Not Enough Cleric Love to go Around

[Sambvca]

Me telling you dont understand the nuances of maximizing a cleric in this game is more like me telling Tiger woods he sucks as a Plumber.

I rarely disagree with any of the advice you give on these forums, but Tiger Woods took aquatic engineering as his minor in Q school. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWJxRfdj9gA

Also, he plays a 13Cl / 2 Barb / 1 Ftr

[Kalari]

Sorry op as someone who has pure clerics and now working on a multiclass monk cleric for evasion I cant agree with your idea.

Things I feel would help the cleric class:

1. Domains, it makes no sense that we do not have proper domains for clerics why my choice of alignment doesnt open up a world of spells for such things. But thats a whole topic for another thread.

2. People learning to play without nannies. Smart players make playing a cleric easy and fun. Clerics can and should use their abilities to heal to support the party but there is so much more to the class then keeping players up. My clerics enjoy using their other spells in quests much more then being heal bots.


And im sorry I dont want less of a timer on my clerics to help them out. In fact I think being able to run raids more then any other class would only help burn out clerics more. And it would cause friction for those of us who play clerics well but have other characters we like to play to because people start asking for our healers more then anything else.

Sorry just not worth it in my opinion. To me cleric love is more important from the person behind the cleric, if you love the way you play and do what you need to to be happy other people will come to respect your healer.

[Drekisen]

I play every class in the game including my main whom is a cleric.

In reference to the original post, this is a bad idea. One class should not be favored over others for access to raids.

It can just as easily be argued that the melees need proper gear to be effective against the raid bosses and should have thier timers cut down so they can get the ingredients needed to craft.

Either shorten the timers for all, or leave them how they are...for everyone.

[Kriogen]

It is true that I greatly enjoy playing a cleric. Healing is my sort of game play, has been for years and years.

I get tons of tells asking me to join raids and groups but unfortunately a good portion of the time I have to turn them down because I am on timer. I've opened the LFM and seen tons of raids waiting on clerics, and have even been in a few as a cleric waiting for a second cleric only to have them join and realize they are still on timer.

I recommend until such time as the balance is fixed that either Turbine halves timers for true healing clerics (Clr 16 and then Clr20) or removes them all together.

First it gives a boost to one of the seemingly least played classes. As a primary toon anyway.

Second it allows more opportunities for the smaller numbers to handle the call of demand of the larger player bases.

I was originally thinking no timer but then people would all play their clerics to farm gear, and we'd have no tanks.

You just want more loot, right?

...
Let's work with a concrete example. How exactly is a 20th level cleric a better healer than an 18/2 cleric/monk. Explain please.

Level 20 Cleric gets uber gamebreaking Capstone. You can't call yourself a healer without that capstone. Doh, everyone knows that ...

[FluffyCalico]

You just want more loot, right?


Level 20 Cleric gets uber gamebreaking Capstone. You can't call yourself a healer without that capstone. Doh, everyone knows that ...

Well the capstone would be cool except since its main purpose is to keep people from dieing so you don't loose 10%xp and they made you not get it until you are capped on xp. Somehow this just seems wrong.

[Steen]

Soon favored souls will be out so clerics won't be the only healer class. Then you can roll one up and keep it on timer too

I can see it now; Not Enough Favored Soul Love to go Around

[Psyker]

I havnt even played a cleric class yet in DDO but I'm embarrased that you would bring up your vast expierience in MUDS to validate your weak arguments. Saying that you wont point out specifics because people just wont understand is such a cop out. Arguments like this make me not want to tell people ive been mudding for 15+ years.

[Elsbet]

FYI I've been a healer since text muds across more games than I care to count, and I was dungeon master for a decade before text muds so to point at my join date and say you'll forgive me is kind of like telling Tiger Woods he sucks because he's not in the PGA hall of fame yet.

Secondly I could explain to you what you've sacrificed with splashing and less than optimal character builds, but I'm pretty sure you'll stick to your guns that you don't need perfection to heal. I'm sorry you decided to splash a portion of your clerics but my idea is for pure healers who are intent on being strictly for healing and using all of the tools and levels available to heal. BTW splashing gains on the front side, but you pay dearly in the intangibles that most people seem unable to grasp. If a raid leader has a choice of two equally skilled players but one is pure cleric and the other is splashed he would be insane to take the splashed cleric, and I'm not going to tell you why because if you've splashed a cleric then you didn't really comprehend the value of the things you sacrificed.

I'm not here to shred you for not knowing but do some research before you attack that which you don't seem to get.

So your argument boils down to "because I said so, that's why"? Seriously? I haven't used that since my daughter was two and too young to reason out the science behind why fire burns.

My personal preference is to not splash another class into a cleric I build and run. I don't care much for lagging behind a level getting certain spells. I can heal a party just fine and rarely run out of mana. Of course there are always the exceptions for the occasional PUG mana sponge. With greensteel items, the latest cleric raid items and DT armor, you can boost your healing abilities beyond anything you need.

But again, that is my personal preference. I know a lot of excellent clerics who splash sorc, bard, rogue, fighter, pally, or ranger into their build. Haven't seen one with a wiz splash. Don't remember if I've seen a barb splash.

A raid leader would be insane to base his decision solely on the little class symbols next to a name and not take the best player. Truely. If SableShadow said he was bringing Brenna (15 Rog/1 Brd) to a Shroud raid, but all he was going to do was throw cure mass mod and heal scrolls, I'd still take him over some clerics I've grouped with. He's a better player. It'd be a waste of an excellent rogue, but I know it would be unlikely that the party would suffer for lack of another pure cleric. Same goes for a LOT of bards I've run with.

The benefits of splashing or not splashing depend entirely on the player and how they run their character.

Besides, there is plenty of love for a good cleric. Good clerics just don't post endless numbers of threads like "Whee... So-and-so gave me 10k plat for a Prey run that only cost me mana and a rest shrine. They love me. They really, really love me."

[LeCutter]

Hell, I've played clerics for 20 years too in PnP/MUDs/Mogs, etc. and DDO isn't the same beast. It's based on what you know, but because of the real-time nature of the game and the way a lot of things have to be modified for the game, things just work differently...and you need to learn what they are.

I was here originally but not for long and I just got back here a few weeks ago. And in the last 2 weeks I can already see the mistakes I've made with the build I created - not because it's that bad - although there are 2 feats I desperately need to swap out when I get the gems/cash - but because I'm beginning to really understand the game and how it's play. How? By reading up around here and other DDO sites. By asking questions and, most especially, listening to a lot of advice from vets - where people come down on a little different sides, so you need to take some of that advice with a grain of salt and use your own judgement and common sense too.

Also, building your character around your playstyle is absolutely critical. I'm spec'd more as battle-cleric right now than I intended to be, but I have zero problem being a healbot when needed so I'm trying to find the happy medium here. I've seen and read-up on a lot of interesting builds and playstles for clerics and everything else and as soon as I get my 1750 I'm going to experiment with a few of these on new toons.

Of course learning about and using the right gear makes all the difference too. Last night in Gianthold running quests in there - for the first time - with a great group of vets they boggled that I didn't have any potency items. I wasn't even aware of them. Than, one of them kindly went to the auctioneer and dropped 20k plat on a greater potentcy 5 scepter for me. Another one gave me a +1 tome. And all because I was friendly, eager to learn and did my best to keep them all buffed and healed up.

So yeah, there's definitely a learning curve here. And yeah, you're only going to figure some stuff out through trial and error. I see my first toon as a tool to learn the game and make friends with people, and if you want to be a successful cleric in the long run you'd do well to listen more and talk less untill you get to that point where you really know what it is you're talking about.

[Arnya]

Of all my cleric-based characters, I have to say that my pure 16Clr is the gimpiest.

The only bonuses she has is better DCs for offensive casting - I find myself throwing out LESS heals on her because of her offensive casting abilities.

As far as contribution to the party, pure healbot clerics are the gimps - all they can do is heal other peoples boo-boos...

[Mindspat]

But Wantig to swing a Sword, or Disable Traps, or get a High AC with Evasion does NOT make you a Gimp healer. Builds DOnt make characters stong. the Players BEHIND the build make them strong. If you dont know how to play a cleric, you will be bad at playing a cleric regardles of the level makeup.

If there were ever a reason to listen to Impaqt its' for this quoted post. This is extremely true in all facets of hte game regardless of the character.

/thumbs_up