EQ2 Clerics (Impressions from a vet EQ cleric)Follow

Sorta EQ1 vet, and sorta Cleric vet ... I played from a month or so after release to shortly before Velious came out and Cleric was one of the four classes I took to 20+ but not above 30. What can I say, I like variety :p

Anyhow. So far, at level 16, I like my EQ2 Cleric. I've suffered one party member death so far, from me not keeping on my toes when a nasty named popped and letting the poor primary tank be slapped down while tossing debuffs, but other than that it's been smooth sailing. Reactive heals are wonderful. Pop Bestowal of Vitae on the puller before he runs out and he can whack-pull stuff for all I care, it won't dent his HP or my Power. Pop BoW on the tank and I can proceed to twiddle my thumbs for 20 seconds (or do some righteous smiting, if I've got power to spare) and still keep him healed. If aggro starts jumping, the group reactive heal keeps people alive without undue panic or waste of power. Oh, and I can solo green & low-blue double-arrow group mobs without much trouble by keeping BoW up and smiting them into oblivion - good fun!

Am I better at healing than a druid or shammy? Well, as long as everything is stable, we've only got one suitably conning mob to beat up and nothing is likely to pop in on our party, they can cure as well as I do and contribute with considerably more damage-upping abilities. But, when the fecal matter reaches the air displacement unit, when we're taking on a Bruiser-type named with ungodly melee damage or when a couple of oj orcs just popped next to our sorc, I've got the healing power to single-handedly keep everyone in in the green without backup. When my Brawler got into similar fixes with a shammy doing healing, the shammy just couldn't keep up with the incoming damage. Granted, one shammy is hardly conclusive of anything but, in my limited experience, if you want damage mitigation and nothing but damage mitigation the Cleric is still at the top of the pack.


Aside: What does annoy me is when some heal-crazed group decides to get two Clerics. Apart from the direct heals - which I currently use less than my nukes & debuffs cos Bestowal of Vitae is so damned good - our primary abilities don't stack. If you for some reason have got to put two healers in the group, at least pick ones from different classes so they can contribute with all their abilities.

OK first of all let me state that I am not trying to compare EQ 1 and EQ 2. I realize they are two different games. My original statements were, if you read them, that EQ2 seemed to take some of the fun that I felt in being a cleric on EQ1. Att hat time, I didn't know about the level 12 cleric res that I had recently gotten where another group member could rez me.

For me personally, it's very hard again not having any kind of speed or hiding ability. I'm an artisan and hunting in the deep wilds of Antonica surrounded by hordes of angry mobs, I'm always checking my back to make sure nothing is going to come up and smack me down.

As far as my response about clerics in EQ 1, it was all true. Maybe clerics did have some soloing ability, but I guarantee you throw it up next to a druid and the druid could quad kite 4-6 mobs while the cleric exhausted themselves on one. Soloing and soloing effectively are two different things. If it takes everything you have to take down one mob because your roots are notorious for not holding and your DD spells absorb a ton of mana and have a slow recast, that's not effective. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying clerics weren't the gods of grouping and rez/buff, but there were penalties, as there should be, to other aspects.

I played a cleric in Eq1 as well, and am currently a lvl 21 Templar in EQ2, and IMHO the clerics in EQ2 rock! We're now actually more true to the meaning cleric, an actual holy warrior now. I solo about 60% of the time, and it just kicks butt!

For a former EQ1 cleric, one of my favorite features is that I am not dependent on KEI. WOOT!!!!

Learn and read up on your devine awakening spell. You will find your complaining about a dead issue which was addressed and resolved a LONG time ago. Know your spells.

The best part I think is the reactive heals. THis is a must spell for the "pullers".


Many times when you are fighting a really had enemy, the tank will go in to pull, and by the time he back up to the group, he may be almost dead. Especially if he gets aggroed and pulls back 2 or 3. With our reactive heals, he will start being healed before he even gets back to the group with the MOBs.

This will keep a puller alive better than most heal over time spells.

Reraise was useless. Sorry, but I only once saw it actually NOT run out and a WHM remember to cast it and used the benefits. I like the totem idea MUCH better. Give one to each party member, if your cleric dies you don't have to worry about as much EXP debt...unless the whole party dies.

FFXI AH? Yeah, it was an OK idea. Uhm, but what's the difference between that and a Broker really? Jeuno AH charged taxes, Broker charges a fee. It's like the Bazaar mode and AH combined, and you don't have to GUESS at how much an item will go for, and since that's the case, you can typically find items for a nice price. Unlike the AH, where a +1 (or pristine in this game) would go for anywhere between 10,000 and millions more gil for basically maybe one more defense, or one more agi. I also like the fact that people can't get TOO greedy in this game, because a lot of the stuff you can get from a vender too, so it sets a limit on how much someone can really charge for something before the players will turn around and buy it from a vendor cheaper. You didn't get that in FFXI, because vendors sold everything at prices that were insane.

If you like FFXI better, go back to FFXI. IMHO that game had MANY faults that were...so far... A LOT worse than "I don't want to be afk to sell my stuff" or "I don't like feather reraise system". Stuff like, my monk hasn't been able to get a party for 2 months and my sniper rings are going to cost 600k each and if I DON'T get them then everyone will say I'm gimped and won't invite me over one piece of equipment blah blah blah.

Don't get me wrong, I had great friends and a GREAT LS in FFXI and had some fun times, but the attitude and the elitism I'll happily leave behind and do without. The last few months of FFXI turned into, not a game, but a race to see who could impress who with what expensive gear they had.

I only have 1 real grief with the help system. My problem is, sometimes you yell for help, but no one helps. In this case, instead of running, you stand up and fight and end up winning. I think that if no one interferes after you yell for help, that you should still get XP for the encounter.

I do miss the fact that I can't come around and heal a stranger in need, but I like the stopping of power leveling much more. I am not a hardcore player. I have a kid and a job, I don't have the time. I played EQ 1 for 3 years. When the Froggies were first released, I was lvl 30. It was very disturbing that when I signed on the night of the expansion realease, there were Frogs above my level. So, from mid-night to 7PM when I signed on, people PLed to a higher lvl than I made it to on my own in 2 years.

The difference (for me anyway) was that in FFXI I didn't have to sit online in my house doing nothing just to sell stuff. I don't think taxes are the issue.

Not to mention, if you're on a dialup connection, unless you have a second phone line it's pretty much impossible for you to sell stuff in this manner. Unless you don't mind missing every phone call that comes in.

You should be able to put up 10 items for sale and logoff/adventure. Making you sit in your house is ignorant, and it's really the only gripe I have about EQ2. Unfortunately, it's a large one.

Yes, No priest class can rez themselves in group or solo instances.

However, They have no need to really do so in solo Instances, you have to run back to your soul shard anyhow, and just clicking it grants you almost the same exp return as a rez, infact it may be the same. Downside to rez during groups is that, those rez'd will have only a little hp and power, making for downtime. Now priests that solo can just die, run back, click body and go on thier way.

Also, To top off the points about how each healer differ's compared to the rest in EQ2 and compared to the counterpart in EQ1.

EQ2
Clerics: Strong Heals and heal over time spells. Also have good armor and modest tanking ability. Clerics of EQ1 were saught after cause of thier single best healing and buffing abilities, now its still nice to have a cleric but your not forced to need one. Other not is combining riest classes in groups makes for huge difference in the groups abilities. 1 cleric in group and its a good group, cleric + either shaman or druid and its awesome.

Shaman: Strong ward abilities, and tied with druid on earliest group heal at lvl 14. Shaman retain thier chain armors and spears, but they also gained a substancial increase to healing rates over EQ1 shaman. This bridges the gap between the shaman, clerics and druids making thier Wards very useful group wise and sometimes the tide of battle can be tiped with just a single well timed ward. Shaman also still retain thier animal form of bears but they also have illusion forms for other animals.

Druids: Yep the tree huggers came back with EQ2, and man they was blessed. Druid classes have the only true HP regen ability in the game thus far, and it rocks. Specially when mixed with either the clerics HoT or the shaman's wards. You'll also find druids still have some massive dots. Infact I've talked with some that use nothing but dots on things while they tank it using thier regen to heal themselves. This compared to the old EQ1 druids, hasn't changed much minus ports. But then again, the worlds in disaray and the frigin druid circles are torn to hell and back, so where would you wanna port to?

In closing, All the priest classes gained and lost things its true. Druids lost ports, clerics lost self rezes, and shaman lost thier pets, but they all gained something far better. Solo abilities, which sets them a couple notches above some of the other classes in EQ2. All in all I think priests that solo have the lowest down time of almost all soloing classes. All do it well and can protect themselves well while doing it too, with clerics falling to 3rd in soloing cause simply they lack SoW for a minor speed boost between mobs, which really isn't a disadvantage. Just don't roll up a priest and expect them to be all powerful healers strait out, cause its only when you combine types of priests into groups that the real potential comes out and shines.

Want some cheese with that whine Shaladarra? What's the point of having a healer if one kind of healer isn't as good as another? That just means that there would be a massive amount of people playing that class and no one playing the others. As a Mystic, I can heal just as well as a Templar at the same lvl, and this is how it was intended to be. You choose your class on your play style, not because one heals better than the other.

If you're still stuck on the idea of clerics being like they were in EQ, then I suggest you go back to EQ.