Wut...no One nuke line makes my next nuke a PBAE? Yes. Other nuke lines reset my PBAE nukes? Yes. Yaulp makes my Ward crit? Yes. Crit nukes grant a nuke twincast buff? Yes. Nukes proc a buff that makes my next nuke instant? Yes AA that dumps some of my life into a HUGE nuke and/or AE and I have to heal after? Yes. Undead mobs randomly just explode? Yes. Really, ADPS?
My most likely group right now is Cleric (me), Ranger, Necro, Mage, Rogue, Shaman or Enchanter. Adding ADPS would make me much more effective. I like your ideas also, which is what this thread is about, getting ideas out there. Don't assume we all need the same things.
Change the heal code to allow any heal to nuke the targets target for a certain percentage of the amount of "overheal."
I love the idea of better melee for clerics, make yalping stroger, etc. The most fun in recent years on my alt cleric was pulling and meleeing in TOFS (TOV version) and making the merc healer heal. Ok so I had to throw in the odd heal to help out but, it was fun! Clerics make awesom pullers. I read a lot of the posts in this thread and it seems all they are doing is sitting/standing there casting spells, the cleric class is so much more. I blame a lot of my cleric playstyle on the fantastic main clerics I have grouped with over the last 21 years, they just could not stand still and had to be doing something.
Sounds too much like a Paladin, with all due respect. There’s more potential growth from moving clerics towards Holy spell dps and adps. I just think there’s a lot more creativity that could flow from moving into an unoccupied space than one already established by Paladins.
I wasn't aware Clerics had issues with desirability in groups. Doesn't seem to be what this thread is about, at least.
Help me understand something. ToL was on beta for months and then on the test server for at least a week. Within hours of ToL release people who play reported overseer as broken. If you play and beta test especially a cleric. How did you miss this? No one who plays missed it.
Maybe Niente didn't miss it. Rather, there is a process for getting bugs fixed. Also, some code is more difficult to fix than others. Ever think about that?
Not sure what you are talking about. The most likely group I will find myself in, on most nights, playing with the same group of friends, is the composition I mentioned. Hence, adding ADPS to this class would benefit me. It might not benefit others as much. There is nothing wrong with suggestions to add ADPS. There is also nothing wrong with saying that adding ADPS would unbalance things too much. I'd like to see it, but if I don't, I'm sure we'll get something else useful.
Does this include you? you were on beta, and you definitely noticed overseer bugs and reported them? Despite not needing exp on beta, and not needing craft mats on beta, and collections clickers being useless on beta. Despite all that, you were on beta diligently testing /overseer every 12h or whatever since that's what you care about "especially as a cleric"? So why didn't you report that bug that no one could miss?
I haven't read everything in the forums. I primarily box a cleric. I have played the cleric some, and raided some, but as an ENC that has a lot of different things I can do, playing a cleric is pretty uninteresting in comparison, and that is probably the biggest issue overall. Clerics have a specific role, but unlike a warrior, they do it staring at the wall or the floor. The biggest issue with the cleric is they have 1 job, they do it well, but in most content, they are not needed. Strong tanks can easily be healed by a SHM. A full group can use a cleric merc. Even raid rangers can get along just fine with a SHM or Merc CLR healing. There are plenty of arguments about how Cleric Mercs can not compare to PC clerics, but that's simply not true. Cleric mercs and PC clerics are nearly matched in raw healing power. Just like War/Rog, the true difference in PC cleric is in activated abilities (Div Arb, Spire, CR, etc). And the truth is, these abilities aren't that big of a deal in a lot of groups. Tank discs are so good that with appropriate DPS, strong healing isn't important. I see plenty of tanks take down named with cleric mercs, and in some cases, no actual healer at all. Anyone can say anything they want, but I use Merc tank and Merc cleric as much as anyone, and have a raid geared well AA'ed cleric present, and on singles, a merc cleric can keep a merc tank up in bloodfalls without my help. (Feel free to say I suck, but the DPS of a rogue merc doesn't make up for the risk of a missed heal.) My point is that the RAW healing power is similar (remedy to remedy, light to light). Clerics without a need are just down right boring. A warrior can dual wield. A knight can 2H. SHM and DRU and DPS. A cleric has nothing to offer. 2 Clerics in the same group is basically pointless. WAR mercs triple the DPS of clerics. I think the solution however, is already in place, and that solution is Vow. Clerics Vow is a great idea that is poorly implemented. There is no reason that clerics do not get a variety of Vow options. Example... 300% bonus DPS, 75% healing penalty 100% bonus mitigation, 75% healing penalty. 200% bonus DPS, 50% healing penalty. Etc. There are a lot of ways that Vow could be implemented that make cleric a much more versatile class. Clerics would not be able to compete with Paladins, because they wouldn't be able to taunt, they wouldn't have aggro modifiers. But they should be able to tank. They should be able to DPS. A cleric should be match performing Pal in slay undead, after of course, they take a vow which completely wipes out their ability to heal. Oh, this is the ToV expansion? Everything is undead? Sorry Druid, your turn to heal, Cleric gotta Cleric. Slay slay slay. (not necessarily with melee, maybe mad spell DPS, undead aDPS etc.) Turn Vow into an AA that has an unlimited buff timer, will not fade on death, can be clicked off anytime, but has a 60 minute recast. Need to run to raids, click off the AA, but you wont be able to DPS again for a hour, or whatever. Ideally there would be some way that you get a 25% penalty for each of the vow, and you can stack tank/DPS vow in any amount to a total of 3/4, so the player decides how much extra mitigation / DPS balance they want. Vow is the solution to the cleric problem. 2 lines. Tank Vow and DPS vow. And make them work good enough that people would be happy to have, ASK, a cleric to Vow and DPS while a cleric merc does the grunt, mundane, work. Cleric is the only class in the game that has almost no purpose what-so-ever being with another cleric in group content. Cleric class will be correct when you see a group of 3 clerics wrecking it in the ToV expansion.
LIGHT to LIGHT? no cleric casts Light spells. You're not boxing a cleric. You're not comparing a mercenary and player healer. You're automating a cleric with a really shabby script that loads utterly terrible spells, and fighting in a bogglingly intense Safe Mode to compensate. Mercenary heal output is mostly worse than beastlord or ranger heal spells. Real healing supports pulling half of xtar at once, not "oh it's the same on one." How dare you
Strangely enough and slightly off topic, but I have been in a 3 cleric group (no mercs). Not in ToV but an older expansion and while it took a while to kill our mobs, we had a blast and rarely had to heal. The mob didn't really know who to hit since we all were stunning and getting aggro at the same time with our swings, so the mobs spent so much of their time turning back and forth between the three of us. I think Yinla said it above about the fun when she was doing more than just healing. I've personally never played my cleric as solely a healer. She's been a puller from day one, an off tank or kiter, a pacifier/atoner/rooter of mobs if needed, a tank sometimes (obviously on older content), a DPS (probably 2nd to last of all the classes unless it's undead), melee'er and then of course healing. Even someone who could tash or slow a mob if we didn't have one of those classes with us. I'm only the best at one of these, but at least for me I say 'so what'. I have a blast utilizing every type of spell line and AA line that clerics are given versus thinking I should only stick to one "box".
Better synergies with non-ideal tanks might be good. Buffs that prevent stun/knockback. Fear immunity, etc.Not sure I'd go for straight agro mods, but you get the idea. Group Vow, adds a little group DPS but mostly let folks auto-heal themselves for a bit.
Being the master of button-mash single-target healing is a terrible way to play this game. We're well past the era of CH chains. EverQuest is having top raiding guilds struggling to keep clerics showing up throughout the year, I know that I quit on mine with FV's top guild, because I was tired of two-button-mashing for 3+ hours once a week. In the group game: shaman beats cleric. In the raid game: shaman AE heals better and adds DPS and melee aDPS. Druids are "meh" but are masters at DPS and caster aDPS. Clerics add zero real support except a couple of auras and being very very good at overhealing all night with single target heals. While raiding I would literally mash 1-2 hotkeys with my left hand, click on tanks in my group or extended target window to heal with the right hand, and really not pay attention to the other 80% of my EQ window. I never had to really move around or pay attention to what mobs were rolling into camp. The best way I can summarize EQ Raid healing is "Lifebar Whack-a-mole" which is kinda fun for a few minutes and then it's a struggle to stay awake. Increasing damage and healing output on the Contravention line of spells by about 10x with a faster Splash recast and lowered group healing casting times would potentially enable clerics to get into meleeing and being able to keep up their raid, their group, and their target's-target with passthrough nuke-healing spells. Providing better procs on their weapons or as a self buff line for damage and healing effects would help as well. Basically anything that makes the class feel like an actual class and not just a healing merc off in the corner needs to be investigated.
Not easy to test, Overseer is server specific. It mainly effected the higher level agents, I sure didn't get that far with my Overseer on beta for the month or so it was open and I certainly don't bother with Overseer on test. I did when it was first put on there, but then all that progress was lost when it was wiped.
You crazy bastage, I think you might be on to something. A new AA line, let's say make it available once you have Healing Gift 3. And let's call it Healing Zealot. For progression, we can say odd numbered ranks increase chance of a zealous heal (overheal) and even numbered ranks increase the percentage of the overheal that will be applied to target's target as a magic DD. And just to keep some semblance of balance, damage would not be impacted by focus effects. And keep percentages low for both chance/amount. So say start at a base 5% chance to proc a zealous heal at 10% of the overheal as damage done. Increase chance by 1% for every odd rank, and 1% for every even rank of the AA trained. Now what era should this initially be made available? Well, if it were going to be tested appropriately, I'd say test first in Luclin, both group content, and raid content. If it's too powerful for that era, especially group content, then move on to PoP, and so on. As a potential NEGATIVE side effect of this going off, the cleric gains the same amount of hate as casting any normal heal. For even more fun, once the cleric buys Healing Adept 3 (duration heals can crit) then Healing Zealot can also apply. Thoughts?
This is an epic idea. I am a raid cleric and I enjoy the hell out of it, but I do agree I am not the norm. Would love to see some changes that increase our usefulness. As for group content, it is good that shaman and druids can heal well, its good to have multiple classes that can take that role. And 90% of the time, it won't matter. But the other 10% of the time, being the cleric made the difference between pulling the next mob and doing a corpse run (or whatever they are these days). Appreciate Darkpaw's search for class balance. Wouldn't mind a little balance on the CLR side.
