Should Cleric be a viable solo class ?

I am opening a discussion today on the cleric and how solo friendly it is.

My main points of discussion are :

1- We know cleric is the main healer in AoC and that's his identity, however is it the only way to play the class ? Will it require a party to function and is pretty 1 dimentional-useless when played solo with only an 8s CD smite, high CD Condemn, and weapon autoattacks for damage ?

2- Following the previous reasoning, do you personally believe a cleric should stay solely in its 'healing' archetype as their only gameplay mechanic or would you rather clerics be / have the option to be active contributors to fights (PVP and PVE encounters) in more engaging ways with damage too, or CC etc.. ?

3- Can/should a cleric do solo pvp ? defend himself when jumped while gathering - running caravan - farming etc.. ? or are they doomed as the dps classes slaughter them as they 'are tuned to function in a party and not supposed to run solo' ?

So far in livestreams in parties, we see clerics mainly heal the tank / party members, and then wait for them to get hurt to heal again, and I'm wondering if that is what they're designed to do in parties so far in the game state

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Vhalken

I will mold the cleric into a viable crusading paladin and slam dunk on people.

Or riot.

nanfoodle

Cleric DPS build should be as viable as any DPS buiod from any class. Of course it should have its own flavor. This has been Steven's promise. That every build should be viable. With duel spec being part of Ashes. This will just make more people playing a healer.

I'm playing a Bard in Tarisland. It's a fun game to kill time. I'm questing and playing duo or killing world bosses. I running around playing a really fun DPS spec. I want to run dungeons or raids. I swap to heals and have a blast doing that.

I hope Clerics, Bards get much the same treatment. Fully functional DPS spec and a fully functional support spec.

Saabynator

I think every class should be able to solo, to some extent. But it should not be really great at it. You can do small tasks, sidequests and so on. If you go to gather wood, you can effectively defend yourself vs mobs your own level.

Noaani

nanfoodle wrote: »

Cleric DPS build should be as viable as any DPS buiod from any class.

Only if a healing mage build is as viable as a cleric.

It would be wrong to have one and not the other.

Saabynator

Noaani wrote: »

nanfoodle wrote: »

Cleric DPS build should be as viable as any DPS buiod from any class.

Only if a healing mage build is as viable as a cleric.

It would be wrong to have one and not the other.

Viable does not necessarily means speed or attack power. Maybe a cleric is viable to solo in the sense, that they can heal their way out of trouble. Where a mage is viable in the way, that they kill fast.

Dimitraeos

Chicago wrote: »

Halae wrote: »

My opinion is that Final Fantasy 14 has actually set a gold standard for what healers and tanks should be, in that they should be capable of contributing in other ways than exclusively playing whack-a-mole with the team's health bars, as they're capable of dishing out damage and aren't necessarily required to exclusively be a healing pylon. But that's just my opinion.

What we actually have from Steven's statements isn't too far from that concept, though. He's stated that Clerics in Ashes will be capable of dealing damage just fine, and even specifically speccing for damage if that's the cleric player's jam. The reason they aren't being used as such in the livestreams is that, generally speaking, they're using the clerics in those streams as support to keep the actual showcase players alive, such as Steven himself.

As with most healers in this sort of situation, they're the rock paper scissors answer to tanks and other "damage over time" setups. Tanks can't be killed by DPS before the tank nibbles them to death, DPS can rapid-kill healers, and tanks deal damage too slowly for healers to die to them. At least, that's the way it often pans out; we'll have to see how Ashes shapes up in that regard.

I don't think tanks shouldn't be able to be killed by dps, I do agree tanks need a viable role in PvP, but being immune to dps is a bit insane, not to mention, how much self healing does a tank have? Any ranged dps should be able to kill them relatively easily

Tanks so far have an extremely important role on pvp compared to many other MMOs that we have seen.

So far they dampen damage in an area around them and on selected allies, redirect damage from allies to themselves, can physically block incoming projectiles and taunt enemy players to reduce the damage they deal to anyone but the tank. As well as having a number of control and pull abilities in pvp.

I'd say tanks are in a great spot to be a crucial component of any fighting force. I'd go as far as saying, without a good line of tanks in your group/raid, your team risks being rolled through like paper.

They should be able to tank at least 1-2 full dps.

Depraved

Aika wrote: »

I am opening a discussion today on the cleric and how solo friendly it is.

My main points of discussion are :

1- We know cleric is the main healer in AoC and that's his identity, however is it the only way to play the class ? Will it require a party to function and is pretty 1 dimentional-useless when played solo with only an 8s CD smite, high CD Condemn, and weapon autoattacks for damage ?

2- Following the previous reasoning, do you personally believe a cleric should stay solely in its 'healing' archetype as their only gameplay mechanic or would you rather clerics be / have the option to be active contributors to fights (PVP and PVE encounters) in more engaging ways with damage too, or CC etc.. ?

3- Can/should a cleric do solo pvp ? defend himself when jumped while gathering - running caravan - farming etc.. ? or are they doomed as the dps classes slaughter them as they 'are tuned to function in a party and not supposed to run solo' ?

So far in livestreams in parties, we see clerics mainly heal the tank / party members, and then wait for them to get hurt to heal again, and I'm wondering if that is what they're designed to do in parties so far in the game state

seeing how aoc will revolve around tilting the scale in favor of a different playstyle by using your 2ndary archetype and augments, I think dps or solo options will be available for the cleric (and should be). they wont be as strong as a dps clss tho.

they will most likely still be able to win in any 1v1. for party play, I want my clerics to heal, not to dps or do other stuff. those are way below 2ndary things to do for a healer. tanks tank, healers heal and dps do damage.

Effah

its real complicated when you looking for a healer and that person is actually an hybrid with half the expected healing.

rollox

I like my Clerics to surprise their opponents with a massive debilitating bash of their mace across you face.

Night Wings

Every class "should" be able to do solo content some just might be better or faster and with subclasses clerics can choose into subclass that helps with soloing.

Night Wings

rollox wrote: »

I like my Clerics to surprise their opponents with a massive debilitating bash of their mace across you face.

I just imagine you hiding in a bush and jumping out with robes and a mace lmao

rollox

Night Wings wrote: »

rollox wrote: »

I like my Clerics to surprise their opponents with a massive debilitating bash of their mace across you face.

I just imagine you hiding in a bush and jumping out with robes and a mace lmao

Who's to say I haven't turned in my robes for a leather codpiece and chain shirt

Kilion

No class is explicitely meant as a solo class and a cleric is no excepction to this. From what we have seen so far, I'd say a Cleric soloing could just pick up a fat weapon, skill fully into damage, throw in some of their CC and tank the damage through sustain. Its probably similar for Tank classes and Bards.

abc0815

If i am expected to solo farm and a class can't do it then i won't bother with it. Been there done this and no thanks. But support / heals being the butt of the joke is nothing new.

Effah

healing is just way too hard to balance already. just give them CCs debuffs to fill the down time before the storm.

willsummon

All archetypes should be able to solo level or they will not make to max level, where they will be needed for raiding and PVP.

Vysione

Clerics and Tanks should both have dps specs with their skill tree/augments/secondaries that basically completely remove their healing/tank status respectively, and turn them into dps.

Very few people play the two roles in general - the archaic decision to disallow them from having dps specs would be insanely detrimental to most players in the healer/tank roles and also to the wider playerbase as a whole, due to the increased quit rate / decreased pick rate of those two classes.

Almost nobody advocates for being able to do two things at once to a full degree in the same spec, but you should absolutely have specifically full blown dps specs that replace basically all of your healing/tank abilities.

Hybrid specs should also be a thing, but they're a bit harder to tune and definitely shouldn't be full throttle in either direction - however, hybrids in and of themselves are incredibly insufficient (they're a fun niche option), you need an option for actual full on sacrifice of healing/tanking for actual dps. It's just too important in regards to maintaining a population of players willing to invest thousands of hours into a class.

(It's also important for theme based reasons, it's unreasonable and uncreative to think that there's no significant truly offensive branch to things like holy and shadow/unholy/ect magic.).

Azherae

Having seen the Bard showcase now, I think we can stop 'worrying' about this, in either direction, ya?

Ashes definitely isn't as strict about class identity as some people have believed, and it doesn't shy away from some fairly meaningful healing being available. It's all about synergy and relationships between players, but that also means we'll probably find a way to solo on anything.

It might be 'boring' for some to solo on Cleric or Bard in the way that would be most successful, but 'heavy hitting spellbook kiting' for the 'Arcane' classes seems like it isn't likely to be unviable, at this point, especially since Cleric CC is among the better control type.

Maybe if mobs also get the CC diminishing return bonus it might be rough, but with the projected short TTK for mobs in solo, there's no way this is still a 'concern', to me.

Vysione

To be clear, part of it is also having viable dps specific-specs for pvp. Basic attacks from a weapon in and of themselves do not produce a viable dps spec.

Sometimes you want to be a shadow priest

lanakias

I had the same question like OP. I saw some streams in alpha 2 (very few show us cleric) and from what I seen was cleric can farm better solo in low lvls against other classes. Mobs hit hard and you need life which only cleric and bard have. But also seemed a bit boring. To see cleric to hit auto attacks mostly when other classes have more skills to do.

In later lvl it will be hard for cleric to farm while auto attacks and the 2 spell you have will be not enough to kill a monster in AOC. I saw mages, archers to use 8 spells to kill a mob at 10 lvl?

For pvp, I do not believe the place of cleric will be to do dps and kill enemies. The role is to keep alive your team. That is the real role of every healer in traditional mmorpg.

I played healer in every mmorg because all did dps and someone need to fill that role but also because I like it. But in general dps have more fun in mmos. Pvp satisfaction and pve as well if you have supports behind you. Still healer have fun and cleric seems very decent in all aspects but you need to have a real group to enjoy the class at 100%

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