I'd rather not have a bunch of gimmicks on the cleric. I'd rather have skills to prevent death rather than mitigate the inconveniences of death. I did want Resurrection to clear experience debt though.
I'm hoping phase 2 will give a beautiful cleric which damages and heals. I was drawn to cleric in the first place due to danage/heal focus. I believe the devs moved away from the philosophy though.
All the skills damaged in the a1 build and alot of the skills also healed. Now recently we have segregated heals and damage or a single skill which damages or heals dependant on target.
Its a change I didn't much like. In the process they turned a good class into a bad class.
The devs stated the Bard won't be a buff bot and the cleric won't be a heal bot. However, the cleric was nerfed after a1 and turned into a heal bot and not a very good heal bot at that.
I struggle to summarise the issues because Steven didn't play the cleric very well and the 4 man group had the team dying with the cleric having most of their mana left due to slow or no heals.
I look forward to this month's dungeon livestream.
There are four types of healers: HoT, Burst, Wards/Absorbs and Damage/Heal. Each of these healers have methods of just healing when needed. The difference is the flow of combat.
I'm used to Celestial, Priest of Mitra or Bear Shaman. PoM is a standard healer HoT, Burst and Damage/heal combined. Bear Shaman is HoT and Damage/Heals combined. Celestial is Wards/Absorbs and damage/heal hybrid.
In a pvx game you need damage/heals hybrids. Cleric was a damage/heal hybrid. We don't want to only heal because you can't go melee, can't hold the rear and can't hold your own.
Priest of Mitra and Bear Shaman are from Age of Conan. Celestial is from DC Universe Online.
I've never needed targets because you can fire your abilities off without a target in these games. I've solo healed raids with all three of these classes too.
Could you give me the name of the game you played? I would like to read more about those healers.
The fourth type seems odd. In order to use your heal you have to find a target and engage them. Very impractical in PvP fights where healers are the primary targets. In PvE, it would work fine but it automates your healing & damaging process.
I agree that the Cleric in Ashes might have some difficulty in PvP, but the 'PvP healer' tends to want this. And yes, in PvE it basically automates it, but we'd have to discuss when they want more feedback on Cleric, whether or not this is a problem.
Basically, how many people are in that 'pain spot' between 'I don't want to have PvP healer execution, but I also really want to use Tap-Damage Healing in PvE'? I can only say I've never met anyone like that, but it's not like my group is often looking for/interacting with a different healer.
Well, the reason a PvP healer would want this is because, in all likelihood in open-world PvP, you are going to be the first to be targeted so you end up spamming heals on yourself. So by making attacks heal you, you do what would have been able to do had you been given the freedom to play your role.
However, when you are fighting over objectives it is different because people can't just run to you.
Agreed, but let's consider what 'first to be targeted' means really briefly.
A Cleric should probably be physically close to their tank. I don't know if Line of Sight blocking is still active enough that you couldn't Javelin a Cleric out from behind their Tank. Point is, as soon as the attack starts or even before that, Tank pops some positional defensive ability so the Tank is taking damage and not the Cleric, or the Mage CCs anyone who tried to CC both the Tank and Cleric.
Cleric will definitely 'spam heals' of some kind when jumped in PvP, possibly with strong defensive options, but it could be built so that unlike a Tank, no build of Cleric could sustain those defensive options for long.
You only need to sustain them long enough to make your opponent overcommit and then get cleaned up by your team.
By this reasoning, all Clerics should be fine. What part do you disagree with or not expect to be the case in Ashes?
Empty landscape, few trees, and rocks, a hill, two groups going for a dungeon meet in the open world, a 6v6 ensues.
Why do you think the enemy overcommitting is your win-con? Overcommitting could be a win-con for them. Perhaps, you meant tanking until they get killed?
If they tag you either run in circles or stay and tank or try to do both at the same time. Everything else is out of your control. Whether you win or lose depends on everyone else. If they don't focus on you, it is because your role is weak enough to be ignored or they are bad enough to allow you to heal their damage. This is your gameplay and this is what your gameplay will be. Also, I would like to add that you would probably avoid a lot more damage by interrupting their range casters by going out of range than if you stayed near your tank for some defensive buff. Not to mention that by creating distance between you and them they are more likely to focus on your teammates which is want you and it is what your role is meant for.
Just to be clear, and apologies if this seems like me discrediting you (but it kinda is), what competitive games of this type do you actually even play?
You didn't seem to be familiar with the 'old school' style MMOs, and your answer doesn't sound like one that a person who played modern 'Fantasy Battle Arena' style games would have (basically, you're describing something that is 'a late game teamfight' in such a game, but your perception of how it goes seems very odd).
I promise I'm not trying to make it out that you just don't know what you're talking about, I genuinely want to know so I can watch some videos of a game of that type that you have played, so that I can understand your concern better.
I have avoided spending a lot of hours in PvP in MMOs because it looked silly to me. People are allowed to do things normally they wouldn't if there was more thought put into the game. By all means, if you think people pick healers to sit and tank, I would be the last person to try to argue with you about that.
Ok that makes some sense, but then I have to ask this.
As far as I know, what you described doesn't happen very often in LoL. The design is different enough in ways that would make it not happen. So is it that you are expecting that the underlying requirements/expectations of a partially tab-target MMO would force the issue to be meaningfully different than the LoL outcome, or is it that you actually experience similar things in LoL consistently? (not really asking if you 'heal' in LoL or not, just 'experience similar from any role').
Assume that while I am probably not 'competitive tier' in LoL or MOBAs (I actually don't know, it's complicated) that I can probably understand from that perspective more easily.
In Ashes of Creation objectives are dungeons, raids, world bosses, nodes, and castles. Everything else is open-world PvP where you try to survive.
All of those things are effectively open world, where you try to survive. Even instanced sieges will have a big enough group of players to be considered "open world".
Here's what 1v1 party pvp looks in a tab (click-to-move) mmo. It's mainly a mess of kiting and moving and chasing, with healers either standing in the same place and trying to control the health or kiting at very precise moments to try and move the attacker closer to their defenders (usually tank or a bard in heavy armor).
I am aware that they are open-world but other than the ones I listed there is no objective to play around with. When there is no objective your gameplay changes.
Unless you're just sitting in one place and dicking around, you'll always have some goal. And the chances are, your opponents will have the same goal. And the pvp will come from the limited amount of that goal's content, so only one side can participate. That list just presents the locations where those goals might be situated.
Yes, it does not, because the game is competitive. There are turrets, there are minions waves, there are team objectives, there is scaling, there is snowballing, there is ganking, there is roaming.
In Ashes of Creation objectives are dungeons, raids, world bosses, nodes, and castles. Everything else is open-world PvP where you try to survive.
I'm specifically talking about the rare 'max 5v5 teamfight'.
And I believe (please correct me) that invuls, cleanses, and so on also take priority over raw HP healing mitigation in LoL too.
I feel like I almost understand but I don't want to make too many assumptions at once so just confirm/deny this one for me.
You're used to games where the Healer/Support are one thing conceptually because HP healing is often less important than protection and buffs, and you therefore assume that the Buffer will be more powerful/required than the Healer.
In Ashes of Creation objectives are dungeons, raids, world bosses, nodes, and castles. Everything else is open-world PvP where you try to survive.
All of those things are effectively open world, where you try to survive. Even instanced sieges will have a big enough group of players to be considered "open world".
This is technically far more supportive of Niem's point than anything else.
Okay so, there are a number of things I would like to address Noaani
First - dont change font color for entire posts. The post I am replying to here was all but impossible to read on mobile.
As to your "points", yes, the game called those heals reactive, because the ability itself reacts. It is the player that has to be proactive.
This is as opposed to a regular heal that is proactive (the ability just heals as soon as it lands), but where the player needs to be reactive.
I mean, the description of the ability that you yourself provided should make it fairly obvious that the healer using it needs to be proactive in using it. The heal reacts to incoming damage, meaning the player needs to have it applied before damage is taken.
For your second point, the role of a healer is to keep others alive.
You are complaining about this being one dimensional. When someone shows you a very two dimensional way of playing a healer from another game, you saying "well, that isnt a heal" just makes you look stupid.
I'm specifically talking about the rare 'max 5v5 teamfight'.
And I believe (please correct me) that invuls, cleanses, and so on also take priority over raw HP healing mitigation in LoL too.
I feel like I almost understand but I don't want to make too many assumptions at once so just confirm/deny this one for me.
You're used to games where the Healer/Support are one thing conceptually because HP healing is often less important than protection and buffs, and you therefore assume that the Buffer will be more powerful/required than the Healer.
The game could end before people get to engage in a 5v5 teamfight in LoL but to get to that point many things need to happen and it is not a random occurrence. I treat one game in LoL as a singular PvP encounter. Your fight begins in champion selection.
Cleanses are not necessarily more useful than healing but there aren't many champions who can heal you, to begin with. What isn't more important than invulnerability anyway?
I have played FFXIV. Supports were DPS. I have done 4/5 bosses week 1 in a savage tier and have completed the newest Ultimate - The Omega Protocol within a month since its release.
Thank you for clarity then.
Based on my understanding of what you value, I can only offer/ask this.
From the Mage gameplay you saw that 'stacked debuffs/statuses' are important at least for that class. I believe that if Intrepid were to make a game where Supports could not easily remove these, but Clerics could, and where healing HP was not as important as preventing or removing the debuffs/statuses, then would the 'concern still exist'?
At the risk of being 'cheeky', Death IS just a 'status effect' after all.
I remember you didn't like the cleric back then. Wondered if you have appreciated the change in direction or are still ambivalent about the cleric. Bard is still slated as a non healer so cleric is all we have.
Bard and cleric are completely different beasts. Not clear if Bard will restore mana but Bard won't heal. If anything, Bard should improve cleric heals with buffs...
Comments
I'm hoping phase 2 will give a beautiful cleric which damages and heals. I was drawn to cleric in the first place due to danage/heal focus. I believe the devs moved away from the philosophy though.
Its a change I didn't much like. In the process they turned a good class into a bad class.
I struggle to summarise the issues because Steven didn't play the cleric very well and the 4 man group had the team dying with the cleric having most of their mana left due to slow or no heals.
I look forward to this month's dungeon livestream.
I'm used to Celestial, Priest of Mitra or Bear Shaman. PoM is a standard healer HoT, Burst and Damage/heal combined. Bear Shaman is HoT and Damage/Heals combined. Celestial is Wards/Absorbs and damage/heal hybrid.
In a pvx game you need damage/heals hybrids. Cleric was a damage/heal hybrid. We don't want to only heal because you can't go melee, can't hold the rear and can't hold your own.
I've never needed targets because you can fire your abilities off without a target in these games. I've solo healed raids with all three of these classes too.
I agree that the Cleric in Ashes might have some difficulty in PvP, but the 'PvP healer' tends to want this. And yes, in PvE it basically automates it, but we'd have to discuss when they want more feedback on Cleric, whether or not this is a problem.
Basically, how many people are in that 'pain spot' between 'I don't want to have PvP healer execution, but I also really want to use Tap-Damage Healing in PvE'? I can only say I've never met anyone like that, but it's not like my group is often looking for/interacting with a different healer.
Agreed, but let's consider what 'first to be targeted' means really briefly.
A Cleric should probably be physically close to their tank. I don't know if Line of Sight blocking is still active enough that you couldn't Javelin a Cleric out from behind their Tank. Point is, as soon as the attack starts or even before that, Tank pops some positional defensive ability so the Tank is taking damage and not the Cleric, or the Mage CCs anyone who tried to CC both the Tank and Cleric.
Cleric will definitely 'spam heals' of some kind when jumped in PvP, possibly with strong defensive options, but it could be built so that unlike a Tank, no build of Cleric could sustain those defensive options for long.
You only need to sustain them long enough to make your opponent overcommit and then get cleaned up by your team.
By this reasoning, all Clerics should be fine. What part do you disagree with or not expect to be the case in Ashes?
Just to be clear, and apologies if this seems like me discrediting you (but it kinda is), what competitive games of this type do you actually even play?
You didn't seem to be familiar with the 'old school' style MMOs, and your answer doesn't sound like one that a person who played modern 'Fantasy Battle Arena' style games would have (basically, you're describing something that is 'a late game teamfight' in such a game, but your perception of how it goes seems very odd).
I promise I'm not trying to make it out that you just don't know what you're talking about, I genuinely want to know so I can watch some videos of a game of that type that you have played, so that I can understand your concern better.
Ok that makes some sense, but then I have to ask this.
As far as I know, what you described doesn't happen very often in LoL. The design is different enough in ways that would make it not happen. So is it that you are expecting that the underlying requirements/expectations of a partially tab-target MMO would force the issue to be meaningfully different than the LoL outcome, or is it that you actually experience similar things in LoL consistently? (not really asking if you 'heal' in LoL or not, just 'experience similar from any role').
Assume that while I am probably not 'competitive tier' in LoL or MOBAs (I actually don't know, it's complicated) that I can probably understand from that perspective more easily.
Starts at 0:50
I'm specifically talking about the rare 'max 5v5 teamfight'.
And I believe (please correct me) that invuls, cleanses, and so on also take priority over raw HP healing mitigation in LoL too.
I feel like I almost understand but I don't want to make too many assumptions at once so just confirm/deny this one for me.
You're used to games where the Healer/Support are one thing conceptually because HP healing is often less important than protection and buffs, and you therefore assume that the Buffer will be more powerful/required than the Healer.
This is technically far more supportive of Niem's point than anything else.
I don't remember, have YOU played MOBAs much?
As to your "points", yes, the game called those heals reactive, because the ability itself reacts. It is the player that has to be proactive.
This is as opposed to a regular heal that is proactive (the ability just heals as soon as it lands), but where the player needs to be reactive.
I mean, the description of the ability that you yourself provided should make it fairly obvious that the healer using it needs to be proactive in using it. The heal reacts to incoming damage, meaning the player needs to have it applied before damage is taken.
For your second point, the role of a healer is to keep others alive.
You are complaining about this being one dimensional. When someone shows you a very two dimensional way of playing a healer from another game, you saying "well, that isnt a heal" just makes you look stupid.
Thank you for clarity then.
Based on my understanding of what you value, I can only offer/ask this.
From the Mage gameplay you saw that 'stacked debuffs/statuses' are important at least for that class. I believe that if Intrepid were to make a game where Supports could not easily remove these, but Clerics could, and where healing HP was not as important as preventing or removing the debuffs/statuses, then would the 'concern still exist'?
At the risk of being 'cheeky', Death IS just a 'status effect' after all.
Has your view on cleric changed since 2018/19?
I remember you didn't like the cleric back then. Wondered if you have appreciated the change in direction or are still ambivalent about the cleric. Bard is still slated as a non healer so cleric is all we have.