Dev comments about making clerics required for some group content as a way of making them equally desirable to the druid and shaman feel very weird to me.
I don't see any clerics at all saying they want the other healers to be less effective in their roles as healers to sorta artificially make clerics better. Instead, I see clerics wanting more utility for themselves to help bridge that wide gap in group usefulness between cleric and druid/shaman. Creating group content that only clerics can heal for is like a shadow nerf to the other healers, and seems like a good way to upset those classes more than a way to make clerics happy. Clerics do want to be the "premiere" healers (easily done with heals more mana efficient than the other healers), but we all seem to be trying to tell the devs that we don't want that to be the entirety of what the class has to offer.
Tonight I read over the shaman "What's Changing?" stuff, and noticed that the devs plan to give them some "escape" abilities. So it seems like druids will have their evacs, shaman will have some cool new thing, and clerics had their escape button (yes, Oath of Protection) taken away from them. Does this not seem like a step in the wrong direction, if clerics are wanting more utility allowing them to become a little competitive with the other healers? The choice to remove the most important cleric utility spell they had truly confuses me here, particularly when the spell fit the class identity so well. I'm still hoping against hope that this spell is returned to clerics, as that sort of utility is what clerics are telling the devs they desperately need.
On the topic of escape, I think additional cleric utility (along with getting their class-defining Oath of Protection spell back) on this front could be one way to address the lack of utility. Devs have said in the past that they're going to implement a sprint mechanic to make the endurance bar useful again, so what about a cleric buff that doubles endurance regen? That could be super on brand for clerics, and is the sort of thing we're actually asking for. It could be an alternative to sow, depending on how the sprint mechanic is introduced.
As an aside, I will be somewhat heartbroken if the class-defining cleric spell Oath of Protection is given to paladins. Saw someone mention this, bc "oaths are a paladin thing." Spell could easily be renamed to something more cleric-like and given back to its rightful class (cleric). I literally did not know what this spell was even called until it was taken away, as it was a permanent cantrip and I never had to find it in my spellbook. I always lovingly referred to it as, "DA for friends," which is also what it was in my brain lol.
thx. hope the devs are still reading our silly thoughts, and am wishing for their prudence <3
