August 26, 2003
------------------------------

** Zone Revamps **

- The Deep, Charasis (Howling Stones), Dragon Necropolis, Siren's Grotto, The Hole, The City of Mist, and The Accursed Temple of Cazic-Thule have been partially revamped. Gameplay in these zones has been improved, based on feedback from players and careful review of the content. The changes are not dramatic, but make these zones more entertaining to play in.

- The Plane of Mischief, home of the trickster Bristlebane, has undergone an extensive revamp. As one of the most unusual places to visit in EverQuest, this zone is a very interesting challenge, if you have a sturdy funny bone. The improved zone is now available on Stormhammer.

- The Greig's End revamp is now available on the Live servers. The redesign includes new encounters, items, traps, and events that make the zone a challenge for the experience group, with plenty of events for a raid group.


** Interface **

- /memspellset # - Using this command memorizes one of your saved spell sets. # is the number or name (or shortened name) of the spell set you wish to memorize. Note that if you use a shortened version of the spell set name, it will match the first spell set that has those characters, so /memspellset Dots will find your "Dots and Charms", or "Dots", or "Dotsandstuff" - whichever shows up first on your list.

- A Platinum slot has been added to the shared bank to make transactions between characters on the same account more convenient.

- Clip Plane - The clip plane slider should work more reliably now. Where before it may not have done anything until lowered to a very low percentage, now the slider should have an effect at any setting.

- Filters for your own pet's messages have been added. Your own pet's attacks are no longer subject to the Other Attacks/Misses filters. On the options screen there is now a separate button for filtering YOUR Pet attack messages. Also, the ability to redirect your pet attack messages to any chat window has been added to the chat window context menus.

- /random messages can now be sent to any chat window you'd like. There is no option to filter these messages, however, to prevent any loss of the information in cases where it is needed (meaning, people can't claim that they didn't see the /random that they lost just to force a re-roll).

- The Journal Window has been changed to make it easier to use and understand. We've merged the the two information windows into a single window.

- Fixed a bug in the Looking for Group window. The Get Matches button should no longer grey out at inappropriate times.

- The Bad Word Filter now filters chat channel text as well as other game text.

- To make things a little more logical, the /inspect command will allow characters to inspect interactive objects for LDoN, and /toggleinspect allows you to toggle on or off the ability to inspect other player characters using the mouse.


** Alternate Advancement **

- Purify Soul reuse time reduced from 72 minutes to 30 minutes.

- Divine Resurrection reuse time reduced from 36 hours to 18 hours.

- Celestial Regeneration reuse timer reduced from 72 minutes to 15 minutes. We have increased the duration from 24 seconds to 48 seconds, adjusted the amount healed, and made this a group effect.

- Celestial Renewal duration increased from 24 seconds to 48 seconds, adjusted the amount healed, and this has become a group effect.

- Harmtouch has been fixed. There was a problem with the timer for Harmtouch that would make it appear to reset when the character was logged out, even though it does not reset until the appropriate amount of time has passed.

- Summon Death Charger and Summon Holy Steed have been fixed. We fixed a bug that caused these abilities to fail until the character zoned or logged out.

- Endless Quiver no longer grants an endless supply of thrown weapons, only arrows.


** Spells **

- Unswerving Hammer of Faith has had its mana cost reduced from 250 to 175.

- Divine Barrier no longer has a damage shield component and has gained three times the healing effect.

- Celestial Remedy has had its mana cost lowered from 190 to 150.

- A targeting issue with pets is now fixed. There was a bug that caused pets to be untargetable with the F1 key and with pet spells that target the pet automatically. This was happening only if a pet was summoned and then a mount was summoned.

- AE Rain Spells were resisted 100% of the time when an NPC was above level 20 and had less than 10% of its hit points left. This will no longer happen.

- Eye of Zomm would cause a player's pet to kill itself if that pet was commanded to kill the owner's Eye. This has been corrected. Also, the Eye no longer moves at incredible speed under water, but they can now swim up and down in water.

- PBAoE Songs no longer prevent a bard from singing if used while the bard has himself targeted.

- Illusions can once again be cast on others while the caster is on a mount.

- When Invisibility drops due to looting a corpse, the player will be informed that their invisibility has dropped.

- Pets no longer break enthrall.

- Armor of the Zealot will no longer be overwritten by Focus of Soul and Focus of the Seventh. Blessed Armor of the Risen and Ancient: High Priest's Bulwark will no longer be overwritten by Focus of Spirit or Khura's Focusing. Also, Pact of Hate and Call of Darkness should stack properly (meaning that they won't stack).

- Illusion: Guktan was fixed on all servers a little while ago. We just wanted you to be aware that the spell will make the target look like a Guktan, not a male human.


** Zones and Quests **

- Bazaar - We have increased the limit on the number of traders in the bazaar. We fixed an issue that would cause the "Begin Trader" button to be disabled if a player tried to use it when the maximum number of traders was reached. And the "Held" slot option was removed from the search, since it is not a valid option.

- The Coirnav Encounter has been modified to respawn faster when the encounter is failed badly (if the attempt fails to reach a certain depth in the encounter).

- The Illusion: Guktan quest had some issues. We have addressed them.



** New Player Improvements **

- After creating a new character, that character is the default selection on the character select screen.

- At character creation, left-clicking on an attribute displays text that explains what that attribute is important for. Right-clicking allocates the maximum possible points to that attribute.

- To help reduce clutter for the new player, the Story window no longer pops up when a player first logs in.

- When a context Tip window pops up, if the Tip of the Day is still open, the Tip of the Day window will close. Again, this is to help reduce the clutter.

- We've change the name of the "Camp" button in the Actions window to "Camp (Exit)" for clarity.

- The Inventory Tip window now explains how to read books and notes, how to give/trade items with NPC's, and how to scribe spells.

- We've added a text message on the screen to inform players when they are loading a zone, and what zone they are about to enter.

- Added numeric background to buttons in the Hot Button window to make it easier to tell which button corresponds to which number key.

- The Mousewheel zoom is now enabled by default.

- New installations of EverQuest will default to 1024x768 resolution.


** Misc **

- Fixed a bug that caused some equipment to be invisible on characters created recently (since our update on August 6th).

- Luclin elemental models will now display if selected, regardless of other settings for Luclin models. You can turn these models on with no other Luclin models active, and you will see the Luclin elemental.

- Hitting cancel on a trade window or using the /consent or /deny commands will now only send you one message, not two.


** UI Files **

* Changed *

EQUI_BankWnd.xml
EQUI_BigBankWnd.xml
EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_ActionsWindow.xml
EQUI_JournalNPCWnd.xml
SIDL.xml
EQUI_Animations.xml
EQUI_HotButtonWnd.xml
EQUI.xml

dragitem26.tga

* New *

dragitem27.tga
window_pieces06.tga
window_pieces07.tga

* Removed *

EQUI_JournalTextWnd.xml

Sounds like a good patch, and a brilliant patch for clerics.

I especially love the shared PP slot (been waiting along time for that) as I have now reduced myself down to 1 active account.

So they basically changed Clerics' Celestial Regeneration to be their own form of Spirit of the Wood now.

Wondering if it's MGB-able though.

Nice to see the AE rain problem fixed. Great patch all round.

Yes, Clerics certainly got some very nice things.

Ahh we caught them now!

Now we know they have no problems changing aa timers and abilities!

Every class has a lame aa ability/dicipline.
Also the timers on some aa's make no sense.

I mean sotw should be 15 mintues like the cleric and beastlord abilitys.

So c'mon message board warriors!
Start complaining.

On another note i suspect there is going to be a hell of alot fo Ae traps and monsters in LDON.

They just changed it so Focus does not overwrite BAotR, right? Those two spells still don't stack, its just that a Cleric with BAotR will now bounce Focus instead of Focus overwriting it. Is that correct?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>- The Coirnav Encounter has been modified to respawn faster when the encounter is failed badly (if the attempt fails to reach a certain depth in the encounter). [/quote]

What the heck does this suppose to mean? "Failed badly". someone explain to mean what SOE meant please =p

It means probably not completign the first 3 waves before the minis...thats a pretty dismal attempt if you fail before them.


Tils

Where did the entrance to Plane of Mischief end up?

Fern

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>- Celestial Regeneration reuse timer reduced from 72 minutes to 15 minutes. We have increased the duration from 24 seconds to 48 seconds, adjusted the amount healed, and made this a group effect.[/quote]

This *really* annoys me. Not that they got it reduced to 15 minutes or that the duration was increased but because SotW is still 22 minutes. Clerics argued for days on end about how SotW would be so overpowered if the time was reduced below what it would be now. So, I guess CR being reduced to 15 min's and the duration increased isn't overpowering. Funny how ideas change (http://pub149.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgrovegeneral.showMessageRange?topicID=31 214.topic&start=51&stop=100)

Thanks SoE for dumping on our one unique ability like this. SotW should atleast be 15 min. reuse as well and hey, up the duration while you're at it.

The rest of the patch is great.

Grieg's End revamp going to live servers! Woooo! I was going to scream bloody hell if it didn't. The other thread about the upcoming patch said nothing about it. I'm so glad they turned what otherwise 'would' have been a cool dungeon into something that might be worth a damn now.

Lots of other good stuff, but the cleric changes are kind of outrageous. Druids very rarely get changed like that and when they do it's almost always negative. Good job of putting even more distance between druids and clerics, SoE. The trinity lives on for LDoN! Congrats druids for not being able to get groups in the expansion! That's freaking ridiculous.

poop on PoM revamp.

At least we get a few decent spells....

Vengeance of Tunare - 1500 dmg in 5 ticks
Spirit/Pack of the Shew - Indoor SoW

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Where did the entrance to Plane of Mischief end up?[/quote]

on test it was moved to great divide at the end of the river.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>poop on PoM revamp. [/quote]

/agree


<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>At least we get a few decent spells....[/quote]

they are more then likely LDoN spells just like all the other spells that went live for other classes. If they were putting in so many new spells they would of said something.

Remember live does not mean obtainable.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Lots of other good stuff, but the cleric changes are kind of outrageous. Druids very rarely get changed like that and when they do it's almost always negative. Good job of putting even more distance between druids and clerics, SoE. The trinity lives on for LDoN! Congrats druids for not being able to get groups in the expansion! That's freaking ridiculous. [/quote]

Well, clerics rarely get changed either. I think of all the classes I've played (5) clerics had the worst, most broken, assortment of AA's.

The Divine Barrier change was much needed because DB sucked. As far as the Celestial Regen, it was a worse healing AA than even beastlords get, not to mention druids. No one ever bothered to get it because it sucked so badly.

Of course, clerics still have Turn Undead which has to be one of the worst AA's ever, but at least they have one less sucky AA.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Where did the entrance to Plane of Mischief end up? [/quote]
I heard it's in GD at the other end of the river from Thurg. Don't quote me on that. ;)

What the hell? They moved the zone in to PoM? I used to love romping around in PoM because there were very, very few "noobs" there, since it took some skill and a high level guild to get there. Not to mention that original PoM had nothing wrong with it... it's one of my all time favorite zones in EverQuest. Bah, I hope the new one on Legends still retains some of the zone's originality. By the way, what happens if you're still bound in chest room?

We've heard that the zone is no longer bindable and anyone bound there will be swept out to a rebind spot at the new zonein. No confirmation on that yet.

Big surprise that Panamah would disagree with me. Of course you don't play a druid so... Clerics don't get changed because they don't need to be for the most part. Any class that has a monopoly on group spots and on healing doesn't need many and it's just going to widen the gap between druids and clerics all over again. I would have preferred they finally give clerics something to allow them to solo rather than better skill at healing. That's just retarded.

Paragon of Spirit:
Increase Hitpoints by 200 per tick
Increase Mana by 80 per tick
6 ticks
15 min refresh?

Spirit of the Wood
Increase Hitpoints v2 by 250 per tick
Increase Damage Shield by 55
Increase AC by 48
5 ticks
Refresh 22 mins

Celestial Regen
Increase Hitpoints v2 by 250 per tick
8 ticks
15 min refresh

Why should druids refresh be 22 mins? Any good arguments out there for that? Also, 5 ticks doesn't even work with the shawl extended buff duration. If anything needs changed it's the druid aa. That or the cleric aa needs to be refreshed at 22 mins instead of 15. Or were all the overpowering arguments just for when druids had a manaless heal? I guess 250 hps healed over 8 ticks (even longer with SCRM and extended buff duration focus) for no mana every 15 mins is not overpowering as long as it's clerics that get it and not druids.


<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Of course, clerics still have Turn Undead which has to be one of the worst AA's ever[/quote]

Druids have that too, it's called Wrath of the Wild. Everyone has their crappy aa's. It doesn't justify the changes to this aa.

If druids are going to take the same healing aggro as clerics we sure as hell shouldn't be as far back on healing AA's/spells as we are yet again now. I agree with Seriena: the least they could do would be reduce the recast time on SotW.

If I played a cleric, I'd be plenty nervous right now. Changes like these are usually followed by...unpleasantness. I expect that either a cleric nerf is incoming soon or another class is soon going to be given a tweak or ability that clerics will be angry about.

Regarding PoM, yes, the change sucks for those of us who used to go there for the solitude, but the zone was vacant 99.9% of the time. I can't blame SOE for trying to maximize usage of preexisting zones that are so drastically underutilized. (In fact, I wish they would do that more often rather than constantly expand.) However, I will be very disappointed if it is turned into yet another raiding zone.

Aldane Aglond
Ayonae Ro

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If I played a cleric, I'd be plenty nervous right now. Changes like these are usually followed by...unpleasantness. I expect that either a cleric nerf is incoming soon or another class is soon going to be given a tweak or ability that clerics will be angry about.[/quote]
I suspect that other changes will follow as well. It is too bad many of them view improvements to other classes as "unpleasantness" though. I'm still amazed whenever I see a cleric @#%$ to the whining druids getting the Incomplete Heal, but mentioning nothing of their gains just prior to it.

Also, it might be that they're going to fix a lot of long standing gripes for a lot of classes and they're just doing it one at a time.

Whooa ease back on the clerics a bit.

While I agree that there are greater priorities out there (melee balance comes to mind) we all know that balance starts and ends by keeping clerics happy.

Either to spite us all or because they can't seem to balance the game without going to the core Damage and Healing of Damage.

It scares me a bit when healing starts to get better as I believe it will have a negative impact on the amount of melee balance. After all if one can heal better there is less need for DPS and tanking.

As for other classes, I think a tweak to everyone is coming (hope) as its fun for a class to get stuff. No fault of Clerics really, they just (seemingly unknown to themselves) get awfully lucky all the time.

The "Its Chrismas in August" comment on their boards leads me to believe some of them are quite thankful. Lets not degenerate into us -v- them or thats what it will become and we will lose.

Wow, gratz clerics the already most wanted and needed class in the game on even more upgrades. They wont nerf clerics. CR is MGB'able, can I get my points for SotW back?

I don't understand the concern over this...

1) They can cast this already WITHOUT a 15 min reuse timer.
2) This does not hurt SotW at all. Paragon, SotW, and (now) CR with all stack.

Now, I can understand if you want to try to decrease the reuse timer on SotW. But asking for points back is extreme.

<strong>AA before: </strong>
4 ticks x 500 HP's x 1 target every 72 mins = <strong>2,000</strong> HP's healed.

<strong>AA After: </strong>
8 ticks x 250 HP's x 6 targets every 15 mins = 2,000 x 6 = 12,000, or <strong>48,000</strong> every 60 mins

That's GREATER THAN a 2400% increase in the power of an AA. Not to mention if it works with the shawl + MGB.

That's a huge increase in potential effectiveness. Not to bash what clerics are getting, hurrah for them. However, It is difficult to understand from a Druids perspective.

/em feels a rez discussion coming on.

EDIT: So it wouldn't really be stepping on anyone's toes if Druids had a meager increase of 100% to one of our AA's, right? Maybe twice the healing amount on SoTW, or half the reset time, or twice the number of ticks.

Or how about a 2400% increase on Wrath of the Wild?

EDIT2: I don't think I'm describing percentages correctly. Someone correct me please... still it's a very large percentage increase.

and actually, clerics doing 300 a tick if they have Celestial Renewal AA.

blows sotw out of the water

/sigh

<strong> So it wouldn't really be stepping on anyone's toes if Druids had a meager increase of 100% to one of our AA's, right?</strong>

You mean like 428 points => 2925 points?

What does Clerics getting this upgrade have to do with us? 15 min vs 22 min means very little when the MGB timer is five times as long.

If they're popping this in group, that means for 48 seconds out of 900, a Druid can't use SoTW. You could be in a group of FIVE clerics, and you'd still have 11 minutes where no one but you could do a manafree heal.

I'm sorry, but I don't see that this impacts SoTW in any way, shape, or form. I understand that it was nice to be the best at *something*, but this isn't a hit on the Druid class.

This is not even THAT big an upgrade to them, it's not like they lack for healing power as it is. They were already hitting flies with sledgehammers, now they got a bazooka. If anything, the "problem" with this is one of balance. SOE just dumped a WHOLE lot of extra healing into the game. I hope they thought it through.

buncha crap imo.

'today we've fixed stuff that wasn't really broken, and added features you dont really need...'

2400% increase in the effectiveness of an AA THAT THEY ALREADY HAVE A BLOODY SPELL FOR?

... will make the new character the default selection... IN CASE YOURE A FRIGGIN IDIOT AND FORGOT WHAT YOU NAMED IT.

platinum in the shared bank WHEN YOU WERE GIVEN A FREE SECOND ACCOUNT LAST YEAR to make transfers more convienient.

Clip plane was adjusted TO ONLY REPRESENT THE DISTANCES YOUR PARTICULAR ZONE ALLOWS instead of being a slider for zero-whatever reflecting every zone....

And i'm sorry panamah, but i have to respond. you are just way off by saying the pre-change DB sucked, and that it was in need of upgrades. WAY off. mind, you usually have good input. That coment was about as untrue as the above changes were unnecessary.

alyn

You don't always have to take something away for it to hurt another classes' skills. You can hurt a class just as easily by allowing another class to far outdistance them in a given area.

Imagine the way stock car racing has been setup nowadays with restrictor plates and such. Cars are pretty much the same. Now give one of those cars a nitrous booster and see what happens.

I don't begrudge clerics getting changes but healing should be the LAST thing upgraded at this point. Let them solo or give them a little better damage potential, ANYTHING but healing.

Bric, I see where you're coming from. It looks huge with the raw data, but in actuality the impact <em>may</em> be quite minimal in the perspective of the Cleric class.

Could you explain these thoughts though?
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
This is not even THAT big an upgrade to them ...
[/quote]
<strong>and</strong>
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
SOE just dumped a WHOLE lot of extra healing into the game.
[/quote]

... in the same paragraph.

Something doesn't seem quite right there. I'd like to see how the difference actually plays out in "the real world".

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> I'd like to see how the difference actually plays out in "the real world".[/quote]

Don't want to sound rude, but I think that is the best thing anyone has said...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>We've heard that the zone is no longer bindable and anyone bound there will be swept out to a rebind spot at the new zonein. No confirmation on that yet.[/quote]

funny story...

I logged on today, and like most people who logged into pom, got mauled and found out the ENTIRE ZONE was KoS (note I'm not on legends). PoM was taken down and this was fixed.

But yeah, I can confirm that you can no longer bind in PoM as of todays patch.

on legends, people bound in pom had their bindspots moved outside to the new entrance in GD

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Why should druids refresh be 22 mins? Any good arguments out there for that? Also, 5 ticks doesn't even work with the shawl extended buff duration. If anything needs changed it's the druid aa. That or the cleric aa needs to be refreshed at 22 mins instead of 15. Or were all the overpowering arguments just for when druids had a manaless heal? I guess 250 hps healed over 8 ticks (even longer with SCRM and extended buff duration focus) for no mana every 15 mins is not overpowering as long as it's clerics that get it and not druids.[/quote]

8th shawl and ext enhancement do NOT work on the new celestial renewl. I can confirm this because I tried it myself.

SCRM works, but items with ext duration do not.


and like already mentioned, CR sotw and paragon all stack

<em>Wyte,</em>

I see the contradiction...I changed context in mid-post, sorry.

The "not that big an upgrade" would apply to exp groups, where a Cleric's healing ability already approaches overkill on slowed mobs. On unslowed mobs, once per 15 min is a parlor trick, since you still have to deal the other 95% of the time. MGB heals on a raid would still be limited by the longer MGB timer, so the *big* change in the AA wouldn't be apparent.

However, using single group heals on a raid, you'd be dumping a lot of extra healing into the mix, every 15 min. I do agree this would be an upgrade in that scenario, and a big one.

I wonder how it will work out, too.

<em>Autumn,</em>

<strong>You can hurt a class just as easily by allowing another class to far outdistance them in a given area.</strong>

Only if there is direct competition. 48 seconds out of 900 doesn't compete with SoTW, it complements it. Clerics were already better healers, to the point that much of their healing power was unused. Now, instead of being bored at 4m, they can be bored at 5m. I don't think that will change the LFG ratio of the two classes.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>And i'm sorry panamah, but i have to respond. you are just way off by saying the pre-change DB sucked, and that it was in need of upgrades. WAY off. mind, you usually have good input. That coment was about as untrue as the above changes were unnecessary.[/quote]

Not sure what level your cleric is, but I would guess <=60. I used to use DB but I haven't memmed it in months and stopped using it as anything more than a parachute months before that. PoP mobs made DB useless - if I could channel a 2 second DB then I could channel a 1.7 second remedy which was usually my first choice. For the most part, PoP mobs hit too hard and too fast to get that two second spell off when we really needed it.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't begrudge clerics getting changes but healing should be the LAST thing upgraded at this point. Let them solo or give them a little better damage potential, ANYTHING but healing. [/quote]

I agree. Totally, completely, 100% agree. The changes, while nice to see something positive for clerics, won't effect me much at all. I didn't need or want them. What I wanted was something to make me more useful to a group when "the best" healing wasn't needed.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
SCRM works, but items with ext duration do not.
[/quote]

So... just curious, how many ticks does SCRM give it? From 8, to what? 10 or 12?

I'll tell you how it will play out:

Cleric looking for group in LDoN(and wherever else for that matter): "65 cleric looking for..." *gets group*

Druid looking for group: "65 druid looking for group" *listens to the crickets for a couple hours and logs off in frustration*

That may be a little melodramatic and exaggerated but I don't feel like getting left in the dust once again. I'm tired of the druid class getting the raw end of the stick when it comes to healing balance.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>And i'm sorry panamah, but i have to respond. you are just way off by saying the pre-change DB sucked, and that it was in need of upgrades. WAY off. mind, you usually have good input. That coment was about as untrue as the above changes were unnecessary.
[/quote]


S'okay, Alyn. I play a cleric too so I have some actual experience with DA and DB. DB comes 10 levels after DA, so you'd expect it to be a better spell than DA. But it wasn't for a few reasons.

Well, lets just say, a lot of clerics didn't bother to mem it. Here's my typical senario. I use DA up so try to get off DB. Maybe I've got low hitpoint aggro.

When I have to use DB sometimes I'm getting hit so hard I can't channel the 2 (or 2.5?) second casting time. Or if I do channel it, I go invulnerable but the minute it wears off, I'm dead because I'm going to have low hitpoint aggro again. It didn't heal enough hit points (like 150?) to fix that because low hitpoint aggro is based on your % of hit points remaining. The DS component on it meant that other stuff wouldn't stack with it which was a continual source of problems. And it was totally unnecessary. Mobs don't hit you when you're invulnerable anyway. People speculate that was just an error.

It wasn't in any way, shape or manner an upgrade to Divine Aura. It was a downgrade.

Now it's an upgrade! Damn nice fix.

In fact, I'll probably stop memming DA because I've got Bestow DA, and I'll just start using DB instead.

Divine Aura is a level 1 cleric spell. Divine Barrier is a level 29 cleric spell. That's more than 10 levels. :)

I agree about the suckiness of the original DB spell, and I think DB may replace DA from now on in my 8th spell slot.

Not often I read the Druids Grove, but I must say the amount of cleric hating surprised me.

I fail to see how the change to CR will change the group desirability of clerics and druids. In my groups, mostly only one player get hit. CR is for those big AE chain encounters in Elemental Planes, or when you decide to do Lord Rak'Ashir (sp?) for fun. I Can't see myself using it much in group situations. Just ask yourself, how often do you use SOTW in group situations?

Btw: Before asking for lesser gap between cleric and druid healing, think about the gap between druid and cleric utility and soloability. That gap is even greater and need to be adressed first. The problem with lack of group desirability for druids is that you are second best in many of your abilities, whereas clerics are best in healing, but among the worst in most other abilities.

Cleben lege Archon of Odysse, AB

lol, sotw is a life saver. It works great after a cleric uses that balance everyones hp aa, or a bad pull leaves everyone hurt a little. Why have a druid when a cleric can do it alot better? How often do I use it in a group situation? Usually am counting down the seconds till it pops again.

panamah, it's the mere ability to DA/DB that is the benefit. And that ability is by no means 'useless'. especially when suggesting so to a class what has no form of rune/da at all.

Too, there's not going to be much sympathy found for having a 2 second cast on a spell... i know you're familiar with druid cast times... but that's another story entirely.

Jenina, likewise, if you weren't utilizing the DA/DB line, that's your choice. We, on the other hand, haven't had any choice, but to stand and die taking heal agro like a man. Perhaps panamah is on to it, in noting that I (most druids) haven't played a cleric to any large extent, and that we just don't understand the mechanics of using it, but to all of us, it seems to be a boon worth the spell gem.

But more imortantly than turning this into a cleric v druid debate, however, is the fact that most of this stuff was simply not necessary, when they've better things to spend the time on.

Really, i want to meet the guy/gal who did:

/feedback "I just created a new character, and then logged in my main by accident. i want it to default to my new toon, plz, thx. Killertrollwar and Nookinfrogwiz are just too easy to mix up in char. select..."

... and then i want to hunt him or her down, stalking from the shadows till i have a prime opportunity to insert a random
'/ooc there's a new ability out there in the last patch, '/exit noob mode', which automatically levels you to 10th!', and watch them depop.

/cackles

alyn

great more healing, so now i can be even more full mana.


/em Keyera wishes she could solo for 5% aa a kill effectivly

/sigh

but damn!! i can heal! blehhh not much good when i only have 45 min to play.

when i have 45min to play, instead of trying to find a group, or solo, i go sell virtue woot!! what fun!

i still won't mem the "new and improved" DB, like another said, the 2 sec cast time makes it worthless, i have a 1.8 sec root, or heal. or go with the old trusty DA 1 sec cast.

woot!! my pet now cost less mana!! grrr why didn't they just raise up the mana, but make it not poof? /shrug

and i am still trying to find all those great upgrades we got prior to your Incomplete Heal. (personaly i love that shaman and druids have this heal, it is very effective on raids for filling in when need more in the CH chain. or when another melee besides the MA is getting worked, when before your heal, that melee would of had to die, now they can be effectivly healed, it is great!)

if any of you knew clerics, you would know we didn't want, or ask, or whine, for more healing. we can heal just fine as it was. there are other area's we are seriously lacking.

the shorter duration on the divine rez is nice tho.

Clerics have had DA/DB since I started playing the game which is almost 4 years. So to gripe about clerics having something you don't have, that they've had for 4 years, just doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me.

Now, if you want to make a case for having your own aggro reduction abilities, I'd support you in that.

But to get pissed over clerics having that ability for 4 years and getting it adjusted to make it useful again, just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So... just curious, how many ticks does SCRM give it? From 8, to what? 10 or 12? [/quote]


12 ticks, or 72 seconds.


and I must stress that ext enhancement 4 and 8th shawl do not work with the new CR.

Divine Barrier's cast time was reduced to 1 second, by the way.

This is cross-posted from the cleric board. It's silly to complain about clerics getting a group heal over time with a shorter reuse timer. Guess what? clerics have a spell that heals 300 hp a tick already. I could already cast it every 15 minutes if I really wanted to. This completely irrelivant to single group healing. It is however a small upgrade to clerics when looking at raiding. It should be easier to cast MGB heals from a CH rotation, it lasts longer, and the range of the new one is 200 (like SotW) making it easier to hit everyone. What was a useless AA, now has some value for raiding.

You can have a 15 min timer on SotW if I get AC & damage shield to go with mine. =P

Nilstan
65 cleric

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Not often I read the Druids Grove, but I must say the amount of cleric hating surprised me.
[/quote]

I read through and saw <em>upset</em>, but hate?

If anything I think people are seeing <strong>disparity. </strong>

Lets work on the premise that AA's <em>were</em> balanced prior to this patch. What makes anyone think that such a drastic change in re-use time, and full party usage of a single target AA, is balanced after the patch?

If the AA's <em>weren't</em> balanced prior to the patch, what took SOE so long to <strong>a) </strong> recognize it and <strong>b) </strong> admit it and <strong>c) </strong> do something about it?

don't forget mana regen ;-) for PoS 80 a tick? thats nice.

altho i shoudn't coment on this as i only about it from the posts above.

Paragon of Spirit:
Increase Hitpoints by 200 per tick
Increase Mana by 80 per tick
6 ticks
15 min refresh?


but that sounds very nice. just for the mana alone. does this stack with all aother mana regen? VoQ, mana song, necro twitch, ft, and Po9? if so, very nice indeed. it is for less than a minute, but that exta mana regen could mean the difference between success and failer on some PoP encounters.

I could think of a ton of druid stuff that has needed adjusted for a long time Panamah but I don't see any adjustments. Cleric healing doesn't need adjusted. Warrior taunt DOES need adjusted, among many other things.

The utility argument lost validity a long time ago. It just doesn't wash anymore, if it ever did. Not when druids are so far behind on everything. Please come up with something that isn't actually has some substance rather than that old and very hollow argument. By the way, I did say I wouldn't mind clerics getting boosted for soloing or some damage output but leave the healing alone or you're going to screw over the other healing classes even more.

Personally I'm happy that clerics recieved a boost, bewildered but happy non the less.

With LDoN coming live soon, I suspect that these changes have something to do with the new expansion. LDoN clerics getting a new ability to partially block melee damage via the Bulwark of Vie spell line kind of adds credence to this theory.

If this were true, I find it strange that if SoE thinks the cleric class needed this kind of improvement to survive in LDoN dungeons, why aren't they also upgrading other classes' healing abilities to be more in line too?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>This is cross-posted from the cleric board.[/quote]

No surprise there.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> It's silly to complain about clerics getting a group heal over time with a shorter reuse timer.[/quote]

No, what is being complained about is that our aa timer didn't also get reduced to 15 mins. Afterall, Paragon of spirit, Celestial Regen and Sotw all essentially do the same thing. There is no reason that SotW should be 22 min reuse when those other 2 aa's are now at 15 mins.

So, for all you clerics coming here from the cross link on EQ clerics that says we are complaining about your upgrades, read this thread in full first. You'll find that the person that cross posted is looking to stir up class drama and to get attention rather than really looking at what is being written here.

It's about time we had another cross-class topic, it's been pretty boring here as of late :p

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If the AA's weren't balanced prior to the patch, what took SOE so long to a) recognize it and b) admit it and c) do something about it? [/quote]
Same reason as always, they're SOE!

I think there were other things that should've been higher priority too. Like melee balancing. But clerics don't have anything to do with how SOE picks and chooses their priorities. Trust me, if you guys had gotten the goodies this time, you'd be under-attack everywhere.

Look how long it took them to fix that Shammy AA they absolutely hated (forgot what it was now). There still are cleric AA's that are completely worthless (Turn Undead).

I've played this game for 4 friggin' years and they still haven't gotten invis (particularly bard song) and rogue hide/sneak to work together right!

Clerics just got lucky they got their problem fixed.

It's not really that silly to complain. Your EE or whatever AE heal it was cost mana to cast. On mobs where you are streching the min number of clerics that mana is valuable. This is where druids stepped in and helped heal the AEs. (I cant name 2 65 BLs on my server or I would include them too) It is stepping on the toes of something we could do for once that was helpful and sometimes raid critical (/gasp druids needed on a raid? NERF!).

Remove the abillity to MGB CR.

Ohhh and as far as AC and DS go, works for a whooping 1 person.

Its interesting because I just talked to a friend about the nuances of AE healing for my guild just 2 weeks ago (She's a 59 cleric btw).

I told her that there were 3 classes that could AE heal a raid, Clerics with Ethereal Elixir, Druids with Spirit of the Woods and Beastlords with Paragon of Spirits.

All three AEs heal approximately the same amount over a short period of time. Unless the raid mob my guild is facing has a vile and nasty AE where all 3 classes will AE together, we usually like to spread out the AE so that only one is active at any time. And the strategy we use is for Druids to AE first, when all Druids have used up their MGB, Beastlords take over with Paragon of Spirits. It is only when all our Beastlord (we only have one :p ) have used his MGB that clerics Take over with AE + EE.

Why is this so?

Beastlords PoS has a mana regen component and the best way to make use of it is when our casters have already used up some mana, thats why beastlords never AE PoS first in our raids.

Clerics MGB EE last because EE is a spell that has a casting time and a recast timer. As our clerics are mostly in the cch chain, we don't want them to screw up the cch chain by taking time to MGB EE.

With the changes to CR, what essentially happens is that Clerics' AE heal does not have casting time or recast time problems. This means that they can AE heal while keeping the cch chain in order with no problems. If clerics can do this, why the need for beastlords and druids to AE heal? Therein lies the issue, druids have lost their raiding niche.

Ethereal Elixir cost nearly 2000 mana to MGB while druids and beastlords can do the same for free? No, I wouldn't call that balanced.

So now do you consider it balanced?

Well, if clerics are supposed to be the best healers in the game, then yeah, I'd think having them be able to heal as good as druid's or beastlords with their AA is balanced.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>No, what is being complained about is that our aa timer didn't also get reduced to 15 mins.[/quote]

Oh really? That maybe your stance, but that does not in anyway represent the thread. There seem to be a few that keep going against that belief.

Autumn10:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Clerics don't get changed because they don't need to be for the most part. Any class that has a monopoly on group spots and on healing doesn't need many and it's just going to widen the gap between druids and clerics all over again. I would have preferred they finally give clerics something to allow them to solo rather than better skill at healing. That's just retarded. [/quote]

oddjob1244:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Wow, gratz clerics the already most wanted and needed class in the game on even more upgrades.[/quote]

WyteNK:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That's GREATER THAN a 2400% increase in the power of an AA. Not to mention if it works with the shawl + MGB.

That's a huge increase in potential effectiveness. Not to bash what clerics are getting, hurrah for them. However, It is difficult to understand from a Druids perspective.

/em feels a rez discussion coming on.[/quote]

Autumn10:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't begrudge clerics getting changes but healing should be the LAST thing upgraded at this point. Let them solo or give them a little better damage potential, ANYTHING but healing. [/quote]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Cleric looking for group in LDoN(and wherever else for that matter): "65 cleric looking for..." *gets group*

Autumn10:
Druid looking for group: "65 druid looking for group" *listens to the crickets for a couple hours and logs off in frustration*[/quote]

oddjob1244:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Why have a druid when a cleric can do it alot better? How often do I use it in a group situation? Usually am counting down the seconds till it pops again. [/quote]

Autumn10:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Cleric healing doesn't need adjusted.[/quote]


And now for this gem:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Lets work on the premise that AA's were balanced prior to this patch. What makes anyone think that such a drastic change in re-use time, and full party usage of a single target AA, is balanced after the patch?

If the AA's weren't balanced prior to the patch, what took SOE so long to a) recognize it and b) admit it and c) do something about it? [/quote]

I guess using your logic we should of never gotten TR/KR. It was considered balanced before the point they changed it. I guess we should not of gotten any of the changes listed on petition.

If Everquest never changed or evolved, then it would be short lived. Static worlds are boring (okay I guess this is somewhat PO) and they typically don't keep attention of their audience.

I think, really, the point is twofold.

One, is that really SOTW reuse should be reduced to 15 minutes. There's no logical reason for it to remain as it is, when it's actually inferior to the other 2 comparable abilities now.

The second is that a very small niche that druids had in high end raids has been eroded yet again, even further. It started when beastlords got MGB, allowing them to use their superior and quicker recharging ability like we did, which was a dent but not so bad since there simply arent that many of them. Now that clerics have the same ability many druids felt was their high end defining ability, combined with the fact that there are already tons of clerics present and/or required at any given raid, dilutes the need for a druid even further.

Yeah I suppose clerics should be the best at healing *in general* but do they have to be the best at healing in every specific way too? This isnt the case when you compare pally heals to cleric heals... the pally group heals are faster. So they have a healing niche.

We *had* a healing niche, now we do not. Simple as that. At this point there is nothing a druid can do that another class cant do better. And I think that is what rankles. Its not that clerics got an upgrade, on the contrary, go clerics, and I wish like most others that they would give you some more tools to solo since so many of you seem to want it. Its simply the fact that a defining druid ability, the only one that was ever really wanted from guilds, has now been rendered redundant.

Tia

Tiane

I understand what you are saying, but here is the point. It has not majorly inpacted clerics when we got KR/TR. And this is not going to majorly affect my job on raids. If the two spells did not stack, then I can see an issue.

But right now, we do not know everything that is going on in LoDN and some of the AEs on Lucy look interesting. Maybe there will be a NEED to MGB Paragon, SotW, and CR together (or in some combo).

I am really very suprised by the feedback to the patch today.

So we clerics have gotten an upgrade and now you all want to pitch a fit. I see all kinds of folks saying now I can sit for hours lfg well guess what we all do the only difference is when I am sitting for a few hours lfg I can just up and go kite 5 mobs around and still get some xp. You all are here complaining that we clerics are better at healing. Well news flash thats why where clerics. If you wanna know the truth over half of the clerics almost all the good ones would be glad to give you what you want just on one condition. How about you give us some of your nukes, inv, and sow for starters. I mean so what we can heal better whoppie I still with over 3k mana can only cast about 10-11 nukes with one full bar and I still am out damaged by a 57 druid. Lets not even go into soloability where I can get my arse handed to me by a green mob with my combat skills maxed and almost the same ac as a 65 tank.
If you want to complain about heals go for it make yourselfs happy with believing you the druid population are so over looked and under powered I will remeber that as I watch druids running around in zones that would wipe the floor with me with not just one but 4-6 mobs all by them little poor lower healing selves.

****edit*** I must apologize I come here often and tend to read these boards more than many for the information on them. I was tired and gave into emotion and said alot of stupid mean things and this is not me. Again I am very sorry to post this when a more direct non vauge<sp> post was the correct thing to do. I am again sory to have done this to you all.

I am sorry...

But when we are discussing this issue as a class/board (we do have other classes that typically post here) we don't need randomcleric_01 coming over and "righting us heathens."

If you would read, some of the druids do have a problem with the increase to cleric healing. Some of the druids wish that SotW would have its reuse timer decrease. Some druids don't have a problem with the change.

But if more randomcleric_** posters come posting random insignificant information, where you can tell they haven't read the whole thread. Then, I might be tempted to join the "nerf cleric" campaign.

Panamah, my point is that we had something we could do on raids. That was very useful. Then SoE went and gave a much better version to the already extremly desired clerics.

Hmm, I see some people are paying attention to some EQCleric trolls again. You know that only results in a bunch of worthless, platinum-spoon-in-their-mouth, pampered, spoiled clerics coming over here to gloat and give us the BS woe-was-me-before-that-latest-buff mantra. You know nothing contructive can ever be learned discussing anything with an EQCleric troll. My prefered solution of simply banning all posters from this board that support the enemy in any way has been rejected before, so no point in bring it up again, but can't we at least ignore them. If we ignore them, they might go away on their own. True, that is not likely, but you won't be as aggravated by arguing with the most overbalanced class in the game. Ahh, well.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you want to complain about heals go for it make yourselfs happy with believing you the druid population are so over looked and under powered I will remeber that as I watch druids running around in zones that would wipe the floor with me with not just one but 4-6 mobs all by them little poor lower healing selves.[/quote]

First, a disclaimer: I personally don't have a problem with the changes clerics received in this patch. I'm a DPS druid and want my upgrades to go that route rather than healing, thanks. :) I do agree with other who posters who say that, in light of this change, SotW should have its reuse timer lowered to 15 minutes or, I'll add, even lower. And, I have to restate, though, that I'd hate to be a cleric right now: if you guys don't have a nerf headed your way or another class is given an upgrade SOE knows you'll hate, I'll be <strong>really</strong> surprised.

With that said, don't throw soloability in our faces as justification for the imbalances some druids perceive. Can druids solo? Yes. Yet, soloing has had its viability eroded over the past several months. First, charmed pet exp was nerfed, making soloing less viable exp-wise. Then, PoP ZEMs were nerfed for soloers. Now, we've got an expansion coming out that is so group-centric that it's practically useless unless you have at least four people in a group. So, can we solo? Yes, but soloing is no longer the fantastic thing you make it out to be.

Aldane Aglond
Ayonae Ro

"My prefered solution of simply banning all posters from this board that support the enemy in any way ..."

How sad is that. My main is a lvl 65 cleric. I have a lvl 47 alt druid. I love em both.

The upgrade for clerics, like some have said, is really only good for raiding, or right after popping DvA. A mana free heal is always good. I also believe that SOTW should be brought down to 15 min reuse time to keep it in line with the other mana free group heals. The 22 minute reuse time, as it stands, does nothing to hamper a druids raiding ability. MGB is still over an hour, so nothing changes, and the added DS on SOTW just raises the overall raid dps for a short bit.

Only ignorant players think a druid can't heal as well as a cleric in an xp group. Just ran through a beta dungeon with a druid as main healer. Worked just fine with absolutely no problems. Sure there was no symbol, but if you have an inept healer, 900 hitpoints won't save you.

ikosho

I guess my question is what nerf would you like to see clerics get?

I agree with alot of the druids here in stating that 75% of the stuff changed today i truely didnt need, Nor thought of even asking for. DB upgrade is nice to see because its a spell i never bothered memming due to the inability to get it off anyways when being beaten on.

CR is nice as well but ya, would have been nice if they'd have reduced yours as well to keep it in line.

As far as divine rez is concerned the reuse timer on it has always been absurd but im glad to see them knock it down a bit at least.

If you polled half the clerics the things we really want is NOT to heal more. But this isnt a perfect world and those options are far from being realized.

I was actually prepared to discuss on this thread that the AA changes were good for the game. A bunch of mostly poor AAs made into something useful. I do think that the SotW, as being the least effective of the three MGB heal AAs should have its duration extended from 5 to 10 ticks. I am mostly indifferent on the reuse time, as I really only care about raiding, but I understand the argument that it should be 15 mins like all the others.But I regard that as a seperate issue only tangentially related to today's change.

Then the EQClerics came in and made me wish ill on all Clerics. The only nerf I really want on Clerics is to nerf their ability to post here. EQCleirc trolls are the lowest scum in the pond.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Panamah, my point is that we had something we could do on raids. That was very useful. Then SoE went and gave a much better version to the already extremly desired clerics. [/quote]

You still have that ability, no one took it away. Do the abilities stack? Could it possibly be a good thing to have a few more MGB heals going off in a raid? I know I always wished I had a few more MGB druids on a raid than I usually had available.

I think it's great to have intelligent Cleric posters coming out in favor of the change. Discussion is good. But when Mr. one-post-how-about-you-give-me-dem-nukes comes out, I tend to agree with Aaeamdar. Trite, paragraph-free posts like that simply fuel the flames.

I don't mind the change, but I <strong>absolutely</strong> understand how the erosion of unique abilities bums people out.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I guess my question is what nerf would you like to see clerics get?[/quote]

e? None, but then again, I have never endorsed the concept of wishing nerfs on other classes. The only reason I said that clerics would probably either see a nerf (unlikely) or an ability that clerics have would be given to or enhanced for another class (more likely) is because that seems to be the standard modus operandi for SOE: one hand giveth to one class, the other hand whacketh with the nerf bat (or giveth to another class, thus pissing off players of the original class).

Aldane Aglond
Ayonae Ro

To the people makeing the argument that clerics are stepping into a druid niche:

Clerics had large AA heal over times a long time before druids did. CR even predecedes SotW and PoS.

All that was done is to bring CR into line with more recent AA abilities (like Purify Soul was rendered useless by Radiant Cure).

P.S. Reduce SotW cast time to 15 if it makes you happy, personally I dont mind more healing power on raids.

Don't get me wrong, I do find MGB CR useful and I am happy clerics got that. I also recognize that since now clerics will be MGBing CR, druids won't be MGBing SoTW as much since there are many more clerics than druids in most of my guild raids.

One reason is that each MGB takes one buff slot. If the mob AE is a DoT, then that AE takes another buff slot. Adding a second AE means 3 buffs slots being used. I don't know about other guilds but my guild doesn't like reserving too many buff slots "just in case" we need MGB heals. Guild members are only now getting into the habit of reserving 1 buff slot for that emergency heal. And unless the encounter we will be facing has a particularly nasty AE, we wouldn't MGB 2 heals together.

Second reason is that even with the fastest PoP encounters, most raid fights last at least a few minutes. Each MGB heal lasts around 36 seconds, give or take a tick. You want to space your MGB heals to last the entire duration of the fight if possible and not waste all of them by AEing together.

What will happen in my guild is all clerics will trigger off MGB CR one by one. We usually have 5-8 MGBable clerics in a raid, so that means 3 to 4 minutes later.. beastlords get to MGB PoS for hp and mana regen. finally comes druids turn.. if druids are still alive.

I agree with whoever said druid's tiniest niche in raids have been eroded. We are left with our atk debuffs and protection of seasons as the number one and two most useful raid ability with MGB SoTW a far third.

To be clear : I am a cleric in a raiding guild. I don't do experience group alot, unless some guildies explicitely ask me to join their group.

When I do join an experience group, I almost NEVER have trouble with mana. I always use my proccing hammer to add some DPS and will still be FM most of the time. Nuking is no good, because it takes too long to cast.

So for me, in groups, CR will be nice to have, but I used to be FM and after this change I will still be FM, so no big change for me there.

I do see however that CR will influence raids alot. Now I think the reason Verant changed the AA to an MGB'able HoT, is because of the need of healers on a raid. For my guild, when raiding, we have mostly always more than 8 clerics there, we will have about 4 druids and 3 Beastlords. So I guess I am a lucky cleric to have 4 65 beastlords in guild with PoS. But for those guilds without beastlords, they had to depend on druids for mass healing AE fights.

I am sure you all know guilds that struggle with healers and who use bot clerics and druids for the CH rotation. For those guilds, this change will make it easier to let some raids happen, as clerics in chain can do MGB heals now without problems.

So I can see this AA as very useful for raids and as little useful for groups.

Anyways, I wouldn't mind druids getting a shorter recast on SotW and I would even let you guys have an instant cast on the AA skill.

I think druids got KR to replace clerics in CH rotations, so they might as well be able to do their MGB heals while in the rotation.

Pacemaker Heartbreaker
Exarch of Venril Sathir
Tide

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You still have that ability, no one took it away. Do the abilities stack? Could it possibly be a good thing to have a few more MGB heals going off in a raid? I know I always wished I had a few more MGB druids on a raid than I usually had available.[/quote]

Panamah, I find myself in agreement with you on 99% of the topics here. But this topic falls into the 1%. ;)

No one is saying that SoTW is any less useful or viable than it was before cleric CR got upgraded. What some are saying, is simply that when SoTW was the biggest mana-free raid heal, druids (finally) had a specific and desirable raiding niche. Now, clerics -- who were already very desirable/essential for raids -- can fill that niche without skipping a beat on their other healing abilities (which already made them highly desirable).

Ever since SoTW was implemented, more and more guild and raid leaders were counting not just clerics to gauge whether a raid was doable; but counting druids as well. Now, there's less need to count druids.

At higher levels of the game, possessing a somewhat unique niche on raids is more important for each class' balance than just about anything else. Giving another class the ability to fill what had become a 'druid' role is especially harmful to class balance because druids don't have anything else unique to offer.

If you don't think these niches are important, go look at the response from rogues over the thought of other classes getting pick-lock spells. Go look at the hundreds of posts from clerics whenever someone mentions a desire for some sort of 'druid rez'.

SoTW was the druid's single most important raiding niche; not to say it was the only thing druids could do on raids, but it was absolutely the one thing with enough impact to positively affect perceptions about how useful this class was. Now, that niche is shared with a class which already held one-third of all the game's raiding 'trump' cards.

Sorry, I'm not sure how to explain it any more clearly.

~Firemynd

I was planning on staying out of this whole thread until I read Aaeamdar's posts.

Howdy Aaeamdar. Love ya. Mean it.

Toodles.

What the heck, here's an edit with relevant discussion. This is just the same old story. Druids get an upgrade, Clerics bitch about it. Clerics get an upgrade, Druids bitch about it. We've been doing this dance for years now and it's gotten really old. Fact is, a vocal minority of both boards just can't be happy for the other class.

As far as the AA goes, it's a good change for the Clerics. Our original skill wasn't that great at all. It had situational uses but that was a LOT of AA points to spend on getting a situational AA. The current form still costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 AA points to get the max use out of it. Of those 55 AA points, you need to buy pre-requisites that most Clerics overlook until in favor of our better skills first.

I think the issue with making SotW 15 minute refresh is the damage boost. If it were simple healing, I wouldn't have a problem with it (honestly, I wouldn't have a prob with it regardless, but trying to think of a reason they didn't do it). With a druid in a group with MA/SA/TA, you get quite the massive damage boost if you're on a raid that requires a lot of offtanking. I'm not against that idea, of course- what helps the raid helps me. But it is a thought of a possible objection from Sony towards decreasing the timer. Your AA IS both damage and healing, please don't dismiss it so casually. It's a very strong AA if you don't only look at it from the point of healing. As is the BST one. Again, you dismiss the additives to your AA and compare healing to healing. Other people don't.

I do kind of understand the upset over clerics getting an upgrade, but two things occur to me. As both a cleric and a druid, I really wish you could see the reality of clerics. They're extremely one dimensional, and the fact is that most clerics are bots. The cleric CLASS is in demand, but real clerics are not in demand. Many of you think that clerics log on and get groups immediately, but I think many of you who do, don't realize that the number of clerics required for raids FAR outdistances the number needed for exp groups. And the bottleneck which decreases even further the number of exp groups is Slowers. And the sad thing of that is that there is only one slower needed on a raid, and an army of healers.

So what you were seeing with the druid/sham CH objection from clerics was "real" clerics fearing for their exp group spaces, because the competition is massive for exp group healing spots. The big problem is really the disparity of # of healers needed for exp VRS the # of healers needed for raids, and the overwhelming attitude that all that matters is the "power" of a class and the desirability of a class for RAIDS.

The reason most clerics don't care much about this AA is because we're already TOO wanted for raids. Raiding has become a burden for many "real" (as in, main character, not botted) clerics. The complaint we have about not being able to solo is that we would like to be able to exp up to where we are viable for raids instead of hearing hte complaints that we don't have enough AAs and all our spells. Yes, a common complaint, but unique for the cleric class in a way. The pressure to get up to Raid Capability is massive, the opportunities to do so are slim. You are either too busy raiding for other people to get items, or you're competing with the other 90 clerics- as well as druids and shamans- for exp spots.

Being "overpowered" and "overneeded" are not always a good thing, and many clerics quit in frustration. Over time, bots have increased tremendously, have you asked yourself why, if clerics are so demanded and ass kissed, why do so many quit, why are the vast majority nothing but bots?

Now, please don't misunderstand, I'm NOT complaining about my chosen main- I live with the hours of LFG and the constant denigration that I'm not good enough because I only have 27 AA and am only 64 because in the end, I like being a healer. If I didn't like being a healer, I would quit. But the grass isn't necessarily greener. We do have our issues, too.

The reason we dismiss the damage shield and ac bonus is because, as has been discussed a bazillion times before, damage shields are *not* an effective means of damage dealing in PoP. They are ok, yeah, but against slowed xp mobs they are not even worth the mana of casting.

So, for instance, *maxxed* spirit of the wood adds a +55 damage shield for 5 ticks (30 seconds.) In an xp group, say against an unslowed PoP mob (for some reason) that is double hitting and connecting every other swing (doesnt happen but for the sake of argument). So it hits 30 times. Thats 1650 damage it took from the DS. That isnt free damage either! Cause the tank is still taking damage from the hits (anywhere from 5000-15000 hp damage received on the tank, not a great tradeoff!) Even if it was, thats not terribly exciting, and thats a pretty generous scenario. Against a slowed mob the damage inflicted drops to the 200-300 range, and if the tank has any avoidance at all it drops even further.

As for the AC boost... maxxed SOTW offers a 48 ac bonus... wooooo... now as everyone must know by now, ac in PoP is pretty much worthless after a certain point, and for many classes its completely worthless. Even if it is worth something, take me for example with my 1300ac or whatever I'm at these days... thats about a 3.7% boost to my AC for 30 seconds. How much damage do you *really* think that is going to mitigate? If I get hit the chances are that it will mitigate ZERO damage. This is going to be the case under almost any scenario where SOTW would conceivably be used.

So it's not a multiple effect AA. It's *only* used for its healing, nobody cares about the other effects. They are a joke, like the druid selfbuff ac/ds line... completely meaningless outside of perhaps one or two contrived situations that never actually happen during normal gameplay.

Just thought I'd clear that up for those who think that somehow those aspects of SOTW are at ALL valuable. Take them away, and nobody would notice, least of all druids.

Tia

"Not often I read the Druids Grove, but I must say the amount of cleric hating surprised me."

By this do you mean you read this one post (where no one bashes or (please) hates cleric and decided to make your first post? Suprised how...as in every other class board that blatently player-hates and curses twice per sentance?

Show me a post before yours where the person hates Clerics?

You should visit the other boards, you may find lots more surprises.

btw coming to a class board that is the most hated and bashed on class in the game on a day when you recieved upgrades (and with the new % rune and unique abilities coming in LDoN (lockpicking spells?)) I don't think your point is going to make much of an impact.

In gameplay terms, this doesn't affect us. If you needed the very best healer, you got a Cleric. That has not changed. They won't even necessarily heal better in groups. Once you're 4m all the time, being able to stay 4.5m means relatively little.

On raids, the MGB timer dominates the ability timer. Until you have ~90 Clerics, there is still room for PoS/SoTW. Nor does this change the raid desirability of a Cleric, because that's already maxxed, too.

Looking at PoS/SoTW/CR, their ability was clearly out of line. A change that brings it in line, with no negative effects for us, is about the best we can expect from SOE. I understand the issue of niche pride, and it <strong>does</strong> always engender complaints when a niche is encroached. Look how Rogues feel about picklock spells, for example.

However, niche pride must take a back seat to balance. This is true when Clerics have a broken AA, it was equally true when we had only Chloro as a high-end heal. We've had niches farmed out before, so have Clerics, so will Shamans and Rogues (in the next patch). It happens.

As far as reducing the timer on SoTW, I'm divided on that. it's a non-issue on raids, since the MGB timer dominates (again). In groups, the extra DPS from the Damage Shield is negligible over time. However, it's a boost that would make us more powerful in an area we're not already maxed. It would alter the balance of power between us and BLs, for no good reason other than that Clerics were changed.

Personally, I think this is one of those "ouch, oh well" situations. We can accept it badly or gracefully.

To our Cleric visitors, please remember that we are allowed to vent, on our boards. Try to respect the emotion, as well as the logic, behind our posts. Keep in mind how you felt when Druid visitors were defending iCH to <em>you</em>.

"Not often I read the Druids Grove, but I must say the amount of cleric hating surprised me."

It's about the same as the Druid hating on EQClerics. There are outspoken people on both sides. I guess the best solution is if you are offended by it, don't read it. I'm so glad that most of the clerics in my guild aren't as ignorant as some of the clerics I see posting here. You people amaze me.

Be nice people, when he said he was suprised it was because in the first two pages prior to him posting he saw things like:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Thanks SoE for dumping on our one unique ability like this. SotW should atleast be 15 min. reuse as well and hey, up the duration while you're at it.

Lots of other good stuff, but the cleric changes are kind of outrageous. Druids very rarely get changed like that and when they do it's almost always negative. Good job of putting even more distance between druids and clerics, SoE. The trinity lives on for LDoN! Congrats druids for not being able to get groups in the expansion! That's freaking ridiculous.

Clerics don't get changed because they don't need to be for the most part. Any class that has a monopoly on group spots and on healing doesn't need many and it's just going to widen the gap between druids and clerics all over again.

I guess 250 hps healed over 8 ticks (even longer with SCRM and extended buff duration focus) for no mana every 15 mins is not overpowering as long as it's clerics that get it and not druids.

If I played a cleric, I'd be plenty nervous right now. Changes like these are usually followed by...unpleasantness. I expect that either a cleric nerf is incoming soon or another class is soon going to be given a tweak or ability that clerics will be angry about.

I suspect that other changes will follow as well. It is too bad many of them view improvements to other classes as "unpleasantness" though. I'm still amazed whenever I see a cleric @#%$ to the whining druids getting the Incomplete Heal, but mentioning nothing of their gains just prior to it.

Wow, gratz clerics the already most wanted and needed class in the game on even more upgrades. They wont nerf clerics.

and actually, clerics doing 300 a tick if they have Celestial Renewal AA.
blows sotw out of the water
/sigh

buncha crap imo.[/quote]

Now, after he posted that, and even during the first two pages, there was lots of objective and fair opinions of the change as well. I think in general you have looked at this quite evenly. But I can see where he might see all that as being a bit anti-cleric, wouldn't you?

Regards,

I'll give you that clerics are 'somewhat' one dimensional, but then again a few people in a thread a while back would argue that and have you believe they are not(which I agree with somewhat and wasn't my point at all). I would like to see their feedback on this and watch for the hypocrisy and backpedaling that would ensue.

I have played a cleric and I know they get kind of boring. But my philosophy has always been that any class that gets a monopoly on so many different things AND almost always gets automatic groups didn't deserve to be very diverse because being one dimensional was the tradeoff.

If this was the start of trying to align classes back into a semblance of balance or just making some aspects of them less sucky then so be it. But when has SoE/Verant ever done that consistently or logically? I just see yet another upgrade to a healing class that will put further distance between clerics and druids once again. Then will come the eternal pause as druids wait for the added ballast of changes that never come. If a couple weeks from now warriors get taunt fixed and a couple weeks after that druids get SotW recast time lowered along with some other improvement and so on then it won't be an issue, but I won't be holding my breath.

P.S. Please don't use the sucky AA argument either. As has been stated EVERY class has sucky AA's. If they're all going to get looked at then so be it but don't be surprised if they don't, and in that case NONE should be changed.

P.S.S. I'm not sure why my posts are becoming the poster child for anti-cleric sentiment in some people's quotes. I never said I hated clerics, never said they didn't deserve upgrades in certain areas.

It's also not an issue of clerics being the best healers in the game because they should be. But they shouldn't be so far beyond every other healer class that those classes don't get groups and are unwanted for raids. I dare you to find anyone that agrees that a class should totally dominate any area of the game to the point of making other classes obsolete or undesired. No class should push another out of existence because an imbalance of power(or any other reason for that matter).

One other thing: the person that quoted my little cleric/druid LFG roleplaying conveniently left out my admittance that it was exaggerated and melodramatic but I did that to prove my point(and I'm not so sure it was THAT far off the mark, if not regarding this issue then at least clerics compared to druids LFG in general).

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>How about you give us some of your nukes, inv, and sow for starters. I mean so what we can heal better whoppie I still with over 3k mana can only cast about 10-11 nukes with one full bar and I still am out damaged by a 57 druid. Lets not even go into soloability where I can get my arse handed to me by a green mob with my combat skills maxed and almost the same ac as a 65 tank.[/quote]
Typical. Then you give druids IVU, Virtue, "AC almost the same as a tank" and rez.

Clerics are the ONLY class that is <strong>always</strong> superior at their role then the other classes also designed for that role. Your idea of balance is Tanks, DPS, Slower and Cleric in a group and druids soloing.

Personally, I think the druids on this board are overly reverant toward clerics and too concerned about offending you all. In truth, the apathy on the druid boards to the cleric monopoly often smells of deference. In return, the clerics bash, flame and slam druids on their boards and even come to the druid boards to whine about not being able to solo after receiving yet another tithe from Sony.

Your inability to solo at 65 with "almost the same ac as a 65 tank" and the ability to "cast about 10-11 nukes" is something for you to work on and not an issue for class discussion. If you want to solo, then learn how to fight and choose your targets appropriately just like every other class that solos. At least you are guaranteed a rez while you are learning, unlike the other classes.

This is ridiculous. Clerics get a gift and druids find themselves on the defensive! What the heck is going on here? It is bad enough that the only response to all of the suggestions for "how can druids be made more group desirable" is more cleric improvements (thus far anyway). Despite how they revise how they reacted to TR, this might be another bundle of gifts to placate them like before the last time druids were tweaked to bring the priests closer to balance.

The chanter in me ponders: That clerics consider a 2 second cast DB "useless" makes me wonder how my runes have saved me time and time again at 65 with AC almost as good as a Pooh Bear.

I agree with <strong>Firemynd</strong>, that was an excellent post.

And I really appreciated <strong>Amris' </strong>post. I have a 63 Cleric bot, admittedly, who was created for the 1 purpose of rezes, but turned into a healing bot as well.

Another thought on the subject... What would you Clerics say if the next change would introduce the addition of a HoT <em>spell</em> for Druids? We wouldn't be as efficient in it (as usual), but simply getting it would be something of a surprise indeed.

Druids have never been able to cast "on demand" HoT's, so I wouldn't exect it, even though it's been asked for a number of times.

aybe that's part of the issue. We can't cast a HoT anytime we want, it's very limited. Seeing it done so easily by another class, and then the other class getting a further boost, is enviable admittedly.

Wyte

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But I can see where he might see all that as being a bit anti-cleric, wouldn't you?[/quote]
No. I see a druids posting on a druid board about how they see the new cleric gifts will impact upon him and druids.

It isn't anti-cleric or cleric hating because someone says what you do not want to be said. That you are trying to lable those posts as "cleric hating" or "anti-cleric" as opposed to the "objective and fair opinions" shows your lack of respect for opinions other than your own.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you don't think these niches are important, go look at the response from rogues over the thought of other classes getting pick-lock spells. Go look at the hundreds of posts from clerics whenever someone mentions a desire for some sort of 'druid rez'.
[/quote]

No, I understand that. But why'd they give it to Beastlords too?

It's odd that SOE did that too because I don't think anyone ever even asked for it.

Frankly, thinking about it last night, I think they should've given a large, single target heal to clerics. Like a complete heal only much faster casting.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Your inability to solo at 65 with "almost the same ac as a 65 tank" and the ability to "cast about 10-11 nukes" is something for you to work on and not an issue for class discussion. If you want to solo, then learn how to fight and choose your targets appropriately just like every other class that solos. At least you are guaranteed a rez while you are learning, unlike the other classes. [/quote]

Oh please lol. Have you ever noticed how a cleric dies faster than a real tank or even a ranger ? Have you ever heard of avoidance ? Considering the nukes, all magic based, so almost every time partially resisted on decent xp mobs. And a mana bar is not enough for whatever mob in elemental. While my friends druid solo in Fire easily.

I'm not bitter, i'm happy they can, i don't like soloing anyway and i don't care about new heals or solo abilities, even when not finding a group i'd like to do something else than logging out to play my monk alt. I want nothing more but post some good information at least, not that type of useless lesson...

/wave Windeliane! Miss seeing you in game. Say hello every now and then ;)

*hugs* Mann ;)

Actually, if there was one thing that ever bugged me about clerics, it wasn't the class (well, not totally), it was the player(s).

ost of the stories I hear about druids usually sound something like "I got trained," "stupid quadder," or "doesn't know how to group." Yeah, bad player, possibly inept player. The great thing about the druid is that when my guild started recruiting (one of the top three on my server at the time) we'd have hordes of candidates, and every single one of them knew they had to step it up in order to get considered - not just because they were in a higher level raiding guild, but because they knew that if they screwed up, there were 101 druids right behind them, salivating for that guild spot.

Clerics, on the other hand, knew they were "rare," and they flaunted it. Some of the bitchiest, whiniest, most annoying players I've had to deal with were clerics. I was glad when druids finally got a chance to work in a CH line, because I could get druids to hop into a situation so I didn't have to have the cleric "bless us with their presence." The druids in my guild were willing and ready to do anything that would improve their presence in a raid - clerics were loathe to do anything other than click heal once every 10 seconds.

I know this isn't typical of every cleric - yeah, I think I've worked with some of the best too, and I loved every single time I did - just like the quadding-training-non-grouping druid isn't typical of every druid. However, just as some druids are fearful that their nuking/healing power will become obsolete, I think some clerics are afraid that they will no longer be able to be the prima-donnas of the EQ guild world.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Oh please lol. Have you ever noticed how a cleric dies faster than a real tank or even a ranger ? Have you ever heard of avoidance ? Considering the nukes, all magic based, so almost every time partially resisted on decent xp mobs. And a mana bar is not enough for whatever mob in elemental. While my friends druid solo in Fire easily. [/quote]

Please don't try and derail this into a cleric soloing thread. Wrong board for that. And what are you talking about anyway? They might die faster if they try to tank. Have you ever seen how fast a druid dies if she's unfortunate enough to land the first patch heal on a MT? And FYI - elementals aren't the only place people solo. In fact (this may be hard for you to believe) there are some people who can't even go in elemental planes. So using them in examples is not really realistic if you want to include most people.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Please don't try and derail this into a cleric soloing thread. Wrong board for that. And what are you talking about anyway?[/quote] To use the childish line "But she started it." My good buddy Demasia has concluded that Clerics "just don't know how to solo" and attempted to enlighten us. Just look a few posts up.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Clerics, on the other hand, knew they were "rare," and they flaunted it. Some of the bitchiest, whiniest, most annoying players I've had to deal with were clerics. I was glad when druids finally got a chance to work in a CH line, because I could get druids to hop into a situation so I didn't have to have the cleric "bless us with their presence."[/quote]

Boy, can I relate to that. Not all are like this, like you pointed out, but the ones that are can really make everyone's lives miserable on raids.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Frankly, thinking about it last night, I think they should've given a large, single target heal to clerics. Like a complete heal only much faster casting.[/quote]


No no =P please no more heals.... Panama =P

If anything we have enough heals. I don't want to turn this into a class balancing thread. We have enough of those on both EQCleric and the Grove =P

Ive been a LONG time lurker of both boards and what they gave us in this patch did come at a complete shock to myself. Heck, i was happy the way we were and felt we were adequately balanced in the healing arena. A few AA tweaks were needed and i am happy to see those go in but in reguards to heals i feel we clerics have all the heals we need.
With proper AA investment i crit like a banshee anyways so another large heal would be a spell i most likely would rarely memorize.

If anything id rather they work on our rather sad offensive capabilities such as root, efficiency of our nukes, and a fear that will actually bring us use if we do wish to solo. Clerics can solo but not w/o solid investment into the proper gear and AA and research into what you want to solo. Unlike our druid kin. Rightfully so Druids should solo better than us but alot of us clerics would trade in our rez stick and ch to be able to add more variety(spice) into our game time.

Ive seen alot of people here suggest that clerics get groups so easily but id like to retort in saying thats not always the case. I am a 65 Cleric and up until recently was in one of the top 3 guilds on Maelin Starpyre. If there wasnt a raid going on finding an exp group wasnt as easy as some people make it out to be. Again let me state i am not <strong>bashing</strong> anyone here. I hope you dont feel that i have. I just wanted to nab a few thoughts down and let you know that not all clerics are trolls and not everyone wanted all the changes that they made.

Thanks for reading,

-- Yari

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Oh please lol. Have you ever noticed how a cleric dies faster than a real tank or even a ranger ? Have you ever heard of avoidance ?[/quote]
I think it was clear the "almost the same ac as a 65 tank" was direct quote. I have heard about avoidance, but then again I'm not the one pretending there aren't clerics who are rather skilled at soloing.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Considering the nukes, all magic based, so almost every time partially resisted on decent xp mobs.[/quote]
And your nukes are different from the clerics who have learned to solo in what way?
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>And a mana bar is not enough for whatever mob in elemental. While my friends druid solo in Fire easily.[/quote]
LOL. Neither is mine, but I would find a way if I had the access to even try. When I said "choose your targets appropriately just like every other class that solos", I didn't mean go after the most challenging targets for the best soloing classes. I am glad we now know what the benchmark is for soloability in the eyes of a cleric who "cannot solo".
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I want nothing more but post some good information at least, not that type of useless lesson...[/quote]
Any lesson is useless to someone with no imagination and the expectation to be the best class for doing something in order to try doing it. That you say you don't want to solo doesn't make your post any less of an arguement that you can't solo and flame to my post. That your benchmark for soloability is the elemental mobs reveals how warped your sense of balance is and spoiled you are.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>To use the childish line "But she started it." My good buddy Demasia has concluded that Clerics "just don't know how to solo" and attempted to enlighten us. Just look a few posts up.---Islington[/quote]
First of all, we do not know each other. Second, I wouldn't call someone who blatantly misquotes me to suit their purposes a "good buddy". Third and contrary to your rhetoric and obvious contention, I specifically stated on these boards and others (maybe even in the post from where you misquoted me) that there are clerics who are very skilled at soloing. Fourth and finally, maybe I shouldn't have been so polite in trying to "enlighten" you and should just tell you to quit your sissy whining and, as the more adventurous clerics who have learned to solo, do something that is challenging and risky for a change.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If anything id rather they work on our rather sad offensive capabilities such as root, efficiency of our nukes, and a fear that will actually bring us use if we do wish to solo. Clerics can solo but not w/o solid investment into the proper gear and AA and research into what you want to solo.[/quote]
Fair arguement. To be honest, I don't think I know anyone who would become irate if clerics could solo better. I wouldn't complain if clerics received an improved root or undead offensive capabilities comparable to their classic D&D strengths.

The problem on this board though is that cleric soloability is usually an arguement presented when druids seek the gap being closed a bit in healing among the priest classes. Cleric soloability as an issue by itself is not something druids rise in arms about. I imagine the issue the developers have with balancing cleric soloability is that it will be difficult to improve upon it while maintaining some degree of challenge since the risk is mitigated by the ease of self rezzing.

Yeah don't even say anything about how fast a particular class goes down to a mob because I guarantee no one goes down faster than druids with their crap defense and paper mache armor.

Panamah: why do they need another even better heal?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Well, I'm a moderator over at EQClerics but since my main is now a rogue, I'd probably be a bad choice to represent them. Although I love my cleric and stay current on the issues, I'm not AS current as a lot of folks are. [/quote]

I just saw that in the other thread. Well that explains it...

Aaemedar, go piss up a rope you trolling pile of crap. How in the world do you mods allow him to pass off that player hating crap all the time? His blind ignorance of the cleric class and blind hatred of it at the same time astound me and I got to wonder why he isnt reeled in for what hes posting and told to cool it.

The cleric AA has a pre-req of 12AAs in Archetypes of Healing Gift 3, its certainly not the best amongst the Archtype AAs for the cleric class due to CH being the most used heal.

To get the most out of this AA you need to have :
-Healing Gift3..12AAs
-Celestial Regen...5AAs
-Spell Casting Reinforcement3...12AAs
-Spell Casting Mastery...8AAs
-Mass Group Buff...9AAs
-Celestial Renewal2..9AAs

In total 55AAs to max it out, no focuses work on it currently to up its performance.

Something most of you are neglecting to see to or look at is the increase in raid efficiency. It appears like the primary use of this ability is to increase raid healing efficiency. This spell is an instacast button. That means clerics can and will do AE group healing from the chain. That means LESS clerics for a raid to happen with success. I had truly thought that was a good thing? Isnt the primary complaint right now the number of clerics it takes to make things happen for a given raid? Wont this alleviate that some? For the record, make SotW's timer 15 minutes, fair is fair, I support that 100 percent.

Far as the grouping thing. We have more than the tools to handle group healing. This AA wont affect that at all. This really isnt a group AA, its a raid one. If an AA hits in a group I fix it with DVA and the appropriate group heal--Replenishment or Elixir or rare cases-Redemption.

DB change, we have had it for 36 levels and I havent memmed it since the opening of PoP. Mobs hit too hard and too fast, you cant cast it fast enough. When it did get cast it only healed 153 HPs, not nearly enough to get a cleric out of low health agro. It needed tuned badly. Im actually going to mem the more useful spell of the 2 now for the cast time and the regen. Im really happy with what they did there. Long overdue since its been ingame for 4 years now.

Nice patch for clerics. Fixing abilities that have been long standing as being not quite broke but sucky or having severe functionality issues.


Belkram Marwolf

Yeah, real great 'fixes'. So when can the other classes expect their 'fixes'? *waits a long time, then waits some more*

Wizards go down faster, Autumn. Frankly, any dress-wearer will. Sorry, I know that perspective sort of spoils your hysterics, but if you're going to exaggerate, please be plausible.

Who appointed you the Joe McCarthy of "pro" druid? I missed that memo.

The druids I know(and myself)go down faster than even so-called 'dress wearers' and it's not an exaggeration. You're the one resorting to hysterics here. What are you pro? Trolling?

Bric said:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Wizards go down faster, Autumn. Frankly, any dress-wearer will. Sorry, I know that perspective sort of spoils your hysterics, but if you're going to exaggerate, please be plausible. [/quote]

Ahhhh, but to be fair "dress-wearers" can choose when to enter the 'aggro game' on raid level encounters. Healers don't always get that luxury.

Of course, said healer(s) can always choose not to enter the aggro game same as any other caster, but the flak they get for sitting on the side lines would undoubtedly be severe.

It sucks to die almost fm; it seems so useless. But what sucks even more is key tanks going down and having the raid wipe.

Wyte

DB has been ingame as is for 4 years. Is THAT long enough to wait for a fix for you?

The reduction of AA timers was long overdue the restriction on the cleric AAs were amongst the worst of any class with respect to the impact those abilties had on the game.

Divine res was 36 HOURS I mean cmon.
Purify Soul was made obselete by Radiant cure yet it was stuck at 72 minutes.
Celestial Regen was 72 minutes for 4500 worth of healing.
Turn Undead was a high timer as well.

Clerics got 8 Planar Abilites and 6 of them were for reducing timers or making broken abilties work (Unfailing Divinity--balanced though as is, I think). Cleric Class specific AAs were abysmally bad.

All of these issues have been live since the introduction of AA trees. So the beginning of Luclin. I think thats a pretty long wait to get something fixed.


Belkram

A lot of other classes have those same issues Belkram. Are we all going to see improvements? I highly doubt it. For me personally it boils down to three points:

1. Clerics need upgrades in healing like they need a hole in the head. They're already the best bar none. Even it doesn't have a HUGE impact it still widens the gap between clerics and other priests as far as healing. A gap that was already big enough.

2. It may not negatively affect the desire to group and/or use druids for raids but then again it might. In fact I have a hunch it will. Why even take the chance of hurting druids even more in this respect when it's already hard for us to find a niche? I exclude shamans because they already have a niche with slow.

3. There are a lot of other problems with classes that have existed even longer. When will they be fixed? Will they ever? Are the cleric changes just to jack them up even more for LDoN as I and others suspect? If they stick with only the changes to clerics that's absurdly unfair to the other classes.

Lets all take a nice big breath. Ok, exhale slowly...relax. It keeps up this way and this will be in rants in a page or two more.

Only way a wiz would drop faster is if they started nuking at 99 percent, in which case they deserve to die. Chanters rival at being in top for going down the quickest. But really, a druid landing the first patch heal, trying to make sure the MT stays up, is toast. Not trying to start an arguement about who dies the quickest though. We've all had our moments.

And Panamah - I read the bashing you took on EQClerics for trying to stick up for druids there. I wanted to thank you for trying (not that my thanks means much on a message board). I wouldn't have posted that there because I know they would have labeled me a troll, hung me and burned me at the stake - and that's before they would have know I was a druid. I'm sure it would have gotten worse from there...

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>A lot of other classes have those same issues Belkram. Are we all going to see improvements? I highly doubt it.[/quote]

Autumn10, about a year ago Druids wrote their "petition." It was full of ideas for fixes and improvements to the Druid class. A lot of effort went into creating the thing and getting it seen by the EQ Devs. It didn't happen overnight but within a few months every single item flagged in the Druid Petition was addressed and fixed to the improvement of Druids.

Now with that little history lesson out of the way I want to ask you, how is these Cleric fixes any different than that Druid petition a year ago? We asked SOE to look at and address glaring problems with our AAs and other spells and they're finally doing so. This is absolutely no different than what Druids did a year ago.

And yes, back when Druids were receiving their fixes, Clerics and other classes bitched about it. Now today Clerics are getting our fixes and Druids and other classes are bitching about it. Unfortunately, some things didn't change.

Yeah and I thought the priest classes were about as balanced as they had been in a long time when they made those changes to druids, possibly ever. But like I said, now I see these new cleric changes as making the gap that was just closed wider again. It seems like every time they have done something with druids in the past and gotten them to a point where they were viable and proportionate to other priest classes they jacked up those other classes(nameably clerics) to more or less negate most of the balance recently achieved. That's what gets my goat. :mad:

<strong> The druids I know(and myself)go down faster than even so-called 'dress wearers' and it's not an exaggeration.</strong>

Oh my god, now we're less durable than cloth-wearers. We are the frailest class in EQ. I was calling it hysteria, now I realize my gift for understatement.

Whatever game you're playing, where Druids die more than Enchanters, is not the game I'm playing. I will continue to snare aggro off robes, because in my game, I can take a few more hits. I have more HP. I have more AC. I can heal myself.

It's surreal that I'm even having this argument.

<strong>Ahhhh, but to be fair "dress-wearers" can choose when to enter the 'aggro game' on raid level encounters.</strong>

True. But good dress-wearers ride the thin line. Also remember that not every encounter is a raid encounter. A good Wizard should avoid aggro, a good Chanter has no such option. In either case, if it comes to blows, I can take a few more than either class.

Ahh yes, Enchanters. They don't get much of a choice either.

Seriously, we dont want more healing upgrades either. We didnt ask for this one.

It will reduce the number of clerics needed for a raid though. Clickable from inside the CH chain with no timing loss or mana reduction it WILL reduce the amount of healing you need outside the chain. It will allow other classes to focus on damage more rather than 10 second healing (Scirocco will like this part I bet heh) and it stacks with the Druid and Beastlord AAs. How in the world is this bad? I thought reducing the need for large numbers of clerics was a good thing? You need 6 for a chain, be it a remedy, light or CH chain. Instead of needing 2 to 3 more outside the chain to heal you use this.

Once again this will in no way affect cleric grouping desireability one iota. We can cast spells that do the same thing and generally have the mana to use them a lot.

The Druid petition on this site addressed quite a few issues I had thought. No cleric issues were really addressed, they just added a few heals that we didnt need and really dont use once we get to POP (EE excluded for raiding) and the hammers, which we also dont use much in PoP. Nothing was "fixed", candy was given out as a distraction.

Belkram

My opinion is pretty simple, gratz to clerics on getting your AA changed. While it did not add alot of power to the class directly, it was a major upgrade to the skill's power - because quite honestly the previous skill sucked.

Which was one of the stated <a href="http://eqlive.station.sony.com/updates/future_plans.jsp" target="top">Future Plans</a> for August:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> Additionally, we're looking at the concerns from players about their spells, and changing them where appropriate. The goal here is to remove annoying issues with spells, not necessarily to increase caster power overall.[/quote]

They did improve some of the spells without adding to the power of the cleric class.

But my question is this, do we have a realistic list of changes we would like to be made? (No, I am not talking about the thread with the summon unicorn AA.) I am talking about a realistic list with fact and figures backing up our reasons for asking for this change. Not, just 'cause...

OOoooh!! OOOOH!! /raise hand

<strong>ThornBurn</strong> - A direct mana to thorn ratio (somewhat like manaburn), self only, single hit buff. This would be nice instead of Wrath of the Wild IMO for raid situations.

If I'm going to die, and know I'm going to die, I'd like my mana to count for <em>something</em>. After all, we have no mitigation tools, so why not go down with a vengence?

Okay okay, that's pretty silly. It's a good point to bring up what's wrong with our AA's though, instead of pointing what was changed with the other class. Then again, we all need voice valid concerns to keep SOE in check.

<strong>EDIT: </strong> I realize AA suckiness discussion doesn't really belong in a patch message thread. Isn't there a thread on main spell/aa concerns somewhere? Guess I'd better take a look.

<strong>EDIT2: </strong> Ahaaah!! I found it <a href="http://pub149.ezboard.com/fthedruidsgrovefrm30.showMessage?topicID=439.topic " target="top">HERE</a>. Wow, looks like many of those issues <em>have</em> been addressed (not all spell/AA issues, lots of game ones). It would be nice if a mod could make a 1st post consolidation for easy reading, and for crossing off whats been done.

Wyte

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Clerics got 8 Planar Abilites and 6 of them were for reducing timers or making broken abilties work (Unfailing Divinity--balanced though as is, I think). Cleric Class specific AAs were abysmally bad. [/quote]

Belkram, you seem to think clerics are the only ones with some crap AA abilities. Need I remind you that of the 5 planar abilities druids got, only 2 of them were worth anything at all; furthermore both of those have re-use timers, and one is 30% longer re-use than similar abilities of other classes.

You also seem to think clerics are the only ones who have waited for AA fixes. Consider how long druids have been waiting to see Healing Gift work on our 58th and 64th level iCH spells ... it doesn't, and SOE hasn't even acknowledged this fact, much less given any indication that they plan to fix it. If they ever do, our iCH crits still won't come close to the 15,000 bare minimum crits from a 39th level cleric spell.

Frankly, I don't know why you're being so defensive. Clerics got some nice fixes/upgrades, period. Are you actually fearful that by pondering on these boards how those benefits could impact the druid class, we might cause Sony to reconsider and snatch them away from you?

This game has always revolved around the cleric. Does it actually surprise you that another priest class would dare measure their own balance by comparing their abilities and shortcomings to what clerics can do?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>All of these issues have been live since the introduction of AA trees. [/quote]

That reminds me ... how long did it take Sony to fix druid tree-form spells to work in Luclin zones with their plush landscapes chocked full of trees?

I'm glad they made DB even more useful than it already was. Say, aren't you glad you got <span style="text-decoration:underline">that</span> line rather than a line of spells which serve little purpose than to sprout branches and root yourself to the ground?

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Aaemedar, go piss up a rope you trolling pile of crap. How in the world do you mods allow him to pass off that player hating crap all the time? His blind ignorance of the cleric class and blind hatred of it at the same time astound me and I got to wonder why he isnt reeled in for what hes posting and told to cool it.[/quote]

I don't hate Clerics. Have a bunch of them in my guild. Love them when they are not whining about something. What I hate are EQCleric trolls like you. I don't come to your boards talking about how Clerics should all be thrilled with their lack of soloing ability. Hell, I don't even post that here. So please stay off this board with your "Druid's are just fine, its Clerics that need all the upgrades" crap. How stupid do you have to be to post that the upgrade to teh MGB Heal AA is a great thing because it reduces the number of Clerics needed at a raid. Wake up, idiot. It's not replacing out of rotation Clerics, it is replacing Druids using MGB SotW. That is the concern (and frankly, a concern I don't share, but if it pisses you off, I'll be glad to adopt it.)

Like I said, I was actually fine with these upgrades. Thought they were a nice change for the game. Then I came here and had to read a bunch of BS from idiots like you trolling over from EQClerics. Go away and I promise you will never have to read another thing from me about why you and your kind suck.

"Clerics are the ONLY class that is always superior at their role then the other classes also designed for that role. Your idea of balance is Tanks, DPS, Slower and Cleric in a group and druids soloing."

We have a winner in the Cleric -v- Druid portion of the thread----lock the thread now.

The sad part is that hellfire came down from Clerics and they got major upgrades before Druid's petition even got touched.

Now 1 and 1/2 pages of quasi this kind sucks and we have a cross link with Cleric coming in trying to fan flames.

Please just leave you are all so outta touch and outta date with Druid opinions and even the tone of this very thread it is sad.

How reactionary to our OUR opinions with useless/pointless/uneeded drivel. And I hope you all deleted the hellfire posts when Druids and Shammy's were being worked on cuz the amount of "hatred" (hahaha), and anti-cleric sentiment is so freakin 3rd world compared to it.

Its a damn shame, grove was warming up for LDoN and now this freakin hijack.

We? I always see you taking the side of clerics Bric so don't lump yourself in with us if you're just going to act ignorant towards the druid class. You have to love people that try to attack a tangent trying to get any kind of lame foothold they can.

Yes indeed there are times when druids are more frail than just about any class out there. Besides, the INT casters aren't getting aggro if they know what they are doing. Healers don't have a choice. But anyway, this isn't a thread about who's more fragile so let's get back to the real topic please.

Oh nos! Busted! 8o
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Belk -

I've seen the "CR required lots of AAs" argument a few times, so going by what you posted:
-Healing Gift3..12AAs
-Celestial Regen...5AAs
-Spell Casting Reinforcement3...12AAs
-Spell Casting Mastery...8AAs
-Mass Group Buff...9AAs
-Celestial Renewal2..9AAs

Are you saying that none of those AAs are useful in themselves without Cel Regen? If CR wasn't an AA for clerics, you're saying that no clerics would have gotten those other AA anyhow?

It seems to me that the "can get SotW before being a baron" argument is a bit moot because, well I can't think of too many clerics who wouldn't have gotten those AA with or without Cel Regen. I mean, with manaburn it made sense - MB got turned into a shell of it's former glory, the requirements of MB were returned because without MB, the other AA were worthless.

If Cel Regen were taken away tomorrow, do you really think clerics would get an AA refund on all those prereqs?

I realize what classes you supposedly play Bric. I suggest you play them a little higher before you take on the title of Grand Poobah of All Knowledge That Pertains to Clerics and/or Druids.

My goodness, children. I read all 7 pages and my brain is hurting now. :(

I play both a druid and a cleric .. and love them both. I also read both boards though I have not posted here in some time, mainly because the tone of the board changed a while back and people got so bitter.

I don't quite understand why any of this has to be a battle. I see raiding as a cooperative thing. Perhaps I am wrong .. but .. in my guild .. we have 17 clerics and 15 druids. Sounds like a pretty even number to me. But I know we always need more of both on any given day. We depend on the druids .. they are key players on our healing team. Without them .. we would be lost. They sometimes participate in the cheal rotation, and often have their own rampage rotation, or 'heal the healers' rotation when AE mob range is high and we have to set up several lines of healing to keep things going. We have a 'healing TEAM' which includes several classes .. but the most prominent of those are clerics AND druids.

The fact that druids got partial cheal is really what made the (good) difference for them .. in both raiding and grouping. This latest change .. as far as I can see .. at least in my guild .. won't make any whit of difference to that .. but will make a great difference (hopefully) to whether a raid can win or will lose on elemental mobs.

I don't get groups any more or any less easily with either my druid or my cleric - it depends on the day, the place, the stars .. and on my own attitude. Attitude WILL make a difference, Autumn. If your attitude is like this in game .. /shrug. If you have trouble getting groups .. perhaps you need to examine your attitude not your druid blessings or shortcomings. You sound so angry. I still don't quite know about what either, but, perhaps it is just everything in general. You do seem like the type that will have trouble being satisfied with anything .. for more than a minute. Hope things look up for you soon.

As for reducing the reuse timer on SoTW - I am all for that. Why not? I don't see that .. or anything you get .. as 'competition'. I lost the ability to get groups that easily as a cleric when you guys got your partial cheal .. I listen to crickets a lot too unfortunately .. but I do not begrudge you that .. and it has often saved my life. I can't solo worth beans .. but that is not the druids fault, just because they can. This is a 'cooperative' game! We need everyone. What one class gets is not a knock on other classes - it makes us ALL better.

And .. as other clerics have implied here .. the whoops of delight after this last patch .. were mainly because it is the first time in as long as I can remember when anything got fixed for them, but, no, what did get fixed was not really what most wanted at all. They certainly didn't say .. woot .. we got something so we can do druids out of their jobs now, or be better than druids in some way again. Come on.

Sunbeem/Chiasma

<strong>the "can get SotW before being a baron" argument</strong>


It's rather silly, not to mention meaningless. Going from 60 to 65 takes all of a week (faster if you really work at it). So does getting all the AA for SotW 3. And getting the AA for CR takes a little less time. All in all, relatively meaningless.

Autumn10, you are out of control, dear.

I would just like to go on the record as saying that I don't think druids are balanced. I think they are wonderful, powerful, but not balanced. I think they have many playability issues, as well.

However, I would also like to explain an attitude that some people don't seem to understand. I don't like prima donna clerics, and I don't like prima donna enchanters. But, I don't like people who treat clerics like crap, either. All too often, I see people guilt trip clerics, and yes, I admit, I personally have developed a bad attitude about raiding for others. I have to admit it has gotten very very old to me to be DEMANDED (quite rudely) for event after event after event. 90% of which drop nothing of remote interest for me.

So what happens is that I get asked to leave the exp group I finally managed to get, and go raid someone's mob. When I get there, the first thing out of someone's mouth is, "Virtue please" multiplied by 20. With a 4k manapool and 1k mana per pop... how long do you think this is gonna take? Then I hear, "You really need to get to 65 and get HOV." I manage not to respond, "kinda hard to get exp on a raid, don'tcha think?" As I dump 20pp and change onto the raid, then toss in an emerald or two for DI, I get a "mistel" to group, "I sure hope that cleric isn't going to demand all the cash items....oops!" I stifle a "up yours, jerk." and go on about dumping more money into the raid I didn't really feel like going on to begin with, and dropping another 20pp on mr. cashloots because a POTC druid just showed up and he MUST have symbol instead so he clicked Virtue.

Now, I know I'm now on the list of "blessing you with my presence" clerics. But let me ask you a question. If I'm giving up what I actually wanted to do in order to help someone else out, and I'm forking out my cash and being told I'm greedy if I want to break even on it... am I not doing them a favor? If a less needed class refused to go, no one would beleagre them with guilt riddled tells. No one would beg and plead with a ranger who didn't have his EQ and AM AAs, or tell him he's a jerk because he won't go on the raid. Now, if I WANT to go on a raid, if I'm in the MOOD to go, and no one has guilt tripped me, then I'm just going on a raid. But if I did actually give up what I wanted to do in order to help someone else, is it not a gift to them, and should I not be allowed to ask to break even on my costs?

Absolutely I have gone on some raids where I wasn't a pleasant person to be around. It's very easy for people who play a class that doesn't make a raid not happen to be pissed at an individual of the class who can make one not happen. It's damned if we do, and damned if we don't. We're a jerk either way. If we go and we don't want to, we're prima donna jerks. If we don't go, we've ruined everyone else's fun.

*shrug* I used to be very nice about it, but after endless guilt trips, after endless helping of other people and them never showing up to help me... I have gotten rather jaded and much more likely to say, "sorry, busy." Because I know that no matter if I go help or not, no one's going to be happy with me. I finally got as far as 64 and 27 AAs because I just quit helping other people for the most part, and was always too busy. I couldn't win either way. It has frustrated me to RL tears many times before. Walking away from a raid I didn't want to go to after being guilted into going, and being 80 peridots poorer and having eaten multiple 75 or 90% rezes. And getting what in return? Nothing but "Wow, it'll be nice when you have HOV!"

The ONLY point to this is not to complain, the point is to say that there is another side to the "i'm doing you a favor" clerics- maybe they ARE doing you a favor. Maybe they ARE giving up something they'd rather be doing. And why? To be NICE, to NOT be seen as a jerk. Because they care and WANT to help. Perhaps they're not being graceful about it, but there can be few motivations for helping others- even if you have an attitude while doing it- than a sincere wish to help.

But personally I've gotten to the point where I realize that helping or not helping doesn't matter, people still dislike you simply because you're a cleric, and are still insincere when they do pretend to like you. I know who my real friends are- the ones unlike the ones who complain that clerics do them a favor. The ones who actually show up and help the cleric when asked. It's almost never those whining about how clerics "lower themselves" to come on raids who can BESTIR their own lazy self to go help a cleric who asks for it. If you can't "lower" YOURself to go help someone, then I guess you really can't have much attitude towards someone who does bother to leave what they WANT to do to go help someone else with something that does nothing at all for themself, uses up both their time and money, and gets them not even a "thank you" in the end.

(I'm very sorry for the hijack, and I think I got carried away here. But I'm going to post it anyhow. Maybe if any one of you can gain a bit of perspective on the cleric position, it will help you understand why we don't care about this AA much more than, "Oh nice." Because this AA doesn't help clerics much at all, if you think about it. It helps other people. If this AA helps me get to actually go EXP sometimes because *GASP* a raid actually already has enough healers, THEN I will like it VERY MUCH, thank you.)

Sorry to say Amris, but it sounds like you got a suck @$$ guild problem, not a class problem. I know for certain that my guild funneled well over 200-500kpp per month to fund dot/emeralds/whatever for our clerics, wizards, whoever else needed it (I know cause I handled some of it). All buffs were coordinated by class, not by players. All buffs were MGB'd, and if you missed it, you grovel before whatever player casts those buffs because you were late/afk/sleeping/etc, or, you might even get told, "you're class_x, you don't need those buffs anyway, wait till the next MGB."

*edit - spelling

It happens to unguilded clerics or clerics in small guilds the most. Yeah, it does suck. I used to get stiffed for my dot costs all the time like Amris.

Amris I think what we're saying is that these changes are only going to add to the problem you're having, ie being needed. I know clerics don't really want that, especially when other classes (druids) just want to be needed at all. SoTW was the first AA I got after dumb ones like SCM and SCF, because it has a real impact on what I can contribute. That is why we get so upset when it's no longer needed as much. I lose some of the value I once had.

y 2cp

The only problem there is that really, it's all we have. If we weren't NEEDED, there's a sense that we wouldn't be WANTED at ALL. And I've experienced too much time LFG and completely unable to get any advancement at all to spit on the face of any upgrade. Clerics are in an unfortunate position. If we weren't substantially better at healing than anyone else, we wouldn't be anything. We don't even offer "half as good at some things". We'll enjoy and appreciate any upgrade because we're all or nothing. If our only offering becomes not good enough, or if another class can do as well at our ONLY offering, and bring OTHER things also, then we become nothing. Absolute zero. It's a HUGE fear for clerics.

So, it's not that we want to keep druids down. It's that we don't want to become Absolute Zero. It's better to have something, even if it's a rough often, than to have nothing at all. Another class being able to do as well as us would ruin us. Because they'd have as well as us, plus more. Because every single healer has more to add outside of healing than we do. EVERY one of them.

It's not an us versus them, it's a "please don't take my only teddy bear, it's all I have." Underneath all the venom, it's that we're afraid you'll end us completely. Not the imagined monopoly, our very ability to be in the game at all. Once another can heal as well, clerics are done for without a MASSIVE shift.

(This is only my personal opinion and observation, I'm not representing anyone here.)

The only problem there is that really, it's all we have. If we weren't NEEDED, there's a sense that we wouldn't be WANTED at ALL.
Welcome to the world many druids have been living in for many years till recently...

I think honest posts on a message board are very rare. I for one appreciate your candor, Amris.

You also seem to think clerics are the only ones who have waited for AA fixes. Consider how long druids have been waiting to see Healing Gift work on our 58th and 64th level iCH spells ... it doesn't, and SOE hasn't even acknowledged this fact, much less given any indication that they plan to fix it. If they ever do, our iCH crits still won't come close to the 15,000 bare minimum crits from a 39th level cleric spell.
Hate to break it to you, but it's not a bug. It's "Working as intended." The designers do not want druids to crit on incomplete heals, thats why they have never given indication that they will fix it.

this reply made me laugh:

/snip

Your inability to solo at 65 with "almost the same ac as a 65 tank" and the ability to "cast about 10-11 nukes" is something for you to work on and not an issue for class discussion. If you want to solo, then learn how to fight and choose your targets appropriately just like every other class that solos. At least you are guaranteed a rez while you are learning, unlike the other classes.

------------------------------------------------------------


here is how i solo. i goto the Deep. aggro a few shrooms (pull with our highest lvl reverse damage shield), run like hell for the zone, just before i zone, i root the one i already cast on. then zone. come back, nuke the shroom once (does about 5-8% damage), cast hammer pet, and wade in. when the shroom is about 80% dead, i stun it, cast supernal light on me and keep going. usualy need two maybe three heals per fight. after the mob dies, i am down 10 - 15% mana. and i gained less than 1% exp. i do this for a hour, i get 20% aa exp.

so please, tell me. tell me where i can get oh, hmm 2% or even 3% aa a kill.

i can kill the undead guy in the zone in to Pov, pretty easy fight, he is LB, it is more of a run like hell till have time to cast a dot, or root on him, and rot him to death, i think i got maybe 2% from him, too bad there is only one of him!. i haven't tried the undead vassels in PoV, had my ass handed to me too many times just getting to the castle a few times for exp groups.

/sarcasm on

so if you guys think this is soloing, 5 hours a AA is effective, then lets give you rez, and drop your solo ability to ours? hell give ya 7500hp 400mana CH as well.

/off

sorry to bring this up, but the comment from a druid telling me every class can solo, it is just picking the targets. i know what i can solo, the point is, is it worth it? i have druid friends that still get as much or more exp per hour that a person in a group gets. even after all the solo nerfs. i would be happy with HALF the exp per hour solo if i could.

as to the aa changes. all the abilities i have read stack. and i hope they lower your timer on yours as well. (grrr more patches)

i know for one love having a druid/shaman in the same group as me on a raid. so i can focus on the MA and not worry about the group. and i also love that you have the min CH now as well. is alot easyer to find rep healers in exp groups now.

Amris:

Sooooo...

It's <strong>good</strong> to be <strong>wanted</strong>.
It can <strong>suck</strong> to be absolutely <strong>needed</strong>.
But I'd rather be <strong>needed</strong> then <strong>unwanted</strong>?

... that's me trying my hand at paraphrasing.

Wyte

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I've seen the "CR required lots of AAs" argument a few times, so going by what you posted:
-Healing Gift3..12AAs
-Celestial Regen...5AAs
-Spell Casting Reinforcement3...12AAs
-Spell Casting Mastery...8AAs
-Mass Group Buff...9AAs
-Celestial Renewal2..9AAs

Are you saying that none of those AAs are useful in themselves without Cel Regen? If CR wasn't an AA for clerics, you're saying that no clerics would have gotten those other AA anyhow?[/quote]

All of them are, to various degrees, useful. That's not in question. However, it's that degree of usefulness.

Healing Gift 3 - This is not a priority for Clerics. The only reason Clerics take this is due to it being a prerequisite to a number of our Class skills. You cannot rely on this skill to fire when you need it to so you heal with the assumption that it will not fire. Yes there are times when you get a lucky crit and end up using the full benefil of the crit heal but a good healer will not rely on this firing.

Celestial Regen and Renewel - Before the main reason that people took this skill was to get the Exarch title and to use it as a situational spell. It had uses before but they were rare. The main one was to use it in conjunction with Bestow Divine Aura to heal someone while they were invulnerable.

Spell Casting Reinforcement Mastery - This was, typically, one of the last archetype skills a Cleric went after. It's not that it's bad but there are too many other more useful AAs to get first. Some people swear by it, most hold off until later. This might change now though with this new ability.

ass Group Buff - Nobody will ever argue that this is a waste of points. No prereqs for the skill and it's so damn useful.

Basically, the AAs have never been bad or useless (with the exception of the original CR). It's just that priority has been placed on other areas first. A "typical" AA path for Clerics is the 6 general, Spell Casting Mastery followed by Mass Group Buff, Divine Arbitration, at least 1 level of Radiant Cure and Healing Adept (the one that makes heals bigger). With the exception of MGB, the other AAs needed to fully utilize the new CR have always had much lower priority for a Cleric. Not useless but less important.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>We depend on the druids .. they are key players on our healing team. Without them .. we would be lost. They sometimes participate in the cheal rotation, and often have their own rampage rotation, or 'heal the healers' rotation when AE mob range is high and we have to set up several lines of healing to keep things going. We have a 'healing TEAM' which includes several classes .. but the most prominent of those are clerics AND druids.[/quote]

Now, ask yourself, why is it you depend on those druids? Is it because of their druid abilities? Or is it simply because they can heal? I'm pretty sure that if you replaced all your druids with clerics things would go much better. (Well, besides the one or two needed for mgb nine... if your guild does that, and not all do.)

That's the point. Druids *can* heal, but not particularly well at all. It's better I suppose than nothing, but when you had an ability that was strictly Druid territory, like mgb sotw was, then at least you had something else to contribute besides being a piss poor cleric substitute.

Nobody *relies* on druids at a raid... thats just not true. You rely on healers, and if you are short on clerics, that's when you start looking for other help, be it druids pallies shammies or whoever. The entire raid revolves around the cleric count, it always has. There was some brief progress made after the partial CH spells arrived for dru/shm, but it was short lived because they just arent enough for PoP raiding.

Go look at that thread about the Rathe Council in the Quest/Strats section... 14 clerics seems to be a minimum number there to do it. That is *insane*. No encounter should require so many of one class. Ever. Thats terrible design.

And yet, with this change and subsequent refusal by SOE to consider adjusting sotw to be in line with the other abilities, they have simply added to the cleric "requirability". Now you dont need druids AT ALL. Mgb sotw has become obsolete with this one change. The 3 or 4 druids at a raid can still do it, sure, but why, when the 10 clerics can also do it and are going to be there anyway?

It doesnt matter if you asked for it or not (and in fact, soem clerics did ask for it, I read EQ Clerics every single day, have for 3 years since I TOO play a cleric, the threads complaining about sotw when PoP came out where numerous and long, filled with cries of "me too!"), the fact is SOE made the change without considering what the real impact will be. It's completely typical for them, and we have a perfect right to be upset AT SOE.

-------

Anyway... its neither here nor there, since SOE doesnt care. They do what they want to do. The devs in charge clearly play hybrids and casters, and certain of them obviously have some druid hate. They let their personal feelings and in-game agendas affect their design of the entire game, and that is what upsets me the most. It is so PETTY of them to take their selfish needs and project them onto a paying audience of hundreds of thousands of people, who are helpless and, at least until recently, without real alternatives.

/rude SOE devs for being short sighted, again. And yes, for any of them who might still be reading, I can and would do a better job than you. Send me an email. Hire me, I work for cheap (or free, if you'd just listen!), and I know WAY too much about this game, apparently more than most of you.

Tia

Sort of, except change "unwanted" in the last part to "unwanted AND incapable of advancing alone", and that's pretty close, yeah.

this reply made me laugh:

/snip

here is how i solo. i goto the Deep. aggro a few shrooms (pull with our highest lvl reverse damage shield), run like hell for the zone, just before i zone, i root the one i already cast on. then zone. come back, nuke the shroom once (does about 5-8% damage), cast hammer pet, and wade in. when the shroom is about 80% dead, i stun it, cast supernal light on me and keep going. usualy need two maybe three heals per fight. after the mob dies, i am down 10 - 15% mana. and i gained less than 1% exp. i do this for a hour, i get 20% aa exp.

so please, tell me. tell me where i can get oh, hmm 2% or even 3% aa a kill.

-------

Some news for you Mister Cleric, druids are in almost the exact same predicament. We can't nuke down any mobs in PoP for xp because we'ld run out of mana before the mobs run out of hp. Even when we solely use our DoT spells to conserve mana, we'll just about out of mana by the time the mob (Note: one, single, uno, not 2, not 3, not 4 mob) drops dead. Oh and that kill took 20 minutes. Add another 7-8 minutes to med up to full. I grant you, we can charm animals and that has been the only boon for fast xp, but to be honest, every 60-65 druid on the server have their eye those 8 animals too. So please, stop using that "druids can solo" argument, it hasn't been true since I hit level 63 about a year ago. Since then I haven't found anything I can solo for decent xp without falling asleep or loosing more xp than I gain.


/sarcasm on

so Mister Clerics, you guys have almost the same kind of soloing us druids are getting at the moment. Welcome aboard. Now hand over that rez spell and 7500 heal for 400 mana please.

/off

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>sorry to bring this up, but the comment from a druid telling me every class can solo, it is just picking the targets. i know what i can solo, the point is, is it worth it?

i have druid friends that still get as much or more exp per hour that a person in a group gets. even after all the solo nerfs. i would be happy with HALF the exp per hour solo if i could.
[/quote]

Is it worth it? Hell like I said, I have not soloed for nearly a year because its not worth it. You have druid friends that can solo? Omg! tell me where! I wanna know too! These druids from the grove are keeping the secret soloing spots from me...

if this is true, why do i see druids kting all over the place in PoN, HoT?

guess they doing it for fun, not exp.

guess thats why they all got up in arms about not getting 11% anymore per kill from being in a group.


druid solo ability almost the same as cleric.... lol thats a good one.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>this reply made me laugh:
/snip
Your inability to solo at 65 with "almost...---kEYERA[/quote]
I'm glad that after you finished laughing, you added evidence to support it.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>sorry to bring this up, but the comment from a druid telling me every class can solo, it is just picking the targets. i know what i can solo, the point is, is it worth it?[/quote]
I didn't say every class can solo, but I'm sure the arguement is sound that every class can solo for exp. I said <strong>clerics can and do solo</strong>. While I wouldn't have expected clerics to be able to solo as effectively as the solo classes, there are some who claim to be soloing in the elemental planes and far be it from me to doubt them since I have never even been there. A cleric argued that they could not solo and no matter how much you laugh or throw in sarcasm, the posts are all still here to keep the record straight.

Should it be worth it? Most arguements I have seen from clerics for more solo abilities have been tagged for those times when you can only log on for a short period of time. Personally, I would enjoy clerics being able to solo better because I also play one. But I don't think the most desirable and neccessary group and raid class should out perform any other class in soloing. If you get your head out of the clouds, then you might recognize that there are several classes who are far less efficient at soloing than clerics and fall well behind them in group and raid desirability and neccessity as well.

You have a unique delimna in that your decision as to whether one of the play styles is "worth it" is completely your own decision. That same personal decision is also made by players of every other class, but we also have the added dynamic of others deciding whether adding us to the group or raid "is worth it".

Again, clerics were arguing that they could not solo. I challenged that claim and you supported my challenge with evidence. You ask us if it is worth it and I say that is personal decision you need to make. If clerics get a boon to their soloing, then I would imagine many other classes would as well and that would be great. But I will not sheepishly lurk when clerics come to a druid board to try to dismiss druid issues by making false claims.

everyone says clerics get groups faster than druids. i agree.

but alot of the time, there is no groups available, and 4-5 clerics lfg. at that point, as a cleric. my options are limited. i can go solo, and less than 1% per kill is almost worthless. say i go lfg over an hour, i gain a little of 20% aa.

same thing with a druid that is looking for a group. but they can at least go solo effectivly. with a lfg tag on. now they can't find a group, so they go solo. in a little over an hour, i bet they made alot more aa than i did. and, had a chance for SP, and EP.


like i said before, clerics don't want more healing, i can't say that enough. i am not in any of the raid situations yet that need the MGB aa skill we just got. so that aa means nothing really to me. it was a upgrade that a large % of the cleric population will not use.

i have also said i agree they should lower the refresh time on your aa as well. no reason not to.

my big issue is solobility. i just wish they would do something in that area for clerics. maybe better damage avoidance or something, like raising are skills that have been set for mobs 4 expantions ago. or a undead snare. (that would be nice!)

anyway, sorry for the partial derail of the origonal concern, you have a valid concern. but please remember, we didn't ask for something like this, we DON"T need more healing.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I don't get groups any more or any less easily with either my druid or my cleric - it depends on the day, the place, the stars .. and on my own attitude. Attitude WILL make a difference, Autumn. If your attitude is like this in game .. /shrug. If you have trouble getting groups .. perhaps you need to examine your attitude not your druid blessings or shortcomings. You sound so angry. I still don't quite know about what either, but, perhaps it is just everything in general. You do seem like the type that will have trouble being satisfied with anything .. for more than a minute. Hope things look up for you soon. [/quote]

LOL! Don't patronize me Chiasma. First of all you don't know me. Second of all there's nothing wrong with my attitude as it pertains to the game or other people unless I come under fire from people like Bric that seem to not want to argue points but make trollish little quips directed right at someone for no other reason than they have no point.

I personally don't have any more problem than anyone else trying to find groups. Let's stay on the issue here instead of trying to muddy the waters with your off-base character assumptions. My point was that clerics do indeed get groups faster and more often than druids in most cases. I think the majoirty of people would agree with that.

I also was perfectly HAPPY with druids and the balance of priest classes before this latest 'fix' so you're wrong to say I'm never satisfied. I'm also not angry about anything. I only get stirred up when people take vapid little potshots at me for reasons unknown, much like you're doing. :)

Don't make foolish suppositions about me Chiasma, really. You don't know me and obviously haven't read the other posts I made. How about you look at where my latest comments stemmed from before making character judgements?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Autumn10, you are out of control, dear.[/quote]

LOL! You're even more melodramatic than me Teri. There's nothing out of control with what I said so don't blow things out of proportion to try and invalidate what I have to say. I wasn't the one that started the whole thing with Bric. Why am I out of control? Because I stand up for myself against someone else's snide and trollish remarks? Don't be absurd.....'dear'.

"Nobody *relies* on druids at a raid... thats just not true."
===================================

Tiane .. it simply IS true in my guild. Boy, some of you guys really do have a hell of a chip on your shoulder. :(

And if it is not true in YOUR guild .. then you need to do something there ... anything EXCEPT whine .. because that will not help, I guarantee you that.

I was very nice. I did not whine. I did not lie. I was trying to bolster your own self images by telling you good news .. but I guess nothing will help.

I think if you guys went around touting the things you DO have and telling people what you CAN do .. you would find that things changed a LOT. I have never heard our druids whine .. but .. maybe that is why they are in our guild. Bet they don't lurk or post here either. Sigh.

/e shakes head and leaves again .. hoping no one throws foraged food at her head as she goes.

Sunbeem/Chiasma

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I have never heard our druids whine .. but .. maybe that is why they are in our guild. Bet they don't lurk or post here either. Sigh.---Sunbeem/Chiasma[/quote]
Ah. The real Sunbeam stands up. I was going to reply to her previous post with a fittingly patronizing yet smiley face and "xoxo" covered rebuttal, but she rose to the occasion and revealed her true ugly head on her own.

And yet, you avoided answering the question about what it is you rely on specifically.

That's ok, there is nothing specific you can rely on a druid for.

Well, MGB wolf form, I suppose, but they nerfed that too! 8P

Tia

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>/e shakes head and leaves again [/quote]

/cheer. One EQCleric troll gone, hopefully to never return.

Armis,
I completely understand your possition. I agree completely that a Cleric's ability to solo is pathetic. Not as bad as a warrior, but bad. Certainly the worst of all caster classes. I don't agree that you bring nothing to a raid other than your healing, but I do agree it is what you bring to a raid that stacks well, though frankly your nuking is on par with Chanters - not great, not terrible either though. I think you think of your healing as so important because you are so good at it compared to all other classes, no one thinks of you doing anything but.

All that said, your strategy is wrong. Your healing monopoly is both bad for you and bad for the game. You need to be fighting with Druids and Shamen to get it eliminated. All three classes really should have a full CH. All three classes should have a wider array of healing spells - with Clerics still having a slight edge eitehr on efficiancy or on variety. You would then be the weakest of the priest classes. Every raid would still want a couple Clerics for buffing and ressing, and of corse, several people are going to be designated healers - so some clerics are going to be wanted there too. Then, once you are clearly the weakest of the priest classes, you need to fight for other things that round out your class. Respectable (non-undead) damage. Some niche utility spells (a realy complete stun line would be what I would push for). Etc. Right now, teh Cleric community is fighting to keep its monopoly. You all claim you don't want it, but you fight for it to the end. You oppose even minor improvements in almost every class where healing is concerned.

As much as SOE continues to pamper you on the healing front, you'll never get them to make you into something with variety as long as you maintain your monopoly on healing. SOE has show itself to be pretty receptive to player input. If you are really serious about not wanting to be chained to your monopoly - start fighting to get it broken.

Here's the problem with your proposal, Aeam.

Warrriors have completely and totally lost their monopoly on tanking. They are broken now. They are pathetically, sadly, miserably broken on the exp group and solo front.

If your method were correct, now that their monopoly is broken, they should have been improved and brought into line with the knights. Not only is this not true, but an expansion is coming out that severely cripples them further.

The other half of the flaw in your plan is this: """Then, once you are clearly the weakest of the priest classes, you need to fight for other things that round out your class. """

Really? So you think we should ask for nukes and step on wizard toes and have them freak on us? Or should we ask for slows and have shamans and enchanters rip our heads off? Snares and ports so you guys can freak? How about melee so paladins can go off the deep end? Undead improvements so the necros can hate us? More ability to tank so warriors are further hosed? Pet improvements so mages and beastlords can despise us?

Your "proposal" has massive flaws. They gave CH away, whether you like it or not the heals druids and shamans recieved were more than good enough for exp groups, it's proven each and every day in game. As a bone for the loss of our leading spell (the one which we were told we would NEVER recieve any attention or upgrades due to, by the way) was a hammer so pathetic that the only reason I ever get it out is boredom or to survive the run through OT or DL to get to chardok. And this single upgrade caused such vitriol and downright baldfaced lying and number slanting from another class that I couldn't believe it.

We 'fight for our monopoly' because other classes have decided to hate us so much that, like warriors, we know for certain that if we lost it, between druids and paladins, we wouldn't EVER get a real upgrade we'd get to keep. Give us untility, and druids will be furious to share their monopoly on utility. Give us buffs, the shamans will fill sony's inbox with hate. Give us melee, paladins will threaten to quit in droves... on down the line.

It's not us that forces the cleric monopoly, it's the other classes and their decision to hate us no matter what. THEIR decision to keep us from getting anything BUT healing.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So you think we should ask for nukes and step on wizard toes and have them freak on us?[/quote]

Yes. Every casting class has nukes. Your's are just very limited being only magic based and not as effective as others. You should be asking for a fire line comperable to Druids or Mages. Wizards whine about everyone elses nuking the way you all whine about healing - they out pace every other damage dealing class in the game, by far, both in terms of damage and damage types, yet freak when others get nuke improvements. Don't worry about their complaints.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Or should we ask for slows and have shamans and enchanters rip our heads off?[/quote]

No. Enough classes in teh game have slow already. Another is not needed.<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Snares and ports so you guys can freak?[/quote]

No one should be freaking about either of those. Both used to be a druid thing, but not realy any longer. Snare is mostly irrelevant theses days (but who knows, LDoN might change that) and can be found on many all/all items that are easily obtainable. Ports are completely meaningless. Once Wizzards got TLs, my ports ceased to be anything other than group, emergency or personal use. Once POP came out it is down to personal use and evac. The biggest way I use ports today is to egress to zone to act as CoH anchor. I would not ask for these abilities, but not because of worries of stepping on toes, but rather because they are overvalued, so if you got them, they would be viewed as a bigger deal thaan they are. Ask for useful things.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>More ability to tank so warriors are further hosed?[/quote]

Warriors are hosed now in exactly the way you are. Your initial statement was flawed. Warriors do have a monopoly on tanking. Like your healing, this is only true on raids, but that is the facet of the game everyone is balancing for. When I see the post of some guild relying on SKs and Palys to take POP boss mobs, then that opnion will change. That is not even clase to the case yet. Defensive and Evasive disciplines are warrior only and solely because of that, they dominate tanking. In creased melee abilities for clerics, therefor, would have no effect on warriors. This might even be a very good avenue for Clerics to pursue. SOE has shown their willingness to do it. They just did not go far enough so that your melee was either a significant contribution to raids or enough to give you respectable soloing abilities.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Pet improvements so mages and beastlords can despise us?[/quote]
Again, not sure this is a great way to go, but if you all think it is, I would not worry about mages and beastlords. Your (or anyone) getting better pets is no threat to their effectiveness. Enchanters are the only true pet classes anyway. ;)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>They gave CH away, whether you like it or not the heals druids and shamans recieved were more than good enough for exp groups, it's proven each and every day in game.[/quote]

True, but who cares. Raids are what matters. Plus, while I personally agree that they are good enough for XP groups, that is not a widely held belief. Just wander around any of the popular level 65 XP zones and check out the groups there. You won't find many without a Cleric (or at least a Cleric bot hanging out). Or do the old test. Go with a Druid and enter an LFG XP zone and both .ooc for a group - see who gets one first. The iCH line was a huge improvment to Druids, but it has done little from a perception issue. I suppose that might change if Druids (or several other classes) had Res. Res, more than healing, is your "get-a-group" magic. Your healing is mostly relevant on Raids.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Give us untility, and druids will be furious to share their monopoly on utility[/quote]
Druids don't have a monopoly on utility. There is nothing we do (apart from FR debuffing and, with Clerics, HP buffing) that other classes don't do better (and Clerics far out do us on HP buffing, its just that the best combo for most classes involves both a Druid and a Cleric). We also do not have the most varried abilities, that title firmly belongs to Bards, followed most closely (but not that close) by shamen. We are probably #3 or 4 in over all utillity. So, no, we would not be furious about sharing something we don't have.

So, ultimately, no, it is Clerics that do the bitching that keeps the monopoly going.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Another thought on the subject... What would you Clerics say if the next change would introduce the addition of a HoT spell for Druids? We wouldn't be as efficient in it (as usual), but simply getting it would be something of a surprise indeed.[/quote]

Yes I would be a little surprised, considering I've always kinda looked at the regen line as similar (not as much healed, but lasts much longer). I could see this in the future though, as regen from what i've seen just doesn't really do much in the higher end game, due mainly to intensity of fights, and the regen spells being more of a passive type of spell. Don't get me wrong the regen spells are nice to keep groups toped off, to heal that sliver of damage done when someone who shouldn't have gotten agro did for a couple of hits, but as far as keeping people alive when things get intense.. they do very little.

The additons of Heal over Time spells would be awesome, and I'd love to see Druids get them. There has been some discussion about the Divine line of spells for clerics, and druids lack this oh #$@% button. Until reading this I never took into consideration what it must be like to have to exclusivly use direct heals with no divine line. Some references have been made to druids taking the same aggro as clerics for thier heals... this is really how it should be imho, heal aggro shouldn't be different depending on classes... but I also think that druids should be given a way avoid it. I think that some HoT spells would fit this need quite well. Most expierence groups I will lead off with a HoT to extend the ammount of time that the fight lasts before I need to Ch. Rarely do I have to CH righ away, although this does happen in some cases.

I can't see where druids having a heal over time would be unbalancing in a group situation. How powerful should a druid hot line be? Well ideally i'd like to see a different line from the clerics not just the druids getting them like they do with the traditional heal lines. From my expierence as I have approached a new HoT, the previous one has just about become usless. So I don't think that druids getting these later then the clerics would be significant. I also doubt that they would be given at the same level as clerics, so I think a separate line or progression table would be needed. Keeping with the whole regen idea, maybe this line would last longer but heal less per tick then the comparable cleric spell. I think that something somewhere in between regen and cleric HoT would be quite valuable for druids.

How would this affect solo stiuations... well I've never palyed a solo kiting class ect. So I don't know, maybe there might be some issues with pet healing or something, maybe this wouldn't even be useful in a solo situation, I'm curious as to what the DG community thinks about this?

My personal feeling is that, if it is one or the other, I'd rather have a means of mitigating agro that a HOT. Druids have enough otherways that they take agro, that an agro mitigator would be prefereable. Of course, I'd love both. In the Agro mitigator line, I'd prefer something like jolt/concussion to DA and I prefer still a self-only buff that reduced agro output.

Warriors are indeed broken. Taunt needed fixed a long time ago. It's the thing that should be getting looked at right now before anything else. Warriors are becoming obsolete because of it. Right now it takes an AA skill(AE taunt) to hold aggro with any kind of consistency, and even then it can be shaky(Sol Ro Tower comes to mind for some screwy aggro issues that even AE taunt can't handle sometimes).

Non-sequeter, but sure.

Well the topic of warriors and their 'issues' came up so I figured I would throw that out there. :p

Id rather see druids getting a group heal myself since it would be very useful for raiding, but no use for soloing where druids dont need a boost.

Group heals arent really much use for xp groups I find since it is rare that enough people are sufficiently damaged to make it worth casting.

Amonra has hit the nail on the head. Single target heals are usefull in solo, group and raid situations. Group heals are primarily useful in raid (and to some extent in group) situations.

If the goal is make druids more useful in raiding and grouping without boosting soloing power, then group heals fit the bill (I admit this even though I resist anything that makes druid healing stronger).

Aggro reduction also has the same impact. It would boost druid functionality in grouping and raiding, but not affect soloing at all.

I too would favor a HoT that was much longer duration than the cleric line, like maybe 100-150 a tick for a full minute (ten ticks). I'm sure some would say that this would have very limited usefullness and to an extent I agree they may need to be beefed up soon. Also I think small group heals would be nice, and to restrict them put long recast times on them, maybe a minute or two... who knows just thinking out loud.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Give us untility, and druids will be furious to share their monopoly on utility.[/quote]
<strong>SoW -</strong> Potions. Run 3. Mounts. J-Boots. T-Boots. Castable by shaman, rangers and beasts. Chanters have a limited version and bards have a vastly superior movement song.
<strong>Snares -</strong> Item procs. Castable by wizards, necros, SKs and rangers.
<strong>Ports -</strong> PoK Books. Similarly castable by wizards with some zones restricted to only wizard port access.
<strong>Invis/Camou -</strong> Potions. Item clickies. Castable by wizards, shaman, beasts, rangers, chanters, necros, SKs and mages. Rogues also have sneak/hide ability. Bards have song.
<strong>Roots -</strong> Item procs. Castable by all casters, priests and hybrids except mages. Bard song.
<strong>Create Food/Water -</strong> Won't detail it. Not monopolized.
<strong>Dancing Fireflies (light source) -</strong> Won't detail it. Not monopolized.
<strong>Enduring Breath -</strong> Items. Potions. Castable by several classes.
<strong>Levitate -</strong> Items. Potions. Castable by several classes.
<strong>Succors -</strong> Also castable wizards. Used periodically, but mostly for intrazone teleporting. Usefulness greatly diminished by graveyards and rez clickies.

As high in demand as spells like True North and Wolf Form are, I will spare us the indigniity of even addressing the specific details of the druid "monopoly on utility" further. There is no other class in the game than clerics who enjoy a monopoly.

In terms of utility, I'm not even sure that I rate druids above bards. Actually, by definition clerics have the most valued utility in groups and in raids.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Really? So you think we should ask for nukes and step on wizard toes and have them freak on us? Or should we ask for slows and have shamans and enchanters rip our heads off? Snares and ports so you guys can freak? How about melee so paladins can go off the deep end? Undead improvements so the necros can hate us? More ability to tank so warriors are further hosed? Pet improvements so mages and beastlords can despise us?[/quote]
So you do understand our delimna and realize that we aren't whining.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>They gave CH away, whether you like it or not the heals druids and shamans recieved were more than good enough for exp groups, it's proven each and every day in game.[/quote]
Your heals remain vastly superior and there are many situations where a cleric's healing options can save the group, but a druid could not. I know some claim to overcome all obstacles in a single bound with their super skills, Mathematics has always proven to be more reliable for me than fish tales and folk lore. Additionally, it is not of little importance that you also bring to groups Temperance/Aego/Virtue and rezzes. We could argue whether groups consider the buffs and rezzes until hell freezes over, but the fact is (and you admit it) that clerics have a monopoly on the healing slot in groups and it is not because all of you have sparkling personalities.

Personally, I agree with you in that you shouldn't blow your own monopoly. As the weakest priest class, you might find yourselves waiting years for an iota of acknowledgement from Sony that some balancing is needed and years more waiting for them to do something about it. You would be nuts to mess up the deal you have now.

I do wish Sony would try an honest approach for once and tell clerics that you will retain your monopoly in groups and most desirable rating for raids, but will never have more soloing tools than you have now. Or make a decision and dramatically reduce the need for clerics in raiding and in groups and finally cave in to your wishes and give clerics some tools to be the 4th or 5th best soloing class. Considering the game's rewards are in raiding (hopefully in grouping too in the future), I hope you all are sure you really want what you are saying.

I dont see a problem at all with druids getting a HoT spell, but you know what? I don't mem one at all since level 49 or so.

Only one I used is the group one and only to MGB it.

note: I also think your HoT AA should be reduce down to 15 min, for clerics, I would like they remove the requirement of having HG3 to get CR.

Hmmmm... I use supernal elixir quite a lot in groups. Nice and low aggro.

Druids should get a group heal, imho. Would be useful on AE raids when your short on clerics.

But I think the CR/SoTW/Paragon stacking thing is a win for everyone.

Yaladdar

Difference in healing strategy I guess, I've talked to a few clerics that never did use the HoT spells. As I mentioned before as you get closer in level to the next one the usefullness tends to diminish due to peoples hp. From the early 50's or so I replaced superior heal with celestial. While the celestials tend to be less efficent then the direct heal spells, thier use for healing withthout gaining the mobs attention is very useful. I also tend to use them when a direct heal will heal to full, but I think the person might be getting hit again in the near future, making them more efficeint in some cases because I'm actually healing damage before it happens.

Hehe one of these evenings I'm gonna have to try some exp groups without loading the HoT spell at all, just to see.

Warriors are the perfect analogy to this. They do NOT have a tanking monopoly since the opening of PoP. Paladins are capable and PREFERRABLE to tank mobs with high AEs that need to be positioned immediately or mobs that you want to engage in a matter of seconds. With a warrrior tank you cant do that--he has limited means to move the mob and he cannot generate the amout of hate needed to engage a mob in the first few seconds. Warriors have lost almost everything that made them special---crits, extreme advantages in HPs, AC, offensive and defensive skills, weapon choices. Then you can go look at 1hand versus 2hand itemization and realize that dual wielding against the riposte machines that are PoP mobs and know that 2handed weilding is less damaging and easier to heal.

Not only no, but HELL no am I for Clerics following the path of the warrior.

All 3 priest classes need a CH you say? You still wont get groups and neither will we if you do that. Shamans will. Slower and main healer in one package. Fills what currently takes 2 group slots. Shamans dont want a CH in any event; they realize that their slows and hastes and buffs are the routes that win them groups and form their raid role. You already have a heal that is within 65 percent of the current cleric CH. It works in chains and it works in groups, its functional, it does the job. Group heals for raids and a single target fast heal for saving robe wearers in groups---I can support that.

The druid raid role is many and varied. Debuffing with the Ro and ECi series, Blessing of the 9 stacked with shammy and cleric buffs, healing any non tank group, filling gaps in the CH chain, damage in the form of DoTs, and yes firing AE SotWood, although Id like to see if enrage and Spirit of the Wild AE would off a mob almost instantly heh. Still adding a group heal doesnt sound like a bad idea.

Aaeamedar in closing you are acting much more like a troll than many of the clerics who are coming here to try to defend their class against the player hate and classism you are furthering. If you want to blame someone, blame sony. God knows we just want to play the game and have fun, same as you do. This classism, we hate your class because of x,y,z is stupid.


Belkram Marrwolf

What is funny in all this is that the majority of clerics don't ask for more healing power at all! its Sony who keep giving more to us.

God knows I could be wrong but...

oops... I was

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Group heals for raids and a single target fast heal for saving robe wearers in groups---I can support that.<em>---Belkram</em>[/quote]
/wave Belkram (Demasia = Aawulf)
While I agree the group heal for raids and a healing spell solution are needed to replace deciding whether to not gamble on the tank or save the chanter because of cast times, I am not sure they will improve druids' desirability in groups despite making us more effective healers. When I play classes other than my druid, my preference for a cleric in the healer slot is a consideration of the healing capability, hit point buffs and the reduced risk and dowtime from having a <whispers>rezzer</whispers> in the group (this isn't an arguement for rezzes, so everyone relax). If the druid is 63 plus, healing is less of a factor (with your two offered solutions above it would likely never be a consideration for me). But in my years of playing EQ, heals land often enough on characters with 20% or below hit points remaining that the hit point buff remains a major consideration.

Cabbage and 9 hit point buffs are not simply inferior to Aego and Virtue in terms of hit points, but they fall well short of even Temperance. The mana regen is great when you have a cleric or paladin in the group to symbol or when soloing, but has proven to be a curse otherwise because it is the wrench in the works that everyone says "yeah, but you get mana regen". Druids need an alternative hit point buff without any mana regen that is reasonably close to the hit points offered by the Aego line. Clerics' Aego line should still be the best hit points and the best AC buffs from a healer class, but the gap wouldn't be such that a warrior sees his hit points drop by 1000 when virtue falls and is replaced with the best a druid has to offer. Additionally, I think clerics should receive a symbol line with mana regen that stacks with Resolution/Heroic Bond but not other symbols and results in marginally inferior (reasonably close) effects to what Cabbage/9 and current symbols achieve.

I realize this is a non-issue to a great many druids because we are split as to whether or not we should be group main healers at all. And there are many who must be far more experienced and skilled than Aawulf is because they never find healing to be challenging anywhere or at any level. But there are druids who have played in our healing role since release who do believe this is an issue that affects our desirability and contribution to groups.

Belkram, how do you view this and how do you think the cleric community would feel about it?

If you did you could combine with a paladin and buff that much better than a cleric. I predict it would be fought tooth and nail. Buffing superiority is damn near dead for us. Paladins in LDON will buff for more HPs than Clerics with only 2 buff slots. You think Im mean here? You should see what I post on PoN. At least you guys dont propose nerf after nerf like PoN. Thank god.

I can tell you with dead certainty that another symbol with a reagent attached will make clerics wince and make them gunshy to it. We pay enough. We really, really, really want to be out from under the reagent burden badly. Plus if its single target it will be the suck. You know what single target buffing a raid is like man heh.

I can see the possibilities to what you are saying, but I can see it as a balancing nightmare at the same time. Its a can of worms I cant see the developers opening right now. If thats how it had been done from the start I could see it working out nicely....now however, I see a lot of problems.


Belkram Marrwolf

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Clerics, on the other hand, knew they were "rare," and they flaunted it. Some of the bitchiest, whiniest, most annoying players I've had to deal with were clerics. I was glad when druids finally got a chance to work in a CH line, because I could get druids to hop into a situation so I didn't have to have the cleric "bless us with their presence." The druids in my guild were willing and ready to do anything that would improve their presence in a raid - clerics were loathe to do anything other than click heal once every 10 seconds.[/quote]

Omg late quote but holy smokes, that was right on. I wish they would give cleric abilities away so they actually had to earn something for once. Instead of giving away druid/bl/wizard whoever's ability.

I don't think you are mean. I think you are a stupid EQCleric troll. I think you have nothing to contribute. You are x, y, and z and everyone here knows it. Why I can't get Sobe to IP ban you, I don't know. You never have anything of value to contribute. All your postes can be summed up by saying "Druids are fine, Clerics need help, boy that last buff to Clerics really fit the bill, but we are still so weak." You are the shining example of the the whiney woe-is-me Cleric who can't see the huge fu**ing platinum spoon granted to you by SOE on character creation. As a result, you are too stupid to understand the difference in contrabution to a raid between CH and , well, anything.

For every greedy, whiny drood, there's a bitchy, primadonna cleric....:)

Exactly, Scirocco!

Except you missed one...

And a cool, hip rogue.

One) Clerics, old school clerics have been raiding since the end of Kunark. Epics, oh my god do I freaking hate epics. Since Ive done over 1000 various epic parts and battles, yes you read that @#%$ right 1000.

Two) Most clerics are willing to do whatever it takes to win. They dont care who is in the chain. They dont care who does the off healing. They want to win whatever the raid is.

Three) There is more class guilt associated with clerics than there is with any other class. We MUST attend every raid we possibly can. We cant ever skip a raid to do exp. We get griped at if we dont log on to do raids, we get griped at if we dont help with every side quest, double group etc encounter. We cant switch mains. If we do it has to be botted.

Four) An AA is introduced that will DECREASE the amount of clerics needed to raid. Thats right decrease. Yet you bitch it intrudes on your territory.

Five) The 10 second heals WERE a cleric ability, it was farmed out. Aego is being farmed out. Res was farmed out. Group heals were farmed out. Stuns were farmed out. Every old school cleric ability was farmed out at least partially. Lose the classism and hating, its tiresome. If you are going to bitch about abilities at least be informed.


Belkram

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Lose the classism and hating, its tiresome. [/quote]

Couldn't agree more. Go away and never come back and you will be taking a large step to improving that situation.

You are just fanning the flames and making the dialogue more about hatred and stereotypes and crap rather than about meaningful class discussions with some basis in reality.

Aaeamedar, Sobe doesnt ban me because I dont break the forum rules left right and center like you do. I dont lump everyone together and say every single person in a class is unified as THIS. Finally, I ask that you be banned, you made a direct personal attack. Attack the ideas, not the person remember? Your response to every well reasoned argument is : troll, dumb, stupid etc. Why dont you try reasoning because you are not going to goad me into stooping to your misbegotten level of posting.

In case you missed it I said a castable, not AA group heal for druids would be good and so would a direct target heal for saving casters. So much for your theory about how I think Druids need nothing. For your info Im the type of cleric thats been around since the beginning of EQ and has explored every aspect of the character inside and out and knows the limitations, abilities, and skills of my class like the back of my hand.

Lastly because this isnt sinking in here or with the developers : Clerics are FINE in the healing department. Every time you give us another healing ability we inwardly sigh and every other class freaks. We dont WANT more healing, we dont NEED more healing. But its what we keep getting. I will never understand why.

Where I insist a cleric needs more is the ability to do things on their own. Utility and offense. These are rarely looked at. Its the weakest areas of the cleric class and the easiest to upgrade reasonably, yet it never happens. I will never understand why.


Belkram Marrwolf

Glad to see, you where chosen to speak for each member of this board Aaeamdar.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Lastly because this isnt sinking in here or with the developers : Clerics are FINE in the healing department. Every time you give us another healing ability we inwardly sigh and every other class freaks. We dont WANT more healing, we dont NEED more healing. But its what we keep getting. I will never understand why. [/quote]

Belkram probably assumed that because I don't troll their boards like he does ours, that it meant I did not read his boards. You see above what Belkram says here, and below what he says on EQClerics

Here he talks about the need of more Cleric healing:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I thoroughly disagree in the viewpoint we didnt need an increase in healing for raids. [/quote]

Here he talks about his desire to have EE upgraded:<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Ethereal Elixir....upgrade? Could be a powerhouse, but it would be a drastic mana use type of spell. [/quote]

Here he is discussing the Cleric healing monopoly:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Clerics have one thing in common with these 3 groups....they have all encrouched further and further into things that were clear cleric superiorities. The upgrades they have recieved have diminished the reasons for grouping a cleric.[/quote]

There is a ton more. In pretty much every thread I looked at on EQClerics related to Clerics and healing, Belkram argues that Clerics need more, other classes need no improvements (or in some cases nerfs) and that without these things, Cleric viablity is threatened.

You are right Belkram, I too "will never understand why" Clerics just keep getting more healing power to widen the largest class balance gap in EQ.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> <em> whether you like it or not the heals druids and shamans recieved were more than good enough for exp groups </em> True, but who cares. <strong><em>I do.</em></strong> Raids are what matters. <strong><em>Not to me. I play the whole game.</em></strong> [/quote]

That's fine as wel, Amris. Like I said, while I do agree with you that the iCHs are almost as good in groups as a CH, I also think you are misplacing the focus of Cleric desirablility in groups. It's the Rez and the Buffs, not the heals. The opposite is true of raids. You could argue (and I might even agree, personally) that a 90% res nd a 96% res are essentially the same, at least not enough of a difference that if a group has a Paladin they still feel they NEED a cleric for res, but then there are still the buffs, and I also suspect my opinion on the % difference in Res is not in line with most people. It also does help that the Cleric is clicking and the Paly is casting.

Anyway, whetever the reason (and that reason is not healing, since we both agree that iCH is pleanty good for groups), the reality remains, if you walk through any highlevel XP zone and check out the groups you won't find very many, if any at all, without a Cleric. Likewise, you and a Druid walk into any POP XP zone and start /ooc LFG - see who gets the group.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Four) An AA is introduced that will DECREASE the amount of clerics needed to raid. Thats right decrease.[/quote]

Either that, or the same number of Clerics show up (since ooh... I dunno, you may need the same number of CH's in the rotation) and you reduce the number of Druids required.

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I thoroughly disagree in the viewpoint we didnt need an increase in healing for raids.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The full context was that we "need" a heal that would LOWER the amount of clerics needed to effectively raid. Take the whole idea not just the part you want. "Needing" large amounts of clerics to raid isnt healthy for the cleric class or for raiding guilds. What we dont agree on is the solution.

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clerics have one thing in common with these 3 groups....they have all encrouched further and further into things that were clear cleric superiorities. The upgrades they have recieved have diminished the reasons for grouping a cleric.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a fact. Argue it any which ole way. Its true.

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ethereal Elixir....upgrade? Could be a powerhouse, but it would be a drastic mana use type of spell.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep I tossed the idea out there. Logic. Ethereal Elixir is a one of a kind spell. Its a group HoT. The only one around thats castable. It sits in the middle of the cleric spell progression with no upgrade and no lower level equivalent. Seems odd. Also if it had an upgrade the mana usage would be nutty along the lines of 1300 or 1400 mana. Btw Aaemedar whats the date on that post?


Belkram Marrwolf

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Either that, or the same number of Clerics show up (since ooh... I dunno, you may need the same number of CH's in the rotation) and you reduce the number of Druids required. [/quote]

This I just don't get. I would if CR and Paragon didn't stack with SoTW. Overall, SoTW hasn't lost any desirability, adding CR to the stack simply means that AE fights just got that much easier. How is that not a win for everyone, except SOE?

Everyone is still limited to using in a raid situation every 72 minutes anyway.

I don't think any clerics would be fussed if druid's got their time reduced on SoTW or duration increased.

Not only are those quotes not out of context (as your defense of them here demonstrates), but anyone who goes to EQClerics and searches for posts under "Belkram-BB" is going to find dozens more just like them. You come here and lie about your motives - "Woe-is-me, yet another Cleric healing upgrade. Stop, SOE, for the love of Brell, stop!" - and are as convincing as the Rabbit begging not to be thrown into the briar patch.

You are exposed. Please go.

It is simple, Panamah. Mind you, I don't necessarily agree with it, but the logic is clear. I just happen not to agree with the premise.

If, Druids are needed in raids because MGB SotW is a much needed spell on those raids; and

If, Clerics, who already show up to raids in huge numbers because of the need for CH chains, cannot be relied on to MBG EE because it interferes with their main function on the raid - the CH; and

If, those Clerics are now given a means to both be in the CH chain AND MGB an HOT, and a HOT that is much much better than the comparable Druid one (it heals the same. but lasts more than twice as long);

Then, the reason for needing Druids in condition 1 is now satisfied by Clerics already present at the raid because of condition 2.

Personally, I don't think MGB SotW is the compelling reason to have Druids at raids, but if you start from there, it is very obvious that this new Cleric AA improvement was a big hit to Druid raid desirability. Also, while I am mildly on the side of this being no big deal, I do know it has already changed the way I think on raids. I used to, if I was one of a limited number of Druids on a raid, think about single grouping Bot9 so I could save MGB for SotW. That thought never crosses my mind any more, because MGB SotW is just no longer needed at all on our raids.

Also, MGB and SotW1 has been a minimum requirement for Druids applying to our guild. I'll probably leave it that way for a while, at least, but it clearly is no longer very important and I'll probably change its focus after determining the ulimate fallout of this change.

See that doesn't make sense to me though.

AE fights are pretty nasty, right? I remember the Behemoth fight and taking what... 900 a tick? What does a single SoTW do against that? Not much, right? Pile a paragon on with that and we're getting a little closer. Pile a CR with that and we might be out of some otherwise very deep yogurt. SoTW by itself isn't nearly enough, with the other two, it's good stuff. Conversely Paragon and CR aren't good enough to cover it either. The powah of 3 is!

Back when I did Behemoth I think I could usually count on 1 druid to show up that had both MGB and SoTW. (I realize that's changed now). I had whatever clerics that had MGB use EE. I didn't realize that they stacked back then (oops). If I did, I'd still have wanted MORE druids (not that I could find them) with MGB/SoTW so I could have them chain that and the clerics chain MGB/EE. That would've been ideal. Back then I don't think I knew of a single beastlord with Paragon.

So, unless I'm missing something here, I still am not understanding why you wouldn't want to layer on the healing goodness in a nasty AE fight?

In fact, rereading your posting it seems like if you're going to use the AE healing as a strategy then you might want more druids since their heal doesn't last as long, if you want coverage during the entire encounter.

Or better yet, SOE should lengthen your AE heal.

But I also don't buy into druid's only being valuable for that one AA ability. I think there's a whole package there that has a lot of functionality in many different ways. Nukage, Crowd control (loved druids for AD fights and those stupid golems), not to mention SoTW and pretty good heals, FR/CR buffs, and so on.

The stacking is important. Pure melees feel completely gimped in AE fights in PoP. If they go in the simply die. if you stack AE HoTs like this though they can at least wade in for a few ticks, deal damage wade out and wait for the next cast and rinse and repeat.

Btw full context of that post just for Aaeamedar.
Quote from EQcleric in its entirety.

All in the viewpoint.
I thoroughly disagree in the viewpoint we didnt need an increase in healing for raids. We did, we needed it in a way that would reduce the number of us needed to make it a success. Look at what this AA will do.

--Stack with other AEable AAs.
--Fireable from within a CH chain with no disruption or loss of timing.
--no mana cost so it wont drain cleric mana away from Chain healing.

These three things will REDUCE the number of clerics needed to offset AEs to make a raid a success. This was most definitely not a mistake. As well classes like Druids and Shammies wont have to focus as much on keeping their groups healed and focus instead on damage more to make the mob dead faster.

Anyone griping that this AA will increase Cleric group desireability can go crap in a hat because they can sell that hat about as well as they can sell that argument. Casting one AA every 15 minutes wont make a group want you in that group, it will have a raid impact though.

End Quote.

Like I said nice out of context quote.


Belkram

I still do not follow your logic there... unless you are overflowing with clerics on a raid. We have never had clerics (that I recall) sitting outside the ch chain or spot heals in order to take care of AE. If required they just pop it off during their normal healing duties. So why would them being given this as an innate ability reduce the number needed? If they werent already being used *only* for this (and they werent, not on the raids I attend anyway, druids were), then there is no reduction because you still need the same inflated number of clerics on every raid to do the ch chain, spot heals, group heals, battle res's etc... So do try to explain this, because I keep seeing you spout this as fact when you offer no numbers or examples to support it.

Not that reducing the number of clerics required is a bad thing, but it simply wont happen.

Anyway, I'd be happy to concentrate on damage dealing if it wasnt a death sentence to use more than half my mana bar at it.

Pana: You keep saying that, but you have to understand that getting people to keep one buff slot free for hots is hard enough as is. After raid buffs and ae debuffs that often hit, there simply is not enough room for multiple ae hot's to go off. It would be a waste because the 2nd would bounce on a huge number of people. Its far more effective to simply wait until the one fades then cast again, ensuring that it lands on everyone.

Tia

Ok, so buff slots is your arguments against stacking AE heals.

You don't think people would give up a few buffs to make AE encounters a lot easier? Leave off the resists that're probably mostly useless in a lot of these encounters and save room for 3 ae heals?

I'm no uber raider, but if it were me doing Behemoth again, I'd leave off the useless resists and make sure everyone was getting ae healed 3x all the time, if I had the people for it.

I'm not arguing anything. I'm merely pointing out the reality of what I encounter every day while raiding. Buff slots are at a premium, and it would be a waste to try and double up 2 ae hot's because chances are most people would not be hit by both, and simply more effective to cast them in serial, so as not to waste the mgb/aa. You can argue and remind people to leave room for buff slots all you want, it simply doesnt happen.

Tia

Panamah:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>This I just don't get.[/quote]

Oh crap, I think I've completely lost my context, let me try to piece it together.

Belkram made the point (which I had a slight problem with):
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>An AA is introduced that will DECREASE the amount of clerics needed to raid. Thats right decrease. Yet you bitch it intrudes on your territory.[/quote]

I responded:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Either that, or the same number of Clerics show up (since ooh... I dunno, you may need the same number of CH's in the rotation) and you reduce the number of Druids required.[/quote]

Which can be best explained by Tiane on Page 7:
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Go look at that thread about the Rathe Council in the Quest/Strats section... 14 clerics seems to be a minimum number there to do it. That is *insane*. No encounter should require so many of one class. Ever. Thats terrible design.

And yet, with this change and subsequent refusal by SOE to consider adjusting sotw to be in line with the other abilities, they have simply added to the cleric "requirability". Now you dont need druids AT ALL. Mgb sotw has become obsolete with this one change. The 3 or 4 druids at a raid can still do it, sure, but why, when the 10 clerics can also do it and are going to be there anyway?[/quote]

So, to sum up... some encounters (so I hear) require a certain number of Clerics. Druids may have had a niche in those encounters by providing MGB SoTW. Now that same number of Clerics who would be there anyway have gained that ability. So why have the Druids around?

I'm not adamant about it, because there's more variables then that, but my point was to dispell a self-proclaimed truism that the change will decrease the number of Clerics required. It looks good in theory, but in practice it just *may* decrease the number of Druids required.

Wyte

Damn,
Belkram is still posting. I thought for sure when the Admin asked him to PM that he was going to get nuked. No such luck.

Panamah,
Like I said, I don't agree with the premise. You were posting, however, as if you did not understand he logic of it. The logic of it is clear to me, and frankly, at least in my experience, the buff thing is not such a minor deal. If the AE does not have some huge negative, resist buffs are far from useless. I'd have to check Lucy to see what the negs re on Beehemoth - been a while since I fought him, but with bards and resist buff, it is really easy to hit the 500 cap. At any rate, my own experience already is that MGB sotw is still good, but not as important as it was before this patch. Still, I don't agree that the patch was a bad thing, I just wish there was some way it could be applied to all clerics other than the trolls posting here.

I do agree with the much more general statement that Clerics should not be getting ANY healing upgrades until Druids are much closer. The healing gap is still enormous and remains for me the most significant balance problem in the game.

Oh no, once again the sky is falling.

Big whoop, a crummy cleric aa got upgraded. You all make it sound like druids never get upgrades. Its not surprising that they finally got around to fixing some aa skills especially with LDON around the corner.

Its not like sotw was anything unique to begin with in the first place. This will not have much if any effect at all on druid contributions in raids/exp groups. Even so, clerics are the best healers and only makes sense that they have the best healing tools. Whining about it is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Druid version will probably have its reuse time reduced soon enough.

<font color="red">Warning: Anyone taking pot shots at people from this point on will have their entire post deleted. </font>

I don't mind if you guys debate the contents of each other's posts, but name-calling and general character slandering are clearly against the board rules. Like most cross-posted threads, this one's been given a lot of leeway but it's getting out of hand.

Personally I think the AA should have been upgraded somewhat, but still left as a massive single target regen. Throw it on the main tank just before engaging a boss mob (ok, maybe not one that can 1-round a defensive warrior) and he's more likely to survive until the fight stabilizes--mob is positioned correctly and debuffed, cheal chain is fully under way, etc. Lowering the reuse time from 72 minutes to 15 minutes alone is a big step towards making it worthwhile. Then maybe increasing the duration to 8 ticks...so a single target 800/tick for 8 ticks regen every 15 minutes? That would be worthwhile, wouldn't it?

I've rarely had the luxury of having a bard per group so the chances of actually getting that 500 resist cap is pretty rare, in my experience.

And I wish the HoT's would go in the short-term buff box so it wouldn't be an issue.

aybe that's something that druids and clerics can agree to try to get SOE to consider doing.

Yeah, the short buff box seems like another of those good SOE ideas that they partially implement, promise to go back and complete, and then never do.

Well, maybe in a couple years they'll finish putting all the short buffs and hots and un-click-offable recourses and such in there... itd be nice if that darn bard epic proc would go in there too hehe...

Tia

Pure melee standpoint is they cant get near mobs with high damage AEs like this. Now they can. They cant STAY near those mobs but with 2 HoTs running on them its going to take a lot to knock em down. 3 means they are going to deal out a lotta death in that timeframe.

Druid, Shaman standpoint "could" be that you dont have to focus on the healing end of things and go damage via DoTs and nukes to make the mob dead faster. Alternately you can place a pair of Druids on rampage healing or spot healing or CH chain duty.

Im gonna go out on a limb here and say mobs like Grummus, AD, Bertox, and a few others will be doable with like THREE clerics if they all have this ability and you have a lot of Druids with Karana and SoTW. Coordinated stacking of HoT AAs will allow for more raid role flexibility and faster kills due to increasing the roles of the pure melee and providing a better safety net for the pure caster/lower HPs DPS classes.

Thats my thesis on what this will do. Attack at will.


Belkram Marrwolf

I'm still not getting from point <strong>A, clerics get new revamped ability</strong>, to point <strong>B, fewer clerics are now required at raids</strong>. Nothing has changed regarding the ch / sl chain, or any other factor to which clerics contribute, except that they now can *also* help fight the effects of AE without even interrupting what they already do.

PoP fights are so short that rarely do you have even 2 sotw's go off over the duration of the fight. That's 2 druids. For my guild, we historically average 3 to 4 druids per night, and 3 times that many clerics. This will not change anything, except that the druids wont worry about saving their MGB for sotw. You still need 10+ clerics for many encounters, a number of them will quite likely get this aa (it is a good one, now, and will likely be required by us.) So, besides not needing druids to do their one trick show, how does that equate to needing fewer clerics at a raid (presuming it's a raid with an AE. If it is not, then your presumption about fewer clerics needed is moot.)

As for the stacking, I've already addressed that. To use one of your examples, Grummus already sticks 2 seperate debuffs/dots on the raid, how many buff slots more do you think people have? If these would go into the bard buff box, then yeah I'd go along with the premise that stacking them would be more commonplace.

BTW no druid (should) dots on a raid... we have better nukes that have a chance to crit (unlike dots), among other reasons. Thats a seperate discussion, but before you continue saying that we are free to be doing things like that on a raid now I suggest you go read up on some threads in the other sections.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Alternately you can place a pair of Druids on rampage healing or spot healing or CH chain duty. [/quote]

You mean, things which would be better done by a cleric in the first place, right? Things which would only be done by a druid if you dont have enough clerics present at the raid to handle all the other things they are required to do in the first place.



Perhaps this signals another sea change in how SOE is defining druids again, much like how they told monks that they were no longer to be light substitute tanks, but instead melee range damage dealers only. If this is the case, if Sony wants druids to be simple sub-par nukers they should at least give us the tools to do it properly. Again, thats another discussion and has been covered here before, but the point remains. What is it SOE wants us to be doing at raids? Apparently, it's no longer important for this third of the priest trio to have a defined healing role other than cleric-lite-that-cant-res.

Tia

I have to disagree with that logic.

<em>OK guys, listen up. Clerics just received an improvement in their AAs, so lets use less of them in raids and recruit more druids to replace them for spot heals, nukes and debuffs.</em>

Why add druids for nukes instead of wizards or mages? Since druids haven't gained any debuffs and they do not stack, I imagine they are already covered by one druid. As altruistic as some people may be, they aren't going to replace a cleric with a druid for healing.

I grasp the contention that less healing will be neccessary altogether, but I do not see how that would result in more druids in a raid.

Tiane has an interesting point. Maybe we, as a community, need to accept that SOE is never going to allow anyone other than Clerics be important to the game where healing is concerned. If we accept that our healing is never going to be allowed to compete with Clerics in even a smal way, we could focus more on our offense. Get our nukes in solid second place, maybe 20% or so behind Wizards. Focus on trying to push through a full Cold line of debuffs - i.e. get Ici's to look just like Hand, get them to add a CR defuff DoT and a CR version of Ro's Illumination. Against mobs resistant to neither cold nor fire, this ends up being about a negative 400 attack. That would be a big deal. Druids would stack for a while on such mobs as well, since you would want to spread these debuffs out over at least 3 Druids.

It would also end the Alt v. Evocation threads here. :) Most Alt druids, like me, choose Alt to try and make our healing a tiny bit closer to Clerics. If we had enough offense so that the expectations from Druids became DPS and Debuffs, instead of "Well yeah a Cleric would be better, but we only have 8 here, assign that task to a Druid."

Best of all, such a focus would mean no cross-posting from EQClerics.

This is not sarcasm, btw. I really mean it, maybe our focus is in the wrong place. We have fought for such a long time to get SOE to break Cleric healing monopoly and basically things like this latest patch demonstrate what a hopeless effort it has been. I really think we need to discuss giving up that fight. Let the Clerics be the only relevant healers in the game and try to refocus our efforts to geting meaningful offensive improvements. As long as our healing remained acceptable in a group environment - which NI and KR as they are now should assure for a long time to come, maybe our raid healing can just be forgotten.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>This is not sarcasm, btw. I really mean it, maybe our focus is in the wrong place.[/quote]

Druids have tried plenty of times to hash out scaling abilities that wouldn't infringe on other classes.

A few that come to mind are:
- Percentage based thorns based on the amount the mob hits
- Percentage based attack debuffs based on the amount the mob hits
- Useful attack buffs (ie: group wolf, without head bobbing, indoor castable)
- Lure nukes (weaker then Wizards)
- Imbue procs on weapons for melee

I'm sure there's more... just can't remember them.

I would agree with you if SOE would hear us out, and *we* could agree on what needs to be tweaked within our own class.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'm sure there's more... just can't remember them.[/quote]
Well, several of them are the "innovative" new spells in LDoN for other classes. It is interesting to review the threads resulting from Absor asking how druids could be more group desirable and then looking at the new spells for all of the classes. I will chalk it up to coincidence, I guess.

This could indeed negatively affect druids in subtle ways. If so many clerics are needed for raids then there are in fact going to be a lot of them. More clerics means not all of them will be on the cheal rotation. These are the ones that could shoot off the AE heal. If it stacks with SotW then no problem, right? Wrong.

Panamah said it herself that a lot of PoP fights don't last long. In some cases the mob AE isn't THAT nasty enough to need a bunch of stacked AE heals. Granted there are some really nasty ones out there and it depends on what raids we are talking about but all that healing won't be needed in some cases. It would be a waste of MGB. So then druids might fall into more of a strictly patch healing role just by the inherent and perpetual deference given to the clerics on matters of healing.

As far as changing my focus as a druid...NO. I changed my spec to Alter so I could heal. I got all the AA's associated with healing. I was a nuking druid pretty much until PoP came out. But then I decided to change to more of a healing role and I've been having a lot of fun doing it. Changes like the one we are talking about here decreases the viable alternative that druids had become. It seems like every time druids even get on the same planet as clerics in healing SoE packs the clerics up in a rocket ship and shoots them off to an even more lush and comfortable planet. I for one am getting tired of it.

On a side note: I would like to see how non-clerics/druids see the change. It might be more objective. We have gotten into cleric vs. druid debate here and predictable lines have been drawn.

Yep, those "Druid Group Desirability" discussions bred a wealth of ideas.

Druids coming to an agreement, a unified stand on what we want to do, would be pretty difficult.

The direction it should take has been done to death:
1) We would like to stack relatively well
2) The ability should scale (like slow; unlike damage shields)
3) The ability should make a difference (without being overpowering)

Come to think of it, sounds a bit like SoTW. Maybe that's why things have been a bit heated in this thread.

The most consensus I saw within Druids was in the percentage attack debuff. Right now we debuff a certain attack debuff value on a short list of spells. Insane attack bonuses of mobs (especially PoP) arguably render these useless.

If they were percentage based:
- They would scale, duh.
- They would make a difference.
- But would we stack?

Yes, if they were applied to <strong>all</strong> the ones we have, in moderation. Right now we usually fire debuff, then stack a few attack debuffs. Problem is, any Druid that does this alone in the beginning of the fight, is going to be killed.

A single spell trick, like slow, is powerful but has it's problems. Shammy's often argue the class uber-powerfulness because only one shammy is needed for it.

By the way, I have seen druids(and even some clerics) touting a group heal here. That's something I've been wanting BAD for quite awhile now. I would be more than happy with that and I think that would set druids up for a long time to come...unless of course Everquest doesn't get bought out by some other company that knows balance.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'm still not getting from point A, clerics get new revamped ability, to point B, fewer clerics are now required at raids. Nothing has changed regarding the ch / sl chain, or any other factor to which clerics contribute, except that they now can *also* help fight the effects of AE without even interrupting what they already do.[/quote]

If part of your strategy was a cheal chain agumented by MGB EE's, then this would reduce your need of clerics. Now you don't need the MGB EE clerics, you just have the CH Chain fire off their new MGB CR. A chain clerics isn't probably going to be able to do an MGB EE because of the mana cost and casting time.

But, even if you're over capacity in the healing department on some given night, you've got the ability to lay a little extra hurtage on the mob.

Again, just me and my thinking and I'm sure I wasn't a typical raid leader simply because I was inexperienced about leading raids and didn't know the "right way" to do it. I was really torn about using druids as healers. I wanted them to either nuke or do crowd control stuff so things would die faster.

So I don't quite buy into the druids as a one-trick-raid-pony argument. Maybe if you think your only function on a raid is to heal, then sure, this would crowd you out somewhat if your raid leaders were unwilling to use layering of heals to counter AE (which I think is a spiffy idea).

Still, 2 thumbs up on a group heal for druids -- I like my clerics group heal, but it's expensive and she usually doesn't get to cast it that much -- and definitely a separate buff box for heal over time spells.

CH chains arent all cleric anymore. Because there are other jobs we must do. Like rampage healing, like AE EE, like res and rebuff.

Side effect : rampage healing becomes easier because the spikes get leveled out.
Side effect : AE EE gets replaced with AE Cel Regen and clerics in the chain can cast it, you dont NEED a cleric outside the chain for that and quick heals.
Side Effect : you dont need a quick cast healer you can allow a druid to take over that role with Tunare or Karana because the AE damage will be less spikey.
Side effect : your res/rebuffer can toss this AEed after ressing a bunch of people near the ranged DPS and heal all of them at no mana cost increasing battle res efficiency. Again---less healing.

obs I can think of where this will do a lot of good pre-elemental in PoP
Grummus
Bertoxulous
Terris Thule---Butterfly pop
ananetic Behemoth
Vallon Zek
Aerin Dar
RydaDar

I still dont see anyone willing to address how this will help pure melee, who a lot of the time feel really gimped against the high damage AE mobs.


Belkram

I would LOVE to see wolf form lose the actual wolf form and keep its benefits, its got to be the only attack buff that classes dont want because of the graphic problem. Id back 110 percent.

Group heal---you need it to do your raid job, nuff said
Targeted fast heal--you need it to do your GROUP job, again nuff said.


Belkram

I suppose if I did them for as long as clerics I might be bothered more by cheal rotations but I really don't mind. I have been on a cheal rotation for the ramp tank on the last few raids my guild has done and I don't see the horror in it. Then again like I said, I haven't been doing it very long. :mad:

The CH chain isnt limited to being just clerics. Whether fun or not is beside the point. People keep saying you need x number of clerics in the chain. Im saying you dont need a chain to be ALL clerics the way many of them are maintaining. Im also saying that this AA will reduce the number of clerics needed for outside chain healing jobs. Net effect : fewer clerics to get the job done.


Belkram

Well what you're saying's kind of beside the point also because whether you need everyone in the cheal chain to be clerics or not they usually are and harkens back to the issue of the druid healing stigma that exists in the game.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> I still dont see anyone willing to address how this will help pure melee, who a lot of the time feel really gimped against the high damage AE mobs. [/quote]It won't help them feel any better, tho it will help them stay alive. Warriors are so badly broken right now that all SOE can do is give things to OTHER classes to help them. How sad. As for Monks and Rogues, my experience is that they compete very well for DPS spots and other than some discipline improvements I'm not sure how I'd "fix" them.

Elder Primero Aventurero
65 Druid

I would only put a Druid in my CH chain if there was not a Cleric there. It happens from time to time, but it is not the norm. It is absurd to say having Druids in the chain is preferable.

I don't know about the rest, but the mobs I'm encountering these days hit for 2k++ regularly, not to mention they quad attack too. Thats means a spike output can go as high as 8-10k in just a single round.

Tunare's Renewal and its 3k heal is more like a patch heal on these encounters. Karana's just barely meets the requirements for a propery cch on such mobs but its mana cost means we can't sustain it for long.

Monks and rogues can add DPS for sure. That's the point I was making in your thread Accretion. :)

As far as the choice between clerics and druids in cheal chains Iilane has a point beyond the one I made(and the most fundamental one at that): it's not just the stigma, clerics are flat out better, more efficient healers and so will get put into cheal chains more often or to the absoloute exclusion of druids(and that's probably the way it should be). I've already mentioned that I have been on ramp chains but the ramp tank takes a lot less incessant damage than the MA/MT. So even on cheal chains druids are in a 'lesser' role most of the time because cleric's heals are superior and more efficient.

The efficiency thing is a bug in my craw. Not so much our iCH efficiency comapred to Cleric CH, but rather TR comapred to KR. I hate that TR and KR have different casting costs. They should both be 400. I am too lazy to do it, so like the rest of you I'm sure, I have only NI and KR memmed. That is how it should be, if the spells were priced right. Unfortuantely, to be truely efficient, KR has a very narrow use window (its about 400 HP wide on a beefy target). In most cases, if you are casting KR on something other than a heavily damaged raid buffed tank, TR would have been more efficient. KR is perfectly ok for healing the MT in a group, since the damage incomming is usually at a slow enough pace that you can KR efficiently pretty much 100% of the time. In a raid, however, that is rarely the case. Damage is spikey, other people are cover healing, etc. It is almost never efficient to use KR, but you do it anyway because it is impossible to predict the need for a 5k heal at the time you cast it.

For the Clerics reading this, imagine if you had a 4K heal that cost 300 mana and was in all other respects just like CH. Would you ever use it? Wouldn't it irk you a bit every time a CH landed that healed for less than 4k?

hehe, a lot of time my CH heal for less than 4K, but its ok, other times it heal more.

Why do you say they should be the same mana cost Aaeamdar? I'm not clear on the logic behind that. One's higher level and does potentially more healing. If anything the casting cost on both should be shaved a little but keep the same ratio of mana cost between the two.

If the rampage tank is getting 750 per tick in regen does he need as much healing? Wouldnt that make rampage healing easier? Not harder? Wouldnt it make you not NEED the cleric? Wouldnt it allow you to put a Druid in that spot easier?

Accretion---GEEZ are you completely missing the point or what? Most pure melee arent even allowed to go into the AE radius and if they do they get eaten up in about 8 ticks or less than a minute. With a paragon or SOTW tick and this tick or all three they can wade into AEs for a short amount of time and deal damage and increase the time it will take for the mod to die.

Aaeamedar---thats completely my point, you can raid with Druids in the chain rather than clerics. The clerics IN the chain can also contribute to keeping the AE off the raid further increasing their efficiency meaning you can place Druids on Chain duty rather than having to rely on them SOLELY to offset AE in some cases.

Illiane--no PoP raiding guild is going to use Tunare, you know this. Karana is doable for about 2 minutes with a paragon or perhaps 2. Most PoP fights are roughly 2 minutes pre elemental. I cannot vouch for elemental fights because I havent done them yet. RZTW to go yet. If a mob decides to have a 10k spike the CLERIC CH wont save the tank let alone the Druid one.

Again instead of focusing on what is needed to make a raid work you are focusing on what is needed to make it work the BEST. Best isnt always viable, you dont have the numbers to do it. This will reduce the need for the best healing in certain spots. Best doesnt matter so long as you win. Winning the fight is what counts.

Last night my guild did AD with 37. None of us have Cel Regen yet but looking at that fight again it would have greatly reduced the need to spot heal and lowered the mana cost on rampage healing. It would have reduced the HELL out of the AE damage. It would have allowed the DPS crowd to wade into the dragon sooner.

Belkram Marrwolf

Yeah, but you do not have a spell that is in all other respects like CH, but heals for only 4k and costs only 300 mana. If you did, you would have two spells that did exactly the same thing except CH would only be efficient in a narrow window (because you are not additionally capped by a %, your window on such a spell would be wider, bascially CH would be more efficient than this hypothetical spell everytime it healed for more than 5333 HPs).

For TR and KR, there is basically a 400 HP window of efficiency. Using base numbers, KR has to heal for 4388 HP of its total maximum posibile amount of 4680 ( a window of 292HP) to be as or more efficient than TR. When you add HA/AHA to both spells you end up with about a 400 HP window. Maybe just a pet peive of mine, but I find this to be really irritating. If SOE never reduces the mana of KR, I wish they would remove TR or up its cost to 600 mana too.

I am not following your logic, Belkram. How does giving clerics MGB CR change things for Druids in the CH rotation? (Or rather how does it make them more likely to be useful in one). No matter what, a Cleric will always be preferable to a Druid for CHing. If you don't have a Cleric there - yeah a Druid will do, but it is not going to be something done intentionally when you have the choice.

To the contrary, if you suppose that there were fights out there that required several stacking HOTs at once, prior to this chain you might put Druids in a CH chain so that you could save some Clerics out of the rotation allowing them to MGB EE. Because druids could MGB SotW and iCH. Now, Clerics can both CH and MGB CR, so any thought of using Druids to iCH so that some clerics could be saved for MGB EE is out the window. The Cleric just does both jobs.

The bottom line is you need x amount of healing over y amount of time.

Before it was thought you needed a set amount of clerics to win any given fight, in many times covering rampage, CH chain, res and rebuff and AE EE. Each a separate job requiring a cleric to fill it.

Other way to shorten the fight is to increase the amount of damage done by having more healing.

Ive shown that you do not need a cleric in each of those spots and with the extra healing punch this adds you have easier healing assignments. EE is no longer needed OUTSIDE the chain. CH chain can be filled with Druids as well as clerics. Rampage can be accomplished with Druids as well as Clerics.

Here is a quote by you Aaeamdar
"To the contrary, if you suppose that there were fights out there that required several stacking HOTs at once, prior to this chain you might put Druids in a CH chain so that you could save some Clerics out of the rotation allowing them to MGB EE. Because druids could MGB SotW and iCH. Now, Clerics can both CH and MGB CR, so any thought of using Druids to iCH so that some clerics could be saved for MGB EE is out the window. The Cleric just does both jobs."

If you took the Clerics out of the chain to cast EE and you dont need to cast EE anymore...didnt you just reduce the amount of clerics you needed? Druids can fill the chain some and the EE clerics turn into Cel Regen clerics INSIDE the chain. Those 2 extra clerics you had...you no longer need. You can have a successful raid with fewer clerics.

Belkram

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you took the Clerics out of the chain to cast EE and you dont need to cast EE anymore...didnt you just reduce the amount of clerics you needed? Druids can fill the chain some and the EE clerics turn into Cel Regen clerics INSIDE the chain. Those 2 extra clerics you had...you no longer need. You can have a successful raid with fewer clerics.[/quote]
That implies reducing the cleric quota in the guild, increasing the druid quota and telling some clerics their services aren't needed anymore. Are druids really that loved that a guild would do that because it is efficient enough or will they be content with the overkill?

Demasia, I don't imagine anyone is going to kick out druids or clerics. It just means you can go ahead and raid when you don't have enough clerics log on. It might mean a few botters can leave their clerics behind. I think even the most cold-hearted uber guild doesn't tell extras to log off just so they can operate with fewer people.

Ok, from the cleric MB a real live use of CR/SoTW and using their stackability. This guild normally uses MGB EE and SoTW in whatever raid this is.

He gets his names mixed up, he means CR instead of CE.
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I was able to MGB CE 3 times tonight while we were in PoFire and found that in concert with MGB wood from druids and MGB ee from clerics who do not yet have this (which is also 300/tic) very nice. Note that the advantage to CE over EE is the time. EE is 4 tic base, 6 tic with SCRM and 7 tic with a PoTime level focus (enstruim -sp- or some such) CE is NOT effected by focus, but is with SCRM, CE lasts 8 tic base and 12 tic with SCRM. Wood from druids lasts 7 tic with SCRM.
[/quote]

Pretty sure SoTW is 9 ticks with SCRM. Just a nit, tho.

Elder Primero Aventurero
65 Druid

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Demasia, I don't imagine anyone is going to kick out druids or clerics. It just means you can go ahead and raid when you don't have enough clerics log on. It might mean a few botters can leave their clerics behind.[/quote]
I don't think anyone is going to be kicked out either. The debate lingers from the assertion that the improvement to clerics was good for druids.

SotW is eitehr 7 or 8 with SCRM. SCRM is a 50% boost. SotW is 5 ticks. 50% more is 7.5 ticks. so it is 7 or 8 depending on how they round it. I'll guess 7.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Druids need an alternative hit point buff without any mana regen that is reasonably close to the hit points offered by the Aego line. Clerics' Aego line should still be the best hit points and the best AC buffs from a healer class, but the gap wouldn't be such that a warrior sees his hit points drop by 1000 when virtue falls and is replaced with the best a druid has to offer. Additionally, I think clerics should receive a symbol line with mana regen that stacks with Resolution/Heroic Bond but not other symbols and results in marginally inferior (reasonably close) effects to what Cabbage/9 and current symbols achieve.[/quote]

Don't forget that that extra 1000 hp costs a reagent. I can see the outrage the cleric community would have it druids got a similar buff without this reagent cost (and I think rightfully so, but hey I'm kinda biased ;-D ). I suppose some would think that the similar spell with out a reagent would be "fair and balanced"... but I'm sorry, I don't think anyone could convince me of it. Going on that premise, I would think that this type of spell would mean a similar reagent cost. I wouldn't wish the whole reagent for buffing others issue on anyone. Ideally I'd love to see the whole reagent costs on this line removed... I'd sure enjoy the game a lot more if I didn't have to deal with everything surronding this, but I just don't see that happening.

<strong>SotW is eitehr 7 or 8 with SCRM. SCRM is a 50% boost. SotW is 5 ticks. 50% more is 7.5 ticks. so it is 7 or 8 depending on how they round it. I'll guess 7.</strong>


It is only 7.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Don't forget that that extra 1000 hp costs a reagent.[/quote]
That would still be cheaper than everyone going to PoK and getting Virtues at 40-50 plat each before hitting the exp zone like many of us and those who group with us do now. I think adding a regent would be fair and balanced.

Another perfectly acceptable solution would be some sort of tradeskill that produced a symbol like buff item. Could be tinkering requiring MB recharge, or alchemy. The cost should be similar, the effect should be slightly weaker (900ish).

We could just put weaker versions of all buffs on tinkered items and they we wouldn't need anyone! Except gnomes... gotta have more gnomes.

It looks like Focus of Mediocrity won't affect it anymore either, since it no longer has a level (I didn't realize taking away the DRU/1 stuff on our AA abilities would do that, bleh!)

With luck I'll be able to test it firsthand soon...

You like what they did with all the Druid abilities? Nahh, that does not seem necessary. But Symbol is basically one of the problems with going Druid/Slower instead of Cleric/Slower. So that seems like a decent solution. Most of the other essential ablities are located, in lesser effect, on other classes (Druid's heal, Paly's Res).

Edit - Also, using the logic similar to most Clerics in this thread - This will reduce the Cleric's reliance on components, so such a thing would be great for Clerics and should be welcomed and even encouraged.

"Let's kill Behemoth"
"Okay.... *2 hours pass*well, we can't find enough clerics, so I guess no behemoth."
"Wait, don't 3 of our clerics have CR?"
"yeah, so what, we still only have 6."
"Well, with the CR upgrade, could the rest be druids?"
"I don't know, let's give it a try, maybe we'll need fewer casts to accomplish the same thing, so we can have more druids for the "oh s****" heals on the melees"

Might be better to just put more hit points on PoTN and not make it stack with symbols. Then at least you aren't farming out abilities to 15 different classes.

No lets go with this idea...

We can just add Complete Heal, Rez, Quick Heals, Major Heals, HP/AC buffs, Symbol, AC buffs, DSes, Nukes, Regen, VoQ, SotW, CR, Paragon of the Spirit, Brells, Focus, Avatar ... all to click items.

But that would mean carrying too many items ...

How about we buy an underling in bazaar for 1k. It would work like a pet, but he would be able to cast any spell we wish.

/underling CH Target
/underling Blast Target
/underling Buff me to the limit

Now he would just have 100 hp and can die, but you can just buy a new one.

/sarcasm off

Hmm...and what did that sarcasm accomplish?

Well our guild has primarily recruited clerics solely based on how many it needs to keep the MT alive. We have done PoFire mobs before with 2 clerics and 2 druids as the only healers.

Unfortunately when you get to some of the PoTime mobs there is really no substitute for 8-10 clerics. Once you start needing a 1-2 second rotation then druid CH just isnt practical any more.

Once you have enough clerics for the MT chain you can fill in the rest of the healing roles with whatever is available. Druids or shamans can handle rampage healing, druids or rotation clerics (just skip them for one turn) can handle MGB heals against AE's. Most melees can learn to cope with AE's fairly well if they know there isnt anyone to heal them.

So in my experience I dont see the CR changes as having made much difference to the numbers of clerics required for raiding. I dont think they have made much difference to raiding druid requirements either on the basis that I dont think guilds really recruit people with AE healing in mind.

For our guild most of the druids have been recruited because we thought they were good players. At that point the class they played didnt matter so much. (Note to any druids in my guild reading this: I don't mean you, I mean the other druids :P).

Quote from Amonra :
"Once you have enough clerics for the MT chain you can fill in the rest of the healing roles with whatever is available. Druids or shamans can handle rampage healing, druids or rotation clerics (just skip them for one turn) can handle MGB heals against AE's. Most melees can learn to cope with AE's fairly well if they know there isnt anyone to heal them."

If you can let a cleric skip a turn cant you use a Druid in place of one in that spot just as easily?

Quote Part 2:
"Most melees can learn to cope with AE's fairly well if they know there isnt anyone to heal them"

If they are getting hit with 2 or 3 stacked HoTs wont they wade in and get some damage in rather than stand around using ranged attacks that do about 1/10th of their normal damage? (rangers excluded)

Belkram

Hey, look at that. I suggested doing to Clerics what has happened to Druids since the start of the game - putting one of their unique abilities on an all/all click item and it actually got a Cleric to suggest increasing the HPs significantly on Bot9 and making it not stack with Symbol. That's cute. I wonder if we can use this strategy to get EQClerics to start arguing for Druid increases?

So what do you think, Bot9 with 1528 HP instead of 618? If we can get the Clerics behind this, I think we have a winner. :)

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Most melees can learn to cope with AE's fairly well if they know there isnt anyone to heal them[/quote]

Yeah, I was kind of chaffing at that too. I don't like having to cope with AE by hiding from them and letting all the long range damager types do all the damage. :mad:

On the 9ses topic. I've long thought there should be more hit points on the druid buff. Not as much as on Virtue, but definitely more than is currently there. In fact, a while back I suggested it and a lot of the druids said, no it's fine the way it is, and that meleers they grouped with don't miss that other 1000 hit points clerics can give them. So, I was a little surprised at that.

Comparing HP/AC buffs:

Druid HP/AC buffs:

Level 1 –

Increase Hitpoints: 11
Increase AC: 3
% Change of ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): N/A
% Change of ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): N/A

Level 14 –

Increase Hitpoints: 54
Increase AC: 6
% Change of ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 330%
% Change of ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 23%

Level 24 –

Increase Hitpoints: 74
Increase AC: 9
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 200%
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 30%

Level 39 –

Increase Hitpoints: 178
Increase AC: 13
% Change of HP( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 693%
% Change of AC( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 26%

Level 49 –

Increase Hitpoints: 248
Increase AC: 16
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 1000%
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 30%

Level 57 –

Increase Hitpoints: 391
Increase AC: 18
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 1785%
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 25%

Level 59 –

Increase Hitpoints: 467
Increase AC: 24
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 3800%
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 300%

Level 63 –

Increase Hitpoints: 618
Increase AC: 32
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 3750%
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 200%


Clerics HP/AC buffs:

Level 1 –

Increase Hitpoints: 11
Increase AC: 3
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): N/A
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level: N/A

Level 9 –

Increase Hitpoints:44
Increase AC: 5
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 415 %
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 25 %

Level 19 –

Increase Hitpoints: 84
Increase AC: 7
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 400 %
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 20 %

Level 24 –

Increase Hitpoints: 114
Increase AC: 9
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 400 %
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 40 %

Level 34 –

Increase Hitpoints: 168
Increase AC:12
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 540 %
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 30 %

Level 44 –

Increase Hitpoints: 232
Increase AC: 16
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 640 %
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 40 %

Level 52 –

Increase Hitpoints: 360
Increase AC: 18
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 1600 %
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 25 %

Level 55* –

Increase Hitpoints: 320
Increase AC: 17
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): - 1333 %
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): - 33%

Level 61** –

Increase Hitpoints: 520
Increase AC: 22
% Change of HP ( Increase of HP / Increase of Level ): 3333%
% Change of AC ( Increase of AC / Increase of Level ): 83%

*- there was a 200 % increase to the duration
**- there was a 200 % decrease to the duration

We currently have the best HP/AC buff in game. Pot9 is:
19 % better HP than Faith, 45 % better AC than Faith
Pot9 provides an 8-mana regen / tick while faith does not provide an equivalent.

As far as symbol goes, the best symbols currently are:

Cleric:
Symbol of Kazad
Increase Max Hitpoints by 910
CLR/61
1 hour(s) 3.0 mins
Peridot x 1

Paladin:
Symbol of Marzin
Increase Max Hitpoints by 640 (L54) to 700 (L60)
PAL/63
1 hour(s) 3.0 mins
Peridot x 1

Personally, I do not feel that (if somehow) we get a symbol, it should be better than the paladin version.

Know what I think would be a cool druid ability? Give them an AC buff with mana combination that actually stacks with virtue/boa. Throw in a DS with it. Personally I'd like to see some more AC buffs in the game that stack with stuff. And nothing against druids, but I'd love to have you doing the AC buff instead of me. And this would be a wonderful stacking thing that would take a lot of heat off of clerics with having to dump twice as many reagents with your current mana/hp buff. Plus making it only 2 slots instead of 3. I wouldn't want it to stack with the Grove series, though, simply because all that mana regen might infringe on chanters. Although, I don't think it would truly imbalance anything, I think one problem with druids and being main healers is their mana regen. However the other reason I wouldn't want it to stack is because it would defeat the whole idea of me using fewer reagents :D . Although I doubt most folks feel as I do, that clerics and druids (and shamans) should become more stackable each with the other, and this a more and more desirable thing. A druid AND a cleric being preferable to either/or. However, this might cause an issue with Brell's?

This also adresses in a small way the fact that druids really don't have an butt saving way to ditch aggro fast. I wonder if it could be made to drop when you melee or something, so that it wouldn't work for melees. Then you could add a minor damage deflection or even absorption to it. Deflecting damage would be preferable, because again if you're wanting the mana regen, it would defeat the purpose to have it gone everytime you get whomped so that you have to recast. However, I'd make this "version" of it self only. Sort of like BAotR for clerics. The programming challenge would be to make it drop with attack coming on, but not drop with spell casting.

Ok I've read most of this thread and I have to say that I really hope clerics dont think that Aeaaaaaamdar(dude how many aas do you need in your name?) speaks for all of us. You make some decent points but why be so mean spirited and negative. When I saw this patch and the new abilities for clerics my first thought was cool some of our raid ae fights just got easier.

I realize that mgb sotw was one of the bigger drawing points raid wise and that this is lessened by giving clerics the mgb instaheal ability but at this point I just dont care. Anything that my makes my guild able to tackle stuff more readily I am good with. Also, on some ae fights if we had good cleric attendance we would put a few clerics out of the chain to help keep groups up and to mgb elixir, blazzax in fire comes to mind. Personally, if you want to recompensate druids for this increase in RAID utility of clerics then clearly the best solution is to ask for a groupheal for druids or a group HoT. Amonra and several other clerics have already stated they think this is very reasonable and makes the most sense of any potential balancing options. Casting natures infusion on 6 people to help keep up with aes is rough and I can only do it so long before Im spent.

Also to the people who suggest that folks won't keep room for ae heals, then i think you raid with some pretty narrow minded raiders. On encounters where we used mgb sotw/paragon/elixir my guildies and I definitely got full use out of ae heals, all that is needed is to remind people to keep the requisite number of buff slots open for the ae dot + ae heals and most folks prefer living to keeping minor buffs.

As for the suggestion that raids dont REQUIRE druids per se this was just as true before this change. Most raids can be effectively handled with about 3 druids to mgb 9, provide backup healing, and to do all the debuffs, after that yeah a cleric is probably better but were still pretty decent. Raiding guilds get druids because we are flexible and we can heal reasonably well and there are only so many clerics who know how to play and arent jerks out there. I think the game is too reliant on clerics myself but I think most guilds will take good druid > dorky cleric these days and that is a pretty good improvement from velious and luclin pre ich.

Outside of raiding I can solo REALLY well, and yet am valuable enough to be able to get groups when I want too for either a healing or dps/evac role. I can go lfg and keep soloing and only take really attractive groups like elemental xp groups or solro groups and if someone from a group in bot or wherever asks I just decline and keep soloing. Seriously not HAVING to group to get xp is really nice, dont kid yourselves that its not. Also there are some non standard group types for pofire, tactics, HoH, etc that work great with druids that have next to no use for a cleric like aggro kiting, charm pet fighting, quadding mobs at fire picnic tables, etc. don't discount these either.

To sum up, congrats clerics, lets ask for a groupheal now =)

Hagglethorn Happyfeet
Nameless Order Prexus

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>You make some decent points but why be so mean spirited and negative. When I saw this patch and the new abilities for clerics my first thought was cool some of our raid ae fights just got easier.[/quote]
The first post that drew the clerics' fire was the following and I wouldn't describe that as mean spirited. This is a druid class board and not your guild board or a raid board, so why expect us to not think in terms of how it affects our class directly or by way of balance?
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><em>Ahh we caught them now!
Now we know they have no problems changing aa timers and abilities!
Every class has a lame aa ability/dicipline.
Also the timers on some aa's make no sense.
I mean sotw should be 15 mintues like the cleric and beastlord abilitys.
So c'mon message board warriors!
Start complaining.
On another note i suspect there is going to be a hell of alot fo Ae traps and monsters in LDON.</em>[/quote]

I replied to this gem :

"Hmm, I see some people are paying attention to some EQCleric trolls again. You know that only results in a bunch of worthless, platinum-spoon-in-their-mouth, pampered, spoiled clerics coming over here to gloat and give us the BS woe-was-me-before-that-latest-buff mantra. You know nothing contructive can ever be learned discussing anything with an EQCleric troll. My prefered solution of simply banning all posters from this board that support the enemy in any way has been rejected before, so no point in bring it up again, but can't we at least ignore them. If we ignore them, they might go away on their own. True, that is not likely, but you won't be as aggravated by arguing with the most overbalanced class in the game. Ahh, well."

Generalization, stereotype and whine all in one.


Belkram

I noted Aaemadar and his responses but that we take a few things for granted now makes this all more comical. Lest we forget how long ago it was that druids could not get groups because they could'nt heal.

Change in any form is hard to accept but change there is, accept it, bitch about it, write your congressman, but move on and see how it plays out first. Not every change is a veiled attempt to undermine your class.


Aamadar LeCambrion
Templar
Fennin Ro

OMG... your names are almost identical! Which is the evil twin? Aaeamadar or Aamadar?