So like for clerics do we get any dps? It seemed to me like shammy's are top of the healing parse and top of the dps parse. As a cleric what can I do for dps? Is there any scenario where I can actually do any dps?
I don't consider myself the mega authority on cleric dps, but i'm confident enough that the meta for cleric dpsing is basically the following, or some variation of it, regardless of whether you're fighting undead or not: The other priests are better dps than the cleric. (pretty sure clerics are the worst dps in the game, with paladins) So firstly, be meleeing, and get all the buffs that hybrids like rangers like for dps. You could load up 3 contraventions & 3 interventions, 3x glorious. And dps using all of those. You open with a glorious to get twincast proc, then start contra > inter > glorious (working your way down from highest dps spell to lowest). -Unyielding judgement is the highest level 'glorious' they keep changing their naming conventions for this line of spells. There's a self buff that reduces your healing but helps dps a little bit: 'vow" You can pull out your 2hander (aug'd with dps augs), run Hdex & dex tribute/trophies. Burning Salad/Gorowyn fortified drink/mana infusion/dragonmagic. (I think the summoned undead hammer has been outgrown by modern 2handers? someone can correct me) Can use Divine Avatar, Battle Frenzy, Improved Twincast, destruction glyph, first spire, tds breastplate, turn undead, celestial hammer, yaulp, celestial rapidity, forceful rejuv. <--- try to pair this stuff with your groups burns/adps/auspice Can use channeling the divine to twincast interventions when ITC is down. Not sure how best to manage that seeing as you're probably using glorious anyway, perhaps after a break in combat when you have a few interventions up. Can use clicky nukes between spell casts (e.g. dark shield of the scholar, bifold for twincast, bottled essence, dragonbone lifetap clicky. -------------------------------------------------- Anyway, that is full ham mode. Swapping targets constantly for inter/contra can feel a bit wonky at first, and you can literally kill players by not casting the right spell at the right time (trying to nuke them with a contra instead of healing them for example, when they desperately needed a heal. ..So you kinda have to pick and choose how much of a liability you feel your setup is/how much your healing is actually going to be needed). For interventions, if your own your own or something, you can target yourself, cast the intervention, then change target to the monster before it finishes casting, to ensure it heals you, and nukes the mob (and so that u get back to swinging on that mob as soon as possible) If you just want to flirt with DPS a little bit, you can just do parts of what i described. (load a contra or two, or glorious and manually cast it when u feel its safe to not be healing kind of thing).
note that "Battle Frenzy" grants 100% crit chance with your contraventions, so perhaps depending on adps factors, its occasionally better to use that one outside of your burn and auspice.
Additionally, your burst of life/beacon/divine arb's are your savers for 'oops i clicked wrong button and you didn't get a heal' (at least if it's your group that needed the heals) Or deliberate choice to avoid casting a group heal instead.
I haven't tested it in TBL but in RoS the summoned hammer was better dps than RoS 2h because of the insane amount of procs. I stopped doing DPS mostly because it's semi useless. We can undead burn around 150-200k dps but that last 2 mins. Normal I think it's around 75-100k on undead and less on live mob. Drogba gave a very good run down of cleric dps. Also set your last 2 target key in option if you are using contravention. It makes the whole target swap a joke.
Are you seeing shamen a top the heal parse or in the 3-5 slots? Just curious, in group situations I almost always out heal a shaman, but I'm pretty much only doing the one thing - healing, while the shaman brings a lot more utility, plus dps. In raids we usually see shamen in the 3-5 heal slot, since they usually have DPS groups to heal, and thus can spend a lot of their time healing the MT, and not needing to focus on keeping their group alive. But the first and second slot are usually the 2 clerics in the MT group. Clerics in the knight groups often focus on keeping their knights alive, and are not able to sustain support on the MT. But that's just my small personal view, from a mid level raiding guild. Since no one commented, I'm curious if the bigger guilds are seeing Shamen top the healing parse. (currently we struggling getting enough shamen to raid, and generally have to use more clerics).
If talking about AE raid healing, shaman have advantage. If talking about single target tank healing, the clerics have the advantage. Druids have the advantage of the three priests for DPS though. Usually has the enchanter groups, and less likely having to focus on healing tanks or the raid.
Cleric DPS is sorta like Playboy releasing a centerfold of Hillary Clinton. Sure, it can be done but why in God's name would you do it?
Damage is damage. If a change of strategy could gain 50k dps for any other class, you wouldn't even question it for fear of appearing stupid. It's not applicable everywhere, but in many more spots than folks credit, cleric can do their whole core job of healing off tank damage while at the same time getting in mob damage.