Suggestions for cleric ability pairings

[Zwiebelchen]

This is meant as a collection thread for new ability pairings for clerics.
I received a lot of hate for the pairings I chose, so here is your opportunity to suggest new pairings.

Keep in mind that these pairings must meet the following criteria:
1) it makes sense for both monk and bishop
2) the class must be playable in solo on level 1-25
3) Body and Mind must be useful in some regard, since there is no choice to take something else yet
4) Symbol of Fury must be paired with something of equal value. Please don't suggest a pairing that is *clearly* in favor of the other available skill. However, it will receive an additional spellhaste component in the next update to make it more useful.

 

[Hansa]

hmmm

The skill choices I view as Ok:

Confidence or Burst of Light
-Either you take a Passive party buff or a Great emergency party heal. They have one thing in common, and that it helps the party as a whole.
Resurrect or Symbol of Fury
-Either you resurrect a guy to prevent gold and time waste or buff a guy for 45 seconds. This is a fair choice IF Symbol gets buffed to, lets say 20 - 25%? and it would define the route to your second class because its the last skill choice you get.

The skill choices I view as kinda not Ok:

Soul Strike or Heal
-These are the two bread and butter spells of early Cleric. Scratch that. Of almost all clerics I think. Doesn't really make sense to separate them as they help the 3 cleric jobs (cleric, bishop, monk) greatly. Making us choose from the two is kind of a nerf in some sense. Not really for bishop, but definitely for Cleric and Monk.

Crippling Curse or Sunfire
-Biased point of view here we come. As a cleric or bishop I can understand why this choice is pretty fair, but dude. I main monk. I want the two of these. Please lol.

What are my suggestions to solve this?

I definitely think that Sunfire vs Heal is a great choice for monk. Either you get added survivability or added damage.

The other though.... I don't really know. Crippling curse or Soulstrike seems nice for me, but I can see how people wont really like that. If we DO go that route, then Monk chooses from ignoring armor or body & mind bonus damage. Kinda not appealing in a monks pov. BUT! if we are going to change talent trees then if zwie can find a way to make this fair I can see this working. May I suggest a talent that ups the proc chance of Body & mind if in Symbol of fury?

I guess that's about it for my thoughts on the subject. Hopefully these make sense Zwie

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Heal/Sunfire
Soul Strike/Crippling Curse
Confidence/Ressurection
Burst of Light/Symbol of Fury

First choice being standard healing vs DPS.
Second choice being which kind of DPS would you prefer? Has a larger effect in the end game choices anyway.
Thirdly, both skills are good, theres reason to have both, which is exactly what we want right?
Lastly... This is largely because both skills suck. Pairing the worst two options against one another is what leads to a decision needing to be made here. You can make arguments to pick either one depending on how you actually want to build your character.

I think paired like this leaves interesting choices for both end classes while not gimping a low level cleric either. I guess the only issue is an end game cleric being forced to take Sunfire and they may not want that. Last thing Bishop needs is more AOE threat.

For Monk.. You could perhaps rearrange one of their talents to make increased body and mind go up against crippling curse ignores armor talents. This way if you took soul strike, you'd probably take the increased chance to proc body and mind, or if you took crippling curse then you'd take the ignore armor talent. Moving the mind and body proc increase chance to level 45, and making the evasion affects enemy abilities talent level 40 should work out. I don't think we want the chance to debuff with crippling curse to be on a different tier than the ignoring armor one, as otherwise you could just not take crippling curse skill and still get its effects rather easily.

 

[DrizztDoUrden]

Heal/Sunfire
Soul Strike/Crippling Curse

This will really suck for tanking monk cuz he has like 80% agro from SS and curse atm I think.
Current pairings are great for every class I saw cuz they make u pick a spell cuz both are either viable or not.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Perhaps taking the threat talents would be more viable then . I don't think I've had much, if any issue tanking on a monk. Outside of perhaps a Berserker who quickly spams his skills. Monk did get that new ability that should help quite a bit with generating more aggro as well, and I assume more abilities are on their way.

If a DPS character is taking aggro, then perhaps they should look into taking aggro reduction abilities. Either mind breaker special ability or using their own threat reduction talents. I don't think the onus should be put on simply the tank characters to keep aggro over everything, the DPS characters should shoulder some of the responsibility for keeping their aggro down as well.

 

[S0ulseeker]

I just want to note that I think soul strike and heal are okay paired together because a bishop can always take flash of light down the road and opt out of heal if they really want to since they are essentially the same ability

 

[MiroBG]

Wouldnt Heal and Burst of light and Soul Strike/Sunfire make more sence? Having either single or aoe heal and opting for more single vs aoe dps?

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

45+ Monk majority DPS is from Crippling Curse with ArP talent Auto-attacks, even with my 1.2B(13) caster hybrid build. Until Monk gets a different ArP talent, or has the current one tweaked to include the skill that Curse is paired with, Curse will be necessary for him. I don't see what damage spell you would take over Curse for Bishop either, Soul Strike is great and all but solo healing in high level content (fighting with appropriate gear/level) takes up most of your casting time.

Heal will always be dropped by Bishop because of Flash of Light. If it's paired with Soul Strike then it will always be dropped by Monk too. I think it's bad for a spell to be unused in any decent build by both classes.

Cleric - I think Monk will want Curse and Sunfire for sure. Thats a pretty long wait for resurrection but I suppose it can't be helped. Druid waits much longer anyway. Would be better if the choices split support/DPS.
I'd rather see:
Heal/Crippling Curse (tougher choice but makes sure Monk's Body and Mind isn't gimped like it is now)
Confidence/Soul Strike
Burst of Light/Sunfire (AoE heal vs AoE damage)
Resurrection/Symbol of Fury

If you're still against pairing support with tanking/DPS (I still think that's the best way) then:
Heal/Confidence - Singular vs Team support. Tough for cleric to give up either. Bishop will ofcourse drop Heal but that is inevitable unless Flash changes. High level Monk can effectively use either skill.
Crippling Curse/Sunfire - Singular vs AoE damage. Make Sunfire to deal DoT like incinerate (but not spread), then add it to the Crippling Curse ArP talent as the same ArP for Monk effect. Or let the talent have Sunfire amplify elemental damage from Monk. Now you have a damage over time for Bishop and a debuff for Monk that amplifies his damage.
Soul Strike/Symbol of Fury - I think if you buff Symbol, this would definitely be a good pair, I'm talking 25% Attack Speed and Haste. Anything less makes Symbol a throwaway choice for ANY pair.
Resurrection/Burst of Light - Not much to say here. Risky revive or emergency team heal. I would honestly have some difficulty choosing between these for both Bishop and Monk. On one hand, you could keep avoid having to retreat by being able to revive a fallen ally, on the other hand there's a chance you could save that ally from dying in the first place with Burst. In general Burst may be better, but if the death is caused by an instant or near instant kill, resurrect is better.

 

[Ira]

We have to consider how the abilitys affect the game: Confidence is a nice aura brings some benefits but its not one of the essential things i want to recieve from a cleric/bishop/monk same goes for Symbol of Fury both of these abilitys bring a nice bonus but i dont cry if i dont have them.
Heal is very important for the game but it gets kinda obsolete when bishop gets flash of light and when monks start using body of steel i think. Soulstirke is really important for all three classes as it is a good damage source for the ranged classes and a need for the monks body and mind.
Crippeling Curse is an essential ability for monks and a good ability for Bishops. Burst of Light is rarely used outside of emergencys and also rarely used by monks since they have to leave the body of steel to use it and therefore a big risk and Sunfire is a really nice thing to have, either as AoE for Monks or to repell attacks if you're Bishop/Cleric.

So if Heal would be Paired with Crippeling Curse Heal would be the option for the Early game and Crippeling Curse would be chosen when relearning in the later game.

Soulstrike could be Paired with Sunfire, so you have either single target or aoe damage.

Confidence and Symbol of Fury are kind of the same thing for me either your team has a little more dps or your team takes a little less damage. So why not make you choose between them?

Then Ressurection and Burst of Light remain. what i think is a fair choice you either save your team or res it after they died.

So in short:
Heal/Crippeling Curse
Soulstrike/Sunfire
Symbol of Fury/Confidence
Resurection/Burst of Light

Alternatively i thought of
Heal/Soulstrike
Because you basically need one of those to play the game
Sunfire/Burst of Light
Aoe Damage or Heal
Resurection/Crippeling Curse

Symbol of fury/Confidence
They are kinda the same for me

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I think I just noticed a critical fail in my thinking here:
The problem is not that the current pairings are bad, the problem is that the crippling curse talent that removes armor is considered a mandatory pick for monks.

Basicly, what we are doing here is destroying perfectly valid skill pairings just to please builds around one single mandatory talent pick.
... which is totally dumb, because there's clearly something wrong with the talent, not the abilities in that case.
Crippling Curse is super strong even without a talent that relies on picking it.


Which leaves two possible solutions:
1) Nerf the talent until the other talents at the same choice feel like equal value
2) Change the talent to a condition other than crippling curse

 

[MiroBG]

I think I just noticed a critical fail in my thinking here:
The problem is not that the current pairings are bad, the problem is that the crippling curse talent that removes armor is considered a mandatory pick.

Which leaves two possible solutions:
1) Nerf the talent until the other talents at the same choice feel like equal value
2) Change the talent to a condition other than crippling curse.

2 seems nice maybe could be like max armor pen for duration after dealing shadow damage?(soulstrike) since it synergises with body and mind

 

[Ihazdialup]

The problem with balancing Cleric is that when you are a Cleric you practically need Heal/Soul Strike/Crippling Curse. Both advance classes again basically need Soul Strike and Crippling Curse, Heal becomes moot for Monk and useless for Bishop once they get Flash Heal. But seeing as Monk is kind of underpowered right now anyways I would suggest not pairing Sunfire with neither Soul Strike or Curse because to me Sunfire seems tailored for Monk and very dangerous for both Cleric and Bishop.

So going off of that, we need to start with...
Heal/X
Soul Strike/X
Crippling Curse/X
(Last Options)

And now the hard part is figuring out pairings and the final option.

Well Heal becomes useless for Bishop after 33, and near useless for Monk right out of the gate. I would pair it with Symbol of Fury, that way Symbol of Fury can be used the most and its small benefit beats out the unused Heal, but at the same time its not a huge enough boost to be necessary for Monk, so Monk can still feasibly use Heal at level 50 with the Steel Body penalty removed talent and be able to utilize a no cd self heal.

Soul Strike and Crippling Curse are much more difficult as they are both so key to all three classes, the only way I can see other skills chosen over them is for those skills offering a lot of support. So I would pair them with Confidence and Resurrection, maybe with a buff.

Then the final option I would say BoL or Sunfire because Monk is in desperate need for more AoE aggro and Sunfire seems incredibly dangerous for Clerics and Bishops to use.

So then that leaves the final sets to look like...

Heal/Symbol of Fury
Soul Strike/Confidence
Crippling Curse/Resurrection
Burst of Light/Sunfire

I color coded the spells, red being for DPS and blue being for Support, this set up also allows Clerics to be able to choose from a full support build, a full DPS build, or a combination of the two, which is the old style Cleric we all know and love and is most likely to be the preferred build.

EDIT: Now that I read Zwiebs post, I think the ideal thing to do would be actually Buffing the other two options, because if you nerf that Talent you just end up ruining monk, IMO at least. Or you could change that entire tier to something like, Maxing ArP after dealing Magic Damage, as one talent, or Maxing ArP after dealing Fire Damage, idk

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Heal is not going to stay useless in the talent revamp. There will be a talent that can do something similar to what the one mage talent does with water globes (making it instant, but adding cooldown).

Also Flash of Light will eventually get an ability pairing, though that is still somewhere off in the future.

Many people seem to like the BoL/Sunfire pairing though. And I can see why, since both spells are similar to each other in so many ways. I think this is something worth considering.

I don't like pairing off Symbol with any of the three main spells though. That seems like a completely lopsided choice.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

I think I just noticed a critical fail in my thinking here:
The problem is not that the current pairings are bad, the problem is that the crippling curse talent that removes armor is considered a mandatory pick for monks.

Basicly, what we are doing here is destroying perfectly valid skill pairings just to please builds around one single mandatory talent pick.
... which is totally dumb, because there's clearly something wrong with the talent, not the abilities in that case.
Crippling Curse is super strong even without a talent that relies on picking it.


Which leaves two possible solutions:
1) Nerf the talent until the other talents at the same choice feel like equal value
2) Change the talent to a condition other than crippling curse

I'd vote for a nerf of sorts, as changing the condition is just generating the same problem but in a different skin. But of course I suppose changing the condition could just innately work out as a nerf. Perhaps simply changing it to a 25% chance to ignore armor every hit would still make it really strong, but not mandatory.

As long as monk is still more average DPS than a Hexblade and Crusader, while still being able to hold aggro over DPS and healer classes then the monk class should still be playable.

 

[MiroBG]

Heal is not going to stay useless in the talent revamp. There will be a talent that can do something similar to what the one mage talent does with water globes (making it instant, but adding cooldown).

Also Flash of Light will eventually get an ability pairing, though that is still somewhere off in the future.

Many people seem to like the BoL/Sunfire pairing though. And I can see why, since both spells are similar to each other in so many ways. I think this is something worth considering.

I don't like pairing off Symbol with any of the three main spells though. That seems like a completely lopsided choice.

what about my suggestion to changing crippling curse armor pen talent on monk?

 

[Zwiebelchen]

what about my suggestion to changing crippling curse armor pen talent on monk?

That would make any future runes dealing shadow damage completely broken.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

The problem is not that the current pairings are bad, the problem is that the crippling curse talent that removes armor is considered a mandatory pick for monks.

You're still not quite getting it. The real problem is that Monk lacks ArP and AP so their threat over time is absolutely terrible against high armored targets. This in turn is why we need the crippling curse talent. What I suggested is one way to solve it, but you could go another route. Give Monk gear some ArP or more AP or higher elemental procs. That way the talent is good but it doesn't give such a huge boost that everything else pales in comparison.

That would be the cleaner approach but would probably take time to rebalance all Monk's gear to proper values. If you don't address this and go the route of nerfing Curse ArP talent, Monk is going to have balance issues in the future again.

 

[froz]

Since arp and ap are physical damage values you could opt to pair it with talent that increases elemental damage on divine fist.

(throwing random values)
Increase value of additional Monk's elemental damage 5-50%
Increase value of additional allies elemental damage 5-50% <---- increasing this from 2-20%
*All extra elemental damage threat done by allies is redirected to Monk instead* (something like Crusader's GA in case he might not hold agro because of it, or just increase value of his elemental damage)

His raw numbers might not be that high but overall team dps would be better/same like with arp thingie. This way you would be more of a team player when there's lots of casters and could pick between physical way (arp talent) if you have sins/zerkers.

Also while I'm at it, you could make that all elemental damage done by Monk would be same type like his rune damage. That would make elemental souls more popular and his damage type could be changed on demand (for example going lightning if there is water globes debuff or some boss is very resistant to certain element). Even going as far as that you could craft some high end rune into element of your choice. Not sure if this stuff is possible though.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Like I stated in my edit on my pairing suggestion post, I think that the best solution for combating the ArP talent is to simply buff the other talents on that tier to be more comparable.

 

[EdgeOfChaos]

I think the problem is that there are too many absolutely necessary skills for Cleric-based classes to function. Heal (Until Flash), Soul Strike, and Crippling Curse are all necessary skills. Not having any one of these makes the class quite bad, and so any choice will either be a throwaway or a nerf. Res could also be counted among these, mainly because every bishop is expected to have it to save their team's gold.

Also currently there's nothing of equal value to Symbol of Fury, because Symbol is so bad.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

I don't think clerics need all those spells to be effective really. They are insanely strong as it is. I consider Bishop to be the strongest class in the game currently. With the option of having a Shaman merc in the team, or just another cleric, Heal isn't always absolutely necessary. I would say either Soul Strike or Curse gives cleric decent enough single-target DPS. Ressurrection can conceivably be dropped now that 3 other classes have the option to get it (Monk/Psion/Druid), I don't even care about the team's gold anyway, the important part is bringing an ally back into a fight. Symbol is going to be buffed so it will be a useful skill in the future.

Cleric and Bishop will be a decent class with most combinations of early spells I think. Monk, however, will not. So we need pairings that will keep cleric and bishop from being OP, while not nerfing the Monk too much.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I decided to add some ArP-like functionality to Divine Fist, as that not only makes a lot of sense, but also makes it way easier to balance, since I can design whatever spell is going to be added in a pair with divine fist around that fact.

The Crippling-curse ArP talent will therefore be changed to something else and to bring it in line with the other talents.

Symbol of Fury will get buffed to also give a spellhaste bonus. The attack speed bonus will be slightly increased.

Ressurection will be changed to work like Life Infusion.


In return, the gold penalty on death (and thus, also the load limit) will be removed from the game*.

*in 1.2C, to prevent a sudden flood of gold without proper sinks in place. 1.2C content will come with a lot new stuff to buy with gold and I don't want players to be able to buy everything instantly when it drops.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

Mutha.fukken.infinite.loads.

Any way you could just wipe the Gold values when comping into 1.2C? Then we can have the death and load limit changes right now.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Mutha.fukken.infinite.loads.

Any way you could just wipe the Gold values when comping into 1.2C? Then we can have the death and load limit changes right now.

That's possible, but I don't want to destroy gold incentives for players now.

 

[Jumbo]

How about a system that simply limited max gold for loaded chars from 1.2B versions into C?
This number could be decided by you just before release: High enough to allow some "reserves" but too low to gain instant access to everything.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Im very selfishly okay with a gold limitation for comping in :^). I will offer many hugs for Kamina though .

 

[SHBlade]

How about a system that simply limited max gold for loaded chars from 1.2B versions into C?
This number could be decided by you just before release: High enough to allow some "reserves" but too low to gain instant access to everything.

+ for that idea

 

[Zwiebelchen]

That could work and probably make a lot of sense too. Alright, I can do that.

 

[SaikoDeMoN]

Can you tell us beforehand what cap you decide on? No use rolling for sells if the gold is getting buried anyway.

 

[TooMuch]

Well, its been a while. But I got a friend that says he likes the current ability pairings. He's glad that he doesn't have to worry about soul strike anymore. and unlike others, heal to him is very useful.
Looking at it myself, its fine the way it is. Why do most people want to jumble heals and damage anyways? especially when in groups, they cant heal. too busy soul striking. besides, more abilities in the future would allow a whole new array of specializations. the pairings are fine.

 

[Manipulation]

+1 TooMuch