Cleric / FavoredSoul

[Duke2100]

I miss cleric and favored soul healing be a necessity to do epic elites and most raids, i truly miss being a dependable healer and sometimes carrying groups that are in trouble, in my opinion other games have these aspects more so than ddo, anyone else feel the same?

[Thalone]

The very first character I ever rolled was a cleric, and I still enjoy playing her. Yes, the game has changed in that a dedicated "healer" is no longer necessary, but I have absolutely no doubt that is actually a good thing. I remember the era of sitting and waiting to form groups, and I have no desire to go back. It's not fun waiting to fill a raid or have it fall apart because a specific role couldn't be filled.

Nowadays, you can carry the group as any class. Bring super high DPS and what's killed can't wipe your party. Bring dependable CC and the group doesn't need a healer. Bring a heavily armoured threat/intim build to sponge up the aggro while the party hits stuff from behind. You can even do all this on divines--I've seen light-nuker divine builds racking up the kills; my own cleric is a DC caster who liberally uses instakills and Command, Soundburst, and Cometfall; and I've seen divines tank stuff.

Having more options (i.e., do not need a dedicated group healer) is good--take the first six people and go. We logged in to run quests, not stand around waiting to fill an LFM.

[axel15810]

I for sure miss it. I've said this before, but healing back when cap was 20 was the most fun I ever had playing DDO. Especially solo healing Shrouds, man that was so much fun. Having the success or failure of the run depend on you, I loved that kind of pressure.

I honestly didn't mind cocoon at all when it was first introduced. I thought it was good for the game. I do play other classes, and I understand how much of a problem it was that groups had to wait for healers. Cocoon was a great solution. It allowed players to quest without having to wait for a healer type, yet it wasn't overly good since healers could provide even better healing and still be a huge help to a party. Healer types were still very desired, but they weren't required. That was a great balance.

The devs should have stopped there.

Now with bladeforged reconstruct and consecration there's too much self-healing in the game. If you want to talk from a pure min/max perspective there's not a lot of reasons to play a divine anymore since arcanes are better offensive spellcasters and melees are better at melee. Divines have seen their niche, healing, proxy nerfed dramatically.

Healing is still needed sometimes but most of the time I'm just a spot healer now. I'll always play a cleric though because I enjoy it more than other classes, even now in its reduced usefulness.

[Braegan]

On the other hand it really does free up that whole big SP bar to do damage and kill stuff, which is more fun to me than watching red bars move up and down.

Don't get me wrong, it was cool and a measure of a good healer to solo heal many a raids, but it's much more fun playing a divine now.

[axel15810]

On the other hand it really does free up that whole big SP bar to do damage and kill stuff, which is more fun to me than watching red bars move up and down.

Don't get me wrong, it was cool and a measure of a good healer to solo heal many a raids, but it's much more fun playing a divine now.

To me the most fun on a divine is having to balance your own DPS and your healing. Having to multitask and balance the two. When cap was 20, wanting to play a divine as only DPS never made sense to me. If a player wants to take on the role of only offensive spellcasting or only melee, why would you not play an arcane or melee class instead? They do that role better than a divine can.

Divines give up DPS in exchange for healing ability. If someone doesn't want to use that healing ability at all, why are they sacrificing their DPS by going divine in the first place?

It looks like the direction we're heading now is divine DPS being boosted up to essentially put them in line with other classes. That's my prediction. If they gave bards top tier melee DPS, they'll probably do the same with warpriests. And I'm sure we'll see a lot of offensive spellcasting ability added to the FVS trees when that pass happens.

I liked it better when the game had clearly defined differences between the classes - some were support, some were tankish, some were DPS, some were buffing. Now it seems we're going in the direction of balancing them by making them all DPS focused classes.

Giving them all the same DPS potential will balance the classes, but to me its a little boring and drains a lot of the variety/diversity out of the game. I think it's making them too similar. All the classes are feeling more and more the same days. I don't get the variety of play experiences I used to.

[Braegan]

To me the most fun on a divine is having to balance your own DPS and your healing. Having to multitask and balance the two. When cap was 20, wanting to play a divine as only DPS never made sense to me. If a player wants to take on the role of only offensive spellcasting or only melee, why would you not play an arcane or melee class instead? They do that role better than a divine can.

Divines give up DPS in exchange for healing ability. If someone doesn't want to use that healing ability at all, why are they sacrificing their DPS by going divine in the first place?

It looks like the direction we're heading now is divine DPS being boosted up to essentially put them in line with other classes. That's my prediction. If they gave bards top tier melee DPS, they'll probably do the same with warpriests. And I'm sure we'll see a lot of offensive spellcasting ability added to the FVS trees when that pass happens.

I liked it better when the game had clearly defined differences between the classes - some were support, some were tankish, some were DPS, some were buffing. Now it seems we're going in the direction of balancing them by making them all DPS focused classes.

Giving them all the same DPS potential will balance the classes, but to me its a little boring and drains a lot of the variety/diversity out of the game. I think it's making them too similar. All the classes are feeling more and more the same days. I don't get the variety of play experiences I used to.

You make great points.

Perhaps, my experiences are just different.

I still find a divine welcomed in groups and mass/spot heals are appreciated. It's just gone from folks having little to no self-healing and being nearly completely dependent on outside healing to most characters able to handle themselves but still benefit/need the occasional heal from outside sources. There are still times where I need to go full on healbot when groups get into tough spots. So I dunno, I think it's still there it's just not as constant which does free up more time to do other things. Another good thing, the whole blame the healer rage (regardless if the healer was even to blame) is mostly a thing of the past.

[SirValentine]

...it's much more fun playing a divine now.


That's how I feel.

And not just directly more fun, but also more fun through less actively-un-fun treatment from certain types of other players. Still a few of those around, but they were far more common in the past.

[SirValentine]

To me the most fun on a divine is having to balance your own DPS and your healing.


I'm glad you have identified how playing your character the way you want is fun for you.



If a player wants to take on the role of only offensive spellcasting or only melee, why would you not play an arcane or melee class instead?


Because we want to have fun playing our character the way we want.

If I wanted to play an arcane, then or now, I'd be playing one. I wasn't and I'm not. (Well, minus some temporary TR stuff.)

[axel15810]

I'm glad you have identified how playing your character the way you want is fun for you.



Because we want to have fun playing our character the way we want. I wasn't and I'm not. (Well, minus some temporary TR stuff.)

If I wanted to play an arcane, then or now, I'd be playing one.


Just to be clear, I'm not telling anyone how to play their character and I am not claiming that my ideas are best and everyone else is wrong. I'm simply expressing my opinion and giving reasons why I feel the way I do. Obviously I'm in the minority here or we wouldn't have seen all the changes to healing we have seen over the past several years.

[firemedium_jt]

Looks like Epic Vale and Epic TOD might be coming this year. New story line with it. Probably change everything. Everyone bank their LR+20?

[goodspeed]

I miss cleric and favored soul healing be a necessity to do epic elites and most raids, i truly miss being a dependable healer and sometimes carrying groups that are in trouble, in my opinion other games have these aspects more so than ddo, anyone else feel the same?

not only that, I did an ehard citw without even a half breed healer splash. No one even died lol. Everyone probably had LD, fotw or draconic going. (Didn't see any heal circles and that's not really a raid ya rely on sp with.)


That's how I feel.

And not just directly more fun, but also more fun through less actively-un-fun treatment from certain types of other players. Still a few of those around, but they were far more common in the past.

ugh thank god they mostly died out from disgrace and extreme hazing lol. Suck on that you barbarian/pure fighter sponges!!! Ya I was one of those healers that liked to randomly decide who died haha.