Running with Devils - how to heal

[Caiburn]

I have had two bad wipes today in Running with Devils and would like to ask: How do you heal through the air elemental knockdown and the line-of-sight issues?

(Got badmouthed afterwards for being a bad healer too, figures...)

[Zenako]

Just Destruct the ghales before they go elemental on you, then you have nothing worry about with respect to healing.

Line of sight is not your issue but that of teammates who are playing clueless.

[Sirea]

Could always try taking the air elementals out yourself with Destruction, or laying down a Blade Barrier since they move around a lot. Or the caster should have firewalled the area or gotten 'em with FoD. Or the melees could have ranged them. That's what's nice about paralyzing or stat damaging bows. Many different solutions to that problem.

Meh, LOS issues happen, especially around air elementals. Could have also been your party members' fault, running out of range then yelling at you because they're not getting healed because *they* ran behind that pillar or wall. In any case, if they were yelling at you because *they* ran away from you, not much you can do about it.

If they're gonna hold it against you that you couldn't heal them because the air elles weren't killed fast enough and knocked you on your butt, then I wouldn't take it too personally.

[Sirea]

Just Destruct the ghales before they go elemental on you, then you have nothing worry about with respect to healing.

The Ghaeles are the orbs, they have a pretty high spell pen so they can be hard to instakill, especially if they get themselves with Death Ward beforehand the Bralanis turn into things that look like air elementals but they won't knock you down, the red-named djinnis can't be instakilled but can be beat down when not in air elle form, then there are the actual air elles that can usually easily be FoD'd or Destructed.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

You aren't responsible for line of sight, melees should know that if they can't see the cleric, they can't expect a heal. And any other player should be able to sustain themselves through a short duration without a healer or they have failed on that point as well.

It is a very tough quest with an at level group that isn't twinked out, odds are you had a bunch of newish players who weren't well equipped for that quest.

[sirgog]

My preferred approach as a Cleric in that quest is to turn Quicken on, and run ahead of the party (so all aggro is on you), gather a bunch of the Eladrin and cast a maximized Bladebarrier, and use quickened Heals on yourself whenever you fall under 150hp. When under 75% hp, try to cast Heal scrolls on yourself (these will often be interrupted, but enough will land to be worth trying).

The other party members are there for support and for the bosses, and to cast Jump and Haste on you. They shouldn't take very much damage via this approach.

On Hard, I use the same strategy (but mana is tighter). On Elite, you'll need to selfheal earlier.

[Taurnish]

Agreed, Sirgog, run it the same way essentially. Max/ Emp heighten BB and heal yourself as the cleric......if you are a pure healer cleric this changes things a bit as you may not have the above feats.

[sirgog]

Agreed, Sirgog, run it the same way essentially. Max/ Emp heighten BB and heal yourself as the cleric......if you are a pure healer cleric this changes things a bit as you may not have the above feats.

I've had no problem without Heighten or Empower Spell on my melee cleric build (which has a pretty low save DC on Bladebarrier, the mobs save half the time). But they should have Maximize.

A cleric without Maximize is like a cat without legs - you feel sorry for it, but you can't stop laughing at it either. (For anyone that didn't know, Maximize works on Cure and Mass Cure spells).

[captain1z]

I have had two bad wipes today in Running with Devils and would like to ask: How do you heal through the air elemental knockdown and the line-of-sight issues?

(Got badmouthed afterwards for being a bad healer too, figures...)

As defensive healer my advice would be to stay a good distance back from the melees. Look for places the give you a wider field of view. Stand on a ledge above fights but specificly in running withe the devils stick yourself in a corner facing the battle. The map is a buncha long tunnels so if the party turns the inside corner, you are nestled in the outside corner once they have gone around.

They get agro 1st and if they need to pull back you can still see them all. Knockdown can and will be a problem but as long as u sit in the corner nothing should hit you unless its coming for you. Just ask the melees not to fight close to you unless you are in trouble.

Offensively you really only have 1 option...... destruction. Slay living range is too close, blade barrier tends to pick up agro you might not want. Best just to kill em outright and at a distance, I feel comet fall and greater command fall into the defensive category but really dont work well in that quest in either case.

[Timjc86]

Running with the Devils can be a difficult quest at level. The eladrin are immune or resistant to the sources of damage most melee characters will have been using to up this point. This is a particular quest where I don't begrudge clerics/favored souls for prioritizing dropping blade barriers over keeping me topped off.

As for line of site and knockdown issues, those are things your group should be helping with. If you get knocked down, just let them know that you're completely helpless until you're back on your feet - the group's priority should instantly shift to individuals keeping themselves alive and killing the air elemental so you can get back up.

Line of site issues should be handled similarly: let the target know he/she is out of line of site and that you are not able to heal - that player's priorities should shift to staying alive and finding the way back to you. It's unrealistic for one person to have to identify one of five potential people who is about to die, locate that individual on the map, and then track them down. It's much simpler for the other five people to stay mindful of where one other person (the cleric/FvS is) or be prepared to take care of themself.

I obviously wasn't there, but it sounds like you had some players in your group who got ahead of themselves and then blamed it on you. There's not a lot you can do to prevent that unfortunately.

[sirgog]

As defensive healer my advice would be to stay a good distance back from the melees. Look for places the give you a wider field of view. Stand on a ledge above fights but specificly in running withe the devils stick yourself in a corner facing the battle. The map is a buncha long tunnels so if the party turns the inside corner, you are nestled in the outside corner once they have gone around.

They get agro 1st and if they need to pull back you can still see them all. Knockdown can and will be a problem but as long as u sit in the corner nothing should hit you unless its coming for you. Just ask the melees not to fight close to you unless you are in trouble.

Offensively you really only have 1 option...... destruction. Slay living range is too close, blade barrier tends to pick up agro you might not want. Best just to kill em outright and at a distance, I feel comet fall and greater command fall into the defensive category but really dont work well in that quest in either case.

Destruction is actually pretty poor in Running with the Devils - the mobs have reasonably high Fort saves, and some SR (enough to cause you problems). Banishment is a far superior instant-kill spell - even though the mobs will mostly save, Banishment hits multiple targets so each casting will be more effective than Destruction.

In addition, there are mobs that cast Mass Death Ward immediately upon being aggroed, making instakills impossible on them and all the mobs surrounding them. (Sometimes, but rarely, your kill spell will resolve first)

That said, the mobs don't have stupendously high hitpoints, and whilst their DPS is significant, it's not ridiculous (like it is in, say, Enter the Kobold, where the damage is pretty much unhealable if the fight gets out of control). That's why I've always preferred to (since the Con damage nerf anyway) kill the trash in here via Bladebarrier kiting and selfhealing with the melees pouncing on enemy casters. The quicker those mobs go down, the less SP required to be spent on healing.

Note that this quest is easier if you bring multiple clerics - in which case, you have one on BB duty, and the second healing the BB cleric (the BB cleric can heal the incidental damage the rest of the party suffers).


The final fight of this quest is tough too - but I'll let you figure that one out for yourself. (There's two main methods used in PUG groups, and one is bladebarrier soloing).

[shenthing]

There is an issue of aggro management when running a cleric. The higher level of a heal, the more aggro you pull. If there is a major issue of you being on the ground due to buttloads of aggro, try sticking to your cures below the critical level. It cost more mana in some situations, but it can be useful. (this will also help some in Amrath later).

[Judo]

just send the monk in, shnoogins

[Zenako]

Let us also keep in mind, the groups that have trouble with a quest like this, are probably and hopefully only attempting it on Normal first. On the Normal setting most of the mobs can be IK'd in one fashion or another (Banish, Destruction, FoD, etc) pretty consistently. Their SR is not that high, and if the SR is giving you issues, better to learn now that you are going to be needing to addressing that obstacle than later, when you still have time to make feat changes or plans on future feats.

[TEcarson]

My first cleric (lvl 13...almost 14), so I am staying on a path. When does maximize spell show up?

Cheers...

[Visty]

My first cleric (lvl 13...almost 14), so I am staying on a path. When does maximize spell show up?

Cheers...

depends on the path

scourge of undead lvl6
warpriest never
font of healing never

http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Class:Cleric

[TEcarson]

depends on the path

scourge of undead lvl6
warpriest never
font of healing never

http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Class:Cleric

Thanks for the info...I am on the Warpriest path.

Maybe I should look at the builds and go off my path, eh? Really want Maximize but I really don't want to gimp my cleric. (Just tumbled across sirgog's Cleric Build Catalogue 2010...gonna have to give it a read this weekend)

Of course the followup question then is this: is staying on my path going to make me viable/successful at end game?

Thanks again...

[cdr]

I have had two bad wipes today in Running with Devils and would like to ask: How do you heal through the air elemental knockdown and the line-of-sight issues?

(Got badmouthed afterwards for being a bad healer too, figures...)

Funny, party wipes in Running always happen for me when people decide to Leeroy Jenkins the end fight.

[Caiburn]

Thanks for the input. I guess the main problem was that I was in full healer mode and oblivious of the "headless chicken" strategy employed by some.
Next time I will whip out those BBs...

[phalaeo]

Ran this tonight, actually-

If you have good spell pen, Banish is your friend. I was the sole healer in the party, and even healing a warforged fighter, I led the kill count and was able to heal.

You can target and banish most everything except for the Ghaele Clerics (The orbs)- takes out the "trash mobs" and then the melees can take out the one or two mobs left standing instead of 6-7 mobs. The end fight can be hairy, try to get your party to set up a kill box with a few blade barriers and firewalls and done.

For reference, I "dual wielded" a Spell pen and potency item, have three tiers of Cleric Spell Pen enhancements, and was wearing Elfcrafted Armor. Also, if you have line of sight issues, you can top off between fights through the walls via Divine Healing.