How useful are healers in RvR?

[old.Galoewen]

My main plan with my Cleric character is to spec in Rejuv to almost max and have Enhancements and Smite equal. But after recent RvR experience Im begining to think otherwise.
I was group with a range of lvls but all over 32 (including lvl 42 and 48 Paladins) facing a group of Mids of about the same size.
The 2 high lvls were dead before I could cast my heal spells..quickly followed by the rest of the group then me. Should I just spec in smiting instead and inflict as much damage as possible...or do things get better? I know in later patches the damage in RvR is reduced...but still.

 

[Krillin]

its all down to personal preference and how you wnat to play the game in terms of you spec. In my experience i have found healing to be a difficult thing to do in RvR and i spend most of my time rezzing and buffing. I do not doubt though that rejuv clerics aren't useful in RvR. I know a few very high level clerics in my guild who have specced in rejuv and are apparently very good and useful on the RvR field. At the end of the day it's your choice how you play. Good luck with what you choose

 

[old.Galoewen]

I do agree that most of the time you spend in RvR is buffing and rezzing.
but is there a tactic to successful healing in RvR..because it seems that as soon as I see someone is getting hit in my group..I start casting heal and...damn they're dead before you finish casting . Now I suppose this might be one of the reasons that RvR damage is reduced in later patches.
Now Ive been thinking maybe a group heal spell is best use in RvR...so that even tho some may die others are healed successfully without jumping around the group desperately trying to heal. Does anyone use this tactic?

 

[old.cheesey_pipps]

being a friar i too have often tried to heal during RvR fights, ive found that way most people tend to all engage 1 target usually killing them in a few seconds, before you can get that heal off.

during charges i will hang back a bit, lets our nukers and main tanks clear the oppositions main tanks, i try to get some rezzes off as the battle goes on if the charge looking like failing. if we look like swinging it i will try to get on the opponents softer targets (healers/mages/archers etc) an deal out some staff justice. healing could make a difference in these situations, as the gang gank tactics are being used by your side.

the only times ive found a use for heals is helping out fellow realm mates escape being charged down while retreating, and after rezzing. But being a friar i have no instas so i have no experience in that area.

 

[old.Aiges Tyme]

Well

I do ok with my cleric (balanced smite / rejuve) but sometimes people die before the heal gets off, other times my heals have swung the fight in our favour. Clerics have other useful spells too, stun which is level based not smite spec can be handy, 8 seconds (at lvl 36) is a long time to stand still when tanks are mashing you.

As for your skills thats up to you, and you alone.

 

[old.Moongoose]

Taking rejuv to more than 40 is a waste atm. At 40rejuv you get the nice 100% ress that can shange tide of scirmishes and is extremely usefull against defended keeps. Ie. imagine a group of 5 infils, one mins and 2 rejuv40 clerics dealing with the defenders.

Normal healing is very hard to come by in scirmishes and I think it's far better to focus on stunning, mezzing and nuking hoping you can triiger your instas in time, which can be hard too. Even tanking an enemy caster will often be far better than healing if they deal say 500dmg/2 secs.

Your healing won't improve significantly from say 25 to 40+rejuv. Your spec-heals heals for the same amount regardless of skill. At 25 rejuv you get a big heal that heals for 426, which is more than enough for parties -50.

All said, I prefer the balanced or Rejuv/smite builds (normally 2 healers in each group -enhancement only needed on one of them)

On my cleric I have 26enhance, 25rejuv and 40 smite (all +10). I can buff the main stats with like 100, be the main healer and be a usefull offensive power in PvE and PvP. The highlevel areas like lyonesse, DM and barrows have lots of undead mobs on which your smite rocks. Soloing orange mobs is no big deal and you can out damage most tanks on these mobs in groups.

Lots of players aren't too happy with smite clerics. It a crappy attitude since it's a great tool both in PvE and PvP. Good smiters saves enough power for eventual healing and pulls back to heal as soon as trouble arrises. Crappy smiters nukes on until the whole party is dead (you can often tell who's crap by the way they buff - be carefull if they start by fully buffing themselves and then perhaps gives a little to the rest of the party, it happens a lot )

Just a few cents on this cool class Phaeron Moongoose

 

[old.cheesey_pipps]

personally i have no problem with smiters in a group. yes you may loose a great healer by not having a rejuv specced cleric, but you also gain a great dmg dealer who can withstand a fair bit of punishment, can buff, rezz and heal a bit too.

 

[old.Galoewen]

Thanks for the helpful advise Moongoose I have been feeling that I might work mainly on Rejuv and Smite, and I do agree about the attitude to any cleric who uses smite in some groups...
"dont smite just heal"

 

[old.Quiblet]

A smite cleric who knows how to play is one of the best assets to a group. Pity Ive met only one who can do this

 

[old.jazs]

Well, healing on battlefield is indeed difficult coz after 1st sign of castign u get at least 2 tanks buggin u. So, it leaves insta heals. As non-offencive type healer as we have in midgard, i concentrate on crowd control and when i see enemy party first and i have backup a la skald and 2 warriors/thanes, enemy 8-men party is dead indeed. (3 insta stun/mez spells + 30 sec ae mezz + 60 sec normal mezz). That leaves some time for normal healing too if u can kick instas in first. If not, insta heals help out.
But party w/o healer in rvr travels on horse way too much

 

[Gimly]

Well I had a lvl 17 cleric heal me in emain as I was fighting a red con Kobold, he saved my life and I took the Kobolds. So if you ask me they are very handy, as long as the tanks dont see them

 

[blain]

I dont know what it like for other realms but after close scrutiny of the character template the Best Midgard RvR Healer I can work out is

Mend 31
Aug 22
Pac 38

Should rock in RvR at level 50

10 things a healer should never do

1. Drop a 236 point heal into a fresh combat
2. Cast area effect mezz/stun spells in Spindelhalla (bad...very bad)
3. Solo
4. Try to mezz the purple critter that just added to your combat (also very bad)
5. Solo
6. Never assume that you have enough power left for the next combat
7. Solo
8. Ignore the request from your party to "run like hell"
9. Solo
10. Did I mention solo?????

Blain - 3x Healer
Modi's Marauders
Websmaster
http://prydwen-camelot.co.uk

 

[old.mili]

how useful a cleric is in RvR depends on how good a player you are i thought. it doesnt matter what you spec in, all 3 of the spell lines are beneficial to your realm so aslong as you can play that particular type of cleric well, they are as useful as you want them to be.

 

[old.LittleDwarf]

Your number 4 I do all the time Blain

A mob adds to a battle i mess it (yes purple) if it fails the group will usually pull it off me and I'll try again.

 

[blain]

One thing i will say, my death rate has dropped dramatically now that we use voice comms

 

[old.dwyte]

i think to balance yourself and be good at all 3 is a very good idea, at present my cleric is 34, and specced 22 smite 22 rejuv and 16 enhance, i think train rejuv untill you get insta group heal then smite / enhance till 50.

trying to keep them balanced out is not easy, but smiting the crap out of an enemy rampart and basicly pinning down the oposition is great fun

just my personal

 

[old.jazs]

nah, u have that nasty smite, why dont mid healers have not such thing ?

 

[old.Moongoose]

Smite sure is nice, but it's nothing compared to the effectiveness of your ranged ae-mezz in larger battles. Guess its far more fun playing the cleric than the healer though

Phaeron Moongoose

 

[old.jazs]

Usefulness of healer showed fully yesterday when i and ottar (skald) stood next to AMG on our side and 1 lvl 32 (kratt) hunter stood other side. With nice forewarning we killed first 1 yellocon to me, then 1 redcon, cant remember name tho (im lvl 44 still ) and then boom, giona & coren - mezz stun dead, couple of minutes later artemis with 2 friends - same spells, dead
couple of minutes later still came khaine, roni and velo, i guess we could have killed them too if not ottar had battered khaine (armsman i guess) or roni had stood inside my aoe mez area Or if i had had 1 insta mez left
But was very fun and i earned more than 2000 rp-s in very short time.

Healer, with combination of skald and fending runie can do miracles

/bow (mez, run away )

 

[old.mili]

khaine is a cleric

 

[old.VooVoo]

Reading through i have noticed one thing, nota single Druid has posted on this, i think this is due to the fact we don't get very good combat skills and we plainly are healers. Ok we do get a basic DoT spell thats not as good as the others, and we do have a snare spell AoE and targetted one, so we can come in handy to stop fleeing enemy.

Granted some druids spec in there pets so they can get something to help them in a fight or distract an enemy long enough to get a heal off.

Me personally have left my pet line alone and gone for nurture (buffs) and Regrowth (Heal)

my template for a level 50 druid is as follows

Nurture 26
Regrowth 45
Nature Aff 14

with that i miss out on 1 level 50 heal, and i still get a fair amount of buffs with that. (only gripe i have is the 16 spell limit, i always end up with conc points left when hitting 16 buffs)

I've only been on a few RvR's but every group always trys to get one healer so then can be rezz and healed.

Granted i know people can die quick in RvR before getting a heal off, but you just start to learn when to cast, sometimes i've casted before even they been hit, also it helps to have a healer at the end of a fight mto make sure the groups back to full health incase reinforcements arrive.

So people get really bored of Druids and other healers and move on to Alts which are tanks, but i like my druid i feel i'm doing alot when keeping my group alive.

 

[old.Bubble]

as a Caster i love rejuv cleric's in RvR
with 40 in rejuv you can rez a mage so he has half his power and full health- no downtime like when u get rezzed by a pally(takes me 4 mins to fully charge mana after death and ghetto rez....)

 

[old.Moongoose]

no doubt that the full ress is nice. Problem is that it takes ages to cast - ppls will often accept a lower level ress before the rejuv cleric gets his spell finished. Another thing is that you're under death penalty for longer than it takes to heal up from a pally ress. Doing half damage in RvR aint that great.

An offensive cleric may take down an enemy in the same time that the rejuv cleric creates a half damage ally. Continuosly 40-ressing the tanks in a large battle is extremely beneficial, but these battles are extremely rare too.

Phaeron Moongoose, l50 cleric, Alb/Pry

 

[old.jazs]

Originally posted by mili
khaine is a cleric

Ah
What ever, he fought well, my respect

 

[old.Gad]

I think we are fairly useful. Depends largely on the skill of the person playing the healer, and even more on the skill and observation of the person you are fighting. I have been in many fights where the presence or lack of a healer has turned the battle. In RvR I will always run through the tank lines to the healers and nukers behind, soft targets, and if you take em down, the rest inevitably fall, but I am a healer myself and I know how valuable a few heals thrown into a fight can be.

The best fight I have ever had was against an Alb in Yggdra. I think his name was Genius, but I am fairly sure he was a cleric. Warden Hero and champ vs. him, and he conned red to us all. The fight was soo close too, but he knew exactly what he was doing, as soon as he saw the blue bubbles on my hands he was after me, bubble saved me and he turned his attention to the tanks who were doing all the damage.

All in all I think the fight must have lasted almost 10 minutes. He used both instaheals and was well into his last life before he finally managed to kill me, and the others fell shortly after. Healing has its place in RvR, why do you think healers are such priority targets?

 

[Gef]

I agree, I had similar experiences in small scale RvR battles, 5 vs 5 all similar levels. They are always great battles, much more fun than the usual purple ganking that goes on. IMO once the new battlegrounds come out, rejuv healers will have a much larger purpose, other than chain rezzing level 30 - 40 comrades to be one shotted after 5 mins.

They are there to heal, prolong the fight, add an extra element of strategy to it, pointless if peeps die after one shot. Where is the fun in that? :sleeping:

My rejuv cleric is on hold till something is done.

 

[Krillin]

i'm tired of the sudden backlash my smite cleric has started to receive recently

many people have started to complain about the fact i can only ghetto rez or do a 30% HP 10% mana rez. In actual fact its got that bad that i am starting of thinking of deleting my character. I created a cleric because i wanted to be versatile but all i ever feel like now is that i am a nothing, my smite is weak compared to wizards nuke, my rejuv is high enough to get two instas which is basically described as poor.

The whole thing is getting me down now. I used the smite 48 / rejuv 23 / enhance 9 template and now i've had enough

well off to create a wizard or something fun because i'm sick of the aggro

seems everybody wants their own personal ambulance these days

Krillin - The 'Smite' Cleric and dodgy personal ambulance

 

[Bethor]

Change your spec to 44/29/11 with items you can get to 50 smite.

 

[old.Moongoose]

Don't listen to what other ppls think of your build. You can often fully heal 2 ppls with the power you save by using your insta 30s mezz or by killing one or two enemies.

Its typical behaviour of the moron to blame everyone else for failures...and as the caretaker of groupies' health, you're in the first line for their spam.

Take a look at the class forum at camelot vault. You'll find that you're not the only one that has had to listen to such noob-crap, and that your build is fully versatile. Your spec heal is like 330 i think which is enough and as powerefficient as a rejuv50 cleric. Full rezz is nice, but if every cleric was rejuv 40+, Albion would suffer tremendously.

True that your dmg output is less than a wizard. But remember to add your buffs and your heals to the calculation. Another thing is that as a wiz you'll have to be extremely carefull not to pull agro. As a smiter you can start nuking shortly after the tanks have stopped your victim.

If going for the high smite build, I would sacrifice the second insta to get the 49smite AE-dd. Albion suffers from bad AEs compared to the other realms and it'll be great for keep atc/def when you can target the doors in next patch.

Don't give up. Take a look at the US-forums. Loads of hib/mid players are screaming for nerfing smite

Phaeron Moongoose

 

[old.Moongoose]

Reply to Bethor.

Whats the idea of that 44/29/11 build? Going from 25 rejuv to 29 is a complete waste. Those points would make a little differense if spent in enhance or smite instead. Smiters use spec heals. Hence theres no gain at all going from 26 rejuv to 29 rejuv (no new spells)

At level 50 you'll get at least +10 to smite from common items.

+4 from coif (one time drop in pennine at l45)
+4 from common shield from DM
+2 from ancient sacrificial goblet from barrows

+4 from mace dropped by ravenclans (nice but less common)
+1 from planters neclace (danaoin farmers) -sux

There's other +smite items but they're not realy worth it. Having max piety is far more important than +skills when it comes to smite dmg. Use as many +skill items that you can but make sure that your piety is maxed. The clergymans or the witherwood shields may be better than the +4 all shield if you need that xtra piety.
Having more than 50 in a skill adds a little to the damage and should affect resist too.

Phaeron Moongoose