Neltera Raybane Calm down guys, I'm not at all proposing homogenizing the classes by giving Clerics similar level of utility as Shaman and Druids, or that being better at healing is pointless. I didn't explain myself well.
In fact, the reason I would always play Cleric over Druid or Shaman personally is because I don't want to be bugged for SoW all day or be a "buff bot". To me it is a selling point that Clerics basically only have 1 good, solid buff but it's not something people want so badly that I'd be tempted to sit at a city gate casting it for hours. I like that Rez, by contrast, means I often have a little bit of an adventure to provide it sometimes since I need to get to the corpse. It feels more personal - you can't really hang out at the bank passing out rez.
And yeah, it's a good point that superior healing means you can get into higher-level groups. Is that it though?
Compare the situation to classic EQ (P99), where the difference in utility was pretty much the same yet Clerics had Complete Heal and giant raids needing it were a thing and the difference in healing ability was so pronounced that at high levels Druids were considered inadequate by themselves as sole healer for a group. I don't think any of those things were good things personally, but it did give a bit of a reasonable trade-off - you got a lot less QoL stuff, but you were in much higher demand for groups as a Cleric (particularly for more difficult content, i.e. dungeons).
The situation in M&M alpha & beta has been that Clerics are the least desired healer in groups, because now that (appropriately) the vast majority of content is doable with any healer anyway,, the added utility and damage increase of the other healers was preferred (maybe that's not true for Shaman any more after rework though). The one thing Clerics had was rez, and you don't need to actually keep a Cleric in your xp group the whole time just for rez, so that only gives incentive to bug them for rez and not to invite them to group.
Shawn has said full EQ-style raids are not going to be a thing - at most 12 people (2 groups) for some special encounters. This is a group game not a raid game. So the whole "but Clerics will be the best healers for raids" isn't really a big draw either, if that's your thing.
What I'm getting at is that if groups find that a Cleric's extra healing power is just overkill and unnecessary, and that they can just get a rez from passing Clerics instead of inviting them to be in the group the whole time, and the other healers bring faster kills (which itself means less healing needed!) and super useful utilities like invis and SoW, then it makes sense for Clerics to get a couple small things that might make them a bit more desirable in groups. Stuff like being able to generate a light source, like they could in EQ, and maybe one of the other ideas mentioned in this thread.
I suppose the "but they are best against undead camps" may be enough though, if groups are letting their Clerics focus on damage against undead and there's enough good undead-themed content in the game for that to be their whole thing. And hey, maybe after the balancing and reworks are all done Clerics will be as or more desired in groups than Shaman and Druids eventually even in non-undead camps. I'm just not sure how that will work while also making sure that Shaman and Druids are good enough at healing to handle 99% of all content anyway, and it hasn't been the case so far in alpha and beta.
I know after the rework Clerics are super popular now and great at soloing, but I just want to be desired in groups, and if a bit of extra utility or other things to offer besides healing helps do that (without becoming a buff bot or do-everything Druid) then sounds good to me!
Plus, come on - again even in EQ Clerics got the ability to summon a light source. Is that really too much to ask here?
