What am I doing wrong?

[ilovetheusers]

Am I doing something wrong? I'm running a lvl 11 Human Cleric and it seems like when on teams that I am expected to play healer/buffer, which I have zero issues with. But, I find that often times I'm wand whipping a lot after my SP run out.

The issue is, wands cost a fortune IMO and I'll run through a couple wands when running on hard+ which means I'm spending something like 1000-5000pp per run.

The other issue is, my loot seems to really stink so I don't make the pp spent running the adventure back. That said, I do get a lot of XP when running in groups so IMO it's still worth it.

Also, is there a way for clerics to heal up warforged? They always seem to get hurt easily and tossing heals at them seems almost futile sometimes. Also, I often forget who's the warforged on big teams and will toss a ton of heals at them which eats up SP.

So, am I missing something? I ask people not to zerg, and for the melee classes with low AC to stay the heck out of the fight until a more tankey guy runs in. Etc.


note, I'm not complaining, I'm asking how others play healbot more effectively. I have a helm that puts lvl 5 and lower heals up by 50%, and I have the 30% heal bonus from feats. I'm pretty much given up buffing except for maybe mass shield of faith and mass protect from evil (I figure the +4 AC will help the most for the fighters).

Oh, and yes, I run all PUGs, my guild isn't much for teaming. I have a feeling that the answer will be, get a better group, which isn't an option.

[Musouka]

Sounds like your in groups that are not self-sufficient in the least bit. Perhaps limit your buffs on people if they're just going to let their HP go through a sieve. As for the WF, I wouldn't bother and tell the group they need an arcane to heal them, or they should bring their own repair pots.

[petegunn]

You need to find a good guild alongside a steady mob of friends to run with. On the clerical side of life sometimes it pays to be cruel only use your blue bar on groups, you'll know a good group when you're in one that's when you should go to a little more expense. Finally solo you're at the level now when you should be getting some pretty good spells.

[voodoogroves]

At 11 you should have Heal, Mass Cure Light and Mass Cure Moderate.

If you're going to be up front you have a lot of control over where the fights take place and positioning with a simple "MASS HEALS ON ME" statement. People who want to be healed will stay near you and know it is their responsibility if they are wandering.

Similarly if you're hanging in the back a simple "MASS HEALS ON JOE THE TANK" can help people keep consolidated.

If this is your first healer-type it will take some getting used to. Some if it is you learning the pacing, some of it is you doing a quick triage on the group capabilities and knowing where your weak points as a group are. This will help you understand if you're in a weak group or not.

I'd also recommend not healing quests and content way above the party level. Some people like to try quests higher than they can achieve, and that can be both dangerous and expensive.

[Hobgoblin]

also, look at what the mobs are fighting. 3 ogres heading towards the tank? one greater command vrs 2 mass cures and raising the squishy rogue who just ran head on at the ogre screaming "my name is inego montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die." take your pick. some cc can work wonders in saving sp.

also you said you were level 11? start runing gh and later on the vale. you get plenty of loot that is better there, and try selling on the ah not the vendors.


hope that helps

hob

[ekniff]

(disclaimer: I stopped playing my cleric since I switched servers, and only played to level 16 or 17). I bought a few wands and scrolls when I first had the money, following the advice on the boards, but stopped at level 5 or so when I realized that I didn't touch them at all.

Most important advice: watch your metamagic feats. You said you got some of these ("and I have the 30% heal bonus from feats"). DO NOT EVER leave them running, except maybe empower healing once you get the Efficient Empower Healing from that Lorrik's Necklace.

And DO NOT overheal! I am a big fan of number crunching, and I try my very best to heal only up to the 95% mark. Tips on doing this:
1) figure out how much each spells hits for, at max (excluding crits).
2) during the first 10% of every quest, figure out how much HP each party member has, and remember this.
-either ask, if the guy isn't getting hit enough for you to gather data
-or when he gets hit, use a small cure on him and extrapolate to find how much HP he has

[Enoach]

Taking on the role of Healing a party is both a heavy responsibility as well as a Thankless job

A couple rules to help with SP management.

1. Use the Spells during combat only
2. Use the wands for out of combat healing / In combat healing only when SP is low / or in combat healing when incoming dmg is so rare you could almost fall asleep waiting for it.
3. Never chase anyone to heal them - If they run off its now their responsibility (both cure and heal can't help stupid)
4. Never Top people off - if they feel that 10 - 20 hp needs to be cured they can handle that themselves

At level 11 you are able to use HEAL Scrolls found in the House J magic shop. Yes these cost pp, but doing a minimum of 100 hp per (50is for WF) will save you some coin.

Unfortunatly unless you run across someone that understands your plight of a nearly empty pocketbook or until you begin to run quests in Meridia, your pocketbook will be low.

A quest to help line your pockets in the meantime "From Beyond the Grave" (house J Deleria's Graveyard)
Level 11 Quest/Short (5 to 10 minutes)/has one shrine at entrance/Fight mainly undead/has two chests
This was THE loot run of the early days in DDO.
Basic run - Caster with WoF on the gate - Two other party members run around the small graveyard lighting pyres (one lights - one protects the lighter) - Once done fight a named wraith(red)/a couple named skeletons(orange) and then loot chests.

[protokon]

Am I doing something wrong? I'm running a lvl 11 Human Cleric and it seems like when on teams that I am expected to play healer/buffer, which I have zero issues with. But, I find that often times I'm wand whipping a lot after my SP run out.

The issue is, wands cost a fortune IMO and I'll run through a couple wands when running on hard+ which means I'm spending something like 1000-5000pp per run.

The other issue is, my loot seems to really stink so I don't make the pp spent running the adventure back. That said, I do get a lot of XP when running in groups so IMO it's still worth it.

Also, is there a way for clerics to heal up warforged? They always seem to get hurt easily and tossing heals at them seems almost futile sometimes. Also, I often forget who's the warforged on big teams and will toss a ton of heals at them which eats up SP.

So, am I missing something? I ask people not to zerg, and for the melee classes with low AC to stay the heck out of the fight until a more tankey guy runs in. Etc.


note, I'm not complaining, I'm asking how others play healbot more effectively. I have a helm that puts lvl 5 and lower heals up by 50%, and I have the 30% heal bonus from feats. I'm pretty much given up buffing except for maybe mass shield of faith and mass protect from evil (I figure the +4 AC will help the most for the fighters).

Oh, and yes, I run all PUGs, my guild isn't much for teaming.

welcome to the world of pugging clerics. I run 3 capped healers myself on a daily basis in epic raids and every other end-game content you can imagine. even with all my experience (4 years of clericing on Thelanis) I still find myself draining all my money, no matter how smooth runs can go.

theres a few tips you can take to heart:

-play smarter. And I don't necessarily mean you personally, I mean play in groups that work as teams - melees that like to zerg should at least be zerging together, all attacking the same mobs to drop them quickly.

-sometimes casting offensive spells is more effective than just watching health bars: comet fall, greater command and hold person are a few personal favorites.

-buffs, buffs, and more buffs. energy resistances can cut down huge amounts of healing in certain situations, ask ahead of time if you need to pass any out. but also keep in mind, don't overkill it - passing out every mass buff you have on your bar can often lead you to losing half your SP before the first fight starts, which can be costly in enduring quests.

-healbot smarter. if theres a barbarian charging into 20 mobs and expecting you to spam your entire healthbar to keep him up, don't play his game. it's your SP bar, your in charge of it - and more importantly, your in charge of any extra resources you decide to use after it runs out.

-find TR groups. in this day and age, youll see plenty of zerging TR's around your level that jump headfirst into the content and post an LFM simply stating "BYOH". it doesn't get any simpler than this, often times you can run and throw blade barriers, run and throw blade barriers - one of the most fun things to do on a cleric on occasion from watching red bars

-soloing. at your level, sometimes it can be easier to finish the quest by yourself - dungeon scaling makes the mobs have less hit points, but your blade barrier doesnt do any less damage - equip a superior potency VI item (sceptres are usually cheap) and kite away.

-ask for donations to resource-intensive runs. sometimes you join pugs that just go bad, even with good players in them. honest players won't mind tipping the cleric if they know you did your best to keep the party going.

..other than experience, that's about all the tips i can offer. good luck clericing!

[ilovetheusers]

Taking on the role of Healing a party is both a heavy responsibility as well as a Thankless job

A couple rules to help with SP management.

1. Use the Spells during combat only
2. Use the wands for out of combat healing / In combat healing only when SP is low / or in combat healing when incoming dmg is so rare you could almost fall asleep waiting for it.
3. Never chase anyone to heal them - If they run off its now their responsibility (both cure and heal can't help stupid)
4. Never Top people off - if they feel that 10 - 20 hp needs to be cured they can handle that themselves

At level 11 you are able to use HEAL Scrolls found in the House J magic shop. Yes these cost pp, but doing a minimum of 100 hp per (50is for WF) will save you some coin.

Unfortunatly unless you run across someone that understands your plight of a nearly empty pocketbook or until you begin to run quests in Meridia, your pocketbook will be low.

A quest to help line your pockets in the meantime "From Beyond the Grave" (house J Deleria's Graveyard)
Level 11 Quest/Short (5 to 10 minutes)/has one shrine at entrance/Fight mainly undead/has two chests
This was THE loot run of the early days in DDO.
Basic run - Caster with WoF on the gate - Two other party members run around the small graveyard lighting pyres (one lights - one protects the lighter) - Once done fight a named wraith(red)/a couple named skeletons(orange) and then loot chests.

Sounds like sound advice, I will follow. TYVM. 1, 3, 4 should keep my blue bar from draining faster than normal, so that's a big help.

As for loot, I never had an issue with it. I learned to use the AH and I solo a lot and do everything a couple times and try to do everything on hard, then elite so I'm always selling things at the AH or blue dot shops in HouseD and HouseK. Also, the Mabar even is uber kind to clerics so I'm making a ton of coin in there.

[ilovetheusers]

Looks like I need to redo my overall strategy and use my spells for more control vs buff and smash. I never thought of clerics as a controller type, but it looks like upon re-examination of the spells that this is what we can be/are. Interesting...


So some folks are really pushing greater command and such and from what I have seen on PUG's, no one cares about the casters at all and they pull aggro like a mutha. So far my tactic been to whip out my sword and start hacking whats trying to kill them and get them on me. Greater command sounds like a WAY better idea.

That said, how the heck do you target a running mob and then fire off a spell in seconds? When I am clicking mobs I usually find I have to click them 6 or more times for the game to highlight them so I can target them. This takes long enough for them to peel off and bash the caster about 2 times before I can even get them clicked. Is there a trick I'm missing with this??



That and maybe I should pop off Obscuring Mist in the middle of the fighting before retreating. Does Obscuring Mist stack with Blur??



Also, do we get a mass stun spell besides Stunning Blow? Because, that stopped working about 6 levels back.


Any advice on the spells to get for adding more control and how to use those single target spells on mobs faster would be appreciated.

[GBantaR]

Sounds like your in groups that are not self-sufficient in the least bit. Perhaps limit your buffs on people if they're just going to let their HP go through a sieve. As for the WF, I wouldn't bother and tell the group they need an arcane to heal them, or they should bring their own repair pots.

Completely disrelated to the thread, +1 for the Jon Stewart quote.

[hityawithastick]

Conventional wisdom is: If you want heals, you stay near the cleric. If you are gimp and want to die due to misplaced belief of uberness, you zerg ahead and then spam "HJEALZ PLOX" in the party chat.

[Kourier]

Looks like I need to redo my overall strategy and use my spells for more control vs buff and smash. I never thought of clerics as a controller type, but it looks like upon re-examination of the spells that this is what we can be/are. Interesting...


So some folks are really pushing greater command and such and from what I have seen on PUG's, no one cares about the casters at all and they pull aggro like a mutha. So far my tactic been to whip out my sword and start hacking whats trying to kill them and get them on me. Greater command sounds like a WAY better idea.

That said, how the heck do you target a running mob and then fire off a spell in seconds? When I am clicking mobs I usually find I have to click them 6 or more times for the game to highlight them so I can target them. This takes long enough for them to peel off and bash the caster about 2 times before I can even get them clicked. Is there a trick I'm missing with this??



That and maybe I should pop off Obscuring Mist in the middle of the fighting before retreating. Does Obscuring Mist stack with Blur??



Also, do we get a mass stun spell besides Stunning Blow? Because, that stopped working about 6 levels back.


Any advice on the spells to get for adding more control and how to use those single target spells on mobs faster would be appreciated.

You can target with Tab or sometimes if you're good you can just fire a spell onto the ground where the enemies are (go into mouselook mode by pressing t or holding right mouse button). Mass stunning? Try a heightened soundblast.

[The-Last-Wolf]

Hi OP,

Not having too many details, I suggest the following, realising you may allready be doing this, but as a just in case.

Don't be too quick to heal after combat. When the fight is on, if you are playing the part of a healer, then yes people will expect you to use SP to heal them while they are mid swing. Once any given fight is over, don't auto start sending heals to the other players. Often they will have (and **** well should have) pots etc. to top themselves off. I made the mistake early in my first cleric of using SP to heal everyone to full after a fight, to find I am out of SP at the critical moments.

From a DPS point of view, if you are getting heals from the Healer, then why would you chug a pot, as the healer is(from the DPS POV) doing the heals for free from SP. If the "healer", is not throwing those heals after a fight, and you see their blue bar is dropping, then hell yeah, you chug a pot.

Also never be afraid of communicating your status. A party chat of "Guys running low on SP here, can you please heal yourselves between fights please" is in my experience met with either "YOOOZ IS DE HEALER, SO HEALZ" which I suggest you start looking for backpack space for a Stone, or "Yeah no probs mate".

As in all things, there is a balance, and finding that balance with a PUG group of strangers can be a challenge, but in the end, good players will want you to be able to throw SP heals at the critical moments, and THEY will do what they can to assist by self healing along the way.

If you are short of plat, and doing multiple runs with a pug, and its costing you in scrolls and wands, then speak up. Again a "Guys I am out of wands/scrolls, anyone help me out?" is about good partying, and good players should and will respond with "I'll go grab you some scrolls/wands". If you get total silence, well, then you may want to consider what kind of people you are Puging with. I have had some awesome hand outs from total strangers (50 Raise Dead scrolls) but I was very likely lucky to have met good people.

Anyway mate, keep at it, and welcome to the dogbowl that is Pugging as a Cleric :-)

Regards
Wolf

[likuei]

OP, to be honest, the only thing you are doing wrong is not looking for a guild to run with. I've been a Cleric for a long time. What I have learned in the last nine months is if you are not guilded, you will me broke for a LONG time. Find a guild that you are happy with, help them as they help you, and enjoy the game.

[voodoogroves]

I wouldn't say you need a guild to support you financially; that just masks the symptoms further. You do, however, need to learn and following someone around is a good way to learn.

My cleric style is very much like the style of a dude who was TRing and I zerged through 8-16 with on my first cleric. He was a cleric, and even though I was a clonk I paid attention.

These were, FWIW, BYOH parties lead by a cleric (him). I knew the content, but wasn't used to how it played with a healer (one of the great things about this game is the drastically different ways some classes experience the same content).

At each level grouping you have a spell you can use to minimize incoming damage. At lower levels, it's Soundburst. Use it. Don't extend, empower or maximize it ... just use it for the stun. Mobs who aren't swinging aren't doing damage. Bit higher up you get the resists - once you know the quests, tossing a resist-20 fire on someone eliminates a ton of Scorching Ray damage, etc. Next up is Cometfall and then Greater Command. Commetfall is, IIRC, reflex and greater command is will. Destruction is a single-target fort spell. You CAN eliminate threats, and understanding which to do is important.

That said, you still need to heal. As the cleric, I'd set the tone and expectations around healing up front and early.

"My mass heals are more efficient, and I'll be healing on X" with X being some tanky type or yourself. Find out who brought pots and wands. People who are in melee and jump out when they take damage and miss your mass heal - let them know why they didn't get it.

What server are you on?

[Lord_kNiels]

Much has already been said. My experience is that enemy casters do the most damage to a party. So in order to minimize damage taken in the party dont forget to remind people to take out those casters first. This may not sound like much but it will do the difference in many situations.

[ilovetheusers]

You can target with Tab or sometimes if you're good you can just fire a spell onto the ground where the enemies are (go into mouselook mode by pressing t or holding right mouse button). Mass stunning? Try a heightened soundblast.

Being a veteran of CoH, I've been spamming the tab button as a reflex but it never seems to work for me. I always have mouselook on, I find that targeting in this game is just wonky as heck. Example, I want to hit a vampire with a heal, I have to right click him about 5 times for him to highlight in the bright white circle. If you do the one click and the dim circle appears, you're not going to hit him, the spell will hit you instead. What you are saying seems to work alright with some spells, like Holy Smite so maybe I'm confusing spells that are meant for doing dmg or an effect on an enemy with other spells like heals that can be used to kill undead, but only after they are highlighted in the bright white circle...


I didn't realize that Cometfall did knockdown, just tried it and love it. Stun, knockdown, whatever control I can get I'll use.

[ilovetheusers]

Hi OP,

Not having too many details, I suggest the following, realising you may allready be doing this, but as a just in case.

Don't be too quick to heal after combat. When the fight is on, if you are playing the part of a healer, then yes people will expect you to use SP to heal them while they are mid swing. Once any given fight is over, don't auto start sending heals to the other players. Often they will have (and **** well should have) pots etc. to top themselves off. I made the mistake early in my first cleric of using SP to heal everyone to full after a fight, to find I am out of SP at the critical moments.

From a DPS point of view, if you are getting heals from the Healer, then why would you chug a pot, as the healer is(from the DPS POV) doing the heals for free from SP. If the "healer", is not throwing those heals after a fight, and you see their blue bar is dropping, then hell yeah, you chug a pot.

Also never be afraid of communicating your status. A party chat of "Guys running low on SP here, can you please heal yourselves between fights please" is in my experience met with either "YOOOZ IS DE HEALER, SO HEALZ" which I suggest you start looking for backpack space for a Stone, or "Yeah no probs mate".

As in all things, there is a balance, and finding that balance with a PUG group of strangers can be a challenge, but in the end, good players will want you to be able to throw SP heals at the critical moments, and THEY will do what they can to assist by self healing along the way.

If you are short of plat, and doing multiple runs with a pug, and its costing you in scrolls and wands, then speak up. Again a "Guys I am out of wands/scrolls, anyone help me out?" is about good partying, and good players should and will respond with "I'll go grab you some scrolls/wands". If you get total silence, well, then you may want to consider what kind of people you are Puging with. I have had some awesome hand outs from total strangers (50 Raise Dead scrolls) but I was very likely lucky to have met good people.

Anyway mate, keep at it, and welcome to the dogbowl that is Pugging as a Cleric :-)

Regards
Wolf

I hear ya. On some teams when I do run out of SP, I have no issue letting them know I'm out. Sometimes a coll person will drop some mnemonic pots on me, which is appreciated. I never thought to ask for loot for wands though, that's not a bad idea.

I hear you about the dogbowl for the clerics. often times I get sucked into a mission that's kind of above my level, just because clerics seem to be scarce in this game. In those cases, I just get next to nothing loot wise, which is so perturbing. Being new, I don't know the slang for the missions so I am apt to just accept for the XP.

[Drekisen]

Don't play a heabot.......worst occupation in the game.

Uncheck the end reward based on class setting in options under gameplay.

Ironically you'll end up with more mnemonics with it on random than u will with it on based by class even when your a caster...which makes absolutely no sense to me.

Wavecrasher Manifest collectibles......drop quite often in the lower level quests...hand them in for partially charged cure mod wands.

Are they cure serious...no...but they are free...and if your party is taking that much damage it's not your healing ability that's lacking....it's their mental capability.

Try to always remember this as well......90% of the time it's not the clerics fault.....make that your mantra.