A calm discussion regarding Divines

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Originally Posted by DeafeningWhisper

Wild guess here, you have no active divines, never healed a raid but feel entitled to tell us how we should play?

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My cleric was TR'd right before the update. My last raid was a Shroud with a spellsinger bard. I had 1800 or so spell points, the bard had around 1400. We completed with half of my spell bar intact. Note this was Shroud and I was the only divine caster in the group.

I cast Heal probably around 2 or 3 times the entire raid. I never cast mass heal.

I've been playing for six years and have probably healed more raids on my bard than you have ever even been in. You think the problem with your healing has to do with how much your heal spell is hitting for? I can tell you that is not the problem, if a problem actually even cropped up. I have been in countless raids, and in the vast majority of them the cleric is using the wrong spells, always quickened and maximized or empowered, and is constantly overhealing.

Any raid that takes a long drawn out affair of healing a tank is usually done with scrolls. Scroll healing was bugged for quite a while after the update and was providing massively more healing than it was supposed to. Yet I'm supposed to believe your raid healing was massively nerfed from your experiential perspective? Radiant servant aura (and blast to a lesser degree) is the biggest easy button ever put in this game, taking precedence over spellsong vigor even (due to the fact that the PrE regenerates the freakin uses). Clerics (including my own) are not getting any sympathy from me, regardless of nerfs.

Keep the whining up, though (not). The constant griping and moaning about intended game mechanic changes will likely drown out any valid complaints.

EDIT: BTW, scroll healing is STILL bugged, I just checked.

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Originally Posted by DoctorWhofan

...So, soon, you all will have to choose....You will have to make the choice...
if it wasn't for the people who played clerics and sat in the back of the group and healed, many people would not be still playing this game. Nor would they be at cap. ...SO again. You choice. I am tired of people arguing this Heal nerf. They should be more concerned about the WF healer's friend and the light spell nerf.

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The flip side to this submissive viewpoint is that actions *do* have consequences: and bad actions have bad consequences. The devs nerf divines 50% to accommodate their broken "changes" in level 21+ MOTU, so in response, I shelve my divines; and there they will stay until the devs recognize their error, and make amends....or *not*.
It's the "choice" of the devs at this point, not the players'.

And to beat the dead horse once again, its not *just* the "Hjeals" that is messed up, its' the whole U14 "changes" (i.e. stealth nerfs) package: gutted Heal Amp, gutted Healers' Friend, gutted Heighten, divine casting *and* SLAs. The impact of the whole mess is greater than the sum of its' parts, much like a sewage main that has backed up over night....with raw sewage flooding the bathroom....and the hall way...and the downstairs livingroom...and the basement....gonna take more than a little mop-and-bucket action to sop up it up real quick so no one notices....

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Originally Posted by ShadowFlash

...I agree on one major thing in your post..It's time to wait. My cleric will see zero play time until changes are made, or it's obvious his playstyle has been permently diminished....

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Yes it is time to wait and see.
It is time for Turbine to put something substantial on the table *first*, and then and only then, do we players cherry pick what we want, and leave the rest. Color me not impressed so far.

There are other classes to play in DDO that are *not* saddled with a 50% nerf, as are divine casters.

There are also other game companies that *do* need our support, just as much as Turbine *used* to.

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Originally Posted by Raithe

Yes, I read it. You were comparing one particular spell at discrete level intervals and you did actually show that the multiplier is lower now. On that one particular spell.

That doesn't show that a class with dozens of spells (and several healing spells) has been nerfed.

You should note that your calculations do have errors though. In one case you had empower healing at 100 spellpower and then next line (but higher level) had it at 75. My cleric has been TR'd to lowbie status and it'll be a while before I get him to the point that I can compare in an actual gameplay setting.

I do know that my bard seems to have been mostly unaffected by changes in spellpower (if anything a small boost), but the fact that he now has 35 songs (compared with 18) and can convert those to 220+ spellpoints each, means he can do twice the healing over a long quest, per shrine.

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You do realize with all these poisons you better use heal or gtfo, right? You don't even have a current 20+ FvS or cleric and you dare give opinions and advice? Uninformed much?

A melee FvS is best served for his dps by legendary not EA. In order to tAke advantage of all this fancy stuff, he has to be in EA. Another nerf to his melee prowess. A caster FvS has a hard time maxing out healing in the EA tree so pretty much has to run gimped in the raid in order to make use of all these extra healing prowess powers you speak of. Only 24 points to spend. And with all the fancy stuff and gimping melee or casting, they're still at the same level they used to be at 20. Wow!

Druids can heal. Oh my, when is the last time people expected heals from a bard in a pug? Lolz. Just because they can take cure spells doesn't mean they will heal, same as a bard, same as an arti (a properly spec-Ed arti is a better tank healer in most situations than a divine). In the end the responsibility lies with the divines. That who people look to, that who they blame and forget to praise. Not the bard who when he heals gets amazed "omg thanx for the healing, man, super awesome job" (and the divine gets nada for thanx). Definitely not the artificer or now the Druid.

Having classes that can also heal to some extend has never reduced the burden on a pug divine or even running in guild raids. It also is completely moot in epic quests where often there's one divine and maybe if you're lucky there is a rogue or arti or something that can at least scroll heal but is highly unlikely to do it. In epic quests it is even more important to maintain your main focus, your main fun and not gimp it for better healing. But the truth is everyone only gives a **** if you're healing or not. Or how well you heal. And maybe that's not your focus and aim in life but you like a self-healing melee or caster and don't mind throwing masses and heals to help out. Used to be that was enough and you didn't need to go full out on healing spec. Now not so much and maybe others feel the frustration. We get all the **** dumped on us, we don't need more stress. More time spent swapping and making choices and sacrifices. Cause as I said...

IT'S A GAME. If it is not fun, I will run something else. And there is no need to discourage divines even more in ddo. You should see the waiting times sometimes in Orien for a bloody divine, might change your mind about how there's no issue here and how there's plenty of divines and we are in no danger of suffering from a lack anytime soon.

Add insult to injury that the new raid saps SP. There were some not very nice words out of my mouth when I first heard of this.

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Originally Posted by flaggson

in all fairness.. I believe that you just answered your own question...



Maybe we just have different play styles I suppose.. I am willing to stand back and equip a healing stick when the grease gets poured on the fire... even on a melee specced divine

I am thinking this is rather abhorrent to your particular play style?

I believe this might be the crux of our difference in opinion.

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Not sure if I understand you here"

your solution is to not play a melee healerO.o

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Originally Posted by flaggson

in regards to your first answer however, I'm not sure I completely follow.... I've made a melee focused FVS during a past life run for my sorcerer.. and yet still managed to max out my devotion line... ...

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I'm talking about not being able to slot devotion at the same rate as a DC healer. Re read the OP if you're not sure why.

I have all the AP and feats in healing possible

CALM!?! CALM!?! CALM discussion!?! This is no time for CALM discussion!!! Do I look CALM!?! Epic Shining Crest of Saint Markus only has 78 devotion!!!

This is a time for MASS COMETFALLS and MAXIMIZED HARM and DIVINE PUNISHMENT!!! Because NIGHTMARES and TERROR weapons don't cut it anymore!!! So sayeth the Sovereign Host!!!

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Originally Posted by Dingleburr

I play a 19CLR/1FTR battlecleric, and I don't agree. The ability to make appropriate tradeoffs is what separates the exceptional players from the rest. I like the fact that it's now difficult to simultaneously optimize for all roles. That's the main reason why FVS have been the master class for so long - just grind out the right gear and there are no compromises. It's different post U14. Adapt and overcome.

I don't really get why 'healers' believe they need to have >100 devotion + 18 implement + 12% lore active at all times to heal sufficiently. For my part, I've been able to heal through the majority of normal / hard content with 72 devotion + 9% lore.

Sure, there's elite content and the occasional hard encounter where I need devote my full focus to healing. If the content is difficult or focused enough to require a dedicated healer, then I'm not really multitasking anyway. In that situation, I whip out the (scroll + healing stick) or (healing stick + shield) combo. Problem solved.

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Having to run a DC healer or a healbot to maximize your healing is a poor trade off.


It doesn't matter if you need the extra healing or not. TBH you don't need Divines in the first place.

My focus is on the undeniable fact that Melee healers got nerfed hard by two facts:

1) they don't have level appropriate Devotion items reasonably available to them.

2) they can no longer obtain the highest level of devotion.

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Originally Posted by deahamlet

A melee FvS is best served for his dps by legendary not EA. In order to tAke advantage of all this fancy stuff, he has to be in EA.

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You do realize that favored souls have been considered the BIG easy button power-wise for a very long time? You are complaining that you HAVE to take Exalted Angel in order to be a proper healer, even though you SHOULD be able to take Legendary Dreadnaught? Do you see a problem with your line of thinking, at all?

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Originally Posted by deahamlet

Not the bard who when he heals gets amazed "omg thanx for the healing, man, super awesome job" (and the divine gets nada for thanx). Definitely not the artificer or now the Druid.

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I run nothing but PUGs. Its usually the bard that doesn't get credit, even though their songs are providing +1 caster level (and mass cures have max caster levels in the 25-30 range) and 10% efficiency, on top of providing spellsong vigor and casting a few cures themselves. If you don't see rangers, paladins, druids, bards, and occasionally rogues helping out with healing in your PUGs, then you are having some very bad luck with PUGs. I see it all the time, its one of the signs I look for so I know good players when I see them.

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Originally Posted by deahamlet

Having classes that can also heal to some extend has never reduced the burden on a pug divine or even running in guild raids.

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Your erroneous observation. I've ran a PUG shroud with just 2 bards. I've run it with all rangers (no other divines to speak of). Lots of people actually know how to play, and provide support when its needed. You just aren't looking for it, because you are too preoccupied with how big of numbers you see when your heal spell flies.

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Originally Posted by deahamlet

We get all the **** dumped on us, we don't need more stress. More time spent swapping and making choices and sacrifices.

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I admit that I often find running a divine annoying due to the crappy gameplay of other people in the party that are expecting me to mitigate. I usually just let them die, however, and deal with the hostility. As long as I don't die, they are the ones who end up looking gimpy, squishy, and stupid.

The first rule of any divine should be heal thyself. You probably will have more fun if you do that and ignore the group expectations.

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Originally Posted by deahamlet

Add insult to injury that the new raid saps SP. There were some not very nice words out of my mouth when I first heard of this.

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I think that would be an excellent sign from the developers on high that putting excessive pressure on a single blue bar in a group of 12 is frowned upon. Having a single babysitter running an entire raid has always been crappy gameplay, which is probably one of the many reasons they have decided on changes.

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Originally Posted by azmodeus1

this is simply not true, twist in healing from AoV and/or the t3 sentinal i have no problems keeping people up with masses while swinging an esos. and im a 18fvs/2ftr, metas active are empower healing and quicken.

my horc healer is better than ever, getting 1200+ crits and doing massive amounts more dmg than before the xpac.

ive never bought a sp pot.

devs, you should leave divines as is, we are already overpowered in many ways, my other healer is a 18fvs/2mo using EiN with high evo dc, and is a blast to play.

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This is like saying it's okay to lower a fighters str by 4 because after doing so they give you a way to get that str back by leveling an ED.

Also like saying 40 STR is enough on a fighter because you can complete the raid with it.


You should reread the OP I'm not sure you understand my position.

This is a very interesting subject guys. Here my advice :

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/7701/stayontopic.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

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Originally Posted by Raithe

You do realize that favored souls have been considered the BIG easy button power-wise for a very long time? You are complaining that you HAVE to take Exalted Angel in order to be a proper healer, even though you SHOULD be able to take Legenendary Dreadnaught? Do you see a problem with your line of thinking, at all

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I see no problem with it. My wizard doesn't have to be in Magister to be an efficient DC caster. If I'm not running spell-res heavy content, I can do Shadowdancer without a hitch. Even in spell-res heavy content, I can always be in Draconic and still have strong DC casting. A barbarian/fighter/rogue doesn't have to be in Fury/Dread/SD to be DPS, all of them can perform their primary function on other destinies too. So, why should divines be restricted to EA to be good healers with cool toys?

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Originally Posted by Raithe

Yes?

I only allow 4 weapons, a shield, and 2 carried in hand on any of my characters. Even with those limitations, I carry melee and caster sticks on all my arcanes/divines, and sometimes I carry caster sticks on my otherwise strickly melee/ranged.

The developers don't know how each individual person plays. Personally, I would have considered it extremely normal to be switching sticks as a caster cleric, let alone a melee-focused one. My sorc carries sticks of:

1) impulse (+102) of superior kinetic lore
2) combustion (+108) of enchantment mastery (greater ench, spell pen ix)
3) triple positive greensteel light mace (raise dead, greater disruption, holy)
4) cormyrian sceptre (acid burst, stunning +10, superior parrying, ...)
5) ornamental dagger (greater arcane lore, maximize efficiency & clicky)

plus an improved shattermantle dart (the least used).

I understand that switching sticks in the middle of battle can be a no-go, but I think that was precisely one of the motivations behind the spellpower changes. I would like to have impulse and devotion on my worn items, as well as combustion 90 and magnetism 90. I have to make a choice, though.

That's the point.

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right since your healer is a DC caster than I'm not entirely sure you put yourself in the shoes of a melee healer when you reached the conclusion that their is nothing wrong by playing your DC healer who has level appropriate devotion items readily available to you.

Imagine you are a melee two wpn fighting lonsword Weilding FVS pre MOTU. You use the Epic Chainmail coif for max healing and have every healing line invested in + the highest lore available to you.

MOTU hits and that devotion item not only gives way less than it did *your healing being lowered as a result* but you search frantically and can't find an item to replace it that isn't a wpn. Being a melee FVS a wpn is unacceptable to you.

So you are stuck with nerfed heals until one day you find a lv 22 item that almost brings you back to the lv 20 healing power you used had.

So now you are level 24 and still healing less than what you did heal while level 20 pre MOTU not because you aren't willing to slot devotion, but because a level appropriate devotion item that isn't a wpn isn't realistically obtainable to you.

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Originally Posted by danotmano1998

On my cleric I have a drow weapon master battleaxe that I equip when I want to hit things, and 2 caster sticks. One has devotion and other healing goodness, one has radiance.

Depending on what I'm doing, I equip the appropriate item. It's not fun to have to do this, IMO, but it IS possible.

Doing raid healing? Grab your devotion stick and put away the axe.
Doing DPS? Grab your weapon and start smacking things.
Doing offensive/defensive casting? Equip item of choice and start casting.

Swap as needed. Can you not do this as well?
You could even get fancy and have one item in one hand and something else in your off hand based on your current needs.

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This is an unacceptable playstyle change to me that should not be asked of anyone.

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Originally Posted by Tirisha

This is like saying it's okay to lower a fighters str by 4 because after doing so they give you a way to get that str back by leveling an ED.

Also like saying 40 STR is enough on a fighter because you can complete the raid with it.


You should reread the OP I'm not sure you understand my position.

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This. People seem to have forgotten there's a whole part of the game that doesn't involve being at level 25 with full destinies. Everyone not in that club is still playing catch-up to pre-u14 heals. The fact that you can get your healing power back with EA and ML:25 caster sticks and if everyone is wearing PDK gaunts (which is, in fact, true, as I have shown on the other thread) means jack s*** to my level 16 favored soul.

Also, if we're going with the 'I can still heal raids argument', would you support/accept making it so that each 2 modifiers of str added 1 to hit (instead of 1-1) if you're wearing a two-hander? I'd be hard-pressed to believe quests would fail everywhere because of this. By that logic, everything should be nerfed to minimum standards. Looks like a boring game to me, though

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Originally Posted by Thrudh

48% instead of 50% is not "nerfed hard". I find my FvS has no problem healing the members of his party.

That said, I'm all for more wearable devotion gear. One thing that would be nice (and easy) is for the devs to go back and fix the values on the various wearable epic gear that has devotion on it.

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it is a huge nerf when you take into consideration three things:

!) that at lv 22 you are supposed to be healing more

2) that is before metas are applied additive instead of multiplicative

3) that my devotion item is extremely rare and likely unavailable to most melee healers.

My cleric is fine.

I'm having fun.

I don't care about the changes. They are not bothering me.

I have one of those DC RSII pure clerics. I don't ever max out the crit portion of my heal line, I only take what I have to and spend the rest of the points into the light line.

She is fun.

I don't have nor will I ever have any real desire to play a melee cleric. I did play a melee FvS but I don't care to do that again(fun TR life but I would rather be caster focused.) If I play a melee, I would rather play a melee class. I wouldn't mind seeing devotion on a few more slots, makes me happier since I wouldn't have to swap stuff in my hands as much.

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Originally Posted by Tirisha

This is an unacceptable playstyle change to me that should not be asked of anyone.

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Didn't you hear? Swapping in your heal stick every time you want to throw a heal is the most fun in the game!

I, for one, have adapted and I hotkey my healstick in before throwing mass heals. I absolutely HATE doing this. It's annoying as hell and brings me no fun, to the point where in any non-critical section, I'd rather have people die due to incoming damage than do this.

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Originally Posted by Thrudh

This.

It's not as important to max out heals as it is damage spells. The vets are so used to having the best everything, they feel gimp when using a 96 devotion item when 108 devotion items exist.

But you aren't gimp. 96 devotion is plenty good.

With the Holy symbol of Lloth and a good devotion helm, you can use any weapon you want and still heal everyone just fine, and have solid blade barriers and DP DoTs.

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Silver flame pots are good enough.

I don't play a Divine because I have too I play one because I want too.

I want to melee on a Divine

when I invest everything a DC healer invests into healing I want to have the same heals.

Is that wrong?

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Originally Posted by Thrudh

Yep, in an elite raid, I may have to change my inventory and my role a little. Is that really so bad?

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Yes forcing healers to stat stick to optimize heals is bad.

What was cool about DDO was being able too dual wield longswords whiling healing just as well as a DC focused healer.

I have yet to see a justifiable balance reason why it should have changed.

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Originally Posted by danotmano1998

Sorry, I must have missed that in the OP..
What I read was "Hey divines have been nerfed!"
(Which we already know..)

and...

"There's a lack of devotion items that can be equipped in other places than hands."
(Which I agree with. But they *do* exist. Heck, maybe even more are coming our way soon!)

My points is that it IS possible to have max heals cast by *any* divine build that chooses to spec in the appropriate lines and have the appropriate gear on hand. Whether the person chooses to or not is another matter.

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I think you should reread the OP. Before you read it, it's likely you already had a predetermined idea of what it would say.

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Originally Posted by Tirisha

What was cool about DDO was being able too dual wield longswords whiling healing just as well as a DC focused healer.

I have yet to see a justifiable balance reason why it should have changed.

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You just answered your own question.

The "justifiable balance reason" it was changed was because people were able to dual wield longswords while healing as well as a DC focused healer.

Or, mirrored to the arcane side, I could pop a 75% pot on my sorc (or use an eardweller), pull out an eSoS, and do more damage than Zeus and Hades combined.

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Originally Posted by Raithe

You just answered your own question.

The "justifiable balance reason" it was changed was because people were able to dual wield longswords while healing as well as a DC focused healer.

Or, mirrored to the arcane side, I could pop a 75% pot on my sorc (or use an eardweller), pull out an eSoS, and do more damage than Zeus and Hades combined.

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That is kind of the point... WHY is the hand slot more valuable in terms of devotion (because there are more items available, with more power) than the head slot, or the ring slot, or the bracer/glove/*** slot? We all have to sacrifice slots in the end, but some gain more from sacrificing the slots they don't use than others. That's slotism, and it's wrong.

Also, if your spell rotation as a sorc leaves you enough time to swing a sword, you're doing it wrong.