Suggestion My Ideas for a Cleric / Druid Re-work

[Dakinara]

Because I am obsessed with being a healer, I will always play whatever classes are available that best fit that role. However, I am finding the current status of cleric and druid not all that great, and I would say most others agree just based on a simple /hero who druid / cleric giving very low numbers over all (especially cleric my god lol). Part of this is probably due to the lack of heromod healthbars, as healing without them is admittedly pretty annoying. However, Herocraft has had a historic precedent of clerics/ druid being basically frustrating classes to fight 1v1, resulting in nerfs to self healing and other changes to make them less powerful in that realm. However, the result is that now healers just are not very good at keeping up with healing other players either, which is very dissatisfying to me personally. The main change I would propose is a significant rework of cleric and druid by making the majority of their heals target other ally only. A summary of the changes i would make are below:

1) Cleric and Druid should each get one heal at level one that is self only (cannot be cast on allies), with a relatively short cooldown (think 5 seconds) and relatively low healing (basically, give soothe to cleric and druid, make it self only). The cleric version should be a little stronger - whether that means it just heals more, or the druids heals over 5 seconds rather than all at once, or some other option, i dont care really.

2) Basically every other heal should be made other ally only. Remove ability to macro players names to heal (this may be contentious, I would prefer it as a more skillfull method but not mandatory). Rework healing numbers / cooldowns to reflect that these spells are ally only now (rejuv for druid is horrible, heals less than one fireball over 20 seconds. Healing bloom isnt very impressive either, and im sure cleric have some bad ones too). All of these heal cooldowns should be reduced significantly, at a minimumm, other than maybe full heal.

3) Remove self healing from group heals. Make all group heals work like holy aura - only heals other allies. Now all healer self healing is based around that one level 1 spell and can be much easier balanced, can remove 70% self healing reduction, etc.

4) Clerics are horrible to level right now, smite sucks and they do no damage at all really. I would rework smite to basically be like ire but does extra damage to undead still. In addition, give clerics new ability:
Yaulp - For 10 seconds you are granted 20 additional strength and your melee attacks are infused with divine righteousness, setting enemies struck by your melee attacks ablaze! However, you are silenced and cannot cast any spells until yaulp expires. Cannot be toggled off early.
Easy damage buff ability that has to be used carefully in pvp because you cant heal while its up (yourself or others), will make leveling so much faster on cleric.

5) Clerics should get group teleport. Is such a critical group pvp ability, and the most group dependent class should definately get it. Call it "Divine prayer of aid" or whatever, i dont care, but at least one class other than wizzy should have this ability, and it would best fit cleric with these changes. Group teleport should be changed for wizy and cleric to not be usable in combat like recall, if at all possible

Im sure some other changes could be made as well, but this is what i would propose for now. Drastically reduce self healing ability, drastically increase group healing ability and fun of using healing on friends (no more need to make 5 macros for every player you group with!), and easier leveling for clerics.

 

[qroundhawk]

Agree with all points but definitively with 4. Its horrible to level, I am lvl 37 cleric now and it just takes to long to kill a mob even the undead ones. So I hope they put the Yaulp idea of you in, great way to boost dmg in PvE

 

[Jack_Reacher]

Clerics should get group teleport.

HA. Wizards should get heals.

 

[Dakinara]

HA. Wizards should get heals.

meh, if group teleport was taken away from wizards, they would still be an amazing class with great burst, mobility and aoe damage. There is a reason wizard is the most played class always . . . (group teleport). More classes should have it. I would probably give it to bard too lol. But it should not be usable in combat.

 

[0xNaomi]

If a healer can't heal itself decently, then it'll take all of 5 seconds to kill the healer and GG the fight.
I play healer to not need food, not to cower behind others all the time and be otherwise the most useless thing ever.

As for leveling, I consider that to be a side effect. You want to make leveling easier, talk about adjusting undead dmg from skills, because now three skills deal damage to them. Smite/HolyWater/HolyAura skeletons to death, they give good exp this map.

As for a Yalup skill, sounds like something for berzerker, and I can see someone just stacking up the stats for skillless survivability and abuse that to death. Since heals would be so useless on self anyway, what would it matter if your wisdom sucked?

GTP as an idea is just not fitting to a healer. Really, all I can see to make a similar thing fit is to give them a long distance revive, but that'd require death. Basically, don't see it making any sense, though never figured out how a Druid porting made sense either.

If people want to play the shiny new classes with all the damage skills, let them. I'd rather stick to poking them until they die.

 

[Dakinara]

If a healer can't heal itself decently, then it'll take all of 5 seconds to kill the healer and GG the fight.
I play healer to not need food, not to cower behind others all the time and be otherwise the most useless thing ever.

As for leveling, I consider that to be a side effect. You want to make leveling easier, talk about adjusting undead dmg from skills, because now three skills deal damage to them. Smite/HolyWater/HolyAura skeletons to death, they give good exp this map.

As for a Yalup skill, sounds like something for berzerker, and I can see someone just stacking up the stats for skillless survivability and abuse that to death. Since heals would be so useless on self anyway, what would it matter if your wisdom sucked?

GTP as an idea is just not fitting to a healer. Really, all I can see to make a similar thing fit is to give them a long distance revive, but that'd require death. Basically, don't see it making any sense, though never figured out how a Druid porting made sense either.

If people want to play the shiny new classes with all the damage skills, let them. I'd rather stick to poking them until they die.

I never said heals would be useless on self. But the number of heals usable on self should be limited to that it is easier to balance, and so targeting allies is much easier. Maybe the level one heal should heal for 800 health with a 5 second cooldown for all i know - that would be better than all our heals combined right now for the most part and could be adjusted as seen fit. And regarding food, i see no problem giving healers a heal over time that mimics food and can be used in combat but breaks on taking damage.

The goal would not to make healers cower behind people. The goal would be to make healers more offensive in 1v1 fights, while still being able to go full support mode when assisting parties. Which area you prefer could dictate how you use attributes.

When people say things like "GTP doesnt make sense for a healer" i just dont get it. It is a support class, GTP is a support ability to gather allies so you can support them. It makes perfect sense. From a lore perspective, it can be a "prayer" or "divine calling" but it fits very well imo. Same for bard, so many party based abilities, no way to get a party to you.

And yaulp is a classic cleric dnd / everquest/ everything spell. I dunno why it couldnt be made to work here.

 

[0xNaomi]

I never said heals would be useless on self. But the number of heals usable on self should be limited to that it is easier to balance, and so targeting allies is much easier. Maybe the level one heal should heal for 800 health with a 5 second cooldown for all i know - that would be better than all our heals combined right now for the most part and could be adjusted as seen fit. And regarding food, i see no problem giving healers a heal over time that mimics food and can be used in combat but breaks on taking damage.

The goal would not to make healers cower behind people. The goal would be to make healers more offensive in 1v1 fights, while still being able to go full support mode when assisting parties. Which area you prefer could dictate how you use attributes.

When people say things like "GTP doesnt make sense for a healer" i just dont get it. It is a support class, GTP is a support ability to gather allies so you can support them. It makes perfect sense. From a lore perspective, it can be a "prayer" or "divine calling" but it fits very well imo. Same for bard, so many party based abilities, no way to get a party to you.

Balance isn't supposed to be about taking the easy way out.
Targeting allies more easily can be accomplished by other means, which I have previously xplained.
I don't *want* a HOT, I'm a Cleric, not a Druid.
Cleric isn't made to go attacking, it's a healer. I say poke because it's not made to do attacks, the hits are weak.
If you're going to give something GTP for having party abilities, then just give GTP as a universal skil at that rate.

 

[Dakinara]

I dont think this is about taking the easy way out, i think this is reasonably the only way out. The current system will never be balanced for both self healing and party healing. Break the skills into two sets - self heals, other ally heals. Balance as see appropriate.

You could make a cleric basically the exact same thing as it is now with this system, except you dont have to macro everyones name into your spells, and if delf later thinks they are too tanky, he can reduce some of the self healing without making them crappy at healing others.

 

[0xNaomi]

The self heal already is effectively its own thing - it's just shared skill names.
I don't know about you, I'd rather use one bind to heal anyone rather than two bloody sets, otherwise the only one immediately accessible will be the ones to heal me.
If all these extra binds aren't of issue, why *not* just have a "skill" to toggle self healing to target with?

 

[Dakinara]

The self heal already is effectively its own thing - it's just shared skill names.
I don't know about you, I'd rather use one bind to heal anyone rather than two bloody sets, otherwise the only one immediately accessible will be the ones to heal me.
If all these extra binds aren't of issue, why *not* just have a "skill" to toggle self healing to target with?

Because then everytime balance team gets the idea that we have too much self-survivability, they blanket nerf all healing, rather than just self healing.

I dont see why i need 5 skills to heal myself with 15-20 second cooldowns, rather than one skill to heal myself with a 3-5 second cooldown. Same effect, then just turn those other heals into ally only and reduce their cooldown as well.

I am not proposing to increase the number of binds at all, rather drastically reduce them by removing the need to macro peoples names to abilities.

 

[Keache]

Claiming that when /hero who x shows that nobody is playing class x and it is therefore underpowered is a fallacy. I remember clearly that on Dragongarde Disciple was arguably the most powerful class, yet I was the only one who was ever really playing it. Some of your points are very good, but I'd personally try to avoid basing your argument on /hero who x because that never accurately represents the balance of a class at any given time (exception: Dragongarde Bloodmage).

Don't remove macro healing, that's a terrible idea considering how brutal lag can be for targeted abilities, let alone that targeting can be a general pain in the ass when enemis/allies are in the way of your intended target. That just does not work.


I might offer more feedback later. I've got to go run some errands, so I'll just leave it at that for the time being.

 

[Dakinara]

Claiming that when /hero who x shows that nobody is playing class x and it is therefore underpowered is a fallacy. I remember clearly that on Dragongarde Disciple was arguably the most powerful class, yet I was the only one who was ever really playing it. Some of your points are very good, but I'd personally try to avoid basing your argument on /hero who x because that never accurately represents the balance of a class at any given time (exception: Dragongarde Bloodmage).

Don't remove macro healing, that's a terrible idea considering how brutal lag can be for targeted abilities, including it being a general pain in the ass when enemis/allies are in the way of your intended target. That just does not work.


I might offer more feedback later. I've got to go run some errands, so I'll just leave it at that for the time being.

I did not intend that the /hero command shows that these classes are specifically underpowered, but rather that they are unpopular. I would say the main reasons they are unpopular is they take longer to level; there is no heromod to see party health; and the current targetting system is annoying and macroing everyones name in that you want to heal is just blah. It may work fine for tournaments, but random world pvp (or even pve) with people you may group with once or twice a week, its just not a fun system to work with.

I would say that both cleric and druid are still very strong 1v1 pvp classes - but as healers they took a big jump back with this map reset.

 

[AzenYumCha]

The current mechanics on cleric/Druid healing is consistent, but it isn't really that consistent in PvP. I mean, they seem like they provide little reliance in teamfights. As a Druid, I believe this class isn't as designed for burst sustain, meaning that burst/high-DPS classes can knock out the purpose of Druids and now they pose little use. They are still effective with their utility and CC, however it's heals aren't effective against most combat classes.
Since most heals are overtime, they shouldn't have a consistent heal overtime that is even for each tick. The first healing tick should have an X amount of healing done, then the next tick should be a % of the first tick and so forth. This'll compensate for the quick burst damage that most classes tend to have.

In relation to Druids, burst damage-based classes should have a stam/mana deficiency quicker than classes that have less burst damage.
Consistent damage classes should have higher cooldowns on their skills.
Heading should be high mana costing, so they aren't being primarily reliant.

 

[Dakinara]

The current mechanics on cleric/Druid healing is consistent, but it isn't really that consistent in PvP. I mean, they seem like they provide little reliance in teamfights. As a Druid, I believe this class isn't as designed for burst sustain, meaning that burst/high-DPS classes can knock out the purpose of Druids and now they pose little use. They are still effective with their utility and CC, however it's heals aren't effective against most combat classes.
Since most heals are overtime, they shouldn't have a consistent heal overtime that is even for each tick. The first healing tick should have an X amount of healing done, then the next tick should be a % of the first tick and so forth. This'll compensate for the quick burst damage that most classes tend to have.

In relation to Druids, burst damage-based classes should have a stam/mana deficiency quicker than classes that have less burst damage.
Consistent damage classes should have higher cooldowns on their skills.
Heading should be high mana costing, so they aren't being primarily reliant.

Yes i agree druid healing is very blah right now. I mean, its one thing that our heals are over time and so we are susceptible to burst damage, but its another when our heals dont even heal as much damage over time as damage dealt instantly from abilities from a damage class, who also have shorter cooldowns on those abilities. The only saving grace for cleric is full heal and their large number of group heals. Healing other players on a druid at the moment feels pretty pointless, it is only effective at all when the target you are healing is kiting like a mofo to avoid taking damage at all costs.

 

[Taranwandering]

Can the designers create a command to target the nearest ally and another command to target the lowest hp ally? If you could create thesw commands and use them instead of a player name, targeting might be easier for healers and other classes with ally effects

 

[Dakinara]

Can the designers create a command to target the nearest ally and another command to target the lowest hp ally? If you could create thesw commands and use them instead of a player name, targeting might be easier for healers and other classes with ally effects

I mean, maybe they could, but personally i would feel like a bot if my heals automatically targeted the lowest hp ally. I want to have to monitor positions, healthbars, etc and actually choose who i want to heal. Not saying there isnt room for some abilities like this, just my opinion.

 

[0xNaomi]

Because then everytime balance team gets the idea that we have too much self-survivability, they blanket nerf all healing, rather than just self healing.

Here lies the problem - whoever sets healing doesn't like healers. Same reason Layhands doesn't change, and we probably can't ever have it differently.

 

[Dakinara]

Here lies the problem - whoever sets healing doesn't like healers. Same reason Layhands doesn't change, and we probably can't ever have it differently.

Well, i am just hoping they will put in the effort to distinguish between 1v1 survivability and the effectiveness of party healing. A medieval rpg without effective healing classes is missing a key component as far as i am concerned.

 

[Taranwandering]

Thought for Druid:

Why not add a summon wolf skill similar to what ranger has? Perhaps other skills that let it summon/tame minions? This would work with the flavor and also help distinguish Druid as a healer (weaker healing but has minions)