Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Completely agree with this, this is the real focus of the healing classes, if the person wants to do some different role it's okay to give them the tools to do that role, but it seems that the skills on early levels are focusing more in the "alternative healer" than in the "real healer" and that might greatly affect game mechanics and how the game is played at a group level or even more in competitive level, do the devs really want healers to be another DPS class that will be good for nothing at the end, this is really bad if so.
This is confusing as Steven always talks about how Lineage 2, Aion and Archeage have influenced on him and these healer base skill are absolutely not what you see on those games,
I have the feeling that they are trying to look apealing for those player that look for uncommon or not viable builds more than pure healers, and once again, this worries me as it might completely render the groups synergy (tanks, healers, supports, dps) useless on game meta
Also, some of these skills could have been introduced as defensive or survivability skills, I am more open to believe that the Castigation and Divine censure are a type of skill you use in a very certain defensive situation rather than an offensive skill.... Now, going a bit into the animation, even tho the spear and the whip are cool looking, the whole idea of it being an early attack for healers to be able to exp/level on their own, kinda makes me sick already, i dont wanna be looking at all that spam of that spear and whip all over the places, in all honestly, it's just plain bad, imagine 30-40 people in starting area, just whiping again and again, its terrifying.
As for the skill that do so many things at the same time, it also worries me, these skills tend to be rendered useless for the end game content as they are really weak at either attacking or healing, honestly, unless they can be augmented really good and change with other things, I see those like filler skills.
Just adding onto my own post real quick.
If you cant read it open in another tab.
We appreciate it folks.
Yours truly is excited to learn more about the Religious nodes and what they'll feature. Am hoping for a Bless/Blight type of city-ability that would allow Mayors of Religious cities to control the weather over other nodes; Extra resources from Freeholds in 'blessed' areas, and a resource penalty on enemy nodes' Freeholds. A good incentive to make war on Religious nodes, as well!
Another awesome video.
I like the Divine Censure animation a lot, not quite fond of the name.
The white clothes with golden motives are beautiful. Thanks for keeping character models with slenders body shapes.
I know everyone already watched the video but can we focus for a second on the details and how awesome that set looked?
Second point is that you have to think of the starting situation of a level 1 Character. You wont get into a dungeon or raid with level 1 so it makes sense that you need some ablities to make damage at the beginning. I even think that it will be easier for clerics in the beginning to level, because the other archetypes have to watch out for their life while the cleric will heal himself all the time. So he or she can move faster to the next enemy.
Third point is that if this is the system later on in the game too then it would make sense because like IS said it multiple times, they balance the game mostly for bigger battles and events and not for 1v1, so if we think of a castle siege where you have 30-50 people in front of the castle, then passive healing is the most effective to heal as fast as possible the lowest life bars and not search on your monitor who is low and who not, because remember we wont have addons which could help us with that. So maybe these are some of the reasons for these "beginner" spells.
They could have easily just taken the damage part out and left the skill there, but the damage has been included to make the Healer more effective. I like it!
yeah its nice to see padded armour for a change
Check out high level white images in ff14 those suckers can pump that aoe damage when they want to.
1. The special effects scale are too exaggerating (except Judgement and Benediction), yet since this is the Alpha, most probably they will be tuned down in the actual release.
2. The special effects are too singular in colour and style, hopefully the augments will have some effects on them.
3. The judgement 's flying hammer is below expectations, suggest to change into bigger hammer but omit the hammer flight trail effect. Completely horizontal hammer will make it look more powerful instead of slanting/leaning hammer in the video.
4. During resurrection, the concept of target push-up and rise from dead is good, but the animation is too 'robotic', adding some struggle or dazed animation while rising would be spectacular.
5. In Devotion cast animation, which castor cast the spell upwards, then the target received the healing spell from heaven after ~1 second delay, is too exaggerating. Hopefully it can be change into much simple effects and instant heal.
6. Since this video is shot from a third person view, I wonder how the AOE ground targeting looks like from both castor's and the target's views. It will be exciting if the target able see the AOE which casted to the ground where he/she before the spell delay elapsed, then it will be up to his/her responsiveness to evade.
Appart from what mentioned above, Intrepid is doing a great job on the animation. Love the Castigation, Hallowed Ground and Benediction animations and Sfx.
It looks like Intrepid is giving us the cleric classes that very different from other MMORPGs who heal and support at the back of the party, this AOC's cleric skills set giving an impression of templar or Inquisitor who able to do some decent damage and hold the frontline together with the Tank.
Arguing for passive healing to make it easier and insinuating that addons are necessary is just sad. Real healers don't want nor need passive healing. It's not skillful, nor is it fun when the game plays itself for me and just magically heals everyone. And no, addons are not necessary for mass raid healing. Understanding how to read and use your UI effectively in a raid setting is an important skill for any healer. A big part of what makes healing fun is having to decide who to heal when, what abilities to use, being able to pay attention to the battlefield and your UI, quick reactions, etc. and we've done all of that in other games. We don't need passive healing nor do we need healing addons. I understand that these are low level abilities, but I certainly hope they don't represent what it will play like at later levels.
He.... didnt argue FOR addons though? HE said that because we wont have them, that such aoe healing spells are rather helpfull for inexperienced healers, which is true.
It is also not "passive" healing, you still need to watch out to keep up the cooldown, juggle it with other spell cds, keep up other buffs/debuffs. Nothing in the skillset would make you think that the "game is playing for you".
I like the spear attack. I've seen divine spears formed from holy power used in other games for cleric types and it seems fitting here. It fits the metaphor of a spear striking into the heart of evil. That along with the hammer attack are really fitting to me.
Steven said in the October livestream that most powers haven't even gone through a 2nd pass to tweak their appearances. and overall they are larger and brighter than they will be later. They don't prioritize these tweaks because they are easy to adjust and they're trying to fix the hard things first (like character animations, which you have to admit have gone from embarrassingly bad in earlier footage to acceptable in the latest videos). Things are not going to be this flashy on release.
In ESO, I used to like throwing a divine spear to knock enemies off castle towers, sending them to their deaths below. Hilarious!
If you level up some of these particular skills, they gain additional perks - such as Devotion gaining a small heal over time!
Well... i am sorry that i am not part of the "real" healers and that you "real" healers dont need passive healing. As an amateur healer who wants to have simply fun at playing a game, i think it would be nice to have passive healing, because this is simply what made fun for me as an disci priest in wow.
With what looked like a rag doll effect, I also wonder if disabled and/or dead bodies can be further moved around with any successive attacks?
Quite enjoyed in Skyrim further blasting dead bodies further away.. In L2 sometimes enjoyed rubbing in a loss to someone in pvp, by jumping up and down on their bodies, sitting on them, dancing on them and sometimes dropping pieces of wood to make a "camp fire" on them. Friendly banter. .And I remember in reverse being riled when someone did it back! I would love to be able to blast a body away a few extra times!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the caster visual effects - but like others have said, I still want to cast while moving or interrupt spell casting if needed.
Some of them look like they could be advanced spells?
I would love to see a few more spells to do with cleansing, and it would be cool if the higher level spells have more of a "channeling power from a diving being" aspect - meaning: rather than throwing hammers at people yourself, a hammer wielded by unseen (or seen?) hands appears, strikes and disappears.
I assume they're going for the "judge's gavel" kind of feel.
Right!
But physically hurling a hammer head over hilt like a tomahawk doesn't have the gavel spirit.
I guess there's no clean way to slam a gavel without making the gavel an enormous size.
Hahahahaha, that'd deter a lot of criminals, I'm sure!
I wouldn't consider Disc a passive healer. They definitely directly heal and require a lot of skill, they just do it mostly via placing a buff on their targets and then using damage to heal. With Disc you're still very much actively choosing targets, strategically choosing which skills to use and when. And the fact that that damage to heal buff is a short term, single target buff only adds to the skill and decision making required. It's definitely in the category of traditional active healer. Nobody just passively gets healed from a Disc Priest in WoW - you only get healed after the Priest has gone through a lot of effort and a lot of button presses to get there.
Castigation - You're making it sound like you want to turn it into a basic attack chain but we already have those. It seems to me the main point of this is the HP/MP regeneration. Even more so if Cleric is a mana heavy class, or if we have mana heavy teammates, then we'd want to keep this buff up all the time, so it would be more of a one and done spell to get the buff going and then off to another skill.
But my major concern with this is as much as I love the idea of MP regen, shouldn't MP regen be a buff we give to the Bard class?
Hallowed Ground - what about this makes you feel it's not beginner? To me the idea of a massive AoE that both damage and heals is the most easy button beginner spell there is? No need to target or worry about aiming because it's a big AoE, you can damage and heal at the same time so an easy introduction into the idea of the class without having to choose to do one or the other, damage at lower levels when you're mostly soloing will be nice as well (and multi target even!) and it would also be some self healing while killing mobs which could be great, and I'm assuming it'll have to be balanced to do lower damage and lower healing than skills that only do one of those things, but since it's low level that'll be fine since nothing is super powerful at low levels anyway. What am I missing here? I mean I don't like the idea of the skill in general as I've said before, but it most definitely feels beginner to me. Just plop it down and win.
I agree it needs visual clarity in the effect visuals - the previous big glowing rune on the ground that we saw for this skill in previous livestreams was much better.
Divine Censure - I agree a spear isn't something I really associate with Cleric disciplines so it feels really off to throw a spear.
Devotion - definitely agree here. There's nothing swift about the character's arms going up twice in the air for however long before the heal starts flying, and then I also get quite nervous at the idea of the heal falling down onto the character's head because I see a bit of a delay there which makes me wonder if the heal itself will be delayed. I just imagine myself trying to use this to save someone and the cast delay and animation delay will mean the person dies and I watch the animation drop down onto their dead body.
Also just logically speaking, why would a Cleric throw a heal into the air so it can arc upwards instead of just shooting the heal directly at their target? It doesn't make any sense and it's so inefficient it just looks dumb. Personally I'd love aside from making it faster, making the animation have more weight behind it. If this is a quick, fast, direct heal I want it to have impact both visually and with sound effects, to really feel like I'm hitting them hard with some life saving holy action. Like damn it you're not dying - boom.
Exorcism - Exorcism's animation is definitely way over the top. I'd get rid of the floaty bit and try to speed up the animation as well. Also not sure it really feels like I'm exorcising a demon out of anyone. Should be more forceful. I mean if I'm "ripping the target's spirit" it should look rather painful, should it? We're Clerics here, hardened holy warriors, not dainty fairy Priests.
Judgement - I'd like to actually see a hammer here. I don't see any hammer just a bolt of light? A hammer is the most Cleric thing you could have considering Clerics are traditionally healers wearing chain armor and a 2H Warhammer or a 1H Mace Hammer and a Shield. So I'd love if maybe this skill were the Cleric throwing a 1H Mace Hammer at the target visually, or maybe more like throwing it down on the ground instead of outwards.
If castigatoin has all the particles to express the aoe regen portion of the spell, I think it might be kind of neat for the animation to spin the whip over the casters head, emitting the 'regen bits' outward, and then perhaps with the actual strike maybe have whip intensify and smack down with a more aggressive glow.
I think benediction looks great!
Hallowed ground I am a bit confused over. Is it a AOE centered on the caster or on a target? The animation seems over the top unless its a longer cooldown, but while floating up into the air it seems to be drawing in energy ... but when the caster comes down it seems to create a sigil in the ground in front of him, yet there are particles going crazy and radiating out from a source between the three targets? Regardless of the kind of AOE it is, I feel like that sigil should probably be the epicenter of the spell effect, as just pulsing out more ember looking particles seems like it might get hard/confusing to read in combat.
Divine Censure has a great animation! The effects of the spear kind of materializing in the casters hand sort of throws me off a bit, however. I personally feel like it would be more thematic if it like grew from end to end with some flash of light or something. The current effect is just something I can't quite put my finger on. It feels more like a technological effect than a magical one ... if that makes sense? As an addition, I think it would be super super cool if the spear (or a faded ghostly version) just stays impaled in the target while the 'heal on attack' debuff is active.
Resurrection looks great, but I feel like animation of the caster and the target should sync up a bit more. In the video, it seems like the target is just kinda doing a standard 'get up' animation. With the great animation on the casting I feel like when the cleric is pulling its hands up, it should be literally pulling the person to their feet.
The target effects of Damnation look amazing, but it looks like that swirling energy might continue to pulse with every tick of the dot? That might be a little too much to have circling about throughout combat.
Exorcism seems like it might be a cooldown? If its not ... that animation might want to be toned down a bit.
Judgement seems a bit buggy? It looks like to me the hammer only comes out on the first cast in the video? if you can throw a spear, why not a hammer? That being said, the trailing particle effects seem to look weird for how the hammer spins in the air or something? It looks like it leaves a 'Z' in the air behind it? I feel like a different particle effect might be better for a trail behind that one?
Overall looks quite great for an alpha! Really excited to see more!
Given that Mages also have a MP regen skill (Gift Of The Magi), we may see it in more than one playstyle.
I dunno, I've seen plenty of images/statues of angels with spears, and the ESO "cleric" (Templar) class had a Spear skill.
What churches have you been to...?!
The DnD Churches of FU*K OFF MY LAWN!
DnD Clerics are one of the most powerfull melee classes funnily enough with a two handed hammer and on hit damage spells.
I felt the whip should last longer? But that's mainly because it took so long to summon. I can see how it would work as a one-off skill too. Still needs to be faster.
I'd like to give the bard plenty of utility too, clerics already do a lot on their own - I guess the whip is a plan B?
As for the AoE spell, I'm looking at it from a magic mastery progression point of view (not user mechanics). To my mind it makes more sense that you start off learning shorter, brief spells that are simple before you master the longer lasting, AoE spells as you progress in levels. I don't think this should be a spell someone who has just started learning magic should know yet.
What you're saying about throwing heals at the sky made me laugh. We mostly agree.
@Crosim
I'm pretty sure the particles are very rough at the moment, and Steven said they intend to scale down a lot of the vfx.
I 100% agree that the spear is too non-magical. I really like your idea about the spear lingering inside the target for the duration of the debuff. It can spawn little heal animations when people attack the speared target.