Making Clerics Fun

It's no secret that cleric is an under played class on live. As TLP's progress fewer and fewer people play cleric. Often, people who are still playing cleric later in a TLP are doing so begrudgingly. They're not allowed to main change because their raid force requires them. It would be awesome to see some changes that retroactively made clerics fun and not just updates to the live game.

There are two common things people bring up about clerics stagnation:
1. They are perhaps the worst solo class in the game
2. They don't feel like they contribute meaningfully in the group setting

During recent AMA session with DBG, devs have recognized this issue themselves and said that they welcome input on how to fix the fun factor issue of clerics. I'd like to propose a few ideas myself.

I'd love to hear what other ideas people have. It would also benefit everyone if this thread remained positive. Rather than telling someone their ideas are bad and would never work, try to contribute solutions. Thanks! <3

Idea 1: Vow Line Updates
The Vow line of self-buffs enters the game kind of late for TLP's (The Serpent Spine). It's a buff that reduces the clerics healing potential to gain a melee damage proc. It'd be nice if this line started closer to Omens of War. It'd also be nice if the damage or proc rate were increased slightly.

Idea 2: Self Righteous (or Self Sacrifice) AA
This is an idea for a new AA line that allows the cleric deal increased physical damage at the cost of their own health. This could be a proc that hits the target and the cleric at the same time.

Idea 3: Cleric Specific Yaulp
I'd love to see cleric get their own version of Yaulp. It'd have to be their own because to make it good enough to use would make it over powered for paladins. I imagine it boosting all melee skills, granting haste, and maybe increasing minimum damage.

Other ideas include something to increase their undead proficiency. Something like slay undead but with a cleric flare to it.

Ultimate Goal:
The goal here is to solve the major complaints that people have with cleric. Giving them a bit more damage would go a long ways towards helping with that. Most of my ideas are melee focused because I think the game could use a melee type healer. Making melee matter, at least a little, would certainly add a lot to the class.

TPLs:
The cleric stagnation has been around a long long time. I think it's important to make additions/changes that retroactively help past expansion clerics, not just live. Give us a reason to want to play our cleric!

cle have their own Yaulp.

66118 Yaulp XVIII Rk. III CLR/121 10 0.25s 18s 36s+ n/a Self
1: Increase ATK by 719
3: Increase Current Mana by 352 per tick
8: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 85%
9: Increase Melee Haste by 30%


Pal get
Knight's Yaulp VIII - - 0s Target: Self
Duration: 60s (10 ticks)
1: Increase ATK by 450
3: Increase Current Mana by 160 per tick
8: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 80%
9: Increase Melee Haste by 30%

similar, but not the same. already two effects.

what you may be really looking for is to close the downtime on cle Divine Avatar AA? It's 3 mins duration, 9 mins reuse, so it's not on full time:

Divine Avatar XXVII - - 0s Target: Self
Duration: 3m (30 ticks)
3: Increase Hit Damage by 600% (v185)
4: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 200%
6: Increase Current HP by 4000 per tick
7: Increase Critical DD Damage by 50% of Base Damage
8: Decrease Weapon Delay by 33.8%

Clerics have some interesting abilities and spells now, they just need to be tuned appropriately. By appropriately I mean up, a lot. Clerics could get a huge DPS increase and still be in a distant last place.

That DRU and SHM needed to be viable in groups led to this situation where two other priests with a lot more DPS and utility, and enough healing, mean there really is no reason to bring a cleric.

SHM have been better healers than clerics since IDK when, and their squall line was nerfed by stagnation after ToV, then the twincast nerf several years later, and it still doesn't really change the situation. I guess maybe in 3 more years we'll see something else happen, and it will probably still not be enough to make shaman not far and away the best healer.

All I can really say is that clerics now should make a DRU and SHM persona and see exactly how big the difference is in how effective these classes are. I was surprised to see that DRU and SHM have all the unique abilities clerics have with almost no difference or drawbacks. Any DRU or SHM who wants to argue about this, go make a cleric persona then come back and tell me how exactly they are better, how fun it was to get level 125, and how much of a DPS difference there was in your group because you brought a boat anchor (cleric). I hate to say it because I've had a lot of fun raid healing on a cleric, but after making a DRU/SHM persona I wonder to myself how many years ago I would have rerolled one of those classes instead of the cleric. The thing that stopped me from doing so previously was just sentimental attachment to my cleric. I haven't used my cleric for anything other than group symbol since February.

The problem with clerics is not completely cleric spells and AA. A big part of the problem is other classes. And I'm sure I'll get flamed for it, but tanks especially are too powerful, lots of DPS, unquestionable aggro, and can accomplish a lot with very little (or no) healer. If you play the older parts of EQ, you can see how much things have changed. You can't have a powerful healing class if tanks don't actually need very much healing, especially SHD self healing. No healing spells can compete with the speed of lifetap from weapon damage, and healers now can just spam cast any healing spell as long as they like without thought or reason due to their low mana usage. It used to matter to need to split NPCs, slow/debuff, use crowd control, manage your mana. Now, you can just pull piles of NPCs, tanks can use their DPS stance, and do oodles of DPS simply from autoattack + riposte. It might be fun for tanks to be able to do this, but it takes away from the classes who used to contribute to the game with other abilities (splitting, CC, powerful healing).

What makes SHM better healers than clerics is squall. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake for EQ to add unlimited target AE healing at all. This changed the game such that players just stand in a pile in raids and there is little/no positioning or thought put in. Clerics have splash, but one squall cast is 3x that, and that will never change unless squall is not 3 waves, or has a longer recast to remove the difference. Heals are so big now, the most powerful thing to do is have more heals land, faster. Abilities like the priest alliance and lifetap from weapon damage heal so much faster than any priest class can accomplish.

EQ is simply a lot easier now and players are very powerful in current content. I don't think people are willing to let go of that, and clerics will never be seen as a viable DPS or ADPS class (just healing), so I don't anticipate anything changing. When you can tank and heal effectively enough that CC doesn't matter, the only thing remaining in the game that matters is DPS (and ADPS). That is what EQ has been focused on for some time now. For players to stop focusing on DPS/ADPS, the game itself needs to get harder, and TBH that is a tall order without nerfing a lot of really powerful player abilities, which will just piss off everyone because most players are too short sighted to see anything being good for the game beyond increases to their own power.

That being said, if I controlled exactly what would happen to clerics (realistically), I would make them a tank-specific ADPS class (along with reducing passive tank DPS). I'd also like to see an ability that makes NPCs take damage from healing, for a short time period (e.g. "heal burn"). This would be a fun mechanic for clerics. I'd like to see any itemization exist for them, such as sympathetic procs from beneficial spells. I'd like to see their HP buffs increase/change such that they help a similar % to how powerful it used to be to have Aegolism. It's hard to say exactly how good it used to be, but let's say 10% of a tanks HP in PoP - that means, conservatively, Commitment should be doing 60k HP+ (currently it adds 25k HP), and we know how many NPC hits that is (1, 2 if we're being generous). Some interesting things could be done with cleric buffs. Beyond that, increasing their DPS would help, just tune up their nukes/contra/interventions/vow/ward (hey maybe ward should be targetable). Improvements to any of their AA self DPS abilities. Any balance changes beyond that can only help clerics if they are nerfs to other classes, which is just about impossible to convince people it's a good thing.

TL;DR:

• If all clerics bring to the table is healing, and DRU and SHM must be viable healers, the larger benefit of having DRU/SHM in a group will never change.
• Cleric DPS is undertuned - increase it
• Anything that made clerics unique has been given away or superseded. Give them something unique and don't give it to other classes
• Lifetap from weapon damage is too powerful. No priest class can compete with sub-second healing
• AE healing is too powerful
• Tanking is too easy, reducing the value of healing/CC/splitting
• HP buffs (read: cleric buffs) matter way less than they used to

What I'm looking for is to brainstorm ideas for the devs to think about. I'm glad to see clerics already get their own yaulp. But yes, that's terribly underwhelming. 30% haste? I can buy a potion that does more than that.

At least the Divine Avatar AA is on the right track. Though I'm personally not interested in temp buffs. I want an overall fix that make clerics fun all the time. Not for 33% of the time. Divine Avatar would be a great AA to re-tool though since it starts as early as GoD.

Though I'd rather see new AA's fit into the game instead. I like the idea of AA's that sacrifice healing potential for damage. I assume clerics have such abysmal DPS because they're the strongest healer. So there needs to be some kind of trade off. Or I would suspect that's what the devs would require to make any serious changes.

Thanks for the very thorough and thought out addition. It's a good list of problems, but I don't read any specific solutions. The devs have stated they would entertain ideas for fixing the cleric problem. Do you have any interesting and specific ideas that could help solve the issues you bring up?

Stances. Like the tanks.

Go in hard on the Battle Healer thing. Reduce effective healing by X% amount for increased melee damage

Add I'm proc lines/sympathetic lines via AAs. Like enough so that getting lucky would allow you to heal enough via melee to put off having to heal/cure for a round. So you can focus on DPS but not be able to entirely negate your role as a healer.

I really like the idea of enhancing the yelp line

All of these suggestions are great.

I feel like stances never work as intended. If you can heal good enough with "dps stance" then you'll never use healing stance anyways. As well, why penalize clerics for doing dps by decreasing their healing? Clerics shouldn't have to give something up to be able to do more damage. Shamans give up nothing to cast that spell which does multiple dots at the same time. Clerics simply deserve to be given more instead.

Buffing the hammer pet seems like one simple and obvious step. Instead of being so horrible you have to stand behind a mob to use it, maybe buff it so it at least doesnt get one shot by a riposte.

I get what youre saying, and the intention isn't to punish or penalize Clerics. Just make things interesting with a few tradeoffs. Just for flare.

As for stances, as a non raid, non guided, non dedicated group of players to play with, player, stances worked for me.

I was never decked out in the best of the best. I was operating at about 66% efficiency. As such, new expansion was Sword and Board. Once I got a bit of hear, it was 2H stance (Knights). Then if I was pulling multiples and getting sketchy, it was back to SnB until I got more levels/gear/augs/abilities. Then when I could handle it, it was back to DPS mods. It all depended on the pulls.

To each their own. I'm not sure how strong Cleric heals are, nor am I familiar with raid damage profiles so I don't know if a Clerics could go full DPS stance and still be sufficient healers

Hammer pet to mag servant tier. No jokes, just a clone of Servant. Open up Companion's Fortification & Fury lines of AA to cle, who have a low total to spend anyhow so can afford it (just the passive ranks, active buttons wouldn't do anything since no real/permanent pet). Balance is maintained by pet focus not being equippable + all the mag abilities supporting theirs (AA+worn hastening, Arcane Distillect, Theft of Essense most notably).

OMG what a terrible idea. Many mages and necros already struggle with their pets and swarm pets, you want clerics to figure out how to /pet go away and /swarm go away on command?? /sigh.
Conq

The thread is about making clerics fun to play. Many years ago (I think QVIC was current) I watched a cleric using a cheat program who was able to make dozens of cleric hammer pets. It was hilarious to watch.

I think it'd be fun to have the cleric's summoned DPS hammer weapon actually proc a separate hammer pet about once per second until you have a cloud of these pets acting like a massively progressive dot! (Throw in stun proc on each of those hammer pets for true gloriousness!)

Talk about your raid lag!

I think shamans have it right with dots. Needing to react and cast heals means you cannot be chain nuking. A few giant dots means you can do damage but still be available to heal.

A cleric that does more dps is called a Paladin. If anything cleric mercs took away the fun from clerics. I'd like to see cleric mercs become less viable at higher levels so more user played clerics have more opportunities to find groups. At least this where I think they should start.

lol Paladins aren't exactly defined by their ability to deal amazing damage. "Paladin" territory can trivially be avoided by not turning Clerics into tanks, dealing damage by swinging giant 2h for melee dps.

Even if mercs went away, nothing would change. No one would want a cleric when a shaman can heal perfectly fine, do WAY more damage, bring amazing adps buffs, and even off tank with a pet. Mercs have nothing to do with the problem, the issue is that clerics cannot compete against shamans and to a lesser extent druids.
If I was in a group lfg for a healer (and was high enough level that all priests can adequately heal) I'd say shaman 90% of the time, druid the other 10%. The cleric is pointless cause the others can heal plus more. Cleric brings nothing else. That is the problem.
As proof, look at the monstrous number of shaman bots compared to cleric ones...

I really see no solution involving enhancement of current cleric DPS/abilities. Current cleric DPS is so exceptionally low it's not worth devs tinkering with. A 100% increase to 1% of everyone else's DPS is still essentially 1%. Not worth devs' time, and the cleric's risk of trying to DPS while healing is not worth group mates dying to do only 1% more group DPS.

I would be most interested in something pertaining to overhealing damage. Given that Clerics have significant amounts of overhealing, turn that into burns or abilities that channel their overhealing into damage against targets' targets.

So while shamans can have DOTs running simultaneously with heals, clerics can have DDs through overheals occurring simultaneously as well. This would allow both classes to continue focusing on targetted heals while putting out damage through their own respective means (Shaman DOTs vs. Cleric DD overheals).

I dislike hyperbole. Cle dps isn't strong, but it's not 1%. Vanishingly few cle go for it, but those that do are 20-25% of classes that feel pretty much okay. There are classes & adps scenarios that worsen the juxtaposition, but quadding up into the territory other key support classes occupy versus regular group content would be a very fine start provided none of these weird tradeoffs that have been proposed are part of it.

The hyperbole is entirely justified, and I fully stand behind it based on data. I've run parses this expansion in making that clear determination for my cleric. Even if you only spam DPS abilities with no heals, it's complete garbage DPS when compared to an entire legit group. It moves the needle on nothing, while simultaneously creating risk.

Show me a legitimate parse where a Cleric is well above 1%, or even 2-3% of a solid group's DPS. It is not worth the risk for a Cleric to attempt to DPS, at chance of group PCs' deaths due to not actively targeting for heals. When I roll with three berserkers each individually pushing 10M DPS and a BST doing 4.5M DPS on a named burn with adds, I'm not worried about a cleric adding another 50K DPS (0.5% of only 1 berserker burn) at risk of not keeping the group up.

If somebody wants me to consider having my cleric do any DPS, the thought process has to fundamentally change as to how the class will accomplish that. A 20% bump on 1-2% cleric's group's garbage DPS is still 1-2%, with risk of PCs outright dying as consequence of not actively heal targeting.

I'm not saying the Cleric's dilemma is unsolvable. I'm just recommending a shift in thought toward indirectly generated DPS such as overheal damage, so clerics can continue performing their core role of targeting and healing--the same as shaman's also being able to target/heal while their DOTs are running. Having to stop heals to repeatedly cast trash DDs or melee yaulp is not a viable solution.