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Dark Age Of Camelot: Cleric 1.60 Team Lead report

| 20 Mar 2003 01:03

Cleric v 1.60 report:

Critical Issues/Bugs:

- Please remove Spell Level based resists.
- Necromancer pets are unaffected by spread heals.
- Necromancers cannot be healed from group mini window.
- Friars and Necromancers using absorb buffs are unaffected by Bunker of Faith.

Non Critical Bugs:

- Self Damage Buff (Mercybringer line) has no casting animation.
- Loss of power when a rez is overwriten or declined remains.
- Self Damage add buff not doing the damage it used to before the Damage add reduction in 1.59. Since this is a self buff, it shouldn't be limited by level.
- Multiple reactive heal buffs can be cast on the same party, although the only buff that is used is the oldest buff cast. This spell should work like resists do, in that the higher level spell overwrites the lower one.

Suggestions:

- The group window is crowded with buffs. Please allow us to toggle viewing positive and negative effects, or also, please list the newest effects first, so that timed buffs will show up first (easier to see when they drop)
- Please change the color of the name of the person we have selected in the group window so that we can better tell who we have selected. Also, it would be nice to change the colors of the names of people who are poisoned or diseased.
- Many clerics complain about our jumbled spell list. We don't know what level a spell is, nor are they in any semblance of order. It would be very nice to have our spells listed by spell line (in the manner that casters have) sorted by level.
- + Power items in the game are not worthwhile to any high level character. Suggest that they are changed to a percentage of power pool increase.

Spec Lines:

Enhancements:

The enhancements line is strong but toward the higher end of the spec experiences a point of diminishing returns. The problem is that people are hitting stat caps with lower level buffs. Also, Clerics with a high level of enhance can't cast many buffs without running out of concentration points, making the highest level buffs useless without many clerics to buff a group.

Enhancement Suggestions:

- Remove the 20 buff hard cap. What is the point of keep our "step-down" buffs when sometimes maxing 20 buffs with the better ones. Buffs should be limited by concentration pool only, not a hard cap.
- Acuity buff should work on all classes who can buy the Augmented Acuity realm ability, and buff the appropriate stat (Charisma for Minstrels, Piety for Clerics/Friars/Paladins)
- The health regeneration buff is fairly useless for anything other than powerleveling at low levels. However, the buff that was proposed in 1.60 and then later removed would have been unbalancing due to its effects on buffbotting. In order to make this spell useful to clerics, perhaps giving it the same values as the regen songs, but yet making the spell self-only, would work better.
- Stat caps from buffs should be removed for level 50 RR 5 players.

Rejuvenation:

The rejuvenation line is good. Most complaints about the rejuvenation line are in the mana efficiency of spec heals. The common complaint is that a cleric will run out of mana much faster than a mage who is nuking a target the cleric is healing. Also, spread heal in most situations is the most efficient spell to cast. Group heal and single target heal need to be made much more attractive to cast by lowering their cost.

Rejuvination Suggestions:

- Evaluate the costs of the higher spec level rejuvenation spells, particularly group heal and single target heal.
- Perhaps add a base level critical for spec heals.
- Add a check in the single target insta heal for it not to be wasted if the target is already fully healed. (We may not know, due to lag)

Smiting:

The smite line is the line most in need of help. Smite clerics complain of poor spell efficiency, high resist rates, lack of criticals on damage, and poor damage output. The PBAE mez suffers not only from the spell level based resists, but also from the AE dropoff, since the only target usually within full effect range is the cleric themselves.

Smiting Suggestions:

- Evaluate the costs of ALL the spec smite spells, particularly in the thought that since the damage was reduced the cost should also be reduced to compensate.
- Allow clerics to purchase the Wild Power realm ability.
- Remove the falloff from the PBAE mez or increase the range of PBAE mez.
- Allow clerics Piety to modify the damage of smite.
- Remove spell level based resists.

Realm Abilities:

Mastery of Blocking: Currently Clerics are the only healing class that does not have mastery of blocking. Many clerics feel this is unfair and would like to be able to purchase this RA.

Battery of Life: Battery of Life costs too much in comparison with its usefulness.

Overall Outlook:

Rejuvination and Enhacnements clerics for the most part feel confident in their abilities. Heals and Buffs could use some slight adjustments but most clerics are happy with the way things are today in those lines, though a few aesthetic changes as mentioned would be quite welcomed.

Smite spec, however, was overly adjusted, while smite clerics were being brought in line with damages most thought they should be doing, defenses were increased at the same time, now in the era of spellcrafting and maxed resists, a smite cleric will waste an entire bar of mana just to kill one enemy, so the cleric is then wasted after just one kill. Smite clerics don't think they should be brought up to the damage of cloth casters given their higher level of defense, but at the same time would like to be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

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Ipno - Cleric
Twoflower - Tourist
GM of Aeonian Prophecy - http://aeonian.shada.com
Palomides Community - http://www.palomides.net

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