Cleric Deep Dive Discussion!

Geldrey

Shawn said on stream that the prayer spamming for piety procs is not intended so I assume that will change.

Ensi

Foojack Is piety based of a melee attack? I ask because I have had it proc on me whilst just sitting in NH so it doesn't seem to be effected by an action.

sumofunk

Ensi I've seen both Piety and Wrath activate randomly while doing nothing, as well as on actions. So I think the deity can intervene whenever on a whim 😉

Geldrey

Please make the new buff last 60 minutes instead of 40 so it lines up with all the other buffs! Bad enough it doesn’t do much and costs a reagent!

Foojack

Ensi It does happen randomly, however it has a chance to proc when you cast prayer. If you spam prayer 1 you can basically force it to be up most of the time. It feels like about a 1/10. The regen scales, level+1 mana every 2 seconds for 15 tics. At level 29 you get 30mana every 2 seconds when it's up, it costs 15 mana to cast prayer 1. I believe they need to remove the chance to proc wrath and piety from casting prayer, it's not good gameplay to spam a single button for a couple 1/10's. Make it have a higher chance to proc when you use holy strike or something.

tuesday

Sorry to provide my feedback so piecemeal; I've had a lot of thoughts throughout this experience. This thread is long af now but I hope the devs are still reading. I've tried to make each post substantive and helpful. On the discord there would be a second thread made later on for each person to make one post each, and idk if that's going to be the case here but I hope it is. I'll have even better feedback down the line as I group more. Just had my first group post-rework, and have more thoughts.

On Soloing
A guildie of mine started a cleric and we spoke briefly. He really enjoys the new class, because cleric is very effective at soloing now, at least at the lower levels. I do believe that whatever happens with the class it will now be quite popular in EA for this reason alone, particularly with the devs giving the class back the undead snare, and fear undead at level 8. Much of the positive feedback from the community is coming from solo clerics now, which is something I hope the devs realize and keep in mind. I exclusively leveled in groups, and I personally believe that soloing should be discouraged. In my opinion, this rework made clerics better soloers and worse in a group.
On Melee, Heals, and Barrier
I am a midlevel cleric, level 52, with a wisdom of 103 (2-hander) or 114 (1-hander + tiny shield). My jewelry is currently all dex, other than one cha earring. My group of 6 ranged from levels 44 - 57, and we were killing things yellow to me. We had a 44 druid that was buffing and healing with me. Meleeing in a group feels very fun, and occasionally getting big hits with Holy Strike is great. After a while I did switch to my 1-hander and shield and started spending most of my time medding again as I was running oom constantly. The Piety procs feel very few and far between, even when I tried to spend most of my time hitting things. I do wish Piety procs happened much more frequently, the additional dex clerics won't have in EA doesn't seem to help much. Sometimes I would med while Holy Strike was on cooldown and stand up to use that ability, though this often resulted in me getting aggro when sitting again. It felt incredibly nice to not need to wait several seconds for my heals to land, but the heals really felt super costly in terms of mana (was downranking heals ofc). The only heals I tried using were the Heal line. Barriers felt even worse to use, and at my level with my gear the mana cost was far too steep to barrier more than a handful of times the entire night.
On Heroism and Group Usefulness
During the night spent exping we had one total wipe and one successful evac with zero deaths. I cast Blessing of Dedication on each party member at the start of the night, finding this took most of my mana bar. I noticed when the buff faded, but with trying to keep up with heals lacked the mana to cast it again. The wipe probably happened about 30 minutes after all the Blessing buffs faded. During both the wipe and successful evac I missed having my Oath of Protection spell, and felt far less useful for my group without it. We probably had too many mobs during the wipe to have turned it around with Oath of Protection, but it felt very bad not being able to at least keep one person alive for an extra 15 seconds. We probably would have survived the successful evac with more hp if I had Oath of Protection. During the evac I was already a bit low on mana, and was able to get one barrier off before I was completely oom. The group would have survived without me in that situation. Overall, I feel less useful in a group than I did prior to the cleric rework. There appear to be fewer opportunities to play out my class fantasy of group savior now, and I am not enjoying my class as much as I was before last Tuesday.

Fixing the mana efficiency issues would help considerably, and the class remains very viable as a basic group healer. I want to try downranking my barrier even further, maybe to the level 20 barrier, and see if combining this with the Promise heals might be any better. 110 mana for that barrier still feels a bit steep, though. The cleric class feels like it is less for people wanting to be useful for their groups and more like it's for people looking to solo level now. Maybe this is different for 60 clerics with raid gear, but at midlevel with pretty basic gear this is how it feels to me. I do hope the shaman rework makes that class feel useful for groups and gives them opportunities to save their groups in cool clutch moments, because the cleric is lacking that at the moment. I'm still super excited for EA, but feel a bit lost on what class to pick now that the grouping cleric has been nerfed as much as it was. Druid may be the move with sow and evac saving groups, I guess.

thx

Tpoon

Cleric feels really good now, I'm only lvl 4.. But this feels far better than before, which was basically auto attacking. It feels active and I'm, engaged now! But I do really wonder, if the Cleric feels this good.. How is the Paladin going to feel? Since I'm basically stating it/playing it like I would a Paladin.. I can see them both playing very close to the same from lvls 1-10.. Will be great to see the Paladin come out so that they could be perhaps balanced against one another.

Fidric

my final feedback is to revisit the stated class preview

Unique utility that separates them from other healers

and look at community suggestions & feedback as to how that can be delivered.

"strong healing" as their only contribution is not very interesting or competitive.

versus say more mechanics that allow them to provide barriers and mitigation both actively and passive and some means to contribute to the group's offensive power, let alone out of combat utility to interact with others players and the world as a whole.

and even "strong healing" has been give and take with larger mana adjustments and basically having to chase piety with holy strike on cooldown + at level or rank 1 prayer spam as essentially a worse version of supplication upkeep against a slot machine of randomness that you never even explained to players either in game or out.

the 'new' healing spells are lacklustre (the paid reactive one and cooldown group) and the basic cast "Heal" is just a vanilla replacement and at certain levels just is even better time and mana than the delayed impart which feels mechanically counterproductive too.

while armor + rez as features are "neat" they are essentially failure conditions

i don't understand the approach of removing horizontal ability choices when that should be part of memorisation decisions to adjust to both playstyle preference and faced content variations.

unless that is ultimately an illusion of choice?

Arne

Lvl 57 here (lost motivation to push 60 after rework)

141 wis after jewelry was changed to int. Haven’t bothered to buy a new set.

The solo capability seems really good. I tested it out and was able to kill Felix Rathmere. I was able to solo certain Dark Blue mobs in Upper Saman. Which previously I wouldn’t have been able to.

But this isn’t what I want or why I chose the class. This isn’t the correct class fantasy to me. I would have chosen Paladin if i wanted to melee slay undead. I want to play a healer and sling out some heals and cast a nuke here and there.

Gameplay now seems to require melee, keeping holy strike on CD and spamming prayer for piety proc. Sometimes it just won’t proc after 30 times.

It seems like our benefit to group TTK is to be actively attacking the mobs whereas druid / shaman have passive spells to do this.

We still have the same basic toolkit with no added utility or meaningful changes.

I thought we were going to have the option of melee, not having it forced upon us by being the new meta.

Also, i still get interrupted a lot while casting and tanking a mob. I thought there was something in the Deep Dive section about this.

Is this what we are stuck with come EA?

It would be nice to hear from the Dev team.

Mesh

Arne
But this isn’t what I want or why I chose the class. This isn’t the correct class fantasy to me. I would have chosen Paladin if i wanted to melee slay undead. I want to play a healer and sling out some heals and cast a nuke here and there.

I have to agree here. It's pretty contradictory to the goals stated in the class overviews.

Cleric

They look the part of a holy warrior, clad in heavy armor with shield and weapon, but their power flows through their words. Prayers, invocations, and divine commands are how their faith acts in the world: healing the wounded, shielding the faithful, and smiting the unworthy.

What’s Changing
It’s also receiving a clearer separation from the Paladin; where Clerics channel divine power through word and prayer, Paladins do so through martial devotion. Spells that blurred that line are going away.

Paladin

They’re front-line fighters whose divine power flows not through words or spells, but through their body, their weapon, and their will. With heavy armor and shield raised, they deliver divine fervor in every strike.

What’s Changing
The Paladin is gaining some distance from the Cleric. Both serve the divine protector fantasy, but they’re being separated at the mechanical level so they feel nothing alike in practice. Thematically, the Cleric works through prayer and incantation, whereas the Paladin works through physical action, touch, and presence. Abilities that blurred these lines are being removed or reconfigured.

The bulk of Clerics offensive group contribution being a melee attack is the polar opposite of what is stated above.

Cleric plays more like a Paladin now than it did before the update.

Arne

Something nice: It seems nice that we got a higher tier of pacify and it can be used on up to level 64 targets. Even if it is limited to only one target at a time. I'm hoping it has a much lower crit failure rate.

Arkamedeez

Mesh Cleric plays more like a Paladin now than it did before the update.

Maybe you guys should wait for the paladin update to see if cleric actually plays like a paladin.

Hackman

I dont know if this was the class you have been fantasizing about but im really enjoying playing cleric at lvl 14. I keep the group healed and I actually get to play the game while doing it, rather than watch while seated.

If being able to provide a bit of useful dmg is undesired, could probably try killing non undead. If you want to sit and not fight, I think you can. Do you really need for ME to also have play sitting?

Arne

Hackman We should be able to get the damage proc and piety from our nukes at least.

Mesh

Hackman

I don't think anyone is complaining about Cleric being able to contribute reasonable damage. The problem is the delivery method is off theme.

Also, past early game you'll be required to heal more often so you'll still be meditating through the majority of combat. The rework hasn't changed that.

Hackman

I think this makes the cleric viable in small man stuff. This gives us different playstyles for the situation which is wonderful.

Nuke argument getting proc sounds logical. Is there a balancing tradeoff with not taking the damage or having to miss out on med? Possible it isnt feasible without swinging things.

Arne

I would remove the mana proc and build it into holy strike. Then adjust it so its comparable to medding. Additionally, make the direct damage and melee very similar in damage per fight. That way either play style is about equal and there is no prayer spam / relying on proc chance.

I am glad people are having fun with meleeing.

Ernst

Not sure if this is intended, or already well known as being crazy. Cleric at my lvl (10) procing for 70+ dmg? Even 230dmg a couple of times. Meanwhile my most mana efficient Wizard nuke is doing 28 dmg, and my best dmg nuke is 48. Feels off.

Geldrey

[unknown] well ya see.. it’s a random proc so it’s supposed to be strong. Your wizard can cast those spells whenever they want.

Ernst

[unknown] I understand that for sure, but it seems to proc on most mobs. Really felt like I was being out DPS’d by a cleric. I’m also assuming that the proc is mana free, except for the fact that they have to be meleeing so they aren’t medding. The fact that the cleric is competing in DPS with a Wizard doesn’t seem right. Maybe it’s different at higher levels, but It just felt very wonky.

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