Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO

Played the Cleric a bit yesterday - noobie levels. Seems like the intent is for the Cleric in the early levels is to play more like a Holy Paladin from WoW. In my previous experience with the class in the noobie levels - they literally dragged ass so bad that it was an awful slog. Only to get into a group ~6, and follow up the rest of the game with the traditional drag ass EQ cleric. Versus now - They zoom through the mobs with ease. More so then some others simply because they can cure and heal the early level BS that made you stay away from those mobs on other classes. The new kill speed was such a wide departure from how the old Cleric was that if you only played the Cleric you would think it would need to be nerfed or "toned down" - but then you go on to play other classes and a handful can kill as quick or quicker (which honestly, every class should at least start this way. Why drag out the worst experience of the entire game?).

Rebuke and Smite the Undead are great for... pulling, I guess. The summoned Hammer's proc has a low PPM, it "feels" like - but when it hits, it hits like a truck. Its great for the early levels and really sets the idea that, and this is a big if, IF they are supposed to continue to play this way - then gone are the days of a Cleric just having a stat stick without a proc.

Mana though, I just dont know how powerful the mana regen for the Prayer of the Faithful line will be at higher levels. Right now in the early levels, its almost as if Meditate is something you would do when you just had a huge pull and everyone needs to med. Or say you had to buff your entire group and you didnt have any reagents. I really like this idea and hope it continues.

But, that buff also has stacking haste effect on its proc called fulfillment. At these early levels, with no item haste - I generally procced enough to keep about 2-3 stacks on "average" if I just chain pulled. Sometimes 5, but sometimes 1 or none. Five times and you're at your max for 20% haste. Its.. pretty fun when you're at max stacks but that ramp up, or long periods where it doesnt proc just feel awful in comparison.

30 Seconds seems like a long time, but when you're waiting on mobs or looking for mobs - then it just falls off and you're back to a noticeably slow attack. If you have to break away from combat to do any number of other jobs the cleric has, then it can feel punishing to do so. Put yourself in the shoes of a PUG - "This fucking tank sucks. I have to heal him all the time and I cant get any stacks. We're losing DPS we could have with a better tank." Or - "Lets not go there, I have to heal, Cure Poison, Cure Disease, and Dispel Fear/Magic nonstop. I'll never have the opportunity to get stacks." ... Need, Balance, and Risk VS Reward come to mind for those situations, but those complaints could be overlooked completely if they just increased the time it takes for the proc to fade.

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Overall, the noobie cleric experience is a lot more fun. I'm genuinely interested in seeing how it plays at max level before I say they are great changes. Because this could all just be a really strong noobie experience that turns right back into "sit in that corner, look at the floor and med like its 1999" again by level 20. I really wanted to play the class more and I generally never want to play a Cleric until I get to the point where Im playing another class and we cant find a fkn cleric.

edit - Also, I dont think the damage on the proc of the Hammer, nor Holy Strikes innate is correctly set. So either the text is correct, and the damage should be a lot less. OR - the text isnt updated to reflect actual damage and this review is fucking mud when it comes to the early levels. If they nerf the damage to be in line with what the text says AND the class still plays the same into the later levels - itll still be very powerful. But the noobie experience will go back to being a drag ass experience. Procs and innate could be set off of Wisdom, maybe? But then it doesnt make sense why Rebuke and Smite the Undead are so awful.

Hatorade said:

Didn’t they say they were removing pets? Currently pets in this game aren’t useless for SK. They already have insane sustained, though fear, pets, and life taps. Anything they do will feel like a nerf. Unless of course they give them way more utility or focus heavy on hex types a.k.a. you get buffs when they get debuffs.

Don’t care either way never played a SK probably never will.

I I am still salty about the stealth changes for rogues, they should have perfect invisibility at all times minus those that always see invisibility. Otherwise, you do that stupid face on the other way, sneak by bullshit that you do with World of Warcraft.

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I think pets are one of those things that were useful for solo situations on a SK? Or slow/small groups? But anytime I played my Druid before the first wipe (Left him off at 43 iirc) - they seemed to be so fragile that I often didnt have the time to even heal them if they got even a hint of aggro. I wasnt going to use natures touch to instant heal a pet. So basically, I just never saw them out unless I was playing with an SK that was a PUG moron.