Cleric - master of life AND death?

Hi guys,

So for those that haven't seen my recent t post about the corruption system, I'm pretty new to AoC and therefore may not be aware of things that are common knowledge for more experienced people.

So I've seen a lot around clerics and their healing prowess, but so far theres nothing I've seen that says about their death magic. Does anyone know what is planned around this as I'm really interested the dark templar style rather than the holy healbot that's been constantly advertised for the archetype.

Cheers,

--Loki--

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Damokles

LowQuey wrote: »

@Damokles this is entire possible. I hope it's not the case but it might be. It would make the summoner primary with cleric secondary a bit weird though as you get zombies, skeletons and other undead with it...

You get the power of life obviously as a necromancer. You give skeletons and abominations enough life to serve a new purpose. Namely, to die once more, but this time in your name.

Lyiat

LowQuey wrote: »

@Lyiat indeed I may be wrong. I just see the various archetypes having bits and peices of their primary abilities in the secondary augments. Take a mage for example: Mages are all about the elements and teleportation. As a secondary archetype they allow you to augment these into your primary archetype abilities. So if you do the reverse with the cleric where the augments are for life and death, then surely both should be offered in the primary archetype?

Because the 'theme' of a Cleric in an MMO has steadily moved away from being a divine caster centered around their deity and moved on to 'this is the healer, he does healy healy things'. And the game is going to reflect that - the primary thing clerics are going to be doing is going to be healing. You'll be able to offset this a bit with the archtype system, but the purpose of a cleric in this game is to heal people, so it's not going to let you go pure DPS, or even mostly DPS, because that doesn't fit the class role.

You're more likely going to get the theme you want out of being a Mage/Rogue (Shadow Caster) while worshiping a dark god of the pantheon, if the game allows, letting you augment the elemental abilities of the Mage into shadow and darkness spells instead.

Eburin

@LowQuey I agree, there are several standard fantasy archetypes that aren't directly represented in AoC (dark magic/warlocks, nature magic/druids, etc.). I think Intrepid originally wanted to have more classes but they decided to trim down the list so that they could make sure each archetype felt unique and powerful. Depending on how significant the aesthetic/mechanical changes that augments provide are it's possible that mage/cleric or mage/summoner might be able to fulfill the dark magic user fantasy.

As for death augments, clerics will have damage-dealing abilities and those abilities will most likely be thematically related to the life and death augments but ultimately clerics are not a dps archetype so their death magic damage abilities will not have as much dps as a fighter or mage will have. If you decide to go mage/cleric and augment your damage skills with death augments my understanding is that those augments will change the theme/mechanics of those abilities, not the fundamental purpose of them. Similarly, if you go cleric/cleric and heavily invest in death augments my understanding is that you will absolutely do more damage than a cleric who invested more into life augments but you are never going to do as much damage as a dps archetype and your primary role will still be healing.

Hurf Derfman

LowQuey wrote: »

EvelynChills wrote: »

@LowQuey if you are hoping for something like a WoW shadow priest where your primary archetype is cleric but you are focused primarily on damage then I don't think that will be possible. Steven has been very clear so far that your role is determined by your primary archetype and that clerics are healers. It might be possible to change the aesthetics of a class with different secondary archetypes but that is purely speculation and you would still be a healer.

Actually I was hoping dor something more like a Rift Cleric or a Death Knight from WoW.

Steven actually described Clerics as:

In such a dangerous world, a cleric is never wanting for friends. They can protect their allies in a number of ways and when necessary, SNUFF THE LIFE OUT OF OTHERS. Masters over the very essence of life, they can sense the broken and corrupted.

You'll also note when looking at cleric augments the player chooses between life or death augments indicating there is death magic available through the class. Even a summon turns necromancer when combined with cleric reinforcing this.

Summoner/ceric is a Necromancer.

Tank/cleric is a Paladin.

I see no reason why you wouldn't be able to build a Death Paladin OR a Life Paladin.

Cheers,

--Tyr--

ZeekMystic

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...

LowQuey

@EvelynChills yeah I noticed straight away that druids were missing lol.

The idea of playing a dark death magic cleric is not to be the highest dps character ever. Clerics in general by definition are not primarily there for doing the highest dps anymore than fighters are. The high fps classes have always been mages, rogues, rangers etc but they pay for this by being far less tanky.

What I'm hoping to see is a kind of death magic fight hybrid style character that wields his great big weapon to crack heads while cursing, fearing and draining the life from his foes. That's my view of a Dark Templar 👹

LowQuey

@KeybladerH yeah I saw that too which is what I saw it as the "Holy" side of the cleric (remember cleric will still need to farm so even as healer they'll need some damaging stuff xD)

I'm just hoping for some stuff around the "Unholy" side now xD

BiggsUltra

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.

Hurf Derfman

BiggsUltra wrote: »

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.

Agreed.

Where as something akin to a Shadow Priest would be a mage sub cleric with death augments.

Kneczhevo

I always read Life and Death as; Holy and Shadow (ala WoW). Both heal, one heals better. Just depends how you Spec/Aug.

LowQuey

Kneczhevo wrote: »

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.

LowQuey

Damokles wrote: »

I imagine the Cleric in Ashes like a Disciplin priest in WoW.
Dealing damage, while also healing.

I imagine that as the high priest

LowQuey

BiggsUltra wrote: »

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?

LowQuey

KeybladerH wrote: »

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.

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