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Clerics as Healers
Squeezy
Member
Hey guys, I've been keeping track of game updates for the last couple of months and I'm really excited to get into the world of Verra. However I'm curious about the repeated statement in all of the content I've watched from affiliate creators like Paradox Gaming Network and Steven himself about the trinity system and how every primary archetype fits in.
Tanks - Tank
DPS - Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Mage
Healers - Cleric
Support - Bard
Undetermined - Summoner
To my understanding secondary archetypes won't necessarily change the base classes, but augment them, so I want to ask: Why is there only one classified healer class? Why are Bards classified as a support class and how do they fit into the trinity system? Will Bards not be able to heal the party sufficiently and if not, then why?
Also please refer to the classic D&D picture above. Clerics are absolute chads in high fantasy not just for heals but their ability for soaking damage AND dealing out magic damage. So my question is, will the secondary archetype like Fighter or Tank combined with Cleric make enough augments, combined with gear and weapon skill trees in order to be able to play a tank or a dps as a Cleric primary archetype?
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As I understand it it is healer/support in the trinity so bard fits as healer (trinity speaking). Bard is way more buff oriented and less heal while cleric is way more heal and less buff. Furthermore bard is said to be very "proximity based" with his skill with auras and stuff (unlike cleric, which is not saying that clerics wont have AoE heals. hard to explain).
Finally from what I can hear you usually do not need many tanks or healer. You do NEED them just not many. As such it make sense for most archetypes to fit DPS role.
From what the devs are saying the game is being balanced for a group of 8 or multiples of that (16 or 40 raids). It is also the design goal for the game to be balanced in such a way where the ideal team of 8 players is one where all 8 archetypes are there.
The second archetype will augment your base skills, yes, but from my understanding that can still change your playstyle a lot.
We will have to see how much it differs though.
As for Bard, support doesn't mean healing. You might have some small healing, and if you go bard + cleric, you get some more healing, but from my understanding you're never gonna be that healer role unless you go Cleric as main archetype.
Support includes a ton of different things that Bard could potentially give to your group to help them out.
From what I could understand from the video they've released, if you have played or know the game Overwatch, clerics will work very specific healing like Mercy and the bard with proximity based buffs and auras like Lucio.
I would actually go further to say Clerics are more like Ana while Bards are Lucio, since Clerics heal better single target at longer distances (while also having the damaging/death part of their life/death split thing going on) whereas bards do aura based stuff
This sort of question was posed to the Devs and their reply was along the lines that a Tank/Tank is going to be the clear cut best option for your group's main tank role. The pure tank combo will give them the most taunts, and tank effectiveness in general. Their intent is for a hybrid like Tank/Cleric or Cleric/Tank to still be a good tank if you're hunting average mobs but their weakness as a main tank becomes somewhat apparent against a boss. The more extreme example was also thrown out there of a Mage/Tank, and their response to that was that he definitely won't be a strong tank other than in a rare situation where a particular boss does damage not through physical but maybe something like purely ice spells and perhaps that mage has 90% ice resistance, then for that particular mob, during a particular stage in the raid fight, it might be good for that mage/tank to tank it and then later switch the aggro back over to the Tank/Tank.
Ultimately like with all forums discussions, we just have to wait and see in alpha/beta. The best thing is when we at least know the dev's intent, because even if in alpha we see Clerics are actually the best main tank, we can at least know that wasn't their intent and can expect balancing to occur.
Tanks: Tank and Fighter
Physical DPS: Rogue and Ranger
Magical DPS: Mage and Summoner
Support: Bard and Cleric
Dont forget that certain abilities and effects will be main class locked:
Direct healing = Cleric
Stealth = Rogue
Traps = Ranger
Strong Buffs = Bard
Bards offer buffs/debuffs primarily along with supportive (i.e. low) proximity HoT healing and some damage as well. Their main role is support which differs from healing. Clerics are the healers of the game - single target, group/AoE, cleanse, direct heal and HoT heal, etc. They have all the types of heals and the best heals. They can also do damage (every class can do enough damage to solo) and they wear chain armor, so they will be your more traditional D&D Cleric, but they're still the main healer in the game.
Summoner is jack of all trades. Depending on their summons and what skills they put on their bars and spec into, they are the class that's intended to fill the holes in your party. Whatever is needed - more dps, more off-healing, more off-tanking - they can help with. But because of their versatility, they can't do anything as well as a pure class.
The skill system so far is that you can put more skill points into the same skill to unlock more functions / better stats. But you only have limited skill points.
fighter is not a tank.
Fighter is Melee DPS.
Its was already stated i believe, that the only Tanks are the Tank/Class Classes.
A fighter/Tank would still not be able to be the main tank in a dungen run. Maybe an off tank for a very limited time.
A Fighter /Tank is just a Tanky DPS same as Ranger/Tank or Rogue/Tank.
Same with Healers.
Sure you could have everyone spec Class/ Cleric but people would still wipe without a dedicated Cleric/class.
Bards will not be able to substitute Clerics not even Bard/Cleric.
The second Classes are just flavors. So instat of 64 Classes with got 8 classes with 8 flavors each.
It doesnt change your class but rather in what direction you are leaning.
Intrepid balances the content around the 8 man group with 1 of each Base Archetype.
So
1 Tank/Class (dedicated Tank)
1 Cleric/Class (dedicated Healer)
1 Summoner/Class (jack of all trades but master of none)
1 Bard/Class (Buff and Aoe Heal support)
+ 4 DPS so
1 Fighter / Class
1 Rogue / Class
1 Ranger / Class
1 Mage / Class
Every Archetype will get an ultility skill. The Rogues was allready pointed out so the rest should get something that makes the setup above something you want to archive.
I fully accept that the secondary class/mix will have a fotm cycle. But at least I wont have to reroll or create multiple healers just to perform the same function.
Also, Clerics are healers and Tanks are tanks. I'm sure both will have some DPS options but people who plan to roll a Cleric to dps or a Tank to dps are making a mistake from the outset, imo.
Not sure about the Tank as DPS but Cleric can actucally be a decent DPS as People have said Cleric = Master of Life and Death.
Thats why Summoner / Cleric is the Necromancer and as stupid as that sounds the necromancer is most like the one with the pets that can heal. Would make sense class wise.
I really cant wait until Alpha 1 too see at least 5 of the Archetypes in Action.
Also its dangerous to go alone. Take this:
https://www.ashes101.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbUBV64rrQSIFjorua7sMsg
Jahlon from the Paradox Gamin network does a shit ton of Q&As on AoC.
You got Question? He got Answers.
Clerics will have DPS I think and can spec into it, but with the limited amount of skill points you'll be sacrificing healing to do it, and won't be as good as a class intended to be pure DPS. You might find a place in a guild as a more DPS focused healer I suppose, but there would be tradeoffs for that. There would likely be scenarios where your lack of healing would be an issue. I vaguely remember some Clerics in Aion doing that.
Will they deal more dmg then normal? Yes. Will they do as much damage as a rogue, ranger or mage? No.
A class will never be able to change its true purpose with augments.
Their abilities wont change after all.
@Leiloni What you remember where Chanters, they were a subclassof the healer precursor class. But those were more like Bards then clerics. They had auras and buffs with debuff attacks. (My favourite class ever, and my goal to emulate in ashes)
What Steven meant with "Clerics have damage" was that you wont HAVE to group with other to quest like you had to do in WoW Classic for example. They can handle enemies, but not as well as true dps classes.
No way, I mained both Cleric and Chanter and Cleric had an entire stigma line devoted to DPS. It was mostly ranged magic damage with lightning attacks and a DoT, etc. There were DPS focused Clerics on my server who would go with that and they'd just have two gear sets - chain with mace/shield for grouping, and staff/cloth for a heavier magic dps focus. They could do an insane amount of damage while still having respectable healing for a group. Of course they couldn't compare to a heal-focused Cleric, but that was a gameplay choice.
Clerics and Chanters both had two stigma lines, one for group support and one for DPS. Yes some Chanters also went the DPS stigma line as well, but so did some Clerics.
im not talking about the cleric augument to do dmg.
There is a reason why the necromancer is Summoner/ Cleric.
Clerics can be speced into dmg. But doing that means you most likely suck at healing.
Will clerics do the same or more dps as other dps classes? God i hope not.
But they wont be far of. not if you put all your skill points into dmg abilitys.
Then again you might just as well play a mage an be a real DPS
Oh yes I agree. I said the same thing earlier. I was just responding to Damokles.
We're talking about the skill point system. Each skill has about 3 tiers of extra additional affects and part of your build is choosing which of these skills to spec deeper into. So a Cleric could choose to spec deeper into the skills they have that do damage, but they'd then be stuck with a bunch of tier 1 healing skills which would put them at a disadvantage to other healers. So sure they'd still be expected to main heal in a group, but they'd do a poorer job of healing because they were more heavily specced into damage.
I normally play healers in MMOs, but I am a huge fan of pets. If this game lets me be a healer that has a pet that can also heal I will be very happy.
The question: "Can summoners pet heal" was asked Jahlon in his Q&A.
He said that the only summoner class combination he could think of that would have heal was the Necromancer.
But as is said its all pure speculation until the Alpha 2 or maybe even Beta 1.
The summoner as i understood so far will not be playable in Alpha 1.
The class will most likely be playeble late during the whole testing phases to give them time to make the class right rather then copy paste of other MMOs.
I would guess that the enchanter would also be able to heal, maybe not in a huge OP type of way but some.
Why do you want to tank or dps as a cleric primary archetype? I think this would be redundant with a tank or dps primary archetype with a cleric secondary. As Steven said in one of the interviews, the secondary archetype moves the needle a little from the primary class role, but it doesn't move it entirely to overlap with another primary archetype.
Now let it sink in: You are part Cleric.
Thats because you need to know your enemy to kill your enemy