Well, I've been grinding these past 2 weeks and got to lvl 60 plus a few AA points, and in all the time I have been LFG I have realised the following:

Groups still look for clerics. No doubt about it. The only exception to this was a crazy day I was grouped with 4 rogues and a SK doing 4d in Seb... yea, was crazy but we did it, hehe.
Every single other group I was in had a cleric, no matter where it was.
I still spent many MANY hours with the LFG tag over my head, even when there were no clerics LFG.

The heal is very neat. It does work as a CH and if it hits when the tank is low on health it can heal for full or slightly less.

So what I wanna know is this: Are clerics still peed off? Have they been shafted? Are we getting more groups?

I answer no to the last 2 questions. Players' mentality is still that they need a Cleric, because if something odd does happen and someone dies, rez is what gets the group back on its feet. Many times it is hard to drag corpses to a cleric, depending on where you're hunting, and saying this is not a reason to have a cleric in a group is not very realistic.
We are better at back up healing than before. Last night in Chardok, close to Royals, my group had a few adds. Monk was getting low on health, and so was our tank. Cleric CH'ed the Monk, so I hit the Tank with TR... Both were healed for full. I got a few 'oooohs' and a few 'aaaahs' and a 'neat' also. If I'd been depending on CB or NT (which IMO is totally useless now) I'd have been struggling to keep the tank alive. And if the cleric goes LOM, we can take over for a short period while the cleric meds up.
But I still wanna know if the clerics feel they have been shafted and are all quitting the game. As far as my gaming experience on BB has been the server is full of clerics as usual :)

Just looking for some opinions here.

Ciao for now!

Are clerics still peed off? Have they been shafted? Are we getting more groups?


The way I see it:

Yes clerics are still peed off (well if you go read the cleric boards, that's the impression I got)

They feel they have been shafted and they want more upgrades. I feel the heal was good for the game as a whole.

Can't say if we are getting more groups since I haven't LFG's as my druid since the heal came in. However, I did act as primary healer in the snake temple mines. My group wasn't very confident since if something happened we had no rezzer, and our MT was whining about his hp with just cabbage and no symbol, but they stuck it out. Sucked for me as I had an enchanter that liked to play with skely pets and he was going down fast so I had 4 "heals" memmed which was annoying (TR, CB, NT and NR)

People still want clerics. We have plenty of clerics so it's not even an issue. Rampaging tanks are still healed by clerics. Druids in my raiding circle are considered dmg dealers, not healers and that won't change anytime soon. Our tanks have so many hps that TR heals them to half, not full. I don't even heal rodding mages to full if that tells you anything :)

But, the heal is still nice. I use it mostly when duo'ing with my monk or healing rezzed people on raids.

Heck. My problem lately is that I want to solo to burn through some AA points and CAN'T. I get tells for groups and/or raids. We still need clerics. The nice thing is that I served as main healer in the manor and arena last night in Kael, and I'm not even alteration spec'd. I was even able to help nuke. My group tended to be the exp group :p . I did try to share though.

As for the lvl 60 heal, it's far from useless. I prefer to cast one spell and heal a caster to full than have to cast chloroblast twice. I wanna heal and get back on my can for more medding.

I don't have people beating my door down for groups, but I get all I want. I still like having a cleric around since it lets me nuke more.

The heal is nice, even the most virulent clerics in my guild have acknowledged that their posistion in groups is still secured.

I had the perfect example of how this heal helps in a grouping situation yesterday afternoon. A group of us were killing the TR in CT and our cleric had to go. We had another one lined up, a guildmate, but he couldn't make it for about a half hour. Before TR, we either would have had to leave the TR, or find another cleric. With TR...it was simple to maintain our camp and kill rate for the half hour it took for the cleric to come.

End result? A Druid who was finally happy to be of use to a group and a Cleric who was able to get a group where he would have missed out had it not been for Tunare's Renewal.

Has the heal gotten me more groups?

Not really, but I haven't been looking.

What id DOES do, however, is allow me to do much harder stuff with my regular group:

(all 60, fairly decked out)
Shadowknight
Shadowknight
Rogue
Shaman (botted by one of the SKs)
Druid (me)
Enchanter


There isn't much we can't do now (that doesn't require at least a mini-raid). We have really nice DPS and amazing slows, crowd control, and more than ample healing. The Enchanter is on the verge of DC, which will allow us to do even more (in limited circumstances).

Our next target with this group: Spirit of Radir

Well I play a 53 Druid and a 56 Cleric. I will tell you this much, Clerics still suck at soloing.

My Druid can kill up to Elder wurms with no problem in Skyfire. Weakest mob there is probably a bottomless feeder,
That my 56 cleric could barely kill. Forget meleeing it, she will die.

My druid is more fun to play than my cleric and can tackle mobs my cleric will not be able to kill at level 60 solo. Two mature wurms anyone? At 53 my druid can kill 2 at a time with root/rot/dd. Thats about 20,000hp for both.

My cleric tried to solo a skelly Guardian in Karnors with Hammer and pet. The skelly beat on her hard, she had to root and ch herself twice. Finally (undead nukes etc,) it died,
she was oom and at half health. This is like a level 46 mob lol.

I love my druid more so now and I am looking forward to level 58. Cleric has been reduced to a ress bot.

What the heal has meant for me is more duo/trio type grouping than I could do before.

Yesterday, Shaman, Monk, and me doing the juggs. Great experience, and very sustainable with one tank to heal and 2 assist healers + slow. A passing cleric even gave us Aego so we were ok for the hp while we were doing it.

The other thing that has worked great for me is duoing with a Necro (or trioing with 2). I keep the necros max regenned (NR +ROTG) and TR their pets when needed. If we fight undead the necros slow em and we all get good exp.

For grouping, everyone in my guild still looks for a Cleric first. Then if they can't get one, they look for a shaman, then a druid. As it has always been. Actually they would take both the cleric and the shaman. Raid level buffs in an exp group plus slow is still highly desireable. I am MORE likely to get a group relatively more easily, but I am still not first choice. My dmg output is pitiful compared ot a melee over time, and so that still leaves me as a secondary healer filling a primary heal spot.

I have been able to be much more help on raids. We had one of our primary clerics die in CH rot on CT the other day and the druids with patch NR's jumped in and filled the hole in the CH rot. No we did not win that round (did the next one though...hate the new resist changes hehe). But the fact was that as patch healers, it worked ok. 5 druids with TR kept a MA standing though only for a few minutes...it still felt good.

I don't think it has kept clerics from getting groups and it certainly hasn't had people looking for druids over clerics for groups. What I feel it has done is allow groups who are complete except for a cleric to grab a druid and actually do something fun. I have spent several nights in a group in Ssra healing a group of friends who would not have been able to go because they are in a guild short on clerics. I have heard more positive comments from other classes about how nice it is NOT to have to rely on clerics to do everything challenging or fun. Clerics have a secure place in groups when they are available because they are better at healing, they can rez, and people are used to needing a cleric. That attitude is not something that is going to vanish. I still group with people who think a druid is not good enough to depend on for healing and grab a cleric as soon as one is available.

Aidiene
Shadows of the Unseen
Hierophant of Quellious

/rant on

Why do so many clerics complain about soloing and comment how they do in Skyfire. I've seen this on 4 or 5 boards now. You know what, Skyfire is not a good zone to melee in. My Paladin had problems there against low blues when he tried it. In balanced groups we generally reverted to fear kiting because the mobs were so melee heavy. Go hunt some undead in thegrey, then kite that undead and compare your results. I know clerics that root/rot 3 or 4 at a time no problem. I know clerics that melee/yaulp/pet there with 0 downtime. You have to understand that not all mobs are meant to be hunted the same way.


/rant off


That being said, Druids can now be main healers for groups in many places. They are great in low end content, passable in mid end content and bad at high lvl content, but they can get the job done now at least. If I'm going to do jugs, camp harder parts of ssra, do 4c in CT I still bring a cleric I don't bother going. This will be more true in PoP more likely, not less true. Clerics have no worries about getting groups.

Oh, I forgot, a guildie Cleric of mine was soloing in Velks VERY effectively. Everyone in the guild was like 'wow, really?' so it does really depend where one can solo. For example I wouldn't dare soloing summoning mobs just yet, but shaman can do so without a problem because of their pet. I know I could but it would be much more risky, due to charm breaking, etc.

Ciao for now!

Last night I was two boxing my druid/Rogue and a Cleric in my guild grouped with me in fg. She MA'd the mushrooms(Lvl 56 Cleric) and the only heal I ever saw her cast was Celestial Healing. My Druid just pulled and cast thorns on her. Of course she is in almost full Templar armor from Kael as well......

I had a group a couple nights ago in Chardok.
60 War
60 War
60 Ench
60 Druid
60 Druid

Each of the druids chose a tank, and kept them healthy. The enchanter was there for adds. The heal worked very well, and we were able to go all the way to graveyard area and had no problems.

The new heal worked exactly as billed: it allowed a group with NO cleric to effectively dungeon crawl. We couldn't have done any uber mobs, but for regular crawling it made druids a viable alternative.

Plendil

Batle, I think you're not seeing the big picture. Many other Clerics are guilty of the same thing.

You do have rather decent Melee capabilities now. But you'll never be a warrior. Try sending a 56 Pali, or Warrior to Skyfire, and see how well they do. You need to understand that your PRIME area of expertise is healing. It alwasy was, and always will be. You are not a tank. You are a priest.

Naturally you can't solo Wurms. You were never meant to out-melee a tank. A Druid can do it, because they are designed as a strong solo character. You know why? Cause we could never heal worth a crap :)

I agree with most of the people who posted on this thread. Our new heal does not threaten the Cleric's superiority in healing, or their desirability in groups. It never will. What it's done, is made us a stronger support class, and enabled us to get a group a little more easily. Is there something wrong with that?

Congrats to the posters in this thread, for keeping it rational, and looking at it from a more global point of view, rather than a personal, or selfish one, like many other posters in other threads.

In the long run, it's all about balance. The Cleric can now melee/solo a little better, and the Druid can now heal a little better. We were never meant, or ever will be, equal in those areas.

A Druid wouldn't be assigned as the only healer in a place like CT, because they wouldn't be able to keep up the heals. Just as a Cleric can't solo a Wurm. Druids will be healers in less harsh areas, and Clerics can solo in less harsh areas. Again..... balance!