PICK A CLASS - Swipe the right one

[Shas_]

Deciding on a class to play?

Tldr:
- Finding your Character in race and class
- Quick links to good builds (lots of links missing atm)
- What to expect from endgame


Firstly: Class, Race, faction, racials..

1) Class
Which of the 5 base classes you pick is the ONLY meaningful and irrevertible decision you make on a character.
Mage
Rogue
Cleric
Warrior
Primalist
Also, because it can't be stated enough: Class presets before the character creation (purpose) are NOT permanent choices, only the 1/5 archetype! You can access all your unlocked souls from level 1 and easily run 10+ 'multispec' role presets, where you freely mix and match souls in a combination of 3, later.
The only thing for you to consider at the moment is your play style preference and each classes' performance at those jobs.

How does the feel of the class and animations suit you?
The overall *feel* of a character, even on lower levels, will very much persist throughout the levels and builds. If a thing feels weird to you- don't cope! Try around.

2) Presets? "Pick your purpose"

You are forced to select a Preset 'purpose' when creating a character- but all that really does is change your starter weapon.
Presets that are offered now were made a decade ago via player contest (voted by likes- not usefulness) and almost all of them are bad and/or outdated.
You are well off going custom from level 1.

Soul: A sub talent tree with max 61(31) points to fill
Role: A set of 3 souls and 76(39) points to distribute
Purpose: (bad) starter presets

I also added a link for f2p leveling progression to each class which got very positive feedback so far.

Though some souls- for example Necromancers- may be weaker in comparison, on level 1-60 you really can play whatever custom theme you want. Not everything needs to be cutting edge at all times so please do enjoy what you enjoy.
Feel free to also create a new post here if you are trying to recreate or found a nice new theme etc.
It's a big class sandbox and we love to see what paths people take.




3) Character creator
Do not get lost with the sliders in the character creator!
In game barber shops provide the same menu and sliders to play around with and you WILL make changes later!
Faction, Class, 'Purpose', Body, go!



Not every class will do everything equally good as group participants- or maybe just don't get the results one may expect from it while starting out.
For example Warriors are WAY better pure healers than Clerics. The game does not warn you that raw Cleric healing will be unfavored.
Things like this are a big reason for this post.

EU vs NA servers.
Change your region in the Glyph launcher's top right menu. Only account wide unlocks are shared between regions. Both regions can get you pve & dimension friends but NA is slightly more active so that's where most of the (instanced)pvp happens

Tldr: Pick your race on preference, class on mechanics and do the manual leveling at least for the 1st of a class.



Starfall Prophecy design..
Level 66 introduces legendary ability points which heavily ramp up the power of all souls- though some more than others..
Also, lvl 70 Pve will have an unrivaled best Eternal weapon early on. Buffs from that weapon and how well your abilities synergize with it will heavily dictate the 70 pve meta.
PvP has its own set of gear- and with abilities calculating slightly different there, it has it's own set of ideal builds and gearing process.
As a result, lvl 1-65 and 66-70 gameplay- and then level 70 pve/ pvp can play quite differently.

Pet- lovers:
A little warning:.
1-60: Pets will do what they are supposed to do.
61-65: Pets will lose effectiveness.
66-70: Pets start to die rather easily and drop to 4% of your damage.
Only excessive buffs from Beastmaster put its companions on 15-20%. Given how much attention and skill points the average pet takes, actively fighting pets left the meta after 65.
Pet classes are diverse and work, the companions will just leave a little bit to desire on the last level.


Note: If you plan to stay, the Ascended- Essentials- Pack contains ALL souls+Primalist and is generally the best deal.
https://www.cadrift.net/gameplay/purchasing/
This is the only purchase you would ever need.


Classes listed after dlc-dependency, most f2p friendly first.

111MAGE.png (90.47 KiB) Viewed 3417 times

Spoiler:

Best performance available with free souls. Dlc adds tanking, melee and better pvp heals

Cloth armor, staves, (1h+offhand). Intelligence > Spell crit (until 38%) > Crit power (until 38%) > Spell power > Endurance > Wisdom

mageexample.jpg (53.92 KiB) Viewed 3413 times

The theme:
Rather than raw arcane power, Mage is based on typical elemental caster types. Frost themes are reserved for heals and tanking.
Rift allows your Mage to run heal, tank and even melee dps builds.
Death dots, Fireballs- or Storm-charged melee, you represent a brilliant mind in total control of its powers.

Besides Mana, mages have 0-100 CHARGE which can be best compared to wow warrior rage. Some builds rely differently on it.
You will also find Primary Bolts- baseline casts with no cooldown that are either bread & butter or enhance other spells.

Mage has an easy time drawing power from its Eternal weapon for heals- but a harder time making it work for damage- which leaves Mage a little bit lower on raw pve dps.
Pvp however, where said weapons don't matter, Mages are straight up bullies.

Intelligence: As a Mage you want to use certain spells only with certain buffs- not paying attention can leave spells with greatly reduced effect.
It has a 1.5 sec gcd by default but builds may end with a wild mix of hard casts and gcd reductions. Some builds really need you to think quickly.
Your lvl 70 weapon lets each primary bolt provide 3 consumable uses of +30k dmg or healing.

DPS in pve: 7/10


Pyromancer is a rather fast paced caster that can pump a lot of hard hits in short succession.
Ramp up some buffs and then keep the procc-train rolling.
viewtopic.php?t=57

58 Elementalist can procc 0.5 second gcd buffs and instant casts, able to pump tons and tons of attacks/ second like a machine gun.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210420155 ... e-gun.html

Harbinger is a dlc and the Mage's melee option. It is very versatile but not quite as strong for endgame for how complex it can get.
viewtopic.php?t=56

PVP: 11/10

Warlock can popp triple ticks for dots and then easily multidot. With multiple targets available they can ramp up top dps with rather little effort.

Harbinger is allowed to fully unfold in pvp: Fast, high dodge, tons of mobility and cc, high damage + tankiness. If you are new and see something that looks like an aggressive mage- literally avoid them.

Support in pve: 11/10

You are irreplaceable!
Your Archon has a unique raid wide cooldown and general buffs. Archon's theme is to weaken enemies and buff allies- we only care about the buffs.
A max damage and a healing version is pretty much mandatory for Mages to have- if there is only one Mage in a group, it's most likely an Archon.
Archon can be a little bit more tricky to figure out- but as long as a few buffs are applied properly- everyone is happy. Your personal output comes second.

Heals pve: 9.5/10

Chloromancer uses life casts to decompose it's targets and splash powerful aoe heals but doesn't even need Chloro damage for that. With the fundamental Chloro mechanics requiring very little points, Chloromancer hybrids- mainly as Archon or Tank are very common. Full Chloro suffers from slow gcds and weak absorbs/ mitigation.

Heals pvp: 7/10

Best results come from Frostkeeper- Chloromancer hybrids. Frostkeeper is quite passive and gains great value from Chloromancer buffs, boons and utility.

Tank pve: 9.5/10

The frost based Arbiter has a lot of little charge-based mechanics which can all be ignored. Just toss in Chloromancer- who's heals are not bound to the effective damage dealt.
So a full 61 point Tank is able to heal things by itself.
Lvl 70 tanks are more or less expected to heal dungeons by themselves but Arbiter can go a step further. It is a great tool to make a big impact on struggling groups.
The generally low damage- even on 'dps tank' versions is the only downside, everything else is S tier.



Leveling

Your best take is a Pyromancer from 1-66. At 66, Harbinger can unlock passive +115% melee damage for free which makes it unstoppable.
Without Harbinger, Pyromancer and Warlock are fine.
Here are all the details to this:
viewtopic.php?t=70

Mage Souls:
Archon (Pve support): Volcanic theme to improve your team's damage. The support/buff aspect is pretty simple so it can focus on great damage and healing versions.

Pyromancer (Pve dps): All fire. Slower Fireball casts in exchange with quick barrages of hard hits and proccs. Only pve

Elementalist (Pve dps): Elemental pets, physical missiles and elemental hard hits. Later overcharges into very quick missile spam. Highly mobile but uncontrolled. Only pve

Stormcaller (Unused): Dedicated aoe through Wind & Ice with many channels and decent single target options. Falls out of use.

Warlock (PvP dps): Full death dot focus. Suddenly it becomes unreasonably easy (apply all dots in one button). Mainly uses that design mistake for solo & pvp.

Necromancer (Unused): Undead pets and grave theme. Pets need to debuff targets for you. Popular rp theme but unfortunately overall a poor synergy of spells and negative power curve (second worst 70 dps). Falls out of use.

Harbinger (PvP/Pve dps& solo): Lightning & Light melee with summoned spectral blades. Fast paced melee hits allowing the use of instant casts. It is completely over bloated with mobility and cc.

Dominator (Unused): War of the mind/ Void st/aoe control with spell reflects, mana drain and layered aoe gravity damage.
Very situational to begin with. Had its situational prime on level 60 but never recovered and fell out of use due to bad damage.

Chloromancer (Aoe Healer): Damage something to radiate heals. Very popular healer that only gets stronger. Can provide such an overflow on heals/ second that it is better toned down into hybrids. Doesn't need to cast direct heals at all and can heal off non-Chloro damage, which all only empowers hybrid use.

Frostkeeper (Healer): Healer with defrosting tundra-nature. Places buffs on allies and ends up being quite afk overall. Most active healing potential comes from Chloromancer.

Arbiter (Tank): Tank with ageless ice. Surprisingly quick and fast paced with basic melee and absorptions. Extreme value from Chloro or Frostkeeper combis.

Mystic Archer (no): Just terrible. It got released before being properly tested.
A rushed attempt to introduce asia mmo- style, dirt easy telegraph shots.
Needs a lot of cheese and disregard for fair play to squeeze any value out of it, limiting it to exploiting a 'simply shoot all arrows at once' burst and way overturned mobility.
Overall, having any Mystic Archer ability in groups is just annoying to play with- and to play against.
Sucks the fun out of any room for 10$

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111ROGUE.png (77.23 KiB) Viewed 3417 times

Spoiler:

Many ideal builds from free souls. Dlc adds minor flavor.

Leather armor, 1 hand+offhand, bows & guns.
Dexterity > Phys crit (until ~38%) > Crit power (until ~38%) > Mainhand dps > Attack power > Endurance
-> Shares loot drops with Primalists but also account bound Dex items

rogueexample.jpg (54.93 KiB) Viewed 3413 times

The theme:
Rogue combines your usual cloak & dagger fantasy- but also Archer/ gunner types, heal-buff Bards, glowing hot knives as well as blade vortexes in dps and tanking.
You will have 1 second gcd by default and store 1-5 combo points on yourself.

Dexterity: With 1 second gcd in all builds you may knot your fingers if not careful.
More modern Rogue builds run on heavily stacked burst cd's rather than sustained 'spam'.
Your lvl 70 weapon needs you to be over 75 energy to get 5 stacks totalling passive +30k damage and healing. Under 50 energy you lose all stacks.


DPS pve: 11/10

Legendary Hellfire Blades: Gives all attacks aoe fire damage. Legendary Calculated Shot: Doubles the tickrate of channels.
Nightblade and Marksman provide those two, everything else is more or less built around them.
Rogue melee falls short in pve due to how much raw killing potential Marksman and it's hybrid versions can dish out. Brings a .50 cal and a flamethrower to a fantasy setting.
Full ranged mobility with frequent high damage channels and easy aoe:
viewtopic.php?t=55


PVP: 8/10

Your variety is bigger in pvp and all are free to play!
Nightblades get in position with limited stealth then fire alot of fire+death st/aoe cd's at once.

Assassin is your full 1v1 stealth poison boy which can get a little bit spammy.

Bladedancer is a squishy melee that can ignore all armor. This lightsaber mode really only unfolds in pvp.

Marksman here similar to pve: You can run around at max range and place hard hitting salvos.

Hybrids mainly derive from those mentioned souls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB_MCQqwZVw&t


Heals pve: 6/10

Though Physician is a dedicated healer, it heals with rather slow chunks, generating a lot of overhealing. You will use the over heals for absorptions and otherwise a lot of Bard abilities to reduce healing gaps. Any Physician, Bard and Tactician combi will miss out on some aspects and raw output that other dedicated healers can produce.

You may run a Bard combi for all healing jobs (support)

The mentioned Bard heals unlock for very little points so a dps or Tank with some 'Cadence' is always possible and carries Rogue's overall healing toolset.


Heals pvp: 7/10

Here, Physician with its controlled healing chunks sees more use. Ideally with Bard, which provides a lot of attack power.
Here again, you are but a healing supporter.
https://youtu.be/vB_MCQqwZVw?t=2650


Support pve: 5/10

Bard provides a passive +5% to all stats which is the only buff really stacking with Archon. The heals+cleanses or even off- tanking available as a Bard makes it a favorable position.
Most commonly as Tact-Bard.
viewtopic.php?t=67

However, Cleric Oracle is an equivalent with more well-rounded hybrids, which make dedicated buff-Bards a second (and last)choice.


Tanking pve: 7/10

Riftstalker is a very interesting Tank. Its biggest strengths are extreme mobility and cooldowns. Teleport around the room, pull the whole world and popp 90% less dmg taken.
Very easy to combine with Bard heals and/or Hellfire aoe.
viewtopic.php?t=29


Leveling:

1-24 Saboteur, front loaded cleave explosions- until you get lvl 24 Precision Strikes on Bladedancer. Bladedancer provides interesting Lightsaber-style melee overkill, best used to casually oneshot single- or small groups of elite mobs.
On level 66, stay Bladedancer or enter god mode with Marksman for the reason listed in pve dps.
Here are all the details to this:
viewtopic.php?p=124#p124

Rogue souls:

Ranger (Unused): Wild animals and basic archery. Relaxed & easy to learn but lower power.

Marksman (Dps): Tactical Movement and high powered shots. Channeled attacks and ammo choices. Pvp & Pve powerhouse.

Assassin (Pvp dps): Stealth, poisons and bleeds. Good for pvp 1v1.

Bladedancer (Pvp dps): Skirmisher with pure physical st & aoe hard hits. Extreme buffs like 'Ignore all armor' work best in pvp.

Nightblade (Dps): Sunset & Sunrise melee st with aoe cooldowns. Buff up with death- to unleash fire damage.
Medium pve, good pvp power.

Saboteur (Unused): Bombs and Chemicals from range which always cleave. Falls out of favor.

Tactician (Unused): Forgotten technology with Death, Frost, Fire and healing 'Flamethrower', shift between aoe damage and supportive aoe healing. True flamethrower gameplay is possible. Rarely seen as the main soul.

Shadeborn (Unused): Terror of the night going for tons of small ticks. Unfortunately THE worst on 66+

Bard (Support+ Aoe heal): Elemental infused trumpets, lutes and buffs. Surprisingly nice DOOT damage for a buffing mini healer.

Physician (Pvp healer): Surgeon with treatments and infections. Very straight forward mobile heal spam with some passive damage and absorbs.

Riftstalker (Tank): Blade vortex tank. Teleport frequently to keep a package of buffs active.

-----------------------------

111CLERIC.png (109.64 KiB) Viewed 3417 times

Spoiler:

Free souls are good enough but not optimal.

Chain armor, 2 handed, 1 hand+shield/offhand. Wisdom > Spell crit (until ~38%) > Crit power (until ~38%) > Spell power > Endurance > Intelligence

clericexample.jpg (63.1 KiB) Viewed 3413 times

The theme:
Power corrupts. Clerics are not your usual selfless monk but rather vengeful zealots pushing forth an agenda.
No matter if you Crush, curse , judge, banish or even embrace mutations- it all follows the sinister path of zealotry madness.
Your Paladin and more selfless themes lie within Warrior.

Great damage potential in various builds- even your Maintank and heal- support are crushing it. However Clerics end up as the worst raw healer. It takes a great deal of trickery to make good Cleric healing builds- the 3 dedicated souls are unfortunately way too overspecialized and slow for pvp.
Pve has too many supporters and tanks healing just as good + benefits.

Wisdom: Clerics usually have a lot of strong cd's in the magazine- the trick is to set them up properly and generally use them wisely.
You have 1.5second gcd by default but almost all your best builds are buffed to 1 sec gcd.
Your lvl 70 weapon needs you to be over 50% mana for passive +30k damage and healing. Under 25% mana you get a cost reduction.

DPS pve: 10/10

Core strength of Cleric dps is to be extremely reliable.
Both your Shaman melee (Bleeds, ice and lightning)
viewtopic.php?t=58

and Inquisitor life & death caster can get 100% crit for their burst, leaving no rng or excuses to deliver less than excellence.
viewtopic.php?t=21

Druid is a life-force-infused slammer that should do slightly more- but ends up less reliable and niche.
viewtopic.php?t=59

Heals pve: 3/10

Purifier applies mana hungry fire absorbs, Sentinel casts manual heals, Warden applies water aoe heal over time.
On 70, they just don't provide anything else while delivering just the expected minimum on healing power.
When someone speaks of Cleric pve healing, they mean Oracle and/ or Justicar hybrids.


Heals pvp: 5/10

They reworked a key mastery which gave great bonus healing. Now drived of that, Pvp healer best rely on raw max-hp%- based cooldowns in an attempt to bypass global pvp-healing penalties.


Support pve: 7/10

Oracle provides the same 5% to all stats and generally the same buffs as a Bard and is never seen alongside one.
But Oracle can give reduced global cooldown for yourself and increased healing taken for everyone.
Your default Oracle is combined with Defiler and Justicar- allowing you to offtank as support-heal. This makes it highly favorable over Bard.
viewtopic.php?t=79


Tanking pve: 7/10

Justicar runs a shield but has also high dodge- this gives it pretty high protection against avoidable melee attacks. There are moments where a Justicar stands in 100 mobs with half hp but the hp just isn't really moving.
You splash aoe heals with attacks (overcharged with Oracle-Defiler) and have heavy hitting hammers.
Level 70 Justicar has its aoe hammer not consume Convictions (combo point- like resource) which makes you able to literally 24/7 spam a high damage ranged aoe 'finisher'. A stock Justicar already gives dedicated aoe dps builds a run for their money. - While being able to solo heal LFR.
Unfortunately the weak performing healing souls it has to work with makes it the most tricky self-sustain tank (in comparison).


Leveling:

Shaman Massive blow unlocks at 16 points. It got buffed to always crit and unlocks a bleed effect that got buffed to 100% of the base damage.
Result is a lvl 16+ free oneshot which also reduces its cooldown from other melee attacks.
Cleric needs special buffs to get reduced global cooldown- so hard hitting cooldown attacks are your best bet.
Here are all the details to this:
viewtopic.php?t=69


Cleric souls:

Shaman (Dps): Flexible and hard hitting st/aoe melee with nordic ice, lightning and brute force. Popular for Pve and pvp.

Druid (Pve Dps): Strength of nature st melee. Very strong but clumsy. Generally unpopular despite its power because it just doesn't feel right.

Inquisitor (Dps): Punishing Life & Death. Bolts, dots& channels with intense burst. Dps machine with well rounded toolset and polished theme.

Runeshaper (Unused): Fire st caster that farms buffs for a "big hit". Falls out of favor. It can give any build a teleport reset point to just vanish into safety for whatever reason.

Cabbalist (Unused): Curses and abyss. 1, 5 or 8 target gearshift for dots, control and aoe nukes. Falls out of favor.

Defiler (Pve utility): Rage, Greed and mutation based st caster with death dots and hard hits. Self harm holds it back in pvp. Fun and popular synergy with Oracle.

Oracle (Support): Supporter with glacial ice, death and blood. Popps quick instant hits for buff auras. Mainly combined with Defiler.

Warden (Aoe Healer): Aoe hot & burst healer with oceanic tides best in large teams. Falls out of favor.

Sentinel (Healer): St spam- cast healer with holy pleas and decent aoe healing. Falls out of favor.

Purifier (Healer): St absorb-healer. Sun-fire-forge theme with big cooldowns but mana intensive and slow. Falls out of favor.

Justicar (Tank): Tank with vengeful magic hammers for ranged tanking, splash heals and big aoe damage. Very easy to play.

-----------------------------

111WARR.png (87.85 KiB) Viewed 3417 times

Spoiler:

Very dependent on dlc souls to get the most out of it.

Plate armor. 2 handed, 1 handed + shield/offhand. Strength > Phys crit (until ~38%) > Crit power (until ~38%) > Main Hand dps > Attack power > Endurance > Dexterity

Warriorexample.jpg (44.76 KiB) Viewed 3413 times

The theme:
Warriors are not the plated battle tanks by nature- Rift warrior feels a lot more agile with immense powers from within and from your weapons- Jedi style.
Rather dry builder- finisher spam can turn into quite engaging supercharged goodness with but minor adjustments to a build and rotation.

3 Attack points stored on yourself and a slower power regeneration than a Rogue's energy, attack points & finisher take a secondary role to carefully monitoring temporary buffs as well as your power resource.
Hitting level 70 pve has Warriors with the most drastic change in the game: A mandatory lvl 70 weapon demands you to waste a lot of power to activate crazy boni, almost everything revolves around the Warchanter DLC and how much it helps you to access the weapon's potential.
Warchanter has amazing self/ spotheal utility for little points spent- so your BIS dps Riftblade is also your bis solo option and may straight up finish group encounters alone instead of wiping.

Strength: Though having a simpler base set that just draws a lot from gear, it becomes interesting once you start lining up buff-uptimes with ability cooldowns.
Your lvl 70 weapon needs you to dip below 20 power to give increased regeneration and passive +42k damage and healing for 10 seconds.


DPS pve: 9/10

Riftblade uses finishers to infuse your weapons with effects rather than direct attacks- this makes it very resourceful and even able to apply all effects from ranged abilities.
viewtopic.php?t=75
By coincidence, the demand to control your power level with Warchanter gives your best dps build also pretty broken pocket heals.
Riftblade may take some time to get used to but it then just solo speedruns dungeons while healing 4 people along the way.

Warlord slowly mutated from a support tank- to a dps tank to a dps and still has tanking artifacts left. Result is a Very hard hitting melee dps with higher threat and taunts on demand.
A Warrior dream best used as a refreshing alternative to Riftblade.


Heals pve: 11/10

Warchanter is THE benchmark for other healer. Very easy to heal spam, absorb spam + heal over time layered on top. It turns any healing job into an easy mode. On Top of that it splashes aoe dps for no reason.
Not even requiring a full Warchanter, you can transfer 15% taken damage onto you with Warlord. Not replaceable.
viewtopic.php?t=77

Liberator runs all heal over time, trying to manage combo points with hot refreshes and heal cd's- Warchanter makes all that very easy with a lot of free combo points- Meta Liberator focuses on hot upkeep and self healing- able to splash your overheals onto one guy as aoe. So you target yourself and create a no-die-zone.
viewtopic.php?t=81

.. Or you hybrid the two- Chanter & Liberator each combine 'the best' of other classes' healers.


Heals pvp: 10/10

Guess what- Warchanter. Either full or with Liberator. It is a little bit more refined than in pve but still pretty spammy. Fish for crits- stack absorbs.
One of the few proper healer that can truly keep focused allies alive.


Support pve: 2/10
lol
Beastmaster is supposed to be an Archon equivalent but they forgot to give it the most important cooldown. As a bleed melee with a pet it has issues with ranged combat, gear scaling and hybrids.
It is good for only one day: As you hit lvl 70 with terrible stats, the pet can do nice damage but will barely improve with better gear.


Tanking pve: 8/10

Again, Warchanter and it's high value for little points heavily supercharges the self sustain for:
Paladin, classic block triggering multiple effects on taken damage- can be turned into an unkillable spikeball.
viewtopic.php?t=76

Void Knight, more complicated, less flexible but with more utility it has a big focus on receiving more absorptions- which Warchanter can provide for itself in one bundle. Max absorption caps based on hp and extreme max hp buffs just work together.
The lack of aoe heals- and the performance costs to unlock those makes both a lower priority for most compositions though.
viewtopic.php?t=31


Leveling:

Paragon with 8 points has Turn The Blade, a buff that provides 1 second global cooldown for any build. The penalty is only 20%. Effectively 50% more output for a 20% cut is just hard to pass on.
Ideally you start as Paragon and then switch to full Warlord with said buff on 50+
At last level 62 has you continue as Warlord (one shotting mobs) or already start practicing some Riftblade.
Here are all the details to this:
viewtopic.php?t=71

Warrior souls:


Warlord (Dps- semi tank): St dps melee wrecking ball with raw confidence as a theme. Leftover sturdiness and tanking potential from past times. Sturdy Pvp & Pve powerhouse on higher levels.

Paragon (Dps): St dps with nature references but raw physical damage- like a Shaolin monk with axes. Overpowering flurry of blows and multi-multi hits.
Allways decent, never amazing, but surely easy.

Champion (Unused): Slow and methodical aoe meat grinder. It grinds down aoe pulls and not a lot else.
Falls out of favor.

Riftblade (Dps): St/aoe melee/ranged dps with explosive elemental damage.
Combines raw power and survivability with utility like teleports. Unrivaled best current Warrior dps.

Reaver (Dps): Mobile st/aoe rots from full range (for no reason). Hit a toggle to have dots splash some damage. Easy but more for roleplaying.

Tempest (Dps): St electricity-spammer. Full range potential and only gets easier. Damage is barely acceptable. Easy as hell with no upwards potential.

Beastmaster (Unused): Melee supporter with bleeds and either a sabretooth or flappy bird companion. You mainly serve to buff the team and your pet or to purge. You are the pet in this relationship. Falls out of favor.

Liberator (Aoe Healer): Aoe heal over time as a selfless lazaret medic. Able to become a human lightbulb of "healing through it, no problem". Strong overcharge- and hybrid potential. Most reliable aoe healer if done right.
May never deal damage.

Warchanter (Healer): St heal+absorb spam with aoe heal+damage splash- and all that by shouting at people.
Turns your power ressource, but also the whole healing meta, upside down. 1st choice healer for pve/pvp.

Paladin (Tank): Tank with melee and holy light. Signature moves are various taunts, high blocking, group wide cooldowns and self heals. Easy and strong.

Void Knight (Tank): Tank with a Void/ antimagic theme. Big toolbox of absorptions and combat utility. Can be complex but a staple 'meatbag tank'.

-----------------------------

111PRIMA.png (118.91 KiB) Viewed 3417 times

Spoiler:

Unavailable without dlc.

Leather armor. 2 handed only. Dexterity > Phys crit (until ~38%) > Crit power (until ~38%) > Mainhand dps > Attack power > Endurance
-> Shares loot drops with Rogues but thus also shares Account bound Dex items

primalistexample.jpg (99.36 KiB) Viewed 3413 times

The theme:
Pre- bronze age mythology style. Embraces Spiritualism, Animalism, Vulcanism, Titanism and nurturing regrowth.
Though having a 2h melee weapon, it feels more like a spellcaster
You will pretty exclusively play hybrid specs- Wind serpents throwing sharks or Titanic fists telling the future- any chase for performance will end in janky theme-salads.
Taking ca.20% more damage passively and abilities quickly doing nothing when used wrong- you really need to know what you are doing here.

Primalists have no ressources to work with besides their Fury/ Cunning scale. Abilities take different pushes to- and boni from the current state of your scale.
They usually are rather awkward for leveling and solo play since once the scale is misplaced it can take some seconds to get back on track. Managing your scale and pressing things in the right order is a very active task. In raids, where you have the time to groove things in as well as Primalist's scaling with good gear, controlled group content is where they shine.
Some casual builds work around it by simply being oneshot combos requiring minimum windup time.
Crit rng can noticeably mess up your performance and Primalists tend to be a littlebit clumsy in chaotic situations. This goes for dps, support and healing.
It's odd leveling journey, clumsiness and relative gear dependency makes them a poor choice for beginners. It's full share with account bound Rogue items however a nice pick for alts.


Dexteriety: 1 second gcd by default may knot your fingers. Most builds (mainly dps) run a tight rotation based on your Fury- scale.
Your lvl 70 weapon needs you to reach the fury and cunning end of your scale for separate +15k(x2) dmg and healing for 20 seconds.

DPS pve: 9.5/10

Fury Blast, Fury Blast & more Fury Blast. Your best builds combine maximum Fury Blast (8 sec fire dot) damage and effective Harmony- bar- surfing.
This means at least every 8-9 seconds you want to hit 100 Fury and spend the time in between as effective as possible. Primal Lord is the best at buffing Fury Blast.

The HotPot ranged caster ..
viewtopic.php?t=61

and a PlMelee with animal spirits emerged from the demand.
viewtopic.php?t=114

Though being custom hybrids, they feel and play very polished.
What holds it back is the crit dependency: stacking multiple double damage buffs for Fury Blast only to see it not crit. Outch.
All the default 31 point options are straight up not powered up enough for level 70.
There is an option to combine ranged melee with hard hit cd's, known as ''onebutton'' (able to be played more refined) which makes for a very brain- and stressless casual spammer (not worth purchasing and starting Prim for that).


DPS pvp: 9.5/10

Guess what- Fury Blast- but this time a little bit different. Vulcanist's Drake cooldown deals ethereal damage which bypasses all resistances. Pump buffs & debuffs, popp Drake and ranged spam to victory.
Another one is - again- melee hits made fully ranged, ranged spam to victory. (30m range for everything + all casts made instant from Dervish goes brain rot mode)
Downside is a little bit more damage taken passively but the raw brain afk ranged spam power available is it's own power fantasy.
Some Primalists have the dignity to try more interesting custom builds like the melee ranged spammer but with more buttons.


Heals pve: 7/10

Farseer lacks the usual spam-able aoe heal- so you spend your time re buffing aoe effects and buffs on people. Then select from a range of extreme cooldowns- which are also stackable.
viewtopic.php?t=14
Farseer works really well as a hybrid in tank and support.
Preserver is a more spammy single target healer that is closer to the Cleric and its shortcomings.


Support pve: 10/10

Primalist support has a unique proccing group buff, Living Storm. Like Archon, a sweaty pve group wants one Mystic support and you do not need a full Mystic to get it.
viewtopic.php?t=10
So you usually get 14 points in Mystic and have a lot of options for the remaining points.
Utilize the fury/ cunning push from Mystic attacks to make yet another Fury blast melee/ range or you put all the rest into tank, healer or into both.
viewtopic.php?t=13


Tanking pve: 10/10

Titan does nothing unique or exciting but it does it all really well.
viewtopic.php?t=8
Some of the highest passive mitigation allows it to be thrown into hybrids.
The only two exciting Titan abilities (Essence Strike and Cristalline smash) unlock for almost no points spent. while full Titan is a resident sleeper so the hybrids are where it gets interesting.
Just be careful combining a 300% threat buff with strong aoe heals


Leveling:

You take some 20% more damage than the other classes. Though we still rather focus on introducing late game mechanics asap while staying active & satisfying.
Vulcanist Molten Wave provides you with a powerful frontal ranged aoe, chewing through everything and even buffing consecutive hits of itself but pushing 100 towards cunning while requiring fury itself.
So you need something that gives a good damage + fury/minute to go with it - already going hybrid with it.
Here are all the details to this:
http://forums.thegharstation.com/viewtopic.php?t=73

Another way is stagnating on Titan and Berserker- strong self heals on blocks and dedicated aoe may solo dungeons- but situational and pretty braindead.


Primalist souls:

(Note: Almost all primalist builds are hybrids)

Dervish (Dps): St dps Wind Serpent with desert Wind & rock melee. Gets full ranged potential later. Best in hybrids.

Primal Lord (Dps): St dps with Jungle themes and spirit-animal-attacks. Basis for a lot of strong hybrids.

Predator (Dps): St dinosaur ambush-burster. Goes all in on cd's and can barely be called dps. Some hybrid use but never a first choice.

Vulcanist (Dps): St dps caster who's fire damage keeps Primalist competitive. The Drake aspect is seen in pvp while pve only supercharges its base attacks.

Maelstrom (Unused): St caster with Underwater-Volcanism. Keep close to your ground beacon to spam scalding Fire+Water. Falls out of favor.

Berserker (Unused): Aoe melee that just triggers all cooldowns at once. Aggressive Tiger- frost and underworld-death. But it's just there to 'nuke trash' - if even. Generally out of favor.

Typhoon (Unused): Aoe caster with various water-based storms as a stormy Griffin. Has a static aoe rotation with no situation really needing it. Just a less flexible Berserker and out of favor.

Mystic (Support): Support caster with indianic Life and air hardcasts. The wolf spirit is never seen but for pvp group runspeed. Can easily be thrown into all kinds of hybrids for the buff potential.

Preserver (Healer): St healer with a spiritual forest theme with a Buck spirit. Sadly quite spammy and nothing unique. Generally out of favor.

Farseer (Aoe Healer) Aoe hot & cd healer. Has a fate & soul theme with almost no spam-heals required. Rapid passive ticks and overkill cooldowns. This makes it easy to pass on the cooldowns and combine with whatever.

Titan (Tank): Tank with an untouched-landscape theme running Life & earth melee and a Goat head.
Has a rather unexciting base ability set which just cries for hybrid builds.

-----------------------------


Besides some painfully obvious outliers (Shadeborn), you can make very exotic concepts work if everyone is on board with it. The class system of Rift is marvelous so definitely find people who support you- and also encourage others to break new ground and make room for fun.



Rift has bugs- especially in this version of the game- some of them got wildly accepted after providing interesting new gameplay and some are exclusively embraced by the same few idiots. It is up to everyone to decide how they want to engage in this game.
If you only care about arbitrary win conditions while spitting on other people's time- what the fuck are you even doing.

[cjayride]

I'm a returning player with a few level 50-60s and just trying to understand the level 70 meta.

Let me get this right... at level 70 (not counting Primalist)
- Warriors are the best healers
- Mages are the best tanks

Talk about role reversal!
It's going to feel so odd to jump back on my Warrior Tank in former raid gear... knowing hes better off healing now because apparently the Clerics aren't cut out for it.

I welcome anymore input you can add! This writeup is nice! Was just a surprise!

[Shas_]

Hey there!

Glad this helped.
And yes, Rift has this thing where ''catchup specs'' aka some dps for the healer class- end up being the best. While Mage has Pyromancer casts, warlock dots and Elementalist burst, Inquisitor has all 3.

Warrior split different tanking concepts onto different roles while Arbiter simply 'Combined the best of Void Knight and Rift Stalker'.
When having the choice, Warr tanks are a lower priority by the lack of group focused support- the tanking alone is doing great.
You can- by all means go all in on the Warrior tank. Holyroller on Na is known as diehard Void Knight main and really shined when he could 120% dodge the oneshots of a worldboss where eveone else failed.

You will defenitely never wipe on a warrior tank dieing that's for sure ;D - it's more of a team composition thing.

While one boss is notorious to pack heavy demand on tanks and the tank healer, 'RR- Void Knight' can defenitely run both jobs at once- only with an Archon doing support heals- solotank+healing a 2tank+1-2 healer fight- (again a team composition thing).
A once exclusive strat but the few who tried just barely couldn't pull it off.
That prestiege stunt is still for the taking if you decide to all-in on Warrior tanking.
Break new grounds and show what's possible!

[Zehne]

I can't argue with the general consensus of the community about cleric heals being the least preferred in most groups.

But I do take issue with the 3/10 assessment.
Puri

Spoiler:

Not much to say, it's really only a niche useful spec for co-tank healing isiel.

Sentinel

Spoiler:

Lets be honest, It's only used for Healers Covenant and Marked by the Light as an off-soul

Defiler-Healer

Spoiler:

Most people I see try healing things as defil-healer, which is vastly overrated/over-used. Which usually results in party deaths. This is because most people only look at the raw numbers and don't understand how ill-suited the mechanical aspect of healing with defiler-healer is not optimal.

• Lots of Deaths because to do defiler-healer you need a competent person healing and 9 competent others in the raid
  • In other-words, defiler-healer does the minimum required. It can't save the day when things go wrong

To top it off, defiler-healer has no battle rez.

Warden

Spoiler:

Occasionally you'll see the a full 61 Warden. Which has been strong in the past, and from a raw numbers perspective has nothing wrong with it. The problem though, is that back in Storm Legion I made a >3 page wall of text breakdown/assessment of the issues that made high-end warden healing overly complex and ill-suited to some content.

• These issues were never addressed, and with the current expansion only made worse.
  • And then the Meta-shift in the game made these issues even more glaring

(tl;dr, Warden is the 3rd worst choice for any raid content. (except in the very niche role of sometimes puri healing on isiel)).

Wardocle

Spoiler:

Which, for some reason I rarely see. (Other than myself)
It is a more complex healing role, but it is actually extremely powerful.

• It has all the healing needed for any content (both St and raid at the same time)(raw output)
• It has the most utility of any healer
  • Two double raid cleanses
    • Which makes tarjulia a much easier fight
    • Which means you can solo-cleanse & Solo heal General Siligen at same time
    • Which means you can get all cleanses on AZ with 1 gcd for both types of debuffs (and sometimes both with the same cleanse)
  • Single target cleanses cleanse twice (and with a bug, sometimes 3times (war planar attunement proc))
    • Beligosh tank cleansing
    • Council tank cleansing with void staying alive
  • A spell reflect
    • Which works on Titans Safety Dance
  • Aoe-Debuffs
    • Titan add phases
  • 2% Raid damage mitigation from any raid heal (which is basically 100% active)
  • It has raid buffs (and oracle buffs are better than bards)
    • Only a 61 archon beats it in terms of buffs

The most common mistakes I see

Spoiler:

• Letting mana drop below 50%
  • Which is very easy to do in wardocle, but also super simple to remedy
    • Healing effusion with >50% mana is 100% effective
    • Healing effusion with <50% mana is ~40% effective
    • Healing effusion with >50% mana but the mana regen turned on is ~70% effective
      • In otherwords, NEVER LET YOUR MANA GO BELOW 50%.
        • The mana regen is ogcd, and with a macro you can turn it off ogcd. It's easier than mages charge management
    • Which I see people do all the time in other specs, when as a cleric you should NEVER let happen
  • Not using any single target heals
  • Letting Dangers of the Deep Fall off

tl;dr
Wardocle has the best defensive buffs in game while bringing all the healing you'd want with the most amount of utility.
In terms of healing capability Wardocle is a 8.5/10. (it can solo everything)

• In prog groups i've kept tank + Raid alive after link dies on isiel for the remaining 1.5mins of fight.
  • Only other healer in raid (no chloro-chon, no oT-heal, etc)
• I've kept raid alive while cleansing everything in prog groups with other healer dead on AZ
• I've kept tanks alive through Golems in IRotP with >5x stacks

In terms of utility Wardocle is 8/10. (it is only missing the super niche things like having a purge or interrupt as healer)
In terms of ease-to-play Wardocle is a 4/10. (significantly lose healing output if mis-managed or 'played dumb').

• I don't say that lightly. I play druid effectively on every fight except isiel. Wardocle is just as/more complex than Druid( it has a nearly infinite skill ceiling (it is a highly dynamic spec))

[Shas_]

Hey thanks for the input!

- Puri- beyond niche, it has unaddressed bugs that put it below any minimum expectation. Slow, mana hungry, absorb caps, divine favor.

- Sentinel- Besides it's atrocious healing distribution, it's even more braindead than Warchanter. You pretty much click through the raid and spam L. Healing communion It counts as st invocation for whatever target. Not even fun to use and bad bad upwards potential besides Exuberance.

- Warden. Interesting, i was a Warden main for the longest time. Somehow, the 1.5s gcd was perfect and demanded just that extra bit of planning.
Able to soloheal many (most) 65 bosses and Raidrifts simply by being a badass healer design to this Legendary abomination. F Divine Favor. The only real issue is- Warden is best used on 20 mans with demanding healing mechanics. Neither 20 mans nor aoe healing mechanics exist (It's just constant input/ output) so you can't even try to cope.

The worst part of them all: Each and every Legendary of the Cleric heals absolutely suck and goes completely against what the soul does and needs.
They are quite more fun without Legendaries!



Wardocle would be listeed udner support, every single support can provide heals. While Oradcle is the good, Warden the bad part of it.
- I honestly would like to avoid promoting it. Not only did the Open Water rework bred a generation of Effusion-spammer but everyone who was asked to be a semi-regular Doki main in my time got depressed (sorry Claushgg for the pain).
It's pretty spammy. You may jump in a triangle on Silgen to keep things interesting. Besides that, it's best healing potential(Exccess) is based on a Warrior paying attention- which makes it beyond unpredictable.
while playing Defi, getting behind Geysir+ Oracle is a pretty short walk and i guess alot of people on Oracle who care enough about the position would come up with it anyway. But either effusion- or geysir spam getting shelved rather quickly.
1sec gcd 'spam' with uptimes- Defi provides similar gameplay but better.
Best defensive buffs you mean Reef Barrier? I don't think that excuses torturing someone with it. It is a nifty design, has the utility you mentioned and even a second gear but it gets absolutely dumpstered by Defi.
Both as Defi and Docle you want the Tank Trinket 100%- so why not just tank while at it.
Defihealer, Support. Well it's a Defi-heal-tank. Solohealing stuff on it is more of a bonus. Given that you CAN pull it off relyably when everyone is just paying some attention gives it S tier for upwards- potential. Soloheal tank on 800k+ dps. Yes, sir.

The Rating tries to not be just my assesment but an overall expectation of performance + expectable long time enjoyment with the setup.
May have been the general disapointment how terrible the Legendaries the core gameplay make vs SL/nmt.
I'll recheck them another time and may adjust a thing or two. I called it 'the expected minimum' what number would you give that?


Thanks for the input! Please do check out Druid i know we had some talks about things on it.
Maybe you know a way to guarantee to unchain the pet etc.

[Zehne]

Somehow, the 1.5s gcd was perfect and demanded just that extra bit of planning.

Yes and no. If you paid attention you could get around it. But when/if you were ever forced to use pools/effusion, you need to either continue using them, or you'd encounter a major heal gap (instant gcd -> 1.5secs later->start casting 1.5sec cast

And if you could manage it, in nmt+ you'd track your Faith's Reward stacks so that you'd go from a 1.5 sec gcd to a 0.5(or 1.0) sec cast (2-2.5 sec gap) to 1.0( 0.5) sec gap -> 1.5 cast (2.5 or 2.0 gap).

^ Which is basically minimizing the gap in heals when transitioning from instant cast to casted heals.
^Or if you could time it correctly and tank taking st dmg from boss, you could use orbs to mitigate this.

Anyways, point is that the 1.5sec gap in heals is already bad. But warden would force you to have 3 second gaps b/c of it's other abilities/mechanics. That is why it is garbage for this expansion. People arn't dying from a lack of hps. They are dying from not having heals exactly when they are needed.

Wardocle completely mitigates this by keeping every ability instant cast. So that major downside of warden is gone (and that downside is HUGE in this expansion).

Able to soloheal many (most) 65 bosses and Raidrifts simply by being a badass healer design to this Legendary abomination. F Divine Favor. The only real issue is- Warden is best used on 20 mans with demanding healing mechanics. Neither 20 mans nor aoe healing mechanics exist (It's just constant input/ output) so you can't even try to cope.

The worst part of them all: Each and every Legendary of the Cleric heals absolutely suck and goes completely against what the soul does and needs.
They are quite more fun without Legendaries!

1sec gcd 'spam' with uptimes- Defi provides similar gameplay but better.

The issue here is that spamming geyser/effusion only is super low level play of wardocle. Playing it to a higher level you stop having nearly as much spam. It's still alot, but it's definately alot less than what defiler does.

Given that you CAN pull it off relyably when everyone is just paying some attention gives it S tier for upwards- potential.

Which is where I differ.
Great healers can keep potatoes alive in raids.
Good healers can keep bad players alive in raids.
Decent healers can keep average players alive in raids.
Bad healers either let everyone die, or barely keep great players alive.

By that definition, defiler-healer isn't capable of being great/good. It requires that everyone understands that your heals are quirky. Which is why I said earlier that it is capable of meeting the minimum only. You can be the best defiler-healer in the game, but you can't save the person who stands in aoe when no golems are alive on beligosh.

Anyways, I have put alot of thought and optimization into assessing the current meta of healing in the game. I've done alot of testing in/out of raids.
Explaining my reasoning for things would require explaining basically every fight in game right now. It would be very long.


Setting everything aside though. Anything a liberator can do, a wardocle can do.
Wardocle also has more utility than liberator.
Wardocle also has buffs.
Everything included, wardocle is stronger.
Liberator isn't good because of healing. It's good because derps can play it well enough to not cause raid wipes.
Yet somehow, most raids prefer a liberator, even when you give them the option of both.

I can't argue with the general consensus of the community about cleric heals being the least preferred in most groups.

^Which is why I said that first/foremost.
The problem is, if you never tell people that cleric is an option, everyone will just continue believing it isn't.

[Shas_]

Not entirely shure what those posts are all about now tbh.

I forgot to put in Docle because it's a scuffed fast food healer that nobody used for 4 years of my time. Besides maybe on Silgen as overkill cleanse-bot.

There is a difference between healer that got everyone's back and heal carry, who plays the game for everyone.

Warden- like Puri is kung fu healing with gcd being your primary ressourc. Sync up incomming chunks- even if that means waiting for a second. Uruluuk doesn't even need monsoon with the boulder ticking so slow. It was fun because the healing picture and incomming chunks allowed to reduce healer spots by desicive timing. Another way to face doom chunks like a messed up Goloch (no protective soul active) giving multiple quick >50% aoe chunks within seconds would be an early Wave of Renewal only for it's returning tick, cancelbuff Faith's Reward , Hardcast Cataract- Effusion. Able to outsource gcd's and have all 3 'impact' in direct successtion - Cataract>Effusion>Wave in one gcd. Nowadays i think you would just Spirit Sight+Oversoul afk through it.
When you avoid wipes left& right by decisions- not gcd spam or free win buttons. Least that's what got me hooked.


The last post just confirmed the healer rating really. A dedicated Cleric healer is misplaced and tolerated at best.


I get it, you like Doki but i stand by it that everything you mentioned where it exceeds at can easily be done by a Titan - and the 5% is the only reason to even consider it.
Would you bring a Lib with Ttb or a Bm Lib hybrid if it had 3 cleanses? That's Doki without Support buffs.
Bard/Oracle is an overall dmg loss if heals aren't required so even the 'need' for a soft sup is on the lower end with C/R Tanks easily unlocking the 5% whenever.


Dht scalps away on dmg, tank& raw healing to do 5 (five) jobs at once. And yet it still CAN heal-carry. A couple times now Isiel was finished with a dead Chanter. That's 6 jobs nobody else wants to do combined in one package. (Tank, heals, buffs, damage, cleanses, dedicated heals)
Doki is amongst the worst of the dedicated healer,
Def is only providing baseline heals. But baseline heals are already overkill 95% of the time in Sfp.


And no to the Lib=Brainless. It's a hard overkill most of the time and can perform on low efforts - but ML is designed to combine the best of Chloro and Warden for exactly those groups where people collect avoidable damage at unpredictable times (literal deathwish) by being 2 healer in one (baseline& dedicated).
Though it can fall apart pretty hard when played like a docle. A Lib healing through 2stacked missiles is not onebutton.
Not sure what Liberators you met so far but a proper one uses a 3stack Mass Casualty Response as 1s gcd default active heal- giving it the ralyable rapid chunk-healing of Defi/Docle. Defenitely the least understood aspect which some people like to ignore for the far inferior Group Assistance/Deliverance. Ofcourse Libs then look bad.

You can be the best defiler-healer in the game, but you can't save the person who stands in aoe when no golems are alive on beligosh.

1) With no Golems up, Shaman can healing Breath, Warrs I'm with you! Tanks surely have something. A 61Justicar can soloheal tdem c'mon.
Link of Misery + Husk of Indifference on yourself out-mitigates anything in Em Beligosh.
2) Tdnm: 3 zones need 9 Flames. That's 5 Golems giving 10 flames. Taunt one flame off from one pack since a blue zone can consume 4 though only needing 3.
The average pug even uses 6 Golems. That's 3 potential flames to snack with Provoke and keep as a pet.
You want to kill Golems outside the blue one way or another- Tank then does an aoe swing and you taunt one flame every 2nd golem away- sving the need for a 6th.
Who else can casually pull this off besides a Warlord.
(And doesn't that sound infinitely more interesting than Effusion?)
3) If someone tries everything to die there, let him collect that experience- especially when managing to die in tdem- since when else to learn about avoidable damage? I rather see new people take a slap and try better next time.

The lack of a Healing Breath to heal one scrub once in 4 years is not pushing Dht from being a #1 performance workhorse. Spiff is also not rated on how well it fights in casual open world. Is it flexible? Hell no.

Why would you save him?
If a Warrior or Cleric dies on Beligosh they have no need for the Beli weps anyway and should naturally have lower priority on drops, simple.
Clerics have Hb/Ww or Jp.
Ele have an instant 100% selfheal, Prima onebutton has ignore death and Zaphyr, melee pl has Jungle rush, Rogues retreat and otd.
And Warriors who need help at all is a different topic alltogether.
Not like someone is absolutely helpless over there with no time to make up for their own mistake.
If you like that person but want to keep the shock value of suddenly taking unhealed damage, popp Link of Misery on him and Husk of Indifference on yourself. Defenitely enough to give someone time to figure out 'what is happening and how to get out of fire'.

Only chaos happenig these days is people pulling random stunts to actively kill themselves and each other.
Cutting dps to babysit through a dps causing trouble. Vs letting the shitter learn a thing. (Speaking Beligosh).
And why even use a Bard/Oracle on 1st nm. A simple Chlorochon with the Tank doing spotheals is the ideal zombo combo for everything.



Doc makes cleansing easy. And is more forgiving than past Warden. But it's a support still. Without cleanses, Silgen wouldn't even need more than what most Tanks bring along and Bard/Ora's 5% is an overall loss on 200k when the healing isn't needed.

Yes i understand i forgot to put Docle in and i'm really surprised someone genuinely enjoys it's dynamics.
I defenitely see your point in having a very forgiving spampackage for chaos proggies..
But i think you allso do enjoy niche specs.
You wouldn't recommend Druid as standalone damage just like you wouldn't recommend Docle as main healing worth starting a Cleric for.
Cleric would get a 5/10 on Damage if it only had Druid, dispite it's potential.
And that's what this whole post is about.

Thanks again for the input
I'll give Doki a fair spot when you or someone make a fresh post about it. 'Spam this' as you mentioned is not the way with it and not worth promoting.
I'm pro diversity in compositions fo sure.


(baseline&dedicated? Could call it sustain& burst or w/e. Whoever runs a separate healing stream independent of what is happening- Chloro hybrids, Cadence, Soulshroud is baseline- or support heal (though that term is misleading).
Ga required almost no baseline so Puri could solo 3/4 by dedicated timing alone without hots or spam.
Old Warden was capable both for example (Devine Favor heavily overcharging the baseline aspect) hence the godly solo potential.
Etcpp
Doki only has Effusion/Cataract+Ripple as dedicated options which are barely meeting the requirements being more than gloryfied sustain.
Glacial Mark may be the most 'dedicated' heal mechanic of Doki.

(Doom chunks? Incomming damage that happens outside of expected 'high damage' mechanics. Usually alot of impending hard hits that need quick thinking and the synergy from more than one ability/ cooldown to survive. Usually from messed up mechanics. Only a few people may notice what clutch plays you just prevented a guaranteed wipe with but surely notice if you don't. Stacked missiles or Tarjula overheal would count as that.

-----------------------


I see healer in gearshifts.
> Warden hots, Geysis, Cadence or Salvation are 1st (baseline) Using Geysir rather random to farm buffs in this example.
> Cataract/Effusion or active Misery are 2nd (controllable output)
> Pond/ Downpour is 3rd (clutch and no value from random use)
> 4th would be irreplaceable unique utility to overcome certain mechanics (Monsoon/ old Wg/ old FoL/ old Defi Links, now Weapon Brothers)

Cleric is not really providing desireable 3rd and 4th for anything Sfp which makes it easily replaceable.

Again, thanks for taking the time it's really interesting to see. I may re visit the categories.

[Zehne]

Missing one of my points majorly.
All of your talk about beligosh is about people besides the healer making sure to keep themselves alive. My point about defiler is that is required since you CANNOT do it yourself. Defiler is a healer that can't heal the people who need it most (derps).

And this is off target again. I'm trying to say that cleric does have a very strong healing spec in this expansion.
You stated that clerics were a 3/10 for healing. I mention the downsides of defiler-healer, and you're constantly telling me how defiler-healer is actually super great. It is a little confusing, but I do honestly get what your points about defiler-healer are.

When everything goes right, defiler-healer is nice.

Bard/Oracle is an overall dmg loss if heals aren't required so even the 'need' for a soft sup is on the lower end with Tanks easily unlocking the 5% whenever.

I don't think you understand. When heals are required you can use a wardocle. Not a mage/warrior/prima/rogue. If heals are needed, a single wardocle will do the job.

And any arguments about 'Just use chloro-chon + tank heals' is mute. Just because it's possible, doesn't mean the other people in your party are capable.

The runs I do weekly:

• AZ
  • Lib + Wardocle
  • Lib + Chloro chon
  • Chloro-chon + heal tank
• Isiel
  • Link + Wardocle
  • Link + tact-bard
  • Link + Chlorochon
  • Link + 58Lib (maclib)

Just because link + chlorochon can pull it off, doesn't mean it's the best setup for every group. Most groups cannot pull that off.

Doki is amongst the worst of the dedicated healer.

Why? You say it's the worst but provide no basis. It's already established that it has the best defensive raid buffs in game. So to say it's the worst you have to prove it has a major downside that vastly outweighs the benefit of free buffs on top of healing.

but ML is designed to combine the best of Chloro and Warden for exactly those groups where people collect avoidable damage at unpredictable times (literal deathwish) by being 2 healer in one (baseline& dedicated).

Wardocle does the same thing, but has buffs on top of it. Maclib brings phalanx, but wardocle brings 5% 2% raid dmg mitigaion 100% the time. An extra 10k hp to everyone in raid, and ~10-15k hp for dps from the 5% stats buff. Geared tanks get ~20k extra hp from the 5% stat buff.

Though it can fall apart pretty hard when played like a docle.

I don't know what you mean by that. I've said before that wardocle has a super high skill ceiling. There are a million ways to play warden/wardocle 'correctly', but several trillion ways to do it wrong.

A Lib healing through 2stacked missiles is not onebutton.

For me, I have refreshed all maintenance before missle storm is cast. Then I single target hot 1 of the 2 missle storm targets before the aoe starts.
If someone isn't running with missles I hit divine favor + ripple. Then It's Healing effusion spam (up to ~8gcd's until half mana), then it's toggle on regen and continue spam if still needed.

Why would you save him?

Why wouldn't you save him? Finish the fight, tell them that standing in stuff is bad. Purposely letting people die is the complete opposite of what a healer is supposed to do.

But it's a support still. Without cleanses, Silgen wouldn't even need more than what most Tanks bring along and Bard/Ora's 5% is an overall loss on 200k when the healing isn't needed.

You keep calling wardocle a support, but it's a full fledged healer and a support. I've never argued for playing wardocle as a support healer or half healer. It is a full healer. You bring it when you need heals, and it can fullfill the role by itself.

But i think you allso do enjoy niche specs.

Possibly, but that's besides the point. I'm trying to get more people to play the specs because they are actually good. If more people played/practiced the specs they wouldn't be niche.

You wouldn't recommend Druid as standalone damage just like you wouldn't recommend Docle as main healing worth starting a Cleric for.

The biggest reason I don't recommend druid is because it takes considerable practice to get it to a passing level of dps. For healing though, wardocle can get passing grades with about 1/5th the practice.

Also where we differ is that you only recommend playing Druid on 1 or 2 fights. I use Druid on every fight except isiel. And I only don't use it on isiel because no-one uses the melee tank strategy. If they did, i'd druid isiel in a heart beat (and honestly, druid would be supreme with how isiel's shields work). Also on that note, Druids biggest benefit is tarjulia in tdnm. You can cleanse yourself, you are melee/ranged hybrid, 100% mobile and have a 50% dmg mitigation c/d. You can have 100% uptime on the boss while basically all other classes put themselves at risk on tarj
^Ironically, unless you have a wardocle healing. Because with a wardocle cleansing/healing it is very hard for people to build up enough stacks to get in trouble.

Glacial Mark may be the most 'dedicated' heal mechanic of Doki.

???Wardocle doesn't have glacial mark. Glacial mark is absolutely terrible To get it you'd have to sacrfice some of the best talents warden.

I guess i'm now obligated to make a wardocle guide and ~5 page + explanation of fights and best practices.

[Shas_]

Note that i edited alot before you posted the quotes. Some things may be answered through that.


- High skill ceiling means different things for different people. I do respect that Eu and Na work differently. Though the most basic low effort way (meaning 'bruteforce heal through it') may not be held as benchmark. I find it- minmaxed or not- boring af. And the Eu people using it thus far grew tired and asked for alternatives. Sepe delivered on that.
Doki is an outdated artifact from when Dht was unknown and Clerics only had this and tank to excuse an invite.
Nobody uses or 'knows how to play it properly' because the people forced to use already quit.

- Defi is best used as part of a setup and strategy.
If you derp or run casual all day, it provides an offtank that does more than being afk overgeared on Hammer of Duty.

- Doki is used for everything that's not optimal. And then people best play what they enjoy. Not a single person i met enjoyed Doki or cared enough to go into details with it. When given the choice, Defi does the job in giving people enjoyable gameplay.

- Archon pretty much allways hits someone so i would give him first dab on the preferred version, then go from there.

- Your setups and Druid use apparently reflects 'fun first'.
I assume you have Excess on targets with Treatment.
It gets the job done in niche setups where you have a hypersweaty Doki and alot of people who need it.
It works, it does a thing. But it also makes for blend 'just kill it' weekly spam. Being but a satire of old Warden.

- Yes Druid would smoke on Isiel. I tried to promote a 1T meta but wasn't supposed to be. Maybe your weekly boys are up for it.

- You can just run the Berzerker Trinket for everyone on Tarjula and not even lose damage. The stacks don't even matter tbh. Everyone occasionally punches a soul (without uncontrolled aoe) and that's that.

- Letting people die- ofcourse it's a power move and a tradition for a decade. Someone talking big or expecting free carries, fuck em. People standing in fire as Tempest are the same who exploit eoa. Do nothing and get fat loot. Who cares.

- Glacial mark as how it's mechanic is designed with transfereable gcd/cd value, not directly the 70 throughput.

- Salvation has a seeker mechanic.

- Recomending something or using it yourself are different things. I did use Doki occasionally for Silgen due to the 'jump in a circle' st cleanse. But was it fun?

- I get it, you enjoy it. If you like to promote it do consider sharing your experience. Clowd added the spoilers to keep the layout clean.
Don't make it sound like i'm putting a burden on you. Either you care sharing something you like or not. So far you seem to care.

We are turning in circles and i'm getting tired of this.

You say there are million ways to play your Doki and you did the grind perfecting all fights. Yet it all greases of mediocrity, spending all days working around avoidable issues. An Azra Lib does not need a Doki. May aswell tank it.


Reminds me of when a certain Rogue was having a triade about his speacial Azranel setup- yet his own Bard-Tank was the only dead weight.

Go share your experiences, A post, videos whatever! Love to see it. Just stop telling me how much 'deeper' and more'suffisticated' it is please.
I may change up that rating for crying out loud.
Doki by all means is just a thing that direcly and indirectly- makes people quit.
All my 2019 Rogue& Warr stuff only exist because Doki was too insufferable to continue on Cleric.

And no. Having an addon that shows hots in raidframes and then keep Spray& Stream up with Ripple& manual refreshes is not fun when 'constant heal spam' is the goal. Just a worse PseudoHealTank for that gameplay type.

Looking forward for some Doki goodness by someone who loves it! (first i met). I figure everything onward should be based on that rather than the arbitrary dirt tossing here.


Oh and because it's the internet and things can percieved differently.
I do not hate you or think you or anyone is stupid for enjoying it. I do apprechiate open talks and would love to see more people posting their experiences. Karmel removed her Defi post which was a littlebit shocking. Though i had a bucket list of 'finishing posts' and felt like commenting one some, i wouldn't like all reads to just be my crap here when there- as you said- are a million ways to play things.


To 58 mac lib- that's a pretty old version. Try 54 with 4Warlord. Then have Recovery Posture popp Positive Reaction on yourself. For tankhealing it acts like a scuffed Battlesong. Corrective Measures is not that great on Mac and terrible to keep up.
Taunteronis also let you take 2 stacks on Arakhurn (and 1 on Vindicator if fancy) + casual taunt (and pull) tricks as mentioned on td Defi.

[Zehne]

It works, it does a thing. But it also makes for blend 'just kill it' weekly spam. Being but a satire of old Warden.

You say alot of people got tired playing it. That's fine. But being bored of a spec doesn't invalidate it's effectiveness. I'm bored of shaman. I'm bored of Inquis.

Healing in this expansion is completely different from every other expansion. So every healing spec is a satire of before.

I did use Doki occasionally for Silgen due to the 'jump in a circle' st cleanse.

Why? You can cleanse every single debuff with the aoe cleanses while healing.
That allows the meta-chon meta-chon.