Nerfing of Clerics

mgrjebbo · Post by **mgrjebbo** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 2:29 pm

I just wanted to bring some things to the attention of the devs.

Nerfing of the clerics started when drow cleric spells starting effecting the caster and it seems it has just gotton worse from there.

After that the new bigbys was implemented where in disciplne and str affect your save and SR doesnt apply. Well since disciplne isnt availble to clerics and their SR is useless against the spell it makes bigbys a cleric killer and very unbalanced. Plain and simple clerics have no defense against it.

After that divine power's str bonus appears to be taken out. Well if you have no disciplne and no str bonus well then your done if you go up against a 18th lvl mage even if your a 30th lvl cleric.

And if that isnt enough, now the best cleric buffing spells appear to only last 1 turn no matter what your lvl. at 40th lvl a clerics bless last's 1 turn??? Something seems wrong here to me.

I have a few more instances with nurfing clerics that i could mention but i will wait for some replys to these first.

If the aim of the devs is to balance the server for every faction/class then this needs to be looked into. The greatest power of the NC faction is its clerics and paladins and now that the casters are going down hill there will be noone left to support the fighters. To me this is becoming more and more unbalanced.

The role of the cleric is soon to be relegated to raise scroll mules if this continues.

On a side note even mages have a spell that adds huge melee bonus and stat bonus's. Clerics should be alot more oriented towards melee than mages but it seems mages are becoming better tanks. I belive the spell in question i am refering to gives something like 2d6 str dex and another stat, with an AB bonus, bonus hit points and a few other choice buffs.

If divine power and other clerics changes stay in effect the above mage spell needs to be looked at aswell.

Post by **Flailer** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 2:44 pm

Well, here's the deal - before these changes clerics were able to do everything and do it very well.

Clerics, for brief periods of time, should be able to buff themselves (or others most likely) up to match a figther's skills, but clerics aren't meant to be able to be the best melee class. If you looked around before, clerics *always* had the highest AB, AC (apart from some tweaked out PM builds), unresistable magic/divine damage, plus powerful offensive/defensive spells.

In my opinion, we're taking the first steps in adjusting clerics by limiting the amount they can boost their own melee ability. The other side of it is making them do more what clerics do - buff others in a party, provide healing/raises, etc.

The end result may be a different cleric than NS4 is used to seeing, but at least it puts true melee chars back in the running and no longer makes clerics the unquestionable uber build on the server.

mgrjebbo · Post by **mgrjebbo** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 2:56 pm

well i accept that they are not to be the uber melee build the NC has pali/COT builds for that. In the end i just wanted to speak my peace.

I however do belive the spell duration on bless and other low level buff spells is just not adaquet for the needs dictated by long epic fights that one will face on the plains. At low levels it wont make that much of a difference.

Also the SR issue i belive needs to be addressed with bigbys. I dont mind the disc/str check but i belive SR should still play a part otherwise as i stated above clerics are left defenseless against it.

Dont take any of this the wrong way, its just my thoughts on the subject and i know you guys work hard on this stuff and i appreciate it. I am just trying to give feedback from the affected partys point of view.

Post by **Sparky** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:20 pm

We will be posting the changes to a number of Cleric spells shortly. The duration on the spells we changed(Bless/Aid/Prayer/Battletide/Aura V. Alignment) besides Divine Power should be 1 Turn + 1 round per caster level, with the round per level part being extendable.

The higher level spells I have listed incorporate/add/override the bonuses of the lower level spells, with Aura V being the most powerful in the buffing line. All of these spells should affect your party as well.

The aim of these changes was to overall make Clerics more party friendly(you know Clerics tend to be stingy with the buffage), while making it so the Cleric isn't the Whole party by themselves.

MasterYoda · Post by **MasterYoda** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:30 pm

s much as i hate to say this i agree with the dms....

I have een playing wow for a while now and i have seen things that i have never seen before...

Tanks being the main party beef..... not the cleric.... or mage.

Priests (wow cleric ) are necesity in any raid since the character "Roleplay" aspect is very realistic.

I think y nerfing the clerics it brings more of a realistic aspect to ns4.

If ur a tank then your a tank, and with the new surace that is fighter prefered and has sr ....... tanks have ecome amazing again.

Clerics are now ecomeing more role orientated. If u and a party are going up the mountain u should ring a cleric. Now instead of eing in the front of the pack they will e more apt to stay in the ack and heal and rez as necesairy. Hence now eing more fit for there role.

There are still plenty of good cleric uilds out there (Try death/travle ) that allow u to do more than the traditional travle tricker clerics who were uer tanks .... ut ow would e out muscled y a pure tank.

just my o.o2$

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:32 pm

o.O something wrong with your "b" key?

Merrip · Post by **Merrip** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:06 pm

I personally dont agree with the changes made to the Cleric spells I think they were fine the way they were and now you want to make it there only good for a short period of time great after you get improved combat casting and AQ3

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:18 pm

the problem with divine power lasting as long as it did was that with extend spell and the number of times you can prep it you essentially become a self-buffing fighter. The greatest thing a fighter has that a cleric doesn't is BAB. Divine power completely makes up for that with a single spell.

Having strength not being set to 18 really doesn't make any difference as you can easily buff your strength higher with items and bulls strength.

Even with this change clerics are still gonna be powerful. I personally never took the time to apply all my buffs when i played my cleric. Just extend divine power, extend divine favor, extend haste, and commence to bash things apart.

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:19 pm

if limiting the buffing spells does that mean maybe clerics and pallys could multi buff a weapon. darkfire, flameweapon, GMW, bless weapon, deafening clang and the sort all at the same time?

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:24 pm

id say just let GMW and MW stack with other weapon buffs. I've never seen anyone use GMW except to buff lowbies. When you have the option between darkfire and GMW, which are you gonna pick?

Because they scale with level, GMW will only ever give you 1-2 extra ab/damage. Darkfire will give you elemental damage which is MUCH more useful.

Post by **Metis** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:51 pm

This isn’t aimed at anyone just a general statement...

These changes weren’t decided in a day, we have been discussing the best routes for a very long time. That being said we are out of Beta but as our commander DD stated that does not mean the dev team is disbanding its actually the opposite the whole team still has a lot of great ideas, things to be added and things are moving ahead full steam, although players don’t see it until it gets published.

That also means that changes that are made can be tweaked or changed. As long as you think “They made the changes to make this game more fun for everyone” before you post, feedback is always welcome!

P. Fricebottle · Post by **P. Fricebottle** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 4:55 pm

I've had a cleric (Gary

who is and always will be pure ) and he instantly became my favorite character (pre-wipe) for good reason. I acknowledged that Divine Power was Divine Overpowered, and this change was long overdue. Gary was a casting cleric, same thing now post-wipe but with healing domain. I like looking foward to playing the role of healer, because he used to steal the glory from the tanks with Blade Barriers AND Bashings.

Regarding going pure clerics, I spend double in discipline (I never liked cheese), do my jobs, and wear all discipline gear. It works, but perhaps they can get a tiny (+10 discipline final at 40) bonus to it. Also, I'd like to see bonuses to wisdom for spells. I never liked fighting with Gary because I meant for him to be a clerical caster, but I'd seem to end up having to bash things to death instead of killing em with spells.

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 5:02 pm

yeah, thats the thing with cleric spells. Youve got a few offensive spells but they get used up pretty quick on mobs with lots of hp and you're left with no option but to bash things in.

Falazure- · Post by **Falazure-** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 6:29 pm

I also think this was a needed change,before cleric's could destroy pretty much anyone except a well built pm,even then it wasnt far off,now i think pure fighters n such will have a fair advantage.One thing i would like to see tho,i really think bigby should be resisted from sr,making pure clerics and monks who add sr feats have a chance.As it stands now any class with no or little discipline is going to have a hell of a lot of trouble.This would make pure monks and pure clerics more viable,52 sr for a lvl 40 cleric would be nice,and a 70 sr for a monk would rule vs mages.

Sightbringer · Post by **Sightbringer** » Mon Jun 19, 2006 7:33 pm

Flailer wrote:The end result may be a different cleric than NS4 is used to seeing, but at least it puts true melee chars back in the running and no longer makes clerics the unquestionable uber build on the server.

I agree with Flailer here -- and I had a fairly good cleric/monk/rogue build before the wipe so this isn't coming from someone who's never built a cleric. The fact is, clerics completely owned this server prior to now, just look at how many people had good cleric builds.