Nerf clerics. In fact, let’s go a step further and get rid of the class entirely. Let’s go even further and remove the very concept of “healers” or “priests” or “medics” or any class whose modus operandi is to sit in the corner and stay very still so they can enable other players to have fun.
I’m a cleric in EQ1, level 75 with a ton of AA. I have a 60 cleric on EQ2, a 60 priest in World of Warcraft, and a bard in Dark Ages of Camelot. I’ve spent a LOT of time watching health bars rise and fall while everyone else kills the monster. A lot of times in EQ1 I’d have to hide behind a wall or something and I wouldn’t even see the fight at all. Other people would kill the dragon. I’d watch a blue bar rise and fall.
A week or two ago, I won a really nice weapon in EQ1 in the Demiplane of Blood - Daybreak, Bringer of Light. This weapon procs a group heal, so I used it in later prolonged fights to save mana and also keep my group healed. It procs a lot, just like the Hammer of Holy Vengeance, its predecessor from the Plane of Time. I had a lot of fun hitting the monsters until we came to the big hitters when I’d be once again huddled with the rest of the clerics, coordinating the pressing of our Complete Heal hotkeys.
I have this fine weapon and a shield of unmatched glowiness. Armor of legend. Jewelry that would have made King Tutankhamen cry. I wasn’t meant to stare at health bars. I was meant to wreak holy hell upon my enemies.
Dungeons & Dragons didn’t have this narrow view of clerics. There, clerics were active and able fighters in their own rights, perhaps not as able to take hits as a warrior, but they did their share. I played a cleric proudly in D&D and when the time came to smite, I smote.
But EQ and many of the games that followed decided that prime healers - clerics - should be stashed away. Druids and shaman could take on other roles as needed, paladins and rangers were pretty versatile, but the prime healers whatever their class name would just do this one thing.
This one thing is a pretty lame thing. Makes an active player into a immobile lamppost that occasionally zaps a heal to someone. It’s no surprise that so many people run around with two-boxed clerics following their main characters. It’s so easy to play a cleric. When you get hurt enough, press the heal button on your cleric. You don’t need a mind to play a cleric. And nobody plays a cleric for the challenge. They play because it’s simple, you’re needed, and you’re part of a tight healing team keeping everything going.
Great reasons. But it still comes down to watching those health bars rise and fall. How could it be done better?
Heal by Fighting
Let clerics buff their weapons. Every time they hit the monster, it heals. Better weapons or better spells heal more. Different buffs replace the healing with disease cures or poison antidotes. One buff placed on an ally would heal or cure only them, but for greater effect, with each hit.
Battle Clerics FTW
Every cleric harbors within them a secret desire to mix it up face to face with the monster. Druids (in the EQs) nuke. Shaman do damage over time. Clerics fight and by fighting keep the others alive. Hitting a button now and then just won’t do. Moving around and helping kill is how you do the job.
Duh, that’s what a paladin does!
Yeah, I’ve long thought a cleric’s life would be allowed to be more interesting if they didn’t have to worry about taking on a paladin’s role. But the whole idea of paladins being support fighters is yet another EQ (and friends) innovation. Paladins were the SUPER FIGHTERS. They led, they commanded, they were first on the front lines – fighters were the rank-and-file. Instead of that glorious destiny for the holy warriors, they were diminished in MMOs to being kinda sucky warriors, and kinda sucky healers.
It’s obvious the Warrior Union changed the rules on them.
Paladins (and Shadow Knights or Anti-Paladins for the evil set) should be reserved for the very best of the best fighters. Something to aspire to, not something to settle for.
They aren’t needed when you have Battle Clerics. So, place knights back in their proper positions as super warriors or cavalry and leave the healing to the priests.
Battle Cleric vs Random Victim in PvP
Obviously, fighting a battle cleric who heals with every swing of their mace is going to be a little harder than currently, where you just wait until they are out of mana before you kill them. They can still be rooted, stunned, mezzed; leave them with only their smites and the piddly self-heals left to them and it becomes much more fair.
Bob can solo, I want to solo, too!
There’s no reason clerics can’t fulfill the healing role in a group and preserve their ability to solo. The old rule – groups are forced to need clerics so clerics must be forced to need groups – is a false choice. Took my 60 inquisitor five minutes and 4/5 of her power to kill a level 50 heroic giant in Solusek’s Eye last night. A level 60 of almost any other class would have just mowed through that mob and they wouldn’t have needed a cleric with them, either. With a new role as battle clerics, maybe we could deal a little more damage and worry about petty healing a little less.
(Yes, I know EQ2 does in fact have an explicitly named Battle Cleric AA line for Inquisitors. But their role is still the same – stand still and heal.)
Being a primary healer shouldn’t require you to take an inactive role in the fight. Everyone wants to be up killing the monster, clerics included. Fantasy MMOs since EQ have generally followed EQ’s separation of secondary healers being given gobs of special abilities to make up for their only slightly diminished heals, while the primary healers are given little that is of any use in a typical group or raid. That separation is wrong and it needs to end.
Set the clerics free.