Divines: why do so many others know our role?

[Archangel666]

What you mean you did not take the feat "Cure stupid instantly"? Man way to gimp your divine!

lol Yeah, I gimped myself by not taking that Feat.


I can cure damage to your Health, I can cure Diseases, I can cure Poisons, I can cure Curses, I can cure Stat Damage, I can even cure Neg Levels.

Stupidity? Not so much...

[Mubjon]

lol Yeah, I gimped myself by not taking that Feat.


I can cure damage to your Health, I can cure Diseases, I can cure Poisons, I can cure Curses, I can cure Stat Damage, I can even cure Neg Levels.

Stupidity? Not so much...

It has gotten to where even doing the things I can do on my Cleric is a pain in most pugs. I need that new feat that allows me to see 10 seconds before something bad happens to a character so that I can begin casting the second before it hits them. I am still not sure that would stop the complaining about the person getting a boo boo that I did not get to right away though.

I do not like this wizard life that much, but it does have the upside of nothing having to hear people complain because my death aura was not healing them fast enough.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Funny enough, most of the people that say BYOH is "every man for himself" are the people who say they never have and never would join a BYOH group, such as a certain previously prolific anti-BYOH poster who claimed to be quite the cool guy. >_>

I never said that I "never have" joined them.

I said that I do not join them. I meant do not join them now.
(I believe I have also mentioned having bad experiences in them... or seeing things I disliked.)

As a simple concept BYOH isn't bad... I have done it for years. (BmoH)

The large amount of BYOH forum threads show that there is much variety in what people actually mean by it.

But more and more I see it being used to mean every man for himself... which I dislike.

So after some bad experiences... and even more bad forum threads/posts..... I decided to not join them.

[Karavek]

I never said that I "never have" joined them.

I said that I do not join them. I meant do not join them now.
(I believe I have also mentioned having bad experiences in them... or seeing things I disliked.)

As a simple concept BYOH isn't bad... I have done it for years. (BmoH)

The large amount of BYOH forum threads show that there is much variety in what people actually mean by it.

But more and more I see it being used to mean every man for himself... which I dislike.

So after some bad experiences... and even more bad forum threads/posts..... I decided to not join them.

I thought Id answer this by going back to the path to enlightenment which i also took the time to bump while there.The Below is step 4 of the path so well written and defined the post is relevent all these years later.

4) Over-healer
You are the player all groups love to have. Every time you log into your cleric, provided you haven’t gone anonymous yet, you get tells wondering if you will join their group. You can keep just about any group going strong by preventing or healing damage as the case warrants. You are always short on mana and have become addicted to mana pots. This is where most players get stuck, and although they may advance in other ways, they are hampered in their advancement because of the continual need to heal that over-healing entails. They are also hampered because of all the positive praise they are getting from groups and may still be poor.
Primary learning objective – You are learning which groups are good as far as party makeup and will cost you the least amount of resources. You are learning raid situations and how to best heal large vs. disperse groups. You are learning how awesome quicken is for keeping everyone going. Your biggest weakness is you haven’t learned yet what heal/cure spells are the most efficient in all situations. You need to learn mana efficieny rules as far as healing. You should be able to solo cleric VoD on hard (properly lead, at level 16) or last at least 2 rounds in shroud part 4 (again, at level 16).

The parts highlighted help to explain how those who try to argue they are happy just to heal though not always aware, are stuck and the limited form of cleric. Why groups have trouble finding so called healers as most poor cleric phase players are happy and willing to do that for friends and guilds but not pugs such is the selfless nature of friendship, and why certain play styles and classes associated with them end up having an even harder time finding players willing to heal them, as those who can heal, have by that point learned to avoid them and work with those who make healing less a need, and more a oh thanks for that emergency spot heal i wasnt paying enough attention there myself you know ill have your back with a heal scroll next time u need one bro kind of moment

[Braegan]

A soulstone is the direct result of a divine being a bad player.

I think that's going too far into the other side of the spectrum.

I believe a divine should be providing most of the groups heals. And the group should make this as easy a task as they can, via getting some of their owns heals, removing own curses, solid defenses (blurry, ghostly, dodge, prr, heal amp, etc), and playing with some sense and not biting off more then you can chew at a time.

I don't believe a divine should do nothing but heal and that every death is thier fault. A good divine can heal a group and provide additional DPS (melee or nuking) some CC (content/build dependant) at the same time.

I make my divines able to do many things, and I make my melee the type that divines find easy to heal.

But, even in the best of groups with the best players. Deaths happen. Sometimes it's poor play, execution or plan (or lack thereof), and sometimes it's just bad luck, rolling a 1, or whatever. I don't know about everyone else, but when a death happens I don't let it disolve into a Blamestorming Session.

[Postumus]

what really saddens me is the amount of posters who keep claiming clerics can't do things.

No one in this thread has even come close to saying that.

I just don't see how wanting to enjoy the game a certain way equals not playing a divine but it does make me glad I will never run with some of the posters in this thread because I can't imagine letting a class icon stop me from trying to get the very best out of the class in my own way.

I can't even tell who in this thread you think you are arguing with... unless it is those of us who play clerics and FvS that have said, in effect, 'keeping the party healed is easy enough, so why would a cleric even need to put up a BYOH?' Maybe you are just inferring things from posts in this thread that weren't intended by the posters?


You have obviously taken the lack of support very personally with your threats to quit posting here, followed up by profanity-laced diatribes elsewhere on the interwebs railing against the 'stupidity' of the people in this thread for not understanding your message and not agreeing with you. Maybe your message isn't as clear as you think it is? Maybe instead of getting upset at people who seem to disagree with you, you could simply clarify your position? Perhaps some of us honestly don't experience the number of problems/challenges from other players you do when we play our clerics in PUGs and we have difficulty sympathizing with your position?


(And please don't accuse me of 'obviously not playing a divine' and 'obviously haven't had much experience with PUGs,' if I don't wholeheartedly agree with you or your position. That card gets played in almost every thread where one player disagrees with another player and it is almost invariably incorrect. Sometimes players just disagree on 'the best way' to play. That's normal and to be expected.)

[Postumus]

I think that's going too far into the other side of the spectrum.

I believe a divine should be providing most of the groups heals. And the group should make this as easy a task as they can, via getting some of their owns heals, removing own curses, solid defenses (blurry, ghostly, dodge, prr, heal amp, etc), and playing with some sense and not biting off more then you can chew at a time.

I don't believe a divine should do nothing but heal and that every death is thier fault. A good divine can heal a group and provide additional DPS (melee or nuking) some CC (content/build dependant) at the same time.

I make my divines able to do many things, and I make my melee the type that divines find easy to heal.

But, even in the best of groups with the best players. Deaths happen. Sometimes it's poor play, execution or plan (or lack thereof), and sometimes it's just bad luck, rolling a 1, or whatever. I don't know about everyone else, but when a death happens I don't let it disolve into a Blamestorming Session.

Exactly. And in my experience, all but the most selfish of players usually take responsibility for dying. Even when I've been slow or had trouble getting a heal off in time and I feel responsible for letting someone down, the other player usually says something along the lines of "It's not your fault, I wasn't paying enough attention."

[Karavek]

No one in this thread has even come close to saying that.




I can't even tell who in this thread you think you are arguing with... unless it is those of us who play clerics and FvS that have said, in effect, 'keeping the party healed is easy enough, so why would a cleric even need to put up a BYOH?' Maybe you are just inferring things from posts in this thread that weren't intended by the posters?


You have obviously taken the lack of support very personally with your threats to quit posting here, followed up by profanity-laced diatribes elsewhere on the interwebs railing against the 'stupidity' of the people in this thread for not understanding your message and not agreeing with you. Maybe your message isn't as clear as you think it is? Maybe instead of getting upset at people who seem to disagree with you, you could simply clarify your position? Perhaps some of us honestly don't experience the number of problems/challenges from other players you do when we play our clerics in PUGs and we have difficulty sympathizing with your position?


(And please don't accuse me of 'obviously not playing a divine' and 'obviously haven't had much experience with PUGs,' if I don't wholeheartedly agree with you or your position. That card gets played in almost every thread where one player disagrees with another player and it is almost invariably incorrect. Sometimes players just disagree on 'the best way' to play. That's normal and to be expected.)

No your just clearly stuck on the path and far from enlightenment if you dont get what she is about. If you like to play healer simply put your doing it wrong. Even in PnP people treating clerics as healers is more likely to see that player dead then healed. In fact numerous articles have been written in dragon over the years suggesting all kinds OF rp tricks to **** with the heads of the needy who treat divine magic as a band aid for their every boo boo.

Now certainly DDO is not PnP, nor is it a trinity based MMO. At least not the trinity of 3 players, but it is a trinity of self. Good builds, end game builds, group friendly builds, all strive to not be dependant nor a burden upon others. That each respects that ALL come here to play pretty much the same hack and slash style fast paced action RPG no matter what class or build we use. Everyone is DPS, everyone should have decent tricks to mitigate dmg, and everyone should have the means to keep themselves healed up in general and aid others in emergencies. Its those who wont be all of the above who need to solo or stick with static groups. However that is rarely the way it works. And why the pug scene has always been so dismal here in DDO. The good learn quickly to leave the chaos of random allies behind and play in fun,functional, sane groups rather then those filled with mad men demanding others subvert thier fun time so the good of the group and its xp per min is all that matters.

[Khatzhas]

No your just clearly stuck on the path and far from enlightenment if you dont get what she is about.

So help out. Enlighten him. Explain to him whom Kalari was addressing.

If you like to play healer simply put your doing it wrong.

Its a personal preference. How can simply liking a certain playstyle be doing it wrong?
We're not talking about forcing it on others, not playing to extremes. Just adopting a useful party role, like trapper.
Just because most of the people on the forums can talk about how their build can simply run through traps doesn't mean that there is no potential for someone able to handle traps to be useful in the actual game, or that enjoying playing a character capable of disabling them rather than barging through is wrong.

Everyone is DPS, everyone should have decent tricks to mitigate dmg, and everyone should have the means to keep themselves healed up in general and aid others in emergencies.

Now, with the enhancements update coming up, is an ideal time to actually make this happen.
Balance the classes so that they can all perform equally well without requiring outside assistance. If giving fighters healing equivalent to clerics is too much of a stretch, introduce abilities that allow them to mitigate incoming spell and physical damage. Where a cleric might rely on quickened Heals to stay up, a fighter with the right feats and enhancements just doesn't take enough damage to require that cleric to use those heals on themselves.
Something similar could probably be done with traps as well.
The important thing is to make these part of the base class, available at the outset, rather than require esoteric knowledge, outside help from twink items or craftables, real money etc.
Its is rather ironic that even in a much more team-oriented game like World of Warcraft, where content is designed to require a healing class, the non-healers have more available self-healing than DDO.

[Orratti]

I build my clerics to do two things well. Either to stand in with the melees with the aura running and mass cures/heals centered on myself with bursts. Or I build them to be offensive casters that destruct and slay living casters and heal the mass of melees with mass heal/cures and single targeted healing spells. In all cases I also build for a strong Divine Punishment for end fights with the boss and cycling through that and my heal/mass heal spell as needed in raids. In fact raiding is the only time I do not mind being more centered on healing.

The way you have talked it seems that you more than likely run with the same people, be it friends or guildies. When I run with my friends and guildies they never blame me for their deaths or if they do it is not done in the tone of "What was you thinking casting that comet fall that probably saved the others, where was my HEAL!"



I should not have to TR into something else to group up with people in an MMORPG game.



Most of the time I see people yelling at the cleric is when they have ran off from the rest of the group and died, ran through a trap and died or decided it was cool to run and fight behind some obstacles while the rest of the group is in a different part of the room.

Yes I have seen some die in the presence of the group and I have personally let people die that could not sustain more than a few seconds of being beat on. But, those are the minority cases in the 3+ years I have played a divine and in the last year I have really gotten away from pugging my clerics because it is just better to solo.

I have joined a dedicated group for the past two weekends with my divine and that is going good and enjoy that, so that might be how I will have to play divines from here on out and not pug them.



Healing is exactly babysitting if it requires 100% of your attention. If someone cannot even go 5 seconds without needed a cure/heal spell there is a serious problem with that persons build. Those seem to be the ones that yell the loudest when they are let to die because of the drain on resources they are creating.

Even those maladies have timers for the most part, people still cry to have them fixed right away. I get that ability damage can be devastating, but I have a burst for that and I cannot see it. So telling me once that you have it and then run off to the next battle to die. Is not my problem, I am not going to waste a spell or scroll on something I can cure for free if given the time for it to work. Curses are not much of a problem outside of the permanment healing curse, but the pot removes that for you and is far more cost effective than spending the 20 spell points to remove it every single time you get it. Same goes for poison, disease and other maladies that people believe should be removed withing seconds of contacting.



The point is that my cleric is typically the one that can stay standing. I know its capabilities better than the person in the pug. There is a reason that I am standing in the pile with the melees and it has nothing to do with thinking I am going to do more damage than the barb or fighter. The weapon I am carrying might be lowering the AC of the mob, the aura going is ticking for the amount of a cure serious pot every two seconds and that helps mitigate the damage being taken. Using a burst when a spike of damage hits has the same affect as a mass heal being tossed into the pile. IF there is undead swarming about that turn undead or burst is going to do far more damage and aid to the group than if I stood back and watched red bars. Dropping a blade barrier in the middle of the pack of melees will add a quick 300+ damage to everything coming into it and out of it, depending on the quest that 300 to 600 pts of damage is almost 50% of the trash mobs health. Helping the melees to kill faster or the casters AOE finish off what is left.

None of that is possible if I just sit back and watch the red bars and do nothing more than play hireling.

It is up to me to decide if being in the thick of things is beneficial to the party or not. I know enough to back out if needed and I know if I should wait for the trap to be disarmed before proceeding or baring that what spell I need to mitigate damage. Heck all my divines are built with the ability to cast even arcane buffs, so my divines carry stoneskin, fireshield, blur and when I can find them displacement scrolls. I do not think it is too much to ask others to at least buy 20 pots from the vendor in market place for remove curse, disease, poison, blindness and lesser restore pots.

I build my divines to help the party and to be fun for me. It is why I solo or join my guild for runs now a days, because pugging has become too stressful dealing with people that refuse to take even a 1000 plat to help with something simple as removing their own curse/disease or blindness.

I used to pug exclusively for the first 2 and half years I played. It just is not that fun to pug any group where I might have demands placed on me on how I should play the character I have spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars and thousands of hours creating so the person can feel like the hero in the quest.


Good thing is that when the enhancement pass hits there will be no need to be a cleric anymore, a hire will be able to do what turbine is going to force all clerics to be doing. I will say that splashing 6 levels of cleric will be far more beneficial to people then, can get the aura and the bursts for 40 ap.

I think you chose the wrong person to argue with. My first post you responded to was about multiclassing something along the line of a 12/6/2 build not a 17/2/1 cleric with all of the healing spells at their disposal.

I am aware of what a divine is capable of and have used them in combat for years killing things while keeping the party alive when I could.

I've tried several different divine builds including one shieldblocking healbot that never made it past lvl 8. Once I knew for sure that even being completely dedicated to watching red bars and a little crowd control that a party could wipe from taking damage faster than I could heal I deleted that character. I don't make healbots anymore. I never at any point while playing that toon enjoyed it.

I've been verbally abused by the occasional player. Over time it has gotten rare. Partially from running selectively as you said and partially from my adapting to more and more successful forms.

I'm not seeing much difference between us here.

[Charononus]

So help out. Enlighten him. Explain to him whom Kalari was addressing.

Its a personal preference. How can simply liking a certain playstyle be doing it wrong?
We're not talking about forcing it on others, not playing to extremes. Just adopting a useful party role, like trapper.
Just because most of the people on the forums can talk about how their build can simply run through traps doesn't mean that there is no potential for someone able to handle traps to be useful in the actual game, or that enjoying playing a character capable of disabling them rather than barging through is wrong.

Now, with the enhancements update coming up, is an ideal time to actually make this happen.
Balance the classes so that they can all perform equally well without requiring outside assistance. If giving fighters healing equivalent to clerics is too much of a stretch, introduce abilities that allow them to mitigate incoming spell and physical damage. Where a cleric might rely on quickened Heals to stay up, a fighter with the right feats and enhancements just doesn't take enough damage to require that cleric to use those heals on themselves.
Something similar could probably be done with traps as well.
The important thing is to make these part of the base class, available at the outset, rather than require esoteric knowledge, outside help from twink items or craftables, real money etc.
Its is rather ironic that even in a much more team-oriented game like World of Warcraft, where content is designed to require a healing class, the non-healers have more available self-healing than DDO.

Sadly your idea's are the opposite of what's in the enhancement pass alpha.

[Khatzhas]

Sadly your idea's are the opposite of what's in the enhancement pass alpha.

I know. That is why constructive feedback, that can actually be used by the Devs is so important: to get changes made now, while it is just an alpha.

However, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that the forum-users are a small and rather unrepresentative section of the playerbase. Almost by definition, we are at the hardcore end of the scale. Just because a lot of the forumites want to cut back on group-support abilities in favour of soloing and personal buffs, does not necessarily mean that it will be a positive move for the majority of the playerbase, who don't solo elites using TR items and cash reserves and specially crafted gear.

[Braegan]

No your just clearly stuck on the path and far from enlightenment if you dont get what she is about. If you like to play healer simply put your doing it wrong. Even in PnP people treating clerics as healers is more likely to see that player dead then healed. In fact numerous articles have been written in dragon over the years suggesting all kinds OF rp tricks to **** with the heads of the needy who treat divine magic as a band aid for their every boo boo.

I know your quote wasn't directed at me. But since Postumus and I seem to be pretty much on the same page on this, I'd like to field a response out to you.

You are referecing the Path to Enlightenment, right? A very excellent post, written well and with alot of truth.

That post (shortening here) states as a divine you start out sucking, learn to heal, learn to overheal, learn to juggle healing and other things, become good at all those things, realize the class is great as you bring all that to the table.

Please, forgive my ignorance. Was another learning step introduced that included divines acting like they were gods gift to any party they graced their appearance with and heal when they choose and basically be less then a hireling but slightly more then a piker?

Don't think anyone here is saying a divine caster cannot and should not do other things. But bottom line, divines heal the best. Press the little buttons on your hot bar with + signs on them and heal the group once and a bit, while you do whatever else you are built to do and everyone will be happy.

[Charononus]

Don't think anyone here is saying a divine caster cannot and should not do other things

Except for that gets said a lot in game. Were you saying it on the forums well many could have been interpreted that way, especially when you think of what happens in pugs.

[firemedium_jt]

I thought Id answer this by going back to the path to enlightenment which i also took the time to bump while there.The Below is step 4 of the path so well written and defined the post is relevent all these years later.

4) Over-healer
You are the player all groups love to have. Every time you log into your cleric, provided you haven’t gone anonymous yet, you get tells wondering if you will join their group. You can keep just about any group going strong by preventing or healing damage as the case warrants. You are always short on mana and have become addicted to mana pots. This is where most players get stuck, and although they may advance in other ways, they are hampered in their advancement because of the continual need to heal that over-healing entails. They are also hampered because of all the positive praise they are getting from groups and may still be poor.
Primary learning objective – You are learning which groups are good as far as party makeup and will cost you the least amount of resources. You are learning raid situations and how to best heal large vs. disperse groups. You are learning how awesome quicken is for keeping everyone going. Your biggest weakness is you haven’t learned yet what heal/cure spells are the most efficient in all situations. You need to learn mana efficieny rules as far as healing. You should be able to solo cleric VoD on hard (properly lead, at level 16) or last at least 2 rounds in shroud part 4 (again, at level 16).

The parts highlighted help to explain how those who try to argue they are happy just to heal though not always aware, are stuck and the limited form of cleric. Why groups have trouble finding so called healers as most poor cleric phase players are happy and willing to do that for friends and guilds but not pugs such is the selfless nature of friendship, and why certain play styles and classes associated with them end up having an even harder time finding players willing to heal them, as those who can heal, have by that point learned to avoid them and work with those who make healing less a need, and more a oh thanks for that emergency spot heal i wasnt paying enough attention there myself you know ill have your back with a heal scroll next time u need one bro kind of moment

Yeah I bump up The_Great_Samulas post too.

Only problem I have with it is when it is quoted as perfection and some sorta lack of failure occurring. I just don't read it that way although I can see why some do.

What I took from it was what a Cleric goes through and possibly what a Cleric type can be for me. Not really a right or wrong to it for me.

It just showed me what the class can do. Where it fits in to the 'blend' of things and re-enforces why I like to play them mostly. I like the easy diversity of the class and how it is easily great at an important ability of the game which is healing and the leverage it gives you or more control to a certain extent of how things go. I need that because I pug a lot, and I don't like to wait for groups to form. I also like how it blends melee and casting, and that I don't have to be great at either, but I can be. I hate to grind, and I don't like to grind out a lot of gear because I just don't think it matters much, and less so on the Cleric class than most others. The down side is when you suck in other classes it is hard to notice, but not the Cleric class. Now you really have to just be a good healer, but that does not mean you don't have the right to push the envelope. I die once in a while, and sometimes I am the only one that dies. Usually it is when I have no blue bar left. I like going out in flames I guess, and most realize I am just having fun and pushing the build to the limits. I usually don't risk completion because of it and when they finish the quest and I am the only one dead they raise me, and shake their heads at the 10% lose in xp as they do, but they are usually so glad I showed up and their wait was less than 30 minutes for a healer that they let it slide. And other healers wonder what I am doing in the thick of it jumping around and busting my arse with all the multi tasking, but unfortunately less of them do so now because many are not Clerics anymore due to this OP. So I say this great post is a push to push the class to the limits and see what it and you can do with it.

I guess I don't need much of a comfort zone as a Cleric, but I think I know my limits, and that does not mean you can't exceed them. Communications and expectations with the group plays a big part of the animosity from it.

You are not succeeding at it if you never fail.

______________

Now I am not a TR maniac. I am casual, but I have played basic casters and melees as first lives. The insta kills when they worked where fun to watch and elemental DOT damage were cool numbers. My pure melee pally had nice damage numbers so I thought! and some healing, but he sweated out waiting for that heal from the healer all the time wondering if it would come. My caster Sorc at low lvl had more hit points and did more melee damage than most melee low lvl pugs and was a self healing robot, but still was not much of a challenge for me after I stoned xp him. My Pale Master thief was an interesting build and survivable, and so was my Favored Soul Monk to a nice extent. Now the raid roles for melees and casters can be a challenge, but once you learn it there is not much to it. I did not do much high lvl raiding with these guys cause I got kinda bored with them I guess. Now trying to decide what to do be it casting or melee while you are keeping the others alive with healing is just so busy and fun most of the time for me that time flies by as a Cleric. There is more of every type of class in a Cleric than any other class in the game.

And there is no class affected more by other players game play and a party make up than the Divine Healer classes; and socially Clerics most of all in the game. Now if you keep it one dimensional role it keeps it simple and maybe even more predictable, and still fun, but there is a problem for me with predictability, and it is just a game really, so I like it unpredictable sometimes. And I am not saying I want to **** anyone off because of it, so that is what drinking pots is for. There is no class more affected by the group than the Cleric or healer of the group.

[catmamor]

I have come to the conclusion that the sort of players that want a nanny/heal bot are the sort of players that are unable to complete that particular dungeon, either through a gimped build, stupidity, arrogance or just being completely in over their head.

Trying to run elite when you KNOW it is too much for you, recruiting a Divine into your party and expecting them to keep you alive is not good game play - it may get you that much desired loot but it will mean that the Divine won't be running with you again.

I tried party with guildies and even after spending TP on mnemonic pots to get us to the end of the quest on elite, they didn't say thanks, offer plat, loot or recompense for my expense. I will not be running with that tank again and I will be looking for a different guild - you get the joy of seeing this things as a cleric which I wouldn't have seen on my druid or fvs. It's an eye-opener and a shame, I would like to team up with people and run quests but I won't be doing it on my cleric, i've had enough already.

[Karavek]

I have come to the conclusion that the sort of players that want a nanny/heal bot are the sort of players that are unable to complete that particular dungeon, either through a gimped build, stupidity, arrogance or just being completely in over their head.

Trying to run elite when you KNOW it is too much for you, recruiting a Divine into your party and expecting them to keep you alive is not good game play - it may get you that much desired loot but it will mean that the Divine won't be running with you again.

I tried party with guildies and even after spending TP on mnemonic pots to get us to the end of the quest on elite, they didn't say thanks, offer plat, loot or recompense for my expense. I will not be running with that tank again and I will be looking for a different guild - you get the joy of seeing this things as a cleric which I wouldn't have seen on my druid or fvs. It's an eye-opener and a shame, I would like to team up with people and run quests but I won't be doing it on my cleric, i've had enough already.

Welcome to the Family of Anon Divines. And if you go to your servers guild sub forum, and put up a thread saying your willing to play healer for guild/static groups who play smart and share the burden you should manage to find one that appreciates you enough. If not you probably will soon learn why DDO is spoken of so illy on other MMO forums when it comes to our community.

[Kalari]

Okay so now that I know my posts in other forums that aren't even allowed to be discussed here are being watched by certain posters I will put the jist here.

Its not about not healing (which many of you keep bringing up you can go back and read your own post for that)

its not about ass kissing a divine, I play with drunks who think killing me gets them better loots, im pretty damned sure they aren't going to kiss my ass for a heal tossed.

It isn't about people agreeing with me, and my rants somewhere else is due to not being allowed to say what I truly wish to some of you on these boards without violating EULA and disrespecting others who I due have respect for.

I simply wanted to know how many people who try to tell a divine how to play actually play them. Instead I get told "oh you should not play a divine if you do not wish to heal... no where did I say I do not heal or did not wish to heal. I said that I do not want to be stuck only healing and glad I don't find myself in those situations anymore.

I came here after people were up in arms about a cleric posting a byoh, many of you arguing against it go by your feeling that byoh means that a divine in the group isn't going to toss you a heal. Even though many of us who do run byoh say we wouldn't do that but we do focus on other things things we built our clerics around doing (damage, fighting whatever).

I got told in another forums that "its a pointless waste of time, divines will never be as good.."

Really so because of your opinion divines should what? All the flip flopping im just saying this but I mean that doesn't help the situation. I have been clear if you don't bother to learn all you can about the class and find something that works for you, if you do not love the cleric class and only roll one up to be the party healer then I don't feel you have the right to tell other players how to play their divines.

And yes this does go out to anyone who has said in this thread or others "why bother, re roll" or any other advice without even knowing who they are addressing. I tried to leave this thread alone but the same old culprits keep popping up just to try to get digs in and honestly after saying things like "their main focus should be healing" when healing was not even the topic can either Post of Brae tell me what gives them the right to tell another player how to play their character class and what lfm they should post. If you can answer that question I really will stop addressing the both of you because I still not gotten an answer here or in other places.

[Braegan]

Okay so can either Post of Brae tell me what gives them the right to tell another player how to play their character class and what lfm they should post. If you can answer that question I really will stop addressing the both of you because I still not gotten an answer here or in other places.

Well lets not talk of other places, because you were clearly not willing to even entertain an civil discussion elsewhere. Since, we are here...sure I'll gladly answer this. Incoming, long post. Go!

First, we need to redefine something. The "right" to tell another player how to play is a very grey area. To be perfectly honest the only thing you can do is ask a player to do something or recommend a better way of doing things. The player can respond positively or can do his own thing anyway. In which case it's probably for the best that after the run, folks part ways as they take different views on things. And, while sometimes you can make others see your point of view, other times it turns into a pointless waste of time bickering and "Don't tell me how to play!", etc, etc.

Now, that we've redefined that having a "right" to tell someone anything isn't anything more (or shouldn't be anything more) then giving some pro-tips. And, anything more can just disolve into petty bickering that goes on in circles. I'll explain, why I feel I both have the background/experience to give such advice/claims and why I feel that the advice/claims I am giving are the most sound.

Why do I feel I have the background/experience to advise a divine on how to play their toons?

Since I started this game. My first guild was very kind to it's divines. The cap was 10 and raids like Von were painful for a divine, remember there were no shrines in that raid at the time. All, melee were required to take care of everything they could as well as donate, before the raid started, either rez scrolls, wands, pots or plat. It was difficult to heal raids then (of course there were only two) with limited spells, lower mana pool, etc.

I got onto rolling my own cleric up not too long into my ddo journey. I struggled at bit in the beginning, but I was persistent in that I wanted to prove everyone wrong in that you can make a great battle cleric that would not let the group down in healing. It wasn't too long that I became really good at it.

I could, and proved a few times over I could solo heal any raid. I salvaged a few raids, when I was the only healer type that was worth his salt. This did go to my head a bit. I have since become much more relaxed about it. But for a time, I was very strict in how I wanted to do things, because it took some pressure off me. Being in a high-end raiding guild, with a stigma for perfection did put some pressure on me to perform at maximum potential. I learned alot both about myself and the divine classes during that time.

Now, having run nearly every bit of content on it's highest difficulty on many classes I see first hand how each class can respond to the game. Currently, I have
- 2 monks
- 1 kensai pure ftr
- 1 helves AA
- 1 fvs
- 1 cleric
- 2 wizards
- 1 bard

All between levels 20 and 25. Most tr'd at least once.

That roster gives me the chance to witness first hand, how it is to play a divine, arcane, ranged dps, spell caster, melee dps, basically every role you can. My kensai was a SD tank build until very recently.

Why do I think the advice I give is the best way to go?

Ok why would I tell a divine that their main focus should be on providing the groups main heals, while they do other things.

I know sounds pretty pretentious. But, lets think for a second. What does it cost a divine to throw a heal? Some 60 sp? Even better, once you get ED's a Renewal, what 5 sp? If a cleric, a burst which costs 1 regenerating Turn. For a divine to put healing on their front task barely puts a dent in their resources. It barely registers on my radar as a dip into my resources to keep a party alive.

Now, lets consider a fighter, trying to keep himself healed. Heal Scrolls? Meh, lets not worry about price, divines have that too. But, to use with a chance of success odds are you are relying on some buffs being active (GH perhaps) and are going to have to swap at least one gear slot to a UMD item. And, if near damage or ranged damage, need to worry about a Concentration check, which lets face it not many fighters and barbs are going to have skill points to dedicate to Concentration. So that pretty much leaves Scroll Healing for a melee as an out of combat self top -off.

And, Silver Flame Pots! Everyone says to get them. And I agree they are great for a pinch. But, they are a bit costly. A few runs of using them and it's noticable. And the debuff. For a second, we will discount the loss of melee DPS because sure I'll agree a soul-stone does no DPS. But, taking a staggering -5 to reflex and will saves along with the movement speed debuff can put you in a spot where the next comet fall lays you down and out. And now you're going have death penalties whenever you get a rez. SF pots are great for oh no moments, but the debuff and cost make them risky to use sometimes.

Twisted in heals. Ok here's a good option. I currently don't have this on my fighter. He does devote two of his three twists to defense and saves (Brace for Impaqt and Unearthly Reactions). So it's not like I went all DPS and said the heck with keeping myself alive. If I had a 4th twist, I would totally take Cocoon. I have considered trying to get it in, and will probably play around with it. Of all the options this is the best as far as cost vs reward ratio.

So what does all my rambling mean?

The TL;DR version.

While it's great to have melee able to take care of themselves the best they can. A divine throwing some heals, ED abilities, etc heals much stronger and with non of the penalty that comes with a melee trying to do the same himself.

So a divine not taking the healing role into their own hands means a slower, more expensive run for the melee. As the melee are constantly dealing with swapping gear, dealing with concentration checks, dealing with SF debuffs, having sub-optimal twists.

A divine that does provide the bulk of the groups healing, means a power-house run where the melee can go crazy DPS, saving SF pots for emergencies, Scroll healing for out of combat heals. Is 9 out of 10 times a faster run. Is also, likewise the least costly to either party involved (the divine using mana, the melee not using pots/scrolls).

That is why I advise that a Divine is responsible for the bulk of the groups healing. Because, it is in most cases the least resource intensive (to either party) and leads to stronger, faster, more effcient runs. I still stand by, that a divine should not only heal (unless the situation deems is) but a divine should provide the bulk of the groups heals, because it makes for better runs.