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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Depraved

lanakias wrote: »

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%

dps classes are boring except for dagger/rogues

when my party couldn't log in cuz of the connection issues, I solo aoe farmed with my cleric. i destroyed those mobs (higher level than me at first). i got a couple more levels and I can easily aoe anywhere between 5-10 mobs in under a minute. yes mages kill faster but I have infinite health and infinite mana, I just need a better melee weapon, maybe something with bleed. i have 0 downtime, other classes have to sit down after a few pulls. can also beat anyone in 1v1, even a higher level since I can survive their combo with that one skill 9defying something, forgot the name

).

the only downside is I have to play piano on my keyboard basically (which is fun for me, more fun than being a dps and just doing 12345), and if I make a mistake, I die. its easier not to die in a party (and faster exp too if you go to the super secret exp places). i was getting a level in under 2 hours after level 10, which seems decent, considering 7-8 and 9-10 was about 2 hours each for me in a party, and about the same soloing on Thursday during the spot test.)

Podgnil

Aiyara 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

Don’t forget that there are no double classes in the game yet, most likely subclasses such as rogue, mage, fighter will give the cleric options for dealing damage, not as strong as those of the DD class, but still, in a combination with good survivability, I think it will be quite strong look like in pvp. And classes like cleric-cleric or cleric-bard, I think, should still be aimed at maximum benefit for the group. Why, in a game with 64 classes, take a full healer, give him an additional healer profession and complain that you don’t do damage? )

Slipree

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.

Does that game even have pvp? How could it be a gold standard?

Slipree

I am over here just wondering why someone would want to play a cleric, if they plan to solo. There’s much better options. Unless of course you treat games like a second life where you can larp as your character or something.

SirChancelot

Slipree wrote: »

I am over here just wondering why someone would want to play a cleric, if they plan to solo. There’s much better options. Unless of course you treat games like a second life where you can larp as your character or something.

Because that's what you want to do in group content and play with friends, but sometimes you want to log in and play when they can't...

Depraved

Slipree wrote: »

I am over here just wondering why someone would want to play a cleric, if they plan to solo. There’s much better options. Unless of course you treat games like a second life where you can larp as your character or something.

that depends on the game. in solo mmorpg dps classes can solo better than support classes, for sure. but in group oriented games you can often see supports soloing better than dps, since the dps will need buffs or gear. hell, you can even see supports power leveling the dps in some cases xD

of course, a dps with buffs/gear will do better than the solo support

volsh

As more content is released and dps players seek to push the boundaries with upgraded gear/weapons in order to beat that elite boss etc I can see clerics having to reduce any dps output and concentrate on pure healing output, in other words choosing the role of a High Priest and making sure healing is sufficient to combat the incoming damage thus (hopefully) securing a win on whatever boss/encounter they are engaged in

SmileGurney

Aiyara wrote: »

Should Cleric be a viable solo class ?

In my opinion all classes should be viable for solo levelling. Are you going to be as a efficient as a 8 man group? No, but your character should never be a one dimensional tool (heal bot, buff bot, damage sponge) unable to having fun without a solid group.

Grouping should be encouraged, but should not prevent you from having fun when solo, even if you should not be able to clear group content alone. There is plenty of space for MMO aspects in crafting, trade, node systems and actual group content.

It's a tricky thing to balance, but make the game too group focused when it comes to basic stuff like character levelling and it will become really vulnerable to player population fluctuations. Make it too solo focused and you end up with a solo game pretending to be a MMO.

I would go further and say that Intrepid should ensure that all archetypes should support ability to spec your class differently to provide multitude of playstyles per class. No class should be one dimensional.

The last thing I would like to see is being unable to spec a tank, dps, healing or support class away from their core role. If you want to be a more damage oriented tank, or more tanky fighter, or a melee duellist style bard, 2 handed hammer wielding melee cleric able to put out respectable damage, then the game should ALLOW for that depth of class customisation, as long as you have to sacrifice one aspect of your class to flesh out other.

RedLeader1

Not sure what it is people want to do solo except gathering. There is the treasure map stuff but I haven't seen that. I haven't seen enough of the content and how it is located I guess, but I suspect you are going to need a group for any end-game stuff anyway. I don't think it is worth making the game more complicated just for levelling.

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