The Gift of Life - Cleric Alpha One Preview

💖 Can you master the balance between life and death? ☠

Meet the Cleric and learn more about the power they wield from level 1-10 in our Alpha One preview: https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2020-11-02-the-gift-of-life-cleric-alpha-one-preview

https://youtu.be/7AHwGp-t27M

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ireri wrote: »

For a low level healer, it seemed a little damage heavy honestly. If the point is to have folks group up, then healers should have difficulty soloing just like DPS classes and tanks. Healers will be desired in groups, but healers also need incentive to join groups. Don't let healers be able to solo easily if you want to focus on group content.

When it comes to abilities, if the healer has time to do damage in addition to healing then there aren't enough mobs in camp. If a full group should have a tank, add tank, support, healer and DPS, then have the healer focus on healing. There are literally at least 6 other folks doing damage in a full group. Let a support class be the one to combine DPS and off-heal. Make the healer class meaningful and necessary so folks don't zerg through everything with DPS only.

I agree with the statements about resource management. Please, please let there be thought involved in the class and not spam healing. There is nothing more boring as a healer than spamming heals with no thought given to resources. Make the players weigh their choices; the quicker the cast the higher the resource usage.
* Is there time for the slower, more powerful heal on the tank at the rate they are losing health?
* Is the tank good enough to keep all adds off the DPS so they don't squish while you cast a slower heal?
* Will the squishy DPS last long enough for a moderate heal or should we burn massive resources for a quick heal?
* How many folks are taking damage simultaneously? Is now the time for an AoE heal?
* Will you lose someone in the time it takes to cast the AoE heal?
* Is the tank high enough on health to survive any burst damage so we can top off the squishies?
* Is the add tank good enough at picking up strays that the DPS can survive being at less than full health?

Adding DPS abilities at higher levels when there is specialization makes more sense than at the lower levels. This the the healing class, not a DPS class. Let folks specialize later if their play is more focused on damage with some healing thrown in. There is one Primary healing class as opposed to 6 other Primary classes that do DPS; have healers focus on healing.

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.

Sathrago

Sathrago wrote: »

Just to dip some context into the conversation, last night steven replied on discord that the inspiration for the spear ability draws from the pathfinder cleric, so if you guys wanna go check that out and look for more similarities go for it.

Clerics in dnd and pathfinder are generally melee oriented casters with life saving tools that require foresight and planning to keep other players alive without wasting your spell slots. From the currently teased abilities I could guess that most of your healing will be passively done via hots or attacking enemies rather than a wow cleric that sits in the back and spams heals 24/7.

Just adding onto my own post real quick.

If you cant read it open in another tab.

MargaretKrohn

Thanks for the kind words and also the feedback!

We appreciate it folks.

Tyranthraxus

Thank you for the insight into another class-archetype!

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.

Tacualeon

Benediction maybe could have a watery-flowy animation instead of lightning.

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?

Amma

Well, like Steven said in that picture above, this is only a little part of the skills the cleric will have, so i dont think that you wont have enough direct healing spells later on in the game.

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.

Vashramire

Some people seem to think they seem damage heavy but we don't know the actual damage numbers and scaling. The only attack they have that only does damage is exorcism while the rest either also heal or debuff. There are comparable skills in other games that the damage is just a nice bonus but not important. At low levels like the preview shows it helps to add diversity to questing rotations with these kind of skills and that's without even going into how they change with ranking them up.

daveywavey

If a Healer can add anything to the Group DPS while still healing, it can only be a good thing. The quicker those Raid Bosses go down, the less healing you need to do.

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!

Nagash

Tacualeon wrote: »

Benediction maybe could have a watery-flowy animation instead of lightning.

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?

yeah its nice to see padded armour for a change

Sathrago

daveywavey wrote: »

If a Healer can add anything to the Group DPS while still healing, it can only be a good thing. The quicker those Raid Bosses go down, the less healing you need to do.

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!

Check out high level white images in ff14 those suckers can pump that aoe damage when they want to.

Damokles

The funny thing is, that all those skills are available at lvl 10 and we get even more. Some classes in WoW have less skills in their whole rotation xD

Auriel

My concerns are listed below:-
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.

Leiloni

Amma wrote: »

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.

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.

Damokles

Leiloni wrote: »

Amma wrote: »

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.

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.

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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".

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Atama

I really liked the cleric preview. I liked the golden effects; they evoke the idea of divine power, and I like the consistency from one ability to another. I'd like it if each archetype had some kind of identity for their abilities so that you see an ability and know "that's a cleric thing" or "that's a bard thing". It also will be handy when you add a second archetype and start to augment your abilities, so that the appearance can change to be more like the secondary class. The cleric/rogue for example might look darker or have shadow effects.

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.

daveywavey

Atama wrote: »

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.

In ESO, I used to like throwing a divine spear to knock enemies off castle towers, sending them to their deaths below. Hilarious!

LieutenantToast

Thanks all for sharing your thoughts and feedback so far based on what you're watching!

excited to see what additional details you share once you all get your hands on these skills directly

Winnugami wrote: »

I want to point out that they did say it was just the 1-10 abilities. It is not like these are the ONLY abilities the clerics get. To that point, they seem like solid foundational abilities that cover most of the basics. I didnt see a heal over time but maybe I missed it.

If you level up some of these particular skills, they gain additional perks - such as Devotion gaining a small heal over time!

Amma

Leiloni wrote: »

Real healers don't want nor need passive healing. ........ We don't need passive healing nor do we need healing addons.

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.

akabear

With the taste we just got, I like the direction.

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!

maouw

Overall, I feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of spells available at level 10.
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?

Castigation (the shiny whip) - can this be a skill we can press 3 times? So we can lash left, right, and then a slightly stronger final hit? (and the whip can burst away in the final hit). Windup is a bit too long on this skill, spreading out the damage so that more of the total damage is in the third final hit gives players something to counterplay with other than windup animations.
Benediction (chain heal) - looks too much like an electrical attack at the moment - can I suggest much softer curved lines and more blurred? With heals specifically, can we turn off gravity on the particles and instead make them rise? I think the character pose goes really well with this electric style spell - but perhaps would work better on an electric mage. The idea of a chain heal is good though!
Hallowed Ground (AoE heal+damage) - the edges of the AoE effect need visual clarity. I like how it pulses! This is a spell that I feel doesn't belong in the beginner category.
Divine Censure (holy spear) - love the idea behind this spell! Can we visually emphasize the debuff aspect of it? Less focus on the spear, more on who has been debuffed, so harder visual cues on the debuff (maybe a beam of light from heaven)? I'd even argue the spear looks a bit too solid - but I think that's just my taste. Hurling a spear is something I don't really associate with clerical disciplines - and I think interferes with the separation of weapon skills vs spells.
Resurrection - looking really good, can't wait to see the polished version I do think resurrection should not be a beginner spell though - it's like the ultimate form of healing.
Damnation (debuff DoT) - it almost looks like a buff right now, can you reduce opacity of the sweeping particles on the way up, and make them more solid on the way down?
Devotion (twinkle star heal) - description is "swift action", but it isn't swift. Especially when chain heal is much more instant.
Exorcism - the floating in the air animation here is over the top. Exorcism has a different connotation to what I see in this spell. Can I suggest the name "Soul String"? DoT effect also isn't obvious in the visual effect of the spell, too many sparkles around the caster for this spell.
Judgement (hammer throw) - this spell is too similar to divine censure, and a bit generic. I would reserve the name "Judgement" for a more impactful spell. Again, physically throwing a hammer just doesn't sit right with me for the clerical offices unless it's a weapon skill (with a cleric augment?).

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.

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