Since class changes are happening in the near future and the old thread really has never been consolidated, I am posting this in an attempt to combine everything into one post. Please let me know if anything here is wrong as some of the information I pulled is a little old. Please do NOT debate or comment on these here in this thread, take that to another thread. Keep this thread on topic with new issues that need to be added to the list. I'm lacking on some of the affinities as I am a war cleric, so if you know of issues with the ones that are lacking please post them and I will add to the list. General Ability Problems Affinity Buff Bonus Sometimes after crashing/chunking/logging the extra stats from affinities to our buffs do not display on the tooltip when mousing over the buff in the buff bar. Damage Weapon Buffs Hardly do enough damage to be worth using. Sometimes damage doesn't show up above mobs head even though weapon buff is still doing damage according to the combat window. Sometimes buff needs to be recast even though it is on the buff bar and should be dealing damage. This seems to occur sometimes when swapping weapons or when running with the same weapon buff up for an extended period of time. If it is supposed to drop when weapons are changed then it needs to fall off the buff bar. Having 2 damage buffs, one for undead and one for everything else, seems like too much micro management. Should be one damage buff and one healing buff and the damage buff just automatically does more damage against undead. Renewal This buff after crashing or logging off and back on is still on the buff bar but you no longer have the effect. This buff needs to drop off the buff bar if it no longer works after logging, just like ward shield does. A lot of people complain about this being single target and only lasting 30 minutes. If someone is buffed with bear shaman endurance regen and then receives this buff it is like the bear shaman buff is overwritten by renewal even though renewal has a lower regen amount. This makes it so that we can't use renewal when a bear shaman is around. Maul of Divinity The damage added by the buff of this melee ability needs to be upped, 35 is way too low. Costs a lot of endurance to be using it every 2 minutes for only 35 damage. Blood mages get a symbiote buff that lasts an hour that adds 85 damage, why is this so much lower? Hand of Censure Sometimes when using this ability with Hammer of Penance DoT on the mob, Hand of Censure will overwrite Hammer of Penance in the mob debuff window. I believe this is just a display issue as both seem to be doing damage in the combat window. Fist of Rebuke Stuns do not work most of the time on raids and the damage done by this is so minimal that it is practically worthless. Stuns are also needed during certain times that you can't rely on critting when they are needed. Replenishing Strike 20 second recast is the longest of any healer energy replenish ability and we have to be within melee range to use it. I wouldn't even care if the endurance cost went up if the recast came down. This goes along with the energy regen problem that clerics have that will be listed later. Aegis of Blades Energy cost too high. Turn Undead Remove the turning points since they no longer do anything as they replenish just as fast the recast of the ability. Some people want more from this spell or from turning points in general. Hallow This spell is so situational it is almost never used. Would rather it not be an AoE and have it do more damage. Sacrifice Useless spell. Needs a complete revamp because currently it is unusable. Taking unmitigated damage is not something a cleric wants to be doing, period. Purification Sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, really needs to give feedback on why it didn't work Titanic Reverance Does not show the extra bonus from the specific affinities on the tooltip when mousing over the buff. When another buff doesn't stack with a portion of the buff, say strength for a war cleric, the strength portion is being overwritten even though it is higher on titanic reverance. This probably stems from the game thinking the strength portion is only 75 for the base buff when it is around 116 for a war cleric. The endurance regen portion does not show up on the stats tab of the character sheet. I think this is a bug with all endurace regen bonuses as it also happens with Renewal and always shows 0.00. Energy cost too high. Maul of the Heavens Vitality portion does not stack with other vitality buffs. Aegis of Renewal Hps and energy gained from this spell are so minimal that it hardly makes a difference. The energy gained doesn't even make up for how much energy this spell costs. Shroud of Health Way too long of a casting time for a group heal Divine Chains Doesn't work a lot of the time and there is no feedback as to why. Healer's Focus Weakest of any healer's heal stance. Would be nice to have reduced energy costs in the stance as that would help with energy regen problem. WAR AFFINITY Barrier of Carnage Worthless spell. Aegis of Blades is better in every way and overwrites it. Avatar of Ghalnn Remove global timer refresh. Reduce to 5 minute refresh like Favor of Vothdar. Speed of Ghalnn Reduce to 5 minute refresh to match other cool downs. All cool downs should be on the same refresh rate. PRESERVATION AFFINITY Balance Very situational spell, not very useful. Aspect of the Guardian Stun immunity does not work all the time, especially on raid mobs. PEACE AFFINITY Power of Peace Weapon buff is never used, do not need it to keep aggro off. DEATH AFFINITY PURITY AFFINITY Probably the least played affinity because it is only useful versus undead. General Cleric Issues Energy Regen This is by far the biggest cleric issue, with the same vitality across all healers, clerics have the lowest energy regen by far. With energy regen being the most important thing when it comes to healing, the cleric falls rather short when compared to other healers. Any benefit the cleric has over other healer classes, like more energy, does not make up for the lack of energy regen. Crit Heals Crit heals do not effect HoTs and instant heals, which is mostly what clerics use. Endurance Costs of Melee Abilities Even with our endurance regen it is very easy to run out of endurance fast. Hand of Censure, Smiting Blow, and Maul of Divinity are all very expensive. Just using Strike Down over and over and then using finishers is a way better use of endurance. Mitigation Without ward shield our survivability is very low. For wearing plate armor we still take a lot of damage.
Please read through not only the previous consolidation thread, but through the cleric feedback stickied at the top of this forum please. Here is the consolidation post *I* made. This includes suggestions made for using Turning Points. PRESERVATION CLERIC: DUE TO THIS COMMENT FROM THE "MAN" HIMSELF: Flurry attacks ignore invulnerabilities. This means they will hit you as if you do not have invulnerable activated. The same is true for some other abilities. They do not, however, ignore things like runes. INVULNERABILITIES: Due to level 51+ content completely negating a purely defensive mechanism for clerics, I am suggesting that this either be fixed, or have these 1 (or 2) abilities removed and replace with instant group heals that heal for 5k and has no recast timer (aside from GCD) and has only a 1k mana cost. . . ASPECT OF THE GUARDIAN: Preservation Cleric's stance, this grants us IMMUNITY TO STUN, 15% increased chance to block, and 15% Spell Absorption. I have run no tests on the 15% spell absorption, but it does not appear to function at all? Maybe? I still take a cubic butt ton of damage from spells. Also, I don't care about 15% spell absorption, would at least request that this be changed to melee mitigation, as Preservation clerics are the Shieldmaidens of Gloriann, the defenders, the GUARDIANS. Throw us a bone, plz? Immunity to stun does not protect us from stuns on mobs level 51+ (especially notice this from earth elementals from Shimmering Shallows and the earthen defenders from Sea of Kojan). BALANCE: This spell rolls up everyone's HPs into 1, and divides it evenly between the group members. I do not recall if this has a casting cost or not, as I have removed it from my hot bar. This ability is worthless as it stands. This would serve more practicality if it rolled up the % of everyone's HPs and distributed it evenly. Otherwise, this ability will kill squishies while saving teh tank. No go on this. Take it out and give us something new, or use % of member's lives. NIMBUS OF WARDING: Lasts 5 minutes or reflects 2 incoming spell. As it stands, most mobs ignore this ability (from what I gather) and does not work in PvP. Worthless, would ask for it to be removed (or if another cleric could PM me with its true use) and give Preservation clercs a new ability to replace it. DIVINE BARRIER: As it stands, it only prolongs my life for its duratin, and afterwards, I'm dead. I can't run, jump move, cast. . .making this spell, well, less than useful. I vote for rooting in place, making you invul, but still able to cast spells (or, as Ryim suggested) firing off a heal to yourself upon cast. . . ALL CLERICS: REPLENISHING STRIKE: Only replenishes 399 energy, not even restoring enough for our weakest heal, and with the increased cost of heals post 50, this becomes a dire problem that needs to be addressed. I suggested a "Yaulp" like combat buff in another thread. TURN UNDEAD: Clerics have 6 turning points, but the refresh on our Turn Undead spell is 2 minutes, and our turning points refresh in 2 minutes, thereby negating teh need for Turning Points. As I suggested in a previous post, give clerics the ability to burn their turning points. First suggestion as below: 6 Turning Points = base damage x 350% 5 TP = base damage x 300% 4 TP = base damage x 250% 3 TP = base damage x 200% 2 TP = base damage x 150% 1 TP = base damage Another possible suggestion is to give each stance its own abilities based off Turning Points. (i.e. below ) Peace clerics would be able to wipe hate on a defensive target 6 TP = 100% aggro wipe 5 TP = 80% aggro wipe 4 TP = 60 % aggro wipe 3 TP = 40% aggro wipe 2 TP = 20% aggro wipe 1 TP = 10% aggro wipe Or, can solve the issue of mana regen once and for all. Add a new ability called Mana from the Heavens. . .(or choose something ) 6 TP = 100% mana recovery 5 TP = 80% mana recovery 4 TP = 60% mana recovery 3 TP = 40% mana recovery 2 TP = 20% mana recovery 1 TP = 10% mana recovery However, I can clearly see issues regarding this, but its a suggestion on how to utilize our rather useless Turning points. HALLOW: Useless. Completely. A complete change to the ability. 1) single target, we often don't *want* to use an AE. 2) increase damage per tick, does about 138 damage a tick and last like 10 secs? Woot? (if anyone can give actual numbers, would appreciate it. 3) increase cooldown on spell, but make it last longer on mob. . .i.e lasts 30 secs, but has a 1 min cooldown? Or even 2 mins. Or, leave Hallow I alone and implement Hallow II and use above mentioned suggestions to teh upgrade? Looking for another bone here. MITIGATION: We are plate class wearers, we should be given mitigation suitable to a tank(ish). By no means should we ever replace a tank, but we have 2 rescues, but what good are they if we cannot take teh brunt of a blow? Increase our mitgation, please. DPS: After a certain time, a cleric just accepts the fact they are group heal-bots, as we bring nothing to a group except heals. I am not asking for DPS, but I am looking for an exchange. Currently, our class has pitiful mitigation, and pitiful DPS. Give us one or the other (although my personal choice is mitigation, as my cleric is built defensively). VITALITY: To Quote Zorus. . . Here's another thing to add to the list: I have a vitality of 825 fully buffed, and that puts my energy regen at about 40. A sorc friend of mine has 1/4 of the vit, and more than TWICE the energy regen. Anyone tell me how that makes sense? If he runs out of mana, no one dies.... Here may be the issue to address. . .Vitality is our PRIME stat, as it increases our healing effectiveness. Also, it is *supposed* to increase our energy regen, but if this stat is not scaling corectly, this needs to be addressed. However, Zorus, I would like to see numbers please to post. RENEWAL: Please make this a 1 hour cast. It's not like its a buff people don't want or need. Things like enduring breath, which are situational, I can understand, but having to renew this every thirty mins? Please inccrease the cast timer on it. AEGIS OF BLADES: As it stands now, can be a buff we activate every two minutes, and can keep up constantly, if your on top of your buisness. I would prefer it goes back to the old way, a 30 sec buff with a 1 min cool down and increase its damage while active. . shroten it up to 20 sec with a 1 min cooldown and increase the damage per tick. *this* would increase clerical dps, without putting us over the top. SACRIFICE: Please remove and give clerics another ability, one thats decent. . .maybe something that uses Turn undead points? Long winded, but I think that touches apsect (mine only) specifics, and general cleric complaints.
Baldur, Excellent summary of the Cleric problems. Thanks for pulling this summary together. A few additoinal comments to the list: Hallow This spell is so situational it is almost never used. Would rather it not be an AoE and have it do more damage. I would suggest upping the damage significantly to around 1k per tick and double the time on the dot Sacrifice Useless spell. Needs a complete revamp because currently it is unusable. Taking unmitigated damage is not something a cleric wants to be doing, period. A simple change (I think) would be to change the spell to spread the damage across the entire group the Cleric is in. I could see using this spell in several situations. WAR AFFINITY Barrier of Carnage Worthless spell. Aegis of Blades is better in every way and overwrites it. Another simple fix would be to have it stack with the other barrier for War Clerics.
teviko wrote: I actually really really like the *idea* of Balance (used divine arbitration extensively in EQ1, same idea). It has no casting time, but I do agree that it has problems. Instead of redistributing HP it should redistribute total damage... as I understand it, currently some HP are lost in the conversion. I am perfectly fine with the risk to casters with low hp, personally, this problem is easily avoided by ensuring that casters are kept topped off (unless they are glass cannons, in which case... /shrug). This spell could/should be *fantastic*for saving the life of a tank when out of mana. Beyond that, it has a 5 minute cool down - this is the main reason I don't use it all that much. It also has an energy cost (although small - 184). Personally, I'd like to see Balance become what Divine Arb was in EQ. Make it zero cost, give it a 2 minute cooldown, have it redistribute *damage* evenly instead of health.
Purity Affinity: (yes I like it =P) 1. Was expecting higher damage to undead. We get an extra turn undead so we can turn twice as often as the other affinities, but I was also expecting more damage in general. 2. We still get diseased and poisoned quite often even though we're not supposed to. 3. Our aura power is kind of pointless since we have to get hit for it to do damage, and a cleric goes out of their way to not get hit. It would be nice for it to be a group buff, or something that helps us take less damage from undead or something.
Well...this was am utter waste of time. Was nice to see the clerics feedback on this though. Seems we *mostly* agree on 90% of the issues clerics face in the game
I'm resurrecting this thread in hopes that some cleric changes get made with the 2 promised updates in the next year. I have come back to the game and started playing again and would like to see clerics get some love. I'm not getting my hopes up that any of these changes will happen, but just thought it is worth a try.
Another issue to add to the list. I've been told that my casting Renewal bugs out the endurance regen from the Shaman buffs and they have to recast for the melee. What this means is that I no longer cast this buff in raids when a shaman is present. This needs to be fixed so that our buff does not cause issues with the shaman buffs.
i wonder if anyone at SOE ever read anything here... Clerics need Help in 2012 !!! Give them some love darnit !
Right now I think I'd rather have them doing lag/crash fixes than messing with classes. That being said it would be nice to get some love eventually. I should probably go back through and update the issue list as some of them have been addressed. *EDIT* Just copied my post locally because of the new forums we'll be getting eventually. I'll update the issues list and re-post on the new forums when we switch.
