EZ Server

I've read your concerns about clerics not being the top healer compared to paladins, and I think I would like to change that.

What would you all think of a cone AE CHeal for clerics? It would have greater health than the aoe heal that clerics get now, but a longer recast (I was thinking of doing it on the epic to replace the crap that never gets used right now.)

Obviously I won't change anything without running it through Hunter, but... I would like to see your inputs.

I don't know if that would make clerics any more in demand. People who already have their 2-3 pally's setup will keep using them. Why switch you can just keep going w/what you have. The pally heal proc is already good enough to keep everyone in the group alive in most  if not all situations. If anything you'd want to shorten the cast and recast time, and/or maybe even give them another type of HP buff to stack w/what is already out there. I don't know that I can see clerics over taking pally's as the main healers w/o some big change in the content or the class itself.

This is the land of boxing. Minimal effort for maximum effect will be what is used.
I don't see cleric healing, no matter how buffed, becoming relevant enough to warrant
the shift from paladins in the absence of;

(a) a decrease in paladin potency
or
(b) encounters which don't promote melee range healing

I could be wrong.

I would love to see cleric healing become worthwhile.  I have two t2 geared clerics that I just feel are a wasted group slot right now.

Maybe a regen effect on the group heal.  So it heals you and leaves a short term regen effect for several thousand health. It would have to be pretty high though because I don't think oracle would affect it with the current coding.

No you're pretty much right no w/that. It's all about efficiency. You have to figure out to make a cleric just as efficient at healing or more efficient than a pally. Maybe a beefed up ae HoT spell, that has another effect like an hp buff or ac buff while the HoT is on. Basically that's all your pally is, an ae HoT, cept he adds dps too and can tank if needed too.  So how are you going to make a cleric more or just as useful as that?

heal proc is so effective, it breaks the balance. Call me extreme, but get this out and the healers will have a job again

How about a crafters guild aug for clerics that procs a group heal or rune, works for both boxes and people actually playing clerics. :)

The first cleric I see up meleeing on a mob will get coth'd off the side of the island in PoG (PoA). They do it again and I am going to teleport them to lavastorm.

I think that a massive HoT would help alot if it was several thousand HP every 6 seconds for atleast a minute or so. It would amost be like Druid 3.0 but shorter duration and group.
This would allow you to cast it going into a fight and make those first few secondsa little easier.
Also consider beefing up the Bulwark line maybe.  Maybe a flat 10% absorb or 20%absorb that lasts only a minute or so.

If you did CH it would have to be very short cast time with a decent recast.  However if you have long recast boxing people will not want to use it.

Remove the CH tag from the CH spells so they get all the focus benefits.
Cut the cast time on word of redemption from its base by like 4 seconds or so since enc spell haste does not effect it.
Maybe increase the base heal value on the top 4 or 5 heals by a few percent.

Honestly would probably take all the above to make it worth while to use a cleric over a paladin other then for DI'ing.
Even with max oracles the healing ability just sucks, I could not proc for several combat rounds and still heal more on a paladin.

I have some old screen shots and under the old charm system I was doing bigger heals with no oracle then I can do with no oracle now. So some where along the line things got disjointed and it just added up and added up until it became obvious that boxing 3 clerics per tank was not worth it when you could box 1 or 2 paladins and do the job twice over.

+1  :P

It might also work to add to cleric AE heals something that removes the root that bosses do.  Make it take a few casts or something but that would be a semi-unique addition since radiant cure has a CD.

Radiant cure use to remove that root in one cast. Now it doesnt.
Manastones ftw to get rid of root.

Another idea, lower mana cost on cleric t3 spell, reduce cast time and maybe even make it group heal.
Dont make it cheap enough to spam with in a macro but let a cleric get 2 or 3 off before having to med a little.

So any plans to work on this? How about lowering the mana cost of the T3 spell for starters and maybe swap the cast time and recast time. Like 1 sec cast time 3.5 sec recast delay?????

Bring it on, I got several unused clerics sitting around full T4 with 4.0's.

Well if this is the idea thread for clerics I would personally scrap the T3 and T4 spell. T3 is meh at best and T4 is a buff that is cool but since it doesnt stack with shm and everyone has a shm or has access to one its a wasted spell.
Being that clerics are the prime EQ healer I would adjust T3 single target heal to be more mana friendly but not cheap enough to spam macro and I would modify T4 into a group heal.
Something like 15,000 pt base heal cure 65 counters. Of course mana cost is debatable. Hunter doesnt want these spells to be cheap and I dont want to see them spam macro'd but I also really hate the 25k-50k cost. I think thats kinda meh.

Not everyone has UC and the spell cost shouldnt be set with that in mind. I would aim to let the "average" (oracle50 on a cleric) player cast it 2-3 times before being oom. Lets you do your word of viv thing and every 20 seconds or so throw in the big heal to top everyone off.
At least that is how I view it.

Discuss?

The cleric 3.0 that has the 400% extra to healing spells is good for t1-t2, But there needs to be a Higher Teir vearsion of there spells (the ones we all use theres only 2 or 3 of them) that either drops from T2 or a stackable Focue effect to bring it up

How about a group buff that gives all players in group a proc buff that is a scaled down version of the paladin epic proc? Could make it short duration and heal similar in range of a necro 3.0 pet proc. Possibly add a cure component and/or give the initial cast also act as a simple group heal.  Only downside is stackability but that's no different than druids.  This could help give an edge in melee centric groups for an otherwise undesired class.  Just a thought...

Terrific idea. +1

I like this idea also, if groupability is a concern, make it a fairly short duration so you would want to keep the cleric in the group.

Dont want another buff that has to be cast constantly. Because on this server that shit would last like 30seconds and I want to either see Krujos' idea about a upgraded focus of healing buff for cleric (anyone remember their old t2 bp?) or see t3/t4 spells upgraded to be useful heals.
Your idea is good but I just dont see it working out in a good way for this server.

Make it the clicky off the epic then ... and continue to upgrade their spell line as suggested.

I'd put my 3.0 cleric back in my group with that effect, regardless of 1 min duration or not.  I'd happily alt-tab every 60 seconds and hit one button for that kind of effect, personally.

All they need is better heal focus buff or better heal that can actually be cast a couple times.
I mean holy smolly you seen the paladin t4 heal?
That shit makes me wet

My guilds breaking into T3 currently, I play a cleric in the group because the extra healing is nice and my pally doesn't have his T2 BP yet, plus DI comes in real handy.  Second named we killed dropped the cleric T3 spell, which i think nice.  With the epic focus, and oracle charm, this thing is practically a CH for the tank as we stand currently, the only issue is, that it's completely pointless for us due to it's cast time.  3.5 seconds it takes me to cast which is 3 combat rounds or so.

Like i said, we're breaking into T3 so our MT doesn't have 200k health, or anywhere approaching that, so 3 combat rounds of unlucky streaks involves a dead tank.  also, we have 2 pallys in melee procing heals, 3 combat rounds for them can be between 0 and 240k heals on the group.  The way things work currently with the vast majority of attacks on the tank being misses, and the ones that get through hitting like trucks, means mobs dps isn't very stable, it's spikey, as are pally heals etc.

Basically what this rambling comes to is, combat in eq1 is NOT friendly to slow casting DH as it stands, thats why CH chains were developed.  Things that help deal well with spikes however, are spells that take the edge of hits, stonewill for example, which decreases the damage by 35% while it's up, is an excellent heal(kinda) ability, and takes the spike damage down into managable realms.  Clerics do have a spell thats identical to stonewill, except it's much much weaker.  Panalopy of Vie.  Every time someone is hit, it takes 10% of the damage off, untill it's used up (2k or so).  I would propose that a much better T3 spell would be an upgraded version of this, which decreases the spike factor of fights.  If your going to keep the 25k mana cost, it needs to be a large amount, say enough to last about 20 seconds of combat absorbing 25% of incoming damage with a T3 named, and then something similar for T4.  This would make playing a cleric better since it deals more with the spikes, giving time for heals being cast to take effect.  Alternatively, give the T3 heal spella  cast time of 0.5 seconds, so when it needs to be cast you can actually get it in before the mob turns the tank into a pretty smear.

TL:DR - panalopy of vie upgrade for T3/4 or make cast time near instant so the heal is useful.

That is a good spell and worthless for this server.
It would need to be changed to absord 15percent to a max of 80000 to even be useful.
Best fix for the way this server is setup would be to adjust the T3 / T4 spells (which is only my opinion of course).
Cast time is really bad as you have said. See my previous posts for further.

Also a viable upgrade option.  Definitely a good idea to help smooth out the crazy melee spikes.  Only problem, this turns clerics into a buff bot.

Bloods idea would be great for shamans, the neb idea would be good for enchanters. As for clerics, just cut word of redemption cast time to same as word of viv. It would make clerics viable again.

Last time i logged my cleric in was just for the buff, pally's have almost made clerics obsolete.

And add counters for poison/disease/etc. to it, because iirc it doesn't have them currently.

But the fix isn't to "nerf" a class its to bring the other class up.

YES
wish more people would think like this.
We (players) fought really hard to get paladins made viable and now people are just "QQ NERF THEM" and I hate that.

I don't personally see an issue with it having a max of 80,000.  Infact i'd say thats a little low.  Something that has to be taken into account is that focus buffs probably dont affect the spell, so what it says it does, is what it does.  So yeah, it needs to be a large value.  Like i said, needs to be able to last atleast 20 seconds of T3 boss combat to be worth 25k cast.

As for cast time, I don't know what above T3 bosses is like, but i think if you decreased cast time on the group heal too much you'd see clerics be the new bards, where people injure themselves hitting the button so often.  My option of choice would be to lower the cast time on the single target heals, bump them up a little at the base, and say "pallys keep the groups alive, clerics deal with spike damage and keep your tank standing".

Even with a max oracle on my cleric I wouldnt Gheal unless I had a couple more of my alt clerics in the same group with decent oracles.
Stuff hits hard and the gheal just doesnt do enough (WoV) OR in the case of (WoR) the cast time is so great I am leery of using it due to spike damage. It use to heal for more then it does but someone thought that was OP and it was changed about a dozen spell file edits back.

Single target heal isnt bad but stuff of late has been hitting near its max more often then not and getting in more tripple -> quad strikes so its the same issue.

Just what I have seen but I have never been a big fan of my clerics.

You Cant always Bring Balance to the game by just buffing 1 class up because it will brake another class then u bump that class up now you broke another class, Some times there are Good reasons to Nerf a class. Pallys are a good example of this 2 pallys with Oracle 41 and 3.5's is pretty much all you need for any fight. I box 2 pallys 1 cleric 1 warrior 1 monk and 1 ranger. and out of that group not one class is Balanced Ranger is prob the closest to being a Balanced class but if we up his damage wheres that leave rogs?. if we up monks dps wheres that leave rangers?. if we up clerics how are you supose to bring them in line when pallys are obviously the KING of healing really not many ways you can do it.

I think a cleric epic 4 clicky Panoply of Vie with 35% absorb until 400k or so absorbed would be a good way to start. Afterall, end game bosses are hitting very hard and fast. When SW drops, this vie spell would be significant, but still spent in less than 10-20 seconds.
They need their T3-4 spells changed in cost and casting time so they will actually get used at all. I favor a very short recast and casting time if mana costs will be as high as 20k+. Personally I think that is still silly high cost, because even if they were spammable short cast, a 10k cost would be prohibitive enough to prevent firing it as fast as possible with a macro.
Additionally, turning down the combat effects bonus the paladins get would introduce the possibility that their heals might not land fast enough, making a cleric a stable healer that can be counted on.

Why does everyone wanna nerf pallies? =(

Wouldn't an easy fix be to make the cleric epic 3.5 have a 600% healing buff and 4.0 have a 800% healing buff?
It may seem OP but if you think about the cast time that puts them on par with Pallys.  4k heal x 8 = 32k base every 3-4 seconds.

Pallys with 4.0s heal for that every second.

I would also like to see the cleric epics have a spell haste component such as 25% or higher if you can program it in.

This is a very simple fix and its attainable rather htan having to wait for a spell to drop you can progress to this.

As far as the t3 spells go if you are worried about spamming do not jack up the mana cost just put a cooldown on it.  Most games now do 1 big heal thats instant cast with a cooldown say 10-15 seconds then a bunch of smaller heals with no cool downs.

Not eve going to tell you guys about the T4 pally spell....

Uh oh. You've piqued my interest, Sir.

Its F'ing awesome =)

T4 Pally spell is a word of vivification type spell with ultra fast cast time and a bit of a recast timer. I forget what crab named it but its cool.

What's the mana cost?

Bah... while you're at it might as well just spill the beans on the rest of it =P

I'd like to know what I'm working for to get my pally powerful enough to solo Hunter's nerf button finger.

Crab twoshoes will heal you
I love it

don't mean to cause any trouble here. But my questions is why the cleric 3.5 epic clicky much worse than the pally clicky.. it's a 70k base heal every 5 min where the pally is a 150k heal every min i think? Idk maybe make the epic clicky a group heal and lower the recast time? 5 min makes it kinda of uesless imo. Just an observation, dont bash me!

I wondered the same thing when I saw that. I'm 3 pages away from getting my cleric 3.5 but when I saw the link for it in /ooc I've decided that the 3.5 will be on the back burner less I have some pages rotting.

because clerics are a total shit class now?
Sorry dude, I like my clerics as much as the next but I have no reason, need or desire to log them in.
If xiggie doesnt bring a cleric to the party I just eat and rez.
Not wasting my computer resource playing a worthless class when I can just load in more dps

I need to rebalance Paladin-Clerics. :)

No, no you don't.

It's going to be a tough problem to solve without someone giving something up somewhere.

Paladin healing is so effortless that any adjustment to clerics will have to be over the top to make them comparable as healers.  It doesn't help that Paladins are also an excellent DPS class, especially once you add some firestrike augs.  The combination makes it hard to justify replacing one with a cleric, even if cleric healing is made to be much better.

One thing that might be an option is to fix the higher level cleric pet that is missing an entry in the database for its spawn.  Just copy the lower level pet and adjust the stats a bit.  Once that's done, perhaps make the cleric pets a little bit useful as some extra DPS.  Right now the pet just has so few HP that it dies immediately even with the extra 10k from the pet weapons.  Maybe give cleric pets a different weapon that gives them more hp and a heal that is less than what paladins do, but still helpful.

I use a cleric in my group doing T2, and I like to think it helps if we miss a couple of rounds of procs from the 2 pallies, but the truth is I could replace the cleric with another pally and be better off.

Cleric 3.5 and 4.0 clicky can be reworked to fall in lines or stackable with the 3.0 shield.. it don't need to be a lot 100-200% would work wonders for us.


the T3 spell refresh and mana cost is overboard for what the spell can really do.. drop the cost period..

Make the T4 stackable with the shaman 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 line.

I think if you brought down pally proc heals effectiveness by like 1/5 collectively you would bring them down enough to be reasonable, right now they are basically invincible. bash away, but this is the truth.

as far as clerics, they really have no way of competing with current pallys, and even with the 1/5 decrease they still trail significantly. to be honest, i think pallys have healing locked down as it is, not that thats a bad thing, or good thing. I like the group buff proc idea, this would make melees more worth while in groups, and worthwhile to have a cleric around. If you made the proc maybe 1/10 of the pally proc, you would have a significant amount of healing but at the same time not over powered amount. for example 4 melees would produce as much as about half a pally, it wouldnt make it worthwhile to have all melee and one cleric and would also give a cleric something to do while clearing, meleeing for small heals. This would be a good proc buff. also to this low duration, maybe 45 second buff, you could add an HP buff, lets say 15k while the buff is active. it would make up for the lack of healing and give something to the group that a shaman box once an hour for buffs cant give you. In addition to this short duration proc/hp buff i think it would be important to buff up the clerics single target healing. Pallys i think are fine doing the group healing, i would like to see one in a group instead of a group of 3 and 1 tank, that tank being a wizard... that is the poster child of an unbalanced class(pally that is). Buff up the single target heals for clerics and now you have a significant group role for a cleric as someone who can supplement a pally to keep the group alive, as well as keep the tank up against serious DPS. this improvement would probably be easiest done through lower recast quick casts, AHL, renewals, as well as a higher epic focus, say 6 or 800 or so. It would be enough to get them back into groups as a significant class, and still have need for a pally in the group, as well as DPS and obviously a tank. Also a spell, or maybe REALLY expensive AA or epic click of an insta group 100k CH would be legit, make it like a 5 minute recast, emergency type spell. basically a divine arbitration type but practical at high end.
I think this idea has a huge potential to bring GROUPING back to the higher end of the game as well as bring back melee classes and group/class  balance across the board. It would make more classes, other than the cleric, more useful.

I personally love playing a cleric and playing the class as a main, ide love to see it make a come back.
Just my 2 cents~

Clerics already have a beefed up single target heal. The problem is the cast time and mana cost. They also have a clicky heal with a 5 minute cast time. Problem with that is pallys have a better one w/a one minute cast time. Clerics prior to T3 have limited use, once you're in T3 they have almost no use unless you want them for DI.

They have about as much use as the people who dream of "Live" or P99.

I keep cleric in group t3/t4 full time


Do people really think these high end encounters will be doable with a shitty cleric alone, fuck most of the people I meet here can't even play a warrior/sk/pally let alone keep a tank up when your getting tripled for 70-90k not including bouncing aggro and whatever else could happen.

and if you guys cant see Hunter's sarcasm in his post..

Get max oracle,
Get 3.0 and 4.0 hope Healing bonus upgrade on 3.5 and 4.0 stack with 3.0 in future..

See lower cast times and reduction of T3 mana cost... right now its memmed cast maybe once to see it rez jesus.. but that's about it..

I too played a raid cleric in live.. oh the fking joy of staring @ walls in healing loops..... ooo ahhh.. /meh

Cant say better :)

Hello new guy with like zero time on this server.
Want to nerf a class already I see.
Hope you like it later when shits sucking for you.

For the longest fucking time on this server you either played 2clericcs in your group or didnt do shit for content. Now its changed and you have the option to keep clerics in with the dps and still people are bitching and QQing left and right.
Once you get a few toons with 3.5+ you can come talk. Buying that shit doesnt count.

What if Clerics got some sort of item, perhaps their Epic, that when right-clicked would summon a pet.

The pet could stay up for 2-3 mins, recast of 5 or so, but all the pet would do is target party/raid members within a 100m vicinity and anyone under 50ish% would be healed by the cleric pet? We could make the heals really beefy, and perhaps have the cleric pet cast songs to enhance other players' healing capabilities within the party/raid.

Just a quick idea that doesn't involve nerfing the hell out of pallies.

*Quick edit here*

How about having our original Epics already stay in game, but much like a pally handing in his 2h epic for a 1h version, the cleric could hand in their Epics for something with the same stats, but a different right-click effect. That way, we'd be probably getting 2-3 epics per cleric for pet, focus, and heal.

To all the cleric lovers out there, stop bashing on Paladins. You are the type of people tha twould win a $300 million dollar lottery then complain that you won too much money. Get over it already. Just make a paladin and go with it.

Seriously why would you change Pally? because some people want to add a cleric to there Box of characters?
What about people like me who dont box and actually group with people .If the Pally wasnt so powerfull how would i be able to play .
If you are that worried about using a Cleric but Pally makes them useless Drop the bloody Pally from your box of char's that way your cleric can be used to heal.Just because theres an easy option dosnt mean you have to use it ,choice is a wonderfull thing.
Let the flaming clerics begin

Wow, this topic sure has caused a lot of heart burn.

Let me put my thoughts into a question:  Do you find it odd that a class that is meant to do nothing but heal (in fact has no utility but healing) is a much worst healer than a class that also puts out some of the best dps in the game? 

This is not to say that paladin should be nerfed - this is to determine if there is a problem.

OK, I assume you agree that it is odd.  Part of the solution would be to adjust the DPS, Auto Healing, and Casted Heals of either the cleric, the paladin, or both.  If you very strongly want to keep the paladin where it is, why not suggest some alternatives to this?

Saying "There may be an issue but lols its ok, lets just delete the class" is not really a good answer.

I think it's pretty much a consensus that the T3 Cleric heal needs to be looked at.  For a high-end spell, it really provides almost no use due to the associated mana cost.

There are plenty of people on this server that rely on Paladins the way they are - and would not be able to play without their abilities to help them along.

I actually use a Cleric at all times on T3/T4 boss fights, and am considering making another. 

So is the pet clicky Epic alternative just a bad idea, or are we still arguing about nerfing pallies? =P

Just wanna know if that idea is dumb, or if anyone else might support it.

First of all, sorry for my bad english.

I play on the server for nearly a year and I still can't understand why players say that a class is too powerful without reaching the end of the game and know the limits of this class, the power of the high end content ... Then once the nerf happens, everyone is disappointed ...

But the funny thing is the players who have asked for the nerf, when they reach the next tier, the end content of the game, they find it too hard, then they ask for lowering boss or cutting down the stone requirement or a rotbot ... brief they always want it easy ...
I really think you need to be at least experiencing the end game content to be able to fully understand the depth of major changes that would effect all levels of content

So in the end why not keep it for your own thought? expect to know perfectly the game, being able to analyze each class and talk knowingly ... and above all try to think of others ... everybody can not play 6 or more ...

Its just my french though  ;D

Let me state a fact,
Fact: For the longest time I thought it was silly I would have to box several of the same class to progress and I relied on my guild to beat content.
(1) that shit got old fast
(2) people were not always online, so I couldnt always kill stuff
(3) I was stupid, just like you people wanting this class (*insert NERFED*) are stupid.
(4) I now go the route with my characters that gives me the biggest bang for the investment.

If you think shits hard now you should understand a few things.
NO INSTANCES
Tacvi 2hr respawn
You needed 2 clerics to keep tank alive in T2, no IAB
FG was 10x easier to farm then CG
FG/CG respawn times were much longer
Paladins and SK were a joke
Warrior Anger4 would 7500dd crit
Warrior Anger5 would 7500aoedd crit
Bard song effected DD
Bard Could DDD for 21k range
Bard DS was much bigger
RoA was once capped at 50
LDON you use to earn 1pt per kill 50pt per boss kill
Charm drop rate was higher
Training = ban use to mean more then ONE NPC moving
No PoFire
--
Notice how none of this is now true. We have roa 100 now. Bards got nerfed because people sucked at playing warrior and pointed at the bard to avoid a nerf on warrior.
Paladins and SK finally got some love.

New Facts:
Bards suck for anything but RoA use until 3.5+ (my opinion)
We now have PoFire to roa in
We can now train 10 NPC at a time
We now have point tokens instead of by kill so no more group wide ldon pts

This list could go on but it boils down to this. You silly ninny pricks that want everything made easier and to nerf anything you dont like are slowly ruining the classes for others.
IF you must main that stupid class even tho everone tells you that its a bad idea then go ahead but suck it up and rock it with a paladin to keep it alive OR play like others do.
Myself and Xiggie as an example, everything I box is to get my warrior geared up. Everything Xiggie boxes is to get his monk gear.
/rant off

Not going to quote the whole thing but...


^^ what he said is pretty much it. i give it 2 thumbs.

+2 more thumbs.

Give the man time to fix stuff, he has said numerous times that he is taking vacation soon and alot of stuff is getting implimented and changed.

Patience is a virtue!

Nerf Balthor!!

He's already short and angry. Take away more and idk what he'd do.

point taken...

Hey I might have a needlecock but I pump like a sewing machine!

LMFAO!!!

Not entirely relevant, but completely worth writing.

Beef up bards, I wasn't here when they were uber. *bursts into tears*

to add to balthor list

~PP / gem where worthless

~the only economy on the EZ sever was FG/CG stuff ... that was used mostly for getting someone to help with your 3.0, but even then most of the time if you OOC someone would come and help you out for free

~ if you wanted to get your king cards or do just LDoN5, 4,3, 0r 2 you had to start and LDoN1 and go through all the others before you got too when ever level you wanted   

 

Ohh good catch on that LDON stuff.
Still I see people bitch about how its not easy enough for them.

Gosh, I even remember before credit system for LDoN was even implemented.  Had to just hope you got lucky on the drops....

Point is, there will always be more conveniences that arise over time that quite possibly make one class more "convenient" to play than another.  Don't start screaming to remove conveniences because it devalues another class.  Have some patience, contribute some worthwhile suggestions, and have faith that Hunter will continue to apply the same conveniences across the board.

I mean, if you are a TV store, would you start complaining that the flatscreen LED TVs from Vizio need to be more box shaped and less crystal clear so the old tube TV's by RCA don't get left in the dust?  No, you would expect RCA to expand on it's technology and advance like the rest.  We should expect the same out of our classes.  If paladins get uber-beefed, then quit complaining that they are too powerful because they provide more convenience to a group than a cleric.  Use this as an opportunity to make the push to increase cleric effectiveness as well.

If you guys can't see that as logical, then you need to go back to P99...because we here on EZ like to watch the game evolve, not stay within the same confines as the original release back in 1999.

Thanks Tankzor,
It is nice to see others that can grasp the concept and are not on the "Rostam Team" that only care about screwing another class over to ruin the game play of others.

Just another point of fact that my group of paladins are pretty damn powerful but that investment cost me somewhere around 15million pp PER character and about 60hours of work just to get them 90% done with T2 -> into HoH and their epics.
If you want that *Insert Class X Here* to be powerful in its own right then I suggest you suck it up and either grind LDON for charms, do RoA runs or get to the point where you can farm shadow at will while watching midget pron.

Those of us that are on top of our game have invested a lot of work and effort into our character base. Seeing people ask to devalue this work only pisses us off and gets you put on the dont help list.
Ive seen of late a few people that bought their 4.0 when Hunter had the special on the books. These players are so terrible at playing here they struggle with T1 and T2 content yet think they are knowledgeable enough about this server to demand, not ask but demand, that a class be nerfed just because it either doesnt fit into their play style or they just dont like it.

Shadowknights are very very powerful, more so then paladins but I dont go crying to the forums asking for them to be nerfed. I defend that class (I do not have a Sk, do not play one and do not like the class as a personal preference) because I see these powerful SK out there and I see that the majority of them are played by people that invested either the time or the money to get them charmed up.

NERF SHADOWKNIGHTS!

On top of that, I see a lot of players getting their asses handed to them... while they are 4.0ed... I'm like hmm, what's going on.. then I find out no ROA no Charms and running t2 armor no hp augs..



I've seen a few of "these" people on the forums posting about changes..

I guess buying the top content does not invest them with knowledge or understanding of the server.

I have to jump back into this thread, partly because it's derailed and partly because I play a 4.0 PoG geared SK. Now in no way are sk's overpowered. Take away the firestrike augs and sk's aren't much(compared to pally or warrior). The augs are the only reason why sk's are mentioned anymore. The class itself wasn't beefed up, the augs were brought into the game, the same augs a pally can get or even your duel weild classes(although a different version of the augs)

Now back to the original topic of the thread. Let's focus more on making cleric's better, not nerfing this/that. Sure some classes need to be brought back up, maybe even some nerfed(and I have a 3.5 pally too just so someone doesn't jump on me for the "pallys don't need to be nerfed bandwagon"). But if the classes are to be balanced(meaning other classes having an increase in "X" or "Y" then the content should be tougher. This is pretty much a tank & spank server, sure there are some adds and some DT once you get into the high end stuff, but for the most part it's tank/spank.

Cleric's I think it's pretty much agreed on that those of us that play in T3/T4 that the T3 spell needs a mana reduction. What that reduction is to I don't know 3-5k maybe, I don't know. The 3.5 needs to be changed. It should at least be on par w/a pally's 3.5, but probably better. Maybe make it a 1 minute recast but a group heal instead of single target, hell I don't know.

Just my 2 cp, but I more worried about making clerics better/efficient right now than all the other classes mentioned in this thread.

Just to clear my post up, i dont think im suggesting anything too extreme. 1/5 isnt much of a set back, especially considering how much those heals probably over lap while proc healing a group. I dont want to nerf anything, keep the 1/5 for all i care. But clerics should be buffed up regardless. Like whoever said, i think that its wrong that a tank class is the primary healer in the game and the promary healer class of the game is basically worthless. This is my issue, not really paladins. I think my suggestions are legitimate, they help make the cleric more group oriented, which i think is what playing this game is all about. Ide love to see more grouping than boxing, call me crazy. I know this isnt really practical considering our numbers, especially in high end, but box crews(4+) may be a challenge for one person but how much fun is a challenge without some company? I think some changes to the cleric could make picking up an LFG melee that much more practical, seeing as they pose a heal bonus as well as dps.

Remember this too... This is a Custom server... not live..

Let's keep tossing out ideas out there for some fixes Hunter will bite on one of them sooner or later..

If you're referring to paladins tanking and healing pre T1/T2, then your argument might hold; however, anything past that and Paladins are no longer a tank for the end game content.

Btw anyone that try to use the "someone is LFG and should be considered.." quickly get /ignore listed.
I saw someone the other day in /ooc asking to join a HoH group.
I did a /who and saw it was some off beat class and thought to my self "Sure you can join my group, I will do ALL the work and you can loot all the gems and get the pages, cause like that totally sounds fair and reasonable and a productive use of my time."

Yea, not.
Sorry but if you want to see HoH+ you need to box and/or Box and get a guild.
Might get lucky when someone is super bored and is like "sure I'll run you through hoh for 20 or 30min so you can see whats up" but honostly who is going to let that solo player join the group when they contribute next to nothing. Sucks but its the way this server is.

Now if someone was a serious player, loved that class (insert random class such as ranger here) AND played either CLR/PAL/SK I would give them a guild. At this lvl of play YOU the player need to get to the point where you are self sufficient in regards to farming epic pages and later doing T3 for the armor you want and need.
/hug

About clerics: Reduce mana cost yes and I think there is a rule which can make heals crit for more.
I remember heals did use to heal for more and either a SVN update or another change nerfed it hard.
Secrets was in vent with us a long time ago and I brought it up and was told that some of the focuses "never improved healing" and I just dropped the subject(BS btw I have SS and logfiles somewhere!). Now with Hunter looking at this topic we should get off the nerf bandwangon and seriously brainstorm ideas on how we want the cleric to be.

You guys should get ideas from cleric spells that have been released in recent expansions. I implemented target type 46 today which uses the target of your target as your target.

For example Holy Intervention (http://kumbaja.antonius-bayle.org/spell/view/19768) it heals your target with 1 effect and then it nukes that target's target with the other effect(ie heal maintank and nuke mob he is tanking at same time).

Then theres the reverse Holy Contraventin (http://kumbaja.antonius-bayle.org/spell/view/22628) which nukes your target and heals that target's target(ie nuke mob and heal the tank).

The simple version is like Gift of Life (http://kumbaja.antonius-bayle.org/spell/view/21653) which just straight up uses your target's target as the target, in this case healing and putting a hot on the target's target.

Lots of classes get things like that too, Healing Counterbias (http://kumbaja.antonius-bayle.org/spell/view/19899) is a shm version which slows the target and puts a HoT on its target.

However there is a limit, if pal passive proc healing is all you need then there is nothing you can do to bring a cleric in line with that. If pals are also awesome dps, then they sound in need of a nerf. People always like to say that you should buff other classes instead of nerfing classes but that is short sighted, the game is all relative. If you had 5 million HP, that would sound like a lot but if mobs hit for 10 million a hit then you would be useless. So if paladins can proc heal a group while doing sick dps and then you buff other classes up to where the paladin is(ie buff 15 other classes instead of tuning 1 class), then the mobs will need to get readjusted as Hunter I'm sure would like to keep some semblance of challenge here. That's why if one class gets out of balance a nerf is usually the best option because its alot easier to pull something back then push forward 15 other classes and then worry about balance in all of the content on your server.

As alot of people have pointed out, the game evolves. What is a powerful class one month, may not be as powerful next month. Balance is a constant process.

(http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w281/Xiggie/l_4c139018b44d4d10bb4e3107e5a672f3.jpg)


While I appreciate your information about casting and counter casting on the targets targets targets targets target how would you know how to balance the end game on this server when you have not experience anywhere near the end game on this server. There are no universal solutions that you can blankly fit over every server. For you to come here and blindly say that if a + b = c then d = nerf, is just blind arrogance. You may be great at coding, but you are shyte at content.

Actually.... he ran a great custom SoD server for awhile, until real life/new business caught up with him... I believe it was called... Trials of Destruction? Maybe you didn't know so, but still he did produce great content.. and it wasnt juust "tank N spank" actually had to think strategically, cure, and what not =)

Yeah I saw that server, never had much of a population to it.

Trials of Destruction? Didnt that server release its source for a short period in case anyone wanted to use it?
I have a complete server source download from Sep2010 I shortnamed TOD and only found it again since I started up a test server to evaluate ideas.

I appreciate Caryatis for coming here and posting input several times, even after several times people (myself included) called him a piece of crap. He is a pretty standup guy to still actually care enough about custom EMU and hell maybe even plays a toon here when he can, but still he comes here and posts ideas.

Do I like them all? No
Do I agree with his thinking? Not often but its another man's opinion and is worth listening to

I need to get offn my ass and get some firestrike augs!!

yes, he did release it, and if i wasn't such an idoit at comouters and what not, i prolly would've tried to build off of it myself.. but yeah. lol

Now, I will say didn't mean to start anything, as I know everyone differs in opinion, and I know no he doesn't really play here playu here, so doesn't know like t4 is about, well neither do I myself, but I thought maybe it myself too, as you guys say clerics are useless to pals.

hai num :)

Yea my server never really broke 35-40 players but when so few people had SoD at the time and it required SoD, I think that was a pretty solid pop. Anyway, opening up a new server in the next few weeks so you will be able to judge for yourself, how shitty I am at content(even though we are talking about balance) :)

The point I was making in regards to paladins is that you can't buff classes indefinitely without either destroying the balance of players vs mobs or retuning the mobs. So if(and if you read what you quoted of me Xig, you notice I used if a few times) paladins can do good DPS while healing the whole group with procs, that is going to be very hard to balance against a class that has to spend mana to heal and does shitty dps. As a player I know you don't want to see classes nerfed but from a design standpoint, if you reduce the game to everybody playing warriors and paladin then that is not ideal(unless by EZ hunter meant, just pick one of two classes). Often what sounds good in theory(ie group heal proc for paladins) doesn't work out as intended once people start min/maxing by putting 3 or 4 paladins in a group. Since Ive never played on EZ beyond surefall, I don't know how it works in practice but I know when Im designing a server I want each class to have its niche and atm clerics sound completely overshadowed by paladins(and if my top end content was being beaten without a single priest class present, I would consider that a failure).

Likewise if my high end content required the use of a priest class I would consider that a failure.  The idea of requiring the same old "holy trinity" of clr/war/mnk is flawed.  The fact that you can create content outside of that standard is refreshing and is what makes Emu so great.  Of course that's one man's preference against anothers.

Caryatis

well there happen to be a big following here on EZ so it's not a "fail", you design your server as you see fit..

The great thing is Hunter is ever evolving stuff between Basher and himself.

It's hard to say what needs to be changed if surefall is the only zone you have ever been in..It's fun rng sux sometimes but there is a "fun" here..

I play all classes... a cleric remains in my party almost full time..

Keep coding you are great @ it.. but let server GMs run the server through their eyes..

It does seem like no actual healer class present doesn't feel like EQ... Then again.. imo I never liekd the fact mobs couldn't be slowed even just partially, past.. Ldon i believe? Anyhow... I can't wait for your new server =)

Edit: However, I do understand a slow really isn't needed =)

Again, this is not LIVE.

This is a evolving custom server.. It's a long way from where it started..

How about we just take away all the warriors augs, cyclone drop pally's group heals, nerf SK DPS... get rid of all charms and UCs..


Then go try T2/T3/T4

the content is made around certain things..

I do agree clerics should be buffed some way some how.. I posted my thoughts and others have made great ideas too..

Stop this nerfing this and that conversation every day its the same shit day in and day out..



Just cause it's available doesn't mean you gotta play it..

shit look @ hateborne.. ROA a wizzy..

I seen a necro ROA the other day

It's what you make of it..

Hell even that Enchanter who thinks he was 1st enchanter on server with 4.0 pfft.. =P

Yeah jsut drop it all ! Ill still have fun playing my SK because.. well I love the class =)
Didn't know SK was top dps til recently, but always knew pals were uber. Honestly, when I made my Sk i thought pal was best dps, but then again now that what you/others told me about UC, which is why i have been working on it... yea i can see why.

I never said EZ server was a failure, I said I would consider not requiring a healer on top tier content a failure. Why? Because that's all those classes do(I assume nobody boxes a cleric for dps?). The most challenging part of EQ is trying to keep all 16 classes balanced so that people feel like each is equally desirable, every server op struggles with that.

Besides that though, no where have I said "yo I can code do this with your server", you guys expressed your opinions and Im doing so as well and since players rarely view things from the perspective of the guy running their server and thus focus narrowly instead of looking at the big picture. Especially since most people are saying to buff other classes instead of nerfing one class, there's a limit to how well that approach can work and all I was saying that if pals are as op'd as they sound, then most likely they will get nerfed(especially you can't think of a way to make a cleric comparable to a paladin which is going to be really hard considering a majority of a paladins power comes from mana-free sources, certainly in 7 pages nobody has been able to think of a solution, its easy to say "do something" but name that something).

To be clear, Im not a representative of the EQemu team, come here to tell you what to do with your server. Im a guy on sunday, alittle bored while waiting for shit to compile, giving alittle insight on what else a server op is considering when thinking about balance. Hunter is different for sure but even he doesnt seem pleased where clerics are atm.

Balance and content go hand in hand therefore in my mind are one in the same. I am not picking on your wording, I am just clarifying my choice of words.

The reason I think it is a bad idea to nerf paladins is because to do that is to take a huge chunk of dps out of the group when the hp of bosses in T3 is in the hundreds of million (guess but close). I think paladins should be left alone and I think the more traditional dps classes should be brought up higher than paladins and sk's are currently only without the self healing and group healing abilities. As for clerics, I have already made a suggestion for caster classes. Combine the characters who have minimal roles to give them more of a role in groups. 

Caryatis are you not catching the fact that paladin DPS comes from several sources.
(1) ENC buff
(2) Firestrike 4 / 5 augs which go for 3+million pp and while some of us have several most have none
(3) Charms - Try farming one of these to 50 and let me know how you like it.

Paladin has big ass heals? Yea if it has oracle up to 41+ and has its 4.0 sure.
Paladin is big ass DPS? Sure if it has its 4.0 and stuck in 3 strike augs and has the enc buff
Paladin today > Paladin of last year this time? Yes and its nice to not have to play CLR CLR WAR WAR RNG RNG to beat the fucking content.
Because thats how shit was balanced for a very long time.
We're talking of the days when all you needed to do is get anger5 augs onto a warrior (and back then songs worked so you could stick a bard in the group) and you were godly dps.

Anyways people did post suggestions for this class (cleric fixs) if you would open your fucking eyes and read the threads.
<3 as always

God I hate to quote myself ...

... but please show me where in these 7 pages that I did not post this.  Honestly, had you read through these 7 pages you would have seen at least a dozen other posts just like this to include ideas and suggestions to give clerics some extra abilities.  I'm just sayin...

Sup?

(PS: I know I'm not the first, but if there are 2 digits of enchanters out there with a 4.0 I'd be surprised. Also, I definitely am the only one with a 4.0 that's a main character)

And you know what? I had a shitload of fun playing an enchanter, and seriously, all those people whining to get charm back? To quote Bender, they can kiss my shiny metal ....

But yes, Clerics need a boost and there are a lot of good ideas out there. It's just a matter of selecting a few that work and implementing them properly.

If a person boxes multiple characters the argument that their enchanter is the main character is thrown out the window.

hahah win.
I think enc can bring a lot to the table, I just do not have the resources to have mine online full time. Shame as I really like the class.

He doesn't roll with a army. I believe there is a paladin in his arsenal and that is it.

It sounds crazy I know....but he is :P


Deadend