I personally enjoy playing support characters, such as cleric, (among others, such as enchanter, bard, etc) but it truly seems that Sony has succeeded in killing off the Cleric... First and foremost, the introduction of mercenaries, while great in most cases, has DRASTICALLY decreased the demand of clerics, specifically the cleric outside of Raid areas. Secondly, after taking away our major groupability, they reduce our soloability by taking our Ward line to a measly 120 strikes, where other classes, which were the focus and reason hit counters were put in place, still have 1300 strikes before losing the specific buff, and theirs reacts on mob death, and i guarantee you, those characters are killing fast enough to keep that buff up nine times out of ten. So I ask you this, is the Cleric truly dead? or am i missing some integral portion that allows those of us that don't have time or interest in raiding, to continue playing an amazing class?
Clerics can run circles around a merc by doing better healing, adding support buffs, and doing dps at the same time. If you are not getting a group over a merc as a clr, you need to look at your play style or your friends. Clerics can still very reasonably solo and even be tank in many situations now that spell sublety negation has been introduced. Someone posted a video of his clr soloing in EWK, maybe go watch that and take some notes. but in the end, clerics just like warriors are mostly wanted in the raid game, while other healers can bring as much or more to the table in the group game. but that doesn't mean i wont take a player cleric over a merc 99 out of 100 times, cept for that cleric that keeps falling asleep!
Thankfully if they are dead, at least they can resurrect themselves in several ways... But the short answer is- no. Which can be the same for every class in the game. It is now more about establishing friendships and having a guild/clique/circle to help a person. The loner with a poor attitude who does not have skills is going to suffer, regardless of class. The social player who helps others, is friendly, and maximizes their class skills and talents will be successful, regardless of class.
The only upsides of a merc healer are : 1) doesn't afk, 2) doesn't about merc healers. Any cleric who finds their potential groups preferring a mercenary healer should not look for a problem with the mercenary.
Dead? OMG NO! I do feel your pain, after soloing my cleric into the 90s'. After that I loved my cleric so much I made 2 more to box with and sailed to 105 with ease. First, get yourself a dps caster merc and set it to burn, and you keep it alive. The j5 can take hits pretty good, and you will learn how to heal pretty well. A side effect of that will be guildies wanting to group with you because your burn caster kicks so much , and they will start to trust in you over a merc. The main draw of mercs is they don't afk, complain, fall asleep (although sometimes I wonder), or any of our human habits, in short, they are convienant. Soloing your cleric after the mid 80s' becomes a different game, but once you figure it out, you will have an easier time than most classes, at least I did.
It's a bit unfair to compare actual DPS classes with a class (us) who DPS isn't our primary function. Those counters are there for various reasons and actually no, 9/10 those players aren't getting the proc from the kill (not even when they're soloing but that's their best shot). Mercs did cause clerics to refocus a bit, but TDS expansion has shown we are very much needed (as did parts of CoF). I'll admit I'm biased toward my class but I see clerics in a decent position because we are more versatile than a lot of people think. Our best focus is healing but that doesn't mean we can't branch into other areas in groups. We're decent pullers and we can provide some DPS (especially on undead) and some crowd control and even short term tanking if needed. None which would replace a DPS class for, but we do offer enough variety that we can showcase if given the chance.
FV isn't any different than most servers. Many players are finding groups have mercs in them and what's different is how you approach getting a group nowadays (and that's going to be the same for most classes, clerics, rogues, etc.). Proactively start your own Look for someone needing help (whether you need that yourself or not) Go to the zone and OOC Go to where groups are using mercs and offer to join/boost their experience level. Make sure you're in a guild that appreciates grouping and various other things that folks have posted here
Clerics may not have the demand in group content that they used to years ago, but we're not even remotely close to "dead". Getting a group has less to do with your class, and far far more to do with how friendly you are, your willingness to help others, if you have a network of friends on the server, if you are in a large guild that supports grouping, your own initiative and willingness to start groups and ask for spots in existing groups, server population, your willingness to do content that may not be your very first pick, etc. Being proactive about grouping is the best thing you do, and not just limited to clerics. Don't look at mercs as killing off your class. Look at them as sub-par healers taking up spots that you can better fill. Don't be afraid to send a group a tell to ask if you can join them and replace their merc. Ask people if they need help with a quest or a mission. Ask in general chat, /ooc, /gu. Is someone else LFG? I'm sure someone is. Ask them if they want to form a group. No matter what class they are, with mercs you have a viable group of 4 right there. (aside: Our ward is fine. In normal content it'll run out of time before it runs out of counters. Not like you can't just recast it when swarming anyways if that's what you want to do with your soloing.)
TDS gave us a "fun factor" and ability to (limited) tanking. This makes even (limited) soloing viable. My dps merc doesn't die now, and i have no problems with it when it is in burn mode. Sadly, this AA (Negation of Subtlety) ought to be introduced with mercs. now many years after. I can even start a group as a tank now. So - we are in a good shape. Only dps could be a tad higher (Clerics as a flavor of a year!!!)
Biggest issue with Clerics is they actually have to be skilled now. Second biggest issue with Clerics is that Shaman and Druids are pretty interchangeable with them now. Third, and probably the most prevalent, is the complete lack of a populace in this game these days. With the new mindset of invalidating content with new content, it's just pointless to do anything old.
I just started leveling my alt cleric a few months ago.. Am level 101 and am having fun in EQ than I have in a long time! I feel like the class is pretty beefy and can do a lot more than people give them credit for. I find myself playing the cleric as a main sometime in the future.
Negation of Subtlety Combined with the solid base damages on their nukes, allows them to hold aggro quite well.
I guess maybe instead of calling them dead, maybe it could be argued that they are endangered. Few want to level up and really play a cleric, lots of boxes, but the number of dedicated clerics seems to be on the decline. Personally, I have gone overboard to help new clerics, even so far as to offer full rides of spells/gear/instructions/leveling help for any guildie that levels one to 105, no takers. I love my clerics, all 6 of them, and it leaves me wondering what people dislike so much about them?
The problem I have seen watching guildees and myself is that healers were in a special place, let me see if I can explain it in a way that makes sense: I had a cleric that the friend that got me into eq played before he left. I took over his account around 2005. From then until around SOD I boxed SK/CLR and my wife played her PAL. I decided that a SHM would be better, so I leveled one of those and retired the poor cleric until last year. I found that as a knight a druid/shm was better for the group slot then the cleric. With SOD came Mercs, this allowed us to have a merc healer/buffs, a shm backup heals, buffs, utility, and dps. I no longer needed my cleric, also the cleric back then was a bore to play. This happened to a lot of people that I know that were cleric mains for the most part, they didn't want to change to more proactive healing and utility and wanted to just cast lights and take it easy, well a merc can do that and not afk, etc. People started leaving EQ faster and the guild was in need of CLR's. I brushed off the old girl and leveled her up. I found that as I got raid geared I no longer needed slow. So I make heal hotkeys and brought out 3 dps mercs instead of a healer. Clerics also got a couple utility spells that made up the difference in the mitigated slows and had better "oh snap!" abilities. Now clerics have a ton of utility, great healing, and can do dps while healing if they want to. You get a good cleric like Roxx out and bam!, he makes the group do better, progress faster, and brings some attitude to the killin! And then you get one that acts like a merc, and well, why would you want that person? I don't think the class is dead, I actually think they are a blast to play and love tanking and dps'ing on mine while keeping people alive. My biggest problem is finding tanks because a clr merc with a real tank (my sk) is better and easier to progress through stuff than a clr and a merc tank. The other side is many people don't want to inconvenience others and what I mean by that is, I log on for 45 mins, in that time I may take care of a kid, talk to the wife, do some chores etc, and that's ok if a DPS does it, but when its the tank or the clr, the group has to stop, and that gave many a bad name and made others stop inviting real healers and just use mercs, and the same for the other side, the healers could just use a tank merc during that time too for progression or a dps merc and let the clr tank. With that said I always take a healer over a merc, they make a huge difference, and I will even take 2 clerics as one can dps, and I would rather have them then a merc any day.
It seems to me that a ton of cleric (and other healer class) players seriously don't engage with their own characters, so play must feel hella boring. They're calling the whole job done when no one dies through a HA. That they could also be pulling and/or CCing and/or doing 5-15k dps (depending on knowledge)(or more if undead / actively using cooldowns), and that their other things matter - doesn't even occur to them. For that the general EQ population is partially to blame just because their expectations are ridiculously low. I take random pickup groups sometimes on my wizard, just to keep in touch with the world, yeah? 32 mobs, 10 minutes of aggregated fight time, the (not 2box, actual player) cleric cast the following spells: Combined: Scouting Ahead on 12/31/2014 Pickup_cleric01 - 36 --- Aura of Divinity Rk. II - 1 --- Celestial Contravention Rk. II - 9 --- Elysian Contravention - 9 --- Expanding Mind VI - 1 --- Form of Endurance XI - 1 --- Glorious Admonition - 9 --- Illusionary Spikes VI - 1 --- Knowledge of the Past XII - 1 --- Might of Stone IV - 1 --- Myrmidon's Skill VIII - 1 --- Prismatic Ward IX - 1 --- Syllable of Renewal Rk. II - 1 Produced by GamParse v1.0.5.0 The tank didn't need more heals than that, it was an SK who knew their business despite being a touch inebriated, so that isn't an issue. The problem (well, one problem. but the one I'm talking about here) is that rando cleric there must have been bored out of their skull using 3 spell gems and like 5% of their mana to nuke for a mission-averaged 850dps, and it apparently didn't occur to them to change up spells to even stay busy. If that's what EQ really was, I'd drop the whole thing in a merc's lap, too.
With an sk like that, and what I usually do when boxing my sk clr, the clr should have just cast shinning armor, fintar's retort and went to town with contraventions and interventions + any DD they could load because they don't need anything else with that kind of tank. That reminds me of random BL we picked up that I asked for buff 5 times from, never got tme, and he did a total of 450 dps during a 15 min HA, and im pretty sure that was only from his warder and he only got that cause I might have FD'd one on him, to see if he was alive. You are right that many in EQ's expectations are really really low.
