There are a number of problems that need addressing. Just look down in the Class > Priest forums. You guys promoted the heck out of Beastlords when you launched them. Most people in game still have no idea what a Channeler is and what's it's purpose is. That includes many raid leaders. There was actually an argument in world chat last night. Player 1 thinks the Channeler is designed to augment other healers and make their life easier in raids. Player 2 suggests they cant solo heal a heroic group, let alone a raid force. Player 3 says we are a DPS class with heals (which I argued that he couldn't be further from the truth). Some perceive this as a Ranger with heals, but our best DPS comes from magic based spells. Matter of fact, I completely eliminated my melee stats all together. That's how bad it is. How about a little help here? You introduced a new product but didn't advertise it. And you don't appear to be supporting it. Is it working as intended? Is the Channeler where YOU guys wanted it to be? Edit- Some aspects of the Channeler are awesome and I want to give you guys props for that. in particular the pet rez and group power feed per detriment cure. Good job! But please read the concerns posted here in the Priest forums & below. Thanks.
Channeler is basically what you choose to slot for. They can do any of the healer niche roles equally. The problem is devs said they're a dpsing healer and if you really want to heal, you're going to give up a lot of dps to do so. That's not to say they can't dps, not at all. I was doing 500k in a group with absolutely 0 support classes so the potential is there. You just have to have multiple specs and know how to slot for what you're doing in order to be successful.
I agree more needs to be done. Before beastlords were introduced I already knew they were a DPS scout class. When channelers were introduced I wasn't even sure they were a priest class until I rolled one up. While I could have found that out if I'd scoured the web, I'm sure there's a lot of people who know as little as I did. This is actually something players can help with. Channelers really need a good intro guide comparable to the great one EQ2Wire did on beastlords. It should include information on how to keep your group up (apparently just spamming heals doing little else really isn't the way). I'm hesitant to write something up until I hit 95 and kick around a bit more, but there appear to be 95 channelers now, as well as those who played one in beta. But player guides won't replace SoE saying more about what channelers are. We need to be getting into groups so others can see us in action. (but please try to make channelers look GOOD while in a group. After you leave don't have them groaning about how horrible you were at keeping them up.). Just getting around and inform people would help. I've been talking about my trials in guild chat, so by now they know the basics of what a channeler is about. Anyway, I've been solo healing against yellow and orange heroics just fine once I figured out how to do it, no thanks to SoE. Some in-game help would have been handy too; comparable to the intro pages beastlords get when they hit key levels where they get new abiltiies.
You did 500k dps on a massive pull obviously. I spiked that in a Hive heroic group as well. But what about raid mobs? Single target raid mobs? 100k? You have awesome potency, I'm sure that helped too. I've only done the overland quests, 4-5 advanced solos and a few heroics. My potency seems to be capped around 250ish no matter what I do or how I spec. Someone told me to try 20k ability mod and max out my CC until I get better gear... seems high but worth a try. I've kinda lost all interest in this class already though. The dps makes it hard for me to do anything that I want to do. And the heals are mediocre. I thought I was getting to know the class quite well but maybe I just suck at it. I'll be back on my zerker until this Epic finally gets released. Hopefully it's a little bit of help for the Channeler.
Sorry to see you go. I'm enjoying this class. The interplay between the damage interception, debuffs, and healing. I also see more of the fight then I did when playing a melee class and was in the middle of it. I do not consider channelers a dps class, although I admit I've been configuring myself for healing etc. so could be missing something. In my mind, if you can't consistently generate dps comparable to a beastlord or assassin you're not really a dps class. That's ok. Healers are very important. You don't need to be a dps class to be needed. They've got a few things which can be used for dps, and it's nice to be able to actually do some damage, especially in some situations. But if I were a group leader I would not be inviting a channeler for dps. I'd be inviting him for heals. I'd be very disappointed in that channeler if he couldn't or wouldn't keep the group up.
The 500k was single target on the first boss in Halls of the Betrayer Heroic so no, it wasn't some giant aoe parse padding pull. Wear the ability gear instead of the auto attack gear, get your haste/ma to 200, dps to 600, reuse/cast to 100, mod to 12-15kish, and potency as high as you can. Use poison bolt+ vengeful arrow every auto attack cycle and use construct's sacrifice whenever you can afford to.
Oh yeah, group was a brigand, guardian, templar, mystic, channeler, monk merc. It was super early in the morning and nobody else was on and we didn't want to pug some idiot from general.
Raid dps on the Channeler is going to vary depending on how nasty that group is taking it. On NAMED fights while in mage group I was anywhere from 600k-1.5mil.
I don't see why people need these strict definitions from the Dev team. Frankly, I feel like that's a very old fashioned way to look at playing MMOs. Where's the wonder and excitement of uncovering the potential? What's wrong with having a Swiss Army Knife class? I find the flexibility refreshing.
I don't know what to tell you, you seem to be doing something wrong. Channeler CAN pull 500k dps on single target, but that requires being DPS spec, which i only run while soloing until i get more comfortable healing. My channeler made 95 yesterday and later in the day i solo healed a group through Labs, which is one of the tough heroic instances in ToV. My gear for it was a mix of steward and ToV quest gear. My potency was only at about 350, compared to the 500 or so i have on my defiler that i've spent time geared with heroic stuff. Soloing stuff on channeler is super easy now that i've hit 95 and put on some 95 gear. Considering that we're all on a level playing field when it comes to gear due to the full reset, i would say that you simply haven't learned how to play the class well yet. I'm not saying that i have, but since there are quite a few of us that aren't experiencing your issues, i think the problem more likely lies with your skill and experience than with the class being broken.
The dps info is interesting but to me what really counts is heals and other things for keeping the group alive such as how much damage is intercepted and the value of debuffs. If I want to dps I'll bring a beastlord. I created my channeler for a classic healer role. It's cool that you all are max level and geared out a couple weeks after channeler was released. I'm still working my way up. Of course I usually can only play a couple hours a day, and am taking out time to do tough dungeons to learn the craft. This is especially important to me as I've never played a healer type before. Ever. In any game. Since I've been playing my channeler I haven't had a chance to do much with the new content on my level 95 characters. Arieste indicates not normally being in dps mode while grouping, so I know some end levels must be doing at least SOME classic healer spots. So what's up with that? Are you able to pull your weight on raids compared to other priest types? What fraction of damage are you intercepting as opposed to having to heal? Right now the only cure I have is single target, if we don't get a group cure how are you doing on the curing front? Actually, how are you doing regardless? Any gotchas or cool things you've discovered about that class not obvious to low to mid levels? Inquiring minds want to know.
All the healers get a Gcure at level 42. That's one thing that stays the same with Channeler. Apparently they get a conduit slotted second cure, so that they're two cure when needed and one when not.
Much of the Beastlord guide I wrote originated with a beta post by Whilhelmina after testing out the class. I would be happy to put together a Channeler writeup, but I haven't played one. If people just start throwing out facts and details about the class, I can collect it into a Guide.
The heals are amazing. The harder the mobs hit (assuming you're capable of keeping your pet up), the better your heals are going to be due to the intercept. That's not even factoring in the super reactive, ward, or semi-spammable group cure.
Thanks guys! That's more what I was looking for! Can't very well ask someone to write a guide for a class they haven't played. I really appreciated your beastlord guide though Feldon. Perhaps if people just start posting hints, factoids, whatever, enough stuff could be accumulated to assemble a guide? I'll be taking notes for future incorporation into something. I just dinged 42 and got the group cure tonight. Boy was I glad to see that. Maybe I'm misreading some of those descriptions (some of those seem confusing to me) but I thought the stuff that went in the first and second slots were for healing the construct. That's good as that's very important. I currently have slot one with the instant heal and slot 2 with one of the intermediate heal over time conduits. Indoctrination: .That's encouraging to know. Sounds like we're given the tools to do a great job, just have to apply them. I was practicing tonight by taking what I thought might be the worst merc I could lay hands on into dungeons (the guardian in Freeport). It seemed that when I worked all the angles -- heals, interception, and debuffs, we did pretty well. Does someone know of a fighter merc which is really bad -- has worse mitigation etc. -- then average? My theory is I'll learn more keeping him up then some super-tank.
I played the Channeler only a few levels. But isnt it obvious what he is ? Channeler is the only healer able to heal while moving...
Could've sworn I did this all the time on my Mystic... As for Channelers, I wish they would have put more in giving them a class hat, custom armor, and more fun spells like the others have. Beastlord fun spells are awesome... Channeler zzz...
AA should fix that. Makes it so your Vengful arrow and barrage both give you cast on the run for 6 seconds.
Seriously, this one is a huge annoyance of mine. There's no level 20 Armor quests, no class hat.. Pretty sure they don't get to do the Cloud Mount Timeline either... It just seems rushed. I haven't gotten any quests that give me bows at lower levels either. That could just be that I've happened to miss them, but it's annoying. I've been using the tier's reactant bow anyways for the most part, but I really like some of the lower level content, and it's like they forgot to let Channelers do it... Or maybe it's intended.
