I always read Life and Death as; Holy and Shadow (ala WoW). Both heal, one heals better. Just depends how you Spec/Aug.
This could be the idea behind the shadow caster class, but personally I'd think of it more like the Death Knights style of spells from a WoW perspective. For those that played Rift, the cleric in that had a great balance between Life and Death Magic. But the best place to look at Cleric Life and Death maic will always be - imo - dungeons and dragons. Negative and positive energy types defined the class and allowed either a bruisery fighting, an evil necromancer, a healing priest or even a justicar of holy faith. I'm hoping of all places the look towards this as the basis for clerics.
I truly hope that choosing death magic augments for a Paladin actually creates something more like a Death Knight. Damage mitigation through life-steal and/or mana drain, etc.
I saw that as more a Templar due to the likelihood of a paladin using a shield. I imagine the tank class would have a lot of block inherent abilities. Maybe an Apostle could fit in with that though; your spells and abilities giving you defensive stats and aggro effects while your cleric magic gives you the lifesteal etc?
I mean they showed off a cleric attacking with a spear of light, a whip of light and their healing ground AOE is also a dot. So far you get as many damage spells a the healers in ff14 and that’s not even their full toolkit yet so...
I think its more about the nature of the spells themselves. Those all reek of holy power, while the death magic would be more like a pestilence DoT that weakens your enemies through slows or resistance shred, a fear to CC them, a way to siphon the life of enemies you damage with your death abilities to heal yourself (and maybe even nearby allies). These things are more inherent of a Death Cleric. Death clerics are never meant to be the top damage dealer (unless you go high priest I suppose) but they bring a lot more utility alongside their damage to a group.
Think of it in WoW terms as the difference between going a frost mage or a fire mage (might be out of date with this but this was the way things were for ages in WoW). Fire was all about min maxing your damage. This was great in PvE but sucked in PvP. Frost on the other hand were useful in both. It excelled in controlling multiple enemies in both PvE and PvP while at the same time doing good damage. It was the "tankier" option, provided good utility, but sacrificed some damage to achieve this.
Comments
This could be the idea behind the shadow caster class, but personally I'd think of it more like the Death Knights style of spells from a WoW perspective. For those that played Rift, the cleric in that had a great balance between Life and Death Magic. But the best place to look at Cleric Life and Death maic will always be - imo - dungeons and dragons. Negative and positive energy types defined the class and allowed either a bruisery fighting, an evil necromancer, a healing priest or even a justicar of holy faith. I'm hoping of all places the look towards this as the basis for clerics.
I imagine that as the high priest
I saw that as more a Templar due to the likelihood of a paladin using a shield. I imagine the tank class would have a lot of block inherent abilities. Maybe an Apostle could fit in with that though; your spells and abilities giving you defensive stats and aggro effects while your cleric magic gives you the lifesteal etc?
I think its more about the nature of the spells themselves. Those all reek of holy power, while the death magic would be more like a pestilence DoT that weakens your enemies through slows or resistance shred, a fear to CC them, a way to siphon the life of enemies you damage with your death abilities to heal yourself (and maybe even nearby allies). These things are more inherent of a Death Cleric. Death clerics are never meant to be the top damage dealer (unless you go high priest I suppose) but they bring a lot more utility alongside their damage to a group.
Think of it in WoW terms as the difference between going a frost mage or a fire mage (might be out of date with this but this was the way things were for ages in WoW). Fire was all about min maxing your damage. This was great in PvE but sucked in PvP. Frost on the other hand were useful in both. It excelled in controlling multiple enemies in both PvE and PvP while at the same time doing good damage. It was the "tankier" option, provided good utility, but sacrificed some damage to achieve this.