Cleric as a DD in TW

freygin
freygin Posts: 737 Arc User
edited December 2013 in Cleric
Now that a cleric has morai debuff skill that might be useful to take down a tanky target because all heals and charm ticks could be blocked by it, and critical debuff that amplify crit proc by 15%, is it worth having a cleric as a DD in TW , or the slot should be given to a real DD class ? Sure cleric can change form, but 15 seconds cooldown isn't very effective in a lot of critical moments in TW if we expect a cleric to be both DD and support.

so what do you guys think about letting a cleric roam free in ultra violet dance form and not as a support unit.
Post edited by freygin on

Comments

  • Aeliah - Dreamweaver
    Aeliah - Dreamweaver Posts: 784 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    freygin wrote: »
    Now that a cleric has morai debuff skill that might be useful to take down a tanky target because all heals and charm ticks could be blocked by it, and critical debuff that amplify crit proc by 15%, is it worth having a cleric as a DD in TW , or the slot should be given to a real DD class ? Sure cleric can change form, but 15 seconds cooldown isn't very effective in a lot of critical moments in TW if we expect a cleric to be both DD and support.

    so what do you guys think about letting a cleric roam free in ultra violet dance form and not as a support unit.

    Depends entirely on how many clerics your faction has. I don't know what the ideal cutoff would be, but perhaps, if there are at least 2 clerics healing in every squad already, then additional clerics could stay violet dance for most of the TW, and then go to healing mode when your side pushes into enemy base. Once in base, they should be healing and rezzing cata barbs and other clerics.

    Healing debuffs are enormously useful in killing people, especially arcanes. However, in TW you don't really get to appreciate their usefulness as much because you will rarely be able to use the aoe version of the healing debuff, since you need to be up close to the target for it. You are limited to your single-target healing debuff, and in that case, the argument goes, if you have the time to be doing a healing debuff, why not just do actual damage? And if you are going to just do actual damage, why not have that damage done by a dd who does more dps or dph than a cleric?

    If you have a choice as to who you bring into a TW, if you already have 2 clerics per squad, you'd probably choose a real dd like psychic, wizard, archer, or seeker, instead of a cleric. In terms of raw damage output, these classes should all trump cleric.

    Myself, I go into violet dance form maybe one-three times per TW. Sometimes I'll notice that the enemy rankings are thinning out, my squad is alive and buffed, but one stubborn enemy dd (normally +12 all r9rr seeker) is stubbornly holding out. Or sometimes a lone cata barb pushes up to a tower and invokes. In these cases, I go into violet dance and apply a FULL stack of healing debuff, physical and magic debuffs, and mark of weakness. The target inevitably dies, and then I switch back to healing mode.
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  • freygin
    freygin Posts: 737 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    Yea agree, cleric doesn't have enough dps/dph to be a real dd even in ultra violet dance mode, hope the new upcoming patch with no cooldown for great cyclone would give cleric better dps, but even with that cleric still lacks spammable aoe though.

    Maybe unless as a cleric we outgear a DD class in our faction by much then we can take role as a DD or support as we see fit.
  • Man - Raging Tide
    Man - Raging Tide Posts: 1,410 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    With the +100 magic on the 9.3 set, and the higher base magic damage (due to stuff like tomes), help increase cleric dmg relative to say a wizard, that has higher % wep dmg and higher skill cast time.

    I think clerics can be one of the best arcane DD's in the game atm.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6nymJIflhA here is a strong metal mage ;)
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  • Aeliah - Dreamweaver
    Aeliah - Dreamweaver Posts: 784 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    With the +100 magic on the 9.3 set, and the higher base magic damage (due to stuff like tomes), help increase cleric dmg relative to say a wizard, that has higher % wep dmg and higher skill cast time.

    I think clerics can be one of the best arcane DD's in the game atm.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6nymJIflhA here is a strong metal mage ;)


    While I definitely agree that clerics can do decent magic damage (like any arcane in r9rr), their damage output is still noticeably trumped by wizards and psychics.

    A wizard has a way deadlier/faster 1-person kill combo for dropping enemy light/heavy armored enemies, and more numerous and more deadly aoes. A wizard doing what Arawin does would do a lot more damage to the enemy.

    While a psychic can't drop tough targets like a wizard can, psychic dps trumps both wizards and clerics by a significant margin. Psychics have more low-cost aoes and also more useful CC skills for TW. A cleric can't really utilize sleep in TW, because your allies usually waste the sleep straight away. Silent seal is admittedly useful, but single target. And if you seal of gods somebody, that person can't really die for 15seconds...which is often counterproductive. This usually leaves us with just silent seal. A psychic, however, has aoe stun, aoe immobilizes, a long-lasting seal, and the ability to randomly seal a lot of people who attack said psychic, all of which are always useful in group situations. Therefore psychic beats out cleric in both dmg and cc categories when it comes to TW.

    The one noticeable advantage a cleric has when fulfilling the DD role is their survivability. Clerics have a ton of way to survive a purge! Therefore, and you do notice Arawin doing this to an extent, a DD front-lines cleric can soak up a fair bit of enemy dmg. Only a mystic can rival a clerics ability to soak up dmg on the front lines.

    So I maintain my original statement: other arcane classes do dmg in TW better than a cleric. That isn't to say that what Arawin does is wrong---just count how many clerics are in her squad! No squad needs *that* much heal support, lol. It makes a lot of sense to go DD when defensive support is already so abundant, and she does a very good job of pumping out consistent damage (and again, her gear is top notch). Its just that IF Arawin was another arcane class like wiz/psychic, it would be more useful for the purposes of killing stuff in TW. This is understandeable and also acceptable---it would hardly be fair to the DD classes if cleric trumped them in both healing AND dding! Lol.

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  • Burnout - Harshlands
    Burnout - Harshlands Posts: 2,585 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    Actually, with violet dance's 100% m attack + demon spirit's gift's 150%, + a cycle of Elven boon and great cyclone spam...I would guess that a cleric could output some pretty major dps now, possibly on par with psychics. Especially since psychic's attack level buffs are kinda meh nowdays with attack levels so abundant everywhere. They did get some help with lowered cast times on their two base dps skills though with update.

    They can definitely compete with wizard's undine strike too with 250% m attack and faster spells, but not genie spark's fire debuffs. Wizards also got a pretty hefty new dps skill in frostflame (it is basically 2 successive hits with one spell cast).

    So yeah the update potentially brought clerics dps close to par with "old" wizards and psychics, but then the update increased the dps potential of all three classes, so in the end cleric still lags behind again b:surrender.

    It's all a ploy to make you feel like you're making progress, but in reality its just a giant hamster wheel race for clerics.
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  • freygin
    freygin Posts: 737 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    Unfortunately 100% matk from violet dance needs all refines maxed out to +12, and 150% matk is only for demon cleric, both can't be generalized for every cleric, but yeah, agree that the point is cleric is not cut for DD'ing, though this class can be very deadly in pvp. It's really unfair if a cleric outperform real DD class like Aeliah stated. Or else everyone would want to be a cleric b:laugh

    Sometimes I like to think to myself, that's me who kills those people when in mass pvp, since I'm the one who keeps him alive while he keeps dealing damage like crazy and tanking a lot of damage at the same time, it's like killing from afar using a puppet or deploying an drone to extend the length of our firing range. b:victory
  • Aeliah - Dreamweaver
    Aeliah - Dreamweaver Posts: 784 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    Actually, with violet dance's 100% m attack + demon spirit's gift's 150%, + a cycle of Elven boon and great cyclone spam...I would guess that a cleric could output some pretty major dps now, possibly on par with psychics. Especially since psychic's attack level buffs are kinda meh nowdays with attack levels so abundant everywhere. They did get some help with lowered cast times on their two base dps skills though with update.

    They can definitely compete with wizard's undine strike too with 250% m attack and faster spells, but not genie spark's fire debuffs. Wizards also got a pretty hefty new dps skill in frostflame (it is basically 2 successive hits with one spell cast).

    So yeah the update potentially brought clerics dps close to par with "old" wizards and psychics, but then the update increased the dps potential of all three classes, so in the end cleric still lags behind again b:surrender.

    It's all a ploy to make you feel like you're making progress, but in reality its just a giant hamster wheel race for clerics.

    Great cyclone/elven boon is really great, admittedly. The problem is what comes after those two initial skills. Do you use... plume shot? Way less damage on most targets. Wield thunder or thunderball? Way longer channeling times. Mark of weakness? Long cast time. And thats really all the skills we have, unless you want to start using long channel and long cast razor feathers (only useful if hitting at least 3 people or more usually).

    So for the first two skills a cleric can dps close to on-par with psychic or wizard. However, as soon as those 2 skills are done, a cleric (traditionally) lagged behind. We'll have to see how no-cd great cyclone influences that though.
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  • Atropah - Sanctuary
    Atropah - Sanctuary Posts: 186 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    I find myself cycloning down a kiting dd pretty often. If they're kiting they're usually close to dead so providing finishing blows are as good as heals because, well, a dead opponent deals no damage. Or if I see alot of focused fire on one target I'll supplement it to take them down quickly. These are usually the high priority targets that are huge DDers anyways and need 5+ people to take them down before charm ticks. If I'm just healing my own squad then the opponent may stay alive and continue to deal more damage and to more of my squad than I can keep up with so sometimes taking them down is the most defensive move I can make.

    The other thing I do alot of is chromatic/silent seal people I recognize as doing a charge like BMs running in to stun/HF or psychics planting themselves in the middle of people to Aqua Cannon. Get them before they anti stun.

    Lastly, I'm less worried about magic dd but for some high hp HA targets just throwing out Elemental Seal is deadly. It's basically about a 25% amp on them and lasts 20 seconds. This either makes the melees retreat or puts them at risk for being 1-2 shot by casters.

    Sometimes a good offense is the same as a good defense.
  • NinnaXXX - Sanctuary
    NinnaXXX - Sanctuary Posts: 430 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    well as it goes down for our tw squad, usually when 2 clerics it's no problem if one wants to run in violet to help debuffing/dding untill enemy base, then it's full focus on healing/buffing cata barbs and dds.

    not much more to say Aeliah basically wrote most of it in her first poste
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  • freygin
    freygin Posts: 737 Arc User
    edited December 2013
    Great cyclone/elven boon is really great, admittedly. The problem is what comes after those two initial skills. Do you use... plume shot? Way less damage on most targets. Wield thunder or thunderball? Way longer channeling times. Mark of weakness? Long cast time. And thats really all the skills we have, unless you want to start using long channel and long cast razor feathers (only useful if hitting at least 3 people or more usually).

    So for the first two skills a cleric can dps close to on-par with psychic or wizard. However, as soon as those 2 skills are done, a cleric (traditionally) lagged behind. We'll have to see how no-cd great cyclone influences that though.

    Same as me, I've been wondering about that myself, after great cyclone and elven boon are fired what's next ? But for me I usually add another great cyclone, (maybe I have less channeling than your cleric, mine is -32% channeling) , so after greatcyclone-elven boon-greatcyclone combo, what's next ? lol, I'm not alone, probably all cleric feels the same. b:laugh

    So yeah, hopefully great cyclone with no cd helps cleric a lot in dps-ing, the only downside is cleric has to leave its healing form. Please post a pvp video after you got that new skill, would love to see it used in real action.b:thanks

    The devs really know what they're doing, cleric seriously has dps-ing problem, they give it a boost, but seeing as cleric has the potential to be very tanky at endgame, they still add limitation to it by not allowing it in normal form.

    The next thing I really want is more AoE, it definitely will complete a cleric b:laugh



    I find myself cycloning down a kiting dd pretty often. If they're kiting they're usually close to dead so providing finishing blows are as good as heals because, well, a dead opponent deals no damage. Or if I see alot of focused fire on one target I'll supplement it to take them down quickly. These are usually the high priority targets that are huge DDers anyways and need 5+ people to take them down before charm ticks. If I'm just healing my own squad then the opponent may stay alive and continue to deal more damage and to more of my squad than I can keep up with so sometimes taking them down is the most defensive move I can make.

    The other thing I do alot of is chromatic/silent seal people I recognize as doing a charge like BMs running in to stun/HF or psychics planting themselves in the middle of people to Aqua Cannon. Get them before they anti stun.

    Lastly, I'm less worried about magic dd but for some high hp HA targets just throwing out Elemental Seal is deadly. It's basically about a 25% amp on them and lasts 20 seconds. This either makes the melees retreat or puts them at risk for being 1-2 shot by casters.

    Sometimes a good offense is the same as a good defense.

    Agree, as a cleric, we're not standing there for just nursing our squad members' hp, taking role as an ocassional DD could be more important than just healing, even if it's only debuffing their target. b:chuckle