Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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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
Yea I definitely agree the whip needs to be faster and I also feel like the visual of a whip doesn't really fit the theme of a Cleric to me? I'm not sure what I'd replace it with but it feels a bit odd to pull out a giant golden whip LOL.
TL/DR a magical spear is indeed fitting for a cleric, as it oftentimes seen as Divine
I'm talking about Clerics in RPGs, MMO's, and D&D based genres and games in general. The Cleric archetype always looks like that. We're not talking about Priests in real life, here.
Did I miss something because you are both talking as if Judgement had a hammer involved. All I saw was a lame particle steam hit the target and explode.
I would prefer if it was a phantom hammer that materialized over the target and slammed into them from above. That would feel much more impactful imho.
The skill icon is a hammer.
I do have an issue with the passive healing. I don't want a whole party to be kept alive by passive aoe healing. But I do like the buffing and debuffing effects of some of these spells. The hammer and spear attack look awesome and I look forward to seeing the cleaned up versions.
Also I'm not a big fan of the floating while casting. When I'm casting spells I want my feet firmly planted on the ground while I'm handling all that spell power.
There's nothing wrong with mixing some passive with some active healing. I just don't want the passive healing to be as strong as the active healing.
I was imagining a system where the cleric, dressed in mail gear, is in the combat throwing spears, hammers, and whips, and then jumps out to throw a chain heal then jumps back in. Jumping out of the combat to throw a heal or 2 is the essential part here.
Yeah, I always threw down the passive HoTs and then started getting stuck in. Re-apply when they run out, direct heal the lower health, and then stuck in again. I really enjoyed raid healing.
Something I loved back in the earlier WoW expansions such as WotLK, Diciplin Priests weren't damage healers like they are now. They were insted mostly built to mitigate damage with shields. So instead of reacting to damage taken, you had to be proactive and see the damage coming before it happened.
I do realize that this might be more of a feature for a secondary archetype which would slink right down my alley if that's the case.
I played Disc in both BC and WotLK. If done right mitigating damage the way they did then is a fun and different play style. The current version is a shadow of it's former self. Hopefully with the augments this kind of play style will be there and viable.
Looks like the resurrection spell takes between 3-4 seconds to cast.
- I would like to know the dev's point of view/reasoning behind the length of the cast time. Traditionally rez takes a significant amount of time (in some cases 10+ seconds) as well as only being castable, in some cases, out of combat. Will rez be castable in combat? Will a non-pvp flagged character be flagged for pvp if they rez someone that has died during a pvp battle? Will said cleric gain corruption if the target they rezzed was corrupted, or simply be flagged for pvp?
Personally, i don't mind the golden or yellow "lightning" effect on the chain heal. My only concern is the ability to differentiate that spell between others that may have similar color and or appearance.
Some of the spell names are quite cookie cutter, but realistically how many options do you really have while allowing users to draw a conclusion on what the spell may do without reading the description? Personally i'm not terribly worried about the spell names.
I am very interested in the mechanic of providing regeneration through damage, and healing/damage in an area. The balance of these mechanics will likely play a huge role in whether or not the cleric will be the best in slot as a main healer.
Final note, i can't wait to play this game. I doubt there is anything you could do to it at this point that would change my mind.
But there seems to be an overabundance of skills with a very long cast time, which is troubling for PvP.
In most games, "hard CC" is overpowered, so it makes sense that those skills have a higher cost to them, but interestingly, Judgement has, besides direct damage, a knockdown and a debuff AND is insta cast.
Conversely, you want heals to respond immediately (also in dungeons), and here we have single target Devotion that has a cast time (and also seems to be a hot), while Benediction is insta cast and is a group heal.
Usually, damage over time skills are instant cast, but here, Hallowed Ground has a cast time.
And when I look at the elaborate floating animation for it, I expect it to do cc to be honest.
For everyone's convenience, including my own because these skills are all new to me of course, here's a list:
The following skills (with timestamp) have animations that take over a second to finish before they "fire", and their effects.
Castigation (0:30) - damage, health regen, mana regen
Hallowed Ground (0:40) - aoe dot, aoe hot
Divine Censure (0:47) - damage, heal over time, knockdown,
Devotion (1:12) - heal
Skills with short cast time or insta cast
Benediction (0:37) - group heal
Damnation (1:03) - damage over time, attack debuff
Judgement (1:26) - damage, armour debuff, knockdown
In most games, the TTK is also between 5 and 10 seconds, which requires much faster reactions from the side of Healers in order to keep someone up @""Pvp player"
The delays might be totally fine here.
I agree that the castimes are too long. However keep in mind that these are maybe only that long due to being skills of level 1-10. Because afaik skills change with augmentation and level increase cast times might change also.
As for hard cc: I dont mind hard cc with low cast time as long as just as you say there is some cost to it. It might be fine to just make it action combat. Then you can still avoid it by movment like jumping, direction change etc. Since aocs combat is supposed to be combo based it is probably possible to predict important skills to a certain extent if you are knowledgeable enough. Avoiding insta cast knockdowns being really powerful attacks would become super rewarding and fun.
Edit: also I am not sure if judgment acutally is a knockdown. The text explaining the skill does not state it and the target is dieing not getting knocked at least that what it looks like to me. The same for the devine censure i think the target is dead since it also gets resurected. In these previews targets often get oneshot by one skill. Idk why devs do that. Maybe to demonstrate the damage component? Since you dont see numbers.
@Pvp player
I agree also hard CCs are not nessicarily overpowered. There are plenty of MMOs out there that balance the mechanics of CCs quite effectively. There is very much a risk vs reward when it comes to these abilities, healing shouldn't be an exception. Considering that we already know that certain classes get access to temporary CC immunity, I am sure that there will be an effective counter play to CCs. However they could also be how you defeat a cleric. This game will feature a rock/paper/scissor kind of balance and this could be what balances that particular class.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
Exorcism has a different connotation to what I see in this spell.
Agreed. I feel a new name is called for, but I think it should be scrapped or reworked. This one comes off as more of a Dark Cleric attack. 'Ripping spirit' seems pretty un-priestly.
A divine spear or Judgment hammer is more fitting retribution/punishment.
Healers heal. That is the class focus: supporting your team with life juice.
Its like saying Tanks should have passive aggro management.
If you don't like healing, I think this class is not for you.
I had a Holy priest in WoW and a Resto druid. I played a healer because I enjoyed it! I liked those nail biter moments when you had to find the most efficient way to save your team.
A DPS going down because he wasn't listening.. the tank took a big hit, and a mage caught an add... what to do.
HoT and bubble the mage, give the tank a long cast heal, rez the dps(or not, you've already had to rez him twice).
If Priests can't be Healers...well, lets not go there. They better be Healers.
I will Third this.
Working directly and actively to keep your team alive is the hallmark of a healer.
@Warth
My general point was more that we currently have skills that do everything and have no cast time, and we have skills that do less but do have a cast time. There doesn't seem to be a connection between what they do and how long it takes for them to do it.
And "overpowered" might not be right term but in many MMOs they are "gamechangers" that can turn the tide of battle.
@Keern
All the other skills just have the target flinching. But you might still be correct of course, we'll see.
Gear here will be agnostic as well. You can wear whatever armor you want. So the Idea of what cleric armor looks like is totally personal perception.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
You want for others to decide how to heal? No, thanks. If i want to heal through damage, then thats my decision. If you dont like how the cleric works at the moment, then this class is not for YOU. No one said that the clerics main job should not be healing. If that is what you understood, then thats your decision to think like that. Dont try to tell me what i mean.
But if you dont understand this simple words what was meant with passive healing:
1. No one said that you should stand around like a tree and heal everyone just through beeing there.
2. Noone said you shouldnt have direct heals.
3. Noone wants to steal your direct heals from you or something like that.
4. With passive was meant that there are some heals that work different to direct heals. Spells which deal damage and then the game decides for you who gets the heal. Its just another game mechanic and it looks like it will be tested and maybe integrated in the final game. You dont like it? Well...then dont use these spells. You still dont like it? Well....maybe the cleric is realy not for you.
5. Again, you dont decide for me how or what i play, so dont try to tell me which class is for me and which is not. If i have fun to play a more offensive cleric, then thats what will happen.
Id really hope there will be hybrid classes like an offensive cleric viable in the game. The classic me healer me heal approach the other guy described seems less fun.