Clerics?

[Valenore]

Some small change that would improve quality of life:

1.  Let clerics cast and attack on same turn.  Would make them more fun to level, especially at mid levels and more useful in small groups.

2.  Make animate generally useful.  For curiosity, I just went and tried to animate every mob in QK.  Went 1 for 20ish with the only one landed on a villager (worst mob in zone) that misses on easy mobs most of the time.  Not all that exciting for one of the higher end cleric spells.  A level 20 shaman with average skills would have come out with a full group of spirits, each of which was better.  If the 'normal' animate fails, at least make most mobs provide a reasonable chance at a generic corpse that double very hards or something.   

3.  Make steelskin castable on anyone and reduce its duration too be X number of rounds.  This would give this spell a purpose besides existing to be a rank for tanks to get.  Leave it as a rank and reduce the cost slightly (maybe 10 or 12 instead of 15) because being permanent steelskin would still be nice.  Also gives more group flexibility in that you can try stuff even if your auto-steelskin tank isn't on you can go explore or try things.  If you really want to get fancy, the 'skin' spells could be mutually exclusive so there was a reason to not get the auto-steelskin rank and require druid/cleric to work together on some fights.

4. Make some of the other buffs more useful.  Fortify could be made castable on anyone.  Holy aura could apply an improved protection from evil with double or triple the normal effect or something.

5.  Buff healing mist.

6.  Some of damage spells could be made more useful by moving circles or adding debuffs.  Example could be dispel evil/good could have a chance to ray of enfeeble, mantle, or something.  Sunbolt would be more fun if it were 5th circle instead of 7th.   

[kmark101]

I think shamans and druids should be simply nerfed out of their healing capabilities, simple as that.
When druids best healing was cure critical that was a good balance, since they are mostly offensive and they had stoneskin (which also lost lots of its legendary status due to retardedly op shaman healing).

Shamans are mostly offensive as well in a different way (with hexa-quadraple hitting spirits), they should not be able to heal effectively. They should maybe able to take a player from v.bad to fair and thats it.

Besides that, I think clerics should be able to melee better. There are lots of nice cleric weapons in the game that are barely used because clerics never melee.

I also like the pray to x god idea that another guy posted.

[Jorake]

I’ve mained a cleric several times and always melee. Black mace of the skull or mithril flail. And when you get rapture it’s even better. So that’s lame.

The solution isn’t to nerf things people like playing. Bring clerics up to the same level. Or higher.

[Mick]

The solution isn’t to nerf things people like playing. Bring clerics up to the same level. Or higher.

This x 1000.

[Gnua]

The solution isn’t to nerf things people like playing. Bring clerics up to the same level. Or higher.

Yes, and if there is concern over legendary power creep, the improvements can come in the utility department

• town portal for transport to/from cleric guild in a major town
• locate object on legendary gate mages
• summon all group mates / corpses
• high disable on legendary gate thiefs
• relaxed level restrictions when summoning group mates, clannies, or sleeping targets
• change animate dead legend requirement to healing mist

the only combat buff clerics need is in the groupheal over time department. perhaps healing mist could get stronger over time or just plain old stronger

[Kam]

The primary issue facing clerics today is that shamans and druids are just better. They can do more damage and heal more or less the same as many have said with the exception of just a few fights/situations. When regenerate first went in it was given to clerics and shamans, but later decided that clerics were too powerful with it, and so removed from them. Later as shamans got more powerful with healing wave and now that druids have improved with healing cloud being less nerfed and cure massive/cultivate being added clerics find themselves at the bottom of the healing pool.
The issue isn't only that shamans and druids have a bit too much healing power comparatively but also that clerics just aren't that fun to play if you don't enjoy the challenge of keeping up with your entire group's health. Now, healing scripts have always existed and the people that use them should really just not even speak in this thread, but as a person who uses nothing more complex than a coin looter I can definitely say that healing is some of the most fun you can have.
In any case, the thing is that performing any other action when you are the primary healer is always a gamble because you might need that round to heal or cure instead of using whatever potential future melee skill or damage spell. I've definitely had a few close calls while trying to sunbolt/sunray instead of focusing on healing.

So the real question here is what do we think the overall purpose of a cleric should be?

Let's try to answer that.

[Kadaj]

The overall purpose of the cleric is to cast restoration on someone who wasn't NPP and got energy drained or atonement on a poor DK who didn't cast the impunity spell.

Sure, clerics can be fun when you have to pick and choose which character to heal and what your next action is going to be. However, currently that is not the case (not has it been for a very long time). This game is 100% easier than it was back in the 'glory' days of Arctic. Legendary classes are what killed this game. Period. The power you gain from legendary is so strong, you no longer NEED to have a full group. You no longer NEED to rely on others to strive for a more common goal. You need 2-3 people who can press assist, have an alias to cast 'healing wave' or cast 'healing cloud' and that's it. Outside of a handful of fights, the game is just far too easy. I know personally I'd rather just solo with my characters because I don't have to put up with AFKs and people typing the wrong shit.

Back to the question Kam asked, the cleric has no purpose right now. There's no reason to make a cleric. I would say right now, druids and shamans are similar with healing, giving a little more power to the druid. If you really want to keep clerics in the game, just give them healing cloud or healing wave, leave heal and give them more fire power so that people can just pick the playstyle they want. Druids are fraggers, area'ing and single targeting with spells. Shamans are melee'ing and spirit masters, why not make clerics a mix of both? Giving them decent frags, allowing them to not miss their combat round while casting and give them a few skills to use in combat. That way you can pick and choose again, should I frag, should I do this important melee skill that has X affect on the fight or should I focus on healing?

IMO the only real solution for this entire game is to remove legend and make people be bapting social and NEED to group again. There's absolutely no reason why a druid/barbarian right now can solo 90% of the game. It's just ridiculous.


TL;DR
No one is given the chance to be the 'hero' of a fight with their awesome 'manual healing' because characters got 100% stronger while mobs stayed the same.

P.S.   Give clerics the spell "Cleanse' so they have a chance to be the heroes

[Mick]

Canon answer:
They are the direct servants/representatives of the Krynnish Gods and their powers and abilities should reflect that.


Arctic implementation:

- Abilities/skills/spells that reflect that service. Linked specifically to those gods, or gods of their alignment. An emphasis on healing/group protection and channeling the gods power.

Muddy to code.

[Heo]

Ultimately it should be keeping your group alive I would say.

That means your primary mission is keeping people cured from high mob targeted damage, specials, area effects, debilitating effects that can take people out of combat, etc.


We should also probably discuss what druid and shamans are supposed to be.

Right now I see each class's mission as the following:

Cleric:  Primary healer for group and tank, able to get rid of debuffs like group members being held, blind, feebled, poisoned, or otherwise taken out of play.
Shaman:  Sometimes soloer char that is a balance of healing and damage + offers strong group buffing effects (kind of like bard?)
Druid:  Movement and pure damage
Mage:  Utility and damage + strong area and pvp

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

So what happened?  Druids already had stoneskin, but then were buffed with cure massive and healing cloud.

Shamans got regenerate and healing wave.

So, in general in a group, you're going to cast stoneskin, healing cloud, cure massive, regenerate, or healing wave before you're going to see clerics dishing out cures or heals.  So if there is a druid or a shaman in the group, they are the ones doing all group healing because their spells are safer and go out before cleric spells.  Most tanks prefer to see a regen at good/fair keeping them in good HP, than falling to vbad and hoping the cleric doesn't miss a conc.

Just speaking logically, I would say the smart thing to do would be make the shaman and druid massive healing spells only able to be cast on themselves or their charmies.  That puts healing back on clerics.  Or maybe make it only able to be cast once a day on others or something like that.  Or, if nerfs are at all scary, give those spells in a lower spell circle to clerics.

Basically clerics purpose should always have been keeping the group alive, but with other classes getting buffed far outside what they were supposed to be, clerics have lost their purpose.

[Mick]

Maybe a skill that let you target one char to receive a heal automatically from cleric when it hits a certain level of hp?

[Jorake]

1. Let cleric hit twice
2. Let cleric cast and not lose battle rounds
3. Nerf shaman and Druid area healing(and I hate when shit gets nerfed)
4. Instead of nerfs. Swap healing wave and healing mist for shaman and cleric. Or cloud and mist. Since druids do have more healing power than shamans atm.
5. Give something similar to seance to clerics.
6. Give clerics auto haste and make spiritual hammer a 10d10 10 10 weapon
7. Buff steel skin when cast by a cleric or give them an area group limit damage aura
8. Make cure blind remove poison a group area spell
9. Give them a skill to remove silence
10. Maybe——-maybe... give them gate as a 5th circle spell and make it guild
11. Do 1 through 10(except 6 that’s insane)((but no, do 6. It’ll get crazy funny how everyone will cleric))

[Mick]

Vote yes on 6 :D :D :D

[Heo]

While we're at it, maybe change the following spells for cleric for an easy win:

Prayer - this only lasts 3 tics and is a bless in 4th circle?  Why not make it Prot Good/Evil and Bless and last for as long as a bless would?

Dispel Magic - How about making this remove a negative effect guaranteed so it's more useful for removing debilitating effects in fights?

Healing Mist - already discussed

[Kadaj]

Another good one, give them a 'holy/unholy' shield, would help solo'ing on a cleric

[kanu]

So my idea revolves around a different element of Arctic (that players play primarily to see themselves improve and to learn new things) and references what someone else said in this thread, that Clerics are the representatives of the Gods they serve.

Except that now, that really isn't true since every cleric is the same. What if we differentiated clerics more by the different gods they serve, perhaps via a series of quests that clerics undertook? This would let clerics experience some of the incremental power changes that other classes get as they advance (beyond the increase in the number of spells) and let different people play clerics in different ways.

Further, this would give the Gods of Arctic a chance to see what types of power/skills actually lead to more people playing clerics and the different pathways would offer a natural way to compare these different powers. I think it would be a lot of work to implement but I think the final result would be worth it and would give players lots of new things to try out.