So here I am in a small group ins SSra doing Taskmasters so we can finish getting the pouches.

The cleric I am with is too busy playing with her damn hammers to do her job healing, getting LoM, and saying she doesn't need to sit to med during fights because "I have Yaulp".

So we're killing the Flurrying TM, Tank is at 40%, 30%, 20%, Cleric is still swinging away at the mob and showing no signs that she's gonna heal, so I have to chain cast NI just to keep him alive. Tank is getting pissed, i'm getting pissed, cleric is oblivious.

ost Druids know what's bound to happen next...

I inevitably get summoned, then flurried upon, and the Tank is unable get aggro off me fast enough. Cleric is still fumbling about with her hammer so I have to NI myself to try to stay alive. Yay, more aggro for me, and I proceed to get pummeled into the ground and die, and she's forced to awaken from her state of Stupor.

So they finish off the TM and I get rezzed, after which the Cleric asks "How did you get so much aggro?". My reply? "Because I had to chain cast NI because you were too busy playing with your damn hammer to heal".

Fast forward a few hours for a Raid and Server Crash.

We're heading back to SSra to get more Emp Key pieces. We have no Enchanter, but have 2 or 3 Shaman with our little force, so the Battle Cleric 2 Boxes an Enchanter to bring to SSra and camp at ZI for C3, etc. Enc dies in The Grey right next to SSra ZI, so we have to futz around for 15 min for rez and medding so she can do C3. The Cleric now wants to have the Enc. with us and on /follow.

I see the huge problem with where this is heading, and say i'd rather her just camp the Enc and put all her focus on playing the Cleric. Cleric gets pissed and logs out both chars. We no longer have a Cleric or Enchanter, and the rest of the group is now pissed at me because they didn't see how bad she was earlier and think i'm telling her how to play.

All this BS because of Battle Clerics and their damn Hammers.

That's not a Battle Cleric problem, that's a "You're a dumbass" Cleric problem.

No, that's just a "You're a dumbass" player problem.

Obviously someone who zoomed to 65 because of the widespread availability of newbie kei and virtue! /sigh

Tia

<strong>Obviously someone who zoomed to 65 because of the widespread availability of newbie kei and virtue! /sigh</strong>

Probably had 200 days played. =P

A lot of clerics aren't *used* to playing battle cleric because we didn't get the proccing hammers till 56. Before that we had to sit and stare at health bars until our eyes crossed. I eventually got pretty good at playing battle cleric and eventually got to the point where I could make good use of DvA and group heals to keep everyone up in easy xp areas. However, anyplace where I was having issues keeping up with doing both, combat stopped and I went pure healing mode.

All of my cleric friends were the exact same way. Most were even more conservative than me.

So yeah, moron cleric alert.

Actually, I have grouped with this Cleric on many occasions, and she's is a damn good cleric, as long as she's not futzing with the hammer.

Oh well, guess I'm old school ... you knew what your job was and was gonna be like when you decided to be a cleric. You knew it was endless hours of sitting and healing ... guess I get pissed when a cleric plays battle cleric SO much they FORGET their primary purpose is to heal. Cuz then I gotta do it and that pisses me off to be main healing WITH a cleric on group. I figure, if I WANTED to be main healer in group, I woulda been a cleric or not grouped with a cleric.

It's cuz battle clerics forget and get sloppy that I gotta stop doing my job to cover their butts. And then, when the ceric bitches at me cuz someone drops ... man I just wanna smack em down.

Call me disgruntled, I don't care ... I know my function/job and do it .... wish some of these *battle clerics* would do the same. Face it, you are NOT a melee class, so stop trying to be one .... IMHO

Actually, the original description of clerics had 'battle clerics' usually dwarves, and 'pure healing' clerics, everyone else. Abshai posted once that they had always intended that there be two 'paths' to take, where the battle cleric would emphasize melee, ac, etc more and do a lot of crowd control, while the 'sit and med' cleric was strictly a healer, emphasizing wis/mana over all else.

It actually works just fine till about 30, 35 or so. After that it's hard to be a viable battle cleric. The 56 hammer was an attempt to make it viable again, but mostly it seems to have confused clerics who either never wanted to be one in the first place or had given up trying.

I like being in groups with Battle Clerics. I think it's good for their class and EQ in general. It also gives them just a little taste of what it's like to play multiple roles in a group setting (although some good Clerics already do this) like we've had to do for so long.

Obviously, the problem here lies with the player, not the class or it's abilities. Let's not practice the very thing we loathe on other class boards, namely stereotyping a class based on a few isolated examples.

In this case, I personally would have suggested that the Cleric have to drive both characters around rather than log the Enchanter. I don't think you would have looked unreasonable at all (why should the bot get freebie xp?) and if s/he then failed to do his/her job, it would be obvious who's fault it was. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20 :P

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<strong> A lot of clerics aren't *used* to playing battle cleric because we didn't get the proccing hammers till 56.</strong>

Eah? Really, what does that have to do with anything? A half decent cleric will be meleeing and nuking if their mana is close to full. I'd be smacking things with my brawl stick if we had a slower in the party and mana was good. Any cleric that sits on their ass with a full manabar should be shunned regardless of if they're high enough to have a proccing hammer or not.

Moving behind a mob, and pressing auto-attack once... Combat in EQ is not exactly mentally taxing. Maybe you should suggest she moves the group health bars down beside her bash button next time so she can see them.

"I like being in groups with Battle Clerics. I think it's good for their class and EQ in general."

So do I. What you described was not a Battle Cleric(as duly noted).

If you are in a good group, breaking up the monotony is never bad.

I was in a group once, and the clerics(yes there were 2), were playing "How low can he go". Freaked me out at first, but after they explained, seemed like a fun game. Kept everyone awake on a midnight gem/exp grind.

<strong>I was in a group once, and the clerics(yes there were 2), were playing "How low can he go". Freaked me out at first, but after they explained, seemed like a fun game. Kept everyone awake on a midnight gem/exp grind.</strong>

"Keep the warrior berzerk" was a popular late-night pass time pre-PoP. ;)

At least you didn't have the "how many times can he go unconcious" clerics. Gaud, talk about ulcers, cause the druids know who's next on the aggro list... either you, or the enchanter who you'll have to spot heal!

Imagine that said "unconscious".
Shut up. :P

Eah? Really, what does that have to do with anything? A half decent cleric will be meleeing and nuking if their mana is close to full. I'd be smacking things with my brawl stick if we had a slower in the party and mana was good. Any cleric that sits on their ass with a full manabar should be shunned regardless of if they're high enough to have a proccing hammer or not.

Clerics don't melee as a general rule past the mid-20s. Our combat skills are laughable generally, and without a proc we don't do much more than fan mobs. Also, assuming a cleric main, struggling to keep up with mana in groups that like to chain pull meant a lot of sitting down and squeezing out every possible opportunity to med. Not conducive to getting up and meleeing.

As far as cleric nukes go, the instant a cleric nukes there is a tendency for someone in the group to say "knock that off!" Again, I found myself more often than not, growing up, having to constantly struggle for mana to keep everyone alive. It was rare that I had mana to spare for such "trivial" uses as nuking or melee.

To clarify, what I mean by "struggle" in relation to mana was that I was almost never above 90m, and the occasional bad/overpull might have me down to 10-20m before it was done. These situations instilled in me, as they do most clerics, the feeling that we *have* to sit and med constantly, maybe tossing out a nuke if we hit 100m.

Obviously clerics who grew up with KEI might be better at this, but I grew up with C1, with C2 being "uber" in my low 50s.

oving behind a mob, and pressing auto-attack once... Combat in EQ is not exactly mentally taxing. Maybe you should suggest she moves the group health bars down beside her bash button next time so she can see them.

LOL @ the bash button comment!

What I found was my initial mistakes centered around:
* Watching my damage, especially procs, and gooing "ooooooh" when I saw them.
* Keeping myself in melee range, and behind the mob (you'd be suprised how much they can bounce around.)
* Forgetting to retarget to the player who needed healing.

Those two factors diverted attention for me away from the party's life bars. Basically I wasn't used to splitting my attention, and since all I did was spam the bash button you're humorous comment about putting the party box there wouldn't have helped.

Where I got better was when I learned to split attention a bit better, and when I disciplined myself to focus on healing first. The initial excitement of having a proccing hammer can be a little heady for a newly minted 56+ cleric.

"Where I got better was when I learned to split attention a bit better"

I like that.

How many classes are there which have to split their attention between mobs and players?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>How many classes are there which have to split their attention between mobs and players? [/quote]

Paladins do quite a bit actually, or so they tell me. I find myself glancing at health bars quite a bit as my beastlord and taking note when someone is getting hurt that shouldn't be...

Some habits are hard to break I guess ;)

I noticed my druid training of watching player health, mob health and battle spam in SWG...comes in very handy. =)

<strong>Clerics don't melee as a general rule past the mid-20s. Our combat skills are laughable generally, and without a proc we don't do much more than fan mobs. Also, assuming a cleric main, struggling to keep up with mana in groups that like to chain pull meant a lot of sitting down and squeezing out every possible opportunity to med. Not conducive to getting up and meleeing.</strong>

Meleer damage in the 50s isn't THAT much better than priests and whacking stuff with a brawl stick with 100% haste I could outagro ye-average-untwinked-meleer in Velkator's. Buffed you're hitting on most swings from behind for over 100, which is a lot for a Velkator's mob.

As a druid healing it was 400 mana to heal 880, I wouldn't have the time to do anything but sit on my butt, with a cleric that could reliably heal over 3k for 400 mana however it gave lots of time to club things like they were baby seals.

Nice to know L1ndra :) All I can say is that I, and most of the clerics I knew (actually all the clerics I knew, but I suppose I'm just a newb) grew up having to sit/med constantly for fear of not having enough mana when the stuff hit the fan. I hit the 50s in the end of SoL and could almost never get groups in Velks/Seb or anywhere else. I wasn't wanted because cleric healing was overpowered and anything else we were laughably underpowered. I came perilously close to quitting at that time.

Needless to say, I have great sympathy for druids who claim to be frutrated LFG...

I didn't start grouping regularly again until PoP came out, and again couldn't afford to do anything but heal full-time for a good while into the expansion. If I blinked, or took a bio, people died. It was challenging and I loved it.

When I started using the hammer, I wasn't used to splitting my attention. I was a CR*PPY battle-cleric for that reason. Eventually, I learned, and learned not to battle-cleric unless I was in danger of falling asleep from lack of anything to do. I also got quite good at splitting my attention, but its not a skill native to most cleric players. Its not impossible to get, its just not common to cleric mains, especially if its their first high level character (as mine was.)

Of course, in the end, I realized I was burned out, totally burned out, on being a cleric. Playing battle-cleric made me realize that. So, here I am, beastlord troll and cleric apologist on the druid boards...LOL

Zarros,

I am glad you drop by these boards. While people may not always agree with you, you state your opinion and move on without escalation. I find your perspective revealing and your input honest. I am glad you lurk on these boards Mr. Beastie Troll retired Cleric lurker. :)

Take care.

Aye, welcome :)

I've grouped with clerics who got right in there fighting and do a great job. As a druid, I'm there to patch quickly if someone needs it, and I'm happy to help.

I've probably been lucky in not having grouped with many clerics who completely forget to heal.

I DID trade off roles one day in ToV with a higher level cleric whose nukes hit for a lot more than mine did :) We weren't an MA group and she was pretty darned aware when someone needed a heal anyway.

I say, more fun is GREAT for all involved!!

Thanks for the kind words.

I don't mind patch healing. I don't mind backing the cleric. I don't mind a cleric tossing a few nukes or melee cuz they bored. I don't mind any of that as long as the cleric knows their PRIMARY job is healing. NOT melee and forget to heal. NOT nuke so much they oom and I gotta take over as primary. As for multi tasking, I have a 59 Paladin that groups regularly with a chanter and cleric. My cleric girl has no problem managing her mana with heals, nukes and buffs. I never watch my health bar when she heals because i know it will be there. I never watch for LoH unless she tells me to watch cuz I know it will be there. How do I know this? She a fantastic cleric who knows her MAIN job is keeping her tank alive.

As for my Druid, she groups with the same chanter and cleric and again, I'm not having to worry about it because the cleric has NO problem sitting down and doing cleric stuff nor does she have a problem managing mana.

ost times when my Paladin or Druid heals, it is simply out of boredom, not out of need for lack of cleric ability.

Hehehe..

So many variables..

How many HP's did said tank have at 20%, what Ac did they have.. how much dmg were they taking.. 20% hp can equal a lot of hp's these days especially when facing ssra mobs...

So the cleric didnt heal even at 20%, is that a bad thing? maybe.. if the cleric knew how many HP etc they tank had, maybe they knew exactly when to heal etc etc....

just a reminder for those that are so quick to preach ;)

Heals needed are relative to the encounter, druids often patch or CH when they arent needed to.. hence they get agro and die.. as they have not the AC/HP that clerics get for that exact purpose..

Anyway..just my 2c

:)

A valid point, but I think that most people are referring to pick up group EXP grind /LFG clerics. These /LFG tanks aren't going to have the HP's to fiddle with being healed at 20%......and why take the risk? Just heal early and don't try to put suspense into it. I two box my wifes cleric all the time and we start healing at 60% in Tier 2. All the cleric does is heal, so why risk getting the tank killed.

my 2 cents

My philosophy with my 2-boxed cleric is it's better to heal on the early side and waste a bit of mana than it is to heal too late and waste everyone's time.

Then again, 2-boxed clerics don't get bored and melee because they're bored. :p

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> I was in a group once, and the clerics(yes there were 2), were playing "How low can he go". Freaked me out at first, but after they explained, seemed like a fun game.[/quote]

We call it The Purple Club in my guild. Clerics can get a tank to 75% health from purple, druids can get about 40%. Our tanks are used to it by now that they don't even flinch.

Of course, it may have something to do with clerics and druids chanting "PURPLE PURPLE PURPLE" whenever a cleric starts a CH at 50% on a quad-900 mob.

The trick to the purple club is support healers. Druid's gotta know to cast NI if health is going down too fast to "time" the CH landing at just the right moment (less than 1%). It's trivial to do in the old world. But insanely fun in PoEarth.

As far as battle clerics go. It seems our dorf clerics are more predispositioned to it than our elf clerics. Of course ... It seems everyone is a battle something or other these days. Enchanters, druids and one particular necro who happens to enjoy tanking PoWater yard trash.

Wizzies and mages prefer to stay out of melee for their own reasons.

The weapons that proc mana-drain might have a lot to do with the resurgence of battle-casters. One of our enchanters procced for 300 mana during a fight.

Now I want one.

hmm my solution to the above situation?

load succor...let tank die...evac group.../q !!!

= )

okay just kidding..or am I?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>We call it The Purple Club in my guild. [/quote]

As a two boxing cleric/druid, I have to say, this is probably the most fun you'll have healing in an exp group. My best RL friend plays a shaman/warrior. While he hates (and I mean furiously hates) being purple when getting a cheal, my sides are hurting from the laughing. When he goes unconscience and back up to full health is just priceless :P

Best record to date with spamming chloroblast (haha on a 9khp tank, chloroblast is a joke)
4 unconscience's and one purple in a row on the same mob.

Rinok has been knocked unconscience
Rinok has been healed for 436hps
Rinok has been knocked unconscience
Rinok has been healed for 436hps
Rinok has been knocked unconscience
Rinok has been healed for 436hps
Rinok has been knocked unconscience
Rinok has been healed for 436hps
Rinok has been completely healed

BTW, I don't think I could survive single box'ing a cleric in a normal exp group. My hats off to the ones who do. (must... play... gems...)

Elder Alaten
Storm Warden

Valisx Stormshield
Archon

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>4 unconscience's and one purple in a row on the same mob[/quote]

If you're on Terris Thule or are thinking of moving servers, you would be welcome in my guild.

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