But...Why is that the only fix that makes sense? What is wrong with clerics getting some form of DPS? Maybe some kind of increase to tank DPS, specifically, like being able to maintain ward on a single other player.
Because that ignores the BASIC cleric issue - their healing isn't really that important. They are healers, yet shamans are better at healing than them (while also better at dps, buffing, and adps). Throwing clerics a bone to go from terrible damage to only bad damage doesn't change the fact that clerics primarty purpose (healing) is totally overshadowed by another class.
Because right now shaman can out heal clerics. They can heal better than clerics, whose main job is supposed to be healing. Giving clerics better healing does nothing because healing is already too OP on every heal class. Giving clerics dps is still going to keep shaman as better healers, only clerics dps will still be less than shaman, and thus shaman will still be vastly OP to clerics The only way to fix it is to either give clerics ridiculous DPS, in which case druids need an upgrade in both heals and dps, or just make shaman more in tune with cleric and druid
Druids could use a boost in heals and DPS, or more accurately mana management, in order to fully utilize the DPS they have now. But as was pointed out earlier, EQ is about DPS/ADPS now, hamstringing a class from essentially any DPS (appropriate for their level or even level -10) needs to be fixed. If the average geared/skilled cleric can't molo a regular blue con in a reasonable time. And everything I've heard, or has been implied for last few pages says they can not, that needs to be adjusted ASAP.
That's fair, but they still won't be up to par without taking away some of shaman's heal ability. Shaman will still be better at both
The game has never been about who can solo well. Players choose classes based on that, but the game design is not about that. Additional cleric dps would be good, but thats still moving the deck chairs on the titanic. Cleric healing needs to matter, and that can ONLY happen if: 1. Clerics are better healers than shamans 2. Shaman healing isn't so OP that cleric healing is irrelevant (even if it is better) Even if clerics were better healers than shamans (which they arent), clerics don't have much else. Theres no motivation to have the cleric. Preserving shamans OP healing would require clerics to start doing MORE damage than shamans by a good margin - at which point clerics will be broken cause they'll be a plate dps class with amazing heals. Thats more problems on problems. The only real solution here is to address the broken healing powers that shamans have.
Some ideas I have been tossing around when thinking of ways to increase overall Cleric utility and DPS (since that is really king in current meta as Niente points out): I think it's unlikely that resources will be available to create whole new spell lines. But perhaps/hopefully it's easier to adjust/amend Focus AA and/or add effects that proc off of those (so it's a new spell affect/ability but not a whole new spell line per se). Improved Contravention: Increase % bonus. Add secondary effect that places further heal effect on target. Heal over time, shield, something. This could even be as straight forward as "applies your highest rank of Elixir to the target". Improved Intervention: Increase % bonus. Add secondary effect that places a DOT on the target for X% (or all of) damage applied. This will make it worth twin casting to get that dot as large as it can be. Make it a fast dot that will run out prior to cooldown wearing off. Also make dot unique to the spell (so we can stack Avowed, Atoned, Sincere, etc). So intervention lands with DD and then follows up with a DOT. (Works well with the fact that we have some DOT AA's in our Archetype list already though could always add more) Improved Unyielding: Increase % bonus. I would prefer to see this target of target...with the idea being we'll nuke/melee whatever on mob...swap to target and Unyielding followed by Interventions...I just think this smooths out the target swapping so there isn't some "make sure to cast X before swapping" mechanic that exists today. This could also be given some ADPS/Defensive synergies...so that it's worth casting even if you're more healer mode to keep group support going. Focus for Decree/Writ spells (forget the name): Increase % bonus. Have it cast our pets for us...and make pet a rage pet...(not fully sold on this...but it's where my mind was at last time I was thinking about it) Weapon stances: 1h + shield - SOme type of "healer mode" benefit. Maybe a certain % of our healing is splashed out around us...make US the beacon which is different than Shaman rain. and 2h - More "DPS/Support" mode...give us some melee/casting bonuses...or perhaps this is what activates some of the modifications above...not sure. But I think we could steal the weapon stance from tanks/knights and use it for our benefit here too. I know vows need to be tuned up...but I'd leave this to folks with deeper/better understanding to recommend. Spell rotation would still have a target switch..but that's just part of the game. Even shaman have to do that...but they benefit from not needing to swap "as often". Rotation would be something like: "Contra, Contra, Decree, Writ" on mob...and when unyielding/interventions are available -> Unyielding, Intervention, Intervention...and of course you still have remedies, splashes, etc....when you are more purely in a heal only situation.
There are already enough SPAs that can be used to improve Clerics. It is up to the designers to use them.
As a cleric, my #1 job is do whatever I need to keep my tanks alive. Make sure they have their buffs and rebuff them, make sure they get cures as needed, make sure I back them up with heals so they can be the good meatshields they are meant to be. The tanks #1 job is to protect me. The AoE heal parse and splashing, babysitting the DPS and such... is an afterthought. I do that in my spare time as appropriate. I do compete on it, with the recent changes to shaman squall I'm back to kicking shaman butt on both the single-target and AoE heal parses. While there are certainly cases where things can be improved on the healing front... the biggest issues are still our secondary roles. If your guild only cares about how you do on the AoE heal parse, your guild is not worthy of you as a cleric.
I agree. On any parse where you see shamans with high parse if you look at whos healing what tanks and for how much. Clerics will likely be at the top of that tank's healing.
This is one of the few times I've ever seen a developer be completely transparent here- this is super refreshing to see this,
It's been a while since I've been active here and in game due to life things, but I did catch a discussion of this thread in the Cleric discord today given Niente's post and wanted to contribute my 2cp. Hopefully without retreading too much of my previously covered ground. Having played multiple MMOs over the decades and being involved with their respective communities as a leader and theorycrafter, it's fair to say that balance issues such as this always cycle in games. I saw a mention of XIV - that game has had its share of healer issues over the years. As has WoW and every other MMO. What we can do is distill the heart of the matter to what motivates players - fun. Fun is personal and what one player finds fun another player may abhor. However, what is consistent across the board is players feeling that they are bringing enough to the table, especially in a group and raid setting. That their time has been worthwhile spent, especially in terms of effort spent in a given time window. In the context of EQ, when things haven't been sufficiently balanced a given class it would give rise to tweaks and additions that would help address that. For Clerics, it'd be things like Ward and VoV, which for their time held up against the content and brought a new lease of fun because not only were they able to bring more to the table, they were able to do more on their own in their own time where previously the effort to reward ratio was very skewed to not being worth it. Years later we've had so many changes that when I returned my mind was blown as to the tools we now had. Blink (Holy Step), Fade (Divine Peace), AA Root, DA cooldown reductions, the heal added to Sanctuaries, AoE Rez, AA Heals, passive heals, Twincast, burn AAs, Splash, buffed Remedy line, Intervention/Contraventions, VP/QP, etc. Things that if I told my teenage self circa '08 that we would get all this I would have never believed it. But we did, and they're a big part of why our mana economy is phenomenal compared to how it used to be. Our heal potential is so strong that we have major overhealing happening before even factoring in Squall and other class actions. Similarly for our mitigation and survival tools. Our mana economy is incredible. We have never been as powerful as we are now for the effort required. Yet that power is also rarely ever needed nor used, something that has been true for most of a Cleric's life in EQ. This leaves us with being able to use more of the utility and damage portions of our toolkit. Let's consider this from the grouping angle where healing requirements are much more finite than what raids demand. Much of the utility is covered by other classes better with less risk, or mobs are immune, which leaves damage. For time we invest doing so the returns are poor and is it any wonder that motivation dwindles? A Cleric at full pelt and their sustain's relative difference to classes has fallen further by the wayside, even against undead. Solo and molo is a pretty miserable experience. I tried to solo as I used to when I first came back, then molo'd and realised quickly enough that my time was better spent levelling up alts to box. That's how my SK and Bard came to be and became essential as EQ's levelling focused more on tasks than grinding in zones. Squall is the elephant in the room for raid healing but is just one part of the whole. It's so good for intermittent damage and encounters with DoTs, but alone can't keep up with what's necessary to keep tanks alive. We're still #1 for single target healing, tank survival and emergency raid recovery. No other class can recover a raid from emote mistakes like a Cleric. But in terms of raid scope, especially once the finite heal requirements have been met, is a narrow contribution. Most raid damage is AoE. You don't need as many Clerics to cover tank healing requirements, especially if said Clerics push themselves enough. While there is nothing wrong with easing heal stress for individuals with more Clerics, it will come at stark cost to DPS. If we're able to fully focus on DPS in raid encounters, even with ADPS and assuming similar effort from anyone else, it's a joke of an amount and is achievable by anyone else for fraction of the effort. Us being able to keep up with or beat others is less on us and more on others not performing enough. Contrary to our healing which I believe has scaled far too well, our damage spells and abilities have not scaled well over the years. You cannot just do % on % increases to spells expansion to expansion while other differences, such as lacking certain AAs and ranks, result in a completely different and disproportionate scaling gradient. This applies to mob HP (and regen) scaling as well. VoV and Ward worked well for their time because they felt good to use and made an appreciable impact to current and even future content vs how it was before their existence. We still have these tools and a few more, and yet, our impact now is so negligeable that we're better contributing as any other priest, or if the tank has enough self sustain and mitigation, literally anything else. (Special mention to Druid mana issues still being as bad as they are when purely DPSing, as that's a noteworthy case. Their mana parity DPS is still better than what a Cleric can do in general.) To those saying DPS and ADPS is meta now, I respectfully disagree. It has been meta for most of EQ's life. Differences at times were just not as pronounced as they have become, and things over the years have fluctuated. Rate of exp and AAs earned in grinds was always better in a group that had better DPS throughput and sustain. Mobs dying faster meant fewer spells per mob and more mobs being killed until people would need to med. Raids benefitted tremendously from compositions that had high DPS and ADPS. This was true in my hayday 15+ years ago as it is now. It always mattered, just to differing degrees. Addressing this is complex. It always has been, but it is achievable to make changes that help classes without distorting overall balance, where the game as a whole is the richer for it. As it was done for Wizards and Necros, as it was done for us with new spell lines. Look at the data, look at the numbers, look at what classes are being played instead of their mains and why, then consider ways to improve it as we did all those years ago.
Looking back at NoS, I do remember what was perhaps the biggest motivation killer for me once maxed out on AAs that encapsulates this matter. I never finished grinding the evolving cloak to its final state. Kills are much faster grouping with my buddy who 3 boxes a Druid, Beastlord and Mage. I get more mileage focusing on what the Bard and SK can do for pulling and DPS with healing being covered between Reptile and SK self healing + mitigation. The best thing Llu brings is QP on cooldown for the Druid. We weren't always on together due to time zone differences, so that would leave me with my characters and 3 DPS mercs during times where zones were empty. The grind was so noticeably slower, even with more higher effort damage contributions from my Cleric. Granted, that is more of a testament to how much more 3 real classes capable of DPS could bring over mercs, but her presence was less about what she personally brings and more that she brought a merc. Kill times hardly changed if she did anything vs not. Melee and spell crit RNG on the Bard and SK mattered more for kill times. Given how little I needed to care for new NoS gear on raids as I wasn't dying to AoEs and never had mana issues, and how slowly the cloak's exp % needle was moving on my own, getting its last iterations stopped mattering. In the old days I could feel and observe my main making more of a difference, such that long grinds could still be enjoyable. Now she feels inconsequential.
What if instead of making other classes worse or making clerics better in some direct way INSTEAD they went with giving clerics something unique that benefits the group/raid they are in. Seeing as the cleric is a main healer and should be focusing on that, I would think that this unique flavor would have to be something they can do and then go back to their normal routine of healing. I'm thinking... pets. But, not your ordinary pets. These aren't combat pets so to speak like Mages, Necromancers, and Beastlords get. Instead, these are disciples that follow the cleric around doing what is asked of them. You could give the cleric the ability to have up to 3 pets casted at any given time. These three disciples could be from varied spells that causes the disciple to function in specific ways. Example... Cleric summons a disciple pet Casts a melee benefit buff on the pet Tells the pet to help the monk in his raid force The pet then follows that monk around everywhere attacking what the monk attacks and "setting up" bonus damage situations for the monk. In other words, the pet is helping the monk tag team what ever he is killing Another example could be a disciple pet that lends indirect healing for a tank and will willingly throw themselves in the line of fire to save the tank if a killing blow was about to land. Another example would be a disciple that follows a wizard, mage, or necromancer around chanting enchants that occasionally help that caster deliver more damage. In this way, the cleric doesn't *just* heal more and they don't directly compete with the already established DPS classes in the game. Instead, they offer unique situational benefits to specific members in groups and raids.
People play a Cleric because they enjoy helping people or the guild is short clerics and some guildies step up to meet that need. EQ added healing mercs because of a chronic shortage of healers for people to play the game, basically 16% of the servers did not want to play a healer/cleric. And the other 84% of the server were LFG for a Healer. Because of the shortage, EQ killed the group cleric (except for friends and loyal guildies) when they added Mercs and threw clerics a bone by not allowing healer Mercs in raids. IMHO Maybe now is time to throw another bone to the Clerics by 1) Allowing healing Merics into raids, 2) Allowing PC Clerics to play any other class and allow the PC with "max level cleric accounts" to bring in a Healer Merc of the same level that the PC has. 3) Give Clerics a Meric only spell every 5 levels that boosts the Melee/Caster Mercs DPS to better than the best PC of similar levels but only usable in group settings. This allows people to play whatever class they want and still meet the DPS needs of the group and the healing needs for the raid. The third option makes grouping with a cleric that can actually bring DPS to the group better than Rogues/Monks of similar levels. As other have said, a "high-level" Merc healer controlled by a "high-level" player is better than a "lower-level" PC cleric bringing an even less capable merc healer, the PC Cleric must be able bring enough DPS to the group higher than the clerics Level or clerics will still be a handicapped class.
I wouldn't say mercs killed the group cleric, its more that game design at the time required every group had a cleric - which wasn't feasible. Mercs were the only reasonable answer to a game that required an adequate healer if you aren't kiting. This also ignores the fact that druid and shaman weren't always good fill-ins for the healer slot. The game is designed to require a healer. Now of course, you have the problem that one healer (shaman) not only healers very well, its brings soo much more dps/adps/buffs to the table and is easy to bot. No group needs more than 1 healer, and 1 class is pretty much the best at everything. To make clerics compete, you cannot have one class (shm) the best at everything a healer can bring to a group.
Mercs 100% killed the group cleric because people realized not much healing is actually needed and if they want to be semi afk or take breaks it's easier to run a merc than let a person sit there waiting on you. The past couple posts worth of suggested cleric changes are some of the worst things I've read. Just tack on some ADPS to their current kit with minimal changes and call it a day
Ehh... lack of mercs was killing the entire game. There simply wasn't enough people playing healers, and people were quitting because they couldn't play. Almost every single person I know who has quit the game did so before mercs, and they quit because they were tired of being unable to play because of lack of group. Mercs might have been hard on group clerics, but the game probably wouldn't exist today without them...
