Cleric can't DPS the sad priests

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Evertrek, Nov 9, 2020.

  1. Evertrek Augur

    sadly clerics are almost worthless except for endgame. they are not fun to play and can be worthless in groups due to lack of DPS. mercs heal/dps well in groups and replace the cleric. the other priest classes can solo, maybe druid the best, but still have spells at the lowest level to solo to current end-game. in groups the other priests can dps and buff when not healing. in raids the other priests are almost in range of clerics heals even now.

    i liked cleric for the first few years of EQ, easy to make/get groups. made mad rez tips and in general a useful class. once the heal spells were spread across the priests (and even pally, BL...) things looked down for clerics.

    i would have to (at low levels) hang out in ToFS to slowly nuke down undead to level during off hours, after the big changes. groups would only call (before mercs) if a rez was needed.

    it's time to fix the cleric, either roll it into the pally class or give it tools to productively solo to endgame like most other classes. skip the comments that clerics have pets, dots, and nukes to solo. their spells/tools are not useful in a group setting and provide very low dps in-general.
  2. p2aa Augur

    Not really, they aren't near to be close to cleric heal arsenal. Try to give to tanks two shamans to keep them alive, and compare versus two clerics.
    If on tank single target heal parses, you are close to shamans or druids, then you need to step up by a lot. And I said tank single target heal parse, not whole heal done to a raid which is a stat that you can pad easily.
    Yinla, Bigstomp and Evertrek like this.
  3. Evertrek Augur


    parse does show that to be true. sadly that is the only time clerics are needed. to go from level 1 to raid useful is a long sad journey. free loading clerics in groups and unable to solo in off-hours.
  4. Cadira Augur

    Mercs are about 20% as useful as the average real cleric so Mercs replacing clerics is untrue.

    Shaman can heal the masses well but they falter when it comes to critical moments trying to heal main tanks compared to clerics. I mean they do alright, but not being able to spam group heals at times and their slightly slower cast times and strength on direct heals can't compare in raids.

    I'll agree that in the group game clerics, although useful, are very boring to play and can be interchanged by the other priests in most cases, while the other priests provide adequate healing most of the time and can provide dps or adps where clerics can't.

    I firmly believe cleric undead dps needs massively increased and their regular dps as well to make things a little more interesting, or give us some kind of small adps tool for everyone.
  5. Evertrek Augur

    portray soldiers of sacred orders who have magical abilities, although this role was later taken more clearly by the paladin.

    source --->>

    sadly in EQ cleric is a mess and has been for years. getting to endgame raid healer is sad and boring.
  6. Metanis Bad Company

    Not long ago I started a brand new level 1 cleric on Luclin as part of a group of FTP twinks. By twinking I mean I gave them enough plat to buy their spells but not any gear.

    At level 70 and below the cleric is still able to offer a fair amount of DPS by meleeing with a summoned hammer and then casting undead nukes, Mark, stuns, and hammer pet. He's still only a fraction of the group's total damage but it feels like he's contributing.

    But my 115 max AA cleric only shows on parse when I can use Turn Undead, and then it's still only a percent or two of total damage.

    Cleric can be a lot of fun yet at lower levels but it gets boring as snot later on. Which is one of the reasons I took up boxing because even when you got groups a cleric was painfully sad to play. Not to mention the fact that everyone in the group found chances to ninja afk, but the moment the cleric tried to grab a bathroom break it was wipe and reload time for the group.

    I understand that single dimension classes are all going to have this problem. The best idea I've seen on this problem is they should allow you to make your cleric play automatically with a mercenary-like AI while you play a more capable (and more fun) class. Obviously that will never happen but if that kind of system had been implemented rather than mercs they could have a sold a lot more accounts.
    Arraden, Mediik, Evertrek and 2 others like this.
  7. Evertrek Augur

    i bet this thread gets moved to class discussion/priests to fade away.

    retired Mykei of Luclin (started with Kunark).
    Metanis likes this.
  8. Metanis Bad Company

    Nah, someone would have to care enough to do that.
    Evertrek likes this.
  9. Vumad Cape Wearer

    My cleric play is much more limited as it is a box taking a back seat role and rarely used as a raid backup anymore. However, I know enough to have experienced and understand the complaint.

    I think that a solution is to ramp up to power of Vow dramatically, while preventing it from being abused by either making it an AA with a long recast delay or similar. Let clerics Vow and sub in for paladins. A raid geared cleric that has taken the vow and turned off SCS should be able to tank Kael (in my opinion), but to the level of a group geared paladin (despite wearing raid armor), and with less DPS than a paladin. They wouldn't be able to self heal well enough for this, so a cleric could only tank with another healer backing them up. Also they don't have taunt, so they would be lesser on aggro management, etc. It would be nice too if clerics had 2 Vow lines. One that increases DPS and the other increases tanking ability, but both dramatically decrease healing. This would let a CLR take a pseudo DPS roll, or a primary DPS roll against undead. I think it could be as simple of Tank Vow = +% mitigation/avoid -% healing, DPS vow = +% to all Damage and -% to all healing.

    Something like this would take clerics from being a very singularly focused class to one of the most diverse in their roles, but they have to pick a role and stick with it for a while. (Can end Vow anytime)

    The rest is handled by making sure every expansion has areas with undead, animal, summoned, etc so every class can use their bane abilities every expansion.
    Evertrek likes this.
  10. Annastasya Augur

    Smite was fun. No idea why they took it away.

    To make us even a reasonable fraction of a group's dps or for us to have time-efficient soloing, they'd have to add a zero to the average damage of everything we have, DDs, Dot ticks, TU ticks, pet hammer hits, and melee hits. it's that bad, and that far behind every other class.

    That would be aiming to be 5-10% of the group's damage in current content, whenever focused healing isn't necessary. Which is very often, when you are grouping with Shadowknights, Mages, Beastlords, Paladins, raid geared Warriors, any other priest class, or any other player who won't put away their healer merc for various reasons up to, and including, they're an a$$hole, a control freak, or just a player who's become so dependent on the predictable actions of their healer robot that they cannot function without it.

    And frankly, you've become tired of the argument and just let the healer merc kill them a few times while you go battle mode.
    Evertrek likes this.
  11. Evertrek Augur


    a working Smite (with an AOE counterpart) should be in place i agree. CC or a way to kite is also needed for soloing and groups.

    also, i told groups that i am running a parser and watch DPS. i tell them if i see someone go AFK i will leave the group. i also will leave the group if someone uses a merc, but i normally was in full groups so mercs couldn't be used.
  12. Metanis Bad Company

    I'd like to see clerics get a long-duration progressive DOT that can affect all mob types but has the most damage for undead. Have the damage be quite low early in the progression but ramp up steadily. In an efficient high damage group it wouldn't be worthwhile to cast. But if you were trying to solo/molo then the dot would eventually hit for large enough numbers to kill practically anything. The burden would be keeping yourself or your merc tank alive long enough for the DOT to do it's job. And then also the necros in raid could complain about yet another class taking mob debuff slots as all the clerics turn into necro wannabees! :)
    Vumad, Evertrek and Cadira like this.
  13. Tucoh Augur

    Shamans have gotten way too good at both single target and group healing. They should retire the reckless line and change luminary's synergy to 1 hit.
  14. Syylke_EMarr Augur

    No, they shouldn't nerf a class as a fake attempt at making other classes better. Shamans are perfectly fine on single target healing. They have good consistent healing but very minimal emergency healing.

    Instead, changes should be made to Druids and Clerics to bring them up, whether in DPS or healing, or whatever.
    Ironkeg, Tsavo, Tutankamen and 5 others like this.
  15. KrakenReality Augur

    Even worse is that the guy doesn’t even play anymore and calls for nerfs.
  16. kiwi New Member

    he call for nerfs and he can't even play games without using 3rd party software , we can box in EQ without the use of 3rd party softwares.......

    and yeah clerics should get an upgrade to their dps , specially undead dps,
    Ceiteag, Schadenfreude, Duder and 3 others like this.
  17. p2aa Augur

    It's sad to see what he has become.
    He used to post constructive opinions about his class, or in other threads overall, and was avoiding the worst of ForumQuest behavior.
    Nowadays, he feels like a grumpy person, calling for nerfs to classes, and doing sneaky personal attacks on people in some threads...
  18. Accipiter Old Timer


    You sound like a lot of fun to play with.
    Tsavo, code-zero, Tatanka and 2 others like this.
  19. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer


    Factually, you are 100% correct.

    Perceptually, meaning people's perception in general, most believe the Healer Merc to be 80% as effective as a real Cleric. Which is not only a farce and totally off the mark, but most PUGs will pass over a real Cleric because they have NO CLUE what Clerics do anymore. Merc healers are exacerbating the problem as time goes on. Fewer and fewer group players have any idea what Clerics are capable of.
    Ceiteag and Cadira like this.
  20. Metanis Bad Company

    Nah! Everyone knows I pick my nose and surf the Internet on my 2nd monitor!
    Qelil and Iandaina like this.