Cleric in LDoN (20th lvl)Follow

Hmm, you make a reasonable point Debalic.

Mu main issue with the DA line is the huge reset time, which makes it impossible to use as a swap spell. Hence the thought that it wastes a spell slot.

But in some pick up groups using it the way you describe would certainly be of benefit, maybe more value than keeping one of the stuns. I will try to remember to give it a try and see how it works.

On second though in the type of group I am thinking of it is probably best to sacrifice the nuke.

HeresJohnny, the way I keep my melee skills up is to go off with a partner and do some duo hunting, mostly in Jagged Pines and Great Divide with a Druid partner in recent times, I find this pretty effective as I skill up all my tanking skills plus get to pocket some PP and a back pack or two of stuff for the Tribute Master. Handed her a bunch of White Scale Tunics the other day for a much better deal that I would have got in the bazaar.

No offense meant but you did read I am just above 20 and so my choice and effectiveness of spells is a bit different?

Regarding DA as some means of beeing the "only survivior" is shortsighted. It is rather a handy tool to flee by "casters and hybrids first" order. DA is cheap and fast so I can afford to get some beating while the spell is interuppted/fizzling 4 or 5 times before it hits - which is certain death for casters in standard LDoN. Also as a safety net for being attacked because my healing pulls too much aggro mentioned above it does a nice job - and the reload is short enough to be used about every half hour.

And regarding to various comments that clerics "shouldn't try to be heroes" I admit at 50+ the classes are so specialized that everybody has to restrain himself to his certain job AND a good rez is no the problem.

But at lvl 20-25 we talk about CR not rez so it doesn't matter who dies but how many. If a 6-toon group has two dead tanks already for what ever reason, 4 mobs running for the rest of the group and my cleric can scratch just enough mama together to cast DA then she does. She tries to get the attention of every mob, hits DA, covers the escape of the rest of the group - and dies if 18 secs of invulnerability are too short.

Thats not heroic its just effective in my opinion.

Edited, Thu Mar 11 09:45:49 2004 by Leiany

Erh, yes Leiany. Clearly I was mistaken and offer my humble appologies for trying to tell you things when you already know better.

You obviously have all of the techniques and tactics down pat.

Does have me puzzled as to why you bothered asking the original question though?

By the way, the strange thing about cleric spells is that they tend to have the same series or line that stretches all the way from the 20's to 65.

So that the humble Stun of level 5 becomes Enforced Reverence of level 58, but they each do the same thing and you would use them in the same manner. Likewise Celestial Remedy of level 19 becomes Supernal Elixir at level 62, both Heal over Time spells.

But then I guess you already knew this.

Couple quick points (to reinforce what others have said). Root is just one of those spells you should always have memmed. It just is...


Using DA the way you are suggesting wont work. The instant you cast DA, the mobs will go after *anyone* with agro. There is no sense in casting DA and then "covering" the others as they run. If you cast DA on yourself in an LDoN, it should be for one of two reasons:

1. You seriously over agroed. This will allow your tank to regain agro without a risk that you'll get smeared in the process.

2. You guys are wiping, and you cast DA and run like heck towards the zoneline. There is zero sense in staying back and covering anything. First off, the mobs will ignore you, so they'll chase everyone else whether you stay back or not. Second, if we're running away anyway, you may as well survive, right? I do have a problem with folks running away or gating at the first sign of trouble. However, that does not mean that everyone should throw their lives away for absolutely nothing. If the call to run comes in, and you have DA. Cast it and run like the ******** It's not like you're helping anything by not running...


I noticed this in your OP, and really really really want to comment on this (as a puller/tank).



There's a trick to pulling casters. I'm going to tell it to you. I want everyone who reads this to use it (if you pull), or remember it so you can tell it to your puller if he doesn't already know how to do this.


NPC casters have to follow LoS rules (line of sight). However, LoS is only checked when they first start casting (NPC cheat to make up for their lack of real intelligence and prevent player exploits). If you are in LoS, a caster will often choose to cast on you instead of running up to attack (in fact, almost always will). This makes casters a real pita to pull.

However, if the caster does not have LoS with you, he will *always* run towards you at least until he gets to LoS. You can use this to your advantage. When you agro the caster, do not just stand there on the other side of the room, or through the open doorway and wait for him to come to you. Run back and around a corner. The mob will always move to the corner to get you. With a bit of intelligence, you can position the mob exactly where you want it, caster or not.

Imagine this situation. You're a paladin and you're pulling. You see a room with 5 mobs in it. One is a healer. You decide you want to pull the healer first because your group is in the next room, and if you don't, the healer will heal the mobs as you kill them. So, you paci the other four and tag the healer with a spell (or anything in this case). If you just stand there, the caster will cast on you for quite some time. Possibly longer then your paci lasts. End result is 4 mobs on your group, and a caster that's still standing there nuking you and healing your mobs.


That's how *not* to do it.


What you should do is pull the room as above, but drop a stun on the caster. Then run back around a corner such that the healer's closest LoS to you puts it out of social agro range with any mob in the room (that's important!). The stun will give you enough time to do this before the mob gets a single spell off. Once it runs up to you, you start tagging it and the fight commences. You've successfuly singled pulled a caster out of a room, with no adds, no wasted time, and no spells dropped on you along the way.


Second note to this. Lots of folks in LDoN love to move up really close to where you are pulling. In fact, many will insist on moving the group into the room you are pulling from once a corner is cleared or something. I understand the desire to do this. It gives the appearance of moving faster. However, it *really* screws up the puller when he's pulling a caster.

If our group is in a corner of a room (or hanging out in a doorway), and on the other side of the room is a group of mobs with a caster in it, I have no corner between me and the group to pull the caster around to prevent it from nuking me to death before finally moving (and probably agroing other mobs as well). Even if the caster is the last mob in the room, this is a pain in the butt. Always let your puller tell you when to move up, and always be aware that leaving some extra space between where the puller is pulling from and where he's pulling to is a good thing. The extra 3 seconds it takes to run around a corner and back into a room to pull is vastly better then the time wasted on extra heals due to nukes, or recasting buffs due to dispells (I hate getting KEI dispelled because of this!), and the time wasted waiting for that mob to finally run over into melee range.


It is *not* faster to try to fight as close to the spawn locations of the mobs as possible. If you think it is, then think again. You're actually making the puller's job harder by being that close, not easier. If you're the puller, always try to have a corner that's out of agro range of anything between the room you are pulling from and the room you are pulling to. It will make your life 100% easier...

Yesterday I had 3 LDoN in a row (lost faction on hubby of course) with different mixes and tried a lot out having this thread in mind.

1. Gbaji is right in his best use on DA. One of the 3 LDoN I was not prime but only healer - when the puller overdid (more than once *lol*)and I had to heal like crazy until every single mob still standing hated me and went for my throat I just did hit DA then and sat down while my companions hacked them from my back - really made me chuckle once.

2. Rooting is the best solution because if the mob resists chances are I get at least his aggro - you all where right on this. One caster did also indeed run like a headless chicken around - he even managed to run into the rooted mob again and got hit for another 20% health *lol*

3. Once we had another cleric and a shamy and as my melee skills where all maxed at 20 (now at 22 I have to do a bit soloing to get them up again) I gladly joined the fray most of the time. But funny enough the one I had to sit on my @ss (as lonely healer)was the most secure of all three trips as I could perfectly monitor the situation and chat bar which allowed me to react to every new threat easily.

4. I also learned that at this lvl nearly every mix of classes works as long as everybody is a team-player. Every trip we had exactly one near-to-useless character and we managed to even keep those alive

All in all it where 3 victorious LDoN with 11-12 different players altogether and not a single death =)

Loot was crappy and dice where too but who really cares at this level ;-)



Edited, Fri Mar 12 04:39:00 2004 by Leiany

One last thing.


Bind outside the dungeon before you enter.


Why?


Should you just happen to pull too much aggro from healing and go down, you will pop outside the dungeon. You can mem up your spells and head right back in to save the day. Worry about rezzing later, and you can suffer with the tanks the long runs back to the adventure camp instead of gating.

Also in this case you could keep a gate up, as you know it will just take you right outside the dungeon where you could come right back in.

Was going to clarify the use of DA, but I see it was already well covered:)

As far as root goes, the only one of my caster classes that doesn't have a permanent spell slot for root is my enchanter, and that's only because I've learned through trial and error(read LOTS of corpse runs) the enchanter's mez/stun spells are far more effective at stopping the mobs than his root spell is. However, I do use root with my enchanter if I'm either 1. soloing 2. heading into a zone where I know the mobs are generally resistant to mez or 3. know that the tanks I'm hunting with prefer to off tank rather than use crowd control.

My advice would be make a permanent slot for root, and if you're getting 4 or 5 fizzles before you get a level 9 or under(I forget exactly what level DA is) spell off, that you do some work on your spell casting disciplines.

Edited, Fri Mar 12 11:29:07 2004 by danreynolds

Heh. Yeah. Messages are important. Honestly though, *trimming* messages is even more important. Know what messages your group needs to hear and which ones they don't is a key idea that a lot of people kinda miss.

If your puller is targeting mobs and asking you to pacify them, then you really don't need a key that says "/g pacifying %t; /cast 4". You've only got 10 keys, why add one unecessarily? The group already saw the puller ask you to do it, and really only you and the puller even need to know what's going on with the pulling, right? And even then, the puller only needs to know when it's safe for him to target and pull another mob (ie: When the mob is pacified).

No one needs to know you are casting that spell. Presumably, either you are the puller in this situation, or you are already coordinating with the puller (puller says: "/g please pacicy %t"). You don't need another message. Save yourself a hotkey and just assist the puller and click on the spell gem manually (which will help avoid problems if you loaded out pacify and put a nuke in instead for some reason...).

Just send the "/g %t is pacified" message. That's all anyone needs to know.


Same logic applies for a whole ton of spells and messages. Most spells, people only need to know when they are in effect, not that you're attempting it. I really think some people get very hung up on the idea that they are being somehow more efficient if they hotkey two actions together. Thus, hotkeying the spell cast and a message about the cast seems to be a good use of a hotkey. It's not really. If the message is unimportant or redundant then all you're really doing is using up a hotkey for something you could have done without the hotkey (ie: just click the gem, or hit alt-# ).

I'd apply this logic to slows, snares, mezzes (although there's some argument for giving folks warning that you're mezzing something), roots, dots, etc... For the most part, no one needs to know when you attempt something, only when your spell effect occurs do they need to know. Heh. And in many cases we don't need to know when your spell's taken effect either.

As a rule, the only spell messages you need to send are those that other people in your group will be waiting for and will need to react to. So, alerting someone that you just nuked a mob isn't really needed. Telling folks when a mob is mezzed, or rooted probably is.

Message spamming IS an issue I have to admit. With one group consisting of Ranger, Wizard x2, Shaman, Cleric x2 the chat box got indeed crowded from time to time *lol*

BTW: learned from my fellow elvish cleric that the following msg is quite useful:

/g healing XY - please stay in spell range!
/cast #

an announcement like that makes the target not only think twice about chasing a mob on 20% health but gives him also some relief as the healing spell could fizzle or be interuppted (as you got someone on your back yourself maybe)and so at least the recipient knows you are working on it :)

Edited, Sat Mar 13 02:11:21 2004 by Leiany