Goblin Squad Member
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Not that i have much personal experience in mmorpgs, but to my understanding the classic mmorpg"healer" is just on part of "the Trinity", correct?
In case this needs to be brought back to memory, there are very good reasons why the trinity isn´t planned to be/and should not be a part of this game.
As he has far more experience on the matter and explains it far more eloquetly then i could i will link, again, some of the thinkg Prof. Richard A. Bartle had to say on the matter.
-The Evolution of the Trinity
-The Decline of MMOs
Sidenote: my main issue with playing a healingfocused cleric was the targeting system, and that will be adressed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just started playing Alpha 8 last week, and I have a lot of the same concerns (some of which I already posted and did receive some good advice!). My preferred role is also cleric in both PnP and MMOs. I prefer to heal and support. Dishing out damage just hasn't interested me as much.
I've played Ultima Online, but can't remember it well enough to compare to PFO. I most recently came from DDO where combat and healing is MUCH different than PFO, and I’ve been struggling. So far I've managed to heal a bad guy and attack myself (which flagged me as an aggressor). I hope attacking myself is a bug. I've also watched my poor husband die numerous times because I couldn't heal him fast enough. But I think that's mostly due to the fact that I only have the one healing Orison.
Touch range healing is really new to me, but I think I'm getting better with practice. Right now I think there will need to be very good coordination and communication between healers and other players.
Thanks to advice from others on the boards (thank you to KoTC Edam Neadenil and T7V Jazzlvraz), I've had pretty good luck killing guys with combinations of Doom, Bleeding Touch, Holy Lance, and Touch of Darkness. I keep focusing on this because I’m trying to get the Divine 6 achievement so I can gain a level. Is there any other way to get Divine achievements in the Alpha?
I can’t say that I love things right now, but I seem to be getting better the more I play. I haven’t joined a company yet, so I hope all my posts about struggling won’t make people scared to let me join! ;-)
We have lots of clerics and cleric training in Tavernhold! :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would still love to see something like the insignia dynamic from 3.5 where I can give my party members an insignia or token of some kind and be able to target folks with those items as a group at range. Maybe the insignias could be crafted items of different tiers. Maybe they would have to be slotted to help balance them out.
I was able to use the 50 point healing orison to decent effect backing up the primary meat shield in a stationary slug fest, but when the archer or wizard got in trouble and were back peddling for their lives I found it extremely difficult to get into position and time the spell with everyone moving.
I did find the party member bars to be very helpful for keeping an eye on hit points and targeting the orison so I didn't cure the ogres.
PFO is my only MMORPG experience so my only real comparison is table top.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The trinity discussion has been done to death. There's no need to rehash it again.
If a PnP cleric spams Mass Cure Light Wounds while a wizard if the same level spams Fireball, the cleric will not come out ahead despite using a higher level spell.
Mixing a Communal Resist Energy into the mix changes that.
Clerics that have the ability to reduce damage taken are inherently different from ones that undo damage after it is done. There are already a couple of cleric feats that provide improved resistances.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Spamming heals all battle is sub optimal in PFO and I have to say I love it. Trinity lovers can eat crow.
Personally I am not looking for the ability to negate most of the parties damage, and I am not trying to make a one dimensional heal bot, but my current healing capabilities hardly seem relevant right now. They are almost numerically irrelevant at 50 points per heal, and they are difficult to use (for me anyway).
I imagine healing will become relevant when expendables and other stuff come on line, but as it stands now I help the party out more with my short bow than all of my cleric stuff combined.
On top of that I am having trouble advancing as cleric due to the achievement structure.
Of course, I might be making sub optimal playing and building choices due my big lack of experience, but if I am I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Spamming heals all battle is sub optimal in PFO and I have to say I love it. Trinity lovers can eat crow.Personally I am not looking for the ability to negate most of the parties damage, and I am not trying to make a one dimensional heal bot, but my current healing capabilities hardly seem relevant right now. They are almost numerically irrelevant at 50 points per heal, and they are difficult to use (for me anyway).
I imagine healing will become relevant when expendables and other stuff come on line, but as it stands now I help the party out more with my short bow than all of my cleric stuff combined.
On top of that I am having trouble advancing as cleric due to the achievement structure.
Of course, I might be making sub optimal playing and building choices due my big lack of experience, but if I am I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.
The resistance spells to conditions seem to be what the class is built around. But it's hard to tell what to cast with no info and pretty much every condition using the same animation.
The achievement structure I agree with.
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We have lots of clerics and cleric training in Tavernhold! :)
Thank you for the gracious invite, I do appreciate it! But I just joined the Keepers of the Circle. Their Ring philosophy and the Ring of Light really drew me in. But I hope to visit Tavernhold someday! I hear you have an entire group dedicated to Desna, and everyone knows that she's just the best deity ever ;-)
In regards to advancing as a cleric, I am also struggling. Just the other day, I decided to run around a heavily advanced escalation area and I just picked off the small groups of 2-3 guys. I got more kills doing that for 15 minutes, than I did running in a group for an hour because our wizard was getting all the kills.
That being said, I'm hoping the changes that Bob Settles mentioned in the Divine Achievements thread will help once implemented.
I think I'm also struggling because I am used to ranged healing, since I came from DDO. But I'm getting better the more I play. Though I really wish I could organize my spells on the hotbar in any way I choose. I know how I need to organize things in order to be effective and I don't like being forced to put my spells in a certain area. The other day I accidentally attacked my husband instead of healing him. Major oops! I went from over 7k reputation to just about 700. If I can't get more coordinated, I may be in bad shape!
Also, if I want to run with 6 secondary orisons, why can't I? Maybe I haven't played enough to see that this would be a bad idea?
Do spells cast from a holy symbol have the same placement restrictions? I've not been able to train any yet, so I have no experience with them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Primaries--in all categories, not just orisons--are designed to use less Stamina, do less damage, and to impose Conditions; Secondaries use more Stamina, do more damage, and take advantage of the Conditions set by Primaries. They're designed to be complements, and to allow your Primaries to set Conditions that you and others in your group can take advantage of, while their Primaries open chances to use yours most effectively as well.
When it comes to mixing damage and heal/buffs, my co-ordination is so poor that I've started keeping both weapon slots filled with foci, and then having one focus's toolbar slots filled with damaging orisons, and orisons supporting damage, and the other filled with healing and buffing. I switch between the two depending on whether there's anyone else around who might need me not to damage her :-).
I'm frustrated by the "credit goes only to the killer" aspect as well. Well over 80% of my Focus Expert increments have come while I solo, as I've found few folks who do less damage than I, and simple statistics keep me from collecting while I'm near others.
I hope fixing the broken-recipe problem will allow groups to begin forming again, as I hope to find that kill-credit is shared in groups. I've yet to hear anyone say definitively yay or nay about that.
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Primaries--in all categories, not just orisons--are designed to use less Stamina, do less damage, and to impose Conditions; Secondaries use more Stamina, do more damage, and take advantage of the Conditions set by Primaries. They're designed to be complements, and to allow your Primaries to set Conditions that you and others in your group can take advantage of, while their Primaries open chances to use yours most effectively as well.
This makes a lot of sense. I'll have to start paying more attention to the spell effects. So far I've been more concerned that I cast the right spell, and not whether or not it was coordinated well.
Though I'd still like more flexibility of placement. If two spells complement each other, I'd like to put them next to each other! For me that would be more intuitive.
When it comes to mixing damage and heal/buffs, my co-ordination is so poor that I've started keeping both weapon slots filled with foci, and then having one focus's toolbar slots filled with damaging orisons, and orisons supporting damage, and the other filled with healing and buffing. I switch between the two depending on whether there's anyone else around who might need me not to damage her :-).
I've also considered doing this! Glad to see someone else thinking the same thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If two spells complement each other, I'd like to put them next to each other!
Perhaps, given the limitations, you might like my idea: put them in the same "slot": 1 pairs with 4, 2 with 5, 3 with 6. If you use it for a bit, your fingers might be able to get used to it.
A side benefit is that I sometimes find, for example, that 2 matches with 5, and 5 then makes a good pre-cursor for 6.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We have lots of clerics and cleric training in Tavernhold! :)Thank you for the gracious invite, I do appreciate it! But I just joined the Keepers of the Circle. Their Ring philosophy and the Ring of Light really drew me in. But I hope to visit Tavernhold someday! I hear you have an entire group dedicated to Desna, and everyone knows that she's just the best deity ever ;-)
In regards to advancing as a cleric, I am also struggling. Just the other day, I decided to run around a heavily advanced escalation area and I just picked off the small groups of 2-3 guys. I got more kills doing that for 15 minutes, than I did running in a group for an hour because our wizard was getting all the kills.
That being said, I'm hoping the changes that Bob Settles mentioned in the Divine Achievements thread will help once implemented.
I think I'm also struggling because I am used to ranged healing, since I came from DDO. But I'm getting better the more I play. Though I really wish I could organize my spells on the hotbar in any way I choose. I know how I need to organize things in order to be effective and I don't like being forced to put my spells in a certain area. The other day I accidentally attacked my husband instead of healing him. Major oops! I went from over 7k reputation to just about 700. If I can't get more coordinated, I may be in bad shape!
Also, if I want to run with 6 secondary orisons, why can't I? Maybe I haven't played enough to see that this would be a bad idea?
Do spells cast from a holy symbol have the same placement restrictions? I've not been able to train any yet, so I have no experience with them.
Yes the Dream Seekers are awesome!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Primaries--in all categories, not just orisons--are designed to use less Stamina, do less damage, and to impose Conditions; Secondaries use more Stamina, do more damage, and take advantage of the Conditions set by Primaries. They're designed to be complements, and to allow your Primaries to set Conditions that you and others in your group can take advantage of, while their Primaries open chances to use yours most effectively as well.
When it comes to mixing damage and heal/buffs, my co-ordination is so poor that I've started keeping both weapon slots filled with foci, and then having one focus's toolbar slots filled with damaging orisons, and orisons supporting damage, and the other filled with healing and buffing. I switch between the two depending on whether there's anyone else around who might need me not to damage her :-).
I'm frustrated by the "credit goes only to the killer" aspect as well. Well over 80% of my Focus Expert increments have come while I solo, as I've found few folks who do less damage than I, and simple statistics keep me from collecting while I'm near others.
I hope fixing the broken-recipe problem will allow groups to begin forming again, as I hope to find that kill-credit is shared in groups. I've yet to hear anyone say definitively yay or nay about that.
That sound pretty cool; I may have to try that orison lay out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That sound pretty cool; I may have to try that orison lay out.Primaries--in all categories, not just orisons--are designed to use less Stamina, do less damage, and to impose Conditions; Secondaries use more Stamina, do more damage, and take advantage of the Conditions set by Primaries. They're designed to be complements, and to allow your Primaries to set Conditions that you and others in your group can take advantage of, while their Primaries open chances to use yours most effectively as well.
When it comes to mixing damage and heal/buffs, my co-ordination is so poor that I've started keeping both weapon slots filled with foci, and then having one focus's toolbar slots filled with damaging orisons, and orisons supporting damage, and the other filled with healing and buffing. I switch between the two depending on whether there's anyone else around who might need me not to damage her :-).
I'm frustrated by the "credit goes only to the killer" aspect as well. Well over 80% of my Focus Expert increments have come while I solo, as I've found few folks who do less damage than I, and simple statistics keep me from collecting while I'm near others.
I hope fixing the broken-recipe problem will allow groups to begin forming again, as I hope to find that kill-credit is shared in groups. I've yet to hear anyone say definitively yay or nay about that.
I like it, too. When the server comes back up, I'll give it a try.