I wrote out a long drawn post but decided to sum it up to this.
Cleric when compared to the other healers seem bland, not capable of doing any form of solo content, and lacking in offensive support to their groups.
Clerics need more love in that department. Having 2 abilities that are melee to use, is terribly boring, and 2 more that are only good on undead is limiting. I played a Whitemage in FF14 to level 65 and it bored me to absolute tears. I am sure there are some people that will love the Cleric class as is, but for anyone coming late to the game or doesn't have people to group with will find themselves overwhelmed with the slower pace and lack of sense of worth when soloing anything.
When reading over the Druids abilities, a class I never even considered... I have changed my mind about what I plan to main for launch. The druid is hands down a better choice in almost all realms. Maybe the cleric will be the top healer, but by the Devs admission, all healers will be viable and should be relativly close in healing output. So I can't think fo a single reason i would limit myself to a class incapable of solo play, when I can still have a great time in dungeons and also be able to compitently solo as well.
The only flaw i see with the two healers compared to the Cleric is the inability to rez. I feel like this is probably not a fantastic idea considering any group that does a dungeon has to then commit to helping someone who dies, corpse run back all the way. So most groups will probably not even consider bringing any other healer unless that is addressed.
I really hope cleric gets another pass over and tehy make the cleric more like the wow paladin and less like the FF14 whitemage. <3
Clerics are wearing plate and wield One-Handed Blunt or even a Two-Handed Blunt. I would be playing a cleric if I can use that blunt weapon, preferably a two handed big one. I Don't need to be really good at it. If I wanted to be good at it I'd choose a Paladin. Just as long it means I can be offensive enough with it in a battle.
A front line healer so to say. Let the other healing classes be the healer classes with ranged spells and let the cleric be the healer class that does melee.
Qulash said:Clerics are wearing plate and wield One-Handed Blunt or even a Two-Handed Blunt. I would be playing a cleric if I can use that blunt weapon, preferably a two handed big one. I Don't need to be really good at it. If I wanted to be good at it I'd choose a Paladin. Just as long it means I can be offensive enough with it in a battle.
A front line healer so to say. Let the other healing classes be the healer classes with ranged spells and let the cleric be the healer class that does melee.
yeah right we are healers first not tanks or dps in terms of gameplay just watch the streams and check the whopping meele hits the cleric is so famous for (input some sarcastic number here plz)
hitting a mob for perhaps 100 points and look att the dots from the druid and you will toss your blunt weapon on the garbage pile and if you have a 2 handed blunt plz put on a fools costume while you are att it.
yes this is a grp based game and yes we are there for the healing service nothing else not dps/pet/debuff/cc/tanking and if a grp will take you it is 90% healing and 10% buffs because we cant do anything else period...
sadly we might not be able to solo att all because we cant use kitting/snare mechanics and we hit like a overcooked spagetti (we might be able to do some dps against undead but the lack of kite/snare/pet makes it futile anyway).
And yes the cleric might need a little reworking to get them on par with other healers but perhaps not in solo abilitys or dps but in utility because like statment every healer are equall in terms of healing/rez.
Now i know i will get flamed for this bold statment (like usually) but it would be of interesting to hear construktiv suggestions and not only hate...
Iksar said:The class pages are incomplete glimpses of class abilities, expect plenty more. Don't count on any of the healers being strong/capable/efficient soloers either.
Thats right and a great point many abilitys are not in the light. but we do know the other healers have the means to do it thou and yes even if they are very poorly to solo they can do it.
Aqua said:Qulash said:Clerics are wearing plate and wield One-Handed Blunt or even a Two-Handed Blunt. I would be playing a cleric if I can use that blunt weapon, preferably a two handed big one. I Don't need to be really good at it. If I wanted to be good at it I'd choose a Paladin. Just as long it means I can be offensive enough with it in a battle.
A front line healer so to say. Let the other healing classes be the healer classes with ranged spells and let the cleric be the healer class that does melee.
yeah right we are healers first not tanks or dps in terms of gameplay just watch the streams and check the whopping meele hits the cleric is so famous for (input some sarcastic number here plz)
hitting a mob for perhaps 100 points and look att the dots from the druid and you will toss your blunt weapon on the garbage pile and if you have a 2 handed blunt plz put on a fools costume while you are att it.
yes this is a grp based game and yes we are there for the healing service nothing else not dps/pet/debuff/cc/tanking and if a grp will take you it is 90% healing and 10% buffs because we cant do anything else period...
sadly we might not be able to solo att all because we cant use kitting/snare mechanics and we hit like a overcooked spagetti (we might be able to do some dps against undead but the lack of kite/snare/pet makes it futile anyway).
And yes the cleric might need a little reworking to get them on par with other healers but perhaps not in solo abilitys or dps but in utility because like statment every healer are equall in terms of healing/rez.
Now i know i will get flamed for this bold statment (like usually) but it would be of interesting to hear construktiv suggestions and not only hate...
It's definitely hard to level clerics as a solo player in the majority of MMO's. Typically they resolve this by allowing Clerics to spec to a DPS tree and then respec at max level for a healing spec, if they desire. Tempests are usually very strong DPS in the majority of game I've played. Pantheon will be different, and that's ok. Games, like Everquest II, always had a population through each phase of the game. The desire at that time was not to enjoy max level cap but remained balanced acrossed the player base. I actually see Pantheon being a well balanced game as well. Regardless, it's generally not a good business decision to develop games for an unknown 5-7 years down the road. That's part of the upkeep in the game and directions they choose to make throughout.
At the start of Pantheon I will either play a DPS character or a Cleric. To your point, it depends if I have a consistent group of friends on to play with prior to launch. I'm not capable of grinding through the slowness of Cleric leveling, drives me stir crazy as well.
Aqua said:yeah right we are healers first not tanks or dps in terms of gameplay just watch the streams and check the whopping meele hits the cleric is so famous for (input some sarcastic number here plz)
hitting a mob for perhaps 100 points and look att the dots from the druid and you will toss your blunt weapon on the garbage pile and if you have a 2 handed blunt plz put on a fools costume while you are att it.
yes this is a grp based game and yes we are there for the healing service nothing else not dps/pet/debuff/cc/tanking and if a grp will take you it is 90% healing and 10% buffs because we cant do anything else period...
sadly we might not be able to solo att all because we cant use kitting/snare mechanics and we hit like a overcooked spagetti (we might be able to do some dps against undead but the lack of kite/snare/pet makes it futile anyway).
And yes the cleric might need a little reworking to get them on par with other healers but perhaps not in solo abilitys or dps but in utility because like statment every healer are equall in terms of healing/rez.
Now i know i will get flamed for this bold statment (like usually) but it would be of interesting to hear construktiv suggestions and not only hate...
Why would you get flamed? You seem to have a pretty good grasp on the class. They are a healing/buffing class.
Even if Clerics did get more offensive abilities groups will still expect them to focus on heals/buffs. If a cleric tried to dps I think people would learn not to group with them pretty quickly.
It's one of those things where if clerics werre able to do good dps and be good healers/rez they would be imbalanced so that can't happen.
I hope they don't give us too many more offensive abilities, id rather they make the ones we have effective. We have a limited hot bar, we can only have 12 skills. using 2-4 skill slots on dps means 2-4 less support/healing/cc/buffing abilities. Make my 2 melee attacks strong, yes it may not be the most interesting or exhilarating combat experience, but Id rather have my 2 skills chugging away to kill a mob than a full rotation of 6-8 abilities taking up all my room for other more important role defining skills
Kellie said:I hope they don't give us too many more offensive abilities, id rather they make the ones we have effective. We have a limited hot bar, we can only have 12 skills. using 2-4 skill slots on dps means 2-4 less support/healing/cc/buffing abilities. Make my 2 melee attacks strong, yes it may not be the most interesting or exhilarating combat experience, but Id rather have my 2 skills chugging away to kill a mob than a full rotation of 6-8 abilities taking up all my room for other more important role defining skills
The idea is that if you are to do effective DPS (for a healer) you need to make concessions to do so. Meaning it would be a bad thing to make limited but potent damage abilities thereby allowing cleric/healers to maintain full or near fully optimal healing/support at the same time.
The class roles are determined from start. You can probably focus on pure healing, or shields or melee. But it will never have such an impact that it unbalances you role. Because if such a focus would unbalance the role, it would never be used, and should never be there in the first place.
I remember the cleric in the old EQ day as just healing...sitting...healing..sitting..healing sometimes rooting. And they were very happy when they finally could blast an undead. But you could also do healing...hitting..healing..hitting. And it does not have to be good DPS, probably the lowest of all classes, but it is a lot more fun hitting and positioning then just rotating heals
At the moment the druid and shaman have a lot more offencive abilities than the cleric (see the classes page). So they have already a lot of more options on how to play in a group besides healing. Give the cleric other fun options too! (preferably melee)