont change that.


    Healing Word, should remain a person target ability. It should instead heal the person and any allies nearby in a line. Its a quick way to pass a heal to someone far for preventive measures. I dont see need in changing Healing word to work in this manner.

    Searing Light has been made weaker.. When its not really a well used skill to begin with. Why? The divine version used to deal full damage to all enemies it pass through while widening the path of the attack. Why nerf it to now only do full damage to primary target and 15% of the damage to nearby enemies. I cant.. see the logic in that..

    Exaltation
    And why get rid of the best support spell's effect in the game. The divine version of Exhaltation used to give complete damage immunity to you and the ally you target. Why turn it lesser?


    *rubs temples*


    oh.. boy. Okay lets keep going..

    Astral Shield
    oh boy. I can see the much rage coming from the absence of the healing effect of divine astral shield. ooooh boy..


    Overall. From analyzing everything. Clerics will be in even worse shape with these changes. The changes takes so much away that was useful than they give. Core life saving things have been moved or weakened and some life threatening things have even been added.

    I dont understand these at all. Just by looking at these changes, I dont even want to touch my cleric anymore. All this just makes life harder for her. She used to get by fine with careful utilization of powers and situational awareness of her enviornment and her allies. Now it just seems like her tools have been taken away and she just received some sorry handy downs to work with.
  • diogene0diogene0 Member Posts: 2,894 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Well I kinda want that at will KB effect badly for pvp purposes. Really. Everyone prepares to fly when there's a cleric in the vincinity! :D With the changes sunburst becomes quite underwhelming in pve anyway. A dot? Meh.
  • herundrionherundrion Member Posts: 238 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I have not played, but I have questions on a few vague points. I will be playing as soon as I can, because I love DC. I am primarily debuff DC (Kaelac style), but these changes seem to open alternative paths.

    Questioning the whole mechanic - do divine and empowered versions add onto the normal effects of spells? It seems to do that for Sunburst, but it overrides the normal version in case of Healing Word.
    Greetings Adventurers!
    .... Divine Power generation is now handled exclusively by At Wills, but is substantially faster than it used to be....
    At first glance, not a bad idea. But please do make the at-wills more damaging/healing.
    [*]Sun Burst: Now does the Divinity version as its baseline.
    If that means push, then no. NO. No. Do not do that. No..... no.
    Empowered Searing Light: Searing Light now consumes stacks of Empowered Searing Light to strike with increased Armor Penetration. Ignores 10% additional armor per stack.
    10% means what? Straight up ArP? Or is it one of those "defense debuff = damage buff". In either case, sounds mediocre.
    Astral Shield: Create a shimmering shield at target location that causes allies to have their defenses be 10% more effective.
    How is this 10% calculated - Defense stat? just +10% DR? or *1.1 DR? or Protection (whatever that means)?
    Empowered Astral Shield: Astral Shield now consumes stacks of Empowered Astral Shield to shield allies from a portion of incoming damage. Astral Shield blocks 100% of the Cleric's weapon damage per stack consumed.
    A bit unclear - can either sound really good or really bad. Blocks per stack consumed - is that basically damage reduction for the whole duration of the spell? Is that in addition to 10% DR increase from normal version?
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  • franklin223franklin223 Member Posts: 42 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Righteousness needs to be removed.

    Why is it perfectly acceptable that we are able to fully fill the health bars of four party members, with the goal of making them immortal, while only one party member (the DC itself) struggles with his health bar? Should we not be immortal too? Why the double standard?

    It makes no sense really.If it is by design that only 4 members of a 5 person party are suppose to be able to wade into battle without fear of dying can't you make it random which player Rightousness targets to die? At least then, we have a chance to make it through a boss fight not always feeling like we need a healing potion IV. If it is by design that we alleviate potion consumption for everyone else why is the DC punished into drinking potions on cooldown?

    The Rightousness mechanic is archaic. There is no mechanic remotely like this affecting another class in the game. It is purposely hindering the class for no clear reason.
  • odnnauqodnnauq Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 67 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Will need to test out all these new changes to see how the new "empowered" mechanic work. However, can you please do not take away the brief immunity of divine exaltation and/or give us some kind of reasonable escape ability? HR can escape quickly with stealth like power and marauder escape, SW can run super fast and is CC-resist or immune, and TR can go stealth, GWF can go into unstoppable frequently which allow quick getaway and cc-immune. With healing depression etc...DC is extremely easy killable target except for our mitigation ability, i.e. what's currently provided by divine exaltation. And it is very short in duration and long cool down time. And it looks like it is being taken away. Especially it feels as if a lot of our mitigation power is reduced and replaced with healing. But between the lifesteal mechanics and the shared life-steal and healing powers of SW, I am not sure DC can or need to compete in that respect.
  • theosymphanytheosymphany Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Paragon feats missing from both trees.
    Looking forward to paragon feats and info update.
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  • bioshrikebioshrike Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,729 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    The always-knockback effect of sunburst needs to go. Maybe give it something like a 1 sec daze, (with an internal cooldown on the daze effect).

    The removal of the regen on the divine astral shield will basically gut the power - it is a great way to make an area "your team's" for a short period of time - hardly anyone uses it for the non-divine version, (except maybe to stack with another divine version). Perhaps have the divine version *also* buff the potency of any healing effect cast while under its effect...
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  • skinlikewinterskinlikewinter Member Posts: 104 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Feedback: Your Attempt at Fixing Another Class
    I have always been opposed to having separate buff/debuff, healing, and dps trees for DCs. In my opinion you devs have a bad track record when trying to "fix" classes by creating new trees, and just muck things up. My DC was versatile. I can heal, dps or buff/debuff. Now i wont be able to.

    If you truly listened to the player base you would have made us happy a long time ago with just doing as we asked since before mod1. All we ever truly wanted was for you to fix the broken feats and encounters, and maybe rework a few of them that are never used.

    I honestly think you don't truly listen to what the players say about their class, seems more like you hear it, but don't listen. In one ear, out the other.


    Feedback: Empowered
    Why are you trying to complicate things even more? We never asked for a new mechanic. You could have just modified effects to the normal and divine modes of encounters and not added a new mechanic. Seriously, adding in new parts in order to make a new function/feature to a car, does nothing to fix its broken down engine. With empowered you wanted to increase effects, well that's what Divinity Mode is for, along with feats.

    Suggestion: Do Away with Empowered and go back to the proverbial drawing board.


    Feedback: Sunburst
    As stated above, you don't truly listen to players, and just added the knock back as base line for sunburst. We didn't like it on the Idiot Boy (the new cleric companion) and what would make you think we would want it on our own spell as a baseline? Leave the baseline without the knock back. Give it a slight increase to damage, but leave its heals as it is.



    Feedback: Divine Daunting Light
    It now does reduced damage? What is wrong with you people? Divine mode is suppose to be better than normal mode. Tip: people rarely use normal mode Daunting Light as it is slow and mobs move too fat to hit them with it. Going higher in ranks should be better than previous ranks.

    Suggestion: Leave Divine mode as it is now.
    Norma Mode: make DL cast instantly
    Divine Mode: does 10% more damage, instant casting with wider AoE.




    Feedback: At-Wills
    You better add a Heroic feat that gives 30/40/50% more divinity to at-wills. In regards to at-wills, it is stated to be faster than it is now, but knowing how you all work, this will improve the rate divinity gains for at-wills, but will be slower overall as we are no longer getting Divinity from encounter cooldowns.

    At-will divinity gain is at a crawl vs. encounter sprint divinity gain. Saying it is "substantially faster than it used to be," doesn't give me much faith with your track record.

    As it is now on live server, we gain divinity all the time, with at-wills being fired, and encounters coming off cooldowns.

    Will have to see how it is in preview. But it does sound like you're trying to pull something over our heads.


    Feedback: Forgemasters Flame
    Congratulations you just moved another encounter over to the "Get, But Not Likely To Use" column.


    Feedback: Astral Shield
    *facepalm* You're just mucking things up.


    Feedback: Lance of Faith
    Wait, what was that? You didn't mention anything about LoF? Oh well you should have. Players have said repeatedly, to increase its attack speed and damage.


    I best just stop right now, reading what looks to be another botched up "Fix" is making my head hurt.

    Yes this all still needs testing and that is what this thread is about, but what if players post they don't like the new changes? What then? Will you do as you always do and ignore the players, or will you listen and make the requested changes? I don't mean just me or a few others but what the DC player base says as a whole.

    Best get some sleep, have a day of testing DCs, that's if it is up and running on preview tomorrow.
    I show player support, by only playing Neverwinter as F2P
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