Cleric Alpha 2 Update looks very promising
Voirak
Member
So I just watched the July 28, 2023 Cleric Update and it looks great.
I love that intrepid is going for the classic concept of a healer instead of what was once proposed as an "active role", where heals are generated mostly by attacks - I remember it being refered to as "vampire"-like here.
It's awesome seeing a great number of various and essentially different heals on the hotkey bars and it appears to me that the mechanics were heavily influenced by some passionate MMORPG main healer players, which is great.
However is still have a few worries and things missing that I would like to see in the game.
My worries:
1) It might be a little tedious to have a chargable skill as the bread&butter spam heal. (Deliverance)
I'm not really sure about it, maybe it is actually the perfect skill for that, since it gives you some flexibility. You dont have to charge till the end and still heal your target, whereas with default heals you either cancel the heal or wait for it to finish casting before you can go to the next heal.
Maybe there is also a setting such that you dont need to keep the button pressed for a particular chargable skill but instead release the spell by pressing the button again if you want to cast it prematurely.
Testing will show I guess.
2) A few skills seem like they could be combined into a single skill.
some are still pure heals i think. Maybe turn them into an attack or CC when cast on an enemy and replace one of the non-heal skills that way?
(Although I think the team did a good job on keeping redundancy in the set of skills very low.)
What's missing
1) protection spells
(reducing the total incoming damage by X%)
Although it was mentioned that depending on the secondary class "shielding" might be an option.
2) Cleanse
(both of CC and DoTs)
There are many ways to implement that.
3) Party member link spell
some link with 1 or 2 (or 3, depending on 2ndary class/specialization ) party members that would give them some benefit (many options: increased heal, cool down reduction, shared mana regeneration, reduced damage, increased stats....)
4) Debuffs
I didnt see any debuffs (reduced cast/attack speed, action speed, accuracy, lower crit chance, defense debuffs...)
However i understand if that is intended primarily for other classes and would interfere with the designated roles in a party.
In that case I could easily do without debuffs.
It would be cool if some debuffs could be used as buffs instead. Example: a debuff that decreases accuracy on an enemy can be used on an ally instead and gives that ally more evasion.
5) HoT or buff that grants increased healing from all sources
6) Threat controll
maybe some spell that would reduce the threat level on an ally or set it to 0. Could be deadly when used on the tank.
Would be a nice addition and a less conventional way to save party members.
7) Totems
I think there is a great number of possibilities that totems would provide (proximity heals, buffs, threat control, off-tanking)
What I would like to see more of
1) I feel like there a too few party heals.
I can think of quite many substantially diffenrent AoE heals but I think the people at Intrepid Studios can easily come up with those themselves
2) CC
Not much CC, but maybe it is intended to stay this way so that other classes fill out that role.
what would be really nice to have
I would really like to see the possibility of having multiple (or at least 2) clerics synergize well in a party. Maybe have one be the classic healer targeting players whereas the other targets the enemies and heals that way or prevents damage or heps players to heal themselves by attacking same enemies.
Maybe HoTs could be stackable when the sources are different clerics. And perhaps there could be a build that enables on cleric to empower the heals of another cleric greatly. Or some combinations of 2 cleric builds that synergize within a full party.
It would be good to know what is planned for the other classes, both to get a feeling which kinds of roles are supposed to be exclusively designated to those classes and also to get an understanding of what one could expect from the 2ndary specialization.
okay, I'm getting to an end
Overall I have a very good feeling after watching that clip and I think AoC is on the right track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzlhdy3Hr2s
I love that intrepid is going for the classic concept of a healer instead of what was once proposed as an "active role", where heals are generated mostly by attacks - I remember it being refered to as "vampire"-like here.
It's awesome seeing a great number of various and essentially different heals on the hotkey bars and it appears to me that the mechanics were heavily influenced by some passionate MMORPG main healer players, which is great.
However is still have a few worries and things missing that I would like to see in the game.
My worries:
1) It might be a little tedious to have a chargable skill as the bread&butter spam heal. (Deliverance)
I'm not really sure about it, maybe it is actually the perfect skill for that, since it gives you some flexibility. You dont have to charge till the end and still heal your target, whereas with default heals you either cancel the heal or wait for it to finish casting before you can go to the next heal.
Maybe there is also a setting such that you dont need to keep the button pressed for a particular chargable skill but instead release the spell by pressing the button again if you want to cast it prematurely.
Testing will show I guess.
2) A few skills seem like they could be combined into a single skill.
some are still pure heals i think. Maybe turn them into an attack or CC when cast on an enemy and replace one of the non-heal skills that way?
(Although I think the team did a good job on keeping redundancy in the set of skills very low.)
What's missing
1) protection spells
(reducing the total incoming damage by X%)
Although it was mentioned that depending on the secondary class "shielding" might be an option.
2) Cleanse
(both of CC and DoTs)
There are many ways to implement that.
- as a temporary buff making the target immune to CC for a X seconds when hit by a (hard) CC effect
- ground effect aoe cleanse
- just a simple single target cleanse followed by CC immunity for X seconds
- aoe party cleanse
- ...
3) Party member link spell
some link with 1 or 2 (or 3, depending on 2ndary class/specialization ) party members that would give them some benefit (many options: increased heal, cool down reduction, shared mana regeneration, reduced damage, increased stats....)
4) Debuffs
I didnt see any debuffs (reduced cast/attack speed, action speed, accuracy, lower crit chance, defense debuffs...)
However i understand if that is intended primarily for other classes and would interfere with the designated roles in a party.
In that case I could easily do without debuffs.
It would be cool if some debuffs could be used as buffs instead. Example: a debuff that decreases accuracy on an enemy can be used on an ally instead and gives that ally more evasion.
5) HoT or buff that grants increased healing from all sources
6) Threat controll
maybe some spell that would reduce the threat level on an ally or set it to 0. Could be deadly when used on the tank.
Would be a nice addition and a less conventional way to save party members.
7) Totems
I think there is a great number of possibilities that totems would provide (proximity heals, buffs, threat control, off-tanking)
What I would like to see more of
1) I feel like there a too few party heals.
I can think of quite many substantially diffenrent AoE heals but I think the people at Intrepid Studios can easily come up with those themselves
2) CC
Not much CC, but maybe it is intended to stay this way so that other classes fill out that role.
what would be really nice to have
I would really like to see the possibility of having multiple (or at least 2) clerics synergize well in a party. Maybe have one be the classic healer targeting players whereas the other targets the enemies and heals that way or prevents damage or heps players to heal themselves by attacking same enemies.
Maybe HoTs could be stackable when the sources are different clerics. And perhaps there could be a build that enables on cleric to empower the heals of another cleric greatly. Or some combinations of 2 cleric builds that synergize within a full party.
It would be good to know what is planned for the other classes, both to get a feeling which kinds of roles are supposed to be exclusively designated to those classes and also to get an understanding of what one could expect from the 2ndary specialization.
okay, I'm getting to an end
Overall I have a very good feeling after watching that clip and I think AoC is on the right track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzlhdy3Hr2s6
Comments
I would prefer the set of PvE and PvP abilities to be the same, although I wouldn't mind much if some work differently depending on wether they are used against Players or NPCs. (There was some suggestion in other threads for a taunt skill to work differently in PvP).
Ideally the abilities should be the same for PvE and PvP in my opinion.
I like Wings of Salvation too. More interesting than just a buff that grants instant cast for the next skill.
I like Defiant Light - the HoT that prevents death - even better. I was hoping for such a skill to exists for the cleric.
By the way, I didn't suggest to turn Deliverance or any other skill into an auto-cast. Just 1-click-to-fully-charge, so that you would still need to freequently use it manually.
Might have been unclear the way I stated it.