Frustration with Cleric: Ding, ding, ding!!

[Ugumagre]

Well, I mainly play a cleric and I am not satisfied with my doing.
To much ding in my party. Nobody even suggest that it could be my fault, but I think I could do better.
I am talking about a static group about 5-7th level. Certainly some squishy toons there. But that is not the question here. If somebody dies in a trap or after 2 hits, well... thats another problem.

I think is more a question of my personal real life dexterity, and some lack of strategy.

First problem, that bothers me a lot:
As a radiant servant I, with maximize, I felt quite confident to keep everybody alive.
Then it happens every time. I had selected some toon of the party, and left it like that. The time comes that I want to push the healing burst. Nothing happens. Panik. Then I realize I have somebody selected. Deselect. Healing burst. Too late. Some advice, tricks ? How you deselect fast? I do it by rightclicking somewhere.

Second problem: I get hurt, badly. Then I think, if I die, other of the party may die also. So I try to run away from pain. I think is not a good strategy. What do you do, usually, when you get hurt and you can imagine that in 3-4 seconds you could be dead? Just stay the ground and cast healings like crazy?

Third problem / advice: Clumsy with the mouse. I usually select a party member pushing F2, F3 and so on. Then, usually I use the mouse for clicking the healing. Pushing the number 3, or 8 or 9, would be quite faster I guess.
Do you usually toggle with Ctrl + 1,2,3 and so, or you have some uber setting of your keyboard keys?

Thank you for the advice!!

[FrozenNova]

Keep burst on 1. Use burst by hitting F1 1.
(Edit: I don't play a cleric. Was it changed so it no longer requires you to target yourself to burst? If so, ESC 1.)

If I am in danger of death, I heal myself.
If it's a caster attacking me, in low levels they can be nullified with resist energy or soundburst.
If it's a brutish melee attacking me, in low levels they be nullified with command.
Carry a metal tower shield with the highest enhancement value you can find. Use its active blocking DR to reduce incoming damage if you're on elite and unlikely to get crowd control off.
At higher levels, with blade barrier and destroy, trash will be a joke.


..You click icons on main hotbars? The numerical mapping bit is sort of the entire idea.

Whether to toggle bars with ctrl or to use a limited number of bars or both is personal preference.
Myself, I use alt, ctrl, shift and ` as modifier keys to access the 5 different bars important enough to be in common use.

[Matuse]

How you deselect fast? I do it by rightclicking somewhere.

Target yourself with F1. Use burst.

[vVAnjilaVv]

I have my key mapping set up in a custom way....as most people I am sure.

I never ever use the F1-12 keys for selecting people, if I wanna select someone I click their name in the party list. This does two things, gives me extra hotkeys for spells, scrolls, wands, actions, etc.....and keeps my eyes on the whole party not just the person who needs healing the most.

I re-key my select self button to the R key.....this way when I need to select myself really fast I can and also keep my mobility optimal as I do not have to move my fingers away from my WASD movement keys. Moving well while healing on a cleric is important.....as you can avoid being in harms way much better.

My primary healing spell....which by level 11 will be the HEAL spell itself is set to my number pad + key......it's fast and right next to the mouse. Heal scrolls or most powerful scroll is set to my numberpad delete key. Healing wands are set to F1 and F2...once equipped you can use right mouse click. My healing burst key is set to my number pad ENTER key.

When I need to do a healing burst I never look to see who I have targeted, I always default to click my R key then hit my numberpad ENTER key.

My ailment healing spells are on my number 1-0 keys and set as
1-Bless
2-Remove Blindness
3-Remove Curse
4-Panacea
5-Remove Fear
6-Mnemonic Potions.....this was more a concern back in the day when getting Feeblemind was extremely detrimental
7-Restoration, Greater Restoration
8-Remove Paralysis
9-Neutralize Poison
0-Lesser Restoration

If I am not carrying the actual spell it is replaced by a NON-GUILD potion.....the funnel action potions can be used on other member and is way faster than switching to a scroll or wand......if I am carrying the spell the same potion, wand, or scroll goes in the same spot as above however I add the CONTROL key for a meta.

So Bless wand would be CNTRL-1....and so on.

My cure spells later to be replaced by Mass cure spells are set to
F8-Cure Light mass
F9-Cure Moderate mass
F10-Cure Serious mass
F11-Cure Critical mass
F12-Heal mass

F6-F7 are Raise and Res

F5 is Break Enchantment.....yeah getting rid of those area of effect spells mitigates a ton of damage.

I keep the hot keys buried in one bar on my screen which is not a problem once u have them memorized. I always keep my number pad bar on top of the ones I have buried. I do however make sure I put my mass spells visible somewhere else on a bar not buried just so I can see the cooldowns on them. Uses extra hotbar slots but makes me feel more comfortable.

You get the general idea, make use of those hotkey setups on ALL of your characters, you will be way faster and efficient once you find a good setup.

Mine is just an example, do it how you want, but make use of the feature.

[HalfOrcBeautyQueen]

Have no fear, fellow healer!

First, don't be too hard on yourself. At level 5-7 your spells aren't that uber yet, and they aren't very mana-efficient.
Right now you only have the Burst, once you get the Aura, Heal, Effective Masses, and Blade Barrier your role becomes much easier.

Having said that, take this challenge as a learning opportunity but have faith that it will get better.

Personally, I use F1-F12 to target my party/raid members.
I slot my spells like this (At level 20, suggestions in parentheses):
1. Heal (Or until you get it, your strongest single target cure)
2. -
3. Mass Cure Moderate (Or Mass Cure Light, but use it with an Ardor clickie)
4. Mass Heal

Keeping an eye on red bars, I can quickly toggle to my party member who needs a heal and send one out due to the close proximity of F1-6 with 1-4.

If I need to quickly target myself or lose a target I just hit F1 then Esc.

Now, at level 5-7 this strategy may not work, but what I usually do is keep up with the Party instead of hanging in the back (unless its absolutely necessary for my survival, like a trap) and cast Masses targeted on myself. If my party members don't realize what I'm doing within 30 seconds I usually tell them and ask them to stick close to me for heals. Then I use Heal to spot heal. You can also do this with your Aura on and use the Burst to spot-heal.

The "Heal" spell is your most cost-efficient healing spell. Once you learn it try to master it.

I also recommend having a pile of scrolls/wands at all times. Yes, they can be expensive, especially on a first life, but they are worth the investment. Eventually you will get to a place where you rarely need them. Once you can use Heal scrolls have a stack of 100 on you at all times.


Your responsibility to keep the party alive only goes so far. Specifically it goes just far enough to meet your party members' obligation to stay alive, so if your party members aren't meeting you half-way there isn't a whole lot you can do. They also need to have potions, proper gear, etc.; and if it is a static group they should be helping you out with resources.

[katana_one]

Already got some good advice in this thread on keymapping and such.

So let me just say that it isn't just you that's responsible for your teammates' health. If you're having trouble keeping everyone healed, then maybe suggest that the rest of the group play a bit more careful? I run with a static group and in the early levels when we were still learning to work together and trying to mesh our playstyles, we would frequently have the same issue - the main melees would bite off more aggro than we could handle and the poor cleric could not keep up.

Now, we are better at working together, managing our aggro, and the cleric has a slightly easier time. The cleric also knows who to heal first - and it's not always the person who is closest to death. When things get really bad and a wipe is imminent, the cleric knows to concentrate his heals on himself and our main tank, regardless of what happens to my squishy rogue. Sometimes as a cleric you will have to let people die to complete the quest.

And we still wipe. But it's all good - in a static group, we don't play "blame the cleric." We just reset and try again and have fun.

Good luck!

[johnyBgood]

hey, I do use the f1 -f12 keys to select party members, for your problem with deselecting I would hit f1 to select myself then cast..

for you taking damage..try to hold your ground and keep healing ..activly shield block.

I have all healing and cureatives in a line on the key board..in a big fight like healing in the shroud 4 I pad with scrolls to save mana,,

try out some of your crowd control spells sometimes its more efficient to use that than to heal evfery body up..

for instance..five ogres attack ..you sound burst, they stun, party kills them, no damage taken...

[bigolbear]

big tip 1: as other have said use keys to select party memebers - f1 through f6.

for bursting press f1, then the burst key.

Hot key your spells. make custom hot keys. i use, r,t,y,q,e,f,g,h and 1,2,3,4 for common spells effects and weapons.


big tip 2: get your self a superior ardour clicky apropriate to your spell lvl. these are cheap enough to by and will save you a a lot of mana and also your spells will be putting people on full health much easier.


big tip 3: cure mod wands, they are cheap (500 plat), and you can get them by turning in colelctables.

[Ugumagre]

thanks a lot and +1 to all, (Frozen Nova, I could not rep you, have to spread more rep around). I didn’t know I could target myself for healing burst, but yes, it should work. Will try this evening. A lot of good advice.

I will rethink all my hotkeys and discipline myself to use more the keyboard and get used to it. I know it is faster than with the mouse. For office work I am very fast with ctrl+v, ctrl+x, Ctrl + c, ctrl + f, so I should be able to do this. Only difference, at the office I do not get panic ….usually.

[Enoach]

There is one other option to stop the melee beat down on you, put Diplomacy on your hot bar. While turtled under your shield use it. It will send the attacker to the nearest other target.

[Mellifera]

thanks a lot and +1 to all, (Frozen Nova, I could not rep you, have to spread more rep around). I didn’t know I could target myself for healing burst, but yes, it should work. Will try this evening. A lot of good advice.

I will rethink all my hotkeys and discipline myself to use more the keyboard and get used to it. I know it is faster than with the mouse. For office work I am very fast with ctrl+v, ctrl+x, Ctrl + c, ctrl + f, so I should be able to do this. Only difference, at the office I do not get panic ….usually.

That will definitely help. I plan everything around what is easiest for my fingers to reach: In an emergency I'm more comfortable hitting 1-6, so all the things I need to hit fast when its the fan will go there.
Hotbar 1 is healing spells, bursts, any potency/devotion/ardor clickies, + Empower Heal
Hotbar 2 is Offensive spells + Maximize/Empower
Hotbar 3 is Team Buffs + Extend
Hotbar 4 is Melee Weapons and or Wands (depends on the build)
Hotbar 5 is Pots that I Swear I'll Have a Use For But Never Remember To Use
Hotbar 6 thru whatever is Clickies and Swappable Gear

Also if you're in a static, you can always sit down with your teammates and work out team strategy a little better. I run a chibi cleric in a guild dedicated group. Wipes tend to be very rare, but I don't think anyone realized how hard it can be on the healer until our team leader decided to change to a FVS. I missed our next meeting and then she was like "HOLY ****! We need to strategize better before our cleric kills us!!!!"

[Paleus]

I have a question that is sideways to your original questions about keymapping since many people have given good suggestions. My question is did you mean to say Maximize in your original post or Empower Healing. Empower healing is the pre-requisite for radiant I, though you could have also picked up Maximize. That said, I really would not be having maximized turn on if I were you when doing most of your healing. You would burn through your sp far too fast, and it shouldnt really be necessary at those levels.

Also, back to addressing what you have asked, if you are being attacked by a mob, run towards the other party members, rather than away from them. Most people's natural inclination is to run away from a threat, but thats also usually away from help as well. If you can get a mob that is attacking you to have to run through party members to get to you, it will slow it down and possibly switch its aggro to the party members. (Slow gazelle theory I know, but we are talking about your survival here).

Also, healing burst may not always be the most optimal way to heal a party in the middle of danger. I know its a very nice thing to save sp, but if you need to heal someone fast it will usually be better to use a spell, especially if you need to select them and run over to them. The burst is useful for after battle group heals or when the party takes a lot of damage at once (which means someone either blew a trap while you were bunched up or you left a caster unattended and were bunched up). The healing burst is probably also a little better for battle-clerics who plan to be in the thick of combat and thus can afford to have themselves selected preferrentially over others as they aren't afraid of taking damage and it puts them in the center of the party for quicker burst healing.

[Ugumagre]

There is one other option to stop the melee beat down on you, put Diplomacy on your hot bar. While turtled under your shield use it. It will send the attacker to the nearest other target.

Oh, so right! I am putting every level some point, and forget to use it!!


Mellifera, yeah, we are having some aftermath emails. We are long time friends. I had some feedback a bit after I opened this thread (that person does not read the forums, it was coincidence), and it seems that everbody is pointing to the "zerger" in the group . He is the most experienced player (has another toon in 17th Lvl), but he doesnt spend very much thoughts on team work. The info that he gives is always quite cripled. "The room will close, so everybody enter the room" "OK, I am in". Somebody opens the chest, and the space between the columns NOT THE ROOM get closed. Three toons inside, killed after some time by the elementals and the traps. And so on.
But it will be impossible to speak up some strategy. Our emails tend to mutate into insults and personal attacks, that are funny at the beginning, but at the end no more. So I will try to do my best with our "just run and kill stuff" strategy.

[Ugumagre]

I have a question that is sideways to your original questions about keymapping since many people have given good suggestions. My question is did you mean to say Maximize in your original post or Empower Healing. Empower healing is the pre-requisite for radiant I, though you could have also picked up Maximize. That said, I really would not be having maximized turn on if I were you when doing most of your healing. You would burn through your sp far too fast, and it shouldnt really be necessary at those levels.

Also, back to addressing what you have asked, if you are being attacked by a mob, run towards the other party members, rather than away from them. Most people's natural inclination is to run away from a threat, but thats also usually away from help as well. If you can get a mob that is attacking you to have to run through party members to get to you, it will slow it down and possibly switch its aggro to the party members. (Slow gazelle theory I know, but we are talking about your survival here).

Also, healing burst may not always be the most optimal way to heal a party in the middle of danger. I know its a very nice thing to save sp, but if you need to heal someone fast it will usually be better to use a spell, especially if you need to select them and run over to them. The burst is useful for after battle group heals or when the party takes a lot of damage at once (which means someone either blew a trap while you were bunched up or you left a caster unattended and were bunched up). The healing burst is probably also a little better for battle-clerics who plan to be in the thick of combat and thus can afford to have themselves selected preferrentially over others as they aren't afraid of taking damage and it puts them in the center of the party for quicker burst healing.

I have empower and maximize AND I did mean maximize.
Maybe I am wrong, but I think when using the burst with maximize, the healing is doubled too... or at least the damage you cause to undeads. Hmmm, I am quite sure that the healing is double. And as it is a no cost enhancement, it doesnt take any sp away. Problem is sometimes I forget to turn off Maximize, and suddenly I see my SP veeeery low.

[Jinpo]

This is a great discussion.

Someone mentioned running to your party members, I do this. I try to put a meat sack between me and whoever is trying to attack me.

Question, on the Break Enchantment comment on AE spells. what do you target to actually get rid of the spell? On a melee character i once tried this with a dispel magic clicky but it didn't work. Just trying to figure out the mechanics on my cleric.

[FlyingTurtle]

Panik.

Playing with a static group at low levels, doing quests at-level or lower should never induce that kind of OMG even with an accidental keyslip or a bugged targetting.

Nice thing with a static group is that you can pretty much top them off constantly with wands and expect them to refund you for this by trading you the plat. This gives a large cushion for tricky fights.

Maybe tell your guys to slow it down a tad.

[Ugumagre]

Playing with a static group at low levels, doing quests at-level or lower should never induce that kind of OMG even with an accidental keyslip or a bugged targetting.

Nice thing with a static group is that you can pretty much top them off constantly with wands and expect them to refund you for this by trading you the plat. This gives a large cushion for tricky fights.

Maybe tell your guys to slow it down a tad.

Well, we always try to play on "hard"."Normal" is really no challenge (well, excluding proof is in the poison and a few others) and elite is sure death (no rogue in the party).
We should slow it down, no question, but when Mr. Zerg is around, we get infected with the zerging virus and run around like chickens without head. If we all were experienced players, or had a good leader, maybe no problem with zerging or lets say, "doing the quest in a fast pace"...

We began playing as a static group in february... and we have reached lvl 5-6. I have tons of alts in similar level (some extremely gimped), just killing time waiting for the next possibility to play together.
But well, that is not really the question that I want to discuss in this thread. I already got tons of good advice, I have to read carefully a second time.

Oh, and yes, everybody is very generous, we have a "community pot" and I can buy wands and so on without problems.

[Montegue]

If you have a mouse with extra thumb buttons, those work *great* for your burst heal or whatever mass heal you use the most. Link 1-5 with your most commonly used heals. your E and Q keys can be remapped for commonly hit keys if you can strafe with the right mouse button.

[DoctorWhofan]

I have never used the function keys. Ever. I didn't know about I could change them at the beginning so I got used to my lefthandedness. I mouse everything.

[FrozenNova]

I've seen quite a few who use mouse to select party members via the group listing.
It's intuitive and prevents you fumbling over keys in raids, but it's also slower.
One tip would be to move the group listing so it's effectively next to your character while playing. Then you are constantly looking at them no matter what you're doing, and it is easy to hold right click to select one.