Cool. Thanks for letting us know you see this. Now, can you please let us know if there is still any intent to address what issues clerics have?
You aren't wrong in most dev houses (coders code, designers make decisions - in general) However, most coder's do know what's coming - and posting even a generic "we are still evaluating ideas" or "yeah, we aren't messing with this" would be much better than a damn emoji.
It was all great fun once upon a time: In fact 20 years of good fun I still have of fond raid memories... Some very clever player came up with multi-bind healing and that really changed the way Clerics performed. C-heal chains were out as well as the current light spell, and there was no need anymore to assist off mobs to find out who had stolen aggro. Just mash that multi-bind key. You always get a group raiding, but not so much on off raid times. New expansion's release and alts are dinging max level before you've even completed a level. They're cogs of multi-box armies which plow through group content with a mercenary healer. I was lucky that a necromancer in the guild I was in (still am in) hauled me all over to keep pace. But I don't play anymore, once in a blue moon I'll pop on to pay a visit to Veksar or collect overdue rent from Unrest. In those venues I solo magnificently; though, I still put DI on myself.
I made a post then edited it to a smiley face after thinking better of it. Then deleted it. I don't think my post being here or not is really going to make you feel better. I'll try again - I have made a case for clerics to the design team. These are my notes from the last time. - Clerics need help - Their role is healing, but it is eclipsed by SHM rain - Vast majority of healing is overhealing, so not many healers are needed in raids - DPS is king these days so lack of DPS and ADPS abilities leave clerics fairly undesirable - Almost all of their class specific abilities have been given to other classes in some form, but the reverse is not true - They are starting to disappear - I'm happy to provide parses or any other data that might help. - I worry that the true solution to this problem is to nerf a lot of things that ARENT clerics, because their role really is to heal. - AE healing is too powerful - Many tank abilities are too powerful. Specifically, lifetap from weapon damage - SHD started outhealing clerics in CotF if not sooner, even a cleric focusing solely on them with 0 other targets. - Much of this healing is passive, and an active healing class like cleric/dru/shm is much less effective than healing from just autoattacking something - Priest alliance also provides a lot of healing - Balancing that way is a lot of work. Maybe there is something that can be done to make clerics more desirable otherwise? I made a druid and shaman persona on my cleric, the cleric is now only used for rez and buffs.
I understand the balance perspective, but balance is just one small part of the issue here. I don't think changing other classes and reducing over healing would do anything to fix the fundamental problem with clerics just not being all that enjoyable to play & not adding any synergy to a group. I have a 125 cleric, and all I use him for is buffs. There is no reason to slot him in group over my shaman or any other class since he really doesn't add anything to the group.
In my opinion the fix for lifetap from weapon damage is to make it so crits/cripples/slays/etc and spa 459 and 185 don't count towards the amount healed. Of other solutions i've seen, i think this does the least to nerf 1 handed lifetaps while appropriately nerfing 2 handed lifetaps. It is absurdly broken, it is not something that can be reasonably fixed by buffing other things for other tank classes. that would make all healer classes irrelevant. hp and mob damage would need to be tripled as well, just not feasible i think. I can tank the group mission version of shalowain with nothing but the 4% from spirit drinker's coating with a two hander out and burning.
I agree with the worry that any healing solution would be at the expense of non clerics. The way I've "hopefully" retained my role in the current splash meta is by doubling down on triage, pre-meditating my longer group heal spells and exclusive use of fast quick heals spread out on tanks that need it. I'm not sure if less healers are needed because of overhealing or if overhealing is just a consequence of tanks requiring frequent healing to account for spike damage. In a raid situation I'm not going to wait on healing a tank at 90% I'm just going to throw a heal. I'd assume high overhealing to be a consequence of raiding in general. Effective HPS ends up landing somewhere in the 60-80k hps mark for some of our healers yet TTD (time to death) on tanks is much faster than the 10-12 seconds you would expect. I don't have access to data on how much damage tanks take over a set amount of time tanking. I agree with lack of DPS and ADPS making clerics undesirable, many times people have posted about feeling as though being invited to a party on a cleric feels like being pitied more than the cleric being a valued member and this also resonates with me.
That's one of the best developer posts in a class thread I think I've ever read. Thank you for showing your concern.
Of the 3 priests, you wasted your time making a druid, a shaman can do everything a druid can do and much much more. Having played a druid for the first 15 something years of my EQ history, that character is no longer even in my box crew let alone my main due to how far it has been stagnated. I'm not saying don't help clerics. But the clerics are leaving?....druids already left.
This is the most refreshingly honest dev post in awhile, truly. I wish there were way more candid posts like this. Quality of life: Make the targeted ring AE heal line castable like the shaman line - save a ground click. As for actual ideas, pretty much any change will effect the power creep in EQ pretty significantly. Glyph of Dragon Scales/Tank Discs/Raid Cooldowns/Mobs only dealing sporadic spike damage due to high AC+how the formula for it works, makes for very little consistent raid damage or tank damage to heal. Tanks take chip damage, then catch a bad combat round or two and almost get floored (when not using main discs/glyphed) , then go back to taking very little damage. As for what could be changed though... Buff healing #'s for clerics? More overhealing, clerics aren't very weak healers in the first place though Nerf other healers? It would have to be significant to put clerics in the lead over shaman, and even then clerics' lack of group utility would hold them back Add DPS to clerics for contributing in the same way a shaman/druid can in a duo or trio, as well as a raid environment? Make raids/content 'require' some of this excess healing that's so abundant. Consistent ticking raidwide/boss area damage that persists for long periods of time/gets worse to act as soft enrages. Boss Dmg on the D1-D20 scale for bosses - Bump up the lower D1-D10 end of the dmg without raising D20 by much more so tanks get hit consistently hard that tanking without a major cooldown running is actually threatening, more consistent damage taken is produced. Add ADPS to clerics? I think this is the best fix - or at least the easiest to implement short term, but has the problem of making raids/content even easier than it currently is If you were to give clerics utility what would it be to make them stand out more? Mark of _______ Line is a cool idea but very outdated, maybe some serious buffs there - ADPS aspect maybe Identity as a melee/battle healer? Large steroid that radiates healing basic on damage done allowing them to instantly keep people topped up contributing short bursts of actual substantial DPS while fulfilling their primary healing role. Lean into damage prevention/absorbs in addition to the direct healing they currently do, significant melee guard/protection type runes to smooth out spike damage. Can bake ADPS into this - as long as the rune persists -> some bonus (Give monks and beastlords a reason to occasionally feign instead of just tanking raid trash because they can ) As far as *what* the actual ADPS might be that they can offer I would just shotgun approach it honestly. Add some "Holy Might" type component to whatever so it fits thematically and have it give: +Melee Base Damage mod (Split it for to different values between 1H and 2H weapons for balance?) +Pre-crit Spell Damage/Dot Damage mod Those are the only 2 things that I can think of that aren't completely covered SPA wise already, but more importantly it makes them fit into any group composition since both those things are very desirable, and if the values were right a melee ADPS group might not groan if they get a cleric over a shaman.
They can create or propose achievable infrastructure or new SPAs that the designers use to make having more than 2 clerics in your raid a good thing.
Reply appreciated. It would be great to see this kind of writeup done for other classes. And it would be even better to see a follow-up with implementation plans.
I do not believe that taking anything away from other classes in order to make the cleric class "seem" better is a good answer in any form.
I'll go so far as say nerfing 4 classes to bring them on par with one class that has been ignored for a long time is a good way to bring the population of 5 classes down even more.
Game design and balance cannot only be adding and not removing. If DB accidentally gives rogues a million damage ability, that means everyone else should also get million damage abilities instead of fixing the broken rogue ability. Content then becomes meaningless because everyone becomes OP to be brought up to the level of the OP class.
Not wrong, however, a class which is severely underpowered in all areas except one where they have more than needed? Not the same as you described. Clerics need something other than raw healing power well over the requirement
Sometimes it is needed. If you made all heal classes as OP as shaman or all tank classes as OP as SK, the game would be way too easy. Taking away some stuff would not only make class balance easier, but also go towards helping fix the whole "raids are too easy" thing In this particular case, just giving clerics more heals wouldn't fix anything. Giving them more dps would help, but then again, the game is made even easier. The only fix that makes sense is to make clerics heals needed on raids and there's only one way to do that
